Commentary on the Minor Prophets
for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts ] Heb. the Angel (See the Note on Chap. 1.1.) and so the Septuagint and Vulgar render it. His office is as to stand before God and praise Him, so to carry messages from him to his people, and to be in his stead, 2 Cor. 5.20. Knowest thou not, (saith Chrysostom ) who the Minister is? He is God's Angel: he speaketh not of himself, if thou despisest, thou despisest not him, but God that sent him. And to the same purpose Ambrose: The minister is God's Angel to set forth the kingdom of Christ and eternal life: non specie tibi aestimandus sed munere; he is not therefore to be judged of by his outside, but by his office. Those Sodomites that sought to abuse the Angels, are thrown forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, Jude 7. Behold, Christ himself hath assured us that Sodomy itself is not an heavier sin, nor more severely punished in hell, then the despising or abusing of a Minister in the faithful discharge of his duty. We should therefore welcome such with trembling, as the men of Bethlehem did Samuel, and as Cornelius did Peter; Commest thou peaceably? said the Bethlehemites, as suspecting the purpose of some judgment. Now therefore are we all here present before God (not only before thee, said Cornelius ) to hear all things that are commanded thee of God. If Ahab had been like-well-affected as these good souls, he would never have asked Elijah that absurd question, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? Alas what had the righteous Prophet done more than what by his office (as God's Ambassador or Messenger) he was bound to do? he taxed their sin, he foretold the judgment: he deserved it not, he inflicted it not: yet he smarts, and they are guilty. As if some fond people should accuse the Herald, or the trumpet, as the cause of their war: Or as some ignorant pesant, when he sees his fowls bathing in his pond, should cry out of them, as the causes of foul weather. Saith a Divine It is a good thing to stand in awe of God's Angels, and with reverence to receive their message howsoever distasteful unto us; considering they are but messengers.
Verse 8. But ye are departed out of the way ] Heb. from that way, viz. that good old way of your progenitors: you are nothing like Levi, but are woefully degenerated from the practice of your Predecessors, and have swerved from your fathers foot-steeps: though ye have the same place, and enjoy the same privileges. This is a foul fault and condemned even by the Heathen Sages. Seneca tells us with indignation, that Socrates his sons were more like their mother, a froward woman, then their father the wisest of men: according to that, saying, Partus sequitur ventrem, the birth follows the belly. Young Cicero was for his intemperancy, and excess in drinking sir named Tricongius. Caligula, that monster, was the son of Noble Germanicus. But we have scripture instances not a few. Not to speak of Eli his sons, and of Samuel's, Solomon degenerates from his father David who had carefully taught him better Prov. 4.4. and so had his mother Prov. 31. (which one calls Bathsheba 's Catechism, another Lemuels lesson ) Iehoran • is taxed for his not walking in the ways of his father Jehoshaphat, and his Grandfather Asa, as if there had been no intervention of an Hezekiah. Jonathan the son of Gershom the son of Manasseh that Idolatrous Priest mentioned Iud. 18.30. is thought to have been the grandson of Moses: so the Hebrews tell us: and that therefore the Nun in Manasseh is suspended above the rest of the letters. Certain it is that Nabal the fool was of the line of faithful Caleb 1 Sam. 25.3. to teach us, that virtue is not, as lands inheritable. All that is traduced with the seed is either evil, or not good. Grace is by gift, and not by descent. Hence that prayer of David's courtiers 1 King 1.47. God make the name of Solomom better then • thy name. Agreeable whereunto is Hectors prayer in, Homer for his son — 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 I wish he may be a better man then his father. And that of Juvenal,
ye have caused many to stumble at the law ] Which is a very dangerous thing: like as it is to stumble on a bridge: A bridge is made to give us a safe passage over a dangerous river: but he who stumbles on the bridge is in no small danger to fall into the river. The word is given as a means to carry us over hell unto heaven: But he who stumbles at this means (as by snuffing at it Mal. 1.13. chatting against it and contesting with it, as oft in this prophecy, casting reproaches upon it, Jer. 20.8, 9. gathering odious consequences from it, Rom. 3.8. &c.) shall fall in thither, from whence otherwise he had been delivered by it. This mischief many fell into, in Malachi his days, by the means of those ungodly Priests who either taught them not better, or otherwise drew them into sinful courses by their corrupt glosses, or lewd practices. Evil examples of ministers have a strong influence upon their people: and the sins of Teachers are the teachers of sins: The leaders of this people have made them to err Isaiah 9. Corruption commonly (as in a fish) begins at the head; ne{que} solùm obsunt Principes, quod illi ipsi corrumpuntur, sed etiam quod corrumpunt: plusquam exemplo quam peccato nocent, saith the Orator: they that are in office do a great deal of mischief by encouraging others in evil, through their evil example. Jupiter's adulteries drew the people to like wantonness. Magis intuentur quid facerit Jupiter quam quid docuit Plato, saith Austin; They look more what Jupiter did, then what Plato taught. I have read of a woman, who living in professed doubt of the God-head, after better illumination and repentance, did often protest, that the vicious life of a great scholar in that town did conjure up those damnable doubts in her soul. In the time of Pope Clemen • the fifth, the Church was so ill governed, and things so corruptly carried at the court of Rome, that Frederick King of Sicily duobted much of the truth of the Christian religion: but was confirmed, and his mind better settled by Arnoldus de villa nova who shown him, that Offences must come, but woe be to them by whom they come. A scandalous priest is a singular mischief: for he falls not alone, but (as when a main stone in a building, or a tall cedar falls) he draws many with him into fellowship of errors, and enormities: as did Hymenaeus and Philetus, 2 Tim. 2.18. and as the dragon with his long and strong tail, drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth, Rev. 12.4. When the Pastors become brutish, all the flocks are scattered, Ier. 10.21.
ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi ] The covenant on God's part with Levi was a covenant of salt, and could not be corrupted, Num. 18.19. non comutres •• t vetustate, saith Flaccius, it putrifieth not with age, or long standing: as that pillar of salt into which Loss wife was turned, and of which Josephus saith, that something of it was to be seen till his time. But these degenerate priests had abandoned God's holy fear, they did not humble and tremble before his Name, as Lovi their father had done, verse 5. they had falsified with God, and so forfeited his favor. It was with them as Cajetan complains, and confesses of the Popish priests; that whereas by their places they should have been the salt of the earth, they had lost their savor, and were good for little else, but looking after the rites and revenues of the Church: therefore God held himself disobliged, and was resolved that they should bear the iniquity of their priesthood, Lev. 18.1. that is, the punishment of their iniquity notwithstanding the priesthood. That should be no protection to them, but an aggravation: because they fell as if they had not been anointed: and were therefore the worse, because they should have been better. God holds himself not bound to perform covenant with them that break with him: for why should he give the children's bread to dogs? why should he cast away his favors upon those that value them not? We have the Covenant, the Seals, the Ministry, &c. (and this is a singular happiness, Isaiah 19.25. Assyria is the work of God's hands, but Israel his inheritance. ) But alas, are not these blessings amongst us as the Ark was among the Philistines, rather as prisoners, then as privileges? rather in testimonium & rninam quam in salutem, for a testimony against us, and for our further ruin, then for our safety here, and salvation hereafter? O consider how God hath cast off the Israelites, notwithstanding his covenant with their fathers: and when in their necessity, they would have forced acquaintance with him, he would not look upon them, Judge. 10.14. The sword hath broken in pieces those seven golden candlesticks in Asia, merely for their covenant-breaking. See the Note on verse 5.
Verse 9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base [And so have cried quittance with you, and returned you your own with usury. God loves to retaliate, and to proportion jealousy to jealousy, provocation to provocation, Deut. 32.21. frowardness to frowardness, Psal. 18.26. contrariety to contrariety, Lev. 26.18, 21. contempt to contempt, 1 Sam. 2.30. and here How these unworthy priests had slighted God, and exposed his Name and Service to contempt and obloquy, hath been before set forth sufficiently. And now it is come home to them. It was threatened before verse 3. (see the Notes there) and now it is executed. Gracelesse men are apt to imagine that God threateneth in terrorem only: and are ready, with those miscreants in the Gospel, to say, God forbid: we hope he will be better then his word, and not be so unmerciful as the Preachers would make him. They believe the predictions of Scripture, but as they believe the predictions of an Almanac, which saith, such a day will be rain, and such a day wind: men think it may come to pass, and it may be not. But shall God say the word, and not see it fulfilled? Is not his dicere, his facere? his word, his deed? Yea, doth he not sometimes, dicte citiùs, break out upon his enemies, as he did upon Nadab and Abibu, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, &c. God had poured contempt already upon these degenerate priests. And the like he had threatened to those, Jer. 23.40. See Mich. 3.7. Zach. 13.4. Ribera upon this Text bewails the business in their Romish Clergy, now become despicable by reason of their evil manners. Petrarch complained long before, that the stench of that sink the Court of Rome was come up to heaven. Erasmus laid them open in their colors, and did them more mischief jocando, by his jeering and jesting at them, then Luther did stomachando, by dry blows and invectives, as One well observeth. He made the world look up (that had been long luld asleep) and take notice of the truth of that which Chrysostom had long before discovered and lamented, Multi sacerdotes, & pauci sacerdotes, multi in nomine, pauci in opere. There are many Priests, and yet but few: many so in name, few so indeed. Fy on such rascal rebaulds said the excommunicated Barons in K. John's time (in their declaration) concerning the Pope and his Cardinals, and yet they were no Protestants. No more are the Venetians: and yet how they slight their Pope (who is now, like the cuckow in June, heard but not regarded by them) is sufficiently manifested by their Manifesto's to the Christian world. In Biscany (anciently Cantabria ) a province of Spain, they admit no Bishops to come amongst them: such an hatred they have taken against that order of men. And when King Ferdinand came in progress thither, accompanied amongst others by the Bishop of Pampeluna, the people arose in arms, drove back the Bishop, and gathering all the dust on the which they thought he had trodden, flung it into the sea. What our Bishops did in Q. Mary's days we all know: that bloody Bonner especially, buried at length in a dung hill (too good a grave for him.) Sure it was an unhappy proverb that was then learnt, The Bishops foot hath trodden here. They are now utterly cashierd, and lie wrapped up in the sheet of shame for this very sin (amongst others) here charged upon these Priests, their dishonoring God's great Name, his services, and servants. For it was come to that height of wickedness amongst us, a little before the late troubles, as to cast odium in religions Professores tanquam in adversarios, an evil report upon the professors of religion, as so many adversarles, as Bede saith the ancient Britons did immediately before their destruction by the Saxons. He that would not be an Arminian, was therefore accounted a practical Puritan. He that was not for the Jure divino of Episcopacy, was little better then a public enemy. If the Ministry of England be under any abasures at present, as they are thorough the iniquity of the times, and the overflow of errors and Atheism, let it serve to humble them for their desire of vainglory, and not seeking the honor that cometh from God only John. 5.44. let it also work in them a greater care to approve themselves to God, that they may be glorious in his eyes and to his people, who dare not but honor such as fear the Lord Psal. 15.4. and have his Ministers in singular esteem for their works sake. 1 Thess. 5.13.
according as ye have not kept my ways ] q. d. your dignity is decayed, like as your duty hath been neglected: You are fallen out of the hearts of good people, and are aviled by all. Neither is it any wonder: for a vicious life breeds vileness of estimation: but virtue is a thousand escucheons. Hence that close connection, If there be any virtue, if any praise Phil. 4.8. this treads upon the heels of that as it were; follows it as close as the shadow doth the body. When Adam stood in innocence, the savage beasts did him reverence. And the same God which did at first put an awe of man in the fiercest creatures, hath stamped in the cruellest hearts a reverend respect to his own Image in his faithful ministers, as in Saul to Samuel, Herod to John the Baptist, those gallants of Israel to that mad fellow, as they were pleased to call the Prophet that came to anoint Jehu: upon whose words (as mad as they made of him) they will presently adventure their lives, and change the crown. God's Image (as God's name Psal. 111.9.) is holy and reverend: And they that would have good repute and report amongst men, must carefully keep (or, as the word here used may be rendered) watch God's ways. He shall have enow that will watch for his halting, and take any little occasion to revile him with open mouth, as Shimei did David, when he had declined God's way. It is therefore excellent counsel that Solomon giveth, and worthy of all acceptation. Pro. 4.25, 26, 27. Let thine eyes look right on: and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet: and let all thy ways be ordered aright. Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil. Lo, this is the ready road to honor and estimation. Do worthily in Ephratah, and so be famous in Bethlehem. Ruth 4.11. Sic famam extendere factis Hoc virtutis opus. But those Balaam's that persuaded by their Balak’s, seek for honor by evil-doing, these seek the living among the dead, figs of thistles, heaven in hell &c.
but have been partial in the law ] Heb. ye have accepted or acknowledged faces in the law. i. e. you accept persons; you deal partially in expounding and applying the law, making it pinch the poor, and favor the rich. The Church hath ever been pestered with such Aretalogi, such parasitical Preachers, whose practice hath been like Ahab's Prophets, to speak magis ad voluntatem quàm ad veritatem, more to please then to profit. And there is a very great sympathy between great ones that have first flattered themselves, and these false flatterers, who prove a sit helve for such an hatchet, and meet lettice for such lips. Such an one was Uriah the high-priest to Ahaz 2 Chron. 28. His motto seems to have been Mihi placet, quic quid regi placet. Such were those dirt-daubers for the devil in Ezekiel's days chap. 13.10, 11. &c. the Herodians, the Arians, the Arminians, Utenbogardus &c. the Queen of Navarre's Preachers, who persuaded her, out of politick respects, to consent to that unhappy match that gave opportunity for the Parisian Massacre. The Apostle chargeth his son Timothy to do nothing of popularity or partiality, by tilting the balance on the one side, as the word signifieth: but as a just law is an heart without affection, an eye without lust, a mind without passion, a treasurer which keepeth for every man that he hath, and distributeth to every man that he ought to have: so should a Minister be; remembering that of Job chap. 13.10. He will surely reprove you, if you secretly accept persons, that is, he will chide you, smite you, curse you for it, and so set it on, as no creature shall be able to take it off. If you reprove meaner men, and wink at the faults of great Ones, reproving he will repro ••• you, 〈◊〉 will not do it to halves: no, he will rather do it double; you shall have it both surely and severely. Let your resolution therefore be that of Elihu Job 32 21.22. I will not now accept the person of any man, neither will I give flattering titles to man. For I may not give flattering titles, lest my Maker should suddenly take me away, lest my Master, whose steward I am, finding me unfaithful in the dispose of his mysteries, should confound me before you. Ier. 1.17. Nisi fideliter dixerim, vobis erit damnosum, mihi periculosum, If I should not deal faithfully and freely with you, it would be to your loss, but to mine utter undoing.
Verse 10. Have we not all one Father? ] Here begins a second contestation, viz. with the people (as the former was with the Priests) for their unrighteous dealing; where we have so many words, so many arguments. In brevitate verborum est luxuries verum. How many Ones are here, and all to persuade to unity. See the like Eph. 4.3, 4, 5. Let those that take upon them to persuade others to equity and unanimity, learn to marshall their matter handsomely, and to fill their mouths with arguments, such as may fall thick, and prevail, being seconded and set on with intimation of heartiest affection. Oh that I could somewhere meet with you both together said Austin to Jerome and Ruffinus (hearing of their differences) I would fall down at your feet with much love, and many tears, I would beseech you for God's sake, for your own sakes, for weak Christians sake &c. not to suffer these dissensions to spread further. So Mr. Bradford in a letter to a distressed Gentlewoman that was in a despairing condition, I beseech you, saith He, I pray you, I desire you, I crave at your hands with all my very heart, I ask of you with hand, pen, tongue and mind in Christ, through Christ, for Christ, for his name, blood, mercy, power and truths sake, that you admit no doubting of God's final mercies toward you, howsoever you feel yourself. Oh that I could get words (said Another holy man to his hearers) to gore your very hearts with smarting pain, that this doctrine might be written in your flesh? By this One Father in the Text is meant Adam, say the most Interpreters, who was the common Parent of us all, and the very stock and root, from whence all mankind did spring. It is therefore a sin against Nature itself and common humanity, to deal treacherously against another, or to hide thyself from thine own flesh Isa. 58.7. This is to be more unreasonable then beasts, birds, and fishes, which love their own kind; and those that seed on flesh will not eat the flesh of their own kind. But our Age over-aboundeth with unnatural Maneaters, that (not only fike a pickrell in a pond, or shark in the sea, devour the lesser fishes of another alloy, but also) eat up God's people, as they eat bread, make no more conscience, nay take as much content in undoing a poor brother, as in eating a meals-meat, when they are hungry: they make but a breakfast of a whole representative Nation; as those gun-powder-papists designed to do. How oft are wicked Oppressors compared to hunters, for their cruelty, and fowlers for their craft? to show that they spare none that fall into their nets: young, old, male, female, all go together into the bag. This raised a great cry of the people, and of their wives against their brethren, those usurious Jews, that had both robbed and ravished them, Nehem. 5.1. And what could they say for themselves, but the same in effect with this in the text. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children, &c?
have we not all one father? hath not One God created us? ] Here the Prophet riseth higher, viz. from Adam to God, out of whose mint when Man came first, he shone most glorious, for he was God's own workmanship created unto love and good works: yea, as iron put into fire, seems to be nothing but fire: so Adam, come fresh out of God's hands, who is perfect love and goodness itself, was no other then a very lump of love to God, and kindness to his fellow-creatures. But now alas, we may sit and sing, O quantum haec Niobe, &c. how strangely are we altered, and fallen from our first love! and what great cause have we, with those in Ezra, to think of this Temple that was burnt, and lament? yea, write Lamentations with Jeremy, and say, as He; They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah. Princes are hanged up by the hand, the faces of the Elders were not honored, &c. Lam. 5. The wonder was the less, because these that did all this were of a different re •• ion. ••• for those that serve the same true God, the Creator of all, to jar and war (as we, alas, do at this day) this is lamentabile bellum, and speaks a great decay and defect of the power of godliness: true religion being of an uniting nature: and the strongest tie. Sanatior sane est copula cordis quam corporis. This Joseph's brethren knew, and therefore held it their best plea, Gen. 50.17. And now we pray thee forgive the trespass of the servants of thy fathers God. They had one common father: but, as a better string to their bow, they had one common God. The very Turks are found to be much braver soldiers upon the Christian, then upon the Persian, because they begin alate to be infected with Persianisme, whom they acknowledge better Mohammedans then themselves.
why do we deal treacherously ] Or, fraudulently. The Prophet puts himself into the number though innocent, that his reproof might the better take with them. That which he taxeth them for, is their wrong-dealing (in general) one with another; whether it were by force or by fraud, by violence or cunning contrivance, which what is it else, but crimen stellionatus, the very sin of cozenage, and hath God for an avenger? 1 Thess. 4.6. Now it is dangerous offending him whose displeasure and revenge is everlasting, and who oft calls to reckoning after our discharges. Take heed therefore of all sorts of injustice. Curse not the deaf, lay not a stumbling-block before the blind: but fear the Lord Jehovah, Lev. 19.14. And considering that to deal treacherously with another (a brother especially) is a sin (as hath been above-said) both against nature and religion: both against Race and Grace (which teacheth righteousness as well as holiness, Tit. 2.12. and turning the leopard into the lamb, &c. causeth that none do hurt to, or destroy another in all God's holy mountain, Isaiah 11.6.) let us so carry ourselves, as that, with blessed Paul, we may glory and say, We have wronged no man, we have consumed no man, we have defrauded no man, &c. 2 Cor. 7.2.
by profaning the covenant of our fathers ] i. e. by degenerating from the promises, and practices of our pious progenitors. Of this see verse 8. A certain popish Prince said, It is not amiss to make covenants: but woe be to him that is necessitated to keep them. He had learned, (belike of Machiavel ) fidem tamdiù servandam esse quamdiù expediat, that covenants are to be kept so long as a man shall see cause. That which was anciently said of the Thracians is now verified of the papists, that they keep no covenants, with heretics especially. The Turks (taught by them) say, There is no faith to be kept with dogs, that is with Christians. Their leagnes grounded upon the law of Nations, and solemnly confirmed by oath, have with them no longer force then standeth with their own pleasure and profit. And if Turks and Papists only were truce-breakers, and fedifragies, it were the better to be born with. But what shall we say to those Christianecategori (as Bellarmine saith a certain sort of heretics were called of old) those blots and botches of Christian religion, and holy society, that can say and unsay at pleasure, make vows to God in their distress, and break them as fast when delivered? Just like those Jews in Jeremiah, chap. 34. that set free their servants when the enemy lay before the walls: but reduced them into bondage, when the siege was raised, though they had cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof; a most solemn way of sealing up covenants. So dealt their fathers before them, Psal. 78.34, 35, 36, 37. And so dealt here their Nephews after them. They profaned the covenant of obedience to God's commandments, that their fathers, for themselves and their successors, entered into. But should men thus play with covenants as children do with nuts? should they slip them at pleasure, as Monkeys do their collars? should they snap them in sunder, as Sampson did his cords? Had Shimei peace that brake his oath to Solomon? or Zedekiah that kept not touch with Nebuchadnezzar? &c.
Verse. 11. Judah hath dealt treacherously ] Judah the consessour ) as his name imports) Judah that once ruled with God, and was faithful with the Saints: Ind •• h in whom God was known, his name was great in Israel Psal. 76, 2. Prospers conceit was, that Iudai were so called because thy received us Dei, the law from God's mouth: whence Ioscphus calls the Common wealth of Israel 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a God government. For, to them pertained (among sundry other precious privileges recited Rom. 9.4, 5.) the Covenants, that is, 1. The moral law in two tables. 2. The giving of the law, that is, the Judicial law. 3. The service, that is, the seremonial law, which was their Gospel: whence Judea is called the glorious land Dan. 11.41. (or the land of delights, or ornaments as the Hebrew hath it) a pleasant land, or a land of desire Ier. 3.19. because as it is Ezek 20.6, 15. it was the glory of all lands. Jerusalem the metropolis, was not only the most famous of all the cities of the East, as Pliny confesseth it, but also of the whole world si insignia Dei spectemus benesicia, as one saith, if we consider God's marvelous kind csse shown to it in a strong city, as David hath it. But, as ingentia beneficia, flagitia, supplicia, the greater the privileges of any place or people are, the more heinous are their offenses, and the more hideous their punishments; so sell it out with this nation so advanced, so obliged, so shamelessly, so lawlesly wicked. They were but newly returned from captivity, scarce yet warm in their nests, when they fell afresh to their old trade of treachery, doing wickedly with both hands earnestly. Abomination was committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, even such as God's soul abhorred, and was ready to be loosened or dis oynted from them Ier. 6.8. because in the land of uprightness they dealt unjustly, and would not behold the majesty f • he Lord say 26.10. Indah had profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, that is, the very place that he had espied out for himself, and that was dedicated to his name and service, the holy and separate land, the Isle, as it is called Tsai. 20.6. (though part of the continent) because compassied about with God's favor as with a shield. Psal. 5.12. In such a consecrated country to act their villainy, was no small aggravation of their wickedness: this made it swell like a toad in the eyes of the Almighty, it was an abomination. Filthynesse in a stews, in a strumpet, is nothing so odious, as in a pretended Virgin. A nettle on the waste is better born with then in a garden. To see the Devil in hell is no wonder: but what makes he in Paradise? England was anciently called the kingdom of God it may much better be so called now, that Gospel of the kingdom is preached amongst us. It was also called Albion quasi Olbion (Happy or fortunate, the fortunate Island say some) or ab albis rupibus from the whiteness of the rocks. True it is, we were black all over with superstition, first Pagan, and then Papagan; But Christ hath made us white again as snow in Salmon. And do we again sully and soil ourselves with sins filthiness, with that unclean kitchen-stuff? do we profane the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, to drive him away from us by degrees, as those Jews did, Ezek 8.9, 10, 11. sin is the leaven that defiles our passover; and urgeth God to pass away and depart from us. Sin is the snuff that dimmes our candle-stick, and threatens the removal of it. Let those that live in God's good land, but not in God's good Laws (as Aristotle complained of his Athenians to like purpose, and as Seneca said to the Romans, that they were become more filthy since they had bathes to wash in) look forward to the following verse, and tremble at that utter destruction there threatened to such, Disperdet Dominus &c. And thereunto Saint Paul seemeth to allude 1 Cor. 3.17. If any man defile the Temple of God, him will God destroy.
and hath married the daughter of a strange God ] This is that particular sin whereby they had dealt treacherously against their brethren, profaned the Covenant, polluted the Church, and committed abomination in Israel: they had married with women of a strange worship, and joined in affinity with the people of those abominations, as holy Ezra phraseth it Chap. 9.14. and withal setteth it forth for such a sin in those newly-returned captives, as he thinks heaven and earth might well be ashamed of. A sin it is, flatly forbidden in both Testaments, Deut. 7.3. 2. Cor. 6.14. and reasons added: as 1. Danger of defection at least, from former forwardness: but most commonly of infection, as in Solomon 1 King. 11. Nehem. 13.26. what's the reason the Pope will not dispense in Spain and Italy, if a papist marry a Protestant; yet here he will, but in hope to draw more to them. See 1 King. 12.25. and 2 King. 8.27. 2 Great inconveniency: as 1. Of grief to the godly parents Gen. 26.35. and 27.36. 2. Ill education of children, who commonly take after the mother (as did most of those Idolatrous kings of Judah) and follow the worser side, though it be the weaker, as the conclusion in a Syllogism follows the weaker proposition. The birth, we say, followeth the belly: and most men, we see, do matrissare take after the mother, in matters of religion. Hereunto might be added, that God's service must by these unequal matches necessarily be hindered, if not altogether omitted, (to gratify a froward Zipporah, or a mocking Michal ) and the better party forced to see and hear that, that cannot but grieve the Spirit of God. Besides danger of disloyalty, and a cursed posterity, as Edomites of the daughters of Heth. Here then I could join with that Reverend Contemplatour in that holy wish of his, that Manoah could speak so loud that all our Israelites might hear him; Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all God's people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? If Religion be any other then a cypher, how dare we not regard it in our most important choyces? how dare we yoke ourselves with any untamed heifer that beareth not Christ's yoke? what mad work made that noble pair of naughtypacks, Jezebel and Athaliah in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the later beginning her reign in the same year that the former perished, as Bucholcer observeth? And who knoweth not what a deal of mischief was done to the poor people of God in France, by Katherine de Medices, Q. Mother, with the advice and aslistance of the Cardinal of Lorraine? Concerning which two it was said,
Verse 12. The Lord will cut off the man that doth this ] Though the Magistrate be careless and corrupt: though he either cannot punish this evil, it being grown so universal, or will not (and so impunity in the Magistrate maketh impenitency in the offenders) God will take the sword in hand, and cut off every mothers child that doth this, (nisi currat poenitentia) as a chirurgion cutteth off a rotten member, so will God destroy such forever: he will take them away, and pluck them out of their dwelling places, and root them out of the land of the living, Psal. 52.5. Neither shall this be done to himself only, but to his wretched posterity (such a legacy like Joab's leprosy, leaves every graceless man to his children) for so the Chaldee here rendereth and interpreteth that proverbial expression in the text, both the master and the scholar, filium & filium filii, his son, and his sous son, though he teach never so well by wholesome instruction, and politic • advisement, to prevent the mischief: Agreeably hereunto for sense Piscator rendereth this text thus, The Lord will cut off his children that doth thus, the children that he begets of the daughter of a strange god. An heavy curse surely, and frequently inflicted, as upon Ahab: though he to avoid it, so followed the work of generation, that he lest seventy sons behind him; which yet would not do.
and him that offereth an offering &c. ] that is, Although he be a Priest, Or Although he seek to make peace with me by an offering: as hoping thereby to stop my mouth or stay my hand to expiate his sin, or to purchase a dispensation as those Mic. 6.6, 7. and Isaiah 58.2, 3. Thus Saul sacrificeth, Ahab trembleth and humbleth, Jereboam's wile goeth to the Prophet, Joab taketh hold of the horns of the Altar: the king of Persia having lost some of his children by untimely death as Ciesias reporteth) sends earnestly to the Jews for prayers for him and his, Ezra 6.10. So did Maximinus in like case to the Christians. Tully tells us that they which prayed whole days together and offered sacrifice, ut s •• liberi superstites sibi essent, that their children might out-live them, these were 〈◊〉 called superstitiou persons: afterwards the word was taken in a larger sense. But devotion without holy conversation avails nothing to avert God's judgments Isa. 1.12.15. and • 6.3. He that killeth an Ox unless withal he kill his curruptions is as if he slew a man: he that sacrisiccth a lamb, unless by faith he ley hold upon the Lamb of God, is as if he cut off a dogs nick: he that effereth an old • tion &c. This men are hardly drawn to, viz. to part with their sins, to cail the traitors head over the wall, to hang up the heads of the people before the Sun. Sin harboured in the soul, is like Achan in the army, or Jonas in the ship; much pains the mariners were at, and much losle too, to have saved Jonas from the sea, they ventured their own casting away ere they would cast him over-board: but there could be no calm, till they had done it effectually. So it is here. Full fain men would keep their sins, and yet lave their fowls: but that's impossible. God will not be bribed Psal. 50. nor brought to suster sin unrepented to escape unpunished. Poor souls when stung by the Friers sermons, they set them penunces, pilgrimages, all sorts of good works, which stilled them a while: and for them they thought they should have pardon. So many run now • mongst us to holy duties, but with the same opinion they did them, a bribes for a pardon. These dig for pearl, in their own dunghills, make the means their mediate urs, think to save themselves by riding on horses &c.
Verse 13. And this have ye done again ] Or, in the second place. q. • . Nor content to have married strange wives, yea have brought them in to your lowfull wives, to their intolerable vexation, so adding this sin to the former, as a greater to the less. This is still the guise of graceless men, to add druake ••• sse to thirst, rebellion to sin, to amasse and heap up one evil upon another, till wrath come upon them to the ut mest. For three transgressions and for soxr I will not turn away their punishment Am. 1. that is, so long as the wicked commit one or two in •• uities, I forbear them: but when it comes once to threes and fours, (how much more to so many scores, hundreds, thousands, as one cipher added to a figure makes it so many tenns, two so many hundreds, three so many thousands &c.) God will bear with them no longer. Of those old Israelites it is demanded, not without great indignation on God's part. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert? Yea they turned ba •• and tempted God &c. Psal. 78.40, 41. Good men, if they fall once into foul practices, they fall not often. Of Judah it is expressly recorded that he knew Tamar no more. Lot indeed committed incest two night; together: but the orifice of his lust was not yet stopped by repentance. Think the same of Solomon, Sampson, Jonah, &c. their acts were as it were continued acts: and, in the interim, little or no remorse or regret. Let us that have received mercy, be admonished to sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto us. There is a woe to such as draw iniquiey with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cartrope Isa. 5.20. Babylon's sins in the Revelation reached up to heaven, or they were thwacked together thick and threefold one upon another Rev. 18.5. there was a concatenation, or a continued series of them: therefore she fell surely and suddenly. When wickedness is once ripe in the field, God will not let it shed to grow again: but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance.
covering the Altar of the Lord with tears ] That is, You caused your poor wives, when they should have been cheerful in God's service, as 1 Sam. 1. and in many other places it was required of the Israelites to rejoice whensoever they appeared before the Lord, Earthly Princes love not the company of mourners Esth. 4.4. to cover the Lord's Altar vith tears, with weeping, and with crying out, to throw themselves, blubbered and swoln with tears, upon the Altar, which was a profanation of it: so that God regarded not the offering anymore. 'Twere happy if we could be so affected with our unkindness to Christ, our husband, that we could cover his Table, when we come to it, with our tears. How should the Lord regard our service so much the more? how should it be unto him as Music upon the waters, far more harmonious! What a gracious respect had He to the weeping women that followed him to the cross; and what an honor was that to one of them, ( Mary Magdalene I mean) that she had the first sight of the revived Phoenix, whom she held fast by those feet that she had once washed with her tears, and that had now lately trod upon the lion, and adder, &c? It was appointed by Moses law that the bondwoman should bewail her father and mother a full monet before she might become an Israelites wife. We, that are strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel, as we cannot be presented a chaste virgin to Christ, but as weeping over him that bled over us, so we never please him better, then when we weep over our tears, sigh over our sobbes, mourn over our griefs, as not proportionable to our miscarriages. But to return to the Text: The Jews as they are noted for a nation overmuch effoeminate, and given to women, (as they say) so when they have satisfied their lust, and served their own turns, they are as willing to be rid of them as Amnon was of Tamar. Hence those many cautions in the law to put bounds to their petulancy: and that politick permistion of a divorce, for the relief of the poor despised woman, lest she should come to a mischief, by the hatred of the churl her husband, Deut. 22.13, 14 with chap. 24.3. At this day they look upon women, as not having so divine a soul as men, but are of a lower creation, made only for the propagation and pleasure of man. They use them as their drudges, lay upon them with their unmanly fists, are ready to cut out their tongues (as the Welsh-men dealt by their French wives, lest they should corrupt the language of their children) put them away upon every slight occasion, covering that violence with the garment of the law, as verse 16. Or if they kept them, they took other wives to them, to vex them, and to make them to sr • t, 1 Sam. 1.6. or (as the word there signisies) to thunder: not only tabring upon their breasts, with the voice of doves, (as Nahums expression is) but filling the air, yea covering the altar (as it is here) with their laments and l • wings, fl • ctu & mugitu, (so the Vulgar rendereth it) for their husbands harshness, and their concubines insolencies, and indignities. Jerome tells us, that these returned captives slighted their old wives brought with them from Babylon, (as being by that tedions journey become infirm and deformed) and matched with slrangers, who were fresh, fair, rich, &c. this he gathers out of Ezra 9. and 10. whereas they should rather have nourished and cherished them as their own flesh, Ephes. 5.29. they should have handled them gently, because of their weakness, as so many crystal-glasses. They should have given them all lawful content, as Abraham did Saral, his faithful fellow-traveler. They should have given all honor unto them, saith Saint Peter; and why? Mark his many reasons. 1. They are the weaker vessels, and are therefore to be handled with all tenderness. Some translate it the weaker instrument: and (as Luther speaks of it) as a knife with a tender edge men will not cut stones, brass, or iron with it: so here. 2. They are heirs together of the grace of life, that is, of the life of grace, and of glory too: for souls have no sexes, and as everyone is in Christ, all are equal, so that the husband is bound, in this respect, to make his wives yoke as easy as may be, since she draws even with him, though on the left side. 3. That your prayers be not hindered, as they will be, where there is not so much conjugium, as conjurgium. How can they pray together comfortably, that live so discontentedly? How can they bring their gift to that altar that is covered with the tears, and moans of their justly aggrieved and abused wives? Or, if they do, will God regard their offering anymore, or receive it with good will at their hands? Will not the tears and groans of their distressed wives (who yet hold out their devotion, and will not be hindered by their just grief, from praying to God, and pouring out their souls before him) move God more then their sacrifices can do? Especially if they bring them with a wicked mind, as Solomon hath it: and as Lyra maketh it to be the sense of this Text: Ye have covered the Altar of the Lord with tears, &c. but he regardeth not the offering anymore, &c. that is, (saith Lyra, and he hath it from Chrysostom ) you are resolved to retain your idolatrous wives, though God have declared against it: And that ye may expiate this wickednesle, and make amends by your good deeds for your bad; you run to the Temple, and there with many tears, and groans you beg pardon. But all in vain, because you have no purpose at all to break off your sins, but will needs persist in your unlawful marriages. See more of this in the Note on chap. 3.16. doct. 4. use 1.
Verse 14. Yet ye say wherefore? ] A senseless question: but there is nothing more stupid, and stubborn then an hypocrite: he will not yield, though never so clearly convinced, but will have still somewhat to say though to small purpose, as had Saul to Samuel, 1 Sam. 15. and these Questionists here to God, whom (as before oft, and again after) they put to his proofs. (See the Note on chap. 1. verse 2, 6.) and his answer is ready:
Because the Lord hath been winesse between thee and the wife of thy youth ] The Heathen could say,
against whom thou hast dealt treacherously ] viz by superinducing another wife contrary to thy covenant, This is not a simple injury against thy lawful wife; but such as is joined with contumely, which the Greeks call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : and the children that come of such copulation they call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because they are subject to contumelies. The Hebrews call them brambles; A • imelech was such an one, Judge. 9.14. a right bramble indeed, who grew in the base hedge-row of a concubine; and scratched and drew blood to purpose. Lo, this is the Prophets first argument against Polygamy: it is treachery against both God, who is deeply interested in the marriage-covenant, and against the true wife, who is hereby extremely desrauded, and defeated. Follows not the second:
yet she is thy companion ] thy compeer, and copartner, thy consort, and fellow-friend, such another as thyself (so the woman is called, Gen. 2.18.) a secondself, a mate meet for thee, a piece so just cut out for thee, as answereth thee rightly in every point, in every joint. A wife is not a slave, (saith One) but a companion: a yoke-fellow, standing on even ground with thee, though drawing on the left side. From the left side (say some) she was taken where the heart is, to teach, that hearty love should be betwixt married couples. Made she was of a rib, a bone of the side; not of the head, (the wife must not usurp authority over her husband ) nor yet of the foot, she may not be trampled upon, or disregarded as an underling. A bone, not of any anterior part; she is not • raela • a, preferred before the man: neither yet of any hinder-part, she is not postposita, set behind the man: but a bone of the side, of the middle, of the indifferent part, to show that she is thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. A bone she is from under the arm: to put man in mind of protection, and defense to the woman. A bone, not far from his heart; to put him in mind of dilection and love to the woman. Neither can the rib challenge anymore of her, then the earth can do of him. And as he was ignorant when himself was made, so he knew as little when his second-self was made out of him: both that the comfort might be greater then was expected; as also that he might not upbraid his wife with any great dependence or obligation; he neither willing the work, nor suffering any pain to have it done. Shine she must with the beams of her husband: Share she must with him, in his masterly government of the family, as Sarah did with Abraham by God's allowance, Gen. 16. and as the Roman Ladies were wont to say to their husbands, Ubi tu Gaius, ibi ego Caia, where you are Lord, I am Lady. That over-lordly carriage of husbands towards their wives, and that usage of them as drudges, is condemned by the Heathen Philosophers, in the very Barbarians themselves, as a great ataxy, and disorder in the family.
and the wife of thy covenant ] And is it nothing to be covenant-breaker with a wife; especially where God also is engaged, as above said? Foedus 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ab eadem radice, perform your trust, make good the troth you have plighted. Otherwise, if the fruits of the flesh grow out of the trees of your hearts, surely, surely, saith Master Bradford Martyr, the devil is at inne with you: you are his birds, whom when he hath well fed, he will broach you, and eat you, chaw you, and champ you world without end, in eternal woe and misery.
Verse 15. And did not he make one ] Another forcible argument against Polygamy, and adultery. See our Savior's explanation of it, Mat. 19.4, 5, 6. with the Notes there. The only wise God made but one woman for one man at the first creation: and ordained that those two should be one flesh, two in one flesh, not three, or four, or as many wives as a man is able to maintain, as among the Turks, who (as a just hand of God upon them) are grievously vexed with jealousy, not suffering their women to go to Church: nor so much as look out at their own windows: Or if they go abroad upon any occasion, they must go muffled, all but the eyes. Sardus tells us, that the old Britons would ten or twelve of them take one woman to wife. Belike women were rare commodities with them. As likewise men were in Judea, when seven women took hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach, Isaiah 4.1. That is, we will maintain ourselves and thee: only be thou an husband to us, and let us have children by thee.
yet had he the residue of the spirit ] Or, breath: so that he could as easily have made more, and breathed into their faces the breath of life. And although it is not said of the woman, that God breathed into her the breath of life, as of Adam, (whence Tertullian concludes, that she had both body and soul too from Adam ) yet Austin rightly gathereth, that their souls were both alike imbreathed by God: Otherwise, the scripture would not have been silent in it, no more then it is in the new manner of the creation of her body. Thence also it is that Adam saith not, This is soul of my soul, but bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, Gen. 2.23. Souls are not propagated by the Parents, but created of God, and joined to the body, by an occult operation. Augustine following Origen, held the contrary for a long time. At length he began to doubt, and after a while changed his opinion: Jerome stoutly defending the contrary against him: Aristotle also understood the truth hereof, and concluded, that the soul was divine, and came from above: and. though of nothing, yet is it made a matter more excellent then the matter of the heavens, in nature not inferior to the Angels. An abridgement it is of the invisible world, as the body is of the visible. And why may we not say, that the soul as it came from God, being divinae particula aurae, so it is like him? One, immaterial, immortal, understanding spirit, distinguished into three powers, which all make up one Spirit. In this respect it is said, Gen. 9.6. that in the image of God made he man. There is a double image of God in the soul. One in the substance of it: this is never lost, and of this that text is to be understood. The other is the supernatural grace, which is an image of the knowledge, holiness, and righteousness of God, and this is utterly lost, and must be recovered. This the ancient Heathens hammered at, when they feigned that the soul once had wings: but, those being broken, it fell head long into the body; where when it hath recovered it's wings, it flies up to heaven again. That was very good counsel given by a godly man to his friend, not to busy his brains so much in enquiring how the soul entered into the body, as how it may depart comfortably out of the body. And seeing the soul is more excellent then the body, (saith another grave Divine) like as Jacob laid his right hand upon the younger, but his left upon the elder, so our best care, and the strength of our thoughts should be for the soul, younger as much as it is, then the body; they should be but left-hand thoughts for the body.
and wherefore one? that he might seek a godly seed ] Heb. a seed of God: not a bastardly brood, a spurious issue, a Mamzer, as the Hebrews call such, that is, labes aliena, a strange blot, a seed of the adulterer and the whore, Isaiah 57.3. but such as God appointeth, and approveth, such as may be holy, with a federal holiness at least, if not sanctified from the womb, as some have been, and are.: lastly, such as in and by whom the Church and religion may be propagated and not idolatry spread and increased.
therefore take heed to your spirit ] that is, to your wife, which is the residue of your spirit; keep and cherish her: so Remigius and Lyra interpret it. But they do better that expound it by that of Solomon, Keep thy heart with all diligence, Prov. 4.23. and by that of the Apostle, Mortific therefore your members which are upon earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, &c. Col. 3.5. These are those that defile the man, Mat. 15.19, 20. These make his heart a filthy dunghill of all abominable lusts, and his life a long chain of sinful actions, a very continued web of wickedness, therefore take head to your spirits, that is, to your affections, keep those pure and chaste: abstain from fleshly lusts that fight against the soul. Take heed where you set gunpowder, since fire is in your heart. Austin thanks God that the heart and temptation did not meet together. Look well to the affections: for by those maids Satan woes the mistress. Look to the cinque-ports, the five senses: shut those windows that death enter not in thereby. Take heed to thy fancy: we allow an horse to praunce and skip in a pasture; which if he doth when backed by the rider, we count him an unruly and unbroken jade. So, howsoever in other creatures we deny them not liberty of fancy, yet we may not allow it in ourselves, to frisk and rove at pleasure, but by reason bridle them, and set them their bounds that they shall not pass. The Lord quieteth the sea, and turns the storm into a calm, Psal. 107.29. If then the voluptuous humors in our body (which is but as a cup made of the husk of an acorne in respect of the Sea) will not be pacified when the Lord saith unto them, Be still, every drop of water in the sea will witness of our rebellion and disobedience.
and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth ] He had convinced them of this sin before, verse 14. Now he admonisheth them to abrenounce and abandon it. Lo this is the true method and manner of proceeding, in administering admonitions. The judgment must be convinced, ere the affections can be wrought to anything: like as in the law, the lamps were first lighted, before the incense was burned: First, know thine iniquity, and then turn from it, Jer. 3.13, 14. Exhortation is the end of doctrine, science of conscience, reformation of information, conversion of conviction: and woe be to those that being convinced, or reproved for their faults, get the bit between the teeth, as it were, and run away with their rider. When I would have healed Ephraim, then his iniquity brake out (as if it were to cross me) like the leprosy in his forehead, Hos. 7.1. what can such sturdy rebels expect better, then that God should resolve, as Ezek. 24.13. as if he should say, Thou shalt have thy will, but then I will have mine too: I shall take another course with thee, since thou refusest to be reformed, hatest to be healed: thou shalt pine away in thine iniquities, Levite. 26.39. O fearful!
Verse 16. For the Lord the God of Israel saith, that he hateth putting away ] Heb. Put away, q. d. God hates that Put her away, Put her away, that is so much in your mouths. For, because you are justly reproved for Polygamy, for keeping two wives, you think to mend that fault by putting away your old ones, and plead you may do it by a law, licensing divorces. But the Lord would ye should know, that he hates such your practices: and the rather because you maliciously abuse his law, as a cloke of your wickedness. Divorce is a thing that God's soul hateth, unless it be in case of adultery, (which breaks the marriage knot) and malicious perpetual desertion. This last was the case of that noble Italian convert, Galeacius Caracciolus Marquess of Vico (as is to be seen in his life, written by my much honored brother, Mr. Sam • el Clark, in the second part of his Marrow of Ecclesiastical history, pag. 101.) who by the consent of Mr. Calvin, Peter Martyr, and other learned Divines (who met and seriously debated the case) sued out a divorce against his former wife, who had first maliciously deserted him, and had it legally by the Magistrate at Geneva granted unto him: after which he married another, Anno 1560. The Civil Law of the Empire permitted divorce for diverse other causes. And these Jews, for every light cause (if but a blemish in the body, or crookedness of manners) pretending to hate their wives, would write them a Bill of divorce, and turn them off. Our Savior deals against this, matth. 5. and 18. See the Notes there. This sin was also rife among both the Athenians (who were wont to put away their wives upon discontent, or hope of greater portions, &c.) and the Romans, whose Abscessionale, or Writ of divorce was this only, Res tuas tibi habeto; Take what is thine, and be gone. It is ordinary also among the Mohammedans: But the Lord God of Israel saith here, that he hateth it: and it appeareth so by his practice to his Spouse the Church. See Jer. 3.1. Joh. 13.1. and then say, that God's mercy is matehlesse; and that he takes not advantages against his revolting people, but follows them with his favor: no otherwise then as when a man goes from the Sun, yet the Sun-beams follow him, shine upon him, warm him, &c. Zanchi (and some others) reads the text thus, If thou hatest her, put her away, in that discourse of divorces, which he wrote upon occasion of Andreas Pixzardus his divorce, as indeed agreeing best with the matter he undertook to defend. But in another book of his he utterly disliketh the doings of Luther, and some other Dutch Divines, who advised Philip, Lantgrave of Hesse to marry, alteram, hoc est, adulieram, his former lawful wife being yet alive. Archbishop Grindall, by cunning practices of his adversaries, Leicester and others, lost Queen Elizabeth's favor, as if he favored Prophecyings, &c. but in truth, because he had condemned an unlawful marriage of Julio an Italian Physician with another man's wife, whilst Leicester in vain opposed against his proceedings therein.
for one covereth violence with his garment ] This Text had been easy, had not Commentatours (the Hebrew Doctors especially) made it knotty. Rabbi David in opening of it, obscurior videtur, quam ipsa verba quae explicare conatur, seems to be more obscure then the words themselves which he undertaketh to open; saith Figueir, who also reciteth the expositions of several Rabbin's. Concerning which, I may say as One did once, when being asked by another, whether he should read such a Comment upon Aristotle? answered, Yes; when Aristotle is understood, then read the Comment. The plain sense is this: These wicked Jews pretended the Law of God, as a cloke and cover of their sin, that it might be no sin to them. And though the Lord had protested to hate their divorces, yet they pleaded I know not what liberty permitted them by Moses: but this was but a politic coverture of iniquity, Mat. 18.8, 9. The like hereunto was the sin of Saul, 1 Sam. 15. of Jezebel, 1 King. 21.13. of those Jews, Joh. 19.7. of those Libertines, 2 Pet. 2. Jam. 2.8, 9. of all Heretics, that plead Scripture for their heresies: and some others impudently impious, who lest they should seem to be mad without reason abuse God's holy word to the defense of their unreasonable and irreligious practices. These men's judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation sleepeth not, 2 Pet. 2, 3.
therefore take heed to your spirit ] A repetition of the dehortation: of which see verse 16. Good things must be often inculcated, Phil. 3.1. one exhortation must peg in another, till they stick in our souls, as forked arrows in the flesh. Men do not use to lay ointments only upon their lame limbs, but rub them, and chafe them in; so here. Austin persuades the Preacher, so long to insist upon a necessary point, till by the gesture and countenance of the hearers he perceiveth, that they understand and relish it. Chrysostom being asked by his people, when he would give over preaching against swearing? answered, Never till you leave your swearing.
Verse 17. Ye have wear • ed the Lord with your words ] Laborare sc •• stis Dommun • , so the Vulgar renders it. Ye have put the Lord to pain, as it were; ye have even tired out his patience, whilst ye have made him to serve with your sins, and have wearied him with your iniquities, Isaiah 43.24. I have long time holdon my peace, I have been still and refrained myself, saith the Lord: Now will I cry like a travailing woman, that hath long time bitten in her pain, I will destroy and divour at once. God can bear and forbear as well as any other: Who is a God like unto thee for this, saith Micah, chap. 7.17? Were the patientest man upon earth in God's room, but for a very short space, to see and hear the provocations, and indignities daily done unto him by the sinful sons of men, he would soon be weary of it, he would quickly make a short work upon the earth, Rom. 9.28. It would trouble his patience to spread out his hands all a day long to a rebellious people, Isaiah 65.2. to give forty days respite to Nineveh that bloody city, full of lies and robbery, Nahum 3.1. to be grieved forty years long with a perverse people, and to suffer their evil manners in the wilderness, Acts 13.18. to bear four hundred years with those wretched Amorites, who had filled the land from one end to the other, with their abominable uncleannesses, Ezra 9.11. In the fourth of Ezekiel God is brought in as lying upon his left side for three hundred and ninety years: a long while to lie on one side, without turning on the other) and all to set forth his long-sufferance. Our text tells us, that he is patient even ad defatigationem usque, toward the wicked: he bears till he can bear no longer. See the like Rom. 9.22. and the reason, Rom. 2.4. and the ill use that is made of it, Eccles. 8.11, 12, 13. till they tire out him that is indefatigable, Jer. 15.6. and make him weary of repenting. But is this a safe course they take? Do they provoke the Lord to wrath? Are they stronger then he? Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but ye will weary my God also? Isaiah 7.13. Will he not put an end to his abused patience, that justice, justice, (as Moses hath it) actual and active justice may take place? God in Ezekiel is said to sit upon a throne, to show his slowness: but this throne hath wings, to show his swiftness to come, if need require. His patience passeth along as a pleasant river. But if men stop the course of it by their blasphemies, and contumelies as here, and press him with their provocations, as a cart that is loaden with sheaves, Am. 2.13. God will surely have his full blow at them, Nah. 1.2, 6. Rom. 2.4. Heb. 12.29
with your words ] that is, with your continual contentions and quiblings: or with those ensuing words, blasphemous enough, and Atheistical: together with your bold justification of them: yet ye say, wherein, &c.
when ye say, everyone that doth evil, &c. ] As if they should say, God punisheth not but prospereth the wicked: therefore he loveth and favoreth them above better men. Job, Jeremy, and David were once, for a fit, in the same error, but soon recanted it, when once the waters of the Sanctuary had cured their eye-sight, Psal. 73.17. for such are sand-blind, and cannot see far off, 2 Pet. 1.9.
or where is the God of judgment? ] q. d. No where: either there is no God: or at least, not a God of that exact, precise, impartial judgment. (such an Emphasis there is in the Heb.) Diagoras turned Atheist, because his adversary that had robbed him was not presently thunder-struck. The like is recorded of Porphyry, Lucian, Averroes, and others. See the Notes, on chap. 3.14, 15.
