---
title: 'Warfield on Calvin’s Institutes'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2024-11-01
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2024-warfield-on-calvins-institutes
---

# Warfield on Calvin’s Institutes

“It was the first serious attempt to cast into systematic form that body of truth to which the Reformed churches adhered as taught in the Holy Scriptures; and as such it met a crisis and created an epoch in the history of those churches. In the immense upheaval of the Reformation movement, the foundations of the faith seemed to many to be broken up, and the most important questions to be set adrift; extravagances of all sorts sprang up on every side; and we can scarcely wonder that a feeling of uneasiness was abroad, and men were asking with concern for some firm standing-ground for their feet. It was Calvin’s *Institutes* which, with its calm, clear, positive exposition of the evangelical faith on the irrefragable authority of the Holy Scriptures, gave stability to wavering minds, and confidence to sinking hearts, and placed upon the lips of all a brilliant apology in the face of the calumnies of the enemies of the Reformation.” — [**B**.**B. Warfield**](/authors/b-b-warfield), *The Literary History of the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin* (1909)