A17698:1543
Sermons upon Deuteronomy
The sermons of M. John Calvin upon the fifth book of Moses called Deuteronomy faithfully gathered word for word as he preached them in open pulpit; together with a preface of the ministers of the Church of Geneva, and an admonishment made by the deacons there. Also there are annexed two profitable tables, the one containing the chief matters; the other the places of Scripture herein alleged. Translated out of French by Arthur Golding.The sermons of M. Iohn Caluin vpon the fifth booke of Moses called Deuteronomie faithfully gathered word for word as he preached them in open pulpet; together with a preface of the ministers of the Church of Geneua, and an admonishment made by the deacons there. Also there are annexed two profitable tables, the one containing the chiefe matters; the other the places of Scripture herein alledged. Translated out of French by Arthur Golding.
London: printed by Henry Middleton for George Bishop, 1583
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.
God gave them the inheritance freely, as if he should have said, I ask no more of you but that ye serve me, acknowledging that I have been a good loving father to you, and that I have always maintained and kept you. But in stead of doing homage to ⟨p. 385⟩God for these things, the people fell to setting up of idols, borrowing all the corruptions of the heathen, and bringing in false and counterfeit Religions. Ye see then that they deserved well to be estranged and quite cut of from God. Also we see that the prophets did continually upbraid the children of Israel with their unthankfulness, yea even generally, according also as every man was guilty thereof. And S. Steven hath declared my said reason yet better.1 For he saith, ye have §10ever resisted the holy Ghost, like as your fathers did afore you. If the Jews of that time had quietly submitted themselves to the Gospel, and received Jesus Christ as their saviour, so as they had honoured and embraced him with faith and repentance: S. Steven would not have gone about to rip up the shame of their forefathers. For that was hidden. But for as much as they turned all things upside down, and believed not the Gospel, but forsook the grace of God,§20 and trampled it under their feet, advancing themselves with devilish pride and fury, to abolish the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to deface the goodness that GOD had showed them: it was requisite that the sins of their fathers should be put into their account, and that God should set himself against them, to condemn the malicious wilfulness of that people, and the faults that had been committed by the space of two or three thousand years afore.§30 And therefore let us learn, that although God pardon the offences of our fathers that have done amiss: yet shall they not fail to remain still of record in his registers, if we hold on and continue like unto them. Will we then have the sins of our forefathers buried, and that God should forget them and not call us to account for them? Let us look that we be the carefuller to keep our selves from being like to them. And so ye see how it is expedient for us to think upon §40