of restitution only The confidence of persevering in their present state of joy and so of Gods guidance ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã till death is more agreeable to it The Syriacks reading is more plausible he shall lead us ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã above from death The Forty Ninth PSALM TO the chief Musitian a Psalm for the sons of Coreh Paraphrase The forty ninth Psalm is a consolation against the terrors of death in time of old age or sickness and withal a meditation of the transitoriness of all worldly greatness and prosperities here which are so sure to fade suddenly It was committed to the Prefect of the Musick to be sung by the posterity of Coreh 1. Hear this all ye people give ear all ye inhabitants of the world 2. Both low and high rich and poor together Paraphrase 1 2. The matter of this insuing Psalm is very fit meditation for all sorts of people in the world Jews and Gentiles of the meaner and poorer and of the nobler and wealthier rank 3. My mouth shall speak of wisdom and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding Paraphrase 3. Being that which I have learnt from God and consequently is not of certain truth only but most valuable and profitable to be considered by all much more for our turns than any secular wisdom of the subtilest worlding This therefore shall be the subject of my compositions at this time 4. I will incline mine ear to a parable I will open my dark saying upon the harp Paraphrase 4. And I will perform it carefully weigh it as exactly as I can do as Musitians do when they tune their instruments lay their ear close to them that if there be any harshness or unevenness in the sound they may discern it so will I carefully observe my present composure being on a matter well worth every mans heeding and therefore I will set it to the harp by that means to sweeten and instil it into all minds And this is the sum of it by way of answer to this question 5. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evill when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about Paraphrase 5. When days of sadness and the discomforts of old age approach and make their close siege about men and death it self is just ready to seize upon and devour them can this be any real matter of terror to a truly pious man that hath placed all his trust and confidence in God Undoubtedly it cannot Or wherefore should I subject my self to those terrors which are apt to haunt men at such times 6. They that trust in wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches 7. None of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransome for him 8. For the redemption of the soul is pretious and it ceaseth for ever 9. That he should still live for ever and not see corruption Paraphrase 6 7 8 9. 'T is ordinary for the bold temerarious confident men of the world to place their full trust in wealth and never fear any thing else if they have but abundance of that But 't is not in their power to rescue either any other or themselves from death This sentence which sin brought into the world will certainly pass on the richest and proudest and stoutest of them none can ever buy his own or any other mans immunity or liberty from this so as to be quit from ever dying That indeed of immortal duration being a gem of too great a price for all the wealth in the world to purchase there is but one way of coming to it and that is by death and resurrection and that also is the work of the Messias who by dying once offering one single sacrifice for him never to be repeated Heb. 9.25 26. and 10.13 shall overcome death work an eternal redemption Heb. 9.11 and then fit down at the right hand of God Heb. 10.12 and there live and reign for ever This he shall do in the fulness of time in the end of the age then coming in the flesh to atchieve this victory and more fully in the end of the world when he shall call all that are dead out of their graves to judgment on which shall follow an everlasting life 10. For he seeth that wise men die likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others Paraphrase 10. Mean while the most pious vertuous men must expect to die their piety the one true wisdom will not rescue them from that which Christ himself Gods eternal wisdom shall once taste As for wicked men whose irrational folly hath equalled them to brute beasts 't is certain the same fate expects them their souls being so little removed above that of a beast 't is less wonder that they should die as a beast doth and though they may be thought by themselves or others to have provided against this danger to have fenced and secured themselves yet shall they come together and after the same manner to the grave and so be fain to take leave of those possessions which they have acquired with so much industry And then no man knows into whose hands their wealth shall fall whether strangers or perhaps enemies shall live to injoy the fruits of all their labours 11. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations they call their lands after their own names Paraphrase 11. Whosoever they are the possession being now setled in them shall never revert to the former owners these new comers shall establish themselves in their room and so impose their names upon their dwellings the very memory of the former inhabitants being soon lost 12. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not but is like the beasts that perish Paraphrase 12. And so the conclusion is most certain and general reaching to all How flourishing soever their condition is at the present there is no possibility of continuance here be the man never so great he comes to a speedy end as the beasts of the field do is perfectly like them in his death and not so long lived as many of them our space of abode here is not so long as to be fitly compared to so much as a nights lodging in an Inn no consistence of steddy rest is to be had for the least space And the tenure which his posterity hath is of the same nature very short and uncertain also nay oft-times the greatest honours and wealth unjustly gotten by the parent descend not to any one of his posterity as the beasts when they die leave nothing behind them to their young ones but the wide world to feed in but fall into other hands immediately for which he never designed to gather them 13. This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings Selah Paraphrase 13. They flatter
thy self to God might recover you to Heaven O then what power and energy what force and strong efficacy would there be in this voice from God Why will you die I am resolved that heart that were truly sensible of it that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it would find such inward vigor and spirit from it that it would strike death dead in that one minute this ultimus conatus this last spring and plunge would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingring sickness and perhaps overcome and quit the danger And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to your selves and not any longer be flattered or couzened in a slow security To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you let it alone till this day come in earnest you may then perhaps heave in vain labour and struggle and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven The hour of our death we are wont to call Tempus improbabilitatis a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in as after death is impossibilitatis a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell If nothing were required to make us Saints but outward performances if true repentance were but to groan and Faith but to cry Lord Lord we could not promise our selves that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate and then what life or spirits even for that perhaps a Fever may send us away raving in no case to name God but only in oaths and curses and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to But when that which must save us must be a work of the Soul and a gift of God how can we promise our selves that God will be so merciful whom we have till then contemned or our souls then capable of any holy impression having been so long frozen in sin and petrified even into Adamant Beloved as a man may come to such an estate of grace here that he may be most sure he shall not fall as St. Paul in likelihood was when he resolved that nothing could separate him So may a man be engaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the Devil There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death for I believe Pharaoh was come to it Exod. ix 34 after the seventh Plague hardning his heart and then I say it is possible that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate stupid customary rebellions mayst be now at this minute arrived to this pitch That if thou run on one pace farther thou art engaged for ever past recovery And therefore at this minute in the strength of your age and lusts this speech may be as seasonable as if death were seizing on you Why will you die At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent the next sin may benumb or fear thy heart that even the pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly that the rest of thy life shall be a sleep or lethargy and thou lie stupid in it till thou findest thy self awake in flames Oh if thou shouldst pass away in such a sleep Again I cannot tell you whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The Spouse sought Christ on her bed but found him not Cant. iii. 1 The last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect that remembring God when our feeble impotent age comes on us would stand us in little stead Read it for it is a most learned powerful Chapter This I am sure of God hath chosen to himself a people zealous of good works Tit. ii 14 And they that find not some of this holy fire alive within them till their Souls are going out have little cause to think themselves of God's election So that perhaps there is something in it that Matth. iii. 8 the Exhortation Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance is exprest by a sense that ordinarily signifies time past ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã have brought forth fruits It will not be enough upon an exigence when there is no way but one with me to be inclinable to any good works to resolve to live well when I expect to die I must have done this and more too in my life if I expect any true comfort at my death There is not any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our spiritual condition what is likely to become of us after death Any slight phansie that Christ died for us in particular we take for a Faith that will be sure to save us Now there is no way to preserve our selves from this Error but to measure our Faith and Hopes by our Obedience that if we sincerely obey God then are we true believers And this cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his Death-bed be his inclinations to good then never so strong his faith in Christ never so lusty yet how knows he whether it is only fear of death and a conviction that in spight of his teeth he must now sin no longer that hath wrought these inclinations produced this faith in him Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the Physicians dose in hope that it will cure him yet when he comes to taste its bitterness will rather die than take it If he that on his Death-bed hath made his solemnest severest Vows should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights which now have given him over I much fear his fiercest resolutions would be soon out-dated Such inclinations that either hover in the Brain only or float on the Surface of the Heart are but like those wavering temporary thoughts Jam. i. 6 Like a wave of the Sea driven by the wind and tost they have no firmness or stable consistence in the Soul it will be hard to build Heaven on so slight a foundation All this I have said not to discourage any tender languishing Soul but by representing the horrors of death to you now in health to instruct you in the doctrine of Mortality betimes so to speed and hasten your Repentance Now as if to morrow would be too late as if there were but a small Isthmus or inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and your everlasting earnest To gather up all on the Clue Christ is now offered to you as a Jesus The times and sins of your Heathenism and unbelief God winked at Acts xvii 30 The Spirit proclaims all this by the Word to your hearts and now God knows if ever again commands all men every where to repent Oh that there were such a Spirit in our hearts such a zeal to our eternal bliss and indignation at Hell that we would give one heave and
paying a feigned obedience to me 45. The strangers shall fade away and be afraid out of their close places Paraphrase 45. And these living in a languishing condition of fear and dread keeping close not daring to appear abroad for the terror that thy signal presence with me hath brought upon them 46. The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock and let the God of my salvation be exalted Paraphrase 46. Blessed and exalted be the name of the living Lord which hath given me strength and rescued me from all my distresses 47. It is God that avengeth me and subdueth the people under me Paraphrase 47. All this work of execution on mine enemies and of subduing them under me is to be attributed to him only 48. He delivereth me from mine enemies yea thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me thou hast delivered me from the violent man Paraphrase 48. To him therefore I desire to acknowledge both my rescue and my victory over all the forces that have been raised against me 49. Therefore will I give thanks unto thee O Lord among the heathen and sing praises unto thy name Paraphrase 49. And for this will I laud and magnifie thy holy name among all the people of the world And this shall be the sum of my lauds 50. Great deliverance giveth he to his King and sheweth mercy to his Anointed to David and to his seed for evermore Paraphrase 50. O thou which hast wrought these wonderful deliverances for him whom thou hast set up on the Throne which hast exalted me to this dignity and since incompast me with thy signal favour and mercy and wilt perpetuate the same to all my posterity that shall succeed me in the regal power if they continue to adhere faithfully to thee and wilt at length shew forth thy power and mercy in a most illustrious manner in the Messias the son of David whose Kingdom shall never have end To thee be all honor and glory and praise to all eternity Annotations oâ Psalm XVIII V. 1. Rock Though ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifie a rock and so is used and rendred ãâã rock in most places yet by Synecdocâ it sometimes signifies a tower or fort 2 King 14. â because such are commonly for security built on rocks or hills and by Metaphore also any ãâã to which any whether Man or Beast is wont to resort because as Psal 104.18 is affirmed to rocks and hills they are wont to fly from approaching dangers Thus Psalâ 42.10 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my rock is by the Chaldee rendâ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my hope by the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my ãâã âer So when Isa 31.1 Israel is reproved for goiâ down to Aegypt for help as to a refuge it is said â 9 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we render his rock or strong hold it muâ ãâã his refuge or those to whom he went down for help shall pass away for fear This therefore ãâã the fittest rendring of the word in this place the primitive notion of rock being after ãâ¦ã which signifies that exaâ and the âdochâ notion for a fort or ãâ¦ã âhe verââext woâ ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my tower ãâ¦ã and to that ãâã Chaldee agree who ãâ¦ã it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my forâ ãâ¦ã or strong hold for ãâã the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my firmament and ãâã the Latine as Psal â0 â ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã strength Apollinarius hath ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to the same sense the Syriack ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my confidence or my hope All which are meant to signifie the Metaphorical and not Original notion of it V. 3. Worthy to be praised ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã literally signifies laudatum praised and so it is rendred both by the Interlinear and Castellio but the meaning of it will be best resolved on by the antient Interpreters that have not followed the phrase so literally ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã say the LXXII praysing I will call upon the Lord not reading ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as some suppose but thus choosing to express the sense and so the Latine laudaus invocaâo the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in a song or hyâ I pour out prayers Apollinarius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã praising thee with prayers or joyning my praises and reâ my doxologies and litanies together But the Arabick more expresly I will praise the Lord and call upon him and R. Tanchum I will call upon him and seek him with celebration and praise And this without question is the meaning of the Poetick phrase I will call on him being praised i. e. I will first praise then call upon him praise him for his past mercies and then petition for fresh the uniting of these two being the condition on which they may hope for deliverance from God A like phrase we have in Latine Laudatum dimisit he dismist him being praised i. e. first praised him then sent him away and many the like V. 5. Sorrows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies two things a cord and a pang of a womans travaile and which it signifies must be resolved still by the context 1. Heâ where 't is joyned with incompassing it is most fitly to be understood in the foâer senses because ropes or cordes are proper for that tuâ as for holding and keeping in when they are ãâã And thus I conceive it most proper to be renâd in the next verse where it is joyned with âar as ãâã which cords very well agree see Psalâ 140. â ãâã proud laid a snare for me and coâ but pâgs ãâã âvail do not The Chaldee indeed paraphrase it in that other sense of pangs distress hath compast not as a woman in travail which hath not strength to bring fâ and is in danger to dye and the LXXII read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the panâ of death But it is usual for them thus to do when the same Hebrew signifies ãâã Greek words to take one of them for the ãâã and according ãâã from them taken by St. Luke ãâã 2.24 ãâ¦ã ântion of loosing and ãâã holâ ãâ¦ã restrein it to the other ãâã of ãâ¦ã paâgs see Annot. âon Act. â ãâ¦ã reads ãâã âre and the ãâ¦ã Cords And in the next verse the Chaldee ãâã the same word by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a troupe ãâ¦ã which may well be the meaning of the âtive eâpression for a company which we call ãâã âând of souldiers much more an army incompass ãâã girâ in as cords do and the Syriack there exâly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the cords of scheol beâged me and so the margin of our English and therefore in all reason it must be so also in this ãâã V. 9. Come down This whole passage of 9. verses from v. 7. to 15. is but a Poetical descriptâ of Gods executing vengeance on Davids ãâã And as in the New Testament Christs vengeance on his Crucifierâ the Jews is frequently called the coming
or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sometimes in schemes or figures sometimes without as we see in Solomons ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Proverbs or Parables many of them are plain moral sayings ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without any figure or darkness or comparison from whence yet they are called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in them as The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom c. and so 1 Sam. 24.13 as saith the Proverb of the Antients Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked Of this sort is that which is here spoken of a moral sentence not much veiled with figures nor so concise as ordinarily Proverbs are but a larger declaration of this wise Ethical maxime the vanity of all wicked mens prosperity and this is by the LXXII rendred ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which signifies literally a comparison but is more loosely taken for any moral sentence as is also ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which Hesychius fully defines ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a saying profitable for mens lives and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã exhortations advises admonitions for the rectifying of manners and passions so called indeed as being ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã beside the ordinary road in figures or artificial schemes or poetical and so not vulgar expressions many of which will be discovered here in this Psalm but used more loosely also and indifferently for those which have no figure in them And of the same kind is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my riddle that here follows from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to speak acutely or darkly used for a riddle in the story of Samson Jud. 17. for questions of some difficulty such as the Queen of Sheba askt Solomon 1 King 10.1 and accordingly 't is here rendred by the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my Problem or difficult question which yet is not only the asking of such a question which is here done v. 5. but the answering of it also as 't is there in the following words and so the stating or resolving or giving an account of any difficulty as we know those of Aristotle and Aphrodisaeus were and some of them moral as well as natural and then it belongs very fitly to the matter in hand the wise moral ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã here delivered but somewhat obscurely in the rest of the Psalm V. 5. Iniquity of my heels What is meant by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã evill of my heels will be best judged by taking the words asunder And first ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies evil both of fault and punishment frequently in the former but sometimes in the latter also So 1 Sam. 28.10 when Saul sware to the witch that no ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that must be punishment should happen to her for this So Isa 53.11 he shall bear ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã their iniquities we read it must be the punishments of their iniquities and so v. 6. The Lord hath laid on him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not the iniquity but the punishment of us all and so Psal 31.10 my grief and my sighing and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my not iniquity but punishment belong to the same matter and interpret one the other And thus most probably 't is taken here Then for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my heels 't will best be understood in the notion which Aben Ezra and Jarchi have of it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my heels saith Sol Jarchi ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my latter end and so it frequently signifies in Arabick and then the evil of my heels saith Aben Ezra is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the days of old age called the evil days Eccl. 12.1 and to this the Chaldee here may seem to refer adding in their paraphrase ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in my end And this evil of our heels is said to incompass us when old age and approach of death surround us on every side and so is ready inevitably to seize upon us This therefore is no obscure interpretation of the question-part of this probleme or parable on the understanding of which all the subsequent part of the Psalm depends Why should I fear in my decrepit age in sickness or in death Is there any reason for a pious man to apprehend death with any disquiet when it begins its close approaches and is most unavoidably ready to seize on him V. 6. Trust ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã confidit signifies confident secure men such was he that said he had goods laid up for many years and thereupon gave himself up to enjoy the pleasures of this life to eat drink and he merry Of these saith the Psalmist here ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they will glory triumph or applaud themselves ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã over or for or in their wealth ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and in the strength or multitude of their riches This is the most literal importance of the verse making of it self a complete proposition Confident men boast themselves in their wealth c. and then follows with good connexion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a brother by redeeming shall not redeem i. e. no man shall in any wise be able to redeem either another or himself ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. a man shall not give his ransome to God i. e. no meer man shall ever be able to pay ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a price of equal value to rescue one sinner from the power of death to which he is sentenced This the LXXII seem to have thus read though now in the copies it is much deformed 'T is now thus read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But with a light change of the punctation and of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 't is exactly consonant to the Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. A brother shall in no wise redeem a man shall not give c. Then follows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for the redemption of their soul or life shall be pretious i. e. of a great and high rate ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ceaseth for ever shall be a high-prized redemption which costs very dear but then it is also a singular eternal redemption that being once wrought shall need never to be repeated again whereon it follows and he shall yet live for ever so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is literally to be rendred and so the Chaldee paraphrases it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and he shall yet live an eternal life never dying any more death having no more dominion or power over him And thus it belongs expresly to Christ of whom the Apostle resolves for in that he died he died unto sin or to put away sin once or but once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God And so certainly the next words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he shall not see corruption are peculiarly applyed to Christ Psal 16.10 and in that sense frequently appealed to by the Apostles Act.
righteousness of Christ thou mightest be able to say to him How should the world be condemned by one Adams sinning By which words of his it appears that this doctrine of the whole worlds being under condemnation for the sin of Adam was such as he thought no Jew would doubt of for else it could be no fit means to silence his objection against the redemption of the whole world by Christ To this of the Jews belongs their ordinary style of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the evil formation which the Chaldee lightly vary into ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã meaning our evil affections or concupiscence and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the formation of sin or proclivity to sin from their frame or fabrick So Eccl. 10.1 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the flyes of death are by the Chaldee rendred ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã evil concupiscence which abiding at the gates of the heart brings the cause of death into the world and Psal 103.14 where we read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our frame the Chaldee have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the evil concupiscence which impells us to sin So Psal 119.70 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the figment of the heart So say the Rabbins three men subdued ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã their concupiscence Joseph Gen. 39. Boaz Ruth 3. Phalati 1 Sam. 25.44 Where by the example of Joseph c. it is evident that the desire of carnal forbidden objects such as another mans wife is comprehended by them under this style of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã formation And this from Gen. 8.21 where of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã imagination or formation or figment of the heart of man it is said that it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã evil from the youth So in the Midras Tehillem on Psal 34. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. Now the evil figment is born with a man and goes about with him all his days as 't is said the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth and if it can find occasion to overthrow him when he is twenty years old or forty or seventy or eighty it will do so And this the Talmudists saith Buxtorfe observe to be called by seven names in Scripture 1. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã evil 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã foreskin 3. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã unclean 4. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the enemy or bater 5. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a stumbling-block 6. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a stone 7. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the hidden thing What they say of these is much of it indeed phansiful and Talmudical and their writings are too full of such stuff to be here set down See Buxtorf Lex Rabbin who farther refers the reader to Caphtor fol. 55.1 Cad habkemach fol. 35.2 Afcat Rochel fol. 12.1 In the forecited place of Succa they add that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. in time to come God shall bring the evil figment or evil concupiscence and slay it before the just and unjust and that as long as the just live ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they fight with their concupiscences Berish Rabba sect 9. elsewhere 't is given for a rule that this concupiscence is not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in that i. e. the future world See Basra fol. 58.1 So the question being asked in Sânhedr fol. 91.2 from what time this evil figment obteins dominion on a man whether from time of his birth or of his formation in the womb the answer is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from the time of his formation c. The like dispute is in Beresh Rab. sect 34. Elsewhere they say that in the beginning 't is like a thred of a spider but in the end ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 't is like a cart-rope and again that at first it is as a stranger afterward as a guest and at length ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Master of an house See More Neu. par 3. c. 22. and Vaiikra Rabba Sect. 17. The beginning of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is sweet ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the end bitter So R. Solomon on Psal 78.39 for the wind that passeth away and cometh not again reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the evil figment hidden in the heart which ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã goes when a man dyes and returns not again And Midras Tehill to avert the argument drawn from that text against the resurrection of the dead says ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the evil figment is meant in this place not the soul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which goes with a man at the hour of death ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and returns not with him at the hour of the resurrection of the dead So when Ps 16.3 there is mention of the saints that are in the earth Midras Tehill understands the words as of those that lye buryed there adding God calls not here the righteous ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Saints till they be buryed in the earth ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã because the evil figment is in a man in this age and as it follows God doth not fully confide in man till he be dead So Kimchi on Ps 103.14 and Aben Ezra on this very verse of Psal 51. where he resolves the Psalmists meaning to be that in the hour of his nativity the evil figment was planted in his heart and on ver 10. that this evil concupiscence had drawn him to sin and therefore he prays to God that he would help him against the evil figment that he might no more be misled by it or admit sin To conclude the Talmud it self tract Berach hath a very sober and Orthodox account of this matter And so this may suffice for the second thing the notion of Davids being born and conceived in sin Thirdly then it may be demanded how this mention of his conception and birth in sin comes in here or how it is a fit ingredient in a penitential Psalm the humbling himself for so many gross actual sins as he stood guilty of at this time And the reason of the doubt is because the sin of our conception and birth being no act of our own wills and yet farther a spring of all our corrupt streams a strong tendency to our actual sins the mention of that might seem rather a means of extenuating than aggravating our actual guilts To this I answer 1. that if Christ the second Adam had not repaired the errors of the first Adam if original corruption had inevitably betrayed David to his adultery and murther c. if he had not had power to resist his corrupt inclinations or repress them from breaking out as they did into those gross sins there would then be reason in the objection But the doctrine of Original sin supposes not any such inevitable necessity but on the contrary acknowledges the gift of Christ to be an antidote fully proportioned to the poison of our nativity and his grace a sufficient auxiliary to inable men not only to resist but overcome temptations and in some degree
Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he saved them out of their distress 14. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and brake their bands in sunder Paraphrase 10 11 12 13 14. In like manner is he pleased to deal for those that are in prison and expectation of present death when in this valley of Achor they fly to him for rescue 'T is most just and so most ordinary with God to deliver men up to be chastised for their sins when they are so proud and stout as to resist or neglect the commands of God 't is but seasonable discipline to exercise them with afflictions to bring distresses upon them persecution imprisonment c. thereby to teach them that necessary lesson of humility And if then they shall speedily return to him that strikes and with obedient penitent hearts and fervent devotions indeavour to attone him he will certainly be propitiated by them and deliver them out of their distresses be they never so sharp and in the eye of man irremediable 15. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderfull works to the children of men 16. For he hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder Paraphrase 15 16. This certainly is another act of his special and undeserved bounty and withall an instance of his omnipotence thus to rid them of those gyves that none else can loose to preserve those that in humane judgment are most desperately lost and abundantly deserves to be acknowledged and commemorated by us 17. Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquity are afflicted 18. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat and they draw near unto the gates of death 19. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble he saveth them out of their distresses 20. He sent his word and healed them and delivered them out of their destructions Paraphrase 17 18 19 20. So again when the follies and stupidities of men betray them to wilfull sins and God punisheth those with sickness and weakness brings them so low that nature is almost wholly exhausted in them and present death is expected if from their languishing bed they shall apply themselves to the great and sovereign Physician forsake the sins that brought this infliction upon them and thus timely make their solid peace with heaven and then pray themselves and others see Jam. 5.14 15 16. Ecclus 38.9 imploring his gracious hand for their recovery there is nothing more frequently experimented than that when all other means fail the immediate blessing of God interposeth for them and restores them to life and health again 21. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderfull works to the children of men 22. And let them sacrifice the sacrifice of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoycing Paraphrase 21 22. And this certainly is a third instance of God's infinite power and goodness this of unhoped unexpected cures of the feeblest patients which exacts the most solemn gratefull acknowledgments from those that have received them from his hand 23. They that go down to the sea in ships and doe business in great waters 24. These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep 25. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof 26. They mount up to the heaven they goe down again to the depths their soul is melted because of trouble 27. They reel to and fro they stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits end 28. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he bringeth them out of their distress 29. He maketh the storms a calm so that the waves thereof are still 30. Then are they glad because they be quiet so he bringeth them unto their desired haven Paraphrase 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30. So again the great navigators traffickers and merchants of the world when in their voyages by sea they meet with terrible amazing tempests wayes that toss their ships with that violence as if they would mount them into the air and at another turn douse them deep into the vast Ocean as if they would presently overwhelm them and the passengers are hereby stricken into sad trembling fits of consternation and amazement and expectation of present drowning in this point of their greatest danger they oft experiment the sovereign mercy and power of God and receive such seasonable returns to their devout prayers that they find the storm presently turned into the perfectest calm and by the friendliest gales are safely wafted to that port which they designed to sail to 31. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderfull works toward the children of men Paraphrase 31. And this certainly is a fourth most eminent instance of God's infinite power and goodness which exacts our most fervent offerings of praise and thanksgiving 32. Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the Elders Paraphrase 32. And not onely such as are sent up to God from our single breasts or closets but it deserves the most solemn publick commemorations in the Temple in the united laâds of the whole congregation Elders and people answering one the other 33. He turneth rivers into a wilderness and the water-springs into dry ground Paraphrase 33. The same act of his power and providence it is to convert the greatest abundance of waters into perfect drought 34. A fruitfull land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein Paraphrase 34. Thereby to punish those with utter sterility and fruitlesness after the manner of his judgments on Sodom whose plenty had been infamously abused and mispent on their lusts 35. He turneth the wilderness into a standing water and dry ground into water-springs 36. And there he maketh the hungry to dwell that they may prepare a city for habitation 37. And sow the fields and plant vineyards which may yield fruits of increase 38. He blesseth them also so that they are multiplied greatly and suffereth not their cattel to decrease Paraphrase 35 36 37 38. And the same act again it is of his bounty and power together to improve the barrennest desart into the fruitfullest pastures most commodious for habitation and plantations and thither to bring those who had formerly lived in the greatest penury and by his auspicious providence onely without any other observable means to advance them to the greatest height of wealth and prosperity of all kinds making them a numerous and powerfull nation remarkable for the blessings of God upon them 39. Again they are minished and brought low through oppression affliction and sorrow 40. He poureth contempt upon Princes and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way 41. Yet setteth he the poor on high from affliction and
ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let my death be an expiation for all my offences This was likewise said by those that fell not by the hand of justice but died natural deaths Now he that dies in the midst of an ill attempt and much more he that makes away himself as Judas in a fit of suffocation probably did by throwing himself down a precipice his death will be so far from an expiation that it will be sin and a great accumulation of the other crimes And this is an expression of a most sad deplorable condition when as it is Prov. 1.28 then shall they call upon me but I will not answer their prayers for averting their judgment shall be of no more force than their sins would be The Jewish Arab hath here a sense strangely different from others And let his prayer for him be destruction to him understanding it of the prayer of the oppressed which he putteth up to God for good to his oppressor but God turneth it for destruction to him V. 8. Days be few ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã few or short or little doth here signifie the cutting him off before the natural period of his life comes To this all the following words to the end of v. 10. belong For when he is thus cut off his office is void and so ready for another his children have lost their father and his wife an husband v. 9. and his estate being forfeited to the Law as well as his life his children and posterity are ejected out of their inheritance and so must provide for themselves either by wandering and begging from place to place this is meant by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by moving let them move i. e. be in perpetual motion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã say the LXXII let them be shaken tost and removed from place to place or by seeking out some unhabited place where they may rest and plant The former of these is here exprest by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them ask or beg And perhaps the latter may be the meaning of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them seek i. e. get their subsistence maintenance out of places which being desolate in no other owners hands are alone fit to entertain and receive them But the Chaldee interprets it of their own dwellings ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when their desolation is come The LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them be cast out of their ruinous dwellings and seem to have read not ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them seek but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them be cast out from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which signifies to eject And so 't is very applicable to the Jews whose Temple and Jerusalem was demolished and they driven out from the very ruines not permitted to rebuild or inhabit there But the common Hebrew reading is to be preferred being witnest to by the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and shall seek and very agreeable to the context also which speaks of their unsettled motions from place to place their begging and not knowing where to dwell For by this also is very lively described the condition of the Jewish posterity ever since their ancestors fell under that signal vengeance for the crucifying of Christ First their desolations and vastations in their own Countrey and being ejected thence Secondly their continual wandrings from place to place scattered over the face of the earth and Thirdly their remarkable covetousness keeping them always poor and beggerly be they never so rich and continually labouring and moiling for gain as the poorest are wont to doe and this is continually the constant course attending this people wheresoever they are scattered The Jewish Arab reads Make few his days and turn over of his age to another Abu Walid also renders the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his office strangely his treasure or wealth Kimchi interprets it that which is under his command as his wealth Wife c. V. 11. Catch The Hebrew here reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which in Piel signifies concussit exegit and applied here to the grating creditor and usurer toward the debtors goods is best rendred to exact or seise on so the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã shall levy exact take away gather as the publican doth the taxes or as the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Luk. 12.58 doth ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã exact Luk. 3.13 and 19.23 or as the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã tormentor Matth. 18.34 directly answerable to the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã exactor to whom the debtor there being delivered is racked to the utmost till he pay the last farthing The LXXII here reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Latin scrutetur let him search either paraphrastically to express it for so he that seises on anothers goods searches and takes all that he can find or else because of the affinity of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã exact with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã enquire or search The Interlinear that reads illaqueet let him insnare or catch seems to have lookt on ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to insnare in which sense the Chaldee took it Ps 38.13 rendring ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and they made snares And thus the Jewish Arab Let the enemy insnare all his wealth as a creditor or usurer Abu Walid let the creditor consume or destroy all his wealth let strangers spoil or make prey of his gain And so 't is ordinary for words of that affinity to have the same signification To the sense of levying or seising on the latter part of this verse agrees well ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let the strangers spoil snatch away pray upon his labours from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to snatch or prey upon the stranger being no other than ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the asurâ in the beginning of the verse who being none of his family to whom by inheritance his goods may come is fitly called a stranger especially when no Jew being permitted to lend on usury to a Jew the usurer that lent a Jew must needs be a stranger i. e. no Jew V. 13. Posterity ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is here best rendred his end or novissimum as the Interlinear hath it the last of him So the Chaldee reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his end and the Syriack being the same with the Hebrew put only in the plural ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is rendred finis eorum their end So the learned Casteââioâ exiâ eorum their end The LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his children from another supposed notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for children because they come afâer a man But the context inclines to the former notion the next words affirming that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in another i. e. in the next generation in the age of thâse that live afââr him the LXXII again reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã generation ãâã from ãâã ãâã
forsake it cease from it pass not in it not as we reade pass not by it the Chaldee expresses the × by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã with them in their company the LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in whatsoever place they shall encamp enter not there by way of plain paraphrase but withall probably looking on some other notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as that of otiosum esse for that is resting setting up their station in any place so the Syriack reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. and in the place where they inhabit or dwell pass you not V. 16. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã if they scandalize not or cause not some body to fall they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they sleep not or lie not down to sleep setting that as an usefull explication of what immediately preceded their sleep is taken away not that others take it away but that they take it from themselves they apply not themselves to sleep and thinking this of except they cause to fall sufficiently express'd before by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã unless they doe some mischief V. 21. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them not depart from thine eyes they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that the fountains destitute thee not probably reading ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without the preposition פ and so taking it in another notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not for an eye but a fountain And thus the sense is very good and agrees well with the next verse for if the wise man's admonitions are life and health to them that receive them i. e. if they cause both these to them then are they fitly to be styled ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã thy fountains from whence all good springs out to thee but the Chaldee and all other Interpreters save the Arabick that constantly follow the LXXII reade as we doe with the preposition and so it must signifie eyes After the end of this Chapter the LXXII have a large addition wherein they are followed by the Latin which generally in this book of Proverbs doth not adhere to them in their variations from the Hebrew It is this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for God knows the right paths on the right hand but those on the left hand are perverted but he shall make thy paths straight and advance thy steps in peace But neither Chaldee nor Syriack have a word of this And so it is to be looked on as a Scholion though very ancient which some reader had affixt to the Greek Copy pertinent to the business of the verses precedent and as a descant on them CHAP. V. 1. MY son attend unto my wisedom and bow thine ear to my understanding 2. That thou mayst regard discretion and that thy lips may keep knowledge Paraphrase 1 2. Among all the acts of paternal and tender charity to the souls of men there is none more precious and truly valuable than that of communicating saving wisedom and wholsome instruction to them To that end this book is designed and an humble docible heart is required to qualifie any man for the reaping the benefits and fruits of it and if that may be found infinite are the advantages of it for the regulating the affections and the actions and especially the words He that hath throughly imbibed the directions of it will have more savour and taste of good things than ever he had will think that to be the onely true wisedom and affect and regard it as such which is here recommended to him the practice of all duty toward God and man and himself and accordingly his discourse will be savoury and pious professing the joy he tasts in these exercises and desiring to recommend and propagate them to other men 3. For the lips of a strange woman drop as an hony comb and her mouth is smoother than oyl Paraphrase 3. Of this sort is that necessary advice to beware of the flattery and deceits of ill women whose beauty and discourse and conversation and the many allectives which that sex is furnished with are very winning and efficacious promising the greatest pleasures and satisfactions imaginable 4. But her end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword Paraphrase 4. Which if they be believed or hearkened to will in the event prove most contrary to what they promise bring all the sadness and bitterness the most painfull and noxious effects infinitely more sharp and dolorous than the so short enjoyments were apprehended pleasurable 5. Her feet go down to death her steps take hold on hell Paraphrase 5. And beyond the temporal miseries which attend this sin inseparably and indispensably the eternal destruction is most formidable which is the just reward of it and will be sure to overtake it 6. Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life her ways are moveable that thou canst not know them Paraphrase 6. Nor can any better event be rationally hoped to the temptations which are tendred from such an hand A whore being the most vile and miserable creature in the world engaging her self in a course most diametrically contrary as to all vertue so to all felicity the joys and comforts of this or a better life and prostituting her self to all the dismal uncertainties and ill consequences of an endless insatiate lust which carry her headlong none knows whither into a gulph of endless woe 7. Hear ye me therefore O ye children and depart not from the words of my mouth 8. Remove thy way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house Paraphrase 7 8. This makes it a seasonable and necessary advice to all that fear God or expect good from him in this or another life to all the children of wisedom professours of piety that they be most exactly cautious in this matter that they yield not themselves the least liberty or indulge to the beginnings of this sin that they keep as circumspectly as is possible from entring into the confines of this temptation and on the contrary remove to the greatest distance from all occasions and opportunities thereof 9. Lest thou give thy honour unto others and thy years unto the cruel 10. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth thy labours be in the house of a stranger Paraphrase 9 10. If this advice be not timely obeyed it will be hard if not impossible to keep out of the snare and in that not onely thy soul but all that is precious to any man is sure to be most ruinously engaged thy reputation utterly destroyed by so base and scandalous and sottish a sin thy body and life it self the one as sure to be decayed the other shortened by this course as it could by falling into the power of the most implacable enemy And for thy wealth and fruit of thy labours and industry and the divine blessing this sin is the certain blasting and consuming of all she that enticeth thee to her unlawfull bed will be sure to lay hold on
thy estate and enrich her own family with the spoils of thine 11. And thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed 12. And say how have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof 13. And have not obey'd the voice of my teachers nor enclined mine ear to them that instructed me 14. I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly Paraphrase 11 12 13 14. Thus is it evident before hand what cause of repentance and indignation at himself and his own folly this sin if indulged to is sure to bring upon any man when he hath exhausted and rotted his very flesh and brought himself to utter ruine he will too late to mend his temporal condition most sadly bewail and lament his madness wish every vein of his heart that he had taken the advice I now give him betimes that he had believed the serious and sad truth of such documents as these by despising of which and so adventuring on some beginnings and degrees of this sin he at last comes to be a most scandalous spectacle of misery and woe to all the people marked and pointed at for a wretched sottish creature that hath brought himself to the brink of endless ruine by his own imperswasible folly and obstinacy 15. Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running rivers out of thine own well Paraphrase 15. Having thus represented to thee the dangers and wasting miseries of incontinence the advice will be but seasonable and necessary that every man resolve to satisfie himself with his own wife and most strictly abstain from wandring lusts 16. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in thy streets Paraphrase 16. This shall beside all other felicities yield thee the comforts of a numerous and flourishing offspring which as streams or rivers from a fountain shall flow from a chast conjugal bed 17. Let them be onely thine own and not strangers with thee Paraphrase 17. This shall give thee assurance that the children thou ownest are truly thine whereas those which come from the strange woman and call thee father 't is very uncertain whose they are she being no enclosure of thine but common to others also 18. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoyce in the wife of thy youth Paraphrase 18. This shall secure God's blessing of fruitfulness to thy wife and that flourishing state to thy offspring which bastard slips cannot pretend to This shall yield thee a constant never fading pleasure in the love and embraces of her whose purity and loyalty thou hast so long been acquainted with and the longer thou art afforded this blessing the more pure unallayed satisfaction thou wilt find in it when wandring lusts end in satiety and misery and being thus furnished by her thou hast no temptation to aliene thy self from her and take any other into thine embraces 19. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe let her breasts satisfie thee at all times and be thou ravisht always with her love Paraphrase 19. Thou mayst alwaies find matter of pleasure and kindness in her the same that the stag or rain-deer doth in his beloved mate which he hath long associated with and so perfectly confine thy love to her and never wish for the society of any other or be weary of hers 20. And why wilt thou my son be ravisht with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger 21. For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he pondereth all his goings Paraphrase 20 21. If all this be not sufficient to engage thee to a constancy to thine own wife and an exact abstinence from all others if the true joy and delights resulting continually from the one ballanced with the consequent satieties and miseries of the other be not competent motives effectually to prevail with thee then sure this one determent may work on thee the consideration of the law of marriage made by God in Paradise that every man shall forsake all others and cleave to his own wife and the severe judgments threatned against the violaters of this obligation and the no possibility that be it never so close it should be kept secret from God's all-seeing eye which discerns and observes and will severely avenge all such enormous sins in all that are guilty of them 22. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins 23. He shall die without instruction and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray Paraphrase 22 23. And an eminent act of his vengeance and providence it is that this sort of sinners seldom goes unpunished in this life His sin without any other aid constantly brings sore punishments upon him seises on him as the Hound or Vulture on its prey or as the Lictor and Serjeant on the malefactour lays him under the custody of some noisome disease His unnurtured unsavoury life his disobedience to the laws of marital chastity and continence is the exhausting his body and perhaps estate and good name and all that is valuable and brings him to a scandalous death he goes out unpittied and scorned as guilty of the highest folly and mistakes as well as injustice and such like enormous crimes against his wife and others and himself he thought he had pursued his pleasure and at least gratified his senses but in the end he finds it quite contrary he acquires nothing but loathsome maladies and untimely death and so appears cheated of all that he projected to gain by his sin beside the yet sadder losses and pains both of body and soul to all eternity Annotations on Chap. V. V. 6. Lest thou shouldest ponder That ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is here to be rendred not and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã applied to the strange woman whose feet and steps are mentioned v. 6. is agreed on by all ancient Interpreters and there is no cause of doubting it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã she goes not in the paths of life saith the Chaldee and so the Syriack in the same words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã she enters not on the ways of life say the LXXII and the Latin applying it to her feet precedent per semitam vitae non ambulant they walk not by the path of life Which agree also to give us the right notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã here for directing the steps i. e. walking or going which it is acknowledged to signifie as well as pondering and which properly belongs to it in this place the steps being mentioned in the former verse To this interpretation agrees that which follows her paths are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã wandring vagi saith the Latin ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã dangerous say the LXXII because they that wander run into danger but unstable saith the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã literally not to know i. e. either thou canst not know them non scies
he hath no pleasure in it no joy in those daily vomits were they not Physick against something else against that burthen of time that lies so unsupportable upon his hands against Melancholy against pangs and twinges of conscience like Cain's building of Cities and his Childrens inventing of Musick that the noise of the Hammers and the melody of the Instruments might out-sound the dinne within him or at least to take up quarter before Christ to help stop the ear from that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that still whispering trumpet in Appian fit for the secret invasion of the soul to keep him from the pain or perhaps the reproach of being too precise and most other sins are of the like making we flie to them as to our refuge to save us from Christ as the horns of our Altar to keep us from that Goel which we dread as the Revenger of blood our only enemy and persecutor in the world 'T is not any prime quality any special excellence we find in our carnal entertainments those not only vanities but vexations not only unsatisfying but wounding acquisitions those gainless torments those painted flies with barbed hooks under them that makes us so passionately dote upon them the Jews were not in love with Barabbas but only our prejudices to Christ our vehement dislikes to holiness our impatience of any thing that may do us good our league with perdition our covenant with death our zeal to Hell and absolute resolvedness to be miserable eternally Such malice hath every sinner to his own soul such hating to be reformed that the painful'st uneasiest sin the most prodigal expenceful lust a very Sodom of filth and burning not only the sins of Sodom but the fire and brimstone rain'd down and mixt with the sins gotten into their composition shall be abundant pleasure and Epicurism to him that hath found no other to stay his appetite I appeal to your consciences whether many of you have not suffer'd more hardship in Satans service than any man hath in Gods whether your very sins have not cost you dearer than every any Martyr paid to get to Heaven Tell me hath not your lusts had Martyrs of you many pass'd thorow the fire to Moloch hath not your ambition had Martyrs of you many a base submission a toilsome pluck a climbing or crawling up that hill of honour Believe it the Poet jeer'd you in that not truth but irony that sarcasm and bitter taunt against you Facilis descensus Averni the descent to Hell is an easie passage If he spake what he thought I am confident you can give him the lye produce your selves so many visible demonstrations of the contrary truth that you can shew him by your scars as 't were by the Half-moon in your Breasts what a tyrannical Turkish task-master Satan hath been to you 'T is an ordinary passage in the story of Julian that when he receiv'd his deaths wound he fell a railing at Christ but Philostorgius seems to rectifie the story tells us it was his own Gods i. e. Devils that he rail'd at that he took his blood in his hand out of his wound and cast it against the Sun his deified Idol with a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be thou satisfied yea and call'd the rest of his many Gods saith he ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so the Manuscript hath it evil and execrable persons ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã cursing and declaiming at his own Gods and not at Christ the application is plain the Devil he is the bloody Master his is the course service and sad wages not Christs none is so fit to be curst by his own Clients as that Prince of darkness ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Monarch ruler of this Age of ours I have reason to believe there are no fitter Judges to appeal to in this particular than my present Auditory 'T was a French Friars conceit that Courtiers were of all men the likeliest to bear him company to his Covent not only fittest but likeliest to forsake the world and turn Penitentiaries He judg'd it because such an one of all others had most reason to be displeas'd with the pleasures of the world he hath seen to the bottom of sensual delights found the emptiness and torments of those things which the distance and ignorance that other men are kept at makes them behold with reverence and appetite the Courtier hath made the experiment and sees how strangely the world is mistaken in its admired delights and with Solomon after a glut of vexatious nothings is now fit to turn Ecclesiastes or Preacher I wish you would be but at so much leasure as to think of the Friars meditation that you would try what mortifying Sermons you could make out of your own observations concerning the vanity of sensual miscalled pleasures I am confident you would be very eloquent able to outpreach all the Orators you ever heard from the Pulpit to write more pathetical descriptions of the madness of a carnal life than from any more innocent Speculator could be hoped for That you may begin that useful edifying lasting Sermon I shall close up mine having at length run thorow the particulars of my Text shew'd you your selves in the Jewish glass if it were possible to put you out of countenance to shake you out of all tolerable good opinion of your selves And now let every man go home with a tu es homo he is the very Jew I have preach'd of all this while O that he would think fit to hate that Jew humble him labour his conversion bring him down into the dust if so be there may yet be hope And that God that can bring from the dust of death again open this door to us a forlorn destitute people so shall we see and praise the power and seasonable bounty of our Deliverer and ascribe unto him as our only tribute the honour the glory the power the praise the might the majesty the dominion which through all Ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the holy Spirit and to the Lamb for ever more Amen Saint PAVL's Sermon to FELIX THE EIGHTH Being a Lent SERMON at Oxford A. D. 1645. ACTS 24.25 And as he reasoned of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come Felix trembled THE Words are the Notes taken from a Sermon of St. Pauls And the success it met with among the Auditors the trembling of one heathen Officer that was at it is intirely the consideration that commended it to me at this time in hope it might help to perform that strange work beget a spiritual palsie or soul-quake in the Christian sinner that worâer kind of Heathen at the repetition There 's matter enough God knows of trembling abroad though there were never a judgment to come to put us all into Belshazzars paralytick posture the countenance changed the thoughts troubled the joints or the loins loosed and the knees smiting against one
is engaged in such a pile of flames If there be any Charity left in this frozen World any Beam under this cold uninhabitable Zone it will certainly work some meltings on the most obdurate heart it will dissolve and pour out our bowels into a seasonable advice or admonition that excellent Recipe saith Themist ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã That supplies the place and does the work of the burnings and scarifyings a cry to stop him in his precipitous course a tear at least to solemnize if not to prevent so sad a fate And it were well if all our bowels were thus imployed all our kindness and most passionate love thus converted and laid out on our poor lapsed sinner-brethrens souls to seize upon those fugitives as Christ is said to do ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Heb. xi 16 to catch hold and bring them back ere it be yet too late rescue them out of the hands of their dearest espoused sins and not suffer the most flattering kind of death ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Gal. de Athl. the Devil in the Angelical disguise the sin that undertakes to be the prime Saint the zeal for the Lord of Hosts any the most venerable impiety to lay hold on them Could I but see such a new fashioned Charity received and entertained in the World every man to become his brothers keeper and every man so tame as to love and interpret aright entertain and embrace this keeper this ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã this Guardian Angel as an Angel indeed as the only valuable friend he hath under Heaven I should think this a lucky omen of the worlds returning to its wits to some degree of piety again And till then there is a very fit place and season for the exercise of the other part of the passion here that of Indignation the last minute of my last particular as the how long is an expression of Indignation Indignation not at the men for however Aristotles ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã A man ought to have indignation at some persons may seem to justifie it Our Saviour calls not for any such stern passion or indeed any but love and bowels of pity and charity toward the person of any the most enormous sinner and St. Paul only for the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the restoring setting him in joynt again that is thus overtaken in any fault but Indignation I say at the sin at the simplicity and the folly that refuse reproachful Creature that hath the fate to be beloved so passionately and so long And to this will Aristotles âeason of indignation belong the seeing favors and kindness so unworthily disâeâced the uâtarts saith he and new men advanced and gotten into the greatest dignities knowledge to be proâestly hated and under that title all the prime i. e. Practical Wisdom and Piety and simplicity i. e. folly and madness and sin to have our whole souls laid out upon it O let this shrill Sarcasm of Wisdoms the How long ye simple ones be for ever a sounding in our ears Let this indignation at our stupid ways of sin transplant it self to that soyl where it is likely to thrive and fructifie best I mean to that of our own instead of other mens breasts where it will appear gloriously in St. Pauls inventory a prime part of that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the durable unretracted repentance an effect of that godly sorrow that worketh to Salvation And if it be sincere O what indignation it produceth in us What displeasure and rage at our folly to think how senselesly we have moulted and crumbled away our souls what unthrifty bargains we have made what sots and fools we shall appear to Hell when it shall be known to the wretched tormented Creatures what ambitions we had to be but as miserable as they upon what Gotham errands what Wild-goose chases we are come posting and wearied thither O that a little of this consideration and this passion betimes might ease us of that endless wo and indignation those tears and gnashing of teeth quit us of that sad arrear of horrors that otherwise waits behind for us Lord do thou give us that view of our ways the errors the follies the furies of our extravagant Atheistical lives that may by the ãâã reproach and shame recover and return us to thee Make our faces ashamed O Lord that we may seek thy Law Give us that pity and that indignation to our poor perishing souls that may at length âwake and fright us out of our Lethargies and bring us so many confounded humbled contrite âtentiaries to that beautiful gate of thy temple of mercies where we may retract our follies implore thy pardon deprecate thy wrath and for thy deliverance from so deep an Hell from so infamous a vile condition from so numerous a tale of deaths never leave praising thee and saying Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory Glory be to thee O God most high To whom with the Son and the Holy Ghost be ascribed c. SERMON IV. MATT. I. 23 Emmanuel which is by interpretation God with us THE different measure and meanâ of dispensing Divine Knowledg to several ages of the World may sufficiently appear by the Gospels of the New and Prophecies of the Old Testament the sunshine and the clearness of the one and the twilight and dimness of the other but in no point this more importantly concerns us than the Incarnation of Christ This hath been the Study and Theme the Speculation and Sermon of all holy Men and Writers since Adam's Fall yet never plainly disclosed till John Baptist in the third of Matth. and the third Verse and the Angel in the next Verses before my Text undertook the Task and then indeed was it fully performed then were the Writings or rather the Riddles of the obscure stammering whispering Prophets turned into the voice of One crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the ways of the Lord c. Isa xl 3 Then did the cry yea shouting of the Baptist at once both interpret and perform what it prophesied At the sound of it Every valley was exalted and every hill was brought low the crooked was made straight and the rough places plain v. 4. That is the Hill and Groves of the Prophets were levell'd into the open champain of the Gospel those impediments which hindred God's approach unto mens rebel hearts were carefully removed the abject mind was lifted up the exalted was deprest the intractable and rough was render'd plain and even in the same manner as a way was made unto the Roman Army marching against Jerusalem This I thought profitable to be premised to you both that you might understand the affinity of Prophecies and Gospel as differing not in substance but only in clearness of revelation as the glorious face of the Sun from it self being overcast and mask'd with a cloud and also for the clearing of my Text For this entire passage
Vipers by denying it all nourishment from without all advantages of temptations and the like which it is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin let us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to our selves and then endeavour to banish it out of us and when we find we are not able importune that strong assistant the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it that in the necessity of residing it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies to tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite and free us from the activity and mischief and temptations of it here and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter And so I come to the third part or brach of this original sin to wit its legal guilt and this we do contract by such an early prepossession that it outruns all other computations of our life We carry a body of sin about us before we have one of flesh have a decrepit weak old man with all his crazy train of affections and lusts before even infancy begins Behold saith the Psalmist Psal li. 5 I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me as if guilt were the plastick power that formed us and wickedness the Minera and Element of our being as if it were that little moving point which the curious enquirers into nature find to be the rudiment of animation and pants not then for life but lust and endless death So that the saying of St. James c. i. 15 seems a description of our natural birth When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Nor does this hasty inmate leave us when grown up no it improves its rancour against God and goodness mixes with custom passion and example and whatever thing is apt to lead us unto mischief somenting all the wild desires of our inferiour brutal part till it become at last an equal and profest Enemy making open hostility setting up its Sconces fortifying it self with munition and defence as meaning to try the quarrel with God and pretending right to man whom God doth but usurp Thus shall you see it encampt and setting up its banners for tokens under that proud name of another law Rom. vii 23 I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and as if it had got the better of the day bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in the members i. e. unto its self And shall we feel such an Enemy within us laying siege at God and grace in us and fiercely resolving whether by deceit or battery to captivate us unto himself and shall we not take notice of him Shall we not think it worthy our pains and expence to defeat him or secure our selves Beloved that will be the best stratagem for the taking of this Enemy which is now adays most ordinary in Sieges to block up all passages and hinder all access of fresh provision and so by denying this greedy devourer all nourishment from without to starve and pine him into such a tameness that he may be taken without resistance which how really you may perform by these means of mortification and repentance prescribed you in Scripture you shall better learn by your own practice than my discourse The fourth aggravation of this guilt is that its minera and fewel lurks even in a regenerate man wretched c. and enforceth Paul into a conflict a War against himself And is it possible for one otherwise happy as the regenerate man inwardly surely is to sleep securely and never to try a Field with the Author of its so much misery or finding it to be within its self part of it self not to think it a sin worthy repentance and sorrow by which Gods Holy Spirit is so resisted so affronted and almost quelled and cast out Fifthly and lastly the guilt of it appears by the effects of it 1. inclination 2. consent to evil for even every inclination to sin without consent is an irregularity and kind of sin i. e. an aversion of some of our faculties from God all which should directly drive amain to him and goodness That servant which is commanded with all speed and earnestness to go about any thing offends against his Masters Precept if he any way incline to disobedience if he perform his commands with any regret or reluctancy Now secondly consent is so natural a consequent of this evil inclination that in a man you can scarce discern much less sever them No man hath any inordinate lust but doth give some kind of consent to it the whole will being so infected with this lust that that can no sooner bring forth evil motions but this will be ready at hand with evil desires and then how evident a guilt how plain a breach of the Law it is you need not mine eyes to teach you Thus have I insisted somewhat largely on the branches of Original sin which I have spread and stretcht the wider that I might furnish you with more variety of aggravations on each member of it which I think may be of important use for this or any other popular Auditory because this sin ordinarily is so little thought of even in our solemnest humiliations When you profess that you are about the business of repentance you cannot be perswaded that this common sin which Adam as you reckon only sinned hath any effect on you I am yet afraid that you still hardly believe that you are truly and in earnest to be sorry for it unless the Lord strike our hearts with an exact sense and profest feeling of this sin of our nature and corruption of our kind And suffer us not O Lord to nourish in our selves such a torpor a sluggishness and security lest it drive us headlong to all manner of hard-heartedness to commit actual sins and that even with greediness And so I come briefly to a view of each mans personal sins I am the chief where I might rank all manner of sins into some forms or seats and then urge the deformity of each of them single and naked to your view but I will for the present presume your understandings sufficiently instructed in the heinousness of each sin forbidden by the Commandments For others who will make more or less sins than the Scripture doth I come not to satisfy them or decide their Cases of Conscience In brief I will propose to your practice only two forms of confessing your sins and humbling your selves for them which I desire you to aggravate to your selves because I have not now the leisure to beat them low or deep to your Consciences Besides original sin already spoken of you are to lay hard to your own charges first your particular chief sins secondly all your ordinary sins in gross For the first observe but that one admirable place in Solomons Prayer at the dedication of the Temple If there be
seated in his throne by God all their designs and enterprises against him are blasted by the Almighty and prove successless and ruinous to them And so in like manner all the opposition that Satan and his Instruments Jews and Romans Act. iv 25 make against Christ the Son of David anointed by his Father to a spiritual Kingdom a Melchizedekâan Royal Priesthood shall never prevail to hinder that great purpose of God of bringing by this means all penitent believers to salvation 2. The Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying Paraphrase 2. The Princes and Governours of the Nations round about Judea the Kings of the Philistims and Moabites and Damascenes and many more rose up against David the Syrians joyned with Hadadezer King of Zobah 2 Sam. viii 5. and in so doing opposed the Lords anointed one set up and supported by God in a special manner and so in effect rebelled against God himself In like manner did Herod and Pilate and the Jewish Sanhedrim make a solemn opposition and conspiracy against the Messias Gods holy child Jesus by him anointed Act. lv 27. and therein were fighters against God Act. v. 39. 3. Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us Paraphrase 3. Both of these alike resolving that they would not by any means be subject the Philistims c. to David the Jews c. to Christ and the divine laws and rites of Religion by which either of their Kingdoms were to be governed 4. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision Paraphrase 4. But God that ruleth all things and is much more powerful than they will defeat all their enterprises and magnifie his divine providence as in the securing of David and giving him Victories over them all so in erecting and inlarging of Christs Kingdom and making the utmost of the malice of men and devils as means of consecrating him to that office of Royal Priesthood to which God had designed him 5. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure Paraphrase 5. All their enterprises against this Government of Gods erecting shall not atattain any part of their desire but only provoke God to great severities and terrible vengeances against them remarkable slaughters in Davids time upon his enemies and under Christs Kingdom the state of Christianity upon the Jews and Romans 6. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion Paraphrase 6. Mean while 't is an eminent act of Gods power and mercy to David that soon after his anointing in Hebron 2 Sam. v. 3. he overcame the Idolatrous Jebusites v. 6. and took the strong hold of Zion and made it the seat of his Kingdom and placed the Ark of the Covenant there and thereupon called it the Mountain of the Lord the hill of holiness and there setled the Kingdom long since fore-promised by Jacob to the Tribe of Judah but never fixed in that Tribe till now And the like but exceedingly more eminent act of power and mercy it was in him to seat Christ in his spiritual throne in the hearts of all faithfull Christians possest before his coming by heathen sins and trusting to false Idol Gods parallel to the lame and the blind 2 Sam. v. 16. i. e. not improbably the Jebusuites images Teraphims or the like which could neither go nor ste and yet were confided in by them that they would defend their city 7. I will declare the decree The Lord hath said unto me Thou art my son this day have I begotten thee Paraphrase 7. Now was that Covenant solemnly sealed and ratified to David which he is therefore to publish unto all so as it shall be in force against all persons that shall transgress it that at this time God hath taken the kingdom from the house of Saul Ishbosheth being now slain 2 Sam. iv 6. and setled it upon David who was anointed over Israel also 2 Sam. v. 3. given him the Rule over his own people set him up as his own son an image of his supremacy having at length delivered him from the power of all his enemies and set him victoriously on his throne in Sion which is a kind of birth-day to him the day of his inauguration the birth-day of his power though not his person of his kingdom though not of the King and this much more considerable than the other And in the parallel the Evangelical Covenant is now sealed to Christ and in him to all faithful Christians a Covenant to be publisht to all the world and the foundation of it laid in the death or rather the resurrection of Christ the eternal Son of God who having taken our mortal flesh and therein offered up a full sacrifice and satisfaction for the sins of the world the third day after was brought forth as by a new birth out of the womb of the grave see Act. xiii 33. now never to die again and thereby hath ascertain'd unto us as many as spiritually partake of these that die unto sin and live again to righteousness a blessed immortal life 8. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the outmost parts of the earth for thy possession Paraphrase 8. To this is consequent as a free and special mercy of Gods the inlarging of this his Kingdom not only to the Inhabitants of Judea but to many other heathen nations the Philistims Moabites Ammonites Idumeans and Syrians c. who were all subdued by David through the power of God 2 Sam. v. and viii and x. and subjected to him And so upon the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ by the wonderful blessing of God upon the preaching of the Apostles not only the Jews many thousands of them Rev. vii but the heathens over all the world were brought in to the faith of Christ 9. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a Potters vessel Paraphrase 9. All these neighbouring enemies that rise up against him shall he subdue and slay great multitudes of them And so shall Christ deal with his enemies Jews and Heathens subdue some and destroy the impregnable and obdurate 10. Be wise now therefore O ye Kings be instructed ye Judges of the Earth Paraphrase 10. This therefore may be fit matter of admonition to all neighbour Princes as they tender their own welfare that they endeavour to profit by others sufferings and not fall foolishly into the same danger that timely they make their peace and enter into League with David and undertake the Service of the true God which he professes And in like manner when Christ is raised from the dead by his divine power and so instated in his Office of Royal Priesthood it will neerly concern all those that have hitherto stood out
the discomfiture and confusion of Davids enemies ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith the Chaldee they shall be confounded both in the beginning and end of the verse and the Syriack instead of the latter hath ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã perish and the LXXII their ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them be made ashamed is to the same purpose and whereas some Copies have for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which might incline to the rendring it of their conversion or repentance whereto the Latine convertantur may seem to sound yet Asulanus's Impression and others have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them be repulsed and others more largely ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them be turned backward and so the Arabick reads it which must needs belong to their flight That they put it in that mood of wishing is ordinary with them when yet the Hebrew is in the Indicative future sense ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they shall be put to shame and so forward And this surely best connects with the former verse the Lord hath heard the Lord will receive my prayer and then as an effect of that All mine enemies shall be confounded c. The Seventh PSALM SHiggaion of David which he sang unto the Lord concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite Paraphrase The Seventh is stiled by a peculiar title not elsewhere used in this Book which yet signifies no more than a Song or Psalm of David a pleasant delightful ditty being indeed a cheerful commemoration of Gods continued kindness to and care of him and a magnifying his Name for it together with a confident affirmation or prediction that his enemies shall but bring ruine on themselves by designing to mischief him and this he sang unto the Lord on occasion of some malitious words delivered by some servant of Saul stirring him up against David 1 Sam. 26.19 The Chaldee Paraphrast misunderstands it as an interpretation of his Song made on the death of Saul to vindicate his no ill meaning in it v. 3. 1. O Lord my God in thee do I put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me Paraphrase 1. Thy many continued deliverances and wonderful protections which assure me of thy special kindness toward me make me to come to thee with affiance and confidence and to appeal only to thy peculiar favour and thy almighty power so frequently interessed for me and upon this account to importune and depend on thee for my present rescue from all my persecuters and opposers 2. Lest he tear my soul like a Lion renting it in pieces while there is none to deliver me Paraphrase 2. Shouldst thou withdraw thy aid one hour I were utterly destitute and then as the Lion in the wilderness prevails over the beast he next meets seises on him for his prey kills and devours him infallibly there being none in that place to rescue him out of his paws the same fate must I expect from Saul my rageful implacable enemy 3. O Lord my God if I have done this if there be iniquity in my hand Paraphrase 3. I am accused to Saul as one that seeks his ruine 1 Sam. 24.9 reproached by Nabal that I have revolted from him 1 Sam. 25.10 and that shews me that by many I am lookt on as an injurious person But O Lord thou knowest my integrity that I am in no wise guilty of these things I have not done the least injury to him I may justly repeat what I said to him 1 Sam. 26.18 What have I done or what evil is in my hand 4. If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me yea I have delivered him that without cause is my enemy Paraphrase 4. I have never provoked him by beginning to do him injury nor when I have been very ill used returned any evil to the injurious he is my enemy without any the least cause or provocation of mine and being so I yet never acted any revenge upon him but on the contrary in a signal manner spared him twice when he fell into my hands 1 Sam 24.4 7. and c. 26.9 23. If this be not in both parts exactly true 5. Let the enemy persecute my soul and take it yea let him tread down my life upon the earth and lay mine honour in the dust Paraphrase 5. I shall be content to undergo any punishment even that he that now pursues me so malitiously obtein his desire upon me overtake and use me in the most reproachful manner and pour out my heart-blood upon the earth 6. Arise O Lord in thine anger lift up thy self because of the rage of my enemies and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded Paraphrase 6. But thou knowest my guiltiness O Lord to thee therefore I appeal for my relief be thou gratiously pleased to vindicate my cause to express thy just displeasure against my malitious adversaries and calumniators and speedily exercise the same justice in taking my part against those that injure me which thou severely commandest the Judges on the earth to dispense to the oppressed 7. So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about for their sakes therefore return thou on high Paraphrase 7. This shall be a means to make all men admire thy works to address and repair and flock unto thee acknowledge thee in thy attributes and enter into and undertake thy service and let this be thy motive at this time to shew forth thy power and majesty to execute justice for me and to that end to ascend thy Tribunal where thou fittest to oversee and to judge the actions of men 8. The Lord shall judge the people Judge me O Lord according to my righteousness and according to mine innocency that is in me Paraphrase 8 Thou art the righteous Judge of all do thou maintain the justice of my cause and vindicate my perfect innocence in this matter 9. O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end but establish the just for the righteous Lord trieth the heart and reins Paraphrase 9. God will now soon bring to nought the malitious designments of wicked men their sins will suddenly provoke and call down his judgments on them In like manner he will shew forth his justice in upholding and supporting the innocent such as he sees upon trial to be sincerely such for as all righteousness belongs to him the doing of all eminently righteous things bringing his fierce judgments on the obdurate and upholding and vindicating all patient persevering righteous persons when they are causelesly accused or persecuted so 't is his property also to discern the secretest thoughts and inclinations and accordingly to pass the most unerring judgments upon both sorts of them 10. My defence is of God which saveth the upright in heart Paraphrase 10. To thee it peculiarly belongs to deliver and vindicate those whom thou discernest to be sincere or inwardly upright and accordingly my trust is fixt wholly
on thee and my resort is only unto thee beseeching thee to shew forth thy power and fidelity for the preserving and securing me 11. God judgeth the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day Paraphrase 11. God is a most righteous Judge 't is impossible he should favour the practices of unjust men by whom his purity is continually affronted and provoked though through his long suffering designed for their reduction he do for a while spare and not presently consume them 12. If he turn not he will whet his sword he hath bent his bow and made it ready Paraphrase 12. Till the wicked return and repent God seldom ceaseth to warn and threaten to prepare and sharpen as it were his sword for slaughter to bend his bow and make ready the arrow upon the string shewing him from time to time what severity he is to expect if he do not at length reform and that 't is meerly the compassion of this lover of souls to his creature that he thus gives him time and warnings and adds terrors also if by any means he may be brought home timely to repentance Another sense of this verse see in note c. at the end 13. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors Paraphrase 13. On his farther continuance in this wicked course God still continues his decree to bring final vengeance on him in case he will not amend by all these warnings and yet is he a while longer pleased to spare if yet he may gain and reduce them 14. Behold he travaileth with iniquity he hath conceived mischief and brought forth falshood Paraphrase 14. And if still all Gods longanimity and mercy prove successless if it be perverted only into a meanâ of incouraging him in mischievous ungodly treacherous designs attempts and actions 15. He hath made a pit and digged it and is fallen into the ditch which he made Paraphrase 15. The infallible consequent is that the mischief and ruine which he designs to others shall not seize on them but on himself and bring perpetual destruction upon him 16. His mischief shall return on his own head and his violent dealing shall come down on his own pate Paraphrase 16. All his attempts against other men his oppressions and violences shall when he least looks for it like an arrow shot up against heaven come down most sadly and piercingly upon his own head this is all the fruit he is likely to reap of his mischievous machinations 17. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the Name of the Lord most high Paraphrase 17. This is a signal illustrious demonstration both of the omnipotence and just judgments of God mixt also with exceeding patience and longanimity toward sinners and challenges from every pious heart a grateful acknowledgement all lauds and praises most justly due to his supreme Majesty Annotations on Psal VII Tit. Shiggaion Whence the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã comes or what literally it imports will hardly be defined The use of it here and Hab. 3.1 the only places where 't is read in Scripture giving us no farther light than that in all likelihood it signifies a Song or Canticle Here 't is rendred ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Psalm by the LXXII there ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã an Ode or Song and so the vulgar Latine here Psalmus David And that so most probably it signifies we may conclude from the consequent ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which he sang the verb in the Hebrew from whence is the ordinary noun ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Song or Canticle And so the Chaldee Paraphrase ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Interpretation of the Ode which bâ song adding by way of explication ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã when he spake a Song But the origination of the word doth not readily give it this sense for the Radix ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã both in Hebrew and Chaldee signifies ignoravit or erravit and from thence in the place of Habakuk Aquila and Symmachus render it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ignorances and Theodotion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã voluntary sins and the vulgar Latine have forsaken the LXXII and render it ignorantiis ignorances and the Chaldee making a long Paraphrase of it brings it about to that sense of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã error or ignorance Only the Arabick reteins Song or Canticle and the Syriack leaves out all mention of it both here and there The Hebrews conjecture is not improbable that this word was the beginning of an old Hebrew Song to the tune of which this was to be sung and so was intituled by it But because there is no such word in use among the Hebrews for any thing else but a Song and because from thence regularly comes the plural ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Habakuk 't is most probable that as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies deleââatur is pleased or delighted Thus Prov. 5.19 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we render be ravisht the vulgar delectare be thou delighted and the Syriack be thou fed and so Prov. 20.1 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã qui delectatur whosoever is delighted saith the vulgar useth it luxuriously or voluptuously saith the Syriack so from thence ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã may be an old word for a Song in respect of the delight and pleasure of the Musick of it And thus Abu Walid understands it here from the notion of delight or rejoycing Tit. Cush What is meant by Cush the Benjamite is made matter of question many from S. Hierome applying it to Saul a Benjamite and as some add the son of Kish and the words delivered by him 1 Sam. 22.8 but there is great difference between ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Chush and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Kish and yet more between the son of Kish and Chush himself and others to Chushi the Archite but his name is written with × and so very distant and was Davids friend not enemy others to Shimei a Benjamite that is known to have cursed David 2 Sam. 16. but that was in the business of Absalom and the time of his rebellion to which this Psalm hath no propriety but to the matter of Saul But that which is most probable is this that Cush was some servant of Saul which had raised some malitious slander on David as if he sought to take away the Kings life and either his name Cush or else so stiled here from the name of the Nation Aethiopia ordinarily stiled ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã because the Aethiopians being servants of all Nations the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Aethiopia taken for one of that Country as Canaan for a Canaanite might proverbially be taken for a servant Thus Amos 9.7 where the Hebrew reads Are ye not to me as the sons of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Aethiopians the context inclines to interpret it
