A17694:8
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 may be (right honourable & my very good Lord) that men will marvel, why I should publish these […] excellent Sermons of Master John Calvins, the Arguments whereof be not so fit and agreeable (as they think) to these times: seeing GOD in mercy hath given us peace, and set us at liberty from that Romish yoke, suffering the beams of his glorious Gospel to spread far and wide, to the great comfort of many, and his own everlasting glory. These benefits, as they are acknowledged by me: so I beseech God to make us all more thankful then we have been, that the little fruit they have brought forth amongest us, the common ignorance that is yet upon the face of the whole land, the small preparation to the cross and bending our backs too bear it with Jesus Christ our head, do not provoke him too give us over too follow our own ways, to have no conscience nor care of any religion: as I fear me the world is too to full of such, the more ⟨image 3⟩is the pity. For who seeth not, that the common sort are so far from being instructed, having plaid the Truants in Gods School these twenty and odd years, that they have not yet taken out this one lesson, to be of mind when God shall try them, too separate them selves from the cursed fellowship of Antichrist. For they have not yet learned too make any difference of religion, but bend them selves too serve all times: come there falsehood or trueth, light or darkness, religion or superstition, the Gospel or the Mass, Turkism or Christianism, all is one too them, so that they may live at ease, they are at a point: no Scripture so strong, or testimony so evident, that can convince them, too make them stand fast too Gods everlasting trueth, the seal of ••eir adoption. Though Christ have pronounced that whosoever deny him before men,1 he will deny him before his father which is in heaven: though he say plainly that he that will follow him must take up his cross and follow him, and that he that is ashamed too confess him before men,2 he will deny him before his heavenly father: yea although we be commanded too come out of Babylon,3 and it be plainly said that the red Dragon will pour out his waters as a river to overtake the woman with child, and that the victory of the lamb must be by his own blood, & by the word of their testimony, who love not their lives unto the death: