John Calvin

God never abandons his own.

We must live as if we were always in the presence of God.

The greatest good is to know God.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

God's sovereignty is absolute.

For we must not think that it is an arbitrary will in God that is the cause of election, but that he wills justly and without fault.

We frankly confess that God has ordained to death those whom he has not deemed worthy of life.

But if we are elected in Christ, we cannot find in ourselves the reason of our election; neither can we, by any means, comprehend it in our own understanding.

The reprobate are raised up to manifest the glory of God, when, by their condemnation, they show his justice.

God, by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehensible judgment, has predestinated some to eternal life, and others to eternal death.

Though the will of God is the highest rule of justice, and all that he wills is to be held for righteous, yet he has not deemed it sufficient for us to acquiesce in his bare will, but has added reasons by which we may understand that he has not acted without the best reason.

Whence it is sufficiently plain that they are not chosen for their own merit, but because God has gratuitously chosen them.

The wicked are justly punished, because they have offended God by their sins.

God has a secret counsel, by which he chooses whom he will, and rejects whom he will.

Ignorance of predestination is a great evil, because it deprives us of the knowledge of God's glory.

The reprobate are without excuse, because the knowledge of God is sufficiently manifested to them, though they reject it.

The reason why some are saved and others perish is not to be sought in their own will, but in the secret counsel of God.

God blinds the minds of the reprobate, and hardens their hearts, that they may not believe.

The perdition of the wicked is a manifestation of God's justice.