of Christ and sometimes coming in clouds see Mat. 24. note b. and 2 Thess 2. note b. and 2 Pet. i. e. and as Psal 96.13 Gods judgments are exprest by he cometh he cometh and Psal 97.5 by the presence of the Lord and many the like so here we have the representation of a gloâiouâ and âerrible coming of God bowing the heavens and coming inclosed with a dark cloud v. 11. as being invisible riding on a cherub or Angel v. 10. all Gods apâs being by Angels and this in a tempestuouâ manner haile thunder and lightning v. 12 13 14. and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã thrice repeated coals of fire thereby representing the bolt or thunder-shaft which is with great fitness thus exprest poetically as the lightning by brightness the congealed moisture of the cloud by haile which in those countries accompanied thunder as rain does with us Exod. 9.23 so that missile shot out of the cloud with so much terror both of noise and splendor what is it but the earthy sâlphâreous part made up of the same ingredients as a fiery cinder among us and all this to denote the terribleness of it and lastâ after the manner of his destroying of the Aegyptians by drying up the channels of the Sea that deep whereon the earth is oft said to be founded and so ingaging them in it and then bringing the waters upon them to the overwhelming them all and all this but preparatory to Davids deliverance which follows v. 17. V. 14. Shott out The Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies to multiply and to shoot oâ daââ In the latter sense 't is Gen. 49.23 the archâs grieved him ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and shot at him And thus by the comparison here made between arrows and lightning we may conclude it to signifie Yet the antient ânterpreters generally render it in the former notion The Chaldee read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and many lightnings the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and he multiplyed lightnings and so the Syriack and Vulgar Latine and Arabick and Aethiopick from them and so also the Interlinear multiplicavit and Castellio crâbris fulgoribus with frequent lightnings and onely our English seems to have pitched on the right rendring it cast forth in the old and shot forth in the new translation V. 20. Cleanness What is here meant by the cleanness of Davids hands to which he here pretends may to some seem difficult especially when so many other expressions are added to it keeping Gods ways indefinitely not wickedly departing from him v. 21. having all Gods judgments before him and not putting away his statutes v. 22. being upright before him and keeping himself from his iniquity v. 23. and again righteousness and cleanness of hands in his eye-sight v. 24. when yet if we consider the series of the history this Psalm 2 Sam. 22. was indited after the commission of those great sins of Adultery with Vriahs Wife making him drunk contriving his death and these lived in a long space at least a twelve moneth before Nathan came to him from God and brought him to repentance which as it was a conjunction of many known deliberate wilful sins and a long course and stay in them so no doubt it could not be reconcileable with Gods favour whilst unrepented of nor consequently with that uprightness in Gods sight which here is spoken of With that indeed many sins of weakness or suddain surreption for which his heart presently smites him such as that of numbring the people might be competible as being but the spots of sons such as God is favourably pleased to pardon in his sons and sincere servants but for these wasting wilful sins which have none of that excuse of weakness at the time of Commission nor that instant smiting of the heart humiliation and confession and change and sacrifice to allay the poyson of them but accumulation of more one on the back of the other and a long continuance in them these are not of that sort they exclude from the favour of God as long as they remain unreformed For the answering of this therefore it must be remembred 1. That Repentance when sincere restores to the favour of God and David was now in that state at and long before the time of inditing that Psalm supposing it to be composed by him after the quieting of Absaloms rebellion as the series of the story sets it 2 Sam. 22. and then be his sins as red as scarlet God hath made them as white as snow Gods pardon and acceptance sets him right again and that may be his ground of confidence in thus mentioning the cleanness of his hands viz. such as now was restored to him by repentance 2. As general affirmations have frequently some one or perhaps more exceptions which yet comparatively and in balance with the contrary are not considered so his profession of Vniversal uprightness here is to be interpreted with this exception of that matter of Vriah according to that style of Scripture which saith of him that he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the dayes of his life save onely in the matter of Uriah the Hittite which though it were very foule yet was not fit to prejudice the universal uprightness of all the rest of his life and so is not named here in the Psalm but must as an implicite exception be from that passage in the Kings fetcht to give the true importance of these phrases which in sound pretend to Vniversal Vprighâness and sincerity but must be taken with this allowance except or save only in that one matter V. 23. Iniquity For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from mine iniquity Which the LXXII and Latine and Arabick and Aethiopick follow the Chaldee seems to have read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from iniquities in the plural for so they read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from debts or faults and so the Syriack also But the Vulgar reading need not be parted with being in sense the same I kept my self from mine iniquity i. e. from my falling into any such V. 29. Leaped In this 29. v. where the Hebrew read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I will run through a troop the Chaldee have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I will multiply armies but the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I shall be delivered from temptation both no doubt by way of Paraphrase not literal rendring In the end of the verse the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to look signifies both a wall from whence to look and observe the approach of enemies and also a watch-tower or fort from the same ground Thus wall among us being lightly deduced from vallum signifies also a fort Colwal the fort on the hill because generally when walls are thus built in war there are some such forts erected on them To this is joyned ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from
and thou didst deliver them Paraphrase 4. We thy people have had long experience of thy mercy and fidelity our fathers before us in all their distresses have placed their full affiance in thee for rescue and deliverance and never failed to receive it from thee 5. They cryed unto thee and were delivered they trusted in thee and were not confounded Paraphrase 5. Upon their humble and constant and importunate addresses to thee they continually obtained deliverance from thee and never were discomfited or put to shame in their trusting or relying on thee 6. But I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the people 7. All they that see me laugh me to scorn they shoot out the lip they shake the head saying 8. He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him Paraphrase 6 7 8. Mean while I am an abject weak contemptible person reviled and set at nought by the vulgar and baser sort All that behold my present low condition think that I am utterly forsaken and so mock me and scoff at me for trusting in God or relying on any aid of his or taking any comfort or ground of hope from my being in his favour That these three verses have a largest and most literal completion in Christ in his crucifixion see note e. 9. But thou art he that took me out of the womb thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mothers brests 10. I was cast upon thee from the womb thou art my God from my mothers belly Paraphrase 9 10. But all this doth not discourage me I know thy protection hath hitherto supported me in my greatest distresses and weaknesses Thou broughtest me out of the womb of my Mother which duly considered was a greater deliverance than that I now want from thee and from that time didst sustain and uphold me when I was not able to do the least for my self When I came forth into the World I had no inheritance but thy special providence and preservation which if it had been but one minute suspended or withdrawn from me I had been immediately lost but this thou hast from my first conception thus long continued to me and thereby testified to me convincingly that as I have none to depend on but thee so I may on thee confidently repose my trust 11. Be not far from me for trouble is near for there is none to help Paraphrase 11. Now therefore in the approach of the greatest straits and the most absolute destitution of all humane aids be thou seasonably pleased to interpose thy assistance and not to forsake me utterly 12. Many bulls have compast me strong bulls of Basan have beset me round Paraphrase 12. My enemies are very strong and puissant and have besieged me very close brought me to great straits 13. They gaped upon me with their mouth as a ravening and a roaring Lion Paraphrase 13. And now are they ready to devour me and therefore as a Lion when he is near his prey makes a terrible roaring by that means to astonish the poor creature and make it fall down through the fright before him so do they now rave and vaunt and threaten excessively 14. I am poured out like water and all my bones out of joynt my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels Paraphrase 14. My outward estate cannot better be resembled than by a consumptive body brought extreme low dayly pining and falling away very fast the bones starting one from the other see v. 17. and the very heart and most vital parts quite dissolved 15. My strength is dryed up like a potsheard and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of death Paraphrase 15. The radical moisture so dryed up that there is no more left than in a brick or tile that comes scorcht from the kiln the tongue dry and not able to speak and the whole body ready to drop into the grave 16. For dogs have compassed me the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me they pierced my hands and my feet Paraphrase 16. For my enemies come about me as fiercely as so many dogs to rend and tear me a multitude of malitious people like a ravenous Lion have now got me into their power beset me and inclosed me on design to wound and destroy me This was most eminently fulfilled in Christ at his crucifixion that being a real piercing of his hands and feet and that caused by the importunate clamors of the Jewish fanhedrim and people and a more literal accomplishment of the words than belonged to David 17. I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me Paraphrase 17. My civil state I say is as low as their state of body who have no flesh left on it whose bones consequently are so wide and distant one from another that they may be numbred as Christs were to be on another accasion by being naked and distended on the Cross and are thereupon lookt on as a prodigy and scoft at by all beholders as Christ also was upon the Cross Mat. 27.39 18. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture Paraphrase 18. They look on me as their prey and all that I have as their lawful spoil or pillage to be divided as by lot and distributed among them This also was more literally fulfilled in Christ John 19.23 24. when the soldiers having divided his upper garments into four parts finding his inner garment to be without scam would not tear it but rather cast lots who should have it 19. But be not thou far from me O Lord O my strength hast thee to help me Paraphrase 19. But be thou O Lord who art my only aid in a special manner present and with speed assistant to me 20. Deliver my soul from the sword my darling from the power of the dog Paraphrase 20. Rescue me now I beseech thee that am left destitute and helpless from the power and malice of these bloody men Or as applied to Christ thou shalt deliver me out of the grave and not permit the very jaws or power of death though it seize on me to detain me under its dominion 21. Save me from the Lions mouth for thou hast heard me from the horns of the Unicorn Paraphrase 21. And as formerly thou hast answered my prayers and preserved me from the strongest enemies when they most insolently exalted themselves against me so be thou now pleased to deliver me from those violent men who now are ready to devour me And thus was it fulfilled to Christ in his Resurrection 22. I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee Paraphrase 22. And this shall give me continual matter of rejoycing and proclaiming thy wonderful goodness toward me and of making the most publick mentions of these thy unspeakable
righteous judgment in God and a testimony that all that should pass should be from Gods particular disposing And so it was in the story before the fatal siege of Hierusalem all the Christians in obedience to Christs admonition Mat. 24.16 fled out of Judea unto Pella and so none of them were found in Judea at the taking of it See note on Mat. 24. g. 7. Hear O my people and I will speak O Israel and I will testifie against thee I am God even thy God Paraphrase 7. Then shall he establish a new law with these his faithful servants the disciples of Christ the members of the Christian Church entring into a stedfast covenant of mercy with them ratified and sealed in the death of his Son 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings to have been continually before me Paraphrase 8. And abolish the old Mosaical way of Sacrifices and holocausts of bullocks c. constantly offered up unto God by the Jews 9. I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy fold Paraphrase 9. And never any more put the worshipper to that chargeable gross sort of service of burning of flesh upon Gods Altar that the smoak might go up to heaven and Atone God for them as was formerly required whilst the Jewish Temple stood 10. For every beast of the forrest is mine and the cattel upon a thousand hills 11. I know all the fouls of the mountains and the c wild beasts of the field are mine 12. If I were hungry I would not tell thee for the world is mine and the fulness thereof 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats Paraphrase 10 11 12 13. For indeed this kind of service was never appointed by God as that which he had any need of or pleasure in it If he had he might have provided himself whole hecatombs without putting the Israelites to the charge or trouble of it having himself the plenary dominion of all the cattel on the earth and fouls of the air and the certain knowledge where every one of them resides so that he could readily command any or all of them whensoever he pleased But it is infinitely below God to want or make use of any such sort of oblations sure he feeds not on flesh and blood of cattel as we men do There were other designs of his appointing the Israelites to use these services viz. to adumbrate the death of his own eternal Son as the one true means of redemption and propitiation for sin and the more spiritual sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving and almes to the poor members of Christ which may receive real benefit by our Charities which cannot be imagined of God 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most High Paraphrase 14. And such are the sacrifices which under the Messias are expected and required of us 1. That of the Eucharist the blessing God for all his mercies but especially the gift of his Son to dye for us and this brought to God with penitent contrite mortified hearts firm resolution of sincere new obedience and constantly attended with an offertory or liberal contribution for the use of the poor proportionable to the voluntary oblations among the Jews and these really dedicated to God and accepted by him Phil. 4.18 Heb. 13 16. 15. And call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Paraphrase 15. 2. That of prayer and humble address unto God in all time of our wants to which there is assurance of a gracious return and that must ingage us to give the praise and glory of all to the Messias in whose name our prayers are addrest to God 16. But unto the wicked God saith What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth 17. Seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee Paraphrase 16 17. But as for those that make no other use of these mercies of God than to incourage themselves to go on in their courses of sin which think to perform these sacrifices of prayer and praise and yet still continue in any wilful known vice unreformed make their formal approaches unto God but never heed his severe commands of reformation these have no right to the mercies of this Evangelical Covenant and do but deceive themselves and abuse others when they talk of it and the more so the more solemnly they pretend to piety and talk of and perhaps preach it to others 18. When thou sawest a thief then thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with adulterers Paraphrase 18. Such are not only the thief and adulterer those that are guilty of the gross acts of those sins but such as any way partake with them in these 19. Thou givest thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frameth deceit Paraphrase 19. Such the evil speaker and lyer 20. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother thou slanderest thine own mothers son Paraphrase 20. The backbiter and slanderer 21. These things hast thou done and I kept silence thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Paraphrase 21. When men commit such sins as these God doth not always inflict punishment on them immediately but defers and gives them space to repent and amend that they may thus prevent and escape his punishment And some make so ill use of this indulgence and patience of his which is designed only to their repentance as to interpret it an approbation of their course and an incouragement to proceed securely in it But those that thus deceive themselves and abuse Gods mercies shall most deerly pay for it God shall bring his judgments upon them here cut them off in their sins and pour out his indignation on them in another world 22. Now consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Paraphrase 22. This therefore is matter of sad admonition to every impenitent sinner that goes on fearless in any course of evil immediately to stop in his march to return betimes lest if he defer Gods judgments fall heavily upon him selfe him and carry him to that place of torment for then there is no possible escaping 23. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Paraphrase 23. Whereas on the other side the Christian duties required v. 14. Repentance and charity c. and the orderly spending of these few days of our life in this world are beyond all the sacrifices of the Law an eminent means of glorifying God and providing for the present bliss and eternal salvation of our souls Annotations on Psalm L. V. 3. Shall come The notion of Gods coming must here first be established as that
prepared for all that were lost in the first Adam fell into a dislike and detestation of marriage and propagation which heretical improvement of the Catholick doctrine Clemens refuting had no occasion at least necessity to speak of the true doctrine which was more than granted by those Hereticks This being the only testimony out of antiquity which is thought to be less favourable to the doctrine of Original sin in general and particularly to the interpreting this text of the Psalmist to that sense I have thus largely insisted on it And for the farther clearing of it shall adjoyn the interpretation of St. Chrysostome which seems to me to proceed in the same way as Clemens did but withal to give us a much more perspicuous understanding of the full design of it Clemens interpreted the mothers conception to be understood of Eve and so saith Chrysostome In sin hath my mother ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã From the beginning sin prevailed for the transgressing of the commandment was before the conception of Eve for it was after the sin and ejection from paradise that Adam knew his wife and she conceived and brought forth Cain This therefore was the Psalmists meaning ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that sin prevailing over our first parents wrought a way and path through mankind Then whereas Clemens indeavours to free the text from favouring the Encratites by shewing the good and benefits of propagation out-weighing the evil that was inseparable from it and by insisting that as the child new born did not commit fornication so he fell not under Adams curse St. Chrysostome proceeds also on that matter but much more perspicuously and so as is visibly most agreeable to the Catholick Doctrine ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But by all this we learn that the act of sin is not natural for if it were we should be free from punishment but that nature inclines to falling being disturbed by a tumult of passions but yet resolution making use of industry overcomes Adding in reference particularly to the Encratites ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã They are therefore foolishly mistaken that suppose David to accuse marriage here thus understanding those words I was conceived in iniquities as if his mother sinned when she conceived him That is not his meaning but he mentions the transgression of old committed by our first fathers and saith of that that it was the fountain of these streams ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for saith he if they had not sinned they had not undergone the punishment of death but not being mortal had been above corruption and then to incorruption apathie absence of passions had been concomitant and apathie being admitted sin had had no place ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But seeing they sinned they were delivered to corruption being become corruptible they begat children like themselves and to such desires and fears and pleasures were together consequent Against these reason contends and if it overcomes is pronounced or proclaimed to be rewarded but if it be overcome it is a debtor of shame is punished with reproach Thus far this holy Father in that place expresly giving us his own opinion and I suppose sufficiently clearing Clements doctrine in this matter that though David impute not any of his foul actual transgressions to nature or the force of Original sin because he had those other aids from God which might have resisted successfully if he had not been wanting to himself yet he here mentions Adams fall as the fountain of all vitious corrupt streams as that which shewed sin the way into the world brought tumultuous passions which he elsewhere calls ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a large swarm of passions together with mortality after it and so an inclination and tendency in our nature to stumble and fall which inclination or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is all one with the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the first incitations from our nativity in Clemens which he mentions as impieties and therefore sins though saith Chrysostome ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã reasoning such discourse as a Christian is capable of and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã resolution with industry making use of the means that God hath given us he adds elsewhere ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the spirit helping us Christians and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã baptism able to mortifie may not only oppose and incounter this swarm and rout of passions but overcome them also What the Latine Fathers thought of this place is visible from Hilarie in his Enarration on Psal 119. v. 175. Vivere se in hac vita non reputat quippe qui dixerit Ecce in iniquitatibus conceptus sum Scit se sub peccati origine sub peccati lege natum esse meditationem autem legis Dei ob id elegit ut vivat He accounts not himself to live in this life as having said Behold I am conceived in sin He knows he was born under the beginning of sin i. e. Original sin for he calls it elsewhere as originem carnis the beginning of the flesh so more expresly originis vitium the vice of his beginning and peccata humanae naturae the faults of his humane nature and under the law of sin but he therefore chooseth to meditate in the law of God that he may live And to the same purpose St. Ambrose Omnes homines sub peccato nascimur quorum ipse ortus in vitio est dicente David Ecce in iniquitate All men are born in sin our very birth is in fault as David saith Behold I was conceived in sin And many others concur to the same sense in their Scholia on this Psalm As for the doctrine it self of Original sin as it is founded on many other places of Scripture as well as on this the concordant testimonies of the Antient Church are set down at large by the Author of the Pelagian Hist l. 11. Par. 1. from Justine Tatianus Irenaeus Origen Macarius Hierosolymit and Macarius Aegyptius Athanasius Cyril of Jerusalem Basil Gregory Nazianzen Chrysostome Leontius Olympiodorus of the Greek Church and from Tertullian Cyprian Arnobius Reticius Olympius Hilarie Ambrose Optatus Hilarius Diaconus Hierome of the Latine as well as from St. Augustine and those that followed him And Vincentius's words are remarkable Quis ante prodigiosum discipulum ejus Coelestium reatu praevaricationis Adae omne genus humanum negavit astrictum Before Caelestius Pelagius's prodigious scholar who ever denied that all mankind was bound by the guilt of Adams sin This I suppose sufficient to assure us of the sense of the Universal Christian Church in this Article And what from this and the like places of the Old Testament the old Jews doctrine was may be concluded from these words of St. Chrysostome ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The reason of St. Paul's phrase so oft repeated as by one Rom. v was that when a Jew shall aske how the world should be saved by the well-doing of one the
interprets it and so the phrase is used Mat. 24.51 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he shall set him his portion with hypocrites assign him the same condition that such have But the portion of foxes may more probably signifie the prey of those wild creatures there being a sort of larger foxes in those countreys called usually Jackales which feed on dead men and will dig them out of their graves to eat them and so to be left unburied or buried at large in the field will be to be made a portion for such beasts The Syriack that reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã meat to or for the foxes understood it thus and the LXXII and vulgar ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã partes vulpium erunt the foxes portions shall they be i. e. cast out for these wild beasts to feed on The Jewish Arab hath another understanding of these two verses those that seek after my soul to destroy it shall go down into the lower parts of the earth i. e. seek into holes and caves after my soul descend in their search after it under the mountains of the earth intending to draw it out to the edge of the sword and make it a portion for foxes V. 11. Sweareth 'T was an ordinary token of respect to Kings for their subjects in swearing to mention their names so 1 Sam. 1.26 and 20.3 and 2 Sam. 15.21 and in several other places And 't is Solomon Jarchie's gloss that this is meant here The Sixty Fourth PSALM TO the chief Musitian A Psalm of David Paraphrase The Sixty fourth Psalm is a prayer for deliverance with a just complaint of his enemies and a prediction of Gods signal destructions upon them 1. Hear my voice O God in my prayer preserve my life from fear of the enemy Paraphrase 1. Blessed Lord let my humble supplication I beseech thee find audience with thee deliver me from the dangers I am in through the malice of men 2. Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of Iniquity Paraphrase 2. They are secretly contriving my ruine and openly break out in tumults against me in a most unjust and wicked manner O be thou my refuge and sanctuary to which I may with confidence resort for safety 3. Who whet their tongue like a sword and bend their bowes to shoot their arrows even bitter words 4. That they may shoot in secret at the perfect suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not Paraphrase 3 4. The first instruments of their malice are their slanders and calumnies and those are prepared and sharpened and shot like poysoned darts or arrows against me but being without all ground of truth they are secretly and clancularly disseminated falling upon me when I least foresaw or expected them 5. They incourage themselves in an evil matter they commune of laying shares privily they say who shall see them Paraphrase 6. And when they meet they ingage and fortify one another in their mischievous designs consult how to contrive them so secretly that they shall not possibly be foreseen or escaped 6. They search out iniquity they accomplish a diligent search both the inward thoughts of every one of them and the heart is deep Paraphrase 6. And indeed their industry is great there is nothing that can contribute to their ends but they find it out through the depth of their malice and policy 7. But God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded Paraphrase 7. But in the midst of all this subtil contrivance that no man can see God shall discover disappoint and unexpectedly destroy them 8. So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves all that see them shall flee away Paraphrase 8. Their tongues by which they thought to hurt others shall in the event bring mischief upon themselves By the death of Saul and his sons he shall strike the whole Army with a sudden consternation they shall fly and then all that behold it shall forsake their dwellings and fly also 9. And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God for they shall wisely consider of his doing Paraphrase 9. And dread the righteous judgments of God acknowledging it to be his peculiar work of vengeance that befalls them 10. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him and all the upright in heart shall glory Paraphrase 10. And on the other side all pious men shall have matter of rejoycing and of affiance in God and none that thus adhere to him shall be disappointed or frustrated by him Annotations on Psalm LXIV V. 3. Bend From ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to go is the same word used for extending sending out directing making to go and so is applied sometimes to grapes or olives in a press and then signifies to squeeze out the juice by beating or treading them Isa 63.2 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that treads or presses in the wine-press and in many other places sometimes of corne in the floore and then 't is to thrash Jer. 51.33 sometimes to a way whence the known ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a way Psal 107.7 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and led or directed them But most especially 't is used of a bow or arrows if of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a bow then 't is to bend it if of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã arrows then 't is not so properly to shoot as to prepare or direct them So Psal 58.7 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he directeth or prepareth his arrows so here ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they direct or aime or make ready their arrows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a bitter word i. e. a calumniating speech to be sent as it were a dart or arrow out of the mouth Parallel to which is that of Jer. 9.3 where being applied to the tongue as to a bow that shoots out lying words as arrows it must be rendred bend but here applied to words as arrows direct and not bend To this accord Abu Walid and R. Tanchum who from the use of the word render it who set their arrows on the string not shooting as yet but setting them ready to shoot And thus it best agrees with what follows v. 4. that they may shoot in secret c. The LXXII for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã arrows read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as if it were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a bow and generally joyn it with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã bent and the Chaldee according to the nature of a Paraphrast joyn bending the bow and anointing the arrows But the Syriack herein follow them not but read they whet their tongue as a sword and their speech as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã an arrow for so sure ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies where that which is proportionable to whetting the sword is preparing or setting upon the string the arrows by way of preparation for shooting V. 4. Fear not It is not easie
exterminate the people and whole nation of the Jews his crucifiers 2. As smoak is driven away so drive them away as wax melteth before the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of God Paraphrase 2. As soon as God appears they vanish and are routed immediately smoak doth not turn into air wax doth not melt at the heat of the fire more speedily And as certainly and suddainly shall the either melting or vanishing conversion or destruction of the Jews follow the resurrection and ascension of Christ As soon as he is ascended the apostles shall set on preaching and begin first at Jerusalem and Judaea and by that time they have gone through all the cities of Judaea and converted all that are perswasible Christ shall come in judgment on the obdurate Mat. 10.23 the Roman Eagles or armies Mat. 24.28 with the Ensign of the Eagle in that very generation v. 34. wherein Christ ascended shall besiege and take Jârusalem destroy the Temple and take away both their place and nation And though this were some years about forty before it was finished yet with God with whom a thousand years are but as one day 2 Pet 3.8 these forty years are but proportionable to a moment and so to that space which is required to the vanishing of smoak or melting of wax before the fire and so the Lord is not slack concerning his promise v. 9. this praediction of the greatest swiftness of destroying his enemies hath its due completion 3. But let the righteous be glad let them rejoyce before God yea let them exceedingly rejoyce Paraphrase 3. And this shall be matter of the highest superlative joy to all pious men who have answers to their prayers from the presence of God in the Ark but most eminently to all faithful obedient servants of Christ who shall in a notable manner be delivered out of that common calamity wherein the unbelieving Jews shall be involved and by the power of Christs Spirit in their hearts chearfully received and made use of be ascertain'd of their portion in eternal heaven 4. Sing unto God sing praises to his name extoll him that rideth upon the heavens by his name Jah and rejoyce before him Paraphrase 4. He that thus presentiates himself in the Ark as also the Messias that shall be born and rise again in our flesh is no other than the supreme omnipotent God of heaven and earth creator first mover and ruler of the uppermost heaven and all under it let all the world worship and acknowledge and magnifie him as such and take pleasure in performing obedience to him 5. A Father of the fartherless and a Judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation Paraphrase 5. Though he inhabites the highest heaven yet is he pleased here below to exhibite himself in the Ark first and after in our humane flesh to relieve and patronize all that are in distress to heal the broken in heart those that are opprest with the burthen of their sins and so supply all other even secular wants to all that by humble devout prayer and reliance on him are qualified for it 6. God setteth the solitary in families he bringeth out those which are bound with chains but the rebellious dwell in a dry land Paraphrase 6. He is made up all of pity and compassion to all that are in want and distress that serve and wait on him brought the Israelites out of Egypt their state of hard slavery and punished their oppressors very heavily and so constantly supplies all his servants wants And this in an eminent manner shall be the work of the Messias by his miracles going about doing good and healing diseases but especially by his death working spiritual redemption the most soveraign mercy for our souls whilst the impenitent infidels that resist and frustrate all his methods of grace and merey are finally forsaken by him 7. O God when thou wentest forth before thy people when thou didst march through the wilderness Selah 8. The earth shook the heavens also dropt at the presence of God even Sinai it self was moved at the presence of God the God of Israel Paraphrase 7 8. God at his bringing his people with an high hand out of Egypt into Canaan conducted them through the wilderness in a pillar of cloud and fire to denote his special providence over them and bringing them to Mount Sinai delivered them his Law in a most solemn dreadful manner the earth trembling Exod. 19.18 and the air sending out thunder and lightning and a thick cloud of tempestuous rain v. 16. as a token of his presence there and an essay of the terrible account that should be exacted on those that obeyed not this Law And in the like dreadful manner shall Christ after his ascending to heaven come to visit his crucifiers and avenge all impenitent unbelievers 9. Thou O God didst send a plentifull rain whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary Paraphrase 9. When they were in great distress in the wilderness for want of food God made abundant provision fâr their refreshment and sustenance by sending them together with the thunder plentiful rerefreshing showres by raining down quails and Manna from heaven and above all the divine irrigation of the Law was thence distill'd And so shall the Messias make his spiritual supplies in great abundance to the comfort of all humble penitent hearts that are sensible of their wants and that ardently desire and pray to him for the supply of them 10. Thy congregation hath dwelt therein for thou O God hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor Paraphrase 10. And so the wilderness became an habitable place or constantly Gods holy Angels went along with them to defend and conduct and provide for them Instances of Gods gracious and special providence and protection over all those that stand in need of him and faithfully serve and humbly wait on him And parallâl to these Christ at his departure from the world shall leave his Apostles and their successors called Angels of the Churches Rev. 2. and 3. to provide for the spiritual wants of all his faithful disciples all docible Christians 11. The Lord gave the word great was the company of those that published it Paraphrase 11. And continually from time to time God gave us victories over the nations abundant matter of praise and triumph which the train of singing women mustering themselves up in another army according to their wont set forth in their triumphant hymns A type of the victories over death and hell by the resurrection of the Messias which the women in like manner Mary Magdalen c. should first publish to the Disciples and they preach to the whole world 12. Kings of armies did fly apace and she that tarried at home divided the spoil Paraphrase 12. To this or the like purpose that all the Canaanitish Kings with their forces that opposed or stood out against them
were utterly routed and put to flight Josh 10. and the weakest Israelites they that could not enter the battel were yet partakers of the spoils of their wealth And so in like manner that by the resurrection of Christ the powers of hell should be discomfited and the humble meck peaceable Christian reap the fruit of it 13. Though ye have lyen among the pots yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold Paraphrase 13. And the Israelites that were opprest and long lay in a sad and black destitute despised condition were now at length advanced to all prosperity splendor and glory as was remarkable at their coming out from the kilns of Egypt with the Jewels and wealth of the Egyptians and afterward more illustriously at their injoying of Canaan And so under Christs kingdom the heathenish Idolaters that were brought to the basest and most despicable condition of any creatures worshipping wood and stone c. and given up to the vilest lusts and a reprobate mind Rom. 1. should from that detestable condition be advanced to the service of Christ and practice of all Christian virtues charity meekness c. the greatest inward beauties in the world 14. When the Almighty scattered Kings in it it was white as snow in Salmon 15. The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan an high hill as the hill of Bashan Paraphrase 14 15. When God destroyed and dissipated the Kings of the seven nations before them for though it was by their arms yet was their strength so small in proportion to the giantly inhabitants that the victory was wholly to be attributed to God his providence was illustriously visible in it and the people were by this means soon possessed of the land on this and on the other side of Jordan a most fruitful and profitable possession caused by the melting of the snow that lay on the tops of the hills and exceedingly inrich'd all the plains that lay below them and there dwelt remarkable and illustrious in the eyes of all their neighbours And so upon Christs rising from the dead and thereby conquering death and hell and soon after upon his victorious conquest over his enemies the Jews his crucifiers which would not suffer him to reign over them the Church of Christ typified by the people of Israel should be possest of a prosperous and flourishng condition in Judaea and even in the heathen world though for a while it should sometimes meet with persecution from the heathen Emperors yet at length Christianity should be victorious and subdue the greatest opposers to the faith 16. Why leap ye ye high hills This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in yea the Lord will dwell in it for ever Paraphrase 16. Yet was not God pleased so far to favour either of these high hills as to chuse them for the place of his habitation but hath now brought the Ark of the Covenant and placed it on Mount Sion not the highest hill in those parts but one of an humble and moderate size preferring this before all other for the place of his special residence and this so as never to remove from thence as formerly he hath done to any other station as long as the Jewish state lasted And so proportionably shall Christ erect his Church in the hearts of the meek and lowly Mat. 5.3 whereas the proud and lofty as they will oppose and stand out against him so shall they be utterly rejected by him 17. The chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place Paraphrase 17. There therefore the hosts of Angels infinite numbers of them took up their station and so signified this to be the place of the special presence of God that Lord of hosts that appeared so terribly in mount Sinai who is said to reside where these his courtiers of heaven his guards of attendants are visible But much more illustriously shall Christ be present in his Church by the ministry of many thousands of Angels after his resurrection being that very God that once appeared by his Angels in Mount Sinai and hath all the hosts of them continually ministring to him 18. Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led captivity captive thou hast received gifts for men yea for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them Paraphrase 18. The God of heaven hath pleased to reveal himself in great Majesty to return victoriously to his throne in heaven being as a triumphant conqueror attended by many captives inabling his people the Israelites by the conduct of David to overcome the heathens and subject some of them to this Law of God to bring them in proselytes to their religion and those particularly which long held out against it the Gibeonites and the like and by this means as conquerors are wont to scatter largesses donatives so he hath distributed among these the spectators of his power among his people the greatest blessings the richest donatives imaginable the dignity of worshipping and praying to him in his Sanctuary as afterwards in the Temple whereby God vouchsafeth now to be present among those to hear and answer their prayers that were before strangers to him And thus Christ having by his resurrection overcome death hell and sin and also soon after signally destroyed his crucifiers shall send his Apostles and Evangelists to preach his Gospel to the whole heathen world induing them with gifts of tongues and miracles c. to qualifie them for their office and by them bring many Disciples to the faith particularly a remnant of the unbelieving Jews who seeing the Idolatrous Gentiles come in were stirred up with emulation and so timely prevented their ruine and lived members of the Church of Christ to which he promised his presence see Eph. 4.8 19. Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits even the God of our salvation Selah Paraphrase 19. Thus doth God our great deliverer from time to time continually oblige us with a great weight of mercies afforded us Blessed be his Name for it 20. He that is our God is the God of salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death Paraphrase 20. 'T is not in the power of any other but of this God whom we worship to work the least deliverance for any His priviledge it is to rescue out of the greatest dangers and to him we owe all our escapes From him also have all the signal judgements proceeded under which our enemies have fallen the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the seven nations 21. But God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses Paraphrase 21. And indeed for all those that will not be wrought on and brought home to him by all his wise and
