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
men it is ordained for men Verse 10. In this seventh year it was not lawful to require debts but some differance of opinions men have touching this some say their debt was clean lost others say no but for that year deferred and forborn after demanded lawfully and paid willingly which is more likely for as much as those pollitick lâ—ws of God were not ordained of God to overthrow justice but to preserve it and direct it in a commendable and fit manner among men now it is justice to let every man have his own and there was good reason wherefore that debt should be forborn this seventh year because that year there was notillage to make money of a right and true application of this may every feelling heart make in these Cities and Towns where it shall please God to lay his sore visitation of plague or any other infection thereby stopping the trade whereby every man was enabled to get for his maintenance and the discharge of such that were due from him to others God forbid but that mercy should be found towards their brethren in those that look for mercy at Gods hand when men cannot receive money they cannot pay and no dishonest meaning making the stop but only the Lords hand staying trade who will be rigorous in such a case when the earth rested and there was no tillage to raise money by you see the mercy of Gods law here and is it not all one when trade ceaseth let your bowels then shew whose children you are if the Image and superscription of God be upon you surely you will shew mercy and give some set time to your Creditors that mean truly read what God saith Isaiah 58. 3. c. and remember he is the same God still Verse 19. God by Moses made the Children of Israel a Song because as he said howsoever they did by the Law they would never forget that Song and that Song should be his witnesse against them Therefore would God have us institute solemn memorials of his great deliverances that if when those dales come about we do not glorifie him that might aggravate our condemnation CHAP. XXXII Verse 11. THE words spoken here of God himself are thus applicable to his Ministers first the Eagle stirreth up her nest the Preacher stirs and moves and agitates the holy assertions of the Congregation that they slumber not in a sencelessenesse of that that is said and then as 't is added here she flutters over her young the Preacher makes a holy noise in the conscience of the Congregation and when he hath awakened them by stirring the nest he casts some claps of thunder some intimidations in denouncing the judgements of God and he flings open the gates of heaven that they may hear and look up and see a man sent by God with power to infuse his fear upon them so she fluttereth over her young but then as it followeth there she spreadeth abroad her wings she overshaddowes them she enwraps them she armes them with her wings so that no other terror no other fluttering but that which comes from her can come upon them The Preacher doth so infuse the fear of God into his Auditory that first they shall fear nothing but God and then they shall fear God but so as he is God and God is mercy God is love And the Minister shall so spread his wings over his people as to defend them from all inordinate fear from all diffidence and distrust in the mercy of God which is farther exprest in the next clause She taketh them and beareth them upon her wings When the Minister hath performed all the former acts of his calling then he sets them upon the top of his best wings and shewes them heaven and God in heaven raining down his bloud into their emptinesse and his balm into their wounds and preparing their seat where he stands solliciting their cause at the right hand of his Father Verse 35. In this we have a first and a second lesson First that since revenge is in Gods hands it will certainly fall upon the malefactor God doth not mistake his marke and then since revenge is in his hands no man must take revenge out of his hands or make himself his own Magistrate or revenge his own quarrel And as we we that are Christians have our author Moses here that tels us this the natural man hath his secular author Theocritus that tels him as much reperit Deus nocentes God alwaies findes out the guilty man In which the natural man hath also a first and second lesson too first that since God findes out the Malefactor he never scapes And then since God doth find him at last God sought him all the while though God strike late yet he pursued him long before many a man feels the sting in his conscience long before he feels the blow in his body That God finds and therefore seeks that God overtakes and therefore pursues that God overthrows and therefore resists the wicked is a naturall conclusion as well as a divine Verse 40. Where was God now when he lifted up his hands to heaven here here upon earth with us in his Church for our assurance and our establishment making that protestation denoted in his lifting up his hands to heaven that he lived for ever and that therefore we need fear nothing Verse 50. How familiarly doth Moses hear of his end it is no more betwixt God and Moses but Go up and die If he had invited him to a meal it could not have been in a more sociable compellation no otherwise then he said to his other Prophet Up and eat It is neither harsh nor news to Gods children to hear or think of their departure to them death hath lost his horror through acquaintance they have so oft thought and resolved of the necessity and of the issue of their dessolution that they cannot hold it either strange or unwelcome He that hath had such entire conversation with God cannot fear to go to him Those that know him not or know he will not know them no marvail if they tremble Verse 51. It might have been just with God to have reserved the cause to himself and in the generallity to have told Moses that his sin must shorten his journey but it is more mercy then justice that his Children shall know why they smart that God may at once both justifie himself and humble them for their particular offences Those to whom he meanes vengeance have not the sight of their sins till they be past repentance Complaine not that God upbraids thee with thy old sins whosoever thou art but know it is an argument of love whereas concealment is a fearful sign of a secret dislike from God CHAP. XXXIII Verse 2. THough it be not a difficult matter to impose upon the sence and judgement of men with whom tin may pass for silver it is not so with the judge and searcher of the heart he soon
A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY OR EXPOSITION Upon the PENTATEUCH VIZ. These five Books of MOSES GENESIS EXODUS LEVITICUS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY Wherein The Text of every Chapter is Practically expounded according to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in a way not usually trod by COMMENTATORS and wholly applyed to the Life and Salvation of Christians By Ab. Wright sometime Fellow of St. John's Colledge in OXFORD LONDON Printed by G. Dawson for The. Iohnson at the Golden-Key in St. Pauls-Church-Yard 1662. TO THE Right Honourable The Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Kings-Bench The Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Common-Pleas The Lord Chief Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer And the rest of the Honourable Justices of the said several COURTS Right Honourable IT is not the weight and excellency of what is here presented that may plead for so Noble a Patronage as your Lordships is it is the Subject not the Work the Text and not the Comment that deserves both your Protection and Perusal For my Lords you have here Moses that Grand Legislator of the Old Testament dedicated to you that are the reverend Iudges under the New His Laws have been the Magna Charta of the whole World and this small Pentateuch hath proved the ground-work for the Pandects of all Nations to build upon In this respect therefore it may claim a kind of propriety and right to your Honourable Patronage and take the presumption to shelter it self under your grave long Robes Here indeed are no Controversies stated no Law-cases judged and determined My Sole design and endeavours have been to make our great Law-giver Moses altogether Practical and wholly applicable to the Life and Conversation of Christians In these sheets then you have described those Antient Patriarcks of Gods Church who were also Aeconomical Iudges and so not unfitting guids for your Honours to follow where their steps have been straight and upright nay their very slips and deviations may serve to make us stand more firm and our treadings more steady and setled in the wayes of Godliness and Iourny towards Heaven But if your Lordships had rather walk by Rule than Example here is that Moral everlasting Rule of God himself in the Book of Exodus to direct you and withal that you may see how proper and convenient even a Ceremonial Law is for Gods Church you have a whole Book of it in Leviticus and this also decreed and setled after those necessary Acts of the Ten Commandments as if the very Moral Law it self had not been curb sufficient to keep in a Rebellious People without some binding Ceremonies And here my Lords I must needs confess upon the sad experience of Schism under both Testaments that all those Laws Moral and Ceremonial have not been powerful enough to settle the Peace of Gods Church something was wanting to the Jews and is at this day to us which under God is only able to produce that great and glorious Work and that is a General Council This General Council my Lords hath ever been the most approved successful way of the Catholick Church to compose her differences and it is this also that will prevent the ruin of our own miserably devided National Church and frustrate the design of that Politick Aphorisme of some that the Church of England must be ruin'd by the same way that it was reform'd for say they it was reform'd by Schisme and it must be ruin'd by Schisme Now to prevent this ruine contrived by Sectaries I know not any way more Prudential more blessed by God than a General Council to procure this that every Peaceful Christian and such are your Honours may joyn the strongest Forces of his Endeavours shall be the daily Prayers of My Lords Your most devoted Servant in all Church-Offices Ab. Wright A PRACTICAL COMMENTARY UPON THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES CALLED GENESIS CHAP. I. Verse 1. THere was a Time or something like to that before the beginning of Time when God did not work and yet was not idle For though we grant that there was no External work of the Godhead until the making of the World yet can there be no necessary illation of Idleness in the Deity seeing it might have as indeed it had actions immanent included within the circle of the Trinity Just so ought it to be with every Christian who though he doth not alwayes perform the outward actions of Religion yet he may alwayes be imployed within himself in some practice of Christianity holy Thoughts religious Meditations mental Prayer faithful Vows and Resolutions are those inward immanent operations of a Christian whereby he may imitate his Creator in not working and yet not being idle But then when he doth begin to express himself in some outward action let him here also follow the example of his Maker and whereas it is said in the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth first the Heaven and then the Earth so et our actions respect chiefly Heavenly matters in the first place let us exercise our selves in those things that are above and when from those we descend to things below let even those Terrestrial affairs look upwards and be fix'd and terminated in Heaven and let all this be done by way of Creation too let our Gifts and Graces and Endowments be acknowledged to arise from nothing in our selves and let every faculty of our Souls be subject to Gods Will as the Creation was to his Command for he spake the word and they were made so when God speaks let us hear and let our will be actuated and formed and regulated by his voice as the whole World was by his Word Verse 2. The word Ferebatur in the vulgar Latine in the English moved denotes both motion and rest beginnings and wayes and ends We may best consider the motion the stirring of the Holy Ghost in zeal and the rest of the Holy Ghost in moderation If we be without zeal we have not the motion if we be without moderation we have not the rest the peace of the Holy Ghost he moved and he rested upon the Waters in the Creation as the word Incubabat doth imply he came and tarried still upon Christ in his Baptism He moves us to a zeal of laying hold of the means of Salvation which God offers us in the Church and he settles us in a peaceful Conscience that by having well used those means we are made his Children A holy hunger and thirst of the Word and Sacraments a remorse and compunction for former sins a zeal to promote the cause and glory of God by word and deed this is the motion of the Holy Ghost and then to content my self with Gods measure of temporal blessings and for spiritual that I do serve God faithfully in that Calling which I lawfully profess as far as that Calling will admit this peace of Conscience this acquiescence of having done that that belongs unto me this is the Rest of the Holy Ghost
admittance which they once denied But now as they formerly rejected God so are they justly rejected of God Ere Vengeance begin Repentance is seasonable but if Judgement be once gone out we cry too late while the Gospel sollicites us the doors of the Ark are open if we neglect the time of Grace in vain shall we seek it with tears God holds it no mercy to pity the obstinate Verse 18. The Faith of the Righteous cannot be so much derided as their success is magnified How securely doth Noah ride out this uproar of Heaven Earth and Waters He hears the pouring down of the Rain about his head the shreeking of Men the roaring and bellowing of Beasts on both sides of him the raging and threats of the Waves under him he saw the miserable shifts of the distressed Unbeleevers and in the mean time sits quietly in his dry cabbin neither fearing nor feeling evil he knew that he which owed the Waters would steer him and he who shut him in would preserve him How happy a thing is Faith What a quiet safety what a Heavenly peace doth it work in the Soul in the midst of all the endeavours of evil Verse 20. There is no doubt but very many hoping to over-run their Judgement and climbing up to the highest Mountains looked down upon the Waters with more hope than fear and now when they see their Hills become Islands they get up into the tallest Trees where with paleness and horror at once they look for death and study to avoid it whom the Waves over-take at last half-dead with famine and half with fear So now from the tops of the Mountains they descry the Ark floating upon the Waters and behold with envie that which before they beheld with scorn By which we may see that he flies in vain whom God pursues and that there is no way to flie from his Judgements but to flie to his Mercy by Repenting CHAP. VIII Verse 1. GOds Providence is here manifest that watcheth not only over man but every particular Beast likewise Whereby man is taught to be like his Creator and to regard the life of his Beast Prov. 12. Xenocrates is commended by Aelian lib. 13. for succouring a Sparrow that flew to him pursued by an Hawk and after let her go saying Se supplicem non prodidisse That he would not betray the very Bird that flew to him for safeguard Verse 3. Now when God had fetch'd again all the life that he had given to his unworthy Creatures and reduced the World unto its first Form wherein Waters were over the face of the Earth it was time for a renovation of all things to succeed this destruction To have continued the Deluge long had been to punish Noah that was righteous After forty dayes therefore the Heavens cleared up after 150 the Waters sink down How soon is God weary of punishing that is never weary of blessing Yet may not the Ark rest suddenly If we did not stay some while under Gods hand we should not know how sweet his mercy is and how great our thankfulness should be Verse 7. God doth not reveal all things to his best servants Behold he that told Noah an hundred and twenty years before what day he should go into the Ark yet fore-tells him not now in the Ark what day the Ark should rest upon the hills and he should go forth Noah therefore sends out his Intelligencers the Raven and the Dove whose wings in that vaporous aire might easily descry further than his sight the Raven of quick scent of gross feed of tough constitution no soul was so fit for discovery the likeliest things alwayes succeed not He neither will venture far into that solitary world for fear of want nor yet come into the Ark for love of liberty but hovers about in uncertainties How many carnal minds fly out of the Ark of Gods Church and embrace the present world rather chusing to feed upon the unsavoury Carkasses of sinful pleasures than to be restrain'd within the strait lists of Christian obedience Verse 9. How exactly doth the Soul of every man resemble this Dove That poor innocent Creature after it was exposed to the wide World was in perpetual motion no rest to be found until it returned to the Ark And just so is the condition of every man so long as we are in the World so long we are in a restless condition perpetual troubles and vexations no rest to be found until we return unto the Ark unto the God that sent us forth thither must we fly or be over-whelm'd in the Deluge of the worlds vanities and perish for ever Mans Soul is Gods Turtle Created for God and therefore can find no rest but in God It may flutter up and down in the World fly from one trouble from one perplexity to another but no peace no rest to be found until it return unto that God who commanded it forth upon his work and employment which causeth it to take up the complaint of the Psalmist Oh that I had the wings of a Dove then would I fly away and be at rest Verse 11. The Dove is sent forth a Fowl both swift and simple She like a true Citizen of the Ark returns and brings faithful notice of the continuance of the Waters by her restless and empty return by her Olive-leaf of the abatement How worthy are those Messengers to be welcome which with innocence in their lives bring glad tydings of Peace and Salvation in their mouths Verse 16. Ambrose and some Hebrews note That when Noah was bid to go into the Ark he and his Sons are joyn'd together and so his Wife and his Sons Wives likewise chap. 6. vers 18. but here in their coming forth He and his Wife his Sons and their Wives are coupled to shew that they lived a part in the Ark and accompanied not together which is most probable though not upon this ground but as he farther notes Maeroris tempus er at non laetitiae It was a time of Mourning and not of Mirth and for that he knew the Deluge came because of the intemperancy of the other world Verse 18. The Ark though it was Noahs Fort against the Waters yet it was his Prison also he was safe in it but pent up he that gave him life by it now thinks to give him liberty out of it At this Noah rejoyces and beleeves yet still he waits seven dayes more It is not good to devour the favours of God too greedily but to take them in that we may digest them O strong Faith of Noah that was not weary of this delay Some man would have so long'd for the open Air after so long closeness that upon the first notice of safety he would have uncovered and voided the Ark Noah stayes seven dayes e're he will open and well neer two months e're he will forsake the Ark and not then unless God that commanded to enter had bidden him depart There is no
