Quote of the day: participation in God

Calvin, seeming (in my estimation) to answer the Pelagian question, "May we not, like Adam, establish ourselves as good by doing good actions?"
[Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Ch.2]

"At the time when man was distinguished with the noblest marks of honour through God's beneficence, not even then was he permitted to boast about himself. How much more ought he now to humble himself, cast down as he has been - due to his own ungratefulness - from the loftiest glory into extreme disgrace! At that time, I say, when he had been advanced to the highest degree of honour, Scripture attributed nothing else to him than that he had been created in the image of God [Gen. 1:27], thus suggesting that man was blessed, not because of his own good actions, but by participation in God.

"What, therefore, now remains for man, bare and destitute of all glory, but to recognise God for whose beneficence he could not be grateful when he abounded with the riches of his grace; and at least, by confessing his own poverty, to glorify him in whom he did not previously glory in recognition of his own blessings?"