death as among us apprehending or taking or seizing on being phrases primarily used in judicature for the Officers apprehending of malefactors are vulgarly used of diseases and death it self A fourth interpretation of the word the LXXII on that place of Isaiah do suggest rendring it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã That word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we know signifies a conspiration or conjunction of many and with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã iniquity is used of Simon Magus when he would have bought the gifts of the spirit of God out of a Satanical design the more advantageously to oppose and set up against Christ see note on Acts 8. e. This is the frequent importance of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ligae colligationes conspirationes to which David de Pomis told us the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã here is equivalent and that the sense may possibly bear also there are no conspiracies for their deaths wicked men being of all others the safest in this respect good men being hated and conspired against by evil men but good men conspire not against evil Of these four possible senses the first and second together seems most probable that the wicked men have no pangs or assaults of pains and torments ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã bringing them to their deaths Castellio renders it in Latine stile non sunt necessitates quae eos enecent there are no necessities to cut them off no fatal destinies to bring them to their end such were diseases and the rest which the Poets feign'd to come out of Pandora's box Our vulgar hath not mistaken the sense when they read they are in no peril of death To this accords what here follows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in our rendring of it their strength is firm or fat as Eglon Jude 3.17 is said to be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a very fat man noting an athletick health and habit of body that is the firmest and most robustious farthest removed from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã consumptive or emaciating sicknesses and so from all danger of death The LXXII render the verse ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã there is no rest so the Arabick understands it and so saith Hesychius ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it signifies rest and so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Lucian is to ly upon the back and look up the posture of rest in their death and firmament in their scourge and the Latine non est respectus mortâ eorum firmamentum in plagâ eorum there is no respect to their death and firmament in their plague 'T is not easie to divine what they meant by these expressions unless perhaps reading ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the notion of renitence refusing denying ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Hesychius it signifies to deny refuse not to consent the meaning may be that they have no aversion to or at their death they die in a good old age without any violent disease to bring them to it nor is there any firmness in their scourge the diseases or afflictions that befall them are quickly over again continue not long upon them But the Latine will not be brought to this sense It may be non est respectus morti eorum may signifie they do not think of dying and then that will not be far from the sense though with the words it have no affinity Our former English which most frequently follows them hath here happily departed from them and rendred it fully to the sense they are in no peril of death but are lusty and strong But still it must be acknowledged there is great difficulty in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã whether × be radical or no. If it be not and if ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Hebrew may be thought to have the like notion to what it hath in Arabick to signifie first then very agreeably to what went before it would thus be rendred ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the former part of their life is healthy free from diseases or maladies according to the usual notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Arabick Or if it be radical and have any affinity with the Arabick ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã pain or grief then it would be in consort with the former still but it i. e. their death is free from pain But these conjectures are without authority Abu-Walid then makes × radical and takes it to signifie porticus the porch or as some times it doth the whole temple and then understanding × the note of comparison he renders it they are firm and sound as the porch or temple i. e. as such a strong building as Psal 117. he prays that their daughters may be as corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace This interpretation is mentioned as by Aben-Ezra so by Kimchi in his Commentary and also in his Roots in the name of R. Jonah i. e. Abu-Walid without any censure though he bring also the other interpretation making × an affix and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to signifie strength as also Aben. Ezra doth The Jewish Arab interpreter making × an affix takes the other for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã perhaps thus rendring the verse there are no bonds of or from their destruction nor danger but they say perhaps they shall recover or be in health as if it were literally healthful is their perhaps or that which they perswade themselves of not thinking themselves in danger of death Aben-Ezra also hath another rendring taking ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for a palace and understanding × they or every of them is in health in his palace In this variety it may be best to adhere to that of our English reading × as an affix and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for strength of body V. 5. Men In this verse the critical difference between ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã seems to be respected The former from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã doluit aeger fuit signifies a painful sickly calamitous estate and accordingly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the labour from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã doluit male habuit denotes sickness or pains or other such kinds of misery which bring anguish and faintings with them which the LXXII fitly express by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã lassitudes used also for diseases or sickness But ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is a more general word for any sort of man any son of Adam any mortal which by bearing sinful flesh is subject to afflictions of all sorts noted here by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to strike or scourge which the LXXII fitly express by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the Latine by flagellari And so as the former phrase denotes the sorrow or pain or sickness of the diseased or weak so this latter to be stricken or scourged ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã with man signifies all other kind of afflictions which befall men
up the right hand of his adversaries thou hast made all his enemies to rejoyce Paraphrase 42. And now their enemies and assailants are as continually prosperous as David himself was wont to be 43. Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword and hast not made him to stand in the battel Paraphrase 43. Their weapons that were for ever victorious by thy forsaking them have quite lost their keenness they that were never accustomed to defeats in their fights are now subdued and unable to make any farther resistance 44. Thou hast made his glory to cease and cast his throne down to the ground Paraphrase 44. The great fame and renown and power which they had among all men is now utterly lost 45. The days of his youth hast thou shortned thou hast covered him with shame Selah Paraphrase 45. Our Princes slain and their people subdued and captivated and contumeliously handled 46. How long Lord wilt thou hide thy self for ever shall thy wrath burn like fire Paraphrase 46. This is a most sad estate and if we be not speedily rescued out of it we shall all be finally destroyed and the people and d seed of David to whom those illustrious promises were made utterly consumed 47. Remember how short my time is hast thou made all men in vain 48. What man is he that liveth and shall not see death shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave Selah Paraphrase 47 48. Our age and space of life here is very transient and flitting and is soon and certainly concluded in the grave that inevitable lot of all mankind And in this state of captivity we have little joy or comfort in that life which is afforded us we are born miserable and pass through a succession of miseries here and are shortly scised with death And this is far distant from the purport of that Covenant made with David the benefits of which we it seems by our sins have as to this age of ours utterly forfeited 49. Lord where are thy former loving kindnesses which thou swarest unto David in thy truth Paraphrase 49. O blessed Lord be thou at length pleased to be propitiated to pardon these our provoking sins to remember and resume thy methods of mercy and by what wayes thine own wisdom shall best choose to perform the purport of thy Covenant so long since ratified to David In this thy fidelity is concerned and this we are sure will be made good in the eyes of all O that it might be thy good pleasure to manifest it at this time by the restoring of Davids posterity our Monarchy Temple and People to the former dignity 50. Remember Lord the reproach of thy servants how I do bear in my bosome the reproach of all the mighty people 51. Wherewith thine enemies have reproached O Lord wherewith they have reproached the foot-steps of thine anointed Paraphrase 50 51. Till thou please thus by some means to rescue us we are likely to be the reproach of all the heathen people about us who will now object the evacuation and frustration of our faith and hopes founded on thy promises to David's seed and say by way of derision that our Messias is very long a coming 52. Blessed be the Lord for evermore Amen and Amen Paraphrase 25. But whatever their contumelles or our sufferings are they shall not discourage or take us off from Blessing and Praising thee and steadily relying on thee whatsoever desertion our soul provoking sins have most justly now brought upon us yet upon our reformation thou wilt certainly return in mercy to us and whatsoever interruptions thy promised Mercies may seem to have in respect of our captive Prince and People the present posterity and Kingdom of David yet 't is most certain the Promises made for sending the Messias whose Kingdom and redemption is not of this world but spiritual and eternal the erecting of his Throne in his servants hearts and the redeeming them from Sin and Satan shall in due time be performed in Christ that most illustrious son of David to whom and none else belonged the promise under the oath of God And in this completion of Gods Covenant with David his servant of which all Gods faithful servants shall have their portions we securely and with full confidence acquiesce and all joyn in an ardent and most devout celebration of God's fidelity his constant performance of all his promises and so conclude So be it Lord and So certainly it shall be Annotations on Psalm LXXXIX V. 2. I have said That ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I have said belongs to God and not to the Psalmist appears v. 3. where in connexion with this is added I have made a Covenant with my chosen I have sworn unto David my servant When the LXXII therefore and Syriack and Latine c. read it in the second person ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã thou hast said it is to be lookt on as their paraphrase to express the meaning and not that they read it otherwise than the Hebrew now hath it and this the rather because of the great affinity betwixt ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the second and the first person But when it follows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã thy faithfulness shalt thou establish these again as those of v. 1. are the words of the Psalmist speaking unto God And of such permutation of persons God saying the former part and the Psalmist by way of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã answering God in the latter there are many examples One follows here in the next words the third and fourth verses being evidently spoken by God I have made a Covenant Thy seed will I establish But the fifth by way of answer by the Psalmist And the heavens shall praise thy wonders O Lord. The Jewish Arab who seems with some other Interpreters to refer it to the Psalmist ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as I have known or made known though being without vowels it may be read in the second person as thou hast declared adds in the beginning of v. 3. who hast said I have made a Covenant c. V. 6. Mighty As of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã hath been shewed note on Psal 82.6 so of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã here is to be resolved that it signifies Angels even those that are in heaven in the beginning of the verse the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is applied to God being communicated also to them there being no more difference between those two phrases ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in heaven and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã among the sons of God than there is betwixt compared in the former and likened in the latter part of the verse where we read can be compared the Hebrew hath ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is ponere disponere there to set himself in aray to enter the lists Job 6.4 and thence 't is to dispute to aray
locusts Exod. 10.4 came and swept utterly away v. 5. 36. He smote also the first-born in their land the chief of all their strength Paraphrase 36. In the last place he sent his destroying Angels in the depth of the night to kill every first-born the prime and stoutest and most valued both of man and beast through all the land from Pharaoh to the meanest person in Aegypt ch 11.5 and 12.29 37. He brought them forth also with silver and gold and there was not one feeble person among their tribes Paraphrase 37. And upon this last judgment they were urgent and importunate to have them gone Exod. 12.31 33. And the children of Israel took all the houshold-stuff that they had and God gave them favour in the sight of the Aegyptians Exod. 11.3 and 12.36 so that they lent them many rich jewels and denied them nothing that they required Exod. 12.35 36. And one circumstance more there was very considerable that at this time of their going out in this haste there was not one sick or weak person among all the people of Israel not one by impotence or sickness disabled for the march but all together and in one host or army went out from the land of Aegypt which strange remark of Gods providence though it be not exprest in the story is yet intimated Exod. 12.41 38. Aegypt was glad when they departed for the fear of them fell upon them Paraphrase 38. And now the Aegyptians were instructed by their plagues not onely to be content to lose these their so profitable servants but even rejoyced and lookt upon it as a deliverance to themselves that they were thus rid of them and so as they hoped of the sufferings which the deteining them against Gods command had brought upon them So terribly were they amated at the death of their first-born that they cryed out they were all but dead men if they did not presently atone God by dismissing them Exod. 12.33 39. He spread a cloud for a covering and fire to give light in the night Paraphrase 39. In their march God conducted them in a most eminent manner by his Angels in a cloud encompassing their hosts and that cloud so bright and shining that in the dark of the night it lighted them and gave them an easie passage Exod. 13.21 22. 40. The people asked and he brought quails and satisfied them with the bread of heaven Paraphrase 40. As they past through the wilderness of Sin and wanted food and murmured God pardoned their murmuring and furnished them with quails a most delicious sort of flesh and instead of corn for bread he sent them down in a showre from heaven bread ready drest or prepared and thence called Manna and that in such plenty that every man had enough Exod. 16.16 41. He opened the rock and the waters gushed out they ran in the dry places like a river Paraphrase 41. At Rephidim when they murmured for water Exod. 17. God appointed Moses to strike the rock in Horeb v. 6. and there came out water in such plenty that it ran along see Psal 78.20 and as the Jews relate attended them in a current or stream through the drought of the desart so that we hear no more of their want of water till they came to Cadesh see note on Cor. 10. b. and then took a contrary way in their journeying 42. For he remembred his holy promise and Abraham his servant Paraphrase 42. And all this an effect of his own free mercy in discharge of his promise made to Abraham whose fidelity to him God was pleased thus to reward upon his posterity 43. And he brought forth his people with joy and his chosen with gladness 44. And gave them the lands of the heathen and they inherited the labour of the people Paraphrase 43 44. And so at length having brought out his people with so much glory victorious and triumphant out of Aegypt he possest them of the promised Canaan cast out the old inhabitants before them for their pollutions and idolatries and planted this his peculiar people in their stead 45. That they might observe his statutes and keep his laws Praise ye the Lord. Paraphrase 45. And all this not that they should indulge to riot and imploy their plenty in lusts and pleasures or grow fat and wanton but that being thus richly supplied wanting no manner of thing that is good having nothing of encumbrance or diversion but on the contrary all kinds of encouragements to piety they should therein constantly exercise themselves according to the ingagements and obligations incumbent on those that had received such a succession of miracles of mercies from God a type of that duty now incumbent on us Christians upon far greater and more considerable obligations that especially of our redemption by Christ from the power as well as the guilt of sin and return him the tribute of sincere obedience for ever after approve themselves an holy peculiar people to him zealous of good works And in so doing let us all indeavour uniformly to praise and magnifie and glorifie the name of God Hallelujah Annotations on Psal CV V. 3. Glory ye That ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the reciprocal conjugation is yet to be here rendred in the active sense is agreed on both by the Chaldee and Syriack ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith the former praise in his name and the other ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã praise to his name where as × in so × to is certainly a Pleonasme as v. 15. both × and × are in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his anointed and his prophets and the whole phrase signifies no more than the Latin of the Syriack expresses Laudate nomen sanctitatis ejus praise the name of his holiness just as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã believing God and in God are all one the preposition being abundant very frequently The LXXII indeed and the Latin reade it in the passive sense ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Laudamini in nomine sancto be ye praised in his holy name but this certainly without any propriety of expression the praises of God and not of our selves being the duty to which we are invited in this Psalm V. 4. His strength For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã his strength the LXXII seem to have read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be strengthened and accordingly render it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Latin confirmamini be confirmed and so the Syriack ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be strengthened and so the sense would well bear seek the Lord and be confirmed let all your strength be sought from him so the Jewish Arab Seek the Lord and seek that he would strengthen you or strength from him or you shall certainly be strengthened if by prayer you diligently seek him But we need not change the reading for the gaining this sense This Psalm was composed for the constant use of the Sanctuary and then ãâã ãâã
ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã It must be that he reign By this 't is evident that in this verse ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Lord at thy right hand must be understood of the Messias instated in his regal power at the right hand of his Father and not of the Father as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to back and help him as Psal 16.8 and elsewhere the phrase is used For of the Son thus exalted we know it is that we reade Joh. 5.22 that the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son Agreeable to which it is that this Adonai or Lord at Jehovah's right hand here shall strike through Kings in the day of his wrath i. e. shall act revenges most severely on the opposers of his Kingdom which revenges in the New Testament are peculiarly attributed to Christ and called the coming of the Son of man coming in the clouds coming with his Angels and the approaching or coming of his Kingdom V. 7. Brook of the way ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies any hollow place or vale a receptacle of waters and from thence a small river or brook which hath not its original from any spring but is filled with rain-waters and so is full in the winter but in the summer dried up So Gen. 26.17 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the valley of Gârar Joel 3.18 a fountain shall come forth and water ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the valley of Shittim and 2 King 3.16 make this valley full of ditches and v. 17. ye shall not see rain yet that valley shall be filled with water And being here joyned with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the way it seems to signifie no more than those plashes of water which in the winter are frequent in highways from the fall of much rain These first from the places where they are collected no pools on purpose provided for the receit of waters but every little cavity in the way which is thus filled by rain and secondly by the stagnancy or standing still of these waters and thirdly by the frequency of passengers fouling them are to be concluded very unfit for the use of men very inconvenient for drinking and would never be used for that purpose were it âot by him that hath no other or that so far intends the haste of his way and so far despises or neglects himself as to content himself with the worst and meanest sort of accommodation that which will just satisfie the necessities of nature This is most observable of souldiers in an hasty march that are thirsty but will not make stay at an Inn to refresh themselves with wine or so much as go out of their way to make choice of or seek out for wholsome water but insist on their pursuit and satisfie their thirst at the next receptacle of waters the next puddle or trench or ditch or brook they meet with This is a sign of great alacrity in a souldier and withall of great humility and contempt of hardship and difficulties of submitting to any the meanest and most servile condition and may well here be used poetically to express the great humiliation and exinanition of the Messias assuming the real form and all the mean offices of a servant pursuing the work to which he was sent with all alacrity counting it his meat and drink to doe the will of him that sent him and finish his work Joh. 4.34 and in fine laying down his life suffering as willingly a most bitter contumelious death which being by him exprest by drinking of a cup and that a special sort of cup such as others would not probably be content with Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of Matt. 20.22 and that an insupportable bitter cup Matt. 26.39 42. Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me it may very fitly be extended to his death as well as to all that was preparative and in the way to it And to this the lifting up his head reigning victoriously over all his enemies being constituted Judge of quick and dead is here justly apportioned according to that of Phil. 2.8 9. He made himself of no reputation but humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross Wherefore God hath highly exalted him Another notion there is of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for a torrent or river Prov. 18.4 a flowing ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã torrent or river and so Am. 6.14 unto the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we render it river of the wilderness If it be here taken in that notion then drinking of it may be a proverbial speech to express victory as Isa 37.25 when Sennacherib is boasting of his conquests he thus speaks I will enter into the height of his border and the forrest of his Carmel I have digged and drunk water and with the sole of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of the besieged places Where the former part being an expression of victory and forcible seisure and so the latter also of blocking up and close siege the middlemost may probably be to the same sense and the rather because of the custom of Eastern Princes who in token of dedition exacted from subjugated Provinces Earth and Water Judith 2.7 In reference to which the digging up Earth and drinking Water will signifie a forcible entry a method of battery where the milder summons have not prevailed thereby to take livery and seism of an hostile Countrey And if that be the notion here then the phrase signifies Christ's victory atchieved by his death over Satan Sin and Hell Which being wrought upon the Cross is fitly precedaneous and preparative to the lifting up of his head The Hundred and Eleventh PSALM Praise ye the Lord. The Hundred and eleventh Psalm is one of those whose Title see Note a. on Psal 106. is Hallelujah and is accordingly spent in praising and magnifying the name of God for all his works of power and mercy It is composed in twenty two short Metres each beginning with the several Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet 1. I Will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation Paraphrase 1. From the bottom of my soul and with the full quire of all the faculties thereof I will acknowledge and bless the name of God This I will doe more privately in counsel of all pious men the true Israelites when ever any transaction of concernment is to be advised on by those that make strict conscience of their duty and this will I doe in the most publick and solemn assembly No juncto is too close no congregation too wide for such a most due performance 2. The works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein Paraphrase 2. Marvellous are the works of God and of all other sorts of study most worthy to be the exercise and imployment of all pious men who can entertain themselves with more
lives are made up of receiving and celebrating mercies and deliverances from God such as his omnipotent hand worketh for them either without the assistance of humane aids or so as the success is eminently imputable to God and not to man 17. I shall not dye but live and declare the works of the Lord. Paraphrase 17. And having received this instance of his mercy at this time being now secured from my greatest dangers what remains for me but to spend my whole age in proclaiming the power and mercy and fidelity of my deliverer and call all men off from their vain and weak trusts the arm of flesh to this more skilfull and politick dependence on God 18. The Lord hath chastened me sore but he hath not given me over unto death Paraphrase 18. God hath most justly delivered me up to be severely punisht pursued and hunted by my enemies but then hath seasonably delivered me out of their hands and not permitted me to be overwhelmed by them 19. Open to me the gates of righteousness I will go into them and I will praise the Lord. 20. This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter Paraphrase 19 20. The sanctuary of God the holy place whither all good men resort to petition mercies and to acknowledge them when they are received is that to which as I am most bound I will now make my most solemn address and there commemorate God's mercies to me Or I will make use of all occasions as may make way for the praiââng God 21. I will praise thee for thou hast heard me and art become my salvation Paraphrase 21. Proclaiming to all the gracious returns I have received to my prayers the abundant and seasonable deliverances which God hath afforded me 22. The stone which the builders refused is become the head-stone of the corner 23. This is the Lord 's doing it is marvellous in our eyes Paraphrase 22 23. And now may all the assembly of Israel rejoyce and joyn in their congratulations that being now fallen out in King David's exaltation to the throne and much more eminently in the resurrection and ascension of the Messiah which is ordinarily said whether by way of History or Parable that the stone which in the laying the foundation of some eminent building was oft tried by the builders and as oft rejected by them as unfit for their use to any part of the fabrick and thereupon cast among and covered over with rubbish was at length when they wanted a stone for the most eminent use the coupling and joynting the whole fabrick together found most exactly fitted for the turn and so put in the most honourable place the chief corner of the building A thing so unexpected and strange that it was with reason judged as special an act of God's providence as if it had been sent them down immediately from heaven As strange was it and as imputable to God's special hand that David of no eminent family the son of Jesse and withall the youngest and most despised of his brethren should be in Saul's stead exalted by God to the regal throne and being for this driven by Saul from his court and pursued as a partridge on the mountains should yet continually escape his hand and be peaceably placed in his throne And so yet farther in the mystery that the Messiah the son of a Carpenter's wife with him brought up in the trade that whilst he made known the will of God had no dwelling-place that was rejected by the chief of the Jews as a drunkard and glutton and one that acted by the Devil as a blasphemous and seditious person and as such put to the vilest death the death of the Cross and was held some space under the power of the grave should be raised the third day from death taken up to heaven and there sit in his throne to rule and exercise regal power over his Church for ever This certainly was a work purely divine and so ought to be acknowledged and admired by us 24. This is the day the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it 25. Save now I beseech thee O Lord O Lord I beseech thee send now prosperity Paraphrase 24 25. This day is the celebrating of a mercy wrought eminently signally and peculiarly by the Lord 't was he that exalted David to the throne and he that will advance the Messias to his regality in heaven and thereby peculiarly consecrated by God to his service and so for ever deserves to be solemnized by us being matter of the greatest joy imaginable to all subjects either of David's or of Christ's Kingdom and so this Psalm fit for a Paschal Psalm in the Church of Christ for ever Now it seasonable to use Hosannahs see note on Psal 20. d. and Matt. 21. a. acclamations and wishes of all manner of prosperity to this King exalted by God David the type of the Messiah Let us all joyn in doing it most solemnly crying people and priest together 26. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. Paraphrase 26. The Lord be praised for the great mercy of this King sent us so peculiarly by God but especially for the Messias whose coming hath been so long promised and expected see Matt. 21.9 All we that belong to the house of God the Priests that wait on his sanctuary do heartily bless God for this day and beseech his blessing on him that is now crowned and so shall all the Church of the Messias for ever celebrate him bless God for his exaltation and pray to God to prosper this regal office unto him bringing in the whole world unto his service 27. God is the Lord which hath shewed us light bind the sacrifice with cords even to the horns of the altar Paraphrase 27. Thus hath God shewed forth himself as in mercy so in power for us he hath magnified himself exercised this double act of his dominion over the world 1. in raising David from so mean an estate to the regal throne 2. in raising Christ from death to life and then assuming him to an intire dominion over the world to endure to the day of judgment And in both these he hath revived us with the most chearfull beams of his divine goodness O let us in commemoration thereof keep an anniversary sacrifical feast see v. 24. to praise and magnifie his name for these and all his mercies every man giving thanks and saying 28. Thou art my God and I will praise thee thou art my God I will exalt thee Paraphrase 28. I will laud and praise thy mercies so eminently vouchsafed unto me and in so peculiar a manner inhansed to the benefit of my soul and proclaim thy goodness and superlative divine excellencies to all the world 29. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 29. Calling unto all to
their society and remove far from them to renounce all communion with them in such black courses 16. For their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood Paraphrase 16. If there were nothing else to deter thee from them no fear of discovery or punishment from men yet the guilt of such a crimson crying sin is enough to avert one of any tenderness and give him a perfect horrour and detestation of any fact to which that adheres there being no burthen apt to press down a conscience deeper than that of shedding innocent blood Rom. 3.16 17. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird Paraphrase 17. Which he that considers and can by any means possible get out of the confines of it were more irrational than the silliest bird should he permit himself to be thus ensnared in so hellish a guilt For of a bird 't is manifest that be the net or toyles never so cunningly and advantageously laid yea and baited too yet if that espy the net it will not by the enticements of the bait be incited to run into it and there is no need of any quick sight to discern that the net being much more grosly visible than the bait which is but a few scattered seeds c. very unvaluable if they might be gained and hardly discernible as they lie on the ground but will make use of the wing to fly from and escape that danger And the like will every rational man doe when he is tempted to any such bloody act which must bring that or the like horrid guilt upon him which is visible enough to the bodily eye much more visible than the advantages he can hope to acquire by it and have any thing which may supply the place of a wing such is 1. prayer to God for his grace 2. meditation of divine vengeance of death and hell and judgment 3. diversion to some better at least to some other more innocent employment and none so fit again for that turn as prayer which if but as a diversion hath a moral efficacy against temptations 4. Constancy in resisting and not yielding any consent some or all of these he may certainly make use of and then whatsoever the temptation be it is frustrated and lost upon him that is thus provided with an eye and wing and seeing and considering this danger makes use of any of these means to keep out of it 18. And they lay wait for their own blood they lurk privily for their own lives Paraphrase 18. But beside this black guilt foremention'd v. 16. the present vengeance which such designs are to expect may seasonably deter all from joyning with them Their bloody enterprises generally rebound upon themselves their machinations against other mens lives will certainly cost them their own it being seldom seen that men of blood escape present vengeance or if they doe their impunity and prosperous impiety will but the more secure them of their sadder portion in another world 19. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain which taketh away the life of the owners thereof Paraphrase 19. The same may be said of all other temptations those especially of the world all unlawfull ways of encreasing wealth which worldlings make use of they are so far from tending to the designed end of happiness here that they are generally most treacherous and ruinous to those that deal in them either they undo them utterly so doth oppression and sacrilege blast and melt all the former store or bring them to shamefull deaths so do pyracies and robberies and rebellions c. or else deprive them of all enjoyments and comforts of this life so generally the covetous miser dares not diminish his heap but consumes himself to encrease that and never receives any reward of all his drudgery the richer he is the lesse he enjoys of his plenty 20. Wisedom crieth without she uttereth her voice in the streets 21. She crieth in the chief place of concourse in the openings of the gates in the city she uttereth her words saying Paraphrase 20 21. God's law the rule of all righteousness and foundation of all religion hath many ways been proclaimed and promulgated in a most publick manner but at length most solemnly by Jesus Christ descending from heaven on this very arrant to call home sinners to repentance and the summ of its lessons is 22. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Paraphrase 22. To reprove and reproach the great madness of sinners that still go on impenitent unreformed pronouncing it the utmost silliness and atheisticalness and profest opposition and defiance to light and grace that they thus persist and therefore far from having any of the benefit or excuse of ignorance but in stead thereof all the aggravations and condemnation of loving darkness more than light Jo. 3.19 because their deeds are evil and they dread and vehemently avert being convinced or amended Did not men let loose the reins to all inordinate and irrational appetites making bruitishness and perdition their choice placing all their delight on such things as are most unsatisfactory and yet most detestable and scoffing at all others that accompany them not in all excess of riot did they not hate piety without any temptation and resolve never to taste the sweets of that gracious yoke and so stand at the utmost distance of defiance and hostility with it It were not imaginable they should thus hold out unmoved and impregnable to all sober counsels 23. Turn you at my reproof behold I will pour out my spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Paraphrase 23. If yet after so many methods uneffectually used they shall at length relent and convert and with sincere contrition and confession forsake their evil and ruinous course upon the threats and promises which Christ brings into the world with him and proclaims to the worst of sinners to Pharisees to Publicans to Idolaters they shall not onely be accepted the worst of them upon these terms but together with pardon for all that is past he will give them the continued assistance of his spirit that fountain or seed of grace that shall flow continually to the supply of all their wants and become a principle of new life and strength unto them and then by the practice of all holy duties they shall arrive to that experimental knowledge of the divine transcendent excellency and desirableness of them that they shall prefer them infinitely before all the empty joys that before they had courted so importunately 24. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded 25. But ye have set at nought all my counsels and would none of my reproof 26. I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh Paraphrase 24 25 26. And for those that go on continually in
and to become able to steer thy whole life by those excellent rules of all sorts and never transgress any of them 10. When wisedom entreth into thy heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul 11. Discretion shall preserve thee understanding shall keep thee Paraphrase 10 11. And when by these closer and more intimate embraces by the constant practice of vertue and experience of the sweetness of it which at a distance is never discerned wicked men knowing not what belongs to it thou comest to esteem it as it really is the most desirable valuable and even sensual pleasing course especially if compared with the unsatisfying empty joys or rather vexations and burthens of the flesh and world this very apprehension of it if there were nothing else will prove a consideration of great efficacy a competent armature against all temptations whensoever any the most specious promising sensual or secular bait shall invite and solicit thee out of thy road of obedience and adherence to the commands of God thine own judgment will assure thee that it bids thee to thy loss that by catching after that phasme or shadow of false pleasure thou shalt deprive thy self of the most real solid and durable joys which are all made up in the constant exercises of all moral and Christian duties humility meekness mercifulness peaceableness contentedness temperance purity justice c. and are not to be found in the confines of the contrary vices which beside the wounds and gratings of an accusing conscience bring all manner of uneasiness and dissatisfactions along with them nay even pains and torments after them And this one would think should be sufficient to uphold and continue us unchanged in the ways of vertue to fortifie us against all such treacherous competitours as come on purpose to rob and waste and undoe when they most pretend and undertake to gratifie and oblige us 12. To deliver thee from the way of the evil man from the man that speaketh froward things Paraphrase 12. To secure us from the snares that tempters are ready to lay for us ch 1.10 and keep us from imitating or associating with them in their unlawfull destructive practices designed to shed others blood but generally redounding to their own mischief bringing that on themselves which they projected against others ch 1.18 19. 13. Who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness Paraphrase 13. Considering what a strange irrational choice it must needs be to forsake what is so infinitely valuable and advantagious in exchange for that which is so detestable and destructive even the same that it would be to leave a direct lightsome way that conducts to all bliss for a melancholy gloomy crooked path that leads to eternal misery 14. Who rejoyce to doe evil and delight in the frowardness of the wicked Paraphrase 14. Can there be any thing so distant from right judgment so contrary to all even humane measures as to delight and take joy in doing things that are most detestable without any intuition of gain or advantage by them to place a felicity in affronting God and nature and going on obstinately and imperswasibly in such abhorred fruitless courses which beside the pleasure of opposing all that is good which none but devils one would think should have taste of or appetite to have nothing else to recommend them to any man 15. Whose ways are crooked and they froward in their paths Paraphrase 15. Were they not as crooked and distorted as their ways are were not their hearts set wholly on opposing and despising of all that is good and perversly bent never to hearken to any sober counsels it were impossible they should thus like and love their wandrings and prevarications such chargeable gainless variations from their duty 16. To deliver thee from the strange woman even from the stranger which flattereth with her words Paraphrase 16. The very same method will fortifie thee against all other the most enticing ensnaring sins particularly that of unlawfull embraces The vertue either of virginal or conjugal chastity is certainly so much more pleasant and desirable than the liberties of various lust be it recommended to thy phancy by never so many flattering and false colours that thy own judgment and discretion v. 11. is sufficient to arm thee against any such be they never so insinuating proposals 17. Which forsaketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the covenant of her God Paraphrase 17. Were there nothing but the breach of the conjugal faith and perjurious falseness that such commissions are guilty of thiâ were enough to avert any man from this sin with another man's wife The adulteress is a most scandalous disloyal person breaks through the greatest obligations both of duty and kindness justice and gratitude to her lawfull and tender huâband and having entred into mutual sacramental bands a most strict covenant to him and vow to God of continuing her love and faith to him constant and undefiled she most traiterously violateth all these obligations and thou that joynest with her in the sin art beside thine own guilty of all her falsenesses 18. For her house enclineth unto death and her paths unto the dead Paraphrase 18. But beside the horribleness of the sin the punishments which it must expect to meet with may most reasonably deter any man from it All the plagues and miseries of this world and rottenness and wretched diseases and death are the ordinary attendants of it Whilst men are in pursuit of this sin it speaks them fair v. 16. promises them pleasure at a distance but they that are thus ensnared find ân abyss of infelicities inseparably annext to it 19. None that go unto her return again neither take they hold of the paths of life Paraphrase 19. And beyond all one curse attends this sin that it is a kind of hell to them that are once engaged in it As to him that is once in those chains of darkness there is no possibility of returning to a capacity of any tolerable much less happy life so those that are any thing deeply immerst in this sin of adultery seldom ever get out of it again Experience shews of such how unsuccessfull all calls of God the most powerfull methods of his grace and providence are to disintangle them or to recover them to a life of sobriety and piety 20. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous Paraphrase 20. And as this prescribed method cannot doubt to be successfull in fortifying thee against the temptations forementioned so it will be abundantly sufficient to secure thy perseverance in all piety by considering how much a more easie nay delectable joyous course it is v. 10. than that which either the world or flesâ can tempt thee to 21. For the upright shall dwell in the land and the perfect shall remain in it Paraphrase 21. Piety having the promises even of this life
the good providence of God who hath the dispencing of life and all good things it is to be expected that obedience to his methods shall thus be crowned godliness having the promises of this life as well as of another as far as God shall see them best for his servants And even in ordinary reason the practice of vertues tends to the preserving health and life both from diseases and from violent invasions temperance and sobriety secures from those many lothsome diseases to which the contrary betray men and meekness and peaceableness and mercifulness c. gain the kindness and generally secure us from the rages and violences and injuries of men and the hand of justice that avenges and cuts off sinners is designed not for the punishing but rewarding them that doe well 11. I have taught thee in the way of wisedom I have led thee in the right paths Paraphrase 11. Assure thy self the precepts and directions of life which I give thee from God tend most to all thy real advantages will lead thee a direct and straight way to all felicity and there is nothing tolerably wise but to order thy whole course according to them 12. When thou goest thy steps shall not be straitned and when thou runnest thou shalt not stumble Paraphrase 12. If thou doest so there shall no incommodation or danger befall thee of any kind whatsoever thou settest thy self to shall prosper 13. Take fast hold of instruction let her not go keep her for she is thy life Paraphrase 13. This then may conjure thee to give a most diligent ear to all the precepts of good life yea not onely to hearken to them when they are taught thee and set thy self to the practice of them as a duty owing from thee to God but most greedily to catch hold of them as thy greatest prize and crown thine own dearest interest as dear unto thee as is thy life and indeed the onely means to continue that comfortable to thee and therefore to be sought and kept with the greatest earnestness and diligence 14. Enter not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men 15. Avoid it pass not by it turn from it and pass away Paraphrase 14 15. As for the contrary ways of wicked men who hope to make great acquisitions of pleasure and profit by those means be carefull thou never suffer thy self to engage with them never flatter thy self that any such course is likely to thrive with thee the wicked are so far from being just matter of envy to godly men or consequently of imitation that their course is to be averted and dreaded and detested by all that mean kindness to themselves to be look'd on as a mere trap and snare from which every wise man will guard himself as diligently as it is possible and never approach or enter the confines of it 16. For they sleep not except they have done mischief and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall Paraphrase 16. One sad observation thou mayest make of wicked especially of violent injurious persons which is sufficient to deter any man from their society from envying or imitating them Their heart is most violently and transportingly set on their unjust designs they cannot take any rest enjoy their necessary refreshment of sleep unless they can compass the mischief they design By which means they put themselves into most painfull distempers through the eagerness of their pursuit especially if they encounter difficulties and are crost in them And all this while it is not any advantage which they project to themselves and are at all this expence to purchase but the bare empty gainless diabolical satisfaction of having done some mischief to others Their whole life is best pourtray'd by the emblem of the most sordid witch that submits her self to the basest and most horrid usages besides the giving her soul by compact to the devil onely that she may have the pitifull noisome pleasure of doing some mischief to her neighbour Just such is the whole life of malicious men 17. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence Paraphrase 17. And as for their sleep so for all other the most necessary refection their very meat and drink they contemn and despise it in the eagerness of their pursuits It is their meat and drink to wrong and defraud others their heart is set importunately upon that If they miscarry in their enterprises they are strangely discontented Ahab could enjoy nothing else if he were denyed Naboth's vineyard he turned away his face and would eat no bread 1 King 21.4 if they succeed they have oft no other benefit by it but the satisfaction of having been instruments of grieving others i. e. so many lictors or executioners or fiends and this is a strange sort of sensuality for any ingenuous man to be emulous of Or if they reap gain to themselves by rapine and violence and oppressing of other men even this is very unfit to be enjoyed in them The conscience of the injustice will deprive them of all real contentment or comfort in enjoying it when they know that every bit they eat is torn out of other mens throats taken by fraud or violence from the just possessours And this also may avert any man from their ways 18. But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day Paraphrase 18. Whereas the whole course of righteous men the beginning progress consummation is all imitable and exemplary fit to attract all others to it whether in respect of the inward lustre and excellency of it or the present satisfaction and pleasure that results from such practices above that which attends any other or the joy and comfort of conscience immediately following it In all these respects it cannot be more lively resembled than by the light of the Sun when it is come above our Horizon which is in continued increase till it come to high noon the day is all that while arraying and adorning it self as it were continually putting on addition of lustre from morning till mid-day and then the whole Horizon is fully illuminated no shade or degree of darkness any where remaining Such is the way of veâue and good men it sends out a lustre constantly encreasing illuminates and warms at once attracts all that see it enamours them with its beauty enlivens with its rays see Matt. 5.14 16. till at length if they be not perfectly blind and insensate it brings all to partake of its excellencies 19. The way of the wicked is as darkness they know not at what they stumble Paraphrase 19. Whereas the wicked man's course is most black and dismall made up of all darkness the image of death and hell whether you respect the impiety of their deeds or the both present and future miseries that attend them And one direfull part of their condition
