A17698:3806
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.
To be short, we see that which is spoken by the Prophet Isaiah, daily accomplished: namely, that there is no peace for the wicked;1 but that their minds are tossed like the waves of the sea: when there is any storm, the waves be troubled and the water is full of mud: and even so is it with them that despise God. Because they make war against him, therefore must he also trouble them: Insomuch that even without ⟨p. 1009⟩enemy, yea and without any body to fray them,2 they of themselves be frighted, and beat and bounce themselves, as if they were at war within themselves, so as there is no calmness at all in them, but all is full of trouble and disorder. For whereas the faithful be enlightened in the middest of their darkness, and GOD doth still resort unto them to give them some little spark of light, in such wise as they may behold him▪ and albeit they attain not thereunto §10at the first, yet notwithstanding they still strain themselves and hold on their way thitherward: in stead of this, the misbelievers are troubled at the very heart root, and can none otherwise conceive, but that they must needs perish in despair: and when they be at the last cast, then fall they to spiting of God, and blaspheme him with open mouth. To be short, here we see that the grievousest curse that God can send upon men in this transitory §20life, is that they cannot rest upon him, to acknowledge him to be the keeper of their life: but contrariwise: are cast up at adventure, by reason whereof they be ever in doubt of their lives, and be so carried away with mistrust, that they wot not where to become. When men be in this case, it is the greatest curse that can light upon them. Not without cause therefore doth Moses declare here for a conclusion as it were in way of summing up the rest of all the curses §30which we have heard of heretofore, that there is nothing so dreadful, as when men are become blockish, that there is in them no understanding, as who would say▪ God maketh not any more reckoning of them as of his creatures, but they may well perceive that he doeth not guide nor govern them any more.