quarrel as an husband may be of his adulterous wise her paramours for and none shall deliver 〈◊〉 out of my hand 3. Idolatry and abuse of prosperity to uphold that doth ripen a visible Church for very speedy destruction For Now saith he I will discover her nakednesse c. Ver. 11. I will also cause all her mirth to cease her feast-dayes her new Moones and her Sabbaths and all her solemne feasts Thirdly he threatens to cut short her mirth and all her solemnities of worship which were set up in imitation of the feasts appointed by God in Judah See 1 Kings 12.32 Whence learn 1. Sin and mirth will not last long together but were there never so much of it sin will cut it all short For I will also cause all her mirth to cease whether her rejoycing at her prosperous condition or at these solemne feasts in paarticular 2. God will not be mocked with external performances of solemne worship to him especially being of mens own invention when they joyne grosse Idolatry with them but he will send on wrath to cut all short together For saith he I will make to cease her feast-dayes her new Moons and her Sabbaths and all her solemne feasts as came to passe in her captivity Her Sabbaths were every seventh day from the creation which she observed as well as Judah and her feast-dayes seemeth to be a general comprehending the two followiag of new Moons and other solemne feasts Vers 12. And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees whereof she hath said These are my rewards that my lovers have given me and I will make them a forrest and the beasts of the field shall eat them Fourthly he threatens to destroy not only their fruits but the trees they grew upon and so to leave their land desolate as a forrest for wilde beasts and that because they looked on these things as the reward of their Idolatry Whence learn 1. Spiritual judgements and deprivation of Ordinances will have but little weight with wicked men unlesse 〈◊〉 other rod be with them Therefore after that threatening v. 11. of depriving them of their solemnities must this again be added I will destroy her vines c. 2. Such is the desperate stupidity and obstinacy of declining sinners as no cutting off of present enjoyments will affect them unlesse their future expectations be cut off liikewise For he must destroy not only her present fruits but her vines and her fig-trees and make them a forrest that the beasts of the field may eat them before she be sensible of it as a stroak 3. As God doth not cut off enjoyments from sinners but when they do abuse them So we would take head of forgetting Gods quarrel under calamities and particularly the abuse of prosperity in not acknowledging God but stregthening our selves in an ill way because of it Therefore is the challenge repeated he destroyeth her vines c. whereof she said These are my rewards that my lovers have given me or the fruits of my Idolatry and the benefits I reap by that which the Prophets call my whoredome For the speech alludes to the hire given to an harlot Vers 13. And I will visit upon her the dayes of Baalim wherein she burnt incense to them and she decked her self with her eare-rings and her jewels and she went after her lovers and forgate me saith the LORD The last branch of the challenge and the height of all the sin formerly challenged is for her Idolatry particularly of Baal which she followed with much sumptuousnesse forgetting God For this the Lord threatens in due time to punish Whence learn 1. The capestone and height of sin and abuse of mercy in the visible Church is Idolatry when all her care is to set up a false Religion and to uphold it by her prosperity and in particular when not only the true God is worshipped in a wrong way but when an Idol is set up to be the object of worship This is the substance of all the former challenges her burning incense to Baalim or several Idols under that name or that same Idol under several shapes in diverse places and going after her lovers 2. Such as admit of one step of Idolatry may be given up to more and such as set up their own devices in worshipping the true God are justly given up to take an Idol in his room and would do so if they had a tentation For they who at first worshipped the calves do now embrace Baalim 3. Idolatry is a way to which our hearts incline by nature and much external pomp is no evidence of a true Religion For she burnt incense to them and decked her self with her eare-rings and her Jewels and she went after her lovers Her pomp and superfluity in upholding that Idolatry as an harlots decking when she prostitutes her self declared the inclination of her heart and this pomp proclaimed the unsoundnesse of that way 4. As Idolatry in the visible Church proclaimeth great forgetfulnesse of God what he is in himself and hath been unto them So the Lord will take notice of this as an aggravatiun of that sin Therefore is it added and forgat me saith the LORD See Deut. 32.6 7 15 16. 5. Albeit the Lord may seem to look on for a time when his people depart from him yet he is a jealous God who will not suffer Idolatry to go unpunished but will in due time come and take order with it and repay all their obstinate continuance in it For saith he I will visit upon her or come to take order with her for the dayes of Baalim or the long time she continued serving them and that albeit these dayes had ceased since Jehu's reformation Ver. 14. Therefore behold I will allure her and bring her into the wildernesse and speak comfortably unto her In the rest of this Chap. the Lord for the comfort of the Elect Israelites that were then living or should live afterwards brings forth his purpose of mercy in several Gospel-consolations which however they belong spiritually to all the Israel of God yet are here expressed with a peculiar eye to Israel here threatened and in particular with an eye to their future conversion as a Nation Rom. 11.25 26. The first ground of consolation or promise in this ver hath three branches 1. It being supposed in the former threatenings that Israel is rejected for sin and driven in exile and under bondage as when they were in Egypt to which the allusion is The Lord promiseth even when she is in that condition to allure and perswade her by the voice of the Gospel and efficacy of his Spirit to turn to him and come out of her spiritual bondage to follow him which answers to their call out of Egypt by the Ministery of Moses and Aaron Hos 11.1 2. As Israel after their coming out of Egypt were brought into a wildernesse where they were made to walk long as the word here will read amidst many
abiding for him abide for me Although she be rejected from being the Lords wife and have little minde or expectation of him yet the Lords sequestrating her from idolatry to wit in a national way in her captivity is a proof that he will make it an abiding for him whatever she intend or expect in it Fifthly this typical promise of his abiding for her as she doth for him so will I also be for thee is not to be strictly pressed seeing God hath since the time of their rejection chosen the Gentiles though it may be thus constructed 1. He choosed none till the Messiah under whom they are to be converted came in the flesh 2. All whom he chooseth must put this respect upon the elder brother though now gone out of the house that they become Israel before they lay claim to Israels Covenant 3. Whomever the Lord hath chosen yet he hath a room in his heart for them and will have them married to him and this exhausts the scope 4. Their conversion will be indeed as his solemne marriage-day and a resurrection from the dead to the world Rom. 11.15 and that day will evidence what respect he had to them in their lost condition And so it may teach us 1. Notwithstanding the glorious dayes of the Son of man that appear in the world by the conversion of the Gentiles and their marriage to him yet his ancient people are not forgotten by him But as of old when the Jewes were his Church yet he minded the Gentiles and purposed their conversion John 10.16 so his heart is on Israel till they be brought in 2. Not only is it a token that God hath reserved comfort for them who will not have any comfort in trouble without him but as a shut-up adulteresse do renounce all lovers till their husband embrace them again But when the Lord makes his peoples affliction continue sad without any outgate beside himself it is a pledge that he hath thoughts of peace toward them in that trouble For he abideth for her who is made to abide and not to be for a man or secluded from any comfortable condition as a shut-up harlot This is the condition of the Jewes and of Israel at this day who are kept in so low a condition beyond all Nations that they may never flourish till God turne them to him and he embrace them Sixthly the Prophets doing all this in obedience to that command v. 1. to love the woman may teach 1. That as tender husbands do shut up and pinch their wanton and treacherous wives for their good So the Lords love may oft-times be visible in hard usage and denying indulgence to his incorrigible people and his love be ordered by prudent and wholesome severity to tame them 2. That not to be cut off but made to subsist in the saddest condition in hope of future mercy is a rich expression of love For so doth his love toward Israel appear in that he preserveth them however scattered or lost in mens eyes with a purpose to do them good in the latter end See Lam. 3.22 26 29. Ver. 4. For the children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a sacrifice and without an image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim Here we have the second thing in the Chap. and an Exposition of the first part of the type concerning the adulteresse her being sequestrate in a base and poor condition This the Lord expounds to signifie that albeit he was to cast Israel out yet for the Elects sake in her and because of the Covenant made with her Fathers he would testifie his love to her by making her to subsist during the long time of her captivity though in a sober and mean condition wanting a civil State and without the use either of a true Religion signified by sacrifices and an Ephod or a false signified by Images and Teraphim which were a peculiar sort of Images representing as is conceived their Idols in humane shape This prediction cannot be understood of particular persons of Israel nor of all of them taking them distributively for certainly at all times where ever they are they have some Religion either true or false But it is to be taken of Israel collectively that as a Nation they could neither set up nor performe true or false worship as they had done before their rejection and so it is opposed to their national conversion Further when the Lord foretels that they shall be deprived of true Worship under the name of a sacrifice and Ephod comprehending under this all their Priestly garments and their Priests who used them in publick worship it is not his purpose to justifie their borrowing of these from Judah and making use of them in the worship of the calves as true and acceptable worship but being such as they supposed true and came nearest to it yet they should be deprived of it Or the words are to be taken absolutely without restriction to what they had before to signifie that they should have no true worship at all From this we may beside what is held out in the type further Learn 1. As the Lord may make the fruits of sin very bitter and sad and of long continuance even to his own people So such a condition may have mercy in it and may yet end in mercy For albeit what is here held out be very sad and of continuance for many dayes yet they abide under it and are made to subsist till better come 2. The want of a face of Government of a Nations self is a misery to be laid to heart either when a people are scattered from being a Nation or are ruled over by strangers and yet it is a misery under which a people may be preserved for much mercy For it is foretold here as a part of Israels misery that they shall be without a King and without a Prince without any face of Authority lesse or more over them of their own Nation being scattered among the Nations and under the Government of others where they come and yet in this case they abide till the marriage come 3. As the publick Worship of God is a sweet cordial in affliction and the want thereof a judgement which the Lord will bring on his dearest people when they provoke him and as it is a sad judgement to want the face of a visible Church even albeit there were some corruption in it So corrupting the Worship of God provokes him to give up a people to have no worship at all For this prediction they shall abide without a sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim doth not import that simply it is a judgement to want corrupt worship though whorish Israel in Hosea's time might think so as an harlot would do to be shut up from her Paramours which is indeed a woful temper nor doth it here import so much a mercy to deprive
Her interest is little regarded and her love of no worth to any unlesse she hire them 4. Departing from God and employing sinful helps and means is very prejudicial not only in the event and issue but even in the work it self For whereas they might have had real and effectual help from God if they had turned to him without money and without price now albeit their other helps did stand in no stead yet they must hire lovers Vers 10. Yea though they have hired among the nations now will I gather them and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the King of princes The Lord threatens because of this that their endeavours to hire help among the Nations should not availe them but God should gather them that is either their hired friends to be employed against themselves or he will gather themselves among the Nations in heaps as dead corpses or whereas they were wilde and untameable v. 9. he will reclaim them from this humour and make them endure his yoke of judgements as Jer. 2.24 This stroak is amplified from an effect that however the taxes imposed upon them by the great King of Assyria 2 Kings 15.19 20. and 17.3 were very heavy and a cause of that revolt 2 King 17.4 yet they should finde cause to grieve little at that in respect of what followed when part of the Nation was carried into captivity 2 Kings 15.29 and then all of them 2 Kings 17. Doct. 1. It will be but to small purpose what means men use so long as they do not make matters sure with God and do not consider how he will dispose of them or their helps For so it proved here Yea though they have hired among the nations now will I gather them 2. When God is provoked to anger he can employ the means of our help to ruine our selves and can bring the wildest under sad rods So much doth his gathering them as is before explained teach Now or shortly will I gather them 3. When the Lord hath his Church to try or them and the rest of the world to scourge he can and may let wicked men prosper to a very great height for that end For the Assyrian is the King of princes having so many Kings and Princes subject and tributarie to him Isa 10.8 36.13 4. A people who have suffered under lesser trouble and yet have made no right use of it to prevent more or have used sinful means to be rid of it may expect no other issue but that the Lord will send a greater trouble to make them forget the former For this had been their carriage under their tribute and burdens and they are therefore told they shall sorrow a little for the burthen of the King of princes See Matth. 24.7 8. 5. Taxes and burdens under the feet of oppressours are but easie in comparison of captivity and exile and therefore ought to be the more patiently born For they sorrow a little for the burden c. as being easie in respect of what followed Verse 11. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin altars shall be unto him to sin Followeth the fourth sin and cause of their judgement wherein their further corrupting of worship is laid to their charge and aggravated in three branches whereof the first which is charged on Ephraim as the misleader of the people is that whereas God had appointed only one Altar for his Worship and their Fathers of old had made a great stirre when there was appearance of erecting another Josh 22. Now they had not only set up one in Dan and another in Bethel beside that which God had appointed at Jerusalem but had multiplied them on every hill as ch 4.13 and almost every where as ch 12.11 This they did to sin that is not so much that they did this to offer expiatory sacrifices for sin as that the nature of their work was sin And therefore the Lord threatens that they should have their fill of sin by it and feel it Whence learn 1. Albeit the Lord be justly provoked to anger by all the sins of his Church yet their corrupting of Religion is his chief and great quarrel and is the sin in following of which men contract so much stupidity as they need to be frequently charged with it Therefore doth the Lord fall again upon their corrupt worship as his great quarrel and the sin wherewith they were most blinded 2. When men once leave God and the true way of his Worship there will be no satisfaction in any other way of Religion they follow and therefore no end of defection For Ephraim hath made many altars not contenting himself with these he set up at first 3. However men may buske up a false Religion to make it plausible and may seek to colour and excuse it with good intention yet not only doth the follower and promoter of it sin but God lookes upon him as intending all the sin that is in it For he hath made many altars to sin as if he intended all the sin that is in that course 4. As men are then most fearfully plagued when they are given up to go on in their sin and perish So when men do not stand in aw of the sin of their course it is righteous with God to make them feel what sin is and how ill he is pleased with it for altars shall be unto him to sin imports both these that they shall be given up to that sin and as they sinned and cared not so the Lord should make it be seen to be sin indeed and make them feel how sad that is Vers 12. I have written to him the great things of my Law but they were counted as a strange thing The second branch of the challenge is that in their defections and specially in this sin in corrupting the Worship of God they contemned the Law or Word of God written to them by God looking on its directions as of little importance and little concerning them Whence learn 1. The Word of God is the true touch-stone whereby mens wayes and their Religion is to be tried and approven and neither Traditions nor Revelations Therefore to prove the sin of their corrupt worship he chargeth them with contempt of the Law or Divine Doctrine in that matter See Isa 8.20 2. It was the great mercy and priviledge of Israel of old to have the Word and Oracles of God for instructing them in the way of salvation and it is so still to any who enjoy it and they ought to finde and esteem it so For it is an aggravation of his sin as the abuse of a very great priviledge that it was written to him See Psal 89.15 147.19 20. Rom 3.1.2 3. As it is a great mercy that the Lord hath caused to registrate his Will in writing to prevent delusion and mistakes So he is the Author of the written Word whoever be employed as Penman For I have written my Law saith
learn 1. In times of defection it is good to be well acquainted with and scene in the causes of it and what distempers draw men to that height they go Therefore doth the Prophet here point at it 2. It is a great plague on men that they cannot guide prosperity well and know no way how to use it but to feed sensuall lusts by it for all the use they made of Gods bounty was Whoredome and wine 3. Sinnes go seldome there alone but are linked together and draw on one another and particularly Whoredome and intemperancy go often hand in hand together Therefore are they conjoyned Whoredome and wine and new wine He mentions wine and new wine because as drunkards use to do they tried all kinds of it or the latter is by way of explication because new wine makes soonest drunk 4. It is a great plague on unclean and sensual men that thereby they not only abuse their bodies and become guilty of self-murther and do wear out any spark of conscience that they had but that by following these brutish lusts they renounce even humanity and turne brutish without sense and common understanding so that they know not what they do nor can discerne or be ashamed of any ill course nor fear any threatening of danger and do render themselves unuseful either in Church or State and effeminate and unable to encounter any trouble for Whoredome and wine and new wine take away the heart or sense and understanding The word signifieth oft-times to take by force or by industry to shew that however at first there may be some wrastlings betwixt lust and mens sens sense and principles of reason yet at last lusts given way unto will carry it 5. As it is Gods judgement on unfaithful Ministers that they are given up to sensuality so that will soone besot them and make them saplesse in their doctrine and carelesse in their duty for in particular it is true of them whom he had challenged before Whoredome and wine and new wine take away the heart Vers 12. My people aske counsel at their stocks and their staffe declareth unto them for the spirit of whordomes hath caused them to erre and they have gone a whoring from under their God 13. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and burne incense upon the hils under oakes and poplers and elmes because the shadow thereof is good therefore your daughters shall commit whoredome and your spouses shall commit adultery The fourth article of this accusation is general against the whole people for their grosse and heathenish idolatry which is as adultery a forsaking of God and their duty of subjection to which they stand bound by the marriage-Covenant This is instanced in their consulting with their stocks of Images and their staves or arrowes which flowed from their strong inclinations to Idolatry cherished by Satan and in their sacrificing openly to Idols on mountains under the shade of groves esteeming that heathenish way best for this the Lord threatens to give up their daughters and daughters in law and others whom they would have chaste to bodily filthinesse Whence learn 1. When ever the visible Church forsakes God he will not forget his kindness to her to aggreage her sinne and to prove that she hath done it without provocation Therefore againe the title is my people to shew that he had intreated them as such and that he having chosen them from among all people for himself and as his portion Deut. 32.8 9. Isa 43.21 it was a greater sinne in them then in any so to behave themselves 2. Albeit Idolaters will not take with it that they worship stocks and sticks yet in reality they do so and hereby they prove their own madnesse in subjecting themselves to these creatures that are inferior to them and the basenesse of their Religion in that they have so poore wayes to know the mindes of their Idols for they aske counsell at their stocks and so consult with them as their gods and performe religious worship to them that they may know their minde and their staffe declareth unto them that is any illusion they get they take it for a divine response For the way of divination by a staffe or arrowes See Ezek. 21.21 22. It seemes that when he doubted which City to assault first severall staves or artowes having the names of the severall places on them being shaken together in a quiver that which was first drawn out determined the question And so Idolaters resolved other cases 3. The backsliding and Idolatry of the visible Church is not to be looked on lightly or as an infirmity but as flowing from the power of Satan working upon that strong inclination that is naturally in all men and specially in these who have not received the love of the truth to follow error Therefore is it given as a reason For the spirit of whoredomes hath caused them to erre which is to be understood both of their own inclinations and of the working of the evill spirit 2 Thes 2.9 which makes them so bent and zealous in it and warnes us not to be taken up with every zeale nor with every religion wherein men seeme to be zealous 4. They who commit Idolatry and follow false Religions and so do renounce subjection to God and put themselves from under his directions they do also put themselves from under his protection for in both these respects it is true they have gone a whoring from under their God renouncing that subjection due to him by violating the Marriage-Covenant and so depriving themselves of that protection which was ensured to them by the Covenant 5. Sin is then come to a great height and very ripe for judgement when men cast off all veiles of pretences or shame and do openly and avowedly commit it for he challengeth when they sacrifice upon the tops of the mountaines c. avowedly without shame and not in corners onely 6. It is high presumption in fraile men to think to invent finer ordinances of worship by their wit then what God hath appointed or that they can put holinesse on things or places for it was their sin to choose mountaines and hils and shadowes of trees and groves in imitation of he Patriarchs whom the heathen did also imitate as if these places were more sacred and to do this as good and better and more apt to strike men with reverence then what God had appointed 7. It is no strange thing that men in choosing their Religion be led by their own fleshly lusts and that they account that best which pleaseth these most for in this respect also they accounted the shadow good that is more delectable to their flesh 8. Sin may be very sadly punished when no stroakes are inflicted but the sinner given up to more sin and particularly spirituall adultery may be punished with bodily filthinesse for Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredome and your spouses shall commit adultery to which they
a sad evidence of an incorrigible time as testifying how little place the feare of God hath among men Therefore it comes in as a confirmation that they would not be healed for they commit falshood See Mic. 7.1 5 6. 6. It is also an evidence of such a sad time when injustice and oppression prevaile and men are still so in love with the world that all injust courses secret or open are followed that they may compasse it For it is another proof and the thief cometh in privately into the house or City and the troop of robbers spoileth without that is no place in City or Countrey in the house or fields is free of secret stealth or open robbery Ver. 2. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickednesse now their own doings have beset them about they are before my face The second sin for which they are challenged and which as all the rest are so many proofes of their incurablenesse which he had laid to their charge v. 1. is their prophane security and stupid atheisme in that they did no more think of giving an account of their wayes then if there were not a God or they had never heard of him Because of which the Lord declareth that as he is a Judge who seeth all their wayes so they should shortly finde themselves so involved in the fruits of their own sins as if they were in a net and should not flee his judgements Whence learn 1. It is mens dutie to be much with their own heart in considering their case and how it is with them For it is a challenge they consider not in their hearts c. or say not to their hearts that is they put not their own hearts to it to ponder how matters stand with them 2. It ought especially to be considered by men in examining their own condition that sin unrepented of is remembred by God how long soever it be since it was committed For it is specially laid to their charge that they consider not that I remember all their wickednesse but since they were spared and prospered after their sinning they thought God took no notice or had forgotten all whereas he was but putting it up upon their account See Deut. 32.34 35. 3. When men give over consideration of their case they turne in effect Atheists denying unto God a providence and by this they are more and more emboldened to sin For not to consider that God remembers all their wickednesse is in effect to deny a God to deny that ever he will punish sin and consequently that he knoweth or taketh notice of it or hath power to redresse it And this is laid to their charge as an evil which loosed the raines in them to all sin For then they had all wickednesse See Psal 14.1 2 c. and 94.3 7. 4. As God knoweth and observeth all the wayes of the children of men whatever they imagin to the contrary So he will bring Atheists to know so much by giving them the fruit of their own wayes For their own doings have beset them about that is their guilt in the effects thereof shall lay hold on them on every hand that they may not escape they are before my face This he subjoynes to the former though they were before him before they beset them because they shall be made to know they were observed by God when they shall beset them See Prov. 5.21 22. 5. When men especially within the visible Church turn practical Atheists and by forgetting and denying of God take courage in sin it is a token that God will very speedily refute that errour by taking order with them for their sins For saith he Now that is shortly their own doings have beset them where he speaks of it in the by-past-time because of its certainty and celerity 6. Man needs no surer fetters and ties to bring him to judgement then his own guilt which will surround him sometime in his own conscience and alwayes pursue him in effects till it leave him in the hands of justice For their own doings have beset them about See Psal 49.5 Numb 32.23 Ver. 3. They make the King glad with their wickednesse and their Princes with their lies The third sin challenged is that the people did please their King and Rulers with their wickednesse that is they gave obedience to them in their wicked commands especially concerning Religion ch 5.11 which they expected would not have been taken so well by the people and they studied to make them more and more glad by their wicked behaviour since they saw them so pleased with it And with their lies whereby we may understand their false worship which is a lying and a deceiving course Isa 44.20 and a lewd lie to father it on God as true worship performed to him as 1 Kings 12.28 Exod. 32.5 Or we may understand it of their malicious slandering of such as were opposite to the course of the Court and of the times or of their flattering their Rulers to comfort them when their consciences vexed them or generally that they gave them occasion of joy that was deceitful Whence learn 1. Let men rejoyce or glory never so much in sin yet wickednesse is but a poor sport and will prove so in end For it draweth God to be against them that they were made glad with wickednesse 2. It evidenceth the sad case of a Land when they who should advance piety and vertue and punish vice are on the contrary rejoycers at the wickednesse of their people and glad to get them drawen to it For it is the challenge that the King and Princes are made glad with their that is the peoples wickednesse that they have a people who will obey their wicked commands and are not so tender and scrupulous as to make question of right and wrong especially in the matter of Religion but will run whither they are driven by a supreme command 3. It is also a sad case when men and especially great ones have such designes as cannot be compassed but by wickednesse and when they are so far given up as to be glad to attain their end by whatsoever means it be For so much also doth the challenge import Their Rulers could not carry their businesse unlesse their subjects were embarqued in a wicked course and they were so farre from making scruple of that that they were glad the people were so that they might gain their point 4. It is the usuall disposition and woful sin of a people that they are still upon the prevailing side and do follow the example and will of their Rulers if it were even to sin For it is laid to their charge They make the King glad with their wickednesse c. they will make no bones of sin if they know it may please him yea they will prove more plyable and forward then could have been expected of them See Prov. 29.12 5. As Idolatry and false worship is a
the sinful effects of this mixture that they became as we say neither raw nor rosted neither a people who had wholly quit God nor who cleaved to Gods way yea they became hot on the Idolatrous side and cold in the matter of true Religion For clearing of this mixture and wherein the sinfulnesse thereof consisted Consider 1. The parties with whom they mixed were not any profane companie or persons among themselves but the people or Heathen Nations and Idolaters about with whom it was not lawful for Israelites so much as to converse familiarly or to marry but if they had they behoved to divorce far lesse to joyne in a Congregation with them as members of the visible Church 2. The mixture condemned was not so much local or in place nor only in confederacies or marriages But the mixture was chiefly morall in embracing their false Religion and becoming like unto them as is cleared in the end of the Verse 3. This mixture and conjunction as it related to confederacies had not so much as a pretence of necessity there being no former ties betwixt Israel and them nor common interest as of one incorporation necessitating them to this mixture but God had set a partition-wall betwixt Israel and them and so Ephraims conjunction with them was voluntary and sinfully chosen by him And therefore this mixture and all other circumstantiate are to be condemned Doct. 1. The visible Church is obnoxious to great hazard in the world by reason of wicked societies and false Religions without which beside her snares and dangers from enemies in her bosome are ready to corrupt her For there are the people and Nations about who drew them from God 2. The great hazard of corruption of the visible Church even by these who are without is not so much from them or their endeavours as from her selfe who hath by nature such a principle as will soon draw her to the wrong way to joyne with others whereas they have no such principle to set them right For Ephraim mixeth himself among the people and that is his undoing 3. The declinings of the visible Church and her debordings after the customes of Idolaters and the rest of the world is oft-times justly put upon the accompt of the Rulers who upon their politick designes do thus intangle and mislead her For Ephraim or the Kingly tribe is charged with this and it was their Rulers who drew on these confederacies and conjunctions 4. Such as once begin to decline and go wrong in the matters of Religion cannot set bounds to themselves nor be assured but they will go further wrong For Ephraim rested not at the Idolatry of the calves but mixed himself among the people That same policy that pleaded for the calves served also to urge their conformity with Heathen Idolaters 5. Wicked societies are dangerous and so contagious that as we are to guard against infection by reason of necessary conjunction with wicked men when we are united with them in place and common interests which is our affliction and not our sin so especially we are to beware of voluntary conjunction with them when no such necessity can be pretended For this also was a part of Ephraims mixture his joyning in converse and confederacies with them drew on mixture with them in their Religion See Psal 106 35. 6. Mixtures in Religion turneth men mungrels and halters in the matter of Religion 1 Kings 18.21 and so worse then the very Heathen who are zealous and fervent for the Religion they own and against that which is opposite to it yea mixtures will soon resolve in furious frowardnesse in that which is wrong and coldnesse in and aversenesse from the true Religion Both these are imported in this effect of their mixture Ephraim is a cake not turned as is before explained And it is like at first they pretended to a respect to both and that they would not abandon God nor his Worship whatever other course they followed But at last their corrupt courses did first abate their zeal in Gods way and then put it to the doore See Matth. 15 6. Ver. 9. Strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not yea gray haires are here and there upon him yet he knoweth not The eighth sin for which they are challenged is their stupidity under rods and afflictions Their case is held forth first in proper termes that all their warlike power and riches was consumed by strangers by these to whom they sought and others 2 Kings 13.4 7. Then it is held forth in figurative termes that they were like a man beginning to over-spread with gray haires that is either their great trouble had suddenly altered and wasted them and made them look like their grave or they had been long under troubles even to old age and yet the challenge is that they considered not all this to make right use of it Whence learn 1. The visible Church never makes defection and changeth from the true Religion but to their own prejudice Even such as they joyn with and study to please by corrupting of Religion prove ordinarily their scourge For strangers these with whom they mixed v. 8. or some like unto them have devoured his strength 2. Whatever strength or power a Nation may seem to have yet when God is angry and bloweth upon it and deserts them it will soon be swallowed up For when God is provoked to desert flourishing Israel then strangers have devoured his strength 3. When sin is once entertained men become so stupid that they will not heed difficulties in their way nor be impeded by them to follow their course For he knoweth it not or doth not regard it A little trouble would discourage them in a good way but nothing will break off the course of their sinne 4. When men become stupid in sin they will reap no profit by their afflictions be they never so sore or of so long continuance For let gray haires be here and there upon him yet he be knoweth it not 5. Albeit sinners may and will feel the smart of afflictions yet God doth not take notice of that so long as they are not led in to see the fountain and cause of their trouble and to get the right use of it For it is in this respect the Lord saith twice he knoweth it not because whatever they felt and knew yet they regarded it not so as to tremble at Gods anger in it and to abandon the course of defection See Isa 42.25 Vers 10. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face and they do not returne to the LORD their God nor seek him for all this The ninth sin for which they are challenged which is also a cause of their stupidity is their pride in standing out against God and that they will not abase themselves for all their trouble to turne to God or seek him See ch 5.5 Doct. 1. Pride is an horrid and detestable sin especially when it drives the
they will never see their errour till judgements and Gods rejecting of them and their requests in trouble refute them For this is the answer to what Israel saith ver 2. that for all they can pretend the enemie shall pursue them and this shall refute their mistakes See Mat. 7.22 23. Vers 4. They have set up kings but not by me they have made princes and I knew it not of their silver and their gold have they made them Idols that they may be cut off Followeth a more particular enumeration of Israels sins procuring this judgement and a more ample and expresse declaration of their calamities because of these sins The first sinne and cause of judgement is their civill Apostasy whereby we are neither to understand the election of Saul which was not the peculiar fault of the ten tribes only who are here challenged nor yet the rising up of some particular conspiratours in Israel who long after the rent from Judah did now and then usurp the Kingdome For that was not so much the fault of the whole people as of particular men who made the people suffer under these alterations But in this place the whole Nation is challenged for that rent from the house of David from the very first beginning of it in the dayes of Jeroboam who made the golden calves of which the Lord speakes next in the same ver The sin charged upon them in this civill Apostasy is that however the Lord foretold the renting of the Kingdome from the posterity of Solomon and that he would give ten tribes to Jeroboam yet the people and he not consulting with God about the time and way of it nor waiting for his command and approbation did rent the Kingdome from Davids house and set up a King and Rulers or a State conforme to their intended Monarchy of their owne Whence learn 1. However men be ambitious of soveraignty and rule and may think themselves absolute and free in civill things to do and dispose in them as they list yet change of Government is a matter of great importance before God and usually is attended with much guiltinesse and sin against him For so much is clear from this instance 2. It is of absolute necessity that men have a command from God to warrant their actions without which men may do that which God in his secret providence would have done yea and foretels he will have done and by his permission suffereth to go on and yet in all this sin hainously For Notwithstanding God had foretold this change and did let it succeed yet because they wanted a command it is laid to their charge They have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not that is I approved it not See 1 King 15.28 29. with Chap. 16 7. 3. Whatever may be amongst men yet length of time will make no prescription in the matter of sinne before God but it lieth still upon the guilty and impenitents account were it never so long till God come and reckon with them about it For though they stood and prospered long after this defection yet the guilt remains and is laid to their charge now when they are going into captivity The second sin and cause of their ruine is the Idolatry of the calves invented to uphold this defection from the house of David This is summarily propounded in this ver both in the sin thereof that they liberally employed their riches for that end and in the punishment thereof that hereby they did undo themselves Whence learn 1. Sinfull alterations in civill matters bring ordinarily sinfull changes in Religion with them and it is a black marke upon usurpers when they need a false Religion to uphold them and make no bones to prosecute their end though by such wicked means For here the one change followed the other as is more at length held out in the History 1 King 12.26 27 28. 2. It is the great sin of men that they not onely employ the wealth given them of God against him but that they who were most sparing and niggardlie in maintaining the true Religion will yet be lavish in upholding a false and corrupt way of Religion as suiting best with their hearts For of their silver and their gold have they made them Idols 3. The making and setting up of Images in religious state upon whatsoever pretence is a sin against God bewraying mens carnall dispositions who cannot take up God spiritually nor conceive him present and neere unto them unlesse they set up a carnal representation For it is a challenge they have made them Idols wherein they conceived no Deity but that they were a representation or visible symbole of the presence of the true God among them who delivered them out of Egypt 1 King 12.28 4 Mens expence and labour in setting up or upholding a false Religion is nothing else but pains and charges to undo themselves For the jealous God will not let the corrupting of Religion escape unpunished yea he will not stand to ruine the authors and countenancers of such a course were it even a whole Nation before it be not plagued For of their silver and their gold they have made them Idols that they may be cut off 5. Men will not get a corrupt course especially in Religion excused upon pretence of good intentions but all the evill that followeth on it will be charged upon them as if they had no other intention or aime before them but to draw it on Therefore it is charged upon them that they do all this that they may be cut off as if they set themselves of purpose to seek their own ruine See Prov. 8.36 Vers 5. Thy calfe O Samaria hath cast thee off mine anger is kindled against thee how long will it be ere they attaine to innocency This Apostasie in the matter of Religion and the punishment following on it are amplified in this and the three following verses And first which relates chiefly to the sinfulnesse of their course he cleares how the calves should be their ruine and the cause of their rejection to wit because that sin provoked God to anger against them and that justly seeing he had so long forborne expecting their repentance but to no purpose Whence learn 1. Such as abandon the true Religion and do not acknowledge and worship the true God as he hath revealed himself will soone bewray their brutishnesse and what a reprobate sense they are given up unto by their changing the glory of God into a vile and base representation For whatever designe Jeroboam had in this device either to imitate Israels practice in the wildernesse Exod. 32.4 who had it from the Egyptians or to gratifie the Egyptians among whom he had found shelter in his exile 1 King 11.40 or because of the great benefit which men reap by this creature yet it was his brutishnesse that he would represent the glorious God by a calfe See Psal 106.19 20. Rom.
1.23 â— He mentions only one calfe though there were two of them 1 King 12.28 29. and belike many petty ones afterward because they were like other and the same thing and did but represent one and the same thing though they were multiplyed for the peoples ease 2. Corruption of worship and Religion is enough to ruine a State and Nation were there no other controversie and will at last draw on sad and inevitable judgements For Thy calf hath cast thee off or provoked God to abandon thee with detestation 3. Men who follow a false Religion had need of fair weather for it will prove empty and abandon its followers in their greatest need without peace or comfort For so the words will also beare thy calfe will abandon thee See Chap. 10.6 Jer 2.28 Deut. 32.37 38. 4. No strength or power of any place will availe to hold off judgements especially when the inhabitants thereof are chiefe in carrying on ill courses Therefore albeit the calves were at Dan and Bethel yet it is called Samaria's calfe as Amos 8.14 Not only because it was the chiefe City and so comprehends the whole Nation but because their power and riches maintained that Idolatry and therefore God threatens were they never so strong Thy calfe O Samaria hath cast thee off 5. As God is angrie and that in great measure as the word imports against Idols and corrupt Religion and worship So his anger against any sinfull course will soone make it vain and ineffectuall as to any thing the sinner expects from it For Thy calfe hath cast thee off because mine anger is kindled against them 6. Idolaters and corrupters of Religion can never be innocent pure nor justified of God while they continue in that sin pretend to what they will beside For so is here imported that they have not attained to innocency 7. Whatever may be mens thoughts of an inveterate custome in sin taking away all sense of it yet in Gods account continuance in sin is no excuse but an aggravation of it as making mens case the more irrecoverable For it is a ground of expostulation how long will it be ere they attain to innocency that is how long shall I wait expecting they will reforme this evill and yet they do it not 8. Albeit the Lord be long-suffering toward sinners yet his patience will have a period and then wrath will be the hotter For this adds to the sin and kindleth his anger against them that he hath cause to complain how long will it be ere they attain to innocency Vers 6. For from Israel was it also the workeman made it therefore it is not God but the calfe of Samaria shall be broken in pieces In the second place which also insists chiefly on the sin of the course he confirmes yet the justnesse of his anger against their calfe and them because of it by shewing the vanity of that Idol in that it was their own invention and not Gods institution and in that it could not be a God to help them being only the work of men and therefore he threatens to prove its frailty by the breaking thereof Whence learn 1. Mens following humane inventions neglecting divine institution is enough to corrupt all Religion and it is sufficient to condemne any thing that is intruded in Religion that it is but of men For from Israel was it also imports not so much that they learned this from Israel in the wildernesse or that they learned it not from Pagans but devised it of themselves which yet is not certain as simply it it a challenge that it was their device and not appointed of God 2. Apostates are so sottish that albeit themselves be the inventours of Idols and they know what they are yet they will set them up as relative objects of divine worship For albeit it was from Israel and the workeman made it yet they cleave to it and give it so high a roome 3. Albeit such as make and set up Images in religious worship do pretend that they acknowledge the true God only yet such is the judgement of God and the bewitching power of Idols and the deceitfulnesse of mens hearts that they will be found to ascribe some Divinity and Deity to them Therefore must the Lord prove that it is not God which imports their hearts were somewhat bewitched that way though they pretended to honour the true God in and by them Exod. 32.4 5. 1 King 12.28 4. Whatever estimation men have of Images or whatever excellency or Divinity they conceive in or represented by them yet it is sufficient to refute them that themselves who are but vain and empty things gave them all the excellency they have For thus doth the Lord argue the workeman made it therefore it is not God 5. As Images and other instruments of Idolatry ought to be destroyed and broken So the Lord by a calamity on them will prove their vanity to the conviction of all these who would not see it otherwise and this will be the issue of all other things that are too much deified Therefore it is added as a confirmation of the vanity of their calfe but or for the calfe of Samaria shall be broken in pieces alluding to what was done with Aarons calfe Exod. 32.20 as the just fruit of such courses Ver. 7. For they have sowen the winde and they shall reape the whirlwind it hath no stalke the bud shall yeeld no meale if so be it yeeld the strangers shall swallow it up In the third place the punishment for these sins which was briefly spoken of before is amplified and enlarged in a twofold sentence or threatning The first is that as their wayes were vain and naught as if a man had sowen the winde so their hopes thereby should not only be disappointed and their Labour vain but it should prove hurtfull their harvest should be a whirlwinde and tempest This is again illustrate from a new similitude of an harvest which though it may be true literally that their corne-harvest should prove so yet it seemes here rather to be a Metaphor shewing that it should be with them as if the seed they sowed should either not grow to a stalk or if it did yet it should want a blessing and prove no food or if there were any increase yet it should be eaten up by enemies So they should reap no benefit by their Idolatrous courses or if they seemed to prosper yet it should not be blessed but the enemies should ruine all of it Whence learn 1. God is so jealous an avenger of Idolatry and corrupt worship in his Church that he will undo a whole Nation before he do not ruine these courses which they will not reforme themselves For this sentence cometh in as a reason and confirmation of his sentence against the calves ver 6. the calfe of Samaria shall be broken in pieces for they have sowen the winde c. that is I will destroy the calfe and for
miseries it speakes a wo with every affliction that is on and threatens with more till the sinnner finde it so For Yea wo also so to them when I depart from them Vers 13. Ephraim as I saw Tyrus is planted in a pleasant place but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer A twofold amplification is subjoyned to this sentence The first is that their strong and flourishing condition even like Tyrus of which Ezek. 27. should not hinder the execution of the former sentence of cutting off their children Whence learn 1. Prosperity is one of the great bucklers whereby men would ward off Gods threatnings that they may not move nor affect them For this comes in as an exception against the sentence that Ephraim as I saw Tyrus is planted in a pleasant place that is he flourisheth as ever the Prophet or any saw Tyrus do or as some read as they saw a tree planted in the pleasant places of Tyrus 2. However when God is even departing from a people they may be in a more prosperous condition then ever yet all that will not make his threatnings void For so was Ephraim and yet the former sentence stands 3. The Idolatry of parents is a speciall cause of judgements on their posteritie For such was Ephraim who shall bring forth his children to the murderer or slayer For they are called murderers not so much because the Assyrian had not a lawfull authority as to point at the cruelty of their execution like murderers Vers 14. Give them O LORD what wilt thou give give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts The second amplification of this sentence is held out in the Prophets intercession who fore seeing this misery would rather wish that the children came never to maturity in the womb or that they died from their cradles for lack of suck then that they should live to be cut off in ripe age Whence learn 1. It is the lawfull and necessary duty of Ministers and other godly men to commiserate and condole the miseries of a visible Church and to pray for them though they be most wicked and going to ruine For so much doeth the Prophets practice teach 2. It may put godly men to a great stand and perplexity what to pray for in outward things when they consider a peoples sin and the certainty of judgements that justice calls for stroakes and that yet these are sad and will undo them and when they consider that in times of calamity there is no lot we can pitch on but it may be made sadder then what appears more formidable So much doth the Prophets perplexity in his suite teach Give them O LORD what wilt thou give as wishing the peoples deliverance on the one hand and yet pondering their sin and justice pursuing on the other which he could not but subscribe unto and as fore-seeing that however their childrens growing up seemed a greater mercy at present yet afterward it would produce a sharper trial 3. The fruitlesseness or barrennesse of the womb and breasts is from God and he is to be seen and acknowledged in it whatever second causes there be For the Prophet supposeth here it is Gods gift give them a miscarrying womb c. 4. A Nations sin may draw on such sad times that in many respects it were a mercy if parents had no children borne or they died in their infancy then that their children should live to see these times and be exposed as a prey to slaughters tyrannie false Religion Apostasy c. So soon can God imbitter the cup of sinners mercies and make the sad private afflictions of some in losse of children be seen to be a mercy afterward For so much doth this wish import that considering the slaughter that was to be of their children v. 13. and other miseries they were to endure it were a mercy to give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts See Luk. 21.23 Vers 15. All their wickednesse is in Gilgal for there I hated them for the wickednesse of their doings I will drive them out of mine house I will love them no more all their princes are revolters In the last part of the Chap. the Lord as it were answering to the Prophets intercession ver 14. accuseth them for their Idolatry especially of the calves which they used in Gilgal among other places Chap. 4.15 and 12.11 and that all their Princes who led them on these courses were Apostates from the first to the last And therefore he proceeds to threaten declaring that he hates them and that he will cast them out of his land and from being a Church and will withhold the former effects of his kindnesse While he saith all their wickednesse is in Gilgal the meaning is not 1. That they had no other wickednesses but that of Idolatry but that as their Idolatry was their chiefe and greatest sin and the fountain whence their other wickednesse did spring so that whereas they pretended to cover all their wickednesse with these Idolatrous sacrifices which they obtruded on him the Lord declares that this was the chief and height of their wickednesse Nor 2. is this the meaning that they had no other place of publick worship but Gilgal But whereas they had chosen and possibly now frequented most this place as holy and more famous then Bethel because of more recent favours there in rolling away their reproach giving them the first fruits of the land and the first passeover after they came out of the wildernesse The Lord declares that this adds to the sin and their sacrifices were more abominable there then any where Whence learn 1. Not only is Idolatry and corrupting of Religion a peoples chiefe sinne and openeth the sluce to other wickednesse But peoples think ing to cover their other sins and stop Gods mouth with externall performances of worship espcially in an unlawfull and unwarranted way of worship doth exceedingly add to the sin and become their chiefe guilt For thus all their wickednesse is in Gilgal as is before explained See Jer. 7.9 10. 2. The fairer pretexts and maskes men have for a corrupt way of serving God and in corrupting Religion it is still the more odious and the more men would wash such a course it will be still the blacker For so was all their wickednesse in Gilgal which they thought the best place and made uâ—e of what God had done of old there as a plausible pretence to make their Religion taâ—e with others 3. It is a chiefe sin in people to meet Gods mercies with ingrate and corrupt service and to abuâ—e them to render a corrupt religion acceptable For thus did they in Gilgal return Idolatry for all the mercies they had received there and made a pretence of these to make it passe currant 4. Rulers will not be able to assoile people from sin by their commanding it but may well get themselves challenged as chiefe Apostates For so are they here all their Princes are
mourning is abiding the Priests or Chemarims of whom see Zeph. 1.4 thereof that rejoyced on it or because of it that is who led a merry life because of their attendance on this Idol See Rev. 18.11 c. 6. The glory of Idolatry and of a false Religion being but borrowed and having nothing to commend it but novelty and successe will at last evanish and depart And God will bring about this by judgements when no other mean will effectuate it For so much is imported in this reason of their sorrow for the glory thereof because it is departed from it This will be the lot of all false wayes whereas truth however men loath it for a while will still at last be found to be lovely and to have a native unstained beauty Vers 6. It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to King Jareb Ephraim shall receive shame and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel In the second branch of the sentence it is further threatned that their calves should not only be taken and so be dishonoured at home but should go into captivity as a present to the King of Assyria who had conquered them and in whom they placed so much confidence formerly Whereby they should have much shame of all their mad counsels to worship them and enterprizes to uphold them Whence learn 1. It is a further proof of the vanity of Idols which men set up in Gods place that they cannot secure themselves against captivity and from being disposed of and triumphed over by Conquerours For It shall also be carried unto Assyria for a present c. See Isa 46.1 2. The difference betwixt this and the captivity of the Arke is very great for beside what is marked on v. 5. neither was the Arke God nor did God the signe of whose presence it was lose any thing by its captivity but did sufficiently vindicate and assert his own glory 2. As the Lord hath all Nations ready to be a scourge to his sinful people so in particular they may expect that these whom they look most unto and confide most in neglecting God shall prove their sharpest affliction For it is Assyria and King Jareb of whom see ch 5.13 that triumpheth over them and their Idols 3. It is one of the saddest ingredients of a conquered peoples affliction when Conquer ours take occasion to triumph over their Religion because they are subdued So much may we learne from this that it is a part of their misery that their gods whom they worship shall be carried for a present to King Jareb 4. Mens following of their own counsels in the matter of Religion and their thinking to uphold themselves in ill courses thereby will at last end in the shame both of projectors and concurrers Nor will policy hold its foot in Gods matters or in bearing out men against God For Ephraim the great contriver shall receive shame and Israel who concurred with him shall be ashamed of his own counsel Vers 7. As for Samaria her king is cut off as the some upon the water In the third branch of the sentence it is declared that their King in whom they confided should be as easily destroyed at the taking of Samaria as the fome upon the water is blown away and evanisheth See v. 3. Learn 1. A stroak upon authority is a judgement upon a people and will prove so For here again it is threatned as a judgement on them As for Samaria her King is cut off See Lam. 4.20 2. The greatest of men and all their endeavours to uphold themselves will prove but an empty and vain shew when God begins to plead For her king is cut off as the fome upon the water which seemeth to bulk much and yet evanisheth suddenly and easily as being without substance See Psal 62.9 And that will be found true of them which is the general condition of all Jam. 4.14 Verse 8. The high places also of Aven the sinne of Israel shall be destroyed the thorne and the thistle shall come upon their altars and they shall say to the mountains Cover us and to the hills Fall on us The last branch of this sentence is partly against the places of their idol-worship chiefly Bethel and their Altars which the enemy should pull down and destroy and they should be desolate and not frequented as being the place of Israels sin and not of Gods Worship And partly against the whole body of the people whose misery shall be so great as they will rather wish to be smothered then endure the incumbent and imminent evils Whence learn 1. The inventions of men in Gods Worship are wicked vanity and ought to be rooted out and not purged and God will see it done if men will not For The high places also of Aven that is chiefly Bethel which is become vanity and iniquity because of them shall be destroyed 2. Corrupting of Religion and of the Worship of God is the crying sin of a visible Church and therefore he will not spare it for it is a reason of the sentence that these places are the sin of Israel their eminent and singular guilt 3. God will not spare to lay a Countrey desolate that he may put an end to corrupt worship and make the places thereof desolate For the thorne and the thistle shall come upon their altars to wit when there shall be no people left to frequent that service 4. Not only can God by sending many miseries cause men to weary of their lives but when God pursues sin in hot displeasure and the fury of instruments executing his vengeance is let loose times and lots will be so hard that to die though in a violent way would be an ease For so much is imported in this threatening they shall say to the mountaines Cover us and to the hills Fall on us which is also the language of men in other times of calamities Luk 23.30 5. However men think little of guilt in their secure condition yet when God pleads against them by judgements it will be no wonder to see them overwhelmed with horrour and despaire as having no place of refuge and it being their greatest terrour to think on looking to God or Christ whom they have so much despised For this also is imported in this wofull wish that they have no refuge but what is desperate and horrible See Rev. 6.14 15 16 17. Vers 9. O Israel thou hast sinned from the dayes of Gibeah there they stood the battel in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them The third accusation is for their constancy and excesse in sins That they were guilty of the sins of their wicked fathers since the dayes of Gibeah of which Judg. 19. whose manners they imitate or as the Original also will bear they are guiltier than in the dayes of Gibeah This challenge is amplified that albeit God made their fathers at least the body of Israel to stand and spared them when yet
on other sinnes at which at first men may be ready to startle 8. Sinne in the visible Church is not onely odious in it selfe but as it tends to the dishonour of God when it is committed by these who have his name called upon them and who will needs pretend they are his dear people notwithstanding all they do for it aggravates their sinne that it was done to profane my holy name saith the Lord. Verse 8. And they lay themselves downe upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar and they drinke the wine of the condemned in the house of their god The third particular sinne laid to their charge is their joyning of oppression with Idolatry and seeking to palliate it by their corrupt worship for they not onely took and detained the poore mans pledge contrary to the law and did unjustly fine men and exact money of them but when they had done so they durst goe to their Idols Temples and their Altars to worship and thought all well enough if they employed the unlawfull purchase in sacrifices and feasts before their Idols Whence learne 1. The Lord abhorreth cruelty even in mens prosecuting of their rights against the poore for so much doth the Law against detaining of the poore mans pledge Exod. 22.26 27. teach for the violation whereof they are here challenged they lay themselves downe upon cloaths laid to pledge that is they not onely detained them but did weare and make use of them 2. Idolatry in worship and corrupt conversation are very neere in kin and will agree well together for worshipping of that which they accounted their God who was not the true God who would not be represented by their calves and their many Altars doe suit well with detaining of pledges and condemning of men unjustly Which should warne the followers of the true Religion that they doe not put a blot upon it by such courses 3. As Idolatry is a very licentious way for they lie downe there as was the custome at Feasts Ezek. 23.41 and drink wine and are still at Feasts in their Idol service So ill purchase is ordinarily ill spent and employed in Idolatry and Luxury or the like for so did they with their pledges and fines 4. It is an high degree of impiery when men dare avow sinne before and in worshipping of that which they suppose to be a deity for it was their great presumption that they lay themselves downe upon cloaths laid to pledge by every Altar and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God see Matth. 5.23 24. 5. It is also yet higher presumption when men doe think that outward shewes or performances of Religion whether it be true or false are sufficient to expiate or cover their grosse oppressions or iniquities for in this also they sinned that they thought all well enough if they came and made offerings to their Idols of their unlawful purchase Which was a great errour had the way of Religion been even pure and and according to the rule as it was not see Jer. 7.8 9 10 11. Verse 9. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them whose height was like the height of the Cedars and he was strong as the Oaks yet I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath 10. Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt and led you fourty years through the wildernesse to possesse the land of the Amorites The fourth particular sinne charged upon them and which is an aggravation of their other iniquities is their ingratitude in thus sinning against God who had heaped upon them mercies both temporal v. 9 10. and spiritual v. 11. The temporal mercies conferred upon them were 1. The destroying and cutting off of the Amorites both root and branch before them that so he might give them their land and riches And that the Lord did this notwithstanding that the Amorites were Gyants and stronger then Israel v. 9. 2. That before this the Lord did deliver them from Egypt and preserve and keep them in the wildernesse till he brought them to the possession of that Land v. 10. From v. 9. Learn 1. Ingratitude is the great sinne and aggravation of all the other sinnes of the visible Church when mercies will not doe at them either to prevent sinne or make their heart melt for it when it is committed for this is the aggravation of all their sinne that notwithstanding this their carriage yet I destroyed the Amerite before them c. saith the Lord. 2. As the Lord is able to overcome the greatest and strongest of Nations and will quite root them out if they stand in the way of his peoples mercie so deliverance from potent and mighty enemies is an obliging mercy and the greater difficulties there be in bringing about deliverance the more of Gods power and love and the more obligation to duty should be read in it when it comes for albeit the Amorites height was like the height of the Cedars and he was strong as the Oakes and so were stronger then Israel yet I saith the Lord destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath or did quite extirpate them out of that Land as a tree that is taken away root and branch And therefore Israels sinne was the greater who received so notable proofe of love and yet sinned against God 3. The Lords sore stroakes on wicked enemies because of sinne and for the Churches good should be laid to heart to stirre her up to duty who is more kindly dealt with for so much also may be gathered from this challenge and aggravation of their sinne that since the Lord had made the Land to spew out these Nations root and branch for sinne it was abominable in Israel who were put in their room to grow as ill or worse From v. 10. Learn 1. Albeit wee be ready to forget greatest mercies and to despise them when they are past yet they should never be forgotten but kept in remembrance to binde us to our duty And when we grow negligent herein God will not forget to inculcate them to aggravate our sinne for albeit this his kindness in redeeming them from Egypt was forgotten and out of date in their account yet God mentions it on all occasions as a mercy which did yet oblige them and which would not faile to make up their dittay when they sinned Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt 2. Albeit the Lords people in their distresses may be ready to say wherein hast thou loved us yet even a wildernesse-condition may have much obliging mercie in it and mercies which it is great ingratitude to sleight and not to walk answerably for it commeth in also as an aggravation of their sinne I led you fourty yeares through the wildernesse His protection provision and suffering of their manners there were mercies not onely to sweeten the hardships of that lot but to oblige them to God throughout all their generations 3. Whatever may be
appears not from this place but in sacrifices of praise there fell much to the Priests share and much was employed in feasts and so it was lesse matter what were mens share and portion if God got what was his due partly that as leaven taketh a time to prepare the dough for baking Matth. 13.33 and doth â—â—ke the lump to swell and heave up so especially in the performance of praise men would have their hearts put in frame for it and they should be raised up with the sense of the excellency and love of God and of hâ—â— mâ—â—cies toward them Psal 108.1 2 3 4 5. And 〈◊〉 â—â—at as leaven doth make bread sower to the cast and they were to eat of this at their sacrifices of praise So 〈◊〉 â—â—ll most seriously offer praise for any mercies and deliverances when we still entertain sensible thoughts of the bitternesse from which we are delivered and this also was pointed at by the bitter herbs used in the feast of the Passover 5. These free offerings which are to be proclaimed and published of which Lev. 7.16 22.18 c. Numb 15.3 and elsewhere were sacrifices of praise performed by some beside their ordinary peace offerings either in testimony of their sense of Gods goodnesse in general or upon the receipt of some special favour or performance of some vow They do not serve to warrant a man to devise any part of worship of his own head upon whatsoever pretence of affection or zeale for all that were but will-worship and so not acceptable And there are duties abundant in institute worship whereby men may testifie all the zeale and affection they can pretend to But they serve to point out that our service to God and especially praise should be performed out of a free voluntary and ingenuous disposition and that favours daily observed in Gods dealing toward us and received by us should daily put a new edge upon our affections and engage us with our own consent to what is our duty and that out willingnesse and affection should witnesse it selfe not by verbal professions onely but by real offering of our selves and what is ours to God Psal 116.12.16 Doct. 2. The practice of Israel in imitating these parts of institute worship and the Lords reproving thereof and giving them up thereunto may teach 1. Men in judging of the truth or falshood of a way of Religion have need to be very attentive and circumspect that they be not deceived with pretences or shews for Israels way was very plausible they did imitate the true Religion in many things they were very active in their way and diligent and early about it and did multiply sacrifices and they made a great shew of zeale and affection in it they did proclame and publish the free offerings All this put together might easily deceive the simple and yet did not at all justifie their way 2. Whatever imitation there be of the true Religion or whatever activity o◠〈…〉 there be in a way of worship yet whâ—â—◠〈…〉 â—tion is wanting to all or any part of that 〈…〉 not onely not good but an hainous provocatâ—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—cause of controversie and the more there is of it 〈◊〉 is the more provocation in it for whatever Israel pretended to in their way yet since they had no command to offer these things at Gilgal or Bethel nor on their Altars or by their Priests the Lord declareth concerning it that they come to Bethel and transgresse at Gilgal they multiply transgression by their frequent and many sacrifices 3. Mens not consulting with God in his word but following their own humours and inclinations is a crooked rule of Religion their hears being naturally mad on ill wayes and their interests being ready to byasse them Therefore are they upbraided with following this as their rule that they did so and so for this liketh you O ye children of Israel 4. When men once engage in a corrupt course of Religion they wil not readily abandon it again There is more of a judgement in mens being given up to it then will easily be shaken off for this exhortation Come to Bethel and transgresse c. and his declaring that this liked them imports that there was no reclaming of them Which may be a warning to men not to embarque in the least in such courses and may guard us from stumbling or thinking a course of Religion right meerly because men persist obstinately in it 5. As God is provoked to give up such to their own counsels as are obstinate in a false religion So a false religion is a plague great enough of it self and it speaks a judgement sad enough to be given up to it considering what a spiritual plague it is beside what it may draw on both here and hereafter Therefore albeit he threaten elsewhere to punish them otherwise for this sinne yet there he declareth that he needs no more for a plague but give them their will Come to Bethel c. for this liketh you O ye children of Israel saith the Lord God Verse 6. And I also have given you cleannesse of teeth in all your Cities and want of bread in all your palaces yet have ye not returned unto me saith thâ— Lor◠〈…〉 I have withholden the rain from you 〈…〉 yet three moneths to the harvest and I 〈…〉 to rain upon one City and caused it not to rain upon another City one piece was rained upon and the piece whereupon it rained not withered 8. So two or three Cities wandered unto one City to drink water but they were not satisfied yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. 9. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig-trees and your olive-trees increased the palmer worm devoured them yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. 10. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt your young men have I slain with the sword and I have taken away your horses and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils yet have you not returned unto me saith the Lord. 11. I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. The third Article of the challenge is for their incorrigiblenesse and impenitency In that when for their Idolatry and other sinnes God had inflicted many judgements to reclame them yet they did not return to him but persisted obstinately in their wicked courses The judgments and corrections which they had thus abused are first famine so that they could not foul their teeth with eating and that universal in all places v. 6. And so we find they were afflicted 1 King 17. 18. 2 King 4.38 and may be at other times after that Secondly which is one cause of famin want of rain which 〈…〉 â—ded much Deut. 11.10 11. And
they need upstirring by the Ministery of the Word and to be mutual encouragers and sharpeners one of another especially in declining times when duty may be full of hazard successe hopelesse and themselves under some degrees of the spiritual plagues of the time For this exhortation Say ye to your brethren c. imports not only that it is their duty which is here given them in charge say it who will unto them but that Hosea and the rest of the Prophets are to say it to them and that they are to say it one to another 6. As a Church may be very far declining and yet cover it with fair pretences excuses and justifications requiring that she should be pleaded with to put her from them So it is the duty of every true childe of God to plead for him and his truth against all even if it were a whole Church and to plead with their mother or the body of the Nation who were a visible Church and brought them forth to God And they are bound to insist in this duty without discouragement though they be alone and a Church against them and albeit they seem to have no successe Therefore is the exhortation doubled plead with your mother plead 7. Open pleading for God against a Church is then lawful in private persons when not only they have truth on their side and have essayed other more peaceable means before but in vain But more especially when the corruption pleaded against is Idolatry striking at the marriage-tie and she is not my wife as to the merit of her way which is here given for the reason of their pleading and when she is intreated though faulty with reverence and as a mother plead with your mother yet as with a mother And if she was to be so dealt with so long as God gave her not a bill of divorce though an harlot how much more is it required when faults reproveable are nothing such This would make men in acquitting of their consciences mourne more and be more orderly and lesse turbulent 8. It is no sure ground for a visible Church to rest upon that she hath once given up her name to God and was married to him unlesse she also persevere seeing a visible Church may decline so far as to make void the marriage-Covenant on her part and to deserve rejection and a bill of divorce Of this the Church of Israel is a sad and evident instance she is not my wife her carriage was such as became not a wife neither am I her husband that is she deserves to be rejected though as yet the bill of divorce be not given 9. Such is the long-suffering patience of God as that he doth not at first give up with a Church even when her disease is desperate but by contending with her calls her to amendment upon which there is a door of hope left open Therefore doth he subjoyne this to the challenge as his scope in it Let her therefore put away her whoredomes and adulteries and it is only upon neglect of this that the sentence cometh forth v. 3. 10 God will not accept of fair undertakings from a declining Church but he requireth that her Reformation be reall and especially of idolatry and corrupting of Religion and his worship for saith he let her put away her whoredomes c. 11. God requireth of his declining Church that she be sensible of the ill of her activity in idolatrous worship and of her own impudence in following it and that she renounce it with detestation for saith he let her put her whoredomes out of her sight or from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts alluding to the pompe and open impudence of harlots who paint their face and deck their breasts and make them bare to follow filthinesse and to engage and allure others See Jer. 2.33 This she is to be so sensible of as to put them out of her sight or to have them so in abomination as she cannot endure to look on them See Isa 30.22 12. This similitude pointing at the practice of idolaters by the carriage of lewd harlots teacheth that the Lord abhorreth painting and lascivious decking of the body and that the practicers thereof cannot be free of whoredome in the sight of God for whoredome is in their face and adultery between their breasts Vers 3. Lest I strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born and make her as a wildernesse and set her like a drie land and slay her with thirst 4. And I will not have mercy upon her children for they be the children of whoredomes Unto this exhortation a certification is subjoyned that if the Church of Israel hearkened not unto it he would destroy her selfe v. 3. and deny mercy to her children or particular members of that Church as being involved in the same guilt with her v 4. The judgements threatened against her selfe are held out under many similitudes 1. Of an adulterous wife spoiled of all her ornaments and set naked as when she was born whereby is signified the depriving her of all spiritual and temporal favours which she enjoyed by vertue of the Covenant and leaving her as he found her see Ezek. 16.4 59. 23 26 29. 2. Of a desolate and barren drie land signifying that she who was as a watered garden should become as a wildernesse and as a land wanting moisture both in her spiritual estate and outward enjoyments 3. Of a traveller who being cast into a solitary wildernesse is slain through want of drink and refreshment so should she be left under scorching wrath and destitute of all comfort in her extremities Doct. 1. However the Lord may for a time spare sinners and they be ready to sleep because of this yet at last when their cup is full and they have proven themselves incorrigible judgement will certainly come so much doth this certification subjoyned to the exhortation teach us 2. However a carnal Church may be ready to swell with conceit of her own enjoyments and excellencies yet the Lord needs no more to make her miserable but take away what he hath given her and leave her as he found her and he will do so to the incorrigible I will strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born 3. Sinne will prove a wasting plague to souls or Countreys and enjoyments for so is imported in that he will make her as a wildernesse and set her like a drie land see Psal 107.34 4. It is the great and insupportable misery of wicked men that their guilt doth leave them destitute of succour or comfort in their greatest extremity to be consumed thereby therefore doth he adde and slay her with thirst 5. As particular members of a Church do ordinarily runne wrong with her when she in her Rulers or Judicatores doth decline so however such may think to escape when the Church or body of the Nation whereof the Church
in it from it yet of themselves and without the grace and blessing of God they will never discover sin nor change our naturâ— but rather irritate it the more For She shall follow after her lovers and seek them imports that the thorne-hedge should but irritate her to be more eager in her pursuit and that she should be so far from thinking these afflictions came for her Idolatry as on the contrary she would reckon the only way to be freed of them were to follow Idols more 4. Sin and particularly Idolatry becometh very ensnaring and entangling where it is given way unto and albeit men may be allured to it by reason of prosperity which seemeth to attend it yet it begets such a stiffe-neck as affliction will not drive from it For though she followed her lovers for bread and water c. v. 5. yet now when her way is hedged up she will not abandon them She shall follow after her lovers She will digest more affliction in a wrong way then in cleaving to God Affliction will easily make her stumble at the true Religion but will not drive her from Idolatry 5. It is just with God the more eager that men be on sin and on advantage by it to let them meet with the moe disappointments and he will do so especially where he hath a purpose of love toward any For saith he She shall follow after her lovers but shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them that is she shall reap no expected advantage by multiplying Idolatries under affliction and this the Lord doth that he may reclaime her 6. As turning unto God and his way is the kindly and blessed fruit of affliction so even such as have been incorrigible in Idolatry and become the worse of many rods God can yet blesse affliction to reclaime them For so much doth he undertake for Israel at last then shall she say I will go and returne 7. Even Apostate Idolaters when they repent are allowed to lay hold on God as heirs and on the relation of an husband as standing still in force to encourage them Therefore is she allowed to say I will return to my first husband called first in relation to many Idols whom she had put in the place of husbands since God choosed her though they were not husbands indeed See Jer. 3.1 8. Such as embrace God and his way would take him up as the best of choices and his way as the shortest cut to do well and be well and would be sensible of their own disadvantages by forsaking him So much is imported in the reason of her return for then was it better with me then now See Jer. 3 22 23 24 25. Hosea 14.3 Vers 8. For she did not know that I gave her corne and wine and oyle and multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal A second branch of the challenge which clears and addes to the former and sheweth a reason why she should finde her self a loser by forsaking God v. 7. is for her grosse and affected ignorance in not acknowledging that the good things she had was from God but fathered them upon her Idols and therefore employed them in thier service Whence learn 1. The Lord is very liberal to his own keeping his way when it is for their good and he doth not at first withdraw his bounty in their declining that thereby he may reclaime them For He gave her corne and wine and multiplied her silver and gold even after her begun Apostasy 2. God manifests much kindnesse whereof little notice is taken and wherein his hand is not seen nor acknowledged and this is ground of a sad challenge For here the Lord challengeth She did not know that I gave her corne and wine c. but acknowledged her Idols for it v 5. 3. Much light will not discover to sinners their duty or the ill of their way but they will either remain grossely ignorant or will affect ignorance and not ponder what they know For albeit this was the Church who might be abundantly informed and convinced that all things were of God yet she did not know it she was grossely and affectedly ignorant 4. Where God is not seen nor acknowledged in mens prosperity it is a sure token they will employ it ill and to his dishonour For so did they here they prepared it for Baal Ver. 9. Therefore will I returne and take away my corne in the time thereof and my wine in the season thereof and will recover my wooll and my flaxe given to cover her nakednesse Because of this sin the Lord giveth out sentence against them in diverse particulars And first that he will take these things from her which were given for necessary use and which she abused and that he will do this in a time when she expects most from them Whence learn 1. However the Lord communicate of his bounty with the children of men yet he still retained the dominion of all the creatures in his own hand that he may dispose of them at his pleasure For saith he it is my corne and my wine my wooll and my flax though she called all her own v. 5. 2. Mens abuse of prosperity especially to uphold a false Religion doth justly forefault their right thereunto before God and doth provoke him to take away abused mercies For Therefore will I take away my corne c. 3. As Gods former bounty will not secure prosperity to the abuser of it For he will return and take away or change his dealing and take again his benefits So he will take it away even when it promiseth fairest in the time and season thereof when it is come to the harvest 4. As outward mercies are given for the supply of necessity as to cover nakednesse and not for fostering of luxury So it is a special cause of Gods stroak that men do so far miscarry because of that without which they would be so vile For these things were given to cover her nakednesse and she would be vile without them and yet she abused them and therefore God will take them away Ver. 10. And now will I discover her lewdnesse in the sight of her lovers and none shall deliver her out of mine hand Secondly he threatens that by plaguing her he should make her vilenesse appear in despight of all her lovers idols or confederates and in their sight Whence learn 1. How right soever sinners may appear to themselves or others in their prosperity yet God will by judgements make it appear how lewd and vile their way hath been For I will discover her lewdnesse or villiany and folly saith he 2. God is so strong a party as when he contends with sinners all their confidences in Idolatry false worship or confederates will faile them and not be able to help them For I will discover her lewdnesse in the sight of her lovers not being afraid that they will avenge her
her of corrupt worship in her trouble though it be so in it self and he intend mercy in all of this But the scope is to shew that whereas the people of God may gather comfort either from the enjoying of the pure Worship of God in sad times or from the continuance of some face of a Church though corrupt as a token that God hath not yet totally rejected yet Israel though God have a purpose of good to her and do preserve her for it should enjoy none of these She shall neither have the true Religion nor the face of a Church and Worship as they had it to assure them that they were not quite divorced and this is the fruit of their corrupting the Worship of God and serving of Idols 4. It is a judgement and token of Gods severity whatever love be intended in it when a Nation are given up not to be wholly the Lords nor do serve him in a national way nor are a national Church to him For such is the misery of Israel to this day that they are deprived of Worship and any Church-State as a Nation and if their conversion and Worship and Church State under the Gospel shall be national as the opposition must carry it then certainly a national Church is no Paradoxe under the Gospel Vers 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the LORD their God and David their King and shall fear the LORD and his goodnesse in the latter dayes Followeth the last part of the Chap. and an Explication of that part of the type v. 3. I will also be for thee containing a Prophecy of Gods mercy in bringing about the national repentance and conversion of Israel in the latter dayes and their renewing of the Covenant and taking Christ the Son of David for their King and constantly serving and fearing the Lord even because of his goodnesse Whence learn 1. Albeit Israel as a Nation hath been and yet is rejected and lost yet they will certainly returne to God For so is here prophesied expressely afterward shall the children of Israel return and this we are much to long and pray for 2. As true repentance and conversion will appear in mens being sensible of their great distance from God and in their seeking to make up this distance albeit they cannot as yet prove much enjoyment and seeking him chiefly and only in place of many things which natural hearts lust after so all this is a sweet and blessed fruit of affliction For such shall be the result of Israels being in a low condition they shall returne and seek the Lord. 3. The Covenant standeth still to be forth-coming for Apostates when they repent and turne to God renouncing false wayes and worship For so will Israel finde when they return they are allowed to seek the Lord their God and any who seek the Lord ought not to make themselves an ill answer but come and they will finde him their God 4. There is no right seeking of God nor finding of him or the comforts of the Covenant but through Christ whom converted Israel shall acknowledge and embrace For they shall seek the Lord their God and David their King 5. Christ is here named David and their or Israels King so also Jer. 30.9 Ezek. 34.23 24. and 37.24 not only because he is Davids Son and Heire Rev. 22.16 and because David was a type of him But 1. Because in their conversion they will have a deep sense of their sinful revolt from the house of David which began their woe and Apostasy true penitents will trace back their defection to the very fountain and beginning of it with much sorrow and resentment 2. Because Christ the substance will be eminently such a King unto them as he is to all his people as David the type was unto Israel of old 3. Because Israel shall so embrace Christ as to acknowledge him in all his offices and particularly shall submit to him as a King which is the duty of all true Converts Doct. 6. True conversion will appear in its constancy and perseverance and particularly in the Converts entertaining an holy fear and aw of God For when Israel shall returne and seek the Lord they shall also hold on and shall fear the Lord. 7. As God is alwayes good to his own people whatever they think to the contrary Psal 73.1 2. so much of his goodnesse will be manifested in the time of that life from the dead when all Israel shall be saved For so is imported here the Lords goodnesse will then be matter of holy exercise 8. The goodnesse of God will not make a true Convert presumptuous but will be unto him matter of reverence and holy fear and trembling For they shall fear the Lord and his goodnesse 9. Albeit Israel be long in gathering and converting yet we are firmely to beleeve that before time end it will certainly come to passe For all this shall be in the latter dayes Which albeit it often signifie all the time of the dispensation of the Gospel yet in this prediction is to be taken for that period of time more immediately preceding the end of the World CHAP. IV. IN this Chap. Israel is cited to Gods tribunal to hear his controversie pleaded v. 1. In prosecution of which controversie 1. The Lord accuseth them more generally for their grosse violation of both Tables of the Law both by omission and commission v. 1 2. and threatens because of this to send extream desolation ver 3. 2. He accuseth them for their desperate incorrigiblenesse v. 4. Threatening therefore to destroy such and the false Prophets and the body of the people and Church v. 5. 3. He accuseth the Priests in Israel that through their fault the people were kept in ignorance threatening to cast them and their posterity off v. 6. Likewise he accuseth them for ingratitude toward him for which he threatens to make their glory turne to ignominie v. 7. Lastly he accuseth these Priests for their sensuality and covetousnesse rendring them unfaithful in their calling v. 8. and threatens to plague both Priests and people according as they deserved v. 9. and to take away the blessing from their provision and to deprive them of issue because they sleighted God v. 10. being stupified by their sensuality v. 11. 4. He accuseth the whole people for their gross idolatry v. 12 13. and threatens to give up their wives and children to bodily filthiness v. 13. and not to restraine that sin by corrections for a time till for that and all the sins of all together they be utterly destroyed v. 14. 5. He accuseth them for the Idolatry of the calves from which he disswades Judah v. 15. as being an evidence of Israels wantonnesse and the cause of their ensuing exile v. 16. 6. He accuseth Ephraim their Kingly Tribe for their incorrigibleness in idolatry v. 17. for their intemperance filthiness and corruption of justice through covetousness v. 18. for which he
were tempted by wandering from their families into these solitary and retired places And this should warne all professors to beware of straining the true Religion by such blemishes as are a plague upon Idolaters See Rom 1.21 25 26 27. 9. God may justly punish the sins of parents in their children and may make us sensible of our unfaithfulnesse to God in the ill carriage of others who are bound to us for he punisheth their sin in their daughters and lets them see their whoredome against God in the lewdnesse of their daughters and spouses injuring and bringing reproach on them and their family Ver. 14. I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredome nor your spouses when they commit adultery for themselves are separated with whores and they sacrifice with harlots therefore the people that doeth not understand shall fall The Lord threatens further because of this sin that albeit whoredome in virgins and adultery in married women be by the law punishable with death yet for a time the Lord would not by any corrections restrain the wantonnesse of their daughters and spouses and that because they themselves were separate from God by their Idolatrieâ— and did commit the like lewdness with harlots when they came to their Idolatrous sacrifices For which as he did punish them in giving up their daughters and spouses to uncleannesse so his forbearance of that fault for a time was onely because he had a greater quarrel against them for their Idolatry which drew on the other and for which and their affected ignorance in it he would at last when it came to an height certainly destroy the Nation Whence learn 1. It is one of the sore judgements of God and tokens of his anger when he takas no wains by needfull corrections to restrain the course of a peoples sin but looseth the rains and lets them run on for a time for it is a threatening I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredome nor your spouses when they commit adultery See Psal 89.30 31 32 33. Heb 12. 6 7 8. Rev. 3.19 2. When the Lord lets particular sinners go on unpunished it is not because they shall still be spared for the text saith they shall certainly fall But first because sin becoming generall is passed over in particular persons till it ripen for a national stroak Secondly his sparing of them and others for some sins is because he hath a greater quarrel and cause of controversie for all which together he will in due time reckon Both these are imported in that reason subjoyned to the sentence of not punishing their daughters for themselves that is not only their daughters and spouses but the parents and husbands He speaks of them and not to them as formerly to testifie his indignation against them are separated with whores and they sacrifice with harlots where by whores and harlots we are to understand not only spiritually their Idols and Paramours with whom they committed spiritual adultery but even literally their harlots whom they feasted and courted in the time of their sacrifices in the groves committing both spiritual and bodily adultery together And so the force of the reason is That sin of uncleannesse is more general and more are guilty of it then their daughters and spouses and therefore they are spared till the people or Nation fall together and that it is no wonder he spare them seeing he hath a greater quarrel because of their Idolatry for which when by reason of his indulgence they have added bodily filthinesse to it he will certainly punish and the people shall fall 3. False worship is very licentious in that not only God plagueth it with loosenesse but in that it doth allow and foster much fleshly liberty For they sacrifice with harlots not only continue they avowed harlots and yet follow that forme of worship but in their solemne sacrifices they stand not to joyne with harlots in feasting them with the sacrifices and courting of them 4. Let Idolaters joyne never so many fleshly pleasures with their worship yet God will have no communion with such but will plead with them as renouncers of his Covenant and of all communion with him For they are separated to wit from God with whores c. 5 Idolaters how learned soever they pretend to be or really are yet in effect they are but brutish and ignorant It is great brutishnesse to put so base an object as oft-times men do in the place of God Psal 115.8 and it is great ignorance to think that true Religion must be made subservient to mens politick interests which was the rule that Jeroboam walked by or to think that Rulers will must give the Law in this matter which might be the peoples pretence or that pompe wanting institution will make a worship acceptable for these reasons it is said they are the people that doth not understand 6. Ignorance especially when it is affected will not excuse the visible Church her declining in the matter of Religion but that she is ignorant as well as her idolatry which she would excuse by it will be the cause of her total and sad overthrow for the people that doth not understand and so run on to these mad courses shall fall The original word used only here and Prov. 10.8 10. signifieth such a fall as shall so confound them as they shall not know what they are doing Vers 15. Though thou Israel play the harlot yet let not Judah offend and come not ye unto Gilgal neither go ye up to Beth-aven nor swear The LORD liveth 16. For Israel slideth back as a back-sliding heifer now the LORD will feed them as a Lamb in a large place The fifth article of the accusation is for the idolatry of the calves in Gilgal and Bethel It is contained in an exhortation to Judah not to joyne with them in that harlotry however it be palliate under the pretence of worshipping God that way v. 15. and that because 1. Which is his accusation and aggravation of this sin in Israel it is not only harlotry v. 15. but a mark of Israels wantonnesse against God and of her love of carnal liberty and therefore not to be imitated 2. Which is his sentence against them for this sin because the Lord will drive them shortly into exile for it where they shall be as a solitary Lamb in a wildernesse not knowing where to finde a flock or its dam and exposed as a prey to all wilde beasts And therefore it were madnesse in Judah to run on such hazards for clearing this text a little Consider 1. That in this prohibition the Prophet doth not mention Dan which was one of the two places wherein Jeroboam erected the calves for publick worship 1 Kings 12.28 29. because Gilgal and Bethel being on the South-border toward Judah the Jewes might easily be drawn and come thither but Dan was remote and on the Northmost border of Israel and so Judah was in no hazard of
them and their false religion will faile them in straits when they have most need of comfort Deut 32.37 38. Judg. 10.13 14. therefore is it threatened they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices CHAP. V. IN this Chapter which with the two following are conceived to be one Sermon the Lord proceeds in the same method and prosecutes the same controversie which was begun in the former chapter only with this difference 1. Judah is here joyned with Israel because that defection had flowed from Israel to them and chiefly because that under Ahaz to whose times this prophecie agrees best they had made some defection 2. The threatenings here are sweetened with a prediction of their being drawn thereby at last to repentance v. 15. which was not mentioned in the former chapter In the first part of this chapter which relates to Israel especially the Lord having called all ranks to hear his processe and sentence v. 1. doth accuse their rulers and teachers especially for ensnaring the people in sin v. 1. and all ranks for their subtilty and deep rootednesse in oppression notwithstanding all admonitions and corrections v. 2. for their idolatry and pollution which God knew however they covered it v. 3. for their obstinacy and impenitency in sin by reason of a spirit of whoredome and their affected ignorance of God v. 4. and for their great pride under all this sinne v. 5. because of which the Lord threatens to destroy the Rulers and people of Israel and Judah with them v. 5. at which time multitude of sacrifices should not availe them v. 6. but God should shortly consume them and all their wealth who had so perfidiously violate the Covenant and propagate idolatry to their children v. 7. should alarm them with enemies coming against them v. 8. and should utterly destroy the Kingdome of Israel according to his irrevocable sentence revealed to them v. 9. In the second part of the chapter the Lord comes to deal with the two Kingdomes of Judah and Israel more distinctly And first he speaks to them severally accusing Judah and especially their Rulers for the violation of all lawes for which he threatens them with a deluge of wrath v. 10. and accusing Israel for their voluntary defection in Religion for the which they were and should be justly oppressed by their own Princes v. 11. Secondly he speaks to them conjunctly accusing them for the ill use they made of corrections that whereas the Lord did by insensible wayes consume them for their sins v. 12. they run to humane helps v. 13. which as they had and would disappoint them v. 13. so the Lord was hereby provoked to deal more severely with them v. 14. and to abandon them till they should turn and seek him as he promiseth they shall do v. 15. Verse 1. HEare ye this O Priests and hearken ye house of Israel and give ye eare O house of the King for judgement is toward you because ye have been a snare on Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor In this verse we have first a citation of all ranks to come to judgement or to hear Gods judicial processe and sentence against them 2. The first article of his accusation which concerneth chiefly their Priests and Rulers that they had been as snares and nets on Mizphah and Tabor The first of which places though there were cities of that name Josh 15.38 and 18.26 seemeth here to have been an hill in Gilead and near Hermon See Josh 11.23 Judg. 11.29 and the other was an hill in Galilee Judg. 4.6 the sense of the accusation is not so much that they laid wait to entrap any who would go up to Jerusalem to worship none of these places being fit for that enterprize nor yet that they ensnared innocents to take away their lives and estates of which v. 2. but the plain meaning is that as fowlers and hunters lay snares and nets for birds and beasts on these mountains so their Priests and Rulers by their erroneous doctrine fraudulent counsels subtile edicts their prophane example and countenancing of sin did deceive the people and ensnare them to follow idolatry Doct. 1. There is no rank but they will be found to have guiltinesse to lay to heart in a time when God pleads a controversie with a land which is a very sad case for the Priests such as they were the House of Israel or body of the Nation and the house of the Kings are called to hear and albeit the Princes and Priests drew away the people yet that doth not free them See Isa 1.5 6. Jer. 5.3 4 5. 2. As the Word of God doth reach and oblige all ranks of persons be in what eminencie they will and as the Lords faithful servants must preach against the sins of all without respect of persons so the general over-spreading of sin however it harden every particular sinner yet is no way to escape judgements but rather to hasten them therefore doth Hosea challenge all as being obliged to hear and obey and to shew how justly God was angry when all ranks had corrupted their way 3. When God is coming against a people in judgement it concernes them to be very serious in considering what he saith from his Word and he will at last force audience and attention from the most stubborn so much may we gather from these many calls to heare hearken and give eare with the reason subjoyned for judgement is toward you or to be pronounced and executed against you as shewing it became them to hear and however they should be made to do it See Zech. 1.4 6. 4. The Lords contending with his people by his Word is not an ordinary challenge as of one displeased only but the judicial procedure and sentence of the Supreme Judge which will end in execution for his controversie is judgement toward you that is a judicial processe and sentence making way for due execution 5. God may testifie much of his anger against a people in the Teachers and Rulers he giveth them as being fit means to ripen them for judgement for so proved the Priests and Rulers to Israel 6. Subtile snares and insinuations are more dangerous for drawing men wrong then open violence is for thus did they mislead Israel they were a snare and a net spread 7. It is a great sin in men and cause of Gods controversie when they prove a snare to others or by their insinuations example or policie draw them to sin against God for judgement is toward you because you have been a snare on Mizpah c. Vers 2. And the revolters are profound to make slaughter though I have been a rebuker of them all In the second place which may comprehend all ranks he accuseth them that they were most subtile in their projects and devices to compasse and in their pretences excuses and distinctions to cover their bloody oppressions and facts and that they were deeply rooted in them This he aggravates in that it was done
in the Word as the light of the morning v. 5. And particularly they were informed that God was not pleased they should rest on their ceremoniall performances which ought onely to have the second place neglecting morall duties of the first and second Table which should be their chiefe work v. 6. yet they made ill use of all this cleare light And whereas God had not onely enjoyned their duty clearly but entered in a Covenant with them that they seeing and embracing the Messiah who was pointed at in these sacrifices might worship him in faith and love as is enjoyned v 6. They on the contrary brake the Covenant and dealt treacherously in it while they obtruded Ceremonies and sacrifices upon him for expiation of sin and so turned it in a Covenant of workes and even in these neglected the morall and substantiall duties v 7. Doct 1. Such as are not wrought upon and bettered by the Word are in an hopelesse condition and not to be wrought upon by any other thing for this is a proofe of their desperate condition See Luk. 16.29 30 31. 2. As it is the Lords mercy that he yet continueth his Messengers with his sinful people who provoke him if so be they may yet be reclaimed so it is their duty to take up what they speak either by extraordinary revelation or according to the Word as spoken by God and not to sleight their Message nor contradict their authority in carrying of it for it is a witnesse for God against them that they had the Prophets and they carried the words of my mouth saith the Lord. See 2 Chron. 36.15 16. Jer. 5.12 13. 3. As all men by nature are unfit for any good as rough stones and knotty timber for a building till the Word worke upon them and be effectuall in its reproofs and directions So a desperately incorrigible people or a people inconstant in any good do provoke God to deale more sharply with them by his Word and such are not to be soothed up by Ministers and this is a part of Gods care of them for upon what is laid to their charge v. 4. it followeth by way of conclusion Therefore have I hewed them by the Prophets c. See Tit. 1.12 13. 4. As the Word of the Lord is of such efficacy that it will either cure and rectifie a people or else undo them So this ordinary result in the most part that the sharp reproofes and directions of the Word do but make them worse and tend at last to their ruin Therefore it is subjoyned to his hewing I have slain them by the words of my mouth which is not to be understood onely of the sharp edge of the convictions of the Word which did so cut upon them as they thought themselves slain by it nor yet onely of the finall event of this preaching that many were cut off according to the certain threatenings of the Word as 1 King 19.17 Isa 11.4 Jer. 1.10 But of some neerer accidentall effect tending to that to wit that all his sharp reproofes and great pains did but make them worse and put out what life or activity they seemed yet to have in any good Hence it is elsewhere said that the Word doth but harden Isa 6.9 doth make men worse Hos 11.2 and exasperate them the more it is inculcate Mar. 7.6 Act. 7.54 Amos 7.10 5. The Lord hath so clearly revealed his will concerning mens duty as may justifie him and make sinners inexcusable whatever they do pretend For it is another argument against them thy judgements or the righteous ordinances wherein thou art commanded to walk are as the light that goeth forth that is as cleare as day-light which breaks out in the morning It may be he alludes to the ordinary houre wherein the Prophets were sent out to hold forth this light which seemeth to have been in the morning Jer. 7.13 Zeph. 3.5 6. Such as yield syncere and Evangelicall obedience to what the Lord requireth may expect that it will be accepted and themselves in doing of it with pleasure and acquiescence For I desired mercy c. saith he not onely commanded but desired it as a thing wherein I take pleasure as the word signifieth 7. The rule of true Religion requireth that as all that God commandeth should be respected and obedience endeavoured So that morall and most substantiall duties as a fruit of faith in Christ be chiefly made conscience of which as they ought to take place of ceremoniall observances So without them the other are of no account in Gods sight For this was the subject matter of the doctrine which was so clearly pressed and therefore comes in with a for as an illustration of that generall in the end of v. 5. I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more then burnt-offerings Where under sacrifice and burnt-offrings is comprehended all their ceremonial performances and spoken of not as they related to Christ the substance of all of them but as they were externall performances rested on by that people In which respect his not desiring sacrifice is not to be understood simply as if the Lord did not approve even of the externall performances which were enjoyned by himselfe but comparatively that he desired morall duties more then burnt-offerings as it is in the next sentence To which may be added that in some cases when morall duties come in competition with ceremonials the Lord doth not desire ceremonials at that time but moral duties even of the second Table take place of them or other positive commands concerning the externals of Religion As Mat. 9.11 12 13. and 12.2 7. Yea further let men submit never so much to the externall injunctions about worship or think to satisfie their own consciences therewith yet where Christ is not closed with to enable and make men willing and active in morall duties they will not be approven in the other at all As Isa 1.11 13. and 66. 3. See 1 Cor. 12.31 8. Such as would approve themselves to God ought to make conscience of morall duties both of the first and second Table of the Law and particularly the saving knowledge of God whereby we may regulate the rest of our obedience and shewing of mercy in cases wherein we seeme not to be so strictly bound will prove our reality in Religion Therefore he puts in both the knowledge of God of which before and Psal 14.1 2. and mercy of which Jam. 1.27 Though Christ indeed extend it as comprehending mercy toward our selves as the rule of our duty toward our neighbours Mat. 12.1 2 7. And mercy toward the soules of lost sinners Mat. 9.11 12 13. 9. As it is of the Lords great mercy and condescendence that he will not onely enjoyne sinners their duty but enter in tearmes of a Covenant with them So he is a faithfull Covenant-keeper on whose part no breach will be found for here all this doctrine is held out in the Covenant as it
is before explained wherein they onely and not he are transgressours 10. As neither clear light nor Covenant-offers or obligations will tie sinners to their duty So it is a great sin and a perfidious and treacherous prevarication for men to violate Covenant with God For they have transgressed even the Covenant there to wit in the Covenant have they dealt treacherously against me 11. Men may seeme to do many things in Religion and externall worship and yet be but Covenant-breakers when neither they are led to Christ in and by externall performances nor do they seek after what is most substantiall for albeit they omitted not sacrifices and burnt-offerings wherein Christ was held forth yet they have transgressed the Covenant because they looked not to Christ in these nor proved their communion with him by a consciencious care of performing morall duties as is before cleared 12. Their breaking of the Covenant like men is not to be understood so much of their resembling Adam in his violating of the Covenant of works and so proving themselves children of such a father But it contains these aggravations of their fault 1. That as the words may also read they had broken the Covenant as if it had been but the Covenant of a man and he their fellow-creature Covenant-breakers do bewray the mean thoughts they have of God which he will resent and avenge 2. Albeit he had chosen them to be his peculiar people yet they broke the Covenant as if no such encouragement had been given or obligation laid upon them more then any men in the world When singular priviledges do not tie men to duty they will aggravate the violation thereof 3. As he proved himselfe to be God in his keeping Covenant on his part so they proved themselves to be corrupt and weak men whose nature is facil and inconstant in good in breaking of it on their part When we see our actuall transgressions rightly we will be led up to be sensible also of our originall and nature from wich such practices flow 4. Whereas men ought to prove themselves men in acts of lawfull valour 2. Sam 10.12 and to quit themselves like men in being faithfull in the midst of difficulties 1 Cor. 16.13 they on the contrary plaid the men and proved their man-hood in nothing but rebellion against God and violation of his Covenant which was their high presumption Gallantry in sin being an aggravation thereof Vers 8. Gilead is a city of them that worke iniquity and is polluted with blood In the third place whereas the former confirmations of their desperate case might seeme to hold out but more generall challenges against them Therefore he comes to a more particular demonstration of the iniquities that abounded in particular places among particular sorts of persons or of the whole Nations Whereby also he proves their breach of Covenant and transgression of morall commandments The first challenge is against Gilead whom he accuseth to be given up to a trade of sin and particularly that they were polluted with blood or cunning in circumventing men to shed their blood craftily or as the word may also bear so bloody as if their footsteps might be traced by the blood dropping from them which they had shed By Gilead here we may understand that land beyond Jordan given to the two tribes and halfe tribe Num. 32. the inhabitants whereof were combined as one incorporation in these wicked courses or every city there was bent that way and therefore they got the first stroak by the Assyrian 2 King 15.29 But it seems rather to be understood of Ramoth in Gilead which was a city of the Priests and appointed to be a refuge for the man-slayer Josh 21.38 And so it is to be taken as comprehending all the rest of that kinde in these bounds which it seems Jeroboam and his successors had still continued for that use for which they were at first appointed And the summe of the challenge is that they who by reason of the Priests dwelling there and that they might be exemplary to such as fled thither for refuge ought to have been holy were devoted to iniquity and that they whose city was appointed to prevent the shedding of innocent blood were polluted with blood either by committing murthers among themselves or by the Priests their receiving in of wilfull murtherers or secluding or delivering up these who ought to have been protected if they might have any gain thereby This interpretation is strengthened and confirmed from the following vers Hence we may Learn 1. In judging of the matter of Covenant-keeping and the streightnesse of a land the Lord hath an especiall eye to persons or places which are especially obliged and have most advantages to keep them right Their miscarriage being a sad evidence that the rest of the land is not right Therefore doth he begin the instancing of their desperate condition at Gileads wickednesse where the Priests dwelt and therefore ought to be an holy place 2. As the naughtinesse of men will soone corrupt the best of Gods Ordinances and as no excellency and priviledge will in such a case plead mens innocency or allow them matter of gloriation so such decliners prove readily worst of any for Gilead who might pretend that they were once adorned with eminent priviledges are now accused that all that was perverted and that now the inhabitants did worke iniquities which is not to fall in infirmities but to commit grossest sins and make a trade of it and therefore is the character of grossely wicked men Psal 6.8 and 92 7. and elsewhere 3. Blood-shed is a very heavy charge and sad matter of challenge for it pollutes they are polluted with blood And this is singled out as the particular instance of their grosse iniquity and a sin that would trace and finde them out at last See Psal 51.14 Isa 26.21 4. Sin and particularly bloodshed will be aggravated by the place where it is committed and by the warnings and documents men have gotten to avoid it and when God makes inquisition for blood not only actors but concurrers with bloody men will be found guilty however they conveigh it Therefore he challengeth Gilead of blood which should have been a Sanctuary from oppression and where they might have seen the fruit even of casual slaughter in the man-slayers restraint And he challengeth the Priests as accessory to bloodshed as is before explained though they wanted not their own cunning conveighances in it Vers 9. And as troopes of robbers wait for a man so the company of Priests murther in the way by consent for they commit lewdnesse Secondly the Priests which is to be understood especially of these in Israel who were indirectly accused v. 8. are now expresly challenged that they conspire together with one consent to commit murther as bands of robbers use to do This the Priests did not onely by slaying peoples soules and fostering them in their sin but rather by their joyning with bloody
murtherers in giving shelter to them as is expressed in the former vers And by their slaying or causing to murther them who went up to Jerusalem to worship or others also who were travelling about their lawfull affaires to which aggreeth their murther in the way Concerning which whatever the particular way was the Lord pronounceth that it is committing of lewdnesse Whence learn 1. Of all societies of men none are more vile then Ministers when once they become corrupt they will be given up to act grossest evils and be accessory to all the grosse abominations in a land for in these respects their Priests are compared to troopes of robbers and charged with murther 2. Corrupt Ministers also by their being actors or occasions of the sins of a land come to have a chiefe hand in the drawing on of generall judgements Therefore their sins are brought in as an instance of the peoples desperate condition and a reason why the Lord could do no other with them but destroy them 3. Such as do intrude or suffer themselves to be intruded on an office to which they have no calling from God especially these who usurpe the office of the Ministery may expect never to do good in it but that they will be given up to such courses as will draw plagues on themselves and the land for such were these Priests who are especially challenged here They were of the lowest of the people whom Jeroboam advanced rejecting the Priests of the Lord 1 King 12.31 2 Chron. 11.14 15. 4. Generall concurrence in sin and especially of corrupt Ministers in defection is so far from extenuating that it aggreageth sin before the Lord for it adds to the challenge that they murder by consent or with one shoulder as the word is also taken Zeph. 3 9. 5. It is not sufficient simply to see or speak of sin but it would be looked upon over and over again till it be seen in its colours Therefore doth the Lord give a new sight of this sin shewing that in it they commit lewdnesse 6. Sins in the visible Church for which God pleads with her when they are rightly seen will be found to be lewd and vile and particularly it is an hainous provocation when men dare come to that height and obstinacy as not onely rashly to fall in sin but to plot and contrive it and persist till they act and perfect it for they commit lewdnesse is his verdict and the words in the originall will read they act or perfect their contrived and plotted wickednesse See Ezek. 24.13 And for this cause it may be it is that they are charged with murther and compared with bloody robbers because they contrived what they made others to act For which imports a reason of the former they commit or act or cause others to act projected wickednesse and so are as desperate as they Vers 10. I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel there is the whoredome of Ephraim Israel is defiled Thirdly the whole Nation of Israel is accused that however they covered their course yet God was certain of their horrible wickednesse in that Ephraim or their Rulers brought in the Idolatry of the calves and other defections of that nature which being received defended and propagated among the people had polluted them to that day Compare Chap. 5.3 Doct. 1. Albeit the Lord may have much to say against corrupt teachers in a time of general defection yet that doth not free people before the Lord but he will set their wayes in order before them For here after his challenges against the Priests the whole Nation also is accused 2. However men labour to prove strange palliaters of sin as if they could do it undiscerned and so make their own wit and parts a plague unto themselves yet let men cover their way and dig as deep as they will God doth still see them impartially For I have seen or I see an horrible thing saith the Lord. 3. The corrupting of true Religion and defection from it is a very horrid and abominable sin and doth pollute let men pretend to what purity they will For their whoredom is an horrible thing and so Heathens would account it Jer. 2.10 11. and thereby Israel is defiled 4. Beside the inclination that is in every mans heart by nature to Idolatry and false Religion it cannot but adde much to the tentation to decline when the wrong course is owned and carried on by authority and prevailing powers Their corrupt defections do very readily overspread and pollute all For it is the whoredom of Ephraim whereby Israel is defiled Their defection did easily prevaile with the people Vers 11. Also O Judah he hath set an harvest for thee when I returned the captivity of my people Lastly somewhat is said to Judah as well as to Israel to make good this proof in interpreting whereof there is some difficulty For an harvest may either signifie a peoples ripening for judgements as Rev. 14.15 and so the sense is given that Judah did so ripen in communicating with Israel in their courses and in other sinnes that the LORD who speaks of himselfe here both in the third and first person as also Isaiah 22.19 did send a sharp stroak upon them cutting them down as a ripe harvest at that time when by the Ministers of Oded he brought again their captivity of which see 2 Chron. 28.5 9 c. Or an harvest may be taken for a ripening for deliverance and restitution of captivity as Psal 126.5 6. And so the whole ver is a promise of restoring their captivity in due time which yet imports a sentence of banishment for sin to be inflicted before This seemeth to be the surest interpretation because it taketh in both being in summe a declaration that God would send them into captivity for their sinne which is a proof of their desperate condition and that yet he would mitigate this stroak by restoring of them according as Judah got the peculiar promise ch 1.7 Doct. 1. The Lords smiting of his people is sufficient to prove them guilty he being the Just and Holy One who doth it and when he puts in his sickle it is a clear proof that their harvest is ripe For thus doth he prove Judah â—s desperate condition by the sentence of captivity imported here It is true indeed the Lord may sharply afflict his own dear children for their trial but when after a processe deduced from the Word he proceeds either to correct his children for their miscarriages or to plague the wicked for their iniquity it should silence all their pleading of innocency unlesse they would reflect upon his holinesse and justice And such is the case here with Judah who are challenged ver 4. c. and now the challenge is confirmed by the stroak 2. Captivity and scattering is one of the fruits of the Churches sinne which so long as the Lord keeps off she is bound to acknowledge that he remembers mercy
deceitful ground of comfort and will not be owned by God whatever men pretend and as the calumniating of upright men is an usual way of promoting a false Religion So a deceitful lying comfort is a dangerous snare and it is the great sin of any to be instrumental in applying of it For so much is imported in that part of the challenge They make the King and Princes for both are understood in every one of the branches glad with their lies Vers 4. They are all adulterers as an oven heated by the baker who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough untill it be leavened The fourth sin challenged is their pronenesse to adultery bodily or spiritual or both of which they were generally guilty This is illustrate from the similitude of a Baker heating an Oven and kneading Dough who ceaseth to raise himself or others to put in the Bread till it be leavened and the Oven hot In application wherof we need not restrict it particularly to this that Jeroboam and his faction were hot upon the Idolatry of the calves of which he was the contriver and Baker but yet did cease to put it in practcie till by emissaries the people were leavened and prepared Nor yet to this that they were mad upon sin and yet insensible and carelesse of their case because of it as a sleeping Baker But it seemes rather to hold out this general That they opened their hearts so to Satans fiery tentations as an Oven is to fire and were so inflamed and fitted thereby as presently on an occasion they acted the sins as an hot Oven will bake the Bread when once it is leavened and put into it and as an Oven continues heating till the Dough be leavened and ready to be put into it so their heat of lust and tentation was not extinguished till it was satisfied And further as an Oven into which fire and fuel is put keeps the heat and leaven goeth through the lump though none watch about them but the Baker and others sleep so their hearts being once pestered with sin did feed themselves therein Doct. 1. A visible Church not receiving the love of the truth is justly given over to vile uncleannesse both in worship and manners and to be monstrously enflamed thereunto by Satan and his fire-brands For such was Israels condition They are adulterers as an oven heated by the baker where the Baker may cast in what fire and fuel he will and where the heat is most violent as being kept in compact together See Rom. 1.21 24 c. 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. 2. The more universal sin be it doth adde to the Lords controversie against a Land For They are all adulterers that is they are generally guilty though not every one and this is a part of the challenge 3. Whatever men may pretend without themselves as an excuse for their corrupting their wayes yet upon true triall they will finde it to flow from their own hearts polluted by Satan nor will it suffice to acknowledge some infirmity and inadvertencie in their sin unlesse they see it deeper rooted in their hearts For whereas they might pretend they followed these courses only to please their Kings and obey their commands the Lord lets them see it was their own hearts enflamed with lusts and Satans tentations like an oven heated that drew them to it and that this was no sudden fit but the fruit of deeply corrupted hearts as an Oven that hath been long heated with much fuel 4. Albeit that wicked men do not alwayes break forth in actuall wickednesse yet are they not the more innocent for that For 1. Their spirits are pestered and haunted with sin though they do not act it as the Oven is still heating and the Dough still leavening though the Baker and others sleep 2. It is not of them that they do not act sin it is only through the want of a tentation and occasion as the hot Oven ceaseth from baking Bread and the Baker from putting it in only till it be leavened and ready 3. Their heat of lust is never extinct nor do they labour to mortifie it but it continueth restlesse and furious till it be satisfied as the Oven still heats and burneth till the Bread be leavened and put in Doct. 4. Albeit good motions when they are most fervent need frequent cherishing as being no native plant of our hearts yet when evil once gets footing it will entertain and feed it self and grow upon our hand For the Oven will heat and the Dough leaven though all should sleep after they have put in the fire and the leaven Ver. 5. In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottels of wine he stretched out his hand with scorners The fifth accusation is for Court-intemperance in King Princes and Courtiers without any respect to honesty or shame In so much that on the Kings birth-day or the day of his Coronation or some other solemnity yearly observed by him the Princes did draw the King to be drunk whereby 1. He contracted sicknesse 2. It made him forget and prostitute his place and authority joyning in society with scorners or men eminently dissolute and look rather like such in his drunkennesse then like a King Doct 1. Dayes which men will have observed as dayes of festivity and solemnity do ordinarily prove dayes of great miscarriage and provocation against God For it is in the day of our King that they contract very eminent guilt In the Original it is the day of our Kings wherein the Lord by his Prophet repeats their words as proclaiming and boasting of it and therefore loosing the rains to intemperance See Exod. 32.6 Job 1.5 Eccles 7.2 3. 2. Drunkennesse and sensuality is an hainous crying sin and particularly in Rulers For it is a sad challenge that they should be given to bottels of wine See Prov. 31.4 Eccles 10.16 17. Isa 28.1 3. Nobles and Princes and great Courtiers are ordinarily great plagues and snares to Kings who having their ear and countenance do make use of it for no other end but to draw them to sin against God For it is the Princes who have made him sick c. 4. It is the height of sensuality when men not only become brutish themselves but dare invite and tempt others to the same excesse of riot and by all meanes draw them to drunkennesse For it is the sin of the Princes that they draw the King to drink See Hab. 2.15 16. Est 1.8 5. Men by their intemperance do not only draw on the guilt of misspending time and abusing the good creatures of God but of self-murther and abusing their own bodies also For they make him sick with bottles of wine either by making him drink whole bottles or drinke wine which in these parts they kept and carried in bottels 6. Dayes of feasting and intemperance do also ordinarily prove dayes of great insolence and boldnesse in all other sins When mens hearts
sentence is pronounced in a threatning of wo and destruction to come upon them for their Apostasy and rebellion unto which is added the first confirmation of the equity of this sentence taken from their horrid ingratitude against God who had redeemed and delivered them from many troubles since the time of their deliverance from Egypt and yet they lied against him both in profession and practice Whence learn 1. The sins of the visible Church are odious in that they are not simple sinnes but Apostasy and defection as here is laid to their charge 2. Apostasy is in this horrible in that the Apostate not onely like a vagabond runs away from so excellent a Master contrary to his duty but that he labours to bring an ill report on God by fleeing from him as if he were an enemy for they have fled from me is the aggravation of their guilt 3. Departing from God will soone draw men to most wicked and rebellious courses for unto this is subjoyned they have transgressed or rebelled against me not onely by their Apostasy breaking all bonds but this drawing on more insolencie in sin 4. As Apostasy and rebellion is of it selfe a condition sufficiently plagued and miserable though no calamities followed upon it So it will also at last draw on desolation and destruction and Gods curse with it for wo and destruction or spoil a destruction with a wo in the bosome of it followeth on their course to confirme what a wofull course it was of it selfe 5. However the Lord in mercy bestow many notable deliverances on his sinning people yet that will not stop the course of their defection and this doth highly aggravate their sin for though I have redeemed them yet they have spoken lies against me See Psal 106.43 6. The visible Church doth lie against God having been delivered by him either when she denieth him in her practice Tit. 1.16 Psal 14.1 or when being delivered she doth belie these professions and promises she made in trouble or when she cleaves still to false doctrine and corrupt religion pretending it to be the truth and constructs of Gods delivering her as if it were a testimony that he favoured her way or when in her prosperity she forgets God ascribing all her deliverances to her Idols as all her afflictions to him as Chap. 2.5 Jer 44.17 18. In all these respects it was the sin of Jsrael that when God redeemed them yet they spoke lies against him Ver. 14. And they have not cryed unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds they assemble themselves for corne and wine and they rebell against me A second confirmation of the equity of the sentence is taken from their not seeking God syncerely under trouble but onely howling because of outward wants and that however they seemed to make solemne applications to God yet they continued in their rebellion Whence learn 1. Every shew of seeking even the true God will not be accepted of him and may be so far from preventing wrath that it may haste it on for this their defect in seeking God is one cause why wo and destruction cometh upon them 2. Mens prayers how instant soever they seeme to be yet are nothing before God when the heart is not engaged in the duty nor affected with that which is mens true misery and the cause of their trouble nor sincerely engaged to God from whom they expect help for it is a challenge they have not cried unto me with their heart when they sought to him under trouble albeit no doubt they were affected with the stroak and seriously desired to be rid of it 3. As men who employ not God under trouble will soone be broken and crushed with it So the cries of such which flow onely from sense of pain and want and from spirits not humbled under Gods hand are not onely inacceptable to God but rather like the carriage of beasts then even of rationall men much more of gracious men for in their cries they but howled upon their beds that is their troubles cast them as it were on sick beds and there they do not cry to God syncerely but howle like dogs who can feele and resent pain as well as they do 4. Men may make very solemne addresses to God and keep very publick humiliations who yet are not soundly exercised nor accepted of God For they assemble themselves to wit for solemne prayer and yet in all this they but adde to the controversie 5. God doth justly reject these prayers how solemne soever wherein men are only driven by outward necessities and their first and only suit is their own particular never minding better things or greatet wants For they assemble themselves for corne and wine not seeking Gods favour and grace and therefore are rejected 6. Mens solemn worship is also justly rejected when they never give over their stubborne and rebellious dispositions against God But whereas mens calling on God should engage them against sin they on the contrary whatever they seem to be in immediate worship yet they runne presently after it to their old courses in their ordinary conversation and when they obtain their will at Gods hand they presently sleight God as if they had no more to do with him For this is another cause of his condemning their way they assemble themselves and they rebell against me that is they retain their rebellious dispositions and albeit in the mean time they act no grosse rebellion yet they never purpose to give it over but to be as they were so soon as they have done with the duty or God hath granted their desire Vers 15. Though I have bound and strengthened their armes yet do they imagine mischief against me A third confirmation of the equity of the sentence and a further evidence of their ingratitude is taken from this that when ever the Lord did in any measure restore the strength and power of their State which had been broken by many troubles as he did by Joash 2 Kings 13.25 and Jeroboam the second 2 Kings 14.25 26 27. then they conspired the more boldly against God and plotted as if they would have cast him out of the possession of a Kingdome among them That thus the binding or strengthening of their armes is to be interpreted appeareth from the contrary threatening Ezek. 30.20 21 22 23. Doct. 1. The visible Church doth oft-times cast herself into many dangers which would ruine her if God interposed not and particularly her abuse of power doeth justly make her power to be broken as here is imported 2. As God in his pity and long-suffering toward his sinful Church doth interpose for restoring her out of her desperate distempers So it is her great fault that kindnesse doth not gain her but she requites him with evil for good as here we are taught Though I have bound and strenghened their armes yet do they imagine mischief against me 3. The power and strength and authority which the
he which is true not only of Moses writings but of the Prophets Doctrine the summe whereof was at Gods command left registrate 3. The subject matter of the written Word is great and excellent far above the subject of all humane sciences as revealing God the way of his Worship and of mans salvation and so making them great who embrace it For it is the great things of my Law not to be sleighted nor contemned 5. It is the great though usual sin of the visible Church to live strangers to the Word of God and little conversant with it to look upon its directions as of little moment and that there is little hazard in not walking according to them and to look upon them as very strange and contrary to our dispositions and having little reason for what is injoyned all these concurred in their way in that they were counted as a strange thing They of Israel made little use of the Word they thought it a small matter to stand so much upon the place of Worship and they thought it an unreasonable thing to urge that way of Worship which would be so destructive to the State of Israel if they went up to Jerusalem And therefore they looked on all these things as little concerning them Ver. 13. They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings and eat it but the LORD accepteth them not now will he remember their iniquity and visit their sinnes they shall returne to Egypt The third branch of the challenge is that in these sacrifices which they pretended to offer to God they were both life-lesse and destitute of all spiritual service and selfish Therefore the Lord declareth their service to be rejected and threatens that he will call them to an account for their sin and send them into bondage like that they had suffered in Egypt or make them flee thither from the fury of the Assyrians Whence lear 1. Externall worship without life and spiritual dispositions and particularly ceremoniall worship without an eye to the substance and thing signified is nothing else but a dead carkase in Gods accompt For they sacrifice flesh for the sacrifice of mine offerings that is their sacrifices which they pretend to offer to me if there were no other fault in them of offering them in a wrong place and by unlawful Ministers c. yet they are but flesh in respect they minde no more but the outward work See Isa 66.3 Jer. 7.21 22 23. 2. Most part of worshippers follow the external duties of Religion no further then their own ends lead them and mens own advantage is the upholder of all false Religion For they sacrifice and eat it that is they observe no rule of burnt-offerings wherein all the sacrifice is offered up to God but of all of them they must eat a part as was allowed in peace or thanksgiving-offerings and so they regard their own bellies most 3. However men cry up their own way yet they will finde that want of a divine approbation will undo all For it is a judgement sufficient but the Lord accepteth them not See 2 Cor. 10.18 4. God will not forget unrepented of iniquity though for a time he spare it but will call sinners to an account when it is least expected and particularly corrupt and formal worship justly brings all a peoples sins to remembrance and ripens them for judgements for all of them Therefore it is added now will he remember their iniquity and visite their sins 5. When men have forgotten their old bondage and walk so as if neither such a stroak nor deliverance had been the Lord is provoked to bring it to remembrance by a new captivity For they shall return to Egypt Assyria shall be made a new Egypt to them and many of them shall run to Egypt the place of their old bondage to meet with new bondage Ver. 14. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker and buildeth temples and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities but I will send a fire upon his cities and it shall devour the palaces thereof In the close of the Chap. Judah is joyned with Israel and challenged that as Israel multiplied Idolatry and Idol-temples so they multiplied fenced Cities For which God threatens to destroy the Cities and stately Palaces thereof This sin challenged here seemeth to have fallen forth in the dayes of wicked Ahaz who considering the incursions of Assyria into Israel made it all his care to secure Judah by fortifying many Cities as we finde them challenged Isa 22.8 9 10 11. And the judgement was executed by Senacherib after the captivity of Israel Isa 36.1 Doct. 1. When the Lord is challenging grossest provocations he will not for all that forget lesser sinnes and passe them over as nothing especially in his people Therefore he forgets not Judahs sin of carnal confidence when he is reckoning with Israel for Idolatry For or and as it is in the Original joyning this with the former challenges Israel buildeth temples and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities 2. The setting up of Idols and of carnall confidences in Gods room are the usuall byasse of mens hearts who when their hearts are not delighting in and relying upon God will not want somewhat beside to supply that want Therefore are building temples and multiplying fenced cities joyned together here as setting up somewhat in Gods room 3. Idolatry in worship and carnal confidences do bewray mens forgetfulnesse of God whose authority prohibits these things and whose kindnesse to his people should engage them not to abandon his Worship nor trust in any thing beside him and particularly how much soever men pretend to remember God by setting up Idols and temples to them yet in all this they do but bewray forgetfulnesse of God For Israel hath forgotten his Maker who not only created him but advanced him to that dignity he enjoyed in his sinning and the like is to be understood of Judah 4. Mens placing their confidence in outward means of defence and safety when yet they little minde the wrath of God against sin is an iniquity to be joyned in some sort with Idolatry in worship For this was Judahs sin in multiplying fenced cities which is held forth to be of the same nature with Israels building temples because both draw the heart from God 5. As judgements inflicted in Gods anger will easily like fire consume most stately places so the Lord is provoked to inflict these when men put confidence in these things Any thing a people and especially the Church put confidence in will surely be plagued For because Judah hath multiplied fenced cities and made this his confidence otherwise it is no sin to use means of defence I will send a fire upon his cities and it shall devour the palaces thereof CHAP. IX THe Doctrine of this Chap relates to a time wherein Israel flourished much by reason of outward plenty victories confederacies with their neighbours and therefore did harden and please themselver in their sinnes whatever
revolters 5. Iniquity doth then become Nationall and land-destroying when it gets up upon the throne and from thence by authority and example infects the people For such was Israels case when they are to be cast off their Princes are revolters 6. Gods judgements may be very sad on a people in a succession of ill Rulers who keep up ill courses till destruction put a period to them For thus was Israel plagued all their Princes are revolters 7. It is but small matter what men think of their own way or how they mask it if God hate it as he will do wickednesse whatever men pretend for it so doth he prove their wickednesse in Gilgal which they made so plausible from an effect For or therefore there or for the sins done there I hated them 8. Whatever be the Lords pitty and compassion through Christ toward his own under their infirmities and daily escapes yet Idolatry and corrupting of Religion will meet with hatred and indignation For there I hated them 9. As God is provoked to take away his partition-wall and unchurch them who dare bring corrupt and humane inventions in the matter of worship into his house So this stroak is the capestone of a peoples misery and speakes Gods great anger Therefore it followeth I will drive them out of mine house 10. As the former effects of Gods love in outward things may be cut off from a visible Church without hope of restitution So the want of these will be sad however his love in them was little seen or acknowledged while they were enjoyed For it is a part of the stroak I will love them no more that is give them no more outward proofes of it for he speakes in their tearmes who would never think but God loved them so long as they prospered Vers 16. Ephraim is smitten their root is dryed up they shall beare no fruit yea though they bring forth yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their wombe They are further threatned again with cutting off of the Nation fathers and children as a tree that is withered in the root and hath no fruit or branches or if there be any issue as twigs rising about the root yet he threatens that it shall be destroyed This was accomplished on them as a Nation in their captivity in that however many of that Nation survived these calamities yet they were no more a people nor incorporation in their own land Doct. 1. Gods anger and judgements to come upon impenitent sinners finde but small credit with them and therefore must be oft inculcate as this repetition of former threatnings teacheth 2. Such as would have the right use of threatnings would look upon them in their certainty and as already performed Therefore saith he Ephraim is smitten their root is dried up 3. As the Lord can as easily root out a whole Nation as men do a tree so he is oft-times provoked so to do even to his own people who will be bettered or reclaimed by no milder rod For so doth this example applied to Ephraim teach 4. The natural affection of parents to their children will plead for no pitty to them at Gods hand when they despise the offers of his love but will help to make the calamity upon their children sadder to them For I will slay even the beloved fruit of their womb or the desires of their womb that is their children which they desired to have and delighted in Vers 17. My God will cast them away because they did not hearken unto him and they shall be wanderers among the nations The Prophet concludes all this doctrine with subscribing to Gods sentence and recapitulates it shewing that they should be rejected and made to wander in exile because they rejected Gods Word inviting them to return to him Whence learn 1. Albeit it be the duty of godly men to intercede in behalfe of a sinfull and perishing people yet they ought also to subscribe to the equity of Gods judgements and acknowledge his justice shining therein For so doth the Prophet hereâ— after his former intercession vers 14. 2. It is the commendation of men to cleave to God and his way and be zealous for him though they should do it alone and to make sure an interest in God when common calamities are imminent And God will manifest his interest in such in hard times Therefore doth Hosea name him My God whom he had owned and been zealous for when Israel had rejected him whatever they pretended and who would prove so to him in that sad time which followed 3. God will abhorre even his confederate people when they corrupt them selves and will prove it is so by rejecting them from enjoying his presence or favour in Ordinances or wonted mercies For my God will cast them away the word in the Original imports his abominating of them and upon this his rejecting of them 4. It is righteous with God that they who will not rest nor acquiesce in him should finde no rest otherwise or in other things and that they become vagabonds among Heathens who do not prize the communion of Saints or of the visible Church in her pure Ordinances For upon these grounds it is threatned against Israel they shall be wanderers or vagabonds among the Nations 5. As the contempt of the Word is a fountain of sin in men so it fills up the measure of iniquity and makes it incurable when people will not hearken to the Word inviting them to repentance and conversion from their evil way For it is the controversie here because they did not hearken unto him that is they contemned his Word and directions and so walked as they listed and particularly they would not hearken to the many messages of the Prophets sent to reclaim them before the stroak came 6. The Word of the Lord is therefore much contemned because men will not see God speaking in it but do only eye instruments or will not ponder the authority and power of God albeit they pretend to acknowledge him And all the indignity offered to the Word in the mouth of his Servants he interprets it as done to himself Therefore is their contempt described they did not hearken to him who spake in and by that Word CHAP. X. THis Chap. tends to the same scope with the former consisting of accusations and threatnings against Israel for their sins only they are sweetned with some more expresse exhortations to repentance upon hopes of mercy which in the former doctrine had only been implied in the accusations and sentences We may take up the Chap. in four heads or articles of accusations unto every one of which threatnings are subjoyned 1. He accuseth them for fruitlessenesse and bringing forth fruit to themselves and employing their prosperity to the advancement of Idolatry vers 1. and for their many divisions of heart v. 2. for which he threatens to take them with the crime and destroy their instruments of Idolatry v. 2. and to deprive
the pitiful mothers and then dashed the mothers to death and laid them in heaps above their children Ver. 15. So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickednesse in a morning shall the King of Israel be utterly cut off Secondly as for their confidence in their way of Religion and settled State the Lord threatens First that that sore calamity mentioned v. 14. should come upon them because of their great sin of Idolatry at Bethel Secondly that their King and Kingdome should fall by a sudden and speedy blow Whence learn 1. Idolatry and corrupting of Religion is the great wickednesse of a visible Church and the cause of saddest judgements For So as is before threatned shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickednesse to wit which is committed there and under Bethel the other place of their corrupt worship are comprehended 2. As we are ready enough to see instruments in our calamities and ought to acknowledge Gods hand in them So we should see the great influence of our own sin in procuring them For So shall Bethel do unto you to wit by your provoking of God there 3. Impenitent Rulers and their Kingdomes may not only be sore afflicted and wasted but it may draw at length to utter cutting off even though they be Gods people in visible Covenant with him for the King of Israel and the Kingdome with him shall utterly be cut off 4. God can very speedily and suddenly bring about great revolutions and overturnings of Kingdomes And he would have the greatnesse of their sin and of his displeasure seen in such a dispensation for in a morning shall this be done which imports a short time as a morning before the Sun rise and a sudden stroak as if in a morning before men were awake an Army or City were surprized And it seemes that albeit Samaria endured a three years siege 2 King 17.5 yet some one morning it was surprized and so their King and Kingdome came to an end CHAP. XI IN the first part of this Chap. the Lord continueth to accuse and give out sentence against Israel And 1. He accuseth them of ingratitude in that albeit he had loved them in their Infant-condition and delivered them out of Egypt ver 1. and had sent Prophets to them to teach them their duty v. 2. yet they walked contrary to their directions and served Idols v. 2. And albeit he did carry them through the wildernesse yet they did not consider nor acknowledge this v. 3. and that notwithstanding he did gently draw them to their duty and provide for them v. 4. For this the Lord threatens that they should finde Egypt no refuge to them but should be carried to Assyria v. 5. and that the sword should abide upon their Townes and Villages till it consumed them according as they deserved v. 6. 2. He accuseth them for their pronenesse to Apostasie and ill intertainment given to the messages sent from God unto them v. 7. In the second part of the Chap. the godly are comforted against the judgements imminent and deserved by their sinnes wherein is held forth the mercy of God interposing to hold off the judgements deserved by them v. 8. and his expresse promise to moderate the execution of his just displeasure in not consuming the Nation utterly v. 9. and to convert and restore them after their rejection and exile v. 10 11. In the third part of the Ch. the Lord rejects all their pretences wherewith they would cover their faults and sheweth how much they were worse then Judah ver 12. Ver. 1. WHen Israel was a childe then I loved him and called my sonne out of Egypt 2. As they called them so they went from them they sacrificed unto Baalâ—m and burnt incense to graven images THis Chap. begins with a challenge of Israels ingratitude And for this end the Lord brings to remembrance his favour and his benefits conferred upon them and subjoynes what their ingrate carriage had been In these Verses he calls to minde his love toward them in their infant-condition in Egypt his preserving and delivering them out of Egypt as his adopted children and as a type of Christ and his sending Prophets particularly Moses to call them to obedience and to entertain fellowship with him in the use of his worship which trust these Prophets faithfully discharged All which doth aggreage their sin and convince them of ingratitude who walked so crosse to the directions of the Prophets and multiplied Idols and Images which they worshipped Doct. 1. Ingratitude and walking unanswerably to many received mercies is the great and crying sin of the Lords people and Church as this challenge teacheth Unfruitfulnesse under rods will not be rightly mourned for till this sin be begun at See Deut. 28.47 48. 2. The Church and people of God are in themselves very unlike the great dignities to which he advanceth them And particularly Israel was in a very mean and low condition till God did forme them both into a distinct and potent Nation and into a visible Church for himselfe For Israel was a child or in an infant-condition not as yet grown up No more like to the condition God put them in when he increased and delivered them and when he exalted and established them in the promised land then a child is like a grown up man And at that time they were not formed in a Church-State till after their deliverance from Egypt Which may put us in minde of the mercy of a grown up Church-State under the Gospel and what obligations a perfected reformation layeth upon them who attain to it 3. Gods love to the Church is her first and great priviledge which prevents her in her lowest condition when she is unworthy and base and which is the fountain of all his bounty and so makes it comfortable For when Israel was a child witlesse and worthlesse then I loved him and this is the fountain of all his bounty after mentioned Deut 7.7 8. 4. The Lord will make his love to his people conspicuous in their preservation in a low condition and under much trouble when he seeth it not fit to deliver them from it For so is supposed he dealt with Israel in Egypt preserving them from being extinguished by the fury of Pharaoh till he called them out of Egypt See Exod. 1.12 5. The Lord also will magnifie his love in their deliverance from trouble and bondage not only spirituall but outward also in so far as is for their good For I called my Son out of Egypt or brought him out with my invitation by the Ministery of such as were sent to speak to Pharaoh and them which I made effectuall And this was not only a type of the Churches delivery from spirituall bondage but a pledge also of his doing great things for his people See Exod. 12.42 Psal 34.19 6. As the Lord doth oft-times manifest his love and put speciall honour on his people by putting them to sufferings
a thing impossible 5. As by the Law such as had not wherewith to make restitution did suffer in their persons Exod. 22.3 So the Lord by sad plagues will let enemies know that no lesse then their destruction can repaire the damage done by them to his people For saith he I will returne your recompence upon your own head that is as a man being offered an unworthy recompence doth in anger cast it at them again who presume to offer it So the Lord will let them know what the recompence must be and will returne upon their own head according as their injuries deserved 6. Albeit the Lord seem to delay long from avenging the injuries done to his people yet it doth not only certainly come at last but it doth surprize enemies and after he once beginneth to appear he will make a short work and so execute judgement as one hasting to be avenged In this respect it is that he saith swiftly and speedily will I returne your recomâ—ence 7. It is an horrid injury which God will avenge when men do spoile Gods people of the wealth he hath given them that so they may inrich themselves by their calamities or when they dare take away and intervert that which is devoted to him and his service for this is one part of the quarrel Because ye have taken my silver and my told and my goodly pleasant things whereby we may understand both the wealth and precious things bestowed upon his people which now in avenging the quarrel he owneth as his and these things that were laid up for his service in the Temple 8. This sin is yet more odious when men not only injustly take away what doth not belong to them but when all this purchase is consecrated to advance and cry up a false Religion For saith he ye have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things Not all which they had injustly taken away but these things that were most excellent and belike what they got of that which belonged to the Temple as an oblation to their Idols 9. As God hates cruelty especially against his people and that men should not only spoile them of their goods but bring themselves into slavery and bondage So it is an iniquity which he will avenge when men labour to make the condition of his people desperate and without hope of restitution that so they may possesse their rights For it is another branch of the quarrel the children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians with whom the Tyrians had commerce Ezek 27.2 13. that ye might remove them far from the border Vers 7. Behold I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them and will returne your recompence upon your own head 8. And I will sell your sonnes and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah and they shall sell them to the Sabeans to a people far off for the LORD hath spoken it In opposition unto and for a recompence of this their cruelty the Lord passeth sentence in favours of his people and against these whom he hath thus pleaded with Wherein he undertakes to gather his people and bring them from under that bondage and to reward these enemies by bringing them under the power of the Jewes who shall sell them for slaves to the remotest Arabians according as he hath determined Whence learn 1. Whatever mens projects be against the Church yet they will never gain their point against her For though they would have had the Jewes so far removed as they might never returne yet saith he I will raise them up 2. The Lord can restore his people when he pleaseth and when his time cometh neither his former rejecting of them nor their desperate condition will hinder it For though they sold them that they might never returne yet saith he I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them 3. God can deliver his people though their condition were as hopelesse as that dead men should be raised Ezek. 37.11 12. and though they were as little minding deliverance as men that are asleep For saith he I will raise them or awake them as the Original imports 4. The wonderfulnesse of what God promiseth should be no impediment to our faith for God both can and will bring about the deliverance of his people in an admirable way Behold saith he I will raise them 5. The triumphing of enemies for a long time is no ground of assurance that they shall still escape But God in due time and at the deliverance of his people will repay them for all they have done for when God doth all this for his people it is also added and will returne your recompence upon your own head 6. God will repay enemies in the same measure they have measured to his people and he may make his Church instrumental in it And however the judgement be executed yet he is still the principal agent in it For I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah or deliver them over into their hand and put them under their power to be at their disposal For so to sell is to be understood Judg. 2.14 and frequently and they shall sell them to the Sabeans to a people far off For the Sabeans were on the remote coasts of Arabia or it may be understood that these Sabeans should sell them to a people yet more remote In which sentence we ought to read the justice of God in dealing with them as they dealt with Judah 7. Gods Word is sufficient for the Church to rest upon in expecting greatest things And it may be sufficient ground of terrour to enemies that the Word hath spoken sad things against them Therefore it is added by way of confirmation for the Lord hath spoken it Vers 9. Proclaime ye thus among the Gentiles prepare warre wake up the mighty men let all the men of warre draw near let them come up 10. Beat your plow-shares into swords and your pruning-hookes into speares let the weak say I am strong 11. Assemble your selves and come all ye heathen and gather your selves together round about thither cause thy mighty ones to come downe O LORD 12. Let the heathen be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about Followeth the way of executing this sentence thus pronounced In recording whereof first in these Verses we have again the convocation of these enemies for that effect It is declared that they shall be gathered together by the effectual providence of God to fight against his people v. 9. That they shall prepare armour as much as they can and shall encourage one another to war wherein there shall be no vacation but even the weak shall take courage to go on in this enterprize v. 10. And that they should convene not a few but as many on every
