Greetings and Argument
The Forty-Fourth Sermon, which is the second upon the sixth Chapter - Ephesians 6:5-9 The Forty-Fifth Sermon, which is the third upon the sixth Chapter Ephesians 6:10-12
The Forty-Sixth Sermon, which is the fourth upon the sixth Chapter Ephesians 6:11-17
The Forty-Seventh Sermon, which is the fifth upon the sixth chapter - Ephesians 6:18-19 The Forty-Eighth Sermon, which is the sixth and last upon the sixth
Chapter - Ephesians 6:19-24
Greeting and Argument To All Christians Baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Dwelling or Abiding in France
Greeting It is a wondrous matter, dearly beloved brethren, how all of us glory in our baptism, yet do not all with one accord consider the mark that it is important by its very nature to follow the intent of Him who is the author of it. No doubt, if we did so, we should all join together in one holy consent to worship the only one God in spirit and truth, and to acknowledge Jesus Christ as our only Saviour, advocate, Master, yea, and Lord, concerning the governance of our souls and
consciences. We would take His only word for our wisdom, guide, and rule of our whole life, especially of His service, without mingling the intentions of man's brain with it, however great antiquity or countenance they seem to have.
For the outward governance and visible order of the Church, we would hold to that which our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we were baptized, showed to His apostles, and by them enjoined the whole world to follow even unto the last day. Certainly, then would the strange confusion and divisions cease, which are seen in Christendom. All those are the cause who will not hearken unto God and yield full authority to His word, a fault that shall be laid to their charge at the judgment of God unless they turn a new leaf. May the Lord and Father grant them grace to do so, as supplication is made to Him for them in all holy assemblies, where He is called upon according to His will, in the only name of Jesus Christ.
That is what we desire. For here the case concerns not the bringing in of some new device after the fancy of men, nor do we strive to make the victory fall on men's side, whoever they may be, as some surmise, but that God and His word may have the upper hand against all abuses, superstitions, and lies of Satan, and that we may all together give glory to our God, confessing that both we and our fathers have shamefully forgotten Him, inasmuch as we have not followed His holy law, but have bowed aside both to the right hand and to the left.
Truly, whenever we read God's word in a tongue that we understand or hear it preached and declared purely, He allures us to Him, to make the same acknowledgment. And you have done so much in these late years by striving with His mercy against the malice of the world, that many have returned to the right way. Many of all degrees do follow anew, but yet it is not enough unless the residue who have
hitherto been deaf or asleep awaken in good earnest and have ears to hear, as says Jesus Christ. Therefore, we entreat and exhort them in God's name, that they may discharge themselves of the promise unto which their baptism secretly binds them, as has been said. To further them therein, besides the lively voices of the true ministers and other books containing faithful expositions of the Scripture, we offer them here the sermons of Master John Calvin upon the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians. We hope they shall have matter to fare better by for the plainer understanding of the things which they shall either hear preached or read alone by themselves.
To make a long rehearsal of things that might be alleged in commendation of the doctrine contained herein, or of the manner of teaching used by the author, which is both simple and familiar and yet nevertheless full of authority and force, is not now needful. For we are sure that such as seek God's honour and their own salvation shall, in reading them, perceive that the author had no other meaning with them. Even the malicious sort themselves shall be driven to confess this in spite of their hearts.
Wherefore, to conclude, we, your dear brethren, who meet with this book, pray you anew to give ear to our God and to His Son, our
Master, who by His servant and excellent minister of His Church, declares the things which His holy apostle had long ago preached with a lively voice and afterward compiled briefly in writing for us and all that shall come after us to the world's end. And of whatever degree you may be or have been, shrink not back, for it is God that speaks, who has loved us so deeply that He has not spared His own
Son but has given Him to death to redeem us from death and from the vain traditions of our fathers.
