yonker thus bespeaking himself Rejoyce my soul in thy youth c. and then nips him on the crown again with that stinging But in the end of the verse Or else which I rather think by an ironical Concession hee bids him rejoyce c. yeelds him what hee would have by way of mockage and bitter-scoff like as Elias jeered the Baalites bidding them cry aloud unto their drowsie or busie God or as Micaiah bade Ahab by an holy scoff go up against Ramoth Gilead and prosper Mark 14.41 Or as our Saviour bade his drowsie Disciples Sleep on now and take your rest viz. if you can at least or have any minde to it with so many Bills and Halberds about your ears And let thine heart chear thee in the daies of thy youth In diebus electionum tuarum so Arias Montanus reads it in the daies of thy chusings that is Luke 12. when thou followest the choice and the chase of thine own desires and dost what thou wilt without controll Walk in the way of thine heart Which bids thee Eat drink and bee merry and had as lief bee knockt on the head as do otherwise Hence fasting is called an afflicting of the soul and the best finde it no less grievous to go about holy duties than it is to children to bee called from their sports and set to their books And in the sight of thine eyes Those windows of wickedness and loop-holes of lust But know Here is that which marrs all the mirth here is a cooler for the yonkers courage sowre sauce to his sweet meats for fear hee should surfeit Verbahaet Solomonis valde emphatica sunt saith Lavater there is a great deal of emphasis in these words of Solomon Let mee tell thee this as a Preacher saith hee And oh that I could get words to gore the very soul with smarting pain that this Doctrine might bee written in thy flesh That for all these things These tricae as the world accounts them these trifles and tricks of youth which Job and David bitterly bewailed as sore businesses God will bring thee to judgement Either in this life as hee did Absolom and Adoniah Hophni and Phinehas Nadab and Abihu or infallibly at thy deaths-day which indeed is thy dooms-day then God will bring thee perforce bee thou never so loth to come to it hee will hale thee to his tribunal bee it never so much against thy heart and against the hair with thee And as for the judgement what it shall bee God himself shews it Isa 28.17 Judgement will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters shall over-flow the hiding-place Where what is the hail saith One but the multitude of accusations which shall sweep away the vain hope that men have that the infinite mercy of God will save them howsoever they live And what is the hiding-place but the multitude of excuses which men are ready to make for themselves and which the waters of Gods justice shall quite destroy and overthrow Young men of all men are apt to make a Covenant with death and to put far away from them the thought of judgement But it boots them not so to do for Senibus mors in januis adolescentibus in insidiis saith Bernard Death doth not alwaies knock at door but comes often like a lightning or thunderbolt it blasteth the green corn and consumeth the new and strong building Now at death it will fare nothing better with the wilde and wicked youngster than with that theef that having stollen a Gelding rideth away bravely mounted till such time as being overtaken by hue and cry he is soon afterwards sentenced and put to death James 4.8 Vers 10. Therefore remove sorrow from thine heart One would have thought hee should have said rather considering the premises Remove joy from thy heart Let thy laughter be turned into mourning and thy joy into heaviness turn all the streams into that chanel that may drive that Mill that may grind the heart But by sorrow here or indignation as Tremellius renders it the Preacher means sin the cause of sorrow and so hee interprets himself in the next words Put away evil from thy flesh i. e. Mortifie thy lusts For childe-hood and youth are vanity The Septuagint and Vulgar render it Youth and pleasure are vain things They both will soon bee at an end CHAP. XII Vers 1. Remember now thy Creatour HEB. Creatours scil Father Son and Holy Ghost called by Elihu Eloa Gnosai God my Makers Job 35.10 and by David the Makers of Israel Psal 149.1 so Isa 54.5 Thy Makers is thine Husbands Let us make man Gen. 1.26 and verse 1. Dei creavit Those three in One and One in Three made all things but man hee made fearfully and wonderfully Psal 139.14 The Father did it Ephes 3.9 The Son Heb. 1.8 10. Col. 1.16 The Holy Ghost Psal 33.6 and 104.30 Job 36.13 and 33.4 To the making of Man a Council was called Gen. 1.29 Sun Moon and Stars are but the work of his fingers Psal 8.3 but Man is the work of his hands Psal 139.14 Thine hands have made mee or took special pains about mee and fashioned mee saith Job chap. 10.8 thou hast formed mee by the book saith David Psal 139.16 Hence the whole Church so celebrates this great work with Crowns cast down at the Creators feet Rev. 4.10 11. And hence young men also who are mostly most mindless of any thing serious for childe-hood and youth are vanity are here charged to remember their Creatour that is as dying David taught his young Son Solomon to know love and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind 1 Chron. 28.9 for words of knowledge in Scripture imply affection and practice Tam Dei meminisse opus est quam respirare To remember God is every whit as needful as to draw breath sith it is hee that gave us being at first and that still gives us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life and breath Act. 17.25 Let every thing therefore that hath breath praise the Lord even so long as it hath breath yea let it spend and exhale it self in continual sallies as it were and egressions of affection unto God till it hath gotten not onely an union but an unity with him Of all things God cannot endure to bee forgotten In the daies of thy youth Augustus began his speech to his mutinous souldiers with Audite senem juvenes quem juvenem senes and ierunt You that are young hear mee that am old whom old men were content to hear when I was but young And Augustine beginneth one of his Sermons thus Ad vos mihi sermo O juvenes flos aetatis periculum mentis To you is my speech O young men the flower of age the danger of the mind To keep them from danger and direct them to their duty it is that the Preacher here exhorts them to remember
cause That is Without calling being not thereunto required for this would speak thee spightful rash and revengeful as in the next verse And deceive not with thy lips When called to be a Witnesse speak thy mind simply and plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without preface or passion without varnish of fine words whereby to mislead the Judge or deceive the Jurors to bolster out a bad cause or out-face a good Vers 29. Say not I will doe so to him as he hath done to me Nothing is more natural than revenge of wrongs and the world approves it as right temper true touch As to put up wrongs is held towardise and unmanliness But we have not so learned Christ Nay those that never heard of Christ have spoken much against this vindictive disposition See the Note on chap. 20.22 and on Mat. 5.39 Rom. 12.17 I will render to the man according to his works But is not that Gods Office And will you needs leap into his Chair wring the Sword out of his hand or at least will you be a Pope in your own cause depose the Magistrate or appeal from him to yourself What Luciferian pride is this Nemo te impunè lacessit Is not God the God of recompences Vers 30. I went by the field of the slothful Not purposely to spy faults for Nemo curiosus quin malevolus but my business lay that way and I was willing to make the best of every thing that came before me By the vineyard of the man voyd of understanding Hebr. That had no heart that is that made no use of it that was not Egregie cordatus homo as one describes a wise man Vers 31. And loe it was all grown over with thorns So is the Spiritual sluggards soul with lusts and sins under the which lurketh that old Serpent Vers 32. Then I saw and considered it well I made my best use of it for mine own instruction A Bee can suck honey out of a flower which a Fly cannot doe So a spiritual mind can extract good out of every object and occurrence even out of other mens faults and follies he can gather grapes of thorns and figgs of thistles as here Well therefore may grace be called the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 for as God draws light out of darkness good out of evil c. so doth grace by an heavenly kind of Alchymy as I may so say And received instruction Exemplo alterius qui sapit ille sapit The worse others are the better should we be getting as farre off from the wicked as wee can in our daily practice and saving our selves from this untoward generation Vers 33. Yet a little sleep Mercer makes this to be the lesson that the Wiseman both learnt himself and also layes before others viz. to be content with a little sleep to be up and at it betimes c. that the begger catch us not But I rather incline to those that think that he here brings in the sluggard pleading for his sloth and by an elegant Mimesis imitates and personates him saying as he used to doe yet a little more sleep a little more slumber c. A little and yet sleeps in the plural A little he would have but a little will not serve his turn See the Note on chap. 6.9 c. Vers 34. So shall thy poverty come Swiftly and irresistably Seneca calls Sloth the Nurse of beggery the Mother of misery CHAP. XXV Vers 1. These also are Proverbs of Solomon which the men SAlomon hath his thousand out of this his Vine-yard of three thousand Proverbs 1 King 4.32 and these men of Hezekiah that kept and yet communicated the fruit thereof Prima sequmtem bonestum est in secundi◠tertiisque confistere Gic. de Orat. their two hundred Cant. 8.12 It is good for men to be doing what they are able for the glory of God and good of others If it be but to Copy out another mans Work and prepare it for the Press Them that any way honour God he will honour that is a bargain of his own making and we may trust to it Vers 2. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing That what we conceive not we may admire mirari non rimari and cry out with Paul O the depth Rom. 11.33 as the Romans dedicated to their Goddesse Victoria a certain Lake the depth whereof they could not dive into God is much to be magnified for what hee hath revealed unto his people in the holy Scriptures for their eternal good But those unsearchable secrets of his such as are the union of the three Persons into one Nature and of two Natures into one Person his wonderful Decrees and the no lesse wonderful execution thereof c. these make exceeding much to the glory of his infinite Wisdom and surpassing greatnesse Aristot in speaking whereof our safest eloquence is our silence sith tantum recedit quantum capitur saith Nazianzen much like that Pool spoken of by Polycritus which in compasse at the first scarce seemed to exceed the breadth of a shield but if any went in to wash it extended it self more and more But the honour of Kings is to search out a matter As Salomon did that of the two Harlots 1 King 3. Job 29.16 There are that divide this Book of Proverbs into three parts In the nine first Chapters things of a lower nature and fit for instruction of youth are set down and described Next From thence to this five and twentieth Chapter the wise man discourseth of all sorts of virtues and vices sutable to all sorts of People Lastly From this Chapter to the end he treateth for the most part of higher matters as of King-craft and State-business Vers 3. The Heaven for height c. It is a wonder that we can look up to so admirable an height and that the very eye is not tired in the way If this ascending line could be drawn right forwards some that have calculated curiously have found it 500 years journey to the starry sky Other Mathematicians say that if a stone should fall from the 8th Sphere and should pass every hour 100 miles it would be 65. years or more before it would come to ground I suppose there is as little credit to be given to these Aug de Civit. Dei l. 16. as to Aratus the Astrologer who boasted that he had found out and set down the whole number of the stars in heaven or as to Archimedes the Mathematician that said Sphinx Philosoph that he could by his Art cast up the just number of all the sands both in the habitable and inhabitable parts of the world And the earth for depth From the surface to the center how far it is cannot be known exactly as neither whether hell be there but that it is somewhere below may be gathered from Rev. 14.11 and other places Ubi sit sentient qui curiosius quaerunt And the heart of Kings is
haply by exceeding his commission as Zach. 1.15 he might prove a deceitful razor as Psal 52.2 that instead of shaving the hair lanceth the flesh That is hired Whether by Ahaz himself but for a better purpose 2 King 16.7 8. not to hurt but to help though it fell out otherwise or by God who paid the Assyrian for his hire the Lands of Israel and of Syria see the like Ezek. 29.18 19. Barbers use not their razors but for reward Beyond the river Euphrates that ran between Syria and Assyria but could not keep off the Assyrian Destroyer The head and the hair of the feet Elsewhere called head and tail that is high and low Prince and Pesant And it shall also consume the beard 1. the Priests Psal 133.2 as some sense it or as others all the comeliness and virility of the Jewish nation Ver. 21. A man shall nourish two sheep He that was wont to say Virg. eclog. Mille meae Siculis errant in montibus agnae shall now be reduced to so great penury as to be glad of two sheep and have scarce a yong Heifer left for his necessary subsistence who was wont to have many ploughs going They shall not now as heretofore joyn house to house and land to land they shall not keep race-horses or hunting dogs c. Ver. 22. For the abundance of milk yielded him by his two Cows through the paucity of people and plenty of grass He shall eat butter eat his fill sith there are none to buy it of him none to pull it out of his mouth For butter and honey shall every one eat not cates and dainties as chap. 5.12 but mean fare such as he can get as wild-honey such as the Baptist fed on Ver. 23. Where there were a thousand vines Which once were to the sensual Jews an occasion of drunkenness and forgetfulness of God chap. 5.11 12. A Lapide on chap. 5.2 