Ezekiel 20

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…

At the Tabernacle of the Congregation will I meet with the people, says the Lord, there will I meet with the children of Israel. And the Tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory, and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God (Zechariah 2:10, 11; Ezekiel…

We must therefore consider in what sense the Apostle ascribes these properties to the law. 1. Some seek for a solution of this difficulty from Ezekiel 20, ver. 11, compared with ver. 25. Ver. 11, God says, That I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a ma…

Therefore God provided a land and country for them which they might inhabit by themselves, and as their own, even the land of Canaan. And this was so suited to all the ends of God towards that people, as might be declared in sundry instances, that God is said, to have espied thi…

The reader may see what we have discoursed concerning such a day on the third chapter. And the time here intended is often called the day of it (Ezekiel 20:6): In the day I lifted up my hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; at that time or season. A certain, determinate,…

Now [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] is anigma, problema, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]; a Riddle, an hard Question; and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] is to speak anigmatically, obscurely, so as that one thing is to be gathered out of another. So is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] used also…

Man being in honor, abides not, he is like the beasts that perish; the meaning is, he abode not in the honor of his creation. Hence compared to wolves for their cruelty, dogs for their filthiness; to horses and mules for the rage of lust; to a wild ass's colt for wildness and du…

The Temple and the altar being types of Christ, were of an higher worth and excellency than the services and sacrifices offered in them, and did bring acceptance to them, and therefore they were to pray towards the Temple, to offer upon the altar, etc. (Deuteronomy 12:5, 6; 1 Ki…

They Sacrifice flesh, the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it, but the Lord accepts them not (Hosea 8:13), because they did it contrary to the Institution. For the Lord's appointment and promise was, that in mine holy Mountain, in the Mountain of the height of Israel, there…

Through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles. And also their fall and dispersion among the Gentiles, was prophesied of as the occasion of their return to God (Ezekiel 20:36-37): Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness, so will I plead with you, and cause yo…

If they were his people before that, yet that also was by Covenant made with them in the loins of Abraham, when God took him and his seed to be his Church and people, yet separating Ishmael from Isaac and Esau from Jacob, that the inheritance of the Covenant of God, and of being…

The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof; well, but though all the world be the Lords land, yet this land was the Lords land in a peculiar manner, the land of Canaan it was the Lords land more peculiarly in many respects: First, it was a land that God had espied out for hi…

And again, the word signifies saw-dust that comes from timber that is sawn, and so it shall be broken in pieces: look as the calf in the wilderness was broken even to dust, to powder, and Moses made the people drink of it; so God will serve this calf. And then further observe: i…

But, 3. God keeps not always this method; nor is it likely he will observe it with Scotland and England, first to humble, and then deliver; but contrarily he first delivers, and then humbles. As (Ezekiel 20:42) And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you to the…

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…

Colossians 3:12. Put ye on, as the Elect of God,—Humbleness of Mind. Ezekiel 20:41, 43. I will accept you with your sweet Savour, when I bring you out from the People, etc.—And there shall ye remember your Ways, and all your Doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loa…

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…

Hence it is, when God speaks of Israel's conversion (Isaiah 2:20), it is said, they shall cast away their idols from them — they shall cast away their sins as with indignation against themselves, because they have sinned. And hence in the prophecy of Ezekiel 20:43, the prophet t…

§4. On the account of the accessions that were thus made to the law, and especially to the observation of the Sabbath, is it often mentioned in the Scripture, as that which God had in a peculiar manner given to the Israelites, in whose especial worship it had so great a place; m…

Therefore although there should have been no such servants or strangers, as are intended in the Decalogue, in the state of Innocency, when we plead that the Law of the Sabbath was first given; yet this proves no more, but that this precept in the renovation and repetition of it…

§ 7 The first are of three sorts. First, of life temporal, as it was an instrument of their government, and eternal with God, as the promise or Covenant of Grace was exemplified or represented therein (Leviticus 18:5; Ezekiel 20:11; Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:12). Secondly, of a s…

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),…

Original sin is the very pollution of our nature, which makes us unclean things: and hence it is allegorically and emphatically set forth by the condition of a new-born infant, in Ezekiel 16 begin. And every actual sin leaves a spot, a stain, a filthiness behind it upon the man…

1. By an experimental confession of his faith in Christ. 2. By a life answerable to that confession; to wit, a life of holiness — heart-holiness, family-holiness, (if he has a family,) and by conversation-holiness in the world; which in the general teaches him inwardly to abhor…

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.

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

By what reasons are they confuted? (1) From those places of Scripture, where the righteousness of the law is described (Leviticus 18:5; Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:12; Ezekiel 20:11, 13): whoever, therefore, keeps my statutes and judgments, says the Lord, shall live in them. And to…