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
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
wonderful this is a fearful Fall Verse 8. Every Earth was not fit for Adam but a Garden a Paradice what excellent pleasures and rare varieties have men found in Gardens planted by the hands of men and yet all the World of men cannot make one twigg or leaf or spire of grass when he that made the matter undertakes the fashion how must it needs be beyond our capacity excellent No Herb no Tree no Flower was wanting there that might be for ornament or use whether for sight or for sent or for taste the bounty of God wrought further than to necessity even to comfort and recreation Why are we niggardly to our selves when God is liberal but for all this if God had not there convers'd with man no abundance could have made him blessed Verse 9. The Tree of Life was a real Tree in Paradice but it was not able to give immortality for no corruptible food can make the body incorruptible and if it could have given immortality it must have had a power to preserve from Sin for by sinning Man became mortal therefore it was called The Tree of Life not effectivè but significativè as a signe of true immortality which Adam should have received of God if he had continued in obedience and so also was that other Tree call'd The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil not because it gave Knowledge but was a Seal unto them of their miserable Knowledge which they should get by the experience of their Transgression which is call'd a Practical Knowledge And yet here by the way though God forbad Man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge yet not of the Tree of Life to shew that he desired we should be Saints not Rabbies and Doctors Verse 15. That which was mans Store-house was also his Work-house his pleasure was his task Paradice serv'd not only to feed his sences but to exercise his hands If happiness had consisted in doing nothing man had not been imployed all his delights could not have made him happy in an idle life Man therefore is no sooner made than he is set to work neither greatness nor perfection can priviledg a folded hand he must labour because he was happy how much more we that we may be so this first labour of his was as without necessity so without pains without weariness how much more chearfully we go about our businesses so much nearer we come to our Paradice Verse 17. Here is a double comfort from these words to the Children of God the first consists in this in that it was the Lord of Life that first named death Morte morieris saith God thou shalt dye the death I do the less fear and abhor Death because I find it in his mouth even a Malediction hath a sweetness iu Gods mouth for there is a blessing wrapt up in it a Mercy in every Correction a Resurrection upon every Death from whence issues the other spiritual comfort that as God did cast upon the unrepentant sinner two Deaths in the Text a temporal and a Spiritual Death so hath he breath'd into us two lives for so as the word for Death is doubled Morte morieris thou shalt dye the Death so the word for Life is expressed in the plural at the seventh Verse of this Chapter Chaim vitarum God breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Lives of divers lives though our Natural life were no life but a continual dying yet we have two Lives besides that an eternal life reserved for Heaven but yet an Heavenly Life too a spiritual Life even in this World Verse 18. One cause of Marriage is to avoid the inconvenience of Solitariness signified in these words It is not good for Man to be alone as if he had said this Life would be miserable irksome to Man if the Lord had not given him a Wife to bear a share in his troubles and afflictions Now if it be not good for Man to be alone then is it good for him to have a Companion and therefore as God created a pair of all other Kinds so also of this And this was that help in the Text in which we see that God did provide an help for Man before he saw his own want and while Adam slept and thought nothing God was working and laying out for his good and preparing him an Helper Shewing that Man is stronger by his Wife for as God hath knit the bones and sinews together for the strengthning of Mans body so hath he knit Man and Woman together for the strengthening of their Life because two are firmer than one Verse 20. As Adam gave every Creature the Name according as he saw the Nature thereof to be so God gives every man reward or punishment the Name of a Saint or Devil in his purpose as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces When I shal come to the sight of the Book of Life and the Records of Heaven amongst the Reprobate I shall never see the Name of Cain alone but Cain with his addition Cain that kil'd his Brother not Iuda's Name alone but Iudas with his addition Iudas that betrayed his Master God did not begin with a Morte moriendum some Body must dye and therefore I wil make some Body to kill but God came to a Morte morieris yet thou art alive and maist live but if thou wilt rebel thou must dye Verse 21. This Sleep that man was cast into while his Wife was created doth teach us that our Affections our Lusts and Concupiscences should sleep while we go about this Action the choice of a Wife for as the Man slept while his Wife wa◠making so our flesh should sleep while our Wife is choosing lest as the love of Venison wone Isaac to bless one for the other so the love of Gentry or Riches or Beauty should make us take one for the other Verse 22. Woman was not made of the head and therefore must not be the head nor yet of the foot of man and therefore must not be set at his foot but the man must set her at his heart near the place from whence she came She which should lie in his bosome was made in his bosom should be as close to him as the Rib of which she was fashion'd Verse 25. Comparatively Adam was better than all the world beside and yet we find no act of pride in Adam when he was alone When there was none in the world but himself and his Wife who was not another but himself though they were both naked they were neither of them asham'd Soliture is not the scene of pride the danger of pride is in company when we meet to look upon one another Thus in Eve her first act was an act of Pride a harkening to that voice of the Serpent Ye shall be as gods As soon as there were more than themselves there was pride How many have we known that have been content all the week at home alone
with their worky-day-faces as well as with their worky-day-cloaths and yet on Sundaies when they come to Church and appear in company will mend both their faces as well as their cloaths CHAP. III. Verse 5. THE first Sin that ever was was an ascending a climing too high When the purest understandings of all the Angels fel by their ascending when Lucifer was tumbled down by his Similis ero altissimo I will be like the most high then the Devil tryed upon them who were next to the Angels in dignity upon man how that clambring would work upon him he presents to man the same ladder he infuses into man the same ambition and as he fell with a Similis ero altissimo I will be like the most high so he overthrew man with an Eritis sicut Dii ye shall be like gods It seems this Fall hath broke the neck of mans ambition and now we dare not be so like God as we should be ever since this Fall man is so far from affecting higher places than his Nature is capable of that he is still groveling on the ground and participates and imitates and expresses more of the nature of the beast than his own Fond man that is thus cheated of an assurance of Immortality by a false perswasion that he shall be immortal this Eritis sicut dii hath damn'd all The Serpent perswades him if he does but taste he shall be as God when he hath tasted finds himself worse than a man a very beast being thus at once fool'd out of his Everlastingness and the favour of his Maker Verse 7. Till man had sinn'd his eyes wereshut but afterwards he sees the greatness of his sin as David did and yet for all this he was more ashamed of his nakedness than of his sin and therefore he endeavours by figg-leav'd aprons to cover his nakedness but we read of no preparation that was made to hide and take away the deformity of his sin Thus many fear more to offend because of publick shame than for any conscience of sin as Cain rather grieved that he was made a vagabond than that he kill'd his Brother Verse 10. How would he that were come abroad at midnight to do a mischief sneak away if he saw the Watch what a damp must it necessarily cast upon any sinner in the nearest approach of his sin if he can see God See him before thou sinnest then he looks lovingly after the sin remember how Adam would have sain hid himself from God he that goes one step out of Gods sight is loath to come into it again That therefore thou maist begin thy Heaven here put thy self in the sight of God put God in thy sight in every particular action In all our senses in all our faculties we may see God if we will and therefore Saint Augustine in his Twentieth Chapter de moribus Ecclesiae hath collected places of Scripture where every one of our sences is called a seeing there is a Gustate videte and audite and palpate tasting and hearing and feeling and all to this purpose are call'd seeing Let us therefore make use of our sences and endeavour alwayes to see God as he alwayes sees us God sees us at midnight he sees us then when we had rather he look'd off if we see him so it is a blessed interview Verse 11. Wherefore is it may some ask that the Word of God more than any other Book doth still speak in this singular person and in this familiar person still tu and tibi and te Who told thee and hast thou eaten and so in other places thou must love God God speaks to thee Surely the Scripture phrase is as ceremonial and as observant of distance as any and yet full of this familiar word to thou and thine You are to know then that in the Scripture God either speaks to the Church his Spouse and to his Children and so he may be bold and familiar with them or else he speaks so as that he would be thought by thee to speak singularly to thy Soul in particular and therefore when thou hearest his mercies distributed in that particular and that familiar phrase Thou and Thee and thou knowest not whether he speak to any other in the Congregation or no be sure that he speaks to thee but if thou canst not find that he means thee but thinkest that he speaks rather to some other whose Faith and good Life thou preferrest before thine own Do but begin to think now of the blessedness of that man to whom thou thinkest he speaks and say to God with thy Saviour My God my God why hast thou forsaken me why art thou gone to the other side or why to the next on my right or my left hand and left out me why speakest thou not comfortably to my Soul and he will leave the ninety nine for thee and thou shalt find such a weight and burthen and load of his love upon thee as thou shalt be fain almost to say with Peter Exi a me Domine O Lord go farther from me i. e. thou shalt see such an obligation of mercy laid upon thee as puts thee beyond all possibility of comprehension much more of retribution or of due and competent Thanks-giving Verse 12. When Adam said by way of alienation and transferring his fault the Woman whom thou gavest me and the Woman said The Serpent deceived me God took this by way of information to find out the principal but not by way of extenuation or alleviation of their faults Every Adam eats with as much sweat of his brows and every Eve brings forth her children with as much pain in her Travail as if there had been no Serpent in the case If a man sin against God who shall plead for him if a man lay his sins upon the Serpent upon the Devil it is no plea but if he lay them upon God it is blasphemy Verse 15. Here was a heavy war denounced in this Inimicitias ponam when God raised a war between the Devil and us for if we could consider God to stand Neutral in that war and meddle with neither side yet were we nigh a desperate case to be put to fight against powers and principalities against the Devil how much more when God the Lord of Hosts is the Lord of that Host too when God presses the Devil and makes the Devil his Souldier to fight his battels and directs his arrows and his bullets and makes his approaches and attempts effectual upon us It is a strange war where there are not two sides and yet that is our case for God useth the Devil against us and the Devil useth us against one another nay he useth every one of us against our selves so that God and the Devil and we are all in one Army and all for our destruction Verse 20. Saint Augustine proposeth to himself a wonder why the first Woman was call'd at first and in her best state but Isha Virago which
sigh and tremble certainly whatever it was it was a signe of Gods wrath that others seeing this might fear to commit the like and that he might have the greater punishment in prolonging so wicked and miserable a life Verse 16. It appears by this that Cain stood excommunicate For otherwise how could Cain go out from God who was every where so that this presence of the Lord signifies a peculiar place dedicated to God as the Ark the Temple were usually call'd in Scripture The face of the Lord Psalm 43. Exod. 23. So Ionas fled from the presence of the Lord i. e. from the place where the Lord had spoken to him This then should strike a terror into Christians and cause them to live in the fear of God and in an awful respect of his Ministers who have the power delegated to them from God to drive obstinate sinners from his presence and are as that Angel with a flaming Sword to keep them out of Paradice and deprive them of the joyes and blessedness of the life to come Verse 20. If the author the inventor of any thing useful for this life be called the Father of that invention by the Holy Ghost himself as here Iabal was the Father of such as dwelt in Tents and Tabal his Brother the Father of Musick how absolutely is God our Father who invented us made us found us out in the depth and darknesse of nothing at all he is Father and Father of Lights of all kinds of Lights He is Lux lucisica as Saint Augustine expresses it the Light from which all the Lights which we have of Nature or Grace or Glory have their emanation CHAP. V. Verse 1. THe Soul of man as it came from God so it is like God as he so it is one immaterial immortal understanding Spirit distinguish'd into three powers which all make up one spirit So thou the wise Creator of all things wouldest have some things to resemble their Creator the other creatures are all body man is body and spirit the Angels are all spirit not without a spiritual composition thou art alone after thine own manner Simple Glorious Infinite No creature can be like thee in thy proper being because it is a creature How should our finite weak compounded nature give any perfect resemblance of thine yet of all visible creatures thou vouchsafest man the nearest correspondence to thee not so much in the natural Faculties as in those divine Graces wherewith thou beautifiest his soul how then should our Souls rise up to thee and fix themselves in their thoughts upon thee how should they long to return back to the Fountain of their Being and author of their being glorious that so we may redeem what we have lost recover in thee what we have lost in our selves Verse 3. Adam begetting a Son in his own likeness is not to be understood in the shape and image of his body but hereby is signified that original corruption which is descended unto Adams posterity by natural propagation which is express'd in the birth of Seth because it might appear that even the Righteous Seed by nature are subject to this depravation Verse 22. In that Enoch first walk'd with God on earth before he walk'd with him in Heaven is shewed that we must first seek Gods glory on earth before we can be admitted into his Everlasting glory Verse 24. If you will sit at the right hand of God hereafter you must walk with God here so Abraham so Enoch walked with God and God took him God knows God takes not every man that dies God saies to the rich secure man This night they shall fetch away thy soul but he does not tell him who that therefore you may be no strangers to God then see him now and remember that his last Judgement is express'd in that word Nescio vos I know you not not to be known by God is damnation and God knows no man hereafter with whom he was not acquainted here Verse 29. Forasmuch as Lamech said of his Son Noah This same shall comfort us concerning our work c. it appeareth that the faithful then look'd for a Comforter that should deâ—iver them from the Curse for of this Comforter Noah was a figure Heb. 11. 7. and the Ark was a type of Baptism 1 Pet. 3. 21. Verse 32. Sem is here first named though Iaphet was first born as being first in dignity though not in birth because from him and not from Iaphet our blessed Saviour descended in a direct line Now any relation to Christ enableth either place or person For let the person be never so mean if God please to claim an interest in him a poor Fisherman upon his Embassie is more honourable then the Embassador of the greatest Monarch in the world and so likewise for any place in the world be it never so mean and contemptible yet if God please to send his Ministers to preach the Gospel and the power thereof in such places they become glorious to the whole world Thus it was not the great circumference and populousness of Nineveh but the preaching of Ionah there that made it known to after-ages nor was it the City but the Temple of Ierusalem and the presence of Christ in that Temple that made it the glory of the whole earth It is the Christian Religion only whose Fame shall last for ever that is able to make both Men and Towns as famous and as eternal as it self CHAP. VI. Verse 2. THe world was grown so foul with sin that God saw it was time to wash it with a floud if there had not been so deep a deluge of sin there had been none of the waters from whence then was this superfluity of iniquity whence but from the unequal yoak with Infidels these marriages did not beget men so much as wickedness from hence religious Husbands both lost their piety and gained a rebellious and godlesse generation Thus that which was the first occasion of sin was the occasion of the increase of sin a Woman seduced Adam Women betray the Sons of God the beauty of the Apple betrayed the Woman the beauty of these Women betrayed this holy Seed Eve saw and lusted so did they this also was a forbidden Fruit they lusted tasted sinned dyed the most sins begin at the eyes by them commonly Satan creeps into the heart that Soul can never be at safety that hath not covenanted with his eyes Verse 3. It is meant that God would no longer strive with them in reproving and admonishing them which they regarded not but if they amended not in short time within the set space he would certainly destroy them and therefore it was supposed that the Ark was a building 120 years to the end they might repent enough to justifie Gods mercy in forbearing and his Justice in executing his Judgements upon sinners Verse 12. Man is every Creature as 't is said here all flesh hath corrupted his ways upon the earth though this