saith the Interlinear ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they are not easie to be known say the LXXII and so the Latin and the Syriack investigabiles secret and investigable or rather she knows not i. e. she wanders she knows not whither so the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and she knows not which the learned Castalio well expresses errantibus nescio quo ejus itineribus her goings wandring I know not whither i. e. to all the ill imaginable This sixth verse seems designed as the character of a naughty woman to enforce the former exhortation of not yielding to her most flattering and promising temptations V. 14. In all evil The question here is whether all evil signifie all sin or all misery The word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is common to both but the context seems to respect the latter rather the misery being that v. 11. that brings the unclean person to his sad complaints of himself and the foresight of which is used as an argument to deter all men from falling into sin And thus the ancient Interpreters seem to have understood it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in all shames i. e. in a most reproachfull ridiculous condition the scorn and laughing-stock of the people and so the Syriack also The Arabick into all misery of which also the LXXII their ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the Latin's in omni malo may fitly be interpreted Were it understood of sin it were then an expression of godly sorrow and a rescue from the power of this sin by repentance But the intention of the writer looks not that way but rather to the sad condition that at last the adulterer finds himself reduced to for want of timely care and therefore that is more probably to be pitched on V. 16. Let thy fountains c. The Hebrew here and v. 17 and 18. reads in the future ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã shall be dispersed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã shall be and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã shall be then in the latter part of v. 18. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and rejoyce c. And thus the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã thy fountains shall abound ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they shall be and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it shall be Yet the LXXII and the Latin reade in the imperative ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them be poured out abundantly as for the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not which the ordinary Copies prefix it is visibly an errour in the Scribe which the Alexandrian Copy hath mended and the Arabick appears not to have read V. 19. The loving hind The Hebrew reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the hind of loves which the Chaldee and Syriack render literally as the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the hind of love as the following phrase ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the fole of thy favours the Latin fitly render the sense charissima cerva gratissimus hinnulus the most dear and most acceptable This therefore is to be preferred before our reading in the active the loving hind The onely difficulty is whether this do not refer to the custom of Princes and great persons to have such creatures tame to accompany them wherein they took pleasure And thus sure the LXXII and Latin understood it who for the roe reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and hinnulus in the masculine But the Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is in the feminine and then the most obvious interpretation may be best that his wife shall be to him the continual most delightfull companion of life of whom he is never weary as the stag or other such male creature of the field is always pleased and never weary of the company of his belovedâmate some female with which he hath long associated V. 2. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and let thy lips preserve knowledge the LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the understanding of my lips is commanded thee or as other copies have it which the Arabick also follows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I command or appoint thee the understanding of my lips It seems they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã my lips for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã thy lips and then the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I command was but expressive of the imperative ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let them keep V. 3. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and smooth above oyle is her palate ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Symmachus they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for a time she fattens thy palate But I make no doubt ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for favour or by way of flattery should be the reading though the Arabick reading for a short time shew that the other was read at the time of that translation For as ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies smoothing and flattering and so is used Prov. 7.5 as here concerning the strange woman so the LXXII there render it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã if she set upon thee with words for favour i. e. flattering speeches so chap. 28.23 for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he that flattereth with his lips they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he that hath grace i. e. flattery in his tongue so Ezek. chap. 12.24 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã prophecying things for favour or flattering divines And then this being the reading their interpretation is no unfit paraphrase of the passage though it be not a literal rendring of it she fattens thy palate for favour i. e. she flatters thee extremely which is all one with her mouth is smoother than oyle V. 5. For Her feet go down to death c. they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for the feet of folly by which word sins of that kind viz. uncleanness are frequently meant lead those that use it after death to hades but the footsteps thereof are not susteined merely by way of paraphrase wherein yet the double signification of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is respected which as it signifies to apprehend or lay hold of so it signifies also to sustein or support V. 18. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã blessed they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to thee alone perhaps reading as v. 17. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to thee alone perhaps onely by way of paraphrase accounting that wife onely the happy fountain which was kept proper to the husband So v. 19. instead of let her breasts satisfie thee at all times they reade by way of paraphrase clearly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã let her company with thee let her be accounted thy peculiar let her associate with thee at every season In the end of that verse for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be ravisht always they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã being carried about with her love thou shalt be long-liv'd rendring the adverb ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã continually by carried about and reading ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as if it had been from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which signifies to multiply or encrease so v. 20. they render it by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be thou much whereby they do
the trouble to mortifie his own unruly appetites is soon overrun and laid waste by them All these sorts of misery though he expects them not but in confidence of safety goes on in his idle slothfull course will when he little thinks of it knock at his door as a traveller or way-goer to an host that knows nothing of his coming and when it comes it comes with a vengeance there is no way of resisting and as little of supporting it This traveller is stout and armed and will force his entrance and lay all waste where he enters 12. A naughty person a wicked man walketh with a froward mouth Paraphrase 12. Among other most noxious effects of idleness and unprofitableness one deserves to be taken notice of and most carefully avoided that of whispering and backbiting calumniating and detracting labouring nothing so much as to deprave and defame the actions of other men This is an eminent fruit of sloth and wickedness combin'd together and a most diabolical sin 13. He winketh with his eyes he speaketh with his feet and teacheth with his fingers Paraphrase 13. Such an one when he hath nothing of weight to say against a man will by significative gestures of all sorts give intimations of some grand matters and so perswade others without laying any particular to his charge that he is a most pestilent fellow 14. Frowardness is in his heart he deviseth mischief continually he soweth discord Paraphrase 14. His thoughts which have no good business to take them up are continually imployed in projecting what mischief he may doe and are never more gratefully busied than when he is a causing debate among neighbours One such person in a City is enough to embroil the whole and put it into a tumult 15. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly suddenly shall he be broken without remedy Paraphrase 15. And as to idle persons v. 11. so to this above all a proportionable vengeance is to be expected He that is of this temper seldom fails to be met with in his kind to fall unexpectedly by some secret hand parallel to the secrecy of his detracting whispering humour and when he falls he can never be recovered again he perishes unpitied unregarded 16. These six things doth the Lord hate yea seven are an abomination to him 17. A proud look a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood 18. An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations feet that be swift in running to mischief 19. A false witness that speaketh lies and him that soweth discord among brethren Paraphrase 16 17 18 19. And there is all reason for this for as there be seven sins which be very hatefull to God so this is a compound of five if not of all seven of them The seven are these 1. pride or haughtiness 2. lying or fraudulence 3. guilt of blood 4. malice or projecting of evil 5. a pleasure in mischieving any 6. false witness or calumny 7. causing of discord or debates among those that live friendly together Of these the second the fourth the fifth the sixth and seventh are evidently in this of the detractour or calumniatour see v. 12 14. And that pride is the root of it and blood-guiltiness the effect of it cannot be doubted the pride and high opinion of our selves and desire to be esteemed above all constantly inciting us to defame others and the debates and discord which are caused by back-biting ending generally in feuds and the bloodiest murthers And this is a competent indication how odious this sin is and how punishable in the sight of God 20. My son keep thy father's commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother 21. Bind them continually upon thy heart and tie them about thy neck 22. When thou goest it shall lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee 23. For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light and reproofs of instruction are the way of life 24. To keep thee from the evil woman from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman Paraphrase 20 21 22 23 24. In the next place a principal caution there is for all young men of which they are to take an extraordinary care 'T is that which all parents timely warn their children of and it concerns them to lay it up and never forget it to carry it continually about with them as the Jews do their Phylacteries that it may be a perpetual memorative never out of their sight If they doe so they will have the comfort and benefit of it at home and abroad sleeping and waking in all the varieties of their life they will see and discern that timely which they that discern not run into all the most noxious and ruinous courses And what is this so important a caution thus pompously introduced Why onely this that thou be sure to keep thee from that horrible sin of fornication or adultery and not suffer thy self by whatsoever flatteries and deceits by soft and fair speeches the common address of whores to be seduced and ensnared in it 25. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart neither let her take thee with her eye-lids 26. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life Paraphrase 25 26. Whatever allurement is in her beauty that may warm and attract thy love whatever invitation in her behaviour and amiableness of her looks or address thou art most nearly concerned to guard and fortifie thy self that thou beest not captivated thereby that thou permit not any unclean desire to kindle so much as in thine heart for as that is adultery in the eyes of that God that requires purity of the heart as well as actions see Matt. 5.8 28. so most sad and dismall are the effects of this passion as by many thousand examples hath been evidenced both in relation to mens estates and also their lives Many great estates have been utterly ruin'd and brought to the smallest pittance by that sin and many bodies have been exhausted and brought to noisome diseases and untimely death the very life and soul and whatsoever is most precious is the prey that this vulture gorges herself on 27. Can a man take fire in his bosome and his clothes not be burnt 28. Can one go on hot coals and his feet not be burnt 29. So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent Paraphrase 27 28 29. It is as imaginable that a man shall put fire in his bosome or walk upon live coals and receive no harm from them either to his garments or his flesh as that a man shall adventure on this sin of adultery and not exhaust and ruine himself by that course A fire in his bones and a wasting to his estate are the regular natural inevitable attendants of this sin But that is not all The wrath
and severe punishments of God are threatned against it and shall pursue as a most just revenge every man that shall be guilty of it 30. Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfie his soul when he is hungry 31. But if he be found he shall restore seven fold he shall give all the substance of his house 32. But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul Paraphrase 30 31 32. For indeed this sin hath a vast aggravation of guilt compared with most other sins Theft for example is not near so heinous That is supposed to be committed upon the importunity of hunger to satisfie the necessities of nature and accordingly the punishment by the Law apportioned to that is that of restitution Exod. 22.1 five oxen for an ox four sheep for a sheep and how oft soever he steals thus shall he pay as far as all his wealth or possessions will extend which was very regularly provided by the Law against those which shall by stealth invade other mens possessions But adultery is not capable of this excuse or extenuation that it is done to satisfie any natural want God having afforded a regular course to satisfie all such desires as are planted in men by nature and adultery is a violation of that course a breach of the Laws of Wedlock neither proceeds it from any other defect or want but what is most unexcusable a want of a good and orderly will and choice see Note on ch 4. i an effect of great inordinacy of desires which hath rased out that Law of reason and justice imprinted in the soul and so it is a most wilfull enormous wasting and crying sin and that which by political Laws is awarded with death 33. A wound and dishonour shall he get and his reproach shall not be wiped away Paraphrase 33. To which most just punishment is added that other of perpetual ignominy and reproach which inseparably and constantly attends this sin 34. For jealousie is the rage of a man therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance 35. He will not regard any ransome neither will he rest content though thou givest many gifts Paraphrase 34 35. And as the law directs this revenge so there is small hope the guilty shall escape the utmost severity of it in this case The wronged husband is his prosecutour and he is sure to be excited and armed with the utmost rage that jealousie can suggest and that is as cruel and implacable as the grave Cant. 8.6 In other injuries some reparation may possibly be made but here 't is not imaginable no bribe can be thought on so great as may hope to propitiate or intercede for him he will never be perswaded to let such a wrong pass unpunished but will be sure to pursue to death him that hath thus provoked him Annotations on Chap. VI. V. 3. Humble thy self and make sure thy friend The rendring of the Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã might be difficult and uncertain did not all the ancient Interpreters joyn together in one notion to secure us of the true and literal meaning of it The Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies not onely to tread on but to trouble so Ezek. 32.2 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and troubledst the waters with thy feet and so Ezek. 34.18 so Prov. 25.26 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a troubled fountain Hence here in Hithpael being in the reciprocal sense it may fitly note troubling exciting stirring up himself Then for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that signifies to prevail Isa 3.5 and so both together join'd with the antecedents and consequents will thus be rendred go stir up thy self and prevail with thy companion i. e. as soon as ever thou seest thy danger by suretiship make haste and importune him for whom thou art bound to free thee presently from thy engagement give not sleep to thine eyes c. v. 4. without any delay take this course to disintangle thy self The Chaldee reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã excite him stir him up quickly i. e. solicite him and so the Syriack in the same words and the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã be not remiss but provoke i. e. stir him up using the phrase ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as it belongs to the coward or sluggard to which importunity of solicitation is most contrary as Luk. 18.1 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is all one is opposed to praying always so also the Latin festina suscita amicum tuum hasten stir up thy friend ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã saith Symmachus incite i. e. importune him till thou prevail V. 5. From the hand of the hunter The Hebrew here hath no more but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which the Vulgar render de manu from the hand the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from the snares But as the verb ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies to dart or shoot or throw so the noun ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is not onely an hand but a blow or stroke or any kind of hurt The Chaldee Deut. 32.36 render it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a stroke and so frequently elsewhere Here they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which the Latin renders pedica a snare or toil but the Translatour of the Syriack which useth the same plagis strokes and so it most probably signifies the wound or shot or stroke that the roe receives from the hunter's arrow or dart In the latter part of the verse for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from the hand of the fowler the Chaldee and Syriack reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from the snare and so the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from the snare but this probably as a paraphrase of the fowlers hand which layeth the snare and into which it comes by being caught there And so here the double use of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã both for a stroke and an hand hath a special elegance in it V. 7. Guide For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a captain or guide the ancient Interpreters seem to have read somewhat else either ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã summer-fruit or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the plural in the same sense for the Chaldee reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to mow signifies any thing that is mowed or reaped and is used for the time of harvest in the next verse and herein the Syriack agrees with the Chaldee and the LXXII vary but little reading ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã husbandry meaning I suppose the fruit of husbandry as 1 Cor. 3.9 those whom by Paul's preaching God had brought in to the faith are call'd God's ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã husbandry by the same proportion that they are his ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã building the one ripe for harvest as the other for habitation Onely the Latin of all the ancients reade ducem captain which agrees so well with the other two
that follow that we have no reason to doubt of the present reading V. 12. A froward mouth The Hebrew reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã perverseness of mouth by which the Syriack understand ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã quarrelling strife from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã litigare jurare or as their Latin renders it detraction the cause of quarrels among neighbours the Chaldee render it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to pervert deprave distort and having for the man of Belial in the beginning of the verse set ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a man that is a calumniatour they seem to direct it wholly to this signification of detracting and depraving the actions of other men and so perverting all to the worst sense that is possible The LXXII reades more loosely ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he goes ways that are not good But Symmachus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by distortions of the mouth i. e. either making wry mouths as detractours use to doe or by his speech distorting depraving the actions of other men This is here affirm'd of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a man of Belial as that is derived from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã profit i. e. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã an unprofitable person as that signifies a very wicked man The phrase is used of Nabal 1 Sam. 25.25 and there rendred by the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a fool as elsewhere 't is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sons of wickedness Deut. 13.13 But in the New Testament it is applied to the Devil 2 Cor. 6.15 who we know is styled ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã calumniator as here the Chaldee render it The LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a foolish man as folly and wickedness are all one The Latin homo apostata an apostate that being the notion of the word Deut. 13.13 In this place it most probably denotes an idle foolish and withall a wicked man that cares not for God's directions of his tongue or life for of such a one that is true which follows he goes about depraving and calumniating idleness folly and wickedness leads to this course see 1 Tim. 5.13 V. 30. Despise What is the notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã here will reasonably be resolved by the consent of all the ancient Interpreters The Chaldee reads ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã there is no cause why we should be astonished or wonder and the Latin non grandis est culpa it is no grand crime But this I suppose not from any special notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for wondring but from that use of it for contumely or reproach as that notes the capital punishment of malefactours paradeigmatizing bringing exemplary punishment upon them To this sure the learned Castalio refers reading Non tractatur contumeliose he is not handled contumeliously V. 31. Sevenfold That the Law of Moses required not a sevenfold restitution is manifest by the express words Exod. 22.1 fourfold of sheep fivefold of oxen it prescribes but not sevenfold of any thing And in the New Testament when Zacheus Luk. 19. converts to Christ and proffers a full restitution for all that he had injuriously taken from any and by his abundant charity giving to the poor half that he had demonstrates his care of exact justice yet the restitution he mentions is not seven-fold but fourfold It cannot then with truth be said of the thief here that he shall restore sevenfold And when some endeavour to salve this by saying that seven is the perfect number and restoring sevenfold signifies making perfect restitution it is not reasonable to admit this Scholion because the perfect restitution being by the Law specified to be four or fivefold and not left indefinite it were strange that the legal definite proportion should be omitted and another definite proportion that of sevenfold named when but four or five at most was intended It is therefore much more reasonable what the learned Franzius from Martin Luther observes that the Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is to be rendred seven times not seven fold so the word is used and rendred by us Psal 12.6 And then the meaning will be evident he that steals if he be found shall restore according to the legal rate of amercement and if he steal again so shall he suffer again if he steal seven times he shall be forced to restore seven times yea though it amount to all the substance of his house all that he is worth And then the comparison in the Text betwixt the Thief and the Adulterer lies thus The Thief pays dear for his stoln goods sometimes whatever he is worth but these other sort of stoln goods which to some men are the sweetest prize that of his neighbour's wife this costs him much dearer even the loss of his life and soul The Thief as oft as he stole so oft had he ways of redeeming himself but the Adulterer cannot ransome himself by any price his life is forfeit to the Law nay if by secresie he avoid that he oft brings foul and destructive diseases upon himself and his soul is in the same danger as his life see Note g. V. 32. He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul The Hebrew setting of this passage is most fully expressed by the Chaldee The Hebrew literally sounds thus ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he that corrupteth his soul or destroyeth his life ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he shall doe this And the Chaldee reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and he that seeks to corrupt his own soul or destroy his life he will doe this All the difficulty is whether it be to be rendred of destroying the life or corrupting the soul the words signifying both indifferently If the latter then it signifies this sin of adultery to be against the notions of common ingenuous nature and founded in a corruption of those principles of right judgment as Aristotle saith ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã pleasures are corruptive of principles and this foul sin is an effect of that corruption which was noted before when it was said of him that commits adultery that he is destitute of a heart But it is more probably interpretable of destroying the life either by bringing diseases and so death it self or by calling down capital punishment on the malefactour that so it may be here fitly opposed to theft in the comparison here made theft being punished by the Law with restitution but adultery with death V. 6. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã behold and be wise the LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã seeing imitate and become wiser than he An usefull paraphrase V. 8. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã gathereth her food they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã maketh great provision by way of paraphrase also But after this they add another example agreeable to the Ant that of the Bee in these words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Or go to the bee
be the sons of wisedom that make profession of piety or that have any respect or care of themselves even of their secular condition the comforts and advantages of this life to resist the first approaches of this sin not to yield to the flattering tenders either of pleasure from or security in it to bid defiance to all these and the like suggestions and to believe and constantly adhere to the sober advices here promised of preserving entire the purity of the very heart 26. For she hath cast down many wounded yea many strong men have been slain by her 27. Her house is the way to hell going down to the chambers of death Paraphrase 26 27. For without laying this caution to heart of resisting and defying the first suggestions there is no hope of ever keeping from this sin or yielding to the sin from the ruine that constantly attends it without repentance and thorow change All experience assuring us that nothing else can possibly secure us the most valiant and couragious heroes of the world the most puissant souldiers that never yielded to any other enemies stood out undaunted against all assaults having generally been vanquished and captivated and destroyed by the allurements of women And so likewise nothing more visible and obvious to the observation of all than the ruines which befall such as are thus ensnared the yielding to this sin is like the falling down a precipice the direct path to irreparable destruction Annotations on Chap. VII V. 10. Subtil of heart What ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifies cannot be doubted if the concurrence of all the ancient Interpreters may have force with us The Chaldee and Syriack agree in the same rendring ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã separating or taking away the hearts of young men from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which is used by them ch 4.16 where we reade is taken away The LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which makes the hearts of young men fly out and the Latin praeparata ad capiendas animas prepared to catch souls All this in all probability as deducing the word not from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to keep as the Interlinear reading servata appear to doe but either from a contrary notion of that word to lay waste or destroy that which was kept and fortified as Nah. 2.1 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to destroy the munition saith the learned Schindler and so Jer. 4.16 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not watchers but destroyers alluding to the name of Nebuchadnezzar ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã where the LXXII hath ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã destructions or else more probably from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which among other significations imports to besiege a City c. in order to the taking of it This I suppose from the suffrage of all in the active not passive sense destroying or besieging others and so the heart is by the Chaldee and Syriack and LXXII explained to be the hearts of young men for want of observing which the learned Schindler explicating this passage twice once under the word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and again under ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and taking it in the passive in both gives interpretations not easily reconcileable from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã rendring it destructa corde omni carens prudentia destroy'd in heart wanting all pruânce and from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã obsessa corde circumvallata astutia encamped or encompassed or intrencht with subtlety from which notion we seem to have taken subtle of heart V. 11. Loud and stubborn The Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã tumultuari fremere garrire may here best be rendred prating or keeping adoe the Chaldee and Syriack render it by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from the notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for querulous as well as rebellious The translatour of the Chaldee renders it as from the latter praevaricatrix the translatour of the Syriack petulans petulant and the vulgar have garrula prating Then for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it signifies diverting flitting not onely from the right way but from one place to another and so the Chaldee renders it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã wandring and the Syr. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the very ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã noting all kind of wantonness and luxury running from house to house a feasting c. For the former of these the LXXII have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã volatile Aquila ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã idle for the latter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã luxurious By both which this ill womans character is set down somewhat like that of the younger women 1 Tim. 5.13 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã idle going about houses ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and not so onely but tatlers or praters And this seems to be the exactest rendring not loud and stubborn but prating and flitting or running about from house to house as is exprest in what follows her feet abide not in her house contrary to that of the sober women Tit. 2.5 who are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã keepers at home Now she is without now in the streets c. V. 20. Day appointed From ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to hide is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the new moon or time when the moon is hidden and so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã here × being changed into × the day of new moon To this the Chaldee refer by ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the day of assembly for such the New Moon was among the Jews as the Calends among other Nations The vulgar Latin render it in die plenae lunae in the day of full moon plenae being some way mistaken for novae and so it should be in all probability the new moon See Note on Psal 81.6 This the LXXII express not but content themselves with that which was sufficient to the matter in hand ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã after many days Our rendring it a day appointed supposes ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to be from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã supputavit But the former is more genuine V. 22. A fool to the correction of the stocks The difficulty of ânderstanding this passage must first be explained from the original The words there are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and the onely word that will want explaining is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã This is thought to signifie a fetter or some other punitive restreint belonging to the feet which our English renders the Stocks but it evidently signifies an ornament of the feet somewhat used in time of jollity Thus Isa 3.16 among the several expressions of the pride of Sion we have ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we render it making a tinkling with their feet as the Interlinear tinniebant the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã playing with their feet the Chaldee renders it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which signifies motion or commotion If that be of the body then it is moving with the feet i. e. dancing
was framed encompassing the air and superiour abyss wherein the waters in the clouds and those in the bowels of the earth were assigned their mansions wherein this globe of earth and sea were so formed that the one should be confined to its channel the other stand firm on its basis this eternal Word and wisedom of the Father was the great artificer by which all was framed inseparably united the Son to the Father and as a Counsellor joining in all the wise fabrick of the Universe and all therein contained All which being formed by infinite wisedom all was exceeding good and beautifull and delightfull to the Creatour And though it were so yet the creating of mankind was a special and principal piece whereto the whole Trinity was summoned Gen. 1.26 and about this one sort of creature when created God took special delight to be employ'd as bearing his image in a special manner and when that by sin was defaced immediately this wisedom of the Father was promised to be incarnate to unite it self to our humane nature thereby preferring it before the very Angels on purpose to redeem and restore us to purity 32. Now therefore hearken unto me O ye children for blessed are they that keep my ways 33. Hear instruction and be wise and refuse it not 34. Blessed is the man that heareth me watching daily at my gates waiting at the posts of my doors 35. For whoso findeth me findeth life and shall obtain favour of the Lord. Paraphrase 32 33 34 35. These considerations put all together the all kind of advantages from obedience to the divine commands of God and their flowing from that eternal wisedom of God whereby the whole world was designed and created and so unquestionably the most divine and excellently wise and such as the eternal Word and Son of God was to be incarnate in our flesh to exemplifie and oblige to this practice may make it most perfectly reasonable for all that consider themselves their present or future weal to set to this exercise diligently and constantly see Luk. 11.28 as the onely way to all kind of felicity not to frustrate so great a mercy as is the instruction of God himself who certainly knows what is our best and wisest course and therefore prescribes it us because he knows it most agreeable to the better part of us but to apply themselves to it most solicitously constantly and unweariedly as that which is made up of all kind of felicity makes life worthy to be called life prepares them that live well here for that favour of God which will never deny them any good thing here and will over and above reward them for being thus happy here with an eternal immarcescible crown of glory hereafter 36. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul all they that hate me love death Paraphrase 36. Whereas the neglect of these precepts is the greatest treachery against ones self the going on in any course of sin is the immersing him in an abyss of present wretchedness the engaging him in certain eternal woes hereafter So that every wicked man stands off on terms of the utmost defiance to wisedom and is onely in love with ruine and destruction refuseth happiness when it is put into his hand when he is courted to it and wooes and importunes misery casts himself away and his body and soul to all eternity for that that yields him the least fruit in the enjoyment Annotations on Chap. VIII V. 12. Witty inventions From ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã excogitavit is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã counsel machination most frequently in an ill sense so Lev. 19.29 it is rendred by the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the counsel of the wicked and by the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã wickedness and Prov. 12. v. 2. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a man of cogitations is by the Chaldee ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a wicked man and so by the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a wicked man and accordingly here ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã must be rendred the knowledge of machinations which if it be in an ill sense of machinations then the finding them will be the finding them out discovering and defeating and frustrating all such the craftiest contrivances of worldly and wicked men but it may be also in a good sense and then it is the finding i. e. the obtaining and acquiring them and thus it best agrees with the beginning of the verse where of this true i. e. practical wisedom it is said that it dwells with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã i. e. subtlety cunning craft as before v. 5. contrary to simplicity and deceivableness and so the full importance of the place is that this kind of wisedom the practice of vertue though it be not so esteemed but be under the contrary prejudice is indeed the onely true subtlety The LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I invoked knowledge and cogitation reading it seems ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and cogitations and so doth the Chaldee and Syriack ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã knowledge and cogitations V. 22. Possessed one The Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is thus most literally rendred from ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to possess But it must be remembred that this possession is sometime acquired by begetting as the Son is certainly to be reckoned among the possessions of the Father as well as the Servant which is brought up by him or the Cattel or House in like manner so Gen. 4.1 upon the birth of Cain Eve saith ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã we render it I have gotten a man c. And Zach. 13.5 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is rendred by the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã begat me This makes it reasonable to bestow some consideration on the reading of the LXXII in this place where we have it rendred ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã The Lord hath created me in the beginning of his ways on or over his works That ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã created is mistaken for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã possessed was St. Jerom's conceit on Isa 26. and is obvious to imagine because that will be directly answerable to the ordinary notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for possessing and because Aquila reads expresly ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã possest me But beside that the Ancient Fathers before St. Jerome follow this reading of the LXXII which now we have 't is evident the Chaldee concur in it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã created me And the Son of Sirach more than once transcribes it ch 1.4 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã wisedom hath been created before all things and v. 9. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Lord himself created her and ch 24.9 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he created me from the beginning before the world And Gen. 14.19 the same word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is by the LXXII rendred ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã where speaking of God they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã who
Melchizedeck who brought forth bread and wine unto Abraham and blessed him but the mystical interpretation and importance thereof the offering up his body on the cross for us the onely sacrifice that under the New Testament was to succeed all those of the Old and supersede them and thereby obteining for us grace and pardon strength and refreshment which are exhibited by this Sacrament and so secured to us on condition we utterly forsake our sins and folly and be docible and patient of being made wise by him i. e. in an honest heart receive and observe his instructions sincerely and so live and persevere in the ways of vertue and piety that true and divine wisedom which alone tends to render this life of ours a life indeed or worthy any man's enjoying the course of sin being but a continual death and to qualifie us for eternal never fading life and bliss to all eternity 7. He that reproveth a scorner getteth himself shame and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot 8. Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee rebuke a wise man and he will love thee 9. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser teach a just man and he will encrease in learning Paraphrase 7 8 9. And when this eternal wisedom should come on this errand of sovereign mercy 't is sad to think what use of it should be made by the proud and obdurate sinners of the world the obstinate impersuasible Jews They should be so far from reforming on his advice that they should despise and reproach and put him to a contumelious death set themselves in most hostile terms of opposition and mortal hatred against him Onely the meek and humble the onely temper for true wisedom to be rooted in such as are convinced of their sins and sincerely obey his call to repentance lay it up in an honest heart they should come in to him enter in his discipleship and there improve in all spiritual solid wisedom to the greatest height of sanctity and purity mortifying all their earthy and sensual affections contemning the world and even life it self so they may approve themselves unto him So that though by his coming some men should become much worse adding their pride and self-conceit the greatest impiety and sacrilege yet many others even a multitude both of Jews and Gentile Idolaters should eminently reform by the coming and revealing his Gospel to them 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisedom and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding 11. For by me thy days shall be multiplied and the years of thy life shall be encreased 12. If thou be wise thou shalt be wise for thy self but if thou scornest thou alone shalt bear it Paraphrase 10 11 12. And to receive this benefit from the Gospel to be of the number of those who are thereby made truly wise unto salvation there is no so proper preparative as humility and docibleness a readiness to receive and lay up the dictates of this eternal wisedom of God in a lowly and honest and obedient heart see ch 1.3 and Note d. there being no true knowledge or which deserves that title but the practical which as it hath the promises of another life an eternal reward attending it so hath it also the promises of this life all manner of felicity in this world length of days and that in a Canaan So that the pious man shall himself have the fruit of his piety and the wicked be punish'd in his very sin if there were no other arere of punishment behind for him in another world The end of Christ's coming into the world being on no design of advantage to himself but onely to shew us the way of true wisedom and durable happiness that if we will be his disciples and doe what he directs us it may be well with us here and to all eternity If we will not we shall have the smart of it our selves as being the onely authours and obstinate contrivers of our own misery 13. A foolish woman is clamorous she is simple and knoweth nothing 14. For she sitteth at the door of her house on a seat in the high places of the city 15. To call passengers who go right on their ways 16. Whoso is simple let him turn in hither and as for him that wanteth understanding she saith to him 17. Stoln waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant 18. But he knoweth not that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of hell Paraphrase 13 14 15 16 17 18. But now as Christ this wisedom hath his calls and invitations on one side so hath folly sin and carnality on the other you may discern it by an ordinary emblem an unchaste woman earnest and importunate to call in as many passengers as she can promises them great advantages but if she prevail ensnaring them to their ruine Just so many allurements and temptations there are to circumvent seducible persons but all directly contrary to true wisedom and the care but of our own safety and well-being and such as betray both the seducer and seduced to utter ruine The whore indeed that is set upon this sin so frequently styled folly being so eminently such is very bold and busie never quiet at home but still running abroad see ch 7.11 12. incited by her own impatient lust Her whole behaviour is most extremely sensless and impudent she is folly in the abstract most scandalously removed from all that is sober or decent She setteth herself like a shameless prostitute person in some place of greatest advantage to seduce and invite passengers even those that are otherwise imploy'd and come not with any evil design and by her cunning and flatteries and especially by that enhancement of the unlawfull pleasure which the phancies of wicked men set upon it because it is gotten by stealth and deceit and so gratifies their pride as well as their lust by the cunning and subtlety of compassing it by these I say and other the like means she gains on fools such as have not the laws of true wisedom inscribed on their hearts for those would competently avert them from the least beginning of this sin and infuse into them the utmost aversion to it and so leads them blindfold into utter perdition and irreversible destruction And thus is it in all other sinfull courses to which men are seduced by some fallacious bait which hath some kind of gratefulness to the phancy but really carries a barbed hook under it the smart and danger of which is soon felt by them that swallow it but then 't is too late to prevent it This shews the infinite mercy of God in Christ whom he sent from heaven on purpose to teach us true wisedom betimes absteining from all beginnings of sin all purity of the very heart and calling to speedy repentance all those that have need of it Annotations on Chap.
