carried captive by Kederlaomer Whereas else he would make a short work upon the earth Rom. 9.28 If the mourners were once marked and set safe out of harmes way he would soon say to the Angell Ezek 9. Smite and spare not Look what Elisha once said to Jehoram King of Israel the same saith God to all ungodly persons Surely were it not that I regard the presence of Iehoshaphat the good king of Judah 2 King 3.14 I would not look toward thee nor see thee Add hereunto that God not only spareth and blesseth but also graceth and gifteth the wicked with excellent abilities and endowments for his peoples behoof and benefit as Saul with a spirit of government for Israels sake and of prophecy for Davids safety the Egyptians with Jewels for the use of the sanctuary and those that shall hear Depart ye with the power of prophesying and doing miracles for the Churches use and benefit Nay more Prov. 21.18 the wicked shall be a ransome for the righteous and the transgressour for the upright Thus God gave Egypt for Israels ransome Isa 43.3 4. I gave Ethiopia and Seba for thee And why Since thou wast precious in my sight thou hast been honourable and I have loved thee Therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy life Thus is the righteous delivered out of trouble and the wicked comes in his stead Prov. 11.8 SECT IX OH but we see it otherwise often that those you call righteous are not delivered Ob. Sol. And what more sure then sight First sight though the most certain sense may be deceived about its own object if it want a clear middle For example A man beholds a staff part through the clear ayre and part through the dark water and so deems it crooked when indeed it is straight So the purblind world beholding the Christian life thorough the dark middle of prejudice judgeth it miserable and disconsolate not knowing that to the righteous there ariseth light out of darknesse joy out of grief good out of evill comforts out of crosses and those equivalent to deliverances Those mentioned in that little book of Martyrs Heb. 11. though tortured and tympanized yet they would not be delivered that they might obtain a better resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was never merrier with the three children then in the midst of the furnace where the son of God was walking with them Dan. 3. Gen. 28. Iacobs heart was never so light as when his head lay hardest Secondly there is a double deliverance One keeping us from the evill and another keeping us under it that it shall not hold us much lesse hurt us And this later way at least every of Gods Jewels is made up and delivered For though ye have layne among the pots all burnt and swooty yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers of yellow gold Psal 68.13 Delivered then the righteous are we see though not delivered That they are not here fully freed from trouble they may thank themselves in a great measure For as the subjection of the creature to us depends upon our subjection to God and our peace with men upon our keeping peace with him Iob 5.23 So our subjection to God and peace with him here being only inchoate and imperfect we recover our safety from the creatures and peace with men but in part and unperfectly But look what is wanting therein is recompensed with spirituall peace even here Ioh. 16 â—3 how much more hereafter And say that God suffer his Jewels to be killed all day long and counted as sheep to the slaughter yet precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints Psal 116.15 Rom. 8. and neither life nor death shall sunder them from Gods love in Christ Jesus So that if they ' scape not his sword without yet they shall ' scape the terrour within which is that that sets an edge upon the sword and makes it enter into the soul The godly man shall be able in the worst times to call his soul to rest with David Psal 116.7 1 Sam. 30.6 Luc. 21. Deut. 20. and to comfort himself in the Lord his God in a common combustion then when others shall be at their wits ends and even mad again for the sight of their eyes and perplexity of their spirits Death he knowes is the worst that can befall him and that ever since it ran through the veins of Christ crucified is so sweetened unto him that he is little or no whit amazed at the fore-going gripes which are but as the throwes of Child-birth by which the soul is borne out of this lothsome body into endlesse felicity Oh therefore the safety and dignity of a true Christian whom very pain easeth whom death reviveth whom dissolution uniteth whom lastly his very corruption preserveth and sin glorifieth As for our full deliverance from all annoyances we grone within our selves and with patience wait for it even the redemption of our bodies Rom. 8.23 24. Pectatum tametsi non bonum tamen in bâ—num Aug. And when that happy day once begins to shine forth then look up if ever for your redemption draweth nigh Luc. 21.28 The Lord Christ will then lift up your heads as Pharaoh did his Butlers take you from the prison to the palace and restore you to your ancient honours and offices loft in Adam as to be Kings Priesty Judges Benchers c. He shall say unto you then as once to Israel Behold I will settle you after your old estates and will do better unto you then at your beginnings and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Ezek. 36.11 This meditation setled David â—â—eedingly Psal 17. where having spoken of the men of this world Psal 17.15 which have their portion here he presently subjoynes As for me I shall behold thy face in righteousnes I shall be satisfied when I awake that is out of the dust of death with thine image This also kept Jobs head above water when else he had been overwhelmed with floods of affliction Job 19.25 26 I know that my Redeemer liveth c. And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh I shall see God Daniel 12.1 2. Though things be otherwise darkly delivered yet when the Jews were to lose land and life then plainly the Resurrection is named And Heb. 11.35 we read of some that were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection Joh. 11.24 I know saith Martha that my brother shall rise at the Resurrection at the Consolation saith the Syriack Translator And well he might call it the Consolation to the righteous for these prerogatives and priviledges that shall befall all such in that day SECT X. FIrst a glorious resurrection of their dead bodies by vertue of the mystical Union they have with Christ The bodies of the Saints though
for their dignity they are the Lords Ministers as likewise the good Angels are and their fellow-servants so according to their duty they must be first in holy exercises going in and out before Gods people in the perforâ—â—nce of their trust and that worthy work of theirs 1 Tim. 3.1 for the which 〈◊〉 are to be very highly esteemed in love 1 Thess 5.13 Let Ministers therefore pray hard for their people as did Aaron Samuel Paul c. Let their prayers at â—asts especially be well watered with teares those effectuall Oratours that cry to God for mercy Psal 39.12 as blood doth for vengeance Gen. 4.16 as theirs were Judg. 20.23 and Judges 2.5 and 1 Sam. 7.6 and as Ezra chap. 10.1 and â—remy chap. 9.1 and 13.17 and why but for corruption in Magistrates Ministers All sorts a generall defection drawing on a generall desolation Oh let Gods two faithfull witnesses be clothed in sack-cloth Rev. 11.3 teaching Gods people with many tears and temptations Act. 20.19 20 31. both publikely and from house to house yea not ceasing to warn them night and day with tears to redeem their own sorrows by sound repentance It is said of Athanasius that by his tears as by the bleeding of a chast Vine he cured the leprosie of that tainted Age. And of Luther that by his prayers and tears he had prevailed with God that Popery should not over-run his countrey Act. Mon. In vita Luth. during his dayes When I am dead said He let those pray that can pray Melancton his Colleague writeth that he constantly prayed with abundance of tears for he knew that as Musick upon the waters sounds farther and more harmoniously then upon the land so prayers joyn'd with tears finde much respect with Christ who could not but look back upon the weeping women and comfort them though he was then going to his death between the porch and the altar This was that void place where the Priests prayed after the sacrifices were offered Ezek. 8.16 As in man there is Body Soul and Spirit 1 Thess 5.23 so in the Temple at Jerusalem 1. between Solomons Porch Act. 3.11 and the Altar of burnt-offering was the outer great Court 2. Chron. 4.9 where the people met for preaching and prayer Next there was the second Court for the Priests onely and here was the Altar of incense Luke 1.9 10. Thirdly the most Holy place for the High-priest to enter once a year Num. 17.10 The first is here spoken of the outer Court where the priests might bee best heard to pray and seen to weep and the people might comport and say Amen the want whereof St. Paul counts no small losse 1 Cor. 14.16 and let them say Spare thy people O Lord c. Other exercises there were usually performed at publike fasts as Reading the Scriptures Jer. 36.5 27. expounding and preaching Neh. 8.4 8. examining censuring and punishing such sinnes as then most raigned Neh. 9.2 Ezr. 9.2 Josh 7. and 22. Binding themselves to God by a Covenant of better obedience Nehem. 10.18 29 30. Contributing to good uses Esay 58.7 and 2 Chron. 31.3 4. But the chief businesse and duty of the day was as here Prayer to God for pardon of sinne and removall of shame and other punishment whence also it was called A day of Atonement or Expiation Spare thy people O Lord c. Brevis oratio sed tota affectibus ardens saith Mercer A short prayer but very affectionate So are all Scripture-forms they have fulnesse of matter in fewnesse of words Quam multa quam paucis How much in a little as Tully said of Brutus his Laconicall Epistle See Numb 6.24 25 26. Hos 14.2 Luke 18.13 Matt. 6.9 10 c. which is both a prayer and a pattern as the standard is the exactest measure Why then should any man fall out with forms and call them idols odious as swines-flesh c Why should they say that the use of the Lords Prayer is the Note of a formalist Is not this to speak evil of good c. and give not thine heritage to reproach Suffer us not for our sinnes to be forced by famine to beg bread of our enemies the Ammonites and Moabites for that will reflect upon thee Lord and turn to thy dishonour as if thou hadst no care of thine heritage couldst not maintain thy servants See a like prayer to this Num. 14.11.12 16 17 c. and Deut. 9.26 27 28. and learn to deprecate shame and reproach as a fruit of sinne and a piece of the curse Deut. 28. Lev. 26. 1 Sam. 2.30 Beg of God 1. To keep thee from reproachfull courses such as may expose thee to the scandall of the weak and scorn of the wicked David is much in this petition 2. To hide thee in a pavilion from the strife of tongues Psal 31.20 either to preserve thee from aspersions or so to oil thy name that they may not stick 3 To give thee good repute and report among the best 'T was God gave Solomon honour and he promiseth it to all his as a reward of religion Prov. 22.4 that the heathen should rule over them It is an heavy hand of God upon his people when Pagans or Papagans have dominion over them Neh. 9.9 10 27 c. Psal 79.1 c. and 80.1 2 c. and 137.1 2 c. Lam. 1.2 4 5. They are bloody in their positions and dispositions See Rom. 1.31 their government is tyrannicall such as the Spaniards is over the poor Indians the Turks over Greece the Rebels over the English in Ireland c. The Saints also are 1. Consciencious and cannot yeeld to their unlawfull commands as the three children 2. Zealous and cannot but contest as Steven Paul at Athens the Martyrs 3. Friendlesse and destitute Matt. 10.16 as Paul afore Nero Christ afore Pilate forsaken of all Pray therefore as here and prevent such a mischief by shunning Ierusalems sinnes of ignorance ingratitude incorrigiblenesse formallity c. and by putting our necks under the yoke of Christs obedience observing from the heart that form of doctrine which he hath delivered unto us Rom. 6.17 wherefore should they say among the people Where is their God q. d. Why should they cast our religion in our dish why should they twit us with thy neglect of us why should thy name be blasphemed and thy power traduced as it were on a publike theatre This was that which most galled these good souls as it had oft done David before them that God with whom they quartered armes should be reproached for their sakes and thorow their sides and his glory defaced This was as a murthering-knife in Davids bones Psal 42.10 and worse to him then all the evill that he had suffered from his youth up Our nature is most impatient of reproach for there is none so mean but thinks himself worthy of some regard and a reproachfull scorne shewes an utter disrespect which flowes from the very superfluity of malice You
to our Saviour that they were not the children of fornication for they had Abraham to their father Joh. 6.33 nay God to their father vers 41 But he as boldly telleth them that they a eâ—a bastardly brood yea a serpentine seed and that they were of their father the devil vers 44. And in another place as Serpents saith He ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of hell If mercy interpose not as the cold grave must one day hold your bodies so hot hell your souls But I will have no mercy upon her children for they are the children of fornications i.e. they are not onely misbegotten and illegitimate which though no fault of theirs yet is their reproach as hath been said in the Notes on the former chapter but they are children of fornications in an active sense too they have learned of their mother to fornicate they are as good at resisting the holy Ghost as ever their Fathers were Acts 7.51 they fill up the measure of their fathers fias that wrath may come upon them to the utmost Children as they derive from their parents a cursed birth blot which comes by propagation so they are very apt to fall into their vices by imitation and then they â—ue both their own and their parents iniquities Verse 5. For their mother hath plaid the harlot Being a wife of whoredoms chap. 1.2 see the Note there therefore I will not have mercy upon her children but will root out all her increase job 31.12 Either she shall commit whoredom and not increase Hos 4.10 Or if she do it is for mischief she shall bring forth children to the murtherer or at least she shall bequeath them a fearfull legacy of sin and punishment worse then that leprosie that Gehezi left to his posterity or that Joab lest to his 2 Sam. 3.29 lameness and gonorrhaea c. It is a dangerous thing to keep up the succession of a sin in the world and to propagate guilt from one generation to another it is a great provocation When the wickednesse of such is ripe in the field and they have filled up the measure of their fathers sins God will not let it shed to grow again but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance Let parents therefore break off their sins and get into Gods favour if for nothing else yet for their poor childrens sake labouring to mend that by Education which they have marred by propagation and evil example And let children of wicked parents as they tender their own eternall good take Gods counsell Ezek 20. vers 18.30 Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers and commit ye whoredom after their abominations Oh walk ye not after the statutes of your fathers neither observe their judgements nor defile your selves with their idols True it is men are wonderous apt to dote upon their fathers doings and are hardly drawn off from their vain conversation by received tradition from their ancestors 1 Pet. 1.18 A boâ—e majori discit arare minor Ovid. Prescription is held Authoritie sufficient Me ex ea opinione quam à majoribus accepi de cultu deorum nullius unquam movebit oratio â—ic saith Tully No man shall ever disswade me from that way of divine worship that my forefathers lived and died in It is reported of a certain Monarch of Morocco that having read Saint Pauls Epistles he liked them so well that he professed that were he then to chuse his Religion he would before any other embrace Christianity But every one ought Heyl. Geog. pag. 714. said he to die in his own Religion and the leaving of the faith wherein he was born was the onely thing that he disliked in that Apostle Thus He. Sed teto erravit caelo Antiquity must have no more Authority then what it can maintain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mine Antiquity said Ignatius is Christ Jesus who said not to the young man Do as thy forefathers but Follow thou me She that conceived them hath done shamefully She hath utterly shamed her self and all her friends husband children all The woman is or should be the glory of the man Solomons good huswife was she Prov. 31.28 29. Her children rise up and call her blessed her husband also and he praiseth her saying Many daughters have done vertuously but thou excellest them all Alphonsus King of Arragon was once resolved never to commend his wife lest he should be accounted immodest or uxorious but afterwards he changed his mind Val Max. Chri. 73. and was so taken with his wives vertues and constancy that he resolved to praise her quocunq in trivio cuique obvio sine modo et modestia in all places and companies c. So did Budaeus Pareus and others Plin. Tacit. utinam aut coelebs vixissem aut orbusperirssem Prov. 14.34 Deut. 28. Jer. 25.9 Ezek. 5.15 but a wicked wife an harlot especially puts her husband to the blush and is a great heart-break as Livia was to Augustus Eudemus was both her Physician and her stallion his children also proved start naught which made him wish that either he had lived a Batchelour or died childlesse Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a shame to any people It is the snuff that dimmeth their candlestick the leaven that sowreth their Passeover the reproach that rendreth them a proverb and a by-word an astonishment and an hissing a taunt and a talk to other countries Such was Israels Apostasie Idolatry their subjecting Religion to carnal policy in setting up the two calves and Baalim when Ephraim spake there was trembling and then he exalted himself in Israel but when he offended in Baal he died Hos 13.1 Whilst he kept close to God who but Ephraim None durst quack but all quaked at the name of Ephraim he was on high and much honoured But when he declined to Idolatry he became contemptible and every paltry adversary cast dirt in his face and crowed over him So true is that of Solomon The wise shall inherit glory Prov. 3.35 but shame shall be the promotion of fools What a victorious Prince was Henry the fourth of France till he for politike respects turned Papist Till then he was Bonus Orbi but after that Orbus Boni as the wits of the time played upon his name Borbonius Life of Phil. de Mornay by way of Anagram Once he was before his revolt perswaded by Du-Plessy to do publike pennance for having abused the daughter of a certain Gentleman in Rochel by whom he had a son Hereunto he was drawn with some difficulty being read to fight a battle and this was no disgrace to him But when by compliance at least he became an Idolater for lucre of a crown and love of life he became a vile person as Antiochus is called Dan. 11.21 and was worthily lashed with rods by the Pope in the person of his Embassadours and butchered by the instigation of those Jesuites whom
gapes for him where he shall rue it among reprobates Well he may flourish a while and feel no hurt as Saul did not of many years after his rejection and as the Pharisees after Christ had said of them Let them alone they are blind leaders of the blind Mat. 15. But they shall pine swelter away in their iniquities Lev. 26.39 which is the last of those dismall plagues there threatened they shall not be purged till Gods wrath hath rested upon them Ezek. 24.13 so that now they may go and serve every one his idols sith they have such a mind to it Ezek. 20.39 and sith they have made a match with mischief they may take their belly-full of it Oh let us feare lest this should be any of our cases that God should say let him alone he is resolved of his way and I of mine he will have his swinge in sin and I am bent to have my full blow at him I am fully perswaded saith a Reverend man now with God that in these dayes of grace the Lord is much more quick and peremptory in rejecting men then heretofore the time is shorter neither will he wait so long as he used to do See for ground of this Heb. 2.3 God is oft quick in the offer of his mercy Go and preach the Gospel saith Christ Go and be quick tell men what to trust to that as fooles they may not be semper victuri ever about to be better but never begin to set seriously to work He that beleeveth shall be saved he that beleeveth not shall be damned I shall not longer dally with him Destruction cometh and they shall seek peace and there shall be none Mischief shall come upon mischief and rumour upon rumour then shall they seek a vision of the Prophet but the law shall perish from the Priest and counsel from the ancient c. Ezek. 7.25.26 when men are even dropping into hell and have an hell afore-hand in their consciences then they 'le send hastily for the minister as they did in the sweating-sicknesse here so long as the ferventnesse of the plague lasted Then the Ministers were sought for in every corner you must come to my Lord you must come to my Lady c. But what if God have said of such a one Let him alone as he reproved Samuel for mourning for Saul and as he forbad Jeremy to pray for the Jewes and his Apostles to take care for the Pharisees Oh how dreadfull is that mans condition and what can a Minister say more then what the king of Israel said to the woman that complained to him of the scarcity of Samaria If the Lord help thee not 2 King 6.27 whence shall I help thee out of the barne-floore or out of the winepresse If any dram of comfort be applied to a wicked man the truth of God is falsified and that Minister will be reckoned amongst the devils dirt-dawbers upholsters Ezek. 13.18 that dawb with untemper'd morter sow pillowes under mens elbowes Let such alone therefore and let God alone to deale with them Verse 18. Their drink is sowre That is they are past grace and it is now past time a day to do them good for thou seest how the matter mends with them even as sowre alemends in summer and how they even stink above ground as Psal 14.2 Vina probantur odore colore sapore c. but their wine hath neither good colour smell nor favour or tast it 's dead and gone and they are as trees twice dead and rotten Jude and therefore pulled up by the roots such as the Latines call vappae that is past the best and now good for nothing See Esay 1.22 what life or sweetnesse can be in Apostates yea how sowre and unsavoury to such are all fleshly comforts They use to drink away their terrours and drive away their melancholy dumps with merry company But will that hold what are such plasters better then the devils Anodynes then his whistle to call men off from better practises there is a cup in the hands of the Lord it is full of mixture but extreme sowre and the very dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them up Psal 75.8 though it be eternity to the bottom they have committed whoredome continually Here they are taxed for whoredome as before for drunkennesse so some carry it and afterwards for covetousnesse This is that flagitiorum triga whereby the Prophet perswadeth Judah to shake off Israel as not fit to be conversed with He had charged them before with fornication of both sorts here he sheweth how unwearied they were in their wickednesse and withall how intense for fornicando fornicati sunt they have done wickedly as they could they have eeked out their idolatries and adulteries and though wearied and even wasted with the multitude of their wickednesses yet they have not given over but are unsatisfiable and would sin in perpetuum as that filthy fornicatour who said he would desire no other heaven but to live for ever on earth and to be carried from one brothel-house to another She hath wearied her self with lies and yet her great scum went not forth out of her Therefore shall it be in the fire Ezek 24.12 Therefore shall gracelesse wretches be tormented for ever because they would sin for ever and therefore suffer all extreamity Mic. 7. because they do wickedly with both hands earnestly wofully wasting the marrow of their time the flower of their age the strength of their bodies the vigour of their spirits in the persuit of their lusts in the froth and filth whereof is bred that worme that never dieth which is nothing else but the furious reflection of the soul upon its own once wilfull folly and now wofull misery her rulers with shame do love Give ye Her shields o shamefull do love Give ye where there is in the originall an elegant Agnomination that cannot be englished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ahabhu hibhu Dilexerunt Afferte not Afferre as the Vulgar corruptly readeth it The Dorick dialect the horsleaches language Give Give they are perfectly skilled in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gift-greedinesse is all their delight like the ravens of Arabia that full gorged have a tuneable sweet record but empty screech horribly Plerique offictarij saith One Very many rulers do as Plutarch reporteth of Stratocles and Dromoclites a couple of corrupt officers Plutarch in politic qui sese mutuo ad messem auream invitare solebant who were wont to invite one another to the golden harvest thereby meaning the Court and the judgment-seate These follow the administration of justice as a trade onely with an unquenchable and unconscionable desire of gaine which iustifieth the common resemblance of the Courts of iustice to the Bush whereunto while the sheep flieth for defence in weather he is sure to lose part of his fleece Now are these Sheilds are they not
stayes not here in the porch or lobbyes but passeth into the presence yea privy-chamber ver 2. yea my thoughts in posse before I think them Deus intimo nostro nobis intimior The word is to God a sea of glasse Rev. 4 6. a clear transparent body and his eyes are as a flaming fire Reu. 1.14 which needs no outward light because it seeth extramittendo by sending out a ray Psal 139.12 so that the night shineth as the day the darknesse and the light are both alike to him What wonder therefore though he know Ephraim and Israel is not hid from him And how should this both humble them for which cause it is here urged and caution them for the future as it did that holy man who had written upon the walls and windowes of his study these verses Ne pecces Deus ipse videt bonns Angelus astat Accusat satanas et lex mens conscia culpae c. For now O Ephraim thou committest whoredom and Israel is defiled in body and soul Eph. 4.19 rushing into all impiety without restraint working all uncleanness with greediness being filled withall unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murder debate deceit c. Rom. 1.29.30 All these evil things come from within and defile a man Mar. 7.23 worse then any leprosie worse then the vomit of a dog or the mire of a swine It is the pollution of flesh and spirit 2 Cor. 7.1 it is the putrefaction of a dead carcase the sanies of a plague-sore the devils excrement and that which defileth far worse then that which is cast into the draught Mar. 7.21 It sets defilement upon our selves others the whole land Jer. 3.1 yea upon the visible heavens which must therefore be purged by that last fire And this was typified by those many Leviticall washings and purification of garments vessels persons c. Wash you therefore make you clean put away the evil of your doings c. Esay 1.16 Wash thy heart from wickedness O Jerusalem 〈◊〉 hands onely as Pilate though those too Jam. 4.8 Jer. 4.14 Cleanse your selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit 2 Cor. 17.1 Of the flesh that is fleshly lusts and gross evils as uncleanness earthly mindedness or Of spirit that is those more spirituall lusts that lie more up in the heart of the countrey such as are pride creature-confidence self-deceit presumption c. Out with all these there 's both a stain and a sting in them Run to the Bath of Christs blood that blessed fountain Zech. 13.1 and there wash and be clean Look not upon Gods Jordan with Syrian eyes as Naaman did Abanah and Pharphar may wash and scoure but Jordan is for cure And if God see fit to Iay us a frosting to fetch out our filth yea or cast into the fire to take away our defilements let us be contented Verse 4. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God Or their doings will not suffer them That is they are so habituated and hardened in sinfull practices that they are not onely disinabled to conversion but evil-affected thereunto they stand a-crosse to all good to their sinewes of iron they have added browes of brasse Isai 48.4 to their sin they adde rebellion which is as bad as witch-craft 1. Sam. 15.23 till at length they lose all passive power also of being converted and so are transformed as it were into so many devils having by custome contracted a necessitie of sinning they are become incurable they neither will nor can return to their God they will not frame their doings to it The Vulgar hath it their studies the Septuagint their counsels Castalio their endeavours Pagnine their pains c. The Originall is very elegant and metricall Lo ijttenu magnallchem Lashub el Elohehem I scarce know a like text in all the Scripture unlesse it be that Lam. 5.16 Oi na lanu chi chattanu Woe to us that we have sinned which is so elegant also in the Originall that Master Wheatly of Banbury who used to be very plain in his Preaching and not to name a Greek Latine or Hebrew word Master Leigh nis Saints encouragement c. ep dedic quoted it once in the Hebrew as witnesse learned Master Leigh who lived some while under his Ministry But to return to the text whereas some might possibly conceive or reply Ephraim is far gone indeed but he may return No never saith God for he will not give his minde to it or shew his good will he is even set and there is no removing of him he hath made his conclusion and is as good as ever he meaneth to be They are so far from yielding themselves unto the Lord as 2 Chro. 30.8 that they stand in full opposition to him yea send messages after him We will not have this man to rule over us The Jewes were an untoward generation saith Peter Act. 2.40 they by their obstinate refusall of the Gospel judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life saith Paul Act. 13.46 there were unmalleable unframeable so knotty that they were fit for nothing but the fire so nastie that they were fit for no place but the dunghill And why the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them The devill is at Inne with them as that Martyr said he even sits abrood upon them Master Bradford Eph. 2.2 hatching all manner of evil counsels and courses he worketh effectually in these children of disobedience as a smith doth in his forge an artificer in his shop he acts them and agitates them making their souls and all the powers thereof nothing else but a shop of sin their bodies and all the parts thereof tooles of sin their lives and all their actions of both soul and body a trade of sin a web of wickedness spun out and made up by the hands of the devil and the flesh an evil spinner and a worse weaver Hence they he rotting all their lives long in the graves of sin wrapt up in the winding sheet of hardness of heart they will not frame their doing to turn to God and blindness of mind they have not known the Lord and as a carcase crawleth with woâ—mes so do these men swarm with those noisome lusts that are able to poisorâ—â—â— an honest heart How can it be otherwise the spirit of fornication is in the mâ—â—dest of them as a King in his Kingdom yea hath filled their hearts from corner to corner as he had done the hearts of Ananias and Sapphira Act. â— That unclean spirit besiegeth the puâ—est hearts and compasseth them about seeking to devour them 1 Pet. 5.8 but they keep him out stedfast in the faith or if he any way get in they quickly cast him out again so that he cannot long rest or roost much lesse raign there for the Spirit of God keepeth them 1 Joh. 5.18 Caietan and that evil one toucheth them not tactu qualitativo with a deadly touch
by the primitive Christians which caused those many Apologies made for them by Tertullian Athenagoras and others If a Ruler hearken to lies and that 's a common fault among them Prov. 29.12 as David tells Saul 1 Sam. 24.9 all his servants will be wicked he shall have his Aiones and Nigones that will say as he sayes and fit his humour to an hair he shall have plenty of such as will slander the Saints and cast an odium upon the consciencious I once saw saith Melancthon an old coyn on the one side whereof was Zopyrus on the other Zoilus he adds fuit imago aulae comitantur calumniae bene merentes It was a picture of Princes courts where are store of such as by flattery dawb white upon black and by calumny sprinkle black upon white Vers 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are all adulterers Adulterio calescunt so Pagnine scalded in their base lusts as those Rom. 1.27 all for the most part were such but especially the Courtiers and clawback-Informers as vers 3. God in his just judgement giving them up to those vile affections or passions of dishonour and punishing their impieties with impurities as He did also in those Heathens Rom. 1.24 as an oven heated by the baker An apt similitude setting forth the intense heat of filthy lust better marry then burn 1 Cor. 7.9 and of long continuance as the heat of an oven yea of Nebuchadnezzars oven yea of hell it self whence it was enkindled and where it shall be perpetually punished The holy Angels at the last day will be most active against such to bring them to condign punishment 2 Pet. 2.10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse Note the word chiefly and consider the example of the Sodomites and God most severe against them Heb. 13.4 How much they have lived deliciously and drenched themselves in fleshly delights so much torments and sorrow shall they have proportionably Rev. 18.7 As their hearts have ben as an hot oven or furnace so they shall be bound up in bundles and cast into a furnace of fire where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth Mat. 13.42 Vers 5. In the day of our King Our good king on whom they so doted that they forgat God and his sincerer service Quaecunque á regibus dicuntur aut fiunt Gallis minificè solet placere Epit. Hist Gallor 134. It is reported of the French by their own Chronicle◠that they are wonderful well pleased with whatsoever is said or done by their king so that they affect to speak like him to be arraied like him to imitate him in every thing Their song is Mihi placet quicquid Regi placet But is not this to idolize the creature and have not many otherwise well-minded men amongst us been by this means miscarried to their cost in our late combustions This day of their king was either his Birth-day so Pagnine rendreth it here or his Coronation-day so the Chaldee Paraphrast carrieth it which also is the Birth-day of a king as he is king Die natalis ejus Sam. 13.1 unlesse haply he have the happinesse to be crowned not in his cradle onely as Europus king of Macedony and the late king James were but in his mothers womb as Misdatus king of Persia was the crown being set upon his mothers great belly before he was born Now in this solemn day of the king when they should have been better busied The princes have made him sick or the princes were sick they drank themselves sick drowning their bodies and souls as Richard the third did his brother Clarence in a Butt of Malmesey How many importunate and impudent drinkers are there that by drinking other mens health destroy their own See Master Prinnes Healths-sicknesse and accord him that said Vna salus sanis nullam potare salutem Non est in pota vera salute salus But what beastly bedlams or rather incarnate devils were those three drunkards mentioned by Jo. Manlius in his common places pag. 244. who drank so long till one of them fell down stark dead and yet the other two nothing terrified with such a dreadful example of divine vengeance went on to drink and powred the dead mans part into him as he lay by them Oh horrible Drunkennesse is a detestable vice in any but especially in men of place and power Prov. 31.4 Wo be to those drunken vice-gods as I may in the worst sense best call them woe to the very crown of their Pride in drinking down many Esay 28.1 as Marcus Antonius wrote or rather spued out a book concerning his own abilities to bear strong drink Darius also boasted of the same faculty in his very Epitaph a poor praise Drunkennesse in a king is a capital sin and makes the land reel Hence those feast-dayes were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were like the Rom. Saturnalia Hic pendet Amphorae witnesse Belshazzar carowsing in the bowles of the Sanctuary to the honour of Shar his drunken god Alexander the great drinking himself to death and killing fourty one more with excessive drinking to get that crown of one hundred eighty pound weight which he had provided for him that drank most Bonosus the Emperour that beastly drunkard called therefore a Tankard and Tiberius sirnamed Biberius for his tipling like as Erasmus called Eccius Jeccius for the same cause And well he might for as he lived a shameful drunkard so being nonplust at Ratisbon by Melanchthon in a publique disputation and drinking more then was fit that night at the Bishop of Mundina's lodgings who had of the best Italians wines he fell into a fever whereof he died Jah Manl. loc com p. 89. Drunkennesse is a flattering evil a sweet poison a cunning Circe that besots the soul destroyes the body dolores gignit in capite in stomacho in toto corpore acerrimos Mercer in Prov. 23.32 grievous diseases and dolours in the head stomack whole man At the last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder Prov. 23.32 The drunkard saith as the vine in Jothams parable Non possum relinquere vinum meum Take away my liquour you take away my life But it proves to him in the issue like that wine mentioned by Moses Deut. 32.33 Their wine is the poison of Dragons and cruel venom of Aspes which makes the spirits warm and the body sick to death with bottles of wine Or with heat through wine as Esay 5.11 and so Jarchi expoundeth it The same word signifieth the poyson of a Serpent Psal 58.4 which inflameth and killeth confer Prov. 23.32 and think of that cup of fire and brimstone Psal 11.6 to be one day turned down the wide gullets of intemperate drinkers which will be much worse to them then was that ladle-full of boyling lead which the Turkish Bashaw caused to be poured down the throat of a drunken wretch without giving him any respite
sacrifice ceased and all good hearts were thereby sadded See vers 9 with the Note Verse 17 The seed is rotten under their clods It lieth buried or drowned with excessive rain and moisture corrupting the seed soon after it was sown and that which was not so marred was afterwards when it came to be corn dried up with excessive heat The corn is withered So that the garners were desolated the barnes broken down for want of stuffing and for that there was no use of them sith they sowed but reaped not Mic. 6.15 The husbandman was called to mourning Amos 5.16 for a three-fold calamity that lay upon his tillage First Immoderate rain in or about seeding Secondly Locusts and other vermine at spring Thirdly extreme drought after all verse 19 20. Thus God followeth sinners with one plague in the neck of another as he did Pharaoh that sturdy rebell till he have made his foes his footstools To multiply sin is to multiply sorrow Psal 16.4 to heap up wickednesse is to heap up wrath Rom 2.5 I will heap mischiefs upon them Si quoties peccent homines sua fulmina mittat Jupiter exiguo tempora inermis erâ—â— Ovid. saith God I will spend mine arrows upon them Deut. 32.23 which yet cannot be all spent up as the Poet feared of his Jupiter that if he should punish men for every offence his store of thunder-bolts would be soon spent and exhausted Verse 18. How do the beasts groun The wilde beasts groan in their kinde The herds of cattell home and tame beasts as oxen c. are perplexed as not knowing what to do 't is the same word with that Esth 3.15 God had hid his face withdrawn his hand and they were troubled he taketh away their breath for lack of pasture they die and return to their dust as David telleth us in his Physicks Psal 104.29 Epiphaxius his Physiologer reporteth of the bird called Charadius that being brought where a sick man lieth if he look upon the sick with a fixed and unremoved eye there is hopes of recovery but if he look another way the disease is deadly Sure it is that if God look in mercy upon man and beast they are cared and catered for Psal 36.7 and 104.27 and 145.15 16 c. and the contrary yea the flocks of sheep c. which yet can bite upon the bare live with a little and get pasture where the bigger creatures cannot come Verse 19. O Lord to thee will I cry I will though others will not I have called upon others to cry mightily unto thee and to meet thee by repentance but they ranquam monstra marina as so many Sea-monsters passe by my words with a deaff ear they refuse to return thy hand is lifted up in threatning and will fall down in punishing but they will not see Esay 26.11 they will not search they will not have their eyes like the windowes in Solomons Temple broad inward the eyes of their mindes are as ill set for this matter as the eyes of their bodies they see not what 's within But whatever they do 1 King 6.4 my soul shall weep in secret for their pride and mine eyes shall weep sore c. Jer. 13.17 for their insensiblenesse of their misery For the fire hath devoured the pastures that is the immoderate scorching heat of the season See Psal 83.14 Jer. 17.6 Or the blasting winde as Lyra expounds it or the locusts as Drusius or God who is a consuming fire by any or all these instruments of his wrath as Tarnouius And the flame hath burnt all the arees of the field This was dreadfull but yet nothing to that conflagratio mundi spoken of by St. Peter 2 Epist 3.12 when the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements melt with fervent heat on the heads of the wicked who shall give a terrible account with the world all on alight fire about their ears Verse 20. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee Glocitant a term taken from Deer they cry as they can they cry by implication imploring thine help each for himself See Psal 149.9 Job 39.3 Psal 104.27 And should men be silent For the rivers of the waters are dried up This maketh the Hart bray after the water-brooks yea shed tears as hunters say the Hart will when hot and hard-bestead for water Hereto David seems to allude Psal 42.5 My tears have been my meat c. And the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wildernesse This had been said before verse 19. The reason of such repetitions see above in the Notes on verses 11 12. Neither let this last exaggeration of the common calamity by that which befell the bruit beasts seem superfluous For whereas the security and obstinacy of most men is such that they take little notice of present pressures but promise themselves peace and safety whatsoever God by his servants shall say to the contrary it is but needfull surely that their danger should be inculcated and their calamity set out and set on with utmost importunity and vehemency CHAP. II. Verse 1. BLow ye the trumpet in Zion Idem aliis verbis repetit saith Mercer here The Prophet repeateth the same as in the former Chapter onely in other words more at large and after another manner pressing the people further to the practise of repentance by many sweet promises of the blessings of this and a better life Our Prophet may seem to bee of the same mind with Tertullian who said that he was nulli rei natus nisi poenitentiae born for no other end but to repent and to call upon others so to do Tot autem verbis figuris ntitur saith Luther he useth so many words figures because he had to do with a people that were harder then rocks Jer. 5.3 as also because there is an absolute necessity of repentance Aut poenitendum aut pereundum as our Saviour tells his Disciples twice in a breath Luke 13.2 5. The Prophet had urged them hereunto from the evils they felt or feared chap. 1. Pain and penitency are words of one derivation God plagueth men that he may make them cry Peccavi not Perij onely I am undone as Cain but peccavi I have done very foolishly as David The seventeen first verses of this Chapter are Hortatory the rest Consolatory The day of the Lord cometh therefore Repent This is the summe of the exhortation It cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herod and that instantly Give warning therefore God loveth to foresignifie saith the Heathen Historian and to premonish before he punish He dealt so with Cain to whom he read the first lecture of Repentance Gen. 4. as he had done of Faith to his father Adam in the Chapter before He dealt so with the old world with the Sodomites Ninevites c. Sound an alarm in my holy Mountain Ring the bels backwards as amongst us they do the house is on fire the enemy is at hand Let all
your day of grace the things that belong to your peace before the gate be shut the draw-bridg taken up the taper burnt out c. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 The Apostle after the Prophet Esay purposely beateth upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he should say Now or never sith thou mayest the very next minute be cut off by the stroke of death from all further time of repentance and acceptation Up therefore and be doing It is the Lord himself that thus saith Turn ye even to me Vsque ad me altogether as far as to me Stultitia sempâ—r in â—pâ—t vivere Sen. give not the half turn onely begin not to repent and then give over the work Some are ever about to repent but they can never finde time and hearts to set seriously about it to do it in good earnest Some wamblings they have as I may say and some short-winded wishes some kinde of willingnesse and velleity but it doth not boyl up to the full height of resolution to return The Prodigall changed many places ere he came home Many came out of Egypt that yet never came into Canaan with all your heart with the heart Jer. 4.14 Prov. 23.26 and with the whole heart in opposition to a divided heart Hos 10.2 a double heart Jam. 4.8 a heart and a heart Psal 12.2 This whole heart is elsewhere called a true heart Heb. 10.22 a perfect heart 2 Chron. 16.10 truth in the inwards Psal 51.6 where there is an unfained faith 1 Tim. 1.5 laborious love 1 Thess 1.3 sound and cordiall repentance as here undissembled wisdome Jam. 3.17 such holinesse as rendreth a man like to a chrystall glasse with a light in the middest of it doing the truth Job 3.21 and having his works full Rev. 3.1 2. being a true worshipper Joh. 4.24 an Israelite indeed Ioh. 1.47 God he knows to be just and jealous he will not endure corrivals or compartners in the kingdome His jurisdiction is without peculiar he will not divide with the Devil Be the gods of the Heathen good-fellows saith One the true God is a jealous God and will not share his glory with another He must be served truely that there be no halting and totally that there be no halving and with fasting weeping and with mourning with deep and down-right humiliation sutable to your sins as Ezr. 9.6 ye have inveterate stains such as will not be gotten out till the cloth be almost rubb'd to pieces Satan hath intrenched himself in your hearts and will not be gotten out but by fasting and prayer Fasting is of it self but a bodily exercise and meriteth nothing for religion consisteth not in meat and drink 〈◊〉 the belly full or empty Rom. 14.17 Col. 2.23 But fasting is a sinâ—ular furtherance to the practise of repentance and the enforcing of our prayers â—ee Ezr. 8.21 As full feeding increaseth corruption Ier. 5.7 8. so religious Aâ—stinence macerateth tameth and subdueth the Rebell Flesh 1 Cor. 9.27 giving it the blew-eye as there and 2 Coâ— 7.11 so that not the body so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the soul is made more active by emptinesse Fasting dayes are soul-fatting dayes they fit men for conversion as here and make much to the humbling of the spirit hence they are called dayes of humiliation and of self affliction Levit. 16.31 and 23.37 and with weeping Drown your sins in a deluge of tears cleanse your wounds by washing in this precious water quench hell fire with it kill the woâ—m fetch out sins venome there 's a healing property in these troubled waters Tears of vine-branches are said to cure the leprosie and the Olive is reported to be most fruitfull when it most distil eth These April showers bring on May-flowers and make the heart as a watered garden or as some faces appear most oriently beautifull when most bedewed with tears Peter never lookt so sweetly as when he wept bitterly David never sung more pathetically then when his heart was broken most penitentially Psal 6. and 51. when tears in stead of gemmes were the ornament of his bed as Chrysostom speaketh Mary Magdalen that great weeper as she made her eyes a fountain to wash Christs feet in so she had his wounds as a fountain to bath her soul in yea she had afterwards the first sight of the revived Phoenix whom shee held fast by those feet that had lately trod upon the lion and the adder c. and with mourning This is added as a degree beyond the former Men may fast and yet find their pleasures Esay 58.13 weep out of stomack as Esau or complement as Phryne the harlot who was sirnamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weep-laugh because she could easily do either and as among the Brasileans Magirus in Gâ—â—gr Vt flerent oculos erudi resuos Ovid. tears are for a present salutation and as soon gone as if they had said How do ye What is an humbling day without an humbled heart not onely a religious incongruity but an high provocation like Zimri's act when all the Congregation were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle Here therefore the Lord calleth to mourning funerallmourning Nudaque marmoreis percussit pectora palmis Ovid. In gloss margin as the word signifieth with tabring upon the breast Nah. 2.7 smiting on the thigh Jer. 31.19 beating on the head face and other parts sicut mulierculae in puerperio facere solent saith Luther there See Esay 32.11 and 22.12 Sorrow for sin must not be slight and sudden but sad and soaking the heart must be turned into an Hadadrimmon Zech. 12.10 11. where the Prophet seems in a sort to be at a stand for comparisons fit enough and full enough to set forth their sorrow who looking upon Christ whom they had pierced felt the very nails sticking in their own hearts as so many sharp daggers or stings of scorpions The good soul say the School-men seeth more cause of grief for sinning then for the death of Christ because therein was aliquid placens something that pleaseth but sinne is simpliciter displicens simply displeasing So that Gods mourners need not send for mourning women to teach them to mourn as Jer. 19.17 but rather have need to be comforted lest they should be swallowed up with overmuch grief 2 Cor. 2.7 and lest Satan get an advantage against them verse 11. by mixing the detestable darnell of desperation Act. Mon. with the godly sorrow of a pure penitent heart as Mr. Philpot Martyr speaketh Verse 13. And rent your heart and not your garments i. e. not your garments onely Schindler which was gestus perturbationis among the Jews a gesture usuall with them to set forth the greatnesse of their grief and displeasure as 1. At funerals and losse of friends Tumpius Aeneas humerâ—â— abscinaere vestem Auxilioque vocare Deos tendere palmas Virg. Aeneid as Gen. 37.2 In
one day Psal 11 Quorum vivere est bibere and whose profane proverb it is Bibere sudare est vita Cardiaci But what an heathenish basenesse is that of the Papists besides an horrible abuse of Gods holy ordinance that at Rome a Jewish maid may not be admitted into the stews of whoredome unlesse she will first be baptized De contin lib. 3. cap. 4. Espensaeus a modest Papist writeth it not without detestation Verse 4. Yea and what have ye to do with me O Tyre c. Or what are yee to me I value you not but look upon you as vile persons how great soever in the world See Dan. 11.21 Or what have I to do with you what wrong have I done you that ye invade my land and molest my subjects It is an idle misprision to sever the sence of an injury done to any of his members from the head and it was a malapert demand of the devil What have I to do with thee O Jesus the Son of the living God whilest he vexed a servant of his But there is an old enmity betwixt them and their seed Gen. 3.15 and it will never be extinct while the world stands Israel had given Tyre and Zidon as little cause to quarrell them as once they had done Moab whom they had assured that they would not meddle nor molest them Howbeit Moab was distressed or irked fretted vexed at them Numb 22.3 carried with Satanicall malice against Gods people because of a different religion and sought their ruine Lo this was the case of Tyre Zidon and Palestine near neighbours but bitter enemies to the Church Bats flie against the light malice breaks all bonds and vents it self by utmost inhumanity Mercer understandeth by those nations verse 2 3. the open and professed enemies of the Church and by these neighbouring peoples here mentioned those more subtle adversaries that pretend love and can draw a fair glove upon a foul hand but will take the first opporunity to do the Saints a mischief and to spet their poyson at them This is an old stratagem of the Devil still practised by the Renegado Jesuites amongst us Will ye render me a recompense and if ye recompense me c. Num meritum mihi refertis an etiam infertis so some render it Whilest ye afflict my people is it to be avenged on me for an old injury I have done you or is it rather to pick a quarrell with me who have done you no wrong Surely whether it be this or the other I shall handle you according to your deserts swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense Repentè è vestigio â—ieere while you 'le say what 's this I will execute my fierce wrath upon you and you shall soon feel what it is despitefully to spit in the face of heaven and to wrestle a fall with the Almighty See Obad. 15. God cannot bear long with sins of this high nature He resisteth the proud persecutours Verse 5. Because yee have taken my silver c. Sacriledge is a second sinne they here stand charged with Yee have taken that is taken away by which obfervation ye shall easily reconcile the Psalmist Psal 68.19 with the Apostle Eph. 4.8 saith Tarnouius here my silver and my gold Aurum Thelosanum vessels consecrated to mine use and service or mine that is my peoples whom ye have robbed but it shall not thrive with you it shall prove as the gold of Tholouse fatall to them that had any part of it or as Achans wedge that cleft his body and soul asunder these ye have carried into your Temples or Palaces even my goodly pleasant things my desireable goods either to adorne your houses or your idols to your own bane as Belshazzar It is surely a snare to a man Prov. 20.25 who devoureth dedicated things that bowseth in the bowles of the Sanctuary And it was a sad complaint of Luther that even in the reformed Churches Parishes and Schools were robbed of their due maintenance as if they meant to starve us all Luth. in Gen. 47. The like saith Gualther in his Homily upon this Text Non desunt pseudo-evangelici saith He There want not such false-Gospellers amongst us who restore not the Church her wealth pulled out of the Papists fingers but make good that saying of One Possidebant Papistae possident Rapistae Papists had Church-livings and now Rapists have gotten them like as a good Authour observeth upon the battle of Montlecherye Comin l. 1. c. 4. that some lost their livings for running away and they were given to those that ran ten miles further Verse 6. The children also of Judah and the children of Ierusalem The precious sonnes of Zion comparable to fine gold Lam. 4.2 with whom you were anciently confederate in the dayes of Solomon 1 King 5. and seemed to be then their prosperity-proselytes have ye sold unto the Grecians that is to the Gentiles in generall for so Saint Paul oft useth the word Grecians as contradistinct ot Jews who were barbarously sold as if they had been bruit beasts and that into the farthest countries that they might never ransome themselves nor return to their native soil again This was singular yea savage cruelty which the mercifull God cannot abide but will severely punish Iam. 2.13 14. Esay 47.6 thou didst shew them no mercy upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid the yoke See the Babylonian cruelty graphically described and accordingly recompensed Ier. 51.34 35 c. The Spanish cruelty to the poor Indians is unspeakable They have made away 50 Millions of them in 42 years as Acosta the Jesuite testifieth and that under pretence of converting them to the faith They suppose they shew the wretches great favour World encompost by Sir Fr Drake when they do not for their pleasure whip them with cords and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon Such a devil is one man to another when set awork by the devil and spurr'd on by him But shall they thus escape by iniquity In thine anger cast down the people O God He will do it Psal 56.7 for those words are not more a prayer then a prophecy Verse 7. Behold I will raise them out of the place c. Seem it never so improbable or impossible I le do it saith God and you shall see it Behold I le fetch home my banished though they may seem to be as water spilt on the ground I le make those dead bones live and raise my self a name and a praise by out-bidding their hopes and marring your designe of utter extermination Ribera understands the words concerning the resurrection of the dead at the last day because the Hebrew word properly signifieth to raise one out of sleep Some think it is meant of the Apostles and Martyrs fetcht out of banishment as was John out of Pathmos Athanasius Erasm in vita Chrysost Chrysostom who yet in his last
as it were before all the world and partly also by his closing up his Prophesie with silence not striving with God for the last word as Peter did with Christ and would needes carry it till the event of things confuted him and he was glad to seek a corner to cry in Mat. 26.35 with 75. Verse 10. Then said the Lord He did not roare upon Jonah nor run upon him with a drawn sword even on his neck upon the thick bosses of his bucklers but gently said unto him that he might the more admire his own impotency and Gods lenity Iob 15.26 both which he studiously describeth all along this Prophesy a good signe of his sound repentance Thou hast had pitty on the gourd Here is the end scope and application of the parable whereby it apeareth that God prepared not the gourd so much for the ease and use of Jonah's body as for a medicine to his soule convincing him of the iniquity both of his wayes and wishes by an argument drawn from the lesse to the greater and confuting him by a comparison Thou a sinfull and wretched man hast had pitty Or spared and art sorry it perished The gourd a sorry shrub a meane mushrome and none of thine neither but as lent thee Alasse master said they it was but borrowed for the which thou hast not laboured And so canst not be so fast-affected to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ethic. l. 4. For all men love their own works rather then other mens as parents and poets saith Aristotle proving thereby that those which have received their riches from their parents are more liberall then they which have gotten them by their own labour neither madest it grow Thou hast neither planted nor watered it or any way added to it by thine industry for that also was no part of thy paines but mine Not that God laboureth about his creatures for he doth all his work without toole or toile Esa 40.28 but this as many other things in Scripture are spoken after the manner of men and so must be taken which came up in a night Heb was the son of a night not without a miracle though Pliny speak of the quick and wonderfull grouth of this shrub and perished in a night Citò oriens citò itidem moriens quickly come and as quickly gone a fit embleme of earths happinesse Surely man walketh in a vaine shew faeneâ quadam foelicitate temporaliter florens Aug. Ep. 120. they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb They are but Hemerobij their life is but a day and such a day too as no man is sure to have twelve houres to it as this gourd was but of one dayes continuance a it came up in a night so it perished the next citò crevit citò decrevit repentè prolatus repentè sublatus of very small continuance Tarnou Verse 11. And should not I spare Niniveh I who am all-bowels I who am a sin-pardoning God Neh. 9.31 none like me for that Mic. 7 18. I Ego emphaticum Mercer who am the Father of mercies and God of all comfort 2 Cor. 1.4 whose property and practise it is to comfort those that are cast down 2 Cor. 7.6 I who am so transcendently gratious that thou hast even hit me in the teeth with it ver 2. should not I be affected with the destruction of Niniveh that great city See Notes on chap. 1.2 and chap. 3.3 4. yea I will spare it sith it is ten thousand times more worth then that gourd of thine so much pittied wherein are more then sixscore thousand Persons more then twelve myriads of innocent infants that cannot discerne c. but live a kind of sensitive life as not yet come to the use of reason and are therefore matched and mentioned with beasts And also much cattle a part of my care which have had their share as they could in the common humiliation and shall therefore share in the common preservation And hast thou an heart to repine at this and not to be set down with so good reason Jonah is now sad and silenced and although we heare no further of him yet methinks I see him Iob. lik laying his hand upon his mouth in an humble yeeldance yea putting his mouth in the dust and saying Once have I spoken Job 40.5 but I will not answer yea twice but I will proceed no further Teach me and I will hold my tongue for thou hast caused me to understand wherein I have erred Job 6.24.25 How forcible are right words c. A COMMENT OR EXPOSITION Upon the Prophesie of MICAH CHAP. I. Verse 1. THe word of the Lord c. See the Note on Hos 1.1 to Micah the Morasthite to distinguish him from Micaiah the son of Imlah who prophecied in Ahabs dayes above an hundred yeares before this Micah the Morasthite so called from the place of his birth or abode which is made famous by him as Abdera was by Democritus Hippo by Austin and not He by it Ambrose saith hi◠name signifieth Quis iste who 's this who saith that Father in answer Not one of the common sort but an elect vessell to carry Gods name to his people Hierome from his title Morasthite interpreted calleth him Cohaeredem Christi Coheire with Christ of whom and his kingdome he sweetly Prophecieth and may therefore be called the Evangelicall Prophet as was Esay his contemporary with whom he hath many things common and this one thing above him that he nameth Bethlehem Christs birth-place chap. 5.2 for the which as well as for his boldnesse Ier. 26.18 he was famous in the Church Mat. 2.6 Ioh. 7.42 in the dayes of Iotham Ahaz Hezekiah Ahaz standeth between Iotham and Hezekiah as thistle or thorn between two lillyes or roses Manasseh comes after and degenerates into his grandfather Ahaz To his time Micah attained not much lesse to Josiahs as Isidore hath it for betwixt Iotham and Iosiah were an hundred and twenty yeares at least It is probable that Micah Prophesied forty yeares if not more wherein he saw many changes and met with many molestations had cause enough to cry out with his Colleague Who hath beleeved our report My leanenesse my leanenesse c. Yet held he on his course as being of Latimers mind who speaking in one of his sermons of a minister that gave this answer why he left off preaching viz. because he saw he did no good this saith Latimer is a naughty a very naughty answer which he saw sc with the eyes of his mind for the use of the Church whereto this prophesie comes commended first as the word of the Lord and secondly as extraordinarily revealed to this Prophet concerning Samaria and Ierusalem Samaria seemeth to be first named because most guilty before God They are yoked together because there was scrace ever a better Aholah and Aholibah sisters in sin and one the much worse for the others
compasse of a kingdome could counter-comfort when the morning is light they practise it And so they lose no time being up and at it by peep of day when others are fast asleep and so more easily surprised and circumvented by them The morning is the most precious part of the day and should be employed to better purpose But wickednesse proceedeth from the wicked as saith the proverb of the Ancients 1 Sam. 24.13 and as they like not to have God in their heads Psal 10.4 nor hearts Psal 14.1 so neither in their words Psal 12.4 nor wayes Tit. 1.16 but the contrary Surely satan is rightly called the God of this world because as God at first did but speak the word and it was done so if the devill do but hold up his finger give the least hint they are ready prest to practisey because it is in the power of their hand The Vulgar hath it Because their hand is against God and indeed the same word El signifieth God and Power The Seventy render it Because they have not lifted up their hands to God an exercise proper and fit for the morning Psal 5.4 The Tigurine Quia viribus pollent They have strength enough to do it Nihil cogitant quod non idem patrare ausint De Monachit Lutherus Their hand is to power so the Originall hath it that is saith Calvin quantum possunt tantum audent they dare do their utmost they will try what they can do their hand is ever ready to rake and scrape together commodity neither can they be hindred either by the feare of God or any respect to righteousnesse Ver. 2. And they covet fields and take them by violence See here the severall degrees of sin and what descents covetous men dig to hell and beware betimes Surely as the plot of all diseases lies in the humours of the body so of all sin in the lust of the soule The Heathen could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laertius Covetousnesse is called the lust of the eyes 1 Ioh. 2.16 because from looking comes lusting from lusting acting hence lusts of the soule are called deedes of the body Rom. 8.13 yea acting with violence they covet and take they rob and ravish Psal 10. there is neither equity nor honesty to be had at their hands but as they take away fields houses heritages shamelesly so they beare them away boldly and think to scape scotfree because it is facinus majoris abollae Juvenal the fact of a great one whose hand is to power as ver 1. and houses and take them away though a mans house be his castle as we say yet it cannot secure him from these cormorants Scribes and Pharises devoured widdowes houses Mat. 23.17 where was a concurrence of covetousnesse and cruelty for these seldome go sundred besides the putid hypocrisie of doing this under a pretence of long prayers A poor man in his house is like a snaile in his shell crush that and you kill him so they oppresse or defraud a man and his house Either by fraud or force by craft or cruelty they ruine a man a well-set man virum validum and his family 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his whole progeny which might not be done to the unreasonable creatures Deut. 22.6 This is to be like Vladus that cruel Prince of Valachia whose manner was together with the offendour to execute the whole family yea sometimes the whole kindred Ver. 3. Behold against this family do I devise an evill Turk hist fol. 363 They had devised iniquity ver 1. and now he deviseth their misery God usually retaliates and proportions provocation to provocation Deut. 32.21 frowardnesse to frowardnesse Psal 18.26 contrariety to contrariety Lev. 26.18 21. and device to device as here He loves to pay sinners home in their own coyne and to make them know by sad experience and see that it is an evill thing and bitter to forsake the Lord and his feare Jer. 2.19 Woe be to that man against whom the Almighty sets himself to devise an evill such an one shall find that thought is not free as that pestilent proverb would make it either from the notice of Gods holy eye the censure of his mouth or the stroak of his hand See Ier. 4.14 and 6.39 Rev. 2.23 Deut. 29.19 And this Nature it self had some notion of as appeareth by his censure who judged that Antiochus did therefore die loathsomely because he had but an intent to burn Diana's temple Polybius In declam Fecit quisque quantum voluit saith Seneca and â—ncesta est sine stupro quae stuprum cupit saith the same Authour Vaine thoughts are very sins and expose men to punishment these shall either excuse or accuse at the last day Rom. 2.15 Meane-while God is devising what to do to them he is preparing his bow and making ready his arrowes upon the string even a Tophet of the most tormenting temper will shortly swallow them up without true and timely Repentance From which ye shall not remove your necks It shall so halter and hamper you that like fishes taken in an evill net and as birds caught in a snare so shall ye be snared in an evill time when it falleth suddenly upon you Eccles 9.12 ye shall never be able either to avoide it Sic laqueos fera dum jactat astringit Sen. or to abide it But as the bird in a gin the fish on the hook the more it strives the more it sticks and as the bullock under the yoke the more he wriggles the more he galles so shall it be here Your faire necks that would not beare the easy yoke of Gods obedience shall be ridden on by the enemy and bound to your two furrowes Hos 10.10 11. yea a yoke of iron shall be put upon thee untill thou be destroyed Deut. 28.48 neither shall ye go haughtily Heb. Romah and hence haply Roma had its name from its height and haughtinesse according to that of the Poet atque altae moenia Romae Virg. 1. Aeneid The meaning here is God would deject and darken them so as that they shall utterly lose their former renown and splendour He will thrust them down as it were with a thump on the back and there hold them See Ezech. 21.26 27. the scene shall be changed and the haughty abased for this time is evill Both sinfully and penally evill The Apostle semeth to allude to this text when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Râ—deeme the time because the dayes are evill and Sufficient to the day is the evill thereof that is the misery of it saith Christ Mat. 6.34 And againe Those very dayes shall be affliction so the Greek text hath it Mark 13.19 as if the time were turned into affliction because of that evill that onely evill without mixture of mercy Ezech. 7.5 here foretold Ideo minatur Deus ut non puniat and therefore foretold that it might
was it here Balack consulted and Balaam answered him that is he was as willing to curse as the other would have had him but might not for God would not harken unto him but blessed his people still and delivered them out of his hand Iosh 24.10 Yea though at length he was resolved to curse howsoever and therefore went not forth as at other times to seek for inchantments but set his face toward the wildernesse as if he would do the deed whatever came of it Num. 24.1 Yet his indevour was fruitlesse and frustrate So shall the malicious attempts of Rome and Hell be against the Reformed religion and the Professors thereof whom the Romish Balaam banns and curses with bell book and candle at the instigation of the Spanish Balak with his factours the Jesuits so long as they adhere to him and pray as Psal 109.26 27 28 29. Help me O Lord my God O save me according to thy mercy That they may know that this is thy hand that thou Lord hast done it Let them curse but blesse thou When they arise let them be ashamed but let thy servants rejoyce c. Salvation is of the Lord his blessing is upon his people from Shittim unto Gilgal Oratio elliptica q. d. Remember what I did for you at Shittim in the wildernesse and so all the way untill you came into the promised land even to Gilgal where you first pitched tent Iosh 5.8 9 10. At Shittim it was where by the pestilent counsel of Balaam the devils spelman the Midianites out-witted them by setting faire women before them as a stumbling-block Num. 25.1 18. to draw them to those two sister-sins adultery and idoaltry Then and there Digni qui fuâ—ditus delerentur Gualth the heades of the people were hanged up before the Lord against the Sun and some others when as God might justly have cut them all off and cast them away from being a people before him Nonne illic refulsit admirabilis Dei gratia saith Calvin was not this a miracle of Gods mercy that ye may know the righteousnesse of the Lord i. e. the faithfulnesse and goodnesse of God in keeping promise with your fathers notwithstanding your provocations Or my righteous dealings with those fornicatours and adulterers whom I there judged preserving the innocent or penitent till they came to Gilgal and onwards Or that thou maist know how just my complaint is of thee and mine action against thee So Vatablus expounds it Verse 6. Wherewith shall I came before the Lord This is vox populi the voice of the people now convinced in part or at least of some one for them Praestat herbam dare quà m turpiter pugnare Better yeeld then disgracefully hold out the contest God say they hath the better of us neither need he now call upon heaven and earth to arbitrate nor on the mountaines and strong foundations to heare the quarrell for we are self-condemned Tit. 3.11 Our own consciences reade the sentence against us we have deserved to be destroyed but oh what may we do to avert and avoid his wrath what shall we do that we might work the works of God Ioh. 6.28 Loe this is the guise of gracelesse men faine they would pacifie God and work themselves into his grace and favour by ceremonies and frivolous businesses yea they offer largely for a dispensation to live in their sins which they had as liefe be knockt o' th' head as part with Intere à per flexuosos circuitus fing unt se ad Deum accedere In loc à quo tamen semper cupiant esse remoti saith Calvin they fetch a compasse about God but care not to come near him Heaven they would either steale if they could or buy at any hand if they might faine they would passe è coeno ad coelum à deliciis ad delicias from Dalilab's lap to Abrahams bosome faine they would as One saith dance with the devill all day and then sup with Christ at night They seem here very inquisitive and solicitous about their soules health they give the half-turn sed ad Deum usque non revertuntur but they return not even to God like a horse in a mill they move much but remove not at all like those silly women 2 Tim. 3.6 7. or as ants that run to and fro about a mole-hill but grow not greater and how my self before the high God Or shall I bow my self c. will that or any like bodily exercise please him or pacisy him if cringing or crouching will do it if sack-cloth and ashes if hanging down the head and going softly if pennances and pilgrimagts c. hypocrites do usually herein out-do the upright Doth the Publican look with his eyes on the ground the hypocriticall Jewes will hang down their heads like bulrushes Doth Timothy weaken his constitution by abstinence the Pharisees will never give over till his complexion be wholy withered and wanzed Doth Paul correct his body with milder correction as it were a blow on the cheek the Jesuite will martyr his sides with the severe discipline of scorpions But although God must be glorified with our bodies also 1 Cor. 6.20 and externall service is required what ever the Swenkfeldians say to the contrary yet Bodily exercise of it self profiteth little 1 Tim. 4.8 and let those that brag off or bind upon their outward worship of Christ consider that the devill himself in the demoniack of Gadara fell down and worshipped him What comfort can there be in that which is common to us with devils who as they beleeve and tremble so they tremble and worship The outward bowing is the body of the action the disposition of the soule is the soule of it shall I come before him with burnt-offerings c. shall I prevent him and propiciate him with holocausts shall I meet him marching against me and thus make my peace with him The Jewes were much in sacrifices till they wearied Gods soule therewith and all his senses Esay 1.13 14 15. but they were sacrificing Sodomites ver 10. they stuck in the bark they pleased themselves in the work done not attending the manner which either makes or marres every action and is mainely eyed by God their devotions were placed more in the massy materiality then inward purity and hence rejected David could tell through these Questionists could not that God desired not sacrifice further then as thereby men were led to Christ and that the sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit Psal 51.16.17 that no burnt offering is acceptable not calf of a yeare old unlesse laid on the low altar of a broken heat which sanctifieth the sacrifice Verse 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of ramms It was taken for a maxime among all nations that no man was to come before God empty-handed nor to serve him of free-cost And although Lycurgus the Lacedemonian made a law that no man should be at very great charge for a sacrifice lest he
striving as they say the toad doth to die with as much earth in their mouthes as may be till at length their Never-enough be quit with fire-enough in the bottom of hell Nenessan the Lawyer was wont to say He that will not venture his body shall never be valiant he that will not venture his soul never rich O curvae in terras animae coelestium inanes Is it nothing to lose an immortall soul to purchase an everlasting death to sink into the bottomlesse lake under this thick clay Verse 7. Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee Rent and tear thee as hunting-dogs do the beast they pursue See Esay 13.14 21. Jer. 58. and 51. The interrogation here used importeth both the certainty of the thing and their security as if no such thing could possibly befall them Suddenly therefore saith the Prophet shalt thou be surprized and spoyled by the Persians when thy city Babylon is held impregnable and boasteth of provision enough laid in for twenty years siege Security is the certain Usher of destruction as we see in Benhadads army and those Midianites Judg. 7. and the Amalekites 1 Sam. 30. and Pompeyes marching against Caesar and the French at the battle of Agincourt so confident they were of a victory that they sent to our King Henry 5. Speed 795. who was then in the field against them and gat the day to know what ransom hee would give c. Verse 8. Because thou hast spoyled many nations God loves to retaliate as hath before been oft observed to spoil the spoilers by a remnant of the people by such as were of no note and much unlikely to do such exploits Thus he spoiled these Babylonians by Cyrus and his Medes the Persians by Alexander and his Macedonians whom they so slighted that Darius in his proud Embassie to him called him his servant but himself the King of kings and Cousin of the gods So the Roman Empire was miserably rent and torn by the Gothes Vandals Hunnes Lombards people not before heard of and the Greek Empire by Turks Tartars Saracens Scythians c. taht it might the better appear haec non sine numine fieri that it was the Lords own doing who often suffers his enemies like Adoniah's guests to feast and frollick in a jocund security and promise of continued prosperity But at last when they are at the height of their joyes and hopes he confounds all their devises and layes them open to the scorne of the world and the spoyle of the remnant of the people whom they vilified because of mens blood Heb. bloods every drop whereof had a tongue to cry to God for vengeance saying Rev. 16.6 Psal 55.23 Give them blood to drink for they are worthy Oh let not bloody and deceitfull men live out half their dayes That souldier can never answer it to God that hath not a good cause and striketh not rather as a Justicer then as a souldier and for the violence of the land Heb. of the earth though principally of that land of desires the promised land and the inhabitants thereof whom he that touched touched the apple of Gods eye â—â—hon that little man in the eye that may not be medled with Zach. 2.8 of the city Jerusalem called the city by an excellency and by a better right then ever Rome was See Lam. 1.1 and Jeremies elegie there over it when captivated by these Chaldees Verse 9. Wee to him that coveteth an evill covetousnesse For there is a good covetousnesse which few are guilty of 1 Cor. 12.31 Covet earnestly the best guifts And yet shew I unto you a more excellent way Covet earnestly the best graces such as are faith hope and charity these better then gifts A shop full of barrells enrich not unlesse they be full of commodities Gifts as to heaven are but the lumber of a Christian 't is grace makes him rich toward God and of that he cannot be too covetous But the covetousnesse of the Caldeans here threatened and thundered against was of another nature It is called an evill covetousnesse and hath its name in the Originall of piercing or wounding as Joel 2.8 and fitly both in respect of a mans self 1 Tim. 6.10 and others Prov. 1.19 Am. 9.1 and here Woe to such and destruction too as Hos 7.13 The Lord to shew his just indignation against Covetous persons smiteth his fists at them as Balac did at Balaam Num. 24.10 See Ezek. 22.13 Behold I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gaine which thou hast made and at thy blood which hath been in the middst of thee Now lest people should object or conceive that those were but great words and that the Lord would not do so as he said or that they should deale well enough with Him therefore it followeth verse 14. Can thine heart endure or can thine hands be strong in the dayes that I shall deale with thee I the Lord have spoken and will do it to his house i. e. his family and posterity which he intends to advance but indeed undoes them by leaving them a cursed hoard of ill-gotten goods wherein they do them a greater displeasure then Joab and Gehezi did in leaving their children the leprosy for a legacy Iob speaketh chap. 15.34 as though the wicked when they set up their houses by pilling and polling by getting riches without right did but make a stack of wood and then comes a spark of Gods wrath and makes an end of all As in another place Brimstone saith He shall be scattered upon his habitation chap. 18.15 so that if the fire of Gods displeasure do but light upon it De vita Constant lib. 5. c. Thus Dioclesian that cruell persecutour had his house wholy consumed with lightening and a flame of fire that fell from heaven upon it as Eusebius tells us Add hereunto that many times there comes a son that is as good with a fork as his father was with a rake as great a spend-all as his father was a get-all that he may set his nest on high and there feather it at his pleasure see Obad 4. and secure his children like as the Eagle builds on high to save her yong from the serpent that seekes to destroy them that he may be delivered from the power of evill which he hat cause to feare from others to whom he hath been so injurious and oppressive But how will he be hid or freed from the terrours of his own guilty conscience well he may build cities with Cain and set up high towers with Phocas but what said the oracle to him Though thou set up thy strong-holds as high as heaven yet sin at the foundation thereof will soon overturn all and lay it levell with the ground Verse 10. Thou hast consulted shame to thy house c. Thou hast taken a wrong course both for thy house of the kingdome so the Persians called the kings palace Dan. 4.27 which shall be blown
Bragadochios Verse 9. Therefore as I live This is Gods oath so As true as I live Num. 14.21 with Psal 95.10 therefore they are to blame that use it in their common talk Surely Moab shal be as Sodom c. Whereas they think that I either hear not their revilings or regard them not I shall make Moab and Ammon smart and smoak for them even the breeding of nettles and salt pits They shall not indeed be consumed with fire from heaven but their land shall lie waste for a long season Nettles grow in barren places and are good for nothing unlesse it be the buds at first coming Pliny writeth Hist Nat. l. 31. c. 7. that where salt is digg'd little good else groweth See Judg. 9.45 Psal 107.34 for a perpetuall desolation Certain it is that those nations carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar were never restored but that in after-times a mixt multitude of vagrants out of many nations met there taking upon them the old title of Arabians and living by rapine and robbery Out of these came Mahomet founder of the Turkish Empire and Superstition who overturned the Christian Churches there planted by the Apostles as was here fore-prophecied The residne of my people shall spoil them c. See verse 7. Confer Gal. 1.17 and soon over-run all the East and South as Popery did all the West and North at the same time Verse 10. This shall they have for their pride Moabites were as much noted for their pride as now the Spaniards are and are therefore here devoted to destruction Pride goeth before a fall c. A bulging wall stands not long a joynt luxated and swelled till that be down cannot be set God resisteth the proud 1 Pet. 5.5 he bringeth those ungodly down to the ground Psal 147.6 because they have reproached c. And all this out of the pride of their hearts which breaketh out as a master-pock in their carriage so that the pride of Moab testifieth to his face and it shall be to him an abomination of desolation Verse 11. The Lord will be terrible unto them For he shall march forth in battle-array against proud persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 5.5 and stain the pride of all their glory he will pull them down from their pinacle of self-exaltation and make them know themselves to be but men Attilas king of the Hunnes proudly gave out that the starres fell before him the earth trembled at his presence and that hee would bee the scourge of all nations But what became of him He died suddenly by a flux of blood P. Jovius breaking out at his mouth and choking him on his wedding-day at night It were easie to instance further in Pharaoh Nebuchadnezzar Antiochus Herod the king of Tyre Psal 76.12 c. With God is terrible Majesty Job 37.22 he is terrible to the kings of the earth whiles he cutteth off their spirits Heb. he slippeth them off as one should slip off a flower betwixt ones fingers or a bunch of grapes off the vine so soon is the businesse done For he will famish all the gods of the earth He will cast them into an atrophy into a consumption This was fulfilled partly when Nebuc◠adnezzar destroyed the Nations Dan. 4. and proclaimed the true God to be the onely God but principally when Christ came in the flesh and sent out his Apostles to decry those Heathen deities and to preach the everlasting Gospel saying with a loud voice Fear God and give glory to him c and worship him that made heaven earth sea and fountains of waters Rev. 14.7 Now it was that Satan fell like lightening from heaven the oracles were silenced the Heathen Emperours amazed at the prevailing power of the Gospel in despite of them the very names of most of the gods of the earth were abolished the Temple of Apollo at Delphos fired from heaven and at that very time when Julians embassadours were there to enquire what should be the issue of the Persian warr Thus the Heathen superstition fell flat to the ground their gods were famished for want of worshippers and sacrifices c. And the same we hope and wait for to befall the Antichristian rout and religion That Idol is grown very leane and hath lost a collop as we say Bellarmine is very sensible Lib. 3. de Pont. Rom. cap. 21. and bewailes the businesse that ever since we began to count and call the Pope Antichrist he hath suffered no small decayes and losses in the christian churches He hath indeed and more and more shall do till he be left as leane as a rake and all his plumes pulled his credit crackt his honour laid in the dust and men shall worship him Heb. bow down to him He is thy Lord and bow thou down unto him Psal 45.11 Body and soule both must stoop to God Zanchy and both at once 2 Cor. 6.20 Swenck feldians Stinkfeldians Luther called them from their ill savour take away all externall service so do the Nicodemites Hypocrites draw nigh to God with their lipps only when their hearts are elsewhere their bodies are in sacellis their hearts in sacculis as Ezek. 33.31 But the true Israelites give God both inward and outward worship he doth ponere dextram in pectore as Persius phraseth it being shod with the preparation of the Gospel he treads it not awry neither too much outward as the formalist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor too much inward as the Swenckfeldian He looks upon our late worship-scorners our high-attainers as the last brood of Beelzebub and reckons that to cast off ordinances is to cast away the remedy 2 Chron. 36.15 16. Prov. 29.1 every one from his place Not at Jerusalem only as once Ioh. 4.21 but in all places pure hands and hearts shall be lift up without wrath without doubting 1 Tim. 2.8 both in church and chamber any place whatsoever shall be a sufficient oratory so that God be worshipped in spirit and in truth and the publike not neglected even all the Isles of the Heathen that is all countries though not encompassed with the sea for the Jews called all lands Islands which they could not come at but by water That God shall be worshipped in the foure corners of the earth see the Note on Deut. 6.4 It was the last speech of dying Chrysostom Glory be to God from all creatures Let the Jesuites at the end of their books subscribe Laus Deo beatae Virgini Let this be the badge of the Beast let us cry To God alone be glory all the world ever Verse 12. Ye Ethiopians also ye shall be slaine by my sword which is long enough to reach you though far remote The Poets faine that Jupiter was wont to be feasted by the Ethiopians but that shall not save them from Gods sore and great strong sword Nebuchadnezzar to whom God had given Ethiopia and Egypt and Saba as a ransome for his people
that our special care should be to give God his due to seek first the kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and then all other things shall seek us Cicero Caetera aut aderunt aut caetera non oberunt But most people are so busied about their own houses their cottaeges of clay the body that Gods house 2 Cor. 5.1 the soul lies wast and neglected the lean kine eat up the fat the strength of the ground is spent in nourishing weeds Earthly mindednesse sucketh the sap of grace from the heart as the Ivy doth from the Oake and maketh it unfruitfull Men are so taken up about the world that they think not on Gods kingdome as the Duke of Alva told the French king Fren. Hist who asked him whether he had observed the late great Eclipse No said he I have so much to doe upon earth that I have no leisure to look toward heaven But is not one thing necessary and all other but by-businesses And have we not in our dayly prayer five petitions for spirituals and but one for temporals Are we not taught to make it our first request that Gods name may be hallowed though our turnes should not be served Is not Esau stigmatized for selling his birth-right for a messe of broth And is not Shemei chronicled for a foole Heb. 12.16 who by seeking after his servants lost his life Pope Sixtus for a mad man that sold his soul to the devil to enjoy the Popedome for seven years what shall it profit a man to win the world and lose his own soul to win Venice and then be hanged at the gates thereof as the Italian proverb hath it Surely such a mans losse will be 1. Mat. 16. Incomparable 2. Irreparable for what shall a man give in exchange of his soul It was no evill counsel that was given to John the third King of Portugal to meditate every day a quarter of an hour on that divine sentence It would be time well spent to ponder as oft and as long together on this Text Is it time for you O ye that are so sharp set upon the world so wholly taken up about your private profits your pleasures and preferments to sit in your ceiled houses as Ahab once did in his ivory Palace or Nebuchadnezzar in his house of the kingdome as he vain-gloriously calleth it Dan. 4.30 and Gods house lie waste and his service neglected to whom we owe our selves 1 Cor. 6.19 our lives Mat. 16.25 our parents children friends means Mat. 19.29 our gifts and abilities 1 Cor. 4.7 our honours and offices Psal 2.10 11 12. all that we are and have How justly may God curse our blessings Job 16.15.16.18 21. 1 Cor. 12.21 as he threateneth these selfe-seeking God-neglecting Jews both here and Mal. 2.2 scatter brimstone upon our houses drp up our roots beneath and above cut off our branches drive us from light into darknesse and chase us out of the world with his terrours Col. 3.2 Phil. 2.21 Surely such are the ceiled dwellings of the wicked and this is the place of him that knoweth not God that inverteth the order appointed of him by coveting not the best guists but an evil covetousnesse Hab. 2.9 by setting his affections not on things above but on things on the earth by seeking their own things every man and not the things of Jesus Christ Verse 5. Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts Haggai was but a yong man saith Epiphanius Now therefore lest any one that heard him should despise his youth and slight his doctrine he shews his authority he comes to them cum priviligio he delivers not the conceptions of his own brain but the Word and mind of God For as Chrysostom saith of St. Paul so may we say of all the rest of the pen men of the Holy Scripture Cor Pauli est cor Christi their heart is Christs own heart and their words are to be received reverenced and ruminated not as the words of mortal men but as they are indeed the words of the everliving God 1 Thes 2.13 Greg. in Reg 3 Excellently spake he who called the Scripture Cor animam Dei the heart and soul of God It is every whit of it divinely inspired or breathed by God saith the Apostle and is profitable both for reproof and for instruction in righteousnesse 2 Tim. 3.16 See an instance hereof in this Text together with the Prophets rhetorical artifice in first chiding and now directing them to reprove and not withal to instruct is to snuffe the lamp but not powre in oyle that may feed it consider your wayes Heb. set your hearts upon them diligently recogitate and recognize your evil doings and so shall ye soon find out the cause of your calamity Judge your selves so shall ye not be judged of the Lord accept of the puntshment of your iniquity so iniquity shall not be your ruine your ruth but not your rums Capite consilium ex rebus ipsis velexperiment is Learn at least by the things ye have suffered Let experience the mistrisse of fooles reduce you to a right mind Lay to heart your manifold miseries those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one calleth them Free Schoolmasters curst enough and crabbed but such as whereby God openeth mens ears to discipline and eyes to observation of his works and their own wayes Job 36.8 9 10. according to that of Ezechiel chap. 40.4 Son of man behold with thine eye and hear with thine ears and set thy heart upon all that I shall shew thee c. the senses must be exercised that the heart may be affected with the word and works of God according to that mine cye affecteth my heart Lam. 3.51 and Solomon gat much of his wisedom by observation as appeareth by his Ecclesiastes which some have not unfitly called Solomons Soliloquy It is but little that can be learn'd in this life without due and deep Consideration which is nothing else but an act of the Practical understanding whereby it reflects and staies upon its own intentions and comparing them with the rule it proceeds to lay a command upon the will and Affections to put them in execution Thus David considered his wayes and finding all out of order he turned his feet to Gods testimonies Psal 119.59 And to still Gods enemies Psal 4.4 he bids them commune with their own hearts and be still or make a pause viz. till they have brought their consideration to some good upshot and conclusion For when consideration hath soundly enlightened a mans mind informed his judgement according to that light that candle held to his mind and determined is will according to that judgement it must needs bring forth sound resolutions purposes and practises as it did in the Ninivites Ephraim Ier. 31.19 Iosiah 2 Chron. 34.27 the Prodigal Luke 15. the Church in Hosea chap. 2.6.7 She considered she was crossed and hedg'd in with afflictions and resolveth to return to
servants and services never the like known we pull upon our land Amos his famine not of bread but which is a thousand-fold worse of hearing the words of the Lord. A famine long since foretold and feared by our Martyrs and Confessours Am. 8.11 and now if ever if God forefend not in procinctu to fall upon us as the most unworthy and unthankfull people that ever the Sun of heaven beheld or the sun of Christs Gospel shone upon so fair and so long together The best way of prevention is prevision and reformation beginning at our own as Gidcon did at his fathers houshold Judg. 6.27 And the best Almanack we can rely upon for seasonable weather and the lengthening of our tranquillity is our obedience to God love to our neighbours care of our selves c. Verse 12. Then Zerubbabel the sonne of Shealtiel c. So mighty in operation so quick and powerfull is the good word of God in the mouthes of his faithfull Ministers when seconded and set on by his holy Spirit See for this Esay 55.10 11. Jer. 23.28 29. Act. 19.20 1 Cor. 14.24 25. Heb. 4.12 See that scala coeli ladder of heaven as One calleth it Rom. 10.14 15. and consider how mightily the word of God grew and prevailed in those primitive times It spread thorow the world like a Sun beam saith Eusebius it was carried about into all places as on Eagles or rather as on Angels wings Athanasius of old and Luther alate were strangely upheld and prospered against a world of Opposites to the truth they preached Melch. Adâ—m in vit Farel Farellus gained five great cities with their territories to Christ How admirably and effectually King Edward the sixth was wrought upon by a sermon of Bishop Ridleys touching works of charity see his life written by Sir John Heywood Pag. 169 170 c. It is the spirit that quickeneth the seed of the word and maketh it prolificall and generative And as in the body there are veins to carry the blood and arteries to carry the spirits that quicken the blood so is it with the word and spirit in the soul If Gods Spirit open not mans heart the word cannot enter If he illighten not both Organ and Object Christ though never so powerfully preacht is both unkent and unkist as the Northern Proverb hath it The word heard profited them not because not mixt with faith in them that heard it Heb. 4.2 They heard it onely with the hearing of the ear with that gristle that grew on the outside of the head whereas they should have drawn up the inward ear to the outward that one and the same sound might have pierced both But this all that hear cannot do because all are not of God Joh. 8.47 and so have not his ear-mark spirituall senses habitually exercised to discern good and evil Heb. 5. ult they have an heavy ear which is a singular judgement Esay 6.10 With all the remnant of the people i.e. The generality of the returned captives followed their leaders A remnant they are called because but few in comparison of those many hedge-rogues Mr. Dyke calleth them potters they are called 1 Chro. 4.23 men of base and low spirits that dwelt still in Babylon among plants and hedges being the base brood of those degenerated Israelites who when liberty was proclaimed for their return to Jerusalem chose rather to get their living by making pots for the king of Babylon These are ancient or rather obsolete things as Junius rendreth it worn out and forgotten and indeed they deserve to be utterly forgotten and not written or reckoned among the living in Jerusalem Esay 4.3 Obeyed the voyce of the Lord their God with the obedience of faith and this they did by the good example of their Rulers Thus when Crispus the chief Ruler of the Synagogue beleeved many of the Corinthians beleeved also Acts 18.8 When the kings of Judah were good or evil the people were so likewise Great men are the looking-glasses of their countrey according to which most men dresse themselves Qualis Rex talis grex Why compellest thou the Gentiles said Paul to Peter sc by thine example to Judaize Gal. 2.14 and the words of Haggai the Prophet whose mouth God was pleased to make use of And this is added for a confirmation of the Prophets calling to the work because of long time before there had been no Prophet among the people nor any to tell how long as the Church complaineth Psal 74.9 as the Lord their God had sent him Heb. according as the Lord their God had sent him after the same manner they heard and obeyed the Prophet as the Lord had sent him they did not wrest his words to a wrong sence nor did they question his Commission but receiving it as the word not of man but of God they set forthwith upon the work yeelding as prompt and present obedience as if God with his own mouth had immediately spoken to them from heaven and the people did fear before the Lord as if He himself had been visibly present in his own person So Saint Peters hearers Acts 10.33 Now therefore say they we are all here present before God to hear all things commanded thee of God If young Samuel had known that it was the Lord that called him once and again he would not have returned to his bed to sleep If men were well perswaded that the God of heaven bespeaks them by his faithfull Ministers they would not give way to wilfull wandrings but hear as for life and fear to do any thing unworthy of such a presence they would work out their salvation with fear and trembling yea work hard at it as afraid to be taken with their task undone Psal 103. â—3 Eccles 12. They that fear the Lord will keep his covenant saith David Fear God and keep his commandements saith Solomon And in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousnesse is accepted of him saith Peter Acts 10.35 Verse 13. Then spake Haggai the Lords messenger Or Angel See the Note on Mal. 1.1 Then speaks Namely on the four and twentieth day of the moneth as it is in the last verse untill which day they had been building for three weeks together But Governour Tatnai and his complices came upon them and discouraged the people and hindred the work Ezra 5.3 It was but need full therefore that Gods command should be repeated and a speciall promise added I am with you saith the Lord. Where we may well take up that of Tully concerning Brutus his Laconicall Epistle Quam multa quà m paucis how much in a little I am with you saith the Lord you need not therefore fear what man can do unto you God is All-sufficient to those that are Altogether his See 2 Chron. 15.2 Cint 2.15 The Church is called Jehovah Shammah that is The Lord is there Ezek. 48.35 God is in the middest of her shee shall not be moved Psal 46.5 Immota
resolve cases of conscience as they It was their office Levit. 10.10 11. Deut. 33.10 Mal. 2.7 See the Note there It was an evil time with Gods people when he was put to complain who is blind but my servant or deaf as my messenger that I sent Isay 42.19 Viu in Aug. de civ Dei l. 4. c 1. When the Prophet was a foole the spiritual man was mad for the multitude of their iniquity and the great hatred Hos 9.7 Varro upbraided the Roman Priests of old with their grosse ignorance of many things in point of their own rites and religions and Cicero brake a jest upon C. Popilius an ignorant Lawyer at Rome For when Popilius being called for a witnesse to some controversy answered Nihil se scire that hee knew nothing Cicero answered by way of jear Put as fortasse te de jure interrogari you mean perhaps that you know nothing in the law which yet you professe to have skill in What a shame was it for the Pharisees who took upon them to be guides of the blind teachers of babes c. Rom. 2.19.20 to be found blind leaders of the blind Mat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enniâ—s 15 So is it for Divines being asked concerning the Law or will of God in such and such cases not to be able to answer discreetly and intelligently as he did Mark 12.34 as an egregie cordat us homo But so bungler-like and so farre from the purpose that it my well be seene that desiring to be teachers of the Low they underst and neither what they say nor whereof they affirme 1 Tim. 1.7 How like the motion of a puppet the language of a Parret is the discourse of such unlearned or uninteressed Casuists Every Minister of Gods making can truly say The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know to time a word to him that is weary he wakeneth morning by morning he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned Esay 50.4 See 1 Cor. 12.8 Tit. 1.9 Eph. 3.4 7.1 Cor. 2.13 Verse 12. If one bear holy flesh in the skirt c. problemes and parables are notable helps to the bolting out of the truth and conviction of the gainsayers For problemes see Mat. 21.25 Mat 22.42 c. For parables see Judg. 9. that of Jotham Mat. 21. Mat. 22. Mat. 13. of Nathan 2 Sam. 12. of the woman of Tekoah 2 Sam. 14. of our Saviour concerning the two brethren sent into the Vincyard the wedding of the Kings son the sower c. See the Note on verse 10. and the Priests answered and said no Roundly and readily without hacking and hewing without doubling and dissembling as those perverse priests those selfe-condemned Hierophants Mat. 21.27 that against their consciences answered Iesus and said We cannot tell The wit of gracelesse persons will better serve them to faulter and fumble deny or devise a thousand shifts to evade and elude the truth then their malice will suffer them to yeeld to it or professe it This is to detain the truth in unrighteousnesse Rom. 1.18 as Plato who had the knowledge of One God yet he dared not to communicate it to the vulgar and as some of the chief champions of Popery who held justification by faith alone but refused to say so lest their Dagon should down their Diana be despised Let every spiritual man but especially Ministers be ready as to every good work so to this of comparing spiritual things with spirituall that he may judge or discerne of all things 1 Cor. 2.13.15 according to the analogy of faith Rom. 12.6 the tenour of the Scriptures his sure Cynosura and laying up all in his heart Luke 2.18 he may have a treasure there of new and old a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge â—00 1 Cor. 12.8 both as a Teacher and as a Pastour to bring forth for common benefit Verse 13. If one that is unclean by a dead body with a ceremonial uncleannesse The Hebrew hath it thus If one that is unclean in soul that is in his whole person as every wicked man is totus totus pollutus wholly covered with corruption a lothsome leper from head to foot wholly set upon sin as Exod. 32.22 lying down in wickednesse or in that wicked one 1 John 5.19 sick of such a disease as the Physicians call corruptionem totius substantiae nay dead in sins and trespasses Eph. 2.1 and can therefore doe no better then dead work at best Heb. 9.14 such as the living God will not be served with ibid. See the note on Mal. 3.16 doct 4. Use 1. He is unclean unclean and impureth all that hee toucheth according to that which followeth Verse 14. So is this people and so is this Nation before me Though pure in their own eyes Prov. 30.12 and to the world-ward unrebukeable as Paul the Pharisees Phil. 3. and those self-iustitiaries Luke 16.14 15. Ye are those that justifie your selves and have the worlds good word for you but God knoweth your hearts for that which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God Sordet in conspectu judicis quodfulget in conspectu operantis Splendida pecca u. Am. 6.13 Wicked mens services are but glistering sinnes they rejoâ—ce in a thing of naught as Amos hath it like as Leah rejoyced in that whereof She had cause to repent and said God hath given me my hire when she had more cause to say God I fear will give me my hire my payment because I have given my maiden to my husband Gen. 30.18 But she was in the common errour of measuring and judging of things by the successe as if God were not many times angry with men though they outwardly prosper or as if there were not here one event to the clean and to the unclean Eccles 9.2 Uutill the day that God shall separate the sheep from the goates whom for the glory of his name and the good of his people he suffers for present to goe one among another to make his own to stick the faster together and to their principles Shepheards say that it is wholsome for a flock of sheep to have some goats to feed amongst them their bad scent being good Physick for the sheep to keep them from the shakings Onely let Gods sheep take heed that they contract no corruption by conversing with goats which is soon done for sinne is catching and ill company is contagious Nemoerat sibi ipsi sed dementiam spargit in proximos saith Seneca No man erres out of the right way alone but drawes others along And multos sollicitat soâ—iet as nefanda saith Chrysostom evil company solliciteth many to sinke virtue is oft overcome by vice saith Nazianzen Orat. 1. Apolog as a little wormwood sooner imbittereth a great deal of hony then twice so much honey can sweeten a small deal of wormwood Or as one spoonfull of vineger will soon tart a great deal of sweet milk
was straitned for them because I saw that they received my grace in vain and considered not of my care for their good Theodotion and Srmmackus render it Anima mea exanimata est I am dispirited as it were and even disheartened to do any more for them and their soul also abhorred me And so they became God-haters as Rom. 1.30 and therefore hateful to God Tit. 3.3 hateful as hell so the word imports yea more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and worse for hell is but an effect of Gods justice but wickednesse is a breach of his Law The Prophet here seemeth to allude to those murmurers in the wildernesse that disdainfully cryed out Our soul loatheth this light bread Num. 21.5 Let Gods servants take heed how they hang loose toward him and lest by disuse and discontinuance of a duty there grow upon them an alienation of affection a secret disrelishing and nauseating at that which we oughtmost deeply to affect and duely to perform Surely as loathing of meat and difficulty of breathing are two symptomes of a sick body so are carelesnesse of hearing and irksomness of praying two sure signes of a sick soul Verse 9. Then said I I will not feed you Now the wrath of the Lord arose against his people so that there was no remedy as 2 Chron. 36.16 Now his decree brought forth Zeph. 2.2 Now he growes implacable inexorable peremptory Wherein neverthelesse the Lord might very well break forth into that speech of the Heathen Emperour when he was to passe sentence upon a malefactour Non nisi coactus I would not do this if I could do otherwise Christ could not tell Ierusalem without tears that her day of grace was expired that her destruction was determined As a woman brings not forth without pain as a hee stings not till provoked so neither doth God proceed against a sinfull people or person till there be an absolute necessity lest his truth and justice should be questioned and slighted See Ezek. 12.22 23 24 25. Fury is not in God till our sins put thunderbolts into his hands and then who knoweth the power of his anger Psal 90.11 Es 33.14 who can abide with everlasting burnings If he but cast a man off as here and relinquish the care of him he is utterly undone Saul found it so and complaines dolefully but without pitty that God had forsaken him 1 Sam. 28.15 and the Philistines were upon him all miseries and mischief came rushing into him as by a sluce Let us so carry matters that God may not abandon us that he may not refuse to feed us and take the charge of us as a shepheard He yet offereth us this mercy as Alexande did those he warred against while the lamp burned that that dieth let it die viz. of the murraine or pestilence For man being in honour if God but blow upon him abideth not but is like the beasts that perish pecoribus morticinis saith Tremellius the beasts that die of the murrain Vatablus thinks pestilence sword and famine are here threatened under the names of death of cutting off and of devouring one another All which befell the refractary Jews in the last siege the history whereof will make any mans heart bleed within him that hath but the least spark of grace or good nature It went hard with them when the rest that the pestilence and sword had left fell to eating the flesh one of another when the mother killed and boyled the dead body of her harmlesse suckling and eating the one half reserved the other for another time Behold O Lord and consider to whom thou hast done this saith the Prophet Shall the women eat their fruit and children of a span long Lam. 2.20 Oh the misery or rather mock of mans life And oh the venemous nature of sinne that moves God who is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man-hater but delights in mercy to deal so severely with his poor creature Verse 10. And I took my staffe even Beauty and cut it asunder In token that he had cast off his office of shepherd he breaks his staffe the ensigne and instrument of his office and this in token that he had broke his covenant which hee had made with all the people ◠i. e. with all the tribes of Israel which were as so many severall peoples over whom God had reigned but now rejected and in whom He delighted more then in all the nations of the world besides The Saints are called All things Colos 1.20 because they are of more worth then a world of wicked men Heb. 11.38 And the Jews have a saying that those seventy souls that went with Iacob into Egypt were as much as all the seventy Nations in the world What great account God once made of them above others see Esay 43.3 4. Deut. 33.29 But now behold they are discarded and discovenanted I have broken my covenant and ver 11. it was broken in that day that is in the day that they put themselves out of my precincts I put them out of my protection That peace that I had granted to my people that they should bee no more molested by any strange Nation which was verified from the time of the Maccabees till a little before the coming of Christ shall now be forfeited The glory is departed the Beauty broken in pieces the golden head of the picture Religion defaced and good order banished all things out of order both in Church and State for so they were when Christ came to his own and his own received him not he found them in Dothan that is in Defection as Ioseph found his brethren therefore he now disowns and disavowes them as much as once he did when they had made a golden calf Thy people which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves saith God to Moses upon whom he now fathereth them Exod. 32 7 as if he had never been in covenant with them Danaeus upon this Text concludeth that the Jews are now strangers from the covenant of God and that this is hereby confirmed for that they are without Baptisme the seal of the covenant Verse 11. And it was broken in that day When they filled up the measure of their fathers sinnes and added this to all their other evils that they crucified the Lord of glory the Mediatour of the new Covenant Heb. 12.24 Now they were by an irrevocable decree to bear their iniquities and to know Gods breach of promise as once was threatened to their faithlesse fathers Num. 14.24 and so the poor of the slock i. e. the lowly and meek Mat. 11.19 the Apostles and other of wisdomes children these all justified her and glorified God when they saw his severity against their refractary countreymen Euseb Hist lib. 3. cap. 5. and themselves sweetly secured and provided for at Pella See the Note on verse 7. that waited upon me Heb. that observed me by obeying my precepts Pagnine tendreth it
expanse as a curtain or as a molten looking-glasse Job 37.18 Job 26.7 2. From the wisdome of God in laying the foundation of the earth and hanging it by Geometry as we say in the midst of heaven like Archimedes his pigeon equally poized with its own weight Terra pilae similis nullo fulcimine nixa Ovid. Fast l. 5 Aere subjecto tam grave pendet onus 3. From the goodnesse of God who formeth the spirit of man within him who hath made us these souls Esay 57.16 which he doth daily create and infuse into mens bodies yea and that alone without any help of their parents hence hee is called the Father of spirits Heb. 12.9 and the spirit of a dying man is said to return to God that gave it Eccles 12.7 This last text convinced Augustine who held sometime with Origen that the soul as well as the body was begotten by the parents farre more then the peremptory rashnesse of Vincentius Victor who censured boldly the Fathers unresolvednesse Chemnitius when hee doubted concerning the originall of a rationall soul and vaunted that he would prove by demonstration that souls are created de novo by God Aristotle Natures chief Secretary was much puzled about this point of the soul which indeed cannot fully bee conceived of nor defined by man Onely this we can say that the soul as it comes from God so it is like him viz. One immateriall immortall understanding Spirit distinguisht into three Powers which all make up one Spirit Verse 2. Behold I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling Or slumber or poyson A Metaphor taken from a cup of generous wine but empoysoned so that those that drink of it do presently tremble grow giddy sleepy sick as heart can hold Poyson in wine works more furiously Thou hast made us to drink the wine of giddinesse saith the Church Psal 60.3 In the hand of the Lord is a cup and the wine is red it is full mixed c. The Prophet here seems to allude to Jer. 25.15 Esay 29.8 Jer. 31.7 Ovid saith of the river Gallus that whoso drinketh of it runneth mad immediatly Hierom telleth of a Lake neer Naples whereinto if a dog be thrown he presently dieth The like is reported by Josephus of the Lake Asphaltites Jerusalem shall be a murthering morsell to those that swallow it His meat in his bowels is turned it is the gall of aspes within him Hee hath swallowed down her spoil and he shall vomit it up again Job 20.14 15 God shall rake it out of his belly He shall have as little joy of his tid-bits of his sweet draughts as Jonathan had of his honey whereof he had no sooner tasted but his head was forfeited Pliny speaketh of a kind of honey that poysoneth because it is sucked out of poysonous flowers Our Chronicler telleth us Speed 1210. that at Alvelana three miles from Lisbon many of our English souldiers under the Earl of Essex perished by eating of honey purposely left in the houses and spiced with poyson The enemies of the Church make a dangerous adventure they are even ambitious of destruction they run to meet their bane as did those Philistines at Mizpeh 1 Sam. 7. And had they but so much wit as Pilats wife in a dream they would take heed of having any thing to do with those just men of eating up Gods people as they eat bread Psal 14.4 of bowsing in the bowles of the Sanctuary with Baltasar who fell thereupon into a trembling Dan. 5.6 so that his loyns were loosed and his knees knockt one against another when they shall be in the siege And so about to do their last and worst against the Church The people of Rome was saepe praelio victus nunquam bello saith Florus they lost many battles but were never overcome in a set warre at the last at the long-runne as they say they crushed all their enemies so doth the Church See Psal 129. thorowout and the story of the Maccabees Verse 3. I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone Such a stone as that wherewith the woman brake Abimelech his brainpan at the tower of Thebez Judg. 9.53 He had slain all his brethren upon one stone verse 5. he receives therefore his deaths-wound by a stone and that by the hand of a woman which was his greatest grief The like death befell Pyrrhus king of Epirotes slain at the siege of Argos with a tyle thrown by a woman from the wall So was Earl Simon Mountfort that bloody persecutour of the Albigenses in Irance A woman discharged an engine at him Cades Justif of the Church from the walls of Tholouse and by a stone parted his head from his shoulders The virgin daughter of Zion shall do as much as all this comes to for her besiegers though all the people of the earth be gathered together against her For why she hath a strong champion that in maintaining her quarrell will dash them to pieces and grind them to powder Luke 20.18 They are no more able to stand before him then a glasse-bottle before a cannon-shot Hence her confidence her laughing and shaking her head by way of derision at her stoutest enemies Esay 37.22 She knows that all that burden themselves with her shall be cut in pieces Hamans wife could tell so much If Mordecai said she be of the seed of the Jews Esih 5.13 before whom thou hast begun to fall thou shalt not prevail against him but shalt surely fall before him A Jew may-fall before a Fersian and get up and prevail But if a Persian or whosoever of the Gentiles begin to sall before a Jew he can neither stay nor rise There is an invisible hand of omnipotency that strikes in for his own and confounds their opposites That little stone cut out without hands Christs humane nature is called a tabernacle not made with hands not of this building Heb. 9.11 that is not by an ordinary course of generation smiteth the four mighty Monarchies and crumbleth them to crattle Dan. 2.34 Hierom upon this text and after him other Interpreters both Ancient and Modern tell us that the Holy Ghost here alludeth to a certain exercise or game used much among the Jews namely to take up a great round stone for the triall of a mans strength lifting it up from the ground sometimes to the knees sometimes to their navels sometimes to their breasts and sometimes as high as their heads or above their heads At which sport many times they did grievously hurt themselves or at least scarify and make cuts in their flesh See Levit. 21.5 where the same word is used The Churches enemies shall strive and try who shall do her most hurt but the stoutest of them all shall be fooled and foiled in the end The irrepairable ruine of Rome is graphically described and even set forth to the eye Rev. 18.21 by a notable gradation An Angel a mighty Angel taketh a stone a great stone
their holinesse as Davids children were by their garments of diverse colours For as he that hath called them is holy so are they also holy and that in all manner of conversation and communion too even when they deale with carnal men and in common matters and the pots in the Lords house shall be like the bowles before the Altar All this must be understood of the spirituall service which should be in the Christian church described by the ancient ceremonial service as Isa 60.7 and 66.23 Mal. 1.11 And it is to shew that the efficacy force and operation of the holy Ghost shall be far more plentifull through Christ in the Church of the Gospell then it was in times past under the law See Heb. 8.6 Eph. 3.5 Isa 44.3 4. Verse 21. Yea every pot in Ierusalem c. That is saith Danaeus God shall as God-like be worshiped of every faithfull person in his own house as he was of old in his Temple by the Jews Calvin adds ut quicquid aggrediantur homines sit sacrificium so that whatsoever good men enterprize shall be a sacrifice God shall smell a savour of rest from them they of life and peace from him there shall be no more the Canaanite The merchant saith the vulgar after Aquila and the Chaldee that is the Simoniack the Church-chopper such mony-merchants as Christ whipt out of the Temple Mat. 21.12 Ioh. 2.15 But better render it Canaanite The Phenicians those great merchants were Canaanites who were indeed great Merchants Hos 12.7 Ezek. 17.4 but here it stands for a wicked man an hypocrite that botch of Christian society Pura erit Ecclesia ab omnibus inquinamentis saith Calvin the Church shall be purged of all such Pests See Rev. 22.27 no such owles shall be seen flying in the Churches welkin God will by the due exercise of discipline and otherwise be daily purging out all scandals as such men are called Mat. 13.41 and causing the unclean spirit to passe out of the land Zach. 13.2 I conclude with Theodoret Dominus Omnipotens hanc vocem veram esse hoc tempore praestet c. God Almighty make good this promise unto us at this time that there may be no cursed Canaanite found amongst us but that we may all live according to the doctrine of the Gospell and expect that blessed hope and comming of the great God our Saviour Jesus to whom with the Father and holy Spirit be glory for ever Amen A COMMENT OR EXPOSITION Upon the Prophesie of MALACHI CHAP. I. Verse 1. THE burden that is the burdenous Prophecy as Tremellius renders it A burden as 1. enjoyned and imposed upon the Prophet to utter Lyra. Figuicr to cry aloud and not spare to life up his voice as a trumpet c. straining every vein in his heart to do it declayming lustily against sin and sinners and proclayming hell-fire for them in case they amend not This is a businesse of some burthen Chrysost onus ipsis etiam Angelis tremendum This was typified in the staff-rings that were made to continue upon the Ark the Kohathites shoulders felt wherefore If God had not helped those Levites they could never have borne the Ark 1 Chron. 15.26 St. Paul was very sensible of the ministeriall burthen rowling upon him daily 2 Cor. 11.28 And Latimer leaped when lighted of his Bishoprick 2. As burdening the people with their sins and breathing out threatnings for the same for sin how lightly soever accounted of hales hell at the heels of it and procures divine vengeance which is a burthen unsupportable It brake the Angels backs and made the son of God groan piteously 1 Pet. 2.24 then when he bare our sins in his body on the tree His soul was heavy therewith even to the death and had he not had the better shoulders had not God laid help on One that was mighty even the mighty strong God as he is stiled Esay 6.6 he had fainted and failed under his burthen David complaines that his sins were gone over his head and like a sore burthen were too heavy for him to bear Psal 38.4 That which comforted him was that no sooner he had said Peccavi I have sinned 2 Sam. 12. but the Prophet Nathan said Transtulit Deus peccatum tuum God hath translated thy sin upon Christ hath caused thy sin to passe over to him and as it were by a writt of Remove hath cast thy burthen upon his shoulders And this incomparable merey David afterwards celebrateth Psa 32 4 5. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me the guilt of finne and sense of wrath quelled him and killed him almost for his naturall moisture was turned into the drought of summer he was turned into a very skeleton or a bag of bones a bottle in the smoke wofully wanzed he was and wasted But for remedy I acknowledge my sin unto thee saith he I fled by faith to the true Scape-goat Christ Jesus on whom was laid as a burthen the iniquitie of us all Isai 53.6 Rom. 5.8 And thou presently forgavest the iniquity of my sinne that is the guilt of it that till then lay like a load of lead upon my conscience and as an obligation bound me over to condigne punishment Cam for want of this comfort ran roaring up and down my sinne Gen. 4.13 that is my punishment is greater then I can heave And a farre better man then Cain even holy Job with whom God was but in jest as it were cries out that his calamitie was havier then the sand of the sea Job 6.3 and that yet his stroake was heavier then his groaning Chap. 23.2 Those that have ever felt the misery of a laden conscience can tell what an evill and bitter thing sinne is Jer. â— Those that now run away with it and make as light of it as Sampson did of the gate of Gaza shall one day groan out Woe and alas when God shall set himself to load them with tortures in hell who do now load him with their sinnes and weary him out with their imquities Esay 43.24 For prevention oh that they would be perswaded to believe the Prophets that their souls might prosper to be sensible of sins burden that Christ might ease them to take upon them his burthen which is onus sine onere and would be no more burthen to them then the wings are to the bird whereby he is born aloft that they would imitate porters who being called and offered money to beare a burden will poise it and weigh it in their hands first which when they see they are not able to stand under no gain will entice them to undertake it Do we provoke the Lord to anger are we stronger then he Heb. 10. Is it not a fearfull thing to fall into the punishing hands of the living God Is the the wrath of a King as the roaring of a lyon as the messengers of death surely they that tremble not in hearing
the Lord with seeming honours we pollute him with our sacrifices whiles either for the matter of them we present him with will-worship as those of old that sacrificed their children in a foolish imitation of Abrahams offering his sonne Isaac and the Papists at this day in their unbloody sacrifice for the living and the dead and many other unwarranted fopperies Or else when for the manner devotion is placed more in the massy materiality of the outward works then purity of the heart from which they proceed This made God complain Isai 1. that all his five senses nay his very soul was offended and vexed at their hypocriticall performances verses 11 12 13 14 15. their very incense that pretious perfume that was made up of so many sweet spices and pure frankincense stank in his nostrils Gods sharp nose easily discerns and is offended with the stinking breath of the hypocrites rotten lungs though his words be never so sented and perfumed with shews of holinesse Never did the five cities of the plaine send up such poisonous vapours to God as the prayers and other performances of a corrupt and carnall person And God not able to abide these ill sents sends down upon such a counterpoyson of fire and brimstone Good actions from bad men displease as a man may speak good words but we cannot hear them because of his stinking breath and as we abhorre to tast of a dainty dish if brought to table by a foul nasty sloven that hath been tumbling in a jakes or wallowing in a quagmire The very Heathens as they were very curious in the choice of their sacrifices that they were every way sound and of the best Procul hine este profani so they carefully shut out all profane persons the Priest cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is here those that were present at the sacrifice answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here are many Erasm Adagâ— praefat those all good men And hence it was that Jehu sees and searches that no servant of Jehovah be crept into the throng of Baals worshippers Well might this search have bred suspition were it not that in all those idolatrous sacrifices the first care was to avoid the prophane Even Baal will admit no mixture how should the true God abide it Let all Cainists take heed how they draw nigh to him so Luther calleth offerentes non personam sed opus personae all those that offer to God the work done but do not offer themselves withall Luth. in decal We may fitly call those also Caimsts that offer polluted bread as if Gods table were contemptible that think any thing good enough for God that comes next hand Gen. 4.4 Heb. 11.14 as Cain did when Abcl brought of the sirstlings of his flock and so offered a more excellent sacrifice then Cain God testifying of his gifts as likewise Christ did of Maries spicknard of great price defending her against Judas the thief that held it wast whereas he secretly taxeth those rich wretches of basenesse who cast their brasse-money into the Treasury 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mar. 12.41 as holding the worst piece they had good enough for God and his poore Surely Papists with their vowed presents of the very best they have to their He-saints and She-saints and Turkes with their Moschees or Temples stately built when their private houses are low and homely shall rise up in judgement and condemn such sordid Christians as cannot beteem God the best of the best Solon the Athenian Lawgiver appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rous Archae pag. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pâ—uâ—arch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pluâ— Cypr de oratione Chrysost that their sacrifices should be chosen and selected that the sacrificers should purifie themselves some dayes before and that none should serve God obiter slightly and slenderly but in all best manner and with the best preparation they could make aforehand Numa Fompilius King of Romans would not have them worship their Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fashion and dissolutely but freed from all other cares and cumbers in the time of Divine Service the Priests to prevent distraction cryed out oft to the people Hoc agite mind the businesse you are about So in the Primitive times of the Church the Deacons called oft upon the people sursùm corda lift up your hearts And again Oremus attendamus Let us pray let us attend For why Prayer without intention and hearing without attention is as a body without a soule This sentence is written in Hebrew upon the walls of the Jewish Synagogues et si nullibi minus intentionis sit quam in ipsorum precibus c. saith mine Authour Buxtorf Abbreviat Spec. Europ though there is as little true devotion to be seen amongst them in their services as among any people unlesse it be among the Papists of whom perhaps they learned it whose devotions are prized more by tale then by weight of zeale whose holynesse is the very outward work it self being a brain-lesse head and soule-lesse body In the Isle of Sardinia as they give way in the very time of their Masse to vain talking and toying and tumults so after Masse done they fall to dancing in the middest of the Church Heyl. Geog. singing in the mean time songs too immodest for an Ale-house Henry 3. King of France Processiones religiosas non intermittit at tepidius celebrat saith the Chronicler would not neglect their religious processions but shewed little devotion at them For betwixt him and his Cardinall there went at same time a Jester whose work was to make sport then when the businesse required greater seriousnesse How much better the great Turke who when he comes into his Temple laies aside all his state and hath none to attend him but a Professour of their law whose Office is to proclaim before they begin that nothing be done against religion yet ye say wherein have we polluted thee They well understood that by offering polluted sacrifices they polluted God hinself as much as in them lay and that the dishonour done to Gods service reflected upon himself and was a despising of his name verse 6. whereof his true worship is a part Mic. 4.5 and 1 King 5.3 5. Hence they say not wherein have we polluted thine Altar but Wherein have we polluted thee This is much more done under the New Testament by all unworthy Communicants and Unhallowed Worshippers that present the great God with dough-baked duties slubbered services carelesse and customary performances which they turn over as a task holding a certaine daily stint of them as malt-horses do their pace or mill-horses their round merely out of form and for fashion sake These do enough to pollute the God of purity and to cast contempt upon him from the sons of men who will be apt to conclude that he is a contemptible God sith he will be content to take up with such contemptible
Padres do their Novices And yet the most people are to this day wofully to seek for the warrant of their worships resting on that old Popish rule to follow the drove and beleeve as the Church beleeves Act. 19.32 As at Ephesus so in our Church-assemblies the more part knew not wherefore they were come together They will say in generall to serve God But who he is how to be served wherein and in whom to be served they know not There is in a printed sermon a memorable story of an old man above threescore who lived and died in a parish Mr. Pemble Serm. misch of lâ—â—â—r where there had been preaching almost all his time This man was a constant hearer as any might be and seemed forward in the love of the word On his death-bed being questioned by a minister touching his faith and hope in God he made these strange answers Being demanded what he thought of God he answered that he was a good old man And what of Christ that he was a towardly yong youth And of his soule that it was a great bone in his body And what should become of his soule after he was dead That if he had done well he should be put into a pleasant green meddow These answers astonished those that were present to think how it were possible for a man of good understanding and one that in his dayes had heard at the least two or three thousand sermons yet upon his death-bed in serious manner thus to deliver his opinion in such main points of Religion which infants and sucklings should not be ignorant of But we may be sure this man is not alone there be many hundreds whose gray haires shew they have had time enough to learn more wit who yet are in case to be set to their A. B. C. againe for their admirable simplicity in matters of religion Blind they are and blind sacrifices they offer never once opening their eyes till death if then as Pliny reporteth of the Mole but alwayes rooting and digging in the earth as if thorough the bowels of it they would dig themselves a new way to hell is it not evill Or as some read it It is not evill q. d. 't is good enough and may serve turn well enough Or thus It is not evill in your opinion who rather then you would lose any gaine say Melius est ill quà m Nil 't is Osianders rime better that which is ill and bad then nothing at all But they which count all good fish that comes to net will in the end catch the devill and all The sense is much clearer in the interrogative Is it not evill It is It is and therefore studiously to be declined and avoided as poyson in your meat or a serpent in your way 1 Thess 5.22 Abstain from all appearance of evill saith that great Apostle how much more from all apparant evils such as stare you in the face and are so directly contrary to the plain word of God Such are sins with an accent wickednesse with a witnesse great transgressions Psal 19.13 and if ye offer the lame and languishing He offers the lame that brings his sacrifice with a wicked mind Pro. 21.27 as Balac and Balaam did Num. 21.1 2. that walks not evenly before the Lord and with an upright foot Gen. 17.1 that halts between two opinions as the people did 1 King 18.21 inter coelum terramque penduli hanging betwixt heaven and earth as Meteors uncertain whether to hang or fall Such were Ecebolus Baldwin Spalatensis Erasmus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyprian calleth such ancipites palpatores temporum in levitate tantum constantes doubtfull-minded men St. James calleth them double-minded men unstable in all their wayes Jam. 1.8 Bradsords letters Rev. 3.14 as he is that stands on one leg or as a howle upon a smooth table But what said that Martyr If God be God follow him if the Masse be God let him that will see it heare it and be present at it and go to the devill with it But let him do what he doth with all his heart God cannot abide these Neuter-passives I would thou wert either hot or cold He requires to be served truly that there be no halting and totally that there be no halving To halt between two opinions to hang in fuspence to be in religion as idle beggars are in their way ready to go which way soever the staff falleth how hatefull is it When some took Christ for Iohn Baptist some for Elias some for Jeremias But whom say you that I am said our Saviour to teach us that Christ hates to have men stand doubtful and adhere to nothing certainly to have them as mills fit to be driven about by the devil with every wind of doctrine or as hunting dogs betwixt two hares running assoon after this assoon after that and so losing both This for point of judgement And for matter of practise the soule is well carried when neither so becalmed that it moves not when it should not yet tossed with tempests to move disorderly A wise mans course is of one colour like it self he is homo quadratus a square stone fet into the spirituall building 1 Pet. 2.7 he is Semper idem as Joseph was no changling but one and the same in all places and estates of life his fcet stand in an even place as Davids did Psa 26.12 that is in an equall tenour Uniformity and ubiquity of obedience are sure signes of his sincerity when godlinesse runs thorough his whole life as the woof runs thorough the warp But the legs of the lame are not equall saith Solomon Pro. 26.7 The hypocrites life is a crooked life he turneth aside to his crooked wayes Psal 125.5 saith David as the crabfish goes backwards or as the Planets though hurried from East to West yet by a retrograde motion of their own steal their passage from West to East It 's a crooked life when all the parts of the line of a mans life be not straight before God when he lifteth not up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees and maketh straight paths for his feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way Heb. 12.12 13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not rather healed and rectified or set to rights as the Apostles word signifieth That 's a sick soule that is not right set for heaven and that 's a gasping devotion a languishing sacrifice that leaneth not upon Christ and that is not quickened by his spirit fitly called by the Apostle a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 Surely as a rotten rag hath no strength so an unsound mind hath no power to do ought that may please God Frustra nititur qui Christo non innititur saith a Father He loseth his labour that leaneth not upon Christ who is the power of God and the wisdome of God that leaneth not wholy upon
departed from our English Israel my name shall be great Name for fame as Exod. 34.5 6. Philip. 2.9 Gen. 11.4 Renouned men are called men of name Gen. 6.4 and base men are called men of no name Iob 30.8 shall be great Not that God is great or lesse Magnum parvum sunt ex ijs quae sunt ad aliquid saith Aristotle But Gods name is said to be great when he is declared or acknowledged to be great as the word sanctified is used Mat. 6.9 and the word justified Mat. 11.19 Iam. 2.21 Gods fame and glory is as himself eternall and infinite and so abides in it self not capable of our addition or detraction As the Sun which would shine in its own brightnesse and glory though all the world were blind and did wilfully wink Howbeit to try how we prize his Name and how industrious we will be to magnifie and exalt it he hath declared that he esteemes himself made glorious and accounts that he hath received as it were a new being by those inward conceptions we have of his glory and those outward honours we do to his name and in every place incense shall be offered Not at Ieâ—usalem only as the Jews held nor in mount Gerizim as the Samaritans Iob. 4.20 21. but any place without difference be it but a chimney might make a goodly Oratory 1 Tim. 2.8 All religious difference of places was taken away by Christs death Therefore so soon as he had said Ioh. 19.30 It is finished he gave up the Ghost and presently the vail of the Temple was rent from the top to the bottom Mat. 27.51 And from that hour there was no more holinesse in the Temple then in any other place Though till then the Temple was so holy a place and such religious reverence did Gods people beare to it that after the Caldeans had burnt it they honoured the very place where it had stood and esteemed it holier then any other This appears by those eighty persons whom Ishmael murthered Ier. 41.5 and by Daniels opening his windowes toward Ierusalem when he prayed Dan. 6.10 Incense shall be offered and a pure offering Insigne testimonium pro sacrificio Missae saith Bellarmine This text is a notable testimony for the sacrisicing of the Masse which Papists will needsly have to be the sacrifice here meant and mentioned Much like that Sorbonist that finding it written at the end of S. Pauls epistles Missa est Bee-hive of Rome fol. 93. c. bragg'd he had found the Masse in his Bible So another reading John 1.4 Invenimus Messiam made the same conclusion We shall wave their arguments as sufficiently answered by others and take the meaning of the holy Ghost here to be of such spiritual sacrifices of the new Testament as all Christians even the whole royal priesthood 1 Pet. 2.5 are bound to offer up to God These are called Incense and Offering by Analogy the type for the thing thereby shadowed as Ireneus Tertullian Rev. 5.8 Rev. 8.3 4. and Augustine interpret the Text. This incense is prayer and praise Psal 141.2 Heb. 13.15 Hos 14.4 Psal 51.21 This pure offering is every saithful Christian together with all the good things that he hath or can do It is simplex oratio de oonscientia pura Cont. Marcion lib. 4. saith Tertullian Thus those good Macedouians gave themselves to the Lord saith S. Paul and vnto us by the will of God 2 Cor. 8.5 I hus the Romans had delivered themselves up to the form of Doctrine Rom. 12.1 that had been delivered unto them Rom. 6.17 and are yet further exhorted to exhibit present make tender yield up and offer as spiritual priests their bodies and much more their souls to God as a living sacrifice by a willingnesse to do what he requireth Psal 40.6 Rom. 15.16 and to die for his fake if called thereunto Phil. 2.17 2 Tim. 4.6 Swenk feldians took away all external service saith Zanchy Libertines say it is sufficient that we sacrifice to God the hidden man of the heart The Pope saith to his vassals My Son give me thy heart be a papist in heart and then go to Church dissemble do what ye will But God requires to be Glorified with our spirits and bodies both because both are his 1 Cor. 6.20 The very Manichees that denied God to he the Author of the body fasted on sundayes and in fasting exercised an humiliation of the body But 2 as the true christian sacrificeth himself to God so all that he hath or can and is ready to say as that Grecian did to the Emperor If I had more more I would bring thee It comforts him to consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 8. 1 Tim. 1.5 That if there be a willing minde God accepts according to that a man hath and not ac-according to that he hath not Noahs sacrifice could not be great yet was it greatly accepted because of clean beasts and offered in faith It is the godly mans care that his offering though it be poor yet may be a pure offering proceeding from a pure heart a good conscience and faith unfained and then he is sure it is pure by divine acceptation through Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 In confidence whereof he lifts up holy hands 1 Tim. 2.8 And although sensible of his impurities imperfections his heart misgives him sometimes as Jacobs did lest his father should discern him yet when heremembreth that he is clothed as Jacob was with the garment of his elder brother the robe of Christs righteousnesse which is not a scant garment as Bernard saith but reaching to the heels and covering all the parts of the soul he goeth boldly to the throne of grace and covers Gods altar with his evangelical sacrifices Such as are contrition and self-denial Ps 51.17 Confidence in God Ps 4.6 Obedience to the preaching of the gospel Rom. 15.16 Beneficence to the poor Phil. 4.8 c. In all which his aim and endeavour is to worship God in spirit and to do all more out of thankfulnesse and lesse out of constraint of conscience For he knows that as the greatest growth of sinners is in spiritual wickednesse as in those that sin against the holy Ghost so the greatest growth of grace is in spiritual holinesse in worshipping God more in spirit and truth Verse 12. But ye have prophaned it Ye Jews in general though my peculiar people and called by my name You that quarter armes with me as it were and should therefore lift up my Name as an ensign that you should use me thus coursely and cast dirt upon my name by your irreligion this moves me not a little so that I cannot but once and again complain of it Had it been an enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I should better have born it But it was thou my familiar c. What thou my son Brutus Friend betrayest thou the Son of man and that with a kisse Scipio had rather
left falling before the Ark till his neck was broke Sin doth as naturally draw and suck curses to it as the Loadstone doth iron or Turpentine fire The Chaldee and the Vulgar make these words but a repetition of the former for they read the Text thus Idem repetit in culcat à Lapide I will curse your blessings and I will curse them to intimate his peremptorinesse in the thing and that he was unchangably resolved upon it Now when God will do a thing who shall hinder it Nature may be resisted and hindred in its course as when the fire burnt not the three worthies when the Sun stood still in heaven yea went backward Men and devils though never so potent may want of their will and be crossed in their designes and desires But if God will have this or that to be done ther 's no gain-standing him If he have a mind to blesse his people they shall be blessed If he will have pitty for his own names sake which the house of Israel had prophaned Ezek. 36.21 If he will come in with his Non-obstante Neverthelesse he saved them c. and dealt with his servants not according to his ordinary rule but according to his prerogative who shall contradict him In like sort if he will redouble his strokes upon his enemies and not only curse them but curse them bitterly as the Angel did Meroz who can hinder or object against his proceeding in that behalf Judg. 5 His judgements are sometimes secret but alwayes just and if he once say I will curse yea that I will there is as little hope of altering him as there was of Pilate when he had once pronounced what I have written I have written It shall surely stand because ye do not lay it to heart As he had repeated their curse so he doth here their sin instancing in that branch of it that most offended him and that was their stupidity and senselesnesse either of their sin or danger This is a God-provoking evill oft complain'd of but especially when it proceeds from presumption as Deut. 29.19 Esay 22.12 13 14. Ezek. 24.13 The Lord cannot satisfie himself in threatening such as if the very naming of it had enraged his jealousie neither is he more absolute in threatening then he will be resolute in punishing Verse 3. Behold I will corrupt your seed And so mar your hopes of an harvest I will bring famine upon you that fore judgement worse then that of the sword Lam. 4.9 which yet is the slaughter-house of mankind and the very hell of this present world By this scourge God will tame his prodigals and starve their bodies Hag. 1.4 who by the contempt of his ordinances starve their own soules Either by immoderate drought God can cause a famine Ioel 1.10 Or by immoderate moisture Verse 17. The seed rotting under the clods c. to revenge the quarrel of his covenant Israel was plagued with famine for breaking their faith with the Gibeonites What may they expect that keep not touch with God 2 Sam. 21.1 David knew that the naturall cause of that famine was drought but he enquired though t were long first after the supernaturall As Jacob enquired who stood on the top of the ladder and sent the Angels to and fro so must we in case of publike calamities Gen. 28.13 ascend to the top of them and see who sends them and what is the cause of them that we may cast the traitours head over the wall and he may return and repent and leave a blessing behind him For till then we may look that he should cut off our provision and victualls as wise Princes use to do from their rebels whom they have gotten up into a walled town and spread dung upon your faces cast contempt upon you and cover you with confusion make you to stink above ground so that men shall shun and abhorr your company This is another fruit of sin and piece of the curse and many wicked men are more afraid of it then of the sin that causeth it as Chaereas in Terence not ashamed to deflour a virgin was yet ashamed to be seen in an Eunuchs habit the signe of that sin True it is that the best may have dung cast into their faces as St. Paul and his precious companions had 1 Cor. 4.13 We are faith he the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things The later word signifieth the dung-cart that goes thorough the city 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into which every one brings and casts his filth to note that every foole had some filth to cast upon those Worthies of whom the world was not worthy And truely all publike persons that are faithfull to their trust had need carry a spare handkerchief to wipe off dirt and drivell which yet many times will hardly stick as dirt will not upon marble though it will upon a mud-wall The wise shall inherit glory when shame shall be the promotion of fooles Pro. 3.35 A fair promotion but good enough for them unlesse they were better If the precious sons of Zion comparable to fine gold be at any time esteemed as earthen pitchers as Lam. 4.2 or trodden in the dirt by the fat buls of Basan God will in due time make all his that have laine sullied and slurred among the pots to become as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with pure gold Psal 68.13 In the mean while they have the Euge of a good conscience which is better then the worlds Plaudite But profane and profligate persons with their spiritual nastinesse and super fluity of naughtinesse stink worse then these cityes of the plaine in the nostrils of God and all good men whiles they live according to that The name of the wicked shall rot And again Pro. 10.7 9 He that perverteth his wayes shall be known And when they dye they shall be carried thorough the dung-gate of death to the town-ditch of utter destruction At which time Iob. 20.6 7. that in Iob shall be verified of them Though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung they which have seen him in his flourish shall say Where is be Let those dehonest amenta Cleri look to this all idle and evill Ministers who as unsavoury salt are fit for no place but the dung-hill even to be buried in a dunghill as Bishop Bonner was and mean-while to be trodden under foot which is a thing not only calamitous but extremely ignominious Mat. 5.13 even the dung of your solemne feasts i. e. for the iniquity of your most solemn services which you have slubber'd over and made to stink I will make you also abject and abominable as the dung of sacrifices offered in great number on festivall dayes was carried into some by-corner and set out of sight And here it is
not of the head the wife must not usurp authority over her husband nor yet of the foot she may not be trampled upon or disregarded as an underling A bone not of any anterior part she is not â—raelaâ—a preferred before the man neither yet of any hinder-part she is not postposita set behind the man but a bone of the side of the middle of the indifferent part to shew that she is thy companion and the wife of thy covenant A bone she is from under the arm to put man in mind of protection and defence to the woman A bone not far from his heart to put him in mind of dilection and love to the woman Neither can the rib challenge any more of her then the earth can do of him And as he was ignorant when himself was made so he knew as little when his second-self was made out of him both that the comfort might be greater then was expected as also that he might not upbraid his wife with any great dependance or obligation he neither willing the work nor suffering any pain to have it done Shine she must with the beams of her husband Share she must with him in his masterly government of the family as Sarah did with Abraham by Gods allowance Gen. 16. and as the Roman Ladies were wont to say to their husbands Vbi tu Caius ibi ego Caia where you are Lord I am Lady That over-lordly carriage of husbands towards their wives and that usage of them as drudges is condemned by the Heathen Philosophers in the very Barbarians themselves as a great ataxy and disorder in the family and the wife of thy covenant And is it nothing to be covenant-breaker with a wife especially where God also is ingaged as above said Foedus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ab eadem radice perform your trust make good the troth you have plighted Otherwise if the fruits of the flesh grow out of the trees of your hearts surely Ser. of Rep. p. 70. surely saith Master Bradford Martyr the devil is at inne with you you are his birds whom when he hath well fed he will broach you and eat you chaw you and champ you world without end in eternall wo and misery Verse 15. And did not he make one Another forcible argument against Polygamy and adultery See our Saviours explanation of it Mat. 19.4 5 6. with the Notes there The onely wise God made but one woman for one man at the first creation and ordained that those two should be one flesh two in one flesh not three or four or as many wives as a man is able to maintain as among the Turks who as a just hand of God upon them are grievously vexed with jealousie not suffering their women to go to Church nor so much as look out at their own windows Bâ—unt 106. Or if they go abroad upon any occasion they must go muffled all but the eyes Sardus tells us that the old Brittains would ten or twelve of them take one woman to wife Belike women were rare commodities with them As likewise men were in Judaea when seven women took hold of one man saying We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparrel onely let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach Esay 4.1 That is we will maintain our selves and thee onely be thou an husband to us and let us have children by thee yet had he the residue of the spirit Or breath so that he could as easily have made more and breathed into their faces the breath of life And although it is not said of the woman that God breathed into her the breath of life as of Adam whence Tertullian concludes that she had both body and soul too from Adam yet Austin rightly gathereth that their souls were both alike imbreathed by God 10. Lib sup Genes Otherwise the scripture would not have been silent in it no more then it is in the new manner of the creation of her body Thence also it is that Adam saith not This is soul of my soul but bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh Gen. 2.23 Souls are not propagated by the Parents but created of God and joined to the body by an occult operation Augustine following Origen held the contrary for a long time At length he began to doubt and after a while changed his opinion Hierom stoutly defending the contrary against him Aristotle also understood the truth hereof and concluded that the soul was divine and came from above and. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 2. c. 9. de gen anim though of nothing yet is it made a matter more excellent then the matter of the heavens in nature not inferiour to the Angels An abridgement it is of the invisible world as the body is of the visible And why may we not say that the soul as it came from God being divinae particula aurae so it is like him One immateriall immortall understanding spirit distinguisht into three powers which all make up one Spirit In this respect it is said Gen. 9.6 that in the image of God made he man There is a double image of God in the soul One in the substance of it this is never lost and of this that text is to be understood The other is the supernaturall grace which is an image of the knowledge holinesse and righteousnesse of God and this is utterly lost and must be recovered This the ancient Heathens hammered at when they fained that the soul once had wings but those being broken it fell head long into the body where when it hath recovered it's wings it flies up to heaven again That was very good counsell given by a godly man to his friend not to busie his brains so much in enquiring how the soul entred into the body as how it may depart comfortably out of the body And seeing the soul is more excellent then the body saith another grave Divine like as Jacob laid his right hand upon the younger but his left upon the elder so our best care and the strength of our thoughts should be for the soul younger as much as it is then the body they should be but left-hand thoughts for the body and wherefore one that he might seek a godly seed Heb. a seed of God not a bastardly brood a spurious issue a Mamzer as the Hebrews call such that is labes aliena a strange blot a seed of the adulterer and the whore Esay 57.3 but such as God appointeth and approveth such as may be holy with a federall holinesse at least if not sanctified from the womb as some have been and are lastly 1 Cor. 7.14 such as in and by whom the Church and religion may be propagated and not idolatry spread and increased therefore take heed to your spirit that is to your wife which is the residue of your spirit keep and cherish her so Remigius and Lyra interpret it
that he would set up his own kingdome here more and more amongst us then should were be more happy then the Israelites were under the raigne of king Solomon or the Spaniards under their Ferdinand the third who reigned 35. years in all which time there was neither famine nor pestilence in the land Lopez Gloss in prolog par 1 Vers 13. Your words have been stout against me Or reenforced or strongly confirmed Superant me verba vestra so some have rendred it By your hard and hatefull words you have been too hard for me as it were And it is as if God should say I have given you my best advice o break off your sinnes and to bring me my tythes that I might blesse you both with store and honour But I have lost my labour I see well my sweet words are worse then spilt upon you who are so hardened in your errour and blasphemy Prov. 23.8 Verba quid incassum non proficientia perdo Mal. 2.17 that you are still clamouring and casting out odious words against me Once before you had set your foul mouthes against me and like so many wolves that were wood you held up your heads and howl'd out these ugly words Every one that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delighteth in them c. was it possible that the wit of malice could devise so high a slander And now you are at it again creaking like doors that move upon rusty hinges nay clattering and blustering out such hellish and hideous blasphemies as at the hearing whereof it is great wonder if the heavens sweat not earth gape not sea roar not all creatures conspire not to be avenged upon you as the very stones in the wall of Aphek turned executioners of those blasphemous Aramites when as being but ignorant Pagans their tongues might seem no slander Your words have been stout against me Yea stouter and stouter your wickednesse frets like a canker and encreaseth still to more ungodlinesse 2 Tim. 2.17 Evil men and deceivers grow worse and worse 2 Tim. 3.13 as being given up by God Rom. 1.28 acted and agitated by the devil Ephes 2.2 serving diverse lusts and pleasures Tit. 3.3 which to satisfie is an endlesse piece of businesse Neither let any here say they were but words that these are charged with and words are but wind c. for words have their weight and are marvellous provoking Leviter volant sed non leviter violant You shall find some saith Erasmus that if death be threatned can despise it but to be belied they cannot brook nor from revenge contain themselves As a murthering-weapon in my bones saith David mine enemies reproach me Psal 42.10 Desperate speeches and blasphemies that impose upon the Lord any thing unbeseeming his Majesty a thing common among the Jews even at this day he can by no means away with See how God stomacketh such proud contumelious language Psal 73.11 and 94.4 5 6 7 c. Zeph. 1.12 Ezech. 9.9 See how he punished it in him that bored thorough his great Name Lev. 24.11 Ludovike commonly called St. Lewis caused the lips of blasphemers to be seared with an hot iron Philip the French King punished this sin with death yea though it were committed in a Tavern The very Turks have the Christians blaspheming of Christ in execration and will punish their prisoners sorely when as through impatience or desperatenesse they wound the ears of heaven Yea the Jews in their speculations of the causes of the strange successe of the affairs of the world Specul Europae assigne the reason of the Turks prevailing so against the Christians to be their blasphemies and among other scandals and lets of their conversion are all those stout words darted with hellish mouthes against God in their hearing so ordinarily and openly by the Italians especially who blaspheme oftner then swear and murther oftner then revile or slander Andrew Musculus in his discourse intituled The devil of blasphemy hath a memorable story of a desperate dice-player in Helvetia Anno 1553. at a town three miles distant from Lucerna Where on a Lords-day three wretched fellows were playing at dice under the town-wall One of them named Vlricus Schraeterus having lost a great deal of money swore that if he lost the next cast he would fling his dagger at the sace of God He lost it and in a rage threw up his dagger with all his might toward heaven The dagger vanished in the air and was seen no more five drops of blood fell down upon the table where they were playing which could never be washed out part of it is still kept in that town for a monument the blasphemer to say the best of him was fetcht away presently body and soul by the devil with such an horrible noise as affrighted the whole town The other two came to a miserable end shortly after The truth of this relation is further attested by Job Fincelius and Philip Lonicerus Theat histor pag. 142. yet ye say What have we spoken so much against thee Chald What have we multiplied to speak before thee As if they should say â—t is not so much that we have spoken that thou shouldest make such a businesse of it Nothing more ordinary with gracelesse men then to elevate and extenuate great sins with them are small sins and small sins no sins when as every sinne should swell like a toad in their eyes and the abundant hatred thereof in their hearts should make them say all that can be said for the aggravation and detestation of it sith there is as much treason in coyning pence as bigger pieces because the supreme authority is as much violated in the one as in the other But this sin of theirs was no peccadillo as appeareth by the following instance Verse 14. Ye have said It is vain to serve God Vulg. He is vain that serves God Ye are idle ye are idle said Pharaoh to the Israelites when they would needs go sacrifice and to Moses and Aaron Ye let the people from their works Any thing seems due work to a carnall mind saving Gods service that 's labour lost time cast away they think But this is their want of spirituall judgement they see not the beauty of holinesse they taste not how good the Lord is they discern not things that are excellent they measure all by present sight sense and taste as do children swine and other bruit creatures And therefore they themselves are vani vanissimi as an Expositor here speaketh vain and most vain and that for two reasons and in two respects First for that they take themselves to be servers of God Secondly they stick in the bark serve him with the out-side onely honour him with their lips and not with their hearts to bring him vein oblations empty performances serve him wih shews and formalities which he delights not in nay he rejects them with infinite scorn as he did the Pharisees devotions
as boyling and swelling with spite and spleen against God and his people deal arrogantly and insolently doing wickedly with both hands earnestly Exod. 18.11 and 21.11 and working their own ends confidently and daringly these we call and count happy because wealthy and well underlaid as they say because they live in the height of the worlds blandishments But the whole book of Ecclesiastes is a clear and full confutation of this fond conceit had they but ever read or regarded it How can the proud person be happy that hath God for his profest enemy what was all Hamans honour to him when the king frown'd upon him what was Ahah the better for his ivory palace his gold and his jewels in every place when the heaven was brasse above the earth iron beneath Surely God abhorreth pride as an abomination of desolation Psal 31.23 and though he preserveth the faithfull yet sooner or later he plensifully rewardeth the proud doer Like metall in the fire when they shine brightest they are nearest to melting and like a bulging wall they will shortly fall Swelling is a dangerous symptom in the body so is pride in the soule Telluntur in altum ut lapsu graviore ruant Neither are they therefore to be reputed ever awhit the more happy because they come not in trouble like other men but prosper in their wickednesse For God is never more angry with such then when he seemes best pleased Pharaeh had fair weather made him till he was in the middest of the Sea fatting cattle are but fitting for the shambles Never was Jerusalems condition so desperate as when God said unto her My fury shall depart from thee I will be quiet and no more angry Ezek. 16.42 Nor Ephraims as when he said I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom And Ephraim is joyned to idols let him alone Hos 4.14 17. sc till I come and setch my full blow at him Clem. Alexandrinus cites Plato expressing himself thus Although a righteous man be tormented although his eyes be digged out yet he remains a blessed man and the contrary they that work wickednesse are set up Heb. they are built up sc in posterity and prosperity of all sorts The Psalmist expresseth it thus They are full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes Psal 17. Thus God built the midwives houset that is he gave them children for their mercy to those new-born-babes Exod. 2.21 Thus he builded David an house 2 Sam. 7. And thus those that return to the Almighty have a gracious promise that they shall be built up Iob 22.23 That these stout and stift Stigmaticks were built up and prospered though after so sweet an invitation they turned not to him that smot them we need not wonder sith it is their portion as David sheweth all they are like to have or must everlook for Besides Is not God the true proprietary of all Is not the earth the Lord purse with the sulnesse thereof Mat. 20.13 and may he not do with his own as he pleaseth Add hereunto that what wicked men have they have it with a curse and for mischief their table is a snare to them they are like to pay dear for their sweet morsels as Haman did for his wine at Esthers banquet Bernard calles the wicked mans prosperity misericordiam omni indignatione crudeliorem In Psal 91. a merey more cruel then any adversity Austin affirmeth Nullum mare tam profundum quam est Dei cogitatio ut mali floreant c. No sea is so deep as the divine dispensation that good men should suffer bad men prosper They are built up with blessings as they say the Phenix builds her nest with hot spices wherein she is afterwards burned They build as those at Babel and feather their nests as if their lives were rivetted upon eternity but as their foundation is laid upon fire-work so brimstone is scattered upon their habitations Iob 18.15 If the fire of Gods wrath but touch it all will be quickly consumed Dioclesian that bloody persecutour despairing of ever rooting out the Christian religion as he had endeavoured to do gave over his empire in a discontent and decreed to lead the rest of his life quietly But he could not escape so For after that Fuseb de vita Constant lib. 5. his house was wholy consumed with lightening and a flame of fire that fell from heaven he hiding himself for fear of the lightening died within a little after Their inward thought is saith the Psalmist of such wicked Atheists that their houses honours riches nephews shall continue for ever and their dwelling place to all generations they call their houses after their own names as Cain called his new-built city Enoch after the name of his son that he might leave him Lord Enoch of Enoch Neverthelesse man being in honour abideth not he is like the beasts that perish Psal 49.11 12. The use to be made hereof see ver 16. Be not thou afraid when a wicked one is made rich when the glory of his house is increased c. yea they that tempt God are even delivered Still these Miscreants are grunting out their grudges aginst God What this sin here instanced viz. of tempting God is hath been shewed before in the note on ver 10. of this chapter Here it is to be taken for an audacious daring of God to take vengeance as Num. 15. These very worst fort of sinners are sometimes not only spared but prospered Ier. 12.1 c. Their Epha is not yet full their iniquity not found to be hatefull enough yet But the wicked is kept by the patience of God unto the day of destruction and shall be brought forth to the day of wrath as condemned Malefactours are to execution some by posterns and by-gates others thorough the market place so here He that hath stollen a good hoâ—se ride gallantly mounted for present till shortly after followed close by Huâ— and cry he is soon apprehended sentenced and brought to condign punishment And this is the very state of presumptuous sinners and will be I know well that because sentence is not presently executed therefore the hearts of the sons of men are set in them to doe wickedly Felix scelus virtus vocatur as we see here The proud are called happy Eccles 8. Cicero because for present in prosperity See the like Ier. 44.11 Gen. 30.18 Dionysius after the spoile of an Idol-temple finding the winds favourable in his navigation Lo said he how the Gods approve of Sacriledge But the weaknesse of this argument see set forth by Solomon Eccles 9.1 2 3. with the Notes there God gives outward things to the wicked no otherwise then as if a man should cast a purse full of gold into a jakes He gives them riches to furnish their inditement out of them as Joseph put his cup into their fack to pick a quarrel with them and lay theft to their
doth his light Ioh. 1.16 It is further said here that he shall arise that is he shall appear and shew himself on earth who now lieth hid as it were in heaven as the materiall Sun doth under the Horizon God was manifested is the stesh 1 Tim. 3.16 Manifested out of the bosom of his father out of the womb of his mother out of the types of the law c. In his Nativity he came forth as the Sun doth as a bridegroome out of his chamber In the whole course of his life he rejoyced as a Gyant to run his race He enlightened and warmed the dark and dry hearts of men he filled them with the fruits of righteousnesse Ioh. 15.5 He could not be stay'd or stopped in his course He made his gospel to run and be glorified He was and is still in continuall motion for the good of his Church as the Sun in heaven is for the good of the world He went under a cloud in his passion and brake forth again in his Resurrection From heaven he daily darts forth his beams of righteousnesse and showres down all spirituall blessings in heavenly priviledges Eph. 1.3 The Sun sucks up foul water from the earth drawes it up into the ayte not to hold it there but first purifies it and then distilles it down again with a fattening and fructifying property Hereupon the thankfull earth brings forth most fair and fragrant fruits and flowers c. Semblably this â—un of righteousnesse took on him our sins and miseries sordes nostras induit assumed our humane nature not to retain it and glorify it in himself alone Philip. 1 10 but that we might be conglorisied and in the mean space filled with those fruits of holinesse which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God And as the Sun the nearer he runns to the earth the weaker he is in operation as in winter-time But the higher in heaven the more effectuall So while Christ was not yet ascended the holy Ghost and his grace were not in that full measure imparted nor Churches gathered as afterwards Ioh. 7.39 Lastly at that last and great day he will shew himself in speciall manner a Sun of righteousnesse clearing all obscurities bringing to light the hidden things of darknesse causing his peoples most holy faith that now lyes hid in great part to be found to praise honour and glory Chearing up their spirits after manifold tribulations healing all their spiritual maladies for he comes with healing under his wings and making them as so many Sampsons whose name signifies a little Sun in the Noon of their full strength Ipse est ergo nester Apolle sanitatis praeses A Lap. Solisus For the righteous shall shine as he Sun in the kingdome of their Father Mat. 13. I shall shat up this discourse with that observation of an Ancient When the Sun of righteousness was yet in his Mothers womb he might be said to be in Virgo when on the Cross in Taurus when he rose from death in Leo when he shall come again to judgement in Libra And as when the Sun is in Libra the day is of an equall length so when Christ cometh all shall be perfected with healing in his wings that is in his beames This implies sicknesse in all to whom Christ comes the world being as it were a great Hospitall or Nesoromium though few feel it and that true of every person that is spoke of the whole people Esay 1.6 The whole head is sick c. O my head my head said the Shunamites son my belly my belly faith the Prophet my leaenesse my leanenesse c. And surely it were happy if men would be more sensible of their malady and make out to this Jehovah Rophe this Almighty Physitian Exod. 15.26 that wants neither will nor skill to cure all that come unto him See him hanging out his tables as it were and setting to sale his eye-salve Rev. 3.18 for there he begins the cure Act. 26.18 Hear him 1. Complaining of our dulnesse backwardnesse frowardnesse Ior. 8.22 Ezech. 24.13 Hos 7 1. 2 Wishing we had more care of our poor soules Oh that this people were wise c. Why will ye dye 3. Threatening Ezek. 24.13 4. Promising Hos 14.4 mat 11.28 5. Performing Psal 103.3 2 Cron. 30.20 Lastly providing all sorts of physick for us preventing purging restoring corrosives of the law lenitives of the Gospel plaisters of his on blood for here Sanguis medici est curaio phrenetici and requiring us no more but to come unto him as they of old did to the brazen serpent with sorrow for sin and faith in his name having a good opinion of our Physician and casting our selves wholy upon him for cure Calling upon him as blind Bartimaeus did and crying out as that Martyr did at the stake Son of God shine upon me and immediatly the Sun shone out of a dark cloud so full in his face Act. and Mor. fol. 1398. that he was constrained to look another way What shall I say more this blossed Sun of Righteousnesse must be sought in the West if we will get the kingdome as Strato's servant in Justin did by the advise of his master Lib. 18. whom he had preserved upon the cross I mean and in the state of his Abasement so shall we be sure to finde healing in his wings that is the gracious influence of the holy Spirit convaying the vertue of Christs blood to the conscience as the beames of the Sun do the heat and influence thereof to the earth thereby calling out the herbes and flowers and healing those deformities that winter had brought upon it and ye shall go forth To shew that ye are thoroughly healed ye shall rise up and walk Where the spirit is there is liberty live things love to be stirring 2 Cor. 3.17 and those that are restored to health after sicknesse are not satisfied till they can go about their businesse in their accustomed strength Quod sanitas in corpore id sanctitas in corde Holinesse is to the soul what health is to the body Let men 〈…〉 out that Christ Jesus hath wrougtht a cure upon their soules by being 〈◊〉 and 〈…〉 in his work Life consists in action Esâ—y 38.16 O Lord by 〈…〉 and in all theâ—â— things is the life or my spirit saith Hezekiah And 〈…〉 in them saith the Lord as the fish lives in 〈…〉 lives in the oyle and as the creature by his food Vp 〈…〉 Live betime live quickly and apace Some men live 〈…〉 then others in a moneth as wiâ—e men speak more in two words 〈…〉 two hundred or as one piece of gold is more worth then twenty of 〈…〉 what to do for God as David did Psal 116.12 serve out your 〈◊〉 as he Act. 13.36 do not idle it out wear out do not wast out slame out Hie suns est Vacla 〈…〉 out burnout be not blown out Be not buried alive as 〈…〉
for the attaining thereunto in a diligent use of the means These are among others First Means of getting the fear of God set on serious meditation and first upon your selves Reflect and see 1. your own miserable condition by reason of sin imputed to you sin inherent in you and sin issuing from you together with the deserved punishment all torments here and tortures hereafter which are but the just hire of the least sin f Rom. 6. ult 2. Your utter inability to free your selves either from sin or punishment From the former you can no more free your selves then the blackmore from his skin or the leopard from his spots g Ier. 13 23 And for the later there 's no power wit or any other meanes in our selves or the creature either to abide or avoyd it This meditation made Peters converts cry out for fear Men and brethren what shall we do to be saved h Act. 2 3â— Next busy your thoughts upon God be thinking upon his name with those in the text See him as he stands described 1. in his word 2. in his works The word sets out God for our present purpose 1. as a God of transcendent excellency and surprissing glory and thence inferrs a necessity of his fear Who would not fear thee O king of Nations i Ier. 10 7 c. saith Ieremy And thou art more glorâ—ous and excellent than the mountains of prey that is then the flourishing Assyrians with all their goodly Monarchy therefore as a consectary â—ring presents unto him that ought to be seared k Psa 76.4 11 2. As omnipresent and omniscient one that beholdeth and taketh knowledge of all we doe as much as of any thing in his own heart for all things consists in him l Collos 1.17 And the wayes of a man are before the Lord he ponderâ—th all his paths m Prov. 5 21 And will ye not tremble at my presence saith the Lord n Ier. 5.24 Ioseph did and so kept himself untouchâ— and Iob did and so frighted his conscience from sin by this wholesome consideration o Iob 31 1 2. 3. As armed with infinite power and might to reward us if we fear him and to punish us if we neglect him Shall servants â—ear their masters because the have power over the sleâ—h p Colos 3 23. and shall not we â—ear him that is aâ—le to cast body and sonle to hell q â—at 10 29. No man will puâ— his hand into a fiery crucible to setch gold 〈◊〉 because he knowes it will be râ—e hiâ—â— did we as truly beleeve and fâ—ar the fire of hell c. 4. As infinitely just and singularly carefull to punish sin where ever he finds it be it in the â—earest of his own nay in his onely son who being maâ—e sin for us r 2 Cor. 5.21 and found in the shape and stead of sinfull fleâ—h Å¿ 3 〈◊〉 8 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Liturg. Graec. was made to undergo those dolorous and â—â—concerveable sorrowes that drew clotted blood t Lue. 22.44 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his body and were joyn'd with a temporary desertion to his soule yet the very pâ—â—es of hell which he selâ—â—or a season u Ps 22.1 c. Who would not therefore fear before this just and impartial God See that sweet song of the triumphant saints that had overcome the beast by the blood of the lamb Iust and true a e thy wayes c. who shall not feâ—r thee O Lord and gloâ—ifie thy name w Rev. 15 4 c. 5. As abundantly and unâ—peakeably kind and loving to us in Christ This property in God throughly thought upon will inflame our hearts with his love and so make us fearfull to displease him as the dutifull spouse her loving husband or the gratious child his indulgent father This is to fear God and his goodnesse x Hos 3 5 to fear God through delight in his wâ—es y Psal 112.1 to reioyce in fear z Psal 2 11 and therefore to fear to offend him with hope because there is mercy with hâ—m a Psal 130.4 as the psalmist hath it Thus meditate on the attributes of God set forth in the word In the world next you may see God in his workes And first those standing miracles the hanging of the earth upon nothing b Iob 26.7 the bounding of sea that it cannot transgresse his word c Ier. 5.24 By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth He gâ—thereth the waters of the sea together as a heâ—p he laveth up the depth in storehouseâ— Let all the earth seâ—â— the Lâ—â—d let all the 〈…〉 of the world stand inâ—awe of him For he spake and it was done he commâ—nded and iâ— stood fast d Psal 33 6 7 8 9 c. Secondly turne your eyes and thoughts upon the judgments of God and first particular executed upon others for our warning and learning The righteous hall see this and fear e Psal 52.6 as David speakes and as Dâ—vâ—d did too as himself testifieth my stâ— harembleth for fear of thee and I am aâ—â—aid of thâ— udg ments f Psl 119 120 When one child is whipt in a schoole the rest will tremble so it should be with us when we see others pun shed which because 〈◊〉 did not g Dan. 5 21 22.27 Dâ—scite justâ—iâ— am monai non temnere c. Pâ—ndit Herodotus suo temnore conspâ—ctam esse in Aegvpto statuam Sâ—na heribâ— cum hac insâ—â—ptinne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when his father was turn'd a grasing therefore was he found too light in the ballance and his kingdome given to his neighbour that was better then he 2. Premeditate upon the generall judgment and the unconceivable terrour of that dreadfull day when the heavens shall passe awâ—â— with a greâ—â—nose â—nd the elâ—ments shall mslt with fervent heaâ—â— the earth also and thâ— workes thâ—t are theâ—ein â—halâ— burnt up h 2 pet 3 10 Faelix though a pagan trembled at Pâ—â—ls discourse of this great day i Act 24 25 The devils when they think of it shake and shadder the joynts of their loines are loosed with Belhizzar and their knees smite one against another k Dan 5.6 And can any man think seriously of this last judgment and not be moved with fear Fear God saith Solomon and as a help hereunto consider that God will bring every work into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or evill l Eccles 12.14 And this is the first meanes of getting Gods holy fear viz. Meditation The second is like unto it and that is faithfull and fervent prayer to the father of lights m Jam. 1.17 for it is a supernaturall gift to fear God as a father Thus David goes to God for this gift Vnite my heart which of
hearts nothing will work or take impression till out of the bottom of hell they roar and bewail their own madnesse with desperate and bootlesse teares SECT V. Use 2. admonition Let the wicked break off their sins that they lose not their services VVHich to prevent come we now to a second use of Exhortation Vse 2 And this we addresse unto two sorts of men 1. To all unregenerate and wicked people 2. To those truly religious that are thus highly accepted and favoured with Daniel c Dan. 9.23 in the court of heaven To the wicked first God saith what hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth so long as thou hatest instruction and castest my words behinde thee d Psal 50.16 17 even the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination saith Solomon how much more when he bringeth it with an evil heart e Prov. 21.27 As who should say though such a man have never so good a meaning to serve God in his sacrifice yet he doth worse then lose his labour when he doth his best for he committeth that which is abomination before the Lord and so in seeking to shun hell he doth but take pains to go to hell And to the same purpose another Prophet He that killeth an oxe saith he unlesse withall he kill his corruptions is as well-pleasing to God as if he slew a man He that sacrificeth a lamb unlesse he sacrifice his lusts too is as if he cut off a dogs neck he that offereth an oblation unlesse he present also his body a living oblation holy acceptable to God e Rom. 12.1 is as if he offered swines blood he that burneth incense if it stink of the hand that burneth it is as if he blessed an idol f Isai 66.3 Even your incense is abomination g Isai 1.13 saith the Lord to those sacrificing Sodomites h Isai 1.10 Lo there that precious perfume made up with so many sweet spices and fragrant odours stanck odiously in Gods nostrils he could not abide the scent of it * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nay not his smelling faculty onely is offended by the sinful mans services but the rest of his senses also For his taste their burnt-offerings of rams and fat of lambs he could not relish i ver 11. they delighted him not but were sowre to his palate For his feeling their new moons and appointed feasts were a burden to him he was weary to bear them And for his sight he tells them though they spread forth their hands he will hide his eyes And for his hearing when they make many prayers he will not hear 15.16.12 And for their whole service he demands who required this at your hands to tread in my courts As if he should say it were fitter a fair deal for you to be in your shops or in the alehouse or any where else then here unlesse ye were better This is the gate of the Lord the righteous shall enter into it k Psal 118.20 As for others thus saith the Lord will ye steal and commit adultery and swear and then come and stand goodly before me in this house l Jer. 7.10.11 Do ye think to expiate your sins by your prayers and set off with God by your good deeds for your bad No that 's not the way to get in with God and to be enfeoffed into his favour But what is may some say Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ease to do evil learn to do well c. Come now and let us reason together as friends when this is once well done to purpose saith the Lord. For then though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow m Isai 16 17 18. c. as till then it boots not to bow your selves before the most high with thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oyl no not to offer your first born for your transgression the fruit of your bodies for the sins of your souls n Micah 6.7 Away therefore will the love and liking of every lust cast away all your transgressions throw all your sins out of service your beloved sin especially be it as an hand for ptofit off with it be it as an eye for pleasure out with it be it what it will and never so neer or natural to us if a sin say of it as Haman did of Mordecai what availeth me any thing if he yet live All that are Christs and none but such may appear before God in holy duties have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts o Gal. 5.24 David would not presume to compasse Gods altar till he had washed his hands in inocency p Psal 26.6 nor could he conclude that God would shew him mercy or receive his prayer till he had brought his heart to an utter disregard of whatsoever iniquity q Psal 66.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Achilis Homericus The lepers lips were to be covered according to the law and our Saviour would not admit of a fair word from a foul mouth r Mar. 1.25 The lip of excellency saith Solomon becometh not a fool ſ Prov. 17.7 and the best dish though never so well cookt is extreamly loathed if presented by a leper or brought to table by a nasty sloven so is any holy duty whether of piety or charity displeasing to the Almighty if performed by one that is yet in his pure naturals a stranger to the power of grace and unacquainted with the daily practise of mortification Hence that of Saint Iames Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you t Iam. 4.8.9 10. expounded ob Oh but we dare not come near the Lord neither can we serve him for he is an holy God he is a jealous God he will not forgive our transgressions nor our sinnes u Josh 24.19 Sol. No be sure of that except ye confesse and forsake them x Prov. 28.13 Therefore wash your hands ye sinners saith the Apostle there neither so onely for Pilate washed his hands as if all the guilt had stuck in his fingers ends but cleanse your hearts ye double minded Yea Ob. but how must that be done for though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much sope yet thy iniquity is marked before me saith the Lord God y Jer. 2.22 Sol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 miseri estote Par. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pas Curaeleves c. Afflict your selves saith the Apostle or as the word there signifies be miserable you are so but see your selves such and be sensible even unto godly sorrow and the tears of true repentance weep saith he or if ye cannot do that as some constitutions are naturally dry and do not yeeld tears and some sorrow is bigger then tears and above them yet mourn at least and that ye may not
the Saints are so set upon the thoughts of Gods Name they are taught and inabled thereunto by that holy spirit their domesticall Monitour and sweet inhabitant For know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the holy ghost that is in you p 1 Cor. 6 19 And if their bodies are the Spirits temples surely then their soules are his Holy of Holies wherein are continuall pillars of incense ascending q Cant. 3.6 good and holy thoughts I meane abounding by the operation of the Holy ghost whose immediate motions they are we being not able of our selves to think one good thought r 2 Cor 3.5 There never entred into the heart of a naturall man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him ſ 1 Cor. 2.9 10. ◠But God hath revealed them to us by is spirit whose worke it is 1. To enlighten 2. To enlarge the heart wherein he takes up His first work is to beat out new windows in the dark soules of men to let in a new light thereinto to give us thereby some fight of God some sense of his sweetnesse some glimpse of his glory Not as he is in himself in the brightnesse and perfection of his essence for so he is incomprehensible and the light whereby he should be seen inaccessible t 1 Tim. 6.16 Nor yet so perfectly here as he stands described unto us by his Attriutes and actions that 's reserved for a better life But his back-parts u Exo. 33.23 only with Moses that holy and reverend Name of his Jehovah Jehovah strong mercifull gratious longsuffering c. x Exod. 34.6 Thus much the spirit gives us to see of God though somewhat obscurely y 1 Cor. 13.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as through a grate only or as in a glasse in a riddle or as an old man through spectacles the greatest part of our knowledge being but the least part of our ignorance And Secondly having thus opened our eyes and turned us from darknesse to light he turnes us next from the power of Satan to God z Act. 26.18 that whereas heretosore we were acted and agitated by the Prince of the power of the ayre a Eph. 2.2 the God of this world who had first blinded our minds b 2 Cor. 4 4 and then set abroad upon our hearts and affections hatching out thence whole swarmes of evill thoughts and litters of lusts that fight against the soul c 1 Pet. 2 11 So now being possessed by a better spirit we are enlarged and enabled to captivate and conforme our thoughts to the soveraignty of Gods grace the rules of his word and the remembrance of his Name Fourthly their new Nature Reas 4 that blessed frame of Gods grace erected in them by the spirit that great Architect that plants the heavens and layes the foundation of the earth that he may say to Zion Thou art my people d Esay 57.16 This Divine Nature e 2 Pet. 1.4 as Peter calls it and renewed Image of God this habit of heavenly-mindednesse putteth Gods servants upon a continuall fresh succession of holy thoughts For besides that their phantasy or thinking-faculty being a chief inward sense of the soul is seizedupon for God to the utter dessolving of that old frame of vile thoughts and lusts those strong-holds wherein satan had entrencht f 2 Cor. 10.4 5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself the whole spirit soul and body of a Christian is sanctified throughout g 1 Thes 5.23 God writes his law in our hearts h Heb. 8.10 stamps his image upon the spirit of our minds i Eph. 4.23 makes us partake of the god-like nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world thorough lust k 2 Per. 1.4 c. Hence an ability of holy thoughts and affections for as the man is such are his dispositions and meditations The liberall man deviseth liberall things l Isa 32.8 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things m Mat. 12. And as from within out of the old heart proceed evill thoughts n Mark 7.21 c. so from the sanctified heart proceed sanctified thoughts and gracious considerations and respects to God and his Name Reas 5 Lastly we may argue for the truth and certainty of this point of the godly mans practise from the many near and dear relations he stands in to God together with the daily dealings he hath and often use he makes of his Name For God first he is the good mans friend and father Prince and portion God and guide his All in All o Colos 3.11 he hath given up his name to Gods truth devoted himself to his fear p Psal 119.38 sworne himself to his service q Psa 119.119 and endeavours nothing more then to love him with all his heart with all his soul and with all his thought which is that first and great commandement of the law whereupon the rest hang r Mat. 22.37 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a hing upon a nail or as beads upon a string And secondly for the name of God they run to it in any stresse as to a strong tower ſ Prov. 18.10 they walk in his name t Micah 4.5 as in a Garden or gallery they rejoyce in it as in all treasure u Psal 119 14 yea what ever they do in word or deed they do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ x Colos 3.17 c. Now can we possibly rejoyce in Gods name run to it upon all occasions walk in it talk of it do all in it and yet not minde it not be much in the thought of it Again can we acquaint our selves with the Almighty vouch him for our God set him up for our Soveraigne coverse familiarly with him as our friend walk before him y 1 King 9 4◠in uprightnesse and integrity walk with him z Gen. 6.9 in an humble familiarity walk after him a Deut. 13.4 by an entire obedience and ready conformity and yet not frequently think on him 't is not possible SECT III. Vse 1. Those that habitually think not upon God fear not God NOw for application Are all Gods people such as think upon his Name Use 1 This then serveth first to shut all such out of this holy society andto evince them void of Gods true fear that think not dayly and diligently upon God that make not his name the matter of their meditation that say not in their hearts Let us now fear the Lord our God b Ier. 5.24 c. The wicked saith David through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God God is not in all his thoughts c Psal 10.4 Eating and drinking buying and felling building and planting plowing and reaping c. are in his thoughts but God falls not into his thoughts the whole day thoroughout Or
loves not to strain upon any neither cares he for an ill-willing service Delight thy self in the Lord d Psal 37.4 Virtus nolentium nulla est if he shall delight in that thou dost let it be thy recreation to walk into Gds Garden to muse upon his word and works to be thinking upon his Name Secondly do it soberly e Rom. 12.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Qui scrutatur majestatem opprimetur à gloria Aug. not prying into Gods secrets further then hee hath revealed them lest ye lose your selves in the search and be swallowed up in a maze or whirl-pool of errours and heresies Thirdly do it spiritually without framing any grosse image of God in our mindes or representing him by the similitude of any creature in our hearts for his is idolatry Onely this may help our understandings much when we think of God to conceive that God is in Christ that expresse image of his Fathers person f Heb. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there we may finde firme footing for our fickle thoughts He is that ladder of ascension g Joh 3.13 by which we may climb safely up to God whilest we fix the eye of our minds upon his humane nature in which the Godhead dwelleth bodily h Colos 2.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wee may not set before our eyes Christ-man and so worship without any more ado but if we conceive of the Man-Christ and then worship that God-head that dwelleth in him we do right and besides we attain to a point further which is to conceive of God in Christ Bifield on 1 Pet. 2. pag. 530. that is personally So then like as when I see the body of a man there I know his soul is also and therefore I speak to his understanding when and where I see his body because they are not severed so viewing by the eye of my minde that humane nature of Christ now glorious in heaven I can there also look upon the great God because I know he is there personally united Fourthly do this divine work reverntly taking heed that we defile not his Name i Dent. 28.58 by our slubbering services as those greasie priests did in the beginning of this prophecy k Mal. 1.8 whiles they thought any thing good enough for God But undertake we this duty with trembling hearts and wel-composed affections coming into his dreadfull presence with the best preparation we can get considering that he is a great king and stands upon his seniority as he tells them there yea his Name is dreadfull among the Heathen ib. Verse ult Lastly do it constantly never going off nor giving over the holy matter of our meditation whatever it be till wee have made somewhat of it till it bee form'd and seated in our hearts till it be well disgested and improved for practise Else what will it profit us to knock at the door of our hearts by some good thoughts of God and his Name if we stay not an answer Thon shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord l Hos 6.3 saith the Prophet SECT X. Directions about the measure of divine Meditation where is shewed how men offend 5. wayes in thinking on earthly things HItherto the manner of our thinking upon Gods Name The measure follows and that must be modus sine modo For the generall it must be without measure * Cum Cypriâ—no modum esse putemus in pictate nullum tenere modum Quocunq tempore non cogitaveris Deum puta tempus illud amisisse Casarius monit 2. c. 3. Omne tempus quo de Deo non cogitasti cogita te perdidisse Bernardus Magit Dei meminisse debemus quam respirate Heidfield In particular think we must upon the things of God more plentifully largely affectionately constantly then of all other things in the world laid together This is a duty of the first Commandement yea this is that first and great Commandement of the Law Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all c. Not but that it is lawfull to think also of other necessary businesses in their due place and season but te offence is when 1. We think of them primarily and in the first place letting them have the first-fruits of our thougts in a morning which indeed is due to God alone and was paid him in kind by David When I awake I am still with thee m Psal 139 18 saith he And by Esay With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early n Esay 26.9 That rule of our Saviour is generall and holds here Seek ye first the kingdome of God o Mat. 6.33 c. 2. Unseasonably at prohibited times as on the Lords day p Esay 58.13 and in the Interim of divine duties any day * Hoc age Gel. for then to give way to earthly thoughts is to commit dalliance with strangers before Gods face yea to think of the best things out of season when the duty in hand calls for the whole heart is sinfull and in that case we must answer the tempter as Hushai did Ahitophel Thy counsell is not good at this time q 2 Sam. 17.7 3. Too savourily or with over-much delight or confidence in the same being wedded and wedg'd unto them in our thoughts and affections laying our whole waight upon them as it were as David did when he had gotten him upon his mount and said He should never be moved r Psal 30.6 7 and as Job when flourishing and swimming in all abundance of wealth and ease hee made no other reckoning but to die in his nest Å¿ Job 29 18 4. Sollicitously distrustfully anxiously when Martha-like we trouble our heads about many things t Luke 10.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and turmoil our spirits with fretting vexing carking and corroding cares and thougts of the things of this life contrary to that Evangelicall precept Take no thoughts u and again In nothing be carefull x Ph lip 4.6 5. Needlesly endlesly and superfluously laying out far more thoughts upon these earthly things then the matter amounts to Live not in carefull suspence y Luke 12.29 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word sounds thus much Hang not like Meteors make no tedious and superfluous discourses in the air It notes out the covetous persons endlesse framing of projects and tossing of thougts this way and that way and every way for the compassing of his greedy desires and worldy designes But do not you so saith our Saviour rather be paring off superfluities this way and contract your thoughts into as narrow a compasse as may be z 1 Cor 7.29 Zacheus converted prefac Illuminati stamunt opud se nil agendum seriâ— in tota vita prater caelestia reliqua obiter Rolloc in Ioh. 4.32 It is enough to look at the world slightly aloof off and out at
he is above them 2 Pet. 3 9. Exod. 18.11 He hath an eye to follow them a goard to look to them and a goaler to bring them forth whensoever he shall call for them In case they should make escape as they cannot he hath armies above them armies below them armies about them armies upon them yea armies within them to bring them back to execution For a wicked person is not safe from his own tongue to peach him from his own hands to dispatch him from his own phantasy to disquiet him from his own conscience to affright him from his own friends to betray him from his own beasts to gore him from his own fire to burn him from his own house to brain him Thus it is with him whiles at home as if he look abroad to every creature he meets he may say as Ahab once said to the Prophet Hast thou found me O mine enemy For as every good souldier will fight for his Generall and as a Noble-mans servants will soon draw if their Lord be set upon so there is not a creature in all the world that is not ready prest to fight Gods battles and revenge his quarrell upon an ungodly person Gen 4.14 What Cain sometimes said he hath good cause to take up and second Job 18.15 Every thing that findeth me shall slay me Brimstone is strawed upn the house of the wicked saith Iob so that if the fire of Gods wrath do but lightly touch upon it Job 9 5 Eccles 6.13 Necesse est ut eum omnibus doctâ—orem agnoscam qui triginta habet legiones Phavorm de Adriano â—mp apud Spartian they are suddenly consumed they walk all day long upon a mine of Gunpowder either by force or stratageme they are sure to be surprised Had Zimri peace that slew his master Hath ever any waxed fierce against God and prospered Oh that these gracelesse men would once learn to meddle with their match and according to the wise-mans counsell beware of contending with one that is mightier then they this Lord of Hosts I mean the Lord mighty in battle Psal 24.8 this man of warr as Moses calls him whose name is Jehovah sabaoth before whose dreadfull presence and unresistible puissance they are no more able to stand then is a glasse-bottle before a cannon-shot SECT IIII. Tremble before this mighty Lord of Hosts THirdly Use 3 Is he the Lord of Hosts with whom we have to deal be we all hence exhorted and excited to the pracise of divers duties And first to tremble before this mighty God who having so many millions at his beck and obedience can with as much ease and in as little time undo us as bid it be done So Caesar once threatened Metellus in a bravado but so God only and easily can do indeed to such as set against him If the breath of God blow men to destruction Iob 4.9 for we are but dust-heaps if he can frown us to death with the rebuke of his countenance Psal 80.16 what is the waight of his hand that mighty hand as James calls it wherewith he spans the heavens Jam 4 1â— Isay 40.22 and weigheth the earth in a ballance He sits upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants are as grashoppers he shakes them out of it at pleasure as it were by a canvass or as out of ones lap so much the Hebrew word imports Iob 38.13 Who would not therefore fear thee O King of Nations Jer. 10.6 7 Mat 22.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for to thee doth it appertain forasmuch as thowart great and thy Name is great in might Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars saith Christ and unto God the things that are Gods Where it is remarkable that the Article in the Originall is twice repeated when he speaks of God more then when he speaks of Caesar to shew saith a Divine that our speciall care should be to give God his due Now shall we fâ—ar to break the penall lawes of a King Prov. 19 12 Prov. 16.14 Prov. 20.2 because his wrath is as the roaring of a lion and as the messengers of death so that whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul And shall we not fear this King of Nations who hath Armies of creatures to do us to death and after that legions of devils to torment us in hell shall we fear fire water lions leopards bulls bears and other common souldiers yea the wrath of a fool because it is heavier then the sand of the sea Prov. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 10.28 Philip. 3. ult 27.3 4. An shall we not fear the great Emperour of all these that hath them all at his beck and obeisance These may kill us but they cannot hurt us as he once told the tyrant destroy they may the body but neither keep the good soul from heavents nor the body from a glorious resurrection But God can do all this yea more then this and shall we not fear his heavy displeasure Especially since according to his fear so is his wrath Psal 90.11 That is according to some as any one doth more or less fear Gods indignation in the same degree and measure shal the feel it as he trembles at it he shall tast of it Or as others and perhaps better Let a man stand in never so great awe of thy wrath yet his fear shall not prove proportionall or ever be able to match it he shall never fear thee so much as thy wrath amounts to let him fear his utmost For there is a fire kindled in his anger and it burns unto the lowest hell Deut. 32.22 Now Bellarmine is of opinion that one glimps of hell were enough to make a man not only turn Christian and sober but Anchorite and Monke to live after the strictest rule that can be I conclude with the Apostle Wherefore let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear For our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. SECT V. Trust in his power for fulfilling his promises SEcondly is He the Lord of Hosts This should teach us to rest confidently upon his power for the fulfilling of his promises For what should hinder First God is not as Man that he should lie he payes not what he hath promised Plutarch as Sirtorius is said to do with fair words Secondly hee is not off and on with us he doth not say and unsay Mal. 3. he is Jehovah that changeth not Thirdly he is the Lord of Hosts and cannot be resisted or interrupted in his course Nature may be and was when the fire burnt not the water drown'd not the Lions devoured not c. Men may be withstood though never so mighty as the potent Prince of Persia was Daniel 10.20 And as Asa was who although he brought five hundred thousand men into the field yet was he encountred and overmatcht by an Army of a thousand thousand and upward
of my hand they shall deliver their own souls they shall have their own lives for a prey Something there is that God will yeeld to prayer then Cartwr in loc when he is most bitterly bent against a people or person Mat. 24.20 Pray saith our Saviour after he had foretold such an affliction as never had been nor should be the like pray saith he that your flight be not in the winter for that will be tedious nor on the sabbath for that will be grievous Whereupon a learned Interpreter makes this note In maxima severitate aliquid permittit precibus Something God will graciously yeeld to prayers in his greatest severity Admirable is that and for the present purpose most apt and apposite that Polanus reports of a terrible earth-quake in the territories of Berne in Swisserland by means whereof a certain high mountain carried violently over other mountains ' ore-whelmed and covered a whole township that had ninety families in it one half house only excepted wherein the master of the family with his wife and children were with bended knees calling earnestly upon God This fell out no longer ago then in the year 1584. Polan Syntag. Theolog tom ◠lib. 5. cap. 21. de terr aemotu mortuus est Polan Anno. 1610 Mat. 21.21 and is related by Amandus Polanus a famous Divine who lived not many yeers since at Basill not many miles distant from the place where the thing fell out In which notable example who seeth not as in a mirrour the marvelous force and efficacy of faithfull prayer standing Aaron-like with his incense betwixt the living and the dead and verifying that of our Saviour Verily I say unto you if ye have faith and doubt not ye shall say unto this mountain Remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove yea be thou removed and cast into the sea and it shall be done And All things whatsoever ye shall aske in prayer beleeving ye shall receive Oh blessed Saviour Eph. 1.19 what could have fallen from that sweet mouth of thine more for the glory of thy free grace and our greatest encouragement to ply the throne of grace with dayly suites that God would open our eyes to see the exceeding greatnesse of his power towards us that beleeve according to the working of his mighty power There is in the Originall a sixfold gradation and all too little Words are too weak to utter it SECT VIII Be comforted in the consideration of his power where diverse objections of weak Christians are answered SIngular comfort to all that belong to the Lord of Hosts Use 4 to consider that God hath a power alwayes prepared an army ever in readinesse 1. to preserve them 2. to provide for them For their preservation Dan. 3.17 first Our God is able to deliver us either from the fire or in it this was the support of those three brave Worthies in Daniel and may be ours that lean on the Lord and the power of his might Shall the Philistins rely upon their Goliath Papists an their he-saints and she-saints Turks on their Mahomet Heathens on their Tutelaries and not we encourage our selves in the Lord our God as David not cheer up our hearts in this man of warr whose name is the Lord of Hosts the Lord mighty in battle Oh say with the church in Micah Micah 4.5 All people will walk every one in the name of his God and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever For their rock is not as our Rock Deut. 32.31 our enemies themselves being Judges Contemno minutos istos Deos modo Jovem propitium habeam said that Heathen If God be for us what need we fear what man or devill can do unto us Rom. 8 31 Ob. Sol. Oh but mine enemies are many and mighty Yea but thy champion is the Lord of hosts with whom it 's nothing to save whether with many or with no power I his staid up Asa's heart against a thousand thousand enemies 2 Chron. 14 22 But they are fierce and furious Ob. Sol. What of that I know whom I have trusted saith Paul and I am sure that he is able to keep that I have committed to him against that day 2 Tim. 1.12 I have been delivered out of the mouth of the lion And the Lord shall deliver me from all evill c. 2 Tim. 4.17 18. Did not the Lord appear to Joshuah with a naked sword in his hand Nudatum nimirum ensem suum nunquam deposuit sed inde usque ab Adae lapsu eum in Ecclesiae suae defens c. Bucholc as captain of the Host Did not the Angels fight for Hezekiaeh and environ Iacob at Mahanaim Elisha in the mount c and hath not the Lord charged them still to pitch their tents round about the righteous They appear not unto us it 's true now as of old because the church now needs not such confirmations and Christ being ascended and the spirit plentifully bestowed God would that our conversation should be in heaven and not that the Angls should converse so visibly with us on earth But they still pitty our humane frailty and secretly suggest both counsell and comfort they also keep us from perils and dangers of body and soul who else could not subsist no not an hour Next for provision of necessaries God hath taken and bound over the best of the creatures to purvey for his people and to bring them in maintenance the heaven Pro. 20.30 31 Rex ferarum Isidor lib. 10. c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earth the corne the wine the oyle the best of the best is for them Hos 2.20 21. The Lions saith the Psalmist and the Lion is the king of beasts or the ricb among the people as the Septuagint have it shall hunger and starve those that will be sure to have it if it be to be had wicked rich men not only rob but ravish the poor Psal 10.9 10 when they have gotten them into their nets that is their debts bonds mortgages as Chrysostom expounds it Hence they are called men-eaters Cannibals Psal 14.4 Loe these Cormorants these yong Lions shall lack and suffer hunger but those that seek the Lord shall want nothing that is good Psal 78.14 Pluviam escatilem petram aquatilem Tertull. Vix unquam major fuit gloria illius populi in terra Canaan quà m in deserto Buchol He will rain down bread from heaven and set the flint-stone abroach and turn the wildernesse into a Paradise before his people shall pine and perish Never was Prince so served in his greatest pomp as the rebellious Israelites in the desert How good shall we finde him then to those that please him Elias is fed one while by an Angell another while by a Raven But if both should have failed him as the brook Cherith did yet he that took away his meat could have taken
the walls of Jericho But what matter is it how unlikely the means are if in the hands of Omnipotency An Ox-goad in the hand of a Shamgar an Asse-bone in the hand of a Sampson may do much so here The Devil must needs down if God once send forth his Pauls to open mens eyes to turn them from darknesse to light Acts 26.18 and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgivenesse of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in Christ Oh Obj but the Devil tells me I shall never inherit for I am not sanctified by faith Settle that first be sure by sound and infallible evidences Sol. See that thy faith and other graces be of the right stamp effectuall faith laborious love patient hope c. 1 Thes 1.3 and then sing a Requiem to thy self as Luther once did after a grievous conflict the Psalm De profundis Joh Manly loc com in contemptum Diaboli in defiance to the Devil Onely be advised not to pore over-much upon thy sanctification which in the best is unperfect but to take comfort of thy Justification which is compleat and absolute In confident consideration whereof St. Paul triumphantly cries out Rom. 8.33 34 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods chosen so long as it is God that justifieth Or as Austin reads it Shall God that justifies us Who is he that condemneth Do Angels No they rejoyce in our conversion and call us their fellow-servants But who then Do the insensible or unreasonable creatures They in their kind are in covenant with us Hos 2.18 and in earnest expectation groan nay travell together with us waiting and as it were lying bed-ridden the while for our full manifestation â—â—en the redemption of our bodies Rom. 8.19 c. But who is it then Do our own hearts condemn us No neither if not bemisted and abused by Satan for being justified by faith we have so farre peace with God that we glory in tribulation by the confident intergatory of a good conscience toward God Rom. 5.1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.21 1 Joh. 3.20 But say our own hearts do wrongfully accuse us yet God is greater then our hearts as well for good as for evil to do us right notwithstanding a misgiving or misguided heart of our own But say then who is he that condemneth us Is it the Devil and his wicked imps Let them do their worst 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 12. He is indeed the accuser of the brethren but Christ our Advocate is ever ready to non-suit and cast out all his accusations The Spirit also is in direct and full opposition to this Accuser called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Comforter or Pleader for us Yea what apology or clearing of your selves Rev. 12.10 pleading our evidences to our spirits and helping us upon true repentance to make apology for our selves 2 Cor. 7.11 such as God admits of and accepts As for that old Serpent the Accuser of the brethren he is cast down already and all his limbs shall bee cast after him ere long into the burning lake In the mean while what cares the prisoner at the barre though the gaoler and his fellow-prisoners passe sentence of death upon him in the gaole so long as the Judge acquits him from the bench And as little need any servant of the Lord of Hosts stand upon the censurs of earth and hell so long as God thinks well of him and all the Hosts of God combine for his comfort Oh Obj but I have hosts within me that do me all the despite and displeasure The flesh lusteth against the spirit and other-whiles gets the better of it Besides there be bands of fleshly lusts 1 Pet. 2.11 which like armed souldiers lie billetted in my bosome and ever and anon fight against my soul Yet bee of good comfort the spirit also lusteth against the flesh so that thou canst not do what thou naturally wouldest Sol. Gal. 5.17 thy new nature will not suffer thee as Paul would have gone to a certain place but the Spirit forbade him As for thy lusts be they never so lordly God can easily cut the combes nay the throats of them and let out their life-blood My Father is stronger then all and None can take you out of his hands The weak brother shall be holden up amidst a world of scandals without Joh. 10 Rom. 14.4 and staggerings within for God is able to make him stand He can preserve a fire alive upon the face of the Ocean a spark of the spirit amidst a world of wickednesse within He can cause weak and worthlesse grashoppers to become a great nation Ioel 1.6 a mighty people chap. 2.2 a huge army ib. Esay 30.22 Psal 19.5 He can make the house of Israel pollute the idols which they had once perfumed with incense and to say to their familiar devils get thee hence He can stop or strike back the course of the Sun though it rejoyce as a strong man to run his race Naturally and freely it giveth light but he can turn it into darknesse and blood The mountains of themselves are ponderous and pressing yet at Gods command they skip like lambs Think the same of our dull and undutiful hearts God can quickly oyl them and nimble them drawing us by his free spirit so as we shall run after him as a baldder of it self is a heavy substance and unapt for motion but being filled with winde it will scarce ' bide in a place So we being filled with the holy Ghost shall finde our feet as hinds feet upon the everlasting mountains no longer shackled by corruption Psal 119. but at very good liberty to run the wayes of Gods commandments It s most sure we are not strained at all in God but in our own bowels He is both able and ready both to cover and cure our sins and sicknesses In the dayes of his flesh he offered himself to his patients and was found of them that sought him not He heal'd them also of diseases hereditary and such as all the Physitians in the countrey might have cast their caps at Now he hath lost nothing by heaven you may be sure neither of his will nor skill to do the same cures upon mens souls as once he did upon their bodies nay he cured their bodies onely in reference to their souls and still hangs out his table of cures Math. 8.17.18 to draw custome Rev. 3.18 Lo thus we have searched and so it is Hear it and know it for thy good Iob. 5.27 CHAP. II. The Lord will finde a fit time to make up his jewels from the worlds misusages And they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels Doct GOd is the Lord of hosts This is a point hath been hitherto proved and improved Followes now a second Observation Confirmat
so much only as the Eccho resounds But we must be getting and growing in this grace even in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ He is the brightnesse of his fathers glory and the expresse image of his person The beam of the Sun is not so like the body of the Sun the character on the wax is not so like the seal that imprints it nay milk is not so like milke as Christ is like his father He is up and down the self-same that his Father is they differ in nothing Christus est alius à patre non aliud but that the one is the father and not the son the other is the son and not the father Hence that of our Saviour to Philip when he said Lord shew us the father and it sufficeth us Jesus saith unto him Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip He that hath seen me Ioh. 14.8 9 hath seen the Father and how sayest thou then shew us the Father The very same All-powerfull God who in fellowship of his sacred person hath a soul and body glorified the same spirituall nature is the nature of the Father As if the same soul and body that is in you were communicated with the person of your child Well might our Saviour therefore say If ye had known me ye should have known my father also John 14.7 Oh learne and labour therefore to profit more and more in the mystery of Christ to know him better in his natures in his offices in his workes both of Abasement and Advancement of Humiliation and Exaltation but especially to know him as St. Paul did for the other you may easily know out of every Catechisme to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil. 3.10 This is the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus ver 8. this is life eternall Ioh. 17.3 We know no more of God and his will then we practise and have experience of Christ is said to know no sin because he did none and Eli's sons knew not the Lord though priests because they feared him not they deteined the truth they knew in unrighteousnesse as those Philosophers did Rom. 1.18 SECT IX Let them thankfully acknowledge his free grace in their adoption and why A Second duty we owe to God as his children is thankfull acknowledgement of that never-enough adored depth of his singular love in our Adoption The absolute and independant freedome of his grace herein was such that without any the least colour of cause or shew of reason in us without any defect on his part or desert on ours He drew us out of the most vile and servile condition that could be into the glorious liberty of the sons of God David was to be gathered to his fathers Psal 132.11 Esay 9.6 1 Tim. 1.17 Psal 2. and it was therefore a singular favour to him that he should have children to sit upon his throne after him But God is the King immortall as St. Paul stiles him the everlasting Father as Esay and therefore needs no son to succeed him But if he did he had a son of his own as like him as is possible whom also he hath set as King upon his holy hill of Sion Amongst men those that have children of their own if they adopt another mans childe it is commonly because their own are unfit for succession either from some bodily weaknesse as not likely to leave issue or for basenesse of spirit and badnesse of behaviour as uncapable and unfit for government Now none of all this can without horrible blasphemy be said of the Lord Christ But admit the case had so stood with God that it had been requisite he should have adopted any for his sons and heirs the good Angels might have drawn away his affection from us by their holinesse or the evill angels his compassion for their wretchednesse or he could for a need of very stones have raised up children to himself to be heirs of his kingdome in Christ It was his will only and nothing else that moved his will to set his love upon us as we may see both in the type Deut. 7.7 and in the truth Eâ—h 1.5 Surely as there was no defect or need in him so there was as little merit or desert in us For whereas in the civill adoption as when Pharaohs daughter adopted Moses Mordecai adopted Esther Jacob the two sons of Joseph there is something in the Adopted that moveth the Adoptant cither some outward inducement as kindred beauty favour c. or some inward as the gifts of the minde understanding ingenuity hopefulnes c. there was nothing at all in us to move God to such a mercy For outward respects there was neither kindled to mâ—â—te him for our father was an Amorite Ezek. 16.3 4 5 6. Christ calls his spouse first his Love and thâ—n his fair one Câ—â—t 2.10 Homo est inversâ—s decalogus Eph. 2.1 2. our mother a Hittite we were the sons of the perverse rebellious woman as Saul reproached Ionathan nor yet beauty to intice him for we were in our blood in our blood in our blood when he spread the skirt of his garment over us and said unto us Live Blood is so many severall times there named to note our extreme filthinesse so little amiable were we when he set his love upon us And for any inward motive grace which is the only thing that God looks after Psal 14.2 is not at all to be found in the naturall man Nay he stands acrosse and is quite contrary to it as being acted and agitated by the devill and held captive as a slave by him at his pleasure Loe this was our estate thus the Lord found us when he came to adopt us And indeed Adoption to speak properly as it is a borrowed terme from the civil law imports as much For it is the raking of one foâ— a son who is for present in some servitude to another And so Lawyers distinguish it from Arrogation which is say they the chusing of one for a son that is free his own man not under the command of another But such alass was not our case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 3.23 for both Jews and Gentiles were shut up under sin fist shut up close prisoners in the devills dungeon whose works we did as slaves and could not but do them whose image we bear as sons and could not but resemble him being as like the devill as if we had been spâ—tout of his mouth and had perished together with him in our own filth and blood like that forlorne infant Ezek. 16. had not he of his mere grace and goodnesse when it was thetime of loves said unto us Live yea when we were weltring in our blood he said Live Oh let the deep and due consideration of this matchlesse mercy and free favour ravish and
Iohn Careles 110.1 When the righteous shine as bright as silver upon the celestiall shelf as that martyr said and surpass us as farr as the lily doth the thorns Cant. 2.2 or as the gold doth the coals in the goldsmiths shop yea they are the throne of Christ Exod. 17.16 his Iewels Mal. 3.17 his ornament Ezek. 7.20 the beauty of his ornament and that set in majesty ib. a royall diadem on the head of Jehovah Esay 62.3 and so they shall one day appear to be though now they do not 1 Ioh. 3.2 it shall be no hard matter to discern them Between the righteous and the wicked Here they are together in the church militant and ever have been Sinners in Sion Isa 33.14 sacrificing Sodomites Isa 1.10 a devill in Christs family Ioh. 13.10 All men have not faith 2 Thess 3.2 all the Lords people are not holy Num. 16.3 that any are 't is just wonder What is man that he should be clean and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous Iob 15.14 None are so but such as are arraied with that fine white linnen and shining the righteousnesses of the saints Rev. 19.8 that twofold righteousnesse Imputed and Imparted of Justification and of Sanctification See both 1 Cor. 6.11 and seek after both by Christs Merit and Spirit by his Value and Vertue He is Iehovah our righteousnesse Ier. 23.5 and of his fulnesse we all receive Ioh. 1.16 He it is that makes us to differ from the wicked of the world that have hearts full of hell and are ever either hatching cockatrices eggs or at best weaving spiders webbs vanity or villany is their whole practise The best among them would serve god and yet retain their lusts too as Solomon thought he could follow sinfull pleasures and yet keep his wisdome And with such we must converse whiles in this world Tares will be with the wheat goats among the sheep righteous and wicked together God permits it so to be for the glory of his free grace and for the triall and exercise of his people Our care must be the greater for evill men indanger good men as weeds do the corn as bad humours the blood or an infected house the neighbourhood We must resolve as Ioshuah to serve the Lord howsoever because a difference shall be one day set between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not Where we see that not serving of God not sacrificing is a sinne Eccles 9 2. Not robbing onely but the not relieving of the poor was the rich mans ruin Not gluttony onely but overmuch abstinence may overthrow the body Omission of diet breeds diseases so doth omission of duties and makes work for hell or for the Physitian of our souls Let us therefore have grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.27 Serve him as old Zachary in his Canticle saith we should do Luke 1.74 75. First out of sense of his dear love in our deliverance by Christ whereinto the deeper we dive the sweeter Servati sumus ut serviamus This will make us love to be his servants Esay 56.7 fervent in spirit serving the Lord Rom. 12.12 Secondly serve him without fear slavish fear serve him with an holy security in full assurance of his gracious assistance and acceptance yea though thorough infirmity we misse or marre his work yet he will spare us Mal. 3.17 Thirdly serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse in all parts and points of duty shew your integrity both for subject and object not picking or chusing ' your work nor sticking at any thing but willing in all things to please God He doth not Gods but his own will that doth no more then himself will Fourthly serve him sincerely in holinesse and righteousnesse before him or as in his presence Set the Lord ever at your right hand look him full in the face approve your hearts and lives unto him do him but eye-service and it sufficeth Fifthly serve him constantly all the dayes of your lives hire your selves to him for terme of life why should you desire to shift or fleet where can you mend your selves either for fairnesse of work or fulnesse of wages Can the son of Iesse give you vineyards c. said Saul to his servants so may God say Can the world do for you as I both can and will if you cleave to me with full purpose of heart Sure it cannot c. FINIS An Alphabeticall Table of all the Principall things contained in this whole WORK A ABstinence Pag. 265 Admonition rejected p. 60 61. the best need it p. 480. Râ—ch 1. admonished by an Hermite p. 321 Adoption the whole Doctrine of it p. 912 913 914 915 916 c. Adultery goeth along with idolatry p. 69 70 71. punished p. 57 664 Affliction is Gods thorn-hedge p. 27. 't is usefull p. 26. humblâ—th us p. 89. teacheth us 90. maketh us pray ib. is Gods vocall instruction to us 377. Comforts under it 385. Difference of afflictions that befall saints and sinners 414 421. Saints are thereby purged 591 592 661 662. tried 593. gratified 593. How to live by faith in affliction 888 889. Despondency under affliction reproved 890. Suffer it patiently 891 892. though not presently delivered 893. Helps thereunto ib. 894. God a Father to his afflicted 928 Alchymy a pick-purse p. 420 Alexander M. meeting the high-priest p. 520 Ambition unsatisfiable p. 422 Amos who p. 221 Amurath 3 stabbed to death p. 579 Angels readily serve the Saints p. 504 537. and why 504. they are our Gardians 512. heavenly spirits c. 537 Anger rash the evil of it p. 326 Antiquity falsified by Papists p. 561 Apostasie p. 67. Apostates 74â— it is very dangerous 178 Apparrell pride in it condemned p. 448 Assurance labour after it p. 153 208. be not unsetled 618 Astrologie judiciary condemned p. 446 Atheists practicall p. 450 B BAal who p. 30. Baalim what 37 B. Babingtons three-leaved book p. 686 Baptisme promised p. 583 Bastards reproached p. 652 Bath of Christs Blood p. 660 Beauty lovely p. 281. stained with evil manners 408 Be Best in worst times and why 695 696 697 698 c. Blasphemy punished p. 676 Blood-guiltinesse wofull p. 406 Borbonius anagrammatized p. 23 Bribery condemned p. 73 354 382 C CAlling of the Gentiles p. 623 Get a lawfull Calling p. 309 Calvins Institutions when and why written p. 273. Calvin belied by A Lapide p. 601 Cardinals pompous creation p. 25 Censure not others harshly p. 936 937 940 Chemarims who p. 446 Children soon corrupted p. 83. unnaturall children 384. degenerate children 642. a fathers huge love to his children 585. Sennacherib why slain by his own sons 399 Church described by her afflictions p. 594. restlesse here 504. is invincible 527 576. is under persecution 594. she shall be delivered 887. onely she must pray for it 888. she is married to Christ 897 hath him for her Head 13 Christ his yoke is
to those that drank most and fourty one of the company killed themselves with drinking to get that crown Darius king of Persia caused this to bee ingraven upon his tomb I was able to drink much wine and to bear it bravely Was not this to glory in his shame had he no way else to shew his valour Athenâ—â—â— Did he never take notice of that Persian law that it should not bee lawfull for their King to be drunk but onely once a yeer when they sacrificed to the Sunne Idem whom they took to be the greatest of the gods How much better Bathsheba in her Lemuels-lesson It is not for Kings Lemuel it is not for Kings to drink wine nor for Princes strong-drink lest they drink and forget the law c. Prov. 31.4 And if not for kings much lesse is it for others to be drunk with wine wherein is excesse Eph. 5.18 lest with Nabal and the rich glutton they drink deep of the wine of Gods wrath and have the full vials of his vengeance poured upon them for ever and anoint themselves with the chief ointments After the manner of the Jewish Nation whereof see 2 Sam. 12.20 Eccles 9.8 Luk. 7.38 46. Psal 23.5 and 104.15 Mat. 6.17 They spare for no cost or pains to please all their senses And such a prodigall pleasure-monger was that rich citizens sonne mentioned in the second part of the Theatre of Gods judgments who to please all his five senses at once allowed to the delight of every severall sense a severall hundred pound For which end 1. Theat of Gods judgments part 2. pag. 110.111 He bespake a curious faire room richly hangd and furnished with the most exquisite pictures to please the eye 2. He had all the choysest Musick that could be heard of to give content to the eare 3. He had all the Aromatickes and odoriferous perfumes to delight his cent in smelling 4. All the Candies Preserves Junkets even to the stretching of the Apothecaries or Confectionaries art to please his taft 5. And lastly a beautifull and faire strumpet lodg'd with him in a soft bed and the daintiest linnen that could be compassed to accommodate his touch and all these this Epicure more then ever Sardanapalus did enjoy'd at one instant He spent thirty thousand pounds in three yeares and swore after all that if he had ten times more then ever he had he would spend it all to live one week like a God though he were sure to be damn'd in hell the next day after they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph i. e. of the Israelites Psal 80.2 and 77.16 Amos. 5.6 Joseph is mentioned and put for all the rest because he was famous amongst his brethren Aug. de doct Christian lib. 4. cap. 6. vel ob mala quae pendit vel ob bona quae rependit both for the evils that he suffered and for the good turns that he returned Time was when poor Joseph was ill handled by his mercilesse brethren and could not be heard though he used many intreaties Gen. 37.23 any 42 21. They when they had cast him into the pit there to pine and perish with hunger sat down to eat and so to ease themselves of any remorse of conscience that might be wrought in them See 1 Sam. 22.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They should have been sick at heart as the word here signifieth for the affliction the confraction the breaking to shivers of Joseph poor Reuben was so as farr as he durst shew it and Joseph forgat not his kindnesse when he came to his greatnesse God who is all bowels will never forget those that forget not his afflicted but commiserate and relieve them as they have opportunity and ability Verse 7. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first Heb. in the head of those that go captive as they have been first in the degrees of honour and of sin so shall they be now of punishment according to that saying of the Centuristâ— Ingentia beneficia Magdeburg Esa 50.11 ingentia flagitia ingentia supplicia This they shall have of Gods hand they shall lie down in sorrow yea many sorrowes shall be to these wicked ones Psal 32.10 these mercilesse men shall not have the least mercy shewed them Iam. 2.13 God will surely set off all hearts from such as he did from Haman for whom in his misery not one man openeth his mouth once to intercede and he will punish magnum luxum magno luctu as One saith great luxury with great necessity and the banquet of them that stretched themselves They shall neither have mind nor mony to make feasts that were wont to lay on in all sorts of superfluities That prodigall above-mentioned was by a just hand of God reduced to extreame penury and cast off by all his former acquaintance Senâ—â—â— That luxurious Roman Apicius the expences of whose kitchin amounted to more then two millions of gold having eaten up his estate and fearing poverty poysoued himself leaving behind him ten bookes of direction how to furnish and set forth a feast with all manner of varieties which now he could sooner talk of then take of The word here rendred banquet is taken for a funerall feast Jer. 16.5 and so some think the sense here is Lively they shall be carried captive into a farr country and there be deprived of the honour of burialls which is a judgement elsewhere threatened Jer. 22.18 19. Aben-Ezra rendreth it facesset canticum the song of the wanton shall be set packing and for this he alledgeth that in the Arabick dialect the root word here used signifieth to lift up the voyce either for joy or grief The Seventy render it the neighing of horses as noting their immoderate lust according to Jer. 5.8 And this sense Ribera commendeth Verse 8. The Lord God hath sworn by himself Heb. by his soul which is himself sith whatsoever is in God is God So chap. 4.2 Gen 22.16 Heb. 6.16.17 Or He hath sworn by his soule that is Seriè ex animo Seriously and heartily Among the Heathens ex animi sui sententia was instead of an oath saith the Lord God of hosts who hath power enough in his hand to performe what he hath so solemnly assured I abhorr the excellency or the pomp and pride of Jacob So Basil speaking of the Western Church Odi fastum istius Ecclesiae saith He I hate their pride This he elsewhere calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Western brow from the fore-head that seat of pride and arrogancy which at length occasioned that lamentable separation of the Easterne or Greek church from communion with the Latine Field Gerson Carlton the other foure Patriarks dividing themselves from the bishop of Rome Pride is an odious evill fitly compared by One to a great swelling in the body which unfits it for any good service and is apt to putrify and break and run with loathsome and foule matter
so doth Pride disable the soule from doing duty and at last breaks forth into odious deeds abominable to God and Man There are that by Excellency or Glory here understand their glorious Temple and other priviledges wherein they so much gloried See Psal 47.5 But Mercer thinks it rather meant of the ten tribes then of the two whose crown of pride is elsewhere taxed Esay 28.1 Hos 7.10 The pride of Israel testifieth to his face it breaketh out in his forehead as a great master-pock therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein Heb. with the fulnesse thereof both persons and things are all forfeited and shall be seized by the enemy be the city of Samaria never so rich a Cargazon so full a Magazine of Men and meanes I will shut them up so the word signifieth after a strait siege into the enemies hand who shall make a spoyle of them Verse 9. And it shall come to passe if there remaine ten men c. that is many as Zech. 8.23 Levit. 26.26 because ten is the utmost of single number q. d. Though a considerable company escape the enemy yet pestilence or some other destruction shall put an end to them they shall dye See this fulfilled 2 King 17.5 In which common calamity what an happynesse had they that belonging to the election of grace could confidently say as Hab. 1 12. Art not thou from everlasting O Lord my God mine holy One Occidere potest non laedere We shall not dye or if we do death may kill us but cannot hurt us O Lord thou hast ordained them for judgement and O mighty God thou hast established them for correction The wicked are killed with death Rev. 2.23 undone by it Hos 2.15 to them it is no other but a trap-dore to hell as to the Saints it is as the valley of Achor a door of hope the very day-break of eternall brightnesse Verse 10. And a mans uncle shall take him up Him that is every one of the ten a fore-mentioned being now dead of the plague shall his uncle or dearest friend take up on his own shoulders for want of the ordinary mercenary officers called by the Latines Vespillones Libitinarii Pollinctores their best friends shall be forced to bury or burn their dead corpses So Seneca in Oedipo portat hunc aeger parens Supremum ad ignem mater hunc amens gerit Properatque ut alium regerat in eundem regum To bring out the bones out of the house for buriall as 1 Sam. 31.15 the flesh being first burnt Bones are a part of a mans body and therefore to be committed to the earth or laid up in a safe place as Iosephs were Exod. 13.19 Iosh 24.32 and with his the rest of the Patriarks doubtlesse Act. 7.16 This is one of the dues of the dead 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In honour of God who made mans body with admirable art Psal 139.5 and as it were by the book verse 14.15 16.2 Next because the dead body was sometime a Temple of the Holy Ghost and an instrument of many holy actions 1 Cor. 3.16 17. and 2 Cor. 6.16 3. because it shall be raised one day and conformed to Christs glorious body the Standard Philip. 2.21 We know saith the same Apostle that when Christ our life shall appeare we shall appeare with him in glory like as in the transfiguration that body of Moses which was hid in the valley of Moab appeared with Christ in the hill of Tabor and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house To him that burneth the dead as afore that assisteth a mans uncle to interr him The Jewes did not usually burn but bury yet sometimes they did Jer. 34. and 1 Kings 31. and at this time they were forced by the raging pestilence to do it as Hierome here noteth for the preventing of stench and further infection Is there yet any with thee sc left alive or hath death made a clean riddance Or thus Are there yet any more dead corpses which I may carry foorth for the buriall and he shall say No Or And he shall say An end a totall consumption they are all dead and gone A sad verdict then shall he say Hold thy tongue sc beare it patiently Has St. fret not murmure not 't is Gods doing Psal 39.9 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God Zeph. 1.7 for we may not make mention of the Name of the Lord This is vox desperantis the voice of despaire and despondensy and it is as if he had said it is bootlesse to pray for God is set to plague us and will not be pacified Surely there is no hope but we are all Free among the dead like the slaine that lie in the grave whom God remembreth no more Psal 88.5 neither helpeth it us to remember or mention him any more Men under sharp afflictions are apt to think that there is left them neither hope of better nor place of worse as the Church in the Lamentations Others sense it otherwise but to me this seemeth the likeliest Verse 11. For behold the Lord commandeth Calamities and they come the Chaldeans and they are at hand with their battel-axes but it is he that gives them their commission and biddeth them Fall on and he will smite the great house with breaches c i. e. aequo pulsat pede c. he will destroy rich and poor together pale death will knock at both their houses with an even foot as in time of plague earthquake or the like Epidemicall evill The grave is the Congregation house of all living Iob. 30.23 whereinto men chop oft before they think as a man that walks in the snow may into a marle-pit The mortall scyth is master of the royall scepter and it mowes down the lillies of the crown as well as the grass of the field Death is the onely king against whom there is no rising up as Augur phraseth the most absolute predominance Prov. 30.31 it levelleth Lords and Losels and layes all wast breaking down the greater houses and cleaving the lesser with an utter extermination of all Search you therefore search you O nation not desired before the decree come forth c. Zeph. 2.1 2. After-wit here helps not repentance though true may come too late in respect of temporall judgements as in Moses Deut. 1.37 and David 2 Sam. 12.10 Verse 12. Shallhorses runne upon the rock Is it possible they should do so and not first break their hoofs and then their necks will the rider therefore venture there were it not matchlesse madnesse in him will one plow there with oxen Sure he will conceive it too hard a tug and too vain a labour Hierom rendreth it Bubalis with wild-oxen which not accustomed to the yoke are like to make but wilde work where-ever they are plowed with Now as there is no good horse-racing upon a rock nor fit plowing there so neither