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
things in the use they in the future because they shall come to an end these in the present because they doe continue Oh that men would look to things that are eternal for they are good here and will be better hereafter CHAP. XLIII Verse 1. THis Land where the Famine now was was Canaan Gods own Inheritance the Land which he had promised should flow with Milk and Hony yet here was a Famine and at that time when his own Children his Israel and the first the very best of those Children dwelt in the Land Gods own People must want when his Enemies the Egyptians had enough and to spare From whence we may learn that neither Gods Love nor his disaffection is to be judged by the things of this world Outward appearance is an ill signe to try the favours of God by for his Face his outward appearance was most grim most severe against his own Son our blessed Saviour who drunk a more bitter Cup from the hand of his Father against which he prayed Father if it be possible let this Cup passe from me than that of Gall and Vinegar which was offered him by the Iews Let therefore the wicked the Egyptians the Enemies of Gods Church how prosperous how secure how plentiful soever their condition may seem to be in this life remember this in the midst of their jollity that their Master the Devil gives them pleasant entrances into his wayes but reserves the bitterness for the end we may say of their plenty as we use to say of some ill tasted meat or drink the prosperity of the wicked hath a scurvy tang with it an ill come off On the other side let Gods Israel his Children how sad how dejected how much soever in want they seem to be remember this in the midst of their misery that though the first handsel that God gives them in the Land of Promise be a Famine yet in the end they shall overflow with the Milk and Honey of Canaan Verse 3. Benjamin was the beloved Son of his Father and so is Christ no seeing the face of God unlesse we bring our Benjamin our beloved Brother along with us And therefore whatever entercourse we have with God we must have Christ with us We must not offer Sacrifice without the High-Priest Let us offer nothing to God without Christ There is no appearing before God no commerce between God and us untll we be reconciled in Christ in whom we must offer all our Sacrifices and endeavours We must not then own an absolute God in our devotions we must not think of making any addresses to God but as he is reconciled in Christ and at peace with us in Christ and so our Persons and Prayers and all shall be accepted in the Person of Christ who is the true Mercy-seat the beloved Benjamine in looking upon whom God frees us from the curse of the Law Verse 9. Christ descended lineally from Iudah who in this particular of suretiship was a type of Christ For as Iudah here did engage to his Father Iacob for his Brother Benjamin so did our blessed Saviour to his Father for us and was our Security for the payment both of our debt and duty both for our sins and our obedience And as Christ was our Surety to God for the discharge of our debt the Security and Debtor in Law are reputed as one Person so he is Gods Surety to us for the performance of his Promises Christ was the Surety of the first Covenant to pay that debt of the second Covenant to perform the Duty Verse 11. Old Iacob that was not used to simple and absolute Contentments receives the blessing of seasonable provision together with the affliction of that heavy message the losse of one Son and the danger of another and knows not whether it be better for him to die with hunger or with grief for the departure of that Son of his right hand He drives off all till the last protraction is a kind of ease in evils that must come At length as no plea is so importunate as that of Famine Benjamin must goe one evil must be hazarded for the redress of another What would it avail him to see whom he loved miserable How injurious were the affection to keep his Son so long in his eye till they should see each other die for hunger And therefore the ten Brothers doe now return into Egypt with double money in their Sacks and a Present in their hands the danger of mistaking is required by honest minds with more than restitution It is not enough to find out our own hearts clear in suspicious actions except we satisfie others Verse 12. If this were an oversight then restitution was necessary we must not any wayes defraud or over-reach our Brother Whatever you would that men should doe unto you so doe unto them said our Saviour Matth. 7. 12. If we would not have others wrong us why should we wrong them that former saying of Christs must be the general rule of direction in common conversation and mutual interdealings one with another That is the royal Law the Standard of all equity in this kind according to which we must converse with all men Verse 23. Iosephs Steward would never have spoken so reverently of the God of the Hebrews but that he was so taught of Ioseph who was careful to instruct his family in the right way So did Abraham Gen. 18. 18. and Iacob Gen. 34 and so should we Verse 34. Now hath Ioseph what he would the sight and presence of his Benjamin whom he therefore borrows of his Father for a time that he might return him with a greater interest of joy And now he feasts them whom he formerly threatned and turns their fear into wonder all unequal love is not partial all the Brethren are entertained bountifully but Benjamin hath a fivefold portion By how much his welcome was greater by so much his pretended theft seem'd more hainous For good turns aggravate unkindnesses and our offences are increas'd with our obligations CHAP. XLIV Verse 1. FIll the mens sacks with food as much as they can carry said Ioseph here to his Steward look how they came prepared with sacks and Beasts so they were sent back with Corn the greater and the more sacks they had prepared the more Corn they carried away if they had prepared but small sacks and a few they had carried away the lesse A prepared heart is a vessel that shall be fill'd at a Sermon or the Sacrament Now the more or lesse the heart is prepared the greater or lesser the vessel according to the size and capacity of the vessel shall it be fill'd Fill such mens hearts with special blessings with vertue from Christ with the comfort of the holy Ghost sayes the Lord at a Sermon or the Sacrament fill them with special food as full as they can hold as much as they can carry Let us be careful to prepare our hearts to the purpose
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
corruption were but in man and other Creatures were flesh as well as man but man is every creature because as Gregory saith Omnis creaturae differentia in homine all the properties and qualities of all other creatures how remote and distant how contrary soever in themselves yet they all meet in man In man if he be a flatterer you shall find the grovelling and crawling of the Snake and in man if he be ambitious you shall find the high flight and piercing of the Eagle in a voluptuous sensual man you shall find the earthliness of the Hogg and in a licentious man the intemperance and distemper of the Goat ever lustful and ever in a Feaver ever in sickness contracted by that sin and yet ever in a desire to proceed in that sin and thus man is every creature and all flesh Verse 14. That God might approve his mercies to the very wicked he gives them 120 years respite of repenting verse 3. and here in this verse he gives them a faithful Teacher It is an happy thing when he that teacheth others is righteous Noahs hand taught them as much as his tongue his business in building the Ark was a real Sermon to the world wherein at once were taught Mercy and Life to the Believer and to the Rebellious destruction Verse 18. Doubtless more hands went to this work of making the Ark than Noah and his Children and yet none were saved but they many a one wrought upon the Ark which yet was not saved in the Ark our outward works cannot save us without Faith we may help to save others and perish our selves what a wonder of mercy is this that we here see one poor Family call'd out of a world and as it were eight grains of Corn fann'd from a whole Barnful of Chaff one hypocrite was saved with the rest for Noahs sake not one righteous man was swept away for company for these few was the earth preserved still under the waters and all kind of Creatures upon the waters which else had been all destroyed Still the world stands for their sakes for whom it was preserved else fire should consume that which could not be cleansed by water CHAP. VII Verse 2. THe unclean Beasts God would have to live the clean to multiply and therefore he sends to Noah seven of the clean and of the unclean two he knew the one would annoy man with their multitude the other would enrich him those things are worthy of most respect which are of most use But why seven Surely that God that Created seven dayes in the Week and made one for himself did here preserve of seven clean Beasts one for himself for Sacrifice he gives us Six for One in earthly things that in spiritual we should be all for him Verse 9. This difference is strange I see the savagest of all Creatures Lions Tygers Bears by an instinct from God come to seek the Ark as we see Swine fore-seeing a storm run home crying for shelter men I see not Reason once debauch'd is worse than bruitishness God hath use even of these fierce and cruel Beasts and glory by them Even they being Created for man must live by him though to his punishment How gently do they offer and submit themselves to their Preserver renewing that obeysance to this Repairer of the World which they before sin yielded to him that first stored the World And thus these savage Creatures went in saith the rext to Noah not to prey but fawn upon him He that shut them into the Ark when they were entred shut their mouths also while they did enter The Lions fawn upon Noah and Daniel what heart cannot the Maker of them mollifie Verse 10. By this is shewen the Lords patience for Noah is warned seven dayes before of the Flouds coming that by his preparation and entrance others might be warned and whereas God might have destroyed the World at once it was encreasing forty dayes that the World seeing every day some perish might at length have turned to God And the same was Ninevehs case yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Our God is a gracious merciful and long-suffering God and never strikes but he gives warning that sinners may prevent the blow by Repentance and Contrition Before Nineveh shall be destroyed a Prophet must be sent to give notice of that destruction and to teach them a way how to avoid it and in case they should prove dull schollars here is forty dayes given to learn the lesson And as God dealt with this great City and with the whole World before the Deluge to fore-warn them of his judgements and their own ruine so deals he likewise with particular men to some he gives forty dayes to others forty months nay forty years to repent in even a whole life time is to some men but a continued warning of their final destruction and yet they like the old World never beleeve it till they feel it mock and jear at a Deluge until they are over-whelm'd with the Floud and perish in their own presumptuous imaginations So hard a thing it is to perswade sinners to beleeve that God is so just or his Judgements so infallible or their sins so destructive until the Floud come and a second Deluge a Deluge of Fire sweeps them away as that first of Waters did their unbeleeving fore-fathers Verse 11. It agrees with the nature of God who is goodness That as all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened and so came the Floud over all so there should be diluvium spiritus a flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all as he promises Effundam I will pour it out upon all and diluvium gentium that all Nations shall flow up unto him For this spirit spirat ubi vnlt breaths where it pleaseth him and though a natural Wind cannot blow East and West North and South together this spirit at once breaths upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the dispairing sinner and in an instant can denizon and naturalize that soul that was an Alien to the Covenant empale and in-lay that soul that was bred upon the Common among the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goat into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost Sheep to the Fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darkness and the shadow of death and so melt and pour out that soul that yet understands nothing of the divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the divine nature and be the same Spirit with God Verse 16. Now that Noah and all his Guests are entred the Ark is shut and the windows of Heaven opened God first provides for Noah before the Wicked are destroyed of whom many no doubt when they saw the violence of the waves descending and ascending according to Noah's prediction came wading middle-deep unto the Ark and importunately craved that
action good without Faith no Faith without a word Happy is that man which in all things neglecting the counsels of flesh and bloud depends upon the Commission of his Maker Verse 20. No sooner is Noah come out of the Ark but he builds an Altar not an House to himself but an Altar to the Lord. Our Faith will ever teach us to prefer God to our selves delay'd thankfulness is not worthy acceptation of those few Creatures that are left God must have some they are all his yet his goodness will have man know that it was he for whose sake they were preserved It was a priviledge to those very bruit Creatures that they were saved from the Waters to be offered up in Fire unto God What a favour is it to men to be reserved from common destructions to be sacrific'd to their Maker and Redeemer Verse 21. God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call'd Odor quietis it is not said that God smelt a favour of Rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after he had been variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Ark upon the Waters and this was a sacrifice in which God himself might rest himself For God hath a Sabbath in the Sabbath of his Servants a Fulness in their Fulness a satisfaction when they are satisfied and is well pleased when they are so and therefore the Lord said That he will not Curse the Earth again speaking not generally of all kind of Cursing the Earth but only of this particular Curse by Waters And whereas 't is added for a Reason for the imagination of mans heart is evil it is not meant that God would spare the Earth and Beasts because man is subject to sin but the Promise is made specially for man that being he is by nature subdued to sin he is to be pitied and not for every offence according to his deserts to be judged for then the Lord should continually over-flow the world moreover where it is said Gen. 6. 6. That the Lord would destroy the World because the imaginations of their hearts were evil it may seem strange that the same cause should be here urged why he would not therefore this is here added to shew the original of this Mercy not to proceed from man but Gods own favour CHAP. IX Verse 1. THere is a lawful nay a necessary desire of being better and better and that not only in spiritual things for so every man is bound to be better and better better to day than yesterday and too morrow than to day but even in temporal things too there is a liberty given us nay there is a Law an Obligation laid upon us To endeavour by industry in a lawful Calling to mend and improve to enlarge our selves and spread even in worldly things And therefore when God delivers this Commandment the second time to Noah for the repairation of the World Encrease and Multiply which is not only in the multiplication of Children but in the enlargement of Possessions too he accompanies it with this Reason in the second vers The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon all and all are delivered into your hands which Reason can have no relation to the multiplying of Children but to the enlarging of Possessions God planted Trees in Paradise in a good state at first at first with ripe fruits upon them but Gods purpose was That even those Trees though well then should grow greater God gives many men good Estates from their Parents at first yet Gods purpose is That they should encrease those Estates He that leaves no more than his Father left him if the fault be in himself shall hardly make a good account of his Stewardship to God for he hath but kept his Talent in a Napkin Verse 13. That little fire of Noah which he kindled in the former Chapter through the vertue of his Faith purged the World and ascended up into those heavens from which the Waters fell and caused a glorious Rain-bow to appear therein for his security And here behold a new and a second rest first God rested from making that World now he rests from destroying it even while we cease not to offend he ceases from a publick revenge His Word was enough yet withal he gives a sign which may speak the truth of his Promise to the very eyes of men Thus he doth still in his blessed Sacraments which are as real Words to the Soul The Rain-bow is the pledge of our safety which even really signifies the end of a shower And further the Rain-bow having two special Colours in it one Coeruleus exterior which is waterish is a sign the World shall not any more be drown'd the other Rubeus which may be a sign the World shall be consumed with Fire Thus all the signs of Gods institution are proper and significant Verse 21. Who would think after all the favours that God had shewn Noah to have found this Righteous man lying Drunken in his Tent Who would think that Wine should over-throw him that was preserved from the Waters That he who could not be tainted with the sinful examples of the former World should begin the example of a new sin of his own What are we men if we be left to our selves While God upholds us no tentation can move us when he leaves us no tentation is too weak to over-throw us Behold he of whom God in an unclean World had said Thee only have I found Righteous proves now unclean when the World was purged The Preacher of Righteousness unto the former age the King Priest and Prophet unto the World renewed is the first that renewes the sins of the World which he had reproved and which he saw condemned for sin Gods best Children have no fence for sins of infirmity which of the Saints have not once done that whereof they are ashamed Verse 22. Ungracious Cham saw his Fathers nakedness and laughed at it His Fathers shame should have been his and should have begot in him a secret horror and dejection How many graceless men make sport at the causes of their Humiliation Twice had Noah given him life yet neither the Name of Father and Preserver nor Age nor Vertue could shield him from the contempt of his own I fee that even Gods Ark may nourish Monsters some filthy Toads may lie under the stones of the Temple And further Cham was not content only to be a witness of this filthy sight he goes on to be a proclaimer of it Sin doth ill in the eye but worse in the tongue as all sin is a work of darkness so it should be buried in darkness The report of sin is oft-times as ill as the Commission for it can never be blazoned without uncharitableness seldom without infection Oh the unnatural and more than Chammish Impiety of those Sons which rejoyce to publish the nakedness of their spiritual Parents even to their enemies Verse 23. Behold here
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
Let there be no prophane person among us as was Esau saith the Apostle Heb. 12. And that there may not let not men take pleasure in pleasure spend too much time in it It was not simply a sin in Esau to go a hunting but yet the more he used the more prophane he grew by it and came at length to contemne his birthright God allows men to stoop to lawful delights and recreations for their bodies sake as the Eagle to the prey or as Gideons Souldiers to soop their handful not swill their belly full An honest heart is where his calling is such a one when he is elsewhere is like a fish in the air whereunto if it leap for Recreation or Necessity yet it soon returns to his own Element Verse 34. Esau may be as great a glutton in his Pottage as those greedy Dogs Isa. 56. 12. Thus the Poor may sin as much in their throat as the Rich for men have talem dentem qualem mentem such an appetite as they have affection there is Epicurisme in course fare as well as dainties An Esau's luxury is in his mind more than his taste CHAP. XXVI Verse 1. IF the Canaanites had amended by the former Famine this latter had been prevented For God takes no delight in the misery and affliction of his Creatures He first tries gentle means and if those will do no good rigid and severe courses must be used first he chastiseth us with Rods and then with Scorpions if a single Famine will not humble us that Famine shall be doubled till we are brought low and continued upon us so long as we continue in our sins So that if we be destroyed our destruction is from our selves and if God doth multiply his Judgements upon us it is because that we do multiply our sins if man be not weary of sinning what reason is there that God should be weary of punishing Verse 7. So long as we carry flesh and blood about us we shall be subject to such passions as arise from that flesh and blood Moses had his anger Abraham and Isaac their fear But now these passions must be kept within their bounds or else they run out into sin As here Isaac's fear was too predominant it made him as it had done his Father Abraham call his Wife his Sister and in that to lie which sin was greater in him than in his Father because he was not warn'd by his Fathers example Now the child of God should rather die than lie Nec prodam nec mentiar said that good Bishop in St. Augustine and that was a brave Woman in St. Ierome that being on the Rack resolved and answered the tormentor I had rather tell the truth and perish than lie and live The Chamelion is the most fearful of all Creatures and doth therefore change into all colours to save it self so will timerous persons Let us therefore fortifie our hearts against this passion that we may not fall into the sins of the passion Verse 13. Isaac waxed rich because the Lord blessed him verse 12. it is Gods blessing that maketh rich Godliness hath the promises of both lives now the Promises are the unsearchable riches of Christ Ephes. 3. 9. who is the heir of all and hath godly men his co-heirs entailing upon them riches and honour life and length of daies the blessings of both hands and if at any time God doth deny gain to godliness it is that it may be admired for itsself as having a self-sufficiency and a hid treasure of its own Agrain of Grace is worth all the gold of Ophir and a remnant of Faith of more value than the richest Ward-Robes Thus a Righteous man is the richest man in the World true piety hath true plenty and whereas the Wicked in the fulness of their sufficiency are in straits the Godly in the fulness of their straits are in all sufficiency Verse 18. Origen extends this power far though not very confidently perchance saith he in every one of our souls there is this well of the Water of Life and this power to have power to open it whether our souls be intended by Origen of us as we are men or of us as we are Christians I pronounce not but divide it in all us as we are natural men there is this Well of Water of Life Abraham digg'd it at first the Father of the Faithful our Heavenly Abraham infused it unto us at first in Adam of whom as we have the image of God though defaced so we have this Well of Water though stopt up but then the Philistins having stopt this Well Satan by sin having barr'd it up the power of opening it again is not in the natural man but Isaac diggs it again Isaac who is Filius laetitiae the Son of joy our Isaac our Jesus he opens this Well of Life again to all that receive him according to his Ordinance in his Church he hath given this power of keeping open in themselves this Well of Life these means of Salvation Verse 22. When Isaac's servants had digged a first and a second Well the Heardsmen of Gerar contended about it saying the Water is ours then his Servants digg'd a third Well and for that they strove not therefore he call'd the name of it Rehoboth i. e. room for now saith he the Lord hath made room for us Thus we may say of all our comforts and mercies Rehoboth that is room but of all our afflictions that they are straits Verse 30. In a Feast there are two things extraordinary provision and extraordinary company both are lawful God hath given us the Creature not only for necessity but for delight and it is a clear argument that such use of the Creatures in feasting is lawful because God hath made more Creatures serving for the delight of man than he hath made for the necessity of man If God had meant that men should do nothing but maintain their lives and serve their own necessity so as they might go on in their places and callings one half of the Creatures might have been spared but God made nothing in vain therefore he is willing we should use the creatures for moderate delight Thus Abraham made a great Feast at the weaning of Isaac and Isaac here makes a Feast for Abimelech and Phicol the chief Captain of his Army and the like examples we have in divers other places And our Saviour Christ himself was at a Feast in Cana of Galilee where when Wine fail'd he supplied it by miracles Verse 31. Men may do much and go far in the love of Gods people and yet not love them as they ought to be loved they may hold an outward correspondency with them in outward peace and neighbourhood they may live quietly by them and with them be free from quarrels suits contentions vexations and oppositions against them and in these respects may keep fair quarter with them and yet for all this not love them as Gods people are to
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
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
and his Courtiers And thus by one means or other the Lord will evermore deliver his Truth from false surmises his faithful Ministers from false imputations and write the wickedness of carnal men upon their faces to their own confusion Verse 15. See the corruption of our Nature if God work not No sooner is the Rod off but wretched man fals to his old sins again When we are sick or distressed any way we pretend Repentance we pray we cry we vow But forasmuch as all riseth from Fear and not from Love it vanisheth as soon as the Fear is past and the Devil returns with seven worse than himself making our end more odious than ever our beginning was Verse 17. It had been as easie for the Lord to have turned the dust into Lions and Bears and Wolves but that rather he chose to confound pride by weakness and a rebelling humour by so base a Creature Then secondly let us consider that if God can make so vile a Creature too strong for a Kingdome what resistance can I a single man make against Gods wrath if I pull it upon me by my sins His wrath can arme all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth against me and yet the least of them is far above my power as you see here Verse 18. The Devil is powerful when God will suffer him but when God will restrain him what can he do Add this to the story of Iob to the story of the Heard of Swine in the Gospel and from such places let us take comfort against our spiritual Enemy for we see his weakness and the brideling hand of God at all times upon him Verse 19. The wicked who for a time make shew as if God were on their side in Gods good time shall be forced to acknowledge the contrary to his Glory and the great Comfort of his Church and Children For what did these Magicians in effect say but that this which was now done passeth our Skill and albeit the Creature be vile and base yet is the Power of God such over us and our Art that we cannot do the like but give him the Victory and acknowledge our selves sinful weak and wicked men Verse 23. Whensoever we are free from any calamity which happeneth to others it is not by our own Policy but by that gracious separation which the Lord makes How may we run into particulars Others sickly we healthy others in prison we at liberty others in blindness we in light others slandered we not touch'd others cross'd in their Children and Friends we comforted O blessed God what a separation is this How ought we to be thankful to thee for it Verse 28. Worldly minded men will be content to tolerate Religion so it might still be joyned with their profit But if it be contrary to that O how bitter then how hard to endure it For these Iews wholly to depart from Egypt was not for Pharaohs profit for from their labours he had great gain and therefore by no means may they go out of his Land to sacrifice to their God but in the Land he is content to endure it so he may be freed from those Plagues that were upon him Or if needs must be that they must go out of the Land yet not far in any case CHAP. IX Verse 14. GOD punisheth sinners first with one Rod then with another and if these single chastisements will not serve then will he go to many Plagues heaping Wrath upon Wrath and Plague upon Plague yea he will lay even all his Plagues upon us at once as he here speaks to our utter confusion as also it is Deut. 28. 15. Secondly God cals them here his Plagues so that neither fortune nor chance ruleth Rods and Crosses laid upon us but these still are Gods laid on and taken off at his pleasure Ib. Upon the heart that is inwardly and deeply to smite us in armes hands legs is greivous unto us but when sorrow is laid upon the heart it stingeth indeed and most bitterly as Prov. 17. 22. 15. 13. Now the best way to prevent this doleful sorrow of heart laid on by an angry God is to take our sins to heart betimes Verse 23. Whether we be hindered or furthered by weather let us cast up our eyes to Heaven for it is the Lord still that ruleth these things and by his Will they come and go Nature is his Servant and the Devil his Rod neither of them working but as he appoints Verse 24. Fire was mingled with Hail to teach that Gods Judgements shall not be single but even one upon the neck of another until we be either humbled or destroyed Who would think it possible that any Soul should be secure in the midst of such variety of Judgements To what a height of obduration will sin lead a man and of all sins incredulity Amongst all these Stormes Pharaoh sleepeth till the voice of Gods mighty Thunders and Hail mixed with Fire rouz'd him up a little Verse 28. Pharaoh here as one betwixt sleeping and waking starts up a little and sayes God is righteous and I am wicked Moses pray for us and presently layes down his head again God hath no sooner done thundering than he hath done fearing All this while you never find him careful to prevent any one evil but desirous still to shift it off when he seeks it never holds constant to any good motion never prayes for himself but carelesly wils Moses and Aaron to pray for him never yields God his whole Demands but higleth and dodgeth like some hard Chapman that would get a release with the cheapest Wheresoever meer Nature is she is still inconstant in all her purposes sensible of present evil and improvident of future good CHAP. X. Verse 2. AS this teacheth us the end of Gods Works and Wonders so the Duty and Office of all Christian Parents and Governours even to teach their Children and charge carefully and zealously by them and in them to know the Lord as also Deut. 6. 6. thus is God himself the Author of that catechising and instructing of Youth which is so much neglected in our daies Verse 3. The drift of all Crosses and Afflictions in this life is to bring down the swelling pride of our sinful hearts that yeilding God what is due to him we again may from him reap mercy and forgiveness to our endless comfort Never forget this saying to King Iosiah 2 Chron. 34. 27. Because thine heart was tender c. Verse 7. So old is the Accusation which to this day remains among wicked persons ascribing unto Religion and the Professors thereof whatsoever evil happeneth among men be it Death Sickness Wars Famine Thus Ahab tels Elias that it was he that troubled Israel by whom indeed all Israel had a Blessing if they had known it But to prove the contrary read Gen. 18. 32. Houses and whole Kingdomes have been saved but for one righteous man dwelling therein as Ioseph Daniel and the like
be in these dayes who grieve at an hour spent in the Church but never of dayes and years spent in sin Secondly observe that when we are once delivered out of spiritual Egypt then doth the Devil muster up his Chariots and Horse-men He cannot abide to loose his Servants so his we were and he hath lost us and his we must be again if by all his strength he can possibly gain us A Land that floweth with Milk and Honey may not be inherited without resistance Out of Egypt we may be delivered but from following persecutions we shall not be quite freed Think of that Devil in the Gospel who when he must needs depart and loose his possession did rend and tear the poor party most miserably Mar. 9. 26. Verse 13. In all spiritual Conflicts say thus with your self O my soul fear not though Sathan thrust sore at thee and seek thy destruction but look unto him that is mightier than all Hell believe his Promises believe his Word and the Egyptians whom thou hast seen to day thou shalt never see again that is those frights and those fears Enemies to thy peace thou shalt never be troubled with them any more but God shall so drown them in the red Sea of Christs bloud that they shall never hurt thee The Lord shall fight for thee O my Soul therefore stand still and wait upon him Verse 14. A Silence before a not praying hath not alwayes a fault in it because we are often ignorant of our own necessities and ignorant of the dangers that hang over us but a silence after a benefit evidently received a dumb ingratitude is inexcusable Thus when Moses sayes here to his People The Lord shall fight for you c. Moses means you shall not need to speak the Lord will do it for his own glory you may be silent There it was a future thing but the Lord hath fought many battels for us he hath fought for our Church against Schisms and Heresie for our Land against Invasion for every soul against Presumption or else against Desperation Dominus pugnavit nos filemus Verse 15. See the force of Prayer though it be but in groans of your heart it even crieth in Gods ears it pierceth the Heavens and pulleth down comfort See likewise the duty of all faithful Servants of God to go forward as here is said to the Israelites notwithstanding Seas before us Hils about us and whatsoever it may be that is against us leaving all to the Lord who knoweth his own purpose and will manifest the same in his good time Forward forward saith God here Speak to the Children of Israel that they go forward But why did Moses cry thus in his heart to God when it was revealed to him what should be the end of the Egyptians Because neither Promises nor Revelations hinder Gods Children from using ordinary means but do rather stirre them up more and more to beg and crave the performance and effect of them Verse 22. If you look at the Waters on either side you may see the condition of Gods Children in this World beset on the right side with a Floud of Prosperity and beset on the left side with a floud of Adversity And yet through a true Faith walking through both and hurt by neither they arrive on the other side safely when by either of these many others are destroyed pray then for this Faith CHAP. XV. Verse 1. T Is a good form of giving thanks when every particular person out of his own feeling sayes I I good Lord do yield unto thy Majesty my bounden thanks for my self and for my Brethren for my self and for thy whole Church and so every one feeling and every one thanking the Lord is praised of all as his Mercy and goodness reach to all Thus David Psal. 118. 28. I I again in my own person and with my own heart and with my own tongue So here I will sing when they were many thousands Verse 5. They sank as a stone that is without all recovery and help For a stone swimmeth not out being cast in but goeth to the bottom and there abideth Fearful and very fearful was their destruction to the terror of all those that shall persecute the Church of God and his People Verse 6. Not our Vertue not our Merits not our Armies or men of Might Gods Servants do never rob him and cloath themselves but with Moses here they give all to God where indeed it is due and say with David Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy Name give the praise Verse 7. In that they are said to have risen against God when they rose but against his People observe the Union between God and his Church even such as who so toucheth the one toucheth the other For he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye Zach. 2. 8. And Saul Saul why persecutest thou me me in my members and by my members Verse 9. The same ambition and covetousness that made Pharaoh wear out so many Judgements will not leave him till it hath wrought out his full destruction All Gods Vengeances have their end the final perdition of his Enemies which they cannot rest till they have attained Pharaoh therefore and his Egyptians will needs go fetch their Bane instead of their Victory They bragg'd of their Conquest before-hand and gave Israel either for Spoil or Bondage But the Sea will shew them that it regards the Rod of Moses not the Scepter of Pharaoh and therefore in the next verse as glad to have got the Enemies of God at such an advantage shuts her mouth upon them Extraordinary favours to wicked men are the fore-runners to their ruine Verse 19. As the Act of the Egyptians for drowning the Israelitish Children was cruel Chap. 1. so is their own issue and punishment but just here The People must drown their Males there themselves are drown'd here they died by the same means by which they caused the poor Israelitish Infants to die That Law of Retaliation which God will not allow to us because we are fellow-creatures he justly practiseth on us God would have us read our sins in our judgements that we might both repent of our sins and give Glory to his Justice Verse 20. In common Duties due to God none must sit out The deliverance concern'd both Sexes and therefore both Sexes were to thank God for it Man and Wife must joyn and agree together to honour him that saveth them Ioseph will go up to Ierusalem according to the Law and Mary his Wife will go with him No division no difference betwixt them in Gods matters If the one owe a Duty the other thinks she doth so too and with one heart according to one rule they both worship God and so come home Verse 24. A fitter course it had been for a People so taught with passed Favours to have assured themselves of future helps in Gods good time and with Patience and Faith to
a beast to day none better to morrow none worse to day a God to morrow a Devil Christ and his Apostles found this measure as well as Moses in the Text ready to be stoned by those that even now when the Sea was divided honoured him as a God You can never give any people so many causes to stick unto as he did give this people to cleave unto him and yet they failed Verse 6. No evil in man can drive God from his Promise And therefore when the Devil shall suggest that thou art not worthy of Mercy that thou art so great a sinner God cannot spare thee therefore trouble him not hope not in him for there is no Mercy for such a one answer that thou dost not rely upon thine own merit that thou dost confess all that he saith of thy unworthiness to be most true but tell him withall that thou dost look at Gods Promise and consider his Truth and that thou dost find here and every where that no evil in man can make him evil by breaking his Promise and that therefore thou maist not despair Verse 8. As the Israelites could not travel to the earthly Canaan but they must fight with Amaleck in the way no more can we travel to our heavenly Canaan without fighting with Amaleck the World the Flesh and the Devil are fierce Amalekites and they must be fought with and overcome as Amaleck was or else we shall never see Canaan Poverty Sickness Crosses by Children Slanders with infinite more are Amalekites and they stop you in your way to Canaan so that without buckling with them you shall not passe Verse 9. We may observe in this the antiquity of Musters and a warrant for them All did not go here but some and those chosen out by a Muster and view taken by Ioshua We may take notice likewise how full of honour and credit it ever was in these cases to be chosen which if so then certainly men should not run away and hide themselves as soon as they hear of a Muster towards as heretofore they did Verse 11. If we receive not what we pray for at first asking we raint and cease praying streight not remembring how often we use a Medicine for the body before we can be whole Let us therefore amend this fault in our Prayer hereafter and never forget the force of true and godly Prayer While Moses held up his hands that is continued praying so long the Israelites whom he prayed for prevailed but when he gave over the Enemy prevailed Thus will it be in your case and my case and all others that be troubled Verse 12. This heaviness of Moses hands may teach us the weakness of all flesh in Christian exercises We cannot hold out and continue as we ought hut heaviness and dulness will steal upon us and seek to cool us and hinder us The help that Aaron and Hur performed unto him tels us the benefit of Christian Company in such holy exercises and the needful duty of praying for him that prayeth for us that God would be with his Spirit that is strengthen him and quicken him and aid him so to pray and continue his Prayers as the end may be to his Glory and our Comfort Verse 14 15. All this hath use to tell us how careful we must be in keeping a Register in our hearts of Gods Mercies and Favours towards us in our selves in our Friends in our Country in our Magistrates and Ministers or any way Examples in this kind are numerous as of Deborah Iudith Hester Anna Mary and that cleans'd Leper that return'd to give thanks the Israelites when they pass'd over the red Sea all these built Altars in their hearts for Gods Favours by being truly and fervently thankful CHAP. XVIII Verse 9. THe hearty joy that was in Iethro when he heard what God had done for Israel shews us the right affection of a Child of God when God is merciful to his Church or to any Member thereof He envieth not he grudgeth not much lesse speaketh ill but with a very loving joy he is glad and blesseth the name of the Lord for it Verse 10. After our deliverance from any affliction or danger there remains nothing on our part but to blesse God for that Deliverance Thus when the Israelites were safe on the shore and saw their dead Enemies come floating after them upon the billows they did not cry more loud before than now they sung Not their Faith but their Sense teacheth them now to magnifie that God after their deliverance whom they hardly trusted for their deliverance and thus Iethro here blesseth God for the deliverance of his People Even Nature taught the very Gentiles what both they and Gods own People ought to return for Mercies And indeed a whole Christians life is divided into praying and praifing if we begin with Petitions we commonly conclude with Thanksgivings Thus by an holy craft we insinuate into Gods Favour driving a trade betwixt Earth and Heaven receiving and returning importing one Commodity that of Mercies and transporting another that of Thansgiving Verse 19. In this excellent man Moses Iethro his inferior by far finds a just fault which tels us that no man is perfect in all things but may receive counsel even from a meaner person And let Moses Modesty in yeilding make our spirits humble in like occasions where God dwelleth it will be so and Pride is a sure sign of an ill Heart The Head scorns not the Foot and the very Foot is careful for the Head Verse 22. When the Lord said to Rulers Ye are Gods he means not that they should be like the Epicures idle God which sate in his Throne and let all inferior matters alone as too base for his eyes Nay rather the Lord would have Judges like himself who doth not only weigh Mountains and Hils in his Ballance but the very dust of the Earth and sands of the Sea and therefore he setteth down Judgement for small matters in this verse And as he saith in Deuteronomy Vengeance is mine so in the Proverbs he descendeth lower and layeth claim to the Ballance and telleth us that all the weights of the bag are the work of the Lord And who are weaker and lower than the Fatherless the Widdow and the Poor and yet all Judges have the Lords Letters commendatory in their behalf the tenor whereof is this Do right to the Poor and Fatherless CHAP. XIX Verse 7. GOD might have imposed upon them a Law per-force They were his Creatures and he could require nothing but Justice It had been but equal that they should be compelled to obey their Maker Yet that God which loves to do all things sweetly gives the Law of Justice in Mercy and will not imperiously command but craves our assent for that which it were rebellion not to do How gentle should be the proceeding of fellow-creatures who have an equality of being with an inequality of condition when their infinite
Verse 2. THis Offering sheweth first that it is the duty of Gods Servants to bestow part of such things as God blesseth them withall towards the maintenance of Gods Spiritual Temple erected with Us and among Us by the Preaching of his Word the Administration of his Sacraments and all other Offices of the Ministry to the Salvation of our Souls Secondly That our Goods are not ours to waste at our Wills but God looketh to be honoured with them employed to good purposes Lastly in seeking this Offering to erect an External Worship we see that God will be worshipped outwardly also with our Bodies as inwardly with our Spirits for they are both the Lords Verse 3. In the variety and several kindes of what was offered you have shadowed out unto you the difference of Spiritual Gifts and Graces given by God to Men for the building up of his Spiritual Temple or Sanctuary in your hearts and such as God hath given such must they offer and such shall be accepted of God to teach us to despise in no man what God himself accepteth and despiseth not In Mans Body the soveraignty is in the Head the Eyes and Ears and yet cannot the Eye say to the Foot I have no need of thee 1 Cor. 12. 21. the greater may not despise the less nor the less murmur against the greater Verse 7. They offered their Ear-Rings and Jewels which were Ornaments unto them teaching us in this that nothing ought to be so dear unto us which we cannot find in our hearts to bestow willingly to the Service and Honour of God these things that served for superfluity before now serve for Gods Tabernacle Even so should our Bodies that have been Wanton and Sinful serving Sin serve the Lord in his Holy Fear and such humane Learning as hath served Error may be applyed to Religion and Gods service Verse 9. In the Service and Worship of God our Devices and Inventions must have no place but carefully and precisely we must ever serve him according to his own pattern and Prescription left us in his Holy Word as Deut. 4. 12. Numb 15. 38. and the Apostle Col. 2. 23. delivered nothing but what he received Verse 10. The wood whereof the Ark was made was Shittim-wood a durable and lasting Wood not subject to Worms and Corruption as other Wood is so representing the humanity of Christ whose Body in the Grave felt no Corruption as other Mens flesh and bodies neither was subject to sin Verse 20. The Cherubim was a name of Love and Favour and therefore his Wings were stretched over the Mercy-seat to shew us we should be ready to cover the infirmities especially of the Church and Church-men and Constantine professed that should he see a Bishop committing Adultery he would rather cover it with his own Cloak then any should be offended Verse 21. The Mercy-seat was appointed to be a Covering for the Ark where the Law of Moses lay and this Mercy-seat was a figure of Christ who hideth and covereth us from the wrath of God and from the accusation of the Law for without Christ shall no flesh be justified Our first Parents having sinn'd covered themselves with Fig-leaves and many Christians think to cover themselves with the Fig-leaves of their own Merits but Christ only is the cover of the Ark when the Law accuseth to whom whosoever doth fly and in whom whosoever doth trust being justified by Faith they have peace with God through him Rom. 5. 1. and the Mercy-seat was placed above the Altar to shew that Gods Mercy is over all his Works Verse 22. The two Cherubims represented the Two Testaments and from between these two Cherubims God spake so doth Christ still by the two Testaments the Old and the New the Law and the Gospel the Prophets and Apostles and so will he speak still to the end Otherwise we must not now expect Revelations and Dreams Visions and Miracles are ceased and if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets Neither will they believe though one should rise from the dead and come unto them Verse 38. This is a great comfort to Ministers and to all the faithful people of God that although my Gifts are not such as to set me high in the Tabernacle yet am I not therefore utterly unprofitable or unfit or rejected of God but I may be among the meanest vessels of the Sanctuary and of the Church if I may be but as the snuffers or snuff-dishes as a Door-keeper as a Besom as an Ash-pan even this shall please me and herein will I rejoyce thanking my God that he hath looked upon me in that measure the body hath divers members and all good and made by God the Church hath divers degrees of Believers and all beloved of God so if you be one in any place blessed be God for it your joy shall be Eternal also and Incomprehensible Verse 40. From hence you may see the Assistance and the Power that Example hath in Instruction This was Christs Method in the Gospel Quid ab initio how was it from the beginning do as hath been done before So here it was Gods Method to Moses for the Tabernacle look that thou make every thing after the pattern that was shewed thee in the Mount and the same was Gods Method for the Creation its self for though there were no World that was Elder Brother to this World before yet God in his own Mind and Purpose had produc'd and lodg'd certain Idea's and forms and patterns of every piece of this World and made them according to those preconceived Forms and Idea's Lastly this was Gods way likewise through the whole Scripture for there are no Books in the World that do so abound with this Comparative and Exemplary way of Teaching as the Scriptures do no Books in which that word of Reference to other things that sicut is so often repeated do this and do that sicut so as you see such and such things in Nature do and sicut so as you find such and such Men in the Stories of Gods Book to have done CHAP. XXVI Verse 31. OUr Corruption is the only way to our Incorruption and our Mortality to our Glory our Flesh being that Vail that keeps us from entring into the Holiest of Holies To this purpose as a Type of this in the Tabernacle which Moses made there was a Vail hang'd up between the Holy Place and the Holiest of Holies this Vail was made up of four substances blew Silk and Purple and Scarlet and fine Linnen which saith St. Ieremy did represent the four Elements of which our Flesh consists such a Vail was afterwards in the Temple at Ierusalem which at the Death of our Saviour was rent from the top to the bottom so that the People might then and not till then have beheld the Sanctum Sanctorum so when our Flesh this Vail that keeps us from beholding the Invisibility of the Blessed Trinity shall be rent and torn in pieces
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
scent and savour of their Actions as the sound of their Words CHAP. XL. Verse 13. MOses that is appointed here to annoint and consecrate others was never annointed and consecrated himself that so we might learn not to value external Sacraments or Signs by the Dignity of the Minister but by the Ordinance of God Again that the invisible Grace is of force without the visible sign when God will have it so as in Moses here but then withal we must know that this was an extraordinary Command of God to Moses who was then Gods Vicegerent or Vicar-general and therefore what he did God did And certainly God who is the Author of all order may prescribe the form and manner of it Verse 16. Observe how often from this to the two and thirtieth verse is repeated as the Lord commanded Moses and see how sweet commanded Obedience is Were it as acceptable to God to be served with inventions never would these repetitions be made Beware therefore of these wayes and in very reason conclude that if you expect from your Servant your Commands to be fulfill'd according to your will much more may God expect the same obedience from you Verse 32. Those that dispense Gods Ordinances that wait upon his Altar must come with clean hands and a pure heart Holiness becomes every man well but best of all publick persons and that not only for example of good but liberty of controlling ill The Snuffers of the Sanctuary made to purge others must be of pure Gold themselves and the Priest that is to purifie and cleanse the Congregation must be first washed himself But now suppose the Priest be unclean be vicious and who can say he is not so must â—he People notwithstanding seek the Law at his mouth follow his Doctrine Yes certainly For what if the Sacrificer be unclean is the Offering so Scripture is Scripture though the Devil speak it Verse 34. That thus he might grace that outward place now appointed for holy Assemblies to serve him and so to the Worlds end teach how great account all People ought to make of their Churches and Church-meetings Verse 36. The Children of Israels Journey to Canaan was thorow the Wilderness of Arabia Their Guides were a Pillar of Cloud by day and a Pillar of Fire by night The manner of their Journey was this When the Pillar moved they moved when the Pillar stood still they stood still By all which a further matter namely the regiment of Christ over his Church is signified Every one of us is as Passengers and Travellers to an heavenly Canaan and in this Journey we are to passe through the desart Wilderness of this World Our Guide is Christ himself figured by the Pillar of Fire and Cloud because by his Word and Spirit he sheweth us how far we may go in every Action and where we must stand and he goes before us as our Guide to life everlasting A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSES CALLED LEVITICUS CHAP. I. Verse 4. THE party bringing the Sacrifice did by this sign of laying on his hand c. acknowledge that he himself deserved to die but by the Mercy of God he was spared and his desert laid upon the Beast Secondly that it is not enough to believe that Christ was to die for sin but he must lay his hand upon Christ i. e. lay upon him all his iniquities by the hand of his Faith apply Christ to himself and believe that he died for his sins my sins your sins being the only Propitiation for sin Thirdly this laying on the hand shewed that men bringing Sacrifices to God should rather sacrifice their exorbitant affections than those Beasts Verse 5. The reason why God tyed them to a place and not suffered them to sacrifice where they pleased was that by this means they might be kept from using any unlawful manner in their Sacrifices which they might have done if in every place at their pleasure they might have Sacrificed The same reason is now for our set publick places of Gods Worship where the people are to perform their Duties to God after one manner not allowed at their will every one to have a several place lest private places should breed private Fancies Errors and Heresies in the Church Verse 6. This was to teach the Party that offered the Sacrifice to offer up himself to the Lord flayed and without skin that is without all counterfeit and hypocritical shews without all earthly vain and proud Confidence in himself or any Works or Worth whatsoever in him but naked and bare to present himself to his God with a single and faithful heart boasting of no Desert but humbly craving Mercy and Pardon for Christs sake the true Sacrifice Verse 17. This was a great comfort to the poorer sort of Offerers for thus are they assured that although they were not of ability to Offer unto him Oxen and Sheep yet were they as dear to him as those that could so do and their Sacrifice of Pigeons or Turtles yeelded as sweet a savour And thus gracious will God ever be even two Mites of a poor Widdow shall be accepted and a little Spice or Goats-hair or what my power is to bring unto him shall be received For it is not the Gift but the Heart of the Giver that God looks upon and respects and thus the poor Widdows Mite could weigh but little very little with God but the Heart weigh'd heavy and so her Heart being put to her Mite gave it weight above the greater but far more heartless largesses of the Pharisees CHAP. II. Verse 6. THis Offering thus parted and sprinkled with Oyl signified the Graces of Gods Spirit where with Christ was fully annointed within and without above his fellows For they were only singly annointed either as Kings or as Priests or as Prophets but Christ was a thrice Sacred annointed Person a Prophet to teach us by his Word a Priest to purge us by his Blood a King to guide us by his Spirit And this three-fold Office of our Saviour was really represented by the Oyl wherewith he was annointed For first Oyl is said in the Psalms to make a chearful countenance and thus doth Christ as a Prophet make not only a cheerful Countenance but a cheerful Heart and Soul by Preaching the glad Tydings of Salvation Secondly Oyl doth supple and cure Wounds and so doth Christ as a Priest the Wounds of our Souls and Consciences with that precious Ointment of his Blood Thirdly Oyl will still be the uppermost of all Liquors so likewise Christ as a King is above Men and Angels hath the Soveraignty over all the Creation Verse 11. By this Rule of having no Leaven they were taught the purity of Christs Doctrine and the Holiness of his Life his Doctrine so pure that it maketh others pure Iohn 15. 3. and his Life so pure that not only his false Accusers could fasten no fault upon him but by his Innocency he appeased
Gods Wrath for our Impurity Secondly it taught the Church that after Christs Example they ought to be free from both these to wit false Doctrine and ill manners not Teaching if they be Teachers any corrupt Matter nor believing and holding if they be no Teachers any absurd Untruths Verse 13. Salt was required in the Sacrifice to figure out Christ who indeed is the true Salt that seasoneth us and all our Works or else neither we nor they please God Sin hath made us unsavory to God and till this Salt be sprinkled over us we have no access to him nor savour with him And further by Salt here we may understand Mortification and holy discretion or sincerity of Doctrine and Discipline whereby the Saints are seasoned and preserved from the putrefaction of Sin and Error and being preserved themselves they preserve others For as Salt keepeth Flesh from putrifying so do the Saints of the World and are therefore sprinkled up and down here one and there one to keep the rest from stinking CHAP. III. Verse 3. THE Fat that was upon the Inwards was offered and yet the Inwards themselves in particular the Heart was not offered For the Heart Brain were never Offered in Sacrifice because they are the Fountains and secret Arks wherein lurks all Iniquity And yet though the Heart be not given yet hearty Thanks must be given to God such as cometh not from the Roof of the Mouth but the Root of the Heart the most inward part and bottom of our Souls Verse 4. Some have judg'd the pleasures of the Flesh to be here shadowed which of a true Child of God are to be kill'd and slain as Sacrifices were and mortified Others looking at the phrase of Scripture which usually noteth by the word Fat the best things have thought that herein was figured how Men ought to offer unto God ever of their best as Numb 18. 12. Psal. 81. 16. but now in the Tithes and Duties do you give the best do you offer the Fat He that lives licentiously all his Youth and intends to offer unto God his Old Age when for debility of Body he can do no more harm doth he offer unto God the Fat or the Lean the Best or the Worst Lastly because this Fat that was to be offered was an Inward thing and not an Outward others have thought that thereby was figured how careful we must ever be to offer unto God our Inwards without which no External Duty can or will please God The Lord saith David Loveth truth in the inward parts and his Sacrifice is a troubled spirit a broken and a contrite heart within not a pale face a down look many outward sighs that are heard of men Verse 17. The Lords prohibition of Fat did teach them to use a modest moderate and fitting Diet Blood also was forbidden them that so they might learn to take heed of cruelty and to shew mercy and loving-kindness in all their Actions and Behaviours Gods People must neither be Carnal nor Cruel but their Souls must shew mercy as their Heavenly Father is merciful and their Delight must be not inluxurious and high-feeding Dishes but in the Marrow and Fatness and Sweetness of Gods Ordinances CHAP. IV. Verse 3. WHen you read that the High Priest had need sometimes to offer for his Negligences and Ignorances you see how plainly it was taught to that People that the High Priest was not the true High Priest which should make perfect satisfaction unto God but another was to be expected even Christ Jesus Verse 6. By this sevenfold sprinkling the grievousness of sin is noted according to that in Genesis he that slayeth Cain shall be punished seven-fold that is grievously Wherefore this seven times sprinkling of the Blood shews that every sin with God deserveth seven punishments that is sharp and great punishment if God should deal with us in Justice and not in Mercy Verse 7. The Blood was put on the Horns of the Altar of sweet Incense to signifie that no Prayer can peirce unto God but in and by the Blood of Christ. Verse 12. The whole Bullock was to be burnt being a sin-offering to teach men to burn all their sins and not to divide them as we do when we say I will amend my Drunkenness but I cannot leave my Swearing but we must all our sins and willingly keep none lest but one being wilfully still delighted in burn us wholly in Hell for ever When Moses with the Israelites was to depart out of Egypt and Pharaoh would have had them leave their Cattle behind them saving what they intended to Sacrifice answer was made they would not leave one hoof of a Beast behind Exod. 10. 26. and so deal you with your Sins leave not one hoof of Sin behind no one sin no part of a Sin that is by wittingly willingly and boldly continuing in it otherwise free from Sin in this Life we cannot be Verse 13. A multitude of Offenders excuseth no offence but if even the whole Congregation should sin through Ignorance yet a Sin-Offering must be offered by them all and their number yeeldeth no excuse Secondly In this phrase hid from the Eyes you may see the state of many a Man and Woman doing evill The matter is hid from their Eyes in Gods anger and all-be-it they lye at the Pits brink of Damnation and Destruction yet they see it not feel it not are not troubled with it because indeed they never sit and take an account of themselves and their Works The godly do this at last and therefore in the next Verse there is a time of Knowing to them as there was of hiding Verse 17. The Priest here used a seven-fold sprinkling of Blood upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of Blood in Christ in his Circumcision in his Agony in his fulfilling of the Prophesie Isai. 50. 6. I gave my cheeks to them that pluck'd off the hair and in his Scourging in his Crowning and in his Nailing and lastly in the piercing of his side these seven Channels hath the Blood of thy Saviour found Pour out the Blood of thy Soul Sacrifice thy stubborn and Rebellious Will seven times too seven times that is every day of the week and seven times every day for so often a Just man falleth and then how low must that Man lye at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soon as thou fallest Verse 27. In all Sacrifices where Blood was to be offered the Fat was to be offered too If thou wilt Sacrifice the Blood of thy Soul Sacrifice the Fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and hast corruptly got by that sin else thou keepest the Fat from God though thou give him the Blood CHAP. V. Verse 2. WE are not ever clean when we see not any
the Elder shall suffer no less than the Younger the Rich as well as the Poor there is no regard with God of these things Verse 3. He howled not out with any unseemly cries neither uttered any words of Rage and Impatience but meekly stoop'd to Gods will kiss'd the Rod and held his peace If thus Aaron in so great a Judgement how much more we when our Friends dye naturally sweetly and comfortably so that we may boldly say we have not lost them but sent them before us whether we hope also to follow Verse 5. That which the Father and Brother may not do the Cousins are Commanded Dead Carkasses are not for the presence of God his Justice was shewn sufficiently in killing them they are now fit for the Grave not the Sanctuary neither are they carried out naked but in their Coats It was an unusual sight for Israel to set a linnen Ephod upon the Beer the Judgement was so much the more remarkable because they had the badg of their Calling upon their backs Nothing is either more pleasing unto God more commodious to Men then that when he hath executed Judgment it should be seen and wondered at for therefore he strikes some that he may warn all Verse 12. This is added to comfort and strengthen the shaken Hearts of Aaron and his living Sons who might by this strange punishment have been driven into doubt whether ever the Lord would be pleased that they should meddle again with the Sacrifices and we see therein a gracious God who maketh not his Promises void to all for the faults of some We must therefore cleave to our Calling and even so much the more painfully go forward therein by how much we see others punish'd for ill doing be taught therefore and school'd but never be discouraged and feared from imposed Duty Verse 20. In that Moses admitted of a reasonable excuse we may learn to abhor Pride and to do the like Pride I say which scorneth to hear what may be said against the conceit we have once harboured A modest man doth not thus and therefore holy Iob had an Ear for his Servant and his Maid and did not despise their Judgement their Complaint and Grief when they thought themselves evill entreated by him CHAP. XI Verse 2. LEarn from hence our Duty to depend upon the Word and Will of God in all things yea even in our Meat and how careful likewise we ought to be to seek cleanness of Body and Soul before that God who expects it in our very Diet. Verse 3. This typified a difference of Men and Women in the World some clean and some unclean for they that have a true Faith and a good Life by meditating in the Word are such as divide the Hoof and chew the Cud and they are clean but such as do neither or but one are unclean as he that believeth in God but liveth not well or he that liveth in an outward honesty but believeth not rightly They again may be called clean dividing the Hoof who do not believe in great or in gross but discern and distinguish things as Christ and Moses Nature and Grace not believing every Spirit but trying the Spirits whether they be of God or no. Iohn 4. 1. For chewing the Cud they may be said to do it and so to be clean who meditate of that they hear lay it up in their Hearts and practice it in their Conversations Verse 5. By the Coney are figured out such Men as lay up their Treasures in the Earth because the Conies digg and scrape and make their Berries in the ground whereas we are taught to lay up our Treasure in Heaven Mat. 6. Verse 6. The Hare is a very fearful Creature and therefore is the type of fearful Men and Women despairing of Grace and shrinking from God such persons are unclean and excluded the Kingdom of God Rev. 21. 8. Verse 7. The Swine never looks up to Heaven but hath his mouth ever in the Earth and Mire caring for nothing but his Belly nourish'd only to be kill'd for his Death hath use his Life hath none A good Caveat for the Rich miserable Wretches of the World who never profit any till they dye A Knife therefore for the Hogg that we may have what is useful in him and Death for such Wretches that the Common-wealth may have use of theie Baggs Verse 14. By the Goss-hauk is shadowed forth Men that Prey upon their weaker Brethren and Neighbours By the Vulture Men that delight in Wars and Contention By the Ravens unnatural Parents that forsake their Children unkind Friends which shrink away Ill Husbands that provide not for their Families By the Ostrich painted Hypocrites and Carnal Men that have fair great Feathers but cannot flye By the Seamew that liveth both on Land and Water such as will be saved both by Faith and Works such Ambodexters as the World hath store of that carry two Faces under a Hood Fire in one hand and Water i th' other CHAP. XII Verse 2. THis serves to Confute that gross Error of Pelagius denying the propagation of sin from Parents to Children but if the Birth were clean the Mother by the Birth should not be unclean as this purification did shadow that she was God would therefore have all Men know what they are by Nature and what by Grace through the Remedy provided Christ our only Righteousness and Purity Also that God had rather have them never enter into the Church than to enter with Corruption unsorrowed for and uncared for Verse 4. Although this Ceremonial Law of Moses be abrogated and gone yet honesty of Nature and modesty in Woman-kind is neither abrogated nor gone Therefore even still we retain in the Church a lawful and laudible custome among Women that they should stay a time after Child-birth to gather strength in their Houses and then come to Church to give God Thanks And this is nothing but a needful thing in regard of weakness a modest Ceremony in regard of Woman-hood and a Christian Duty in regard of Comfort and Mercy received to come to Church there thankfully to acknowledg Gods great mercy to them in both giving them safe deliverance and blessing them with Children to their Comfort Verse 5. There is no sin in Marriage if it be not abused but because this is rare therefore after Women were delivered God appointed them to be purified shewing that some stain or other doth creep into this Action which had need to be repented and therefore when they prayed 1 Cor. 7. 5. St. Paul would not have them come together lest their Prayer should be hindred Verse 8. The Sacrifice was indifferent whether Turtles or Pigeons Turtles that live solitarily and Pigeons that live sociably were all one to God God in Christ may be had in an active and sociable life denoted in the Pigeon and in the solitary and contemplative life set out in the Turtle Let not Westminster despise the Church nor the Church
cleave not to the Element or Creature of Water but remember Saint Iohn 1 Iohn 5. 6. tels you that Jesus Christ came by Water and Bloud and it is he only that washeth away our spots and saveth us from our sins and by the offering of the Turtles it was plainly figured that not in themselves but in some others they must be made clean from all their impurities CHAP. XVI Verse 2. IN that Aaron was forbidden at all times to enter into the Holiest of Holies we may learn that even Ministers as well as other men are not rashly to enter into all the things of God but to stand in reverence of some Mysteries either dealing not at all or very advisedly and sparingly with them as their nature requires Verse 3. When we appear before God we must come with a Sin-offering that is come with an humble acknowledgement as this Sin-offering figured that thou art a sinner confessing it to God with a greived heart and bring Jesus Christ in thy soul with thee offering him by thy true Faith to God his Father as a sure safety for all sinners against deserved wrath and punishment Verse 4. We must be cloth'd with Christs Righteousness as with this holy linnen Coat if we ever find acceptance with God For to that end Aaron did change his Garment to shew that he sustained another person who was holy he himself being but a man subject to imperfection and sin Now if Aaron might not enter but in such sort how much lesse might the People appear at any time before God but in Christ and by Christ shadowed in all these Sacrifices Verse 21. When confession was made over the Head of the Scape-goat what diversity of words were used as all iniquities all trespasses all sins Why so many words but to teach that confession of sins must not be light and formal only but earnest vehement hearty and zealous And indeed never can a Child of God satisfie himself herein but still wisheth he could more bewail his sins and more earnestly expresse with words what his Soul feeleth in this behalf saying as I heard a dying woman once say O Sir I am sorry and sorry that I can be no more sorry Verse 31. God would name his Sabbath according to the nature of it and Sabbath is rest It is a rest of two kinds our rest and Gods rest Our rest is the cessation from labour on those dayes Gods rest is our sanctifying of the day For so in the religious sacrifice of Noah Gen. 8. when he was come out of the Ark God is said to have smelt odorem quietis the savour of rest Upon those dayes we rest from serving the World and God rests in our serving of him CHAP. XVII Verse 4. THe Reasons of the severity of this Law were first because it served for the preservation of the Ministry which God had ordained and that every Man should not be his own Priest Secondly Because thus they were taught that all Worship of God ought to be guided and directed by his Word and Commandement and not by the private wills of Men. And if you say that Samuel offered in Mizpeh 1 Sam. 7. and Elias in Mount Carmel 1 King 18. and so neither brought the Sacrifice to the door of the Tabernacle you must answer your self thus that all this in these Men was extraordinary and we may not follow extraordinary matters without some such personal and special Vocation as no doubt they had for we do not live by Examples but by Laws Verse 6. The burning and broiling of Beasts and the sprinkling of their Blood upon the Altar could of themselves yield no sweet savour but thereto was added Wine Oyl and Incense by Gods appointment our Prayers as from us would never please but as Indited by the Spirit and presented by Christ they are highly accepted in Heaven Christ is the Incense the perfume of all our Sacrifices and therefore if ever we intend that our Sacrifice either of Praise or Prayers should carry a sweet savour along with it it must be offered up in and by Christ for he is Gods Benjamin the Son of his Love in whom alone God is well pleased Upon which account it is that the Catholick Church doth evermore conclude her Prayers with this Expression Through Iesus Christ our Lord. Verse 10. The Lord by this Law would teach Men to abstain from Murther and Blood-shed the Blood of Man being Vehiculum animae vitalis for the Vital Spirits which yield unto Man through his whole Body heat motion and action are begotten of Blood by the power of the Heart and therefore Mans life and the life of every other Creature is said to be in the Blood according to that of the Poet Purpuream vomit ille animam Secondly Because the Lord had ordained Blood to be used in the Atonement made for Sins as a plain figure of the Blood of Christ the only able Sacrifice to purge and wash away our Sins and Offences therefore he would have Blood regarded as an holy thing and not used by Man as other Meats might be CHAP. XVIII Verse 2. THis Expression I am the Lord your God is often repeated to draw attention and beget Authority For consider first it is thy Lord thy Master that speaks he whose House is the World and all the Creatures his Servants shall we not then listen when this our great Master shall speak Secondly it is thy God that speaks the Eternal Creator of Heaven and Earth he who hath made all preserves all and can as easily destroy all again he who is the All-seeing God that looks upon thee in thy privare Closet in thy bolted Chamber under thy drawn Curtains that sees all thy secret villanies and stoln Embraces all thy wicked Plots and Contrivings and shall we not then hear and fear him What running and striving would there be who should come first if a King or some great Lord should call O let not the Lord of Lords and King of Kings call so oft and thou sleight and neglect it but rather say with Samuel Speak Lord for thy servant heareth speak Lord to my Ears that they may hear speak to my Memory that it may retain speak to my Heart and Affections that they may be obedient speak to my Life and Conversation that it may be answerable to thy Word then shall thy servant hear aright and not before Verse 18. If any Man think of some Marriages of holy Men in Scripture contrary to these Rules let him remember that we now live by Laws and not by Examples What God then either approved or tolerated let us neither rashly condemn nor unadvisedly follow but obediently tarry within the Precincts of the Law of Nature And again in these Cases let it ever be remembred as good reason it should not only what is lawful but what also is convenient and fit to be done For many things are lawful which are no way yet expedient but most unfit in
breach of Piety punishable with Death Let them also think of those Infernal Ravens and Vultures that shall torment them in Hell and continually feed upon their Souls Verse 10. Because Marriage was appointed a remedy against Fornication therefore the Law of God inflicted a sorer punishment upon him which did commit uncleanness after Marriage than upon him which was not Married because he sinned although he had the remedy of sin like a rich Thief which stealeth and hath no need So Deut. 22. 22. Verse 25. Ye shall make this difference between the clean and unclean Beast saith God First because ye may be at my appointment for your very meat as who am chief Lord of all Secondly that there may be a difference between you and all other People Thirdly that ye may be taught to study purity and know that the very Creatures are defiled by mans sin It is hard to deal in the World and not be defiled with the corruption that is in the World And therefore we are taught by this Law to abstain from the communion of unclean and wicked men in whom are found the malignities and evil properties of all other Creatures CHAP. XXI Verse 17. THis was done to preserve the Dignity of the Priests Calling in that infancy of the Church which otherwise might have come into contempt together with the holy things for the contemptible shew of the Priest Yet thus much we may learn by it further that if these infirmities of body which they could not help made them unfit then to be Priests may not now wilful impiety being a blot in Soul and Mind disable a man from being a Minister to God in his own Conscience although he have the outward calling of men Verse 18. Blind is he who wanting light from above is wholly drowned and overwhelmed with the darkness of this World Lame is he who seeing whither he should go yet is not able through weakness of understanding to get thither but fainteth and faileth stumbleth and trippeth in his going and cometh short of his right end By a flat nose may be noted a weakness in Judgement and Discretion because the nose discerneth good savours from ill as the mind should also do things fit and unfit In the Canticles 7. 4. among the praises of the Spouse it is said her nose is like a tower in Lebanon because by Judgement she discerneth afar off temptation and evils coming as out of a Tower Verse 20. The scab is a foulness arising of an itch and spreading broader and broader if it be not look'd into and thereby is set down the vice of Covetousness which first beginneth with an itching desire and afterward for want of looking to spreadeth to a great foul Vice deforming any man but most unseemly in a Priest who ought to be clean Lâ—â—â—ly by him that hath his stones broken are noted such as though they do not act yet have ever in their minds lewd and unclean thoughts whereby they are so desperately carried away as pure and clean and holy meditations can take no place Verse 22. Albeit blemished persons might not stand at the Altar yet were they allowed to eat the Sacrifices and to be in the Congregation shadowing unt ous that the Church although blemished nevertheless is admitted to the communion and participation of those things which Christ by his eternal Sacrifice hath obtain'd for us And although some one or other infirmity may justly disable thee for such a place either in Church or Common-wealth yet from a place with the Elect either here or for ever it shall not hinder thee No nor ten thousand blemishes if thou art grieved for them and fighting against them dost take hold of thy spotless Saviour as thy help and safety against them all CHAP. XXII Verse 6. NOne but those that were clean might eat of the holy Things nay those that did but enter into the Tabernacle being unclean were threatned with death by God Now what should this solemn preparation under the Type put us in mind of but the true and inward preparation required still of us in the Anti-type that is to teach us that we ought carefully to sanctifie prepare and purifie not our clothes and external parts but our hearts from all sin and impurity before we presume to approach into the presence of God either to eat of Christ our spiritual Passover or to hear and receive his most holy Word And certainly the neglect hereof is the very cause why that Sacrament which is to some the Bread of Life is to others the Bread of Condemnation and that Word of God which is to some the Saviour of Life unto Life is to others the Saviour of Death unto Death Verse 19. A good Work without the heart is but a glorious sin for not so much the things themselves as the affections of men are considered of God One may have a free mind in poverty and a sparing mind in riches so it is not the Work but the Mind Thus the Lord regards not so much the thing done as the heart and mind of him that did it If we build only on the Work we have no better evidence to shew for our salvation then the Devils and Reprobates Not the Work then but the Heart is that that will stand and go for currant to shew this the Lord would have a free-will Offering among all the rest of his Sacrifices hereby shewing that the heart must be joyn'd with obedience nay so much did the Lord regard the Heart that he would not admit of any Gift for the building of the Temple but what came from a free will CHAP. XXIII Verse 2. IN that they were called the Feasts of the Lord men are taught in them to seek and attend such things as belonged to God and not their own business pleasures and sports And in the fourth verse they are called holy Convocations think therefore in your Conscience whether gadding and rioting be holy exercises and meet for an holy Convocation To this end they are still call'd in the Christian Church Holy dayes to put us in mind of the right use of them Verse 3. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings Wherefore saith St. Augustine learn that no place priviledgeth thee to break Gods Law but as being a sinner whithersoever thou goest thou carriest the yoak of sin so being the servant of God in all places obey his Will Verse 5. O marvellous accordance betwixt the two Testaments in the very time of their delivery there is the same agreement which is in their substance The ancient Iews kept our Feasts and we still keep theirs The Feast of the Passover is the time of Christs Resurrection then did he passe from under the bondage of Death Christ is our Passover the spotless Lamb whereof not a bone must be broken And so likewise the very day wherein God came down in Fire and Thunder to deliver the Law even the same day came also the Holy Ghost
VVHo can better order an Army than the Lord of Hosts and who more fit to lead his people into the Land of Canaan than he that brought them out of the house of bondage and he alone it is that doth here marshal the Camp of Israel order the Militia of his People and make them as an Army terrible with banners Terrible and full of Majesty either to draw Hearts or to daunt them God is both the Van and Rear in the Churches Army The Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will be your reward So that although Satan muster up all his Forces Tyrants Hereticks and the like that invade the Church and assault her on all sides yet they shall find her invincible Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth may Israel say but they have not prevailed against me Psalm 129. the Church is invincible and only the Church Athens took upon her of old to be so and Venice of late boasteth the like but time hath confuted the one and may soon do the other when the Church shall stand firm because founded on a Rock Verse 3. God providing here for the good of his People appointeth Officers and Magistrates over them and leaves them not to themselves which would have been the occasion of much contention Every Tribe had his certain Captain and Leader designed by God who is the God of order and therefore giveth to his People Rulers to fight their Battles and to guide them in order and Godliness Faithful Magistrates are needful for Church and Common-wealth who are not only a portion among Believers but the chief parts and stay of them in well-doing both in Peace and War Verse 10. Reuben was the Eldest Son of Iacob and to him as the First-born the Birth-right did belong and yet we see verse 3. that Iudah was placed before him thus doth God sometimes shew himself a just Judge in punishing sin and yet withall a merciful Father to Reuben in his Posterity for whereas he had deserved to be raced out of the number of Gods people because of his Incest yet God allowed Reuben here the second place among the Tribes So that all-be-it he was punish'd justly he was punish't gently Thus God dealeth evermore he will punish sin but he will do it in mercy not in severity gently not rigorously for Correction and not seeking the ruine of his Children CHAP. III. Verse 1. THere is a Natural Generation and there is a Moral or spiritual Generation my Father begets me the first way and my God or my Teacher the second way Thus here Moses did Regenerate what Aaron had begot he was a Father by his directions and instruction when Aaron was only by Nature The word delivered by Gods Minister for our spiritual Birth and Education is not a dead letter an empty sound as some would have it for together with the Word there goes forth a Regenerating power the exhortations thereof are operative means of Sanctification as when God said Let there be light or Christ said Lazarus come forth The Spirit maketh the seed of the Word profitable and generative And hence Ministers are call'd Fathers as Moses here was Father to Aarons Children who are therefore call'd his Generation Verse 4. When God had formerly sent his fire from above and commanded the continuance of that fire for Nadab and Abihu to fetch prophane Coals to Gods Altar could savour of no less than presumption and Sacriledge when we bring zeal without knowledg mis-conceits of Faith carnal Affections the devices of our will-worship superstitious devotions unto Gods service we bring common fire to his Altar these Flames were neveâ— of his kindling he hates both Altar Fire Priest and Sacrifice And now behold â—he same Fire that consumed the Sacrifices before consumes the Sacrificers It was the sign of Gods acceptation in consuming the Beast but whiles it destroyed Men the fearful sign of his displeasure By the same means God can bewray both love and hatred And here one might have thought that being but young Men and not yet warm in their Function both Age and Inexperience might have excus'd them but no pretences can bear off a sin with God That no man may hope the plea either of Birth or Youth or of the first Commission of Evill may challenge pardon I see here young Men Sons of the Ruler of Israel for the first offence struck dead Verse 13. The First-born are said to be Gods by several Rights First by right of Redemption he that is saved is not his own but his that saved him He hath saved us from our enemies that we might serve him Luke 1. 74. Christ hath therefore broke the Devils yoke from off our Necks that we might take upon us his yoke that is easie and his burthen that is light serve we must still but after another manner as the Israelites did when freed from the Egyptian bondage Yet thou shalt keep this service saith Moses Exod. 12. 25. Secondly the first-born are Gods by right of dilection as usually best beloved that together with our Children he might draw to himself the best of our affections Thirdly by right of Sanctification they were saparated they were sanctified to the Lord to wait on his Altar to shew that singular things are expected of all that draw nigh unto God in any duty but especially in the office of the Ministry Those that stand in the presence of Princes must be exact in their carriage God appointed both the weights and measures of the Sanctuary to be twice as large as those of the Common-Wealth which implies that he expects much more from those that serve him there than he doth from others CHAP. IV. Verse 9. A Type of Christ who is light Essential and giveth light to every man that cometh into the world to every man the light of Reason to his own a supernatural light to know Heavenly things an affecting transforming Light which shall change us into the same Image with himself from glory to glory as the Pearl by the often beating of the Sun-beams upon it becomes Radiant which will make us walk as the children of Light like so many Christal glasses with a light in the midst of each which appeareth throw every part of them and in respect of this light every Created understanding in its highest abilities is at the most but as Aeschilus saith of Fire stoln by Prometheus a beam of that Light Essential Verse 19. Aaron and his Sons must appoint the Cohathites their several Offices and shew them what part every particular person must bear that the wrath of God do not break in among them and this consideration of the wrath of God ready to come upon offenders ought to encrease their care to do the duty that God requires Holy things must be handled Reverently Religiously Whatever matters of God we meddle withall whether it be Hearing of his Word or Receiving of the Sacrament or Calling on his Name we are
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
familiar with God! he saw they could be content to be happy and merry without him he would not be hapyy without them They had professed to have forgotten him he seeks to pray for them He that will ever hope for good himself must return good for evil unto others Verse 21. Although Moses did here stamp and burn their Idol yet I do not hear any of them say he is but one man we are many how easily may we destroy him rather than he our God It is our act and we will maintain it here was none of this but an humble obeisance to the basest revenge that Moses shall impose God hath set such an impression of Majesty in the face of lawful Authority that Wickedness is confounded in its self to behold it Besides sin hath a guiltiness in its self that when it is seasonably checked it pulls in his head and seeks rather an hiding-place than a Fort. CHAP. X. Verse 1. ISrael recovers the favour of renewing the Tabernacles but with an abatement Hew thee two Tables God made the first Tables the matter the form was his now Moses must shew the next As God created the first Man after his own Image but that once defaced Adam begat Cain after his own or as the first Temple rais'd a second was built yet so far short that the Israelites wept at the sight of it The first works of God are still the purest those that he secondarily works decline in their perfection It was reason that though God had forgotten Israel they should still find they sinn'd They might see the foot-steps of his displeasure in the differences of the Agent Verse 2. When God had told Moses before I will not go before Israel but my Angel shall lead them Moses so noted the difference that he rested not till God himself undertook their conduct so might the Israelites have noted some remainders of offence whiles instead of that which his own hand did formerly make he saith now Hew thee and yet these second Tables are kept reverently in the Ark when the others lay mouldred in shivers upon Sinah like as the repaired Image of God in our Regeneration is preserved prefected and layed up at last safe in Heaven whereas the first Image of our created innocence is quite defaced so the second Temple had the glory of Christs exhibition though meaner in frame The merciful respects of God are not tyed to glorious outsides or the inward worthiness of things or persons he hath chosen the weak and simple to confound the wise and mighty Verse 4. God did this work by Moses Moses hewed and God wrote our true Moses repairs that Law of God which we in our Nature had broken he receivesit for us and it is accepted of God no less than if the first Characters of his Law had been entire We can give nothing but the Table it is God that must write in it Our hearts are but a bare board till God by his finger engrave his Law in them yea Lord we are a â—â—â—gh Quarry hew thou us out and square us fit for thee to write upon Verse 12. God forbids us not here a love of the Creature proportionable to the good that that Creature can do us to love Fire as it warms me and Meat as it feeds me and a Wife as she helps me But because God does all this in all these several instruments God alone is centrically radically directly to be loved and the Creature with a love reflected and derived from him Verse 17. St. Peter took his Text Acts 10. 34. from this Text of Moses where because the words are not the same with these here in precise termes we find just occasion to note that neither Christ in his Preaching nor the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures of the New-Testament were so curious as our times in citing Chapters and Verses or such distinctions no nor in citing the very words of the places There is a sentence cited thus indeffinitely Heb. 4. 4. It is written in a certain place without more particular note and to pass over many if we consider that one place Isai. 6. 10. and consider the same place as it is cited six several times in the New-Testament we shall see that they stood not upon such exact quotations and citing of the very words as we do now adayes Verse 20. It is a reverential fear of God as of a Father that is here required causing us first to have high and honourable conceptions of God in our hearts sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and let him be your dread and your fear Isai. 8. 13. Secondly making all honourable mention of him with our mouths whether we speak to him or of him Presume not in a sudden unmannerliness to blurt out the Name of God much less to blaspheme it and bore it through with hideous Oaths and Imprecations To speak evill of ones Father was Death by Plato's Law as well as by Gods Law and Suidas testifieth of the same Plato and other Heathens that when they would swear by their Iupiter out of meer dread and reverence of his Name they forbare to mention him breaking off their Oath with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as those that only dared to owe the rest to their thoughts Thirdly Walking before him in the whole course of our lives with an holy bashfulness being evermore in the sence of his presence and light of his countenance In the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost as those Primitive Christians Acts 9. 31. CHAP. XI Verse 6. THis Element was not used to such Morsels It devours the Carkasses of men but bodies enform'd with living Souls never before To have seen them struck dead upon the Earth had been fearful but to see the Earth at once their Executioner and Grave was more horrible Neither the Sea nor the Earth are fit to give passage the Sea is moist and flowing and will not be divided for the continuty of it the Earth is dry and massy and will neither yeild naturally nor meet again when it hath yeilded Yet the Waters did cleave to give way unto Israel for their preservation the Earth did cleave to give way to the Conspirators in Judgement both Sea and Earth did shut their jaws again upon the Adversaries of God Verse 9. Hence some Lutherans have concluded that God hath not determined the set period of mans dayes but that it is in Mans power to lengthen or shorten them But is there not a time appointed for Man upon the Earth Iob 7. 1. there is certainly our bounds are prescribed us and a pillar set by him who bears up the Heavens which we are not to pass Stat sua cuique dies saith the Heathen Poet our last day stands though all the rest run It is said of the Turks that they shun not the company of those that have the Plague but pointing to their fore-heads say it was writ there at their Birth
without blemish neither lame nor blind saith the Text. And certainly if the Sacrifice were to be without blemish much more is the Priest who was stil'd holy to the Lord from a two-fold holiness the one of his Life the other of his Person For all Sanctity is not inward nor is all perfection that of the Soul Gods holy one must be his fair one too without blemish no less in body than in mind Thus under the Law no monstrous issue no blind seer might offer the bread of his God Lev. 21. and shall the Evangelical ministration be worse served than the legal while the Sacrifice is more noble shall the Priest be less only the fattest in the Heard the fairest in the Flock were the oblations of the Law and shall the poorest of the Tribe the most deformed of all the issue be the Offerings of the Gospel the Lords house is no Hospital neither the Sacrifice nor the Priest must be admitted unsound and imperfect CHAP. XVI Verse 16. LEst Men should altogether neglect the service of God here is an injunction given from the Lord that all the Males should go up to the Temple three times a year still to keep them in use and love of the Church albeit they dwelled a great way off Where you may observe that although the Law reach'd but to the Males because God graciously considered that the Women might be with Child or Nurses and not able to come yet godly Women when they were able and had no impediment would go up also with their Husbands such a zeal had they to the House of God So went up Hannah with her Husband so went up the Blessed Virgin to Ierusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover both of them when there were gross and foul Corruptions For when Hannah went up what read we of the Sons of Heli and when Mary went up the Scribes and Pharisees were in their Ruffe yet they went up to teach us not to fall out with God for Mens faults nor to absent our selves from Church and Church exercises because all things are not perfect in the Ministers Verse 19. Gifts and Rewards put out the Eyes of those that saw clearly before and stop the Ears of those that could hear before and shutteth up the mouth of those that could speak before If then the receiving of Bribes and taking of Gifts be a setting of Justice to sail if they have force to pervert and corrupt not only such as are lewd and lime-finger'd to draw Presents unto themselves but the wise and righteous then we must acknowledg them to be dangerous Temptations this Moses teacheth the Judges and Officers which were to be chosen in their Cities Thou shalt not wrest the Law c. neither let them say though I take Rewards I will never swerve from Justice for that is to presume vainly of thine own strength and to give the Spirit of God the lye that speaketh the contrary Now seeing that Gifts and Rewards offered be as baits laid up to ensnare the Soul let us refuse them in the first place and next let us follow after the best Gifts which may further the Salvation of the Soul Those indeed are good Gifts which make the possessors of them better and which in the day of trouble and hour of Temptation shall minister more true comfort and peace than all earthly and transitory things which end in corruption CHAP. XVII Verse 13. IT is the duty of a Child of God to fear the Judgements of God We should fear the Judgements of God whilst threatned and only heard of what though we see them not what though we feel them not what though we are not the persons intended in them or to be smitted by them yet the report of them as directed against others should make us tremble Now if we are to fear God for his Judgements when they are but threatned then certainly we are to fear him much more for his Judgements inflicted And therefore in the old Law here when Judgements were executed 't is said they shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously they shall fear what had been already executed upon offenders and so fear to offend Moses here sheweth what all ought to do not what all did upon the appearances of Judgement and the execution of Divine wrath upon high Transgressors Verse 17. Here the King is commanded not to multiply Wives and that upon very good ground for if one Woman undid all Man-kind what marvel is it if many Women may undo one And Satan hath found this bait to take so well that he never chang'd it since he crept into Paradice How many have we known whose heads have been broken with their own Ribs In the first World the Sons of God saw the Daughters of Men and took them Wives of all that they liked they multiplyed not Children but Iniquities Balaam knew well if the Dames of Moab could make the Israelites Wantons they should soon make them Idolaters all lies open where the Covenant is not both made with the Eye and kept Verse 20. Learn to fear the Lord saith the Holy Ghost in the former Verse that thy heart be not lifted up above thy Brethren The best counterpoison against Pride is to get the heart seasoned with the fear of God for the fear of the Lord is to hate evill as Pride Arrogancy Prov. 8. 13. Ioseph truly fear'd God and therefore hated not only gross Evils as Adultery but close Evils as Pride and Arrogancy It is not in me God shall give Pharaoh an answer Gen. 41. as he insinuates himself by this dutiful comprecation so he extenuates his gifts that he may give the glory to God So St. Iohn Baptist was full of the fear of the Lord and thereby of Humility For these two go coupled Prov. 22. 4. and so close that there is no Copulative in the Original for thus it runs in the Hebrew By humility the fear of the Lord are riches and honour and life What Riches the Baptist had I know not but for honour that hand of his that he thought not worthy to unloose the latchet of Christs shooe Christ thought worthy to be laid on his head in Baptism There are that say that for his humility here on Earth St. Iohn is dignified with that place in Heaven from which Lucifer fell who told them that I know not but this I know that he that humbleth himself shall be exalted Luke 4. 11. CHAP. XVIII Verse 1. YOu have here in this Verse the reason wherefore Tythes ought to be paid to Gods Ministers We must give to God what the things of God why because they are Gods they do properly belong unto him as his own possession they are a peculiar Inheritance or special portion reserved to himself So that although he hath given the Earth to the Sons of Men yet these like a chief Rent to a Landlord or a certain Tribute to a King were alwaies excepted and reserved they
Prayers We beat our Servants if they offend us being but men as they are and may not God then beat us for our faults he being our Creator and we but dust Thus make use of these Curses and instead of them God ever give us for Christs sake his blessings both Temporal and Eternal both of this World and also of that better to come Verse 23. How oft have we seen the same Field both full and famishing how oft the same Waters safe and by some irruption or new tincture hurtful Howsoever natural causes may concur Heaven and Earth and Ayre and Waters follow the temper of our soules of our lives and are therfore indisposed because we are so He turneth the Heavens into brasse saith this Text and the Earth into iron And so Psal. 107. He turneth the Rivers into a wildernesse and water-springs into a dry ground for the wickedness of the Inhabitants Verse 31. If sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart And therefore the Lord here threatens his People thus in case of disobedience Thine oxe shall be slain before thine eyes And vers 67. he shewes what Convulsions and Divisions of spirit the Visions of the Eye would bring upon them The fear of the Heart and the sight of the Eye are near adjoyned The sight of the Eye caused the fear of the Heart and both were as concauses of those distracting thoughts and wishes there of hasting the morning to the evening and againe suddainly reducing back the evening to the morning Unlesse sorrow be hid from the Eyes it can hardly be kept from the Heart It is an usuall custome if a man be but let bloud to bid him turn away his head if he be faint-hearted for the sight of his bloud will make his heart faint and so from more gashly spectacles men commonly turn away their faces which is to keep sorrow from their sorrow and so from their Hearts Verse 47. As there is no affliction so there is no outward blessing can change the Heart or bring it about unto God Abundance as you see here doth not draw the heart unto God yet Satan when he came before the Lord Iob 1. would infer that it doth asking God the Question Doth Iob serve God for nought which might well be retorted upon Satan himself Satan why didst not thou serve God then Thou didst once receive more outward blessings from God then ever Iob did the blessedness of an Angel Yet that glorious Angelical estate wherein thou wast created could not keep thee in the compasse of obedience thou didst rebel in the abundance of all blessings thine own apostacy refutes thine errour in making so little of Iobs obedience because he had received so much and confirms the truth of this Text that it is not Abundance that makes Gods People serve him CHAP. XXIX Verse 4. VVE see no further than God gives us light and so far as he leads us we go right if he withdraw we turn aside and quickly wander from the way of truth and righteousnesse Thus Moses speakes here of the many signes and wonders which God wrought in the midst of that People which they did not understand Why what was the reason Moses tels us expresly The Lord had not given them an heart to conceive c. They had sensitive Eyes and Ears yea they had a rational heart or mind but they wanted a spirituall Eye to see a spiritual Ear to hear a spiritual Heart to apprehend and improve those wonderful works of God and these they had not because God had not given them such Eyes Ears and Hearts Wonders without Grace cannot open the Eyes fully but Grace without wonders can And as man hath not an Eye to see the wonderful works of God spiritually until it is given so much lesse hath he an Eye to see the wonders of the Word of God till it be given him from above Verse 12. This hath been the practise of Gods Children in Scripture to consecrate themselves to God by Vow or Covenant Thus Moses here after he had given the Law to the People causeth them to enter into Covenant for the performance of it Nor is it without singular reason that godly men have taken this course that hereby they might be the more strongly obliged to God and God to them There is indeed a sufficient obligation in Gods Precepts to require our obedience but when to his Precepts we add our own Promise it is so much the more engaging True it is the Creatures natural Obligation to his Creators Command is so great that in its self it is not capable of addition but yet our voluntary Promises serve to inflame our Luke-warmnesse and stir up our backwardnesse to obedience Indeed a religious resolution is as the putting of a new rowel into a spurre which maketh it the sharper the twisting of another thred into the rope whereby it is the stronger And hence it is that as God in condescention to our weakness hath annexed an oath to his Promises not to make them firmer in themselves but to confirme us the more So godly men in consideration of their own dulness adjoyn their Promises to Gods Precepts not to strengthen their force in enjoyning but to quicken themselves the more in observing Verse 18. Nothing is more bitter then sin and therefore compared here to gall and wormwood Lest there be among you any root that beareth gall wormwood i. e. least any person among you should commit this wickednesse namely Idolatry which will be as distastefull to God as gall is to man and which will be as bitter as gall to the man who commits it whether we consider the bitternesse of repentance if it be pardoned or the bitternesse of paine if he persisting in it impenitently be punished Verse 29. When secret things are revealed unto us of God we ought to endeavour to learn them to understand them to publish them and speak of them to others Whensoever God hath a mouth to speak we must have an ear to hear Therefore Moses saith Secret things belong to the Lord but the things revealed belong unto us to our children Which may serve to reprove all such as refuse to look into these revealed things of God but dwel in blindnesse and ignorance Of this sort are the greatest number of Christians they are wise enough to look into their own profit but they care not for the wisdome that is of God they are brought up in the Church but know not the Doctrine of the Church whereas being brought up in the Schoole of Christ they must every day be profiting and going forward CHAP. XXX Verse 2. THere is no returning without hearing nor hearing without believing nor believing to be believed without doing Returning is all these therefore where Christ saith that if those works had been done in Tyre and Sidon Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes In the Syriack translation of saint Matth we have this
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