Thus Saith The Lord~John Calvin on Birth Control

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"Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate" (KJV, Ps. 127:3-5).

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JOHN CALVIN on BIRTH CONTROL

These comments by John Calvin were edited out of Calvin's Commentaries by later editors, and are translated here into English from the original Latin.

John Calvin in his Commentary on Genesis 38:8-10 states:

"Besides, he [Onan] not only defrauded his brother of the right due him, but also preferred his se men to putrify the ground, rather than beget a son in his brother's name.

Verse 10: The Jews quite immodestly gabble concerning this thing. It will suffice for me briefly to have touched upon this as much as modesty in speaking permits. The voluntary spilling of se men outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that se men may fall to the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born -- the hoped for offspring.

This impiety is especially condemned, now by the Spirit through Moses' mouth, that Onan, as it were, by a violent abortion, no less cruelly than filthily cast upon the ground the offspring of his brother, torn from the maternal womb. Besides, in this way he tried, as far as he was able, to wipe out a part of the human race.

If any woman ejects a foetus from her womb by drugs, it is reckoned a crime incapable of expiation and deservedly Onan incurred upon himself the same kind of punishment, infecting the earth with his se men, in order that Tamar might not conceive a future human being as an inhabitant of the earth."

- Excerpted from The Bible and Birth Control by Charles Provan (pp. 67-68), these comments by John Calvin where edited out of Calvin's Commentaries by later editors, and are translated here into English from the original Latin. In addition to many arguments against the ungodly practice of birth control, this book also contains about 35 pages of historic testimony on this point by Martin Luther, A.W. Pink, the Synod of Dordt, the Westminster Annotations, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Cotton Mather, Trapp, Usher, Gill, Candlish and many more.

Another no cost MP3 on this topic:

       

Birth Control: The Biblical and Historic Protestant Position by Greg Price

http://www.sermonaudio.com/go/30066