added in speculation of that To shadow the time of his coming before which the general Peace and plenty of all things shall seem to usher in the great Peace-maker I may speak to the cattel such as we heard awhile ago crying out for want of food and tell them that our happinesse in the near approach of the Messias shall not begin without some comfort to the very beasts of the field For The Pastures of the wildernesse shall put on the face of joy and the colour which they delight in And the trees if they show not the same colour shall show such plenty and variety of fruit as shall best expresse them to be in a flourishing estate Among them the Fig-tree and the vine that we most enquire after shall show the choicest fruit in their kind that we could expect from them 23. And while the earth and trees and dum Creatures partake of so much refreshment much more shall our hearts be enlarged with spiritual joy and comfort Therefore do you Citizens of Jerusalem and inhabitants of Judaea or you rather that make up the true Israel of God and members of the holy Church whereof Ierusalem is a type Do you studie how to expresse the solace and content that must needs follow upon the coming of the Messiah the true Doctor and Teacher of Righteousnesse which under the same name shall bring you the best rain and showers from Heaven in the preaching of his holy word both the first rain that helps up the first hopes of fruit and the latter rain which shall in due time secure us of a happy harvest in the higher and more spiritual sense of the successe of the Gospel 24. Such a happy harvest under the Messias his Kingdom will fill all places with plenty of spiritual food The richest flower of the best wheat the most and best liquor from the choicest Vine and Olive will be but poor emblemes and figures of it 25. This plenty will obliterate the memory of your former greatest famine or what other misery happened to the body from those mighty armies of hungry locusts the Grassehoppers Cankerworms Caterpillers and Palmerworms that I sent among you This plenty will be abundant recompense for those times of want and distresse 26. For if you will bring souls hungry and thirsty and longing to be refreshed with the best cordials and the true manna the food of life that came down from Heaven It is to be had without money You may freely eat and be fully satisfied and have cause enough to return all possible praise and thanksgiving to the Lord your God for those wonderful unspeakable mercies which may further oblige you to a confident and constant devoting of your selves to his service without any more revolting or forsaking of him as if you were ashamed of your profession 27. To which end you shall see enough to make you know that I am in the midst of Israel and I am the Lord your God and no other beside me whether we understand it of our Saviours corporal presence and dwelling here as God and Man or of his invisible assistance and government of his Church Therefore I might well say that you shall be sufficiently obliged to his service and to such a trust and confidence and joy in Him as shall make you triumph in your holy Calling rather then any way be ashamed of it 28. After these times of your enjoying the happy sight of the Messias I will also send down my holy Spirit in a visible form and bestow his Spiritual Graces in such abundance upon all sorts of men though they are but flesh and blood that some even illeterate persons men and women of your own nation shall show the power of a divine prophetick spirit to the speedy and successeful propagation of the gospel To which in the fuller progresse there shall not a little be added by that which in dreams and visions shall be revealed not onely to some of the elder but to some also of the younger sort 29. And as no sex or nation so neither any rank or order of men bond or free masters or servants shall be excluded from this high priviledge of partaking of the gifts of the Holy Ghost 30. Not long after this prosperous beginning and divulging of the gospel many prodigious signs will appear as presages and forerunners of the fearful destruction of Ierusalem the sad punishment of their rebellion and unbelief wonders in heaven and earth beside the effusion of much blood in the slaughter of many men in several places and the flames of fire and pillars of smoak that will appear in the burning and destroying of many Towns 31. Upon which there will follow such a dark and dismal aspect and alteration of the glorious light above as will plainly fore-speak a sad and bloody confusion and alteration in the Jewish state that under the Romans exceeding and compleating that under the Chaldeans of the great and terrible day of the Lords coming in judgement against this sinful nation 32. Yet in all this misery as the severity of God will be seen in the destruction of obstinate sinners so his mercy and succour will not be excluded from any that call upon Him with an obedient faith Sion and Ierusalem shall not then want such a means of deliverance And that mercy shall be continued for ever to the remnant of the Iews that will obey the voice of their Messias in the Gospel the voice of their Lord God that shall call them to repentance CHAP. III. 1. FOr behold in those dayes and in that time when I shall bring again the captivity of Iudah and Ierusalem 2 I will also gather all nations and will bring them down into the vally of Ieboshaphat and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land 3 And they have cast lots for my people and have given a boy for an harlot and sold a girle for wine that they might drink 4 Yea and what have ye to do with me O Tyre and Zidon and all the coasts of Palestine will ye render me a recompense and if ye recompense me swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head 5 Because ye have taken my silver and my gold and have carried into your Temples my goodly pleasant things 6 The children also of Iudah and the children of Ierusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians that ye might remove them farre from their border 7 Behold I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them and wil return your recompense upon your own head 8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Iudah and they shall sell them to the Sabeans to a people far off for the Lord hath spoken it 9 Proclaim ye this among the gentiles prepare war make up the mighty
speak what God had put into his mouth 11. Yet not venturing rashly to make away an Ebrew and so near a Servant to the great Creator and Governour of all things they advised with himself what was fittest to be done to him that they might appease the wrath of God and so quiet the raging Sea which seemed still more and more to swell and beget more trouble to them 12. Then spake the Prophet as from the oracle of God and told them that their safety could not be otherwise procured than by casting him over board and so committing him to the mercy of God And that this their execution of divine Iustice upon him would calm and still the roaring Sea which called aloud for vengeance against him and would not be silent but upon his patient offering himself to the mercy of Almighty God and so becoming some means of their deliverance from what himself had been a main instrument to bring upon them wherein he was a type of Christ that offered himself to a crueller death for the salvation of the world 13. Neverthelesse Jonas his readinesse to die for them melted the hearts of the rude Mariners I wish our Saviours offering himself for us could work the like effect in us all They resolved now to venture themselves a little further for his sake rather than secure themselves by his death And casting about in their minds all the waies by which they might preserve him they pitched upon this as the likeliest to try whether by rowing the ship to dry land they might not save themselves and him too But after much labour they see that they could not do it For the more they strived to gain the land the more fiercely did the wind and weather beat them into new danger upon the Sea 14. At last though forced unto it yet they would not be executioners of the death of a Prophet till they had prayed to Almighty God whose power the Prophet had made known to them that they might not be called to account for the losse of his life nor his innocent blood any way laid to their charge because all these things the extraordinary tempest the event of the lottery and Jonah's own confession appeared plainly to fall out and be wholly ordered and directed according to his own divine dispensation and holy will and pleasure In all which prayer of the Mariners they were no types of the cruelty of the Jewes to our Saviour when he died for us 15. After this but much against their wills they took up Jonah that willingly yeilded himself and cast him into the Sea which being done there followed a sudden and great calm The boisterous waves and whistling winds were laid As the fury of Death and Sathan was quelled upon our Saviours exposing himself to Death for our Salvation 16. These things wrought in the Seamen a wonderfull Fear and Reverence of the true God the Creator and Lord of all things Of whom they might have heard something in Joppe and other places of the holy land but these passages concerning Jonah and the words that he spake to them wrought so powerfully in their hearts that upon their safe landing again they offered sacrifice to the Lord after the way of Israel according to the vowes which they had made unto him when they were in danger adding other vowes which they intended afterwards to perform at their first opportunity 17. But God that is able to rescue us in all places and useth to be a present help in the greatest times of difficulty by his good providence and mercy had prepared a whale to swallow up Ionah alive and be as his prison or his keeper for a time And Ionah continued in the belly of the Fish three dayes and three nights and so again became a type of our Saviour that was three dayes and three nights in the heart of the earth CHAP. II. 1 THen Ionah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishes belly 2 And said I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of hell cried I and thou heardst my voice 3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas and the flouds compassed me about all thy billows and thy waves passed over me 4 Then I said I am cast out of thy sight yet I will look again toward thy holy temple 5 The waters compassed me about even unto the soul the depth closed me round about the weeds were wrapt about my head 