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…

Hosea 1:10. And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people. Hosea 2:23. I will have mercy upon her that was not pitied, and I will say to them which were not my people, you are my people. Acts 14:16. God in times past suffered all the Gentiles to walk in their…

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…

In and by all these things will he, in all that he is in himself, be a God to those whom he takes into this Covenant. It is included in this part of the Promise, that they that take him to be their God, they shall say, You are my God (Hosea 2:23), and carry it towards him accord…

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.

Did he ever move you to go aside into the closet, that you might be solitary and serious, and consider of your condition? Usually at our first call we are moved to go aside, that God and we may confer in private; as (Hosea 2:14) God calls into the wilderness, that he may speak t…

It is applicable to the case of mercies as well as afflictions and judgments, of which it is properly meant. And this contempt is the greater by how much the greater mercy we have received in a way of providence (Hosea 2:8): she did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil…

They will ever and anon call things to consideration, and say, It is not with us as it should be, or as it was in former days; this thing is not good that we do; nor will it be peace in the latter end. (2.) They will have secret resolutions of shaking themselves out of the dust…

First, There was a Covenant between the Church of Israel and God (Exodus 19:5, 6, 7, 8; Ezekiel 16:8; Deuteronomy 29:10, &c.). Secondly, This Covenant was mutual; not only a promise on God's part to be their God, and to take them for his people, but also reciprocally on their pa…

So was the redemption of the Church of God from the Egyptian bondage (Exodus 2:23 and 3:7). The great restoration of the Church in the latter day, is often spoken of as resembled by this; as in Isaiah 64:1–4, 11:11, 15, 16; 43:2, 3, 16–19; 51:10, 11, 15; 63:11, 12, 13; Zechariah…

Since we know that He "bears with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction" (Romans 9:22). For though He is provoked by them daily, He does not immediately seize them away, but even heaps upon them many benefits, to be demanded back at the appointed time (H…

Hence Plutarch calls the Sun and Moon "all-named" ones. For by heaping up epithets and piling on titles, they thought to capture the divine being and thereby to move it to the greatest honor; so that in the end what had been only different names of superstition came, as error sp…

They offered to this idol every kind of sacrifice. God complains through the prophet that they gave oil, new wine, and grain to Baal (Hos. 2:8). We have shown elsewhere that these were the chief offerings to idols.

Jealous. This is a kind of speech taken from married folks (Hosea 2:2; Ezekiel 16), who cannot abide their wives should give either in affection or in gesture, countenance, or any manner of behavior to others, that which appertains to them only: and by this we gather the greatne…

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…

The Sea shall open for Israel, and returne upon the Egyptians. And this both in an ordinary way as Hosea 2:21, 22. and in an extraordinary way as before. So many creatures as God has made so many instruments of good has he for his people: this is further confirmed, v. 9.

And the Targum itself in Habakkuk 3:18 has these words, because of the miraculous signs and redemption that you shall work for or by your Messiah. So they call the miracles wrought at their coming out of Egypt; see (Hosea 2:15) Targum. And on this ground do they studiously and w…

Thirdly, in judgments to be brought providentially upon the whole nation by pestilence, famine, sword and captivity, which are at large declared, Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Fourthly, total rejection of the whole body of the people, in case of unbelief and disobedience, upo…

The threatening therefore was the rule and measure of the curse. But this is here extended by God himself, not only to all the miseries of man, (Adam and his whole posterity) in this life, in labor, disappointment, sweat and sorrow, with death under, and by virtue of the curse,…

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…