Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

Last week we visited five sites in Calvin's Geneva and today we will look at five

sites or citations in Calvin's institutes. The first actually comes from the

preface which was addressed to King Francis I of France, and Calvin writes,

when I first set my hand to this work, nothing was farther from my mind, most glorious king,

than to write something that might be afterward offered to your

majesty. My purpose was solely to transmit certain rudiments by which those who are touched with any zeal for religion

might be shaped to true godliness.

And I undertook this labor especially for our French countrymen, very many of whom I knew to be hungering

and thirsting for Christ, but I saw very few who had been duly imbued with even a slight knowledge of him.

And so there it is, the original audience for Calvin's institutes, his fellow French countrymen.

The next site comes from those opening lines of book one on the

knowledge of God and with these famous words Calvin writes, nearly all the wisdom we

possess. That is to say, true and sound wisdom consists of two

parts, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

He'll go on to close this first paragraph with this line.

Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God,

but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.

Well, our third site in Calvin's Institutes comes from book to chapter 12. This is on Christ as the God man and

Calvin writes it was imperative that he who was to become a Redeemer be true God and

true man. It was his task to follow up death.

Who but The Life could do this? It was his task to conquer sin. Who but very righteousness could do this? It was his task to

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