Quotes About Divine

But Jacob was divinely chosen and his brother, the first-born, was rejected.

our faith in doctrine is not established until we have a perfect conviction that God is its author.

whenever God is pleased to make way for his providence, he even in external matters so turns and bends the wills of men, that whatever the freedom of their choice may be, it is still subject to the disposal of God.

We should consider that the brightness of the Divine countenance, which even an apostle declares to be inaccessible, (1Ti 6: 16) is a kind of labyrinth — a labyrinth to us inextricable, if the Word do not serve us as a thread to guide our path; and that it is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it.

God neither wills nor decrees anything without having long before directed it to its proper end. People

God does not measure the precepts of his law by human strength, but, after ordering what is right, freely bestows on his elect the power of fulfilling it.

it is the peculiar privilege of the Church, to know what the   Divine judgments mean, and what is their tendency.

Faithful is the Lord, who has made himself our debtor, not by receiving any thing from us, but by promising us all things," (August. in Ps. 32, 109, et alibi).

When God descends to us he, in a certain sense, abases himself and stammers with us, so He allows us to stammer with Him

men are justified by believing, not by what they do. It is by faith they obtain grace: and grace cannot be earned as a payment for works. Since

However much the devil and wicked men may rage, however much they boil with their own unrestrained anger, there is no doubt that God checks and curbs their madness with a hidden bridle.

The will of God is the rule of righteousness; whatever does not agree with his will is unrighteous; and if unrighteous, it is at the same time deadly. When

They who take it amiss that the world was not sooner   created, may as well expostulate with God for not having made   innumerable worlds.

The   providence of God, I grant, does not indeed preclude the faithful from   caring for themselves; but let them do it in such a way, that they may   not overstep their prescribed bounds.

God does not avenge certain crimes in this world, but postpones punishment to the next, to deal with them all the more severely; conversely

the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason. For as God alone can properly bear witness to his own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets, must penetrate our hearts, in order to convince us that they faithfully delivered the message with which they were divinely entrusted. This

Where God thus clearly displays free mercy, have done with that empty imagination of merit.

For we never have naked and empty symbols, except when our ingratitude and wickedness hinder the working of divine beneficence.

for it is through the prophets that God adapts to our need whatever might seem to us remote and of no concern to us. Surely

For though in old times there were some, and in the present day not a few are found, who deny the being of a God, yet, whether they will or not, they occasionally feel the truth which they are desirous not to know. We do not read of any man who broke out into more unbridled and audacious contempt of the Deity than C. Caligula, and yet none showed greater dread when any indication of divine wrath was manifested.

Any man then who would profit by the Scriptures, must hold first of all and firmly that the teaching of the law and the prophets came to us not by the will of man, but as dictated by the Holy Spirit.

But Scripture praises everywhere his pure and unmixed mercy, which does away with all merit.

The characteristic of a true sovereign is, to acknowledge that, in the administration of his kingdom, he is a minister of God. He who does not make his reign subservient to the divine glory, acts the part not of a king, but a robber.

Anyone who cannot bear to lay hold of God as he comes down to him will still less soar up to him beyond the clouds.