of the Spirit of God Verse 3. In the first the old Creation God the Father said Fiat lux let there be light in this greater World in the Second the New Creation or Regeneration of Man God the Holy Ghost said Fiat cognitio Dei in anima hominis let there be the knowledge of God in the mind of man of man this lesser world God the Father said Fiat Firmamentum let there be a Firmament God the Holy Ghost said Firmetur volunt as in bono let the will of Man be confirmed in that which is good God the Father said let the Waters be gathered together in one place God the Holy Ghost said let many graces be united in one soul. God the Father said Fiant luminaria in Coelo let there be lights in Heaven God the Holy Ghost saith let the lights of Faith Hope and Charity be fixed in a believing Soul God the Father said Fiant volatilia let there be flying Fouls God the Holy Ghost saith let there be religious Meditations in the mind of man soaring upward And thus in every thing the work of our spiritual Creation is answerable to the Work of our temporal in the beginning of the World and the operations of the Third Person in the blessed Trinity upon our Souls now are but as so many parallel Lines drawn from the actions of the First Person of the same blessed Trinity upon our bodies then Verse 10. In this and several other Verses of this Chapter it is said that at the dayes end God looked upon the whole that he had made and he saw that it was good and at the end of the week taking a view of all his works together he saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Gen. 1. 31. which sheweth that after God had done his Works he did reflect upon them and considered the quality and the condition of them In imitation hereof Wise men do wish us that at every dayes end we should reflect upon our Works and take a view of what we have done that day and at the Weeks end take an account of all our doings for that space of time and fo further as further occasion shall require And this enquiry or account taking of our Works they call the examination of our Souls or Consciences And surely if we did observe this rule though we could not find our Works as God did his Works to be good and very good but rather naught and very naught yet by this searching into our Works we may without all doubt make our Works for the future much better than they are for the present Verse 16. God here calls the Sun and the Moon two great Lights because though there be greater in the Firmament they appear greatest to us those Works of ours are greatest in the sight of God that are greatest in the sight of men that are most beneficial most exemplary and conduce most to the moving of others to glorifie God Verse 26. In other passages of the Creation we find a kind of commanding Dialect with a Fiat lux and a producat terra let there be light let the earth bring forth but in this of Adam we meet with words more particular of deliberation and advice Let us make man Man a Creature of those exquisite dimensions for matter of body of these supernatural endowments of Soul that now omnipotency bethinks it self and will consult the privy counsel of Father Son and Holy Ghost is required to the moulding and polishing of this glorious peece no doubt something of wonder was in projecting when a compleat Deity was thus studying its perfection something that should border upon everlastingness when the finger of God was so choicely industrious and loe what it produced Man the master-peece of his design and workmanship the great miracle and monument of Nature the abstract and model and brief story of the Universe the Analysis and Resolution of the greater world into the less having little to divide him from a Deity but that one part of him was mortal and that not created so but occasioned miserably occasion'd by disobedience Verse 27. When God had created all the other species of the Creation it is still said as the complement and perfection of each And God saw that it was good but here when Man was created there is no such Eulogy no such acclamation and why because there is no Creature but Man that degenerates willingly from his natural dignity these degrees of goodness which God imprinted in them at first they preserve still as God saw they were good then so he may see they are good still they have kept their Talent they have neither bought nor sold they have not gain'd nor lost they are not departed from their Native and Natural dignity by any thing that they have done but of Man it seems God was distrustful from the beginning he did not pronounce upon Mans Creation as he did upon the other Creatures that he was good because his goodness was a contingent thing and consisted in the future use of his free-will Verse 28. In the former Verse it is said that God created them Male and Female not both Male nor both Female but one Male the other Female as if purposely for the propagation of Children and therefore when he had created them so he said unto them in this Verse Encrease and multiply bring forth Children as other Creatures bring forth their Kinde Nor was this all the blessing bestowed upon Man at his Creation but God hath here also joyned Man in Commission with himself in the word Dominamini when he gave Man power to possess the Earth and subdue the Creatures and exercise soveraignty and dominion over them And further God hath made Man so equal to himself as not only to have a soul endless and immortal as God himself but to have a body that shall put on incorruption and immortality too which he hath given to none of the Angels insomuch that Man is higher than the Angels who want that glory that he shall have in his body CHAP. II. Verse 7. AS when Man was nothing but Earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the Earth his mouth kiss'd the Earth his hands embraced his eyes respected the Earth and then God breath'd the breath of Life into him and that rais'd him so far from the Earth as that only one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it nd yet Man so rais'd by God by Sin fell lower to the Earth again than before from the face of the Earth to the Womb to the Bowels to the Grave so God finding the whole Man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Original Sin yet erects us by a new breath of Life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower than before we were rais'd from Original into Actual into Habitual Sins so low as that we think we need not a Resurrection and this is a
hands in this verse when he offered him Goods and spoyls enough to have enriched him and all his houshold No saith Abraham I will not take so much as a thred from you men shall never say that Abraham was made rich and not by Gods blessing but by the King of Sodoms means God shall make Abraham rich or he will ever be poor It is reported of one that was a better Lawyer than an honest man that he should say He that would not venture his body shall never be valiant nor he that will not venture his soul be rich Let them that make no reckoning of their souls venture them at their perils but let all that desire contentment here or heaven hereafter make their Prayers to God and say from such kind of Riches Good Lord deliver us CHAP. XV. Verse 1. IT is Saint Cyrils note That as Abraham so long as he was in his own Country had never God appearing to him save only to bid him go forth but after when he was gone forth had frequent visions of his Maker So while in our affections we remain here below in our Coffers we cannot have the comfortable assurances of the presence of God but if we can abandon the love and trust of these earthly things in the conscience of our obedience now God shall appear to us and speak peace to our Souls and never shall we find cause to repent us of the change Verse 4. In the 13 Chapter God promised Abraham an innumerable Seed but yet heknew not whether it should be his natural or adopted seed now the Lord cleareth that doubt and telleth him it should come out of his own bowels yet Abraham was uncertain Whether this Seed should be by Sarah or another which is told Gen. 17. 16. So God deals his Promises not all at once but by degrees by that means to cause us still to rely upon him and continually to pray for the performance of what we expect Verse 12. Not only a fear of God must but a terror of God may fall upon the best When God talked with Abraham here a horror of great darkness fell upon him saith the text The Father of lights and the God of all comforts present and present in an action of mercy and yet an horror of great darkness fell upon Abraham When God talked personally and presentially with Moses Exod. 13. Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God When I look upon God in those terrible judgements which he hath executed upon some men and see that there is nothing between me and the same judgements for I have sinn'd the same sins and God is the same God I cannot look upon God in what line I will nor take hold of God by what handle I will he is a terrible God I take him so and then I cannot discontinue I cannot break off this terribleness and say He hath been terrible to that man and there is an end of his terror it reaches not to me Why not to me In me there is no merit no shadow of merit in God there is no change no shadow of change I am the same sinner he is the same God still the same desperate sinner still the same terrible God Verse 16. The sins of a professing People or Nation are sooner ripe than the sins of the wild world as fruit that grows more in the Sun is concocted and comes to maturity sooner and therefore 't is observable that God bears longer with the world yea and in a sence deals more gently in their punishment The sin of the Amorites here was long many years e're it was full ripe but Israels was ripe in forty years and seeing they were most look'd upon of all the people of the earth therefore God will visit upon them all their iniquities and that to their cost they shall more intensively feel his wrath How dear was Israel unto God by how many sweet loving and precious appellations were they called his Apple his Spouse his Treasure his Jewels his Darling and yet cast out and abandoned by that God Oh how should this Nation of ours hear and fear and do no more so wickedly lest God make a quick dispatch and do as by ASIA remove the Candle and Candlestick out of its place CHAP. XVI Verse 2. VVHat a lively patern do I see in Abraham and Sarah of a strong Faith and a weak Of strong in Abraham and weak in Sarah she to make God good of his word to Abraham knowing her own barrenness substitutes an Hagar and in an ambition of Seed perswades to Polygamy Abraham had never look'd to obtain the Promise by any other than a barren Womb if his own Wife had not importuned him to take another when our own apparent means fail weak Faith is put to the shifts and projects strange devices of her own to attain the end She will rather conceive by another Womb than be childless So great is the desire of Children Verse 5. Those that are most injurious do commonly complain most of injuries and this both in respect of God and their Neighbour Thus Adam when he had committed that grand Catholick sin in Paradise layes the fault upon God The Woman which thou gavest me she perswaded me and I did eat God gave him the Woman as an help against temptation and yet he upbraids God with his gift and charges him with the sin when the Devil and his own weakness were the cause And thus Sarah in the Text complains against her Husband when she her self had done the injury She gave Hagar to her Husband and yet cryes out My wrong be upon thee The guilty seldom accuse themselves Verse 9. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity and the best seed-time for his graces is when the soul is harrowed with a sense of sin and the body is plowed up with its punishments then did Saint Lukes Prodigal think of returning to his Father when he knew not else whether to go and so Hagar in the Text was easily perswaded by the Angel to go back and submit to her Mistris when she was humbled by affliction Now she was under the rod she was ready both to hear and obey Affliction was her best School-master Verse 10. Ishmael though he were not the chosen seed yet received a goodly temporal blessing by which we see that these outward blessings are no signes of eternal election and here we may likewise observe that before this Promise was made to her Hagar was bid to humble her self so we must repent ere we can have Gods favour Verse 11. Affliction hath a voice and as musick on the waters sounds farther and more harmoniously than upon the Land so prayers joyned with tears These if they proceed from Faith are showers quenching the Devils Canon-shot a second Baptisme of the soul wherein it is rinsed a-new nay perfectly cured as the tears of Vines cures the Leprosie as the Lame were healed in the troubled Waters Now whether Hagars grief
the Exchange God in Christ may be had in every lawful Calling And then the Pigeon was an Emblem of fecundity in Marriage and the Turtle may be an Emblem of chast Widdow-hood for I think we find no bigamy in the Turtle but in these Sacrifices we find no Emblem of an unnatural or of a vow'd barrenness nothing that countenances a vowed Virginity to the dishonour or undervaluing of Marriage CHAP. XIII Verse 2. THis prefigured the holy Priesthood of our blessed Saviour who doth see and handle and touch regard and heal all our Spiritual spots as these Priests dealt here with this bodily Infection so that if we be unclean we cannot deceive him Away therefore with our Figg-leaves for they cannot cover us if I be a Swearer an unclean Liver a Drunkard an envious person or the like I am a Leper a spiritual Leper and Christ is Judge whom I cannot mock he will never say I am clean till indeed I be so and so without amendment of Life I must out of the Host out of the Church and number of his Chosen to dye for ever in my Impurity Verse 45. So careful was God to have unclean persons known and discern'd from others in those dayes And we may take occasion also to wish that with us also in these dayes all bold and presumptuous mis-livers being most unclean before God and all good Men were distinguished from them that hate their wickedness by some such open marks as these were to the end that others might avoid them and they themselves be stricken with some shame to amendment of Life and saving of their Souls Allegorically these things in the Leper shadowed the state and condition of all wicked men in this World As the rent Cloaths that they are vile and odious before God his bare head that in Christ their head they have no Portion but are deprived of him his Lips or Mouth covered that such graceless persons cannot open their Mouth before God in any Prayer to be heard his shutting out of the Camp that such are to be Excommunicate from the number of the Faithful and are deprived of the Heavenly Inheritance Verse 50. Before thou condemn thy Brother put thy hand into thine own bosom as Moses did and tell me if it be not leaprous with that sin which thou condemnest in thy Brother and therefore Cause the Priest should not give rash Judgement the Leaprous was shut up seven dayes We must not be hasty to condemn others nay youmay reason further with your self thus that if in a matter thus subject to the Eye as these Sores were yet God would have no haste but a stay for seven dayes before Judgement should be given that the Party was unclean O how more doth he abhor hast in pronouncing of the Hearts and Thoughts of our Friends and Neighbours which are not seen nor subject to an easie Censure A wise gatherer of Grapes gatheeth only the ripe and good Grapes and medleth not with the four and ill Grapes so a good Christian noteth mens Vertues and speaketh of them when a Fool will be medling with their imperfections CHAP. XIV Verse 2. THe Law of the Leper here was that he should be brought unto the Priest men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves nor yet are they to be brought in chains by a necessity of an exact enumeration of all their sins but to be led with that sweetness with which the Church proceeds in appointing sick persons if they feel their Consciences troubled with any weighty matter to make a special confession and to receive absolution at the hands of the Priest and then to be remembred that every coming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our transmigration out of this World and that we should do as much here for the settling of our Conscience as upon our Death-bed Verse 3. That it is still the duty of all Faithful Ministers to go to the sick to see them and consider their estate towards God ministring comfort to them in due season whilst their hearing is good their understanding good and their memory good And I would God that they that are sick had more care to send for their Ministers in due time and the Ministers when they know it to go and with all care and diligence to labour with them while time serves Verse 6. By the two Sparrows sayes Theodoret the cleansed person was put in mind to offer unto God both Soul and Body a living Sacrifice The Sparrow slain might teach him the necessity of Mortification in the Body which indeed is an earthen vessel the killing of it over pure Water that nothing more worketh this Mortification than the pure Water of Gods Word contained in the Scriptures and that by the bloud of Christ we are truly cleansed and set at liberty as here the live Sparrow dipped in the bloud of the slain Sparrow is set free Verse 7. This sevenfold sprinkling might happily shadow an earnest and tontinued meditation of Gods Goodness to him that thus was comforted and not for a day or two and then no more Surely our thoughts of Mercy vouchsafed to us are ever too short and transitory and therefore seven sprinklings are little enough to teach us our duty herein God of his Mercy so sprinkle us over and over that we may ever remember his kind Goodness towards us a thousand wayes CHAP. XV. Verse 3. OUr Nature whether running or stopp'd is unclean We have uncleanness corruption in us though it doth not shew it self and this is Original Sin call'd here our uncleanness and by Saint Paul Rom. 7. Sinful sin so evil in its self that it could not have a worse Epithete given it than its own name call'd also by the same Apostle in the same Chapter The body of death a dead body or carcass to which we are tied as noisome every whit to our soul as a dead body to our senses and as burthensome as a withered arme or mortified limb which hangs on a man as a lump of lead Now some remnants of sin God hath left in us to clear to us his justifying Grace by Christs Righteousness And this also will make the Saints seem nothing in their own eyes even when they are fill'd brim full with Grace and Glory in another World Verse 12. So contagious a thing is sin that it defileth the very visible Heaven and Earth which therefore must be purged at the last day with a Deluge of Fire because they were not made clean by a Deluge of Water as here the earthen Pot which was but touch'd by an unclean person was broken and the wooden Vessel scour'd and rinsed in water How therefore ought we to fly from sin when even the touch of an unclean person defileth a man And if the Garment spotted with the flesh be so contagious how mortal must the life and conversation of such a man needs be to the Soul Verse 13. When you read thus often of Water
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
divinity our beloved sins Supernatural dreames are sent by God and his Angels and that either to comfort us as Mat. 2. 19. or to chasten us and fright us as here Such fearful dreames cause a bad sleep and a worse waking And therefore Job in his 7 chap. and 15. verse made choice of strangling rather than such dreams Hippocrates tels us that many have been so afrighted with dreames and apparitions that they have hanged themselves leaped into deep pits or other wise made themselves away Let those that either have not been so terrified or so tempted or so deserted of God blesse him for that mercy Verse 11. It is just in the Sacrament as it was in the dreames of Pharaohs Butler The clusters of the Vine brought forth ripe Grapes and Pharaohs cup was in his hand and the Butler took the Grapes and press'd them into Pharaohs cup. The Sacrament is as a Vine set before us full of clusters of ripe Grapes and these Grapes full of juyce Christ with all his fulness offered to us in the Sacrament Now our care and course should be to have the liquor and bloud of these Grapes poured into the cup of our hearts How may that be done now as Pharaohs cup came full'd he took the Grapes press'd them crushed them into Pharaohs cup so the cup was fill'd So must we take these Grapes and press and crush them we must squeeze forth the liquor of them That we do when faith is actuated and is set on worke in the use of the Sacrament Actuated faith takes these Grapes and presses them and wrings out of the Sacrament that which fills our hearts Verse 13. Pharaohs Butler and his Baker went both out of prison in a day and in both cases Ioseph in the interpretation of their dreames cals that their very discharge out of prison a lifting up of their heads a kind of preferment death raises every man alike so far as that it delivers every man from his prison from the incumbrances of his body both Baker and Butler were delivered of their prison but they passed into diverse states after one to the restitution of his place the other to an ignominious execution Of thy prison thou shalt be delivered whether thou wilt or no thou must die fool this night thy soul may be take from thee and then what thou shalt be to morrow prophecy upon thy self by that which thou hast done to day Verse 16. He desired an interpretation of his dream not because he had a mind to be instructed thereby but for that he expected some good as well as the Butler so some have a regard to the preaching of the word not for conscience sake but onely seeking thereby their own ends which if they misse they goe away as the young man in the Gospel sad Mark 10. Verse 23. The Cup-bearer here admires Ioseph in the Jayle but forgets him in the Court how easily doth our own prosperity make us both forget the deservings and miseries of others But as God cannot forget his own so lest of all in their sorrowes For after two years more of Iosephs patience that God which caused him to be lifted out of the former pit to be sold did call him out of the dungeon to honour and of a miserable Prisoner made him Ruler of Egypt How happy is it with good men that they have a God to remember them when they are forgotten of the World CHAP. XLI Verse 14. SO long as God is with Ioseph he cannot but shine in spite of men the wals of that dungeon cannot hide his vertues the Irons cannot hold them Pharaohs Officers are sent to witness his graces which he may not come forth to shew without a Miracle for God now puts a dream into the head of Pharaoh he puts the remembrance of Iosephs skill into the head of the Cup-bearer who to pleasure Pharaoh not to requite Ioseph commends the Prisoner for an Interpreter he puts an interpretation into the mouth of Ioseph he puts this choice into the heart of Pharaoh of a miserable Prisoner to make him the Ruler of Egypt Verse 35. When we have enough for to day it is but honest prudence to lay up for to morrow The poor contemptible Ant gathereth that food in harvest that may serve her for the Winter It is good for a man to keep somewhat by him to have something in store against a rainy day A good saver makes a well doer is a Dutch proverbe Care must be taken that our layings out be not more than our layings up Let no man here object that of our Saviour Care not for to morrow there is a care of diligence and a care of diffidence a care of the head and a care of the heart the former is needfull the latter sinfull Verse 40. Worldly men may advance dignify and honour Gods People and yet not love them as godly men should be loved Besides Gods sanctfying Graces there are oft-times in Gods Children as here in Ioseph other gifts of wisdome prudence learning fidelity skill and activity in secular imployments all which may gain them great respect in other mens hearts So Pharaoh here honoured Ioseph and we see his ground in the foregoing verse So many a master loves a godly Servant not because he is a good man but because he is a good Servant this is selflove they love them because they love themselves such men are for their profit and advantage and for their turnes and therefore out of a selflove selfrespect love and respect them That their love of them is not for their godliness appears by this because though there were not one dram of grace and godliness in them yet for their other abilites they should be no lesse dear unto them then now they are with all their graces Verse 44. Behold how one hour hath changed Iosephs Fetters into a chain of Gold his Rags into fine Linnen his Stocks into a Chariot his Jayl into a Palace Potiphars Captive into his Masters Lord. He whose Chastity refused the wanton allurements of the Wife of Potiphar hath now given him to his Wife the Daughter of Potipherah Humility goes before Honour serving and suffering are the best Tutors to Government How well are Gods Children paid for their Patience how happy are the Issues of the Faithful never any man repented him of the advancement of a good Man Verse 46. There is mention made here of Iosephs age first that by this it may be gathered how long Ioseph was a Servant in Egypt Secondly his age is expressed that it might appear what wonderful Graces he had received at those years of Chastity Patience Wisdome Policy and Government Thirdly by this President of Ioseph made a Governour at thirty we see that at this age a man is fit for publick imployment David at that age began to reign Ezekiel prophesied Christ and Iohn the Baptist began to preach Verse 56. Pharaoh hath not more preferr'd Ioseph then Ioseph
The larger is our preparation the larger is our vessel the larger our vessel the larger our dole at a Sermon or Sacrament If we carry not away as much as we would it is our own fault that by preparation we did not furnish our selves with a larger vessel Verse 4. This blind Nature saw to be the sum of all sins ingratum dixeris omnia dixeris Some vices are such as Nature smiles upon though frown'd at by Divine Justice not so this Philip King of Macedon caused a Souldier of his that had offered unkindness to one that had kindly entertained him to be branded in the forehead with these two words hospes ingratus Unthankfulnesse is a Monster in Nature a Solecisme in Manners a Paradox in Divinity a parching Wind to dry up the Fountain of further favour Benjamins fivefold Messe was no small aggravation to the theft here laid to his charge Verse 12. The Graces which God finds in us are like the silver which Ioseph found in Benjamins sack of his own putting in For our will herein is like the lower Sphere quae non nisi mota movet moves not unlesse it be first moved Why should we then be loth to acknowledge to have all our ability of doing good freely from God and immediately by his grace when as even those faculties of Nature by which we pretend to doe the offices of Grace we have from God himself too For that question of the Apostle involves all What hast thou that thou hast not received Thy natural faculties are no more thine own than the Grace of God is thine own But as thy body conceived in thy Mothers womb could not claim a soul at Gods hand nor wish a soul no nor know there was a soul to be had so neither by being a man indued with natural faculties canst thou claim Grace or wish Grace nay those natural faculties if they be not pretincted with some infusion of Grace before cannot make thee know what Grace is or that Grace is To a Child rightly disposed in the womb God does give a soul to a natural man rightly disposed in his natural faculties God doth give grace but that soul was not due to that Child nor that grace to that Man Verse 14. If I am bereaved of my Children saith Iacob here I am bereaved Which was spoken by him not rashly or desperately as if he cared not what became of himself but through the obedience of Faith in sacrificing his will unto Gods And this is according to that Petition in the Lords Prayer Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven A godly Man sayes Amen to Gods Amen and puts his fiat and placet to Gods As one said He could have what he would of God Why How was that Because whatever was Gods will that was his And thus to submit unto Gods will is to serve him with a true heart a heart truly and entirely given up to God delighting to doe his will and therefore well content to wait or if God see good to want what it most desires be it Health or Wealth or Wife or Children being ambitious rather that Gods will should be done than our own and that he may be glorified though we be not gratified Verse 16. This iniquity which God is said here to find out is not to be referred to this present Accusation whereof they were not guilty but to their former trespass committed against Ioseph as they in like manner confessed Gen. 42. and by this we should learn to look to God in our afflictions whereof we see no evident cause Verse 17. How easie is it to find advantages where there is a purpose to accuse Benjamins sack makes him guilty of that whereof his heart was free Crimes seem strange to the innocent well might they abjure this fact with the offer of bondage and death For they which carefully brought again that which they might have taken would never take that which was not given them But thus Ioseph would yet dally with his Brethren and make Benjamin a Theif that he might make him a Servant and fright his Brethren with the peril of that their charge that he might double their joy and amazedness in giving them two Brothers at once Our happiness is greater and sweeter when we have well fear'd and smarted with evils Verse 23. Iosephs Steward like a good Man speaks comfort and life unto these fainting dis-spirited Patriarkes He knew there was a warre in their Consciences and therefore he brings peace unto their afflicted spirits To break the bruised reed to greive one that is in the agony of his soul to strike the breath out of a mans body who is giving up the Ghost is cruelty upon cruelty And therefore it was the complaint of Saint Cyprian against the Persecutors of Christians in his time In servis Dei non torquebantur membra sed vulnera they laid stripes upon stripes and laid wounds upon sores and tortutured not so much the members of Gods Servants as their bleeding wounds CHAP. XLV Verse 1. VVHen Iudah had seriously reported the danger of his old Father and the sadness of his last complaint compassion and joy will be conceal'd no longer but break forth violently at Iosephs voice and eyes Many passions do not well abide witnesses because they are guilty to their own weakness Ioseph sends forth his servants that he might freely weep He knew he could not say I am Ioseph without an unbeseeming vehemence Verse 4. I am Ioseph never any word sounded so strangely as this in the ears of the Patriarkes Wonder doubt reverence joy fear guiltiness struck them at once No marvel if they stood with paleness and silence before him looking on him and on each other the more they considered the more they wondred and the more they beleived the more they feared For those words I am Ioseph seemed to sound thus much to their guilty thoughts you are murtherers and I am a Prince in spite of you my power and this place give me all opprotunities of revenge my glory is your shame my life your danger your sin lives together with me But now the tears and graicous words of Ioseph have soon assured them of pardon and love and have bidden them turn their eyes from their sin against their brother to their happiness in him and have changed their doubts into hopes and joyes Thus actions salv'd up with a free forgiveness are as not done and as a bone once broken is stronger after well setting so is love after reconcilement Verse 5. Let us remember this in all oppressions we meet with that they fall not upon us without divine providence What Eliphaz saith of affliction in general is true of oppression in particular it comes not forth of the dust neither doth it spring out of the ground And this truth was confirmed by Ioseph in this text who though sold by his envious brethren into Egypt yet saith that God had sent him into Egypt
