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

specially seeing he setteth down Jesus Christ for our righteousness? But if any man list to have a larger & certainer discourse hereof, let him ad that which S. Paul setteth down in the third to the Romans,¹ where he setteth forth the thing largely which is touched here briefly: & then shall he see yet better how the scripture hath shut up all under sin. For there S. Paul allegeth the texts that serve to bewray mans nature till Gods have drawn him back, changed him, and fashioned him new again.² Like as when he saith that God looked down here below, to see if he could find any soundness, and all were corrupted, yea and festered in their naughtiness, and there was not so much as one that sought after God. Now it is certain that there, there is no speaking of two or three, but generally of all men in whom God hath not wrought to govern them by his holy spirit. Therefore it is all one as if David did show us in a painted table, what manner of ones we be by birth and heritage. Afterward he addeth that which is written in the fiftieth Psalm, and in all the residue,³ and finally allegeth Isaiah also, to show that God was fain to serve his turn with his own arm, when he purposed to redeem men. What is it (saith he) that men have done in that behalf? For they do but run forward, and cast themselves headlong into all cursedness and transgression. They do but wander: they love shifting, subtlety, falsehood, and lying: to be short, when God had looked that men should have helped to bring themselves too salvation, they were rather a hundred thousand times more in danger of perishing. S. Paul therefore allegeth all those things. Now let us flatter our selves as much as we list: yet can not the things be called back which God hath pronounced upon us. And as oft as we read the said texts,⁴ and hear Saint Pauls expounding of them in the forealledged chapter: it is for us too cast down our heads, and to receive the shame which we deserve: namely to be bereft of all glory, and too seek at Gods hand the things that we want. And thus ye see how the scripture hath shut up all under sin. In the eleventh chapter to the Romans he saith that God hath shut up all under sin,⁵