A17698:4235
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 (as I said afore) Moses had an eye to Gods everlastingness. For if ye seek there for the things that men have devised; ye shall find them to be nothing.§50 And why so?1 For (as it is said in the Psalm) a thousand years are but as one day in Gods sight. In deed we make great account of a thousand years: but that is because we pass away in post through the world. For after a two or three turns, we be fain to return from whence we came. By reason of the shortness and brittleness of our life, we make a great matter of it if a thing have continued forty or threescore years, and much §60more if it continue a hundred years. And if it hold out to a thousand: then we think we should never make any more sticking at it, nor any more gainsay it: but in deed all this is but mockery, as I have declared before. And truly GOD created the world to the end that his majesty should be seen both above and beneath, as in a looking glass, and he hath taught men that it is he, to whom they ought to come. Adam knew that. Nevertheless, most men have fallen away to superstition, insomuch that we see that the service of GOD was embased even in the life of Adam, and that it was fain to be reformed again as it were by miracle. When the flood came,2 God cleansed the earth new again. And whereas he reserved but one only household wherein there were but eight persons: it was a mean to bring home the world again unto him: that whereas they had all been backsliders afore, and had turned away from him, they ought as then to have come to reason, and to have reformed themselves by the things which they had seen with their eyes. But behold, there followed a new falling away even in the life of Noy. His own children forsook the service of GOD, and forged idols to them selves. Now this ought of reason to be taken for new. But the mischief continueth still, and we see that idolatry reigned even in the time of Abraham. Four hundred years mo had passed at such time as the law was given, yea, there were passed about a five hundred years since the time that Abraham had been an idolater at home with his father.3 Superstition therefore had been ancient, and was become as it were rotten. Men had weltered in it so long time, that they might well say, We in these days are not the first beginners thereof No: