A17690:44
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…
Divers sermons of Master John Calvin, concerning the divinity, humanity, and nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ as also touching his passion, death, resurrection, ascension: together with the coming down of the holy Ghost upon his Apostles: and the first sermon of S. Peter. The order of which you shall find in the page ensuing.Diuers sermons of Master Iohn Caluin, concerning the diuinitie, humanitie, and natiuitie of our Lorde Iesus Christe as also touching his passion, death, resurection, ascention: togeather with the comming downe of the holy Ghoste vpon his Apostles: and the first sermon of S. Peter. The order of which you shall finde in the page ensuing.
London: printed by Thomas Dawson for George Byshop, 1581
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.
So then, let us (as I have said) content our selves with that simplicity, which is declared unto us by the holy spirit, for he toucheth and speaketh of that which is good & profitable for our salvation: and as I have already declared he hath here brought and delivered unto us that which was meet & fit for us to know.1 Let us come now to this true word. When S John calleth Jesus Christ, That word, it is as if he should say: the eternal counsel of God, or the wisdom that remaineth in him. Notwithstanding we must mark that God is not like to men: when we have a Counsel it may alter and change, but it is not so with God: for that which is in God is unchangeable. Besides the counsel which we have,2 is not our very Essence▪ or substance: but the counsel which is in God, is verily & truly God: for God is not as a veil or coverture, where there are shadowy places, as S. Jam. useth this similitude, we ⟨image 11⟩are as a shadow that flitteth up and down, and we cannot abide firm and constant. But this is not in God: for that which is in him, is of his essence and eternity. And this is the cause wherefore S. John declareth, that this word is verily and truly God. But as concerning the word, we must not (as I have already said) imagine a counsel or a wisdom in God, which should be like to the word of men. True it is, that we may well take some comparison from our selves, but yet we ought always to mark, the long distance and great difference,3 that is between us and God: for if the heavens be much higher than the earth, much more must it needs be, that we should know and confess, that God is more high than we, yea there is no proportion or resemblance as it were between God and men. So then when men shall bring or allege unto us some similitude taken from the creatures, we must always mark this great distance & difference,4 which is between God and us. As a man may very well say, that in the soul of a man, there is a certain understanding, which is in such sort joined to the soul, that the soul cannot be without understanding. There is also a will, not as when we have now one desire, now another, but a certain power (as a man would say) to will, which thing man hath in him self, for man is not as a stone, or as a pile of wood without sense and reason, but he hath imprinted in him this property, to will this or that.