A17698:1660
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.
WE have seen already heretofore §10the thing that Moses rehearseth here, that is to wit, that God wrote new again the ten commandments of his law in §20two Tables of stone: & that was done to the end that the people should the better consider, that the covenant which God had made with them, was of his own only mercy. For we see how God had given over that people and it was all one as if he had thrust them into the common array of other men, which are utterly accursed and estranged from God. Truly Gods former choosing of that people, was of his own free goodness.1 For (as we have seen)§30 none of them was yet borne, when he made his promise with his servant Abraham: & therefore needs must they acknowledge that his choosing of them, was not in respect of any desert of their own. Howbeit forasmuch as men labour all that they can, to darken Gods free favour, & seek pretty fond devises to challenge to themselves some piece of their own salvation: it was expedient to have it fully showed, that God received the people to mercy again the second time, without any respect §40whether they were worthy of it or no, but only of his own mere goodness. Men are of opinion, that when God chose them, he foresaw what manner of ones they should be, accordingly as we see how this devilish error hath always reigned, and that there are yet still some fantastical persons, which will needs have Gods election to be grounded upon his foreknowledge, that is to say, when God chose whom he listed before the making of the world,2 they fall to glossing thereupon, that §50he foreknew who should be worthy of it, & therefore marked them out for the same purpose, and in the same respect preferred them before those whom he knew would become wicked. But that is clean contrary to the teaching of the holy scripture. For ye teacheth us, that the cause of Gods choosing of us is taken from out of himself, that is to say, of his own only free goodness: for he shall never find any thing in us, why he should be inclined to love us. Howbeit to the end that this may be the §60