6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains the earth with her bars was about me for ever yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption O Lord my God 7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy temple 8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy 9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanks-giving I will pay that that I have vowed salvation is of the Lord. 10 And the Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited out Ionah upon the dry land CHAP. II. 1. JOnah in the time of his abode within the Whale considering the miraculous securitie that he had being scarce out of the very mouth of one danger of being swallowed up by the sea and yet presently in the middest of another in the bellie of a vast and monstrous Fish did not forget to make his humble and yet confident prayer to the Lord his God a kind of Prophetical assurance of his deliverie from the Fish as well as from the Sea 2. And he framed his prayer to this purpose I cried unto the Lord out of that fearful affliction of mine that streightly compassed me about on every side and by the life yet left in my bodie with some degree of inward repose and quiet in my soul I quickly and easily perceived that he had accepted and answered my prayer Yes O my Gracious and Merciful God Out of the innermost parts of the Whale wherein I lay as in a kind of Grave or a shadow of darknesse like Hell it self for the time Even thence I cried and thou wert pleased to give ear to the voice of my groaning in my importunate prayer 3. Though what relief could I then in any reason have expected when thou hadst cast me into the innermost receptacles and bosome of the vast Seas where the overflowing of the waters circled me about and which was more terrible unto me my accusing thoughts in reflection upon thy heavy displeasure and my rebellious sin were like so many waves and surges that passed over me and afflicted my heavy soul. So that what the Royal Prophet once speak in a figure I find in a more literal and both sensible and spiritual way made good upon me 4. How could I then but take up those other words of the same Prophet wherein betwixt hope and discomfort he complains that he was cast
from the dayes of eternity for who can declare his generation 3. Therefore will he give to them of Judah what he hath promised i. a safe return out of their captivity and a place of abode again in their own Countrey till the time wherein she that is to bring forth the Messias shall bring forth that happinesse to the world and till the residue of his brethren for with that title shall he honour the lost sheep which he shall come to seek and reduce to his fold till they shall be converted and united to the rest of the children of Israel and so begin all to make one flock under one Shepherd 4. And he shall never cease to feed and govern that flock by no lesse than a divine power being advanced thereunto in no other name and authority then that of the great Iehovah his God as he shall then stile him when he hath humbled himself to that brother-hood which we named before under that care and government shall that flock of his dwell in joy and safety And good reason because from henceforth this our Prince and Messias shall be magnified and renowned not in Jurie onely but to all the ends of the earth 5. And this peace and prosperity of our nation shalt thou begin and not till then when the Assyrian shall have often entred into our land sometime of himself sometime as an auxiliarie of the Chaldaeans For he shall enter in a proud and hostile manner trampling down our fairest Palaces But this pride and malice shall be the occasion of his utter ruine and so of our more setled peace For we shall at last so far prevaile over the Assyrian by the assistance of Almighty God and his blessing upon our prayers and patience that we shall be the meanes of as great a tyranny over him to be exercised by many severall Governours great Princes and Commanders over men that shall lead them and rule them as easily as Sheep are by their Shepherds 6. And if these may be called Shepherds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as other Kings and Rulers are they shall be such as shall subdue and govern their stocks of Assyrians by the sword and the successors of Nimrod in Babylon with her own naked and terrible weapons Thus shall God punish them and give us a sure peace by delivering us from further fear of the Assyrian and letting us be revenged of him because he would needs enter so cruelly upon our land and so proudly trample us under him in our own borders 7. After this the remnant of Iacob being freed from all such tyranny shall be accounted by many other nations among whom they are seated as the dew which falls from heaven and as the drops of rain upon the grasse which expect not the power or pleasure of man or any son of man for their accesse or recesse from this or that place but are sent thither and blessed there by the sole power and favour of Almighty God 8. And in processe of time the posterity of this remnant of Iacob specially in the time of the Maccabies shall be in respect of their power and authoritie and command among the Gentiles and in the midst of many people as the Lion is among the beasts of the forrest and the young Lion among the flocks of