Ezekiel 16

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…

6. But for the ground, reason, and cause on Christ's part of drawing, it is free grace, and only free grace, which are held forth in these positions. Position 1. As there is no merit, good deserving, work, or hire in the miserable sinner dying in his blood, dead in sins, out of…

The converted can say, I was such a man (1 Timothy 1:13). [illegible], but I obtained mercy; or, I was all be-mercied, filled with mercy. As in Ezekiel 16. [illegible]: Your time was a time of loves. As a constellation is not one single star, but many; so the converted soul obse…

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…

Oh, I have a dreadful wicked Heart! my Heart is worse than the Devil! Oh, this cursed Heart of mine, etc. Such Expressions are very often used, not with a Heart that is broken, not with spiritual Mourning, not with the Tears of her that washed Jesus' Feet with her Tears, not as…

To put an End hereunto God at length brought a total Desolation upon the whole Church, and caused the People to be carried into Captivity out of their own Land. And hereby it was so far effected that upon their Return what-ever other sins they fell into, yet they kept themselves…

Hence by Nature we are wholly unclean; who can bring a clean thing out of that which is unclean? And this uncleanness is graphically expressed under the Similitude of a wretched polluted Infant, Ezek. 16. 3, 4, 5. (2) That which is Actual in all the Actings of our Faculties as s…

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…