of the Wave-offering belong'd to the Priest to teach him to serve the Lord with all their hearts their dearest affections intimated by the Breast and with all their might and strength typified in the shoulder and whereas it is here call'd the Heave-shoulder this signified the heaving of Christ upon the Cross and the heaving up of our heatts to God for so great benefits Verse 23. A set form of Prayer is lawful to be used whether publickly in the Church or privately in the Family and this is most strongly infer'd from hence if we consider the persons to whom this Commandement was given For this solemn form was set not for the simple sort or the most ignorant among the people but it was appointed to be pronounc'd by the Priests and that too not in a corner but in the Tabernacle of the Lord before many witnesses If any were able of themselves to conceive a Prayer certainly they were the Priests of the Lord whose lips must preserve knowledg Mal. 2. 7. and yet are they both allowed and prescrib'd to follow a set form in blessing the people And so likewise at their marching forward and at their standing still there were set forms injoyn'd Numb 10. 35 36. CHAP. VII Verse 8. THe service of the Gershonites was not so much as the service of the Sons of Merari and therefore Moses doth here proportion the assistance answerable to the service two Waggons and four Oxen to the Sons of Gershon but double the number to the Sons of Merari because their service was double to the others and their carriage as much more God knows what every one of his Children is able to bear and therefore proportions the burthen to the Back none of his shall be oppressed though press'd out of measure afflicted they may be and that in an high nature but never brought to despair left for a time but not forsaken for ever Ioseph may be shot at Gen. 49. 23. but he cannot be shot through His bow did abide in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Iacob verse 24. and thence his safety He used his Bow against his Enemies as David did his sling against Goliah who slung as if he had wrapt up God in his sling Verse 13. No quantity was here prescribed because it was a Free-will offering only it must be fine no Bran in it to shew the puriry of Christs Sacrifice and of our services through him by means of the Oyl of his Spirit and Incense of his Intercession Verse 19. In these words as before and in the words following we see what is offered Silver and Gold they spare nothing they bring the best they have Neither do they bring the best in a sparing manner but they deal bountifully and liberally Which teacheth us to serve God with the choicest and chiefest things we have and that in a large and liberal manner We read Exod. 36. that the people were so forward for the building and furnishing of the Tabernacles that the Workmen complained the People brought too much How far are we from this in our dayes The people bring more than enough for the work of the Lord. O that we might come but one degree behind them that it might be said our people bring enough The Israelites thought they never brought enough we think we never bring too little they offered more than they were commanded we bring no more than we are compell'd and constrain'd to bring They offered with a glad and chearful heart we will do no more than the Law urgeth or not so much They brought of the best we think the worst good enough for God and his Service and Ministers Verse 24. The Spirit of God thinks it not sufficient to set down what was offered in the general but takes notice of every mans particular offering to teach us first that we should apply these Examples to our selves and if we pass over one of them without regard yet we should take hold of the next Secondly to assure us that no man shall have that forgotten to the utmost of his praise who is any way forward in doing good because God will honour them that honour him 1 Sam. 2. All the good works of Gods children done to the setting forth of his glory the advancement of his Worship or the good of his Saints shall be punctually reckoned up and rewarded and as their deeds are here registred in the Book of God so the Doers of them are registred in the Book of Life CHAP. VIII Ver. 3. THe Lamps were placed over against the Candlestick which was over the Table in the Tabernacle and typified the Law of God enlightning the Church and People of God For the Commandement is a Lamp or Candle whereof there is no small use when Men go to Bed or rise betimes He that hath the Word of Christ richly dwelling in him may lay his Hand upon his Heart and say as one dying did Hic sat lucis here 's plenty of light Under the Law all was in Riddles Moses was veil'd and yet that saying was then verified Et latet lucet there was light enough to light Men to Christ the end of the Law Verse 10. There was Imposition of Hands upon the Levite under the Law and why not then upon the Minister under the Gospel Certainly the Ceremony is significant or else it had not been used by Gods people of the Old Testament nor yet by us that are his People of the New And thus much it may import when the Reverend Man laies his Hand on thy Head remember thou art then manumniz'd from all secular ties and sequestred no less from the callings of the People than their vices thou art then brought before the Lord as it is in the Text and dedicated wholly to his Service and certainly the Holy impression of Episcopal Hands set on from above is such an Elixar as by contraction if there be any disposition of goodness in the baser mettal it will render it of the property Verse 14. The Levites are here said to be Gods after a more peculiar and special manner than the rest of the People were For though all the Congregation is Holy even as the Levites all the People of God sanctified as well as his Priests which was the saying of Corah and his Complices and it was true yet they were not sanctified to the same degree of Holiness with the Priests but they sicut populus as Gods people these Sicut Aaron as his peculiar servants they are holy it is true but these Holiest of Holies Hence it was that when the Law kept ordinations certain pieces of the Sacrifices were put into the Priests hands and now instead of that a Bible into ours not only as a Rule to direct but as a sacred Witness of that profession into which we are by a Divine hand invested Verse 17. All the first-born of the Children of Israel are mine saith God
a sweeter note than Soul take thine ease Luke 12. Verse 15. God that bids us to give one another good measure and running over doth look not to be pinched and scantled at our hands as if we counted all too much that he or his are to receive How he liketh such dealings his Law will teach us wherein oftentimes he requireth that his Offerings be of the best without blemish Add to this the solemn protestation which God required here at every Mans hands what time he made his account When thou hast made an end of Tything saith God Verse 12. then thou shalt say I have not eat thereof in my mourning for any necessity whatsoever nor suffered ought to perish by putting it to any prophane usage or carelesly testing it to be spoil'd but have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God and done after all that thou in this case hast commanded me Look down therefore from thy holy habitation even from Heaven and bless me God will have him know he must look no otherwise to be blessed of God and made to prosper in all that he had but according as God knowing the secrets of all hearts did know that he had dealt truly and justly with God and his Ministers in this point Verse 18. Seeing God may be in the mouths of many where he is not in the heart we learn from hence to joyn to our outward profession true Sanctification and inward holiness of Conversation True Profession bringeth with it true Godliness For all such as have this honour given unto them to be the People of God and his precious inheritance must be an holy people Thou hast set up the Lord this day to be thy God and the Lord hath set thee up this day to be a precious people unto him Let us therefore not content our selves to have God in our mouths but labour to be sincere and first of all to look to our hearts he that looketh to have good Fruit of his Trees looketh to the Roots he that would have clear Waters in the Channels looketh to the Fountains so if we cleanse our wayes in Gods sight this is the right order to be observed to begin first to cleanse the heart CHAP. XXVII Verse 15. THe People here were commanded to say Amen to every branch of the Curse because though it be the lowest way of obedience to obey in regard we believe the truth and certainty of the Curse yet it is an high act of obedience to believe it for Satan is as busie against our Faith in the threatnings as he is against our Faith in Promises This unbelief opens the way to the committing of sin and sweetens sin while we are committing it and therefore the Holy Ghost would have us in the first place to say Amen to the Curse that so we might not say Amen to the Sin Verse 17. How hainous a thing this is appears by the Curse annex'd to it by the Holy Ghost O therefore beware of this Caninus appetitus this Dogg-like greediness to swallow up all we can if Dives is Tormented Quia cupide servavit sua What shall be his portion Qui avide rapit aliena if those Fists which too closely keep their own shall be cut off what shall become of those hands that are opened to grasp other mens Estates we see all Creatures know and keep their bounds fishes the Water Beasts the Earth Birds the Ayre let men learn of them but especially let them remember that if it be a sin with an Anathema to remove our Neighbours what is it to alienate the Churches bounds O take heed of a sacrilegious surfeit a disease so perilous that envy its self cannot wish a worse to an Enemy 〈◊〉 iâ— Lord Burleigh gave advice to his Son that he should build no great House upon any Impropriation well knowing it would be built upon a sandy foundation surely for the spoils of the Church private Families yea the whole Nation mourns Verse 24. Those that are cursed in this Verse are such as go about and make baâ—e between Man and Man those Incendiaries that carry Tales that whisper against their Brethren and smite in secret buzzing into mens ears false and scandalous reports to engender strife These are an accursed Generation of people the mouth of God curseth them and his Soul abhors them Prov. 6. Besides as they stand accursed of God men must curse them too as you see here God gives all his people leave to Curse such a one Cursed be he that smites his Neighbour in secret that backbites him and speaks evil of him in a corner slily so to work him out of the good opinions of others and all the people shall say Amen Lo this is the wretched state and condition of all such as breed bate and dissentions between party and party Heaven and Earth concur in a Curse against them CHAP. XXVIII Verse 2. THough strangers may have some portion of Temporal blessings yet the right of Inheritance belongs to the Sons of God Riches and Honours delights and pleasures life and length of dayes Seed and Posterity are entail'd on such as are truly believing and fear the Lord and however the ungodly may lay some claim unto them and that by some kind of right from God as a sustainer of his Creatures yet can he not enjoy them with any great comfort as wanting the best title through the want of Christ. Verse 6. Between these two are contained all the labours and undertakings of this people by their going forth is meant the beginning of their labours and by their coming in is meant the end and conclusion of their labours so that beginning and ending when they set their hands to a business and when they took their hands from a business they should be blessed that is they should have a through blessing upon all their labours Thus doth God bless his people in their goings out and coming in at their birth and at their death and through all the actions and traverses of their lives Verse 15. The same blessings and Curses are repeated here that are recorded Lev. 26. and this most effectually to move any heart that hath grace Wherefore it is requisite that as God repeats the same again so we should read and meditate of it again and again that it may powerfully perswade us to be wise and take time while time serves to turn unto the Lord while his arm is stretched out to receive us This Verse also and indeed the whole Chapter may assure us that sin will have plagues first or last and therefore when they happen complain of sin and not of God remembring that there is no reason at all that we should grieve that God that will not hear us when we our selves will not hear God Or why sigh we that God will not look down to the Earth when we our selves will not look up to Heaven We can despise his precepts and yet we think much that he should despise our
Prayers We beat our Servants if they offend us being but men as they are and may not God then beat us for our faults he being our Creator and we but dust Thus make use of these Curses and instead of them God ever give us for Christs sake his blessings both Temporal and Eternal both of this World and also of that better to come Verse 23. How oft have we seen the same Field both full and famishing how oft the same Waters safe and by some irruption or new tincture hurtful Howsoever natural causes may concur Heaven and Earth and Ayre and Waters follow the temper of our soules of our lives and are therfore indisposed because we are so He turneth the Heavens into brasse saith this Text and the Earth into iron And so Psal. 107. He turneth the Rivers into a wildernesse and water-springs into a dry ground for the wickedness of the Inhabitants Verse 31. If sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart And therefore the Lord here threatens his People thus in case of disobedience Thine oxe shall be slain before thine eyes And vers 67. he shewes what Convulsions and Divisions of spirit the Visions of the Eye would bring upon them The fear of the Heart and the sight of the Eye are near adjoyned The sight of the Eye caused the fear of the Heart and both were as concauses of those distracting thoughts and wishes there of hasting the morning to the evening and againe suddainly reducing back the evening to the morning Unlesse sorrow be hid from the Eyes it can hardly be kept from the Heart It is an usuall custome if a man be but let bloud to bid him turn away his head if he be faint-hearted for the sight of his bloud will make his heart faint and so from more gashly spectacles men commonly turn away their faces which is to keep sorrow from their sorrow and so from their Hearts Verse 47. As there is no affliction so there is no outward blessing can change the Heart or bring it about unto God Abundance as you see here doth not draw the heart unto God yet Satan when he came before the Lord Iob 1. would infer that it doth asking God the Question Doth Iob serve God for nought which might well be retorted upon Satan himself Satan why didst not thou serve God then Thou didst once receive more outward blessings from God then ever Iob did the blessedness of an Angel Yet that glorious Angelical estate wherein thou wast created could not keep thee in the compasse of obedience thou didst rebel in the abundance of all blessings thine own apostacy refutes thine errour in making so little of Iobs obedience because he had received so much and confirms the truth of this Text that it is not Abundance that makes Gods People serve him CHAP. XXIX Verse 4. VVE see no further than God gives us light and so far as he leads us we go right if he withdraw we turn aside and quickly wander from the way of truth and righteousnesse Thus Moses speakes here of the many signes and wonders which God wrought in the midst of that People which they did not understand Why what was the reason Moses tels us expresly The Lord had not given them an heart to conceive c. They had sensitive Eyes and Ears yea they had a rational heart or mind but they wanted a spirituall Eye to see a spiritual Ear to hear a spiritual Heart to apprehend and improve those wonderful works of God and these they had not because God had not given them such Eyes Ears and Hearts Wonders without Grace cannot open the Eyes fully but Grace without wonders can And as man hath not an Eye to see the wonderful works of God spiritually until it is given so much lesse hath he an Eye to see the wonders of the Word of God till it be given him from above Verse 12. This hath been the practise of Gods Children in Scripture to consecrate themselves to God by Vow or Covenant Thus Moses here after he had given the Law to the People causeth them to enter into Covenant for the performance of it Nor is it without singular reason that godly men have taken this course that hereby they might be the more strongly obliged to God and God to them There is indeed a sufficient obligation in Gods Precepts to require our obedience but when to his Precepts we add our own Promise it is so much the more engaging True it is the Creatures natural Obligation to his Creators Command is so great that in its self it is not capable of addition but yet our voluntary Promises serve to inflame our Luke-warmnesse and stir up our backwardnesse to obedience Indeed a religious resolution is as the putting of a new rowel into a spurre which maketh it the sharper the twisting of another thred into the rope whereby it is the stronger And hence it is that as God in condescention to our weakness hath annexed an oath to his Promises not to make them firmer in themselves but to confirme us the more So godly men in consideration of their own dulness adjoyn their Promises to Gods Precepts not to strengthen their force in enjoyning but to quicken themselves the more in observing Verse 18. Nothing is more bitter then sin and therefore compared here to gall and wormwood Lest there be among you any root that beareth gall wormwood i. e. least any person among you should commit this wickednesse namely Idolatry which will be as distastefull to God as gall is to man and which will be as bitter as gall to the man who commits it whether we consider the bitternesse of repentance if it be pardoned or the bitternesse of paine if he persisting in it impenitently be punished Verse 29. When secret things are revealed unto us of God we ought to endeavour to learn them to understand them to publish them and speak of them to others Whensoever God hath a mouth to speak we must have an ear to hear Therefore Moses saith Secret things belong to the Lord but the things revealed belong unto us to our children Which may serve to reprove all such as refuse to look into these revealed things of God but dwel in blindnesse and ignorance Of this sort are the greatest number of Christians they are wise enough to look into their own profit but they care not for the wisdome that is of God they are brought up in the Church but know not the Doctrine of the Church whereas being brought up in the Schoole of Christ they must every day be profiting and going forward CHAP. XXX Verse 2. THere is no returning without hearing nor hearing without believing nor believing to be believed without doing Returning is all these therefore where Christ saith that if those works had been done in Tyre and Sidon Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes In the Syriack translation of saint Matth we have this
of a Son and laughed but not as Sarah in the next Chapter as if it were impossible For Abraham laughs and beleeves expects and rejoyces he saith not I am old and weak Sarah is old and barren where are the many Nations that shall come from these withered Loins It is enough to him that God hath said it he sees not the means he sees the promise he knew that God would rather raise him up seed from the very stones that he trod upon than himself should want a large and happy issue Verse 23. Abraham is not content only to wait for God but to smart for him God bids him cut his own flesh he willingly sacrifices this parcel of his skin and bloud to him that was the owner of all How glad he is to carry this painful mark of the love of his Creator How forward to seal this Covenant with his bloud betwixt God and him not regarding the soreness of his body in comparison of the confirmation of his soul. The wound was not so grievous as the signification was comfortable For herein he saw that from his loins should come that blessed Seed which should purge his soul from all corruption Well is that part of us lost which may give assurance of the Salvation of the whole our Faith is not yet sound if it hath not taught us to neglect pain for God and more to love his Sacraments than our own flesh CHAP. XVIII Verse 2. ALthough he appeared in men yet it was God that appeared to Abraham though men Preach though men remit sins though men absolve God himself speaks and God works and God seals in those men Again remember that nothing appeared to Abrahams apprehension but men yet Angels were in his presence And therefore though we bind no man to beleeve necessarily that every man hath a particular Angel assisting him yet know that ye do all that ye do in the presence of Gods Angels and though it be in its self and should be so to us a stronger bridle to consider that we do all in the presence of God who sees clearer than the Angels for he sees secret Thoughts and can strik imediately which they cannot do without commission from him yet since the presence of a Magistrate or a Preacher or a Father or an Husband keeps men often from ill actions let this prevail something with thee to that purpose that the Angels of God are alwayes present though thou discern them not Verse 3. And he said My Lord Where note that though Christ himself were not among these Angels yet Abraham apprehended a greater Dignity and gave a greater respect to one than to the rest but yet without neglecting the rest too Apply thy self to such Ministers of God and such Physitians of thy Soul as thine own Conscience tells thee do most good upon thee but yet let no particular affection to one defraud another in his dues nor impair another in his esteemation Verse 10. As the Angel which came to Abraham at the Promise and Conception of Isaac gave Abraham a further assurance of his return at Isaac's birth I will certainly return unto thee and thy Wife shall have a Son So the Lord which is with thee in the first Conception of any good purpose returns to thee again to give thee a quickning of that blessed Child of his and again and again to bring it forth and bring it up to accomplish and perfect those good intentions which his Spirit by overshadowing thy Soul hath formerly begotten in it Thus God comes to us in nature and he returns in grace he comes in preventing and returns in subsequent graces he comes in thine understanding and returns in thy Will he comes in rectifying thine actions and returns in establishing habits he comes to thee in zeal and returns in discretion he comes to thee in fervor and returns in perseverence he comes to thee in thy perigrination all the way and returns in thy transmigration at the last gaspe So God comes and so he returns to his Children Verse 12. In the former Chapter Abraham heard this newes and laughed and in this Chapter Sarah hears it and laughs too they did not more agree in their desire than differ in their affection Abraham laughed for joy Sarah for distrust Abraham laughed because he beleeved it would be so Sarah because she beleeved it could not be so the same act varies in the manner of doing and in the intention of the doer yet Sarah laughed but within her self and it is bewrayed How God can find us out in secret sins How easily did she now think that he which could know of her inward laughter could know of her Conception And now she that laughed and beleeved not beleeveth and feareth When she hears of an impossibility to Nature she doubteth and yet hides her diffidence and when she must beleeve feareth because she did distrust Verse 15. Sarah thinks in this verse to cover her distrust with a Lye one sin with another Thus any thing serves us for a cover of sin even from a net that every man sees thorow to such a cloud of darkness as none but the Prince of Darkness that cast that cloud upon us can see us in it nor we see our selves That we should hide lesser sins with greater is not so strange that in Adultery we should forget the circumstances in it and the practises to come to it but we hide greater sins with lesser with a manifold and multiplied throng and cloud of lesser sins all comes to an indifferency and so we see not great sins As for instance Easiness of conversation in a Woman seems no great harm adorning themselves to please those with whom they converse is not much more to hear them whom they are thus willing to please praise them and magnifie their perfections is little more than that to allow them to sue for the possession of that they have so much praised is not much more neither nor will it seem much at last to give them possession of that they sue for Verse 21. God does not reward or condemne out of his Decrees but out of our actions Thus God sent down his Commissioners his Angels to Sodom to enquire and to inform him how things went And thus God went down himself to enquire and informe himself how it stood with Adam and Eve Not that God was ever ignorant of any thing concerning us but that God would prevent that dangerous imagination in every man that God should first mean to destroy him and then to make him that he might destroy him without having any evidence against him God goes not out as a Fowler that for his pleasure and recreation or for his commodity or commendation would kill and therefore seeks out game that he may kill it God made man ad imaginem suam to his own image If he had made him under an inevitable and irresistable necessity of damnation he had made him ad imaginem Diabolicam to
and reform their errors Verse 34. Who would have lookt for tears from Esau or who dare trust tears when he sees them fall from so graceless eyes It was a good word here Bless me also O my Father every miscreant can wish himself well No man would be miserable if it were enough to desire happiness Why did he not rather weep to his Brother for the pottage than to Isaac for a blessing If he had not then sold he had not needed now to begg It is just with God to deny us those favours which we were careless in keeping and which we undervalued in enjoying How happy a thing it is to know the seasons of Grace and not to neglect them how desperate to have known and neglected them these tears were both late and false the tears of rage of envie of carnal desire worldly sorrow causeth death Yet whiles Esau howls out thus for a blessing I hear him cry out of his Fathers store Hast thou but one blessing O my Father of his Brothers subtilty was he not rightly termed Jacob I do not hear him blame his own deserts He did not see while his Father was deceived and his Brother crafty that God was just and himself uncapable he knew himself prophane and yet claims a blessing CHAP. XXVIII Verse 11. NOne of all the Patriarks saw so evil dayes as Iacob did from whom justly hath the Church of God therefore taken her Name neither were the Faithful ever since called Abramites but Israelites That no time might be lost he began his strife in the Womb after that he flyes for his life from a cruel Brother to a cruel Uncle With a Staff goes he over Iordan alone doubtful and comfortless not like the Son of Isaac In the way the Earth is his bed and a stone his pillow yet even there he sees a Vision of Angels Iacob's heart was never so full of joy as when his head lay hardest God is most present with us in our greatest dejection and loves to give comfort to those that are for saken of their hopes Verse 12. This Ladder betokeneth Christ who above is God of his Father beneath is man out of Iacob's Loins Ioh. 1. 51 the Angels ascending and descending are the blessed Spirits which first ministred to the person of Christ and secondly for the good of his body namely the Elect Heb. 1. 14. The Angels went up and down none of them were seen standing still we must alwayes be going forward in our Christian courses and not think to be carried to heaven in a feather bed but we must climb a Ladder if we expect to be carried as Elias was in a Chariot it will be a fiery Chariot Verse 14. Against Iacob's four-fold cross here is a four-fold comfort a plaister as broad as the sore and sovereign for it Against the loss of his Friends I will be with thee saith God Against the loss of his Country I will give thee this Land Against his Poverty Thou shalt spread abroad to the East and to the West Against his solitariness and lowness Angels shall attend thee and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth whereunto we may add that which surpasseth all the rest In thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed thy Seed shall be as the dust of the earth and that dust of the earth shall shine as the stars in heaven they that trust in the Lord shall have the blessings of both worlds they shall be blessed here temporally and hereafter eternally Verse 15. It is a great and peculiar priviledge of the Church and every Member of it to have God present with them and President over them He is not far off from those that are his however in time of Affliction and in the hour of tentation he seemeth so to them but is ever with them and holdeth a gracious hand over them This is it which the Lord so often promiseth in his Word and truly performeth to the great comfort of all his Children This is it which the Lord speaketh to Iacob going from his Fathers house to Padan Aran Lo I am with thee c. And God thus promiseth his presence that the faithful might be assured of his protection and defence being gathered together by his power without which they could not have any comfort If he were not present with us he could not consider of our wants nor succour us in our necessities nor refresh us with his help while we walk in the valley of the shadow of death Seeing therefore we have comfort to be preserved in all perils and to be heard in our Prayers and Requests that we make to God we are assured and perswaded of his continual presence amongst us for our good and safety Verse 17. Though the Almighty be every where yet not every where after the same manner say the Schools his presence indeed shines forth in all but not the same degrees of his presence and though his glory filled both the Bush and the space about it yet not both alike the one with fire the other perchance but with smoak and therefore we read Exod. 3. of a place where Moses may stand and a place so holy whither he may not draw nigh the first too holy for his shoes the last too hot for his feet Thus also we read of Gods House made with hands and his House not made with hands and to both Holiness required for their Consecration and an awful esteem for their Diety Sanctified they must because they are Gods and Reverenced because he is in them To witness whose personal residence was that solemne erecting of Altars where God vouchsafed to appear Thus God here appeared to Iacob and strait wayes his Stone is anointed into a Pillar and what the last night was a pillow for himself must now be a resting place for his God there offering up his dues to heaven where he had before to Nature Verse 20. A mean or middle estate which is neither too eminent nor too obscure too rich nor too poor above contempt below envie is to be preferred before the greatest first because it is most free from danger as not being so low as to be trodden upon nor so high as to be seated in the eye of envie Secondly Because it preserveth us from forgetfulness of God irreligion and prophanness which accompanies prosperity and from the use of unlawful means to maintain our estate and from impatiency murmuring and repining against God to which we are tempted in poverty If then our God hath been so gracious unto us as to give us a convenient competency in these outward matters let us reckon our lot to have fallen unto us in a pleasant ground and that we have a goodly heritage And indeed our Nature desires not much Food and Raiment are the only necessaries for this life I mean the preservation of it we stand in need of If God will be with me saith Jacob c. that is all
