A17698:840
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.
Furthermore where as he sayeth that he punisheth the sins of the fathers upon the children: let us mark how that is done, and then will this §10doubt be yet better discussed. First of all we know that God is not any thing indebted unto us, and that if he do us any good, it is of his own free goodness, and not for that he is bound unto us. Now if he list to use rigour towards us, he may leave us all in condemnation as those that are there already. Let God but only withhold his mercy, and show himself as a judge to the whole world, and what will become of it? We be all forlorn,§20 there is no remedy for us, both great and small, fathers and children, I say all of us without exception are damned everyone, if God draw us not out of the cursed case wherein we be, yea and that he do it not of his own freebestowed goodness, without being bound thereunto. Now then seeing that God might destroy us and cast us all away: is he to be blamed, is there any fault to be found with him, if it please him to use his goodness and mercy towards some, and to §30call them to him, and to deliver them out of the bottomless pit wherein they be? No. For our eye must not be spiteful because he hath pity upon his creatures.1 And although he use not like courtesy towards all men: yet doth it become us to keep our mouths shut: yea and sometimes again we ought to open them wide to confess that all his doings are in uprightness and equity,2 though they surmount our capacity. For we cannot always perceive §40why God disposeth so of men: but our prattling must be put down, and we must learn to reverence God in his judgements when they be too high and too secret for us to attain to. How soever the case stand, let this stand for a general rule, that God might let us alone in the destruction wherein we be if he thought good, and that by that means all the world might perish: but forasmuch as it pleaseth him to show himself pitiful and gentle, not towards §50all, but towards one part of them, therefore putteth he a difference between the one and the other. And there upon he leaveth whom he listeth in their own cursedness wherein they were borne.