how able the Lord is to encrease his Church notwithstanding all the malice of Man and Devil whatsoever Verse 38. These followed the prosperity hoped for in the Israelites who they saw were not touched with the Plagues of Egypt and rightly set forth what after fell out and ever will that Christ shall be followed of many for the Loaves and his Gospel embraced for the prosperity and peace that often he vouchsafeth unto it Verse 41. This may comfort us in our spiritual fears and conflicts that certainly the Lord will never fail in any Promise but even dayes and hours of comfort fit for his Children as they are known to him so are they observed of him most graciously and most precisely Why then must I needs tie the Lord to my time to my will or else I shall speak or think amiss that the Lord hath forgotten and forsaken me and all that the Devil my sworn Enemy suggesteth is true CHAP. XIII Verse 4. THe Month Abib in the Text is the same with our April when the day lengthning and the Sun ascending each things begins to revive To shew that by the true Pass-over Christ Jesus not only is our time and all other things sanctified but also that we should in fresh remembrance of that benefit of our Redemption all our dayes and years be thankful to our gracious Redeemer and acknowledge that by his Death true Life and reviving is sprung up unto mankind Verse 8. Children are to be carefully catechized and informed that they may know the mind of the Lord betimes For Parents are not only to nourish their Children but to nurture and instruct them this latter is as necessary as the former They that nourish their Children only what do they more than brute Beasts Let Parents therefore labour to mend that by Education that they have marr'd by Propagation else they are Parricides and not Parents Verse 17. This is a singular testimony of Gods fatherly care over our infirmities in not suffering us to be further tryed than in him and through him we shall be able to endure and at last to overcome also 1 Cor. 10. 12. let a troubled Soul ever think upon this Your weakness is known unto God what you can bear and what you cannot what will lead you to the Land of Promise and what will make you turn back to Egypt Secondly in that the Lord would not suffer them to passe by the Philistims least they should start back and so sin greivously against him What if in like sort he prevent my sinning and your sinning against him by taking away from us such things as he in his Wisdome knows would be the occasions of evil to us if we had them as Riches Friends Power Health of Body Peace of mind and the like But could not God have stayed them from returning although they had gone the nearer way Cyril in Exodus answereth God doth not work all things as he can but sometimes doth avoid evils after the manner of men therein teaching us to do the like namely by using meanes even then when most plainly we have God our helper Verse 18. This may teach us wariness and circumspection in our Vocations ever reckoning of the Enemy in this our holy March towards the Land of Promise Verse 21. Consider in the Cloud how it not only directed the way but was spread as the Psalmist saith for a Covering namely against the heat of the Sun comfortably cooling and refreshing them Remember also how the afflictions of this World are in the Gospel noted by the heat of the Sun and be you assured that ever against these heats the Lord in his good time will send you defence and comfort as 2 Cor. 1. 3. the last words put us in mind that in travelling towards the spiritual Canaan we must not rest but labour forward continually The Children of this World are often looking back toward Egypt and often pitch down their Tents so in this Wilderness that they are loth ever to take them up and to remove But the Sons of God say within themselves We have here no abiding City and fixing both eye and heart on their heavenly house they journey on still both day and night in true piety and obedience till they come thither Verse 22. Let this ever assure your fainting hearts that Gods Providence cooling and comforting shining and lighting guiding and directing his little Flock shall never be taken away from any member of it but ever be present with us both by day and night to the eternal praise of his Goodness and unspeakable comfort of our souls And further you may observe from hence the admirable Wisdom of Gods Providence that sits and sorts out his Mercies for his Children and makes every Favour and Blessing proper for every necessity He that afterwards led the Wise-men by a Star led Israel here by a Cloud That was an higher Object therefore he gives them an higher and more heavenly Conduct this was more earthy therefore he contents himself with a lower representation of his presence A Pillar of Cloud and Fire a Pillar for firmness of Cloud and Fire for visibility and use The greater light extinguisheth the lesse therefore in the Day he shews them not Fire but a Cloud in the Night nothing is seen without light therefore he shews them not the Cloud but Fire The Cloud shelters them from heat by Day the Fire digests the rawness of the Night The same God is both a Cloud and a Fire to his Children ever putting himself into those Formes of gracious Respects that may best fit their necessities CHAP. XIV Verse 2. VVE must not fear in every adversity before we see the end but reason thus with our selves Lo here I am distressed on every side as the Israelites were at the red Sea and it is the Providence of God that I should be thus as it was his will that they should pitch in that place But do I know the Lords meaning and what he will do And therefore I will patiently wait his blessed Will not murmuring as the Israelites did but comfortably assuring my self that one way or other the Lord will give Issue to his Glory and my Good and deliver me also as he did these Israelites Verse 3. When the destruction of the wicked is at hand the Lord offereth them some bait or other to put them on So was Ahab drawn to his end with a desire to recover Ramoth Gilead which once was his the bait allured him the wrath of God slew him 1 King 22. So were Senacherib and the Assyrians baited with former success with their multitude and the smalness of Hezekia's number But how gloriously did the Lord deliver his and destroy them that boasted Verse 5. How quickly the wicked repent them of their good but seldome or never of their evil for to let them go was good and yet they repented but to pursue after them was evil and yet they repented not Many such there
it speak that which it never thought causing it to go two miles where it would go but one knawing and tawing it to their own purposes as the shooe-maker wretches the upper Leather with his teeth Tertullian calls Marcian the Heretick Mus Ponticus from his arroding and knawing the Scripture to make it serviceable to his Errors And too many of these kind of Mice have we at this day in this Nation who wrest Texts of Conscience into Factions Texts of Obedience into Rebellion ravishing Scripture to force out Doctrines for their own ends and then emptying their rancor by turning them to uses Verse 8. By Statutes here we may understand the Moral Law by judgements the Judicial which was fitted to the temper and disposition of the Jews like as Solon being ask'd whether he had given the best Laws to the Athenians answered the best that they could suffer And certain it is that Moses spake here as ever most Divinely and like himself or rather beyond himself the end of a thing being better if better may be than the beginning of it as good Wine is best at last and as the Sun shines most aimiably when it is going down This Book of the Law it was that the King was to write out with his own hand Deut. 17. 18. that it might serve as his Manual This was that happy Book that good Iosiah lighting upon after it had long lain hid in the Temple melted into tears at the menaces thereof and obtain'd of God to dye in peace though he were slain in War This only Book was that pretiously purling Current out of which the Lord Jesus our Champion chose all those three smooth stones wherein he prostrated the Goliah of Hell in that sharp encounter Mat. 4. Verse 11. God would have Israel see that they had not to do with some impotent Commander that is fain to publish his Laws without noise in dead Paper which can more easily enjoyn than punish to descry than execute and therefore before he gives them a Law he shews them that he can command Heaven Earth Fire Aire in revenge of the breach of that Law that they could not but think it deadly to displease such a Law-giver or violate such dreadful Statutes that they might see all the Elements examples of that obedience which they should yeild unto their Maker Now this fire wherein the Law was given is still in it and will never out Hence are those terrors which it flashes in every Conscience that hath felt remorse of sin Every Mans heart is a Sinah and resembles to him both a Heaven and Hell The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of sin is the Law Verse 12. That they might see he could find out their closest sins he delivers his Law in the light of fire that they might see what is due to their sins they see fire above to represent the fire that should be below them that they might know he could waken their security the thunder and lowder voice of God speaks to their hearts That they might see what their Hearts should do the Earth-quakes under them O Royal Law and mighty Law-giver How could they think of having any other God that had such proofs of this How could they think of making any resemblance of Him whom they saw could not be seen and whom they saw in not being seen infinite How could they think of disobeying his Deputies whom they saw so able to revenge How could they think of killing when they were half dead with the fear of him that could kill both Body and Soul How could they think of the flames of Lust that saw such fires of vengeance We Men that so fear the breach of Humane Laws for some small mulcts of Forfeiture how should we fear thee O Lord that canst cast Body and Soul into Hell Verse 24. If the Law as we read before was given in Thunder and Lightning how shall it be requir'd if such were the Proclamation of Gods Statutes what shall the Sessions be O God how powerful art thou to inflict vengeance upon sinners who didst thus forbid Sin and if thou wert so terrible a Law-giver what a Judge shalt thou appear what shall become of the breakers of so fiery a Law O where shall those appear that are guilty of the transgressions of that Law whose very delivery was little less than Death If our God should exact his Law but in the same rigour wherein he gave it sin could not quit the cost but now the fire wherein it was delivered was but terrifying the fire wherein it shall be required is consuming Happy are those that are from under the terrors of the Law which was given in Fire and in Fire shall be required Verse 29. It is a kind of denying the Infiniteness of God to serve him by pieces and raggs God is not infinite to me if I think a discontinued service will serve him It is a kind of denying the unity of God to joyn other Gods pleasure or profit with him he is not one God to me if I joyn other Associates and Assistants to him It is a kind of diffidence in Christ as if I were not sure that he would stand in the favour of God stil as though I were afraid that there might rise a new Favorite in Heaven to whom it might concern me to apply my self if I make the ballance so even as to serve God and Mammon if I make a complemental visit of God at his House upon Sunday and then plot with the other Faction the World the Flesh and the Devil all the Week after CHAP. V. Verse 1. IT is not enough for us to Learn the Law but we must keep it and do it we must lay it up in our hearts as well as in our heads and practice it also in our lives and Conversations For not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified Rom. 2. 13. Too too many in this Rotten Age wherein we live are Speakers not Workers as if Ostende re fidem St. Iames his Shew thy Faith by thy Works were Ostendere to stretch the Jaws to shew our Faith by strong Protestations But this must not be a work of the mouth but hand If a Man question thee of Faith spare thy Lips and let thy Life make answer If words might be credited if a bare profession of the Gospel might be believed no Man would want Faith every one would cry with the blind Man in the Gospel Lord I believe what Mouth would not make one Lye for its Master Unless I see said Thomas of Christs rising so unless I see and feel thy Faith I will not believe If we are good Trees by our Fruit men shall know us Mat. 7. By our Fruit not by our blossoms of good purposes or our leaves of good profession but by the Fruit of our actions Verse 9. Parents are hence admonish'd to take heed of sinning against God lest they be found unmerciful unnatural and
reconciled with thy Brother and then offer thy Gift Otherwise Dissention and ill-will will over-shadow the Altar and keep the grace of God from descending The fountain of Love will not be laded at with uncharitable hands Iacob will be reconciled to his Brother before he builds an Altar and Abraham must be at peace with Lot before God gives him a visit Verse 15. Ever is not alwayes used for Eternity Aristotle defines Aeternum to be Periodus durationis cujusque rei lib. 1. de Coelo It is diversely used in Scripture First for the continuance of the world as the Rain-bow was a sign of Gods everlasting Covenant that is so long as the world continueth Secondly It signifies the whole time of mans life I will sing of thy mercies for ever Psal. 89. 1. Thirdly That is called Eternal whose time is not prefix'd with man though it be with God as Circumcision is call'd an everlasting Covenant because it was not to be altered by man But here some take these words not leterally but upon Condition That the Land of Canaan should so long be their inheritance as they obeyed God according to Deut. 4. 25. As if the Lord should say saith Cajetan Quam diu erit semen tuum as long as they shall be thy Seed I will give them this Land therefore when they began to degenerate from Abraham God was no longer tyed to his Promise CHAP. XIV Verse 2. TO gather Armies and to muster men to Battel is no new sign but an old and ancient device among the sons of men Thus here we have mention of two Armies the one raised by Chedor-laomer and his Confederates the other by the Kings of Sodom Gommorrah these rebelling the other punishing their rebellion Now seeing the misery of Wars hath such an ancient stamp upon it not lately bred but the Child of former times say not the old dayes are better than these grow not wanton and weary of things present to loath the blessings we enjoy as the manner of many is We complain that we are fallen into evil times we praise the dayes that are past and consider not that in this we murmur against God who hath made all things good and governeth all things well The present state of things are grievous because present troubles are felt and former discommodities are forgotten long ago Verse 12. Let us have no fellowship with evil men or evil actions unless we will partake with them in the punishment It is our Christian discretion to forsake their company lest we be taken in the net and snared in their wayes Many have sustain'd much danger and endured much affliction by conversing with evil men Lot was never more grieved nor less secured than when he was even in the very midst of Sodom He made choice to dwell there as the place where he might soonest enrich himself but he quickly repented him of his choice He was taken prisoner by forreign Enemies and was in greatest danger by violence at his own home To communicate with the wicked is all one as if a man should throw himself into the company of Theeves The servants of God which are endued with those heavenly gifts divine graces which are the greatest treasure have a great charge about them It concerns them therefore to take heed that by evil company they be not robb'd and deprived of them We should beware of the company and conditions of men if we count our selves happy in the league of the wicked we are utterly lost and are walking in the road-way that leads to death Verse 15. In regard that War it's self is lawful it follows that the stratagems of War are not unlawful It is not against the Word of God to use subtilty and policy to lay snares and baits to entrap and circumvent the Enemy In all actions of War and Peace we must deal wisely and warily When we live in peace and quietness it is required of us to walk not only in a lawful but in a wise course but much more in War where the Enemy is watchful the snares are subtile and the danger greater This appears evidently both because God commanded it and the godly practise it God commanded it to Ioshua in the taking of Ai Iosh. 8. 2. and it was practised here by Abraham True it is we are to keep promises to all even to our enemies We must not promise to save them and then destroy them Notwithstanding we are not bound to make known to them whatever we speak or do but are to conceal our intents to the end the victory may be obtain'd Verse 16. All things that are taken in a lawful War are not lawful plunder The Philistines when they got the victory over the Israelites and had the spoyl of the field yet there was an Ark amongst that spoyl which they had nothing to do with and they had better have let it alone than have medled with it that did belong to the God of Israel more than to his People and therefore when they took away that they took Gods Judgements and Vengeance along with it and they did return it with far greater joy and triumph than they took it away Touch not mine anointed saith God and do my Prophets no harm they are Gods and man hath nothing to do with them And therefore when the five Kings in this Chapter had taken away Lot one whom God would not have touch'd they not only lost him but all the rest of their spoil all the Goods were brought back again for that good mans sake If those Kings had not made Lot their prisoner the rest of the spoil might have been lawful prize So pretious in Gods eyes are his Saints Verse 19. It is a just observation of Philo that God only by a propriety is stiled the possessor of heaven and earth by Melchisedec in this speech of his to Abraham We are only Tenants and that at the Will of the Lord at the most we have but jus ad rem non dominium in rem a right to these earthly things not a Lordship over them we have only a right of favour from their proprietary and Lord in heaven and that liable to account Let me then charge the Rich-man that he be not high-minded and proud of that which is none of his That which Law and Case-Divinity speaks of life that man is not Dominus vitae suae sed custos is as true of Wealth Nature can tell him from Seneca that he is not Dominus but Colonus not the Lord but the Farmer Verse 23. Solomon in his Proverbs tells us that the blessing of the Lord maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it intimating that they which grow rich and not by Gods blessing but by such means as God hath accursed the Lord doth add such a deal of sorrow and care and vexation with it that they were as good or better be without it Such riches were those that Abraham rejected at the King of Sodoms
ill falling into those hands whom Beasts find unmerciful CHAP. XIII Verse 1. WHo can doubt whether Balaam were a false Prophet who sees him Sacrificing in the Mount of Baal had he been from the true God he would rather have said Pull me down these Altars of Baal then build me here seven others The very place convinces him of falsehood and Idolatry and why seven Altars what needs all this pomp when the True God never requir'd but one at once as himself is one Why doth the false Prophet call for no less than seven as if God stood upon numbers as if the Almighty would have his power either divided or limited Here is nothing but a great and magnificent pretence of Devotion It hath been ever seen that the false Worshippers of God have made more pompous shews and fairer flourishes of their Piety and Religion than the true Verse 3. Now when Balaam sees his seven Bullocks and seven Rams smoking upon seven Altars he goes up higher into the Mount as some counterfeit Moses to receive the answer of God But will God meet with a Sorcerer Will he make a Prophet of a Magician O Man who shall prescribe God what Instruments to use he knows how to imploy not only Saints and Angels but Wicked Men Beasts Devils to his own glory he that put words into the mouth of the Ass put words into the mouth of Balaam the words do but pass from him they are not polluted because they are not his as the Trunk through which a Man speaks is not more Eloquent for the speech that is uttered through it What a notable Proclamation had the Infidels wanted of Gods favour to his people if Balaam's Tongue had not been used how many shall once say Lord we have Prophecied in thy Name that shall hear Verily I know you not Verse 28. What madness is this in Balaam that hopes to change success with places as if God were not the same every where Neither was that bold fore-head ashamed to importune God again in that wherein his own Mouth had testified an assurance of Denial The reward was in one of his Eyes the Revenging Angel in another I know not whether for the time he more lov'd the Bribe or fear'd the Angel and whiles he is in this distraction his Tongue blesseth against his Heart and his Heart curses against his Tongue it angers him that he dares not speak what he would and now at last rather than lose his hopes he resolves to speak worse then Curses the fear of Gods Judgements in a Worldly Heart is at length overcome with the love of gain CHAP. XXIV Verse 11. THose that are themselves transported with vanity and ambition think that no Heart hath power to resist these Offers Balam thought he had struck the business when he had once mentioned Promotion to great Honour Self-love makes him think that all the World would be glad to run a madding after his bait Nature thinks it impossible to contemn Honour and Wealth and because too many Souls are thus taken cannot believe that any would escape But let Carnal Minds know there are those that can spit the World in the face and say Thy Gold and Silver perish with thee and that in comparison of a good Conscience can tread under foot his best proffers like shadows as they are and that can do as Balaam said verse 13. What the Lord saith that will I speak Verse 20. What was this sin of the Amalekites for which God threatneth That they shall perish for ever It was that according to Interpreters mentioned Exod. 17. Remember how Amalekmet thee by the way and smote the hindmost of you this Sin slept all the time of the Judges yet so soon as Israel had a King and that King setled in peace God gives charge to call them to an account 1 Sam. 15. As we use to say of Winter so may we say of Gods Judgements They never rot in the Sky but shall fall if late yet surely yet seasonably There is smal comfort in the delay of Vengeance while we are sure it shall lose nothing in the way by length of Protraction Verse 24. Balaam here Prophesieth of the rising and falling of great Princes and Empires they had their Heads lifted up on high and were advanced to the greatest honour but suddenly they came tumbling down and all their glory lay in the dust From whence we learn that great Men and mighty Princes suddenly decay and come to nothing they are in a moment cast down and left destitute when they little think of it Neither can we marvail at this change of the Places and Estates of the Sons of Men seeing it is the Lords doing and the work of his right hand The Lord lifteth up and pulleth down according to his own will and pleasure who maketh the highest Tide to have the lowest Ebb. CHAP. XXV Verse 4. AS the sins of great Men are exemplary so are their punishments Nothing procures so much credit to Government as Impartial Executions of Noble Offendors Those whom their sins have debased deserve no favour in the punishment As God knows no Honour no Royalty in matter of sin no more may his Deputies Contrarily Connivence at the outrages of the Mighty cuts the sinews of any State If good Laws turn once to Spiders webs which are broken through by the bigger Flies no hand will fear to sweep them down Verse 8. Now the sin is punish'd the Plague ceaseth The revenge of God sets out ever after the sin but if the revenge of Men which commonly comes later can overtake it God gives over the Chase. How often hath the infliction of a less punishment avoided a greater There are none so good Friends to a State as couragious and impartial Ministers of Justice these are the Reconcilers of God and the people more than the Prayers of them that sit still and do nothing Verse 25. The Daughters of Moab come into the Tents of Israel and have captived those whom the Amorites and Amalekites could not resist Our first Mother Fve bequeathed this Dowry to her Daughters that they should be our helpers to sin the weaker Sex is the stronger in this Conquest Had the Moabites sent their subtilest Counsellors to perswade the Israelites to their Idol Sacrifices they had been repell'd with scorn but now the beauty of their Women is over-eloquent and succesful That which in the first World betrayed the Sons of God hath now betray'd Gods People It had been happy for Israel if Balaam had used any Charms but these As it is the use of God to fetch glory to himself out of the worst actions of Satan so it is the guise of that Evil-one to raise advantage to himself from the fairest pieces of the Workmanship of God No one means hath so enriched Hell as beautiful Faces CHAP. XXVI Verse 9. THey were indeed famous in regard of their places but they became Infamous and Ignominous by their Sin and Punishment
distrust of the effect His Rod he knew was approved for miracles he knew not how powerful his voice might be therefore he did not speak but strike and strike twice for failing It is a dangerous thing in Divine matters to go beyond our warrant those sins which seem trivial to men are hainous in the sight of God Any thing that savours of infidelity displeaseth him more than some other crimes of morality Yet the moving of the Rod was but a diverse thing from the moving of the Tongne it was not contrary he did not forbid the one but he commanded the other this was but across the stream not against it where shall they appear whose whole courses are quite contrary to the Commandements of God CHAP. II. Verse 5. IT is God that assigns every Man his Quarters here upon Earth and cuts us out our several conditions appointing the bounds of our habitation This should make us rest contented with our own lot and not murmur at other mens though they be of the Seed of Esau for they have a right to their Inheritance from God as well as we have for ours Even the most Wicked have Earthly things given them by the Almighty and therefore it is a rigour to say they are Usurpers As when a King gives a Traytor his Life he gives him Meat and Drink that may maintain his life so it is with Wicked Men in respect of God they shall not be call'd to an account at the Last Day for possessing what they had but for abusing that possession As for the Saints who are Heirs of the World with faithful Abraham and have a double portion being Heirs of this World and the next too though here they be held to strait allowance let them live upon Reversions and consider that they have right to all and shall one day have Rule of all Wilt not thou rest content unless God set down the Vessel to thee as to St. Peter with all manner of Beasts of the Earth and Fowls of the Ayre must you needs have first and second Course It is a very hard thing to have Earth and Heaven too God did not turn you out of one Paradice that you should here provide you of another Earth is a place of bondage and banishment to all Gods Children Verse 6. Money supplies all wants and gives a satisfactory answer to whatsoever is desired or demanded and although about Money there is much noise and great complaint yet Money answereth all it effects all What great designs did Philip bring to pass in Greece by his Gold the very Oracles were said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say as Philip would have them The Hebrew or rather Chaldee word used for Money Ezra 8. 27. signifies to do some great Work because Money is the Monarch of the World and therein bears most mastery Among Suitors in Love and Law especially Money drives the business and bargain to an upshot Verse 27. So should a Christian bespeak the World Let us pass through thy Country we will neither touch nor taste of thy Dainties but go by the Kings high way that good old way that God hath scored out unto us we will neither turn to the right hand nor to the left but keep an upright and an even course untill we arrive at the Land of Promise the Kingdom of Heaven Verse 30. He durst not trust them as fearing what so great an Army once got in might do they are not usually so easily removed God had also hardened his heart that he might come forth to fetch his own destruction Judgement need not go to find wicked Men out they run to meet their ruine Those whom God intends to deliver over to destruction shall have both their heart and their head hardned their heart against the motions of Gods Grace and their Head against the motions and Dictates of their own reason CHAP. III. Verse 1. THe Enemies of Gods Church are not consumed in a moment but wasted and consumed by the providence of God by little and little True it is God is able to bring them all to nothing at once with the breath of his mouth but it is his pleasure to waste and consume them by degrees one after another As here after Sihon was overthrown we see another Judgement of God upon another Enemy of the Church and this God doth because by them he may try the Faith and exercise the patience of his Servants No marvel if others be oftentimes deceived in us and are ignorant of the secrets of our Souls seeing we our selves know not throughly our selves untill we have ended and endured tryal For such we are indeed as we are in the time of Temptation Wherefore it is necessary that so long as we live in this World we should be kept in a continual exercise of Faith of Prayer of Repentance of obedience This was likewise done to plague the Israelites when at any time they should sin against God and therefore the Nations were left among them to be as snares in their paths whips in their sides and thorns in their eyes because they transgress'd the Covenant that God had made with their Fathers Ps. 81. 13. Verse 2. Among other means of working Faith in God and resting our selves in his Promises the blessed experience and comfortable proof which we have had of Gods mercies towards us in former times is one of the chiefest to cause us to trust in him and evermore to call upon him in our necessity This is confirm'd unto us in Davids faithful behaviour going to encounter with the uncircumcised Philistim 1 Sam. 17. 34 c. Whereby it appears how the Prophet strengtheneth his Faith by the experience that he had in times past of Gods helping hand nothing doubting but that the same God that had preserved him from the jaw of the Lyon and the paw of the Bear would keep him in this single Combate with that Champion that defied Israel Verse 26. Upon one single transgression God passeth the sentence of restraining Moses with the rest from the Promised Land Now he performs it Since that time Moses had many favours from God all which could not reverse this decreed castigation that everlasting Rule is grounded upon the very Essence of God I am Iehovah I change not Our purposes are as ourselves fickle and uncertain his are certain and immutable some things which he reveals he alters nothing that he hath decreed Verse 28 It is no small happiness to any State when their Governors are chosen by Worthiness and such Elections are ever from God whereas the intrusions of Bribery and unjust favour and violence as they make the Common-Wealth miserable so they come from him which is the author of Confusion woe be to that State that suffers it woe be to that person that works it for both of them have sold themselves the one to servitude the other to sin CHAP. IV. Verse 2. SUch add to Gods Book as wrest it and rack it making
how love covereth sins these good Sons are so far from going forward to see their Fathers shame that they go back-ward to hide it The Cloak is laid on both their shoulders they both go back with equal paces and dare not so much as look back lest they should unwillingly see the cause of their shame and will rather adventure to stumble at their Fathers Body than to see his nakedness How did it grieve them to think that they who so often had come to their Father with Reverence must now in Reverence turn their backs upon him and that they must now cloath him in pity who had so often cloathed them in love And which adds more to their duty they covered him and said nothing This modest sorrow is their praise and our example the Sins of those we love and honour we must hear of with indignation fearfully and unwillingly beleeve acknowledge with grief and shame hide with honest excuses and bury in silence Verse 25. God preserves some men in Judgement better had it been for Cham to have perished in the Waters than to live unto his Fathers Curse And yet how equal a regard is here both of Piety and disobedience Because C ham sinned against his Father therefore he shall be plagued in his Children Iaphet is dutiful to his Father and finds it in his posterity Because C ham was an ill son to his Father therefore his sons shall be servants to his Brethren because Iaphet set his shoulders to Shems to bear the Cloak of shame therefore shall Iaphet dwell in the Tents of Shem partaking with him in blessings as in duty When we do but what we ought yet God is thankful to us and rewards that which we should sin if we did not Who could ever yet shew me a man rebelliously undutiful to his Parents that hath prospered in himself and his seed Verse 27. If thy Child prove undutiful and refractory do for him as Noah did here for Iaphet Noah had given that son of his a great deal of good Counsel no doubt and had perswaded him to become a lively Member of Gods Church but knowing well to how little purpose all this would be without Gods working upon his heart he falls to Prayer God perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem As if he had said I have advised and done my uttermost to perswade thee my Son but all this is but lost labour unless God put in his helping hand now therefore the good Lord perswade thee Thus do thou for thy refractory Child desire God to perswade him to convince him to turn his heart and thou shalt see that nothing shall stand in his way but the work shall be accomplished if God undertake to mend thy Son and make him good all his ill conditions shall not hinder it CHAP. X. Verse 1. C Ham is set in the midst between Shem and Iaphet wherein is shadowed the condition of the Church that ungodly persons will ever be mingled among the faithful The purest Grain hath some Chaff mixed with it and the purest and most sanctified Congregations as well in Heaven as on Earth have had their mixture of Reprobates There was a Iudas in that glorious Synod of Apostles and a Lucifer even in Heaven its self Thus still is the Church that Moon in the Scripture a glorious Body but not without her spots Verse 10. Nimrod signifies a Rebel and Babel confusion to intimate that Rebellion evermore begins in Confusion Confusion in the Church and Confusion in the State in the one the Lawes of God are disordered in the other the Laws of man Babel is still the beginning of that Kingdom where a Nimrod is the mighty man and where a Nimrod is the mighty man still the aim is at a Kingdom though the Kingdom prove a Kingdom of Confusion Nimrod will be great though his own greatness distract and confound him And thus it fares also with every wicked man who is a rebel against God the beginning of his Kingdom is a Babel likewise his understanding is distracted his affections are disordered and all his actions are out of frame a confusion possesses both the beginning and end of all his wayes And to this purpose was the Psalmists Prayer against both these Nimrods O my God make them like unto a Wheel let them turn round in all their actions let them never be fixed and setled in their courses but let a giddiness a vertigo pursue their Designes and let both the beginning and end of their Kingdom prove a Babel Verse 25. Eber of whom came the Hebrews or Israelites Exod. 1. 15. that he might have before his eyes a perpetual monument of Gods displeasure against the ambitious Babel builders calls his Son Peleg or Division because in his dayes was the Earth divided It is good to write the remembrance of Gods worthy works whether of Mercy or Justice upon the Names of our Children to put us in mind of those dispensations of God for we need all helps such is either our dulness or forgetfulness Upon this account we of this Nation have been very zealous in conferring such Names upon our Children at their Baptism as might put them in mind of some part of their Christian Profession and lest our Children should be ignorant of the meaning of those Names they have been of late years interpreted and instead of Baptizing our Children with the Names of Timothy and Theophilus these latter times have re-baptized even Names as well as Children and have Christened them Fear-God and Love-God and Fight a good Fight but how these men have imitated their Names these late years have sufficiently declared to the whole World CHAP. XI Verse 4. HOw fondly do men reckon without God Come let us build as if there had been no stop but in their own will as if both Earth and Time had been theirs Still do all natural men build Babel fore-casting their own Plots so resolutely as if there were no power to counter-mand them Let us build a City if they had taken God with them it had been commendable establishing of Societies is pleasing to him that is the God of Order but a Tower whose top may reach to Heaven is a shameful arrogance an impious presumption Who would think that we little Ants that creep upon the Earth should think to climb up to Heaven by multiplying of Earth But wherefore was all this Not that they loved so much to be neighbors to heaven as to be famous upon earth It was not Commodity that was here sought nor Safety but Glory Whither doth not thirst of Fame carry men whether in good or evil One builds a Temple to Diana in hope of glory intending it for one of the greatest Wonders of the World Another in hope of Fame burns it He is a rare man that hath not some Babel of his own whereon he bestows pains and cost only to be talked of Verse 7. When God bestowed upon man his first benefit his Making
hands in this verse when he offered him Goods and spoyls enough to have enriched him and all his houshold No saith Abraham I will not take so much as a thred from you men shall never say that Abraham was made rich and not by Gods blessing but by the King of Sodoms means God shall make Abraham rich or he will ever be poor It is reported of one that was a better Lawyer than an honest man that he should say He that would not venture his body shall never be valiant nor he that will not venture his soul be rich Let them that make no reckoning of their souls venture them at their perils but let all that desire contentment here or heaven hereafter make their Prayers to God and say from such kind of Riches Good Lord deliver us CHAP. XV. Verse 1. IT is Saint Cyrils note That as Abraham so long as he was in his own Country had never God appearing to him save only to bid him go forth but after when he was gone forth had frequent visions of his Maker So while in our affections we remain here below in our Coffers we cannot have the comfortable assurances of the presence of God but if we can abandon the love and trust of these earthly things in the conscience of our obedience now God shall appear to us and speak peace to our Souls and never shall we find cause to repent us of the change Verse 4. In the 13 Chapter God promised Abraham an innumerable Seed but yet heknew not whether it should be his natural or adopted seed now the Lord cleareth that doubt and telleth him it should come out of his own bowels yet Abraham was uncertain Whether this Seed should be by Sarah or another which is told Gen. 17. 16. So God deals his Promises not all at once but by degrees by that means to cause us still to rely upon him and continually to pray for the performance of what we expect Verse 12. Not only a fear of God must but a terror of God may fall upon the best When God talked with Abraham here a horror of great darkness fell upon him saith the text The Father of lights and the God of all comforts present and present in an action of mercy and yet an horror of great darkness fell upon Abraham When God talked personally and presentially with Moses Exod. 13. Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God When I look upon God in those terrible judgements which he hath executed upon some men and see that there is nothing between me and the same judgements for I have sinn'd the same sins and God is the same God I cannot look upon God in what line I will nor take hold of God by what handle I will he is a terrible God I take him so and then I cannot discontinue I cannot break off this terribleness and say He hath been terrible to that man and there is an end of his terror it reaches not to me Why not to me In me there is no merit no shadow of merit in God there is no change no shadow of change I am the same sinner he is the same God still the same desperate sinner still the same terrible God Verse 16. The sins of a professing People or Nation are sooner ripe than the sins of the wild world as fruit that grows more in the Sun is concocted and comes to maturity sooner and therefore 't is observable that God bears longer with the world yea and in a sence deals more gently in their punishment The sin of the Amorites here was long many years e're it was full ripe but Israels was ripe in forty years and seeing they were most look'd upon of all the people of the earth therefore God will visit upon them all their iniquities and that to their cost they shall more intensively feel his wrath How dear was Israel unto God by how many sweet loving and precious appellations were they called his Apple his Spouse his Treasure his Jewels his Darling and yet cast out and abandoned by that God Oh how should this Nation of ours hear and fear and do no more so wickedly lest God make a quick dispatch and do as by ASIA remove the Candle and Candlestick out of its place CHAP. XVI Verse 2. VVHat a lively patern do I see in Abraham and Sarah of a strong Faith and a weak Of strong in Abraham and weak in Sarah she to make God good of his word to Abraham knowing her own barrenness substitutes an Hagar and in an ambition of Seed perswades to Polygamy Abraham had never look'd to obtain the Promise by any other than a barren Womb if his own Wife had not importuned him to take another when our own apparent means fail weak Faith is put to the shifts and projects strange devices of her own to attain the end She will rather conceive by another Womb than be childless So great is the desire of Children Verse 5. Those that are most injurious do commonly complain most of injuries and this both in respect of God and their Neighbour Thus Adam when he had committed that grand Catholick sin in Paradise layes the fault upon God The Woman which thou gavest me she perswaded me and I did eat God gave him the Woman as an help against temptation and yet he upbraids God with his gift and charges him with the sin when the Devil and his own weakness were the cause And thus Sarah in the Text complains against her Husband when she her self had done the injury She gave Hagar to her Husband and yet cryes out My wrong be upon thee The guilty seldom accuse themselves Verse 9. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity and the best seed-time for his graces is when the soul is harrowed with a sense of sin and the body is plowed up with its punishments then did Saint Lukes Prodigal think of returning to his Father when he knew not else whether to go and so Hagar in the Text was easily perswaded by the Angel to go back and submit to her Mistris when she was humbled by affliction Now she was under the rod she was ready both to hear and obey Affliction was her best School-master Verse 10. Ishmael though he were not the chosen seed yet received a goodly temporal blessing by which we see that these outward blessings are no signes of eternal election and here we may likewise observe that before this Promise was made to her Hagar was bid to humble her self so we must repent ere we can have Gods favour Verse 11. Affliction hath a voice and as musick on the waters sounds farther and more harmoniously than upon the Land so prayers joyned with tears These if they proceed from Faith are showers quenching the Devils Canon-shot a second Baptisme of the soul wherein it is rinsed a-new nay perfectly cured as the tears of Vines cures the Leprosie as the Lame were healed in the troubled Waters Now whether Hagars grief
hanging over the throat of such a Son would not have been more perplex'd in his thought than that unexpected Sacrifice was in those briars yet he whom it nearest concern'd is least touch'd Faith had wrought the same in him which cruelty would in others not to be moved He contemns all fears and over-looks all impossibilities his heart tells him that the same hand which rais'd Isaac from the dead womb of Sarah can raise him again from the ashes of his Sacrifice With this confidence was the hand of Abraham now falling upon the throat of Isaac who had given himself for dead when suddenly the Angel of God interrupts him forbids him commends him Verse 12. The voice of God was never so welcome never so sweet never so seasonable as now It was the tryal that God intended not the fact Isaac is sacrificed and is yet alive and now both of them are more happy in that they would have done than they could have been distress'd if they had done it Gods charges are oft-times harsh in the beginnings and proceeding but in the conclusion alwayes comfortable true spiritual comforts are commonly late and sudden God defers on purpose that our tryals may be perfect our deliverance welcome our recompence glorious Isaac had never been so precious to his Father if he had not been recovered from death if he had not been as miraculously restored as given Abraham had never been so blessed in his Seed if he had not neglected Isaac for God Verse 13. The only way to find comfort in any earthly thing is to surrender it in a faithful carelesness into the hands of God Abraham came to Sacrifice he may not go away with dry hands God cannot abide that good purposes should be frustrate Lest either Abraham should not do that for which he came or shall want means of speedy thanks-giving for so gracious a disappointment behold a Ram stands ready for the Sacrifice and as it were proffers himself to this happy exchange He that made that beast brings him thither fastens him there Even in small things there is a great providence what mysteries there are in every though the least act of God CHAP. XXIII Verse 1. BEcause the years of Sarah are here distinctly numbred and the Hebrews read thus and the lives of Sarah was an hundred years and twenty years and seven years the Jewish Rabbins collect that here is commended her beauty and her chastity viz. that she was as fair at an hundred years as at twenty and as chast at twenty as at seven but this collection of the Rabbins perchance is scarce warrantable from the words yet from hence we may safely conclude for our comfort that the Lord doth number all our years and whether they be few or many he hath set them down in his Book of Remembrance For here Sarah's daies are punctually numbred and Iob in his Fourteenth Chapter mentioneth moneths and daies how that our daies are exactly determined and the number of moneths which man hath to live are in the Lords hand Wherefore no good man need make any question but that the Lord hath a care of him and that his life doth not depend upon the skill of the Physitian but the good pleasure of our God Verse 2. These words She dyed at Hebron bids us meditate on theformer Story 'T is well known that at Beersheba Abimelech made a league with Abraham the tenure whereof was that the one should not hurt the other whereupon Abraham supposing he should have set up his staff there planted a grove yet for all this Sarah dieth not there but dieth at Hebron certain miles distant from Beersheba and dieth in the absence of Abraham and happily without the presence of her Son and acquaintance dieth in a strange place among strangers which may serve to comfort those whom the Lord will not vouchsafe to die in their own Country among their nearest and dearest Friends wanting them to close up their dying eyes and perform the duties and offices of love For though Friends be absent yet the best Friends God and his Christ are ever present to the faithful and when all forsake yet they never forsake and Heaven is no further from one place than another and then in regard we are all with Sarah and Abraham here liable to a wandering and a wavering condition this should hold up in us all a longing desire of Heaven where all joy remains and is fix'd for evermore seeing here we have no happiness no rest no quietness Here is only the vally of tears and weeping we must look for the happy place of joy and gladness in another World where shall be no more sorrow nor crying nor tears Verse 4. This Sarah that before was the desire of Abrahams eyes is now desired to be removed out of his sight she that before had a beauty to tempt Kings had not now so much left her by death as to take her own Husband I have read of a fair young German Gentleman who living refused to be pictured and put off the importunity of his Friends by giving way that after a few daies burial they might send a Painter to his Vault and if they saw cause for it draw the image of Death unto the Life they did so and found his face half eaten his Midrife and Back-bone full of Serpents and so he stands pictured among his armed Ancestors Thus doth the fairest Beauty change and it will be as bad with you and me as it was here with Sarah and then what nearest Relation will endure our company what Servants shall we have to wait upon us in the Grave what officious people to cleanse away the moist cloud cast upon our faces from the sides of the weeping Vaults which are the longest Weepers for our Funerals all our Friends will then like Abraham in the Text desire to remove us out of their sight Verse 8. The eye affects the heart with sorrow-occasioning objects if sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart Hence when Sarah was dead Abraham in this Text thus bespeaks the people among whom he dwelt If it be in your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight It did afflict the heart of Abraham with sorrow to see the body of his deceased Wife or the Coffin where she lay whom he had so entirely loved therefore he saith Bury her out of my sight Verse 9. This world is but a thorow-fare we have no place to settle to abide here and therefore our first purchase of possession should be like this of Abrahams a place to bury in not to build upon Our Grave is our long and lasting home all our other houses are but transitory and as short-lived as our selves And therefore to mind us of our mortality it were good with the Patriarch here to make our Sepulchre our first purchase Upon this account when our first Parents had made them Garments of Figg-leaves God gave them Garments of skins
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
and reform their errors Verse 34. Who would have lookt for tears from Esau or who dare trust tears when he sees them fall from so graceless eyes It was a good word here Bless me also O my Father every miscreant can wish himself well No man would be miserable if it were enough to desire happiness Why did he not rather weep to his Brother for the pottage than to Isaac for a blessing If he had not then sold he had not needed now to begg It is just with God to deny us those favours which we were careless in keeping and which we undervalued in enjoying How happy a thing it is to know the seasons of Grace and not to neglect them how desperate to have known and neglected them these tears were both late and false the tears of rage of envie of carnal desire worldly sorrow causeth death Yet whiles Esau howls out thus for a blessing I hear him cry out of his Fathers store Hast thou but one blessing O my Father of his Brothers subtilty was he not rightly termed Jacob I do not hear him blame his own deserts He did not see while his Father was deceived and his Brother crafty that God was just and himself uncapable he knew himself prophane and yet claims a blessing CHAP. XXVIII Verse 11. NOne of all the Patriarks saw so evil dayes as Iacob did from whom justly hath the Church of God therefore taken her Name neither were the Faithful ever since called Abramites but Israelites That no time might be lost he began his strife in the Womb after that he flyes for his life from a cruel Brother to a cruel Uncle With a Staff goes he over Iordan alone doubtful and comfortless not like the Son of Isaac In the way the Earth is his bed and a stone his pillow yet even there he sees a Vision of Angels Iacob's heart was never so full of joy as when his head lay hardest God is most present with us in our greatest dejection and loves to give comfort to those that are for saken of their hopes Verse 12. This Ladder betokeneth Christ who above is God of his Father beneath is man out of Iacob's Loins Ioh. 1. 51 the Angels ascending and descending are the blessed Spirits which first ministred to the person of Christ and secondly for the good of his body namely the Elect Heb. 1. 14. The Angels went up and down none of them were seen standing still we must alwayes be going forward in our Christian courses and not think to be carried to heaven in a feather bed but we must climb a Ladder if we expect to be carried as Elias was in a Chariot it will be a fiery Chariot Verse 14. Against Iacob's four-fold cross here is a four-fold comfort a plaister as broad as the sore and sovereign for it Against the loss of his Friends I will be with thee saith God Against the loss of his Country I will give thee this Land Against his Poverty Thou shalt spread abroad to the East and to the West Against his solitariness and lowness Angels shall attend thee and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth whereunto we may add that which surpasseth all the rest In thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed thy Seed shall be as the dust of the earth and that dust of the earth shall shine as the stars in heaven they that trust in the Lord shall have the blessings of both worlds they shall be blessed here temporally and hereafter eternally Verse 15. It is a great and peculiar priviledge of the Church and every Member of it to have God present with them and President over them He is not far off from those that are his however in time of Affliction and in the hour of tentation he seemeth so to them but is ever with them and holdeth a gracious hand over them This is it which the Lord so often promiseth in his Word and truly performeth to the great comfort of all his Children This is it which the Lord speaketh to Iacob going from his Fathers house to Padan Aran Lo I am with thee c. And God thus promiseth his presence that the faithful might be assured of his protection and defence being gathered together by his power without which they could not have any comfort If he were not present with us he could not consider of our wants nor succour us in our necessities nor refresh us with his help while we walk in the valley of the shadow of death Seeing therefore we have comfort to be preserved in all perils and to be heard in our Prayers and Requests that we make to God we are assured and perswaded of his continual presence amongst us for our good and safety Verse 17. Though the Almighty be every where yet not every where after the same manner say the Schools his presence indeed shines forth in all but not the same degrees of his presence and though his glory filled both the Bush and the space about it yet not both alike the one with fire the other perchance but with smoak and therefore we read Exod. 3. of a place where Moses may stand and a place so holy whither he may not draw nigh the first too holy for his shoes the last too hot for his feet Thus also we read of Gods House made with hands and his House not made with hands and to both Holiness required for their Consecration and an awful esteem for their Diety Sanctified they must because they are Gods and Reverenced because he is in them To witness whose personal residence was that solemne erecting of Altars where God vouchsafed to appear Thus God here appeared to Iacob and strait wayes his Stone is anointed into a Pillar and what the last night was a pillow for himself must now be a resting place for his God there offering up his dues to heaven where he had before to Nature Verse 20. A mean or middle estate which is neither too eminent nor too obscure too rich nor too poor above contempt below envie is to be preferred before the greatest first because it is most free from danger as not being so low as to be trodden upon nor so high as to be seated in the eye of envie Secondly Because it preserveth us from forgetfulness of God irreligion and prophanness which accompanies prosperity and from the use of unlawful means to maintain our estate and from impatiency murmuring and repining against God to which we are tempted in poverty If then our God hath been so gracious unto us as to give us a convenient competency in these outward matters let us reckon our lot to have fallen unto us in a pleasant ground and that we have a goodly heritage And indeed our Nature desires not much Food and Raiment are the only necessaries for this life I mean the preservation of it we stand in need of If God will be with me saith Jacob c. that is all
that thou shouldest look on such a dead dogg as I am and when he considers from what a low to what an high estate God hath brought him he saith as Iacob here I am less than the least of all thy mercies and when Christ tells a Soul that he will make him a King and a Priest to God he humbly saith as Saul to Samuel am not I a Benjamite of the smallest of the Tribes of Israel yea it saith as Elizabeth said to Mary the blessed Mother of our ever blessed Jesus when she heard the Salutation that the Babe the heart of a true Believer leap'd within her and she spake Blessed art thou whence O whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord Oh saith the Soul that my God should come to see me even me poor worthless me it fares with such a Soul as with the Disciples Luke 24. Jesus stood in the midst and said Peace be unto you and they were terrified and affrighted but he said Why are ye troubled it is I behold my hands and my feet and they believed not for joy and wondred Verse 11. It is like that Esau prepared himself to be revenged of Iacob as may appear by Iacobs prayer and fear here which was not without cause whereby the power of God is also set forth that could in the very way change that purpose of Esau and withall Iacob sheweth in this his weakness and infirmity that although looking to Gods promise he had confidence yet turning himself to the present danger he fear'd and here while Iacob prepared himself by war prayer and gifts to satisfie his Brother he doth well for though God hath promised us deliverance we ought to use all good means and working under Gods providence Verse 12. Prayer is not only a bare manifestation of our mind to God by such a sute or petition but in Prayer there is or ought to be an holy arguing with God about the matter which we declare which is a bringing out and urging of reasons and motives whereby the Lord may be moved to grant what we pray for and this is clear from this example of Iacob in this Chapter Verse 24. When we are most retired from the World then we are most fit to have and usually have most communion with God David shews us divine work when we go to rest the bed is not all for sleep commune with your own hearts upon your bed and be still Psal. 4. be still and quiet and then commune with your hearts God will come and commune with them to his Spirit will give you a loving visit When Iacob fearing the rage of his Brother had put himself into the best posture and defence he could and had sent his Wives and Children over the River the Text saith that he was left alone which is not to be understood as if his company had left or deserted him Iacob's solitariness was not passive but effective he having disposed of all his Family withdrew himself and stayed alone and what then then he had a Vision indeed then there wrestled a man with him till the breaking of the day he spent not the night in carping and caring what should become of him to morrow no he retires to pray for a blessing upon his former cares and a blessing he obtains Verse 25. What a wonder is here Iacob received not so much hurt from all his enemies as from his best Friends not one of his hairs perish'd by Laban or Esau yet he lost a joynt by the Angel and was sent halting to his Grave he that knows our strength yet will wrestle with us for our exercise and loves our violence and importunity O happy loss this of Iacob he lost a joint and won a blessing it is a favour to halt from God yet this favour is seconded with a greater He was blest because he would rather halt than leave ere he was blessed If he had left sooner he had not halted but then he had not prospered that man shall go away sound but miserable that loves a limb more than a blessing Surely if Iacob had not wrestled with God he had been folid with evils how many are the troubles of the righteous Verse 30. Holy men even in this life have a sight of the face of God the Soul of a Believer hath interviews with God God and he do often look one another in the face Wheresoever the Saints are except in cases of desertion the place may be called as Iacob here call'd this where he wrestled with God Peniel that is the face of God yet not in that sence fully in which Iacob calls it so he call'd it the face of God because he had seen God face to face We can call it so only ordinarily because we see his face It is one thing to see the face of God another thing to see God face to face the former is the common priviledge of Saints in this life the latter is the priviledge of but some Saints and those rare ones to have it here Verse 31. At death God wrestles with his people laying hold on their Consciences by the menaces of the Law They again resist this assault by laying hold upon God in Christ by the Faith of the Gospel well assured that Christ hath freed them from the curse of the Law by being made a curse for them on the Cross. God yields himself over-come by this re-encounter but yet toucheth their thigh takes away their life howbeit this hinders not the Sun of Life Eternal to arise upon them CHAP. XXXIII Verse 4. VArious and miraculous are the means which God useth to deliver his People from their Enemies sometimes he divides them and sets the Churches enemies one against another so he did for Gideon's small Army to the Midianites mighty Host setting every mans Sword against his fellow sometimes he changeth their minds and turneth the stream of their affections Thus was Esau's heart mollified towards Iacob who instead of a devouring enemy becomes an embracing friend and meets him with kisses to whom he had intended blowes Indeed what Solomon saith of the Kings heart is true of all mens That they are in the hands of the Lord as the Rivers of Waters and he turneth them wheresoever he will No wonder then if sometimes he mollifies the Obdurate qualifies the Malicious and melts the Frozen Hearts of Wicked men into Love and Compassion towards his Servants Verse 5. Children are the blessings of the Lord nay they are part of his inheritance Children are an heritage of the Lord saith the Psalmist and the fruit of the Womb is his reward they are special blessings Children as it is to be observed are a resemblance of our immortality because man revives again lives a-new as it were in every Child he is born again in a civil sence when others are born to him There are some who count their Children but Bills of Charges but God puts them upon the account of our Mercies And
peaceably but youth commonly undertakes rashly and performs with passion The Sons of Iacob think of nothing but revenge and which is worst of all begin their cruelty with craft and hide their craft with Religion A smiling malice is most deadly and hatred doth most rankle the heart when it is kept in and dissembled We cannot give our Sister to an uncircumcised man here was God in the mouth and Satan in the heart The bloodiest of all Projects have ever wont to be coloured with Religion because the worse any thing is the better shew it desires to make and contrarily the better colour is put upon any vice the more odious it is for as every simulation adds to an evil so the best adds most evil themselves had taken the Daughters and Sisters of uncircumcised men yea Iacob himself did so why might not then an uncircumcised man obtain their Sister Or if there be a difference of giving and taking it had been well if it had not been only pretended It had been an happy ravishment of Dinah that should have drawn a whole Country into the bosome of the Church but here was a Sacrament intended not to the good of the soul but to the murther of the body Verse 15. Simeon and Levi when they meditate their revenge for the Rape committed upon their Sister when they pretended Peace yet they required a little bloud they would have the Shechemites Circumcised but when they had opened a Vein they made them bleed to Death when they were under the soreness of Circumcision they slew them all Gods Justice required bloud likewise the bloud of his Son but that bloud is not spilt as was the bloud of these Shechemites but poured from that Head to our Hearts into the Veins and Wounds of our own Souls In the Circumcision and Passion of our Saviour there was Bloud shed but no Bloud lost Verse 23. It was an hard task for Hamor and Shechem not only to put the knife to their own fore-skins but to perswade a multitude to so painful a condition Now to bring this about as the Sons of Iacob dissembled with them so they dissemble with the people Shall not all their flocks and substance be ours Common profit is pretended when as only Shechems pleasure is meant No motive is so powerful to the vulgar sort as the name of Commodity the hope of this makes them prodigal of their skin and bloud not the love to the Sacrament nor the love to Shechem sinister respects draw more to the profession of Religion than Conscience if it were not for the Loaves and Fishes the train of Christ would be less But the Sacraments of God mis-received never prosper in the end These men are content to smart so they may gain Verse 25. Now that every one lies sore of his own Wound Simeon and Levi rush in armed and wound all the Males to death Cursed be their Wrath for it was fierce and their Rage for it was cruel Indeed filthiness should not have been wrought in Israel yet murther should not have been wrought by Israel If they had been fit Judges which were but bloudy Executioners how far doth the punishment exceed the fault To punish above the offence is no less injustice than to offend One offendeth and all feel the revenge yea all the innocent suffer that revenge which he that offended deserved not Shechem sinneth but Dinah tempted him She that was so light as to wander abroad alone only to gaze I fear was not over-difficult to yield and if having wrought her shame he had driven her home with disgrace to her Fathers Tent such tyrannous lust had justly called for bloud but now he craves and offers and would pay dear for but leave to give satisfaction to execute rigor upon a submiss offendor is more merciless than just or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another yet from them which had vowed Peace and Affinity it was shamefully unjust To disappoint the Trust of another and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes adds faithlessness unto our cruelty Verse 30. Who would have looked to have found this outrage in the Family of Iacob How did that good Patriarch when he saw Dinah come home blubber'd and wringing her hands Simeon and Levi sprinkled with bloud wish that Leah had been barren as long as Rachel Good Parents have grief enough though they sustain no blame for their Childrens sins What great evils arise from small beginnings The idle curiosity of Dinah hath bred all this mischeif Ravishment follows upon her wandring upon her ravishment murther upon the murther spoyl It is holy and safe to be jealous of the first occasions of evil either done or suffered CHAP. XXXV Verse 1. HEre God pulls Iacob by the ear as it were and minds him of his Vow which he had well-nigh forgotten but God looked for performance and would not let him be quiet till he had made good what he had promised Most mens practice proclaims that having escaped the danger they would willingly deceive the Saint Deliverances commonly are but nine dayes wonder at most and it is ten to one that any Leper returns to give praise to God If any thing doth rouze up our hearts to thankful remembrance of former Mercies it must be the sense of some present misery as here Iacob was in a strait and fright his Sons had troubled him the Country was ready to rise upon him and rout him out and now God takes this opportunity for we are best when at worst and gently minds him of what was his duty and would be for his safety Verse 5. The Lord hath a Negative voice upon the motion of all Creatures We see an instance of this here when Iacob and his Family journied the terror of God was upon the Cities that were round about them and they did not pursue after the Sons of Iacob they had a mind to pursue and revenge the slaughter of the Shechemites but God said Pursue not and then they could not pursue they must stay at home Thus also when his People the Iewes were safe in Canaan he encourages them to come up freely to Worship at Ierusalem by this assurance No man shall desire thy Land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God God can stop not only hands from spoyling but hearts from desiring Our appetite whether concupiscible or irrascible are under his command as well as our actions we should consider this to help our Faith in these times The Sword is in motion among us even as the Sun and the Sword seems to have received a charge to pass from the one end of the Land to the other yet a counter-mand from God will stop the Sword from going on If he speak to the Sword the Sword shall wound no more Verse 10. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel That is not only or not so much Iacob as Israel Both
which Names he had given him of striving and strugling All Gods Israel are Wrestlers by Calling and as good Souldiers of Jesus Christ must suffer hardship Nothing is to be seen in the Shulamite but as the appearance of two Armies maintaining civil broils within her the Spinit warreth against the Flesh and the Flesh against the Spirit Wherefore we have more than need to take unto us the whole Armour of God and to strengthen our selves with every piece of it At no place must we lie open for our enemy is a Serpent if he can but bite the heel he will transfuse his venome to the heart and head Verse 19. We see here how Iacob is tryed with a new cross deprived of his Crown his Stay his Comfort his Wife Which is writ for our instruction to teach us that Gods Children must not look to live at ease in this life They must not Prophecy of Peace to themselves That there shall be no leading into Captivity and no complaining in our streets They must not dream that they shall be alwayes carried on Eagles wings but their dreams must be of Willow-trees by the Waters of Babel of afflictions and crosses a Christian must be a daily cross-bearer which made this Patriarch in another place say Few and evil have the dayes of my Pilgrimage been The Child of God a Son of Iacob must not think to walk in plain and easie paths to heaven but must climb hard it is all up-hill the way lieth inter Epauleum Magdalum as the Septuagint read the text Exod. 14. 2. that is by turreting and towering turning and winding as Origen Expounds it Never any went to Heaven with dry eyes Iacob's life was a continual warfare First Rachel the comfort of his life dieth and when but in her travel and in his travel to his Father Then his Children the staff of his age wound his Soul to the death Reuben proves incestuous Iudah adulterous Dinah ravished Simeon and Levi murtherous Er and Onan stricken dead Ioseph lost Simeon imprisoned Benjamin the death of his Mother the Fathers right hand endangered himself driven by Famine in his old age to die amongst the Egyptians a people that held it an abomination to eat with him Thus many are the troubles wherewith the Lord tryeth his Children And if that God with whom he strove and who therefore strove for him had not delivered his soul out of all adversity he had been supplanted with evils and had been so far from gaining the name of Israel that he had lost the name of Iacob Now what Son of Israel can hope for good dayes when he hears his Fathers were so evil It is enough for us if when we are dead we can rest with him in the Land of Promise If the Angel of the Covenant once bless us no pain no sorrows can make us miserable CHAP. XXXVI Verse 1. DEmosthenes that great popular Orator was wont to hugg himself as he went in the streets to hear the Common People say as he passed by This is Demosthenes There goes the great Orator but it can be no Joy nor Credit for any man to be pointed at and stigmatized by the People for an infamous person This is Edom is no Commendation though Registred in the Book of God no happiness for Esau to find his Name in Scripture in the Book of God unless he could find it also in the Book of Life It had been happier for Ieroboam and Iudas if their Names might have been forgotten than to be remembred under those ignominious Characters of Iudas the Traitor and Ieroboam that made Israel to sin The wicked though they think to get them a Name and to that end lay Plots to keep it up and protect both it and themselves yet their Names shall either rot and perish or if they be remembred it shall be only as his was that burnt the Temple of Diana as a Curse in the Nation wherein they live as the publick fire-brands and incendiaries the common plague ruine and desolation of their Country Verse 6. Esau no doubt was as strong if not stronger than Iacob yet fled before his face surely there was something in it more than the power of Iacob that daunted Esau and something more than ordinary appeared in Iacobs face from which Esau fled there was a divine Majesty seated there and with this Esau was not acquainted and therefore it struck a terror into him and made him fly and all this not without a special Providence of God to make room for the right Heir Canaan was the promised Land but not for Esau he had sold his Birth-right and with that the Promise which was annexed to it the Land flowing with milk and honey was too good for him that valued a mess of Pottage above the Blessing of the first-born A Iacob only one blessed of God was to inherit that Country which should afterwards be blessed by the Son of God the Holy Land was no inheritance for an Esau a prophane person Verse 20. Esau was by Marriage allied to this Seir for he took Aholibamah the Daughter of Anah to Wife vers 2. and yet the Posterity of Esau were so unnatural as to drive their own Kinsmen out of their Country Deut. 2. 12. No tyes either of Bloud or Friendship or Nature or Religion are able to hold wicked men when Ambition or Covetousness drives them on the Sons of Esau value not their nearest Relations an Estate to them is of far greater esteem then Kindred or Friends then either their Brother their Father or their God himself Verse 31. As Esau was the first-born so he was the first King likewise and good reason the Elder Brother should wear the Crown before the younger especially since Iacobs Portion was not so much a temporal Crown as an eternal For though Iacob by Gods Decree was to have the blessing yet not the inheritance of the first-born temporal Estates or Dominions are not entailed to Grace neither can the Children of God as such challenge to themselves the power and authority of other men as their King so their Kingdom is not of this World And therefore let Esau Reign and Edom have Kings while Iacob is a Slave an Israel under and Egyptian Captivity yet Iacob shall Reign at last and that for ever and Israel have a King whose soveraignty shall spread over the whole World and endure longer than it the Scepter shall not depart from Iudah until Shilo come no nor then neither for his Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and his Dominion endureth throughout all Generations Psal. 145. 13. Verse 43. When Edom in the 31 verse of this Chapter was a King then was Israel a Slave but here when Edom was a Duke Israel was a King which instructs us not to look at the beginning of Gods Providence but the end and design of it Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is Peace saith the Psalm 38. 37. And
therefore let the wicked how prosperous how secure how merry soever they be remember this in the midst of their joy that their Master the Devil gives them pleasant entrances into their wayes but reserves the bitterness for the end of their journey and on the contrary let the Righteous how sad how contemptible how dejected soever they be remember this in the midst of their tears that God their Father invites them to the worst Dish at first and sweetens their conclusion with pleasure and let them assure themselves that though the first handful that God gives them in their voyage to the Land of Promise be a Wilderness of Bryars and Thorns and the first Waters that they must drink in that Wilderness be Waters of Marah the bitter water of their own tears yet in the end of their journey they shall over-flow with the milk and honey of Canaan the Land of eternal peace and happiness CHAP. XXXVII Verse 2. I Marvel not that Ioseph had a double Portion of Iacobs Land who had more than two parts of his sorrows none of his Sons did so truly inherit his afflictions none of them was either so miserable or so great suffering is the way to Glory I see him not a clearer Type of Christ than of every Christian because we are dear to our Father and complain of sins therefore are we hated of our carnal Brethren if Ioseph had not medled with his Brothers faults yet he had been envied for his Fathers affection but now malice is met with envie There is nothing more thankless and dangerous than to stand in the way of a resolute sinner That which doth correct and oblige the penitent makes the wilful mind furious and revengeful Verse 4. Hence we may learn how inconvenient a thing it is for Parents to be partial in their love to their Children and withal that it is no marvel that brethren fall out for Goods and Land when Iosephs brethren hated him for a Coat We may further also consider from this place how few men judge themselves happy or unhappy according to what they are but by comparing themselves with others where all go naked none are ashamed Many augment their misery by seeing others more happy and yet think themselves happy when they see others more miserable We many times gather our sorrows from others joyes and our joyes from others sorrows We bless our selves when we see them below us and yet think all we have to be no blessing when we look on them that are above us Lord let not me think my good the less because others have more or my evil the more because others have less but let me learn in all estates to be content and to welcome the Will of God let it come how it will Verse 19. What meant Ioseph in the beginning of this Chapter to add unto his own Envie by reporting his Dreams The concealment of our hopes and abilities hath not more modesty than safety He that was envied for his dearness and hated for his intelligence was both envied and hated for his Dreams Surely God meant to make the relation of these Dreams a means to effect that which the Dreams imported We men work by likely means God by contraries The main quarrel was Behold this Dreamer cometh Had it not been for his Dreams he had not been sold if he had not been sold he had not been exalted So Iosephs state had not deserved envie if his Dreams had not caused him to be envied Full little did Ioseph think when he went to seek his Brethren that it was the last time he should see his Fathers House Full little did his Brethren think when they sold him naked to the Ishmeelites to have once seen him in the Throne of Egypt Gods Decree runs on and while we either think not of it or oppose it it is performed Verse 20. In an honest and obedient simplicity Ioseph comes to enquire of his Brethrens health and now may not return to carry news of his own misery whiles he thinks of their welfare they are plotting his destruction Come let us slay him Who would have expected this cruelty in them which should be the Fathers of Gods Church he look'd for Brethren and behold murtherers every mans tongue every mans fist was bent against him Each one strives who shall lay the first hand upon that changeable Coat that was dyed with their Fathers love and their envie Verse 24. It was thought a favour that Reubens entreaty obtained for him that he might be cast into the Pit alive to die there And now they have strip'd him naked and haling him by both arms as it were cast him alive into his Grave So in pretence of forbearance they resolve to torment him with a lingring Death the savagest Robbers could not have been more merciless for now besides what in them lies they kill their Father in their Brother Nature if once degenerate grows more monstrous and extream than a disposition born to cruelty And now what stranger can think of poor innocent Ioseph crying naked in the desolate and dry Pit only saving that he moistened it with tears and not be moved Yet his hard-hearted Brethren sit them down carelesly with the noise of his Lamentation in their ears to eat Bread not once thinking by their own hunger what it was for Ioseph to be famished to death Verse 28. Whatsoever they thought God never meant that Ioseph should perish in that Pit and therefore he sends very Ishmeelites to ransom him from his Brethren the seed of him that persecuted his Brother Isaac shall now redeem Ioseph from his Brethrens persecution And now when Ioseph had comforted himself with hope of the favour of dying behold death exchang'd for bondage how much is servitude to an ingenuous Nature worse than death For this is common to all that to none but the miserable Iudah meant this well but God better Reuben saved him from the Sword Iudah from Famishing God will ever raise up some favourers to his own amongst those that are most malicious How well was this favour bestowed If Ioseph had died for hunger in the Pit both Iacob and Iudah and all his Brethren had died for hunger in Canaan Little did the Ishmeelitish Merchants know what a treasure they bought carried and sold more precious than all their Balms and Myrrhs Little did they think that they had in their hands the Lord of Egypt the Jewel of the World why should we contemne any mans meanness when we know not his destiny Verse 32. One sin is commonly used for the vail of another Iosephs Coat is sent home dip'd in bloud that whiles they should hide their own cruelty they might afflict their Father no less than their Brother They have devised this real Lye to punish their old Father for his Love with so grievous a Monument of his sorrow Verse 33. When Iacob saw the Coat of his Son Ioseph It is my Sons Coat saies he but an
buried in the high-way is no good mark and therefore bury not thy self thy labours thy affections upon the world Verse 22. However Infidels and Idolaters were destitute of the knowledge of the true God yet they accounted it a special duty to honour the Priests of their Groves and Altars and perswaded themselves that they should never receive any blessing at the hands of their Gods unlesse they honoured those that were esteemed as his Servants Thus Moses witnesseth that when Pharaoh during the Dearth and Famine that was in Egypt had received all the Money bought all the Cattle and purchased all the Land of the People to supply their necessity and save their lives yet he would not buy the Priests Land but sustained them for their Office sake And are Idolaters and Infidels thus bountiful in the maintaining of their Priests How then should this serve to reprove our dulness and backwardness in the true worship of the Eternal God How many are there that live in the bosome of the Church and profess the true Religion who yet to maintain a learned Minister that is able to save their souls repine and grutch to give sixpence a quarter What a shame is it for those whom the Lord hath blessed with abundance that they should spend all on their backs and bellies on Hawks or Hounds or Whores and nothing at all to the Glory of God the comfort of their fouls and help of their Brethren Verse 28. Just so many years as Iacob had nourished Ioseph in Canaan did Ioseph nourish Iacob in Egypt repaying his Fathers love to the utmost penny These were the sweetest dayes and freest from trouble that ever the good old Patriark saw God reserves his best to the last Mark the perfect man and behold the upright saith the Psalmist for be his beginning and middle never so troublesome the end of that man his after-end at least shall be peace A Goshen he shall have either here or in Heaven and a Peace both in this world and the next the peace of Conscience here and the peace that passeth all understanding hereafter CHAP. XLVIII Verse 1. IAcob have I loved said God and yet this Beloved of God was under many troubles and afflictions in his life and visited with sickness before his death And all this doth very well agree with the dispensations of Gods Providence For whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourgeth every Son whom he receives Afflictions are Christs Love-tokens When Ignatius came to the wild Beasts Now saith he I begin to be a Christian. Omnis Christianus crucianus every true Christian must take up his Crosse and follow his Saviour It is reported of an antient Doctor of the Church lying upon his sick bed and being asked how he did and how he felt himself he pointed to his Sores and Ulcers whereof he was full and said Hae sunt gemmae pretiosa ornamenta Dei These are Gods Gems and Jewels wherewith he decketh his best friends and to me they are more pretious than all the Gold and Silver in the world Verse 3. It is not enough to relate Gods Mercies to us in the lump and by whole-sale but we must instance in the particulars both to God and men upon every occasion setting them down one by one and cyphering them up as Davids word is Psal. 9. 1. I will praise thee O Lord and I will shew forth or sum up all thy marvellous works When Moses in Exodus met with his Father in Law he reckoned all the particular Mercies that God had done for Israel in Egypt and at the Red Sea he omitted none The truly thankful keep an Ephemerides a Calender and Catalogue of Gods gratious dealings with them and delight to their last to recount and sum them up We should be like Civit-boxes which still retain the scent when the Civit is taken out of them Verse 7. Iacob makes mention of Rachels burial to put Ioseph in mind that Rachel forsook her Fathers house to live in Canaan so to stir him up much more to leave Egypt which was not his Country as also that he might have a greater desire to the place of his Mothers Sepulcher Verse 14. Iacob feeling with his hands which was the Elder and bigger for the words are he caus'd his hands to understand on purpose laid his right hand on Ephraim in way of preheminence which sheweth that God bestoweth his Gifts without respect of persons as also it prefigureth the calling of the Gentiles instead of the Iews who were as the elder Brother 3. From this we may deduce an evident truth in experience that Gods dispensations towards the Righteous and the Wicked in this life are like Iacobs dealing here with Iosephs Sons crosse and strange For as he laid his right hand on the Younger and his left on the Elder so doth God oft-times for the present distribute with his left hand crosses to the good and with his right favours to the bad And not only in a literal sense as our Saviour speaks He maketh the Sun to shine and the Rain to fall upon the just and the unjust but in a metaphorical sense he causeth the Sun of Prosperity to shine upon the Unjust and the Rain of Adversity to fall upon the Just. Verse 15. When a Curse fals upon the Children the Father is cursed as in the Blessing of the Children tht Father is blessed Thus Ioseph brought his two Sons Manasseh and Ephraim to his aged Father Iacob that they might receive his Blessing who laying his hands upon their heads blessed Ioseph saith the Text and said God before whom c. and then it follows The Angel which redeem'd me from all evil blesse the Lads Now as Iacob in blessing the Children of Ioseph blessed Ioseph himself so Noah Gen. 9. in cursing the Children of Cham cursed Cham himself Valerius l. 1. hath observed concerning the Tyrant Dionysius that though he escaped free and untouched in person from the vengeance which his sacrilegious wickedness deserved yet his Sons were involved in so much misery that in them he being pasâ— feeling suffered and being dead paid dearly for his stolue dainties The light of Nature as well as Scripture tels us that evils falling on posterity are reckoned upon the Fathers score And thus as 't is with Curses so likewise with Blessings upon the same account and for the same reason though they are conferr'd upon the Children yet the Fathers memory is blessed and honoured by them Verse 17. It is dangerous to follow men blindfold how seeing soever those men are but it is safe and our duty to follow God blindfold how seeing soever we think our selves to be We must not be displeased as Ioseph was here with his Father Iacob When we see God laying his right hand upon Ephraim and his left upon Manasseh doing things crosse to our thoughts much lesse may we take upon us to direct the hand of God as Ioseph would Iacobs where we please The Lord
the Wise and Mighty as he did Balaams Asse to confute his Master Verse 20. Husbands see from hence the heart of a good man to have his Wife and Children with him Wives and Children see their duty to be followers willingly of their Husbands or Fathers calling even into any Country And when I look at Moses his Rod methinks I see little David marching chearfully with his Staffe and Scrip against huge Goliah Good Lord what Weapons were those against him then in mans eyes Or this Staffe now in Moses hand against Pharaoh But God is the same both here and then and for ever strong in weakness and able to match a Kings Scepter with a Stick or a Staffe or a Stone or a word in the hand or mouth of one sent and appointed by him Verse 22. Gods Church is to him as a Man-child to the Father yea as the First-born which commonly is loved most tenderly and in greatest honour Now think with your selves how you could endure to stand and look upon an abuse offered to your First-born and then think of Gods Love to his Church whose affection as much excelleth yours as God excelleth man Now as tender Fathers for the good of their Children suffer them to lie in prison and to be school'd many wayes by want and affliction and yet in the midst of all have an eye to them a love to them and a settled purpose to help them when a love may be known a love and a good a good So our God knows his times and turns and our wants perfectly fitting the one to the other most mercifully that both our corruption and his goodness may best appear to the greatest benefit unto us He may see us humbled and school'd and tamed but undone and cast away for ever he cannot endure it he will not suffer it Verse 24. I do not so much marvel that Iethro gave Moses his Daughter for he saw him valiant wise learned nobly bred as that Moses would take her a Stranger both in bloud and Religion The choice had like to have cost him dear in this verse His Wife stood in his way for Circumcision God stands in his way for Revenge Though he was now upon Gods Message yet might he not be forborn in this neglect No circumstance either of the dearness of the Sollicitor or of our own engagement can bear out a sin with God Those which are unequally yoaked may not ever look to draw one way True Love to the Person cannot long agree with dislike of the Religion He had need to be more than a Man that hath a Zipporah lying in his bosome and can have true zeal in his heart Learn further from hence all unquiet Women what your ignorance and your obstinacy bringeth your Husbands unto though they be as Moses holy and vertuous they cannot serve God aright for you they cannot do what God requireth but you break their hearts you cool their zeal you turn them out of the way and in the end you bring them to a fearful danger of Gods destroying them Verse 26. That which Zipporah should have esteemed as a signal Mercy to her Child she interprets as a Judgement and that very Covenant of God of which Circumcision was the seal which she should have received with the greatest return of thanks was entertained with disobedience both toward her Husband and her God Thus ignorant and unthankful people mis-interpret and repine at the Dispensations of Gods Providence and that which God designes for a Mercy and a Blessing to them they take it as a Judgement and a Curse It is good for me that I was afflicted faith David Yet how many are there in the World that think otherwise and would chuse rather to be out of the Covenant than be circumcised to perish hereafter than be afflicted here CHAP. V. Verse 1. PHaraoh raged before much more now that he received a Message of dismission the Monitions of God make ill men worse the Waves do not beat nor roar any where so much as at the Bank which restraines them Corruption when 't is checked grows mad with rage as the vapour in a Cloud would not make that fearful report if it met not with opposition A good heart yeilds at the stillest Voice of God but the most gracious Motions of God harden the wicked Many would not be so desperately setled in their sins if the World had not controul'd them How mild a Message was this to Pharaoh and yet how galling God commands him that which he feared He took pleasure in the present servitude of Israel God cals for a release If the Suit had been for mitigation of labour for preservation of their Children it might have carried some hope and have found some favour But now God requires that which he knows will as much discontent Pharaoh as Pharaohs cruelty could discontent the Israelites How contrary are Gods Precepts to mans mind And indeed as they love to crosse him in their practise so he loves to crosse them in his Commands before and their Punishments after Verse 4. Moses talks of Sacrifice Pharaoh talks of Work Any thing seems due Work to a carnal mind saving Gods Service nothing superfluous but religious Duties Christ tels us there is but one thing necessary Nature tels us there is nothing but that needless Moses speaks of Devotion Pharaoh of Idleness It hath been an old use as to cast fair colours upon our own vitious actions so to cast evil aspersions upon the good actions of others The same Devil that spoke in Pharaoh speaks still in our Scoffers and cals Religion Hypocrisie conscionable Care Singularity Every Vice hath a title and every Vertue a disgrace Verse 8. Wicked men have no eyes often to see the true causes of a thing but most apt and ready to devise a false Let a man or woman be grieved extraordinarily with the burthen of their sins and with groans and sighs travail under the bitterness of it What say the Wicked Oh it is Melancholy and the body must be purged Festus imagineth Paul mad when he speaketh the words of Truth and Soberness Act. 26. 24. And that much learning made him mad when Learning is Wisdome and maketh wise Yea Heli himself mistaketh Anna a vertuous Woman and deemeth her to be drunk when ravished in her holy feeling she was crying to God in fervent Prayer 1 Sam. 2. Verse 11. The nearer that God draweth to his Church and Children to do them good the more the Devil rageth in and by his Members against them Remember that example in Mar. 9. 26. How the foul Spirit being commanded to depart rent and tare the party more and worse than ever before We cannot leave any sin wherein we have continued but by and by we shall be discouraged sometimes with threats sometimes with shew of perils and losses that may ensue But stand and shrink not and say in your heart now now is my God at hand for now I see and feel
the Enemy madest to oppress me if he could Verse 13. Note here how the Law works without the Gospel even roughly and sharply and rigorously For do this do this and finish finish the work is still the voice whereby sin and the Devil rageth as here Pharaoh doth For sin c. Rom. 7. 8 9 then crieth the true Israelite O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death verse 24. Blessed therefore be the Lord for his sweet Gospel which helpeth all this rigour and giveth us comfort and deliverance in his Son Verse 16. While possible tasks were imposed there was some comfort their diligence might save their backs from stripes but to require tasks not feazible is tyrannical and doth only pick a quarrel to punish they could neither make straw nor find yet they must have it Do what may be is tolerable but do what cannot be is cruel Those that are above others in place must measure their commands not by their own wils but by the strength of their inferiors The task is not done the Task-masters are beaten the punishment lies where the charge is they must exact it of the people Pharaoh of them It is the misery of those that are trusted with Authority that their inferiors faults are beaten upon their backs Verse 21. See the condition and lot of faithful Ministers in this wretched world First the King and now their Brethren accuse them for doing their duty While all is well good is the Minister but when the crosse cometh he and his doctrine away with that and away with him as Ier. 44. 16 c. now mark their reason For then had we plenty c. this is the stay of the multitude and this is the line they measure all things by their prosperity in worldly matters and immunity from trouble and affliction any wayes CHAP. VI. Verse 5. MIserable man remembreth and heareth his Friends when they are in prosperity but if adversity come neither hearing nor seeing them but a proud scornful and bitter forgetting The Lord is not so but when we are at the worst then he remembreth us then he heareth our groans and sighs and pittying helpeth to our unspeakable comfort Verse 7. The end of all deliverance and of all Benefits received from God is that we should be his People and that he might rule in us and over us Wherefore see how careful we should be alwayes to answer this our calling and never to be found unmindful of such favours For if this plainer manifestation of his Goodness to the Iews were a just cause to stir them up to thankfulness how much more should his manifestation of himself to us in his own Son move us to an eternal care to please him And then more particularly that he should accept me for one of his people O what can I say for such a Love but beseech him ever to make me thankfull Verse 8. As long as our hearts hold this perswasion of God that he is the Lord so long we must rest assured that he can perform his Promise in mercy made to us be the difficulties never so many What then is thy Case Are thy sins numerous and great Remember he is the Lord and play not Cains part to say they cannot be forgiven Are thine Enemies bitterly bent against thee he is the Lord and therefore can stop and stay them at his pleasure Are their infirmities many he can heal them he is the Lord. Are thy Children untoward and unkind he can change them he is the Lord. Lastly whatever greives thee remember this that God is the Lord and shall ever be the Lord and shall ever be thy Lord to care for thy woes and relieve them Only believe Verse 9. It is often a penalty laid upon the contemners of Gods Grace that cleaving altogether to the external favours of this life they tast not comfort in any affliction whereas the Godly the more they are pressed down by God the more vehemently they sigh unto God and look to his Promises with Patience and Hope This also may teach Gods Ministers not to be cast down and discouraged if their words be not hearkened unto and regarded since so worthy a man as Moses found this measure The World will be the World crooked and perverse froward and unkind though we break our hearts for their good Verse 10. Before Moses was bid to go to the People and now to Pharaoh so is there never any time for men of place and publick function to be idle Now they must defend the oppressed and wrong'd now they must comfort now they must chide See here likewise the bottomless Mercies of the Lord who though he might justly have cast off this People that would not hearken to his Words and Messages yet he doth not but still continueth to have mercy on them according to that of Psalm 103. 13. Verse 20. It is a wonder that Amram the Father of Moses would think of the Marriage-bed in so troublesome a time when he knew he should beget Children either to slavery or slaughter Yet even now in the heat of this bondage he marries Iochebed The drowning of his Sons was not so great an evil as his own burning the thraldome of his Daughters not so great an evil as the subjection unto sinful desires He therefore uses Gods remedy for his sin and refers the sequel of his danger to God How necessary is this imitation for those that have not the power of containing Perhaps we would have thought it better to live childless but Amram and Iochebed durst not incurre the danger of a sin to avoid the danger of a mischeif Verse 30. Behold I am of uncircumcised lips None in all Egypt was comparably fit for this Message Which of the Israelites had been brought up a Courtier a Schollar Learned Wise Valiant Experienc'd The more fit any man is for whatsoever Vocation the lesse he thinks himself forwardness argues insufficiency Once before Moses had taken upon him and laid about him hoping then they would have known that by his hand God had meant to deliver Israel but now when it comes to the point he cries I am of uncircumcised lips Gods best Servants are not ever in an equal disposition to good Duties It is our frailty that those Services which we are forward to aloof off we shrink at neer at hand How many of us can bid defiance to Death and suggest answers to absent temptations which when they come to us we fly off and change our note and instead of action pretend excuses CHAP. VII Verse 1. GOD hath made one man able to do the Offices of God to another in procuring his Regeneration here and advancing his Salvation hereafter Neither hath God determined that power of assisting others in the character of the Priesthood only but he hath also made the Prince and the secular Magistrate a God that is able to do the Offices and the Works of God not
only to the people but to the Priest himself to sustain him yea and to countenance and favour and protect him too in the execution and exercise of his Priestly Office As we see in the first plantation of those two great Cedars the Secular and Ecclesiastical Power which that they might alwayes agree as Brethren God planted at first in those two Brethren Moses and Aaron there though Moses were the Temporal and Aaron the Spiritual Magistrate yet God sayes here to Moses I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and not only to Pharaoh but Aaron thy Brother shall be thy Prophet for as he sayes Exod 4. Thou shalt be to him instead of God So useful so necessary is man to man as that the Priest who is of God incorporated in God subsist also by Man Verse 3. Concerning this hardning of Pharaoh some understand it by permission i. e. God suffered him to be hardened as we say in the Lords Prayer Lead us not into temptation i. e. suffer us not to be lead Greg. Moral 31. cap. 12. saith Non duritiem contulit sed exigentibus ejus meritis nulla infu sa timoris sensibilitate mollivit he did not impose hardness but his merits so deserving he softned him not by any infused sense of fear This should ever work in us care and zeal to crave at Gods hands fleshy hearts which may tremble at his Judgements and tast his Mercy saying with Samuel Speak on Lord thy Servant heareth and with David O my God I am content to do it yea thy Law is within my heart Verse 10. Pharaoh was now from a staffe of protection and sustentation to Gods People turn'd to a Serpent that stung them to death God shews himself in this real Emblem doing that suddenly before him which Sathan had wrought in him by leisure And now when he crawles and hisses threatning peril to Israel he shews him how in an instant he can turn him into a senseless stick and make him if not useful yet fearless The same God which wrought this gave Sathan leave to imitate it in the next verse The first Plague that God meant to inflict upon Pharaoh was delusion God can be content the Devil should win himself credit where he means to judge and holds the honour of a Miracle well lost to harden an Enemy Verse 12. Here we may see the end of Falsehood and Error at the last Truth shall devour it in Gods good time for great is truth and prevaileth Truth may be oppressed for a time God so pleasing either to punish or try his People but finally suppress'd it shall not be God being stronger than all his Enemies Moses than all Enchanters shall disperse all dusky Clouds bringing his glorious Truth out to bear sway again at his good pleasure Verse 17. This Plague God brought upon them for the Children which were drown'd and the River thus turned into bloud complained to God for that slaughter We may further note an encrease of terror in this Miracle above the former of the Serpents to signifie that where milder means will not serve God both can and will add sharper and heavier He encreaseth his crosses from Goods to Body from Body to Mind from our Selves to our Children and still maketh us abound with more want in greater and sharper measure that we may repent and return if not in the end he can destroy us with misery that never shall have an end Verse 20. First God begins his Judgements with Waters As the River Nilus was to Egypt instead of Heaven to moisten and fatten the Earth so their confidence was more in it than in Heaven Men are sure to be punish'd most and soonest in that which they make a corrival with God This change also of the Waters into bloud was an image of their future destruction They were afterward overwhelmed in the Red Sea and now before-hand they see the River red with bloud CHAP. VIII Verse 3. VVHat an Army is here against such a Prince God could have made use of Men or Angels But here he will confound the pride of such a conceited King by an Host of Frogs rather than by either of the other The Lord by contemptible and base things will cast down our high looks if we swell against him and of this he would have all high minds at this day to make use unto humility before they find it too late Verse 7. Gods Adversaries seek often to impugne the Truth by the self same means whereby he doth teach it As if Scripture be alledged Sathan will do the like Mat. 4. If the true Prophets use a Sign then will Zedekiah make him hornes too and say When went the Spirit from me to thee 1 Kings 22. 11. all which God doth suffer to draw us to true and sound knowledge without which we cannot stand but shall be shaken to and fro with doubts and fears most unfit for Believers Col. 1. 23. Verse 8. Let this Comfort Gods Ministers in the midst of all contempts that God is able to force the wicked to the acknowledgement of him and them In their extremities they shall acknowledge our Callings justifie our Love and wish our Prayers Thus many who at other times regard not Ministers either going to Sea or to Battel or being fick or vexed at home will send and seek for the Prayers of Gods Ministers And what is this but a sign of Gods omnipotent hand over all Pharaohs whatsoever and that he can revenge our contempts and give our truth and careful walking in our places a due regard and reverence when he will with them and in them But here it may be demanded Why did Pharaoh call now for Moses and Aaron rather than in the former Plague Why because this Plague touched him nearer than the former When the Rivers were Bloud he might have Wine to drink and so not feel the smart of that Plague Whence we see that howbeit other mens harmes should affect us yet unless the Lord touch our selves we are dull and dead without sense Which certainly makes God reach us a blow many times when otherwise he would spare us did we make but use of other mens miseries Verse 10. Wicked men do not only deferre their Duties from day to day but put over others also that offer good things unto them As for instance if a Preacher tender his service this Sunday he is told the next will be farre more fit and if he come the next Sunday then is either the Master from home the Gentlewoman sick the Weather too hot or cold or some such thing that be Moses never so ready yet Pharaoh is not ready but to morrow to morrow is still the Song till the Lord strike and all morrows end in their eternal torment Verse 14. The Lord could have taken the Frogs quite away but this was done to shew the truth of the Miracle that they were Frogs indeed and no Inchantments thereby to meet with the unbelief of the King
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
not admit changes in some places fix'd indeed in respect of Fundamentals but yet a moveable Pillar for things indifferent and arbitrary CHAP. XXXIV Verse 1. GOds Ministers by preaching and crying unto men may as it were hew their stony hearts that is prepare them for writing but only the Lord must write in them by the finger of his blessed Spirit and no man can make any thing enter without him Paul may plant c. but God giveth the encrease Secondly as God did not write before the stones were hewed so no more assure your self will he ever in your heart set any good if you contemn the outward hewing and preparing of you by the Word in the Ministery of his Servants Thirdly by the former Tables broken and these new made some have thought to be figured the abrogation of the Law and establishing of the Gospel our old corruption which must be broken and our new Regeneration which must come in place Verse 8. The greater manifestation of God and his Truth is vouchsafed unto us the more ought we to humble our selves and be thankful worshiping that God which so mercifully dealeth with us Again when God gives signes of his presence let us make hast to him and not suffer him to passe away while we are hindred with this and that God gives signes of his Presence in the Word preach'd in the Sacrament in my heart by good Motions O let him not passe away but make hast as Moses here did bow down and worship Verse 9. God in the former verse had promised to be gracious and in this Moses fals to prayer to shew us that the Promises of God kindle Prayer Wherefore use when you are dull to pray to meditate upon the Promises of God general particular so many so sweet so full of power to enflame a heart half dead and when you feel the fire kindle then pray it will flame out at last Verse 13 It is you in the singular to signifie that publick things were to be done by publick persons the Altars here were to be pull'd down by Moses But for private matters private men may do them as Iacob purg'd his own House of his Wives Idols Private men to meddle with publick matters is dangerous Paul came to Athens and found an Altar yet he threw it not down Therefore beware of false Spirits that will rashly write of Reformation without tarrying for the Magistrate So every man may be a Magistrate and the sweet society of man with man turn'd to bloud and slaughter Some yet are too mild and they tell us Idolatry must be first taken out of the heart by true teaching 'T is true teaching must go before but what then is therefore the Magistrates work excluded No For are not the sins also of the second Table to be taken out of the heart by teaching and yet I hope the Magistrate may concurre with teaching and punish Theives and Murtherers Much more then in the first Table touching Gods Honour and Service Verse 29. Modest men are not carried away with knowledge of their own gifts but are as it were ignorant of them In matters of Almes the Lord saith Let not your right hand know what your left hand doth Verse 30. To note first that Ministers Faces that is their outward actions and words which appear to men should glister and shine So let your light shine that men may see your goodworks Secondly to shadow that the Law which Moses now represented is only bright and shining in the Face a meer outward Justification before men whereas the Righteousness of Christ is all glorious within and without Thirdly to teach that the Law lightneth the Conscience which is as the Face of the inward man making it see and know sin but it lightneth not the Mind by Faith to save from sin Christ only doth this by his Spirit Therefore saith the next verse the people fear'd and durst not approach The Law ever striking a terror into the hearts of them that behold their sins in it and by it Such a Fear there is in Guiltiness such Confidence in Innocency When the Soul is once clear'd from sin it shall run to that Glory with Joy the least glimpse whereof now appales it and sends it away in terrour Verse 35. Nihil in lege gloriosum habet Moses praeter solam faciem His hands were leprous by putting them into his bosome his feet also had no glory he being bid to put off his shooes and so by that Ceremony was to deliver the Spouse unto another But in the Gospel he appeared in the Mount with Christ totus glorificatus this sheweth the preheminence of the Gospel before the Law The Latine reads facies ejus erat cornuta but this is for the mistake of our Hebrew word Keren an Horn for Karan to shine Tostatus sayes the meaning of the Latine is emittebat radios sicut cornua This also shews the righteousness of the Law only a shining of the Face that is of the external Works before men The Vail over Moses signifies the blindness of the Iewes that when Moses is read they understand not the end of the Law CHAP. XXXV Verse 1. IF God had not been Friends with Israel he had not renewed his Law As the Israelites were wilfully blind if they did not see Gods anger in the Tables broken So could they not but hold it a good sign of Grace that God gave them his Testimonies There was nothing wherein Israel out-stripped the rest of the World more than in this Priviledge the pledge of his Covenant the Law written with Gods own hand Oh what a Favour then is it where God bestows his Gospel upon any Nation That was but a killing Letter this is the Power of God to Salvation Never is God throughly displeased with any People where that continues For like as those which purposed love when they fall off call for their tokens back again so when God begins once perfectly to mislike the first thing he withdraws is his Gospel Verse 21. It is a very great blessing to have an importunate Conscience to stirre us up in all good Duties Such a Conscience regards not what pleaseth us but what is good for us that it looketh too and that it perswadeth too and that it urgeth This blessing had these willing Israelites in the Text who gave freely to the building of the Tabernacle Observe here their Heart that is their Conscience stirr'd them up ye have Bracelets ye have Rings offer them sayes Conscience to further this pious Work in hand their Spirit made them willing their faithful Friend in their bosome Conscience overcame them with Arguments and strong perswasions This then must needs be a great Blessing to have such a faithful Conscience it will make a man part with all his Lusts Pride Self-love Covetousness carnal Delights for Gods Glory and our own true Good Verse 22. When God was once reconciled to his People in the Wilderness after their sin
down upon the Disciples in fiery Tongues for the propagation of the Gospel The promulgation of the Law makes way for the Law of the Gospel No man receives the Holy Ghost but he that hath felt the terrors of Sinai Verse 10. This being but one single sheaf that God demanded it might strike their hearts with a pious sense of his Goodness that giveth so much and taketh so little that giveth without measure and taketh by measure yea by a very small measure So let it still profit us to this day for even now also we receive much and give little would we give that little thankfully and chearfully what a comfort would God take in it Though he need none of our Goods only seeking to exercise our obedience and love Verse 11. This shaking of the sheaf before the Lord taught them to acknowledge that the blessing of new Corn every year cometh neither from the fertility of the ground nor the labour and industry of man but from the Lord. Verse 14. This Feast having its time assigned they could not enter upon their Harvest before it was full ready which by this time it would be unless they would either reap before they offered this first sheaf or offer it before the day appointed And so you see it had an use to restrain ill Husbands and to make them more careful that old Corn might be kept till new came A gracious God that will so care for sinful Man Verse 24. Some think that this Feast was instituted for a remembrance of the pardoning of that grievous Idolatry committed by erecting and worshipping the Golden Calf others that they might learn holy Assemblies to be appointed by the voice of God and if they then when they heard these Trumpets blow might think God called for them to the meeting why should not we now having our Bells for their Trumpets think God calleth for us to the Assemblies of the Faithful when we hear them ring in our Ears Surely I know a feeling heart doth and therefore cannot be quiet without going And upon this account this Feast might be a figure shewing how Christ by the preaching of the Gospel as by a loud Trumpet should be spread over the World and our Salvation by him In regard whereof the Prophets bids the Ministers lift up their voices like Trumpets Isai. 58. 1. Verse 34. The use of this Feast was to remember the Jews of their Estate when they had no Houses but lived in Tents or Tabernacles and Booths as also to preach unto them the Doctrine afterward delivered by the Apostle That here we have no abiding City but should reckon of our Honses as of Tabernacles for a time And might we not heretofore remember upon our Feasts our state past under cruelty bondage our wars and Dissentions in this Land the fall of our Friends and the change of many Houses our Imposions and Taxes and in a word very many Miseries and Calamities laying them to those then present times wherein we enjoyed Truth and Liberty of Conscience without either death or danger what a change was this to a Man that knoweth and feeleth the blessing Let us therefore do what we ought to do and what the Jews did thank God most heartily for the change and beseech him to restore us such times that in peace we may live in peace dye and in peace that never endeth live with him for ever Verse 37. These Feasts you may see were in remembrance for the most part of some benefits and mercies of God and therefore plainly teach us what a due duty from us to God it is to remember carefully and thankfully his loving favours shewed to us at any time upon any occasion Thus the stones were commanded to be set up by Ioshua 4. 6 7. for a sign to the Jews that when their Children should ask their Fathers c. CHAP. XXIV Verse 2. IN these times of Shadows and Figures those Lights signified that while they were thus used the true Light was not yet come by which all true Believers should be delivered from the darkness of Death And further this Light was a figure also of true Doctrine which ever must shine in the Church of God The Oyl Olive which they are commanded to bring must be pure likewise to shew that that Doctrine must have no mixture of Mans devices but be pure Verse 10. Though the Father of this Offender was a stranger an Egyptian yet God would not spare him how much less then his own people I mean Christians by Father and Mother Baptized in his Faith brought up in his fear hearers of his Word and Professors of it Secondly Though this Man committed this fault in his anger yet God spared him not how then do we excuse our Offences by our Anger saying it was in my wrath I said so or did so Verse 11. This Blaspheming was Cursing the other by the Name of God such as our fearful and Damnable Phrases are Gods Curse light on thee the Plague of God take thee which kind of Speaking is not only a breach of the Second Table concerning the love to our Neighbour but a breach also of the First Table by taking Gods most Holy Name in vain and then to use God in your Revenge and to make him a party or an Executioner of your Rage wishing that he may Curse and Plague where you will he being all Mercy all Goodness all Justice O what an encrease of your sin is this Verse 12. This grievous Offender is not winked at by them that heard him neither yet punished by them that had no Authority out of a colour of Zeal but he is orderly and by a right Zeal carried to Moses the Magistrate and his offence opened there Moses again although such a man yet will do nothing hastily in Judgement and especially touching Life but he will be advised by God and in the mean time committeth him to Ward Verse 14. By this Ceremony of putting their hands upon his Head the Lord made the Witnesses careful what they said for it taught them that if they bare false Witness then were they guilty of the Blood of him so shed but if they spake truly then as he that offered a Sacrifice by laying his Hand upon the head of it did cast his sins upon the Beast so they by that Ceremony laid his Blood upon his own head and they remained clear and blameless yea the whole Congregation by such Execution of Justice is cleansed So that when Phineas had slain the wicked Person it is said he turned the wrath of God from the Land Numb 25. and the killing of the wicked is called Victima Dei the sacrifice of God Isai. 34. Ier. 46. Verse 16. When the Lord will have the whole Congregation to stone him he maketh tryal of the zeal of all and teacheth all to concur with the Magistrate in love and liking of Justice and in furthering of it so far as belongeth to every mans place Whereas
of the Wave-offering belong'd to the Priest to teach him to serve the Lord with all their hearts their dearest affections intimated by the Breast and with all their might and strength typified in the shoulder and whereas it is here call'd the Heave-shoulder this signified the heaving of Christ upon the Cross and the heaving up of our heatts to God for so great benefits Verse 23. A set form of Prayer is lawful to be used whether publickly in the Church or privately in the Family and this is most strongly infer'd from hence if we consider the persons to whom this Commandement was given For this solemn form was set not for the simple sort or the most ignorant among the people but it was appointed to be pronounc'd by the Priests and that too not in a corner but in the Tabernacle of the Lord before many witnesses If any were able of themselves to conceive a Prayer certainly they were the Priests of the Lord whose lips must preserve knowledg Mal. 2. 7. and yet are they both allowed and prescrib'd to follow a set form in blessing the people And so likewise at their marching forward and at their standing still there were set forms injoyn'd Numb 10. 35 36. CHAP. VII Verse 8. THe service of the Gershonites was not so much as the service of the Sons of Merari and therefore Moses doth here proportion the assistance answerable to the service two Waggons and four Oxen to the Sons of Gershon but double the number to the Sons of Merari because their service was double to the others and their carriage as much more God knows what every one of his Children is able to bear and therefore proportions the burthen to the Back none of his shall be oppressed though press'd out of measure afflicted they may be and that in an high nature but never brought to despair left for a time but not forsaken for ever Ioseph may be shot at Gen. 49. 23. but he cannot be shot through His bow did abide in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Iacob verse 24. and thence his safety He used his Bow against his Enemies as David did his sling against Goliah who slung as if he had wrapt up God in his sling Verse 13. No quantity was here prescribed because it was a Free-will offering only it must be fine no Bran in it to shew the puriry of Christs Sacrifice and of our services through him by means of the Oyl of his Spirit and Incense of his Intercession Verse 19. In these words as before and in the words following we see what is offered Silver and Gold they spare nothing they bring the best they have Neither do they bring the best in a sparing manner but they deal bountifully and liberally Which teacheth us to serve God with the choicest and chiefest things we have and that in a large and liberal manner We read Exod. 36. that the people were so forward for the building and furnishing of the Tabernacles that the Workmen complained the People brought too much How far are we from this in our dayes The people bring more than enough for the work of the Lord. O that we might come but one degree behind them that it might be said our people bring enough The Israelites thought they never brought enough we think we never bring too little they offered more than they were commanded we bring no more than we are compell'd and constrain'd to bring They offered with a glad and chearful heart we will do no more than the Law urgeth or not so much They brought of the best we think the worst good enough for God and his Service and Ministers Verse 24. The Spirit of God thinks it not sufficient to set down what was offered in the general but takes notice of every mans particular offering to teach us first that we should apply these Examples to our selves and if we pass over one of them without regard yet we should take hold of the next Secondly to assure us that no man shall have that forgotten to the utmost of his praise who is any way forward in doing good because God will honour them that honour him 1 Sam. 2. All the good works of Gods children done to the setting forth of his glory the advancement of his Worship or the good of his Saints shall be punctually reckoned up and rewarded and as their deeds are here registred in the Book of God so the Doers of them are registred in the Book of Life CHAP. VIII Ver. 3. THe Lamps were placed over against the Candlestick which was over the Table in the Tabernacle and typified the Law of God enlightning the Church and People of God For the Commandement is a Lamp or Candle whereof there is no small use when Men go to Bed or rise betimes He that hath the Word of Christ richly dwelling in him may lay his Hand upon his Heart and say as one dying did Hic sat lucis here 's plenty of light Under the Law all was in Riddles Moses was veil'd and yet that saying was then verified Et latet lucet there was light enough to light Men to Christ the end of the Law Verse 10. There was Imposition of Hands upon the Levite under the Law and why not then upon the Minister under the Gospel Certainly the Ceremony is significant or else it had not been used by Gods people of the Old Testament nor yet by us that are his People of the New And thus much it may import when the Reverend Man laies his Hand on thy Head remember thou art then manumniz'd from all secular ties and sequestred no less from the callings of the People than their vices thou art then brought before the Lord as it is in the Text and dedicated wholly to his Service and certainly the Holy impression of Episcopal Hands set on from above is such an Elixar as by contraction if there be any disposition of goodness in the baser mettal it will render it of the property Verse 14. The Levites are here said to be Gods after a more peculiar and special manner than the rest of the People were For though all the Congregation is Holy even as the Levites all the People of God sanctified as well as his Priests which was the saying of Corah and his Complices and it was true yet they were not sanctified to the same degree of Holiness with the Priests but they sicut populus as Gods people these Sicut Aaron as his peculiar servants they are holy it is true but these Holiest of Holies Hence it was that when the Law kept ordinations certain pieces of the Sacrifices were put into the Priests hands and now instead of that a Bible into ours not only as a Rule to direct but as a sacred Witness of that profession into which we are by a Divine hand invested Verse 17. All the first-born of the Children of Israel are mine saith God
Law to their hands and before their eyes wherein as St. Ierome and Theodoret well interpret it God meant the meditations and practice of his Law but they like unto the foolish Patient which when the Physitian bids him take such a Prescript eats up the paper they rested in the fringe and not in the garment in the Ceremony not in the Law For if these Jews could but get a list of Parchment upon their left arm next their heart and another scroll to tye upon their fore-head and four corners of Fringe or if these be denied a red thread in their hand though they might say with Saul 1 Sam. 16. Blessed be thou of the Lord I have fulfilled the command of the Lord. CHAP. XVI Verse 1. I See the Levites not long since drawing their Swords for God and Moses against the rest of Israel and that Fact wins them both praise and blessing now they are the forwardest in the rebellion against Moses and Aaron men of their own Tribe There is no assurance of a man for one act whom one sin cannot fasten upon another may yea the same sin may find a repulse one while from the same hand which another time gives it entertainment and that yeildance looseth the thank of all the former resistance It is no praise to have done once well unless we continue We see here likewise that outward priviledges of Blood can avail nothing against a particular calling of God These Reubenites had the right of the natural primogeniture yet do they vainly challenge preheminence where God hath subjected them If all civil honour flow from the King how much more from the God of Kings his hand exalts the poor and casts down the mighty from their Throne the man that will be lifting up himself in the pride of his heart from under the foot of God is justly trodden in the dust Verse 2. There cannot be conceived an honour less worth emulation than this principality of Israel a people that could give nothing a people that had nothing but in hope a people whom their leader was fain to feed with Bread and Water which paid him no tribute but of ill words whose command was nothing but a burthen and yet this dignity had drawn together in a mutinous way 250 Captains of Israel What wonder is it that the Ten-Rulers prevail so much with the multitude to disswade them from Canaan when three Traytors prevailed thus with 250 Rulers famous in the Congregation and men of renown one man may kindle such a fire as all the World cannot quench One Plague-sore may infect a whole Kingdom the infection of evil is much worse than the act It is not like those Leaders of Israel could err without followers He is a mean man that draws not some Clients after him It hath been ever a dangerous policy of Sathan to assault the best he knew that the multitude as we say of Bees will follow their Master Verse 3. Moses and Aaron you take too much upon you was the cry of a Jew once and so it is still by many now a dayes who would manacle and confine them only to an Ecclesiastick power and divest them quite of any civil Authority though Moses had both according to St. Aug. in 98 Psal. and David also placeth Moses among the Priests Ps. 99. 6. Verse 5. Moses argues not for himself but appeals to God neither speaks for his own right but his Brother Aarons he knew that Gods immediate service was worthy to be more precious than his Government Good Magistrates are more tender over Gods honour than their own and more sensible of the wrongs offered to Religion than themselves And Moses took the best course to appeal to God It is safest to trust God with his own cause If Aaron had been set up by Israel Moses would have sheltred him under their Authority now that God did immediatly appoint him his patronage is sought whose the Election was We may easily faulter in the managing of Divine affairs and so our want of success cannot want sin God knows how to use how to bless his own means Verse 9. As there was a difference betwixt the people and Levites so betwixt the Levites and Priests The God of order loves to have our degrees kept Whiles the Levites would be looking up to the Priests Moses sends down their Eyes to the people The way not to repine at those above us is to look at those below us There is no better remedy for ambition than to cast up our former receits and so compare them with our deservings and confer our own Estate with Inferiors so shall we find cause to be thankful that we are above any rather than of envy that any is above us Verse 12. Moses hath chid the Sons of Levi for mutinying against Aaron and so much the more because they were of his own Tribe now he sends for the Reubenites which rose against himself they come not and their Message is worse than their absence Moses is accused of Injustice Cruelty Falsehood Treachery Usurpation and Egypt it self shall be commended rather than Moses want a reproach Innocency is no shelter from ill tongues Malice never regards how true an accusation is but how spiteful Verse 15. Now it was time for Moses to be angry they durst not have been thus bold if they had not seen his mildness Lenity is ill bestowed upon stubborn natures it is an injurious sencelesness not to feel the wounds of our reputation It well appears Moses is angry when he prayes against them He was displeased before but when he was most bitter against them he still prayed for them but now he bends his very prayers against them Look not to their Offering there can be no greater revenge than the imprecation of the righteous there can be no greater judgement than Gods rejection of their services With us men what more argues the dislike of the person than the turning back of his present What will God accept from us if not Prayers Verse 22. The same Tongue that prayed against the Conspirators prayes for the people as lewd men think to carry it with number Corah had so far prevail'd that he had drawn the multitude to his side God the avenger of Treasons would have consumed them at once Moses and Aaron pray for the Rebels although they were worthy of Death and nothing but Death could stop their mouths yet their merciful Leaders will not buy their own peace with the loss of such Enemies O rare and imitable mercy the people rise up against their Governors their Governors fall on their faces to God for the people so far are they from plotting revenge that they will not endure God shall revenge for them Verse 27. Moses had well hoped that when these Rebels should see all the Israelites run from them as from Monsters and should hear that direful Proclamation of Vengeance against them howsoever they did before set a face on their Conspiracy yet
It is the duty of all Inferiors to Reverence their Superiors in gesture in word and in deed because Superiors bear the Image of God and are to their inferiors in Gods place as Moses was to Aaron when God said Exod. 4. Thou shalt be unto him instead of God And therefore we see the place of subjection is not an unlawful Calling and that Christianity doth not abolish Magistracy and Civil Authority but rather ratifie and establish it Verse 6. Marriage is not to be inforc'd upon any either by the Magistrate or Parents Gen. 24. 57. 1 Cor. 7. 39. For this were to exeercise Tyranny over our Children For as Children are to have the consent of their careful Parents and not to dare to bestow themselves without their advice so likewise Parents ought to have the consent of their Children and not bestow them upon others against their wills for that were to lay an evill foundation and to fill the House with jars and dissentions and their Children with misery who will begg with better will where they like than live without love in abundance Verse 8. Every Daughter shall be a Wife unto one of the Family which teacheth us that however the marrying of many Wives was practised among the Patriarks and people of God yet this is the Law of Nature that one man should have one Wife and not Wives But the main point we learn from hence is That the Inheritance of the Children of Israel must remain and continue in one and the same Tribe Now if it be the Ordinance of God that every man keep his proper Inheritance then certainly distinction of Inheritance is agreeable to his Word We are taught likewise from this Text that Parents should provide for their Daughters as well as Sons and not to leave them to the wide World especially in these our dayes wherein more enquiry is made after what they have than what they are and what Goods are without them than what good qualities are within Nature teacheth that if any Member be weak it is chiefly to be strengthened the Woman is the weaker and therefore needeth to be supported Verse 10. These Daughters of Zelophehad obey the Judgement of Moses and marry in their Tribe teaching us at this day to rest in the determination of the Magistrate and not to run from Court to Court only in malice and a contentious spirit till we have enrich'd others and beggar'd our selves There may be sometimes an use of Appeal or going about again upon better light but let not reasons be pretended when they are not to satisfie our malice or revenge For God seeth and he being the God of peace will ever shew his dislike of Quarrelling and Contention A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE FIFTH BOOK OF MOSES CALLED DEUTERONOMY CHAP. I. Verse 22. I Cannot but wonder at the Counsel of God If the Israelites had gone to Canaan without enquiry their confidence had possessed it now they send to espy the Land sixty thousand of them never lived to see it and yet I see God in Numbers 13. enjoyning them to send but enjoyning it upon their instance Some things God allows in Judgement their importunity and distrust extorted from God this occasion of their overthrow That which the Lord moves unto prospers but that which we move him to first seldom succeedeth What needed they doubt of the goodness of that Land which God told them did flow with Milk and Honey what needed they doubt of obtaining that which God promised to give When we will send forth our senses to be our Scouts in matter of Faith and rather dare trust men than God we are worthy to be deceived Verse 27. Now was Moses in danger of losing all the cost and care that ever he bestowed upon Israel his people are already gone back to Egypt in their hearts and their bodies are returning O ye rebellious Hebrews where shall God have you at last Did ever Moses promise to bring you to a fruitful Land without Inhabitants to give you a rich Country without resistance are not the Graves of Canaan as good as those of Egypt What can ye but dye at the hands of the Anakims can ye hope for less from the Egyptians is there less hope from the Enemies that shall be when you go under strong and expert Leaders than from the Enemies that were when ye shall return masterless feeble minds when they meet with Crosses they lookt not for repent of their good beginnings and wish any difficulty rather than that they find How many have pull'd back their foot from the narrow way for the troubles of a good Profession Verse 28. It had been happy for Israel if Caleb's Counsel had been as effectual as good but how easily have these Rulers discouraged a faint-hearted people Instead of lifting up their Ensigns and marching towards Canaan they set them down and murmur I fear if there had been ten Calebs to perswade and but two faint Spies to discourage them those two Cowards would have prevailed against those ten Solicitors how much more now ten oppose and but two incourage An easie Rhetorick draws us to the worse part yea it is hard not to run down the Hill The faction of evill is so much stronger in our nature than that of good that every least motion prevails for the one scarce any suit for the other Verse 34. That God which was invisibly present whiles those Israelites sinn'd when they have sinn'd shews himself glorious and full of power They did not believe before that he was able to bring them into that good Land of Canaan now they shall believe but never enter They might have seen God before that they should not sin now they cannot choose but see him in the height of their sin unusually terrible that they may with shame and horror confess him able to defend able to revenge The help of God useth to shew its self in extremity he that can prevent evils conceals his ayde till dangers be ripe and then he is fearful as before he seem'd connivent Verse 37. What a weary life did Moses lead in these continual successions of Conspiracies What did he gain by his troublesome Government but danger and despight Who but he would not have wish'd himself rather with the sheep of Iethro than with these Wolves of Israel but as he durst not quit his Shepheards crook without the calling of God so now he dare not his Scepter except he be dismiss'd of him that call'd him no troubles no oppositions can drive him from his place we are too weak if we suffer men to chase us from that station where God hath set us But what was this noted sin here that deserved Gods anger Israel murmured for water God bids Moses take the Rod in his hand and speak to the Rock to give Water Moses instead of speaking and striking the Rock with his voice strikes it with his Rod here was his sin an over-reaching of his Commission a fearfulness and
many other examples alledg'd to teach us that it is lawful to gather an Hoast to put on Armour to guird our selves with the Sword and to joyn in Battel with our Enemies Those then that are call'd to be Souldiers must learn from hence not to be feeble and faint-hearted but to be bold as in the work of the Lord. True Religion doth not weaken the hearts of Men and make them Cowards For first it teacheth and informeth the Conscience that the cause of the War is good just and warrantable by the Word of God without which knowledge in the heart how ugly how foul how cruel a thing is the effusion and shedding of Blood Secondly as true Religion establisheth the Conscience touching the lawfulness of War so it teacheth them to commit themselves and their lives into the hands of God as to a faithful keeper and to be perswaded if they Conquer they conquer to the Lord if they be wounded and fall they fall and dye unto the Lord. CHAP. XXI Verse 6. THe Jews were much used to outward Washings and vainly imagined that those were sufficient to cleanse them throughout And here the washing of their hands over the Heifer was as much as to say the guilt of innocent Blood doth no more stick to my Conscience than the filth now washed off doth to my fingers But what Pharisaical washing is this to purifie the hands and pollute the heart O Ierusalem Ierusalem wash thy heart from wickedness saith the Prophet Ier. 4. And cleanse your hands you sinners was the Apostles Exhortation Iames 4. but withall Purifie your he arts ye double-minded and this for many reasons For First God and Nature ever begin at the heart it is the first thing that lives and the last that dyes and therefore it is the first the Devil gives assault to and the last that he gives over Secondly Were there never a Devil the heart hath an ill Spirit of its own to trouble it and had we neither hands eyes nor feet our hearts would find the way to Hell and therefore there is great reason we should look to purge and cleanse that for if this Spring this Fountain be clean the streams that flow from it will be so too Verse 12. Secular Learning is not so Heathenish but it may be made Christian as this Captive in the Text was not such an Infidel but she might become a Convert and part of the Israel of God Aristotle and Plato and Seneca are not of such a Reprobate sence as to stand wholly excommunicate in the Christian Church For Aristotles Metaphysicks may help to convince an Atheist of a God and his Demonstrations prove Shiloes advent to a Jew And therefore though it is true the Scripture was ever the Levites predominant Element yet if you will make him a perfect mixt body the Arts also are to be necessary Ingredients And upon this account when Adrian the sixth in his Tract De vera Philosophia cries down humane Learning with a noise of Fathers yet he concludes Utilem esse scientiam Gentilium dummodo in usum Christianum convertatur that to shave and pare the captive Woman and then Espouse her was ever held lawful Matrimony Verse 13. The Wicked Mans Wine is best at first the good Mans at last the Devil deals by the one as Iael by Sifera speaks them fair at first till he hath lull'd them a sleep in security and then he involves them in misery But God doth by his Children as the Hebrew was to do by the captive Woman in this Text which he had a desire to Marry at first he appointeth us a time of Mourning but afterwards he vouchsafes us the fruition of himself in glory The freshest Rivers of Carnal Pleasure shall end in a salt Sea of despairing Tears whereas the wettest Seed-time of a pious Life shall end in the Sun-shining Harvest of a peaceful Death In a word the Transgressor how pleasant soever his beginnings be his last end shall be dolorous but the upright how troublesome soever his Life be his death shall be joyous For the end of that man is peace Psalm 37. CHAP. XXII Verse 1. IF thou must not suffer thy Brothers Ox or his Ass to go astray much less maist thou suffer his Soul but thou must endeavour in all Christian wisdom and meekness to reduce it from the dangerous precipeces both of sin and error Thou must pull thy Brother out of Hell as the Angel pull'd Lot out of Sodom as ye would save a drowning man though ye pull'd off some of his hair to save him Neither must we of the Gospel be merciful only to our Brother but also to our Enemy This is an hard task you will say but hard or not hard it must be done be it never so contrary to our foul nature We must seal up our love to our Enemies by all good expressions which are to be referr'd to these three heads First We must bless them speak kindly to them and of them they must have our good word Secondly We must do good to them i. e. be ready to help and relieve them upon all occasions Thirdly We must pray for them that God would pardon their sins and turn their hearts This was our Saviours precept to love our Enemies and the same also was his practice He melted over Ierusalem the slaughter-house of himself and his Saints and was grieved at the hardness of their hearts Next for Words he prayed Father forgive them and for deeds he not only not call'd fire from Heaven or Legions of Angels against them but did them all good for Bodies and Souls for he heal'd Malchus ear wash'd Iudas his feet like that good Samaritan he was at pains and cost with them Now if we would be Christs Disciples we must follow his example do good not to our Brethren only but also to our very Enemies Verse 10. This and the following Verses forbid all mixture and Toleration in Religion we must keep our selves to one God and serve him and none with him If Baal be God follow him saith Eliah 1 King 18. and if the Lord be God follow him how long will ye hault between two Opinions It is a foul-imperfection to hault yet more shameful long to hault most of all between two wayes and miss them both To be inconstant in Civil matters which are in their own Nature inconstant is weakness But in Religion which is alwaies constant and one and the same to be unsetled is the greatest folly in the World for he that is not assured of one Religion is sure to be saved by none And there fore it is very strange to me that in this glorious light of the Gospel now among us which we so much boast of we should see so many Bats flying which a Man cannot tell what to make of whether Birds or Mice These are Plantanimals like the wonderful sheep in Muscovy Epicens they are Amphibia animalia Creatures that sometimes live in the Waters
a sweeter note than Soul take thine ease Luke 12. Verse 15. God that bids us to give one another good measure and running over doth look not to be pinched and scantled at our hands as if we counted all too much that he or his are to receive How he liketh such dealings his Law will teach us wherein oftentimes he requireth that his Offerings be of the best without blemish Add to this the solemn protestation which God required here at every Mans hands what time he made his account When thou hast made an end of Tything saith God Verse 12. then thou shalt say I have not eat thereof in my mourning for any necessity whatsoever nor suffered ought to perish by putting it to any prophane usage or carelesly testing it to be spoil'd but have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God and done after all that thou in this case hast commanded me Look down therefore from thy holy habitation even from Heaven and bless me God will have him know he must look no otherwise to be blessed of God and made to prosper in all that he had but according as God knowing the secrets of all hearts did know that he had dealt truly and justly with God and his Ministers in this point Verse 18. Seeing God may be in the mouths of many where he is not in the heart we learn from hence to joyn to our outward profession true Sanctification and inward holiness of Conversation True Profession bringeth with it true Godliness For all such as have this honour given unto them to be the People of God and his precious inheritance must be an holy people Thou hast set up the Lord this day to be thy God and the Lord hath set thee up this day to be a precious people unto him Let us therefore not content our selves to have God in our mouths but labour to be sincere and first of all to look to our hearts he that looketh to have good Fruit of his Trees looketh to the Roots he that would have clear Waters in the Channels looketh to the Fountains so if we cleanse our wayes in Gods sight this is the right order to be observed to begin first to cleanse the heart CHAP. XXVII Verse 15. THe People here were commanded to say Amen to every branch of the Curse because though it be the lowest way of obedience to obey in regard we believe the truth and certainty of the Curse yet it is an high act of obedience to believe it for Satan is as busie against our Faith in the threatnings as he is against our Faith in Promises This unbelief opens the way to the committing of sin and sweetens sin while we are committing it and therefore the Holy Ghost would have us in the first place to say Amen to the Curse that so we might not say Amen to the Sin Verse 17. How hainous a thing this is appears by the Curse annex'd to it by the Holy Ghost O therefore beware of this Caninus appetitus this Dogg-like greediness to swallow up all we can if Dives is Tormented Quia cupide servavit sua What shall be his portion Qui avide rapit aliena if those Fists which too closely keep their own shall be cut off what shall become of those hands that are opened to grasp other mens Estates we see all Creatures know and keep their bounds fishes the Water Beasts the Earth Birds the Ayre let men learn of them but especially let them remember that if it be a sin with an Anathema to remove our Neighbours what is it to alienate the Churches bounds O take heed of a sacrilegious surfeit a disease so perilous that envy its self cannot wish a worse to an Enemy 〈◊〉 iâ— Lord Burleigh gave advice to his Son that he should build no great House upon any Impropriation well knowing it would be built upon a sandy foundation surely for the spoils of the Church private Families yea the whole Nation mourns Verse 24. Those that are cursed in this Verse are such as go about and make baâ—e between Man and Man those Incendiaries that carry Tales that whisper against their Brethren and smite in secret buzzing into mens ears false and scandalous reports to engender strife These are an accursed Generation of people the mouth of God curseth them and his Soul abhors them Prov. 6. Besides as they stand accursed of God men must curse them too as you see here God gives all his people leave to Curse such a one Cursed be he that smites his Neighbour in secret that backbites him and speaks evil of him in a corner slily so to work him out of the good opinions of others and all the people shall say Amen Lo this is the wretched state and condition of all such as breed bate and dissentions between party and party Heaven and Earth concur in a Curse against them CHAP. XXVIII Verse 2. THough strangers may have some portion of Temporal blessings yet the right of Inheritance belongs to the Sons of God Riches and Honours delights and pleasures life and length of dayes Seed and Posterity are entail'd on such as are truly believing and fear the Lord and however the ungodly may lay some claim unto them and that by some kind of right from God as a sustainer of his Creatures yet can he not enjoy them with any great comfort as wanting the best title through the want of Christ. Verse 6. Between these two are contained all the labours and undertakings of this people by their going forth is meant the beginning of their labours and by their coming in is meant the end and conclusion of their labours so that beginning and ending when they set their hands to a business and when they took their hands from a business they should be blessed that is they should have a through blessing upon all their labours Thus doth God bless his people in their goings out and coming in at their birth and at their death and through all the actions and traverses of their lives Verse 15. The same blessings and Curses are repeated here that are recorded Lev. 26. and this most effectually to move any heart that hath grace Wherefore it is requisite that as God repeats the same again so we should read and meditate of it again and again that it may powerfully perswade us to be wise and take time while time serves to turn unto the Lord while his arm is stretched out to receive us This Verse also and indeed the whole Chapter may assure us that sin will have plagues first or last and therefore when they happen complain of sin and not of God remembring that there is no reason at all that we should grieve that God that will not hear us when we our selves will not hear God Or why sigh we that God will not look down to the Earth when we our selves will not look up to Heaven We can despise his precepts and yet we think much that he should despise our
very word Subah they would have returned in sackcloth and ashes And so likewise in the 80. Psalme Turn us again O Lâ—rd saith David and we shall be saved There goes no more to salvation but such a turning So that this returning of the Lord is an operative an effectual returning that turns our hearts and eyes and hands and feet to the waies of God and produceth in us repentance and obedience Verse 3. At what time soever man repents of his sins from the bottom of his heart at that very time God will repent of the judgment he intended against that man And thus here when Gods People should be carried away captive into any strange Land if then in their captivity they would turn unto God God would immediately turn unto them For the only reason why God doth not repent of the evil of punishment is because we do not repent of the evil of sinne the onely reason why God delayes to turn away his wrath is because we delay to turn unto him We cry How long Lord how long when wilt thou have mercy upon England and God calls How long O England how long when will you turn unto me with all your heart when will it once be Jer. 13. I appeal to your consciences that read this is it fit God should cease fighting against you by the sword before you cease fighting against him by your sins but if ye would turn unto God let me assure you the very same day that you turn God will turn You have Scripture for it Hag. 2. 18. nay let me tell you the very minute that you begin to repent God will repent Ier. 18. 7 8. At what instant I shall say to a nation c. as a personal repentance is a meanes to obtain a personal salvation so a national repentance is a meanes to obtain a national salvation at that very instance that thou turnest from thy sin God will turn from his anger and have compassion on thee Verse 10. The Decrees of God are not all of them absolute but many of them conditional If thou wilt hearken unto the Lord thy God and keep his Commandments saith the Text then the Lord will blesse thee and rejoyce over thee for good c. And though this condition be not alwaies exprest yet it is to be understood of course there are some Promises absolutely exprest in Scripture but yet made upon condition and so to be understood as some threatnings are made upon condition of impenitency so are some promises upon condition of obedience Yet fourty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Jonah 3. 4. the Threatning seems to be absolute and definite yet to be understood with this reserve unlesse Nineveh repent So for Promises though Gods decree concerning Elies house seemed to be most absolute I said indeed that thy house should walk before me for ever 1 Sam. 2. yet that God intends a condition is most plain because God adds the condition verse 30. of that Chapter so that you see whether God doth threaten a Judgement or promise a Mercy to his People all is upon Condition that is the steer the rudder that guides all Verse 12. Who shall go unto heaven for us Who but the Son of man which is in heaven Who but those that have in some measure the knowledge of God in Christ which is life eternall heaven before hand let there be therefore continual ascentions thither in our hearts let us lift up hearts and hands to God in heaven and He will shortly send his chariots for us as Ioseph did for his Father and convoy us thither In the mean space how should we every day take a turn or two with Christ upon mount Tabor get up to the top of Pisgath with Moses and take a prospect of heaven turn every solemnity into a schoole of Divinity say as one said when he heard a good consort of musick what musick may we think there is in heaven This this is the principal end and most profitable use of all the Creatures when they become ladders and wings to us to mount up to heaven CHAP. XXXI Verse 2. WE heard before the sin of Moses and Aaron speaking unadvisedly with their lips and striking the rock doubtfully with their hands and therefore the Lord doth here punish Moses and deny him enterance into the promised Land Thou shalt not go over Iordan from which we are taught that God chastiseth his own Children sinning against him thus when David had committed that grand complicated sin in the matter of Uriah by murther and adulterey though he were a man after Gods own heart yet the Lord raised evil against him out of his own house the sword of the enemy departed not from his house his own wives were defiled in the sight of the Sun Now God doth thus chastise his Children least they sinning with the men of this world should be condemned with them for as in punishing us he respects his own justice so also our own good and the great profit which thereby is brought unto us for if we should alwayes enjoy health and liberty peace and plenty we should kick against the Almighty and bitterly esteem the Rock of our Salvation Wherefore affliction is as the messengers of God to call us back from sin to wean us from this World and to kindle in us a desire of the World to come Gods afflictions are our remembrancers and his corrections our instructions And besides we must needs confess from hence that great is the wrath and anger of God for sin seeing he punisheth it so sharply and sincerely in his own children whom he hath engraven as a signet on the palm of his hand and whom he tenders as the apple of his own eye Verse 3. Whereas it is said here that Ioshua should go over before the people as the Lord had said we are taught that Magistrates have their calling and hold their places immediately from God for the good of the people Solomon was set in his throne by God himself not by the high Priest or the People and it is said of David that God chose him from the Sheepfold to feed his people Iacob and Israel his inheritance Psal. 18. The same likewise was spoke of Saul a wicked King the Lord hath annointed thee to be governour of his inheritance 1 Sam. 10. So then Kings hold of God in chief and not of men and upon this ground they are to give up their accounts to God only and not to man For as they are next and immediate unto God and inferiour to none but him so for all their actions they shall reckon with him and if you object that of 1 Pet. 2. 13. Where the People calleth it an ordinance of man I answer the Magistrate is so called not because men are the authors of it or may dissolve it but first because men do execute it and not God or the Angels secondly because it is ordained for the use benefit and profit of
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
discovers our adulterate coin by that silver touch-stone of his law he that created the light and darkness must needs know both he seeth the exteriour Acts thy light before men he vieweth the hidden vaults and recesses of that mind the darkness of thy heart therefore his law here is called a law of fire he pleadeth in flames by this fire he examineth thy dissembled humilation and repentance thy solemn devotions the stubble and trash of thy performances Verse 8. In this Chapter Moses blessing the twelve Tribes gives to each a benediction proper and peculiar to its self All but Levi in this Text were for temporall ends and their Legacies are answerable Moses gives them as much as they care for Zebulun and Issachar shall be filled with the Treasures of the Sea and Land and that 's enough to stop their mouths Benjamin shall be blessed with repose security and heel gladly sit down with that But now it is not wealth nor ease nor honour that best suits with the Ephod All worldly blessings are jewels of too low a price too faint a blaze and lustre to be set there And therefore of Levi 't is said here let thy Thummim and thy Urim be upon thy holy one That that is conferred upon Levi must be divine and heavenly Urim and Thummim Perfection and Illumination and both must proceed from God after a peculiar manner and therefore 't is said in the Text thy Urim and thy Thummim and thy holy One. And so it is not our own perfection nor innate holinesse nor our own illumination or private spirit neither is this holy One one of our own making any invention of man but an Order founded by God himself Verse 9. Though God do not call us as he did Abraham to offer up our Children yet he requires us sometimes to neglect both Children and parents and all natural relations for his sake and surely in such a case Piet as est impium esse pro Domino It is piety towards God to be unnatural to our friends Our blessed Saviour hath told us He that loveth Father or Mother more then me is not worthy of me Mat. 10. Another Evangelist useth a more harsh expression he that cometh to me and hateth not all these Luke 14. Strange that love its self should require hatred but yet just not in an absolute but comparative sense we must not love Father or Mother more then him yea when their desires come in competition with his will we must hate them for him we must say with Levi here nesio vos I know ye not trampling under foot all natural relations which would hinder us from obedience to divine inventions Verse 27. God is with his Children as Christ was with Peter when ready to sink into the Sea stretching forth his hand to uphold him the Lord is with us saith the Psalmist what follows the God of Iacob is our refuge divine presences exempt not from but is a refuge in the storme to this purpose Moses expression here is yet fuller a mans hand put under the chin keeps him from sinking into the water much more can the arms of a God uphold us in troubles and therefore these two are fitly joyn'd together Fear thee not for I am with thee I will strengthen thee yea I will help yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my Righteousness Isa. 41. 10. CHAP. XXXIV Vers. 4. GOd was to the Jews in general as he was to his principal servant amongst them Moses he saw the Land of Promise but he entred not into it the Jews saw Christ but imbraced him not Abraham saw his day and rejoyced they saw it i. e. they might have seen it but wincked at it Iudaei habuere jus mendicandi saith a Father The Iewes had a licence to beg they had a Brief and might gather they had a Covenant and might plead with God but they did not and therefore though they were inexcusable for their neglect of the light of nature and more inexcusable for resisting the light of the Law yet that they and we might be absolutely inexcusable if we continued in darkness after that God set up another light the light of the Gospel Verse 6. As God would not suffer Moses his body to be seen when it was dead because then it could not speak to them it could not instruct them it could not direct them in any duty if they transgressed from any so God himself would not be spoken to by us but when he speaks himself in his word where he is dumb we must be so too and therefore though there are decrees in God yet they speak not to us at all till God himself exemplifie them in the execution of them we must not then busie our selves in an over-curious and impertinent inquisition after the unrevealed decrees of God but content our selves with those writings in which he hath declared and manifested himself to us The End of the Five Books of Moses