Hosea 4

Aristotle calls sensual lusts brutish, because when any lust is violent, reason or conscience cannot be heard — the beast rides the man. These lusts when they are enjoyed do besot and dispirit persons (Hosea 4:11): "Whoredom and wine take away the heart." They have no heart for…

I spoke to you in your prosperity, and you said, I will not hear. Pride and luxury are the two worms bred of worldly pleasure (Hosea 4:11). Wine takes away the heart.

Paul a night and a day in the deep? God's afflicting is so far from evidencing hatred, that his not afflicting is (Hosea 4:14): I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom. Deus maxime irascitur cum non irascitur — God punishes most when he does not punish; his ha…

Now when we seem to worship God, but withdraw our heart from him, we take his name in vain (Isaiah 29:13): This people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but they have removed their heart from me. First, hypocrites take God's name in vain, their reli…

Excess of wine breeds the worm of conscience. The drunkard is seldom reclaimed by repentance; and the ground of it is, partly, because by this sin the senses are so enchanted, reason so impaired, and lust so inflamed; and, partly, it is judicial, the drunkard being so besotted w…

1. A man may leave his oaths and drunkenness, yet [reconstructed: still] be in love with sin; he may leave sin out of fear of hell, or because it brings shame and poverty, but still his heart goes after it. Hosea 4:8: They set their heart on their iniquity. As Lot's wife left So…

It alludes to the birds of prey, which stain their wings with the blood of other birds. May not the Lord justly take up a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because blood touches blood (Hosea 4:2)? There is a concatenation, a plurality of murders.

Seventhly, this sin does much eclipse the light of reason; it steals away the understanding, it stupefies the heart. (Hosea 4:11) Whoredom takes away the heart: it eats out all heart for good. Solomon besotted himself with women, and they enticed him to idolatry.

But to sin with delight does heighten and increase the sin: a sign the heart is in the sin. Hosea 4:8: They set their heart on their iniquity. As a man follows his gain with delight.

Though he dams up the stream, yet he lets alone the fountain; though he lops and prunes the branches, yet he does not strike at the root of it. 2. Though he leaves sin (for fear of Hell, or because it brings shame and penury) yet he still loves sin; as if a snake should cast her…

You have heard what a prodigious hyperbolical evil sin is. Come not near the forbidden fruit (Hosea 4:15). Though Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend.

The exercise also of the gifts, is required in all them that are called to sacred office (1 Timothy 4:14): "Neglect not the gift that is in you." Hence persons destitute of these gifts of the Spirit, as they cannot in a due manner discharge any one duty of the Ministry, so wanti…

Again, look as Jacob gave the blessings at this time, the principal unto Ephraim, and the lesser to Manasses; so afterward they came to pass: For (as we may read) the tribe of Ephraim was far more populous, and more glorious than the tribe of Manasses. And therefore, in the book…

This appurtenance of them to the Ark, the Apostle expresseth by the Preposition [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] from the Hebrew [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] now this preposition is so frequently used in the Scripture to signify, adhesion, conjunction, approximation, appurtenance of one t…

When men have slight considerations of any of God's institutions, when they come to them without a sense that there is divine wisdom in them, that which becomes him from whom they are, it is no wonder if their glory be hid from them. But when we diligently and humbly enquire int…

But it is a fond imagination; at least the argument from these words for it, is so. For besides that the Scripture calls all sins by the name of errors (Psalms 19:12; Psalms 25:7), and the worst, the most provoking of all sins, is expressed by erring in heart (Psalms 95:10), and…

And so it is with many. And when knowledge is perished from their lips who should preserve it, the people must perish for want of that knowledge (Hosea 4:6; Matthew 15:14). 3. In our progress towards an increase in knowledge, we ought to go on with diligence and the full bent of…

Hereunto [in non-Latin alphabet] is opposed [in non-Latin alphabet], other blood, the blood of others; that is, the blood of bulls and goats offered in sacrifice, in for cum, say most Expositors, which is not unusual. See 1 John 5:6; Genesis 32:10; Hosea 4:3. The meaning is, by…

Reprove them not, help them not, hinder them not, let them alone to take their own course. So says God, of Israel now given up to sin and ruin, Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone (Hosea 4:14; Ezekiel 29:13). And it is the same judgment which he denounces against unprofita…

And if so, then these children, as well as others, are part of the flock and church of Ephesus, to whom that epistle is written, and then the whole flock being under the charge of elders to feed them (that is, both to teach and rule them) it appears thereby, that what the Synod…

Non periclitor dicere (says Tertullian) ipsas Scripturas ita dispositas esse, ut materiam subministrant haereticis: So the Lord himself says (Jeremiah 6:21), Behold I will lay stumbling blocks before this people; that is, suffer them to stumble at their own prejudices. 3. God le…

Because he will bring you a nearer way to heaven than you are willing to go? Is this a due requital of his love, who is pleased so much to concern himself in your welfare — which is more than he will do for thousands in the world, upon whom he will not lay a rod or spend an affl…

He gave them up for that sin, to more sin. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone (Hosea 4:17). Because Ephraim has made many altars to sin, altars shall be to him to sin (Hosea 8:11).

Revelation 3:19: Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten. How much better is it to have an idolized enjoyment taken from you in mercy, than if God should say concerning you, as he said of Ephraim in Hosea 4:17: He is joined to idols, let him alone. It is better for you that your Fathe…

The men of Lystra seeing the miracle wrought by Paul and Barnabas, cry'd out, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men, Act. 14. 11. But we may now say, The Devils are come up to us in the likeness of men; Never was there such a spirit of wickedness in the Land, never…

Men go on and consider not. Hosea 4:11, whoredom, and new wine, steal away their hearts; that is, it makes them not to consider. Mark 6:52, they considered not the loaves, therefore their hearts were hardened: they were fearful in the ship, because they considered not the miracl…

It was the duty of the people to seek from them the law of God, that is, the meaning of the mind of God as expounded in the law. God therefore severely rebukes the priests for their neglect of this work (Hosea 4:6). The duty of instructing the people also rested upon the Levites…

XII. With respect to the material of the immediate objects of worship, they are also variously named. Hence they are also called contemptuously by a term meaning "wood" or "a piece of wood": Hosea 4:12, "My people asks counsel of its wood"; and Jeremiah 10:8. Whatever idolaters…

To desire it, delight in it, love it. Contrary, is forbidden general ignorance of good and evil (Hosea 4:6; Ephesians 4:17). To love it, desire it, delight in it (Proverbs 1:22).

The first is (2 Thessalonians 1): Christ will come in flaming fire, to render vengeance to all them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel. The second is (Hosea 4): My people perish for want of knowledge. The third is (Isaiah 27): This is a people of no understanding, theref…

Fie on all the glory of the world; let us not think 1. too much of this piece, airy, windy, vain opinion of men's esteem and the applause; it's but a short living, hungry Hosanna, when your name is carried through a spot or bit of this clay-stage, for a day or two, they'll wonde…

The pastors also have transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal. Asking counsel of them (Hosea 4:12). My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declares to them, for the spirit of whoredoms has caused them to err and they have gone a whoring from…

This must teach us all to detest this ignorance of God, and his will, and to seek by all means to know God. God has a controversy with men, because they know him not (Hosea 4:1, 6). Again, this serves to warn all ministers of the word, to be careful to root out ignorance out of…

Thus he punishs spirituall fornication, with bodily pollution, because the Israelites went a whoring from God, therefore their daughters became harlots, and their spouseswhores. Hos 4:12, 13. And this is verified in the Church of Rome at this day: for as he gaue vp the heathen t…

They ought to profess that all their hearts and souls are in these engagements to be the Lord's, and forever to serve him; 2 Chronicles 15:12-14. God's people's swearing to God, and swearing by his name, or to his name, as it might be rendered, (by which seems to be signified th…

One day they seem to lye in Hell by the Terror of their Convictions, and the next to be hasting towards it by their sins and pollutions. see Luke. 11. 24, 25, 26. Hos. 4. 6. cap. 6. 4. (2.) This Apostacy is promoted and hastned by others.

2 Timothy 3:5. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away. Hosea 4:15. Though you Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend, and come not you to Gilgal, neither go you up to Beth-aven. Revelation 18:4. Come out of her my people, that yo…

Point. The curse and punishment of vnsauourie salt: It is cast out, and troden under foote of men: whereby Christ signifis, that vnfaithfull and vnprofitable ministers, shall be condemned both of God and man: Hos. 4. 6. Because you have despised knowledge, therefore also will I…

And fifth, the respect people ought to have to them, who are over them in the Lord: no flock needs a shepherd more than a congregation needs a minister, people without laborers, being like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36), under a sad necessity of wandering and being lost…

7. All men naturally have some lust, idol, or beloved, that their affection is set upon beside Christ; It's some other thing, from which he is distinguished, and to which he is opposed. 8. Men lay out their affections liberally upon their idols, and upon these things that their…

Nor has God ordained magistracy only out of respect to some few whom he has ennobled, that they might enjoy a privilege and prerogative above the common and vulgar sort of men, but he has ordained it for the general good of mankind; indeed, and I have often and seriously thought…

Thirdly, this is a sin that does most of all others obscure, and extinguish the light of a man's natural reason and understanding. Nothing does so much darken the understanding, as the fumes of lust (Hosea 4:11). Whoredom, and wine, and new wine take away the heart.

Such are 1. The ignorant, who shut their eyes against the light, and refuse to be taught the way to Heaven (Hosea 4:6): You have rejected knowledge. The Hebrew word signifies, to reject with disdain.

But truly we need not talk of letters from hell, we are told from heaven, how deplorable the condition of such poor souls is. See Proverbs 28:19, Hosea 4:6. The judgment will yet appear very heavy, if you consider the loss which God's own people sustain by the removal of the Gos…

HOw unlike am I to God, in the afflicting of his people? The Lord is pitiful when he smites them, but I have been cruel. He is kind to them, when most severe; but the best of my kindnesses to them, may fitly enough be called severity. God smites them in love, I have smitten them…

As 1. It may be taken away (Hos. 4:11), stolen away (2 Sam. 15:6), and as moveables can be stolen away and hid, though lands legally by fraud may be stolen away, yet physically they cannot be hid; so the love and inclination of the heart may and can be stolen away, and when hear…

2. Not desiring of God, but an abhorring, or a soul abhorring of God hinders influences of the Spirit. 1. Are there any who abhor God? such a sad word is spoken of the Jews (Zech. 11:8): Three Shepherds also I cut off in one month, and my soul loathed them, and their soul also a…

The spirit of giddiness and error leads Egypt (Isaiah 19:14). The spirit of whoredom (Hosea 4:12; Hosea 5:4) that inclines to idolatry. The spirit of lying (1 Kings 22:22).

Bernard says, when God spares men in a sinful way, it is because God is not only angry with men, but hates them, he calls his mercy more cruel then all indignation. Origen in his Sermon upon Ex. 20. quotes that place, Hos. 4:14 I will not punish your daughters when they commit w…

We read Ezek. 47:11 that when the waters of the sanctuary flowed, the miry places could not be healed: How seldom does the waters of the Sanctuary heal miry souls? Augustine says of such, As the earth by too much rain becomes nothing but mire and dirt, so as it is made unfit for…