of the Spirit of God Verse 3. In the first the old Creation God the Father said Fiat lux let there be light in this greater World in the Second the New Creation or Regeneration of Man God the Holy Ghost said Fiat cognitio Dei in anima hominis let there be the knowledge of God in the mind of man of man this lesser world God the Father said Fiat Firmamentum let there be a Firmament God the Holy Ghost said Firmetur volunt as in bono let the will of Man be confirmed in that which is good God the Father said let the Waters be gathered together in one place God the Holy Ghost said let many graces be united in one soul. God the Father said Fiant luminaria in Coelo let there be lights in Heaven God the Holy Ghost saith let the lights of Faith Hope and Charity be fixed in a believing Soul God the Father said Fiant volatilia let there be flying Fouls God the Holy Ghost saith let there be religious Meditations in the mind of man soaring upward And thus in every thing the work of our spiritual Creation is answerable to the Work of our temporal in the beginning of the World and the operations of the Third Person in the blessed Trinity upon our Souls now are but as so many parallel Lines drawn from the actions of the First Person of the same blessed Trinity upon our bodies then Verse 10. In this and several other Verses of this Chapter it is said that at the dayes end God looked upon the whole that he had made and he saw that it was good and at the end of the week taking a view of all his works together he saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Gen. 1. 31. which sheweth that after God had done his Works he did reflect upon them and considered the quality and the condition of them In imitation hereof Wise men do wish us that at every dayes end we should reflect upon our Works and take a view of what we have done that day and at the Weeks end take an account of all our doings for that space of time and fo further as further occasion shall require And this enquiry or account taking of our Works they call the examination of our Souls or Consciences And surely if we did observe this rule though we could not find our Works as God did his Works to be good and very good but rather naught and very naught yet by this searching into our Works we may without all doubt make our Works for the future much better than they are for the present Verse 16. God here calls the Sun and the Moon two great Lights because though there be greater in the Firmament they appear greatest to us those Works of ours are greatest in the sight of God that are greatest in the sight of men that are most beneficial most exemplary and conduce most to the moving of others to glorifie God Verse 26. In other passages of the Creation we find a kind of commanding Dialect with a Fiat lux and a producat terra let there be light let the earth bring forth but in this of Adam we meet with words more particular of deliberation and advice Let us make man Man a Creature of those exquisite dimensions for matter of body of these supernatural endowments of Soul that now omnipotency bethinks it self and will consult the privy counsel of Father Son and Holy Ghost is required to the moulding and polishing of this glorious peece no doubt something of wonder was in projecting when a compleat Deity was thus studying its perfection something that should border upon everlastingness when the finger of God was so choicely industrious and loe what it produced Man the master-peece of his design and workmanship the great miracle and monument of Nature the abstract and model and brief story of the Universe the Analysis and Resolution of the greater world into the less having little to divide him from a Deity but that one part of him was mortal and that not created so but occasioned miserably occasion'd by disobedience Verse 27. When God had created all the other species of the Creation it is still said as the complement and perfection of each And God saw that it was good but here when Man was created there is no such Eulogy no such acclamation and why because there is no Creature but Man that degenerates willingly from his natural dignity these degrees of goodness which God imprinted in them at first they preserve still as God saw they were good then so he may see they are good still they have kept their Talent they have neither bought nor sold they have not gain'd nor lost they are not departed from their Native and Natural dignity by any thing that they have done but of Man it seems God was distrustful from the beginning he did not pronounce upon Mans Creation as he did upon the other Creatures that he was good because his goodness was a contingent thing and consisted in the future use of his free-will Verse 28. In the former Verse it is said that God created them Male and Female not both Male nor both Female but one Male the other Female as if purposely for the propagation of Children and therefore when he had created them so he said unto them in this Verse Encrease and multiply bring forth Children as other Creatures bring forth their Kinde Nor was this all the blessing bestowed upon Man at his Creation but God hath here also joyned Man in Commission with himself in the word Dominamini when he gave Man power to possess the Earth and subdue the Creatures and exercise soveraignty and dominion over them And further God hath made Man so equal to himself as not only to have a soul endless and immortal as God himself but to have a body that shall put on incorruption and immortality too which he hath given to none of the Angels insomuch that Man is higher than the Angels who want that glory that he shall have in his body CHAP. II. Verse 7. AS when Man was nothing but Earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the Earth his mouth kiss'd the Earth his hands embraced his eyes respected the Earth and then God breath'd the breath of Life into him and that rais'd him so far from the Earth as that only one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it nd yet Man so rais'd by God by Sin fell lower to the Earth again than before from the face of the Earth to the Womb to the Bowels to the Grave so God finding the whole Man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Original Sin yet erects us by a new breath of Life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower than before we were rais'd from Original into Actual into Habitual Sins so low as that we think we need not a Resurrection and this is a
wonderful this is a fearful Fall Verse 8. Every Earth was not fit for Adam but a Garden a Paradice what excellent pleasures and rare varieties have men found in Gardens planted by the hands of men and yet all the World of men cannot make one twigg or leaf or spire of grass when he that made the matter undertakes the fashion how must it needs be beyond our capacity excellent No Herb no Tree no Flower was wanting there that might be for ornament or use whether for sight or for sent or for taste the bounty of God wrought further than to necessity even to comfort and recreation Why are we niggardly to our selves when God is liberal but for all this if God had not there convers'd with man no abundance could have made him blessed Verse 9. The Tree of Life was a real Tree in Paradice but it was not able to give immortality for no corruptible food can make the body incorruptible and if it could have given immortality it must have had a power to preserve from Sin for by sinning Man became mortal therefore it was called The Tree of Life not effectivè but significativè as a signe of true immortality which Adam should have received of God if he had continued in obedience and so also was that other Tree call'd The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil not because it gave Knowledge but was a Seal unto them of their miserable Knowledge which they should get by the experience of their Transgression which is call'd a Practical Knowledge And yet here by the way though God forbad Man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge yet not of the Tree of Life to shew that he desired we should be Saints not Rabbies and Doctors Verse 15. That which was mans Store-house was also his Work-house his pleasure was his task Paradice serv'd not only to feed his sences but to exercise his hands If happiness had consisted in doing nothing man had not been imployed all his delights could not have made him happy in an idle life Man therefore is no sooner made than he is set to work neither greatness nor perfection can priviledg a folded hand he must labour because he was happy how much more we that we may be so this first labour of his was as without necessity so without pains without weariness how much more chearfully we go about our businesses so much nearer we come to our Paradice Verse 17. Here is a double comfort from these words to the Children of God the first consists in this in that it was the Lord of Life that first named death Morte morieris saith God thou shalt dye the death I do the less fear and abhor Death because I find it in his mouth even a Malediction hath a sweetness iu Gods mouth for there is a blessing wrapt up in it a Mercy in every Correction a Resurrection upon every Death from whence issues the other spiritual comfort that as God did cast upon the unrepentant sinner two Deaths in the Text a temporal and a Spiritual Death so hath he breath'd into us two lives for so as the word for Death is doubled Morte morieris thou shalt dye the Death so the word for Life is expressed in the plural at the seventh Verse of this Chapter Chaim vitarum God breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Lives of divers lives though our Natural life were no life but a continual dying yet we have two Lives besides that an eternal life reserved for Heaven but yet an Heavenly Life too a spiritual Life even in this World Verse 18. One cause of Marriage is to avoid the inconvenience of Solitariness signified in these words It is not good for Man to be alone as if he had said this Life would be miserable irksome to Man if the Lord had not given him a Wife to bear a share in his troubles and afflictions Now if it be not good for Man to be alone then is it good for him to have a Companion and therefore as God created a pair of all other Kinds so also of this And this was that help in the Text in which we see that God did provide an help for Man before he saw his own want and while Adam slept and thought nothing God was working and laying out for his good and preparing him an Helper Shewing that Man is stronger by his Wife for as God hath knit the bones and sinews together for the strengthning of Mans body so hath he knit Man and Woman together for the strengthening of their Life because two are firmer than one Verse 20. As Adam gave every Creature the Name according as he saw the Nature thereof to be so God gives every man reward or punishment the Name of a Saint or Devil in his purpose as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces When I shal come to the sight of the Book of Life and the Records of Heaven amongst the Reprobate I shall never see the Name of Cain alone but Cain with his addition Cain that kil'd his Brother not Iuda's Name alone but Iudas with his addition Iudas that betrayed his Master God did not begin with a Morte moriendum some Body must dye and therefore I wil make some Body to kill but God came to a Morte morieris yet thou art alive and maist live but if thou wilt rebel thou must dye Verse 21. This Sleep that man was cast into while his Wife was created doth teach us that our Affections our Lusts and Concupiscences should sleep while we go about this Action the choice of a Wife for as the Man slept while his Wife wa◠making so our flesh should sleep while our Wife is choosing lest as the love of Venison wone Isaac to bless one for the other so the love of Gentry or Riches or Beauty should make us take one for the other Verse 22. Woman was not made of the head and therefore must not be the head nor yet of the foot of man and therefore must not be set at his foot but the man must set her at his heart near the place from whence she came She which should lie in his bosome was made in his bosom should be as close to him as the Rib of which she was fashion'd Verse 25. Comparatively Adam was better than all the world beside and yet we find no act of pride in Adam when he was alone When there was none in the world but himself and his Wife who was not another but himself though they were both naked they were neither of them asham'd Soliture is not the scene of pride the danger of pride is in company when we meet to look upon one another Thus in Eve her first act was an act of Pride a harkening to that voice of the Serpent Ye shall be as gods As soon as there were more than themselves there was pride How many have we known that have been content all the week at home alone
admittance which they once denied But now as they formerly rejected God so are they justly rejected of God Ere Vengeance begin Repentance is seasonable but if Judgement be once gone out we cry too late while the Gospel sollicites us the doors of the Ark are open if we neglect the time of Grace in vain shall we seek it with tears God holds it no mercy to pity the obstinate Verse 18. The Faith of the Righteous cannot be so much derided as their success is magnified How securely doth Noah ride out this uproar of Heaven Earth and Waters He hears the pouring down of the Rain about his head the shreeking of Men the roaring and bellowing of Beasts on both sides of him the raging and threats of the Waves under him he saw the miserable shifts of the distressed Unbeleevers and in the mean time sits quietly in his dry cabbin neither fearing nor feeling evil he knew that he which owed the Waters would steer him and he who shut him in would preserve him How happy a thing is Faith What a quiet safety what a Heavenly peace doth it work in the Soul in the midst of all the endeavours of evil Verse 20. There is no doubt but very many hoping to over-run their Judgement and climbing up to the highest Mountains looked down upon the Waters with more hope than fear and now when they see their Hills become Islands they get up into the tallest Trees where with paleness and horror at once they look for death and study to avoid it whom the Waves over-take at last half-dead with famine and half with fear So now from the tops of the Mountains they descry the Ark floating upon the Waters and behold with envie that which before they beheld with scorn By which we may see that he flies in vain whom God pursues and that there is no way to flie from his Judgements but to flie to his Mercy by Repenting CHAP. VIII Verse 1. GOds Providence is here manifest that watcheth not only over man but every particular Beast likewise Whereby man is taught to be like his Creator and to regard the life of his Beast Prov. 12. Xenocrates is commended by Aelian lib. 13. for succouring a Sparrow that flew to him pursued by an Hawk and after let her go saying Se supplicem non prodidisse That he would not betray the very Bird that flew to him for safeguard Verse 3. Now when God had fetch'd again all the life that he had given to his unworthy Creatures and reduced the World unto its first Form wherein Waters were over the face of the Earth it was time for a renovation of all things to succeed this destruction To have continued the Deluge long had been to punish Noah that was righteous After forty dayes therefore the Heavens cleared up after 150 the Waters sink down How soon is God weary of punishing that is never weary of blessing Yet may not the Ark rest suddenly If we did not stay some while under Gods hand we should not know how sweet his mercy is and how great our thankfulness should be Verse 7. God doth not reveal all things to his best servants Behold he that told Noah an hundred and twenty years before what day he should go into the Ark yet fore-tells him not now in the Ark what day the Ark should rest upon the hills and he should go forth Noah therefore sends out his Intelligencers the Raven and the Dove whose wings in that vaporous aire might easily descry further than his sight the Raven of quick scent of gross feed of tough constitution no soul was so fit for discovery the likeliest things alwayes succeed not He neither will venture far into that solitary world for fear of want nor yet come into the Ark for love of liberty but hovers about in uncertainties How many carnal minds fly out of the Ark of Gods Church and embrace the present world rather chusing to feed upon the unsavoury Carkasses of sinful pleasures than to be restrain'd within the strait lists of Christian obedience Verse 9. How exactly doth the Soul of every man resemble this Dove That poor innocent Creature after it was exposed to the wide World was in perpetual motion no rest to be found until it returned to the Ark And just so is the condition of every man so long as we are in the World so long we are in a restless condition perpetual troubles and vexations no rest to be found until we return unto the Ark unto the God that sent us forth thither must we fly or be over-whelm'd in the Deluge of the worlds vanities and perish for ever Mans Soul is Gods Turtle Created for God and therefore can find no rest but in God It may flutter up and down in the World fly from one trouble from one perplexity to another but no peace no rest to be found until it return unto that God who commanded it forth upon his work and employment which causeth it to take up the complaint of the Psalmist Oh that I had the wings of a Dove then would I fly away and be at rest Verse 11. The Dove is sent forth a Fowl both swift and simple She like a true Citizen of the Ark returns and brings faithful notice of the continuance of the Waters by her restless and empty return by her Olive-leaf of the abatement How worthy are those Messengers to be welcome which with innocence in their lives bring glad tydings of Peace and Salvation in their mouths Verse 16. Ambrose and some Hebrews note That when Noah was bid to go into the Ark he and his Sons are joyn'd together and so his Wife and his Sons Wives likewise chap. 6. vers 18. but here in their coming forth He and his Wife his Sons and their Wives are coupled to shew that they lived a part in the Ark and accompanied not together which is most probable though not upon this ground but as he farther notes Maeroris tempus er at non laetitiae It was a time of Mourning and not of Mirth and for that he knew the Deluge came because of the intemperancy of the other world Verse 18. The Ark though it was Noahs Fort against the Waters yet it was his Prison also he was safe in it but pent up he that gave him life by it now thinks to give him liberty out of it At this Noah rejoyces and beleeves yet still he waits seven dayes more It is not good to devour the favours of God too greedily but to take them in that we may digest them O strong Faith of Noah that was not weary of this delay Some man would have so long'd for the open Air after so long closeness that upon the first notice of safety he would have uncovered and voided the Ark Noah stayes seven dayes e're he will open and well neer two months e're he will forsake the Ark and not then unless God that commanded to enter had bidden him depart There is no
action good without Faith no Faith without a word Happy is that man which in all things neglecting the counsels of flesh and bloud depends upon the Commission of his Maker Verse 20. No sooner is Noah come out of the Ark but he builds an Altar not an House to himself but an Altar to the Lord. Our Faith will ever teach us to prefer God to our selves delay'd thankfulness is not worthy acceptation of those few Creatures that are left God must have some they are all his yet his goodness will have man know that it was he for whose sake they were preserved It was a priviledge to those very bruit Creatures that they were saved from the Waters to be offered up in Fire unto God What a favour is it to men to be reserved from common destructions to be sacrific'd to their Maker and Redeemer Verse 21. God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call'd Odor quietis it is not said that God smelt a favour of Rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after he had been variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Ark upon the Waters and this was a sacrifice in which God himself might rest himself For God hath a Sabbath in the Sabbath of his Servants a Fulness in their Fulness a satisfaction when they are satisfied and is well pleased when they are so and therefore the Lord said That he will not Curse the Earth again speaking not generally of all kind of Cursing the Earth but only of this particular Curse by Waters And whereas 't is added for a Reason for the imagination of mans heart is evil it is not meant that God would spare the Earth and Beasts because man is subject to sin but the Promise is made specially for man that being he is by nature subdued to sin he is to be pitied and not for every offence according to his deserts to be judged for then the Lord should continually over-flow the world moreover where it is said Gen. 6. 6. That the Lord would destroy the World because the imaginations of their hearts were evil it may seem strange that the same cause should be here urged why he would not therefore this is here added to shew the original of this Mercy not to proceed from man but Gods own favour CHAP. IX Verse 1. THere is a lawful nay a necessary desire of being better and better and that not only in spiritual things for so every man is bound to be better and better better to day than yesterday and too morrow than to day but even in temporal things too there is a liberty given us nay there is a Law an Obligation laid upon us To endeavour by industry in a lawful Calling to mend and improve to enlarge our selves and spread even in worldly things And therefore when God delivers this Commandment the second time to Noah for the repairation of the World Encrease and Multiply which is not only in the multiplication of Children but in the enlargement of Possessions too he accompanies it with this Reason in the second vers The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon all and all are delivered into your hands which Reason can have no relation to the multiplying of Children but to the enlarging of Possessions God planted Trees in Paradise in a good state at first at first with ripe fruits upon them but Gods purpose was That even those Trees though well then should grow greater God gives many men good Estates from their Parents at first yet Gods purpose is That they should encrease those Estates He that leaves no more than his Father left him if the fault be in himself shall hardly make a good account of his Stewardship to God for he hath but kept his Talent in a Napkin Verse 13. That little fire of Noah which he kindled in the former Chapter through the vertue of his Faith purged the World and ascended up into those heavens from which the Waters fell and caused a glorious Rain-bow to appear therein for his security And here behold a new and a second rest first God rested from making that World now he rests from destroying it even while we cease not to offend he ceases from a publick revenge His Word was enough yet withal he gives a sign which may speak the truth of his Promise to the very eyes of men Thus he doth still in his blessed Sacraments which are as real Words to the Soul The Rain-bow is the pledge of our safety which even really signifies the end of a shower And further the Rain-bow having two special Colours in it one Coeruleus exterior which is waterish is a sign the World shall not any more be drown'd the other Rubeus which may be a sign the World shall be consumed with Fire Thus all the signs of Gods institution are proper and significant Verse 21. Who would think after all the favours that God had shewn Noah to have found this Righteous man lying Drunken in his Tent Who would think that Wine should over-throw him that was preserved from the Waters That he who could not be tainted with the sinful examples of the former World should begin the example of a new sin of his own What are we men if we be left to our selves While God upholds us no tentation can move us when he leaves us no tentation is too weak to over-throw us Behold he of whom God in an unclean World had said Thee only have I found Righteous proves now unclean when the World was purged The Preacher of Righteousness unto the former age the King Priest and Prophet unto the World renewed is the first that renewes the sins of the World which he had reproved and which he saw condemned for sin Gods best Children have no fence for sins of infirmity which of the Saints have not once done that whereof they are ashamed Verse 22. Ungracious Cham saw his Fathers nakedness and laughed at it His Fathers shame should have been his and should have begot in him a secret horror and dejection How many graceless men make sport at the causes of their Humiliation Twice had Noah given him life yet neither the Name of Father and Preserver nor Age nor Vertue could shield him from the contempt of his own I fee that even Gods Ark may nourish Monsters some filthy Toads may lie under the stones of the Temple And further Cham was not content only to be a witness of this filthy sight he goes on to be a proclaimer of it Sin doth ill in the eye but worse in the tongue as all sin is a work of darkness so it should be buried in darkness The report of sin is oft-times as ill as the Commission for it can never be blazoned without uncharitableness seldom without infection Oh the unnatural and more than Chammish Impiety of those Sons which rejoyce to publish the nakedness of their spiritual Parents even to their enemies Verse 23. Behold here
Let there be no prophane person among us as was Esau saith the Apostle Heb. 12. And that there may not let not men take pleasure in pleasure spend too much time in it It was not simply a sin in Esau to go a hunting but yet the more he used the more prophane he grew by it and came at length to contemne his birthright God allows men to stoop to lawful delights and recreations for their bodies sake as the Eagle to the prey or as Gideons Souldiers to soop their handful not swill their belly full An honest heart is where his calling is such a one when he is elsewhere is like a fish in the air whereunto if it leap for Recreation or Necessity yet it soon returns to his own Element Verse 34. Esau may be as great a glutton in his Pottage as those greedy Dogs Isa. 56. 12. Thus the Poor may sin as much in their throat as the Rich for men have talem dentem qualem mentem such an appetite as they have affection there is Epicurisme in course fare as well as dainties An Esau's luxury is in his mind more than his taste CHAP. XXVI Verse 1. IF the Canaanites had amended by the former Famine this latter had been prevented For God takes no delight in the misery and affliction of his Creatures He first tries gentle means and if those will do no good rigid and severe courses must be used first he chastiseth us with Rods and then with Scorpions if a single Famine will not humble us that Famine shall be doubled till we are brought low and continued upon us so long as we continue in our sins So that if we be destroyed our destruction is from our selves and if God doth multiply his Judgements upon us it is because that we do multiply our sins if man be not weary of sinning what reason is there that God should be weary of punishing Verse 7. So long as we carry flesh and blood about us we shall be subject to such passions as arise from that flesh and blood Moses had his anger Abraham and Isaac their fear But now these passions must be kept within their bounds or else they run out into sin As here Isaac's fear was too predominant it made him as it had done his Father Abraham call his Wife his Sister and in that to lie which sin was greater in him than in his Father because he was not warn'd by his Fathers example Now the child of God should rather die than lie Nec prodam nec mentiar said that good Bishop in St. Augustine and that was a brave Woman in St. Ierome that being on the Rack resolved and answered the tormentor I had rather tell the truth and perish than lie and live The Chamelion is the most fearful of all Creatures and doth therefore change into all colours to save it self so will timerous persons Let us therefore fortifie our hearts against this passion that we may not fall into the sins of the passion Verse 13. Isaac waxed rich because the Lord blessed him verse 12. it is Gods blessing that maketh rich Godliness hath the promises of both lives now the Promises are the unsearchable riches of Christ Ephes. 3. 9. who is the heir of all and hath godly men his co-heirs entailing upon them riches and honour life and length of daies the blessings of both hands and if at any time God doth deny gain to godliness it is that it may be admired for itsself as having a self-sufficiency and a hid treasure of its own Agrain of Grace is worth all the gold of Ophir and a remnant of Faith of more value than the richest Ward-Robes Thus a Righteous man is the richest man in the World true piety hath true plenty and whereas the Wicked in the fulness of their sufficiency are in straits the Godly in the fulness of their straits are in all sufficiency Verse 18. Origen extends this power far though not very confidently perchance saith he in every one of our souls there is this well of the Water of Life and this power to have power to open it whether our souls be intended by Origen of us as we are men or of us as we are Christians I pronounce not but divide it in all us as we are natural men there is this Well of Water of Life Abraham digg'd it at first the Father of the Faithful our Heavenly Abraham infused it unto us at first in Adam of whom as we have the image of God though defaced so we have this Well of Water though stopt up but then the Philistins having stopt this Well Satan by sin having barr'd it up the power of opening it again is not in the natural man but Isaac diggs it again Isaac who is Filius laetitiae the Son of joy our Isaac our Jesus he opens this Well of Life again to all that receive him according to his Ordinance in his Church he hath given this power of keeping open in themselves this Well of Life these means of Salvation Verse 22. When Isaac's servants had digged a first and a second Well the Heardsmen of Gerar contended about it saying the Water is ours then his Servants digg'd a third Well and for that they strove not therefore he call'd the name of it Rehoboth i. e. room for now saith he the Lord hath made room for us Thus we may say of all our comforts and mercies Rehoboth that is room but of all our afflictions that they are straits Verse 30. In a Feast there are two things extraordinary provision and extraordinary company both are lawful God hath given us the Creature not only for necessity but for delight and it is a clear argument that such use of the Creatures in feasting is lawful because God hath made more Creatures serving for the delight of man than he hath made for the necessity of man If God had meant that men should do nothing but maintain their lives and serve their own necessity so as they might go on in their places and callings one half of the Creatures might have been spared but God made nothing in vain therefore he is willing we should use the creatures for moderate delight Thus Abraham made a great Feast at the weaning of Isaac and Isaac here makes a Feast for Abimelech and Phicol the chief Captain of his Army and the like examples we have in divers other places And our Saviour Christ himself was at a Feast in Cana of Galilee where when Wine fail'd he supplied it by miracles Verse 31. Men may do much and go far in the love of Gods people and yet not love them as they ought to be loved they may hold an outward correspondency with them in outward peace and neighbourhood they may live quietly by them and with them be free from quarrels suits contentions vexations and oppositions against them and in these respects may keep fair quarter with them and yet for all this not love them as Gods people are to
ear was a sign of obedience and figuratively admonished that Servants must not be deaf but quick and ready and willing to hear what is commanded them And spiritually that if we be the Lords Servants he boreth by his holy Grace our Ear that is he maketh us have Ears to hear his holy Word not to cast it behind our Backs and stop our Eares against it but with Care and Zeal and Love we hearken to it as Men and Women whose Eares he hath opened and bored Verse 14. Although the worst men will make use of Gods Altar for their advantage and many will cling fast to it in their extremity who in their welfare regarded it not yet the Altar of God must be no Sanctuary for presumptuous Murtherers And indeed what have bloody hands to do with the holy innocent Altar of God Miserable Murtherers what help can ye expect from that sacred Pile Those Horns that were sprinkled by the bloud of Beasts abhorre to be touch'd by the bloud of Men Gods Altar is for the expiation of sin by bloud not for the protection of the sin of bloud And this was Ioabs Case 1 Kings 2. who fled to the Horns of the Altar and told Benaiah that he would die there but young Solomon was so well acquainted with this Law of God that he sticks not at the killing of Ioab even there For he knew Ioabs Murthers had not been more presumptuous then guiltful and therefore he sends Benaiah to take away the Offender both from God and Men from the Altar and the World Verse 15. God doth not say he that killeth Father or Mother shall be killed for it but he that smiteth so that not so much as a blow is to be given to Parents upon pain of death no not with the tongue may we smite them so great is the honour of Parents before God and so sharp a Judge is God against all abusers of them Verse 17. He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely die saith Moses here and he that is but stubborn towards them shall die saith the same Prophet Deut. 21. 18. The dutiful love of Children to Parents is so rooted in Nature that Demosthenes saith That it is against the impressions and against the Law of Nature for any Child ever to love that man that hath done execution upon his Father though by way of Justice And this natural Obligation is not condition'd with the limitations of a good or a bad Father Natura te non bono patri sed patri conciliavit saith that little great Philosopher Epictetus Nature hath not bound thee to thy Father as he is a good Father but meerly as he is a Father Verse 24. The Light of Reason and Nature given us of God teacheth that what measure we mete it is just we should receive even the like again Neither did Christ repeal this Mat. 5. but only condemn'd the abuse of this Law according to private affections and for the nourishing of private revenge by private CHAP. XXII Verse 9. THe Cause shall be brought before the Iudges saith our English Translation but in the Hebrew it is before the Gods For Magistrates in the Scripture are call'd Gods First by Analogie saith Theodoret as resembling God by having the power of Life and Death Secondly by Participation saith Saint Austin for as Stars participate their light from the Sun so do Rulers their Authority from the Supream Majesty Thirdly by Deputation from God whose Vicegerent they are and to whom they must be accountable for their evil administration Magistrates then being in the place of God and entrusted with his Power must have a care that they represent not God to the World as a corrupt crooked and unrighteous Judge As they are invested with his Name let them indeavour to express his Nature to be both just and merciful Verse 11. In all Oaths God is the chief Witness as in all Judicatures he is the chief Judge and therefore it is call'd here the Oath of the Lord first because God is call'd in as the chief Witness and Avenger Have a care therefore what thou swearest for thou art in the presence of thy Creator who can strike thee both dumb and dead He that made thy Mouth made it for his Glory and if thou turnest that Glory into a Lie know that God will be sure to avenge his own Oath and his own Glory Secondly it is called the Oath of God in this Text because it is taken in his presence For God is Present and President by a particular Providence as Lord Paramount and chief Magistrate higher than the Highest And therefore the Aethiopian Judges do ever leave the chief Seat of Judicature empty as being Gods Place where he standeth or sitteth himself to behold the Actions and Affections of the Court and to passe a Censure as well upon the Judge as the Prisoner or Witness Verse 16. Every Marriage before it be knit should be contracted as it is here and in Deut. 22. 28. which stay between the Contract and the Marriage was the time of longing for their Affection to settle in because the deferring of what we love doth kindle the desire which if it came easily and speedily unto us we set lesse by it Therefore we read that Ioseph and Mary were contracted before married In the Contract Christ was conceived in the Marriage born that he might honour both Estates Verse 29. Thou shalt offer to me saith God the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors as our Translation hath it The word in the original is Lacrimarum and of thy tears The first tears must be offered to God for sin The second and third may be to Nature and Civility and such secular Offices But it is St. Chrysostomes Exclamation will any wash in foul Water for sore Eyes Will any man embalm the Carcass of the World which he treads under foot with those tears which should embalm his Soul Did Ioseph of Arimathea bestow any of the Perfumes though he brought a superfluous quantity for one body upon the body of either of the Theives CHAP. XXIII Verse 1. IF to give the hearing be in some sort to put to the hand surely to have itching ears to hear evil Reports of our Christian Brethren with delight and contentment to believe them is to put to the hand much more Yet what so common in our Mouths as I am not the Author I am not the first Raiser I heard it I have my Author God that made this Law against receiving knoweth that hearing goeth before receiving and if not receive then not hear not believe not report to others Verse 2. If this may not be done in civil Matters much lesse may it be done in Religion and matters of Faith The words are plain Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil therefore a multitude may erre and do evil Neither decline after many to overthrow truth therefore a multitude may overthrow truth And how then can it be
Irreligion and Impiety make Men reproachful of what account and estimation soever they be be they never so Rich Noble and Renouned in the World how famous and excellent in the World Countries and Cities be yet this is certain that Sin maketh all Persons and Places infamous and dishonourable let London apply this to her self as it appears afterwards in this Chapter verse 61. We see this further in many Examples Cain is noted and marked of God for his execrable parricide unto all posterity Iudas that betrayed his Master is called the Son of Perdition Iohn 17. and is as it were burnt in the shoulder with the letter R and mark'd out for a Reprobate and left upon Record to be a Devil Iohn 6. 70. that all which hear of it might fear and learn to hate his sins Verse 10. Corah kindled the fire the two hundred and fifty Captains brought sticks to it all Israel warm'd themselves by it only the Incendiaries perish God and Moses knew to distinguish betwixt the Head of a Faction and the train though neither be faultless yet two hundred and fifty Ringleaders are plagued the other forgiven Gods vengeance when it is at the hottest makes differences of Men. We may collect from this Verse likewise that all the Elements are at Gods service For we find here two sorts of Traytors the Earth swallowed up the one the Fire the other and as before in this Book Nadab and Abihu brought fit persons but unfit fire to God so these Levites bring the right fire but unwarranted persons before him Fire from God consumes both It is a dangerous thing to usurp sacred Functions The Ministery will not grace the Man the Man may disgrace the Ministery and shall be signally punish'd for it as Corah and his fellow-Rebels were here who were made a signe saith the Text. Death is the just Heir of the least sin but some evill Doers God doth not put to Death but also hangs them up in Gibbets as it were for publick notice and admonition Those that are famous in their sin shall be famous in their punishment Verse 14. This Tribe of Simeon is of a smaller number in respect of the other Tribes and the reason is to be taken out of the last History recorded in the former Chapter where we find that one of the Princes of the Tribe of Simeon being accompanied with many others of that Tribe committed a most shameful act among his Brethren and brought in a Midianitish Harlot into the Host in the sight of Moses Whereby it came to pass that the greatest number of that Tribe perished with him in that grievous Plague for it was reason that they which did partake with him in the sin should communicate together in the punishment Which may teach us that it is a very hard thing to avoid and break off our society with Wicked Men and reproveth all such as enter into league with such persons they even offer their hands and feet to be bound as it were with chains and they become afterwards as Prisoners and Vassals to them Verse 33. Zelophahad the Son of Heber had no Sons but all Daughters saith this Text and yet these Daughters had a share with the rest of Gods people in the Land of Promise as we may read in the next Chapter And therefore let the French defend their Salike Law as they can there is very good reason that Women should not lose the right of Inheritance For Women are the second edition of the Epitome of the whole World witness Artemisia Blandina Zenobia in whom besides their Sex there was nothing Woman-like or weak as if what Philosophy speaks the Souls of those Noble Creatures had followed the temperament of their Bodies which consists of rarer rooms of a more exact Composition than Mans doth and if place be any priviledg we find theirs built in Paradice when Mans was made out of it besides in Iesus Christ there is neither Male nor Female but all are one Souls have no Sexes and whosoever are Christs are heirs to the Promise Verse 54. God provideth sufficiently for all his People every Man hath his portion assign'd him of God upon the Earth It is his will and pleasure that all should have their measure of earthly things not some to have all and some nothing at all but all to have some part and that part to be enough God would have no Beggar in his Israel when the Lord sent down Manna and fed his people with Angels food all the Host from the highest to the lowest had enough They that gathered much had nothing over and he that gathered little had no lack Exod. 16. Now if God be thus careful to feed our bodies it is much more reason that we should seek at his hands the nourishment of our Souls This is the voice of Faith the other the voice of Nature Nature will tell us when we want provision for the body but 't is the Office of Faith to tell us when we want food for the Soul Therefore saith Christ First seek the Kingdom Mat. 6. 33. Verse 59. Amram here took to Wife Iochebeb which was his own Aunt as is clear from Exod. 6. 20. the Law against Incest was not then given nor the state of Israel then setled and therefore it was no sin in him for where there is no Law there can be no sin But what shall we say to our modern Sectaries whose practising of Incest is now avowed publickly in print they shame not to affirm that those Marriages are most lawful that are betwixt persons iu blood The prohibition of degrees in Leviticus are to be understood say they of Fornication not of Marriage I see here what noon-day Devils do now in this unhappy Age walk with open face amongst us Verse 61. Because Nadab and Abihu were the Sons of Aaron this made God the more to stomack and the rather to revenge this Impiety God had both pardoned and graced their Father he had honoured them of the thousands of Israel culling them out for his Altar and now as their Fathers set up a false God so they bring false fire unto the true God If the Sons of Infidels live Godlesly they do but their kind their punishment shall be though just yet less but if the Children of Religious Parents after all Christian nurture shall shame their Education God takes it more hainously and revenges it more sharply The more bonds of duty the more plagues of neglect Again if from the Agents we look to the act it self set aside the Original descent and what difference was there betwixt these fires both look'd alike heated alike ascended alike consumed alike both were fed with the same material Wood both vanish'd into smoak there was no difference but the Commandement of God If God had enjoyn'd ordinary fire they had sinn'd to look for Celestial now he commanded only the fire which he sent they sinned in sending up Incense in that fire which he commanded not
A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY OR EXPOSITION Upon the PENTATEUCH VIZ. These five Books of MOSES GENESIS EXODUS LEVITICUS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY Wherein The Text of every Chapter is Practically expounded according to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in a way not usually trod by COMMENTATORS and wholly applyed to the Life and Salvation of Christians By Ab. Wright sometime Fellow of St. John's Colledge in OXFORD LONDON Printed by G. Dawson for The. Iohnson at the Golden-Key in St. Pauls-Church-Yard 1662. TO THE Right Honourable The Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Kings-Bench The Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Common-Pleas The Lord Chief Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer And the rest of the Honourable Justices of the said several COURTS Right Honourable IT is not the weight and excellency of what is here presented that may plead for so Noble a Patronage as your Lordships is it is the Subject not the Work the Text and not the Comment that deserves both your Protection and Perusal For my Lords you have here Moses that Grand Legislator of the Old Testament dedicated to you that are the reverend Iudges under the New His Laws have been the Magna Charta of the whole World and this small Pentateuch hath proved the ground-work for the Pandects of all Nations to build upon In this respect therefore it may claim a kind of propriety and right to your Honourable Patronage and take the presumption to shelter it self under your grave long Robes Here indeed are no Controversies stated no Law-cases judged and determined My Sole design and endeavours have been to make our great Law-giver Moses altogether Practical and wholly applicable to the Life and Conversation of Christians In these sheets then you have described those Antient Patriarcks of Gods Church who were also Aeconomical Iudges and so not unfitting guids for your Honours to follow where their steps have been straight and upright nay their very slips and deviations may serve to make us stand more firm and our treadings more steady and setled in the wayes of Godliness and Iourny towards Heaven But if your Lordships had rather walk by Rule than Example here is that Moral everlasting Rule of God himself in the Book of Exodus to direct you and withal that you may see how proper and convenient even a Ceremonial Law is for Gods Church you have a whole Book of it in Leviticus and this also decreed and setled after those necessary Acts of the Ten Commandments as if the very Moral Law it self had not been curb sufficient to keep in a Rebellious People without some binding Ceremonies And here my Lords I must needs confess upon the sad experience of Schism under both Testaments that all those Laws Moral and Ceremonial have not been powerful enough to settle the Peace of Gods Church something was wanting to the Jews and is at this day to us which under God is only able to produce that great and glorious Work and that is a General Council This General Council my Lords hath ever been the most approved successful way of the Catholick Church to compose her differences and it is this also that will prevent the ruin of our own miserably devided National Church and frustrate the design of that Politick Aphorisme of some that the Church of England must be ruin'd by the same way that it was reform'd for say they it was reform'd by Schisme and it must be ruin'd by Schisme Now to prevent this ruine contrived by Sectaries I know not any way more Prudential more blessed by God than a General Council to procure this that every Peaceful Christian and such are your Honours may joyn the strongest Forces of his Endeavours shall be the daily Prayers of My Lords Your most devoted Servant in all Church-Offices Ab. Wright A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES CALLED GENESIS CHAP. I. Verse 1. THere was a Time or something like to that before the beginning of Time when God did not work and yet was not idle For though we grant that there was no External work of the Godhead until the making of the World yet can there be no necessary illation of Idleness in the Deity seeing it might have as indeed it had actions immanent included within the circle of the Trinity Just so ought it to be with every Christian who though he doth not alwayes perform the outward actions of Religion yet he may alwayes be imployed within himself in some practice of Christianity holy Thoughts religious Meditations mental Prayer faithful Vows and Resolutions are those inward immanent operations of a Christian whereby he may imitate his Creator in not working and yet not being idle But then when he doth begin to express himself in some outward action let him here also follow the example of his Maker and whereas it is said in the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth first the Heaven and then the Earth so et our actions respect chiefly Heavenly matters in the first place let us exercise our selves in those things that are above and when from those we descend to things below let even those Terrestrial affairs look upwards and be fix'd and terminated in Heaven and let all this be done by way of Creation too let our Gifts and Graces and Endowments be acknowledged to arise from nothing in our selves and let every faculty of our Souls be subject to Gods Will as the Creation was to his Command for he spake the word and they were made so when God speaks let us hear and let our will be actuated and formed and regulated by his voice as the whole World was by his Word Verse 2. The word Ferebatur in the vulgar Latine in the English moved denotes both motion and rest beginnings and wayes and ends We may best consider the motion the stirring of the Holy Ghost in zeal and the rest of the Holy Ghost in moderation If we be without zeal we have not the motion if we be without moderation we have not the rest the peace of the Holy Ghost he moved and he rested upon the Waters in the Creation as the word Incubabat doth imply he came and tarried still upon Christ in his Baptism He moves us to a zeal of laying hold of the means of Salvation which God offers us in the Church and he settles us in a peaceful Conscience that by having well used those means we are made his Children A holy hunger and thirst of the Word and Sacraments a remorse and compunction for former sins a zeal to promote the cause and glory of God by word and deed this is the motion of the Holy Ghost and then to content my self with Gods measure of temporal blessings and for spiritual that I do serve God faithfully in that Calling which I lawfully profess as far as that Calling will admit this peace of Conscience this acquiescence of having done that that belongs unto me this is the Rest of the Holy Ghost
was a Name of diminution as she was taken from the man for Isha is but a she-man and when in her worse state when she had sinn'd she was call'd Eva Mater viventium the Mother of all living she had a better name in her worst estate but this was not in respect of her sin saith that Father but in respect of her punishment now that she was become mortal by a sentence of death pronounced upon her and knew that she must dye and resolve to dust now saith he there was no danger in her of growing proud by any glorious title affliction had tamed her and rectified her now and thus doth God sometimes bit and bridle us by afflictions lest we be too proud Verse 24. See the unhappiness of man a little forbidden fruit from the hand of a frail Creature must dis-inherit us of eternal life and man must be thrust out of doors deprived of his everlasting habitation for two pretty toyes an Apple and a Woman Howsoever saith Chrysostome Death hung not on the Fruit but the Tempter lamentable felicity which at the height was but conditionary and then fatal CHAP. IV. Verse 5. VVHat was the occasion of this capital malice and mortal wrath in Cain Abels Sacrifice was accepted what was this to Cain Cains was rejected what could Abel remedy this O envy the corrosive of all ill minds and the root of all desperate actions the same cause that moved Satan to tempt the first man to destroy himself and his posterity the same moves the Second man to destroy the Third It should have been Cain's joy to see his Brother accepted it should have been his sorrow to see that himself had deserved a rejection his Brothers example should have excited and directed him could Abel have stayed Gods fire from descending or should he if he could reject Gods acceptation and displease his Maker to content a Brother was Cain ever the farther from a blessing because his Brother obtain'd mercy How proud and foolish is malice which grows thus mad for no other cause but because God or Abel is not less good It hath been an old and happy danger to be holy indifferent actions must be careful to avoid offence but I care not what Devil or what Cain be angry that I do good or receive it Verse 8. Now might Adam see the image of himself in Cain for after his own image begot he him Adam slue his posterity Cain his Brother We are too like one another in that we are unlike to God however one would have thought that these being Brethren and but two Brethren the beams of their affection should have been so much the hotter because they reflect mutually in a right line upon each other and yet behold here are but two Brothers in the world and one is the Butcher of the other Who can wonder at dissentions amongst thousands of Brethren thousands of Christians when he sees so deadly opposition between two and these the first roots of Brother-hood who can hope to live plausibly and securely among so many Cains when he sees one Cain the death of one Abel Verse 9. No sooner doth Abels blood speak to God than God speaks to Cain there is no wicked man to whom God speaks not if not to his ear yet to his heart what speech was this not an accusation yet such an enquiry as would infer an accusation God loves to have a sinner accuse himself and therefore hath he set his Deputy in the breast of man neither doth God love this more then nature abhors it Cain answers stubbornly the very name of Abel wounds him no less then his hand had wounded Abel Consciences that are without remorse are not without horror wickedness makes men desperate the murtherer is angry with God as of late for accepting his Brothers oblation so now for listning to his blood Verse 11. There is a holy league offensive and defensive betwixt God and his children God shall not only protect us from others but he shall fight for us against them our enemies are his enemies Nolite tangere Christos meos saith God of all holy people you were as good touch me as touch any of them Thus when Cain had trespass'd against God himself in this that he would bind God to an acceptation of his Sacrifice God comes no farther for that then to Why dost thou thus but in his murther committed upon his Brother who was a child of God God proceeds so much farther as to say Here now art thou cursed from the Earth When Ieroboam suffered idolatry God let him alone that concerned but God himself but when Ieroboam stretched forth his hand to lay hold on the Prophet his hand withered Verse 13. And what was the greatness of this punishment this From thy face shall I be hid It is not that God would not look graciously upon him but that God would not look at all upon him Infinitely desperate are the effects of Gods putting away a soul. And yet notwithstanding this there doth this comfort arise from the Text that an imputation of sin arising from our selves may be accompanied with error â—nd mistaking and we may impute that to our selves which God doth not impute For this word which some translate here Iniquity is oftentimes in Scripture used for punishment as well as for sin and so indifferently for both as that if we compare Translation with Translation and Exposition with Exposition it will be hard for us to say whether it can be said my iniquity is greater then can be pardoned or my punishment is greater then I can bear and therefore we must have a care how we mis-impute Gods anger to our selves arising out of his punishments his corrections and inflictions upon us that because we have crosses in the world we cannot believe that we stand well in the sight of God Verse 14. He that cares not for the act of his sin shall care for the smart of his punishment for see this miscreant which had neither grace to avoid his sin nor to confess it now that he is convinc'd of sin and curs'd for it how he howleth how he exclaimeth the damned are weary of their torments but in vain How great a madness is it to complain too late he that would not keep his Brother is cast out from the protection of God he that feared not to kill his Brother fears now that whosoever meets him will kill him the troubled conscience projecteth fearful things and sin makes even cruel men cowardly How bitter is the end of sin yea without end still Cain finds that he had kill'd himself more then his Brother We should never sin if our fore-sight were but as good as our sence the issue of sin would appear a thousand times more horrible then the act is pleasant Verse 15. Some think this mark was a horrible trembling and shaking of his whole body as the Septuagint translate who For thou shalt be a vagabond read Thou shalt
corruption were but in man and other Creatures were flesh as well as man but man is every creature because as Gregory saith Omnis creaturae differentia in homine all the properties and qualities of all other creatures how remote and distant how contrary soever in themselves yet they all meet in man In man if he be a flatterer you shall find the grovelling and crawling of the Snake and in man if he be ambitious you shall find the high flight and piercing of the Eagle in a voluptuous sensual man you shall find the earthliness of the Hogg and in a licentious man the intemperance and distemper of the Goat ever lustful and ever in a Feaver ever in sickness contracted by that sin and yet ever in a desire to proceed in that sin and thus man is every creature and all flesh Verse 14. That God might approve his mercies to the very wicked he gives them 120 years respite of repenting verse 3. and here in this verse he gives them a faithful Teacher It is an happy thing when he that teacheth others is righteous Noahs hand taught them as much as his tongue his business in building the Ark was a real Sermon to the world wherein at once were taught Mercy and Life to the Believer and to the Rebellious destruction Verse 18. Doubtless more hands went to this work of making the Ark than Noah and his Children and yet none were saved but they many a one wrought upon the Ark which yet was not saved in the Ark our outward works cannot save us without Faith we may help to save others and perish our selves what a wonder of mercy is this that we here see one poor Family call'd out of a world and as it were eight grains of Corn fann'd from a whole Barnful of Chaff one hypocrite was saved with the rest for Noahs sake not one righteous man was swept away for company for these few was the earth preserved still under the waters and all kind of Creatures upon the waters which else had been all destroyed Still the world stands for their sakes for whom it was preserved else fire should consume that which could not be cleansed by water CHAP. VII Verse 2. THe unclean Beasts God would have to live the clean to multiply and therefore he sends to Noah seven of the clean and of the unclean two he knew the one would annoy man with their multitude the other would enrich him those things are worthy of most respect which are of most use But why seven Surely that God that Created seven dayes in the Week and made one for himself did here preserve of seven clean Beasts one for himself for Sacrifice he gives us Six for One in earthly things that in spiritual we should be all for him Verse 9. This difference is strange I see the savagest of all Creatures Lions Tygers Bears by an instinct from God come to seek the Ark as we see Swine fore-seeing a storm run home crying for shelter men I see not Reason once debauch'd is worse than bruitishness God hath use even of these fierce and cruel Beasts and glory by them Even they being Created for man must live by him though to his punishment How gently do they offer and submit themselves to their Preserver renewing that obeysance to this Repairer of the World which they before sin yielded to him that first stored the World And thus these savage Creatures went in saith the rext to Noah not to prey but fawn upon him He that shut them into the Ark when they were entred shut their mouths also while they did enter The Lions fawn upon Noah and Daniel what heart cannot the Maker of them mollifie Verse 10. By this is shewen the Lords patience for Noah is warned seven dayes before of the Flouds coming that by his preparation and entrance others might be warned and whereas God might have destroyed the World at once it was encreasing forty dayes that the World seeing every day some perish might at length have turned to God And the same was Ninevehs case yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Our God is a gracious merciful and long-suffering God and never strikes but he gives warning that sinners may prevent the blow by Repentance and Contrition Before Nineveh shall be destroyed a Prophet must be sent to give notice of that destruction and to teach them a way how to avoid it and in case they should prove dull schollars here is forty dayes given to learn the lesson And as God dealt with this great City and with the whole World before the Deluge to fore-warn them of his judgements and their own ruine so deals he likewise with particular men to some he gives forty dayes to others forty months nay forty years to repent in even a whole life time is to some men but a continued warning of their final destruction and yet they like the old World never beleeve it till they feel it mock and jear at a Deluge until they are over-whelm'd with the Floud and perish in their own presumptuous imaginations So hard a thing it is to perswade sinners to beleeve that God is so just or his Judgements so infallible or their sins so destructive until the Floud come and a second Deluge a Deluge of Fire sweeps them away as that first of Waters did their unbeleeving fore-fathers Verse 11. It agrees with the nature of God who is goodness That as all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened and so came the Floud over all so there should be diluvium spiritus a flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all as he promises Effundam I will pour it out upon all and diluvium gentium that all Nations shall flow up unto him For this spirit spirat ubi vnlt breaths where it pleaseth him and though a natural Wind cannot blow East and West North and South together this spirit at once breaths upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the dispairing sinner and in an instant can denizon and naturalize that soul that was an Alien to the Covenant empale and in-lay that soul that was bred upon the Common among the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goat into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost Sheep to the Fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darkness and the shadow of death and so melt and pour out that soul that yet understands nothing of the divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the divine nature and be the same Spirit with God Verse 16. Now that Noah and all his Guests are entred the Ark is shut and the windows of Heaven opened God first provides for Noah before the Wicked are destroyed of whom many no doubt when they saw the violence of the waves descending and ascending according to Noah's prediction came wading middle-deep unto the Ark and importunately craved that
how love covereth sins these good Sons are so far from going forward to see their Fathers shame that they go back-ward to hide it The Cloak is laid on both their shoulders they both go back with equal paces and dare not so much as look back lest they should unwillingly see the cause of their shame and will rather adventure to stumble at their Fathers Body than to see his nakedness How did it grieve them to think that they who so often had come to their Father with Reverence must now in Reverence turn their backs upon him and that they must now cloath him in pity who had so often cloathed them in love And which adds more to their duty they covered him and said nothing This modest sorrow is their praise and our example the Sins of those we love and honour we must hear of with indignation fearfully and unwillingly beleeve acknowledge with grief and shame hide with honest excuses and bury in silence Verse 25. God preserves some men in Judgement better had it been for Cham to have perished in the Waters than to live unto his Fathers Curse And yet how equal a regard is here both of Piety and disobedience Because C ham sinned against his Father therefore he shall be plagued in his Children Iaphet is dutiful to his Father and finds it in his posterity Because C ham was an ill son to his Father therefore his sons shall be servants to his Brethren because Iaphet set his shoulders to Shems to bear the Cloak of shame therefore shall Iaphet dwell in the Tents of Shem partaking with him in blessings as in duty When we do but what we ought yet God is thankful to us and rewards that which we should sin if we did not Who could ever yet shew me a man rebelliously undutiful to his Parents that hath prospered in himself and his seed Verse 27. If thy Child prove undutiful and refractory do for him as Noah did here for Iaphet Noah had given that son of his a great deal of good Counsel no doubt and had perswaded him to become a lively Member of Gods Church but knowing well to how little purpose all this would be without Gods working upon his heart he falls to Prayer God perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem As if he had said I have advised and done my uttermost to perswade thee my Son but all this is but lost labour unless God put in his helping hand now therefore the good Lord perswade thee Thus do thou for thy refractory Child desire God to perswade him to convince him to turn his heart and thou shalt see that nothing shall stand in his way but the work shall be accomplished if God undertake to mend thy Son and make him good all his ill conditions shall not hinder it CHAP. X. Verse 1. C Ham is set in the midst between Shem and Iaphet wherein is shadowed the condition of the Church that ungodly persons will ever be mingled among the faithful The purest Grain hath some Chaff mixed with it and the purest and most sanctified Congregations as well in Heaven as on Earth have had their mixture of Reprobates There was a Iudas in that glorious Synod of Apostles and a Lucifer even in Heaven its self Thus still is the Church that Moon in the Scripture a glorious Body but not without her spots Verse 10. Nimrod signifies a Rebel and Babel confusion to intimate that Rebellion evermore begins in Confusion Confusion in the Church and Confusion in the State in the one the Lawes of God are disordered in the other the Laws of man Babel is still the beginning of that Kingdom where a Nimrod is the mighty man and where a Nimrod is the mighty man still the aim is at a Kingdom though the Kingdom prove a Kingdom of Confusion Nimrod will be great though his own greatness distract and confound him And thus it fares also with every wicked man who is a rebel against God the beginning of his Kingdom is a Babel likewise his understanding is distracted his affections are disordered and all his actions are out of frame a confusion possesses both the beginning and end of all his wayes And to this purpose was the Psalmists Prayer against both these Nimrods O my God make them like unto a Wheel let them turn round in all their actions let them never be fixed and setled in their courses but let a giddiness a vertigo pursue their Designes and let both the beginning and end of their Kingdom prove a Babel Verse 25. Eber of whom came the Hebrews or Israelites Exod. 1. 15. that he might have before his eyes a perpetual monument of Gods displeasure against the ambitious Babel builders calls his Son Peleg or Division because in his dayes was the Earth divided It is good to write the remembrance of Gods worthy works whether of Mercy or Justice upon the Names of our Children to put us in mind of those dispensations of God for we need all helps such is either our dulness or forgetfulness Upon this account we of this Nation have been very zealous in conferring such Names upon our Children at their Baptism as might put them in mind of some part of their Christian Profession and lest our Children should be ignorant of the meaning of those Names they have been of late years interpreted and instead of Baptizing our Children with the Names of Timothy and Theophilus these latter times have re-baptized even Names as well as Children and have Christened them Fear-God and Love-God and Fight a good Fight but how these men have imitated their Names these late years have sufficiently declared to the whole World CHAP. XI Verse 4. HOw fondly do men reckon without God Come let us build as if there had been no stop but in their own will as if both Earth and Time had been theirs Still do all natural men build Babel fore-casting their own Plots so resolutely as if there were no power to counter-mand them Let us build a City if they had taken God with them it had been commendable establishing of Societies is pleasing to him that is the God of Order but a Tower whose top may reach to Heaven is a shameful arrogance an impious presumption Who would think that we little Ants that creep upon the Earth should think to climb up to Heaven by multiplying of Earth But wherefore was all this Not that they loved so much to be neighbors to heaven as to be famous upon earth It was not Commodity that was here sought nor Safety but Glory Whither doth not thirst of Fame carry men whether in good or evil One builds a Temple to Diana in hope of glory intending it for one of the greatest Wonders of the World Another in hope of Fame burns it He is a rare man that hath not some Babel of his own whereon he bestows pains and cost only to be talked of Verse 7. When God bestowed upon man his first benefit his Making
it is exprest thus Let us all us make Man God seems to muster himself all himself all the Persons of the Trinity to do what he could in favour of man So also here when he is drawn to a necessity of executing Judgment for his own honor consolidation of his servants puts himself upon a revenge he proceeds so too When man had rebell'd and began to fortifie in Babel then saies God here Let us all us come together and descendamus confundamus let us all us go down and confound their Language and their Fortifications God does not give paterns God does not accept from us acts of half Devotion and half Charities God does all that he can for us And therefore when we see others in distress whether National or Personal Calamities whether Princes be dispossest of their National Patrimony and Inheritance or private Persons afflicted with sickness or penury or banishment let us go Gods way all the way First Feciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram Let us make that man according to our image let us consider our selves in him and make our case his And remember how lately he was as well as we and how soon we may be as ill as he and then descendamus confundamus let us us with all the power we have remove or slacken those Calamities that lie upon him Verse 8. He that taught Adam the first words taught these Builders words that never were One calls for Brick the other looks him in the face and wonders what he means and how and why he speaks such words as were never heard and instead thereof brings him Morter returning him an Answer as little understood At first every man thinks his Fellow mocks him but now perceiving this serious Confusion their only Answer is silence and ceasing They could not come together but must of necessity be scattered for no man could call them to be understood and if they had Assembled nothing could be determined because one could never attain to the others purpose No they could not have the honour of a general dismission but each man leaves his Trowel and Station more like a Fool than he undertook it So commonly actions begun in glory shut up in shame Verse 9. All external actions depend upon the tongue no man can know anothers mind if this be not the interpreter Hence as there were many tongues given to stay the building of Babel so there were as many given to build the New Ierusalem the Evangelical Church Multiplicity of Language had not been given by the Holy Ghost for a blessing of the Church if the World had not been before possessed with multiplicity of Languages for a punishment Hence it is That the building of our Sion rises no faster because our tongues are divided happy were the Church of God if we all spake but one Language Whilst we differ we can build nothing but Babel difference of tongues caused their Babel to cease but it builds ours CHAP. XII Vers. 1. IT was fit That he that should be the Patern and Father of the Faithful should be throughly tryed for in a set copy every fault is important may prove a rule of Error No Son of Abraham can hope to escape temptations while he sees the bosom in which he desires to rest so assaulted with difficulties Abraham must leave his Country and Kindred and live amongst strangers the calling of God never leaves men where it finds them The Earth is the Lords and all places are alike to the wise and faithful If Chaldaea had not been grosly idolatrous Abraham had not left it no Bond must tye us to the danger of infection But whither must he go To a place he knew not to men that knew not him It is enough comfort to a good man wheresoever he is that he is acquainted with God we are never out of our way while we follow the calling of God Verse 3. When the wayes of a man please God he will be gracious to his House and Posterity God is so pleased with the Obedience of his People that he will shew Mercy to such as belong to them When God saw Noah righteous before him in that corrupt age and generation he made all that belong'd to him partakers of the same deliverance with himself saying unto him Enter thou and all thine house into the Ark. This appeareth in the person of Abraham when God had call'd him out of his Country and from his Kindred and had made a Covenant with him to bless him he adds I will also bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee And this is but the tenor of the Covenant that God hath made with all the faithful their Faith is available both for themselves and for others God will be our God and the God of our seed after us And this is the priviledge and prerogative that the faithful have they beleeve this merciful Promise of God themselves and thereby entitle their Children unto it For as a Father that purchaseth House or Land giveth thereby an interest unto his Son therein so he that layeth hold on the Promise that God hath made to all godly Parents doth convey it unto his Children so that albeit they want Faith by reason of their years yet they are made partakers of Christ and engrafted into his Body Verse 7. Never any man lost by his Obedience to the highest because Abraham yielded God gave him the possession of Canaan I wonder more at his Faith in taking this possession than in leaving his own Behold Abraham takes possession for that Seed which he had not which in nature he was not like to have of that Land whereof he should not have one foot wherein his Seed should not be setled of almost five hundred years after The power of Faith can prevent time and make future things present If we be the true Sons of Abraham we have already while we sojourn here on Earth the possession of our Land of Promise while we seek our Country we have it Verse 10. Even Canaan here doth not afford Abraham Bread which yet he must beleeve shall flow with Milk and Honey to his Seed Sence must yield to Faith wo were us if we must judge of our future estate by our present Egypt gives Relief to Abraham when Canaan cannot In outward things Gods enemies may fare better than his friends Thrice had Egypt preserved the Church of God in Abraham in Iacob in Christ God oftentimes makes use of the World for the behoof of his though without their thanks as contrarily he useth the wicked for scourges to his own inheritance and burns them because in his good they intended evil Verse 13. Hitherto hath Sarah been Abrahams Wife now Egypt hath made her his Sister Fear hath turned him from an Husband to a Brother No strength of Faith can exclude some doubtings God hath said I will make thee a great Nation Abraham saith The Egyptians will kill me
He that liveth by his Faith yet shrinketh and sinneth How vainly shall we hope to beleeve without all fear and to live without infirmities Some little aspertions of unbelief cannot hinder the praise and power of Faith Abraham beleeved and it was imputed to him for righteousness He that through inconsiderateness doubted twice of his own life doubted not of the life of his Seed even from the dead and dry Womb of Sarah yet was it more difficult that his posterity should live in Sarah than that Sarahs Husband should live in Egypt this was above nature yet he beleeves it Sometimes the Beleever sticks at easie tryalls and yet breaks through the greatest tentations without fear Verse 14. Holy Iob's Covenant with his Eyes in the Old Testament should be every Christians in the New to look to his looks to set a guard and sentinel over his Eyes for from looking comes lusting from a lascivious glance proceeds a lascivious act and it is all one in Gods esteem with which part of the body we commit adultery so that if a man lets his Eye or his Thought loose and enjoyes the lust of either he is an Adulterer before God It was therefore our Saviours advice Mat. 5. If thy right Eye offend thee pull it out the meaning is this That when thou doest give check to the loose evibrations and wanton twirles of a lascivious Eye thou dost at that very time pull out that wanton Eye from thy body and the lustful Devil that is in that wanton Eye from thy soul. There is great reason therefore that we should set a strict watch over this Cinque-port of our bodies Beauty is a dangerous bait and Lust is sharp-sighted It is not safe gazing on a fair Woman how many have died of the wound in the Eye No one means hath so enrich'd Hell as beautiful faces Verse 19. It is a sad case when an Egyptian shall reprove an Israelite when a Pharaoh shall rebuke an Abraham and therefore all Professors of Religion should so practice it as the very Infidels seeing their good works answer their good words may glorifie their Father which is in heaven For our Calling as it is most eminent so most eyed and worst censured by all the Infidel part of the World If an Apostle rub but an ear of Corn on the Sabbath 't is breaking of the day a heathens Motes are a Christians Beams and a Turks indifferency is my evil somethings being expedient in respect of the man which are scandalous meerly for his Religion none therefore to keep within so strict lines both for words and deeds as the Christian for behold saith the Apostle We are made a gazing stock to the world to Angels and to men CHAP. XIII Verse 2. ALthough the Scripture tells us That it is hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet the Scripture saith not that it is absolutely impossible Heaven gate stands open for the Rich as well as for the Poor for rich Abraham here as well as for poor Lazarus in the Gospel and as it is true Blessed are the Poor for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven So it is also as true Blessed are the Rich for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Thus Adam and Noah flew up to Heaven with the Monarchy of the whole World upon their backs The Patriarchs also as in this Text Abraham with much Wealth many holy Kings with rich Crowns and Scepters It is not Wealth therefore as Wealth but Sin that is the clogg that keeps men from ascending the burthen of covetous desires being more heavie to an empty Soul than much treasure to the full for not the meer Possession and use of riches offends but the affectation Verse 7. When the strife began between Abraham and Lot the Scripture notes it as a special Memorandum here that the Canaanite was then in the Land Doubtless there are at this time also in our Land too many who carry Canaanitish hearts and minds who would no less than the old Canaanites rejoyce and triumph in our discords saying among themselves Aha so would we have it But let those that have the Spirit of Abraham learn also the Speech and Language of Abraham who though he was in Age and Dignity superiour to his Nephew Lot yet came and said unto him I pray thee let there be no strife between me and thee for we are Brethren Verse 9. Before Abraham and Lot grew Rich they dwelt together now their Wealth separates them their Society was a greater good than their Riches many a one is a looser by his Wealth who would account those things good which makes us worse It had been the duty of young Lot to offer rather than to chuse to yield rather than contend Who would not here think Abraham the Nephew and Lot the Uncle It is no disparagement for greater persons to begin treaties of Peace better doth it beseem every Son of Abraham to win with love than to sway with power Abraham yields over this right of his choice Lot takes it And behold Lot is cross'd in that which he chose Abraham is blessed in that which was left him God never suffers any one to lose by an humble remission of his right in a desire of Peace Verse 10. Wealth hath made Lot not only undutiful but covetous he sees the goodly Plain of Iordan the richness of the Soyl the commodity of the Rivers the scituation of the Cities and now not once enquiring into the Condition of the Inhabitants he is in love with Sodom Outward appearances are deceitful guides to our judgement or affection they are worthy to be deceived that value things as they seem It is not long after that Lot payes dear for his rashness He fled for quietness from his Uncle and finds War with strangers by whom he is carried Prisoner with all his substance That Wealth which was the cause of his former Quarrels is made a prey to merciless Heathen that place which his Eye covetously chose betrayes his life and goods How many Christians whilst they have look'd at gain have lost themselves Verse 14. Gods way of appearing unto Abraham was like our Saviours way of appearing in the flesh to the world until such time as there was a general Peace over the whole Earth our Saviour would not appear amongst men and until such time as the strife was ended betwixt Abraham and Lot and they two parted friendly God did not appear unto Abraham God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. Where Charity is there is an habitation a Temple for the Lord and where it is not there is a dwelling-place for the Devil Religion is but rottenness without it our Devotions unsavory our Sacrifice distasteful and all our front of Holiness but dross and rubbish Therefore Christ saith If thou bring thy Gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee first be
escapeth their Judgement from whose sins he escaped Even the good Angels are here made the Executioners of Gods Judgements There cannot be a better or more noble act than to do Justice upon obstinate Malefactors Verse 16. The Messengers do not only hasten Lot but pull him by a gracious violence out of that impure City they thirsted at once after the vengeance upon Sodom and Lots safety they knew God could not strike Sodom till Lot were gone out and that Lot could not be safe within those Walls We are all naturally in Sodom if God did not hale us out whiles we linger we should be condemned with the World If God meet with a very good field he pulls up the Weeds and lets the Corn grow if indifferent he lets the Corn and Weeds grow together if very ill he gathers the few ears of Corn and burns the weeds Verse 20. So say most men of their bosome sins Lord this sin is neer to flye unto it is but in my bosome and it is but a little one Lord perchance but a trip of the tongue or a wanton glance of the eye or a lustful thought of the heart O let me escape and abide in that sin in that Zoar and my soul shall live and he saies most truly that his Soul shall live For it is as impossible that such a one should live without his beloved sin as it is that he should live without his Soul Verse 21. O the large bounty of God which reacheth not to us only but to ours God saves Lot for Abrahams sake and Zoar for Lots sake if Sodom had not been too wicked it had escaped Were it not for Gods dear Children that are intermix'd with the World the world could not stand the wicked owe their lives unto those few good which they hate and persecute Verse 26. Lot at the 17 verse may not so much as look at the flame whether for the stay of his passage or the horror of the sight or tryal of his Faith or fear of commiseration Small Precepts from God are of importance obedience is as well tryed and disobedience as well punished in little as in much And therefore when Lots Wife did but turn back her head in this verse whether in curiosity or unbelief or love and compassion of the place she is turned into a Monument of disobedience ut praestarit fidelibus condimentum saith Saint Augustine that it might be a seasoning to faithful men and teach us not to look back not to fall off from that calling in which we are once entered And now what did it avail Lots Wife not to be turned into ashes in Sodom when she is turned into a Pillar of Salt in the plain He that saved a whole City cannot save his own Wife God cannot abide small sins in those whom he hath obliged If we displease him God can as well meet with us out of Sodom as in it Verse 35. Though Lot fled from company he could not flye from sin he who was not tainted with Uncleanness in Sodom is overtaken with Drunkenness and Incest in a Cave Rather than Satan shall want baits Lots own Daughters will prove Sodomites those which should have comforted betrayed him How little are some hearts moved with judgements The ashes of Sodom and the pillar of Salt were not yet out of their eye when they dare think of lying with their own Father They knew whilst Lot was sober he could not be unchaste Drunkenness is the way to all bestial affections and acts Wine knows no difference either of persons or sins By this we see likewise what a dangerous thing it is to give way to temptation Lot being once drunk is the more apt to fall into it again Verse 37. No doubt Lot was afterwards ashamed of his Incestuous seed and now wished he had come alone out of Sodom yet even this unnatural Bed was blessed with encrease and one of our Saviours worthy Ancestors sprung after from this line Gods Election is not tyed to our means neither are blessings or Curses ever traduced The chaste Bed of holy Parents hath often bred a Monstruous Generation and contrarily God hath sometimes raised an holy Seed from the Drunken Bed of Incest or Fornication Thus will God magnifie the freedom of his own choice and let us know that we are not born but made good CHAP. XX. Verse 3. THe truth was here not only concealed but dissembled as the Moon hath her specks so the best have their blemishes we are born men not Angels and as our composition is flesh and bloud so are we subject to the temptations that are apt to arise from those principles of our Nature A Sheep may slip into a ditch as well as a Swine only here 's the difference the one delights in the mud the other would fain get out of it the righteous may fall seven times a day as well as the wicked but then the righteous riseth as oft and repenteth of his sin whereas the wicked lies down and continues in it This was the second time Abraham had committed this sin and yet still continued the Father of the faithful Verse 5. God had reproved Abimelech on Abrahams behalf and now Abimelech reproves Abraham on Gods God told Abimelech that he had taken another mans Wife and Abimelech replyed That other man had told him a Lye It is a sad thing that Saints and Beleevers should do that for which they should justly fall under the reproof of Infidels we should rather dazle their eyes and draw from their Consciences at least a testimony of our innocency as David did from Sauls when he said Thou art more righteous than I my son David The life of a Christian should be a Commentary on Christs life Which of you can condemne me of evil said Christ to the Jewes and we that bear his Name should follow his steps and so carry our selves that we may not be condemned by the world For our profession as it is most eminent so most eyed and worst censured none therefore to keep within so strict lines as the Christian being one ever under monitors for behold saith the Apostle We are made a gazing stock to the world to Angels to men Verse 7. The reward of sin is death saith the Apostle but what kind of death a double death saith this text Morte morierie thou shalt die the death a death complicated in its self death wrap'd in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding-sheet It is death aggravated by its self death weighed down by death and what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his Grave-stone It is multiplied by its self and what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death Let several sinners then pass this consideration through their several sins that as Abimelech here so they must without Gods mercy upon every sin die the death and that a double death eternal and
hanging over the throat of such a Son would not have been more perplex'd in his thought than that unexpected Sacrifice was in those briars yet he whom it nearest concern'd is least touch'd Faith had wrought the same in him which cruelty would in others not to be moved He contemns all fears and over-looks all impossibilities his heart tells him that the same hand which rais'd Isaac from the dead womb of Sarah can raise him again from the ashes of his Sacrifice With this confidence was the hand of Abraham now falling upon the throat of Isaac who had given himself for dead when suddenly the Angel of God interrupts him forbids him commends him Verse 12. The voice of God was never so welcome never so sweet never so seasonable as now It was the tryal that God intended not the fact Isaac is sacrificed and is yet alive and now both of them are more happy in that they would have done than they could have been distress'd if they had done it Gods charges are oft-times harsh in the beginnings and proceeding but in the conclusion alwayes comfortable true spiritual comforts are commonly late and sudden God defers on purpose that our tryals may be perfect our deliverance welcome our recompence glorious Isaac had never been so precious to his Father if he had not been recovered from death if he had not been as miraculously restored as given Abraham had never been so blessed in his Seed if he had not neglected Isaac for God Verse 13. The only way to find comfort in any earthly thing is to surrender it in a faithful carelesness into the hands of God Abraham came to Sacrifice he may not go away with dry hands God cannot abide that good purposes should be frustrate Lest either Abraham should not do that for which he came or shall want means of speedy thanks-giving for so gracious a disappointment behold a Ram stands ready for the Sacrifice and as it were proffers himself to this happy exchange He that made that beast brings him thither fastens him there Even in small things there is a great providence what mysteries there are in every though the least act of God CHAP. XXIII Verse 1. BEcause the years of Sarah are here distinctly numbred and the Hebrews read thus and the lives of Sarah was an hundred years and twenty years and seven years the Jewish Rabbins collect that here is commended her beauty and her chastity viz. that she was as fair at an hundred years as at twenty and as chast at twenty as at seven but this collection of the Rabbins perchance is scarce warrantable from the words yet from hence we may safely conclude for our comfort that the Lord doth number all our years and whether they be few or many he hath set them down in his Book of Remembrance For here Sarah's daies are punctually numbred and Iob in his Fourteenth Chapter mentioneth moneths and daies how that our daies are exactly determined and the number of moneths which man hath to live are in the Lords hand Wherefore no good man need make any question but that the Lord hath a care of him and that his life doth not depend upon the skill of the Physitian but the good pleasure of our God Verse 2. These words She dyed at Hebron bids us meditate on theformer Story 'T is well known that at Beersheba Abimelech made a league with Abraham the tenure whereof was that the one should not hurt the other whereupon Abraham supposing he should have set up his staff there planted a grove yet for all this Sarah dieth not there but dieth at Hebron certain miles distant from Beersheba and dieth in the absence of Abraham and happily without the presence of her Son and acquaintance dieth in a strange place among strangers which may serve to comfort those whom the Lord will not vouchsafe to die in their own Country among their nearest and dearest Friends wanting them to close up their dying eyes and perform the duties and offices of love For though Friends be absent yet the best Friends God and his Christ are ever present to the faithful and when all forsake yet they never forsake and Heaven is no further from one place than another and then in regard we are all with Sarah and Abraham here liable to a wandering and a wavering condition this should hold up in us all a longing desire of Heaven where all joy remains and is fix'd for evermore seeing here we have no happiness no rest no quietness Here is only the vally of tears and weeping we must look for the happy place of joy and gladness in another World where shall be no more sorrow nor crying nor tears Verse 4. This Sarah that before was the desire of Abrahams eyes is now desired to be removed out of his sight she that before had a beauty to tempt Kings had not now so much left her by death as to take her own Husband I have read of a fair young German Gentleman who living refused to be pictured and put off the importunity of his Friends by giving way that after a few daies burial they might send a Painter to his Vault and if they saw cause for it draw the image of Death unto the Life they did so and found his face half eaten his Midrife and Back-bone full of Serpents and so he stands pictured among his armed Ancestors Thus doth the fairest Beauty change and it will be as bad with you and me as it was here with Sarah and then what nearest Relation will endure our company what Servants shall we have to wait upon us in the Grave what officious people to cleanse away the moist cloud cast upon our faces from the sides of the weeping Vaults which are the longest Weepers for our Funerals all our Friends will then like Abraham in the Text desire to remove us out of their sight Verse 8. The eye affects the heart with sorrow-occasioning objects if sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart Hence when Sarah was dead Abraham in this Text thus bespeaks the people among whom he dwelt If it be in your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight It did afflict the heart of Abraham with sorrow to see the body of his deceased Wife or the Coffin where she lay whom he had so entirely loved therefore he saith Bury her out of my sight Verse 9. This world is but a thorow-fare we have no place to settle to abide here and therefore our first purchase of possession should be like this of Abrahams a place to bury in not to build upon Our Grave is our long and lasting home all our other houses are but transitory and as short-lived as our selves And therefore to mind us of our mortality it were good with the Patriarch here to make our Sepulchre our first purchase Upon this account when our first Parents had made them Garments of Figg-leaves God gave them Garments of skins
with those they would have covered their shame with these God did discover their mortality Verse 19. Though the pomp of Funerals concerns not the dead in real and effective purposes yet it is the duty of the living to see their Friends fairly Interr'd For to the Dead it is all one whether they be carried forth on a Chariot or a wooden Beer whether they rot upon the earth or under the earth whether in a Cave or in a Ditch There is nothing in this but opinion and the decency of some to be served Let thy Friend therefore be interr'd as Sarah was here after the Laws of the Country and the dignity of the person It was therefore that our blessed Saviour who was ever temperate in his expence was yet pleas'd to admit the cost of Maries Ointment upon his head and feet because she did it against his Burial by which he remark't it to be a great act of piety and honourable to Interr our Friends according to the proportion of their condition and so to give a testimony of our hopes of their Resurrection CHAP. XXIV Verse 3. ABraham would not link his Son with the wicked he remembred what had come of such Marriages in the Age before him when the Sons of God took them Wives of the Daughters of Men only for their Beauty without regard of Religion or honesty Their destruction was a lesson to him he avoided their sin by fearing their punishment And afterwards under the Law God gave his people express charge concerning this Exod. 34. and the reason is there given Lest they make thy Sons go a whoring after their gods a sufficient reason to prevail as with the Jew so much more with the Christian. Verse 12. The necessary use of seasoning and sanctifying the first entrance into the married estate is by prayer to God Abrahams servant being intrusted with a business of that nature commended the whole success to God by prayer and the Woman being sent away by her Friends was dismiss'd with a blessing upon both Look to the first Marriage that ever was the Lord himself knit the knot and confirm'd it with a blessing Gen. 1. and Gods course should be a pattern for the following times and to assure us withall that when this is left out we may well say as Christ did in another Particular concerning Marriage From the beginning it was not so And good reason there is for this for Marriage is the Covenant of God and if he be not call'd to confirm it it cannot prosper Verse 14. When Eliezer went a wooing for his young Master Isaac the tryal by which he intended to prove a fit Wife for Isaac was this that if saith he when I say to the Maid give me drink she say again drink and I will give thy Camels also she without more ado should be a Wife for Isaac that is if she were gentle not like the Woman Iohn 4. who when Christ asked her Water call'd him Jew How is it that thou being a Iew askest water of one that is a Samaritan for though there be many sins incident to Women yet no vice in Women is so unwomanly as this If Adam had been furious the matter had been less for he was made of Earth the Mother of Iron and Steel those murthering mettals but the Woman she that was made of so tender mettal to become so terrible the weaker Vessel so strong in passion yea to look so fair and speak so foul what a contrariety is this There was great reason sure to compare a good Woman to a snail not only for her silence and continual keeping of her house but also for a certain timorousness of her nature which at the least shaking of the air shrinks back into her shell and so ought the Wife to do if her Husband but speak to play all hid and under hatches and to say to her Husband as Rachel to her Father Let not my Lord be angry Verse 30. Laban gave this respect unto Abrahams Servant not for his own sake nor yet his Masters but for the Ear-rings sake and the Bracelets Thus many love God for their own interest and not his glory in all their services they look a squint at God but directly at self-ends and seldom or never look at his glory but through the spectacles of self-love Such was Iehu's Zeal serving God so far as he might serve himself 2 King 10. But this is merchandizing with God and not obedience to serve him for ends I am never at the pitch of sincerity till I see enough in God himself without looking out of him to have him as my exceeding rich reward When it comes once to this point that the beauties of Gods truth and the pleasantness of his wayes and the holiness of his will and the equity of his Laws are the arguments and wages that hire me to his service then do I serve him as I ought Verse 39. Here the servant leaveth out the charge that was given him by Abraham in the sixt Verse of this Chapter Beware that thou bring not my Son thither again for this speech would have offended them as though Abraham had counted them a forlorn and wicked people We learn then from this discreet omission of this part of Abrahams charge that every truth in all places and upon all occasions is not to be uttered Verse 63. It is our duty to study the Heavens and be acquainted with the Stars in them the wonderful works of God are seen and a sober knowledg in Nature may be an advantage unto Grace Heaven is the most considerable of all inanimate Creatures and more considerable than most of the animate And therefore some of the Rabbins tell us that when Isaac went out into the field to meditate the subject of his meditation was the Stars or the Heavens It is good to take field-room sometimes to view and contemplate the works of God round about Only take heed of the folly of Astrological curiosities confining the providence of God to secondary causes avoid that and the heart may have admirable elevations unto God from the meditation of the Works of God If the Heavens declare the glory of God we should observe what glory that is which they declare The Sun Moon and Stars are Preachers universal Preachers they are natural Apostles the World is their charge and their words saith the Ps. 19. go to the end of the earth Verse 65. At the first meeting of Isaac and Rebecka he was gone out to meditate in the fields and she came riding that way with his Fathers man who was imployed in making that Marriage and when upon asking she knew that it was he who was to be her Husband She took a veil and covered her face saith that story What freedom and nearness soever they were to come to after yet there was a modesty and a bashfulness and a reservedness required before and her first kindness should be but to be seen A man would be
and reform their errors Verse 34. Who would have lookt for tears from Esau or who dare trust tears when he sees them fall from so graceless eyes It was a good word here Bless me also O my Father every miscreant can wish himself well No man would be miserable if it were enough to desire happiness Why did he not rather weep to his Brother for the pottage than to Isaac for a blessing If he had not then sold he had not needed now to begg It is just with God to deny us those favours which we were careless in keeping and which we undervalued in enjoying How happy a thing it is to know the seasons of Grace and not to neglect them how desperate to have known and neglected them these tears were both late and false the tears of rage of envie of carnal desire worldly sorrow causeth death Yet whiles Esau howls out thus for a blessing I hear him cry out of his Fathers store Hast thou but one blessing O my Father of his Brothers subtilty was he not rightly termed Jacob I do not hear him blame his own deserts He did not see while his Father was deceived and his Brother crafty that God was just and himself uncapable he knew himself prophane and yet claims a blessing CHAP. XXVIII Verse 11. NOne of all the Patriarks saw so evil dayes as Iacob did from whom justly hath the Church of God therefore taken her Name neither were the Faithful ever since called Abramites but Israelites That no time might be lost he began his strife in the Womb after that he flyes for his life from a cruel Brother to a cruel Uncle With a Staff goes he over Iordan alone doubtful and comfortless not like the Son of Isaac In the way the Earth is his bed and a stone his pillow yet even there he sees a Vision of Angels Iacob's heart was never so full of joy as when his head lay hardest God is most present with us in our greatest dejection and loves to give comfort to those that are for saken of their hopes Verse 12. This Ladder betokeneth Christ who above is God of his Father beneath is man out of Iacob's Loins Ioh. 1. 51 the Angels ascending and descending are the blessed Spirits which first ministred to the person of Christ and secondly for the good of his body namely the Elect Heb. 1. 14. The Angels went up and down none of them were seen standing still we must alwayes be going forward in our Christian courses and not think to be carried to heaven in a feather bed but we must climb a Ladder if we expect to be carried as Elias was in a Chariot it will be a fiery Chariot Verse 14. Against Iacob's four-fold cross here is a four-fold comfort a plaister as broad as the sore and sovereign for it Against the loss of his Friends I will be with thee saith God Against the loss of his Country I will give thee this Land Against his Poverty Thou shalt spread abroad to the East and to the West Against his solitariness and lowness Angels shall attend thee and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth whereunto we may add that which surpasseth all the rest In thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed thy Seed shall be as the dust of the earth and that dust of the earth shall shine as the stars in heaven they that trust in the Lord shall have the blessings of both worlds they shall be blessed here temporally and hereafter eternally Verse 15. It is a great and peculiar priviledge of the Church and every Member of it to have God present with them and President over them He is not far off from those that are his however in time of Affliction and in the hour of tentation he seemeth so to them but is ever with them and holdeth a gracious hand over them This is it which the Lord so often promiseth in his Word and truly performeth to the great comfort of all his Children This is it which the Lord speaketh to Iacob going from his Fathers house to Padan Aran Lo I am with thee c. And God thus promiseth his presence that the faithful might be assured of his protection and defence being gathered together by his power without which they could not have any comfort If he were not present with us he could not consider of our wants nor succour us in our necessities nor refresh us with his help while we walk in the valley of the shadow of death Seeing therefore we have comfort to be preserved in all perils and to be heard in our Prayers and Requests that we make to God we are assured and perswaded of his continual presence amongst us for our good and safety Verse 17. Though the Almighty be every where yet not every where after the same manner say the Schools his presence indeed shines forth in all but not the same degrees of his presence and though his glory filled both the Bush and the space about it yet not both alike the one with fire the other perchance but with smoak and therefore we read Exod. 3. of a place where Moses may stand and a place so holy whither he may not draw nigh the first too holy for his shoes the last too hot for his feet Thus also we read of Gods House made with hands and his House not made with hands and to both Holiness required for their Consecration and an awful esteem for their Diety Sanctified they must because they are Gods and Reverenced because he is in them To witness whose personal residence was that solemne erecting of Altars where God vouchsafed to appear Thus God here appeared to Iacob and strait wayes his Stone is anointed into a Pillar and what the last night was a pillow for himself must now be a resting place for his God there offering up his dues to heaven where he had before to Nature Verse 20. A mean or middle estate which is neither too eminent nor too obscure too rich nor too poor above contempt below envie is to be preferred before the greatest first because it is most free from danger as not being so low as to be trodden upon nor so high as to be seated in the eye of envie Secondly Because it preserveth us from forgetfulness of God irreligion and prophanness which accompanies prosperity and from the use of unlawful means to maintain our estate and from impatiency murmuring and repining against God to which we are tempted in poverty If then our God hath been so gracious unto us as to give us a convenient competency in these outward matters let us reckon our lot to have fallen unto us in a pleasant ground and that we have a goodly heritage And indeed our Nature desires not much Food and Raiment are the only necessaries for this life I mean the preservation of it we stand in need of If God will be with me saith Jacob c. that is all
writ and his anger will destroy part of the people that Gods anger may not consume them all Now let us imitate these great examples and that we may be angry and not sin let us only be angry for sin Verse 4. I see in Rachel the image of her Grand-mother Sarah both in her beauty of person in her actions in her success she also will needs suborn her handmaid to make her a Mother and at last beyond hope her self conceiveth It is a weak greediness in us to affect Gods blessings by unlawful means what a proof and praise had it been of her Faith if she had staied Gods leisure and would rather have endured her barrenness than her Husbands Polygamy Now she shews her self the Daughter of Laban the Father for covetousness the Daughters for emulation have drawn sin into Iacobs bed he offended in yielding but they more in solliciting him and therefore the fact is not imputed to Iacob but to them In those sins which Satan draws us into the blame is ours in those sins which we move each other unto the most fault and punishment lies upon the tempter Verse 6. Here Rachel makes use of Gods name to prophane it and under pretence of Religion would have God justifie her Maids and her own sin Many cry up that Cause to be Gods which he never will own and put his Name to those Writings which at the last day shall condemne them And indeed there hath of late years been no sin so common among Christians as to prostitue both Gods Name and his Cause and as that great Commander of the powers of darkness the Devil can transform himself into an Angel of light so there are no deeds of darkness so black and ugly which have not been like their Father the Devil mask'd and veil'd and clouded even with light its self I mean with those glorious heavenly Angel-like pretences of Religion and Conscience Insomuch that not only the most unchristian but the most inhumane practises the most unnatural savage barbarities of this last age of the World are now avowed to be the dictates and commands of God that God himself as in the text hath judged and allowed them Verse 18. Leah broke the bonds of Matrimony and yet expects a reward thus many times men flatter themselves in their sins and think that they are rewarded of God when they do ill As Micah having made houshold gods and entertained a Levite cryes Now I know that the Lord will be good unto me because I have a Levite to my Priest but he never thought he had an Idol to his God Thus Leah here rejoyced in that for which she should have repented and takes that for her hire which God for all she knew intended as her punishment And indeed her Son Issachar who was the hire here was none of the wisest and withal a slave and therefore in Iacobs Prophesie Gen. 49. compared to an Ass and one that for his ease would submit unto any burthens impositions taxes This was a simple low poor spirit and his posterity were for the general very unworthy and vile and yet this was the hire the reward the blessing that Leah rejoyced in as if God had approved of the sin by the success and fruitfulness of her handmaids Womb and this was her error of measuring and judging of things by the success as if God did not many times give Children and Honour and Riches in his wrath and were not many times angry with men though they outwardly prosper If this were not so the Turks and some Christians too at this day were in an happy condition who judge of the goodness of their cause only by the success and because they are not crossed that therefore they are blessed Verse 20. Children are a good dowry if they prove good and though they are alwayes an heritage that cometh of the Lord yet they are not alwayes the Lords heritage When our Children appear to be Gods heirs as well as ours then may we justly esteem them to be the best part of our estate and our greatest dowry Otherwise they will prove but sad blessings and such as we had better be without and yet all men desire them how much rather should we cover grace and those things which accompany salvation having got these we may safely and surely say God hath endued me with a good dowry Verse 27. Iacob rich in nothing but Wives and Children was now returning to his Fathers house accounting his Charge his Wealth But God meant him yet more good Laban sees that both his Family and his Flocks were well encreased by Iacobs service Not his love therefore but his gain makes him loth to part Even Labans covetousness is made by God the means to enrich Iacob and even his strait Master entreats him to that recompence which made his Nephew mighty and himself envious Verse 41. In the very shapes and colours of brute Creatures there is a divine hand which disposeth them to his own ends Small and unlikely means shall prevail where God intends an effect Little peel'd sticks of Hazel or Poplar laid in the troughs shall enrich Iacob with an encrease of spotted Cattel Labans Sons might have tryed the same means and failed God would have Laban know that he put a difference betwixt Iacob and him that as for fourteen years he had multiplyed Iacobs charge of Cattel to Laban so now for the last six years he would multiply Labans Flock to Iacob and if Laban had the more yet the better were Iacobs Even in these outward things Gods Children have many times sensible tastes of his favours above the wicked CHAP. XXXI Verse 13. VVHen God appeared here to Iacob upon his return from Laban he tells him I am the God of Bethel by which expression he no doubt intends to mind Iacob of the Promise not only made there by God to him but likewise by him to God for so it followeth Where thou vowedst a vow to me God is the God of pious resolutions as to approve of them when made so to look after them how they are made good and let me tell you to prophane that heart that is once consecrated to God to faulter in the execution of what is solemnly resolved in Gods service is a fetching the Sacrifice from the Altar and will certainly bring the coal of fire along with it Hadst thou never put in for the title of a Friend or votary with an O God my heart is ready to do thy will thou hadst not been perfidious though prophane but by breaking thy promise thou addest the guilt of unfaithfulness to that of disobedience and thy sin becomes beyond measure sinful Verse 18. I know not whether Laban were a worse Uncle or Father or Master he can like well Iacobs service not his wealth as the wicked have no peace with God so the godly have no peace with men for if they prosper not they are despised if they prosper they are envied This Uncle
that thou shouldest look on such a dead dogg as I am and when he considers from what a low to what an high estate God hath brought him he saith as Iacob here I am less than the least of all thy mercies and when Christ tells a Soul that he will make him a King and a Priest to God he humbly saith as Saul to Samuel am not I a Benjamite of the smallest of the Tribes of Israel yea it saith as Elizabeth said to Mary the blessed Mother of our ever blessed Jesus when she heard the Salutation that the Babe the heart of a true Believer leap'd within her and she spake Blessed art thou whence O whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord Oh saith the Soul that my God should come to see me even me poor worthless me it fares with such a Soul as with the Disciples Luke 24. Jesus stood in the midst and said Peace be unto you and they were terrified and affrighted but he said Why are ye troubled it is I behold my hands and my feet and they believed not for joy and wondred Verse 11. It is like that Esau prepared himself to be revenged of Iacob as may appear by Iacobs prayer and fear here which was not without cause whereby the power of God is also set forth that could in the very way change that purpose of Esau and withall Iacob sheweth in this his weakness and infirmity that although looking to Gods promise he had confidence yet turning himself to the present danger he fear'd and here while Iacob prepared himself by war prayer and gifts to satisfie his Brother he doth well for though God hath promised us deliverance we ought to use all good means and working under Gods providence Verse 12. Prayer is not only a bare manifestation of our mind to God by such a sute or petition but in Prayer there is or ought to be an holy arguing with God about the matter which we declare which is a bringing out and urging of reasons and motives whereby the Lord may be moved to grant what we pray for and this is clear from this example of Iacob in this Chapter Verse 24. When we are most retired from the World then we are most fit to have and usually have most communion with God David shews us divine work when we go to rest the bed is not all for sleep commune with your own hearts upon your bed and be still Psal. 4. be still and quiet and then commune with your hearts God will come and commune with them to his Spirit will give you a loving visit When Iacob fearing the rage of his Brother had put himself into the best posture and defence he could and had sent his Wives and Children over the River the Text saith that he was left alone which is not to be understood as if his company had left or deserted him Iacob's solitariness was not passive but effective he having disposed of all his Family withdrew himself and stayed alone and what then then he had a Vision indeed then there wrestled a man with him till the breaking of the day he spent not the night in carping and caring what should become of him to morrow no he retires to pray for a blessing upon his former cares and a blessing he obtains Verse 25. What a wonder is here Iacob received not so much hurt from all his enemies as from his best Friends not one of his hairs perish'd by Laban or Esau yet he lost a joynt by the Angel and was sent halting to his Grave he that knows our strength yet will wrestle with us for our exercise and loves our violence and importunity O happy loss this of Iacob he lost a joint and won a blessing it is a favour to halt from God yet this favour is seconded with a greater He was blest because he would rather halt than leave ere he was blessed If he had left sooner he had not halted but then he had not prospered that man shall go away sound but miserable that loves a limb more than a blessing Surely if Iacob had not wrestled with God he had been folid with evils how many are the troubles of the righteous Verse 30. Holy men even in this life have a sight of the face of God the Soul of a Believer hath interviews with God God and he do often look one another in the face Wheresoever the Saints are except in cases of desertion the place may be called as Iacob here call'd this where he wrestled with God Peniel that is the face of God yet not in that sence fully in which Iacob calls it so he call'd it the face of God because he had seen God face to face We can call it so only ordinarily because we see his face It is one thing to see the face of God another thing to see God face to face the former is the common priviledge of Saints in this life the latter is the priviledge of but some Saints and those rare ones to have it here Verse 31. At death God wrestles with his people laying hold on their Consciences by the menaces of the Law They again resist this assault by laying hold upon God in Christ by the Faith of the Gospel well assured that Christ hath freed them from the curse of the Law by being made a curse for them on the Cross. God yields himself over-come by this re-encounter but yet toucheth their thigh takes away their life howbeit this hinders not the Sun of Life Eternal to arise upon them CHAP. XXXIII Verse 4. VArious and miraculous are the means which God useth to deliver his People from their Enemies sometimes he divides them and sets the Churches enemies one against another so he did for Gideon's small Army to the Midianites mighty Host setting every mans Sword against his fellow sometimes he changeth their minds and turneth the stream of their affections Thus was Esau's heart mollified towards Iacob who instead of a devouring enemy becomes an embracing friend and meets him with kisses to whom he had intended blowes Indeed what Solomon saith of the Kings heart is true of all mens That they are in the hands of the Lord as the Rivers of Waters and he turneth them wheresoever he will No wonder then if sometimes he mollifies the Obdurate qualifies the Malicious and melts the Frozen Hearts of Wicked men into Love and Compassion towards his Servants Verse 5. Children are the blessings of the Lord nay they are part of his inheritance Children are an heritage of the Lord saith the Psalmist and the fruit of the Womb is his reward they are special blessings Children as it is to be observed are a resemblance of our immortality because man revives again lives a-new as it were in every Child he is born again in a civil sence when others are born to him There are some who count their Children but Bills of Charges but God puts them upon the account of our Mercies And
therefore how holy and piously doth Iacob speak here concerning his Children These saith he are the Children which God hath graciously given thy Servant Verse 9. The carnal minded man looks no further than this world and if he can get but his Chests and his Barns fill'd thinks he may say with Esau here I have enough Brother and that he may sing a Requiem to his Soul with that rich man in the Gospel Soul take thine ease thou hast Goods laid up for many years when God in the mean time is not thought upon without whom there can be no true fulness no sincere abundance Let us therefore accustome our selves to find out God in the Creature and in all our gettings in all our preferments in all our studies and then be we as covetous as we will as ambitious as we can we shall be sure to have enough for God will be abundantly sufficient to us for all God is treasure and God is honour enough Wouldst thou have all this World wouldst thou have all the next World too Plus est qui fecit Coelum Terram saith a Father he that made Heaven and Earth is more than all that and thou mayest have all in having him Verse 10. Wicked men cannot be so ill as they would That strong Wrestler against whom Iacob prevailed prevailed with Esau and turned his wounds into kisses An Host of Men came with Esau an Army of Angels met Iacob Esau threatned Iacob prayed His prayers and presence have melted the heart of Esau into love And now instead of the grim and stern countenance of an Executioner Iacob sees the face of Esau as the face of God Both men and Devils are stinted the stoutest heart cannot stand out against God He that can wrestle earnestly with God is secure from the harms of men Those minds which are exaspearated with violence and cannot be broken with fear yet are bowed with love when the wayes of a man please God he will make his enemies at peace with him Verse 11. If we want this Worlds good let us not be discouraged God oftentimes recompenseth the want of earthly blessings with great abundance of heavenly graces This Christ declareth in Rev. 2. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty but thou art rich He maketh them rich in Knowledge in Faith in Obedience and Joy in the holy Ghost He blesseth them with inward comfort and with peace of Conscience that passeth all understanding He giveth them patience in trouble meekness of spirit and an holy contentation to sustain the weight of their affliction and albeit they bear a gracious burthen yet he hath eased them of a greater the burthen of their sins which in Christ they feel to be lightned and remitted This the Apostle testifieth We are as dying and yet behold we live as having nothing and yet possessing all things This is that Iacob perswaded his own heart and told it to his Brother God hath shewed mercy unto me and therefore I have all things for so it is in the Original not I have enough as it is in our English Bibles but I have all Esau had much but Iacob had all because he had the God of all Verse 13. A Conscientious Minister should follow Iacobs example in this verse and so order their flocks as he did his They must have an eye to the weak ones of their Congregations and so to respect all as they over-drive none He must so Preach as his people are able to hear and not alwayes as he is able to Preach He must divide and chew and masticate his Matter and his Doctrines as Nurses do their Childrens meat and speak to the shallowest Capacities of his Hearers else he shall be a Barbarian to them and they to him And as in their instruction so likewise in their reproofs and correction they must have a care of the little Ones of the tender Lambs of Christ's flock and deal gently with them A Venice-glass must be otherwise handled than an Earthen-pitcher some must be rebuked sharply severely but of others we must have compassion making a difference Jude 22. CHAP. XXXIV Verse 1. CHristians should of all others be very shy of the occasions of evil and take heed of the Wine when 't is red in the glass and have an eye to their eye when they look on a Maid Dinah out of a gadding curiosity must needs visit the Daughters of the Land and while she goeth to see the Daughters the Son saw her visamque cupit and having seen her he took her having taken her he lay with her the report whereof coming to Iacobs Sons they were grieved being grieved they were wroth being wroth they meditate revenge meditating revenge they speak deceitfully having deceived they slew having slain they spoyle See how great a fire a little matter kindleth what great evils issue from small beginnings take heed then of these beginnings Verse 3. Shechem in this verse bewrays a good nature even in filthiness he loves Dinah after his sin and would needs Marry her whom he had defiled Commonly Lust ends in loathing Ammon abhors Tamar as much after the act as before he loved and beats her out of doors whom he was sick to bring in But Shechem would not let Dinah fare the worse for his sin And now he goes about to entertain her with honest love whom the rage of his Lust had dishonestly abused Her deflouring shall be no prejudice to her since her shame shall redound to none but him and he will hide her dishonour with the name of an Husband Those actions that are ill begun can hardly be salved up with late satisfactions whereas good entrances give strength to the proceedings and success to the end Verse 4. I find but one only Daughter of Iacob who must needs therefore be a great Darling to her Father and she so miscarries that she causes her Fathers grief to be more than his love As her Mother Leah so she hath a fault in her eyes which was curiosity She will needs see and be seen and whiles she doth vainly see she is seen lustfully It is not enough for us to look to our own thoughts except we beware of the provocations of others If we once wander out of the Lists that God hath set us in our Callings there is nothing but danger her virginity had been safe had she kept home or if Shechem had forced her in her Mothers Tent this loss of her virginity had been without her sin now she is not innocent that gave the occasion Her eyes were guilty of the temptation only to see is an insufficient warrant to draw us into places of spiritual hazard If Shechem had seen her busie at home his love had been free from outrage now the lightness of her presence gave encouragement to his inordinate desire Immodesty of behaviour makes way to lust and gives life unto wicked hopes Verse 14. The two old men Iacob and Hamor would have ended the matter
which Names he had given him of striving and strugling All Gods Israel are Wrestlers by Calling and as good Souldiers of Jesus Christ must suffer hardship Nothing is to be seen in the Shulamite but as the appearance of two Armies maintaining civil broils within her the Spinit warreth against the Flesh and the Flesh against the Spirit Wherefore we have more than need to take unto us the whole Armour of God and to strengthen our selves with every piece of it At no place must we lie open for our enemy is a Serpent if he can but bite the heel he will transfuse his venome to the heart and head Verse 19. We see here how Iacob is tryed with a new cross deprived of his Crown his Stay his Comfort his Wife Which is writ for our instruction to teach us that Gods Children must not look to live at ease in this life They must not Prophecy of Peace to themselves That there shall be no leading into Captivity and no complaining in our streets They must not dream that they shall be alwayes carried on Eagles wings but their dreams must be of Willow-trees by the Waters of Babel of afflictions and crosses a Christian must be a daily cross-bearer which made this Patriarch in another place say Few and evil have the dayes of my Pilgrimage been The Child of God a Son of Iacob must not think to walk in plain and easie paths to heaven but must climb hard it is all up-hill the way lieth inter Epauleum Magdalum as the Septuagint read the text Exod. 14. 2. that is by turreting and towering turning and winding as Origen Expounds it Never any went to Heaven with dry eyes Iacob's life was a continual warfare First Rachel the comfort of his life dieth and when but in her travel and in his travel to his Father Then his Children the staff of his age wound his Soul to the death Reuben proves incestuous Iudah adulterous Dinah ravished Simeon and Levi murtherous Er and Onan stricken dead Ioseph lost Simeon imprisoned Benjamin the death of his Mother the Fathers right hand endangered himself driven by Famine in his old age to die amongst the Egyptians a people that held it an abomination to eat with him Thus many are the troubles wherewith the Lord tryeth his Children And if that God with whom he strove and who therefore strove for him had not delivered his soul out of all adversity he had been supplanted with evils and had been so far from gaining the name of Israel that he had lost the name of Iacob Now what Son of Israel can hope for good dayes when he hears his Fathers were so evil It is enough for us if when we are dead we can rest with him in the Land of Promise If the Angel of the Covenant once bless us no pain no sorrows can make us miserable CHAP. XXXVI Verse 1. DEmosthenes that great popular Orator was wont to hugg himself as he went in the streets to hear the Common People say as he passed by This is Demosthenes There goes the great Orator but it can be no Joy nor Credit for any man to be pointed at and stigmatized by the People for an infamous person This is Edom is no Commendation though Registred in the Book of God no happiness for Esau to find his Name in Scripture in the Book of God unless he could find it also in the Book of Life It had been happier for Ieroboam and Iudas if their Names might have been forgotten than to be remembred under those ignominious Characters of Iudas the Traitor and Ieroboam that made Israel to sin The wicked though they think to get them a Name and to that end lay Plots to keep it up and protect both it and themselves yet their Names shall either rot and perish or if they be remembred it shall be only as his was that burnt the Temple of Diana as a Curse in the Nation wherein they live as the publick fire-brands and incendiaries the common plague ruine and desolation of their Country Verse 6. Esau no doubt was as strong if not stronger than Iacob yet fled before his face surely there was something in it more than the power of Iacob that daunted Esau and something more than ordinary appeared in Iacobs face from which Esau fled there was a divine Majesty seated there and with this Esau was not acquainted and therefore it struck a terror into him and made him fly and all this not without a special Providence of God to make room for the right Heir Canaan was the promised Land but not for Esau he had sold his Birth-right and with that the Promise which was annexed to it the Land flowing with milk and honey was too good for him that valued a mess of Pottage above the Blessing of the first-born A Iacob only one blessed of God was to inherit that Country which should afterwards be blessed by the Son of God the Holy Land was no inheritance for an Esau a prophane person Verse 20. Esau was by Marriage allied to this Seir for he took Aholibamah the Daughter of Anah to Wife vers 2. and yet the Posterity of Esau were so unnatural as to drive their own Kinsmen out of their Country Deut. 2. 12. No tyes either of Bloud or Friendship or Nature or Religion are able to hold wicked men when Ambition or Covetousness drives them on the Sons of Esau value not their nearest Relations an Estate to them is of far greater esteem then Kindred or Friends then either their Brother their Father or their God himself Verse 31. As Esau was the first-born so he was the first King likewise and good reason the Elder Brother should wear the Crown before the younger especially since Iacobs Portion was not so much a temporal Crown as an eternal For though Iacob by Gods Decree was to have the blessing yet not the inheritance of the first-born temporal Estates or Dominions are not entailed to Grace neither can the Children of God as such challenge to themselves the power and authority of other men as their King so their Kingdom is not of this World And therefore let Esau Reign and Edom have Kings while Iacob is a Slave an Israel under and Egyptian Captivity yet Iacob shall Reign at last and that for ever and Israel have a King whose soveraignty shall spread over the whole World and endure longer than it the Scepter shall not depart from Iudah until Shilo come no nor then neither for his Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and his Dominion endureth throughout all Generations Psal. 145. 13. Verse 43. When Edom in the 31 verse of this Chapter was a King then was Israel a Slave but here when Edom was a Duke Israel was a King which instructs us not to look at the beginning of Gods Providence but the end and design of it Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is Peace saith the Psalm 38. 37. And
therefore let the wicked how prosperous how secure how merry soever they be remember this in the midst of their joy that their Master the Devil gives them pleasant entrances into their wayes but reserves the bitterness for the end of their journey and on the contrary let the Righteous how sad how contemptible how dejected soever they be remember this in the midst of their tears that God their Father invites them to the worst Dish at first and sweetens their conclusion with pleasure and let them assure themselves that though the first handful that God gives them in their voyage to the Land of Promise be a Wilderness of Bryars and Thorns and the first Waters that they must drink in that Wilderness be Waters of Marah the bitter water of their own tears yet in the end of their journey they shall over-flow with the milk and honey of Canaan the Land of eternal peace and happiness CHAP. XXXVII Verse 2. I Marvel not that Ioseph had a double Portion of Iacobs Land who had more than two parts of his sorrows none of his Sons did so truly inherit his afflictions none of them was either so miserable or so great suffering is the way to Glory I see him not a clearer Type of Christ than of every Christian because we are dear to our Father and complain of sins therefore are we hated of our carnal Brethren if Ioseph had not medled with his Brothers faults yet he had been envied for his Fathers affection but now malice is met with envie There is nothing more thankless and dangerous than to stand in the way of a resolute sinner That which doth correct and oblige the penitent makes the wilful mind furious and revengeful Verse 4. Hence we may learn how inconvenient a thing it is for Parents to be partial in their love to their Children and withal that it is no marvel that brethren fall out for Goods and Land when Iosephs brethren hated him for a Coat We may further also consider from this place how few men judge themselves happy or unhappy according to what they are but by comparing themselves with others where all go naked none are ashamed Many augment their misery by seeing others more happy and yet think themselves happy when they see others more miserable We many times gather our sorrows from others joyes and our joyes from others sorrows We bless our selves when we see them below us and yet think all we have to be no blessing when we look on them that are above us Lord let not me think my good the less because others have more or my evil the more because others have less but let me learn in all estates to be content and to welcome the Will of God let it come how it will Verse 19. What meant Ioseph in the beginning of this Chapter to add unto his own Envie by reporting his Dreams The concealment of our hopes and abilities hath not more modesty than safety He that was envied for his dearness and hated for his intelligence was both envied and hated for his Dreams Surely God meant to make the relation of these Dreams a means to effect that which the Dreams imported We men work by likely means God by contraries The main quarrel was Behold this Dreamer cometh Had it not been for his Dreams he had not been sold if he had not been sold he had not been exalted So Iosephs state had not deserved envie if his Dreams had not caused him to be envied Full little did Ioseph think when he went to seek his Brethren that it was the last time he should see his Fathers House Full little did his Brethren think when they sold him naked to the Ishmeelites to have once seen him in the Throne of Egypt Gods Decree runs on and while we either think not of it or oppose it it is performed Verse 20. In an honest and obedient simplicity Ioseph comes to enquire of his Brethrens health and now may not return to carry news of his own misery whiles he thinks of their welfare they are plotting his destruction Come let us slay him Who would have expected this cruelty in them which should be the Fathers of Gods Church he look'd for Brethren and behold murtherers every mans tongue every mans fist was bent against him Each one strives who shall lay the first hand upon that changeable Coat that was dyed with their Fathers love and their envie Verse 24. It was thought a favour that Reubens entreaty obtained for him that he might be cast into the Pit alive to die there And now they have strip'd him naked and haling him by both arms as it were cast him alive into his Grave So in pretence of forbearance they resolve to torment him with a lingring Death the savagest Robbers could not have been more merciless for now besides what in them lies they kill their Father in their Brother Nature if once degenerate grows more monstrous and extream than a disposition born to cruelty And now what stranger can think of poor innocent Ioseph crying naked in the desolate and dry Pit only saving that he moistened it with tears and not be moved Yet his hard-hearted Brethren sit them down carelesly with the noise of his Lamentation in their ears to eat Bread not once thinking by their own hunger what it was for Ioseph to be famished to death Verse 28. Whatsoever they thought God never meant that Ioseph should perish in that Pit and therefore he sends very Ishmeelites to ransom him from his Brethren the seed of him that persecuted his Brother Isaac shall now redeem Ioseph from his Brethrens persecution And now when Ioseph had comforted himself with hope of the favour of dying behold death exchang'd for bondage how much is servitude to an ingenuous Nature worse than death For this is common to all that to none but the miserable Iudah meant this well but God better Reuben saved him from the Sword Iudah from Famishing God will ever raise up some favourers to his own amongst those that are most malicious How well was this favour bestowed If Ioseph had died for hunger in the Pit both Iacob and Iudah and all his Brethren had died for hunger in Canaan Little did the Ishmeelitish Merchants know what a treasure they bought carried and sold more precious than all their Balms and Myrrhs Little did they think that they had in their hands the Lord of Egypt the Jewel of the World why should we contemne any mans meanness when we know not his destiny Verse 32. One sin is commonly used for the vail of another Iosephs Coat is sent home dip'd in bloud that whiles they should hide their own cruelty they might afflict their Father no less than their Brother They have devised this real Lye to punish their old Father for his Love with so grievous a Monument of his sorrow Verse 33. When Iacob saw the Coat of his Son Ioseph It is my Sons Coat saies he but an
divinity our beloved sins Supernatural dreames are sent by God and his Angels and that either to comfort us as Mat. 2. 19. or to chasten us and fright us as here Such fearful dreames cause a bad sleep and a worse waking And therefore Job in his 7 chap. and 15. verse made choice of strangling rather than such dreams Hippocrates tels us that many have been so afrighted with dreames and apparitions that they have hanged themselves leaped into deep pits or other wise made themselves away Let those that either have not been so terrified or so tempted or so deserted of God blesse him for that mercy Verse 11. It is just in the Sacrament as it was in the dreames of Pharaohs Butler The clusters of the Vine brought forth ripe Grapes and Pharaohs cup was in his hand and the Butler took the Grapes and press'd them into Pharaohs cup. The Sacrament is as a Vine set before us full of clusters of ripe Grapes and these Grapes full of juyce Christ with all his fulness offered to us in the Sacrament Now our care and course should be to have the liquor and bloud of these Grapes poured into the cup of our hearts How may that be done now as Pharaohs cup came full'd he took the Grapes press'd them crushed them into Pharaohs cup so the cup was fill'd So must we take these Grapes and press and crush them we must squeeze forth the liquor of them That we do when faith is actuated and is set on worke in the use of the Sacrament Actuated faith takes these Grapes and presses them and wrings out of the Sacrament that which fills our hearts Verse 13. Pharaohs Butler and his Baker went both out of prison in a day and in both cases Ioseph in the interpretation of their dreames cals that their very discharge out of prison a lifting up of their heads a kind of preferment death raises every man alike so far as that it delivers every man from his prison from the incumbrances of his body both Baker and Butler were delivered of their prison but they passed into diverse states after one to the restitution of his place the other to an ignominious execution Of thy prison thou shalt be delivered whether thou wilt or no thou must die fool this night thy soul may be take from thee and then what thou shalt be to morrow prophecy upon thy self by that which thou hast done to day Verse 16. He desired an interpretation of his dream not because he had a mind to be instructed thereby but for that he expected some good as well as the Butler so some have a regard to the preaching of the word not for conscience sake but onely seeking thereby their own ends which if they misse they goe away as the young man in the Gospel sad Mark 10. Verse 23. The Cup-bearer here admires Ioseph in the Jayle but forgets him in the Court how easily doth our own prosperity make us both forget the deservings and miseries of others But as God cannot forget his own so lest of all in their sorrowes For after two years more of Iosephs patience that God which caused him to be lifted out of the former pit to be sold did call him out of the dungeon to honour and of a miserable Prisoner made him Ruler of Egypt How happy is it with good men that they have a God to remember them when they are forgotten of the World CHAP. XLI Verse 14. SO long as God is with Ioseph he cannot but shine in spite of men the wals of that dungeon cannot hide his vertues the Irons cannot hold them Pharaohs Officers are sent to witness his graces which he may not come forth to shew without a Miracle for God now puts a dream into the head of Pharaoh he puts the remembrance of Iosephs skill into the head of the Cup-bearer who to pleasure Pharaoh not to requite Ioseph commends the Prisoner for an Interpreter he puts an interpretation into the mouth of Ioseph he puts this choice into the heart of Pharaoh of a miserable Prisoner to make him the Ruler of Egypt Verse 35. When we have enough for to day it is but honest prudence to lay up for to morrow The poor contemptible Ant gathereth that food in harvest that may serve her for the Winter It is good for a man to keep somewhat by him to have something in store against a rainy day A good saver makes a well doer is a Dutch proverbe Care must be taken that our layings out be not more than our layings up Let no man here object that of our Saviour Care not for to morrow there is a care of diligence and a care of diffidence a care of the head and a care of the heart the former is needfull the latter sinfull Verse 40. Worldly men may advance dignify and honour Gods People and yet not love them as godly men should be loved Besides Gods sanctfying Graces there are oft-times in Gods Children as here in Ioseph other gifts of wisdome prudence learning fidelity skill and activity in secular imployments all which may gain them great respect in other mens hearts So Pharaoh here honoured Ioseph and we see his ground in the foregoing verse So many a master loves a godly Servant not because he is a good man but because he is a good Servant this is selflove they love them because they love themselves such men are for their profit and advantage and for their turnes and therefore out of a selflove selfrespect love and respect them That their love of them is not for their godliness appears by this because though there were not one dram of grace and godliness in them yet for their other abilites they should be no lesse dear unto them then now they are with all their graces Verse 44. Behold how one hour hath changed Iosephs Fetters into a chain of Gold his Rags into fine Linnen his Stocks into a Chariot his Jayl into a Palace Potiphars Captive into his Masters Lord. He whose Chastity refused the wanton allurements of the Wife of Potiphar hath now given him to his Wife the Daughter of Potipherah Humility goes before Honour serving and suffering are the best Tutors to Government How well are Gods Children paid for their Patience how happy are the Issues of the Faithful never any man repented him of the advancement of a good Man Verse 46. There is mention made here of Iosephs age first that by this it may be gathered how long Ioseph was a Servant in Egypt Secondly his age is expressed that it might appear what wonderful Graces he had received at those years of Chastity Patience Wisdome Policy and Government Thirdly by this President of Ioseph made a Governour at thirty we see that at this age a man is fit for publick imployment David at that age began to reign Ezekiel prophesied Christ and Iohn the Baptist began to preach Verse 56. Pharaoh hath not more preferr'd Ioseph then Ioseph
buried in the high-way is no good mark and therefore bury not thy self thy labours thy affections upon the world Verse 22. However Infidels and Idolaters were destitute of the knowledge of the true God yet they accounted it a special duty to honour the Priests of their Groves and Altars and perswaded themselves that they should never receive any blessing at the hands of their Gods unlesse they honoured those that were esteemed as his Servants Thus Moses witnesseth that when Pharaoh during the Dearth and Famine that was in Egypt had received all the Money bought all the Cattle and purchased all the Land of the People to supply their necessity and save their lives yet he would not buy the Priests Land but sustained them for their Office sake And are Idolaters and Infidels thus bountiful in the maintaining of their Priests How then should this serve to reprove our dulness and backwardness in the true worship of the Eternal God How many are there that live in the bosome of the Church and profess the true Religion who yet to maintain a learned Minister that is able to save their souls repine and grutch to give sixpence a quarter What a shame is it for those whom the Lord hath blessed with abundance that they should spend all on their backs and bellies on Hawks or Hounds or Whores and nothing at all to the Glory of God the comfort of their fouls and help of their Brethren Verse 28. Just so many years as Iacob had nourished Ioseph in Canaan did Ioseph nourish Iacob in Egypt repaying his Fathers love to the utmost penny These were the sweetest dayes and freest from trouble that ever the good old Patriark saw God reserves his best to the last Mark the perfect man and behold the upright saith the Psalmist for be his beginning and middle never so troublesome the end of that man his after-end at least shall be peace A Goshen he shall have either here or in Heaven and a Peace both in this world and the next the peace of Conscience here and the peace that passeth all understanding hereafter CHAP. XLVIII Verse 1. IAcob have I loved said God and yet this Beloved of God was under many troubles and afflictions in his life and visited with sickness before his death And all this doth very well agree with the dispensations of Gods Providence For whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourgeth every Son whom he receives Afflictions are Christs Love-tokens When Ignatius came to the wild Beasts Now saith he I begin to be a Christian. Omnis Christianus crucianus every true Christian must take up his Crosse and follow his Saviour It is reported of an antient Doctor of the Church lying upon his sick bed and being asked how he did and how he felt himself he pointed to his Sores and Ulcers whereof he was full and said Hae sunt gemmae pretiosa ornamenta Dei These are Gods Gems and Jewels wherewith he decketh his best friends and to me they are more pretious than all the Gold and Silver in the world Verse 3. It is not enough to relate Gods Mercies to us in the lump and by whole-sale but we must instance in the particulars both to God and men upon every occasion setting them down one by one and cyphering them up as Davids word is Psal. 9. 1. I will praise thee O Lord and I will shew forth or sum up all thy marvellous works When Moses in Exodus met with his Father in Law he reckoned all the particular Mercies that God had done for Israel in Egypt and at the Red Sea he omitted none The truly thankful keep an Ephemerides a Calender and Catalogue of Gods gratious dealings with them and delight to their last to recount and sum them up We should be like Civit-boxes which still retain the scent when the Civit is taken out of them Verse 7. Iacob makes mention of Rachels burial to put Ioseph in mind that Rachel forsook her Fathers house to live in Canaan so to stir him up much more to leave Egypt which was not his Country as also that he might have a greater desire to the place of his Mothers Sepulcher Verse 14. Iacob feeling with his hands which was the Elder and bigger for the words are he caus'd his hands to understand on purpose laid his right hand on Ephraim in way of preheminence which sheweth that God bestoweth his Gifts without respect of persons as also it prefigureth the calling of the Gentiles instead of the Iews who were as the elder Brother 3. From this we may deduce an evident truth in experience that Gods dispensations towards the Righteous and the Wicked in this life are like Iacobs dealing here with Iosephs Sons crosse and strange For as he laid his right hand on the Younger and his left on the Elder so doth God oft-times for the present distribute with his left hand crosses to the good and with his right favours to the bad And not only in a literal sense as our Saviour speaks He maketh the Sun to shine and the Rain to fall upon the just and the unjust but in a metaphorical sense he causeth the Sun of Prosperity to shine upon the Unjust and the Rain of Adversity to fall upon the Just. Verse 15. When a Curse fals upon the Children the Father is cursed as in the Blessing of the Children tht Father is blessed Thus Ioseph brought his two Sons Manasseh and Ephraim to his aged Father Iacob that they might receive his Blessing who laying his hands upon their heads blessed Ioseph saith the Text and said God before whom c. and then it follows The Angel which redeem'd me from all evil blesse the Lads Now as Iacob in blessing the Children of Ioseph blessed Ioseph himself so Noah Gen. 9. in cursing the Children of Cham cursed Cham himself Valerius l. 1. hath observed concerning the Tyrant Dionysius that though he escaped free and untouched in person from the vengeance which his sacrilegious wickedness deserved yet his Sons were involved in so much misery that in them he being pasâ— feeling suffered and being dead paid dearly for his stolue dainties The light of Nature as well as Scripture tels us that evils falling on posterity are reckoned upon the Fathers score And thus as 't is with Curses so likewise with Blessings upon the same account and for the same reason though they are conferr'd upon the Children yet the Fathers memory is blessed and honoured by them Verse 17. It is dangerous to follow men blindfold how seeing soever those men are but it is safe and our duty to follow God blindfold how seeing soever we think our selves to be We must not be displeased as Ioseph was here with his Father Iacob When we see God laying his right hand upon Ephraim and his left upon Manasseh doing things crosse to our thoughts much lesse may we take upon us to direct the hand of God as Ioseph would Iacobs where we please The Lord
who was no partaker in the evil but good even to them who meant nothing but evil And therefore as Origen said etsi novum though it be strangely said yet I say it that Gods anger is good so said St. Augustine audeo dicere though it be boldly said yet I must say it many sinners would never have been saved if they had not committed some greater sin at last than before for the punishment of that sin hath brought them to a remorse of all their other sins formerly neglected A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES CALLED EXODUS CHAP. I. Verse 5. ALL the Souls that came out of the loins of Iacob into Egypt with him were but seventy Souls of which little Flock God made such an increase as the Egyptians grew afraid of it God so providing to fulfil his Promise touching their inerease Gen. 22. 17. So assuredly true are all other of Gods Promises and therefore think of what you will your Faith and Comfort shall not fail you That sweet Promise That at what time soever a sinner repents of his sin God in mercy will forgive him it shall never fail God may as soon cease to be God as cease to be true in any thing that he hath spoken So both for this Life and that to come we have Gods Word and no more than he fail'd Abraham in multiplying of his Seed will he fail us in any Promise Only we must tarry Gods time and hasty minds must learn humble patience Verse 7. The rising of Houses and Families is from the Lord who blesseth where he pleaseth with increase of Children and maketh a name spread as likewise drieth up and cutteth off as he pleaseth others Which ought to make us cease from envy where we see increase and stay rash judgement where we see decrease for it is the Lords work But then whereas it may be collected from the former verse that this wonderful increase was not till after Iosephs death it will afford us this observation that what was here figured in Ioseph was fulfilled in Christ. For before Christ died few believed in him but after his Death and Resurrection the true Israelites increased and multiplied exceedingly throughout the whole World Verse 9. Gods Favour bestowed in Mercy where he liketh is still an eye-sore to evil men matter enough for them to grate their teeth at and to cause them to enter into Plots and Conspiracies against them The Eye of Envy looks ever upwards who is above who riseth who prospereth and is as much greived at the good of another as at the harm of its self Verse 10. Although this Counsel favoured wholly of bloud yet it is covered with the vizard and die of Wisdome So still is the Devil like himself and ever in his colours the Proud man is Neat the Covetous man Provident the Drunkard a good Fellow and here the bloody minded Egyptians are politick and wise Verse 12. As God afflicted them with another mind then the Egyptians God to exercise them the Egyptians to suppress them so causes he the event to differ Who would not have thought with these Egyptians that so extream misery should not have made the Israelites unfit both for generation and resistance Moderate exercise strengthens extreame destroyes Nature That God which many times works by contrary means caused them to grow with depression with persecution to multiply how can Gods Church but fare well since the very malice of their Enemies benefits them Oh the soveraign Goodness of our God that turns all our Poysons into Cordials Gods Vine bears the better for the pruning hook Verse 16. The stronger the Isarelites grew the more impotent grew the malice of their Persecutors And since their own labour strengthens them now tyranny will try what can be done by the violence of others since the present strength cannot be subdued the hopes of succession must be prevented Women must be suborn'd to be Murtherers and those whose Office is to help the birth must destroy it 'T is true there was lesse suspition of cruelty in that Sex but yet more opportunity of doing mischiefs The Male-Children must be born and die at once What can be more innocent than a Child that hath not lived so much as to cry or to see light It is fault enough to be the Son of an Israelite the Daughters may live for bondage for lust a condition so much at the least worse than death as their Sex was weaker O marvellous cruelty that a man should kill a man for his Sexes sake Whosoever hath loosed the raines unto cruelty is easily carried into incredible extremities Verse 17. The fear of God teacheth the Midwives to disobey an unjust Command they well knew how no excuse it is for evil I was bidden God said to their hearts Thou shalt not kill this Voice was louder than Pharaohs I commend their obedience in disobeying I dare not commend their excuse there was as much weakness in their Answer as strength in their Practice as they feared God in not killing so they feared Pharaoh in dissembling Oft-times those that make conscience of greater sins are overtaken with lesse It is well and rare if we can come forth of a dangerous Action without any Foil and if we have escaped the storme that some after-drops wet us not Verse 19. It is dangerous to conclude an Action to be good either because he that did it had a good purpose in doing it or because some good effects proceeded from it The Midwives Lye here in the behalf of the Israelites Children was a Lye and a Sin however God out of his own Goodness found something in their piety to reward I should not venture to say as he said nor yet venture to say that he said well when Moses said Forgive this sin or blot me out of thy Book nor when St. Paul said I could wish that my self were separated from Christ for my Brethren I would not I could not without sin be content that my name should be blotted out of the Book of Life or that I should be separated from Christ though all the World besides were to be blotted out and separated if I stayed in Verse 21. Who would not have expected that the Midwives should be murthered for not murthering Pharaoh could not be so simple to think these Women trusty yet his indignation had no power to reach to their punishment God prospered the Midwives who can harm them Even the not doing of evil is rewarded with good And why did they prosper Because they feared God not for their dissimulation but their pitty So did God regard their mercy that he regarded not their infirmity How fondly do men lay the thank upon the sin which is due to the vertue True Wisdome reaches to distinguish Gods Actions and to ascribe them to the right Causes pardon belongs to the lye of the Midwives and remuneration to their goodness prosperity to their fear of God Verse 22. That which the
not worth thanks Nay this very upbraiding Israelite shall save Moses his life For if this mans tongue had not cast him in the teeth with bloud he had been surprized by Pharaoh ere he could have known the fact was known Now he grows jealous flies and escapes no Friend is so commodious in some cases as an Adversary Verse 15. God hath alwayes one place of refuge or other for his Servants to fly unto If Iudea be dangerous for the Child Iesus in Egypt he shall find safety and again if Egypt threaten death to Moses Midian shall preserve him and improve him likewise For God by forty years exile fitted Moses for further light and advancement Much he had learnt in Egypt but more in Midian There is no doubt but he had good School-masters in Pharaohs Court but his own affliction was his best Moses had never been so illuminate a Doctor nor so excellent a Ruler afterwards if he had not been first humbled here Verse 17. Moses when he may not in Egypt he will be doing Justice in Midian In Egypt he delivers the oppressed Israelite in Midian the wrong'd Daughters of Iethro A good Man will be doing good wheresoever he is his Trade is a compound of Charity and Justice But who would have thought in this present condition as Moses was so cast down with his own complaints that he would have had any feeling of others yet how hot is he upon Justice No adversity can make a good Man neglect good Duties he sees in the oppression of the Shepherds the image of that other he left behind him in Egypt The Maids Daughters of so great a Peer draw water for their Flocks the inhumane Shepherds drive them away rudeness hath not respect either to Sex or condition If we lived not under Laws this were our case Might would be the measure of Justice we should not so much as injoy our own water Verse 22. It seems by this Text that Moses his affection was not so tyed to Midian that he could forget Egypt He was a Stranger in Midian What was he else in Egypt Surely either Egypt was not his Home or a miserable one and yet in reference to it he cals his Son Gershom a Stranger there Much better were it to be a Stranger there than a Dweller in Egypt How hardly can we forget the place of our abode or education although never so homely And if he thought of his Egyptian Home where was nothing but bondage and tyranny how should we think of that Home of ours above where is nothing but rest and blessedness Verse 23. This is a Comfort to the Godly as likewise it should be a Warning to all Oppressors of Gods Children they shall die and be packing and shall not continue to deal cruelly with Gods Inheritance The rod of the ungodly lighteth upon the Faithful but the Lord hath said it shall not rest and dwell upon them But however it was but just with God to let them sigh by reason of their bondage Such sobs of sorrow were but due to them that rejected and would not see what God offered them of ease A singular Warning to beware the rejection of Gods Mercy when it is offered for such a refusal hath ever a sure punishment attending upon it Forty years agoe God offered them deliverance by Moses which when they refused they were plagued with forty years more of slavery But yet at length when they sighed God heard that very sorrowful breathing Sweet Father so it is ever with thee just to correct but gracious to give over not ever offended but in due time intreated pittiful loving and of endless mercy CHAP. III. Verse 1. THat great men may not be ashamed of honest Vocations the greatest that ever were have been content to take up with mean Trades The same Moses that in the former Chapter was a Courtier is in this verse a Shepherd The contempt of honest Callings in those which are well born argues Pride without Wit How constantly did Moses stick to his Hook and yet a man of great Spirit of excellent Learning of curious Education and if God had not called him off he had so ended his dayes In the mean time how had he learn'd to subdue all ambitious desires and to rest content with his obscurity so he might have the freedome of his thoughts and full opportunity of holy Meditations he willingly leaves the World to others and envies not his proudest Acquaintance of the Court of Pharaoh He that hath true worth in himself and familiarity with God finds more pleasure in the Desarts of Midian than others can do in the Palaces of Kings Verse 2. This manner of appearing may occasion us to remember how God useth to apply himself to the purpose and intent of his appearing Isai. 6. 1. He is said to appear like a Judge because as then the judgement of Ifrael drew near At the Baptisme of Christ it pleased the Holy Ghost to appear like a Dove because that form might shew the innocency and mild nature of our Saviour And now here like a Bush burning but not consumed that it might declare the present state of his People in Egypt and the condition of his Church unto the Worlds end Verse 5. In this appearance God meant to call Moses to come yet when he is come inhibits him Come not hither We must come to God but we must not come too near him When we mediate of the great Mysteries of his Word we come to him we come too near him when we search into his Counsels The Sun and the Fire say of themselves come not too near how much more the Light which none can attain unto We have all our limits set us and very good reason for it For the Waves of the Sea had not more need of bounds than mans presumption Moses must not come close to the Bush at all and where he may stand he may not stand with his shooes on This Command was significant What are the shooes but worldly and carnal affections If these be not cast off when we come to the holy Place we make our selves unholy How much lesse should we dare to come with resolutions of sin This is not only to come with shooes on but with shooes bemired with wicked filthiness the touch whereof prophanes the Pavement of God and makes our presence odious Verse 6. God could not describe himself by a more sweet Name than this I am the God of thy Father and of Abraham c. yet Moses hides his face for fear If he had said I am the Glorious God that made Heaven and Earth that dwels in Light inaccessible whom Angels cannot behold here had been just cause of terror But why was Moses so frighted with a familiar compellation God is no lesse awful to his own in his very Mercies Great is thy Mercies that thou maist be fear'd For to them no lesse Majesty shines in the Favours of God than in his Judgements and Justice
the Wise and Mighty as he did Balaams Asse to confute his Master Verse 20. Husbands see from hence the heart of a good man to have his Wife and Children with him Wives and Children see their duty to be followers willingly of their Husbands or Fathers calling even into any Country And when I look at Moses his Rod methinks I see little David marching chearfully with his Staffe and Scrip against huge Goliah Good Lord what Weapons were those against him then in mans eyes Or this Staffe now in Moses hand against Pharaoh But God is the same both here and then and for ever strong in weakness and able to match a Kings Scepter with a Stick or a Staffe or a Stone or a word in the hand or mouth of one sent and appointed by him Verse 22. Gods Church is to him as a Man-child to the Father yea as the First-born which commonly is loved most tenderly and in greatest honour Now think with your selves how you could endure to stand and look upon an abuse offered to your First-born and then think of Gods Love to his Church whose affection as much excelleth yours as God excelleth man Now as tender Fathers for the good of their Children suffer them to lie in prison and to be school'd many wayes by want and affliction and yet in the midst of all have an eye to them a love to them and a settled purpose to help them when a love may be known a love and a good a good So our God knows his times and turns and our wants perfectly fitting the one to the other most mercifully that both our corruption and his goodness may best appear to the greatest benefit unto us He may see us humbled and school'd and tamed but undone and cast away for ever he cannot endure it he will not suffer it Verse 24. I do not so much marvel that Iethro gave Moses his Daughter for he saw him valiant wise learned nobly bred as that Moses would take her a Stranger both in bloud and Religion The choice had like to have cost him dear in this verse His Wife stood in his way for Circumcision God stands in his way for Revenge Though he was now upon Gods Message yet might he not be forborn in this neglect No circumstance either of the dearness of the Sollicitor or of our own engagement can bear out a sin with God Those which are unequally yoaked may not ever look to draw one way True Love to the Person cannot long agree with dislike of the Religion He had need to be more than a Man that hath a Zipporah lying in his bosome and can have true zeal in his heart Learn further from hence all unquiet Women what your ignorance and your obstinacy bringeth your Husbands unto though they be as Moses holy and vertuous they cannot serve God aright for you they cannot do what God requireth but you break their hearts you cool their zeal you turn them out of the way and in the end you bring them to a fearful danger of Gods destroying them Verse 26. That which Zipporah should have esteemed as a signal Mercy to her Child she interprets as a Judgement and that very Covenant of God of which Circumcision was the seal which she should have received with the greatest return of thanks was entertained with disobedience both toward her Husband and her God Thus ignorant and unthankful people mis-interpret and repine at the Dispensations of Gods Providence and that which God designes for a Mercy and a Blessing to them they take it as a Judgement and a Curse It is good for me that I was afflicted faith David Yet how many are there in the World that think otherwise and would chuse rather to be out of the Covenant than be circumcised to perish hereafter than be afflicted here CHAP. V. Verse 1. PHaraoh raged before much more now that he received a Message of dismission the Monitions of God make ill men worse the Waves do not beat nor roar any where so much as at the Bank which restraines them Corruption when 't is checked grows mad with rage as the vapour in a Cloud would not make that fearful report if it met not with opposition A good heart yeilds at the stillest Voice of God but the most gracious Motions of God harden the wicked Many would not be so desperately setled in their sins if the World had not controul'd them How mild a Message was this to Pharaoh and yet how galling God commands him that which he feared He took pleasure in the present servitude of Israel God cals for a release If the Suit had been for mitigation of labour for preservation of their Children it might have carried some hope and have found some favour But now God requires that which he knows will as much discontent Pharaoh as Pharaohs cruelty could discontent the Israelites How contrary are Gods Precepts to mans mind And indeed as they love to crosse him in their practise so he loves to crosse them in his Commands before and their Punishments after Verse 4. Moses talks of Sacrifice Pharaoh talks of Work Any thing seems due Work to a carnal mind saving Gods Service nothing superfluous but religious Duties Christ tels us there is but one thing necessary Nature tels us there is nothing but that needless Moses speaks of Devotion Pharaoh of Idleness It hath been an old use as to cast fair colours upon our own vitious actions so to cast evil aspersions upon the good actions of others The same Devil that spoke in Pharaoh speaks still in our Scoffers and cals Religion Hypocrisie conscionable Care Singularity Every Vice hath a title and every Vertue a disgrace Verse 8. Wicked men have no eyes often to see the true causes of a thing but most apt and ready to devise a false Let a man or woman be grieved extraordinarily with the burthen of their sins and with groans and sighs travail under the bitterness of it What say the Wicked Oh it is Melancholy and the body must be purged Festus imagineth Paul mad when he speaketh the words of Truth and Soberness Act. 26. 24. And that much learning made him mad when Learning is Wisdome and maketh wise Yea Heli himself mistaketh Anna a vertuous Woman and deemeth her to be drunk when ravished in her holy feeling she was crying to God in fervent Prayer 1 Sam. 2. Verse 11. The nearer that God draweth to his Church and Children to do them good the more the Devil rageth in and by his Members against them Remember that example in Mar. 9. 26. How the foul Spirit being commanded to depart rent and tare the party more and worse than ever before We cannot leave any sin wherein we have continued but by and by we shall be discouraged sometimes with threats sometimes with shew of perils and losses that may ensue But stand and shrink not and say in your heart now now is my God at hand for now I see and feel
the Enemy madest to oppress me if he could Verse 13. Note here how the Law works without the Gospel even roughly and sharply and rigorously For do this do this and finish finish the work is still the voice whereby sin and the Devil rageth as here Pharaoh doth For sin c. Rom. 7. 8 9 then crieth the true Israelite O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death verse 24. Blessed therefore be the Lord for his sweet Gospel which helpeth all this rigour and giveth us comfort and deliverance in his Son Verse 16. While possible tasks were imposed there was some comfort their diligence might save their backs from stripes but to require tasks not feazible is tyrannical and doth only pick a quarrel to punish they could neither make straw nor find yet they must have it Do what may be is tolerable but do what cannot be is cruel Those that are above others in place must measure their commands not by their own wils but by the strength of their inferiors The task is not done the Task-masters are beaten the punishment lies where the charge is they must exact it of the people Pharaoh of them It is the misery of those that are trusted with Authority that their inferiors faults are beaten upon their backs Verse 21. See the condition and lot of faithful Ministers in this wretched world First the King and now their Brethren accuse them for doing their duty While all is well good is the Minister but when the crosse cometh he and his doctrine away with that and away with him as Ier. 44. 16 c. now mark their reason For then had we plenty c. this is the stay of the multitude and this is the line they measure all things by their prosperity in worldly matters and immunity from trouble and affliction any wayes CHAP. VI. Verse 5. MIserable man remembreth and heareth his Friends when they are in prosperity but if adversity come neither hearing nor seeing them but a proud scornful and bitter forgetting The Lord is not so but when we are at the worst then he remembreth us then he heareth our groans and sighs and pittying helpeth to our unspeakable comfort Verse 7. The end of all deliverance and of all Benefits received from God is that we should be his People and that he might rule in us and over us Wherefore see how careful we should be alwayes to answer this our calling and never to be found unmindful of such favours For if this plainer manifestation of his Goodness to the Iews were a just cause to stir them up to thankfulness how much more should his manifestation of himself to us in his own Son move us to an eternal care to please him And then more particularly that he should accept me for one of his people O what can I say for such a Love but beseech him ever to make me thankfull Verse 8. As long as our hearts hold this perswasion of God that he is the Lord so long we must rest assured that he can perform his Promise in mercy made to us be the difficulties never so many What then is thy Case Are thy sins numerous and great Remember he is the Lord and play not Cains part to say they cannot be forgiven Are thine Enemies bitterly bent against thee he is the Lord and therefore can stop and stay them at his pleasure Are their infirmities many he can heal them he is the Lord. Are thy Children untoward and unkind he can change them he is the Lord. Lastly whatever greives thee remember this that God is the Lord and shall ever be the Lord and shall ever be thy Lord to care for thy woes and relieve them Only believe Verse 9. It is often a penalty laid upon the contemners of Gods Grace that cleaving altogether to the external favours of this life they tast not comfort in any affliction whereas the Godly the more they are pressed down by God the more vehemently they sigh unto God and look to his Promises with Patience and Hope This also may teach Gods Ministers not to be cast down and discouraged if their words be not hearkened unto and regarded since so worthy a man as Moses found this measure The World will be the World crooked and perverse froward and unkind though we break our hearts for their good Verse 10. Before Moses was bid to go to the People and now to Pharaoh so is there never any time for men of place and publick function to be idle Now they must defend the oppressed and wrong'd now they must comfort now they must chide See here likewise the bottomless Mercies of the Lord who though he might justly have cast off this People that would not hearken to his Words and Messages yet he doth not but still continueth to have mercy on them according to that of Psalm 103. 13. Verse 20. It is a wonder that Amram the Father of Moses would think of the Marriage-bed in so troublesome a time when he knew he should beget Children either to slavery or slaughter Yet even now in the heat of this bondage he marries Iochebed The drowning of his Sons was not so great an evil as his own burning the thraldome of his Daughters not so great an evil as the subjection unto sinful desires He therefore uses Gods remedy for his sin and refers the sequel of his danger to God How necessary is this imitation for those that have not the power of containing Perhaps we would have thought it better to live childless but Amram and Iochebed durst not incurre the danger of a sin to avoid the danger of a mischeif Verse 30. Behold I am of uncircumcised lips None in all Egypt was comparably fit for this Message Which of the Israelites had been brought up a Courtier a Schollar Learned Wise Valiant Experienc'd The more fit any man is for whatsoever Vocation the lesse he thinks himself forwardness argues insufficiency Once before Moses had taken upon him and laid about him hoping then they would have known that by his hand God had meant to deliver Israel but now when it comes to the point he cries I am of uncircumcised lips Gods best Servants are not ever in an equal disposition to good Duties It is our frailty that those Services which we are forward to aloof off we shrink at neer at hand How many of us can bid defiance to Death and suggest answers to absent temptations which when they come to us we fly off and change our note and instead of action pretend excuses CHAP. VII Verse 1. GOD hath made one man able to do the Offices of God to another in procuring his Regeneration here and advancing his Salvation hereafter Neither hath God determined that power of assisting others in the character of the Priesthood only but he hath also made the Prince and the secular Magistrate a God that is able to do the Offices and the Works of God not
Verse 8 9. Observe Sathans Malice here against Gods Church and Service if they cannot wholly destroy it hurt it and hinder it then in part as farre as they can they will do it Secondly By the answer of Moses note on the other side that we must not yield an inch to these plots and fetches of the wicked but zealously must stand to the full observance of all Gods Will according to his Commandement and not according to the fancies either of others or of our selves Where the Lord dispenseth not we must not dispense where all are bound to depart out of Egypt we must not capitulate for some to go and some to stay Families should think upon this where the Husband goes to Church but not the Wife the Father but not the Son the Servant but not the Master Moses would not do thus here but knowing all to be bound requireth all Verse 23. This was most wonderful The houses of the Egpptians and Israelites joyning as it should seem one close to another as ours in these dayes do For else why was that sign given to the destroying Angel Exod. 12. 23. If all the Israelites had dwelt by themselves and had not been mingled with the Egyptians How able then is our God may we think who can thus make a separation betwixt his Children and the wicked when he executed wrath though they be in one Field in one House in one Bed together yet he can chuse the one and refuse the other Fear we not then in the time of Plague or War or other publick Calamity left we should perish with the wicked hand over head but remember this place and say in your heart with comfort O Lord I know thou canst make a separation in this calamity as thou didst in that calamity betwixt the Israelites and Egyptians therefore I beseech thee save me from this Sword of thine and let the light of thy Mercy shine about my dwelling as thy cheerful light did about the Israelites CHAP. XI Verse 1. THis ever was and ever will be Gods course first by gentle means to entreat then in the end by Power and Judgement to compel when the former course will not serve In the old World when the People would not be reformed the Lord said His Spirit should no longer strive with man meaning in lenity and gentleness as until then it had done but now he would bring upon them one Plague more as here upon Egypt and this was the Floud Gen. 6. 17. When Sodom and Gomorah would not be warned by any wayes of Mercy used by a gracious God unto them many years then that one Plague more of Fire and Brimstone came from Heaven Thus also the Lord deals with us First he entreats us by his Word the mildest way that can be Then if this will not serve the Lord comes nearer and layeth upon us his easier crosses and then greater Our Friends grow unkind our Servants unfaithful our Children undutiful our Estate wastes and our Health is chang'd to Sickness And if all these work not upon us then the Lord goes to his Quiver and takes out a strong Arrow to shoot at us as the sweating Sickness the devouring Plague which shall sweep the Land clean from such rebelling Spirits Verse 3. As the wicked stand in awe of God often and outwardly profess affection to him yet do not subject themselves to his Will so are his Servants honoured also of men with an inward conceit of them that they are honest men when yet their Doctrine will not be yielded unto Thus doth God inwardly imprint their own damnation in their hearts Verse 5. No Honours or Riches no Friends or Strength no Pomp or Port in this World may defend from God but he will smite all Degrees and therefore let all Degrees profit by it CHAP. XII Verse 4. CHrist is not divided into divers Houses and Families Kingdoms and Countries but he doth unite and gather divers Houses and Nations to make one Church even as here many did eat one Lamb. We may not divide the Lamb but we must gather our selves to the Lamb and that is the true Church where People are so gathered Verse 6. This keeping of it from the tenth to the fourteenth day served to prepare their hearts to the right eating of it being a remembrance before their eyes those four dayes before and also to prefigure unto us with what meditation and preparation we ought to come to the eating of the true Pass-over in the blessed Sacrament whereof this same was but a shadow Secondly the fourteenrh day this Lamb was offered because then the Moon being at full and rising in her full light when the Sun was set thereby might be shadowed that the Church usually signified by the Moon riseth with light in great fulness after the setting of the Sun the Death of Christ. Verse 7. This shews the effect and vertue of Christ his bloud the true Paschal Lamb ever to save from the destroying Angel as many as shall be sprinkled with it that is should make particular application of it to themselves For it is not the bloud without sprinkling will help Christ died for all sufficiently but not effectually because all take not hold of and apply Christs death to their souls Verse 32. Pharaoh desires to be blessed of those men who but even now were odious in his eyes The same God can also pull down the hearts of the proudest and make them as glad of a Ministers Prayers as they have maliciously opposed themselves against him Verse 34. Egypt was never so stubborn in denying passage to Israel as now importunate to entreat it Pharaoh did not more force them to stay before then now to depart whom lately they would not permit now they hire to go The Israelites are equally glad of this hast Who would not be ready to go yea to fly out of the house of bondage They have what they wished there was no staying for a second invitation The losse of an opportunity is many times irrecoverable The love of their liberty made the burthen of their Dough light Who knew whether the variable mind of Pharaoh might return to a denial and after all his stubbornness repent of his obedience It is foolish to hazard where there is certainty of good offers and uncertainty of continuance Verse 36. The Egyptians rich Jewels of Silver and Gold were not too dear for the Israelites whom they hated how much rather had they need to send them away wealthy then to have them stay to be their Executors Their love to themselves obtain'd the inriching of their Enemies and now they are glad to pay them well for their old work and their present journey Gods People had stayed like Slaves they go away like Conquerors with the spoil of those that hated them arm'd for security and wealthy for maintenance Verse 37. A most wonderful encrease from seventy Souls which were all that came into Egypt and most effectually it shews us
have expected the same Remember said our Saviour how many baskets full of broken meat were taken up and never to fear any want where such a powerful God is To remember what God hath done for me and to make it an argument both of my Prayer and Hope with David Psal. 4. 1. and with Iob chap. 13. 15. Verse 25. Such vertue was in the Wood given to it by God first that he might manifest by this means his Love and Goodness to us much more when he maketh all his Creatures serve to our Health and Good and so to stir us up to true thankfulness unto him for it Secondly that he might teach us thus not to abuse those his Creatures which with so excellent Vertues and Qualities are created for us to do us good Thirdly that we might learn by this means not to contemn second causes and means by abusing through presumption the holy Doctrine of Gods Providence For When God himself is pleased to use these Instruments who are we that we should reject them Verse 27. Thus cometh Comfort after Sorrow and Plenty after Scarcity And surely the Tryals of the Church or of any particular Member therein shall have a joyful end and though they be never so many yet the Lord delivereth out of them all who would not trust then in such a God and tarry his time that never faileth CHAP. XVI Verse 1. THe time is named the fifteenth day to let us know that their ingratitude was so much the more detestable by how much the remembrance of so great and wonderful a deliverance from their Enemies was more fresh in memory being so late Therefore let us think in the morning of our safety by Gods Mercy all the night and at night of our safety all the day which unlesse I be thankful for I must needs be a great Offender seeing it is not possible to plead forgetfulness in such fresh and new things Verse 3. The Gospel is welcome to many at the first and they greatly rejoyce in it but when either trouble groweth for it or they are restrained by it from their accustomed sins of Swearing Drunkenness Sensuality Covetousness and such like then they wish they had never been troubled with such preaching and all Gods Mercy is returned to him with great unthankfulness as here it was of these murmuring Israelites And thus likewise in Matches and Marriages O what impiety is in many many times cursing the parties and almost cursing God that gave them such a Match when yet at the beginning all was well and every body pleased Secondly this murmuring of the Israelites may shew us what is the course of too many in the world even to prefer the Flesh-pots of Egypt before the Land of Canaan and bellies full of Bread before a blessed Deliverance out of cruel bondage that is Earth before Heaven and the Joyes of this World before those of the next Such were those in Ier. 44. 16 17 18. who measured Religion by plenty and scarcity judging that best which brought most profit and that worst wherein there was any want Verse 4. God is not tied to ordinary Means nor our maintenance to the Fruits of the Earth The Ravens shall both find Meat and bring Meat to Eliah if God command and a little Oil shall continue running till many Vessels are full if he so please Iacob was provided for in that extream Famine Gen. 47. 11. and Gold was brought to Mary and Ioseph from far when they little thought on it Mat. 2. 11. Lift up your thoughts therefore above the course of Nature when you think upon God and although you have neither Bread nor Money nor the whole Land any Corn yet past Hope take hold on Hope and leave God to himself Verse 8. Murmuring against Gods Ministers is murmuring against God They have not cast thee away but me away 1 Sam. 8. 7. And he that despiseth you despiseth me said Christ Luke 10. 16. Verse 16. As God doth something for his part towards our maintenance so likewise must we do something on our parts He will give Manna but we must go out and gather it He will provide Meat and Money and Cloth and whatever is good for us but we must labour in some honest Vocation and so come by these things Corn he will give to the Husband-man but conditionally that he plow and sow Idleness he will not endure Verse 18. God doth here restrain the covetous who are never satisfied and withall comfort his own Children who have not such heaps For what hath the greatest Raker that lives among us but a subsistance and hath not the poorest man as much God will make my little stretch out to an Omer that is to enough and his much shall be no more doe what he can Verse 21. We must take time while time serves We have a Morning and we have an Evening our able Youth and good Health is our Morning our Age and sick estate is our Evening Spend not the first vainly and you shall not want in the last Work in the Morning and we shall eat the fruit of our labours when the Evening of Age and Sickness comes Gods Blessings are not at our election to have them when we will but when we seek and he bids then we shall find His Manna is ready if we come in time but if we linger till we list he hath his Sun to melt it away and it is gone Verse 24. It corrupted not No more shall any Goods you get and gather with the Will and good liking and Commandement of God that is truly and lawfully and with a good Conscience but the Lord shall bless that basket and that store to you whilst you live and to yours when you are gone CHAP. XVII Verse 2. LEt us in all our wants set our Faces the right way and look to Heaven not to Earth to God not to Man And let us not follow these Israelites who when they wanted Water did not cry unto God but fly upon Moses with an unfitting speech as though Moses were God to create Fountains and Springs Thus did Rachel come upon her Husband Gen. 30. 1. and so alwayes doth corrupt man possessed with impatiency take a wrong course leave God and run to man and speak according to his rage without due consideration of mans ability and power Only therefore to God we must go in our wants For there is the Treasury and bottomless Store-house of all Comforts Ask there seek there knock there and you have a Promise Mat. 7. 7. but run to the Creature and you have none Verse 4. Rely not upon the multitude nor hunt after the peoples applause Do not the Scriptures shew us how reverently the Pharisees sent unto Iohn Mat. 11. 18. and yet after affirm'd him to have a Devil whereupon said our Saviour he was c. Ioh. 5. 35. thus all credit is but for a season with worldly men with the common People To day a man to morrow
by Death we then shall behold the glory of that Trinity and never till then Verse 37. As in the outward Vail of the Tabernacle there were Sockets of Brass as you read in this Verse and in the inward of Silver so God doth adorn for the most part that which is within A Man may seem to be as hard as brass with the outward custom of Sin yet he may sound with the Confession of Sin like Silver within and therefore we must have a care how we pass our Censures upon our Brethren and that we be not like those wild-fire Tongues that do Condemn when they consider the outward Fact and no more not the Circumstances of the Fact which may lesson it not the Intention which might be well propounded though a Fault in the Action it self nor the Cause nor the Evil Company nor that it was done after a vehement Tentation or done by reason of some Violence offered or such a Circumstance as doth excuse a Tanto though not a Toto CHAP. XXVII Verse 3. AS here were divers Instruments belonging to the Altar and the Tabernacle and all for Use and Employment so doth the Church of Christ consist of divers Members and those Members are endowed with several gifts and graces but all for the Edification of the Church For wherefore hath this Christian quickness of Wit that depth of Judgement this heat of Zeal that power of Elocution this man Skil that Experience this Authority that Strength but that all should be laid together for the raising of the common stock and put forth for publick advantage As therefore no true Christian is his own man so he freely laies out himself according to the measure of his several Gifts and Graces for the universal benefit of all his fellow-members How rich therefore is every Christian Soul that is not only furnished with its own Graces but hath a special Interest in all the excellent Gifts of all the most eminent Servants of God through the whole World Surely that Man cannot be poor while there is any special Wealth in the Church of God upon Earth Verse 7. The Staves on which the Ark was to be carried were to be ever ready in the Rings of the Ark upon all occasions of remove We have here no continuing City saith the Apostle we have no place of Residence no fixt Habitation in this Life and therefore we must be ever prepared to take up these Tabernacles of our Bodies and be gone We have but a short time to live and even that short time is uncertain and never continues in one stay but flies away like a shadow and is cut down as a flower He then that would dye well must alwayes look for Death every day knocking at the gates of the Grave and then the gates of the Grave shall never prevail upon him to do him mischief This also will help to confine our hopes and cut short our designs and fit our endeavours to the small portion of our shorter Life And as we must not trouble our Enquiry so neither must we Intricate our Labour with what we shall never Enjoy we must not dispose of Ten Years to come when we are not Lords of to morrow nor discompose our present duty by long and future designs such which by casting our Labours to Events at distance make us less to remember our Death standing at the door But rather let us make use of this instant for this instant will never return again and yet it may be this instant will secure the fortune of a whole Eternity Verse 20. When God received lights into his Tabernacle he received none of Tallow the Ox hath Horns he received none of Wax the Bee hath a Sting but he received only lamps of Oyl And though from many Fruits and Berries they pressed Oyl yet God admitted no Oyl into the service of the Church but only of the Olive the Olive the Emblem of Peace CHAP. XXVIII Verse 3. THis shews that Mechanical Arts and Trades are not found out by Men without the direction of Gods Spirit Many men do condemn Gold-smiths Jewellers or Lace-Weavers Perfumers and such like as though they served only for Vanity and Excess when indeed they be the works of God I mean their several Skils and Fruits of his Spirit as here we see If any man abuse them it is the fault of man not of the skil and what may not be abused Verse 15. Matter not clothed in handsomness of words is but dusted Treasure and like some Gardens where there is fatnessof Earth no Flower The Brest-plate of Judgement which Aaron wore was made with Imbroidered Works and in the Ephod there were as well diversities of colours as of Riches Blew Silk and Purple and Scarlet and fine Linnen That then of Epiphanius is worthy both to be remembred and imitated whose works were read of the simple for the words of the Learned for the matter Verse 21. This may remember a good Minister how dear unto him his Flock and People should be even graven as it were in his breast and eveâ— in his mind to profit them by all the means he may that they may be saved It notes also the love of Christ to his Church and every member of it who beareth us not only in his Arms as a Nurse or on his Shoulder as a strong Man but upon his Heart and in his Heart as a most kind God Isai. 49. Can a mother forget c. CHAP. XXIX Verse 6. IT was not without some mystery that in the Robes of Aaron there was a Crown set upon the Mitre moralizing a possible conjunction at least of Minister and Magistrate in one person The Crown and the Mitre were together then but yet the Crown was upon the Mitre there is a power above the Priest the Regal power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest Verse 12. This shadowed that the Preaching of the Gospel concerning the Blood and Passion of Christ should be publish'd and sounded through the four corners of the World even over the whole Earth and the rest of the Blood thou shalt pour at the foot of the Altar noting how the Blood of Christ though in its self sufficient for all yet becometh not helpful to all but is unprofitably poured out for many as this here was at the foot of the Altar through their own unbelief treading under feet that most precious Blood Verse 13. That so men might learn to give unto God their best service and Duty most thankfully ever confessing that all fatness that is all Comfort Prosperity and Joy cometh from him as from the Fountain and is due to him as his own from all men But now the very worst is thought good enough for God our worst Corn our worst Calf our worst Lamb and too often neither good nor bad is this to burn the Fat upon the Altar of the Lord. Verse 20. By the Ear was noted obedience to signifie that
the Priests from whom others should draw Example should themselves be obedient to Gods Word in all things and first hear then speak Obedience was ever acceptable to God Psal. 40. 6. next the Thumb is touched with Blood to teach that we must not only be Hearers but Doers of the Word joyning Works to Faith and a Holy Life to a sound Belief And the right Thumb not the left to signifie that our Works must be right commanded by God not invented by us To the like end was the right Toe sprinkled with Blood that they might so remember to walk worthy their vocation and usually by the Foot in Scripture is both Action and Affection noted My feet had almost slipt said David meaning both Action and Affection Verse 29. The same garments continued although the Priest by Mortality changed and so was signified that our High Priest not meer Man but God and Man is one and his Righteousness our blessed garment remaineth to Father Son and Sons Son to the Worlds end in them that fear him and by a true Faith believe in him CHAP. XXX Verse 1. THe Altar of Incense was of Wood covered with Gold figuring so Christ in both his Natures the Wood his Humanity the Gold his Divinity the Deity yielding Glory and Majesty to his Manhood as the Gold adorn'd and beautified the Shittim Wood. Verse 2. The square form of this Altar represents the firm stability of Christ who cannot be overthrown The Crown about it the regal Dignity of Christ and of all those that are ingrafted to him For we are Kings and Priesis in him and by him Verse 7. The sweet Incense notes all Duties and services which the People of God do to him by his appointment and that they smell sweet before him as the Incense and are accepted of him But particularly the Prayers of the faithful for so David Psal. 14. 2. expounded it The burning of this Incense upon the Altar which was a figure of Christ shadowed out that in Christ and for Christ only our Prayers are in force with God and therefore by him they ought to be offered unto God Verse 9. Prayers either made to others then to God in the name of Christ or for unlawful things are strange Incense and therefore not to be offered unto God No Saint nor Creature was shadowed by the Altar of Incense but Christ and therefore let them take heed that will pray to others and make others present their desires to God Verse 12. To number People in a Land is lawful and if you think of David why he was plagued for so doing surely it was not for that he numbred the People but because he did it in a pride and confidence in mans strength But here neither Pride nor Wealth nor other such eâ—ds were respected but obedience was aimed at and that they should profess themselves thus Gods People and themselves his Tributaries and so be ever strongly comforted in his protection Verse 15. This was a personal Tribute imposed to testifie obedience to God and therefore equally was paid to signifie that God is no respecter of persons but the poor are as dear to him doing his Will as the rich we are all the Lords the price of our redemption is one the precious bloud of that immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ. Verse 16. In worldly matters the rich may go before us but in matters belonging unto God his Worship and Service we ought to be as forward as the rich For you see here that the maintenance of the Ministery was not posted over to Princes and great men only but even private men also must joyn in this work For if he be born to inherit Heaven he must think himself born to maintain the means that lead us unto Heaven Our Sheep and Cattel we provide for because they labour for us and feed us what hearts then should we have to see them comfortably maintain'd that labour for us in a far higher sort and feed us with a much better food Verse 21. We must not meddle with holy things with unwashen hands that is with prophane Hearts Tongues and minds as they do that read the Scriptures not to guide their lives but to maintain table Discourses drawing the Scriptures to their Judgements and not framing their Judgements according to the Scriptures These washings again in the Law had a further reach being used in Faith even to the inward washing of the Spirit whereof they were true Sacraments to the Believers So David Wash me O Lord and I shall be clean that is inwardly inwardly O Lord by thy blessed Spirit from my sins Verse 23. This holy and most excellent Oil was a figure of the Holy Ghost without whom nothing is pure nothing sweet All things were annointed therewith Preist Ark Table Candlestick to teach that all the exercises of Religion are utterly unprofitable without the inward working of the Holy Ghost in our hearts CHAP. XXXI Verse 3. BY this is manifest that the skill of any Handi-craft is not in the power of men but comes by the Highest And by this we are taught to use all those Gifts well whereby we are enabled to discharge our particular Callings that they may serve for the Glory of God and the good of his Church and those that in their Callings use fraud and deceit or else live inordinately do most unthankfully abuse the Gifts of God and dishonour the Spirit of God the Author of their Gifts Verse 6. God here joyneth Aholiab with Bezaliel in the work of the Tabernacle that by this means it might be the more compleat If there should be any fault in Bezaliels work Aholiab might mend it and if there should chance to be any error in Aholiabs performance Bezaliel might correct it that so by the care and circumspection of these two able Workmen nothing might be omitted And as it was thus under the Law so was it under the Gospel the Work of Christs Church as well as Moses Tabernacle must be performed by pairs Therefore Christ sent out his Apostles to preach the Gospel by couples two and two together Two are better than one saith Solomon For first if they fall the one will lift up the other that which is stronger shoreth up the weaker One man may be an Angel to another in regard of comfort and assistance nay a God to another as Moses was to Aaron Secondly if two lie together then they have heat heat of Zeal and good Affection When Silas came Paul burnt in spirit Acts 18. warm he was before but now all of a light fire as it were The Enemy is readiest to assault when none is by to assist and much of our strength is lost in the losse of a faithful Friend CHAP. XXXII Verse 1. O The ingratitude of that giddy multitude a man would have thought they would have wept out theit eyes and sighed their hearts in sunder for such a man as Moses such an Instrument of God and Good to them such
a Deliverer so famous a Governour so dear to God so familiar with God and so graced and honoured by God And yet how contemptuously they speak of him when they say this Moses this Moses And therefore by this example let all wise Ministers never rely upon the multitude but upon the Author of their Calling joy in their obedience to him rest upon his gracious acceptance and leave the world to be a World full of unthankfulness to all degrees of well Deservers Verse 3. Aaron demanded their golden Ear-rings thinking they would not have given them For in the East Countries such Ear-rings were Ornaments and the pleasures of Women But he was deceived so pleasing to our corruption is Idolatry and Superstition that we spare no cost to set that forward And indeed their Idol was their Jewel Verse 6. Those Sacrifices were such as God had appointed but now diverted from their use and therefore nothing lesse than pleasing unto God Which shews that although we use the same words in our Prayers and do the same things that the Scripture appointeth if they differ from right as these Sacrifices did here we pull down Gods Wrath upon us instead of his Blessing Verse 7. The Lord cals them Moses People whereas they were the Lords People and by his mighty Arm delivered not by Moses his strength Thus doth the Lord ascribe to his Ministers what his Power worketh by them that so they may be encouraged in their pains and the People know to love them hearing God himself say that they be their People Verse 8. Note the word and also the manner if the Lord keep us not in his true obedience and send us good Guides To fall away from God is fearful but quickly to be turned aside is an amplification of the fault and maketh it greater Verse 10. This shews the incomprehensible loving kindness of God towards such as truly fear and serve him making them in his Goodness so powerful with him that they are to him as it were bands to tie him and avail against him that he cannot execute his anger against Offendors unless they will suffer him and as it were stand out of the way Thus in Gen. 18. 19. when Sodom was to be destroyed said God for so many and so many I will not do it Thus also Ezek. 22. 30. I sought for a man c. as if God had said might I have found but one to stand in the gap against my wrath even for that one I would have shewn Mercy Let this therefore comfort you that if for other mens sins a true Moses be such a stop to God that he will not punish them think then what force have your own sighs and groans for your own sins before him Can he strike you holding up your hands for Mercy and looking upon him with warry eyes humbled in the dust before him and for his dearest Sons sake in whom he is well pleas'd begging pardon Verse 11. Who knows what Judgements godly Governors turn away by their earnest Prayers to God for their People Which should work in us all Love and Obedience and Duty to them and make us day and night pray for the continuance of them Verse 21. In matters concerning Gods Glory we must rebuke our nearest Allies no place for Affection The Lord hath placed the Commandements in the Decalogue and the Petitions in the Lords Prayer which concern his Honour before those which concern our selves to teach us that we ought to prefer his Glory before all worldly things yea even life it self if it come in question Mar. 10. 37. Thus did Moses also ver 32. prefer Gods Glory which would appear in saving of his People before his own salvation which is far more than this temporal life Verse 31. Moses doubleth in this Chapter the foulness of their fault calling it a great Sin and a greivous sin so teaching us not to extenuate faults before God if you sue for Mercy but to set them out in their true colours that Mercy may the more appear Verse 34. Magistrates and Ministers may not desist from their Duties for the Peoples frowardness but indevouring to the uttermost to reform them they must go on though they perish and even in their so perishing they shall be a sweet Savour to the Lord. Verse 35. Very greivous is the sin of Idolatry that not for Moses his so earnest Prayer may be freed wholly from all further punishment though in part the Lord yieldeth as he did ver 14. CHAP. XXXIII Verse 8. A Sound and upright heart with God will ever in the end procure honour however for a time contempt may be shewed for God will honour them that honour him it is his Word and it shall never fail Would God then men would be moved to seek honour this way by the Favour of God and not of men For God can make men rise up to you that have formerly little regarded you as here he did to Moses the People now that he was in favour with God reverenc'd him whom before they spake very lightly of saying This Moses we know not what is become of him Verse 13. Moses desires of God that he would shew him his Wayes his Dealings his Proceedings with Men that which he cals after his Glory how he glorifies himself upon Man God promiseth in the next verse that he will shew him all his Goodness God hath no way towards Man but Goodness God glorifies himself in nothing upon Man but in his own Goodness And therefore when God comes to the performance of this Promise in the next Chapter he shews him his Way and his Glory and his Goodness in shewing him that he is a merciful God a gracious God a long suffering God And as the Hebrew Doctors note there are thirteen Attributes specified in that place and of all these thirteen there is but one that tastes of Judgement that he will punish the sins of the Fathers upon the Children all the other twelve are meerly Mercy Such a proportion hath his Mercy above his Justice Verse 18. When God had promised Moses in this Chapter to send an Angel to shew the People their way Moses said to God See thou sayest lead this people forth but thou hast not shewed me whom thou wilt send with me God had told him of an Angel but that satisfied not Moses he must have something shew'd to him he must see his Guide and therefore said Moses wilt thou be pleas'd to shew me thy Glory Shall we see any thing Now they did see that Pillar in which God was and that Presence that Pillar shewed the way To us the Church is that Pillar in that God shews us our way For strength it is a Pillar and a Pillar for firmness and fixation But yet the Church is neither an equal Pillar alwayes fire but sometimes Cloud too The Church is more or lesse visible sometimes glorious sometimes eclips'd neither is it so fix'd a Pillar as that it may
being saved in the New by believing he is come CHAP. XXXVIII Verse 1. VVHile the Church of God was in a journeying condition a small Altar and a slender Sacrifice were sufficient but in Solomons time the Altar was four times as big as this here and the Sacrifice was multiplied God looks upon the condition of his Servants and will be content with what they are able to perform When the Church is in persecution a Grot or Cave of the Earth may passe with God for a Temple and a Turfe of the same Earth for an Altar and Gods Presence in such holes shall be as eminent as in the Temple of Ierusalem when that Temple was in its greatest Glory But when God shall please to restore his Church to Peace and Plenty then God doth expect that our returns of Duty should be answerable to such Blessings that as our Peace and Prosperity is more than it was so should our service and Worship of God exceed in a due proportion Verse 8. A good Prince doth the Office which Moses his Glasses did at the brasen Sea in the Temple For he shews others their spots and in a pious and unspotted life of his own shews his Subjects their deficiencies And to make an higher use of Moses his Glasse than to see a King in the whole Creation is that Glasse wherein we may see the King of Kings even our God himself Scarce can you imagine a vainer thing except you will except the vain lookers on in that Action than the Looking-glasses of Women and yet Moses brought those Looking-glasses to a religious use to shew them that came in the spots of dirt which they had taken by the way that they might wash themselves clean before they passed any further There is not so poor a Creature but may be thy Glasse to see thy God in The greatest flat Glasse that can be made cannot represent any thing greater than it is If every Gnat that flies were an Archangel all that could but tell me that there is a God and the poorest Worm that creeps tels me that If I should ask the Basilisk how camest thou by those killing Eyes he would tell me thy God made me so and if I should ask the slow worm how camest thou to be without Eyes he would tell me thy God made me so The Cedar is no better a Glasse to see God in than the Hysop on the Wall All things that are are equally removed from being nothing and whatsoever hath any being is by that very Being a Glasse in which we see God who is the Root and the Fountain of all Being Verse 22. The work of the Tabernacle was perform'd not according to the Will and pleasure of Man but God not as Bezaliel and Aholiab thought fit though they were knowing Men and great Artizans nor yet as Moses would have it but sayes the Text as the Lord commanded Moses In matters of concernment about Gods Service and Worship who so fit to command and prescribe as God Men are but Men and therefore may erre The holy Patriarchs in the Old Testament were holy Men yet they strayed into some sinful Actions the holy Fathers in the Primitive Church were holy Men yet they strayed into some erroneous Opinions and therefore neither the one nor the other can be an infallible Warrant for us If God command Moses Moses may command us Neither Temple nor Sacrifice nor Priest are of our own contriving any invention of Man but prescribed and founded by God himself CHAP. XXXIX Verse 10. IN all which rowes we may observe these seven things First the shining of the stones pointing to the Purity of Christ and his Church Secondly their price of great value and worth signifying at what price Christ valued his Church at Thirdly their place or situation they are set in the Pectoral and Aaron must carry them on his Heart signifying that Christ hath as much care of his Church as if it were inclosed in his Heart le ts out his Bloud to make room in his Heart for them Fourthly their number twelve implying that with Christ is plentiful Redemption Fifthly their order they stood in a comely Quadrangle Christ hath stablished a comely Order in his Church and we must keep our ranks Sixthly the Figure being four-square signifying the stability and firmness of the Church Satan and all Deceivers shall not pick one stone out of Christs Pectoral Lastly the quantity as all the Names of Israel were gathered into a narrow compass so Christ shall gather together into one all the dispersed Sons of God and present them before God as the most beautiful and pretious parts of the World Verse 23. The care that was here taken to preserve the Ephod that it should not rent serves to teach us our Duty and that we are to use all circumspection and diligence to keep Schisms and Divisions out of the Church For to break the Unity of the Church is to divide to cut asunder the very Veins and Sinews of the mystical Body of Christ. And therefore Saint Paul doth conjure his Corinthians 1 Cor. 1. 10. by the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ that they speak one and the samething and that they be perfectly joyn'd together in one mind and in one judgement I or Schisms do disjoynt Men they shake them out of their Senses and fright them out of their Wits Beware therefore sayes the same Apostle of the Concision Phil. 3. 2. that is of those that make Divisions and cut the Church into little pieces and sucking Congregations Christs Coat was seamless and his Dove but one And upon this account the Primitive Christians were famous for their unity As the Curtains of the Tabernacle were joyn'd together by Loops so were they by Love and as the stones of the Temple they were so close cemented together that they seem'd to be all but one stone to have all but one mind and one soul. Verse 26. It is the Duty of Ministers to live their own Sermons to be fruitful as well as painful Preachers and to teach as well by their Life as Doctrine Not like him of whom it was said that when he was out of the Pulpit it was pitty he should ever go into it and when he was in the Pulpit it was pitty he should ever come out of it Every good Ministers six dayes should be a Commentary on the seventh and his own life in the week dayes should be the use of that Doctrine he delivers upon the Lords day For which reason it was that the Predicants of old were call'd Operariâ— quia opere magis quam ore praedicarent because they should preach no lesse by their Actions than their Sermons and send forth a savour unto life as well by their Lives as their Doctrines And this is to have the Priests Garment fring'd about with a Bell and a Pomegranate to shew they must be neither dumb Dogs nor stinking Weeds but lead the People as well with the sweet
scent and savour of their Actions as the sound of their Words CHAP. XL. Verse 13. MOses that is appointed here to annoint and consecrate others was never annointed and consecrated himself that so we might learn not to value external Sacraments or Signs by the Dignity of the Minister but by the Ordinance of God Again that the invisible Grace is of force without the visible sign when God will have it so as in Moses here but then withal we must know that this was an extraordinary Command of God to Moses who was then Gods Vicegerent or Vicar-general and therefore what he did God did And certainly God who is the Author of all order may prescribe the form and manner of it Verse 16. Observe how often from this to the two and thirtieth verse is repeated as the Lord commanded Moses and see how sweet commanded Obedience is Were it as acceptable to God to be served with inventions never would these repetitions be made Beware therefore of these wayes and in very reason conclude that if you expect from your Servant your Commands to be fulfill'd according to your will much more may God expect the same obedience from you Verse 32. Those that dispense Gods Ordinances that wait upon his Altar must come with clean hands and a pure heart Holiness becomes every man well but best of all publick persons and that not only for example of good but liberty of controlling ill The Snuffers of the Sanctuary made to purge others must be of pure Gold themselves and the Priest that is to purifie and cleanse the Congregation must be first washed himself But now suppose the Priest be unclean be vicious and who can say he is not so must â—he People notwithstanding seek the Law at his mouth follow his Doctrine Yes certainly For what if the Sacrificer be unclean is the Offering so Scripture is Scripture though the Devil speak it Verse 34. That thus he might grace that outward place now appointed for holy Assemblies to serve him and so to the Worlds end teach how great account all People ought to make of their Churches and Church-meetings Verse 36. The Children of Israels Journey to Canaan was thorow the Wilderness of Arabia Their Guides were a Pillar of Cloud by day and a Pillar of Fire by night The manner of their Journey was this When the Pillar moved they moved when the Pillar stood still they stood still By all which a further matter namely the regiment of Christ over his Church is signified Every one of us is as Passengers and Travellers to an heavenly Canaan and in this Journey we are to passe through the desart Wilderness of this World Our Guide is Christ himself figured by the Pillar of Fire and Cloud because by his Word and Spirit he sheweth us how far we may go in every Action and where we must stand and he goes before us as our Guide to life everlasting A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSES CALLED LEVITICUS CHAP. I. Verse 4. THE party bringing the Sacrifice did by this sign of laying on his hand c. acknowledge that he himself deserved to die but by the Mercy of God he was spared and his desert laid upon the Beast Secondly that it is not enough to believe that Christ was to die for sin but he must lay his hand upon Christ i. e. lay upon him all his iniquities by the hand of his Faith apply Christ to himself and believe that he died for his sins my sins your sins being the only Propitiation for sin Thirdly this laying on the hand shewed that men bringing Sacrifices to God should rather sacrifice their exorbitant affections than those Beasts Verse 5. The reason why God tyed them to a place and not suffered them to sacrifice where they pleased was that by this means they might be kept from using any unlawful manner in their Sacrifices which they might have done if in every place at their pleasure they might have Sacrificed The same reason is now for our set publick places of Gods Worship where the people are to perform their Duties to God after one manner not allowed at their will every one to have a several place lest private places should breed private Fancies Errors and Heresies in the Church Verse 6. This was to teach the Party that offered the Sacrifice to offer up himself to the Lord flayed and without skin that is without all counterfeit and hypocritical shews without all earthly vain and proud Confidence in himself or any Works or Worth whatsoever in him but naked and bare to present himself to his God with a single and faithful heart boasting of no Desert but humbly craving Mercy and Pardon for Christs sake the true Sacrifice Verse 17. This was a great comfort to the poorer sort of Offerers for thus are they assured that although they were not of ability to Offer unto him Oxen and Sheep yet were they as dear to him as those that could so do and their Sacrifice of Pigeons or Turtles yeelded as sweet a savour And thus gracious will God ever be even two Mites of a poor Widdow shall be accepted and a little Spice or Goats-hair or what my power is to bring unto him shall be received For it is not the Gift but the Heart of the Giver that God looks upon and respects and thus the poor Widdows Mite could weigh but little very little with God but the Heart weigh'd heavy and so her Heart being put to her Mite gave it weight above the greater but far more heartless largesses of the Pharisees CHAP. II. Verse 6. THis Offering thus parted and sprinkled with Oyl signified the Graces of Gods Spirit where with Christ was fully annointed within and without above his fellows For they were only singly annointed either as Kings or as Priests or as Prophets but Christ was a thrice Sacred annointed Person a Prophet to teach us by his Word a Priest to purge us by his Blood a King to guide us by his Spirit And this three-fold Office of our Saviour was really represented by the Oyl wherewith he was annointed For first Oyl is said in the Psalms to make a chearful countenance and thus doth Christ as a Prophet make not only a cheerful Countenance but a cheerful Heart and Soul by Preaching the glad Tydings of Salvation Secondly Oyl doth supple and cure Wounds and so doth Christ as a Priest the Wounds of our Souls and Consciences with that precious Ointment of his Blood Thirdly Oyl will still be the uppermost of all Liquors so likewise Christ as a King is above Men and Angels hath the Soveraignty over all the Creation Verse 11. By this Rule of having no Leaven they were taught the purity of Christs Doctrine and the Holiness of his Life his Doctrine so pure that it maketh others pure Iohn 15. 3. and his Life so pure that not only his false Accusers could fasten no fault upon him but by his Innocency he appeased
Gods Wrath for our Impurity Secondly it taught the Church that after Christs Example they ought to be free from both these to wit false Doctrine and ill manners not Teaching if they be Teachers any corrupt Matter nor believing and holding if they be no Teachers any absurd Untruths Verse 13. Salt was required in the Sacrifice to figure out Christ who indeed is the true Salt that seasoneth us and all our Works or else neither we nor they please God Sin hath made us unsavory to God and till this Salt be sprinkled over us we have no access to him nor savour with him And further by Salt here we may understand Mortification and holy discretion or sincerity of Doctrine and Discipline whereby the Saints are seasoned and preserved from the putrefaction of Sin and Error and being preserved themselves they preserve others For as Salt keepeth Flesh from putrifying so do the Saints of the World and are therefore sprinkled up and down here one and there one to keep the rest from stinking CHAP. III. Verse 3. THE Fat that was upon the Inwards was offered and yet the Inwards themselves in particular the Heart was not offered For the Heart Brain were never Offered in Sacrifice because they are the Fountains and secret Arks wherein lurks all Iniquity And yet though the Heart be not given yet hearty Thanks must be given to God such as cometh not from the Roof of the Mouth but the Root of the Heart the most inward part and bottom of our Souls Verse 4. Some have judg'd the pleasures of the Flesh to be here shadowed which of a true Child of God are to be kill'd and slain as Sacrifices were and mortified Others looking at the phrase of Scripture which usually noteth by the word Fat the best things have thought that herein was figured how Men ought to offer unto God ever of their best as Numb 18. 12. Psal. 81. 16. but now in the Tithes and Duties do you give the best do you offer the Fat He that lives licentiously all his Youth and intends to offer unto God his Old Age when for debility of Body he can do no more harm doth he offer unto God the Fat or the Lean the Best or the Worst Lastly because this Fat that was to be offered was an Inward thing and not an Outward others have thought that thereby was figured how careful we must ever be to offer unto God our Inwards without which no External Duty can or will please God The Lord saith David Loveth truth in the inward parts and his Sacrifice is a troubled spirit a broken and a contrite heart within not a pale face a down look many outward sighs that are heard of men Verse 17. The Lords prohibition of Fat did teach them to use a modest moderate and fitting Diet Blood also was forbidden them that so they might learn to take heed of cruelty and to shew mercy and loving-kindness in all their Actions and Behaviours Gods People must neither be Carnal nor Cruel but their Souls must shew mercy as their Heavenly Father is merciful and their Delight must be not inluxurious and high-feeding Dishes but in the Marrow and Fatness and Sweetness of Gods Ordinances CHAP. IV. Verse 3. WHen you read that the High Priest had need sometimes to offer for his Negligences and Ignorances you see how plainly it was taught to that People that the High Priest was not the true High Priest which should make perfect satisfaction unto God but another was to be expected even Christ Jesus Verse 6. By this sevenfold sprinkling the grievousness of sin is noted according to that in Genesis he that slayeth Cain shall be punished seven-fold that is grievously Wherefore this seven times sprinkling of the Blood shews that every sin with God deserveth seven punishments that is sharp and great punishment if God should deal with us in Justice and not in Mercy Verse 7. The Blood was put on the Horns of the Altar of sweet Incense to signifie that no Prayer can peirce unto God but in and by the Blood of Christ. Verse 12. The whole Bullock was to be burnt being a sin-offering to teach men to burn all their sins and not to divide them as we do when we say I will amend my Drunkenness but I cannot leave my Swearing but we must all our sins and willingly keep none lest but one being wilfully still delighted in burn us wholly in Hell for ever When Moses with the Israelites was to depart out of Egypt and Pharaoh would have had them leave their Cattle behind them saving what they intended to Sacrifice answer was made they would not leave one hoof of a Beast behind Exod. 10. 26. and so deal you with your Sins leave not one hoof of Sin behind no one sin no part of a Sin that is by wittingly willingly and boldly continuing in it otherwise free from Sin in this Life we cannot be Verse 13. A multitude of Offenders excuseth no offence but if even the whole Congregation should sin through Ignorance yet a Sin-Offering must be offered by them all and their number yeeldeth no excuse Secondly In this phrase hid from the Eyes you may see the state of many a Man and Woman doing evill The matter is hid from their Eyes in Gods anger and all-be-it they lye at the Pits brink of Damnation and Destruction yet they see it not feel it not are not troubled with it because indeed they never sit and take an account of themselves and their Works The godly do this at last and therefore in the next Verse there is a time of Knowing to them as there was of hiding Verse 17. The Priest here used a seven-fold sprinkling of Blood upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of Blood in Christ in his Circumcision in his Agony in his fulfilling of the Prophesie Isai. 50. 6. I gave my cheeks to them that pluck'd off the hair and in his Scourging in his Crowning and in his Nailing and lastly in the piercing of his side these seven Channels hath the Blood of thy Saviour found Pour out the Blood of thy Soul Sacrifice thy stubborn and Rebellious Will seven times too seven times that is every day of the week and seven times every day for so often a Just man falleth and then how low must that Man lye at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soon as thou fallest Verse 27. In all Sacrifices where Blood was to be offered the Fat was to be offered too If thou wilt Sacrifice the Blood of thy Soul Sacrifice the Fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and hast corruptly got by that sin else thou keepest the Fat from God though thou give him the Blood CHAP. V. Verse 2. WE are not ever clean when we see not any
of the Ministery that it should not be defrauded of the least thing allotted to it And therefore harden not your heart against God against Law against Right and Truth accustome not your hearts to cover your Neighbours due your hands to purloin it by fraud or take it by strength it is theft spiritual theft sacriledge your house receiveth stoln Goods and the Wrath of God may happily shake the foundation of it for such a sin and you in yours or you and yours be punished Verse 13. Here Leaven is admitted of which before was forbid Leaven therefore is taken in a good sense as well as in an ill Thus the Apostles are resembled to a little Leaven that leaveneth the whole lump they being sent out of God into the unleavened World by preaching to leaven it clean through And there is a Leaven of the new Nature accepted as there is a Leaven of the old Nature rejected For look how the Leaven maketh the Bread savory and strong and wholsome look also how it makes it rise and heave up which otherwise would be sad and heavy So doth Gods regenerate Spirit change us make us savory and all our Duties pleasing to God and we rise up our Hearts and Souls are heaved up in all love in thankfulness to him that in Mercy hath so look'd upon us Verse 15. A Ceremony us'd to signifie that publick Feasts should not be superfluously continued and kept long under the colour of Religion For God loveth not idle banquetting and prodigal spending although he allow graciously what is fit for the occasion Secondly this was done in wisdome by God least if the flesh should have smelt by longer keeping Religion might so have been vile in the eyes of fickle persons Verse 18. We may learn by this that the taking hold of Christ is not to be deferr'd and put off but speedily and quickly to be done whilst time serves and opportunity is offer'd For behold sayes Christ to day and to morrow I cast out Devils and the third day Luke 13. that is a short time I have yet to go on with my Ministery and then I shall be slain More particularly every Man and Woman may be said to have three dayes The first of Youth till Age come the second of Age till Death come and in these two dayes there is Mercy offered but the third day is after Death and then there is no help as here on the third day no Offering was accepted but the sin remained unpardoned and not forgiven Verse 30. The bringing of the Sacrifice with his own hands and not sending it by others taught Humility and Duty to God taught that every one must live by his own Faith and not by anothers Verse 34. The shaking of it to and fro four wayes East West North and South shadowed the spreading of that lifting up of Christ that is of Christs Death and Passion throughouâ— all the World by the preaching of the Gospel CHAP. VIII Verse 2. THe Lord precisely appointed Priests and would not leave it to every man to perform this Office to signifie that not any man butthe-man Christ Jesus could appease Gods Wrath satisfie his Justice and take away the sins of the World This could not be figured out better than by secluding all the Host of Israel from this Office and chusing but Aaron and his Sons as Types of Christ that so by such an Ordinance the Majesty Authority and Property of Christs Office might be resembled and shadowed Verse 5. Nothing but Gods Commandement doth Moses offer unto them For he well knew Gods Will only in his own House must be the Rule Our own heads were never the best heads to follow and for God he knoweth our mould too well to give that swinge unto us Verse 13. Aarons Sons were a figure of the Church which by Faith eateth also of the Sacrifice of Christ being made partakers of his Merits as well as the Priests Their Garments figured out the Graces and Gifts wherewith the Believers in Christ are adorned and beautified casting away the Works of Darkness and putting on daily more and more the Deeds of Light Rom. 13. 12. Verse 30. Upon Aarons Sons Moses did but sprinkle the annointing Oil which was said to be poured upon Aaron verse 12. So plainly shewing that in Christ the Spirit should be without measure and upon his Servants in measure we all receiving of his fulness according to his good Pleasure some more some lesse Verse 35. By this is signified that watch which all our life time is noted by the seven dayes we keep in avoiding sin and working righteousness as the Lord shall enable which indeed may be call'd the watch of the Lord being a holy Christian and happy watch The seventh day we shall be free fully sanctified and delivered from this vail of misery to keep an eternal Sabbath in Heaven to our endless comfort CHAP. IX Verse 7. IN that Aaron was here commanded to offer as well for himself as the People he was herein a figure of Christ not that Christ had any sins of his own but that ours were so laid upon him and he so made satisfaction to God for them as they had been his own Surely sayes the Prophet Isai. 53. 4. he hath born our infirmities c. that is we judg'd him evil as though he were punish'd for his own sins and not for ours Verse 22. Thus doth God blesse us in Christ in whom all the Nations of the World are blessed First with the Blessing of Reconciliation to himself reputing us now just for his Son Christ. Secondly with the Blessing of his Spirit whereby we walk in his Calling being guided thereby in the same Thirdly with the Blessing of Acceptance of all our Works though full of imperfection and weakness And last of all with this great Blessing that all adversity becometh a help to us to draw us to Heaven and Eternal Rest. Verse 24. That God which shew'd himself to Men in fire when he delivered his Law would have men present their Sacrifices to him in fire and this fire he would have his own that there might be a just circulation in this Creature as the Water sends up those vapours which it receives down again in Rain Hereupon it was that fire came down from God to the Altar that as the charge of the Sacrifice was delivered in fire so God might signifie the acceptation of it in the like fashion wherein it was commanded The Baalites might lay ready their Bullock upon the Wood but they might sooner fetch the blood out of their Bodies and destroy themselves than one flash out of Heaven to consume the Sacrifice CHAP. X. Verse 2. NAdab and Abibu were two of Aarons Eldest Sons which after their Father should have succeeded him in his place yet there is no Mercy with God to stay his Judgement when they will not be Ruled by his Word No Prerogative therefore shall save any Man from Wrath if he offend but
the Elder shall suffer no less than the Younger the Rich as well as the Poor there is no regard with God of these things Verse 3. He howled not out with any unseemly cries neither uttered any words of Rage and Impatience but meekly stoop'd to Gods will kiss'd the Rod and held his peace If thus Aaron in so great a Judgement how much more we when our Friends dye naturally sweetly and comfortably so that we may boldly say we have not lost them but sent them before us whether we hope also to follow Verse 5. That which the Father and Brother may not do the Cousins are Commanded Dead Carkasses are not for the presence of God his Justice was shewn sufficiently in killing them they are now fit for the Grave not the Sanctuary neither are they carried out naked but in their Coats It was an unusual sight for Israel to set a linnen Ephod upon the Beer the Judgement was so much the more remarkable because they had the badg of their Calling upon their backs Nothing is either more pleasing unto God more commodious to Men then that when he hath executed Judgment it should be seen and wondered at for therefore he strikes some that he may warn all Verse 12. This is added to comfort and strengthen the shaken Hearts of Aaron and his living Sons who might by this strange punishment have been driven into doubt whether ever the Lord would be pleased that they should meddle again with the Sacrifices and we see therein a gracious God who maketh not his Promises void to all for the faults of some We must therefore cleave to our Calling and even so much the more painfully go forward therein by how much we see others punish'd for ill doing be taught therefore and school'd but never be discouraged and feared from imposed Duty Verse 20. In that Moses admitted of a reasonable excuse we may learn to abhor Pride and to do the like Pride I say which scorneth to hear what may be said against the conceit we have once harboured A modest man doth not thus and therefore holy Iob had an Ear for his Servant and his Maid and did not despise their Judgement their Complaint and Grief when they thought themselves evill entreated by him CHAP. XI Verse 2. LEarn from hence our Duty to depend upon the Word and Will of God in all things yea even in our Meat and how careful likewise we ought to be to seek cleanness of Body and Soul before that God who expects it in our very Diet. Verse 3. This typified a difference of Men and Women in the World some clean and some unclean for they that have a true Faith and a good Life by meditating in the Word are such as divide the Hoof and chew the Cud and they are clean but such as do neither or but one are unclean as he that believeth in God but liveth not well or he that liveth in an outward honesty but believeth not rightly They again may be called clean dividing the Hoof who do not believe in great or in gross but discern and distinguish things as Christ and Moses Nature and Grace not believing every Spirit but trying the Spirits whether they be of God or no. Iohn 4. 1. For chewing the Cud they may be said to do it and so to be clean who meditate of that they hear lay it up in their Hearts and practice it in their Conversations Verse 5. By the Coney are figured out such Men as lay up their Treasures in the Earth because the Conies digg and scrape and make their Berries in the ground whereas we are taught to lay up our Treasure in Heaven Mat. 6. Verse 6. The Hare is a very fearful Creature and therefore is the type of fearful Men and Women despairing of Grace and shrinking from God such persons are unclean and excluded the Kingdom of God Rev. 21. 8. Verse 7. The Swine never looks up to Heaven but hath his mouth ever in the Earth and Mire caring for nothing but his Belly nourish'd only to be kill'd for his Death hath use his Life hath none A good Caveat for the Rich miserable Wretches of the World who never profit any till they dye A Knife therefore for the Hogg that we may have what is useful in him and Death for such Wretches that the Common-wealth may have use of theie Baggs Verse 14. By the Goss-hauk is shadowed forth Men that Prey upon their weaker Brethren and Neighbours By the Vulture Men that delight in Wars and Contention By the Ravens unnatural Parents that forsake their Children unkind Friends which shrink away Ill Husbands that provide not for their Families By the Ostrich painted Hypocrites and Carnal Men that have fair great Feathers but cannot flye By the Seamew that liveth both on Land and Water such as will be saved both by Faith and Works such Ambodexters as the World hath store of that carry two Faces under a Hood Fire in one hand and Water i th' other CHAP. XII Verse 2. THis serves to Confute that gross Error of Pelagius denying the propagation of sin from Parents to Children but if the Birth were clean the Mother by the Birth should not be unclean as this purification did shadow that she was God would therefore have all Men know what they are by Nature and what by Grace through the Remedy provided Christ our only Righteousness and Purity Also that God had rather have them never enter into the Church than to enter with Corruption unsorrowed for and uncared for Verse 4. Although this Ceremonial Law of Moses be abrogated and gone yet honesty of Nature and modesty in Woman-kind is neither abrogated nor gone Therefore even still we retain in the Church a lawful and laudible custome among Women that they should stay a time after Child-birth to gather strength in their Houses and then come to Church to give God Thanks And this is nothing but a needful thing in regard of weakness a modest Ceremony in regard of Woman-hood and a Christian Duty in regard of Comfort and Mercy received to come to Church there thankfully to acknowledg Gods great mercy to them in both giving them safe deliverance and blessing them with Children to their Comfort Verse 5. There is no sin in Marriage if it be not abused but because this is rare therefore after Women were delivered God appointed them to be purified shewing that some stain or other doth creep into this Action which had need to be repented and therefore when they prayed 1 Cor. 7. 5. St. Paul would not have them come together lest their Prayer should be hindred Verse 8. The Sacrifice was indifferent whether Turtles or Pigeons Turtles that live solitarily and Pigeons that live sociably were all one to God God in Christ may be had in an active and sociable life denoted in the Pigeon and in the solitary and contemplative life set out in the Turtle Let not Westminster despise the Church nor the Church
the Exchange God in Christ may be had in every lawful Calling And then the Pigeon was an Emblem of fecundity in Marriage and the Turtle may be an Emblem of chast Widdow-hood for I think we find no bigamy in the Turtle but in these Sacrifices we find no Emblem of an unnatural or of a vow'd barrenness nothing that countenances a vowed Virginity to the dishonour or undervaluing of Marriage CHAP. XIII Verse 2. THis prefigured the holy Priesthood of our blessed Saviour who doth see and handle and touch regard and heal all our Spiritual spots as these Priests dealt here with this bodily Infection so that if we be unclean we cannot deceive him Away therefore with our Figg-leaves for they cannot cover us if I be a Swearer an unclean Liver a Drunkard an envious person or the like I am a Leper a spiritual Leper and Christ is Judge whom I cannot mock he will never say I am clean till indeed I be so and so without amendment of Life I must out of the Host out of the Church and number of his Chosen to dye for ever in my Impurity Verse 45. So careful was God to have unclean persons known and discern'd from others in those dayes And we may take occasion also to wish that with us also in these dayes all bold and presumptuous mis-livers being most unclean before God and all good Men were distinguished from them that hate their wickedness by some such open marks as these were to the end that others might avoid them and they themselves be stricken with some shame to amendment of Life and saving of their Souls Allegorically these things in the Leper shadowed the state and condition of all wicked men in this World As the rent Cloaths that they are vile and odious before God his bare head that in Christ their head they have no Portion but are deprived of him his Lips or Mouth covered that such graceless persons cannot open their Mouth before God in any Prayer to be heard his shutting out of the Camp that such are to be Excommunicate from the number of the Faithful and are deprived of the Heavenly Inheritance Verse 50. Before thou condemn thy Brother put thy hand into thine own bosom as Moses did and tell me if it be not leaprous with that sin which thou condemnest in thy Brother and therefore Cause the Priest should not give rash Judgement the Leaprous was shut up seven dayes We must not be hasty to condemn others nay youmay reason further with your self thus that if in a matter thus subject to the Eye as these Sores were yet God would have no haste but a stay for seven dayes before Judgement should be given that the Party was unclean O how more doth he abhor hast in pronouncing of the Hearts and Thoughts of our Friends and Neighbours which are not seen nor subject to an easie Censure A wise gatherer of Grapes gatheeth only the ripe and good Grapes and medleth not with the four and ill Grapes so a good Christian noteth mens Vertues and speaketh of them when a Fool will be medling with their imperfections CHAP. XIV Verse 2. THe Law of the Leper here was that he should be brought unto the Priest men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves nor yet are they to be brought in chains by a necessity of an exact enumeration of all their sins but to be led with that sweetness with which the Church proceeds in appointing sick persons if they feel their Consciences troubled with any weighty matter to make a special confession and to receive absolution at the hands of the Priest and then to be remembred that every coming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our transmigration out of this World and that we should do as much here for the settling of our Conscience as upon our Death-bed Verse 3. That it is still the duty of all Faithful Ministers to go to the sick to see them and consider their estate towards God ministring comfort to them in due season whilst their hearing is good their understanding good and their memory good And I would God that they that are sick had more care to send for their Ministers in due time and the Ministers when they know it to go and with all care and diligence to labour with them while time serves Verse 6. By the two Sparrows sayes Theodoret the cleansed person was put in mind to offer unto God both Soul and Body a living Sacrifice The Sparrow slain might teach him the necessity of Mortification in the Body which indeed is an earthen vessel the killing of it over pure Water that nothing more worketh this Mortification than the pure Water of Gods Word contained in the Scriptures and that by the bloud of Christ we are truly cleansed and set at liberty as here the live Sparrow dipped in the bloud of the slain Sparrow is set free Verse 7. This sevenfold sprinkling might happily shadow an earnest and tontinued meditation of Gods Goodness to him that thus was comforted and not for a day or two and then no more Surely our thoughts of Mercy vouchsafed to us are ever too short and transitory and therefore seven sprinklings are little enough to teach us our duty herein God of his Mercy so sprinkle us over and over that we may ever remember his kind Goodness towards us a thousand wayes CHAP. XV. Verse 3. OUr Nature whether running or stopp'd is unclean We have uncleanness corruption in us though it doth not shew it self and this is Original Sin call'd here our uncleanness and by Saint Paul Rom. 7. Sinful sin so evil in its self that it could not have a worse Epithete given it than its own name call'd also by the same Apostle in the same Chapter The body of death a dead body or carcass to which we are tied as noisome every whit to our soul as a dead body to our senses and as burthensome as a withered arme or mortified limb which hangs on a man as a lump of lead Now some remnants of sin God hath left in us to clear to us his justifying Grace by Christs Righteousness And this also will make the Saints seem nothing in their own eyes even when they are fill'd brim full with Grace and Glory in another World Verse 12. So contagious a thing is sin that it defileth the very visible Heaven and Earth which therefore must be purged at the last day with a Deluge of Fire because they were not made clean by a Deluge of Water as here the earthen Pot which was but touch'd by an unclean person was broken and the wooden Vessel scour'd and rinsed in water How therefore ought we to fly from sin when even the touch of an unclean person defileth a man And if the Garment spotted with the flesh be so contagious how mortal must the life and conversation of such a man needs be to the Soul Verse 13. When you read thus often of Water
cleave not to the Element or Creature of Water but remember Saint Iohn 1 Iohn 5. 6. tels you that Jesus Christ came by Water and Bloud and it is he only that washeth away our spots and saveth us from our sins and by the offering of the Turtles it was plainly figured that not in themselves but in some others they must be made clean from all their impurities CHAP. XVI Verse 2. IN that Aaron was forbidden at all times to enter into the Holiest of Holies we may learn that even Ministers as well as other men are not rashly to enter into all the things of God but to stand in reverence of some Mysteries either dealing not at all or very advisedly and sparingly with them as their nature requires Verse 3. When we appear before God we must come with a Sin-offering that is come with an humble acknowledgement as this Sin-offering figured that thou art a sinner confessing it to God with a greived heart and bring Jesus Christ in thy soul with thee offering him by thy true Faith to God his Father as a sure safety for all sinners against deserved wrath and punishment Verse 4. We must be cloth'd with Christs Righteousness as with this holy linnen Coat if we ever find acceptance with God For to that end Aaron did change his Garment to shew that he sustained another person who was holy he himself being but a man subject to imperfection and sin Now if Aaron might not enter but in such sort how much lesse might the People appear at any time before God but in Christ and by Christ shadowed in all these Sacrifices Verse 21. When confession was made over the Head of the Scape-goat what diversity of words were used as all iniquities all trespasses all sins Why so many words but to teach that confession of sins must not be light and formal only but earnest vehement hearty and zealous And indeed never can a Child of God satisfie himself herein but still wisheth he could more bewail his sins and more earnestly expresse with words what his Soul feeleth in this behalf saying as I heard a dying woman once say O Sir I am sorry and sorry that I can be no more sorry Verse 31. God would name his Sabbath according to the nature of it and Sabbath is rest It is a rest of two kinds our rest and Gods rest Our rest is the cessation from labour on those dayes Gods rest is our sanctifying of the day For so in the religious sacrifice of Noah Gen. 8. when he was come out of the Ark God is said to have smelt odorem quietis the savour of rest Upon those dayes we rest from serving the World and God rests in our serving of him CHAP. XVII Verse 4. THe Reasons of the severity of this Law were first because it served for the preservation of the Ministry which God had ordained and that every Man should not be his own Priest Secondly Because thus they were taught that all Worship of God ought to be guided and directed by his Word and Commandement and not by the private wills of Men. And if you say that Samuel offered in Mizpeh 1 Sam. 7. and Elias in Mount Carmel 1 King 18. and so neither brought the Sacrifice to the door of the Tabernacle you must answer your self thus that all this in these Men was extraordinary and we may not follow extraordinary matters without some such personal and special Vocation as no doubt they had for we do not live by Examples but by Laws Verse 6. The burning and broiling of Beasts and the sprinkling of their Blood upon the Altar could of themselves yield no sweet savour but thereto was added Wine Oyl and Incense by Gods appointment our Prayers as from us would never please but as Indited by the Spirit and presented by Christ they are highly accepted in Heaven Christ is the Incense the perfume of all our Sacrifices and therefore if ever we intend that our Sacrifice either of Praise or Prayers should carry a sweet savour along with it it must be offered up in and by Christ for he is Gods Benjamin the Son of his Love in whom alone God is well pleased Upon which account it is that the Catholick Church doth evermore conclude her Prayers with this Expression Through Iesus Christ our Lord. Verse 10. The Lord by this Law would teach Men to abstain from Murther and Blood-shed the Blood of Man being Vehiculum animae vitalis for the Vital Spirits which yield unto Man through his whole Body heat motion and action are begotten of Blood by the power of the Heart and therefore Mans life and the life of every other Creature is said to be in the Blood according to that of the Poet Purpuream vomit ille animam Secondly Because the Lord had ordained Blood to be used in the Atonement made for Sins as a plain figure of the Blood of Christ the only able Sacrifice to purge and wash away our Sins and Offences therefore he would have Blood regarded as an holy thing and not used by Man as other Meats might be CHAP. XVIII Verse 2. THis Expression I am the Lord your God is often repeated to draw attention and beget Authority For consider first it is thy Lord thy Master that speaks he whose House is the World and all the Creatures his Servants shall we not then listen when this our great Master shall speak Secondly it is thy God that speaks the Eternal Creator of Heaven and Earth he who hath made all preserves all and can as easily destroy all again he who is the All-seeing God that looks upon thee in thy privare Closet in thy bolted Chamber under thy drawn Curtains that sees all thy secret villanies and stoln Embraces all thy wicked Plots and Contrivings and shall we not then hear and fear him What running and striving would there be who should come first if a King or some great Lord should call O let not the Lord of Lords and King of Kings call so oft and thou sleight and neglect it but rather say with Samuel Speak Lord for thy servant heareth speak Lord to my Ears that they may hear speak to my Memory that it may retain speak to my Heart and Affections that they may be obedient speak to my Life and Conversation that it may be answerable to thy Word then shall thy servant hear aright and not before Verse 18. If any Man think of some Marriages of holy Men in Scripture contrary to these Rules let him remember that we now live by Laws and not by Examples What God then either approved or tolerated let us neither rashly condemn nor unadvisedly follow but obediently tarry within the Precincts of the Law of Nature And again in these Cases let it ever be remembred as good reason it should not only what is lawful but what also is convenient and fit to be done For many things are lawful which are no way yet expedient but most unfit in
breach of Piety punishable with Death Let them also think of those Infernal Ravens and Vultures that shall torment them in Hell and continually feed upon their Souls Verse 10. Because Marriage was appointed a remedy against Fornication therefore the Law of God inflicted a sorer punishment upon him which did commit uncleanness after Marriage than upon him which was not Married because he sinned although he had the remedy of sin like a rich Thief which stealeth and hath no need So Deut. 22. 22. Verse 25. Ye shall make this difference between the clean and unclean Beast saith God First because ye may be at my appointment for your very meat as who am chief Lord of all Secondly that there may be a difference between you and all other People Thirdly that ye may be taught to study purity and know that the very Creatures are defiled by mans sin It is hard to deal in the World and not be defiled with the corruption that is in the World And therefore we are taught by this Law to abstain from the communion of unclean and wicked men in whom are found the malignities and evil properties of all other Creatures CHAP. XXI Verse 17. THis was done to preserve the Dignity of the Priests Calling in that infancy of the Church which otherwise might have come into contempt together with the holy things for the contemptible shew of the Priest Yet thus much we may learn by it further that if these infirmities of body which they could not help made them unfit then to be Priests may not now wilful impiety being a blot in Soul and Mind disable a man from being a Minister to God in his own Conscience although he have the outward calling of men Verse 18. Blind is he who wanting light from above is wholly drowned and overwhelmed with the darkness of this World Lame is he who seeing whither he should go yet is not able through weakness of understanding to get thither but fainteth and faileth stumbleth and trippeth in his going and cometh short of his right end By a flat nose may be noted a weakness in Judgement and Discretion because the nose discerneth good savours from ill as the mind should also do things fit and unfit In the Canticles 7. 4. among the praises of the Spouse it is said her nose is like a tower in Lebanon because by Judgement she discerneth afar off temptation and evils coming as out of a Tower Verse 20. The scab is a foulness arising of an itch and spreading broader and broader if it be not look'd into and thereby is set down the vice of Covetousness which first beginneth with an itching desire and afterward for want of looking to spreadeth to a great foul Vice deforming any man but most unseemly in a Priest who ought to be clean Lâ—â—â—ly by him that hath his stones broken are noted such as though they do not act yet have ever in their minds lewd and unclean thoughts whereby they are so desperately carried away as pure and clean and holy meditations can take no place Verse 22. Albeit blemished persons might not stand at the Altar yet were they allowed to eat the Sacrifices and to be in the Congregation shadowing unt ous that the Church although blemished nevertheless is admitted to the communion and participation of those things which Christ by his eternal Sacrifice hath obtain'd for us And although some one or other infirmity may justly disable thee for such a place either in Church or Common-wealth yet from a place with the Elect either here or for ever it shall not hinder thee No nor ten thousand blemishes if thou art grieved for them and fighting against them dost take hold of thy spotless Saviour as thy help and safety against them all CHAP. XXII Verse 6. NOne but those that were clean might eat of the holy Things nay those that did but enter into the Tabernacle being unclean were threatned with death by God Now what should this solemn preparation under the Type put us in mind of but the true and inward preparation required still of us in the Anti-type that is to teach us that we ought carefully to sanctifie prepare and purifie not our clothes and external parts but our hearts from all sin and impurity before we presume to approach into the presence of God either to eat of Christ our spiritual Passover or to hear and receive his most holy Word And certainly the neglect hereof is the very cause why that Sacrament which is to some the Bread of Life is to others the Bread of Condemnation and that Word of God which is to some the Saviour of Life unto Life is to others the Saviour of Death unto Death Verse 19. A good Work without the heart is but a glorious sin for not so much the things themselves as the affections of men are considered of God One may have a free mind in poverty and a sparing mind in riches so it is not the Work but the Mind Thus the Lord regards not so much the thing done as the heart and mind of him that did it If we build only on the Work we have no better evidence to shew for our salvation then the Devils and Reprobates Not the Work then but the Heart is that that will stand and go for currant to shew this the Lord would have a free-will Offering among all the rest of his Sacrifices hereby shewing that the heart must be joyn'd with obedience nay so much did the Lord regard the Heart that he would not admit of any Gift for the building of the Temple but what came from a free will CHAP. XXIII Verse 2. IN that they were called the Feasts of the Lord men are taught in them to seek and attend such things as belonged to God and not their own business pleasures and sports And in the fourth verse they are called holy Convocations think therefore in your Conscience whether gadding and rioting be holy exercises and meet for an holy Convocation To this end they are still call'd in the Christian Church Holy dayes to put us in mind of the right use of them Verse 3. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Wherefore saith St. Augustine learn that no place priviledgeth thee to break Gods Law but as being a sinner whithersoever thou goest thou carriest the yoak of sin so being the servant of God in all places obey his Will Verse 5. O marvellous accordance betwixt the two Testaments in the very time of their delivery there is the same agreement which is in their substance The ancient Iews kept our Feasts and we still keep theirs The Feast of the Passover is the time of Christs Resurrection then did he passe from under the bondage of Death Christ is our Passover the spotless Lamb whereof not a bone must be broken And so likewise the very day wherein God came down in Fire and Thunder to deliver the Law even the same day came also the Holy Ghost
down upon the Disciples in fiery Tongues for the propagation of the Gospel The promulgation of the Law makes way for the Law of the Gospel No man receives the Holy Ghost but he that hath felt the terrors of Sinai Verse 10. This being but one single sheaf that God demanded it might strike their hearts with a pious sense of his Goodness that giveth so much and taketh so little that giveth without measure and taketh by measure yea by a very small measure So let it still profit us to this day for even now also we receive much and give little would we give that little thankfully and chearfully what a comfort would God take in it Though he need none of our Goods only seeking to exercise our obedience and love Verse 11. This shaking of the sheaf before the Lord taught them to acknowledge that the blessing of new Corn every year cometh neither from the fertility of the ground nor the labour and industry of man but from the Lord. Verse 14. This Feast having its time assigned they could not enter upon their Harvest before it was full ready which by this time it would be unless they would either reap before they offered this first sheaf or offer it before the day appointed And so you see it had an use to restrain ill Husbands and to make them more careful that old Corn might be kept till new came A gracious God that will so care for sinful Man Verse 24. Some think that this Feast was instituted for a remembrance of the pardoning of that grievous Idolatry committed by erecting and worshipping the Golden Calf others that they might learn holy Assemblies to be appointed by the voice of God and if they then when they heard these Trumpets blow might think God called for them to the meeting why should not we now having our Bells for their Trumpets think God calleth for us to the Assemblies of the Faithful when we hear them ring in our Ears Surely I know a feeling heart doth and therefore cannot be quiet without going And upon this account this Feast might be a figure shewing how Christ by the preaching of the Gospel as by a loud Trumpet should be spread over the World and our Salvation by him In regard whereof the Prophets bids the Ministers lift up their voices like Trumpets Isai. 58. 1. Verse 34. The use of this Feast was to remember the Jews of their Estate when they had no Houses but lived in Tents or Tabernacles and Booths as also to preach unto them the Doctrine afterward delivered by the Apostle That here we have no abiding City but should reckon of our Honses as of Tabernacles for a time And might we not heretofore remember upon our Feasts our state past under cruelty bondage our wars and Dissentions in this Land the fall of our Friends and the change of many Houses our Imposions and Taxes and in a word very many Miseries and Calamities laying them to those then present times wherein we enjoyed Truth and Liberty of Conscience without either death or danger what a change was this to a Man that knoweth and feeleth the blessing Let us therefore do what we ought to do and what the Jews did thank God most heartily for the change and beseech him to restore us such times that in peace we may live in peace dye and in peace that never endeth live with him for ever Verse 37. These Feasts you may see were in remembrance for the most part of some benefits and mercies of God and therefore plainly teach us what a due duty from us to God it is to remember carefully and thankfully his loving favours shewed to us at any time upon any occasion Thus the stones were commanded to be set up by Ioshua 4. 6 7. for a sign to the Jews that when their Children should ask their Fathers c. CHAP. XXIV Verse 2. IN these times of Shadows and Figures those Lights signified that while they were thus used the true Light was not yet come by which all true Believers should be delivered from the darkness of Death And further this Light was a figure also of true Doctrine which ever must shine in the Church of God The Oyl Olive which they are commanded to bring must be pure likewise to shew that that Doctrine must have no mixture of Mans devices but be pure Verse 10. Though the Father of this Offender was a stranger an Egyptian yet God would not spare him how much less then his own people I mean Christians by Father and Mother Baptized in his Faith brought up in his fear hearers of his Word and Professors of it Secondly Though this Man committed this fault in his anger yet God spared him not how then do we excuse our Offences by our Anger saying it was in my wrath I said so or did so Verse 11. This Blaspheming was Cursing the other by the Name of God such as our fearful and Damnable Phrases are Gods Curse light on thee the Plague of God take thee which kind of Speaking is not only a breach of the Second Table concerning the love to our Neighbour but a breach also of the First Table by taking Gods most Holy Name in vain and then to use God in your Revenge and to make him a party or an Executioner of your Rage wishing that he may Curse and Plague where you will he being all Mercy all Goodness all Justice O what an encrease of your sin is this Verse 12. This grievous Offender is not winked at by them that heard him neither yet punished by them that had no Authority out of a colour of Zeal but he is orderly and by a right Zeal carried to Moses the Magistrate and his offence opened there Moses again although such a man yet will do nothing hastily in Judgement and especially touching Life but he will be advised by God and in the mean time committeth him to Ward Verse 14. By this Ceremony of putting their hands upon his Head the Lord made the Witnesses careful what they said for it taught them that if they bare false Witness then were they guilty of the Blood of him so shed but if they spake truly then as he that offered a Sacrifice by laying his Hand upon the head of it did cast his sins upon the Beast so they by that Ceremony laid his Blood upon his own head and they remained clear and blameless yea the whole Congregation by such Execution of Justice is cleansed So that when Phineas had slain the wicked Person it is said he turned the wrath of God from the Land Numb 25. and the killing of the wicked is called Victima Dei the sacrifice of God Isai. 34. Ier. 46. Verse 16. When the Lord will have the whole Congregation to stone him he maketh tryal of the zeal of all and teacheth all to concur with the Magistrate in love and liking of Justice and in furthering of it so far as belongeth to every mans place Whereas
to be careful to do them with all possible Care and Reverence Hence it is that Christ willeth us to be careful not only what we hear Mark 4. but also how we hear Luke 8. 18. We must regard not only the matter that is delivered but the manner how it is received for as much as we may hear the Word and yet sin in our hearing Whensoever therefore we have to do in any part of Gods Worship let us come in Humility and Lowliness let us approach near him with a broken Heart with a Conâ—rite Heart and with an Humble Soul falling down flat before his foot-stool and Worshipping towards his Holy Temple Verse 22. Moses in this and the following Verses repeateth sundry points set down in the former Chapter to teach us that it is lawful for Ministers to make repetition of things formerly taught and to deliver the same points and parts of Religion again and again not thereby to ease themselves or maintain Idleness but for the benefit of the Church for first Men are commonly dull in Hearing weak in Remembring slow in practising and therefore have need that the same things should be often press'd upon them Secondly Repetition worketh a deeper Impression in us and serveth to beat it into the Conscience as well as the Understanding CHAP. V. Verse 6. AS every Sin is a violation of a Law so every violation of a Law reflects upon the Law-maker It is the same offence to Coyn a penny and a Piece the same to counterfeit the Seal of a Subpaena as of a Pardon The second Table was writ by the Hand of God as well as the first and the Majesty of God as he is a Law-giver is wounded in an Adultery and a Theft as well as in an Idolatry or a Blasphemy It is not enough to consider the deformity and the foulness of an Action so as that an honest Man would not have done it but so as it violates a Law of God and his Majesty in that Law The shame of Men is one bridle that is cast upon us It is a moral obduration and in the Suburbs next door to a spiritual obduration to be voice-proof censure-proof not to be afraid nor ashamed what the World sayes He that relies upon his Plaudo Domi though the World hiss I give my self a Plaudite at home I have him at my Table and her in my bed whom I would have and I care not for Rumor he that rests in such a Plaudite prepares for a Trajedy a Trajedy in the Amphitheater the double Theater this World and the next too Even the shame of the World should be one bridle but the strongest is the other to consider that every such sin is a violation of the Majesty of God Verse 8. What is given to the Priest is given to the Lord for he is the Lords receiver Tithes then are due to the Ministers of Christ that liveth because due to Christ and thus Abraham paid Tithes to Melchisedec as a Priest and Type of Christ and Melchisedec Tith'd Abraham by the same Divine Right whereby he blessed him the Minister therefore of Christ blessing the People according to his Office may also receive Tithes of them and indeed who should receive them for Christ but those that are in Christs stead But now a dayes neither Christ can receive his due nor the Minister his too many both deny what is due to Christ as God and to the Priest as a man not allowing him so much as is fit for his natural sustenance It was long since and may stil be so a just Complaint that many dealt by their Ministers as Carriers do by their Horses they laid heavy burdens upon them and then hung Bells about their necks hard work and good words they shall have but easie Commons and slight wages as if they were of the Camelions kind and could live by the Ayr. Verse 15. The Husband here is to bring his suspected Wife to the place and means of her Tryal If every Woman suspected might be put away many Men growing weary of their Wives would readily entertain any the least flying report and thereupon take occasion to be Divorc'd from them Upon this it is Gods Ordinance here that no innocent person should be oppressed in Judgement and that none at the private pleasure of any should be condemned before their Tryal Every man must hold up his hand at the Bar before he be pronounc'd guilty No person is to be condemn'd upon suspition only or presumption or bare surmize for were it enough to be accused innocency it self could not escape So that it is not sufficient to Condemn a man or to accuse him for guilty to be suspected Suspition is an another mans heart or Head and therefore we cannot alwayes avoid Suspition except we had the Government of their hearts and heads We must be careful to avoid the fault though we cannot the shame take heed of the sin though we cannot prevent the suspition CHAP. VI. Verse 3. THese Nazarites were diligently to imploy their time about the study of the Law and therefore as diligently to keep themselves from Wine and strong Drink which would make them forget the Law Drunkenness causeth forgetfulness hence the Ancients feigned Bacchus to be the Son of Forgetfulness and stands in full opposition to Reason or Religion when the Wine is in the wit is out Seneca saith That for a man to think to be Drunk and yet to keep his right Reason is to think to drink rank poison and yet not to dye by it And upon the same ground it was with this here in the Text that the Disciples of Christ those Nazarites of the Gospel were enjoyned by our Saviour Luke 21. to take heed that they were not overcharg'd with Surfeiting and Drunkenness Even the Disciples themselves had in them the common poison of Nature and so were obnoxious even to the most reproachful evils Let the best Ministers of the Gospel therefore the severest Nazarites have a care of this Evil. A full belly makes a foul heart and what sin may it not produce in the best unless God prevent for the rankest Weeds grow out of the fattest Soil Verse 4. The Nazarite here was not only to abstain from Wine but also from the very kernel and husk of the Grape He that would keep clear from great transgressions must make a Conscience of all and avoid not only the gross scandalous stains and blemishes of his Christian profession but the very first blushes and appearances of evill As the Spider in the midst of her Web shrinks at the least noise that shakes her work and retires presently from the danger so should the perfect Convert shrink at the least noise whispering and murmuring of Sin he should fly the first address and complement of the Devil in a Temptation the sight the roof the ayr of Rimmon and not bow down with Naaman though to be lean'd upon only Verse 20. The Breast and shoulder
here so they were from the beginning but here is noted a continuance of this Ordinance when it is said That he sanctified the first-born to himself what time he smote every first-born in Egypt Now the first-born are said to be Gods by a singular right by right of Redemption because he Redeemed them he saved them he delivered them from the house of bondage and he that is saved is not his own but his that saved him And so the first-born here were Types first of Christ who was the first-born among many brethren Rom. 8. 29. To whom therefore we must give the honour of his first Birth-right all our sheaves must veil and bow to his sheaf Secondly of Christians Those first-born whose Names are written in Heaven Heb. 12. 23. who are dear to God as his first-born CHAP. IX Verse 3. THe Paschal Lamb was taken up the Tenth day but not Sacrificed until the fourteenth that they might so kill the Passover as first to sanctifie themselves and prepare their Brethren For which cause also it was a received Tradition among the Jews that during those four dayes the Lamb was tyed to their Bed-posts to put them in mind of what they were to do and then in the Evening they eat it which signified that Christ came and was offered up in the Evening of the World in the last dayes saith the Apostle God sent his Son Heb. 1. 2. In the last hour 1 Ioh. 5. when all lay buried in darkness in the Even-tide of our sin and death Verse 6. It appears that these good men that were shut out from this part of Gods service by reason they were defiled by touching a dead body were much grieved and troubled in mind that they were bar'd from the Passover and therefore make earnest complaint to Moses for the separation desiring to be eased and relieved by him From whence we are taught that it is a great cause of sorrow and grief to Gods dear Children when they are by any just occasion or the hand of God upon them with-held and kept back from the parts and exercises of his Worship This was the ground of Davids complaint in the Psalms where he maketh the condition of the Sparrow and Swallow to be better than his which might come nearer to the Altar of God than he But on the other side Carnal and Worldly men lament bitterly for earthly losses and troubles but never trouble themselves for the loss of spiritual things Nay they are vex'd and tormented as if they were upon the rack that they are constrain'd to come so oft to the Word to the Sacrament to the House of Prayer they cry with them in Amos When will the Sabbath be done Amos 8. 5. and with those other When shall we depart out of Syon it is time we be gone Verse 11. The Israelite here were to eat the Passover with unleavened Bread with soundness in point of Faith and sincerity in point of practice to watch carefully against corruption in Life and Doctrine which should teach us to be punctual in our preparation to and participation of the Christian Passover to abstain and purge our selves from the leaven of malice and wickedness for a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump one spoonful of Vinegar will soon tart a great deal of sweet Milk but a great deal of Milk will not so soon sweeten one spoonful of Vinegar The Israelites likewise were to eat the Passover here with bitter herbs to teach that looking upon Christ whom they have pierc'd men should be in bitterness and feel what an evil and bitter thing sin is being ready to suffer hardship with Christ though he should feed us to the full with bitter herbs and make us drunk with Wormwood so that at last we be rewarded with the Milk and Honey of an Eternal Canaan Verse 17. This Cloud was their guide and conduct in all their wayes when it moved they moved and when it stood still they rested which should teach thee in all thy wayes to acknowledg and look up to God and he shall direct thy paths As God carefully chose out the Israelites way in the Wilderness not the shortest but yet the safest for them so will God do for all those that make him their guide The Athenians had a conceit that their Goddess Minerva turn'd all their evil Counsels into good unto them and the Romans thought that their Visibilia another Heathenish Deity set them again in the right way when at any time they were out All this and more than this is undoubtedly done by the true God for all that commit their wayes unto him for direction and success Lo this is our God saith the Psalmist for ever and ever he will be our guide even unto death Ps. 48. 14. CHAP. X. Verse 2. SEeing these silver Trumpets served for the Camp and the Congregation to assemble and remove and that the power of making them is committed to Moses who hath the sole prerogative to call and dissolve Assemblies about publick affairs we learn that it belongs to Kings and Princes as their proper Right to gather together and to dismiss such as are gathered together Every one hath not authority to draw multitudes together we must have lawful and orderly Assemblies In Egypt without Pharaoh no man might lift up his hand or foot Gen. 41. Secondly it reproves those that being summoned by the sound of these Trumpets i. e. call'd together by a lawful Magistrate refuse to come this was the sin of Corah and his Complices And we know their fearful punishment for that sin In the natural body the beginning of all motion is from the Head and so it ought to be in the Body Politick Thirdly This reproves those that assemble before they are call'd Corah and his Confederates would not assemble when they were call'd these assemble before they be call'd the other were too slow and dull these are too quick and nimble-headed So then all must keep their places and standings they must come when they are call'd and they must be call'd before they come Verse 10. As the Priests here were to sound their silver Trumpets at their solemn Feasts for a monument of spiritual gladness before the Lord so must Ministers of the Gospel publish the glad-tidings of the Gospel Speak to the heart of Ierusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplish'd her sin is pardoned Isai. 40. 2. Make the people hear the joyful sound that they may walk in the sence of Gods presence and in the light of his countenance which is joy of the Holy Ghost and upon this account it was that this and other Musical Instruments used in Gods service as part of the Jewish Pedagogy were types of that spiritual joy which we Christians should express in holy duties no less than if we heard the most exquisite Musick There should be continual Musick habitual joy in Gods Children who are the Temple of the Holy Ghost Therefore it was that the
what can Ioshua and I do against ten Rulers it is better to sit still than to rise and fall but he resolves to swim against this stream and will either draw Friends to the truth or Enemies upon himself True Christian fortitude teacheth us not to regard the number or quality of the Opponents but the Equity of the Cause and cares not to stand alone and challenge all comers and if it could be opposed by as many worlds as men it may be over-born but it cannot be daunted Whereas popularity carries weak minds and teaches them the safety of Erring with a multitude Caleb saw the giantly Anakims and the walled Cities as well as the rest and yet he saith Let us go up and possess it as if it were no more but to go and see and Conquer Faith is couragious and makes nothing of these dangers that daunt others Verse 31. See the idle Pleas of Distrust we are not able they are stronger Could not God inable them was he not stronger than their Gyants had he not promised to displace the Canaanites to settle them in their stead how much more easie is it for us to spy their weakness than for them to espy the strength of their adversaries when we measure our spiritual success by our own power we are vanquish'd before we fight he that would overcome must neither look upon his own arm nor the arm of his Enemy but the mouth and hand of him that hath promised and can perform who are we flesh and blood with our breath in our Nostrils that we should fight with Principalities Powers spiritual wickedness in heavenly places the matter is too unequal we are like Grashoppers to these Gyants When we compare our selves with them how can we but despair when we compare them with God how can we be discouraged he that hath brought us into this field hath promised us victory God knew their strength ere he offered to commit us Verse 33. It is very material with what Eyes we look upon all subjects Fear doth not more multiply Evils than Faith deminisheth them which is therefore bold because it either sees not or contemns that terror which fear represents to the weak There is none so valiant as the Believer Well might these Israelites have thought were not the Amalekites stronger than we were not they arm'd we naked Did not the only hand of Moses by lifting up beat them down Whence had the Anakims their strength but from him that bids us go up against them but now their fear hath not left them so much reason as to compare their adversaries with others but only with themselves Doubtless these Giants were mighty but their fear hath stretch'd them out some Cubits beyond their stature Distrust makes our dangers greater and our helps less than they are and fore-casts ever worse then shall be and if evills be possible it makes them certain CHAP. XIV Verse 5. IT had been time for the Israelites to have fallen down on their faces and have said go to God for us in your Prayers go before us in your directions but now on the contrary Moses and Aaron fall on their faces to them and sue to them that they would be content to be conducted Had they been suffered to depart they had perished Moses and his few had been victorious and yet as if he could not be happy without them he falls on his face to them that they would stay We have never so much need to be importuned as in those things whose benefit should make us most importunate The sweetness of Gods Law and our promised glory is such as should draw all hearts after it and yet if we did not sue to Men as for life that they would be reconciled to God and be saved I doubt whether they would obey yea it were well if our sute were sufficient to prevail Verse 10. Though Moses and Aaron intreat upon their faces and Ioshua and Caleb perswade and rend their Garments yet they move nothing The obstinate multitude grown more violent with opposing is ready to return them stones for their prayers Such hath been ever the thanks of fidelity and truth cross'd Wickedness proves desperate and instead of yielding seeks for Revenge Nothing is so hateful to a resolute sinner as good Counsel We are become Enemies to the World because we tell them truth Verse 13. It was not so much Israel that Moses respected as God in Israel He was thrifty and zealous for his Maker and would not have him lose the glory of his mighty deliverances nor would abide a pretence for any Egyptian Dogg to bark against the powerful work of God then the Egyptians shall hear it If Israel could have perish'd without dishonour to God perhaps Moses his hatred to their unbelief would have overcome his natural love and he had let gone alone now so tender is he over the Name of God that he would rather have Israel escape with a sin then Gods glory should be blemish'd in the opinions of Men by a just Judgement He saw that the Eyes and Tongues of all the World were intent upon Israel he knew how ready the World would be to miscontrue and how the Heathens would be ready to cast imputations of Levity or impotence upon God and therefore sayes Then the Egyptians will hear it Happy is that Man that can make Gods glory the scope of all his actions and desires nor cares for his own welfare nor fears the miseries of others but with respect to God in both CHAP. XV. Verse 20. THe substance of this Law was to teach them from whence they enjoy'd their Land their Corn their Wine and their Dew and all that they possessed to wit by the meer gift and blessing of God Whatever we possess by the sole gift of God we possess it Of whom shall we receive our Food if we seek it not at Gods hand if the Child want Food and Raiment to whom shall he go but to his Father and as we have our meat from God so we must eat and drink as in the presence of God And if we did but seriously think upon this truth that God is present with us at our Tables that he sits down and riseth with us it would teach us more sobriety and moderation than is commonly used at our meals It is therefore our duty whatever we have received whether it be little or much to imploy it to good uses We must take special care not to abuse Gods gifts or wrong any his Creatures we enjoy in as much as in wronging them we wrong God himself the giver of them Verse 38. This Fringe was to put them in mind of the Commandements of the Lord to do them as you may read in the following verse and therefore were termed Philacteries i. e. Conservatories so called because by the use of them the Law was kept in remembrance God had charg'd the Jews to wear these borders for this end as also to bind the
now their hearts would have misgiven But loe these bold Traytors stand impudently staring in the door of their Tents as if they would out-face the revenge of God as if Moses had never wrought miracle before them as if no Israelite had ever bled for rebelling those that should perish are blinded Pride and Infidelity obdures the heart and makes even Cowards fearless Verse 31. In Dathan and Abirams case God may seem to proceed apace towards Execution but yet it had all these pauses in arrest of Judgement and these reprieves before Execution First When Moses had information of their factious proceedings he falls upon his face before God and laments and deprecates in their behalf verse 4. he calls them to a fair Tryal and Examination the next day verse 5. and they say We will not come verse 12. and again which implies that Moses cited them again we will not come verse 14. and Moses went up to them again and the Elders of Israel followed and all prevailed not and then Moses comes to pronounce Judgement verse 29. and after and yet not presently after the Judgement Execution followed verse 31. thus still God goes his own way to speak before he strikes to lighten before he thunders to warn before he wounds Verse 41. Here instead of Praying these Israelites murmur instead of praying to God murmur against Moses What have the righteous done It is the hard condition of Authority that when the multitude fare well they applaud themselves when ill they repine against their Governors Who can hope to be free if Moses and Aaron escape not Never any Prince so merited a people he thrust himself upon the Pikes of Pharaoh's tyranny he brought them from a bondage worse than death his Rod divided the Sea and shared life to them death to their pursuers Who would not have thought these men so obliged to Moses that no death could have opened their mouths or rais'd their hands against him yet now when their fellows are justly punish'd of God they murmur against Moses No marvel if we deal so with men when God receives this measure from us One year of Famine one Summer of Pestilence makes us over-look all the blessings of God and more to mutiny at the sence of our evil than to praise him for our varieties of good O God I have made an ill use of thy mercies if I have not learnt to be content with thy Corrections CHAP. XVII Verse 1. HOw desirous was God to give satisfaction even to the obstinate there is nothing more material than that men should be assured their spiritual guides have their commission and Calling from God the want whereof is a prejudice to our success It should not be so but the corruption of Men will not receive good but from due Messengers Verse 2. Before Gods calling all men are alike every Name is alike written in their rod there is no difference in the letters in the wood neither the characters are fairer nor the staff more precious it is the choice of God that makes the distinction so is it in our callings of Christianity all are equally devoid of possibility of Grace all equally liveless by Nature we are all Sons of wrath If we be now better than others who separated us we are all Crab-stocks in this Orchard of God he may graft what Fruit he pleases upon us only the Grace and effectual Calling of God makes the difference Verse 5. Before God wrought miracles in the Rod of Moses now in the Rod of Aaron As Pharaoh might see himself in Moses his Rod who of a Rod of Defence and protection was turn'd into a venemous Serpent so Israel might see themselves in the Rod of Aaron Every Tribe and every Israelite was of himself as a sear-stick without life without sap and if any one of them had power to live and flourish he must acknowledg it from the immediate power and gift of God Verse 6. These 12 Heads of Israel would never have writ their Names in their Rods but in hope they might be chosen to this dignity What an honour was this Priesthood whereof all the Princes of Israel are ambitious If they had not thought it an high preferment they had not so much envied the Office of Aaron What shall we think of this change Is the Evangelical administration of less worth than the Levitical while the Testament is better is the service worse how is it that the Great think themselves too great for this imployment how is it that under the Gospel men are disparaged with that which honoured them under the Law that their ambition and scorn meet in one subject Verse 7. These 12 Rods are not laid up in several Cabinets of their owners but are brought forth and laid before the Lord. It is fit God should make choice of his own attendants Even we Men hold it injurious to have servants obtruded upon us by others Never shall that Man have comfort in his Ministry whom God hath not chosen The great Commander of the World hath set every Man in his station to one he hath said Stand thou in this Tower and watch to another Make thou good these Trenches to a third Digg thou in this Mine He that gives and knows our abilities can best set us on work Verse 8. This Rod was the Pastoral staff of Aaron the great Shepheard of Israel God rectifies his approbation of his charge by the Fruit. That a Rod cut off from the Tree should blossom it was strange but that in one Night it should bear buds blossom and Fruit and that both ripe and hard it was highly miraculous The same power that revives the dead Plants in Winter in the Spring doth it here without Earth without Time without Sun that Israel might see and grant it was no reason his choice should be limited whose power is unlimited Verse 10. The same God which by many transient demonstrations had approved the calling of Aaron to Israel will now have a permanent memorial of their conjunction that whensoever they should see this relick they might be ashamed of their presumption and infidelity The Name of Aaron was not more plainly writ in that Rod than the sin of Israel was in the Fruit of it and how much more Israel finds Rebellion beaten with this Rod appears in the following Complaint Behold we are dead we perish God knows how to extort glory to his own Name from the most obstinate gainsayers CHAP. XVIII Verse 20. IF the Lord himself be Aarons portion and his Inheritance why should not Aaron content himself though he have no other Inheritance among the People And if the Lord be the portion of Gods Children who are his Royal Priesthood why should not they rest well contented although they want an inheritance inthe things of this World and why may not every Child of God as well as the Sons of Levi say God himself is my portion and God all-sufficient in himself is all-sufficient unto me
not so affect us if it were not with the danger of our own Secure minds never startle till God come home to their sences Verse 4. The Midianites joyn with the Moabites in Consultation in Action against Israel one would have thought they should have look'd for favour from Moses for Iethro's sake who was both a Prince in their Country and Father in Law to Moses and either now or not long before was with Israel in the Wilderness Neither is it unlike but that Moses having found forty years harbour among them would have been what he might inclineable to favourable treaties with them but now they are so fast link'd to Moab that they will either sink or swim together Intireness with wicked consorts is one of the strongest Chains of Hell and binds us to a participation both of sin and punishment an easie occasion will knit wicked hearts together in conspiracy against the Church of God Verse 6. Their Errand is Divelish Come curse Israel that which Sathan could not do by the Sword of Og and Seon he will now try to effect by the Tongue of Balaam If either strength or policy would prevail against Gods Church it could not stand And why should not we be as industrious to promote the glory of God and bend both our hands and heads to the causes of the Almighty When all helps fail Moab the Magician is sent for it is the sign of a desperate Cause to make Sathan either our Counsellor or Refuge Verse 9. I should wonder to hear God speak with a false Prophet if I did not know it hath been no rare thing with him as with men to bestow words where he will not bestow favour Not the sound of the voice of God but the matter which he speaks argues love he may speak to an Enemy he speaks peace to none but his own It is a vain bragg God hath spoken to me so may he do to Reprobates or Devils but what said he Did he say to my Soul I am thy Salvation hath he indented with me that he will be my God and I shall be his I cannot hear this voice and not live God heard all the Consultation and Message of these Moabites these Messengers could not have moved their Foot or their Tongue but in him and yet he which asked Adam where he was asks Balaam What men are these I have ever seen that God loves to take occasion of proceeding with us from our selves rather than from his own immediate prescience Hence it is that we lay open our Wants and confess our sins to him that knows both better than our own hearts because he will deal with us from our own mouths Verse 12. The reward of the divination had easily commanded the Journey and Curse of the Covetous Prophet if God had not stayed him How oft are Wicked men Curs'd by a Divine hand even in those sins which their Hearts stand to It is no thank to lewd men that their Wickedness is not prosperous Whence it is that the World is not over-run with Evil but from this that Men cannot be so ill as they would Verse 15. Where Wickedness meets with power it thinks to command all the World and takes great scorn of any repulse So little is Balack discouraged for one refusal that he sends so much the stronger Message more Princes and more Honourable O that we could be so importuuate for our good as Wicked Men are for the compassing of their designs a Denial doth but whet the desires of vehement Suitors Why are we faint in Spiritual things when we are not denied but delayed Verse 22. We that see only the outside of Balaam may wonder why he that permitted him to go afterward opposeth his going but God that saw his Heart perceived what corrupt affections carried him he saw that his covetous desires and wicked hopes grew the stronger the nearer he came to his end an Angel is therefore sent to with-hold the hasty Sorcerer Our inward disposition is the life of our actions according to that doth the God of Spirits judge us whiles men censure according to our external motions To go at all when God had commanded to stay was presumptuous but to go with a desire to Curse made the act doubly sinful and fetcht an Angel to resist it It is one of the worthy employments of good Angels to make secret opposition to evill designs many a wicked act have they hindred without the knowledg of the Agent It is all one with the Almignty to work by Spirits and Men it is therefore our glory to be thus set on Work to stop the course of evill either by disswasion or violence is an Angelical service Verse 28. That no man may marvel to see Balaam have visions from God and utter Prophecies from him his very Ass hath his Eyes opened to see the Angel which his Master could not and his mouth opened to speak more reasonably than his Master There is no Beast deserves so much wonder as this of Balaam whose common sence is advanc'd above the Reason of his Rider so as for the time the Prophet is brutish and the Beast Prophetical who can but stand amaz'd at the Eye at the Mouth of this silly Creature for so dull a sight it was much to see a bodily object that were not too apparent but to see that Spirit which his Rider discern'd not was far beyond Nature To hear a Voice to come from that Mouth which was used only to bray it was strange and uncouth but to hear a Beast whose Nature is noted for incapacity to out-reason his Master a professed Prophet is in the very height of Miracles Yet no heart can stick at these that considers the dispensation of the Almighty in both Our Eye could no more see a Beast than a Beast can see an Angel if he had not given this power to it and if his power can make the very Stones to speak how much more a Creature of sense we may wonder we cannot distrust when we compare the act with the Author which can as easily Create a Voice without a Body as a Body without a Voice There is no Mouth into which God cannot put words and how oft doth he chose the weak and unwise to confound the Learned and Mighty Verse 32. I hear the Angel of God taking notice of the cruelty of Balaam to his Beast his first words to the unmerciful Prophet are in expostulating the wrong We little think it but God shall call us to an account for the cruel unmerciful usage of his poor mute Creatures He hath made us Lords not Tyrants Owners not Tormentors he that hath given us leave to kill them for our use hath not given us power to abuse them at our pleasure they are so our Drudges as that they are our Fellows by Creation It was a signe the Magician would easily strike Israel with a Curse when he wish'd for a Sword to strike his harmless Beast It is
ill falling into those hands whom Beasts find unmerciful CHAP. XIII Verse 1. WHo can doubt whether Balaam were a false Prophet who sees him Sacrificing in the Mount of Baal had he been from the true God he would rather have said Pull me down these Altars of Baal then build me here seven others The very place convinces him of falsehood and Idolatry and why seven Altars what needs all this pomp when the True God never requir'd but one at once as himself is one Why doth the false Prophet call for no less than seven as if God stood upon numbers as if the Almighty would have his power either divided or limited Here is nothing but a great and magnificent pretence of Devotion It hath been ever seen that the false Worshippers of God have made more pompous shews and fairer flourishes of their Piety and Religion than the true Verse 3. Now when Balaam sees his seven Bullocks and seven Rams smoking upon seven Altars he goes up higher into the Mount as some counterfeit Moses to receive the answer of God But will God meet with a Sorcerer Will he make a Prophet of a Magician O Man who shall prescribe God what Instruments to use he knows how to imploy not only Saints and Angels but Wicked Men Beasts Devils to his own glory he that put words into the mouth of the Ass put words into the mouth of Balaam the words do but pass from him they are not polluted because they are not his as the Trunk through which a Man speaks is not more Eloquent for the speech that is uttered through it What a notable Proclamation had the Infidels wanted of Gods favour to his people if Balaam's Tongue had not been used how many shall once say Lord we have Prophecied in thy Name that shall hear Verily I know you not Verse 28. What madness is this in Balaam that hopes to change success with places as if God were not the same every where Neither was that bold fore-head ashamed to importune God again in that wherein his own Mouth had testified an assurance of Denial The reward was in one of his Eyes the Revenging Angel in another I know not whether for the time he more lov'd the Bribe or fear'd the Angel and whiles he is in this distraction his Tongue blesseth against his Heart and his Heart curses against his Tongue it angers him that he dares not speak what he would and now at last rather than lose his hopes he resolves to speak worse then Curses the fear of Gods Judgements in a Worldly Heart is at length overcome with the love of gain CHAP. XXIV Verse 11. THose that are themselves transported with vanity and ambition think that no Heart hath power to resist these Offers Balam thought he had struck the business when he had once mentioned Promotion to great Honour Self-love makes him think that all the World would be glad to run a madding after his bait Nature thinks it impossible to contemn Honour and Wealth and because too many Souls are thus taken cannot believe that any would escape But let Carnal Minds know there are those that can spit the World in the face and say Thy Gold and Silver perish with thee and that in comparison of a good Conscience can tread under foot his best proffers like shadows as they are and that can do as Balaam said verse 13. What the Lord saith that will I speak Verse 20. What was this sin of the Amalekites for which God threatneth That they shall perish for ever It was that according to Interpreters mentioned Exod. 17. Remember how Amalekmet thee by the way and smote the hindmost of you this Sin slept all the time of the Judges yet so soon as Israel had a King and that King setled in peace God gives charge to call them to an account 1 Sam. 15. As we use to say of Winter so may we say of Gods Judgements They never rot in the Sky but shall fall if late yet surely yet seasonably There is smal comfort in the delay of Vengeance while we are sure it shall lose nothing in the way by length of Protraction Verse 24. Balaam here Prophesieth of the rising and falling of great Princes and Empires they had their Heads lifted up on high and were advanced to the greatest honour but suddenly they came tumbling down and all their glory lay in the dust From whence we learn that great Men and mighty Princes suddenly decay and come to nothing they are in a moment cast down and left destitute when they little think of it Neither can we marvail at this change of the Places and Estates of the Sons of Men seeing it is the Lords doing and the work of his right hand The Lord lifteth up and pulleth down according to his own will and pleasure who maketh the highest Tide to have the lowest Ebb. CHAP. XXV Verse 4. AS the sins of great Men are exemplary so are their punishments Nothing procures so much credit to Government as Impartial Executions of Noble Offendors Those whom their sins have debased deserve no favour in the punishment As God knows no Honour no Royalty in matter of sin no more may his Deputies Contrarily Connivence at the outrages of the Mighty cuts the sinews of any State If good Laws turn once to Spiders webs which are broken through by the bigger Flies no hand will fear to sweep them down Verse 8. Now the sin is punish'd the Plague ceaseth The revenge of God sets out ever after the sin but if the revenge of Men which commonly comes later can overtake it God gives over the Chase. How often hath the infliction of a less punishment avoided a greater There are none so good Friends to a State as couragious and impartial Ministers of Justice these are the Reconcilers of God and the people more than the Prayers of them that sit still and do nothing Verse 25. The Daughters of Moab come into the Tents of Israel and have captived those whom the Amorites and Amalekites could not resist Our first Mother Fve bequeathed this Dowry to her Daughters that they should be our helpers to sin the weaker Sex is the stronger in this Conquest Had the Moabites sent their subtilest Counsellors to perswade the Israelites to their Idol Sacrifices they had been repell'd with scorn but now the beauty of their Women is over-eloquent and succesful That which in the first World betrayed the Sons of God hath now betray'd Gods People It had been happy for Israel if Balaam had used any Charms but these As it is the use of God to fetch glory to himself out of the worst actions of Satan so it is the guise of that Evil-one to raise advantage to himself from the fairest pieces of the Workmanship of God No one means hath so enriched Hell as beautiful Faces CHAP. XXVI Verse 9. THey were indeed famous in regard of their places but they became Infamous and Ignominous by their Sin and Punishment
It is a dangerous thing in the service of God to decline from his own institutions we have to do with a power which is wise to prescribe his own Worship just to require what he hath prescribed powerful to revenge that which he hath not required CHAP. XXVII Verse 13. AFter many painful and perilous enterprizes now is Moses drawing to his rest he hath brought his Israelites from Egypt through the Sea and Wilderness within the sight of their Promised Land and now himself must take possession of that Land whereof Canaan was but a Type When we have done that we come for it is time for us to be gone This Earth is made only for Action not for Fruition the services of Gods Children should be ill rewarded if they must stay here alwayes Let no man think much that those are fetch'd away that are faithful to God they should not change if it were not to their preferment It is our folly that we would have good men live for ever and account it a hard measure that they were He that lends them to the World owes them a better turn than this Earth can pay them It were injurious to wish that goodness should hinder any man from Glory Verse 14. But what is this I hear displeasure mix'd with love and that to so faithful a servant as Moses he must but see the Land of Promise he shall not tread upon it because he once long ago sinn'd in distrnsting Death though it were to him an entrance into glory yet shall be also a chastisement of his Infidelity How many gracious services had Moses done to his Master yet for one act of Distrust he must be gathered to his Fathers All our obediences cannot bear out one sin against God how vainly shall we hope to make amends to God for our former Trespasses by our better behaviour when Moses hath this sin laid in his dish after so many and worthy testimonies of his fidelity when we have forgotten our sins yet God remembers them and although not in anger yet calls for our Arrerages Alass what shall become of them with which God hath ten thousand greater quarrels that amongst many millions of sins have scattered some few acts of formal services If Moses must dye the first death for one fault how shall they escape the second for sinning alwayes Even where God loves he will not wink at sin and if he do not punish yet he will chastise how much less can it stand with that eternal Justice to let wilful sinners escape Judgement Verse 16. Moses that was so tender over the welfare of Israel in his life would not slacken his care in Death He takes no thought for himself for he knew how gainful an exchange he must make all his care was for his charge Some envious natures desire to be missed when they must go and wish that the weakness or want of a Successor may be the foil of their memory and honour Moses is in a contrary disposition it sufficeth him not to find contentment in his own happiness unless he may have an assurance that Israel shall prosper after him Carnal minds are all for themselves and make use of Government only for their own advantage but good hearts look ever to the future good of the Church above their own against their own Verse 18. Moses did well to shew his good Affection to his people but in his silence God would have provided for his own he that call'd him from the sheep of Iethro will not want a Governor for his chosen to succeed him God hath fitted him whom he will chose Who can be more meet than he whose Name whose Experience whose Graces might supply yea revive Moses to the people He that searched the Land before was fittest to guide Israel into it he that was indued with the Spirit of God was the fittest Deputy for God but O the unsearcheable Counsel of the Almighty aged Caleb and all the Princes of Israel are pass'd over and Ioshua the servant of Moses is chosen to succeed his Master The eye of God is not blinded either with Gifts or with Blood or with Beauty or with strength but as in his Eternal Election so in his temporary he will have mercy on whom he will And well doth Ioshua succeed Moses the very acts of God of old were allegories where the Law ends there the Saviour begins we may see the Land of Promise in the Law only Jesus the Mediator of the New-Testament can bring us into it So was he a Servant of the Law that he supplies all the defects of Law to us he hath taken possession of the Promised Land for us he shall carry us from this Wilderness to our rest Verse 22. I do not hear Moses repine at Gods choice and grudg that this Scepter of his is not hereditary but he willingly laies hands upon his Servant to consecrate hm for his Successor Ioshua was a good man yet he had some sparks of Envy for when Eldad and Medad Prophesied he stomack'd it he that would not abide two of the Elders of Israel to Prophesie how would he have allowed his Servant to sit in his Throne What an example of meekness besides all the rest doth he here see in this last act of his Master who without all murmuring assigns his Chair of State to his Page It is all one to a gracious heart whom God will please to advance Emulation and Discontentment are the affections of Carnal minds Humility goes ever with Regeneration which teaches a man to think what ever honour be put upon others I have more than I am worthy of CHAP. XXVIII Verse 3. ALl Sacrifices under the Law did as it were lead us by the hand to Christ and point him out with the finger who is the end of the Law Rom. 10. he is both the Altar and the Sacrifice he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world as therefore these Lambs were offered in the morning and evening so was Christ from the beginning of the World unto the end thereof he is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World Rev. 13. and as this daily Offering was twice perform'd so we have daily need of Reconciliation that his Blood should be continually applied unto us by Faith and as we daily sin against him so we must have daily recourse unto him for remission of sins Again this daily Sacrifice imports the daily Sacrifice of Prayer which we ought to offer to God as our daily service due unto him and this for many Reasons First we have many sins We provoke God every day and therefore are taught in the Lords Prayer daily to pray for Forgiveness Secondly We have daily wants and therefore it is our duty daily to bewail them and daily to crave the supply of them both temporal and spiritual blessings for Body and Soul Thirdly We have daily dangers Every Creature if God give us over is able to work our
destruction therefore our only safety standeth in Prayer and begging Gods assistance Fourthly We have daily Temptations Bodily and Ghostly arising from the World the Flesh and the Devil and therefore saith our Saviour Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation Mat. 26. So then this Morning and Evening Sacrifice should direct us how and when to Worship God we must remember him in the Morning and Evening he must be the first and last in our thoughts we must begin the day and end it with him Verse 9. Every day in the Week ought to be the Christians Sabbath wherein he is to perform some duties or other of Religion but every Seventh Day should be a double Sabbath wholly taken up in the Service and Worship of God When our whole work must be to beravish'd in Spirit doing no Work but such as whereby we either bless God or look to receive a Blessing from him none but such as wherein we would the Lord should find us at his coming which Lactantius saith Will be on the Sabbath day And therefore the Jews call'd the Sabbath the Queen of dayes blessing the Lord at its coming in and going out that God might have both the first and the last Fruits of the day Verse 26. Here is handled the Feast of Pentecost or of Weeks to give God thanks after the gathering of the Harvest For in as much as God hath not only set us in this World but supplies and feeds us in it so that we live by his bounty and liberality it was his will that the Jews should keep a yearly Feast to him to give him thanks that hereby they might acknowledg all the year after that they were sustain'd by his hand Secondly These first Fruits figured out Gods Church which is a people separated unto him from the rest of the World For as the first Fruits were separated from the rest of the heap unto God so is the state of the Church call'd and cull'd out of the World unto his service CHAP. XXIX Verse 1. THis Feast of Trumpets was to be a Feast of remembrance of Gods manifold mercies received in the Wilderness that thereby they might stir up themselves to be united to God and may serve to stir us up to return unto God Praise and Thanksgiving with joyfulness of heart for all his benefits according to that of Psalm 81. 1 2. Make a joyful noise unto the God of Iacob Take a Psalm and bring hither the timbrel blow up the Trumpet in the New-Moon so David having experience of Gods goodness towards him in many preservations composed the eighteenth Psalm as a testimony of his thankfulness for his deliverance from his Enemies And although this Feast is pass'd away and abolish'd by the coming of Christ yet this remaineth that we our selves should serve for Trumpets For as the Temple being destroyed we must be spiritual Temples unto God so the Trumpets being taken away every one of us must be spiritual Trumpets i. e. we should rouze up our selves from the World and the vanities thereof Our Ears are so possess'd with the sound of earthly things and our Eyes so dazled with the pleasures of the flesh that we are as deaf and blind men that can neither hear nor see what God saith unto us wherefore we must not look till there be a solemn holy-day to call us unto the Church there to keep a Feast of Trumpets but it must serve us all the dayes of our life as a spur to cause us to return to God Verse 7. The Jews were here to afflict their Souls with voluntary sorrow for their sins for the whole year and so dispose themselves to obtain pardon and reconciliation For whereas in their private Sacrifices they durst not confess their capital sins for fear of Death due to them by the Law God graciously provided and instituted this yearly Sacrifice of Atonement and afflicting their Souls for the sins of the whole people without particular acknowledgment of any After the same manner the Lords Supper is with us a day of Atonement or afflicting of our Souls for the Passover must be eaten with four hearbs And further we may observe from hence that this day of afflicting their Souls was to be immediately before the Feast of Tabernacles verse 12. they were to be kept in sorrow five dayes before they might keep their Feast of joy which Feast signified the spiritual joy and gladness of the Saints that are redeemed by Christ all their life long We must first look upon him whom we have pierc'd and weep for him before we can receive any comfort by him We must afflict our Souls for his Passion before we shall partake of the joy of his Resurrection Verse 12. This Feast was call'd the Feast of Tabernacles because during the dayes of this Feast they were to live in Tents and Tabernacles it being a memorial of Gods preserving them in the Wilderness where was no house for them to rest in and from hence we may learn that it is a duty belonging to all to remember the dayes of their troubles and afflictions from which God in great mercy hath delivered us We are ready to forget our former condition when God hath given us rest and therefore God would have his own people year by year to depart out of their Houses and dwell in Tents that thereby they should call to mind both where they were and where they had been that although they now were at rest and ease in the Land of Canaan yet they had not alwayes been so for God had carried them upon Eagles wings and preserved them after a miraculous manner in the Wilderness CHAP. XXX Verse 2. VVHen a man vows he vows unto the Lord and therefore if he breaks it he sins against the Lord. Who expects he should have kept touch with him and accordingly will punish such a vow-breaker for he hath not lyed unto men but unto God Acts 5. As God is true saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 1. 18. our word towards you was not yea and nay but yea and Amen For the Son of God c. Why what 's all this to the purpose may some say yes very much For it implies that what a Christian doth promise to men much more to God he is bound by the earnest penny of Gods Spirit to perform he dares no more alter and falsifie his word than the Spirit of God can lye And as he looks that Gods promises should be made good to him so he is careful to pay what he hath vowed to God seeing Gods Covenant is of mercy ours of obedience and if we expect that God should be all sufficient to us we must be altogether faithful to him Verse 8. The power and authority of the Husband over the Wife is very great for all be it the Wife be at liberty to vow in the Lord when her Husband is dead yet while he lives he hath power to disanul her vows The Husband is the head of the
oblation It was a great blessing of God to overcome the Enemy and obtain the Victory but thus to overcome and to have such a Victory required an extraordinary Thanksgiving As men ought to return thanks to God for all his blessings so they ought for extraordinary Blessings to return extraordinary Thanks As in extraordinary visitations it is our duty to use extraordinary humiliation so when God shews us extraordinary mercy we must be thankful accordingly Hezekiah return'd great thanks for his great Deliverance Isai. 38. We must therefore consider what blessings we have received from God that so we may render what thankfulness we owe him else his Blessings will be turn'd into Curses and his Mercies into Judgements CHAP. XXXII Verse 5. THis was an unseasonable demand of these Men at this time but Covetousness had blinded their eyes that they could not see what was fit for them to ask and therefore were afterwards the first of the Children of Israel that were carried away Captive 1 Chron. 5. 25. After the same manner it befel Lot who looking after the goodness of the Plains of Sodom more than the goodness of the People preferr'd that place in his choice and was carried away Prisoner for it Gen. 14. Thus God will not pass by the sins of his dearest Children without a sensible check These Reubenites and Gadites for affecting the first choice had soon enough of it Strong affections bring strong afflictions as hard knots require hard wedges Earthly things court us that they may cut our throats these Hosts welcome us to our Inne with smiling countenance that they may dispatch us in our Beds Beware therefore of the Worlds cut-throat kindness Verse 18. Reuben and Gad were the first that had an Inheritance signed them yet they must enjoy it last so it falls out oft in the Heavenly Canaan the first in title are last in possession They had their lot assign'd them beyond Iordan which though it were then in peace must be purchas'd with their War that must be done for their Brethren which needed not be done for themselves they must yet still fight and fight foremost that as they had the first Patrimony they might endure the first encounter I do not hear them say this is our share let us sit down and enjoy it quietly fight who will for the rest but when they knew their own Portion they leave Wives and Children to take possession and march arm'd before their Brethren till they have conquered all Canaan Whether should we more commend their Courage or their Charity others were moved to fight with hope they only with love they could not win more they might lose themselves yet they will fight both for that they had something and that their Brethren might have Thankfulness and Love can do more with Gods Children than desire to merit or necessity no Israelite can if he might choose abide to sit still beyond Iordan when all his Brethren are in the field Verse 23. When God is searching it is high time for us to search our selves It is sad when God is searching for our sins if we are not searching for them too and it is more sad if when God comes to search for our sins we be found hiding our sins These are searching times God is searching let us search too else we may be sure as Moses tells the people of Israel here Our sins will find us out They who endeavour not to find their sins shall be found by their sins our Iniquity will enquire after us if we enquire not after it But what if Iniquity enquire after us What if Iniquity enquire after us it will find us and if Iniquity find us Trouble will find us yea if Iniquity find us alone without Christ Hell and Death will find us If Iniquity find any man he hath reason enough to say unto it what Ahab said to Eliah without reason Hast thou found me O mine enemy the best of men have reason to look out what evill is in them when God brings evil upon them or wraps them up in common evils They who have no wickedness in them to cast them under Condemnation yet have sin enough in them to make them smart under Correction CHAP. XXXIII Verse 8. THis is that place where the Israelites after three dayes journey found the bitter Waters The long deferring of a good though tedious yet makes it the better when it comes Well did the Israelites hope that the Waters which were so long in finding would be precious when they were found Yet behold they are cross'd not only in their desires but their hopes for after three dayes travel the first Fountains they find are bitter Waters If these Wels had not run pure Gall they could not have so much complained Long thirst will make bitter Waters sweet yet such were these springs that the Israelites did not so much like their moisture as abhor their relish I see the first handsel that God gives his People in their Voyage to the Land of Promise is thirst and bitterness Satan gives us pleasant entrances into his wayes and reserves the bitterness to the end God invites us to our worst at first and sweetens our conclusion with pleasure O my Saviour thou didst drink a more bitter Cup from the hands of thy Father than that which thou refused'st of the Jews or than that which I can drink from thee Verse 9. God taught his People by actions as well as words This entrance shewed them their whole Journey wherein they should taste of much bitterness but at last through the mercy of God sweetned with much more comfort and for one Fountain of bitter Water they should have no less than twelve of sweet Or did it not represent the Israelites rather in their Journey in the Fountains of whose Hearts were the bitter Waters of manifold corruptions yet their unsavory Souls are sweetned by the more abundant Graces of Gods Spirit O blessed Saviour that Fountain of Water and Blood which issued from thy side that is the application of thy Sufferings is enough to sweeten a whole Sea of bitterness I care not how unpleasant a portion I find in this Wilderness if the power and benefit of thy precious Death may season it to my Soul Verse 14. Bread they had from Heaven but wanted Water Our condition here in this World is a condition of singular indigency we are ever wanting somewhat or other Verse 42. Among the several stations which the Israelites made through the Wilderness one was Punon or Phinon which as one of the antient Fathers observes signifieth silence or sparingness of Speech upon which he maketh this useful Application Let us be careful to take up our station here sometimes while we are travailing through the Wilderness of this World It may he our wisdom to pitch in silence The hand is well imployed while we stop the mouth with it from broaching and maintaining that which is evill or from opposing that which is good
distrust of the effect His Rod he knew was approved for miracles he knew not how powerful his voice might be therefore he did not speak but strike and strike twice for failing It is a dangerous thing in Divine matters to go beyond our warrant those sins which seem trivial to men are hainous in the sight of God Any thing that savours of infidelity displeaseth him more than some other crimes of morality Yet the moving of the Rod was but a diverse thing from the moving of the Tongne it was not contrary he did not forbid the one but he commanded the other this was but across the stream not against it where shall they appear whose whole courses are quite contrary to the Commandements of God CHAP. II. Verse 5. IT is God that assigns every Man his Quarters here upon Earth and cuts us out our several conditions appointing the bounds of our habitation This should make us rest contented with our own lot and not murmur at other mens though they be of the Seed of Esau for they have a right to their Inheritance from God as well as we have for ours Even the most Wicked have Earthly things given them by the Almighty and therefore it is a rigour to say they are Usurpers As when a King gives a Traytor his Life he gives him Meat and Drink that may maintain his life so it is with Wicked Men in respect of God they shall not be call'd to an account at the Last Day for possessing what they had but for abusing that possession As for the Saints who are Heirs of the World with faithful Abraham and have a double portion being Heirs of this World and the next too though here they be held to strait allowance let them live upon Reversions and consider that they have right to all and shall one day have Rule of all Wilt not thou rest content unless God set down the Vessel to thee as to St. Peter with all manner of Beasts of the Earth and Fowls of the Ayre must you needs have first and second Course It is a very hard thing to have Earth and Heaven too God did not turn you out of one Paradice that you should here provide you of another Earth is a place of bondage and banishment to all Gods Children Verse 6. Money supplies all wants and gives a satisfactory answer to whatsoever is desired or demanded and although about Money there is much noise and great complaint yet Money answereth all it effects all What great designs did Philip bring to pass in Greece by his Gold the very Oracles were said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say as Philip would have them The Hebrew or rather Chaldee word used for Money Ezra 8. 27. signifies to do some great Work because Money is the Monarch of the World and therein bears most mastery Among Suitors in Love and Law especially Money drives the business and bargain to an upshot Verse 27. So should a Christian bespeak the World Let us pass through thy Country we will neither touch nor taste of thy Dainties but go by the Kings high way that good old way that God hath scored out unto us we will neither turn to the right hand nor to the left but keep an upright and an even course untill we arrive at the Land of Promise the Kingdom of Heaven Verse 30. He durst not trust them as fearing what so great an Army once got in might do they are not usually so easily removed God had also hardened his heart that he might come forth to fetch his own destruction Judgement need not go to find wicked Men out they run to meet their ruine Those whom God intends to deliver over to destruction shall have both their heart and their head hardned their heart against the motions of Gods Grace and their Head against the motions and Dictates of their own reason CHAP. III. Verse 1. THe Enemies of Gods Church are not consumed in a moment but wasted and consumed by the providence of God by little and little True it is God is able to bring them all to nothing at once with the breath of his mouth but it is his pleasure to waste and consume them by degrees one after another As here after Sihon was overthrown we see another Judgement of God upon another Enemy of the Church and this God doth because by them he may try the Faith and exercise the patience of his Servants No marvel if others be oftentimes deceived in us and are ignorant of the secrets of our Souls seeing we our selves know not throughly our selves untill we have ended and endured tryal For such we are indeed as we are in the time of Temptation Wherefore it is necessary that so long as we live in this World we should be kept in a continual exercise of Faith of Prayer of Repentance of obedience This was likewise done to plague the Israelites when at any time they should sin against God and therefore the Nations were left among them to be as snares in their paths whips in their sides and thorns in their eyes because they transgress'd the Covenant that God had made with their Fathers Ps. 81. 13. Verse 2. Among other means of working Faith in God and resting our selves in his Promises the blessed experience and comfortable proof which we have had of Gods mercies towards us in former times is one of the chiefest to cause us to trust in him and evermore to call upon him in our necessity This is confirm'd unto us in Davids faithful behaviour going to encounter with the uncircumcised Philistim 1 Sam. 17. 34 c. Whereby it appears how the Prophet strengtheneth his Faith by the experience that he had in times past of Gods helping hand nothing doubting but that the same God that had preserved him from the jaw of the Lyon and the paw of the Bear would keep him in this single Combate with that Champion that defied Israel Verse 26. Upon one single transgression God passeth the sentence of restraining Moses with the rest from the Promised Land Now he performs it Since that time Moses had many favours from God all which could not reverse this decreed castigation that everlasting Rule is grounded upon the very Essence of God I am Iehovah I change not Our purposes are as ourselves fickle and uncertain his are certain and immutable some things which he reveals he alters nothing that he hath decreed Verse 28 It is no small happiness to any State when their Governors are chosen by Worthiness and such Elections are ever from God whereas the intrusions of Bribery and unjust favour and violence as they make the Common-Wealth miserable so they come from him which is the author of Confusion woe be to that State that suffers it woe be to that person that works it for both of them have sold themselves the one to servitude the other to sin CHAP. IV. Verse 2. SUch add to Gods Book as wrest it and rack it making
it speak that which it never thought causing it to go two miles where it would go but one knawing and tawing it to their own purposes as the shooe-maker wretches the upper Leather with his teeth Tertullian calls Marcian the Heretick Mus Ponticus from his arroding and knawing the Scripture to make it serviceable to his Errors And too many of these kind of Mice have we at this day in this Nation who wrest Texts of Conscience into Factions Texts of Obedience into Rebellion ravishing Scripture to force out Doctrines for their own ends and then emptying their rancor by turning them to uses Verse 8. By Statutes here we may understand the Moral Law by judgements the Judicial which was fitted to the temper and disposition of the Jews like as Solon being ask'd whether he had given the best Laws to the Athenians answered the best that they could suffer And certain it is that Moses spake here as ever most Divinely and like himself or rather beyond himself the end of a thing being better if better may be than the beginning of it as good Wine is best at last and as the Sun shines most aimiably when it is going down This Book of the Law it was that the King was to write out with his own hand Deut. 17. 18. that it might serve as his Manual This was that happy Book that good Iosiah lighting upon after it had long lain hid in the Temple melted into tears at the menaces thereof and obtain'd of God to dye in peace though he were slain in War This only Book was that pretiously purling Current out of which the Lord Jesus our Champion chose all those three smooth stones wherein he prostrated the Goliah of Hell in that sharp encounter Mat. 4. Verse 11. God would have Israel see that they had not to do with some impotent Commander that is fain to publish his Laws without noise in dead Paper which can more easily enjoyn than punish to descry than execute and therefore before he gives them a Law he shews them that he can command Heaven Earth Fire Aire in revenge of the breach of that Law that they could not but think it deadly to displease such a Law-giver or violate such dreadful Statutes that they might see all the Elements examples of that obedience which they should yeild unto their Maker Now this fire wherein the Law was given is still in it and will never out Hence are those terrors which it flashes in every Conscience that hath felt remorse of sin Every Mans heart is a Sinah and resembles to him both a Heaven and Hell The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of sin is the Law Verse 12. That they might see he could find out their closest sins he delivers his Law in the light of fire that they might see what is due to their sins they see fire above to represent the fire that should be below them that they might know he could waken their security the thunder and lowder voice of God speaks to their hearts That they might see what their Hearts should do the Earth-quakes under them O Royal Law and mighty Law-giver How could they think of having any other God that had such proofs of this How could they think of making any resemblance of Him whom they saw could not be seen and whom they saw in not being seen infinite How could they think of disobeying his Deputies whom they saw so able to revenge How could they think of killing when they were half dead with the fear of him that could kill both Body and Soul How could they think of the flames of Lust that saw such fires of vengeance We Men that so fear the breach of Humane Laws for some small mulcts of Forfeiture how should we fear thee O Lord that canst cast Body and Soul into Hell Verse 24. If the Law as we read before was given in Thunder and Lightning how shall it be requir'd if such were the Proclamation of Gods Statutes what shall the Sessions be O God how powerful art thou to inflict vengeance upon sinners who didst thus forbid Sin and if thou wert so terrible a Law-giver what a Judge shalt thou appear what shall become of the breakers of so fiery a Law O where shall those appear that are guilty of the transgressions of that Law whose very delivery was little less than Death If our God should exact his Law but in the same rigour wherein he gave it sin could not quit the cost but now the fire wherein it was delivered was but terrifying the fire wherein it shall be required is consuming Happy are those that are from under the terrors of the Law which was given in Fire and in Fire shall be required Verse 29. It is a kind of denying the Infiniteness of God to serve him by pieces and raggs God is not infinite to me if I think a discontinued service will serve him It is a kind of denying the unity of God to joyn other Gods pleasure or profit with him he is not one God to me if I joyn other Associates and Assistants to him It is a kind of diffidence in Christ as if I were not sure that he would stand in the favour of God stil as though I were afraid that there might rise a new Favorite in Heaven to whom it might concern me to apply my self if I make the ballance so even as to serve God and Mammon if I make a complemental visit of God at his House upon Sunday and then plot with the other Faction the World the Flesh and the Devil all the Week after CHAP. V. Verse 1. IT is not enough for us to Learn the Law but we must keep it and do it we must lay it up in our hearts as well as in our heads and practice it also in our lives and Conversations For not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified Rom. 2. 13. Too too many in this Rotten Age wherein we live are Speakers not Workers as if Ostende re fidem St. Iames his Shew thy Faith by thy Works were Ostendere to stretch the Jaws to shew our Faith by strong Protestations But this must not be a work of the mouth but hand If a Man question thee of Faith spare thy Lips and let thy Life make answer If words might be credited if a bare profession of the Gospel might be believed no Man would want Faith every one would cry with the blind Man in the Gospel Lord I believe what Mouth would not make one Lye for its Master Unless I see said Thomas of Christs rising so unless I see and feel thy Faith I will not believe If we are good Trees by our Fruit men shall know us Mat. 7. By our Fruit not by our blossoms of good purposes or our leaves of good profession but by the Fruit of our actions Verse 9. Parents are hence admonish'd to take heed of sinning against God lest they be found unmerciful unnatural and
hard hearted to their Children Wicked Parents do what they can to make their Children miserable even while they are projecting to make them great and happy Tertullian treating of this point supposeth that God aimed at this in giving the Law when he threatned to punish the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children c. this saith he God spake in reference to the hardness of their Hearts that if no other argument would move them to observe Gods Laws yet meer compassion to their own Children might do it All Parents have a natural love to their Children So that they who have not a spiritual principle moving them to forebear sin because they love God and delight in his Law may yet be moved by a principle of natural affection to avoid those sins for which by Name God tells them he will surely afflict and punish their Children Verse 22. God was ever wonderful in his Works and fearful in his judgements but he was never so terrible in the execution of his will as now in the promulgation of it Here was nothing but a Majestical terror in the Eyes in the Ears of the Israelites as if God meant to shew them by this how fearful he could be Here was the Lightning darted in their Eyes the Thunders roaring in their Ears the Trumpet of God drowning the Thunder-claps the voice of God out-speaking the Trumpet of the Angel the Cloud enwrapping the Smoak ascending the Fire flaming the Mount trembling Moses climbing and quaking paleness and Death in the face of Israel uproars in the Elements and all the glory of Heaven turned into terror In the destruction of the first World there were Clouds without fire In the destruction of Sodom there was fire raining without Clouds but here was Fire Smoak Clouds Thunder Earthquakes and whatsoevermight work more astonishment than ever was in any vengeance inflicted Verse 26. The living God is an antient and usual Title of the Almighties and as I live is an usual Oath of Gods neither do I remember any thing besides his Holiness and his life that God swears by When Moses ask'd Gods Name he described himself by I am He is he lives and nothing is nothing lives absolutely but he All other things by participation from him In all other things their life and they are two but God is his own life and the life of God is no other than the living God and because he is his own life he is Eternal For nothing ceases to be but by a separation of life and nothing can be separated from its self for every separation is a division of one thing from another most justly therefore is he which is absolute simple eternal in his being called the living God CHAP. VI. Verse 2. VVE must first bear an aweful respect to the Divine Majesty a reverential fear and from this principle of Fear we shall be brought to obey God in every part and point of duty Do this and live for ever Do it in an Evangelical way I mean for we can do it now no otherwise Wish well to exact obedience as David does Psalm 110. 4 5. O that I could keep thy Commandements accurately and woe is me that I cannot and then be doing as thou canst for affection without endeavour is like Rachel beautiful but barren Be doing I say at every thing as well as at any thing Fear God and keep all his Commandements saith Moses here thou must not be funambulus virtutum as Tertullians phrase is one that goes in a narrow tract of obedience no thy obedience must be universal extending to the compass of the whole Law and then Beati sunt qui praecepta faciunt etiamsi non persiciunt saith St. Augustine they are blessed that do what they can though they cannot but underdo that do what they can though they cannot do as they ought Fear God then and keep all his Commandements all of them to the utmost of thy power and the assistance of Gods grace The Book of Ecclesiastes begins with All is vanity and ends with Fear God and keep his Commandements that which troubleth us Solomon calls vanity that which is necessary he calls the fear of God From that to this should be every Mans Pilgrimage in this World we begin at Vanity and never know perfectly that we are vain till we come to fear God and keep his Commandements Verse 3. I observe here an excellent connexion betwixt the service required and the reward promised God hath no intent to be served by his Creatures for nought if the service be but once hinted Hear O Israel and observe to do it the reward is express'd in terminis It shall be well with thee and thou shalt encrease and multiply Gods Precepts are still waited upon by Promises Yea his precepts are but subservient to his Promises God commands that he may promise and would have obedience that he may perform blessedness to the Creature It is true there is nothing that man can bestow upon God but might be exacted upon a bare Command and yet God adds the Promise when he presseth the Precept and that he might win Man he is fain to bait the Hook when he would catch the Fish and to hang the Promise upon the Precept that so Man might be made his own Verse 5. God cannot abide that we should serve him with a double Heart an heart and an heart that is hypocritically Neither that we should serve him with half an heart that is niggardly and unwillingly to serve God and not with the whole heart is a base dodging with God If the Heart were not Gods it were too much to give him a part of it but now that he made this whole heart of ours it is but reason he should be served with all of it Those serve God not with all the heart whose bosom is like Rachels tent that hath Teraphim Idols hid in the Straw or rather like a Philistines Temple that hath the Ark and Dagon under one roof those that have let down the World like the Spies into the bottom of the well of their heart and cover the mouth of it with Wheat I mean that hide great oppressions with smal Beneficences those which like Solomons Curtizan cry Dividatur and are willing to share themselves betwixt God and the World Verse 8. God hath charged the Jews here to bind the Law to their hand and before their Eyes wherein as Ierome and Theophylact well interpret it he meant the meditation and practice of the Law they in the mean time like the foolish Patient which when the Physitian bids him take such a Prescript eats up the Paper if they could get but a List of Parchment wherein the Law was writ to tye upon their arm and fore-head thought they might say with Saul Blessed art thou of the Lord I have done the Commandement of the Lord. Men now adayes like those Jews care only to seem Christians and if they can get Gods livery on
of Innocence and Charity and other Christian Vertues were daily slaughtered and devoured while the Swine and all the uncleaner Creatures were denyed that favour placed under a kind of Anathema or excommunication-sentence of such it was not lawful no not to eat and thus it must be expected in the Antitype that all the heat of the Satanical impression all the fire of a furious zeal the fatal sentence to be Sacrificed and devoted should fall upon Lamb-like Dove-like Christians it being constautly the portion and the prerogative of the best Men to be under the Cross to have their hundred-fold of good things in this world with persecutions Mark 10. 30. Verse 12. When Moses sheweth here what Fowls are unclean you may note the great mercy of God in that most of these unclean Fowls are indeed odious to our Nature and we eat them not whereas he might have restrain'd his People from those that they loved and liked so good is God in all things and careful not to lay heavy burthens upon us Some good Fowls are yet restrain'd that Men might learn Temperance and obedience for Gluttony and excess we are very prone unto Some have considered the nature of every Fowl and laboured from that to learn something for amendment as for instance by the Eagle that mounteth high they have noted mounting aspiring minds to be a fault and to make Men unclean By the Gossnauk Men that prey upon their weaker Brethren and Neighbours and gripe them so as they kill them and undo them By the Vulture Men that delight too much in Wars and Contention and so of the rest But in the general you must even take it so that God stood not so much upon these Ceremonies as to teach his people hereby inward truth and cleanness of heart ever fit for such as are Gods people at this therefore we must carefully aim to be holy as God is holy CHAP. XV. Verse 1. EVery Seventh Day the Jews rested from their labours every Seventh Year the Ground rested and every Seventh Seventh was the Jubilean Sabbath at which all Debts were remitted Prisoners released Morgages restored to the right Inheritors The great and eternal Sabbath comprehends all these that is the Year of Grace that blessed Jubilee wherein all true Israelites all the faithful people of God shall be discharg'd from all their engagements as well of sin as for sin God shall forgive us all our Debts all our Trespasses how much more then should we forgive those that trespass against us For Judgement without mercy shall be to them that shew no mercy there 's but an hairs bredth betwixt him and Hell that hath not his sins pardoned in Heaven such is the case of every one that doth not forgive his offending Brother Mat. 18. 35. or that saith I will forgive the fault but not forget the matter or affect the person men must forbear one another and forgive one another as Christ forgave them and that if any man have a quarrel against any for else what thanks is it the glory of a Man is to pass by an infirmity It is more comfortable to love a Friend but more honourable to love an Enemy if thou reserve in thy mind any piece of the wrong thou provokest and daily pressest God to reserve for thee a piece of his wrath which burneth as low as the nethermost Hell Neither will it help any to do as Latimer reports of some in his dayes who being not willing to forgive their Enemies would not say their Pater Noster at all but instead thereof took our Ladies-Psalter in hand because they were perswaded that by that they might obtain forgiveness of their sins of favour without putting in of so hard a condition as the forgiveness of their Enemies into the bargain Verse 3. Those that are without the Covenant are also without the mercy of God Christ will never pardon those for whom he never died their sins only shall be blotted out of Gods Book whose Names are written in it Christ is the covering or propitiation of his peoples sins be they never so many and never so great as was sweetly shadowed of old by the Ark covering the Law the Mercy-seat covering the Ark and the Cherubims over them both covering one another in allusion whereunto Blessed saith David is the man whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Psalm 32. 1 2. But then you must remember that all this covering of this Law and this Mercy-seat and these Cherubims had relation unto the people of God which were then the Jews no other Nation had any of these types and as the types did not so neither did the Antitype belong to them our Saviour was no covering to their sins no discharger of their Debts they were all of the number of these Forreiners in the Text they were at the Creditors mercy to be cast into Prison and from thence not to depart till they had paid the utmost farthing But now there is no exacting from them no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus saith St. Paul Rom. 8. 1. Non una Condemnatio not one Condemnation There it none in Heaven God doth not Condemn them none on Earth their own hearts and conscience doth not condemn them no Word no Commandement no Threatning But now an unbeliever shall have a double Condemnation one from the Law which he hath transgressed another from the Gospel which he hath despised as a Malefactor that is Condemn'd and dead in Law despiseth and rejects his Princes pardon But now it is quite otherwise with those that are in Christ Jesus the Law cannot condemn them because they have appeal'd the Gospel cannot because they have believ'd Verse 11. The Poor are here call'd Our poor as well as Our Brethren to shew that our compassion and love should be as ready for them as for our nearest Relations and these Poor saith this Text shall never cease out of the Land to try and exercise our liberality yea our Justice as the Syriack calls it for our Alms are due unto the Poor either by the Law of Equity or of charity For there is a debt of Love Rom. 13. that we must be ever owing and ever pay and as we say of thanks thanks must be still given and still held as due so must this debt of Love Quicquid Clerici habent pauperum est said St. Ierome which is true in a sence of others as well as Ministers the Poor Gods Poor and our Poor such as are Aged and impotent are the owners of that we have we are but Stewards and dispensers of Gods bounty to his necessitous servants now if our Receits be found great and our layings out small God will cast such Bills back in our faces and turn us out of our Stewardship they are fools that fear to loose their Wealth by giving but fear not to loose themselves by keeping it Verse 21. Whatever Beast was offered up and sacrificed to the Lord must be
Prayers We beat our Servants if they offend us being but men as they are and may not God then beat us for our faults he being our Creator and we but dust Thus make use of these Curses and instead of them God ever give us for Christs sake his blessings both Temporal and Eternal both of this World and also of that better to come Verse 23. How oft have we seen the same Field both full and famishing how oft the same Waters safe and by some irruption or new tincture hurtful Howsoever natural causes may concur Heaven and Earth and Ayre and Waters follow the temper of our soules of our lives and are therfore indisposed because we are so He turneth the Heavens into brasse saith this Text and the Earth into iron And so Psal. 107. He turneth the Rivers into a wildernesse and water-springs into a dry ground for the wickedness of the Inhabitants Verse 31. If sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart And therefore the Lord here threatens his People thus in case of disobedience Thine oxe shall be slain before thine eyes And vers 67. he shewes what Convulsions and Divisions of spirit the Visions of the Eye would bring upon them The fear of the Heart and the sight of the Eye are near adjoyned The sight of the Eye caused the fear of the Heart and both were as concauses of those distracting thoughts and wishes there of hasting the morning to the evening and againe suddainly reducing back the evening to the morning Unlesse sorrow be hid from the Eyes it can hardly be kept from the Heart It is an usuall custome if a man be but let bloud to bid him turn away his head if he be faint-hearted for the sight of his bloud will make his heart faint and so from more gashly spectacles men commonly turn away their faces which is to keep sorrow from their sorrow and so from their Hearts Verse 47. As there is no affliction so there is no outward blessing can change the Heart or bring it about unto God Abundance as you see here doth not draw the heart unto God yet Satan when he came before the Lord Iob 1. would infer that it doth asking God the Question Doth Iob serve God for nought which might well be retorted upon Satan himself Satan why didst not thou serve God then Thou didst once receive more outward blessings from God then ever Iob did the blessedness of an Angel Yet that glorious Angelical estate wherein thou wast created could not keep thee in the compasse of obedience thou didst rebel in the abundance of all blessings thine own apostacy refutes thine errour in making so little of Iobs obedience because he had received so much and confirms the truth of this Text that it is not Abundance that makes Gods People serve him CHAP. XXIX Verse 4. VVE see no further than God gives us light and so far as he leads us we go right if he withdraw we turn aside and quickly wander from the way of truth and righteousnesse Thus Moses speakes here of the many signes and wonders which God wrought in the midst of that People which they did not understand Why what was the reason Moses tels us expresly The Lord had not given them an heart to conceive c. They had sensitive Eyes and Ears yea they had a rational heart or mind but they wanted a spirituall Eye to see a spiritual Ear to hear a spiritual Heart to apprehend and improve those wonderful works of God and these they had not because God had not given them such Eyes Ears and Hearts Wonders without Grace cannot open the Eyes fully but Grace without wonders can And as man hath not an Eye to see the wonderful works of God spiritually until it is given so much lesse hath he an Eye to see the wonders of the Word of God till it be given him from above Verse 12. This hath been the practise of Gods Children in Scripture to consecrate themselves to God by Vow or Covenant Thus Moses here after he had given the Law to the People causeth them to enter into Covenant for the performance of it Nor is it without singular reason that godly men have taken this course that hereby they might be the more strongly obliged to God and God to them There is indeed a sufficient obligation in Gods Precepts to require our obedience but when to his Precepts we add our own Promise it is so much the more engaging True it is the Creatures natural Obligation to his Creators Command is so great that in its self it is not capable of addition but yet our voluntary Promises serve to inflame our Luke-warmnesse and stir up our backwardnesse to obedience Indeed a religious resolution is as the putting of a new rowel into a spurre which maketh it the sharper the twisting of another thred into the rope whereby it is the stronger And hence it is that as God in condescention to our weakness hath annexed an oath to his Promises not to make them firmer in themselves but to confirme us the more So godly men in consideration of their own dulness adjoyn their Promises to Gods Precepts not to strengthen their force in enjoyning but to quicken themselves the more in observing Verse 18. Nothing is more bitter then sin and therefore compared here to gall and wormwood Lest there be among you any root that beareth gall wormwood i. e. least any person among you should commit this wickednesse namely Idolatry which will be as distastefull to God as gall is to man and which will be as bitter as gall to the man who commits it whether we consider the bitternesse of repentance if it be pardoned or the bitternesse of paine if he persisting in it impenitently be punished Verse 29. When secret things are revealed unto us of God we ought to endeavour to learn them to understand them to publish them and speak of them to others Whensoever God hath a mouth to speak we must have an ear to hear Therefore Moses saith Secret things belong to the Lord but the things revealed belong unto us to our children Which may serve to reprove all such as refuse to look into these revealed things of God but dwel in blindnesse and ignorance Of this sort are the greatest number of Christians they are wise enough to look into their own profit but they care not for the wisdome that is of God they are brought up in the Church but know not the Doctrine of the Church whereas being brought up in the Schoole of Christ they must every day be profiting and going forward CHAP. XXX Verse 2. THere is no returning without hearing nor hearing without believing nor believing to be believed without doing Returning is all these therefore where Christ saith that if those works had been done in Tyre and Sidon Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes In the Syriack translation of saint Matth we have this
Verse 53. They were to be driven out because their Iniquity was now full they were as an Harvest ready for the sickle or as a Vine for the Wine-press so were they ready for the Vintage of Gods wrath which now came upon them to the utmost the sin of these Canaanites fill'd the Land with filthiness from corner to corner it overspread it as a deluge turn'd it into the same nature with its self as Coporas which will turn Milk into Ink or Leaven which turneth a very Passover into pollution And therefore God rooted them out and caused their Land when it could bear them no longer to spew them forth Sin is filthiness in the abstract St. Iames calls it Iames 1. 21. The stinking filth of a pestilent Ulcer the superfluity and garbage of naughtiness and therefore must be thrown upon the Dunghil It is no better than the Devils excrement fit for nothing but the draught It sets his limbs in us and draws his Picture upon us For Malice is the Devils eye Oppression is his hand Hypocrisy his cloven foot Great â—â—â—s do greatly pollute and therefore God doth greatly punish them CHAP. XXXIV Verse 3. THe Land of Promise was call'd Canaan of Canaan the Son of Cham who with his posterity dwelt therein and this is now bounded that they might inherit all that God had given them and divide no more than was given them This teacheth us that God sets bounds unto all mens possessions they must take no more nor usurp and presume any further than he hath given Which condemns all encroaching and usurpation one upon another in Kingdoms and Lordships as well as private possessions when men cannot be content with their own but will stretch their power and jurisdiction further God hath made them great but they seek to make themselves greater he hath set them bounds but they will know no bounds So that from hence we may gather that the Wars which are taken in hand upon ambition and enlarging of the bounds of their Empire only are a despising of God a shedding of innocent blood and a perverting of that order which he hath set in Nature and Nations Verse 13. The consideration of the nearness of Gods mercies should encourage and imbolden every one to be constant and couragious that we faint not in the last act this made Moses say here This is the land which ye shall inherit he doth as it were point it out with the finger and biddeth them lift up their Eyes and behold the goodness which God had promised to their Fathers For as the consideration of Judgement at hand and lying at the doors ought to move terror and astonishment so when we behold the mercies of God before our eyes which are not prolong'd for many years it ought to enflame us with an holy zeal and desire to see the accomplishment of the same Verse 15. Consider here the state of the Church of Israel as it now stood and in this the state of Christs Church to the end of the World Some were at rest others were to pass further some had their Inheritance and some had none some had Towns and Cities to dwell in and some were yet left to the wide World and were to wander further Some had much and others little or nothing at all and the reason of this is because God will never have those that have plenty and abundance to be without objects upon which to shew mercy That his gifts may be tryed that he hath given them as also to teach us that we should not settle our selves here nor make the Earth our Heaven but that we should seek for another life where shall be no want no misery no necessity but God shall be all in all CHAP. XXXV Verse 3. LEt us provide for Gods Ministers if not richly and plentifully at least commodiously and competently and not inconveniently and needily that so they may wholly attend their Ministry and not for necessity sake intangle themselves in secular affairs And that God expects these things of us his own dealing Dictates who when he did demand an allowance for himself to maintain his Priests and Levites withall albeit they were one of the least Tribes yet it was so much as in all probabilities did far exceed all other Tribes Revenues and the same in such sort both for their own habitation and for their Houshold provision and keeping of their Cattle for use and service about them was as commodious and fit as to any of the rest And that in very deed these things are not too much the very Estate of the Ministers duly considered from reason will soon yield and confirm Verse 8. The Levites were to have their Glebe-land out of the Israelites possession according to the several abilities of each Tribe They that had many Gities were to give many and those that had few accordingly All were to contribute and this not as an Alms but as a right And this upon very good ground and reason For if Alexander could say That he owed more to Aristotle that taught him than to Philip that begot him if another could say that he never could discharge his Debt to God to his Parents to his School-master how deeply then do men stand obliged to their spiritual Fathers and Teachers in Christ. And I would to God that this Age would but think upon this truth and not think that all is well saved that is with-held from the Minister Too many think it neither sin nor pitty to beguile the Priest But God is not mock'd neither will he be robb'd by any but they shall hear Ye are curs'd with a Curse Mal. 3. 8. Even with Shallum's Curse Ier. 22. 13 14. that used his Neighbours service without Wages and would sacrilegiously take in a peice of Gods window into his own Verse 30. Yet if this one be a faithful witness saith Aristotle one faithful witness in some cases may suffice in private offences howsoever And that our Saviour speaketh of such Mat. 18. 16. St. Basil and others are of opinion If thy Brother a Iew shall trespass against thee being a Iew right thy self by degrees First deal with him Fraternally tell him his fault betwixt thee and him alone Verse 12. Secondly deal with him legally take with thee one or two Witnesses more Verse 16. Thirdly deal with him Jewishly tell the Church complain to the Sanhedrim Verse 17. Fourthly if he shall neglect to hear them deal with him Heathenishly i. e. let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican make benefit of the Roman power let Caesars Justice end the difference between you CHAP. XXXVI Verse 2. THe Fathers of the Children of Gilead came not to Moses in contempt or with a commotion as if they meant to gain that by force which they could not obtain by favour but they bear themselves lowly and dutifully as became them to the Magistrate when they say The Lord commanded my Lord and again my Lord was commanded