For if we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into
forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how
bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions, it
will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a
depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the
neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the
presumptuous audacity of men. It being thus manifest that God,
foreseeing the inefficiency of his image imprinted on the fair form of
the universe, has given the assistance of his Word to all whom he has
ever been pleased to instruct effectually, we, too, must pursue this
straight path, if we aspire in earnest to a genuine contemplation of
God; - we must go, I say, to the Word, where the character of God, drawn
from his works is described accurately and to the life; these works
being estimated, not by our depraved judgement, but by the standard of
eternal truth. If, as I lately said, we turn aside from it, how great
soever the speed with which we move, we shall never reach the goal,
because we are off the course. We should consider that the brightness of
the Divine countenance, which even an apostle declares to be
inaccessible, (1 Tim. 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. Hence the Psalmist, after repeatedly
declaring (Psalm 93, 96, 97, 99, &c.) that superstition should be
banished from the world in order that pure religion may flourish,
introduces God as reigning; meaning by the term, not the power which he
possesses and which he exerts in the government of universal nature, but
the doctrine by which he maintains his due supremacy: because error
never can be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge
of God has been implanted in it.
- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.6.3)
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