A17643:353
Commentary upon the Epistle to the Romans
A commentary upon the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, written in Latin by M. John Calvin, and newly translated into English by Christopher Rosdell preacher. Whereunto is added a necessary table for the better and more ready finding out of certain principal matters contained in this workA commentarie vpon the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romanes, written in Latine by M. Iohn Caluin, and newely translated into Englishe by Christopher Rosdell preacher. Whereunto is added a necessarie table for the better and more readie finding out of certayne principall matters conteyned in this worke
London: printed by Thomas Dawson for John Harison and George Bishop, 1583London: printed by Thomas Dawson for Iohn Harison and George Bishop, 1583
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.
19 And he not weak in faith. If you had rather, one of the negatives being left out, you may declare it thus, and he not weak in faith considered his own body, but this ⟨image 70⟩maketh nothing for the sense. Now he showeth more nearly what might have hindered,1 yea, what might have utterly turned Abraham from receiving the promise. Seed was promised to him, when by nature neither he was fit for generation, nor Sarah for conception. Whatsoever he could see in him self or about himself, it was against the effect of the promise. Therefore that he might give place unto the truth of God, as though he had forgot himself, he withdraweth his mind from those things were in his sight. Yet you are not to understand it, as though he had no respect at all to his barren or dead body: Seeing the Scripture testifieth he reasoned thus with himself, shall a child be borne to a man that is an hundred year old? and shall Sarah which is ninety bear a child? But because, that consideration being laid apart, he resigned his whole sense over to the Lord: the Apostle saith he considered not. And surely it was an argument of greater constancy, to draw his cogitation from that thing which did voluntary offer it self to his eyes, then if no such thing had come into his mind. And that the body of Abraham for age was past fruit, before the blessing of the Lord, It may plainly be proved both hear, and also out of the seventeen and eighteen chapters of Genesis.2 So that the opinion of Augustine is in no wise to be admitted, who in a certain place, thinketh that the cause was only in Sarah. Neither ought the absurdity of the objection move us, which drove him unto that resolution. He thinketh it very ridiculous, that Abraham at an hundred years should be called barren, who sometime after had many children. For thereby the Lord made his power more notable, that he which before was like a withered and dry post, when through the blessing of God he flourished, he was not only sufficient for the procreation of Isaac: But as one restored unto a flourishing age, he had strength afterward to beget others. But some will say, it is not besides the order of nature, that a man should beget a child at that age. That I may grant it is not a wonder, yet it differeth little from a miracle.