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 it is said that the pattern of all the whole Sanctuary was showed to Moses,¹ yea even from heaven. The law then served not to hold men in some play, as though God intended to busy them about petty trifles? neither also did S. Paul regard whereto the ceremonies availed or served the fathers of old time: He doth but only show that when our Lord Jesus Christ was once come,² all those things were abolished. For (as he saith in the second to the Colossians) we have no more the figures and shadows, because that now a days we have the body and the substance. Seeing it is so: if a man should set forth the ceremonies of the Law, he should separate them from our Lord Jesus Christ, and what should they be then? They would be of no force. For (as I said afore) if a man separate them for our Lord Jesus Christ, surely they shall be but pelting trash. Therefore when men kept the ceremonies, so as they were applied to their lawful use: they were good exercises, and the old fathers misspent not their time, because they were confirmed by them in the hope of their salvation, and they were unto them a warrant of Gods fatherly love towards them, and they led them to our Lord Jesus Christ the fountain of all welfare. But if men busy themselves in keeping the ceremonies without knowing why or wherefore: surely it is but flat mockery. For the Heathen men did make sacrifice also, and some of them had no Idols, thinking that they offered too God the maker of heaven & earth: and ⟨p. 197⟩yet whereto did all their Sacrifices serve them, but to their condemnation? For they had overthrown Gods order, because they amend not at our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then Saint Paul doth not without cause say, that when the Ceremonies of the law tend not to the seeking of all our welfare in our Lord Jesus Christ, they are but beggarly Ceremonies, that is to say, corruptible things of this world, and consequently things of no force and unprofitable, because that Jesus Christ who is the quickener of all things, is not there. And this is yet so much the better to be marked, to the end we be not beguiled. It is said that in old time all men offered Sacrifice, and thought they worshipped God: and yet notwithstanding, that the seruis of all such as had not their belief settled in Jesus Christ, was rejected.³