simple or simplicity in the abstract they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã she becomes to want a piece of bread by this paraphrasing her simplicity that her course of idleness and impudence brought her to extreme want and in the end of the verse for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã she knows not what or any thing they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã she understands not shame merely as a scholion of what else seemed obscure or imperfect for which the Chaldee reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã goodness V. 14. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the high places of the city they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã visibly in the streets merely by way of paraphrase to express the sense not the words V. 17. They invert the order of the words without any considerable change paraphrastically ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã take the secret loaves pleasantly and the sweet waters of stealth V. 18. For ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the dead or carcases see Note on Psal 88. d are there they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the giants or those that are born of the earth perish by her referring to the double notion of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã for those that are in the earth as the dead are or those that come out of the earth as giants were believed to do In the end for ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã her guests they reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he meets as if it were ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which signifies so And this also without any considerable change of the sense for this simple one being one of her guests her guests being in the depths of scheol and his meeting or going to meet her ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to the depth of hades are equivalent After this comes a very large insertion merely as a scholion of some learned man an exhortation to avoid the forementioned danger which in some but not in the Complute Editions is crept into the Text and retein'd also by the Syriack and Arabick but neither in the Chaldee nor Latin ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã But leap back stay not in the place nor cast thine eye upon her for so thou shalt pass over the strange water But abstein thou from the water of another's fountain that thou mayst have a long time and that the years of life may be added to thee CHAP. X. 1. THE Proverbs of Solomon A wise son maketh a glad father but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother Paraphrase 1. After the general preparatory exhortations to the care and practice of piety enlarged on in the former chapters by way of foundation and introduction now follow the King his divine sentences some plain and yet weighty and important but the most by way of parable or aenigmatical allusion fit to affect the reader and to have a deep impression on him and commodious for memory also see Note on Chap. 1. a And the first recommends true wisedom the exercise of all vertue and piety to all young men and women as an act of necessary gratitude to their parents as well as of kindness to themselves for this certainly is the ensuring on them all manner of prosperity and felicities and flourishing condition in this life and as that is their own nearest interest so is it the parents greatest joy the whole comfort of whose lives extremely depends as upon the thriving and prospering so upon the pious sober humble pure behaviour of their children If they thrive and prosper in the world much more in those ways of divine vertue which hath the promise of all secular prosperity annext to it this must needs be matter of most ravishing delight to their parents This is an aphorism of so general observation that when the parents themselves are not so pious and gracious as they ought yet they rejoyce to see their children such And on the contrary if they miscarry and prove vitious in any kind there is no such cause of trouble and grief to the parents especially to the mother whose love is most tender and passionate and cannot choose but bewail it as the most unsupportable affliction of her life that she hath with so much pains and care brought forth a child to dishonour God to disgrace and despise his parents and to accumulate upon himself the direfullest woes of this and another life 2. Treasures of wickedness profit nothing but righteousness delivereth from death 3. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish but he casteth away the substance of the wicked Paraphrase 2 3. This you may discern in several branches of wisedom as that is opposed to the different sorts of folly that are observable among men The first and most principal notion of wisedom is that of all true and divine vertue and of this it is manifest that nothing can secure any man of any ordinary degree of happiness in this world but this one tenure of piety and justice and charity and all manner of vertue This is the one way of secular prudence and policy the most certain thriving course quite contrary to the worldlings measures He thinks the devil's arts are likeliest to thrive in this world injustice oppression deceit covering and griping gaining as much as he can and parting with as little and by these ways sometimes he fills his coffers possesseth himself of vast treasures On the contrary he cannot believe that justice and charity which holy writers style righteousness see Note on Psal 37. h and affirm them both to be ingredients of that righteousness which God's Law exacteth from men will ever tend to any man's worldly advantages but will be sure to keep him low and improsperous and hinderly that binds himself strictly to the exercise of them But herein the love of the world hath strangely blinded and infatuated men the truth of God's word and fidelity of his promises being engaged on the contrary observation that the greatest riches either unlawfully acquired or illiberally possest bring not the least advantage or benefit to the owner whilst he possesseth them his covetousness suffers him not to enjoy them himself much less to make himself capable of that future reward which is laid up for the charitable and mercifull and besides they are sure to meet with blasts from God and so not long to be held by him or his posterity Whereas on the other side the constant exercises of exact justice and the most diffusive charity which are so deeply under the worldlings prejudices have the blessings of God even those of this life entailed on them are so far from impoverishing or undoing any man that they are the most auspicious means to enrich and enlarge both his days and his plenty and rescue him from all the calamities to which this life is subject or the malice of wicked and covetous men could design to bring upon him And thus certainly it will be as long as God hath the disposing of the things of this world his providence being obliged to secure and
gains nothing but a short satisfaction to a diabolical malicious humour and invites and calls down all the mischiefs that provoked and injured enemies can bring upon him 19. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin but he that refraineth his lips is wise Paraphrase 19. Men that give themselves liberty to talk much shall be sure to multiply sins There be so many ways of offending against God or man or our selves by oaths and perjuries and prophanations by false speaking by slander by rage by unseemly jesting by vain-glory and the like that there cannot be a more necessary ingredient either in secular or moral wisedom and wherein the exercise of true piety is more concerned than is the art of ruling and restraining the tongue keeping himself within strict bounds of that kind 20. The tongue of the just is as choice silver the heart of the wicked is little worth Paraphrase 20. As silver which hath been throughly refined in the fire is purged from all dross and mixture and is now able to bear any test so a good man's tongue is most carefully cleansed and purged from all sort of corrupt discourse and by sober considerations so fortified that it will not by any temptation be induced to offend against the rules of piety justice or charity The tongue 't is true is most apt if it be not warily managed to break out into all kind of enormities but a good man will be sure solicitously to restrain it Whereas a wicked man hath nothing of weight or steadiness in him his will as well as his tongue his choices as well as his speech are perpetually vain and precipicious and neither what he thinks nor what he speaks worth any man's regarding 21. The lips of the righteous feed many but fools die for want of wisedom Paraphrase 21. And 't is but a small thing for a wise and pious man to secure his tongue from the scandalous sins which that part is subject to The tongue was certainly designed for the most honourable employments to bring in glory to God by instructing and guiding those that stand in need of it And thus every pious man will be sure to employ that part for the benefit of many whereas the wicked is so far from doing good to others that he practiseth all that is mischievous to himself so far from feeding others that he famishes himself despises piety and instruction the regular means to bring him to it and so goes on from one degree of sin and so of death unto another and hath never so much consideration as to stop in so ruinous a course 22. The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it Paraphrase 22. Many are the engines and artifices of the world to gather and encrease wealth and most of them are found very improper for that purpose fail and prove successless and when they bring in wealth bring in such appendant burthens and troubles with it that when it is had it is not worth the having There is but one true means that can surely be depended on toward the acquiring the wealth and possessions of this life and that is the benign auspicious influence of heaven the blessing of God's prospering hand entail'd on those methods which are most distant from the crafts of the world prayer for daily bread justice obedience meekness charity trust in God and the use of none but plain honest arts industry and contentedness and the like in opposition to sacrilege perjuries worldly cares and fears and solicitudes covetousness griping oppression fraud sedition enmity to the Cross and the like And if this be relied on and men thus labour duly to qualifie themselves for it it will questionless bring them a competency if not affluence of worldly felicities Matth. 6.33 1 Tim. 4.8 and that is really the greatest wealth having all the advantages of wealth and none of the burthens and disquiets that attend it to worldly-minded men 1 Tim. 6.10 23. It is a sport to a fool to doe mischief but a man of understanding hath wisedom Paraphrase 23. As the wicked man's sole pleasure and delight is placed in the doing some hurt he is never pleased or gratefully employed but when he is on some such pursuit and herein his folly and madness consists that he can take joy in that which is most truly lamentable and is sure to bring on him the utmost in this and another life So on the contrary to him that hath any true knowledge or consideration of things which judges by his mind and immortal soul and not by his senses or phancy the practice of all kind of vertues piety justice charity sobriety contentedness c. is matter of all true joy and exultation a continual feast most transportingly pleasant and delectable 24. The fear of the wicked it shall come upon him but the desire of the righteous shall be granted Paraphrase 24. Those things that wicked men most fear and dread shall never miss to fall upon them It is the part of natural conscience to torment them with direfull aboads and expectations In their greatest prosperities they have sad presages about them though they put the thought of God as far as they can from them yet his judgments are their constant terrour and that not without great cause the divine vengeance awaits them and will at length certainly find them out On the contrary the good man is always hoping and waiting for good things from the divine providence hungring and thirsting for righteousness evangelical grace and mercy and is secured never to fail of receiving it And seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness all other external felicities as far as they are truely such shall undoubtedly be superadded to him 25. As the whirlwind passeth so is the wicked no more but the righteous is an everlasting foundation Paraphrase 25. And as for the felicities of this life so for the durableness and stability also The joys and even life it self of a wicked man are very transitory In the midst of his pride and lustre and jollity he is oft surprised and hurried away in a moment he is gone as if a whirlwind had caught and carried him hence and then all his glory is at an end no footstep of it remaining And what can be so dismal and hideous as this when it is considered what vengeance expects such a man in another world Whereas on the contrary the joys of a good man are most durable and firm no foundation of the strongest pile design'd to perpetuity is more deeply laid and consequently more unmoveable death it self doth not disturb or interrupt these but consigns them to immortality 26. As vinegar to the teeth and smoak to the eyes so is the sluggard to them that send him Paraphrase 26. He that is employed in any office or ministry such especially as are the Embassadours for the reducing and reconciling of the world 2 Cor. 5.20 must think
made a most excellent sanctified use of these Times I confess I am glad to see such quarrels glad that any thing can allay that mad passion that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as Isidor calls it that fury of love and doting on our earthern Gods glad that they that have been so long tormented in their own Gallies suo calculo damnati ad metalla by their own tyrannical covetous minds condemn'd to that old Roman punishment a digging and hewing in the Minerals for ever are by the bounty of these ill Times return'd from their thraldom their captivity before their year of Jubilee expell'd from these Gallies banish'd out of this Inquisition glad that the World 's forsaking of us can work any degree of cure on our fits of spleen our hypochondriack passions to the World 'T is possible that the man thus dispossest of his old Familiar may at length have hospitable thoughts for some nobler guests that the ill usage from the Harlot may bring the Spouse into favour again that the sense of the ill Master that we have drudg'd under so long may make us seek out some more gainful service that the unprosperousness of the arm of flesh the several failings of the Second causes which we have idolized so often the many delusions and ill successes we meet with in the world may make some forsake those Atheistical colours and bring in Proselytes to Heaven and so this contempt of the World may be a piece of prooemial piety an usher or Baptist to repentance but till it be thus improv'd and built upon till this excellent piece of Philosophy be as Clemens saith of the Pagan School ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã baptized by that Baptist christianiz'd by the addition of Repentance till the thorns that are now in the flesh enter to the pricking and wounding of the heart to the letting out all worldly trusts and aiery hopes out of it till he that is fallen out with this world and his Aegyptian Master there come with him in the Gospel unto Christ in quest after the blessed heavenly Master running and kneeling and asking Good Master what shall I do to get my portion in another World and pursue Christ's directions to the utmost in that design that contemner of the World must still know he hath not yet taken out the Baptist's Copy not made such use of the Doctrine of the Rod as is expected from him he is not yet advanced so far as to John's Baptism to that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the so much as almost a Christian which the Baptist could have made him O then let him go on to the perfection of the Text not satisfie himself with that use of it In another perhaps the complexion of the Times have had a yet nobler influence inspired him with a perfect valour an athletick habit of Soul a contempt of Life it self brought him to a dreadless approach of that supreme terrour and that not only the martial man whose calling is to heard that Lion but even the soft Courtier who had imbibed no such bold principles 't is now no news to hear Death kindly treated We can think of Death as of a Preferment of the Grave as one of the greatest Dignities in the Church and not only ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã but ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã bless this enemy when we have not so much meekness or charity for any other count them happiest and blessedest that come earliest to it each discontented Jonah hath his Take I beseech thee my life from me the whole Kingdom is become wilderness a many prickly Juniper-trees scattered every where in that wilderness and an Eliah sate down under every one of those Juniper-trees a sighing cut his request for himself that he may die It is enough now O Lord take away my life and I see this passeth with some for a special piety and mortification which let me tell you considered aright is an act of the sullenest Atheism a fellonious intent against themselves which because like Saul they are too cowardly to execute with their own hands God must supply the Armour-bearer's place be call'd in to do it for them But I am not so uncharitable to think that all our thoughts of kindness to death are the congelation of such black melancholick vapours 't is I hope in some an obedience to Plato's precept the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the endeavouring to behave ones self comely in whatever fortune a Christian submission to God's will in either of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which way soever the oeconomy of providence disposes us even as far as to death it self no hatred or satiety of Life but an indifference to either lot the hating Life only as we are commanded to hate our Parents not with an absolute but comparative hatred the denotation of the Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã only chusing the rest preferring the dormitory the being asleep in Christ in Paradise with Christ rather than to be in those uneasie postures laborious marches that an Hell on earth provides for us And then I shall commend your righteous judgment but yet still not flatter you that this is a sufficient Use of this Baptist's Sermon of the present impendency of God's punishments Thou may'st not only be content but wish to die and be with Christ which is far better more desirable even to the carnal man most gladly exchange the torments of a brittle life for the joys of an Eternity and yet not have deposited the lusts and basenesses of this nauseated life the former is but an act of the Judicative faculty a conclusion that such premisses once considered cannot chuse but extort from us but the other is an act of the Will which is not so easily brought to perform its duty to mortifie the flesh with the affections and lusts the work of Repentance here required of us And I beseech you let us not be too confident that we have performed our task though we could resolve to be content nay glad to die with Christ for so you know Peter could do and deny and blaspheme him after it unless we have that second Martyrdom that Cyprian or some body in his disguise hath wrote a Book of that vital Martyrdom of our exemplary saintly penitent lives to improve and consummate t'other and so still we are not got so far as Repentance we require more storms more thunderbolts more rouzing tempests more pressing calamities yet to drive us thither A third sort may have arrived to a third and greater degree of proficiency yet in the School of Judgments to a resolution and practice of Patience under God's hand how heavy soever it prove and yet let me tell you come short of Repentance still for I beseech you observe there is a double submission unto God to his will and to his wisdom that to his will reveal'd as well as secret reveal'd for the duties secret for the sufferings of this life the first in an active the second in
custom what indulgence in sin i. e. what Tophet what Hell shall be able to separate us from the love the favour the heaven of God He that hath Christ the Priest hath all he that believes in the sufferings hath Christ the Priest though not the King hath the faith though not the works i. e. the righteousness though not the Heathenish morality the Protestant Orthodox part though not the Popery the Antichristianism of a Christian and so is but the richer for that want hath the greater portion in the sufferings of Christ by the abundance of those sins he suffered for the more of the Priest is ours by how much the less of the King is discernible in us Having driven our unchristian lives to this principle this solemn conceit of ours that the Priestly office of Christ to which if rightly understood we owe all our salvation is nothing but the death of that Christ methinks 't were now possible to convince the secure Fiduciary of the error and sophistry of his former way to rob him of his beloved cheat now that we have prov'd so clear that Christ commenc'd his eternal Priesthood that on which all our blessedness depends from the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not till after his resurrection For Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth and mourneth and bleedeth for in secret thou carnal confident that hast wearied thy self in the greatness of thy way thy profane wild-goose chase of sin and yet hast not said there is no hope thou that wilt profane and be saved too riot and be saved too reconcile faction rebellion sacrilege oppression oaths carnality all the unchristian practices in the world the confutation of the whole Gospel with salvation Tell me I say what Christ it is thou wilt be tried or saved by by Christ the King I am confident thou wert never so impudent to venture thy rebellions to that cognizance Well it is Christ the Priest thou so dependest on and ây Christ the Priest Why because he hath sacrificed himself for thee Now let me tell thee 1. That some have guest shrewdly that though Christ died for all the sinners and sins in the world yet his sufferings being but finite in duration though infinite in respect of the person of the sufferer will not prove a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a proportionable ransom for thy sins I mean the impenitent sinners sins in duration infinite being as they are undetermin'd uncut off by repentance Thou must return reform confess and forsake or else thou hast out-sinn'd the very sufferings of Christ out-spent that vast ransom out damn'd salvation it self that may be a conviction ad hominem perhaps and therefore I mention'd it in the first place But then 2. Thou art it seems all this while mistaken in thy Priest thou art it seems all for the Aaronical and hast not yet thought of the Melchisedech-Priest thou art all for the sacrificer and never dream'st of the blesser Thou layest all thy weight on the Cross of Christ and art ready to press it down to hell with thee with leaning onely but not crucifying one lust on it never thinkest of being risen with Christ the condition so indispensably necessary to give us claim to the benefit of his death and so in effect thou leavest Christ in the grave and thy self in that mournful case of the despairing Disciples speraveramus we had hoped but never look'st after a resurrection 'T was Saint Pauls saying If in this life only we have hope in Christ we were of all men most miserable I suppose it is in this life only not of us but of Christ on this earth for it is brought to prove Christs resurrection there and it follows immediately but now is Christ raised 1 Cor. 15.20 and if that be the sense of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã there the this life of Christ contains also his death under it for both those together it is that must make up the opposite to the resurrection And then I shall enlarge the Apostles words though not sense If in the earthly life and death of Christ we had hope only a sad life and a contumelious death if there were no such thing as a resurrection to help bless us we were of all men the most miserable hadst thou no other Priest but the Sacrificer the mortal finite Aaronical-Priest nothing but the ransom of Christs death which though it be never so high a price is yet finally unavailable to many for whom it was paid he bought them that are damn'd for denying him 2 Pet. 2.1 the wilful sinner treads under foot the Son of God profanes the blood of the covenant by which he is sanctified Heb. 10.29 and so there 's destruction enough still behind for the impenitent wretch after all that Christ hath suffer'd for thee what forms of ejulation and lamentation were enough for thee Alas my Brother ah Lord or ah his glory what mourning or wailing were thy portion Tell me wilt thou be content to leave thy Father before he hath blessed thee Jacob would not do so with the Angel but would wrestle his thigh out of joynt rather than thus part with him and even the profane Esau will run and weep bitterly for it and then art thou more nice and tender than that smooth Jacob wretchless than that profane Esau if thou content'st thy self only to have brought Christ to the grave that state of curse and never look'st out for the blessing provided for thee in the resurrection Mistake me not I would not drive you from this Cross of Christ discourage you from that most necessary act of faith the apprehending the crucified Saviour No if my lot had fallen on a Good-friday I would have spent my whole hour on that one theme and known nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified Only my desire is that you will not allow one act of faith to turn Projector to get all the custom from the rest that you will permit Christ to live in you as well as to die for you to bless as well as to satisfie to rise again for your justification as well as to be delivered up for your offences that you will attend him at Galilee as well as at Golgotha think of the triumphant as well as the crucified Saviour the Melchisedech as well as the mortal Aaron-Priest And not only to think of his rising I must tell you but count of a work a mighty important necessary work that of turning in this Text to be wrought on us and in us by that resurrection now after the pardon impetrated by his passion I say not only to think of and believe him risen the Devil hath as much of that thought as frequent repeated acts of that belief as you and there is not such magick in that faith or phansie as to bear you to Heaven by meditating on his journey thither to elevate you by gazing on his ascension No that faith must be in our hearts too that
may do so here of this there is no doubt but it belongs to charity or duty toward men in its latitude of which alms giving is one most special part and except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven the text on which that heavenly Gospel-Sermon was preach'd upon the Mount If we have any design toward Evangelical perfection toward the Christian pitch the abundance of goodness and mercifulness as that is improved by Christianity then this third years tithing will prove but a beggarly thin proportion that that a Jew if he were a religious one would have been ashamed of But be our aims never so moderate if a door-keepers place will serve our turn to be one of the Nethinim of the meanest rank in the kingdom of heaven yet still we must exceed that proportion of the Jews righteousness their third years tithe that they were bound to or else we are strangely mistaken in Christianity I am unwilling to descend to the arraigning or indicting or so much as examining any man here for the omissions of his former life in this kind my humble lowliest request is that you will do it your selves and if either through ignorance you have not reckoned of it as a duty or through desire to thrive in the world you have omitted to practise it heretofore you will now at last at this instance take it into your consideration and remember that there is such a thing as charity a pale wan despised creature commended to Christians by Christ not to suffer it any longer to go for one of those Magicians Serpents which faith like Moses's rod is appointed to devour if it do know this that that rod is the verier serpent of the two and for the quickning that resolution in you I shall proceed unto the third particular the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to consider it as a duty and so to make an end of my first general In this slothful but confident age of the world 't were admirably worth ones pains to instruct men what duty is now under the Gospel what the very word signifies in a Christian Nomenclature There are so many descants of fantastical brains on that plain song of the Apostles We are not under the law but under grace that 't is scarce agreed on among Christians what 't is to be a Christian nothing more unresolved than what 't is that 's now required under the second Covenant as necessary to salvation One thinks that the believing all fundamentals is the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the only qualification for a Christian and what hath duty to do with that Another makes the Gospel consist all of promises of what shall be wrought in us and on us by Christ and so gives an absolute supersedeas for duty aâ a legal out-dated thing that is utterly antiquated by grace Another contents himself with purposes and resolutions thin airy inclinations to duty and is utterly indifferent for any performance doubts not but to pass for a Christian as regenerate as S. Paul when he wrote c. 7. to the Romans though he never do the good that he resolves live and die carnal and captived and sold under sin A fourth dissolves all to a new-found faith A full perswasion an absolute assurance that he is one of Gods elect is abundantly sufficient to estate himself in that number a piece of magick or conjuring that will help any man to heaven that will but phansie it enrol their names in the book of life in those sacred eternal diptycks by dreaming only that they are there already Others there are that seem kinder unto duty are content to allow Christ some return of performances for all his sufferings yet you see in the Gospel 't is in one but the patience of hearing him preach A Lord thou hast taught in our streets we have heard so many Sermons passes for a sufficient pretension to heaven in another the communicating at his table We have eat and drank in thy presence a sufficient viaticum for that long journey a charm or amulet against fear or danger in a third the diligence of a bended knee or solemn look of formal-outside-worship must be taken in commutation for all other duty and all this while religion is brought up in the Gentlemans trade good clothes and idleness or of the Lillies of the field vestiri non laborare to be clothed and not labour Duty is too mechanical a thing the shop or the plough the work of faith or labour of love are things too vile too sordid for them to stoop to heaven will be had without such sollicitors Shall I instance in one particular more That Satan may be sure that duty shall never rescue any prey out of his hands one thing you may observe that most men never come to treat with it to look after to consider any such thing till indeed the time comes that no man worketh till the tokens be out upon them till the cry comes that the bridegroom is ready to enter that judgment is at the door and then there is such running about for oil as it 't were for extreme Vnction and that a Sacrament to confer all grace ex opere operato on him that hath scarce life enough to discern that he received it the soul sleeps in it's tenement as long as its lease lasteth and when 't is expired then it rouseth and makes as if 't would get to work the Christian thinks not of action of duty of good works of any thing whilst life and health lasteth but then the summons of death wake him and the prayers which he can repeat while his cloaths are putting off shall charm him like opium for a quiet sleep Thus doth a death-bed repentance a death-bed charity a parting with sins and wealth when we can hold them no longer look as big in the Calenders of Saints stand as solemnly and demurely in our diptycks as judgment and mercy and faith that have born the heat and burthen of the day Our hearts are hardned while it is to day against all the invasion of Law or Gospel judgments or mercies threats or promises all Christs methods and stratagems of grace and just at the close of the evening the shutting in of night we give out that the thunderbolt hath converted us the feaver came with its fiery chariot and hurried us up to heaven Surdus mutus testamentum facit quite against Justinians rule he that hath sent out most of his senses before him and retains but the last glimmering of life is allowed to make his Will and reverse all former acts by that one final Satan hath all the man hath to give under hand and seal all his life time the spring especially and verdure of his age the children pass through the fire to Moloch and just as he is a dropping out of the world he makes signs of cancelling that will and by a
the Devils works but from his attachments only as a protection to secure our misdemeanors not to defend our innocence for a man thus appointed to venture on a Precipice as the Turks saith Busbequius are wont to try the goodness of an horse by riding him post down the steepest hill to outdare the Devil in his own territories as Christ is said to descend thither to triumph over him to besiege and set upon Hell presuming of our interest in Heaven as of a Magical Charm and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to keep us safe from death or maims in the midst of enemies nay of friends this is a piece of spiritual pride of Lucifer's own inscribing an imperious majestick garb of impiety a triumphant or processionary pomp an affected stately gate in sin that nothing but a violent rending power of the Spirit or a boisterous tempestuous judgment can force us out of Such a prophane Fiduciary as this which hath even defiled Heaven by possessing it such an Hellish Saint is like to be torn out of the third Heaven into which his speculation hath wrapt him and after a long dream of Paradise find himself awake in Hell And from this degree of religious prophaneness this confidence in sinning on presumption that we are under grace from this premature resolution that no sin no Devil can endanger us from this imperious whoredom as from the danger of Hell Good Lord deliver us 3. Imperious signifies more distinctly a tyrannical Lording behaviour usurping and exercising authority over all And this the Apostate Jew and Christian Libertine doth 1. By tyrannizing over himself i. e. his faculties and estate 2. Over all that come near him Over himself by urging and driving on in a carnal course not patient of any regrets and resistances that a tender disposition motions of Gods Spirit or gripes of Conscience can make against it goading and spurring on any of his faculties as being too dull and unactive and slothful in the ways of death even forcing them if they be any time foreslowed and trashed by either outward or inward restraints to sin even in sight of them and hastening them to a kind of unvoluntary disobedience Thus will a stone when 't is kept violently from the ground being held in a mans hand or the like press and weigh towards the Earth incessantly as if it were naturally resolved to be revenged on any one to tire him out that thus detained it from its place nay when it is let down you may see it yet press lower make its print in the Earth as if it would never be satisfied till it could rest in Hell The sinner is never at quiet with himself Instat imperat He is urgent and importunate upon himself to satisfie every craving lust Not the beggarliest affection or laziest unworthiest desire of the flesh but shall have its alms and dole rather than starve though it be an atome of his very soul to the utter undoing and bankrupting of him that gives it And for his tyranny over his estate whether Temporal or Spiritual his goods of Fortune or gifts of Grace they must all do homage to this carnal Idol All his treasures on Earth are richly sold if they can but yield him the fruition of one beloved sin And for Spiritual Illuminations or any Seeds of Grace he will lose them all and even shut himself for ever into the darkness of Hell rather than ever be directed by their light out of those pleasing paths of death A restraining grace was but a burthensome needless incumbrance and a gleam of the Spirit but a means to set Conscience a working to actuate her malice and execution on sin and it were an happy exchange to get but one loving delight or companion for them both Let but a sin be coy and stanch not to he gain'd at the first wooing and all these together like Jacob's Present out of all his goods shall be all little enough for a sacrifice or bribe to sollicite or hire it And this the Prophet notes here distinctly Vers 33. and 34. Thou art contrary to all the Whores in the World In other places Men give gifts to all Whores but thou givest gifts to all thy lovers None follow or bribe thee to commit whoredoms Thou givest a reward and no reward is given to thee therefore thou art contrary The sinner in my Text scorns to set so low a value on sin as that profit or advantage should ingratiate it to him it is so amiable in his eyes of it self he will prize it so high that any other treasure shall not be considerable in respect of it It is part of his loyalty and expression of his special service to the Devil to become a bankrupt in his cause to sell all that he hath both God and fortunes to follow him It is the art and Cunning of common Whores to raise mens desires of them by being coy Difficultate augere libidinis pretium to hold off that they may be followed Vers 34. But this sin is not so artificial her affections are boysterous and impatient of delay she is not at so much leisure as to windlace or use craft to satisfie them she goes downright a wooing and if there be any difficulty in compassing all that she hath is ready for a dowry and prostitute before her Idol Lust Lastly Imperious over all that come near him either men or sins every man must serve him either as his pander or companion to further or associate him I told you he sinned in Cathedra Psal 1.1 that is also doctorally and magisterially every spectator must learn of him it is his profession he sets up school for it his practices are so commandingly exemplary that they do even force and ravish the most maidenly tender conscience And then for all inferiors they are required to provide him means and opportunities of sinning to find him out some game and no such injury can be done as to rouze or spring a sin that would otherwise have lodged in his walk It was part of the Heathenish Romans quarrel against the Primitive Christians saith Tertullian that they drove away their Devils These Exorcist-Christians had banished all their old familiars out of the Kingdom which they were impatient to be deprived of And thus careful and chary are men of their helps of opportunities to sin it is all the joy they have in the world sometimes to have a temptation and to be able to make use of it to have the Devil continue strong with them in an old Courtier 's phrase It is their very life and he that deprives them of it is a murtherer And for the sins themselves Lord how they tyrannize over them how they will rack and torture and stretch every limb of a sin that they may multiply it into infinites and sin as often at once as is possible Adam in the bare eating of an Apple committed a multitude of sins Leo in his 86 Epist
August de Civit. Dei and other of the Fathers will number them out to you And thus far this tyrant over Impiety and Lust will be a Pelagian as to order all his deviation by imitation of Adam's Every breach of one single Law shall contain a brood or nest into which it may be sub-divided and every circumstance in the Action shall furnish him with fresh matter for variety of sin Again How imperious is he in triumphing over a sin which he hath once atchieved If he have once got the better of good nature and Religion broke in upon a stubborn sullen vice that was formerly too hard for him how often doth he reiterate and repeat that he may perfect his conquest that it may lie prostrate and tame before him never daring to resist him And if there be any Virgin modest sins which are ashamed of the light either of the Sun or Nature not coming abroad but under a veil as some sins being too horrid and abominable are fain to appear in other shapes and so keep us company under the name of amiable or innocent qualities then will this violent imperious sinner call them out into the Court or Market place tear away the veil that he may commit them openly and as if the Devil were too modest for him bring him upon the stage against his will and even take Hell by violence and force Thus are men come at last to a glorying in the highest impieties and expect some renown and credit as a reward for the pains they take about it and then certainly honour is grown very cheap when it is bestowed upon sins and the man very tyrannical over his spectators thoughts that requires to be worshipped for them This was a piece of the Devils old tyranny in the times of Heathenism which I would fain Christianity hath out-dated to build Temples and offer sacrifice to sins under the name of Venus Priapus and the like that men that were naturally ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã superstitious adorers of Devils or any thing that was called God might account Incontinence Religion and all impieties in the world a kind of adoration Thus to profess whoredoms and set up trophies in our eyes to build their eminent place in the head of every way in the verse next to my Text was then the imputation of the Jews and pray God it prove not the guilt of Christians from whence the whole Church of them is here styled An imperious c. Thus hath the Apostate Jew represented to you in his picture and resemblance the Libertine Christian and Ezekiel become an Historian as well as Prophet Thus hath indulgence in vice among Professors of Christianity been aggravated against you 1. By the weak Womanish condition of it nature it self and ordinary man-like reason is ashamed of it 2. By the Adulterous Unfaithfulness 1. Want of Faith 2. Of Fidelity bewray'd in it 3. By the imperiousness of the behaviour 1. In shamelesness 2. In confidence and spiritual security 3. In tyrannizing over himself and faculties by force compelling and then insulting over his goods and graces prodigally mis-spending them in the prosecution of his lusts and Lording over all that come near him men or sins first pressing then leading the one and both ravishing and tormenting the other to perform him the better service Now that this discourse may not have been sent into the air unprofitably that all these prophetical censures of sin may not be like Xerxes his stripes on the Sea on inanimate senseless bodies 't is now time that every tender open guilty heart begin to retire into it self every one consider whether he be not the man that the parable aims at that you be not content to have your ears affected or the suburbs of the Soul filled with the sound unless also the heart of the City be taken with its efficacy Think and consider whether 1. This effeminacy and womanishness of heart and not weakness but torpor and stupidity 2. This unfaithfulness and falseness unto Christ exprest by the spiritual incontinence and whoredoms of our souls and actions 3. That Confidence and magnanimous stately garb in sin arising in some from Spiritual Pride in others from Carnal Security whether any or all of these may not be inscrib'd on our Pillars and remain as a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã against us to upbraid and aggravate the nature and measure of our sins also I cannot put on so solemn a person as to act a Cato or Aristarchus amongst an Assembly that are all Judices critici to reprehend the learned and the aged and to chide my Teachers you shall promise to spare that thankless task and to do it to your selves It will be more civility perhaps and sink down deeper into ingenuous natures fairly to bespeak and exhort you and from the first part of my Text only because 't would be too long to bring down all from the weakness and womanish condition of indulgent sinners to put you in mind of your strength and the use you are to make of it in a word and close of Application We have already taken notice of the double inheritance and patrimoney of strength and graces which we all injoy first as Men secondly as Christians and ought not we Beloved that have spent the liveliest and sprightfullest of our age and parts in the pursuit of Learning to set some value on that estate we have purchased so dear and account our selves somewhat the more men for being Scholars Shall not this deserve to be esteemed some advantage to us and a rise that being luckily taken may further us something in our stage towards Heaven That famous division of Rational Animals in Jamblichus out of Aristotle into three different species that some were Men others Gods others such as Pythagoras will argue some greater priviledges of Scholars above other men That indeed the deep Learneder sort and especially those that had attained some insight ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in divine affairs were in a kind of a more venerable species than ordinary ignaro's And for the benefits and helps that these excellencies afford us in our way to Heaven do but consider what a great part of the world overshaded in Barbarism brought up in blind Idolatry do thereby but live in a perpetual Hell and at last pass not into another kind but degree of darkness Death being but an officer to remove them from one Tophet to another or at most but as from a Dungeon to a Grave Think on this and then think and count what a blessing divine knowledge is to be esteemed even such a one as seems not only the way but the entrance not only a preparation but even a part of that vision which shall be for ever beatifical and therefore it will nearly concern us to observe what a talent is committed to our husbanding and what increase that hard Master will exact at his coming For as Dicaearchus in his Description of Greece saith of the
a pitiful addition in the scales so many pounds less than nothing is the utmost that can be affirmed of it and when you have fetcht out your last reserve all the painted air the only commodity behind that you have to throw into that scale the reputation and honour of a gallant vain-glorious sinner that some one fool or madman may seem to look on with some reverence you have then the utmost of the weight that that scale is capable of and the difference so vast betwixt them such an inconsiderable proportion of straw stubble to such whole Mines and Rocks of Gold and Silver and precious Stones that no man that is but able to deal in plain numbers no need of Logarithms or Algebra can mistake in the judgment or think that there is any profit any advantage in gaining the whole world if accompanied with the least hazard or possibility of losing his own soul and therefore the running that adventure is the greatest idiotism the most deplorable woful simplicity in the World The same proportion would certainly be acknowledged in the second place betwixt the command of Christ on one side high rational venerable commands that he that thinks not himself so strictly obliged to observe cannot yet but revere him that brought them into the World and deem them ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a Royal and a gallant Law whilst all the whole Volume or Code of the Law of the Members hath not one ingenuous dictate one tolerable rational proposal in it only a deal of savage drudgery to be performed to an impure tyrant sin and pain being of the same date in the world and the Hebrew ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã signifying both and the more such burthens undergone the more mean submissions still behind no end of the tale of Brick to one that is once ingaged under such Egyptian Kiln and Task-masters And for the terrors in the last place there are none but those of the Lord that are fit to move or to perswade any the utmost secular fear is so much more impendent over Satan's than God's Clients the killing of the body the far more frequent effect of that which had first the honour to bring death into the world the Devil owning the title of destroyer Abaddon and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and inflicting diseases generally on those whom he possest and Christ that other of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Physician and the Saviour that hath promises of long life annexed to some specials of his service that if it were reasonable to fear those that can kill the body and afterwards have no more that they can do i. e. are able by the utmost of their malice and Gods permission but to land thee safe at thy fair Haven to give thee Heaven and bliss before thy time instead of the many lingring deaths that this life of ours is subject to yet there were little reason to fear or suspect the fate in Gods service far less than in those steep precipitous paths which the Devil leads us thorow And therefore to be thus low-bell'd with panick frights to be thus tremblingly dismayed where there is no place of fear and to ride on intrepid on the truest dangers as the Barbarians in America do on Guns is a mighty disproportion of mens faculties a strange superiority of phansie over judgment that may well be described by a defect in the power of numbering that discerns no difference between Ciphers and Millions but only that the noughts are a little the blacker and the more formidable And so much for the third branch of this character There is yet a fourth notion of simplicity as it is contrary to common ordinary prudence that by which the politician and thriving man of this world expects to be valued the great dexterity and managery of affairs and the business of this world wherein let me not be thought to speak Paradoxes if I tell you with some confidence that the wicked man is this only impolitick fool and the Christian generally the most dextrous prudent practical person in the world and the safest Motto that of the Virtutem violenter retine the keeping vertue with the same violence that Heaven is to be taken with not that the Spirit of Christ infuses into him the subtleties and crafts of the wicked gives him any principles or any excuse for that greater portion of the Serpentine wisdom but because honesty is the most gainful policy the most thriving thorow prudence that will carry a man farther than any thing else That old principle in the Mathematicks That the right line comes speediliest to the journeys end being in spight of Machiavel a Maxim in Politicks also and so will prove till Christ shall resign and give up to Satan the oeconomy of the World Some examples it is possible there may be of the Prosperum Scelus the thriving of villainy for a time and so of the present advantages that may come in to us by our secular contrivances but sure this is not the lasting course but only an anomaly or irregularity that cannot be thought fit to be reckoned of in comparison of the more constant promises the long life in a Canaan of Milk and Honey that the Old and New Testament both have ensured upon the meek disciple And I think a man might venture the experiment to the testimony and trial of these times that have been deemed most unkind and unfavourable to such innocent Christian qualities that those that have been most constant to the strict stable honest principles have thrived far better by the equable figure than those that have been most dextrous in changing shapes and so are not the most unwise ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã if there were never another state of retributions but this Whereas it is most scandalously frequent and observable that the great Politicians of this world are baffled and outwitted by the Providence of Heaven sell their most pretious souls for nought and have not the luck to get any money for them the most unthrifty improvident Merchandise that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã folly Psal xlix 13 which the lxxii render ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã scandal the most piteous offensive folly the wretchedst simplicity in the World You would easily believe it should not stand in need of a farther aggravation and yet now you are to be presented with one in my Text by way of heightning of the Character and that was my second particular that at first I promised you made up of two farther considerations first the loving of that which is so unlovely secondly the continuing in the passion so long How long you simple ones will you love c. First The degree and improvement of the Atheists folly consists in the loving of it that he can take a delight and complacency in his way to be patient of such a course gainless service such scandalous mean submissions had been reproach enough to any that had not divested
of Scripture of which these words are a close is the Angels message or Gospel unto Joseph and set down by St. Matthew as both the interpretation and accomplishment of a Prophecy delivered long ago by Isaiah but perhaps not at all understood by the Jews to wit That a Virgin should conceive and bear a Son and they should call his name Emmanuel Where first we must examine the seeming difference in the point of Christs Name betwixt the place here cited from Isaiah and the words here vouched of the Angel V. 21. and proved by the effect V. 25. For the Prophet says he shall be called Emmanuel but the Angel commands he should be and the Gospel records he was named Jesus And here we must resume and enlarge the ground premised in our Preface that Prophecies being not Histories but rude imperfect draughts of things to come do not exactly express and delineate but only shadow and covertly vail those things which only the Spirit of God and the event must interpret So that in the Gospel we construe the words but in Prophecies the sense i. e. we expect not the performance of very Circumstance exprest in the words of a Prophecy but we acknowledg another sense beyond the literal and in the comparing of Isaiah with St. Matthew we exact not the same expressions provided we find the same substance and the same significancy So then the Prophets and call his name Emmanuel is not as humane Covenants are to be fulfill'd in the rigour of the Letter that he should be so named at his Circumcision but in the agreement of sense that this name should express his nature that he was indeed God with us and that at the Circumcision he should receive a name of the same power and significancy Whence the observation by the way is that Emmanuel in effect signifies Jesus God with us a Saviour and from thence the point of Doctrine that Gods coming to us i. e. Christs Incarnation brought Salvation into the World For if there be a substantial agreement betwixt the Prophet and the Angel if Emmanuel signifie directly Jesus if God with us and a Saviour be really the same title of Christ then was there no Saviour and consequently no Salvation before this presence of God with us Which position we will briefly explain and then omitting unnecessary proofs apply it In explaining of it we must calculate the time of Christs Incarnation and set down how with it and not before came Salvation We may collect in Scripture a three-fold Incarnation of Christ 1. In the Counsel of God 2. In the Promises of God 3. In a Personal open exhibiting of him unto the World the effect and complement of both Counsel and Promises 1. In the Counsel of God so He was as slain so incarnate before the foundation of the World Rev. xiii 8 For the word slain being not competible to the Eternal God but only to the assumption of the humane nature presupposes him incarnate because slain God then in his Prescience surveving before he created and viewing the lapsed miserable sick estate of the future Creation in his Eternal Decree foresaw and pre-ordained Jesus the Saviour the Author and Finisher of the Worlds Salvation So that in the Counsel of God to whom all things to come are made present Emmanuel and Jesus went together and no Salvation bestowed on us but in respect to this God with us 2. In the Promises of God and then Christ was incarnate when he was promised first in Paradise The seed of the Woman c. and so he is as old in the flesh as the World in sin and was then in God's Promise first born when Adam and man-kind began to die Afterwards he was not again but still incarnate in Gods Promise more evidently in Abraham's time In thy seed c. and in Moses his time when at the addition of the Passover a most significant representation of the incarnate and crucified Christ he was more than promised almost exhibited Under which times it is by some asserted that Christ in the form of Man and habit of Angel appeared sundry times to the Fathers to give them not an hope but a possession of the Incarnate God and to be praeludium incarnationis a pawn unto them that they trusted not in vain And here it is plain thorowout that this Incarnation of Christ in the Promise of God did perpetually accompany or go before Salvation not one blessing on the nations without mention of thy feed not one encouragement against fear or unto confidence but confirm'd and back'd with an I am thy shield c. i. e. according to the Targum my Word is thy shield i. e. my Christ who is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Word in the first of Joh. i. Not any mention of Righteousness and Salvation but on ground and condition of belief of that Jesus which was then in promise Emmanuel God with us 3. In the Personal exhibiting of Christ in form of flesh unto the World dated at the fulness of time and call'd in our ordinary phrase his Incarnation then no doubt was Emmanuel Jesus then was he openly shewed to all people in the form of God a Saviour which Simeon Luk. ii 30 most divinely styles God's Salvation thereby no doubt meaning the Incarnate Christ which by being God with us was Salvation Thus do you see a three-fold Incarnation a three-fold Emmanuel and proportionably a three-fold Jesus 1. A Saviour first decreed for the World answerable to God incarnate in God's Counsel and so no man was ever capable of Salvation but through God with us 2. A Saviour promised to the World answerable to the second God with us to wit incarnate in the Promise and so there is no Covenant of Salvation but in this God with us 3. A Saviour truly exhibited and born of a Woman answerable to the third Emmanuel and so also is there no manifestation no proclaiming no preaching of Salvation but by the birth and merits of God with us To these three if we add a fourth Incarnation of Christ the assuming of our Immortal Flesh which was at his Resurrection then surely the Doctrine will be complete and this Emmanuel incarnate in the Womb of the grave and brought forth cloath'd upon with an incorruptible seed is now more fully than ever prov'd an Eternal Jesus For when he had overcome the sharpness of death he opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers as it is in our Te Deum as if all that till then ever entred into Heaven had been admitted by some privy key but now the very gates were wide opened to all believers This last Incarnation of Christ being accompanied with a Catholick Salvation that Jesus might be as Eternal as Emmanuel that he might be as Immortal a Saviour as a God with us 'T were but a superfluous work further to demonstrate that through all ages of the World there was no Salvation ever tendred but in
uncharitable to charge this ignorance still upon Disciples after so many solemn Embassies of the Holy Ghost unto us to teach us and remember us of this Duty Nay I wish that now after he hath varied the way of appearing after he hath sat upon us in somewhat a more direful shape not of a Dove but Vultur tearing even the flesh from us on purpose that when we have less of that carnal Principle left there might be some heed taken to this Gospel-Spirit there were yet some proficiency observable among us some heavings of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that hath so long been a working in the World I am confident there were no such way of designing a prosperous flourishing durable Kingdom as to found its policy upon Gospel-Principles and maintain it by the Gospel-Spirit I have authority to think that was the meaning of that Prophecy of Christs turning swords into plough-shares not that he should actually bring peace he tells you that it would prove quite contrary but because the fabrick of the Gospel is such that would all men live by it all wars and disquiets would be banished out of the World It was a madness in Machiavel to think otherwise and yet the unhappiness of the World that Sir Thomas Moor's Book that designed it thus should be then called Vtopia and that title to this hour remain perfect Prophecy no place to be found where this Dove may rest her foot where this Gospel-Spirit can find reception No not among Disciples themselves those that profess to adventure their lives to set up Christs Kingdom in its purity none so void of this knowledg as they Whether we mean a speculative or practical knowledg of it few arrived to that height or vacancy of considering whether there be such a Spirit or no. Some so in love with nature that old Pelagian Idol resolve that sufficient to bring them to Heaven if they but allow their brethren what they can claim by that grand Character love of Friends those of the same perswasion those that have obliged them they have Natures leave and so are resolved to have Christs to hate pursue to death whom they can phansie their Enemies And I wish some were but thus of Agrippa's Religion ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so near being Christians as nature it self would advance them that gratitude honour to Parents natural affection were not become malignant qualities disclaim'd as conscientiously as obedience and justice and honouring of betters Others again so devouted to Moses's Law the Old Testament Spirit that whatever they find practised there they have sufficient authority to transcribe And 't is observable that they which think themselves little concerned in Old Testament Duties which have a long time past for unregenerate morality that faith hath perfectly out-dated are yet zealous Assertors of the Old Testament Spirit all their pleas for the present resistance fetch'd from them yea and confest by some that this liberty was hidden by God in the first ages of the Christian Church but now revealed we cannot hear where yet but in the Old Testament and from thence a whole CIX Psalm full of Curses against God's Enemies and theirs and generally those pass for synonymous terms the special devotion they are exercised in and if ever they come within their reach no more mercy for them than for so many of the seven nations in rooting out of which a great part of their Religion consists I wish there were not another Prodigy also abroad under the name of the Old Testament Spirit the opinion of the necessity of Sacrifice real bloody Sacrifice even such as was but seldom heard of among Indians and Scythians themselves such Sacrifices of which the Canibal Cyclops Feasts may seem to have been but attendants furnished with the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that come from such savage Altars sacrificing of Men of Christians of Protestants as good as any in the World to expiate for the blood shed by Papists in Queen Mary's days and some Prophets ready to avow that without such Sacrifice there is no remission no averting of judgments from the Land What is this but like the Pharisees To build and garnish the Sepulchres of the Prophets and say That if they had lived in their Fathers days they would never have partaken of the blood of the Prophets and yet go on to fill up the measure of their Fathers the very men to whom Christ directs thee O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest in the present tense a happy turn if but the Progeny of those Murtherers and what can then remain but the Behold your house is left unto you desolate irreversible destruction upon the Land A third sort there is again that have so confined the Gospel to Promises and a fourth so perswaded that the Vnum necessarium is to be of right perswasions in Religion i. e. of those that every such man is of for he that did not think his own the truest would sure be of them no longer that betwixt those two popular deceits that of the Fiduciary and this of the Solisidian the Gospel-spirit is not conceived to consist in doing any thing and so still those practical Graces Humility Meekness Mercifulness Peaceableness and Christian Patience are very handsomly superseded that one Moses's Rod called Faith is turned Serpent and hath devoured all these for rods of the Magicians and so still you see men sufficiently armed and fortified against the Gospel-spirit All that is now left us is not to exhort but weep in secret not to dispute but pray for it that God will at last give us eyes to discern this treasure put into our hands by Christ which would yet like a whole Navy and Fleet of Plate be able to recover the fortune and reputation of this bankrupt Island fix this floating Delos to restore this broken shipwrakt Vessel to harbour and safety this whole Kingdom to peace again Peace seasonable instant peace the only remedy on earth to keep this whole Land from being perfect Vastation perfect Africk of nothing but wild and Monster and the Gospel-spirit that Christ came to preach and exemplifie and plant among men the only way imaginable to restore that peace Lord that it might at length break forth among us the want of it is certainly the Authour of all the miseries we suffer under and that brings me to the third and last particular That this ignorance of the Gospel-spirit is apt to betray Christians to unsafe unjustifiable enterprizes You that would have fire from Heaven do it upon this one ignorance You know not c. It were too sad and too long a task to trace every of our evils home to the original every of the fiends amongst us to the mansion in the place of darkness peculiar to it If I should it would be found too true what Du Plesse is affirmed to have said to Languet as the reason why he would not write the story of the Civil
troubled about the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã their prophaneness and uncleanness that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their Conversion And this was the general opinion of all the Jews they of the Circumcision were astonished at the news Act. x. 45 Nay this is it that the Angels wondred at so when they saw it wrought at the Church by Pauls Ministery never dreaming it possible till it was effected as may appear Eph. iii. 10 This was the Mystery which from the beginning of the World had been hid in God V. 9. One of God's Cabinet Counsels a Mercy decreed in secret that no Creature ever wish of till it was performed And in this behalf are we all being lineally descended from the Gentiles bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second Original sin that Heathenism of our Ancestors and Catholick damnation that Sixteen hundred years ago we were all involv'd in Beloved we were long ago set right again and the obligation lies heavy upon us to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose to prove our selves Christians in grain so fixed and established that all the Devils in Hell shall not be able to reduce us again to that abhorred condition If we that are thus called out shall fall back after so much Gospel to Heathen practices and set up Shrines and Altars in our hearts to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God if we are not called out of their sins as well as out of their ignorance then have we advanced but the further toward Hell we are still but Heathen Gospellers our Christian Infidelity and practical Atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us and damn us the deeper for being Christians Do but examine your selves on this one Interrogatory whether this calling the Gentiles hath found any effect in your hearts any influence on your lives whether your Conversations are not still as Heathenish as ever If you have no other grounds or motives to embrace the Gospel but only because you are borâ within the pale of the Church no other evidences of your Discipleship but your livery then God is little beholding to you for your service The same motives would have served to have made you Turks if it had been your chance to have been born amongst them and now all that fair Christian outside is not thank-worthy 'T is but your good fortune that you are not now at the same work with the old Gentiles or present Indians a worshipping either Jupiter or the Sun 'T was a shrewd speech of Clemens that the life of every unregenerate Man is an Heathen-life and the sins of unsanctified Men are Heathen-sins and the estate of a Libertine Christian an Heathen-estate and unless our resolutions and practices are consonant to our profession of Christ we are all still Heathens and the Lord make us sensible of this our Condition The third and in summ the powerfullest Argument to prove God's willingness that we should live is that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us that as soon as he called up the Son he sent the Comforter This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven about so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John and Vers 7. that if it had not been for that Christ had tarried amongst us till this time but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts which often and in vain had been sounded in our ears 'T is a phancy of the Paracelsians that if we could suck out the lives and spirits of other Creatures as we feed on their flesh we should never die their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into our lives their spirit increase our spirits and so our lives grow with our years and the older we were by consequence the fuller of life and so no difficulty to become Immortal Thus hath God dealt with us first sent his Son his Incarnate Son his own Flesh to feed and nourish us and for all this we die daily he hath now given us his own very Life and incorporeous Essence a piece of pure God his very Spirit to feed upon and digest that if it be possible we might live There is not a vein in our Souls unless it be quite pin'd and shrivel'd up but hath some bloud produced in it by that holy nourishment every breath that ever we have breathed toward Heaven hath been thus inspired Besides those louder Voices of God either sounding in his Word or thundring in his Judgments there is his calm soft voice of Inspiration like the Night Vision of old which stole in upon the mind mingled with sleep and gentle slumber He draws not out into the Field or meets us as an Enemy but entraps us by surprize and disarms us in our quarters by a Spiritual Stratagem conquers at unawares and even betrays and circumvents and cheats us into Heaven That precept of Pythagoras ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã To worship at the noise and whistling of the wind had sense and divinity in it that Jamblichus that cites it never dreamt of that every sound and whispering of this Spirit which râstles either about our ears or in our hearts as the Philosopher saith Tecum est intus est when it breaths and blows within us the stoutest faculty of our Souls the proudest piece of flesh about us should bow down and worship Concerning the manner of the Spirits working I am not I need not to dispute Thus far it will be seasonable and profitable for you to know that many other Illuminations and holy Graces are to he imputed to Gods Spirit besides that by which we are effectually converted God speaks to us many times when we answer him not and shines about our eyes when we either wink or sleep Our many sudden shortwinded Ejaculations toward Heaven our frequent but weak inclinations to good our ephemerous wishes that no man can distinguish from true piety but by their sudden death our every day resolutions of obedience whilest we continue in sin are arguments that God's Spirit hath shined on us though the warmth that it produced be soon chill'd with the damp it meets within us For example there is no doubt beloved but the Spirit of God accompanies his Word as at this time to your ears if you will but open at its knock and receive and entertain it in your hearts it shall prove unto you according to its most glorious attribute Rom. i. The power of God unto salvation But if you will refuse it your stubbornness may repel and frustrate God's Work but not annihilate it though you will not be saved by it it is God's still and so shall continue to witness against you as the day of doom Every word that was ever darted from that Spirit as a beam or javelin of
that piercing Sun every atoâe of that flaming Sword as the word is phrased shall not though it be rebated vanish the day of Vengeance shall instruct your Souls that it was sent from God and since it was once refused hath been kept in store not to upbraid but damn you Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to put off the Cloud and open his Face toward us nay it were not a groundless doubt whether he do not always shine and the cloud be only in our hearts which makes us think the Sun is gone down or quite extinct if at any time we feel not his rays within us Beloved there be many things amongst us that single fire can do nothing upon they are of such a stubborn frozen nature there must be some material thing for the fire to consist in a sharp iron red hot that may bore as well as burn or else there is small hopes of conquering them Many men are so hardned and congealed in sin that the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument some sound corpulent piercing judgment or else it will be very unlikely to thrive True it is the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its virtue through the inward man that the whole most enraged adversary shall presently fall to the earth Act. ix the whole carnal man lie prostrate and the sinner be without delay converted and this is a Miracle which I desire from my heart might be presently shewed upon every Soul here present But that which is to my present purpose is only this That God hath also other manners and ways of working which are truly to be said to have descended from Heaven though they are not so successful as to bring us thither other more calm and less boysterous influences which if they were received into an honest heart might prove semen immortalitatis and in time encrease and grow up to immortality There is no such encumbrance to trash us in our Christian Progress as a phansie that some men get possessed with that if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spight of their teeth every man expecting an extraordinary call because Saul met with one and perhaps running the more fiercely because Saul was then called when he was most violent in his full speed of malice against Christians In this behalf all that I desire of you is First to consider that though our regeneration be a miracle yet there are degrees of miracles and thou hast no reason to expect that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world shall in the highest degree be shewed in thy Salvation Who art thou that Gââ should take such extraordinary pains with thee Secondly To resolve that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit though when they enter they come with power yet through our neglect may prove transitory pass by that heart which is not open for them And then thirdly You will easily be convinced that no duty concerns us all so strictly as to observe as near as we can when thus the Spirit appears to us to collect and muster up the most lively quick-sighted sprightfullest of our faculties and with all the perspectives that spiritual Opticks can furnish us with to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light We have ways in nature to apprehend the beams of the Sun be they never so weak and languishing and by uniting them into a Burning-Glass to turn them into a fire Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spiritual estate then it were easie for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle to thrive within us and at least break forth into a flame In brief Incogitancy and inobservance of Gods seasons supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs may on good grounds be resolved on as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation it being just with God to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream and at last to refuse them whom he hath so long sollicited He that hath scorned or wasted his inheritance cannot complain if he dies a bankrupt nor he that hath spent his candle at play count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed darkling It were easie to multiply arguments on this theme and from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and evidence of Gods fatherly will and desire that we should live Let it suffice that we have been large if not abundant in these three chief ones First The giving of his Son to the World Secondly Dispatching the Gospel to the Gentiles And lastly The sending of his Spirit We come now to a view of the opposite trenches which lie pitched at the Gates of Hell obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it Mans resolvedness and wilfulness to die my second part Why will you die There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue in sin that keeps us from repentance and hinders any seasonable Reformation of our wicked lives as a perswasion that God's will is a cause of all events Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the Author of sin yet we are generally inclined for a phansie that because all things depend on God's decree whatsoever we have done could not be otherwise all our care could not have cut off one sin from the Catalogue And so being resolved that when we thus sinned we could not chuse we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly we have for continuing still and so are generally better prepared for Apologies than Reformation Beloved it will certainly much conduce to our edification instead of this speculation whose grounds or truth I will not now examine to fix this practical theorem in our hearts that the will of man is the principal cause of all our evil that death either as it is the punishment of sin eternal death or as it is the sin it self a privation of the life of grace spiritual death is wholly to be imputed to our wilful will It is a Probleme in Aristotle why some Creatures are longer in conceiving bringing forth than others and the sensiblest reason he gives for it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the hardness of the Womb which is like dry earth that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant and so is it in the spiritual conception and production of Christ that is of life in us The hardness and toughness of the heart the womb where he is to be born that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that dry Earth in the Philosophers or that way-side or at best stony ground in Christ's phrase is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us the only cause of either barrenness or hard
Lord will fight with Amalek for ever where by the way the LXX put in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã God will fight against Amalek as it were under hand by secret hidden strength which addition of theirs if it were inspired into the Translators as St. Augustine is of opinion all their variations from the Hebrew are ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and so Canon then happily that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã may signifie some secret infusion of supernatural power into Moses his hands that there is promised answerable to that same effusion of grace to enable all the People of God in our fight with sin the spiritual Amalek by which grace Moses and the Christians have assurance to prevail And this may be ground enough for a Christian Christ hath prayed and God promised that your faith shall not fail But then all this while the story of the day will tell us on what terms this security of victory stood if so be Moses continue to hold up his hands noting 1. the power of prayer 2. of obedience 3. of perseverance and upon these terms even a Pharisee may be confident without presumption but if his hands be once let down if he remit of his Christian valour for so manus demittere signifies in Agonisticks Amalek prevails Verse 11. Just as it fared with Samson he had an inconceivable portion of strength even a ray of God's omnipotence bestowed on him but this not upon term of life but of his Nazarites vow i. e. as the LXXII render it Numb vi 2 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a prayer as well as a vow and that of separating or hallowing purity and sanctity to the Lord and his vow being broken not only that of his hair but with it that of his holy obedience that piece of Divinity presently vanished and the Philistines deprived him of his eyes and life And thereupon it is observable that Numb xv 9 that which is in the Hebrew in performing a vow is rendred by the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã to magnifie a vow then is the vow or resolution truly great that will stand us in stead when it is performed As for all others they remain as brands and monuments of reproach to us upbraiding us of our inconstancy first then of disobedience and withal as signs to warn that God's strength is departed from us I doubt not but this strength being thus lost may return again before our death giving a plunge as it did in Samson when he pluckt the House about their ears at last Jud. xvi But this must be by the growing out of the hair again Verse 22. the renewing of his repentance and sanctity with his vow and by prayer unto God verse 28. Lord God or as the LXXII ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Remember me I pray thee and strengthen me but for all this it was said before in the 19. verse his strength and in the 20. verse the Lord was departed from him And so no doubt it may from us if we have no better security for our selves than the present possession and a dream of perpetuity For though no man can excommunicate himself by one rule yet he may by another in the Canon Law that there be some faults excommunicate a man ipso facto one who hath committed them the Law excommunicates though the Judge do not you need not the application there be perhaps some sins and Devils like the Carian Scorpions which Apollonius and Antigonus mention out of Aristotle which when they strike strangers do them no great hurt ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã presently kill their own country-men some Devils perhaps that have power to hurt only their own subjects as sins of weakness and ignorance though they are enough to condemn an unregenerate man yet we hope through the merits of Christ into whom he is ingrafted ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã shall do little hurt to the regenerate unless it be only to keep him humble to cost him more sighs and prayers But then saith the same Apollonius there your Babylonian snakes that are quite contrary do no great hurt to their own Country-men but are present death to strangers and of this number it is to be feared may presumption prove and spiritual pride sins that that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the Devils natives ordinary habitual sinners need not much to fear but to the stranger and him that is come from far thinking himself as St. Paul was dropt out of the third Heaven and therefore far enough from the infernal country 't is to be feared I say they may do much mischief to them And therefore as Porphyry says of Plotinus in his life and that for his commendation that he was not ashamed to suck when he was eight years old but as he went to the Schools frequently diverted to his nurse so will it concern us for the getting of a consistent firm habit of soul not to give over the nurse when we are come to age and years in the spirit to account our selves babes in our virility and be perpetually a calling for the dug the sincere milk of the word of the Sacraments of the Spirit and that without any coyness or shame be we in our own conceits nay in the truth never so perfect full grown men in Christ Jesus And so much be spoken of the first point proposed the Pharisees flattering misconceit of his own estate and therein implicitely of the Christians premature deceivable perswasions of himself 1. thinking well of ones self on what grounds soever 2. overprizing of his own worth and graces 3. his opinion of the consistency and immutability of his condition without either thought of what 's past or fear of what 's to come Many other misconceits may be observed if not in the Pharisee yet in his parallel the ordinary confident Christian as 1. that God's decree of election is terminated in their particular and individual entities without any respect to their qualifications and demeanors 2. That all Christian faith is nothing but assurance a thing which I toucht ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the Preface and can scarce forbear now I meet with it again 3. That the Gospel consists all of promises of what Christ will work in us no whit of precepts or prohibitions 4. That it is a state of ease altogether and liberty no whit of labour and subjection but the Pharisee would take it ill if we should digress thus far and make him wait for us again at our return We hasten therefore to the second part the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or natural importance of the words and there we shall find him standing apart and thanking God only perhaps in complement his posture and language give notice of his pride the next thing to be toucht upon Pride is a vice either 1. in our natures 2. in our educations or 3. taken upon us for some ends The first is a disease of the soul which we are inclined to by nature but
it also necessary necessitate praecepti a thing which though we should be never the better for we are bound to perform So that though Faith were not able to save us yet infidelity would damn us it being amongst others a direct breach of a natural a moral nay an Evangelical Commandment And so much for the danger of infidelity considered positively in relation to the Subject whom it deprives of Heaven the Object Christ and his offers in the Gospel which it frustrates and lastly the Author and Commander of it God the Father whom it resists disobeys and scorns You will perhaps more feelingly be affected to the loathing of it if we proceed to the odious and dangerous condition of it above all other sins and breaches in the World which is my third part its comparative sinfulness It shall be more tolerable c. And this will appear if we consider it 1. in it self 2. in its consequences In it self it is fuller of guilt in its consequences fuller of danger than any ordinary breach of the moral Law In it self so it is 1. the greatest aversion from God in which aversion the School-men place the formalis ratio the very Essence of sin it is the perversest remotion and turning away of the Soul from God and getting as far as we can out of his sight or ken the forbidding of all manner of Commerce or spiritual Traffick or correspondence with God as may appear by that admirable place Heb. x. 38 The just shall live by faith but if any man draw back my soul hath no pleasure in him and verse 39. We are not of them which draw back unto perdition but of them that do believe to the saving of the Soul Where the phrase of drawing back oppos'd here to Faith and Believing is in the original ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a cowardly pusillanimous subducing of ones self a getting out of the way a not daring to meet or approach or accept of Christ when he is offered them the same with ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã among the Physicians a contraction of the Soul a shriveling of it up a sudden correption and depression of the mind such as the sight of some hideous danger is wont to produce so 2 Mac. vi 12 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. to be discouraged and to forsake the Jewish Religion because of the calamities So is the word used of Peter Gal. ii 12 ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. He withdrew and separated himself fearing those that were of the Circumcision The Infidel I say draws back withdraws and sneaks out of the way as if he were afraid of the mercies of his Saviour as if it were death to him to be so near salvation as if Christ coming to him with the mercies of the Gospel were the mortal'st enemy under Heaven and there were no such mischief to be done him as his conversion This indeed is an aversion in the highest degree when we fly and draw back from God when he comes to save us when the sight of a Saviour makes us take our heels Adam might well hide himself when God came to challenge him about his disobedience the guilty conscience being afraid of revenge may well slink out of his presence with Cain Gen. iv 16 But to tremble and quake at a proclamation of mercy when God draws with cords of a man Hos xi 4 a powerful phrase exprest in the next words with the bands of love when he loveth us and calls his Son out for us v. 1. then to be bent to backsliding in the 7. ver to draw back when he comes to embrace this is a stubbornness and contraction of the soul a crouching of it in a ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that neither nature nor reason would be guilty of an aversion from God which no other sin can parallel and therefore of all other most intolerable in the first place 2. Infidelity gives God the lye and denies whatever God proclaims in the Gospel The reason or ground of any ones belief the objectum formale quo that by assenting to which I come to believe is Gods Veracity the Confidence that God speaks true the relying on his word is that which brings me to lay hold on Christ and therefore the Infidel is down right with God he will not take his word he 'll never be perswaded that these benefits of Christs death that are offered to all men can ever do him any good Let God call him to accept them he 'll never come his surly resolute carriage is in effect a contradicting of whatever God hath affirmed a direct thwarting a giving the lye to God and his Evangelists and this is an aggravation not to be mentioned without reverence or horror the most odious affront in the World the Lord be merciful to us in this matter Next this sin is a sin of the most dangerous consequences of any 1. It produces all other sins and that positively by doubting of his justice and so falling into adulteries blasphemies and the like in security and hope of impunity by distrusting of his providence and mercy and so flying to covetousness murmuring tempting subtlety all arts and stratagems of getting for our temporal estate and ordinary despair in our spiritual then privatively depriving us of that which is the mother and soul of our obedience and good Works I mean faith so that every thing for want of it is turned into sin and thereby depopulating the whole man making him nothing in the World but ruins and noysomness a confluence of all manner of sins without any concomitant degree of duty or obedience 2. It frustrates all good Exhortations and forbids all manner of superstructions which the Ministers are wont to labour for in moving us to charity and obedience and joy and hope and prayer by not having laid any foundation whereon these must be built any of these set or planted in any Infidel heart will soon wither they must have a stock of faith whereon to be grafted or else they are never likely to thrive As Galba's Wit was a good one but 't was unluckily placed ill-seated there was no good to be wrought by it The proudest of our works or merits the perfectest morality will stand but very weakly unless it be founded on that foundation whose corner stone is Christ Jesus 1. It leaves no place in the world for remedy he that is an Idolater a Sabbath-breaker or the like he that is arraigned at the law and found guilty at that Tribunal hath yet an Advocate in the Gospel a higher power to whom he may appeal to mitigate his sentence but he that hath sinned against the Gospel hath no farther to go he hath sinned against that which should have remitted all other sins and now he is come to an unremediable estate to a kind of hell or the grave of sin from whence there is no recovery There 's not a mercy to be fetch'd in
