Reflection by John Calvin from The Institutes for Christian Religion:
With good reason [an] ancient proverb strongly I recommended knowledge of self. If it is considered disgraceful for us not to know all that pertains to the business of human life, even more detestable is our ignorance of ourselves, by which, when making decisions, we miserably deceive and even blind ourselves!
This blinding has happened to certain philosophers, who, while urging man to know himself, propose the goal of recognizing his own worth and excellence. And they would have him contemplate in himself nothing but what swells him with empty assurance and puffs him up with pride.
But knowledge of ourselves lies first in considering what we were given at creation and how generously God continues His favor toward us, in order to know how great our natural excellence would be if only it had remained unblemished; yet at the same time to bear in mind that there is in us nothing of our own, but that we hold on sufferance whatever God has bestowed upon us. Hence we are ever dependent on Him. Secondly, to call to mind our miserable condition after Adam’s fall; the awareness of which, when all our boasting and self-assurance are laid low, should truly humble and shame us. In the beginning, God fashioned us after His image (Genesis 1:27) that He might arouse our minds both to zeal for virtue and to meditation upon eternal life. Thus, in order that the great nobility of our race (which distinguishes us from brute beasts) may not be buried beneath our own dullness of wit, it behooves us to recognize that we have been endowed with reason and understanding so that, by leading a holy and upright life, we may press on to the appointed goal of blessed immortality.
But that primal worthiness cannot come to mind without the sorry spectacle of our foulness and dishonor. In the person of the first man we have fallen from our original condition. From this source arises abhorrence and displeasure with ourselves, as well as true humility; and thence is kindled a new zeal to seek God, in whom each of us may recover those good things which we have utterly lost.
