A17643:691
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.
9 For this is the word of promise, about this time I will come: and Sarah shall have a Son.
9 For this is the woorde of promise, about this time I will come: and Sara shall haue a sonne.
6 And yet not as though &c. Because Paul through the heat of his desire, was carried (as it were) into an excess of mind, now he going about to return unto his parts of teaching, addeth a kind of correction, as though he stayed him self from excessive grief. And because out of that that he bewailed the destruction of his nation, this absurdity did seem to follow: namely, that the covenant of God made with Abraham was fallen away (for the grace of God could not fall away from the Israelites, but the covenant should be abolished) he preventeth this inconvenience in due season: and showeth how in so great cecity of the Jews, the grace of God nevertheless did abide constantly in that people, whereby the truth of the covenant did stand. Some read, Neither is it possible, as though ⟨p. 119⟩in Greek it were, Oionte: but because I find that reading in no copy, I rather allow that which is commonly read, not that the covenant is fallen away: to this sense, that I so lament the destruction of my nation, it is not, as though I thought the promise of God given to Abraham in old time, were now void and abolished. For not all &c. The proposition is, the promise was so given to Abraham and to his seed, that this inheritance should not appertain to every one of that seed: whereby shall fall out, that the falling away of some doth nothing let, but the covenant may abide firm and stable. But to the end it may better appear, by what condition the Lord adopted the posterity of Abraham for a peculiar people to himself: two things are to be considered here: namely, the promise of salvation given to Abraham, to appertain unto all which take their beginning of him, because it is offered unto all without exception:1 and that in this respect they are rightly called the heirs & successors of the covenant made with Abraham or (as the scripture speaketh) the sons of the promise. For seeing that God would have his covenant sealed, as well in Ismael and Esau, as in Isaac and Jacob, it appeareth they were not altogether aliens from it: unless perhaps you count circumcision nothing, which was communicated to them by the commandment of God: which thing cannot be spoken without the dishonour of God. And that was it the Apostle said before, the covenants appertained unto them, although they were faithless.