A17640:1027
Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah
A commentary upon the prophecy of Isaiah. By Mr. John Calvin. Whereunto are added four tables ... Translated out of French into English: by C.C.A commentary vpon the prophecie of Isaiah. By Mr. Iohn Caluin. Whereunto are added foure tables ... Translated out of French into English: by C.C.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston, 1609
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.
Vers. 5. The Lord hath broken the rod of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers, 6. Which smote the people in anger with a continual plague, and ruled the Nations in wrath: if any were persecuted, he did not let.
Vers. 5. The Lord hath broken the rod of the wicked, and the scepter of the rulers, 6. Which smote the people in anger with a continuall plague, and ruled the Nations in wrath: if any were persecuted, he did not let.
HE now answers to the former interrogation, and would not that the faithful should any way doubt of the event thereof, but rather that they should stand astonied at such admirable works of God. For the interrogation served to awaken up their minde• to the greater attention. It is as much then as if he should have said; It came not to pass by chance, or by any blind passion of fortune, that you were not still oppressed under a continual bondage, but you are wholly to attribute it to the providence of God, who brake so sore a yoke of servitude from off your necks. Now the wicked are at their wits end when they §1see such works, and stand amazed because they see not the reason of them: but the faithful §2know that this ought to be attributed unto God. Let us learn then to admire the works of the Lord, and let us be stricken with such an astonishment, that we may acknowledge him to be the author of them: and let us not in any wise pass lightly over the least of them;1 but especially then when he manifests his power in the redemption of his Church; when by his admirable strength, he redeems any one of us: from under the servitude of the devil, the tyranny of Antichrist, and from eternal death. For these are no common works; and therefore we may not in any sort attribute the same to the power of man, or to any other causes whatsoever. He joins the sceptre of the rulers, to the staff of the wicked; showing by this repetition, that an unjust tyranny cannot be established by a power imperial in any sort whatsoever. Then by and by after, he more clearly shows, that the Monarchy of the Babylonians shall be abolished, because it was unjust and tyrannical; and saith, that the people were smitten with an incurable wound, and extremely afflicted, because they overflowed in all excessive dissolutions. By this we are admonished, that howsoever God may seem to wink at the tyranny of the wicked for a time, yet that he will spare them never the more for all that in the latter end, for they shall be destroyed even as we know Babylon was, because the Lord is just, and continues always like himself.