Book Club -- Institutes of the Christian Religion

This morning I finished the third book of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. I made the goal of finishing this book by the end of December and now I'm ready to plunge into the fourth book and try to get it done by the conference: March 10 at 1:00 in the afternoon! I don't know if it's gonna happen...but I'm certainly gonna try. I can't quite now, right?

And, as always, when I finish a book of Calvin I have to give you a "quotable" right? I have been looking forward to the third book since I started the Institutes and it has fulfilled all my expectations. I think my favorite section was Chapter Twenty, on Prayer. It was excellent. So, I wanted to risk Lily's "long post displeasure" and post the entirety of section 2 of that chapter. I do hope it proves a blessing to you today. Now, I'm off to read Calvin...actually, to make a Christmas gift for one of my dearest buddies.....pictures coming soon, Lord willing (after I give it to her, in case she reads the blog before she gets the gift ;).

Have a great day!

In Him Who is Faithful,

Sarah

~

"To prayer, then, are we indebted for penetrating to those riches which are treasured up for us with our heavenly Father. For there is a kind of intercourse between God and men, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before Him and appeal to his promises, that when necessity requires they may learn by experiences that what they believed merely on the authority of his word was not in vain. Accordingly, we see that nothing is set before us as an object of expectation from the Lord which we are not enjoined to ask of Him in prayer, so true it is that prayer digs up those treasures which the Gospel of our Lord discovers to the eye of faith. The necessity and utility of this exercise of prayer no words can sufficiently express. Assuredly it is not without cause our heavenly Father declares that our only safety is in calling upon his name, since by it we invoke the presence of his providence to watch over our interests, of his power to sustain us when weak and almost fainting, of his goodness to receive us into favour, though miserably loaded with sin; in fine, call upon him to manifest himself to us in all his perfections. Hence, admirable peace and tranquillity are given to our consciences; for the straits by which we were pressed being laid before the Lord, we rest fully satisfied with the assurance that none of our evils are unknown to him, and that he is both able and willing to make the best provision for us."