Come on, therefore, and let us all serve our God with one accord, walking in the ways which He teaches us and forsaking our own, that is to say, all that disagree with the rule of His word, and making all
His gifts serve to His glory. In so doing, we shall be Christians both in name and deed, we shall discharge ourselves of our promise made in baptism, we shall see good agreement in Christianity, and we shall serve for a good example to the Jews and Turks, who are yet enemies to Christendom.
So be it. So be it.
Your brethren in our Lord, the causes of these sermons to be brought to light.
The Argument of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians It is well enough known that Ephesus was a city of Lesser Asia, renowned for many causes. St. Luke reported in the Acts how our
Lord got Himself a people there by the service of St. Paul, how the Church began there, and what furtherance it had. As for me, I will touch nothing here but only that which belongs properly to the argument of the epistle. St. Paul had taught the Ephesians the pure doctrine of the gospel, and when he was a prisoner at Rome, perceiving that they needed to be confirmed, he wrote this epistle to them.
In the first three chapters, he stands chiefly upon the praising and magnifying of God's grace. For in the beginning of the first chapter, after his greetings, he speaks of God's free election to the end, that they should know that they were now called to the kingdom of heaven because they had been predestinated unto life before they
were born. Herein he shows forth God's wonderful mercy and the saving of our souls as coming from God's free adoption as the true and natural wellspring thereof. As men's wit is too weak to conceive so high a secret, he prays to God to enlighten the Ephesians with the full knowledge of Christ.
In the second chapter, to better set forth the greatness of God's grace, he puts them in remembrance of how wretched they were until they were called to Jesus Christ, by comparing their present state and their former state together. For we can never sufficiently perceive how greatly we are beholden to our Lord Jesus, nor consider how great His benefits are towards us, unless we lay before us, on the contrary part, how wretched our state is without Him. He also amplifies the matter anew, saying that they had been Gentiles and strangers to the promises of eternal life which God had made only to the Jews.
In the third chapter, he shows that his apostleship had been appointed peculiarly for the Gentiles, to the intent that those who had been strangers a long time might now be grafted into the people of God. Because it was an unaccustomed thing and troubled many men's minds with its newness, he calls it a secret, hidden from all times, saying nevertheless that the sharing of the same secret was committed unto him. Towards the end, he prays again to God to give the Ephesians the perfect and lively knowledge of Jesus Christ, so they may not covet to know any other thing. By these words, he not only aims to make the Ephesians acknowledge the great number of benefits and gracious gifts that God had bestowed upon them, and to show themselves thankful for the same by yielding themselves wholly unto Him. He also intended to put them out of all doubt of their own calling. For by all likelihoods, St. Paul was afraid lest the false
apostles should step in to trouble their faith by making them believe that they had been only half-instructed.
For whereas they had been Gentiles and had newly received the true Christian doctrine, they had not heard the ceremonies nor circumcision spoken of. But those who intended to bring the law anew among the Christians said that all such as were not consecrated to God by circumcision were unholy, for it was their common song that none ought to be reckoned among the people of God who were not circumcised and that all the ceremonies commanded by Moses ought to be kept. For that cause, they spoke evil of St. Paul for making Jesus Christ common to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews and affirmed that his apostleship was an unhealthy thing of the heavenly doctrine because he did after that sort offer and set forth the covenant of grace to unclean people without any difference at all.
Therefore, to the end that the Ephesians, being assailed with such slanders, should not change their minds, he intended to give them a remedy.
Whereas on the one side he tells them so advisedly that their being called to the gospel was because they had been chosen before the making of the world, he wanted them on the other side not to think that the gospel came to them by haphazard at the appointment of men, or that it lighted in their laps by chance. For he tells them that whereas Christ was preached to them, that preaching was nothing else than the uttering or publishing of God's everlasting determination. When he sets up the unhappy plight of their former life before their eyes, he thereby puts them in mind that their getting out of so deep a gulf was through the singular and wonderful mercy of God. Whereas he speaks of the apostleship which was committed to him towards the Gentiles, he offers to strengthen them in the faith