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

And well ought we to acknowledge this grace, and to esteem it as it deserveth, to the end we• ••ay give ourselves to the ⟨image 202⟩serving of God with the earnester affection and zeal.¹ But (as I have touched already) we must mark, that S. Paul speaks not here of any several person. For there is none of us all but he ought to confess himself to be much rawer and weaker in faith, then were the Prophets and Patriarchs: and that doth their lives show full well. Then if we be not come to such perfection as they were, how is it said that they were as little children, and that we be nowadays as it were at the state of men? I told you before, how S. Paul speaketh not of one man or other, but of the common government of the Church. For he speaketh not of the men themselves, but of the fashion that God used in guiding those that are his. This will be showed the better by things contrary.² S. Paul upbraideth the Corinthians, that he was driven too give them milk as to little babes, because they were not yet able to brook strong meat, & he maketh them ashamed of their dullness, & of their weltering in their untoward affections, for that they had not profited in the faith as the time required. Therefore it was a kind of childishness for them to be always new to begin. Yea & we see how the Prophet Isaiah condemneth the Jews yet more roughly,³ when he saith that they were little children, to whom men say A, A, B, B, so as they be still new to begin again, & look what they learn to day, they forget to morrow, so that they never go forward but with great hardness. This is a vice that is too common in the world.⁴ Moreover, S. Paul in the fourth to the Ephesians, doth generally exhort all the faithful & all such as are well strengthened & able to be teachers of other men, which be as it were ensign bearers to show the way of salvation: I say, he exhorteth them to grow still till they be come to the full age of manhood. It should seem at the first blush that there is some contrariety. For he saith here, that all those whom God hath received into his Church & made them of the household of faith, are already come to full age, yea even the veriest idiots that scarcely understand three words of faith, so they have the principles and as ye would say the gross fume of the power of our Lord Jesus Christ S.