life of God The Egyptians once sware by the life of Pharaoh as the proud Spaniards now do by the life of their King But to speak properly none liveth but the Lord and none should be sworn by but he alone an oath being a proof of the Divine Power which one worshippeth The Pythagoreans used to swear by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quaternity which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fountain of eternal being and this doubtless was the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jehovah Tremel In truth in judgement and in righteousnesse Vere ritè juste 1. In truth Rom. 9.1 that is 1. To that which is true least we fall into perjury Lev. 19.12 And 2. Truly agreeable both to the intentions of our mind not deceitfully Psal 24.2 and agreeable also to the intentions of him that ministreth the oath and not with mental reservations as Romish Priests oft swear The Romans used that most considerate woâ—d Arbitror when the Jurors said those things which they knew most certainly Suidas In judgement Or considerately duely weighing the conditions and circumstances not rashly and unadvisedly Levit. 5.4 1 Sam. 14.39 as those that swear in heat and choler swear when they should fear Deut. 10.20 and 28.58 The Graecians when they would swear by their Jupiter out of the mere dread and reverence of his name forbore to mention him And the Egyptians bore such respect to Mercurius Trismegistus that they held it not lawful to pronounce his name lightly and rashly This is check to many swearing Pseudo-Christians Such also as swear in jest will without repentance go to hell in earnest The ancient form of taking and imposing an oath was Give glory to God Josh 7.19 Joh. 9.24 And in righteousnesse 1. Promising by oath lawful and possible things only not making an oath a bond of iniquity 1 Sam. 25.21 32. and 28.10 2. Careful to perform what we have sworn though to our own hindrance Psal 15.4 And the Nations shall blesse themselves in him Or shall be blessed in him that is in that God to whom thou returnest and by whom thou thus swearest They shall turn to God by thine example and hold themselves happy in such a good turn Ver. 3. Break up your fallow-ground Novellate vobis novale Tertullian rendreth it Renovate vobis novamen novum put off the old man and put on the new See Hos 10.11 with the Notes By the practise of Repentance runcate exstirpate root up and rid your hearts and lives of all vile lusts and vicious practises The breaking up of sinful hearts may prevent the breaking down of a sinful Nation Sow not among thornes i. e. Cares and lusts of life fitly called thornes because 1. They prick and gore the soul 2. Harbour the old Serpent 3. Choke the Word there 's no looking for a harvest in a hedge Stock them and stub them up therefore 1 Pet. 2.1 Jam. 1.21 do not plow here and make a bawk there c. Ver. 4. Circumcise your selves to the Lord There is a twofold circumcision Corporis Cordis Outward and Inward that without this availeth nothing Gal. 6.15 See the inward described Colos 2.11 It is the putting off the old Adam with his actions It is purgatio animae abjectio vitiorum saith Origen the clensing of the soul and the casting away of sin that filthy foreskin that superfluity of naughtinesse It is a wonderful work of the holy Spirit wrought by the Word upon the Saints at their first conversion whereby corruption of nature is wounded beloved sins cast away with sorrow and the sinner received into an everlasting communion with God and his Saints Those that are not thus circumcised are not Israelites but Ishmaelites whereas Jether though by nature an Ishmaelite 1 Chron. 2.17 yet being thus inwardly circumcised he was for his Faith and Religion called and counted an Israelite 2 Sam. 17.25 See Philip. 3.3 4 5. And take away the fore-skin of your heart Not of the flesh only see 1 Pet. 3.21 as the carnal Israelite who rests in the work done glorious in outward priviledges neglects the practice of religion and power of godlinesse pursueth him that is born after the spirit the Israelite indeed c. and is therefore dispriviledged hated and defied by God as Goliah that uncircumcised Philistin was by David dead in sins and the uncircumcision of the flesh Colos 2.13 subject to utter excision Gen. 17.14 as having no portion in Christ nor in Canaan Take away therefore the fore-skin of the heart stick not in the bark pare not off the fore-skin of the flesh only off with the whole body of sin Col. 2.11 begin at Adams sin bewail that then set upon the beloved sin out with that eye off with that hand cast away all your transgressions with as great indignation as angry Zipporah did her childs fore-skin Take unto you for this end the sword of the Spirit the word sharper then those stones that she made use of Exod. 4.24 consider the threats these will work faith and that will work fear apply the Promises Deut. 30.6 Ezek. 36.26 28. doubt not of Gods Power but pray him to thrust his holy hand into your bosoms and to fetch off the filthy fore-skin that is there Loe this is the way walk in it And burn that none can quench it When once it hath caught your thorns ver 3. Ver. 5. Declare ye in Judah As if the Prophet should say I do but lose my labour in calling upon you to mortify your corruptions and to cast away all your transgressions Uncircumcised ye are in heart and ears and so will be Now therefore stand upon your guard against the approaching enemy and defend your selves if at least you are able from the evil that is coming upon you Mott up your selves against Gods fire ver 4. Ver. 6. Set up the standard towards Zion All this seemeth to be Ironically spoken as ver 5. For I will bring evil from the North i. e. From Babylon Ab aquilone nihil boni There is also another Babylon spoken of in the Revelation which to the true Church hath of long time been lerna malorum Roma radiu omnium malolorum and so the poor persecuted Protestants in Poland feel at this day Ver. 7. The Lion is come up from his thicket i. e. Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon where he lyeth safe ficut leo in vepreto and will shorly shew himself for a mischief to many people who shall feel his force and fiercenesse Ver. 8. For this gird you with sack-cloth Repent if at least it be not too late as the next words hint that now it was For the fierce wrath of the Lord is not turned back from us Or because the fierce wrath of the Lord will not turn from us it will have its full forth See Zeph. 2.2 with the Notes Ver. 9. The heart of the King shall perish His courage shall be quailed and he shall be strangely crest-faln This was
e. I will call them by the Gospel which is the power of God to salvation to all beleevers Rom. 1.16 And they shall bring thy sons in their armes sc when they bring them to be baptized Respicit ad puerilem conditionem yet some expound it Metaphorically as Deut. 32.10 Hos 11.3 Ver. 23. And Kings shall be thy nursing-fathers Such were David Solomon Hezekiah Josiah Constantine Theodosius Placilla Queen Elizabeth c. They shall bow down to thee They shall give thee civil worship and low obeysance and that for Christs sake who is thine head and husband and dwelleth in thee They shall bow down to thee c. Such honour hath every Saint through Christ The Popes Parasites would hence ground his holding out his feet to be kissed yea his treading upon Kings and Emperours But Peter would none of this Act. 10.25 26. so little cause had that Pope once to cry out Et mihi Petro. Interpreters do rightly note that in these and the like texts Xenoph. lib. 8. Plutarch in Alcib the Prophet alludes to the manner of the Persians amongst whom those that would speak unto the King did first kisse the pavement that the King had trodden upon Hence Martial Pictorum sola basiare Regum The ancient Christians also to honour and hearten their Confessours and such as suffered imprisonment for the truths sake did use to kisse their hands yea to cast themselves down at their feet Tertullian writing to some of the Martyrs saith Non tantus sum ut vos alloquar I am not good enough to speak unto you He telleth also of some in his time that they did reptare ad vincula Martyrum creep to the bands of the Martyrs in way of honour to them Ver. 24. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty Not unlesse he be overmatched and over-mastered The heathens were wont to ask Who can wring a club out of Hercules his hand or a light-bolt out of Joves The Captive Jews here seem to ask Who can deliver us from the Babylonians who have both might and right for them for we are their lawful Captives and we see not how we can be set at liberty Thus they thought at least if they spoke not as much not looking at all to the power and faithfulness of God sed ad praesentium rerum spectra ac hostium potentiam Those that look downward on the rushing and roaring streams of miseries and troubles which run so swiftly under them shall be sure to be taken with a giddiness c but such as stedfastly fasten on the power and Promise of God all-sufficient shall be established Ver. 25. But thus saith the Lord Here 's a full answer to the former objection as God doth usually in the Scripture frame answers to mens thoughts the Law is spiritual and heart-reaching And I will contend with him that contendeth with thee I will over power the devil and thy most head-strong lusts bringing thee out of his slavery so that thou shalt be able to do all things through Christ who strengtheneth thee Phil. 4. Thy temporal enemies also thy persecutors shall feel my power as did Pharao Nero Diocletian Julian c. See on Gen. 12.2 Ver. 26. And I will feed them that oppresse thee with their own flesh Which yet no man ever hated Aâ—â—m ut â—lâ—â—â—us mactaâ—em sâ—â—gâ—â—e â—â—mas but nourisheth and cherisheth it Eph. 5.29 But Zions enemies should one destroy another and be put to such straits as the Jews were in the siege of their City by Titus that they fed upon their own flesh and the flesh of their children So hard a thing it is to kick against the pricks quae in coelum expuunt in faciem ipsurum recidunt And they shall be drunk with their own blood Yea drowned in it as was Attilas King of Hunnes Flac. â—lly Felix Count of Wartenburg a great Warriour and bloody persecuter of the Lutherans who was choaked in his own blood and Charles the ninth of France to whom a certain Poet thus rightly speaketh Naribus ore oculis atque auribus undique ano Et pene erumpit qui tibi Carle cruor Non tuus iste cruor sanctorum at caede cruorem Quem ferus hausisti concoquere haud poteras CHAP. L. Ver. 1. WHere is the bill of your mothers divorcement Heb. abscission this bill was called by the Greeces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but none such could here be produced or proved as given by God to the Jewish State but that the disloyalty was theirs and their dereliction on their part God had neither rejected them though innocent as some husbands did their wives out of a peevish and selfish humour nor sold them though obedient as some fathers did their children for payment of their debts for he is neither debter to any nor non-solvent Rom. 11.35 36. Behold for your iniquities ye have sold your selves O duram servitutem O miseram necessitatem You have sold your selves as Ahab did to work wickedness 1 King 25.29 and therefore I have justly sold and abandoned you into the hands of your enemies Judg. 2.13 14. 3.7 8. Psal 44.11 12. Is your mother i. e. The Synagogue whereunto the Jews do yet still adhere as to their mother and the Lord did then acknowledge himself to be her husband but now he hath worthily cast her off Ver. 2. Wherefore when I came was there no man Christ came unto his own but his own received him not Joh. 1. This was condemnation Joh. 3. their rebelling against the light of the Gospel this was the great offence the damning sin the very cause of their utter rejection Is my hand shortned at all Or rather have not you by your obstinacy and incredulity transfused as it were a dead Palsy into the hand of Omnipotency Mar. 6.5 He could do there no mighty work because of their unbelief of so venemous a nature is that cursed sin Behold at my rebuke I dry up the Sea I have done it you know Psam 106.9 and can do it again Be not therefore faithless but believing as Joh. 20 27. Ver. 3. I clothe the heavens with blacknesse I did so in that three-daie darkness in Egypt Exod. 10.21 22. and shall do so again at the time of my Passion I can therefore doubtless deliver you not only from Babylon but from sin death and hell by giving you an entrance into Heaven by the waters of Baptism and by bringing you out of darkness into my marvelous light 1 Pet. 2.9 And make sack-cloth their covering Ita ut coelum pullata veste obtensum fuisse dixeris So Rev 6.12 Ver. 4. The Lord God Heb. the Soveraign self-being Hath given me Me Isaiah but much more Jesus Christ the Arch-Prophet of his Church who spake as never man spoke Joh. 7.46 See Matth. 7 28 29. Luke 4.22 Grace was poured into his lips Psal 45.2 and it was no less poured out of his lips whilst together with his