writ and his anger will destroy part of the people that Gods anger may not consume them all Now let us imitate these great examples and that we may be angry and not sin let us only be angry for sin Verse 4. I see in Rachel the image of her Grand-mother Sarah both in her beauty of person in her actions in her success she also will needs suborn her handmaid to make her a Mother and at last beyond hope her self conceiveth It is a weak greediness in us to affect Gods blessings by unlawful means what a proof and praise had it been of her Faith if she had staied Gods leisure and would rather have endured her barrenness than her Husbands Polygamy Now she shews her self the Daughter of Laban the Father for covetousness the Daughters for emulation have drawn sin into Iacobs bed he offended in yielding but they more in solliciting him and therefore the fact is not imputed to Iacob but to them In those sins which Satan draws us into the blame is ours in those sins which we move each other unto the most fault and punishment lies upon the tempter Verse 6. Here Rachel makes use of Gods name to prophane it and under pretence of Religion would have God justifie her Maids and her own sin Many cry up that Cause to be Gods which he never will own and put his Name to those Writings which at the last day shall condemne them And indeed there hath of late years been no sin so common among Christians as to prostitue both Gods Name and his Cause and as that great Commander of the powers of darkness the Devil can transform himself into an Angel of light so there are no deeds of darkness so black and ugly which have not been like their Father the Devil mask'd and veil'd and clouded even with light its self I mean with those glorious heavenly Angel-like pretences of Religion and Conscience Insomuch that not only the most unchristian but the most inhumane practises the most unnatural savage barbarities of this last age of the World are now avowed to be the dictates and commands of God that God himself as in the text hath judged and allowed them Verse 18. Leah broke the bonds of Matrimony and yet expects a reward thus many times men flatter themselves in their sins and think that they are rewarded of God when they do ill As Micah having made houshold gods and entertained a Levite cryes Now I know that the Lord will be good unto me because I have a Levite to my Priest but he never thought he had an Idol to his God Thus Leah here rejoyced in that for which she should have repented and takes that for her hire which God for all she knew intended as her punishment And indeed her Son Issachar who was the hire here was none of the wisest and withal a slave and therefore in Iacobs Prophesie Gen. 49. compared to an Ass and one that for his ease would submit unto any burthens impositions taxes This was a simple low poor spirit and his posterity were for the general very unworthy and vile and yet this was the hire the reward the blessing that Leah rejoyced in as if God had approved of the sin by the success and fruitfulness of her handmaids Womb and this was her error of measuring and judging of things by the success as if God did not many times give Children and Honour and Riches in his wrath and were not many times angry with men though they outwardly prosper If this were not so the Turks and some Christians too at this day were in an happy condition who judge of the goodness of their cause only by the success and because they are not crossed that therefore they are blessed Verse 20. Children are a good dowry if they prove good and though they are alwayes an heritage that cometh of the Lord yet they are not alwayes the Lords heritage When our Children appear to be Gods heirs as well as ours then may we justly esteem them to be the best part of our estate and our greatest dowry Otherwise they will prove but sad blessings and such as we had better be without and yet all men desire them how much rather should we cover grace and those things which accompany salvation having got these we may safely and surely say God hath endued me with a good dowry Verse 27. Iacob rich in nothing but Wives and Children was now returning to his Fathers house accounting his Charge his Wealth But God meant him yet more good Laban sees that both his Family and his Flocks were well encreased by Iacobs service Not his love therefore but his gain makes him loth to part Even Labans covetousness is made by God the means to enrich Iacob and even his strait Master entreats him to that recompence which made his Nephew mighty and himself envious Verse 41. In the very shapes and colours of brute Creatures there is a divine hand which disposeth them to his own ends Small and unlikely means shall prevail where God intends an effect Little peel'd sticks of Hazel or Poplar laid in the troughs shall enrich Iacob with an encrease of spotted Cattel Labans Sons might have tryed the same means and failed God would have Laban know that he put a difference betwixt Iacob and him that as for fourteen years he had multiplyed Iacobs charge of Cattel to Laban so now for the last six years he would multiply Labans Flock to Iacob and if Laban had the more yet the better were Iacobs Even in these outward things Gods Children have many times sensible tastes of his favours above the wicked CHAP. XXXI Verse 13. VVHen God appeared here to Iacob upon his return from Laban he tells him I am the God of Bethel by which expression he no doubt intends to mind Iacob of the Promise not only made there by God to him but likewise by him to God for so it followeth Where thou vowedst a vow to me God is the God of pious resolutions as to approve of them when made so to look after them how they are made good and let me tell you to prophane that heart that is once consecrated to God to faulter in the execution of what is solemnly resolved in Gods service is a fetching the Sacrifice from the Altar and will certainly bring the coal of fire along with it Hadst thou never put in for the title of a Friend or votary with an O God my heart is ready to do thy will thou hadst not been perfidious though prophane but by breaking thy promise thou addest the guilt of unfaithfulness to that of disobedience and thy sin becomes beyond measure sinful Verse 18. I know not whether Laban were a worse Uncle or Father or Master he can like well Iacobs service not his wealth as the wicked have no peace with God so the godly have no peace with men for if they prosper not they are despised if they prosper they are envied This Uncle
whom Iacobs service had made his Father must now upon his wealth be fled from as an enemy Iacob knew his churlishness and therefore resolves to be rather unmannerly than injur'd well might he think that he whose oppression chang'd his wages so often in his stay would also abridg his Wages in the parting Now therefore he wisely prefers his own estate to Labans love It is not good to regard too much the unjust discontentment of worldly men and to purchase unprofitable favour with too great loss Verse 24. The Lord hath a negative voice upon the motion of all Creatures he commandeth the Sun and it riseth not It is a royal prerogative that the Lord commands the Sun to rise but that the Lord hath a power to stay the Sun from rising lifts up his prerogative to the highest In all disputes about Power he is resolved to be greatest who hath the negative voice which checks and gives a super sedeas to all others this is the prerogative of God he can stay the motion of the Sun and of man The Sun dares not do his Office to the day nor the Stars to the night if God say no. Thus also he stops man in his nearest preparation for any action When Laban pursued Iacob with hard thoughts against him and strong resolutions to deal harshly with him the Lord gave a negative voice Take heed that thou speak not to Iacob either good or bad when God commands Laban shall not have the use of his own tongue Verse 29. As God sometimes said to Satan Afflict the body of Iob but save his life so God saith still to bloody wretches who are the Limbs of Satan the bodies of such and such are in your hands the estates of such and such are in your hands but save their lives the life of a man is never at the mercy of a Creature though it be a common speech of men when they have a man under them now I have you at my mercy though some bragg as Laban did here to Iacob it is in the power of my hand to do you hurt yet God often checks them as he did Laban from so much as speaking hurt Creatures though full of Love cannot speak good and though full of malice they cannot speak bad if God forbid then much less can they do us hurt and least of all hurt our lives if God with-hold Verse 32. Though Iacob when he fled from his Father-in-Law Laban were free enough himself from the theft of Laban's Idols yet it was dangerously pronounc'd of him with whomsoever thou findest thy Idols let him not live for his own Wife Rachel had stoln them and Caro conjux thy Wife thy self thy weaker part may insinuate much sin into thine actions even when thy spit is at strongest and thou in thy best confidence Only thus these two cases may differ Rachel was able to cover those stoln Idols from her Fathers finding with that excuse the custome of Women is come upon me but thou shalt not be able to cover thy stoln sins with saying the infirmity of man is come upon me I do but as other men do Verse 37. When controversies arise the rule of love bids us refer our differences to the determination of Brethren In the first and best times men did not presently run to Law and call one another before the Judge they had daies-men and Umpires to determine matters between them To bring every matter to the Judgement-seat when possibly a Brother or a Friend might take up the matter is a transgression against the Law of Love We should rather labour after reconcilements than Sutes in Law which are a cause not only of trouble and expence but of great breaches and heart-burnings among Friends and Brethren 't is rare if a man wrongs not his Soul by seeking the rights of his credit or estate Verse 41. The children of this World are wise in their Generations omitting no manner of means to bring their purposes to pass We may observe by continual experience the nature of ungodly men they are subtile and cunning in their kind they watch their waies and times to fit them to work out their wicked devises and inventions Thus did Laban deal with Iacob changing his mind revoking his bargains altering his wages and murmuring at his prosperity Now seeing this is the nature of the enemies of the Church this should on the other side teach us to deal wisely and warily with them lest we be snared and circumvented by them we are set as upon an hill we are placed as upon a Stage if we profess Christ Jesus a smal spot will be seen in our garment It behoves us therefore to be wise as Serpents and innocent as Doves the wisdom of our enemies is joyned with wickedness our wisdom must be mix'd with godliness Their wisdom is a circumventing by laying of snares our wisdom must be to be circumspect in avoiding of snares Verse 55. Behold Laban follows Iacob with one Troop in this Chapter and in Chapter 23. Esau meets him with another both with hostile intentions both go on till the utmost point of their execution both are prevented ere the execution God makes fools of the enemies of his Church he lets them proceed that they may be frustrate and when they are gone to the utmost reach of their tether he pulls them back to their task with shame Lo now Iacob is left by Laban with a kiss of the one he hath an Oath tears of the other peace with both who shall need to fear man that is at league with God CHAP. XXXII Verse 1. THe Rabbins note that Iacob knew these Angels to be the same which he saw ascending and descending the ladder and whereas Iacob is not said to meet them but they to meet Iacob therein appeareth the dignity and preheminence of the Saints whom the Angels are ready to attend Verse 9. Strong desires are importunate and will improve every interest for the obtaining of what is desired What we cannot carry upon our own interest we labour to carry upon any other more prevailing name and interest Iacob here moves the Lord in his prayers by the remembrance of his Fathers Abraham and Isaac O God of my Father Abraham and God of my Father Isaac Iacob did not pray to his Father Abraham but he made use of his Fathers Name as a motive in prayer and though all names and interests are swallowed up in the name and interest of Jesus Christ as to the deserving a grant of what we pray for yet we may argue and plead with God in prayer for the Churches sake yea for our own Childrens sake that God would do us good that we may be further instrumental for their good Verse 10. When a poor Soul considers what God hath done for him in admitting him into communion with himself to eat bread at his table continually he cries out even weeping for admiration as Mephibosheth did 2 Sam. 9. What is thy servant
the Enemy madest to oppress me if he could Verse 13. Note here how the Law works without the Gospel even roughly and sharply and rigorously For do this do this and finish finish the work is still the voice whereby sin and the Devil rageth as here Pharaoh doth For sin c. Rom. 7. 8 9 then crieth the true Israelite O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death verse 24. Blessed therefore be the Lord for his sweet Gospel which helpeth all this rigour and giveth us comfort and deliverance in his Son Verse 16. While possible tasks were imposed there was some comfort their diligence might save their backs from stripes but to require tasks not feazible is tyrannical and doth only pick a quarrel to punish they could neither make straw nor find yet they must have it Do what may be is tolerable but do what cannot be is cruel Those that are above others in place must measure their commands not by their own wils but by the strength of their inferiors The task is not done the Task-masters are beaten the punishment lies where the charge is they must exact it of the people Pharaoh of them It is the misery of those that are trusted with Authority that their inferiors faults are beaten upon their backs Verse 21. See the condition and lot of faithful Ministers in this wretched world First the King and now their Brethren accuse them for doing their duty While all is well good is the Minister but when the crosse cometh he and his doctrine away with that and away with him as Ier. 44. 16 c. now mark their reason For then had we plenty c. this is the stay of the multitude and this is the line they measure all things by their prosperity in worldly matters and immunity from trouble and affliction any wayes CHAP. VI. Verse 5. MIserable man remembreth and heareth his Friends when they are in prosperity but if adversity come neither hearing nor seeing them but a proud scornful and bitter forgetting The Lord is not so but when we are at the worst then he remembreth us then he heareth our groans and sighs and pittying helpeth to our unspeakable comfort Verse 7. The end of all deliverance and of all Benefits received from God is that we should be his People and that he might rule in us and over us Wherefore see how careful we should be alwayes to answer this our calling and never to be found unmindful of such favours For if this plainer manifestation of his Goodness to the Iews were a just cause to stir them up to thankfulness how much more should his manifestation of himself to us in his own Son move us to an eternal care to please him And then more particularly that he should accept me for one of his people O what can I say for such a Love but beseech him ever to make me thankfull Verse 8. As long as our hearts hold this perswasion of God that he is the Lord so long we must rest assured that he can perform his Promise in mercy made to us be the difficulties never so many What then is thy Case Are thy sins numerous and great Remember he is the Lord and play not Cains part to say they cannot be forgiven Are thine Enemies bitterly bent against thee he is the Lord and therefore can stop and stay them at his pleasure Are their infirmities many he can heal them he is the Lord. Are thy Children untoward and unkind he can change them he is the Lord. Lastly whatever greives thee remember this that God is the Lord and shall ever be the Lord and shall ever be thy Lord to care for thy woes and relieve them Only believe Verse 9. It is often a penalty laid upon the contemners of Gods Grace that cleaving altogether to the external favours of this life they tast not comfort in any affliction whereas the Godly the more they are pressed down by God the more vehemently they sigh unto God and look to his Promises with Patience and Hope This also may teach Gods Ministers not to be cast down and discouraged if their words be not hearkened unto and regarded since so worthy a man as Moses found this measure The World will be the World crooked and perverse froward and unkind though we break our hearts for their good Verse 10. Before Moses was bid to go to the People and now to Pharaoh so is there never any time for men of place and publick function to be idle Now they must defend the oppressed and wrong'd now they must comfort now they must chide See here likewise the bottomless Mercies of the Lord who though he might justly have cast off this People that would not hearken to his Words and Messages yet he doth not but still continueth to have mercy on them according to that of Psalm 103. 13. Verse 20. It is a wonder that Amram the Father of Moses would think of the Marriage-bed in so troublesome a time when he knew he should beget Children either to slavery or slaughter Yet even now in the heat of this bondage he marries Iochebed The drowning of his Sons was not so great an evil as his own burning the thraldome of his Daughters not so great an evil as the subjection unto sinful desires He therefore uses Gods remedy for his sin and refers the sequel of his danger to God How necessary is this imitation for those that have not the power of containing Perhaps we would have thought it better to live childless but Amram and Iochebed durst not incurre the danger of a sin to avoid the danger of a mischeif Verse 30. Behold I am of uncircumcised lips None in all Egypt was comparably fit for this Message Which of the Israelites had been brought up a Courtier a Schollar Learned Wise Valiant Experienc'd The more fit any man is for whatsoever Vocation the lesse he thinks himself forwardness argues insufficiency Once before Moses had taken upon him and laid about him hoping then they would have known that by his hand God had meant to deliver Israel but now when it comes to the point he cries I am of uncircumcised lips Gods best Servants are not ever in an equal disposition to good Duties It is our frailty that those Services which we are forward to aloof off we shrink at neer at hand How many of us can bid defiance to Death and suggest answers to absent temptations which when they come to us we fly off and change our note and instead of action pretend excuses CHAP. VII Verse 1. GOD hath made one man able to do the Offices of God to another in procuring his Regeneration here and advancing his Salvation hereafter Neither hath God determined that power of assisting others in the character of the Priesthood only but he hath also made the Prince and the secular Magistrate a God that is able to do the Offices and the Works of God not
