2 Kings 10

Sincerity makes our duties acceptable, like musk among linen, that perfumes it. As Jehu said to Jehonadab (2 Kings 10:15). Is your heart right with me? And he said it is: if it be (says he) give me your hand; and he took him up into the chariot.

Jeroboam thought to have established the kingdom by idolatrous worship, but it brought ruin upon him and all his posterity (1 Kings 14:10). Ahab's idolatry wronged his posterity, they lost the kingdom and were all beheaded (2 Kings 10:7). They took the king's sons, and slew seve…

2. Branch. It reproves those who do not God's Will in a right acceptable manner. (1.) They do not God's will entirely; all God's will; they will obey God in some things, but not in others; as if a servant should do some of your work you set him about, but not the rest: Jehu dest…

In other cases it denotes a substitution. So Jehu tells his guard, that if any one of them let any of Baal's priests escape ([〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], 2 Kings 10:24), his life should go in the stead of the life that he had suffered to escape. And this answereth to [〈 in non-L…

Fifthly, if it be for the getting, or increasing of any good learning, and lawful knowledge, especially divine knowledge for matter of religion. Thus the Queen of Sheba went out of the inmost parts of Africa, to Jerusalem in Asia, to see and hear Solomon: 2 Kings 10. and for tha…

2. The sincerity of our profession much depends upon the care and conscience we have in keeping our hearts; for it is most certain that a man is but a hypocrite in his profession, however meticulous he be in the externals of religion, if he is heedless and careless of the frame…

The surplice with all the rest of that Popish wardrobe of superstitious garments, hoods, tippets, rochets, &c., for there is the same reason of them all, they are all Popish idols, and ancient ways of superstition. For if you look into the story of Jehu, you will find that the p…

It was a polluted thing, and therefore he would not use it, but repairs the altar of the Lord that was broken down (1 Kings 18:3[illegible]). Jehu likewise, though a bad man, yet thus far he wrought with God: he destroyed the images and the house of Baal, and for the more contem…

Here is an argument that a Prelate ought not to command anything without the counsel of the Elders. Secondly, but it cannot be proved, that these Elders in the places objected, were judges or magistrates: no, the contrary appears from other places, which we have before alleged f…

Men desires to add more and more to the states of their Progenitors, and so your Children they will add a little to the estates that you leave them; and so men account it their ambition to raise their families. My Brethren, we should have a holy ambition by practice of religion…

They built temples or sacred houses for him: 1 Kings 16:32, "Ahab built a house of Baal in Samaria." Mention of these houses occurs everywhere; and they were at length demolished by Jehu with all their theatrical apparatus and superstitious furnishings, and made into latrines (2…

He speaks of the first and principal part of the life of a Christian man, the life of his justification that springs from pardon of sin; let a man forsake those sins and lusts that he has been most carried captive with; let a wicked man forgo his thoughts and ways, both his secr…

And the Prophet plainly mentions their external profession of piety, when they shall make it appear to all, that they have renounced idols, and all idolatry. For seeing images are instruments of idolatry and superstition; therefore those who are truly converted to God, must need…

So of spiritual Joy, as in the stony-ground Hearers, Matthew 13:20, and particularly many of John the Baptist's Hearers, John 5:35. So of Zeal, as in Jehu, 2 Kings 10:16, and in Paul before his Conversion, Galatians 1:14, Philippians 3:6, and the unbelieving Jews, Acts 22:3, Rom…

No, beloved, you do not answer your duty to God in expressing diligence in that which is materially good, unless you do it in a right manner, and to a right end. You have an instance in Jehu (2 Kings 10). He was a marvelously industrious man in many good matters concerning the w…

So that to die [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], for another, is to die in his stead, the death he should have died, that he might live; or in general to be substituted in the room and place of another. So when Jehu commanded his officers to slay the priests and worshippers of Baal, he…

2. That love to Christ, and zeal for him, holds believers stirring, and makes them send forth a sweet and savory smell. This smell is preferred to all spices, not to one or two, but to all: spices were either used as gifts, because they were precious and costly; so the Queen of…

Brethren, did our hearts stand where our faces do, this would be a day of blushing, we should be ashamed to look one upon another; remember God hath a key for the heart. When we come to these solemn duties, God asks that question as Jehu did Jehonadab, 2 Kings 10. 15. he saluted…

Before they pretended to worship the true God by these images, the calves of Jeroboam; but now Ahab introduced gross idolatry, and the direct worship of false gods in the room of the true God; and soon after the worship of Baal was introduced into the kingdom of Judah, namely in…

You know not the wild-fire of revenge and the spirit of anger that leads you, says Christ to the Disciples, even to the mild beloved disciple John (Luke 9:54). Come (says Jehu) and see my zeal for the Lord — liar, come see my zeal for Jehu, and for Jehu his new Kingdom; but ther…

The literal burning leaves no work upon the heart, nor any impression of heavenly experiences. Jehu his heat against Ahab and Baal left no impression of God on him to hate the golden calves, or the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: he did cleave to that w…

Thus does the Lord extend the reward of righteous parents to their children to show his great good liking, and high approbation of righteousness. Read for this purpose, (1 Kings 11:34; 2 Kings 10:30). 1. Objection. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself.

Cast salt into the spring. As Jehu said to Jonadab, so does God say to us (2 Kings 10:15), Is your heart right as my heart is with your heart? We should answer, it is.

Pharaoh thought to go wisely to work (Exodus 1:10), but that wisdom costs dear, when it tends to suppress God's interest. Ahab, when God threatened to cut off his posterity, begets seventy sons, bestowed them in fenced cities (2 Kings 10:1), but those seventy sons were slain. He…

A hypocrite does [illegible] and choose among the commandments of God; some of them he will obey, but others of them he would be dispensed with, though he lives transgressing of them. Jehu went far, and made a glorious profession, but see 2 Kings 10:31. So [illegible] Mark 6:19–…

Oh then labor after, and pray for a thorough work of conversion, beg of God that he would make a saving change in your souls, that you may be altogether Christians, all other changes below this saving change, this heart-change, make us but almost Christians. 11. A man may be ver…

Then they that cared not for his words and counsels, crave his prayers, Oh pray for us (say they) for we have sinned, and to all our other sins have added this, in asking for a King. Samuel to prevent the deadly symptom of desperate discouragement, which would drive them from th…

Jacob took away the strange gods from his household and all that were with him, and God manifests his approbation of it, the terror of God was upon the cities round about Jacob, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. Yes, God gives such testimony to Princes and Magistr…

God threatened Ahab to root out his house: yet he promised himself the establishment of his house. And thereupon so followed the work of generation that he left seventy sons behind him (2 Kings 10:1). 5. Our hearts deceive us in promising a settled and immovable continuance of o…

He would not do away with the worship of the calves, as well as with Baal's, and why? Because he thought that would be dangerous for his kingdom, if the Israelites were let go to the temple at Jerusalem to worship (2 Kings 10:29). Therefore Jeroboam's policy still prevailed with…

4. All their religious actions are sins, as coming to church, praying (Proverbs 15:8-9, 28:9), fasting and mourning — roar and cry out of yourself till doomsday, they are sins (Isaiah 58). 5. All their most zealous actions are sins, as Jehu who killed all Baal's priests; because…

Or do I go in the round of duties, taking no heed to my heart in them? If so, compare this symptom of your hypocrisy with that in 2 Kings 10:31 and Ezekiel 33:31-32. Question 2.

What is external conformity, but an artificial imitation of that which only lives in the souls of good men? Thus was Jehu deceived; he did many acts of external obedience to God's command, but Jehu took no heed to walk in the way of the Lord God of Israel with his heart (2 Kings…

Thirdly, when self-ends and designs are accommodated and promoted by these things. This was the case of Jehu (2 Kings 10:16): 'Come, see my zeal' — for what? For a base self-interest, not for God.

Eli was a good man, and yet the threatening of God took hold on him, and his house; and David though a godly man, yet the sword never departed from his house; so that the threatenings belong to God's people, and we must so account them; else we shall read the word in vain, when…

The second objection. Jehu openly professed the worship of Baal, and yet he dissembled, meaning nothing less (2 Kings 10:18). And the Lord commends him, for his diligent execution of that, which was right in his eyes (vers. 30).

But I proceed to a second answer. If by tares I should suppose only to be meant idolaters, heretics, and false worshippers (which is a gloss contrary to the text, as I have demonstrated) yet their argument will not conclude the forbearing or sparing of such, except only in such…

To conclude therefore this point, though other judicial or forensical laws concerning the punishments of sins against the moral law, may, yes, must be allowed of in Christian republics and kingdoms; provided always, they be not contrary or contradictory to God's own judicial law…