Sundays with Jean

...[T]he efficient cause of our salvation consists in God the Father's love; the material cause in God the son's obedience; the instrumental cause in the Spirit's illumination, that is, faith; the final cause, in the glory of God's great generosity...
~J. Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, Chapter 14, Part 21

...For justification is withdrawn from works, not that no good works may be done, or that what is done may be denied to be good, but that we may not rely upon them, glory in them, or ascribe salvation to them. For our assurance, our glory, and the sole anchor of our salvation are that Christ the son of God is ours, and we in turn are in him sons of God and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, called to the eternal hope of eternal blessedness by God's grace, not by our worth.
~J. Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, Chapter 17, Part 1