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

surely we shall not have an entangled faith of some confused imagination,¹ but we shall behold the son of God as he is spoken of the Corinthians, where it is said that the Gospel is the true looking glass wherein we behold Jesus Christ as it were in the face. Not that we see him with our eyes, for that is reserved to the last day, at what time we shall be like unto God. As then his glory shall be fully discovered unto us: but as now we behold our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel so far forth as is meet for us, and as our weakness and rudeness will bear, that we may be transformed and fashioned like unto him. And whereas S. Paul addeth, that he would fain be with the Galatians, to change his speech because he was sorry for them: therein he bewrayeth again how gross and intolerable their fault is, sith he wotteth not at which end too begin with them, and that although he have bred them in Jesus Christ, and fed them up with the doctrine of the Gospel, yet he knoweth not how to rule them any more, whereas notwithstanding, a mother ought to know the complexion and nature of her child. Needs then must those men be utterly froward and leaudmynded, whose fathers and mothers are at their wits end and wot not how to behave themselves: and when their children are become either serpents full of poison, or Lyons full of pride and stubbornness, so as they be past teaching or handling: it must needs be that they are become fiends. And yet doth S Paul upbraid ⟨image 236⟩the Galatians with it. Howbeit, in stead of blaming them, let us see if the like vice be not to be found in us: namely that when God openeth his mouth to teach us, he find us so fickle-headed, that he must be fain to alter his speech at every turn. It is true that he can well enough wield our hearts when it shall please him. But we treat not here of his secrete power whereby he worketh in his chosen. We treat here but only of our own nature, how beastly it is if it be considered in it self, and of the preaching of the Gospel. Are not they that would preach the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully, stricken continually in heaviness to see men so beastly as they show them selves to be? For our tasting of the goodness of our God ought to tame us. Surely we ought to give good ear to his doctrine:

surely wee shall not haue an intangled fayth of some confused imagination,¹