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

In deed it is a very excellent honour that God giveth to his Church, in saying that she is the mother of all the faithful, and it agreeth with S. Pauls report in another place,¹ where he sayeth, that she is as it were the pillar that upholdeth. Gods truth in this world. Not that the truth hath any need to be maintained by us, which are inclined to all lightness and inconstancy, and which have nothing in us by nature but untruth: for what steadiness is there to be found in us, to say that Gods truth should stay upon men? But because that of his infinite goodness it is his will to have his word preached here beneath, and he hath committed the charge thereof to such as he calleth thereto,² in respect where of the Church is called the mother of us all. For as our lord Jesus Christ telleth us) we have but one father, which is God, yea and he is the father as well of our bodies as of our souls. Howbeit God is our spiritual father without having any make, & yet notwithstanding he begetteth us into the hope of eternal life, and that is by the means of his Church, whereinto he hath put the said incorruptible seed,³ according as he saith by the Prophet Isaiah: My word (saith he) shall be in thy mouth, and ⟨image 245⟩continue with thy children from time too time, and with all those that shall come of thy race. Thus ye see how God intendeth to govern his faithful ones, namely by his word, which he maketh to be as a pledge and inestimable treasure of salvation in his Church, to the end that we should be begotten and nourished with it. Therefore (as I have touched already) we had need too be so much the more skilfuller in discerning the Church. For seeing it is the mother of Gods children, the name of it ought not to be dishonoured and trampled under foot, nor yet defiled as it is seen to be nowadays. There is not a more common treachery, than to put forth the name of the Church to deface and darken Gods truth. For whereat do the Papists aim nowadays in vaunting with full mouth and full throat that they be the Church, but to stop Gods mouth, and to thrust his word under foot, that it might no more be spoken of, and that in the mean while the things that men have forged after their own liking, should be received without any gainsaying, and sticked to and obeyed?