the sheep who when he is pleased to passe thorough them doth tread them down and tear them in pieces without controule of any other that is able to rescue and deliver them in that distresse 9. Thus prosperously shall it fare with thy children and with thee O Israel when thy hand shall no sooner be lift up against thy enemies but they shall be cut off and fall before thee All which about the times of the Maccabies shall be but a figure of greater conquests that they shall have over all nations when after the dayes of the Messias they shall begin to subdue them and reduce them to his spirituall kingdom 10. This mention of Israels prosperity in these times must be accompanied with the Prophesie of thy ruine O Babylon For thus saith the Lord I will cut off the strength wherein thou makest thy boast the multitude of thy horses and chariots Them will I destroy with the riders that were so expert in managing of them both 11. And the best Cities of thy land will I lay waste and throw down all thy strong holds 12. And I will down with thy witch-crafts and thy magicall divinations And thy Soothsayers that were so cunning at them shall have no more to do within thee 13. Thy graven images and thy rich statues will I remove from the midst of thee so that thou shalt give no more worship to those vanities the workmanship of thy own hands 14. Thy superstitious groves and thy wealthy Cities will I utterly destroy 15. And in the fiercenesse of my anger will I revenge my self upon those nations which shall not then hear and obey those Conquerors and Governors which I shall please to set over the kingdom of Babylon CHAP. VI. 1. HEar ye now what the Lord saith Arise contend thou before the mountains and let the hills hear thy voice 2 Hear ye O mountains the Lords controversie and ye strong foundations of the earth for the Lord hath a controversie with his people and he will plead with Israel 3 O my people what have I done unto thee wherein have I wearied thee testifie against me 4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed thee out of the house of servants and I sent before thee Moses Aaron and Miriam 5 O my people remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal that ye may know the righteousnesse of the Lerd 6 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oyl shall I give my first born for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul 8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God 9 The Lords voice crieth unto the City and the man of wisdom shal see thy name hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it 10 Are there yet the tresures of wickednesse in the house of the wicked and the scant measure that is abominable 11 Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances and with the bag of deceitfull weights 12 For the rich men thereof are full of violence and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies and their tongue is deceitfull in their mouth 13 Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee in
making thee desolate because of thy sins 14 Thou shalt eat but not be satisfied and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee and thou shalt take hold but shalt not deliver and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword 15 Thou shalt sow but thou shalt not reap thou shalt tread the olives but thou shalt not anoint thee with oyl and sweet wine but shalt not drink wine 16 For the statutes of Omri are kept and all the works of the house of Ahab and ye walk in their counsels that I should make thee a desolation and thē inhabitants thereof an hissing therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people CHAP. VI. 1. BUt now least the people of God should be puft up and forget themselves in the meditation of the ruine and destruction of their enemies Let tbem hear what the Lord saith to me concerning them Come my Prophet saith he Rouse up thy best courage and faculties and thou shalt plead my cause against those mountains of Iudaea against the highest and proudest of them all that are so highly seated as most of them are in that countrey and to that end command attention from them 2. According to that injunction given to me by God himself I do now in the power of my Propheticall function lay this charge upon all you Hills that you prepare your selves to hear what I have to say all you that are lift up so high and seem to have a stronger foundation than other parts of the earth Though you are so well nested and bear the name of Gods people and therefore should have been more observant of his will yet even with you hath God a controversie and he will notwithstanding his own height above all hnmane reach and capacity vouchsafe to argue and plead with you of the seed of Israel a poor people not considerable among other vast parts of the world 3. This plea and complaint I am to deliver to you in his name and his person and in these termes O my people my peculiar people that I have chosen out of all the world What have I done against thee that should provoke thee to so many sins against me wherein have I disturbed and offended thee or deserved so ill at thy hands Bring in thy answer I pray thee and thy accusation against me if any such can be found 4. Or if I have done well for thee and dealt graciously with thee make a thatkfull