A17728:279
Two and twenty lectures upon the five first chapters of Jeremiah With prayers annexed,…Tvvo and tvventie lectures vpon the fiue first chapters of Ieremiah With prayers annexed,…
Two and twenty lectures upon the five first chapters of Jeremiah With prayers annexed, at the end of every lecture: by Master John Calvin. Which being faithfully collected form him as he uttered them in Latin, in the schools of Geneva, were afterwards translated into French: and now newly turned out of French, into English, with a table at the end, containing the sum and scope of every lecture.Tvvo and tvventie lectures vpon the fiue first chapters of Ieremiah With prayers annexed, at the end of euery lecture: by Master Iohn Caluin. Which being faithfully collected form him as hee vttered them in Latine, in the schooles of Geneua, were afterwards translated into French: and now newly turned out of French, into English, with a table at the end, containing the summe and scope of euery lecture.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Nathanael Newbery, 1620
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Vers. 33. Wherefore deckest or trimmest thou, that is, so finely, thy ways, to seek for lovers? And therefore also thou hast taught wickedness in thy ways.
Vers. 33. Wherefore deckest or trimmest thou, that is, so finely, thy waies, to seeke for louers? And therefore also thou hast taught wickednesse in thy wayes.
This verse is diversly expounded. But the Prophet meant only to tell the Jews that they were like wanton women, who not content to contemn their husbands at home, gad hither and thither; and also use to trick and trim up themselves, the better to allure many to commit wickedness with them. He saith then that the Jews resembled these: and this he calls, trimming of their ways: for this verb hath a divers signification in the Hebrew. It is taken to make ready, to deck, to get grace or favour: but in this place it signifies as much as if the Prophet had said, Wherefore paintest thou thy self? why disguisest thou ⟨p. 125⟩thy self, as harlots use to do? who to entice foolish springals to whoredom, devise many fashions and artificial trimmings: why then labourest thou so earnestly to obtain the hire of an harlot? In the end of the chapter we shall see to what purpose he saith this: for the Prophet will there reproach the Egyptians and Assyrians. But it is a doctrine which is every where handled in the prophets; for ever and anon they compare the Jews to courtesans, in regard they (who above all others) ought wholly to have cleaved to their God: (even as an honest wife will not lightly suffer her eyes to wander here and there, neither will she be straggling abroad, but set her affections wholly upon her husband) yet they thought it was not only lawful, but necessary also to procure their safety; first from the Assyrians, and then to trot down into Egypt. It is this perverseness of theirs then, which the Prophet here condemns in them: and therefore he speaks unto them under a similitude, or borrowed speech: as of the person of an adulterous woman, who setting light by her husband, runs after the first comers, seeks out to her self adulterers, and unadvised youths, and prostitutes her self on every side freely to all. Now we understand the Prophets meaning.