CHAP. III.
Verse 1. BEhold, I will send my messenger ] It is well observed by the learned, that this whole Prophecy of Malachi, though distinguished (as now) into several Chapters, yet is but one entire Sermon, at once delivered. Those Atheists that asked in the precedent verse, (and they did it with an accent too, that they might not be slighted) where is the God of judgment? are here fully answered: and that they might the better attend, they have it with a note of pregnancy. Behold, I will send, &c. q. d. differtur quidem judicium sed non aufertur. Tandem veniet, profecto veniet. Judgment comes not so soon as you call for it: but come it will, be sure it will. For behold, I send (in the present tense) my messenger, the Baptist, and (at his heels, as it were) Messiah the Prince, who shall reform and rectify all disorders. For judgment, saith He, come I into the world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see, might be made blind, Joh. 9.39. And then, you that call for judgment shall have enough of it: when ye see my Messenger, harbinger, or herald, know that I am hard at hand. Behold, this is set here as the sound of a trumpet before some Proclamation, to arouse men's attention.
I will send ] Heb. I do send, or, am sending: though the thing was not done till four or five hundred years after: but in God's purpose and promise it was a done thing already. All things are present with him, for he is a pure act; his whole essence is wholly an eye, or a mind: he is all things eminently, exemplarily, and contains all things in himself. Hence he knows temporal things after an eternal manner, mutable things immutably, contingent things infallibly, future things presently. Hence he calleth things that yet are not, as if they were, Rom. 4.17. and this, as in the works of Creation, Renovation, Resurrection, so in the accomplishment of his promises, which we must not antedate, as we are apt to do; but learn to live by faith, Hab. 2.2. Possibly the Kalendar of heaven hath a post-date to ours. Strive to be strong in faith, and glorify God.
my messenger ] Not Christ, as Ensebius doated: nor Meslias the son of J • seph, that is, of the tribe of Joseph, as Rabbi Abraham would have it. (For the Jews soolishly expect two Meslians's, one the son of David, and the other the son of Joseph ) Nor an Angel of heaven, as Rabbi David interprets it, according to Exod. 23.20. But John the Baptist, as our Savior expounds himself, Mat. 11.10. who is here called Christ's Messenger, or Angel, by reason of his office: one, by whom he would manifest his mind to his people. He was a burning and a shining light, or lamp, and shone for a season, till the Sun of righteousness came in place: as lights and candles are of good use till the Sun riseth. See 1 Sam. 3.3.
and he shall prepare the way ] Expurgabit, Everret, emund • bit. He shall clear the way, sweep it, accoutre, or dress it. He shall remove all rubs, and remora's out of the way, he shall pare and pave a path for Christ into the soul, open those everlasting doors that the king of glory may come in, he shall make ready a people for the Lord. Luke 1.17. Mans heart is full of mountains and valleys, Luke 3.5. These must be levelled, ere Christ can be admitted: and that's not done but by repentance unto life. As John the Baptist was Christ's fore-runner into the world; so must repentance be his fore-runner into the heart: for he that repenteth not, the kingdom of heaven is far from him: so he that cannot see it (as the Hebrew word here used imports he must do) for his lusts that hang in his light.
and the Lord whom ye seek ] Dominator, that Lord Paramount of whom David speaketh, Psal. 110.1. and for whose sake Daniel desireth to be heard, chap. 9.17. Messiah the Prince, verse 25. the Prince and Savior, Act. 5.31. Lord and Christ, Acts 2.36. the God of judgment, whom they called for, Mal. 2.17. and whom they are said to seek for. As God he is not very sar from any one of us, saith Paul Acts 17.27. not so far as the bark is from the tree; for in him we all live, and move, and subsist. And as God-Man he shall suddenly come to his Temple ] suddenly, that is, in the fullness of time, (which is but a short time in respect of the long expectation of the Patriarchs) and speedily after John Baptists birth; suddenly also, because unexpectedly to the most, who stood amazed at his preaching, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter, &c? To his Temple he came, when presented there to be circumcised, Luke 2. when he put forth a beam of his Divinity there, in his disputation with the Doctors, verse 46. But especially when he purged the Temple: 1. By his Doctrine, Matt. 5. and 15. and 2. By his Discipline, Joh 2.14, 15, 16. and 12.12. at which time, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, saith God, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek and sitting upon an asse, &c. Not upon a stately palsrey, as an earthly Potentate. And that was the very cause, that these in the text that are said to see him, when they had him amongst them, could by no means think well of him in respect of his mean and despicable condition. They had a certain notion of the Messiah: and were in expectation of him, and of temporal deliverance and felicity by 〈◊〉 . Of which, when disappointed, they were as blank, as when they saw the hoped issue of their late Jewish Virgin turned to a daughter: or as when they saw Mahomet eat of a camel; whom till then, when they saw him arising in such powetr, hey were ready to cry up for their long looked-for Messiah.
even the messenger of the Covenant ] viz. of the covenant of grace: for in Christ God reconciled the world to himself. And of this covenant Christ is the Angel, or Messenger, because 1. He revealeth it, and we must take heed how we slight it, Heb. 2.3. shift it, Heb. 12.25. 2. He mediateth it, 1 Tim. 2.5. and in, and by him it hath accomplishment, 2 Cor. 1.20. Hence Isaiah 9.6. he is called the Prince of peace, and (according to the Septuagint there) the Angel of the great Counsel. Let all that would receive mercy from God, get into Christ, and so into Covenant For as the Mercy-seat was no larger then the Ark, so neither is the grace of God, then the covenant of grace: And as the Ark and Mercy-seat were never separated, so neither are such from God, as are found in Christ.
whom ye delight in ] They delighted in his day (the better sort of them) though afar off, Joh. 8.56. they saluted him, and were resaluted by him, Heb. 11.13. They promised themselves through Christ malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from all evil, and fruition of all good. Hence he is called, the desire of all Nations, Hag. 2.8. The Church in the Canticles, saith he is totus desiderabilis, altogether desirable, chap. 5.16. The Church in Isaiah desires him with her whole soul, chap. 26.9. and chap. 64.1. as impatient of further delays, crieth out, Oh that thou wouldest rent the heavens, and come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour aown righteousness: Let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, &c. chap. 45.8. Lo what earnest pantings and inquietations were in those ancient believers after Christ, what continual fallies, as it were, and egressions of affection.
behold, he shall come ] He shall, he shall: nay he is even come already: for so the Hebrew hath it. Hinneh ba, behold, he is come: methinks I even see him. A like text there is, Habak 2.3. The duty required is, Wait: the promise is delivered, doubled, and trebled: It shall speak, it will come, it will surely come. Nay doubled again. It shall not lie, it will not tarry. It is as if God had said, Do but wait, and you shall be delivered, you shall be delivered, you shall be delivered; you shall, you shall. Oh the Rhetoric of God! oh the certainty of the promises! A Lapide his Note is not here to be passed by. This word Behold, signifieth that this coming of Christ in the flesh, should be 1. New, admirable, and stupendous. 2. Sure and certain. 3. Desireable, and joyful. 4. Famous and renowned.
saith the Lord of Hosts ] And that's assurance good enough: for hath he said it, and shall he not do it? Here is firm footing for faith: and men are bound to rest in God's Ipse dixit. Abraham did, and required no other evidence, Rom. 4. He cared not for the deadness of his own body, or of his wives womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, &c. No more must we, if we will be heirs of the world, with faithful Abraham. God's truth and power are the Jachin and Bozez, the two pillars whereupon faith must repose: belee • ing God upon his bare word, and that against sense in things invisible, and against reason, in things incredible.
Verse 2. But who may abide the day of his coming? ] The Prophet Isaiah asketh, Who shall declare his generation? that is, the mystery of his incarnation, (that habitatio Dei cum carne, which the Magicians held imposlible) or the history of his birth, life, and death (as some sense it) whose tongue shall be able to speak it, or pen to write it? Who can think of the day of his coming? so the Vulgar reads this text: viz. of all the glory, graces, benefits of that day? But the Hebrew word is the same, as Prov. 18.14. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity: and is so rendered here by the Chaldee and Kimchi. Who can sustain, or abide the day of his coming, sc. in the flesh? What wicked man will be able to endre it? for he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, (that is, the consciences of carnal men glued to the earth) and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked, Isaiah 11.4. And this is spoken of the Branch that grew out of the root of Jesse, verse. 1. when th •• goodly family was sunk so low, as from David the king, to Joseph the Carpenter. With what terror struck he the hearts of Herod, and all Jerusalem by the news of his nativity? Mat. 2.3. And si praesepe vagientis Herodem tantum terruit, quid tribunal judicantis? If Christ in the cradle were so terrible, what will he be on the Tribunal? The Text that troubled those miscreants, was Mic. 5.2. which some (taking tsagnir in the Neuter Gender) render thus: And thou Bethlehem Ephratah, it is a small thing to be among the Princes of Judah: out of thee shall come a ruler, &c. This, Herod and his complices could not hear of without horror: as neither could that other Herod, of the same of Christ's mighty works, Mart. 14.1, 2. such a glimpse of Divine glory shone in them. The sinners in Zion are afraid: fearfulness surpriseth the hypocrites: and they run as far, and as fast as they can from Christ, with these frightful words in their mouths. Who amongst us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who shall abide with the everlasting burnings? The Ruffianly soldiers were flung flat on their backs, when he said no more but, Lam he, Joh. 18.6. Quid autem judicaturus saciet, qui udicandus hoc fecit? What will he do when he comes to judgment, who was thus terrible now that he was to be judged? Oh that the terror of the Lord might persuade people to forsake their sins, and to kiss the Son, lest he be angry. Though a lamb, he can be terrible to the kings of the earth: and though he break not the bruised reed, Matth. 12.20. yet his enemies he will break with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potters vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, &c. Psal. 2.9, 10. And as the Sun, Moon, and eleven Stars in Joscphs vision, did obeisance to him; so let our souls, bodies, all our temporal, natural, moral, and spiritual abilities be subject and serviceable to Christ, as ever we hope to look him in the face with comfort.
and who shall stand when he appeareth? ] Heb. at the sight of him. True it is, that Christ coming to help us in distress, for the want of external pomp in his Ordinances, and worldly glory in his Ministers, and members, and splendor of human Eloquence in his Doctrines, is despised by those that form and frame to themselves a Christ like to the mighty Monarchs of the earth: like as Agesilaus King of Spartans, coming to help the King of Egypt, was slighted in that country for his mean habit, and contemptible outside. But if the Centurion were worthy of respect, because he loved the Jewish Nation, and built them a Synagogue; Shall not Christ much more, even as Prince of the Kings of the earth, since he loved us, and washed us with his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, Revel. 1.5, 6? By whom also he is made unto us, righteousness, (imputatively) wisdom, sanctification, and redemption, effectively, by way of inherency and gracious operation? Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? as the men of Bethshemesh once said. Who would not fear this king of Nations, saith Jeremy, this king of Saints, saith John? for to him doth it appertain: since there is none like unto him: neither can any stand before him when he appeareth, anymore then a glass bottle can stand before a Cannon shot. O come, let us worship, and bow aown, let us keel befo • e this Lord our maker. If we harden our hearts he will harden his hand, and hasten our destruction. There's no standing before this Lion, no bearing up sail in the tempest of his wrath: you must either be his subjects, or his footstool: either veil to him, or perish by him. Thine arrows are sharp i • the hoa • t of the kings enemtes, whereby the people sall under thee, Psal. 45.5. What a world of miseries have the refractary Jews suffered, and do yet, for rejecting the Lord Jesus? They might have known out of their own Cabalists (besides D • ntels seventy weeks, and other Scripture-evidences) that the Mesliah was amongst them: for it is there expressly recorded, that Messias should come in the time of Hillels disciples: one of whom was S ••• on the 〈◊〉 , who embraced the child Jesus in his arms: who also foretold that that child was set for the 〈◊〉 and rising again of many in Israel, and so • a sign which shoui ••• sp • k • n against, th • u the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed. And to the same purpose St. Peter 1 Epist. cap. 2. ver. 7, 8. But before them both, Our Prophet here.
For he is like a refiners fire ] Intimating, that the times of the Messiah would be discriminating, shedding times: and that he would separate the precious from the vile, the gold from the dross, the sheep from the goats: That Nabal should no more be called Nadib, the vile person liberali, the churl bountiful, Isaiah 32.5. but that good people should be discerned, and honored; hypocrites detected, and detested, as was Judas, Magus, Denias, &c. slit up and slain by Christ's two-edged sword, by his presence and preaching,. Surely his sanne is •• his hand, though the devil and his imps would fain wring it out, and he will th • roughly pur • ge his • loo (mali in area nobiscum esse possum, in horrco non pessunt) he will drive the chaff one way, and the wheat another: for what is the chiff to the wheat, saith the Lord? he will purify the souls of his Saints, in obeying the truth through the spirit, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, 1 Pet. 1.22. So that they shall be united to such, and separated from sinners. Fire, we know, congregat homog nea, segregat heterogenea: for what fellowship hath light with darkness? The spirit of Christ, called a spirit of judgment, and of burning, washeth away (lo here resiners fire, and sullers 〈◊〉 ) the filth of the daughter of Zion, and purgeth the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, Isaiah 4.4. By silth and blood understand their exceslive bravery, mentioned chap. 3. which now they had learned to call by another name, since their own names were written among the living in Jerusalem, verse 3. And here God made good to them that he had promised, Chap. 1.25. that he would purely purge away theeir dross, and take away all their tin: and that though their sins were as sear let, they should be white as 〈◊〉 : though red like crimson, they should be as wool verse 18. Fullers 〈…〉 , as some render it) is of singular use to fetch out stains and spots, and to a biter wool: So (much more) is the blood and spirit of Christ, to whiten sinful 〈◊〉 , and to make men his Candidates. Such were those Corinthians 1 Eph. 6.11. Such were some of you, (that is, as bad as bad might be, lepers all over) but ye are washed sc. by that Fuller of souls Christ Jesus. And if any ask, How washed? It sollowes, but ye are sanctified, but ye are just ified in the name, that is, by the merit of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God. The Jews in their Talmud hammer at this, when they question, What is the name of Messias? Their answer is Hhevara Leprous ( sc. by imputation 2 Cor. 5. • 0. Isaiah 53.6. whence also he is said by one to be Maximus peccatorum, the greatest of sinners) and he sitteth among the poor in the gates of Rome, carrying their sicknesses, according to that, Himself took our infirmities, and here our •• knesses. There are two things in guilt. 1. The meit and desert of it 〈…〉 took not. 2. The obligation to punishment: this he took, and so he 〈◊〉 , that is, bound to the punishment of sin: which also he suffered even to the ••• sion of his blood (that true Pactolus, or rather Jordan) whereby he hath cleamed his people from sins both guiltiness and filthiness. We have inveterate stains, which will hardly be got out till the cloth be almost rubbed to pieces 〈…〉 leaves so close to us, that fire and fullers sope is but needful to setch it off. Nature and custom have made our spots like that of the Leopard, which no art can cure, no water wash off: because they are not in the skin only, but in the flesh and bones, in the sinews and in the most inner parts. Hence David prayeth again and again to be washed thoroughly, to be purged with hyssop, to be washed and wrung in this fullers sope of Christ's blood, and with the clean water of his holy spirit. This is the only true Purgatory, the Kings bath, the fountain opened for sin and for uncleannesle Zach. 13.1. Here Christ washeth his, not only from outward defilement, but from their swinish nature: that when washed clean they may not, (as else they would) wallow in the next guzzle. Here are those sovereign mundifying waters of the Sanctuary, which so wash off the corruption of the ulcer, that they cool the heat, and stay the spread of the infection: and by degrees heal the same. Hither poor sinners need not come as to the pool of Bethesda one by one, but, as Turks to their Mahomet, Papists to their Lady, by troops and Caravans, true Christians to their All-sufficient Savior, how much more? In that pool of Bethesda, the Priests used to wash their sacrifices; because no unclean thing might come within the Temple. The water was of reddish color, and ran into that place in great abundance; and therefore it was called saith One, the house of effusion. This shadowed out, that every of Christ's sheep must be washed in the pool of his blood, before they can be meet sacrifices, an offering unto the Lord in righteousness, as it is in the next verse. Other blood slaines what is washed in it: this blood of the spotless lamb whiteneth as fuilers sope, and purifieth from all pollution of flesh and spirit Rev. 7.14. This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ: not by water only but by water and blood 1 John. 5.6. The Priests of the old law were consecrated first with oil, and then with blood: So was Christ, first with the spirit Esa. 61.1. and then with his own blood for our benefit.
