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

To the end he may eat his fill and fare delicately or else play the drunkard. And othersome fall too robbe•• and murder that in fine they become arrant Thieves. Lo whereunto mens lusts bring them. For they purpose with themselves ⟨image 325⟩to make a harvest: that is to say, to have the thing that they lust for▪ though it be to their ruin and confusion. But howsoever the world go, if ye consider why men give themselves to one thing or other: ye shall find that they always hope for a harvest. So then, the things which they do, are the seeds of the labour which they hope to gather fruit of. Here S. Paul sayeth, that after as we sow, so shall we reap. And afterward he openeth himself in saying, that the one sort soweth too the spirit, and the other sort too the flesh. Now to sow to the spirit, is too withdraw a mans self from the world and from this transitory life, and to know that we be created not too tarry here beneath, but too pass forth on till we be come too our inheritance: and that our life is not to be here but for a little while, and to walk away (as hath bin said in the Psalm that hath bin song and shall be song again),¹ so as our being here, is not too abide here for ever, nor as though we had an everlasting dwelling place: but God giveth us as it were a short walk, and causeth us too make but a turn or twain, and straightways after sayeth unto us, Come away Sirs and return ye into dust, as Moses also speaketh in his song. Seeing it is so, if we bethink our selves well to renounce all our own lusts, then shall we sow too the spirit, that is too say, we shall see that it behoveth us too apply all our study too the heavenly life whereunto we be called. Ye see then how the one sort, of whom the number is very small and scant, do sow too the spirit, because they start not out into worldly cares too be tied too them, but consider that God calleth them higher, and therefore prepare and endeavour themselves to come thither. The other sort do sow to the flesh: that is to say, they be so wholly possessed with a beastly affection, that too their seeming there is nothing too be compared too this life. And truly if ye mark at what mark men shoot, ye shall find that the world holdeth them back well near all.

To the end he may eate his fill and fare delicately or else play the drunkard. And othersome fall too robbe and murther that in fine they become arrant Theeues. Lo wherevnto mennes lustes bring them. For they purpose with themselues