punishment deserved thereby for this is one particular pretence whereof he makes a chalenge that they were misled by the lyes after the which their fathers have walked Sin is so much the more dangerous as it is hereditary Ezr. 9.7 Act. 7.51 7. The righteous Lord will not onely not spare his people when they sin but will make their outward lot as sad as the lot of others whom they are like in sin and so much the sadder as their destruction is accompanied with sad stroaks on his own precious interests for he threatens them with the same judgements that came on others I will send a fire upon Judah and it shall devour the Palaces of Jerusalem among which the Temple was chief and this might make their stroak sad Verse 6. Thus saith the Lord For three transgressions of Israel and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof because they sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes 7. That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor and turn aside the way of the meek and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid to profane my holy Name After all this preface concerning the judgements to come on the Nations about and on the Jewes the Lord imployeth Amos to deale with Israel his more proper charge with whom in this chapter he enters in processe chalenging and threatning them in the Lords Name for their manifold iniquities several particulars whereof he layeth before them to v. 13 and then giveth out a more particular sentence against them to the end of the Chapter In these verses after the general chalenge and sentence for their many iniquities nothing inferiour to what was among other Nations He doth in particular charge them 1. With injustice and oppression appearing in several particulars namely that they were given to bribery to the perverting of justice so that for silver they would sell the man that had a righteous cause into the hand of an unjust oppressour Yea for a very small gift they would betray the right of the poor who had nothing to give them and that they thirsted to have the poor under their feet and oppressed and did subvert and overthrow peacable men in their course and cause 2. He chargeth them with incestuous uncleannesse whereby they profaned the name of God that was called upon them From v. â—6 learn 1. Such as do backslide from God his pure worship and truth will soon be given up to many and multiplied grosse iniquities which may discover what are the fruits of these courses in Religion which they choose refute all their pretences justifying the same for Apostate Israel hath three transgressions and four for which God will not spare them And the Lord instanceth these chiefly in grosse sins against the second Table that they who would not see their sin in corrupting Religion might read it here and might discerne what were the fruits of a false Religion 2. Circumvention of men in their righteous cause and the perverting of justice are cruel merchandizing and selling of men and sins for which God is provoked against a whole Land for so are they here called they sold the righteous and the poor and because of these corruptions of their Judges all Israel are threatned 3. Covetousness is not onely a great evill of it selfe but the root of much evill and miscarriage and particularly in Judges who being led thereby doe readily pervert justice for it is for silver and advantage that all these disorders are committed 4. Men are not advanced to places of power and authority that they should enrich themselves by all the shifts they can or to decide in causes according as they are byassed with bribes but to execute justice impartially to all And when it is not so God will make a challenge of it for he challengeth here that they sold the righteous for silver 5. When men are addicted to covetousness and once accustomed to pervert justice for bribes they will easily be drawne over to doe wrong by a small tentation like a harlot who having once prostitute her chastity will be so shameless at last as to take any price for they will sell the poor for a paire of shooes or a meane price before they want altogether 6. Albeit the poore finde few to doe for them yet God will owne them in their righteous cause and will resent the injuries done unto them for here he challengeth men for the wrongs they doe them From verse 7. Learn 1. The Lord takes notice of mens affections unto and their assiduousnesse in sinne when they are watching all occasions and restlesse till they carry their point for he marks that they pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poore The Lord seeth not onely who sinne but who are driven to it through the violence of tentation and who are eager and panting to be at it 2. It is a plague upon men that they want not their owne toyle and vexation in following sinne and yet all that toyle will not reclame them nor make them give over for they pant and are breathlesse with eagernesse and yet they goe on see Jer. 9.5 3. The cruell designes of oppressors are hatefull to God when they are not content to pill the poore but will have them utterly ruined and crushed for it is his challenge that they pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poore that is they are never at rest till they get the very head of the poore on the ground among the dust that they may tread on it or till they bring them under extreame calamities and sorrow causing them to put dust on their head as was usual in great distresse 2 Sam. 13.19 Job 2.12 and elsewere 4. It is the commendation of men to be peaceable and meek not given to contention and modest in prosecuting of their rights when they are called to contend for so much is imported in their name who are here owned of God they are the meek 5. Mens modest and peaceable behaviour will not restraine wicked ones from troubling and studying to overthrow them by fraud or force for they turn aside the way of the meek that is they supplant him and doe overthrow his courses and enterprizes as if a man were turned out of the way wherein he is walking 6. The more modest and peaceable men are and the more meekly they carry themselves under injuries the Lord will owne their quarrel the more for he doth here take their cause in hand and challengeth these oppressors that they turne aside the way of the meeke 7. Incest is an abominable and odious sinne and yet they who give way to any sinne though it seeme more cleanly may be given up to that also for where covetousnesse fraud and oppression had place there also a man and his father will goe in unto the same maid Delighted in sins may draw
that I shall visit the transsions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Bethel and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground The third branch of the sentence the certainty whereof is intimate in a new Commission to publish it and wherein more of Gods quarrel is held forth is that when God comes to punish them for their other sins he will also take course with their idolatry at Bethel and that the horns of their altar there which they made in imitation of that in Judah Exod. 27.2 shall be broken down It appears that this was done by the Assyrians who defaced their altars and places of worship because their Religion did not agree with theirs though it was idolatrous also But it was Josiah who after that did quite demolish that altar 2. Kings 23.15 Doct. 1. Such as are to carry Gods minde unto his people have need frequently to rouze up themselves and to be rouzed up by God to take up his minde and authority in it therefore in the midst of his purpose is there a new charge given to Amos and the rest of the Prophets Hear ye saith the Lord God c. 2. When God is threatning a people and declaring the causes of his displeasure they have need to be stirred up again and again to hear for this charge to the Prophets is not onely for themselves but to shew to the people what they need also 3. When God is either chalenging or threatning it is needful to consider what his power is to avenge the fault he chalengeth and to execute what he threatens therefore is he designed in this the Lord God the God of hosts 4. What the Lord doth give his servants to hear and understand they are bound to communicate it and that so seriously as they give not occasion to hearers to slight it for hear ye and testifie in the house of Jacob saith he 5. Albeit men do place their confidence in their idolatrous and corrupt way of religion and worship as thinking thereby to escape the punishments deserved by their other sins yet this will deceive them and what was their confidence will prove a land destroying sin with and above the rest for in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Bethel as his great sin See Jer. 48.13 6. Idolatry once admitted is so hard to remove that it may continue till a period be put unto it by the utter ruine of a Nation for their altar of Bethel continueth till the Assyrians break them and it both 7. A people once addicted to idotatry are very averse and incapable of seeing either the evil of it or the danger that cometh by it therefore this challenge and sentence especially must be testified in the house of Jacob. 8. Such as will not put away idolatry nor destroy the monuments of it will finde that God will cause others though they were idolaters themselves do it upon their cost and expence for God sent the Assyrians upon them who made the hornes of the altar be cut off and fall to the ground though they had kept them up with great respect Verse 15. And I will smite the winter house with the summer house and the houses of ivory shall perish and the great houses shall have an end saith the Lord. The last branch of the sentence is that he will take course especially with the great ones and richer sort of people who had winter houses for repelling the cold and summer houses wherein they might get coole aire See Jer. 36.22 Judg. 3.20 These the Lord threatens to destroy and cast to the ground albeit for pleasure and pomp they had adorned them with Ivory and built them ample and large Whence learn 1. Such as tast most of prosperity in a wicked Nation may look for a peculiar stroak therefore is a particular sentence directed against such here 2. Mens pride and keeping up much state and pomp while they wallow in their sin will not hold off vengeance but is another cause of Gods controversie against them and as prodigality in apparrell so also mens sumptuousnesse in their habitations and dwellings may be a cause of Gods anger therefore will God testifie his displeasure against the winter house and the summer house the houses of ivory and great houses of such sinners 3. Mens pleasant and commodious habitations wherein they do not honour God will but help to augment their misery when God doth overturn them in his kindled displeasure for this shall be one part of their calamity that these their statly and pleasant habitations shall perish and have an end CHAP. IV. IN this chapter the Lord goeth on with the processe against Israel yet inviting them to repentance that they may prevent the small stroak and 1. He accuseth and sentenceth their great ones for their cruel oppression v. 1.2.3 2. He challengeth them for and giveth them up unto the idolatry of the calves in following whereof they were so obstinate v. 4.5 3. He challengeth them for incorrigiblnesse and impenitence under all the judgements that formerly had been sent to reclaim them v. 6. 11. Unto which he sub-joines a sentence of further judgements v. 12. which since they were not able to resist he exhorts them to prevent by repentance considering the advantage they had of a Covenant yet standing betwixt God and them v. 12. and considering what a Lord he was with whom they had to do v. 13. Verse 1. HEar this word ye kine of Bashan that are in the mountain of Samaria which oppresse the poor which crush the needy which say to their masters Bring and let us drink In this first article of accusation the Lord prosecuts that processe for cruel and covetous oppression which he had begun chap. 3.9 10. And in this v. he calls the Nobles and Judges of the chief City Samaria to hear what he had to say against them for their oppression and crushing of the poor and meaner sort and he laieth to their charge that they stirred up one another as they had power over the poor by being Creditors or Judges in their causes to poll them that so they might have among them wherewith to satisfie their lusts Or they being Judges did conspire with the Creditors and Masters of the poor to crush them providing they got a bribe wherewith to make merry He compareth them to kine of Bashan which was fit place for pasturage Num. 32.4 Deut. 32.14 because they were not onely fatted and made brutish and insolent by prosperity upon which grounds enemies are compared to bulls of Bashan Psal 22.12 but were also become effeminate thereby Doct. 1. Nobles Judges and great and potent men are ordinarily the ringleaders of all provocations in a land and such as God hath most to say against for these are understood by kine of Bashan that are in the mountain of Samaria and especially the Judges as
judgements when God sends them the sinner that avoids one may expect to meet with another and he may expect a plague where he thinks to be most secure for it is As if a man did flee from a lion and a bear met him or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall expecting to be upheld and a serpent bit him or an unexpected stroak came upon him See Isa 24.17 18. From v. 20. learn 1. The sadnesse of a day of judgements and calamities is not soon seen nor laied to heart and men should seriously consider it before hand that so they may be stirred up to prevent it that they may not feele it Therefore is it again inculcate and repeated shall not the day of the Lord be darknesse and not light 2. The Lord needs no more to prove the truth of what his word saith but mens own consciences which will be a witnesse against their atheisme and presumption however for present they lull them asleep and seare them with an hot iron Therefore doth he put the matter to their own consciences shall not the day of the Lord be darknesse c as being witnesses that might and in due time would speak for him 3. Albeit the truly godly will have still allowance of some light in trouble though sometime tentation hide it from them Isa 50.10 and may sometime attain to some measure of their allowance Psal 112.4 and may certainly expect that there will be a cleare and comfortable issue from their troubles Mic. 7.8 Yet it is terrible to think how dreadful a day of vengeance will be to the wicked how grevious and perplexing their miseries will be and how destitude they will be either of present comfort or of any hope of it for the future Therefore is it added by way of explication even very dark and no brightnesse in it Verse 21. I hate I despise your feast dayes and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies 22. Though ye offer me burnt-offerings and your meat-offerings I will not accept them neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts 23. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs for I will not hear the melody of thy viols 24. But let judgement run down as waters and righteousnesse as a mighty stream The second carnal and presumptuous confidence which the Lord refutes is their hypocritical resting upon their ceremonial observations in keeping sacred solemnities offerings sacrifices of all kindes and using of songs and musical Instruments in their Temples all which they observed in imitation of Judah And concerning these the Lord declareth that however they pleased themselves in them and thought that he accepted thereof and of themselves for their service sake Yet he abhorred them and could not endure them The reasons whereof are first That these performances were not of divine institution but of their own inventions and therefore all along are called yours or thine The second reason is more expressly held forth v. 24. Which is not a threatning that his righteous judgements inflicted for these sins so abhorred of him should carry all down before them like an impetuous stream but an exhortation that they would study to abound in righteousnesse and justice the want whereof was a cause why no such ceremonial service could be respected This reason pleads against the acceptance even of institute ceremonial worship when the worshiper rests upon it not seeking to be reconciled to God through Christ whom these ceremonies pointed at nor proving the sincerity of his Religion by the fruits of righteousnesse and new obedience And in this respect we finde the same sentence given out against the Jewish worship Isa 1.11 12 13 14. and 66.3 Jer. 6.20 Much more might it be pleaded against them who not onely rejected Gods institution and command in the matter of their worship but would not so much as study that behavour which God required in those who worship him according to the Rule and yet they rested on it Doct. 1. This place holds out yet more parts beside what is spoken to chapter 4.4 5. of Gods approven Ceremonial service which Israel pretended to imitate from which we may gather some instructions And first Their Feast Dayes and Solemn Assemblies or restraints from labour and other distractions that they might attend solemn worship do teach 1. The people of God have matter of joy and feasting allowed unto them in Christ and they who embrace him should labour to enjoy and possesse their allowance Therefore had they Feasts the substance whereof was Christ which they observed 2. The Lord requireth that beside the worship performed to him ordinarily and daily there be solemn publick worship in his Church and that men performe the same on the times appointed by him for that end and when his providence calleth them to any extraordinary duty So much is pointed out by their selemn assemblies 3. Albeit the Lord doth not allow any to cast off a calling under pretext of following his service yet he requireth that our following our callings do not hinder his worship and that when he calleth us to solemn worship we lay aside the distractions of our employments and what else may hinder the right performance thereof for their solemn assemblies were restraints also as the word imports Which in their festivites imported not onely restraint from their ordinary employments but from their drouping discouragements also that they might rejoyce in God Neh. 8.9 10. And in their solemn fasts imported also their restraint from lawful delights that they might waite upon the work to which they were called 2. Secondly their burnt-offerings of which Lev. 1. which were daily offered Lev. 6.12 Exod. 29.38 39. and which were joined with other sacrifices partly in that they were daily offered when other sacrifices of praise or for particular sins were offered and before them and partly that their peace-offrings were laid upon them on the Altar Lev. 3.5 and they were joyned with their offerings for particular guilt Lev. 5.7 10. These I say do teach 1. Whatever men may pretend to in particular duties of worship yet all that will not availe unlesse first men make sure the renovation of their nature and that they have closed with Christ for reconciliation of their persons So much was signified by the burnt-offering for all their sins and for the corruption of their nature which they offered daily and with other sacrifices 2. As praise for particular mercies will sound well from them who have assurance of reconciliation through Christ So no particular favour or mercy within time should make us forget our misery or need of Christ or hinder us to make daily use of him So much did the joyning of offerings of praise with the burnt-offerings teach 3. As men ought not to sleep securely under particular and daily contracted guiltinesse nor dreame that it is enough that their persons are reconciled with God unlesse they also flee to Christ for expiation
of their daily faults of ignorance and infirmity for so under the Law they had trespasse-offerings and sin-offerings beside their burnt-offerings So men that make right use of Christ to expiate particular guiltinesse will be led by their falling therein to study yet more the corruption of their nature and general pollution and to flee to Christ that the evidences of their reconciliation may be made clear unto them after such a cloud upon them So much doth the joyning of offerings for particular sins with the burnt-offerings teach Thirdly their meat-offerings of which Lev. 2. and the peace-offerings of their fat beasts of which Lev. 3. which were several sorts of thank offerings do teach 1. Praise is to be made conscience of by all those who live in visible Covenant with God and his mercies towards them are not to be buried in oblivion So much did the appointing and practice of these offerings teach 2. The Lord is so gracious and condescending that however he will not appove of sleighters of his service Mal. 1.14 Yet he will not respect his servants according to the greatnesse of their gift but according to the sincerity of the offerer Therefore did he appoint both meat-offerings and peace-offerings of beasts for praise that such as could not afford a beast to offer might not be discouraged if they were willing but might bring a little floure and such things as they had This condescendence was observed also in other sacrifices Lev. 5.7 11. and 12.8 3. Such as make conscience to offer praise unto God do reap much advantage unto themselves and Ministers may look for sweet dayes to themselves and for fair spiritual allowances and enlargements when they minister unto a people whose hearts are in love with God and taken up with his praise therefore also was it called a meat-offering because the Priests got a share of these offerings to eat as both they and the people also did get a part of the peace-offering of beasts 4. Men are bound to offer praise to God not onely for his special favours and singular mercies but even for common providences and favours if it were of meat and drink So much also was signified by their meat-offering as signifying that they acknowledged they had their meat of God Albeit these mercies be common and ordinary and therefore little thought of yet they are in themselves greater and more needful then many mercies with the want or enjoyment whereof we are more affected And conscience being made of praise for these it will prove a meane to draw down more special and sensible mercies 5. Whatever the Lord accept of his poor and empty people yet he requireth that we offer him the choice of what we have and particularly that we go not about praise with formal dispositions Therefore required he the fat in these sacrifices Lev. 3.3 c. and therefore it is required they be fat beasts 6. Albeit praise be in it selfe an excellent performance and men are ready to conceit of it who attain to it Yet Christ must be employed for the acceptance of it and the offerer must hide himselfe and his service under Christs righteousnesse otherwise the best of it is an abomination before the Lord So much is signified not onely in that burnt-offerings were to be joined with this offering as is before marked but that all of them must be offerings and laid upon the Altar there to go up with acceptance And Christ is the substance as of the offering so of the Altar which sanctifieth the gift Math. 23.19 Fourthly their songs and use of viols do teach 1. Singing of Psalmes and spiritual songs is an ordinance of God and a part of his service and meane of setting out his praise 2. Praise is a duty for the performance whereof we are especially unfit and a duty which requires the exciting of our selves and all the faculties of our soul and which needs special influence that we may go rightly about it for so much was imported by the Ceremoial use of viols and other musical instruments whereby they were excited and quickned to sing and whereby was signified the employing of all their strength in that work And albeit the Ceremony be ceased yet the thing signified thereby is still our duty Doct. 2. Whatever pains men seeme to take in a way of Religion and whatever time they devote to it or how specious soever their performances seeme to be yet it will be all to no purpose where Gods warrant and institution for these performances are wanting Neither will God accept that men dedicate and consecrate a day to him as holy when he hath not appointed it to be so in his word nor will he accept of any service where a divine institution is wanting in whole or in part Therefore doth he reject all these as their own since their dayes were not the dayes appointed by him and their services were not performed in the right place nor by the right Priests 3. The Lords dislike of will-worship and the devices of men in the matter of Religion is not onely a simple dislike or not approving of it though that be sad enough seeing it is his acceptance that makes our service of any worth or use But he doth exceedingly abhort it as a thing he cannot endure that men should be so presumptuous as to take his roome to prescribe the way of Religion and to come before him with that which he hath not appointed So much do all the expressions of the dislike import I hate I despise your feast dayes I will not smell in your solemn assemblies or not accept or smell a savour of rest in your sacrifices offered at these times See Gen. 8.21 Exod. 29.18 Ezek. 20.40 41. I will not accept or regard offerings take away thy songs I will not hear thy viols 4. Such as professe that they have chosen the true God and in testimony thereof do offer external worship to him should prove the sincerity thereof and adorne their profession by a righteous conversation and by discretion and equity and justice in their dealing with men And as will-worshippers do make these as well as others commands of God of no effect by their traditions So this their miscarriage doth yet render their corrupting of Religion the more odious Therefore doth he insinuate that they were wanting in the matter of judgement and righteousnesse which if he would not endure in Judah who kept by the Rule in the matter of external worship how much more intolerable was it in them who regarded not how they walked and obtruded their own devices as a satisfaction to him 5. Righteousnesse and judgement are then rightly performed when men abound in the fruits thereof like waters and a mighty streame where there is much water When they are firme and constant in them like a streame and river that keeps the channel and when they are performed in zeal bearing down all opposition discouragement and tentation before it like a