acknowledgement of that Confesse how I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt and delivered thee from the place of bondage and servitude where you lived no better than slaves And how I sent as three speciall guides before thee Moses to instruct thee in my law and direct thee by his good example Aaron to be thy Priest and offer up sacrifices and pray for thee and Miriam to be a pattern of modesty and pietie and gravitie to the weaker sex 5. Besides all this O my people remember I pray thee what Balak King of Moab contrived against thee and what answer I put into the mouth of Balaam the son of Beor of thy safety and security if thou didst not bring destruction upon thy self by thy own default And forget not what wonderfull things I did for thee in all the way from Shittim unto Gilgal on either side of Jordan Of these things thou shouldst do well to make a loving and gratefull recognition that thou mayst so appear to take notice of the Iustice and Goodnesse of God 6. And that acknowledgement would be made in such words as these Wherewith shall I appear before the Lord and make tendry of my humble duty and observance unto the high God Shall I present my self before him with whole burnt-offerings in testimony of his dominion over all his creatures or shall I come to him with young calves or any other kind of sacrifice prescribed in the law 7. Can it be thought that God will be appeased and pacified with thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oyl Shall a man satisfie himself in giving his first-born for the transgressions or any fruit of his body as a satisfaction for the sins of his soule 8. No if I that am his Prophet may give answer to that question He hath showed thee O man whosoever thou art he hath sufficiently and plainly enough declared by his law and Prophets what he doth chiefly exact of thee as the best sacrifice and ransom that he wil accept And that is no other than to do justice and delight in shewing mercy and kindnesse to men and to demean thy self humbly and reverently in all thy addresses unto thy God 9. And now because the law and Prophets have not been herein observed the terrible voice of the Lord himself calls unto the City of Jerusalem to give her warning of what punishments her own sins have called for And when thou so callest O Lord it is true wisedom in him that will dread thy Majesty and fear thy name Give ear therefore you tribes of Israel and attend to him who hath appointed and decreed that which shall come upon you if you do not repent and bring forth the fruites of repentance 10. And when you examine your repentance let this question be asked Is there yet remaining to any one a house purchased by iniquity Hath any one yet by him treasures of wealth unjustly heaped together and the abominable false weight that wants much of what is justly to be allowed 11. And take another question with you as propounded by God himself who saith Shall I justifie and approve the unjust balances and the bag of deceitfull weights 12. Or shall I justifie that Citie whose wealthy Citizens are full of violence and oppression and her other inhabitants accustome themselves familiarly to speaking of lies and to have deceitfull tongues within their mouthes that deliver little or nothing from the heart 13. Therefore will I chastise thee O thou wicked Citie with such scourges as thou deservest with making thee poor and desolate because of thine offences that hast made others poor by thy violence and rapine 14. Thou shalt eat but thou shalt not be satisfied and thrive with it There shall be a kind of lanknesse and depression within thy belly for very famine For extremity whereof she that conceives shall not be able to bring forth or if she doth what she brings forth will I give up to the sword when that heavie siege comes wherein this scarcity and misery shall fall upon Jerusalem 15. And then what thou hast sowed thou shalt not reap the souldier shall doe it for thee Thou mayest tread the olives but thou shalt not anoint thee with the oyl And as much paines mayest thou take for thy sweet wine but in the end thou shalt have no wine to drink 16 And all this shall happen to thee O Israel because all
may in the mean while support it self 4. But that heavie faint distrustfull Soule that drawes back with feares and sad apprehensions of danger faster than affiance in divine promises can incite it forward that Soule is not yet in the right posture wherein it should be Nay it wants that which is the very life of a Soul that is in the right indeed For it is by a true constant Faith that the righteous man layes hold upon Life It is Faith and confidence in the truth of Gods word and promise which makes him accepted in the sight of God and is a good meanes both to keep him a constant servant of God in all Piety and Obedience which prepares him the more for the waies of his present delivery and to furnish him with a modest security of Happinesse hereafter For He that is made righteous or justified by Faith shall live for ever 5. Now he that labours for such a Faith is a fit Auditor for such a Prophesie as this which after this Preface I will now proceed to declare that you may with me in this Vision and Divine speculation from my Propheticall Watch-tower plainly foresee what our common Enemy the Chaldaean