Ezekiel

Whoever brings an affliction, God sends it: the consideration of this would make us say, Your will be done; what God does he sees a reason for. We read of a wheel within a wheel (Ezekiel 1:15): the outward wheel which turns all, is providence; the wheel within this wheel, is God…

He hath a special super-intendency over the Affairs of his Church; God hath more care of his Church than we can. We read in Ezekiels Vision, of a wheel within a wheel, Ezek. 1. 16. Gods Decree is the inner wheel that turns all the outward wheels of Providence; the Church never w…

They had not a full dispensation of his glory, but only a glimpse of it, and that under a cloud and revealed in mercy; yet they were sore afraid. Upon any visions and apparitions of the divine Majesty, God's servants fell to the earth — (Ezekiel 1:28) when I saw the appearance o…

The dispensation of all our comforts and mercies, is by his direction and appointment. It's true, the Angels are employed in the kingdom of Providence, they move the wheels, (i. e.) are instrumental in all the revolutions in this lower world; but still they receive directions an…

There is a sweet harmony betwixt them in their distinct workings. They all meet in that one blessed issue which God has by the counsel of his Will directed them to, Ephesians 1:11 Romans 8:28 Hence it is, that the Spirit is said to be in, and order the motions of the wheels of P…

The hand of God in Scripture signifies, first the purpose of God, as that, Acts 4:28, They have done whatever your hand and your counsel determined before to be done, that is, whatever according to your purpose, you did determine. 2. The hand of God signifies the Spirit of God,…

It's true, this, and some other Scriptures, were of old restrained by the Jews, from the younger sort, that none should read them, but these who were at thirty years of age: Origen marks four pieces of holy Scripture, thus restrained by them: The history of the creation, Genesis…

So that according to the degree of grace received, he has a constant uniform frame and tenor of spirit, and holds one straight, direct, and even course towards heaven. In all this suitable to the motion of the wheels in the Prophet Ezekiel's Vision (Ezekiel 1:17): when they went…

When God's Spirit blows upon us, now we go full sail to Heaven. When the Spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels, then they moved (Ezekiel 1:21). The wheels of our endeavor move apace, when the Spirit of God is in these wheels.

Christ appeared to each of these prophets in the form of that nature which he was afterwards to take upon him. The prophet Ezekiel gives an account of his thus appearing to him repeatedly, as Ezekiel 1:26: "And above the firmament that was over their heads, was the likeness of a…

So was Asaph, Psalm 73.▪ and Habbakkuk, Chap. 1. 3. These Wheels of Providence are dreadful for their height, Ezekiel 1:18. There be deep Mysteries of Providence, as well as of Faith. It may be said of some of them, as of Paul's Epistles, That they are hard to be understood.

Titus 3:14: Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary use. We read the angels had wings, and hands under their wings (Ezekiel 1:8) — emblematic of the truth that Christians must not only have the wings of faith to fly, but hands under their wings to work the works…

And though it may be understood in verse 23 of that chapter to signify an overcoming spiritual glory, as the principal thing there intended, such as no soul dwelling in flesh could behold without rending the veil and breaking all to pieces; yet, even there also, may such a degre…

God's providence administers all things here below in perpetual vicissitudes. His hand turns them about like so many wheels — to which they are compared (Ezekiel 1) — the same part is now uppermost, and anon lowermost; now lifted up in the air, and by and by grated through the m…

Here we are joined to them by faith and hope; there by sight and fellowship. The company of wicked men is now grievous and tedious to us (Ezekiel 2:6), but we shall have better company hereafter. Here we often part with our choicest friends and acquaintance, but there we shall m…

They kiss the calves. Lifting up the eyes (Ezekiel 2:15). He has not lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel.

Therefore he does not chide them, but encourages them. The like was done in other cases, as to Ezekiel in his trance (Ezekiel 2:1): Son of man arise, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you. So to the apostle John (Revelation 17:18): When I saw him, I lay at his feet as dead…

And Dion relates it, to the honor of Julius Caesar, that Pompey's cabinet of letters coming to his hand, he would not read them, because he was his enemy, and he would be likely to find in them, that which would increase the quarrel; and therefore (as Dr. Reynolds expresses it)…

Isai. 46. 12. Ezekiel 2:4. Ier. 44. 16. REFLECTION.

Thus the Word that came unto them, was a Book which they took in, and gave out without any alteration of one tittle or syllable. Ezekiel 2:8, 9, 10, 11. Chapter 3:3. Revelation 10:9, 10, 11. Section 10.

(6) And vain stoutness to dare God in his own quarters and fight him (Exodus 14:8, 23; Exodus 23:8, 13; Isaiah 36:10-11, 36-37), if it were in his own seas as Pharaoh and the Egyptians would do. 13. There is a wicked hardening of the heart, when men make the Lord his word and mi…

Go (said he to Moses) and declare to him my will, but I will harden his heart, that he obey not (Exodus 21). So when he stirs up Ezekiel, he warns him beforehand that he sends him to a rebellious and stubborn people, to the end that he should not be afraid if he perceives himsel…

And if upon all this (by death or otherwise) such a ministry be withdrawn from you, as God did work by, in some degree, upon you, and you find not in that kind, what is so suitable to your state and case; take heed lest you be stupid under such a stroke. Think what it imports to…

Sin without repentance brings the second death (Revelation 20:14), that is, mors sine morte, Bernard, a death always dying. Sin's pleasure will turn to sorrow at last; like the book the prophet did eat (Ezekiel 3:3), sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. Sin brings the wr…

Is God our paradise of delight? Our Segullah, or chief treasure? Are our hearts so chained to God, that no other object can enchant us or draw us away from him? 3. Have we had the elevation of the Spirit? Has it raised our hearts above the world? (Ezekiel 3:14). The Spirit lifte…

This was a most discomfortable thing unto him as could be, yet this has been the case and lot of many holy Prophets: Isaiah must go and preach unto them, and yet his doctrine must harden their hearts, that they may not be saved, Isaiah 6:10. And Ezekiel must go and speak, and ye…

And Timothy, though he were a Disciple (Acts 16:1) and well learned: yet Paul charges him to give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine, 1 Timothy 4:13. And Ezekiel is commanded to eat the roll, and to fill his belly with it, Ezekiel 3:3: And Saint John likewise…

And it is not sufficient now and then to make a discourse upon a text. Thirdly, ministers of the word must be watchmen (Ezekiel 3:14), and (Hebrews 13:17): their office is not only to gain and call men to God, but also to preserve and keep them in Christ, which are already calle…

And in this sense it is said, that Jeremiah was set as a defended city, and iron pillar, and walls of brass against the kings of Judah, against the princes, and against all the people (Jeremiah 1:18). Ezekiel also had his forehead made as hard as the adamant, which is much harde…

1. What the Church is: it is a city, wherein there is order, and a common fellowship, as has been said, verse 2. 2. The ministers' office is here implied: this city has watchmen; so are ministers called (Ezekiel 3:17; Isaiah 62:6; Hebrews 13:17). Which word imports, 1. That the…

4. A lawfully-called ministry, or watchmen peculiarly designed for that end, are the great means Christ has appointed for preventing the hurt, and promoting the good and edification of his Church (Ephesians 2:12-13). They are as the sentinels, which he has set on the walls for g…

There are many other duties necessary to the right discharge of the ministerial function, but these already mentioned shall suffice; and all others may be reduced to some of these. I shall therefore conclude this with my earnest request, that you would ever seriously meditate up…

To others he speaks more audibly, where the Gospel does sound in their ears, and with the Scriptures God sends his ministers to preach to them. God speaks by his ministers, who are his watchmen, in his name to warn the people of his judgments temporal and eternal, which in the S…

Worldly pleasures perish in the using; like a flying shadow, or flash of lightning; and are these to be preferred before an eternal weight of glory? 4. The present sweetness which is in sin will turn to bitterness at last, like the book the prophet ate (Ezekiel 3:3): sweet in th…

We watch for your souls (says the Apostle) as they that must give an account (Hebrews 13:7). If these servants be unfaithful in their work and trust, the blood of souls shall be required at their hands (Ezekiel 3:17-18), which are fulmina, non verba (says Erasmus) thunder-bolts,…

2 Corinthians 5:19. Knowing therefore the terrours of the LORD, we perswade men. Ezek. 3. 19. Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you hast delivered your soul. LONDON, Printed by Tho.

For every parent is made a watchman over his child. If a watchman does not what he can to hinder the sin of such as are under his charge, he pulls their blood on his own neck (Ezekiel 3:18). What do they then that being watchmen, minister occasion of sin to them that are under t…

3. The Spirit of God will direct you. There are certain times when God has business with you alone; when he does (as it were) speak to you, as to the prophet in another case (Ezekiel 3:22): "Go forth into the plain, in the desert, and there I will talk with you": so, get you to…

We cannot of our selves think a good thought, 2 Corinthians 3:5. but the Spirit elevates and fixeth the heart on God. Ezekiel 3:14. The Spirit lifted me up.

Some are silenced by authority and opposition of men, a dispensation God often permits for despising the truth, and playing the wantons with an opportunity of open profession, when men dally with the light; God removes their candlestick and the door is shut upon them. 2. They ma…

But yet more particularly, we may be guilty of other men's sin, 1. As occasions (if not causes) of it, before. 2. As partakers with them, when. 3. As accessories, after it is committed. 1. In being occasioners of it before, when it may more than probably be said, such sins had n…

He who lets another sin, and holds his peace, is a man-slayer. That sentinel deserves death, who sees the enemy approaching and gives not warning (Ezekiel 3:20). Fifth, such as poison souls with error; how dangerous is the leprosy of the head!

(6) And vain stoutness to dare God in his own quarters and fight him (Exodus 14:8, 23; Exodus 23:8, 13; Isaiah 36:10-11, 36-37), if it were in his own seas as Pharaoh and the Egyptians would do. 13. There is a wicked hardening of the heart, when men make the Lord his word and mi…

Indeed all the Ministers and Apostles, and Prophets had sinned in not prophesying to the Philistines, Syrians, Persians, Bithynia, Samaria; whereas the Apostles (Matthew 10:5; Acts 16:6) were forbidden to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, to Asia. And it were strange to say Eze…

When the Prophet Elijah stretched himself upon the dead Child it revived 1 Kings 17:22. so God's Spirit stretching itself upon the soul infuses life into it. As our life, so our liveliness is from the spirit's operation, Ezekiel 3:14. The Spirit lifted me up. When the heart is b…

In this sense (Matthew 9:13) and (1 Timothy 1:15), Christ came to save sinners; otherwise, all the house of Israel are lost (Jeremiah 50:6). My people have been lost sheep (Ezekiel 3:4); neither have you sought that which was lost. Nor is this to be meant of the lost considered,…

Here Christ makes the lilies and hearbes of the field a schoolmaster unto man, yea to his own disciples (for he spake to them.) And this he dos for speciall causes. First, to teach them and us, that the silie creatures in the field doe in their kind yeild more obedience unto God…

God does not only expect that his ministers and priests should weep between the porch and the altar, when sore judgements are upon his land, as (Joel 2:17), but also that the people should weep too, that the bridegroom should go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her clo…

It is a wearying of God, (Isaiah 7:13).—5. It is a breaking the heart of God, (Ezekiel 6:9). I am broken with your whorish heart; as a loving husband is with the unchast carriage of his wife.—6.

Secondly, if I be so far humbled, as to come off with self-loathing, that my heart is broken, because I have broken God's heart; this is humiliation enough to find pardon. It is a notable place, that of Ezekiel 6:9. these are they to whom God will show mercy, they shall loathe t…

1. Contrition, or brokenness of heart. Ezekiel 7:16. They shall be like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning every one for his iniquity. This contrition or rending of the heart, is expressed, sometimes by smiting on the breast (Luke 18:13), sometimes by plucking off the ha…

It is the disposition of gospel-penitents to mourn every family apart, husbands and wives apart (Zechariah 12:11-12). And of gracious souls, to be like doves of the valleys, every one mourning for his iniquity (Ezekiel 7:16). There must be joint prayers and separated prayers tog…

And this rending implies, not only acute pain; flesh cannot be rent asunder without anguish; nor yet only force and violence; the heart is a stubborn and knotty piece and will not easily yield, but it also implies a disunion of parts united: as when a garment, or the earth, or a…

The Husbandman does not presently cut down the tree because it puts not forth as soon as other trees do, but waits as long as there is any hope, and then cuts it down. Thus does God wait upon barren dead-hearted persons, from Sabbath to Sabbath, and from year to year; for the Lo…

11. The Ornament of God, Ezek. 7:20 12.

All things friendly and beneficial to them, Friends helpful, Enemies helpful, every thing conspiring and conducing to their happiness. With others it is not so; nothing works for their good; in fact, every thing works against it: Their very mercies are snares, and their Prosperi…

If God be angry, whose fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him (Nahum 1:6), can a wedge of gold be a screen to keep off this fire? Ezekiel 7:19: They shall cast their silver in the streets; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them…

While we carry the fire of sin about us, we must carry the water of tears to quench it. Ezekiel 7:16. They are not blessed (says Chrysostom) who mourn for the dead, but who mourn for sin.

Christ's doves weep. Ezekiel 7:16: They that escape shall be like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. There are several divine motives to holy mourning.

When the dumb creatures melt as wax and vanish away at his presence when he is angry, as the huge mountains and rocks do, frail man must never look to stand. If the roaring of a lion makes men afraid and the voice of thunder is terrible, oh, how exceedingly should all be astonis…

This is to be the right seed of Adam, to love the forbidden fruit, to love to drink of stolen waters. (Ezekiel 8:8-9) Son of Man, dig in the wall; and when I had dug, behold a door; and he said, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. Could we, as the prophet…

Oh then, do you perform chamber and closet duties? They had their [Divos penetrales, or Penates] their household gods, and closet images, they had their [opertanea, and tenebrosa sacra] their covered, veiled, and mysterious exercises in secret places: and the Jews borrowed sever…

Quest. If it be asked why the Lord makes mention of idols, seeing the Jews professed to worship but one God: I answer, Ans. they were already so corrupted by too much familiarity with the Gentiles, and had so defiled themselves with superstitions, that God was in a manner utterl…

Now for the other word expressing his favor to the righteous, by the openness of his ear, the opposition in the other needed not, for either the wicked pray not, or if they do, it is indeed no prayer, the Lord does not account nor receive it as such; and if his face be set again…

And indeed it is a general rule given by Christ himself, that he who does evil hates the light, because his deeds are evil, and he cannot endure that they should be manifested, for then they would be reproved by the light (John 3:19-20). The abominations of the Ancients of Israe…

That God will execute the fierceness of his anger implies that he will inflict wrath without any pity: when God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed and sinks…

(5.) Infants are debarred from Covenant-calling and gathering in under the wings of Christ: contrary to Matthew 28:19-20, Matthew 23:37, Psalm 147:19-20, and excluded from God's Covenant-choice: contrary to Deuteronomy 7:6-9, 13-14, Deuteronomy 10:15, and left being heirs of wra…

But a godly man dares not sin secretly: 1 he knows that God sees in secret, Psalm 44:21. as God cannot be deceived by our subtlety, so he cannot be excluded by our secrecy. 2 A godly man knows that secret sins are in some sense worse than others: they discover more guile and Ath…

For I am sore ashamed, to speak any more of their ribaldry, and detestable deeds, that they do secretly Ephesians 7. And if any man might see through the walls their secrets and privities, as in times past, the Lord did reveal unto his holy prophet, Ezekiel 8 he should see horri…

Again, the sinner lessens God, and brings him low in the thoughts of others. Ezekiel 8.12. They say, the Lord sees us not, the Lord has forsaken the earth.

That GOD will execute the Fierceness of his Anger, implies, that he will inflict Wrath without any Pity: When GOD beholds the ineffable Extremity of your Case, and sees your Torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your Strength, and sees how your poor Soul is crushed and sink…

Thus was it ever. When God proceeds in judgment against Jerusalem, for the sins thereof: he marks the godly in their foreheads; namely, such as mourn and cry for the abominations which are done against God, Ezekiel 9:4. When Sodom must be destroyed, righteous Lot and his family,…

2 Peter 2:7: Lot was vexed, and his righteous heart was vexed with the unclean conversation of the Sodomites from day to day: so ought our souls to be vexed and grieved continually at the wickedness of our time: and we are to send up our prayers to God for unbelieving and unrepe…

For when a man does not so, all the angels of God are his enemies, and at all times ready to execute God's vengeance upon him: but when men carry themselves as dutiful children to God, they have this prerogative that God's holy angels do watch about them, and defend them day and…

2. God rewards secret prayer openly, by discriminating providences in a common calamity: God usually takes them into the chambers of his protection that retired themselves into chambers of devotion: They that enjoy most of God, shall be best secured by God: (Psalm 91:1) He that…

It was the manner of Paul to abase himself, and to mourn for the sins of others (2 Corinthians 12:24), and he reproves the Corinthians that they were puffed up, and did not mourn for the incestuous person. Like was the practice of David (Psalm 119:136), of Lot (2 Peter 2:7), of…

Or upon malefactors, as a hole in the ear, an F in the forehead, a brand in the hand. Or such a mark, as some think, was set upon Cain (Genesis 4:15), or the mark of God (Ezekiel 9:4), or of the beast (Revelation 16:[illegible]). The marks of Christ are of two sorts, either inwa…

It is used both for Quantity and Quality; much in quantity, or plenteous, abundant, and in Quality, that is, precious, excellent. And it is applied in a good and bad sense; so it is said of our sins, Ezekiel 9:6. our sins are increased or multiplied, or are great; many in number…

Mourn, London, mourn, put on sackcloth, you see in part what an evil thing and a bitter it is, to offend a holy and jealous God; the effects of sin here are fearful sometimes, what evil is there in sin then which is the cause of your ruins. God looks now that the sinners of Lond…

Thirdly, let us greatly lament the folly and wickedness of those who speak against Christ and his holy religion, and if we can do anything, have compassion upon them, and help to undeceive them, and rectify their mistakes. Surely this is one of the abominations committed among u…

So evidently in this sense the servants of God are said to be sealed, Revelation 7:4 — marked with God's mark as his peculiar ones. This sealing answers to the setting of a mark in Ezekiel 9. Believers are sealed when they are marked for God, to be heirs of the purchased inherit…

If he hate sin all the world over, where its nearest him he hates it most, and testifies his hatred of it; will not endure it in his presence: as cleanly neat persons, cannot well look upon any thing that is nasty, much less will they suffer it come near them, or touch them, and…

And besides this, he has his Book of Remembrance, where he sets them down; are they not in your Book? Especially God writes down such Tears as are shed for the sins of the times, Ezekiel 9:2. One was clothed with linnen; with a writers Inkhorn by his side: this was to write down…

But as we should not be conformed to this world at large, so not to any part of it. Is there any sin by which the land is defiled (for which the land mourns) and is ready to spit out the inhabitants thereof for it (Leviticus 18:27-28), take heed you be not found guilty; but be o…

(1) What if there be no God? (Psalm 14:1). (2) What if God see not? (Ezekiel 9:9). (3) What if man perish as the beasts? (Ecclesiastes 3:19).

Could we in silence believe it is Christ with two garments on him at once, Christ clothed with love, wrapped in the unseen mystery of tenderness of compassion, and yet his upper garment is vengeance, and rolled in blood, we should kiss the edge of Christ's bloody sword; so we ar…

Eli honored his sons more than God, suffered them to profane the priesthood and sacrifices; justice rooted out his sons from the priesthood and sacrifices: Hezekiah out of his pride showed all his treasures, and all that was in his house to the king of Babylon's messengers; and…

You say, if the mourning of God's people in a land, be the mourning of a whole land, how is it then, that they prevail not with God sometimes to save the land, for which they do mourn, but sometimes the land perishes, and only themselves preserved? As (Ezekiel 9:4): Set a mark o…

God who bounds every thing else, is himself without bounds: He sets bounds to the sea, Huc usque, Here you shall come and no further. He sets bounds to the angels, they like the Cherubims move and stand at his appointment (Ezekiel 10:16), but he is infinite, without bounds. He w…

No doubt but this sin of slighting the Gospel is a prime sin, which has provoked God against London, to come forth in such fury; and if London does not repent the sooner, and labor to recover its relish and esteem for the Gospel, and make more evident demonstrations of it, I fea…

Jeremiah 17:10. He is like Ezekiels wheels, full of eyes, Ezekiel 10:12. and as Cyril says,, all Eye. Should not this make us walk with fear and circumspection? we cannot sin but our Judge looks on.

When God smites upon our back, we must smite upon our thigh (Jeremiah 31:19). When God seems to stand upon the threshold of the temple, as if he were ready to take his wings and fly, then is a time to lie weeping between the porch and the altar (Ezekiel 10:4). If the Lord seems…

5 Not to love is very fatal; the differences among God's people, portend ruin: all mischiefs come in at this gap of division, Matthew 12. 25. Animosities among Saints, may make God leave his Temple, Ezekiel 10. 4. The glory of the Lord, went up from the Cherub, and stood upon th…

1. It's clear from these places of Scripture, where there is an express distinction and difference put between the outward ministry of the word, and this inward, powerful, efficacious work of grace on the heart, and wherein the great weight of conversion is laid on this inward w…

Now this he could not do: for Christ out of deliberation, and his Father's eternal counsel, absolutely, gratis, freely died for these; he died not for those, that he foresaw would never fulfill the condition, nunquam positâ conditione, nunquam ponitur conditionatum. 6. Christ bo…

when the Prophets would say, will you destroy even the remnants to utter destruction? And that comes to pass through the ambiguity or doubtfulness of the Hebrew word (Isaiah 10:22; 28:22; Ezekiel 11:13). For seeing the word Chalah may signify as well to end and finish, as to con…

The Emperour Aurelian when he was ready to subscribe the Edict for the persecution of the Christians, was suddenly crampt in his Knuckles, that he could not write. Mr. Greenhill in his Exposition upon Ezekiel 11:13 tells his Auditory, that there was one then present in the Congr…

No doubt but this sin of slighting the Gospel is a prime sin, which has provoked God against London, to come forth in such fury; and if London does not repent the sooner, and labor to recover its relish and esteem for the Gospel, and make more evident demonstrations of it, I fea…

Now the Spirit, as unto us, a Spirit of grace, holiness and consolation, is of the purchase of Christ. It is upon the matter, the great promise of the new covenant (Ezekiel 11:19). I will put a new Spirit within you: So also (chapter 36, verse 27; Jeremiah 32:39-40) and in sundr…

The mistakes of others in this business. The Spirit is promised believers for this work (Ezekiel 11:19; chapter 36:26). All that we receive from Christ is by the Spirit.

1. I mean thus, That in the work of conversion God does all. (Ezekiel 11:19) I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh. The benefit of a tender sanctified heart is…

Now to act contrary to the will and statutes of God, is to act contrary to God himself; as may be seen by comparing Leviticus 26:14-15 with 26:21, 23, 27, and many other places. David in fulfilling the will of God, was said to be a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22), and the…

When the bird has wings given to it, it can fly. Though the soul of itself is unable to do what is good, yet having two wings given to it — the wing of faith and the wing of the Spirit — it now flies swiftly in obedience (Ezekiel 11:1). The heart is lifted heavenward in prayer w…

(2.) The second covenant which promises only blessings is made rather with beasts, that well fed, than with men, contrary to (Psalm 73:25; Isaiah 57:1-3; Psalm 37:37), and it must build some chamber in hell where the fathers were before Christ — a dream unknown to Scripture. The…

(4.) The same Covenant made with Abraham is made with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:16): I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Which is prophesied of the Gentiles under the New Testament in Ezekiel 11:17-20, Ezekiel 34:23-25, Jeremiah 31:31-36, Jeremiah 32:36-40,…

(Verse 39) I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever; for the good of them and of their children after them. See the same order (Ezekiel 11:19-20), though the words lie not in that order there and here. And (Hebrews 8:10) 5. God is not then a God to…

6. (Jeremiah 31:[reconstructed: 38]) Behold the days will come, says the Lord, that the City shall be built to the Lord, etc. There is a promise of spiritual right in Christ made to the blessings of this life, to these that are personal Covenanters; as (Jeremiah 32:41; Ezekiel 1…

Therefore Adam in his pure naturals, as not yet endowed with the Image of God, cannot be the party with whom the Covenant of Works is made, for then the Image of God must either be a reward, which Adam by his pure naturals and strength thereof must purchase by working, which the…

2. These influences were free gifts, but not promised. 3. They seem to be ordinis naturalis, natural, though they did bow and previously incline the will, but not so in the New Testament, for the whole Covenant is called by the promise of the giving of a new heart (Hebrews 8:10)…

The Lord speaks often of the Covenant of Grace not so much as preached, qua foedus ennunciatum (though it so also must be preached) but as fulfilled by God, and acted in an effectual powerful way, upon the hearts of the elect only, and that according to the Lord's decree of elec…

Yet may it be disputable to some, whether grace by which one is effectually drawn to Christ, rather than another, be the grace of predestination continued and so before Christ's death, or a fruit of Christ's death and so after. But it may well be said that every created saving g…

The Temple is a type of Christ, yet it is burnt with fire, and the sanctuary profaned. And the Lord required a sort of slowness of motion of the heart toward these, and would have his people in their exile resting upon this (Ezekiel 11:16): Therefore say, thus says the Lord God,…

Argument 1. What argument does prove that there is a people in Covenant with God, who call the Lord their God (as in Zechariah 13:9; Jeremiah 32:38; Isaiah 25:9), the same shall prove Christ to be in Covenant with God: as whoever can say, 'he is my God,' must be in Covenant with…

2. It is necessary that the promises that are our writs and charters of heaven be in a surer hand than in our own, to wit, in the keeping of Christ: for this is an absolute promise made to us (Ezekiel 36:26), "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within…

Unless he falls as dew and showers on our dry and barren hearts, unless he causes our graces to spring, thrive, and bring forth fruit, unless he revives and increases faith, love, and holiness in our souls, our backslidings will not be healed, nor our spiritual state recovered.…

But the chief profit toward the faithful is to be considered: in whom as the Lord works all things by his Spirit, so he leaves not the instruments of his word, and uses the same not without effect. Let this therefore stand which is true, that all the strength of the godly rests…

First, what is meant by thoughts, especially as they are the intended subject of this discourse, which in so vast an argument I must necessarily set limits to: 1. By thoughts, the Scriptures do comprehend all the internal acts of the mind of man, of what faculty soever, all thos…

The word for care, [illegible], comes from a primitive in the Greek, that signifies to cut the heart in pieces. Care does discruciate the mind, waste the spirits: no such bitter bread as the bread of carefulness (Ezekiel 12:19). Care is a spiritual canker which eats out the comf…

[reconstructed: Care to prevent future dangers and preserve present comfort] — all care is full of fear, and fear is full of torment (1 John 4:18). God threatens it as a judgment (Ezekiel 12:19): they shall eat their bread with carefulness. Every comfort has its care, as every r…

Oh! consider opportunities will not last always, we have no [illegible] of them, much less command of them; and who knows whether we shall ever enjoy that which we now neglect? Especially, considering the Lord at the present, vouchsafes all helps to further and persuade us to th…

And in some it is the natural conscience accusing and challenging after sin is committed; now Christ came not to extirpate conscience, nor the power of feeling and discerning the obligation to wrath, that the conscience apprehends after sin is committed, nor the legal evil deser…

While you sleep, perhaps that truth was delivered, which might have converted your souls. Besides, sleeping is very offensive in these holy assemblies: it is not only a grieving the Spirit of God, but a making the hearts of the righteous sad (Ezekiel 13:22). It troubles them to…

The devil buys many at a very easy price, he needs not carry them so high as the mountain, they are contented with a little gain that is got by a fraudulent bargain in the shop: if we stand in our window, or at our doors, we meet with temptations enough to carry us away. He need…

The word [unsavory] there is the same as this here rendered folly or foolishly. Secondly, it is used for mortar that has not a due temper or mixture in it, as (Ezekiel 13:14): I will break down the wall that you have daubed with untempered mortar; mortar that is not well tempere…

2. Because of God's separating them from others, and taking pains on them above all others (Isaiah 27:2-3); for these, and other reasons, they are called the vines. Next, by foxes are understood false teachers (Ezekiel 13:4): O Israel, your Prophets (that is your flattering teac…

This dealing of theirs cannot be to speak a word in season to the weary soul of a tender person, whose carriage is so convincing even to others, that in verse 9 they give her a high commendation, which is a clear testimony against the malignity of these watchmen; they must there…

And Psalm 148:8. The stormy winds are said to fulfil his word; not only his word of Command, in rising when God bids them, but his word of threatning also. And hence it is called a destroying wind, Jeremiah 51:1. and a stormy wind in God's fury, Ezekiel 13:13. APPLICATION.

Admitting him thereby, into fellowship therein. This is called the writing of the house of Israel (Ezekiel 13:9), that is the roll, wherein all the names of the Israel, the family of God are written. God has a catalogue of his household; Christ knows his sheep by name.

Some think the way of lying is meant corruption of doctrine; others of worship; others apply it to disorders of conversation; some take it for error of doctrine, false opinions concerning God and his worship, which are called lying, and so opposed to the way of truth spoken of i…

The glory of God is much interested in the credit of his servants. When they pollute and shame themselves, the Lord is polluted in them (Ezekiel 13:19): "Will they pollute me among my people?" And (Jeremiah 34:16): "You have polluted my name."

Approbation and being accessory is concluded from hence, when men flatter others, and speak peace to them in their evil ways: when men say peace, where God says there is none, that is, to the wicked. God and man will curse him that says to the wicked, you are righteous (Proverbs…

Let me here take occasion to offer to your view some sins which are especially said to be the devil's sin, and they that do them are of, work for, and are like to, and called devils. 1 Murder, especially soul-murder, of which Antichrist the devil's son is hugely guilty, in makin…

The design hereof is not to break the bruised reed, nor to quench the smoking flax (Matthew 12:20), not to discourage the weakest believer, but to awaken formal professors. I would not sadden the heart of any, whom God would not have made sad (Ezekiel 13:22), though I know it is…

First, all true evangelical consolation belongs only to believers (Hebrews 6:17-18); God's people (Isaiah 40:1-2); upon unbelievers the wrath of God remains (John 3:36). Second, to make consolation out to those to whom it does not belong is no less a crime than to hide it from t…

And yet I deny not, that the Holy Ghost frames his talk to the small measure of our sense. As when he says (Ezekiel 13:9): In the secret of my people they shall not be, and in the roll of my servants they shall not be written. As though God did begin to write in the book of life…

2. It is good (say Antinomians) to lay the saints under a covenant of works, because it does this good, to make us make sure our evidences, that Christ is ours: indeed some desire a wakened conscience, that the terrors of God may chase them to Christ: but 1. that is a murmuring…

Caution 2. Neither does this commandment, 'You shall not kill,' prohibit a just war. When men's sins grow ripe, and long plenty has bred surfeit, then God says, 'Sword, go through the land' (Ezekiel 14:17). God did abet the war between the tribes of Israel and Benjamin.

In all matters we resolve on, we are to take God's leave, and counsel and blessing; but they first resolve, and then ask God's counsel. And therefore God says (Ezekiel 14:4), Every man of the house of Israel, that sets up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling block of h…

God's dear Children know what this means; for sometimes they are more taken up with expressions, affections, or some accidentals in the performance, than with the object of worship they should be intent upon. But this is very dangerous; for whatever interposes between the soul a…

4. As Christ may withdraw, if provoked and not entertained, from a private believer; so will he do from a Church, if they hold not fast what they have received, and walk not accordingly. 5. Church-members, by their sins, have much influence on Christ's removal from among them; i…

And therefore those are highly guilty of the violation of this command, who worship God only with their bodies, when their hearts are far estranged from him; offering up only the shell and husk of a duty, when the pith and substance which should fill it, is given either to the w…

If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to my enemies, and reward them that hate me; I will make my arrows drunk with blood (and my sword shall devour flesh) and that with the blood of the slain, and of the captives, from the beg…

Each almost some way or other speaking falsehood and deceit to his neighbor, and daring to act this faculty with God in his services, and our protestations of obedience, religious speeches abused by some in hypocrisy, as holy vestments for a mask or disguise, doing nothing but c…

4. Such as pretend to ask counsel from the word, but it is according to the idol of their own hearts; that come with their own conclusions, and preconceptions, and prejudices, against God's counsel. "Son of man, these have set up their idols in their heart, etc." (Ezekiel 14:3-4…

There are certain corrupt principles within you that will draw you off from God to another portion. Ezekiel 14:5: "They are all estranged from me through their idols." What kind of idols were these?

Jezabel fasts and prayes the better, to devoure Naboths vineyard, but was devoured by it. Absalom was as sick till he had ravish't his fathers Crown, as his brother Amnon till he had done the like to his sister, and to hide his treason he puts on a religious cloak, and therefore…

True Repentance, like aqua fortis, eats asunder the Iron chain of sin; therefore weeping and turning are put together, (Joel 2:12). After the cloud of sorrow has dropped in tears, the firmament of the soul is clearer, (Ezekiel 14:6). Repent and turn your selves from your Idols,…

(Jeremiah 24:5) The basket of good figs was preserved, but the other was for a prey to captivity, and the sword, and pestilence, and to utter extirpation from the earth. Hence is that you read (Ezekiel 14:14): They shall deliver neither son nor daughter, but themselves only. And…

And these things are soon gone. Use 2. It reproves such, 1. as bring no glory to God: They do not answer the end of their creation, their time is not truly lived, but time lost; they are like the wood of the vine (Ezekiel 15:2). Their lives are as Saint Bernard speaks, Aut pecca…

And the particular professors, especially believers, are as the vine-trees that grow in it; So (Isaiah 5:7), The Vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel, collectively, and the men of Judah are his pleasant plants. They are called so, 1. For their feebleness in themselves (Ez…

They give God neither the early fruit nor the latter. There are many Christians like arbors covered only with the leaves of profession; they may be compared to the wood of the vine which is good for nothing (Ezekiel 15:2). He who has not the fruits of the Spirit has not the Spir…

But when men will have all the gains that is in what they do, set up their own ends only, and the husbandman shall have none, such branches he takes away, because they are not for his profit, for it is made a rule of equity (1 Corinthians 9:7): 'That he that plants a vineyard, s…

Election is the fountain-cause of our vocation. It is not because some are more worthy to partake of the heavenly calling than others (as the Arminians claim) — we were all in our blood (Ezekiel 16:6), and what worthiness in us? What worthiness was there in Mary Magdalen, out of…

King Pharaoh's daughter took Moses out of the ark of bulrushes in the water, and adopted him for her son. God did not take us out of the water, but out of our blood, and adopted us (Ezekiel 16). God adopted us from slavery: It is a mercy to redeem a slave, but it is more to adop…

God's entering into covenant with us to be our God is a dignity he puts upon us. A covenant is Insigne honoris, a note of distinction between God's people and heathens (Ezekiel 16:22). I will establish my covenant with you.

Resp. 1. Such as are sanctified can remember a time when they were unsanctified (Titus 3:3). We were in our blood, and then God washed us with water, and anointed us with oil (Ezekiel 16:9). Those trees of righteousness that blossom and bear almonds can remember when they were l…

We were in such a condition, that we could neither deserve nor recompense Christ's love. First, we could not deserve it, for we were in our blood (Ezekiel 16:6). We had no spiritual beauty to tempt Christ.

When gluttony and drunkenness lead the van, chambering and wantonness bring up the rear. Vinum fomentum libidinis; any wine inflames lust: and fullness of bread is made the cause of Sodom's uncleanness (Ezekiel 16:49). The rankest weeds grow out of the fattest soil.

Every sin has a voice to speak, but some sins cry. As some diseases are worse than others, and some poisons more venomous; so some sins are more heinous (Ezekiel 16:47; Jeremiah 16:12): You have done worse than your fathers, your sins have exceeded theirs. Some sins have a black…

Whereas the remembrance of them should keep us low and humble us all our days. It is laid to the charge of those in Ezekiel 16:22 that they did not remember that they lay in their blood. We are apt to think that time wears out the guilt of sins, but to God they are as fresh as i…

As Christ learned obedience by what he suffered, so will you also if you have his Spirit. The second application is to exercise graces in their seasons: when you are afflicted, pray; when joyful, sing psalms (James 5:13); when filled with assurance, then mourn and be humbled (Ez…

To clear it, consider these three things, which will hold out, what this state and posture of ours is. First, the natural sinfulness, and guilt that men are lying under, which makes them naked, and to be as that wretched infant (spoken of, Ezekiel 16) lying in their blood, cast…

1. It serves deeply to humble, and to press forth (to speak so) repentance; when we consider our own way to be sinful beyond others, and that such and such a man has sinned, but his sin has not such aggravations as mine, this makes the soul to blush, and to say as it is Psalm 40…

I will lay my hand on my mouth. When the Church finds justice pleading against her; it is thus (Ezekiel 16:63): That you may remember your sins and be confounded, and there may be no more an opening of a mouth, because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you, for all that y…

Jacob, not Esau, before the children had done good or evil; though Esau be elder, Isaac must be the Son of the promise: father and mother were free grace, rather [illegible] of Abraham and Sarah, now [reconstructed: past] natures [illegible] Ishmael: Peter and John, not Judas th…

Not of godly parents; for men may have godly parents, and yet themselves degenerate, and therefore it is not to be ascribed to parentage, it is not from the parentage, but from the covenant, and from God's will in the covenant, that begets a child of God, nor is it of the will o…

And Christ himself was a man without form, or beauty (Isaiah 53:2). Having a husband] in these words the condition of the Jewish church is set forth, that she is married or espoused to God, who is her husband (Ezekiel 16:8-9; Hosea 2:19). The like may be said of any other church…

Whereas other mens hainous sinnes shall not justifie vs and our lesser sinnes, save onely as Jerusalem justified her sisters, Sodome, and Samaria. Ezek 16:51. But so a man may be justified, and yet condēned.

This is the cause why our Prophet terms them, the seed of the adulterer, and of the whore. With which also Ezekiel reproaches them in (Ezekiel 16:3), saying, Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. And the like phrases of speech are used in many other places (Hose…

"he has covered himself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through," (Lamentations 3:44.) We ought always, therefore, to begin with the forgiveness of sins: for the first hope of being heard by God beams upon us, when we obtain his favor; and there is no way in which…

O, what cause is here for praise? What obligations are upon you to bless the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with you, and to magnify his holy name? What cause for you to praise him in humility, to walk humbly before God, and to be conformed to that in Ezekiel 16:63: 'That you m…

And it is observed (especially in these latter acts of this gradation) that Job alludes to the custom of those times, wherein unnatural women left their children upon the cold earth, naked and helpless, as soon as they were born: or casting them out, expose them to misery, or th…

4. This comeliness grows not of any stock within the believer, nor is it natural to him, but it is communicated or imparted beauty, such as is put on — a comeliness proceeding from the beneficence of another, and is the work of a skilled workman. See (Ezekiel 16:10-11), where si…

Or, as it is in the original, I am to him, and he is to me — such as is the union between married persons (Hosea 3:3), which the tie of marriage brings on. Even such is this which follows covenanting with God; for this union presupposes it, and is founded on it (Ezekiel 16:8): I…

The seventh and last part that is commended in the Bride, is her two breasts or paps. For clearing of this similitude, we are to consider, 1. that the breasts in nature are a part of the comeliness of the body (Ezekiel 16:7). 2. They are useful to give suck and food to others.

3. A readiness and promptness of obedience, to what they are called to: All which are beautiful in themselves, and adorning to the believer. We take it, in a word, to hold out a conversation such as becomes the Gospel (Philippians 1:27), which is, to have the feet shod with the…

Again, sister may be more largely taken, for one, or all of these three, 1. For all men, as partaking of one common nature. 2. For men of one stock and nation, so Samaria was sister to Jerusalem, etc. (Ezekiel 16:46). 3. For the elect who are yet unconverted, who are sisters in…

3. What is the scope of these allegories, in other Scriptures, as that of Psalm 45, that of planting a vineyard (Matthew 21), that of marriage (Matthew 22), (which none can deny) is meant of espousing spiritually. (See this same allegory of marriage, Jeremiah 3, Hosea 2-3, Ezeki…

Thirdly, continually exercise yourself in some honest and lawful employment. Lust grows active when we grow idle: and therefore as fullness of bread, so likewise idleness is reckoned as one of the sins of impure Sodom (Ezekiel 16:49). David, when he walked idly upon the roof of…

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18). Pride was one of Sodom's sins, which city was burned with fire from heaven (Ezekiel 16:49). The Scriptures speak of three cities that were burned for this sin of pride among other sins, namely So…

It is best plowing when the earth is prepared and softened by the showers of rain, then the work goes on sweetly and easily. And never does the heart so kindly melt, as when the Gospel clouds dissolve, and the free grace and love of Jesus Christ comes sweetly [reconstructed: sho…

And as he has a multiplicity of business, so every part of it is full of toil, and spending labour: he eats not the bread of idleness, but earns it before he eats it; and as it were, dips it in his own sweat, whereby it becomes the sweeter to him. Though sin brought in the husba…

Exorbitant passion is a discord in the soul: It is like a tumor in the face, which spoils the beauty of it: Meekness scatters the humor, binds down the swelling, and so prevents the deformity, and preserves the beauty. This is one instance of the comeliness of grace, through my…

And behold a woman that was a [[•]inner;] that is, an eminent notorious sinner: by which term, the Scripture deciphers an unclean person; as if among sinners there were none of such a prodigious stature in sin as they. And we find that when the spirit of God would set forth any…

Lastly, Our abuse of Prosperity, when God gave it; making God's Mercies the Food and Fewel of our Lusts. When we had an a[•]fluence and confluence of outward Blessings, this made us kick against God, as Deuteronomy 32:15. Forget God, Deuteronomy 4:14. Indeed, grow proud of our s…

Song of Solomon 1:15: "Behold you are fair my companion, behold you are fair, you have dove's eyes." Let others think what they please, Christ redoubles it that the souls of his saints are very beautiful, even perfect through his comeliness which he puts upon them (Ezekiel 16:14…

I doubt not but that the great controversy which God has had with this nation for so many years, and which he has pursued with so much anger and indignation, was upon this account: that contrary to that glorious light of the gospel which shone among us, the wills and fancies of…

That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6). It is in the pollution of our blood that we are born (Ezekiel 16), wholly defiled and polluted. The grace of sanctification purchased by the blood of Christ removes this defilement of our nature.

The meanness of the Church is as low on the other side: she is a creature, fashioned out of the earth, proceeding from the loins of corrupt Adam, not only finite, but in itself vile and base. The Prophet Ezekiel does set her forth in her lively colors as she is in herself (Ezeki…

Now this I say, if it be done according to the mind of God, and in the strength of that Spirit which is poured out on believers, it will beget a detestation of that sin or sins, for which healing and peace is sought. So (Ezekiel 16:60-61): nevertheless I will remember my covenan…

Now in both these the Apostle draws the eyes of believers to reflect on their former misery and view it together with their present estate. This is very frequent in the Scriptures (Ezekiel 16), (Ephesians 2), (1 Corinthians 6:11), etc. And it is of very great use, works the soul…

7. The more we sin, upon the mere impulse of the flesh, and without an external temptation, the more heinous is our offense, for then the heart is carried of its own accord to sin. Ezekiel 16:33-34: They give gifts to all whores: but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and h…

2. I Come now to the reward it self, the first part whereof is Gods owning them, they shall be mine. Expositors here vary: I take the sence of it to be, they shall be mine in Covenant, Ezekiel 16:8. I entred into Covenant with you, and you becamest mine.

