24 quotes
We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
It is easy to see how superstition, with its false glosses, mocks God, while it tries to please him.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
Depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
It is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
We must not only resist, but boldly attack prevailing evils.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
If we are minded to affirm Christ's Kingdom as we ought, we must wage irreconcilable war with him who is plotting its ruin.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
The ceremony of lifting up our hands in prayer is designed to remind us that we are far removed from God, unless our thoughts rise upward.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
All nations before thee are as nothing. Observe, before thee; not within thee. Such are they in the judgment of thy truth, but not such in regard to thy affection.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
Faith has no less need of the word than the fruit of a tree has of a living root; because, as David testifies, none can hope in God but those who know his name [Psalm 9:10].
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
The wicked do not fear God from any unwillingness to offend him, provided they could do so with impunity. ... But believers, as has been said, dread the offense even more than the punishment.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
It is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to practice repentance.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
He who is off the course, the more swiftly he runs is the more distant from the goal and, therefore, the more unhappy. It is better to limp in the way than run out of the way.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
Those whose inclinations are at variance with the justice of God, knowing that his tribunal has been erected for the punishment of transgression, earnestly wish that that tribunal were overthrown. Under the influence of this feeling they are actually warring against God.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
To make everything yield to custom would be to do the greatest injustice. Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
Can we suppose anything more hateful or even more execrable to God than this fiction of asking the pardon of sins, while he who asks at the very time either thinks that he is not a sinner, or, at least, is not thinking that he is a sinner; in other words, a fiction by which God is plainly held in derision?
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
He who comes into the presence of God to pray must divest himself of all vainglorious thoughts, lay aside all idea of worth; in short, discard all self- confidence, humbly giving God the whole glory, lest by arrogating any thing, however little, to himself, vain pride cause him to turn away his face.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the Creator and Redeemer. This knowledge is naturally implanted in us, and the end of it ought to be the worship of God rightly performed, or reverence for the Deity accompanied by fear and love. But this seed is corrupted by ignorance, whence arises superstitious worship.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
But if the name of God have his holinesse safe, when being severed from all other, it breatheth out nothing but glorie, here we are commaunded not only to pray that God will deliver that holy name from all contempt and dishonor, but also that he will subdue all mankind to the reverence of it.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
If all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)