A17698:4308
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 on the contrary part, that if God punish us not at the first for our offences, we must not therefore fall asleep in them, nor take occasion thereby to flatter our selves. And why? If we live so from day to day without looking any further: must it not needs be that we be stark blocks? True it is that the faithful are not vexed with overgreat carefulness.1 For why? They cast themselves as it were into Gods lap, as they be encouraged to do in the psalm. Then shall we not be vexed with unquietness, as they be which have no trust in god. For when we call upon god, he is near at hand, and we must not make long discourses in that behalf as the worldlings do, who stand scanning of that which is to come a hundred years after their death. Yet notwithstā ding we must not be so wedded to the things which we see before our eyes, that we should not always look further off. But like as the promises of the heavenly life ought to lift us up above the world: so ought Gods threatenings to quicken us up to walk in his fear, by rebuking us for our sins when we have done amiss, and by calling us daily to account: accordingly as it is said,2 that by faith Noah beheld the flood when other men made great cheer and feasting. ⟨p. 1149⟩So then, let us learn to have an eye to our end: that is to say, when we have offended God, let us not fall asleep upon it, neither let us foster our vices from morrow to morrow till we be grown hardhearted through unreformable stubbornness: but although God bear with us and use patience in winking at us for a time: yet let not us forbear to bethink us of his threatenings, and to waken our selves that we may repent and ask forgiveness and turn unto him §10with true amendment. Ye see then that the true wisdom is that men should not be tied to the present things, but to lift up their hearts and minds to the things that are invisible: accordingly as it is said that faith is a mirror of the things that are not seen,3 and the ground of the things which are absent or far from us. Although then that our happiness appear not at the first, and it seem that for all our serving of God yet we be miserable, by reason whereof the