Verse 8 9. Observe Sathans Malice here against Gods Church and Service if they cannot wholly destroy it hurt it and hinder it then in part as farre as they can they will do it Secondly By the answer of Moses note on the other side that we must not yield an inch to these plots and fetches of the wicked but zealously must stand to the full observance of all Gods Will according to his Commandement and not according to the fancies either of others or of our selves Where the Lord dispenseth not we must not dispense where all are bound to depart out of Egypt we must not capitulate for some to go and some to stay Families should think upon this where the Husband goes to Church but not the Wife the Father but not the Son the Servant but not the Master Moses would not do thus here but knowing all to be bound requireth all Verse 23. This was most wonderful The houses of the Egpptians and Israelites joyning as it should seem one close to another as ours in these dayes do For else why was that sign given to the destroying Angel Exod. 12. 23. If all the Israelites had dwelt by themselves and had not been mingled with the Egyptians How able then is our God may we think who can thus make a separation betwixt his Children and the wicked when he executed wrath though they be in one Field in one House in one Bed together yet he can chuse the one and refuse the other Fear we not then in the time of Plague or War or other publick Calamity left we should perish with the wicked hand over head but remember this place and say in your heart with comfort O Lord I know thou canst make a separation in this calamity as thou didst in that calamity betwixt the Israelites and Egyptians therefore I beseech thee save me from this Sword of thine and let the light of thy Mercy shine about my dwelling as thy cheerful light did about the Israelites CHAP. XI Verse 1. THis ever was and ever will be Gods course first by gentle means to entreat then in the end by Power and Judgement to compel when the former course will not serve In the old World when the People would not be reformed the Lord said His Spirit should no longer strive with man meaning in lenity and gentleness as until then it had done but now he would bring upon them one Plague more as here upon Egypt and this was the Floud Gen. 6. 17. When Sodom and Gomorah would not be warned by any wayes of Mercy used by a gracious God unto them many years then that one Plague more of Fire and Brimstone came from Heaven Thus also the Lord deals with us First he entreats us by his Word the mildest way that can be Then if this will not serve the Lord comes nearer and layeth upon us his easier crosses and then greater Our Friends grow unkind our Servants unfaithful our Children undutiful our Estate wastes and our Health is chang'd to Sickness And if all these work not upon us then the Lord goes to his Quiver and takes out a strong Arrow to shoot at us as the sweating Sickness the devouring Plague which shall sweep the Land clean from such rebelling Spirits Verse 3. As the wicked stand in awe of God often and outwardly profess affection to him yet do not subject themselves to his Will so are his Servants honoured also of men with an inward conceit of them that they are honest men when yet their Doctrine will not be yielded unto Thus doth God inwardly imprint their own damnation in their hearts Verse 5. No Honours or Riches no Friends or Strength no Pomp or Port in this World may defend from God but he will smite all Degrees and therefore let all Degrees profit by it CHAP. XII Verse 4. CHrist is not divided into divers Houses and Families Kingdoms and Countries but he doth unite and gather divers Houses and Nations to make one Church even as here many did eat one Lamb. We may not divide the Lamb but we must gather our selves to the Lamb and that is the true Church where People are so gathered Verse 6. This keeping of it from the tenth to the fourteenth day served to prepare their hearts to the right eating of it being a remembrance before their eyes those four dayes before and also to prefigure unto us with what meditation and preparation we ought to come to the eating of the true Pass-over in the blessed Sacrament whereof this same was but a shadow Secondly the fourteenrh day this Lamb was offered because then the Moon being at full and rising in her full light when the Sun was set thereby might be shadowed that the Church usually signified by the Moon riseth with light in great fulness after the setting of the Sun the Death of Christ. Verse 7. This shews the effect and vertue of Christ his bloud the true Paschal Lamb ever to save from the destroying Angel as many as shall be sprinkled with it that is should make particular application of it to themselves For it is not the bloud without sprinkling will help Christ died for all sufficiently but not effectually because all take not hold of and apply Christs death to their souls Verse 32. Pharaoh desires to be blessed of those men who but even now were odious in his eyes The same God can also pull down the hearts of the proudest and make them as glad of a Ministers Prayers as they have maliciously opposed themselves against him Verse 34. Egypt was never so stubborn in denying passage to Israel as now importunate to entreat it Pharaoh did not more force them to stay before then now to depart whom lately they would not permit now they hire to go The Israelites are equally glad of this hast Who would not be ready to go yea to fly out of the house of bondage They have what they wished there was no staying for a second invitation The losse of an opportunity is many times irrecoverable The love of their liberty made the burthen of their Dough light Who knew whether the variable mind of Pharaoh might return to a denial and after all his stubbornness repent of his obedience It is foolish to hazard where there is certainty of good offers and uncertainty of continuance Verse 36. The Egyptians rich Jewels of Silver and Gold were not too dear for the Israelites whom they hated how much rather had they need to send them away wealthy then to have them stay to be their Executors Their love to themselves obtain'd the inriching of their Enemies and now they are glad to pay them well for their old work and their present journey Gods People had stayed like Slaves they go away like Conquerors with the spoil of those that hated them arm'd for security and wealthy for maintenance Verse 37. A most wonderful encrease from seventy Souls which were all that came into Egypt and most effectually it shews us
a Deliverer so famous a Governour so dear to God so familiar with God and so graced and honoured by God And yet how contemptuously they speak of him when they say this Moses this Moses And therefore by this example let all wise Ministers never rely upon the multitude but upon the Author of their Calling joy in their obedience to him rest upon his gracious acceptance and leave the world to be a World full of unthankfulness to all degrees of well Deservers Verse 3. Aaron demanded their golden Ear-rings thinking they would not have given them For in the East Countries such Ear-rings were Ornaments and the pleasures of Women But he was deceived so pleasing to our corruption is Idolatry and Superstition that we spare no cost to set that forward And indeed their Idol was their Jewel Verse 6. Those Sacrifices were such as God had appointed but now diverted from their use and therefore nothing lesse than pleasing unto God Which shews that although we use the same words in our Prayers and do the same things that the Scripture appointeth if they differ from right as these Sacrifices did here we pull down Gods Wrath upon us instead of his Blessing Verse 7. The Lord cals them Moses People whereas they were the Lords People and by his mighty Arm delivered not by Moses his strength Thus doth the Lord ascribe to his Ministers what his Power worketh by them that so they may be encouraged in their pains and the People know to love them hearing God himself say that they be their People Verse 8. Note the word and also the manner if the Lord keep us not in his true obedience and send us good Guides To fall away from God is fearful but quickly to be turned aside is an amplification of the fault and maketh it greater Verse 10. This shews the incomprehensible loving kindness of God towards such as truly fear and serve him making them in his Goodness so powerful with him that they are to him as it were bands to tie him and avail against him that he cannot execute his anger against Offendors unless they will suffer him and as it were stand out of the way Thus in Gen. 18. 19. when Sodom was to be destroyed said God for so many and so many I will not do it Thus also Ezek. 22. 30. I sought for a man c. as if God had said might I have found but one to stand in the gap against my wrath even for that one I would have shewn Mercy Let this therefore comfort you that if for other mens sins a true Moses be such a stop to God that he will not punish them think then what force have your own sighs and groans for your own sins before him Can he strike you holding up your hands for Mercy and looking upon him with warry eyes humbled in the dust before him and for his dearest Sons sake in whom he is well pleas'd begging pardon Verse 11. Who knows what Judgements godly Governors turn away by their earnest Prayers to God for their People Which should work in us all Love and Obedience and Duty to them and make us day and night pray for the continuance of them Verse 21. In matters concerning Gods Glory we must rebuke our nearest Allies no place for Affection The Lord hath placed the Commandements in the Decalogue and the Petitions in the Lords Prayer which concern his Honour before those which concern our selves to teach us that we ought to prefer his Glory before all worldly things yea even life it self if it come in question Mar. 10. 37. Thus did Moses also ver 32. prefer Gods Glory which would appear in saving of his People before his own salvation which is far more than this temporal life Verse 31. Moses doubleth in this Chapter the foulness of their fault calling it a great Sin and a greivous sin so teaching us not to extenuate faults before God if you sue for Mercy but to set them out in their true colours that Mercy may the more appear Verse 34. Magistrates and Ministers may not desist from their Duties for the Peoples frowardness but indevouring to the uttermost to reform them they must go on though they perish and even in their so perishing they shall be a sweet Savour to the Lord. Verse 35. Very greivous is the sin of Idolatry that not for Moses his so earnest Prayer may be freed wholly from all further punishment though in part the Lord yieldeth as he did ver 14. CHAP. XXXIII Verse 8. A Sound and upright heart with God will ever in the end procure honour however for a time contempt may be shewed for God will honour them that honour him it is his Word and it shall never fail Would God then men would be moved to seek honour this way by the Favour of God and not of men For God can make men rise up to you that have formerly little regarded you as here he did to Moses the People now that he was in favour with God reverenc'd him whom before they spake very lightly of saying This Moses we know not what is become of him Verse 13. Moses desires of God that he would shew him his Wayes his Dealings his Proceedings with Men that which he cals after his Glory how he glorifies himself upon Man God promiseth in the next verse that he will shew him all his Goodness God hath no way towards Man but Goodness God glorifies himself in nothing upon Man but in his own Goodness And therefore when God comes to the performance of this Promise in the next Chapter he shews him his Way and his Glory and his Goodness in shewing him that he is a merciful God a gracious God a long suffering God And as the Hebrew Doctors note there are thirteen Attributes specified in that place and of all these thirteen there is but one that tastes of Judgement that he will punish the sins of the Fathers upon the Children all the other twelve are meerly Mercy Such a proportion hath his Mercy above his Justice Verse 18. When God had promised Moses in this Chapter to send an Angel to shew the People their way Moses said to God See thou sayest lead this people forth but thou hast not shewed me whom thou wilt send with me God had told him of an Angel but that satisfied not Moses he must have something shew'd to him he must see his Guide and therefore said Moses wilt thou be pleas'd to shew me thy Glory Shall we see any thing Now they did see that Pillar in which God was and that Presence that Pillar shewed the way To us the Church is that Pillar in that God shews us our way For strength it is a Pillar and a Pillar for firmness and fixation But yet the Church is neither an equal Pillar alwayes fire but sometimes Cloud too The Church is more or lesse visible sometimes glorious sometimes eclips'd neither is it so fix'd a Pillar as that it may
cleave not to the Element or Creature of Water but remember Saint Iohn 1 Iohn 5. 6. tels you that Jesus Christ came by Water and Bloud and it is he only that washeth away our spots and saveth us from our sins and by the offering of the Turtles it was plainly figured that not in themselves but in some others they must be made clean from all their impurities CHAP. XVI Verse 2. IN that Aaron was forbidden at all times to enter into the Holiest of Holies we may learn that even Ministers as well as other men are not rashly to enter into all the things of God but to stand in reverence of some Mysteries either dealing not at all or very advisedly and sparingly with them as their nature requires Verse 3. When we appear before God we must come with a Sin-offering that is come with an humble acknowledgement as this Sin-offering figured that thou art a sinner confessing it to God with a greived heart and bring Jesus Christ in thy soul with thee offering him by thy true Faith to God his Father as a sure safety for all sinners against deserved wrath and punishment Verse 4. We must be cloth'd with Christs Righteousness as with this holy linnen Coat if we ever find acceptance with God For to that end Aaron did change his Garment to shew that he sustained another person who was holy he himself being but a man subject to imperfection and sin Now if Aaron might not enter but in such sort how much lesse might the People appear at any time before God but in Christ and by Christ shadowed in all these Sacrifices Verse 21. When confession was made over the Head of the Scape-goat what diversity of words were used as all iniquities all trespasses all sins Why so many words but to teach that confession of sins must not be light and formal only but earnest vehement hearty and zealous And indeed never can a Child of God satisfie himself herein but still wisheth he could more bewail his sins and more earnestly expresse with words what his Soul feeleth in this behalf saying as I heard a dying woman once say O Sir I am sorry and sorry that I can be no more sorry Verse 31. God would name his Sabbath according to the nature of it and Sabbath is rest It is a rest of two kinds our rest and Gods rest Our rest is the cessation from labour on those dayes Gods rest is our sanctifying of the day For so in the religious sacrifice of Noah Gen. 8. when he was come out of the Ark God is said to have smelt odorem quietis the savour of rest Upon those dayes we rest from serving the World and God rests in our serving of him CHAP. XVII Verse 4. THe Reasons of the severity of this Law were first because it served for the preservation of the Ministry which God had ordained and that every Man should not be his own Priest Secondly Because thus they were taught that all Worship of God ought to be guided and directed by his Word and Commandement and not by the private wills of Men. And if you say that Samuel offered in Mizpeh 1 Sam. 7. and Elias in Mount Carmel 1 King 18. and so neither brought the Sacrifice to the door of the Tabernacle you must answer your self thus that all this in these Men was extraordinary and we may not follow extraordinary matters without some such personal and special Vocation as no doubt they had for we do not live by Examples but by Laws Verse 6. The burning and broiling of Beasts and the sprinkling of their