his heat in Venery and ill savour saith Plutarch He that offereth an oblation Unless withal he present his body for a sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God as Rom. 12.1 Is as if he offered swines blood Blood was not to be offered at all in an oblation or meat-offering but meal oyle wine Levit. 2. much less swines blood See Levit. 11.7 He that burneth incense In honour of me unless his heart ascend up withal in those pillars of sweet smoke as Manoahs Angel did in the smoke of the sacrifice Is as if he blessed an Idol i. e. Gave thankes to an Idol called here by a name that signifyeth vanity or vexation as if he were a God in doing whereof God holdeth himself less dishonoured then by their hypocritical services performed to himself Ezek. 20.39 Beâ—n Yea they have chosen their own wayes Which must needs be naught Nemo sibi de suo palpet Are ye not carnal and walk as men saith Paul that is as naughty men Horreo quicquid de meo est ut meus sim Ver. 4. I also will chuse their delusions As they have had their will so will I have mine another while I will make them to perish by their mockeries idque ex lege talionis See chap. 65.11.12 They thought to cozen me by an out-side-service but it shall appear that they have cozened themselves when I bring upon them mercedem multiplicis petulantiae corum as Piscator rendereth it the reward of their manyfold petulancies and illusions And will bring their fear upon them Inducam nivem super eos qui timuerunt à pruina They have feared the coming of the Chaldees and come they shall So their posterity feared the Romans Joh. 11. and they felt their fury See Prov. 10.24 with the Note Because when I called c. See chap. 65.12 Ver. 5. Hear the Word of the Lord ye that tremble c. Here 's a word of comfort for you who being lowly and meek-spirited are the apter to be trampled on and abused by the fat bulls of Basan where the hedge is lowest those beasts will leap over and every crow will be pulling off wooll from a sheeps sides Your brethren By race and place but not by Grace That hated you For like cause as Cain hated Abel 1 Joh. 3.12 for trembling at Gods judgements whilst they do yet hang in the threatnings And cast you out Either out of their company as not fit to be conversed with chap. 65.5 or out of their Synagogue by excommunications as fit to be cut off See 1 Thes 2.14 Papists at this day do the like whence that Proverb In nomine Domini incipâ—t omne malum Ye begin in a wrong name said that Martyr when they began the sentence of death against him with In the name of God Amen Let the Lord be glorified With such like goodly words and specious pretences did those odious hypocrites palliate and varnish over their abominations they would persecute godly men and molest them with Church-censures and say Let the Lord be glorified So do Papists and other Sectaries deal by the Orthodox Becket offered but subdolously to submit to his Sovereign salvo honere Dei so far as might stand with Gods glory Speed 508. Anno 1386. The Conspiratours in King Richard the seconds time endorsed all their letters with Glory be to God on high on earth peace good-will towards men The Swenck feldians stiled themselves The Confessours of the glory of Christ and Gentiles the Antitrinitarian when he was called to answer said that he was drawn to maintain his cause through touch of conscience and when he was to dye for his blasphemy he said that he did suffer for the glory of the most high God so easy a matter it is to draw a fair glove upon a foul hand c. Some for Let the Lord be glorified render it Gravis est Dominus The Lord is burdensom or heavy and they parallel it with those sayings in the Gospel This is an hard saying Thou art an austere man We will not have this man to reign over us c. But he shall appear to your joy Parallel to that your sorrow shall be turned into joy How did some of the Martyrs rejoyce when excommunicated degraded c. Diod. Ver. 6. A voice of noise from the City This is a Prophetical description of the last destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans A voice from the Temple Wherin they so much gloryed where they had oft heard Christ and his Apostles preaching repentance unto life but now have their ears filled with hideous and horrid outcries of such as were slain even in the very Temple which they defended as long as they were able and till it was fited That which Josephus reporteth of Jesus the son of Ananis a plain Country-fellow is very remarkable viz. that for four years together before the last devastation he went about the City day and night crying as he went in the words of this text almost A voice from the East Lib. 7. Bâ—lli cap. 12. a voice from the West a voice from the four Winds a voice against Jerusalem and the Temple a voice against all the people Woe woe woe to Jerusalem and thus he continued to do till at length roaring out louder then ordinary Woe to Jerusalem and to me also he was slain upon the wall with a stone shot out of an Engin as Josephus reporteth That rendereth recompence to his enemies So they are here called who pretended so much to the glorifying of God ver 5. False friends are true enemies Ver. 7. Before she travelled she brought forth Quum nondum parturiret paperit understand it of Zion or of the Church Christian which receiveth her children that is Converts suddainly on a cluster before she thought to have done Subito ac simul Margaret Countesse of Henneburg and in far greater numbers then she could ever have beleeved That Lady that brought forth as many as a birth as are dayes in the year was nothing to her nor those Hebrew women Exod. 1.10 She was delivered of a man-child For the which there is so great joy Joh. 16.21 and which is usually more able and active than a woman-child so good and bold Christians strong in faith unless he meaneth Christ himself saith Diodaâ— who is formed by faith in every beleevers heart Gal. 4.19 Ver. 8. Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things The birth of a man would seem a miracle were it not so ordinary miracula assiduitate vilescunt but the birth of a whole Nation at once how much more Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day Yes if the day be long enough as among the Hyperboreans of whom it is written that they sow shortly after the Sun-rising and reap before the Sun-set because the whole half year is one continual day with them But the words here should be rather read Can a land Heresbach
of their solitary and forlorn condition Jam jacet in viduo squallida facta toro And her teares are on her cheeks Haerent perennant seldom or never are they off As hinds by calving so she by weeping cast out her sorrows Job 39.3 Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her Optimum solatium sodalitium saith one And Affert solatium lugentibus suspiriorum societas saith another Father It was no small aggravation of Jerusalems misery that her confederates proved miserable comforters and her allyes kept aloof off so that she had none to compassionate her This is also none of the smallest torments of the damned Ghosts that they are unpittied of their best friends and nearest relations All her friends have dealt treacherously with her The Edomites and Moabites Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and Johanan the son of Kareah c. Every sinner shall one day take up this Lamentation And why they have forsaken the fountain of living waters and hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water Jer. 2.13 Ver. 3. Judah is gone into captivity But with no good will God hath driven them out for their cruel oppressions and hard usage of their poor brethren that served them Thus the Chaldee Paraphrast and not amisse Others thus Judah i. e. the inhabitants of the Kingdom goeth away i. e. willingly leave their country goods and dwelling sc before the desolation of Jerusalem because of affliction Jun. Udal i. e. extremity of trouble and great slavery c. She dwelleth among the heathen Where she can get nothing better then guilt or grief She findeth no rest No more then did the dove in the deluge Gen. 8.9 All her persecutors took her in the straits i. e. At the most advantage to mischief her a term taken from hunters or high-way-men The Chaldees took the City when it had been first distressed with famine and then the Jews that went down to Egypt for succour and shelter after Gedaliahs death they caught there as mice in a trap as this Prophet had foretold them chap. 42.43 and 46. but they would not be warned Mâ—tsraim proved to be their Meâ—sarim i. e. Egypt their pound or prison Ver. 4. The wayes of Zion do mourn So they seem to do because unfrequented overgrown with grasse and out of their kindly order Her Priests sigh For want of employment The virgins were afflicted Or discomfited those that are usually set upon the merry pin and were wont to make mirth at those festivities And she is in bitternesse Zion is but for nothing so much Cultus Dei desertus est omnia luctifica Jun. as for the decay of religion and the losse of holy exercises when this befalleth all things else are mere Ichabods to good people See Zeph. 3.18 Ver. 5. Her adversaries are the chief Heb. are for the head This was threatned Deut. 28.13 14 43 44 This when it falleth out is a great grief to the godly Therefore the Prophet Nahum for the comfort of Gods Israel is wholly in setting forth the destruction of their enemies the Assyrians Her enemyes prosper See Jer. 12.1 they prevaile and do what they list so that there seemeth to be neither hope of better nor place of worse For the Lord hath afflicted her Not so much her adversaries and enemies Cavet scriptura ne haec potestas detur adversariis Oecolamp or her oppressours and haters as the words properly signifie that is those that oppresse them in action and hate them in affection Her children are gone into captivity Those that were able to go for the rest were slain chap. 4. Before the enemy Driven before them as cattle Ver. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed Her glory as Esa 5.14 that is chiefly the Temple and the service of God in it It is now Ichabod with her The beauty and bulwark of a Nation are Gods holy ordinances Her Princes are become like harts i. e. Heartlesse bereft of courage they dare not make head against an enemy Before the pursuer R. Solomon here observeth that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is written at full so as it is scarce anywhere else to note the fulnesse of the persecution Ver. 7. Jerusalem remembred in the dayes of her afflâ—ction Misery is the best art of Memory Then those priviledges we prized not in prosperity we recount with regret Bona à tergo formosissima Magis carendo quam fruendo the worth of good things is best known by the want of them and as we see things best at a distance so here Afflictions are pillulae lucis that do notably clear the eye-sight The adversaries saw her sc With a spiteful and scornful eye And did mock at her Sabbaths Calling the Jews in contempt Sabbatarians and jearing them as those that lost more then a seventh part of their time that way and telling them in scorn that now they might well awhile to keep a long Sabbath as having little else to doe Juvenal thus describeth a Jew cui septima quaeque fuit lux Satyr 5. Ignava partem vitae non attigit ullam Paulus Phagius telleth likewise of a black-mouthed Egyptian who said that Christians were a colluvies of most loathsom lecherous people that had a foul disease upon them and were therefore fain to rest every seventh day Perpetuo assidue graviter peccavit Ver. 8. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned Heb. hath sinned sin hath sinned sinningly doing wickedly as she could Jer. 3.4 and having many transgressions wrapped up in her sins and their circumstances Levit. 16.21 And this is here acknowledged as the true cause of her calamity Prophane persons lay all the blame in this case upon God as He in the Poet O patria O divûm domus Ilium inclyta bello Maenia Dardanidum ferus omnia Jupiter Argos Virg. Aeneid 2. Transtulit Postquam res Asiae Priamique evertere gentem Immeritam visum superis c. Therefore she is removed Heb. therefore is she unto removing or wandering as Cain was Ad modum Cain fraetricidae Figuier when he went to live in the land of Nod or as a menstruous woman is separated from the society of others Nidah for Niddah All that honoured her When her wayes pleased the Lord. Because they have seen her nakednesse Her infamous wickednesses for which she hath done pennance as it were and is therefore despised Or else it is a term taken from a naked captive woman Yea she sigheth and turneth backward sc To hide her nakednesse from publick view Or going into captivity she looked her last look toward her dear country and fetcht a sigh Ver. 9. Her filthinesse is in her skirts Taxat impudextiam insignem She rather glorieth in her wickednesse Paschasius then is any whit abashed of it a Metaphor from a menstrous woman that is immodest Oh quam vulgare hoc hodiè malum See Isa 3.9 But whence this
mercy out of pure and unexcited love thou didst give thy Word and Promise and for thy words sake thou hast performed it Vers 23. In all labour there is profit In all honest labour for there are that doe wickedly with both hands earnestly and what profit have such of all their labour c. Eccles 1.3 doe they not take pains to goe to Hell There are also that labour about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 toylsome toys that pay not for the pains that doe magno conatu magnas nugas agere Such a one was Paleottus Arch-bishop of Bonony who made a great book of the shadow of Christs Body in a â—â—ndon and it was commented upon by the Professour there This Aristotle calls laborious losse of time The Apostle calls upon men to labour working with their hands the thing that is good so shall they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not for their own uses only but also to give to him that needeth Ephes 4.28 But the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury Great talkers are doe-littles for most part Corniculas citiùs in Africa quam res rationesque solidas in Turriani scriptis invenies saith one Turrian was a very wordy man yee cannot finde matter for words in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Athenians fought against Philip with words and messages saith one but Rabshekah could tell Hezekiah that warre was to be made so is work to be done not with words and the talk of the lips but with counsel and strength Isa 36.5 And why stand you looking upon one another get you down to Aegypt said Jacob to his sons Gen. 42.1 Vers 24. The crown of the wise is their riches An ornament an incouragement in well-doing and an instrument of doing much good if God give an heart thereto for quid cervo ingentia cornua cum desit animus To what end is a treasure if a man have lost the Key that leads to it Vel mihi da clavem vel mihi tolle seram But the foolishnesse of fools is folly That is of rich fools such as was Pope Clemens the fifth of whom the Historian saith Papa hic ditior quam sapientior that hee was more wealthy than wise The Crown of the wise is their riches but yet give them a fool you put a sword into a mad mans hand the folly of such fools will soon bee foolishness Why was it not foolishness before they were rich yes but now it is become egregious foolishness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earth cannot bear the insolencies of such Set a beggar on horse-back c. Vers 25. A true witness delivereth souls Or lives that lye at stake Hee that helps the truth in such a necessity doth a worthy work To walk about with slanders is to shed blood Ezek. 22.9 Way was made to that bloody French massacre by false reports cast abroad by the Fryar-lyars that the Protestants under pretence of Religion met by night that they might feed daintily and then lye together promiscuously He that hath a mind to hang his Dog saith the French Proverb will first give out that hee is run mad John 8.48 The Devil was first a lyar and then a murtherer from the beginning Vers 26. In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence The reverential fear of God is monimentum munimentum ornamentum The wise man had said vers 24. The Crown of the wise are their riches and chap. 18.11 hee will tell us that the rich mans wealth is his strong City Now lest any should hereby bee brought to think of riches more highly than is meet hee gives us to know that wealth severed from the fear of God can neither adorn us nor secure us Great is the confidence of a good conscience Our God whom wee serve is able to deliver us and hee will deliver us out of thine hand Dan. 3.17 Hezekiah pulled down the brazen Serpent 2 King 18.5 for hee trusted in God At ego rem divinam facio But I am sacrificing said Numa when they told him the enemy was at hand Non sic Deos coluimus aut sic vivimus ut illi nos vincerent said the Emperour Antoninus Wee are bold to beleeve that God will deal better with us than so And his children have a place of Refuge i. e. Gods children run to his name and are safe Or the children of him that fears God For God will bless those that fear him both small and great Psal 115. If I can but once finde the fear of God in those about mee Selnecer said Reverend Claviger satis habeo satisquo mihi meae â—xori filiis filiabus prospexi I shall have enough for my self wife and children they will bee all cared for Vers 27. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life So said to bee both for the constant faithfulness as never failing and for the gracious effects viz. Blessings of all sorts 1 Temporal Prov. 22.4 Riches Honour Life 2 Spiritual Mal. 4.2 Such shall grow up as the Calves of the stall fat and fair-liking 3 Eternal Psal 31. O how great things c. eye hath not seen c. It shall bee alwaies well with them Eccles 8.12 And though many afflictions c. yet hee that feareth God shall come out of them all Eccles 7.18 To depart from the snares of death Satan that mighty hunter hath laid snares for us in all places And the way of this world is like the vale of Siddim slimy and slippery full of lime-pits and pitfalls snares and stumbling-blocks laid on purpose to maim us or mischief us Hee that fears God comes off without hurt by remembring that which as short as it is yet our memories are shorter Cave Deus videt Take heed God seeth thee A godly man had these verses written before him on a Table in his study Ne pecces Deut ipse videt tuus Angelus astat Accusat Satanas lex mens conscia culpae Mors incerta furit cruciat te lurid us Orcus Et manet aeternum tristi damnatio poenâ Vers 28. In the multitude of people is the Kings honour For that 's a sign of peace plenty prosperity and just government as in Salomons daies when Israel and Judah were many as the sand which is by the Sea in multitude eating and drinking and making merry Flor. hist lib. 4 1 King 4.20 and as in Augustus his daies when Christ the Prince of Peace was born into the world cuncta atque continua totius generis humani aut pax fuit aut pactio Ferdinand the third King of Spain reigned full 35 years In all which time nec fames nec pestis fuit in regnosuo saith Lopez Gloss in prolog part 1. there was neither famine nor pestilence throughout that Kingdome What incredible waste of men hath war lately made in Germany that stage of war in Ireland and here in this Kingdome besides what formerly In the Civil dissentions between the houses
and courage invincible is necessary to a Minister who shall bee sure to bee put hard to it and therefore had need to bee as Athanasius was an Adamant for his resolute stout carriage and to partake with the Diamond in the High-Priests breast-plate for hardness and hardiness in standing to and for the truth Israelites also they ought to bee Jews inwardly not scoffing Ishmaelites prophane Edomites false Philistins but the valiants of Israel such as Davids band of Worthies was 1 Chron. 11 12. faithful and godly patterns of piety such as will take heed to themselves and to the flock waiting upon the Lords work and watching for mens souls as they that must give account c. Heb. 13.17 It is a great matter to bee of Christs life-guard Remember what David said of Abner 1 Sam. 26.15 Vers 8. They all hold swords being expert in war They not onely bear arms Judg. 8.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch but can handle them Young Jether wore a sword but hee durst not draw it or strike with it when hee should have killed Zeba and Zalmunna Themistocles said of the Eretrians a cowardly people that they were like the Sword-fish which hath a sword indeed but wants an heart Such white-livered souldiers such faint-hearted sword-men our Solomon hath no need of Our Gideon will not employ them so far as to break a pitcher or to bear a torch Judg. 7. The fearful and unbeleeving shall never set foot in his Kingdome much less bee Esquires of his body those in that Office must hold fast the faithful word that sword of the Spirit that two-edged sword far beyond that of Goliah and yet David said there was none to that that they may bee able and apt by sound doctrines both to exhort the tractable and to convince the gainsayer Tit. 1.9 Those that either cannot or will not do thus are no way fit to bee of Christs guard because they are more likely to betray him into the hands of his enemies than to defend him from them to act a Judas his part than a Peters who manfully cut off Malchus his ear and chose rather to be held temerarious than timorous Jeremy complains of the Pastours of his time Jer. 9.3 that they were not valiant for the truth they had no spiritual metal in them but as Harts and Stags have great horns and strength but want courage so it was with these St. Austin professeth this was it that heartened him and made him to triumph in his former Manichism that hee met with feeble Opponents and such as his nimble wit was easily able to overturn If gainsayers bee not powerfully convinced how will they set up their crests Haeretici argumentis lapidandi Hilar. and cry victoria If they bee not stoned with Arguments how will they start up and outstare the truth There must bee therefore skill and will in all her Champions They must also every man have his sword upon his thigh and bee ready for an assault Seneca reports of Caesar that hee had quickly sheathed his sword but never laid it off And Suetonius tells us Scilicet ut paratum intentum momentis omnibus c. that hee would never fore-acquaint his souldiers of any set time of removal or onset that hee might never finde them unready Christ expects the like care and courage in his Ministers lest the Proverb bee verified on them Ungirt unblest And because of fears in the night Lest evil should befall Solomon as it did Ishbosheth who was slain upon his bed by the sons of Rimmon lest deeds of darkness bee done in a Land of light and whilst the watch-men slack their duty the Rulers of the darkness of this world break in and play their pranks Whilst men slept tares were sown by the evil man Mat. 13. Vers 9. King Solomon made himself a Charriot Hic locus lubricus est difficilis This is an hard Text saith one It had been easier perhaps if Commentatours had not made it so hard The word rendred Charriot is by others rendred a Bride-chamber a Bed a Throne a Palace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hebew word is found in this place onely it hath the name of fairness and fruitfulness Rabbi Solomon saith it is Thalamus honorificus a bed-chamber of honour whereby wee are to understand again the Church as wee did by bed in the former verse Shee is oft compared to an house here to a Bride-chamber and Solomons Bride-chamber which must needs bee supposed very trimme and set forth to the best It is further set forth here by the causes efficient Solomon himself Material Cedar Silver Gold c. Formal payed with love Final for himself first and then for the daughters of Jerusalem First Solomon himself made it though a King Stupenda sane dignatio a wonderful condescension The Church is Christs own workmanship his artificial facture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or creature as the Greek word signifieth Ephes 2.10 that Master-peece of his architecture wherein hee hath shewed singular skill by erecting that glorious fabrick of the New Man that New Heaven and New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness 2 Pet. 3.13 For hee planteth the Heavens and layeth the foundations of the Earth that hee may say to Zion Thou art my people that hee may rejoyce in the habitable part of Gods Earth Prov. 8.31 that hee may say I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will bee their God and they shall bee my people 1 Cor. 6.16 Christ wrought the Centurions faith as God hee wondred at it as man God wrought and man marvelled hee did both to teach us where to bestow our wonder Paul praies for his Ephesians that their eyes might bee enlightened to see the power that wrought in them Chap. 1.18 Of the Wood of Lebanon See the Note on chap. 1.17 The Saints are the Churches materials Rom. 1.7 1 Cor. 1.2 The precious sons of Zion are comparable to fine gold Lam. 4.2 Her Nazarites are purer than Snow whiter than Milk more ruddy than Rubies their polishing is of Saphire vers 7. And yet Bellarmine is not ashamed to say Lib. 3. cap. 2. de Eccles militante Nos etiamsi credimus in Ecclesia inveniri omnes virtutes c. Although wee doubt not but that all virtues are found in the Church yet that a man may bee absolutely called a Member of that true Church spoken of in Scripture we hold not that any inward virtue is required but onely an external profession of the Faith and participation of the Sacraments Cameron de Eccles pag. 167. Belle hoc convenit Ecclesiae Romanae saith a learned man This description sutes very well with the Church of Rome For certainly if there bee any virtuous persons in that Church id eis convenit per accidens it is by meer accident and not as they are in that Church but as they dissent from it like as Cicero saith wittily of the
Samaria And what are the high places of Judah are they not Jerusalem Mic. 1.5 A people laden with iniquity Great and grievous offenders guilty of many and mighty or long sins Amos 5.12 quorum amplitudine pragravantur yet not sensible of their burden not heavy-laden as Mat. 11.28 nor labouring to be delivered of that hedg-hog that woundeth and teareth them in their tender inside A seed of evil-doers A race of Rebels a seed of Serpents Mali corvi malum ovum such as were as good at resisting the Holy Ghost as ever their Fathers had been Acts 7.51 generation after generation they held it out and were no changelings then neither are to this day Children that are corrupters Or destroyers ding thrifts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stroy-goods such as the Roman Prodigal who gloried that of a large Patrimony left him by his Parents he had now left himself nothing praeter coelum coenum or that other in the Gospel who had drawn much of his portion through his throat and spent the rest on harlots Lo such ill husbands for their souls were these Jews here spoken of scipsis assidue facti deteriores whilest they wofully wasted their time and strength in the pursuit of their lusts cursed children 2 Pet. 2.14 They have forsaken the Lord which is such a foul enormity as good Jeremy thinks the very Heaven sweateth at and the earth groaneth under Jer. 2.12 13. They have provoked unto anger as if they had a mind to wrastle a fall and try masteries with him The Vulgar rendreth it They have blasphemed See the Note on ver 2. They are gone away backward Alienaverunt seretrorsum certatim exardescentes in Apostasiam as the Moon when fullest of light getteth farther off from the Sun They had turned upon God the back and not the face by a shameful Apostacy even then when they frequently trod his Courts ver 12. and departed not thence haply any otherwise then the Jews at this day do out of their Synagogues with their faces still toward the Ark like crabs going backward Ver. 5. Why should ye be striken any more This was the heaviest stroke that ever Judah felt from the hand of God like as Ephraims sorest Judgement was He is joyned to Idols let him alone Hos 4.17 q. d he is incorrigible irreclaimable let him go on and perish I le not any longer foul my fingers with him O fearful Sentence To prosper in sin is a grievous plague and a sign of one given up by God To be like the Smiths-dog whom neither the Hammers above him nor the sparks of fire falling round about him can awaken is to be in a desperate condition To wax worse by chastisements as 2 Chron. 28.22 is a sure sign of reprobate silver Jerem. 6.30 of a dead and dedolent disposition Ephes 4.18 God as a loving Father verba verbera beneficia supplicia miscuerat had done all that could be done to do them good but all would not do such was their obstinacy The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint Head Heart Feet Princes Priests and common people as they had all sinned so they all had their payment Sin is an universal sickness like those Diseases which Physitians say are Corruptio totius substantiae a corruption of the whole substance And National sins bring National plagues wherein all sorts suffer as they did in the dayes of Ahaz de quibus haud dubie loquitur hic propheta saith Scultetus though others think the Prophet here speaketh rather of those miseries inflicted upon Judah by Hazael King of Syria 2 King 12. and by Joash King of Israel 2 King 14. wherein all sorts had their share none scaped scot-free Vers 6. From the sole of the head totum est pro vulnere corpus The whole body Politick was deadly diseased and it was our Prophets unhappiness to be the Physian to a dying State Tunc etenim docta plus valet arte malum There is no soundness Nec sanitas in corpore nec sanctitas in corde Heu heu Domine Deus But wounds and bruises and putrifying sores And those also such as would not be cured but called for cutting off Immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est They have not been closed Neither will be Non est malagma imponere say the Septuagint here You will not endure to have them searched or suppled what hope therefore of healing If the Sun of Righteousness shall shine upon us with healing under his wings we must repent and believe the Gospel Mar. 1.15 Ver. 7. Your Countrey is desolate Here the Prophet speaketh plainly what before parabolically thus many times the Scripture explaineth it self Joh. 7.39 Your Cities are burnt So that there is sometimes but an hours space inter civitatem magnam nullam saith Seneca betwixt a fair City and an heap Zar alienum significat hostem Your land strangers devour it that is Enemies In which sense also an Harlot is called a strange woman seemingly a friend but really an enemy she will destroy his peace who is overcome by her In your presence to your greater grief Witness the experience hereof in our late stripping and desolating times whereof we have here a kind of Theological â—icture Ver. 8. And the Daughter of Zion 1. Jerusalem which is called the Daughter of Zion say some because standing at the foot of that Hill as a Daughter it comes out from between the feet being also cherished and tendered by God as his Daughter Howbeit as dear as she was to him she fell into deep distress when she became undutifull Abused Mercy turneth into fury Is left as a cottage in a Vineyard As a shed or booth whereof after the Vintage there is little use or regard As a lodge in a garden of Cucumers Or Melons which when ripe lie on the ground So saith one do Gods ripest and best servants being humble and meanly conceited of themselves As a besieged City Besieged though at a distance as Rome was when Saguntum was beleagured Ver. 9. Except the Lord Jehovah the Essentiator Induperator the Maker and Monarch of the Universe Had left unto us a very small remnant which he reserved for Royal use pulling them as a brand out of the fire Zech. 3.2 or as two legs or a piece of an ear taken by the Shepherd out of the mouth of a Lion Amos 3.12 The Apostle after the Septuagint rendreth it a seed Rom 9.29 in allusion to store-seed kept by the Husbandman and there hence inferreth that the Elect Jews shall by faith in Christ be freed from the Tyrannie of Satan and terrour of Hell And this is here alledged for an allay to those foregoing dreadfull Declarations of bygone and direfull menaces of future desolations so loth is the Sun of Righteousness to set in a cloud surely in the midst of Judgement he remembreth mercy quamvis cecidere trecent Non omnes Fabios abstulit una
are specially threatned with destruction because they abandoned their brethren the two other tribes and trusted to confederacies and aids of forrain Princes Ver. 6. Forasmuch as this people The ten revolted tribes not worth the naming see ver 5. Refuse the waters of Shiloah Slight and contemn the small means and strength of the Church humilem obscurum statum regni Zionis That run softly at the foot of mount Zion creeping and crooking slowly and slily called therefore De Bell. Gall. lib. 1. as some think the Dragons well Neh. 2.13 Caesar saith the like of the river Araris probably Sone and the Poet Claudian of Nilus Leâ—e fluit Nilus sed cunctis amnibus extat Vtilior nullas confessus murmure vires And rejoyce in Rezin and Remaliah's son rejoyce in a thing of nought as Amos his expression is chap. 6.13 The Hebrew here hath it thus And joy is to Rezin c. that is the Syrians and Israelites both are much cheared up to see that Judah is at so great an under and so easy to be overcome as they think Ver. 7. Now therefore behold the Lord bringeth They that slighted still-running Shiloah shall have the waters of Euphrates strong and many to overwhelm and swallow them up God loveth to retaliate Even the King of Assyria and all his glory i. e. his armies and forces wherein he gloryeth See chap. 10.8 and 36.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he shall Or it shall viz. the River Euphrates whose exundation is here graphically described and thereby depainted to the life the practice of tyrants in over-running whole countreys as by a deluge as did the Assyrian of old and as doth the great Turk at this day Ver. 8. And he shall pass thorough Judah After Israel subdued but yet with a difference as chap. 27.7 8. for the Israelites and Syrians were utterly drowned with this proud flood but the Jews were only drenched it reached but to the neck their head was ever above water and that because Emanuel better that any Christopher bore them up And the stretching out of his wings that is of his immense forces the Assyrian by another Allegory being here compared to an Eagle which covereth her whole prey with her wings Shall fill the breadth of thy Land O Immanuel Shall surely unless thou O Lord Christ who art King of this countrey by a specialty shalt please to prevent it Learn we likewise in all our straits or ailments to run to our Immanuel and implore his help remembring that he is God with us he is a man amidst us cum Patre dator inter nos petitor as Austin hath it he gives with the Father he prays with the suitor he will deliver and defend his subjects and suppliants Ver. 9. Associate your selves O ye people In confidence of her King Immanuels succour and support the Church thus holily insulteth over her most active enemies foretelling their utter subversion The Virgin daughter of Zion doth the like chap. 37.22 as binding upon her invincible Champion Immanuel ver 2.3 whose very name here putteth spirits into her and maketh her take heart of grace as they say Basil biddeth the Christians in time of persecution boldly bespeak their adversaries in these words though somwhat otherwise rendred by the Septuagint by mistake of a letter If again ye prevail ye shall yet again be vanquished And truely of the Church it may be foretold better then of Troy Victa tamen vinces eversaque Troja resurges Ovid. Fast Obruet hostiles illa ruina domos Gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Ye shall ye shall without fail though ye little believe it It shall be done as is therefore here so often threatned as sure as the coat is on your back or the heart in your belly Ver. 10. Take counsel together Do so if you will but when all 's done the counsel of the Lord shall stand and you shall consult nothing better then shame to your selves Speak a word All these expressions serve to set forth the bitter hatred born by these wicked ones against Gods poor people whom they sought by all means to mischieve but could not For God is with us Heb. Immanuel that sweet name was to the godly party mel in ore melos in aure jubilum in corde and hence so oft recited these heavenly birds having got such a note record it over and over Ver. 11. For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand that is with his spirit accompanying his word and setting it home to my heart that so I might speak from the heart to the heart Some render it Taking me by the hand fidelis paedagogi instar Sicut apprehensione manus like a loving and faithful schoolmaster and thereby pulling me back that I should not walk in the common road That I should not walk in the way of this people not howle with those wolves not tune my fiddle to the base of the times not follow a multitude to do evil but rather to keep a constant countermotion to the Many and rather to go right alone then not at all Cassianus gives very good Counsel Vive ut pauci In Epist ut cum paucis inveniri merearis in regno Dei Live thou as but few else do that with those few thou maist be found in Gods Kingdom Now none can do thus but onely they to whom the Lord both speaketh and layeth hold also upon their hand that they be not led away with the errour of the wicked 2 Pet. 3.17 Ver. 12. Say ye not a Confederacy A Confederacy a Confederacy sc between Syria and Samaria is made against us this was vox populi all the talk in those dayes and every bodies mouth was full of it and heart afraid of it But say ye not so comply not concent not chime not in with the spirits and speeches of other men Away with all such despairing language For help against which Ver. 13. Sanctify the Lord of hostes himself Even your sweetest Immanuel non sanctificatur autem nisi in eum credatur sanctify him I say by believing in your hearts and confessing with your mouths Rom. 10.9 and walking as becommeth the Gospel in nothing terrified by your adversaries Phil. 1.27 28. And let him be your fear That is the Object of your fear as Gen. 31.53 Psal 76.11 where God is called Fear by an Appellative Proper So the Chaldee Paraphrase frequently calleth God Dechilah 1. Fear The Greeks call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fear Bernard saith well God is to be feared as a Lord honoured as a Father loved as a Spouse This fear of God is a soveraign remedy against the fear of the creature and is therefore here and elswhere opposed to it Surely as one fire driveth out another and as Moses his Serpent swallowed up the Sorcerers Serpents so here Ver. 14. And he shall be for a sanctuary In quo serventur in lapidem
not his flesh so here When he maketh all the stones of the Altar as Chalk-stones When he that is Jacob in token of his true repentance abandoneth all his mawmets and monuments of idolatry and them abolisheth and demolisheth so as never to be re-edified The Jews after the captivity were so far from idolatry that they would not admit a Painter or Carver into their City And how zealous they were to keep their Temple from such defilement both in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and of the Romans Histories shew us Ver. 10. Yet the defenced City shall be desolate Or But or Therefore shall they suffer ut ad saniorem mentem ad frugem calamitesi redeant that they may be thereby bettered See on ver 9. Ver. 11. For it is a people of no understanding Heb. Not a people of understandings i. e. non sapiunt nisi plagis emendentur they will not be wise without whipping I must therefore handle them the more sharply and severely Castigat Deus quem amat etiamsi non amat castigare Therefore he that made them Deus factor ejus fictor A fearful sentence such as should affright those many Ignaro's that say God that made us will surely save us Ver. 12. In that day sc When God shall have purged his people by his Word and by his Rod. The Lord shall beat off Or shall thresh The Ministry of the Word is Gods Flail to sever the Chaff from Corn to single his out of the midst of wicked and prophane worldlings See the like of Afflictions sanctified ver 9. And ye shall be gathered As Ears of Corn are for threshing One by one There is no thresher in the world saith one here that thresheth half so clean for he looseth not one grain See Joh. 17 12. 10.3 Christ hath a care of every one particularly and by the poll some gather from hence that the calling of the Jews shall be general and universal Ver. 13. The great Trumpet shall be blown Or a blast shall be blown with a great trumpet Tuba haec magna Apostolica praedicatio est saith Oecolampadius This great trumpet is the Gospel the preaching whereof is of power to save those that perish to put life into the dead Joh. 5.25 CHAP. XXVIII Ver. 1. VVO to the crown of pride to the drunkards of Ephraim Drunkenness is a sin at the heel whereof hangeth many a Woe Some think it is a dry drunkenness that is here threatned that there is a dry drunkenness as well as a wet see chap. 51.21 2 Tim. 2.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they may awake out of their drunken sleep a drunkenness with prosperity which made them proud and dissolute even the King of Israel and his Counsellors also not considering that in maxima libertate minima est licentia It is not for Kings to drink wine Prov. 31.4 Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower Or and to the fading flower of his goodly gallantry Some conceive that the Prophet here alludeth to the Etymologie of the word Ephraim whereof see Gen. 41.42 but Ephraim was now declining and decaying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crapula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That are overcome with wine Heb. smitten beaten overmastered as Sisera was by Jaels hammer which hath its name from the word here used Judges 4.23 Tremellius rendreth it Obtusis vino to those that are blunted with wine or beaten about ears with it Ver. 2. Behold the Lord hath a mighty and a strong One viz. Salmaneser King of Assyria For whereas Ephraim might say Who is there that can or dare pull off the flower of our goodly gallantry God answereth that he hath at hand One that can do it The Romans pictured Pride with a triple crown on the first crown was written Transcendo on the next Non obedio on the third Perturbo and do it with a turn of a hand with little ado Ver. 3. The Crown of pride shall be trodden under foot This noteth utmost ignominy Finge ideam animo saith one here imagine you saw Salmantser pulling the Crown from the King of Israels head throwing it to the ground and then trampling on it What brave Rhetorick is here Ver. 4. As the hasty fruit quasi primae praematurae ficus rath-ripe fruits much coveted and caught at Ver. 5. For a Crown of glory and for a diadem of beauty so he was to Judah alled here the residue of his people during Hezekiahs daies a crown unfading or a garland made of Amaranth as 1 Pet. 1.4 which is saith Clemens a certain flower that being hung up in the house yet is still fresh and green And as God is thus to his people so enterchangeably are they to him a crown of glory Isa 62.3 and a royal diadem ib. his throne of glory Jer. 4.21 The beauty of his Ornament Ezek. 7.20 Ver. 6. And for a spirit of judgement A sagacity more then ordinary◠in regard whereof Solomon calleth the Kings doom a divination Prov. 16.10 as is well observed And for strength to them c. In this verse we have the description of an happy State governed justly at home Diod. and able abroad to resist any endeavour of the enemy Ver. 7. But they also have erred through wine Judah had caught this disease of Ephraim as the English are said to have done of the drunken Dutchmen Sin is more contagious and catching then the plague The Hebrew word importeth an alienation of mind Prov. 20.1 Hos 11. Jer. 23.9 Vino sapientia obscuratur said Alphonsus King of Arragon They are swallowed up of wine they are out of the way through strong drink Errarunt propter Shecar they are buckt in beer they are drowned in drink like as George Duke of Clarence was drowned in a out of Malmsey by his own election Nam sicut athletico potore dignum erat ut potando moreretur elegit saith mine Author for being condemned to die by his brother King Edward the fourth he chose that kind of death as became a stout drunkard They err in vision the Prophets do They stumble in judgement the Priests do for they were to interpret the law and to decide differences Drunkenness in Rulers is a capital sin and maketh the land reel Ver. 8. For all places are full of vomit and filthiness Vah vah vah Cum tu Narbone mensas hospitum convomeres said Tully to Antony who was not ashamed likewise to write or rather to spue out a book concerning his own great strength to bear strong drink and to lay up others who strove with him for the mastery Tully taxeth Julius Caesar for this soul custom so doth Philo Caligula Veniunt ut edant edunt ut vomant Senec. and Suetonius Vitellius Ver. 9. Whom shall he teach knowledge Quem docebit scientiam Doceo governeth two Accusative cases Ministers must have 1. Quem whom to teach and 2. Quid what to teach sc Knowledge Isaiah had no want of knowledge
their confidence was the fruit of prayer At the lifting up of thy self If God do but arise only his enemies shall be scattered and all that hate him shall flee before him Psal 68.1 See the Note there Ver. 4. And your spoiles shall be gathered The spoile of the Assyrians Camp now become yours as 1 Sam. 30.20 Like the gathering of Catterpillars Quae ad hominum concursum omnes repente disperguntur which are soon rid when men set themselves to destroy them Ver. 5. The Lord is exalted He hath made him a name gained abundance of honour For he dwelleth on high Whence he can poure down plagues at his pleasure on his proud enemies and fill Zion with Judgement and Righteousness Ver. 6. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times Thy times O Hezekiah but especially O Christ Or the stability of thy times and strong safeguard shall thy wisdom and knowledge be By his knowledge that is by faith in him shall my righteous servant Jesus Christ justifie many Chap. 53.11 but these are also sanctified by him the fear of the Lord is their treasure they hold faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 See the Note there The fear of the Lord is his Treasure The spirit of this holy fear rested upon Christ Paradin in symbol chap. 11.2 and good Hezekiah was eminent for it not for civil prudence only this was flos regis the fairest flower in all his garland this is solidissima regiae politiae basis as one saith the best policy and the way to wealth Ver. 7. Behold their valiant ones or their Heralds Messengers Heb. Hen Erelam Behold their Erel or their Ariel chap. 29.1 2. that is their Altar shall they i. e. the Assyrians cry without sc in mockery twitting the Jews with their Sacrifices as no way profitable to them Mr. Clarkes Eng. Martyrol So the profane Papists when they murthered the poore Protestants at Orleans sang in scorn Judge and revenge my cause O Lord Others Have mercy on us Lord. And when in the late persecution in Bohemia divers godly Nobles and Citizens were carried to prison in Prague the Papists insultingly cried after them Why do ye not now sing The Lord raigneth The Embassadours of peace thar went for peace having for their Symbol Pacem te poscimus omnes but could not effect it Weep bitterly so that they might be heard before they entered the City Vide quam vivide see here how lively things are set forth and what a lamentable report these Embassadours make of the state of the country and the present danger of losing all Ver. 8. The high-ways lye waste and by-waies are more frequented through fear of the enemy He hath broken the Covenant Irritum factum est pactum He took the money sent him but comes on nevertheless though he had sworn the contrary 2 King 18.14 17. It is said of the Turks at this day that they keep their leagues which serve indeed but as snares to intangle other Princes in no longer then standeth with their own profit Turk Hist 755. Their Maxime is There is no faith to be kept with dogs whereby they mean Christians as the Papists also say There is no faith to be kept with Hereticks whereby they mean Protestants But why kept not Vladislaus King of Hungary his Faith better with Amurath the great Turk or our Henry the third with his Barons by Papal dispensation Vah scelus vae perjuris He hath despised the Cities and will not take them for his Subjects he scorneth the motion He regardeth no man He vilipendeth and slighteth all Jewels generally Metaphora Prosâ—popoetica Ver. 9. The earth mourneth and langisheth Or the land luget languet thus they go on in their doleful relation Miserrima sunt omnia atque miseranda What sad work hath Antichrist made of late years in the Christian world what desolations in all parts Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down Sharon is like a wilderness East West North P. al. 80 13. and South of the Land are laid wast by the enemy and the avenger that boare out of the wood that bear out of the Forest Ver. 10. Now will I rise saith the Lord now Now now now Emphasin habet ingeminatio vocis Nunc This now thrice repeated importeth both the opportunity of time and Gods readiness to relieve Cum duplicantur lateres venit Moses When things are at worst they 'le mend we say Now will I lift up my self who have hitherto been held an underling and inferiour to the enemy Ver. 11. Ye shall conceive chaff ye shall bring forth stubble Gravidi estis stramine parietis stipulam So did Pharaoh Antiochus Julian c. so doth Antichrist and his Champions notwithstanding his bloody alarmes to them such as was that sounded out in the year 1582. Vtere jure tuo Caesar sectamque Lutheri Ense rota ponto funibus igne neca And that other to the King of France not many years since exhorting him to kill up all the Protestants per Galliam stabulantes the very words of the Popes Bull that had any stable-room in France Your breath as fire shall devoure you shall blow up the fire that shall consume your chaff and stubble Your iniquity shall be your ruine Ezek. 18.38 Turdus sibi malum cacat Hic est gladius quem ipse fecisti this is a sword of thine own makeing said the Souldier to Marius when he ran him thorough with it Ver. 12. And the people shall be as the burning of lime As hard chalk-stones which when burnt to make lime crumble to crattle As thorns cut up Sear-thornes that crackle under a pot and are soon extinct The Hebrews tell us that the Assyrian Souldiers were burnt by the Angel with a secret fire that is with the pestilence as Berosus cited by Josephus witnesseth and our Prophet hinteth as much in many passages Lib. 10. cap. 1. Ver. 13. Hear ye that are afar of Longinqui propinqui Gods great works are to be noted and noticed by all The Egyptians heard of what God had done to the Assyrian Army and memorized it by a monument as Herodotus relateth Ver. 14. The sinners in Zion are afraid At the invasion of the Assyrian Herod l. 2. Justin those that formerly fleared and jeared Gods Prophets and their menaces now fear and are crest faln ready to run into an anger-hole as we say It is as natural for guilt to breed fear and disquiet as for putrid matter to breed vermine Sinners especially those in Zion where they might be better and are therefore the worse a great deal have galled consciences and want faith to fortify theâ—r hearts against the fear of death or danger and hence those pitiful perplexities and convulsions of soul in the evil day what wonder if when they see all on fire they ring their Bells backwards if instead of mourning for their sins and
making peace with God as they ought to do they mutter and growl against him as these hypocrites do for his over-great severity Fearfulnesse hath surprised the hypocrites The Jews were an hypocritical Nation chap. 9. Epiphanius when he left Constantinople said that he left three great things behind him viz. a great City a great Palace ingentem hypocrisin and a great deal of hypocrisy That facies hypocritic of our Nation is that facies Hippocratica which Physicians speak of of a spent dying man that looks gastly it is a mortal complexion a sad prognistick Oh that these frozen hearts of ours sith they must have a thew or it will be worse might melt here and be unfoldered from hypocrisy that we might be saved though so as by fire rather then to be reserved to be thawed with everlasting burnings the portion of hypocrites Matth. 24. So might we dwell with everlasting burnings that is within the knowledge of Gods terrible presence and sight of his great Judgements whereof the hypocrites of the world are afraid because this fire melteth off their paint and threatneth to wash off their varnish with rivers of brimstone Who among us shall dwell Or who of us can but fear a devouring fire Ver. 15. He that walketh righteously q. d. Though you cannot yet there are those that can viz. those that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Surely to such there is no one condemnation Rom. 8.1 Christ standeth as a skreen betwixt the wrath of God and his Elect for whose sake also this Paschal Lamb was once for all roasted in the fire of his fathers indignation whereby they are not only delivered from the wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 but also have boldness and access with confidence by the Faith of him Eph. 3.12 2.18 He that walketh righteously Through whose whole life righteousness runneth as the woof doth through the web as the blood doth through the veins c. And speaketh uprightly Heb. Evennesses non blasphema impudica fescennina not the language of Hell but of Canaan see Jam. 3.2 That despiseth the gain of oppressions The Mammon of iniquity wealth gotten by force or fraud A publick person especially as he should have nothing to lose so he should have nothing to get he should be above all price or sale Nec prece nec precio should be his Motto That shaketh his hands from holding of bribes He doth not only not do wrong but not receive a gift whereby he may be engaged or inclined to do it That stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood He not only not sheddeth it but refuseth to hear any communing about such a business Quintil. declam That shutteth his eyes from seeing of evil Lest his heart should thereby be betrayed for vitiis nobis in animum per oculos est via could an Heathen say By the eyes evil getteth into the heart by looking cometh lusting and millions dye of the wound in the eye Ver. 16. He shall dwell on high Extra jactum out of the gun-shot the reach of evils and enemies Or in heaven shall he dwell with God in safety who is to the wicked a consuming fire ver 14. His place of defence shall be the munitions of Rocks Rocks within Rocks Rocks beneath above Rocks Rocks so deep no Pioner can undermine them so thick no Canon can pierce them so high no Ladder can scale them c. Bread shall be given him his waters shall not fail He shall have all that heart can wish or need require Ver. 17. Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty Hezekiah in his pristine state and lustre yea more glorious and renowned then ever before Hierom understandeth it of Christ reigning gloriously in Heaven and the Saints looking from thence should see the earth a farre off as little and contemptible and say O quam angusti sunt mortalium termini O quam angusti sunt mortalium animi Austine wished that he might have seen these three things Romam in flore Paulum in ore Christum in corpore Rome in the flourish Paul in the pulpit Christ in the body of flesh Venerable Bede came after him and wished rather that he might see his King Christ in his beauty as he is now at the right-hand of his Father far outshining the brightest Cherub in Heaven Oiim haec meminisse juvabit Ver. 18. Thine hearts shall meditate terror But thou shalt now think of it as waters that are past calling to mind what speeches amongst those late distractions had fallen from thee Where is the Scribe Or the Muster-master of the Assyrian Army Verba sunt insultantium exsultantium saith Piscator they are the words of Gods people insulting over the enemy now overthrown and dispersed See the like done by the Apostle 1 Cor. 1.10 Ver. 19. Thou shalt not see a fierce people Or Look not upon a fierce people or as some render it a barbarous people of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand such as are most of the School-men seven years said one are but sufficient to understand the barbarisms of Scotus upon Lombard but rather look upon Zion Ver. 20. Look upon Zion the City of our Solemnities where God is daily and duely served and is therefore her sheild and exceeding great reward Gen. 17.1 If that Heathen King hearing of his enemies approach whilst he was sacrificing could answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am serving my Gods and therefore fear not their force how much more cause had Zion to be confident and to sing as Psal 46.1 2 3 c. See Psal 48.12 13. Ver. 21. But there the glorious Lord will be The Church must needs be invincible because the glorious Lord is her Champion or will do gallantly for us as the words may be rendered Her name is Jehovah-Shammah Ezek. 48.35 The Lord is there and how many reckon we him at He alone is a potent Army Isa 52.12 A place of broad rivers and Streams Such as Mesopotamia was or the Garden of God Or he shall be instead of broad rivers c. even a river that shall not be drawn dry or sucked out as Euphrates was by Cyrus when he took Babylon a river that shall not fail the dwellers by as Nilus once at least did Egypt for nine years together Ovid Art l. 1. Creditur Aegyptus caruisse juvantibus arva Imbribus atque annis sicca fuisse novem But shall fill its banks and shores perpetually and keep a full stock of streams and waters Wherein shall go no gally nor gallant ship i. e. None of the enemies navies shall annoy it England had the experience of this in that famous 88. when the Seas were turreted with such a Navy of Ships as her swelling waves could hardly be seen and the Flags Streamers and Ensignes so spred in the wind that they seemed to darken even the Sun but the glorious God defeated them Ver. 22. For the Lord
never went from God without God And holy Bradford would never give over any good duty till he found something coming in as in confession till his heart melted in begging pardon till it was quieted in seeking grace till it was quickened c. Ver. 4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged Non erit tristis nec turbulentus so the Vulgar hath it he shall be master of his passions and keep an even state of his looks and motions whatever befall as they report of Socrates He shall not knit his brows or chide which was Eli's fault 1 Sam. 3.13 but is Christs commendation so Lud. de Dieu rendereth it He shall not make to smoke so Junius from ver 3. nor shall he bruise any one Vntil he have set Judgement See on ver 3. And the Iles shall wait for his Law Heb. shall with desire expect his doctrine Ver. 5. Thus saith God the Lord he that created the Heavens and streched them out Heb. and they that streched them out noting the Trinity in Unity as Deut. 6.4 See there Some Pagans concluded the world must needs have had a beginning otherwise we could not know whether the egge or the bird the seed or the plant the day or the night the light or the darkness were first Ver. 6. I the Lord have called thee To the Mediatorship And will hold thine hand working wonders by thee and with thee And will keep thee That thou be not crucified till thine hour be come and that thou despair not when thou sufferest And give thee for a Covenant of the people i. e. For that Angel of the Covenant Mal. 3.1 and that thou mayest reconcile all the Elect in one body to me by thy crosse c. Eph. 2.16 For a light to the Gentiles See chap. 9.2 Ver. 7. To open the blind eyes By the preaching of the Gospel Acts 26.18 2 Cor. 4.4 5 6. Rev. 3.18 To bring out the prisoners from the prison To free poor souls from the Tyranny of sin and terrour of hell This should make us say to Christ as one did once to Augustus for a deliverance nothing so great Effecisti Caesar ut viverem morerer ingratus let me do mine utmost I must live and dye in thy debt Ver. 8. I am the Lord I and no Heathen petty god as I have plainly and plentifully proved nemine contradicente That is my Name God though he be above all name when Manoah enquired after his name the answer was 'T is wounderful i. e. far above thy conception yet here we have his proper name Jehovah which is also called his glory because incommunicable to any creature And my glory will I not give to another To his Son Christ he hath given it Joh. 17.2 who although he is Alius yet he is not Aliud from the Father but of the same nature and essence God hath given being to all things life to many sense to others reason to men and Angels his glory he will not give to any Excellently hereupon Bernard My glory I will not c. what then wilt thou give us Lord Ser. 13. in Cant what wilt thou give us My peace saith he I give you my peace I leave unto you It 's enough for me Lord I thankfully take what thou leavest and leave what thou keepest to thy self c. Ver. 9. Behold the former things are come to passe The Prophecies are fulfilled Before they spring forth I tell you of them Therefore I am the true God undoubtedly and the doctrine of my Prophets is true assuredly veriora quam qua ex tripode Siquidem Satan etsi semel videatur verax millies est mendax semper fallax Ver. 10. Sing unto the Lord a new song The disputation being ended and God having clearly got the better the Prophet singeth this Gratulatory song and calleth upon others to bear a part with him therein and especially for Christ and his benefits aforementioned Ye that go down to the sea i. e. That dwell toward the West of Judea Ver. 11. Let the wilderness Ye that dwell Eastward It was called the wilderness because but thinly inhabited The Villages that Kedar doth inhabit The most fierce and savage people cicurated and civilized by the Gospel preached among them as it is with us at this day De nat deor whose Ancestours were most barbarous and brutish as Tully testifieth Let the inhabitants of the rock Or of Petra the chief City of Arabia Petraea Ver. 12. Let them give glory See ver 10. Ver. 13. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man Or as a Gyant And here by an elegant Hypotyposis the fierce wrath of God against his foes is set forth to the life and appointed also to be sung for a second part of the ditty viz. Christs conquest over sin death and hell whereby we are made more than Conquerours He shall cry yea roar Jubilabit atque etiam barriet he shall make an hideous and horrible noise such as the Roman souldiers did of old when they began the battle Vegerius and as the Turks do at this day on purpose to affright their enemies Ver. 14. I have long time holden my peace As a travelling woman biteth in her pain as long as she is able So had God for causes best known to himself forborn a long while to appear for his people and to avenge them of their enemies But now Patientia laesa fit furor Deique patientia quo diuturnior eo minacior now down goeth Dagon and the devils whole Kingdom before this jealous Gyant Now will I cry like a traevelling woman Which when she can bear no longer sets up her note and is heard all the house over This is very comfortable God is pained as it were for his people in all their afflictions he is afflicted he longs for their deliverance which therefore shall not be long ere it come Ver. 15. I will make waste mountains and hills I will rather invert the order of nature and mingle heaven and earth together than my Church shall want seasonable help I will also remove all obstacles by sending fire upon the earth Luk. 12.49 and bring every high thought into an holy obedience 2 Cor. 10.5 Ver. 16. And I will bring the blind by a way This was fulfilled in the letter to the Jews brought back from Babylon where they had been close prisoners and in the mystery to all Christs converts more especially to that blind boy presented to Bishop Hooper Martyr the day before his death at Glocester Act. Mon. where the boy also had not long before suffered imprisonment for confessing the truth I will make darkness light before By bringing them out of darknesse into my marvellous light 1 Pet. 2.9 Ver. 17. They shall be greatly ashamed Heb. be ashamed with shame because disappointed and defeated as the Papists oft have been when they have fought against Prorestants in that Bellum Hussiticum in Germany especially And yet Bellarmine
the seats they sit on the pillars they lean to the dead bodies they tread upon So shall ye serve strangers God loves to retaliate Ver. 20. Declare this in the house of Jacob c. Cease not to ring it in their ears whether they will hear or whether they will forbear for it is a rebellious people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the number of those who wink willingly that they may not see when some unsavory potion is ministred to them as Justin Martyr expresseth it Ver. 21. Hear now this O foolish people They were strangely stupified and were therefore thus rippled up Those that are in a Lethargy must have a double quantity of Physick to what others have And without understanding Heb. Without an heart Cor sapit pulmo loquitur c. The heart is the symbol and seat of wisdom See Hos 7.11 with the Note Which have eyes and see not c. See Esay 6.9 and 42.20 which have not senses habitually exercised to discern good and evil Heb. 5. ult Ver. 22. Fear ye not me saith the Lord What not me whom the sea it self that tumultuous and unruly creature feareth and obeyeth See Psal 65.7 and 93.4 Who have placed the sand for a bound to the sea A weak bound for so furious an element Vis maris infirmissimo sabuli pulvere cohibetur But so I will have it and then who or what can gainstand it Now who can but be moved at such miracles Know you not that I can soon make your arable sailable and that I can shake the earth as oft as there is a tempest in the Ocean sith the earth is founded not upon solid rocks but fluid waters See 2. Pet. 3.5 By a perpetual decree Heb. by an ordinance of antiquity or of perpetuity clapping it up close prisoner Ver. 23. But this people have a revolting and rebellious heart Cor recedens amaricans gone they are and return they will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Apostates are dangerous creatures and mischievous above others witnesse Julian once a forward professour Lucian once a Preacher at Antioch Staphylus and Latomus once great Lutherans afterwards eager Popelings Harding was the Target of Popery in England saith Peter Moulin against which he had once been a thundering Preacher in this land wishing he could cry out against it as loud as the bells of Oseney Act. Mon. fol. 1291. The Lady Jane Gray whose chaplain he had sometimes been gave him excellent counsel in a letter but he was revolted and gone past call Ver. 24. Neither say they in their hearts God understands heart language and expects a tribute there Let us now fear the Lord Fear him for his goodness as well as for his greatness ver 22. See Hos 3.5 and Notes That giveth rain Which God decreeth Job 28.26 prepareth Psal 147.8 withholdeth Am. 4.7 bestoweth Deut. 28.12 Mat. 5.41 for a witness Acts 17.14 of his general goodness Mat. 5.45 and special providence as a good housholder Act. 14.17 He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of harvest Which if he should deny us but one year only how easily might he starve us all See his love and fear his Name Ver. 25. Your iniquities have turned See on Isa 59.1 2. Ver. 26. For among my people are found wicked men This was as bad as to find a nettle in a garden unchastity in a Virgin or the devil in Paradise All the Lords people are or ought to be holy They lye in wait Or watch or prey See on Mic. 7.2 They set a trap they catch men To spoil them or slay them Such a one was Otto the Popes Muscipulator as the story stileth him i. e. Mice-catcher sent hither by Gregory 9. to take and take away our money Tecelius sent by Leo 10. into Germany was another Ver. 27. As a cage is full of birds so are their houses full of deceit i. e. Of ill-gotten goods which will prove no such catch in the close as they count upon Ver. 28. They are waxen fat they shine Pingues nitidi sunt cutem curant ut Epicuri de grege porci fat they are and fair liking slick and smooth Yea they overpasse the deeds of the wicked They out-sin others Or as some sense it they escape better then others Psal 73.5 Ver. 29. Shall I not visit See ver 9. Ver. 30. A wonderful and horrible thing Res stupenda horrenda an abhorred filth such as may well draw from us an hen hen Domine Deus Is committed in the Land Heb. in this land where men are therefore the worse because they should be better Ver. 31. The Prophets phophecy falsely and the Priests bear rule The chief Priests bearing rule in the causes and consciences of the people had suborned their abbettours ambitious Prophets who applauded their greatness for preferment teaching the people to dote on the titles of Moses chair High-Priests the Temple of the Lord Mat. 15. Aposiopesis de extremo tam deploratae policiae exterminio c. as if there were not many a goodly box in the Apothecaries shop without one dram of any drug therein Such false Prophets were those Pharisees factours for the Priests with their Corban and such also for the Pope are the Jesuites and Seculars which differ only as hot and cold poison both destructive to the State What will ye do Alass what will become of you at last CHAP. VI. Ver. 1. O Ye children of Benjamin These were the Prophets Country-men for Anathoth was in that tribe so was also part of Jerusalem it self He forewarneth them of the enemies approach and bids them be gone The Benjamites were noted for valiant but vitious Judg. 19. Hos 9.9 and 10 9. And blow the trumpet in Tekoah A place that had its name from trumpetting so there is an elegan◠in the Original See the like Mic. 1.10 14. It was twelve miles from Jerusalem and six from Beth-haccerem Here dwelt that wise woman suborned by Joah 2 Sam. 14.2 Life of Ed. 6. by S J. Heyw. Set up a sign of fire A Beacon or such as the fire-crosse is in Scotland where for a signal to the people when the enemy is at hand two fire-brands set across and pitched upon a spear are carried about the Countrey Ver. 2. I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman Certatim amatae Bucolicae puellae some fair Shepherdess to whom the Kings with their armies make love but for no love that they may destroy and spoil her Ver. 3. The Shepherds See on ver 2. Ver. 4. Prepare ye warre against her Say those Chaldean sweet-hearts this is their wooing language like that of the English at Muscleborough Let us go up at noon Let us lose no time why burn we day-light by needless delays Ver. 5. Let us destroy her Palaces Where we shall find all precious substance we shall fill our hands with spoile as Prov. 1.13 Ver. 6. For thus hath the
this is elegantly here set forth and in the two next verses but better times are at hand Flebile principium melior fortuna sequetur Ver. 6. Ask ye now and see c. Was it ever heard of in this world that a male did bear The Poets indeed fable that Minerva was born of Jupiters brain Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi fas est Wherefore do I see every man Heb. Every strong or mighty man With their hands on their loynes And not on their weapons And all faces turned into palenesse Through extream fear the blood running to the heart and the heart faln into the heeles The Septuagins for palenesse have the yellew jaundise the Vulgar gold-yellownesse Piscator Morbus regius the Hebrew properly implyeth the colour of blasted corn Deut. 28.22 It importeth that the most stout-hearted warriours should be enervati exangues more parturientium bloodlesse and spiritlesse as travelling women Ver. 7. Alasse for that day is great i. e. Troublesome and terrible somewhat like the last day the day of judgement which is therefore also called the Great day because therein the great God will do great things c. It is even the time of Jacobs trouble Such as never befell him before Those very dayes shall be Affliction so Mark expresseth the last desolation chap. 13.19 not Afflicted only but Affliction it self But though it be the time of Jacobs troubles let it be also the time of his trust for there will be shortly a day of his Triumph But he shall be saved out of it Not from it but yet out of it the Lord knoweth how to deliver his 2 Pet. 2.9 and though Sense say it will not be Reason it cannot be yet Faith gets above and sayes it shall be I descry land Ver. 8. I will break his yoak from off thy neck The forementioned misery did but make way for this mercy that it might be the more magnified Let the Saints but see from what to what and by what Jesus Christ hath delivered them and they cannot but be thankful Ver. 9. But they shall serve their Lord their God Without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of their lives Luk. 1.74 75. See Joh. 8. Rom. 8. And David their King i. e. Zorobabel of Davids line Hag. 2.23 but especially Christ the King of Saints as the Jew-Doctours also expound it Whom I will raise up to them To be Messiah the Prince Dan. 9.25 Christ the Lord Act. 5 31. Ver. 10. Therefore fear thou not O my servant Jacob This is Isay-like and indeed the Prophet here setteth himself verbis consolantissimis as one saith with most cordial comforts to chear the hearts of Gods poor afflicted Ver. 11. For I am with thee To preserve thee and to provide for thee to support thee and to supply thee Though I make a full end of all Nations See Isa 27.7 8. with the Notes See also on chap. 5.10 18. But I will correct thee in measure Heb. According to judgement not summo jure rigidâ justitiâ not as I might but in mercy and with moderation Aliqui reddunt Mundando non mundabo te id est non excoquam te exacte ad purum putum And will not leave thee altogether unpunished Heb. Et innocentando non innocentabo te in very faithfulnesse I will afflict thee that I may be true to thy soul and not cruel to thy body Ver. 12. Thy bruise is incurable i. e. Inevitable by Gods irrevocable decree Or it is incureable in it self but not to me who am an Almighty Physician or Chirurgion See Ezek. 37.11 they seemed free among the dead free of that company Ver. 13. There is none to plead thy cause Thou art friendlesse That thou mayst be bound up Thou art helplesse Ver. 14. All thy lovers have forgotten thee Thy sweet-hearts thine Idols thy carnal friends thy Priests Prophets riches pleasures all these have given thee the bag as we say they stand aloof from thy help They seek thee not Sink thou mayst or swim for them thou art no part of their care For I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy As if I cared not where I hit thee or how much I hurt thee Crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit With the chastisement of a cruel one So it may seem and so Job thought chap. 30.21 but that was his errour See here what a passe a Saint may be at and how deeply he may suffer when his sins are increased God out of love displeased may lay upon him and not spare leave bloody wailes on his back c. For the multitude of thine iniquities Because thy sins are many and mighty or hony See Am. 5.12 with the Note Ver. 15. Why cryest thou for thine affliction And not rather for thy sins cry not perii but peccavi not I am undone but I have done very foolishly See Lam. 3.39 40. Ver. 16. Therefore all they that devoured thee shall be devoured Or neverthelesse or yet all they that devoured thee c. q. d. That thou mayst experience that in love I corrected thee and for thy good though to thy so great grief I will have my penny worths on thine enemyes measuring to them as they have done to thee Ver. 17. For I will restore health It goes best with the Church when worst with her enemies It shall do so much more when all Christs foes shall be made his footstool Because they called thee an outcast Concluding so from thine afflictions Quam chara dus esset docuit quod est victa quod elocata quod servata Cic. pâ—o Flacco The Jewish Nation saith Tully shew how well God regards them that have been so oft subdued by the Chaldees Greeks Romans c. This was but a slender argument only God is moved by the enemies insolencies and insultations to look in mercy the rather upon his poor despised and despited people Saying This is Zion whom no man seeketh after Illusio ex allusione this was a jear by playing upon her name as if Zion signified a dry or waste place Per ludibrium blasphemam contumeliam and therefore not much to be desired Strabo indeed saith as much of Judaea And Mount Zion at this day nihil habet eximium nihil expetendum hath no great desireablenesse in it But certainly Judea was once a land flowing with milk and honey and Mount Zion was in no small request Howsoever none ought by their bitter taunts to add affliction to the afflicted but rather to weep with those that weep be pittiful be courteous 1 Pet. 3.8 Ver. 18. The captivity of Jacobs tents i. e. The poor captives that now live at Babylon as strangers in tents or huts And the City shall be builded upon her own heap Or hill sc in Mount Moriah Jerusalem shall be inhabited in Jerusalem Zech. 12. All this was prolusio perfectae liberationis in Christo saith Junius a type and pledge
in the midst of their revels And thou wâ—st not aware The palace was suddenly seized upon but some parts of the City knew not that the enemy was entred till three dayes after for it was the greatest City that ever the Sun beheld Aristot Pollt Paus Arcad. saith Pausanias and the most suddainly surprized Because thou hast striven against the Lord Heb. hast mingled thy self with the Lord incertamen scilicet to wrestle and fall with him and to try masteries Ver. 25. The Lord hath opened his armory Heb. treasury Now Gods armory is omne id sub caelo usque ad diabolos all things both in heaven and under the cope of heaven as far as the very devils whereby he is able to subdue his enemies and to bring them to nothing Out of this treasury God took Darius and Cyrus with their forces and set them upon this expedition Ver. 26. Come against her This he speaketh to the Medes and Persians who though they were farther remote then they that could heare the Prophet yet God who spake by him could and did speak home to their hearts stirring them up by a secret instinct to do this execution Ver. 27. Slay all her bullocks Heb. sword them sheath your swords in their sides See ver 24. Ver. 28. The vengeance of his Temple Spoiled and burnt by the Chaldeans those wasters as their name also signifieth Woe then to such as destroy Gods living Temples Ver. 29. According to all that she hath done See ver 15. For she hath been proud against the Lord Who setteth himself in battle array against the proud 1 Pet. 5.5 Ver. 30. Therefore shall her young men See on chap. 49 26. Ver. 31. Behold I am against thee O most proud Heb. O pride in the abstract i. e. O Balshazzar as of a certain Pope was said Conditur hoc tumulo scelus vitium Ver. 32. And the most proud shall stumble Heb. Pride or that man of pride Praefractarius ille so Oecolampadius rendreth it that stubborn man who will do wickedly against conviction of conscience Ver. 33. The children of Judah and the children of Israel were oppressed together Or were oppressed alike sc In their several deportations and God mindful of his Covenant sheweth himself sensible of it though for present he seemed not to care what became of either of them Ille dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox Ver. 34. Their Redeemer is strong Or But their strong Avenger whose name is the Lord of hostes he shall thoroughly plead their cause i. e. right their wrongs That he may give rest to the land See on 2 Thes 1.8 9. Ver. 35. A sword is upon the Chaldaeans Those sworn swordmen of the Devil Ver. 36. A sword is upon the lyars i. e. The prognosticators and wizzards Mendaces nominat divinos as it was wont here to be saâ—d A friar a lyar Ver. 37. A sword is upon their horses Upon all their military preparations whereof see Herodot lib. 1. They shall become as womer Elumbes cowardly and crestfaln A sword is upon her treasures Which how inestimable they were see Strabo lib. 15. and Plin. lâ—b 33. cap. 3. Ver. 38. A drought is upon her waters Which Cyrus did so drain by many out-lets that without any great difficulty he took the City assâ—ulting it on two sides Lib. 3. cap. 7. Frontinus saith that thrice Babylon was taken by this stratagem 1. By Semiramis 2. By Cyrus 3. By Alexander the Great And they are mad upon their idols Deos terrificos truces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statues of their Kings and Worthies which were of a huge vast stature See Dan. 3.1 Ver. 39. Therefore the wild beasts of the desart See Esa 13.21 Ver. 40. At God overthrew Sodom See Esay 13.19 and chap. 49.18 Ver. 41. Behold a people shall come from the North As ver 3.9 See chap. 6.22 Ver. 42. Against thee O daughter of Babylon In like sort as thou didst once against Gods Israel chap. 6.23 Now thou shalt meet with thy match Ver. 43. The King of Babylon c. See chap. 6.24 Dan. 5.6 Ver. 44. Behold he shall come up See chap. 49.19 Ver. 45. See on chap. 49.20 Ver. 46. See on chap. 49.22 CHAP. LI. Ver. 1. BEhold I will raise up against Babylon and against them that dwel in the midest sc Of the land of Chaldaea in the royal seat and center of that great Monarchy Ventum pestilentem Vulg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. A destroying wind Blasting and boisterous See chap. 4.11 12. Ver. 2. And I will send unto Babylon fannâ—rs Who shall make as clean work as they once did in Judaea disperse her inhabitants and dissipate her riches Ver. 3. Against him that bendeth Periphrasis Babylonii omnibus gentibus infesti Ver. 4. Thus the slain shall fall Both within the walls and without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall be neither measure nor end of manslaughters as Plutrach saith of Rome in Sylla's time Ver. 5. For Israel hath not been forsaken Heb. widowed Though their Land was filled with sin Heb. guilt or delinquency or devastation This Scripture hath been fully made good to us of this Nation whilst the fulnesse of sin in us hath not yet abated the fulnesse of grace in God toward us See those four gracious Yets Zach. 1.17 with the Notes there Ver. 6. Flee out of the midst of Babylon See chap. 50.8 So in the new Testament we are called upon to flee and avoid the corruptions of the world and of Antichrist 1 Joh. 2. Ephes 5. Rev. 14. 18.4 For this is a time c. As chap. 50.15 25 27 28. So 46.10 Ver. 7. Babylon hath been a golden cup See chap. 25.15 Rev. 17.4 In the Lords hand i. e. Oeconomiâ dispensatione ejus He had the mixing and distributing of it Ver. 8. Babylon is suddenly fallen Chap. 50.2 So ruet alto à culmine Roma Rev. 14.8 18.2 10. If so be she may be healed q.d. Try you may but t is to no purpose See c. 46.11 Ver. 9. We would have healed Babylon Say the forrein nations that came to help her or the people of God Vox electorum Oecolamp say others that were kept captive by her as Daniel the rest But she is not healed Or she could not be healed See Hos 7.1 For her judgement reacheth unto heaven It coelo clamor proportionable to her sin Rev. 18.5 Ver. 10. The Lord hath brought forth our righteousnesse i. e. Our just cause and the righteousnesse of our religion derided by the Babylonians Ver. 11. Make bright the arrows q. d. Do so O Chaldaeans if ye think it will boot you any thing at all for the shoaring up of your tottering State when as the Lord is resolved to bring it down Hortatio Iâ—onicâ— Pisc Ver. 12. Set up the standard An Irony all along as ver 11. Ver. 13. O thou that dwellest upon many waters Euphrates and Tigris especially famous rivers
and sith they think us not worthy to breath in the common aire whom thou hast made heires of the world together with faithful Abraham our Progenitour destroy them from under these heavens of thine in the compass and cope whereof thou raignest and rulest all From under the heavens of the Lord Do thou O Christ to whom the Father hath committed all judgment root them out from under the heavens of thy heavenly Father Thus some Paraphrase the words and observe therehence the mystery of the Trinity like as they do from Gen. 19.24 CHAP. IV. Pet. à Figueir Ver. 1. HOw is the gold become dim How by way of wonderment again as chap. 1.2 q. d. Quo tanto scelere hominum qua tanta indignatione Dei What have men done and how hath God been provoked that there are such strange alterations here all on the sudden By gold and fine gold here understand the Temple overlaid by Solomon with choice gold or Gods people his spiritual Temple who had now lost their lustre and dignity The stones of the Sanctuary are poured out Come tumbling down from the demolished Temple Ver. 2. The precious sons of Zion Those Porphyrogeniti as the Greek Emperours children were called Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because born and bred up in a room made up of precious stones Understand it of the Jews in general Gods peculiar people precious in his sight and therefore honourable Isa 43.4 of Zedekiahs sons in particular who as did also the rest of the Jewish Nobility if Josephus may be beleeved poudered their hair with gold dust Antiq. l. 8. c. 7. to the end that they might glister and sparkle against the beams of the Sun The precious children of the Church are all glorious within by means of the graces of the Spirit that golden oyle Zach. 4.12 and the blessings of God out of Zion Psal 134.3 which are far beyond all other the blessings of heaven and of earth As earthen pitchers Weak and worthlesse Ver. 3. Even the sea-monsters Heb. Whales or Seales which being Amphibii have both a willingnesse Vulg. Lamiae and a place convenient to suckle their whelps The daughter of my people is become cruel She is so perforce being destitute of milk for want of food but much more by feeding upon them ver 10. and chap. 2.20 Oh what a mercy is it to have meat and how inexcusable are those unnatural mothers that neglect to nurse their children not out of want but wantonnesse Surely as there is a blessing of the womb to bring forth so of the brests to give suck Gen. 49.25 and the dry breasts and barren womb have been taken for a curse Hos 9.14 as some interpret that text Ver. 4. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth For want of suck That was a miracle which is recorded of the old woman of Bolton in Lancashire who took up a poor child that lay crying at the breasts of her dead mother slain among many others by Prince Ruperts party and laying it to her own dry breasts that had not yeelded suck for above twenty years before on purpose to still it had milk came to nourish it to the admiration and astonishment of all beholders This and another like example of Gods good providence for the releif of little ones whom their mothers could not relieve may be read of in Mr. Clarks Mirror for Saints and Sinners Edit 3. fol. 495 507. And no man breaketh it unto them The parents either not having it for them or not having an heart to part with it to them Ver. 5. They that did feed delicately Such uncertainty there is of outward affluence Our Richad the second was famished to death Speed Lib. 3. c. 4. Henry Holland Duke of Excester grand-child to John of Gaunt was seen to run on foot bare-legged after the Duke of Burgundy's train begging his bread for Gods sake This I saw saith Philip de Comines This Henry was brother in law to King Edward the fourth from whom he fled They that were brought up in scarlet Qui nutriebantur in croceis sen cocceis In fimetis victum quaeritant prae inopia Jun. that were gorgeously arrayed or that rolling on their rich beds wrapped themselves in costly coverlets Embrace dunghils There take up their lodgings and there also are glad to find any thing to feed on though never so course and homely The Lapwing is made an Hieroglyphick of infelicity because he hath as a coronet upon the head and yet feedeth upon the worst of excrements It is pitty that any child of God washt in Christ's blood should bedabble his scarlet robe in the stinking guzzle of the worlds dunghill that any one who hath heretofore soared as an Eagle should now creep on the ground as a bettle or wallow as a swine in the mire of sensuality Ver. 6. For the punishment of the iniquity of Zion is greater For Sodom was destroyed by Angels Zion by malicious men The enemies were not enriched by Sodom as they were by Zion Sodom was destroyed in an instant not so Zion for she had her punishment piecemeal first a long seige and then the loss of all after a world of miseries sustained in the seige Julius Caesar was wont to say It is better once to fall then alwaies to hang in suspence Augustus wished that he might dye suddenly His life he called a Comedy and said that he thought he had acted his part therein pretty handsomly Now if he might soon passe through death he would hold it an happinesse Souldiers wish is thus set forth by the Poet quid enim concurritur horae Momento aut cita mors venit aut victoria laeta It is the ancient and manful fashion of the English who are naturally most impatient of lingering mischiefs to put their quarrels to the trial of the sword Speed 963. as the Chronicler observeth Ver. 7. Her Nazarites Who served God in a singular way of abstinence above other men These had their rules given them Num. 6. which whiles they observed They were purer then snow whiter then milk Temperance is the mother of beauty as luxury is of deformity This is nothing to the Popish Votaryes those Epicures and Abby-lubbers Quorum luxuriae totus non sufficit orbis Some by Nazarites here understand their Nobles and such as wore coronets on their heads Nezar is a crown 2 Sam. 1.10 2 Kings 11.12 thus Joseph was a Nazarite Gen. 49.26 So Daniel and his three Associates in whom that was verified Gratior est pulchro veniens in corpore virtus Ver. 8. Their visage is blacker then a coal Heb. their visage is more darkned then blacknesse sc With famine fear grief and car those vultures have so fed upon them that all sightlinesse and lovelinesse is lost Think the same of Apostates God may complain of such as Mic. 2.8 Ver. 9. They that be slain with the sword are better They suffer lesse pain in dying
〈◊〉 famous for its incredible greatnesse fair situation pillars and Pyramids It was the seat royal of the Sultans till taken by the Turks from Camson Gaurus and the Mamalukes about the year 1515. And there shall be no more a Prince For forty years at least Ver. 14. And I will set fire See on ver 8. On Zoan Or Tanis the inhabitants whereof are said to be those giants called Titanes And will execute judgements in No Populous No Nahum 3.8 called afterwards Alexandria now Scanderoen Ver. 15. And I will pour my fury upon Sin Called afterwards Pelusium Deserto Sinis nomen dedit and now Damiata The strength of Egypt The key of the Kingdom Ver. 16. I will set fire on Egypt See ver 8. Ver. 17. Aven Called also Heliopolis and Thebe Phibeseth Or Bubaestis called by Ptolomy Herâ—um civitas Ver. 18. At Tehaphnehes Or Daphne the gate of Egypt at which the Chaldees entred A cloud shall cover her See ver 3. Ver 19. And they shall know See on ver 8. Ver. 20. In the eleventh year The year wherein Jerusalem was destroyed notwithstanding Pharaoh's fair promises and proffers to relieve her Ver. 21. I have broken the arm Ita ut nulla arte vel ope so that by no means or medicines it can be made whole again Losses received in war can hardly be repaired Ver. 22. And will break his armes I will utterly disable him and drive the field of him he shall neither be able to defend himself or offend his enemy See Psal 37.17 Ver. 23. And I will scatter the Egyptians Send them captive into other countryes as by a whirlwind or Hurrican This Metaphor we have oft met with He was afterwards hanged Herod Ver. 24. And I will strengthen the armes of the King of Babylon God as he sends the sword chap. 14.17 musters the men Esa 13.4 orders the ammunition Jer. 50.25 renders the weapons vain or prosperous Esa 54. ult so he strengtheneth and weakeneth the arm of either party Ver. 25. But I will strengthen See ver 25. And they shall know See on ver 8. Ver. 26. See ver 23. They would hardly beleeve it and therefore are so oft assured it CHAP. XXXI Ver. 1. IN the third moneth Two moneths after the former Prophecy and a moneth before the City was taken Ver. 2. Speak unto Pharaoh Unto Pharaoh-Hophra chap. 29.2 Say unto him though it will be to small purpose Hear and give ear Jer. 13.15 be not proud for the Lord hath spoken it Whom art thou like in thy greatnesse q. d. Thou thinkest thy self the only one and that there is none such but what sayest thou to the Assyrian whom yet the Babylonian hath now laid low enough Ver. 3. Behold the Assyrian was a Cedar See chap. 17.3 22 23. Dan 4.10 11. with the Notes The cedar is a very tall fair shady leavy and lively tree Such was Esar-haddon King of Assyria once a most potent Monarch now not the master of a mole-hill Now therefore by an argument from the greater to the lesse if he so fell through his pride shalt not thou much more Ver. 4. The waters made him great He had a confluence of all prosperities Watered he was non aquis sed abyssis est autem abyssus inexhausta felicitas rerum affluentia He over abounded with all outward happinesse in wealth victories and triumphs he gave place to no man Oecol Ver. 5. And his bought were multiplied Amplissima ludit copia verborum Ver. 6. All the foules See Dan. 4.12 Ver. 7. Thus was be fair in his greatnesse Once again he setteth forth with how great power and glory God had adorned this first Monarchy Ver. 8. The Cedars in the garden of God No Kingdom in the world was comparable to the Assyrian for thirteen hundred years together Ver. 9. So that all the trees of Eden envyed him Summa petit livor The tallest trees are weakest in the tops and envy alwayes aimeth at the highest Ver. 10. Because thou hast lifted up thy selfe Here he comes to describe casum cladem the downfal and destruction of this flourishing Empire beginning with a short Apostrophe to Pharaoh Be not high-minded but fear Believe not him who said Decent secundas fortunas superbiae pride well becometh prosperity Plaut but rather beleeve what another saith and experience confirmeth Sequitur superbos ultor à tergo Deus God punisheth the proud surely and severely Seneca A better authour then either of them telleth us that Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly then to divide the spoil with the proud Prov. 16.18 19. Ver. 11. I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one Of Merodach Baladan who of Governour had made himself King of Babylon Metashenes Josephus lib. 1. c. 2. and in the twelfth year of his raign having overcome Esarhaddon son to Sennacherib and last Monarch of Assyria he adjoyned that whole Empire to the Babylonians and reigned after that forty years He shall surely deal with him Heb. In doing he shall do unto him Pro sibitu tractabo Piscat i. e. he shall do what his list with him as Tamerlan since did with Bajazet whom he carried about in an iron cage using him on festival dayes for a footstool and feeding him like a dog with crumbes fallen from his table All which Tamerlan did Turk Hist 220. not so much for hatred to the man saith the Historiographer as to manifest the just judgement of God against the arrogant folly of the proud Ver. 12. And strangers have cut him off The greatet wealth the greater spoil awaiteth a man as each one desireth to lop the tree that hath thick and large boughs and branches And his boughs are broken i. e. His Vasals homagers and auxiliaries And all the people of the earth Who once sheltered under his shadow But the rule is Arbor honoretur cujus nos umbra tuetur And have left him And joyned themselves to the Babylonian Sic cum fortuna statque caditque fides Ovid. Ver. 13. Vpon his ruine shall all the foules His dead body shall want decent burial as afterward did great Alexanders great Pompeyes our William the Conquerours Richard the thirds c. Ver. 14. To the end thaâ— none of all the trees This is the use men should make of Gods heavy judgements upon others This mans father Sennacherib had a statue set up in Egypt saith Herodotus with this inscription Lib. 2. Let him that looketh upon my misery learn to be modest and to fear God Neither their trees stand up in their height Neque stent in seipsis neither stand in themselves because of their height Magna repente ruunt In te stas non stas said the Oracle to Austin thou standest on thine own bottom thou wilt surely down For they are all delivered unto death Without
loaden bellyes make leaden wits saith the Greek Senary and Pinguis venter macra mens saith Jerom a fat belly maketh a lean mind A body farced with delicious meats and drinks unfitteth a man for divine contemplation Ver. 17. As for these four children God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning Both natural and supernatural In the Art of Grammar saith Symmachus in every book saith the Latin Interpreter There was potus ex fonte fletus in prece somnus in codice as Ambrose speaketh they drank Adams-ale prayed with tears slept with a book in their hands Whether they read the curious books of the Magicians fitter to be burnt Acts 19.19 is another question Osiander thinketh that their Chaldaean Tutours would have obtruded upon them such kind of learning also but as they abstained from the Kings meat so they did likely from such corrupt and unlawful arts Other commendable learning they looked into as did also Moses Solomon Paul c. But what meant Pope Paul the second to condemn all learned Artists for hereticks and to tell his Romans that it was learning enough for a man to be able to read and write Nebuchadnezzar was of another mind Jac. Rev. de vit Pont. 244. and Daniel and his fellows went further then so Learning hath no enemy but Ignorance In all visions and dreams i. e. In all kind of Prophecy See Num. 12.6 Ver. 18. Now at the end of the dayes i. e. After three years time of studying See on ver 5. Account is to be exacted of time and profiting Pliny said to his Nephew Plin. Epist when he saw him walk out some hours without studying Poteras has horas non perdere you might have spent these hours better Ignatius when he heard a clock strike would say Here 's one hour more now past that I have to answer for Archbishop Vssier on his death-bed begg'd hard of God to pardon his Omissions who yet was never known to omit an hour His life by D. Bernard but ever employed in his Masters business reading writing preaching resolving doubts c. Ver. 19. And the King communed with them It seems he was himself a learned King able to pose them and put them to 't So was Alexander the Great Ptolomy Philadelph Julius Cesar Constantine the Great Charles the Great Alphonsus of Arragon our Henry the first surnamed Beauclerk and King James who was able to confer learnedly with any man in his faculty Alphonsus was wont to say that an unlearned King was but a crowned Asse and that he would not be without that little learning he had for all that he was worth besides And among them all was found none like Daniel Hananiah Mâ—shael and Azariah That which Patricius saith of the son of Juba King of Namidia taken captive by Julius Cesar may fitly be applied to these four noble captives Quicquid nobilitatis fortuna eripuerat id longe accumulatius ei restituerat bonarum artium disciplixa what lustre soever they had lost by their captivity was abundantly made up and restored by their excellent learning Therefore stood they before the King Who had no sooner proved them but he highly approved them Cicero O Hortensii admodum adolescentu ingenium ut Phidiae signum simul aspectum probatum est So Daniels and the rest neither need we wonder sith beside all other helps they were taught of God Ver. 20. And in all matters of wisdom God will honour them that honour him his gifts and graces he giveth to pure souls and according to their study of purity as to Daniel chiefly He found them ten times better Masters of knowledge skilled usque ad apices literarum Mr. Fuller and therefore highly favoured by the King who was himself a great Philosopher Daniel was a Leviathan of learning both divine and humane as one saith of Archbishop Vssier Vnicum istius aetatis miraculum Musarum delicium as Erasmus saith of Alciat the Miracle of his age and the Muses darling one that better deserved for his learning to be called Magnus then ever Albertus did The perfection even of humane Arts is to be found in the Church see my common place of Aâ—ts Ver. 21. And Daniel continued c. And afterwards also though shrewdly lifted at under Darius chap. 6.4 and in the third year of Cyrus he was overborn by the Councellours hired to hinder the building of the Temple whom he could not withstand and therefore kept an extraordinary fast Ezra 4.5 with Dan. 10.3 4. CHAP. II. Ver. 1. ANd in the second year Of Daniels advancement chap. 1.19 20. Or as Josephus hath it post annum secundum Aegyptiacae vastitatis in the second year after that Nebuchadnezzar had subdued Egypt and other Countries and so established his Monarchy whereupon likely was begun a new computation of the years of his reign Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams All was but one dream but of many and weighty matters Quid sunt regna omnesque res spes mortalium niâ— somnia vigilantium Plato Wherewith his spirit was troubled God can easily trouble the troublers of his Israel and make the ringleader of their bondage the Trumpetter of their Trophy even nomen illud prolixum terrificum Nebuchadnezzar Ver. 2. Then the King commanded to call the Magicians These had Cham for their founder saith Pintus but who can tell that Daniel haply was forgotten by Nebuchadnezzar as David had sometime been by Saul 1 Sam. 17.55 56. A sweet Providence it was that he was not called among the Magicians God will not have his matched or mingled with wicked ones Ver. 3. I have dreamed a dream His thoughts had been occupied belike about the issue of his Kingdoms and thereupon he had a divine vision He that is moderately careful about the affairs of his lawful calling shall not be destitute of divine direction And my spirit was troubled Heb. Troubled it self Jesus also troubled himself but without sin Joh. 11.33 See the Note there Ver. 4. Then spake the Chaldaeans to the King in Syriack i. e. In Chaldee whence there is here no Chaldee Paraphrase or else if the Syriack were then a distinct tongue from the Chaldee as now it is it was belike their learned language as now the Arabick is among the Turkes O King live for ever In this most officious salutation they flatter him say some or averre the immortality of the soul as others or wish him a long life as also Daniel doth afterwards And we will shew the interpretation Impostors are great braggers but as the Peacock in setting up his taile sheweth his Posteriors so do these get to themselves shame Ver. 5. The thing is gone from me He had dreamt of Monarchies and now forgotten his dream He might have hereby learned that Kingdoms are but phantasmata ludicra empty bubbles pleasant follies children and tales of fancy c. The fashion of this world passeth away 1 Cor. 7.31 surely every man walketh in a vain