Divers sermons of Master John Calvin, concerning the divinity, humanity, and nativity of our…Diuers sermons of Master Iohn Caluin, concerning the diuinitie, humanitie, and natiuitie of our…

Let us learn not to rejoice beyond measure, in the things of this world which are brittle and vain: let us not rejoice in delights, in pleasures, nor in any thing whatsoever it be:¹ but let us be glad and rejoice in this, that Christ was sent unto us, that God is offered and given unto us in his person: that Jesus Christ is come to the end that he might be our reconciliation between God and us, that God accepteth us for his children, to the end we should not perish and be condemned. Behold how this word ought to be sanctified or hallowed unto us, to the end to cause us reverently to regard that inestimable goodness, which hath been brought unto us by our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is expressly said, that this Gospel is according to S. John, to the end we should know, that it is not from a mortal man, but that S. John, was only the minister or mean thereof. From whom then shall we say that we hold the Gospel? From S. John, ²or from Jesus Christ? Certainly from Jesus Christ. And in deed Jesus Christ useth this manner of speech, as to say, that the doctrine is not his, but that he preached it in the authority of God his father from whom it proceeded: and all this is to the end that we should bear so much the more reverence to this doctrine, and that we should not receive it, as a common thing, but as the pure truth of God, which was preached and declared by his only son. S. John then was indeed the mean or instrument that God used, even as a Pen that will write in a mans hand, but yet for all that we must not receive the Gospel, which was written by him, as from a mortal man. Let us now come to the Text. The word (sayeth he) was in the beginning. The purpose of Saint John is to declare unto us how the son of God did not then begin to be, when he ⟨image 10⟩appeared or showed himself in the world:³ neither yet that then he began only to spread abroad his power in every place, (for he was already from all time, and before all time, his power abroad already in him self, and he took it not from any other) but that there was a power which was in the word of God from the beginning, which at the last was manifested, and we know it now, seeing Jesus Christ hath been sent into the world. Wherefore S John meant to declare here, that when Jesus Christ came into the world, he that came was our eternal God, who also hath redeemed us.