corruption were but in man and other Creatures were flesh as well as man but man is every creature because as Gregory saith Omnis creaturae differentia in homine all the properties and qualities of all other creatures how remote and distant how contrary soever in themselves yet they all meet in man In man if he be a flatterer you shall find the grovelling and crawling of the Snake and in man if he be ambitious you shall find the high flight and piercing of the Eagle in a voluptuous sensual man you shall find the earthliness of the Hogg and in a licentious man the intemperance and distemper of the Goat ever lustful and ever in a Feaver ever in sickness contracted by that sin and yet ever in a desire to proceed in that sin and thus man is every creature and all flesh Verse 14. That God might approve his mercies to the very wicked he gives them 120 years respite of repenting verse 3. and here in this verse he gives them a faithful Teacher It is an happy thing when he that teacheth others is righteous Noahs hand taught them as much as his tongue his business in building the Ark was a real Sermon to the world wherein at once were taught Mercy and Life to the Believer and to the Rebellious destruction Verse 18. Doubtless more hands went to this work of making the Ark than Noah and his Children and yet none were saved but they many a one wrought upon the Ark which yet was not saved in the Ark our outward works cannot save us without Faith we may help to save others and perish our selves what a wonder of mercy is this that we here see one poor Family call'd out of a world and as it were eight grains of Corn fann'd from a whole Barnful of Chaff one hypocrite was saved with the rest for Noahs sake not one righteous man was swept away for company for these few was the earth preserved still under the waters and all kind of Creatures upon the waters which else had been all destroyed Still the world stands for their sakes for whom it was preserved else fire should consume that which could not be cleansed by water CHAP. VII Verse 2. THe unclean Beasts God would have to live the clean to multiply and therefore he sends to Noah seven of the clean and of the unclean two he knew the one would annoy man with their multitude the other would enrich him those things are worthy of most respect which are of most use But why seven Surely that God that Created seven dayes in the Week and made one for himself did here preserve of seven clean Beasts one for himself for Sacrifice he gives us Six for One in earthly things that in spiritual we should be all for him Verse 9. This difference is strange I see the savagest of all Creatures Lions Tygers Bears by an instinct from God come to seek the Ark as we see Swine fore-seeing a storm run home crying for shelter men I see not Reason once debauch'd is worse than bruitishness God hath use even of these fierce and cruel Beasts and glory by them Even they being Created for man must live by him though to his punishment How gently do they offer and submit themselves to their Preserver renewing that obeysance to this Repairer of the World which they before sin yielded to him that first stored the World And thus these savage Creatures went in saith the rext to Noah not to prey but fawn upon him He that shut them into the Ark when they were entred shut their mouths also while they did enter The Lions fawn upon Noah and Daniel what heart cannot the Maker of them mollifie Verse 10. By this is shewen the Lords patience for Noah is warned seven dayes before of the Flouds coming that by his preparation and entrance others might be warned and whereas God might have destroyed the World at once it was encreasing forty dayes that the World seeing every day some perish might at length have turned to God And the same was Ninevehs case yet forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed Our God is a gracious merciful and long-suffering God and never strikes but he gives warning that sinners may prevent the blow by Repentance and Contrition Before Nineveh shall be destroyed a Prophet must be sent to give notice of that destruction and to teach them a way how to avoid it and in case they should prove dull schollars here is forty dayes given to learn the lesson And as God dealt with this great City and with the whole World before the Deluge to fore-warn them of his judgements and their own ruine so deals he likewise with particular men to some he gives forty dayes to others forty months nay forty years to repent in even a whole life time is to some men but a continued warning of their final destruction and yet they like the old World never beleeve it till they feel it mock and jear at a Deluge until they are over-whelm'd with the Floud and perish in their own presumptuous imaginations So hard a thing it is to perswade sinners to beleeve that God is so just or his Judgements so infallible or their sins so destructive until the Floud come and a second Deluge a Deluge of Fire sweeps them away as that first of Waters did their unbeleeving fore-fathers Verse 11. It agrees with the nature of God who is goodness That as all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened and so came the Floud over all so there should be diluvium spiritus a flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all as he promises Effundam I will pour it out upon all and diluvium gentium that all Nations shall flow up unto him For this spirit spirat ubi vnlt breaths where it pleaseth him and though a natural Wind cannot blow East and West North and South together this spirit at once breaths upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the dispairing sinner and in an instant can denizon and naturalize that soul that was an Alien to the Covenant empale and in-lay that soul that was bred upon the Common among the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goat into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost Sheep to the Fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darkness and the shadow of death and so melt and pour out that soul that yet understands nothing of the divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the divine nature and be the same Spirit with God Verse 16. Now that Noah and all his Guests are entred the Ark is shut and the windows of Heaven opened God first provides for Noah before the Wicked are destroyed of whom many no doubt when they saw the violence of the waves descending and ascending according to Noah's prediction came wading middle-deep unto the Ark and importunately craved that
how love covereth sins these good Sons are so far from going forward to see their Fathers shame that they go back-ward to hide it The Cloak is laid on both their shoulders they both go back with equal paces and dare not so much as look back lest they should unwillingly see the cause of their shame and will rather adventure to stumble at their Fathers Body than to see his nakedness How did it grieve them to think that they who so often had come to their Father with Reverence must now in Reverence turn their backs upon him and that they must now cloath him in pity who had so often cloathed them in love And which adds more to their duty they covered him and said nothing This modest sorrow is their praise and our example the Sins of those we love and honour we must hear of with indignation fearfully and unwillingly beleeve acknowledge with grief and shame hide with honest excuses and bury in silence Verse 25. God preserves some men in Judgement better had it been for Cham to have perished in the Waters than to live unto his Fathers Curse And yet how equal a regard is here both of Piety and disobedience Because C ham sinned against his Father therefore he shall be plagued in his Children Iaphet is dutiful to his Father and finds it in his posterity Because C ham was an ill son to his Father therefore his sons shall be servants to his Brethren because Iaphet set his shoulders to Shems to bear the Cloak of shame therefore shall Iaphet dwell in the Tents of Shem partaking with him in blessings as in duty When we do but what we ought yet God is thankful to us and rewards that which we should sin if we did not Who could ever yet shew me a man rebelliously undutiful to his Parents that hath prospered in himself and his seed Verse 27. If thy Child prove undutiful and refractory do for him as Noah did here for Iaphet Noah had given that son of his a great deal of good Counsel no doubt and had perswaded him to become a lively Member of Gods Church but knowing well to how little purpose all this would be without Gods working upon his heart he falls to Prayer God perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem As if he had said I have advised and done my uttermost to perswade thee my Son but all this is but lost labour unless God put in his helping hand now therefore the good Lord perswade thee Thus do thou for thy refractory Child desire God to perswade him to convince him to turn his heart and thou shalt see that nothing shall stand in his way but the work shall be accomplished if God undertake to mend thy Son and make him good all his ill conditions shall not hinder it CHAP. X. Verse 1. C Ham is set in the midst between Shem and Iaphet wherein is shadowed the condition of the Church that ungodly persons will ever be mingled among the faithful The purest Grain hath some Chaff mixed with it and the purest and most sanctified Congregations as well in Heaven as on Earth have had their mixture of Reprobates There was a Iudas in that glorious Synod of Apostles and a Lucifer even in Heaven its self Thus still is the Church that Moon in the Scripture a glorious Body but not without her spots Verse 10. Nimrod signifies a Rebel and Babel confusion to intimate that Rebellion evermore begins in Confusion Confusion in the Church and Confusion in the State in the one the Lawes of God are disordered in the other the Laws of man Babel is still the beginning of that Kingdom where a Nimrod is the mighty man and where a Nimrod is the mighty man still the aim is at a Kingdom though the Kingdom prove a Kingdom of Confusion Nimrod will be great though his own greatness distract and confound him And thus it fares also with every wicked man who is a rebel against God the beginning of his Kingdom is a Babel likewise his understanding is distracted his affections are disordered and all his actions are out of frame a confusion possesses both the beginning and end of all his wayes And to this purpose was the Psalmists Prayer against both these Nimrods O my God make them like unto a Wheel let them turn round in all their actions let them never be fixed and setled in their courses but let a giddiness a vertigo pursue their Designes and let both the beginning and end of their Kingdom prove a Babel Verse 25. Eber of whom came the Hebrews or Israelites Exod. 1. 15. that he might have before his eyes a perpetual monument of Gods displeasure against the ambitious Babel builders calls his Son Peleg or Division because in his dayes was the Earth divided It is good to write the remembrance of Gods worthy works whether of Mercy or Justice upon the Names of our Children to put us in mind of those dispensations of God for we need all helps such is either our dulness or forgetfulness Upon this account we of this Nation have been very zealous in conferring such Names upon our Children at their Baptism as might put them in mind of some part of their Christian Profession and lest our Children should be ignorant of the meaning of those Names they have been of late years interpreted and instead of Baptizing our Children with the Names of Timothy and Theophilus these latter times have re-baptized even Names as well as Children and have Christened them Fear-God and Love-God and Fight a good Fight but how these men have imitated their Names these late years have sufficiently declared to the whole World CHAP. XI Verse 4. HOw fondly do men reckon without God Come let us build as if there had been no stop but in their own will as if both Earth and Time had been theirs Still do all natural men build Babel fore-casting their own Plots so resolutely as if there were no power to counter-mand them Let us build a City if they had taken God with them it had been commendable establishing of Societies is pleasing to him that is the God of Order but a Tower whose top may reach to Heaven is a shameful arrogance an impious presumption Who would think that we little Ants that creep upon the Earth should think to climb up to Heaven by multiplying of Earth But wherefore was all this Not that they loved so much to be neighbors to heaven as to be famous upon earth It was not Commodity that was here sought nor Safety but Glory Whither doth not thirst of Fame carry men whether in good or evil One builds a Temple to Diana in hope of glory intending it for one of the greatest Wonders of the World Another in hope of Fame burns it He is a rare man that hath not some Babel of his own whereon he bestows pains and cost only to be talked of Verse 7. When God bestowed upon man his first benefit his Making
hanging over the throat of such a Son would not have been more perplex'd in his thought than that unexpected Sacrifice was in those briars yet he whom it nearest concern'd is least touch'd Faith had wrought the same in him which cruelty would in others not to be moved He contemns all fears and over-looks all impossibilities his heart tells him that the same hand which rais'd Isaac from the dead womb of Sarah can raise him again from the ashes of his Sacrifice With this confidence was the hand of Abraham now falling upon the throat of Isaac who had given himself for dead when suddenly the Angel of God interrupts him forbids him commends him Verse 12. The voice of God was never so welcome never so sweet never so seasonable as now It was the tryal that God intended not the fact Isaac is sacrificed and is yet alive and now both of them are more happy in that they would have done than they could have been distress'd if they had done it Gods charges are oft-times harsh in the beginnings and proceeding but in the conclusion alwayes comfortable true spiritual comforts are commonly late and sudden God defers on purpose that our tryals may be perfect our deliverance welcome our recompence glorious Isaac had never been so precious to his Father if he had not been recovered from death if he had not been as miraculously restored as given Abraham had never been so blessed in his Seed if he had not neglected Isaac for God Verse 13. The only way to find comfort in any earthly thing is to surrender it in a faithful carelesness into the hands of God Abraham came to Sacrifice he may not go away with dry hands God cannot abide that good purposes should be frustrate Lest either Abraham should not do that for which he came or shall want means of speedy thanks-giving for so gracious a disappointment behold a Ram stands ready for the Sacrifice and as it were proffers himself to this happy exchange He that made that beast brings him thither fastens him there Even in small things there is a great providence what mysteries there are in every though the least act of God CHAP. XXIII Verse 1. BEcause the years of Sarah are here distinctly numbred and the Hebrews read thus and the lives of Sarah was an hundred years and twenty years and seven years the Jewish Rabbins collect that here is commended her beauty and her chastity viz. that she was as fair at an hundred years as at twenty and as chast at twenty as at seven but this collection of the Rabbins perchance is scarce warrantable from the words yet from hence we may safely conclude for our comfort that the Lord doth number all our years and whether they be few or many he hath set them down in his Book of Remembrance For here Sarah's daies are punctually numbred and Iob in his Fourteenth Chapter mentioneth moneths and daies how that our daies are exactly determined and the number of moneths which man hath to live are in the Lords hand Wherefore no good man need make any question but that the Lord hath a care of him and that his life doth not depend upon the skill of the Physitian but the good pleasure of our God Verse 2. These words She dyed at Hebron bids us meditate on theformer Story 'T is well known that at Beersheba Abimelech made a league with Abraham the tenure whereof was that the one should not hurt the other whereupon Abraham supposing he should have set up his staff there planted a grove yet for all this Sarah dieth not there but dieth at Hebron certain miles distant from Beersheba and dieth in the absence of Abraham and happily without the presence of her Son and acquaintance dieth in a strange place among strangers which may serve to comfort those whom the Lord will not vouchsafe to die in their own Country among their nearest and dearest Friends wanting them to close up their dying eyes and perform the duties and offices of love For though Friends be absent yet the best Friends God and his Christ are ever present to the faithful and when all forsake yet they never forsake and Heaven is no further from one place than another and then in regard we are all with Sarah and Abraham here liable to a wandering and a wavering condition this should hold up in us all a longing desire of Heaven where all joy remains and is fix'd for evermore seeing here we have no happiness no rest no quietness Here is only the vally of tears and weeping we must look for the happy place of joy and gladness in another World where shall be no more sorrow nor crying nor tears Verse 4. This Sarah that before was the desire of Abrahams eyes is now desired to be removed out of his sight she that before had a beauty to tempt Kings had not now so much left her by death as to take her own Husband I have read of a fair young German Gentleman who living refused to be pictured and put off the importunity of his Friends by giving way that after a few daies burial they might send a Painter to his Vault and if they saw cause for it draw the image of Death unto the Life they did so and found his face half eaten his Midrife and Back-bone full of Serpents and so he stands pictured among his armed Ancestors Thus doth the fairest Beauty change and it will be as bad with you and me as it was here with Sarah and then what nearest Relation will endure our company what Servants shall we have to wait upon us in the Grave what officious people to cleanse away the moist cloud cast upon our faces from the sides of the weeping Vaults which are the longest Weepers for our Funerals all our Friends will then like Abraham in the Text desire to remove us out of their sight Verse 8. The eye affects the heart with sorrow-occasioning objects if sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart Hence when Sarah was dead Abraham in this Text thus bespeaks the people among whom he dwelt If it be in your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight It did afflict the heart of Abraham with sorrow to see the body of his deceased Wife or the Coffin where she lay whom he had so entirely loved therefore he saith Bury her out of my sight Verse 9. This world is but a thorow-fare we have no place to settle to abide here and therefore our first purchase of possession should be like this of Abrahams a place to bury in not to build upon Our Grave is our long and lasting home all our other houses are but transitory and as short-lived as our selves And therefore to mind us of our mortality it were good with the Patriarch here to make our Sepulchre our first purchase Upon this account when our first Parents had made them Garments of Figg-leaves God gave them Garments of skins
