whatever sinners dream yet there is no resisting nor abiding of a day of vengeance nor any refuge against it but by turning to God by faith and unfeigned repentance For so much is held out in this further confirmation of the reason of the strength of this Army for the day of the Lord and not of the appearing of these creatures only is great and very terrible and who can abide it Ver. 12. Therefore also now saith the LORD Turne ye even to me withall your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning 13. And rent your heart and not your garments and turne unto the LORD your God for he is gracious and merciful flow to anger and of great kindnesse and repenteth him of the evil Followeth the second part of the Chap. wherein the Lord calls upon them to make right use of this calamity and of the warning given them This he doth in two exhortations whereof the first in these verses is That they should set about sincere repentance and humiliation testified by holy private fasts and unfeigned sorrow and so prove that they are really converted to God and reconciled to him through faith in the Mediatour v. 12. and that they should study to be rather afflicted in spirit for sin then by performance of externall ceremonies to pretend to it only v. 13. Unto this exhortation two reasons are subjoyned the first whereof in the end of v. 13. is taken from the properties of God who is merciful and gracious not easily provoked rich in kindnesse and who upon sinners repentance is ready to recall his threatenings that they be not executed Doct. 1. Were there never so many plagues on sinners yet God is not bound to take notice of them so long as they repent not And were there never so much terrour and affliction of spirit upon men under feared or felt judgements Yet all these serve to no purpose if they stir not up to repentance and they must be mad who being in such a condition yet do not set about that duty Therefore after all the representation of plagues and of terrour upon men they are called to this as the only remedy and way to an issue and as the duty which they cannot but minde who are seriously affected with such a condition Therefore turne ye See Psal 106.44 Jer. 31.18 19 20. 2. When God is threatening most sadly and proceeding most severely he would be still understood as inviting by these to repentance and willing to accept of it For the Lord who threatens doth exhort and he brings it in with a therefore or upon the back of the former discourse to shew that this is his scope in all of it Therefore saith the Lord Turne ye 3. Such as have been so long abusers of Gods patience as matters seem irremediable and stroakes are either imminent or incumbent should not for all that look upon the exercise of repentance as too late and out of season but ought to judge that it is good even then to set about it and that it will do good however matters go Therefore notwithstanding they were in this sad plight yet the Lord exhorts them even now also to turne 4 Such as do minde repentance especially when God declareth himself angry would not linger nor delay to set about it So much also may be imported in that now also they should turn 5. Whatever doubts such as are humbled under judgements may have that their repentance will not be accepted yet they are bound to answer all these from Gods naked Word who giveth the invitation to such Therefore is the exhortation given to such in his Name to remove all doubts Turn ye saith the Lord. 6. Repentance for particular sins under sad judgements will neither be right nor acceptable so long as men do not minde conversion to God and a change of their state by regeneration that so the tree being good the fruits may be answerable Therefore doth he begin with turne ye to me where the exhortation doth not import any power in man but only points out his duty and sheweth that exhortation is a mean which God blesseth to his Elect and not only deals thereby with them as with rational creatures but therewith imparts strength that they may obey 7. In turning unto God men would beware of being faint or feigned but would study to be sincere and single since they cannot attain to perfection For this in a Gospel-sense is to turn even to me with all your heart 8. As men would begin at conversion to God so they would therewith study to be deeply affected for sin and bygone evils and under the judgements procured thereby and would evidence their affliction of spirit by sorrow and humiliation suitable in some measure to their condition Therefore is it added as an evidence and companion of the former turn ye with fasting and with weeping and with mourning or with such sorrow as is usual in mourning for the dead and expressed not only by wailing but by smiting on the breast and the like gestures It is a change to be suspected where men please themselves with their present good condition and do lightly passe over their former miscarriages And albeit signes and expressions of sorrow be not alwayes at command when men are most afflicted yet repentance for grosse and long continued in iniquity and under extraordinary judgements would not be past over in an ordinary and common way 9. It is our duty in performing repentance and a good evidence of it when our stout hearts are broken and afflicted with the sense of sin and of Gods displeasure for it Therefore it is subjoyned and rent your heart or every one his own heart which is not to be understood literally but that they should be afflicted in spirit as Ps 51.17 10. We are prone to hypocrisie and ought to beware of dallying with God even when we are in greatest distresse and making fairest shewes of repentance Therefore is it needful to qualifie this exhortation rent your heart and not your garments 11. God is not pleased nor will a true penitent be pleased with externall performances and ceremonies neglecting substance For saith he rent your heart and not your garments However they made frequent use of this signe in times of great sorrow as Gen. 37.34 2 Sam. 13.19 Job 1.20 and frequently yet God doth not allow of it when it is alone or preferred to the other as is said in another case Hos 6.6 though we are willing to do many things rather then bow and afflict our hearts before God 12. In all these exercises of repentance we would again and again take heed that we deceive not our selves in the matter of our conversion and pretend only to it till our particular distresse be removed and though we finde our selves reall yet we are to look on it as a work wherein we should still make progresse Therefore after the former exhortation v. 12. it is again subjoyned and turn
be left of them but their noisome stinke and this he will do because or though they had done great things against Gods people As for that which is said and will drive him to a land c. with his face toward the East-Sea c. it may be either understood thus that though they were so many as to fill the breadth of the land from the East or Dead Sea to the West or Mediterranean Sea Yet he would drive them to the Wildernesse and kill them there or rather that the main bulk and body of them should be driven into the Wildernesse their fore-party into the dead sea and their reere into the West-sea there to die However it teacheth 1. Scourges and hurtful things were they never so dreadful yet God who sends them can drive them away and consume them when he will for I will remove farre off from you the Northern armie which had beene dreadful before And he can make use of Wildernesses and Seas even the uselesse dead Sea to help his people against their enemies I will drive him into a land barren and desolate c. 2. God can let scourges be seene how contemptible they are when he hath done with them for this formidable armie serveth for nothing but to stink above ground his stink shall come up and his ill savour shall come up 3. Instruments of Gods vengeance against his people will gaine nothing by their paines but stroaks And though they have acted much yet God will reach them for all this done because or although he the Northern armie hath done great things Ver. 21. Fear not O land be glad and rejoyce for the LORD will do great things 22. Be not afraid ye beasts of the field for the pastures of the wildernesse do spring for the tree beareth her fruit the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength These promises are for more assurance and comfort applied and amplified And first application is made to the land that it should not fear but rejoyce seeing God was to do great things and to the beasts that they should lay aside their fear since the earth was to be blessed with pasture and fruit This speaking to the land and beasts doth not import them capable but God by this would speak to the comfort of the penitent And it teacheth 1 The Lord would have his promises and comforts applied by them to whom they are given for their refreshment So much doth this application of the former promises import 2. Gods kindnesse to penitents will be such as not only to refresh themselves but to gladden and refresh their land their beasts and all in their kinde for so is held out here 3. Penitents are instrumental to draw down blessings on themselves and on what they enjoy for now the mourning land ch 1.10 and the crying beasts ch 1.18 20. are made to rejoyce 4. Gods care of the earth and of very cattel may assure penitents of his respects to them If he respect the lands affliction and the beasts how much more theirs See Matth. 6.26 30. 5. God when he pleaseth can make fears end in joy and the hope thereof should bring joy when fear is yet on for so much is held out in the command to the land Fear not be glad and rejoyce and that in hope 6. Gods great power who promiseth and who hath given proof thereof in executing threatenings may guard against fear and afford ground of hope were the thing promised never so great and difficult for so is held forth in the reason of joy that the Lord who had done great things by that Army v. 20. will do great things 7. God can and in due time will remove the feares of his people by giving actual proofes of his love for so are they encouraged by the promise made to the beasts for their sake and good v. 22. Be not afraid ye beasts of the field for the pastures of the wildernesse do spring c. Ver. 23. Be glad then ye children of Zion and rejoyce in the LORD your God for he hath given you the former raine moderately and he will cause to come down for you the raine the former raine and the latter raine in the first moneth 24. And the floores shall he full of wheat and the fats shall overflow with wine and oile 25. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten the cankerworme and the catterpiller and the palmerworme my great army which I sent among you Secondly the promises are applied to the Church whom he exhorteth to rejoyce And that because 1. He will give them which he speaks of as done because of reall certainty raine in due season and measure and make the effects prove it a reall blessing v. 23 24. 2. Because by succeeding plenty he will make up the losse they sustained by the years of famine v. 25. Whence learn 1. Whoever misse of joy yet God will have his penitent Church and people to rejoyce and they are allowed to have as much and as solid joy as any and more Therefore are the children of Zion called to it 2. The Lord must not only afford matter of joy and comfort to his people but must speak and apply it to their heart and stir them up to rejoyce in it before it work Therefore is this exhortation and application needful Be glad then ye children of Zion and rejoyce 3. Common favours and benefits should be unto the Lords people but as a step leading them up to rejoyce in God and not to be rested on themselves Therefore though the promise be of plenty yet they are to rejoyce in the Lord their God and because of a special interest in him See Jer. 9.23 24. Luke 10.19 20. 4. Common favours given so a people upon repentance do warrant them to rejoyce in God as evidencing his respect unto them and interest in them even by these For so the penitents here are upon this promise commanded rejoyce in the Lord your God 5. As man needs many things for his subsistence and for furnishing the meanes thereof as raine at several seasons to make the earth fruitful So the Lords measuring and timing of outward mercies is that which makes them mercies indeed for though rain be needful yet it is the blessing of it that he giveth it moderately and that he sends the former raine and the latter raine in the first moneth which was the season as appeareth of the latter rain concerning which it is not needful to make further inquiry Only what is here said of raine holds good in all outward mercies that it is the great advantange of Saints that the disposing of them is in the hand of their only wise Lord. 6. Promising mercies will not prove unuseful nor disappoint the expectation of penitents as the Lord in justice deals often with the wicked For as moderate and seasonable rain promiseth a good harvest so it shall prove so the floores shall be full of
abiding for him abide for me Although she be rejected from being the Lords wife and have little minde or expectation of him yet the Lords sequestrating her from idolatry to wit in a national way in her captivity is a proof that he will make it an abiding for him whatever she intend or expect in it Fifthly this typical promise of his abiding for her as she doth for him so will I also be for thee is not to be strictly pressed seeing God hath since the time of their rejection chosen the Gentiles though it may be thus constructed 1. He choosed none till the Messiah under whom they are to be converted came in the flesh 2. All whom he chooseth must put this respect upon the elder brother though now gone out of the house that they become Israel before they lay claim to Israels Covenant 3. Whomever the Lord hath chosen yet he hath a room in his heart for them and will have them married to him and this exhausts the scope 4. Their conversion will be indeed as his solemne marriage-day and a resurrection from the dead to the world Rom. 11.15 and that day will evidence what respect he had to them in their lost condition And so it may teach us 1. Notwithstanding the glorious dayes of the Son of man that appear in the world by the conversion of the Gentiles and their marriage to him yet his ancient people are not forgotten by him But as of old when the Jewes were his Church yet he minded the Gentiles and purposed their conversion John 10.16 so his heart is on Israel till they be brought in 2. Not only is it a token that God hath reserved comfort for them who will not have any comfort in trouble without him but as a shut-up adulteresse do renounce all lovers till their husband embrace them again But when the Lord makes his peoples affliction continue sad without any outgate beside himself it is a pledge that he hath thoughts of peace toward them in that trouble For he abideth for her who is made to abide and not to be for a man or secluded from any comfortable condition as a shut-up harlot This is the condition of the Jewes and of Israel at this day who are kept in so low a condition beyond all Nations that they may never flourish till God turne them to him and he embrace them Sixthly the Prophets doing all this in obedience to that command v. 1. to love the woman may teach 1. That as tender husbands do shut up and pinch their wanton and treacherous wives for their good So the Lords love may oft-times be visible in hard usage and denying indulgence to his incorrigible people and his love be ordered by prudent and wholesome severity to tame them 2. That not to be cut off but made to subsist in the saddest condition in hope of future mercy is a rich expression of love For so doth his love toward Israel appear in that he preserveth them however scattered or lost in mens eyes with a purpose to do them good in the latter end See Lam. 3.22 26 29. Ver. 4. For the children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a sacrifice and without an image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim Here we have the second thing in the Chap. and an Exposition of the first part of the type concerning the adulteresse her being sequestrate in a base and poor condition This the Lord expounds to signifie that albeit he was to cast Israel out yet for the Elects sake in her and because of the Covenant made with her Fathers he would testifie his love to her by making her to subsist during the long time of her captivity though in a sober and mean condition wanting a civil State and without the use either of a true Religion signified by sacrifices and an Ephod or a false signified by Images and Teraphim which were a peculiar sort of Images representing as is conceived their Idols in humane shape This prediction cannot be understood of particular persons of Israel nor of all of them taking them distributively for certainly at all times where ever they are they have some Religion either true or false But it is to be taken of Israel collectively that as a Nation they could neither set up nor performe true or false worship as they had done before their rejection and so it is opposed to their national conversion Further when the Lord foretels that they shall be deprived of true Worship under the name of a sacrifice and Ephod comprehending under this all their Priestly garments and their Priests who used them in publick worship it is not his purpose to justifie their borrowing of these from Judah and making use of them in the worship of the calves as true and acceptable worship but being such as they supposed true and came nearest to it yet they should be deprived of it Or the words are to be taken absolutely without restriction to what they had before to signifie that they should have no true worship at all From this we may beside what is held out in the type further Learn 1. As the Lord may make the fruits of sin very bitter and sad and of long continuance even to his own people So such a condition may have mercy in it and may yet end in mercy For albeit what is here held out be very sad and of continuance for many dayes yet they abide under it and are made to subsist till better come 2. The want of a face of Government of a Nations self is a misery to be laid to heart either when a people are scattered from being a Nation or are ruled over by strangers and yet it is a misery under which a people may be preserved for much mercy For it is foretold here as a part of Israels misery that they shall be without a King and without a Prince without any face of Authority lesse or more over them of their own Nation being scattered among the Nations and under the Government of others where they come and yet in this case they abide till the marriage come 3. As the publick Worship of God is a sweet cordial in affliction and the want thereof a judgement which the Lord will bring on his dearest people when they provoke him and as it is a sad judgement to want the face of a visible Church even albeit there were some corruption in it So corrupting the Worship of God provokes him to give up a people to have no worship at all For this prediction they shall abide without a sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim doth not import that simply it is a judgement to want corrupt worship though whorish Israel in Hosea's time might think so as an harlot would do to be shut up from her Paramours which is indeed a woful temper nor doth it here import so much a mercy to deprive
of their Idolatry in the matter of the golden calfe as is cleared Act. 7.40 41 42. 8. It is the great folly and madnesse of men to think that a deitie is in their choice to choose and make what they will a God unto themselves Or to think to represent a deitie by Images which are of their making or to worship these Images as in reality they do whatever they pretend to the contrary for it was also their fault that they had Images the star of your God which ye made to your selves And Act. 7.43 it is said figures which ye made to worship them 9. Idolatry being continued in will at last draw on exile and captivity Therefore is the sentence given out against the present generation that since that course had gone such a length Therefore I will cause you go into captivity beyond Damascus And by this expression beyond Damascus is imported not onely that they should be carried far away beyond that place which Stephen Act. 7.43 respecting the event declareth how far it was even so far beyond Damascus that it was beyond Babylon also But further the expression may also import 1. Whereas they thought much of the stroaks had been inflicted on them by the Syrians of Damascus and that belike some of them were carried into captivity by them The Lord declareth that they should be carried further off then ever they were carried by the Syrians And that their continued in