Hosea 13:12–16 (Thomas Hall)
Verse 12.
The iniquiti, of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.
This chapter contains the sum of the eleventh sermon of Hosea, wherein the prophet (like the sweet singer of Israel) treats both of judgment and mercy, and uses both drawing and driving motives (one or both of which usually work upon all ingenuous dispositions) to bring them to repentance. And since God has ordained the law to make way for the gospel, and humiliation to go before consolation, therefore the prophet denounces,
1. Judgments against Israel, and specially that of the sword, which should cut off his kings, destroy his kingdom, take away all their pleasant things, and make them a desolation: neither was God to be blamed for all this, for it was their own sins that had brought those evils upon them, viz. their idolatry, pride, carnal confidence, impenitence, stupidity, ingratitude, and forgetfulness of that God, who had raised them to gi’eat glory and dignity.
2. He sets forth the fierceness of God’s wrath against them, ver. 7, 8. Great blessings when abused bring great judgments. Their sins had turned God, their great Benefactor, into a “lion,” “a leopard,” “a bear bereaved of her whelps,” “a wild beast;” * and imbittered his soul against them. They dreamt they should find him a God all mercy; he tells them they are mistaken, for now they should find him a God full of fury.
3. Whereas they might think to escape because God had so long forborne them, the prophet, by a prolepsis, prevents this conceit: “The iniquity of Epiu-aim is bound up, his sin is hid;” that is, Ephraim thinks now he may take his pleasure, since his iniquitj’ lies hid, and he has so long escaped; but mark what follows, ver. 13, “The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him.” As the pleasure of conception has the pangs of child-birth attending it, so this secure and pleasant people shall certainly meet with sorrow in the end; and therefore Ephraim is but “an unwise son,” and guilty of great folly, in that he does not speedily make his peace with God.
4. Lest they should despair, he intermixes comfort with his threatenings, and allays the terrors of the law with the promises of the gospel, ver. 14.
5. Yet, lest they should grow secure, after a little interruption in the order of the words, he retui-ns to denounce judgments, and tells them, that notwithstanding the promise of deliverance, yet first they must expect a desolation of the chief city and the kingdom, ver. 15, 16.
In this 12th verse we have briefiy set forth the desperate and deplorable condition of God’s people; they were come to that height of wickedness, and grown so stupid under God’s strokes, that now they must expect no more pardon, nor look that God should bear any longer with them. So that in these words the Lord meets with the vain conceits of the loose persons of those times, w’ho soothed themselves in their evil ways, and because the Lord suspended his judgments for a time, therefore they never apprehended them, but thought that the Lord was such a one as themselves,
* Deus comparatur leoni ssevo, quo nvilla bestia truculentior. 2. Pardo in via observanti, quo nuUa subtilior. 3. Ursocatulis orbato, quo nulla ssevior. 4. Cuivis immani bestise,
that is, no way displeased with their sins; but since ht connived at them, they concluded he slept, and took no notice of them, but had utterly forgotten them. But they are much deceived, saith the Lord, for I have seen all their wickedness, and have sealed up all their sins till the due time of revealing them (which is now at hand) be come. It is true, I have borne long with them; let that offend none, for I have not forgotten their provocations, they are all bound up so that not one of them shall be lost, but they shall dearly reckon for them all together. As God has “,a book of remembrance” wherein he records the good deeds of his people, which shall one day be published to their everlasting praise, Mai. iii. 16; so he has a book of remembrance wherein he records the wickedness of the wicked, which shall ere long be published to their everlasting shame. As the sin of Judah was “written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond,” so that it should not easily be blotted out, Jer. xvik 1; so all the sins of Ephraim, from the time of Jeroboam’s reign to their going into captivity, were bound up and sealed, that they might not be lost. Papers that lie loose and unbound are scattered with every wind, but when they are fast bound up and sealed, then they are safe and sure. jMoney that lies at random is lost, but that which is locked up in coffers is safe, and will be brought forth when need requires. So God had not forgotten Ephraira’s sin, but had hid and sealed it up till the determined time to punish him was come; he had locked it up in his memory for a day of reckoning.
Yet, to leave no clod unbroken that we may find out the golden ore, I shall give you the grammatical reading of the words; for a good foundation is the strength of the building.
“The iniquity.” pj( the pravity and perverseness, the prevarication and crookedness, of Ephraim’s ways is laid up.
“Of Ephraim.” Ephraim was Joseph’s second son, but it is here put for the ten tribes of Israel, of which Ephraim was one of the chiefest; so Hos. iv. 17; v. 3; xi-i; vii. 8, 11; and their first king after the division was an Ephraimite.
“Is bound up.” inv The metaphor ^^^.^ here implies special care and custody, divit, consir’in»it
I 1^ It. ^1 ^C +1,.^ quasi in fasciculiim;
and IS borrowed from the men oi the iia Gen. xiu. 35; 1 world, who are careful to lock up their ^sj-’y’^^;/“”- money that it be not lost. The like expressions you may read, Deut. xxxii. 34; Job xiv. 17; xxi. 19; Lara.’i. 14. So the iniquity of Ephraim was sealed and kept safe, to be brought forth in due time as a charge against him. Though men scatter their sins abroad and forget them, yet God bundles them up and remembers them; and as pardoning grace does loose the sinner, so sin unpardoned is said to be bound up and reserved for punishment, Matt. xvi. 19. .....
“His sin.” irsan The punishment of his sin. It is a frequent metonvmy to put sin for the punishment of sin. So Lev. xx’ 20; Numb. xii. 11; Ezek. iv. 4 — 6. Peccatum ejus, from Chala, to err, or wander fi’om the mark: such is sin; it is a wandering and going astray from the law of God, it is an erring from the mark which we should always aim at, viz. the glory of God and our own salvation.
Biqua alia, prioribus immaniov, sub genere continetur. Ternovius in loc.
TTTES abscondita
“Is hid.” Not from God, but with si-’fcSfetonJifi’. God; it is laid up by him for a day of i” p.iui’iTu’u’’’’ reckoning, when the Lord shall pour out rmr.xixa.isi jer. the fierceness of his wrath on Israel. So that their sin is hid, not in mercy, but in judgment; not for protection, but for desolation. “Samaria shall become desolate.” God lays up the sins of the wicked in store against a day of wrath, when he intends to punish them for all together, Rom. ii. 5.
Obs. 1. God is wondrous patient, and bears long with sinners. He is many years in laying men’s sins up in his treasur)’. He does not immediately cut off sinners, nor always destroy wicked men in the act of sin, as he might do, (for so many sins as men commit, so many damnations they deser■e,) but with much patience, and great long-suffering, he bears with “the vessels of wrath,” Rom. ix. 22. He bore with the old world many hundi-ed years, even till the whole earth was coiTupt before him, and his Spirit tired out, as it were, with striving with them. Gen. vi. 3; 1 Pet. iii. 20. He spared Sodom so long that their sins cried to heaven for vengeance against them. Gen. xviii. 20, 21. He spared Amalek, too, four hundred years, 1 Sara. xv. 2, .3. He spared Israel here three hundred and sixty years ere he sent them into captivity, Ezek. iv. 4 — 6. He spared the Gentiles four thousand years. Acts xiv. 16, and bore w ith Jerusalem till they stoned his prophets, and would not be reclaimed, Matt, xxiii. 37. His vials of wrath are vessels of large extent, but narrow mouths; they pour out slowly, but chench deeply, and distil effectually God’s wrath on the heads of his enemies. Rev. xvi. 1, 18, 19. Though we provoke him daily, yet he is patient towards us, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” 2 Pet. iii. 9; Rev. ii. 21. He sends his messengers in great compassion to us, “rising early “to stop us in our sinful courses, and so prevent our destruction, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15; Jer. xxv. 4. Yea, he is not only patient, but ‘■ long-suifering,” which is a further degi-ee of patience, it is patience lengthened out, Exod. xxxiv. 6; Psal. ciii. 8; Jonah iv. 2. He waits, and waits long for our returning, crying, ““Wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?” Jer. xiii. 27. AVere some good man to sit but one hour in the throne of God, and look do^’n upon the earth, as God does continually, and see what abominable idolatries, blasphemies, heresies, homicides, perjmnes, adulteries, persecutions, oppressions, were committed in that hoiu’, he would undoubtedly in the next set all the world on fire. It is well, in this respect, that we have to do with God, and not with man. “I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim.” Why so? “Fori am God,” most true in my promises, and of infinite patience, “and not man,” who is mutable and passionate, and could not bear the daily indignities and provocations which are committed against me, Hos. xi. 9. Great then is the sin of those who abuse the patience and long-sufl’ering of the Lord, adding sin to sin, and cbimkenness to thirst; that draw on iniquity with the cords of vanity, and so treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, impunity breeds in them impenitency; “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil,” Eccl. viii. 11. Every word has its weight; these indulged sinners do not barely practise sin, but their heart is set on it; the vei7 bent of their spirit is to evil indefinitely, that is, to all manner of evil, and that with resolution and purpose of heart, they follow it fully. As good men cleave to God and his ways with “purpose of heart,” Acts xi. 23, and are married to him. Cant. ii. 16, so do these to sin and Satan, they are married to them, Hos. iv. 1”. Impunity and prosperous wickedness make men insolent, Psal. lxxiii. 8, 9, impudent, Isa. iii. 9. And resolute in sin, Jer. xliv. 16, 17. Such are ajit to think
there is no God, or at least that he regards not things below; or that he is like themselves, approving of their ways, and that which they do is no sin, Psal. 1. 16 — 22. Those gross hypocrites, that talked so much of God’s word, but denied him in their works, being slanderers, adulterers, thieves, thought that because God was silent, and did not presently punish them, that therefore he approved of then- wickedness. But mark what follows, there is a stinging but, “but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.” Thou shalt knowone day how I hated thy sins, by the punishments which I will inflict upon thee for them; and though now thou hidest them, yet then I wUl marshal them and set them in rank and order before thy face. Consider this, therefore, you that cast God’s counsels behind your backs, and hate to be reformed, before he awaken your drowsy consciences, and rouse up that mastiff which lies sleeping in your bosoms, before you come to answer for all in the midst of flames. It is a sad and sore delusion wherewith Satan deceives millions of men, that because they are not presently punished, therefore they shall never be punished; and since God has forborne so long, therefore he will always bear, and they shall never hear more of their sins; hence it is that the wicked flatter themselves in their sins, Deut. xxix. 19; Psal. xxxvi. 1, 2; Isa. xlvii. 7.
06*. 2. God’s forbearance is no acquittance; though he bear long, yet he will not always bear. We see he bore long with the old world, Sodom, Jerusalem, &c., but at last they paid for all. Mercy abused turns into fur)’, and the preservations of wicked men are but reservations to gi-eater wrath. God has leaden heels, but iron hands; the further he fetches his arm, the heavier will the blow come; the further he draws his arrow, the deeper will it wound. God’s mill may gi’ind soft and slow, but it grinds sure and small, and he will recompense his patience with the fierceness of his furj-, Nah. i. 3, 6. Ever after the sweetmeats of sin, look for a sad and sour reckoning. There was never any that sinned against the Lord, be it never so secretly or subtlely contrived, but fu’st or last the punishment of their sin foimd them out. Gen. iv. 7; Numb, xxxii. 23. As parents let their children alone till, after multiplied faults, they have committed some signal one, and then reckon with them for all together; so the Lord lets the wicked alone till they be ripe for ruin. Gen. xv. 16, and have filled up the measure of their sin, that wrath may come upon them to the uttermost, Amos i. 3, 6, 9, 11, 13. The whore of Babylon, that has so long made herself di-unk with the blood of the saints, shall at last be burnt with fire; yea, it is said she is fallen aheady, to show the certainty of it. Rev. xiv. 8. God will avenge the injuries done to his church, though it be long first, Luke xnii. 6. When God has long held his peace, and been still, then he will crj- suddenly, “like a travailing woman,” and “will destroy and devour at once,” Isa. xlii. 14.
Now, the Lord show mercy to England, and awaken us out of our deep security, for we have been a people that have exceedingly abused the patience and long-suffering of our God; as he has loaded us with mercies, so we have loaded him with our iniquities; we have made him to wait with our sins, and broken his heart with our abominations, Ezek. vi. 9. As we have been increased, so have we sinned against him; the more victories and success we have had, the more blasphemous and licentious we have been. Ho we thus requite the Lord, O foolish and unwise? Is this the thanks we render to God for above a hundred years’ preaching? Shall not the Lord visit for such sins as these, and will not his soul be avenged on such a nation as this? True, the Lord has borne long with us, but he will not alwap bear; but as he said to Ephraim here, so may I say to England, The iniquity of England is bound’ up, and
her sin is hid till a meet time of punishment is come, which we have cause to fear is now at hand; and then God will reckon with us for all together, as we do with rebellious children. Remember your covenant-breaking, saith God. Item, Take this for your blasphemies, and that for your adulteries; take this for your heresies, and that for your atheism and apostaey; take this for your intolerable tolerations, and that for your reviling my messengers.
06s. 3. This is a special device of Satan, fii’st to tempt men to sin, and then to security in sin. To this end he persuades them they may do well enough; though they have done thus and thus, yet they shall hear no j,^ .J more of it. Thus he deluded our first
cupit esse captives, parents; fu’st he tempts them to sin, and “^’ then goes about to persuade them that
they shall not die, nor be punished for their sin, Gen. iii. 4. He labours to free men from fear, that so they may be free to sin. In good things he separates the means from the end, and in evil he separates the end from the means. Thus this great deceiver of the whole world blinds men and deludes them, persuading them that what they have done, either is no sin, or if it be a sin, yet it is but a small one; or if it be a great one, yet it is not kno’mi; or if it be known, yet it shall never be punished. Thus seducers and false prophets, those devils incarnate, devils clothed with flesh and blood, like their father the devil, curse where God blesses, and bless where God curses. They daub over men’s sins, and sew pillows under men’s elbows, persuading men that the evils tlu-eatened shall never come, but they shall have peace, though God has said there is no peace to the wicked, 2 Kings i.x. 18; Jer. viii. 11. Hence the apostle warns us thrice to take heed that no man deceive us with vain words, making us believe that we may be idolaters, covetous, fornicators, &c., and never be punished for it, 1 Cor. vi. 9; Gal. vi. 7; Eph. V. 6. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked:” you may, by your shifts, distinctions, and evasions, delude yourselves, and delude others; but there is no deluding God, who knows us better than we know ourselves. Carnal hiding of sin hinders the prosperity of the sinner, Prov. xxviii. 13; the more men hide them in this kind, the more God will reveal them; as we see in Saul, Achan, and David; what means did each of them use to cover his iniquity, but all in vain, for God brought it to the public view of all, 2 Sam. xii. 12. The only way to have our sins hid indeed, is plainly and sincerely to confess them, Psal. xxxii. 5.
Obs. 4. It is a sore punishment to go unpunished for sin. ‘len the Lord was angry with Ephraim, he bids “let him alone,” and tells him that he will not punish him for his sin, Hos. iv. 14, 17; that is. Since Ephraim will go after idols, after idols he shall go, I will not by any punishment restrain him, but I will let him go on and prosper in his abominations to his utter confusion: and thus to be given up to one’s own heart’s lust, is a sign of God’s highest displeasure. In this sense not to be stricken is the sorest stroke, Isa. i. 5, and for God not to be angi-y is the greatest anger; as to be stopped and corrected for sin is the greatest mercy, Psal. lxxxix. 32 — 34; xciv. 12, 13.
Obs. 5. Punishment is never nearer than when it is least feared. A great cahn many times is the forerunner of a storm. ‘When men cry, “Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them,” 1 “Thess. V. 3. When the old world was eating, cbinking, buying, building, marrying, and sleeping in secui’ity, then comes the flood. “When Agag thought “Surely the bitterness of death is past,” saith Samuel, Hew him in pieces, 1 Sam. xv. 32, 33, When men are
* Nemo sit deterior quia Deus est melior, toties delinquendo, quoties ignoscitur; quid enim indignius quara ex divina misericordia desamere argumentum ad divinam j ustitiam proat ease in Zion, a woe hangs over their heads, Amos vi. 1 — 8. AVhen men look upon judgments as afar ofi’, then God will defer no longer, Ezek. xii. 27, 28. Secure Laish becomes a booty to its enemies, Judg. xviii. 7, 27. The Amalekites, when they had taken Ziklag and were di’unken, fearing no danger, were suddenly surprised and slain, 1 Sam. xxx. 16, 17. When the Philistines met to be merry and sport themselves with Samson, he brings the house upon their heads, Judg. xvi. 25, 29. Darius, in the midst of his cups was slain by the Persians, Dan. v. 30. And Babylon, that boasted she sat as a queen and should see no sorrow, had sudden plagues come on her, Rev. xviii. 7, 8.
Let no man then delude himself with the thoughts of impunity; for though conscience may sleep for a time, yet at last it will be a-nakened, and then the longer thy sins have been hid, the more wQl they rage against thee, especially at the day of judgment, that day of revealing the hidden work of darkness. God will then “bring every work to judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil,” Eccl. xii. 14. God will then unlock his treasury, and those sins which are now sealed up shall be brought to open light; and those secret villanies which men would not have exposed for all the world, shall be written as with a beam of the sun upon their foreheads to their everlasting shame. Sinners shall then have no cause to say, ““Where is the God of judgment?” Mai. ii. 17.
Let us therefore make a right use and improvement of the patience of God,* let it melt and humble us, and lead us to repentance. Let us, in this our day, know the things that belong to our everlasting peace, whilst the patience of God yet waits upon us, and he stands knocking at the door of our hearts, Rev. iii. 20, before the door of grace be shut against us, for then it will be too late. To quicken you, know that God in the end will reckon with you for all his patience and forbearance; the longer he has borne with you, the greater will your sin be. He takes an exact account of every day and year that he has borne with us; “Forty years long was I grieved with this generation,” Psal. xcv. 10. He takes notice of every provocation; “They have tempted me now these ten times,” Numb. xiv. 22: though you forget your provocations, yet God does not. Yea, he records every sermon that we hear, and the day and year that it was preached to us. Hag. i. 1.
Lastly, let us imitate God, and be followers of him as dear chikben, be patient as he is patient. Though we cannot be so by way of equality, yet by way of analogy and resemblance, in our degree and measure, we may and must: if he bear with us, we may well bear with our brethren; if he has forgiven us pounds, we may well forgive them pence. We should be “kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us,” Eph. iv. 32; Col. iii. 13. Let om- moderation and quietness of mind be made known to all, Phil. iv. 5; and if any man wrong us, let us melt them with our kindnesses, Rom. xii. 20, as Dalid melted Saul, and made him weep, and confess that he was more righteous than himself. Even nature could say. It becomes fi’ ‘“‘“°’- ‘’ ‘• a noble spirit to pass by injmies. “NMien one told King John that his deadly enemy was buried there, and advised him to deface his monument; No, said the king, but I wish all the rest of mine enemies were as honourably buried. It was an excellent answer of Chrysostom to the Empress Eudoxa, and savoured of a sweet, mortified frame of spirit. If the queen (said he) will banish me, let her banish me; “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” If she will saw me asunder, let her do it, the prophet
vocandam, et quia Deus libenter excipit pcenitentes, data opera velle fieri peccatores? Tertul. de Pcenit. c. 7.
Isaiah suffered as much. If she will, let her cast me into the sea, and there Mill I remember Jonah.
Ver. 13. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unuise soti; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.
In this verse the prophet goes on to denounce judgments against an obstinate and rebellious people, if by any means he might awaken them out of their security.
By the sorrows of a woman in travail, he sets forth the sudden, sure, and sore destruction, which was even now coming upon the heads of those carnally-confident sinners. They promised themselves peace and prosperity, they had made a league with death, and had put the evil day far from their souls, and therefore di-ew near to iniefuity, Amos vi. 3; no words nor warnings, no mercies nor judgments, could work upon them; thei-efore the Lord resolves to bear no longer with them, but speedily to sm-^irise them with his judgments. ‘-The sonows of a travailing woman shall come upon him.’’
In this verse we have, I. A commination, or a judgment threatened, set forth by the similitude of the sorrows of a travailing woman; a metaphor very fi-equent in Scripture, wherein are set forth sudden, sharp, inevitable sorrows.
1. Pangs uixm a woman in travail come suddenly and unexpectedly; sometimes whilst they are eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, and think not of the pains of travail: so the Lord threatens to bring upon this stupid people calamities which should be like the sorrows of a travailing woman, sudden and unexpected.
2. The pains of a woman in travail are sharp, exquisite, and extreme sorrows, the bitterness whereof that sex can witness.
Such pangs the Scripture often makes the emblems of extreme anguish and distress, Psal. xlviii. 6; Isa. xxvi. 17, 18; xxxvii. 3; Jer. li. 24; xxii. 23; xlix. 24; Micah iv. 9, 10; Gal. iv. 19. So the calamities which were coming upon this people were not slight soiTOWs, but such as brought desolation with them. 2. The longer a dead birth is concealed and carried in the womb, the more dangerous and difficult is the travail. Ephraim had for a long time concealed his sin, and therefore now his pangs are like to be so much the more giievous. 3. If the birth be living, the greater the birth, and the longer they go with it, the sharper are the pangs. So the longer God bears with a people, and the more his patience is abused, the more terrible will his wrath be.
3. Inevitable and UTesistible. There is no escaping when once the time of travail is come. Cum adest hora, non dalur mora. So the set time of Ephraim’s calamities was now at hand, which they should in no wise be able to avert or avoid.
II. A reason for this commination, taken from the folly of Ephraim; he is, and, for aught I see, for ever will be, “an unwise son,” which appears in his stupidity end obstinate persisting in his sins, without any striving to get out of them by repentance. Ephraim is “an unwise son,” for had he been wise he had not staid so long in the birth.
Lest Ephraim should reply, that a travailing woman is soon delivered, her pain may be sharp, but it is but short, she has hope not only of an end, but also of a birth, the joy whereof maketh her remember her anguish no more, John xvi. 21; the prophet proceeds, Ephraim “is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.” Ephraim “is an unwise son,” that sticks long in the birth, and so will be the death both of himself and his mother. He uses no means to facilitate the birth, or to help himself by passing through the strait gate of repentance. God stands over him, stretching forth his
hands all the day long to wash off his filth, but he had no mind to come out of his filth, or to be washed from his wickedness, Ezek. xvi. 4, 9; rather than endure the pangs of regeneration, he will venture to stay a while though he be stifled for his pains. As if the prophet should saw. Were Ephraim wise he would humble himself, and make his peace with God, that he might, by his mercy, be delivered fully from his miserable straits. If he were not utterly stupified, or rather mad, he would take notice of God’s judgments impendent over him, and would imitate little infants, who strive to free themselves out of the straits and dangers of the birth. So would Ephraim have endeavoured to free himself by true repentance. But alas! so besotted and hardened is he in his sins, that he rests content with his carnal condition, never once striving or desuing to come out of this darkness into light, or to be brought from under the power of Satan unto God.
So that in these words the prophet notably inveighs against the stupidity and folly of God’s ])eople, in that they had rather be stifled in the filth of their sins, lie in the mouth of death, and under the pressures of God’s wrath, to the destruction both of themselves and the church, (which he had before compared to a mother, Hos. ii. 2,) than extricate themselves out of this sin and miseiy by true repentance.
Obs. 1. Where sin precedes, sudden, certain, shai-p, inevitable sorrows always follow. In the former part of the chapter we read of Ephraim’s idolatrv’, pride, impenitency, &c.: now follows, “The son-ows of a travaiUng woman shall come upon him.” Sin and punishment are inseparable companions. Gen. iv. 7, 14; xix. 15; Numb, xxxii. 23; Deut. xxviii. 15 — G8; hence the word which we render iniquity, signifies also pain and sorrow, because the workers of iniquity bring pain and sorrow upon their own heads. Job xxi. 19; Psal. xxxii. 10.
How then should we hate sin with a pure and perfect hatred! not only odio ininiicitiop, but also odio aversationis: hate it so as to turn from it. This is the cause of all our sorrows; we may thank our sins for all our sickness, pains, and plagues, Lam. iii. 39. Wc should therefore do by our sins, as the Jews did by Paul (whom they looked upon as their enemy); “when they saw him in the temple, they stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out. Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this [ilace.” Acts xxi. 27, 28. So should we encourage each othir against sin, and lay violent hands upon it, saying. Men and brethren, help: this is it that destroys our people, lays waste our cities, opposes the law, defiles our duties, and incenses the Most High against us.
Let us therefore purge it out of our understandings, and mortify it in our affections. Considering,
(1.) What sin is in its own nature. It is poison, dung, vomit, filth, folly, madness, darkness, sickness, destruction, death. It turned angels into devils, men into beasts, light into darkness, life into death, and order into confusion.
(2.) What sin is in respect of God. It is a reproach and a contempt of him, 2 Sam. xii. 9; it is blasphemy, rebellion, enmity, Rom. viii. 7.
Obs. 2. Scripture language is modest. The mouth of the matrix is called “the place of the breaking forth of children.” Thus Adam is said to know Eve; and David to go in to Bathsheba: and so adultery is called “stolen waters,” Prov. ix. 17. The Holy Ghost knowing the power of our corruption, and how apt we are to be fired with filthy speeches, therefore, by euphemisms, puts seemly titles on unseemly things. The Scriptures not only command chaste and modest things, but they also speak chastely and modestly of those things.
Abominable then is the sin of the popish casuist*, who speak so grossly of the secrets of women in their
cases on the seventh commandment. By then- obscene words they corrupt good manners, and rather hicite than suppress sui. If men must answer for “every idle word,” much more for sinful and immodest ones.
Obs. 3. It is a point of great folly to lie long under convictions, and yet never proceed to thorough conversion. The world is full of such unwise Ephraims, that are of a Laodicean temper, neither hot nor cold, that halt between two, or rather twenty, opinions. Their heaits are di’S’ided between God and the world, God and their idols, Hos. x. 2. They have their understandings enlightened, their affections stirred, and they are strongly convinced of the truth and comfort that are in God’s ways, and yet there they “stay,” they never proceed to a thorough conversion. They are almost, but not altogether, persuaded to be Christians; and so shall be almost, but not altogether, saved, Acts xxvi. 28. God has brought them to the birth, and there they stay, refusing to come forth. He would cure them, but they will not be cured; he would convert them, but they will not be converted, Jer. li. 9. Many have a name to live, and are not far from the kingdom of heaven, they come even to “the place of the breaking forth of childi-en,” but there they “stay long,” too long. They were never fully brought off from their vain principles and practices, and therefore when a temptation comes, they retiu-n to them again, as the dog to his vomit.
Many go far, very far, so that they hear the word with some kind of faith and affection, with sorrow and joy, reforming many things, performing many good duties, both publicly and privately; being endowed with excellent gifts of knowledge, utterance, praying, and preaching, and shows of many graces, to the deceiving of themselves and many others; as Balaam, Saul, Ahab, Jehu, Herod, Judas, Demas, Ananias and Sapphira, and those apostates mentioned Heb. vi. 4 — 6; and yet for want of sincerity they lose all. It is said of king Joash, that he smote the ground twice or thrice and then stayed; whereupon the prophet was angry with him, saying, “Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it,” 2 Kings xiii. 18, 19. So many a man begins well, and subdues two or three lusts, it may be, but for want of thorough work in subduing them all, loses all. A man may go within a mile of some famous city, and yet for want of going that mile never come there. A man may bid within a shilling of some good bargain, and yet for want of that shilling lose it. The people of Israel went as far as Kadesh-barnea, and were within eleven day’s journey of Canaan; and yet by reason of their sins many of them perished in the wilderness and never came there, save only Caleb and Joshua, who followed the Lord fully and sincerely. Numb. xiv. 34, xxxii. 8 — 13. It is sad when a man shall come near the kingdom of heaven, and yet never come there, Mark xii. 34: to sink within sight of the harbour; like Rachel, to die within a mile of Ephrath, Gen. XXXV. 16; to come within one stride of the mark, and yet miss it, that torments the soul. Many purpose well, and promise well, they begin to repent, and begin to reform, but they are ever beginning, and never bring any thing to perfection: like those “sUly women “who were” ever learning, and hoc“abet’t”titfa, never able to come to the knowledge of ?eS.’“seMli’”” the truth,” 2 Tim. iii. 7; like that hypocritical son, who said he would go, but “went not,” Matt. xxi. 30, then- cold and heartless essays come to nothing. These lose heaven many times for some one lust, as Judas for his covetousness, Esau for a mess of pottage, and the young man who had done much, yet in whom one thing was lacking, which marred all, Mark x. 21; if he could but have parted with that, he might have had Christ and happiness.
O then deny yourselves universally, sell all for the pearl of price; you may buy gold too dear, but you can never buy Christ too dear. What if thou part with riches, pleasures, friends? thou shall have better riches, pleasures, and friends, all shall be made up in a better kind; yea, thy friends and riches (if God see it good for thee) shall be given thee into the bargain, Matt, vi. 33.
It is true, conviction is very necessary, and an excellent preparative to conversion; as ploughing fits the ground for sowing, so does this fit the heart for grace: and therefore the first work of the Spii’it is, to “reprove the world of sin,” John xvi. 8. A man must by the law be convinced of his misery, before ever he will beg for mercy; and though all are not converted who are convinced, yet all are convinced who are converted. Men will not come to Christ till they see no other remedy. The malefactor cries not for a psalm of mercy, till he be cast. The prodigal never cares for coming to his father, till he comes to see and say. Here “I perish with hunger,” Lidve xv. 17. Men must be beaten out of their strong holds, like fish out of their holes, or else they wUl not come in; we may break hook and line too, to get out a great fish, but cannot, till he be half choked. First convince a man that his disease is desperate, and then persuade him to cut off a leg or an arm. Fh’st disarm men of all shifts and flattering di-eams, and then you will bring them to their knees. Saul had many shifts, but Samuel refels them all, and at last brings him to, “I have sinned,” 1 Sam. XV. 30. If you belong to God, he will effectually convince you in his due time; he that has begun a good work in you, will finish it; he that has brought to the birth, will give strength to bring forth; he that has brought you out of Sodom, will not rest till he has set you safe in Zoar; he perfects all his works in his people, Psal. lvii. 2.
This then is the fii’st and great work of the Spuit, to convince men thoroughly of their lost and undone condition. This is virtually and fundamentally all; till this be done, no good can be done; we shall never be truly humbled, nor prize a Saviour, nor be fit for his service, nor be intrusted by him. Men must be convinced in themselves what they are in themselves, before Christ wUl reveal himself unto them. Christ will not pour the oil of mercy, but into broken hearts; nor be a physician to any, till they be sick of sin. Such will be ductible and tractable to his will. Paul, when unhorsed and humbled to the ground, is ready to do whatever Christ commands him. Acts ix. 6.
Naturally men have covers, false colours, cavils and excuses for sin; but when the Spii’it comes with convincing power, it stops their mouths, and puts them to silence, so that they have nothing to say for themselves, Rom. iii. 19; they see themselves to be guilty, and such as cannot plead their own cause without an advocate. Whilst men are in their natural condition, they are full of self-righteousness, and filled with false notions. Like spiders, we are full of poison, and yet not sick of it, because it is our nature; but when the Spirit comes, it undeceives men, it rectifies their judgments, and confutes those vain conceits which before possessed them. It now clearly convinces them of the vanity of the creature, of the hatefulness of sin, and the necessity of a Saviour. Conviction is a clear and infallible demonstration, which takes away all a man’s shifts, and does so nonplus him, that he has nothing to say for himself. When Christ had confuted the Pharisees, he took their cloaks from them: Now I have spoken to them, “they have no cloak for their sin,” John xv. 22. Every natural man has some cloak and cover for his sin: but when the Spirit comes, carnal arguments are confuted, and the devil’s strong holds are battered, 2 Cor. X. 4, 5; now he confesses he is poor and naked,
lost and undone, without a Saviour; now he has no plea, nothing to pyetend by way of excuse for himself. And this is the first form in Christ’s school j he will never prove a good proficient in the higher form of the gospel, that has not fii’st been convinced and abased by the terrors of the law. God will have men know what he has done for them, and his grace prized at a due rate, and respected by them. Christ is not Christ to any till sin be seen; neither can we bring you to any thing in Christ, till we have brought you to nothing in yourselves. AVhen men are first broken up with the sight and sense of sin, then they may aspect to be sown in righteousness, Hos. x. 12. Take heed then,
[1.] Of resisting the Spirit’s convictions: do not drive, drink, or game them away; it is a sin against the Holy Ghost so to do, though not the sin against the Holy Ghost, Acts vii. 51. ilany stifle the Spirit’s convictions, like harlots, who destroy their conceptions that they may avoid the pangs of child-birth. Put not out God’s light in thy soul, lest his Spirit strive no more with you in this Idnd, Gen. vi. 3. When God sends his ministers to preach, print, dispute, and convince you, yet if you will not be convinced, take heed lest he say, you shall not be convinced; and in his wrath he say, ]Means of grace never better this people, sacraments never comfort them, sermons never stir them; since they will be filthy, let them be for ever filthy, and since they will not be purged, they shall not be purged till they die. Thus for God not to strive is the sorest judgment, and a forerunner of some dreadful judgment upon a person or nation.
^lany love to hear of privileges, but not of duties; of salvation, but not of sanctification; of heaven, but not of conviction and conversion, wliieh is the way thither. Like the Israelites, that liked Canaan, but would not go through a wilderness to it. But a gracious soul is thankful for humiliation, as well as for consolation; and blesses God, when by his word and Spirit he convinces him of his misery, that so he may be fit for mercy. The sinner convinced of sin, is nearer heaven than the best natural man in the world. PubUcans and harlots, that have no excuse nor apology for their gross sins, are in a more hopeful way of cure, than Pharisees, who think themselves righteous enough. Better (saith Austin) be a humble sinner than a proud innocent.
[2.] Of ignorance and unbelief, which are two great hinderances of conviction. AVhen men know not their misery, nor believe the curses which yet are due to them, no wonder if such be unwi-ought upon.
[3.] Of quenching the motions of the Spirit in you, for if ever you be convinced, the Spirit must do it, John xvi. 8; all the men and ministers in the world cannot do it without the Spirit. We may tell you long enough of this and that sin which you have done, and all to no purpose, till the Sjjirit sets in with the work, and makes you sensible of sin; then, and never till then, it becomes effectual. Mark, therefore, when the Spirit moves in thee, and improve those ojiportunities for thy soul’s advantage. For as, when cliiUlrcn are come to the natural birth, it is God that must and can give strength to bring forth; so, much more in this supernatural birth, is his almighty assistance requisite.
O, then, follow on convictions till they come to conversion, be no longer unwise children, that “stay long” in the place of bringing forth. Be not almost, but altogether, Christians. liest not content with a name of living, but live indeed. Beseech the Lord to bring thy soul out of this prison, tell him that Clu’ist has pi’oclaimed liberty to captives, and thou art one; thou hast been long in captivity to sin and Satan, beseech him now at last to free thee, and thy soul shall praise him. Be earnest, let God see that thy desires are real, and tlicn lie that has brought to the birth will give strength to bring forth.
[■i.] Consider, if a man may attain conviction, and yet miss of conversion and salvation, what will become of those that were never yet convinced of their sin, nor had so much as the faith of devUs, to believe and tremble. If Jehu that was zealous for God, and Ahab that humbled himself, and Judas that lived unblamably, and the Pharisees that prayed and fasted, and Herod that reformed many things, and Ananias and Sapphu’a that gave their goods to pious uses; if all these came short of heaven, where, oh where, will thousands amongst us appear, that come short of those who came short of heaven? Rest not then in thy dead and formal condition, but get a sound and thorough conversion. To quicken you, consider,
(1.) In so doing you will be wise children. Naturally we all desire to be accounted wise, the title of fool is odious to us; but we are never wise indeed, till convictions go on to thorough conversion. ‘Mien the prodigal was enabled to determine to return, then, and not till then, did he come to himself, Luke xv. IT.
(2.) You shall have God’s Spirit to assist you. The work indeed is hard, but such assistance will make it easy. The Spirit of God loves to be employed in such noble work as the destruction of sin, and the exalting of Christ in the soul. He is the Spirit of comfort and peace, but he lays the foundation of it in convincing us of our sin and misery.
(3.) It will make you profit more by sei-mons, sacraments, prayer, &c. tVTien the soul is thus ploughed up with a sense of sin, then it is a fit soil to sow the seed of God’s word in.
(4.) It will prevent abundance of sorrow. If Ephraim had not stayed so long in the place of bringing forth, it had been better with him, and he had prevented those desolations that after seized upon him.
(5.) By coming off fully to Christ, you will enjoy abundance of peace and comfort, which otherwise you will miss of. A thorough conversion brings joy, as a woman that is once delivered of her birth, forgets her sorrow for joy that a child is born into the world. The wise merchant, who sold all, and parted with every lust, for Christ, went away rejoicing, as having made a wise bargain. The Spirit lays the foundation of comfort, first in convincing men of their sin and misery, and then of an all-sufiicient righteousness to free them from that misery, John xvi. 9, 10.
Obs. 4. Impenitent sinners are unwise men. Impenitent Ephraim is called “an unwise son;” though for number, power, and riches, he was the chief of the tribes. Hence impenitent sinners, and fools, are synonymous in Scripture, Prov. i. 7, 32; Psal. xiv. 1; Rom. i.” 22; Tit. iii. 3. Though the Wind world may admire, yet, in God’s esteem, for all their parts and power, they are but fools and mad-men, 1 Sam. xxv. 25; Luke xii. 20; XV. 17; 1 Cor. ii. 14. It is a grief to parents when their chikhen are fools, Prov. x. 1; xix. 13; and it is a trouble to God when his chiklren are stubborn fools, that may, but will not, know the things that concern thpir peace. AMien men are wise to do evil, but averse to do good, when men fin-get the God of their mercies, and suff’er seducers to mislead them, this speaks men fools, Deut. xxxii. 6; Gal. iii. 1. AVhen men fear sufferings more than sin, and resist assistance when it is tendered them, and had rather be strangled in the birth than have strength to bring forth, aill this proclaims men’s folly.
Obs. 5. To be “stupid under judgments is a sore judgment. To be sick, and yet to be insensible of sickness, is a deadly sign: yet so was Ephraim here; the pangs of a travailing woman were upon him, yet he “stays long” in the place of bringing forth, like a child that docs not struggle or move for its own relief, which is mortal both to the mother and the child. It is made a note of a wicked man, that he cries not to God for help
and deliverance, when he binds him with the cords of correction, Job xxxvi. 13. Men are stupid indeed, -when they are wasted, and yet will not be warned; plagued, and yet not instructed, Isa. i. 5; ix. 13; Jer. v. 3; Amos iv. 6, 11. Yet such there have been, and are still, that are no whit affected with God’s judgments upon them, nor repent they of their sins, though scorched with plagues, Isa. xlii. 25; Rev. ix. 20; xvi. 9, 11. And is not this England’s sin? The pangs of a travailing woman are come upon us, and we are encompassed with dangers on every side; grey hairs, which are a sign of weakness, old age, and death approaching, are here and there upon us; yet we know it not, so as to make a right use of it, and to repent, Hos. vii. 9. The more pains God takes to cure us, the more we revolt both in doctrine and manners; and, therefore, since in our filthiness there is lewdness, and we will not be purged, we may justly fear that we shall not be purged, but as we have had our will, so God will have his will too: I will cause my fury to rest upon you, Ezek. xxiv. 13.
It will be our wisdom to foresee the plague, and hide ourselves; to mourn for the things we cannot mend; to keep ourselves free from the sins of the time, that so we may be kept free from those plagues which are certainly coming upon this sinful land: if any thing set us free from the sense of evil, it is the fear of evil, Prov. xxviii. 14; Hab. iii. 16.
Obs. 6. God owns his people even when they are guilty of great folly and stupidity. Ephi“aim is a son, though “an unwise son.” The ten tribes under Jeroboam, Ahab, and the rest of those wicked kings of Israel, were sadly overgrown with idolatry, secui’ity, impenitency, &c.; and yet God owns them for his people to the last, and theh- circumcision as valid still. Jerusalem that killed the prophets, yet was owned by Christ for the chm-ch of God; and he preached unto them, even when he wept over them for then’ sins, and for the foreseen calamities which were coming on them. The church of Corinth, what carnality, divisions, and profanation of holy things were amongst them, and yet still styled “the church of God,” 1 Cor. i. 2. Great, then, is the uncharitableness of those people, that cast off churches and people whom God has not cast off, and unchurch those whom God has not unchui’ched. The brother of the prodigal was angry at his father’s kind reception of him, and calls him “this thy son,” by way of proud disdain, and not this my brother, Luke xv. 28 — 30.
How many are angry at us for owning the Church of England for a national church, and her parochial assemblies for true assemblies, though the word and sacraments be rightly dispensed there! This savours strongly of Pharisaical pride, and too high conceits that some have of themselves and of their church way, in whose assemblies there may be found worse tilings than in many of those churches which yet they reject.
Ver. 14. I will ra7isom them from the power of the grave ,■ / will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
This verse is a kind of parenthesis, and being taken entirely in itself, the context will run more smoothly. It is full of knots and difficulties, having almost as many interpretations as interpreters, and as many various lections as words.
“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.” Some read these words conditionally, and put in the word if, taking the verb in a different mood and tense, thus. If Ephraim were wise and would but repent, I would have ransomed him from death, I would have redeemed him from the
power of the grave; that is, I would either have i)reserved him from captivity, or else I would have delivered him thence. This is true, but not from the text, for the word is DTSN I will ransom, I will redeem; and we may not change mood and tense to make a sense of our own, though never so good. The words therefore are to be taken simply in themselves, for a singular support to God’s people in their deepest distresses; as containing in them a precious cordial, and a most comfortable evangelical promise, of a mighty redemption and glorious resurrection to the remnant according to the election of grace, whom God would have comforted in times of tUstress. It is usual with the prophets to intermingle comforts with their threatenings, to keep God’s people from despair. So Hos. i., ii., xi.; Amos ix. 8 — 15. I3efore he had threatened destruction to the wicked, now he comforts the penitent. In the words we have,
1. The deep distress that God’s people were in, they were in the hand of the grave, and Ln the v,^^ ^,q „,„„ jaws of death, i. e. they were as it were sepuichri, i. e. dead and buried in captivity. The word Job“‘?o;’pSj!’»iii. SlStt” signifies both the grave and hell. ‘°’
(1.) It is for the grave. Gen. xxxvii. 35; Prov. XXX. 16. (2.) For hell metaphorical, i. e. some deep distress, Psal. Lxxxvi. 13. (.3.) For the local hell, Prov. XV. 11. We may take in all these significations, for Christ has redeemed us from them all, and triumphed over them on the cross. Col. ii. 14.
2. A promise of their redemption from this their misery. “I will ransom them from the power of the grave.” AMiat is that? Why exegetically it is added, “I will redeem them from death;” that is, I will bring my elect out of then- captivity, where they lay for dead, and this deliverance shall be to them a pledge of their resurrection to eternal life.
3. The manner how this shall be done, set forth by a prosopopoeiacal apostrophe to death and the grave, whom he brings in as some living enemy, and therefore calls to him, saying, “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” O death, thou seemest to be mighty and powerful, but I will wholly disarm thee; I will not only bite thee, but utterly destroy thee.
4. The certainty of this deliverance, drawn from the constancy of God in keeping his promise, and from the immutability of his decree. “Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes;” ‘i’ymnD’ Dnj I wUl never repent of the mercy which I have promised them, but my goodness to them shall be firm and unalterable. This sense suits best with the original and with the context, wherein God promises a choice mercy to his people. The Vulgate and Seventy render it, consolation is hid from mine eyes: true, onj signifies consolation as well as repentance; but to render it as a threatening here, as if God should say, I am fully determined to destroy my people, for consolation is hid from mine eyes, is very improper, for it confounds the context, and the scope of the verse, which is to comfort, and not to disquiet God’s people. In it the prophet, the better to strengthen their faith, highly extols God’s almighty power; for in straits we are very apt to question that. Numb. xi. 13 — 23; PsaL lxxviii. 19. To an eye of sense, God’s people, lying in captivity, were as dead men, and past all hope of recovery: Yes, saith the prophet, though ye were dead, yet God can raise you again, for he is Lord of death and hell, and has a sovereign power over them all; though death conquers all, yet he conquers death; though it be mighty, yet God is almighty, and there is nothing too hard for him; he will be the death of death, and if none will redeem you thence, he will.
The question is, of what redemption and deliverance does the prophet here speak, whether of a temporal or spiritual redemption? I answer, of both.
1. Literally the Lord promises to free his elect and penitent people from the grave of their captivit)-. Banished men are connted as dead men, especially in a civil sense, and the i)lacc of their banishment is as the grave. Now many of the remnant of Israel, after the destruction of their kingdom, joined themselves to the Jews, and with them came out of Babylon. Though, for their idolatry and ingratitude, he threatened perpetual banishment to them, yet, for the comfort of his people then, and of their progeny, he promises a redemption for them, Hos. i. 10; which was fulfilled about two hundred years after that Samaria was taken, when C)tus proclaimed liberty to the Jews to go build the temple, Ezra i.
2. Typically it alludes to our spiritual and eternal redemption by Christ, and our conquest over death and hell by him. By Adam’s sin, death came u])on all men, Kom. V. 15; but Christ, by his rcsun’ection, has freed us from the power of death, and has led it captive, which formerly led us captive, I’sal. lxviii. 18; Kph. iv. 8. This is the redem])tion (saith Zanchy) which is principally and properly licre meant: for though the pco])le of Judah, after seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, did return again out of it; yet the people of Israel, after that Samaria was taken, never returned again to their own land, for it was laid waste, and inhabited by strangers. It is usual with the prophets, suddenly to digress from their history to Christ, who was thenscope, delight, and love; so that every hint and shadow in the Old Testament brought him to their remembrance: and then from Chiist to recur to their history again. Tluis it is here; and so Isaiah, prophesying of Cyrus, who .shoidd deliver Israel out of Babylon, in the same chapter prophesies of Christ the redeemer of his church, Isa. xlv.; and Ezekiel, having inveighed against idle and idol shepherds, jn’esently turns his speech to Christ, who is the true Shepherd of his people, Ezek. xxxiv. 2 — 16: so Zech. ix. 9; xiii. 6, 7.
In this verse the prophet introduces death and the grave, as two tn’annical enemies, to whom he speaks ill the name of the Lord Christ ( as the apostle expounds it, 1 Cor. XV. 55) as a conqueror, saying, “O death, I will bo thy ]]lagues; O grave, I will be thy Srnt..a“intn«vcrbi. destruction.” Or as the apostle from the d iiiiiifcctu Scrip- Septuagint, (though in this text the
tune sffpc olienisai’ .i- ,.. n,
mi.iini.ct vcivo- apostle m some things varies from the ir“n“X’r’miTu»’’ present Scptuagiot, and so do other citaj™’m.’ ““” ‘’°“‘’”’’ tions in the New Testament; which shows Slii’ori’a’.’Jr!t’’liiir ^^’^ ‘“”-’ °^ those, who cqualizc it with ca.mi .prcwmha- tlic Original Hcbrcw,) “O death, where is int. suin. ^]jy sting? O grave, where is thy victoi-y?” 1 Cor. XV. 55. The first Adam brought death into the world, but the Second Adam has abolished it.
There is some difficulty in the words, and therefore I shall open them particularly, and break every clod, that I may find out the golden ore in this glorious triumph over death, and notable encomium on the resurrection of the dead.
I’iscator and others read the words interrogatively, as an insulting and triumphing interrogation, thus, O death, where are thy plagues? O grave, where is thy dtstniction? They are no wlicre to be found, for Christ has removed them, and taken them out of the way of his people, so that now there is no hurt in death. This various reading comes from the ambiguous signification of the word »nK which is rendered by some, I will lie; J, ^, by the Septuagint, irov, where; and the
s.nhi,iRi,.i ‘imii«ri opostlc, following tlic Spptuflgint, s)ieakli’.’. p.“‘.v1m’mnMa ing to Grccks, and that in Greece, alleges tacMM“‘’oi’,’’’h»c?,h!” Greek text, as being most familiar and •I. iM,i.-,ici vrri- best known to them. T)ie apostle gives the sense and meaning, but not the words, which is frequent in Scrijiture; the penmen being intent on the matter, were not curious in the words,
but did add and alter what might explain and clear them: yet the prophet and the apostle are casUy reconciled, thus, ‘• O death, I will be thy plagues,” i. e. I will pull out thy pestilent sting; ‘• O grave, I will be thy destruction,” i. e. I will get the victory over thee. I, the Lord Christ, will redeem them from death by paying a valuable price for their Sir.li.pS’S. redemption; this none could do but I: i>“»”. «<i p>»iio. yea, 1 will be the death of death, I will mere. itaVNjBig be its plagues and destruction; it shall ^^’.^iX.m^S’” never prevail against my people, for I ^S.S^’iemp’” will restore them to life again, 1 Cor. xv. “” poswssiunum. 26, 54, 55. It is not I am, or I have “”^ ’ been, but, I will be, thy destruction. Now, in Hebrew, the future tense oft expresses both the present and preterperfect tenses; it implies not only the time to come, but also the time present, and the time past: I am, I have been, and shall be for ever, death’s destroyer. Christ was virtually the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, and so was death’s destroyer; but actually he conquered death and the grave, by lying dead in the grave, and by his alinighty power raising himself thence again, so that death hath now no more dominion over him and his, Acts ii. 24.
“O death, I will be thy plagues;” jiio “^’nai ‘.”is not one or two, but many plagues, even so many as shall destroy thee. Thou didst destroy my people, but now I will destroy thee; thou didst triumph over them, but now I will triumph over thee, and lead thee, and all the enemies of my people, in triumph at my chariot wheels, Psal. lxviii. 18; Eph. iv. 8; for under death and the grave is sj-necdochically comprehended the conquest of all the enemies of our salvation; as sin, death, hell, Satan, banishment, imprisonment, poverty, sickness, tribulation, persecution, famine, sword, &c., over all these we arc more than conquerors, even triumphers, through Christ that loved us, Rom. viii. 35, 37. He names only death, because death is “the last enemy that shall be destroyed,” 1 Cor. xv. 26; yet, by an argument from the greater to the less, he comfort is his people thus. If I can deliver you from death and. the grave, then much more from banishment and captivity.
“O grave, I will be thy destruction,” SiNC ^at2p ‘.”IK I will be thy rooting out and cutting off. The same word is used, Deut. xxxii. 24: Psal. xci. 6; Isa. xxviii. 2; and here implies. Thou didst destroy my people, but now I will destroy thee, so that they may now sing! triumphantly, O death, where is thy pestilent sting, wherewith thou wast wont to torture and torment us? it is gone, it is destroyed by Christ, who is thy death, O death, and thy utter destruction. As a man that drinks a cup of poison, drinks that which will be his ruin; so the grave, by swallowing and devouring Christ, was conquered and killed by him. Of old tlicy did celebrate the victories and triumphs of Achilles, Hercules, Alexander, Julius Capsar, and the rest of the great conquerors of the world: but, alas, all those died and were conquered by death. Only Chiist, the King and Saviour of his church and people, by his death fl has conquered sin, Satan, and death; and has madf full satisfaction for us to the law and justice of God.
So that which the prophet speaks here of the restoration of the Jews in particular, the apostle applies to the general resurrection of the dead: “AVhen this corruptible shall have put on incomiption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victor)’. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”’ 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55: where the apostle quotes two texts, and it is usual with the ])enmen of the New Testament to refer to divers texts out of the Old Testament, and to unite them into one in the New. So Peter, speaking against Judas,
Acts i. 20, saith, “It is -WTitten in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take:” the former part is taken out of Psal. lxix. 25, and the latter part out of Psal. cis. 8. So of Mark i. 2, 3, the former part is taken out of Mai. iii. 1, the latter from Isa. xl. 3. So Christ himself. Matt. xxi. 13, alludes to Isa. lvi. 7, and Jer. vii. 11. So here the apostle cites one text out of Isa. xxv. 8, “He will swallow up death in victory,” n»jS nwn ySa which the Seventy render, ica7-l7ri£1» 6 9avarog iaxias, death devours all; but this is contrary both to the sense of the prophet and the apostle, who speak not of the prevailing power of death, but of the power of Christ over death. Death is swallowed up in victory, and that great devourer of all is by Christ devoured. This promise is now fulfilled in the death of Christ, who has already destroyed the power of death for his people; and shall be completely fulfilled at the resurrection of the dead, when all corruption and mortality shall be totally taken away, and death shall be swallowed up in victory for ever. In the sense of this mercy, the apostle breaks forth, ravished as it were with the contemplation of this conquest over death, into a triumphant song, which all the saints shall sing at the last day: when they shall be totally freed from the captivity of death and the grave, then shall they insult over subdued death, and say, “O death, where is thy sting,” wherewith thou wast wont to woiuid all creatures? “O grave, where is thy victory,” by which thou hast hitherto kept the dead under by force, which now thou must render again, as not being able any longer to hold them under thy power? Rev. XX. 13, 14. It is only sin by which death has power over us; and it is the just rigour of the law which inflicts death upon us for sin. But thanks be to God who has given us the victory over sin, which is the cause of death, and over death, which is inflicted for sin, through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom we obtain an immortal and incorruptible life. Thus the apostle has faithfully given us the sense of the prophet, though not his very words.
The sum and substance of all is this. Though Ephraim has been an iniwise son, and has delayed his returning unto me, yet his impenitency and security shall not retard or disannul my faithfulness and truth to my people, I will never repent of those gracious promises which I have made to them, but will certainly fulfil them. Let not therefore my chosen, penitent ones despair as if there were no hope, no help for them; for I, their Saviour, will redeem them from the power of all their enemies, and cause them to rise fi-om death (which had power over them through sin) to the glory of eternal life. So that now they may begin their triumphant song, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Obs. 1. Though the Lord be terrible to the wicked, yet he is a tower to the righteous. Though plagues come suddenly and inevitably upon the wicked, like pangs upon a woman in travail, yet even then has the Lord a tender respect to his people, and will ransom them from the power of the grave, Isa. i. 24 — 27; iii. 10, 11. And though they should go into captivity with the wicked, yet God will set a distinguishing mark of mercy upon them, Ezek. ix. 4; Rev. vii. 3. In the midst of his judgments he remembers mercy, and has a tender care over his people, making them to be pitied of all that lead them captive, Psal. cvi. 46; wherever they go, they have his more especial presence with them to uphold and comfort them, Isa. xliii. 2, 3; Jer. x-i. 13 — 15; Micah iv. 10; Dan. iii.; vi. 22. When all forsake them, yet I will not forsake them, but will be “a little sanctuary” to them in their captivity, Ezek. xi. 16, 17. God is ever mindful of his covenant to his people, and in the midst of all confusions, he has an
ark for Noah, a Zoar for Lot, a Midian for Moses, a Haran for Jacob, a cave for David, a grale for Methuselah, and Josiah, and a Pella for Christians. Elijah, that was zealous, and a man of fire for God in wicked times, was carried in a fiery chariot to heaven. Jeremiah, that witnessed against the corruptions of the times, how tenderly does the king of Babylon deal with him, when the king and his nobles lay in misery! Jer. xxxix. 11 — 14.
Obs. 2. The Scripture of the Old Testament is the word of God. The apostle shows us the divine authority of it, even in gospel times, by referring to this text, and another in Isa. xxv. 8, to prove the Divine mystery of the resuiTcction. About four bundled places are cited out of the Old Testament in the New. Both Testaments are the sacred word of the great God, and serve for mutual illustration and explanation.
Obs. 3. The Scripture lies not in the bare words and syllables, but in the sense and meaning. Hence it is that Christ and his apostles, citing texts p„^ y,,^ ^, out of the Old Testament, give us the ipnsioios et evausense and meaning of the place, but not scHpiuiSum Sie“- the very words; so in a text sometimes qi?i’,s°e“non”ve“bl, they omit a word, and sometimes they MduTSSonibuaadd something for explanation’ sake, as 9”= curisse, aum
So Gen. ii. 24, compared with Matt. sLx. ‘’»°’»’’=’’- 5, where ot Svoj, they two, is added emphatically, not they twenty, shall be one flesh. So Deut. vi. 13, compared with Matt. iv. 10, where the exclusive particle, ix6vii>, only, which was not expressed in Deuteronomy, but tacitly and interpretatively understood, is added by our Saviour very significantly. So Isa. lxiv. 4, coUatecl with 1 Cor. ii. 9, “Neither have entered into the heart of man:” these words are added by way of illustration by the apostle. So Isa. xxii. 13, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.” But the apostle puts it in the present tense, 1 Cor. xv. 32, “to-morrow we die;” and this he does for explication’ sake, to express the desperate madness of those epicures, who would eat and drink securely, although they were to die presently. This shows the folly of the quaking Scripturists, (such there are in our days as well as antiscripturists,) who take the bare words and syllables, and will not suifer any meaning or exposition to be given nf them. Thus when they call for a proof of infant baptism, you must show them in so many words. Thou shalt baptize infants, else they will not believe you. Tell them, that generals include particulars, and that children are confederates, and in covenant with their parents, and therefore have right to the seal of the covenant; and that infant baptism now is as lawful as infant circumcision of old; yet this doth not satisfy, because they cannot read in so many letters. Thou shalt baptize infants. So the papists stick to the bare letter, “This is my body.” Whereas that bread could not be his natural body, for Christ was then alive when he said, ‘■ This is my body;” and the apostle calls it bread four or five times after consecration, 1 Cor. xi. 23 — 28. The Scripture lies not m the bare and naked words, but in the scope and true interpretation of the words, which is, as it were, the soul re°rbis’s?J°ptearum and life of the Scripture. Hence Christ |^’i,rB’SFsu’’nOTi bids us not barely read, but search for “” supfficie,’ sed in
. 1 ■’. r ii c- X medulla, non in
the sense and meaning ot the bcriptures, sepmooumtoiiis,sed John V. 39. The lawyers have a saying, jer’om’.’com.Td“’ me7is legis est lex, not the bare words, ‘’^^ “• but the meaning of the law is the law.
Obs. 3. Chi-ist is the Lord. He who has power over death and hell is the Lord; but Christ has this power. Rev. i. 18; XX. 13, death and hell gave up their dead to Christ their Judge. It is he that by the price of his own blood has redeemed us from the hand of sin and Satan, from death and hell; what the prophet spake
of Jehovah, the apostle applies to Christ, 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55.
Obs. 4. There is a holy harmony and sweet consent in the Scripture. There is no repugnancy, no real contradiction there; like stones in an arch, they mutually uphold and strengthen each other. The doctrine of the prophets gives light to the apostles, and the apostles again illustrate and explain the prophets. In both there is one and the same Spirit of truth, who “at sundry times, and in divers manners,” has published one and the same truth to his people, heb. i. 1, 2. They must not therefore be opposed, but composed; not made to contradict, but to confirm each other, Luke xxiv. 44.
Obs. 5. God’s people, whilst in this world, may fall into deep distress and misery. They may be brought so low, that to a carnal eye they may seem dead and buried, past hope and help, not only in theh- own eyes, but also in the eyes of others. We have a notable instance for this, in Ezek. xxxvii. 1 — 15; the desperate condition of God’s people in their Babylonish captivity, is there set forth by dead, dried bones, to an eye of sense past all hope or possibility of recovery; insomuch that God’s own people, whose faith should not fail, cry out, ver. 11, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” Yea, the prophet himself was staggered: the Lord asked him, ver. 3, “Son of man, can these bones live?” is it possible that ever such dry bones should live again? The prophet answers, “O Lord God, thou knowest:” it passes my apprehension to conceive how this should be, I know not how it should be effected; but, Lord, thou knowest what thou hast to do, and to thee nothing is impossible. This the Lord does in his wisdom, to di’aw us out of ourselves and all creature confidences, that in a holy desperation we may say with repenting Israel, “Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands. Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy,” Hos. xiv. 3.
Obs. 6. God in his due time will deliver his people out of the deepest distress. He is omnipotent, he can and will redeem Israel, not out of one or two, but “out of all his troubles,” Psal. xxv. 22. Art thou weak? He can strengthen thee. Art thou sick? He can heal thee. Ai-t thou dark? He can enlighten thee. Art thou dead? He can enliven thee. Hast thou lain in thy grave till thou stinkest again? So did Lazarus. Hast thou lain till thou art rotten? So did Israel in their Babylonish captivity, and yet were restored, Ezek. xxxvii. 11,12. So in desertions we are apt to despond; when we walk in darkness, and can see no light, neither sun-light nor moon-light, neither star-light nor candle-light, but are like unto dry bones in a sepulchre, without life, without spirit, without strength, without comfort, and see no way of deliverance. Aye, but now is a time to live by faith, and not by sense, Isa. xl. 27 — 31; 1. 10. Such is our weakness, that we art apt to “limit the Holy One of Israel,” and to think that he can help us in lesser trials, and bring us out of petty crosses; but when some great waves of temptation come, then we are apt to question God’s power and promises, and to say with Uavid, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul,” 1 Sam. xxvii. 1. We are apt to say with Martha, If Christ had come a little sooner, he might have raised Lazarus, but “by this time he stinketh,” and is past help, John xi. 39. Aye, but it is the better for that, for now Christ’s power will be the more manifested, and his Father the more glorified. The more grievous thy disease, the greater will the praise of thy Physician be in thy cure; and we shall love much, when we see how much is forgiven; and therefore David makes it an argument to move the Lord to pity him, because his sins were great, Psal. xxv. 11.
Remember, it is God’s usual course to let men be dead and buried (as it were) in misery, and to bring things to extremity, and then appear. Gen. xxii. 14; Psal. xlvi. 1; when trouble comes, then he comes too. We read of three persons that Cluist raised from the dead: one was dead, but not carried out, Mark v. 41. A second was dead, and carried out, Luke vii. 14. A third was dead, carried out, buried, and lay till he stunk in his grave, and that was Lazarus; Christ speaks but the word, “Lazarus, come forth,” and he lives. God is never nearer to his people than when to a carnal eye he seems farthest off; as we see in the three young men that were cast into a fiery furnace, and Daniel into the lions’ den. Sense and carnal reason would have said, God had now forsaken them, and there was no help, yet even then did they find the greatest help; so good it is to trust in God.
06s. 7. Death in itself is a formidable enemy, and, considered as a curse due to impenitent sinners, is very terrible; even the most terrible of all terribles, as Aristotle calls it. It is armed °uf“^’’^a^, with stings and ijlagues, and is therefore <ipofiii,-,aTo: called an “enemy, 1 Cor. xv. 26; and” the king of terrors,” even such a terror as is the chiefest and greatest of terrors, Job xviii. 14. Hence dreadful calamities are set forth by “the shadow of death,” Job x. 21, 22; xvi. 16; xxiv. 17; Psal. xxiii. 4; Jer. xiii. 16; the “messengers of death,” Prov. xvi. 14; and the “snares, sorrows, and terrors of death,” Psal. xviii. 4, 5; Iv. 4. It is this that snatches men, when they least think of it, from their dear relations, pleasures, riches, recreations, mansions, honours, which they love as their lives; and this must needs be terrible to a natural man, who has no assurance of better things when he dies. Hence such are said to be in bondage, and a slavish fear of death, all their life long, Heb. ii. 15. Whilst wicked men look upon death at a distance, and think it far off, they fear it not; but when God shall open their eyes by sickness, and summon them to appear befoi-e him, then, like Pashur, they are Magormissabil), a ten-or to themselves, and all that are round about them, Jer. xx. 3, 4. Saul, though a king, and a valiant man, yet, when he heard that death was at the door, and he must die to-mon’ow, was so disphited with this dismal news, that he fell into a deadly trance, and was not able to bear it; the fear of death had well nigh ended him before his death came, 1 Sam. xxviii. 19, 20. So Belshazzar, a mighty monarch, in the height of his mirth, is “greatly troubled,” his countenance is changed, his thoughts trouble him, and his joints are loosed; but whence came all this terror and amazement? from fear of this king of fears, death, which suddenly after surprised him, Dan. v. This puts an end to all a wicked man’s comforts and ‘” f ‘J’ f •’’’’• hopes; conscience shall now be awakened, and he must give an account of his stewardship. This made Louis XL, king of France, to command his servants, in his sickness, that they should not once mention that bitter word death in his hearing. Yea, even the godly, in a tem])tation, for fear of death, have not acted lilie themselves at other times; as we see in three of the greatest worthies that we read of in the Scriptures: first, Abraham, famous for faith. Gen. xii. 12, 13; xx. 2, 11; and David, famous for valour, 1 Sam. xxi. 12, 13; and Peter, for courage, yet to save his life Peter denied his Lord.
Ohs. 8. Death is a conquered enemy. Christ has disarmed him, and taken away his sting. He has redeemed his from the power of the grave, and swallowed up death in victory. Christ, by his death, has destroyed dcatli, and “him that had the power of ri,,i„i,.. .iiciiur t.. death, the devil,” Heb. ii. 14. By suffer- !,-„“■ „“^’,™,Sr” ing of that death which was due to us for .ed’qua lyminuj, ’ our sins, he has destroyed the power of hpbct’linp«i’>^u>
See Dr. Goodivin
Christ’s Death ar
Resurrection, seel
3. p. 22. qurt.
eoi qui morii propter Satan, and taken away that advantage Si’ii“rtTpl“us’^rot’e’s- which he had against us by reason of sin, ce’jhSd’” ‘“”’’ whose wages is death. Satan thought by
death to destroy Chi’ist, but Christ, by his death, destroyed his kingdom, and became more glorious by dying; like another Samson, he slew more at
his death than in his life. So that now
O beatam illorum i.
mortem qui partici. WB are more than conquerors, virtpviKwjitv, ^Siu’Kno““‘” re even triumphers through “him that loved us.” He has triumphed over death, and all the enemies of our salvation, and we in him, our Head, triumph, 2 Cor. ii. 14; Col. ii. 14, 15. By lying in the grave he has sweetened our gi-ave for us, so that now we may sleep in it as in a bed of do’mi, Isa. lvii. 2; and our flesh may “rest in hope” of a glorious resurrection, Psal. xvi. 9. Now, if ever, we may sing that triumphant song, “O death, where is thy sting?” It is destroyed, abolished, gone. This strong man armed is overcome by a stronger than he. Neither the pleasures of life, nor the pains of death; neither the height of prosperity, nor the depth of adversity, nothing now can separate us from Christ, Job v. 20 — 22; Kom. viii. 35 — 39. Death may dissolve our corporal marriage, but it is so far from abolishing, that it perfects, our spiritual mari’iage; killed we may be, but conquered we can never be. Christ’s victory is our victory, and all his conquests ours.
But if Christ, by his death, has destroyed death, why then do the godly die? To this I answer, Christ did not die to deliver us from sickness and death, but to free us from the curse that is in these. By his death he has pulled out the sting of death. The death of the body still remains, but the sting, and that which is penal, is taken away, so that it cannot hurt us; and therefore the text saith not, I will free you from death, ne sit, sed ne obsit but c vianu mortis, from the destructive *”^’ power of death; so as it shall have no
dominion over you to hurt you, nor be able to separate you fi’om Chi-ist. As the apostle saith of sin, it is in us, but it does not reign in us. So die we must, but death has no dominion over believers, as it has over wicked men; it gets the victory over them, they die, and die eternally; but a believer’s death is neither total, penal, nor perpetual.
1. It is not total. It seizes only on the body, the carcass, the outside; it goes to its dust, but the spirit returns to God that gave it, Eccl. xii. 7.
2. It is not penal, but profitable. In the grave we put off our filth, deformities, defects, infirmities, and mortality itself. It is our attiring house, to fit us for immortality and gloiy.
3. It is not pei-petual, it is but a sleeping till the general resun-ection, Rom. viii. 10, 11. Our conquest over death is partly fulfilled in this life, but it shall be consummate in f ado, and fully completed at the resurrection. Then shall they “awake and sing, that dwell in dust,” Isa. xxvi. 19. This upheld Job in the midst of all his sorrows, “I know that my redeemer liveth;” my comfort is, though I die, yet I have one to right me that lives for ever. Job xix. 25. David comforts himself with this, that God would redeem him from the power of the grave, and fi’om the hand of hell; though riches cannot redeem the rich, yet God would redeem him, Psal. xlix. 15.
But I must part with wife, children, friends, pleasures. But know, all these losses will be made up in a better kind; as you may see at large in Ir. Byield’s Cure of the Fear of Death, at the end of his Marrow, p. 745; and Bp. Hall’s Balm of Gilead, p. 141.
Let us then not fear death with a slavish fear. Christ died to free us from such a fear of death, Heb. ii. 15. A religious, prudential fear does well; fear it so as to arm yourselves and prepare for it, but not so as to be
dejected under it. No wise man will fear a conquered enemy; if you truly believe in Christ, the conqueror of death, you need not fear death. Think on Christ when you think on death, and then you may in a holy sarcasm and contempt say, “O death, where is thy sting?” Christ has unstinged it, and, as it were, disarmed it; so that now we may safely put it in our bosoms: buzz it may about our ears as a drone bee, but sting it cannot, for Christ has taken away the guilt of sin, and has made that which was sometimes a curse to become a blessing, of a foe he has made it a friend, of a poison a medicine, of a punishment an advantage, Phd. i. 21, of the gate of hell a passage to heaven. It is now like the valley of Achor, “a door of hope;” that which was sometimes the king of terrors is now become the king of comforts, as making way for the enjoyment of the highest comforts. We part with a life of miseiy to enjoy a life of gloiy. AVe are wont to say, A fair exchange is no robbery; but such a change is our great advantage. Hence it is that the apostle, summing up a Christian’s privileges and riches, sets down death as part of it, 1 Cor. iii. 22, not only life, but death is yours. He that can truly say, I am Christ’s subject and servant, may as truly say. Death will be my preferment and high advancement. So true is that of Solomon, Eccl. vii. 1, the day of a man’s death is better than the day of his birth. Then, and never till then, shall w6 rest from our labours, Job iii. 17; Rev. xiv. 13, and be perfectly freed from sin and all its attendant evils.
Look not therefore on death with philosophical eyes, as if it were the end of all our comforts, but look on it with Christian eyes, as the year of jubilee, the day of our coronation, and consummation of the marriage between Christ and our souls.
A natural man, that looks upon death with an eye of sense, sees nothing but hon’or and terror in it; but a gracious soul, that looks on it with an eye of faith, sees life in death, light in darkness, and comfort in discomfort: though for a time he must lie in the grave, and death seems to have dominion over him, yet he as certainly sees a resun-ection as if he were already in possession of it, and therefore he triumphs afready in assurance of a total conquest through Clu-ist; death is afready swallowed up by him in victory, Isa. xxv. 8. Christ was his life, and therefore now death is his gain. He lived holCy, and now he dies hap- j,on p„(„t male pily; he lived unto the Lord, and there- mori quibene mefore he now dies unto him, Rom. xiv. 7, 8; 2 Cor. v. 15. His care was to keep a good conscience, and now he has the comfort of it, 2 Cor. i. 12.
Let atheists, then, and worldlings, and wicked men, fear death, who know no better life; but let the righteous, who has hope in his death, Prov. xiv. 32, embrace it, and bid it welcome, as the martp-s did, who went as joyfully to their stakes as others do to marriages. Witness all those living speeches of dying saints which shall shortly be published by an able and industrious hand to the world. Cyprian, hearing the sentence of death pronounced against him, said. Lord, I thank thee that now thou wilt free me from the bonds of the body. I shall not now lose my life, but change it for a better. Pomponius Algerius,’in an epistle which he wi-ote to his fi-iends from the delectable Horh’ard of the Leonine prison, July 12, 1555, excellently saith, I shall tell you strange things, I have found a honeycomb in a lion’s belly; in a deep dungeon I have found pleasantness; in a place of bitterness and the shadow of death I have found peace and hope of life. In the belly of hell I have found comfort. ‘WTiere others weep, there do I sing for joy; and where others fear, there have I support. The good hand of my God has done all this for me. He that seemed sometime to be far from me, is
now most present with me. He that I had but some glimpses of before, I now see face to face. He has turned my winter into a glorious spring: why should I fear any freezing cold, who am thus inflamed with the love of’ God? Let malefactors fear this prison, to me it flows with honey.
06s. 9. God’s decrees are infallible and unchangeable. Repentance is hid from his eyes, he knows not what it means. “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent,” Numb, xxiii. 19; 1 Sam. xv. 29. He is Jehovah, lie change th not, Mai. iii. 6. His covenant he will not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his lips, Psal. lxxxix. 34, 35; ex. 4; Isa. liv. 9, 10; if he has decreed to show mercy to his people and to redeem them from the power of hell, all the devils in hell shall not be able to hinder it. It is not the counsel of men or devils, but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand, Psal. xxxiii. 10, 11. If he has spoken it he will do it, yea, and the contrary plots of wicked men shall help to effect it. Acts ii. 23; Rom. ix. 11.
But is not God said to repent? Gen. vi. 6; Jar. xviii. 8; Amos vii. 3, 6. That is spoken, not properly, but after the manner of men, and according to our capacity, because his work is changed, though himself continueth unchangeable, for with him “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” He is constant and faithful in performing all his promises to his people, 1 Thess. V. 24. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.” They are mercy in promising, and truth in performing; not one thing shall fail of all the good things which God has promised to his people. Josh, xxiii. 14; though they be not presently fulfilled, yet in God’s due time they shall be accomplished, for though God come not at our time, yet he never fails his own, Deut. xxxii. 35; Hab. ii. 3.
Obs. 10. Believers in this life may be assured of thek salvation. Repentance is hid from God’s eyes; whom he loves once he loves for ever. Xot one of those that the Father has given to Christ shall perish. Matt, xviii. 14; John vi. 39. “The foundation of God standeth sure,” more sure than the pillars of the earth or the poles of heaven, 2 Tim. ii. 19. The decree of election is there called, 1. A foundation. 2. A firm and sure foundation. 3. It is not a foundation of man’s laying, but it is the foundation of God. 4. It is not a tottering, but a standing foundation, built on a rock, sealed and confirmed by the Spirit, counsel, and special knowledge of God; he “knoweth them that are his.” Hence the covenant of the Lord made with his people is called “an everlasting covenant,” 2 Sam. xxiii. 5; Hos. ii. 19, 20; and he has promised to plant his fear in their hearts, that they shall never depart from him, Jer. xxxii. 40. If they fall, yet they shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds them with his hand, Deut. xxxiii. 3; Psal. xxxvii. 24; Prov. ii. 7, 8; John x. 28. They stand not by their own strength, but are kept and guarded by his almighty power “through faith unto salvation,” 1 Pet. i. 5. Common gifts and graces may fade and fail, but his gifts, that is, his peculiar, essential gifts, which appertain to salvation, are “without repentance,” Rom. xi. 29.
Ver. 15. Though he be fruitful amoyig his brethren, an east icitid shall come, the Kind of the Lord shall come upfront the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and Ins fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
The prophet having comforted God’s people, returns again to the denouncing of judgments against the wicked; and because similitudes make a deep impression, therefore he uses lliem. He sets forth, ver. 13,
their distress by the pains of a woman in travail; and in this 15th verse, the spoil and havoc that should be made amongst them by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, which he illustrates by a double similitude.
But, first, he prevents an objection which Ephraim might make; I am fruitful, and abound with riches, honours, strength, and therefore I fear no fall. Admit it be so, though Ephraim be “fruitful among his brethren,” yet “an east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.”
On this verse there are almost as various interpretations as there be interpreters, so that I may say of it as Maldonate said of another text, Nescio an hie locus facilior faisset si nemo eum exposuisset. This text had been plainer unexplained.
1. Some make the words a promise of great blessings to Ephraim after all his sorrows; Yet he shall be fruitful amongst his brethien. After the Assyrian had spoiled him of all his treasure, yet by the might of him that ransometh men from the grave, they shall be raised up. But this is a forcing of the words contrary to their genuine sense and meaning.
2. Others apply it to Christ, and say.
He shall increase and multiply his elect prfrrt, aium oi«- both in number and glory at the last «<^^»o“> vi’”«it day. The very rehearsal of this is confutation sufficient.
3. The Vulgate, leaving the Hebrew to follow the Septuagint, read it, Ephraim dividet, Ephraim shall divide amongst his brethren, and make a schism amongst them, therefore God will send the Assyrian against him. But ‘’ae word Ls «’”tB*cre4Cf<, not dividet.
4. LyTa hic (Lriirat, when he takes, or rather mistakes, the word for a division and separation at the end of the world, when the evil shall be separated from the good, and the goats from the sheep. Quite contrary to the scope of the text, which speaks of increa.sing, not of dividing; and of brethren, which sheep and goats were never yet accounted.
In the words then we have,
I. Ephraim’s dignity from God’s mercy to him.
II. Ephraim’s downfal and consequent misery.
I. Ephraim’s dignity flowing from God’s mercy towards him. “Though he be fruitful among his brethren.” He was the head of the tribes, Judah alone excepted, and that only in respect of dignity; for in number of men, and in power and riches, Ephraim excelled them all. The prophet alludes, 1. To Ephraim’s name, which signified fruitful and flourishing; such as his name was, such was he; Ephraim was his name, and fruitfuhiess was with him; both the — ..^^ — fruitfulness of the earth, and the fruit- fnTd&.v.t, c..: fulness of the womb; he was like a ^^U.“‘’ ‘“” bough by a well-side, fruitful, and flourishing, whose branches run over the wall. He had the upper and the nether springs, the blessings of heaven above, and of the earth beneath. Gen. xlix. 22, 25. 2. He alludes to the blessing which Jacob his grandfather gave him on his death-bed; Ephraim “shall be greater than” Manasseh, “and his seed shall become a multitude of nations,” Gen. xlviii. 19.
II. Ephraim’s downfal and consequent misery. God’s mercies should have made him more fruitful and obedient, but he, like an unwise son, became more insolent, idolatrous, and disobedient, Hos. xiii. 5, 6. Therefore God will now sweep all away, and make him know the value of his mercies by the want of them.
“An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.”
In which are contained,
1. The judgment threatened. “An east wind shall come.” rm Dnp “an east wind.” This wind usually is most violent and boisterous; when God is said to break ships, it is with “an east wind,” Psal. xlviii. 7; when he divided the sea, it was with “a strong east wind.” Exod. xiv. 21. It is a dry, sharp, searching, hurtful wind, destructive to the herbs and fruits of the earth, especially in those countries. Gen. xli. 6; Job xv. 2; Ezek. xvii. 10: xix. 12; Isa. xxvii. 8; Jonah iv. 8. Hence, great afflictions are compared to east winds, Job xxvii. 21; Jer. xviii. 17. This east wind is not to be taken properly, but metaphorically; by it is meant the king of AssjTia with his forces, who should come from the east, and, like an east wind, should dry up and destroy all before him. In this sense, the violent Chaldeans are compared to an east wind, Hab. i. 9. And the Assyrian is also compared to an eagle, which comes swiftly, with great force and violence.
2. From whom this wind shall come. It comes not by chance or fortune, but it comes from God, and therefore it is called “the wind of the Lord:” that is, a mighty, strong, irresistible wind, carrying down all before it; such a one as God himself shall raise for the punishment of Ephraim, viz. that most cruel and most merciless Ass^Tian, sent by the Lord to avenge the quaiTel of his covenant.
3. From whence it shall come. It “shall come up from the wilderness,” where the winds blow most fiercely and vehemently, because they meet with no resistance. It was “a great wind from the wilderness” that brought the house upon Job’s children. Job i. 19. This denotes the fierceness of the AssjTian against Israel, he shall rage unmercifully against him.
4. The hurt which this violent wind shall do. “His spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up.” A^Tiat is that? why exegetically there is added,.“ncn ‘Sa-Ss ivis nor’ “he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.” When the fountain is dried, the streams must needs fail. Allusion in this is made to the land of Ephraim, which abounded with fruits and springs, and it withal sets forth the great abundance of all things that Israel enjoyed; they had not di-ops, or ponds, or torrents, but constant springs of mercy, whilst others had only some streams thereof; they sat at the fountain head, they had the root, when others had but branches, Hos. ix. 16. We might paraphrase the whole thus: Since Ephi-aim and the rest of the tribes have rebelled against me, they shall be brought to utter desolation; all the springs of my blessings shall be taken from them, and all manner of happiness shall fail them; I will send the Assyrian amongst them, and he =’“”11 .spoil all their treasures, and carrj- away all their
ornaments; even their most precious and ‘iiidtmpi- desirable things, though never so closely ii.eua’iori hid, this searching wind will find them !MSs’i[mS °^f’ ‘* go’d, silver, jewels, costly oint-. ,,.d.impecu-’ ments, perfumes, apparel, or any of the quocunque niodo preclous fruits of the earth: whatever “^-ii’f’rs’; N^hum desirable thing is hid and highly esteeminco *”“‘”’“” ‘° ed, either by the covetous, the voluptuous, or the lascivious, shall all become a prey to the merciless AssjTian.
men ‘Sa which we translate “pleasant vessels,” signifies properly a vessel of desire, a Hebraism for very precious things. Hence Daniel is called niicn-r’N a man of desires; that is, a precious man, and greatly beloved, Dan. X. 11; a good land, nin jjis a land of desire, that is, a most desirable land, Jer. iii. 19. So all pleasant things, whether gold, jewels, garments, ai-e called things of desires, that is, precious things, 2 Chron. xx. 25; Dan. xi. 8, 38, 43. It is usual with the Hebrews thus to express the superlative degree by putting the substantive in the genitive case. The sum of all is, Though Ephraim be high, and
mightily exalted above his brethren, yet since he has not exalted my name who have exalted him, nor made my benefits and my mercies motives to duty and obedience, but has fought against me with my own favours, and abused my blessings to ni)’ dishonour, therefore I will bring the Assyrian upon him, who, like an east wind, shall blast him, utterly dash all his hopes, spoil his treasures, and carry him into captivity: so that he who was some time the head of the nations, shall now become the tail; he that was above, and was the terror of the nations, making them tremble when he s])ake, shall now become the scorn of the nations, and the contempt of the people.
Obs. 1. God’s goodness is wholly free. He chooses not for seniority of birth, or excellency of parts, or worthiness of the person, but he loves whom he loves, and shows mercy to whom he will show mercy, Horn, ix. 15. Ephraim here, the younger brother, is preferred before Manasseh, the elder, and is advanced in number and dignity above him. This displeased Joseph, and oft displeases us; but what pleases God should please us, we should quiet ourselves in such dispensations as our Sanour did, Matt. xi. 26, “Even so. Father: for .so it seemed good in thy sight:” that is, since it is thy good pleasure to hide the mysteries of salvation from the wise men of the world, and to reveal them to simple men and women, it contents me well, because it is thy good pleasure so to have it. We are apt to confine God’s grace to the order of nature, and external accomplishments. Amongst all the sons of Jesse, even Samuel the seer would not have; chosen David, the youngest and the least regarded, and therefore set to keep sheep, to be king of Israel; yet God makes choice of him, and passes over his brothers Eliab, Shammah,and Abinadab, goodly persons, great soldiers, and prime courtiers. God’s blessing goes not by carnal seniority, but by spii-itual gi-ace and choice. He is wiser than the wisest, and often chooses where man leaves, and leaves where man chooses, as we see in Abel, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph, who, although younger brethren, yet were preferred in favour before Cain, Japheth, Haran, Ishmael, Esau, Reuben, Simeon, Levi. This God does not only to magnify his ^’“S”“” sovereignty and free grace, but also to check our vain thoughts, who are apt to limit the Holy One of Israel to our ways and inventions.
Obx. 2. God’s ministers must use plain and familiar expressions for the better convincing of then- people, both of their sin and misery. The prophet here uses simiUtudes from a travailing woman, from the east wind; and the Lord, by way of aggravation of their sins, tells them that he had spoken to them by his prophets, and had “multiplied visions,” and given them much preaching, yea, and the better to convince them, he had “used similitudes by the ministiy of his prophets,” Hos. xii. 10. This is an excellent way of preaching, and prevailing, it both notably illustrates the truth, and insinuates itself into men’s affections. Galeacius Caracciolus, an Italian marquis, and nephew to a pope, was converted by an apt similitude which he heard from Peter ]Mart)T. Similitudes are more memorable, and suit best with the capacities of all; for thereby things are brought, 1. To our sense. 2. To our understanding. 3. To our memoiy. 4. To affection and practice. This made the prophets so frequently use them, Isa. v. 1, 2; Ezek. xvi. 3; Hos. xiv. 5 — 9.” Nathan caught David ■nath a parable, 2 Sam. xii. 1, 2, kc, and out of his own mouth condemned him. Christ, who spake as never man spake, whose words were full of power and authority, yet, the better to work upon his hearers, frequently used parables, from the sower, from leaven, from mustard-seed, flowers, feasts, from a treasure, &c., Matt. xiii.; xxiv. 32; Mark iv. 33; Luke xiii. 6; John XX. 6, 7, &c.
Chap. XITL
And the apostle Paul fetches similitudes from runners and wrestlers, &c, 1 Cor. ix. 24: 2 Tim. iv. 7.
■Ve are naturally very incapable of the best things, 1 Cor. u. 14, like a duU ass colt, untractable, Job xi. 12. We are slow to believe, and hard to perceive, the truths of God; Christ blamed his own disciples for it, Luke xiiv. 2-5. Plain preaching is the best teaching. it is the best way to convince and convert men; and if plain, familiar preaching will not work, certainly by dark, mvsterious preaching it will never be effec^L Hence Christ telk Nicodemus, that if when he haa spoken of earthly things they believed not, how will they believe when he shall speak to them of heavenly things? John iiL 12. This made Paul, that he had rather speak five words in a known tongue to ediftothers, than ten thousand in an unknown tongue, 1 Cor. xiv. 19. That is the best preaching which sets forth things to the life, and makes them as plain as if they were written with a sun-beam.
We should therefore admire the riches of God’s mercv to us in condescending to teach us so plainly and familiarly, us in all means to convert us, and bring us home to’ himself; so that if any perish for want of knowledge, they may thank themselves, for God has left no means unessayed to do us good. He has used comparisons from things: 1. Natural. 2. ArtificiaL 3. Ceremonial 4. Moral.
1. Natural Thus, to show his tender love and care over his people, he alludes to a mother’s love to her child, and to a hen, that with much tenderness gathers her chickens under her wings; and compares his people to ‘• the apple of the eye,” PsaL xviL 8; Zech. li. 8, which is guarded with many tunics, the better to preserve it from danger.
2. Artificial; from ploughing, sowing, silversmiths trying their metals in the fire, Psal. xiL; 1 Thess. t. 21.
3. Ceremonial. PsaL IL 7, ‘• Purge me with hyssop,” alluding to the cleansing of the lepers under the law.
4. Moral, Isa. IxvL 12.
Many complain they are not book-learned. 1. Whose fault is that? thou canst not plead ignorance for want of means. 2. If thou couldst read never a letter, vet the book of the creature is written in such large characters, that he who runs may read them; had we but spiritual hearts, we might learn many spiritual lessons from them.
Obs. 3. The higher the mercy, the deeper the judgment if abused. ‘■ Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come.” Fruitful Ephraim, that was the head of the tribes, and advanced above his brethren, is now for his sins made the most contemptible amongst them. Zanchy renders ‘3 lieet by quoniam, and imderstands the verse thus, Quoniam Ephraim fructijicacit, ice. Seeing Ephraim is fruitful amongst his brethren, L e. since he abounds in riches, power, and many privileges above the rest of the tribes, these shall be so far frtim savi’ng him, that God will be more fierce against him for their abuse. Capernaum, that wis exalted to heaven in the abundance of the means of grace, (for it was the city of Christ’s residence, where he frequently cured the sick, preached, and wrought many miracles,) yet for ingratitude, unfhiitfulness, and abuse of those means, was thrust down to hell; that is, it lost its privileges, and was brought to a very low and miserable condition; so that at this day the land is a desolation, not three houses standing where those three famous cities, Chorazin. Bethsaida, and Capernaum stood; and at last they shall be damned in nell too, for contemning so great salvation, when offered to them. Matt, ii. 23. As Ahasuerus said of Haman. who had abused his favour. Hang him on a gallows fifty cubits high, Esth. vii. 9; so will Christ say of such. Plunge them into hell so much deeper than others, because they rejected Christ when he was tendered to
tedtagcc Salvika.
them. None sink so deep into hell as the lewd, licentious Christian. Favour abused increases sin, and men’s offences are aggravated by their obligations. If Turks and Tartars shall be damned, debauched Christians shall be double damned, becatwe they bring a reproach upon Christ and his ways, and open the mouths of the wicked to cry, Behold, these are the people of the Lord, see how loosely and imrighteously they live, Ezek. xxx-L 20. Where the Lord has been a “valley ?f vision,” and bestowed much preaching, if people answer not the Lord’s cost, they must expect a burden of judgment to light upon them, Isa. xxiL 1. No place was punished like Jerusalem, because no place had better preaching and more privileges. Lam. iv. 6; Dan. iac 1 2. They thiit have preaching, shAil one day know what it is to have had prophets amongst them, Ezek. iL 5, and shall pav full dearly for their contempt of them, 2 Chron. iixvL 1-5, 16; Prov. i. 24 — 27; xxviii. 9; Isa. V. 24, 25; XXX. 9, 12, 13; Jer. vL 19; ii. 12, 13; Zech. vii. 11, 12: Matt i. 14, 1-5. This is the reason why judgments usually begin at “the sanctuary,” Ezek. ix. 6, and at “the house of God,” 1 Pet. iv. 17; Rom. iL 9; though it end not there, but go on to the wicked. The cup begins at Jerusalem, and then goes round to Egypt, Uz, Ashkelon, Ekron, Edom, Moab, and to “all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth,” Jer. xxr. 15 — 33. The highest in preferment are first in punishment; and if this be done to Zion. woe to Babylon, Jer. xlii. p,,^,,,^ 12. The sins of God’s people are com- mitted against greater light and love, and bring more dishonour to God, and disgrace to his truth, than the sins of others; and therefore of all men he will not spare them for their iniquities, as we see in Moses, Eli. David, Hezekiah, Zacharias, 1 Sam. iL 27 — 30; 2 Sam. xiL 14: Luke L 20. They are a people nearer to him than others, and therefore he will not bear with them as he does with those that know him not. Lev. x. 2, 3: Numb. xvL 9; Amos iiL 2.. father will sooner correct his children if they offend, than strangers whom he does not know, Heb. liL 5, 6. We can endure dung in our fields, which we cannot abide in our parlours. We suffer those briers to grow in the wilderness, which we cannot away with in our gardens. If they be open enemies, God can better bear it; but it highly provokes him to be woimded in the house of his friends; when he shall nourish and bring up children, and they shall rebel against him, he cannot, he will not, brook it, Isa. L 2, 7. 1. To show his impartial justice to the world; 2. For the terror of others; 3. To take off the scandal that comes hereby to religion; he will punish sin wherever he finds it, Numb. xx. 12. He has his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, and is terrible in the assembly of his saints, PsaL IxviiL 35.
Obs. 4. No privileges nor prerctives can preserve a disobedient people from ruin. Ephraim here had many privileges, as you may see, Gen. iIviiL 16, 19, 20; Deut. xxxiii. 1y — 17. where, under the name of Joseph, Moses blesses Ephraim with the precious things of the heavens above, and the precious things of the earth beneath, as com, wine, gold, silver, ic, and prophecies that the good will of him that dwelt in the bush should dwell amongst them; that is, God would show his special love to them as his peculiar people, and not only give them outward, but inward blessings also, and would so strengthen them, that no enemy should be able to stand before them; yet Ephraim, sinning against the God of those mercies, lost alL No privileges can shelter us if God be against us. He that raised us, caip as easily ruin us; he that exalted us, can as easily abase us; he that made us famous for mercies, can quickly make us infamous for judgments, and consume us after he has done us good.
V£R. 15.
Josh. sxiv. 20. It is not silver, nor gold, Prov. xi. 4; Ezek. vii. 19; Zeph. i. 18, not men, nor might, that can save us, if God be against us, Psal. xs. 7, 8; Isa. xxii. 6 — 14; Nah. iii. 12. ‘Sla.ny trust in their sv.-ords, and think by their valour and skill in war to defend themselves, and possess the land as their inheritance for ever; but God tells them, since they trust in the sword, that they shall fall by the sword, and be cast out of all, Ezek. xxxiii. 26 — 28. K he be against us, all is against us; and if he but stamp or hiss for an enemy, they presently come against us, Isa. v. 26. Jerusalem was strongly fortified, and no man thought that ever the enemy could have entered it, Lara. iv. 12; and if privileges could ever have preserved a sinful people from ruin, Jerusalem had never been destroyed, for they had more privileges than all the people in the world besides. It was called “the perfection of beauty,” and “the joy of the whole earth;” “the city of God,” Psal. xlvi. 4; “the city of the great King,” Matt. T. 3.3. So famous was it for preaching, that it is called “the valley of vision,” Isa. xxii. 1; and they were called, a pecuUar people, a holy people, a people near to God, that knew his name, and were blessed by him above all people. They had godly magistrates, as David, Hezekiah, Josiah, &c., and zealous prophets, as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, &:c., and afterwards, Christ and his apostles. To them pertained “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the servica of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Chi-ist came:” these eight privileges the apostle sets do^•n together, Rom. ix. 4, 5. None better seated, none more strangely delivered, none had such signal providences, and glorious ordinances; all the world besides lay in darkness, they only wei’e a Goshen, a land of light, God’s glorj’, his pleasant portion, and delight, &c. So that if any people under heaven might have been secure in respect of privileges, it was Jerusalem; yet they, falling to atheism, idolatn,-, persecution of God’s messengers, &c., are become a desolation. Sodom was a beautiful place, like the paradise of God, Gen. xiii. 10; Babylon was “the glory of kingdoms,” Isa. xiii. 19; yet both the one and the other were destroyed for their lewdness and pride.
England Is apt to boast of its privileges, and to tell what great things God has done for us. With thankfulness it must be acknowledged that God has done great things for us indeed: he has made us, as he did Ephraim here, the head of the nations, when for our sins we might have been the tail; he has set us above, when for our horrid apostacies, and hideous blasphemies, he might justly have laid us beneath; he has made us the terror of the nations, and given us victory upon victon,’, success upon success, and has prospered us by sea and land, blessed us with the best laws, and the best land (all things considered) in the world; and, as if all this had not been sufficient for us, he has given us the word and the sword, Moses and Aaron, magistracy and ministry, the best (I think) in the world. Besides the singular helps in print, those excellent tracts, both polemical and practical; compare but our large Annotations with the Dutch Annotations, and you mU see what cause we have to be thankful in that respect.
All these things make us deeply indebted to our God; but had we ten thousand times more privileges than we have, yet if we walk not up to them, and answer them with obedience, we are an undone people. The greater our privileges, the nearer to judgment, if we abuse them. Shiloh was for a time privileged with the tabernacle and the ark, those visible pledges of God’s special presence and residence amongst them; but they, abusing these mercies, were given up to judgments, Jer. vii. 12; and if England go on in sinning, 2 Q
as it has done of late, and proceed in its hy-pocrisy, blasphemy, apostacy, heresy, fonnality, profaneness, and abuse of God’s favours, we must certainly expect some sweeping judgment. It is not privileges, it is not circumcision, nor uncircumcision, it is not those outward prerogatives, that make us acceptable to God, but a new creature. Gal. vi. 15; either new men, or no men in God’s esteem. Let us then become a holy people, and we shall be a happy people. Let us answer our privileges with self-denying hearts and lives, that as God has done more for us than for others, so we may do more for him than others; that as he has given us distinguishing mercies, so we may answer them with distinguishing manners, not living like the men of the world, that the Lord may rejoice over us to do us good, and may show us yet greater things than these, Exod. xix. 4, 5.
Obs. 0. Abuse of mercies forfeits mercies. God had done much for Ephraim; he had not been to him a baiTcn wilderness, or a land that was not sown, but he brought him out of the wilderness, miraculously delivered him out of Egypt, freely adopted him for his own, planted him in a fat pasture, even a land flowing with milk and honey, gave him his law, and sent to them many extraordinary prophets; but they, instead of exalting God, who had exalted them, grew proud and insolent, forgetting the God of all their mercies, and confiding in kings and princes, kissing the calves, and sacrificing to Baal, who could not save them, and then they died, Hos. xiii. 1 — 12. “Mien they began to fight against God with his own mercies, and to abuse the health, wealth, and blessings which God had given them, to the dishonour of the Donor, then they lost their riches, strength, gloiy, kingdom, and all; then comes the Assyrian, like an east wind, and sweeps away all. Before his name was Ephraim, fruitfulness, but now God threatens them with emptiness, barrenness, dryness of roots, fruits, branches, springs, even the loss of all. As all the world had been witnesses of God’s special favour to them, so now they should be witnesses of their just confusion. AMien men honour not the Lord with their riches, but kiss their own hands, and sacrifice to their own nets; when, like beasts, they bite the hand that feeds them, and crop the tree that shelters them, it is just with God to take all from them, Hos. ii. 8, 9. In Neh. ix. 7 — 2-5, we have a large catalogue of God’s singular mercies. Ver. 26, we read how they abused those mercies; and then, ver. 27, 28, we read of God’s judgments on them for abusing those blessings. So Psah cvi. 9 — 11, we see God’s mercies; ver. 13 — 39, we have the abuse of them; and ver. 40 — 42, the consequent judgments. It is usually seen, that where the Lord bestows the greatest mercies, there he oft receives the gi’catest indignities; where he gives most honour, there he receives most dishonour. ‘^Tien Jeshurun is fat and full, then he kicks, Dent, xxxii. 1.5. Ephraim here was a son, and had all the privileges of a son; the greater then was his sin to rebel against that God who had been so tender to him. He had,
1. Dilection. “VThen Israel was a child, then I loved him,” Hos. xi. 1, 4.
2. Direction. “I taught Ephraim also to go,” and sent Jonah, Amos, Hosea, and other prophets to instruct him, Hos. xi. 3.
3. Correction. As a father corrects his children for their good, so did God by Ephraim, Hos. v. 15; vi. 1, 2.
4. Provision. Fathers provide for their children; so flid God for Ephraim: “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled,” Hos. xiii. 5, 6.
5. Protection. He was their King, who isaved them from their enemies: “I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities?” Hos. xiiL 10.
God has done as great things for England (all things considered) as ever he did for Ephraim; he has been a tender Father to us, he lias blessed us abundantly both i J church and state; he has broken the power and policy of many subtle Ahithophels and great Zanzummims, giants, and sons of Anak. He has made mountains a plain before us; and though fierce men have ridden over our heads, yet has he brought us through fire and water into a wealthy place. For England’s sake he has sent to Babylon, and brought down all their nobles: he has bound even kings and princes in chains, and then- followers in links of iron. He has made the wicked to bow before the good, and the evil at the gates of the righteous. No nation so blessed of our God as we, and no nation that has worse requited the Lord’s blessings than we have done. As he has loaded us with mercies, so we have loaded him with blasphemies, heresies, apostacies; no favours can win us, no benefits bind us; if God had been our deadly enemy, we could not have acted more ignobly and disingenuously against him than we have done. It is a mu-acle of mercy that he yet continues his mercies to us, and that he “has not long ago stripped us naked, as in the day when we were born, Hos. ii. 3. We have rendered evil to the Lord for all his goodness to us, and therefore we may justly fear that evil should pursue us, Prov. xvii. 13. If he shall be punished that renders evil for evil to man, what shall be done to him that renders evil for good, and that to his God who never did him hurt? The good Lord humble us for all our ungrateful and disingenuous walking before him, who has been so good and gracious to us; and grant, that at last we may know and acknowledge the God of oin- mercies, lest an east wind come and bereave us of all; for though at present we have peace and plenty, and fresh springs of mercy round about us, yet God can suddenly dry up all our springs, and bring a plundering Assyrian from the east or west upon us, (for those metaphorical winds, as well as the natural, are all his servants,) that shall quickly rob us of all our pleasant things. Let us not therefore flatter ourselves, and think that because at present we have peace,, „,,. therefore no evil shall come upon us;
Sm Carjl on Job, n -^ -r., i. k u
jeiLkj-n on judc, for if England go on to sm alter the rate as it has done of late years, adding drunkenness to thirst, sin to sin, and heresy to heresy, &c., the wi’ath of the Lord will certainly break forth against us; and then we that would not serve him gladly and sincerely in the abundance of all things, shall be made to serve in want and misery, that we may know the difference Ijetween his service, and the service of men, Dent, xxviii. 47, 48.
OAs. 6. The judgments of God are irresistible. Let Ephi-aim be deeply rooted like a tree, or well founded like a tower, yet, if ever this east wind of God’s displeasure do arise, it will pull him up by the roots, blow him down, and carry him into captivity, carry him into scarcity, carry him into infamy, yea, carry him to death, and then to hell. If the Lord gives but the word of command, he has winds in store to carry us into any of those sad coasts. Though great men are rooted in the earth like great mountains, (in their own conceit, and in the opinion of others,) yet they are but like tennis-balls in the hands of God, which he hurls at pleasure which way he pleases, as is excellently set forth, Isa. xxii. 18. With a word of his mouth he can speak his enemies into confusion; he can with more ease destroy them, than we can crush a moth in our windows, or tread a worm to death under our feet. How easily and irresistibly does a bar of iron break an earthen pot to pieces! Psal. ii. 9. There is not the least creature but is too strong for us, if God set it on. He did not vex Egypt with lions and leopards, but with grasshoppers, frogs, flies, and lice, to
show his almighty, irresistible power, who can punish us by the most contemptible creatures. Thus he slew Popeleius and Hatto by rats and mice, Hermonactcs was stung to death with bees, Pope Adiian was choked with a fly, C’assander was eaten with lice, Antiochus and Herod with worms. Thus we see God’s omnipotency, and man’s impotency, and must learn to fear him who is able to arm the least and weakest of his creatures, and make it strong enough to encounter and conquer sinful man.
Obs. 7. Cruel enemies are God’s rod. They come not by chance, or of their own accord, but the AssjTian here is sent by God as the rod of his indignation against rebellious Ephraim; hence he is called •’ the wind of the Lord,” as being more immediately sent by him. So Isa. X. 5 — 7, 15, the AssjTian is called God’s “rod,’’ “staff’,” “axe,” “saw,” with which God chastises “an hypocritical nation;” they can do nothing without a hand to move them. There is no evil in this kind, but it comes from God, Isa. xlii. 24, 23; xlv. 7; liv. 16; Jer. 11. 20; Lam. iii. 1, 37; Amos iii. 6; Hab. i. 6. Hence Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is called God’s “servant,” Jer. xxv. 9, whom he employed in his service for the correction of his people; and the wicked are called his “sword,” Psal. xvii. 13. As the winds natural, so the winds metaphorical, are all at God’s command, sent by him as executioners of his wrath upon a sinful people. Lev. xx’i. 25; Ezek. xiv. 17, 22.
But how can it stand with the justice of God to use such wicked, blasphemous instruments?
He that brings light out of darkness, and good out of evil, can make good use even of the sins of men. As a wise physician can so order poison, that it shall become a medicine, and can expel poison by poison; so the most wise God can extract good out of the actings of those evil ones, and what they intend for evil, he by his over-riding providence disposes unto good.
For the clearing of this, we must take notice of a fourfold act of God in the actions of wicked men. There is an act, then,
1. Of inspection, whereby he sees all that is done, Job xxxiv. 21, 22; Psal. xciv. 7, 9.
2. Of permission, whereby he does actively suft’ei that to be done, which he has power to hinder, Psal. lxxxix. 40 — 42.
3. Of hmitation or restraint, whereby he keeps in the wicked so that they cannot do any thing more or less than he will have done, Gen. xx. 6; Job i. 12.
4. Of direction and order, whereby the evil action of wicked men (which are in themselves evil) are, bi, his most wise disposing and oven-uling providence, turned to good, Gen. xlv. 5, 7, 8; 1. 20; Acts ii. 23, 24. The devil, Judas, Pilate, and the Jews, had ends of their own in crucifying Christ, but God had an end above their ends, and a plot above their plots, to which all their plots (though against then- intents) were subservient. They did fulfil God’s decrees against theii- wills.
But if they do only that which God foresees, permits, hmits, and disposes, “how can they be said to sin, and why does God punish them since they fulfil his will?
Because they do it not in obedience to God, but out of malice, covetousncss, and self-ends, &c. Whatever they pretend, yet they intend nothing less than the doing of God’s work, and the fulfilling of his will. Their end is to satisfy theii- lusts, to enlarge their borders by the conquest of countries and the spoils of the people, Isa. x. 7. This may,
1. Awe us; since in war we have not to do with men only, but it is God who is mighty in power, and terrible in judgment, that comes agaii.st us. If we had only to do with potsherds of the earth we might make some resistance, but when the Creator shall come against the creature, Omnipotency against impotency, I wo can stand? Isa. xlv. 9. He ‘is the Lord of hosts,
and if he be against us, the hosts of heaven and the hosts of earth are against us also.
2. Comfort us in the midst of all our sufFermgs by the hands of cruel men, that yet they are but God’s rods to chastise us for our good. Even they are his servants, and can do nothing without a commission fi’om our Father, John xis. 11. They cannot curse where God does not curse, Numb, xxiii. 8. The very devil their master is chained and limited, and cannot devour whom he will, but only whom he may, that is, whom God permits him to devour. We are apt, like curs, to bite the stone, and not look at the hand that threw it, whereas we should always look at the hand of God in all our distresses (whatever the instruments be); then we shall be dumb and silent, when we see that it is God that has done it, Gen. 1. 20; Job i. 21; Psal. xxxix: 9; 1 Cor. x. 13. The wicked are but God’s sculUons to cleanse us, his files to furbish us and scour off our rust, his millers to grind us, and make us fit manchet for our Lord’s use. The Chaldeans were cruel persecutors, yet the Lord sends his people into the land of Chaldea for their good; he makes them to learn that many times in Babylon, which they would never have done in Zion, Jer. xxiv. 5. God can make a medicine of these vipers, and can dispose the worst things to his people’s good, Rom. %’iii. 28. Then- very persecutions shall spread the gospel. Acts viii. 1: Phil, i. 12, 19. So that in .some sense we are beholden to our enemies, for they make us better.
3. Comfort us also, inasmuch as when those rods have done their work, themselves shall be burnt, Isa. X. 24 — 2. After Pharaoh had done God’s work on Israel, God drowns him. After the Assyrian had done God’s work upon his people, the Babylonians come and destroy him, and his flourishing empire, Nah. i. 2, 3. God sufters them for a time to vent their sin and malice, that his justice may be the more apparent in their downfal.
Obs. 8. Sin bereaves us of our most pleasant, precious, and desirable things. So, Jer. xv. 13; xx. 5; and Isa. lxiv. 11, where the church complains, that “all our pleasant things are laid waste.” In which words, mark. 1. The generality of their loss; not some, but “all;” all their treasures, all their princes, all their palaces, all their riches, all their cities, sin had ruined all. 2. Their propriety in them; “our” pleasant things. To see another suffer, it may affect us, but not so deeplv as when we ourselves suffer. 3. The excellency of the things which they lost; they were “pleasant” and desu-able things. To lose base, contemptible things does not so much ti’ouble us, but to lose our choicest things goes near us. 4. Which aggravates all, here is, 1. Conflagration, “Our holy and oui’ beautiful house is burnt with fire.” 2. A devastation and desolation, all is “laid waste.”
So long as Ephraim was Ephraim, that is, faithful and fruitful, he flourished; but now that he had forsaken God, God forsook him, and lets in an east wind that destroys all. He that before was famous, and the head of the tribes, is now, since he has found out falsehood, and new lights, and new gods, become infamous, and the footstool of the tribes. So Hos. xiii. 1, “When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died:” that is, 1. When Ephraim spake trembling, or with trembling, (as it is in the original,) he was afraid of sin. Or, 2. When Ephraim spake, there was trembling; that is, he was once very awful to the rest of the tribes, so that when he spake, the rest of the ti-ibes were ready to tremble. But when once he fell to idolatry, and worshipped Baal, he lost his reputation, and no reckoning was made of him. He that before was formidable, is nowbecome contemptible both with God and man. at home and abroad. Now every paltry adversary tramples
upon him without control, as the fearful hare on a dead lion. See thus how Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, insults over Ahab, who had “sold himself to work wickedness:” 1 Kings XX. 3, 4, “Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, Jly lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have.” Look, as the worried cmfalls upon his back, and turns up all fours, as craA’ing quarter, so did this sordid idolater crouch to his enemy; when God was departed from him, he was even as a dead carcass. “A’hilst Israel kept close to God, and walked in his way, neither Balak nor Balaam, neither the devil nor his agents, could by their enchantments hurt them; but when by the wicked counsel of Balaam they were enticed to sin against God by committing whoredom with the daughters of Moab, then God’s wrath breaks forth against them, and they die for it, Numb. XXV. 1; xsxi. 16. Hence a heathen could say, It is our sins that w-eaken our armies, nostris pcccatu and make them fly before their enemies, barbari lories sunt, As all good is in God, the chiefest good, Rom’SiSsu’’perawho is therefore called a sun for con- ‘“■■ =’’”“‘”^- solation, and a shield for protection, and the God of all comfort both inclusively and exclusively, Psal. lxxxiv. 11; 2 Cor. i. 3; so all the evQ in the world may be seen in sin, which is the chiefest evil, as poverty, sickness, war, death, hell. Sin dries up all our springs, stops our fountains, spoils our treasm-es, and robs us of all our pleasant things; our pleasant land, our pleasant food, our pleasant raiment, our pleasant houses, pleasant chikfren, sin, sin, sin bereaves us of them all. God turns “a fi’uitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein,” Psal. cvii. 34; and therefore when any thing goes amiss with us, we should search for the sin that has done us the mischief; find out the Achanthat has caused the trouble; find out the Jonah that has raised the storm; do justice on the one, and drown the other, and we shall have peace. We should slay that which otherwise will slay us, and ruin iniquity, which ruins our houses, lands, wives, children, “all our pleasant things.” It is this enemy that robs us of our health, wealth, peace, plenty, ordinances, magistrates, ministers, and all our comforts.
You may say. We will hide our treasures that none shall find them. But mark, there is no hiding of yourselves, or substance, when God pursues, Jei xi. 11. The wind of the Lord will pierce into the most secret places, and find out you, and all your hid treasures, Psal. xxi. S; cxxxix. 7, 8; Isa. xiii. 16, 17; Amos ix. 2 — 4. God has those that watch for your riches, Jer. iv. 16, 17; and greedy soldiers that shall search for your hid treasures, Isa. x. 13, 14; xlv. 3; Obad. 6.
Let us then wean our hearts from those flying, fading, transitoiy things. What the prophet said of riches, “If they increase, set not your hearts upon them,” may be fitly applied to all creature comforts; if friends increase, set not your hearts upon them; if chikb-en increase, or honours, or armies, or pleasant habitations, &c., yet set not your hearts upon them, but look ujjon them as things that have wings to fiy ii’om us in our greatest need. Lie loose, therefore, in your affections to all earthly enjoyments, that so whenever the Lord shall call for them by fire, sword, or any other way, it may not trouble you to part with them; make not idols of them in over-loving them, lest you lose them. It is great folly greedily to lay up treasures for we know not whom, Psal. xxxix. 6; Jer. xvii. 1 1; it may be for an enemy, as Ephraim here: little did he think that the mei’ciless Assyrian should be enriched with his labours, and that the men whom their souls hated should be masters of all their desirable and pleasant things.
Since earthly things are so uncertain and fading,
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yomselves treasures in heaven,” Matt. vi. 19, 20. Lay out your estates for God, his truth, his cause, his people, and the spiritual good of you and yours. This is to lay up treasures in heaven. Get grace, that is durable riches which will never leave you, and that better part which shall never be taken from you.
Ver. 16. Samaria shall become desolate; for she lialh rebelled against her God: they shall fall bij the suord: iheir infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their icomen u:ith child shall be ripped up.
This verse contains the end of the sermon, and of the chapter, and tlicrefore those interpreters do ill who make it to begin the next chapter, when this verse fitly coheres with the precedent verse: there the pro- ])hct showed how they should be plundered and lose their goods, here he tells them how they should be butchered and lose their lives. So that the prophet does not here begin a new senaon, but only confirms what he had spoken before of the destraction of Samaria, and the overthrow of the whole kingdom. So that the words are a clear and concluding exposition of the former similes; wherein we have,
1. The dismal downfal of Samaria, ac’i/n J’reiaH.’ii’f- “Samaria shall become desolate,” ott’sn p“cc“iilili’«rd2.”£- P“”^!!’ The prophet labours to awaken i.otii. cau-x A L.ip. them by foretelling the greatness of their
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punishment. 2. The meritorious cause of this sad destruction, viz. her rebellion, “for she hath rebelled.” So that she has no cause to complain of God, as if he dealt hardly with her, for her own rebellion is the true cause of her destruction, and her great provocation has brought this upon her; as the church in the like case complains, “The Lord is righteous” in sending sword, plague, and famine upon us, “for I have rebelled against his commandment,” Lara. i. 18.
. 3. The aggi’avation of this their rebel-
«uum, emphatice non; it was not agamst man, but agamst men’“ui«’’<5,“K. God, yea, against” her God “in covenant, Jf.^.H™°.i!;’^Ii’”’’ who had been so good and gracious to
.nie beneflcium. her Doth lu temporals and spirituals, yet she most ignominiously casts off him, and prefers the calves, Hos. xiii. 2.
4. The manner of their desti’uction, or what kind of death they shall die, and that is by the sword, “they shall fall by the sword.” They shall not only lose their treasure, and their land, but their lives also. He says not, all shall fall, but indefinitely iSs’ “they shaD fall;” that is, many of the inhabitants of Samaria, and of the kingdom of Israel, shall be slain by the Assyrian.
5. The better yet to awaken them out of their security, he sets forth the rage of the AssjTian, with its aggravations, tcUing them, “their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.” They should not only die themselves, but their little ones also should perish with them.
“Samaria shall become desolate.” Samaria was built by Omri, king of Israel, who “bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hUl, Samaria,” 1 Kings xvi. 21. It was the royal city, even the chief city of the kings of Israel, where they kept their court, and had their special residence; there they reigned, and there they were buried. This was the metropolis, or mother city; all the other cities of the kingdom of Israel were called the daughters of Samaria, Kzek. xvi. 40, 55. In Augustus Ca’sar’s time, it was called Sebaste, and not long after was totally ruined. And here let it be noted once for all, that when the prophets speak of the ten tribes only, sometimes they call them Samaria, sometimes E])hiaim, and sometimes Israel, Joseph, Jezreel, Beth-el, Beth-aven; but when they speak of the two tribes, they usually do it under the name of Judah, Jerusalem, Benjamin, and the house of David.
Samaria was a populous, strong, well-fortified city, there were in it horses, and chariots, and armour, 2 Kings X. 1, 2. It was every way well prepared to hold out against an enemy, as appears by the three years’ siege of that potent enemy which lay against it; yet, notwithstanding all the fortifications, Samaria shall be made desolate, because of her sin. Samaria is here put for the inhabitants of Samaria, viz. the Israelites, and synecdochically for the whole kingdom of Israel, as distinct from the kingdom of Judah. The prophet names only Samaria, because it was the jirimc city, and all the rest were taken before; there was none left but Samaria, and sin brings down that also. This city was twice besieged, first by the Syrians in Ahab’s time, 1 Kings XX. 1; 2 Kings vi. 24; and now by the Assyrians. Pul and Tiglath-pileser had before molested Israel, 2 Kings xv. 19, 29, and now comes Shalmaneser, a third king of AssjTia. He besieges Samaria in the days of Hoshea, the last king of Israel; he takes it, and cari’ies the inhabitants into captivity, from which they never returned, but were totally rooted up, having continued, from Jeroboam their first king, about two hundred and sixty years.
“For she hath rebelled against her God.” The Lord had used all means to reclaim them, his Spirit had long striven with them in the ministry of those ])rophe;s which he had in compassion sent amongst them, a.”? Jehu, Semaiah, Azariah, with Elijah, Elisha, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Micah, and specially this our prophet Hosea. How plainly does he tell them throughout his prophecy, of their idol- S?re’’fl!os“t.rei atry, apostacy, ingratitude, and of the SmanS/m ‘conjudgments which were coming on them B»”’i.api for those sins! yet nothing will work upon them, but they persist obstinately in their sins, and therefore the Lord resolves to pour out his fury on them. Since they had imbittered his soul with their sins, and given him gall who had given them honey, and given him wormwood for his milk, therefore he now resolves to send on them bitter punishments, Hos. xii. 14.
“Thev shall fall by the sword;” that is, they shall die by the sword; so the ,^2111.1^0™ phrase is frequently taken in Scripture, ^1;;^“” “” Teucru. as Lev. xxvi. 7, 8; Numb. xiv. 3, 43; 2 Sam. i. 12; Psal. lxxviii. 64; Ezek. v. 12; Hos. vii. 16.
“Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be rip])ed up.” This sets forth the great rage and fury of the barbarous Assyrians, and withal implies the greatness of Samaria’s sin, which provoked God to so great wrath. They should s])are neither old nor young, no mercy should be showed to women or childi’cn, no sex, no age should escape unpunished; their little infants and sucklings, which usually are spared, yet now shall be dashed in iiieces. Soldiers are wont to show mercy to women and children, unless sorely provoked; the Assyrians had besieged Samaria three years, and therefore they dealt the more severely with them. Fenced cities sometimes hold out long, but when taken they generally suffer much. Of such brutish inhumanity we read, 2 Kings XV. 16, where the tyrant Menahem ripped the infants of Tiphsah out of their mothers’ wombs, because their fathers “opened not to him.” These examples in no wise justify, much less excuse, the malicious crueltv of wicked men who despitefully slay the godly with their
seed; such cursed Edomites shall surely and suitably lxiv for it, Psal. cxxxvii. 7; Amos i. 13. The Assyrians, ■«lio here dash in pieces Ephraim’s children, had at last, by way of retaliation, their own so served, Nah. iii. 10. (/ The sum of all is this: O people of Israel, I have often told you what you will not believe, that your destruction is near; therefore now know, that whether you believe it or not, yet God will certainly and suddenly execute what he has decreed, and fulfil what he has spoken by me; neither have you any cause to complain of cruelty in God, since it is your own rebellion which has brought this judgment on your own heads. There have been no means wanting on God’s part to do you good, he has sent his projihets rising early and coming late unto you. He would have cured you, but ye would not be cured, and therefore now ye shall never be purged; but your chief city, with the regions round about it, shall be made a desolation, your men shall ftiU by the sword, yea, your women and little children shall die without mercy.
Obs. 1. God usually warns before he smites. He sends Hosea to tell them before, “Samaria shall bocome desolate.” He speaks before he strikes, and denounces judgments before he executes them. Seldom does he send any great judgment against his own people, but he tells them of it first. He lightens before he thunders, shoots off his warning pieces before his murdering pieces, and hangs out the white flag of mercy before the black flag of destruction. He deals not with us, as one did with Diogenes, who first brake his head, and then bid him take heed. But he first admonishes us to repent; thus he did to the seven churches of Asia before their destruction. Rev. ii. .5. He first cuts men do’i’n with the sword of his mouth, before he cuts them do-n with the sword of his hand, Hos. vi. 5. He first blows the trumpet, (and commands men so to do, Deut. xx. 10 — 12,) before he sends the sword, Hos. v. 8, 9; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16; Jer. vii. 25; xxvi. 18; Joel ii. 1; Amos iv. 12; Zeph. ii. 1 — 3.
Sometimes God warns,
1. By extraordinary and immediate revelation. Thus he warned the wise men that came to Christ not to go to Herod, but to return to their own country another way. Matt. ii. 12.
2. By prodigious signs and comets. These are the usual forerunners of some judgment approaching. They have a voice as well as the word; if they will not hearken to the voice of the first sign, yet they will believe the voice of the second, Exod. iv. 8. Christ tells us, that before the destruction of Jerusalem, there should be many fearful sights and signs, Luke xxi. 11, 25. And Josephus affirms, that before its destruction, for a whole year’s space there appeared a comet like a sword. Before our German wars, there appeared a blazing comet in 1618.
3. By his ministers, Ezek. xxxiii. 2, 7, 8. Thus he warned the old world, a hundred and twenty years, by the preaching of Noah, before he drowned it, Gen. vi. 13. Before the destruction of Jerusalem, he sent Christ himself and his apostles to call them to repentance.
4. By his lesser judgments. 1. He comes as a moth, which eats one thread now, and another anon, and without any noise devours all. 2. As a worm, or rottenness, which eats out the heart of the strongest oak. 3. If that will not do, there lies a lion that tears all in pieces without resistance, Hos. v. 12, 14.
5. By his rods on others, as on the Palatinate and Savoy, &c.; so he sent the Jews to Shiloh, Jer. vii. 12: also by taking away eminent magistrates and zealous ministers, Isa. iii. 1 — 6.
6. By the motions of his Spu-it; he knocks at the door of our hearts, and warns us to return. Rev. iii. 20.
An:l this he does, 1. In mercy to his people, that
they might prepare to meet him, and so prevent his judgments; as those that believed the threatening of the hail, housed themselves and their cattle, and so were saved, Exod. ix. 18 — 21. He deals not with us like an enemy, who surprises S’i’i!rra°Jt’!;gent’e his adversary unawares; but, like a faith- S’l°nk““nom” ful friend, he tells us of the storm approaching, that we might hide ourselves from it, 2 Chron. xii. 5 — 7; Job xxii. 29; Hab. iii. 16.
2. For the manifestation of his justice upon the wicked, who shall be made inexcusable, in that they had such fair warning given them, but they would not take it. Nineveh, at the preaching of one Jonah, repented and escaped; the Lord be merciful to England! how many hunch’eds of Jonahs have we had to call us to repentance, and yet we turn not, but fall away more and more! It is a sad aggravation of men’s sins, and puts a sore sting into men’s troubles, when conscience shall fly in their faces and say. Thou wast foretold of such judgments, and forewarned of such and such miseries, but thou contemnedst the voice of thy teachers, and didst set at nought all their counsels; and therefore now thou must expect no more pity or patience from God, but mayst justly expect that he should fulfil the word which he spake by his servants against thee.
Let then his warnings win thee, and his patience and long-sufiering lead thee to repentance. Let not his admonitions be always lost upon thee. Be not still secure and senseless, like Lot’s sons-in-law, who, when he warned them of danger approaching, “seemed as one that mocked,” Gen. xix. 14; but how soon did they find that he was in earnest! So Isa. v. 19, they mocked at the prophet that told them of captivity and judgment, and bid him let them see the things he spake of; and they did so to their soitow. And is it not so in our davs? when we tell people of judgment approaching, and ready to seize upon them, they look upon it as some vain dream or melancholy fancy, till they are made to feel the contrary. See how dreadfully God thi’eatens such secure, unbelieving sinners, Deut. xxix. 19 — 21.
Believe his timely warnings. Without faith all warnings are ineffectual; it is only Noah, that by faith feared and built an ark, that was saved, both he and his household, Heb. xi. 7.
Obs. 2. The ministers of God must apply the word to their people. The prophet preaches at Samaria against the sins of Samaria, and tells them to their faces, that for their rebellion they shall be made a desolation. Thus did all the prophets; they made Jerusalem to know her abominations, Isa. lviii. 1; Ezek. xvi. 2. So did Christ himself apply the word particularly to his hearers. Matt. xi. 21, 23; xxiii. 37, 38; John iv. 17, 18; so did the apostles. Acts ii. 36, 37. This is the only way to convince and convert men; what is spoken generally to all, few will apply to themselves. Quod diciluf onuii, dicitur nuUi.
Be not then offended at the plain and powerful preaching of the word. A plaister that is not applied, will never heal. A minister shall never profit his people, till he apply the word to theu- particular cases. Those whom the Lord intends for conversion, by his Spirit he sets the word so home upon their hearts, that they think the minister knows even all their secret thoughts.
Obs. 3. Judgments seldom go alone. Ephraim was plundered before, but now he must be butchered; before he lost his goods, now his life must go, which is more precious than all pleasant things. Job ii. 4. How oft do we read of sword, plague, famine, those three arrows of God, shot together against a rebelHous people, Ezek. xiv. 21. As sins seldom go alone, so neither do judgments: see what a concatenation and chain of judgments is set down together, Deut. xxvlii. 15 — 68.
God wants not variety of judgments to inflict u])on a sinful people, that they may know what a sad and liitter tiling it is that they have provoked him. Pharaoh had ten plagues one ai’tcr another. The trumpets and the vials in the Revelation came not single, but by sevens, bringing in mischief upon mischief, and jjlague upon plague, till he had consumed them, Deut. xxxi. 17; Jer. li. 31, 32.
Obs. 4. AVhen lesser judgments do not mend a people, God usually comes with greater. If plundering will not mend Ephraim, desolation shall end him, Hos. v. 12, 14. When C’hedorlaomer had plundered Sodom, and that did not better them, Gen. xiv. 11, at last comes fire from heaven and consumes them. Gen. xix. When gentle physic will not work out the peccant humour, the physician applies stronger. If gentle correction will not mend our children, we double omstrokes. If one beating will not mend a people, God will plague them yet seven times more according to their sins. Lev. xxvi. 21, 24; Isa. i. 5; Jer. v. 3, 6. When no judgments will work upon Pharaoh, then he is drowned. When temporal judgments do not mend a people, he sends them to eternal. It is an ill sign when men are incorrigible under judgments, and become the worse for beating, Isa. ix. 13. Ahaz had a brand set upon him, to warn all others to take heed of this sinning sin: “In the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king Ahaz.” That king, that wicked, infamous, irreligious king, who “sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which smote him.” ,What madness is this, to serve such as beat their servants for their pains, and ruin them! for so it follows, “They were the ruin of him, and of all Israel,” 2 Chron. xxvi’ii. 22, 23.
Desperate sores must have desperate cures. Hard knots must have hard wedges. “Fitches are beaten out with a staff,” but the cummin must have a rod, Isa. xxviii. 27. When the Lord had used all means to bring Israel to repentance, when he had sent blasting, plague, famine, and sword upon them, and yet they were impenitent, Amos iv. 6 — 11, he proceeds there in ver. 12, to tell them that now he would deal more sharply and selerely with them. “Therefore thus will I do unto thee,” i. e. thus terribly, thus tjcet, ut <ium .d dreadtully, ui a more fierce and furious manner than ever:” Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because
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I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” There is no meeting him in a way of opposition, or rising up against him; (for who ever hardened himself against God and Miiiamu. recu el P’“0’*pf rc’l?) 1’”’ meet him in a way of iaciirpiia« cordis le humiliation and repentance with prayers B«to., ,.pnan. tears, despatch those messengers to meet him on the way whilst he is afar off, that you may prevent the execution of God’s wrath. A lion will not seize on a yielding prey; the bending reed is preserved, when the stubborn oak is pulled up by the roots, Isa. ii. 11, 12, &c. By this means we shall either remove the judgment, or get it sanctified, so that all shall be for good unto us, or else God will take us away, as he did Josiah, before the evil comes. AA’e shall escape those trials we cannot bear, and be enabled to undergo those trials which we cannot escape.
Obs. 5. Eminent places ofttimes are eminent in sin. In great cities there usually are great sinners. Jerusalem was a great city, and what great abominations were in it! murder, oppression, bribery, profanation of sabbaths and holy things, her princes were roaring lions, her judges ravening wolves, and the priests did violence to the law, Ezek. xxii. Babylon was a famous, wealthy, populous city, yet full of cruelty and pride, full of witchcraft and fornication, both corporal and spiritual, Jer. 1. 31 — 38. The cities of Sodom and.
Gomorrah were full of crying sins, as pride, idleness, gluttony, inhumanity, and notorious uncleanness. And here in the text Samaria was full of idolatry and rebellion against God, 1 Kings xiii. 32; Isa. x. 10, 11; IIos. viii. 5: the lesser cities were called the daughters of Samaria, Ezek. xvi. 46, and those were like their mother. Great cities have great influence upon their neighbour towns; if they be idolatrous, superstitious, riotous, proud, profane, so will the places round about them be; if great Babylon be a harlot, she will quickly become “the mother of harlots and abominations,” Key. xvii. 5. We should not therefore desire to live in such populous places, (unless we be called by God to them, for then he will keep us, as he did Lot in Sodom,) but to go and live in them without a call, only for pleasure, or to see fashions, S:c., is a sore temptation. We see travellers that go thus to such great places, return ofttimes infected both in body and soul. So true is that of one, Nunquam inter homines fui, quin minor homo reclii.
Obs. G. Such places as have been eminent for sin, usually are eminent for punishment. As we see in the old world, Sodom, Jerusalem, and Samaria here, for her sin, is made a desolation, Micah i. 6. A^^len sin grows general and national, it brings national judgments, Isa. viii. 18; Jer. xi. 9, 11; Hos. iv. 1 — 3. When all Israel transgressed the law, no wonder if the curse come upon them, Dan. ix. 11. Many think to escape the better because they have so many companions, when the more general the sin, the nearer to judgment. If all nations sin, all nations must have the cup of God’s wrath given them, Jer. xxv. 15; Mai. iii. 8, 9. It is as easy w ith God to destroy a world of men as one man, they are all but as a di’op and a little dust to him, Isa. xl. 15 — IT. Multitudes of sinners increase wrath. When the Jews “assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses,” then God would pardon them no longer, Jer. v. 7, 8. The more wicked the times and places are that we live in, the greater our praise will be if we be godly. To be good in good times and places, a hypocrite and formalist may be: but with Lot to be good in Sodom, and Job in the land of Uz, and with Noah in the midst of an ungodly world, and with Elijah to be righteous and zealous in the midst of an unrighteous and perverse generation, that is praiseworthy indeed, and argues much sincerity. It was the commendation of the church of Pergamos, that she professed Christ’s name where Satan had his throne, and did not deny him in the days when Antipas, his faithful martyr, was slain, Rev. ii. 12, 13. Fly sin then, which brings destruction, not only on the sinner, but also on the very towns, cities, castles, and places where they dwell. As God has promised that ])cace and prosiierity shall be in the dwellings of the righteous. Job v. 24; viii. 6; Prov. iii. 33, and that he will make a hedge about them, and all that they have, to preserve them from rnblury. fire, molestation by evil spirits, and other calamities, Job i. 10; so, on the contrary, sin makes a man naked, and exposes him, and all that he has, to the curse of God. He will destroy the very d’ilollings of idolaters, swearers, eurscrs, bribers, <.*i.c.. Job xii. 6; xv. 34; Zech. v. 4. The wickedness that has been practised in the gicat liousos and castles of this land, has laid many of them in the dust, and we may look to be brought yet lower: we have brought God low in our judgments, low in our affections, low in our actions, low in his ordinances, low in his vicegerents and ambassadors: and therefore it is just with God to lay us low, and to debase us, who have so many way; debased him.
Obs. 7. No fortifications can preserve a sinful j)i ople from ruin. Let them make walls as high as heaven, and ditches as deep as hell, yet if sin reign within, ii will bring all down. It is not a fleet by sea, nor forces
Vtli. 16.
by land, it is not a magazine of treasures, nor an arsenal of armour, that can preserve a -n-icked kingdom finm ruin. As Samaria was a well-fortified, so it was a rebellious, idolati’ous, sinful place, and this brought it down, Ezek. xvi. 46; xxiii. 4, 5; Hos. vii. 1; Amos iii. 9, 10; Micah i 5, 7. Though it were strongly fortified both by art and nature, and very large, about three miles in compass, yet Samaria’s sin was Samaria’s ruin. Nineveh was a populous, ancient, great, strong, wealthy city, yet hsr great sins laid her in the dust, and made all her strong holds di’op like ripe figs, with little ado, into the mouth of the Chaldeans. Babylon a most ancient, ample, wealthy, well-fortified, potent, populous city, yet, abounding with sin, all her power and policy could not keep her from ruin. tTerusalem, that strong city, encompassed with mountains, towers, and bulwarks, fortified Ijoth by art and nature, and so powerfully protected by the Lord himself for many years together, to the admii’ation of all the world, that it was judged invincible; Lam. iv. 12, “The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, W’ould not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem; “yet Jerusalem’s sin was Jerusalem’s ruin; and, therefore, let none confide in cities, or any privileges whatsoever. We are apt in our distresses to run to well-fortified places, but in vain is salvation looked for from those creature confidences; if the Lord help not, how should these help? This is to forsake God, ‘• the fountain of living waters,”’ the Almighty, and aU-suflicient, “a very present help in trouble,” and to go to cisfenis, “broken cisterns” of creature comforts, that will fail and forsake them in a time of trouble, Jer. ii. 13.
Obs. 8. Sin is a bitter thing. Samaria has rebelled, or imbittered (as the word is in the original) God, and “provoked him to anger most bitterly” by her sin, Hos. xii. 14. Ephraim’s sins were bitter to God, yea, they were bitternesses, in the absti’aet. and in the plural number also. This may discover to us the cursed nature of sin, and the iniquity of our iniquities, which turns God’s sweetness into bitterness, his patience into wrath, and his bowels into wormwood. If any thing can sadden God, and imbitter his soul, it is sin. To see every base lust preferred before him, to see Satan in the throne, the heart, and the Spu’it of God kept out, must needs imbitter his Spirit against us. The Lord that made heaven and earth, and sustains the pillars of it, yet never complains of that burden; but sin is such a burden, that he oft complains of that, as tiring him out, Isa. i. 14, 24; xliii. 24; Amos ii. 13; and the bitterness thereof is as gall, which he cannot endure. Dent. xxxii. 32. God is all love and sweetness, and would not deal thus bitterly with us, did not our bitter sins provoke him to it.
Sin is bitter, 1. To God. 2. To Christ. 3. To the Holy Spirit. 4^. To angels: 1. To good angels. 2. To the evil angels. 5. To men: 1. To good men. 2. To wicked men. 6. To states and kingdoms. 7. To the creatures. 8. In its efl’ects: 1. Private. 2. Positive.
Sin is bitter,
1. To God, as we have seen before.
2. To Christ; it made him cry in the bitterness of his soul, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and made his soul heavy imto death. So bitter were our sins to him that they made him “a man of soitows,” Isa. liii. 3, and made him sweat, )wn gullas sed grunios, clots of blood, Luke xxii. 44. “When Christ hung upon the cross, they gave him gall and vinegar to drink: every sin is as gall to him. “The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment,” or, as it is in the original, because I have imbittered him; he is righteous in all his judgments on me, for I have imbittered him against me by my bitter sins, Lam. i. 18.
3. To the Holy Spirit of God. Nothing grieves it.
and drives it out of tire soul, but sin, Gen. vi. 3; Eph. iv. 30.
4. To the angels. 1. To the good angels: it is bitter and displeasing to them to see their Lord and Master daily provoked by a company of sinful, rebellious creatiu’es; and should the Lord give them but a word of command, they would suddenly smite all the wicked dead, and revenge the dishonours done to him, as we see in Sennacherib’s blasphemous camp, where one angel in one night killed a hundi’ed fourscore and five thousand men.
2. To the evil angels: it has thrown them from heaven to hell, and of angels it has turned them into devils, and keeps them in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day, Jude 6.
5. To man. 1. To good men: there is nothing so bitter to them as sin, nothing grieves them like this, that they have grieved the good Spirit of God. AU losses, crosses, reproaches, are light with them in comparison of sin.. The church of Ephesus could bear any affliction, but not sin, Rev. ii. 2. Good David oft complains of the burden of his sins, seldom of Iris sufferings, Psal. xxxviii. 4. So bitter a thing is sin to them, that it ofttimes makes them weary of their lives, and long to be dissolved that they may sin no more, Rom. i. 24; 2 Cor. v. 4; it makes them a burden to themselves, Job vii. 20, and causes them to weep bitterly, JIatt. xxvi. 75. Hence Job, chap. xiii. 26, calls sins bitter things, “Thou writest bitter things against me,” what is that? “thou makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.”
2. To wicked men. Though whilst conscience sleeps they may think it a light matter, yet to an enlightened and an awakened conscience nothing is more bitter. This made Adam to hide himself, and Cain to complain that his sin was a burden too heavy for him to bear. Judas could not endiu’e the bitterness of it, but went forth and hanged himself. Nothing so bitter as sin when it is once charged by God upon the conscience; of all heavy things this is the most heavy: “A wounded spmt who can bear?” Those that will not now believe it, yet shall one day find it, that it is an evil and bitter thing that they have sinned against God, Jer. ii. 19; iv. 18; Lam. iii. 15; Amos viii. 10; Prov. ix. 17, 18; xiv. 13; xxiii. 32; Gal. v. 19 — 21; Acts viii. 23. Solomon, who had found sweetness in the ways of the flesh, yet at last felt and acknowledged the bitterness of such courses, Prov. v. 3, 4; Eccl. vii. 26. Though sin may for a time seem sweet to the sinner, and it be a pastime to them to do wickedly, yet it will be bitterness in the end, the poison of asps is in it, Job XX. 12 — 14.
If sin then be so bitter, how comes it to pass that wicked men are no more sensible of it.’ ‘To this I answer,
1. Their consciences are seared with the custom of sinning, which has taken away the sense of sin, so that now it is become connatural and pleasant to them, and so is not axievous. Poison in a toad „
,”=2,.., „. Elementum in suo
IS not troublesome, he is never sick or it, loto non est pondenor sensible of it, because it is natiu’al to “‘“”°- him; but poison in a man, a sheep, a dove, is deadly, because it is not in its proper place.
2. It is a spiritual bitterness; now wicked men haye no spiritual life in them, they are dead’ in sin, and so are insensible of it.
3. The devil, that prince of darkness, keeps wicked men in darkness and ignorance, so that they know not the terrors of the Lord, nor what “a fearful thing” it is to fall into the hands of an angry God: and this makes men so fearless of sin. As we cannot desire what we know not, so we cannot fear it. A child that knows not what a terrible thing a lion or a bear is, will venture to provoke them; but a man of understanding will run
from them. It is fools who make a mock of sin, who never knew the danger of it; but the godly, who know its bitterness, will rather choose any miseiy than the least iniquity, any affliction rather than sin.
6. To states and kingdoms, and provokes the Lord to send bitter enemies against them, Hab. i. G. The very land where wicked men dwell is sick of them, and cannot have ease till it has spewed them out. As a man that has poison in his stomach is not well till he be rid of it, and as the sea would not be quiet till Jonah was thrown overboard; so nations can have no rest till they have vomited up such wicked men, which, like con’ii])t humours, oppress and burden them, Lev. xviii. 25, 2S; xx. 22. This is that bitter water which causes the curse to seize on persons and nations, Numb. V. 18, and brings upon them bitter destruction, ])out. xxxii. 24. Thus the ten tribes here were spewed out for their idolatry, when they were carried captive by Slialmaneser into the land of the Medes, from whence they never returned, 2 Kings xvii. 18. And the Jews were vomited up when they were carried captive into Babylon for the space of seventy years, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.
7. To the creatures. They all groan under the burden, and as a woman in travail longs to be disburdened and eased of her birth, so the whole creation travails in pain, and longs to be delivered from that bondage, vanity, and con-uption, to which it is subject by reason of the sin of man, Rom. viil. 20 — 22.
8. In its effects, which are twofold: 1. Privative. 2. Positive.
1. The privative effects of sin are sevenfold: it deprives us of,
1. The favour of God, which is the ver)’ life of souls: “In his favour is life,” Psal. xxx. 5.
2. God’s fatherly care and protection over us. Gen. iv. 14; Exod. xxxii. 2d.
3. The guard of the angels. Evei-y godly man has not one angel, but a guard of angels about him, to keep him, whilst he keeps God’s ways, Psal. xxxiv. 7; xci. 11, 12; Heb. i. 14.
4. Peace of conscience; a jewel of more worth than all the world. Adam, when he had sinned, was afraid, and hid himself. David, after his sin, complained of broken bones, his sight and sense of sin was as bitter to him as if he had broken all his bones, Psal. li. 8.
5. Our excellency. Purity is our excellency; it is sin, and only sin, that robs us of our glorj-, and makes us like other men. As Jacob said of Keubcn when he had defiled his father’s bed, “Thou shalt not excel,” Gen. xlix. 4.
6. All true right to the creature. A wicked man is a usurper, though he may have a civil right, in foro soli, yet, mforopnli, he has a sanctified right to nothing. When men are in Christ, then, and not till then, all is theirs, 1 Cor. iii. 22.
7. Heaven and eternal happiness. Rev. xxi. 27.
2. The positive effects of sin are more especially three. It exposes us to all miseries, externa internal, and eternal.
Sin exposes us to miseries,
1. External, in body, goods, good name; we may thank sin for all our siclmesses, sorrows, sores, losses, plagues, poverty, &c., Deut. xxviii. 15 — 68; Lam. iii. 39.
2. Internal. It brings hardness of heart, the sorest of plagues; all the jjlagues of Pharaoh, all the sores of Job, and all the son’ows of Joseph, are nothing compared with it. This brings spiritual blindness, a reprobate sense, a spirit of slumber, and strong’ delusions, Isa. vi. 9, 10; ]iom. xi. 8.
3. Eternal miseries both in soul and body; it brings sorrows endless, easeless, and remediless. So that there IS no evil like the evil of sin, no ])lague like this plague. As piety has the promise, and carries its reward with
it, and though no man should recompense it, yet the good we do is recompence itself; not only for, but in, the very keeping of God’s commandments there is great reward, Psal. xix. 11; the act of keeping them is a reward as well as the issue. As even,- good work brings its reward with it, so ever)’ evil work brings its sorrow with it; and though no man jjunish it, yet it is a punishment to itself, it hjinis operis, though not/inis opermtti.s; Jer. iv. 18, “Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee.” Sin is that which procures us all our soitow, we shoidd therefore hate it with a pure and perfect hatred, and get this cause of all our sorrows removed, and then the effect will cease.
Now is sin so bitter? 1. Then take heed of [jlcading for sin, or extenuating it. Put not sweet names upon so bitter a thing. There is a woe denounced against such as do so, Isa. v. 20, “AVoe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that ])ut darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Such look upon sin through the devil’s spectacles, and then no wonder if they call drunkenness good fellowship, covetousness frugality, pride decency, &:c. Such put a fair glove upon a foul hand, and false glosses upon filthy vices, the better to deceive. “But let no man deceive you with vain words, for even for these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.” Call not therefore sin so as the corrujit world calls it, but esteem and call it as the word of God calls it. How is that? “Why, it calls it an abomination, poison, sorrow, sickness, bitterness, filth, vomit, folly, madness, darkness, dung, death. Sec.
Vt’lien the judgment is thus truly convinced of the vileness of sin, it is an excellent preservation against sin.
2. If sin be so bitter, then sad is the condition of such as are insensible of its bitterness, who make that their recreation here which will be their damnation hereafter, who plead not only for infirmities (which yet no good man dares do) but also for enormities. They declare their sin like Sodom, impudently and impenitently; they thank God they never knew what the burden or bitterness of sin meant; but know, if sin be not bitter here, it will in another world be more than bitter.
And therefore this may comfort those that groan and grieve under the burden and bitterness of sin; such as make their sin their greatest son’ow, Christ will be unto them their greatest joy. Christ calls such, as it were by name, to come to him, Isa. Iv. 1, 2; Matt. xi. 28. This qualifies a man, and fits him for Christ; when Christ sees of the travail of his soul in our souls, it delights him, Isa. liii. 10, 11. This sense of sin argues some spiritual life in the soul. Nature will not comjilain of nature, nor will corruption complain of corruption; it is only grace that makes us truly sensible of the bitterness of sin.
3. Pity those that groan under the burden and bitterness of sin. No son-ow like their sorrow, no burden like the burden of a wounded conscience. Add not affliction to the afflictions of those whom God has wounded, but pour the oil of mercy into their sin-sick souls. Be not like Job’s friends, miserable comforters, and physicians of no value; if we must ease our enemy’s ox or ass when he lies under his burden, shall we not much more ease our brother’s soul? Exod. xxiii. 5. Be not harsh or hasty, be not sour and censorious, to such, but be meek and merciful, and so bear each other’s burdens. Gal. vi. 1, 2.
Obs. 9. It is a sad aggravation of people’s sins when they sin against iheir God. The God of all their mercies, the fountain of all their enjoyments; p,^ iii„nm rme their God in covenant, whom they have Ju-iiut. m qm f«d»- avouched for their God, and vowed open- ™ a’i’qSm’ii”’
betMAt, a quo dod
^diirimj!” ^fi-’ ■“■ouW Jbe his people, to love, serve, fear, I’r’. ^°“’ ‘° °^^y ^^™ ’ y’ ‘^°”trary to all vows, baptistical, eueharistical, personal, national, to fly from God, and to rebel against him, tljis is the height of sin, and makes it exceeding sinful, and provokes the Lord to say, “Lo-arami, Ye are not my people,” as he said to Ephraim, Hos. i. 9.
And is not this England’s sin? God has taken us into covenant with himself, he has owned us above all the people in the world, he has made us the head and terror of the nations, he has done wonders for us at home and abroad, and made us his darUng nation; whilst others swim in blood, we swim in blessings of peace; whilst others are weeping and wailing by the waters of Babylon, we dwell in an Eden, joy and gladness are found in us, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. He has made us his Ephraim, he has laid his right hand upon us, he has planted us in a fruitful soil, hedged us about with his gracious protection and good laws; he has removed from amongst us all the apparent impediments to our growth and fruitfulness; he has furnished us with choice persons, and those persons with excellent gifts and graces; he has a special care over us for good; and now he looks (as well he may) for the pleasant grapes of obedience, but behold the sour and wild grapes of confusion, disorder, error, and disobedience abound amongst us. We have broken all our covenants, we are not only str-HaU on 2 Tmi. iii. 3. p 1 1 i
mon-proot, but we are also covenantproof; no bonds so sacred, so strong, but we can as easily break them as Samson did the cords of the Philistines. So that what can we expect but that the Lord should take away his hedge of government both temporal and spiritual, breaking down the wall which defended us from our enemies, and letting in all the wild beasts that might destroy us? Justly might he withdraw his good hand of providence and protection from us, and expose us to all manner of rapine and ruin, for our apostacies and rebellions.
Obs. 10. Sin, especially the sin of rebellion, brings the sword upon a people. “They shall fall by the sword.” This is God’s last and great rod, and he never brings it forth till he be greatly provoked by his people’s sins, Job xxxvi. 12; Isa. i. 20. “When no other means will better a people, then comes the sword and cuts them off. God has three evil arrows, which he shoots at a rebellious people, viz. the sword, famine, and pestilence, Ezek. v. 16, 17; these are called “arrows,” because they are sharp and deadly; and “evil,” because of the misery and mischief which they bring: of all the three, the sword is the sorest, as appears by David’s choice, 2 Sam. xxiv. 14; besides, the plague and famine are the usual attendants of war; where the sword goes before, there famine and pestilence usually attend.
Obs. 11. Little infants are great sinners. “Their infants shall be dashed in pieces.”
1. That great sin and rebellion of Adam is imputed to them for sin; what he did, they did, we were all in the loins of that one man, Rom. v. 12.
2. They have not only original sin imputed, but imparted also; they have inherent original sin, which is radically, seminaUy, fundamentally all sin. The youngest child carries an old man of sin within him. We are no sooner born into the world, but we have a world of sin about us.
3. The sad diseases, pangs, and dismal deaths which seize on infants, are strong proofs of this point, their very dying speaks them sinners. “The wages of sin,” be it original or actual, “is death,” Rom. vi. 23. Original sin, which is the greatest sin in the world, cleaves to their natures, and makes them odious and abominable in God’s sight, so that they are by nature children of wrath, and obnoxious to all his judgments. We are
all damnati antequcim nati, and so might justly have been sent from the womb to the tomb.
Obs. 12. Wicked parents bring judgments on their posterity. Their poor little ones fare the worse for them; Hos. ix. 12, 13, “Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them,” and “Ephraim shall bring forth chikken to the murderer,” who is God’s executioner; so become parricides, rather than parents. Thus the old world was di-owned, and their children with them; and the Sodomites were burnt, and their chilch-en with them. Achan was not only stoned himself, but his sons and daughters, yea, and his cattle, perished with him. The accusers of Daniel were slain by the lions, both they and their children, Dan. vi. 24. The Jews that rejected and crucified Christ, brought a curse not only upon themselves, but also upon their childi-en, INIatt. xxvii. 25, “His blood be on us, and on our children,” which has now lain on them above sixteen hundred years.
It is just with God to cut off the wicked and their seed, as we kill the wolf with her whelps, and the fox with her cubs: though the young toad has not actually poisoned any, yet, because it has a poisonous nature in it, we destroy it. So does God by the chilcben of the wicked. Gen. xix. 25; Numb. xvi. 32, 33; 1 Sam. xv. 3; Isa. xiii. 16; Jer. xliv. 7; Hos. x. 14. “When men rebel against God and reject his ways, he will send against them a barbarous and cruel nation, that shall not regard the persons of the old, nor have compassion on the young, Deut. xxviii. 50; xxxii. 25; Ezek. ix. 6.
But are not infants called “innocents,” Psal. cvi. 38; Jer. xix. 4? how then can it consist with the justice of God thus severely to punish them?
True, they are so called, but not because they have no sin; but, 1. In respect of those cruel men, who without any cause shed the blood of those little ones who had deserved no such thing at their hands. So the Assyrians here were guilty of great inhumanity, in killing those infants, and God in his due time retaliated it on them, Nah. iii. 10.
2. Though they may be called innocent in respect of any actual sin, yet they are not so in respect of original sin, which seminally and radically is every sin. The guilt of that sin cleaves to their natures, and makes them obnoxious to all tortures here, and eternal torments hereafter.
3. The sins of the parents may be also a moving cause, and may provoke the Lord to smite the parents with their children. Exod. xx. 5, the Lord threatens to visit the sins of idolatrous parents upon their children, because either they already walk in their fathers’ sins, or else in time they would do so, or, it may be, worse, which God only knows.
3. God has a sovereign right and power over all his creatures; he is the potter, and we are his clay, he may do with his own what he pleases, he may make us or mar us, raise us or ruin us; and none may say unto him, AVhat doest thou? He that gives life may take it away, how and when he pleases; his will is the rule of justice, yea, justice itself; we must therefore adore God’s judgments when we cannot comprehend them, and know that, though they may be secret, yet they are always just.
4. Children are parts of their parents, part of their family and part of their substance, and God may justly punish the sinful ])arent in his child, as well as ih his cattle and estate, because they do not only belong to him, but also are a part of him.
5. Sin committed by a particular member of a politic body is by a synecdoche, frequent in Scripture, attributed to the whole body, and does, in a measure, reallv belong to it. Thus Achan’s sin, ,.,^,...,
•,, “^, ,1 1, 1 Id. Lavaterin Josh,
though not known to the ])eople, yet made
them all guilty, till he was put to death, Josh. vii. 11.
6. Yet these temporal judgments may be mingled with spiritual mercies; as we see in Jeroboam’s child, who was taken away in mercy, because there was some goodness found in him, 1 Kings xiv. 12, i:j. Especially the infants of God’s people, that are in ‘.^!!?”?5nA” covenant with their parents, there is 3BiS’“i’^”intur gfeat grounds of hope that they have wmfcrme. fijio ifci. changed tlicir temporal life for an eternal; and arc freed from many sins, sorrows, and temptations, to which men that live to riper years are exposed; yea, if they should be cast away for their original sin, yet their damnation will be lighter than if they had lived longer. It had been good for reprobates if they had not been born, or that tlicy had died as soon as they had been born, for then they would not have had so many sins to answer for.
But has not God said, “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father?” Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6; Ezek. xviii. 20. It seems then to be cruelty to kill the children for the parents’ sins, especially such as are unborn, and have not deserved such evils. To which I would answer,
1. It is true in respect of the Assj-rians, it was cruelty and hon-id barbarousness in them to kill ))oor harmless little ones, and God threatens to visit such sins upon the heads of such sinners.
2. It is not cruelty in God, for children are children of wrath as well as their parents; as all have sinned, so he may punish all without injustice. Besides, he permits and orders the cruelty of wicked adversaries to his own glory and his people’s good. As for Deut. xxiv. 16, it speaks of God’s restraining of magistrates, who may not jiunish the children for the fathers’ offences. True it is, God finds cause enough in children themselves to punish them, but when they imitate their wicked parents, this hastens and heightens wrath, by adding sin to sin.
3. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, if he depart from the father’s iniquity and do not walk in his stops. Ezek. xviii. 14, 17, “If he beget a son, that seeth all his father’s sins which he hath done, and consideroth, and doeth not such like,” “he shall not die for the iniquity of his father.” But if the son ti’ead in his father’s steps, lie shall bear his own iniquity, and becomes accessory to his father’s sin, by imitation, and approliation of it,” Matt, xxiii. 152; Luke” xi. 48, .50; the blood of former generations had not been required of that generation if they had not been as bloody as the former. But where old sins are continued and ajiproved of by new acting of them, there the old sins, as well as the new, are justly punished. So that the threatening is not to be understood absolutely, but conditionally, viz. if the children do persist in their fathers’ sins and walk in their wicked ways.
4. The son shall not bear the jicrsonal iniquities of the father in reference to eternal punishment; God will not damn a son simply for the sin of his father, it is a man’s own sin which is his everlasting ruin, yet he may lay many temporal chastisements upon a good son for the sin of his father. The Lord, in Ezek. xviii. 20, 2y, 32, seems to speak of eternal, and not of temporal punishment.
1. This should make parents fearful of displeasing God, lest they bring miseries, not only on themselves, but also on their children: their idolatry may bring a curse upon tlicir children’s children to many generationi. No children in Scripture are threatened like the children of idolaters. In none of the commandments docs God threaten to visit the sin of the fathers upon the children but only in the second, Exod. xx. 5. It is well observed by a pious and precious divine, that llicrc are eight sins which do more especially bring iud;;inents on a man’s posterity; whereof the first is idolatrv.
2. Adulter)-, 2 Sam. xii. 14.
3. Covenant-breaking, 2 Sam. xxi. 13.
4. Persecution of the godly, Matt, xxiii. 31 — 36; Psal. cxxxvii. 7.
5. Murder, 1 Kings xxi. 21: Jer. xv. 4.
6. Oppression, Job xx. 19 — 26; Hab. ii. 9.
7. Contempt of magistracy and ministrv. Numb. xvi. 32, 41, 49; 1 Kings xiii. 33,” 34.
8. Wien men pretend reformation, and intend themselves, as Jehu did, Hos. i. 4.
God is very pitiful and tender over infants, as appears in that he would not destroy Nineveh for the infants’ sakes that were in it, Jonah iv. 11; and in the sacking of cities he commands them to spare infants, Deut. XX. 14; but it is the sin of parents which many times hardens God’s heart against them, and makes him to delight in the destruction both of them and theirs; yea, and it hardens men’s hearts against them so that they cannot but act such cruelty against them, as they never intended, as we see of Hazael, 2 Kings viii. 11 — 13. MTien the prophet Elisha wept, and told him what mischief he should do to Israel; “Their strong holds wilt thou set on fii-e, and their young men wUt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child; “” Hazael said. But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” He then thought it a base and barbarous thing, when he was king Ben-hadad“s servant, to act such inhuman cruelty upon the mothers with their infants. The prophet only tells him that he shall be a king, ver. 13, and then when he had changed hi-; condition he would also change his manners, and commit all the abominations which he mentioned. Let parents then labour for grace, that they may leave a blessing, and not a curse, to their posterity, Gen. xvii. 7; Exod. XX. 6; Psal. cxii. 2. If you will not pity yourselves, yet pity your little ones, let not them fare the worse for you. It is ill being a wicked man’s child, yea, their very beasts fare the worse for them; Aehan was stoned, and his cattle with him, Josh. vii. 24, 25. The wicked Egyptians bring a murrain iqion their cattle, Exod. ix. 3. As a good man is a public good, the family, city, kingdom, fare the better for him, yea, his cattle are spared for his sake; “The Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children’s of Israel,” Exod. ix. 4. God blesses the very cattle of his jicople, and if the creature could speak it would desire to serve those that serve God. Most ])arents provide inheritances for their children, but ofttimes they leave their sins with them too. It was a sad legacy that Joab left to his children, that one should be a leper, another a weakling, a third beg his bread, 2 Sam. iii. 29. So many a man, to one child he leaves his murder, to another his adultery, to a third his usury, to a fourth his swearing. Geliazi left a talent of silver behind him to his posterity, but he left the leprosy with it. Better want such men’s lands and inheritances, than thus to inherit their sins too.
2. Let children be humbled then for their forefathers’ sins, that they be not imputed to them, Lev. xxvi. 41. So did Nelicmiah, chap. i. 6; and David, Psal. lxxix. 8, “O remember not against us former iniquities;” d’J6’N” njiy the iniquities of our forefathers. He that sees the sins of his predecessors, and is not humbled for them, approves of them, and so becomes accessory to them. Hence the liOrd blames Belshazzar for not humbling himself for his father’s sin and punishment which he knew of, Dan. v. 22. Let us therefore acknowledge ourselves to be the children of sinful parents, and say before God, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father,” Deut. xxvi. j: and. with David, “We have sinned with our fathers,” Psal. cvi. 6; and,
THE PROrHECY OF HOSEA. with Daniel, chap. ix. 8, deprecate the punishment which is due to us for their sins. So Jer. xiv. 20.
3. Admire the patience of the Lord, that has borne so long with us who have been sinners from the womb. If little ones, who never sinned against the patience of God as we have done, endure such pangs, sorrows, sickness, and death, what may men of years look for, who have added to original corruption a numberless number of actual ti’ansgressions? If this be done to the green tree, what shall be done to the di-y? If infants (who are innocents, and righteous comparatively) shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and rebellious sinner appear? If he spare not little ones that lie in their mothers’ bowels, but suffer wicked men to drag them thence; where, oh where shall those wicked parents appear, who have been the primary cause of all this mischief and sorrow to them, and have been the authors and actors of that wickedness which has brought this misery on them? It should therefore be matter of great humiliation to us all, when we see the sharp and sore judgments that oft light ui)on little ones for their origmal sm.
As God’s people were wont in extraordinary cases to bring their infants and sucklings with them to keep fasts, Joel ii. 16, the better to affect their hearts, and break them with sorrow for sin, which threatened destruction to them and their little ones; even this use should we make of the miseries of infants; when we see God’s hand u])on them, we should humble ourselves to think what judgments are due to us who have so many actual sins to answer for, which these little ones are free from. We should therefore mourn over them as. David did for the people. As for these fechTn nie romw”’ sheep, what have they done? it is I that tile ferrum. Vitg. y,^ sinucd. So Ict US Say, As for these little ones, what have they done? it is we, even we that have sinned, and provoked the Lord to anger with our transgressions.
06s. 12. Rebellion brings destruction. Samaria shall be made desolate, for she has rebelled. AVhen God’s heritage is as a lion that roars and rages against him, then he gives it into the hands of its enemies, Jer. xii. 7 — 11; iv. 17; xliv. 16, 17, 22; Lam. i. 18, 20; Micah vi. 13; Matt, xxiii. 38. Israel had sinned, and now the Assyrian destroys their cities, eats up their fruits, passes through their land, carries the people into captivity, and makes slaves and exiles of them in a strange country.
1. Rebellion is a capital sin; it is not every sin, (though every sin, more or less, has something of rebellion in it, being committed against that allegiance which we owe to God by the law of creation,) but it is an habitual obstinacy and stubbornness in sin; hence such are said to have necks of iron, and brows of brass, hard and uncu’cumcised hearts; they are called a froward generation, “lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord,” Isa. xxx. 9; rebelling against the light, Job xxiv. 13.
It is reckoned amongst the greatest sins, and is compared to witchcraft, 1 Sam. xv. 23, which is the highest and most hideous idolatry in the world; it is a renouncing of God to follow the counsel of the devil. It is a sin that God will certainly visit, for his justice v.-ill not suffer it to go unpunished, Exod. xxxiv. 7; Isa. i. 2, 7.
For sins of mere infirmity there is a pardon in course; but sins of presumption, committed with a high hand against light and warning, are very dangerous, and therefore David prays of all sins to be kept from such, Psal. xix. 13. “Those great sins call for gi’eat humiliation, before there can be any pardon expected, Exod. xxxiv. 7; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12: Psal. lxviii. 18.
2. Do not envy the prosperous condition of rebellious sinners; though they may flourish for a time, and vi’aters of a full cup be wrung out unto them, yet their feet shall slide in due time, and every threatening shall light upon them. They ai’e rather to be pitied than envied.
3. As ever we desire to be free from ^. desolation, let us fly those sins which perhorrescis, rorum cause it. Look what sins brought deso- ‘“”“’ ‘^”’^■’’’^■ lation upon Ephraim, those sins will bring desolation on England, if they reign amongst us; for God is the same to the same sinners.
Quest. But what were Ephraim’s sins which brought desolation upon him?
-histi: Upon search I find them to be many, but about twenty signal ones there are which brought destruction on him. Whether they be not England’s sins, as well as Ephraim’s, the application will show.
Ephraim’s sins then were, 1. Idolatry. 2. A ready complying with men’s inventions. 3. Contemjit of the true prophets. 4. Delight in false prophets. 5. Pride. 6. Hypocrisy. 7. Self-seeking. 8. ‘Witchcraft. 9. BaiTenness under the means of grace. 10. Ingratititude. 11. Covenant-breaking. 12. Security. 13. Anarchy. 14. Lukewarmness and neutrality. 15. Division. 16. Carnal confidence. 17. Incon’igibleness. 18. Oppression. 19. Atheism. 20. A fulness of sin. Lastly, Corrupt rulers.
1. Their first grand, bosom, beloved sin was idolatry. They forsook the Lord, and set up calves; when they should have cried. Kiss ye the Son and worship him, they cry. Kiss ye the calves, which Jeroboam has set up, and worship them, Hos. xiii. 1, 2; and this idolatry was universal, it was not in one, but in all their cities, 2 Kings xvii. 9 — 11; Ezek. xxiii. 4, 5.
This is a God-provoking and a land-destroying sin, it is the choosing (as it were) another husband, it breaks the covenant and the marriage knot between God and a people. It is a preferring of the devil before Christ, and dirty dunghill gods n’SSj before the living God, 2 Kings xvii. 12; Ezek. iv. 12; xiv. 10.
Whatever sinners may escape, yet idolaters are sure to pay for it. When men begin to choose new gods, the next news is. War is in the gates, Judg. v. 8; Psal. lxxviii. 58; Jer. xxii. 7 — 9; !Micah i. 5 — 7. Many sorrows attend this sin, Psal. xvi. 4. This, even this, was that fatal sin which laid Samaria in the dust, Amos viii. 14; and therefore Hosea more inveighs against their idolatry, than against any other sin.
And is not this England’s sin? Have not we chosen of late many new gods, and with Ephraim set up “idols according to our own understanding?” Hos. xiii. 2; and have made a light within us, and not God’s word, the rule of our actions? We have forsaken his faithful ministers to follow calves, Socinian, Arian, Arminian, Anabaptist, Quaking calves. Moses bare with many provocations from the people of Israel, but when, in his absence, they set up a calf, he could bear no longer. Where can we go, but we meet with Jeroboam’s calves? what town, city, county, is not pestered with them? These prophesy falsely, and too many love to have it so; but what will they do in the end thereof, when God shall call them to account for all their heresies and blasphemies? Jer. v. 31.
Besides the gross idolatry that still abounds in the land, many are falling openly to popery, and many, in their affections, hankering after the bewitching allurements of that Babylonish harlot. A sad omen of an approaching judgment, as France and Germany can testify.
And add to this the great worldly-mindedness and inordinate love of the world that abounds amongst us, which is idolatry in God’s esteem. Col. iii. 5.
2. A second sin of Ephraim was a ready compliance with the inventions of men, Hos. v. 11: xi. 6; “Ephraim
CilAP. XIII.
is oppressed and broken in judfjment, because he willingly walked after the commandment” and traditions of men, preferring them before God’s commandments. Jeroboam no sooner commanded idolatrj-, than the people obeyed, 1 Kings xii. 32, 33. Omri, another of their kings, makes statutes for grosser idolatry, and even in those statutes did they walk, Micah vi. 16. And for this the Lord threatens to destroy them, Hos. V. 12, 14.
And is not this England’s sin? Are not many, too many amongst us, more ready to hearken to a seducer than’ to a faithful teacher, and more ready to follow vanity than verity, preferring the chaff of men’s inventions before the wheat of God’s word? Let the ablest minister in the land preach in some towns, yet how many are there that prefer a railing, seducing sectary, who preaches the fancies and dotages of his own brain, before the faithful servants of God, that dispense his word sincerely!
This also is a sad presage of some approaching judgment.
3. Contempt of the true prophets. It was a rare age of prophets, they had the best jireaching a little before theii’ ruin. So great was the Ijord’s care over them, and so loth was he that they should perish, that he sent extraordinary prophets to them, more in number than he did to the kingdom of Judah, and by them he supplied the defect of the ordinary ministry of priests and Levites. They had Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Amos, Micah, Joel, and Hosea, who prophesied to them about seven and forty years, besides Ahijah, Jehu, Iddo, Azariah, &c.; yet such was their obstinacy and perverseness, that 110 wooings nor warnings could work upon them; instead of hearkening to those messengers which the Lord in great compassion sent to them to reclaim them from their idols, they mocked, jeered, misused, and persecuted them, and looked upon them as a jjack of cheats and deceivers that frighted people without a cause, till the wrath of the Lord broke forth against them, and there was no remedy; his anger was so fierce it could not be extinguished. When David sent messengers to comfort Hanun, and he abused them, David’s anger was kindled against him, and it cost him vprwdivinicon- dcai’, 2 Sam. X. 4. Contempt of the word ‘“” j’’” ‘““I”“”’ is an infallible forerunner of judgment. plMatcm oav’Su” AATicn Ell’s SOUS hearkened not to the “‘• ^’“‘”’ counsel of their father, God cut them off.
“Mien Amaziah contemned the counsel of the prophet, k was a sign that the Lord purposed to destroy him, 2 Chron. xxv. 16.
And if this be an infallible sign of a nation’s ruin, the Lord be merciful to England! never was the land so full of pious, painful, learned ministers, and never were any so coarsely and ungratefully dealt withal by many, as these are. What loads of reproaches and floods of bitter railings are cast out against us, not for any evil that we have done, but solely for discharging our duty, and stopping men in their sinful, heretical, destructive ways! we are their enemies only because we tell them the truth. Those that formerly were ready to pull out their own eyes to do us good, now are ready to pull out our eyes. Thus have we been wounded in the house of our friends. To be derided by Egyptians is threatened as a misery, Hos. vii. 16; but to be rejiroached by friends and professors is very grievous. The good Lord lay not this ingratitude and contempt to their charge. I’hough we bear, yet God will not always bear. When Moses is silent, then God arises; when he is dumb, then God speaks; w hen he is deaf, then God hears and stirs. Numb. xii. 1,4.. God will .smite through the loins of those that rise against his messengei’s, and of those that hate them, that they the not up again, Deut. xxxiii. 11.
It is not so much the minister as the ministry that
is cried down; that which they should principally love us for, viz. for our work’s sake, that is the ground of these men’s hatred. As it was not the baron, but the barony, that was the traitor in tyrants’ days; so, for the most part, it is not so much the man that they smite at, as the maintenance, the tithes, the glebe, and the ordinances of God wherewith they are intrusted.
4. Delight in false prophets. Elijah is persecuted, when eight hundred and fifty false prophets are entertained and fed, 1 Kings xviii. 4, 19; though they were fools and mad-men: Hos. ix. 7, “The days of visitation are come;” how doth that appear? why, “the prophet,” the false prophet, “is a fool,” and flatters the people with vain hopes; yea, “the spiritual man is mad;” that is, he who brags so much of the S])ii-it, and falsely boasts that he is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that he speaks all as moved by it, this man is mad, he is smitten with a siiiritual frenzy, doting upon his own dreams, and lunatic illuminations, and venting his brainsick notions instead of God’s word. These priests Jeroboam (in his carnal policy) chose out of “the lowest of the people,” (fit servants for such gods, calves suit well with calves,) which were not of the sons of Levi, who were set apart by God’s special command for the service of his house, but “whosoever would” might thrust himself into the office, how unworthy soever, 1 Kings xiii. 33; but see what follows immediately, ver. 34, “This thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.” This, even this, was that indelible sin which ruined both him and his family.
And is not this the sin of England? are not false prophets by many thousands prefeiTed before the true? will not many go ten miles to hear a decei■er, that will not go two to hear a faithful minister of Christ? When men go by troops to such harlotiy meetings, the Lord will visit for this, as well as for corporal harlotiT, Jer. V. V, 9.
The Quaking seducers are certainly led by this spirit of the devil, as will easily appear, if we consider the men, the matter, or the manner of their speaking.
1. The men, both speakers and hearers, are generally a profane generation, they are tnordaces et mendaces, notorious railers and liars, lilie their father the devil.
2. The matter of their speaking. A’hat is it? why, it is against ministers and their maintenance, against the coercive power of the magistrate, against Scripture, ordinances, &c.
3. The manner of their meeting. It is profane and tumultuous. A rout meet together, on a mountain, a common, or under some hedge, and there, without any praying before, some speak, others jeer, some dispute, some quarrel and fight, others take tobacco, (amidst such an unsavoury com])any they had need of some better antidote,) so that one would think they were at some bear-baiting, and not at the service of God. That men should be tolerated, yea and encouraged, to serve God, is commendable; but that men should be tolerated to blaspheme and worship the devil, is abominable.
2. What folly and madness have seized on the false prophets of our times, the swarms of blasjihemous pamphlets do sufficiently testify to the world; the thousands and ten thousands infected by them plainly foretell that some judgment is at hand.
3. How many of Jeroboam’s priests have thrust themselves into the work of the ministry, who vent heresies and blasphemies instead of truth! What toleration and countenance have been given to such, is known now to all the world. Foreign churches complain against us for it; and what cause we have to fear that wrath is coming upon us for this sin, let the wise reader judge. If ever that caution of our Saviour were in season, it is now, Malt. x. 17, “Beware of men.”
Christ does not say, Beware of serpents, or devils, (he promised them power over these, Mark xvi. 17, 18,) but, “Beware of men.”
1. Beware of wicked men, wolfish persecutors and bloodsuckers, who hate us “without a cause,” Psal. lxix. 4: how much more, when by our unwise walking we shall expose ourselves to their fury and malice!
2. Beware of hj-pocrites, and seeming good men. The devil can transform himself into an angel of light, and oft appears in Samuel’s mantle, the better to deceive; he is never more to be feared. It is this i-mictus Satcmas, this white devil, that does us most hurt: the swearing, cursing, black devil, every one cries shame of; but it is the preaching, praying, professing devil, who pretends to extraordinary sanctity and mortification, that deceives even many a good soul in its overmuch credulity. These are more dangerous (in some sense) to us, than the very devil himself; for if the devil shoukl appear to us in his own native deformity, we should run from him for fear, no man would hearken to him: if the devil should come in person, and call men to the alehouse, or from their callings, who would obey? but when he comes to us in a friend, a wife, a bosom companion, he is not so easily perceived, and so we are sooner insnared; and therefore our Saviour saith not. Beware of Satan, but. Beware of those men who are the instruments of Satan: if they should come like angels, we should suspect them, if like beasts, we should shun them, if like fiends, we should fear them; but coming to us like men of the same ])rofession with us, and professing great kindness to us, how soon are poor plain souls deceived! and therefore” beware of men,’’ for as God loves to work upon men by the ministry of man, and sends them to such; so the devil, who is God’s ape, loves to draw men from God, by men, viz. by seducers and deceivers, who are inspired, fitted, and filled by him for that purpose. If Ahab will not hear Micaiah, the true jirophet of the Lord, the devil has four hundi’ed false prophets at hand to deceive him. M’’hen he would seduce Adam from his obedience, he does not appear himself, but he sets Eve his wife upon him, and so prevails. When he would have innocent Abel slain, he does not do it himself, but he has a malicious Cain that will do it. AVhen the devil would have Christ crucified, he has a Judas, a devil incarnate, ready at hand to betray him, John xiii. 2.
3. Beware even of good men. The devil can shroud himself under a Peter, and tempt our Saviour by him. Matt. xvi. 23; by his example he can compel the Gentiles to live after the Jewish manner, in observing the ceremonial law. Gal. ii. 14. The best of men are but men at best; they know but in part, they have theii’ infirmities, and must have their grains of allowance; we may not therefore glory in men, nor pin our faith on their sleeves, because we know not whither they may cari-j- it. The great sin of this age is, building on man; Such a holy man is for a toleration, and such a one holds such opinions. What tell you me of men? we must live by rule, not by example, neither may we follow any good man further than he follows Christ in his word, 1 Cor. xi. 1. Be it Paul, you must try his doctrine by the touch-stone of the word, before you trust it. Acts xvii. 11. Remember “every man” is “a liar,” Rom. iii. 4, either actively, or passively; either by imposture, and of purpose, or else by impotency, and in event.
4. Beware of great men. We are apt to be led by their examples; if Prince such a one, or Sir Thomas such a one, rise, how apt are people to follow, without any consideration! Great men oft are great sinners, they have their native corruptions heightened by their pomp and prosperity. Job xxi. 7 — 15; Jer. v. 5. When great men are wicked men, and have great parts and great wits, they do great mischief, as Ahithophel,
Catiline, &c. Beware then of following such great ones.
5. Beware of subtle seducers, pretenders to new light. Gen. iii. 5, to revelations, glorious mysteries, &c., Rom. xvi. 17; “inwardly they are ravening wolves,” Matt. vii. 15. Poison in itself is dangerous, but never more dangerous than when mixed with honey. These have “men’s persons in admu-ation,” but it is for their own ends and advantage, Jude 16. And if ever this caution were seasonable, it is now, when there are so many jugglers and cheaters gone forth into the world. Their number is greater than formerly, and they act more subtlely and mystically; they act against Christ under the name of Christ, Slatt. xxiv. 5, and that so cunningly and craftily, that, if it were possible, they would deceive the very elect, Matt. xxiv. 24; they have Jacob’s voice, but Esau’s hands; they talk divinely, as if they had no bodies, and live lewdly, as if they had no souls; hence it is that we are so oft admonished to take heed of them, Rom. xvi. 17 j 2 Tim. iii. 5; 2 John 10.
But such cite Scripture. So did the devil. Matt. iv. 6.
But there is some truth in what they say. So there is in the mass, and in stage plays. It is the devil’s usual practice, to mix some sugar with his poison to make it go down the better, and to mingle some truths with his errors; as the fowler mingles corn with his ehafi’, that he may catch the sooner. You will shun those that poison your bodies, O take heed of those that would poison your souls. No murder like soul-murder. Shun a seducer, as you would shun the devil himself, whose factor he is; and when he speaks fairest, and pretends most love, then fear him most. When Herod intended Christ’s destruction, he then pretended devotion. Matt, ii. 8. When Absalom sought his father’s kingdom, he pretends a vow at Hebron. When Saul would ruin David, he makes him his son-in-law, 1 Sam. xviii. 17. Beware then of men, who put fair gloves upon foul hands; who pretend pity, but act cruelty; who promise liberty when they intend thraldom.
But they are great professors. So were those that followed Christ, yet he would not trust them, for he knew the deceit that was in them, John ii. 24, 25. All is not gold that glitters, nor are all Israel that are ef Israel; and therefore take heed whom you trust.
6. Beware of thy foes. We are beset round W’ith them, and that both corporal and spiritual; we had need therefore to be sober, and watch, and to pray with David, Help me, O Lord, and that “because of mine enemies,” Psal.xxvii.il. Many there be that watch for our halting, we also should watch and countermine them. There is a cursed enmity in the wicked against the righteous. Gen. iii. 15; Psal. xxxvii. 14; so that they could even slay them all, as Cain did Abel, 1 John iii. 12, because by thefr light and life they reprove them. And this enmity is,
1. Natural, and so constant and delightful.
2. Intensive. As a good man loves good men, appreciative et intensive, ajf’ectu et effectu, with a high degree of afi’ection, and shows it in his actions; so the wicked hate the godly with an inveterate, intensive hatred, they could even wish that they had more lives than one, that they might exercise their malice on them; antipathy is against the whole kind, they desire that even the name of Israel might be no more in remembrance.
3. Irreconcilable. Enemies may be reconciled, but enmities never, tUl nature be changed: when Saul is converted, and become a Paul, then, and not till then, he prizes whom before he persecuted.
4. Beware of thy friends and relations. By these the devil ofttimes does us more hurt than by our open enemies; and therefore when one was praying. Lord, deliver me from my foes; Nay, said one that heard
.N EXrOSITIOX OF
him, rather pray, Lord, deliver me from my friends. Xc usually shun our foes, and take heed of their counsel; but it is the devil in a friend that undoes us. The Italian proverb is, God keep me from the hurt of my friends, and I will see to my foes.
But it is my wife that jjersuades me, and shall I not hearken to her? If thy wife gi■e thee good counsel according to the word, then, in all that Sarah shall say unto thee, hearken to her voice; else you must stop your ears against those sirens. How many wives have deluded their husbands, and dravni their hearts from God! Adam, by hearkening to Eve, undid himself and all his posterity. Solomon was besotted by his idolatrous wives, Samson betrayed by Delilah, and Job had undone himself had he hearkened to his wife’s wicked counsel, Job ii. 9.
I3ut it is my son, my brother, my kinsman, that counsels me. Even these may deceive you, if you take not heed; “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” AATiat the Scripture speaks in case of persecution, is most true in case of temptation; brother shall betray brother, the father the child, and children shall rise against the father. Matt. x. 21, 36. Even Christ’s brethren rose against him, John vii. o; and the Jews, that were his kinsmen according to the flesh, were so fiercely set against him, that they preferred Barabbas, a robber, before him, and sought to stone him. Matt, xxvii. 20; John xi. 8. Thus Cain slays his brother, Ishmael persecutes Isaac, Esau Jacob, and Jose))h’s brethren sell him. So that if ever that coimsel also were in season, it is now, Micah vii. 5, 6, “Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that heth in thy bosom.” A^liy so? “For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother;” we may add, the ser’ant against his master, the subject against his superior.
8. Beware of strangers. Trji men before you trust them. Time discovers men’s tempers; the heart of man is so deeply deceitful, that it requires some time to know it; and if it be not safe to trust relations, much less strangers. Hypocrisy is spun with a fine thread, and none are so soon deceived as the over-credulous; and therefore Solomon so oft blames men for trusting strangers, Prov. v. 20; vi. 1, 2. Christ’s sheep will not follow strangers, John x. 5.
9. Above all, beware of that evil man thyself. It is a secret, subtle, daily, deadly, bosom enemy, which does us most mischief; we ourselves are the sorest enemies to ourselves, Inimicortim pessinuts, quia proxtmiis. All the devils in hell, and all the men in the world, could not hurt us, if we were but true to ourselves. It was a good prayer of St. Austin, Lord, deliver me from that evil man myself. The way to conquer Satan, is first to conquer ourselves. This is the highest and hardest martyrdom, to deny ourselves universally. Let us then walk wisely in this day of England’s trial, remembering that the Scripture calls wicked men wolves for ravening, dogs for greediness, lions for cruelty, and foxes for subtlety. Any of these creatures, when enraged, are terrible, and we will take heed of them; but when the cruelty and subtlety of all these creatures shall concentre and meet in man, how great is the danger, and how had we need to “beware of men,” especially when they come with fair pretences, and with “feigned words,” veiling over foul matters, 2 Pet ii. 3; calling pride, decency; error, new lights; hypocrisy, extraordinary sanctity; heretics, the servants of God! The devd knows that if sin should ap- ])ear in its own pro))er colours, men would hate it, so ugly and loathsome is it. If Jeroboam had told Israel plnmly, they must worship devils, when they worshipped the calves, who would have followed him?
5. They were full of pride, llos. v. o; vii. 10, “The
pride of Israel testifieth to his face.” They were proud of their riches, and proud of their buildings, and therefore the Lord threatens to “smite the winter-house with the summer-house,” which they had built for pride and pleasure, Amos iii. 15.
And is not this England’s sin? Was there ever more pride in heart, in habit, in hair, in vestures, gestures, words, and works? And does not pride ever go before destruction, and a high mind before a fall? But of this elsewhere at large.
6. Hypocrisy abounded amongst them; they -were like a deceitful bow, that breaks and deceives the archer; they compassed the Lord about with their lies, crying. My father, my Father, howling before him in their misery, when, alas, their righteousness was but as the morning dew which suddenly vanisheth away, Hos. v. G; vi. 4; vii. 14, IG; viii. 2; xi. 12; 2 Kings xvii. 9. This made the Lord to reject and abhor both them and their services, Amos v. 21, 22.
And how does this sin reign in England from Dan to Beersheba, from east to west, from one corner of the land to another! Never was the land so full of praying and preaching, lectures, repetitions, private meetings, &c., and never such unraortified, unholy, unrighteous walking, unanswerable to those duties. This abuse and profanation of holy things makes the land to tremble under us, Ezek. xxii. 8. The land is full of science, but where, oh where, is the conscience? The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are ,^- i„p„|,„„ ,„j the hands of Esau. Many talk like an- piBiioquiiuKergels, but live like devils; they talk as if “” ’ they had cloven tongues, but walk as if they had cloven feet. Most amongst us live directly contrary to their prayers. They pray against pride, and yet their lmAc is visible; they pray against worldly-mindedness, and yet they are notoriously worldly; they ])ray for self-denial, and yet are great self-seekers, &c. Oh this cursed hj’pocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, ruins all; it is that leaven that sours all oiu- services, that coloquintida that makes our duties deadly. If i„„,uii,D,i „„«,,„ any sin destroy England, it is this. God m.ju.»crfu.raibj-
*, .,*,’=’ ., ,. pocnel. Scult«t
may bear with other sms, but this provokes him to his face, and is such a horrid mocking of him, that his soul abhors.
7. The Israelites were great self-seekers. They brought forth fruit, but it was .to themselves, Hos. x. 1; they were all for present profit and present pay, like the heifer that loves to “tread out the corn,” (where she may eat as she goes,) but loves not ploughing, that is hard and hungry work, Hos. x. 1 1; they were all for liberty and ease, they could not abide God’s yoke, and therefore the Lord tells them, that since they loved liberty so well, they should have enough of it, but to their ruin. Israel was a wanton heifer, the whole pasture could not contain nor content her, and therefore the Lord threatens to give her the liberty of the lamb in the wilderness, where it should be exposed to u thousand dangers and miseries, Hos. iv. 16.
And is not this the great sin of England? Was there ever less self-denial, and more self-seeking in the land? Wiere shall we find a plain, simple, single-hearted Jacob, that prefers God’s glory before his own interest, and can be content to perish, so that God’s name may flourish? Show me, O show me that man, that I may give thanks unto God for him.
Most men in our days are squint-eyed: they pray, hear, repent, fast, give alms, but still they have an eye to themselves in all their actions, Zech. ‘ii. 5; Matt. vi. 2.
And as Ephraim, so England is all for liberty; liberty in church, and liUjrty in state; liberty in spirituals, and liberty in temporals. We have those that, like sons of Belial, can bear no yoke, none m>-
Vee. 1G.
rei’^n ovcv them. They must have liberty, liberty, lil)erty; and 1 ■nili “proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine.” This is the portion of such libertines, Jer. xxxiv. 17.
8. Witchcraft and enchantments. This also was a sin which helped to ruin Ephraim. They had familiarity with the devil, and by his aid they could divine and enchant, 2 Kings xvii. 17.
And was there ever more witchcraft in England than at this day? Oh this sinning sin grows rife amongst us. Those seducing, deluding, quaking sots and sectaries, that go up and down the land with their enchanting ribbons, and other diabolical practices, plainly show that too many of them are in league with the devil. They talk much of the Spirit moving and the Spirit leading them; theii- bastards, their railing, and their blasphemy, show that it is an evil spirit that leads them.
This sin helped to ruin the Jews: “Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they are soothsayers like the Philistines,” Isa. ii. 6. If England be guilty of the like sin, it must also look for the like punishment.
9. Barrenness under the means of grace. God was not wanting in any means of grace to Ephraim, but Ephraim was an empty vine, and wanting to himself, Hos. X. 1.
This also is the great sin of England, we are dead under lively oracles, and fruitless under fruitful ordinances, and lean under soul-em’iching means; like Pharaoh’s lean kine, that devoured the fat ones, yet themselves were still lean. Gen. xli. 20, 21. We dishonour the Lord’s pastures and discredit his ordinances by our unfruitfulness, and open the mouths of the wicked to cry, Ecce quotes simt qui Christum cotunt! Behold how dead and dull, how base and barren, how unholy and unrighteous, these Christians are! Such barren ground is “nigh unto cursing,” Heb. vi. 8. Which of us will plough the rocks, or sow the sands, or bestow cost upon ground which will bring forth nothing but briers and thorns? The barren fig tree was cut down, because it cumbered the earth, and made the ground about it the worse, Luke xiii. 6 — 9. The fig tree that had nothing but bare leaves of profession, was cursed for want of fruit, Mark xi. 13, 14. God will lay his axe to the root of those trees that bring not forth good fruit, Matt. iii. 10; and lay waste his vineyard, and command the clouds to rain no more rain upon it, when after all his cost and care it brings forth nothing but “wild grapes,” Isa. v. 2 — 7. When the Lord comes to walk in the beautiful vineyard of his chui-ch, and finds a tree that flourishes not in so fruitful a soil, he will cut it down, it shall no longer cumber the ground.
Our great unfruitfulness under the rich means that we enjoy should deeply affect us. If Hannah wept for the barrenness of her body, how should we lament the barreiniess of our souls, and cry, as Kachel, “Give me children, or else I die!” so. Give me grace, or I am undone; make me fruitful, or I perish for ever. Complain to God against it; the best and most fi’uitful Clu’istians have made the saddest complaints against themselves. Holy Bradford, how oft did he lament over that deadness, unfruitfulness, unthankfulness, which cleaved to his nature! David, how oft does he beg for quickening grace! Do by your barren hearts, as men do by their barren grounds; they will dig, dung, di’ain them, and use all means to make them fruitful: so do you; pray, read, meditate, hear, confer, and use all means to get your dead hearts bettered, and your graces quickened.
Yet, Jest any should deceive themselves, thinking that they grow in grace, when they do but deceive
themselves, you must know that. 1. There mav be a growing in gifts, when there is no growing in i;race. Many a man knows more, and can pray longer, than formerly, and yet no growth in grace. True growth is principally internal in the root, in humiliation, sanctification, faith, obedience; it is a growing up, not only in some things, but in all things, Eph. iv. 15. True growth is universal, it is not only a growing in the head, (a« some that have the rickets do,) but in heart, head, and every part. True growth, saith Aristotle, is a diffusing of nourishment to all the parts, the understanding, will, memory, aflfections, body, soul, all are bettered.
2. It may be you do grow, but do you grow answerably to all the means and mercies which God has bestowed upon you? They that have much, of them shall be much required. Where the husbandman bestows extraordinary cost, there he expects an extraordinary crop; and herein the best of us all have great cause to be humbled in the dust. Who can say he has answered the Lord’s cost and care, and grown answerably to all those sermons, sabbaths, sacraments, good books, corrections, and all the other rich means which God has afforded us in these latter days? Oh what giants might we have been in the ways of grace and goodness, if every ordinance had been effectual upon our hearts! he that is weak amongst us might have been as strong as David, and he that is strong as David might have been as an angel of the Lord, for wisdom and purity, Zech. xii. 8. Like Saul, we might have been taller by the head and shoulders (in the ways of grace) than other men. Our leanness, and our lewdness, our barrenness, and unfruitfulness, our walking so unansweralily to the rich means of grace that we enjoy, certainly foretell a storm approaching.
10. Ingratitude, and abuse of God’s mercies to the promoting of idolatry. The more God did for them, the less they did for him; their fulness bred forgetfulness, and the more they were increased, the more they sinned. Hence the Lord so oft complains of this sin, as provoking him more than all the rest, Hos. ii. 8; iv. 7; X. 1; xi. 3, 4; xiii. 5, 6. It was this sin especially that brought the sword upon them, Hos. ii. 9; xiii. 7. The prophet Amos also, who was contemporary with Hosea, notably sets forth the great ingratitude of this people in abusing God’s mercies, Amos ii. 9 — 11.
And is not this that crying sin of England? Do we not fight against God with his own blessings, abusing our health, wealth, wit, peace, plenty, corn, wine, gold, silver, Scriptures, ordinances, yea, all our comforts and creatm-es, to the dishonour of the Giver of them? His mercies make us proud, his riches covetous, his peace secure, his food intemperate, and all his benefits serve us but as weapons to rebel against him.
And do we thus requite the Lord, 0 foolish and unwise? is this the thanks we give him for all his patience, preservations, success, and deliverances? Will not the Lord visit for these things? and shall not his soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Had England no more sins to answer for but this, even this were sufScient to make it a desolation, as it did Samaria.
11. Covenant-breaking. God had betrothed them to himself and chosen them from the rest of the world, to become his people; “But they like men have transgressed the covenant; there have they dealt treacherously against me,” Hos. vi. 7; X. 4. Like sons of Adam, they walked in his steps; though they were abundantly blessed by God, yet they revolted from him, and transgressed the covenant; there, even there, where they should have been most faithful, viz. in the covenant, there they dealt most falsely and perfidiously with him.
And is not this one of the crying sins of England? Never was there a wiser and better composed covenant in the nation, and never any worse performed; we have lifted up our hands to the most High, that we will
(in our places and callings) extirpate heresies, and yet many walk as if they had taken a covenant to propagate them; many amongst us make no more of their covenants, than an ape does of his collar, which he can put off or on at his own pleasure.
Let any man but read all the branches of the covenant, and then eomi)are with them our contrary walking; and he cannot but admire the infinite patience of the Lord, that he has not long since sent a sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant u])on us. Lev. xxvi. 25. We must not think to do such things, and escape, or to break our covenants with God, and then be delivered, Ezek. xvii. 15 — 20. If the Lord so sadly avenged the breach of covenant with a man, yea, with a heathen, and idolater, what shall be done to him who breaks his covenant made with the great God of heaven and earth? and if a good man will perform the covenant which he has made, though it be to his disadvantage, how great is their sin then, who perform not the conditions of such covenants as tend to their everlasting welfare! Psal. xv. 4. The Jews have a saying, that there is no punishment that befalls them, but there is in it a dram of the golden calf: so there is no misery that befalls England, but there is in it a (b-am of covenant-breaking.
12. Security. Though “strangers had devoured his strength,” yet he knew it not; the Syrian and Assyrian had consumed him, and made a prey of him, yet such was his stupidity, that he knew it not, viz. with a jjractieal, saving knowledge, so as to repent, and make a right use of it: “yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him,” which were a sign of weakness, and old age, and approaching death; yet they laid it not to heart, IIos. vii. 9; but they were at ease in Zion, and trusted in the mountain of Samaria, putting the evil day far from them, and therefore a woe is denounced against them, Amos vi. 1, 3; ix. 10.
And was there ever more security and senseless stupidity in England than at this day? Do not the ministers of Christ generally complain that they see not that life, zeal, activity, tenderness, compunction, in their peo])le, which formerly existed? JIany applaud and flatter themselves with their gifts and external profession of sanctity, but the ])ower of it is very much wanting amongst us. A great calm ofttimcs is a forerunner of a storm; and great security is a great forerunner of some great judgment. Wien the old world was eating, drinking, buying, building, marrying, and thought not of a Hood, then it came and swept them all away; when men cry Peace and safety, then comes sudden and swift destruction, 1 Thess. v. 3.
13. Anarchy. They “have devoured their judges, all their kings are fallen,” Hos. vii. 7. They discovered their rage in their seditious and frequent conspiracies, to the devouring and destroying of their judges and magistrates, as appears in the frequent murders of their kings.
■ATiat anarchy and confusion is amongst us, he is a great stranger in our English Israel that knows not.
14. Lukcwarmness. This is another sin that helped to ruin Eplu-aim. Hos. vii. 8, “Ephraim is a cake not turned,” and so but half-baked, or dough-baked; nef/ue criidus, neque coclua, neither hot nor cold, neither fish nor flesh, but of a middle, mongrel religion, halting between two, partly for God and partly Tor the devil, partly for Christ and partly for Baal: but God hates such halting, half-hearted doings; and therefore spews them out of his mouth, and sends them packing into captivity.
And is not this the sin of England? are we not a lukewarm generation, neither hot nor cold, that halt not between two, but two hundred opinions? AVe have a knee for God, and a knee for liaal; a tongue for Christ, and a tongue for antichrist; a tongue for
truth, and a tongue for falsehood; like the harlot, we arc ail for dividing: but God will be served trulv and totally, without halting or halving; he has made our V, hole hearts, and he will have all, or none at all. Oh, this sin of formality and lukcwarmness cries for some judgment against us. AVhere is our zeal for God’s glory? our mourning for the gi-eat dishonours that are done to his name? our crying out and witnessing against the blasphemies, heresies, juggling, and Sataniciil delusions that abound amongst us? Nay, do not many l)Iead for a general toleration of all sorts and sects? and if under a colour they make a law against such, yet it is either made so* wide that offenders creep through, or the rulers are so overawed that they dare only admonish when they should punish, and bai-ely shave the head which of right should be cut oft”.
Now, will not the Lord visit for these things? and shall not his soul be avenged on such a cold and careless nation as this is?
15. Divisions. Ephraim was against Manasses, and Manasses against Ephraim; there was division upon division amongst them; their sins had divided them from their God, and now God in his just judgment sets a spirit of division amongst themselves to their destruction. Hos. X. 2, “Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty;” or, as some render the word, they shall be ruined. For desolations in a state oft follow divisions in the church, as we see in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere.
And was England ever more sadly divided and subdivided than at this day? AA’hat separations and subseparations are found amongst us? One is of Paul, another of Apollos; divisions in principles, divisions in ])ractice, divisions in judgment, and divisions in affection; divisions in church, and divisions in state: for the divisions of England there be sad thoughts of heart. Jerusalem’s divisions were Jerusalem’s ruin; the Lord grant that England’s divisions prove not England’s ruin. These give the enemy great advantage against us, and encourage them to set upon us. Wien Israel and Judah were at variance, then comes Shishak the Egj-jjtian and troubles Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xii. 2.
It is obsened, that England was never conquered but when it was divided gu.l’Sniu/imiwithin itself. ““‘• ‘”’•“”^
Oh that God who has made our hearts would mend them, and unite them, that we may never lose our religion, laws, estates, persons, posterity, and all that is dear to us, and lay ourselves open to the malice of a bloody enemy, who has no way to overthrow us sooner than by our sinful dissensions.
16. Carnal-confidence. For this sin they are frequently reproved; one while they trusted in their kings; anon they go down to Egypt for help, and then seek to the Assyrian: they forsook the Lord, and trusted in an arm of flesh, which yet could not help them in then- troubles, Hos. v. 13; vii. 11; xii. 1; xiii. 10.
And does not this sin abound in England? Have not we trusted in kings, princes, iirotectors, parliaments, armies, navies, &c.? We have leaned upon our staves, till we have broken them all, and ruined our carnalconfidences by idolizing them.
17. Incorrigibleness under lesser judgments. God had been as “a moth” to Ephraim, which consumed him by little and little; but since that did not better him, the Lord came as “a lion” against him, and tore him all to pieces, Hos. v. 12, 14. Like a good physician, he used all means to heal them, Hos. vii. 1, by his word, by his mercies, by his judgments; but since nothing would mend them, the Lord swears by himself, to root up them, and their posterity, for their stubbornness, Amos iv.
And is not this our sin? Has not the Lord used all gentle means, and spent all his lesser rods, in vain upon us? Who can say he has been the better for all the agues, fevers, taxes, poverty, sickfleSillTurlcoprfpu” Hess, Or any of those lesser rods which gimu?!!’’ sSian’.” ^°’^ ^’^’^ upon US? lay not the Lord complain of England as he did sometime of Israel for their incorrigibleness? Amos iv. 6 — 12. Thus and thus have I done to you, “yet have ye not returned to me, sailh the Lord;” and therefore now will I bring some greater judgment on you, unless by repentance you “prepare to meet thy God,” and so prevent his wrath.
18. Oppression and cruelty. They acted their oppressions on the poor in a violent, virulent manner, which brought destruction upon them, Amos iii. 9 — 12; iv. 2. They used false weights, and loved to oppress; they were all for getting, though it were liy force and forgery, Hos. xii. 7.
And does not this sin reign amongst us? AVas there ever more racking of tenants, and grinding of the faces of the poor? “Was there ever more cozening, cheating, overreaching, and unrighteous dealing in the land, and that by some who pretend to an extraordinary measure of religion. I believe the like has not been known in the memory of man. Our forefathers had less light and knowledge, but there was far more plainness and single-heartedness in those days than characterizes ours.
I have but little dealing in the world, (had I less I should be well contented,) yet I must profess, that I can scarce tell where to find a plain, simple, single-hearted Nathanael. Let such know that God abominates them. Dent. xxv. 1.3 — 16, and will be avenged on them, 1 Thess. iv. 6. The whole land fares the worse for such. This was one of those sins, amongst the rest, that brought judgments on Jerusalem, and will certainly bring judgments on London, and the rest of our cities where such enormities abound, Ezek. xxii. 12, 29, 31.
19. Atheism. They forgot God days without number, he was not in all their thoughts. Hence the Lord so oft complains, that they knew him not, nor considered that he remembered all their doings, Hos. ii. 5, 8, 1.3; V. 4; vii. 2.
Atheism at this day is the crying sin of England; we are not in so much danger of papism now as of atheism. How has this God-provoking, land-ruining sin overspread the whole island! We have all sorts of atheism amongst us, mental, vocal, vital.
1. We have close atheists, and gross atheists; we have atheists contemplative, and atheists practical. Some are closer atheists, they do not directly and plainly cast God out of the world; yet these fools (who are the world’s wise men) say in their hearts, “There is no God,” Psal. xiv. 1. This kind of atheism is not so easily discovered, nor reproved, and so it wants that help which gross atheism meets withal.
2. Many that confess God in their words, yet deny him in their works, and by consequence deny his all-seeing eye and being, as if God took no notice of things below; these are practical atheists. Tit. i. 16. Eliphaz sets the brand of wickedness upon the forehead of this sin. Job xxii. 5, 13, 14; and God threatens to search, as “with candles,” for such atheistical ones, that is, he will search narrowly, and sift them thoroughlj’, as the woman that lighted a candle to search for her lost groat, Zeph. i. 12. Yet atheism is frequently acted in the world in one degree or other: Psal. x. 4, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God;” that is, he thinks he has no need of him, but has enough in himself, and therefore he will not go to God: “God is not in all his thoughts;” a Hebraism, signifying he is in none of his thoughts, no,
not in one of his thoughts or ways. The devil would fain make men not believe that which he himself cannot but believe, viz. that there is a God. This is one of the highest degrees of wickedness in the world. To deny God is so high a sin that it takes away all at once, the devil needs not come a second time. This is to sin against the greatest light; it is not only a sin against the light of Christianity, but against the light of nature, against the witness of the ci’eature, and the whole creation. Such sin against the providence of God, and against the common consent of all nations. TuUy could say. There was never any nation so barbarous as to deny that there was a God. I have seen a city without walls, but never any city but acknowledged a God. I have heard of some that have denied that there was a God; yet never knew the man, but, when he was sick, would seek unto God for help. Therefore, saith Seneca, they do but lie that say there is no God; they sin against the light of their own consciences; they who most studiously go about to deny God, yet cannot do it, but some check of conscience will fly in their faces: hence heathens have condemned some to death that denied there was a God. This is a mother-sin, and the root of all abominations, yea, in every sin there is a virtual, tacit, interpretative atheism; they say, as it were, in their hearts, that God does not see, Psal. xiv. 1 — 3; lxxiii. 11, 12; xciv. 5 — 9. This sin ruined Jerusalem, Ezek. ix. 9, and if it spread in England as it has done of late years, it will certainly ruin us also.
We all carry the root of this prolific sin about us, and in every sin there is a grain, at least, of atheism. When we are charged with it we are apt to say, as Hazael, “But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” he would not believe that there was so much wickedness in him. “The Lord hal|h showed me that thou shalt be king over SjTia,” answered the prophet, and then thy corruptions will soon appear, when thou hast power and opportunity to act them. So say T, thou art a son of Adam, lapsed and fallen in him, thou hast the seed of this sin within thee, and when a temptation comes it will quickly discover itself to the world.
Take heed of polytheism, which is the ready way to atheism; the having of many gods is the ready way to have no God. An onini religion is the ready way to no religion. The world abounds with false gods. Our gods are,
1. Whatsoever we love more than God, that is our god: Amor tuics, Dens tuus.
2. A’hiatsoever we confide in more than God, is our god, Job xxxi. 24.
3. Whatever we glory and rejoice in more than
God, Jer. ix. 23; Phil. iii. 19.
4. Whatever we ascribe efficiency to, Hab. i. 16. God will have all power ascribed to himself, Deut. viii. 12, 13, 17, 18.
5. “Whatever we obey against the mind of God, be it friend or foe, men or devils, that we make our god.
20. Their- sin was full, and they ripe for ruin. God had borne with then’ provocations about two hundred and sixty years, even till they had filled up the measure of their sins, and then he brought destruction on them.
Now Ephraim’s sin was full in respect of, 1. Multitude. 2. Magnitude. 3. Strength. 4. Growth. 5. Impudency. 6. Obstinacy.
There was a fulness in respect of,
1. IMultitude. 1. All sorts of sin abounded, both in doctrine and manners; there was idolatry, adultery, murder, witchcraft, Iving, stealing, oppression, 2 Kings xvii. 9 — 11; Hos. iv! 1, 2; vii. 7; Amos ii. 6. 2. All sorts of sinners abounded, high and low, princes, priests, and people, all were idolaters, and deUghted in false worship, Hos. v. 1; Micah vii. 3 — 6.
eio
Chap. XIII.
This universality of sinning is ever a forerunner of judgment: when all the old world had corrupted themselves, then came the flood; when all Sodom was wicked, and all Jerusalem rebelled, when “the mean man boweth down” to idols, “and the great man humbleth himself,” then God will not forgive, Isa. i. 5, 6; ii. 9; Jer. v. 1 — 7; vii. 18, 19.
2. Magnitude; which is a forerunner of destruction. When the sins in themselves are great, as idolatry, witchcraft, hypocrisy, apostacy, and these sins are heightened by circumstances, being committed against great light, love, patience, &c. This was Ephraim’s,
1 wish it were not also England’s, case.
3. Strength. When men do wickedly “with both hands,” that is, earnestly and actively, Micah vii. 3. “WTien men “draw iniquity with cords of vanity,” and study how they may do mischief with all their might, Isa. v. 18; Ezek. sxii. 6.
4. Growth. AVhen men “sin more and more,” as Ephraim did, Hos. xiii. 2, and grow “worse and worse,”
2 Tim. iii. 13, persevering in theii- sin without end or measure, this also prognosticates nun to a nation. The Lord did not presently destroy the Aniorites, but suffered their sin to come to its fulness, that he might pour upon them the fulness of his fury; Gen. xv. 16, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Though they were notoriously wicked, yet ho bears with them till their sins were ripe for ruin. A woman must go her forty weeks till the child be come to perfection, and then comes her travail suddenly and surely. So sin has its conception, rise, reign, and ruin, Psal. viL 14; James i. 15.
6. Impudency. When men declare their sins like Sodom, and openly profess their wickedness with “a whore’s forehead” that refuses to be ashamed, Isa. iii. 9; Jer. iii. 3; vi. 15; Zeph. iii. 5.
6. Obstinacy. AVhen nothing can reclaim a people, but they are resolvedly wicked, as Ephraim here, who was married to idols, and would not return, being deeply rooted in iniquity, Hos. iv. 17; v. 4; ix. 9. They sold themselves to do wickedly, 2 Kings xvii. 17; they would not be warned by the falls of others, whom God had punished before them for the same sins, 2 Kings xvii. 8 — 15, but rejected the counsel of his Prophets, till the wrath of the Lord broke forth, and
there was no remedy, as you may see, 2 Kins xvii. 7 — 24, where you have Ephraim’s sins, and Ephraim’s punishment, fully set forth.
Now what could the Lord do less than root up such a people, so obstinate under reproofs, so unthankful for mercies, so incorrigible under judgments, so incapable of repentance, so impatient of remedies, so impenitent under all the means of grace which God had afforded them?
Let us now reflect upon ourselves, and see whether Ephraim’s sins be not England’s sins: if so, parity of sins will bring parity of judgments; if our sins run parallel with those of Ephraim, we may justly expect Ephraim’s downfal.
It is said of Lot, that his righteous soul was vexed with the sins of Sodom, 2 Pet ii. 7, 8; the original signifies, his soul was racked and tor- jfl„,„„f<,.. j„. mented when he saw the abominations aaiC«i.’o’<i’’.<»i» of the Sodomites. These twenty sins £^°<iS»uu’” which abound in England, and fore- “^“”^ bode some approaching judgment, should even rack and torment our souls with grief, that so we may be marked for mercy when judgment comes, Ezek. ix. 4; Hab. iii. 16.
Lastly, their rulers were corrupt, their kings, princes, judges, were idolaters, revolters, violaters of the law, bribers, &c., Hos. iv. 18, 19; v. 13; ix. 15; and the people were corrupted by them, for where the head is rotten, the members cannot be sound. Of all the twenty kings of Israel (after the division of the state) there was not one good from first to last, they were all idolaters; which serves to clear and vindicate the justice of God in the utter overthrow of those kings, and their kingdom, who had for the space of two hundred and thirty-seven, or two hundred and sixtj’ years, abused the goodness and patience of the Lord.
On the whole matter, the counsel which the Lord gave to Ephraim, shall I give to England, Hos. xiv. 1 — 3. Return, O backsliding England, from thy atheism, apostacy, heresy, blasphemy, hj-pocrisy, formality, ingratitude, witchcraft, security, anarchy, and take with you words of sincere confession, and turn unfeignedly to the Lord; so wUl he receive you graciously, and accept both of your persons and perform-