Amos 3

Because of the provoking of his sons and daughters. The sins of others pierce Christ's side, these wound his heart: therefore is not God just in all the evils that befall them (Amos 3:2)? You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for you…

The sins of God's children go nearer to his heart than the sins of others (Deuteronomy 32:19): When the Lord saw it he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and daughters. The sins of the wicked anger God, the sins of his own people grieve him; he will be sure to p…

So that sin is worse than affliction, it being the cause of it — the cause is more than the effect. 2. God is the author of affliction (Amos 3:6): Is there any evil in a city and the Lord has not done it? It is meant of the evil of affliction.

And as he is called a Serpent for his cunning reasonings, wiles, and craftiness, so likewise a Lion — of all beasts the strongest. A roaring Lion, of all beasts the most terrible, and most terrible in his roaring, whose roaring is therefore often in Scripture put to express drea…

And so when the Sodomites lived in wanton carelessness, and put far from them the evil day, then Abraham knew from God their destruction was at hand. And as in that, for is it generally true in all his great works: that the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals his secrets to…

But there is no promise to any people in faith and order, but a people agreed. Reason 1: Because two cannot walk together unless they be agreed (Amos 3:3), neither can the heart of two believers truly consent to pray together, unless they be agreed touching the things they will…

3. Such as quarrel with crosses and afflictions. Amos 3:6: no evil in the city, but the Lord has done it; no cross but he has sent it; it is his cross; now when persons will not take up the cross, but their hearts will break, before their wills will bow, how does Christ now reig…

But if hereby be meant, that the persons spoken of do break off themselves from their church-relation not only meritoriously, but actually and really, then it may be justly questioned, whether church-members can thus break off themselves. Sure Israel did not thus destroy themsel…

But yet more especially they are called Ministers and servants, who sustain the public offices of the Church; as (2 Timothy 2:14) the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient; meaning one employed in the public Ministry. So the Priests…

Walking with God includes knowing, and minding him; but it adds all other motions of soul towards him, together with continuance, and approving ourselves to him therein. Now agreement is required to walking with God (Amos 3:3): Can two walk together, unless they be agreed? (Hose…

And Christ cannot lose one of them (John 17:9). Indeed he can [illegible] of them, neither soul nor body, neither a [illegible] nor a piece of an ear of his sheep, as he speaks (Amos 3). So Christ speaks (John 6:39); indeed, (1 Corinthians 15:23) every man shall be raised in his…

If you turn, you shall stand before me (Jeremiah 15:19). God reveals his secrets to the prophets his servants (Amos 3:7). Lastly, fearful judgments of God belong to ministers of wicked lives.

As touching God himself, albeit his foreknowledge be hid, and that it be a bottomless depth, yet is it manifest enough to those whom he has chosen: so as they may discern him from the troop of false gods. Not that he foretold all things by his Prophets, for men's curiosity in th…

If these things be meerly casual, How is it that they square and agree so exactly with the Scriptures in all particulars? We read, Amos 3. 3: Can two walk together except they be agreed? If two men travel in one road, it's like they are agreed to go to the same place.

The Prophet's book is written within, as well as without, with lamentation, mourning and woe (Ezekiel 2. ult.). If the Lion roars, who can but fear (Amos 3:8)? Fear to the rooting out of security, not the shaking of faith.

He says, the Lord has taken, because none could take but by the will of God, and he was satisfied, that God willed that in righteousness and in judgment, which they acted with so much cruelty and injustice. Is there any evil in the city, and the Lord has not done it? (Amos 3:6).…

God with us, is the name of Christ: our being with God, is in him who is our peace. Two cannot walk together, unless they be so agreed (Amos 3:3). Now because this is not to be expected from all the individuals of a nation: yet this thing is to be endeavoured.

The Lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy? (Amos 3:6, 8) When the Pharisees spoke to our Saviour to rebuke his disciples for their loud praises of the Lord with Hosannas, he tells them, if they should hold their peace, the stones would…

2. Those whose houses have fallen by the fire, the Lord could, and confident I am, the Lord has made them greater gainers another way, they have lost it may be much in temporal things, but they are or may be, if they be not wanting to themselves, gainers in spiritual things, whi…

God has diversity of workmen also in the churches, whom he sends forth to labor in his spiritual fields (Ephesians 4:12): He gave some apostles, some prophets, and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. Amo…

5. Job gets no leave to swallow his spittle (Job 7:19). Precious Israel is plowed (Psalm 129:1) and her back made a field of blood; like two legs and a piece of an ear of a devoured sheep, plucked out of the mouth of a Lion (Amos 3:12), the man Christ a man of sorrows and acquai…

First, agreement. The prophet tells us that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, Amos 3:3. Until agreement is made there is no communion, no walking together.

Men in such a condition have neither Christ, nor hope, nor God in the world, Ephesians 2:12, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, Ephesians 4:18. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, Amos 3:3. Whilst there is this distance betwe…

When the word was come to them, it was as a fire within them, that must be delivered, or it would consume them. Psalm 39:3. Jeremiah 20:9. Amos 3:8. Chapter 7:15, 16. So Jonah found his attempt to hide the Word that he had received, to be altogether vain.

But this foreknowledge here is peculiar to the elect. Verba sensus in sacra scriptura connotant affectus, as the Rabbins remark, so in man (Psalm 66), if I see iniquity, and in God (Psalm 1; Amos 3:2), and in that speech of our Saviour, relating it as the terrible doom of reprob…

God is ruler of all the world, but particularly of his church, therefore here called his house, wherein he has a special residence and presence. And therefore most suitable, that there he be specially observed and obeyed, and if disobeyed that he take notice of it and punish it,…

Whoever be the instruments, or whatever be the means, the wise God has the whole ordering of it. He is the first cause, He is to be sought to, He is to be appeased, if we would stop evil at the fountain head: for all creatures willingly or unwillingly obey him, and are subject t…

Man was once the object of his love and delight; when man came into the world in the likeness of God, God looked on him with delight, and was enamored of this his Image; but sin (alas) has made him the object of his wrath: Oh injurious sin! 4 Sin has separated man from communion…

These four evils that I have named are terrible indeed, and from all which every one is ready to say, Good Lord deliver us; yet none of these are, all of these are not so bad as sin, and therefore our prayers should be more to be delivered from sin; and if God hear no prayer els…

Or, secondly, there is also the internal operation of the Holy Spirit, in which only the sufficiency of saving calling is accomplished. Now many thousand thousands there be that never communicated in any of these — either the external, or [reconstructed: internal]: [reconstructe…

Now to be in the state of condemnation, and acceptation together; in the state of life and death; to have the wrath of God abiding, and the good pleasure of God resting upon a party at the [illegible] time, [illegible] a perfect contradiction, and so impossibilities in reason. W…

As they stand more nearly related to God in the Gospel-Covenant than heathens do. We are here to observe, that besides the everlasting covenant which is contracted between God and his truly called ones, there is another covenant relation between God and men, which is not common…

6. This glory of his is most of all concerned in his vineyard, or Church: there is a glory which he will have by irrational creatures, his works shall praise him; but there is a special glory that he will have by men; hence there are the great attributes of his justice and grace…

1. God sets an high value upon these favours of his which he thus affords to men. He looks upon them to be extraordinary kindnesses, that any should be planted in his Vineyard, and there have the privilege of all the tendance of it: he therefore says of such, that he has known t…

How God signified his mind of old to his Prophets, is plainly intimated in Scripture: he used to appear to them in dreams, visions by Angels, &c., from where their prophecies were delivered in the Name of the Lord; and sometimes they were against the body of the people, when the…

But this evil of affliction he vouchs for his own act, Against this family do I devise an evil, Micah 3:2. yea more, he impropriates it so to himself, as that he will not have us think any can do us evil beside himself. 'Tis the Prerogative he glories in, that there is no evil i…

(Deuteronomy 10:15) He chose their seed after them, even you, above all people, not above all houses. (Amos 3:2) You only have I known of all the families of the earth. So the external Church Covenant and Church right to the means of grace is given to a society and made with nat…

And there may be running and no sending of God to Nations (Jeremiah 23:21), and (Psalm 147:19-20) when he denies, he declared his judgments and his statutes to any Nation, by sent Prophets, as he did to Jacob, if the Gospel then was of itself preachable to all Nations, Prophets…

"Son of man" (says the Lord to Ezekiel) "speak to the children of your people, and say to them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman, if when he sees the sword come upon the land, and he blow the…

To instruct others (upon occasion) wanting instruction for their good, is an undeniable dictate of the first principles of nature; obedience to which, was all the ordinary warrant they had, for preaching to any beyond their own families, observed by Lot (Genesis 19:7.) though hi…

2. Whatever necessary truth is revealed to any out of the word of God, not before known, he ought to have an uncontradicted liberty of declaring that truth, provided that he use such regulated ways for that his declaration, as the Church wherein he lives (if a right Church) does…

Know God in his attributes and promises; strangers do not walk together. 3 Get all differences removed, Amos 3. 3. Can two walk together except they are agreed?

God will punish severely those which he has known. Amos 3:2. It is therefore certainly our Duty to search diligently, that nothing be found resting in us, against which God is declaring his Displeasure.

There must be union and reconciliation before there can be communion. Amos 3:3: Can two walk together except they be agreed? You and I (says God) are not agreed, and therefore how can we hold communion?

It is true, Papists hold, that when God forgives sin in David, he forgives not the punishment; for David is punished with the sword on his house for that same sin; but it is known that this doctrine is a toefall and pillar to underprop the chamber in hell, which they call Purgat…

Implying that when a Christian takes occasion of most liberty, then he is most apt to let his heart loose; but now faith keeps the heart in a holy fear of God all that time, it keeps us watchful and attentive, and so keeps alive the grace of God in our hearts, and makes us fit t…

This is thus brought to pass, partly by the good guiding providence of God, and partly by the malice of the Devil: God both aiming at, and also bringing forth good thereby: the Devil aiming at evil, but crossed in his purpose. That troubles and crosses fall not on us without God…

Therefore the Apostle uses that for a strong argument, why rich men should not trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, and should be rich in good works, that so, he says, they may lay up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on ete…

That Sion affords no more security to sinners than Sodom, Shiloh is as dangerous a place to sin in, as any in the world; if a people in covenant with God, be found rebellious, he will spare them no more than any other people, yes he will begin with them. Judgment shall begin at…

2. From his providential ordering of all the affairs of the world: God sits king upon the flood (Psalm 29:10). He is sovereign disposer of all things, and therefore good and evil comes from him, whoever it be that does it (Amos 3:6). God says David, bid Shemei [illegible].