with those they would have covered their shame with these God did discover their mortality Verse 19. Though the pomp of Funerals concerns not the dead in real and effective purposes yet it is the duty of the living to see their Friends fairly Interr'd For to the Dead it is all one whether they be carried forth on a Chariot or a wooden Beer whether they rot upon the earth or under the earth whether in a Cave or in a Ditch There is nothing in this but opinion and the decency of some to be served Let thy Friend therefore be interr'd as Sarah was here after the Laws of the Country and the dignity of the person It was therefore that our blessed Saviour who was ever temperate in his expence was yet pleas'd to admit the cost of Maries Ointment upon his head and feet because she did it against his Burial by which he remark't it to be a great act of piety and honourable to Interr our Friends according to the proportion of their condition and so to give a testimony of our hopes of their Resurrection CHAP. XXIV Verse 3. ABraham would not link his Son with the wicked he remembred what had come of such Marriages in the Age before him when the Sons of God took them Wives of the Daughters of Men only for their Beauty without regard of Religion or honesty Their destruction was a lesson to him he avoided their sin by fearing their punishment And afterwards under the Law God gave his people express charge concerning this Exod. 34. and the reason is there given Lest they make thy Sons go a whoring after their gods a sufficient reason to prevail as with the Jew so much more with the Christian. Verse 12. The necessary use of seasoning and sanctifying the first entrance into the married estate is by prayer to God Abrahams servant being intrusted with a business of that nature commended the whole success to God by prayer and the Woman being sent away by her Friends was dismiss'd with a blessing upon both Look to the first Marriage that ever was the Lord himself knit the knot and confirm'd it with a blessing Gen. 1. and Gods course should be a pattern for the following times and to assure us withall that when this is left out we may well say as Christ did in another Particular concerning Marriage From the beginning it was not so And good reason there is for this for Marriage is the Covenant of God and if he be not call'd to confirm it it cannot prosper Verse 14. When Eliezer went a wooing for his young Master Isaac the tryal by which he intended to prove a fit Wife for Isaac was this that if saith he when I say to the Maid give me drink she say again drink and I will give thy Camels also she without more ado should be a Wife for Isaac that is if she were gentle not like the Woman Iohn 4. who when Christ asked her Water call'd him Jew How is it that thou being a Iew askest water of one that is a Samaritan for though there be many sins incident to Women yet no vice in Women is so unwomanly as this If Adam had been furious the matter had been less for he was made of Earth the Mother of Iron and Steel those murthering mettals but the Woman she that was made of so tender mettal to become so terrible the weaker Vessel so strong in passion yea to look so fair and speak so foul what a contrariety is this There was great reason sure to compare a good Woman to a snail not only for her silence and continual keeping of her house but also for a certain timorousness of her nature which at the least shaking of the air shrinks back into her shell and so ought the Wife to do if her Husband but speak to play all hid and under hatches and to say to her Husband as Rachel to her Father Let not my Lord be angry Verse 30. Laban gave this respect unto Abrahams Servant not for his own sake nor yet his Masters but for the Ear-rings sake and the Bracelets Thus many love God for their own interest and not his glory in all their services they look a squint at God but directly at self-ends and seldom or never look at his glory but through the spectacles of self-love Such was Iehu's Zeal serving God so far as he might serve himself 2 King 10. But this is merchandizing with God and not obedience to serve him for ends I am never at the pitch of sincerity till I see enough in God himself without looking out of him to have him as my exceeding rich reward When it comes once to this point that the beauties of Gods truth and the pleasantness of his wayes and the holiness of his will and the equity of his Laws are the arguments and wages that hire me to his service then do I serve him as I ought Verse 39. Here the servant leaveth out the charge that was given him by Abraham in the sixt Verse of this Chapter Beware that thou bring not my Son thither again for this speech would have offended them as though Abraham had counted them a forlorn and wicked people We learn then from this discreet omission of this part of Abrahams charge that every truth in all places and upon all occasions is not to be uttered Verse 63. It is our duty to study the Heavens and be acquainted with the Stars in them the wonderful works of God are seen and a sober knowledg in Nature may be an advantage unto Grace Heaven is the most considerable of all inanimate Creatures and more considerable than most of the animate And therefore some of the Rabbins tell us that when Isaac went out into the field to meditate the subject of his meditation was the Stars or the Heavens It is good to take field-room sometimes to view and contemplate the works of God round about Only take heed of the folly of Astrological curiosities confining the providence of God to secondary causes avoid that and the heart may have admirable elevations unto God from the meditation of the Works of God If the Heavens declare the glory of God we should observe what glory that is which they declare The Sun Moon and Stars are Preachers universal Preachers they are natural Apostles the World is their charge and their words saith the Ps. 19. go to the end of the earth Verse 65. At the first meeting of Isaac and Rebecka he was gone out to meditate in the fields and she came riding that way with his Fathers man who was imployed in making that Marriage and when upon asking she knew that it was he who was to be her Husband She took a veil and covered her face saith that story What freedom and nearness soever they were to come to after yet there was a modesty and a bashfulness and a reservedness required before and her first kindness should be but to be seen A man would be
and reform their errors Verse 34. Who would have lookt for tears from Esau or who dare trust tears when he sees them fall from so graceless eyes It was a good word here Bless me also O my Father every miscreant can wish himself well No man would be miserable if it were enough to desire happiness Why did he not rather weep to his Brother for the pottage than to Isaac for a blessing If he had not then sold he had not needed now to begg It is just with God to deny us those favours which we were careless in keeping and which we undervalued in enjoying How happy a thing it is to know the seasons of Grace and not to neglect them how desperate to have known and neglected them these tears were both late and false the tears of rage of envie of carnal desire worldly sorrow causeth death Yet whiles Esau howls out thus for a blessing I hear him cry out of his Fathers store Hast thou but one blessing O my Father of his Brothers subtilty was he not rightly termed Jacob I do not hear him blame his own deserts He did not see while his Father was deceived and his Brother crafty that God was just and himself uncapable he knew himself prophane and yet claims a blessing CHAP. XXVIII Verse 11. NOne of all the Patriarks saw so evil dayes as Iacob did from whom justly hath the Church of God therefore taken her Name neither were the Faithful ever since called Abramites but Israelites That no time might be lost he began his strife in the Womb after that he flyes for his life from a cruel Brother to a cruel Uncle With a Staff goes he over Iordan alone doubtful and comfortless not like the Son of Isaac In the way the Earth is his bed and a stone his pillow yet even there he sees a Vision of Angels Iacob's heart was never so full of joy as when his head lay hardest God is most present with us in our greatest dejection and loves to give comfort to those that are for saken of their hopes Verse 12. This Ladder betokeneth Christ who above is God of his Father beneath is man out of Iacob's Loins Ioh. 1. 51 the Angels ascending and descending are the blessed Spirits which first ministred to the person of Christ and secondly for the good of his body namely the Elect Heb. 1. 14. The Angels went up and down none of them were seen standing still we must alwayes be going forward in our Christian courses and not think to be carried to heaven in a feather bed but we must climb a Ladder if we expect to be carried as Elias was in a Chariot it will be a fiery Chariot Verse 14. Against Iacob's four-fold cross here is a four-fold comfort a plaister as broad as the sore and sovereign for it Against the loss of his Friends I will be with thee saith God Against the loss of his Country I will give thee this Land Against his Poverty Thou shalt spread abroad to the East and to the West Against his solitariness and lowness Angels shall attend thee and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth whereunto we may add that which surpasseth all the rest In thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed thy Seed shall be as the dust of the earth and that dust of the earth shall shine as the stars in heaven they that trust in the Lord shall have the blessings of both worlds they shall be blessed here temporally and hereafter eternally Verse 15. It is a great and peculiar priviledge of the Church and every Member of it to have God present with them and President over them He is not far off from those that are his however in time of Affliction and in the hour of tentation he seemeth so to them but is ever with them and holdeth a gracious hand over them This is it which the Lord so often promiseth in his Word and truly performeth to the great comfort of all his Children This is it which the Lord speaketh to Iacob going from his Fathers house to Padan Aran Lo I am with thee c. And God thus promiseth his presence that the faithful might be assured of his protection and defence being gathered together by his power without which they could not have any comfort If he were not present with us he could not consider of our wants nor succour us in our necessities nor refresh us with his help while we walk in the valley of the shadow of death Seeing therefore we have comfort to be preserved in all perils and to be heard in our Prayers and Requests that we make to God we are assured and perswaded of his continual presence amongst us for our good and safety Verse 17. Though the Almighty be every where yet not every where after the same manner say the Schools his presence indeed shines forth in all but not the same degrees of his presence and though his glory filled both the Bush and the space about it yet not both alike the one with fire the other perchance but with smoak and therefore we read Exod. 3. of a place where Moses may stand and a place so holy whither he may not draw nigh the first too holy for his shoes the last too hot for his feet Thus also we read of Gods House made with hands and his House not made with hands and to both Holiness required for their Consecration and an awful esteem for their Diety Sanctified they must because they are Gods and Reverenced because he is in them To witness whose personal residence was that solemne erecting of Altars where God vouchsafed to appear Thus God here appeared to Iacob and strait wayes his Stone is anointed into a Pillar and what the last night was a pillow for himself must now be a resting place for his God there offering up his dues to heaven where he had before to Nature Verse 20. A mean or middle estate which is neither too eminent nor too obscure too rich nor too poor above contempt below envie is to be preferred before the greatest first because it is most free from danger as not being so low as to be trodden upon nor so high as to be seated in the eye of envie Secondly Because it preserveth us from forgetfulness of God irreligion and prophanness which accompanies prosperity and from the use of unlawful means to maintain our estate and from impatiency murmuring and repining against God to which we are tempted in poverty If then our God hath been so gracious unto us as to give us a convenient competency in these outward matters let us reckon our lot to have fallen unto us in a pleasant ground and that we have a goodly heritage And indeed our Nature desires not much Food and Raiment are the only necessaries for this life I mean the preservation of it we stand in need of If God will be with me saith Jacob c. that is all
The larger is our preparation the larger is our vessel the larger our vessel the larger our dole at a Sermon or Sacrament If we carry not away as much as we would it is our own fault that by preparation we did not furnish our selves with a larger vessel Verse 4. This blind Nature saw to be the sum of all sins ingratum dixeris omnia dixeris Some vices are such as Nature smiles upon though frown'd at by Divine Justice not so this Philip King of Macedon caused a Souldier of his that had offered unkindness to one that had kindly entertained him to be branded in the forehead with these two words hospes ingratus Unthankfulnesse is a Monster in Nature a Solecisme in Manners a Paradox in Divinity a parching Wind to dry up the Fountain of further favour Benjamins fivefold Messe was no small aggravation to the theft here laid to his charge Verse 12. The Graces which God finds in us are like the silver which Ioseph found in Benjamins sack of his own putting in For our will herein is like the lower Sphere quae non nisi mota movet moves not unlesse it be first moved Why should we then be loth to acknowledge to have all our ability of doing good freely from God and immediately by his grace when as even those faculties of Nature by which we pretend to doe the offices of Grace we have from God himself too For that question of the Apostle involves all What hast thou that thou hast not received Thy natural faculties are no more thine own than the Grace of God is thine own But as thy body conceived in thy Mothers womb could not claim a soul at Gods hand nor wish a soul no nor know there was a soul to be had so neither by being a man indued with natural faculties canst thou claim Grace or wish Grace nay those natural faculties if they be not pretincted with some infusion of Grace before cannot make thee know what Grace is or that Grace is To a Child rightly disposed in the womb God does give a soul to a natural man rightly disposed in his natural faculties God doth give grace but that soul was not due to that Child nor that grace to that Man Verse 14. If I am bereaved of my Children saith Iacob here I am bereaved Which was spoken by him not rashly or desperately as if he cared not what became of himself but through the obedience of Faith in sacrificing his will unto Gods And this is according to that Petition in the Lords Prayer Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven A godly Man sayes Amen to Gods Amen and puts his fiat and placet to Gods As one said He could have what he would of God Why How was that Because whatever was Gods will that was his And thus to submit unto Gods will is to serve him with a true heart a heart truly and entirely given up to God delighting to doe his will and therefore well content to wait or if God see good to want what it most desires be it Health or Wealth or Wife or Children being ambitious rather that Gods will should be done than our own and that he may be glorified though we be not gratified Verse 16. This iniquity which God is said here to find out is not to be referred to this present Accusation whereof they were not guilty but to their former trespass committed against Ioseph as they in like manner confessed Gen. 42. and by this we should learn to look to God in our afflictions whereof we see no evident cause Verse 17. How easie is it to find advantages where there is a purpose to accuse Benjamins sack makes him guilty of that whereof his heart was free Crimes seem strange to the innocent well might they abjure this fact with the offer of bondage and death For they which carefully brought again that which they might have taken would never take that which was not given them But thus Ioseph would yet dally with his Brethren and make Benjamin a Theif that he might make him a Servant and fright his Brethren with the peril of that their charge that he might double their joy and amazedness in giving them two Brothers at once Our happiness is greater and sweeter when we have well fear'd and smarted with evils Verse 23. Iosephs Steward like a good Man speaks comfort and life unto these fainting dis-spirited Patriarkes He knew there was a warre in their Consciences and therefore he brings peace unto their afflicted spirits To break the bruised reed to greive one that is in the agony of his soul to strike the breath out of a mans body who is giving up the Ghost is cruelty upon cruelty And therefore it was the complaint of Saint Cyprian against the Persecutors of Christians in his time In servis Dei non torquebantur membra sed vulnera they laid stripes upon stripes and laid wounds upon sores and tortutured not so much the members of Gods Servants as their bleeding wounds CHAP. XLV Verse 1. VVHen Iudah had seriously reported the danger of his old Father and the sadness of his last complaint compassion and joy will be conceal'd no longer but break forth violently at Iosephs voice and eyes Many passions do not well abide witnesses because they are guilty to their own weakness Ioseph sends forth his servants that he might freely weep He knew he could not say I am Ioseph without an unbeseeming vehemence Verse 4. I am Ioseph never any word sounded so strangely as this in the ears of the Patriarkes Wonder doubt reverence joy fear guiltiness struck them at once No marvel if they stood with paleness and silence before him looking on him and on each other the more they considered the more they wondred and the more they beleived the more they feared For those words I am Ioseph seemed to sound thus much to their guilty thoughts you are murtherers and I am a Prince in spite of you my power and this place give me all opprotunities of revenge my glory is your shame my life your danger your sin lives together with me But now the tears and graicous words of Ioseph have soon assured them of pardon and love and have bidden them turn their eyes from their sin against their brother to their happiness in him and have changed their doubts into hopes and joyes Thus actions salv'd up with a free forgiveness are as not done and as a bone once broken is stronger after well setting so is love after reconcilement Verse 5. Let us remember this in all oppressions we meet with that they fall not upon us without divine providence What Eliphaz saith of affliction in general is true of oppression in particular it comes not forth of the dust neither doth it spring out of the ground And this truth was confirmed by Ioseph in this text who though sold by his envious brethren into Egypt yet saith that God had sent him into Egypt
The wicked heart never fears God but thundring or raining fire from Heaven but the good can dread him in his very sun-shine his loving Deliverances and Blessings affect them with awfulness Moses was the true Son of Iacob who when he saw nothing but visions of Love and Mercy could say How dreadful is this place Verse 7. If we would have our greif seen and helped we must endeavour to become Gods People For then sighing and groaning in our several afflictions as these did we may be sure in due time to find our comfort as they found We may hence also learn that affliction doth not shew that the party is disliked of God as the Devil often suggests to men and women in trouble for God calleth these Israelites his People which yet were plunged in the depth of misery and affliction Verse 11. This should teach every one of us humility and to say with Moses Who am I Lord that thou should'st thus and thus think of me chuse me and take me to that place that I have no strength to manage and which thousands of my Brethren are fitter for than I am This also may put us in mind of the weighty calling of Ministers For is it such a matter to strive with Pharaoh for Bodies and temporal servitude and is it nothing to fight with the Devil for Souls and freedome from eternal slavery Verse 14. See a sweet comfort in all our fears even his Name I AM. Noting that as he hath been to penitent sinners so ever he will be without any change If I call upon him and depend upon him I AM is his Name and I may not doubt of him he is no Changeling but the same for ever Verse 16. When any new thing is to be published that concerneth any change in Church or Common-wealth we must acquaint the Magistrates Rulers and Governours with it to approve our Commission and matter unto them with all Modesty Humility Fear and Care of Order and Unity and then with their consents and assistance unto the People and Multitude This is a right course and this shall have a Blessing from the Author of it as here it had Then shall they obey thy voice verse 18. Verse 18. See again and still most carefully note it how God regardeth Government For now Pharaoh must be used as was fit for his place he being the King of that Land in which they were wicked Pharaoh I say must not be disorderly dealt with by such as live under his Government although Strangers and not his natural Subjects how much then by natural Subjects But he must be gone unto with all duty and acquainted with their desire with all reverence that neither themselves may be judged factious neither others by their examples moved to any disorder And therefore they must acquaint him with the Author of their desires not their own heads lusting after liberty or novelty but the Lord God Verse 21. All hearts are in the hands of God even as the Rivers of Water and that he turneth them hither and thither at his pleasure He can make them love hate they never so much Yea he can make them so love that fruits from thence shall flow to his People of their love Be they Jewels of Silver or Rayment they shall grant it and send it give it or lend it with so willing a mind as the party taking needeth to wish CHAP. IV. Verse 3. THe heart of man is like the Rod of Moses as long as he held it in his hand it remained a Rod but when he threw it to the ground it turn'd instantly into a Serpent nay a Dragon the Prince of Serpents as Philo the Iew saith so the heart of man as long as there is fast hold of it as long as Man is the Possessor God the Guardian it continues still an heart but if our boistrous unruly sins once throw it to the earth it changeth instantly to be a Serpent From whence all carnal and earthly-minded men may learn whose Consciences at the reading hereof tell them that their hearts are turn'd into Serpents and Vipers by their sins and are now crawling on the earth in their lustful designes to stretch forth a hand of sorrow a hand of true repentance to take them up again in what shape soever they appear For he that was exalted on the Crosse as the Serpent in the Wildernesse shall turn those Serpents into Hearts again their Gall and Poison into Innocence their Sting of Death into Issues of Immortal Life Verse 4. Sin is a Serpent and hath a deadly sting in the tayl of it even the sting of Death For the sting of death is sin saith St. Paul Now as a man would fly from a Serpent so let him fly from sin But if thou hast taken this Serpent into thy hand rest not till like Moses Serpent it be turned into a Rod again to scourge thy Soul till a true sense of thy sins and of Gods Wrath due unto thee for the same bring thee to a serious repentance and contrition to a spiritual loathing and abhorrency of those sins that so thou maist never cast thine eye back upon them but with a new and a particular detestation thou maist never enter into meditation of those sinful passages of thy former life but with shame and horror of soul and that every solemn review of those dayes of darkness and unregeneration may make the wounds of our remorse to bleed afresh Verse 7. When Moses pluck'd his hand out of his bosome it was leprous and again when he pluck'd it out it was white to shew that the actions of our hands receive their denomination from the bosome the heart according to that saying of the Father Tantum habent virtutis aut vitii actiones quantum habent voluntatis Verse 12. He that is singled out to any service of his God for the advantage of his Israel must not give back or waver but go boldly on If a willing obedience second his Command God promiseth to assist I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say was Gods Promise here to Moses and it was his Sons to the Apostles Mat. 10. 19. Take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak As if he had said be not anxious about matter or manner of your Apology for your selves ye shall be supplied from on High both with Invention and Elocution you shall have your help from Heaven For it is not you that speak saith our Saviour in the next verse but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you who borroweth your mouth for the present to speak by It is he that forms your speeches for you dictates them to you filleth you with matter and furnisheth you with words Fear not therefore your rudeness to reply there is no mouth into which God cannot put words And how oft doth he chuse the Weak and Unlearned to confound
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
have expected the same Remember said our Saviour how many baskets full of broken meat were taken up and never to fear any want where such a powerful God is To remember what God hath done for me and to make it an argument both of my Prayer and Hope with David Psal. 4. 1. and with Iob chap. 13. 15. Verse 25. Such vertue was in the Wood given to it by God first that he might manifest by this means his Love and Goodness to us much more when he maketh all his Creatures serve to our Health and Good and so to stir us up to true thankfulness unto him for it Secondly that he might teach us thus not to abuse those his Creatures which with so excellent Vertues and Qualities are created for us to do us good Thirdly that we might learn by this means not to contemn second causes and means by abusing through presumption the holy Doctrine of Gods Providence For When God himself is pleased to use these Instruments who are we that we should reject them Verse 27. Thus cometh Comfort after Sorrow and Plenty after Scarcity And surely the Tryals of the Church or of any particular Member therein shall have a joyful end and though they be never so many yet the Lord delivereth out of them all who would not trust then in such a God and tarry his time that never faileth CHAP. XVI Verse 1. THe time is named the fifteenth day to let us know that their ingratitude was so much the more detestable by how much the remembrance of so great and wonderful a deliverance from their Enemies was more fresh in memory being so late Therefore let us think in the morning of our safety by Gods Mercy all the night and at night of our safety all the day which unlesse I be thankful for I must needs be a great Offender seeing it is not possible to plead forgetfulness in such fresh and new things Verse 3. The Gospel is welcome to many at the first and they greatly rejoyce in it but when either trouble groweth for it or they are restrained by it from their accustomed sins of Swearing Drunkenness Sensuality Covetousness and such like then they wish they had never been troubled with such preaching and all Gods Mercy is returned to him with great unthankfulness as here it was of these murmuring Israelites And thus likewise in Matches and Marriages O what impiety is in many many times cursing the parties and almost cursing God that gave them such a Match when yet at the beginning all was well and every body pleased Secondly this murmuring of the Israelites may shew us what is the course of too many in the world even to prefer the Flesh-pots of Egypt before the Land of Canaan and bellies full of Bread before a blessed Deliverance out of cruel bondage that is Earth before Heaven and the Joyes of this World before those of the next Such were those in Ier. 44. 16 17 18. who measured Religion by plenty and scarcity judging that best which brought most profit and that worst wherein there was any want Verse 4. God is not tied to ordinary Means nor our maintenance to the Fruits of the Earth The Ravens shall both find Meat and bring Meat to Eliah if God command and a little Oil shall continue running till many Vessels are full if he so please Iacob was provided for in that extream Famine Gen. 47. 11. and Gold was brought to Mary and Ioseph from far when they little thought on it Mat. 2. 11. Lift up your thoughts therefore above the course of Nature when you think upon God and although you have neither Bread nor Money nor the whole Land any Corn yet past Hope take hold on Hope and leave God to himself Verse 8. Murmuring against Gods Ministers is murmuring against God They have not cast thee away but me away 1 Sam. 8. 7. And he that despiseth you despiseth me said Christ Luke 10. 16. Verse 16. As God doth something for his part towards our maintenance so likewise must we do something on our parts He will give Manna but we must go out and gather it He will provide Meat and Money and Cloth and whatever is good for us but we must labour in some honest Vocation and so come by these things Corn he will give to the Husband-man but conditionally that he plow and sow Idleness he will not endure Verse 18. God doth here restrain the covetous who are never satisfied and withall comfort his own Children who have not such heaps For what hath the greatest Raker that lives among us but a subsistance and hath not the poorest man as much God will make my little stretch out to an Omer that is to enough and his much shall be no more doe what he can Verse 21. We must take time while time serves We have a Morning and we have an Evening our able Youth and good Health is our Morning our Age and sick estate is our Evening Spend not the first vainly and you shall not want in the last Work in the Morning and we shall eat the fruit of our labours when the Evening of Age and Sickness comes Gods Blessings are not at our election to have them when we will but when we seek and he bids then we shall find His Manna is ready if we come in time but if we linger till we list he hath his Sun to melt it away and it is gone Verse 24. It corrupted not No more shall any Goods you get and gather with the Will and good liking and Commandement of God that is truly and lawfully and with a good Conscience but the Lord shall bless that basket and that store to you whilst you live and to yours when you are gone CHAP. XVII Verse 2. LEt us in all our wants set our Faces the right way and look to Heaven not to Earth to God not to Man And let us not follow these Israelites who when they wanted Water did not cry unto God but fly upon Moses with an unfitting speech as though Moses were God to create Fountains and Springs Thus did Rachel come upon her Husband Gen. 30. 1. and so alwayes doth corrupt man possessed with impatiency take a wrong course leave God and run to man and speak according to his rage without due consideration of mans ability and power Only therefore to God we must go in our wants For there is the Treasury and bottomless Store-house of all Comforts Ask there seek there knock there and you have a Promise Mat. 7. 7. but run to the Creature and you have none Verse 4. Rely not upon the multitude nor hunt after the peoples applause Do not the Scriptures shew us how reverently the Pharisees sent unto Iohn Mat. 11. 18. and yet after affirm'd him to have a Devil whereupon said our Saviour he was c. Ioh. 5. 35. thus all credit is but for a season with worldly men with the common People To day a man to morrow
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
a Rule to guide my Conscience by either in Civil or Ecclesiastical matters Verse 4. Gods Actions are general and particular general to all men particular to his Friends So must ours be As therefore by his general Action he suffereth the Sun to shine upon the bad as well as good so must we extend our Love which is the common Bond of Mankind as well to our Enemies as to our Friends by which common Love all hurting of the Bodies or Goods of our Enemies is forbid Again as God hath his special Action to his Friends and his Church namely sanctification so must Friendship which is our special Action reach its self to such only as are of the Houshold of Faith For although we must love with that general Love all Mankind Turks Pagans yet to such may we not be Friends and Familiars but must beware of inward and usual conversation with them that hate God and all his Graces This distinction tels you the meaning of Mat. 5. 44. Love your enemies Verse 5. Estne Deo cura de bobus is the Apostles Question Hath God care of Oxen other mens Oxen how much more of his own Sheep And therefore if thou see one of his Sheep one of thy fellow Christians strayed into sins of infirmity joyn him with thine own Soul in thy Prayers to God Relieve him if what he needs be spiritual with thy Prayers for him and relieve him if his wants be of another kind according to his Prayers to thee Why should not he that is made of the same bloud and redeem'd with the same bloud as thou art why should not he prevail with thee so far as to the obtaining of an Almes when some fellow-servant of thine hath had that interest in God as by his intercession and Prayers to advance thy Salvation wilt not thou save the life of another man that prayes to thee when perchance thy Soul hath been saved by another man that prayed for thee Verse 6. In the third verse God commanded That the poor man should not be spared for pitty Here now he enjoyneth That a poor man should not be wrong'd in respect of his poverty such equal steps would God have Judgement to walk in Verse 11. Blessed is the man that provideth for the poor the Lord shall deliver him in all his trouble Psalm 41. 1. This is proved in the Widdow of Zarepta who fed the Prophet and never suffered in the midst of that Famine 1 Kings 17. When I was hungry you fed me saith Christ Mat. 25. 35. Me I say in the poor with you to whom what you did you did it to me and so I take it and will blesse you for it both here and hereafter Verse 19. You must not seeth the kid c. to shew that we must not use that to the destruction of any Creature which was intended for his preservation CHAP. XXIV Verse 3. IT is better not to promise than not to keep promise the people of the Iews were signified by the Locusts which suddenly leap up and forthwith fall down to the earth again They did as it were leap up when in words they promised to do all things which the Lord had said but they fell to the earth again when in their deeds they denied the same Let us therefore alwayes weigh our weakness and accordingly frame our promises for as we see in this people we may purpose well that which we cannot so well perform Verse 12. It is not many weeks since Israel came out of Egypt in which space God had cherished their Faith by several Wonders yet now he thinks it time to give them Statutes from Heaven as well as Bread The Manna and Water from the Rock which was Christ in the Gospel were given before the Law the Sacraments of Grace before the legal Covenant The Grace of God preventeth our obedience therefore should we keep the Law of God because we have a Saviour O the Mercy of God which before we see what we are bound to do shews us our remedy if we do it not How can our Faith disanul the Law when it was before it It may help to fulfil that which shall be it cannot frustrate that which was not The Letter which God had written in our fleshly Tables were now as some that were carved in some Barks almost grown out he saw it time to write them in dead Tables whose hardness should not be capable of alteration He knew that the stone would be more faithful than our hearts Verse 14. Ministers whether Civil or Ecclesiastical are not to leave their charge without Deputies When Moses here ascended he left Aaron and Hur with the people that whosoever had any matter might come to them So watchful and faithful was Moses in his place that without just cause he is not absent and then he leaveth able Deputies Verse 16. Moses ascending was not admitted to God till after six dayes to teach all men patiently and reverently to tarry Gods leisure and gracious pleasure for any matter of his Will to be revealed to them not curiously searching but humbly waiting for the thing we seek being fit for us At the end of six dayes God called to Moses So will the Lord have a comfortable time for all those that wait for him they shall see and hear at last what he will say unto them But then they must come to God in the Cloud that is in the humanity of Christ whereof this Cloud was a Figure For without him there is no access to God and by him we come and that boldly Verse 17. God appears here like a consuming Fire in the eyes of the Children of Israel but to them whom he drew to him he appeared as a pleasant Saphire verse 10. Just so to carnal men and to such as are his called by his holy Spirit there is a great difference of him the one seeing with fear and trembling the other seeing feeling and tasting Joy and Comfort Verse 18. Moses was with God forty dayes and nights without any repast That God that sent the Quails to the Host of Israel and Manna from Heaven could have fed him with dainties if he had so pleas'd But there is no life to the life of Faith Man lives not by bread only The Vision of God did not only satiate but feast him What a blessed satiety shall there be when we shall see him as he is and he shall be all in all to us Since this very frail Mortality of Moses was sustained and comforted but with representations of his presence Here again I see Moses the Receiver of the Law Elias the Restorer of the Law Christ the Fulfiller of the Law all fasting forty dayes Abstinence prepares best for good Duties Full bellies are fitter for rest Hence solemn Prayer takes ever fasting to attend it and so much the rather speeds in Heaven when it is so accompanied It s good so to diet the body that the soul may be fatned CHAP. XXV
the Priests from whom others should draw Example should themselves be obedient to Gods Word in all things and first hear then speak Obedience was ever acceptable to God Psal. 40. 6. next the Thumb is touched with Blood to teach that we must not only be Hearers but Doers of the Word joyning Works to Faith and a Holy Life to a sound Belief And the right Thumb not the left to signifie that our Works must be right commanded by God not invented by us To the like end was the right Toe sprinkled with Blood that they might so remember to walk worthy their vocation and usually by the Foot in Scripture is both Action and Affection noted My feet had almost slipt said David meaning both Action and Affection Verse 29. The same garments continued although the Priest by Mortality changed and so was signified that our High Priest not meer Man but God and Man is one and his Righteousness our blessed garment remaineth to Father Son and Sons Son to the Worlds end in them that fear him and by a true Faith believe in him CHAP. XXX Verse 1. THe Altar of Incense was of Wood covered with Gold figuring so Christ in both his Natures the Wood his Humanity the Gold his Divinity the Deity yielding Glory and Majesty to his Manhood as the Gold adorn'd and beautified the Shittim Wood. Verse 2. The square form of this Altar represents the firm stability of Christ who cannot be overthrown The Crown about it the regal Dignity of Christ and of all those that are ingrafted to him For we are Kings and Priesis in him and by him Verse 7. The sweet Incense notes all Duties and services which the People of God do to him by his appointment and that they smell sweet before him as the Incense and are accepted of him But particularly the Prayers of the faithful for so David Psal. 14. 2. expounded it The burning of this Incense upon the Altar which was a figure of Christ shadowed out that in Christ and for Christ only our Prayers are in force with God and therefore by him they ought to be offered unto God Verse 9. Prayers either made to others then to God in the name of Christ or for unlawful things are strange Incense and therefore not to be offered unto God No Saint nor Creature was shadowed by the Altar of Incense but Christ and therefore let them take heed that will pray to others and make others present their desires to God Verse 12. To number People in a Land is lawful and if you think of David why he was plagued for so doing surely it was not for that he numbred the People but because he did it in a pride and confidence in mans strength But here neither Pride nor Wealth nor other such eâ—ds were respected but obedience was aimed at and that they should profess themselves thus Gods People and themselves his Tributaries and so be ever strongly comforted in his protection Verse 15. This was a personal Tribute imposed to testifie obedience to God and therefore equally was paid to signifie that God is no respecter of persons but the poor are as dear to him doing his Will as the rich we are all the Lords the price of our redemption is one the precious bloud of that immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ. Verse 16. In worldly matters the rich may go before us but in matters belonging unto God his Worship and Service we ought to be as forward as the rich For you see here that the maintenance of the Ministery was not posted over to Princes and great men only but even private men also must joyn in this work For if he be born to inherit Heaven he must think himself born to maintain the means that lead us unto Heaven Our Sheep and Cattel we provide for because they labour for us and feed us what hearts then should we have to see them comfortably maintain'd that labour for us in a far higher sort and feed us with a much better food Verse 21. We must not meddle with holy things with unwashen hands that is with prophane Hearts Tongues and minds as they do that read the Scriptures not to guide their lives but to maintain table Discourses drawing the Scriptures to their Judgements and not framing their Judgements according to the Scriptures These washings again in the Law had a further reach being used in Faith even to the inward washing of the Spirit whereof they were true Sacraments to the Believers So David Wash me O Lord and I shall be clean that is inwardly inwardly O Lord by thy blessed Spirit from my sins Verse 23. This holy and most excellent Oil was a figure of the Holy Ghost without whom nothing is pure nothing sweet All things were annointed therewith Preist Ark Table Candlestick to teach that all the exercises of Religion are utterly unprofitable without the inward working of the Holy Ghost in our hearts CHAP. XXXI Verse 3. BY this is manifest that the skill of any Handi-craft is not in the power of men but comes by the Highest And by this we are taught to use all those Gifts well whereby we are enabled to discharge our particular Callings that they may serve for the Glory of God and the good of his Church and those that in their Callings use fraud and deceit or else live inordinately do most unthankfully abuse the Gifts of God and dishonour the Spirit of God the Author of their Gifts Verse 6. God here joyneth Aholiab with Bezaliel in the work of the Tabernacle that by this means it might be the more compleat If there should be any fault in Bezaliels work Aholiab might mend it and if there should chance to be any error in Aholiabs performance Bezaliel might correct it that so by the care and circumspection of these two able Workmen nothing might be omitted And as it was thus under the Law so was it under the Gospel the Work of Christs Church as well as Moses Tabernacle must be performed by pairs Therefore Christ sent out his Apostles to preach the Gospel by couples two and two together Two are better than one saith Solomon For first if they fall the one will lift up the other that which is stronger shoreth up the weaker One man may be an Angel to another in regard of comfort and assistance nay a God to another as Moses was to Aaron Secondly if two lie together then they have heat heat of Zeal and good Affection When Silas came Paul burnt in spirit Acts 18. warm he was before but now all of a light fire as it were The Enemy is readiest to assault when none is by to assist and much of our strength is lost in the losse of a faithful Friend CHAP. XXXII Verse 1. O The ingratitude of that giddy multitude a man would have thought they would have wept out theit eyes and sighed their hearts in sunder for such a man as Moses such an Instrument of God and Good to them such
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
now a dayes we have such Factious and corrupt humors in us out of which issue out such dislikes and bad censures of Magistrates as grieve them hinder Justice and provoke God to that which will smart if he be not the more merciful Verse 22. This restrained that pride which otherwise might have been in the Jews and shews the common care of God for all men as well as for the Jews This indifferency is a blessed vertue to be learn'd from our God For surely we are altogether partial if God guide us not Thus if other Mens Children Servants or Friends hurt ours fire and sword for them but if ours hurt them no such matter all must be boulstered out or bought out or born out and Justice may not be done Again among our own one Child must be Crucified and another not touch'd one made a Saint another a Devil CHAP. XXV Verse 7. THis resting of the Land every seventh year put them in remembrance of that sin which cast out all out of Paradice and brought men to labour and the Earth to need it Whereas if we had stood the Earth should have yeilded of its self Fruits and Profits as in some sort they might see by the seventh year Again it shadowed out the true Sabbath and rest in Heaven where shall be no labour and yet no lack but all comforts and joyes imaginable Verse 9. Upon which blowing it had the Name of Iubilee Iubilaeus a Iobel quod significat buccinam This year was an excellent figure of that true Iubilee and freedom which was confer'd upon us by Christ. For this Jewish Jubilee was proclaimed by Trumpet so is the Christian freedom by the Trumpet of Preaching the Gospel In that Jubilee no debts were demanded and such things as grew of themselves were common so in the Christian Jubilee is freedom proclaim'd by Christ Sathan hath no power to demand what by sin we ow him either Soul or Body and all the graces of God which grow of themselves i. e. are freely bestowed upon us are common in Christ to all there being with him no respect of persons but all accepted that fear him and work righteousness Of this freedom speaks Isai. 61. 1. Thirdly in that Jubilee of the Jews there was a returning to their Lands which were alienated from them so by this Christian Jubilee we return to our old Paradice again from whence we were cast out by sin even that Paradice of Heaven from which we shall never be removed any more Verse 21. In this verse the Lord meets with an objection of some men that might happily say what shall we eat the seventh year and answers I will send my blessing upon you in the sixt year and it shall bring forth fruit for three years Let this verse then strengthen your Faith against all objections of Flesh and Blood made from natural reasons For if God be able even then when the earth is weakest having been worn out with continual tillage five years together to make the sixt year bring forth a triple blessing what unseasonable weather what barrenness of Land what any thing shall make a man despair of Gods providence for things needful Again can God be thus strong when the Land is weak why then cannot he be or why will he not be strong in my weakness in your weakness and in every mans weakness that trusts and leans upon him For when we are weakest then is he strongest and his power is best seen in our weakness Away then fear and diffidence I will trust in him drawing an Argument with David from my weakness to move him to strengthen me Heal me O Lord for I am weak Psalm 6. 2. My weakness shall drive me to thee not from thee and I will tarry thy good leisure Lord strengthen me Lord comfort me in all Temptations and afflictions Verse 43. Let us take notice from this custome of the Jews concerning Servants that although Moses his Law in these particulars hath his end for form yet the equity still bindeth in these things and the estate of servants under the Gospel brought and bought out of spiritual Egypt and bondage of sin by Christ may not be worse than it was under the Law when you see they might not be cruelly ruled and dealt with To this end the Apostles Exhortation tendeth Eph. 6. 9. CHAP. XXVI Verse 5. CAlamities that last long are light and if they be heavy they are short both wayes there is some intimation of some ease But God suffers not this impenitent sinner to enjoy that ease God will lay enough upon his Body to kill another in a week and yet he shall pant many years under it As the way of his Blessing is here Your vintage shall reach to your threshing and your threshing to your sowing so in an Impenitent sinner his Fever shall reach to a Frenzy and his Frenzy to a Consumption his Consumption to a Penury and his Penury to a wearing and tyring out of all that are about him and all the sins of his Youth shall meet in the anguish of his body Verse 12. Behold what need we care whether we go while we carry the God of Heaven with us he is with us as our Companion as our Guide as our Guest No impotency of Person no cross of Estate no distance of Place no opposition of Men no gates of Hell can separate him from us he hath said it I will not leave nor forsake thee shall we think he cannot fare ill that hath mony in his purse and shall we think he can miscarry that hath God in his heart How shall not all comfort all happiness accompany that God whose presence is the cause of all blessedness He shall counsel us in our Doubts direct us in our Resolutions dispose of us in our Estates prosper us in our Lives and in our Deaths Crown us Verse 16. God does not begin with a Morte moriendum some body must dye and therefore I will make some body to kill but God came with a Morte morieris yet thou art alive and maist live but if thou wilt rebel thou must dye So here God did not call up Fevers and Pestilence and Consumptions and Fire and Famine and War and then make Man that he might throw him into their mouths but when man threw down himself God let him fall into their mouths Had I never sinn'd in wantonness I should never have had Consumption nor Fever if I had not sinn'd in riot nor Death if I had not transgress'd against the Lord of Life Verse 44. Some are of an opinion that these words were fulfill'd in the Captivity and Deliverance out of Babylon But the Jews perswade themselves that this promise of regard when they should be in the Land of their Enemies is not yet accomplish'd But whether so or not we may very well apply this promise to a true penitent sinner who shall ever be respected upon his Conversion albeit he neglected the time of Grace
withdraw his hand no fight no trust CHAP. XII Verse 1. VVHat is this I see is not this Aaron that was Brother in Nature and by Office joynt Commissioner with Moses and is not this Miriam the Elder Sister to Moses which laid her Brother in the Reeds and fetch'd his Mother to be his Nurse both Prophets of God both the Flesh and Blood of Moses And doth Aaron repine at the honour of him who gave himself that honour and saved his life when he had sinn'd so grosly in making the Calf Doth this Miriam repine at the prosperity of him whose life she saved But now Envy had so blinded their Eyes that they could neither see this priviledge of Nature nor yet the honour of Gods choice Miriam and Aaron are in mutiny against Moses Who so holy as sins not What sin though never so unnatural that even the very best can avoid without God Again who can look for love and prosperity at once when holy and meek Moses finds enmity in his own flesh and blood rather than we shall want a mans Enemies shall be those of his own house Authority cannot fail of opposition if it be never so mildly sway'd that common make-bate the Devil will rather raise it out of our own bosom To do well and hear ill is Princely Verse 2. Seditions do not ever look the same way they move Wise men can easily distinguish betwixt the visor of actions and the face The Wife of Moses is mentioned his superiority is shot at Pride is likely the ground of all sedition Which of their Faces shined like Moses which of them received the Law twice in two several Tables from Gods own hand and yet they dare say Hath God spoken only by Moses they do not deny Moses his Honour but they challenge a part with him And yet how unfit they were one a Woman whom her Sex debarr'd from Rule the other a Priest whom his Office sequestred from Earthly Government Self-love makes men unreasonable and teaches them to turn the glass to see themselves greater others lesser than they are It is an hard thing for a man willingly and gladly to see his equals lifted over his head in worth and opinion Nothing will more try a mans grace then questions of Emulation That man hath true light which can be content to be a Candle before the Sun of others Verse 3. Carry a meek spirit along with you in all your actions When Christ rode as King to Ierusalem he rode meek meek those that would accompany Christ to his Kingdom must be of the same spirit their King is of Moses never fail'd but once and it was then when he lost this meek spirit Numb 20. 10. Expounded Psal. 106. 32. They angered him at the waters of strife so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes for what reason see verse 23. Because they provoked his Spirit so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips God is oft-times in the small and still voice when neither in the whirl-wind nor the Earth-quake nor the fire 1 King 19. 11 12. Verse 4. God might have spoken so loud that Heaven and Earth should have heard it so as they should not have needed to come forth for audience but now he calls them out to the Bar that they may be seen to hear It did not content him to chide them within doors the shame of their fault had been lesse in a private rebuke but the scandal of their repining was publick Where the sin is not afraid of the light God loves not the reproof should be smoothered Verse 10. It was time to look for a Judgement when God departed so soon as he is gone from the Eyes of Miriam the Leprosie appears in her face her foul Tongue is punish'd with a foul Face Since she would acknowledg no difference betwixt her self and her Brother Moses every Israelite now sees his face glorious hers leaprous Deformity is a fit cure of pride Because the venome of her Tongue would have eaten into the Reputation of her Brother therefore a poisonous Infection eats into her flesh Now hath Moses and Miriam need to wear a vail the one to hide his glory the other her deformity Verse 15. The Israelites are stayed seven dayes for the punishment of Miriam the sins of the Governors are a just stop to the people all of them smart in one all of them must stay the leisure of Miriams recovery Whosoever seeks the Land of Promise shall find many lets Amalek Og and the King of Canaan met with Israel these resisted but hindred not their passages their sins only stay them from removing Afflictions are not crosses to us in the way to Heaven in comparison of our sins CHAP. XIII Verse 2. THe basest sort of men are commonly held fit enough for Intelligencers but Moses by the Commandement of the Lord chooseth forth the best of Israel such as were like to be most judicious in their enquiry and most credible in their Report Those that rul'd Israel at home could best descry for them abroad what should direct the body but the Head Men can judg but by appearance It is for him only that sees the event ere he appoint the means not to be deceived It had been better for Israel to have sent the Offal of the multitude By how much less the credit of their persons is by so much lesse is the danger of seducement The error of the mighty is arm'd with Authority and in a sort commands assent whether in good or Evil Greatness hath ever a train to follow it at the heels Verse 6. Amongst those twelve Messengers which our second Moses sent thorow the Land of Promise there was but one Iudas but amongst those twelve which the former Moses addressed thorough the same Land there is but one Caleb and yet those were chosen out of the meanest these out of the Heads of Israel As there is no society free from some corruption so it is hard if in a community of men there be not some faithfulness Verse 27. Forty dayes they spent in this search and this cowardly belief in the search shall cost them forty years delay of the fruition who can abide to see the Rulers of Israel so basely timerous They commend the Land the Fruit commends its self and yet they plead difficulty their shoulders are laden with the Grapes and yet their hearts are overlaid with unbelief It is an unworthy thing to plead hardness of atchieving where the benefit will more than requite the indeavour Our Land of Promise is above we know the Fruit thereof is sweet and glorious the passage difficult The giantly Sons of Anak the powers of Darkness stand in our way If we sit down and complain we shall once know that without shall be the fearful Rev. 21. 8. Verse 30. Ioshua was silent and wisely spared his Tongue for a further advantage only Caleb spake I do not hear him say who am I to strive with the multitude
