Commentary on the Minor Prophets

CHAP. I.

Verse 1. T HE Word of the Lord ] Not cunningly devised fables, or human testimonies, that can make but a human faith; but the word of the everliving God, the Scripture that cannot be broken, John 10.35. the very heart and soul of God, as Gregory calls it.

That came unto Hosea ] The Lord is said to come to Laban, Abimelech, Balaam, &c. But he never concredited his word to any such profane wretches, as he did to the holy Prophets which have been since the world began; of whom it is said, as here, The word of the Lord came to Hosea, His name signifieth a Savior: a fit name for a Minister, whose work it is to save himself and them that hear him. To save them if he can, Obad. 21. to deliver their souls from going into the pit, Joh 33.24. to pull them, if possible, out of the fire, Jude 23. to give them the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sin: to give it I say, not by infusion (for that he cannot do) but by instruction; and that he must endeavor to do, as this Prophet did: then whom few Ministers ever ran so long a race without cessation, or cespitation, so constantly, so courageously, so unweariable. For he continued prophesying sixty five years at least, saith Pareus; seventy, saith Oecolampadius; it is very probable fourscore years, saith Mr Burroughs. The Hebrews say ninety years, quibus multa dixit quae non scripsit, wherein he uttered much more then he wrote. This we may easily believe: for we have but the short Notes or heads of his Sermons, and larger Discourses, which he seems also to have set down for the use of the Church in his extreme old age, whereof they carry a smatch in the shortness of his speech, applied, as much as might be, to the measure of his breath. Hence Jerome fitly calleth him, comm • ticum, & quasi per sententias loquentem, concise and sententious. Amputatas loquitur sententias & verba ante expectatum cadentia, as one saith of Salust; Multo est verbis quam sensu restrictior atque concisior, as another saith of Livy; He speaketh much in few; and seems to have more sentences then sayings. The ofner you read him, the more you may get by him: & nunquam tamen dimittat te sine siti; and yet the more you get, the more you covet. Obscure he is (as delivering things briefly) and such as will not be easily acquainted with you, but upon further suit: Hence that Epiphonema in the perclose of his prophesy, Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent and he shall know them? But this must waken and not weaken our more diligent search, not being content with the first oar that offereth itself to our view, but digging deeper and deeper, till we become owner of the whole treasure, which will sufficiently pay for the pains. Wherefore search the Scripture, follow on to know the Lord; get all the dimensions of knowledge, which (now in the great abundance of the means we have) doth even bow down to us, as trees do that are laden with fruit, so that a child may gather from them.

the son of Beeri ] That is, of a well that hath pure and clear water in it, and that never faileth; living water, as the Scripture calleth it, and not mixed with mud. Ministers should be the children of Beeri, of a well digged by the direction of the lawgiver, Numb. 21.17. whence people should draw waters with joy, the pure waters of life, the unadulterated milk of God's word; not troubled, brackish, and sowrish doctrines, such as the Popish Clergy (called therefore the Sea, Rev. 12.12.) do set abroach, which rather brings barrenness to their hearers, and gnaws their entrails, then quench their thirst, or cause fruit. These and all false teachers, make God's flock drink that which they have fouled with their feet, Ezek. 34.19. yea, empoisoned with their hands: as the malicious Jews once cast bags of poison into many wells here, to do mischief, and were therefore banished the Country. False doctrine is like a filthy pond, wherein fish die soon, and frogs live long: it is like the dead Sea, or the great falling-star, called Wormwood, which made the third part of the waters become wormwood, so that many men died of the waters because they were made bitter by that son of perdition, who was himself the gall of bitterness, and bond of perdition. Who this Beeri was, it appears not in Scripture. It seems he was a man famous in those days among the Israelites (and is here named honoris gratia, for honor sake to the Prophet) as Alexander and Rufus the sons of Simon the Cyrenian, were men famously known in the Church of the New Testament; and are therefore but named only by S. Mark ch. 15.21. The Jews have a tradition, that whensoever a Prophets father is named, that father was likewise a Prophet as well as the son. And Beeri might be binominis, and have some other name of more note: like as Pethuel the father of the Prophet Joel, is thought by some to have been Samuel, and to have been called Pethuel, that is a persuader of God, because what he asked of God, he obtained.

in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, &c. ] A young Prophet he must needs be (especially if he prophesied fourscore years: See the the note above.) Haply he began as early as did Samuel, Jeremy, Timothy, Origen, or Cornelius Mus: of whom Sixtus Senensis testifieth, that he was an admirable preacher at twelve years old. Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah ] The Throne of Judah had some enterchanges of good Princes: Israel none at all. The same justice therefore that made Israel a scourge to Judah, made Assyria a scorpion to Israel; as is here set forth under the type of Hosea 's two last children Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi; whereof in their place. Mean-while, this Prophet went through variety of conditions under so many several Kings reigns (as did likewise Athanasius and Latimer ) Jeroboams, (especially) the second of that name, and here only named, when six other Kings of Israel (in whose time Hosea prophesied) are not once mentioned, but lie wrapped up in the sheet of shame, because wicked idolaters, such as God took no delight in, and hath therefore written them in the earth. And in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash ] Not the son of Nebat, that ringleader of the ten Tribes revolt from the house of David; but another little better, and yet very prosperous and victorious, 2 King. 14.25, 28. He reigned also forty one years, and did great exploits: yet is Hosea sent to contest with him, to declaim against his sin and wickedness, and to proclaim heavy judgments against him and his people. This the Prophet did for a long while together with all fidelity and fortitude; when the King was triumphing over his enemies, and the people were not only drunk, but even mad again, by reason of their extraordinary prosperity, as Calvin expresseth it. Now that so young a Prophet should so sharply contend with so fierce a people, in the ruffe of their pride and jollity: that he should so rouse and repple up these drunkards of Ephraim with their crown of pride, Isaiah 28.1. this shows him to have been of an heroical spirit. Jonah his contemporary flinched when sent against Nineveh. Micah the Morasthite (another of Hosea 's contemporaries) prophesied in the days of Hezekiah King of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Zion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house, the high places of a forest. Yet did not Hezekiah King of Judah, and all Judah put him at all to death, &c. Jer. 26.18, 19. He and Hosea, though they prevailed little with the people they preached to, yet they were better dealt with then the Prophet Isaiah (their contemporary too) of whom Jerome tells us, out of the Rabbin's, that he was sawn asunder, because he said he had seen the Lord: and secondly, because he called the great ones of Judah, Princes of Sodom, and rulers of Gomorrah, Isaiah 1.10.

Verse 2. The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea ] Heb. In Hosea: to note, that the Lord was both in his mind and mouth, in his spirit and speech. God spake in him, before he spake out to the people. His prophesy must therefore needs be divine and deep. That's the best discourse that's digged out of a man's own breast, that comes a cord ad cor, from the heart to the heart: And blessed are the pleople (saith one) that have such Ministers, that shall speak nothing to them but what hath been first spoken by God in them: saying with David and Paul, We believe, therefore have we spoken: we also believe, and therefore speak: we have experimented what we deliver: we believe and are sure, that God is in us of a truth, and that we preach cum gratia & privilegio. The beginning ] Hence some gather, that Hosea was the first Prophet: Hosea's videtur tempore & majestate aliis prior, saith O Ecolampadius. Certain it is he began before Isaiah (because he prophesied in the days of Jeroboam, who was before Uzziah ) whether before Amos or no, is not so certain. Eusebius tells us there was no Greek History extant before Hosea 's time. Well therefore might that ancient priest of Egypt say to Solon, You Grecians are all boys and babies in matters of Antiquity: neither is there one old man amongst you. Samuel is counted the first Prophet, Acts 3.24. but Hosea was the first of those that lived in these Kings days, and likely held out longest (see the Note on Verse 1.) as did father Latimer, preaching twice every Sabbath day, though of a very great age: and rising to his study winter and summer at two of the clock in the morning. Others read the words thus, At the beginning when the Lord spake by Hosea, he said to Hosea himself, Go take unto thee, &c. An uncouth precept, and a rough beginning for a young preacher, whose youth might be despised, and whose sharpness might be disgusted. But truth must be spoken, however it be taken: and a preacher should take the same liberty to cry down sin, that men take to commit sin, Isaiah 58.1. Jerome was called fulmen Ecclesiasticum, the Church thunderbolt: And our Mr Perkins applied the word so close to the consciences of his hearers, that he was able to make their hearts fall down, and their hairs almost to stand upright. But in old age he was more mild, and delighted much to preach mercy; as did also our Prophet Hosea, whose prophesy is comminatory in the fore-part, consolatory in the latter part. And the Lord said to Hosea ] This is now the third time inculcated for more authority sake, which the people so rubbed and menaced would be apt enough to question. He therefore shows them his commission, and that he hath good ground for what he saith; that they may have no cause to cavil, but reply as that good Dutch Divine did (if God would give them a heart so to do) Veniat, veniat, verbum Domini, & submittemus ei, sexcenta si nobis essent colla: Let the word of the Lord come, yea, let it come, and we will submit there unto, though we had six hundred lives to lose for so doing.

Go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms ] An arrant whore, a stinking strumpet, scortum obsoletum, a known and trite harlot; such as were Thais, Lais, Phryne, &c. yea, and such a one as, after marriage with a former husband at least, went astray after other sweet-hearts; for so the application of the figure to the subject, Chap. 2. requireth it to be understood: Whereby it appears (saith Diodate ) that all this was done in a vision. Others infer as much from that phrase in this verse, The beginning of the word of the Lord in Hosea, that is, (saith Polanus ) appearing and speaking to him by an inward vision, as it were in an ecstacy. Besides, in the third chapter, and three first verses, the Prophet is bidden to marry another harlot. to buy her for his own use, and to keep her at his house for a time. Now scimus hoc non fuisse completum, saith Calvin; we know that this was never really done. It follows therefore that this figure was only proposed to the people, that they might perpceive in the looking-glass of this allegory; first, their duty toward God, second, their disloyalty, thirdly, their penalty for the same. It is not an historical narration, but a Prophetical vision. Children of fornication, a bastardly brood: such as this evil and adulterous generation is; sons of the rebellious whorish woman, children of transgr • ssion, a seed of falsehood, Isaiah 57.4. The Hebrews call such children brambles, such as Abimelech was, who grew in the hedge-row of an harlot: they call them also Mamzer, as ye would say, a strange blot: And Shatuki, or silent, because when others are praising their parents, such must hold their peace, and hold down their heads with shame enough, because by-blows.

for the land hath committed great whoredoms ] Fornicando fornicata est, i. e. frequentissime & faedissime, most frequently and most filthily: See Eezek 23. throughout. Aholah, (that is, Israel ) played the harlot when she was mine, verse 5. In her youth they lay with her, verse 8. so that she might say with that impudent strumpet Quartilla in Petronius, that she could never remember her selfa virgin: Yea, she grew old in her adulteries, verse 43. opened her feet to every passenger, and multiplied her whoredoms, Ezek. 16.25. Meretrices scilicet hoc est meretricissimae. Such a common prostibulum is the whore of Rome. whom her followers call piam matrem, quae gremium claudat nemini. Joan of Naples was a saint to her. Idolatry is spiritual whoredom in many respects. It defiles the soul, God's bridal-bed. It breaks the marriage-knot, and discovenants. It enrageth God, who in this case will take no ransom. It subjecteth men to God's deepest displeasure: It besots them and unmans them: they that make idols are like unto them, so are all they that trust in them.

Lastly, • dolatry is seldom without adultery, in a proper sense; as appears in the old Heathens, at their feasts of Priapus, Lupercalia, &c. the Canaanites had filled the Land from one end to another with their uncleanness, Ezra 9.11. and in the Papists at this day, who reckon fornication a venial sin, have their Stews allowed them; yea, among the very Indians, who abhor their most loathsome living: And for Rome itself — tota est jam Roma lupanar, it is become a great brothelhouse, and her stench is come up to heaven, as Matthew Paris (one of her sons) long since said. Departing from the Lord ] In whom all amiables and admirables are concentred. This did exceedingly aggravate the unkindness.

