Ezekiel 18

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.

So Chap. 20:16, 17, 18, for a man to bear his iniquity, and to be killed, slain, or put to death for it, are the same. Ezekiel 18:20. [in non-Latin alphabet] [in non-Latin alphabet]; the soul that sinneth it shall dye; the Son shall not bear the sin of the Father. To bear sin, a…

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…

A man may so fall into a way of sin, as still to retain in his mind such a principle of light and conviction that may be suitable to his recovery. To exclude such from all hopes of repentance, is expressly contrary to (Ezekiel 18:21; Isaiah 55:7) and the whole sense of the Scrip…

Herod heard the Word gladly, and did many things: and yet he was still dead in his sin. And yet this is all the conversion which many have, and in which they rest: namely, through the power of common convictions, they have their natural affections stirred up, and drawn forth, ev…

2. If a parent in Israel was for his sin cut off from his people, were the children that he left behind him therefore excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel? To be sure, in crimes capitally punished (of which cutting off from their people is sometimes plainly meant, Exodus 31:…

5. The formal and proper end of God in Reprobation, is not the eternal destruction of the creature; but the discovery of his own Justice or glory, promoted or shining forth in and by that destruction: in Election God desires and effects the salvation of a sinner in a subordinati…

2. It is a wrong to the goodness and righteousness of providence: it is a charging God with ill management, and an implicit language, that if we were the commanders of providence, things should be managed more justly and righteously; as it was Absalom's pretense in wishing to be…

A man that is about to commit the act of murder or treason, his friends persuade him not to do it, for if he does, he is but a dead man, yet notwithstanding he will do it; we say of such a one that he is a dead man willingly. So we tell men, if they do thus and thus, that they g…

To all this is commanded, perseverance and watchfulness (Ephesians 6:10). Perseverance is, always to continue and go forward in doing good, and flying evil (Ezekiel 18:25; Colossians 1:10). To this is contrary, a stay, or going backward (Galatians 5).

Those that hate me. That is, those that securely commit spiritual whoredom against this commandement; and so this is nothing contrary to that (Ezekiel 18). Exercising benignity.

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…

Foolish men have always had tumultuating thoughts about the judgments of God. Some have disputed with him about the equity and equality of his ways in judgments temporal (Ezekiel 18), and some about those that shall be eternal. Hence was the vain imagination of them of old, who…

Have they found out some other way, or do they utterly give over seeking after salvation? This very question being put to one of them, he answers; that they now obtain the pardon of their sins, by repentance and amendment of life; according to the promises made in the Prophets t…

Fourthly, God punisheth not the sins of the Fathers upon their children, unless the Children continue in the sins of their Fathers. This he declareth at large, Ezek. 18. Now what were the sins of this people under the first Temple before their captivity?

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…

Now the Supreme, and sovereign law of providential dispensations is utterly divers and alien from this of the Covenant of Grace. This you have asserted Ezek. 18:20. The soul that sins it shall die: one shall not bear the iniquity of another: the righteousness of the righteous sh…

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…

As long as you are wise in your own esteem, there is no hope that ever you should be so indeed; or so much as comply with the means that are made use of to render you so; it is the remark in (Proverbs 26:12), do you see a man that is wise in his own conceit? there is more hope o…

It were good we prize more that which men call the foolishness of preaching: the Spirit breathes in, and through his own ordinance, when we know not. Quest. How can it stand with justice to command us, to make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit, since we are unable to make t…

As High Priest he ascended on high, and contributes his influences for sending down the Spirit (Luke 24:49; John 14:16, 17; John 16:7). Yes, and predeterminating influences to circumcise the heart to the Lord, are promised by him (Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 18:19; Isaiah 44:1, 2,…

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…

No, one sin will do it. [illegible] therefore God has said, Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin (Ezekiel 18:30). One sin not turned from will prove the eternal ruin of a man's soul: will not then his iniquity be found to be…

It is his desire: Oh that there were such a heart in them that they might fear me and keep my commandments, that it may go well with them and theirs for ever (Deuteronomy 5:29). Indeed he has taken a solemn oath: As I live says the Lord, I desire not the [illegible] of a sinner…

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,…

1. His former barrenness shall not be charged upon him. All the guilt of it shall be removed: it was a great height that he was arrived to; he had been all this while heaping up provocation, and filling a terrible account: but upon his returning to God, all these scores are cros…

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…