Quotes from John Calvin

Again, if we have any anxiety about our own salvation, we ought to make no peace nor truce with him who is continually laying schemes for its destruction. But such is the character given to Satan in the third chapter of Genesis, where he is seen seducing man from his allegiance to God, that he may both deprive God of his due honour, and plunge man headlong in destruction.

And this is the origin of freewill, that Adam wished to be independent, and dared to try what he was able to do.

The Jews were continually warned not to look for the reason for their adoption elsewhere than in God's free favor. He had seen fit to choose them; this alone was the source of their security.

If at any time, then we are troubled at the small number of those who believe, let us, on the other hand, call to mind, that none comprehend the mysteries of God save those to whom it is given.

The fanaticism which discards the Scripture, under the pretense of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods.

Faith not only should be fixed upon the essence of Christ (as they say), but should also attend to his mission and power.

God (says he), who created all things very good, foreknew that evil would arise out of that good; and He also knew that His glorious and omnipotent goodness would be the more highly exalted by His producing good out of evil, than by His not permitting evil to be at all. He ordained the life of angels and of men, that He might first of all make it manifest by that life what free will could do, and then afterwards show what the blessing of His grace and the judgment of His justice could do.

Hence it happens that today so many dogs assail this doctrine with their venomous bitings, or at least with barking: for they wish nothing to be lawful for God beyond what their own reason prescribes for themselves. Also they rail at us with as much wantonness as they can; because we, not content with the precepts of the law, which comprise God's will, say also that the universe is ruled by his secret plans.

Therefore, it is blasphemous to give the title Son to anyone but Christ.

But, as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God.

Those whom the Lord favours not with the direction of his Spirit, he, by a righteous judgement, consigns to the agency of Satan.

We see how mankind, without well thinking what they are doing, pursue, with impetuous and   ardent affections, the transitory things of this world; but, in thus catching at the empty shadow of a happy life, they lose true happiness itself.