A17698:3804
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.
Now here may a question be demanded. For we perceive that Gods children, even they that be most dear unto him, and which have served him in the rightest and soundest manner; even very they are oftentimes in such distress, as doth amaze them & make them besides them §30selves. What complaints maketh David? That his eyes are forworn;1 that he is as good as consumed with mourning, that the marrow of his bones is dried up; that all his strength is faded, that he is in so great fear, that to his own seeming he was swallowed up into a bottomless gulf. This happeneth sometimes to Gods children. How so? This threatening is made to them that despise him, to them that cannot by any good mean be reclaimed, and which have always §40withstood God. I have told you already heretofore, that God to try his people to the quick, suffereth them to be altogether in like case as the wicked, insomuch that even they themselves do think so too. But yet doth God therewith reach them his hand, and although he doth not qualify their griefs at the first, yet he holdeth them at such stay that they shall not quail. There lieth still some seed of Gods spirit hidden in them, which at length uttereth §50it self more fully, so they see well that God sustained them in the middest of those extremities, and in the end it appeareth unto them, as it were in a visible manner. Let us mark it well then, that when the children of God be tossed and troubled with afflictions and have so grievous and hard temptations as were able to make them think, that God is their enemy, so as they dare not open their mouth to call upon him, but are utterly astonished: insomuch §60that although he allege unto them the promises of his grace, yet they cannot taste of them, but do sometimes even refuse them like the unbelievers, as though they were fully determined to shut themselves out of all hope of salvation: when they be at this point, then doeth our Lord work in them, in such wise as he suffereth them not to be quite overthrown with temptation.2 And that is Saint Pauls meaning where he saith, We be afflicted, but we perish not, we be oppressed, but yet howsoever the world go, we be not overcome: for we bear the mortifying of Jesus Christ in our flesh.