Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapters 21 to 24 · Translated by Henry Beveridge, 1845 · Public domain · About 31,500 words in four chapters

About two hours of reading, in four chapters

The Four Chapters

1. Chapter 1 · Institutes 3.21Of the Eternal ElectionWhy the doctrine must be taught, the curb on curiosity, and Calvin’s definition of predestination: election and reprobation, grounded in the good pleasure of God rather than in foreseen merit.7 sections · about 5,200 words · 21 minutes
2. Chapter 2 · Institutes 3.22The Doctrine of Election Confirmed by ScriptureEphesians 1, Romans 9 and 11, and the words of Christ in John 6, read closely; the answer to election on the basis of foreseen faith; objections from the fathers and Aquinas; and the righteous will of God in reprobation.11 sections · about 7,100 words · 29 minutes
3. Chapter 3 · Institutes 3.23The Calumnies Against Election RefutedThe standing objections answered in order: that God is a tyrant, that he is the author of sin, that responsibility is destroyed, that preaching is pointless. Includes the “dreadful decree” passage in its own context.14 sections · about 7,800 words · 31 minutes
4. Chapter 4 · Institutes 3.24Election Confirmed by the Calling of GodHow the believer may know his election: by the effectual call, and above all in Christ, “the mirror in which we ought, and in which, without deception, we may contemplate our election.” Then the case of the reprobate, who bring their destruction on themselves.17 sections · about 11,400 words · 45 minutes

How to Read This Work

Calvin never wrote a book called Calvinism. What he wrote on predestination he wrote inside the Institutes, and he placed it late, in Book 3, after justification and the Christian life and prayer, because he wanted readers to see election as the fountain of a salvation they had already tasted, not as a puzzle to solve before believing. This edition presents those four chapters, 3.21 to 3.24, as the unit Calvin made them: the doctrine stated, proved from Scripture, defended against its accusers, and confirmed by the calling of God.

Read them in order if you can. Chapter 21 gives the definition; chapter 22 the proof; chapter 23 the answers to the objections everyone raises; chapter 24 the comfort, and the reason Calvin taught the doctrine at all. Each chapter is its own page, with Calvin’s section numbers preserved, so a citation such as Institutes 3.24.5 can be found directly.

The text is Henry Beveridge’s 1845 translation for the Calvin Translation Society, now in the public domain, unaltered except that his long paragraphs have been divided at sentence boundaries for reading on a screen, and Scripture references have been set so that they link to the ESV. The portrait is Ary Scheffer’s Calvin.

Before You Begin

Calvin opens chapter 21 with a warning that belongs at the front of any reading of these pages: predestination is a doctrine revealed in Scripture, and it is to be learned there, with reverence, and nowhere else. “Let it, therefore, be our first principle that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is no path, or to seek light in darkness” (3.21.2). The reader who keeps that rule will find these chapters not cold but consoling, which is what Calvin intended them to be.

For the confessional summary of the same doctrine, see the Westminster Confession of Faith 3 and the Canons of Dort, First Head. For Calvin’s own selection from the Institutes on the Christian life, see the Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.