Blood upon the Altar could of themselves yield no sweet savour but thereto was added Wine Oyl and Incense by Gods appointment our Prayers as from us would never please but as Indited by the Spirit and presented by Christ they are highly accepted in Heaven Christ is the Incense the perfume of all our Sacrifices and therefore if ever we intend that our Sacrifice either of Praise or Prayers should carry a sweet savour along with it it must be offered up in and by Christ for he is Gods Benjamin the Son of his Love in whom alone God is well pleased Upon which account it is that the Catholick Church doth evermore conclude her Prayers with this Expression Through Iesus Christ our Lord. Verse 10. The Lord by this Law would teach Men to abstain from Murther and Blood-shed the Blood of Man being Vehiculum animae vitalis for the Vital Spirits which yield unto Man through his whole Body heat motion and action are begotten of Blood by the power of the Heart and therefore Mans life and the life of every other Creature is said to be in the Blood according to that of the Poet Purpuream vomit ille animam Secondly Because the Lord had ordained Blood to be used in the Atonement made for Sins as a plain figure of the Blood of Christ the only able Sacrifice to purge and wash away our Sins and Offences therefore he would have Blood regarded as an holy thing and not used by Man as other Meats might be CHAP. XVIII Verse 2. THis Expression I am the Lord your God is often repeated to draw attention and beget Authority For consider first it is thy Lord thy Master that speaks he whose House is the World and all the Creatures his Servants shall we not then listen when this our great Master shall speak Secondly it is thy God that speaks the Eternal Creator of Heaven and Earth he who hath made all preserves all and can as easily destroy all again he who is the All-seeing God that looks upon thee in thy privare Closet in thy bolted Chamber under thy drawn Curtains that sees all thy secret villanies and stoln Embraces all thy wicked Plots and Contrivings and shall we not then hear and fear him What running and striving would there be who should come first if a King or some great Lord should call O let not the Lord of Lords and King of Kings call so oft and thou sleight and neglect it but rather say with Samuel Speak Lord for thy servant heareth speak Lord to my Ears that they may hear speak to my Memory that it may retain speak to my Heart and Affections that they may be obedient speak to my Life and Conversation that it may be answerable to thy Word then shall thy servant hear aright and not before Verse 18. If any Man think of some Marriages of holy Men in Scripture contrary to these Rules let him remember that we now live by Laws and not by Examples What God then either approved or tolerated let us neither rashly condemn nor unadvisedly follow but obediently tarry within the Precincts of the Law of Nature And again in these Cases let it ever be remembred as good reason it should not only what is lawful but what also is convenient and fit to be done For many things are lawful which are no way yet expedient but most unfit in
offered Yet this is no imboldning to presume but a comfort when Repentance is true Verse 45. The wayes of Gods delivering penitent sinners are divers and to be observed that we err not For some upon their sorrow God not only receiveth to favour and mercy but also delivereth them out of their present affliction So did he Manasses the King 2 Chron. 33. whose sin upon his Repentance he not only forgave but released him out of captivity and brought him into his Kingdom again Others he receiveth into favour and forgiveth their sin but yet suffereth to fall by their outward affliction So did he to the penitent Thief upon the Cross he received him into Paradice but saved him not from the Temporal Death The due remembrance of this is a great comfort against the loss of Friends in Wars and Plagues and the like calamities when others escape and do well Let us therefore cleave fast unto God believe his Mercy fear his Justice So whatsoever happeneth unto us shall happen for our good one way or other CHAP. XXVII Verse 8. IT is in thy power to vow or not to vow but having vowed a thing lawful and possible it is not in thy power though never so poor to dispense with thy Vow Indulged thou maist be but not Exempted If thou hast vowed rashly that rashness must be repented of but the vow if lawful must be perform'd without delay or diminution to the utmost of our power 'T is true we are no where in Scripture expresly commanded to Vow but having vow'd we are expresly commanded to keep that Vow That of David Vow and perform to the Lord is not a pure precept saith one but like that other Be angry and sin not where Anger is not commanded but limited so neither are we simply commanded to Vow but having voluntarily vowed we may not defer to pay it to our power be we never so poor Delaies are taken for Denials Excuses for Refusals And therefore every upright conscientious votary as he looks that Gods promises should be made good to him so he is careful to make good what he hath Vowed to God and this because Gods Covenant is of Mercy ours of Obedience and if we expect that God should be All-sufficient to us we must be altogether faithful to him Verse 28. From this and other Texts which shew what large provision was made for Gods Priests under the Law we may note that if such a plentiful maintenance were allowed by God to his Ministers of the First Table then certainly as great a portion at the least doth belong to the Ministers of the Second Table For it is certain that as we under the Gospel are more bound unto the Lord in all Duties of Thankfulness since the Messias exhibited than they under the Law to whom he was only promised and as in the same respect the Ministry of the Gospel far excels the Priesthood of the Law so the portion which is due from us to God and from him to his Ministers ought to be answerable at least little inferior Verse 33. There can no one instance be given out of the Word of God either that Gods people payed or that God accepted for the Tenth some other thing money or money worth less in value than the Tenth and when our Saviour speaking of the Pharisees which Tith'd their Mint Annis Cummin said This they ought not to have left undone he signifies not obscurely that the manner of Tithing in Kind and without Diminution even for those smaller things much more for the greater was in use untill his time and was a manner of Tithing just and lawful And how precise God was in this point we may not obscurely gather by this that he prohibited any man so much as to change the Tith a good for a bad or a bad for a good without a penal augmentation of it A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE FOURTH BOOK OF MOSES CALLED NUMBERS CHAP. I. Verse 1. SInai was a place where were many Bushes and Briars here they received the Law both Moral and Ceremonial which like Briars and Brambles prick'd and pierc'd the Consciences of Evil doers and by this means drove them to Christ who was clouded and shadowed forth under the Ceremonies of that Law for the Ceremonial Law was Christ under a Type And this Law was given four hundred and thirty years after the Promise made to Abraham not to disanull the Promise but to advance it Gal. 3. 17. and that guilt being discovered and every mouth stopped we might pass from Mount Sinai to Mount Syon from the Law to the Gospel and might acknowledg the riches of Free Grace and Mercy in Jesus Christ. Verse 5. As this Book of Moses beareth the Title of Numbers so a great part of it is spent in numbring of the People to assure us that God hath numbred those that are his he keepeth the taile of them and none are hidden from him none escape his knowledge and sight From whence we learn that the Lord knoweth perfectly who they are that are his both what their numbers and what their Names are Are we then in trouble and persecution are we accounted silly Men obscure base and unregarded do we live as contemptible persons to the men of this World let not this trouble or grieve us dismay or discomfort us but rather let us lift up our heads assuring our selves that although men turn themselves from us yet God looketh upon us and though they seek to root out our Names from the Earth yet he will know us and call us by our Names Verse 19. It is required of all Gods Servants to perform obedience to Gods commands when ever God speaks unto us we must hear and obey his voice Noah received a Commandement from God to build the Ark many hindrances might have staid him and sundry inconveniences might have stopt him and infinite dangers might have terrified him from that enterprize as the greatness of the Ark the labour of the building the Taunts of the Wicked and an hundred of such like troubles might stand in his way yet Noah over-looked them all By Faith Noah being wrrn'd of God moved with reverence prepared the Ark Heb. 11. 7. which shews that whensoever God hath a mouth to open and a Tongue to speak we must have an Ear to hear and a Heart to obey whatsoever is enjoyn'd us Verse 46. This may seem very strange unto us that so small an handful of seventy Souls should multiply so greatly in the space of 216 years but herein we are to consider the truth of God joyn'd with his power who because he is true of his Word and able of his power perform'd that to his people which he promised long before to their Fathers God had promised to Iacob that he would make him a great Nation Gen. 46. and here it was performed All the promises of God are Yea and Amen and shall in our time be accomplished to his Children CHAP. II. Verse 1.
now their hearts would have misgiven But loe these bold Traytors stand impudently staring in the door of their Tents as if they would out-face the revenge of God as if Moses had never wrought miracle before them as if no Israelite had ever bled for rebelling those that should perish are blinded Pride and Infidelity obdures the heart and makes even Cowards fearless Verse 31. In Dathan and Abirams case God may seem to proceed apace towards Execution but yet it had all these pauses in arrest of Judgement and these reprieves before Execution First When Moses had information of their factious proceedings he falls upon his face before God and laments and deprecates in their behalf verse 4. he calls them to a fair Tryal and Examination the next day verse 5. and they say We will not come verse 12. and again which implies that Moses cited them again we will not come verse 14. and Moses went up to them again and the Elders of Israel followed and all prevailed not and then Moses comes to pronounce Judgement verse 29. and after and yet not presently after the Judgement Execution followed verse 31. thus still God goes his own way to speak before he strikes to lighten before he thunders to warn before he wounds Verse 41. Here instead of Praying these Israelites murmur instead of praying to God murmur against Moses What have the righteous done It is the hard condition of Authority that when the multitude fare well they applaud themselves when ill they repine against their Governors Who can hope to be free if Moses and Aaron escape not Never any Prince so merited a people he thrust himself upon the Pikes of Pharaoh's tyranny he brought them from a bondage worse than death his Rod divided the Sea and shared life to them death to their pursuers Who would not have thought these men so obliged to Moses that no death could have opened their mouths or rais'd their hands against him yet now when their fellows are justly punish'd of God they murmur against Moses No marvel if we deal so with men when God receives this measure from us One year of Famine one Summer of Pestilence makes us over-look all the blessings of God and more to mutiny at the sence of our evil than to praise him for our varieties of good O God I have made an ill use of thy mercies if I have not learnt to be content with thy Corrections CHAP. XVII Verse 1. HOw desirous was God to give satisfaction even to the obstinate there is nothing more material than that men should be assured their spiritual guides have their commission and Calling from God the want whereof is a prejudice to our success It should not be so but the corruption of Men will not receive good but from due Messengers Verse 2. Before Gods calling all men are alike every Name is alike written in their rod there is no difference in the letters in the wood neither the characters are fairer nor the staff more precious it is the choice of God that makes the distinction so is it in our callings of Christianity all are equally devoid of possibility of Grace all equally liveless by Nature we are all Sons of wrath If we be now better than others who separated us we are all Crab-stocks in this Orchard of God he may graft what Fruit he pleases upon us only the Grace and effectual Calling of God makes the difference Verse 5. Before God wrought miracles in the Rod of Moses now in the Rod of Aaron As Pharaoh might see himself in Moses his Rod who of a Rod of Defence and protection was turn'd into a venemous Serpent so Israel might see themselves in the Rod of Aaron Every Tribe and every Israelite was of himself as a sear-stick without life without sap and if any one of them had power to live and flourish he must acknowledg it from the immediate power and gift of God Verse 6. These 12 Heads of Israel would never have writ their Names in their Rods but in hope they might be chosen to this dignity What an honour was this Priesthood whereof all the Princes of Israel are ambitious If they had not thought it an high preferment they had not so much envied the Office of Aaron What shall we think of this change Is the Evangelical administration of less worth than the Levitical while the Testament is better is the service worse how is it that the Great think themselves too great for this imployment how is it that under the Gospel men are disparaged with that which honoured them under the Law that their ambition and scorn meet in one subject Verse 7. These 12 Rods are not laid up in several Cabinets of their owners but are brought forth and laid before the Lord. It is fit God should make choice of his own attendants Even we Men hold it injurious to have servants obtruded upon us by others Never shall that Man have comfort in his Ministry whom God hath not chosen The great Commander of the World hath set every Man in his station to one he hath said Stand thou in this Tower and watch to another Make thou good these Trenches to a third Digg thou in this Mine He that gives and knows our abilities can best set us on work Verse 8. This Rod was the Pastoral staff of Aaron the great Shepheard of Israel God rectifies his approbation of his charge by the Fruit. That a Rod cut off from the Tree should blossom it was strange but that in one Night it should bear buds blossom and Fruit and that both ripe and hard it was highly miraculous The same power that revives the dead Plants in Winter in the Spring doth it here without Earth without Time without Sun that Israel might see and grant it was no reason his choice should be limited whose power is unlimited Verse 10. The same God which by many transient demonstrations had approved the calling of Aaron to Israel will now have a permanent memorial of their conjunction that whensoever they should see this relick they might be ashamed of their presumption and infidelity The Name of Aaron was not more plainly writ in that Rod than the sin of Israel was in the Fruit of it and how much more Israel finds Rebellion beaten with this Rod appears in the following Complaint Behold we are dead we perish God knows how to extort glory to his own Name from the most obstinate gainsayers CHAP. XVIII Verse 20. IF the Lord himself be Aarons portion and his Inheritance why should not Aaron content himself though he have no other Inheritance among the People And if the Lord be the portion of Gods Children who are his Royal Priesthood why should not they rest well contented although they want an inheritance inthe things of this World and why may not every Child of God as well as the Sons of Levi say God himself is my portion and God all-sufficient in himself is all-sufficient unto me
