Set the Trumpet to thy mouth

Set the Trumpet to your mouth.

Let there be a full, and free, and open manifestation of the sin and the danger of Israel: the same commandment that we have here to the Prophet, we have in the 58 of Isaiah at the beginning to the Prophet there, Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a Trumpet, show my people their transgression, and the House of Jacob their sin.

Ministers must not only be trumpeters of the Gospel, trumpeters of mercy and peace, but trumpeters of judgment and of war; they are set to give warning to people of danger, and woe to them if they do not, God will require the blood of people at their hands. However peoples' spirits may be against it, against the free and bold work of the ministry in denouncing judgments, yet the spirits of God's ministers must go on in their way: Luther in his time for the freedom and boldness of his spirit inveighing against the sins of the times, he was called the very Trumpet of Rebellion, he inveighs against their sins and threatens judgments, and they exclaim against him, they are as loud against him, and trumpet out their exclamations against him, calling him the Trumpet of Rebellion and sedition. If a town be besieged by the enemy, it is not the crying of children or women that must hinder the beating up of the drums, nor the roaring of the cannon. God takes it exceeding ill at his ministers' hands to be mealy-mouthed, when his wrath is incensed; and therefore he calls the watchmen that did not give warning by an ignominious name, DUMB DOGS, that cannot bark, in Isaiah 56:10. I remember Pliny in his 29th book, 4th chapter, tells of the dogs in Rome, that were set to keep the Capitol, because when the Gauls did scale the Capitol, the dogs being fed too full, lay sleeping and did not give warning; they therefore not only hanged them up, but every year the Romans observed that time of the year, and on that day, hanged up certain dogs in the city for exemplary justice, by way of crucifying them alive upon an elder tree, and upon this ground it is thought that the Romans did so hate that kind of death, of hanging upon a tree. And therefore it was the more cursed death that Christ died to hang upon a tree. It is that that God is exceedingly provoked against his watchmen for, if they give not warning.

Hosea had proclaimed war before this in the name of the Lord, but he must do it again; from where the note is further.

That God's ministers must not be weary of their work though they see little good come of it; yes, so far from being weary or discouraged as their spirits must rise up in their intentions, strength and fervency of it.

Before Hosea's voice was the voice of a man; but now it is the sound of a trumpet: let wickedness stop her mouth, but let the mouths of God's servants be opened, yes, let a trumpet be set against their mouths in disclaiming against the wickedness of the times wherein they live.

Thirdly, the denunciation of threatening in the name of God, it is a terrible sound, if men be not afraid of this trumpet, and awakened by it, there is a time that shall awaken them, when a trumpet (I say) shall awaken them and make them afraid, when the Archangel shall blow his trumpet, those that are most awakened and fear the sound of this trumpet shall have the most comfort when the trumpet of the Archangel shall blow.