Verse 3. So he went ] He said not, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? Dura mihi praecipit, & poene terret. He doth not reason but run, dispute but dispatch. God must be obeyed, though we see no sense for it. And took Gomer ] which signifieth both consummation and consumption, to show that she was consummata meretrix, a complete whore, had all the tricks of a whore; and brings her paramours to final consumption, utter extermination.

the daughter of Diblaim ] Not quasi de Belaim, a place so called, as Hugo dreameth: though there was a wilderness of this name, whereto some think the Prophet here alludeth, to show the Churches wretched beginning in its own nature: as Cant. 3:6. Ezek. 16.7. But Diblaim is by some taken for Gomers father: by more, for her mother, which is also held to be an harlot, according to that Ezek. 16.44. As is the mother, so is the daughter. Diblaim signifieth bunches of dried figs, that were the delicacies of those times. Gluttony is the gallery that lechery walketh thorough. Sine Cerere & Libero friget Venus. Concupiscence (as Plato saith) hath the lowest places, and is alligata ventri, as one would tie an horse or an asse to the manger. Jeremy not unfitly compareth sensualists to fed horses, neighing after their neighbors wives: Saturity breeds security, which is the sure forerunner of destruction. Est ergo hic gnome, saith à Lapide. i. e. Here we have then an elegant sentence, Gomer is the daughter of Diblaim, that is, rottenness of sensuality: for as the worm that grows in the fruit, devoureth it; so doth grief, the pleasure of sin. This Observation we have from the Cabbalists.

Verse 4. Call his name Jezreel ] For the honorable name of Israel is too good for this people; call them therefore Jezreel, a people devoted to dispersion, and such as I will scatter into the four winds of heaven, as the seeds • man scattereth his seed. Thus Jeconiah is called Coniah, (for a judgment upon him) Bethel, Beth-aven, Har, Hammischa, the mount Olivet, or of Unction, Har hammaschith, the mount of corruption, 2 King. 23.13. And this is not unusual amongst men; so when they would disgrace a man, to clip or play upon his name: as when they spitefully called Athanasius Sathanasius, Cyprian Coprian, (as if all his excellent works were but dung) Calvin, Cain, &c. This people, saith God here, are more like Ahab then Jacob. Call them therefore Jezreel ( Ahab's Court) that is, a den of thieves and murderers, where innocent Naboth cannot be master of the vineyard that he was born to. Micah (who prophesied also much about these times) hath a saying much to the same purpose, Chap. 2. ver. 7. O thou that art named, the house of Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord straitened? are these his doings? q. d. Ye that boast of Jacob to be your father, do you tread in his steps? are ye of his spirit, of his practice? was there such vile profaneness found in him, as is openly found in you? David describeth the generation of such as seek God, as seek his face, and then subjoineth, This is Jacob, these are Israelites indeed, these are Jews inwardly: and all others are degenerate plants, and are the worse for their outward privileges: since tribulation and anguish shall be upon every soul of man that doth evil, but of the Jew first, and then also of the Gentile, Rom. 2.9.

for yet a little while ] And yet this little was a long while, through God's gracious forbearance. As bad as this people were, they should not perish without warning; yea, though the Lord foreknew they would make no good use of it. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith the Heathen Historian: God loves to foresignifie, and premonish. But there is nothing more dangerous and disinall, then these still revenges; as when God suddenly brake out in wrath upon Nadab and Abihu, upon Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, Pharaoh at the Red-Sea, when he would not beware. It is a just both desert and presage of ruin, not to be warned. See this in Nineveh, spared at first, but after a little while revolting, soundly paid for the new and old faults, Nahum. 3.19. Non consurget iterùm afflictio, saith the same Prophet, chap. 1.9. Affliction shall not rise up the second time: God will not make two doings of it: but when he begins, he will also make an end, 1 Sam. 3.12. that is, as sure as he begins, so sure will he make an end: and though it may be some time ere he begin, yet a little while (for he is slow to wrath, and of great kindness) yet assuredly he will avenge the blood of Jezreel, ] i. e. the executions done by Jehu upon the house of Ahab, as so many murders: see 1 King. 16.7. This God did not presently, but that's nothing. Nullum tempus occurrit Regi, nedum D •• . He is slow, but sure, Et tarditatem supplicij gravitate compensat, as the Heathen could say, the longer he holds, the harder he strikes: and visits Jehu's house for by-past sins, that they made little reckoning of. Sin may sleep a long time, like a sleeping debt, not called for of many years: As Saul's sin in slaying the Gibeonites, not punished till forty years after: as Joab's killing of Abner, slept all David's days: as Amalec perished, for their ill usage of Israel, many hundred years after. It is ill angering the Ancient of days. He that saith, Vengeance is mine, I will repay it, takes his own time for the doing of it: and who shall prescribe to him? It is dangerous offending him whose displeasure is everlasting. Vapours, that ascend invisibly, come down again in storms and showers. A sinner of an hundred years shall be accursed, and made to possess the sins of his youth. It is not the last sand that exhausts the hour-glass, nor the last stroke that fells the Oak. Jehu's house is visited, and his progeny extinguished in the fourth generation, for Jehu's offenses. God's work must be done truly, that there be no halting, and totally, that there be no halving. But Jehu, as he had not that true heart spoken of by the Apostle, Hebr. 10.22. but was double minded, James 1.8. & 4.8. (like that mad Neapolitan that said, he had two hearts, one for God, and another for him that would:) So he fulfilled not after God, or he followed not God fully, as Caleb did, Numb. 14.24. he did not all God's wills as David, Acts 13. he served him not with a perfect heart, as Asa, 2 Chron. 15.17. He reformed the State, but not the Church; or if he did something toward it, yet he was not thorough in it. He had a dispensatory conscience: for though he rooted out Baals-worship, yet the golden Calves must continue; piety must give place to policy. It was a just complaint of Chemnitz, Principes regionem potiùs quam religionem quaerunt: paupers panem potiùs quam Christum. All men seek their own, but not the things of Jesus Christ, Phil. 2.21. And yet piety hath ever proved to be the best policy: and the very Philosopher in his Politicks gives this golden Rule. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . First take care of Divine things. Jehu seemed at first to be as zealous a Reformer, as Jehoshaphat: but though his fleece was fair, his liver was rotten. In parabola ovis capras suas quaerebat; he was like the Eagle which soareth aloft, not for any love of heaven: her eye is, all the while, upon the prey; which by this means she spies sooner, and seizeth upon better. He seems to have been of Machiavels mind, viz. that virtue itself should not be sought after, but only the appearance: because the credit is a help, the u • e a cumber. Finally, of Jehu it may he said, as Marcellinus saith of Julian, that by his hypocrisy and double-dealing, Obnubilabat gloriae multiplices cursus, he stained his many praise-worthy practices. Or as Camden saith of King Henry the eight; Fuerunt quidem in eo rege, &c. There were in that King great virtues, and no less vices mingled, or rather jumbled together. Or lastly, as Folieta Galeazo reporteth of Sfortia Duke of Milan, that he was a very monster, made up, and compact of virtue and vice. See more verse 5. And I will cause to cease the Kingdom. ] This fell out after 76 years; which God counts and calls here, but a little while: A thousand years with him are but as one day. What is our life but a spot of time betwixt two eternities? It is even a vapor, saith S. James, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us, (and a door now opened) of entering into God's rest, any of us should seem to come short, or to come lag, andlate, as did Esau, the foolish virgins, those that come a day after the fair, an hour after the feast; Agree with your adversary quickly, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel, Currat poenitentia, ne praecurrat sententiae: Repent a day before death, (and that may be this day, before the next) make God's judgments present in conceit, ere they come in the event, prevision is the likeliest way of prevention, the surest means of mitigation: whereas coming on the sudden, they find weak minds secure, make them miserable, leave them desperate.

Verse 5. I will break the bow of Israel ] though it may seem to have a back of steel, and though it be drawn by Ieh • himself, with his full strength, as once against Jehoram, to the piercing of his heart, 2 King. 9.24. He means, God will blast all the power of their Ammunition, defeat their likeliest projects, and practices, and make the strongest sinew in the arm of flesh to crack. He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder, &c. Psal. 46.9. He rendereth the weapons vain, or successful, Isai. 54.17. Ierem. 50.9. as he did when the Rats and Mice were sent into Sennacherib's Army in great abundance, to gnaw and devour their quivers, bow-strings, belts, bridles, shields, (as Herodotus relates) to show that the shields of the earth belong to the Lord, that the Militia of the World is his, that he orders the Ammunition, Ier. 50.25. And the like was done by this Lord of Hosts, or Armies, when the wind and weather fought for Theodosius, in that famous battle against the tyrant Maximus, celebrated by Claudian: As also when the Spanish Armado was defeated and discomfited by the English in 88. That was very remarkable and for our purpose apposite, which fell out in the battle between Edward the third of England, and Philip of France. Philip enraged with a defeat, resolves presently to revenge it; and hardly had patience to stay in Abbeville one day, while the Bridge to pass over his Army was repairing. And with this precipitation and fury, into the field he marcheth, elevated with an assured hope of triumphant Victory. But it fell out otherwise; for there fell at the instant of the Battle a piercing shower of rain, which dissolved their strings, and made their bows unuseful. In the valley of Jezreel ] A city near to Maximinianopolis, saith Jerome. Of the valley wherein this City was scituate, see Josh. 17.16. Judge. 6.33. It was in the tribe of Manasseh, and bordered upon Issachar, Josh. 19.18. It was ten miles long, and two miles over; being called also, the plain of Galilee, and was fit for a fight, for a pitched battle. Here i • was, saith Adrichomius, that Gideon fought the Midianites Judge. 6.7. Saul the Philistines. 1 Sam. 31. Ahab the Syrians 1 King 20. And here Zacharias (the last of Jehu's line) was slain, and with him the kingdom of Israel received such a wound, that it could never rise again. Mona • chies have their times and their turns, their rise and their ruin. Junius renders it Propter Vallem Jericho, I will break the bow of Israel, because of the wall of Jezreel: that is, saith he, because of the slaughter of Ahab's house there made by Jehu 2 King. 10 Jehu's Tent in that execution was rewarded as an Act of Justice quoad substantiam operis, and yet punished as an Act of policy quoad modum for the perverse end. Finibus non officijs a vitijs discernuntur virtutes saith Augustine. By the ends and not by the works done, are virtues distinguished from vices. Two things make a good Christian, and declare him so, good Actions and good Aimes. And although a good aim doth not make a bad Action good (as in Uzzah ) yet a bad aim makes a good action bad, as here in Jebu. There may be then, we see, malum opus in bona materia, a work materially good, which yet may never prove so formally and eventually: sc. when there is a fail either quoad fontem, or quoad finem. A thing which I see in the night may shine: and that shining proceed from nothing but rottenness. Blazing comets (though but comets) as long as they keep aloft, shine bright. But when they begin to decline from their pitch, they fall to the earth, and infect the Air. So when Illuminates forsake the Lord, and mind only earthly things, being all for self, they lose their light, and go out in a snuff. Jehu's golden calves made an end of him and his, though he made an end of Ahab's house and Baals worship. His rooting out of Ahab's race was but to settle the crown better upon his own head. Like unto him was our Richard the third, who well knowing (saith the Historian) it was no policy to play the villain by halfdeal is resolved to leave never a rub to lie in the way, that might hinder the true running of his bowle. Like unto him also (saith Master Calvin upon this text) was our king Henry the eighth, who cast off some degree of Popery, so far as would serve his own turn: but there were the six Articles in force (that whip with six cords, as that Martyr called it) for which many suffered at that time. And whereas (like Sylla ) he commanded others, under great penalties, to be no Papists, himself was either Papist or Atheist, jeering at some for their old Mumpsimus, and at others for their new Sumpsimus, as he profanely called the Reformation: hanging Papists on the one side of the hedge, for denying his Supremacy, and burning Protestants on the other side thereof, for denying Transubstantiation, &c. And hence it may be thought, is that dreadful and dismal ruin that is now (in these our days, and in the fourth generation or succession) befallen the royal family. The house of Jehu fareth the worse for Jehu. Offa king of East-Saxons lived in the time of Charles the great, and was a potent Prince. But the many injuries he did, and the murder he committed in his house upon Ethelbert king of East-Angles, coming to him under a public faith, and a suitor to his daughter, were justly revenged upon his posterity, which, after him, declining, in the end lost all. But to return to Jehu: we shall find 2 Kin. 10.30. that God said, that because Jehu had shed the blood of Ahab in Jezreel, that he would reward him for it: and that his children to the fourth generation should sit upon the throne of Israel, and govern that Kingdom. And yet, for miscarriage in the manner, justly plagueth his posterity. As Xerxes crowned his Steeresman in the morning and yet hanged him in the afternoon of the same day. And as Marescal de Thermas the French General, first Knighted a French soldier in Scotland who first mounted a besieged Fort (by that means taken) and then hanged him within an hour after, for doing it without order. See more of this in the Note upon the former verse.

