Isaiah

Did I give you wages to serve the Devil? 5. Sin is a disease (Isaiah 1:5): The whole head is sick. Some are sick of pride, others of lust, others of envy.

This is the savory meat God loves. How few mind this, worshipping him who is a Spirit in the Spirit; they give him more dregs than spirits; they think it enough to bring their duties, but not their hearts, which has made God disclaim those very services he himself appointed (Isa…

It is sad to have the Bible in one hand, and false weights in the other. Or 2. in adulterating commodities (Isaiah 1:22). Your wine is mixed with water; when they mix bad grain with good, yet sell it for pure grain.

Popish traditions which have no footing in the Word are abominable, and God will say, quis quaesivint haec? Who has required this at your hand? (Isaiah 1:12). The Apostle condemns the worshipping of angels, which had a show of humility (Colossians 2:18).

Response 1. Where has God told them to worship him by an effigies or spirit? (Isaiah 1:12) Who has required this at your hands? The Papists can't say so much as the Devil, Scriptum est, it is written.

This is in an evangelical sense to keep all the Commandments; and though it be not to satisfaction, yet it is to acceptation. 3. Our keeping God's Commandments must be willing (Isaiah 1:19): If you be willing and obedient. God was for a free will-offering (Deuteronomy 16:10).

Though God has set so many flaming swords in the way to stop men in their sin, yet they go on in sin, which all shows what a strong appetite they have to the forbidden fruit. That we may further see the nature of original sin, consider 1. The universality of it; it has, as a poi…

Vivimus in temporum faecibus — Sen. We live in the dregs of time wherein the common shore of wickedness runs; physicians call it [illegible], when there is no part of the body free from distemper. England has a cachexia, it is all over disease; the whole head is sick, the whole…

Will you disgrace your Heavenly Father? Let not God complain of the provocations of his sons and daughters; let him not cry out as Isaiah 1:2. I have brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. So much for the first: if our earthly father is to be honored, then much…

Just so some deal with God; he bestows mercy, and they plot treason against him. Isaiah 1:2: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The Athenians, in lieu of the good service Themistocles had done them, banished him their city.

12. If you would not fall short of the kingdom of heaven, take heed of injustice in your dealings; defrauding lies in two things. First, mixing commodities; as if one mix bad wheat with good, and sell it for pure wheat, this is to defraud (Isaiah 1:22). Your wine is mixed with w…

How severely did God punish Nadab and Abihu for offering up strange fire (Leviticus 10:2), that is, such fire as God had not sanctified on the altar; whatever is not divinely appointed, is offering up strange fire: there is in many a strange itch after superstition; they love a…

God has imputed it to you, and in so doing, he has made all your sins to be as if they had never been, they are concealed, they are sunk into the depths, they are lost, and quite out of sight for ever doing you a displeasure any more. See how fully the Lord declares himself in h…

Certainly God, who is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth, designed at one time or other a worship more suited to his own nature, though the imposition of these things on the Church for a season, was necessary. And as they were carnal, so they might be exactl…

(1) It was to be a Red Heifer, and that without spot or blemish, whereon no yoke had come (ver. 2). Red is the color of guilt (Isaiah 1:18), yet was there no spot or blemish in the Heifer; so was the guilt of Sin upon Christ, who in himself was absolutely pure and holy. No yoke…

They could not do it by any means, nor at any time: the word is a vehement negation, respecting all the powers of those sacrifices, and all the times wherein they were used. And therefore as to those things which might seem to give them their efficacy, as their multiplication, t…

The first was, that they did not only prefer the outward observation of them before internal moral obedience, but trusted to them, to the total neglect of that obedience. See (Isaiah 1:12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). And the other was, that they put their trust in them for righteousnes…

So on the other hand, there is a dead faith, yes, where there is much affection stirring, as will more appear, by and by: when persons find their affections much moved towards spiritual things, they are apt to be taken with it, and to conclude that there is some true grace in th…

Now it is true that an unsound Professor may do many things, as Herod did (Mark 6:20). He may abound with religious performances, as they (Isaiah 1:11) had multitude of sacrifices, yet to no purpose: the Lord says that he was full of them. So they (Isaiah 58:2) sought him daily.

They are sorely afflicted (Psalm 129:1, 2), yet Christ stands his ground; they are not wholly prevailed over; the Church may visibly fail but not totally. Well then, in the midst of sad miseries, bless God for a remnant; it may be bad but 'tis not as Sodom (Isaiah 1:9). In times…

This is the manner of Reformation held forth in Scripture, and that in reference. 1. To magistrates and statesmen. 2. To ministers. 3. To a people reformed. 4. To a people not reformed. In reference to magistrates and statesmen, Reformation is a fire that purges away the dross (…

So the Pharisee, I fast twice a week; but who requires this at his hands? And in Isaiah 1, their hands are full of blood, but yet full of oblations and sacrifices, and Matthew 23:23, [illegible] to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint, annis, and cumm…

(Matthew 5:23) When you are to offer your gift to God, if you have ought against your brother, first be reconciled, and then come and offer your gift. So also (Isaiah 1:15) the Lord says, that when they pray to him he will not hear. Why? because their hands were full of blood.

[1 Corinthians 11:28. But let every one prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Isaiah 1:16. Wash yourselves, purify yourselves, put away the wickedness of your actions, and cease to do evil before my eyes. Isaiah 66:2. But upon him do I look that…

The brawny and fat heart, which being never a whit moved, never or to small purpose repeats, examines, applies, or practises (Ezekiel 33:31; Zephaniah 2:1; 2 Samuel 12; Mark 6:20). In the Sacraments, the preparation is an examination of our faith in Christ (1 Corinthians 11:28;…

We shall only hint at them, for they are directly opposite to the good that comes by the improving of Christ's Intercession. 1. It makes many prayers to be fruitless and futile — though people should weary themselves in prayer, yet it is all but lost labor, and the Lord will say…

Psalm 99:8. You were a God that pardoned, or forgave them, though you took vengeance of their inventions. The same word [in non-Latin alphabet] is given to God, when he takes vengeance on his enemies, (Numbers 31:2; Isaiah 1:24). I will be avenged of my enemies. (2 Kings 9:7). T…

Nor are men by this taught to seek righteousness in themselves; because they are commanded to try and examine themselves, as (1 Corinthians 11:28; 2 Corinthians 13:5). 4. Such souls would upon any terms be brought to reason and debate the question with Christ, that as the law ma…

So (Deuteronomy 10:20): "You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve him." Christ expounds it (Luke 4:8) exclusively: "You shall serve only the Lord," because it is the prerogative of God to be worshipped, as it is a prerogative of grace to be the ransomed and redeemed of God (D…

Secondly, consider if you have Christ, you have life, and that in abundance, and you have all the blessings of God; of all lives it is the most comfortable (2 Corinthians 1:20). If you have Christ, you have all the promises, for in him they are — indeed, and in him Amen — and th…

For Paul intended, and desired nothing in this speech, but their good and amendment. Upon like grounds Isaiah calls the Israelites, people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1). Christ calls the two disciples, foolish, and slow of heart to believe (Luke 24:25).

To man: for as David says, it is like a grievous burden, too heavy for him to bear (Psalm 38:4). To God: for the hypocritical and ceremonial service of the Jews, was such a burden to him, that he was weary to bear it (Isaiah 1:14). Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pr…

Even so must we follow our vocation, and constantly bear all sorts of encumbrances. Note also the circumstance of the change of Kings which are here numbered up (Isaiah 1:1). For it is impossible that in so great diversity, the State should always continue alike.

In Sodom and Gomorrah.] This example is oft alleged by the Prophets, to the end we might know that however all chastisements be not equal, yet notwithstanding inasmuch as God is impartial in his judgments, the memorable example which he showed thereof in the destruction of Sodom…

When Isaiah then gives hope of a peace near hand, he had respect to that little flock: when he proclaimed war, that was to terrify the multitude, who were revolted from God, and contemned all admonitions. For the state of the people was such that nothing was sound nor pure among…

And this is worth the noting. For he shows that the remnant shall be very small, in comparison of that great multitude which was then in the land: as we have seen in (Isaiah 1:9). Now whereas the faithful are often punished with the wicked, let us not think God does them any wro…

to seal the law of God among the disciples, (Isaiah 8:16.) Let us know then that, wherever the Scripture denounces eternal death against the Jews, it excepts a remnant, (Isaiah 1:9; Romans 11:5;) that is, those in whom the Lord preserves some seed on account of his free election…

This passage agrees with that of Isaiah: Unless the Lord had left us a small seed, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah, (Isaiah 1:9.) For it was necessary, as Paul assures us, that the vengeance of God, which had been displayed in the Babylonish cap…

For all who shall depart from his commandments, though they toil and wear themselves out in works of their own contrivance, will hear it said to them at the last day, Who hath required those things at your hands? (Isaiah 1:12.) 37. Then will the righteous answer him.

But yet, on the other Hand, Persons being disposed to abound and to be zealously engaged in the external Exercises of Religion, and to spend much Time in them, is no sure Evidence of Grace; because such a Disposition is found in many that have no Grace. So it was with the Israel…

Even there, in the Continuation of the same Invitation, the Sinners forsaking his wicked Practice is spoken of as necessary to the obtaining Mercy: Verse 7, Let the Wicked forsake his Way, and the unrighteous Man his Thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have M…

Sect. 26 (2ly,) That which is good materially and in it self, though vitiated from the Relation which it has to the Person by whom it is performed, is approved and has its Acceptation in its proper place. For Duties may be performed two wayes. (1.) In hypocrisie and pretence, so…

And (3) moreover where Sanctification is enjoyned us as our Duty it is prescribed under this Notion of cleansing our selves from sin. Wash you, make you clean, Isa. 1. 16. O Jerusalem wash your Heart from wickedness that you mayest be saved, Jer. 4. 14.

Seeing you art unholy. To pray is a good Duty; But to them that are not washed and made clean, and put not away the evil of their Doings from before his Eyes, saith God, When ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine Eyes from you, and when ye make many Prayers, I will not hea…

As we came over the bar, I was informed of a melancholy fire, that broke out about three weeks ago, and destroyed 300 houses in the best part of Charlestown in the space of about three hours. The news much affected me, because I loved the people, and I preached to them this morn…

And so for afflictions, 'tis a great wickedness, when God's hand is listed up not to see it. Isaiah 26:11 The Ox knows his owner, and the Ass his masters crib, Isaiah 1:3 the most dull and stupid creatures know their benefactors. O look to the hand of God in all; and know, that…

It is a good sign afflictive Providences are sanctified to us, when we draw near to God under them and turn to him that smites us. A wicked man under affliction revolts more and more, Isaiah 1:5 turns not to him that smites him, Isaiah 9:13 but grows worse than before; formality…

For his elect's sake, God did mitigate, did shorten, God did take away that trouble from them. So (Isaiah 1:9) had not God left us a small remnant, we had been like Sodom, indeed like to Gomorrah. Had not God left a handful of his elect and godly men among them, all the rest had…

But some men are so ignorant, they are not capable of learning — you may as well teach a block as them. Hence it is the prophet complains (Isaiah 1:4): The ox knows his own, and the donkey his master's crib, but Israel knows not the Lord his God. Thirdly, in case your ignorance…

Whereas there is a frequent Opposition made in the Old Testament, between Moral Obedience, and the outward observance of Ordinances of a mere arbitrary Institution, there is no mention made of the Weekly Sabbath in that case, though all Ceremonial Institutions are in one place o…

But Christ makes his people a willing people (Psalms 110:3): they prize knowledge, and hang it as a jewel upon their ear. Those that Christ teaches, say as (Isaiah 2:3): Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in them: an…

When we are changed, A tenebris ad lucem, so changed as if another soul did live in the same body, by this change we are interested in the unchangeable God. Trust to this God only who is unchangeable (Isaiah 2:22): "Cease from man, leave trusting to the reed, but trust to the ro…

The first was declared in Mount Sinai, the manner whereof, and the station of the people in receiving the Law, I have in my Exercitations to the first Part of this Exposition, at large declared, and there the Reader is referred (Exodus 19:18). The other was declared on Mount Sin…

But principally it regards his mission by Christ after his ascension into Heaven (Acts 2:33): Being exalted and having received the promise of the Father, he sent the Spirit. The promise of him was, that he should be sent from Heaven, or from above, as God is said to be above, w…

Alas, it is nothing but a little breath: stop his mouth and his nostrils, and he is but a dead man. By this we are put in mind to consider of our frail and uncertain estate, and to lay aside all confidence in ourselves: and for this cause the prophet Isaiah teaches us to have no…

Foundations totter that are not laid deep enough: The more true light a man has, the more cause of self-abasement will he find in himself. You can never magnify Christ enough, and you can never debase self enough; and certainly Christ is most exalted when you are most abased (Is…

Which as it cannot be understood of the Jews after the captivity, who did again forsake the Lord, and were forsaken of him, as Hierome notes upon the place; so it can as ill be said, to be already fulfilled upon the Christian church, but rather that such a church is yet to be ex…

The glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean, and there shall be but a gleaning left in it, as in the shaking of an Olive Tree, two or three on the top of the uppermost bough, and when it is come to this, at that day a man shall look to his…

5. God has given the choicest things he has to his people; He has given his law. The church is the sphere, wherein the light of the gospel is fixed, and wherein it shines, from where its beams do dart out to others (Isaiah 2:3). Out of Zion shall go forth the law.

And therefore I remember I find in Josephus 14. Book of Antiquities, 27. Chap. and so his Book of the Jewish Wars, the 1. Book, and 12. Chap. he says, That those that were thieves and robbers they would make use of such caves and dens in the mountains and hills. And now to these…

Agreeable to this, 'tis said of the Messiah (Psalm 72:11), that all nations shall serve him; and in verse 17, men shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed. And in Isaiah 2:2, it is said, that all nations shall flow to the mountain of the house of the Lord.…

The LXX renders it variously. In the cited passage it is rendered manufacta [things made by hand]: "Gods fashioned by the hands of men," Isaiah 2:8; as bdelygmata [abominations], or things to be abominated. And likewise Ezekiel 30:13; Leviticus 19:4, eidola [idols]; and Habakkuk…

Nor need we flee to that exposition ever and anon, that Christ died for all, that is, all ranks of men. For "all" is put in Scripture ordinarily for many; as (Deuteronomy 1:21; Psalm 71:18; Jeremiah 15:10; Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 20:7; Jeremiah 23:30; Jeremiah 49:17; Ezekiel 16:…

When Moses delivered the Law to them (Deuteronomy 18:15), 'The Lord your God will raise you up a Prophet like to me, to him you shall hearken.' And the prophets when they prophesy of his Law (Isaiah 2:3), 'The Law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of God from Jerusalem.'…

The second point is, that Paul must preach to the Gentiles. There be two causes of it: one, that the prophecies of the calling of the Gentiles might be fulfilled (Psalm 2 and 110; Isaiah 2). The second, because at the death of Christ the division which was between the Jews and G…

Seeing the law is abrogated (as I have said) we must be a free and voluntarie people, seruing God not of constraint but willingly, as if there were no law to compell vs. All nationsshall flow as waters to the mountaine of the Lord. Isa 2:2. Your people shall come willingly in th…

They suffer wrong, but they do none. In the mount of the Lord there is no hurt done (Isaiah 11:9), they turn their spears and swords, into mattocks and scythes (Isaiah 2:4). And they which do no wrong, but are content to suffer wrong (and that for a good cause,) are in this resp…

This is the devil's peace, where he bears the sway. The peace of which I now speak, is in the Lord, and in the true worship of God: of which read (Isaiah 2), where men are said hand in hand to go up to the mountain of the Lord, that they may hear his will, and jointly obey it. 1…

And though shortly afterwards it was totally overthrown, yet even in the present day the fulfillment of this prophecy is manifest; for, since out of Zion, went forth the law, (Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:2,) those who wish to pray aright must look to that beginning.

For if God has called you, he will make you even angry with yourselves, that ever you have been so vile as you have been. 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 a…

Again by Balaam the same words are used to signify the same time (Numbers 24:14), where they are rendered [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], in the end of the days, as many Copies read in this place. And in all the Prophets this is the peculiar notation of that season, [⟨in non-Latin al…

[in non-Latin alphabet] from [in non-Latin alphabet], is properly desiderium, desire; but is no where used in the Scripture, but for a thing, or person desired, or desirable, loved, valued, or valuable: as is [in non-Latin alphabet] also. Daniel 9:23, chapter 10:11, chapter 11:8…

Application of these principles. Promise of universal peace in the dayes of the Messiah: Isaiah 2:2, 3, 4, 5 considered. Jews' objection from it, answered.

These poor Gentiles were the little sister of the Judaical Church which were to be provided for in the love of her Spouse, the Messiah (Canticles 8:8, 9). For in the last days, the days of the Messiah, many people; yes, all nations, are to be brought to the house of the Lord, an…

Of the Targum in Solomon's Song. Isaiah 2:2, 3, 4. Chap. 4. v. 2.

Junius translates to this sense, though in more words, as well they who are born of mean men, as they who are born of the honorable. A like instance we have (Isaiah 2:9). The mean man bows down, and the great man humbles himself.

Returne, (saith the Lord to the house of Israel) and cause one another to returne. This the Prophet Isaiah nots as a practise of the subiects of this kingdome, that they shall say one to another, come, let us goe up to the mountaine of the Lord, Isaiah 2. 3. But masters of famil…

The promise is, I will get me to the mountain of Myrrh, and to the hill of Frankincense: by this in general, [reconstructed: it is] understood no withdrawing of Christ's, or shutting of himself up in heaven from her; for, that will not agree to the scope, which is to show how he…

By these judgments God has shown to London the weakness and insufficiency of arms of flesh — what broken reeds they are. Some put their trust in men, and their great expectation of relief and comfort has been from their friends; by the plague God has shown, how frail and weak ma…

Therefore how often does the scripture, when speaking of Christ's redemption of his church, call it by the names of Zion and Jerusalem? This was the city that God had appointed to be the place of the first gathering and erecting of the Christian church after Christ's resurrectio…

So the Christian church at first began at Jerusalem, and from thence was propagated to all nations: so that this church of Jerusalem was the church that was as it were the mother of all other churches in the world; agreeable to the prophecy. Isaiah 2:3, 4. "Out of Zion shall go…

Nor is the acting of the Spirit tied only to the public ministry; the saints take to their houses clusters of wine-grapes, which they feed upon at home. Let the saints meet, and by conference and prayer draw down new influences of the Spirit (Jude 20; Isaiah 2:1, 2, 3; Jeremiah…

5. The Lord out of the depth of holy soveraignty withdrawes the breathings of the Spirit, and straitens the man, that he cannot speak with lively liberty, that he may depend upon the free out-goings of the Spirit. He who waters the garden, waters every plant of the garden every…

So of safety: no provoking briar, no pricking thorn (Ezekiel 28:24). So also (Isaiah 2:1): the mountain of God, above all mountains, in the latter days — that is, above the reach of opposition and violence. Look as there is a morning light that goes before the sunshine, so there…

Tenthly, it is a blessed thing to be with them, though with some hardship, because God is working more and more good for his people every day: Now he is about fulfilling the glorious promises that we have in the Prophets, to make an end of all the glory that he does intend in th…

The Spirit of God covincing your consciences, says, Come; and the Bride, the Church says, Come; and let all that hear, say, Come; all that hear what has been said of communion with Gods people, say ye to all your friends, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. We ha…

Doubtless nothing at all. Under this naked consideration of the properties of God: justice will make men fly and hide, Genesis 3, Isaiah 2:21; patience renders them obdurate, Ecclesiastes 8:11; holiness utterly deters them from all thoughts of approaching him, Joshua 24:19. What…

For as was showed before, the other things mentioned contribute nothing to the form, nor union of such a Church. It is pleaded, that there are prophecies and promises of a national Church, that should be under the New Testament, as (Psalms 32:10, 11, 12; Isaiah 2:2; Isaiah 10:18…

And because it partakes so much of the Nature of a Law, and has such Resemblance to it, it is in a few Places of Scripture called a Law, without Dispute. Isaiah 2:3. The Law shall go forth from Zion.

It is a Believing in Christ, which perhaps ought rather to be rendered Trusting in Christ. Isaiah 2:10 compared with Romans 15:12. In him shall the Gentiles trust, 2 Timothy 1:12.

Let the covetous, and ambitious, declare freely, even those of them that have prospered most in their pursuit of riches, and honor, what ease all their possessions, or titles do then help them to, whether their pains are the less, because their chests are full, or their houses s…

For drunkards are not contented to become beasts themselves: but they do also draw others. And riot has always this inconvenience with it, that men encourage one another to drinking, saying: come on, let us eat and drink, after the same manner that the Prophet Isaiah speaks of (…

Man's mercy is large when it reaches to seven times — what is God, then, that reaches to more than seventy times seven in a day! (Matthew 18:21). When good men have prayed, "Lord, forgive them not" (Isaiah 2:9; Jeremiah 18:23), yet God has pardoned: and when himself was so put t…

Succor them also by all other means. [illegible] you according to your power and place, to [illegible] them under the means of grace; As they said one [illegible] another, (Isaiah 2:3) Come let us go up to the house [illegible] the Lord, he will teach us of his ways. And as [ill…

2. Because he chose — with a Covenant choice — the Jews and their seed (Deuteronomy 4:37, Deuteronomy 10:15, Genesis 17:7), then he must be the God of their seed. But he chooses with a Covenant choice and calling all the Nations (Isaiah 2:2-3), all the families of the earth unde…

(3.) From Covenant prayers and church prayers — contrary to (1 Samuel 12; Psalm 28:9; Psalm 67:1-2; Psalm 103:4-5). (4.) From the blessing of the Lord's Covenant-presence, who dwells in the Nation, in the Kingdom (Psalm 135:21, Psalm 132:13-14, Revelation 11:15, Isaiah 19:25, Is…

Q. 1. If multitudes and people externally covenanted with God, though not internally, whom the Lord calls his people and chosen by him (Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 10:15), be the rightly constituted and visible church, as Mr. Thomas Hooker grants, then kingdoms must be his visi…

2. The Anabaptists from these places say none are to be baptized, but such as are so in Covenant, and as have these promises fulfilled in them, in whom the Lord has wrought a new heart, and a new spirit; and that there is no external covenanting under the New Testament. But then…

Sitting still is a ceasing from relying upon the Chariots and strength of Egypt, as being dead to them: For thus says the Lord, the holy One of Israel, in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and you would not. And 4. his…

Now this must be given to Christ by promise (Galatians 3:16). Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he says not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, which is Christ: He cannot well mean mystical Christ, that is, Christ and all his, for they a…

For as he shall visibly and gloriously appear in his human nature exalted in the supreme place of judicature, and invested with sovereign power and authority over all flesh (Daniel 7:13, Matthew 24:30, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, Romans 14:10), so he shall act the power and omniscienc…

And this woeful privilege he has, namely, he can go down to the pit, more quietly, and with less disturbance than otherwise he could. Some make it manifest what they are: (Isaiah 3:9; 2 Timothy 5:24). Others (as it were) steal down to Hell more quietly; others don't suspect them…

And when I have opened this a little, you will further see what it is, that I exhort, and direct you to. 1. Some do openly and manifestly reject the government of Christ Jesus: they live in open rebellion against him (Isaiah 3:9). They practically say as (Luke 19:14, 27), We wil…

This reproof falls heavy upon the Atheists of this Age, who are so far from loving God, that they do all they can to spite Him; They declare their sin as Sodom, Isaiah 3:9. They set their mouth against the Heavens, in pride and blasphemy, and bid open defiance to God;

You may eat and not have enough, be clothed and not warm, earn wages and put it in a broken bag (Haggai 1:6), if God does not bless you. This blessing of God is called the staff of bread (Isaiah 3:1). In bread there be two things, the substance and the virtue thereof proceeding…

Saul was checked for sparing the best: justice is not dazzled with outward splendor. The Lord threatens to punish the dainty daughters of Sion with a scab (Isaiah 3:17), etc. 4. Not any society or multitudes of men: he spared not the old world (2 Peter 2:5).

2. For evil, so it notes his anger and vindictive justice. Isaiah 3:8. Their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory. Kindness and anger appear first in the eye, one by its pleasantness, the other by its redness.

They are avowedly servants of Sin to death (v. 16), and are not ashamed of it. The show of their countenance does witness against them; they declare their Sin as Sodom; they hide it not (Isaiah 3:9). Such are those described (Ephesians 4:18, 19), and such the world is filled wit…

That is, of them of old time (Matthew 5:21). In the third signification we find the word (Isaiah 3), where the Lord says, that he would take away from Israel the prudent and the ancient, vezaken; that is, the worthies among them, and such as were respected for wisdom. The same w…

It is not to bee thought there were many preaching Elders in a small village, hee speaketh in the plurall, Precor ut jubeas Presbyteros ejusdem loci &c. Basilius M[illegible]gnus in his Commentary upon Isaiah 3:2, where the Lord threatens to take away from Israel the Ancient, or…

You may eat, and not have enough, be clothed and not warm, earn wages, and put it in a broken bag (Haggai 1:6), if God do not bless you. This blessing of God is called the staff of bread (Isaiah 3:1). In bread there be two things, the substance, and the virtue from God's blessin…

(Ruth 3:9) To whom he said: who are you? which said: I am Ruth your handmaid: that you may spread your wing over your handmaid, because you are the kinsman. (Isaiah 3:28) In that day shall seven women take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own meat, and put on our own clo…

The other two, of things of the life to come. The first is disposed in an axiom simple of the subject, and the adjoint, God's giving, occupied in providing bread, saying thus: Give us that which is not in our power, and whereof we are unworthy (Deuteronomy 8:18), even bread, tha…

And it cannot be otherwise, whether we look, first, to the holy nature of God who has a complacency in holiness, as it is said (Psalm 11:7): The righteous Lord loves righteousness, his countenance does behold the upright. Or whether, second, we look to the word of God, which (Is…

So the Lord burdens his people with this (Jeremiah 3:3): "And you had a whore's forehead, you refused to blush." (Isaiah 3:9) "The show of their countenance (that cannot blush at sin) does witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom — they hid it not." (Zephaniah 3…

They then offend, that being but ordinary persons and living by trades, yet for their diet and apparel, are as great gentlemen and gentlewomen. Thirdly, liberty is abused when the blessings of God are made instruments and (as it were) flags and banners to display our riot, vanit…

Now this may be done three waies, either ignorātly as whēPaul gloried in his cruel persecuting of the Saints before his cōuersion, Act 26:11. or presumptuously, when men glorie in wickednes, notwithstanding they be perswaded in conscience, that it is euill: and then it is the…

But if by his ways, and the fruit of the [reconstructed: doings], [reconstructed: i]s meant only the actions of his body, what need of [reconstructed: searching] the heart and reins, in order to know them? Hezekiah in his [reconstructed: sic]kness [reconstructed: pleaded] his pr…

Therefore Solomon that wise prince says of himself (Ecclesiastes 2:8), and he puts it among his princely works, I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings: when the wise men came to Christ, the first thing they offered him was gold, and they did wisel…

6. Faith is the grace that makes a man valiant and victorious, as all the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 11) proves. Again, if we consider the neck, as it is commended here, as being like a tower for uprightness and straightness; it signifies a quiet serene mind, and a confident bo…

4. The last step is, "They took away my veil from me": the word that is rendered veil comes from a root that signifies to subdue, it is that same word which we have (Psalm 144:2): "who subdues the people," etc. It had a threefold use: 1. for decoration, as in Isaiah 3:23; 2. for…

"You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear your God." God has put a signal honor upon it, by styling himself the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9), and he threatens it as a great judgment upon a people (Isaiah 3:5), that the children shall b…

Thus under the prohibition of idolatry falls the prohibition of the feasting in the idol-temples, and eating meats sacrificed to them, as being too evident a sign and tessera of our communion with them. So in the same command wherein pride is forbidden, (which is chiefly the fir…

Such expressions of pride have been to be found in professors, and have been more latent; but I shall speak of the more gross and open expressions, which have been general in the city. We read of the pride of the daughters of Jerusalem (Isaiah 3:16, etc.). They were haughty, and…

It is not every degree of scarcity of bread that presently makes a famine, but a general failing of it; when no bread is to be had, or that which is, yields no nutriment. For a famine may as well be occasioned by God's taking away panis nutrimentum, the nourishing virtue of brea…

What egregious fools then are disobedient children: they regard neither God, their parents, nor themselves, but deprive themselves of their eternal happiness, hinder their welfare, and shorten their days. Fitly hereupon I may apply to undutiful children these words of the Psalmi…

Pride betrays itself either by a disdain of inferiors, neglect of equals, or contempt of superiors. Now of all the other, this is the most offensive, because there is more to check it; therefore it is threatened as a great disorder (Isaiah 3:4-5), that the base should rise again…

In their security they will believe nothing but what they feel. 4. The bane which comes to communities and societies from the increase of the wicked, especially when their wickedness grows to a height; that is, when it is committed with boldness (Isaiah 3:9): They declare their…

And when a good customer calls you, covetousness is likely to make you do like him; rather than men will lose their gain, they will cry up Diana, though they cry down godliness and God himself (Acts 19:23-28). 7. Take heed of abusing and grinding the face of the poor (Isaiah 3:1…

It is from pride that young men do not show that respect to their superiors, or to aged ones, which God commands them to do. The child will behave himself proudly against the ancient (Isaiah 3:5). Such especially whose parts and abilities are through age decayed: proud youth des…

The word though it ever speaks against the corruptions of those that are sincere hearted, yet it ever [illegible] sentence on their [illegible] both for the acceptation of their persons and the happiness of that condition they are in through grace, and if it appear other to them…

There is no promise made to any natural man whereby he can challenge this at the hands of the Lord: All men by nature are children of [reconstructed: wrath] (Ephesians 2:3). Heirs of perdition — if they have their own place it is hell, if they have no more but their own portion,…

They mind nothing that is good, but are wholly addicted to vanity and debauchery, and yet they can boast of their church privileges, and bolster themselves up in wickedness by them: such were they (Jeremiah 7:9, 10). The very lives and conversations of these declared them to be…

2. It is to lean and rest the body (2 Samuel 1:6): Saul leaned upon his spear, and by a metaphor it is to cast the burden upon the Lord (Isaiah 50:10; Psalm 55:22). Hence the word that notes a staff (2 Samuel 22:18; Isaiah 3): the Lord has broken the stay and the staff of bread…

5. It necessarily must follow, if it be sin to eat, because the non-converted have no spiritual right in Christ, to bread, the converted may spoil by their grounds, all the non-converted, of their goods, houses, gold, gardens, vineyards, lands, and upon the same ground, for the…

There must be a deadening to our country and Mother-Church, that the glory of justice may shine; indeed to our father's grave, our own bed, our own fireside. 13. The Lord would have Isaiah and the godly dead to laws and government, to vision and prophesying, when judge and proph…

I have made some Enquiry about that matter, and finde it to be a general observation, That in many Plantations round about, in one or two years time, a great number of aged Christians have been hid in their graves. The taking away of the Ancient, is mentioned as an ominous sign…

Hath it not been told that others have boasted how many they have debauched and made drunk? Thus, they declare their sin as Sodom, (Isaiah 3:9). Nay, mens sins are grown daring; as if they would hang out their flag of defiance, and give Heaven a broad-side.

There are many threatenings in the Word of God against wicked men, and many promises to the righteous. The sum and scope of the whole Bible is declared in those few words (Isaiah 3:10, 11): "Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with him; woe to the wicked it shall be ill…

May we not see many who have formerly been of esteem in ways of profession, become daily a scorn and reproach through their miscarriages, and that justly, to the men of the world? Is it not with them as it was of old with the daughters of Zion (Isaiah 3:24) when God judged them…

Alas man, the time is at hand when all will be undone, and be forced to cry out, Woe, woe, woe, that ever they were born; but those only who have made me the joy and delight of their hearts say to the righteous, it shall go well with him. Woe to the wicked, it shall go ill with…

2. As sin is a blackness contrary to the innocency that the Law requires, and as it blots and defiles the soul, it is a Macula, a spot, a filthy and deformed thing, abasing the creature, making the creature black, crooked, defiled, like the skin of the Ethiopian, or spotted like…

Consider, our league with Hell and Death will not do (Isaiah 28:18). We may go down to Egypt and ride upon horses, but these shall not save us (Isaiah 3[illegible] beginning), though we should add to own the strength of all the creation, and engage the whole world in our quarrel…

A rod out of the stem, and a branch out of the roots of Jesse (chapter 11:1). Hence he is frequently called the Branch, and the Branch of the Lord (Isaiah 4:2; Jeremiah 23:5; chapter 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; chapter 6:12). But the first, which is the most proper sense of the words,…

The children of Israel were traveling from Egypt to the land of Canaan full forty years, whereas they might have gone the journey in forty days. Their way was through the wilderness of Arabia, their guides were a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night (Isaiah 4:5)…

In the third place, you shall find Reformation to be a refining fire, in reference to a people or Church reformed. He that is left in Zion shall be called holy, says the Prophet, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the b…

God has a book of providence wherein he writes down who shall be preserved, and this book Moses understands (Exodus 32:33): Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book — not the book of election; no names written there are blotted out, but out of the book of pr…

And that's the note from there: That sin will empty a land of all the blessings God has bestowed, or empty a family, or person. Sin is an emptying thing, sin empties lands, and families, and persons of all their outward comforts, in (Isaiah 4:11) there God threatens the line of…

And they were protected by the cloud that went with them; as the Witnesses are said to be caught up to Heaven in a cloud. Compare this with Isaiah 4:5: And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the sh…

2. There is a providence of grace, as there is in God a special love of free grace; the good and the bad figs are not in the same invisible basket; there is a pavilion, a cabinet of silk in God's private chamber, seen by no eye (Psalm 27:5). And upon all the glory shall be a cov…

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…

This the Prophets foretold that he should be God, and the Son of God (Micah 5:2). His going forth is from everlasting, though born at Bethlehem; so the bud of the Lord, and the fruit of the earth (Isaiah 4:2). The man God's fellow (Zechariah 13:7), and in many other places the u…

This garment serues not onely for a couering of our shame, but also for protection. Isa 4:6. And if we be taken away in any common judgment, being clothed with Christ, there is no more hurt done to vs then to him: and he carris vs in his brest, as if we were part of his bowells.

Hence the Lord Jesus Christ in his Work by his Spirit is at once compared to a Refiners Fire and to Fullers Sope, Mal. 3. 2, 3. because of the purging purifying Qualities that are in Fire and Water. And the Holy Ghost is expresly called a Spirit of Burning, Isa. 4. 4. For by him…

Rom. 8. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. 1 Cor. 6. 11. 1 Pet. 1. 2. Isa. 4. 4. chap. 44. 3, 4. Titus 3. 4, 5.

Doth God miraculously suspend the power of natural Causes, as in the first Demand was opened? Why, this is no accidental thing, but what harmonizeth with the word, Isaiah 4:3 2. When you passest through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overf…

By all which, and divers other ways, the Lord has abundantly testified his delight in this sacrifice of his people; now as the Saints are bound to pray for all men, of what sort soever (1 Timothy 2:1, 2) unless they are such as sin to death (1 John 5:16) yes for their persecutor…

It answers exactly to the Hebrew [in non-Latin alphabet], or [in non-Latin alphabet]; that is, the Morning Light (Proverbs 4:18), The path of the righteous, [in non-Latin alphabet], ut Lux splendoris, Hierom; as the light of Brightness; that is, of the Morning, [in non-Latin alp…

And this whole Prophesie is not a little perverted by them, who apply it to the defeat of Resin and Pekah when they came against Jerusalem, and who in their Annotations on the Scripture, whereby they have won to themselves a great Reputation in the world, seldom depart from the…

In the fire there was direction, in the cloud protection, and mercy in both. So (Isaiah 4:5), God promises to create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies a cloud. Which is expounded in the close of the verse: For upon all his glory (his Church and Sai…

In the exhortation or invitation, consider: 1. the party invited, or called. 2. The duty called for. 3. Its repetition. The party called, is a Shulamite: this word comes either from Solomon, as the husband's name is named over the wife (Isaiah 4:1), and it is from the same root…

So (Exodus 14:19, 20, 24) this protected them from the Egyptians, and from there God troubled their enemies; out of the pillar, that is from his especial presence. This use of it is insisted on (Isaiah 4:5, 6). The cloud that was as smoke by day, and as fire by night; was also a…

1. This is an interest comprehensive of all the sons of Sion, whose founding God intends; it excludes none that can claime a share in the city of the living God. God takes equall care of all the dwelling places of Sion; every dwelling place of Sion, has its beauty, has its glory…

It seems to be a prophecy of the greater purity of those who are visibly in Covenant with God. Isaiah 4:3. And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remains in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living [that is, ha…

No inheritance is better defended and secured than the Lord's inheritance (Psalm 125:2): "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people." So careful is he for their safety, that he creates upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her…

When a man has done all this, you must go to God, and beseech him that he would melt that solder, as it were, that he would make a dissolution, that he would sever your soul, and the lust that cleaves so fast to it. That which made the soul, and the object to cleave so fast toge…

What is there in them, or amongst them, that makes joining with them to be so desireable? First, that point we handled before, might be enough to show the reason of this: they are the excellent of the earth, Isaiah 43:4 I do not now speak of them particularly, though every Saint…

Inward beauty and glory is here expressed by that of outward shape, form and appearance; because that was so much esteemed in those who were to rule or govern. Isaiah 4:2. The Prophet terming of him the BRANCH of the Lord, and the fruit of the earth, affirms that he shall be bea…

Because he is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, he is made unto us wisdom, and so on (1 Corinthians 1:30). Thus the branch of the Lord is beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth is excellent, and comely to them that are escaped of Israel (Isaiah 4:2). This is t…

2. By a real, physical efficiency on the root and habit of sin, for the weakening, destroying and taking it away. Hence he is called a Spirit of judgment and burning (Isaiah 4:4), really consuming and destroying our lusts. He takes away the stony heart by an almighty efficiency;…

But poor creatures! they labor in the fire, and their work consumes. When the Spirit of Christ comes to this work, he will be as refiner's fire, and as fuller's soap, and he will purge men as gold and silver (Malachi 3:3), take away their dross and tin, their filth and blood (Is…

Yet so they did hope that they should be exalted again, indeed a great deal more honorably, and set in higher authority than at any time before, when they lived in abominable wickedness, in all dissolute behavior, having their hearts hardened, so that they could not repent. They…

In short, the Word of God assures us of the gracious presence of God here in the midst of our afflictions, and the eternal enjoyment of God hereafter; that he will be with us in our houses of clay, or we shall shortly be with him in his palace of glory; and so here is matter of…

2. When he loses his comfort and confidence in God, for that is a sign we live upon the creature, and cannot trust God without the creature. Man knows how to put a cheat upon his own heart; when he has all things at full, then he talks of living by faith: as those women who woul…

Isa. 4:5.—Upon all the glory shall be a defence. The design of this chapter is to give in relief against outward perplexing extremities from Gospel promises, and the presence of Christ with his people in those extremities.

So God accounts himself injured when any wrong is done to you upon whom his name is called. Isaiah 4:5-6: 'Although,' says the Lord, 'they may seem to be helpless — notwithstanding this,' says the Lord, 'fear not: I will create a cloud by day and a flaming fire by night.' That i…

All that nature can reach to us, is to see the nobility of my birth, the honest civility of my parents, etc., but faith sees his father was a Moabite, and his mother an Ammonite, born in sin, and this he lays hold on, and takes it home for his good, and walks in the sense thereo…

It is a peculiar end of the electing love of the Father (Ephesians 1:4): He has chosen us that we should be holy and unblameable. So (Isaiah 4:3, 4): his aim and design in choosing of us was, that we should be holy, and unblameable before him in love. This he is to accomplish, a…

'Tis with a sinner as with a sick patient, his palate is distempered, the sweetest things taste bitter to him. The Word, which is sweeter than the honeycomb, tastes bitter to him (Isaiah 5:20); they put sweet for bitter. Thus, a disease, and nothing can cure this disease but the…

If this sin of drunkenness be not reformed, I pray God the sword be not made drunk with blood. And whereas some will go to shift off this sin from themselves that they are no drunkards, because they have not drunk away their reason and senses; they are not so far gone in drink t…

Ever since Adam did eat of the Tree of Knowledge, and his eyes were opened, we lost our eyesight. Besides ignorance in the mind, there is error and mistake, we do not judge rightly of things, we put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 5:20). Besides this, there is muc…

When we give our testimony for a person that is criminal and guilty, we justify him as if he were innocent. Which justify the wicked for reward (Isaiah 5:23). He that goes to make a wicked man just, makes himself unjust.

Indeed, he derides God's threatenings. Isaiah 5:19: Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it. We have heard much what God intends to do, and of judgment [reconstructed: approaching], we would fain see it.

Fourth, in short, that pleasure men talk of in sin, is their disease; some take pleasure in eating chalk, or coals, this is from their disease. So when men talk of pleasure in eating the forbidden fruit, it is from the sickness and disease of their souls; they put bitter for swe…

And as man is not able to satisfy, so till satisfaction be made, the Law cannot, will not give him an acquittance; if once it lays the debtor in prison, there is no hope of a jail delivery till the last mite be paid (Luke 12, ult.). 3. The justice of God; by virtue whereof he ne…

What natural, or carnal affections may be excited by them, as men may inflame themselves with idols (Isaiah 57:5), or what outward, outside devotion they may direct to or excite, is uncertain; but that they are no means of stirring up the grace of God in the hearts of believers,…

Q. And why did God give this great advancement to Christ? A. Because the Son did voluntarily humble himself to the greatest degree of obedience and humiliation; therefore the Father gave to him this exaltation and advancement, as a reward and recompense of that his humiliation (…

Therefore those that do truly believe cannot but persevere. Object. I. Isaiah 5:3. O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard: what could I have done any more to my vineyard that I have not done to it?

But what can befall such men? But that that Isaiah prophesies to them, (Isaiah 5:8) Woe be unto them that join house to house, and land to land, till there be no place for the poor to dwell in. Thirdly, in that Abraham lived thus, as ready ever to depart into any other country,…

He had before treated directly only of unfruitful and apostatizing professors, whom here he represents by unprofitable ground, and God's dealing with them as men do with such ground when they have tilled it in vain. For the Church is a vine or vineyard, and God is the husbandman…

In his dealing with them, he will leave no color of calling his goodness and faithfulness into question, but will as it were refer the righteousness of his proceedings to all, even to themselves. So he does as to his dealing with the Church of the Jews when it was grown utterly…

You must be planted with a right seed; a wild vine will yield but wild grapes: the trees of righteousness are of the Lord's own planting (Isaiah 61:3), and when you are grafted into the Noble Vine, Christ Jesus, then are you loaden with clusters, like the Vine of Eshcol, (John 1…

He views the creatures as they came into being and pronounced them good, he takes a review of them afterward in their whole frame, and the subordination of them to one another, and the ends he had destined them to, and then pronounces them very good; the merciful providences of…

Ninthly, they are as stubble, and as stubble fully dry, ready for the fire, in Nahum 1:10. Tenthly, they are as rottenness, and their root is rottenness (Isaiah 5:24). And then, they are as scum, in Ezekiel 24:12.

Apostates have proved to be the most desperate enemies to the truths of God of any in the world; take heed therefore of the strangeness of your hearts from the truths of God lest you afterwards prove to be an enemy to God; it's an evil thing to account the Law of God a strange t…

We had never so many rank Christians as we have at this day that grow out in luxurious branches, and they think they have over-topt all, because they can talk more than others do, when as there are some poor Christians that grow low to the ground, and when they get a little comf…

Israel is an empty Vine. The Church is often in Scripture compared to a Vine, in Psalms 80:8. "You have brought a Vine out of Egypt: you have cast out the Heathen and planted it." And in that known place Isaiah 5:1. "Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved, touch…

As you shall see a man or woman when their passion is raised they will run and snatch away such a thing from another. Take heed of being violent in the ways of sin, you will cast the cords away, you will cast away the truths, as you had it before in Isaiah 5. So you cast away th…

Thus it is with many professors at the time when God expects fruit, now they are sapless, now they are corrupt fruit, they are dried up by the root, and what are they fitted for but for the fire? And then God has his time to dry up the root of nations, in Isaiah 5:24. Now we mig…

Oppression and injustice in places where God expects righteousness and equity, is a sad omen, a forerunner of great evil to places. It's God's complaint in Isaiah 5. Just before he threatened the utter spoiling of his vineyard, he gives this reason, I (says he) looked that it sh…

The Lord has smote us with a dreadful stroke and still he continues smiting of us. That Scripture in Isaiah 5:25 is made good upon us this day, The anger of the Lord is kindled against his people, and he has stretched forth his hand against them, and has smitten them, (mark what…

Waters in Scripture language very often signify provision and supplies, both temporal and spiritual; as in Proverbs 9:17, Isaiah 33:16, 43:20, 55:1, and 58:11, Jeremiah 2:13 and 18, 17:8 and 13, and in other places innumerable. The temporal supplies of a people are very often in…

So then justification is not to be considered, as God's creating, and infusing of gracious habits in us; but the declaring of us to be free, and acquitted from the guilt of sin, upon the account of Christ's satisfying for our debt. This we will find to be very clear, if we consi…

For clearing of this a little more, consider that this resting may be looked on, either passively, or actively; passively, in respect of the believer's acquiescing in Christ, and assuring himself that all shall be well; this is not that act of faith that is called for to justifi…

And (Revelation 22:17), "Whoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely" — it is not only, to say so with reverence, those whom He wills, but it is, whoever will; and so if you want to come, grace puts the offer into your hand, as it were, to carve on; to let us…

But we differ little in our aims from beasts, when the intention rises no higher than this side of clay and time (Psalm 49:11). That our houses may continue (Isaiah 5:8). That we may be placed, alone on the earth.

Many generations of hirelings have ended their day's task, and have now their wages, many shadows are gone down, many actors have closed their game, as it may be, and some have fulfilled their course with joy, and are now within the curtain, since the creation. 7. It is a poor n…

Just as Paul complains of the Jews (Acts 13:46), since you have put it away from you, lo, we turn to the Gentiles, we purge and cast out the motions of God's spirit, and cannot endure that any Ordinance should bring us nearer to Christ. (Acts 7:51) You have always resisted the H…

For that which is the end of God's laws, must also be the end of all good laws in all commonwealths and kingdoms, namely, to shut up the people into the unity of one faith. The Church of the Jews, is called a fountain sealed, a garden enclosed (Song of Songs 4:12), a vineyard he…

The fourth and last point, contains the remedies of this euill, which are the rather to be considered, because it is a great sinne, one of those seuen which the Lord does most of all detest, Prou. 6. 17. a dangerous sinne, hauing a heauie woe attending upon it, Woe to them that…

For how can they have the Spirit of God, which have not the Word of God? And therefore they do nothing else but call light darkness and darkness light, as it is said (Isaiah 5). This Word of God is the Gospel, whereby we are through Christ redeemed from sin, death, and Hell: he…

Be not wise in your own Conceits. And brings Men under that Woe, Isaiah 5:21. Woe unto them that are wise in their own Eyes, and prudent in their own Sight.

Hence two things do ensue: (1.) That the use of those means to Men in the state of Sin, if they are not complyed withal, is sufficient on the grounds before laid down, to leave them by whom they are rejected inexcusable; so Isa. 5. 3, 4, 5. Prov. 29. 1. 2 Chron. 36. 14, 15.

If God plant, and fence, and water you by Providence, sure he looks you should bring forth fruit. Isaiah 5. 1, 2, 3, 4. O that in return for all the benefits of Providence, you would say to God, as grateful Elisha said to the Shunamite, behold you hast been careful for us with a…

To be of an heedless inobservant temper is very displeasing to God; and so much appears by that Scripture, Isaiah 26:11 Lord when your hand is lifted up they will not see. Nay, it is a sin, which God threatens and denounces woe against in his Word, Psalm 28. 4, 5. and Isaiah 5.…

It is an elegant metaphor frequent in Scripture, showing that as when a field is well hedged, or a town well walled and entrenched, then it is safe. So when God is said to make a hedge or a wall about a man or about a nation, the safety of that man or nation is assured by it (Is…

For clearing the first; Consider, that the visible Church is often compared in Scripture to a Vineyard (Matthew 21:33). And the particular professors, especially believers, are as the vine-trees that grow in it; So (Isaiah 5:7), The Vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel, c…

3. They are furnished with many excellent graces, fruits of the Spirit, which are planted in them as flowers in a garden (Galatians 5:21). Next, this garden is enclosed: it is a special property of gardens to be so; to be enclosed is by a wall or hedge to be fenced from the tram…

4. It's not a commendable shamefastness, but must needs be a very sinful modesty, that keeps one from duty: It was indeed more shameful to lie still, than to rise. Her second ground is of the same nature, I have washed my feet: washing the feet, fitted and prepared for rest; men…

For explaining of the first, we are first to remember, that by Solomon, we are to understand Christ; for, as ever hitherto, so here, the Allegory is continued, to express and set forth Christ in his way with his Church, under that name. Next, the Vineyard here is [reconstructed:…

2. If the same allegories in other places of Scripture, will bear solid doctrines concerning Christ, his covenant, faith, etc. even such as are in plain Scriptures; then must this Song do the like, seeing it is the word of God, tending to the same scope with these. But it is cle…

What could the Lord have done more to his vineyard than he has done? Therefore then when he looked for grapes, brought it forth only leaves, or wild grapes? (Luke 13; Isaiah 5:4-6) And is it then to be wondered at, if the Lord pluck down the hedge thereof, that it might be eaten…

The Scripture compares the church to a vineyard, and particular souls to vine-trees that must bring forth grapes: and indeed a vine is good for nothing if it be not fruitful: not so much as to make a pin of, to hang a vessel upon. Now let us consider, if God have not done as muc…

And do you call this a pleasure? Surely you put bitter for sweet (Isaiah 5:20). The pleasures of sin gratify only the sensitive part of man, not the rational.

The meaning is, I will send a more fearful judgment, than that of the famine of bread; for this particle [not] is not exclusive, but excessive — implying, that a famine of bread is nothing, or but a light judgment, compared with the famine of the word. Parallel to which is that…

Surely it should be said of every soul that grows here, as the historian says of Spain, that there is nihil infructuosum, nihil sterile; nothing barren or unfruitful in it. God's vineyard is planted in a very fruitful hill (Isaiah 5:1). And surely they that are planted in the ho…

It is as good husbandry to keep what we have, as to acquire more than we had. "My well-beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and he fenced it" (Isaiah 5:1-2). No inheritance is better defended and secured than the Lord's inheritance (Psalm 125:2): "As the mountains are…

But as for those in whom there are no seeds of saving grace sown, but they yet remain in their natural estate, folly is bound up in their hearts, and they have no other principle in them. As to their understandings, they are foolish and perverse, they call evil good, and good ev…

Enunciatur hic locus de Christo, 'tis spoken of Christ. There are several names given to Christ as a Prophet: He is called the Counsellor (Isaiah 6:9). In uno Christo Angelus faederis completur, Fagius.

Use 2. If God be infinite in his glorious essence, learn to admire where you cannot fathom. The angels wear a veil, they cover their faces, as adoring this infinite majesty (Isaiah 6:3). Elias wrapped himself in a mantle when God's glory passed by; admire where you cannot fathom…

God is to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. The Seraphims who stood about God's throne covered their faces (Isaiah 6). And Elijah wrapped himself in a mantle when the Lord passed by, in token of reverence.

That anger is without sin, which is against sin; but that is an evil tongue, which is presently blown up into exorbitant passion; this tongue is set on fire from hell. Isaiah's lips were touched with a coal from the altar (Isaiah 6). His tongue was set on fire from heaven; but t…

He is the holy one (Job 6:10). Seraphims cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3). His power makes him mighty, his holiness makes him glorious.

And when men harden their hearts willfully, God hardens them judicially. Isaiah 6:8. Make their ears heavy. The word to these is ineffectual.

Proverbs 8:22 to the 31: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways; before his works of old: I was set up from everlasting, in the beginning or ever the Earth was, when there were no depths, I was brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with waters, before…

Q. Though there be but one God, yet is there not more persons, or subsistences in the Godhead than one? A. Yes; the Scriptures do apparently witness that in the unity of the divine essence, there is a plurality of the divine persons (Genesis 1:26 & 3:22 & 11:7; Isaiah 6:8 & 41:2…

A most fearful thing, if we well consider it, that both by preaching and making the Ark, he should not turn one of the sons of Lamech, Methushelah, or Henoch, to believe him: but that they should all rather choose to be misled in the general vanity of that wicked world, than to…

The most High God is the glorious God with whom is terrible majesty. To represent them it is said, that his throne is high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1). And he is called the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:17).

This may fall out sometimes. Hence the Prophet in his consternation at the appearance of the glory of God to him, cried out he was undone, not only because of his own sinful defilements, but because of the uncleanness of the people among whom he dwelt (Isaiah 6:5). And on this g…

Most as to the derivation of the name follow Kimchi; who affirms the letter Caph to be servile and a note of similitude; and the word to signify a youth or a child. Such these images are thought to represent; only they had wings instead of arms, as we now usually paint Angels; f…

And hence those who of old thought they had seen God, concluded that they should dye, as being sensible of their incapacity to treat immediately with him. So when the Prophet cried out that he was undone or cut off, because of the immediate presence of God, his eyes having seen…

They would not before bear any fruit, and they shall not hereafter, being hardened by the just judgement of God to their everlasting ruin. So was fulfilled what was long before foretold (Isaiah 6:9, 10), as our Apostle declares (Acts 28:26, 27). In answer hereunto, our Apostle i…

We have the first fruits, &c. 3. When Christ is seen, it makes a person vile in his own eyes (Isaiah 6:5). When his eyes had seen the King, the Lord of Hosts, he cries [illegible]ut, I am unclean &c.

The same breath in the Ministry, that blows a godly man to Heaven, blows a profane sinner to Hell. They who come with the Word of Life in their mouth, yet to many are a savor of death, Isaiah 6.10. Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy.

Love lines the yoke of religion, and makes it easy (Matthew 11:13). As a bride delights in putting on her jewels, as a musician delights in playing on his viol, so a gracious soul delights in obeying God: love to duty is better than duty; serving God with delight is angelical: t…

2. Holy persons are only fit to preach the faith; sancta sanctis, holy men for holy things; 'tis a holy faith, and therefore fit to be managed by holy persons, that their hearts may carry a proportion with their work (Isaiah 52:11): "Be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lor…

'All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do' (Hebrews 4:13). Realize his infinite holiness — into what a serious, composed frame did the sight of God in his holiness put the spirit of the prophet (Isaiah 6:5)! Labor also to get up your heart due app…

So he dealt with many of the idolatrous Gentiles of old (Romans 1:24, 26, 28), and so continues to deal with the like profligate sinners. So he acts towards the generality of the Anti-christian world (2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12), and with many despisers of the Gospel (Isaiah 6:9,…

In the first way, God is said frequently to harden the hearts of men in their sins, and to their ruin, as he did with Pharaoh; and he does it in general two ways, (1.) by withholding from them those supplies of light, wisdom and understanding, without which they cannot understan…

Secondly, an inward voyce of the Spirit. This I collect out of Isaiah 6:9: Goe to that people and tell them, heare you indeed but not understand; see you indeed, but not perceive, that is, they shall have an outward hearing, an outward knowledge, but not an inward. There is a co…

And when God intends to break his Covenant with them, (because they broke theirs) then he dries up the root; and therefore in the next chapter you shall find that God charges them with dealing falsely in making a Covenant. And then, the godly among a people are as the root of th…

The affection, which is proper in the diligent consideration of them, is great reverence and sweet feeling of the glory of God, which any manner of way is found in them (Psalm 64:9-10; 104:34). We contrariwise, either wholly neglect them as (Isaiah 6:12), or else in lightness, &…

2. It is not a complaint as to one sermon, or as to one time, but it is a complaint frequently repeated as to many fruitless sermons, and as to many times, yes, generations. Isaiah preached long in many kings' reigns, and yet all along his prophecy he complains of it, as in Isai…

Unbelief straitens and shuts the door, and makes preaching become a very burden to a faithful minister, therefore the Apostle exhorts (Hebrews 13:17), Obey them that have the rule over you, and watch for your souls, that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is un…

So John his glorious soul-ravishing comforts, in seeing the seven golden candlesticks, and the Son of man in such glory and majesty, (Revelation 1:12-15) yet it appears to be a desertion that he is under, when Christ forbids him to fear, and when he must have the hand of Christ…

Answ. The argument is strong for us; the Apostle speaks of the Gospel-truth; but he will not have the Gospel preached to Samaritans (Matthew 10), to Bithinians, and thousands others. 2. He will not open the hearts of thousands that hear the Gospel, because he will (Matthew 11:28…

She could neither have loved him nor have sought him, nor have so known the worth of him, if he had not loved her first, and if she in some measure had not had him: But when she says she found him not, the meaning is, not in that feeling and comfort, not in that measure she soug…

Abraham was cast into great horror (Genesis 15:12) when God appeared solemnly to enter into covenant with him. So (Isaiah 6:5) Then I said, woe is me, for I am undone. So Daniel (Daniel 10:8-9) when I saw this great vision, there was no strength in me; for my comeliness was turn…

The words of the prophet were, Go, blind their minds, and harden their hearts, (Isaiah 6:10.) Matthew ascribes this to the hearers, that they may endure the blame of their own blindness and hardness; for the one cannot be separated from the other.

The holy Nature in the Saints and Angels in Heaven (where the true Tendency of it best appears) is principally engaged by the Holiness of divine Things. This is the divine Beauty which chiefly engages the Attention, Admiration and Praise of the bright and burning Seraphim; Isaia…

And his acting in the One is no less Holy than in the other, although Holiness be not the Effect of it in the Objects. So when he came to declare his dreadful Work of the final hardning and Rejection of the Jews, one of the most tremendous Effects of Divine Providence, a Work wh…

Wherefore in any Work of his, two things are to be considered; (1.) What the means he makes use of tend to in their own Nature; And (2.) what he intends by it; The first may be resisted and frustrated, but the latter cannot be so. Sometimes in and by that word which in its own N…

And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed — where it is obvious to observe, that the believing of the Gospel report owes itself to the revelation of God's arm; or requires the exerting of his power, agreeable to that of the Apostle, That you may know what is the exceeding grea…

Surely it is as oyl to the wheels, that makes them run of freely and nimbly their course. Thus when Isaiah had obtained a special manifestation of God, and the Lord askt, whom shall I send? he presents a ready soul for the employment, Isaiah 6:8 Here am I, Lord, send me. Why, th…

When the holiest men have addrest themselves to him, see with what humility and deep adoration they have spoken of him and to him! Isaiah 6:5 Wo is me for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have se…

There they wait upon him, to receive and execute his commands in all the affairs of his Kingdom. So are they everywhere described in the Scripture (Psalm 68 and 103; Daniel 7; Revelation 5; Isaiah 6, and elsewhere). And by this ministry of Angels does God insinuate to us the glo…

And Psalm 119:70 they call it absolutely [in non-Latin alphabet] the figment, or evil fomes, of the heart. [in non-Latin alphabet]; the figment of their heart is made thick or hard as with fatness; an expression not unusual in the Scripture to set out impenitency and security in…

This is the fiery property of the nature of God, whence he is called a Consuming fire, and Everlasting burnings: And the law whereon he had impressed some representation of it, is called a fiery law, as that which will consume and burn up whatever is perverse and evil. Hence the…

God for Christs sake beeing content to receive us for his sonnes and daughters. Which art in heaven] God is said to be in heaven, not as though he were included in the circle of the heavens: for the heavens, and the heavens of heavens, are not able to containe him, 1. king. 8. 2…

Obs. 1. Love will have a great out-letting at sometimes beyond others as if a dam were gathered, and then let out. 2. Sense of love in a high degree will straiten and weigh a believer, as overburdening and overpowering him, so as he is put to say, hold, and woe is me, as it is,…

And therefore we read in Scripture what dreadful apprehensions the best of God's saints have been possessed withal, after some extraordinary discoveries that God had made of himself to them. Thus Isaiah cries out (Isaiah 6:5), Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of un…

Fire, the noblest element, sparkles vigorously. The angels are described with wings (Isaiah 6:2), which is an emblem of their [reconstructed: swift] obedience. The more violent we are in religion, the more angelical we are.

Jeremiah 6:29: "Reprobate silver shall men call them, for the Lord has rejected them." Isaiah 6: "Go make the heart of this people fat, their ears dull, etc." Christ executes by the Gospel that curse upon many souls, which he denounced against the fig tree (Matthew 21:19): "Let…

Christ so buys with a price his own, that he carries them on to the purchased glory, and brings them actually to the fruition of life eternal; for Christ is an established high Priest to intercede for his own, and the intercession of Christ is nothing but a continual showering d…

He graciously inclines the will and hearts of men (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 32:39, 40; Ezekiel 36:27) as the saints pray (Psalms 119:33, 34, 36, 88; Psalms 86:11; Canticles 1. & 4). He hardens the heart, and blinds the mind, as in his judgment he pleases (Job 12:16; Ezekiel 14…

Now the elect Angels are the special messengers, and New Covenant officers, ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation (Hebrews 1:14). And the Angels (Ezekiel 1) are acted in all their motions by that Jehovah, whose glory Isaiah saw (Isai…

There are no passions in the glorified and perfectly meekened ones, who stand before the throne, but such as are pure and unmixed fire for the everlasting praises of God. Hence showers of influences eternally rain on them night and day without ceasing (Isaiah 6:2, 3, 4; Revelati…

The structure of the new Jerusalem, the twelve ports, the foundation of the wall, garnished with all manner of precious stones, the building of the wall of Jasper, what a bride the Lamb's wife is, as she is busked and adorned with the glory of God, what a joyful company of harpe…

4. That the Scripture is the Word of God is evident by its predictions; it prophesies of things to come. This shows the voice of God speaking in it; it was foretold by the prophet, a virgin shall conceive (Isaiah 7:14), and the Messiah shall be cut off (Daniel 9:26). The Scriptu…

Inflicting of punishment is called God's strange work (Isaiah 28:21); he is not used to it. And when the Lord would shave off the pride of a nation, he is said to hire a razor, as if he had none of his own (Isaiah 7:20): "He shall shave with a razor that is hired." He is slow to…

And these things are as it were the common notions of Christian religion; the common principles of our profession; which the Scriptures also abundantly testify to. Isaiah 7:14. Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bare a Son, and shall call his name Emanuel; that is, he shall be G…

But instead hereof God surprises them as it were with the most eminent promise of grace and mercy that ever was made or could be made to them. So he does in like manner (Isaiah 7:13, 14; chapter 54:17, 18, 19). And this he will do,

They had this promise still to plead, and rested therein, notwithstanding all the interveniencies which oft-times seemed to render the case of that people very desperate. See their faith expressed (Micah 7:18, 19, 20; Isaiah 7:13, 14, 15; chapter 53; Luke 1:70, 71, 72, 73). And…

(2) Because, they are hurtful and noxious, choaking and hindering good fruits, that otherwise would thrive in the field. So are thorns and briars represented in the Scripture as grieving, piercing and hurtful, and things that are so called by their name (Ezekiel 28:24; Micah 4:4…

The angels hearken for the voice of his word (Psalm 103). If he does but hiss for the fly of Egypt (Isaiah 7), 'tis ready presently. 'Tis ill contesting with him that can command legions; the fire says, Let me burn his house or dwelling place; the water says, Let me drown his sh…

In such times the best hearts are but too apt to be surprised by slavish fear; it is not easy to secure the heart against distraction in times of common destruction. If Syria be confederate with Ephraim, how do the hearts of the house of David shake, even as the trees of the woo…

2. When men have convictions of the irregularity and disorder of their affections, yet are resolved to continue in the state wherein they are, without the correction and amendment of them; because of some advantages and satisfaction, which they receive in their present state; th…

But to pursue what we proposed, namely, these several ways whereby the Scripture confirms this truth, and to this purpose consider: 1. The express titles and names that are given to him in Scripture, and some Scripture sayings of him which hold it out; three of which we shall in…

War and peace are from the free wills of men, as second causes, yet the Lord says, according to his absolute dominion, (Isaiah 45:7), I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. And (Isaiah 7:8), the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost pa…

To this head may be referred that of Hezekiah, who when he was sick of a mortal disease, and the Lord had extraordinarily promised him on his mourning, that he should be recovered again, he asks a sign for the confirmation of his faith, and God grants it him (2 Kings 20:8-9). An…

This is the great doctor of the church, now as to meekness above Moses, as to zeal above Elias, as to familiarity and communion, he was with God, and was God. 3. To show the old prophecies were fulfilled, which foretold the union of the two natures in his Person, the predictions…

Lastly, he gives good success in enterprises, and attempts, according to his own decree, and the order of divine providence: which metaphorically is called a reward (Ezekiel 29:19-20), because it has a similitude thereunto, as when wicked men through ignorance, do that wickedly,…

It does sometimes happen that, notwithstanding the opposition made by unbelievers, the Lord bestows and fulfills what he had promised to them. We have a remarkable instance of this in King Ahaz, who rejected the promised safety, and yet was delivered from his enemies, (Isaiah 7:…

Instances of this are so well known, that it would be of no use to quote them. 31. Behold, you shall conceive in your womb The angel adapts his words, first to Isaiah's prophecy, (Isaiah 7:14,) and next to other passages of the Prophets, with the view of affecting more powerfull…

That persuasion of the kindness of God, which had been formed in the mind of the virgin, led her to admit, in the fullest manner, that she had received a message as to raising up anew the throne of David. If it be objected that there was also another prediction, a virgin shall c…

We must now see how appropriately the prediction of Isaiah is applied. It is a well-known and remarkable passage, (Isaiah 7:14,) but perverted by the Jews with their accustomed malice; though the hatred of Christ and of truth, which they thus discover, is as blind and foolish as…

Hezekiah does not ask a sign, and it is offered to him, though unsolicited, (Isaiah 38:7, 8.) Ahaz is severely blamed for refusing to ask a sign, as the prophet had enjoined him to do, (Isaiah 7:11.) It is not solely, therefore, because they ask a sign, that Christ makes this at…

Sect. 14 It remaines only that we consider how the same Work of the Conception of Christ, is assigned to the Holy Ghost, and to the Blessed Virgin. For of Her it is said expresly in Prophesie. [[original in non-Latin script]], Isa. 7. 14. A Virgin shall Conceive; the same Word t…

Now he was made Heir of all, in that all things being made and formed by him, the Father committed to him as Mediator a peculiar power over all things, to be disposed of by him to all the ends of his mediation. So also being the natural and eternal Son of God, in, and upon the d…

The Messiah to be born of a Virgin. Isa. 7:10, 11. and Matth. 1.21, 22. Jews convinced that Jesus was born of a Virgin.

Or rather secondly, (as I conceive) for this reason, because such compassionate sorrows and mournings when our friends are under deep and sore afflictions, are usually expressed by moving the body, or at least moving some member of the body; as many times the hand is lifted up,…

It is said, 1. to be like the tower of Lebanon: There is no particular mention of such a tower, but, that Solomon built there a stately house (2 Chronicles 8:3), called the house of the forest of Lebanon, wherein (2 Chronicles 9:15-16) he put many targets and shields; and Lebano…

4. Though ministers be not masters, yet are they keepers, and have a special trust in the Church; they are intrusted with the affairs of Christ's house, for carrying on of his people's edification; which is a trust that no others have committed to them. The third thing in this v…

But with the kings of Israel it was not so; and therefore divine Providence exercised a continual care, through all the changes that happened through so many generations, and such a long space of time, to keep the crown of Judah in one direct line, in fulfilment of the everlasti…

Unbelievers are men who cannot be persuaded; the Gospel leaves as little impression on the heart as a ship on the Sea, or an Eagle in the Air, where the light of faith leaves not a spiritual capacity for receiving the impressions of the Spirit of grace, and where unbelief reigns…

What did not all the Prophets convince the world of sinful unbelief? Isaiah 7: If you believe not, you shall not be established. Isaiah 53: Who has believed our report?

1. We must be quiet as the air is quiet from winds. Disorderly passions are like stormy winds in the soul, they toss and hurry it, and often split, or strand, or overset it; they move it as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind; it is the prophet's comparison (Isaiah 7:2…

Some think, why should we look at the reward, we must look to the rule, and see that our obedience be accordingly: but know, if you do not look to the reward, you do not only hinder yourselves of the good you might have, but do sin against God in it. Here you deceive yourselves,…

Lord! what a mystery of love lies in this dispensation! That sin which first brought afflictions into the world, is now it self carried out of the world by affliction, Romans 5:12. Isaiah 7:9. O what can frustrate my Salvation, when those very things that [•]eem most to oppose i…

Though it may seem somewhat long to you, while you are under your trouble and perplexity, yet it shall surely come in the appointed time of the Lord Jesus, which is the best season. If then you can raise up your heart to a settled expectation of relief from Jesus Christ; if your…

And this is not only said I lay because he had the first thought of this great work, the model of it was in his mind from eternity, and that the accomplishment of it was by his Almighty power in the morning of his Son's birth, and his life, and death, and resurrection, but to si…

We are but worms and rottenness, and God's majesty is so high, as no man can say what it is, nor conceive the hundredth part of it in thought, but we must be content to be ravished to wonder at it. Seeing then that God has so linked himself to us, that he is the true Emmanuel (a…

It is a fretting of God, (Ezekiel 16:43).—4. It is a wearying of God, (Isaiah 7:13).—5. It is a breaking the heart of God, (Ezekiel 6:9).

1st Commandment: You shall have no other gods, etc. He breaks this commandment: who does not know the true God (Jeremiah 4:22); who denies God in his heart by denying his presence, justice, mercy, etc. (Psalm 14:1); who hates God and shows it by disobedience (Exodus 20:5; Romans…

Then said Gaius, Eat freely of this, for this is good to cheer up and strengthen your judgments and understandings. This was our Lord’s dish when he was a child: “Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” (Isaiah 7:15). Then they b…

And God requires of us that we should infallibly believe what he proposes unto us, at least when we have infallible evidence that it is from him. And as he appoints Faith unto this end, and approves of its Exercise, so he does both judge and condemn them who fail therein, 2 Chro…

Suppose it be in case of protection from enemies: if the Lord has given me Christ to save me from hell, then he will save me from these fleshly enemies much more. You shall see, in (Isaiah 7), a promise given that Syria should not prevail against Judah: they doubted of this; how…

And in three or four other places, upon several occasions, does our Savior lay all the wavering and staggering of his followers, as to any promised mercy, upon this score, as Matthew 6:30 and 8:26. Isaiah 7. Ahaz being afraid of the combination of Syria and Ephraim against him,…

2. As sin is a blackness contrary to the innocency that the Law requires, and as it blots and defiles the soul, it is a Macula, a spot, a filthy and deformed thing, abasing the creature, making the creature black, crooked, defiled, like the skin of the Ethiopian, or spotted like…

How shall I do this great evil and sin against God? (Genesis 39:9) And is it a small thing that you should weary God? (Isaiah 7:13) so that my sin against God or his prophets, is no small thing.

In a word; known to God are all his works: now what can possibly be imagined to be more contingent, than the killing of a man by the fall of an axe from out of his hand, who intended no such thing; yet this God assumes as his own work (Exodus 21:13; Deuteronomy 9:4-5), and so su…

Resp. 1. Externally, by his word (Psalm 119:105): Your word is a lamp to my feet. Such as pretend to have a light or revelation above the word, or contrary to it, never had their teaching from Christ (Isaiah 8:20). 2. Christ teaches these sacred mysteries, inwardly, by the Spiri…

And true child-like obedience must be regular, which implies three things: 1. It must be done by a right rule: Obedience must have the Word for its rule; Lydius Lapis (Isaiah 8:20). To the law, to the testimony.

He that believes makes not haste, (Isaiah 28:16). He will stay God's leisure; say not God has forsaken you, he will never lift up the light of his countenance, but rather say as the church, (Isaiah 8:17). I will wait upon the Lord which hides his face from the house of Jacob. 1.…

Response. The rule or measure we must examine ourselves by is the Holy Scripture: we must not make fancy, or the good opinion which others have of us, the rule by which we judge of ourselves. But as the goldsmith brings his gold to the touchstone, so must we bring our hearts to…

We may pray to be delivered from the evil of sin absolutely, but we must pray to be delivered from temporal evils conditionally, so far as God sees it fitting for us, and may stand with his glory. Use. In all the troubles that lie upon us, let us look up to God for ease and succ…

Isa. 6:1, 2, 3. I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up and his train filled the temple; above it stood the Seraphims, each one had six wings, with twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did flye: and one cryed to anoth…

Qu. 3. How then are these ways and means of the worship of God made known to us? Answ. In and by the written word only; which contains a full and perfect revelation of the will of God; as to his whole worship, and all the concernments of it: John 5:39, Isaiah 8:20, Luke 16:19, 2…

And it is suited to his whole work, to all the duties of it (2 Timothy 3:16, 17). In nothing but what is regulated hereby are any to be attended to (Isaiah 8:20). (3) His distinct Design lies in the due consideration of the spiritual state and condition of them to whom the Word…

I shall open this particular thus. We have the will of God revealed to us, in the Word of God: and the Word of God is complete, and perfect; there is no need to have it altered, by adding to it, or taking from it (Proverbs 30:5, 6; Revelation 22:18, 19), so that if in any case w…

He is a Father in respect of grace, because we are regenerate by him, and accepted to be his sons by adoption through the merit of Christ. And in this respect the second person as well as the first is called a Father, and said to have an offspring or seed and children (Isaiah 9:…

Testimony 2. Isaiah 8:20: To the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

It is a rare piece of Christian wisdom to turn those passions of the soul which most predominate into spiritual channels — to turn natural anger into spiritual zeal, natural mirth into holy cheerfulness, and natural fear into a holy dread and awe of God. This method of cure Chri…

Must God alter the scene of his affairs according to our model and platform, and because he does not observe our rules and methods, must we tear ourselves in anger? This is a secret cursing of God and flying in his face when we see providence so cross, that there seems to be no…

This question should be put to any that tender to us any way of worship, or doctrine of religion under any specious shew whatever; Where is it written? To the Law, and to the Testimony (Isaiah 8:20): If they speak not according to this Word, it is, because they have no light in…

Luther upon those words, says: it's an Hebraism; they have anxiously consulted. It's the way of the Hebrews so to express an anxious consultation, and for that he quotes that place in (Isaiah 8:10): Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught &c. So then the meaning would…

Agreeable to this, was the spirit of old Jacob, which he expressed when he was dying, in faith in the great promise made to him and Isaac and Abraham, that in their seed all the families of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 49:18): "I have waited for your salvation, O Lord."…

Hosea 5:15: I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early. Isaiah 8:17: I will wait upon the Lord, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. And when God, in answer…

See (Job 19:12-17): And there you see, brethren, acquaintance, kinsfolk, familiar friends, manservant, maidservant, wife, young children, bone, skin, flesh, are all to Job as coals of the fire of hell. And (Isaiah 8:21-22): Men in this shall curse their king, and their god. Asse…

For Christ rebukes the Sadducees, You err not knowing the Scriptures, etc., because they believed not the consequences of Scripture as Scripture, and made not the like discourse, for the building of themselves in the faith. 3. The searching of the Scriptures is life eternal, the…

(3) That Christ should taste death for all, it being as good, as if all in person had not only sipped, but drunk death out to the bottom, and yet that the greatest part must drink death to the bottom again, is no gospel truth. (4) Nor is the Apostle's argument of weight, to exal…

So that if a man will have God for his Savior, he must look to him from one end of the earth to the other, we are at the utmost corner of the earth, and if we will be saved we must look up to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, as David looked towards the Temple at Jerusalem fo…

But to judge of Prophets, by the fruit of their doctrine, Matth. 7. 16. and of their doctrine by the touch-stone of the word. Isa 8:20. so that though the Deuill transforme himselfe into an angel of light; in fact, though an angel from heauen preach any other thing, beside that…

Isaiah had said of his own age, "The Lord will be for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offense, to both the houses of Israel," (Isaiah 8:14) From that time, the Jews hardly ever ceased to dash themselves against God, but the rudest shock was against Christ.

On this subject we may remark, that Christian writers have very strangely misapprehended the prediction contained in the next chapter, by applying it to Christ. The prophet there says, that, instructed by a vision, he “went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son,…

Now as nothing is more displeasing to God than when men are so eager to go beyond due bounds, he forbids them to inquire of magicians and soothsayers respecting the truth, and to consult pretended oracles after the manner of the Gentiles; and in order to restrain that itching cu…

I reply, As but a small portion embraced the word by faith for salvation, this passage relates to the greater number or the whole body; as Isaiah, after having predicted the general destruction of the nation, is commanded to seal the law of God among the disciples, (Isaiah 8:16.…

and as Isaiah had foretold that the God of armies would be to the whole people of Israel a stone of stumbling, on which they would dash themselves, (Isaiah 8:14) the Lord wisely made provision that such wickedness of men should not perplex believing souls.

Indeed, fear not their fear, neither be troubled: But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: This place again has Saint Peter cited out of the Prophet Isaiah, where he has these words: Fear not their fear, neither be afraid of them: but sanctify God in your hearts, and let him be…

Note such men and avoid them; generally they are men of private interests, fleshly ends, high conceits, and proud spirits; from such turn away. So the latter part of the rule in particular, concerning seducers; that a judgement of discerning by the spirit rests in the Church, an…

Nor indeed is it suitable to common honesty, for men to question the credit, and prostitute the authority of their own most sacred principles, for no other end, but to prejudice their adversaries. But our Apostle here confidently sends the Hebrews to the acknowledged rule of the…

(1.) To seal, is to consummate, to establish, and confirm. Things are perfected, completed, established and confirmed by sealing (Jeremiah 34:44; Isaiah 8:16; John 3:34; Romans 4:11). In this sense, vision and prophecy were sealed in the Messiah.

And this kind of expression in the Scripture, when a thing is said to be called that which it is; the name denoting the being, nature, and quality of it, is so frequent, that there is nothing peculiar in it as here used. See (Isaiah 1:26; Isaiah 8:3; Isaiah 9:6; Jeremiah 23:6; Z…

LXX. [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], I will hope in him; but [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] is rightly rendered by the Apostle, I will trust in him. The LXX. have these words of the Apostle, Isaiah 8:17, where the words of the original are, [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], and I will wait…

And to this head belong all the arguments that divines make use of to prove the perfection of the Scripture, against the New Talmudists in Christianity. 5. God every where sends his people to the Written Law of Moses, for the rule of their obedience, no where to any Kabal (Deute…

This Satan means when he undertakes that Job being afflicted, will curse God. So then to curse God is to blaspheme God in our thoughts and words, to think or speak unworthily of God, and the ways of God; see, if he curse you not to your face, that is, see if his heart be not emb…

This answers not the word, but it does the sense of the place well enough. God in his displeasure is said to hide himself, or his face, Isaiah 8:17. The Lord hids his face from the house of Jacob.

If God be withdrawn, if he hides himself, what has the soul to do but to wait for his return. So says the prophet, Isaiah 8:17. I will wait upon the Lord that hids his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.

First, in regard of the Apostles and other ministers their successors; because they are the Lords stewards, to dispense the word and the doctrine thereof to Gods people. Secondly, in regard of all true believers and servants of God, that have care to know and to obey the word of…

S. 77. 49. Isaiah 8:6. The Prophet Isaiah receiving his message at the hands of God and his charge by heavenly vision, heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?

How many wonder, and despise, and persecute (Luke 4; Mark 7; Mark 9; Matthew 12; John 11; Acts 3; Acts 4, &c.)? 2. Influences of the spirit saving and lively are called by the names of the Father's drawing, of the Bridegroom's drawing (John 6:44; Canticles 1:4), the Spirit's lea…

2. Nor should Christians be unwilling to know the spiritual condition one of another; you may fall upon some, in your very course and kind. It is like David (Psalm 71:7), Heman (Psalm 88:15), the suffering Church (Lamentations 1:12; Psalm 102:6, 7), Elias (1 Kings 19:10), Isaiah…

Hence these introductory considerations by way of preface. 1. There cannot be a knocking without but there must be hearing within (Canticles 5:1), for the Lord's knocking internal, whether at first or renewed conversion, has something peculiar, as hearing and learning of the Fat…

A spirit of delusion will not incline persons to go to seek direction at the mouth of God. To the Law and to the Testimony, is never the cry of those evil spirits that have no light in them; for it is God's own direction to discover their delusions, Isaiah 8:19, 20. And when the…

Here we are at a loss, and know that we shall be so while we are in this World: But all the ineffable Fruits and Benefits of this Truth are communicated to them that do believe. It is with reference hereunto, that that great Promise concerning him is given to the Church (Isaiah…

The serious consideration of this, I hope, might prevent much of that dishonor which is done to God, and to his holy name, by some that do not with others run to an excess of riot. The providence of God is likewise everywhere spoken against by murmurers and complainers (Jude 16)…

Fourthly, let us take heed that none of us do at any time, directly or indirectly, speak against the ways of religion and godliness, or say a confederacy, with those that do so. Submit to divine instructions given with a strong hand not to walk in the way of those people that sp…

Psalm 33:10: he brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. Isaiah 8:9-10: God as it were sets them to work and undertakes their disappointment — go about your counsels, says the Lord, and I will take order that it shall come to nothing. Psalm 2:3-4: when men are deep in their…

To whom these Arguments are valid. Isaiah 8:20. 2 Timothy 3:16. of [illegible].

They were such a stubborn and self-conceited and disobedient People, that God justly gave them up to their own Blindness and Hardness: And for this Reason our Savior spoke often the great things of the Gospel to them in Parables. He was ordained to be a stumbling Stone and Rock…

From this fear have sprung all the generous resolutions, and patient sufferings of the saints, and martyrs of God, because they dared not sin against him; therefore they dared be imprisoned, and impoverished, and tortured, and die for him. Thus the Prophet Isaiah sets carnal, an…

This being a grand article of our faith, I shall amplify: I know the Arians, Socinians, Ebionites would rob Christ of the best jewel of his crown, his Godhead; but the Apostolical, Nicene, Athanasian Creed affirm Christ's deity, to this the churches of Helvetia, Bohemia, Wittemb…

Let all great ones take heed how they employ their power against Christ: Christ gives them their power, and if this power shall be made use of for the suppressing of his kingdom and ordinances, their account will be heavy. God has laid the key of government upon Christ's shoulde…

1. God the Father is the God of peace (1 Thessalonians 5:23). 2. God the Son is the Prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6). 3. Peace is said to be the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).

Without are dogs, and whoever loves and makes a lie. And as it is a great sin to tell a lie, so it is a worse sin to teach a lie (Isaiah 9:15). The prophet that teaches lies.

God the Father is called the God of Peace (Hebrews 13:20). God the Son, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). God the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of Peace: it is called the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3).

The Devil is called the strong man (Matthew 12:29). Christ is called el Gibbor, the mighty God (Isaiah 9:6). The Devil is called the Accuser (Revelation 12:10).

Now a Child born to be God with us, is God in that Child taking our nature upon him, and no otherwise can the words be understood. Isaiah 9:6. To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and his name shall be called the mighty God.

Isa. 8:13, 14. Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your dread; let him be your fear, and he shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem —…

We stood in absolute need of it, and could not have been saved without it, and his great love to us put him upon such a thing. This business therefore was engaged in for us (Isaiah 9:6): "To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given." And Paul plainly tells us what he came into t…

Q. How may it be proved that Christ is God? A. By sundry places of Scripture, wherein he is expresly so called (Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1; Romans 9:5; Philippians 2:6; 1 John 5:20). Q. How else?

For when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son (Romans 5:10). Hence his name was [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Therefore this reconciliation and peace with God, is a great part of this Gospel-perfection.

And on these considerations our Apostle concludes that without all controversie the work hereof is a great mystery (1 Timothy 3:16), which we may adore but cannot comprehend. See the name of Christ (Isaiah 9:6). As that wherein God has expressly designed to glorify himself to et…

But that is not the fire that is here intended. It is devouring, consuming, destroying, such as answers the severity of God's justice to the utmost, as Isaiah 9:5; chapter 30:33; chapter 66:15; Amos 7:4; Matthew 18:8; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; Psalm 11:7; Deuteronomy 32:22. Therefore…

Oh! Consider; was the righteousness of Christ, ever, the most glorious thing in your eye, that ever you saw: or did you ever admire, and wonder at it. He is wonderful (Isaiah 9:6): it is his name; and as is his name, so is he: not only in himself; but in some measure, in the eye…

2. If you have seen him, it has been a wonderful sight. Jesus Christ is a wonderful one; his n[illegible]me is wonderful (Isaiah 9:6). And when he is seen he appears so to be to the soul: he is so in himself, and will be so to his for ever.

He is a Father in respect of grace, because we are regenerate by him, and accepted to be his sons by adoption through the merit of Christ. And in this respect the second person as well as the first is called a Father, and said to have an offspring or seed and children (Isaiah 9:…

There is a double ground of enmity in man's heart, the guilt and power of sin; Christ wipes guilt out of the conscience by the application of his own blood, and weakens the power of sin more and more. Sin is the makebate, and Christ is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). The great…

That is a sad condition indeed to which no promise belongs. I remember Mr. Calvin, on those words (Isaiah 9:1), 'Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation,' solves the question in what sense the darkness of the captivity was not so great as the lesser in…

Now if you will not be at cost for a good minister, it is a sign you love your profit above Christ. Those that dwell where Christ's voice is not, let them remove for they sit in darkness and in the shadow of death (Isaiah 9:2). If your dwelling be pleasant, if you have bitter wa…

Luke 3:38. Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. And in Isaiah 9:6 Christ is called the father of eternity because all that are truly knit to him and born anew by him, they are eternally made the sons of God. Again, oftentimes it is given to the first person in Tr…

Be sure to look up first to Jesus Christ that great Counsellor. He is called in Isaiah 9, THE COUNSELLOR: it's he that is wonderful in counsel: God has given a style to his Son to be The Counsellor, he is to be the Counsellor of your soul for your eternal estate, yes, and to be…

You would not think it lost labor, to read and study these places of Scripture, that show what our Lord Jesus is in his Person, Nature, and Offices, that you may have the faith of his Godhead fixed, and may be clear as to the excelling fullness that is in him. As namely that of…

But to pursue what we proposed, namely, these several ways whereby the Scripture confirms this truth, and to this purpose consider: 1. The express titles and names that are given to him in Scripture, and some Scripture sayings of him which hold it out; three of which we shall in…

He shall outlive his sufferings, and death; and shall be delighted in seeing of them, who shall get the good of his sufferings; as it is said of Job, that he saw his children, or [reconstructed: seed] of the third and fourth generation; that is, he lived long, and saw [reconstru…

The word portion is not in the original, but well supplied, It is only, I will divide him many, as the word is often used, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, That is, He shall in dividing the spoil, be above the strongest. The words infer, and take in these three, 1.…

There is (Hosea 3) a promise of the ingathering of the Jews. And (Isaiah 9:6) it's said, that "The government shall be upon his shoulders, and of the increase of his government there shall be no end". And (Revelation 11:15) it is proclaimed, "The kingdoms of this world are becom…

Because, not any Saint on earth can be so united personally to God, as the Son of Man; for he being made of a woman, of the seed of David, the Son of Man, he, and not any but he, is the eternal Son of God, God blessed for ever. The Child born to us, is the mighty God, the Father…

The born heir of a Prince, is in hope a Prince, but he comes not out of the womb with the crown on his head. Christ coming out of the grave, which is the womb and loins of death, as the first begotten of the dead is born a king (Acts 5:31), and all that are born of this father o…

It is a use of trial that we are upon in this discourse, and therefore to proceed to the next part of the point: those that have Christ for a Savior, they have him also for a Prince (Acts 5:31). God has appointed him for a Prince and a Savior; if you will have him for a Savior,…

3. To show the old prophecies were fulfilled, which foretold the union of the two natures in his Person, the predictions concerning one whose name should be Immanuel, God with us, and who should save and redeem the church (Isaiah 7:14). And of a child that should be the Mighty G…

And when we pray, saying, Our father, &c. we inuocate not onely the first person, but also the Sonne, and holy Ghost. And the sonne of God, is expressely called the Father of eternitie, in respect of vs, Isa 9:6. and he is said to have his seede. Isa 53:11.

79. That he might give light to those who were sitting in darkness As to light and darkness, there are similar modes of expression in Isaiah: such as, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath…

is very emphatic; for it would have given no great delight to hear that the Author of salvation was born, unless each person believed that for himself he was born. In the same manner Isaiah says, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given,” (Isaiah 9:6;) and Zechariah, “Be…

“Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people th…

It is the better to signify, and exhibit to us, that variety of excellencies that meet together, and are conjoined in him. Many appellations are mentioned together in one verse (Isaiah 9:6): For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his sh…

It is a good sign afflictive Providences are sanctified to us, when we draw near to God under them and turn to him that smites us. A wicked man under affliction revolts more and more, Isaiah 1:5 turns not to him that smites him, Isaiah 9:13 but grows worse than before; formality…

So is the Throne of Christ said to be in opposition to the frail mutable kingdoms of the earth. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the Throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish it with judgement and with justice from…

Hence the things spoken of him in the Old Testament, are to carnal reason full of seeming inconsistencies. As for instance, it is promised of him that he should be the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15), of the seed of Abraham (Genesis 22:18), and of the posterity of David; and ye…

And this kind of expression in the Scripture, when a thing is said to be called that which it is; the name denoting the being, nature, and quality of it, is so frequent, that there is nothing peculiar in it as here used. See (Isaiah 1:26; Isaiah 8:3; Isaiah 9:6; Jeremiah 23:6; Z…

Secondly, they do the same in the description they give of the person that was to be this remedy or relief, and of the work that he had to accomplish for that end and purpose. For the former, they declare that he was to be the Son of God, God and Man in one Person (Psalm 2:7; Ps…

The illustrious Prophesies concerning the name of the Messiah, Immanuel, and his being born of a Virgin, Chap. 7. & 8. must be handled apart afterwards and vindicated from the exceptions of the Jews, and are therefore here omitted. Isaiah 9:6. And his Name shall be called Wonder…

This latter darkness is the daughter of the former. The Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 9:2) speaks of the people that sat in darkness: which is repeated (Matthew 4:16), that is, in the darkness of ignorance, of sin and guilt; They had natural light enough, and they had civil light enoug…

For Christ is equal with his Father after the Godhead, and the seed or posterity of David after the manhood which he took of the virgin Mary, that was of David's kindred, and that by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. If they therefore will assuage their rashness and malapertn…

Take a double description of him, one out of the Old testament, and another from the new. The first from Isaiah 9:6. To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the Government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, t…

Orherwhile it is given to the particular persons in Trinitie; as first and principally to the first person, who is commonly called the Father. And the second person in Trinitie is sometime called Father, as Isa. 9. 6. the father of Eternitie: because he is the ground of our adop…

4. Solomon was a wise, judicious King, and singular for that; and so in our Lord Jesus dwells all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; there is no need to fear that anything that concerns his people will miscarry in his hand. 5. Solomon had a peaceable reign (for which cause h…

Next, it is added; indeed, he is altogether lovely: Although she has spent many sweet words (and indeed there has been no straitening in her) in commending Christ, and although all her words be sweet, and especially when she draws near the close, her expressions be the more mass…

2. God might have punished London with famine, which is a greater judgment than the plague or sword: if the Lord had broken the whole staff of bread, and cut off all provisions of food from the many thousand souls that lived in and about the city; how dreadful would this have be…

8. God does expect that London should labor to pacify his anger. When God threatened to send the sword, and to cut off from Israel the head and the tail, the branch and the rush in one day, and to send the famine so sore that they should eat every man the flesh of his own arm, y…

OBSERVATION. AMong all earthly joyes, these four sorts are noted in Scripture, as the most excellent and remarkable, (1) Nuptial joyes, the day of Espousals is the day of the gladness of a mans heart, Cant. 3. 11. (2) The joy of children. Though now it seem but a common mercy to…

2. See the difference between God and a great part of the world, they are unjust. 1. In their courts of judicature; they pervert justice (Isaiah 10:1). They decree unrighteous decrees.

Divide the world, says Brerewood, into 31 parts, nineteen parts of it are possessed by Jews and Turks, seven parts by Heathens; so that there are but five parts of Christians; and among these Christians so many seduced Papists on one hand, and so many formal Protestants on the o…

2. There is God's visiting in anger (Jeremiah 5:9). Shall I not visit for these things? That is, God's visiting with the rod; and (Isaiah 10:3). What will you do in the day of visitation? That is, in the day when God shall visit with his judgments.

Thus you see God's providences are wise and regular, though to us they seem very strange and crooked. Second, here's another case, the wicked flourish; this seems to be very much out of order: yes, but God in his providence sees good sometimes that the worst of men should be exa…

And Christ looked beyond Judas and Pilate, he looked to God's determinate counsel in delivering him up to be crucified (Acts 4:28), this made him say (Matthew 26:39), Father, not as I will, but as you will: 'Tis vain to quarrel with instruments. Wicked men are but a rod in God's…

Does God take the Assyrian as a staff in his hand to beat his people with? Those blows are smart and make them cry; but the end of his so doing is that he may accomplish his whole work upon Mount Zion (Isaiah 10:12). If God can bring much good out of the worst and greatest evil…

Your answer from God is, that the rod shall be indeed removed, and even cast into the fire in your stead, but when? It shall be when the Lord has performed his whole work upon Mount Zion, and on Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:12). If the judgment have not yet done all the work it was sent…

God stirred up Sennacherib to be the executioner of his justice upon the Jews, and afterwards upon the Egyptians, when that great king designed only the satisfaction of his ambition in the enlarging his kingdom and supporting his greatness. (Isaiah 10:6-7) "I will send him again…

How shiftless are they? (Isaiah 10:3) When God asks of them, What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation that shall come upon you from far? to whom will you flee for help? where will you leave your glory? (Jeremiah 5:31) What will you do in the end?

And (Isaiah 7:8), the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys. (Isaiah 10:6), I will send the Assyrian against a hypoc…

4. And by faith I live not, Christ lives in me, and I am crucified and mortified; that is, by faith I know that I did live the life of God, and was crucified to the world; whereas I was dead in sins, before I believed. 5. And because believing is somewhat more than a naked act o…

He also makes mention of Lebanon, for we know that it was a mountain greatly renowned in regard of fair and goodly trees which were in it: but if he had spoken of the Assyrians, there should have been no reason in it for him to speak of the destruction of Lebanon. From where we…

And therefore Christ says that, unless God put a period to those calamities, the Jews will utterly perish, so that not a single individual will be left; but that God will remember his gracious covenant, and will spare his elect, according to that other prediction of Isaiah, Thou…

when the Prophets would say, will you destroy even the remnants to utter destruction? And that comes to pass through the ambiguity or doubtfulness of the Hebrew word (Isaiah 10:22; 28:22; Ezekiel 11:13). For seeing the word Chalah may signify as well to end and finish, as to con…

God judges not as we do; we are all in haste, and will have it now, Numb. 12:13 But he is a God of judgement, and blessed are they that wait for him, Isaiah 30:18 (2.) Afflictive Providences have not accomplished that design upon our hearts they were sent for, when we are so ear…

(4.) The things mentioned (Apocalypse 21:27) are effects of this work of Christ in and towards his church, not the work itself here expressed, as the first view of the place will manifest. § 12 He adds, In the other prophets, the restoration of the Christian church from the Baby…

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…

And thus by the vindication of this place from the Rabbinical exceptions, we have not only obtained our principal intention, about the promise of a Deliverer, but also showed, who and what manner of Person he was to be, even a Child that was to be born, who should also be, the M…

First, that wicked and ungodly men while they satisfy their own lusts, are but doing the work of Satan and executing his designs. These Sabeans, though they did not think it, yet they came upon Satan's errand: so God, when he does justly use wicked men to punish or correct his p…

and frequently elsewhere, both in the Old and New Testament. By moving of the bowels (or sounding, or making a noise, as the word is elsewhere translated, Isaiah 10:11 and 63:15) is understood a sensible stirring of the affections, when they begin to stound, and that kindly, and…

No: it is only that they may be a rod in his hand for a little moment, and a staff for his indignation against the miscarriages of his people. Isaiah 10:5, 12: O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. This in such a season is their prop…

The Apostle is speaking of them, when he says, Titus 1:16, They profess that they know God, but in Works they deny him. This was common among that People; God declares them to be an hypocritical Nation, Isaiah 10:6. And 'tis certain, this was the Case with them in the Wilderness…

REFLECTIONS. 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…

It is very possible we may be enlightened, or humbled, or reformed, may be brought nearer to God, or weaned from the world, may be furnished with matter for repentance, or prayer, or praise, by the injuries that are done us, and may be much furthered in our way to heaven, by tha…

For as was showed before, the other things mentioned contribute nothing to the form, nor union of such a Church. It is pleaded, that there are prophecies and promises of a national Church, that should be under the New Testament, as (Psalms 32:10, 11, 12; Isaiah 2:2; Isaiah 10:18…

God begins the judgment on his Church for a little time, that it may end and rest upon his enemies forever. And indeed he leaves the wicked last in the punishment; so as he makes use of them for the punishing of his Church, they are his rod (Isaiah 10). But then when he has done…

So that indeed Christ may properly be styled, Rex Regum, King of Kings. As the king of Assyria made his boast (Isaiah 10:8), Are not my princes altogether kings? A vaunting speech of his, that his princes and favorites were for power and authority as good as kings.

Judgment began at the house of God, what notable humiliation and reformation has it produced there? There is God's whole work to be done upon Mount Zion (Isaiah 10:12). What fruit of all those terrible judgments?

Whoever's will be left undone, God's will should be done, and never left undone to fulfill that of another or our own. They that put unrighteous decrees in execution, are under the same woe with them who decree them; for without the execution, the decree would do no hurt to them…

Then should that (2.) distinction of Jews in the heart, and inward, and of Jews in the flesh (Romans 2:28), and of the children of the flesh, that are not of the spiritual seed, and of the children of the promise (Romans 9:7-8), and of the persecuting children of the bond woman…

We are fallen, but Ephraim's stout heart (2) will rise whether God will, or not (Isaiah 9:9). And (3) the King of Assyria's stout heart will be as strong as God (Isaiah 10:12-13). And (4) it's wicked stoutness to say godly mourning before the Lord is in vain (Malachi 3:13-14).

We believe in Christ: but do we repent in Christ? 4. Faith is a leaning on God (Isaiah 10:20), (Isaiah 26:3), (Isaiah 50:10) love is not so. Faith is a coming to God by way of affiance (John 5:40), (Matthew 11:28), (John 6:37) a receiving of Christ (John 1:11) an eating of his f…

Shall I take my bread and my waters, and my flesh which I killed for my hearers, and give it to men whom I know not from where they be? And he was as mad a fool who thus speaks, (Isaiah 10:13) By the strength of my hand have I done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent: and I r…

Proof 15. The fifteenth proof urges God's earnest expostulations, pleadings, and protests to those many of whom perished (Romans 11:27; Isaiah 10:22) — such as: 'Oh that there were such a heart in them to fear me, that it might be well with them' (Deuteronomy 5:29); 'What more c…

1. To have only a show of godliness is a God-enraging sin: he who is a pretender to Saint-ship, but his heart tells him he has nothing but the Name; he carries Christ in his Bible, but not in his Heart; some politic design spurs him on in the ways of God, he makes Religion a Lac…

O, my brother, if he will but go along with us, what need we be afraid of ten thousands that shall set themselves against us? (Psalm 3:5-8; 27:1-3). But without him, the proud helpers fall under the slain (Isaiah 10:4). I, for my part, have been in the fray before now; and thoug…

This [reconstructed: looks] like poverty, to believe the other mystery in the other side or page of Providence, [illegible] glory of dividing the Red Sea, and of giving seven mighty nations to his people, and their buildings, lands, vineyards, gardens, is a strong faith. 2. The…

Christ takes sinners not by dozens, not by thousands — it is but once in all the word (Acts 2) that three thousand are converted at once — but by one's and two's. Though Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant shall but be saved, [reconstructed: only a remnant] (Romans 9…

When spiritual things through this anointing are discovered in a spiritual manner, then do they take up an immoveable possession in the minds of men. As God will destroy every oppressing yoke because of the anointing of Christ (Isaiah 10:27), so will he break every snare of sedu…

Q. 4. Does God rule also in and over the sinful actions of wicked men? A. Yes, he willingly (according to his determinate counsel) suffers them to be, for the manifestation of his glory, and by them effects his own righteous ends (2 Samuel 12:11; 2 Samuel 16:10; 1 Kings 11:31; 1…

Q. 4. Does God rule also in and over the sinful actions of wicked men? A. Yes, he willingly (according to his determinate counsel) suffers them to be, for the manifestation of his glory, and by them effects his own righteous ends (2 Samuel 12:11 & 16:10; 1 Kings 11:31 & 22:22; J…

It is true, instruments are some of them rational some are [illegible]; and hence some instruments may be [illegible] give opportunity, may in a way of equity be proceeded against: but we must not rest in the malice of instruments, but look [illegible], and see the hand of God:…

4. If God be our Father we are of peaceable spirits: (Matthew 5:9) Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God. Grace infuses a sweet amicable disposition; it files off the ruggedness of men's spirits; it turns the lion-like fierceness into a lamb-like…

Now, that you may throw off distracting thoughts and drowsiness on the Lord's Day, and may hear the Word with reverent attention, consider, 1. It is God that speaks to us in his Word; therefore the preaching of the Word is called the breath of his lips (Isaiah 11:4). And Christ…

Revenge is the proper sin of the Devil; he is no drunkard, or adulterer, but this old serpent is full of the poison of malice; and what shall we say to them who make profession of religion, yet instead of forgiving pursue others spitefully? It was prophesied the wolf should [rec…

Q. How was he furnished with gifts and abilities for discharge of this office? A. As God never calls any to any office, but he gives them gifts requisite thereto: so Christ was furnished with all wisdom and knowledge, and other gifts of the Spirit, that might fully fit him for h…

Hence we learn, that the true valor and manhood that was in Moses, and is in all Gods children, like unto him, is a gift of grace. Among many gifts of the Spirit, poured upon our Savior Christ, the spirit of strength, or courage, is one, Isaiah 11.2. And Jethro's counsel to Mose…

Now, this peace is, when a man is kind and peaceable to all, but especially to those that are of the household of faith. And undoubtedly it is a fruit of faith, which the Prophet Isaiah foretold should be under the Gospel, Isaiah 11:6; that then the Wolf should dwell with the La…

And is it not a commandement of God, that all Churches should be gathered according to the Commission of King Jesus (Matthew 28:18, 19, 20; Mark 16:15, 16)? We onely condemne those Churches (that persecute Christ in his members, from city to city, (as Saul did (Acts 26:9, 10)) f…

I think it is a mistake, that grace only subdues our sinful corruptions; it will if cared for and used as it ought, cure our natural dispositions, so far as any evil, or occasion of evil is as it were incorporated with them. If it maketh not the froward, meek, the angry, patient…

Assured peace with God delivering the souls of his disciples from all trouble and fear, is that which he peculiarly bequeathed to them. And so great a share in this [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] does this peace with God, and the consequents of it in peace with the residue of the c…

There is nothing more evident than that it is inconsistent with, and destructive of all divine perfections, that God should pass a decretory sentence on the actions of men, according to what appears to us to be just and equal. This therefore God declines, namely, to judge accord…

God gave to him the Spirit not by measure (John 3:34). And the Holy Spirit rested on him in all variety of his gifts and operations, especially those of spiritual light, wisdom and understanding (Isaiah 11:2, 3). And in allusion to this candlestick with its seven lamps, is calle…

The power of it in making fruitful the barren soils of our hearts, which as under the curse, would of themselves bring forth nothing but thorns and briars. Therefore to cause our hearts to abound in the fruits of faith, love, meekness, and all holy evangelical obedience, is that…

The laws of this kingdom are the word of God in the books of the old and new testament. Therefore it is called the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13), the Gospel of the kingdom (Mark 1:13), the rod of his mouth (Isaiah 11:4), the arm of God (Isaiah 53:1). As a king by his laws bring…

It is nothing else but concord which must be kept in a holy manner, with all men, both good and bad, so far forth as can be. Isaiah the prophet speaking of the fruits of the gospel says, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, etc. (Isaiah 11:6). Where…

They are included in God's league; which is as much as if there were an express covenant between us and them, that they shall not do us harm; they are at the beck of Providence, and therefore so far as it conduceth to our good, at our service: So Hosea 2:18, I will make a Covena…

Though it keeps its dart, it has lost its sting. A saint — to allude to Isaiah 11:8 — may play upon the hole of the asp and put his hand into the cockatrice's den. Death is the cockatrice or asp; the grave is his hole or den.

We look also for a more glorious coming of Jesus Christ, before the end be; for the Redeemer shall come to Sion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And he shall destroy Antichrist with the brightness of his coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8), in which place the Apostle has respect…

By peace, in Scripture, is meant the confluence of all blessings; so that the intent of God in bestowing those offices upon Christ, and so great a rule, was for the good and advantage of that church or temple, which he appointed him only to build. And in (Isaiah 11:9), where the…

The laws of this kingdom, is the word of God, in the books of the Old and New Testament. Therefore it is called the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13), the Gospel of the kingdom (Mark 1:13), the rod of his mouth (Isaiah 11:4), the arm of God (Isaiah 53:1). As a king by his laws brin…

It would be unreasonable to say, These are only bold figures, used after the manner of the Eastern nations, to express the great extent of the Christian Church, at and after the days of Constantine: To say so, would be in effect to say, that it would have been impossible for God…

Moreover, since He was in the bosom of the Father, He was privy to all His counsels and secrets; and for the declaring of the divine will He was committed to Him. The task committed to Him to be duly discharged — He was endowed with the Holy Spirit, not by measure (John 3:34), f…

But nothing occurs more frequently in all the prophecies concerning that state, or is more solemnly set forth, than this true and saving holiness of the members of that church. See Psalms 2:6, 24:3, 4, 45:18, 68:18; Isaiah 11:8-10, 35:8, 54:11-14, 60:21; Ezekiel 47:9; Zechariah…

He was the most excellent scholar among all his school-fellows, and yet the rod of God was heaviest and most frequent on him; he learned his lesson beyond them all. He was quick in understanding, in the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:3). He had in him an excellent Spirit — the Spir…

And Verse 21: Sin reigned to death, that grace might reign to life — that Christ's grace might play the King. The saving knowledge of God under the Kingdom of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:9) fills the earth, as the Sea is covered with waters. A Sea of Faith, and an Earthful of the gra…

Now by the Arminian way, he is set upon the throne of David to execute vengeance on all his subjects, and that he may utterly destroy all, if all rebel, and not to save one of Judah and Israel; for he may be a King without any subject; suppose all his subjects were cast in hell.…

And if the Spirit once coming upon his members abides with them for ever, (as Christ promises, John 14:16) then much more does this Spirit abide upon Christ the head, from whom we all (since Christ was in heaven) receive that Spirit, and by virtue of which Spirit's dwelling in h…

If therefore God take from us a wanton and wild heart, a loose and irreverent heart, and work in us an awful reverent fear of his name, in every duty of his service, and our own callings, that keeps us from departing from God, and it keeps God from departing from us, that we alw…

The first is, peace with angels, for man is redeemed by Christ: and by means of this redemption, sinful man is reconciled to good Angels (Colossians 1:20). The second is, peace with the godly: who are all made of one heart and mind (Isaiah 11:9). The third is, peace with ourselv…

True prophecy judges men, discovers the things of the heart, and causes men to say, The Lord is within you (1 Corinthians 14:25). The scepter of Christ whereby he smites the nations, is in his mouth (Isaiah 11:4): that is, in the Ministry of the word (Jeremiah 15:19). And it is…

They suffer wrong, but they do none. In the mount of the Lord there is no hurt done (Isaiah 11:9), they turn their spears and swords, into mattocks and scythes (Isaiah 2:4). And they which do no wrong, but are content to suffer wrong (and that for a good cause,) are in this resp…

Unity may be outside the Church, and dissension in the Church, as here we see. It may be objected that there is peace in the kingdom of God, and that there the wolf and the lamb dwell together (Isaiah 11). Answer: This is but in part verified in the kingdom of grace upon earth:…

So quick motions, sudden perturbations, strong affections, proceeding either from the spirit of God, or of Satan, are termed by the name of spirit. Hence we learn, that the Holy Ghost is author not only of meekness, but of all sanctifying graces, and therefore is called the spir…

And in 2 Chronicles 6:41, Arise O Lord, and enter into your rest. Moreover, we have seen before, in Isaiah 11:10, that God's rest in the Temple should be glorious. In a word, the very name of the Temple was honorable.

There can be no doubt that she was fully convinced of the restoration of the church, and easily gave way to what the flesh would have pronounced to be incredible. And then it is probable that the attention of the public was everywhere directed at that time to the prediction of I…

That its royal dignity had crumbled down long before, and that by slow degrees its supremacy had nearly given way, does not imply such a discontinuance as to be at variance with Jacob's prophecy. For God had promised two things seemingly opposite; that the throne of David would…

Whereas the Scripture speaks of the body, and calls that part the loins, from which from the Father proceeds natural generation, according as we read in Genesis 46, that Christ should spring out of the loins of Judah. Therefore corporally to gird the loins signifies nothing else…

Which grace issues and flows from the knowledge of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ: as if he should say: This grace no man can have unless he also have the knowledge of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of this knowledge of God, as well the Apostles as the prophets do very of…

The Lord seeth not as Man seeth; for Man looketh on the outward Appearance, but the Lord looketh on the Heart. Isaiah 11:3. He shall not judge after the Sight of [his Eyes], neither reprove after the Hearing of his Ears

Grace has as great a Tendency to restrain and mortify such Sins, as are contrary to the Spirit that has been spoken of, as it has to mortify Drunkenness or Lasciviousness. Yea the Scripture represents the Change wrought by Gospel Grace, as especially appearing in an Alteration o…

So also the sharpness of its sight or eyes, as Cant. 1. 16. Chap. 4. 1. is fixed on, to represent a quick and discerning Understanding, such as was in Christ from the resting of the Spirit upon him, Isa. 11. 3. He to whom all personal Properties, Attributes, Adjuncts, Acts and O…

If Grace has not cured that Passion, Pride, Causeless Anger, Inveterate Wrath, Intemperance, which mens Constitutions peculiarly incline to, I know not for my part what it has done, nor what a number of outward Dutyes do signifie. The Spirit and Grace of Christ causes the Wolf t…

I would be far from giving Countenance to th[•]sinfull Distempers of any; but yet I doubt not, but that the Infirmities of many are represented by Envy and Hatred of Profession to an undeserved Disadvantage. (3) Whereever there is the seed of Grace and Holiness, there an Entranc…

7. Besides this furniture with habitual grace for the performance of all holy obedience to God, as a man made under the Law, there was a peculiar endowment with the Spirit without and beyond the bounds of all comprehensible measures that he was to receive as the great Prophet of…

And this is given us at large in ⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩ in the seventh sign of the coming of the Messiah, and with some variation in ⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩, or the Colloquy between Zerubbabel, and Michael the Archangel. A fable it is of no small antiquity; for we have mention…

Wherein they further demand whether he were [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the Prophet promised by Moses, which he also denies, because that Prophet was no other then the Messiah (John 1:21). To this purpose also is it, that the Spirit of the Lord is promised to rest upon the Mess…

§ 20 Thirdly, they insist on the promises which concern themselves; and these of all others they most mind and urge against their adversaries. Nothing they say is more certain and evident in the Scripture, than that the people of Israel shall be brought into a blessed and prospe…

For the former, they declare that he was to be the Son of God, God and Man in one Person (Psalm 2:7; Psalm 110:1; Isaiah 9:6, 7; Jeremiah 23:5, 6; Zechariah 2:8, 9, 10), and in sundry other places is the same mystery intimated, whereby the Church was farther instructed how God w…

The remainder also of the words contain a description of the Messiah; He is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], the just and righteous One (Acts 3:14). And He alone is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]; he that rules in the things that concern the fear and worship of God (Isaiah 11:2, 3). So…

Where ever that is received or believed, it producs other effects, Titus 2:11, 12. Isaiah 11 6, 7, 8, 9. It teachs men to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts.

Yes, when that people was divided among themselves, and the true worship of God remained with Judah, and they became the separated people, Ephraim was instantly filled with envy against them. Isaiah 11:13: The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall…

(2.) It is true in a spiritual sense. When God intends to raise a soul to spiritual comfort, he first lays it low in desertion (Isaiah 12:1). As the limner lays his dark color first, and then lays his gold color on it, so God first lays the soul in the dark of desertion, and the…

In the way of his Judgements you are to wait for him, Isaiah 26:8 to prepare to meet him, Zeph. 2. 1, 2. Amos 4:12 Now your business is, to turn away his anger which you see approaching. And sometimes you are called to praise him for mercies received, Isaiah 12. 1, 2. but then y…

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 in hand, they lose with it their spiritual food and soul-subsistence; for the Gospel is their feast of fat things (Isa…

How quickly am I discouraged, if I presently find not what I expect in duty? Whereas, the well is deep, and much pains must be taken to draw up those waters of joy (Isaiah 12:3). There is a golden vein in the mount of duty, but it lies deep; and because I meet not with it as soo…

It is true, the work of a Christian is painful, and much more spending than the husbandman's (as was opened in Chapter 1.) but then it as much exceeds in the delights and pleasures that attend it. What is the Christian's work, but with joy to draw water out of the wells of salva…

The Spirit immediately inspiring, and the Spirit quickening in the Word, are both the same Spirit that Christ promised to send (John 16), of which Christ, ver. 14. "He shall glorify me, he shall receive of mine (a word most mysterious) and shall show it to you;" and believers ar…

Food is that which keeps us in life, and enables us to action and work. And as water, (Isaiah 12:3) With joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. This is as water to a fainting traveler.

So, show me a token for good, that they which hate me may see it and be ashamed, because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me (Psalm 81:17). So, in that day you shall say, O Lord I will praise you, though you were angry with me, your anger was turned away and you comforted…

Partly, as they are helps and encouragements to love and praise God, and to live in a thankful course of holiness, when not stopped or diverted by fear of enemies. Isaiah 12:1. "In that day you shall say, O Lord, I will praise you; though you were angry with me, your anger is tu…

3. Hence his estate is now safe. He is put into a state of life and salvation; he is past from death to life; God is atoned to him, and loves him, and accepts of him: he shall abide in the vineyard as long as God sees meet to use him for his service there, and then he shall be t…

But directly this is the same with that parallel place (Titus 1:3): according to the commandment of God our Savior, where no interposition of that conjunctive particle can have place, the same title being also in other places ascribed to him, as Luke 1:47: my spirit has rejoiced…

And it makes nothing to the contrary, that oftentimes it is said that the Lord is angry with them that are his, when he punishes their sins. As in Isaiah: I will confess to you, O Lord, because you have been angry with me: your wrath is turned, and you have comforted me (Isaiah…

So I may say, who knows the greatness of this favor and love? 1. That God should be pacified with you after anger, this is exceeding glorious (Isaiah 12:1-2). What is man that the Lord should visit him, or look upon him, though he never had sinned?

Thus a man that lives under the joyful sound of the ordinances, he has ever matter of as much joy as a soldier after victory. Isaiah 12:3: With joy shall they draw waters out of the wells of salvation; and what are those wells of salvation? Are they not the ordinances of God fro…

2. There is a price laid down for this kingdom; heaven is not only a kingdom which God has promised, but which Christ has purchased: it is called a purchased possession, (Ephesians 1:14) though this kingdom is given to us freely, yet Christ bought it with the price of his blood;…

Those Cities were utterly destroyed, and accordingly is the destruction of Sodom put for an utter overthrow. See (Isaiah 13:19; Zephaniah 2:9; Jeremiah 48:18; Jeremiah 50:40; 2 Peter 2:6). From there, that in judgements wicked men may be brought to an utter destruction.

If God be gone, England will be like an house that hath the furniture taken down, and is falling to ruine. Isa. 13. 31. Owles shall dwell there, and Satyrs shall dance there. If God be gone, Satan will be the next Tenant.

It is a very strange phrase. And in Isaiah 13:16, Their children shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes. I remember Ursine in his comment upon that place of Isaiah, he quotes this Psalm 137, and he has first this note, that though God does thus execute his wrath, yet usuall…

In Psalm 137:8, 'O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be that rewardeth you as you have served us, happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth your little ones against the stones.' And in Isaiah 13:18, 'Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces,…

(Isaiah 10:6), I will send the Assyrian against a hypocritical nation. So (Jeremiah 1:15-16), (Isaiah 13:1-3), (Isaiah 15:1-2, [illegible]), (Isaiah 17:1-3), (Isaiah 19:1-4). Now God could not be the Author of war and peace, as God and Sovereign all-Disposer, if it were in the i…

God sent Joseph to Egypt to be the governor thereof, and a reliever of Jacob's family (Genesis 45). In this regard the Medes and Persians are said to be the sanctified ones of God (Isaiah 13:3), and the men of his counsel (Isaiah 46:11). The use: hence we are all taught, to walk…

And then verse 16 branches it into those three that are indeed the base anti-trinity that the world worships: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The soul of man unconverted is no other but a den of impure lusts, wherein dwells pride, uncleanness,…

4. Consider how much pride has cost us: they that are proud and burdensome to other people, God will pull down their pride. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity, and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will lay low the h…

It is in Scripture-phrase a precious thing indeed, of which it might be said, it is more precious than gold. But of a good man might such a thing be spoken: it may be said of such a man, as in Isaiah 13:12, the man is more precious than fine gold; even than the golden wedge of O…

He is like a ship in a tempest — sickness begins to make a tempest in his body, and sin to make a tempest in his conscience, and he has nowhere to take shelter. Their faces shall be as flames (Isaiah 13:8) — such fear and horror shall seize upon sinners in the evil day that thei…

First, for the world as container — generally for the whole fabric of heaven and earth with all things in them contained, which God created in the beginning (Job 34:13; Acts 17:24; Ephesians 1:4); and distinctly, first for the heavens and all things belonging to them distinguish…

The world is God's diocese, and shall not he do what he will in his own diocese? He it was that turned King Nebuchadnezzar to grass, and threw the angels to Hell when they sinned, that broke the head of the Babylonish empire (Isaiah 14:12). How have you fallen from Heaven, O Luc…

His seed are exposed to God's heavy judgments in this life: God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon their children. I think I hear God speak, as (Isaiah 14:21): Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers. Use 2. See what a privilege it is to be the…

When Saul left God, he went to the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:8). 3. The serpent has a subtlety in its wings; for naturalists report, such serpents are found in Ethiopia, as have wings; and the Scripture mentions a fiery flying serpent (Isaiah 14:29). Which wings denote the sub…

Sometimes there is no expression to that purpose, only God affirms that he has sworn, for he is every way his own witness (1 Samuel 3:14): I have sworn to the House of Eli. So Psalm 132, Isaiah 14:24. Sometimes he expresseth some of the properties of his nature, as Psalm 89:35:…

2. The most likely thing in their sin was pride, there is pride in every sin, namely a despising and contempt of the commandment; and this is a sin agreeable enough to a spiritual nature, as adultery, drunkenness, and such sins are proper to a corporal and sensitive nature, ⟨in…

It is affirmed of the Prince of Tyrus, that he said, He was a God, and sat in the Seat of God (Ezekiel 28:3). And the like foolish thoughts are ascribed to the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13, 14). None of the children of men can attain so great glory, power and dominion in this w…

Now such a hope as Arminians allow to Heathen and Indians, to Reprobates, who believe that Christ died for all and every one, and such as perish eternally, we gladly leave to themselves; and if our doctrine of particular redemption furnishes ground of despair as opposed to this…

Princeps, Dominus, Caput familiae; the Prince, Lord, and Head of the family, that has right to the inheritance, and distributes portions to others. Hence [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] is used for every thing that excels, and has the preeminence in its own kind (Job 18:10; Isaiah 1…

Neither is the word any where else used in the Scripture, and may as well have something foreign in it, as come from its root. So also v. 17. is no where else used for sobolescet, or pliabit, as it is here rendered; from a Son, which is but three times used in that signification…

When God lays us low, he can lay us lower, and therefore it is best for us, to lay ourselves as low as we can: so does he, who sits upon the ground, if his heart sit down with him too. It is possible for the body to lie groveling upon the earth, when the spirit is nestling among…

It's ever true (John 3:8), The wind blows where it lists. The more angel-like and the more spiritual pride is, such as is angel-haughtiness in the damned spirits who were not content with their own station, and in Eve, the more sinful guiltiness is in it; pride resulting from ac…

Flying to him for Refuge, Hebrews 6:18 as before. Looking unto Christ, or beholding him, Isaiah 14:25. Look unto me all ye Ends of the Earth and be saved.

For there is a man speaking within a man, and a heart within a heart acting, as if it were a man made up of soul and body. You have said in your heart, I will ascend up to Heaven, so the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13). So the heart acts Heaven or Hell within the man (Psalm 14:1;…

14. And upon this account there is required a deadening of our hearts to shipping and trading with diverse mighty nations, as we see in the case of Tyre (Ezekiel 27), of Babylon (Revelation 18:11-13; Jeremiah 51). So are we to be mortified to fair houses (Isaiah 5:8), stately ci…

And Alexander hearing that Parmenio his General had won the Victory, and his young Son Alexander was born the same day, prayed the Gods to spice his joy with some bitterness, lest he should surfeit of too much joy. But this prosperous state of the wicked is matter rather of pity…

On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies; and it was green all the year long. In this meadow they lay down and slept, for here they might lie down safely (Psalm 23:2; Isaiah 14:30). When they awoke they gathered again of the fruit of the tr…

And all the bright lights of Heaven will I make dark over you, and set darkness upon your land, says the Lord God: behold Heaven and Earth, Sun, Moon and stars, all shaken and confounded, in the destruction of Egypt, the thing the Prophet treats of, their kingdom and nation bein…

This will, according to which it is said, He would that no man should know it, was his human will, according to which the Lord Jesus was a man as we are, yet without sin; which was not always fulfilled; for his Divine will, being backed with omnipotency, can never be resisted: i…

Which certain and infallible execution of his pleasure, is extended to particular contingent events (chapter 48:17). Yes, it is an ordinary thing with the Lord, to confirm the certainty of those things that are yet for to come, from his own decree: as — The Lord of Hosts has swo…

I have purposed I will also do it (verse 11). No, so certain is he of accomplishing all his purposes; that he confirms it with an oath, the Lord of Hosts has sworn, surely as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed so it shall stand (Isaiah 14:24). And i…

The greatness of the Persian emperors made them all usurp religious worship from their subjects. The like insolence we find in the Babylonian monarchs, they exalted themselves above the height of the clouds, and made themselves equal to the most high (Isaiah 14:14). Indeed their…

It is an assuming of a dominion over the souls and consciences of men in the worship of God, wherein and whereby this may be pretended, and therein alone. And all this description of the invasion of the Throne of God, from where he, who did so, is compared to Lucifer, who sought…

Q. 2. What are the decrees of God? A. (a) Eternal, (b) unchangeable purposes of his will, concerning the being, and well-being of his creatures. (a) Micah 5:2; Ephesians 3:9; Acts 15:18. (b) Isaiah 14:24; Isaiah 46:10; Romans 9:12; 2 Timothy 2:19. Q. 3. Concerning which of his c…

Q 2. What are the decrees of God? A. (a) Eternal, (b) unchangeable purposes of his will, concerning the being, and well-being of his creatures. (a) Micah 5:2, Ephesians 3:9, Acts 15:18. (b) Isaiah 14:24, Isaiah 46:10, Romans 9:12, 2 Timothy 2:19. Q. 3. Concerning which of his cr…

Secondly, a saint being [in non-Latin alphabet], a public blessing, lies in the breach to turn away wrath: so that to destroy him, is to go to pull down the pillars of a nation. Thirdly, he is precious to God (Isaiah 15:43, 44). He is a member of Christ's body; therefore what in…

And the drying up the Waters of a City or Kingdom, is often used in Scripture Prophecy, for the depriving them of their Wealth, as the Scripture explains itself, Hosea 13:15, "His Spring shall become dry, and his Fountain shall be dried up; He shall spoil the Treasure of all ple…

(Isaiah 10:6), I will send the Assyrian against a hypocritical nation. So (Jeremiah 1:15-16), (Isaiah 13:1-3), (Isaiah 15:1-2, [illegible]), (Isaiah 17:1-3), (Isaiah 19:1-4). Now God could not be the Author of war and peace, as God and Sovereign all-Disposer, if it were in the i…

Shaving of the head was used sometimes to express sorrow, sometimes to express bondage, and I find it used in Scripture in opposition to both these, namely in times of joy and liberty. First, shaving of the head was used as a note of sorrow (Isaiah 15:2); the Lord speaking by hi…

Is it to be wondered at, if he withhold the clouds that they rain not on it, and suffer briars and thorns to spring up in it, where the plants did grow? The vine when it is unfruitful, is the most unuseful of all trees, it is fit for nothing but the fire, and the Lord has threat…

'Tis not unlawful to make use of the writings of other men. Compare the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Isaiah with the 48 of Jeremiah, especially Isaiah 16:8, 9, 10, 11, with Jeremiah 48:32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and you shall see how they agree almost word for word. The gifts an…

Herod lies in wait for Christ's destruction, and Egypt, the most idolatrous country in the world, and an ancient enemy to God's Church, affords him shelter. God makes Moab to hide his outcasts, and be their covert from the face of the spoiler (Isaiah 16:3, 4). Some think, God's…

Thirdly, it makes vs waite Gods leisure for our deliverance. Isa 16:28. Lastly, in our Temptations we are not to liue by feeling, but by faith: indeed against feeling, to rest on the bare promise of God; when we feele and apprehend nothing but the wrath of God.

Abarbinel's Prediction of the ruin of the Christians. Isaiah 16. v. 1. Chap. 28. v. 5.

True religion begets tenderness; as it melts the heart in tears of contrition toward God, so also in bowels of compassion toward others. Isaiah 16:11: My heart shall sound as a harp. When our bowels of pity sound, then our alms make sweet music in the ears of God.

When a shower falls, the herbs and plants grow. Isaiah 16:9: I will water you with my tears, O Heshbon. I may allude to it: tears water our graces, and make them flourish.

When Aeneas would have saved Anchises his life, says he, Absit ut excisa possim supervivere Troiâ. Far be it from me that I should desire to live when Troy is buried in its ruins; there are in Music two Unisons, if you strike one, you shall perceive the other to stir, as if it w…

But when we have been under the Harrow, and can sympathize with our suffering Brethren, and weep with them that weep; this is a sign we are bettered by the affliction. In Music, when one string is touched, all the rest sound: so our bowels sound as an harp, Isaiah 16:11. 10. Whe…

The earth mourns and fades away, the world mourns, languishes and fades away. See also Psalm 98:8, Isaiah 16:8, Isaiah 35:1-2, Isaiah 49:13, Leviticus 18:28, etc. Now rejoicing, shouting for joy, singing, breaking forth into singing, clapping of hands, crying out, answering, mou…

Then in the dawning he has prayed harder, and used his arms with greater violence than before, by this hunger grows fatter, sense stronger; it is here, Eat and be hungry, pray and desire more strongly to pray. 3. Reasons of God's not hearing prayer are; 1. Superstitious and fals…

1 Samuel 12:13, 19: the spirit of grace looks at sins against Saviors as the chiefest and greatest; though they had doubtless committed many other sins, yet none pierced them so much as this — it was because they grew weary of their Savior. So Chorazin and Bethsaida were greater…

We may see other Christians out-shining us in gifts and grace, as the sun out-shines the lesser planets. Others are laden with fruit, perhaps we have but here and there an olive-berry growing, to show that we are of the right kind (Isaiah 17:6). 3. If we look infra nos, below us…

Well then, in the midst of sad miseries, bless God for a remnant; it may be bad but 'tis not as Sodom (Isaiah 1:9). In times of general defection there will be two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough (Isaiah 17), some that may continue the name of God, and survive…

The truth is, this Altar worship is such gross idolatry, that as I never knew any but the devoted Sons of Babel who are dead drunk with the wine of the filthiness of spiritual fornications, plead for it, so I doubt not, but God will shortly convince men of it, and rid the Land o…

Also at Leviticus 26:30, "I will destroy your high places, and cut down your sun-images," LXX.: your idols made by hand. And at Isaiah 17:8, "He shall not look to the sun-images," LXX.: abominations. These seem to be so called from the sun, which is named from heat.

A cause is not good, because followed by many. Isaiah 17:7, in that day, when the Church is but three or four berries on the top of the olive tree, a man, one single man, shall look to his Maker. Men come to Zion, and follow Christ in ones and twos of a whole Tribe (Jeremiah 3:1…

(Isaiah 10:6), I will send the Assyrian against a hypocritical nation. So (Jeremiah 1:15-16), (Isaiah 13:1-3), (Isaiah 15:1-2, [illegible]), (Isaiah 17:1-3), (Isaiah 19:1-4). Now God could not be the Author of war and peace, as God and Sovereign all-Disposer, if it were in the i…

3. If you look to any other, it cannot save you, but one look on him would make you eternally happy, and you have it (Isaiah 45:22): Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else; come and have heaven for one look, for one turning of y…

And truly this prophecy does indeed properly belong to Christ, through whom it is no marvel if the Gentiles have some part of the promise of salvation. The Prophet has already used this similitude (Isaiah 17:6), but there he only mentioned the church of the Jews, telling them th…

And this is a right acknowledgment: for God is robbed of his due honor while men glory in themselves, be it never so little. But Isaiah speaks not here of the common creation of men, but of their regeneration, for which respect the faithful are in particular called the workmansh…

These Providences speak the jealousie of God over us, and his care to prevent far worse evils by these sad but needful strokes. And so for the degrees of our troubles, sanctified strokes are ordinarily fitted by the wisdome of God to the strength and ability of our inherent grac…

And therefore looking is frequently put for believing in Scripture, which presupposes understanding. 2. Kindliness, or a spiritual, kindly and affectionate carriage to Christ; in a word, it is the exercise of love upon this spiritual and wonderfully excellent object Christ, a ha…

This soul of mine was once plowed up by conviction, and sown (as I thought) with the seed of God. In those days many purposes and good resolutions began to chink and bud forth, promising a blessed harvest: But O! (with what consternation and horror should I speak it;) the cares…

Those fruits which are preserved on the tree, or in the hoard, are comparatively but an handful to those that are broken in the pound. Alas! 'tis scarce one of a thousand, and such a small remnant of Elected souls has God reserved for glory. I look upon the World as a great Tree…

This forgetting of the God that saves us in our extremities, is a sin that brings desolation and ruine, the effects of God's high displeasure, upon all our temporal enjoyments. See that remarkable Scripture, Isaiah 17:10, 11. Because you hast [forgotten] the God of [your salvati…

He who has a little gold labors to increase it — and is not grace more precious than gold? Some Christians have a little fruit and think that is well; like trees that have an apple or two growing on them to show that they are of the right kind (Isaiah 17:6): two or three berries…

Hence the word that notes a staff (2 Samuel 22:18; Isaiah 3): the Lord has broken the stay and the staff of bread (Isaiah 30:1), and this is to be done often, when there is no present duty to be done, nor any work required of us, but only a fiducial relying upon the Lord alone,…

The whole dies is cut off and goes to the devil, a remnant only saved; most of the world are windfalls. That olive-tree (Isaiah 17:6) with two or three olive-berries on the top of the uppermost bough may be a fit emblem of the paucity of those that shall be saved. Satan goes awa…

The use is to stir up all that profess themselves to be in Christ, to examine whether they be true genuine branches of this true vine or no. Here in this kingdom, Christ is spread forth into a fair and pleasant vine in show, as this earth affords: but if we ministers were able w…

They look up to him for it, though they do not as yet find themselves sprinkled with it. Isaiah 17:7: Then shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the holy one of Israel. Thirdly, faith casts a longing and desiring look after salvation in him.

