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.

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

There is nothing in the Book of God, in which God is so full in his expression, as when he comes to this argument, to manifest his affection to his Church. Christ is the Shepherd, and when sheep are together, they are under the protection of the Shepherd, when the sheep are scat…

Again, you do much wrong to the Ordinance of God, when you do prefer the contenting of a pettish humor, before the Ordinance of God. God threatens it as a judgement, Hosea 4:16 To feed his people as a Lamb in a large place; that is, to scatter them from the fold, that they shoul…

Let us suffer never so much, God forbid we should think the evil of our reproach so great, as to be glad to have it wiped away with any sin against God: Such and such have sinned such and such sins, and by those sins my reproach is wiped away, and therefore I am glad: God forbid…

It degrades a man from the honor of his Creation, and equalizeth him to the beast that perishes. Wine is said to take away the heart, Hosea 4:11. (i. e.) the wisdom and ingenuity of a man, and so brutifies him; as Nebuchadnezzar, who lost the heart of a man, and had the heart of…

And this is as clear in Scripture as the other. It is the Lord that takes away the Fishes of the Sea, Hosea 4:3. Zephaniah 1:3. It is he that curseth our blessings, Malachi 2:2. This God does as a punishment for sin, and the abuse of mercies: And therefore in such cases, we ough…

See Isai. 1. 5. Hosea 4:14. Jeremiah 6:29, 30, Hebrews 6:8. THE POEM.

But let such as desire to approve themselves to God or man, take heed of these heinous and more than heathenish vices. Though Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend (Hosea 4:15). Too near to the forenamed kind of unlawful separation do they come, who though they live b…

Its noisome exhalations darken the mind, that it cannot make a right judgment of things; perplexing reasonings, extenuating promises, tumultuating desires, treacherous purposes of relinquishment, hopes of mercy; all have a share in disturbing the mind, in its consideration of th…

Afflictions are (as Gregory Nazianzen faith) sharp Arrows, but they are shot from the hand of a loving Father. As Gods not afflicting the Wicked is in anger: Gods hand is Heaviest when it is lightest, Hosea 4:14. I will not punish your daughters when they commit Whoredom: A Fath…

The first remarkable instance we have in the New Testament, of God's vengeance, was for a lie (Acts 5:5). Indeed, it is one of the sins that draws down public and national judgments; and therefore it is said (Hosea 4:2): By swearing and lying therefore does the land mourn. And w…

3. There is God's curse, or penal hardness. For as nature grows into a custom; so by our sinful customs God is provoked, and does withdraw those common influences of grace, by which our condition might be bettered, and in justice he gives up our hearts to their own sway (Hosea 4…

When we are engaged in a rebellion against God, or when brought into a sense of our duty? (Hosea 4:17) Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. "Let him alone" is the heaviest judgment that can be laid upon a poor creature.

God's children have strange failings and negligences; and sometimes are guilty of more heinous sins. It is a great curse for a man to be left to his own ways (Hosea 4:17): Let him alone. So (Psalm 81:12): I gave them up to their own hearts' lust: men must needs perish when left…

I but, says sin (9) it is but repent, and God will forgive you: to this we have to say, that he who promised forgiveness to them that repent, has not promised repentance to them that sin; besides, if sin were to cost no more but repentance, one in his wits would be loath to buy…

It's God's own resolution expressed (Isaiah 27:11): They are a people that have no understanding, therefore he that made them, will not save them, in fact, he will show no mercy to them. It's the determination, he has [reconstructed: fixed it] as a conclusion beyond control (Hos…

Knowledge must usher in obedience; it is as abominable to God to offer up the blind as the lame. Final ignorance damns (Hosea 4:6): my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The Hebrew word signifies they are cut down or felled like trees — so that there is a necessity of k…

In a word, do with your heart as they in the parable did with the fish (Matthew 13:48): they gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. This is the great exhortation — heart-custody; sinners, look to your hearts; let not your hearts be bewitched and stolen away with…

What an unnatural thing is it, that any should strive to bring them to death, whose very calling is to bring men to life. The minister is a spiritual father, it was a brand of infamy on them (Hosea 4:4): For this people are as they that strive with their Priest. Was there none t…