Total Depravity Quotes

Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.

Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him" and "you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God's 'free grace' but on Man's 'free will.'

I have my own opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.

To me, Calvinism means the placing of the eternal God at the head of all things.

Calvinism is an all-embracing system of principles... It is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and form that specific religious consciousness there was developed first a particular theology, then a special church-order, and then a given form for political and social life.

And I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, "If any man ascribes any of salvation, even the very least, to the free-will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learned Jesus Christ aright."

It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.

Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will.

Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.

If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.

Reformed theology so far transcends the mere five points of Calvinism that it is an entire worldview.

Let it be a settled principle ...that men's salvation, if saved, is wholly of God; and that man's ruin, if lost, is wholly of himself.

I think what Calvinism may offer us is that God's in charge of his world.

You and I are, by birth, by nature, and by choice, inwardly depraved, which is to say that we are entirely corrupt. That's not to say that we have no good in us; we do. However, anything good in us has been tainted with evil. It touches everything. Without the redeeming power of Christ we cannot halt our own moral slide.

In vain people busy themselves with finding any good of man's own in his will. For any mixture of the power of freewill that men strive to mingle with God's grace is nothing but a corruption of grace. It is just as if one were to dilute wine with muddy, bitter water.

A man who has no part in the grace of God, cannot keep the commandments of God, or prepare himself, either wholly or in part, to receive grace; but he rests of necessity under the power of sin.

I believe that very much of current Arminianism is simply ignorance of gospel doctrine; and if people began to study their Bibles, and to take the Word of God as they find it, they must inevitably, if believers, rise up to rejoice in the doctrines of grace.

I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. We shall never be able to escape from the doctrine of divine predestination - the doctrine that God has foreordained certain people unto eternal life.

When you refuse to teach on the radical depravity of men, it is an impossibility that you bring glory to God, His Christ, and His cross, because the cross of Jesus Christ and the glory thereof is most magnified when it's placed in front of the backdrop of our depravity!

At the heart of the Protestant faith is the conviction that there is nothing we contribute to our salvation but our sin, no merit we bring but Christ's, and nothing necessary for justification except faith alone.

To embrace what are called the Calvinistic doctrines was an infallible token of a humble mind.

I was raised as a Calvinist, which is doctrine-driven. And though there are many things wrong with Calvinism, you are at least encouraged to argue about things.

I frankly confess that even if it were possible I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive for salvation.

[The] doctrine of the total depravity of man makes it plain that the moral consciousness of man as he is today cannot be the source of information about what is ideal good or about what is the standard of the good.... No man living can even put the moral problem as he ought to put it, or ask the moral questions as he ought to ask them, unless he does so in the light of Scripture.

Fallen man is free to choose what he desires, but because his desires are only wicked he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ. As long as he remains in the flesh, unregenerate, he will never choose Christ. He cannot choose Christ precisely because he cannot act against his own will. His fall is so great that only the effectual grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith.