A17698:2372
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 here to treat of the feast of Tabernacles, which was a memorial of Gods preserving of the Jews in the wilderness, where was no house. For he had kept them by the space of forty years under Tents, and small booths; the cause whereof was that he had so removed them from place to place, that they had §60no leisure to build, nor stuff wherewith to build. Therefore it was meet that they should be put in remembrance of it, that being come into the land of Canaan, they should not give themselves to jollity, and forget it when God had set them at rest. For we see how men are given to fall asleep and to nestle themselves when our Lord removeth them not. To avoid this danger, it was Gods will that the Jews should year by year depart out of their houses and dwell in Tents, that is to say under the open sky in arbours made of boughs, and for seven days together mind that benefit. For it was an incredible thing that God should have preserved so great a multitude of people with their young children, in booths & tents without houses. We know that houses serve to keep off both cold & heat and all other discommodities. Needs therefore must it be that god wrought after a ⟨p. 615⟩wonderful fashion, and it was meet that his goodness should be acknowledge in that behalf. We see then now wherefore this feast was ordained under the law. For the serving of God consisted not in the peoples shifting of their places, for it had been but a stage play, to have come to Jerusalem, and there to pinch themselves, & to dwell a while in Cabins, unless it had been to some end, and that they had been taught some thing whereby to magnify Gods name, & §10to put their trust in him: accordingly as I have declared heretofore that all ceremonies must imply some learning and instruction, or else they be but pelting baggage: yea a it is but a mocking of God, if the faithful be not edified, that they may always live in the fear of God to rest upon him and to call upon him with the better courage. If it be not so, it is but superstition: and the things are not only unprofitable, but also abominable before God. Now §20then the feast of Tabernacles was a traynment to the people of Israel, to show them that if they were at rest and at their ease in the land of Canaan, they had not always been so, but that God had led them after a strange fashion through the wilderness: