which Names he had given him of striving and strugling All Gods Israel are Wrestlers by Calling and as good Souldiers of Jesus Christ must suffer hardship Nothing is to be seen in the Shulamite but as the appearance of two Armies maintaining civil broils within her the Spinit warreth against the Flesh and the Flesh against the Spirit Wherefore we have more than need to take unto us the whole Armour of God and to strengthen our selves with every piece of it At no place must we lie open for our enemy is a Serpent if he can but bite the heel he will transfuse his venome to the heart and head Verse 19. We see here how Iacob is tryed with a new cross deprived of his Crown his Stay his Comfort his Wife Which is writ for our instruction to teach us that Gods Children must not look to live at ease in this life They must not Prophecy of Peace to themselves That there shall be no leading into Captivity and no complaining in our streets They must not dream that they shall be alwayes carried on Eagles wings but their dreams must be of Willow-trees by the Waters of Babel of afflictions and crosses a Christian must be a daily cross-bearer which made this Patriarch in another place say Few and evil have the dayes of my Pilgrimage been The Child of God a Son of Iacob must not think to walk in plain and easie paths to heaven but must climb hard it is all up-hill the way lieth inter Epauleum Magdalum as the Septuagint read the text Exod. 14. 2. that is by turreting and towering turning and winding as Origen Expounds it Never any went to Heaven with dry eyes Iacob's life was a continual warfare First Rachel the comfort of his life dieth and when but in her travel and in his travel to his Father Then his Children the staff of his age wound his Soul to the death Reuben proves incestuous Iudah adulterous Dinah ravished Simeon and Levi murtherous Er and Onan stricken dead Ioseph lost Simeon imprisoned Benjamin the death of his Mother the Fathers right hand endangered himself driven by Famine in his old age to die amongst the Egyptians a people that held it an abomination to eat with him Thus many are the troubles wherewith the Lord tryeth his Children And if that God with whom he strove and who therefore strove for him had not delivered his soul out of all adversity he had been supplanted with evils and had been so far from gaining the name of Israel that he had lost the name of Iacob Now what Son of Israel can hope for good dayes when he hears his Fathers were so evil It is enough for us if when we are dead we can rest with him in the Land of Promise If the Angel of the Covenant once bless us no pain no sorrows can make us miserable CHAP. XXXVI Verse 1. DEmosthenes that great popular Orator was wont to hugg himself as he went in the streets to hear the Common People say as he passed by This is Demosthenes There goes the great Orator but it can be no Joy nor Credit for any man to be pointed at and stigmatized by the People for an infamous person This is Edom is no Commendation though Registred in the Book of God no happiness for Esau to find his Name in Scripture in the Book of God unless he could find it also in the Book of Life It had been happier for Ieroboam and Iudas if their Names might have been forgotten than to be remembred under those ignominious Characters of Iudas the Traitor and Ieroboam that made Israel to sin The wicked though they think to get them a Name and to that end lay Plots to keep it up and protect both it and themselves yet their Names shall either rot and perish or if they be remembred it shall be only as his was that burnt the Temple of Diana as a Curse in the Nation wherein they live as the publick fire-brands and incendiaries the common plague ruine and desolation of their Country Verse 6. Esau no doubt was as strong if not stronger than Iacob yet fled before his face surely there was something in it more than the power of Iacob that daunted Esau and something more than ordinary appeared in Iacobs face from which Esau fled there was a divine Majesty seated there and with this Esau was not acquainted and therefore it struck a terror into him and made him fly and all this not without a special Providence of God to make room for the right Heir Canaan was the promised Land but not for Esau he had sold his Birth-right and with that the Promise which was annexed to it the Land flowing with milk and honey was too good for him that valued a mess of Pottage above the Blessing of the first-born A Iacob only one blessed of God was to inherit that Country which should afterwards be blessed by the Son of God the Holy Land was no inheritance for an Esau a prophane person Verse 20. Esau was by Marriage allied to this Seir for he took Aholibamah the Daughter of Anah to Wife vers 2. and yet the Posterity of Esau were so unnatural as to drive their own Kinsmen out of their Country Deut. 2. 12. No tyes either of Bloud or Friendship or Nature or Religion are able to hold wicked men when Ambition or Covetousness drives them on the Sons of Esau value not their nearest Relations an Estate to them is of far greater esteem then Kindred or Friends then either their Brother their Father or their God himself Verse 31. As Esau was the first-born so he was the first King likewise and good reason the Elder Brother should wear the Crown before the younger especially since Iacobs Portion was not so much a temporal Crown as an eternal For though Iacob by Gods Decree was to have the blessing yet not the inheritance of the first-born temporal Estates or Dominions are not entailed to Grace neither can the Children of God as such challenge to themselves the power and authority of other men as their King so their Kingdom is not of this World And therefore let Esau Reign and Edom have Kings while Iacob is a Slave an Israel under and Egyptian Captivity yet Iacob shall Reign at last and that for ever and Israel have a King whose soveraignty shall spread over the whole World and endure longer than it the Scepter shall not depart from Iudah until Shilo come no nor then neither for his Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and his Dominion endureth throughout all Generations Psal. 145. 13. Verse 43. When Edom in the 31 verse of this Chapter was a King then was Israel a Slave but here when Edom was a Duke Israel was a King which instructs us not to look at the beginning of Gods Providence but the end and design of it Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is Peace saith the Psalm 38. 37. And
be loved Abimelech and Phicol desire to live peaceably and quietly with Isaac that there may be an Oath and a Covenant between them but yet these being Heathens could not love Isaac as a godly man should be loved they departed from him in peace saith this verse peace is one thing and love is another CHAP. XXVII Verse 2. AS Isaac said here that he knew not the day of his death so may we say both of the time and also of the place and manner of our death For death surprizeth some as Abel when he was walking in the field others as Uz when he was sitting at his door some with Iobs children at a Feast others with the Philistines sporting in a Theater Thus likewise may we say of the manner of our death there is a natural death when a man dies as a Lamp goes out because there is no more Oyl to feed it and there is a violent death when the soul is thrust out of doors and the Lamp of Life not burnt but blown out Iosia dies by the hurt of an Arrow a Prophet of God by the teeth of a Lyon Abimelech by the fall of a stone Boast not thy self therefore of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth if not an end of thy sins it may be an end of thy life if it bring not forth conversion it may bring forth confusion Verse 4. What hath careless Esau lost if having sold his Birth-right he may obtain the blessing Or what hath Iacob gain'd if his Brothers Venison may countervail his pottage Yet thus hath old Isaac decreed who was not now more blind in his eyes than in his affections God had forewarn'd him that the Elder should serve the Younger yet Isaac goeth about to bless Esau. The dearest of Gods Saints have been sometimes transported with natural Affections he saw himself prefer'd to Ismael though the Elder he saw his Father wilfully forgetting Nature at Gods command in binding him for Sacrifice he saw Esau leudly matcht with Heathens and yet he will remember nothing but Esau is my first-born but how gratious is God that when we would will not let us sin and so orders our actions that we do not what we would but what we ought Verse 8. That God which had ordain'd the Lordship for the younger will also contrive for him the blessing what he will have effected shall not want means the mother shall rather defeat the Son and beguile her Husband than the Father shall beguile the chosen Son of his Blessing What was Iacob to Rebecca more than Esau or what Mother doth not more affect the Elder But now God inclines the love of the Mother to the Younger against the custom of Nature because the Father loves the Elder against the promise The Affections of Parents are divided that the Promise might be fulfil'd Rebecca's craft shall answer Isaac's partiality Isaac would unjustly turn Esau into Iacob Rebecca doth as cunningly turn Iacob into Esau her desire was good her means was unlawful God doth oft-times effect his just will by our wickednesses yet neither thereby justifying our infirmities nor blemishing his own actions Verse 19. Here is nothing but counterfeiting a fained person fained name fained Venison a fained answer and yet behold a true blessing but to the man not to the means those were so unsound that Iacob himself doth more fear their curse than hope for their success but Rebecca presuming upon the Oracle of God and her Husbands simplicity dare be his surety for the danger his Counsellor for the carriage of the business his Cook for the Diet yea dresses both the meat and the man And now she wishes she could borrow Esau's tongue as well as his garments that she might securely deceive all the senses of him who had suffered himself to be more dangerously deceived by his affection But this is past her Remedy her Son must name himself Esau with the voice of Iacob It is hard if our tongue do not bewray what we are in spite of our habit This was enough to work Isaac to a suspition to an enquiry not to an incredulity he that is good of himself will hardly believe evill of another and will rather distrust his own senses than the fidelity of those he trusted all the senses are set to examine none sticketh at the Judgement but the ear to deceive that Iacob must second his dissimulation with three lies in one breath I am Esau As thou badst me My Venison Onesin entertain'd fetcheth in another and if it be forced to lodg alone either departeth or dieth I love Iacobs blessing but I hate his lie I would not do that wilfully which Iacob did weakly on condition of a blessing he that pardoned his infirmity would curse my obstinateness Verse 23. Good Isaac had first set his hands to try whether his ears inform'd him aright and then feeling the hands of him whose voice he suspected that honest heart could not think that the skin might more easily be counterfeited than the Lungs a smal satisfaction contents those whom guiltiness hath not made scrupulous Isaac believes and blesseth the Younger Son in the Garments of the Elder If our Heavenly Father smell upon our backs the savour of our Elder Brothers Robes we cannot depart from him unblessed Verse 27. As Isaac said of his Son here The smell of my Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed So the Lord of Heaven as he smelt a savour of rest from the Sacrifice of Noah should smell from us if we intend to be his Sons and Heirs of the Promise as Iacob was the savour of Medicinal Herbs of remorse and repentance and contrition and detestation of former sins and the savour of odoriferous and fragrant and Aromatical Herbs Works worthy of Repentance amendment of Life Edification of others and zeal to his Glory Verse 32. No sooner is Iacob gone away full of the joy of his blessing then Esau comes in full of the hope of the blessing and now blowing and sweating for his reward he finds nothing but a Repulse Lewd men when they think they have earned of God and come proudly to challenge favour receive no answer but Who art thou the hopes of the wicked fail them when they are at the highest whereas Gods children find these comforts in extremity which they durst not expect Verse 33. Both the Father and the Son wonder at each other the one with fear the other with grief Isaac trembled and Esau wept the one upon Conscience the other upon Envy Isaac's heart now told him that he should not have purposed the blessing where he did and that it was due unto him unto whom it was given and not purposed hence he durst not reverse that which he had done with Gods will besides his own for now he saw that he had done unwilling Justice God will find both time and means to reclaim his own to prevent their sins to manifest
Verse 8 9. Observe Sathans Malice here against Gods Church and Service if they cannot wholly destroy it hurt it and hinder it then in part as farre as they can they will do it Secondly By the answer of Moses note on the other side that we must not yield an inch to these plots and fetches of the wicked but zealously must stand to the full observance of all Gods Will according to his Commandement and not according to the fancies either of others or of our selves Where the Lord dispenseth not we must not dispense where all are bound to depart out of Egypt we must not capitulate for some to go and some to stay Families should think upon this where the Husband goes to Church but not the Wife the Father but not the Son the Servant but not the Master Moses would not do thus here but knowing all to be bound requireth all Verse 23. This was most wonderful The houses of the Egpptians and Israelites joyning as it should seem one close to another as ours in these dayes do For else why was that sign given to the destroying Angel Exod. 12. 23. If all the Israelites had dwelt by themselves and had not been mingled with the Egyptians How able then is our God may we think who can thus make a separation betwixt his Children and the wicked when he executed wrath though they be in one Field in one House in one Bed together yet he can chuse the one and refuse the other Fear we not then in the time of Plague or War or other publick Calamity left we should perish with the wicked hand over head but remember this place and say in your heart with comfort O Lord I know thou canst make a separation in this calamity as thou didst in that calamity betwixt the Israelites and Egyptians therefore I beseech thee save me from this Sword of thine and let the light of thy Mercy shine about my dwelling as thy cheerful light did about the Israelites CHAP. XI Verse 1. THis ever was and ever will be Gods course first by gentle means to entreat then in the end by Power and Judgement to compel when the former course will not serve In the old World when the People would not be reformed the Lord said His Spirit should no longer strive with man meaning in lenity and gentleness as until then it had done but now he would bring upon them one Plague more as here upon Egypt and this was the Floud Gen. 6. 17. When Sodom and Gomorah would not be warned by any wayes of Mercy used by a gracious God unto them many years then that one Plague more of Fire and Brimstone came from Heaven Thus also the Lord deals with us First he entreats us by his Word the mildest way that can be Then if this will not serve the Lord comes nearer and layeth upon us his easier crosses and then greater Our Friends grow unkind our Servants unfaithful our Children undutiful our Estate wastes and our Health is chang'd to Sickness And if all these work not upon us then the Lord goes to his Quiver and takes out a strong Arrow to shoot at us as the sweating Sickness the devouring Plague which shall sweep the Land clean from such rebelling Spirits Verse 3. As the wicked stand in awe of God often and outwardly profess affection to him yet do not subject themselves to his Will so are his Servants honoured also of men with an inward conceit of them that they are honest men when yet their Doctrine will not be yielded unto Thus doth God inwardly imprint their own damnation in their hearts Verse 5. No Honours or Riches no Friends or Strength no Pomp or Port in this World may defend from God but he will smite all Degrees and therefore let all Degrees profit by it CHAP. XII Verse 4. CHrist is not divided into divers Houses and Families Kingdoms and Countries but he doth unite and gather divers Houses and Nations to make one Church even as here many did eat one Lamb. We may not divide the Lamb but we must gather our selves to the Lamb and that is the true Church where People are so gathered Verse 6. This keeping of it from the tenth to the fourteenth day served to prepare their hearts to the right eating of it being a remembrance before their eyes those four dayes before and also to prefigure unto us with what meditation and preparation we ought to come to the eating of the true Pass-over in the blessed Sacrament whereof this same was but a shadow Secondly the fourteenrh day this Lamb was offered because then the Moon being at full and rising in her full light when the Sun was set thereby might be shadowed that the Church usually signified by the Moon riseth with light in great fulness after the setting of the Sun the Death of Christ. Verse 7. This shews the effect and vertue of Christ his bloud the true Paschal Lamb ever to save from the destroying Angel as many as shall be sprinkled with it that is should make particular application of it to themselves For it is not the bloud without sprinkling will help Christ died for all sufficiently but not effectually because all take not hold of and apply Christs death to their souls Verse 32. Pharaoh desires to be blessed of those men who but even now were odious in his eyes The same God can also pull down the hearts of the proudest and make them as glad of a Ministers Prayers as they have maliciously opposed themselves against him Verse 34. Egypt was never so stubborn in denying passage to Israel as now importunate to entreat it Pharaoh did not more force them to stay before then now to depart whom lately they would not permit now they hire to go The Israelites are equally glad of this hast Who would not be ready to go yea to fly out of the house of bondage They have what they wished there was no staying for a second invitation The losse of an opportunity is many times irrecoverable The love of their liberty made the burthen of their Dough light Who knew whether the variable mind of Pharaoh might return to a denial and after all his stubbornness repent of his obedience It is foolish to hazard where there is certainty of good offers and uncertainty of continuance Verse 36. The Egyptians rich Jewels of Silver and Gold were not too dear for the Israelites whom they hated how much rather had they need to send them away wealthy then to have them stay to be their Executors Their love to themselves obtain'd the inriching of their Enemies and now they are glad to pay them well for their old work and their present journey Gods People had stayed like Slaves they go away like Conquerors with the spoil of those that hated them arm'd for security and wealthy for maintenance Verse 37. A most wonderful encrease from seventy Souls which were all that came into Egypt and most effectually it shews us
oblation It was a great blessing of God to overcome the Enemy and obtain the Victory but thus to overcome and to have such a Victory required an extraordinary Thanksgiving As men ought to return thanks to God for all his blessings so they ought for extraordinary Blessings to return extraordinary Thanks As in extraordinary visitations it is our duty to use extraordinary humiliation so when God shews us extraordinary mercy we must be thankful accordingly Hezekiah return'd great thanks for his great Deliverance Isai. 38. We must therefore consider what blessings we have received from God that so we may render what thankfulness we owe him else his Blessings will be turn'd into Curses and his Mercies into Judgements CHAP. XXXII Verse 5. THis was an unseasonable demand of these Men at this time but Covetousness had blinded their eyes that they could not see what was fit for them to ask and therefore were afterwards the first of the Children of Israel that were carried away Captive 1 Chron. 5. 25. After the same manner it befel Lot who looking after the goodness of the Plains of Sodom more than the goodness of the People preferr'd that place in his choice and was carried away Prisoner for it Gen. 14. Thus God will not pass by the sins of his dearest Children without a sensible check These Reubenites and Gadites for affecting the first choice had soon enough of it Strong affections bring strong afflictions as hard knots require hard wedges Earthly things court us that they may cut our throats these Hosts welcome us to our Inne with smiling countenance that they may dispatch us in our Beds Beware therefore of the Worlds cut-throat kindness Verse 18. Reuben and Gad were the first that had an Inheritance signed them yet they must enjoy it last so it falls out oft in the Heavenly Canaan the first in title are last in possession They had their lot assign'd them beyond Iordan which though it were then in peace must be purchas'd with their War that must be done for their Brethren which needed not be done for themselves they must yet still fight and fight foremost that as they had the first Patrimony they might endure the first encounter I do not hear them say this is our share let us sit down and enjoy it quietly fight who will for the rest but when they knew their own Portion they leave Wives and Children to take possession and march arm'd before their Brethren till they have conquered all Canaan Whether should we more commend their Courage or their Charity others were moved to fight with hope they only with love they could not win more they might lose themselves yet they will fight both for that they had something and that their Brethren might have Thankfulness and Love can do more with Gods Children than desire to merit or necessity no Israelite can if he might choose abide to sit still beyond Iordan when all his Brethren are in the field Verse 23. When God is searching it is high time for us to search our selves It is sad when God is searching for our sins if we are not searching for them too and it is more sad if when God comes to search for our sins we be found hiding our sins These are searching times God is searching let us search too else we may be sure as Moses tells the people of Israel here Our sins will find us out They who endeavour not to find their sins shall be found by their sins our Iniquity will enquire after us if we enquire not after it But what if Iniquity enquire after us What if Iniquity enquire after us it will find us and if Iniquity find us Trouble will find us yea if Iniquity find us alone without Christ Hell and Death will find us If Iniquity find any man he hath reason enough to say unto it what Ahab said to Eliah without reason Hast thou found me O mine enemy the best of men have reason to look out what evill is in them when God brings evil upon them or wraps them up in common evils They who have no wickedness in them to cast them under Condemnation yet have sin enough in them to make them smart under Correction CHAP. XXXIII Verse 8. THis is that place where the Israelites after three dayes journey found the bitter Waters The long deferring of a good though tedious yet makes it the better when it comes Well did the Israelites hope that the Waters which were so long in finding would be precious when they were found Yet behold they are cross'd not only in their desires but their hopes for after three dayes travel the first Fountains they find are bitter Waters If these Wels had not run pure Gall they could not have so much complained Long thirst will make bitter Waters sweet yet such were these springs that the Israelites did not so much like their moisture as abhor their relish I see the first handsel that God gives his People in their Voyage to the Land of Promise is thirst and bitterness Satan gives us pleasant entrances into his wayes and reserves the bitterness to the end God invites us to our worst at first and sweetens our conclusion with pleasure O my Saviour thou didst drink a more bitter Cup from the hands of thy Father than that which thou refused'st of the Jews or than that which I can drink from thee Verse 9. God taught his People by actions as well as words This entrance shewed them their whole Journey wherein they should taste of much bitterness but at last through the mercy of God sweetned with much more comfort and for one Fountain of bitter Water they should have no less than twelve of sweet Or did it not represent the Israelites rather in their Journey in the Fountains of whose Hearts were the bitter Waters of manifold corruptions yet their unsavory Souls are sweetned by the more abundant Graces of Gods Spirit O blessed Saviour that Fountain of Water and Blood which issued from thy side that is the application of thy Sufferings is enough to sweeten a whole Sea of bitterness I care not how unpleasant a portion I find in this Wilderness if the power and benefit of thy precious Death may season it to my Soul Verse 14. Bread they had from Heaven but wanted Water Our condition here in this World is a condition of singular indigency we are ever wanting somewhat or other Verse 42. Among the several stations which the Israelites made through the Wilderness one was Punon or Phinon which as one of the antient Fathers observes signifieth silence or sparingness of Speech upon which he maketh this useful Application Let us be careful to take up our station here sometimes while we are travailing through the Wilderness of this World It may he our wisdom to pitch in silence The hand is well imployed while we stop the mouth with it from broaching and maintaining that which is evill or from opposing that which is good
wonderful this is a fearful Fall Verse 8. Every Earth was not fit for Adam but a Garden a Paradice what excellent pleasures and rare varieties have men found in Gardens planted by the hands of men and yet all the World of men cannot make one twigg or leaf or spire of grass when he that made the matter undertakes the fashion how must it needs be beyond our capacity excellent No Herb no Tree no Flower was wanting there that might be for ornament or use whether for sight or for sent or for taste the bounty of God wrought further than to necessity even to comfort and recreation Why are we niggardly to our selves when God is liberal but for all this if God had not there convers'd with man no abundance could have made him blessed Verse 9. The Tree of Life was a real Tree in Paradice but it was not able to give immortality for no corruptible food can make the body incorruptible and if it could have given immortality it must have had a power to preserve from Sin for by sinning Man became mortal therefore it was called The Tree of Life not effectivè but significativè as a signe of true immortality which Adam should have received of God if he had continued in obedience and so also was that other Tree call'd The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil not because it gave Knowledge but was a Seal unto them of their miserable Knowledge which they should get by the experience of their Transgression which is call'd a Practical Knowledge And yet here by the way though God forbad Man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge yet not of the Tree of Life to shew that he desired we should be Saints not Rabbies and Doctors Verse 15. That which was mans Store-house was also his Work-house his pleasure was his task Paradice serv'd not only to feed his sences but to exercise his hands If happiness had consisted in doing nothing man had not been imployed all his delights could not have made him happy in an idle life Man therefore is no sooner made than he is set to work neither greatness nor perfection can priviledg a folded hand he must labour because he was happy how much more we that we may be so this first labour of his was as without necessity so without pains without weariness how much more chearfully we go about our businesses so much nearer we come to our Paradice Verse 17. Here is a double comfort from these words to the Children of God the first consists in this in that it was the Lord of Life that first named death Morte morieris saith God thou shalt dye the death I do the less fear and abhor Death because I find it in his mouth even a Malediction hath a sweetness iu Gods mouth for there is a blessing wrapt up in it a Mercy in every Correction a Resurrection upon every Death from whence issues the other spiritual comfort that as God did cast upon the unrepentant sinner two Deaths in the Text a temporal and a Spiritual Death so hath he breath'd into us two lives for so as the word for Death is doubled Morte morieris thou shalt dye the Death so the word for Life is expressed in the plural at the seventh Verse of this Chapter Chaim vitarum God breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Lives of divers lives though our Natural life were no life but a continual dying yet we have two Lives besides that an eternal life reserved for Heaven but yet an Heavenly Life too a spiritual Life even in this World Verse 18. One cause of Marriage is to avoid the inconvenience of Solitariness signified in these words It is not good for Man to be alone as if he had said this Life would be miserable irksome to Man if the Lord had not given him a Wife to bear a share in his troubles and afflictions Now if it be not good for Man to be alone then is it good for him to have a Companion and therefore as God created a pair of all other Kinds so also of this And this was that help in the Text in which we see that God did provide an help for Man before he saw his own want and while Adam slept and thought nothing God was working and laying out for his good and preparing him an Helper Shewing that Man is stronger by his Wife for as God hath knit the bones and sinews together for the strengthning of Mans body so hath he knit Man and Woman together for the strengthening of their Life because two are firmer than one Verse 20. As Adam gave every Creature the Name according as he saw the Nature thereof to be so God gives every man reward or punishment the Name of a Saint or Devil in his purpose as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces When I shal come to the sight of the Book of Life and the Records of Heaven amongst the Reprobate I shall never see the Name of Cain alone but Cain with his addition Cain that kil'd his Brother not Iuda's Name alone but Iudas with his addition Iudas that betrayed his Master God did not begin with a Morte moriendum some Body must dye and therefore I wil make some Body to kill but God came to a Morte morieris yet thou art alive and maist live but if thou wilt rebel thou must dye Verse 21. This Sleep that man was cast into while his Wife was created doth teach us that our Affections our Lusts and Concupiscences should sleep while we go about this Action the choice of a Wife for as the Man slept while his Wife wa◠making so our flesh should sleep while our Wife is choosing lest as the love of Venison wone Isaac to bless one for the other so the love of Gentry or Riches or Beauty should make us take one for the other Verse 22. Woman was not made of the head and therefore must not be the head nor yet of the foot of man and therefore must not be set at his foot but the man must set her at his heart near the place from whence she came She which should lie in his bosome was made in his bosom should be as close to him as the Rib of which she was fashion'd Verse 25. Comparatively Adam was better than all the world beside and yet we find no act of pride in Adam when he was alone When there was none in the world but himself and his Wife who was not another but himself though they were both naked they were neither of them asham'd Soliture is not the scene of pride the danger of pride is in company when we meet to look upon one another Thus in Eve her first act was an act of Pride a harkening to that voice of the Serpent Ye shall be as gods As soon as there were more than themselves there was pride How many have we known that have been content all the week at home alone
corruption were but in man and other Creatures were flesh as well as man but man is every creature because as Gregory saith Omnis creaturae differentia in homine all the properties and qualities of all other creatures how remote and distant how contrary soever in themselves yet they all meet in man In man if he be a flatterer you shall find the grovelling and crawling of the Snake and in man if he be ambitious you shall find the high flight and piercing of the Eagle in a voluptuous sensual man you shall find the earthliness of the Hogg and in a licentious man the intemperance and distemper of the Goat ever lustful and ever in a Feaver ever in sickness contracted by that sin and yet ever in a desire to proceed in that sin and thus man is every creature and all flesh Verse 14. That God might approve his mercies to the very wicked he gives them 120 years respite of repenting verse 3. and here in this verse he gives them a faithful Teacher It is an happy thing when he that teacheth others is righteous Noahs hand taught them as much as his tongue his business in building the Ark was a real Sermon to the world wherein at once were taught Mercy and Life to the Believer and to the Rebellious destruction Verse 18. Doubtless more hands went to this work of making the Ark than Noah and his Children and yet none were saved but they many a one wrought upon the Ark which yet was not saved in the Ark our outward works cannot save us without Faith we may help to save others and perish our selves what a wonder of mercy is this that we here see one poor Family call'd out of a world and as it were eight grains of Corn fann'd from a whole Barnful of Chaff one hypocrite was saved with the rest for Noahs sake not one righteous man was swept away for company for these few was the earth preserved still under the waters and all kind of Creatures upon the waters which else had been all destroyed Still the world stands for their sakes for whom it was preserved else fire should consume that which could not be cleansed by water CHAP. VII Verse 2. THe unclean Beasts God would have to live the clean to multiply and therefore he sends to Noah seven of the clean and of the unclean two he knew the one would annoy man with their multitude the other would enrich him those things are worthy of most respect which are of most use But why seven Surely that God that Created seven dayes in the Week and made one for himself did here preserve of seven clean Beasts one for himself for Sacrifice he gives us Six for One in earthly things that in spiritual we should be all for him Verse 9. This difference is strange I see the savagest of all Creatures Lions Tygers Bears by an instinct from God come to seek the Ark as we see Swine fore-seeing a storm run home crying for shelter men I see not Reason once debauch'd is worse than bruitishness God hath use even of these fierce and cruel Beasts and glory by them Even they being Created for man must live by him though to his punishment How gently do they offer and submit themselves to their Preserver renewing that obeysance to this Repairer of the World which they before sin yielded to him that first stored the World And thus these savage Creatures went in saith the rext to Noah not to prey but fawn upon him He that shut them into the Ark when they were entred shut their mouths also while they did enter The Lions fawn upon Noah and Daniel what heart cannot the Maker of them mollifie Verse 10. By this is shewen the Lords patience for Noah is warned seven dayes before of the Flouds coming that by his preparation and entrance others might be warned and whereas God might have destroyed the World at once it was encreasing forty dayes that the World seeing every day some perish might at length have turned to God And the same was Ninevehs case yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Our God is a gracious merciful and long-suffering God and never strikes but he gives warning that sinners may prevent the blow by Repentance and Contrition Before Nineveh shall be destroyed a Prophet must be sent to give notice of that destruction and to teach them a way how to avoid it and in case they should prove dull schollars here is forty dayes given to learn the lesson And as God dealt with this great City and with the whole World before the Deluge to fore-warn them of his judgements and their own ruine so deals he likewise with particular men to some he gives forty dayes to others forty months nay forty years to repent in even a whole life time is to some men but a continued warning of their final destruction and yet they like the old World never beleeve it till they feel it mock and jear at a Deluge until they are over-whelm'd with the Floud and perish in their own presumptuous imaginations So hard a thing it is to perswade sinners to beleeve that God is so just or his Judgements so infallible or their sins so destructive until the Floud come and a second Deluge a Deluge of Fire sweeps them away as that first of Waters did their unbeleeving fore-fathers Verse 11. It agrees with the nature of God who is goodness That as all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened and so came the Floud over all so there should be diluvium spiritus a flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all as he promises Effundam I will pour it out upon all and diluvium gentium that all Nations shall flow up unto him For this spirit spirat ubi vnlt breaths where it pleaseth him and though a natural Wind cannot blow East and West North and South together this spirit at once breaths upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the dispairing sinner and in an instant can denizon and naturalize that soul that was an Alien to the Covenant empale and in-lay that soul that was bred upon the Common among the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goat into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost Sheep to the Fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darkness and the shadow of death and so melt and pour out that soul that yet understands nothing of the divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the divine nature and be the same Spirit with God Verse 16. Now that Noah and all his Guests are entred the Ark is shut and the windows of Heaven opened God first provides for Noah before the Wicked are destroyed of whom many no doubt when they saw the violence of the waves descending and ascending according to Noah's prediction came wading middle-deep unto the Ark and importunately craved that
were for sin or for the present pressure only I have not to say but God is so pitiful that he hears and helps our Affliction as he did Hagars in this Text. Verse 15. God presents to us the joyes of Heaven often to draw us and as often the torments of Hell to avert us And to this purpose Origen saith aright as Abraham had two Sons the one of a Bond-woman the other of a Free but yet both sons of Abraham So God is served by two fears and the latter fear the fear of future torment is not the perfect fear but yet even that fear is the servant and instrument of God too Who can so absolutely divest all sense saith Chrysostome but that when the whole City is in a combustion and commotion or when the Ship that he is in strikes desperately and irrecoverably upon a Rock he is otherwise affected towards God then than when every day in a quietness and calmness of holy affections he hears a Sermon Gehennae timor saith the same Father regni affert coronam even the fear of Hell gets us Heaven CHAP. XVII Verse 1. IT is Gods prescript to Abraham here Walk before me and be perfect and that is when as to allude to that known Expression Manus ad Clavum Oculus ad Coelum as our hand is upon the work so our eye must be upon God in every thing we do which is the ground of that uprightness called in the Scripture Dialect perfection Where you may note the difference between these three expressions of the holy Ghost to walk with God after God and before God We walk with God as a sweet companion after God as a commanding Lord before God as an observing Judge we walk with him as his Friends after him as his Servants before him as his Children lastly we walk with him by an humble familiarity after him in a regular conformity before him by a cordial integrity and this is according to Gods rule to Abraham Walk before me and be perfect Verse 3. When God talkes with us in his Word or we talk with God in our Prayers we cannot be too humble you see from this text that Abraham the Father of the faithful fell upon his face at a conference with God and shall we that are his sons not fall upon our knees Certainly were there never a Church standing in the world nor so much as one stone left for a Bethel wheresoever we came to Pray we should worship first looking up to our God and his infinitude with Glory be to thee O Lord then in the Publicans dejected posture reflecting upon the dust our original and our end with Lord be merciful unto me a sinner and indeed can we presume higher than the dust when we reverence before our Maker or do less than hide our own faces with shame appearing before the glorious light of that countenance which we cannot see and live and which we shall one day look upon with trembling if not now with shame Verse 5. There is no Faith where there is either means or hopes Difficulties and impossibilities are the true Objects of Belief hereupon God adds to Abrahams name that which he would fetch from his Loins and made his Name as ample as his Posterity never any man was a looser by beleeving Faith is ever recompenced with Glory Verse 7. God hath in great mercy and goodness promised to shew grace and favour not only to the faithful themselves but to their seed after them and as the mercy of God is great so the Faith of the godly is effectual for themselves and their Children God will be our God and the God of our seed after us If then we consider either the Promise of God to be merciful or the Faith of the godly to beleeve in both respects we may collect and gather this truth That the love of God to the faithful shall so abound that it shall come to their posterity like the pretious Oyntment poured on the head of Aaron that ran down upon his beard and flowed to the border of his garments or as the dew on Hermon and Sion which watered the valleys which were beneath them Now seeing that goodness hath the Promise of bringing a blessing upon the families where it is profess'd it is required of us to profess and beleeve the Gospel that so we may procure a blessing upon our selves and Children The neglect of which bringeth utter ruine to Father and Child So then godly Parents must have a care to bring-up their Children and Families in the true Faith and fear of the Lord which may be a means by the blessing of God to save thy son from death and to deliver his soul from destruction Verse 11. Circumcision is a seal of the Covenant betwixt God and us if we be in God and God in us if we be circumcised within if the fore-skin of our hearts be taken away then is the outward Circumcision a seal unto our Covenant with God otherwise it is a seal indeed but a seal without a Bond a seal without any stipulation betwixt God and us we are no whit priviledged by it no more than are the Turks who yet are circumcised which is the reason that the Jewes at this day have no benefit by this Covenant because they are uncircumcised in their hearts that vail that fore-skin is not taken away and that only is the circumcision which seals the Covenant betwixt God and us the Gospel-circumcision the putting off the old Adam by that circumcision of Christ which is the work of the Spirit wrought by the Word upon the Soul of a poor sinner whereby the corruption of his nature is mortified and himself received into an everlasting Covenant and Communion with God Verse 14. In the first Covenant that God made with his People as we see here That person that would not be circumcised that soul was cut off from the people of God and just so in the second Covenant that God made with his people the Covenant of the Gospel He that is not circumcised in heart and made new by regeneration he shall have no part with the Saints in heaven Joh. 3. 3. The wise man is not priviledged by his wisdom nor the strong man by his strength the King is not freed by his Crown and Dignity nor the Priest by the power of his Keyes For if any one enters himself in Covenant with God under the New Testament and hopes for benefit by that Covenant as Abraham and his Seed did undergo the outward Circumcision of the body so must he the inward Circcmcision of the heart No Circumcision no Son of Abraham no Son of Abraham no Son of God Verse 17. Abraham was old e're this Promise and hope of a Son was given and still the older the more uncapable Yet God makes him wait twenty five years for performance No time is long to Faith which had learned to defer hopes without fainting and irksomness Abraham heard this news
escapeth their Judgement from whose sins he escaped Even the good Angels are here made the Executioners of Gods Judgements There cannot be a better or more noble act than to do Justice upon obstinate Malefactors Verse 16. The Messengers do not only hasten Lot but pull him by a gracious violence out of that impure City they thirsted at once after the vengeance upon Sodom and Lots safety they knew God could not strike Sodom till Lot were gone out and that Lot could not be safe within those Walls We are all naturally in Sodom if God did not hale us out whiles we linger we should be condemned with the World If God meet with a very good field he pulls up the Weeds and lets the Corn grow if indifferent he lets the Corn and Weeds grow together if very ill he gathers the few ears of Corn and burns the weeds Verse 20. So say most men of their bosome sins Lord this sin is neer to flye unto it is but in my bosome and it is but a little one Lord perchance but a trip of the tongue or a wanton glance of the eye or a lustful thought of the heart O let me escape and abide in that sin in that Zoar and my soul shall live and he saies most truly that his Soul shall live For it is as impossible that such a one should live without his beloved sin as it is that he should live without his Soul Verse 21. O the large bounty of God which reacheth not to us only but to ours God saves Lot for Abrahams sake and Zoar for Lots sake if Sodom had not been too wicked it had escaped Were it not for Gods dear Children that are intermix'd with the World the world could not stand the wicked owe their lives unto those few good which they hate and persecute Verse 26. Lot at the 17 verse may not so much as look at the flame whether for the stay of his passage or the horror of the sight or tryal of his Faith or fear of commiseration Small Precepts from God are of importance obedience is as well tryed and disobedience as well punished in little as in much And therefore when Lots Wife did but turn back her head in this verse whether in curiosity or unbelief or love and compassion of the place she is turned into a Monument of disobedience ut praestarit fidelibus condimentum saith Saint Augustine that it might be a seasoning to faithful men and teach us not to look back not to fall off from that calling in which we are once entered And now what did it avail Lots Wife not to be turned into ashes in Sodom when she is turned into a Pillar of Salt in the plain He that saved a whole City cannot save his own Wife God cannot abide small sins in those whom he hath obliged If we displease him God can as well meet with us out of Sodom as in it Verse 35. Though Lot fled from company he could not flye from sin he who was not tainted with Uncleanness in Sodom is overtaken with Drunkenness and Incest in a Cave Rather than Satan shall want baits Lots own Daughters will prove Sodomites those which should have comforted betrayed him How little are some hearts moved with judgements The ashes of Sodom and the pillar of Salt were not yet out of their eye when they dare think of lying with their own Father They knew whilst Lot was sober he could not be unchaste Drunkenness is the way to all bestial affections and acts Wine knows no difference either of persons or sins By this we see likewise what a dangerous thing it is to give way to temptation Lot being once drunk is the more apt to fall into it again Verse 37. No doubt Lot was afterwards ashamed of his Incestuous seed and now wished he had come alone out of Sodom yet even this unnatural Bed was blessed with encrease and one of our Saviours worthy Ancestors sprung after from this line Gods Election is not tyed to our means neither are blessings or Curses ever traduced The chaste Bed of holy Parents hath often bred a Monstruous Generation and contrarily God hath sometimes raised an holy Seed from the Drunken Bed of Incest or Fornication Thus will God magnifie the freedom of his own choice and let us know that we are not born but made good CHAP. XX. Verse 3. THe truth was here not only concealed but dissembled as the Moon hath her specks so the best have their blemishes we are born men not Angels and as our composition is flesh and bloud so are we subject to the temptations that are apt to arise from those principles of our Nature A Sheep may slip into a ditch as well as a Swine only here 's the difference the one delights in the mud the other would fain get out of it the righteous may fall seven times a day as well as the wicked but then the righteous riseth as oft and repenteth of his sin whereas the wicked lies down and continues in it This was the second time Abraham had committed this sin and yet still continued the Father of the faithful Verse 5. God had reproved Abimelech on Abrahams behalf and now Abimelech reproves Abraham on Gods God told Abimelech that he had taken another mans Wife and Abimelech replyed That other man had told him a Lye It is a sad thing that Saints and Beleevers should do that for which they should justly fall under the reproof of Infidels we should rather dazle their eyes and draw from their Consciences at least a testimony of our innocency as David did from Sauls when he said Thou art more righteous than I my son David The life of a Christian should be a Commentary on Christs life Which of you can condemne me of evil said Christ to the Jewes and we that bear his Name should follow his steps and so carry our selves that we may not be condemned by the world For our profession as it is most eminent so most eyed and worst censured none therefore to keep within so strict lines as the Christian being one ever under monitors for behold saith the Apostle We are made a gazing stock to the world to Angels to men Verse 7. The reward of sin is death saith the Apostle but what kind of death a double death saith this text Morte morierie thou shalt die the death a death complicated in its self death wrap'd in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding-sheet It is death aggravated by its self death weighed down by death and what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his Grave-stone It is multiplied by its self and what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death Let several sinners then pass this consideration through their several sins that as Abimelech here so they must without Gods mercy upon every sin die the death and that a double death eternal and
peaceably but youth commonly undertakes rashly and performs with passion The Sons of Iacob think of nothing but revenge and which is worst of all begin their cruelty with craft and hide their craft with Religion A smiling malice is most deadly and hatred doth most rankle the heart when it is kept in and dissembled We cannot give our Sister to an uncircumcised man here was God in the mouth and Satan in the heart The bloodiest of all Projects have ever wont to be coloured with Religion because the worse any thing is the better shew it desires to make and contrarily the better colour is put upon any vice the more odious it is for as every simulation adds to an evil so the best adds most evil themselves had taken the Daughters and Sisters of uncircumcised men yea Iacob himself did so why might not then an uncircumcised man obtain their Sister Or if there be a difference of giving and taking it had been well if it had not been only pretended It had been an happy ravishment of Dinah that should have drawn a whole Country into the bosome of the Church but here was a Sacrament intended not to the good of the soul but to the murther of the body Verse 15. Simeon and Levi when they meditate their revenge for the Rape committed upon their Sister when they pretended Peace yet they required a little bloud they would have the Shechemites Circumcised but when they had opened a Vein they made them bleed to Death when they were under the soreness of Circumcision they slew them all Gods Justice required bloud likewise the bloud of his Son but that bloud is not spilt as was the bloud of these Shechemites but poured from that Head to our Hearts into the Veins and Wounds of our own Souls In the Circumcision and Passion of our Saviour there was Bloud shed but no Bloud lost Verse 23. It was an hard task for Hamor and Shechem not only to put the knife to their own fore-skins but to perswade a multitude to so painful a condition Now to bring this about as the Sons of Iacob dissembled with them so they dissemble with the people Shall not all their flocks and substance be ours Common profit is pretended when as only Shechems pleasure is meant No motive is so powerful to the vulgar sort as the name of Commodity the hope of this makes them prodigal of their skin and bloud not the love to the Sacrament nor the love to Shechem sinister respects draw more to the profession of Religion than Conscience if it were not for the Loaves and Fishes the train of Christ would be less But the Sacraments of God mis-received never prosper in the end These men are content to smart so they may gain Verse 25. Now that every one lies sore of his own Wound Simeon and Levi rush in armed and wound all the Males to death Cursed be their Wrath for it was fierce and their Rage for it was cruel Indeed filthiness should not have been wrought in Israel yet murther should not have been wrought by Israel If they had been fit Judges which were but bloudy Executioners how far doth the punishment exceed the fault To punish above the offence is no less injustice than to offend One offendeth and all feel the revenge yea all the innocent suffer that revenge which he that offended deserved not Shechem sinneth but Dinah tempted him She that was so light as to wander abroad alone only to gaze I fear was not over-difficult to yield and if having wrought her shame he had driven her home with disgrace to her Fathers Tent such tyrannous lust had justly called for bloud but now he craves and offers and would pay dear for but leave to give satisfaction to execute rigor upon a submiss offendor is more merciless than just or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another yet from them which had vowed Peace and Affinity it was shamefully unjust To disappoint the Trust of another and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes adds faithlessness unto our cruelty Verse 30. Who would have looked to have found this outrage in the Family of Iacob How did that good Patriarch when he saw Dinah come home blubber'd and wringing her hands Simeon and Levi sprinkled with bloud wish that Leah had been barren as long as Rachel Good Parents have grief enough though they sustain no blame for their Childrens sins What great evils arise from small beginnings The idle curiosity of Dinah hath bred all this mischeif Ravishment follows upon her wandring upon her ravishment murther upon the murther spoyl It is holy and safe to be jealous of the first occasions of evil either done or suffered CHAP. XXXV Verse 1. HEre God pulls Iacob by the ear as it were and minds him of his Vow which he had well-nigh forgotten but God looked for performance and would not let him be quiet till he had made good what he had promised Most mens practice proclaims that having escaped the danger they would willingly deceive the Saint Deliverances commonly are but nine dayes wonder at most and it is ten to one that any Leper returns to give praise to God If any thing doth rouze up our hearts to thankful remembrance of former Mercies it must be the sense of some present misery as here Iacob was in a strait and fright his Sons had troubled him the Country was ready to rise upon him and rout him out and now God takes this opportunity for we are best when at worst and gently minds him of what was his duty and would be for his safety Verse 5. The Lord hath a Negative voice upon the motion of all Creatures We see an instance of this here when Iacob and his Family journied the terror of God was upon the Cities that were round about them and they did not pursue after the Sons of Iacob they had a mind to pursue and revenge the slaughter of the Shechemites but God said Pursue not and then they could not pursue they must stay at home Thus also when his People the Iewes were safe in Canaan he encourages them to come up freely to Worship at Ierusalem by this assurance No man shall desire thy Land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God God can stop not only hands from spoyling but hearts from desiring Our appetite whether concupiscible or irrascible are under his command as well as our actions we should consider this to help our Faith in these times The Sword is in motion among us even as the Sun and the Sword seems to have received a charge to pass from the one end of the Land to the other yet a counter-mand from God will stop the Sword from going on If he speak to the Sword the Sword shall wound no more Verse 10. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel That is not only or not so much Iacob as Israel Both
therefore let the wicked how prosperous how secure how merry soever they be remember this in the midst of their joy that their Master the Devil gives them pleasant entrances into their wayes but reserves the bitterness for the end of their journey and on the contrary let the Righteous how sad how contemptible how dejected soever they be remember this in the midst of their tears that God their Father invites them to the worst Dish at first and sweetens their conclusion with pleasure and let them assure themselves that though the first handful that God gives them in their voyage to the Land of Promise be a Wilderness of Bryars and Thorns and the first Waters that they must drink in that Wilderness be Waters of Marah the bitter water of their own tears yet in the end of their journey they shall over-flow with the milk and honey of Canaan the Land of eternal peace and happiness CHAP. XXXVII Verse 2. I Marvel not that Ioseph had a double Portion of Iacobs Land who had more than two parts of his sorrows none of his Sons did so truly inherit his afflictions none of them was either so miserable or so great suffering is the way to Glory I see him not a clearer Type of Christ than of every Christian because we are dear to our Father and complain of sins therefore are we hated of our carnal Brethren if Ioseph had not medled with his Brothers faults yet he had been envied for his Fathers affection but now malice is met with envie There is nothing more thankless and dangerous than to stand in the way of a resolute sinner That which doth correct and oblige the penitent makes the wilful mind furious and revengeful Verse 4. Hence we may learn how inconvenient a thing it is for Parents to be partial in their love to their Children and withal that it is no marvel that brethren fall out for Goods and Land when Iosephs brethren hated him for a Coat We may further also consider from this place how few men judge themselves happy or unhappy according to what they are but by comparing themselves with others where all go naked none are ashamed Many augment their misery by seeing others more happy and yet think themselves happy when they see others more miserable We many times gather our sorrows from others joyes and our joyes from others sorrows We bless our selves when we see them below us and yet think all we have to be no blessing when we look on them that are above us Lord let not me think my good the less because others have more or my evil the more because others have less but let me learn in all estates to be content and to welcome the Will of God let it come how it will Verse 19. What meant Ioseph in the beginning of this Chapter to add unto his own Envie by reporting his Dreams The concealment of our hopes and abilities hath not more modesty than safety He that was envied for his dearness and hated for his intelligence was both envied and hated for his Dreams Surely God meant to make the relation of these Dreams a means to effect that which the Dreams imported We men work by likely means God by contraries The main quarrel was Behold this Dreamer cometh Had it not been for his Dreams he had not been sold if he had not been sold he had not been exalted So Iosephs state had not deserved envie if his Dreams had not caused him to be envied Full little did Ioseph think when he went to seek his Brethren that it was the last time he should see his Fathers House Full little did his Brethren think when they sold him naked to the Ishmeelites to have once seen him in the Throne of Egypt Gods Decree runs on and while we either think not of it or oppose it it is performed Verse 20. In an honest and obedient simplicity Ioseph comes to enquire of his Brethrens health and now may not return to carry news of his own misery whiles he thinks of their welfare they are plotting his destruction Come let us slay him Who would have expected this cruelty in them which should be the Fathers of Gods Church he look'd for Brethren and behold murtherers every mans tongue every mans fist was bent against him Each one strives who shall lay the first hand upon that changeable Coat that was dyed with their Fathers love and their envie Verse 24. It was thought a favour that Reubens entreaty obtained for him that he might be cast into the Pit alive to die there And now they have strip'd him naked and haling him by both arms as it were cast him alive into his Grave So in pretence of forbearance they resolve to torment him with a lingring Death the savagest Robbers could not have been more merciless for now besides what in them lies they kill their Father in their Brother Nature if once degenerate grows more monstrous and extream than a disposition born to cruelty And now what stranger can think of poor innocent Ioseph crying naked in the desolate and dry Pit only saving that he moistened it with tears and not be moved Yet his hard-hearted Brethren sit them down carelesly with the noise of his Lamentation in their ears to eat Bread not once thinking by their own hunger what it was for Ioseph to be famished to death Verse 28. Whatsoever they thought God never meant that Ioseph should perish in that Pit and therefore he sends very Ishmeelites to ransom him from his Brethren the seed of him that persecuted his Brother Isaac shall now redeem Ioseph from his Brethrens persecution And now when Ioseph had comforted himself with hope of the favour of dying behold death exchang'd for bondage how much is servitude to an ingenuous Nature worse than death For this is common to all that to none but the miserable Iudah meant this well but God better Reuben saved him from the Sword Iudah from Famishing God will ever raise up some favourers to his own amongst those that are most malicious How well was this favour bestowed If Ioseph had died for hunger in the Pit both Iacob and Iudah and all his Brethren had died for hunger in Canaan Little did the Ishmeelitish Merchants know what a treasure they bought carried and sold more precious than all their Balms and Myrrhs Little did they think that they had in their hands the Lord of Egypt the Jewel of the World why should we contemne any mans meanness when we know not his destiny Verse 32. One sin is commonly used for the vail of another Iosephs Coat is sent home dip'd in bloud that whiles they should hide their own cruelty they might afflict their Father no less than their Brother They have devised this real Lye to punish their old Father for his Love with so grievous a Monument of his sorrow Verse 33. When Iacob saw the Coat of his Son Ioseph It is my Sons Coat saies he but an
time as by nature a Woman may have a child God will return to us in the grave acording to the time of life that is in such time as he by his gracious decree hath fixed for the Resurrection And in the mean time no more than the God-head departed from the dead body of our Saviour in the grave doth his power and his presence depart from our dead bodies in that darkness Verse 6. Iacob being not willing to be a burthen unto Pharaoh more then needs must brings down all his Estate into Egypt Though the Famine forced the Patriarch to be beholding to Pharaoh for bread yet he would not be Engaged to him for meat And therefore tooke his Cattle along with him and although he could not bring down his house into Goshen yet he carried his goods It is an happiness so to live with others as not to be beholding but rather helpful than burthensome When the Prophet desired a cake of the widdow in the dayes of famine he rewarded her with a barrel of meal which outlasted that famine and rather then he will be a burthen to the poor Woman a miracle shall releive her Verse 27. Well may the Rabbins say that these seventy souls were as much as the seventy Nations of the world when Moses tels us Deut. 10. 22. that whereas their fathers went down into Egypt with seventy souls now Iehovah had made them as the Stars of heaven for multitude and this too by miraculous wayes and means As for instance when this Israel of God was shackel'd perchance for their forefathers selling Ioseph to be a slave with the Irons of Egypt where their burthens were turned into bondage and their bondage into bloud their souls also being ever on the rack of continuall fear and suspence lest their bodies might be thrown into the same brickhils they had built and become the fire to harden their own handiwork Yet here how did God tie up Pharaohs hands with plagues turning their poisons into cordials and their enemies malice to their greatest improvement in that he made them grow under their burthen and propagate through that inhumane distruction of the Male fruit of their body So able is God to raise his Church from a small number to an infinite from seventy persons to the Stars of heaven or the sand on the Sea-shore for multitude Verse 29. The height of all earthly contentment appear'd in the meeting of these two whom their mutual losse had more endear'd to each other The intermission of comforts hath this advantage that it sweetens our delight more in the return then was abated in the forbearance God doth oft-times hide away our Ioseph for a time that we may be more joyous and thankfull in his recovery This was the sincerest pleasure that ever Iacob had which therefore God reserved for his age And if the meeting of earthly friends be so unspekably comfortable how happy shall we be in sight of the glorious face of God our heavenly Father of that our blessed Redeemer whom we sold to death by our sins and which now after that noble triumph hath all power given him in Heaven and Earth CHAP. XLVII Verse 3. IT is fit that every one that lives in a Common-wealth should labour in that Common-wealth and bring some benefit some honey to the common hive unlesse he will be cast out as a drone Pharaoh would hardly have suffered even Iosephs own Brethren to have lived idly under his jurisdiction and therefore his first question here was What is your Occupation At Athens every man gave an yearly account to the Magistrate by what Trade or course of life he maintained himself which if he could not doe he was banished Take ye the evil and unprofitable servant said our Saviour and cast him into utter darkness away with such a fellow from off the earth which he hath burthened for he is no more missed when gone then the parings of ones nailes Those therefore that have a talent a trade to live on must improve that talent must follow that trade whereby the world may be the better and not think to come hither meerly as Rats and Mice only to devour victuals and to run squeaking up and down These are Ciphers or rather Excrements in humane Society In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread was the old Sanction Even Paradise that was Mans Store-house was also his working house They bury themselves alive that as body-lice live on other mens sweat and labours and it is a sin to relieve them Verse 4. These plain dealing men did not desire to live at Court though their Brother was the chief Favourite but in Goshen which as it was next to the Land of Canaan so was it most fit for their Cattle These honest religious Patriarks chose rather a poor Shepheards life in Gods service then to ruffle it as Courtiers out of the Church So did Moses afterwards and David Psal. 84. 10. and the poor Prophet that died so deep in debt and good Micaiah and those that wandred about in sheep-skins and goat-skins Heb. 11. who happily might have ruffled in silks and velvets if they would have strain'd their Consciences Origen was contented to be a poor Catechist at Alexandria every day in fear of death when he might have been with his fellow Pupil Photinus in great authority and favour if not a Christian. God takes it kindly when men will goe after him in the Wildernefs in a Land not sown Ier. 2. 2. that is chuse him and his wayes in affliction and with self-denial Verse 6. Those that are ingenious and industrious in their calling shall be preferred and had in esteem by great men How much more then doth it concern Christians to improve their Talent that they may be accepted and preferr'd by God That Servant in Saint Luke that had improved his pound to ten pounds was made Lord over ten Cities and he that had encreased it but to five pounds had authority but over five Cities As every one had traded so he was rewarded and had a different degree both of Grace and Glory Let all men therefore according to their several abilities improve what they have to Gods Glory and the good of others and then they may be sure they shall improve it for themselves and their own both good and glory Verse 9. Mans life is but a sojourning it is but a Pilgrimage said Iacob here and but the dayes of his pilgrimage neither every one of them quickly at an end and all of them quickly reckoned Thus also did the rest of the Patriarchs count themselves but as Strangers and Pilgrims in the earth and thereby declared that they sought a Country Heb. 12. 14. Here we have no continuing City first no City no such large Being and then no continuing at all it is but a sojourning Here we are but viatores Passengers Wayfaring men this life is but the high-way and thou canst not build thy hopes here nay to be
knows as Iacob answered Ioseph what he doth and it becomes us to acquiess in what he doth though we know it not And though God turn Kingdomes upside down though he send great afflictions upon his own People and make them a reproach unto the Heathen though he give them up unto the power of the Adversary and make all their enemies to rejoyce yet no man may say unto God Why doe you thus his Works are unsearchable It is beyond the line of the Creature to put any question a Why or a Wherefore about thr Work of the Creator Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the Clay Verse 21. This good Patriarch that had before wrestled with an Angel did not now fear to wrestle with Death and therefore speaks of it without the least fear or consternation of spirit It was no more betwixt Iacob and Death but Behold I die He knew he was to change his Place indeed but not his Company Death was to him but the day-break of eternal brightness it was but as that Martyr said winking a little and he was in Heaven immediately Why then should this sad toil of Mortality dishearten us why should we be so foolish as to fear that which is the Port which we ought one day to desire never to refuse And therefore some have welcom'd Death some met it in the way some baffied it in persecution sickness torments knowing it to bethe end of a temporal Misery and the beginning of an everlasting Joy CHAP. XLIX Verse 6. GOdly men are not at all pleased with the way of the wicked how much soever they thrive in it Iob had said much of the Greatness Riches and Glory of the Wicked but saith he However the counsel of the wicked is farre from me Chap. 21. the wayes of the godly and wicked differ as much as their ends their counsels are as distant as their conclusions will be Every good man saith of the counsel and ways of the wicked how prosperous soever as Iacob said of his Sons Simeon and Levi O my soul come not thou into their secret Let me be far from their secret far from their Cabinet Counsel and close Committees O my soul come not thou into their secret Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly The further we keep from their counsel the nearer we are to blessedness Verse 7. Many times Man though forbidden curses then it is his Sin and he is Satans Minister for evil against his Brother Yet in some cases to curse is Gods Command and our Duty and then we are Gods Ministers for wrath against the Wicked Thus when the Patriarch Iacob was upon his death-bed and bed of blessing yet he pronounced a Curse upon the rage and anger of his two Sons here Simeon and Levi. Now in all lawful cursings we must observe these two Rules First to aim the Curse at the destruction of the Sin not the Sinner Secondly where the Sinner appears incorrigible yet to desire the clearing up of Gods Justice in punishing not the punishment its self To curse any thing or person passionately is infirmity to curse any thing or person maliciously is grosse impiety Verse 8. What difference the Holy Ghost is pleased to put here betwixt sinners when yet the sins of those men were in a manner equal Reubeus Incest in the fourth verse was punished with a Curse and the like sin of Iudahs is pardoned and in a sort prospereth If this sin had not cost Iudah many a sigh he had no more escaped his Fathers Curse then Reuben did I see the difference not of sins but men Remission goes not by the measure of the sin but the quality of the sinner yea rather the Mercy of the Forgiver Blessed is the man not that sins not but to whom the Lord imputes not his sin Verse 10. This Hebrew word Shilo is derived from Shalah which signifies security and safety So that Christ is Shilo that is he in whom all persons may securely trust You may sit down in safety in Christ and rest your souls for ever he is Shilohs our Lord Protector our Saviour And the Hebrews use the same word to signifie the fleshly Mantle in which the Infant is wrapped in the Mothers belly because the Infant lieth there quietly and securely it is out of fear and hath no thought of any danger but lieth securely out of harmes way Verse 18. Gods Children upon the discovery of his glory and that happiness of the next Life are fill'd with longing desires after God and those Enjoyments Lord I have waited for thy salvation said Iacob he speaks this upon his death-bed as that he had been looking for all his life as if that were the account of all his actions in the World and the Story of his whole Life I have longed for thy salvation said David All desires are summ'd up in longing There is a strong desire in the Saints to see and injoy God in his Ordinances Now if there be so great and so longing a desire to see the Lord through these Mediums and in these Glasses how much more to see him immediately face to face How would that desire swallow up all our desires in glory And indeed we could not abide in Glory with any other desire but that The Saints are described in their present state by this Periphrasis such as love the appearing of Christ as if they loved nothing else What then will Christ be to them when he shall appear They who love Christ whom they have not seen how will they love Christ when they see him Verse 23. God sometimes seems an Enemy to his faithful Servants For one to be before God as a Butt continually shot at what other interpretation can sence make of it but this that God looks upon him as an Enemy Iacob said of Ioseph here The Archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him Ioseph was the common Mark of his Brethrens Envy But in this case as it is said of Ioseph when his Brethren came to him he made himself strange to them Ioseph was of a meek and loving disposition and therefore like a Player upon a Stage he only acted the part of a rigid Master or Governour thus many times the Lord takes upon him the posture of an Enemy and forces a frown upon a poor Creature whom he loves and delights in with all his heart he makes him as his Mark to shoot at whom he layes next to his heart Besides observe from hence further that God takes the most eminent and choisest of his Servants for the choisest and most eminent afflictions Thus Ioseph was made the White here that the Archers shot at Ioseph was the most eminent for Grace and Goodness of all his Brethren he was the most remarkable man for Grace and Holiness therefore he must be the Mark. Verse 27. Tertullian will have
this Text have relation to St. Paul Paulum mihi etiam Genesis repromisit I had a Promise of Paul in Moses saith that Father then when Moses said Iacob blessed Benjamin thus Benjamin shall ravin as a wolfe c. that is at the beginning Paul shall scatter the Flock of Christ but at last he shall gather and reunite the Nations to his service As he had breath'd threatnings and slaughters against the Disciples of the Lord so he became os orbi sufficiens a mouth loud enough for all the world to hear And as he had drawn and suck'd the bloud of Christs mystical Body the Church so in that proportion that God enabled him to he recompenced that damage by effusion of his own bloud and then he bequeathed to all posterity his Epistles which are as St. Augustine cals them ubera ecclesiae the Paps the Breasts the Udders of the Church and which are as that cluster of Grapes of the Land of Canaan which was born by two For here every Couple every Pair may have their load Iew and Gentile Learned and Ignorant Man and Wife Master and Servant Father and Children Prince and People and thus was the spoil in the Text divided CHAP. L. Verse 2. BUrial and Christian Burial and solemn Burial are all Evidences and Testimonies of Gods Presence God forbid we should conclude or argue an absence of God from the want of solemn Burial or Christian Burial or any Burial But neither must we deny it to be an evidence of his Favour and Presence where he is pleased to afford these So God makes that the seal of all his Blessings to Abram that he should be buried in a good old age God established Iacob with that Promise Gen. 46. that his Son should have care of his Funerals And here Ioseph doth command his Servants the Physitians to embalme him when he was dead To the same purpose also of Christ it was promised that he should have a glorious Burial Isa. 11. and therefore Christ interprets well that profuse and prodigal piety of the Woman that poured out the Ointment upon him that she did it to bury him And so shall Ioseph of Arimathea be ever famous for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals If we were to send a Son or a Friend to take possession of any place in Court or forraign parts we would send him out in the best equipage Let us not grudge therefore to set down our Friends in the Anti-chamber of Heaven the Grave in as good a manner as without vain-gloriousness and wastfulness we may Verse 10. Solemn and appointed mournings are good expressions of our dearness to the departed Soul of our Friend and of his Worth and our value of him and it hath its praise in Nature in Manners and in publick Customes Let thy Friend therefore be Interr'd after the Manner of the Country and the Laws of the Place and the Dignity of the Person For so Iacob here was buried with great solemnity and publick mourning and Devout men carried Stephen to his Burial making great lamentation over him And indeed that man is esteemed to die miserably for whom no Friend no Relative sheds a tear or payes a solemn sigh I desire to die a dry Death but am not very desirous to have a dry Funeral Some Flowers sprinkled on my Grave would doe well and a soft showre to turn those Flowers into a springing memory or a fair rehearsal that I may not goe out of my doors as servants carry out the entrailes of Beasts Verse 12. Iacob on his Death-bed bound his Sons by oath to interre him in a prescript solemnity And indeed those solemn Rites which we strew on the Funerals of our deceased Friend are no effect of curtesie but debt And therefore those dispositions are little below barbarous which snarle at a moderate sorrow and decent interrment of the Dead He then that in a wayward Opinion shall disallow of either may well deserve the honour of Iehoiakims Funeral the burial of an Asse Had not our Saviour his clean Linnen his sweet Ointment his new Sepulchre Verse 13. This was a religious Providence the Patriarchs had in purchasing a possession place for their burial and Posterity kept it up a long time even to superstition thinking their bones never at rest till they were laid in the Sepulchre of their Fathers Which honourable way of Interrment in these tympanous and swelling times of ours were a good means to preserve our Names from rottenness if our Law-Suits and Pride and Riot have left so much of a devoured Inheritance as will serve the Dimensions of a dead Body Verse 15. The guilty Conscience can never think its self safe So many years experience of Iosephs Love could not secure his Brethren of remission Those that know they have deserved ill are wont to mis-interpret favours and think they cannot be beloved All that while his Goodness seem'd but conceal'd and sleeping Malice which they fear'd in their Fathers last sleep would awake and bewray its self in revenge Still therefore they plead the Name of their Father though dead not daring to use their own Good meanings cannot be more wrong'd than with suspition It greives Ioseph to see their fear and to find they had not forgotten their own sin and to hear them so passionately crave that which they had Verse 17. Forgive the trespass of the Servants of thy Fathers God What a conjuration of pardon was this What Wound could be either so deep or so festered as this Plaister could not cure They say not the Sons of thy Father for they knew Iacob was dead and they had degenerated but the Servants of thy Fathers God How much stronger are the bonds of Religion than of Nature If Ioseph had been rancorous this Deprecation had charm'd him but now it resolves him into tears Verse 19. They are not so ready to acknowledge their old offence as he to protest his Love and if he chide them for any thing it is for that they thought they needed to entreat since they might know it could not stand with the fellow-servant of their Fathers God to harbour maliciousness to purpose revenge Am not I under God And fully to secure them he turns their eyes from themselves to the Decree of God from the Action to the Event as one that would have them think there was no cause to repent of that which proved so successful And from hence we learn also that even late confession finds forgiveness Ioseph had long ago seen their sorrow never but now heard he their humble acknowledgement Mercy staies not for outward solemnities How much more shall that Infinite Goodness pardon our sins when he finds the truth of our repentance Verse 20. Be sin what it will be in the nature of it yet my sin shall conduce and co-operate for my good So Ioseph said here to his Brethren You thought evil against me but God meant it unto Good which was not only good to Ioseph
who was no partaker in the evil but good even to them who meant nothing but evil And therefore as Origen said etsi novum though it be strangely said yet I say it that Gods anger is good so said St. Augustine audeo dicere though it be boldly said yet I must say it many sinners would never have been saved if they had not committed some greater sin at last than before for the punishment of that sin hath brought them to a remorse of all their other sins formerly neglected A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES CALLED EXODUS CHAP. I. Verse 5. ALL the Souls that came out of the loins of Iacob into Egypt with him were but seventy Souls of which little Flock God made such an increase as the Egyptians grew afraid of it God so providing to fulfil his Promise touching their inerease Gen. 22. 17. So assuredly true are all other of Gods Promises and therefore think of what you will your Faith and Comfort shall not fail you That sweet Promise That at what time soever a sinner repents of his sin God in mercy will forgive him it shall never fail God may as soon cease to be God as cease to be true in any thing that he hath spoken So both for this Life and that to come we have Gods Word and no more than he fail'd Abraham in multiplying of his Seed will he fail us in any Promise Only we must tarry Gods time and hasty minds must learn humble patience Verse 7. The rising of Houses and Families is from the Lord who blesseth where he pleaseth with increase of Children and maketh a name spread as likewise drieth up and cutteth off as he pleaseth others Which ought to make us cease from envy where we see increase and stay rash judgement where we see decrease for it is the Lords work But then whereas it may be collected from the former verse that this wonderful increase was not till after Iosephs death it will afford us this observation that what was here figured in Ioseph was fulfilled in Christ. For before Christ died few believed in him but after his Death and Resurrection the true Israelites increased and multiplied exceedingly throughout the whole World Verse 9. Gods Favour bestowed in Mercy where he liketh is still an eye-sore to evil men matter enough for them to grate their teeth at and to cause them to enter into Plots and Conspiracies against them The Eye of Envy looks ever upwards who is above who riseth who prospereth and is as much greived at the good of another as at the harm of its self Verse 10. Although this Counsel favoured wholly of bloud yet it is covered with the vizard and die of Wisdome So still is the Devil like himself and ever in his colours the Proud man is Neat the Covetous man Provident the Drunkard a good Fellow and here the bloody minded Egyptians are politick and wise Verse 12. As God afflicted them with another mind then the Egyptians God to exercise them the Egyptians to suppress them so causes he the event to differ Who would not have thought with these Egyptians that so extream misery should not have made the Israelites unfit both for generation and resistance Moderate exercise strengthens extreame destroyes Nature That God which many times works by contrary means caused them to grow with depression with persecution to multiply how can Gods Church but fare well since the very malice of their Enemies benefits them Oh the soveraign Goodness of our God that turns all our Poysons into Cordials Gods Vine bears the better for the pruning hook Verse 16. The stronger the Isarelites grew the more impotent grew the malice of their Persecutors And since their own labour strengthens them now tyranny will try what can be done by the violence of others since the present strength cannot be subdued the hopes of succession must be prevented Women must be suborn'd to be Murtherers and those whose Office is to help the birth must destroy it 'T is true there was lesse suspition of cruelty in that Sex but yet more opportunity of doing mischiefs The Male-Children must be born and die at once What can be more innocent than a Child that hath not lived so much as to cry or to see light It is fault enough to be the Son of an Israelite the Daughters may live for bondage for lust a condition so much at the least worse than death as their Sex was weaker O marvellous cruelty that a man should kill a man for his Sexes sake Whosoever hath loosed the raines unto cruelty is easily carried into incredible extremities Verse 17. The fear of God teacheth the Midwives to disobey an unjust Command they well knew how no excuse it is for evil I was bidden God said to their hearts Thou shalt not kill this Voice was louder than Pharaohs I commend their obedience in disobeying I dare not commend their excuse there was as much weakness in their Answer as strength in their Practice as they feared God in not killing so they feared Pharaoh in dissembling Oft-times those that make conscience of greater sins are overtaken with lesse It is well and rare if we can come forth of a dangerous Action without any Foil and if we have escaped the storme that some after-drops wet us not Verse 19. It is dangerous to conclude an Action to be good either because he that did it had a good purpose in doing it or because some good effects proceeded from it The Midwives Lye here in the behalf of the Israelites Children was a Lye and a Sin however God out of his own Goodness found something in their piety to reward I should not venture to say as he said nor yet venture to say that he said well when Moses said Forgive this sin or blot me out of thy Book nor when St. Paul said I could wish that my self were separated from Christ for my Brethren I would not I could not without sin be content that my name should be blotted out of the Book of Life or that I should be separated from Christ though all the World besides were to be blotted out and separated if I stayed in Verse 21. Who would not have expected that the Midwives should be murthered for not murthering Pharaoh could not be so simple to think these Women trusty yet his indignation had no power to reach to their punishment God prospered the Midwives who can harm them Even the not doing of evil is rewarded with good And why did they prosper Because they feared God not for their dissimulation but their pitty So did God regard their mercy that he regarded not their infirmity How fondly do men lay the thank upon the sin which is due to the vertue True Wisdome reaches to distinguish Gods Actions and to ascribe them to the right Causes pardon belongs to the lye of the Midwives and remuneration to their goodness prosperity to their fear of God Verse 22. That which the
The wicked heart never fears God but thundring or raining fire from Heaven but the good can dread him in his very sun-shine his loving Deliverances and Blessings affect them with awfulness Moses was the true Son of Iacob who when he saw nothing but visions of Love and Mercy could say How dreadful is this place Verse 7. If we would have our greif seen and helped we must endeavour to become Gods People For then sighing and groaning in our several afflictions as these did we may be sure in due time to find our comfort as they found We may hence also learn that affliction doth not shew that the party is disliked of God as the Devil often suggests to men and women in trouble for God calleth these Israelites his People which yet were plunged in the depth of misery and affliction Verse 11. This should teach every one of us humility and to say with Moses Who am I Lord that thou should'st thus and thus think of me chuse me and take me to that place that I have no strength to manage and which thousands of my Brethren are fitter for than I am This also may put us in mind of the weighty calling of Ministers For is it such a matter to strive with Pharaoh for Bodies and temporal servitude and is it nothing to fight with the Devil for Souls and freedome from eternal slavery Verse 14. See a sweet comfort in all our fears even his Name I AM. Noting that as he hath been to penitent sinners so ever he will be without any change If I call upon him and depend upon him I AM is his Name and I may not doubt of him he is no Changeling but the same for ever Verse 16. When any new thing is to be published that concerneth any change in Church or Common-wealth we must acquaint the Magistrates Rulers and Governours with it to approve our Commission and matter unto them with all Modesty Humility Fear and Care of Order and Unity and then with their consents and assistance unto the People and Multitude This is a right course and this shall have a Blessing from the Author of it as here it had Then shall they obey thy voice verse 18. Verse 18. See again and still most carefully note it how God regardeth Government For now Pharaoh must be used as was fit for his place he being the King of that Land in which they were wicked Pharaoh I say must not be disorderly dealt with by such as live under his Government although Strangers and not his natural Subjects how much then by natural Subjects But he must be gone unto with all duty and acquainted with their desire with all reverence that neither themselves may be judged factious neither others by their examples moved to any disorder And therefore they must acquaint him with the Author of their desires not their own heads lusting after liberty or novelty but the Lord God Verse 21. All hearts are in the hands of God even as the Rivers of Water and that he turneth them hither and thither at his pleasure He can make them love hate they never so much Yea he can make them so love that fruits from thence shall flow to his People of their love Be they Jewels of Silver or Rayment they shall grant it and send it give it or lend it with so willing a mind as the party taking needeth to wish CHAP. IV. Verse 3. THe heart of man is like the Rod of Moses as long as he held it in his hand it remained a Rod but when he threw it to the ground it turn'd instantly into a Serpent nay a Dragon the Prince of Serpents as Philo the Iew saith so the heart of man as long as there is fast hold of it as long as Man is the Possessor God the Guardian it continues still an heart but if our boistrous unruly sins once throw it to the earth it changeth instantly to be a Serpent From whence all carnal and earthly-minded men may learn whose Consciences at the reading hereof tell them that their hearts are turn'd into Serpents and Vipers by their sins and are now crawling on the earth in their lustful designes to stretch forth a hand of sorrow a hand of true repentance to take them up again in what shape soever they appear For he that was exalted on the Crosse as the Serpent in the Wildernesse shall turn those Serpents into Hearts again their Gall and Poison into Innocence their Sting of Death into Issues of Immortal Life Verse 4. Sin is a Serpent and hath a deadly sting in the tayl of it even the sting of Death For the sting of death is sin saith St. Paul Now as a man would fly from a Serpent so let him fly from sin But if thou hast taken this Serpent into thy hand rest not till like Moses Serpent it be turned into a Rod again to scourge thy Soul till a true sense of thy sins and of Gods Wrath due unto thee for the same bring thee to a serious repentance and contrition to a spiritual loathing and abhorrency of those sins that so thou maist never cast thine eye back upon them but with a new and a particular detestation thou maist never enter into meditation of those sinful passages of thy former life but with shame and horror of soul and that every solemn review of those dayes of darkness and unregeneration may make the wounds of our remorse to bleed afresh Verse 7. When Moses pluck'd his hand out of his bosome it was leprous and again when he pluck'd it out it was white to shew that the actions of our hands receive their denomination from the bosome the heart according to that saying of the Father Tantum habent virtutis aut vitii actiones quantum habent voluntatis Verse 12. He that is singled out to any service of his God for the advantage of his Israel must not give back or waver but go boldly on If a willing obedience second his Command God promiseth to assist I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say was Gods Promise here to Moses and it was his Sons to the Apostles Mat. 10. 19. Take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak As if he had said be not anxious about matter or manner of your Apology for your selves ye shall be supplied from on High both with Invention and Elocution you shall have your help from Heaven For it is not you that speak saith our Saviour in the next verse but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you who borroweth your mouth for the present to speak by It is he that forms your speeches for you dictates them to you filleth you with matter and furnisheth you with words Fear not therefore your rudeness to reply there is no mouth into which God cannot put words And how oft doth he chuse the Weak and Unlearned to confound
by Death we then shall behold the glory of that Trinity and never till then Verse 37. As in the outward Vail of the Tabernacle there were Sockets of Brass as you read in this Verse and in the inward of Silver so God doth adorn for the most part that which is within A Man may seem to be as hard as brass with the outward custom of Sin yet he may sound with the Confession of Sin like Silver within and therefore we must have a care how we pass our Censures upon our Brethren and that we be not like those wild-fire Tongues that do Condemn when they consider the outward Fact and no more not the Circumstances of the Fact which may lesson it not the Intention which might be well propounded though a Fault in the Action it self nor the Cause nor the Evil Company nor that it was done after a vehement Tentation or done by reason of some Violence offered or such a Circumstance as doth excuse a Tanto though not a Toto CHAP. XXVII Verse 3. AS here were divers Instruments belonging to the Altar and the Tabernacle and all for Use and Employment so doth the Church of Christ consist of divers Members and those Members are endowed with several gifts and graces but all for the Edification of the Church For wherefore hath this Christian quickness of Wit that depth of Judgement this heat of Zeal that power of Elocution this man Skil that Experience this Authority that Strength but that all should be laid together for the raising of the common stock and put forth for publick advantage As therefore no true Christian is his own man so he freely laies out himself according to the measure of his several Gifts and Graces for the universal benefit of all his fellow-members How rich therefore is every Christian Soul that is not only furnished with its own Graces but hath a special Interest in all the excellent Gifts of all the most eminent Servants of God through the whole World Surely that Man cannot be poor while there is any special Wealth in the Church of God upon Earth Verse 7. The Staves on which the Ark was to be carried were to be ever ready in the Rings of the Ark upon all occasions of remove We have here no continuing City saith the Apostle we have no place of Residence no fixt Habitation in this Life and therefore we must be ever prepared to take up these Tabernacles of our Bodies and be gone We have but a short time to live and even that short time is uncertain and never continues in one stay but flies away like a shadow and is cut down as a flower He then that would dye well must alwayes look for Death every day knocking at the gates of the Grave and then the gates of the Grave shall never prevail upon him to do him mischief This also will help to confine our hopes and cut short our designs and fit our endeavours to the small portion of our shorter Life And as we must not trouble our Enquiry so neither must we Intricate our Labour with what we shall never Enjoy we must not dispose of Ten Years to come when we are not Lords of to morrow nor discompose our present duty by long and future designs such which by casting our Labours to Events at distance make us less to remember our Death standing at the door But rather let us make use of this instant for this instant will never return again and yet it may be this instant will secure the fortune of a whole Eternity Verse 20. When God received lights into his Tabernacle he received none of Tallow the Ox hath Horns he received none of Wax the Bee hath a Sting but he received only lamps of Oyl And though from many Fruits and Berries they pressed Oyl yet God admitted no Oyl into the service of the Church but only of the Olive the Olive the Emblem of Peace CHAP. XXVIII Verse 3. THis shews that Mechanical Arts and Trades are not found out by Men without the direction of Gods Spirit Many men do condemn Gold-smiths Jewellers or Lace-Weavers Perfumers and such like as though they served only for Vanity and Excess when indeed they be the works of God I mean their several Skils and Fruits of his Spirit as here we see If any man abuse them it is the fault of man not of the skil and what may not be abused Verse 15. Matter not clothed in handsomness of words is but dusted Treasure and like some Gardens where there is fatnessof Earth no Flower The Brest-plate of Judgement which Aaron wore was made with Imbroidered Works and in the Ephod there were as well diversities of colours as of Riches Blew Silk and Purple and Scarlet and fine Linnen That then of Epiphanius is worthy both to be remembred and imitated whose works were read of the simple for the words of the Learned for the matter Verse 21. This may remember a good Minister how dear unto him his Flock and People should be even graven as it were in his breast and eveâ— in his mind to profit them by all the means he may that they may be saved It notes also the love of Christ to his Church and every member of it who beareth us not only in his Arms as a Nurse or on his Shoulder as a strong Man but upon his Heart and in his Heart as a most kind God Isai. 49. Can a mother forget c. CHAP. XXIX Verse 6. IT was not without some mystery that in the Robes of Aaron there was a Crown set upon the Mitre moralizing a possible conjunction at least of Minister and Magistrate in one person The Crown and the Mitre were together then but yet the Crown was upon the Mitre there is a power above the Priest the Regal power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest Verse 12. This shadowed that the Preaching of the Gospel concerning the Blood and Passion of Christ should be publish'd and sounded through the four corners of the World even over the whole Earth and the rest of the Blood thou shalt pour at the foot of the Altar noting how the Blood of Christ though in its self sufficient for all yet becometh not helpful to all but is unprofitably poured out for many as this here was at the foot of the Altar through their own unbelief treading under feet that most precious Blood Verse 13. That so men might learn to give unto God their best service and Duty most thankfully ever confessing that all fatness that is all Comfort Prosperity and Joy cometh from him as from the Fountain and is due to him as his own from all men But now the very worst is thought good enough for God our worst Corn our worst Calf our worst Lamb and too often neither good nor bad is this to burn the Fat upon the Altar of the Lord. Verse 20. By the Ear was noted obedience to signifie that
the Elder shall suffer no less than the Younger the Rich as well as the Poor there is no regard with God of these things Verse 3. He howled not out with any unseemly cries neither uttered any words of Rage and Impatience but meekly stoop'd to Gods will kiss'd the Rod and held his peace If thus Aaron in so great a Judgement how much more we when our Friends dye naturally sweetly and comfortably so that we may boldly say we have not lost them but sent them before us whether we hope also to follow Verse 5. That which the Father and Brother may not do the Cousins are Commanded Dead Carkasses are not for the presence of God his Justice was shewn sufficiently in killing them they are now fit for the Grave not the Sanctuary neither are they carried out naked but in their Coats It was an unusual sight for Israel to set a linnen Ephod upon the Beer the Judgement was so much the more remarkable because they had the badg of their Calling upon their backs Nothing is either more pleasing unto God more commodious to Men then that when he hath executed Judgment it should be seen and wondered at for therefore he strikes some that he may warn all Verse 12. This is added to comfort and strengthen the shaken Hearts of Aaron and his living Sons who might by this strange punishment have been driven into doubt whether ever the Lord would be pleased that they should meddle again with the Sacrifices and we see therein a gracious God who maketh not his Promises void to all for the faults of some We must therefore cleave to our Calling and even so much the more painfully go forward therein by how much we see others punish'd for ill doing be taught therefore and school'd but never be discouraged and feared from imposed Duty Verse 20. In that Moses admitted of a reasonable excuse we may learn to abhor Pride and to do the like Pride I say which scorneth to hear what may be said against the conceit we have once harboured A modest man doth not thus and therefore holy Iob had an Ear for his Servant and his Maid and did not despise their Judgement their Complaint and Grief when they thought themselves evill entreated by him CHAP. XI Verse 2. LEarn from hence our Duty to depend upon the Word and Will of God in all things yea even in our Meat and how careful likewise we ought to be to seek cleanness of Body and Soul before that God who expects it in our very Diet. Verse 3. This typified a difference of Men and Women in the World some clean and some unclean for they that have a true Faith and a good Life by meditating in the Word are such as divide the Hoof and chew the Cud and they are clean but such as do neither or but one are unclean as he that believeth in God but liveth not well or he that liveth in an outward honesty but believeth not rightly They again may be called clean dividing the Hoof who do not believe in great or in gross but discern and distinguish things as Christ and Moses Nature and Grace not believing every Spirit but trying the Spirits whether they be of God or no. Iohn 4. 1. For chewing the Cud they may be said to do it and so to be clean who meditate of that they hear lay it up in their Hearts and practice it in their Conversations Verse 5. By the Coney are figured out such Men as lay up their Treasures in the Earth because the Conies digg and scrape and make their Berries in the ground whereas we are taught to lay up our Treasure in Heaven Mat. 6. Verse 6. The Hare is a very fearful Creature and therefore is the type of fearful Men and Women despairing of Grace and shrinking from God such persons are unclean and excluded the Kingdom of God Rev. 21. 8. Verse 7. The Swine never looks up to Heaven but hath his mouth ever in the Earth and Mire caring for nothing but his Belly nourish'd only to be kill'd for his Death hath use his Life hath none A good Caveat for the Rich miserable Wretches of the World who never profit any till they dye A Knife therefore for the Hogg that we may have what is useful in him and Death for such Wretches that the Common-wealth may have use of theie Baggs Verse 14. By the Goss-hauk is shadowed forth Men that Prey upon their weaker Brethren and Neighbours By the Vulture Men that delight in Wars and Contention By the Ravens unnatural Parents that forsake their Children unkind Friends which shrink away Ill Husbands that provide not for their Families By the Ostrich painted Hypocrites and Carnal Men that have fair great Feathers but cannot flye By the Seamew that liveth both on Land and Water such as will be saved both by Faith and Works such Ambodexters as the World hath store of that carry two Faces under a Hood Fire in one hand and Water i th' other CHAP. XII Verse 2. THis serves to Confute that gross Error of Pelagius denying the propagation of sin from Parents to Children but if the Birth were clean the Mother by the Birth should not be unclean as this purification did shadow that she was God would therefore have all Men know what they are by Nature and what by Grace through the Remedy provided Christ our only Righteousness and Purity Also that God had rather have them never enter into the Church than to enter with Corruption unsorrowed for and uncared for Verse 4. Although this Ceremonial Law of Moses be abrogated and gone yet honesty of Nature and modesty in Woman-kind is neither abrogated nor gone Therefore even still we retain in the Church a lawful and laudible custome among Women that they should stay a time after Child-birth to gather strength in their Houses and then come to Church to give God Thanks And this is nothing but a needful thing in regard of weakness a modest Ceremony in regard of Woman-hood and a Christian Duty in regard of Comfort and Mercy received to come to Church there thankfully to acknowledg Gods great mercy to them in both giving them safe deliverance and blessing them with Children to their Comfort Verse 5. There is no sin in Marriage if it be not abused but because this is rare therefore after Women were delivered God appointed them to be purified shewing that some stain or other doth creep into this Action which had need to be repented and therefore when they prayed 1 Cor. 7. 5. St. Paul would not have them come together lest their Prayer should be hindred Verse 8. The Sacrifice was indifferent whether Turtles or Pigeons Turtles that live solitarily and Pigeons that live sociably were all one to God God in Christ may be had in an active and sociable life denoted in the Pigeon and in the solitary and contemplative life set out in the Turtle Let not Westminster despise the Church nor the Church
the Exchange God in Christ may be had in every lawful Calling And then the Pigeon was an Emblem of fecundity in Marriage and the Turtle may be an Emblem of chast Widdow-hood for I think we find no bigamy in the Turtle but in these Sacrifices we find no Emblem of an unnatural or of a vow'd barrenness nothing that countenances a vowed Virginity to the dishonour or undervaluing of Marriage CHAP. XIII Verse 2. THis prefigured the holy Priesthood of our blessed Saviour who doth see and handle and touch regard and heal all our Spiritual spots as these Priests dealt here with this bodily Infection so that if we be unclean we cannot deceive him Away therefore with our Figg-leaves for they cannot cover us if I be a Swearer an unclean Liver a Drunkard an envious person or the like I am a Leper a spiritual Leper and Christ is Judge whom I cannot mock he will never say I am clean till indeed I be so and so without amendment of Life I must out of the Host out of the Church and number of his Chosen to dye for ever in my Impurity Verse 45. So careful was God to have unclean persons known and discern'd from others in those dayes And we may take occasion also to wish that with us also in these dayes all bold and presumptuous mis-livers being most unclean before God and all good Men were distinguished from them that hate their wickedness by some such open marks as these were to the end that others might avoid them and they themselves be stricken with some shame to amendment of Life and saving of their Souls Allegorically these things in the Leper shadowed the state and condition of all wicked men in this World As the rent Cloaths that they are vile and odious before God his bare head that in Christ their head they have no Portion but are deprived of him his Lips or Mouth covered that such graceless persons cannot open their Mouth before God in any Prayer to be heard his shutting out of the Camp that such are to be Excommunicate from the number of the Faithful and are deprived of the Heavenly Inheritance Verse 50. Before thou condemn thy Brother put thy hand into thine own bosom as Moses did and tell me if it be not leaprous with that sin which thou condemnest in thy Brother and therefore Cause the Priest should not give rash Judgement the Leaprous was shut up seven dayes We must not be hasty to condemn others nay youmay reason further with your self thus that if in a matter thus subject to the Eye as these Sores were yet God would have no haste but a stay for seven dayes before Judgement should be given that the Party was unclean O how more doth he abhor hast in pronouncing of the Hearts and Thoughts of our Friends and Neighbours which are not seen nor subject to an easie Censure A wise gatherer of Grapes gatheeth only the ripe and good Grapes and medleth not with the four and ill Grapes so a good Christian noteth mens Vertues and speaketh of them when a Fool will be medling with their imperfections CHAP. XIV Verse 2. THe Law of the Leper here was that he should be brought unto the Priest men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves nor yet are they to be brought in chains by a necessity of an exact enumeration of all their sins but to be led with that sweetness with which the Church proceeds in appointing sick persons if they feel their Consciences troubled with any weighty matter to make a special confession and to receive absolution at the hands of the Priest and then to be remembred that every coming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our transmigration out of this World and that we should do as much here for the settling of our Conscience as upon our Death-bed Verse 3. That it is still the duty of all Faithful Ministers to go to the sick to see them and consider their estate towards God ministring comfort to them in due season whilst their hearing is good their understanding good and their memory good And I would God that they that are sick had more care to send for their Ministers in due time and the Ministers when they know it to go and with all care and diligence to labour with them while time serves Verse 6. By the two Sparrows sayes Theodoret the cleansed person was put in mind to offer unto God both Soul and Body a living Sacrifice The Sparrow slain might teach him the necessity of Mortification in the Body which indeed is an earthen vessel the killing of it over pure Water that nothing more worketh this Mortification than the pure Water of Gods Word contained in the Scriptures and that by the bloud of Christ we are truly cleansed and set at liberty as here the live Sparrow dipped in the bloud of the slain Sparrow is set free Verse 7. This sevenfold sprinkling might happily shadow an earnest and tontinued meditation of Gods Goodness to him that thus was comforted and not for a day or two and then no more Surely our thoughts of Mercy vouchsafed to us are ever too short and transitory and therefore seven sprinklings are little enough to teach us our duty herein God of his Mercy so sprinkle us over and over that we may ever remember his kind Goodness towards us a thousand wayes CHAP. XV. Verse 3. OUr Nature whether running or stopp'd is unclean We have uncleanness corruption in us though it doth not shew it self and this is Original Sin call'd here our uncleanness and by Saint Paul Rom. 7. Sinful sin so evil in its self that it could not have a worse Epithete given it than its own name call'd also by the same Apostle in the same Chapter The body of death a dead body or carcass to which we are tied as noisome every whit to our soul as a dead body to our senses and as burthensome as a withered arme or mortified limb which hangs on a man as a lump of lead Now some remnants of sin God hath left in us to clear to us his justifying Grace by Christs Righteousness And this also will make the Saints seem nothing in their own eyes even when they are fill'd brim full with Grace and Glory in another World Verse 12. So contagious a thing is sin that it defileth the very visible Heaven and Earth which therefore must be purged at the last day with a Deluge of Fire because they were not made clean by a Deluge of Water as here the earthen Pot which was but touch'd by an unclean person was broken and the wooden Vessel scour'd and rinsed in water How therefore ought we to fly from sin when even the touch of an unclean person defileth a man And if the Garment spotted with the flesh be so contagious how mortal must the life and conversation of such a man needs be to the Soul Verse 13. When you read thus often of Water
breach of Piety punishable with Death Let them also think of those Infernal Ravens and Vultures that shall torment them in Hell and continually feed upon their Souls Verse 10. Because Marriage was appointed a remedy against Fornication therefore the Law of God inflicted a sorer punishment upon him which did commit uncleanness after Marriage than upon him which was not Married because he sinned although he had the remedy of sin like a rich Thief which stealeth and hath no need So Deut. 22. 22. Verse 25. Ye shall make this difference between the clean and unclean Beast saith God First because ye may be at my appointment for your very meat as who am chief Lord of all Secondly that there may be a difference between you and all other People Thirdly that ye may be taught to study purity and know that the very Creatures are defiled by mans sin It is hard to deal in the World and not be defiled with the corruption that is in the World And therefore we are taught by this Law to abstain from the communion of unclean and wicked men in whom are found the malignities and evil properties of all other Creatures CHAP. XXI Verse 17. THis was done to preserve the Dignity of the Priests Calling in that infancy of the Church which otherwise might have come into contempt together with the holy things for the contemptible shew of the Priest Yet thus much we may learn by it further that if these infirmities of body which they could not help made them unfit then to be Priests may not now wilful impiety being a blot in Soul and Mind disable a man from being a Minister to God in his own Conscience although he have the outward calling of men Verse 18. Blind is he who wanting light from above is wholly drowned and overwhelmed with the darkness of this World Lame is he who seeing whither he should go yet is not able through weakness of understanding to get thither but fainteth and faileth stumbleth and trippeth in his going and cometh short of his right end By a flat nose may be noted a weakness in Judgement and Discretion because the nose discerneth good savours from ill as the mind should also do things fit and unfit In the Canticles 7. 4. among the praises of the Spouse it is said her nose is like a tower in Lebanon because by Judgement she discerneth afar off temptation and evils coming as out of a Tower Verse 20. The scab is a foulness arising of an itch and spreading broader and broader if it be not look'd into and thereby is set down the vice of Covetousness which first beginneth with an itching desire and afterward for want of looking to spreadeth to a great foul Vice deforming any man but most unseemly in a Priest who ought to be clean Lâ—â—â—ly by him that hath his stones broken are noted such as though they do not act yet have ever in their minds lewd and unclean thoughts whereby they are so desperately carried away as pure and clean and holy meditations can take no place Verse 22. Albeit blemished persons might not stand at the Altar yet were they allowed to eat the Sacrifices and to be in the Congregation shadowing unt ous that the Church although blemished nevertheless is admitted to the communion and participation of those things which Christ by his eternal Sacrifice hath obtain'd for us And although some one or other infirmity may justly disable thee for such a place either in Church or Common-wealth yet from a place with the Elect either here or for ever it shall not hinder thee No nor ten thousand blemishes if thou art grieved for them and fighting against them dost take hold of thy spotless Saviour as thy help and safety against them all CHAP. XXII Verse 6. NOne but those that were clean might eat of the holy Things nay those that did but enter into the Tabernacle being unclean were threatned with death by God Now what should this solemn preparation under the Type put us in mind of but the true and inward preparation required still of us in the Anti-type that is to teach us that we ought carefully to sanctifie prepare and purifie not our clothes and external parts but our hearts from all sin and impurity before we presume to approach into the presence of God either to eat of Christ our spiritual Passover or to hear and receive his most holy Word And certainly the neglect hereof is the very cause why that Sacrament which is to some the Bread of Life is to others the Bread of Condemnation and that Word of God which is to some the Saviour of Life unto Life is to others the Saviour of Death unto Death Verse 19. A good Work without the heart is but a glorious sin for not so much the things themselves as the affections of men are considered of God One may have a free mind in poverty and a sparing mind in riches so it is not the Work but the Mind Thus the Lord regards not so much the thing done as the heart and mind of him that did it If we build only on the Work we have no better evidence to shew for our salvation then the Devils and Reprobates Not the Work then but the Heart is that that will stand and go for currant to shew this the Lord would have a free-will Offering among all the rest of his Sacrifices hereby shewing that the heart must be joyn'd with obedience nay so much did the Lord regard the Heart that he would not admit of any Gift for the building of the Temple but what came from a free will CHAP. XXIII Verse 2. IN that they were called the Feasts of the Lord men are taught in them to seek and attend such things as belonged to God and not their own business pleasures and sports And in the fourth verse they are called holy Convocations think therefore in your Conscience whether gadding and rioting be holy exercises and meet for an holy Convocation To this end they are still call'd in the Christian Church Holy dayes to put us in mind of the right use of them Verse 3. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Wherefore saith St. Augustine learn that no place priviledgeth thee to break Gods Law but as being a sinner whithersoever thou goest thou carriest the yoak of sin so being the servant of God in all places obey his Will Verse 5. O marvellous accordance betwixt the two Testaments in the very time of their delivery there is the same agreement which is in their substance The ancient Iews kept our Feasts and we still keep theirs The Feast of the Passover is the time of Christs Resurrection then did he passe from under the bondage of Death Christ is our Passover the spotless Lamb whereof not a bone must be broken And so likewise the very day wherein God came down in Fire and Thunder to deliver the Law even the same day came also the Holy Ghost
It is a dangerous thing in the service of God to decline from his own institutions we have to do with a power which is wise to prescribe his own Worship just to require what he hath prescribed powerful to revenge that which he hath not required CHAP. XXVII Verse 13. AFter many painful and perilous enterprizes now is Moses drawing to his rest he hath brought his Israelites from Egypt through the Sea and Wilderness within the sight of their Promised Land and now himself must take possession of that Land whereof Canaan was but a Type When we have done that we come for it is time for us to be gone This Earth is made only for Action not for Fruition the services of Gods Children should be ill rewarded if they must stay here alwayes Let no man think much that those are fetch'd away that are faithful to God they should not change if it were not to their preferment It is our folly that we would have good men live for ever and account it a hard measure that they were He that lends them to the World owes them a better turn than this Earth can pay them It were injurious to wish that goodness should hinder any man from Glory Verse 14. But what is this I hear displeasure mix'd with love and that to so faithful a servant as Moses he must but see the Land of Promise he shall not tread upon it because he once long ago sinn'd in distrnsting Death though it were to him an entrance into glory yet shall be also a chastisement of his Infidelity How many gracious services had Moses done to his Master yet for one act of Distrust he must be gathered to his Fathers All our obediences cannot bear out one sin against God how vainly shall we hope to make amends to God for our former Trespasses by our better behaviour when Moses hath this sin laid in his dish after so many and worthy testimonies of his fidelity when we have forgotten our sins yet God remembers them and although not in anger yet calls for our Arrerages Alass what shall become of them with which God hath ten thousand greater quarrels that amongst many millions of sins have scattered some few acts of formal services If Moses must dye the first death for one fault how shall they escape the second for sinning alwayes Even where God loves he will not wink at sin and if he do not punish yet he will chastise how much less can it stand with that eternal Justice to let wilful sinners escape Judgement Verse 16. Moses that was so tender over the welfare of Israel in his life would not slacken his care in Death He takes no thought for himself for he knew how gainful an exchange he must make all his care was for his charge Some envious natures desire to be missed when they must go and wish that the weakness or want of a Successor may be the foil of their memory and honour Moses is in a contrary disposition it sufficeth him not to find contentment in his own happiness unless he may have an assurance that Israel shall prosper after him Carnal minds are all for themselves and make use of Government only for their own advantage but good hearts look ever to the future good of the Church above their own against their own Verse 18. Moses did well to shew his good Affection to his people but in his silence God would have provided for his own he that call'd him from the sheep of Iethro will not want a Governor for his chosen to succeed him God hath fitted him whom he will chose Who can be more meet than he whose Name whose Experience whose Graces might supply yea revive Moses to the people He that searched the Land before was fittest to guide Israel into it he that was indued with the Spirit of God was the fittest Deputy for God but O the unsearcheable Counsel of the Almighty aged Caleb and all the Princes of Israel are pass'd over and Ioshua the servant of Moses is chosen to succeed his Master The eye of God is not blinded either with Gifts or with Blood or with Beauty or with strength but as in his Eternal Election so in his temporary he will have mercy on whom he will And well doth Ioshua succeed Moses the very acts of God of old were allegories where the Law ends there the Saviour begins we may see the Land of Promise in the Law only Jesus the Mediator of the New-Testament can bring us into it So was he a Servant of the Law that he supplies all the defects of Law to us he hath taken possession of the Promised Land for us he shall carry us from this Wilderness to our rest Verse 22. I do not hear Moses repine at Gods choice and grudg that this Scepter of his is not hereditary but he willingly laies hands upon his Servant to consecrate hm for his Successor Ioshua was a good man yet he had some sparks of Envy for when Eldad and Medad Prophesied he stomack'd it he that would not abide two of the Elders of Israel to Prophesie how would he have allowed his Servant to sit in his Throne What an example of meekness besides all the rest doth he here see in this last act of his Master who without all murmuring assigns his Chair of State to his Page It is all one to a gracious heart whom God will please to advance Emulation and Discontentment are the affections of Carnal minds Humility goes ever with Regeneration which teaches a man to think what ever honour be put upon others I have more than I am worthy of CHAP. XXVIII Verse 3. ALl Sacrifices under the Law did as it were lead us by the hand to Christ and point him out with the finger who is the end of the Law Rom. 10. he is both the Altar and the Sacrifice he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world as therefore these Lambs were offered in the morning and evening so was Christ from the beginning of the World unto the end thereof he is the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World Rev. 13. and as this daily Offering was twice perform'd so we have daily need of Reconciliation that his Blood should be continually applied unto us by Faith and as we daily sin against him so we must have daily recourse unto him for remission of sins Again this daily Sacrifice imports the daily Sacrifice of Prayer which we ought to offer to God as our daily service due unto him and this for many Reasons First we have many sins We provoke God every day and therefore are taught in the Lords Prayer daily to pray for Forgiveness Secondly We have daily wants and therefore it is our duty daily to bewail them and daily to crave the supply of them both temporal and spiritual blessings for Body and Soul Thirdly We have daily dangers Every Creature if God give us over is able to work our
destruction therefore our only safety standeth in Prayer and begging Gods assistance Fourthly We have daily Temptations Bodily and Ghostly arising from the World the Flesh and the Devil and therefore saith our Saviour Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation Mat. 26. So then this Morning and Evening Sacrifice should direct us how and when to Worship God we must remember him in the Morning and Evening he must be the first and last in our thoughts we must begin the day and end it with him Verse 9. Every day in the Week ought to be the Christians Sabbath wherein he is to perform some duties or other of Religion but every Seventh Day should be a double Sabbath wholly taken up in the Service and Worship of God When our whole work must be to beravish'd in Spirit doing no Work but such as whereby we either bless God or look to receive a Blessing from him none but such as wherein we would the Lord should find us at his coming which Lactantius saith Will be on the Sabbath day And therefore the Jews call'd the Sabbath the Queen of dayes blessing the Lord at its coming in and going out that God might have both the first and the last Fruits of the day Verse 26. Here is handled the Feast of Pentecost or of Weeks to give God thanks after the gathering of the Harvest For in as much as God hath not only set us in this World but supplies and feeds us in it so that we live by his bounty and liberality it was his will that the Jews should keep a yearly Feast to him to give him thanks that hereby they might acknowledg all the year after that they were sustain'd by his hand Secondly These first Fruits figured out Gods Church which is a people separated unto him from the rest of the World For as the first Fruits were separated from the rest of the heap unto God so is the state of the Church call'd and cull'd out of the World unto his service CHAP. XXIX Verse 1. THis Feast of Trumpets was to be a Feast of remembrance of Gods manifold mercies received in the Wilderness that thereby they might stir up themselves to be united to God and may serve to stir us up to return unto God Praise and Thanksgiving with joyfulness of heart for all his benefits according to that of Psalm 81. 1 2. Make a joyful noise unto the God of Iacob Take a Psalm and bring hither the timbrel blow up the Trumpet in the New-Moon so David having experience of Gods goodness towards him in many preservations composed the eighteenth Psalm as a testimony of his thankfulness for his deliverance from his Enemies And although this Feast is pass'd away and abolish'd by the coming of Christ yet this remaineth that we our selves should serve for Trumpets For as the Temple being destroyed we must be spiritual Temples unto God so the Trumpets being taken away every one of us must be spiritual Trumpets i. e. we should rouze up our selves from the World and the vanities thereof Our Ears are so possess'd with the sound of earthly things and our Eyes so dazled with the pleasures of the flesh that we are as deaf and blind men that can neither hear nor see what God saith unto us wherefore we must not look till there be a solemn holy-day to call us unto the Church there to keep a Feast of Trumpets but it must serve us all the dayes of our life as a spur to cause us to return to God Verse 7. The Jews were here to afflict their Souls with voluntary sorrow for their sins for the whole year and so dispose themselves to obtain pardon and reconciliation For whereas in their private Sacrifices they durst not confess their capital sins for fear of Death due to them by the Law God graciously provided and instituted this yearly Sacrifice of Atonement and afflicting their Souls for the sins of the whole people without particular acknowledgment of any After the same manner the Lords Supper is with us a day of Atonement or afflicting of our Souls for the Passover must be eaten with four hearbs And further we may observe from hence that this day of afflicting their Souls was to be immediately before the Feast of Tabernacles verse 12. they were to be kept in sorrow five dayes before they might keep their Feast of joy which Feast signified the spiritual joy and gladness of the Saints that are redeemed by Christ all their life long We must first look upon him whom we have pierc'd and weep for him before we can receive any comfort by him We must afflict our Souls for his Passion before we shall partake of the joy of his Resurrection Verse 12. This Feast was call'd the Feast of Tabernacles because during the dayes of this Feast they were to live in Tents and Tabernacles it being a memorial of Gods preserving them in the Wilderness where was no house for them to rest in and from hence we may learn that it is a duty belonging to all to remember the dayes of their troubles and afflictions from which God in great mercy hath delivered us We are ready to forget our former condition when God hath given us rest and therefore God would have his own people year by year to depart out of their Houses and dwell in Tents that thereby they should call to mind both where they were and where they had been that although they now were at rest and ease in the Land of Canaan yet they had not alwayes been so for God had carried them upon Eagles wings and preserved them after a miraculous manner in the Wilderness CHAP. XXX Verse 2. VVHen a man vows he vows unto the Lord and therefore if he breaks it he sins against the Lord. Who expects he should have kept touch with him and accordingly will punish such a vow-breaker for he hath not lyed unto men but unto God Acts 5. As God is true saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 1. 18. our word towards you was not yea and nay but yea and Amen For the Son of God c. Why what 's all this to the purpose may some say yes very much For it implies that what a Christian doth promise to men much more to God he is bound by the earnest penny of Gods Spirit to perform he dares no more alter and falsifie his word than the Spirit of God can lye And as he looks that Gods promises should be made good to him so he is careful to pay what he hath vowed to God seeing Gods Covenant is of mercy ours of obedience and if we expect that God should be all sufficient to us we must be altogether faithful to him Verse 8. The power and authority of the Husband over the Wife is very great for all be it the Wife be at liberty to vow in the Lord when her Husband is dead yet while he lives he hath power to disanul her vows The Husband is the head of the
many other examples alledg'd to teach us that it is lawful to gather an Hoast to put on Armour to guird our selves with the Sword and to joyn in Battel with our Enemies Those then that are call'd to be Souldiers must learn from hence not to be feeble and faint-hearted but to be bold as in the work of the Lord. True Religion doth not weaken the hearts of Men and make them Cowards For first it teacheth and informeth the Conscience that the cause of the War is good just and warrantable by the Word of God without which knowledge in the heart how ugly how foul how cruel a thing is the effusion and shedding of Blood Secondly as true Religion establisheth the Conscience touching the lawfulness of War so it teacheth them to commit themselves and their lives into the hands of God as to a faithful keeper and to be perswaded if they Conquer they conquer to the Lord if they be wounded and fall they fall and dye unto the Lord. CHAP. XXI Verse 6. THe Jews were much used to outward Washings and vainly imagined that those were sufficient to cleanse them throughout And here the washing of their hands over the Heifer was as much as to say the guilt of innocent Blood doth no more stick to my Conscience than the filth now washed off doth to my fingers But what Pharisaical washing is this to purifie the hands and pollute the heart O Ierusalem Ierusalem wash thy heart from wickedness saith the Prophet Ier. 4. And cleanse your hands you sinners was the Apostles Exhortation Iames 4. but withall Purifie your he arts ye double-minded and this for many reasons For First God and Nature ever begin at the heart it is the first thing that lives and the last that dyes and therefore it is the first the Devil gives assault to and the last that he gives over Secondly Were there never a Devil the heart hath an ill Spirit of its own to trouble it and had we neither hands eyes nor feet our hearts would find the way to Hell and therefore there is great reason we should look to purge and cleanse that for if this Spring this Fountain be clean the streams that flow from it will be so too Verse 12. Secular Learning is not so Heathenish but it may be made Christian as this Captive in the Text was not such an Infidel but she might become a Convert and part of the Israel of God Aristotle and Plato and Seneca are not of such a Reprobate sence as to stand wholly excommunicate in the Christian Church For Aristotles Metaphysicks may help to convince an Atheist of a God and his Demonstrations prove Shiloes advent to a Jew And therefore though it is true the Scripture was ever the Levites predominant Element yet if you will make him a perfect mixt body the Arts also are to be necessary Ingredients And upon this account when Adrian the sixth in his Tract De vera Philosophia cries down humane Learning with a noise of Fathers yet he concludes Utilem esse scientiam Gentilium dummodo in usum Christianum convertatur that to shave and pare the captive Woman and then Espouse her was ever held lawful Matrimony Verse 13. The Wicked Mans Wine is best at first the good Mans at last the Devil deals by the one as Iael by Sifera speaks them fair at first till he hath lull'd them a sleep in security and then he involves them in misery But God doth by his Children as the Hebrew was to do by the captive Woman in this Text which he had a desire to Marry at first he appointeth us a time of Mourning but afterwards he vouchsafes us the fruition of himself in glory The freshest Rivers of Carnal Pleasure shall end in a salt Sea of despairing Tears whereas the wettest Seed-time of a pious Life shall end in the Sun-shining Harvest of a peaceful Death In a word the Transgressor how pleasant soever his beginnings be his last end shall be dolorous but the upright how troublesome soever his Life be his death shall be joyous For the end of that man is peace Psalm 37. CHAP. XXII Verse 1. IF thou must not suffer thy Brothers Ox or his Ass to go astray much less maist thou suffer his Soul but thou must endeavour in all Christian wisdom and meekness to reduce it from the dangerous precipeces both of sin and error Thou must pull thy Brother out of Hell as the Angel pull'd Lot out of Sodom as ye would save a drowning man though ye pull'd off some of his hair to save him Neither must we of the Gospel be merciful only to our Brother but also to our Enemy This is an hard task you will say but hard or not hard it must be done be it never so contrary to our foul nature We must seal up our love to our Enemies by all good expressions which are to be referr'd to these three heads First We must bless them speak kindly to them and of them they must have our good word Secondly We must do good to them i. e. be ready to help and relieve them upon all occasions Thirdly We must pray for them that God would pardon their sins and turn their hearts This was our Saviours precept to love our Enemies and the same also was his practice He melted over Ierusalem the slaughter-house of himself and his Saints and was grieved at the hardness of their hearts Next for Words he prayed Father forgive them and for deeds he not only not call'd fire from Heaven or Legions of Angels against them but did them all good for Bodies and Souls for he heal'd Malchus ear wash'd Iudas his feet like that good Samaritan he was at pains and cost with them Now if we would be Christs Disciples we must follow his example do good not to our Brethren only but also to our very Enemies Verse 10. This and the following Verses forbid all mixture and Toleration in Religion we must keep our selves to one God and serve him and none with him If Baal be God follow him saith Eliah 1 King 18. and if the Lord be God follow him how long will ye hault between two Opinions It is a foul-imperfection to hault yet more shameful long to hault most of all between two wayes and miss them both To be inconstant in Civil matters which are in their own Nature inconstant is weakness But in Religion which is alwaies constant and one and the same to be unsetled is the greatest folly in the World for he that is not assured of one Religion is sure to be saved by none And there fore it is very strange to me that in this glorious light of the Gospel now among us which we so much boast of we should see so many Bats flying which a Man cannot tell what to make of whether Birds or Mice These are Plantanimals like the wonderful sheep in Muscovy Epicens they are Amphibia animalia Creatures that sometimes live in the Waters
men it is ordained for men Verse 10. In this seventh year it was not lawful to require debts but some differance of opinions men have touching this some say their debt was clean lost others say no but for that year deferred and forborn after demanded lawfully and paid willingly which is more likely for as much as those pollitick lâ—ws of God were not ordained of God to overthrow justice but to preserve it and direct it in a commendable and fit manner among men now it is justice to let every man have his own and there was good reason wherefore that debt should be forborn this seventh year because that year there was notillage to make money of a right and true application of this may every feelling heart make in these Cities and Towns where it shall please God to lay his sore visitation of plague or any other infection thereby stopping the trade whereby every man was enabled to get for his maintenance and the discharge of such that were due from him to others God forbid but that mercy should be found towards their brethren in those that look for mercy at Gods hand when men cannot receive money they cannot pay and no dishonest meaning making the stop but only the Lords hand staying trade who will be rigorous in such a case when the earth rested and there was no tillage to raise money by you see the mercy of Gods law here and is it not all one when trade ceaseth let your bowels then shew whose children you are if the Image and superscription of God be upon you surely you will shew mercy and give some set time to your Creditors that mean truly read what God saith Isaiah 58. 3. c. and remember he is the same God still Verse 19. God by Moses made the Children of Israel a Song because as he said howsoever they did by the Law they would never forget that Song and that Song should be his witnesse against them Therefore would God have us institute solemn memorials of his great deliverances that if when those dales come about we do not glorifie him that might aggravate our condemnation CHAP. XXXII Verse 11. THE words spoken here of God himself are thus applicable to his Ministers first the Eagle stirreth up her nest the Preacher stirs and moves and agitates the holy assertions of the Congregation that they slumber not in a sencelessenesse of that that is said and then as 't is added here she flutters over her young the Preacher makes a holy noise in the conscience of the Congregation and when he hath awakened them by stirring the nest he casts some claps of thunder some intimidations in denouncing the judgements of God and he flings open the gates of heaven that they may hear and look up and see a man sent by God with power to infuse his fear upon them so she fluttereth over her young but then as it followeth there she spreadeth abroad her wings she overshaddowes them she enwraps them she armes them with her wings so that no other terror no other fluttering but that which comes from her can come upon them The Preacher doth so infuse the fear of God into his Auditory that first they shall fear nothing but God and then they shall fear God but so as he is God and God is mercy God is love And the Minister shall so spread his wings over his people as to defend them from all inordinate fear from all diffidence and distrust in the mercy of God which is farther exprest in the next clause She taketh them and beareth them upon her wings When the Minister hath performed all the former acts of his calling then he sets them upon the top of his best wings and shewes them heaven and God in heaven raining down his bloud into their emptinesse and his balm into their wounds and preparing their seat where he stands solliciting their cause at the right hand of his Father Verse 35. In this we have a first and a second lesson First that since revenge is in Gods hands it will certainly fall upon the malefactor God doth not mistake his marke and then since revenge is in his hands no man must take revenge out of his hands or make himself his own Magistrate or revenge his own quarrel And as we we that are Christians have our author Moses here that tels us this the natural man hath his secular author Theocritus that tels him as much reperit Deus nocentes God alwaies findes out the guilty man In which the natural man hath also a first and second lesson too first that since God findes out the Malefactor he never scapes And then since God doth find him at last God sought him all the while though God strike late yet he pursued him long before many a man feels the sting in his conscience long before he feels the blow in his body That God finds and therefore seeks that God overtakes and therefore pursues that God overthrows and therefore resists the wicked is a naturall conclusion as well as a divine Verse 40. Where was God now when he lifted up his hands to heaven here here upon earth with us in his Church for our assurance and our establishment making that protestation denoted in his lifting up his hands to heaven that he lived for ever and that therefore we need fear nothing Verse 50. How familiarly doth Moses hear of his end it is no more betwixt God and Moses but Go up and die If he had invited him to a meal it could not have been in a more sociable compellation no otherwise then he said to his other Prophet Up and eat It is neither harsh nor news to Gods children to hear or think of their departure to them death hath lost his horror through acquaintance they have so oft thought and resolved of the necessity and of the issue of their dessolution that they cannot hold it either strange or unwelcome He that hath had such entire conversation with God cannot fear to go to him Those that know him not or know he will not know them no marvail if they tremble Verse 51. It might have been just with God to have reserved the cause to himself and in the generallity to have told Moses that his sin must shorten his journey but it is more mercy then justice that his Children shall know why they smart that God may at once both justifie himself and humble them for their particular offences Those to whom he meanes vengeance have not the sight of their sins till they be past repentance Complaine not that God upbraids thee with thy old sins whosoever thou art but know it is an argument of love whereas concealment is a fearful sign of a secret dislike from God CHAP. XXXIII Verse 2. THough it be not a difficult matter to impose upon the sence and judgement of men with whom tin may pass for silver it is not so with the judge and searcher of the heart he soon