provocations should make them think little of what they had felt in respect of what was to come upon them 2. Whereas they might think strange of that sentence given out against the Syrians and of their threatned captivity chap. 1.5 The Lord declareth that they should be carried further off then the Syrians and that the stroak to come on them who were his people and yet proved incorrigible should be sadder in that respect then his stroak on a pagan Nation 3 Whereas they might look on the Kingdome of Syria and Damascus as a strong bulwark betwixt them and any remoter enemy on that quater as being a potent Kingdome not easily to be subdued The Lord declareth that this refuge shall faile them and an enemy should come further-off who should carry them beyond it Doct. 10. Men will very readily sleep securely under saddest threatnings unlesse they consider again and again that God is their party and do seriously meditate upon his greatnesse and power Therefore are they again advertised that this is said by the Lord whose name is the God of hosts CHAP. VI. ALbeit Israel was Amos peculiar charge yet in this chap. Iudah is joyned with them both in the challenge v. 1. And all alongst as appeareth from the last threatning v. 14. And by so doing the Lord would have it cleared that his servant was not partial in his doctrine nor led by any private spleen against Israel And he would let Israel see how little cause they had to be secure seing Iudah is so dealt with also In the first part of the chap. the Lord challengeth and denounceth a wo upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and Samaria and especially the great ones for their prophane security relieing upon their strength and eminency v. 1. which yet was but a weak ground if they considered other Nations and cities v. 2. for their contempt of threatnings and the oppression that followed thereupon v. 3. And for their sensualty and luxury little regarding the afflictions of the rest of the countrey v. 4.5.6 In the second part of the chap. the Lord explains that wo v. 1. and pronounceth sentence against them That these secure voluptuous persons should go into captivity with the first and so their jollity should be removed v. 7. That certainly he would not regard their priviledges and execellencies but would trample upon them and deliver up their city to the enemies v. 8. That there should be a great mortality among them v. 9.10 And that he would ruine the families and houses of great and small v. 11. In the third part of the chap. the Lord confirmeth this sentence shewing that however hitherto he had manifested his patience and taken pains upon them Yet now it was to no purpose to use any further meanes to reclaime them as appeared from their horrid injustice v. 12. And however they were insolent and boasters of their own strength v. 13. Yet he would refute that carnal confidence by sending an enemy who should overrun the Land of Canaan from one end to another Verse 1. Wo to them that are at ease in Zion and trust in the mountain of Samaria which are named chief of the nations to whom the house of Israel came In this v. a wo is pronounced against the inhabitants of the chief Cities of both Judah and Israel and especially against the great ones there because they were stupidly secure as trusting in their strength by situation and their own and the places eminency these two places being the two chief places of both the Nations or Kingdomes to which all Israel did resort as to the chief Cities of the Kingdomes and places of publick justice and of publick worship also in Jerusalem Doct. 1. Albeit ease and a quiet settled condition be that which men love well and do hunt after by all means and take too well with when they enjoy it Yet ofttimes such a condition breeds so much presumption and carnal security that it brings a wo and curse with it for wo to them that are at ease or secure as these at ease ordinarily are 2. Such as seeme to cleave or really do cleave to God and his way better then others may readily make a sleeping pillow of that and yet that doth not warrant them to be secure but will rather put them in the front of those that are under the wo if they prove so Therefore doth he begin with this wo to them that are at ease in Zion before Samaria Where it is imported that they may be at ease and that then they get the first of the wo. And he names Zion rather then Jerusalem because among other reasons this mount was the eminent part of their City being the City of David the man according to Gods heart with whom the Covenant was made and who herein was a type of Christ and the place whereunto David brought the Arke 2. Sam. 6.12 And therefore it is that however the Temple stood on mount Morijah 2. Chron. 3.1 yet mount Zion is often named as the place of Gods residence to which the promises are made being a type of the Church where Christ the Son of David reignes and dwells And yet the Lord declareth that all this should no avert the wo. 3. Albeit that the strength of places by situation do breed carnal confidence and that draw on security yet all that is no warrant for it nor will guard against the wo Therefore also is Zion named because it was strong and long a taking from the Jebusites 2.