This was sent to me. Maybe someone out there with access to a copy might want to confirm or deny:
Behold our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory, abased himself for a time, as says S. Paul Now if there were no more but this, that he being the fountain of life, became a moral man, and that he having dominion over the angels of heaven, took upon him the shape of a servant, yea even to shed his blood for our redemption, and in the end to suffer the curse that was due unto us (Gal 3:13): were it convenient that notwithstanding all this, he should nowadays in recompense be torn to pieces, by stinking mouths of such as name themselves Christians? For when they swear by his blood, by his death, by his wounds and by whatsoever else: is it not a crucifying of God’s son again as much as in them lies, and as a rending of him in pieces? And are not such folk worthy to be cut of from God’s Church, yea, and even from the world, and to be no more numbered in the array of creatures? Should our Lord Jesus have such reward at our hands, for his abasing and humbling of himself after that manner? (Mich 6:30) God in upbraiding his people says thus: My people, what have I done to you? I have brought you out of Egypt, I have led you up with all gentleness and loving-kindness, I have planted you as it were in my own inheritance, to the intent you should have been a vine that should have brought me forth good fruit, and I have tilled thee and manured thee: and must thou now be bitter to me, and bring forth sower [sour?] fruit to choke me withal? The same belongs to us at this day. For when the son of God, who is ordained to be judge of the world (John 5:22), shall come at the last day: he may well say to us: how now Sirs? You have borne my name, you have been baptized in remembrance of me and record that I was your redeemer, I have drawn you out of the dungeons where into you were plunged, I delivered you from endless death by suffering most cruel death myself, and for the same cause I became man, and submitted myself even to the curse of GOD my father, that you might be blessed by my grace and by my means: and behold the reward that you have yielded me for all this, is that you have (after a sort) torn me in pieces and made a jestingstock of me, and the death that I suffered for you has been made a mockery among you, the blood which is the washing and cleansing of your souls has been as good as trampled under your feet, and to be short, you have taken occasion to ban and blaspheme me, as though I had been some wretched and cursed creature. When the sovereign judge shall charge us with these things, I pray you will it not be as thundering upon us, to ding us down to the bottom of hell? Yes: and yet are there very few that think upon it. (Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, Sermon 33, 5:11, p., 196.)
I can easily copy and scan the page and send it to you. Of course, I cant do the whole sermon. But it is in context. The size is folio too, and thats awkward.
David
correction regarding the size, I was thinking of his sermons on Job.
David
Mark, I’m pretty sure I know how to respond to this. “He didn’t mean it that way.”
Take that.
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Mark: I think this slice of a sermon from Calvin is really helpful given the way recent debates have gone. People seem to think that affirming election or limited atonement rules out preaching and exhortations like the one Calvin engages in here. Modern Reformed people are so anal about this that someone caught preaching something like this would surely be accused of Amyraldianism.
Oh, wait, sorry . . . Calvin must be a “modified Amyraldian” (see Beisner’s horrendous foreward to Waters, The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology, p. viii).
Or as Waters so often does in the body of his critique, Calvin “echos” Arminian theology or Calvin “tends toward” Arminianism or Calvin’s “emphasis” is clearly Arminian. Poor Calvin. He seems to have been the fountainhead for all of these errors and dangerous emphases.
It is enough for them [the papal clergy] that they may lord it, & they bear themselves on hand that they may hold poor souls under their tyranny, which were redeemed by of our Lord Jesus Christ… Again we see that such as should maintain God’s truth, do let all slip, and though they see never so much disorder: it grieves them never a whit, neither do they pass though all go to havoc. Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, Sermon 5, 4:1-2, p., 113.
Now if be demanded here, whether it be not lawful to be conversant with the wicked and froward to win them: I answer, yes, verily, until a man find them to be past remedy. For to give over a man at the first dash when he has done amiss, or when he is as it were in the highway to destruction: is a furthering of the destruction of the wretched soul that was redeemed by the bloodshed of our Lord Jesus Christ. Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, Sermon 119, 20:16-20, p., 731.
But if I make my neighbour to stumble, not only to the breaking of his arm or of his leg, yea or even of his neck” but also to the destroying of his soul: and what a thing is that? For we see that the stumbling blocks which are case in men’s ways, serve to the utter destruction and casting down of the silly souls that were purchased by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore when men procure troubles and stumbling blocks in the Church, do they not cause the things to go to destruction, which God has begin to build up? Therefore let us look to ourselves and seeing that God has such a care of our persons, let every [one] of us follow his example: and if we provide afore hand that no hurt may befall to men’s bodies, let us have much greater regard of their souls. Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, Sermon 126, 22:5-8, p., 777.
Hey JJM, I think Calvin is actually a little more left of center on this than you might think. There are plenty more like this.
David