Hosea 2

If you will love God, you shall have such a reward as exceeds your faith. God will betroth you to himself in the dearest love (Hosea 2:19): I will betroth you to me forever in loving-kindness and mercies. (Zephaniah 3:17) The Lord your God will rejoice over you with joy, he will…

God will so love his people, that he will not forsake them; and they shall so fear him that they shall not forsake him. If a believer should not persevere, God should break his promise (Hosea 2:19): I will betroth you to me forever, in righteousness and loving kindness. God does…

2. There is but one omnipotent power. If there be two omnipotents, then we must always suppose a contest between these two; that which one would do, the other power being equal would oppose, and so all things would be brought into a confusion. If a ship should have two pilots of…

To worship any other than God, is to break wedlock. This makes the Lord disclaim his interest in a people (Hosea 2:2). Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife.

When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel. Image worship enrages God (Proverbs 6:34). Jealousy is the rage of a man: It makes God divorce a people (Exodus 32:7). Your people, lo-ammi (Hosea 2:2). Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife (Song of…

The Pharisees did the will of God in giving alms, but that which was a dead fly in the ointment, was, that they did not aim at God's glory, but vainglory; they blew a trumpet. Jehu did the will of God in destroying the Baal worshippers, and God commended him for doing of it: but…

Therefore in this case God takes them away. For as in Hosea 2:9, in case of unthankfulness in outward mercies God took them away and restored them not again until they esteemed them better and acknowledged from whom they had them, so also in spiritual assurance, light, and comfo…

Answer. This he does, when he loves him above all, and fears him above all, and above all things is zealous for God's glory; when he has full confidence in God's word and promises, and is more grieved for displeasing God, than for all things in the world besides. Or, more plainl…

6. Afflictions work for good, as they make way for comfort. In the valley of Achor a door of hope, Hosea 2.15. Achor signifies trouble: God sweetens outward pain, with inward peace.

It's true, we find some of the saints, and these, stars of the first magnitude, as Moses, Job, Elias, David, and Jonas, in their distempered malcontent or fainting fits, passionately, preposterously, and precipitantly praying, or rather wishing for death (for which they were not…

2. A battle array is not of one man, but of many enemies: Say the man had one soul, it should be his enemy; and that he had a hundred souls, he should have a hundred enemies; but as many millions of thoughts, as in his wearisome nights escape him, he has as many enemies; indeed,…

This is not to deny that God's omnipotent power must turn the will, but to show how sweetly he leads the inclinations. 2. The Lord by wiles and art works upon the will: (Hosea 2:14) I will allure her, and bring her to the wilderness, and speak to her heart. The word of alluring…

It is a saving and a pitying love (Isaiah 63:9); a love which the Lord rests in (Zephaniah 3:17); a love continuing to the end (John 13:1); a love that makes us more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). It is a separating love that differences the loved of God from all others (Psalm 8…

This is argued there from this very relation of his being our husband, verses 25-26. And therefore though Christ is now in glory, yet let not that discourage you, for he has the heart of a husband toward you, being betrothed to you forever, in faithfulness, and in loving kindnes…

Then, then the child of God has most sweet refreshing incomings: When God has allured the soul into the wilderness, he speaks to its heart. A wilderness is a solitary place, where other speech is not heard, (as the word imports:) then speaks God to the soul when men cannot speak…

The fifth is, peace with the beasts of the field. God makes a covenant with them for his people (Hosea 2:18). The creatures desire and wait for the deliverance of God's children (Romans 8).

The second, is an enmity of all the creatures with man, since the fall. And this appears, because when God receives us to be his people, he makes a covenant with all creatures, in our behalf (Hosea 2:18). The third contains, all losses, calamities, miseries, in goods, friends, g…

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…

Lastly, with the beasts of the field, and all the creatures. The Lord promises to make a covenant with the wild beasts, and fowls of the heaven, in behalf of his people, that they may sleep safely (Hosea 2:18). But the peace which is principally meant in this place, is peace of…

Now seeing Christ is come to the end, that having abolished the curse, he might reconcile the world to God; it is not without cause that the reestablishment of a perfect estate is attributed to him: as if the Prophet should say, that the golden world should return, during which…

For although our hearts be set (while we live in this world) to aspire to our inheritance which is in heaven, yet Satan lays many stumbling blocks before us, and we are surrounded on every side with infinite dangers, but the Lord who has set us in this way, and goes before us, l…

He repeats that he said before, namely, that God will so open the gates of his Temple to all without exception, that there shall be no more distinction between Jew and Gentile: but such as the Lord shall call by his word (Acts 2:39), which is the bond of our adoption, shall be j…

But he having received her into favor again, she shines with wonderful beauty. And the place in Hosea (Hosea 2:20) answers to this. Such an ornament was given at the coming of Christ, and we also receive it daily, when the Lord clothes us with righteousness and salvation.

But withal the Prophet teaches, that this proceeds only from God's delight; that is to say, from his free favor: lest anything should be attributed to the merits or dignity of men. To which purpose he says in Hosea; I will marry you to me in mercy and compassion (Hosea 2:19). Th…

It has afterwards its turn to speak and to answer Amen, according to that passage, “I will say to them, You are my people, and they shall say, You are my God,” (Hosea 2:23.) But as Zacharias had rashly interrupted the Word of God, he is not allowed this favor of breaking out imm…

Oh if men would but note the designs of God in his preventive Providences, how useful would it be to keep them upright and holy in their ways? For why is it, that the Lord so often hedges up our way with thorns, as it is Hosea 2:6 but that we should not ind our paths to sin? Why…

(3.) Sometimes by laying some strong affliction upon the body, to prevent a worse evil. And this is the meaning of Hosea 2:6 I will hedge up her way with thorns. Thus Basil was a long time exercised with a violent head-ach, which (as he observed) was used by Providence to preven…

That is another conclusion. Therefore we find still, that when God has bestowed many outward blessings upon any, either persons or nations, he charges an acknowledgement upon them (Hosea 2:8): She did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and…

Thirdly, in the way to life there are many afflictions and offences, as Act. 14. 22. Through manifold afflictions we must enter into the kingdome of heaven: and, Hos. 2. 6. I will stoppe your way with thornes: meaning, that by sharpe afflictions he would hedge them in the way of…

The second step of her carriage, which is the scope of the former, namely of her holding him, is in these words, till I had brought him to my mother's house, to the chambers of her that conceived me. By mother in Scripture is understood the visible Church, which is even the beli…

We may consider in the verse, these three things: 1. An effect, as it were, wrought on him, He is made like the chariots of Amminadib, or, set as in the chariots of Amminadib: chariots were used to travel with, and that for the greater speed; or, they were used in war, for drivi…

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…

Let us think of returning to God by repentance. Say as the Church (Hosea 2:7), I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now. 2. Let us consider the text in Thesi; it is good for me to draw near to God.

"I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought." God allured them, and brought them into that wilderness, and spake comfortably to them, as it was foretold that he would do afterwards, Hosea 2:14. Those terrible judgments that were executed in the congregation…

(4) With the Gospel, we lose our temporal enjoyments and creature comforts: these usually come and go with the Gospel. When God had once written Loammi upon Israel, the next news is this, I will recover my wool and my flax (Hosea 2:9). (5) And lastly, to come up to the very case…

If God does not open to you his good treasure, the heavens to give rain to the land in its season, and bless all the work of your hands, as it is, (Deuteronomy 28:12), the earth cannot yield her increase. The order and dependence of natural causes in the productions of fruit, is…

Seventhly, afflictions preserve from much sin, they are blessed preventing physick: our falls into sore afflictions, keep us from falls into sin. Hosea 2:6 God says, he will hedge the way of his people; if the hedge of the command will not keep us from transgression, it is a mer…

As it is with such persons in the day of their espousals, in the day of the gladness of their hearts, so is it with Christ and his saints in this relation: he is a husband to them, providing that it may be with them, according to the state and condition whereinto he has taken th…

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…

6. The continuance of Christ's love was without date: Having loved his own, he loved them to the end. His love was constant (not by fits, now loving, then hating) and everlasting (never repenting thereof, never changing or altering his mind) — no provocations, no transgressions…

And this being set on both sides is as a dark shadowing round about their happiness here described, setting off the lustre of it. Their former misery expressed in the former verse by darkness, is here more fully and plainly set before their view in these words; they are borrowed…

The swelling heart puffed up with a fancy of fullness has no room for grace, is lifted up, is not hollowed and fitted to receive and contain the graces that descend from above; and again as the humble heart is most capable, as emptied and hollowed, can hold most, so it is most t…

In life it is clear, man is not Dominus [reconstructed: Vitae], but Custos, not lord of his life, but only the steward and guardian of it; he cannot live or die at his own pleasure: if a man kills himself, he runs the danger of God's law. What is said of life, is true also of hi…

And not only so, but also it is the more sanctified. When we look to second causes, we shall surely abuse the mercy: (Hosea 2:8) For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold; what then? Therefore she prepared it for Baal.

Here we are supplied at second or third hand. Hosea 2:18: "I will hear the heavens, and the heavens shall hear the earth," etc. But there God is immediately and fully enjoyed.

The bride says, Come (Revelation 22:17). We are here contracted and betrothed to Christ; I will betroth you to me (Hosea 2:19). But the day of solemn espousals is hereafter.

1. God works morally, so as to preserve man's nature, and the principles thereof; therefore he works by sweet inclination, not with violence. So he comes with blandishments, and comfortable words; (Hosea 2:14) I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfo…

Thus in common mercies, when he feeds us by his meat and drink, and enlightens us with his sun. Here in the world we have blessings at second or third hand, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, etc. (Hosea 2:21-22). Whatever one creature affords to another, it…

6. To be off and on with God will cost us much sorrow, it will be bitterness in the end; either it will cost us the bitterness of repentance here, or of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth for ever; either holy compunction, or everlasting horror. When you straggle from G…

The absolute disposal of the riches and wealth of the world belongs to God, who has all these things, with the power to dispose of them as he pleases. Therefore he is to be eyed, acknowledged and submitted to in the ordering of our lot and portion (Hosea 2:9): I will return, and…