and much followed by the youth till he perswaded them from admiring such unprofitable professors and these are observed by Plutarch to be meer hucksters of vain glory getting great store of money and applause from their auditors ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã silver and popularity but had no manner of profitable learning to bestow upon them as Plutarch dooms them in his Platonick questions and Socrates in his Dialogues in confutation of them and certainly by their very profession 't is plain that these men had no God to know or worship except their gain But not to insist on these or other their Professors of more curious trim polite learning as their Philosophers Grammarians and Rhetoricians it will be more seasonable to our Text to examine St. Pauls auditors here the great speculators among them 1 the deepest Philosophers and there where you expect the greatest knowledge you shall find the most barbarous ignorance in the midst of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of the Grecians the Philosophers saith Clem. and 't is plain by their writings finding out and acknowledging in private this multitude of Gods to be a prodigious vanity and infinitely below the gravity and wisdom of their profession took themselves off from this unreasonable worship and almost each of them in private worshipped some one God And here you would think that they jump'd with the Jews of that time in the acknowledging an unity but if you mark them you shall find that they did not reform the popular Atheism but only varied it into a more rational way Thales would not acknowledge Neptune as the Poets and people did but yet he deifies the water as Clem. observes another scorned to be so senseless as to worship wood or stone and yet he deifies the earth the parent of them both and as senseless as them both and does at once calcare terram colere tread on the earth with his feet and adore it with his heart So Socrates who by bringing in morality was a great refiner and pruner of barren Philosophy absolutely denying the Grecian Gods and thence called ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is yet brought in by Aristophanes worshipping the clouds ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. and by a more friendly Historian described addressing a sacrifice to Aesculapius being at the point of death So that in brief the Philosophers disliking the vulgar superstition went to School saith Clem. to the Persian Magi and of them learnt a more Scholastick Atheism The worship of those venerable Elements which because they were the beginnings out of which natural bodies were composed were by these naturalists admired and worshipped instead of the God of nature From which a man may plainly judge of the beginning and ground of the general Atheism of Philosophers that it was a superficial knowledge of Philosophy the sight of second causes and dwelling on them and being unable to go any higher For men by nature being inclined to acknowledge a Deity take that to be their God which is the highest in their sphere of knowledge or the supremum cognitum which they have attained to whereas if they had been studious or able by the dependence of causes to have proceeded beyond these Elements they might possibly nay certainly would have been reduced to piety and religion which is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the knowledge and worship of God but there were many hindrances which kept them groveling on the earth not able to ascend this ladder 1. They wanted that ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which Aphrod on the Topicks speaks of that kindly familiar good temper or disposition of the soul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã by which the mind is able to find out and judge of truth they wanted either that natural harmony or spiritual concord of the powers of the soul by which it is able to reach those things which now in corrupt nature are only spiritually descerned For it is Clem. his Christian judgment of them that the Gentiles being but Bastards not true born sons of God but Aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel were therefore not able to look up toward the Light as 't is observed of the bastard-brood of Eagles or consequently to discern that inaccessible light till they were received into the Covenant and made ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã true proper Children of light A second hindrance was the grosseness and earthiness of their fancy which was not able to conceive God to be any thing but a corporeous substance as Philoponus observes in Schol. on the books de anima ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. When we have a mind to betake our selves to divine speculation our fancy comes in ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã raises such a tempest in us so many earthly meteors to clog and over-cloud the soul that it cannot but conceive the Deity under some bodily shape and this disorder of the fancy doth perpetually attend the soul even in the fairest weather in its greatest calm and serenity of affections ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. saith Plato even when the soul is free from its ordinary distractions and hath provided it self most accurately for contemplation Philoponus in this place finding this inconvenience fetches a remedy out of Plotinus for this rarifying and purifying of the fancy and it is the study of the Mathematicks ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. Let young men be brought up in the study of the Mathematicks to some acquaintance with an incorporeous nature but how unprofitable a remedy this study of the Mathematicks was to the purpose of preparing the soul to a right conceit of God I doubt not but he himself afterwards found when he turned Christian and saw how far their Mathematical and Metaphysical abstractions fell below those purest Theological conceits of which only grace could make him capable So that in brief their understanding being fed by their fancies and both together fatned with corporeous phantasms as they encreased in natural knowledge grew more hardned in spiritual ignorance and as Clem saith of them were like birds cram'd in a Coop fed in darkness and nourished for death their gross conceits groping on in obscurity and furnishing them only with such opinions of God as should encrease both their ignorance and damnation That I be not too large and confused in this discourse let us pitch upon Aristotle one of the latest of the Ancient Philosophers not above 340 years before Christ who therefore seeing the vanities and making use of the helps of all the Grecian learning may probably be judged to have as much knowledge of God as any Heathen and indeed the Colen Divines had such an opinion of his skill and expressions that way that in their tract of Aristotles Salvation they define him to be Christs Praecursor in Naturalibus as John Baptist was in gratuitis But in brief if we examine him we shall find him much otherwise as stupid in the affairs of 1. God 2. the Soul 3. Happiness as any
hath nothing to do in the business whilst he expects mercy makes himself uncapable of it and though he acknowledge a resurrection lives as though he looked to be annihilated Certainly he that expects God should send him a fruitful harvest will himself manure the ground he that hopes will labour according to that 1 Joh. iii. 3 He that hath this hope in him purifies himself c. So that whosoever relies on God for Salvation and in the midst of his hopes stands idle and walks after his own lusts by his very actions confutes his thoughts and will not in a manner suffer God to have elected him by going on in such reprobate courses Lastly If it be this confident walking after our own lusts which is here the expression of Atheism then here 's a comfort for some fearful Sinners who finding themselves not yet taken up quite from a licentious life suspect and would be in danger to despair of themselves as Atheists 'T is a blessed tenderness to feel every sin in our selves at the greatest advantage to aggravate and represent it to our Conscience in the horridst shape but there is a care also to be had that we give not our selves over as desperate Cain ly'd when he said his sin was greater than could be either born or forgiven When the Physicians have given one over ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã nature hath its spring and plunge and sometimes quits and overcomes the disease If thou art in this dangerous walk and strivest and heavest and canst not get out of it yet sorrow not as one without hope this very regret and reluctancy this striving and plunging is a good symptome If thou wilt continue with a good courage and set thy self to it to the purpose be confident thou shalt overcome the difficulty If this sin be a walking then every stop is a cessation every check a degree to integrity every godly thought or desire a pawn from God that he will give thee strength to victory and if thou do but nourish and cherish every such reluctancy every such gracious motion in thy self thou maist with courage expect a gracious calm deliverance out of these storms and tempests And let us all labour and endeavour and pray that we may be loosed from these toyls and gins and engagements of our own lusts and being entred into a more religious severe course here than the Atheism of our wayes would counsel us to we may obtain the end and rest and consummation and reward of our Course hereafter Now to him which hath elected us c. SERMON XVIII 1 TIM I. 15 Of whom I am the chief THE chief business of our Apostle S. Paul in all his Epistles is what the main of every Preacher ought to be Exhortation There is not one doctrinal point but contains a precept to our understanding to believe it nor moral Discourse but effectually implies an admonishment to our Wills to practise it Now these Exhortations are proposed either vulgarly in the downright garb of Precept as These things command and teach c. or in a more artificial obscure enforcing way of Rhetorick as God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ whereby the world is crucified to me and I unto the world which though in words it seems a protestation of St. Pauls own resolution yet in effect is a most powerful exhortatory to every succeeding Christian to glory only in the Cross of Christ and on it to crucifie both the World and himself This method of reducing S. Paul to Exhortation I observe to you for the clearing of my Text. For this whole Verse at the first view seems only a mere Thesis or point of belief that Christ came into the World to save Sinners illustrated and applied by the Speaker as one and the chief of the number of those Sinners to be saved But it contains a most Rhetorical powerful Exhortation to both Vnderstanding and Will to believe this faithful saying That Christ came c. and to accept lay hold of and with all our might to embrace and apply to each of our selves this great mercy toward this great Salvation bestowed on Sinners who can with humility confess their sins and with Faith lay hold on the promise And this is the business of the Verse and the plain matter of this obscure double Exhortation to every mans Vnderstanding that he believe that Christ c. to every mans affections that he humble himself and teach his heart and that his tongue to confess Of all Sinners c. This Text shall not be divided into parts which were to disorder and distract the significancy of a proposition but into several considerations for so it is to be conceived either absolutely as a profession of S. Paul of himself and there we will enquire whether and how Paul was the chief of all Sinners Secondly respectively to us for whom this form of confessing the state and applying the Salvation of Sinners to our selves is set down And first whether and how Paul was the chief of all Sinners where we are to read him in a double estate converted and unconverted exprest to us by his double name Paul and Saul Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ Saul a Persecutor mad against the Christians and that both these estates may be contained in the Text although penn'd by Paul regenerated may appear in that the Pronoun ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I signifying the whole complete person of Paul restrains not the speech to his present being only but considers also what he had been more especially set down at the thirteenth Verse Who was before a blasphemer c. So then Paul in his Saul-ship being a Blasphemer a Persecutor and injurious and in summ a most violent perverse malicious Unbeliever was a chief Sinner rankt in the Front of the Devil's Army and this needs no further proof or illustration Yet seeing that that Age of the World had brought forth many other of the same strain of violent Unbelief nothing inferiour to Saul as may appear by those many that were guilty of Christs Death as Saul in person was not and those that so madly stoned S. Stephen whilst Saul only kept the witnesses clothes and as the Text speaks was consenting unto his death seeing I say that others of that Age equalled if not exceeded Sauls guilt how can he be said above all other Sinners to be the chief I think we shall noâ wrest or inlarge the Text beside or beyond the meaning of the Holy Ghost or Apostle if in answer unto this we say that here is intended not so much the greatness of his sins above all Sinners in the World but the greatness of the miracle in converting so great a Sinner into so great a Saint and Apostle So that the words shall run Of all Sinners that Christ came into the World to save and then prefer to such an eminence I am the chief or as the word primarily
signifies ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I am the first i. e. Paul was the chief of all Converts and Paul was the first that from so great a Persecutor of Christ was changed into so great so glorious an Apostle For so it follows in the Verses next after my Text For this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Christ Jesus might shew forth all long suffering c. The issue of all is this that Saul unconverted was a very great Sinner yet not the greatest of Sinners absolutely but for ought we read in the New Testament the greatest and first that was called from such a degree of infidelity a Blasphemer a Persecuter to so high a pitch of Salvation a Saint an Apostle yea and greater than an Apostle whence the observation is that though Saul were yet every blasphemous Sinner cannot expect to be called from the depth of sin to regeneracy and Salvation Although Saul being ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the chief of sinners was called and saved yet Saul was also in another sense for ought we read ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and perhaps the last that from so great a riot of sin obtained so great Salvation Wherefore O Sinner be not presumptuous from Pauls Example but from Pauls single Example begin to suspect thy state and fear that such a miracle of Salvation shall not be afforded thee There hath been an opinion of late reviv'd perhaps original among the Romans that the greatest Sinner is the more likely object of Gods mercy or subject of his grace than the mere moral man whom either natural fear or the like not spiritual respects hath restrained from those outrages of sin The being of this opinion in the primitive Romans and the falseness of it is sufficientây prov'd by that expoââulation of St. Paul Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid In answer to some who hearing that Christ came into the world to save sinners thought that the excess of sin was the best qualification and only motive to provoke and deserve a more abundant grace and certain salvation As if that spirit which once to manifest its power called Saul in the midst of his madness breathing out threatnings and slaughters against the Church would not call any but those who had prepared themselves by the same degree of madness but required that men should make themselves almost Devils that they might be called into Christians as if that God which could out of stones could not also out of men raise up Children unto Abraham as if that Christ which raised up Lazarus being dead four dayes and as they thought stinking in his grave could not as easily have heal'd him whilst he was yet alive whereas we read that Christ dealt more on the cures of the impotent than resurrections of the dead that is in a spiritual application heal'd more from the Bed of languishment of their weaknesses and diseases than he raised out of the graves of trespasses and sins though some also hath he out of death quickned to exalt the power and miracle of his mercy Yet hath not this doctrine too been most confidently maintained among some of our times That there is more hope of the debauch'd man that he shall be called or saved than of the mere moral honest man who yââ is in the state of unregeneracy Have not some men defining this moral man by the formal hypocrite set him in the greatest opposition to Heaven As if that degree of innocence or rather not being extremely sinful which a moral care of our ways may bestow on us were a greater hindrance than promotion toward the state of grace and the natural man were so much the further from God the nearer he were to goodness and no man could hope to come to Heaven but he that had knockt at Hell-gates I confess indeed that the Holy Ghost where he means to inhabit hath no need of pains to prepare him a room but can at his first knock open and cleanse adorn and beautify the most uncouth ugly and unsavory heart in the World That omnipotent convincing spirit can at the same instant strike the most obdurate heart and soften it and where it once enters cannot be repuls'd by the most sturdy habituate sin or Devil I confess likewise that some have been thus rather snatch'd than call'd like the fire-brands out of the fire and by an ecstasy of the spirit inwardly in a minute chang'd from incarnate Devils into incarnate Saints So was Mary dispossest of seven Devils who was after so highly promoted in Christs favour that she had the honour to be the first witness of the Resurrection So that Gadarene who had intrencht and fortified himself among the Tombs and was garrison'd with an Army of Devils so that he brake Fetters and Chains and could not be tam'd or kept in any compass yet in a minute at Christs word sent forth a Legion of Fiends sufficient to people and destroy a Colony of Swine And so was Paul in my Text in a minute at Christs Call delivered of a multitude of blasphemous malicious spirits and straight became the joy of Angels the Apostle of the Gentiles Yet mean time these miraculous but rarer Examples must not prescribe and set up must not become a rule and encourage any one to Sauls madness on confidence of Pauls Conversion to a more impetuous course of sinning that he may become a more glorious Saint 'T is a wrong way to Heaven to dig into the deep and a brutish arrogance to hope that God will the more eagerly woo us the further our sins have divorc't us from him If some as hath been said have been caught or strucken in the height of their Rebellions or in the fulness of the evil spirit called to a wane as Diseases in the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or top-pitch are wont to decay and weaken into health again if there have been some of these as my Apostle rais'd from the depth of sin as Lazarus from the stench of the grave yet these in respect of others more softly and ordinarily called are found few in number and such as were appointed for the Miracles as well as the objects of Gods mercy Hence it is that a strange disorder hath most times accompanied this extraordinary conversion of more violent outragious Sinners Our Apostle to go no farther was to be cast into a trance and his regeneration not to be accomplisht without a kind of Death and Resurrection whereas others who are better morally qualified or rather are less hardned in the sins of unregeneracy do answer at the softest knock or whispering'st call of the Spirit and at his becken will come after him More might be said of this point how St. Paul was most notably converted that he had the alleviation of ignorance for which cause as he says himself he found mercy and that others are not probably to expect the like miracle who have not those insuperable prepossessions from custom
the meer eating of an apple In the next place as Adam was no private person but the whole humane nature so this sin is to be considered either in the root or in the fruit in its self or in its effects In its self so all mankind and every particular man is and in that name must humble himself as concerned in the eating of that fruit which only Adams teeth did fasten on is to deem himself bound to be humbled for that pride that curiosity that disobedience or whatsoever sin else can be contained in that first great transgression and count you this nothing to have a share in such a sin which contains such a multitude of Rebellions 'T is not a slight perfunctory humiliation that can expiate not a small labour that can destroy this monster which is so rich in heads each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance Now in the last place as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects so it becomes to us a body of sin and death a natural disorder of the whole man an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit and the parent of all sin in us as may appear Rom. vii and Jam. 1.14 Which that you may have a more compleat understanding of consider it as it is ordinarily set down consisting of three parts 1. A natural defect 2. A moral affection 3. A legal guilt i. e. a guiltiness of the breach of the Law for these three whatsoever you may think of them are all parts of that sin of our nature which is in and is to be imputed to us called ordinarily original sin in us to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam of which this is an effect And first that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice holiness and obedience which God had furnisht the Creature withal a disorder of all the powers of the Soul a darkness of the understanding a perverseness of the will a debility weakness and decay of all the senses and in summ a poverty and destruction and almost a nothingness of all the powers of Soul and Body And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow and in fine to petition that rich grace which may build up all these ruines to pray to God that his Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces than we had but forfeited in the first The following part of this sin of our nature viz. A moral evil affection is word for word mentioned Rom. vii 5 For there the Greek words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ordinarily translated motions of sins and in the margin the passions of sins are more significantly to be rendred affections of sins i. e. by an usual figure sinful affections That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin which doth so over shadow the whole man and so fence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun I am to tell you that the very Heathen that lived without the knowledge of God had no conversation with and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter that these very Heathens I say had a sense of this part of original sin to wit of these evil moral lusts and affections which they felt in themselves though they knew not whence they sprang Hence is it that a Greek Philosopher out of the antients makes a large Discourse of the unfatiable desire and lust which is in every man and renders his life grievous unto him where he useth the very same word though with a significant Epithet added to it that S. James doth c. 1. ver 15. ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã infinite lust with which as S. James saith a man is drawn away and enticed ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã so saith he that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell is perswaded and drawn or rather fall backward and forward ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which lust or evil concupiscence he at last defines to be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã an unsatiable intemperance of the appetite never filled with a desire never ceasing in the persecution of evil and again he calls it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents i. e. an evil affection hereditary to us and delivered to us as a Legacy at our Birth and Nativity all which seems a clear expression of that original lust whose motions they felt and guest at its nature Hence is it that it was a custom among all of them I mean the common Heathen to use many ways of purgations especially on their children who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified with a great deal of superstition and ceremony such like as they used to drive away a plague or a cure for an House or City As if nature by instinct had taught them so much Religion as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul this plague of mans heart as 't is called 1 Kings viii 38 And in summ the whole learning of the Wisest of them such were the Moralists was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections which they called the unruly citizens and common people of the soul whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves and laboured hard to purge out or subdue to the government of reason and virtue which two we more fully enjoy and more Christianly call the power of grace redeeming our Souls from this Body of sin Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very Heathen had of this second branch of original sin which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and their body but the Sepulchre of the soul ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã both which together are but a periphrasis of that which S. Paul calls in brief the body of death And shall we who have obtained plenty of light and instruction besides that which nature bestowed on us with them shall we I say let our Eyes be confounded with abundance of day shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it Shall we feel the stings of sin within us which though they do but prick the regenerate prove mortal to the rest of us and shall we not observe them Shall we not rather weep those Fountains dry and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation Shall we not starve this rank fruitful Mother of
is bringing this high reward upon him The Chaldee therefore renders it ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it was counted unto him either for righteousness or for merit i. e. for a very rewardable act So ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in Chaldee signifies both just and worthy and meritorious not speaking of perfect righteousness or sinless merit but such as God in his goodness is pleased to reward and the LXXII reade ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it was reputed to him for righteousness the phrase so frequently used in the New Testament for rewarding men richly and infinitely above their merit yet this as the reward of somewhat performed by his faithfull servants which he looks upon with special favour in the Second Covenant V. 33. Spake unadvisedly How Moses's fault which was so great as to be punished by God with exclusion from Canaan is here exprest by these words ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he spake or pronounced with his lips is not easily resolved The word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is used Lev. 5.4 and there signifies to declare to pronounce to speak Now if it were that he spake with his lips onely but doubted in his heart when he struck the rock and said Shall we fetch you water out of this rock then this will note his Infidelity and perhaps the LXXII may refer to that reading ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã he doubted in his lips i. e. did by his words signifie his diffidence But there is no reason that when in the Hebrew here it is onely said that he spake with his lips we should thence conclude his hearts disagreeing with his tongue 'T is therefore most reasonable that speaking with his lips being in it self indifferent and innocent should onely be concluded ill from the influence that the words precedent seem to have on it They provoked his spirit and he spake with his lips i. e. he spake passionately as one provoked And then as S. James saith the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God ch 1.20 so here we may conclude of Moses God had appointed him to speak to the rock and it should bring forth water And he being exasperated in his spirit put into a passion by the people goes and strikes the rock twice and saith Hear ye rebels shall we fetch you water out of this rock This passion of his was it self a fault and disturb'd him so that it is not to be believed that he could discharge that duty now incumbent on him from God in that manner as he ought to do with that faith and affiance in God with that care of setting out the power and mercy of God to these provokes and these two are the crimes charged on him by God Numb 20.12 his unbelief and his not sanctifying God in the sight of the people This therefore is Moses his crime here briefly intimated not largely set down in this verse that they provoked his spirit and he spake i. e. he spake in a provocation not as a meek and faithfull servant of the Lord that desired to glorifie God before the people ought to have done And this being here but imperfectly toucht was left to be explicated by the story where the fact was recorded and from thence more than by the words we may conclude this to be the meaning of this verse The Jewish Arab here differently from all others hath it because they contradicted his prophecy which he spake to them in his saying The End of the Fourth Book THE FIFTH BOOK OF PSALMS The Hundred and Seventh PSALM The hundred and seventh the first of the last Book of Psalms is an invitation to all sorts of men to take notice of and acknowledge God's special mercies in rescuing them from the several dangers that every part of their lives is subject to peculiarly from hunger prison disease and danger by Sea It seems probably to have been written presently after the Captivity when the Nation had been exercised by siege and famine by deportation and imprisonment and the land had been made desolate for want of cultivation yet withall so contrived as to have respect to the deliverance out of Aegypt 'T was a Psalm of Answering or parts to be sung alternately having a double burthen or intercalary verse oft recurring 1. O Give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 1. The great and daily bounty of God is such his mercies and preservations so constant and perpetual in all the turns and varieties of our lives that we are most strictly obliged ãâã âke notice of them and pay the tribute of most gratefull hearts and the obedience of our whole lives in acknowledgment thereof 2. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy 3. And gathered them out of the lands from the East and from the West from the North and from the South Paraphrase 2 3. This is in a most eminent manner incumbent on those that have been taken and carried captive by oppressing invaders and by the good providence of God reduced and recollected from their dispersions and brought home safe to their own countrey again 4. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way They found no city to dwell in 5. Hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them 6. Then they cryed unto the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them out of their distresses 7. And he led them forth by the right way that they might goe to a city of habitation Paraphrase 4 5 6 7. So is it on all them which when they have been permitted by God for some time to a state of seeming destitution deprived of all the necessaries of life harbour and all kind of food c. have yet upon their devout addresses to heaven in prayer found present relief and deliverance from their pressures God by his gracious providence directing them to some auspicious successfull means of supplying their wants and either returning them to their old or bringing them to some new more fruitfull possession 8. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderfull works to the children of men 9. For he satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness Paraphrase 8 9. This certainly is an act as of a special and undeserved bounty so of an over-ruling omnipotent providence to provide so liberally for those that are so thirsty and hungry v. 5. i. e. altogether destitute and that both these should be thus exercised and employed for the onely benefit of us unworthy sinfull sons of Adam is matter of infinite comfort to us and acknowledgment and thanksgiving to God 10. Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death being bound in affliction and iron 11. Because they rebelled against the words of God and contemned the counsel of the most high 12. Therefore he brought down their heart with labour they fell down and there was none to help 13.
of the obligation to obedience in us Christians who injoy that light and are precluded those excuses of ignorance that a Jew might be capable of From whence I may sure conclude that the Ego autem of not retaliating or revenging of injuries for that is sure the meaning of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which we render resist not evil the strict precept of loving and blessing and praying for Enemies and the like is more clearly preceptive and so more indispensably obligatory to us Christians than ever it was to the Jews before And there you have one part of the Spirit of the Gospel in opposition to a first notion of the legal Spirit And by it you may conclude that what Christian soever can indulge himself the enjoyment of that hellish sensuality that of revenge or retributing of injuries nay that doth not practise that high piece of but necessary be it never so rare perfection of overcoming evil with good and so heap those precious melting coals of love of blessings of prayers those three species of sacred vestal fire upon all Enemies heads Nescit qualis spiritus He knows not what kind of spirit he is of But there is another thing observable of the Law and so of the Judaical Legal Spirit to wit as it concerned the planting the Israelites in Canaan and that is the command of rooting out the nations which was a particular case upon God's sight of the filling up of the measure of the Amorites sins and a judicial sentence of his proceeding upon them not only reveal'd to those Israelites but that with a peremptory command annext to it to hate and kill and eradicate some of those Nations Which case because it seldom or never falls out to agree in all circumstances with the case of any other sinful people cannot lawfully prescribe to the eradicating of any other though in our opinion never so great enemies of God until it appear as demonstrably to us as it did to those Israelites that it was the will of God they should be so dealt with and he that thinks it necessary to shed the blood of every enemy of God whom his censorious faculty hath found guilty of that charge that is all for the fire from Heaven though it be upon the Samaritans the not receivers of Christ is but as the Rabbies call him sometimes one of the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã sons of blouds in the plural number and sons of fire yea and like the Disciples in my Text Boanerges sons of thunder far enough from the soft temper that Christ left them Ye know not what kind of spirit ye are of In the next place Elias Spirit was a Prophetick Spirit whose dictates were not the issue of discourse and reason but impulsions from Heaven The Prophetick writings were not saith St. Peter ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã I conceive in an agonistick sense of their own starting or incitation as they were moved or prompted by themselves but as it follows ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã as they were carried by the Holy Ghost not as they were led but carried when the Lord speaks who can but prophesie And so likewise are the actions Prophetick many things that are recorded to be done by Prophets in Scripture they proceed from some peculiar incitations of God I mean not from the ordinary or extraordinary general or special direction or influence of his grace cooperating with the Word as in the brest of every regenerate man for the Spirit of Sanctification and the Spirit of Prophecy are very distant things but from the extraordinary revelation of God's Will many times against the setled rule of duty acted and animated not as a living creature by a Soul but mov'd as an outward impellent a sphear by an intelligence and that frequently into eccentrical and planetary motions so that they were no further justifiable than that prophetick calling to that particular enterprize will avow Consequent to which is that because the prophetick office was not beyond the Apostles time to continue constantly in the Church any further than to interpret and superstruct upon what the Canon of the Scripture hath setled among Christians Christ and his Word in the New Testament being that Bath-Col which the Jews tell us was alone to survive all the other ways of Prophecy he that shall now pretend to that Prophetick Spirit to some Vision to teach what the Word of God will not own to some incitation to do what the New Testament Law will not allow of he that with the late Fryar in France pretends to ecstatical revelations with the Enthusiasts of the last age and Phanaticks now with us to ecstatical motions that with Mahomet pretends a dialogue with God when he is in an Epileptick fiâ sets off the most ghastly diseases I shall add most horrid sins by undertaking more particular acquaintance and commerce with the Spirit of God a call from God's Providence and extraordinary Commission from Heaven for those things which if the New Testament be Canonical are evaporate from Hell and so first leads captive silly women as Mahomet did his Wife and then a whole Army of Janizaries into a War to justifie and propagate such delusions and put all to death that will not be their Proselytes is far enough from the Gospel Spirit that lies visible in the New Testament verbum vehiculum spiritûs and the preaching of the Word ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and is not infused by dream or whisper nor authorized by a melancholy or phanatick phansie and so ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã knows not what kind c. In the third place Elias was the great precedent and example of sharp unjudiciary procedure with Malefactors which from the common ordinary awards on Criminals in that execution proceeded Trial and the Malefactor suffered ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã without attending the formalities of Law Of this kind two Examples are by Mattathias cited 1 Macab ii one of Phinces ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that zeal'd a zeal and in that run thorough Zimri and Cozbi and so as the Captain once answered for the killing the drowsie Sentinel reliquit quos invenit found them in unclean embraces and so left them And the variety of our interpretations in rendring of that passage in the Psalm Then stood up Phinehas and prayed in the Old and then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment in the New Translations may perhaps give some account of that action of his that upon Phinehas Prayer for God's direction what should be done in that matter God raised up him in an extraordinary manner to execute judgment on those offenders And the other of Elias in the Text and he with some addition ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã In zealing the zeal of the Law called fire from Heaven upon those that were sent out from Ahazia to bring him to him And this fact of his by God's answering his call and the coming down of the fire upon
them was demonstrated to come from God also as much as the prediction of the Kings death which was confirm'd by this means It may very probably be guest by Mattathias his words in that place that there were no precedents of the zelotick spirit in the Old Testament but those two for among all the Catalogue of examples mentioned to his sons to enflame their zeal to the Law he produceth no other and 't is observable that though there be practices of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament the stoning of St. Stephen of St. Paul at Iconium c. yet all of them practised by the Jews and not one that can seem to be blameless but that of Christ who sure had extraordinary power upon the buyers and sellers in the Temple upon which the Apostles remembred the Psamists Prophecy ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the zeal of Gods house carried him to that act of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus that call'd themselves by that name of Zelots and withal took upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the City but as it prov'd the hastners and precipitators of the destruction of that Kingdom by casting out and killing the High-Priests first and then the Nobles and chief men of the Nation and so embasing and intimidating and dejecting the hearts of all the people that all was at length given up to their fury Josephus and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish Writers will instruct the enquirer And ever since no very honourable notion had of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã in the New Testament one of the fruits of the flesh Gal. v. of the Wisdom that comes not from Heaven Jam. iii. and in the same ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã a bitter zeal a gall that will imbitter all that come near it The short of it is the putting any man to death or inflicting other punishment upon any terms but that of legal perfectly legal process is the importance of a zelotick Spirit as I remember in Maimonides him that curses God in the name of an Idol the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã that meet him kill him i. e. the zelots permitted it seems if not authorized to do so And this is the Spirit of Elias that is of all others most evidently reprehended and renounced by Christ. The Samaritans no very sacred persons added to their habitual constant guilts at that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ himself and the Disciples asked whether they might not do what Elias had done call for fire from Heaven upon them in that case and Christ tells them that the Gospel-Spirit was of another complexion from that of Elias ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã turn'd to them as he did to Peter when he said Get thee behind me Satan as to so many fiery Satanical-spirited men and checkt them for that their furious zeal with an ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã c. The least I can conclude from hence is this that they that put any to death by any but perfectly legal process that draw the sword upon any but by the supream Magistrates command are far enough from the Gospel-Spirit whatever precedent they can produce to countenance them And so if they be really what they pretend Christians ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã they are in a prodigious mistake or ignorance They know not what Spirit they are of Yet farther it is observable of Elias that he did execrate and curse call for judgments from Heaven upon mens persons and that temper of mind in the parallel you may distribute into two sorts First in passing judgments upon mens future estates the censorious reprobating Spirit which though we find it not in Elias at this time yet is a consequent of the Prophetick Office and part of the burthen received from the Lord and layed upon those guilty persons concerning whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of his Cabinet but then this rigor cannot without sin be pretended to by any else for in the blackest instances charity believes all things and hopes all things and even in this sense covers the multitudes of sins Now this so culpable an insolent humour rashly to pass a condemning sentence was discernible in the Pharisees this Publican whose profession and trade is forbidden by that Law and this people that know not that Law is cursed so likewise in the Montanists nos spirituales and all others animales and Psychici so in the Romanists who condemn all but themselves and in all those generally whose pride and malice conjoined most directly contrary to the Gospel-Spirit of humility and charity doth prepare them one and the other inflame them to triumph and glut themselves in this spiritual assassinacy this deepest dye of blood the murthering of Souls which because they cannot do it really they endeavour in effigie anathematize and slaughter them here in this other Calvary the place for the crucifying of reputations turning them out of the Communion of their charity though not of bliss and I am confident reject many whom the Angels entertain more hospitably Another part of this cursing Spirit there is more peculiarly Elias's that of praying and so calling for curses on mens persons and that being upon the enemies of God and those appearing to Elias a Prophet to be such might be then lawful to him and others like him David perhaps c. in the Old Testament but is wholly disliked and renounced by Christ under this state of higher Discipline to which Christians are designed by him in the New I say not only for that which concerns our own enemies for that is clear When thine enemy hungreth feed him and somewhat like that in the Old Testament When thine enemies Ox c. But I extend it even to the enemies of God himself and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded from the Text the Samaritans were enemies of Christ himself and were barbarous and inhumane to his person and they must not be curst by Disciples And he that can now curse even wicked men who are more distantly the enemies of God can call for I say not discomfiture upon their devices for that is charity to them to keep them from being such unhappy Creatures as they would be contrivers of so much mischief to the world but Plagues and Ruine upon their persons which is absolutely the voice of Revenge that sulphur-vapor of Hell he that delighteth in the misery of any part of Gods Image and so usurps upon that wretched quality of which we had thought the Devil had gotten the Monopoly that of ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã joying in the Brother's misery but now see with horror is got loose out of that Pit to rave among us he that would mischief if it were in his power and now it is not by unprofitable