10. God in Affliction deals well with his Children, because if he take away one Comfort, he leaves more behind. God threatned Ierusalem to strip her of all her Jewels and leave her bare, Ezekiel 16:39. But you who belong to God, may Sing of Mercy and Iudgment, Psalm 101:1.

We came polluted into the world; our business is to stop the growth of sin. As a child wallows in his filthiness, so we do all spiritually wallow in our blood (Ezekiel 16:4-5): As for your nativity, in the day you were born, you were not washed in water, nor swaddled at all. No…

We have not a right notion of mercy, unless we admire the plenty of it (Ephesians 2:4): God who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, when we were dead in trespasses and sins, has quickened us with Christ. There need many mercies from first to last for the…

(Isaiah 44:5) "One shall say I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." (Ezekiel 16:8) "I swore to you, and entered into covenant with you," says the Lor…

Now with such persons as are under these diseases, others are loath to eat or drink: 'tis likened to the rot, to the filth and corruption of the foulest disease, which is so foul and rotten, as (according to the proverb) one would not touch it with a pair of tongs. The Apostle t…

But to bear with all my baseness, to put up all [reconstructed: my] wrongs and provocations, to strive with me [reconstructed: for my] good when I took up arms against you, [reconstructed: when I] strove against my own good; indeed, when I [reconstructed: resisted] mercy, and th…

Not only has it made us naked, but impure. Ezekiel 16:6: I saw you polluted in your blood. Sin has not only taken off our cloth of gold, but has put upon us filthy garments (Zechariah 3:3).

We are a lump of clay and sin mingled together. Sin does not only blind us but defile us; it is called 'filthiness' (James 1:21), and is compared to a plague-sore (1 Kings 8:38), to spots (Deuteronomy 32:5), to vomit (2 Peter 2:22), to an infant tumbling in blood (Ezekiel 16:6),…

First, we were deformed. Ezekiel 16:6-8: When I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, it was the time of love. Mordecai adopted Esther because she was fair; but we were in our blood when God adopted us.

The law called for obedience, but though it required brick it gave no straw. But in the Gospel, God with his commands gives power (Ezekiel 18:31). Make a new heart.

(1.) A loss of honor (Revelation 3:11), that no man take your Crown, implying, if the Church of Philadelphia left off her obedience she would lose her Crown; namely, her honor and reputation; apostasy creates infamy; Judas from an apostle to be a traitor, it was a dishonor. (2.)…

As we cannot make ourselves creatures, so not new creatures. Question. But why does God command us to convert ourselves, if we have no power (Ezekiel 18:31)? Make you a new heart. Answer. 1. We once had power.

Christ in the Parable calls some at the 11th hour, Matthew 20:6: and so God calls men to grace in their old age. We must therefore spare these sharp and unsavoury censures, which some unadvisedly cast upon such men; for charity thinks not evil, 1 Corinthians 13, where it may thi…

Thus it stood with you: you deserved to be shut out for ever from God, to have the sword of His justice awakened against you; and He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and was content that the sword of justice should awake against Him…

Rule 5. It is the child's happiness, that the wise father's will be his rule, not his own; and for the orphan, the tutor's wit is better than his own will. Our own will is our hell (Ezekiel 18:31): "Why will you die, O house of Israel?" Christ's will is heaven.

Which wish, as relating to disobeying Israel, is a figure, or metaphor borrowed from men, but otherwise shows how acceptable the duty is to God, how obligatory to the creature. 2. By the Lord's expostulations (Ezekiel 18:31): Why will you die, O house of Israel? Verse 32: For I…

David says, it is the property of a wicked man, to borrow, and not to repay (Psalm 37:21). Satisfaction, recompense, and restitution, is the way to life by the appointment of God (Ezekiel 18:7 and 33:15). "If you restore the pledge, and repay that which you have robbed, you shal…

Ans. The clause in the second commandement, of visiting the sinnes of the fathers upon the children, dos not contradict that of Ezek 18:19. The sonne shall not beare the iniquitie of the father, neither shall the father beare the iniquitie of the sonne; the same soule that sinns…

But because such sentences are found in many places of the Scripture; to wit, that God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children: we need seek no such evasion. Neither does the place in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18:20), 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of his father,'…

As if the Lord should have said; Let them go now and brag of their merits, and let them allege any way but the least show of reason why I should be bound to succor them, and they shall find there is nothing but my free mercy. If any shall object, Objection, that it is injustice…

At least they could not be drawn to make this confession, but with much ado: for they posted over their fault to their predecessors, as if they indeed had borne the punishment of their offences. From there proceeded those complaints recited by Ezekiel; Our fathers have eaten sou…

Here also we may perceive it to be so far off, that the corruption issuing from the fathers, should any way excuse the children; (as the ignorant are usually wont to make this a buckler for their defense) that it rather serves as a means to pull upon them a more heavy punishment…

On the contrary, you have the threatning, Zechariah 5:4 and both together, Proverbs 3:33 The Curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he Blesseth the habitation of the just. True it is, that both these imply the Childrens treading in the steps of their Parents, accor…

Nor can the certainty of this evidence be called into question, but on such grounds as are derogatory to the glory and honor of God. And this connection of repentance and forgiveness is that principle from whence God convinces a stubborn unbelieving people, that all his wayes an…

Yea, this renuesthe inner man, it cheeres the heart, and keepes it from fainting, though the outward man perish, to looke after the ioyes of this kingdome, which are the things not seene: and therefore Christ herewith comforts his Disciples against the sorrow of afflictiō, sayi…

Here being applied to Christ, we conceive they signify his way, or administration of providence, which he uses with his people, it being by his dispensations that he walks among them. Hence the series of common providence is so often in Scripture called the way of the Lord, as (…

Secondly, of that wrath and eternal death, to which they stand exposed by reason of their sin and guilt. The soul that sins, it shall die (Ezekiel 18:20). And, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them (Galatians 3:…

Indeed, our Savior threatens the Jews of his time, (Matthew 23:35), that upon them should come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth; from the blood of righteous Abel, to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachias, whom they slew between the temple and the altar: That is, the…

They proclaim their folly; for all their former violence for Heaven is lost. He who runs half the race, and then faints, loses the garland (Ezekiel 18:24): When the righteous turns away from his righteousness, all his righteousness that he has done shall not be mentioned. All me…

But there is a day coming, a dreadful day, when our God shall come, and shall no longer keep silence (Psalm 50:3), a day foretold in the early ages of the world, by Enoch the seventh from Adam (Jude 14-15), when judgment shall be executed upon ungodly sinners for all their hard…

That which the Prophet speaks of father and son, may be applied to husband and wife, and to all other sorts of people (Romans 14:12), If a father does that which is lawful and right, he is just, he shall surely live: if he beget a son that does not so, he shall surely die, his b…

I know and am a witness, says the Lord. 2. Men have Injurious Thoughts of God: 1. They deem his ways unequal, Ezekiel 18:25. Is not my way equal?

Thirdly, By ways is meant temptations and sins; and so this declaring is an act of spiritual contrition or brokenness of heart. Sins, they are properly our ways, as (Ezekiel 18:25) the Lord makes a distinction between my ways and your ways. God has his ways, and we ours.

All that a man has done and suffered, watching, striving, praying, they come to nothing unless we stick to it and persevere. Under the Law a Nazarite was to begin his days of separation again, if he had defiled himself; if he had separated himself for a year, and kept his vow wi…

The Nazarite under the law was to begin again, if the days of his separation were defiled (Numbers 6:12). If he had separated himself for such a while, though he kept almost all his time, yet if he defiled himself before the time was out, he was to begin all again (Ezekiel 18:24…

And therefore this work of the application of redemption to a lost sinner is harder than the work of creation itself, for as the Lord had nothing then to help him, so he had nothing to hinder him in creating the world; but here the Lord must take [illegible] the heart of stone,…

But now God with his commands gives power; gospel precepts are sweetened with promises. God commands: make yourself a new heart (Ezekiel 18:31). Lord, can I make a new heart? I can as well make a new world.

2. A new heart has a twofold consideration, one as a duty commanded, and two, as a blessing promised. As to the former, (Ezekiel 18:31) make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, (Jeremiah 4:4) circumcise your heart to the Lord, take away the foreskin of your heart, you men o…

Question 5. Who are these that have the new heart, and so are personally and really within the Covenant of grace. Answer. Because the new spirit is given, when the new heart is given (Ezekiel 36:27; Ezekiel 18:31) Make you a new heart and a new spirit, and many in our times boas…

Indeed he might never have created the world, never have acted without himself: for he was sufficient within himself and stood in need of no declarative glory (Genesis 17:1; Acts 17:25). Fifth, indeed if by necessity of justice, God cannot but punish sin, especially this justice…

Hence, 2. offended justice by the breach of the Covenant of Works in all the three Persons pleads that man should die, and that pleading is most just, and the Law cannot be broken nor repealed. The soul that sins must die (Ezekiel 18), the threatening (Genesis 2:17) must be fulf…

Proof 5. Proof 5 asserts that God has testified by his word and oath that Christ should work a redemption for all men, and that God wills that all come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4; John 3:17), and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that they t…

Wherefore if our faith and obedience be imputed unto us, that imputation is only the judgment of God that we are believers and Obedient. The righteousness of the righteous, says the prophet, shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him, Ezekiel 18:20. As…

There is an imputation unto us of that which is really our own, inherent in us, performed by us, antecedently unto that imputation, and this whether it be Evil or Good. The rule and nature hereof is given and expressed, Ezekiel 18:20. The righteousness of the righteous shall be…

6th Commandment: You shall not kill. He breaks this commandment: who bears malice to another (1 John 3:15); who is given to hastiness (Matthew 5:22); who uses inward fretting and grudging (James 3:14); who is froward of nature, hard to please (Romans 1:31); who is full of rancor…

3, of mitigating or removing temporal calamities: stand in the court of the Lord's house and speak to all the cities of Judah, etc. If so be they will hearken and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the plague which I have determined to bring upon them beca…

And if it be used in the same sense, there is no more absurdity in supposing that the will of God should be resisted in the one case, than in the other: no more absurdity in the supposition, that God should will the salvation of all men, and yet all should not be saved: than tha…

Aaron and his sons are to bear the iniquity of the sanctuary, that is, the punishment of their iniquity, in that they were punished, if any of the sanctuary polluted the holy things of God (Leviticus 5:1). The witness who sees and hears a swearing, and does not utter it, he shal…

That the Law was revived, and promulgated anew on Mount Sinai, by the ministry of Moses, with no other than Evangelical and merciful purposes. It is said in one place, that the Lord has no pleasure in the death of him that dies (Ezekiel 18:32): but it is said in another place, t…

When the pipes are cut off that used to bring us comfort, can we live upon God, in whom are all our fresh springs? When we have no bread to eat but the bread of carefulness (Ezekiel 19:8), when we have no waters to drink unless tears (Psalm 80:5): You give them tears to drink in…

Learned Perkins said of his times Non sunt ista litigandi tempora, sed orandi, prayers are fitter for these times than disputes, carnal zeal may put us upon disputes it is true, zeal that puts us upon prayer when we are so tenderly affected for God's glory, as that in that respe…

But yet the fault is not to be laid upon the profession, or the strictness and singularity of that in other things that are praiseworthy; nor may we think the worse of Christianity for any such blemishes: we know very well, that the wisdom that is from above is peaceable, and ge…

This then is the order whereby we are brought to acceptation with the Father, for the glory of God through Christ. First, that the Spirit may be glorified, he is given to us to quicken us, convert us, and work faith in us, Romans 8:11, Ephesians 1:19-20, according to all the pro…

Sin has blotted God's image, and stained the orient brightness of the soul. Sin makes God loathe a sinner (Zechariah 11:8), and when a sinner sees his sin, he loathes himself (Ezekiel 20:42). Sin drops poison on our holy things, it infects our prayers.

And (Exodus 32:7) Your people have corrupted themselves; no more my people, but your people. God calls idolatry blasphemy (Ezekiel 20:27, 31). Thus your fathers have blasphemed me.

Envy is the devil's eye, hypocrisy is his cloven-foot; thus it is before the kingdom of grace come. So deformed is a graceless person, that when once he sees his own filth and leprosy, the first thing he does is to loathe himself (Ezekiel 20:43). You shall loathe yourselves in y…

2. God does nothing in the election of Peter, more than of Judas; nor can grace and mercy have place in the choosing of the one, rather than the other; but as free will is foreseen to play the game ill, or well, so go the eternal decrees of election and reprobation, and there ca…

But it is not amiss to note the close opposition which is here put between God, and the faithful Kings who governed the people under his name and authority; and those tyrants who at the last oppressed them under unjust laws. This will the better appear by a like place out of Eze…

These words they, they, have great weight: and it is to be understood as if the Lord gave the Jews leave to cleave to their inventions, seeing they had forsaken him, and rather turned after Idols, and forged inventions. As also the Lord by Ezekiel says to the people, Go, and sac…

So that if Plato when he was near his death, could bless God for three things, namely, That he was a Man, and not a Beast: that he was born in Greece; and brought up in the time of Socrates: much more cause have you to admire Providence, that you are Men, and not Beasts; that yo…

9. There may be also something of God's design here, to try the humility and sincerity of his people, if they will stoop to every way he uses, because it is his; and if they will love the Word, not as so, or so proposed, but as it comes from him, and is his, and as such humbly r…

And again, (Galatians 3:12) the man that does them, shall live in them, that is, by them. Which we have once more confirmed to us, (Ezekiel 20:11) I gave them my statutes and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall even live in them. All which places are transcribed from that…

The generation that was grown up when they came out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, was a very froward and perverse generation. They were tainted with the idolatry and wickedness of Egypt, and were not weaned from it, as the Prophet Ezekiel takes notice, Ezekiel 20:6…

But then Jesus Christ shall be the person acknowledged; he shall be acknowledged alone; he shall be acknowledged as Lord — all this is included in the expression, etc. That Christ alone shall be spoken of, invoked, and adored in all the Churches; they shall be subjected to him a…

Learn we of whom we receive all needful things, both spiritual and temporal, for soul and body, that accordingly we may give him the praise of all. And let us not be like the ungrateful Israelites who regarded not the means of spiritual nourishment, and ascribed the means of the…

Leviticus 18:5. He that does them (that is the Commands of God) shall live in them, Ezekiel 20:11; this Promise is repeated: And in Ezekiel 30:15. If the Wicked walk in the Statutes of Life, without committing Iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die: Now this dying cann…

It is one great error, not only in religion and manners, but even in human science, that men are ready to take things upon trust unexamined, from those that went before them, partly out of easiness, and sparing the pains of trial, partly out of a superstitious overesteem of thei…

6. There is holiness required, that we may not be a disgrace to God, and a dishonor to him. The Lord says (Ezekiel 20:9), that his name should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they (his people) were. The sin of God's people does stain the honor of God, and profane…

2. That God will deal with them that Fear him, as a Father does with his Son: 1. God will accept them as a Father does his Son. If the Child does but lisp and can hardly speak plain, the Father takes all well: so God as a Father will accept of what his Children do in sincerity:…

Sixth, gospel-mourning is joined with self-loathing; the sinner admires himself, the penitent loathes himself. Ezekiel 20:42: you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils. A true penitent is troubled not only for the shameful consequence of sin, but the loath…

2. The promise of life is not made to Law-faith more than to Law-love, or Law-fear, or Law-desire, more than to any other, but the promise is made to Evangelical faith that lays hold on Christ as our righteousness. But for obeying the commands Adam was to live (Galatians 3:13),…

God has twisted his glory and our good together. I gave them my statutes, which if a man do, he shall even live in them, Ezekiel 20.11. There is nothing the Lord requires, but it tends to self-preservation.