will prove after all the insolencies and presumptions upon his own fortunate successes our sad afflictions You might see him then drunk with wine drunk with pride and as a drunken man so shall he afterward be tottering in his fortunes various and inconsistent to himself and to what he was every way reeling and wavering and tumbled about from his highest and most prosperous estate to worse and worse It was his own covetons and ambitious desire that set him on work and thrust him forward till he got up at last to that high pitch of honour and abundance of wealth from which he must begin his heavier ruine and downfall For the longing of his greedy Soule in his filthy Avarice was enlarged like Hell as if he would have the Devill and all and in his Malice and cruelty he gaped after our destruction like Death and the Grave that will never be satisfied The Addition of whole nations and severall sorts of People either slain by his sword or subdued and united to his former too vast Empire could not work so much upon him as to make him think that he had enough either of their blood or of their wealth 6. Will you see after all this how he shall be exposed to the scorn and derision of them whom he hath rifled and plundered and abused at his own pleasure The time is coming on apace when they shall take up a gibing taunt and Parable against him and say Woe to him that had too much of his own and yet would never leave scraping and heaping more and more together out of others little store How long will he thus toyle and bustle in the world to take from them And how little a while shall he live to enjoy it His heaps of gold and silver which he studies to multiply without end are but heaps of Earth a little more resined than that thick mire and clay that shall after awhile stop his own greedy mouth 7. For as he lies gaping after us and ours so others shall arise up from a place he little suspects that shall gape after him and his Nay they shall more than gape and threaten and show their teeth It shall not be long before he feels that they can bite too And well might I say that they should arise For though in his supine ease and securitie he may conceive them to lie still and have no such intentions against him unlesse it were in a dream yet shall they suddenly awake rouse up themselves and him too muster up their forces make toward him shake him in pieces and divide him as a rich prey 8. Thus will they do and thus will they speak of thee and thy just doom thou proud Chaldean And as thou hast preyed upon many nations and enriched thy self with their spoiles so shall all they that are left about thee help to expose thee to the like spoil and rapine All which may justly come upon thee for thy bloudy cruelty and other most injurious acts of thine which ever attended thy too furious execution of Gods anger upon ours and other Cities and Countries and them that dwell in them 9. Woe be to his covetous and foolish Ambition that longs for that which cannot but prove the ruine of himself and his own house For while he thinks of building his nest so high as may set it out of the reach of all danger that very rise doth not onely expose it to the greater hazard but make the fall so much the more fearfull when it doth come 10. Whosoever thou art Chaldaean or other that couldst entertain a fancy of such a vast and high building thou wert not well advised to take this for the best course of advancing thy self and thy Posteritie This was not to make way to your honour but to your shame And know this that while thou resolvest to raise thy self and Thine by the utter ruine of many other People thou sinnest against thy own Soule and makest thy self the greatest meanes of thy own down-fall and their rising again 11. For rather than such crying sins shall not be silenced with the execution of Justice the very stones out of the wall will help on the Cry and the beam out of the Timber-work will answer them in as loud and true a testimony against such cruelty and oppression 12. And the joynt cry of all together will be nothing but woe Wo to him that layes the foundation of a Town in blood and most injuriously makes preparation of raising a City to himself out of others ruines 13. Upon this cry of the Wood and Stones that they have heaped together mark if this Sentence proceeds not from the Lord of Hostes that This wicked warlike People have in all their great toyle to get from others but onely laboured to kindle a fire wherein all they have shall be consumed Or at least all that they have so unjustly gotten if it be not justly taken away shall serve them and theirs for some other use which shall show them the vanity of their own dangerous attempts 14. For ere it be long as the immense waters do fill and cover the bottom of the vast Sea so shall their spacious Land be covered and overflowed with that which is more unruly than any waters with innumerous troupes of several Nations and People that shall come against the Chaldeans and let all the world know in the finall recompense and revenge of our enemies what cause they have every where to joyn with us in giving all Praise and Glory unto God 15. And that universal glory to God shall be accompanied with another particular woe to our insulting Enemies Wo be to him that gaines so far upon his Friend and Confederate