A17694:79
Four sermons of Master John Calvin entreating of matters very profitable for our time,…Foure sermons of Maister Iohn Caluin entreating of matters very profitable for our time,…
Four sermons of Master John Calvin entreating of matters very profitable for our time, as may be seen by the preface: with a brief exposition of the LXXXVII. Psalm. Translated out of French into English by John Field.Foure sermons of Maister Iohn Caluin entreating of matters very profitable for our time, as may bee seene by the preface: with a briefe exposition of the LXXXVII. Psalme. Translated out of Frenche into Englishe by Iohn Fielde.
London: printed by Thomas Dawson for Thomas Man, 1579
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.
It is true that the grace of God is not bound, nor the power of the holy ghost is not enclosed either in the sacraments or in any other outward thing, that he should not be able to work whensoever it pleaseth him without any mean: but here we entreat of the perpetual order that he hath set in his church: & not of that which he worketh extraordinarily, as it whereby miracle. ⟨image 37⟩Nevertheless this is most true that they which are deprived of the use of the sacraments, & of liberty to call upon his name, and yet feel not their wretched and miserable condition, to the end to bewail it they are more blockish then brute beasts. I say farther that if David had just occasion in his time, to say. O Lord how amiable is thy temple! 1blessed are they that dwell in thy house. My soul burneth for very desire, that it hath to enter into the Courts of the Lord that we ought to be twice as much moved and inflamed unto this, at this day. For what were the benefits of the Temple, which David so much lamenteth, even that he is weary of his life, seeing him self to be deprived of them? It is true that in substance they were the same that we have at this day: howbeit we know that these were but as dark shadows, wherein GOD displayed not his grace so largely as we have it at this present. For God hath declared himself so familiarly to us in the order of the Church, that as a man would say, the very heavens are opened unto us. The Sacraments do not show Jesus Christ so far of as under the law: but setteth him lively before our eyes. Wherefore we must needs be very unthankful, if we prefer not these blessings far before all that which David might ever find in the temple of Zion. We are not any more in the utter Courts, as David hath spoken. There is no more any veil drawn, which might separate us from the sanctuary. To be short, this is an evil honouring of the infinite greatness of the benefits which God hath bestowed upon us, when our desire is not equal at the least with that of Davids. I speak this by a simple form of doctrine. For the exhortation shall follow after in his place. It remaineth then that we see next ⟨p. 25⟩of all, what manner of desire this was, to the end that we may conform our selves unto it, as unto our rule. I have asked; saith he, a thing of the Lord.