And first, of that sole searching power of the soul in this chapter, and of that other the sole wounding power of the conscience in the next chapter, we shall have the like occasion to premise. For the present, that searching, examining, and judging power of the word now in hand…

Rule 11. Christ is not so intent and heart-bent on freedom from death and this black and sad hour, but he reverences a higher providence, that God's will be done; so are we to look to providence, and we are not to stumble at an external stroke in sad occurrences, when (Job 9:22)…

It is our part therefore to wait as David did, who says of himself (Psalm 69:3): I am weary of my crying, my eyes fail me while I wait for my God. For if we give over our patient expecting, and faint in our minds, seeking to anticipate this due time, this period which God has pr…

Seeing then that of his own good will he calls us to himself, and offers his righteousness freely, we are to take heed, that we deprive not ourselves of so great a benefit. Now because the Sabbath (as it appears by Moses and Ezekiel (Exodus 31:13-17; Ezekiel 21:13)) was the prin…

As there are various affections planted in your souls, so are there several graces planted in those affections, and several Providences appointed to draw forth, and exercise these graces. When the Providences of God are sad, and afflictive either upon the Church in general, or y…

Outward things are promiscuously dispensed, and no man's spiritual estate is discernable by the view of his temporal. When God draws the Sword, it may cut off the righteous as well as the wicked, Ezekiel 21:3 Though the Providences of God materially considered afford no evidence…

No salvation came to Zacchaeus till he was resolved upon restitution of what he had wrongfully gained (Luke 19:8, 9). God smites his hand at dishonest gain (Ezekiel 21:13), and this is one sin which I believe God has smitten London for. 21. The one and twenty-first sin of London…

Now these great overturnings were because the time of the great Messiah drew nigh. That they were to prepare the way for Christ's coming, is evident by scripture particularly by Ezekiel 21:22. "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come whose…

The deformities and distempers of mens hearts, are much discovered in the winters of their affliction: although there was much glory and beauty on their profession before, yet now they appear most vile and base. We read Luke 2:35 That Christ was appointed for the fall of many, a…

APPLICATION. When the Judgments of God are abroad in the earth, it is no time then to make mirth, Ezekiel 21:10, 11. Should we [then] make mirth?

May not we fear some portentous calamity should bring up the rear of former Judgments? and (as the Prophet Ezekiel says,) Should me then make-mirth? Ezekiel 21:10. But Jovial spirits have banished the fear of God.

Therefore what should we do but search, pray, resolve to be thus with God, and take the way God will direct us. As the King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, or at the head of the ways to make divination (Ezekiel 21:21), so you meet with partings of ways that you need…

How unseasonable it is to take the harp and viol when God is taking the sword! Ezekiel 21:9-10: A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also polished; should we then make mirth? This is a sin that enrages God.

Will you measure arms with the Almighty? Shall a little child go to fight with an archangel (Ezekiel 22:14), Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with you? Christ will put all his enemies at last under his feet (Psalm 110:1).

When God musters up all his forces, and sets himself in battle array against a sinner, how can his heart endure? (Ezekiel 22:14.) Who is able to lie under mountains of wrath? God is the sweetest friend but the fiercest enemy.

Because God is God, therefore he will give forth glorious rewards to his people. Use 3. Seeing there is a God, woe to all such as engage this God against them, he lives forever to be avenged upon them (Ezekiel 22:14): "Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the da…

And Abner said again to Asahel, Turn aside from following me, why should I strike you to the ground? So if you will needs be tempting and trying conclusions, and making experiments, let men meddle with their match, those who are equal to themselves, not challenging one infinitel…

Do you flatter yourself that you shall find out ways for your ease and support, and make it out tolerably well, to bear up your spirit in those everlasting burnings prepared for the devil and his angels? Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shal…

Notwithstanding all their stoutness, a day is coming wherein fearfulness shall surprise them, and make them cry out, who amongst us shall dwell with devouring fire, who amongst us shall inhabit with everlasting burnings? Yea, if the Lord be pleased in this life in an especial ma…

I am persuaded that the notoriously ungodly of this generation will not go out of this world, without some remarkable temporal judgment; and that the Lord will make them feel something even here, what an evil thing, and a bitter it is so audaciously to fly in the face of the gre…

Thus some have been like lions for cruelty, and like evening wolves to the poor, tearing their flesh from their bones, and reserving their very bones to gnaw in the morning, as the Prophet speaks (Zephaniah 3:3). This sin of extortion was one of the abominations reckoned up by t…

It is Vncleanness in the abstract, Nu[•]b. 5. 19. Filthiness it self; An abomination; Ezekiel 22:11. And they that commit are called abominable, Revel. 21. 8. Varro says, the word imports that which is not lawful to mention; or rather, abominable persons are such as are not fit…

This kind of intemperance is expressly forbidden (Leviticus 18:19) and a capital punishment inflicted on such as offended therein (Leviticus 20:18). Abstinence in this time is set in the catalog of those notes which declare a man to be righteous (Ecclesiasticus 20:7) and the con…

In the Original it is, they are become stinking. The Wicked are compared to Dogs and Swine, 2 Peter 2:22. to dross, Ezekiel 22:19. Dross is the filth of the Mettal.

O dreadful, when the great Fountains of Gods wrath shall be broken up, and all his Bitter Vials poured out! Ezekiel 22:14. Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with you?

If you stand it out against the power of his word, can you stand it out against the power of Christ when he comes in glory? (Ezekiel 22:14) Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with you? O! how will your faces gather blackness and dark…

Let me here take occasion to offer to your view some sins which are especially said to be the devil's sin, and they that do them are of, work for, and are like to, and called devils. 1 Murder, especially soul-murder, of which Antichrist the devil's son is hugely guilty, in makin…

8th Commandment: You shall not steal. He breaks this commandment: who lives in no calling (1 Thessalonians 3:11); who neglects his calling (Jeremiah 48:10); who spends his wealth in riot and provides not for his family (1 Timothy 5:8); who is not content with his estate but seek…

So the Ephesians must be told how unfit they were by nature for Christ; being the very workhouse, and shop of the devil, in which he wrought (Ephesians 2:1-3). National sins have influence in their guilt and contagion on believers: 1. When they mourn not for them, God's displeas…

But a man ripe, come to years, and so as wise as he was old: it is proved, because his estimative faculty was right (verse 26): Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He is a wise man, who makes a wise choice, and for this cause Esau is call…

6. Prayer is a binding of God, that he cannot depart, and lays chains on his hands, and builds a wall or a hedge of thorns in his way that he cannot destroy his people (Isaiah 64:7). And there is none that calls upon your name, and stirs up himself to take hold of you [in non-La…

To the dung or garbage, the poison, sting, excrement, vomit of these filthy creatures; to a root of bitterness which defiles many (Hebrews 12:15); to thorns and briers, which bring forth no other fruits but [reconstructed: curses] (Hebrews 6:8). To the excrement of metals, dross…

But it was prophesied long before that all these things should happen, and that God being most angry, and the Christian people suffering many troubles, there should be no intercessors or prayers for them to God, as Isaiah says weeping (Isaiah 64): there is none that will call up…

Quest. Wherein does it appear that it is such a great blessing to be delivered from places of idolatry? Resp. It is a great mercy, because our nature is so prone to idolatry: Israel began to be defiled with the idols of Egypt (Ezekiel 23:3). Dry wood is not more prone to take fi…

Popery is a God-dishonoring religion: They dishonor God's name. (1.) By their idolatry, which is spiritual adultery (Ezekiel 23:37). Idolatry is to worship a false God, or the true God in a false manner; this they are guilty of.

(Leviticus 24:15). He that curses his God, shall bear his sin. (Ezekiel 23:49). And you shall bear the sins of your idols. (Numbers 9:13). The man that is clean — and forbears to eat the Passover — that man shall bear his sin.

But if Mr. Den and others will contend that this seeing of the salvation of God, is the revelation of the literal knowledge of Christ, that saving thing which is bestowed on the nations by the ministry of John and the coming of the Messiah, they must with us confess a large syne…

Here, her veil is the tenderness of her profession, whereby in a decent, modest and humble way, she professed herself to be a believer, seeking after Christ Jesus, as one bearing the badge of subjection to him as her husband. The taking away of the veil, is their wronging of tha…

I will Afflict the Seed of David, but not for ever: God will love for ever, but not afflict for ever; he will ere long give his people a Writ of ease. A Sinners best, and a Saints worst are but short; Affliction is called a Cup, Ezekiel 23:32. The Wicked drink a Sea of Wrath; th…

But thoughts of sin may be sinful thoughts, with respect to sin past, or sin to come; with respect to sin past, when men please themselves in the thoughts of their past sins, when they chew the cud, and lick their lips after it, or as it is said in (Job 20:12-13), they hide (and…

The help of the creature substitute in the room of God, having the luster of blue and purple, or clothed in scarlet, riding upon horses. Young men of desire (Ezekiel 23:23) do easily dazzle our eyes, and when we are not renewed in the spirit of our mind, unsanctified hearts are…

(Verse 20) The soul that sins shall die, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father? (Ezekiel 23:35) Because you have forgotten me — bear you also your lewdness and your whoredom. In the same very sense, Christ (Hebrews 9:28) was once offered to bear the sins of many (1 P…

The time of King Henry the 8th was called the Golden Age, but this may be called the unclean age, wherein whore-hunting is common. (Ezekiel 24:13) In your filthiness is lewdness. Luther tells of one who said, If he might but satisfy his lust, and be carried from one whore-house…

Sincerity though it shields from hell, yet not from slander. (3.) God sometimes afflicts with loss of dear relations (Ezekiel 24:16): Son of man behold I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: this is like a pulling away a limb from the body. He takes away a h…

Can he annul or break his covenant? No truly: but it is said he forsakes and profanes his heritage: as in Psalm 89, Ezekiel 24, because we can judge no otherwise of it by outward appearance. For in that he bore not that affection towards them he was accustomed to, it was a kind…

So you read, Daniel 11:35 it purifies and makes their souls white: Hence it's compar'd to a furnace which separates the dross from the pure metal, Isaiah 48:10 Behold I have refined you, but not with Silver: I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction. But for wicked men, let…

We may illustrate this by a contrary rule given by this prophet Jeremiah, and likewise by Ezekiel, when mourning was forbidden (Jeremiah 16:6), where he speaks of some that should die and have none to mourn for them, he says, they shall not lament for them, nor make themselves b…

They were only the fruit of the present pang, therefore it was said they lied to him with their tongue. So (Ezekiel 24:12). She has wearied herself with lies, and her scum went not forth out of her, speaking of her promises, when the pot was over the fire there seemed to be offe…

(Hosea 7:1) When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, etc. (Ezekiel 24:13) In your filthiness is lewdness, because I have purged you, and you were not purged, you shall not be purged from your filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to…

Cartwright says it is a metaphor from men who, being oppressed with a burden, transfer it off themselves upon one who is mightier and stronger: it is excellent when the heart rolls all its cares upon the Lord, and disburdens itself upon him. (8.) There is a word that notes to le…

Men seem to contend as the Jews of old, who should be most wicked . In their filthiness is leudness, (Ezekiel 24:13). If oaths and drunkenness, if perjury and luxury will make a people guilty, then it is to be feared England is in Gods black Book.

1. We must be patient when God removes any comfort from us: Does God take away any of our Relations? Ezekiel 24. 16. I will take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke; yet it is our duty patiently to acquiesce in the Will of God: The loss of a dear Relation, is like the pu…

The Psalmist speaking of the wicked, says, they are become filthy; in the Hebrew it is, they are become stinking. That you may see how low a sinner is fallen in God's account, the Lord compares him to dross, Psalm 119:119 to chaff, Psalm 1:4 to a Pot boiling with scum, Ezekiel 2…

And pronounces, Let him that is unjust, be unjust still, and let him which is filthy, be filthy still (Revelation 22:11). And says, In your filthiness is lewdness, because I have purged you, and you were not purged; you shall not be purged from your filthiness any more, till I h…

If the fire of affliction be continually blown till the very bellows be burned, that is, the tongue, or rather the lungs of the prophet, which have some resemblance to bellows; though these be even spent in reproving and threatening, and denouncing woe upon woe, and judgment upo…

To the excrement of metals, dross, and reprobate silver (Jeremiah 6:28; Ezekiel 22:18). To the excrement of a boiling pot, a great scum (Ezekiel 24:11-12). To the worst of all diseases, sores (Isaiah 1:6), rottenness (2 Timothy 3:8), gangrenes or leprosies (2 Timothy 2:17), plag…

Tyre was a very rich city, and greatly renowned in regard of the trade which all nations had with it, as also in regard of the towns of war and cities habitable which it built: as Carthage, which imitated the Roman Empire; Utica, Leptis, Gades, and other cities, who all sent the…

And the word which we have here for desolate places, is in Scripture clearly applied to the grave, or a place of burial. We have it in Ezekiel 26:20, where the prophet, foreshowing the destruction of Tyre, speaks from the Lord thus: When I shall bring you down with them that des…

Quest. But what is it to have other gods besides the true God? I fear upon search we have more idolaters among us than we are aware of. Resp. To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a God. 1. If we trust in our riches, then we make riches our God: we may take comfort,…

His Affinity, his relation unto them is the nearest imaginable, and he is no otherwise to be accounted of; and there is nothing that God abhors more than an Elation of mind in the forgetfulness of our mean frail condition. You say, said he to the proud Prince of Tyrus, that you…

2. In its evening or latter part, which is bright and glorious, and therefore do we so much hear of the goodness of the latter days — as (Hosea 3:5): they shall make haste to fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. So of safety: no provoking briar, no pricking thorn (…

Let comparison be made, so will it be found to be. And 2. by the way of trial: the residue of the world, being pricking briers and grieving thorns to the house of Israel (Ezekiel 28:24). The best of them is a brier, and the most upright of them sharper than a thorn hedge (Micah…

5. Those things which (if we have nothing else) will make us cursed, cannot make us blessed; but the sole enjoyment of worldly things will make us cursed; therefore it is far from making us blessed: Riches are kept for the hurt of the owner (Ecclesiastes 5:13). Riches to the wic…

Saint Bernard calls Pride the rich man's cousin. Ezekiel 28:5. Thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches.

