But now they shall say, We have no King

But now they shall say, We have no King.

Had they no King?

Yes; Hoshea was their King, but the meaning is, It's all one as if we had no King, his power is so broken that the truth is, he cannot help us. Says Drusius upon the place; he cannot protect us, which is the property of the King, and therefore it is as if we had none; now they shall say, We have no King; Alas he is not able to save himself, he can do nothing for us, his pomp, his power, bravery is in the dust, he is distressed himself, and we are miserably disappointed of our hopes, we are undone, who can help us now? From where shall we go? What shall we do? Our consciences upbraid us now for our bold presumptuous wickedness, Oh! how far were our hearts from the fear of the Lord, we dared the God of Heaven and all his Prophets, we boldly ventured upon those ways which we were told, yes which we knew in our very consciences were a provocation to the Lord, we set up our own worship, we pleased ourselves, we made our wills to be the rules of all our actions that we did, we took liberty to satisfy our lusts, we mingled our own ways with God's Ordinances, we subjected religion to public ends, we were rigid, we were cruel towards those who differed from us, we upheld the authority of the King against God and his people, and now God has justly brought this distressed estate upon us, that now the King's power that we trusted so in, is now broken and in a manner gone, Oh! now we see we feared not the Lord, we have none to help us now, we now know what it is not to fear the great God, God is above us, and therefore now, what can a King do to us? What could he do for us? Suppose we had him again, Alas! our misery is beyond his help, seeing God is provoked with us, and has forsaken us, what should a King do for us? And thus in this short paraphrase you have the scope of the words, as if the people should have spoken in this manner.

But now the question is, what times does this refer to?