A17698:2426
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.
Moreover, let us mark well that it is not without cause, that he will have his service so far unlike all the superstitions of the heathen. For even §10of our own nature we be too much given to the corrupting & disguising of things, by means whereof the pureness of the true religion is perverted. Every man hath in himself a storehouse of idolatry, though he be not provoked thereto by others: & in what case then are we, when we light upon stumbling blocks and occasions, yea & even go to seek them? I see idolaters that have disguised & falsified the whole service of God, & I shall go borrow of them I wot not §20what; because this thing or that thing likes me, I shall go put it to that which our Lord hath commanded me. Am not I by and by snarled in the same folly that they were, which played the naughtipackes before me? Yes surely. For although I regard neither the one nor the other; yet have I many vain fancies in my hart. And if I fall to seeking of such things of set purpose: it is all one as if I did cast my self into Satan's snares. And therefore let us mark, that our Lord meant §30to preserve his servants from a deadly plague, when he said that they should hold them to the pure simplicity of his word, and not resemble the paynims and infidels in any case. In those days the heathen for devotion sake, made shadows about their Altars, like as at this day in the Popedom, if a place be darksome, it seemeth to them to carry some majesty in it, and the simple sort are as it were amazed when they come into a Cave, and where the windows be dimmed with §40red or blew glass, mens eyes dazzle at it, and silly simple souls feel a kind of motion in them selves which maketh them afraid & astonished: and to their seeming, it is good to stir them up to devotion, bearing folk in hand that it is a reverencing of God, whereas in deed it is stark foolishness. After the same manner did the heathen in plashing of trees to make places dark, that when men entered into them, they seemed to be aghast, as though a wolf had bin at their §50tail as they say, by reason whereof they were moved to some fearfulness. Now forasmuch as this custom was among the heathen, our Lord will not have the faithful to resemble them.