That our Nature is liable to such a pernicious folly, which some of tenacious Fancies have turned into Madness, we are beholding alone to our cursed Apostasie from God, and the vanity that possessed our minds thereon. Hence the Prince of Tyrus thought he was a God, and sate in t…

2. Some are proud of their estates. Riches are fuel for pride Ezekiel 28.5. Thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches. Men's hearts rise with their estates, as the Boats on the Thames rise higher with the Tide.

Indeed their pride made them forget any God save themselves, 'I am, and there is none besides me' (Isaiah 47:7-8). It was the blasphemous arrogance of Tyrus the rich city, 'I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, I have a heart like the heart of God' (Ezekiel 28:26). Neither are t…

Paul says (Romans 2:14), The Gentiles that have not the law do the things of the law by nature, that is, by natural strength: and he says of himself, that before his conversion touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless (Philippians 3:6). And for this external obedi…

And this God does to the end he may preserve human society, and common honesty, and that he may testify what he approves, and what he dislikes. Lastly, he gives good success in enterprises, and attempts, according to his own decree, and the order of divine providence: which meta…

For by Rahab, I doubt not but he means proud and cruel Egypt: as in Psalm 87; I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon, among those which know me. Also, Ezekiel calls the King of Egypt a dragon (Ezekiel 29:3): Behold, I come against you Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon, t…

Therefore when God gives leave to the Devil and evil persons to have power to work any harm to you, and to afflict you, having done no harm to them: know this, that God uses them as executioners of his justice: that you may thereby learn, that godless persons and wrongful practi…

Oh how apt are the best men, to lean upon these things, and stay themselves upon them! Thus did Israel stay themselves upon Egypt, as a feeble man would lean upon his staff; but God suffered it both to fail them, and wound them, Ezekiel 29. 6, 7, 8. So for single persons, how ap…

And this mad-nothing is above God, (Isaiah 37:10) Let not your God in whom you trust deceive you. The tyrant of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of the river said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself, (Ezekiel 29:3). God made the sea and all the river…

14. And upon this account there is required a deadening of our hearts to shipping and trading with diverse mighty nations, as we see in the case of Tyre (Ezekiel 27), of Babylon (Revelation 18:11-13; Jeremiah 51). So are we to be mortified to fair houses (Isaiah 5:8), stately ci…

(Daniel 12:2) "Many that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to shame and everlasting contempt." (Ezekiel 32:24) "Elam and all her multitude are slain — they have borne their shame, with them that go down to the pit." That which is penal in shame, the Lord Jesus did bear; he say…

But Christ places his own protection, and that of the Father, in contrast with the fury and violence of wicked men, and declares, on good grounds, that the meek will be the lords and heirs of the earth. The children of this world never think themselves safe, but when they fierce…

When our Lord Jesus is described in his majesty, riding prosperously, the glory he appears in is truth, and meekness, and righteousness (Psalm 45:4). The courage of those who overcome this great red dragon of wrath and revenge, by meek and patient suffering, and by not loving th…

Does not sin then bring men low, when it brings them to Hell? Ezekiel 32.27. They are gone down to Hell, they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquity shall be upon their bones. Thus I have shown you how many ways sin brings one low.

This is the savory meat God loves. How few mind this, worshipping him who is a Spirit in the Spirit; they give him more dregs than spirits; they think it enough to bring their duties, but not their hearts, which has made God disclaim those very services he himself appointed (Isa…

First, hypocrites take God's name in vain, their religion is a lie; they seem to honor God, but they do not love him, their hearts go after their lusts (Hosea 4:8): They set their hearts on their iniquity. Their eyes are lifted up to heaven, but their hearts are rooted in the ea…

If the King were speaking to one of his subjects, and he should not give heed to what the King says, but be thinking on another business, or playing with a feather, would not this provoke the King? So when we are in God's presence, and God is speaking to us in his Word, and we m…

Austin confesses that before his conversion, he went to hear St. Ambrose rather for his eloquence, than the spirituality of the matter. (Ezekiel 33:32) You are to them as a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument. Many come to the wo…

Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God. 3. A man may be a frequenter of ordinances, and yet miss of the kingdom; it is a good sight to see people flock as doves to the windows of God's ho…

God has revealed in his word, that he is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4), that he does not delight in the destruction of a sinner (Ezekiel 18:32). Iurat per Essentiam, Musculus — he swears by his essence (Ezekiel 33:11). "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the dea…

But let us hear what reasons may be alleged to the universality of redemption. 1. Ezekiel 33:11. As I live says the Lord, I will not the death of the wicked: but, that the wicked return from his wicked way. Answer: The place is to be understood not simply but in respect; of the…

It is true, there is a great difference among Christians themselves in their diligence and dexterity about heart-work; some are more conversant and successful in it than others are. But he that takes no heed to his heart, he that is not careful to order it aright before God, is…

Though your bodies be present, your hearts are wandering. You are like these spoken of (Ezekiel 33:31), who sat before the prophet as God's people, but their hearts went after their covetousness. How often while you are sitting here is your heart away?

When God made promise to Abraham; because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. Ezekiel 33: The people slandered the Lord, he delighted so to have the people pine away in their iniquities, that he would punish them for no fault; but the children's teeth should be se…

Gouernour: and superiours, are not to give account for the sinnes of those that are committed to them: but for the sinnes which themselues commit, in not looking to them, not admonishing them, not restraining them, not taking condigne punishment of them for their offences. This…

Some with whom things come to a better issue, are yet for a season brought to that discomposure of Spirit, or are so filled with their own apprehensions, that when the things which are most proper to their condition are spoken to them, they take no impression in the least upon t…

These things being premised, we may consider how variously God has engaged his Oath, that there is forgiveness with him. First, He swears that he has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he repent and live, Ezekiel 33:11. As I live, says the Lord, I have no plea…

Hauing found that this petition must bee understood of the reuealed will of God, wee now come to search out the speciall branches of Gods reuealed will; which wee shall finde in seuerall places of the holy Scripture. The first, is the conuersion of a sinner, Ezekiel 33. 11. As I…

When the Word is dispensed, we are now to lift up the everlasting doors of our hearts, that the King of glory may enter in. How far are they from offering violence to themselves in hearing, who scarce mind what is said, as if they were not at all concerned in the business: they…

How near to this comes that which the Apostle supposes may be found even in apostates (Hebrews 6:8-9), who are there said, to taste the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come. What shall I say if real Christians delight in ordinances, those that are none may also…

It was one of the devices they devised against Jeremiah to smite him with the tongue, because they would not, and they desired that others might not give heed to any of his words (Jeremiah 18:18). Those to whom the prophet Ezekiel was a very lovely song, and with their mouths sh…

And so Jeremy complains in the bitterness of his spirit, that the word of the Lord was made a reproach to him. And Ezekiel, see how he was scorned, Ezek. 33. 30, 31, &c. And as they did the Prophets, so Christ, and the Apostles; when they were filled with the Spirit of God, they…

Again, to hear it only to stop the mouth of conscience, that it may not clamor more for gross impiety in contempt of it, this is not to hear it out of desire, but out of fear; to desire it only for some present pleasure, and delight that a man may find in it, is not the due use…

2. In the offer of it. So God has proclaimed pardon, upon the condition of repentance (Ezekiel 33:11): Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, you, turn, you from your evil wa…

Sorrow for sin; no man can seriously desire a pardon, but he that is touched with a sense of his sin, moved and troubled at it. And then, for purpose of forsaking (Ezekiel 33:12): "As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turns from his w…

3. There are some special things, concerning which God has more expressly signified his will, and given special charge; and these we should make greatest conscience of, how distasteful soever they be to flesh and blood, or prejudicial to our own interest. For instance; concernin…

Proud men please themselves with the suppositions of applause, and the echoes of praise in their minds. 5. Covetousness consists chiefly in a vain musing (Ezekiel 33:31). Their heart goes after their covetousness (2 Peter 1:14).

So they think all Sabbath-time lost. In fact, it distracts in duty (Ezekiel 33:31): with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness. It interlines our prayers, and the world will still be creeping in; and when we are offering incense to God, w…

2. It reproves them that would have a dispensation at times, and take liberty to cast off all Christian modesty and gravity; that think if they be serious sometimes, they may be light and vain at others; and therefore sometimes like angels of light, at other times like fiends of…

That shows the reality of your delight, when you come under the power of the truth, and are absolutely governed by it: for then you delight in them aright, as mysteries of godliness. The Lord complains of them that had a delight in the Prophet, his voice was as pleasing to them…

2. Those that post-date. They go from duties to sins, (Ezekiel 33:13): When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trusts to his own righteousness, and commits iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he has commi…

1. There are many delight in the word, because of the eloquence of the Preacher; they delight not so much in the truths delivered, as in the dress that they are delivered in. Thus it is said of the Prophet Ezekiel, that he was to them as a very lovely song of one that has a plea…

You are utterly mistaken if you do not find application beyond your strength as well as redemption: this mistake in imagining that we can make the application arises especially upon a double ground, which is most dangerous and least discerned. First, when from the general offer…

Why then are commands so frequent in Scripture; as, "Make you a new heart and a new spirit" (Ezekiel 18:31). "Turn, turn, why will you die?" (Ezekiel 33:11). "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31).

And is it not as strange that men's ears should be open, yet in hearing hear not? They mind not what is said: Ezekiel 33:31: They sit before you as my people sits, but their heart goes after their covetousness. Many sit and stare the minister in the face, yet scarce know a word…

They have no spiritual hunger who desire only to feast their fancy. Of such the prophet speaks (Ezekiel 33:32): You are to them as a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument. If a man were invited to a feast, and there being music at t…

Psalm 51:17: The incense when it was broken gave out the sweetest fragrance. Impure souls care not in what a dead, perfunctory manner they serve God (Ezekiel 33:31). They pray more out of fashion than out of faith.

And we that are Ministers of CHRIST, we are in this case to comfort and encourage you, as Paul says, we were gentle among you, as a Nurse among her children; we should bee tender ouer you, and comfort and encourage you, we are not Lords of your faith. And there[•]ore in Ezekiel…

Let us correct the bold pleadings and the daring charges that our vain hearts put upon the Lord: Why do you strive against him (says Elihu, Job 33:13) for he gives not account of any of his matters? Men dare say, when they are under the vengeance of ordinary sufferings, "The way…

How often does God call upon us to turn to him? He swears, (Ezekiel 33:11). As I live, I desire not the death of the sinner, turn ye, turn ye, &c.

As when one is going to write, another stands at his elbow and jogs him, that he cannot write even; Satan will set vain objects before the fancy, to cause a diversion: the Devil does not oppose formality but fervency; if he sees we set ourselves in good earnest to seek God, he w…

Yet may such Persons abide in the Performance of outward holy Duties; or attendance to them. Pride of or satisfaction in their Gifts may give them Delight in their own performances, and something in those of others they may be exceedingly pleased withal; as it is expresly affirm…

8th Commandment: You shall not steal. He breaks this commandment: who lives in no calling (1 Thessalonians 3:11); who neglects his calling (Jeremiah 48:10); who spends his wealth in riot and provides not for his family (1 Timothy 5:8); who is not content with his estate but seek…

But if we should allow, that all things in heaven and earth include all mankind; still even in this extent it is true, that it pleased the Father to reconcile all things; but in such a sense, as not to imply the salvation of all men. This is true in the same sense, in which God…

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.

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 10:31); and this was his overthrow. This also was the ruin of those [illegible], Ezekiel 33:31, they came a…

The thought of whom therefore should swallow up all other, as not worthy to be seen the same day with him: but I appeal to all your experiences, if your thoughts of him be not most unsteady, and are — that I may so compare it — as when we look upon a star through an optic glass,…

What shall I then (say you) now set myself about? First, give diligent heed, and have a tender care to attend to the word of life; come not to hear the voice of a pleasant singer (Ezekiel 33:31), but come to the glorious Gospel of Christ, as the ministration of the spirit, you r…

An image-lover is a God-hater. Idolaters are said to go a whoring from God (Ezekiel 34:15). How can they love God?

(4.) The church-thief, or pluralist, who holds several benefices, but seldom or never preaches to the people: he gets the golden fleece, but lets his flock starve. (Ezekiel 34:2) Woe be to the shepherds of Israel. Ver. 8. They feed themselves, and feed not my flock.

As if his riches lay in them: a man seals a bag of money for his use: so the Lord seals his people as his portion with a double seal, the one of election (2 Timothy 2:19), the other of assurance (Ephesians 1:13). 7. God calls them his plant of renown (Ezekiel 34:19). He hedges i…

But the Lord makes David, that is Jesus the Son of David, Prince over his people, not with power to save or destroy his redeemed flock, and so as all the flock may eternally perish. Ezekiel 34:22: "Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey." — Verse 23: "A…

The sheep or ox that goes astray, must be brought home again (Exodus 23:4), much more your neighbor. Christ himself brings home again the lost sheep, and so must every shepherd (Ezekiel 34:4). Now the Galatians were in all likelihood persons curable: and therefore not to be cut…

By bearing of our own burdens, is vnderstood giving an account for our selues to God. Nowe euery man is not to give account for himself alone, but for those also that are cōmitted to his charge, as the father for his child, the master for his seruant, the magistrate for the sub…

"They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king," (Jeremiah 30:9.) Again, "my servant David shall be a prince among them," (Ezekiel 34:24; 37:24.) "They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king," (Hosea 3:5.)

But the latter root has been more fertile in suggestions. John Alberti, no mean authority, in his Glossarium Graecum, (under Luke 11:38,) defines Φαρισαῖος, to be διακεχωρισμένος, separated, and quotes the Septuagint as employing that participle (Ezekiel 34:12) for, נפרׁשות the…

When our Lord says that the separation of the sheep from the goats is delayed till that day, he means that the wicked are now mixed with the good and holy, so that they live together in the same flock of God. The comparison appears to be borrowed from Ezekiel 34:18, where the Lo…

And, 2. to give them quiet and cool resting-places in the time of heat, when the Sun becomes scorching; and therefore prays she to him, Seeing you do both these to yours, let me know the right way of partaking of the benefit of your care. Which two petitions imply, 1. That there…

Next, by foxes are understood false teachers (Ezekiel 13:4): O Israel, your Prophets (that is your flattering teachers as the context clears) are as foxes in the deserts. And (Matthew 7:15) they are called wolves in sheep's clothing: Hereby are meant, not every one, who in somet…

This dealing of theirs cannot be to speak a word in season to the weary soul of a tender person, whose carriage is so convincing even to others, that in verse 9 they give her a high commendation, which is a clear testimony against the malignity of these watchmen; they must there…

The ordinance of sacrificing was the greatest of the instituted types; and the redemption out of Egypt was the greatest of the providential types; and David the greatest of the personal types. Hence Christ is often called David in the prophecies of scripture; as Ezekiel 34:23-24…

There is nothing in the Book of God, in which God is so full in his expression, as when he comes to this argument, to manifest his affection to his Church. Christ is the Shepherd, and when sheep are together, they are under the protection of the Shepherd, when the sheep are scat…

When he sees a poor soul weak, tender, and ready to sink and perish, he takes him into his arms by some gracious promise administered to him, carries him, and bears him up when he is not able to go one step forward. Hence his great quarrel with those shepherds in Ezekiel 34:4: t…

But this truth hangs not on such weak notions as are often used, either for or against it. In that prophecy (Ezekiel 34:16): I will seek, and bring again, etc., and (Psalm 23:3): He restores, or returns, my soul. And that this is the work of this Shepherd the Lord Jesus, God-man…

And there[•]ore in Ezekiel 33. it was the fault of the Shepheards, they ruled all the people with rigour, but we are helpers of your joy; for what have we to doe, but what our Master has set us about to doe? as he did; how did he behaue himself? the smoking Flax, he did not blow…

(4.) The same Covenant made with Abraham is made with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:16): I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Which is prophesied of the Gentiles under the New Testament in Ezekiel 11:17-20, Ezekiel 34:23-25, Jeremiah 31:31-36, Jeremiah 32:36-40,…

(5.) Infants are debarred from Covenant-calling and gathering in under the wings of Christ: contrary to Matthew 28:19-20, Matthew 23:37, Psalm 147:19-20, and excluded from God's Covenant-choice: contrary to Deuteronomy 7:6-9, 13-14, Deuteronomy 10:15, and left being heirs of wra…

6. (Jeremiah 31:[reconstructed: 38]) Behold the days will come, says the Lord, that the City shall be built to the Lord, etc. There is a promise of spiritual right in Christ made to the blessings of this life, to these that are personal Covenanters; as (Jeremiah 32:41; Ezekiel 1…

We look little to anything but to have and enjoy the dead lump and body of gold, dead lands without Christ. See (Hosea 2:18, 22; Ezekiel 34:25, 27; Ezekiel 36:29; Leviticus 26:6; Psalm 37:9, 11, 29; 1 Timothy 4:8; Hebrews 13:5-6; Matthew 6:25-26; Psalm 34:10). O fair inheritance.

Argument 1. What argument does prove that there is a people in Covenant with God, who call the Lord their God (as in Zechariah 13:9; Jeremiah 32:38; Isaiah 25:9), the same shall prove Christ to be in Covenant with God: as whoever can say, 'he is my God,' must be in Covenant with…

Fourth, the necessity of this Covenant appears, in that salvation is taken off free-will, and the slippery yes, and no, of free-will in the Covenant of Works, and laid upon one that is mighty, upon David, to govern Israel as their king; but (Psalm 89:19) upon Christ (as excellen…

The scriptures are full of such Testimonies, whereby, we may know, and espy out false Prophets, but they are most lively depicted and set forth. Ezekiel 34 Chapter. Which place, the shortness of our matter will not suffer us, nor admit, to write out here.

Now it was necessary that Christ the Messiah should lineally descend of a king: Abraham was not a king, Adam was not formally a king by covenant as David was. 2. Christ changes names with David, as he never did with any man: Christ is never called Abraham, but (Ezekiel 34:23, 24…

Hatred is a vermin that lives upon blood. (Ezekiel 35:5) Because you have had a perpetual hatred, and have shed the blood of the children of Israel. Haman hated Mordecai because he did not bow to him, and he presently sought revenge.

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come you to the waters. These serious Invitations are, Secondly, backt and confirmed with his Oath, Ezekiel 35:11. As I live I desire not the death of a sinner. Thirdly, amplified with pathetical wishes, sighs and groans, Matth. 23. 29.

Christ is never born in the heart without pangs — many thank God they never had any trouble of spirit, they were always quiet; a sign Christ is not yet formed in them. 2. As when Christ was born into the world he was made flesh, so if he be born into your heart, he makes your he…

This amounts not to a new creation, or that power which raised Christ from the dead. God does not only persuade, but enable (Ezekiel 36:27). If God in conversion should only morally persuade, that is, set good and evil before men, then God does not put forth so much power in sav…

When the sun shines in a room, not the body of the sun is there, but the light, heat, and influence of the sun. God has made a promise of his Spirit (Ezekiel 36:27): I will put my Spirit within you. Turn promises into prayers.

It defiles all it touches. Urge God with his promise (Ezekiel 36:26): a new heart will I give you. Say, Lord, I am as the dry bones; but you did cause breath to come into them (Ezekiel 37:10).

4. Our love to God is a sign of his love to us (1 John 4:19): We love him, because he first loved us. By nature we are 〈in non-Latin alphabet〉, we have no love to God, we have hearts of stone (Ezekiel 36:1). And how can any love be in hearts of stone!

2. Earnest supplication: Implore the help of the Spirit to carry us on in obedience: God's Spirit makes obedience easy and delightful: If the lodestone draw the iron; now it is not hard for the iron to move: If God's Spirit quicken and draw the heart; now it is not hard to obey.…

There is a threefold encouragement. 1. That though we have not ability to obey any one command, yet God has in the new covenant promised to work that in us, which he requires (Ezekiel 36:27). I will cause you to walk in my statutes.

Make a new heart. Alas it is above our strength, we may as well make a new world (Ezekiel 36:26). I will give you a new heart.

The great promise of the Messiah is in the Old Testament: "A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son" — indeed, I say more, the moral law in some part of it speaks gospel: "I am the Lord your God" — here is the pure wine of the gospel. The saints' great charter where God promises t…

But who are heirs of the covenant of grace? Only such as have the kingdom of grace in their hearts (Ezekiel 36:26): "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" — there is the kingdom of grace set up in the soul. Then it follows in verse 28: "I will be y…

The Covenant of Grace is our charter for Heaven. The terms of the Covenant are, that God will be our God, (the crowning blessing) but who are interested in the Covenant, and may plead the benefit of it, only sanctified persons (Ezekiel 36:26). A new heart will I give you, and I…

Question: What shall we do to obtain a penitential frame of heart? Response: Seek to God for it: it is his promise to give a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36) and to pour on us a spirit of mourning (Zechariah 12:10). Beg God's Holy Spirit.

He changes the hearts of men. The Devil would have Christ prove himself to be God, by turning stones into bread; but thus the Holy Ghost shows his Godhead, by turning stones into flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). I will take away the stony heart, and give you a heart of flesh.

Could we hear the saints departed speaking to us from heaven, sure they would speak after this manner, Were we to leave heaven a while, and live on the earth again, we would do God a thousand times more service than ever we did; we would pray with more life, act with more zeal;…

He puts as it were a blank paper into God's hands, and bids him write what he will — he will subscribe to it. 4. Beg grace and strength of God to do his will (Psalm 143:10): Teach me to do your will: as if David had said, Lord, I need not be taught to do my own will, I can do th…

3. God is not wanting to them who seek to him for grace: Deus volentibus non deest: He is willing to put to his helping hand. With his command there goes a promise (Ezekiel 18:31): Make you a new heart; and there is a promise (Ezekiel 36:26): A new heart will I give you. 2 Posit…

So in Isaiah 48:9-10: 'For my name's sake...' So also in Ezekiel 36:22, 32: 'For my name's sake, and not for your sake.' And in Isaiah 43:25: 'I am he that blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins.'

How is that worthy name blasphemed — James 2:7; 2 Samuel 12:13-14! The hearts of the righteous are saddened — Psalm 25:3; Ezekiel 36:20. By this the world is fearfully prejudiced against Christ and religion, the bonds of death made fast upon their souls, those who had a general…

1. It's clear from these places of Scripture, where there is an express distinction and difference put between the outward ministry of the word, and this inward, powerful, efficacious work of grace on the heart, and wherein the great weight of conversion is laid on this inward w…

Another passage we have in Philippians 2:12-13: "Work out the work of your salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God that works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure;" where the Apostle makes the work of grace not only to work ability to will and to do, but to…

The anointing that teaches all things, [illegible], remains in you (1 John 2:27). And (Ezekiel 36:26) I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit [illegible] in the inner part, or in the midst of you. Antinomians teach, that true poverty of spirit does kill and ta…

So the Lord points them out with the finger, Isaiah 49:12: [in non-Latin alphabet] Behold these shall come from far, and behold these from the North (North-land men) and from the Sea (Islanders) or from the West (West-land men) so it may be read, and these from the land of Shimi…

Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you." (Ezekiel 36:37) "I will for this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Therefore we should be daily in the practice of this duty, and not look upon it as a work that may…

Answer. Christ alludes to the washings of the old testament (Ezekiel 36:25), and with that gives an exposition of them, on this manner. You are a Pharisee, and love much washing: but if you would enter into the kingdom of heaven, you must be washed with clean water, that is, bor…

For a man cannot recover himself when he will. We do not the good we can, unless God makes us do it (Ezekiel 36:27) (Song of Solomon 1:4) (Jeremiah 31:29). Therefore it is an error to think that we may repent and turn to God when we will, as many suppose.

Now in that he commands them to wash themselves, it is not because men come to repentance by their own proper moving, and free will; but he shows that no other remedy will serve the turn, unless they appear pure and clean before God. Now we know that the Spirit of God is wont to…

We must not think then that God had respect to the deserts of the people, or to any other particular cause, but solely to his own glory. For we must supply a close antithesis here, which is expressed by Ezekiel: I do not this for your sakes O house of Israel, but for my holy nam…

By the word spirit, he tells us what is signified by waters and floods. The spirit is also called water in (Ezekiel 36:25), but in a diverse sense. For when Ezekiel attributes the name of waters to the holy Spirit, he calls them pure waters: having respect to the purgations unde…

The Fith Corollary. DOth God perform all things for you? then seek God for all by prayer, and never undertake any design without him: Certainly, if he do not perform it for you, you can never have what you desire and labor or: and though he have designed to perform this or that…

By waking, is understood, some liveliness and sensibleness, or at least life, in opposition to the former deadness and dullness, as, (Romans 13:11) It's high time to awake: And, (1 Thessalonians 5:6) Let us watch, and be sober; which is opposite to that spiritual drowsiness, whe…

All the promises are bonds made over to us, but prayer puts these bonds in suit. The Lord had told Israel with what rich mercy he would bespangle them; he would bring them to their native country, and bring them there with new hearts (Ezekiel 36). Yet this tree of the promise wo…

O let me never say, God has promised it shall persevere, and therefore I need not be so solicitous to preserve it; for as this inference is quite opposite to the nature of true grace and assurance, which never encourage carelessness, but provoke the soul to an industrious use of…

It is as easy to rend the rocks, as to work saving contrition upon such a heart. [illegible]; all the melting language and earnest entreaties of the Gospel, cannot urge such a heart to shed a tear: Therefore it's called a heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26), a firm rock (Amos 6:12).…

This then is the order whereby we are brought to acceptation with the Father, for the glory of God through Christ. First, that the Spirit may be glorified, he is given to us to quicken us, convert us, and work faith in us, Romans 8:11, Ephesians 1:19-20, according to all the pro…

They do not tell him what he shall do, but do you that which shall be for your glory. So (Ezekiel 36:22), Thus says the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake. So (Isaiah 48:9), For my name's sake will I defer my anger, and for my…

God will remember this against them; for he takes it ill, when his people will not sanctify him, as becoming his peculiar excellency. 2. If you do not sanctify God, then you pollute God, and stain his memory in the world; (Ezekiel 36:20) You have profaned my holy name among the…

The benefit of a tender sanctified heart is God's gift. (Ezekiel 36:26-27) A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will cause you to walk in my s…

Therefore we must also pray to God, whose it is to open ears and bend the heart, that he may accomplish this in us by the grace of his Spirit. For by nature we bear hearts of stone, as the prophet says (Ezekiel 36:26); but if to that native hardness there is also added contumacy…

The credit of religion depends much upon the credit of the persons that profess it. When godly men are evil spoken of, the way of truth suffers; and when we are polluted, God is polluted (Ezekiel 36:20). They profaned my holy Name, when they said to them, These are the people of…

They have delicate and tender affections. Grace, that gives us a new heart, does also give us a soft heart (Ezekiel 36:26). I will put a new heart into them; what kind of heart?

But when the Lord creates us anew, he furnishes us with an inward power and ability to do good. What David prays for, Make me to go in the way of your commandments, God promises (Ezekiel 36:27), I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. God puts his…

There are two ways which God uses; by the word, and by his Spirit; by persuasion, and by power; they shall be taught of God, and they are drawn of God (John 6:44). The Lord will allure Japheth: so he works by persuasion (Genesis 9:27), and then by power (Ezekiel 36:26-27). I wil…

Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will hearken to you. Thus says the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them (Ezekiel 36:37). 4. The effectual application: let your mercies come also to me.

Nothing is pleasant to men, but what is suitable to their nature: so, that may be delightful to one, which is loathsome to another; as the food and converse of a beast is loathsome to a man; one man's pleasure is another's pain. There is a great deal of difference between a carn…

Because prayer is one of the means by which God has decreed to fulfill his promises; and therefore we must obtain mercies in his own appointed way. God says, "I will do thus and thus for you" (Ezekiel 36:37), "But I will be inquired after by the house of Israel for this very thi…

We cannot have it without dealing with God in a humble manner. Whatever God gives he will have it sought out this way (Ezekiel 36:37). I will yet be inquired after to do it for them.

2. There is a shame before others by their punishment and disappointment of their hopes; God's punishment in the language of Scripture, is a putting to shame. Ezekiel 36:2. When the heathens that are about you shall bear their shame. So Jeremiah 13:26. I will discover your skirt…

God is near when the spirit of prayer is revived. (Ezekiel 36:37) Thus says the Lord God, I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock. And (Jeremiah 29:12-13) Then shall you call upon me, and you shall…

First, conditions for making covenant (Jeremiah 24:7): I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 36:26): A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I bestow upon you. After this for keeping covenant.

No mercy, no pardon, no change, no conversion, no grace dispensed out of covenant. Therefore this should be our great inquiry: for if we know not where we are, we cannot know what we are, and if we know not what we are, we cannot be what we should be, namely, altogether Christia…

Urge God with his promise (Ezekiel 36:26): a new heart will I give you. Say, Lord, I am as the dry bones; but you did cause breath to come into them (Ezekiel 37:10). Do the same to me; breathe a supernatural life of grace into me.

God can create Jerusalem a praise, (Isaiah 65:18). The church in Ezekiel was compared to dry bones, but God made breath to enter into them, and they lived, (Ezekiel 37:10). The ship of the church may be tossed, because sin is in it, but it shall not be overwhelmed, because Chris…

Question. What names are given to the covenant? Response. 1. It is called a covenant of peace (Ezekiel 37:26), because it seals up reconciliation between God and humble sinners. Before this covenant there was nothing but enmity; God did not love us.

Branch 1. If God be so glorious a king, full of power and majesty, let us trust in him (Psalm 9:10), They that know your name will put their trust in you: Trust him with your soul; you cannot put this jewel in safer hands; and trust him with church and state affairs: He is King…

Jer. 32. 27. Is there any thing too hard for me? Did not he make the dry bones live? Ezek. 37. 7, 8. God can bring light out of darkness, harmony out of confusion; he can do more than we can think, else he should not be God.

This leads us, in our forlorn perplexities, to follow Christ's footsteps, both under evils of punishment and sin. The people in their captivity in Babylon, (Ezekiel 37) were a host of dead and (which is more) dry bones; the churches in Germany, in Scotland, are dry bones, and in…

Object 4. If the man be dead and buried, then farewell he, there is an end, no more of him. Yet Christ (2 Corinthians 1:9; John 5:25) raises the dead, and gives life to dry bones (Ezekiel 37). 2. Some fear they have nothing but an empty profession.

And no more profit to be had while such distempers of soul does last. But if you see that men come together, as in that ancient famous Vision (Ezekiel 37), every bone finds out his fellow and joins with him, and then there was a noise and a shaking, if you see bones gather, bone…

Luk 22:44. Before our conuersion, we are like the drie bones, Ezek. 37. for as when the winde of God came upon them, bone came to bone, and were ioyned with sinews, and couered with flesh, and had their senses restored: so when the spirit of God, like the fauonian winde, blows u…

For to speak properly there is but one anointed of the Lord: according to which Habakkuk says; You went forth with your anointed, for the salvation of your people (Habakkuk 3:13). For the kingdom was set up in the person of David, which was the image of Christ; who for this caus…

Saint Matthew also rightly spreads the beams of this light over Galilee, and the land of Zebulun. Darkness and the shadow of death.] Here he compares their exile in Babylon to darkness and death, because those which were detained therein were poor and miserable, and were altoget…

Expected mercies are never nearer, than when the hearts and hopes of Gods people are lowest. Thus in their deliverance out of Egypt, and Babylon, Ezekiel 37:11 So we have sound it in our own personal concerns: at Evening time it shall be light, Zach. 14:7 When we look for increa…

The hand of God in Scripture signifies, first the purpose of God, as that, Acts 4:28, They have done whatever your hand and your counsel determined before to be done, that is, whatever according to your purpose, you did determine. 2. The hand of God signifies the Spirit of God,…

For understanding this, we are to look: 1. What these winds signify. 2. What this garden is. And 3. What these acts of awaking, coming, and blowing are. By winds, often in Scripture is understood the Spirit of God in his mighty operations, as (Ezekiel 37:3 and 37:14). And the sp…

So that men that are yet unbelievers, are nothing — as the Hebrews expressed death — multitudes of them are not a people, but a heap of filthy carcasses. Again take our natural misery in the notion of a captivity, which was the judgment threatened against the Jews to make them n…

After death, comes judgment, when God shall lay open the secrets, and [reconstructed: hidden] counsels of the heart; then judge and spare not, but [reconstructed: for now] refer all to the Lord. And therefore if the question be touching the final estate of others, we should answ…

How can the Lord say, blessed be Egypt, and though the whole seed be visibly in covenant, old and young, yet it follows not that therefore every promise that is absolute, that is, that of a new heart, is made to all and every one within the visible covenant: for it is promised (…

6. (Jeremiah 31:[reconstructed: 38]) Behold the days will come, says the Lord, that the City shall be built to the Lord, etc. There is a promise of spiritual right in Christ made to the blessings of this life, to these that are personal Covenanters; as (Jeremiah 32:41; Ezekiel 1…

3. So ill-deserving men, as lost ones (Luke 19:10), sinners ([reconstructed: 1] Timothy 1:15; Romans 5:6, 8). (3.) When the Lord speaks of the Covenant of grace (Ezekiel 37:23), he adds a word of this Covenant: 'I will cleanse them, so shall they be my people, and I will be thei…

Fourth, the necessity of this Covenant appears, in that salvation is taken off free-will, and the slippery yes, and no, of free-will in the Covenant of Works, and laid upon one that is mighty, upon David, to govern Israel as their king; but (Psalm 89:19) upon Christ (as excellen…

Which better appears by the place of Ezekiel. For when the Jews believed not the promise of their return, and objected that it was no more likely that a way should be made open for them, than that dead men should come out of their graves: there was a vision showed to the Prophet…

3. Christ can speak to stark death (John 11:43; John 5:28): Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 4. He can speak to life in abstracto (Ezekiel 37:9): Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 5. God can speak to Mother-n…

And again, I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you, etc. (Ezekiel 36:25). And again, They shall not defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with an…

4. It is a mercy to be delivered from idolatrous places, because of the sad judgments inflicted upon idolaters. This is a sin that enrages God, and makes the fury come up in his face (Ezekiel 38:18). Search through the whole book of God, and you shall find no sin God has followe…

"If I am righteous, yet I will not lift up my head": all my righteousness is the effect of God's mercy, therefore I will be humble, I will not lift up my head. Position 11. It is mercy that stays the speedy execution of God's justice: sinners continually provoke God, and make th…

And all that believe in Christ are sanctified, that is, set apart from sin to serve God. In like manner God's name is hallowed, when it is put apart from oblivion, contempt, profanation, pollution, blasphemy, and all abuses to a holy, reverent, and honorable use, whether we thin…

1. God is to be included in the prayer, that we may express our sense of his providence, working all things for the glory of his holy name, indeed, discovering his excellency, showing himself to be the holy God. Ezekiel 38:23: I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I wi…

For a worm to slight it's Maker causes the fury to rise up in Gods face. Ezekiel 38:18. 3. God has power to destroy us.

Is that subject like to thrive, whom his Prince hates? The cherishing countenancing of sin, makes the fury come up in Gods face, Ezekiel 38.16. And if his wrath be once kindled, it burns to the lowest Hell.

Now they imagined that God was with them as long as they retained the Altar, and the sacrifices. Some think that the Temple is here called Ariel, because it was proportioned like a lion; to wit, broad before, and narrow behind: but I had rather understand it simply of the Altar;…

Hence it is evident how the name Peter comes to be applied both to Simon individually, and to other believers. It is because they are founded on the faith of Christ, and joined together, by a holy consent, into a spiritual building, that God may dwell in the midst of them, (Ezek…

When you are come to your selfe to owne and blush at the brutish ignorance of your minde, you are fit to be admitted into Christs School. If they be ashamed, then show them the patterne of the house, Ezekiel 43:10. Secondly, be faithful with that little knowledge you have.

And so it is rendered by the LXX, sometimes by , Ezekiel 44:27. sometimes , Exodus 30:10. Ezekiel 43:23. A propitiation, a Propitiatory sacrifice.

Section 4 4. THE fourth Ingredient into Repentance, is, shame, (Ezekiel 43:10).That they may be ashamed of their iniquities. Blushing is the color of virtue .

Thirdly, the receiving of Christ into our hearts as into a temple implies to keep the charge of his ordinances and holy things, to offer to him all our sacrifices, and to look that all be performed in such a manner as himself requires. God charges it as a sin upon his people (Ez…

For we are not at liberty to separate commandments which God has joined, so as to keep the one half and disregard the other. Intercourse with wives is not so expressly forbidden as the drinking of wine, (Ezekiel 44:21.) If, under the pretense of the law, the Pope enjoins celibac…

And all the Apostles gloried in the title of servants. The lowest office in which a man can serve God, even that of a Nethinim, or door-keeper, which was the lowest order or rank of officers in the house of God (Ezekiel 44:10-11), is yet preferred by David before the service of…

But sometimes with respect unto the second, and then it signifies a sacrifice for sin, to make expiation of it. And so it is rendered by the LXX, sometimes by , Ezekiel 44:27. sometimes , Exodus 30:10. Ezekiel 43:23.

In the Original it is, Above all keepings, keep your heart; but the word translated keeping, signifies two things usually in Scripture phrase; sometimes it signifies keeping a thing in custody, as it were in prison, so the word is taken (Genesis 40:3), and that has reference to…

He might bring his axe to hew you down. The waters were up to the ankles (Ezekiel 47:3). Do the waters of affliction come up to the ankles?

The second is, to be without offense: that is, innocent, giving no occasion of evil to any, and not taking them offered by others: and the continuance of those is noted to the day of Christ; which is the time in which he comes to us, either by our death, or by the last judgment.…

This sin will at length have its punishment. The places that are not seasoned by the waters of the Sanctuary, are turned to saltpits (Ezekiel 47:11). 10 For now whether preach I men or God?

And here lies the difference between the law and the Gospel: the law is from Sinai, the gospel from Zion or Jerusalem. For there it was first to be preached, and from there conveyed to all nations (Micah 4:1; Ezekiel 47:1). The second propertie of the law is, that it gendrs to b…

so they are also said to come into the temple, because out of it flowed the true religion. It is likewise the fountain of the waters, which, enlarged to an astonishing degree within a short period, flow in great abundance, and give life to those that drink them, as Ezekiel (Ezek…

So Christ teaches us, that the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed, Matthew 13:31-32, and like leaven hid in three measures of meal, verse 33. The same representation we have in Mark 4:26-28, and in the vision of the waters of the sanctuary, Ezekiel 47. The scriptu…

Application. Many also there are under the Gospel, who are given over by God to judicial blindness, hardness of heart, a reprobate sense, and [reconstructed: perpetual] barrenness; so that how excellent soever the means are which they enjoy, and how efficacious soever, to the [r…

St. Paul says of the Widows that live in pleasures, they are dead while they live, 1 Tim. 5:6 Let us eat and drink, to morrow we shall dye: Why do you say, to morrow? says Chrysostom, ye are dead already. We read Ezek. 47:11 that when the waters of the sanctuary flowed, the miry…

I have cause to fear and tremble, lest God has left me under that Curse, Revelation 20:11. Let him that is filthy, be filthy still. I fear I am become as that myrie place, Ezekiel 47:11▪ that shall not be healed by the streams of the Gospel, but given to salt, and cursed into pe…

Fitted to the use of the lowest estate, and lowest capacities of men, indeed, it takes (as we see) particular notice of their condition, stoops down to take the meanest servant by the hand, to lead them the way to Heaven; and not only that part of it which is the general way of…

You hast punished us less than our Iniquities deserve. Does God make us drink in a Cup of Wormwood? we have deserved to drink in a Cup of Wrath: does God cut us short? we have deserved he should cut us off, Ezekiel 47:3. The Waters were to the Ankles.

We read that when Ezekiel's healing Waters increased so abundantly, and the healing Effect of them was so very general; yet there were certain Places where the Waters came, that never were healed. Ezekiel 47:9, 10-11. And it shall come to pass, that every Thing that liveth, whic…

7. This being but almost a Christian, provokes God to bring dreadful spiritual judgment upon a man. Barrenness is a spiritual judgment, now this provokes God to give us up to barrenness; when Christ found the fig-tree that had leaves but no fruit, he pronounces the curse of barr…

The word travels with life or death, salvation or damnation, and brings forth one or other in every soul that hears it; I would not for a world (were it in my power to make the choice) that my labors, which were meant and designed for the promotion of your immortal souls, to the…

Let the breasts of your mercy nurse the poor. Be like the trees of the sanctuary, both for food and medicine (Ezekiel 47:12). When distressed and even starved souls are fainting, let your costly ingredients revive and restore spirits in them.

We have wounded ourselves by sin, and the wound would have been incurable, had not Christ that good Samaritan poured in wine and oil. The trees of the sanctuary (Ezekiel 47:12): the fruit thereof shall be for food, and the leaf thereof for medicine. Thus the Lord Jesus, that tre…

If we hunger and thirst, he is pabulum animae, the food of the soul; therefore he is called the bread of life. If we are sick to death, his blood is a sacred balm: he may be compared to the trees of the sanctuary, which were both for meat, and for medicine (Ezekiel 47:12). 4. A…

Lastly, this repentance must bring forth fruits worthy of amendment of life, because it cannot be known to be sincere unless it bring forth fruit. Repentant sinners are trees of righteousness of God's own planting, and they grow by the waters that flow out of the sanctuary, and…

No, no, he is incomparable in all; methinks then you should by this time feel your love to Christ like fire to burn within with a flame? Or methinks your love to Christ should be like water, I mean the waters of the sanctuary spoken of (Ezekiel 47:3-5), which at entrance were bu…

It is the chief happiness for men in these days to live under means of grace, yet a wicked man when all about him relish of uprightness, yet he will there do wickedly, and all this is, because he will not behold the majesty of the Lord, he thinks not that Christ is there; consid…

The gospel lifts a people up to heaven; it is Columna & Corona Regni: The crown and glory of the kingdom: If this be removed, then, Ichabod, the glory is departed: The top of the beech tree being cut off, the whole body of the tree withers apace: The gospel is the top of all our…

"I will walk among you," says he, "and be your God" (2 Corinthians 6:16). Upon this account the Church is called Jehovah Shammah — the Lord is there (Ezekiel 48). You may see the footsteps of God in the creatures; but the face of God is only to be seen in his ordinances.