ill falling into those hands whom Beasts find unmerciful CHAP. XIII Verse 1. WHo can doubt whether Balaam were a false Prophet who sees him Sacrificing in the Mount of Baal had he been from the true God he would rather have said Pull me down these Altars of Baal then build me here seven others The very place convinces him of falsehood and Idolatry and why seven Altars what needs all this pomp when the True God never requir'd but one at once as himself is one Why doth the false Prophet call for no less than seven as if God stood upon numbers as if the Almighty would have his power either divided or limited Here is nothing but a great and magnificent pretence of Devotion It hath been ever seen that the false Worshippers of God have made more pompous shews and fairer flourishes of their Piety and Religion than the true Verse 3. Now when Balaam sees his seven Bullocks and seven Rams smoking upon seven Altars he goes up higher into the Mount as some counterfeit Moses to receive the answer of God But will God meet with a Sorcerer Will he make a Prophet of a Magician O Man who shall prescribe God what Instruments to use he knows how to imploy not only Saints and Angels but Wicked Men Beasts Devils to his own glory he that put words into the mouth of the Ass put words into the mouth of Balaam the words do but pass from him they are not polluted because they are not his as the Trunk through which a Man speaks is not more Eloquent for the speech that is uttered through it What a notable Proclamation had the Infidels wanted of Gods favour to his people if Balaam's Tongue had not been used how many shall once say Lord we have Prophecied in thy Name that shall hear Verily I know you not Verse 28. What madness is this in Balaam that hopes to change success with places as if God were not the same every where Neither was that bold fore-head ashamed to importune God again in that wherein his own Mouth had testified an assurance of Denial The reward was in one of his Eyes the Revenging Angel in another I know not whether for the time he more lov'd the Bribe or fear'd the Angel and whiles he is in this distraction his Tongue blesseth against his Heart and his Heart curses against his Tongue it angers him that he dares not speak what he would and now at last rather than lose his hopes he resolves to speak worse then Curses the fear of Gods Judgements in a Worldly Heart is at length overcome with the love of gain CHAP. XXIV Verse 11. THose that are themselves transported with vanity and ambition think that no Heart hath power to resist these Offers Balam thought he had struck the business when he had once mentioned Promotion to great Honour Self-love makes him think that all the World would be glad to run a madding after his bait Nature thinks it impossible to contemn Honour and Wealth and because too many Souls are thus taken cannot believe that any would escape But let Carnal Minds know there are those that can spit the World in the face and say Thy Gold and Silver perish with thee and that in comparison of a good Conscience can tread under foot his best proffers like shadows as they are and that can do as Balaam said verse 13. What the Lord saith that will I speak Verse 20. What was this sin of the Amalekites for which God threatneth That they shall perish for ever It was that according to Interpreters mentioned Exod. 17. Remember how Amalekmet thee by the way and smote the hindmost of you this Sin slept all the time of the Judges yet so soon as Israel had a King and that King setled in peace God gives charge to call them to an account 1 Sam. 15. As we use to say of Winter so may we say of Gods Judgements They never rot in the Sky but shall fall if late yet surely yet seasonably There is smal comfort in the delay of Vengeance while we are sure it shall lose nothing in the way by length of Protraction Verse 24. Balaam here Prophesieth of the rising and falling of great Princes and Empires they had their Heads lifted up on high and were advanced to the greatest honour but suddenly they came tumbling down and all their glory lay in the dust From whence we learn that great Men and mighty Princes suddenly decay and come to nothing they are in a moment cast down and left destitute when they little think of it Neither can we marvail at this change of the Places and Estates of the Sons of Men seeing it is the Lords doing and the work of his right hand The Lord lifteth up and pulleth down according to his own will and pleasure who maketh the highest Tide to have the lowest Ebb. CHAP. XXV Verse 4. AS the sins of great Men are exemplary so are their punishments Nothing procures so much credit to Government as Impartial Executions of Noble Offendors Those whom their sins have debased deserve no favour in the punishment As God knows no Honour no Royalty in matter of sin no more may his Deputies Contrarily Connivence at the outrages of the Mighty cuts the sinews of any State If good Laws turn once to Spiders webs which are broken through by the bigger Flies no hand will fear to sweep them down Verse 8. Now the sin is punish'd the Plague ceaseth The revenge of God sets out ever after the sin but if the revenge of Men which commonly comes later can overtake it God gives over the Chase. How often hath the infliction of a less punishment avoided a greater There are none so good Friends to a State as couragious and impartial Ministers of Justice these are the Reconcilers of God and the people more than the Prayers of them that sit still and do nothing Verse 25. The Daughters of Moab come into the Tents of Israel and have captived those whom the Amorites and Amalekites could not resist Our first Mother Fve bequeathed this Dowry to her Daughters that they should be our helpers to sin the weaker Sex is the stronger in this Conquest Had the Moabites sent their subtilest Counsellors to perswade the Israelites to their Idol Sacrifices they had been repell'd with scorn but now the beauty of their Women is over-eloquent and succesful That which in the first World betrayed the Sons of God hath now betray'd Gods People It had been happy for Israel if Balaam had used any Charms but these As it is the use of God to fetch glory to himself out of the worst actions of Satan so it is the guise of that Evil-one to raise advantage to himself from the fairest pieces of the Workmanship of God No one means hath so enriched Hell as beautiful Faces CHAP. XXVI Verse 9. THey were indeed famous in regard of their places but they became Infamous and Ignominous by their Sin and Punishment
Wife as Christ is the head of his Church Eph. 5. to rule to defend it to provide for it therefore as the Church is in subjection to Christ so ought the Wife to be to her Husband And therefore it is the duty of all Wives to acknowledg their duty and to yeild without striving subjection to their Husbands It is also the duty of Husbands seeing Authority is committed unto them over their Wives to love them tenderly even as Christ loved his Church Eph. 5. It is his duty likewise to dwell with his Wife 1 Pet. 3. 7. and why to dwell together but that the Husband should yeild to his Wife these four things First Good Example Secondly Instruction Thirdly Maintenance And lastly Imployment in her Calling for his good and his Families Verse 9. It is in our own power to vow or not to vow but when we have vowed it is not in our power to break it Vovere nusquam est praeceptum saith Bellarm. l. z. de Mona for as for that of the Psalm 76. 11. Vow and perform to the Lord your God is not Purum praeceptum saith Mr. Cartwright a pure Precept but like that in the New-Testament Be angry and sin not where anger is not-commanded but limited So neither are we simply commanded to vow but having voluntarily vowed we must not break it nor yet may we defer to pay it Delaies are taken for Denials Excuses for Refusals We must therefore come off with our vows roundly and readily as those Zech. 5. 9. that had wings and wind in their wings Are not the nine Lepers condemned by Christ for their negligence and unthankfulness Luke 17. God loves a chearful giver CHAP. XXXI verse 2. VVE must first do our work and then God will pay us our wages first fight our good fight against the World the Flesh and the Devil which is to avenge our selves of the Midianites in the Text and then God will give us the Crown of Glory Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites saith the Lord here and afterwards Thou shalt be gathered to thy people to that great Panegyris the General Assembly and Church of the first-born in Heaven to that glorious Amphitheatre where the Saints shall see and say Look yonder is Peter and that is Paul we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob have communion with them not only as godly men but as Abraham Isaac and Iacob Verse 8. Balaam pretended an hast homeward but he lingred so long that he left his bones in Midian How justly did he perish by the Sword of Israel whose tongue had insensibly slain so many thousands of them As it is usually said of the Devil that he goes away in a stench so may it truly be said of this Prophet of his according to the fashion of all Hypocrites his words were good his actions abominable he would not Curse but he would advise and his Counsel is worse than a Curse for his Curse had hurt none but himself his Counsels cost the blood of four and twenty thousand Israelites He that had heard God speak by Balaam would not look for the Devil in the same mouth and if God himself had not witnessed against him who could believe that the same tongue that uttered so Divine Prophesies should utter so vilanous and cursed advice Hypocrisie gains this of men that it may do evil unsuspected but now he that heard what he spake in Balaac's ear hath berayed and Condemned his Counsel and himself Verse 15. The Women were they that had caused Israel to sin and therefore it was dangerous to save them left they might entice Israel to sin the second time If we would avoid the sin we must have a care to fly the Temptation If we would not commit the act of Uncleanness we must not keep company with unclean persons we must stand a loof and keep at a distance from all occasions of sin And therefore to pray Lead us not into temptation and yet to run upon the occasion of sin is to thrust our finger into the fire and then pray that it may not be burnt a good man dare not come neer the train though he be far off the blow he will not dare to play near the hole of the Asp lest he slip into it He will not dally with the Devil knowing full well that sin is very infinuative and that the old Serpent if he once get in his head will quickly wind in his whole body Verse 16. This policy was fetch'd from the bottom of Hell It is not for lack of desire that I saith Balaam to Balaac Curse not Israel thou dost not more wish their destruction than I do thy Wealth and Honour but so long as they hold firm with God there is no Sorcery against Iacob withdraw God from them and they shall fall alone and Curse themselves draw them into sin and thou shalt withdraw God from them There is no sin more plausible than Wantonness one Fornication shall draw in another and both shall fetch the anger of God after them Send your fairest Women into their Tents their sight shall draw them to Lust their Lust to Folly their Folly to Idolatry and now God shall curse them for thee unask'd Where Balaam spake well there was never any Prophet spake more Divinely where he spake ill there was never any Devil spake more desperately ill Counsel seldom succeedeth not Gods seed falls often out of the way and roots not but the Tares never likely miss Verse 31. It is worth the observation to consider that before the death of Anron Moses and Aaron are joyned together so after his Death Moses and Eleazer the Magistrate and the Minister as the hand and eye are in the body Then doth the Church and Common-Wealth flourish when these two go hand in hand and on the other side they go to wrack when they are separated and draw several wayes Verse 35. The greatness of the Victory that God gave his people here appears by the distribution of the people and reservation of the Women that had not known Man which escaped the edg of the Sword Learn hereby first that the Iniquity of a People or Nation makes the Lord to destroy them and lay them waste sometimes by the Sword of the Enemy as in this place and sometimes by other Judgements Secondly that the eyes of Gods providence are upon all men and all their wayes in that he destroies multitudes and Nations as well as single persons Which may serve to reprove those that magnifie themselves against God thinking to prevail and escape for their multitudes sake Thirdly This admonisheth every Country City and Nation if they would enjoy their Lands and Goods in peace they must seek to be at peace with God and if they would not have destruction come upon them from God let them not draw it upon themselves by their sins Verse 49. There lacketh not one man of us say they here therefore we have brought an
their backs and his Name in their mouths they out-face all reproofs How many are there who if they can keep their Church give Alms bow their Knee say their Prayers and once a year receive the Sacrament think they may say in their heart I have enough my Brother but be not deceived if long Devotions sad looks hard pen ances bountiful Alms would have carried it without the solid substance of Religion the Scribes and Pharisees had never been shut out of Heaven CHAP. VII Verse 9. VVE may be sure that whatsoever God hath promised to his Church and whatsoever God hath done upon the Enemies of his Church heretofore those very performances to them are promises to us of the like succors in the like distresses he will perform reperform multiply performances thereof upon us Therefore is God call'd here The faithful God for that faithfulness implies a Covenant made before and there enters his mercy that he would make that Covenant and it implies also the assurance of the Performance thereof and there enters his faithfulness So he is call'd by St. Peter 1 Pet. 4. a faithful Creator he had an eternal gracious purpose upon us to Create us and he hath faithfully accomplish'd it And so Gods whole Word is call'd so often so very often a faithful Witness an evidence that cannot deceive nor mislead us Verse 13. There is no Man but he hath more about him in his present engagements and obligations to God than he will be able to answer in his best services though he should live out his Eternity here and then add a Christians Reversions to his present Possessions and it may be read running that God is not beholding to the Creature for any work or service that is done to him and yet God is pleased here to promise these Israelites that he will bless the fruit of their Womb and the fruit of their Land if they will hearken to his Iudgements and keep his Commandements But then withall observe from hence that God first hints the service and then expresseth the reward First he saith in the fore-going Verse If you will hearken to my judgements and keep them and then he grants the reward in this verse I will bless the fruit of thy Womb and of thy Land God will stand upon his own Prerogative and his Prerogative is to be served first and simply Though God will not be served for nought and therefore makes large Promises yet he will not be served because of the Promise but because of the Precept and therefore that goes first It is the Devil that makes bargains with his Servants to hire them to serve him Mat. 4. 9. but though God makes many and large promises to those that serve him yet he never makes any bargains with them and therefore in all the obedience that is done to God the Christian must first eye the Command and then the Promise It is not denyed but I may look upon the Promise as a motive as an encouragement as an obligation as an occasion to duty and obedience but not as the end and cause and ground of my obedience I may have respect unto the recompence of the reward with Moses Heb. 11. 26. but to seek Christ because of the Loaves is to respect the Loaves more than Christ or as much as Christ and that is rotten Verse 15. A healthy body is the reward of piety and he that endeavours to keep Gods Commandements God will keep from him all sickness saith the Text. Fear the Lord and depart from evill and it shall be marrow unto thy bones Prov. 3. thou shalt be in good plight both for the outward and inward man thy bones shall be full of marrow and thy Breasts full of Milk thy spirit also lively and lifted up in the wayes of the Lord. For as without marrow in the bones no part of Man no not that which is of greatest value and force is able to do any thing so the strength which Gods faithful Servants receive from him is as Marrow which strengtheneth the Bones and maketh them apt to do good things And as a Man that hath his bones fill'd with marrow and hath abundance of good blood and fresh spirits in his body he can endure to go with less cloaths than another because he is well lin'd within so it is with a heart that hath a great deal of the fear of God he will go through difficulties and troubles and diseases though outward comforts fail him Verse 18. As some School-masters have used that Discipline to Correct the Children of great Persons whose personal Correction they find reason to forbear by Correcting other Children in their Names and in their sight and have wrought upon good Natures that way so did Almighty God correct the Jews in the Egyptians For the ten Plagues of Egypt were as Moses decem verba as the Ten Commandements to Israel that they should not provoke God Every Judgement that falls upon another should be a Catechism to me CHAP. VIII Verse 1. ALl the commands saith Moses here that I command you this day shall ye observe to do them that you may live and multiply We may look at Gods reward of our obedience as the scope and aime of it 2 Cor. 4. 18. though not our highest aime for that must evermore be the glory of God for otherwise it is an argument of a base and an unworthy Spirit to serve for ends If it were no more but in the service of the State it is most odious and distastful For a Captain to fight that he may divide the spoil or for a Minister to comply with Covenants and Engagements that he may save his own or creep higher it is hist at by all honest Men and therefore much more to serve the great God for ends is an abomination not to be named among Christians It is Merchandizing with God and not obedience to serve God that I may serve my self I am never at the pitch of sincerity till I can see enough in God himself without looking out of him to have him as he was to Abraham Gen. 15. 1. My exceeding rich reward When it comes once to this Kue that the beauties of Gods truth and the pleasantness of his wayes and the holiness of his will and the equity of his Laws are the Arguments and the Wages that hire me to this service I may cry out with David I have found that which my Soul longs for for as sin is punishment enough unto its self though there were no other punishment and to do evill were Hell sufficient if there were no Hell to come after so to do good is reward and Heaven enough unto its self if the Heart be gracious Verse 3. God is a most free Agent neither will he be tyed to the termes of humane Regularities it is enough that he knows and approves the reasons of his own choice and commands Once in forty dayes and nights shall Eliah eat to teach us what God can
