A17698:2157
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.
But now let us come back again to the matter which I was in hand with afore, and show yet further how all the said things may redound to the benefiting and profiting of us, as well in faith as in the fear of God. I have told you already, that whereas God did put a difference between beasts, declaring some to be clean and some unclean, it was to accustom the Jews unto the spiritual cleanness, even in eating and drinking. True it is that God enjoined §20them soberness and temperance therein: but he had yet a further respect, which was that in all things they should have a care to be undefiled, and to have such a stay of themselves, as they might not be stained with the uncleanness of the world. Gods intent then was to give them as it were a kind of exercise, to keep them the better in ure. We know how men do take too large scope in eating and drinking. For whereas the rest of their life doth put §30them in mind to pray unto God, and to take pains, and to discharge themselves of their duty: when they take their repast, they give them selves to mirth and rejoicing. And it is lawful for them so to do, so they keep measure. But what? They so overshoot themselves in the turning of a hand as a man might wonder to see their excess of mirth. This was the cause that God would have his people put in mind of the soberness which we ought to use in our eating §40and drinking all our life long, that it might be as a bridle to restrain us, for after as our diseases be, so doeth God give us medicines for them. Now (as I said afore) there is more disorder in eating and drinking, than in all our life besides. And therefore it was requisite that our Lord should exercise his people in that behalf. And for the same cause did he deliver them instructions, to warn them that they ought to behave themselves purely in all things, and to put them §50always in mind thereof. Ye see then that the first point which we have to remember upon this text, is that God telleth the Jews that forasmuch as he had chosen them to be his own inheritance, they ought to dedicate themselves to him even in things that concern the outward conversation, and to abstain from worldly corruptions, not intermeddling themselves with the vices of the heathen after our common manner which we know to be always tending §60unto evil. Gods will was to hold them in that awe.