A17698:824
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.
let us consider whence our Lord delivered us, when he vouchsafed to admit us into his household and Church.1 For we be Adams children, by nature cursed, heirs of death, altogether sinful, and consequently must needs be loathsome to our God. Let men like of themselves and glory of themselves as much as they list: yet not withstanding this is their pedigree, this is all their nobility, namely that they be Satan's bondslaves, that they have a sink of sin and corruption in them,2 and that they have nothing but Gods wrath and curse hanging over their heads: and to be short, that being banished from the kingdom of heaven, they be delivered up to all mischief and woe. But our Lord hath delivered us from these things by the hand of his Son, he hath not sent us a Moses as he did to the people of old time:3 nay he hath not spared his only Son, but hath delivered him to death for us. Seeing then that we be ransomed with so dear and inestimable a price,4 as is the holy blood of the Son of God: ought we not to give our selves wholly unto him? Furthermore if Egypt were termed a house of bondage: I pray you what is it when the devil holdeth us in his bonds and under his tyranny, so as we have no means to scape death, but are shut out from all hope of salvation, and God is utterly against us? Seeing we be delivered from all these things, is it not a much more excellent deliverance, than that which Moses here speaketh of? Yes: and therefore whereas it was said to the people of old time, thy GOD hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt: now it is said that we be not our own, as sayeth Saint Paul in the fourteenth to the Romans,5 and also in the seventh of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. We be not our own: the faithful must not take leave to do what they list, nor to live every man after his own liking. And why? Because our Lord Jesus Christ dyed, and is risen again to reign both over quick and dead. Then is it good reason that Jesus Christ should be Lord of life and death, seeing he spared not himself when our redemption & salvation were to be wrought.