A03622:269
A declaration of the ten holy co[m]maundementes of almighty God written Exo. 20. Deu.…A declaration of the ten holy co[m]maundementes of allmygthye God wroten Exo. 20. Deu.…
A declaration of the ten holy co[m]maundementes of almighty God written Exo. 20. Deu. 5. Collected out of the scripture canonical, by Joanne Hopper.A declaration of the ten holy co[m]maundementes of allmygthye God wroten Exo. 20. Deu. 5. Collectyd out of the scripture canonicall, by Joanne Hopper.
Zurich: printed by Augustin Fries, 1549
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Caput XVII. 4. Curiosity.
Caput XVII. 4. Curiosite.
The fourth let or impediment is curiosity and over much searching the privities / ⟨p. CCXVIII⟩and secrets of God when men of an isle / and licentious lief return not to penance as the scripture biddeth. But mounteth straight way into God's providence and predestination. contemning the will of god that is made open to him in the scripture / that god would him now to repent / and to receive grace / Searcheth to know the thing that never was made open to man or angel the event / and end of things to con. thus reasoneth with him self / who knoweth what his last hour shall be. wherefore favoureth god the one / and not the other. Some time the good maketh be an isle end / and the isle a god. In this opinion / and inscrutable mystery he weareth all his wits / and at the end of his cogitations / findeth more abstruse / and doubtful objections than at the beginning / so that he cometh from this school nether wiser nether better Moses Deu. 29. removeth this ungodly let / and impediment saing: Secreta domini dei nostri revelata sunt• obis & filijs nostris usque in seculum, ut faciamus omnia uerba legis huius. That is to say / the secret of the lord our God are made open unto us / and unto our children for ever / that we do all the precepts of this law. The which words plainly condemneth our foolish / and audacious presumption that seeketh to know what shall happen unto us in the hour of death / and will not know the thing that should be don in all our liefer ⟨p. CCXIX⟩to say that God would have us know the thing that is opened unto us in the scripture God's mercy promised in Christ Jesus / and follow him in all virtue. if we offend to repent / and leave sin then hath he promised mercy / and will give it as Moses saith cap. 30. Deut. Do the thing that thou art bed to do / and follow the will of God made open unto the in his word. as for thy disputation of God's providence is a curiosity / and no religion / a presumption / and no faith / a let of virtue / and furtherance of vice. When thou hearest penance spoken of / learn that lesson out of hand lest peradventure thou be never good scholar in Theology / of God's laws. It fareth many times with us that long go to school in divinity / and yet never god divines / as it fareth in the school of Rhetoric where as if at the beginning the scholar profit not as Arist. saith shall never e good orator.