when they should dye and therefore Iob describing the shortness of mans Life and withall that his dayes are determined compares them to the dayes of an hireling For with an Hireling we agree to work with us for a certain time and usually by the day whence they are call'd Day-labourers It imports then that the time of mans life is short and set for Hirelings are appointed to an hour Fifteen years just and no more were added to Hezekiah's life Isai. 38. 5. our very hairs are numbred much more then our dayes Verse 11. What ever the Egyptians fancy of their River Nilus both their River and our Rain too are from above there is not any of the Creature not so much as our meer Water but we receive it from Heaven God bottleth up the rain saith Iob and pours it on the earth when God pleaseth to turn the mouths of these bottles downwards This is a great miracle that whereas Water is fluid and beareth downward yet now that God thus binds up these heavy vapours and keeps them in those Vessels of the Clouds as thin or thinner than the liquor that is contain'd in them as a strong Man in a Cobweb till brought by the Winds wheresoever he pleaseth they drop upon the Earth by little and little to make it fruitful this is a wonderful work of God and should bring us to the knowledg of his Power Wisdom and Goodness Verse 12. We read in natural story of some Creatures Qui solo oculorum aspectu fovent ova Plin. l. 10. c. 9. which hatch their Eggs only by looking upon them What cannot the Eye of God produce and hatch in us The Eye of the Lord upon me makes midnight noon and St. Lucies St. Barnabies day and the Winter 's the Summers Solstice what a chearful Spring what a fruitful Autumn hath that Soul that hath the eye of the Lord alwayes upon her The eye of the Lord sanctifies nay more than sanctifies glorifies all the Ecclipses of dishonour makes Melancholy Chearfulness Difidence Assurance and turns the jealousie of the sad Soul into Insallibility Upon the people of Israel Gods eye shined in the Wilderness his eye singled them in Egypt and in Babylon they were sustained by his Eye Verse 19. Fathers should look upon their Children as Gods heritage and labour to make them Sons of God and Heirs of Heaven they must desire and endeavour to become natural as well as spiritual Fathers to their Children by teaching and instruction from their very Infancy For when Children are able to learn any thing that 's bad then certainly it is high time to teach them something that 's good when they can stammer out an Oath or lisp towards blasphemy then it is high time to teach them their Catechism and instruct them in the Principles of Religion And therefore the Holy Ghost hath composed certain Abcedarian Psalms according to the order of the Hebrew Alphabet that Children might learn an Alphabet of Godliness and Parents teach them the Elements of Religion as well as of Learning such Psalms are 25. 34 c. CHAP. XII Verse 1. THe difference between Divinity and other Sciences is that it is not enough to learn but we must observe and do it as lessons of Musick must be practised and a Copy not read only but writ and followed The practical Christian is the best Christian Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour till the evening saith the Psal. 104. 23. he must ever more be doing following his honest imployment in his particular place and calling whether Manual or Mental eating his Bread either in the sweat of his brow or his brain And as it is with Man in his Civil so likewise in his Spiritual Calling he must arise from the bed of sin and go forth out of himself out of his Lusts and sinful affections as out of his House to his work and to his labour working out his salvation with fear and trembling untill the Evening till the Sun of his Life be set Verse 7. There is no one duty almost in both Testaments more press'd than this of rejoycing before the Lord and the contrary is complain'd of and sorely threatned Deut. 28. 47. and therefore it is declared here as a recompence of all their charge and pains Ye shall feast before the Lord with joy this was the sweet-meats of the Feast other dainty dishes there might be but this was the Banquet This made those good Souls Ps. 84. 7. go bodily on from strength to strength though they took many a step yet their comfort was that they should everyone of them in Syon appear before the Lord and then thought their pains though never so great well bestow'd though they then saw Gods face but obscurely in the dark glass of the Ceremonies What then should not we suffer to see God clearly in his Ordinances Verse 8. The words are not you shall not do ill in your own Eyes but you shall not do that which seemeth good good I say and I pray you mark it you shall not do that but shall keep you to my Commandement Be it never so good then in my conceit that is be my meaning never so good it will not excuse The time will come saith Christ that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service What then shall his so thinking excuse his bloody murther What ill meant Ioshua when he wish'd Moses to forbid those that Prophesied Micha's Mother when according to her Vow she made her Sons two Idols the Disciples of Christ when they forbad Little Children to come unto him Peter's meaning had no hurt in it when he bad Christ to pitty himself and when he forbad him to wash his feet yet you know no good intent was accepted in these cases Verse 14. God will not take any of thy pretended Superogations for Sacrifices or Worshipping but will be served after his own way and according to his own Prescriptions and therefore he saith in the former Verse Take heed that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest as if he had said I will be worshipped according to that which I have commanded thee and not after thine own fancy Because indeed that God the very reason and cause of all things hath his end in all whatever he ordains For to direct all Nations to the Sacrifice of his only Son alone he would have but one Temple but one Sanctuary and one Altar whereas thou dost darken and confound his meaning by thy multitude of High Places and Altars Verse 32. God accepts of no service but such as he commands You shall not do every one that which seems right in his own eyes saith the Holy Ghost in the beginning of this Chapter but ye shall do whatsoever I enjoyn you saith the same Spirit in this Verse Our service is limited to that which God liketh Saul thought that Sacrifice had been service but God liked better of his obedience Uzza
without blemish neither lame nor blind saith the Text. And certainly if the Sacrifice were to be without blemish much more is the Priest who was stil'd holy to the Lord from a two-fold holiness the one of his Life the other of his Person For all Sanctity is not inward nor is all perfection that of the Soul Gods holy one must be his fair one too without blemish no less in body than in mind Thus under the Law no monstrous issue no blind seer might offer the bread of his God Lev. 21. and shall the Evangelical ministration be worse served than the legal while the Sacrifice is more noble shall the Priest be less only the fattest in the Heard the fairest in the Flock were the oblations of the Law and shall the poorest of the Tribe the most deformed of all the issue be the Offerings of the Gospel the Lords house is no Hospital neither the Sacrifice nor the Priest must be admitted unsound and imperfect CHAP. XVI Verse 16. LEst Men should altogether neglect the service of God here is an injunction given from the Lord that all the Males should go up to the Temple three times a year still to keep them in use and love of the Church albeit they dwelled a great way off Where you may observe that although the Law reach'd but to the Males because God graciously considered that the Women might be with Child or Nurses and not able to come yet godly Women when they were able and had no impediment would go up also with their Husbands such a zeal had they to the House of God So went up Hannah with her Husband so went up the Blessed Virgin to Ierusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover both of them when there were gross and foul Corruptions For when Hannah went up what read we of the Sons of Heli and when Mary went up the Scribes and Pharisees were in their Ruffe yet they went up to teach us not to fall out with God for Mens faults nor to absent our selves from Church and Church exercises because all things are not perfect in the Ministers Verse 19. Gifts and Rewards put out the Eyes of those that saw clearly before and stop the Ears of those that could hear before and shutteth up the mouth of those that could speak before If then the receiving of Bribes and taking of Gifts be a setting of Justice to sail if they have force to pervert and corrupt not only such as are lewd and lime-finger'd to draw Presents unto themselves but the wise and righteous then we must acknowledg them to be dangerous Temptations this Moses teacheth the Judges and Officers which were to be chosen in their Cities Thou shalt not wrest the Law c. neither let them say though I take Rewards I will never swerve from Justice for that is to presume vainly of thine own strength and to give the Spirit of God the lye that speaketh the contrary Now seeing that Gifts and Rewards offered be as baits laid up to ensnare the Soul let us refuse them in the first place and next let us follow after the best Gifts which may further the Salvation of the Soul Those indeed are good Gifts which make the possessors of them better and which in the day of trouble and hour of Temptation shall minister more true comfort and peace than all earthly and transitory things which end in corruption CHAP. XVII Verse 13. IT is the duty of a Child of God to fear the Judgements of God We should fear the Judgements of God whilst threatned and only heard of what though we see them not what though we feel them not what though we are not the persons intended in them or to be smitted by them yet the report of them as directed against others should make us tremble Now if we are to fear God for his Judgements when they are but threatned then certainly we are to fear him much more for his Judgements inflicted And therefore in the old Law here when Judgements were executed 't is said they shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously they shall fear what had been already executed upon offenders and so fear to offend Moses here sheweth what all ought to do not what all did upon the appearances of Judgement and the execution of Divine wrath upon high Transgressors Verse 17. Here the King is commanded not to multiply Wives and that upon very good ground for if one Woman undid all Man-kind what marvel is it if many Women may undo one And Satan hath found this bait to take so well that he never chang'd it since he crept into Paradice How many have we known whose heads have been broken with their own Ribs In the first World the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men and took them Wives of all that they liked they multiplyed not Children but Iniquities Balaam knew well if the Dames of Moab could make the Israelites Wantons they should soon make them Idolaters all lies open where the Covenant is not both made with the Eye and kept Verse 20. Learn to fear the Lord saith the Holy Ghost in the former Verse that thy heart be not lifted up above thy Brethren The best counterpoison against Pride is to get the heart seasoned with the fear of God for the fear of the Lord is to hate evill as Pride Arrogancy Prov. 8. 13. Ioseph truly fear'd God and therefore hated not only gross Evils as Adultery but close Evils as Pride and Arrogancy It is not in me God shall give Pharaoh an answer Gen. 41. as he insinuates himself by this dutiful comprecation so he extenuates his gifts that he may give the glory to God So St. Iohn Baptist was full of the fear of the Lord and thereby of Humility For these two go coupled Prov. 22. 4. and so close that there is no Copulative in the Original for thus it runs in the Hebrew By humility the fear of the Lord are riches and honour and life What Riches the Baptist had I know not but for honour that hand of his that he thought not worthy to unloose the latchet of Christs shooe Christ thought worthy to be laid on his head in Baptism There are that say that for his humility here on Earth St. Iohn is dignified with that place in Heaven from which Lucifer fell who told them that I know not but this I know that he that humbleth himself shall be exalted Luke 4. 11. CHAP. XVIII Verse 1. YOu have here in this Verse the reason wherefore Tythes ought to be paid to Gods Ministers We must give to God what the things of God why because they are Gods they do properly belong unto him as his own possession they are a peculiar Inheritance or special portion reserved to himself So that although he hath given the Earth to the Sons of Men yet these like a chief Rent to a Landlord or a certain Tribute to a King were alwaies excepted and reserved they
sometimes on the Land Monsters bred of unlawful conjunctions which should not see the Sun Now if the Image of this vice be so horrid odious in Nature what shal we judge of the vice its self in Religion I am sure that God can away with any sort of sinners better than these for these he threatneth to spew out of his mouth Rev. 3. 16. as we therefore tender the Salvation of Body and Soul let us take heed of this plowing with an Ox and an Ass in the Text of this Laodicean temper in Religion if we ever look to be saved by our Religion we must save and preserve it entire and unmixt for God is a jealous God and will not give any part of his glory to another Verse 12. Upon these Fringes was some parcel of the Law written that so looking upon them they might be put in mind of Gods Commandements which should teach us that all sorts both young and old of what condition soever are enjoyn'd to know the Doctrine of the Scriptures and the will of God reveal'd in them and this because ignorance is the ground of error The natural man perceiveth not the things that be of God so then being of our selves blind and wanting the light of the Word we must needs go astray hence it is that Christ saith to the Sadduces Ye err not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. and then again the want of Knowledg is the cause of sundry fearful judgements Spiritual and Temporal inward and outward for as Ignorance is the cause of sin so it is the cause of judgement the reward of sin If we care not to know God but neglect the meanes of Knowledge no marvel if we be punish'd Verse 19. God will not suffer his Children to be evill-spoken of unjustly but will both clear them from the scandal and punish it God will so Oyl their good Name that infamy shall not stick on it Dirt will stick upon a Mud-wall but not upon Marble and therefore say thou be aspers'd and denigrated by the Calumnies and contumelies of black Tongues and thou lye under them for a time as the Earth doth under the darkness of the Night yet as the morning suddenly arrising driveth away that darkness so God shall clear up thy wronged innocency and as the Moon wadeth out of a cloud so shalt thou get out of all thy troubles in this kind or any other It shall be with thee as it was once with Cato whom Seneca calls the lively Picture of Vertue who was two and thirty times openly accused in Court and as many times cleared and absolved CHAP. XXIII Verse 7. THe relation of Flesh and Blood should be a strong tye among Christians and all Men indeed but we find the quite contrary For the difference of Brethren are of all others most irreconcileable whether they be Brethren by Race or Grace And for the first of these see it exemplified in Cain and Abel Esau and Jacob for thus it is written in nature that those that loved most dearly if once the Devil cast his Club between them they hate most deadly and as for Brethren by Profession and that of the true Religion too you shall meet with many divisions and those prosecuted with a great deal of bitterness No War breaks out sooner or lasts longer than that among Divines or about the Sacrament a Sacrament of Love a Communion and yet the occasion by accident of much dissention Great care therefore must be taken that Brethren break not Friendship or if they do that they unite and peece again as soon as possible for remember saith the Text he is thy Brother and therefore to be born with though unkind and injurious Verse 9. Seeing War is a lawful Ordinance of God it teacheth us to use it lawfully and to behave our selves uprightly when we go unto it So soon as War is proclaimed and the Trumpet sounded all Laws for the most part keep silence and equity is buried there is no mean or measure observed every Man thinks he may do what he list Hence it is that the Lord giveth these Precepts to his People When thou goest out with an host against thine Enemies c. Where Moses teacheth that we must not bear our selves in War as if all things were lawful nor give our selves a lawless liberty to be carried head-long into all Wickedness when we are come into the Field and there stand against the Enemy we must not think we have a pardon purchased to fall into all outrage and villany For whose are the Battels that we fight who is it that giveth the Victory If we look for any blessing from God we must have the more care to serve him faithfully and depend upon him religiously Prophane and ungodly men must not be listed in his Army The Lord will be the greatest Enemy unto such and they have more cause to stand in fear of him than of all their Enemies besides Verse 14. Seeing God is ever in his Church it is our duty to behave our selves in all our actions as in his presence It behooveth us to set him alwayes before us and to know how that he continually walks among us If the Child were alwayes in the sight of his Father the servant of his Master the Subject of his Prince they would not have an unseemly gesture a disordered action how much more doth it stand us upon to look to all our wayes that we offend not before the Majesty of God in whose presence we stand When the Minister Prayes and Preacheth when the people attend and hearken we must know that God looks upon us This is that use which Moses sets down here in giving directions to the people that they should have a place without the hoast c. the truth of which Ceremony leads us as it did them to a further matter and teacheth us that we must be an holy people to God in soul and body and to take heed of defiling our selves with sin we must all of us learn to purge our selves from such foul and filthy Corruptions if we will have God to rule and be resident among us Verse 18. Some understand this Text literally and Grammatically according to that expression of the Prophet Isa. 66. 3. He that sacrificeth a Lamb as if he cut off a Doggs neck Others take it metaphorically of impudently shameless sinners that blush not to commit Uncleanness in the sight of the Sun these shall never enter into Gods House the Kingdom of Heaven The Irish ayr will sooner brook a Toad or Snake to live there than Heaven will brook a sinner It was not permitted to a Dogg to enter into the Acropolis which was the chief Tower or Temple at Athens for his heat in Venery and ill savour saith Plutarch Goats likewise saith Varro come not there unless for Sacrifice once a year upon the same account no filthy Doggs or nasty Goats shall ever enter into Heavens Tower The Panther smells well among Beasts
buried in the high-way is no good mark and therefore bury not thy self thy labours thy affections upon the world Verse 22. However Infidels and Idolaters were destitute of the knowledge of the true God yet they accounted it a special duty to honour the Priests of their Groves and Altars and perswaded themselves that they should never receive any blessing at the hands of their Gods unlesse they honoured those that were esteemed as his Servants Thus Moses witnesseth that when Pharaoh during the Dearth and Famine that was in Egypt had received all the Money bought all the Cattle and purchased all the Land of the People to supply their necessity and save their lives yet he would not buy the Priests Land but sustained them for their Office sake And are Idolaters and Infidels thus bountiful in the maintaining of their Priests How then should this serve to reprove our dulness and backwardness in the true worship of the Eternal God How many are there that live in the bosome of the Church and profess the true Religion who yet to maintain a learned Minister that is able to save their souls repine and grutch to give sixpence a quarter What a shame is it for those whom the Lord hath blessed with abundance that they should spend all on their backs and bellies on Hawks or Hounds or Whores and nothing at all to the Glory of God the comfort of their fouls and help of their Brethren Verse 28. Just so many years as Iacob had nourished Ioseph in Canaan did Ioseph nourish Iacob in Egypt repaying his Fathers love to the utmost penny These were the sweetest dayes and freest from trouble that ever the good old Patriark saw God reserves his best to the last Mark the perfect man and behold the upright saith the Psalmist for be his beginning and middle never so troublesome the end of that man his after-end at least shall be peace A Goshen he shall have either here or in Heaven and a Peace both in this world and the next the peace of Conscience here and the peace that passeth all understanding hereafter CHAP. XLVIII Verse 1. IAcob have I loved said God and yet this Beloved of God was under many troubles and afflictions in his life and visited with sickness before his death And all this doth very well agree with the dispensations of Gods Providence For whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourgeth every Son whom he receives Afflictions are Christs Love-tokens When Ignatius came to the wild Beasts Now saith he I begin to be a Christian. Omnis Christianus crucianus every true Christian must take up his Crosse and follow his Saviour It is reported of an antient Doctor of the Church lying upon his sick bed and being asked how he did and how he felt himself he pointed to his Sores and Ulcers whereof he was full and said Hae sunt gemmae pretiosa ornamenta Dei These are Gods Gems and Jewels wherewith he decketh his best friends and to me they are more pretious than all the Gold and Silver in the world Verse 3. It is not enough to relate Gods Mercies to us in the lump and by whole-sale but we must instance in the particulars both to God and men upon every occasion setting them down one by one and cyphering them up as Davids word is Psal. 9. 1. I will praise thee O Lord and I will shew forth or sum up all thy marvellous works When Moses in Exodus met with his Father in Law he reckoned all the particular Mercies that God had done for Israel in Egypt and at the Red Sea he omitted none The truly thankful keep an Ephemerides a Calender and Catalogue of Gods gratious dealings with them and delight to their last to recount and sum them up We should be like Civit-boxes which still retain the scent when the Civit is taken out of them Verse 7. Iacob makes mention of Rachels burial to put Ioseph in mind that Rachel forsook her Fathers house to live in Canaan so to stir him up much more to leave Egypt which was not his Country as also that he might have a greater desire to the place of his Mothers Sepulcher Verse 14. Iacob feeling with his hands which was the Elder and bigger for the words are he caus'd his hands to understand on purpose laid his right hand on Ephraim in way of preheminence which sheweth that God bestoweth his Gifts without respect of persons as also it prefigureth the calling of the Gentiles instead of the Iews who were as the elder Brother 3. From this we may deduce an evident truth in experience that Gods dispensations towards the Righteous and the Wicked in this life are like Iacobs dealing here with Iosephs Sons crosse and strange For as he laid his right hand on the Younger and his left on the Elder so doth God oft-times for the present distribute with his left hand crosses to the good and with his right favours to the bad And not only in a literal sense as our Saviour speaks He maketh the Sun to shine and the Rain to fall upon the just and the unjust but in a metaphorical sense he causeth the Sun of Prosperity to shine upon the Unjust and the Rain of Adversity to fall upon the Just. Verse 15. When a Curse fals upon the Children the Father is cursed as in the Blessing of the Children tht Father is blessed Thus Ioseph brought his two Sons Manasseh and Ephraim to his aged Father Iacob that they might receive his Blessing who laying his hands upon their heads blessed Ioseph saith the Text and said God before whom c. and then it follows The Angel which redeem'd me from all evil blesse the Lads Now as Iacob in blessing the Children of Ioseph blessed Ioseph himself so Noah Gen. 9. in cursing the Children of Cham cursed Cham himself Valerius l. 1. hath observed concerning the Tyrant Dionysius that though he escaped free and untouched in person from the vengeance which his sacrilegious wickedness deserved yet his Sons were involved in so much misery that in them he being pasâ— feeling suffered and being dead paid dearly for his stolue dainties The light of Nature as well as Scripture tels us that evils falling on posterity are reckoned upon the Fathers score And thus as 't is with Curses so likewise with Blessings upon the same account and for the same reason though they are conferr'd upon the Children yet the Fathers memory is blessed and honoured by them Verse 17. It is dangerous to follow men blindfold how seeing soever those men are but it is safe and our duty to follow God blindfold how seeing soever we think our selves to be We must not be displeased as Ioseph was here with his Father Iacob When we see God laying his right hand upon Ephraim and his left upon Manasseh doing things crosse to our thoughts much lesse may we take upon us to direct the hand of God as Ioseph would Iacobs where we please The Lord
knows as Iacob answered Ioseph what he doth and it becomes us to acquiess in what he doth though we know it not And though God turn Kingdomes upside down though he send great afflictions upon his own People and make them a reproach unto the Heathen though he give them up unto the power of the Adversary and make all their enemies to rejoyce yet no man may say unto God Why doe you thus his Works are unsearchable It is beyond the line of the Creature to put any question a Why or a Wherefore about thr Work of the Creator Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the Clay Verse 21. This good Patriarch that had before wrestled with an Angel did not now fear to wrestle with Death and therefore speaks of it without the least fear or consternation of spirit It was no more betwixt Iacob and Death but Behold I die He knew he was to change his Place indeed but not his Company Death was to him but the day-break of eternal brightness it was but as that Martyr said winking a little and he was in Heaven immediately Why then should this sad toil of Mortality dishearten us why should we be so foolish as to fear that which is the Port which we ought one day to desire never to refuse And therefore some have welcom'd Death some met it in the way some baffied it in persecution sickness torments knowing it to bethe end of a temporal Misery and the beginning of an everlasting Joy CHAP. XLIX Verse 6. GOdly men are not at all pleased with the way of the wicked how much soever they thrive in it Iob had said much of the Greatness Riches and Glory of the Wicked but saith he However the counsel of the wicked is farre from me Chap. 21. the wayes of the godly and wicked differ as much as their ends their counsels are as distant as their conclusions will be Every good man saith of the counsel and ways of the wicked how prosperous soever as Iacob said of his Sons Simeon and Levi O my soul come not thou into their secret Let me be far from their secret far from their Cabinet Counsel and close Committees O my soul come not thou into their secret Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly The further we keep from their counsel the nearer we are to blessedness Verse 7. Many times Man though forbidden curses then it is his Sin and he is Satans Minister for evil against his Brother Yet in some cases to curse is Gods Command and our Duty and then we are Gods Ministers for wrath against the Wicked Thus when the Patriarch Iacob was upon his death-bed and bed of blessing yet he pronounced a Curse upon the rage and anger of his two Sons here Simeon and Levi. Now in all lawful cursings we must observe these two Rules First to aim the Curse at the destruction of the Sin not the Sinner Secondly where the Sinner appears incorrigible yet to desire the clearing up of Gods Justice in punishing not the punishment its self To curse any thing or person passionately is infirmity to curse any thing or person maliciously is grosse impiety Verse 8. What difference the Holy Ghost is pleased to put here betwixt sinners when yet the sins of those men were in a manner equal Reubeus Incest in the fourth verse was punished with a Curse and the like sin of Iudahs is pardoned and in a sort prospereth If this sin had not cost Iudah many a sigh he had no more escaped his Fathers Curse then Reuben did I see the difference not of sins but men Remission goes not by the measure of the sin but the quality of the sinner yea rather the Mercy of the Forgiver Blessed is the man not that sins not but to whom the Lord imputes not his sin Verse 10. This Hebrew word Shilo is derived from Shalah which signifies security and safety So that Christ is Shilo that is he in whom all persons may securely trust You may sit down in safety in Christ and rest your souls for ever he is Shilohs our Lord Protector our Saviour And the Hebrews use the same word to signifie the fleshly Mantle in which the Infant is wrapped in the Mothers belly because the Infant lieth there quietly and securely it is out of fear and hath no thought of any danger but lieth securely out of harmes way Verse 18. Gods Children upon the discovery of his glory and that happiness of the next Life are fill'd with longing desires after God and those Enjoyments Lord I have waited for thy salvation said Iacob he speaks this upon his death-bed as that he had been looking for all his life as if that were the account of all his actions in the World and the Story of his whole Life I have longed for thy salvation said David All desires are summ'd up in longing There is a strong desire in the Saints to see and injoy God in his Ordinances Now if there be so great and so longing a desire to see the Lord through these Mediums and in these Glasses how much more to see him immediately face to face How would that desire swallow up all our desires in glory And indeed we could not abide in Glory with any other desire but that The Saints are described in their present state by this Periphrasis such as love the appearing of Christ as if they loved nothing else What then will Christ be to them when he shall appear They who love Christ whom they have not seen how will they love Christ when they see him Verse 23. God sometimes seems an Enemy to his faithful Servants For one to be before God as a Butt continually shot at what other interpretation can sence make of it but this that God looks upon him as an Enemy Iacob said of Ioseph here The Archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him Ioseph was the common Mark of his Brethrens Envy But in this case as it is said of Ioseph when his Brethren came to him he made himself strange to them Ioseph was of a meek and loving disposition and therefore like a Player upon a Stage he only acted the part of a rigid Master or Governour thus many times the Lord takes upon him the posture of an Enemy and forces a frown upon a poor Creature whom he loves and delights in with all his heart he makes him as his Mark to shoot at whom he layes next to his heart Besides observe from hence further that God takes the most eminent and choisest of his Servants for the choisest and most eminent afflictions Thus Ioseph was made the White here that the Archers shot at Ioseph was the most eminent for Grace and Goodness of all his Brethren he was the most remarkable man for Grace and Holiness therefore he must be the Mark. Verse 27. Tertullian will have