Institutes of the Christian Religion

by John Calvin

we substitute monstrous fictions for the one living and true God-a

This endless variety and confusion emboldened the Epicureans, and other gross despisers of piety, to cut off all sense of God.

if men are only naturally taught, instead of having any distinct, solid, or certain knowledge, they fasten only on contradictory principles, and, in consequence, worship an unknown God.

Gold quote

Though they beam upon us from every quarter, they are altogether insufficient of themselves to lead us into the right path.

we have no eyes to perceive it until they are enlightened through faith by internal revelation from God.

It were, indeed, a strange defence for man to pretend that he has no ears to hear the truth, while dumb creatures have voices loud enough to declare it; to allege that he is unable to see that which creatures without eyes demonstrate; to excuse himself on the ground of weakness of mind, while all creatures without reason are able to teach.

Shaming comparison

when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in their minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.

the only object will be to show that God, the Maker of the world, is manifested to us in Scripture, and his true character expounded, so as to save us from wandering up and down, as in a labyrinth, in search of some doubtful deity.

Scriptur is necessary to know God the Creator aright

the Scriptures employ certain marks and tokens to distinguish the only wise and true God, considered as the Creator and Governor of the world, and thereby guard against his being confounded with the herd of false deities.

Natural revelation must be understood thru the lens of special revelation

If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture. Hence the first step in true knowledge is taken, when we reverently embrace the testimony which God has been pleased therein to give of himself.

The Scripture has priority. Without it, you cannot have true knowledge

error never can be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge of God has been implanted in it.

Augustine - I believe in order to understand.

it necessarily followed that all mankind, the Jews excepted, inasmuch as they sought God without the Word, were labouring under vanity and error.

since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only records in which God has been pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognised, unless they are believed to have come from heaven, as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them.

With great insult to the Holy Spirit, it is asked, Who can assure us that the Scriptures proceeded from God;

How shall we be persuaded that it came from God without recurring to a decree of the Church? it is just the same as if it were asked, How shall we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Scripture bears upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black do of their colour, sweet and bitter of their taste.

Scripture proves itself

the highest proof of Scripture is uniformly taken from the character of him whose word it is.

our conviction of the truth of Scripture must be derived from a higher source than human conjectures, judgments, or reasons; namely, the secret testimony of the Spirit.

We need higher authority than man

the Scripture exhibits clear evidence of its being spoken by God, and, consequently, of its containing his heavenly doctrine.

Marks of divinity - self-authenticating

the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason. For as God alone can properly bear witness to his own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.

Internal testimony of the Spirit - God is superior

carrying its own evidence along with it,

Battles - self authenticating/attesting. it comes with its own credentials

We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgment, but we subject our intellect and judgment to it as too transcendent for us to estimate.

none comprehend the mysteries of God save those to whom it is given.

In short, his Song itself (Deut. xxxii.) is a bright mirror in which God is manifestly seen.

If the pious will duly meditate on these things, they will be sufficiently instructed to silence the cavils of the ungodly. The demonstration is too clear to be gainsayed.

The law of Moses has been wonderfully preserved, more by divine providence than by human care;

let us rather attend to the care which the Lord took to preserve his Word, when against all hope he rescued it from the truculence of a most cruel tyrant as from the midst of the flames-inspiring pious priests and others with such constancy that they hesitated not, though it should have been purchased at the expense of their lives, to transmit this treasure to posterity, and defeating the keenest search of prefects and their satellites.

The Jews, the bitterest enemies of Christ; and hence Augustine justly calls them the librarians of the Christian Church, because they supplied us with books of which they themselves had not the use.

When we proceed to the New Testament, how solid are the pillars by which its truth is supported!

the Holy Spirit must have been the teacher of those who, formerly contemptible among the people, all of a sudden began to discourse so magnificently of heavenly mysteries.

The powers of the earth armed themselves for its destruction, but all their attempts vanished into smoke.

in all other things so much at variance with each other-an agreement which a Divine Providence alone could have produced-it adds no small weight to the whole when we attend to the piety of those who thus agree; not of all of them indeed, but of those in whom as lights God was pleased that his Church should shine.

Corporate Reception

These, however, cannot of themselves produce a firm faith in Scripture until our heavenly Father manifest his presence in it, and thereby secure implicit reverence for it. Then only, therefore, does Scripture suffice to give a saving knowledge of God when its certainty is founded on the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Still the human testimonies which go to confirm it will not be without effect, if they are used in subordination to that chief and highest proof, as secondary helps to our weakness.

Proofs are useless to the unbeliever apart from the Spirit

Fanatics,

Anabaptists

None of these thereby learned to despise the Word of God, but everyone was imbued with greater reverence for it, as their writings most clearly testify.

tearing asunder what the prophet joins in indissoluble union.

Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.

what authority can the Spirit have with us if he be not ascertained by an infallible mark? And assuredly he is pointed out to us by the Lord with sufficient clearness;

he wishes us to recognise him by the image which he has stamped on the Scriptures. The author of the Scriptures cannot vary, and change his likeness.

The Spirit is in the box which He made. Reymond - The spirit without the word is a delusion. The word without Spirit is dead... They must never be separated. 1.9

Their

Warfield - "The word is the objective factor. Spirit is the subjective factor... When they unite, knowledge is certain."

if it exhibits Christ, it is the word of life converting the soul, and making wise the simple.

For the Lord has so knit together the certainty of his word and his Spirit, that our minds are duly imbued with reverence for the word when the Spirit shining upon it enables us there to behold the face of God;

that in Scripture the Lord represents himself in the same character in which we have already seen that he is delineated in his works.

the attributes which it is most necessary for us to know are these three: Loving-kindness, on which alone our entire safety depends; Judgment, which is daily exercised on the wicked, and awaits them in a severer form, even for eternal destruction; Righteousness, by which the faithful are preserved, and most benignly cherished. The prophet declares, that when you understand these, you are amply furnished with the means of glorying in God.

the unity of God is engraven on the hearts of all.

God himself being the only fit witness to himself.

as often as any form is assigned to God, his glory is corrupted by an impious lie.

the majesty of God is defiled by an absurd and indecorous fiction, when he who is incorporeal is assimilated to corporeal matter; he who is invisible to a visible image; he who is a spirit to an inanimate object; and he who fills all space to a bit of paltry wood, or stone, or gold.

1.11.2

God sometimes appeared in the form of a man, but this was in anticipation of the future revelation in Christ, and, therefore, did not give the Jews the least pretext for setting up a symbol of Deity under the human form.

I was once the trunk of a fig-tree, a useless log, when the tradesman, uncertain whether he should make me a stool, etc., chose rather that I should be a god.

nothing being more incongruous than to reduce the immense and incomprehensible Deity to the stature of a few feet.