Grant, Almighty God, that as we are in this life subject to so many miseries, and in the meantime grow insensible in our sins, – O grant that we may learn to search ourselves and consider one sins, that we may be really humbled before you, and ascribe to ourselves the blame of all our evils, that we may be thus led to a genuine feeling of repentance, and so strive to be reconciled to you in Christ, that we may wholly depend on your paternal love, and thus ever aspire to the fulness of eternal felicity, through your goodness and that immeasurable kindness which thou testifies is ready and offered to all those, who with a sincere heart worship you, call upon you, and flee to you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

-John Calvin, Commentary on Hosea

John Calvin (1509 – 1564 AD) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530 and eventually took an influential post in the city of Geneva.