telleth us that at Herbipolis in Germany there are abundance of vineyards so that they have more wine there then water and such huge wine-vessels that the vintners have doors in the sides of them whereby they enter as Diogenes did into his tub to make them clean and fit for their use Shall be briars and thorns Agri quondam vitibus consiti erunt obsiti vepribus dumetis densissimis hirsuti Ver. 24. With arrows and with bows shall they come for their necessary defence against the wild beasts that haunt those desert places propter densa ferarum lustra hominibus infesta This was threatened Lev. 26.22 Ver. 25. And on all the hills that shall be digged Assemb Annot. c. A good Translation of a text is instead of a good Commentary Some very learned render the words thus And on the hills that had wont to be digged with mattock or spade that no fear of bryar or thorn might come thither shall a place also be for sending in of oxen and the treading of lesser cattle Which shall range and graze freely say they by way of gloss after their wonted manner in those places from whence they and their owners had formerly been ejected and excluded by the violent oppressions and undue enclosures of the richer and greater sort chap. 5.17 CHAP. VIII Ver. 1. TAke thee a great roll Or volume so called either because it was rolled up together like the web upon the pinne or as others because it revealeth that unto us which otherwise we knew not Blasphemous was that jear of the Jews who called the Evangel or Gospel Aven gillaion a volume of vanity And no better was that of B. Bonners Chaplain who called the Bible that blessed Book in scorn his little pretty Gods book Chald. vertit Scripturamclaram See Isa 30.8 This one small piece of it is here stiled grande volumen a great roll for the fulness of the matter in fewness of words And write in it with a mans pen that is plainly and clearly that when it shall be fastened to the gate of the Temple or some way else be exposed to publike view he that runneth may read it Habac. 2.2 and he that readeth may understand it and not be so written as that was Dan. 5.5 7. which none could read and unriddle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Prophet himself nor be as Aristotles Acroamaticks published and yet unpublished Concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz 1. Make speed to the spoil hasten the prey words whereby God calleth the King of Assyria out of his countrey to take the spoil speedily of Syria and Samaria both which groaned for his coming and hangd for his mowing This was afterwards given for a name to Isaiah's new-born babe viz. at his circumcision and that before two sufficient witnesses who might attest both the childs name and the reason of it which the Prophet likely told them Such another compound name was Shear-jashub chap. 7. Zorobabel Hagio-Christophorites c. and amongst us Keep-sabbath Hope-still c. Ver. 2. And I took unto me faithful witnesses So they might be and yet not godly men as Galba and our Rich. 3. were said to be bad men but yet good Princes Some think that this Vriah was the same with him that brought in the Altar of Damascus He had been better perhaps but at last revolted as did Demas of whom Dorotheus saith that he became a Priest in an idol temple at Thessalonica and Damascen who turned Mahometan as some write Zechariah the other witness was a man of great eminency as being grand-father by the mothers side to good Hezekiah Ver. 3. And I went unto the Prophetess Prophets wives were anciently called Prophetesses like as Bishops wives saith à Lapide the Jesuit were also called Bishoppesses Presbyters wives Presbyteresses Deacons wives Deaconesses Jesuits have still their Jesuitesses as Majors their Majoresses c. Maber-shalal-hash-baz q. d. Make haste come away to so rich a booty to the rifling and ruinating of these two potent and opulent Kingdoms God hereby seemeth to bespeak the Assyrian as Cicero once did his friend Si dormis expergiscere si stas ingredere si ingrederis curre si curris advola c. and at the calling of this child by his name the prediction was remembred and the thing ascertained Ver. 4. For before the child c. That is within a year or two for it was an extraordinary thing that is reported of Maximilian the Emperour that he was eight year old at least ere he spake any thing but afterwards he became a fluent and elegant Speaker The riches of Damascus Riches do many times change their masters and Kingdoms are oft turned upside down when they fall to persecuting the people of God especially as did these Syrians and Israelites Before the King of Assyria Spoils taken from the enemy were and are usually carried in triumph before the Conqueror Ver. 5. The Lord spake also unto me again saying Heb. And the Lord further added to speak unto me Here the Israelites a part from the Syrians