The wicked heart never fears God but thundring or raining fire from Heaven but the good can dread him in his very sun-shine his loving Deliverances and Blessings affect them with awfulness Moses was the true Son of Iacob who when he saw nothing but visions of Love and Mercy could say How dreadful is this place Verse 7. If we would have our greif seen and helped we must endeavour to become Gods People For then sighing and groaning in our several afflictions as these did we may be sure in due time to find our comfort as they found We may hence also learn that affliction doth not shew that the party is disliked of God as the Devil often suggests to men and women in trouble for God calleth these Israelites his People which yet were plunged in the depth of misery and affliction Verse 11. This should teach every one of us humility and to say with Moses Who am I Lord that thou should'st thus and thus think of me chuse me and take me to that place that I have no strength to manage and which thousands of my Brethren are fitter for than I am This also may put us in mind of the weighty calling of Ministers For is it such a matter to strive with Pharaoh for Bodies and temporal servitude and is it nothing to fight with the Devil for Souls and freedome from eternal slavery Verse 14. See a sweet comfort in all our fears even his Name I AM. Noting that as he hath been to penitent sinners so ever he will be without any change If I call upon him and depend upon him I AM is his Name and I may not doubt of him he is no Changeling but the same for ever Verse 16. When any new thing is to be published that concerneth any change in Church or Common-wealth we must acquaint the Magistrates Rulers and Governours with it to approve our Commission and matter unto them with all Modesty Humility Fear and Care of Order and Unity and then with their consents and assistance unto the People and Multitude This is a right course and this shall have a Blessing from the Author of it as here it had Then shall they obey thy voice verse 18. Verse 18. See again and still most carefully note it how God regardeth Government For now Pharaoh must be used as was fit for his place he being the King of that Land in which they were wicked Pharaoh I say must not be disorderly dealt with by such as live under his Government although Strangers and not his natural Subjects how much then by natural Subjects But he must be gone unto with all duty and acquainted with their desire with all reverence that neither themselves may be judged factious neither others by their examples moved to any disorder And therefore they must acquaint him with the Author of their desires not their own heads lusting after liberty or novelty but the Lord God Verse 21. All hearts are in the hands of God even as the Rivers of Water and that he turneth them hither and thither at his pleasure He can make them love hate they never so much Yea he can make them so love that fruits from thence shall flow to his People of their love Be they Jewels of Silver or Rayment they shall grant it and send it give it or lend it with so willing a mind as the party taking needeth to wish CHAP. IV. Verse 3. THe heart of man is like the Rod of Moses as long as he held it in his hand it remained a Rod but when he threw it to the ground it turn'd instantly into a Serpent nay a Dragon the Prince of Serpents as Philo the Iew saith so the heart of man as long as there is fast hold of it as long as Man is the Possessor God the Guardian it continues still an heart but if our boistrous unruly sins once throw it to the earth it changeth instantly to be a Serpent From whence all carnal and earthly-minded men may learn whose Consciences at the reading hereof tell them that their hearts are turn'd into Serpents and Vipers by their sins and are now crawling on the earth in their lustful designes to stretch forth a hand of sorrow a hand of true repentance to take them up again in what shape soever they appear For he that was exalted on the Crosse as the Serpent in the Wildernesse shall turn those Serpents into Hearts again their Gall and Poison into Innocence their Sting of Death into Issues of Immortal Life Verse 4. Sin is a Serpent and hath a deadly sting in the tayl of it even the sting of Death For the sting of death is sin saith St. Paul Now as a man would fly from a Serpent so let him fly from sin But if thou hast taken this Serpent into thy hand rest not till like Moses Serpent it be turned into a Rod again to scourge thy Soul till a true sense of thy sins and of Gods Wrath due unto thee for the same bring thee to a serious repentance and contrition to a spiritual loathing and abhorrency of those sins that so thou maist never cast thine eye back upon them but with a new and a particular detestation thou maist never enter into meditation of those sinful passages of thy former life but with shame and horror of soul and that every solemn review of those dayes of darkness and unregeneration may make the wounds of our remorse to bleed afresh Verse 7. When Moses pluck'd his hand out of his bosome it was leprous and again when he pluck'd it out it was white to shew that the actions of our hands receive their denomination from the bosome the heart according to that saying of the Father Tantum habent virtutis aut vitii actiones quantum habent voluntatis Verse 12. He that is singled out to any service of his God for the advantage of his Israel must not give back or waver but go boldly on If a willing obedience second his Command God promiseth to assist I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say was Gods Promise here to Moses and it was his Sons to the Apostles Mat. 10. 19. Take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak As if he had said be not anxious about matter or manner of your Apology for your selves ye shall be supplied from on High both with Invention and Elocution you shall have your help from Heaven For it is not you that speak saith our Saviour in the next verse but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you who borroweth your mouth for the present to speak by It is he that forms your speeches for you dictates them to you filleth you with matter and furnisheth you with words Fear not therefore your rudeness to reply there is no mouth into which God cannot put words And how oft doth he chuse the Weak and Unlearned to confound
a Rule to guide my Conscience by either in Civil or Ecclesiastical matters Verse 4. Gods Actions are general and particular general to all men particular to his Friends So must ours be As therefore by his general Action he suffereth the Sun to shine upon the bad as well as good so must we extend our Love which is the common Bond of Mankind as well to our Enemies as to our Friends by which common Love all hurting of the Bodies or Goods of our Enemies is forbid Again as God hath his special Action to his Friends and his Church namely sanctification so must Friendship which is our special Action reach its self to such only as are of the Houshold of Faith For although we must love with that general Love all Mankind Turks Pagans yet to such may we not be Friends and Familiars but must beware of inward and usual conversation with them that hate God and all his Graces This distinction tels you the meaning of Mat. 5. 44. Love your enemies Verse 5. Estne Deo cura de bobus is the Apostles Question Hath God care of Oxen other mens Oxen how much more of his own Sheep And therefore if thou see one of his Sheep one of thy fellow Christians strayed into sins of infirmity joyn him with thine own Soul in thy Prayers to God Relieve him if what he needs be spiritual with thy Prayers for him and relieve him if his wants be of another kind according to his Prayers to thee Why should not he that is made of the same bloud and redeem'd with the same bloud as thou art why should not he prevail with thee so far as to the obtaining of an Almes when some fellow-servant of thine hath had that interest in God as by his intercession and Prayers to advance thy Salvation wilt not thou save the life of another man that prayes to thee when perchance thy Soul hath been saved by another man that prayed for thee Verse 6. In the third verse God commanded That the poor man should not be spared for pitty Here now he enjoyneth That a poor man should not be wrong'd in respect of his poverty such equal steps would God have Judgement to walk in Verse 11. Blessed is the man that provideth for the poor the Lord shall deliver him in all his trouble Psalm 41. 1. This is proved in the Widdow of Zarepta who fed the Prophet and never suffered in the midst of that Famine 1 Kings 17. When I was hungry you fed me saith Christ Mat. 25. 35. Me I say in the poor with you to whom what you did you did it to me and so I take it and will blesse you for it both here and hereafter Verse 19. You must not seeth the kid c. to shew that we must not use that to the destruction of any Creature which was intended for his preservation CHAP. XXIV Verse 3. IT is better not to promise than not to keep promise the people of the Iews were signified by the Locusts which suddenly leap up and forthwith fall down to the earth again They did as it were leap up when in words they promised to do all things which the Lord had said but they fell to the earth again when in their deeds they denied the same Let us therefore alwayes weigh our weakness and accordingly frame our promises for as we see in this people we may purpose well that which we cannot so well perform Verse 12. It is not many weeks since Israel came out of Egypt in which space God had cherished their Faith by several Wonders yet now he thinks it time to give them Statutes from Heaven as well as Bread The Manna and Water from the Rock which was Christ in the Gospel were given before the Law the Sacraments of Grace before the legal Covenant The Grace of God preventeth our obedience therefore should we keep the Law of God because we have a Saviour O the Mercy of God which before we see what we are bound to do shews us our remedy if we do it not How can our Faith disanul the Law when it was before it It may help to fulfil that which shall be it cannot frustrate that which was not The Letter which God had written in our fleshly Tables were now as some that were carved in some Barks almost grown out he saw it time to write them in dead Tables whose hardness should not be capable of alteration He knew that the stone would be more faithful than our hearts Verse 14. Ministers whether Civil or Ecclesiastical are not to leave their charge without Deputies When Moses here ascended he left Aaron and Hur with the people that whosoever had any matter might come to them So watchful and faithful was Moses in his place that without just cause he is not absent and then he leaveth able Deputies Verse 16. Moses ascending was not admitted to God till after six dayes to teach all men patiently and reverently to tarry Gods leisure and gracious pleasure for any matter of his Will to be revealed to them not curiously searching but humbly waiting for the thing we seek being fit for us At the end of six dayes God called to Moses So will the Lord have a comfortable time for all those that wait for him they shall see and hear at last what he will say unto them But then they must come to God in the Cloud that is in the humanity of Christ whereof this Cloud was a Figure For without him there is no access to God and by him we come and that boldly Verse 17. God appears here like a consuming Fire in the eyes of the Children of Israel but to them whom he drew to him he appeared as a pleasant Saphire verse 10. Just so to carnal men and to such as are his called by his holy Spirit there is a great difference of him the one seeing with fear and trembling the other seeing feeling and tasting Joy and Comfort Verse 18. Moses was with God forty dayes and nights without any repast That God that sent the Quails to the Host of Israel and Manna from Heaven could have fed him with dainties if he had so pleas'd But there is no life to the life of Faith Man lives not by bread only The Vision of God did not only satiate but feast him What a blessed satiety shall there be when we shall see him as he is and he shall be all in all to us Since this very frail Mortality of Moses was sustained and comforted but with representations of his presence Here again I see Moses the Receiver of the Law Elias the Restorer of the Law Christ the Fulfiller of the Law all fasting forty dayes Abstinence prepares best for good Duties Full bellies are fitter for rest Hence solemn Prayer takes ever fasting to attend it and so much the rather speeds in Heaven when it is so accompanied It s good so to diet the body that the soul may be fatned CHAP. XXV
the Elder shall suffer no less than the Younger the Rich as well as the Poor there is no regard with God of these things Verse 3. He howled not out with any unseemly cries neither uttered any words of Rage and Impatience but meekly stoop'd to Gods will kiss'd the Rod and held his peace If thus Aaron in so great a Judgement how much more we when our Friends dye naturally sweetly and comfortably so that we may boldly say we have not lost them but sent them before us whether we hope also to follow Verse 5. That which the Father and Brother may not do the Cousins are Commanded Dead Carkasses are not for the presence of God his Justice was shewn sufficiently in killing them they are now fit for the Grave not the Sanctuary neither are they carried out naked but in their Coats It was an unusual sight for Israel to set a linnen Ephod upon the Beer the Judgement was so much the more remarkable because they had the badg of their Calling upon their backs Nothing is either more pleasing unto God more commodious to Men then that when he hath executed Judgment it should be seen and wondered at for therefore he strikes some that he may warn all Verse 12. This is added to comfort and strengthen the shaken Hearts of Aaron and his living Sons who might by this strange punishment have been driven into doubt whether ever the Lord would be pleased that they should meddle again with the Sacrifices and we see therein a gracious God who maketh not his Promises void to all for the faults of some We must therefore cleave to our Calling and even so much the more painfully go forward therein by how much we see others punish'd for ill doing be taught therefore and school'd but never be discouraged and feared from imposed Duty Verse 20. In that Moses admitted of a reasonable excuse we may learn to abhor Pride and to do the like Pride I say which scorneth to hear what may be said against the conceit we have once harboured A modest man doth not thus and therefore holy Iob had an Ear for his Servant and his Maid and did not despise their Judgement their Complaint and Grief when they thought themselves evill entreated by him CHAP. XI Verse 2. LEarn from hence our Duty to depend upon the Word and Will of God in all things yea even in our Meat and how careful likewise we ought to be to seek cleanness of Body and Soul before that God who expects it in our very Diet. Verse 3. This typified a difference of Men and Women in the World some clean and some unclean for they that have a true Faith and a good Life by meditating in the Word are such as divide the Hoof and chew the Cud and they are clean but such as do neither or but one are unclean as he that believeth in God but liveth not well or he that liveth in an outward honesty but believeth not rightly They again may be called clean dividing the Hoof who do not believe in great or in gross but discern and distinguish things as Christ and Moses Nature and Grace not believing every Spirit but trying the Spirits whether they be of God or no. Iohn 4. 1. For chewing the Cud they may be said to do it and so to be clean who meditate of that they hear lay it up in their Hearts and practice it in their Conversations Verse 5. By the Coney are figured out such Men as lay up their Treasures in the Earth because the Conies digg and scrape and make their Berries in the ground whereas we are taught to lay up our Treasure in Heaven Mat. 6. Verse 6. The Hare is a very fearful Creature and therefore is the type of fearful Men and Women despairing of Grace and shrinking from God such persons are unclean and excluded the Kingdom of God Rev. 21. 8. Verse 7. The Swine never looks up to Heaven but hath his mouth ever in the Earth and Mire caring for nothing but his Belly nourish'd only to be kill'd for his Death hath use his Life hath none A good Caveat for the Rich miserable Wretches of the World who never profit any till they dye A Knife therefore for the Hogg that we may have what is useful in him and Death for such Wretches that the Common-wealth may have use of theie Baggs Verse 14. By the Goss-hauk is shadowed forth Men that Prey upon their weaker Brethren and Neighbours By the Vulture Men that delight in Wars and Contention By the Ravens unnatural Parents that forsake their Children unkind Friends which shrink away Ill Husbands that provide not for their Families By the Ostrich painted Hypocrites and Carnal Men that have fair great Feathers but cannot flye By the Seamew that liveth both on Land and Water such as will be saved both by Faith and Works such Ambodexters as the World hath store of that carry two Faces under a Hood Fire in one hand and Water i th' other CHAP. XII Verse 2. THis serves to Confute that gross Error of Pelagius denying the propagation of sin from Parents to Children but if the Birth were clean the Mother by the Birth should not be unclean as this purification did shadow that she was God would therefore have all Men know what they are by Nature and what by Grace through the Remedy provided Christ our only Righteousness and Purity Also that God had rather have them never enter into the Church than to enter with Corruption unsorrowed for and uncared for Verse 4. Although this Ceremonial Law of Moses be abrogated and gone yet honesty of Nature and modesty in Woman-kind is neither abrogated nor gone Therefore even still we retain in the Church a lawful and laudible custome among Women that they should stay a time after Child-birth to gather strength in their Houses and then come to Church to give God Thanks And this is nothing but a needful thing in regard of weakness a modest Ceremony in regard of Woman-hood and a Christian Duty in regard of Comfort and Mercy received to come to Church there thankfully to acknowledg Gods great mercy to them in both giving them safe deliverance and blessing them with Children to their Comfort Verse 5. There is no sin in Marriage if it be not abused but because this is rare therefore after Women were delivered God appointed them to be purified shewing that some stain or other doth creep into this Action which had need to be repented and therefore when they prayed 1 Cor. 7. 5. St. Paul would not have them come together lest their Prayer should be hindred Verse 8. The Sacrifice was indifferent whether Turtles or Pigeons Turtles that live solitarily and Pigeons that live sociably were all one to God God in Christ may be had in an active and sociable life denoted in the Pigeon and in the solitary and contemplative life set out in the Turtle Let not Westminster despise the Church nor the Church
breach of Piety punishable with Death Let them also think of those Infernal Ravens and Vultures that shall torment them in Hell and continually feed upon their Souls Verse 10. Because Marriage was appointed a remedy against Fornication therefore the Law of God inflicted a sorer punishment upon him which did commit uncleanness after Marriage than upon him which was not Married because he sinned although he had the remedy of sin like a rich Thief which stealeth and hath no need So Deut. 22. 22. Verse 25. Ye shall make this difference between the clean and unclean Beast saith God First because ye may be at my appointment for your very meat as who am chief Lord of all Secondly that there may be a difference between you and all other People Thirdly that ye may be taught to study purity and know that the very Creatures are defiled by mans sin It is hard to deal in the World and not be defiled with the corruption that is in the World And therefore we are taught by this Law to abstain from the communion of unclean and wicked men in whom are found the malignities and evil properties of all other Creatures CHAP. XXI Verse 17. THis was done to preserve the Dignity of the Priests Calling in that infancy of the Church which otherwise might have come into contempt together with the holy things for the contemptible shew of the Priest Yet thus much we may learn by it further that if these infirmities of body which they could not help made them unfit then to be Priests may not now wilful impiety being a blot in Soul and Mind disable a man from being a Minister to God in his own Conscience although he have the outward calling of men Verse 18. Blind is he who wanting light from above is wholly drowned and overwhelmed with the darkness of this World Lame is he who seeing whither he should go yet is not able through weakness of understanding to get thither but fainteth and faileth stumbleth and trippeth in his going and cometh short of his right end By a flat nose may be noted a weakness in Judgement and Discretion because the nose discerneth good savours from ill as the mind should also do things fit and unfit In the Canticles 7. 4. among the praises of the Spouse it is said her nose is like a tower in Lebanon because by Judgement she discerneth afar off temptation and evils coming as out of a Tower Verse 20. The scab is a foulness arising of an itch and spreading broader and broader if it be not look'd into and thereby is set down the vice of Covetousness which first beginneth with an itching desire and afterward for want of looking to spreadeth to a great foul Vice deforming any man but most unseemly in a Priest who ought to be clean Lâ—â—â—ly by him that hath his stones broken are noted such as though they do not act yet have ever in their minds lewd and unclean thoughts whereby they are so desperately carried away as pure and clean and holy meditations can take no place Verse 22. Albeit blemished persons might not stand at the Altar yet were they allowed to eat the Sacrifices and to be in the Congregation shadowing unt ous that the Church although blemished nevertheless is admitted to the communion and participation of those things which Christ by his eternal Sacrifice hath obtain'd for us And although some one or other infirmity may justly disable thee for such a place either in Church or Common-wealth yet from a place with the Elect either here or for ever it shall not hinder thee No nor ten thousand blemishes if thou art grieved for them and fighting against them dost take hold of thy spotless Saviour as thy help and safety against them all CHAP. XXII Verse 6. NOne but those that were clean might eat of the holy Things nay those that did but enter into the Tabernacle being unclean were threatned with death by God Now what should this solemn preparation under the Type put us in mind of but the true and inward preparation required still of us in the Anti-type that is to teach us that we ought carefully to sanctifie prepare and purifie not our clothes and external parts but our hearts from all sin and impurity before we presume to approach into the presence of God either to eat of Christ our spiritual Passover or to hear and receive his most holy Word And certainly the neglect hereof is the very cause why that Sacrament which is to some the Bread of Life is to others the Bread of Condemnation and that Word of God which is to some the Saviour of Life unto Life is to others the Saviour of Death unto Death Verse 19. A good Work without the heart is but a glorious sin for not so much the things themselves as the affections of men are considered of God One may have a free mind in poverty and a sparing mind in riches so it is not the Work but the Mind Thus the Lord regards not so much the thing done as the heart and mind of him that did it If we build only on the Work we have no better evidence to shew for our salvation then the Devils and Reprobates Not the Work then but the Heart is that that will stand and go for currant to shew this the Lord would have a free-will Offering among all the rest of his Sacrifices hereby shewing that the heart must be joyn'd with obedience nay so much did the Lord regard the Heart that he would not admit of any Gift for the building of the Temple but what came from a free will CHAP. XXIII Verse 2. IN that they were called the Feasts of the Lord men are taught in them to seek and attend such things as belonged to God and not their own business pleasures and sports And in the fourth verse they are called holy Convocations think therefore in your Conscience whether gadding and rioting be holy exercises and meet for an holy Convocation To this end they are still call'd in the Christian Church Holy dayes to put us in mind of the right use of them Verse 3. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Wherefore saith St. Augustine learn that no place priviledgeth thee to break Gods Law but as being a sinner whithersoever thou goest thou carriest the yoak of sin so being the servant of God in all places obey his Will Verse 5. O marvellous accordance betwixt the two Testaments in the very time of their delivery there is the same agreement which is in their substance The ancient Iews kept our Feasts and we still keep theirs The Feast of the Passover is the time of Christs Resurrection then did he passe from under the bondage of Death Christ is our Passover the spotless Lamb whereof not a bone must be broken And so likewise the very day wherein God came down in Fire and Thunder to deliver the Law even the same day came also the Holy Ghost
to be careful to do them with all possible Care and Reverence Hence it is that Christ willeth us to be careful not only what we hear Mark 4. but also how we hear Luke 8. 18. We must regard not only the matter that is delivered but the manner how it is received for as much as we may hear the Word and yet sin in our hearing Whensoever therefore we have to do in any part of Gods Worship let us come in Humility and Lowliness let us approach near him with a broken Heart with a Conâ—rite Heart and with an Humble Soul falling down flat before his foot-stool and Worshipping towards his Holy Temple Verse 22. Moses in this and the following Verses repeateth sundry points set down in the former Chapter to teach us that it is lawful for Ministers to make repetition of things formerly taught and to deliver the same points and parts of Religion again and again not thereby to ease themselves or maintain Idleness but for the benefit of the Church for first Men are commonly dull in Hearing weak in Remembring slow in practising and therefore have need that the same things should be often press'd upon them Secondly Repetition worketh a deeper Impression in us and serveth to beat it into the Conscience as well as the Understanding CHAP. V. Verse 6. AS every Sin is a violation of a Law so every violation of a Law reflects upon the Law-maker It is the same offence to Coyn a penny and a Piece the same to counterfeit the Seal of a Subpaena as of a Pardon The second Table was writ by the Hand of God as well as the first and the Majesty of God as he is a Law-giver is wounded in an Adultery and a Theft as well as in an Idolatry or a Blasphemy It is not enough to consider the deformity and the foulness of an Action so as that an honest Man would not have done it but so as it violates a Law of God and his Majesty in that Law The shame of Men is one bridle that is cast upon us It is a moral obduration and in the Suburbs next door to a spiritual obduration to be voice-proof censure-proof not to be afraid nor ashamed what the World sayes He that relies upon his Plaudo Domi though the World hiss I give my self a Plaudite at home I have him at my Table and her in my bed whom I would have and I care not for Rumor he that rests in such a Plaudite prepares for a Trajedy a Trajedy in the Amphitheater the double Theater this World and the next too Even the shame of the World should be one bridle but the strongest is the other to consider that every such sin is a violation of the Majesty of God Verse 8. What is given to the Priest is given to the Lord for he is the Lords receiver Tithes then are due to the Ministers of Christ that liveth because due to Christ and thus Abraham paid Tithes to Melchisedec as a Priest and Type of Christ and Melchisedec Tith'd Abraham by the same Divine Right whereby he blessed him the Minister therefore of Christ blessing the People according to his Office may also receive Tithes of them and indeed who should receive them for Christ but those that are in Christs stead But now a dayes neither Christ can receive his due nor the Minister his too many both deny what is due to Christ as God and to the Priest as a man not allowing him so much as is fit for his natural sustenance It was long since and may stil be so a just Complaint that many dealt by their Ministers as Carriers do by their Horses they laid heavy burdens upon them and then hung Bells about their necks hard work and good words they shall have but easie Commons and slight wages as if they were of the Camelions kind and could live by the Ayr. Verse 15. The Husband here is to bring his suspected Wife to the place and means of her Tryal If every Woman suspected might be put away many Men growing weary of their Wives would readily entertain any the least flying report and thereupon take occasion to be Divorc'd from them Upon this it is Gods Ordinance here that no innocent person should be oppressed in Judgement and that none at the private pleasure of any should be condemned before their Tryal Every man must hold up his hand at the Bar before he be pronounc'd guilty No person is to be condemn'd upon suspition only or presumption or bare surmize for were it enough to be accused innocency it self could not escape So that it is not sufficient to Condemn a man or to accuse him for guilty to be suspected Suspition is an another mans heart or Head and therefore we cannot alwayes avoid Suspition except we had the Government of their hearts and heads We must be careful to avoid the fault though we cannot the shame take heed of the sin though we cannot prevent the suspition CHAP. VI. Verse 3. THese Nazarites were diligently to imploy their time about the study of the Law and therefore as diligently to keep themselves from Wine and strong Drink which would make them forget the Law Drunkenness causeth forgetfulness hence the Ancients feigned Bacchus to be the Son of Forgetfulness and stands in full opposition to Reason or Religion when the Wine is in the wit is out Seneca saith That for a man to think to be Drunk and yet to keep his right Reason is to think to drink rank poison and yet not to dye by it And upon the same ground it was with this here in the Text that the Disciples of Christ those Nazarites of the Gospel were enjoyned by our Saviour Luke 21. to take heed that they were not overcharg'd with Surfeiting and Drunkenness Even the Disciples themselves had in them the common poison of Nature and so were obnoxious even to the most reproachful evils Let the best Ministers of the Gospel therefore the severest Nazarites have a care of this Evil. A full belly makes a foul heart and what sin may it not produce in the best unless God prevent for the rankest Weeds grow out of the fattest Soil Verse 4. The Nazarite here was not only to abstain from Wine but also from the very kernel and husk of the Grape He that would keep clear from great transgressions must make a Conscience of all and avoid not only the gross scandalous stains and blemishes of his Christian profession but the very first blushes and appearances of evill As the Spider in the midst of her Web shrinks at the least noise that shakes her work and retires presently from the danger so should the perfect Convert shrink at the least noise whispering and murmuring of Sin he should fly the first address and complement of the Devil in a Temptation the sight the roof the ayr of Rimmon and not bow down with Naaman though to be lean'd upon only Verse 20. The Breast and shoulder
Irreligion and Impiety make Men reproachful of what account and estimation soever they be be they never so Rich Noble and Renouned in the World how famous and excellent in the World Countries and Cities be yet this is certain that Sin maketh all Persons and Places infamous and dishonourable let London apply this to her self as it appears afterwards in this Chapter verse 61. We see this further in many Examples Cain is noted and marked of God for his execrable parricide unto all posterity Iudas that betrayed his Master is called the Son of Perdition Iohn 17. and is as it were burnt in the shoulder with the letter R and mark'd out for a Reprobate and left upon Record to be a Devil Iohn 6. 70. that all which hear of it might fear and learn to hate his sins Verse 10. Corah kindled the fire the two hundred and fifty Captains brought sticks to it all Israel warm'd themselves by it only the Incendiaries perish God and Moses knew to distinguish betwixt the Head of a Faction and the train though neither be faultless yet two hundred and fifty Ringleaders are plagued the other forgiven Gods vengeance when it is at the hottest makes differences of Men. We may collect from this Verse likewise that all the Elements are at Gods service For we find here two sorts of Traytors the Earth swallowed up the one the Fire the other and as before in this Book Nadab and Abihu brought fit persons but unfit fire to God so these Levites bring the right fire but unwarranted persons before him Fire from God consumes both It is a dangerous thing to usurp sacred Functions The Ministery will not grace the Man the Man may disgrace the Ministery and shall be signally punish'd for it as Corah and his fellow-Rebels were here who were made a signe saith the Text. Death is the just Heir of the least sin but some evill Doers God doth not put to Death but also hangs them up in Gibbets as it were for publick notice and admonition Those that are famous in their sin shall be famous in their punishment Verse 14. This Tribe of Simeon is of a smaller number in respect of the other Tribes and the reason is to be taken out of the last History recorded in the former Chapter where we find that one of the Princes of the Tribe of Simeon being accompanied with many others of that Tribe committed a most shameful act among his Brethren and brought in a Midianitish Harlot into the Host in the sight of Moses Whereby it came to pass that the greatest number of that Tribe perished with him in that grievous Plague for it was reason that they which did partake with him in the sin should communicate together in the punishment Which may teach us that it is a very hard thing to avoid and break off our society with Wicked Men and reproveth all such as enter into league with such persons they even offer their hands and feet to be bound as it were with chains and they become afterwards as Prisoners and Vassals to them Verse 33. Zelophahad the Son of Heber had no Sons but all Daughters saith this Text and yet these Daughters had a share with the rest of Gods people in the Land of Promise as we may read in the next Chapter And therefore let the French defend their Salike Law as they can there is very good reason that Women should not lose the right of Inheritance For Women are the second edition of the Epitome of the whole World witness Artemisia Blandina Zenobia in whom besides their Sex there was nothing Woman-like or weak as if what Philosophy speaks the Souls of those Noble Creatures had followed the temperament of their Bodies which consists of rarer rooms of a more exact Composition than Mans doth and if place be any priviledg we find theirs built in Paradice when Mans was made out of it besides in Iesus Christ there is neither Male nor Female but all are one Souls have no Sexes and whosoever are Christs are heirs to the Promise Verse 54. God provideth sufficiently for all his People every Man hath his portion assign'd him of God upon the Earth It is his will and pleasure that all should have their measure of earthly things not some to have all and some nothing at all but all to have some part and that part to be enough God would have no Beggar in his Israel when the Lord sent down Manna and fed his people with Angels food all the Host from the highest to the lowest had enough They that gathered much had nothing over and he that gathered little had no lack Exod. 16. Now if God be thus careful to feed our bodies it is much more reason that we should seek at his hands the nourishment of our Souls This is the voice of Faith the other the voice of Nature Nature will tell us when we want provision for the body but 't is the Office of Faith to tell us when we want food for the Soul Therefore saith Christ First seek the Kingdom Mat. 6. 33. Verse 59. Amram here took to Wife Iochebeb which was his own Aunt as is clear from Exod. 6. 20. the Law against Incest was not then given nor the state of Israel then setled and therefore it was no sin in him for where there is no Law there can be no sin But what shall we say to our modern Sectaries whose practising of Incest is now avowed publickly in print they shame not to affirm that those Marriages are most lawful that are betwixt persons iu blood The prohibition of degrees in Leviticus are to be understood say they of Fornication not of Marriage I see here what noon-day Devils do now in this unhappy Age walk with open face amongst us Verse 61. Because Nadab and Abihu were the Sons of Aaron this made God the more to stomack and the rather to revenge this Impiety God had both pardoned and graced their Father he had honoured them of the thousands of Israel culling them out for his Altar and now as their Fathers set up a false God so they bring false fire unto the true God If the Sons of Infidels live Godlesly they do but their kind their punishment shall be though just yet less but if the Children of Religious Parents after all Christian nurture shall shame their Education God takes it more hainously and revenges it more sharply The more bonds of duty the more plagues of neglect Again if from the Agents we look to the act it self set aside the Original descent and what difference was there betwixt these fires both look'd alike heated alike ascended alike consumed alike both were fed with the same material Wood both vanish'd into smoak there was no difference but the Commandement of God If God had enjoyn'd ordinary fire they had sinn'd to look for Celestial now he commanded only the fire which he sent they sinned in sending up Incense in that fire which he commanded not
it speak that which it never thought causing it to go two miles where it would go but one knawing and tawing it to their own purposes as the shooe-maker wretches the upper Leather with his teeth Tertullian calls Marcian the Heretick Mus Ponticus from his arroding and knawing the Scripture to make it serviceable to his Errors And too many of these kind of Mice have we at this day in this Nation who wrest Texts of Conscience into Factions Texts of Obedience into Rebellion ravishing Scripture to force out Doctrines for their own ends and then emptying their rancor by turning them to uses Verse 8. By Statutes here we may understand the Moral Law by judgements the Judicial which was fitted to the temper and disposition of the Jews like as Solon being ask'd whether he had given the best Laws to the Athenians answered the best that they could suffer And certain it is that Moses spake here as ever most Divinely and like himself or rather beyond himself the end of a thing being better if better may be than the beginning of it as good Wine is best at last and as the Sun shines most aimiably when it is going down This Book of the Law it was that the King was to write out with his own hand Deut. 17. 18. that it might serve as his Manual This was that happy Book that good Iosiah lighting upon after it had long lain hid in the Temple melted into tears at the menaces thereof and obtain'd of God to dye in peace though he were slain in War This only Book was that pretiously purling Current out of which the Lord Jesus our Champion chose all those three smooth stones wherein he prostrated the Goliah of Hell in that sharp encounter Mat. 4. Verse 11. God would have Israel see that they had not to do with some impotent Commander that is fain to publish his Laws without noise in dead Paper which can more easily enjoyn than punish to descry than execute and therefore before he gives them a Law he shews them that he can command Heaven Earth Fire Aire in revenge of the breach of that Law that they could not but think it deadly to displease such a Law-giver or violate such dreadful Statutes that they might see all the Elements examples of that obedience which they should yeild unto their Maker Now this fire wherein the Law was given is still in it and will never out Hence are those terrors which it flashes in every Conscience that hath felt remorse of sin Every Mans heart is a Sinah and resembles to him both a Heaven and Hell The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of sin is the Law Verse 12. That they might see he could find out their closest sins he delivers his Law in the light of fire that they might see what is due to their sins they see fire above to represent the fire that should be below them that they might know he could waken their security the thunder and lowder voice of God speaks to their hearts That they might see what their Hearts should do the Earth-quakes under them O Royal Law and mighty Law-giver How could they think of having any other God that had such proofs of this How could they think of making any resemblance of Him whom they saw could not be seen and whom they saw in not being seen infinite How could they think of disobeying his Deputies whom they saw so able to revenge How could they think of killing when they were half dead with the fear of him that could kill both Body and Soul How could they think of the flames of Lust that saw such fires of vengeance We Men that so fear the breach of Humane Laws for some small mulcts of Forfeiture how should we fear thee O Lord that canst cast Body and Soul into Hell Verse 24. If the Law as we read before was given in Thunder and Lightning how shall it be requir'd if such were the Proclamation of Gods Statutes what shall the Sessions be O God how powerful art thou to inflict vengeance upon sinners who didst thus forbid Sin and if thou wert so terrible a Law-giver what a Judge shalt thou appear what shall become of the breakers of so fiery a Law O where shall those appear that are guilty of the transgressions of that Law whose very delivery was little less than Death If our God should exact his Law but in the same rigour wherein he gave it sin could not quit the cost but now the fire wherein it was delivered was but terrifying the fire wherein it shall be required is consuming Happy are those that are from under the terrors of the Law which was given in Fire and in Fire shall be required Verse 29. It is a kind of denying the Infiniteness of God to serve him by pieces and raggs God is not infinite to me if I think a discontinued service will serve him It is a kind of denying the unity of God to joyn other Gods pleasure or profit with him he is not one God to me if I joyn other Associates and Assistants to him It is a kind of diffidence in Christ as if I were not sure that he would stand in the favour of God stil as though I were afraid that there might rise a new Favorite in Heaven to whom it might concern me to apply my self if I make the ballance so even as to serve God and Mammon if I make a complemental visit of God at his House upon Sunday and then plot with the other Faction the World the Flesh and the Devil all the Week after CHAP. V. Verse 1. IT is not enough for us to Learn the Law but we must keep it and do it we must lay it up in our hearts as well as in our heads and practice it also in our lives and Conversations For not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified Rom. 2. 13. Too too many in this Rotten Age wherein we live are Speakers not Workers as if Ostende re fidem St. Iames his Shew thy Faith by thy Works were Ostendere to stretch the Jaws to shew our Faith by strong Protestations But this must not be a work of the mouth but hand If a Man question thee of Faith spare thy Lips and let thy Life make answer If words might be credited if a bare profession of the Gospel might be believed no Man would want Faith every one would cry with the blind Man in the Gospel Lord I believe what Mouth would not make one Lye for its Master Unless I see said Thomas of Christs rising so unless I see and feel thy Faith I will not believe If we are good Trees by our Fruit men shall know us Mat. 7. By our Fruit not by our blossoms of good purposes or our leaves of good profession but by the Fruit of our actions Verse 9. Parents are hence admonish'd to take heed of sinning against God lest they be found unmerciful unnatural and
many other examples alledg'd to teach us that it is lawful to gather an Hoast to put on Armour to guird our selves with the Sword and to joyn in Battel with our Enemies Those then that are call'd to be Souldiers must learn from hence not to be feeble and faint-hearted but to be bold as in the work of the Lord. True Religion doth not weaken the hearts of Men and make them Cowards For first it teacheth and informeth the Conscience that the cause of the War is good just and warrantable by the Word of God without which knowledge in the heart how ugly how foul how cruel a thing is the effusion and shedding of Blood Secondly as true Religion establisheth the Conscience touching the lawfulness of War so it teacheth them to commit themselves and their lives into the hands of God as to a faithful keeper and to be perswaded if they Conquer they conquer to the Lord if they be wounded and fall they fall and dye unto the Lord. CHAP. XXI Verse 6. THe Jews were much used to outward Washings and vainly imagined that those were sufficient to cleanse them throughout And here the washing of their hands over the Heifer was as much as to say the guilt of innocent Blood doth no more stick to my Conscience than the filth now washed off doth to my fingers But what Pharisaical washing is this to purifie the hands and pollute the heart O Ierusalem Ierusalem wash thy heart from wickedness saith the Prophet Ier. 4. And cleanse your hands you sinners was the Apostles Exhortation Iames 4. but withall Purifie your he arts ye double-minded and this for many reasons For First God and Nature ever begin at the heart it is the first thing that lives and the last that dyes and therefore it is the first the Devil gives assault to and the last that he gives over Secondly Were there never a Devil the heart hath an ill Spirit of its own to trouble it and had we neither hands eyes nor feet our hearts would find the way to Hell and therefore there is great reason we should look to purge and cleanse that for if this Spring this Fountain be clean the streams that flow from it will be so too Verse 12. Secular Learning is not so Heathenish but it may be made Christian as this Captive in the Text was not such an Infidel but she might become a Convert and part of the Israel of God Aristotle and Plato and Seneca are not of such a Reprobate sence as to stand wholly excommunicate in the Christian Church For Aristotles Metaphysicks may help to convince an Atheist of a God and his Demonstrations prove Shiloes advent to a Jew And therefore though it is true the Scripture was ever the Levites predominant Element yet if you will make him a perfect mixt body the Arts also are to be necessary Ingredients And upon this account when Adrian the sixth in his Tract De vera Philosophia cries down humane Learning with a noise of Fathers yet he concludes Utilem esse scientiam Gentilium dummodo in usum Christianum convertatur that to shave and pare the captive Woman and then Espouse her was ever held lawful Matrimony Verse 13. The Wicked Mans Wine is best at first the good Mans at last the Devil deals by the one as Iael by Sifera speaks them fair at first till he hath lull'd them a sleep in security and then he involves them in misery But God doth by his Children as the Hebrew was to do by the captive Woman in this Text which he had a desire to Marry at first he appointeth us a time of Mourning but afterwards he vouchsafes us the fruition of himself in glory The freshest Rivers of Carnal Pleasure shall end in a salt Sea of despairing Tears whereas the wettest Seed-time of a pious Life shall end in the Sun-shining Harvest of a peaceful Death In a word the Transgressor how pleasant soever his beginnings be his last end shall be dolorous but the upright how troublesome soever his Life be his death shall be joyous For the end of that man is peace Psalm 37. CHAP. XXII Verse 1. IF thou must not suffer thy Brothers Ox or his Ass to go astray much less maist thou suffer his Soul but thou must endeavour in all Christian wisdom and meekness to reduce it from the dangerous precipeces both of sin and error Thou must pull thy Brother out of Hell as the Angel pull'd Lot out of Sodom as ye would save a drowning man though ye pull'd off some of his hair to save him Neither must we of the Gospel be merciful only to our Brother but also to our Enemy This is an hard task you will say but hard or not hard it must be done be it never so contrary to our foul nature We must seal up our love to our Enemies by all good expressions which are to be referr'd to these three heads First We must bless them speak kindly to them and of them they must have our good word Secondly We must do good to them i. e. be ready to help and relieve them upon all occasions Thirdly We must pray for them that God would pardon their sins and turn their hearts This was our Saviours precept to love our Enemies and the same also was his practice He melted over Ierusalem the slaughter-house of himself and his Saints and was grieved at the hardness of their hearts Next for Words he prayed Father forgive them and for deeds he not only not call'd fire from Heaven or Legions of Angels against them but did them all good for Bodies and Souls for he heal'd Malchus ear wash'd Iudas his feet like that good Samaritan he was at pains and cost with them Now if we would be Christs Disciples we must follow his example do good not to our Brethren only but also to our very Enemies Verse 10. This and the following Verses forbid all mixture and Toleration in Religion we must keep our selves to one God and serve him and none with him If Baal be God follow him saith Eliah 1 King 18. and if the Lord be God follow him how long will ye hault between two Opinions It is a foul-imperfection to hault yet more shameful long to hault most of all between two wayes and miss them both To be inconstant in Civil matters which are in their own Nature inconstant is weakness But in Religion which is alwaies constant and one and the same to be unsetled is the greatest folly in the World for he that is not assured of one Religion is sure to be saved by none And there fore it is very strange to me that in this glorious light of the Gospel now among us which we so much boast of we should see so many Bats flying which a Man cannot tell what to make of whether Birds or Mice These are Plantanimals like the wonderful sheep in Muscovy Epicens they are Amphibia animalia Creatures that sometimes live in the Waters
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
A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY OR EXPOSITION Upon the PENTATEUCH VIZ. These five Books of MOSES GENESIS EXODUS LEVITICUS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY Wherein The Text of every Chapter is Practically expounded according to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in a way not usually trod by COMMENTATORS and wholly applyed to the Life and Salvation of Christians By Ab. Wright sometime Fellow of St. John's Colledge in OXFORD LONDON Printed by G. Dawson for The. Iohnson at the Golden-Key in St. Pauls-Church-Yard 1662. TO THE Right Honourable The Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Kings-Bench The Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Common-Pleas The Lord Chief Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer And the rest of the Honourable Justices of the said several COURTS Right Honourable IT is not the weight and excellency of what is here presented that may plead for so Noble a Patronage as your Lordships is it is the Subject not the Work the Text and not the Comment that deserves both your Protection and Perusal For my Lords you have here Moses that Grand Legislator of the Old Testament dedicated to you that are the reverend Iudges under the New His Laws have been the Magna Charta of the whole World and this small Pentateuch hath proved the ground-work for the Pandects of all Nations to build upon In this respect therefore it may claim a kind of propriety and right to your Honourable Patronage and take the presumption to shelter it self under your grave long Robes Here indeed are no Controversies stated no Law-cases judged and determined My Sole design and endeavours have been to make our great Law-giver Moses altogether Practical and wholly applicable to the Life and Conversation of Christians In these sheets then you have described those Antient Patriarcks of Gods Church who were also Aeconomical Iudges and so not unfitting guids for your Honours to follow where their steps have been straight and upright nay their very slips and deviations may serve to make us stand more firm and our treadings more steady and setled in the wayes of Godliness and Iourny towards Heaven But if your Lordships had rather walk by Rule than Example here is that Moral everlasting Rule of God himself in the Book of Exodus to direct you and withal that you may see how proper and convenient even a Ceremonial Law is for Gods Church you have a whole Book of it in Leviticus and this also decreed and setled after those necessary Acts of the Ten Commandments as if the very Moral Law it self had not been curb sufficient to keep in a Rebellious People without some binding Ceremonies And here my Lords I must needs confess upon the sad experience of Schism under both Testaments that all those Laws Moral and Ceremonial have not been powerful enough to settle the Peace of Gods Church something was wanting to the Jews and is at this day to us which under God is only able to produce that great and glorious Work and that is a General Council This General Council my Lords hath ever been the most approved successful way of the Catholick Church to compose her differences and it is this also that will prevent the ruin of our own miserably devided National Church and frustrate the design of that Politick Aphorisme of some that the Church of England must be ruin'd by the same way that it was reform'd for say they it was reform'd by Schisme and it must be ruin'd by Schisme Now to prevent this ruine contrived by Sectaries I know not any way more Prudential more blessed by God than a General Council to procure this that every Peaceful Christian and such are your Honours may joyn the strongest Forces of his Endeavours shall be the daily Prayers of My Lords Your most devoted Servant in all Church-Offices Ab. Wright A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES CALLED GENESIS CHAP. I. Verse 1. THere was a Time or something like to that before the beginning of Time when God did not work and yet was not idle For though we grant that there was no External work of the Godhead until the making of the World yet can there be no necessary illation of Idleness in the Deity seeing it might have as indeed it had actions immanent included within the circle of the Trinity Just so ought it to be with every Christian who though he doth not alwayes perform the outward actions of Religion yet he may alwayes be imployed within himself in some practice of Christianity holy Thoughts religious Meditations mental Prayer faithful Vows and Resolutions are those inward immanent operations of a Christian whereby he may imitate his Creator in not working and yet not being idle But then when he doth begin to express himself in some outward action let him here also follow the example of his Maker and whereas it is said in the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth first the Heaven and then the Earth so et our actions respect chiefly Heavenly matters in the first place let us exercise our selves in those things that are above and when from those we descend to things below let even those Terrestrial affairs look upwards and be fix'd and terminated in Heaven and let all this be done by way of Creation too let our Gifts and Graces and Endowments be acknowledged to arise from nothing in our selves and let every faculty of our Souls be subject to Gods Will as the Creation was to his Command for he spake the word and they were made so when God speaks let us hear and let our will be actuated and formed and regulated by his voice as the whole World was by his Word Verse 2. The word Ferebatur in the vulgar Latine in the English moved denotes both motion and rest beginnings and wayes and ends We may best consider the motion the stirring of the Holy Ghost in zeal and the rest of the Holy Ghost in moderation If we be without zeal we have not the motion if we be without moderation we have not the rest the peace of the Holy Ghost he moved and he rested upon the Waters in the Creation as the word Incubabat doth imply he came and tarried still upon Christ in his Baptism He moves us to a zeal of laying hold of the means of Salvation which God offers us in the Church and he settles us in a peaceful Conscience that by having well used those means we are made his Children A holy hunger and thirst of the Word and Sacraments a remorse and compunction for former sins a zeal to promote the cause and glory of God by word and deed this is the motion of the Holy Ghost and then to content my self with Gods measure of temporal blessings and for spiritual that I do serve God faithfully in that Calling which I lawfully profess as far as that Calling will admit this peace of Conscience this acquiescence of having done that that belongs unto me this is the Rest of the Holy Ghost
sigh and tremble certainly whatever it was it was a signe of Gods wrath that others seeing this might fear to commit the like and that he might have the greater punishment in prolonging so wicked and miserable a life Verse 16. It appears by this that Cain stood excommunicate For otherwise how could Cain go out from God who was every where so that this presence of the Lord signifies a peculiar place dedicated to God as the Ark the Temple were usually call'd in Scripture The face of the Lord Psalm 43. Exod. 23. So Ionas fled from the presence of the Lord i. e. from the place where the Lord had spoken to him This then should strike a terror into Christians and cause them to live in the fear of God and in an awful respect of his Ministers who have the power delegated to them from God to drive obstinate sinners from his presence and are as that Angel with a flaming Sword to keep them out of Paradice and deprive them of the joyes and blessedness of the life to come Verse 20. If the author the inventor of any thing useful for this life be called the Father of that invention by the Holy Ghost himself as here Iabal was the Father of such as dwelt in Tents and Tabal his Brother the Father of Musick how absolutely is God our Father who invented us made us found us out in the depth and darknesse of nothing at all he is Father and Father of Lights of all kinds of Lights He is Lux lucisica as Saint Augustine expresses it the Light from which all the Lights which we have of Nature or Grace or Glory have their emanation CHAP. V. Verse 1. THe Soul of man as it came from God so it is like God as he so it is one immaterial immortal understanding Spirit distinguish'd into three powers which all make up one spirit So thou the wise Creator of all things wouldest have some things to resemble their Creator the other creatures are all body man is body and spirit the Angels are all spirit not without a spiritual composition thou art alone after thine own manner Simple Glorious Infinite No creature can be like thee in thy proper being because it is a creature How should our finite weak compounded nature give any perfect resemblance of thine yet of all visible creatures thou vouchsafest man the nearest correspondence to thee not so much in the natural Faculties as in those divine Graces wherewith thou beautifiest his soul how then should our Souls rise up to thee and fix themselves in their thoughts upon thee how should they long to return back to the Fountain of their Being and author of their being glorious that so we may redeem what we have lost recover in thee what we have lost in our selves Verse 3. Adam begetting a Son in his own likeness is not to be understood in the shape and image of his body but hereby is signified that original corruption which is descended unto Adams posterity by natural propagation which is express'd in the birth of Seth because it might appear that even the Righteous Seed by nature are subject to this depravation Verse 22. In that Enoch first walk'd with God on earth before he walk'd with him in Heaven is shewed that we must first seek Gods glory on earth before we can be admitted into his Everlasting glory Verse 24. If you will sit at the right hand of God hereafter you must walk with God here so Abraham so Enoch walked with God and God took him God knows God takes not every man that dies God saies to the rich secure man This night they shall fetch away thy soul but he does not tell him who that therefore you may be no strangers to God then see him now and remember that his last Judgement is express'd in that word Nescio vos I know you not not to be known by God is damnation and God knows no man hereafter with whom he was not acquainted here Verse 29. Forasmuch as Lamech said of his Son Noah This same shall comfort us concerning our work c. it appeareth that the faithful then look'd for a Comforter that should deâ—iver them from the Curse for of this Comforter Noah was a figure Heb. 11. 7. and the Ark was a type of Baptism 1 Pet. 3. 21. Verse 32. Sem is here first named though Iaphet was first born as being first in dignity though not in birth because from him and not from Iaphet our blessed Saviour descended in a direct line Now any relation to Christ enableth either place or person For let the person be never so mean if God please to claim an interest in him a poor Fisherman upon his Embassie is more honourable then the Embassador of the greatest Monarch in the world and so likewise for any place in the world be it never so mean and contemptible yet if God please to send his Ministers to preach the Gospel and the power thereof in such places they become glorious to the whole world Thus it was not the great circumference and populousness of Nineveh but the preaching of Ionah there that made it known to after-ages nor was it the City but the Temple of Ierusalem and the presence of Christ in that Temple that made it the glory of the whole earth It is the Christian Religion only whose Fame shall last for ever that is able to make both Men and Towns as famous and as eternal as it self CHAP. VI. Verse 2. THe world was grown so foul with sin that God saw it was time to wash it with a floud if there had not been so deep a deluge of sin there had been none of the waters from whence then was this superfluity of iniquity whence but from the unequal yoak with Infidels these marriages did not beget men so much as wickedness from hence religious Husbands both lost their piety and gained a rebellious and godlesse generation Thus that which was the first occasion of sin was the occasion of the increase of sin a Woman seduced Adam Women betray the Sons of God the beauty of the Apple betrayed the Woman the beauty of these Women betrayed this holy Seed Eve saw and lusted so did they this also was a forbidden Fruit they lusted tasted sinned dyed the most sins begin at the eyes by them commonly Satan creeps into the heart that Soul can never be at safety that hath not covenanted with his eyes Verse 3. It is meant that God would no longer strive with them in reproving and admonishing them which they regarded not but if they amended not in short time within the set space he would certainly destroy them and therefore it was supposed that the Ark was a building 120 years to the end they might repent enough to justifie Gods mercy in forbearing and his Justice in executing his Judgements upon sinners Verse 12. Man is every Creature as 't is said here all flesh hath corrupted his ways upon the earth though this
corruption were but in man and other Creatures were flesh as well as man but man is every creature because as Gregory saith Omnis creaturae differentia in homine all the properties and qualities of all other creatures how remote and distant how contrary soever in themselves yet they all meet in man In man if he be a flatterer you shall find the grovelling and crawling of the Snake and in man if he be ambitious you shall find the high flight and piercing of the Eagle in a voluptuous sensual man you shall find the earthliness of the Hogg and in a licentious man the intemperance and distemper of the Goat ever lustful and ever in a Feaver ever in sickness contracted by that sin and yet ever in a desire to proceed in that sin and thus man is every creature and all flesh Verse 14. That God might approve his mercies to the very wicked he gives them 120 years respite of repenting verse 3. and here in this verse he gives them a faithful Teacher It is an happy thing when he that teacheth others is righteous Noahs hand taught them as much as his tongue his business in building the Ark was a real Sermon to the world wherein at once were taught Mercy and Life to the Believer and to the Rebellious destruction Verse 18. Doubtless more hands went to this work of making the Ark than Noah and his Children and yet none were saved but they many a one wrought upon the Ark which yet was not saved in the Ark our outward works cannot save us without Faith we may help to save others and perish our selves what a wonder of mercy is this that we here see one poor Family call'd out of a world and as it were eight grains of Corn fann'd from a whole Barnful of Chaff one hypocrite was saved with the rest for Noahs sake not one righteous man was swept away for company for these few was the earth preserved still under the waters and all kind of Creatures upon the waters which else had been all destroyed Still the world stands for their sakes for whom it was preserved else fire should consume that which could not be cleansed by water CHAP. VII Verse 2. THe unclean Beasts God would have to live the clean to multiply and therefore he sends to Noah seven of the clean and of the unclean two he knew the one would annoy man with their multitude the other would enrich him those things are worthy of most respect which are of most use But why seven Surely that God that Created seven dayes in the Week and made one for himself did here preserve of seven clean Beasts one for himself for Sacrifice he gives us Six for One in earthly things that in spiritual we should be all for him Verse 9. This difference is strange I see the savagest of all Creatures Lions Tygers Bears by an instinct from God come to seek the Ark as we see Swine fore-seeing a storm run home crying for shelter men I see not Reason once debauch'd is worse than bruitishness God hath use even of these fierce and cruel Beasts and glory by them Even they being Created for man must live by him though to his punishment How gently do they offer and submit themselves to their Preserver renewing that obeysance to this Repairer of the World which they before sin yielded to him that first stored the World And thus these savage Creatures went in saith the rext to Noah not to prey but fawn upon him He that shut them into the Ark when they were entred shut their mouths also while they did enter The Lions fawn upon Noah and Daniel what heart cannot the Maker of them mollifie Verse 10. By this is shewen the Lords patience for Noah is warned seven dayes before of the Flouds coming that by his preparation and entrance others might be warned and whereas God might have destroyed the World at once it was encreasing forty dayes that the World seeing every day some perish might at length have turned to God And the same was Ninevehs case yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Our God is a gracious merciful and long-suffering God and never strikes but he gives warning that sinners may prevent the blow by Repentance and Contrition Before Nineveh shall be destroyed a Prophet must be sent to give notice of that destruction and to teach them a way how to avoid it and in case they should prove dull schollars here is forty dayes given to learn the lesson And as God dealt with this great City and with the whole World before the Deluge to fore-warn them of his judgements and their own ruine so deals he likewise with particular men to some he gives forty dayes to others forty months nay forty years to repent in even a whole life time is to some men but a continued warning of their final destruction and yet they like the old World never beleeve it till they feel it mock and jear at a Deluge until they are over-whelm'd with the Floud and perish in their own presumptuous imaginations So hard a thing it is to perswade sinners to beleeve that God is so just or his Judgements so infallible or their sins so destructive until the Floud come and a second Deluge a Deluge of Fire sweeps them away as that first of Waters did their unbeleeving fore-fathers Verse 11. It agrees with the nature of God who is goodness That as all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened and so came the Floud over all so there should be diluvium spiritus a flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all as he promises Effundam I will pour it out upon all and diluvium gentium that all Nations shall flow up unto him For this spirit spirat ubi vnlt breaths where it pleaseth him and though a natural Wind cannot blow East and West North and South together this spirit at once breaths upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the dispairing sinner and in an instant can denizon and naturalize that soul that was an Alien to the Covenant empale and in-lay that soul that was bred upon the Common among the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goat into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost Sheep to the Fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darkness and the shadow of death and so melt and pour out that soul that yet understands nothing of the divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the divine nature and be the same Spirit with God Verse 16. Now that Noah and all his Guests are entred the Ark is shut and the windows of Heaven opened God first provides for Noah before the Wicked are destroyed of whom many no doubt when they saw the violence of the waves descending and ascending according to Noah's prediction came wading middle-deep unto the Ark and importunately craved that
admittance which they once denied But now as they formerly rejected God so are they justly rejected of God Ere Vengeance begin Repentance is seasonable but if Judgement be once gone out we cry too late while the Gospel sollicites us the doors of the Ark are open if we neglect the time of Grace in vain shall we seek it with tears God holds it no mercy to pity the obstinate Verse 18. The Faith of the Righteous cannot be so much derided as their success is magnified How securely doth Noah ride out this uproar of Heaven Earth and Waters He hears the pouring down of the Rain about his head the shreeking of Men the roaring and bellowing of Beasts on both sides of him the raging and threats of the Waves under him he saw the miserable shifts of the distressed Unbeleevers and in the mean time sits quietly in his dry cabbin neither fearing nor feeling evil he knew that he which owed the Waters would steer him and he who shut him in would preserve him How happy a thing is Faith What a quiet safety what a Heavenly peace doth it work in the Soul in the midst of all the endeavours of evil Verse 20. There is no doubt but very many hoping to over-run their Judgement and climbing up to the highest Mountains looked down upon the Waters with more hope than fear and now when they see their Hills become Islands they get up into the tallest Trees where with paleness and horror at once they look for death and study to avoid it whom the Waves over-take at last half-dead with famine and half with fear So now from the tops of the Mountains they descry the Ark floating upon the Waters and behold with envie that which before they beheld with scorn By which we may see that he flies in vain whom God pursues and that there is no way to flie from his Judgements but to flie to his Mercy by Repenting CHAP. VIII Verse 1. GOds Providence is here manifest that watcheth not only over man but every particular Beast likewise Whereby man is taught to be like his Creator and to regard the life of his Beast Prov. 12. Xenocrates is commended by Aelian lib. 13. for succouring a Sparrow that flew to him pursued by an Hawk and after let her go saying Se supplicem non prodidisse That he would not betray the very Bird that flew to him for safeguard Verse 3. Now when God had fetch'd again all the life that he had given to his unworthy Creatures and reduced the World unto its first Form wherein Waters were over the face of the Earth it was time for a renovation of all things to succeed this destruction To have continued the Deluge long had been to punish Noah that was righteous After forty dayes therefore the Heavens cleared up after 150 the Waters sink down How soon is God weary of punishing that is never weary of blessing Yet may not the Ark rest suddenly If we did not stay some while under Gods hand we should not know how sweet his mercy is and how great our thankfulness should be Verse 7. God doth not reveal all things to his best servants Behold he that told Noah an hundred and twenty years before what day he should go into the Ark yet fore-tells him not now in the Ark what day the Ark should rest upon the hills and he should go forth Noah therefore sends out his Intelligencers the Raven and the Dove whose wings in that vaporous aire might easily descry further than his sight the Raven of quick scent of gross feed of tough constitution no soul was so fit for discovery the likeliest things alwayes succeed not He neither will venture far into that solitary world for fear of want nor yet come into the Ark for love of liberty but hovers about in uncertainties How many carnal minds fly out of the Ark of Gods Church and embrace the present world rather chusing to feed upon the unsavoury Carkasses of sinful pleasures than to be restrain'd within the strait lists of Christian obedience Verse 9. How exactly doth the Soul of every man resemble this Dove That poor innocent Creature after it was exposed to the wide World was in perpetual motion no rest to be found until it returned to the Ark And just so is the condition of every man so long as we are in the World so long we are in a restless condition perpetual troubles and vexations no rest to be found until we return unto the Ark unto the God that sent us forth thither must we fly or be over-whelm'd in the Deluge of the worlds vanities and perish for ever Mans Soul is Gods Turtle Created for God and therefore can find no rest but in God It may flutter up and down in the World fly from one trouble from one perplexity to another but no peace no rest to be found until it return unto that God who commanded it forth upon his work and employment which causeth it to take up the complaint of the Psalmist Oh that I had the wings of a Dove then would I fly away and be at rest Verse 11. The Dove is sent forth a Fowl both swift and simple She like a true Citizen of the Ark returns and brings faithful notice of the continuance of the Waters by her restless and empty return by her Olive-leaf of the abatement How worthy are those Messengers to be welcome which with innocence in their lives bring glad tydings of Peace and Salvation in their mouths Verse 16. Ambrose and some Hebrews note That when Noah was bid to go into the Ark he and his Sons are joyn'd together and so his Wife and his Sons Wives likewise chap. 6. vers 18. but here in their coming forth He and his Wife his Sons and their Wives are coupled to shew that they lived a part in the Ark and accompanied not together which is most probable though not upon this ground but as he farther notes Maeroris tempus er at non laetitiae It was a time of Mourning and not of Mirth and for that he knew the Deluge came because of the intemperancy of the other world Verse 18. The Ark though it was Noahs Fort against the Waters yet it was his Prison also he was safe in it but pent up he that gave him life by it now thinks to give him liberty out of it At this Noah rejoyces and beleeves yet still he waits seven dayes more It is not good to devour the favours of God too greedily but to take them in that we may digest them O strong Faith of Noah that was not weary of this delay Some man would have so long'd for the open Air after so long closeness that upon the first notice of safety he would have uncovered and voided the Ark Noah stayes seven dayes e're he will open and well neer two months e're he will forsake the Ark and not then unless God that commanded to enter had bidden him depart There is no
He that liveth by his Faith yet shrinketh and sinneth How vainly shall we hope to beleeve without all fear and to live without infirmities Some little aspertions of unbelief cannot hinder the praise and power of Faith Abraham beleeved and it was imputed to him for righteousness He that through inconsiderateness doubted twice of his own life doubted not of the life of his Seed even from the dead and dry Womb of Sarah yet was it more difficult that his posterity should live in Sarah than that Sarahs Husband should live in Egypt this was above nature yet he beleeves it Sometimes the Beleever sticks at easie tryalls and yet breaks through the greatest tentations without fear Verse 14. Holy Iob's Covenant with his Eyes in the Old Testament should be every Christians in the New to look to his looks to set a guard and sentinel over his Eyes for from looking comes lusting from a lascivious glance proceeds a lascivious act and it is all one in Gods esteem with which part of the body we commit adultery so that if a man lets his Eye or his Thought loose and enjoyes the lust of either he is an Adulterer before God It was therefore our Saviours advice Mat. 5. If thy right Eye offend thee pull it out the meaning is this That when thou doest give check to the loose evibrations and wanton twirles of a lascivious Eye thou dost at that very time pull out that wanton Eye from thy body and the lustful Devil that is in that wanton Eye from thy soul. There is great reason therefore that we should set a strict watch over this Cinque-port of our bodies Beauty is a dangerous bait and Lust is sharp-sighted It is not safe gazing on a fair Woman how many have died of the wound in the Eye No one means hath so enrich'd Hell as beautiful faces Verse 19. It is a sad case when an Egyptian shall reprove an Israelite when a Pharaoh shall rebuke an Abraham and therefore all Professors of Religion should so practice it as the very Infidels seeing their good works answer their good words may glorifie their Father which is in heaven For our Calling as it is most eminent so most eyed and worst censured by all the Infidel part of the World If an Apostle rub but an ear of Corn on the Sabbath 't is breaking of the day a heathens Motes are a Christians Beams and a Turks indifferency is my evil somethings being expedient in respect of the man which are scandalous meerly for his Religion none therefore to keep within so strict lines both for words and deeds as the Christian for behold saith the Apostle We are made a gazing stock to the world to Angels and to men CHAP. XIII Verse 2. ALthough the Scripture tells us That it is hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet the Scripture saith not that it is absolutely impossible Heaven gate stands open for the Rich as well as for the Poor for rich Abraham here as well as for poor Lazarus in the Gospel and as it is true Blessed are the Poor for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven So it is also as true Blessed are the Rich for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Thus Adam and Noah flew up to Heaven with the Monarchy of the whole World upon their backs The Patriarchs also as in this Text Abraham with much Wealth many holy Kings with rich Crowns and Scepters It is not Wealth therefore as Wealth but Sin that is the clogg that keeps men from ascending the burthen of covetous desires being more heavie to an empty Soul than much treasure to the full for not the meer Possession and use of riches offends but the affectation Verse 7. When the strife began between Abraham and Lot the Scripture notes it as a special Memorandum here that the Canaanite was then in the Land Doubtless there are at this time also in our Land too many who carry Canaanitish hearts and minds who would no less than the old Canaanites rejoyce and triumph in our discords saying among themselves Aha so would we have it But let those that have the Spirit of Abraham learn also the Speech and Language of Abraham who though he was in Age and Dignity superiour to his Nephew Lot yet came and said unto him I pray thee let there be no strife between me and thee for we are Brethren Verse 9. Before Abraham and Lot grew Rich they dwelt together now their Wealth separates them their Society was a greater good than their Riches many a one is a looser by his Wealth who would account those things good which makes us worse It had been the duty of young Lot to offer rather than to chuse to yield rather than contend Who would not here think Abraham the Nephew and Lot the Uncle It is no disparagement for greater persons to begin treaties of Peace better doth it beseem every Son of Abraham to win with love than to sway with power Abraham yields over this right of his choice Lot takes it And behold Lot is cross'd in that which he chose Abraham is blessed in that which was left him God never suffers any one to lose by an humble remission of his right in a desire of Peace Verse 10. Wealth hath made Lot not only undutiful but covetous he sees the goodly Plain of Iordan the richness of the Soyl the commodity of the Rivers the scituation of the Cities and now not once enquiring into the Condition of the Inhabitants he is in love with Sodom Outward appearances are deceitful guides to our judgement or affection they are worthy to be deceived that value things as they seem It is not long after that Lot payes dear for his rashness He fled for quietness from his Uncle and finds War with strangers by whom he is carried Prisoner with all his substance That Wealth which was the cause of his former Quarrels is made a prey to merciless Heathen that place which his Eye covetously chose betrayes his life and goods How many Christians whilst they have look'd at gain have lost themselves Verse 14. Gods way of appearing unto Abraham was like our Saviours way of appearing in the flesh to the world until such time as there was a general Peace over the whole Earth our Saviour would not appear amongst men and until such time as the strife was ended betwixt Abraham and Lot and they two parted friendly God did not appear unto Abraham God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. Where Charity is there is an habitation a Temple for the Lord and where it is not there is a dwelling-place for the Devil Religion is but rottenness without it our Devotions unsavory our Sacrifice distasteful and all our front of Holiness but dross and rubbish Therefore Christ saith If thou bring thy Gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee first be
were for sin or for the present pressure only I have not to say but God is so pitiful that he hears and helps our Affliction as he did Hagars in this Text. Verse 15. God presents to us the joyes of Heaven often to draw us and as often the torments of Hell to avert us And to this purpose Origen saith aright as Abraham had two Sons the one of a Bond-woman the other of a Free but yet both sons of Abraham So God is served by two fears and the latter fear the fear of future torment is not the perfect fear but yet even that fear is the servant and instrument of God too Who can so absolutely divest all sense saith Chrysostome but that when the whole City is in a combustion and commotion or when the Ship that he is in strikes desperately and irrecoverably upon a Rock he is otherwise affected towards God then than when every day in a quietness and calmness of holy affections he hears a Sermon Gehennae timor saith the same Father regni affert coronam even the fear of Hell gets us Heaven CHAP. XVII Verse 1. IT is Gods prescript to Abraham here Walk before me and be perfect and that is when as to allude to that known Expression Manus ad Clavum Oculus ad Coelum as our hand is upon the work so our eye must be upon God in every thing we do which is the ground of that uprightness called in the Scripture Dialect perfection Where you may note the difference between these three expressions of the holy Ghost to walk with God after God and before God We walk with God as a sweet companion after God as a commanding Lord before God as an observing Judge we walk with him as his Friends after him as his Servants before him as his Children lastly we walk with him by an humble familiarity after him in a regular conformity before him by a cordial integrity and this is according to Gods rule to Abraham Walk before me and be perfect Verse 3. When God talkes with us in his Word or we talk with God in our Prayers we cannot be too humble you see from this text that Abraham the Father of the faithful fell upon his face at a conference with God and shall we that are his sons not fall upon our knees Certainly were there never a Church standing in the world nor so much as one stone left for a Bethel wheresoever we came to Pray we should worship first looking up to our God and his infinitude with Glory be to thee O Lord then in the Publicans dejected posture reflecting upon the dust our original and our end with Lord be merciful unto me a sinner and indeed can we presume higher than the dust when we reverence before our Maker or do less than hide our own faces with shame appearing before the glorious light of that countenance which we cannot see and live and which we shall one day look upon with trembling if not now with shame Verse 5. There is no Faith where there is either means or hopes Difficulties and impossibilities are the true Objects of Belief hereupon God adds to Abrahams name that which he would fetch from his Loins and made his Name as ample as his Posterity never any man was a looser by beleeving Faith is ever recompenced with Glory Verse 7. God hath in great mercy and goodness promised to shew grace and favour not only to the faithful themselves but to their seed after them and as the mercy of God is great so the Faith of the godly is effectual for themselves and their Children God will be our God and the God of our seed after us If then we consider either the Promise of God to be merciful or the Faith of the godly to beleeve in both respects we may collect and gather this truth That the love of God to the faithful shall so abound that it shall come to their posterity like the pretious Oyntment poured on the head of Aaron that ran down upon his beard and flowed to the border of his garments or as the dew on Hermon and Sion which watered the valleys which were beneath them Now seeing that goodness hath the Promise of bringing a blessing upon the families where it is profess'd it is required of us to profess and beleeve the Gospel that so we may procure a blessing upon our selves and Children The neglect of which bringeth utter ruine to Father and Child So then godly Parents must have a care to bring-up their Children and Families in the true Faith and fear of the Lord which may be a means by the blessing of God to save thy son from death and to deliver his soul from destruction Verse 11. Circumcision is a seal of the Covenant betwixt God and us if we be in God and God in us if we be circumcised within if the fore-skin of our hearts be taken away then is the outward Circumcision a seal unto our Covenant with God otherwise it is a seal indeed but a seal without a Bond a seal without any stipulation betwixt God and us we are no whit priviledged by it no more than are the Turks who yet are circumcised which is the reason that the Jewes at this day have no benefit by this Covenant because they are uncircumcised in their hearts that vail that fore-skin is not taken away and that only is the circumcision which seals the Covenant betwixt God and us the Gospel-circumcision the putting off the old Adam by that circumcision of Christ which is the work of the Spirit wrought by the Word upon the Soul of a poor sinner whereby the corruption of his nature is mortified and himself received into an everlasting Covenant and Communion with God Verse 14. In the first Covenant that God made with his People as we see here That person that would not be circumcised that soul was cut off from the people of God and just so in the second Covenant that God made with his people the Covenant of the Gospel He that is not circumcised in heart and made new by regeneration he shall have no part with the Saints in heaven Joh. 3. 3. The wise man is not priviledged by his wisdom nor the strong man by his strength the King is not freed by his Crown and Dignity nor the Priest by the power of his Keyes For if any one enters himself in Covenant with God under the New Testament and hopes for benefit by that Covenant as Abraham and his Seed did undergo the outward Circumcision of the body so must he the inward Circcmcision of the heart No Circumcision no Son of Abraham no Son of Abraham no Son of God Verse 17. Abraham was old e're this Promise and hope of a Son was given and still the older the more uncapable Yet God makes him wait twenty five years for performance No time is long to Faith which had learned to defer hopes without fainting and irksomness Abraham heard this news
escapeth their Judgement from whose sins he escaped Even the good Angels are here made the Executioners of Gods Judgements There cannot be a better or more noble act than to do Justice upon obstinate Malefactors Verse 16. The Messengers do not only hasten Lot but pull him by a gracious violence out of that impure City they thirsted at once after the vengeance upon Sodom and Lots safety they knew God could not strike Sodom till Lot were gone out and that Lot could not be safe within those Walls We are all naturally in Sodom if God did not hale us out whiles we linger we should be condemned with the World If God meet with a very good field he pulls up the Weeds and lets the Corn grow if indifferent he lets the Corn and Weeds grow together if very ill he gathers the few ears of Corn and burns the weeds Verse 20. So say most men of their bosome sins Lord this sin is neer to flye unto it is but in my bosome and it is but a little one Lord perchance but a trip of the tongue or a wanton glance of the eye or a lustful thought of the heart O let me escape and abide in that sin in that Zoar and my soul shall live and he saies most truly that his Soul shall live For it is as impossible that such a one should live without his beloved sin as it is that he should live without his Soul Verse 21. O the large bounty of God which reacheth not to us only but to ours God saves Lot for Abrahams sake and Zoar for Lots sake if Sodom had not been too wicked it had escaped Were it not for Gods dear Children that are intermix'd with the World the world could not stand the wicked owe their lives unto those few good which they hate and persecute Verse 26. Lot at the 17 verse may not so much as look at the flame whether for the stay of his passage or the horror of the sight or tryal of his Faith or fear of commiseration Small Precepts from God are of importance obedience is as well tryed and disobedience as well punished in little as in much And therefore when Lots Wife did but turn back her head in this verse whether in curiosity or unbelief or love and compassion of the place she is turned into a Monument of disobedience ut praestarit fidelibus condimentum saith Saint Augustine that it might be a seasoning to faithful men and teach us not to look back not to fall off from that calling in which we are once entered And now what did it avail Lots Wife not to be turned into ashes in Sodom when she is turned into a Pillar of Salt in the plain He that saved a whole City cannot save his own Wife God cannot abide small sins in those whom he hath obliged If we displease him God can as well meet with us out of Sodom as in it Verse 35. Though Lot fled from company he could not flye from sin he who was not tainted with Uncleanness in Sodom is overtaken with Drunkenness and Incest in a Cave Rather than Satan shall want baits Lots own Daughters will prove Sodomites those which should have comforted betrayed him How little are some hearts moved with judgements The ashes of Sodom and the pillar of Salt were not yet out of their eye when they dare think of lying with their own Father They knew whilst Lot was sober he could not be unchaste Drunkenness is the way to all bestial affections and acts Wine knows no difference either of persons or sins By this we see likewise what a dangerous thing it is to give way to temptation Lot being once drunk is the more apt to fall into it again Verse 37. No doubt Lot was afterwards ashamed of his Incestuous seed and now wished he had come alone out of Sodom yet even this unnatural Bed was blessed with encrease and one of our Saviours worthy Ancestors sprung after from this line Gods Election is not tyed to our means neither are blessings or Curses ever traduced The chaste Bed of holy Parents hath often bred a Monstruous Generation and contrarily God hath sometimes raised an holy Seed from the Drunken Bed of Incest or Fornication Thus will God magnifie the freedom of his own choice and let us know that we are not born but made good CHAP. XX. Verse 3. THe truth was here not only concealed but dissembled as the Moon hath her specks so the best have their blemishes we are born men not Angels and as our composition is flesh and bloud so are we subject to the temptations that are apt to arise from those principles of our Nature A Sheep may slip into a ditch as well as a Swine only here 's the difference the one delights in the mud the other would fain get out of it the righteous may fall seven times a day as well as the wicked but then the righteous riseth as oft and repenteth of his sin whereas the wicked lies down and continues in it This was the second time Abraham had committed this sin and yet still continued the Father of the faithful Verse 5. God had reproved Abimelech on Abrahams behalf and now Abimelech reproves Abraham on Gods God told Abimelech that he had taken another mans Wife and Abimelech replyed That other man had told him a Lye It is a sad thing that Saints and Beleevers should do that for which they should justly fall under the reproof of Infidels we should rather dazle their eyes and draw from their Consciences at least a testimony of our innocency as David did from Sauls when he said Thou art more righteous than I my son David The life of a Christian should be a Commentary on Christs life Which of you can condemne me of evil said Christ to the Jewes and we that bear his Name should follow his steps and so carry our selves that we may not be condemned by the world For our profession as it is most eminent so most eyed and worst censured none therefore to keep within so strict lines as the Christian being one ever under monitors for behold saith the Apostle We are made a gazing stock to the world to Angels to men Verse 7. The reward of sin is death saith the Apostle but what kind of death a double death saith this text Morte morierie thou shalt die the death a death complicated in its self death wrap'd in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding-sheet It is death aggravated by its self death weighed down by death and what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his Grave-stone It is multiplied by its self and what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death Let several sinners then pass this consideration through their several sins that as Abimelech here so they must without Gods mercy upon every sin die the death and that a double death eternal and
glad of a good countenance from her that shall be his before he ask her whether she will be his or no a man would be glad of a good countenance from his Prince before he intend to press him with any particular suit and a sinner may become to his Miserere mei Domine to desire that the Lord would think upon him that the Lord would look gratiously towards him that the Lord would refresh him with the beams of his favour before he have digested his devotion into a formal prayer or entred into a particular consideration what his necessities are CHAP. XXV Verse 8. A Braham died saith the text plenus dierum full of years it is not said so in the text of Methusalem that he died full of years and yet he had another manner of gomer another measure of life than Abraham for he lived almost eight hundred years more than he but he that is best disposed to die is fullest of years One man may be fuller at twenty than another at seventy David lived not the tythe of Methusalems years not ten to his hundred he lived less than Abraham and yet David is said to have died full of years 1 Chron. 29. he had made himself agreeable to God and so was made ripe for him In that therefore Abraham is said here to die in a good old age whereas for many before him dying much elder this phrase is not used it was not the old age of his body but his perfection of vertue that made a good old age Again it is said in the Hebrew text he was full and no more upon which reading because dayes is not in the original the Rabbies gather that he was full not only of dayes but of all other blessings Verse 21. Of all the Patriarcks none made so little noise in the World as Isaac none lived either so privately or so innocently neither know I whether he proved himself a better Son or Husband For the one he gave himself over to the knife of his Father and mourned three years for his Mother For the other he sought not to any Handmaids bed but in a chaste forbearance reserved himself for twenty years space and prayed Rebecca was so long barren his prayers proved more effectual than his seed At last she conceives as if she had been more than the Daughter-in-law to Sarah whose Son was given her not out of the power of nature but of her Husbands Faith Verse 22. God is better to us than we would our selves Isaac prayes for a Son God gives him two at once now she is no less troubled with the strife of the Children in her Womb than before with the want of Children We know not when we are pleased that which we desire oft-times discontents us more in the fruition we are ready to complain both full and fasting Before Rebecca conceived she was at ease before spiritual Regeneration there is all peace in the Soul no sooner is the new-man form'd in us but the Flesh conflicts with the Spirit There is no Grace where there is no Unquietness Esau alone would not have striven nature will ever agree with its self never any Rebâ—cca conceived only an Esau or was so happy as to conceive none but a Iacob she must be the Mother of both that she may have both joy and exercise This strife began early every true Israelite begins his War with his being Verse 26. So early so primary a sin is Pride that we see even Children strive for place and precedency and Mothers are ready to go to the Heraulds to know how Cradles should be ranked which Cradle shall have the first place Nay even in the Womb in this text there was contention for precedency Iacob took hold of his Brother Esaus heel and would have been born before him And as our Pride begins in our Cradles so it continues in our Graves and Monuments It was a good while in the Primitive Church before any were buried in the Church the best contented themselves with the Church-yards But now persons whom the Devil kept from Church all their lives Separatists and Libertines that never came to any Church Pride and vain-glory brings to Church after their deaths in an affectation of high Places and sumptuous Monuments in the Church and such as have given nothing at all to any Pious Uses or have determined their Almes and their Dole which they have given in that one day of their Funeral and no farther have given large Annuities for new painting their Tombes and for new Flags and Scutcheons every certain number of years Verse 31. These two were the Champions of two Nations the field was their Mothers Womb their quarrel precedency and superiority Esau got the right of Nature Iacob of Grace Yet that there might be some pretence of equality lest Esau should out-run his Brother in the World Iacob holds him fast by the heel so his hand was born before the others foot But because Esau was some minutes the elder that the younger might have better claim to that which God had promised he buyes that which he could not winn if either by strife or purchase or suit we can attain spiritual blessings we are happy If Iacob had come forth first he had not known how much he was bound to God for the favour of his advancement Verse 32. There was never any Meat except the forbidden Fruit so dear bought as this Broth of Iacobs in both the Receiver and the Eater is accursed Every true son of Israel will be content to purchase spiritual favours with earthly and that man hath in him too much of the bloud of Esau which will not rather die than forgo his birthright Hence we may further learn that if Esau were so much to blame to fell his birthright for a mess of Pottage which yet was to save his life how much more are they to blame that Ahab-like sell themselves to work wickedness that for a title of honour esteem of men or for a little white and yellow dust which is called Gold and Silver meer vanities will sell their souls Alas These ticklings will turn into stings and the torment will be the more torment the more pleasing the sin was 'T will be but cold Comfort for any man to go to Hell with Credit or that others think him gone to Heaven when he feels himself in Hell Verse 33. Esau sold his Birthright and with it as the Rabbins say Heaven its self whereof the birthright was a type and pledge So Esau's sin was in his unthankfulness for such a dignity in limiting it to this life in selling it so cheap but especially in his prophane parting with a spiritual blessing for a temporal with the food and joy of Angels for a mess of Pottage Such a foolish bargain makes every impenitent person in the sale of his soul for a thing of nought which Christ who only knew and paid the price of a Soul saith is more worth than the world
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
that thou shouldest look on such a dead dogg as I am and when he considers from what a low to what an high estate God hath brought him he saith as Iacob here I am less than the least of all thy mercies and when Christ tells a Soul that he will make him a King and a Priest to God he humbly saith as Saul to Samuel am not I a Benjamite of the smallest of the Tribes of Israel yea it saith as Elizabeth said to Mary the blessed Mother of our ever blessed Jesus when she heard the Salutation that the Babe the heart of a true Believer leap'd within her and she spake Blessed art thou whence O whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord Oh saith the Soul that my God should come to see me even me poor worthless me it fares with such a Soul as with the Disciples Luke 24. Jesus stood in the midst and said Peace be unto you and they were terrified and affrighted but he said Why are ye troubled it is I behold my hands and my feet and they believed not for joy and wondred Verse 11. It is like that Esau prepared himself to be revenged of Iacob as may appear by Iacobs prayer and fear here which was not without cause whereby the power of God is also set forth that could in the very way change that purpose of Esau and withall Iacob sheweth in this his weakness and infirmity that although looking to Gods promise he had confidence yet turning himself to the present danger he fear'd and here while Iacob prepared himself by war prayer and gifts to satisfie his Brother he doth well for though God hath promised us deliverance we ought to use all good means and working under Gods providence Verse 12. Prayer is not only a bare manifestation of our mind to God by such a sute or petition but in Prayer there is or ought to be an holy arguing with God about the matter which we declare which is a bringing out and urging of reasons and motives whereby the Lord may be moved to grant what we pray for and this is clear from this example of Iacob in this Chapter Verse 24. When we are most retired from the World then we are most fit to have and usually have most communion with God David shews us divine work when we go to rest the bed is not all for sleep commune with your own hearts upon your bed and be still Psal. 4. be still and quiet and then commune with your hearts God will come and commune with them to his Spirit will give you a loving visit When Iacob fearing the rage of his Brother had put himself into the best posture and defence he could and had sent his Wives and Children over the River the Text saith that he was left alone which is not to be understood as if his company had left or deserted him Iacob's solitariness was not passive but effective he having disposed of all his Family withdrew himself and stayed alone and what then then he had a Vision indeed then there wrestled a man with him till the breaking of the day he spent not the night in carping and caring what should become of him to morrow no he retires to pray for a blessing upon his former cares and a blessing he obtains Verse 25. What a wonder is here Iacob received not so much hurt from all his enemies as from his best Friends not one of his hairs perish'd by Laban or Esau yet he lost a joynt by the Angel and was sent halting to his Grave he that knows our strength yet will wrestle with us for our exercise and loves our violence and importunity O happy loss this of Iacob he lost a joint and won a blessing it is a favour to halt from God yet this favour is seconded with a greater He was blest because he would rather halt than leave ere he was blessed If he had left sooner he had not halted but then he had not prospered that man shall go away sound but miserable that loves a limb more than a blessing Surely if Iacob had not wrestled with God he had been folid with evils how many are the troubles of the righteous Verse 30. Holy men even in this life have a sight of the face of God the Soul of a Believer hath interviews with God God and he do often look one another in the face Wheresoever the Saints are except in cases of desertion the place may be called as Iacob here call'd this where he wrestled with God Peniel that is the face of God yet not in that sence fully in which Iacob calls it so he call'd it the face of God because he had seen God face to face We can call it so only ordinarily because we see his face It is one thing to see the face of God another thing to see God face to face the former is the common priviledge of Saints in this life the latter is the priviledge of but some Saints and those rare ones to have it here Verse 31. At death God wrestles with his people laying hold on their Consciences by the menaces of the Law They again resist this assault by laying hold upon God in Christ by the Faith of the Gospel well assured that Christ hath freed them from the curse of the Law by being made a curse for them on the Cross. God yields himself over-come by this re-encounter but yet toucheth their thigh takes away their life howbeit this hinders not the Sun of Life Eternal to arise upon them CHAP. XXXIII Verse 4. VArious and miraculous are the means which God useth to deliver his People from their Enemies sometimes he divides them and sets the Churches enemies one against another so he did for Gideon's small Army to the Midianites mighty Host setting every mans Sword against his fellow sometimes he changeth their minds and turneth the stream of their affections Thus was Esau's heart mollified towards Iacob who instead of a devouring enemy becomes an embracing friend and meets him with kisses to whom he had intended blowes Indeed what Solomon saith of the Kings heart is true of all mens That they are in the hands of the Lord as the Rivers of Waters and he turneth them wheresoever he will No wonder then if sometimes he mollifies the Obdurate qualifies the Malicious and melts the Frozen Hearts of Wicked men into Love and Compassion towards his Servants Verse 5. Children are the blessings of the Lord nay they are part of his inheritance Children are an heritage of the Lord saith the Psalmist and the fruit of the Womb is his reward they are special blessings Children as it is to be observed are a resemblance of our immortality because man revives again lives a-new as it were in every Child he is born again in a civil sence when others are born to him There are some who count their Children but Bills of Charges but God puts them upon the account of our Mercies And
peaceably but youth commonly undertakes rashly and performs with passion The Sons of Iacob think of nothing but revenge and which is worst of all begin their cruelty with craft and hide their craft with Religion A smiling malice is most deadly and hatred doth most rankle the heart when it is kept in and dissembled We cannot give our Sister to an uncircumcised man here was God in the mouth and Satan in the heart The bloodiest of all Projects have ever wont to be coloured with Religion because the worse any thing is the better shew it desires to make and contrarily the better colour is put upon any vice the more odious it is for as every simulation adds to an evil so the best adds most evil themselves had taken the Daughters and Sisters of uncircumcised men yea Iacob himself did so why might not then an uncircumcised man obtain their Sister Or if there be a difference of giving and taking it had been well if it had not been only pretended It had been an happy ravishment of Dinah that should have drawn a whole Country into the bosome of the Church but here was a Sacrament intended not to the good of the soul but to the murther of the body Verse 15. Simeon and Levi when they meditate their revenge for the Rape committed upon their Sister when they pretended Peace yet they required a little bloud they would have the Shechemites Circumcised but when they had opened a Vein they made them bleed to Death when they were under the soreness of Circumcision they slew them all Gods Justice required bloud likewise the bloud of his Son but that bloud is not spilt as was the bloud of these Shechemites but poured from that Head to our Hearts into the Veins and Wounds of our own Souls In the Circumcision and Passion of our Saviour there was Bloud shed but no Bloud lost Verse 23. It was an hard task for Hamor and Shechem not only to put the knife to their own fore-skins but to perswade a multitude to so painful a condition Now to bring this about as the Sons of Iacob dissembled with them so they dissemble with the people Shall not all their flocks and substance be ours Common profit is pretended when as only Shechems pleasure is meant No motive is so powerful to the vulgar sort as the name of Commodity the hope of this makes them prodigal of their skin and bloud not the love to the Sacrament nor the love to Shechem sinister respects draw more to the profession of Religion than Conscience if it were not for the Loaves and Fishes the train of Christ would be less But the Sacraments of God mis-received never prosper in the end These men are content to smart so they may gain Verse 25. Now that every one lies sore of his own Wound Simeon and Levi rush in armed and wound all the Males to death Cursed be their Wrath for it was fierce and their Rage for it was cruel Indeed filthiness should not have been wrought in Israel yet murther should not have been wrought by Israel If they had been fit Judges which were but bloudy Executioners how far doth the punishment exceed the fault To punish above the offence is no less injustice than to offend One offendeth and all feel the revenge yea all the innocent suffer that revenge which he that offended deserved not Shechem sinneth but Dinah tempted him She that was so light as to wander abroad alone only to gaze I fear was not over-difficult to yield and if having wrought her shame he had driven her home with disgrace to her Fathers Tent such tyrannous lust had justly called for bloud but now he craves and offers and would pay dear for but leave to give satisfaction to execute rigor upon a submiss offendor is more merciless than just or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another yet from them which had vowed Peace and Affinity it was shamefully unjust To disappoint the Trust of another and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes adds faithlessness unto our cruelty Verse 30. Who would have looked to have found this outrage in the Family of Iacob How did that good Patriarch when he saw Dinah come home blubber'd and wringing her hands Simeon and Levi sprinkled with bloud wish that Leah had been barren as long as Rachel Good Parents have grief enough though they sustain no blame for their Childrens sins What great evils arise from small beginnings The idle curiosity of Dinah hath bred all this mischeif Ravishment follows upon her wandring upon her ravishment murther upon the murther spoyl It is holy and safe to be jealous of the first occasions of evil either done or suffered CHAP. XXXV Verse 1. HEre God pulls Iacob by the ear as it were and minds him of his Vow which he had well-nigh forgotten but God looked for performance and would not let him be quiet till he had made good what he had promised Most mens practice proclaims that having escaped the danger they would willingly deceive the Saint Deliverances commonly are but nine dayes wonder at most and it is ten to one that any Leper returns to give praise to God If any thing doth rouze up our hearts to thankful remembrance of former Mercies it must be the sense of some present misery as here Iacob was in a strait and fright his Sons had troubled him the Country was ready to rise upon him and rout him out and now God takes this opportunity for we are best when at worst and gently minds him of what was his duty and would be for his safety Verse 5. The Lord hath a Negative voice upon the motion of all Creatures We see an instance of this here when Iacob and his Family journied the terror of God was upon the Cities that were round about them and they did not pursue after the Sons of Iacob they had a mind to pursue and revenge the slaughter of the Shechemites but God said Pursue not and then they could not pursue they must stay at home Thus also when his People the Iewes were safe in Canaan he encourages them to come up freely to Worship at Ierusalem by this assurance No man shall desire thy Land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God God can stop not only hands from spoyling but hearts from desiring Our appetite whether concupiscible or irrascible are under his command as well as our actions we should consider this to help our Faith in these times The Sword is in motion among us even as the Sun and the Sword seems to have received a charge to pass from the one end of the Land to the other yet a counter-mand from God will stop the Sword from going on If he speak to the Sword the Sword shall wound no more Verse 10. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel That is not only or not so much Iacob as Israel Both
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
and his Courtiers And thus by one means or other the Lord will evermore deliver his Truth from false surmises his faithful Ministers from false imputations and write the wickedness of carnal men upon their faces to their own confusion Verse 15. See the corruption of our Nature if God work not No sooner is the Rod off but wretched man fals to his old sins again When we are sick or distressed any way we pretend Repentance we pray we cry we vow But forasmuch as all riseth from Fear and not from Love it vanisheth as soon as the Fear is past and the Devil returns with seven worse than himself making our end more odious than ever our beginning was Verse 17. It had been as easie for the Lord to have turned the dust into Lions and Bears and Wolves but that rather he chose to confound pride by weakness and a rebelling humour by so base a Creature Then secondly let us consider that if God can make so vile a Creature too strong for a Kingdome what resistance can I a single man make against Gods wrath if I pull it upon me by my sins His wrath can arme all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth against me and yet the least of them is far above my power as you see here Verse 18. The Devil is powerful when God will suffer him but when God will restrain him what can he do Add this to the story of Iob to the story of the Heard of Swine in the Gospel and from such places let us take comfort against our spiritual Enemy for we see his weakness and the brideling hand of God at all times upon him Verse 19. The wicked who for a time make shew as if God were on their side in Gods good time shall be forced to acknowledge the contrary to his Glory and the great Comfort of his Church and Children For what did these Magicians in effect say but that this which was now done passeth our Skill and albeit the Creature be vile and base yet is the Power of God such over us and our Art that we cannot do the like but give him the Victory and acknowledge our selves sinful weak and wicked men Verse 23. Whensoever we are free from any calamity which happeneth to others it is not by our own Policy but by that gracious separation which the Lord makes How may we run into particulars Others sickly we healthy others in prison we at liberty others in blindness we in light others slandered we not touch'd others cross'd in their Children and Friends we comforted O blessed God what a separation is this How ought we to be thankful to thee for it Verse 28. Worldly minded men will be content to tolerate Religion so it might still be joyned with their profit But if it be contrary to that O how bitter then how hard to endure it For these Iews wholly to depart from Egypt was not for Pharaohs profit for from their labours he had great gain and therefore by no means may they go out of his Land to sacrifice to their God but in the Land he is content to endure it so he may be freed from those Plagues that were upon him Or if needs must be that they must go out of the Land yet not far in any case CHAP. IX Verse 14. GOD punisheth sinners first with one Rod then with another and if these single chastisements will not serve then will he go to many Plagues heaping Wrath upon Wrath and Plague upon Plague yea he will lay even all his Plagues upon us at once as he here speaks to our utter confusion as also it is Deut. 28. 15. Secondly God cals them here his Plagues so that neither fortune nor chance ruleth Rods and Crosses laid upon us but these still are Gods laid on and taken off at his pleasure Ib. Upon the heart that is inwardly and deeply to smite us in armes hands legs is greivous unto us but when sorrow is laid upon the heart it stingeth indeed and most bitterly as Prov. 17. 22. 15. 13. Now the best way to prevent this doleful sorrow of heart laid on by an angry God is to take our sins to heart betimes Verse 23. Whether we be hindered or furthered by weather let us cast up our eyes to Heaven for it is the Lord still that ruleth these things and by his Will they come and go Nature is his Servant and the Devil his Rod neither of them working but as he appoints Verse 24. Fire was mingled with Hail to teach that Gods Judgements shall not be single but even one upon the neck of another until we be either humbled or destroyed Who would think it possible that any Soul should be secure in the midst of such variety of Judgements To what a height of obduration will sin lead a man and of all sins incredulity Amongst all these Stormes Pharaoh sleepeth till the voice of Gods mighty Thunders and Hail mixed with Fire rouz'd him up a little Verse 28. Pharaoh here as one betwixt sleeping and waking starts up a little and sayes God is righteous and I am wicked Moses pray for us and presently layes down his head again God hath no sooner done thundering than he hath done fearing All this while you never find him careful to prevent any one evil but desirous still to shift it off when he seeks it never holds constant to any good motion never prayes for himself but carelesly wils Moses and Aaron to pray for him never yields God his whole Demands but higleth and dodgeth like some hard Chapman that would get a release with the cheapest Wheresoever meer Nature is she is still inconstant in all her purposes sensible of present evil and improvident of future good CHAP. X. Verse 2. AS this teacheth us the end of Gods Works and Wonders so the Duty and Office of all Christian Parents and Governours even to teach their Children and charge carefully and zealously by them and in them to know the Lord as also Deut. 6. 6. thus is God himself the Author of that catechising and instructing of Youth which is so much neglected in our daies Verse 3. The drift of all Crosses and Afflictions in this life is to bring down the swelling pride of our sinful hearts that yeilding God what is due to him we again may from him reap mercy and forgiveness to our endless comfort Never forget this saying to King Iosiah 2 Chron. 34. 27. Because thine heart was tender c. Verse 7. So old is the Accusation which to this day remains among wicked persons ascribing unto Religion and the Professors thereof whatsoever evil happeneth among men be it Death Sickness Wars Famine Thus Ahab tels Elias that it was he that troubled Israel by whom indeed all Israel had a Blessing if they had known it But to prove the contrary read Gen. 18. 32. Houses and whole Kingdomes have been saved but for one righteous man dwelling therein as Ioseph Daniel and the like
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
be in these dayes who grieve at an hour spent in the Church but never of dayes and years spent in sin Secondly observe that when we are once delivered out of spiritual Egypt then doth the Devil muster up his Chariots and Horse-men He cannot abide to loose his Servants so his we were and he hath lost us and his we must be again if by all his strength he can possibly gain us A Land that floweth with Milk and Honey may not be inherited without resistance Out of Egypt we may be delivered but from following persecutions we shall not be quite freed Think of that Devil in the Gospel who when he must needs depart and loose his possession did rend and tear the poor party most miserably Mar. 9. 26. Verse 13. In all spiritual Conflicts say thus with your self O my soul fear not though Sathan thrust sore at thee and seek thy destruction but look unto him that is mightier than all Hell believe his Promises believe his Word and the Egyptians whom thou hast seen to day thou shalt never see again that is those frights and those fears Enemies to thy peace thou shalt never be troubled with them any more but God shall so drown them in the red Sea of Christs bloud that they shall never hurt thee The Lord shall fight for thee O my Soul therefore stand still and wait upon him Verse 14. A Silence before a not praying hath not alwayes a fault in it because we are often ignorant of our own necessities and ignorant of the dangers that hang over us but a silence after a benefit evidently received a dumb ingratitude is inexcusable Thus when Moses sayes here to his People The Lord shall fight for you c. Moses means you shall not need to speak the Lord will do it for his own glory you may be silent There it was a future thing but the Lord hath fought many battels for us he hath fought for our Church against Schisms and Heresie for our Land against Invasion for every soul against Presumption or else against Desperation Dominus pugnavit nos filemus Verse 15. See the force of Prayer though it be but in groans of your heart it even crieth in Gods ears it pierceth the Heavens and pulleth down comfort See likewise the duty of all faithful Servants of God to go forward as here is said to the Israelites notwithstanding Seas before us Hils about us and whatsoever it may be that is against us leaving all to the Lord who knoweth his own purpose and will manifest the same in his good time Forward forward saith God here Speak to the Children of Israel that they go forward But why did Moses cry thus in his heart to God when it was revealed to him what should be the end of the Egyptians Because neither Promises nor Revelations hinder Gods Children from using ordinary means but do rather stirre them up more and more to beg and crave the performance and effect of them Verse 22. If you look at the Waters on either side you may see the condition of Gods Children in this World beset on the right side with a Floud of Prosperity and beset on the left side with a floud of Adversity And yet through a true Faith walking through both and hurt by neither they arrive on the other side safely when by either of these many others are destroyed pray then for this Faith CHAP. XV. Verse 1. T Is a good form of giving thanks when every particular person out of his own feeling sayes I I good Lord do yield unto thy Majesty my bounden thanks for my self and for my Brethren for my self and for thy whole Church and so every one feeling and every one thanking the Lord is praised of all as his Mercy and goodness reach to all Thus David Psal. 118. 28. I I again in my own person and with my own heart and with my own tongue So here I will sing when they were many thousands Verse 5. They sank as a stone that is without all recovery and help For a stone swimmeth not out being cast in but goeth to the bottom and there abideth Fearful and very fearful was their destruction to the terror of all those that shall persecute the Church of God and his People Verse 6. Not our Vertue not our Merits not our Armies or men of Might Gods Servants do never rob him and cloath themselves but with Moses here they give all to God where indeed it is due and say with David Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy Name give the praise Verse 7. In that they are said to have risen against God when they rose but against his People observe the Union between God and his Church even such as who so toucheth the one toucheth the other For he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye Zach. 2. 8. And Saul Saul why persecutest thou me me in my members and by my members Verse 9. The same ambition and covetousness that made Pharaoh wear out so many Judgements will not leave him till it hath wrought out his full destruction All Gods Vengeances have their end the final perdition of his Enemies which they cannot rest till they have attained Pharaoh therefore and his Egyptians will needs go fetch their Bane instead of their Victory They bragg'd of their Conquest before-hand and gave Israel either for Spoil or Bondage But the Sea will shew them that it regards the Rod of Moses not the Scepter of Pharaoh and therefore in the next verse as glad to have got the Enemies of God at such an advantage shuts her mouth upon them Extraordinary favours to wicked men are the fore-runners to their ruine Verse 19. As the Act of the Egyptians for drowning the Israelitish Children was cruel Chap. 1. so is their own issue and punishment but just here The People must drown their Males there themselves are drown'd here they died by the same means by which they caused the poor Israelitish Infants to die That Law of Retaliation which God will not allow to us because we are fellow-creatures he justly practiseth on us God would have us read our sins in our judgements that we might both repent of our sins and give Glory to his Justice Verse 20. In common Duties due to God none must sit out The deliverance concern'd both Sexes and therefore both Sexes were to thank God for it Man and Wife must joyn and agree together to honour him that saveth them Ioseph will go up to Ierusalem according to the Law and Mary his Wife will go with him No division no difference betwixt them in Gods matters If the one owe a Duty the other thinks she doth so too and with one heart according to one rule they both worship God and so come home Verse 24. A fitter course it had been for a People so taught with passed Favours to have assured themselves of future helps in Gods good time and with Patience and Faith to
Master requests where he might constrain God will make no Covenant with the unwilling how much lesse the Covenant of Grace which stands all upon Love If we stay till God offer violence to our will or to us against our will we shall die Strangers from him The Church is the Spouse of Christ he will enjoy her Love by a willing Contract not by a Ravishment the obstinate have nothing to do with God the title of all Converts is a willing people Verse 9. This shews how careful great Ones should be to grace and countenance the Ministers of the Word before the People to the end their words may have more weight with their Hearers and their service and pains do more good But now it is farre otherwise with too many For great men must shew their greatness in disgracing the Lords Prophets and meaner men shew their malice in spreading false rumors of them Verse 10. Those Garments must be washed which should never wax old that now they might begin their age in purity as those which were in more danger of being foul than bare The danger was neither in their Garments nor their Skin yet they must be wash'd that they might learn by their clothes with what Souls to appear before their God For little would neatness of Vestures avail them with a filthy Soul The God of Spirits looks to the inner man and challenges the purity of that part which resembles himself Cleanse your hands you sinners and purge your hearts ye double minded Verse 14. We are all by our corruption most unfit profitably to hear the Word of God unless we be sanctified and prepared thereunto by the Spirit of God And therefore we ought to make ready for so holy a work by all due care before-hand and to purge our hearts from all cares troubles and impediments whatsoever The Word of God is not to be handled with unclean hands neither will enter into unclean hearers Verse 16. A good way to make a profitable hearer is first to shake him and throw him down in himself For then assuredly the Word entreth more powerfully and he hath a more excellent touch then without such humbling he would have had Remember how St. Paul was thrown down Acts 9. 4. Surely such rushings and shakings and spiritual frightings in Conscience hath the Lord his gracious meaning in to beat us down in our selves that we may more carefully hearken unto him In sickness in prison in poverty in trouble men have other ears than they have in prosperity Verse 21. Curiosity in matters forbidden is odious unto God and therefore ver 12. there were bounds put to the Mount to shew that God would have every man content with that which it pleaseth him to vouchsafe him of revelation and knowledge The Lord hath revealed his Will in his Word and beyond those limits we must not go having no ear to hear where he hath not a mouth to speak Secondly we learn here how profitable the presence of a Magistrate is to make people keep order For surely men are marvellous apt to transgress and therefore again and again they must be admonished by Moses Give Laws never so good and let there not be a Governour to see the execution of them and 't is too clear what little good such Laws do CHAP. XX. Verse 6. THere is no judgement that God executes but Mercy is mingled with it go over any that were executed since the beginning of the World still there was Mercy in it but there is Mercy often manifested where there is no Judgement in it Here is the difference Judgement is never entire but there is some Mercy in it Mercy is alwayes entire and there is no mixture of Judgement at all in it See the effects in regard of extent God saith he will punish to the third and fourth Generation the Fathers upon the Children that is a long time but it is nothing to his Mercy I will shew Mercy sayes God here to thousands of Generations A thousand Generations is longer than the World shall last For there were but forty two Generations from the Creation to Christ A hundred Generations is like to be longer than the World shall last yet God will be merciful to thousands of Generations if it last so long or if not he will be so for ever A large Periphrasis to set forth the Mercy of God Ver. 18. Here you may learn the difference between the Law and the Gospel The Law fearing and frighting shaking and shivering the heart of man beateth down his pride and makes him cry with the Prodigal Son I am not worthy I am not worthy O Father to be called thy Son Luke 15. 19. Yea it makes him stand afar off with the poor Publican and smite his breast in true feeling of his sin and to beseech God for Mercy to a Sinner But now the Gospel cheereth and comforteth helpeth and healeth and sweetly allureth to come in all joyful assurance of Mercy by him who hath fulfill'd the Law for us and taken away the curse of it Heb. 12. 18 c. Verse 20. There is a fear acceptable to God and yet hath in it a trembling an horror a consternation an astonishment an apprehension of Gods dereliction for a time The Law here was given in thundring and lightning and the people were afraid How proceeds Moses with them Fear not saith he for God is come to prove you that his fear might be before your eyes Here is a fear not that is fear not with despair nor with diffidence but yet therefore that you may fear the Law For in this place the very Law its self which is given to direct them is called fear as in another place God himself is call'd Fear Gen. 31. as he is in other places called Love too Iacob swore by the fear of his Father Isaac i. e. by him whom his Father Isaac fear'd Verse 24. God who was never visible to mortal eye was pleas'd to make himself presential by substitution of his Name that is in certain places he hath appointed that his Name shall be called upon and by promising and imparting such Blessings which he hath made consequent to the invocation of his Name hath made such places to be a certain determination of some special manner of his presence For Gods Name is not a distinct thing from himself not an Idea and it cannot be put into a place in literal signification the expression is to be resolved into some other sense Gods Name is that whereby he is known by which he is invocated that which is the immediate publication of his Essence And because God is essentially present in all places when he makes himself present in one place more than another it cannot be understood to any other purpose but that in such places he gives special Blessings and Graces or that in those places he appoints his Name that is himself specially to be invocated CHAP. XXI Verse 6. THe boaring of his
ear was a sign of obedience and figuratively admonished that Servants must not be deaf but quick and ready and willing to hear what is commanded them And spiritually that if we be the Lords Servants he boreth by his holy Grace our Ear that is he maketh us have Ears to hear his holy Word not to cast it behind our Backs and stop our Eares against it but with Care and Zeal and Love we hearken to it as Men and Women whose Eares he hath opened and bored Verse 14. Although the worst men will make use of Gods Altar for their advantage and many will cling fast to it in their extremity who in their welfare regarded it not yet the Altar of God must be no Sanctuary for presumptuous Murtherers And indeed what have bloody hands to do with the holy innocent Altar of God Miserable Murtherers what help can ye expect from that sacred Pile Those Horns that were sprinkled by the bloud of Beasts abhorre to be touch'd by the bloud of Men Gods Altar is for the expiation of sin by bloud not for the protection of the sin of bloud And this was Ioabs Case 1 Kings 2. who fled to the Horns of the Altar and told Benaiah that he would die there but young Solomon was so well acquainted with this Law of God that he sticks not at the killing of Ioab even there For he knew Ioabs Murthers had not been more presumptuous then guiltful and therefore he sends Benaiah to take away the Offender both from God and Men from the Altar and the World Verse 15. God doth not say he that killeth Father or Mother shall be killed for it but he that smiteth so that not so much as a blow is to be given to Parents upon pain of death no not with the tongue may we smite them so great is the honour of Parents before God and so sharp a Judge is God against all abusers of them Verse 17. He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely die saith Moses here and he that is but stubborn towards them shall die saith the same Prophet Deut. 21. 18. The dutiful love of Children to Parents is so rooted in Nature that Demosthenes saith That it is against the impressions and against the Law of Nature for any Child ever to love that man that hath done execution upon his Father though by way of Justice And this natural Obligation is not condition'd with the limitations of a good or a bad Father Natura te non bono patri sed patri conciliavit saith that little great Philosopher Epictetus Nature hath not bound thee to thy Father as he is a good Father but meerly as he is a Father Verse 24. The Light of Reason and Nature given us of God teacheth that what measure we mete it is just we should receive even the like again Neither did Christ repeal this Mat. 5. but only condemn'd the abuse of this Law according to private affections and for the nourishing of private revenge by private CHAP. XXII Verse 9. THe Cause shall be brought before the Iudges saith our English Translation but in the Hebrew it is before the Gods For Magistrates in the Scripture are call'd Gods First by Analogie saith Theodoret as resembling God by having the power of Life and Death Secondly by Participation saith Saint Austin for as Stars participate their light from the Sun so do Rulers their Authority from the Supream Majesty Thirdly by Deputation from God whose Vicegerent they are and to whom they must be accountable for their evil administration Magistrates then being in the place of God and entrusted with his Power must have a care that they represent not God to the World as a corrupt crooked and unrighteous Judge As they are invested with his Name let them indeavour to express his Nature to be both just and merciful Verse 11. In all Oaths God is the chief Witness as in all Judicatures he is the chief Judge and therefore it is call'd here the Oath of the Lord first because God is call'd in as the chief Witness and Avenger Have a care therefore what thou swearest for thou art in the presence of thy Creator who can strike thee both dumb and dead He that made thy Mouth made it for his Glory and if thou turnest that Glory into a Lie know that God will be sure to avenge his own Oath and his own Glory Secondly it is called the Oath of God in this Text because it is taken in his presence For God is Present and President by a particular Providence as Lord Paramount and chief Magistrate higher than the Highest And therefore the Aethiopian Judges do ever leave the chief Seat of Judicature empty as being Gods Place where he standeth or sitteth himself to behold the Actions and Affections of the Court and to passe a Censure as well upon the Judge as the Prisoner or Witness Verse 16. Every Marriage before it be knit should be contracted as it is here and in Deut. 22. 28. which stay between the Contract and the Marriage was the time of longing for their Affection to settle in because the deferring of what we love doth kindle the desire which if it came easily and speedily unto us we set lesse by it Therefore we read that Ioseph and Mary were contracted before married In the Contract Christ was conceived in the Marriage born that he might honour both Estates Verse 29. Thou shalt offer to me saith God the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors as our Translation hath it The word in the original is Lacrimarum and of thy tears The first tears must be offered to God for sin The second and third may be to Nature and Civility and such secular Offices But it is St. Chrysostomes Exclamation will any wash in foul Water for sore Eyes Will any man embalm the Carcass of the World which he treads under foot with those tears which should embalm his Soul Did Ioseph of Arimathea bestow any of the Perfumes though he brought a superfluous quantity for one body upon the body of either of the Theives CHAP. XXIII Verse 1. IF to give the hearing be in some sort to put to the hand surely to have itching ears to hear evil Reports of our Christian Brethren with delight and contentment to believe them is to put to the hand much more Yet what so common in our Mouths as I am not the Author I am not the first Raiser I heard it I have my Author God that made this Law against receiving knoweth that hearing goeth before receiving and if not receive then not hear not believe not report to others Verse 2. If this may not be done in civil Matters much lesse may it be done in Religion and matters of Faith The words are plain Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil therefore a multitude may erre and do evil Neither decline after many to overthrow truth therefore a multitude may overthrow truth And how then can it be
by Death we then shall behold the glory of that Trinity and never till then Verse 37. As in the outward Vail of the Tabernacle there were Sockets of Brass as you read in this Verse and in the inward of Silver so God doth adorn for the most part that which is within A Man may seem to be as hard as brass with the outward custom of Sin yet he may sound with the Confession of Sin like Silver within and therefore we must have a care how we pass our Censures upon our Brethren and that we be not like those wild-fire Tongues that do Condemn when they consider the outward Fact and no more not the Circumstances of the Fact which may lesson it not the Intention which might be well propounded though a Fault in the Action it self nor the Cause nor the Evil Company nor that it was done after a vehement Tentation or done by reason of some Violence offered or such a Circumstance as doth excuse a Tanto though not a Toto CHAP. XXVII Verse 3. AS here were divers Instruments belonging to the Altar and the Tabernacle and all for Use and Employment so doth the Church of Christ consist of divers Members and those Members are endowed with several gifts and graces but all for the Edification of the Church For wherefore hath this Christian quickness of Wit that depth of Judgement this heat of Zeal that power of Elocution this man Skil that Experience this Authority that Strength but that all should be laid together for the raising of the common stock and put forth for publick advantage As therefore no true Christian is his own man so he freely laies out himself according to the measure of his several Gifts and Graces for the universal benefit of all his fellow-members How rich therefore is every Christian Soul that is not only furnished with its own Graces but hath a special Interest in all the excellent Gifts of all the most eminent Servants of God through the whole World Surely that Man cannot be poor while there is any special Wealth in the Church of God upon Earth Verse 7. The Staves on which the Ark was to be carried were to be ever ready in the Rings of the Ark upon all occasions of remove We have here no continuing City saith the Apostle we have no place of Residence no fixt Habitation in this Life and therefore we must be ever prepared to take up these Tabernacles of our Bodies and be gone We have but a short time to live and even that short time is uncertain and never continues in one stay but flies away like a shadow and is cut down as a flower He then that would dye well must alwayes look for Death every day knocking at the gates of the Grave and then the gates of the Grave shall never prevail upon him to do him mischief This also will help to confine our hopes and cut short our designs and fit our endeavours to the small portion of our shorter Life And as we must not trouble our Enquiry so neither must we Intricate our Labour with what we shall never Enjoy we must not dispose of Ten Years to come when we are not Lords of to morrow nor discompose our present duty by long and future designs such which by casting our Labours to Events at distance make us less to remember our Death standing at the door But rather let us make use of this instant for this instant will never return again and yet it may be this instant will secure the fortune of a whole Eternity Verse 20. When God received lights into his Tabernacle he received none of Tallow the Ox hath Horns he received none of Wax the Bee hath a Sting but he received only lamps of Oyl And though from many Fruits and Berries they pressed Oyl yet God admitted no Oyl into the service of the Church but only of the Olive the Olive the Emblem of Peace CHAP. XXVIII Verse 3. THis shews that Mechanical Arts and Trades are not found out by Men without the direction of Gods Spirit Many men do condemn Gold-smiths Jewellers or Lace-Weavers Perfumers and such like as though they served only for Vanity and Excess when indeed they be the works of God I mean their several Skils and Fruits of his Spirit as here we see If any man abuse them it is the fault of man not of the skil and what may not be abused Verse 15. Matter not clothed in handsomness of words is but dusted Treasure and like some Gardens where there is fatnessof Earth no Flower The Brest-plate of Judgement which Aaron wore was made with Imbroidered Works and in the Ephod there were as well diversities of colours as of Riches Blew Silk and Purple and Scarlet and fine Linnen That then of Epiphanius is worthy both to be remembred and imitated whose works were read of the simple for the words of the Learned for the matter Verse 21. This may remember a good Minister how dear unto him his Flock and People should be even graven as it were in his breast and eveâ— in his mind to profit them by all the means he may that they may be saved It notes also the love of Christ to his Church and every member of it who beareth us not only in his Arms as a Nurse or on his Shoulder as a strong Man but upon his Heart and in his Heart as a most kind God Isai. 49. Can a mother forget c. CHAP. XXIX Verse 6. IT was not without some mystery that in the Robes of Aaron there was a Crown set upon the Mitre moralizing a possible conjunction at least of Minister and Magistrate in one person The Crown and the Mitre were together then but yet the Crown was upon the Mitre there is a power above the Priest the Regal power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest Verse 12. This shadowed that the Preaching of the Gospel concerning the Blood and Passion of Christ should be publish'd and sounded through the four corners of the World even over the whole Earth and the rest of the Blood thou shalt pour at the foot of the Altar noting how the Blood of Christ though in its self sufficient for all yet becometh not helpful to all but is unprofitably poured out for many as this here was at the foot of the Altar through their own unbelief treading under feet that most precious Blood Verse 13. That so men might learn to give unto God their best service and Duty most thankfully ever confessing that all fatness that is all Comfort Prosperity and Joy cometh from him as from the Fountain and is due to him as his own from all men But now the very worst is thought good enough for God our worst Corn our worst Calf our worst Lamb and too often neither good nor bad is this to burn the Fat upon the Altar of the Lord. Verse 20. By the Ear was noted obedience to signifie that
not admit changes in some places fix'd indeed in respect of Fundamentals but yet a moveable Pillar for things indifferent and arbitrary CHAP. XXXIV Verse 1. GOds Ministers by preaching and crying unto men may as it were hew their stony hearts that is prepare them for writing but only the Lord must write in them by the finger of his blessed Spirit and no man can make any thing enter without him Paul may plant c. but God giveth the encrease Secondly as God did not write before the stones were hewed so no more assure your self will he ever in your heart set any good if you contemn the outward hewing and preparing of you by the Word in the Ministery of his Servants Thirdly by the former Tables broken and these new made some have thought to be figured the abrogation of the Law and establishing of the Gospel our old corruption which must be broken and our new Regeneration which must come in place Verse 8. The greater manifestation of God and his Truth is vouchsafed unto us the more ought we to humble our selves and be thankful worshiping that God which so mercifully dealeth with us Again when God gives signes of his presence let us make hast to him and not suffer him to passe away while we are hindred with this and that God gives signes of his Presence in the Word preach'd in the Sacrament in my heart by good Motions O let him not passe away but make hast as Moses here did bow down and worship Verse 9. God in the former verse had promised to be gracious and in this Moses fals to prayer to shew us that the Promises of God kindle Prayer Wherefore use when you are dull to pray to meditate upon the Promises of God general particular so many so sweet so full of power to enflame a heart half dead and when you feel the fire kindle then pray it will flame out at last Verse 13 It is you in the singular to signifie that publick things were to be done by publick persons the Altars here were to be pull'd down by Moses But for private matters private men may do them as Iacob purg'd his own House of his Wives Idols Private men to meddle with publick matters is dangerous Paul came to Athens and found an Altar yet he threw it not down Therefore beware of false Spirits that will rashly write of Reformation without tarrying for the Magistrate So every man may be a Magistrate and the sweet society of man with man turn'd to bloud and slaughter Some yet are too mild and they tell us Idolatry must be first taken out of the heart by true teaching 'T is true teaching must go before but what then is therefore the Magistrates work excluded No For are not the sins also of the second Table to be taken out of the heart by teaching and yet I hope the Magistrate may concurre with teaching and punish Theives and Murtherers Much more then in the first Table touching Gods Honour and Service Verse 29. Modest men are not carried away with knowledge of their own gifts but are as it were ignorant of them In matters of Almes the Lord saith Let not your right hand know what your left hand doth Verse 30. To note first that Ministers Faces that is their outward actions and words which appear to men should glister and shine So let your light shine that men may see your goodworks Secondly to shadow that the Law which Moses now represented is only bright and shining in the Face a meer outward Justification before men whereas the Righteousness of Christ is all glorious within and without Thirdly to teach that the Law lightneth the Conscience which is as the Face of the inward man making it see and know sin but it lightneth not the Mind by Faith to save from sin Christ only doth this by his Spirit Therefore saith the next verse the people fear'd and durst not approach The Law ever striking a terror into the hearts of them that behold their sins in it and by it Such a Fear there is in Guiltiness such Confidence in Innocency When the Soul is once clear'd from sin it shall run to that Glory with Joy the least glimpse whereof now appales it and sends it away in terrour Verse 35. Nihil in lege gloriosum habet Moses praeter solam faciem His hands were leprous by putting them into his bosome his feet also had no glory he being bid to put off his shooes and so by that Ceremony was to deliver the Spouse unto another But in the Gospel he appeared in the Mount with Christ totus glorificatus this sheweth the preheminence of the Gospel before the Law The Latine reads facies ejus erat cornuta but this is for the mistake of our Hebrew word Keren an Horn for Karan to shine Tostatus sayes the meaning of the Latine is emittebat radios sicut cornua This also shews the righteousness of the Law only a shining of the Face that is of the external Works before men The Vail over Moses signifies the blindness of the Iewes that when Moses is read they understand not the end of the Law CHAP. XXXV Verse 1. IF God had not been Friends with Israel he had not renewed his Law As the Israelites were wilfully blind if they did not see Gods anger in the Tables broken So could they not but hold it a good sign of Grace that God gave them his Testimonies There was nothing wherein Israel out-stripped the rest of the World more than in this Priviledge the pledge of his Covenant the Law written with Gods own hand Oh what a Favour then is it where God bestows his Gospel upon any Nation That was but a killing Letter this is the Power of God to Salvation Never is God throughly displeased with any People where that continues For like as those which purposed love when they fall off call for their tokens back again so when God begins once perfectly to mislike the first thing he withdraws is his Gospel Verse 21. It is a very great blessing to have an importunate Conscience to stirre us up in all good Duties Such a Conscience regards not what pleaseth us but what is good for us that it looketh too and that it perswadeth too and that it urgeth This blessing had these willing Israelites in the Text who gave freely to the building of the Tabernacle Observe here their Heart that is their Conscience stirr'd them up ye have Bracelets ye have Rings offer them sayes Conscience to further this pious Work in hand their Spirit made them willing their faithful Friend in their bosome Conscience overcame them with Arguments and strong perswasions This then must needs be a great Blessing to have such a faithful Conscience it will make a man part with all his Lusts Pride Self-love Covetousness carnal Delights for Gods Glory and our own true Good Verse 22. When God was once reconciled to his People in the Wilderness after their sin
scent and savour of their Actions as the sound of their Words CHAP. XL. Verse 13. MOses that is appointed here to annoint and consecrate others was never annointed and consecrated himself that so we might learn not to value external Sacraments or Signs by the Dignity of the Minister but by the Ordinance of God Again that the invisible Grace is of force without the visible sign when God will have it so as in Moses here but then withal we must know that this was an extraordinary Command of God to Moses who was then Gods Vicegerent or Vicar-general and therefore what he did God did And certainly God who is the Author of all order may prescribe the form and manner of it Verse 16. Observe how often from this to the two and thirtieth verse is repeated as the Lord commanded Moses and see how sweet commanded Obedience is Were it as acceptable to God to be served with inventions never would these repetitions be made Beware therefore of these wayes and in very reason conclude that if you expect from your Servant your Commands to be fulfill'd according to your will much more may God expect the same obedience from you Verse 32. Those that dispense Gods Ordinances that wait upon his Altar must come with clean hands and a pure heart Holiness becomes every man well but best of all publick persons and that not only for example of good but liberty of controlling ill The Snuffers of the Sanctuary made to purge others must be of pure Gold themselves and the Priest that is to purifie and cleanse the Congregation must be first washed himself But now suppose the Priest be unclean be vicious and who can say he is not so must â—he People notwithstanding seek the Law at his mouth follow his Doctrine Yes certainly For what if the Sacrificer be unclean is the Offering so Scripture is Scripture though the Devil speak it Verse 34. That thus he might grace that outward place now appointed for holy Assemblies to serve him and so to the Worlds end teach how great account all People ought to make of their Churches and Church-meetings Verse 36. The Children of Israels Journey to Canaan was thorow the Wilderness of Arabia Their Guides were a Pillar of Cloud by day and a Pillar of Fire by night The manner of their Journey was this When the Pillar moved they moved when the Pillar stood still they stood still By all which a further matter namely the regiment of Christ over his Church is signified Every one of us is as Passengers and Travellers to an heavenly Canaan and in this Journey we are to passe through the desart Wilderness of this World Our Guide is Christ himself figured by the Pillar of Fire and Cloud because by his Word and Spirit he sheweth us how far we may go in every Action and where we must stand and he goes before us as our Guide to life everlasting A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSES CALLED LEVITICUS CHAP. I. Verse 4. THE party bringing the Sacrifice did by this sign of laying on his hand c. acknowledge that he himself deserved to die but by the Mercy of God he was spared and his desert laid upon the Beast Secondly that it is not enough to believe that Christ was to die for sin but he must lay his hand upon Christ i. e. lay upon him all his iniquities by the hand of his Faith apply Christ to himself and believe that he died for his sins my sins your sins being the only Propitiation for sin Thirdly this laying on the hand shewed that men bringing Sacrifices to God should rather sacrifice their exorbitant affections than those Beasts Verse 5. The reason why God tyed them to a place and not suffered them to sacrifice where they pleased was that by this means they might be kept from using any unlawful manner in their Sacrifices which they might have done if in every place at their pleasure they might have Sacrificed The same reason is now for our set publick places of Gods Worship where the people are to perform their Duties to God after one manner not allowed at their will every one to have a several place lest private places should breed private Fancies Errors and Heresies in the Church Verse 6. This was to teach the Party that offered the Sacrifice to offer up himself to the Lord flayed and without skin that is without all counterfeit and hypocritical shews without all earthly vain and proud Confidence in himself or any Works or Worth whatsoever in him but naked and bare to present himself to his God with a single and faithful heart boasting of no Desert but humbly craving Mercy and Pardon for Christs sake the true Sacrifice Verse 17. This was a great comfort to the poorer sort of Offerers for thus are they assured that although they were not of ability to Offer unto him Oxen and Sheep yet were they as dear to him as those that could so do and their Sacrifice of Pigeons or Turtles yeelded as sweet a savour And thus gracious will God ever be even two Mites of a poor Widdow shall be accepted and a little Spice or Goats-hair or what my power is to bring unto him shall be received For it is not the Gift but the Heart of the Giver that God looks upon and respects and thus the poor Widdows Mite could weigh but little very little with God but the Heart weigh'd heavy and so her Heart being put to her Mite gave it weight above the greater but far more heartless largesses of the Pharisees CHAP. II. Verse 6. THis Offering thus parted and sprinkled with Oyl signified the Graces of Gods Spirit where with Christ was fully annointed within and without above his fellows For they were only singly annointed either as Kings or as Priests or as Prophets but Christ was a thrice Sacred annointed Person a Prophet to teach us by his Word a Priest to purge us by his Blood a King to guide us by his Spirit And this three-fold Office of our Saviour was really represented by the Oyl wherewith he was annointed For first Oyl is said in the Psalms to make a chearful countenance and thus doth Christ as a Prophet make not only a cheerful Countenance but a cheerful Heart and Soul by Preaching the glad Tydings of Salvation Secondly Oyl doth supple and cure Wounds and so doth Christ as a Priest the Wounds of our Souls and Consciences with that precious Ointment of his Blood Thirdly Oyl will still be the uppermost of all Liquors so likewise Christ as a King is above Men and Angels hath the Soveraignty over all the Creation Verse 11. By this Rule of having no Leaven they were taught the purity of Christs Doctrine and the Holiness of his Life his Doctrine so pure that it maketh others pure Iohn 15. 3. and his Life so pure that not only his false Accusers could fasten no fault upon him but by his Innocency he appeased
Gods Wrath for our Impurity Secondly it taught the Church that after Christs Example they ought to be free from both these to wit false Doctrine and ill manners not Teaching if they be Teachers any corrupt Matter nor believing and holding if they be no Teachers any absurd Untruths Verse 13. Salt was required in the Sacrifice to figure out Christ who indeed is the true Salt that seasoneth us and all our Works or else neither we nor they please God Sin hath made us unsavory to God and till this Salt be sprinkled over us we have no access to him nor savour with him And further by Salt here we may understand Mortification and holy discretion or sincerity of Doctrine and Discipline whereby the Saints are seasoned and preserved from the putrefaction of Sin and Error and being preserved themselves they preserve others For as Salt keepeth Flesh from putrifying so do the Saints of the World and are therefore sprinkled up and down here one and there one to keep the rest from stinking CHAP. III. Verse 3. THE Fat that was upon the Inwards was offered and yet the Inwards themselves in particular the Heart was not offered For the Heart Brain were never Offered in Sacrifice because they are the Fountains and secret Arks wherein lurks all Iniquity And yet though the Heart be not given yet hearty Thanks must be given to God such as cometh not from the Roof of the Mouth but the Root of the Heart the most inward part and bottom of our Souls Verse 4. Some have judg'd the pleasures of the Flesh to be here shadowed which of a true Child of God are to be kill'd and slain as Sacrifices were and mortified Others looking at the phrase of Scripture which usually noteth by the word Fat the best things have thought that herein was figured how Men ought to offer unto God ever of their best as Numb 18. 12. Psal. 81. 16. but now in the Tithes and Duties do you give the best do you offer the Fat He that lives licentiously all his Youth and intends to offer unto God his Old Age when for debility of Body he can do no more harm doth he offer unto God the Fat or the Lean the Best or the Worst Lastly because this Fat that was to be offered was an Inward thing and not an Outward others have thought that thereby was figured how careful we must ever be to offer unto God our Inwards without which no External Duty can or will please God The Lord saith David Loveth truth in the inward parts and his Sacrifice is a troubled spirit a broken and a contrite heart within not a pale face a down look many outward sighs that are heard of men Verse 17. The Lords prohibition of Fat did teach them to use a modest moderate and fitting Diet Blood also was forbidden them that so they might learn to take heed of cruelty and to shew mercy and loving-kindness in all their Actions and Behaviours Gods People must neither be Carnal nor Cruel but their Souls must shew mercy as their Heavenly Father is merciful and their Delight must be not inluxurious and high-feeding Dishes but in the Marrow and Fatness and Sweetness of Gods Ordinances CHAP. IV. Verse 3. WHen you read that the High Priest had need sometimes to offer for his Negligences and Ignorances you see how plainly it was taught to that People that the High Priest was not the true High Priest which should make perfect satisfaction unto God but another was to be expected even Christ Jesus Verse 6. By this sevenfold sprinkling the grievousness of sin is noted according to that in Genesis he that slayeth Cain shall be punished seven-fold that is grievously Wherefore this seven times sprinkling of the Blood shews that every sin with God deserveth seven punishments that is sharp and great punishment if God should deal with us in Justice and not in Mercy Verse 7. The Blood was put on the Horns of the Altar of sweet Incense to signifie that no Prayer can peirce unto God but in and by the Blood of Christ. Verse 12. The whole Bullock was to be burnt being a sin-offering to teach men to burn all their sins and not to divide them as we do when we say I will amend my Drunkenness but I cannot leave my Swearing but we must all our sins and willingly keep none lest but one being wilfully still delighted in burn us wholly in Hell for ever When Moses with the Israelites was to depart out of Egypt and Pharaoh would have had them leave their Cattle behind them saving what they intended to Sacrifice answer was made they would not leave one hoof of a Beast behind Exod. 10. 26. and so deal you with your Sins leave not one hoof of Sin behind no one sin no part of a Sin that is by wittingly willingly and boldly continuing in it otherwise free from Sin in this Life we cannot be Verse 13. A multitude of Offenders excuseth no offence but if even the whole Congregation should sin through Ignorance yet a Sin-Offering must be offered by them all and their number yeeldeth no excuse Secondly In this phrase hid from the Eyes you may see the state of many a Man and Woman doing evill The matter is hid from their Eyes in Gods anger and all-be-it they lye at the Pits brink of Damnation and Destruction yet they see it not feel it not are not troubled with it because indeed they never sit and take an account of themselves and their Works The godly do this at last and therefore in the next Verse there is a time of Knowing to them as there was of hiding Verse 17. The Priest here used a seven-fold sprinkling of Blood upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of Blood in Christ in his Circumcision in his Agony in his fulfilling of the Prophesie Isai. 50. 6. I gave my cheeks to them that pluck'd off the hair and in his Scourging in his Crowning and in his Nailing and lastly in the piercing of his side these seven Channels hath the Blood of thy Saviour found Pour out the Blood of thy Soul Sacrifice thy stubborn and Rebellious Will seven times too seven times that is every day of the week and seven times every day for so often a Just man falleth and then how low must that Man lye at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soon as thou fallest Verse 27. In all Sacrifices where Blood was to be offered the Fat was to be offered too If thou wilt Sacrifice the Blood of thy Soul Sacrifice the Fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and hast corruptly got by that sin else thou keepest the Fat from God though thou give him the Blood CHAP. V. Verse 2. WE are not ever clean when we see not any
uncleanness for our fault may be hid from us and we not ware of it and therefore David prayeth for his secret sins but still it remaineth an Uncleanness though we be blind and it will destroy us if we see it not in time Upon our Garments we endure no manner of Uncleanness not a little Mote but we brush and beat it off Yet our Bodies and Souls are unclean and we see it not we go not about to see it but use all the means we can to put it out of our sight by sports Company and the like Nay we hate him that will rub us that way and we avoid the place where sin is reproved Verse 4. Let this reform our rash Swearing in our common Talk and our foolish Vowing of things neither lawful nor in our power And think with your self whether they err not greatly that think what they have rashly sworn and vowed they must needs keep when you see here God would have them offer a Sin-offering for their rashness and not add more sin unto it by performing their rash Vows Verse 7. Thus gracious is God to his poor People to whom he appointeth smal offerings framing his Law to their powers and so giving them most sweet and true comfort of his Love to them as also in accepting of their little as well as of the greater Sacrifices of Richer Persons Verse 11. Oil signifying gladness and Incense a sweet savour The Lord by this Ceremony shadowed how hateful a thing it is and all that commit it till the Lord be reconciled to them again He hath no joy in us neither yield we any sweet savour And as he joyeth not in us so should not we joy in our selves For if we do we pour Oil into our Sacrifice contrary to the Law and we think our smell is as Incense to God pleasing and acceptable when he abhorres us and all our Works The Lord loveth a sorrowful sinner adorned with sackcloth and ashes and they that so weep shall laugh Verse 15. How little this false and unjust dealing with Gods Ministers is regarded with many in these dayes who knoweth not and they are never troubled for it much lesse do they purpose either restitution or amendment But the day will come when it will smart this Law of God having its enduring equity and God in other places professing that this robbing of his Servants is the robbing of him Mal. 3. 8. for so he taketh it and so will punish it CHAP. VI. Verse 5. GOD is never pleas'd with any thing that is ours whilst we retain and keep that that is not ours unless we make restitution of what we have unjustly taken away that very day we offer our Oblations are abominations Verse 7. The Priest must ever make the Atonement so ever signifying that not in the Sacrifice but in the Priesthood was the matter Now in that Priesthood was typified Christs Office And therefore as then no Sacrifice pleas'd but as offered by the Priest so at this day nothing of ours as Prayer and the like availeth but in Christ and by Christ our only and eternal High-Priest Again the Text sayes Before the Lord the Atonement shall be thereby overthrowing the wicked error of them that affirm a civil purgation only of sin by those Sacrifices and not any spiritual Promise in them Because so those Sacrifices should no wayes have served to breed and strengthen Faith in Man touching his spiritual Estate whereunto indeed they wholly aimed Verse 12. This Fire which God first kindled was not to be as some momentary Bone-fire or a sudden and short Triumph nor as a domestical Fire to go out with the day but it was given for a perpetuity it must neither die nor be quench'd God as he is himself eternal so he loves permanency and constancy of Grace in us If we be but a flash and away God regards us not all Promises are to perseverance Sure it is but an elementary Fire that goes out that which is Celestial continues It was but some presumptuous heat in us that decayes upon every occasion But yet he that miraculously sent down this Fire at first will not renew the Miracle every day by a like supply It began immediately from God it must be nourished by means Fuel must maintain that Fire that came from Heaven God will not work Miracles every day If he have kindled his Spirit in us we may not expect he shall every day begin again we have the Fuel of the Word and Sacraments Prayers and Meditations which must keep it in for ever It is from God that these helps can nourish his Graces in us like as every flame of our material Fire hath a concourse of Providence but we may not expect new infusions rather know that God expects of us an improvement of those habitual Graces we have received Verse 13. First by this he figured the death of Christ from the beginning of the World and by this shadow they were led to believe that although as yet Christ was not come in the Flesh nevertheless the fruit of his Death belonged to them as well as to those that should live when he came or was come for this Fire was continual and went not out no more did the fruit of his Passion fail to any true Believer even from the beginning but they were saved by believing that he should come as we are now by believing that he is come Secondly this shews that God is ever ready to accept our Sacrifices ever ready to hear us and forgive us but we are slow and dull and come not to him as we ought Thirdly no other Fire might be used but this and so they were taught to keep to Gods Ordinances and to fly from all inventions of their own heads Lastly this fire thus kept with all care taught them and still may teach us to be careful to keep in the Fire of Gods holy Spirit that it never die nor go out within us The Fire is kept in with wood with breath or blowing and with ashes so is Gods Spirit kept in by an honest Life as by wood by true sighs of unfained Repentance as by Breath or blowing and by meek Humility as by soft ashes Verse 16. In the Holy Place only and not else where must they eat it to signifie that only in the Church is the benefit of Christ to be had and not out of the Church the Branch beareth not Fruit but in the Vine and the Vine is only in the Vineyard CHAP. VII Verse 8. VVHy God should think of so small and base a thing as the skin some may ask the reason And it is first to confirm our Faith in his Providence that he will never forget us and leave us destitute of things needful and good for us seeing we are much better than the skin of a brute Beast whereof yet he hath care and thought Secondly this shews that sweet and comfortable care that the Lord then had and still hath
of the Ministery that it should not be defrauded of the least thing allotted to it And therefore harden not your heart against God against Law against Right and Truth accustome not your hearts to cover your Neighbours due your hands to purloin it by fraud or take it by strength it is theft spiritual theft sacriledge your house receiveth stoln Goods and the Wrath of God may happily shake the foundation of it for such a sin and you in yours or you and yours be punished Verse 13. Here Leaven is admitted of which before was forbid Leaven therefore is taken in a good sense as well as in an ill Thus the Apostles are resembled to a little Leaven that leaveneth the whole lump they being sent out of God into the unleavened World by preaching to leaven it clean through And there is a Leaven of the new Nature accepted as there is a Leaven of the old Nature rejected For look how the Leaven maketh the Bread savory and strong and wholsome look also how it makes it rise and heave up which otherwise would be sad and heavy So doth Gods regenerate Spirit change us make us savory and all our Duties pleasing to God and we rise up our Hearts and Souls are heaved up in all love in thankfulness to him that in Mercy hath so look'd upon us Verse 15. A Ceremony us'd to signifie that publick Feasts should not be superfluously continued and kept long under the colour of Religion For God loveth not idle banquetting and prodigal spending although he allow graciously what is fit for the occasion Secondly this was done in wisdome by God least if the flesh should have smelt by longer keeping Religion might so have been vile in the eyes of fickle persons Verse 18. We may learn by this that the taking hold of Christ is not to be deferr'd and put off but speedily and quickly to be done whilst time serves and opportunity is offer'd For behold sayes Christ to day and to morrow I cast out Devils and the third day Luke 13. that is a short time I have yet to go on with my Ministery and then I shall be slain More particularly every Man and Woman may be said to have three dayes The first of Youth till Age come the second of Age till Death come and in these two dayes there is Mercy offered but the third day is after Death and then there is no help as here on the third day no Offering was accepted but the sin remained unpardoned and not forgiven Verse 30. The bringing of the Sacrifice with his own hands and not sending it by others taught Humility and Duty to God taught that every one must live by his own Faith and not by anothers Verse 34. The shaking of it to and fro four wayes East West North and South shadowed the spreading of that lifting up of Christ that is of Christs Death and Passion throughouâ— all the World by the preaching of the Gospel CHAP. VIII Verse 2. THe Lord precisely appointed Priests and would not leave it to every man to perform this Office to signifie that not any man butthe-man Christ Jesus could appease Gods Wrath satisfie his Justice and take away the sins of the World This could not be figured out better than by secluding all the Host of Israel from this Office and chusing but Aaron and his Sons as Types of Christ that so by such an Ordinance the Majesty Authority and Property of Christs Office might be resembled and shadowed Verse 5. Nothing but Gods Commandement doth Moses offer unto them For he well knew Gods Will only in his own House must be the Rule Our own heads were never the best heads to follow and for God he knoweth our mould too well to give that swinge unto us Verse 13. Aarons Sons were a figure of the Church which by Faith eateth also of the Sacrifice of Christ being made partakers of his Merits as well as the Priests Their Garments figured out the Graces and Gifts wherewith the Believers in Christ are adorned and beautified casting away the Works of Darkness and putting on daily more and more the Deeds of Light Rom. 13. 12. Verse 30. Upon Aarons Sons Moses did but sprinkle the annointing Oil which was said to be poured upon Aaron verse 12. So plainly shewing that in Christ the Spirit should be without measure and upon his Servants in measure we all receiving of his fulness according to his good Pleasure some more some lesse Verse 35. By this is signified that watch which all our life time is noted by the seven dayes we keep in avoiding sin and working righteousness as the Lord shall enable which indeed may be call'd the watch of the Lord being a holy Christian and happy watch The seventh day we shall be free fully sanctified and delivered from this vail of misery to keep an eternal Sabbath in Heaven to our endless comfort CHAP. IX Verse 7. IN that Aaron was here commanded to offer as well for himself as the People he was herein a figure of Christ not that Christ had any sins of his own but that ours were so laid upon him and he so made satisfaction to God for them as they had been his own Surely sayes the Prophet Isai. 53. 4. he hath born our infirmities c. that is we judg'd him evil as though he were punish'd for his own sins and not for ours Verse 22. Thus doth God blesse us in Christ in whom all the Nations of the World are blessed First with the Blessing of Reconciliation to himself reputing us now just for his Son Christ. Secondly with the Blessing of his Spirit whereby we walk in his Calling being guided thereby in the same Thirdly with the Blessing of Acceptance of all our Works though full of imperfection and weakness And last of all with this great Blessing that all adversity becometh a help to us to draw us to Heaven and Eternal Rest. Verse 24. That God which shew'd himself to Men in fire when he delivered his Law would have men present their Sacrifices to him in fire and this fire he would have his own that there might be a just circulation in this Creature as the Water sends up those vapours which it receives down again in Rain Hereupon it was that fire came down from God to the Altar that as the charge of the Sacrifice was delivered in fire so God might signifie the acceptation of it in the like fashion wherein it was commanded The Baalites might lay ready their Bullock upon the Wood but they might sooner fetch the blood out of their Bodies and destroy themselves than one flash out of Heaven to consume the Sacrifice CHAP. X. Verse 2. NAdab and Abibu were two of Aarons Eldest Sons which after their Father should have succeeded him in his place yet there is no Mercy with God to stay his Judgement when they will not be Ruled by his Word No Prerogative therefore shall save any Man from Wrath if he offend but
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
Royal Prophet sings Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound Psalm 80 15. that can discern and feel the comfortable sound of Gods Word the free use of his Ordinances serving God with chearfulness and giving him thanks with exaltation of heart and rapture of Spirit Verse 31. Why doth Moses so earnestly desire this Hobab to be their guide in the way was not the All-seeing Eye of God sufficient had not he promised to conduct them and had they not the pillar of Cloud to go before them most true yet humane helps when they may be had and God offers them to our hand may not be neglected The using of lawful means doth not oppose or afront the providence of God who it is true can work without means but yet we must attend unto his will and not stand upon his naked power without his will Verse 35. It is a great encouragement to know the forms that the Saints prevailed with God of old that God accepted such Prayers at their hands he that accepted them then if we send them by the same Spirit will accept them now And therefore it is that we have mention upon Record of the Prayers of Abraham of Iacob of Moses here and in other places of David of Hezekiah and divers others To what end and purpose but that we might thereby learn to fit our selves with words to attain a habit of Prayer by studying these forms For which reason also it was that in the Old Testament for all duties of piety and Religion there were forms set For the blessing of the People there was a form set Numb 6. In time of Repentance and Humiliation the Prophet sets them a form Ioel 2. and so here when the Ark removed there was a form for that Sacrifice Arise O Lord and let thine Enemies be scattered and when the Ark stood still Return O Lord to the many thousands of Israel CHAP. XI Verse 4. THe thirst of Israel is well quench'd and now they complain as fast for hunger the other mutiny for Water was of some few Male-contents this was of the whole Troop Not that none were free Caleb Ioshua Moses Aaron Miriam were not yet tainted Usually God measures the state of any Church or Country by the most the greatest part carries both the Name and Censure Sins are so much greater as they are universal so far is evill from being extenuated by the multitude of the guilty that nothing can more aggravate it With men commonness may plead for favour with God it pleads for Judgement Many hands draw the Cable with more violence than few The leprosie of the whole Body is more loathsome than that of the part Verse 5. Contentation is a rare Blessing because it arises either from a fruition of all Comforts or a not desiring of some which we have not Now we are never so bare as not to have some benefits never so full as not to want something God hath much ado with us either we lack Health or Quietness or Children or Wealth or Company or our selves in all these We remember when we sate by the flesh-pots of Egypt and did eat freely of their Cucumbers and Melons and Leeks and Onyons Every Mind remembers and affects that which is like its self Carnal minds are for the flesh-pots of Egypt though bought with servitude spiritual are for the presence of God though Redeem'd with Famine and would rather dye in Gods presence than live without him in the sight of delicate and full dishes Verse 8. The same hand that rain'd Manna into the Israelites Tents could have Rain'd it into their Mouths or Laps God loves we should take pains for our spiritual food Little would it have availed them that the Manna lay about their Tents if they had not gone forth and gathered it beaten and baked it Let Salvation be never so plentiful if we bring it not home and make it ours by Faith we are no whit the better If the work done and means us'd had been enough to give life no Israelite had dyed their Bellies were full of that Bread whereof one Crum gives life yet they dyed many of them in displeasure As in Natural so in Spiritual things we may not trust to means the Carkals of the Sacrament cannot give life but the Soul of it which is the thing represented Verse 9. The meat of these Israelites was strange but nothing so strange as their Bread from the first day that their Manna fell till their setling in Canaan God wrought a perpetual miracle in this food a miracle in the place other bread rises up from below this fell down from above neither did it ever Rain Bread till now yet so did this Heavenly shower fall that it is confined to the Camp of Israel a miracle in the quantity that every morning should fall enough to fill so many hundred thousand maws and mouths A miracle in the Composition that it is sweet like Hony-Cakes round like Corianders transparent as dew A miracle in the quality that it melted by one heat by another hardened A miracle in the difference of the fall that as if it knew times and would teach them as well as feed them it fell double in the Evening of the Sabbath and on the Sabbath fell not A miracle in the continnance and ceasing that this shower of Bread followed their Camp in all their removals till they came to tast of the bread of Canaan and then withdrew it self as if it had said ye need no miracles now you have means Verse 18. God tells the Jews here that they had wept in his ears God had heard them weep but for what and how they wept for Flesh there was a Tincture a deep die of murmuring in their Tears Christ goes as far in the passion in his agony and he comes to a passionate deprecation in his tristis anima and in this Si possibile and his Transeat calix But as all these Passions were sanctified in the root from which no bitter Leaf nor crooked Twigg could spring so they were instantly wash'd with his veruntamen a present and a full submitting of all to Gods pleasure yet not my will O Father but thine be done Verse 22. When our own provision fails then not to distrust the provision of God is a noble tryal of Faith Shall our flocks and herds be slain cries even Moses Whereas he should have said God who stopp'd the mouth of the Sea that it should not devour us can as easily stop the mouth of our stomack he that commanded the Sea to stand still and guard us can as easily command the Earth to nourish us he that made the Rod a Serpent can as easily make these stones Bread Why do we not wait on him whom we have found so powerful Now they set the Mercy and Love of God upon a wrong Last while they measure it only by their present sence While we see our daily Bread on our Cubbord we believe let God
It is a dangerous thing in the service of God to decline from his own institutions we have to do with a power which is wise to prescribe his own Worship just to require what he hath prescribed powerful to revenge that which he hath not required CHAP. XXVII Verse 13. AFter many painful and perilous enterprizes now is Moses drawing to his rest he hath brought his Israelites from Egypt through the Sea and Wilderness within the sight of their Promised Land and now himself must take possession of that Land whereof Canaan was but a Type When we have done that we come for it is time for us to be gone This Earth is made only for Action not for Fruition the services of Gods Children should be ill rewarded if they must stay here alwayes Let no man think much that those are fetch'd away that are faithful to God they should not change if it were not to their preferment It is our folly that we would have good men live for ever and account it a hard measure that they were He that lends them to the World owes them a better turn than this Earth can pay them It were injurious to wish that goodness should hinder any man from Glory Verse 14. But what is this I hear displeasure mix'd with love and that to so faithful a servant as Moses he must but see the Land of Promise he shall not tread upon it because he once long ago sinn'd in distrnsting Death though it were to him an entrance into glory yet shall be also a chastisement of his Infidelity How many gracious services had Moses done to his Master yet for one act of Distrust he must be gathered to his Fathers All our obediences cannot bear out one sin against God how vainly shall we hope to make amends to God for our former Trespasses by our better behaviour when Moses hath this sin laid in his dish after so many and worthy testimonies of his fidelity when we have forgotten our sins yet God remembers them and although not in anger yet calls for our Arrerages Alass what shall become of them with which God hath ten thousand greater quarrels that amongst many millions of sins have scattered some few acts of formal services If Moses must dye the first death for one fault how shall they escape the second for sinning alwayes Even where God loves he will not wink at sin and if he do not punish yet he will chastise how much less can it stand with that eternal Justice to let wilful sinners escape Judgement Verse 16. Moses that was so tender over the welfare of Israel in his life would not slacken his care in Death He takes no thought for himself for he knew how gainful an exchange he must make all his care was for his charge Some envious natures desire to be missed when they must go and wish that the weakness or want of a Successor may be the foil of their memory and honour Moses is in a contrary disposition it sufficeth him not to find contentment in his own happiness unless he may have an assurance that Israel shall prosper after him Carnal minds are all for themselves and make use of Government only for their own advantage but good hearts look ever to the future good of the Church above their own against their own Verse 18. Moses did well to shew his good Affection to his people but in his silence God would have provided for his own he that call'd him from the sheep of Iethro will not want a Governor for his chosen to succeed him God hath fitted him whom he will chose Who can be more meet than he whose Name whose Experience whose Graces might supply yea revive Moses to the people He that searched the Land before was fittest to guide Israel into it he that was indued with the Spirit of God was the fittest Deputy for God but O the unsearcheable Counsel of the Almighty aged Caleb and all the Princes of Israel are pass'd over and Ioshua the servant of Moses is chosen to succeed his Master The eye of God is not blinded either with Gifts or with Blood or with Beauty or with strength but as in his Eternal Election so in his temporary he will have mercy on whom he will And well doth Ioshua succeed Moses the very acts of God of old were allegories where the Law ends there the Saviour begins we may see the Land of Promise in the Law only Jesus the Mediator of the New-Testament can bring us into it So was he a Servant of the Law that he supplies all the defects of Law to us he hath taken possession of the Promised Land for us he shall carry us from this Wilderness to our rest Verse 22. I do not hear Moses repine at Gods choice and grudg that this Scepter of his is not hereditary but he willingly laies hands upon his Servant to consecrate hm for his Successor Ioshua was a good man yet he had some sparks of Envy for when Eldad and Medad Prophesied he stomack'd it he that would not abide two of the Elders of Israel to Prophesie how would he have allowed his Servant to sit in his Throne What an example of meekness besides all the rest doth he here see in this last act of his Master who without all murmuring assigns his Chair of State to his Page It is all one to a gracious heart whom God will please to advance Emulation and Discontentment are the affections of Carnal minds Humility goes ever with Regeneration which teaches a man to think what ever honour be put upon others I have more than I am worthy of CHAP. XXVIII Verse 3. ALl Sacrifices under the Law did as it were lead us by the hand to Christ and point him out with the finger who is the end of the Law Rom. 10. he is both the Altar and the Sacrifice he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world as therefore these Lambs were offered in the morning and evening so was Christ from the beginning of the World unto the end thereof he is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World Rev. 13. and as this daily Offering was twice perform'd so we have daily need of Reconciliation that his Blood should be continually applied unto us by Faith and as we daily sin against him so we must have daily recourse unto him for remission of sins Again this daily Sacrifice imports the daily Sacrifice of Prayer which we ought to offer to God as our daily service due unto him and this for many Reasons First we have many sins We provoke God every day and therefore are taught in the Lords Prayer daily to pray for Forgiveness Secondly We have daily wants and therefore it is our duty daily to bewail them and daily to crave the supply of them both temporal and spiritual blessings for Body and Soul Thirdly We have daily dangers Every Creature if God give us over is able to work our
destruction therefore our only safety standeth in Prayer and begging Gods assistance Fourthly We have daily Temptations Bodily and Ghostly arising from the World the Flesh and the Devil and therefore saith our Saviour Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation Mat. 26. So then this Morning and Evening Sacrifice should direct us how and when to Worship God we must remember him in the Morning and Evening he must be the first and last in our thoughts we must begin the day and end it with him Verse 9. Every day in the Week ought to be the Christians Sabbath wherein he is to perform some duties or other of Religion but every Seventh Day should be a double Sabbath wholly taken up in the Service and Worship of God When our whole work must be to beravish'd in Spirit doing no Work but such as whereby we either bless God or look to receive a Blessing from him none but such as wherein we would the Lord should find us at his coming which Lactantius saith Will be on the Sabbath day And therefore the Jews call'd the Sabbath the Queen of dayes blessing the Lord at its coming in and going out that God might have both the first and the last Fruits of the day Verse 26. Here is handled the Feast of Pentecost or of Weeks to give God thanks after the gathering of the Harvest For in as much as God hath not only set us in this World but supplies and feeds us in it so that we live by his bounty and liberality it was his will that the Jews should keep a yearly Feast to him to give him thanks that hereby they might acknowledg all the year after that they were sustain'd by his hand Secondly These first Fruits figured out Gods Church which is a people separated unto him from the rest of the World For as the first Fruits were separated from the rest of the heap unto God so is the state of the Church call'd and cull'd out of the World unto his service CHAP. XXIX Verse 1. THis Feast of Trumpets was to be a Feast of remembrance of Gods manifold mercies received in the Wilderness that thereby they might stir up themselves to be united to God and may serve to stir us up to return unto God Praise and Thanksgiving with joyfulness of heart for all his benefits according to that of Psalm 81. 1 2. Make a joyful noise unto the God of Iacob Take a Psalm and bring hither the timbrel blow up the Trumpet in the New-Moon so David having experience of Gods goodness towards him in many preservations composed the eighteenth Psalm as a testimony of his thankfulness for his deliverance from his Enemies And although this Feast is pass'd away and abolish'd by the coming of Christ yet this remaineth that we our selves should serve for Trumpets For as the Temple being destroyed we must be spiritual Temples unto God so the Trumpets being taken away every one of us must be spiritual Trumpets i. e. we should rouze up our selves from the World and the vanities thereof Our Ears are so possess'd with the sound of earthly things and our Eyes so dazled with the pleasures of the flesh that we are as deaf and blind men that can neither hear nor see what God saith unto us wherefore we must not look till there be a solemn holy-day to call us unto the Church there to keep a Feast of Trumpets but it must serve us all the dayes of our life as a spur to cause us to return to God Verse 7. The Jews were here to afflict their Souls with voluntary sorrow for their sins for the whole year and so dispose themselves to obtain pardon and reconciliation For whereas in their private Sacrifices they durst not confess their capital sins for fear of Death due to them by the Law God graciously provided and instituted this yearly Sacrifice of Atonement and afflicting their Souls for the sins of the whole people without particular acknowledgment of any After the same manner the Lords Supper is with us a day of Atonement or afflicting of our Souls for the Passover must be eaten with four hearbs And further we may observe from hence that this day of afflicting their Souls was to be immediately before the Feast of Tabernacles verse 12. they were to be kept in sorrow five dayes before they might keep their Feast of joy which Feast signified the spiritual joy and gladness of the Saints that are redeemed by Christ all their life long We must first look upon him whom we have pierc'd and weep for him before we can receive any comfort by him We must afflict our Souls for his Passion before we shall partake of the joy of his Resurrection Verse 12. This Feast was call'd the Feast of Tabernacles because during the dayes of this Feast they were to live in Tents and Tabernacles it being a memorial of Gods preserving them in the Wilderness where was no house for them to rest in and from hence we may learn that it is a duty belonging to all to remember the dayes of their troubles and afflictions from which God in great mercy hath delivered us We are ready to forget our former condition when God hath given us rest and therefore God would have his own people year by year to depart out of their Houses and dwell in Tents that thereby they should call to mind both where they were and where they had been that although they now were at rest and ease in the Land of Canaan yet they had not alwayes been so for God had carried them upon Eagles wings and preserved them after a miraculous manner in the Wilderness CHAP. XXX Verse 2. VVHen a man vows he vows unto the Lord and therefore if he breaks it he sins against the Lord. Who expects he should have kept touch with him and accordingly will punish such a vow-breaker for he hath not lyed unto men but unto God Acts 5. As God is true saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 1. 18. our word towards you was not yea and nay but yea and Amen For the Son of God c. Why what 's all this to the purpose may some say yes very much For it implies that what a Christian doth promise to men much more to God he is bound by the earnest penny of Gods Spirit to perform he dares no more alter and falsifie his word than the Spirit of God can lye And as he looks that Gods promises should be made good to him so he is careful to pay what he hath vowed to God seeing 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 8. The power and authority of the Husband over the Wife is very great for all be it the Wife be at liberty to vow in the Lord when her Husband is dead yet while he lives he hath power to disanul her vows The Husband is the head of the
oblation It was a great blessing of God to overcome the Enemy and obtain the Victory but thus to overcome and to have such a Victory required an extraordinary Thanksgiving As men ought to return thanks to God for all his blessings so they ought for extraordinary Blessings to return extraordinary Thanks As in extraordinary visitations it is our duty to use extraordinary humiliation so when God shews us extraordinary mercy we must be thankful accordingly Hezekiah return'd great thanks for his great Deliverance Isai. 38. We must therefore consider what blessings we have received from God that so we may render what thankfulness we owe him else his Blessings will be turn'd into Curses and his Mercies into Judgements CHAP. XXXII Verse 5. THis was an unseasonable demand of these Men at this time but Covetousness had blinded their eyes that they could not see what was fit for them to ask and therefore were afterwards the first of the Children of Israel that were carried away Captive 1 Chron. 5. 25. After the same manner it befel Lot who looking after the goodness of the Plains of Sodom more than the goodness of the People preferr'd that place in his choice and was carried away Prisoner for it Gen. 14. Thus God will not pass by the sins of his dearest Children without a sensible check These Reubenites and Gadites for affecting the first choice had soon enough of it Strong affections bring strong afflictions as hard knots require hard wedges Earthly things court us that they may cut our throats these Hosts welcome us to our Inne with smiling countenance that they may dispatch us in our Beds Beware therefore of the Worlds cut-throat kindness Verse 18. Reuben and Gad were the first that had an Inheritance signed them yet they must enjoy it last so it falls out oft in the Heavenly Canaan the first in title are last in possession They had their lot assign'd them beyond Iordan which though it were then in peace must be purchas'd with their War that must be done for their Brethren which needed not be done for themselves they must yet still fight and fight foremost that as they had the first Patrimony they might endure the first encounter I do not hear them say this is our share let us sit down and enjoy it quietly fight who will for the rest but when they knew their own Portion they leave Wives and Children to take possession and march arm'd before their Brethren till they have conquered all Canaan Whether should we more commend their Courage or their Charity others were moved to fight with hope they only with love they could not win more they might lose themselves yet they will fight both for that they had something and that their Brethren might have Thankfulness and Love can do more with Gods Children than desire to merit or necessity no Israelite can if he might choose abide to sit still beyond Iordan when all his Brethren are in the field Verse 23. When God is searching it is high time for us to search our selves It is sad when God is searching for our sins if we are not searching for them too and it is more sad if when God comes to search for our sins we be found hiding our sins These are searching times God is searching let us search too else we may be sure as Moses tells the people of Israel here Our sins will find us out They who endeavour not to find their sins shall be found by their sins our Iniquity will enquire after us if we enquire not after it But what if Iniquity enquire after us What if Iniquity enquire after us it will find us and if Iniquity find us Trouble will find us yea if Iniquity find us alone without Christ Hell and Death will find us If Iniquity find any man he hath reason enough to say unto it what Ahab said to Eliah without reason Hast thou found me O mine enemy the best of men have reason to look out what evill is in them when God brings evil upon them or wraps them up in common evils They who have no wickedness in them to cast them under Condemnation yet have sin enough in them to make them smart under Correction CHAP. XXXIII Verse 8. THis is that place where the Israelites after three dayes journey found the bitter Waters The long deferring of a good though tedious yet makes it the better when it comes Well did the Israelites hope that the Waters which were so long in finding would be precious when they were found Yet behold they are cross'd not only in their desires but their hopes for after three dayes travel the first Fountains they find are bitter Waters If these Wels had not run pure Gall they could not have so much complained Long thirst will make bitter Waters sweet yet such were these springs that the Israelites did not so much like their moisture as abhor their relish I see the first handsel that God gives his People in their Voyage to the Land of Promise is thirst and bitterness Satan gives us pleasant entrances into his wayes and reserves the bitterness to the end God invites us to our worst at first and sweetens our conclusion with pleasure O my Saviour thou didst drink a more bitter Cup from the hands of thy Father than that which thou refused'st of the Jews or than that which I can drink from thee Verse 9. God taught his People by actions as well as words This entrance shewed them their whole Journey wherein they should taste of much bitterness but at last through the mercy of God sweetned with much more comfort and for one Fountain of bitter Water they should have no less than twelve of sweet Or did it not represent the Israelites rather in their Journey in the Fountains of whose Hearts were the bitter Waters of manifold corruptions yet their unsavory Souls are sweetned by the more abundant Graces of Gods Spirit O blessed Saviour that Fountain of Water and Blood which issued from thy side that is the application of thy Sufferings is enough to sweeten a whole Sea of bitterness I care not how unpleasant a portion I find in this Wilderness if the power and benefit of thy precious Death may season it to my Soul Verse 14. Bread they had from Heaven but wanted Water Our condition here in this World is a condition of singular indigency we are ever wanting somewhat or other Verse 42. Among the several stations which the Israelites made through the Wilderness one was Punon or Phinon which as one of the antient Fathers observes signifieth silence or sparingness of Speech upon which he maketh this useful Application Let us be careful to take up our station here sometimes while we are travailing through the Wilderness of this World It may he our wisdom to pitch in silence The hand is well imployed while we stop the mouth with it from broaching and maintaining that which is evill or from opposing that which is good
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
familiar with God! he saw they could be content to be happy and merry without him he would not be hapyy without them They had professed to have forgotten him he seeks to pray for them He that will ever hope for good himself must return good for evil unto others Verse 21. Although Moses did here stamp and burn their Idol yet I do not hear any of them say he is but one man we are many how easily may we destroy him rather than he our God It is our act and we will maintain it here was none of this but an humble obeisance to the basest revenge that Moses shall impose God hath set such an impression of Majesty in the face of lawful Authority that Wickedness is confounded in its self to behold it Besides sin hath a guiltiness in its self that when it is seasonably checked it pulls in his head and seeks rather an hiding-place than a Fort. CHAP. X. Verse 1. ISrael recovers the favour of renewing the Tabernacles but with an abatement Hew thee two Tables God made the first Tables the matter the form was his now Moses must shew the next As God created the first Man after his own Image but that once defaced Adam begat Cain after his own or as the first Temple rais'd a second was built yet so far short that the Israelites wept at the sight of it The first works of God are still the purest those that he secondarily works decline in their perfection It was reason that though God had forgotten Israel they should still find they sinn'd They might see the foot-steps of his displeasure in the differences of the Agent Verse 2. When God had told Moses before I will not go before Israel but my Angel shall lead them Moses so noted the difference that he rested not till God himself undertook their conduct so might the Israelites have noted some remainders of offence whiles instead of that which his own hand did formerly make he saith now Hew thee and yet these second Tables are kept reverently in the Ark when the others lay mouldred in shivers upon Sinah like as the repaired Image of God in our Regeneration is preserved prefected and layed up at last safe in Heaven whereas the first Image of our created innocence is quite defaced so the second Temple had the glory of Christs exhibition though meaner in frame The merciful respects of God are not tyed to glorious outsides or the inward worthiness of things or persons he hath chosen the weak and simple to confound the wise and mighty Verse 4. God did this work by Moses Moses hewed and God wrote our true Moses repairs that Law of God which we in our Nature had broken he receivesit for us and it is accepted of God no less than if the first Characters of his Law had been entire We can give nothing but the Table it is God that must write in it Our hearts are but a bare board till God by his finger engrave his Law in them yea Lord we are a â—â—â—gh Quarry hew thou us out and square us fit for thee to write upon Verse 12. God forbids us not here a love of the Creature proportionable to the good that that Creature can do us to love Fire as it warms me and Meat as it feeds me and a Wife as she helps me But because God does all this in all these several instruments God alone is centrically radically directly to be loved and the Creature with a love reflected and derived from him Verse 17. St. Peter took his Text Acts 10. 34. from this Text of Moses where because the words are not the same with these here in precise termes we find just occasion to note that neither Christ in his Preaching nor the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures of the New-Testament were so curious as our times in citing Chapters and Verses or such distinctions no nor in citing the very words of the places There is a sentence cited thus indeffinitely Heb. 4. 4. It is written in a certain place without more particular note and to pass over many if we consider that one place Isai. 6. 10. and consider the same place as it is cited six several times in the New-Testament we shall see that they stood not upon such exact quotations and citing of the very words as we do now adayes Verse 20. It is a reverential fear of God as of a Father that is here required causing us first to have high and honourable conceptions of God in our hearts sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and let him be your dread and your fear Isai. 8. 13. Secondly making all honourable mention of him with our mouths whether we speak to him or of him Presume not in a sudden unmannerliness to blurt out the Name of God much less to blaspheme it and bore it through with hideous Oaths and Imprecations To speak evill of ones Father was Death by Plato's Law as well as by Gods Law and Suidas testifieth of the same Plato and other Heathens that when they would swear by their Iupiter out of meer dread and reverence of his Name they forbare to mention him breaking off their Oath with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as those that only dared to owe the rest to their thoughts Thirdly Walking before him in the whole course of our lives with an holy bashfulness being evermore in the sence of his presence and light of his countenance In the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost as those Primitive Christians Acts 9. 31. CHAP. XI Verse 6. THis Element was not used to such Morsels It devours the Carkasses of men but bodies enform'd with living Souls never before To have seen them struck dead upon the Earth had been fearful but to see the Earth at once their Executioner and Grave was more horrible Neither the Sea nor the Earth are fit to give passage the Sea is moist and flowing and will not be divided for the continuty of it the Earth is dry and massy and will neither yeild naturally nor meet again when it hath yeilded Yet the Waters did cleave to give way unto Israel for their preservation the Earth did cleave to give way to the Conspirators in Judgement both Sea and Earth did shut their jaws again upon the Adversaries of God Verse 9. Hence some Lutherans have concluded that God hath not determined the set period of mans dayes but that it is in Mans power to lengthen or shorten them But is there not a time appointed for Man upon the Earth Iob 7. 1. there is certainly our bounds are prescribed us and a pillar set by him who bears up the Heavens which we are not to pass Stat sua cuique dies saith the Heathen Poet our last day stands though all the rest run It is said of the Turks that they shun not the company of those that have the Plague but pointing to their fore-heads say it was writ there at their Birth
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
were the Lords Inheritance and when men began wickedly to alienate the same and usurp upon his sacred Right then his re-claim and re-seizure thereof condemns the usurpers of down-right theft Mal. 3. Is it so then that these things are Gods it is therefore but equity to pay them to God for equity requireth and Justice biddeth that we give to every one his own on the other side to with-hold them or to take them or any part of them from God is injury because so the right owner is wrong'd more seeing the owner of these things is not man but God it is impiety yea it is sacriledge the highest and the horriblest sin in that kind that can be Verse 15. Christ as a Prophet teacheth spiritually and powerfully spiritually the Word and the Spirit go both together the word is but a dead letter in its self further than the Spirit goes along with it according to that of Iohn 6. 63. If the Spirit goes with the Word then the Word proves Spirit and Life the Spirit worketh freely in the Preaching of the Gospel the Word is but an instrument in the hand of the Spirit by which it works Then Secondly Christ as a Prophet teacheth powerfully therefore the Gospel is call'd The power of God unto salvation and he is said Mat. 7. to teach as one having Authority his word had a commanding power and authority over their Spirits Whensoever Christ comes to preach to thy Soul he will come with power he will make a separation between thy soul and thy sins he will pluck thee off from thy base lusts and cursed practises as once he did Paul and so will Christ deal with thy Soul who ever thou art that cleavest as close to thy sins as thy skin to thy flesh he will fetch thee off from those by his powerful Preaching CHAP. XIX Verse 4. ALl sins then are not equall neither are all to be alike punish'd as by Draco's Laws they were in a manner which Laws are said to be writ not with Ink but blood because they punish'd every Peccadillo almost with blood There are difference in sins and must be so in their punishments He that hates his Neighbour and smites him that he dyes thine eye shall not pitty him verse 13. let him dye without mercy let no man mediate for him lest he draw upon the Land guilt of Blood and hinder the Man-slayer from Repentance But in case a Man kill his Neighbour ignorantly here is a City of refuge to fly unto that he may live And here in an Evangelical sence Christ is our City of Refuge to whom if we fly when we are pursued by the guilt of an evill Conscience we shall live none can take us out of his hands if we be in Christ the Rock Temptations and Oppositions as Waves dash upon us but break themselves Verse 14. How hainous a sin this is appears by this strict prohibition given by God himself back'd with a Curse Chap. 27. and that Curse seconded with a Woe by the Prophet Isaiah A vice so injurious that it was odious to the Heathen and therefore the Romans condemned the meaner sort who were guilty of it to the Mettal houses and banish'd the better sort with the loss of the third part of their Estates so that I cannot but wonder with what face our Anabaptists assert a Community of Goods I grant the Primitive Christians had all things common but that was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in regard of use not right and that by voluntary consent not necessary command the truth is that moral prohibition of stealing must be abolish'd and the Evangelical precept of Charity is needless if either men might not erect bounds of their possession or others might lawfully remove them at pleasure Verse 15. To blame then are those that proceed upon every idle surmize supposition or report and here it is further to be noted that three manner of persons can make no credible Witness or Information First Adversaries for evill will doth never speak well Secondly Ignorant men and those without judgement for he must be both a wise man and an honest man that ought to be a Witness for else if he be a wise man and not an honest man he is a Knave and again if he be an honest man and no wise man he may be a fool and therefore he is to be both wise and honest that is to be a Witness Thirdly whisperers and blowers in mens ears that will spue out in hugger-mugger more than they dare a vow openly To all such we must turn the deaf Ear the Tale-bearer and the Tale-hearer are both of them abominable to God Psalm 15. what matter therefore soever is established must be established at the mouth of two or three Witnesses that are both honest and wise Verse 20. They shall fear with a reverential fear from which will spring sincere service Aliorum perditio tua sit cautio let other Mens destruction be your Caution which is in the Psalmist expression to wash our feet in the Blood of the Wicked Psalm 59. 10. when the Righteous seeing the ruine of the Wicked shall become more Cautious And certainly worthily are they made examples that will not take them The fearful judgements that fall upon others should be a terror to us It is a just presage and desert of ruine not to be warn'd CHAP. XX. Verse 8. ALl the Lords Souldiers that fight his Battels and inroll their Names in his Muster-book must be men of stout courage and valiant men at Arms as they that go about a good Work he receiveth none into his Camp that are faint-hearted which are not able to encourage themselves but discourage others Hence it is that the Lord charg'd the Heralds at Arms to make Proclamation in the audience of the people Whosoever is afraid and faint-hearted c. God would have Wars made in his Name and therefore he would have Souldiers go to them without fear If a man be afraid it is a sign he hath no trust in God for he hath power to overcome fearfulness This serves to reprove all those who wanting the vertue of Valour and this gift of magnanimity do betray themselves and yeild to most unequal conditions and make an agreement upon dishonourable termes When Benhadad the King of Aram laid siege to Samaria and sent unto Ahab saying Thy silver and thy gold is mine Ahab stooped and submitted himself unto him saying My Lord according as thou hast said I am thine But our trust and confidence must be in God and then we shall not fear what man can do unto us Verse 12. The people of God may lawfully make Wars both offensive and defensive against their enemies Thus when Amalek fought with the people of God in Rephidim Moses said to Ioshua Chuse us out men and go sight Amalek so he discomfited Amalek and his people with the edg of the Sword Many other testimonies might be brought and
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
the image of the Devil and not his own God then accepts or condemnes man secundam allegata probata according to the evidence that arises from us and not according to those Records that are hid in himself Our Actions and his Records agree we do those things which he hath decreed but only our doing them and not his decreeing them hath the nature of evidence Verse 23. Draw neer to thy self as Abraham drew neer to God and admit thine own expostulations as God did his Let thy own Conscience tell thee not only thy open and evident rebellions against God but even the immoralities and incivilities that thou doest towards men in scandalizing them by-thy sins and the absurdities that thou committest against thy self in sinning against thine own reason and the uncleanness and consequently the treachery that thou committest against thine own body and thou shalt see that thou hadst been not only in better peace but in better state and better health and in better reputation a better friend and better company if thou hadst sinned less because some of thy sins have been such as have violated the band of friendship and some such as have made thy company and conversation dangerous either for temptation or at least for defamation Verse 25. So long as there lies a Certiorari from an higher Court or an Appeal to an higher Court the Case is not so desperate if the Judge do not right for there is a future Remedy to be hoped If the whole state be incensed against me yet I can find an escape to another Country if all the world persecute me yet if I be an honest man I have a supream Court in my self and I am at peace in being acquitted in mine own Conscience But God is the Judge of all the Earth of this which I tread and this earth which I carry about me and when he judges me my Conscience turns on his side and comfesses his Judgement to be right And therefore Saint Pauls Argument Rom. 3. seconds and ratifies Abrahams expostulation here Is God unrighteous God forbid how then shall God judge the World A particular Council may err but then a general Council may help to rectifie that particular the King may err but then God in whose hand the Kings heart is can rectifie him But if God that judges all the earth judge thee there is no error to be assigned in his Judgement no Appeal from God not throughly informed to God better informed for he alwayes knows all evidence before it is given And therefore the larger the jurisdiction and higher the Court is the more careful ought the Judge to be of wrong Judgement for Abrahams expostulation reaches in a measure to them Shall not the Iudge of all or of a great part of the earth do right CHAP. XIX Verse 3. THough Lot would be a guest of Sodom yet because he would not entertain their sins he becomes an Host to the Angels and indeed where could the Angels have lodged in Sodom if not with Lot The houses of holy men are full of these heavenly spirits when they know not they pitch their Tents in ours and visit us when we see not and when we feel not protect us It is the honour of Gods Saints to be attended by Angels Verse 5. The filthy Sodomites being now flocked together and stirred up with the fury of Envie and Lust dare require to do that in Troopes which to act single had been too abominable to imagine unnatural Continuance and society in evil makes men outragious and impudent it is not enough for Lot to be Witness but he must be Bawd also bring forth these men that we may know them Behold even the Sodomites speak modestly though their acts and intents be villanous What a shame is it for those who profess purity of heart to speak uncleanly and lasciviously Verse 8. Lot craves and pleads here the Lawes of Hospitality and when he sees head-strong purposes of mischief chooses rather to be an ill Father than an ill Host his intention was good but his offer was faulty If through his allowance the Sodomites had defiled his Daughters it had been his sin if through violence they had defiled his Guests it had been only theirs There can be no warrant for us to sin lest others should sin it is for God to prevent sins with Judgements it is not for men to prevent a greater sin with a less the best minds when they are troubled yield inconsiderate motions as Water that is violently stirred sends up bubbles God meant better to Lot than to suffer his weak offer to be accepted Verse 11. When men are grown to that pass that they are no whit better by afflictions and worse with admonitions God finds it time to strik Now Lots Guests begin to shew themselves Angels and first deliver Lot in Sodom then from Sodom first strike them with blindness whom they will after consume with fire how little did the Sodomites think that vengeance was so neer them While they went groping in the streets and cursing those whom they could not find Lot with the Angels is in secure light and sees them miserable and fore-sees them burning It is the use of God to blind and besot those whom he means to destroy the light which they shall see shall be fiery which shall be the beginning of an everlasting darkness and fire unquenchable Wickedness hath but a time the punishment of wickedness is beyond all times Verse 12. If thou beest a Child of God Gods Spirit shall deal with thee as his Angel did with Lot in Sodom He told Lot over-night that he would burn the City and bad him prepare God shall give thee some grudgings before he exalt thy feavor and warn thee to consider thy state and consult with thy spiritual Physitian Again the Angel call'd Lot up in the morning and then hastned him and when he prolong'd saith the text the Angel caught him and carried him forth because though there was no co-operation in Lot yet there were no resisting neither God was pleased to do all with Lot for his temporal preservation and he will do all for thee too in thy spiritual Verse 13. One would have thought that the late plundring of Sodom should have reformed that City from their sins but wicked men grow worse with afflictions as Water grows more cold after an heat And as they leave not sinning so God leaves not plaguing of them but still follows them with succession of Judgements In how few years did Sodom forget she was spoyled and led Captive If that wicked City had been warned by the Sword it had scap'd the Fire but now this Visitation hath not made Ten good men in those Five Cities How fit was this heap for the fire which was all chaff Only Lot vex'd his righteous Soul with the sight of their uncleanness he vex'd his own Soul for who bade him stay there yet because he was vex'd he is delivered He
how able the Lord is to encrease his Church notwithstanding all the malice of Man and Devil whatsoever Verse 38. These followed the prosperity hoped for in the Israelites who they saw were not touched with the Plagues of Egypt and rightly set forth what after fell out and ever will that Christ shall be followed of many for the Loaves and his Gospel embraced for the prosperity and peace that often he vouchsafeth unto it Verse 41. This may comfort us in our spiritual fears and conflicts that certainly the Lord will never fail in any Promise but even dayes and hours of comfort fit for his Children as they are known to him so are they observed of him most graciously and most precisely Why then must I needs tie the Lord to my time to my will or else I shall speak or think amiss that the Lord hath forgotten and forsaken me and all that the Devil my sworn Enemy suggesteth is true CHAP. XIII Verse 4. THe Month Abib in the Text is the same with our April when the day lengthning and the Sun ascending each things begins to revive To shew that by the true Pass-over Christ Jesus not only is our time and all other things sanctified but also that we should in fresh remembrance of that benefit of our Redemption all our dayes and years be thankful to our gracious Redeemer and acknowledge that by his Death true Life and reviving is sprung up unto mankind Verse 8. Children are to be carefully catechized and informed that they may know the mind of the Lord betimes For Parents are not only to nourish their Children but to nurture and instruct them this latter is as necessary as the former They that nourish their Children only what do they more than brute Beasts Let Parents therefore labour to mend that by Education that they have marr'd by Propagation else they are Parricides and not Parents Verse 17. This is a singular testimony of Gods fatherly care over our infirmities in not suffering us to be further tryed than in him and through him we shall be able to endure and at last to overcome also 1 Cor. 10. 12. let a troubled Soul ever think upon this Your weakness is known unto God what you can bear and what you cannot what will lead you to the Land of Promise and what will make you turn back to Egypt Secondly in that the Lord would not suffer them to passe by the Philistims least they should start back and so sin greivously against him What if in like sort he prevent my sinning and your sinning against him by taking away from us such things as he in his Wisdome knows would be the occasions of evil to us if we had them as Riches Friends Power Health of Body Peace of mind and the like But could not God have stayed them from returning although they had gone the nearer way Cyril in Exodus answereth God doth not work all things as he can but sometimes doth avoid evils after the manner of men therein teaching us to do the like namely by using meanes even then when most plainly we have God our helper Verse 18. This may teach us wariness and circumspection in our Vocations ever reckoning of the Enemy in this our holy March towards the Land of Promise Verse 21. Consider in the Cloud how it not only directed the way but was spread as the Psalmist saith for a Covering namely against the heat of the Sun comfortably cooling and refreshing them Remember also how the afflictions of this World are in the Gospel noted by the heat of the Sun and be you assured that ever against these heats the Lord in his good time will send you defence and comfort as 2 Cor. 1. 3. the last words put us in mind that in travelling towards the spiritual Canaan we must not rest but labour forward continually The Children of this World are often looking back toward Egypt and often pitch down their Tents so in this Wilderness that they are loth ever to take them up and to remove But the Sons of God say within themselves We have here no abiding City and fixing both eye and heart on their heavenly house they journey on still both day and night in true piety and obedience till they come thither Verse 22. Let this ever assure your fainting hearts that Gods Providence cooling and comforting shining and lighting guiding and directing his little Flock shall never be taken away from any member of it but ever be present with us both by day and night to the eternal praise of his Goodness and unspeakable comfort of our souls And further you may observe from hence the admirable Wisdom of Gods Providence that sits and sorts out his Mercies for his Children and makes every Favour and Blessing proper for every necessity He that afterwards led the Wise-men by a Star led Israel here by a Cloud That was an higher Object therefore he gives them an higher and more heavenly Conduct this was more earthy therefore he contents himself with a lower representation of his presence A Pillar of Cloud and Fire a Pillar for firmness of Cloud and Fire for visibility and use The greater light extinguisheth the lesse therefore in the Day he shews them not Fire but a Cloud in the Night nothing is seen without light therefore he shews them not the Cloud but Fire The Cloud shelters them from heat by Day the Fire digests the rawness of the Night The same God is both a Cloud and a Fire to his Children ever putting himself into those Formes of gracious Respects that may best fit their necessities CHAP. XIV Verse 2. VVE must not fear in every adversity before we see the end but reason thus with our selves Lo here I am distressed on every side as the Israelites were at the red Sea and it is the Providence of God that I should be thus as it was his will that they should pitch in that place But do I know the Lords meaning and what he will do And therefore I will patiently wait his blessed Will not murmuring as the Israelites did but comfortably assuring my self that one way or other the Lord will give Issue to his Glory and my Good and deliver me also as he did these Israelites Verse 3. When the destruction of the wicked is at hand the Lord offereth them some bait or other to put them on So was Ahab drawn to his end with a desire to recover Ramoth Gilead which once was his the bait allured him the wrath of God slew him 1 King 22. So were Senacherib and the Assyrians baited with former success with their multitude and the smalness of Hezekia's number But how gloriously did the Lord deliver his and destroy them that boasted Verse 5. How quickly the wicked repent them of their good but seldome or never of their evil for to let them go was good and yet they repented but to pursue after them was evil and yet they repented not Many such there
Verse 2. THis Offering sheweth first that it is the duty of Gods Servants to bestow part of such things as God blesseth them withall towards the maintenance of Gods Spiritual Temple erected with Us and among Us by the Preaching of his Word the Administration of his Sacraments and all other Offices of the Ministry to the Salvation of our Souls Secondly That our Goods are not ours to waste at our Wills but God looketh to be honoured with them employed to good purposes Lastly in seeking this Offering to erect an External Worship we see that God will be worshipped outwardly also with our Bodies as inwardly with our Spirits for they are both the Lords Verse 3. In the variety and several kindes of what was offered you have shadowed out unto you the difference of Spiritual Gifts and Graces given by God to Men for the building up of his Spiritual Temple or Sanctuary in your hearts and such as God hath given such must they offer and such shall be accepted of God to teach us to despise in no man what God himself accepteth and despiseth not In Mans Body the soveraignty is in the Head the Eyes and Ears and yet cannot the Eye say to the Foot I have no need of thee 1 Cor. 12. 21. the greater may not despise the less nor the less murmur against the greater Verse 7. They offered their Ear-Rings and Jewels which were Ornaments unto them teaching us in this that nothing ought to be so dear unto us which we cannot find in our hearts to bestow willingly to the Service and Honour of God these things that served for superfluity before now serve for Gods Tabernacle Even so should our Bodies that have been Wanton and Sinful serving Sin serve the Lord in his Holy Fear and such humane Learning as hath served Error may be applyed to Religion and Gods service Verse 9. In the Service and Worship of God our Devices and Inventions must have no place but carefully and precisely we must ever serve him according to his own pattern and Prescription left us in his Holy Word as Deut. 4. 12. Numb 15. 38. and the Apostle Col. 2. 23. delivered nothing but what he received Verse 10. The wood whereof the Ark was made was Shittim-wood a durable and lasting Wood not subject to Worms and Corruption as other Wood is so representing the humanity of Christ whose Body in the Grave felt no Corruption as other Mens flesh and bodies neither was subject to sin Verse 20. The Cherubim was a name of Love and Favour and therefore his Wings were stretched over the Mercy-seat to shew us we should be ready to cover the infirmities especially of the Church and Church-men and Constantine professed that should he see a Bishop committing Adultery he would rather cover it with his own Cloak then any should be offended Verse 21. The Mercy-seat was appointed to be a Covering for the Ark where the Law of Moses lay and this Mercy-seat was a figure of Christ who hideth and covereth us from the wrath of God and from the accusation of the Law for without Christ shall no flesh be justified Our first Parents having sinn'd covered themselves with Fig-leaves and many Christians think to cover themselves with the Fig-leaves of their own Merits but Christ only is the cover of the Ark when the Law accuseth to whom whosoever doth fly and in whom whosoever doth trust being justified by Faith they have peace with God through him Rom. 5. 1. and the Mercy-seat was placed above the Altar to shew that Gods Mercy is over all his Works Verse 22. The two Cherubims represented the Two Testaments and from between these two Cherubims God spake so doth Christ still by the two Testaments the Old and the New the Law and the Gospel the Prophets and Apostles and so will he speak still to the end Otherwise we must not now expect Revelations and Dreams Visions and Miracles are ceased and if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets Neither will they believe though one should rise from the dead and come unto them Verse 38. This is a great comfort to Ministers and to all the faithful people of God that although my Gifts are not such as to set me high in the Tabernacle yet am I not therefore utterly unprofitable or unfit or rejected of God but I may be among the meanest vessels of the Sanctuary and of the Church if I may be but as the snuffers or snuff-dishes as a Door-keeper as a Besom as an Ash-pan even this shall please me and herein will I rejoyce thanking my God that he hath looked upon me in that measure the body hath divers members and all good and made by God the Church hath divers degrees of Believers and all beloved of God so if you be one in any place blessed be God for it your joy shall be Eternal also and Incomprehensible Verse 40. From hence you may see the Assistance and the Power that Example hath in Instruction This was Christs Method in the Gospel Quid ab initio how was it from the beginning do as hath been done before So here it was Gods Method to Moses for the Tabernacle look that thou make every thing after the pattern that was shewed thee in the Mount and the same was Gods Method for the Creation its self for though there were no World that was Elder Brother to this World before yet God in his own Mind and Purpose had produc'd and lodg'd certain Idea's and forms and patterns of every piece of this World and made them according to those preconceived Forms and Idea's Lastly this was Gods way likewise through the whole Scripture for there are no Books in the World that do so abound with this Comparative and Exemplary way of Teaching as the Scriptures do no Books in which that word of Reference to other things that sicut is so often repeated do this and do that sicut so as you see such and such things in Nature do and sicut so as you find such and such Men in the Stories of Gods Book to have done CHAP. XXVI Verse 31. OUr Corruption is the only way to our Incorruption and our Mortality to our Glory our Flesh being that Vail that keeps us from entring into the Holiest of Holies To this purpose as a Type of this in the Tabernacle which Moses made there was a Vail hang'd up between the Holy Place and the Holiest of Holies this Vail was made up of four substances blew Silk and Purple and Scarlet and fine Linnen which saith St. Ieremy did represent the four Elements of which our Flesh consists such a Vail was afterwards in the Temple at Ierusalem which at the Death of our Saviour was rent from the top to the bottom so that the People might then and not till then have beheld the Sanctum Sanctorum so when our Flesh this Vail that keeps us from beholding the Invisibility of the Blessed Trinity shall be rent and torn in pieces