On the Christian Life Quotes

“But no one in this early prison of a body has been given sufficient strength to run the course with the requisite enthusiasm, and the majority are so overwhelmed with weakness that they slowly move forward by staggering, limbering and even crawling on the ground. Consequently, let each of us move forward according to the measure of our merger ability and continue the journey we have begun... let us not give up hope at the insignificance of out results... that we may outdo ourselves until we reach goodness itself”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“When we come to this comparison, then, not only can the present life be safely neglected, but it must be entirely despised and scorned in comparison with the future life. After all, if heaven is our native land, what is earth but exile?9 If departure from the world is the entrance to life, what else is the world but a tomb?10 And what else is it to remain in the world than to be engulfed in death?”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“Thus, to keep them from promising themselves a profound and reliable peace in this life, he allows them frequently to be troubled and disturbed by wars, uprisings, robberies, or other injustices. To keep them from craving transient and fleeting riches too greedily, or becoming complacent with the riches they possess, he reduces them to poverty or at least confines them to modest means. He does so sometimes by exile, sometimes by barren land, sometimes by fire, sometimes by other means. To keep them from taking delight in the benefits of marriage with excessive complacency, he either causes them to be irritated by the stubbornness of their wives1 or he humiliates them with wicked offspring or afflicts them with the loss of their loved ones.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“adverse circumstances themselves, to be sure, will have their harshness that will cause us pain. So, when we are afflicted with illness, we will moan with anguish and feel restless and long for good health. So, when we are hard pressed by poverty, we will be wounded by the stings of anxiety and sadness. So, we will endure the pain of shame, scorn, and insult. So, at the funerals of those close to us, we will pay nature the tears it is owed. But this will always be our conclusion: Nevertheless, the Lord has willed it; let us then follow his will. No, even more, amid these very jabs of pain, amid the laments and tears, that thought must come into play, to sway our minds to bear with gladness those very ills that are the reason for our affliction.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“God himself acts rightly when he supplies occasions to summon the use of those virtues that he has conferred on his faithful so that they do not remain hidden in darkness—or rather lie there uselessly and go to waste—”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“even the most holy persons, no matter how much they may realize they stand fast not by their own strength but by God’s grace, are still excessively confident in their own strength and resilience unless God leads them to a deeper knowledge of themselves through the trial of the cross.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“Our lust is wild, and our craving endless in yearning for power and honors, in accumulating wealth, in amassing all those meaningless things that appear to make for magnificence and pomp.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“whatever instances of favor we have obtained from the Lord have been entrusted to us on this condition, that we direct them to the common good of the church. And so the legitimate use of all gracious benefits is the generous and kind sharing of them with others.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“you can never attain true gentleness by any other route than by possessing a heart infused with the demotion of yourself and respect for others.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“to remember that those qualities that God has lavished on us are not our own goods but free gifts of God. If any persons are prideful about these qualities, they betray their ingratitude.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“If God has given us anything that should please us, we rely on that and immediately puff up our minds, and we are not only inflated but nearly bursting with pride.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“But I do not so strictly demand evangelical perfection that I would not acknowledge as a Christian a person who has not yet attained it, because then everyone would be excluded from the church, since no one is found who is not still far distant from that perfection,18 and there are many who have made only a little progress so far, but who nevertheless do not deserve to be rejected.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation

“We have given the leading role to doctrine, in which our religion is contained, because our salvation begins there, but this teaching must flow into our heart and permeate our conduct of life and even transform us into itself so that it will be productive for us.”
― John Calvin, On the Christian Life: A New Translation