Verse 6. And she conceived again ] To show, in a continued allegory, the weak and woeful estate of the ten tribes, when the Assyrian took from them all the land of Gilead and Galilee, together with all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive, subduing in a manner five tribes of Israel: to wit those without Jordan (who as they had first their inheritance given them, so they were now first carried captives) and the tribes of Zebulon and Naphtali who were seated in the land of Galilee, And this was the first captivity of Israel: see 2 Kings 15.29, Isaiah. 9.1. And bare a daughter. This age is compared to a daughter, because from that time forward, after the bow of Israel was so broken, as Verse 5. they should be no more able to defend themselves, than if they were a common-wealth of women: Their spirits should be so cowed out and emasculated, their backs so bowed down with unsupportable burdens and bondages, that there was scarcely place left of a worse condition, nor hope of a better. Like them were those we read of Isaiah 51.23. that yielded to such as would but say to them, Bow down that we may go over you. Or as those in Nahum, 3.13. Their men shall be as women 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , timorous and cowardly, like Issachar 's Ass Gen: 49.15. [whose lot fell in Galilee, Josh: 19.18.] or those fugitives of Ephraim Judge. 12.4. that therefore bare a brand of dishonor, because they would not rather die bravely, then live basely: Of such it may be said as of Harts and Stags, they have great horns and strength, but do nothing with them, quia deest animus, because their spirits are imbased: as the Israelites in Egypt were of old by Pharaoh, and as the Grecians are at this day by the Turk. call her name Loruhamah, ] When God once calls a people or a person by this name, we may well write upon their doors (if any place be yet left for prayer, any good to be done by it) Lord have mercy upon them: their condition is deplorable, if not desperate. Vade frater in Cellam et dic, Miserere mei, Deus, Brother go into thy Cell and say, Lord have mercy upon me, said Crantzius to Luther, when he began to declaim against the Pope, for he looked upon him as an undone man, and yet he was not. But those are doubly undone, to whom God shall say as here to Israel, I will no more have mercy ] Heb: I will add no more to show mercy: but my so oft abused mercy shall turn into fury. That it is not so yet with this sinful nation, that we are not yet a Loruhamah, an Acheldama, that we are not already as Sodom, and like unto Gomorrah, even a place of nettles and saltpits, a perpetual desolation, as another prophet hath it, we may well cry out, O the depth, the fathomlesse depth of God's dear love to England. Certain it is that we have hitherto subsisted by a miracle of his mercy, and by a prop of his extraordinary patience. Certain it is that God hath not dealt with England according to his ordinary rule, but according to his prerogative royal. England (if one may so speak with reverence) is a paradox to the Bible. God grant that being lifted up to heaven with Capernaum in the abundance of blessings she be not brought down to hell by the abuse of them; that God set not that sad impression of Loruhamah (worse then any black Theta ) upon her, and make her know the worth of his undervalued favors by the want of them: why should it be said of us as once, Anglica gens est optima flens, et pessima ridens? why should we provoke the Lord so long till he shall resolve upon an evil, an only evil, i. e. without mixture of mercy; till the decree bring forth, Zeph. 2.2. and God pronounceth that fatal sentence against us that he did once against the old world, Fiat justitia, ruat mundus, Let justice be done though the world be thereby undone.

I will not always serve them for a sinning-stock, but will take another course with them: I will take my own and be gone: and woe be unto them when I depart from them. When the sun is eclipsed, all creatures fade and flag here below. Thou hiddest thy face, Lord, and I was troubled, Psal. 30.7. David could not live but in the light of God's countenance: he begs for mercy everywhere, as for life, never did poor prisoner at the bar beg harder for a psalm of mercy then he doth, Psal. 51.1. and other where. Neither would common mercies content him, he must have such as are proper and peculiar to God's own people, even the sure mercies of David. Oh make sure of mercy, what ever you go without. And the rather because there are a race of Loruhamahs, a sort of such amongst men as are excluded from mercy. God is not merciful to any wicked transgressors Psal. 59.5. that go on in their trespasses Psal. 68.21. that allow them and wallow in them. That last letter in God's name had need to be well remembered Exod. 32.7. He will by no means clear the guilty. And that terrible text should never be forgotten by those that are obstinate in an evil course, and bless themselves when God curseth them, Deut. 29.19.20. See the note there. God's mercy goes ofttimes in Scripture bounded by his truth: and as the same fire hath burning heat and cheerful light, so hath God plagues for the obstinate, and mercy for the penitent. Surely as he is pater misevationum the father of mercies: so he is Deus ultionum the God of vengeances: as he hath vbera, so he hath verbera, treasures of punishments for those especially that kick at his bowels, that despise his long-sufferance, that argue from love to liberty, which is the Devils logic. Cavete a Melampygo.

But I will utterly take them away ] Tollendo tollam, So Calvin renders it: and further tells us that some render it Comburam, I will burn them: and indeed war is fitly compared to fire that cruel element, and to extreme famine Isaia. 9.19.20. The vulgar latin translateth it Obliviscendo obliviscar, I will utterly forget them: and that's punishment enough: as when one carried himself insolently toward the State of Rome, a grave Senator gave this counsel, Let us forget him and he will soon remember himself. Woe be to those to whom Christ shall say, Verily I know you not, I have utterly forgot you. Mercer rendereth it, Levabo, id est, projiciam, I will lift them up, that I may throw them down again with the greater poise. The Seventy hath I will set myself against them in battle array. Now the Lord is a man of war Exod. 15.4. yea he is the Lord and Victor of wars, as the Chaldee there paraphraseth. But what meant the Chaldee here to render this text by Parcendo parcam eis, Sparing I will spare them: is not this point-blank against Loruhamah? How much better Tremellius, ut ullo-pacto condonem-ist is, that I should any way forgive them. Have I not pardoned them enough already? may I not well by this time be weary of repenting? I will even break off my patience, and forbear to punish no longer, I have long time holden my peace, I have been still and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travelling woman (who bites in her pain as long as she is able I will destroy and devour at once: I will, I will. The ten tribes never returned out of captivity, unless it were some few of them that came up with the other two tribes out of Babylon, Ezr. 2. by the appointment of Cyrus: and some others that fled home when Nineveh (where they were held captive) was destroyed: But for the generality of them, whether they abide in China or Tartary, or West-Indies, I cannot tell you. Parcus rendereth it, Nam tolerando toleravi eos, for I have a long while born with their evil manners. And surely Subito tollitur, qui diu toleratur, as an Ancient saith, God's patience will not always hold &c.

Vers. 7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah. ] The Ark and the mercy seat were never separated. Judah had not utterly cast off God, as Israel had: but worshipped God in the Temple, (how corruptly soever) therefore they shall have mercy because they kept the right way of worship. See the Churches plea for mercy to this purpose Jer. 14.9. Again, Judah was now in a very great straight having been lately beaten and plundered by Israel 2. King. 4.12. therefore they shall have mercy. God heard Hagar's affliction and relieved her. I have seen, I have seen, the sufferings of my people in Egypt, saith God, and am come to ease them. Because they have called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion whom no man looketh after, therefore I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord Jer. 30.17. He will repent for his people when he seeth their power is gone, Deut. 32.36. when there is dignus vindice nodus, an extremity fit for divine power to interpose. He knows that mercy is never so seasonable and sweet, as when misery weighs down, and nothing but mercy turns the scale: therefore Judah shall have mercy, when Israel shall have none. True it is, that Judah was not at this time much better then Israel, Aholibah then Aholah: they were scarce free from Sodomy and many such like foul abominations. But what of that? if God come with a non obstante as Psal 106.8. Nevertheless he saved them for his names sake &c. who shall gainstand him: If he will show mercy for his names sake, what people is there so wicked whom he may not save? See Isaiah 57.47. Ezek. 20.8.14.22.44. Add hereunto that Israel and Syria were confederate against Judah, & thought to have made but a breakfast of them, Isaiah. 7.5. &c. but God here promiseth Judah mercy: and lets them know to their comfort, that there is more mercy for them in heaven, then there can be misery in earth, or malice in hell against them. True it is, that even after this gracious promise made to Judah, it went very hard with them, See 2. Chron. 28.6. there 120000. of them were sl • in in one battle and 200000. of them carried captive: yea, and all this by these Israelites here rejected from that mercy that Judah is promised; besides abundance more misery that befell them by Edomites. Ver. 17. Philistines. 18. Assyrians. 20. &c. Ecclesia hares Crucis saith Luther, The Church as she is heir of the promises, so is she of the Cross: and the promises are always to be understood with condition of the cross. The palsy-man in the Gospel healed by our Savior heard, Son be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, and yet he was not presently free'd of his disease, till after a dispute held with the Pharisees (which must needs take up some time) and the case cleared, Jesus said, Arise take up thy bed and walk, and so show thyself a sound man. But to go on: Judah shall be saved, and not Israel, that envied Judah, and maliciously sought their ruin. David looketh upon it as a sweet mercy, that God had spread him a table in the presence, and maugre the malice of his enemies. And the children of the kingdom (so the Jews are called) shall gnash their teeth, and be even ready to eat their nails at the reception of the Gentiles. This was it that put the men of Nazareth into an anger, and our Savior into a danger, Luk. 4.25.26. By the Lord their God ] that i, by the Lord Christ by Messiah their Prince, by the word of the Lord their God, saith the Chaldee here, that word essential John. 1.1. that true Zaphnath Paaneach (that is Savior of the world, as Jerome interprets it) whereof Joseph was but a type. This horn of salvation, or mighty Savior (able to save them to the u •• ost that come unto God by him, Heb. 7.25) God raised up for there unworthy Jews, and even thrust him upon them, whether they would or no, Isaiah. 7.13.14. that all might appear to be of free grace. Well might God say, 〈◊〉 have mercy upon the house of Judah, matchless mercy indeed: mercy that rejoiced against judgment. Mans perverseness breaketh not off the course of God's goodness; Judah shall be saved by the Lord their God who is Alius from his Father, but not Al •• , a distinct person, not a distinct thing. This Angel of God's presence saved them, in h • love, and in his pity he redeemed them &c. Isaiah. 63.9. even the Angel that had redeemed their father Jacoh from all evil Gen. 48.16. and that soon after this prophesy, destroyed so many thousands in Sennacherib's army, Not by bow ner by battle &c. but by his own bare hand immediately and miracul usly 2. King. 19. where we may see that when Sennacherib (after the example of his father Shalmaneser, who had captivated the ten tribes) came up against Judah, having already devoured Jerusalem in his hopes, and thinking to cut them off at a blow, as if they had all had but one neck, they were saved by Jehovah their God: the Virgin daughter of Zion knew well the worth and valor of Christ her champion, and that made her so confident Isaiah. 37.22. She knew whom she had trusted, not with her outward condition only, but with her inward and everlasting, with her precious soul, saying with David I am thine, save me: for I have sought thy precepts. Psal. 119.94. I will not trust in my bow, neither shall mine arm save me: but thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance: for thou hast a favor unto me. See the Note on Zach. 4.6. and on 14.3.5. That's an excellent passage Psal. 21.13. Be thou exalted O Lord in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.

Vers. 9. Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah ] That is, after that the patience of God had waited and long looked for their conversion; but all in va • ne, he resolved upon their utter rejection. And first he sent for his love tokens back again: he weans them and takes them off from those breasts of consolation, the holy Ordinances, deprived them of those dugs (better then wine, Cant. 1 4.) that they had despised, carried them far away from that good land that abounded with milk and honey: the men of the East should be sent in upon them

'tis just with him to call to the enemy to take away. Say not here with those in the Gospel threatened with this judgment, God forbid. Think it not a thing impossible, that England should be thus visited. The Sea is not so calm in summer, but it may be troubled with a storm: the mountain so f • me, but may be moved with an earthquake. We have seen as fair Suns as ours fall from the midst of heaven, for our instance, Lege historiam, ne fias historia. Surely except we repent and reform a little better then we have done yet; a removal of our Candlestick, a total eclipse of our Sun, may be as certainly foreseen and foretold, as if visions and letters were sent us from heaven, as once to the seven Churches of Asia, who sinned away their light, &c. And bare a son, ] Not a daughter as before, but a son, because under Hosea, the last King of Israel, that Kingdom began a little to lift up the head, and to stand it out against the Assyrian. But this was but extremus nisus regni, the last sprunting of that dying State. For soon after, Samaria the chief City was close besiege • : and although it held out three whole years, with a Masculine resolution, yet at length it was sacked, and all the people of the land carried captive, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, &c. as it is said of their confederates the Egyptians, Isaiah 20.4. and as it shall be done at length to that purple whore of Rome, who shall be stripped naked, broil'd and eaten, Revel. 17.16. A cold sweat stands already upon her limbs: and, for a presage of her future ruin, it is observed, that Rome, since it became Papal, was never besieged by any, but it was taken; As for their late Masculine attempts and achievements (if any) it is but as here in the Kingdom of Israel, a lightning before death, as the blaze of a candle a little afore it goes out, the bulging of a wall that's ready to come down, or as it was said of Carthage, a little afore it was taken, Morientium bestiarum violentiores esse morsus, dying beasts bite cruelly.

Verse 9. Call his name Loammi ] Nomen extremum & deploratum, saith Pareus, the last and most lamentable name of all, containing a most heavy, but spiritual, and therefore less sensible punishment, viz. an utter abjection and abdication from the covenant, from grace, from God, from life eternal. For ye are not my people ] But, being totally cashiered, and discovenanted; Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord? Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? q. d. True it is, I have brought you up out of Egypt (and therein you greatly glory) but have I not done as much as all this, for those profane Nations here mentioned? with and amongst whom, henceforward I shall reckon you, for you are no people of mine, but discarded, and dispeopled? Till the Covenant made with Abraham, all Nations were suffered to walk in their own ways, as fishes pass at liberty thorough the paths of the Seas, Psal. 8.8. One person was no more respected then another. But as soon as it was said, I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed after thee, the Church became as fish cast into a Pond for peculiar use: and was divided from other Nations, no otherwise then light was from darkness in the first creation, or then Goshen was from Egypt, in that wonderful separation. But here God seems to rescind his own act, to cast off the people of his purchase, and utterly to disown them; as once before he also did, when he fathered them upon Moses, saying, Thy people, which thou hast brought out of Egypt, &c. Exod. 32.7. But this (we must know) is no other then mutatio rei non Dei, effectus non affectus, facti non consilij, not a change of God's will, but only of his works. For hath God indeed cast away his people? God forbid. God hath not cast away his people, whom he foreknew. Thus saith the Lord God, If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord. And albeit (by an angry Aposiopesis ) he say here, I will not be your God. (The word God, is not in the Original, ab irato omittitur, saith Mercer ) yet to show that he is Bagnal Chemah, One that can rule his wrath, as Neb. 1.2. he subjoineth here, verse 10.

Verse 10. Yet the number of the children of Israel ]. i. e. of the Israel of God, those Jews inwardly the Circumcision indeed, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, putting no confidence in the flesh, Phil. 3.3. but saying each for himself as that good Father did, Horreo quicquid de meo est, ut sim meus; All my care is to be found in Christ ( sc. when sought for by the justice of God) not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Lo, to such Israelites indeed, and of such it is here promised (the Lord in Judgment remembering Mercy) that they shall be the sand of the sea which cannot be measured nor numbered; This was first promised to Abraham; and afterwards confirmed with an oath, Gen. 22.16. It began to be fulfilled; when, by the preaching of the Apostles, so many of both Jews and Gentiles came in and were converted to the faith of the true Messiah, as S. Paul expoundeth this text, Rom. 9.24, 25. and he had the mind of Christ. It shall have its full accomplishment, when the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel shall be saved, Rom. 11.26. Then the Church shall be as the stone that smote the Image, it shall become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth. Though the beginning of it be small, yet the later end of it shall greatly increase, Job 8.7. for all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Christ: he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, Psal. 72.8, 11, 17 Great is the paucity of God's people for present: but let us, by the help of this promise, get above that stumbling block. Cosmographers tell us, that if we divide all the known world into thirty parts, the Heathens part is as nineteen of this thirty: the Mohammedans as six, the Christians as five only: And of those five, more then the one half is held by idolatrous Papists. But let not this discourage us; it will be otherwise one day, for the Scripture cannot be broken. And although God may seem utterly to have abandoned his ancient people the Jews (the ten Tribes especially) yet they, as well as the rest, shall be vouchsafed this honor to be called to the participation of Christ, Ezek. 37.16, 19. Jer. 3, 12, 13, &c. Isaiah 11.12, 13. Obad. 20. Zach. 10.6. Rom. 11.26. If God after so dreadful a threatening come in with his non-obstante (as he doth likewise Psal. 106.8. and elsewhere) and say, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be, &c. who shall gain say him? Their interpretation is too narrow, that understand this text of the increase of this people in all their dispersions, until the time of their conversion. And that of Rabbi Ezra is pretty though not proper; that as the sand keeps the waves of the sea from breaking in and drowning the world: so doth Israel preserve man-kind from perishing by the waves of God's wrath. It should have been considered by him and the rest of those refractary Rabbin's, that at that general conversion of the Jews (here plainly foretold) there shall be some stubborn spirits that will not even then stoop to Christ; but will be filled with envy, as those cankered Pharisees their forefathers were ( Acts 13.44, 45.) to see almost the whole City come together to hear Christ; Yea, they will be ready to say, as John 12.19. perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the whole world follows him. Now against these spiritual spirits, the wrath of God shall be revealed from heaven, Rev. 21.8. Dan. 12.2. Isaiah. 65.11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them ] As if God did now even repent, and would make them a full amends: make them glad according to the time, and in that very place when and where they had seen evil. Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in Jerusalem, Zech. 12.6. The Jews (it is thought) shall dwell in their own Country, Jer. 3.18. & 23.8. Ezek. 37.11, 12. Amos 9.14, 15. and God have a very glorious Church in the Land of Canaan. But that's not all; The Gentiles, who shall be made a spiritual Israel, though in time past they were not a people, yet now are they the people of God; and which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy, 1 Pet. 2.10. yea, such a signal mercy as S. John cannot look on without an Ecce admirantis; Behold, saith he, what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: 1 John 3.1. Yes, the sons of the living God ] who as he lives, so he gives us all things richly to enjoy; and is therefore to be trusted, 1 Tim. 6.17. And that we should not only be God's people, but his sons (reconciled, but adopted) and not only be so, but be called so, have the name and the note, the credit and the comfort. Well might the Apostle say, that the grace of God herein had abounded, even to an overflow, 1 Tim. 1.14. Well may Oecolampadius say as he doth upon this very Text, Vide ut major gratia quam peccatum, Behold, how as sin abounded, grace superabounded. Well might Leo say, Omnia dona excedit hoc donum, &c. This is a gift of God, that exceedeth all gifts, that man should call God Father, and God call a man his son; this is a greater dignity then to be called an Angel, Archangel, Cherubim, Seraphim, &c. See more of this in my Righteous man's Recompense. part. 2. doct. 5. Calvin upon this verse noteth, that there is an emphasis in these words, It was said, and It shall be said, The latter showeth, that till the Lord speak peace to his people, and say to their souls that he is their salvation, they cannot have the comfortable assurance of their Adoption, and acceptation into his favor Eph. 1.13. After that ye heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation; ye believed and were sealed with that holy spirit of promise. Again, if God by his Prophets have said to any, ye are not my people, &c. he will effect it. God heweth men by his Prophets, and slayeth them by the words of his mouth, Hosea 6.5. Elisha hath his sword, as well as Jehu and Hazael, 1 Kings 19.17. Ezekiel besiegeth Jerusalem, and overthroweth it. Jeremy is set over nations and kingdoms to root out and pull down, &c. Chap. 1.10. S. Paul hath vengeance ready for the disobedient. And what God's Ministers do on earth, he ratifies in heaven, Mat. 16.19. and 18.18.

Verse 11. Then shall the children of Judah, and the children of Israel be gathered together ] i. e. they shall unite into one body, and one religion, and shall all make one entire Kingdom, Ezek. 37.22, 24. Christ once lifted up, shall draw all things to himself: and wherever this carcase is, there will the spiritual Eagles be also. Caiaphas, like another Balaam, prophesied that Jesus should die for that Nation: And not for that Nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. This is the gathering together here mentioned: Christ shall be one amongst his people, and his name one, Ze • h. 14.9. (See the Note there) they shall serve the Lord with one shoulder: It seems to be a Metaphor taken from Oxen that are yoked together, and that set their shoulders jointly to the work. Surely, the more the Gospel prevaileth, the more peace there will be. They shall be gathered together in that day: So when Christ shall be preached, and obedience yielded to his government, Isaiah 9.7. then shall there be a blessed harmony of hearts: then shall they fly in flocks to the ordinances, as the doves to their windows: then shall they come to the Lord's house upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, Isaiah 66.20.

and appoint themselves one head ] The Lord Christ, called David their King, chap. 3.5. A multitude gathered under this one Head, and united to him is a Church. This head is indeed appointed, and set up over the Church by God, Psal. 2.6. Eph. 1.22. But the Saints are said to appoint Christ their head, and indeed, to set the Crown upon his head, as Cant. 3.11. when they choose him and embrace him for their Sovereign, when with highest estimations, most vigorous affections, and utmost endeavors of unfeigned obedience, they set him up in their hearts, and serve him in their lives; giving him the preeminence, and holding all in Capite in Christ: yea, holding of the head, as the Apostles expression is, Col. 2.19. not of Paul, or Apollo, or Cephas. That Popish Buzzard was utterly out, who said that he had found in the Dictionaries, that Cephas signifieth an Head, and that therefore Peter was head of the Church. For neither doth Cephas signify an Head, but a Stone or Rock: nor, if it did, would that prove, what he alledgeth it for. Judah and Israel shall appoint to themselves one head, not more then one. The Church is not bellua multorum capitum: neither is there any need of a ministerial head of the Church: Indeed there is a contradiction in the very mention of it (as one well observeth) a Ministerial Head; it is absurd to speak it.

and they shall come up out of the land ] i. e. They shall be gathered into the heavenly Jerusalem, saith Occolampadius; They shall come up from their miserable life, saith Luther: from their earthly affections, saith Jerome. Rather, from Chaldea, or where ever they lie captivated and dispersed, to Jerusalem; there to join in the same way of worship (as once the twelve Tribes did before the schism under Jeroboam ) with the Christian Church, and so go on the way to the kingdom of heaven.

for great is the day of Jezreel ] i. e. of Christ (saith Jerome ) who is God's seed, and shall see his seed, and so prolong his days by a succession of Saints, Isaiah 53.10. for whom God also will do great things in that day of his power, Psal. 100.3. when there shall be a marvelous increase of his Church, which he shall sow with the seed of men and of beasts, revealing his arm (another etymology of the word Jezreel ) for the ingathering of his Elect. Sic, Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus.

