A17698:612
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.
If I listed to gripe the whole world, I need not to stretch out my hand for the matter, For though I kept my hand shut, yet could I hold all the world close in it, as a little grain of dust. It is true that God hath no hands, for he hath no body: but his speaking so is by a similitude. As if he should say, do ye think me to be like any creature? No: for all the world is nothing in comparison of me. It is but as a grain of dust in a mans hand: & you your selves are here beneath as a sort of frogs and grasshoppers. Now then, if ye will needs make some puppet to represent me, is it not as good as a defacing of my glory, & a spiting of me to the uttermost of your power? We see that God is a spirit as the scripture declareth: & shall we then go about to make him a body?1 It is he that giveth life to all things: & shall we go take a dead thing to represent him thereby, and say: There is God? When we have shaped out a stone or a piece of wood, and made it a nose, ears, and all the rest of mans limbs, yet hath it no feeling at all: and shall we nevertheless say, Behold, there is God? What a dealing were that? For the same cause is it said in the psalm:2 Are idols remembrances of God? In deed men make them mouths, and they have feet, hands, noses, & ears, but yet have they no power to go, nor any other ability, they be but corruptible & dead things. And is there any remembrance of God in them? Serve they not rather to lead men into error & beastliness, so as they should make no more account of God? The very heathen men themselves could skill to say it: not that they did practise it in deed: but God wrested such words out of their mouths, to the intent they might all be convicted. And albeit that neither Moses nor the prophets spake unto them: yet was it Gods will to condemn them by themselves. Ye see then how it is a sufficient peremptory reason, that inasmuch as there is no likeness between God and any of all the shapes that can be made to represent him withal: he hath wrong done unto him, and it is an abasing of his majesty and glory, when men do make images of him after that sort.
If I listed to gripe ye whole world, I need not to stretch out my hād for the matter, For though I kept my hand shut, yet could I hold all the world close in it, as a little grayne of dust. It is true that God hath no handes, for he hath no bodie: but his speaking so is by a similitude. As if hee should say, doe yee thinke me to be like any creature? No: for all the world is nothing in comparison of me. It is but as a grayne of dust in a mans hand: & you your selues are here beneth as a sort of frogges and grashoppers. Now then, if yee will needes make some puppet to represent me, is it not as good as a defacing of my glory, & a spyting of me to ye vttermost of your power? Wee see that God is a spirit as the scripture declareth: & shall wee then goe about to make him a bodie?