any longer spare them nor hold off the extremity of desolation and ruine from coming upon the Nation But as a builder doth exactly try his work by his plumb-line to cast down what is not regular so he will not look upon their sinful courses any longer with an eye of mercy and pity and long-suffering but according to the strict rule of justice and he will exactly try how they have observed the Law in worship and manners and will accordingly recompence and not spare And so this relates to what was execute by Shalmaneser We have the same similitude made use of much to this purpose 2. Kings 21.13 Isa 34.11 Lam. 2.8 and somewhat like it is spoken of Dan. 5.27 Doct. 1. It is our duty to be attentive to what God reveals of himself and of his minde as being well worth the marking and we have need to be excited to consider it even when it most nearly concerns us Therefore is Amos quickned to consider this type by a question Amos what feest thou 2. When men are most attentive in considering and do see most of what God manifests yet they will not profit as becomes without Gods help and unlesse he explain his own minde from step to step for though Amos see the type and give an account what it is yet he doth not understand the signification thereof till God reveal in it to him 3. When extreame judgements are nearest approaching ordinarily they are little discerned by them who are concerned for so much may be imported in this that however Amos presently understood the former types yet he cannot understand this pointing out the utter desolation though he see it till God expound it 4. A people who have formerly reaped the fruits of Gods long-suffering even once and again and after they have abused them are not to expect that he will spare them when they continue in sin and make no use of his goodnesse for after his former long suffering held forth in the former visions it comes now to this I will not again passe by them any more to wit to deale moderately and passe over their provocations and spare them or but lightly touch them as in passing as he had done formerly So the phrase to passe by imports See Mic. 7.18 5. God needs no more at any time to ruine a people but exactly consider their sins according to the Law and punish them accordingly and he will do so to all such as make no use of Christ but continue in sin and turn the grace of God into wantonnesse for so much is signified by setting a plumb-line in the midst of Israel as is before explained 6. No priviledge or pretence of interest in God will secure impenitent sinners nor availe them to prevent even utter desolation Therefore doth he give them their title my people Israel in the very sentence to shew that this should availe them nothing to hold it off 7. When God reckons with his people it will be a sad account that he hath taken much pains upon them and furnished them with notable means of doing well and yet they have degenerate So much is signified in that they were sometime a wall made by a plumb-line whom now he tries by a plumb-line See Jer. 2.21 8. It is a sad evidence that judgements do tend to utter ruine when prayer is restrained under them So much seemeth to be signified in that Amos intercedes not here as formerly And we finde it foretold that during the captivity of Babylon prayer should be restrained Ezek. 24.23 And it is regrated that it was so Dan. 9.13 Verse 9. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid wast and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword This sentence of their utter ruine is further enlarged and explained and it is declared that especially he will destroy their idolatry and lay the places thereof desolate and that he will cut off the house of their King and so pull away the two pillars upon which their state leaned This stroak on Jeroboam the seconds family was accomplished as we finde 2. Kings 15.8 9 10. after which the Kingdome decayed daily and came to ruine speedily Doct. 1. Idolatry and a false religion is one prop of a state which will soonest faile it of any and a sin which God will least spare in his people of any course they take for so did Israel finde in the matter of what they accounted their Sanctuaries and their high places 2. The Lord is so provoked against idolatry and a false religion among his people that he will be satisfied with no lesse then the utter overthrow thereof and the desolation of the places where it is practised if no other course will draw men from it Therefore he threatens that their high places and Sanctuaries shall be desolate and laid waste 3. The most specious pretences of imitating and respecting godly progenitours in idolatrous courses will not justifie them were they never so many But that abuse and pretence will adde to the controversie Therefore are they called the high places of Isaac who worshipped God publickly in several places of that land chiefly at Beersheba as is marked on chap. 5.5 and the sanctuaries of Israel who met with God and worshipped him in several places especially at Bethel And by this is declared that their pretence of imitating them in choosing these places should not hold off the stroak but rather help it on 4. Royal authority and the command of Rulers can as little justifie idolatry as the pretence of the example of Progenitours But Rulers do thereby rather draw violent destruction upon themselves and their families which God is able to inflict when he pleaseth for saith he I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword 5. The violent judgements that come even upon wicked Rulers are tokens of wrath and a meane to draw it on upon a sinful land for this against the house of Jeroboam is brought in as helping on that sad stroak upon the whole Nation v. 8. Vers 10. Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel saying Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel the land is not able to bear all his words 11. For thus Amos saith Jeroboam shall die by the sword and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land Followeth to the end of the chapter the prophets trials from the false priests at Bethel with his carriage in relation thereunto This priest doth First in these verses accuse him to the King Wherein 1. He chargeth him with treason and open rebellion and that he excited the people against authority by his doctrine against him 2. He declareth that the land cannot bear all his words whereby may be signified that upon his doctrine the land is like to be shaken with commotions tumults and conspiracies Either the subjects being afflicted
wait any more upon them or spare them But as summer fruits do portend a ripe harvest or that it is near approaching so their sins were such as made them ripe for destruction And as ripe fruits are plucked down and gathered into baskets and eaten So should the greedy enemies devour and destroy them Whence learn 1. People that are nearest destruction are ordinarily so stupid that they need to be often told of their danger And God seeth it ofttimes meet to give them frequent warnings that they may be without excuse Therefore is this new type held forth with the explication thereof containing the same in substance that was spoken to chap. 7.7 8. 2. As threatnings according to the word in the mouths of Gods servants are of him and not devised by them for the Lord God shewed this type and expounded it So they have need to be still of new excited to consider what God reveals and to have raised thoughts upon it that so they may excite others to the like attention Therefore a Behold is prefixed to the type and Amos is put to consider it by a question Amos what seest thou which points also at the duty of all who hear it 3. Sin though it be long forborne will at last ripen and come to an height and when it is so the Lord will not spare notwithstanding his former long-suffering and moderation So much doth this type point out and the explication thereof The end is come I will not again passe by them any more which is the same with chap. 7 8. 4. It is mens duty to see that what God saieth may take deep impression And for this end as Ministers should avoid the wisdom of words which corrupt the simplicity of Religion and the Gospel so it is lawful and needful that they expresse the matters of God so as may render them most taking and make them stick fastest Therefore is there not onely a type used but in the Original there is an affinity in sound and almost in the word betwixt the type summer fruits and the thing signified the end And this is made use of to inculcate the matter and cause it stick in their memory 5. Men are so prone to lean to carnal confidences and particularly on their visible interest in God as if that would hold off deserved judgements that it is the duty of Gods servants frequently to discover the deceitfulnesse of such a course Therefore again do they get a name of interest in the sentence my people Israel to shew that such a pretence will faile them 6. When God proceeds to severity against his people it will adde to the bitternesse thereof that he had dealt otherwise and they have made no use thereof Therefore is it put in the sentence that he will not passe by them again any more as he had done formerly Verse 3. And the songs of the temples shall be howlings in that day saith the Lord God there shall be many dead bodies in every place they shall cast them forth with silence The greatnesse of this near approaching calamity is held forth from two effectes 1. That their joyful songs even in their Temples and at their sacred solemnities should cease and in place thereof there should be the howling of the afflicted 2. That there should be so great a mortality by reason of sword or famine or pestilence or altogether that they should cast the dead out of the way or in common pits and bury them without lamentation or publick solemnity Whence learn 1. It is a sad evidence of Gods displeasure when sacred solemnities cease and nothing is left in place thereof but sorrow and lamentation for so much doth this sentence teach in general whatever their Religion was 2. Whatever be the joy of the wicked and their pleasing of themselves in their corrupt and idoratrous worship yet it will at last end in sorow for the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day saith the Lord God 3. When God pleads a controversie with a Nation it is righteous with him not onely to break their power and bring them in subjection unto their enemies but also to pursue particular persons with plagues to the cutting off of not a few of them for there shall be many dead bodies in every place 4. Albeit it may be the lot even of the godly under calamities and persecutions to be cut off and want burial Psal 79.2 3. Yet the want of ordinary burial or to be buried without usual decency and lamentation is a judgement upon the wicked wherein Gods hand is to be seen in pouring contempt upon them after they are dead and stupifying the living with multitudes of calamities for it is a judgement they shall cast them forth with silence where by silence is to be understood especially want of funeral lamentations usually among them though chap. 6.10 it be taken in another sense Verse 4. Hear this O ye that swallow up the needy even to make the poor of the land to fail 5. Saying When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn and the sabbath that we may set forth wheat making the ephah small and the shekel great and falsifying the balances by deceit 6. That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes and sell the refuse of the wheat The equity of this sad sentence is cleared by shewing what are the causes procuring it one whereof relating chiefly to the second Table is here laid to their charge another concerning Religion is spoken to v. 14. In these verses he calls the richer and greater sort especially to hear these sad tidings and chargeth upon them 1. That they were cruel and inhumane to the poor and swallowed them up by oppression so that they were made to fail or cease that is they were not able to subsist but were put off the world by their cruelty v. 4. 2. That they wearied off dayes of solemnity and sacred meetings which they kept in imitation of Judah and longed to have them over that they might follow their gain and satisfie their coveteous humours v. 5. 3. That they were not onely covetous and followed gain eagerly in a lawful calling but they were both deceitful and cruel in their bargains They both wronged and falsified the measuers whereby they sold out their commodities and their weights whereby they weighed the mony according to their custome at that time that came in unto them They were not content to spoile the poor of their money but got them made slaves and bondmen to them for a thing of nought and though they had corrupted both measures and weights yet they sold not good commodities but corrupted their wares and made gain of the chaffe and refuse of wheat as if it were good v. 5 6. Doct. 1. The Lord would not have rods dumb but speaking to guilt and when he threatens it concerns the guilty to hear and though they be averse from
preserve a people from being utterly consumed is a great proof of Gods mercy and ought to be acknowledged as such For this is held out as a fruit of his kindled repentings I will not execute the fiercenesse of mine anger I will not return to destroy Ephraim c. See Lam. 3.22 That this may be well discerned 1. We would not only see what we suffer but consider what we deserve 2. We would take up the dreadfulnesse of the fiercenesse of anger against sin and how much mercy it speaks and how it proves him to be God that he doth set any bounds to it and that he doth not pursue with stroak after stroak till he cease to be but lets us subsist under our saddest condition 3. Though we be readily imbittered under present troubles and that we are not rid of them even by cutting off when there is no other present issue yet that is but our pride and our case would appear otherwise if we considered that preservation may portend much future good to be laid up for a people or for the Elect among them as the Lord here manifests afterward Doct. 5. It is the great mercy and advantage of the Lords sinful people that they have to do with God and not with man in their miscarriages For mans pity and mercy may be exhausted were it never so great but God is infinit pitiful and merciful men may for a time be so totally transported with anger as to do that which afterward they will repent of but he is the Lord not subject to such perturbations Man may change and his love turne into hatred He is the Lord and changeth not Man may think it dishonourable to agree with or spare an inferiour when he stoops not to him God is so far above the creature as he may when he will think him below his indignation and magnifie his mercy upon him and man in his executing justice is a creature and bound to a Law which he may not transgresse but God is Sovereigne and hath mercy on whom he will Upon these considerations it is that this is subjoyned as a reason of the promise and ground of their encouragement for I am God and not man 6. The Lords relation to and interest in a people may stand unaltered when yet he doth because of sin smite them with sore judgements drive them into exile and keep them long so under sad distresse For so is held out to Israel that notwithstanding all he was to do unto them yet he still is the Holy One of Israel or God of Israel in the midst of thee as to the standing of the Covenant-right to be manifested in due time Rom. 11.28 29. 7. God is so pure and holy that not only his anger against his people is without all mixture of any thing that may be an imputation to him but there shall be no cause of imputing to him any breach of promise however he afflict Therefore it is added the Holy One of Israel who can be charged with no blemish and who hath given his Holinesse as a pledge of the stability of his Covenant even when he afflicts most sharply Psal 89.35 Ver. 10. They shall walk after the LORD he shall roare like a lion when he shall roare then the children shall tremble from the West 11. They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt and as a dove out of the land of Assyria and I will place them in their houses saith the LORD In the second promise the Lord undertakes further that not only he will not consume Israel under their troubles but that after their rejection and exile he will convert them to follow him that the Lord will declare himself so terrible as none shall dare to hinder their return and themselves shall tremble to resist the call of God bidding them return but shall go as affrighted sparrowes and doves from all the places where they are scattered And that God will place them not only in the Church but as would appear in their land and houses to serve him in peace And this is a promise to Ephraim or the ten Tribes v. 8 9. Doct. 1. The Lords preserving of his people how long soever rejected and scattered may at last end in much good to them as this promise to Israel subjoyned to the former doth teach 2. Conversion unto God is the dawning of this fair day and here his purpose of good begins openly to manifest it self toward these whom he hath long preserved For this is the first visible effect of his mercy toward Israel They shall walk after the LORD or be converted 3. Such as are truly converted will take God for a teacher to follow his directions and for their captain to be employed where-ever he commands in doing or suffering and he will be a guide and captaine to such For so is their conversion described They shall walk after the LORD 4. When a people turne to God and follow after him he will manifest himself terrible to all who would stand in the way of their felicity For he shall roare like a lion not only by the voice of the Gospel working upon Israels hearts but shall manifest himself to the terrour of the world who will be alarmed by the conversion of Israel and their appearing on the stage again 5. The dreadfulnesse of God ought to work even upon his converted people to affright them from neglecting duty and to make them tender-hearted before him For when he shall roare the children shall tremble from the West They shall tremble as a bird and as a dove that is the dreadfulnesse of God shall not only make them with reverence flee to him but shall make them afraid to sit Gods call inviting them to return as appears to their land whatever difficulty there be in the way 6. The Lord will not lose his scattered people and especially Israel but will seek them and finde them to do them good in whatsoever corner they are For from the West out of Egypt and out of the land of Assyria that is in all quarters he will finde and bring them to restore them 7. The Lord is sufficiently able to settle his people in their wonted enjoyments after long tossing and for this Gods undertaking and promising of it is ground of hope sufficient For I will place them in their houses saith the LORD Ver. 12. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies and the house of Israel with deceit but Judah yet ruleth with God and is faithful with the Saints In this Verse which agreeth best with the beginning of Chap. 12. we have the third part of the Chap. Wherein the Lord rejects Israels and their Rulers excuses whereby they thought to cover their faults in Religion and conversation These they made a pretence of before God that they might prevent plagues and they did cast them up to the Prophets when they threatned but the Lord declares them to be but false and deceitful pretences And to
aggreage their sin and vexe them the more he commends Judah at least for having a lawful Kingdom in Davids posterity wherein they ruled with Gods approbation And that in the matter of prescribed worship in Religion they were faithful as became Saints keeping the faith and Religion received from their religious ancestors and keeping the true Priesthood This commendation is given to Judah not only because they still clave to their lawful Magistrate but even in the matters of Religion though at some times they revolted in much yet they were so yet to wit when Israel revolted they had not corrupted Religion whatever were the failings of Solomon See 2 Chron. 13.4 12. and sometimes thereafter they were so also and in all the dayes of Hosea's Ministery their Kings excepting Ahaz were none of the worst friends to Religion and some of them zealous Reformers in whose time it may be this was preached yea in the times of their foul defections they for most part carried still some respect to the Temple and Priesthood Doct. 1. Whatever mercy the Lord manifest to be in his heart toward sinners yet that gives no warrant to them to please themselves in sin or to think that the Lord takes lesse notice of it or abhorreth it the lesse To prevent this the Lord returns to wonted challenges after the former promises 2. Evil courses in a land ordinarily begin at the Rulers and what they are that the people do prove For what Ephraim is guilty of that the house of Israel joyn in 3. When men go furthest wrong readily their courses will not appear to themselves in their worst colours nor will they let them be seen so to others but will palliate and cloak them over the best they may For it is charged upon them here that they used lies and deceit that is false pretences and excuses wherewith they thought to justifie their course 4. Such pretences are dangerous plagues to men and a cause of Gods controversie especially when they dare present them to God as such as he will approve and because of them not plague their courses and when they hinder the Word from taking effect For it is a challenge they compasse me about with lies which may be understood either as Gods speech complaining that by these they would as it were besiege and keep him in from plaguing of them or the Prophets whom they would hinder from uttering threatenings against a course which they endeavoured to render so plausible 5. Whatever pretences men betake themselves unto yet God doth see through them and his Word will call them what they are And he hath declared that all pretences for justifying a sinful course are but mens deceiving of themselves and as they bear no weight before God so they will disappoint the sinner in end Therefore whatever they accounted these courses to be yet God by his Prophet pronounceth them lies and deceit 6. As it is the commendation of people to stand fast when others do decline as here Judah is commended So it will be a great addition to a peoples sin and ditty when they go wrong and yet are so far from being seduced by others that they have a contrary example from them For this addes to Israels sin that they did all this when Judah yet rules with God 7. The holding up and continuing of civil government according to Gods appointment and the rules of his Word is a commendable duty and it is a peoples great sin when it is otherwise For it is Judahs commendation he ruleth with God not only many of his Rulers act for God which is a presage of good to a Land but the way of Government is lawful and approven wherein Israel failed 8. It is the duty of such as do embrace the true Religion to be in reality Saints that they may reap the fruit of Religion and adorne their profession For it is the commendation of their progenitours who transmitted the truth to Judah that they were Saints 9. Whatever may be the other failings of a people yet it is matter of commendation to keep even external Religion pure as it is transmitted from pious Ancestors according to the Word For such is Judahs commendation he is faithful with the Saints whereby Hosea would not cover their other faults which he elsewhere reproveth and leaveth to be reprehended especially by their own Prophets Only he sheweth that this was commendable in it self and that in this they had out-stripped Israel And when he saith he is faithful with the Saints his meaning is not to justifie every thing as imitable because it is in a Saint or Saints as if their infirmities were all to be licked up But his meaning is to shew that Judahs Religion as it was in the first place aggreeable to the rule so it was followed by their progenitours and transmitted by them as such neither of which Israel could alleadge for their way though they gloried in their Progenitours as much as Judah CHAP. XII IN this Chap. the Lord insisteth to accuse Israel especially for sin seconding the challenges with exhortations and threatenings And 1. Having accused Ephraim for following empty and vain courses to his own prejudice v. 1. and threatned both him and Judah v. 2. He sets before them the example of their Father Jacob in his carriage and successe v. 3 4. inviting them to follow his footsteps in hope of like successe from him who is an unchangeable God v. 5 6. 2. He returnes to challenge them for being so unlike Jacob in their way And particularly he accuseth them of covetousnesse accompanied with deceit and oppression v. â— and of pleasing themselves in their way v. 8. for which he threatens them with exile yet promising to restore them v. 9. Next he challengeth them for contempt of the Word v. 10. for increase of Idolatry and excusing of it with vain pretences v. 11. for causelesse boasting of their Original and Predecessours v. 12 13. and generally for their bitter and ingrate provoking of God v. 14. for which he threatens them v. 14. Vers 1. EPhraim feedeth on winde and followeth after the East-winde he daily increaseth lies and desolation and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians and oile is carried into Egypt In this Verse the ten Tribes are challenged for their empty and vain hopes and shifts and particularly for their hunting after humane helps and confidences and their making Covenants and sending presents on every hand for that end This the Lord pronounceth to be not only an unprofitable but an hurtful course which he expresseth partly in borrowed tearms of feeding on winde an empty thing which may fill but cannot feed and following the East-winde which was tempestuous and noisome in these Countreys Gen. 41.6 Isa 27.8 Jon. 4.8 and partly in more proper tearmes calling their courses lies and desolation Whence learn 1. It is no unusual thing to see men abound in empty and false hopes whereby they may as they think hold