CHAP. II

Verse 1. Say unto your brethren Ammi ] Besides the public preaching of this gracious promise, chap. 1.10. There it shall be said unto them &c. charge is here given that this be the subject of their more private discourse also: and that they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, we that were not a people, are now a people: we that had not obtained mercy, have now obtained mercy. Jubet per Prophetam ne haec vox in ecclesia taceatur. God commands by the prophet that these sweet words Ammi Ruhamah, be tossed and talked of at every friendly meeting; I will not leave you fatherless: In me the fatherless findeth mercy: I will never leave thee, I will not, not, not forsake thee: so many Nots there are in the Original for more assurance, God would have such precious passages as these, to be rehearsed (even in the places of drawing water Judge. 5.11. where the maids met to fetch water, or do other ordinary chares) for mutual encouragement, and for the praise of his name. O the matchless mercy of our God! O the never-enough adored depth of his free grace! who would not fear thee o King of Nations! who would not be telling of thy goodness in the morning, and of thy faithfulness every night? Read that triumphant Psal. 145. per totum; and be you ever chaunting out, (as they of old at their daily employments) aliquid Davidicum; so building up one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Think but on these two words in the text, and you cannot want matter. Is it nothing to be in covenant with God, and to be under mercy? O blessed are the people that have the Lord for their God, saith David. But I obtained mercy saith Paul. 1 Tim. 1.16. and that was his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 his confident boasting, where ever he came, being a constant preacher of God's free grace: (as was likewise Austin, which makes him hardly censured by the Semipelagian papists and Arminians as an enemy to nature, because so high a friend to grace.] Neither is he forgetful to tell his Ephesians and others to whom he writeth, that they were once dead in sins and trespasses, but now, quickened together with Christ &c. They were foreigners, but now fellow-citizens with the Saints: they were darkness, but now light in the Lord, and should therefore walk as children of light, and talk of his praises, who had drawn them out of dreadful darkness, into marvelous light. Come, saith David, and I will tell you what God hath done for my soul. The Lord hath done great things for us, saith the Church, whereat we are glad. He which is mighty hath done to me great things: and holy is his name, saith the blessed Virgin. Say ye unto your brethren Ammi, and to your sisters Ruhamah. Say it, say it, to brethren and to sisters, upon every opportunity, and with the utmost importunity, that it may take impression upon their spirits, and not be as a scale set upon the water, nor as rain falling upon a rock that leaves no sign behind it. The Grecians being delivered out of servitude by Flaminius the Roman General, rang out Soter, Soter, that is Savior, Savior, with such a courage, that the very birds of the air, astonished thereat, fell to the earth. The people of Israel gave such a loud shout at the return of the Ark, that the earth rang again. A drowning man being pulled out of the water by Alphonsus King of Aragon, and rescued from so great a death, cried out (as soon as he came again to himself) by way of thankfulness Aragon, Aragon. let us cry as loud Ammi, Ruhamah, hitherto God hath helped us, who were lately (with those Israelites in the wilderness) talking of our graves. Say therefore with the Psalmist, Because thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from falling, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living &c.

Verse 2. Plead with your mother, plead ] Here of right begins the second chapter (the former verse being not so fitly separated from the former chapter) and it is nothing else but a commentary upon the first, as Parcus well noteth. For the Prophet here proceedeth in accusing the people of disloyality and ingratitude: whereupon he denounceth a divorce and punishment: and then foretelleth their repentance and return into favor with God under the kingdom of the Messiah. Now the end wherefore both the accusation and the promise is here reiterated, is not so much to confirm what had been before affirmed as to set forth the means whereby this off-cast people was to be at length reduced unto the Church: viz. Partly by external means (as sharp Sermons and sore afflictions) and partly by the internal grace of the Spirit of God, and good affiance of his love sealed up to them, by sundry spiritual and temporal favors conferred upon them; as so many love-tokens. Come we now to the words of this verse; where Oecolampadius begins the chapter: Plead with your mother, plead ] It is verbum forense, saith Mercer. An expression borrowed from pleaders at the bar. q.d. Be in good earnest with her, rebuke her roundly and openly, according to the nature of her offense: that she may be sound in the faith, and ashamed of her perfidiousness. What though she be your mother, and in that respect to be honored by you, yet she is a perverse rebellious woman, as Saul once said of his son Jonathan's mother (how truly I inquire not: malice little regards truth, so it may gall or kill ) and therefore to be barely and boldly told her own. Besides, we cannot better show our respect to Parents, then by seeking their souls health: and by dealing fairly but freely with them therein. Not as Walter Mupes (sometimes Arch-deacon of Oxford) did by his mother Church of Rome: For relating the gross simony of the Pope in confirming the election of Reginald bastard son of Jocelin Bishop of Sarum into the sea of Bath, he thus concludes his narration, Sit tamen Domina mater{que} nostra Roma baculus in aqua fractus: & absit credere quae vidimus: yet let our Lady, and mother Rome be as a stick put into the water, which seems to be broken, but is not so: and far be it from us, to believe our own eyes against her. Was this charity? or stupidity rather? Charity may be ingenuous, but not servile and blockish. It is not love but hatred (if Moses may judge) to suffer sin in a dearest friend to pass uncontroulled. Good Asa deposed his own mother for her idolatry: and our Edward the sixth would not be drawn by any persuasion of friends or fear of enemies, to indulge his sister, the Lady Mary, to have Mass said in her house. The truth is, those Ammi's and Ruhamah's that have found mercy from God, they have their hearts so fired up thereby with a holy zeal for him, that they cannot endure to see him dishonored, but must appear and plead for him against any in the world. Again, as any one is more assured of his own salvation by Christ, the more he thirsteth after the salvation of others; as we see evidently in Saint Paul that vessel of mercy. I am persuaded, saith He, or I am sure, that neither life nor death, &c. shall ever separate me from God's love in Christ. And what follows in the very next words, but this, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the holy Ghost; That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, &c. And how effectually and convincingly he pleadeth with them to draw them to Christ and hold them close to him, that golden Epistle to the Hebrews will well witness to the worlds end.

For she is not my wife ] For I have put her away by a bill of divorcement, Isai. 50.1. with a Habe tibi quae tua sunt (which was the form of divorce among the Romans ) Take thine own things and be gone. Now the Jewish Synagogue had nothing she could properly call her own, but sin and misery: when God first took her, she had not a rag to her back, Ezek. 16.10. nor any kind of comeliness. But what he was pleased to put upon her, verse 14. But she ( foolish woman and unwise, Deut. 32.5.) trusting in her borrowed beauty plaid the harlot, & poured out her fornication on everyone that passed by: his it was verse 15. The Synagogue of Rome is such another meretrix meretricissima quae gremium claudit nemini, as her own sons say of her, by way of commendation. Saint John calleth her the whore, the great whore, Rev. 17.1.15. and further telleth us, that she sitteth upon her paramours in a base manner, in an unseemly sort, she sitteth upon their very consciences, and keeps them under by force: whereas Stephen King of Polony (one of her sons but not altogether so obsequious) was wont to say, that God had required three things to himself, sc: ex nihilo aliquid facere, scire futura, & dominari velle conscientijs, that is, to make something of nothing, to know things to come, and to bear rule over men's consciences. How she forceth men to commit folly with her by the cruel Inquisition; and how she hireth others for preferments ( Luther was offered a Cardinalship: Bessarion of Nice was won over to her by such an offer; Thomas Saranzius was of a poor Shoemakers son made Bishop, Cardinal and Pope; all in one year, and called Nicolas the fifth, the like might be said of Aeneas Sylvins Canon of Trent; afterwards Pope Pius the second) and for a price too, is notoriously known to the Christian world. Stratagem nunc est Pontificium ditare multos ut pijesse desinant, saith a good Author. It is one of the Popes Stratagems to enrich men that he may oblige them to himself: and bring them into his own vassalage. In divers towns of Germany (as at Ausburgh, &c. ) there was a known allowance by the year for such Lutherans as would become Papists. Thus this whore of Rome imitateth Her in the text: of whom it is elsewhere complained, Ezek. 16.33. They give gifts to all whores (and so buy repentance at too dear a rate) but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom: Yea thou hast plaid the harlot with them, and yet couldst not be satisfied, verse. 28. It was but time therefore that God should cast her off, as now no wife of his but an adulteress of the Devil, as she shown herself notably in the Trent-Conventicle: where with a whores forehead that refused to be ashamed she not only established by a Law their abominable Idolatry, but also set forth that Heathenish decree, whereby she equalleth (at least) the Apocrypha to the holy Canon, the Vulgar puddle to the Hebrew and Greek fountains, unwritten verities and traditions to the sacred Scriptures: and further addeth, that the holy Ghost himself is not to be hearkened unto, speak he never so plainly and expressly, nisi accedat meretricis purpuratae eff • ons interpretatio, unless she may have the interpreting of his meaning, according to her way. O monstrous impudency, deserving a divorce! True it is that God hateth putting away, Mal. 2.16. and Isa. 50.1. he tells these Jews, that he had not given their mother a bill of divorcement, ut solent morosi et crudeles mariti as cruel and f • o • and husbands use to do, for every light offense. But what he had done this way, he was merely compel'd to it; as not able to wink any longer at thei • flagi • ious practices: Hear his own words. Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mothers divorcement whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you sold yourselves; and for your transgressions is your mother put away. And yet not so far put away neither, but that if she repent, she may be received again: and that's no small mercy. See Jer. 3.1. They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast plaid the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord. Lo, God is above Law; and his mercy is matchless: he will do that for his people that none else in like case would ever be drawn to do, Mic. 7.10. Who is a God like unto thee? saith the Prophet, by way of admiration. David never came near his concubines more after that Absalom had gone in to them, and Achitophel judged that act would be such an injury, as David would never put up and therefore gave that pernicious counsel. But God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts, neither are our ways his ways, &c. Of mercy, and multiplied-pardons. But as the heavens are higher then the earth so are his ways higher then our ways, and his thoughts then our thoughts. We are not to mature things according to our own model; and to have as low thoughts of God and his goodness as those Miscreants once had of his power, when they demanded, Can God prepare a table for us in the wilderness? Can he give us water out of the Rock? Surely a Finite creature cannot believe the infinite attributes of God thoroughly, without supernatural grace: which therefore must be implored, and every of us excited not to cast away our confidence which hath so great recompense, so great encouragement: but to say to our mother, and each to other, put away your whoredoms. &c. Cast away all your transgressions, &c. Ye have done all this wickedness (saith Samuel to the revolted People of his time) but what of that? yet turn not aside from following the Lord: for that were to add rebellion to sin, as Herod to all his other hateful practices added that of beheading the Baptist. Do not therefore turn aside from following the Lord, but go home again to him, and he will speak peace. For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great Names sake: since it hath pleased the Lord once to make you his people. He chose you for his love: and now loves you for his choice; yea he cries after you, as once, Return you backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. O that you would reciprocate and say, Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God. Jer. 3.22.

Let her therefore put away her wheredoms out of her sight ] Not out of my sight, (as a Lapide readeth it, neither according to the Original, nor yet his own vulgar Translation) but out of her sight, or from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts. Sed quid hoc sibi vult? saith Calvin here. But what may be the meaning of this. It surely seemeth harsh to say, that women play the whores; either with their faces, or with their breasts: And yet it is not unknown to the Learned what Arch • silans the Philosopher said to a young wanton, that cast lustful looks, and laseivious glances upon others; Nihil interest quibus membris cinaedi sitas, posterioribus an prioribus: You may be naughty-packs more ways then one And Plutarch tells of a certain Orator, that said of an impudent fellow; Quod in oculis haberet non 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 sed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that he had in his eyes not Pupils, but Punks. And S. Peter saith of the Sectaries of his time, that they had eyes full of the adulteress, (so runs the Original) and that could not cease to sin, 2 Pet. 2.14. It is evident enough (saith Calvin ) that the Prophet in this Text alludeth to the manner of harlots, painting their faces, decking, or laying out their breasts to allure lovers. Filthy dressing and naked breasts, (saith another Divine) this is whoredom between the breasts. A third calleth naked breasts and wrists, abhorred filth. Jerome saith, if a man or woman adorn, or carry themselves so, as to provoke others to lust after them, though no evil follow upon it, yet the parties shall suffer eternal damnation; because they offered poison to others, though none would drink it. In Scripture, women taxed for this, were notorious wicked persons, and usually whores: as Tamar, Jezebel, those Damosels, Isaiah 3. Dives, Luke 16. Lupa Romana, Rev. 1.73. Our Henry the sixth, when a Mask of women were presented unto him, whereof some of them shown their naked breasts, he left the presence, crying, Fie, fie Ladies, in sooth ye are to blame, to bare those parts to the eyes of man, that nature appointed modesty to conceal. Frederick the Emperor, seeing some country wenches, near Florence, in dancing to show their naked legs, Eamus, said he, meretricum hic ludus est non virginum, Let us go hence, for this is not maids play, but whores rather. That Yonker in the Proverbs, was met by a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtle of heart, or trussed up about the breasts, with her upper parts naked, like a bedlam. So Levi Ben Gersom, she met him with her naked breasts, yea with something else naked, which modesty forbids to name, as some construe that Text, Prov. 7.10. So she caught him and kissed him, verse. 13, with strange impudency: and no question but having caught him, her lust grew more flagrant: as by unclean touches of the face and breasts, men are more enkindled. Hence that of our Savior in expounding the seventh Commandment, Matth. 5.30. If thy right hand offend thee, sc. by dalliance, and wanton touches, cut it off, &c. Hippocrat • s observeth, that there are venae & viae ab utero ad mamillas, veins and passages that go from the beily to the breasts; and that's the reason that he gives of the temptation to lust, that is in the breasts. Keep thyself pure, saith Saint Paul to his son Timothy. And again, The younger women exhort with purity, or chastity. It is not safe to pry into the beauty of young women. Ut vidi ut perij, &c. The eyes are those windows of wickedness, and loop-holes of lust. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight. And let not the strange woman take thee with her eye-lids, saith Solomon. For prevention hereof, in Chrysostom's time, the women were disjoined from the men in the Church, by a wooden wall. And Tertullian saith to the Christian women, Judicabunt vos Arabiae foeminae Ethnicae, &c. The Heathen women of Arabia shall judge you: for they do not only cover their faces but their heads too; and rather then they will have any part appear naked, they will let the light but into one eye. In Barbary, they say, it is death for any man to see one of the Xeriffes concubines; and for them too, if when they see a man (though but thorough a casement) that do not suddenly screek out. Millions of people have died of the wound in the eye. Aholah and Aholibah, that is, Israel and Judah, no sooner saw the Assyrians, (those desirable young men) though but pourt •• yed upon the wall, but they doted upon those Paramours, and received them into the bed of love, Ezek. 23.16, 17. Et divarica • it tibias suas, Ezek. 16.25. and multiplied their whoredoms. The very sight of the Altar at Damas • us, set Abaz agog to have one of the same fashion, 2 King. 16. And Jeroboam coming out of Egypt, where the Ox was worshipped, brought home two Calves with him; and set them up at Dan and Beth • l. The Nicodemites and Familists hold it no sin, to be present at Idol-service, and allege a Text for it out of Apocryphal Baruch. But a good Interpreter well observeth, that, that which is intended specially here, in these words, Let her put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries, &c. is, that they should not be content merely with change of their hearts, to say, Well, we will acknowledge the Lord to be the true God, and our hearts shall wholly trust in him; but for these external things, what great matter is in them? Oh no, they must abstain from all appearance of evil, from the badges of Idolatry, &c. Thus he. Those badges, or ensigns of Idolatry they usually carried between their breasts, (saith another Author) to testify that the Idol had their hearts; whereas Christ should have been there, Cant. 1.13. Who to show his dear love to his Church, appeared to John girt about the paps with a golden girdle, Rev. 1.13. See the Note there, Cor sedes amoris. The heart is the seat of the affections. Hence God calleth for it; My son give me thine heart: and the devil strives for it, Luk. 22.3. Act. 5.3. Once he strove about a dead man's body, Jude ver. 9. but his design therein, was to have set up an idol for himself in the hearts of the living. His eldest son and successor the Pope, useth the same policy. It was a watchword in Gregory the thirteenths time, in Queen Elizabeth's days, My son, give me thy heart: Dissemble, go to Church, be a Papist in heart, and then do what ye will: Take the Oath of Allegiance, Supremacy, anything that shall be put to you, I will absolve you. Do but carry a Crucifix between your breasts (that's the place where they wear such mawmets) and kiss it when you have sworn (as Louis the eleventh of France used to do) and it shall suffice. An oath upon the conscience of a Popish Idolater is like a colier upon a Monkeys neck; that he will slip on for his Masters pleasure, and slip off again for his own. Pascenius scoffs King James for the invention of the Oath of Allegiance. Equivocation the Jesuits have invented, or revived rather, ad consolationem afflictorum Catholicorum, for the comfort of afflicted Catholics, as Garnet and Blackwell profess. So impudent is Idolatry, such frontlesse whoredoms appear in their very faces, they openly prostitute themselves; Imo volunt extare signa foeditatis suae, saith Calvin, here they hang out their filthy superstitions in the sight of the Sun, as Sodom: they set them upon the cliffe of the rock, as Jerusalem, Ezek. 24.7, 8. ut similes sint publicis scortis, like common whores that solicit lovers, and send to them, as she, Ezek. 22. It was a sad complaint God made Chap. 7.1. of this Prophecy. When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, then it broke forth as the leprosy in their foreheads: Their fornications were not only covert, but overt. Their whoredoms in the face, were their worshipping the two golden Calves and Baalim (saith Parcus ) their adulteries between their breasts, were their trust in Idols, in the arm of flesh, in confederacies, &c. when they would seem nevertheless to trust in God alone: As now the Papists profess to do, and have thereto coined diverse nice distinctions of worship, per se, & per accidens, proprie, & improprie, and a hundred the like evasions. But there is no hiding of their Asses cars by these subtleties. Doctor Reynolds in his Books de Idolatria Romana hath (among others) proved them rank Idolaters. Weston writes, that his head aked in reading that Book; but they all yield it unanswerable: and yet they repent not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stones, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk, Revel. 9.20. But, as those that make them, are like unto them, so are all those that trust in them, stockish, and s • upid; given up to the efficacy of error, to believe a lie, yea and that against common sense, Isaiah 44.17. which is no small stumbling-block, to both Jews and Mohammedans.

Verse 3. Lest I strip her naked ] Deus ideo minatur ut non puniat. God therefore threateneth, that he may not proceed to punish. Here he doth not so much direct as threaten, as conditionally terrify, from the pernicious effect, or sad issue of their adulteries, a full and final desolation, after an utter deprivation of God's gifts and graces, shadowed under a fourfold Metaphor. 1. Of stripping her of all her borrowed beauty, those jewels, and that comeliness that he had put upon her. 2. Of reducing her to her first forlorn condition wherein he found her, Ezek. 16. viz. in her blood, in her blood, in her blood, as it is there said and set out for greater emphasis. 3. Of laying her wast as a wilderness, (by the incursions and hostilities of cruel enemies) or, as in the wilderness (so some read it, by understanding the particle In ) that is, as in the wilderness of Arabia, where they were put to great straits when they came out of Egypt. The very first handsel God gave them there, was bitterness and thirst. It was by Marah that they came to Elim, &c. 4. Of afflicting and punishing her with the most miserable and unsufferable kind of death; I will slay her with thirst, which is worse then to be slain with hunger. All which is soretold, with some hope nevertheless of grace and forgiveness, if she return and seek the Lord; as by the word lest is secretly given to understand: Lest I strip her naked, ] As a jealous husband snatcheth away with indignation the clothes and ornaments that he had bestowed upon his adulterous wife. The Lord threateneth the wanton women of Zion, to make naked their secret parts, Isaiah 3.17. so that their shame should be seen, Isaiah 47.3. even all their nakedness, Ezek. 16.37. to discover their skirts upon their face, as Nahum. 3.5. Thus the great whore of Babylon is threatened with nakedness, Revel. 17.16. And this we see already performed upon her in part, as Mr. Philpot barely told Chadsey in that vehement expression of his, Afore God, you are bare-breecht in all your religion: he uttereth it somewhat more grossly. There was a base custom in Rome, that when any woman was taken in adultery, they compelled her (for a punishment) openly and beastly to play the harlot: ringing a bell whiles the deed was doing, that all the neighbors might be made aware. This the good Emperor Theodosius took away, and made better Laws for the punishment of adultery. God, when he threateneth to strip the Jewish Synagogue naked, meaneth (saith Mercer ) that he will take away ornamenta regni & sacerdotit those ornaments of the Kingdom, and of the Priesthood, leave them as, 2 Chron. 15.3. without the true God, and without a teaching Priest, and without Law, sine lege, sine rege, sine fide, as the Brazilians are said to be. The children of Israel (saith our Prophet, Chap. 3.4. where he interprets this Text) shall abide many days without a King, and without Princes, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim: that is, without any form of civil Government, and without any exercise of true (yea or of false) religion. What a comfort was it to good David, in his banishment, and after the slaughter of the Priests by Saul (even fourscore and five persons, that did wear a linen Ephod, 1 Sam. 22.18.) that Abiathar the son of Abimelech, came down to him to Keilah, with an Ephod in his hand, and that thereby he could inquire of God what to do, as he did, 1 Sam. 30.7? And what a grief and misery to Saul, that God had forsaken him in those visible pledges of his favor, and would not be found of him? Hence he lay all open and naked to his enemies; who now might do what they would to him, and none to hinder them. This also was the case and condition of the people, when Aaron (by making the golden Calf at their command) had made the people naked unto their shame amongst their enemies, Exod. 32.25. that is, destitute of God's powerful protection, and deprived of their former privileges. A people, or a person may sin away their happiness; and forfeit the favors they formerly enjoyed. An hypocrite may lose his gifts, and common graces; as that idle and evil servant did his talent; his light may be put out in obscure darkness. See Ezech. 43.11, 17. with the Note.

and set her as in the day that she was born, ] Not only nudam tanquam ex matre, Naked as ever she was born, (The Albigenses in France, those old Protestants, were turned out stark-naked, both men and women, at the taking of Carcasson, by the command of the Popish Bishop: and so were thousands of good Christians by the bloody Rebels in Ireland now alate) but as she was born of the Amorite, and Hittite; her navel was not cut, her birth-blot was not washed in water, nay she was cast out into the open field, and no eye pitied her. (as the Princesse did Moses, and as the shepherdesse did Romulus and Remus ) See all this and more, most elegantly set out, Ezek. 16. together with what high honor, and sumptuous ornaments God did put upon her, verse 11, 12. What this people were in the day of their nativity, Joshua telleth them in part, Chap. 24.2. Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and served other gods: And I took your father Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, as a brand out of that fire, &c. and gave him Isaac • And I gave unto Isaac Jacob, who, together with his children, went down into Egypt, where they fell to the worshipping of Idols, Ezek. 16.26. And although they were there, held under miserable servitude, yet they continued exceeding wicked and abominable. The fire of their afflictions seemed to harden their hearts, as much as the fire of the furnace did the bricks they made. Hence, as they hardened their hearts. God hardened his hand, and had hastened their destruction, had it not been that he had seared the wrath of the enemy: lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this. The Psalmist was sensible of all this & therefore saith, Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt, they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea. Nevertheless he saved them for his Names sake &c. And what was it else, but the respect to his own great Name, and the remembrance of his holy covenant that moved the Lord to premonish this perverse people of their present danger: and not to suffer his whole wrath to arise against them, and to rush in upon them without a Ne forte, lest I set her as in the day &c. The eso • e thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God with entreaties of peace. lest your house be left unto you desolate. Luc. 21. least wra • h seise upon you, and that without remedy. And make her as a wilderness ] after that • have brought her out of a wilderness, and set her in a land that floweth with milk and honey. God can quickly curse our blessings, and destroy us after that he hath done us good. See this excellency set forth Isaiah 5.5. and Jer. 17.5.6. Psal. 107.34. Zech. 7.14. with the Note there and take heed lest living in gods good land, but not by God's good laws, we forfeit all into his hand, and he take the forfeiture. For he had rather that wild beasts should devour the good of a land, yea, that Satires and devils should dance there: then that wicked and stubborn sinners should enjoy it. If Philip of Spain could say he had rather have no subjects, then Lutheran subjects: And if the Council of Toulouse (out of a like blind zeal for propagating Popery) did decree that the very house should be p • lled down in qua fuerit inventus baereticus wherein an heretic (as they then called God's true servants) wa • found: How much more shall the King of heaven, the righteous judge, root out and pluck up a rabble of rebels that refuse to be ruled by him. Idolatry is a Land-desolating sin, and brings in the devouring sword Judge 5.8. Psal. 78.58.59.62. Jer. 22.7.8.9. Cavete ab Idolis. And slay them with thirst ] Surgit hic oratio, surgit afflictio; To be flame with thirst is a grievous judgment. Lysimachus parted with his kingdom, for a draught of water in a dry land: and made himself of a great King a miserable Captive to the King of Getes; Darius sling from his enemies, was glad to drink of a dirty puddle, that had carrion lying in it: professing that it was the sweetest draught that ever he drank in his life. Dives would have given all that ever he was worth for a drop of cold water. The members, enfeebled for want of due moisture, seek to the veins for relief, the veins to the liver, the Liver to the Entrals, the Entials to the ventricle, • he ventricle to the orifice. But these being not ab • e to impart what they cannot receive, One he cries, Father Abraham. But hospitable Abraham hath it not to him: fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, is now the portion of his cup, extreme thirst is a piece of Hels pains, and one of the greatest of earths miseries. A dear servant of God in Queen Mary's days, (kept and pined in prison) would fain have drunk his own water: but for want of nour shm • nt could make none. Inward refreshings he had, even those divine consolations of the ma • ty • s: he drank of the river of God's pleasures, Psal. 26.8. which cast him into a sweet sl ••• : at which time one clad all in white seemed to stand before h • m and to say, Samuel, Samuel, be of good cheer, for after this day though sh •• t never be hungry or thirsty more: for soon after this he was buried: and from that time till he should suffer, he felt neither hunger nor thirst (as himself declared) though he were kept by the cruel B of Norwich with 2. or 3. morsels of bread every da • , and th • ee spoonfuls only of water. Mercer expounds this text of spiritual thi • st, the same that was foretold by Amos. Ideo{que} subdit verse. 4. saith Oecolampadius, and therefore God addeth in the next verse, that he will not have mercy upon her childrer, but will kill them with death; hu •• them to hell as he threateneth to do Jes • bel's children, Ren. 2.23. Oh when the poor soul shall be in a wilderness in a dry and thirsty land, scorched and parched with the sense of sin and fear of wrath; when the terrors of God fall thick upon it, even the envenomed arrows of the Almighty: Besides the bufferings of Satan, that hail shot, hell-shot of fiery darts, Eph. 6. so called for the dolour and distemper they work, (in allusion to the poisoned darts used in war by the Scythyans and other nations, the venomous heat whereof is like a fire in the flesh) when conscience I say shall by this means lie burning and boiling, what would it not gieve for a cup of consolation, yea for any consolation in Christ as the Apostle hath it, for any Beer-lahai-roi, to fill the bottle at, yea for any En-haccore, any cleft in a jaw-bone to revive a thirsty Sampson, that must else be slain with thirst. David never so desired after the water of the well of Bethlehem, as he did after God in a dry and thirsty land, where no water was, Psal. 63.1. As the hunted Hart (the Hind saith the Septuagint) panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth or brayeth my soul after thee. My soul thirsteth for God &c. Oh, when shall I come and appear before God. The tears have been my meat &c. Hunters say the Hart sheds tears (or something like) when hotly pursued, and cannot escape. He is a beast thirsty by nature, and whose thirst is much increased when he is hunted, The female especially, in whom the passions are stronger then in males. Christ (that Aicleth Shachar, that is, the morning-Hart or stagg, as he seemeth to be styled Psal. 22.1. in the title, felt his soul heavy to the death in his bitter agony; and tasted so deep of that dreadful cup, that in a cold winter night he swat great clods of blood, which, through cloths and all, fell down to the ground. And when this lamb of God was even a roasting in the fire of his fathers wrath, he cried out, I thirst. At which time men gave him cold comfort, even vinegar to drink: but God his Father most sweetly supported him: so that he might better say then David, In the multitude of my perplexed thoughts within me, thy comforts have refreshed my soul. But what shall those poor creatures do that are strangers to the promises, and have no water of the well of life to relieve them, when God's wrath is as a fire in their bones, and falleth upon their flesh like molten-lead or running-bell-mettle. Then they that have sucked in sin as an Ox sucks in water, shall suck the gall of asp • and venom of vipers, and have none to pity them. Francis Spira fele this spiritual thirst &c.

Verse 4. And I will not have mercy upon her children ] Lo here another, And to those four afore; and more dreadful then the rest: Like as that in the 16. of Jeremy verse. 13. where I will not show you favor, was worse to them then their captivity in a strange country. Say that God do cast off his people, yet if he say, they shall be as if I had not cast them off, and will hear them Zech. 10.6. the affliction is nothing so great, as when he sends an evil, an only evil without mixture of mercy, as here. Oh, this pure wrath, this judgment without mercy must needs be very heavy: when it is once grown to hatred, there is little hope. Hos. 9.15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them. God is not of himself 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a hater of mankind, but the contrary, Titus 3.4. But such is the venomous nature of sin, and so contrary it is to God's both holy nature and just law, that he cannot but hate it in whomsoever he finds it: yet with this difference, that he pities it rather in his Saints, & hates it in his enemies: as we hate poison in a toad, but we pity it in a man: because in the one it is their nature, in the other, their disease. And as revenge is the next effect of hatred, wicked men may expect no better dealing from God, then a man would afford to his stubborn enemy. Pharaoh had plague upon plague: neither did the Lord leave him, till he had dashed the breath out of his body: so true is that of the Psalmist, With the froward thou wilt wrestle, and that of Solomon, The back slider in heart shall be filled with his own ways. He hath made a match with mischief, he shall have his belly-full of it. He would needs have his own way, and had it, (for I would have purged him, but he would not be purged) Now I will have my way another while: for thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness anymore, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee, Ezek. 24.13. So our Savior to those refractory Jews in the Gospel. I would have gathered thee as the hen gathereth her chickens, I would but thou wouldst not: therefore they shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee. And I will not have mercy upon her children ] Lo, God is so incensed by a general defection, that he will make havoc and destroy even the mother with the children, (which was Jacob's great fear, Gen. 32.11.) yea he will dash the mother in pieces upon the children as Shalman did at Betharbel Hos. 10.14 he will put young and old into the same bag together, as fowlers deal by birds, which yet was forbidden by a law, Deut. 22.6. his eyes shall not spare children, as Isai. 13.19. And why? For they are the children of whoredoms ] They are maliex malis, as Jerome interprets it: they love and live in the adulteries of their mother: they take after her, as the birth usually followeth the belly, and as in a Syllogism, the conclusion follows the weaker proposition. Those Jews in the Gospel boldly boasted to our Savior that they were not the children of fornication, for they had Abraham to their father Joh. 6.33. nay, God to their father verse. 41, But he as boldly telleth them, that they a e • a bastardly brood, yea a serpentine seed; and that they were of their father the devil, verse. 44. And in another place, as Serpents, saith He, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell. If mercy interpose not, as the cold grave must one day hold your bodies, so hot hell your souls. But I will have no mercy upon her children: for they are the children of fornications ] i.e. they are not only misbegotten and illegitimate, (which though no fault of theirs, yet is their reproach, as hath been said in the Notes on the former chapter) but they are children of fornications in an active sense too; they have learned of their mother to fornicate: they are as good at resisting the holy Ghost, as ever their Fathers were, Acts 7.51. they fill up the measure of their fathers fias, that wrath may come upon them to the utmost. Children as they derive from their parents a cursed birth blot which comes by propagation; so they are very apt to fall into their vices by imitation: and then they • ue both their own and their parents iniquities.

Verse 5. For their mother hath plaid the harlot ] Being a wife of whoredoms chap. 1.2. (see the Note there,) therefore I will not have mercy upon her children, but will root out all her increase, job. 31.12. Either she shall commit whoredom, and not increase, Hos. 4.10. Or if she do, it is for mischief: she shall bring forth children to the murderer: or at least, she shall bequeath them a fearful legacy of sin and punishment, worse then that leprosy that Gehazi left to his posterity, or that Joab lest to his, 2 Sam. 3.29. lameness and gonorrhaea, &c. It is a dangerous thing to keep up the succession of a sin in the world, and to propagate guilt from one generation to another: it is a great provocation. When the wickedness of such is ripe in the field (and they have filled up the measure of their fathers sins) God will not let it shed to grow again: but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance. Let parents therefore break off their sins and get into God's favor: if for nothing else, yet for their poor children's sake: laboring to mend that by Education which they have marred by propagation and evil example. And let children of wicked parents (as they tender their own eternal good) take God's counsel, Ezek 20. verse. 18.30. Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations? Oh, walk ye not after the statutes of your fathers: neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols. True it is, men are wondrous apt to dote upon their fathers doings, and are hardly drawn off from their vain conversation by received tradition from their ancestors 1 Pet. 1.18. A bo • e majori discit arare minor. Prescription is held Authority sufficient. Me ex ea opinione quam à majoribus accepi de cultu deorum nullius unquam movebit oratio, saith Tully, No man shall ever dissuade me from that way of divine worship that my forefathers lived and died in. It is reported of a certain Monarch of Morocco, that having read Saint Paul's Epistles he liked them so well, that he professed that were he then to choose his Religion, he would, before any other, embrace Christianity. But everyone ought, said he, to die in his own Religion: and the leaving of the faith wherein he was born was the only thing that he disliked in that Apostle. Thus He. Sed teto erravit caelo, Antiquity must have no more Authority then what it can maintain, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Mine Antiquity (said Ignatius ) is Christ Jesus, who said not to the young man, Do as thy forefathers, but Follow thou me. She that conceived them hath done shamefully ] She hath utterly shamed herself and all her friends; husband, children, all. The woman is or should be the glory of the man. Solomon's good housewife was she, Prov. 31.28, 29. Her children rise up and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, Many daughters have done virtuously: but thou excellest them all. Alphonsus King of Aragon was once resolved never to commend his wife, lest he should be accounted immodest, or uxorious: but afterwards he changed his mind, and was so taken with his wives virtues and constancy, that he resolved to praise her quocunq in trivio, cui{que} obvio, sine modo, et modestia in all places and companies, &c. So did Budaeus, Pareus, and others. but a wicked wife, (an harlot especially) puts her husband to the blush and is a great heart-break, as Livia was to Augustus ( Eudemus was both her Physician and her stallion) his children also proved start naught: which made him wish that either he had lived a Bachelor, or died childless. Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a shame to any people. It is the snuff that dimmeth their candlestick, the leaven that soureth their Passover, the reproach that rendereth them a proverb, and a by-word, an astonishment and an hissing, a taunt and a talk to other countries. Such was Israel's Apostasy & Idolatry, their subjecting Religion to carnal policy in setting up the two calves, and Baalim: when Ephraim spake there was trembling, and then he exalted himself in Israel: but when he offended in Baal, he died Hos. 13.1. Whilst he kept close to God, who but Ephraim. None durst quack, but all quaked at the name of Ephraim: he was on high, and much honored. But when he declined to Idolatry, he became contemptible: and every paltry adversary cast dirt in his face, and crowed over him. So true is that of Solomon, The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools: What a victorious Prince was Henry the fourth of France, till he (for politic respects) turned Papist? Till then he was Bonus Orbi: but after that, Orbus Boni, as the wits of the time played upon his name Borbonius, by way of Anagram. Once he was (before his revolt) persuaded by Du-Plessy to do public penance for having abused the daughter of a certain Gentleman in Rochelle, by whom he had a son. Hereunto he was drawn with some difficulty, being read, to fight a battle: and this was no disgrace to him: But when, by compliance at least, he became an Idolater for lucre of a crown, and love of life, he became a vile person, as Antiochus is called, Dan. 11.21. and was worthily lashed with rods by the Pope, in the person of his Ambassadors; and butchered by the instigation of those Jesuits whom he basely recalled into France, whence they had been banished, and admitted them into his bosom; making Father Cotton his Confessor et sic probrose se gessit, et rem confusion dignam admisit, as here. He both shamed and undid himself. For she hath said, I will go after my lovers ] Amasios meos, My sweet-hearts, those that have drawn away my heart from my husband. But if that persecutor could say to the Martyr. What (a devil) made thee to meddle with the Scriptures? how much better might it be said to the Synagogue, (and so to all Apostates) What (a devil) meant you to go a whoring from such an husband (who is totus, totus desiderabilis, altogether lovely, even the chief of ten thousand,) after dumb idols and false Prophets who are their brokers (proxenetae et proci) and spokesmen? Athenaeus brings in Plato bewailing himself and his own condition, that he was taken so much with a filthy whore. Adultery is filthiness in the abstract: so is also idolatry: and therefore idols are called by a word that signifieth the very excrements that come out of a man; a term too good for those dunghill-deities, those abominable idolatries, as Saint Peter expresseth it. Mention is made in histories of a certain heathen people that punish adultery with death: and with such a death as is suitable to the sin. For they thrust the adulterers or adulteresses head into the paunch of a beast, where lieth all the filth and garbage of it, there to be stifled to death. Sodom and Gomorrhah had fire from heaven for their burning lust: and stinking brimstone for their stinking brutishness. They are also thrown out (as St. Jude phraseth it) for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. And in the like pickle are the Beast, and the false Prophet (those Arch-idolaters) for these both are cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone Rev. 19.20. And worthily, since they declared their sins as Sodom, they hid it not: And as this housewife in the text: who said I will go after my lovers ] she did, of wickedness forethought, upon deliberation, de industria, ex consilio, willfully and of purpose, impudently and without all shame of sin, say, I will go after. This was shameless indeed: They should rather have gone after her, then she after them. Moses fitly compareth a whore to a salt-bitch that is followed after by all the dogs in a town. And am I dogs-head, said Abner to Ishbosheth, 2 Sam. 3.8. that is. Am I so given to lust & lasciviousnes as dogs are that run after every salt-bitch? But this harlot verified that saying in Ezekiel. The contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms: whereas none followed thee to commit whoredoms, thou followest them; and gloriest in thy so doing, as Lots daughters did in their detestable incest, naming their children Moab, that is, a birth by my father; and Benammi, that is, begotten by one of my near kindred. These all might have held their tongues with shame enough. But such kind of sinners are singularly impudent, Jer. 3.3. infatuated, Hos. 4.11. and past feeling, Ephes. 4.19. And so are Idolaters wickedly willful, and irreclaimable for most part. See Jer. 44.16, 17. & 2.10. Isaiah 44.19, 20. A seduced heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul; nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? How stiff are Papists to this day in defense of their Image-worship? how severe against such as deface, or but disgrace them? Murder is not so heinous a sin, &c.

That give me my bread and my water, &c. ] What can be more like to the doings of the Papists then this? saith Danaus. Who knows not what suit they make, and what thanks they return to their He-Saints, and She-Saints, and how they sacrilegiously transfer the glory due to God alone, to the creature. The Lord rightly resolveth the genealogy of corn, wine, and oil into himself, verse 22. of this chapter. And the Aposte tells us, that it is He that filleth men's hearts with food and gladness, Act. 14.17.

This should make us lift up many an humble, joyful, and thankful heart to God: well content if we may have offam et aquam, bread and water, and the gospel: and vowing with Jacob, that if God will give us bread to eat, and raiment to put on, then shall he be our God, and we will honor him with the best of our substance. As for other gods, whether Pagan, or Papagan, say we as that Heathen did, Contemno minutulos istos deos modo Jovem mihi propitium habeam, I care not for these petty-deities: I trust in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy: All things, I say, both ad esum, et ad usum, for back and belly, (besides better things) which is all that carnal people care for. There be many (too many) that say (and can skill of no other language) Who will show us any good? who will give us bread, water, wool, oil, &c? they look no higher, know no heaven but plenty, hell but penury, God but their belly, whereunto they offer sacrifice with Poliphemus, and care for no more, quam ut ventri been sit ut lateri, then that their bellies may be filled, their backs fitted. Let them have but plenty of victuals, and the Queen of heaven shall be their good Lady, Jer. 44.17. Base spirits look only after low things: gain and credit carry them any way. They work for their penny a day; and are like little children, which will not say their prayers unless they may be promised their breakfast: Whereas a true worshipper of God soareth aloft, hath his feet at least, where other men's heads are, trades for higher commodities, cannot be put off with mean matters. When great gifts were sent to Luther, he refused them with this brave speech, Valde protestatus sum me nolle sic satiari: I deeply protested, that I would not be put off by God with these low things. The Papists offered to make him a Cardinal, if he would be quiet. He replied, No, not if I might be Pope. They sent Vergerius, the Popes Nuncio, to tempt him with preferment, and to tell him of Eneas Sylvius, who following his own opinions, with much slavery and labor, could get no further preferment then to be Canon of Trent, but being changed to the better, became Bishop, Cardinal, and finally, Pope Pius 2. The same Vergerius also minded him of Bessarion of Nice, who of a poor Collier of Trapezond, became a great renowned Cardinal, and wanted not much of being Pope. But what said Luther to all this? Contemptus est a me Romanus et favor, et furor, I care neither for the favor nor fury of Rome. The Bramble thought it a brave business to reign over the trees: not so the vine and fig-tree. We read of Pope Silvester, that he gave his soul to the devil for seven years enjoyment of the Popedom; which Luther spurn'd at. One good cast of God's loving countenance, was more to David then a confluence of all outward comforts and contentments. Thou hast put gladness in mine heart, saith he, more then in the time that their corn, and their wine increased, Psal. 4.7. Their corn, and their wine he calleth it; because it is their portion, (poor souls) and they are too too well apaid of it. Wealth upon any terms is welcome to them, and those are their lovers that will keep them to it, yea though it be the devil himself: whose language also here they seem to have learned when they say, my corn and my water &c. All's their own if you will believe them: like as the devil said to our Savior, Luk. 4.6. All this wealth is mine and to whomsoever I will, I give it. But God is the true proprietary, the owner of all: and it is his alone to say Cui volo, do illa. Dan. 4.22. The devil is God of this world: but tis but titular only, as a king at chesse: or at best, by usurpation only as Absalom was a king: and as the Pope is Lord of all the kingdoms of the world, both for temporals and spirituals; to dispose of them at his pleasure. When he makes Cardinals, he useth these big-swoln words, estote confratres nostri, et principes mundi, Be you brethren to us, and princes of the world. And by such high honors, bishopricks, and benefices, he prevaileth with very many to be wholly at his devotion. One of his poor beneficiaries ingenuously confessed, that he and those of his rank preached the gospel for nothing else, nisi ut nos pascat & vestiat then to get a poor living by it. Let Saints say, Non est mortal quod opto, we breath after better things: we have the moon under our feet and are above corn, wool, flax &c. The devil shall not stop our mouths with these palterments. Balaam may run and ride after the wages of wickedness, and get a sword in his guts. Ahab may make a match with mischief, and sell himself to do wickedly: Judas hunt after lying vanities, and hastened to his own place. But Moses was of another spirit, and refused to be called the son of Pharaoh 's daughter Heb. 11.24. And those Worthies in the same chapter that were tempted with offers of profit and preferment, could not be won over, but resisted the devil, and he fled from them. The world was crucified to Saint Paul, and he to the world. He was of too generous a spirit: he was no malleable matter: all was but dung and dogs-meat in his account Philip. 3.8. D. Taylor martyr was promised not only his pardon, but great promotion; yea a Bishopric: but he would none of it: Another D. Taylor Bishop of Lincoln, was violently thrust out of the Parliament-house in his robes, in Q. Mary's reign, and deprived. So was Hirmanius Archbishop of Colen for certain reformations, done by the aid and advice of Martin Bucer. I dare say, (said B. Bonner to Mr. Hawkes martyr) that Cranmer would recant if he might have his living: so judging others by himself. But Latimer and Shaxton parted with their Bishoprics in King Henry the eights time, rather then to submit to the six Articles. And John Knox refused a Bishopric offered him by King Edward the sixth, as having aliquid commune cum Antichristo: so did Miles Coverdale in Q. Elisabeths reign; choosing rather to continue a poor Schoolmaster. Pliny saith of Cato, that he took as much glory in those dignities and honors that he denied, as he did in those that he enjoyed. He was wont also to say that he had rather men should question why he had no statue or monuments erected to him, then why he had: Certainly it is so with the Saints: and upon better grounds.

Verse 6. Therefore behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns ] i. e. with difficulties and distresses; So God had fenced up Jobs way that he could not pass, Chap. 19.8. he had thrown the cross in his way, to stop him in his career. And so he had hedged the church about, that she could not get out. Lam. 3.7. he had enclosed her ways with hewn stone, and made her paths crooked. Vers. 9. A great mercy if well considered, though grievous to the flesh, that loveth not to be cooped or kept within compass. Man is fitly compared to a wild-asse colt used to the wilderness, snuffing up the wind at her pleasure, rude and unruly, untamed, and intractable, To be kept by hedges and fences within a pasture, seems to such no small punishment: neither count they anything liberty but licentiousness: or a merry life, unless they may have the devil their play-fellow: But the devil plays at no small games: capite blanditur, ventre oblectat, caudâ ligat: he plays at swoop-stake, he lies in wait for the precious life, as that harlot. Prov. 6.26. nothing less will content him. In great wisdom therefore, and no less mercy to men's souls, doth God restrain, and bound them by afflictions, that they may not run wild as they would: nor feed upon the devils commons which would fat them indeed, but for the slaughter. This made Job prize affliction as a special favor, Job. 7 18. Jerome prayeth, Correct me O Lord, Chap 10. and Luther to like purpose, Feri Domine, feri clementer — Strike Lord, strike, it shall be a mercy. And King Alfred prayed God always to send him some sickness, whereby his body might be tamed, and he the better affectioned to Godward. It is observed by one of our Chroniclers, that Affliction so held in the Saxon Kings in the Danick wars, as having little out-lets or leisure for ease and luxury, they were made the more pious, just, and careful in their government: otherwise it had been impossible so to have held out &c. Sure it is, that if God did not hedge us in (as by his hedge of protection Is. 5.5. so) by his hedge of affliction as here, no reason would rule us, no cords of kindness would contain us within the bounds of obedience.