Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (The Library of Christian Classics)

Probably “existential apprehension” is the nearest equivalent in contemporary parlance.

God ever remains like himself, and is not a specter or phantasm to be transformed according to anyone’s whim.

In this ruin of mankind no one now experiences God either as Father or as Author of salvation, or favorable in any way, until Christ the Mediator comes forward to reconcile him to us. Nevertheless, it is one thing to feel that God as our Maker supports

we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves.

As a consequence, we must infer that man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.

to trust

indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself.

Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

all men have a vague general veneration for God, but very few really reverence him; and wherever there is great ostentation in ceremonies, sincerity of heart is rare indeed.