Verse 3. And he shall sit as refiner ] i. e. he shall stick to the work, and not start from it, till he bring forth judgment to victory Mat. 12.20. that is, till he have perfected the work of grace begun in his people, (for he is Author and finisher of their faith Heb. 12.2.) and by patience, made them perfict and entire, wanting nothing, I am. 1.4. Christ, who is the God of all grace, and hath called them to his eternal glory, will, after they have suffered 〈◊〉 , in his furnace or fining-pot ( Pro. 17.3.) of afflictions, wake them perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle them 1 Pet. 5.10. yea make all grace to abound toward them: that they always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. For which holy purpose, Christ our Refiner hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem Isai. 31.9. his conslatories, and his crucibles, wherein his third part being brought thorough the fire shall be resined as silver is resened, and tried as gold is tried Zach. 13.9. that the trial of their faith (who have glorified him in the very fires Isa. 24.15.) being much more precious then that of gold that perisheth, may be found to praise and honor and glory 1 Pet. 1.7. True gold will undergo the t • iall of the seventh fire, which Alchymy gold will not. Christ Jesus after that he hath been to his people as a refiners fire, and fullers sope, that is, after that he hath justified, and sanctified them also in some part, will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, that is, he will be serious, accurate, and assiduous in scouring them from corruption by correption, in purging out the remnants of sin by affliction sanctified. For by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit, to take away his sin, Isa. 27.9. Christ hath bought off all our corruptions, redeemed us from all iniquity Tit. 2.14. and God will have the price of Christ's blood out: what the word purgeth not, the rod must; like as what evil humors Summer purgeth not out by sweating. Winter concocts by driving in the heat. And as winter is of use for mellowing the ground, and for killing worms and weed &c. so is the cross sanctified for quelling and killing fleshly lusts that fight against the soul. He that hold, the winds in his fist, stays his rough wind, Isaiah 27.8. and lets out of his treasury such a wind as shall make his young plants fruitful, and blow away their unkindly blossoms and leaves. Black sope makes white clothes, if God set in and set it on with his battle-door, as that Martyr phrased it. Fowl and stained garments are whitened and purified, by laying abroad in cold srosty nights. Scouring and beating of them with a stick, beats out the moths and the dust: so do afflictions, corruptions from the heart. Aloes kills worms: so do bitter crosses crawling lusts. Rubarbe is full of choler, yet doth mightily purge choler. Hemlock is a deadly plant, yet the juice applied heals ignis sacer and hot corroding ulcors: and much asswageth the inflammation of the eyes. The sting of a scorpion, though arrant poison, yet is an antidote against poison. Nothing is better to cure a leprosy, then the drinking of that wine wherein a viper hach been drowned. The viper (the head and tail being cut off) beaten and applied cures her own biting. Affliction is in itself an evil, a fruit of God's wrath, and a piece of the curse. Christ alters the property to his, and makes one poison antidotary to another, and cures security by misery: as Physicians oft cure a letharby a fever. Every affliction sanctified rubbs off some rust, melts off some dross, empties and evacuates some superfluity of naughtiness, strains out some corruption. Job 10.10. Christ strains out our motes, whiles our hearts are poured out like milk, with grief and fear: he also keeps us from settling on the lees, by emptying us from vessel to vessel: Ier. 48.11. when as the wicked have no changes, and therefore they fear not God: they come not in trouble like other men, therefore they face the heavens, and their tongues walk thorough the earth: All that are Christ's people are sure of sore and sharp afflictions, fiery trials and tribulations, piercing and pressing crosles Psal. 34.19. I am. 1.2. He will be sure to plow his own ground, whatsoever becomes of the wast; and to weed his own garden, though the rest of the world should be let alone to grow wild. He will cast his purest gold into the fire of afflictions: but they shall lose nothing by it. Gold cast into the fire wasteth not, cast into the water rusteth not. No saint was ever the worse for his sufferings, but the better: the least that can come of it, is to do good duties with greater zeal, and large affection Isaiah 26.9. Now, who would not fetch such gold out of a fiery crucible?
and he shall purify the sons of Levi ] Whom he had before faulted chap. 1. and 2. Or he may mean the Ministers of the Gospel, called Priests and Levites Isaiah 66.21. Or rather, all the royal Priest-hood of God's people, whose office is to • ffer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus christ. 1 Pet. 2.5, 9. Rom. 12.1, 2. Now for these, Christ 1. Of bad make them good, as he did Joses the Levite Act. 4.36. and many priests Act. 6.7. He makes them pass under the rod, and so brings them into the bond of the covenant Ezek. 20.37. 2. Of good he makes them better and brighter, he pours them forth as molten metal, so the Septuagint read this text. Gold that is melted in the furnace, is not only purified, but also made malleable: yea fit for the mould. Their bearts are brought down, they speak as out of the ground Isaiah 29.4. in a low language, and like broken men: they put their mouths in the dust, they lie low at Christ's feet, and say, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. Thus haughty Hagar humbled by a s •• tion hearkeneth to the Angel, and submits to her mistress: that young gallant, that in the pride of his prosperity, in the ruffe of his jollity would not be warned; when • s flesh and his body was consumed, when his bones clattered in his skin, and the mourners expected him at the doors, he is of another mind, and he 〈◊〉 talked with: then like the beaten viper casteth up his poison both of high mindedness and of earthly-mindedness, and if you have any good 〈◊〉 to give him, he is ready to receive it. See the like Job 33.19, 20, 21. &c.
and purge them as gold and silver ] Colabit cos, saith the Vulgar. He shall 〈◊〉 them as some liquor or liquid matter: so that the purer part shall go thoro. the strayner or colander, and the dreggy may be left. The same thing is again and again promised, as for more certainty sake, so to show that the purity should be very great in the days of the gospel. Howbeit for the comfort of his poor people who are conscious of more dross then good oar, Christ hath promised that he will resire them, but not as silver, he will not be over-exact with them, he will not mark all that's amiss he will not contend very much, lest the choice spiri •• of his afflicted people should fail before him Isae. 57.16. when the child sworm • s in the whipping, Christ lets fall • the rod, and falls a kissing it, to fetch life 〈◊〉 it again. As 'tis a rule in physic still to maintain nature: so God 〈…〉 to keep up his people's spirits by cordials; though he purge them 〈…〉 till he bring them almost to skin and bone, that there may be a spring of bett 〈…〉 its.
〈…〉 the Lord an affering in rightcousnesse ] Or a right offering, a 〈…〉 holy d • ties from a right principle, and to a right purpose. Two things make a good Christian, good 〈◊〉 , and good aims. Though a good a • me doth not in • e a bad action good (as we see in Uzzah ) yet a bad aim makes a good action bad, as we see in John. If God's work be not duly done, we may meet with breaches instead of blessings 1 Chron. 15.17. David fa • led but in a ceremony: yet God wa • angry. J • h • 's • eal was rewarded in an act of justice quoad sub •••• tion, aperis, in regard of the substance of the work: and yet punished as an act of policy, quoad m • dum for the perverse end. Let no man measure himself by the matter of things done; for there may be malum opus in bona materia, an evil ••• k in a good matter: Works materia • lie good may never prove so formally and 〈…〉 gion is a curious clock-work: if but one wheel be distempered, all may go wrong. David in numbering the people omitted that duty Exod. 30.12, 13, 14, 15. a •• thence, the plagne.
Verse 4. Then shall the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem ] That is, of the Latin Church, and of Rome, saith Ribera. A partial fancy of a Ponish Interpreter boldly pr • pou 〈◊〉 , barely proved: and therefore as he affirmeth without reason, so h • may b • dism • ssed without refutation. Uaderstand it rather of the whole church wh ••• so • ver, in Cities, or Countries: and observe, that neither Judah nor Jeru • d • m, how highly soever honored or favored otherwise, shall have their oftering accepted in heaven, unless their hearts be first purified by faith. Till then, their sacrifices, how specious soever, are neither living (but dead works, as the • uthow to the Hebrews calls it) nor holy, that is, pure and unpolluted 1 Cor. 7.34. unless themselves be partakers of the grace of life 1 Pet. 3.7. and can boldly say with David, preserve my soul, for I am holy, or one whom thou favourest. Psal. 86.2. So Psal. 4.3. he makes this the ground of his hope, that his prayer sh •• ld •• heard, that the Lord looked upon him as a godly person. God regards 〈◊〉 the pray, if the man be not right. The blood of a sheeep and of a swine are like: yea, it may be the blood of a swine is better and sweeter then of a sheep, yet was • t not to be offered, because of a swine. See Heb. 13.16. Philip. 4.18. Joh. 15.16. Psal. 147 11. Isaiah 62.4. Heb. 11.6. Look how light, saith Chrys • st • ne, maketh all things pleasing to men: so doth faith to God. True faith is like t • e salt that healed the waters 2 King. 2.21. O pray Christ to cast in a curseful ••• it into our hearts, or else we lose all our services; nay we do worse then lose our labor, for displeasing service is double dishonor: we do but take pains to go to hell. See more of this matter in the Notes on chap. 1. verse 9, 10.
as in the days of old, as in former years ] i. e. As the sacrifices of Abel, Abraham, Aaron, &c. as the prayers and holy performances of David, Elijah, Samuel (who is thought to be the same with Pethu • l lo • 1.1. which signifieth a I'erswader of God, and that he was so called, because he could have what he would of God) Cornelius, Paul &c. were very effectual and available, and did wonders even to the opening and shutting of heaven, as Eliab to the opening of the doors of Leviathan, as Jonah, to the delivering even graves of their dead, as Heb. 11.35. &c. so they shall be still, as effectual, as those Ancient Saints, we draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water Heb. 10.22. See I am. 5.16, 17, 18. and Hos. 12.4. The Prophet speaking of Jacob his wrestling with God by weeping, and his prevailing by praying (so that he was knighted for his good service, and dubb'd Israel, or a Prince of God) subjoins for our comfort, God found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us. So then, what encouragement access and success Jacob had at Bethel, the same have we: provided that we so carry the matter, that it may be said of us, as Psal. 24.6. This is the generation of them that seek him; of them that seek thy face: this is Jacob: Provided that as Jarob wrestled in the night, and alone, and when God was leaving him, and upon one leg: so do we, amidst all difficulties and discouragements.
Verse 5. And I will come near to you to judgment ] q. d. You conceit mea great way off, and put far from you the thoughts of my coming, having been so bold as to ask, Where is the God of judgment &c. Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me. Not, as you desired, to avenge you of your enemies, but as justice requireth, to be avenged of you for your impieties which I have here billed up against you. And that ye may not think to escape, know that as I am a Judge at hand, so a present witness, test is festinantissimus a most swift witness, to evict and punish you, for your most secret sins. So then, howsoever the Lord spare long, yet he will be at length, both a hasty witness and a severe Judge against those that abuse his patience: he will not always stand them for a sinning-stock, but pay them home for the new and the old. Ier. 6.6. Mic. 1.3 God owed a revenge to the house of Eli: and yet at length, by the delation of Doeg, takes occasion to pay it. It is a vain hope that is raised from the delay of judgment: No time can be any prejudice to the Ancient of days. If his word sleep, it shall not die: but after long intermissions breaks forth into those effects which men had forgotten to look for, and ceased to fear. The sleeping of vengeance causeth the overslow of sin Eccles. 8.11. and the overslow of sin causeth the a wakening of vengeance Psal. 50.21. so that sometimes he strikes ere he gives any sinther warning: as Absalom intending to kill Amnon, spake neither good nor evil to him. Subito tollitur qui diu toleratur. Till the fiery serpents, God had ever consolted with Moses, and threatened ere he punished. Now he strikes and says nothing. The anger is so much more, by how much less notified. Still revenges are ever most daugerous and deadly, when God is not heard before he is felt (as in hewing of wood, the blow is not heard, till the axe be seen to have struck) or if he be heard to say as Neh. 1.9. what do ye imagine against the Lord? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not arise up the second time: its a sign he is implacably hent, and means to have but one blow. The wicked's happiness will take its end surely and swiftly. The end is come, is come, is come, saith Ezekiel chap. 7. The Lord is come near to you to judgment, and he will be a speedy witness, Judge and witness both: which in men's courts cannot be: but God being infinitely both wise and holy, may be and will be both witness and Judge against the workers of iniquity: and when they are (as Adonijah's guests were 1 King. 1.) at the height of their joys and hopes, he confounds all their devices, and lays them open to the scorn of the world, to the anguish of their own guilty hearts, and the dint of his own unsupportable displeasure, which is such as none can avert or avoid.
against the sorcerers ] Or Jugglers, Wizards, Negromancers &c. See the several sorts forbidden, and to be punished Deut. 18.10. By God's law such might not be suffered to live, Exod 22.8. yet did this evil prevail in Israel 2 Chron. 33.6. Jer. 27.9. and here, It was done by unlawful means, as Saul said to the witch, Divine unto me by the familiar spirit, 1 Sam. 28.8. and it was a thing hateful to God, even as high rebellion, 1 Sam. 15.23. since the ground of this familiarity is a diobolical contract ovort, or covert, explicit or implicit. It is fitly called the black Art, for theres no true light in them that use it Isai. 8.19. they depart from God and his testimony, ib. and so tempt the devil to tempt them. This was Saul's sin, for which the Lord killed him 1 Chron. 10.13. and hath threatened to cut off all from among his people, that do inquire of such, Levite. 20.6. Thou hast been partaker with the adulterer, Psal. 50.18. so are such with sorcerers. Surely the wounds of God are better then the salves of Satan; as Ahaziah found it. And they which in case of loss or sickness &c. make hell their refuge, shall smoke and smart for it in the end. Satan seeks to them in his temptations, they in their consultations seek to him: and now that they have mutually found each other, if ever they part, it is a miracle: He is an unspeakable proud spirit, and yet will stoop to the meanest man or woman to be at their command (the witch of Endor is twice in one verse 1 Sam. 28.7. called the Mistress of the Spirit, because in covenant with him) whereby he may cheat them, and their clients of Salvation. Everyone that consults with him, worships him, though he bow not, as Saul did: neither doth that old man-slayer desire any other reverence, then to be sought unto.
and against the adulterers ] Sept. the adulteresses. Adultrinum, qu • si ad alterum, out alterius torum, a going up to another man's bed, as Reuben did, and was severely sentenced for it, Gen. 49.4 It was to be punished with death, even by the law of Nature: because the society and purity of posterity could not otherwise continue amongst men. Nebuchad. nazzar roasted in the fire Zedekiah and Ahab two false prophets of Judah, because they committed adultery with their neighbors wives, Jer. 29.22, 23. The Egyptians used to cut off the nose of the adulteress: the Prophet alludes to this Ezek. 23.25. The Athenians, Lacedemomans, and Romans were very severe against this sin; as Plutarch recordeth in his parallels. The old French and Saxons also, as Tacitus tells us. By God's law they were to be stoned to death; and the High-priests daughter was to be burned for this fault, Lev. • 1.9. a peculiar punishment, and not to be paralleled in the whole law. If men fail to fall upon such (it is an heinous crime saith holy Job, and an iniquity to be punished by the Judges, Chap. 31.10.) God himself will do it, Heb. 13.4. and did it effectually, 1 Cor. 10.8. and on the filthy Sodomites, Gen. 19. and on Charles 2. King of Navar who was much addicted to this sin, which so wasted his spirits, that in his old age he fell into a Lethargy. To comfort his benumbed joints he was bound and sewed up in a sheet steeped in boiling Aquavitae. The Surgeon having made an end of sewing him, and wanting a knife to cut off his thread, took a wax candle that stood lighted by him. But the flame running down by the thread, caught hold on the sheet, which according to the nature of the Aquavitae burned with that vehemency, that the miserable king ended his days in the fire. But say the adulterer be neither stoned, nor burned: yet God usually stoneth such with a stony heart, Hos. 4.11. which is a most fearful judgment: and when they die burneth them with the hottest fire in hell. Prov. 2.18. the whores guests go down to the dead. Heb. el Rephaim, to the Giants: to that part of hell where those damned monsters are. See 2 Peter 2.10. and mark the word Chiefly.
