Sermons of M. John Calvin upon the Epistle of Saint Paul to the GalatiansSermons of M. Iohn Caluine vpon the Epistle of Saincte Paule to the Galathians

for he hath not separated one piece from another, but will that he which walketh in chastity, shall also abstain from theft, robbery, craft, extortion, and all other sins. Seeing ⟨p. 159⟩it is so, let us mark that the threat holdeth all shut up under it, and that is the thing that Saint Paul had an eye unto. As touching the Ceremonies, they were a confirmation that all of us are accursed, according as I have told you, how Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians,¹ likeneth them to obligations and authentical evidence, that serve too hold a man most straitly bound. If a man have borrowed a piece of money, he is a debtor, and giveth a bill of his hand for it. But if he bind his goods or body for it by recognisance [or Statute,] so as his deed is enrolled of common Record: then is he bound more straitly than he was before. Even so is it with the Ceremonies. The law of it self was enough too condemn men because they are all offenders: howbeit forasmuch as God saw the pride that is rooted in our nature, he added the Ceremonies for an overplus, to the end they should be as a solemn bond against us. But now Saint Paul saith, that all this gear served but till the promised seed were come: that is too wit, that the law served not too hold those in slavery and bondage which put their trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, but to bring them to him, that there they might find the thing which they wanted in the law. So then we see that Gods using of rigour in condemning of us, procureth our welfare, and his thundering upon us after that fashion is a witness of his singular goodness towards us. And why so? I have told you already, and experience showeth it too much, that we cease not to abuse his gentleness, and too draw it clean contrary to his meaning. Therefore he is fain to rouse us up, and to show himself to be our judge, and to make us here this dreadful sentence, able to cast us into despair, that there is nothing for us to look for but everlasting death: and finally too confirm and ratify the same sentence still. Yea but all this is but too make us stoop, that being at our wits end, we should flee to our Lord Jesus Christ with a true and unfeigned zeal, and learn to rest upon him when we be troubled with unquietness and torment of conscience.

for he hath not separated one peece from another, but will that he which walketh in chastitie, shall also abstain from theft, robberie, craft, extortion, and all other sinnes. Seeing