John Calvin Church Quotations

It is a promise which eminently deserves our observation that all who are united to Christ and acknowledge Him to be Christ and Mediator will remain to the end safe from all danger, for what is said of the body of the Church belongs to each of its members since they are one in Christ.

The very word baptize, however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient church.

Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church.

Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?

Wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.

The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.

The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.