and against false swearers ] A sin of an high nature, condemned by the height of nature, and punished by the Heathens. Perjurij poena divina exitium; humana, dedecus; This was one of the laws of the twelve tables in Rome. God punisheth perjury with destruction: men with disgrace. Tissaphernes the Persian General, being ovecrome by Agesilaus King of Spartans, craved three-months truce, and had it: They both sware to be quiet on both sides. Tissaphernes soon brake his oath: but Agesilaus religiously kept it, saying, that God's and men would favor him for his fidelity, but curse and execrate the other for his perjury. God shown Zacharias a flying role long and large, ten yards long, and five broad, full of curses against the false swearer, with commission to rest upon his house, which he he holds his castle, and where he thinks himself most secure. Michael Paleologus Emperor of Constantinople made the Greek Church acknowledge the Popes supremacy, and did many other things contrary to his oath: and therefore lieth obscurely buried, shrouded in the sheet of defame, saith the Historian. So doth Rodulphus Duke of Sueveland, who by the Popes instigation broke his oath of allegiance to Henry the Emperor, and by the cutting off his faithless right hand lost his life. So doth Sigismund the Emperor, for his false dealing with John Hus. Ladislaus king of Hungary, for his perjurious setting upon Amurath the great Turk at the battle of Varna, where he was deservedly defeated. What a blur was that to the old Romans, if true, that Mirchanes the Persian General should say of them, Roman is promitcere promptum est &c. The Romans will promise anything, and swear to it, but perform nothing that makes against their profit? There were at Rome such as could lend an oath at need: and would not stick to swear that their friend or foe was at Rome and at Interamna both at once. How slippery the Papists are, and how bloody, both in their Postions and dispositions, is well known to all. But God is the avenger of all such: because they call him to witness a falsehood: and dare him to his face to execute his vengeance. See Zach. 8.17.
and against those that oppress &c. Either by denying, diminishing, or delaying their wages. The vulgar rendereth it, Who calamniate, or make cavils to detain wages, which is the poor hirelings lively-hood, whereupon he setteth his heart Deut. 24.15. and maintaineth his life; which is therefore called the life of his hands, because upheld by the labor of his Hands. He gets it, and eats it: and is in his house like a snail in his shell; crush that, and you kill him. This is a crying cruelty Jam. 5.4. and hath a woe against it Jer. 22.13. Jam. 2.13. Laban is taxed for it Gen. 31.7. and for those that are guilty, if they mend not, and make restitution, Master Latimer tells them they shall cough in hell.
the widow ] A calamitous name: she is called in Hebrew from her dumbness Almanan: because, death having cut off her head, she hath lost her tongue, and hath none to speak for her. A vine, whose root is uncovered, thrives not: so a widow, the covering of whose eyes is taken away, joys not. God therefore pleads for such as his clients, and takes special care for them: the Deacons were anciently ordained specially for their sakes Act. 6.1. 1 Tim 5.3. and Pharisees doomed to a deeper damnation for devouring widows houses, Mat. 23.14. and Magistrates charged to plead for the widow, Isai. 1.17. as judge Job did Chap. 31.16. and all sorts to make much of her, and communicate to her, Deut. 24.19, 20, •• .
and the fatherless ] We are Orphans, and fatherless, saith the Church Lam. 5.3. And we are all Orphans, said Queen Elizabeth (in her speech to the children of Christ's Hospital) let me have your prayers, and you shall have my protection. That Hospital was founded by her brother King Edward the sixth for the relief of father less children, after the example of the ancient Church, which had her Orphanotroph Orphan-breeders. With God the fatherless findeth mercy Hos. 14.3. and all his vice-gods are commanded the like, Psal. 82.1, 2, 3, 4. unless they will consult shame and misery to their own houses, and Joab -like, leave the leprosy to their little ones for a legacy. Better leave them a wallet to beg from door to door, then a cursed hoard of Orphans goods.
and that turn aside the stranger ] The right of strangers is so holy (saith Master Fox ) that there was never nation so barbarous that would violate the same. When Steven Gardener had in his power the renowned Peter Martyr then teaching at Oxford, he would not keep him to punish him: but when he should go his way, gave him wherewith to bear his charges.
and fear not me ] This is set last as the source of all the former evils. See the like Rom. 3.18. and Psal. 14.1. where Atheism and irreligion is made the root of all the sin in the world. God's holy fear is to the soul, as the banks are to the sea, or the bridle to the horse, it was so to Isaac, who reigned in the reverend fear of God, when he saw that he had done unwilling justice, durst not reverse Jacob's blessing, though prompted to it by natural affection and Esau's howlings, Gen. 27.33. It was so to Job, Joseph, Nehemiah, Daniel &c. who could easily have born out their oppressions by their greatness. And indeed whereas other men have other bits and restraints, great men, if they fear not God, have nothing else to fear: but dare obtrude and justify to the world the most malepart misdemenours, because it is facinus major is abollae, the fact of a great one, who do many times as easily break through the lattice of the laws, as the bigger flies do through a spider-web, as Anacharsis was wont to say of his Scythians. Hence Jethro would have his Justice of peace to be a man fearing God: And this qualification he fitly placeth in the midst of the other graces requisite to him, as the heart in the body, for conveying life to all the parts, or as a dram of musk perfuming the whole box of ointment Exod. 18.21. Nothing makes a man so good a patriot as the true fear of God's blessed name, and a zealous forwardness for his glory, goodness, and good causes. This, this alone is it that can truly beautify and adorn all other personal sufficiencies, and indeed sanctify and bless all public employments, and services of state. Whereas on the contrary, sublat à pietate, sides tollitur, take away piety, and fidelity is gone; as we see in the unjust judge Luk. 18.2. in Abraham's judgment of the Philistines Gen. 20.11. and in Constantine Chlorus his experiment of his Counselors and Courtiers: whence that famous Maxim of his recorded by Eusebius, He cannot be faithful to me, that is unfaithful to God: religion being the ground of all true fidelity and loyalty to king and Country. Hence that close connection Fear God, honor the king: And that again of Solomon, My son, fear thou the Lord, and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change Prov. 24.21.
Verse 6. For I am the Lord, I change not ] I am Jehovah. This is God's proper and incommunicable name. It imports three things.
1. That God is of himself. This Plato acknowledged calling God 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Julius Scaliger by a wonderful word calleth God 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 One that hath his being or existence of himself, before the world was, Isaiah 44 6.
2. That he giveth being to all things else, for in him they both are and consist. He sustains all, both in respect of being, excellencies and operations, Heb. 1.3. The greatest excellencies in us do as much depend upon God, as the essigies in the giasse upon the presence of the face that causeth it.
3. That he giveth being to his word, effecting whatsoever he speaketh. Hence when either some special mercy is promised, or some extraordinary judgment threatened, the name of Jehovah is affixed. See Exod. 6.3. Isaiah 45.2, 3. Ezek. 5.17. The Ancient Jew-Doctors make this distinction between Elohim and Jehovah. By Elohim say they, is signified Middath dir, a quality or property of judgment. By Jehovah, middath Rachamim, a quality or property of mercy. And here unto they apply that text Psal. 56.11. In God (Elohim) I will praise the word, in Jehovah I will praise the word, that is, five • ure agat mecum, five ex aequo & bono, whether he deal strictly with me, or graciously, I will praise him howsoever. But this distinction, as it holds not always; so not here. For to show the certainty of the judgment denounced verse 5. is this subjoined, I am Jehovah &c. And if Jehovah come of Hovah (which signifies Contrition or destruction) as Heronymus ab Oleastro will have it, what can be more suitable to the Prophets purpose? it is somewhat like that in Isaiah chap. 13.6. Shod shall come from Shaddai, destruction from the Almighty, or from the Destroyer as some interpret God's Name Shaddai.
I change not ] I am neither false nor fickle, to say, and unsay, to alter my mind, or to eat my word Psalm 89.34. The eternity of Israel cannot he, nor repent, said Samuel to Saul (and it was heavy tidings to him, as Ahi ah said to Jereboam's wife, I come unto thee with heavy tidings ) For, he is not a man that he should repent. Men are mutable, and there's no hold to be taken of what they say. Of many it may be said, as Tertullian of the Peacock, all in changeable colors: as often changed as moved. Italians all, as Eneas Sylvius said of Italy, Novitate quadam nihil habet stabile, there's no taking their words. Of a certain Pope and his Nephew it is storied, that the one never spake as he thought, the other never performed what he spake. But God is not a man that he should repent: or if he do, it is after another manner then man repents. Repentance with man is the changing of his will: repentance with God, is the willing of a change. It is mutatio reinon Dei, affectus non affectus, facti non consilii. God's repentance is not a change of his will, but of his work. It noteth only, (saith Mr. Perkins ) the alteration of things and actions done by him, and no change of hi purpose and secret decree, which is immutable. What he hath written, he hath written, (as Filate said peremptorily) there's no removing of him. If the sentence be passed, if the decree be come forth, none can avert or avoid it, Zeph. 3.5. Currat ergo poenitentia ne praecurrat sententia. Go quickly and make an atonement, as Moses said to Aaron, Num. 16.46. Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel, Amos 4.12. Mite preces & lachrymas cordis legatos: meet him with entreaties of peace agree with him quickly: who knows if he will return and repent? for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil, Joel 2.13, 14. It should seem so indeed by this Text: For even whiles he is threatening, and ratifying what he had threatened, his heart is turned within him, his repentings are kindled together, Hos. 11.8. And hence the following words, Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. A strange inference, (considering the sense and occasion of the foregoing words, as hath been set forth,) and not unlike that Hos. 2.13, 14. I will visit upon her the days of Baalim—she went after ber lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord. Therefore (mark that Therefore ) behold I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her: And I will give her, &c. So Isaiah 57.17, 18. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly, &c. I have sten his ways, and will heal him: Ways? what ways? his covetousness, frowardness, &c. and yet I will heal him. I will deal with him not according to mine ordinary rule, but according to my Prerogative. If God will heal for his names sake (and so come in with his Non obstante, as he doth, Psal. 106.8) what people is there whom he may not heal? Well may these sinful sons of Jacob be unconsumed: well may they have for their seventy years captivity, seven seventies of years (according to Dans ls weeks) for the re-enjoying of their own country: and God's mercies shall bear the same proportion to his punishments, which seven (a complete number) hath to an unity. Provided, that they return to the Lord that smote them (as in the next verse ) for else he will surely punish them seven times more, and seven times, and seven to that, Levite. 26.21, 23, 27, &c three several times God raiseth his note of threatening, and he raiseth it by sevens, and those are discords in Musique. Such sayings will be heavy songs: and their execution heavy pangs to the impenitent.
Verse 7. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances ] The more to magnify his own mercy (by a miracle, whereof they had hitherto subsisted, by an extraordinary prop of his love, and longsuffering) God sets forth here their utter unworthiness of any such free favor, by a double aggravation of their sins. First, their long continuance therein, so that their sins were grown inveterate, and ingrained, and themselves aged and even crooked therein, so that they could hardly ever be set strait again.
from the days of your fathers, &c. ] q d. Non hoc nuper facitis: nee somel ut erroris mereamini veniam: sed haereditariam habetis impiet • tem, &c as Hi • rom paraphraseth this Text. You are no young sinners: it is not yesterday, or a few days since you transgressed against me: you are a seed of serpenis, a ra • e of rebels: you are as good atresisting the Holy Ghost, as ever your fathers were. Act. 7.51. Secondly, their pervicacy and stiffness: they would not yield or be evicted. But ye say wherein shall we return? as if they were righteous and needed no repentance. Still they put God to his proofs, as Jer. 2.35. and show themselves an unperswadeable, and gainsaying people, Isaiah 65.2, and this had been their mu • n • r from their youth, Jer. 22.21. when they were in Egypt they served idols there, Ezek. 16. and 23. In the wilderness they tempted God ten times, and hearkened not to his voice. Num. 14.22. Under their Judges, and then their Kings, they vexed him, and he bore with them, till there was no remedy, 2 Chron 6.16. After the captivity, they do antiquum obtinere, and are found guilty here of sundry both omissions, and commissions, calling for a just recompense of reward, Heb. 2.2. All which notwithstanding, Deus redire eos sibi non perire desiderat. God soliciteth their return unto him here by a precept and a promise, two effectual arguments, if anything will work: and ratifieth all with his own authority, which is most authentic, in these words, saith the Lord of Hosts. A style oft given to God, as elsewhere in Scripture, so especially in these three last Prophecies to the people returned from Babylon, because they had many enemies, and therefore had need of all encouragement: For God is called the Lord of Hosts, quod ill numine suo & nomine terreat terras, temperet tempora, exercitusque tam superiores quam inferiores gubernet, to show that he hath all power in his hand, and doth whatsoever he pleaseth in heaven and earth. See the Notes on verse 17. of this chap. doctr. 1 And for the Doctrine of returning to God (from whom we have deeply revolted) by repentance, see the Note on Zach. 1.3.
But ye said, Wherein shall we return? ] This was their pride, proceeding from ignorance: they were rich and righteous, as those Laodiceans, Rev. 3.17. not in truth, but in conceit, vainly puffed up by their carnal minds, drunk with self-dotage, as Luke 16.15. Hence they stand upon their pantofles, and none must say, Black is their eye. Sin is in them as in is proper element, and therefore weighs not: till by long trading in wickedness, they grow to that dead and dedolent disposition, Ephes. 4.14. their heart fat as grease, their conscience cauterized, 1 Tim. 4.2. that is, so benumbed, blotted, lenselesse, filthy, and gangrenate, that it must be seared with an hot iron: whereupon it grows so crusty and brawny, that though cut or pierced with the sword of the spirit, it doth neither bleed nor feel: and though handfulls of hell-fire be flung in the face of it, yet it starts not, stirs not: but is deprived of all even paslive power, and so Satanized, that there's no help for them.
Verse 8. Will a man rob God? ] Adam pillage Elohim? frail weak man seek to supplant (so the Septuagint render it) the great and mighty God? Giant-like boldness! Cacus met with his match, when he robbed Hercules. Mercury (say the Poets) had a mind to steal Jupiter's thunderbolts, but durst not meddle, lest he should speed as Prometheus had done, for stealing fire: or lest they should burn his fingers. The Eagle in the fable, that stole a piece of flesh from the Altar, and carried it together with a live-coal that stuck to it, to his nest, set his young and all on a light fire. Dionysius, that robbed his god, was cast out of his kingdom, though he was wont to boast, that he had it bound to him with chains of Ademant. Belshazzar paid dear for his bowzing in the bowles of the Sanctuary. Cardinal Wolsey and five of his servants, employed by him in interverting consecrated goods, though perhaps to better purposes, came all to fearful ends, as Scultetus noteth, and thereupon wisheth, Utinam his & similibus exemplis edocti discant homines res semel Deo consecratas timide attrectare. It is a snare to the man that devoureth that which to holy, Prov. 20.25. They may be compared to those that, being of a cold and flegmatick stomach, eat hard and choleric meats: well they may please their palates, but it cannot be for their health: no more can the murthering morsels of such sacrilegious persons, as devouring holy things, have their meat sawced and their drink spiced with the bitter wrath of God. See Job 20.23. Polanus reads the Text thus, Will a man rob his God's? q d. Will any Heathen do so? did not they that worshipped Idols, abhor sacrilege? Ws it not one of the laws of the twelve tables in Rome, Sacrum sacrove commendatum qui clepserit rapseritque, parricida esto; Let every sacrilegious person pass and be punished for a parricide? And doth not Tully affirm of those Laws, that they did exceed all the libraries of the Philosophers, in weight and worth? Did not those old Idolaters freely bestow their most precious things upon their Idols, Ezech. 16.16, 17, 18, 19. Exod. 32.3? yea their very children in sacrifice to Moloch, or Saturn? 2 King. 16.3. and 17.17. being as mad upon their Idols, as ever was any wicked wanton upon his harlot, lavishing out of the bag, &c? And are not our moderne Idolaters the Papists, as bountiful to their He-saints, and she-saints? so that their Churches are not able to hold their vowed presents and memories, but that in many places (as at Loretto, Shechem, &c.) they are fain to hang their Cloisters and Churchyards with them? Shall they in their petitions to our Parliaments plead for favor and forbearance upon this ground, because their ancestors (they say) bestowed so great cost upon this land for church-maintenance: and shall it be said (now that they are worthily cast out) Possidebant Papistae, possident Rapistae, Wicked Papists had them, ungodly Rapists have them: Improprietaries, I mean, that hold by an improper title, and all others that appropriate that to them and theirs which the Almighty is invested in. This is here instanced as a capital crime, and called robbing of God, as well it may; forasmuch as ministers maintenance (being tithes) is called the Lord's, and holy to the Lord Lev. 27.30. because separated from man and man's use, and therefore might not be altered. Verse 28. Or if any had a mind to redeem them, they were bound to add to the price every fifth penny above the true value. Verse 31. Let all those look to this whether Impropriators false Patrons ( Latrones rather) or others that either by force or fraud rob God of his right, doteyning part of the due at least, as Ananias and Sapphira did; God hath a Quare Impedit against them, which one day they must make answer to.
yet ye have robbed me ] Because ye have robbed my Ministers who are in my stead 2 Cor. 5.20. and in whom he receiveth tithes, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth, like as did Melchizedek, as a Priest and tyth-taker, and type of Christ. Heb. 7.7, 8, 9. And as God is sensible of the least curtesy done to a Prophet to reward it, even to a cup of cold water Mat. 10.42. (so that he is anggard to himself, that scants his beneficence to a Minister) so for those that wrong and rob them, that deny them that double honor of countenance and maintenance that he hath appointed them, and hold them to hard allowance: muzzling the Ox, or giving him but straw at the best, for treading out the corn, they will dearly answer it before God, who holds all done to them as done to himself. Surely as David could not but feel his own cheeks shaven, and his own coat cut in his Ambassadors; they did but carry his person to Hanun: So here. And as there was never any king so poor and weak, but thought himself strong enough to revenge any wrong done, or abuse offered to his Ambassadors: So the king of heaven will not fail to curse with a curse whole nations that forget God and forsake his Levites Deut. 13.19. it being all one to God to deal in this case against a nation or against a man only. John 34.29.
in tithes and offerings ] He had told them before they had robbd him: or (as some • ead it) stabbed him as with a ponyard. And here they should have confessed the action and craved pardon. But because they did nothing less; standing upon their justification (as before often) God descends to the particular wherein they robbed him, In tithes and offerings: The original hath it, Tythes and offerings, without the particle (in) and it is as if the Lord should say, you may easily know my meaning without so many words, but that you love to contest. You cannot be ignorant, that the Levites, for want of maintenance, are sled every man to his field, and so my work and worship is lest undone. Good Nehemiah was sensible of it chap. 13.10. and because he knew that, by this means, religion itself would be soon undermined and overturned, he contended with the Rulers, and made all the people pay their tithes: and this he worthily reckons among his good deeds, praying God to remember him for it, and not wise it out chap. 13.10. Hezekiah, that great Reformer, shown the like zeal in commanding the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the Priests and Levites, that they might attend upon the law of the Lord (so the Vulgar) that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord, so we read 2 Chron. 31.4. that is, that they might not follow their callings heavily for want of maintenance, but cheerfully bend themselves wholly to the service of the Lord. And here (as Ferus once wished for the Romish synagogue) I would we had some Moses, said He, to take away the evils of the times: non enim unum tantum vitulum sed multos habemus, for we have not one golden calf, but many: So have we of these times cause to wish we had some zealous Nehemiah's and Hezekiah's to stickle and stand for Christ's Ministers, not defrauded of their due maintenance only (a sign of gasping devotion) but trampled upon by the foul feet of the basest of the people, as the filth of the world and the offcouring of all things. Tythes they say are Jewish: but if Melchizedek tythed Abraham, by the same right whereby he blessed him: and if tithes by all laws of God, Nature, Nations, have been hallowed to God, as Junius and other modern Divines allege and argue: and lastly, if things consecratd to God's service may not be alienated, out of case of necessity Pro. 20.25. Gal. 3.15. it will appear to be otherwise. Or if tithes be Jewish, and yet Ministers must have a maintenance (Christ having so ordained 1 Cor. 9.14.) and that both honorable 1 Tim. 5.17, 18. and liberal Gal. 6.6. how else shall they be given to hospitality, 1 Tim. 2.2? (if they be not hospitable, they will be despicable) how will men satisfy their consciences in the quota pars: the particular quantity they must bestow upon them? The scripture speaketh only of the tenth part. Sed manum de tabula. Enough of this, if not more then enough.
Verse 9. Ye are cursea with a curse ] Vuig. ye are cursed with penury and scarcity of victuals, according to Deut. 28.23. &c. and so great was this people's poverty, that they were forced for food to sell not their fields only, but their sons and daughters Neh. 5. They had pinched on God's side, and he had paid them home in the same kind: they thought in the famine to have kept the more to themselves, and they had the less, for keeping from him that which was his. A just hand of God upon all church-robbers: for most part they are always in want and needy, their wealth melting away as snow before the sun, and their fields of blood purchased with the spoils of Christ, proving as unfortunate and fatal to them as the gold of the Temple of Tholose did to Scipio's soldiers: of which whoever carried any part away, never prospered afterward. What get men by such a detiny that shall prove their fatal destiny? Say they leave the gold behind them, yet they are likely to carry the guilt to hell with them Iem. 5.1, 2. yea to cough in hell, as Latimer phrased it, unless they make restitution, to digest in hell, what they have devoured on earth, as Austin. Because Pharaoh faith the river is mine own, therefore faith God, I will dry up the river Ezek. 29.3, 9. The Merchant that denieth to pay his custom, forseits all his commodities: so here.
for ye have robbed me ] And therefore I have cursed you. God never punisheth people, but there is just cause for it, could they but see it: but that the are hardly drawn to, as here, and Isaiah 26.11. the root of the matter is in themselves, as job speaks in another case; the plague of their own hearts 1 King. 8 38. procureth them all the mischief, and may say to them as the heart of Apo •••• us the tyrant seemed to say to him; who dreamed one night that he was steaed by the Scythians, and boiled in a caldron, and that his heart spake to him out of the kettle, It is I that have drawn thee to all this. Let men therefore, when under any misery, lay their hand upon their heart, thrust their hand into their besom with Moses, they shall be sure to bring it out lepious: let them turn short again upon themselves, and say every man, What have I done? what evil have I committed, or at least admitted? what good have I omitted, or intermitted? Profane Esau, beguiled of the blessing cries out of his fathers store, of his brothers subtlety: not a word of his own profaneness in slighting and selling his birthright: he had forgot since he did eat and drink, and went his way Gen. 25.4. The lerusalem-Paraphrast adds, that he also despised his portion in the world to come, and denied the resurrection. But this he never taketh notice of. So Pompey beaten by Caesar out of the field blamed the divine providence for his ill success: when he should rather have faulted his own reckless security (that he never considered into what place he were best to retire if worsted) and especially his sacrilege not long before that defeat, when he sacked Jerusalem, and ransacked the Temple. He might have considered what became (a little before his time) for the same offense of Alcimus, Heliodorus, Lysimachus, Antiochus, Menclaus, and Nicanor, all notorious Church-robbers, and all hanged u in gibbets, as it were, for example and admonition to all that should come after. Sacrilege is a share (saith Solomon, Pro. 20.25.) that 1. catcheth suddenly. 2. holdeth surely. 3. desroyeth certainly. Cavete.
even this whole nation ] The disease was grown Epidemical, like that which Physicians call corruptio totius substantiae, or that which: he Prophet Isaiah also complaineth of chap. 1.5, 6. The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint &c. This sin of sacrilege was grown National: there was a conjuncture of all sorts in this wickedness; a rabble of rebels they were, ripe for judgment: yea though God's judgments were upon them, yet they persisted Neh. 13.18. and increased wrath Ezra. 9.13. God had smitten them, but they sorrowed not: but to be revenged on him, as it were, for laying famine upon them, they took away his tithes &c.
Verse 10. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse ] All, whether praediall, or personal, all, and of every kind.
into the storehouse ] the standing place for tithes, as it is called Neh. 13.11, 12, 13. the tyth-barn, as the Vulgar hath it.
that there may be meat in my house ] Tereph, unde 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : and the English, prey: that there may be maintenance for my Ministers; enough not for themselves only, but for to be distributed to those that are about them: that they may not cat their morsels alone, that they may not be slaves to others, servants to themselves: that they may not bite with their teeth, and cry peace, teach for hire, and divine for money Mic. 3.5, 11. that is, be fain to maintain themselves with sordid and unworthy flatteries. Balaam the false Prophet rode with his two men Num. 22. God; Levite had one man Judge. 19.11. Aug •• stin lived neither like a Lord, for he cate his meat in wooden and marble dishes: neither lived he like a beggar, for he used to eat with silver spoons. What pity was it that Luther was forced to cry out in his Comment on Gen. 47. Nisi superesser spolium Egypti quod rapuimus Papae, omnibus ministris verbi fame percundum osset. Quod si sustentandi essent die contributione populi miserc profecto & d •• iter viverent. If it were not for the spoil of Egypt which we have snatched from the Pope, all the Ministers of the word must have been affamished. For if they should be put to live upon the free contribution of the people, they would certainly have a miserable hard living of it. Alimar ergo &c. We are maintained then, as I said of the spoils of Egypt: and yet that little that we have is prey'd upon by the Magistrate: for the parishes and Schools are so spoiled and peeled, as if they meant to starve us all. Thus Luther. Melancthon comes after him and complains in the year 1559. Principes favebant Luthero: sed jam iterum vi letis ing ratitudinem mundi orga ministros &c. The Princes did at first favor Luther: but now ye see again the unkindness of the world to the Ministers of the word. Calvia was so ill dealt with at Geneva (together with other faithful Ministers there that he was forced once to say, Certe si hominibus servivissem &c. Truly if I had served men in my Ministry, I had been very ill requited. But its well that I have served Him who never fails his: but faithfully performeth with the better who sever he hath promised them. Our Doctor Stoughton observed, that the manner of very many in the City was to deal with their minister as Carriers do with their horses; viz. to lay heavy burdens upon them, and then to hang bells about their necks; they shall have hard work, and great commendations, but easy commons; be applauded for excellent preachers, have good words, but slight wages. Thus in the City; but what measure meet men with in the Country? Hear it from a Country-Minister mouth. How many thousands in this land (faith He) stand obnexious in an high-degree to the judgments of God for this sin of sacrilege, which is the bane of our people, and blemish of our Church? Some there are who rob God of his main tithes, yet are content to leave him still the lesses: they pluck our fleeces, and leave us the taglocks, poor Vicarage tithes, whilst themselves and children are kept warm in our wool, the Parsonage. And and others yet more injurious, who think that too much, would the law but allow them a pair of sheers, they would clip the very taglocks off. These (with the deceitful taylour) are not content to shrink the whole and fair broad-cloth to a dozen of buttons, but they must likewise take part of them away, and nimme the very shreds, which only we have left. After they have full gorged themselves with the Parsonage grains, they can find means either by uncoscionable leases or compositions, to pick the Vicarage-bones &c. Thus He and much more to the like purpose. Our blessings (faith Another eminent Divine) are more then those of old, our burden less. And yet how unwilling comes even a little to the painsullest Minister? And those, that upon a kind of conscience pay other duties, think all lost that goes to the maintenance of the Ministry, and that wish such repining, as if that were money of all other worst bestowed &c.
and prove me now herewith ] Dignatio stupenda, A wonderful condescension, that God should call upon man to take experiment of him, to make but a trial, to put it to the proof whether he will not prosper the penitent. This is somewhat like that other passage Psal. 34. O taste and see that the Lord is good &c. or that, Come and let us reason together. O the never-enough adored depth of God's goodness, that he should stoop so low to us clay and dirt, dung and worms-meat 1 He is so high, that he is said to humble himself to behold things done in heaven. If he look at all out of himself, to see but what the Angels do, he doth therein abase himself. That he will deal so familiarly with us (who are no better then so many walking-dunghills) as to bid us prove him what he will do for us, this deserves acknowledgement and admiration in the highest degree. Should he have used martial law with these malapert miscreants in the text that had robbed him of his rights: and not only have reproved them and cursed them wit a curse of penury, but have ( Draco -like) written his laws in blood upon them, he might have justified his proceedings. But thus to commune with them, and not only to prescribe them a remedy for removal of the curse, Bring ye all the Tythes &c. but thus to persuade with them, and to permit them to prove his bountifulness in giving, and his faithfulness in keeping promise with them, and that with an oath (as some conceive.)
if I will not open the windows of heaven ] then never believe me more; what a wonderful goodness was this? Surely we may well say of it, as Chrysostom doth of the happiness of heaven, Sermo non valet exprimere: experimento opus est; We can never sufficiently praise it, but must take the counsel he gives us, and prove it, Prove me &c. There is an unlawful and damnable proving or rather provoking of God, when men separate the means from the end, holiness from happiness, will needs live as they lift, and yet presume they shall be saved by the unknown mercies of God. Such were those that tempted and provoked he most high God, and kept not his testimonies Psal. 78.56. like as before they had lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert; whilst, bearing themselves over-bold upon their external privileges, they refused to observe his statutes, and keep his laws. This sin, in the New Testament is called tempting the Spirit of the Lord Act. 5.9. Ananias and Sapphira did so, when by a cunning concrivance they would needs prove and make trial whether God could deicry and would punish their hypocrisy: So did Judas the traitor when he boldly demanded, Is it I Lord. So do all gross hypocrites that present unto God acarcase of holiness, like Cham, or that cursed Cozener Mal. 1.14. Such also as refuse Christ's offers of grace: and when he bids them as here, Prove him if upon their obedience to the laws of his kingdom, he will not open the windows of heaven and rain down righteousness upon them, even mercies without measure: and (for confirmation) wills them as once he did wicked Ahaz, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God, Ask it either in the depth, or height above; they churlishly answer him in effect as he did, I will not ask, neither will I try the Lord. Whereupon the Prophet that made the motion, in an holy indignation, Hear ye now saith He, ye house of David, Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but ye will weary my God also? Isa. 7.12.13.
if I will no open you the windows of heaven ] Vulg. the cataracts or floodgates, or spouts of heaven: meaning the clouds, those bottles of rain, which God here promiseth to shour down abundantly, tantâ copiâ, impetu, & fragore, ut ruere potius quam fluere videatur. A phrase noting great plenty 2 King. 7.2. for in those hot countries drought ever made a dearth. Hence the proud Egyptians whose land is watered and made fruitful by the overflow of the river Nile, were wont in mockery to tell the neighbor nations, that if God should forget to rain, they might chance to starve for it. They thought the rain was of God, but not the river. God therefore threateneth to dry it up Ezech 29.9. Isa. 19.5.6. and so he did:
To teach both them and us, that both plenty and scarcity, drought, and rain are his work: he carries the keys of the grave, of the heart, and of the windows of heaven the clouds, under his own girose. Vessels they are as thin as the Equ ••• which is contained in them. There they hang and move, though weighty with their. burden. How they are upheld, and why they fall here, and now, we know not, but wonder at it, as God's handy work. In the island of • t. Thomas, on the backside of Airike, in the midst of it is an hill: and over that, a continual cloud, wherewith the whole Island is watered. In the middle region of the air, God 〈◊〉 made druk • esse his secret place: has pavilion round about 〈◊〉 is d •• k 〈…〉 cloud of the sky, Psal. 18.11. These he weighs by measure, so that not a dr ••• falls in vain, nor in a wrong place, Job 28.15. When he uttereth his voice 〈◊〉 is a multitude (or noise) or waters in the heavens, and he causeth the 〈◊〉 to ascend from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings with rain, &c. Job. 10. •• . A wonderful thing surely, that out of the midst or water, God setcheth 〈◊〉 , and hard stones out of the midst of thin vapors. This is the Lord's own do ••• and it is (worthily) marvelous in our eyes. Are there any among the vanit ••• or the Gentiles that can given rain? or can the heavens give snowres? (So the •••• ralisis will needs have it: but what saith the Prophet?) 〈…〉 Gad? therefore we will wan upon thee: for 〈…〉 , Jer. 〈◊〉 A pious resolution surely, and that which the Lord here would have this people to take up: viz. in the way of his judgments to wait upon him, and work b ••••• him, to honor him with their substance, and with the first fruits of all • their increase. So should their barns be filled with piency, and their presses burst out with new wine, Prov. 2.9, 10. The 〈…〉 〈◊〉 shall be 〈…〉 , Prov. 11.25.God will pour him our a blessing ] because he 〈…〉 , as the Hebrew hath it in that place of the Proverbs last cited, and he shall have rain 〈…〉 pl • v • a erir, as K •• chr rendereth the last words there. • e shall be a sweet and 〈◊〉 shower to himself and others. Theresore they shall 〈…〉 of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for whe •• , 〈…〉 and for oil, and for the young of the stock, and of the he • d: and their 〈…〉 a wa • ered garden, and they shall not sorrow anymore 〈…〉 , Gen. 31.12. O precious promise, every syllable whereof drops myrrh, and mercy! 〈…〉 that 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 , (so we may call him as the 〈…〉 the • ather of Vows, because he is the first we read of in Scripture that vowed a vow unto the Lord) had this promise of abundance plentifully performed unto him. So had 〈◊〉 the first Christian Emperor, the Churches great Benesactour. 〈…〉 , faith A • g • stine, Constimum Alagnum 〈…〉 mullus under et. The good Lord filled 〈…〉 , with so many temporal blessings, as never any man durst with for.
There shall not be 〈…〉 ] 〈…〉 , so that you shall say, It is enough: Thus the Chaldee rendereth it. 〈…〉 shall hove more then enough, as the areptan had, • King. 〈◊〉 the cruse never ceased running till there was no room. Borrow of 〈…〉 , 〈◊〉 the Prophet, but sh •• : the doors 〈◊〉 . It was time to shut the doors, 〈◊〉 One, when many greater vessels must be supplied from one little one. she had a Prephets reword with a witness. And so had the Shunamite. Her table, and bed, and stool was well bestowed: That candlestick repaid her the light of her future life and condition; that table, the means of maintenance; that stool, a seat of 〈…〉 bed, a quiet rest from the common calamities of her nation. So 〈◊〉 a paymaster is God: his retributions are more then bountiful: he will not be overcome by his creature in liberality, Jam. 1.5. They shall be sure to have their own again with usury, either in money, or moneys-worth. What they want in temporals (a sufficiency whereof they shall be sure of, if not a 〈◊〉 ) he will a 〈◊〉 up in spirituals, joy and peace through believing, as much, or more then heart can hold. Some holy men have so over-abounded exceedingly with joy, that they have been forced to cry out, Hold Lord, stay thine hand, &c. their spirits were even ready to expire, with an exuberancy of spiritual ravishment: as the Church in the Canticles was sick of love, and therefore calls to the Ministers, to stay her from sinking and swooning, to bolsier her up, being surprised with a love-qualme: as the Queen of Sheba wrapped with admiration, had no more spirit in her: as Jacob's heart saintd, when he heard the good news of Joseph alive. Bernard, for a certain time after his conversion, remained as it were, deprived of his senses, by the excessive consolations he had from God. Cypran and Austin testify the like of themselves.
Ve • se 11. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes ] Caterpillars, Cankerwormes, and such hurtiull creatures, God's terrible army, as they are notably set forth in their march and mischief, Joel 2.2, 3, 4, 5, &c. with chap. 1.4. to tame his rebels to ease him of his adversaries, and to avenge him of his enemies, Isaiah 1.24. These he will rebuke (for every creature is at his beck, and check) as he rebuked the red-sea, and it was dried up, Psal. 105. and as he rebuked the winds, Mat. 8.26. the fever, Luk. 4.39. the devil, Mat. 7.18. he will say unto them, Abite 〈◊〉 hine. Get you hence, and that's enough, for they are all his servants, Psal. 119.91, He is the great Centurion (or rather Lord of Hosts ) that faith to this creature Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, &c. if he do but say, Who is on my side, who? all creatures look out at their windows, as ready pressed to do his pleasure: neither is there any so mean amongst them, or so despicable that cannot, if set on by him, make the proudest on earth stoop, and say, This is the singe of God. But of this see more in the 1. Dost. on verse. 18. of this Chapter. Let all that look for God's blessing, either upon their persons or possessions, make their peace with God (the genealogy of corn, and wine is resolved into him, Hos. 2.22.) and bring him all his tithes into the storehouse, &c. les he blast their fair hopes, out off the meat from their mouths, take his own and be gone, take away his corn in the time thereof, and his wine in the season thereof, &c. Hos. 2.9. The Jews in our Savior's time, suis malis edosthi, were punctuail in paying their tithes, even to a potherb, Marth. 23. And at this day, though not in their own country, nor have a beviticall Priesthood, yet those of them that would be reputed religious, do distribute, in lieu of tithes, the tenth of their increase unto the poor: being persuaded that God doth bless their increase the more: For their usual proverb is, Dectma in dives fias, • ythe and be rich. Of the young Lord Harrington (the last of that name) it is reported by Mr. Stock, who preached his Funeral, that he constantly gave the tenth of his yearly revenue to pious and charitable uses. And of reverend Mr. Will Whately Minister of Banbary, it is likewise recorded in his life, that he set apart and expended for many years before he died for good uses, the tenth part of his yearly comings in, both out of his temporal and ecclesiastical means of maintenance: and that he never thrived in his outward estate, till he took that course. Besides the sweet comfort that the spirits of his wealth thus distilled, as it were, brought to his conscience, both in life and at death: and the blessing of a good name left behind him, according to that which follows next in the text, And all nations, &c.
Verse 12. And all nations shall call you Hessed ] viz. for the abundance of outward comforts and commodities, by the which the Nations measured men's happiness saying, Blessed is the people that is in such a ease, Psal. 144.15. Cyprus was for this cause anciently called Macaria, that is, the blessed country, as having a sufficiency of all things within itself: and England was called Regnum Dci, the kingdom of God, or the Fortunate Island, and Englishmen Deires, as those that were set safe de ira Dei, from the wrath of God. In the time of Pope lement the sixth (as Robert of Avesbury testifieth) when Lewis of Spain was chosen Prince of the Fortunate Islands, and for the conquest thereof was to raise an Army in France and Italy; the English Agent at Rome, together with his company departed and gat home, as conceiving that the Prince was bound for England, then the which they thought there was not a more fortunate Island in the world. Of the Island of Lycia, Sol nus saith, that all the day long, the sky is never so cloudy, but that the Sun may be seen there. Semper in Sole siva est Rhodos, The Rhodes is ever in the Sunshine, saith Aeneas Sylvius. And of Alexandria in Egypt, Ammianus Marcellizus observeth, that once in the day the Sun hath been seen to shine over it. I confess the same cannot be said of England: I remember also what I have read of a certain Frenchman, who returning home out of England, and being asked by a countreyman of his that was bound for England, what service he would command him into this country? Nothing but this, said the other; When you see the Sun, have me commended to him: for I have been there two months, and could never see him in all that space. Belike he was here in the deep of winter. For at Summer Solistice Tacitus (in the life of Agricola ) hath observed, that the Sun shineth continually in Britanny, and neither setteth nor riseth there; but passeth so light by us by night, that you can searce say, we have any night at all: But if we speak of the Sunshine of God's grace and favor, either for spirituals or temporals: as Delos is said by Solinus, to have been the first country that had the Sun shining upon it, after the general deluge, and therehence to have had its name: so was England one of the first Hands that both received Christ, and that shook off Antichrist. And for temporal blessings, all nations call us blessed, and count us a delightsome land indeed, a land of desires, such as all men would desire to dwell in, for the exceeding fruitfulness and pleasantness of it: it being the Court of Queen Ceres, the granary of the Western world, as foreign Writers have termed it, the paradise of pleasure, and garden of God, as our own Chronicler. The truth is, We may well say of England, as the Italians do of Venice, by way of proverb: He that hath not seen it, cannot believe what a dainty place it is: and he that hath not lived there some good space, cannot understand the worth of it. Our Mr. Ascham, Schoolmaster to Q. Eizabeth, had lived there some time, and had soon enough of it: for though he admired the place, he utterly disliked the people for their loose living. And the like (alas) may be too truly affirmed of us. We live in God's good land, but not by God's good laws: we eat the fat and drink the sweet, but we sanctify not the Lord God in our hearts, we live not as becometh Christians. Our hearts (like our Climate) hath much more light then heat; light of knowledge, then heat of zeal; our lukewarmness is like to be our bane, our sins our snuffes, that dim our candlestick, and threaten the removal of it. O si siat id in nobis (saith One) quod in Sole videtur, qui quibus affulserit, ijs etiam calrem & colorem impertire solet! O that the Sun of righteousness would so shine upon us, as to warm us, and transform us into the same image from glory to glory, as by his Spirit! O that he would set up his own kingdom here more and more amongst us! then should were be more happy then the Israelites were under the reign of king Solomon, or the Spaniards under their Ferdinand the third, who reigned 35. years: in all which time there was neither famine nor pestilence in the land.
Vers. 13. Your words have been stout against me ] Or, reenforced, or strongly confirmed. Superant me verba vestra, so some have rendered it. By your hard and hateful words you have been too hard for me, as it were. And it is, as if God should say, I have given you my best advice o break off your sins, and to bring me my tithes, that I might bless you both with store, and honor. But I have lost my labor: I see well, my sweet words are worse then spilled upon you, who are so hardened in your error and blasphemy, that you are still clamouring and casting out odious words against me. Once before you had set your foul mouths against me, and like so many wolves (that were wood) you held up your heads and howl'd out these ugly words, Everyone that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them, &c. (was it possible that the wit of malice could devise so high a slander?) And now you are at it again, creaking like doors that move upon rusty hinges, nay clattering and blustering out such hellish and hideous blasphemies, as at the hearing whereof, it is great wonder if the heavens sweat not, earth gape not, sea roar not, all creatures conspire not to be avenged upon you: as the very stones in the wall of Aphek turned executioners of those blasphemous Aramites, when as being but ignorant Pagans, their tongues might seem no slander.
Your words have been stout against me ] Yea stouter and stouter: your wickedness frets like a canker, and increaseth still to more ungodliness, 2 Tim. 2.17. Evil men and deceivers grow worse and worse, 2 Tim. 3.13. as being given up by God, Rom. 1.28. acted and agitated by the devil, Ephes. 2.2. serving diverse lusts and pleasures, Tit. 3.3. which to satisfy is an endless piece of business. Neither let any here say, they were but words that these are charged with, and words are but wind, &c. for words have their weight, and are marvelous provoking. Leviter volant, sed non leviter violant. You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it: but to be belied they cannot brook, nor from revenge contain themselves. As a murthering-weapon in my bones, saith David, mine enemies reproach me, Psal. 42.10. Desperate speeches and blasphemies that impose upon the Lord anything unbeseeming his Majesty (a thing common among the Jews, even at this day) he can by no means away with. See how God stomacketh such proud contumelious language, Psal. 73.11. and 94.4, 5, 6, 7, &c. Zeph. 1.12. Ezech. 9.9. See how he punished it in him that bored thorough his great Name, Lev. 24.11. Ludovike commonly called St. Lewis, caused the lips of blasphemers to be seared with an hot iron. Philip the French King punished this sin with death, yea though it were committed in a Tavern. The very Turks have the Christians blaspheming of Christ in execration: and will punish their prisoners sorely, when as, through impatience, or desperateness, they wound the ears of heaven: Yea the Jews in their speculations of the causes of the strange success of the affairs of the world, assign the reason of the Turks prevailing so against the Christians, to be their blasphemies: and among other scandals and lets of their conversion, are all those stout words darted with hellish mouths against God in their hearing, so ordinarily and openly, by the Italians especially, who blaspheme oftener then swear, and murder oftener then revile or slander. Andrew Musculus in his discourse, entitled, The devil of blasphemy, hath a memorable story of a desperate dice-player in Helvetia, Anno 1553. at a town three miles distant from Lucerne. Where, on a Lord's-day, three wretched fellows were playing at dice, under the town-wall. One of them, named Ulricus Schraeterus, having lost a great deal of money, swore that if he lost the next cast, he would fling his dagger at the sace of God. He lost it, and in a rage threw up his dagger with all his might toward heaven. The dagger vanished in the air, and was seen no more: five drops of blood fell down upon the table where they were playing, which could never be washed out, (part of it is still kept in that town for a monument) the blasphemer (to say the best of him) was fetched away presently body and soul by the devil, with such an horrible noise, as affrighted the whole town. The other two came to a miserable end shortly after. The truth of this relation is further attested by Job Fincelius, and Philip Lonicerus, Theat. histor. pag. 142.
yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? ] Chaldee, What have we multiplied to speak before thee? As if they should say, • t is not so much that we have spoken, that thou shouldest make such a business of it. Nothing more ordinary with graceless men, then to elevate and extenuate: great sins with them, are small sins, and small sins no sins: when as every sin should swell like a toad in their eyes, and the abundant hatred thereof in their hearts, should make them say all that can be said for the aggravation and detestation of it: since there is as much treason in coining pence as bigger pieces; because the supreme authority is as much violated in the one as in the other. But this sin of theirs was no peccadillo, as appeareth by the following instance.
Verse 14. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God ] Vulg. He is vain that serves God. Ye are idle, ye are idle said Pharaoh to the Israelites when they would needs go sacrifice, and to Moses and Aaron, Ye let the people from their works. Any thing seems due work to a carnal mind saving God's service: that's labor lost, time cast away, they think. But this is their want of spiritual judgment; they see not the beauty of holiness, they taste not how good the Lord is: they discern not things that are excellent, they measure all by present sight sense, and taste, as do children, swine and other brute creatures: And therefore they themselves are vani & vanissimi, as an Expositor here speaketh, vain, and most vain, and that for two reasons, and in two respects. First, for that they take themselves to be servers of God. Secondly, they stick in the bark, serve him with the outside only, honor him with their lips, and not with their hearts, to bring him vein oblations, empty performances, serve him wih shows and formalities which he delights not in, nay he rejects them with infinite scorn, as he did the Pharisees devotions, Luk. 16.15. because they were but skin-deep, and not heart-sprung; therefore they were not a button the better for them. God loves and looks for truth in the inward parts, Psal. 51.6. he looks that men should do his will from the heart, Ephes. 6.6. and serve him in their spirits, Rom. 1.9. In doing whereof there is great reward, Psal. 19.11. premium ante premium, that Euge of a good conscience: this the stranger meddleth not with, conceives not of, the wealth of God's pilgrims standing more in Jewels, and gold, things light o • carriage, and well portable, then in house and land. His servants have that here that doth abundantly pay them for their pains afore-hand: righteousness being it own reward; and they knowing within themselves, that they have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. But hereaster oh the rich recompense that God shall make them! oh the heaped up happiness of such at the last! when these vain talkers in the text, and all that are of their mind, shall roar out Nos insensati, We fools counted their lives madness: But now &c. See more of this in the following Note on ver. 16. doctr. 5.
what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance ] The Chaldee hath it, Quod mammon adeptisumus? what mammon or wealth have we gained? Mammonists are all for gain, their very godliness is gain, still they have an Eagles-eye to the prey, when they seem to sly highest toward heaven: If they may not get by God, they soon grow weary of his work. What shows soever they make of better, sure it is their belly is their God, they mind earthly tings. These will follow the chase, as Jonathan, till they meet with the honey-comb; or as a curr follows his master till he meet with a 〈◊〉 , These come to Christ (as that young Pharisee did) hastily, but the 〈…〉 ; because they consider not. that with the Lord are durable rich's Prv. 8.18. and that godliness as it hath many cross, so it hath many con ••• ts against 〈◊〉 ; like as no countly hath more venomous creatures then Egypt, 〈…〉 Antidotes. This there Sensualists, having not the spirit, understand not 〈…〉 hence their complaint of a disappointment; casting a stir upon God's 〈…〉 as those spies did upon the promised land, and ready to run back into Egypt toth air flesh- • ots, garli • k, and onions there. Lo, this is the guise of 〈…〉 , wath whom th • ' the best religion that brings greatest advantage 〈…〉 thi • life. if the Ark bring a bl • ling with it, as it did to Ohed-Edom, it 〈…〉 upon as worthy of entertainment; but if a plague of poverty 〈…〉 , these Philistines will be glad to • id their hands of it. The garishnesse of ho 〈◊〉 , wealth, and pleasures do so • azle their eyes, that they think it the only happiness to have and to hold. Such fools they are, and such great beasts, if David may judge Psal. 73.22. to fly a fools-pitch, and to goc hawking after that that cannot be had, as Solomon faith Pro. 23.5. Or if had, yet cannot be held, as being of swisrest wing, and 〈◊〉 soon gone, as a post that passeth by. Godliness hath the preomise of •• th lives: and we read of some godly men in scripture, that were richer then any other. But God will have it sometims to be otherwise that godimesse might be ad •••• d for itself: and to show that his people serve him not for 〈…〉 Job 1.9. But that none serves God for naught, no not so much as 〈◊〉 a d •• or 〈…〉 . See before ch. p. 1.10.
that 〈◊〉 have kept his ordinances ] which if they had done indeed, they would never have th •• •• gged, much less blasphemed: they would have accused themselves, 〈…〉 livine providence; they would have said with holy Ezra, All this is come upon us for our • vill deeds, and for 〈…〉 : and thou, our God, hast punished us less then our iniquities deserve. A •••• test thou not be justly angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should the no remnant nor eseaping? Ezr. 9.1 • , 14. Thus the good wheat falls low at the feet of the fan • er, when th • chaff 〈◊〉 and flies at his face. Thus the sheep, when shorn, H • at and looks downward: whereas the hang rbit wolf looks up and howlesagainst heaven. Hypocrites use to wrangle with God and expostulate the unkindness of his non-acceptance of their services as Isaiah 58.3. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we aslicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? God was, in their opinion, far too short and much behind with them; and therefore much to blame, and they must give him the telling of it; They do so: and they have their answer. So they shall have here in the following verses, and the next chapter, which ought not to be divided from this, as some conceive. They upbraid the Lord as with their observances, so with their humiliations.
and that we have walked mournfully ] Or, in black, the habit of mourners: whence that of the Heathen Orator, Athenienses non nisi atrati &c. The Athenians are never so good as when they are all in black; that is, under some heavy affliction. And a great Satesman of this kingdom had this verse written upon his study door.
Great Britain all in black, is in its best condition. But what is it to wear sackcloth, and walk softly, with Ahab, when he had sold himself to do wickedly? what is an humbling day without an humbled heart? not only an irreligious incongruity, but an high provocation; like Zimri's act, when all the congregation were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle. Surely God may say to such pretenders, as Isaac did to his father, Behold the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for a sacrifice? or as Jacob did to his sons that brought him the bloody coat, Loe her's the coat, but where's my child? your garments are black, but your hearts and lives are much blacker. Go, cleanse your hands ye sinners, and purisie your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted, in good earnest, and mourn to some purpose, and weep, soak and souce yourselves in tears of true repentance: let your sorrow for sin be deep and downright: turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Jam.