Wife as Christ is the head of his Church Eph. 5. to rule to defend it to provide for it therefore as the Church is in subjection to Christ so ought the Wife to be to her Husband And therefore it is the duty of all Wives to acknowledg their duty and to yeild without striving subjection to their Husbands It is also the duty of Husbands seeing Authority is committed unto them over their Wives to love them tenderly even as Christ loved his Church Eph. 5. It is his duty likewise to dwell with his Wife 1 Pet. 3. 7. and why to dwell together but that the Husband should yeild to his Wife these four things First Good Example Secondly Instruction Thirdly Maintenance And lastly Imployment in her Calling for his good and his Families Verse 9. It is in our own power to vow or not to vow but when we have vowed it is not in our power to break it Vovere nusquam est praeceptum saith Bellarm. l. z. de Mona for as for that of the Psalm 76. 11. Vow and perform to the Lord your God is not Purum praeceptum saith Mr. Cartwright a pure Precept but like that in the New-Testament Be angry and sin not where anger is not-commanded but limited So neither are we simply commanded to vow but having voluntarily vowed we must not break it nor yet may we defer to pay it Delaies are taken for Denials Excuses for Refusals We must therefore come off with our vows roundly and readily as those Zech. 5. 9. that had wings and wind in their wings Are not the nine Lepers condemned by Christ for their negligence and unthankfulness Luke 17. God loves a chearful giver CHAP. XXXI verse 2. VVE must first do our work and then God will pay us our wages first fight our good fight against the World the Flesh and the Devil which is to avenge our selves of the Midianites in the Text and then God will give us the Crown of Glory Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites saith the Lord here and afterwards Thou shalt be gathered to thy people to that great Panegyris the General Assembly and Church of the first-born in Heaven to that glorious Amphitheatre where the Saints shall see and say Look yonder is Peter and that is Paul we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob have communion with them not only as godly men but as Abraham Isaac and Iacob Verse 8. Balaam pretended an hast homeward but he lingred so long that he left his bones in Midian How justly did he perish by the Sword of Israel whose tongue had insensibly slain so many thousands of them As it is usually said of the Devil that he goes away in a stench so may it truly be said of this Prophet of his according to the fashion of all Hypocrites his words were good his actions abominable he would not Curse but he would advise and his Counsel is worse than a Curse for his Curse had hurt none but himself his Counsels cost the blood of four and twenty thousand Israelites He that had heard God speak by Balaam would not look for the Devil in the same mouth and if God himself had not witnessed against him who could believe that the same tongue that uttered so Divine Prophesies should utter so vilanous and cursed advice Hypocrisie gains this of men that it may do evil unsuspected but now he that heard what he spake in Balaac's ear hath berayed and Condemned his Counsel and himself Verse 15. The Women were they that had caused Israel to sin and therefore it was dangerous to save them left they might entice Israel to sin the second time If we would avoid the sin we must have a care to fly the Temptation If we would not commit the act of Uncleanness we must not keep company with unclean persons we must stand a loof and keep at a distance from all occasions of sin And therefore to pray Lead us not into temptation and yet to run upon the occasion of sin is to thrust our finger into the fire and then pray that it may not be burnt a good man dare not come neer the train though he be far off the blow he will not dare to play near the hole of the Asp lest he slip into it He will not dally with the Devil knowing full well that sin is very infinuative and that the old Serpent if he once get in his head will quickly wind in his whole body Verse 16. This policy was fetch'd from the bottom of Hell It is not for lack of desire that I saith Balaam to Balaac Curse not Israel thou dost not more wish their destruction than I do thy Wealth and Honour but so long as they hold firm with God there is no Sorcery against Iacob withdraw God from them and they shall fall alone and Curse themselves draw them into sin and thou shalt withdraw God from them There is no sin more plausible than Wantonness one Fornication shall draw in another and both shall fetch the anger of God after them Send your fairest Women into their Tents their sight shall draw them to Lust their Lust to Folly their Folly to Idolatry and now God shall curse them for thee unask'd Where Balaam spake well there was never any Prophet spake more Divinely where he spake ill there was never any Devil spake more desperately ill Counsel seldom succeedeth not Gods seed falls often out of the way and roots not but the Tares never likely miss Verse 31. It is worth the observation to consider that before the death of Anron Moses and Aaron are joyned together so after his Death Moses and Eleazer the Magistrate and the Minister as the hand and eye are in the body Then doth the Church and Common-Wealth flourish when these two go hand in hand and on the other side they go to wrack when they are separated and draw several wayes Verse 35. The greatness of the Victory that God gave his people here appears by the distribution of the people and reservation of the Women that had not known Man which escaped the edg of the Sword Learn hereby first that the Iniquity of a People or Nation makes the Lord to destroy them and lay them waste sometimes by the Sword of the Enemy as in this place and sometimes by other Judgements Secondly that the eyes of Gods providence are upon all men and all their wayes in that he destroies multitudes and Nations as well as single persons Which may serve to reprove those that magnifie themselves against God thinking to prevail and escape for their multitudes sake Thirdly This admonisheth every Country City and Nation if they would enjoy their Lands and Goods in peace they must seek to be at peace with God and if they would not have destruction come upon them from God let them not draw it upon themselves by their sins Verse 49. There lacketh not one man of us say they here therefore we have brought an
Verse 53. They were to be driven out because their Iniquity was now full they were as an Harvest ready for the sickle or as a Vine for the Wine-press so were they ready for the Vintage of Gods wrath which now came upon them to the utmost the sin of these Canaanites fill'd the Land with filthiness from corner to corner it overspread it as a deluge turn'd it into the same nature with its self as Coporas which will turn Milk into Ink or Leaven which turneth a very Passover into pollution And therefore God rooted them out and caused their Land when it could bear them no longer to spew them forth Sin is filthiness in the abstract St. Iames calls it Iames 1. 21. The stinking filth of a pestilent Ulcer the superfluity and garbage of naughtiness and therefore must be thrown upon the Dunghil It is no better than the Devils excrement fit for nothing but the draught It sets his limbs in us and draws his Picture upon us For Malice is the Devils eye Oppression is his hand Hypocrisy his cloven foot Great â—â—â—s do greatly pollute and therefore God doth greatly punish them CHAP. XXXIV Verse 3. THe Land of Promise was call'd Canaan of Canaan the Son of Cham who with his posterity dwelt therein and this is now bounded that they might inherit all that God had given them and divide no more than was given them This teacheth us that God sets bounds unto all mens possessions they must take no more nor usurp and presume any further than he hath given Which condemns all encroaching and usurpation one upon another in Kingdoms and Lordships as well as private possessions when men cannot be content with their own but will stretch their power and jurisdiction further God hath made them great but they seek to make themselves greater he hath set them bounds but they will know no bounds So that from hence we may gather that the Wars which are taken in hand upon ambition and enlarging of the bounds of their Empire only are a despising of God a shedding of innocent blood and a perverting of that order which he hath set in Nature and Nations Verse 13. The consideration of the nearness of Gods mercies should encourage and imbolden every one to be constant and couragious that we faint not in the last act this made Moses say here This is the land which ye shall inherit he doth as it were point it out with the finger and biddeth them lift up their Eyes and behold the goodness which God had promised to their Fathers For as the consideration of Judgement at hand and lying at the doors ought to move terror and astonishment so when we behold the mercies of God before our eyes which are not prolong'd for many years it ought to enflame us with an holy zeal and desire to see the accomplishment of the same Verse 15. Consider here the state of the Church of Israel as it now stood and in this the state of Christs Church to the end of the World Some were at rest others were to pass further some had their Inheritance and some had none some had Towns and Cities to dwell in and some were yet left to the wide World and were to wander further Some had much and others little or nothing at all and the reason of this is because God will never have those that have plenty and abundance to be without objects upon which to shew mercy That his gifts may be tryed that he hath given them as also to teach us that we should not settle our selves here nor make the Earth our Heaven but that we should seek for another life where shall be no want no misery no necessity but God shall be all in all CHAP. XXXV Verse 3. LEt us provide for Gods Ministers if not richly and plentifully at least commodiously and competently and not inconveniently and needily that so they may wholly attend their Ministry and not for necessity sake intangle themselves in secular affairs And that God expects these things of us his own dealing Dictates who when he did demand an allowance for himself to maintain his Priests and Levites withall albeit they were one of the least Tribes yet it was so much as in all probabilities did far exceed all other Tribes Revenues and the same in such sort both for their own habitation and for their Houshold provision and keeping of their Cattle for use and service about them was as commodious and fit as to any of the rest And that in very deed these things are not too much the very Estate of the Ministers duly considered from reason will soon yield and confirm Verse 8. The Levites were to have their Glebe-land out of the Israelites possession according to the several abilities of each Tribe They that had many Gities were to give many and those that had few accordingly All were to contribute and this not as an Alms but as a right And this upon very good ground and reason For if Alexander could say That he owed more to Aristotle that taught him than to Philip that begot him if another could say that he never could discharge his Debt to God to his Parents to his School-master how deeply then do men stand obliged to their spiritual Fathers and Teachers in Christ. And I would to God that this Age would but think upon this truth and not think that all is well saved that is with-held from the Minister Too many think it neither sin nor pitty to beguile the Priest But God is not mock'd neither will he be robb'd by any but they shall hear Ye are curs'd with a Curse Mal. 3. 8. Even with Shallum's Curse Ier. 22. 13 14. that used his Neighbours service without Wages and would sacrilegiously take in a peice of Gods window into his own Verse 30. Yet if this one be a faithful witness saith Aristotle one faithful witness in some cases may suffice in private offences howsoever And that our Saviour speaketh of such Mat. 18. 16. St. Basil and others are of opinion If thy Brother a Iew shall trespass against thee being a Iew right thy self by degrees First deal with him Fraternally tell him his fault betwixt thee and him alone Verse 12. Secondly deal with him legally take with thee one or two Witnesses more Verse 16. Thirdly deal with him Jewishly tell the Church complain to the Sanhedrim Verse 17. Fourthly if he shall neglect to hear them deal with him Heathenishly i. e. let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican make benefit of the Roman power let Caesars Justice end the difference between you CHAP. XXXVI Verse 2. THe Fathers of the Children of Gilead came not to Moses in contempt or with a commotion as if they meant to gain that by force which they could not obtain by favour but they bear themselves lowly and dutifully as became them to the Magistrate when they say The Lord commanded my Lord and again my Lord was commanded
distrust of the effect His Rod he knew was approved for miracles he knew not how powerful his voice might be therefore he did not speak but strike and strike twice for failing It is a dangerous thing in Divine matters to go beyond our warrant those sins which seem trivial to men are hainous in the sight of God Any thing that savours of infidelity displeaseth him more than some other crimes of morality Yet the moving of the Rod was but a diverse thing from the moving of the Tongne it was not contrary he did not forbid the one but he commanded the other this was but across the stream not against it where shall they appear whose whole courses are quite contrary to the Commandements of God CHAP. II. Verse 5. IT is God that assigns every Man his Quarters here upon Earth and cuts us out our several conditions appointing the bounds of our habitation This should make us rest contented with our own lot and not murmur at other mens though they be of the Seed of Esau for they have a right to their Inheritance from God as well as we have for ours Even the most Wicked have Earthly things given them by the Almighty and therefore it is a rigour to say they are Usurpers As when a King gives a Traytor his Life he gives him Meat and Drink that may maintain his life so it is with Wicked Men in respect of God they shall not be call'd to an account at the Last Day for possessing what they had but for abusing that possession As for the Saints who are Heirs of the World with faithful Abraham and have a double portion being Heirs of this World and the next too though here they be held to strait allowance let them live upon Reversions and consider that they have right to all and shall one day have Rule of all Wilt not thou rest content unless God set down the Vessel to thee as to St. Peter with all manner of Beasts of the Earth and Fowls of the Ayre must you needs have first and second Course It is a very hard thing to have Earth and Heaven too God did not turn you out of one Paradice that you should here provide you of another Earth is a place of bondage and banishment to all Gods Children Verse 6. Money supplies all wants and gives a satisfactory answer to whatsoever is desired or demanded and although about Money there is much noise and great complaint yet Money answereth all it effects all What great designs did Philip bring to pass in Greece by his Gold the very Oracles were said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say as Philip would have them The Hebrew or rather Chaldee word used for Money Ezra 8. 27. signifies to do some great Work because Money is the Monarch of the World and therein bears most mastery Among Suitors in Love and Law especially Money drives the business and bargain to an upshot Verse 27. So should a Christian bespeak the World Let us pass through thy Country we will neither touch nor taste of thy Dainties but go by the Kings high way that good old way that God hath scored out unto us we will neither turn to the right hand nor to the left but keep an upright and an even course untill we arrive at the Land of Promise the Kingdom of Heaven Verse 30. He durst not trust them as fearing what so great an Army once got in might do they are not usually so easily removed God had also hardened his heart that he might come forth to fetch his own destruction Judgement need not go to find wicked Men out they run to meet their ruine Those whom God intends to deliver over to destruction shall have both their heart and their head hardned their heart against the motions of Gods Grace and their Head against the motions and Dictates of their own reason CHAP. III. Verse 1. THe Enemies of Gods Church are not consumed in a moment but wasted and consumed by the providence of God by little and little True it is God is able to bring them all to nothing at once with the breath of his mouth but it is his pleasure to waste and consume them by degrees one after another As here after Sihon was overthrown we see another Judgement of God upon another Enemy of the Church and this God doth because by them he may try the Faith and exercise the patience of his Servants No marvel if others be oftentimes deceived in us and are ignorant of the secrets of our Souls seeing we our selves know not throughly our selves untill we have ended and endured tryal For such we are indeed as we are in the time of Temptation Wherefore it is necessary that so long as we live in this World we should be kept in a continual exercise of Faith of Prayer of Repentance of obedience This was likewise done to plague the Israelites when at any time they should sin against God and therefore the Nations were left among them to be as snares in their paths whips in their sides and thorns in their eyes because they transgress'd the Covenant that God had made with their Fathers Ps. 81. 13. Verse 2. Among other means of working Faith in God and resting our selves in his Promises the blessed experience and comfortable proof which we have had of Gods mercies towards us in former times is one of the chiefest to cause us to trust in him and evermore to call upon him in our necessity This is confirm'd unto us in Davids faithful behaviour going to encounter with the uncircumcised Philistim 1 Sam. 17. 34 c. Whereby it appears how the Prophet strengtheneth his Faith by the experience that he had in times past of Gods helping hand nothing doubting but that the same God that had preserved him from the jaw of the Lyon and the paw of the Bear would keep him in this single Combate with that Champion that defied Israel Verse 26. Upon one single transgression God passeth the sentence of restraining Moses with the rest from the Promised Land Now he performs it Since that time Moses had many favours from God all which could not reverse this decreed castigation that everlasting Rule is grounded upon the very Essence of God I am Iehovah I change not Our purposes are as ourselves fickle and uncertain his are certain and immutable some things which he reveals he alters nothing that he hath decreed Verse 28 It is no small happiness to any State when their Governors are chosen by Worthiness and such Elections are ever from God whereas the intrusions of Bribery and unjust favour and violence as they make the Common-Wealth miserable so they come from him which is the author of Confusion woe be to that State that suffers it woe be to that person that works it for both of them have sold themselves the one to servitude the other to sin CHAP. IV. Verse 2. SUch add to Gods Book as wrest it and rack it making
it speak that which it never thought causing it to go two miles where it would go but one knawing and tawing it to their own purposes as the shooe-maker wretches the upper Leather with his teeth Tertullian calls Marcian the Heretick Mus Ponticus from his arroding and knawing the Scripture to make it serviceable to his Errors And too many of these kind of Mice have we at this day in this Nation who wrest Texts of Conscience into Factions Texts of Obedience into Rebellion ravishing Scripture to force out Doctrines for their own ends and then emptying their rancor by turning them to uses Verse 8. By Statutes here we may understand the Moral Law by judgements the Judicial which was fitted to the temper and disposition of the Jews like as Solon being ask'd whether he had given the best Laws to the Athenians answered the best that they could suffer And certain it is that Moses spake here as ever most Divinely and like himself or rather beyond himself the end of a thing being better if better may be than the beginning of it as good Wine is best at last and as the Sun shines most aimiably when it is going down This Book of the Law it was that the King was to write out with his own hand Deut. 17. 18. that it might serve as his Manual This was that happy Book that good Iosiah lighting upon after it had long lain hid in the Temple melted into tears at the menaces thereof and obtain'd of God to dye in peace though he were slain in War This only Book was that pretiously purling Current out of which the Lord Jesus our Champion chose all those three smooth stones wherein he prostrated the Goliah of Hell in that sharp encounter Mat. 4. Verse 11. God would have Israel see that they had not to do with some impotent Commander that is fain to publish his Laws without noise in dead Paper which can more easily enjoyn than punish to descry than execute and therefore before he gives them a Law he shews them that he can command Heaven Earth Fire Aire in revenge of the breach of that Law that they could not but think it deadly to displease such a Law-giver or violate such dreadful Statutes that they might see all the Elements examples of that obedience which they should yeild unto their Maker Now this fire wherein the Law was given is still in it and will never out Hence are those terrors which it flashes in every Conscience that hath felt remorse of sin Every Mans heart is a Sinah and resembles to him both a Heaven and Hell The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of sin is the Law Verse 12. That they might see he could find out their closest sins he delivers his Law in the light of fire that they might see what is due to their sins they see fire above to represent the fire that should be below them that they might know he could waken their security the thunder and lowder voice of God speaks to their hearts That they might see what their Hearts should do the Earth-quakes under them O Royal Law and mighty Law-giver How could they think of having any other God that had such proofs of this How could they think of making any resemblance of Him whom they saw could not be seen and whom they saw in not being seen infinite How could they think of disobeying his Deputies whom they saw so able to revenge How could they think of killing when they were half dead with the fear of him that could kill both Body and Soul How could they think of the flames of Lust that saw such fires of vengeance We Men that so fear the breach of Humane Laws for some small mulcts of Forfeiture how should we fear thee O Lord that canst cast Body and Soul into Hell Verse 24. If the Law as we read before was given in Thunder and Lightning how shall it be requir'd if such were the Proclamation of Gods Statutes what shall the Sessions be O God how powerful art thou to inflict vengeance upon sinners who didst thus forbid Sin and if thou wert so terrible a Law-giver what a Judge shalt thou appear what shall become of the breakers of so fiery a Law O where shall those appear that are guilty of the transgressions of that Law whose very delivery was little less than Death If our God should exact his Law but in the same rigour wherein he gave it sin could not quit the cost but now the fire wherein it was delivered was but terrifying the fire wherein it shall be required is consuming Happy are those that are from under the terrors of the Law which was given in Fire and in Fire shall be required Verse 29. It is a kind of denying the Infiniteness of God to serve him by pieces and raggs God is not infinite to me if I think a discontinued service will serve him It is a kind of denying the unity of God to joyn other Gods pleasure or profit with him he is not one God to me if I joyn other Associates and Assistants to him It is a kind of diffidence in Christ as if I were not sure that he would stand in the favour of God stil as though I were afraid that there might rise a new Favorite in Heaven to whom it might concern me to apply my self if I make the ballance so even as to serve God and Mammon if I make a complemental visit of God at his House upon Sunday and then plot with the other Faction the World the Flesh and the Devil all the Week after CHAP. V. Verse 1. IT is not enough for us to Learn the Law but we must keep it and do it we must lay it up in our hearts as well as in our heads and practice it also in our lives and Conversations For not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified Rom. 2. 13. Too too many in this Rotten Age wherein we live are Speakers not Workers as if Ostende re fidem St. Iames his Shew thy Faith by thy Works were Ostendere to stretch the Jaws to shew our Faith by strong Protestations But this must not be a work of the mouth but hand If a Man question thee of Faith spare thy Lips and let thy Life make answer If words might be credited if a bare profession of the Gospel might be believed no Man would want Faith every one would cry with the blind Man in the Gospel Lord I believe what Mouth would not make one Lye for its Master Unless I see said Thomas of Christs rising so unless I see and feel thy Faith I will not believe If we are good Trees by our Fruit men shall know us Mat. 7. By our Fruit not by our blossoms of good purposes or our leaves of good profession but by the Fruit of our actions Verse 9. Parents are hence admonish'd to take heed of sinning against God lest they be found unmerciful unnatural and
supposed he had done but his duty in holding up the Ark which was like to fall but God taught him that it was far otherwise The Scribes and Pharisees thought themselves the only men that served God because of their long Praying much Fasting c. But who required these things at their hands said Christ. CHAP. XIII Verse 2. WHat Moses speaks of false Prophets may be spoken of all bewitching sins with pleasure or profit If a Dreamer of Dreams have given thee a sign and that sign come to pass if a sin have told thee it will make thee rich and it hath made thee rich if this Dreamer draw thee to another god if this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous i. e. to an habitual love of that sin for Tot habemus recentes Deos quot vitia saith St. Ierome yet though this Dreamer be thy Brother thy Son how near how dear how necessary soever this sin be unto thee Non misereberis saith Moses Thine eye shall not pitty that Dreamer c. and so of this pleasurable or profitable Sin Non misereberis thou shalt not hide it but pour it out in confession Non misereberis thou shalt not pardon it no nor reprieve it but destroy it for the practise presently not Misereberis thou shalt not turn out the Mother and retain the Daughter not leave the sin and retain that which was sinfully got but divest all root and body and Fruits by confessing to God by contrition in thy self by restitution to men damnified Verse 3. As the Spider in the midst of her Cobweb feeling the least touch that shakes her work retires instantly from the danger so should the perfect Convert shrink at the least noise whispering and murmuring of a Temptation he should avoid the very Complement and first Address of the Devil and the very sight the discourse the aire and breathing of his instruments It is not safe to hear them or hold Discourse with them lest they insinuate and infect us as the Montanists did Tertullian and Acasius the Heretick did Anastasius a Bishop of Rome who sought to rectifie him For such mens words are softer and smoother than Oyl and yet in the end prove sharper than drawn swords saith the Psalmist they pretend healing and Cordials in their Discourse when the poison of Asps is under their Lips Heaven and Salvation is in their mouth when nothing but Hell and Destruction in their Heart They are like Eagles that sore aloft towards Heaven not for any love of Heaven but that they may spy their Prey the sooner and seize upon it the better Verse 6. We must relye upon and praise and bless God alone For can we relye upon Man upon what Man upon Princes we have seen them unking'd and unman'd too both their Crowns and their Lives taken from them Wilt thou relye upon great Persons in favour with Princes have we not seen often that the Bed-Chambers of Kings have back doorsinto Prisons and that the end of that Greatness hath been but to have a greater Jury to condemn them Wilt thou relye upon the Prophet he can teach thee or upon thy Brother he does love thee or upon thy Son he should love thee or the Wife of thy bosome she will say she loves thee or upon thy Friend he is as thine own Soul yet Moses here puts a case when thou must depart from all these not consent no not conceal not pardon no not reprieve Thou shalt surely kill him saith Moses even this Prophet this Brother this Son this Wife may incline thee to the service of other gods that Prophet by what Name or Title soever he be call'd that Brother how willingly soever he divide the Inheritance with thee that Son how dutiful soever in civil things that Wife how careful soever for her own honour and thy Children that Friend how free soever of his favours and of his secrets that inclines thee to other gods or to other service of the true God then is true Verse 14. Men must be swift to hear slow to speak that is to censure and pass sentence Athanasius passeth for a Sacrilegious person a prophane wretch a bloody Persecuter a blasphemer of God and was so condemn'd before he was heard by that Pseudosynodus Sardicensis and therefore God doth command the Israelites here that they should enquire diligently before the Judgement should pass upon the offenders even in such matters as concern'd his own Worship he would not have so much as that preserved from Idolatry without strict enquiry and search whether the thing was certain that such an abomination was wrought among them A rash precipitant course in matters of Judgement hath saved many a guilty person and condemned as many innocent Follow therefore Gods method enquire before you Judge know the cause before you pass the sentence CHAP. XIV Verse 1. FRom hence we may observe how careful the Lord is not to have his people imitate the fashions of the Gentiles for fear one thing should draw on another and in the end even Idolatry and false Worship We in these dayes are wholly given to Forrein Fashions the Lord in mercy save us from forrein sins oppression tyranny and Massacrees and continue his Gospel and Peace upon us preventing and confounding their designs that craftily endeavour the supplanting both of Church and State under the colour of policy and safety Verse 2. The people of the Jews were an holy people unto God with a federal holiness which yet without an inherent holiness in the heart and life will profit a man no more then Dives in the flames that Abraham call'd him Son or Iudas that Christ call'd him Friend an empty title yeelds but an empty comfort at last Let us therefore endeavour an inward holiness to bear his mark his Seal his Covevant upon our heart then shall we be indeed as it is in the Text a chosen Generation a pickt people the dearly Beloved of Gods Soul such as first he chose for his love and then loves for his choice we shall be his peculiar people his people of purchase as it is in the Septuagint such as comprehend as it were all Gods gettings his whole stock that he makes any great reckoning of and upon the same account we are said to be Kings and Priests unto God First Kings to rule in Righteousness to Lord it over our Lusts to triumph over all our spiritual Adversaries being more than Conquerors through him that loved us and laid down his lise for us that we might reign and live eternally And surely if Kings are doubly bound to serve God both as Men and Kings what are we for this spiritual Kingdom Secondly Priests to offer up to him the personal Sacrifice of our selves the verbal of Praise and real of Alms. Verse 8. There was never any surer evidence of the cleanness of a Creature among the Jews then that it was permitted to be Sacrificed or to be kill'd and eaten the Lamb and the Turtle emblems
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
whom thereby she draweth about her not so among Men. God and the Saints loath what the Wicked love and delight in as the Panther doth in mans excrements CHAP. XXIV Verse 9. THat is commanded her to be shut up seven dayes and it was fit for all parts Miriam should continue some while Leaprous There is no policy in a sudden removal of just punishment If the judgement had been at once inflicted and removed there had been no example of terror to others unless the Rain so fall that it lie and soak into the Earth it profits nothing If the judgements of God should be only as Passengers and not So journers at least they would be no whit regarded Verse 15. The hireling hath earnest thoughts upon his Reward his Reward is in his Eye which is the reason here given why his Wages should not be with-held poor Man he hath been working all day and he hath had his heart upon his Wages the hopes of that gave him some relief and ease in going through his hard task and service therefore thou shalt not keep it from him But is not this a Sin in the Servant to set his heart upon his Wages is not the charge given Psalm 62. If riches encrease set not thine heart upon them there is a great difference between these two Texts For this word here notes the lifting up of the Soul so we read in the Margin of our Bibles but in the Psalm where he speaks of the Covetous rich Man the word imports the setting down or setling of his heart upon it A poor Man hath but a little and his Wages it may be is above him his Wages possibly is more than he is worth therefore he lifteth up his mind to it as a thing he reacheth upward for but a Rich man who hath abundance let 's his heart down he croucheth and broodeth upon the Creature A godly poor man looks up to his Reward and fetches his Bread from Heaven a covetous Rich man looks down to his Reward and takes his Bread from the Earth A godly man is above all earthly things and yet he lifts up his mind to receive them a meer natural Man is below earthly things and yet he descends that he may receive them The things which both receive are the same but the conveyance and the derivation differ alwayes as much as Heaven and Earth sometimes as much as Heaven and Hell Verse 16. If it be here demanded how it may stand with Gods justice and this Text to punish the Son for the Father I answer That outward temporal evils are in the nature sometimes of a Curse sometimes of a Cure and accordingly God deals For sometimes he punisheth a bad Father in a bad Son and then it is not a cross only but a Curse to both so God punish'd Pharaoh in his first-born Sometimes he punisheth a good Father in a good Son and then it is though a cross yet a cure to both so punish'd he David in his young Child Sometimes he punisheth a good Father in a bad Son as he did David in Absolom and then 't is a cure to the Father but a curse to the Son sometimes he punisheth a bad Father in a good Son thus he punish'd Ieroboam in his Son and then it is a curse to the Father but a cure to the Son CHAP. XXV Verse 17. IN the Israelites passage out of Egypt God would not lead them the nearest way by the Philistines Land lest they should repent at the sight of War now they both see and feel it God knows how to make the fittest choice of the times of evill and with-holds that one while which he sends another not without a just reason why he sends and with-holds it And though to us they come ever as we think unseasonably and at some times more unfitly than others yet he that sends them knows their opportunities Who would not have thought a worse time could not have been pick'd for Israels War than now in the feebleness of their Troops when they were weary thirsty unweaponed yet now must the Amalekites do that which before the Philistines might not do we are not worthy not able to choose for our selves Verse 18. How cowardly and how craftily was the skirmish of Amalek they do not bid them battle in terms of War but without noise or warning come stealing upon the hindmost and fall upon the weak and scattered Remnants of Israel There is no looking for favour at the hands of malice the worst that either force or frand can do must be expected of an Adversary but much more of our spiritual Enemy by how much his hatred is deeper Behold this Amalek lies in ambush to hinder our passage into our Land of Promise and subtilly takes all advantages of our weaknesses We cannot be wise or safe if we stay behind our Colours and strengthen not those parts where is most opposition Verse 19. God holds it no derogation from his Mercy to bear a Quarrel long where he hates he whose anger to the vessels of Wrath is everlasting even in temporal judgement revengeth late the sins of his own Children are no sooner done and repented of then forgotten but the malicious sins of his Enemies stick fast in an infinite displeasure it is not in the power of Time to raze out any of the Arrerages of God we may lay up wrath for our Posterity happy is that Child therefore whose Progenitors are in Heaven he is left an inheritor of Blessing together with Estate whereas wicked Ancestors loose the thank of a rich Patrimony by the Curse that attends it He that thinks because punishment is deferr'd that God hath forgiven or forgot his offence is unacquainted with Justice and knows not that Times makes no difference in Eternity CHAP. XXVI Verse 13. VVHat was given here to the Poor the Fatherless and Widdow was given according to Gods command because he had enjoyn'd it should be so which instructs us that the work of Alms-deeds is not a Free-will Offering left to our selves to be done or undone as we think fit but it is our duty and we are bound to do it if able And this is further proved from 1 Tim. 6. 17. Charge the rich that they be rich in good Works It is the Rich mans charge precept and duty It is not left to their free choice to do good if they please but it is laid upon them as their charge and duty they must do good Works and woe be to them if they do not And the reason of this is because God hath not made them Owners but Servants and Servants not of their own Goods but the Givers not Treâ—surers but Stewards and Almoners Which should exhort men to go on and glory in this Office of Stewardship especially when they shall consider that the praise of a Steward is more to lay out well than to have received much knowing that well done faithful servant Mat. 25. is a thousand times
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
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