This volume is meant for the general reader. A variety of texts have been chosen to show the range of John Calvin's life and writings-commentaries, sermons, letters, catechisms, tracts, broadbased theological works. The materials cover his major ideas, showing the diversity of his writing. The particular text in which an issue is developed may not always be the fullest or the classical expression this doctrine has received by Calvin, but this does not in any way distort Calvin's views given the remarkable consistancy of his thought on these issues.