A17698:760
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.
Now it is set down consequently, that before they passed Jordan, Moses did sever out three Cities in the land that had ben conquered from the Amorites, (as we have seen heretofore) & from their neighbours, as the land of Bashan: and those three Cities, were appointed for such to fly unto as had slain any body §20through unadvisedness. This Law is declared more fully in other places:1 and thence must we fetch the exposition of this present text. God had said and ordained,2 that if a man bearing no hatred to another man, did slay him unadvisedly, that is to say by chance medley (as they term it) without pretensed purpose: he should not be punished. For why? the manslaughters that are punishable must either be wilful, or else proceed of revenge, or of spite, or of lying in wait which is §30worst, & greatest fault of all. But if a man seeing no body did shoot an arrow & hit a man, & the man dyed: this manslaughter was not punishable as a felony. Nevertheless God would not have it simply pardoned: and that was for two causes. The one was to the end that men should in any wise mislike of any murder and the shedding of mans blood: and the other was, that the kinsfolk of the party that was slain should not be provoked to revenge: And therefore God had §40ordained that he which had given the stroke should get himself out of the way, and keep himself as a prisoner till the death of the high Priest: And then had he as it were a Jubilee, so that when there was once a new high Priest, then the party that had so fled to the place appointed, whether it were at the end of ten, twenty, or thirty years, might return to his own house if he listed: but until that time, it behoved him to be as a banished man. That is §50the thing which is spoken of here as now. Moses rehearseth not the Law as it was given of God & as it is set down in the book of numbers: but yet in reporting the story,3 therewithal he giveth an inkling of the foresaid law and ordinance as we have said. Now for the better understanding hereof, we must first mark the thing that I touched afore: that is to wit, that God abhorreth murder, insomuch that although he punish not unadvised manslaughters