A17698:4263
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.
And afterward he addeth, their vanities. As if he should say, If a man mark what their superstitions are, and whereon they be grounded: he shall find them to be nothing else but lies and deceits. Yet have they provoked me with them sayeth he: and now will I also have my revenge, for I will provoke them by a people which is not a people, and by a nation which is not a nation, that is to say, which are not esteemed to be of any reputation. I will then take to me such folk as are now of no estimation, and set them in the same degree of honour wherein these thankless folk were before, which have so abused the fatherly love that I bare towards them. This thing came not to pass out of hand, but was then accomplished when the Gospel was spread through out the whole world. True it is that in part God gave some tokens of these things aforehand, in exalting the Assyrians and Chaldees above those which boasted themselves to be the holy offspring and the kingly priesthood:1 but yet was not this definitive sentence performed to the full, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. God (I say) showed partly some sign hereof aforehand, at such time as the people of Israel were scattered, brought to desolation, carried away into strange countries, and there kept as banished wretches without order under the slavery of cruel tyranny. For even then did GOD begin aforehand to make them perceive, that his threatening of them to provoke them by a people which was no people, was not in vain. For first the Assyrians and afterward the Chaldees had the honour to reign over the children of Abraham,2 which vaunted themselves to be at liberty, but they were bondslaves of sin. And forasmuch as they had withdrawn themselves from the obedience of GOD, it was good reason that they should be under the bondage of Tyrants. GOD then gave a certain sign of favour to those that had been unbelievers, when he magnified the heathen so much, even as though he had been minded to disannul the promise which he had made to those which had erst boasted themselves to be his people, and had purposed to put them to utter shame. Yet notwithstanding the Chaldees and Assyrians ⟨p. 1137⟩did not so reign over the children of GOD, that they could prejudice their salvation.