But 1 passed over upon her fair neck: 1 will make Ephraim to ride

But I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride.

But I passed over upon her fair neck:

By her easy work in treading out the corn, and not having the yoke upon her neck to plow, she became to be very delicate, her skin was white and tender, her fair neck: the goodness of her neck, so it is in the Hebrew, or her goodly white skin, delicate and tender she was. The meaning of it is, by her fair neck, is the beauty of her prosperity; and so the delicacy of her neck, through her prosperity, nothing must trouble her, let works that are troublesome and hard let others come to them if they will, but for her part she was tender and delicate and must endure no burdens at all, nor no difficulty at all.

First, her fair neck.

Many are proud of their fair necks and skins, so proud as they grow extreme wanton by reason of it, they must lay open therefore their fair necks that others may see them, see how white they are, what fair skins they have, and put black patches likewise to set out their beauty and the whiteness of their fair skins, and if that will not serve, even laying over a paint to make it fair if it be not otherwise so; nothing but ease, and delicacy, and pleasure is for them, as if they came into the world for no other end but to live bravely and be looked upon, as if mankind and all creatures must work and suffer to provide for these nice and delicate wantons, who yet are of no use at all in the world. Certainly, God never gave any great estates in the world for no other use but only to be brave withal, and keep their skin white. Whatever estates men and women have, yet except they endeavor to be useful in the world in a proportionable way to those estates that they have they can have little true comfort of what they do enjoy, the comfort of the lives of rational creatures certainly it's not in a fair skin, in a white skin, their comfort is in being useful in the places where God has set them, their good consists in that. Man is born to labor, and there must be labor one way or other, every one is bound to labor; these fair white skins, and fair necks, Oh! what foul souls many of them have, their beauty is but skin-deep. Oh! filthy and abominable in the eyes of God, and in the eyes of those that know the corruptions of their hearts. How would these fair necks be able to bear iron chains for Christ? To be nailed to the stake, to have such a neckerchief put upon them as Alice Driver had? You have it in the story of the Book of Martyrs, when they put the chain about her neck to nail her to the stake, she gloried in it, and blessed God for it: I but this Alice Driver was wont to plow, (for so she says a little before in the story) her father did bring her up to plow, she was not brought up so delicately as others were, and she could endure an iron chain upon her neck for Christ. It follows: