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

So then whereas Saint Paul calleth the Galatians little babes, although he do therein show an earnest love towards them: yet doth he sting them also, according also as we see how the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews saith:¹ How now? You ought to be great Clerks considering the long time that you have gone to school: for this is not the first day that the Gospel hath bin preached unto you, and yet you be still at your apcie: and what a shame is that? For God hath done the office of a good schoolmaster towards you and taught you sufficiently: and you on your part have played the truants: and so what will now become of you? For S. Paul had long time bin delivered of the Galatians in Jesus Christ, and they ought to have bin grown strong in the faith of the Gospel. But behold, they be still novices & raw scholars, yea & so brutish as they wot not whereunto to ••icke, nor what to follow. That is the ⟨p. 211⟩first point. And now consequently he addeth: that he traveleth of them in birth new again. He had bin brought abed of them before: howbeit, that was as ye would say before their time. Not that he had not given them all that was requisite for their instruction: but for that they were not able to receive it, because they were still too much given to their earthly lusts and likings.² Now we know that the sensual man comprehendeth not the secrets of God. Therefore we must be discharged of our own nature, that we may be renewed in God: and the thing which we call Regeneration, that is to say new birth or second birth, doth us to wit that the old man which is in us, must be mortified and as it were changed. Forasmuch then as the Galatians had not given place to the doctrine of the Gospel: therefore Saint Paul saith that he must be fain to be with child with them again, yea even till Jesus Christ be fashioned in you saith he. This saying is added to sweeten that which was somewhat sour of itself. For what a shame was it that they which had received the earnest penny of their salvation in baptism, and in the Lords supper, (as there were many of them both men and women that had bin taught at the age of twenty, thirty, fifty, or threescore years) after protestation made before God that they were fully renewed in Jesus Christ, should need to be as it were new molten, cast, and fashioned again?