And thus much of those which the Lord in mercy and wisdom receives of us. Now follows those means which he has given us, and they are attributed to the Lord himself directly, as his titles, to be used, either simply (Romans 9:5; 1 Timothy 1:17), in an oath (Deuteronomy 6:13; Jer…

Whereto appertained the ceremony of lifting up their hands to the Lord, which called them to mind with whom they had in this cause to deal (Genesis 14:22). So sometimes they added, or put in stead of the creatures of life, heaven, earth, afflictions, or sufferings, not to give t…

1. Honor; it is the day of his coronation, and his spouse is the crown, wherewith he is crowned. For as Christ is a diadem of beauty, and a crown of glory unto Zion (Isaiah 18:5), so Zion also is a diadem, and a crown unto him (Isaiah 62:3). Christ makes this relation with his s…

That is, whatever you shall stand in need of shall be given you. And in the 48 of Isaiah 18. as the Lord says, Oh that my people had but aheart to consider; That is, oh that my people would but be wie, first to strengthen the Inward man and then, as it followes, your Prosperitie…

He is the Captain of his people's salvation; and therefore it may well be highly resented if they don't resort to him when he orders his banner to be displayed; or if they refuse to follow him when he blows the trumpet, and gloriously appears going forth against his enemies. God…

Secondly, by the Church's prayer to Christ, that he may hasten the translating of them into heaven in the end of the world, ver. 14. Who is this that comes, &c.] Who these Churches should be that remain to be called after the conversion of the Jews and Gentiles, we cannot concei…

The Macedonians on the birthday of Alexander did wear Alexander's picture about their necks, set with gold and pearl: so the righteous carry the lively picture of Christ in their holy example; they live so devoutly as if they had seen the Lord with bodily eyes. 2. The life of a…

The Jews, when scattered in their several flights, did scatter among the heathen the notions of the true religion. When they shall go down to Egypt to secure themselves from Sennacherib's invasion, they shall be a means to make many converts among that idolatrous nation (Isaiah…

As it is said of evil men, that their tongues are set on fire of hell; so the tongues of the righteous are set on fire by heaven. Isaiah 19:18: they speak the language of Canaan. In hypocrites there is loquacity as blazing meteors, and in saints there is sometimes an indispositi…

Oh it is a sad expression, what Israel! a vessel employed and received to empty out excrements! [1. Israel were a people precious and honorable in the eyes of God (Isaiah 43:4). [2. An holy people to the Lord (Deuteronomy 14:2). [3. They were God's peculiar people above all nati…

But this events must determine. In the prophecies of Egypt's destruction, it is signified, that when their rivers and waters should be dried up, in that sense, that the streams of their temporal supplies should be averted from them, their defence would be gone (Isaiah 19:4, &c.)…

And likewise Ezekiel 30:13; Leviticus 19:4, eidola [idols]; and Habakkuk 2:18, eidola kopa [idols] and eidola muta [mute idols]. Also Psalm 97:7, glypta [graven images], that is, "carved images"; Isaiah 19:3, theoi [gods] and agalmata [statues] — "gods and images"; Psalm 96:5, d…

(Isaiah 10:6), I will send the Assyrian against a hypocritical nation. So (Jeremiah 1:15-16), (Isaiah 13:1-3), (Isaiah 15:1-2, [illegible]), (Isaiah 17:1-3), (Isaiah 19:1-4). Now God could not be the Author of war and peace, as God and Sovereign all-Disposer, if it were in the i…

3. They are defined by their country. Isaiah 19:18: Five Cities of the land of Egypt shall speak the Language of Canaan. Verse 24: In that day Israel shall be the third part with Egypt and Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the Land.

It is further said, we must restore in the spirit of meekness. The word spirit is added, because it proceeds from the spirit of God, who is both the worker and continuer thereof: as on the contrary, the spirit of jealousy (Numbers 5:14), the spirit of error (1 John 4:6), the spi…

To bless and swear, is taken for the whole service of God. Swearing is one branch of this service, as we have seen in (Isaiah 19:18) and (Isaiah 48:1). For thereby we leave all judgment to God, and acknowledge him the true witness of whatever is done or spoken.

I do acknowledge that there is no distinction of places, for it is the will of the Lord that men should call upon Him everywhere; but as believers, who profess to worship the God of Israel, are said to speak in the language of Canaan, (Isaiah 19:18,) so they are also said to com…

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…

Was not the Lord in their counsels also, when they suffered a small inconsiderable party in a little village within a few miles of them, to grow into such a body as at length they durst not attempt, when they might have broken their whole endeavor with half a hundred of men? Dou…

So that these things must necessarily be spoken of him in the same respect; and the former, as we have shewed, relateth to his Person in respect of his Divine Nature, so therefore does the latter, and his acting therein. 3. There is yet another word, which I suppose the Apostle…

There is a spirit who rules in the children of disobedience, Satan the Prince of the air (Ephesians 2). 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.

Turkish History tells us, that the very Camels that are used to go to Mahomets Tomb, are ever after of high esteem amongst them, so as they never after use them in any mean servile way as they did before: Though things be never so mean, yet by the use they become honorable; no u…

3. His inheritance, Isaiah 19:25 other people are the work of Gods hands, but Israel is his inheritance. 4.

First, communion consists in the delight they have in one another: There is a full, actual, mutual, everlasting delight between God and the Saints in heaven: First, there is a delight: Secondly, full: Thirdly, actual: Fourthly, mutual: Fifthly, everlasting. First, there is a del…

He destroys the wisdom of the wise and brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent, 1 Corinthians 1:19. This he largely describes in Isaiah 19:11-14: drunkenness and staggering are the issue of all their wisdom, for the Lord gives them the spirit of dizziness. So also Job…

When he means evil, he sends them evil magistrates. (Isaiah 19:4): The Egyptians will I give over into the hands of a cruel lord, and a fierce king shall rule over them. But when good governors, it is a mercy, and a presage of good.

There is no other way whereby God can according to covenant convey spiritual good to you, no other way whereby you can receive it. Be therefore forever comforted in your condition, God must cut if he cure you of a stony heart, God must wound that secure and careless soul of your…

But he chooses with a Covenant choice and calling all the Nations (Isaiah 2:2-3), all the families of the earth under the New Testament (Psalm 22:27), all Egypt and Assyria under the New Testament. Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hand (Isaiah 19:29). All t…

(3.) From Covenant prayers and church prayers — contrary to (1 Samuel 12; Psalm 28:9; Psalm 67:1-2; Psalm 103:4-5). (4.) From the blessing of the Lord's Covenant-presence, who dwells in the Nation, in the Kingdom (Psalm 135:21, Psalm 132:13-14, Revelation 11:15, Isaiah 19:25, Is…

Q. 1. If multitudes and people externally covenanted with God, though not internally, whom the Lord calls his people and chosen by him (Deuteronomy 7:6, Deuteronomy 10:15), be the rightly constituted and visible church, as Mr. Thomas Hooker grants, then kingdoms must be his visi…

But then the whole Gentiles (Isaiah 55:4-5; Isaiah 11:10; Isaiah 60:1-3, etc.), all nations (Isaiah 2:1-2), all flesh (Isaiah 40:5; Psalm 65:2), all the kindreds of the earth (Psalm 22:26-27), the kingdoms of the world (Revelation 11:15), should be all chosen to life, taught of…

6. When the Lord does mingle a perverse spirit among a people, it is a sign that the day of trouble is near. This we may see mentioned as the forerunner of Egypt's ruin (Isaiah 19:14): "The Lord has mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof." When men are resolved to oppose…

So more than twenty times in the Gospel of John, there is mention of this sending; and our Savior describes himself by this description, him whom the Father has sent (John 6:39), and the Father, by this, he who sent me (John 8:16). So that this action of sending is appropriate t…

2. That God delights to mix a spirit of giddiness, error, and folly in the counsels of the wise men of the world; making them reel and stagger in their way like a drunken man, that they shall not know what to do, but commonly in their greatest concernments, fix upon things, as d…

First, I call it, a Confirmation; for so the Holy Ghost speaketh, An oath for confirmation, is among men an ende of all strife (Hebrews 6:16). Secondly, I terme it a religious confirmation, because an Oath is a part of Gods Religion and worship; yes, it is sometimes put for the…

The Scriptures they insisted on were all of them gathered together in the Epistle of Pope Hadrian, which was solemnly assented to by the whole Council. And they were these: God made man of the dust of the Earth after his own image (Genesis 1); Abel by his own choice offered a sa…

These things as to all outward appearance seem as remote from accomplishment, as they were the first day the Promise was given, and the difficulties against it increase continually. And yet notwithstanding the Promise shall break through all difficulties, at the end it shall spe…

But, it is usual to say, that is not done at all, which is but a little done; they took nothing to eat, that is, they took very sparingly, they did eat only so much as would, according to our language, keep life and soul together. In (Isaiah 20:3), it is said, that Isaiah walked…

3. Her feet are commended from this, that they are not bare, but, beautiful with shoes: To be barefooted, imports three things in Scripture. 1. A shameful condition (Isaiah 20:4). 2. A present sad affliction, the sense whereof makes men careless of what is adorning; So David (2…

As (1.) sullenness and dumpish sadness, in refusing comforts, and being full of unbelieving heaviness, in David (Psalm 69:20; Psalm 42:11), whereas we are always to rejoice (Psalm 119:52; Philippians 4:4). (2.) Fainting at the greatness of the affliction (Isaiah 20:3; John 14:1)…

It was a wonder that Lazarus, though lying but four days in the grave, should live again: O wonder you, that ever God should let you live, you who have been rotting in your sin 20, 30, perhaps 60 years together. 3. Every natural man and woman is born full of all sin (Romans 1:29…

For to this end do we put it on, and wear it, for the covering and hiding of that deformity of our naked bodies, which immediately followed upon the transgression of our first parents: and in this respect also, were garments (after the fall) appointed by God, for the use of man.…

Also in the same sense, by a term meaning "carved works," Isaiah 45:20; by a term for "images," Exodus 20:4; 2 Chronicles 33:22. Also by a term meaning "likenesses" or "idols," Isaiah 21:9; and by a term meaning "images," Isaiah 40:19, 20; and by a term meaning "enclosures of al…

He speaks expressly of the multitude, because they were a great people; and therefore boasted of it as if they had been invincible. Where he adds that the remnant shall be feeble, he means, there shall be such a change, that there shall be great odds between their former and lat…

It was wholly committed to the Son of God, who alone was able to undertake it, and who has perfectly accomplished it. So that God now sayes, fury is not in me, he that will lay hold on my strength that he may have peace, he shall have peace, Isaiah 21:4. 5.

Now whatever comes of the flesh, though it be beautiful, yet it is as a flower that will fade away. There is a weakness in all flesh, as there is a strength in spirit, which is intimated Isaiah 21:3. Fear not the Egyptians for they are flesh, and not spirit.

The Holy God may say of you as of them, long since, you have served strange gods. But, O do you now say to Him, as they in Isaiah 21:13, O Lord, other lords besides you have had dominion over us; but we will no more be for You alone. Become weary of your captivity under those ta…

Therefore ever observe it, (for it is an observation that is not wont to fail) that if the Lord's watchmen do with one voice cry, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains, it is so indeed. Men may slight this sign, as the Edomites did; but believe…

ISAIAH 21. 11, 12. 11 The burden of Dumah.

2. To rejoice is a duty (Psalm 33:1): praise is comely for the upright. But when God by his judgments calls us to weeping, now joy and mirth is unseasonable (Isaiah 22:12): "In that day did the Lord call to weeping, and behold joy and gladness." Oecolampadius, and other learned…

Your eyes are like the fish pooles in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim.] For the abundance of water, meaning teachers, that they shall yeeld even tears of repentance at their conversion, partly for the great wrong they had done our Savior, partly to consider the unspeakable a…

The doctrine of Christian liberty, which is one part of the Gospel, is abused to exclude the Moral Law, as a rule of duties to God and man: whereas the Apostle says, "I am not [in non-Latin alphabet], not without the Law to God, but under the Law to Christ" (1 Corinthians 9:20).…

Ah, this goes close to honest hearts! But though God allows — indeed commands — the most awakened apprehensions of these calamities, and in such a day calls to mourning, weeping, and girding with sackcloth (Isaiah 22:12), and severely threatens the insensible (Amos 6:1), yet it…

Judgments affect us when they are before our eyes, as the thunder and plagues did Pharaoh, but when they are removed, men return to their beloved ways as though God had shot away all his arrows, and was departed to mind them no more. Take heed of this, it is a sin highly provoki…

The fairest and most glorious sight, that ever the eye of man saw, shall be, when Christ shall come riding through the clouds, on his chariot of glory, accompanied with his mighty angels, and with one pull, or shake of his mighty arms, shall cause the stars to fall from heaven,…

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 Church prays thus to God, Teach us to number our days, that is, so to consider the shortness, uncertainty, and vanity of our life, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom (Psalm 90:12). But wicked men's practice is clean contrary, for they take occasion upon the shortness of…

As there are various affections planted in your souls, so are there several graces planted in those affections, and several Providences appointed to draw forth, and exercise these graces. When the Providences of God are sad, and afflictive either upon the Church in general, or y…

Neither is there any thing that concerns any of them in their passage towards glory, whereby they may be furthered or hindered in their way, but the care is committed to him; as the care of the whole army lies on the General, or Prince of the host. This the Prophet sets out in h…

3. The end of this invitation, it was to eat and to drink with them. As under the notions of bread and water, or bread and wine, all necessaries for food are comprised; so under the actions of eating and drinking, the whole business of feasting is contained (Luke 12:19; Isaiah 2…

We read (Jeremiah 3:21), A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the house of Israel. When the terrible voice of God's judgements has been heard in London, God does hearken for the voice of weeping and supplications; this God's voice does call for; w…

5. Some are all their life creeping children, yet saved: a sincere affection in Nicodemus consists with much ignorance, yet is not the faith rotten. 6. It belongs to sovereignty that the little vessels of small quantity hang upon Christ, as well as the great (Isaiah 22:24), and…

We must spend no more care, or thoughts, or time, or words, or cost, about them, and lay no more stress or weight upon them than they deserve, and that is but a very little. It is but glory hung upon us, as the expression is (Isaiah 22:24), and has no glory if compared with the…

In the name of Jesus Christ I beseech you, let it be your care so to walk, with such heavenly humble spirits, as to hold forth the beauty of godliness unto others, and to force respect from them. As it is said of God, Holy and reverend is his name; How does Gods name come to be…

Wicked men would have the favor of God, but they are easily put out of the humor. Again, then we pray with the whole heart, when there is such a desire as not to be discouraged, but you venture again, when the Lord seems to put off and give a check to your requests (Isaiah 22:8)…

And in that place they must die. It was said to Shebna, that with a mighty captivity he should be carried into Babylon, and there you shall die (Isaiah 22:18). So at the day of Judgment, the Chaldeans of Hell will carry sinners with them into an everlasting captivity, and there…

And therefore it is the prophet looks at it as desperate, beyond hope or help (Hosea 4:4): let no man strive with another or reprove him, for this people are as they that strive with the priest, they contemn him and his reproof, so far are they from being content to take it, or…

O that our tears may blunt the edge of this sword; when it is a time of treading down, now is a time of breaking up the fallow ground of our hearts. Isaiah 22:4-5: therefore said I, look away from me, I will weep bitterly, for it is a day of treading down. Joel 2:2, 13: a day of…

This is a sin that enrages God. Isaiah 22:12-13: In that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning, and behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine. And it was revealed in my ears by the Lord of Hosts: Surely this ini…

Rejoicing is a duty (Psalm 33:1); but when God by some special providence calls us to weeping, now joy is unseasonable. This is that which God complains of (Isaiah 22:12): in that day did the Lord of Hosts call to weeping, and behold joy and gladness. Oecolampadius and others th…

8. There is a promise of glory, of a name above all names made to Christ for his sufferings (Psalm 16:9-11) (Isaiah 53:12) (Acts 5:31), and to such as suffer with him, and overcome (Luke 22:29-30) (Revelation 3:21) (Revelation 2:10). As also, he shall bear all the glory of his F…

8. As the former Argument is from the promise made to Christ, and fulfilled to him, so this is from the predictions, prophecies and promises of him, as he, of whom such glorious promises are foretold, and may claim the thing promised, by faith, he has some word of promise for su…

Sometimes God makes his judgements go in circuit, from family to family. The cup of affliction has gone round in the Nation, all have tasted it; and if we repent not now, we stand in a contempt of God, and do interpretatively bid God do his worst; and such a climax of wickedness…

The expressions of smiting of the thigh, (Jeremiah 31:19). knocking on the breast, L[illegible]k. 18. 13. putting on of sackcloth, (Isaiah 22:12). plucking off the hair, (Ezra 9:3). What are all these, but outward signs of inward sorrow.

There is a great deal of reason why the people of God should observe, not only who enjoys the Gospel in which Christ is opened to men, and where it is that Christ is most clearly and distinctly declared in his whole work; but also what fruit or efficacy there is of it; how far t…

I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid, but rather through their fall, Salvation is come to the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousie, Isaiah 22. 19. And I will drive you from your Station, and from your state shall hee pull you down.

So long as God's sword is in his scabbard, men have such stout hearts, that they will never yield; God must wound, and cut deep, and stab, and thrust to the very heart, else men will never yield, never awaken, till God's fists be about men's ears, and he is dragging them to the…

Christ is a growing child. In Christ's lower firmament, there be stars of the first and second magnitude: and in his house, vessels of great, and of small quantity, cups and flagons (Isaiah 22:24), yet all are fastened upon the golden nail, Jesus Christ. 2. All are in the way, t…

Therefore fire cannot consume, water cannot drown the saints, except by a dispensation of the Lord. 5. Christ is not fastened as a loose nail, or as one broken or rotten wedge in the covenant: he is there as a nail in a sure place (Zechariah 10:4; Isaiah 22:23). Hang all the ves…

And that of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:19): "My bowels! my bowels! I am pained at my very heart! My heart makes a noise in me! I cannot hold my peace! Because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war!" And so (Jeremiah 9:1; 13:17; 14:17; Isaiah…

And a time of a great prevailing of eminent holiness, when little children should, in spiritual attainments, be as though they were a hundred years old (Isaiah 65:20), and wherein he that is feeble among God's people should be as David (Zechariah 12:8). A time wherein holiness s…

In it the Ammonites, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, from their common ancestry, and the other inhabitants by reason of proximity and the wars waged against them, were well known to the Israelites. The Mediterranean Sea was to them the great sea; the western sea, and whatever la…

It's a man's betaking himself to Christ, that when he shall be called for, it may be answered, Lord, I am in Christ not having my own righteousness, etc. It is not to be lippenning to the man's good hopes, to his good prayers, or to his good meaning, but to Christ's satisfaction…

Christ's fame spread abroad through all the country, and now he is shamed and a reproached man; now the whole people cry out away with him, away with him, crucify him; the ground of man's glory is his goodliness or graciousness, his [in non-Latin alphabet], all his endowments an…

And v. 23. [in non-Latin alphabet]; and before the World. And in that sense is [in non-Latin alphabet] always used; as Isaiah 23:7. Psalm 78:2. Isa. 46:10. And thus the words will yield a better sense than a facie admirabilis Consilii Deus; or that which they are cast into by Se…

"He that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them." Holiness shall then be as it were inscribed on every thing, on all men's common business and employments, and the common utensils of life:…

For this sin God strikes many with Frenzy, and so levels the Mountain of pride. God has stained the pride of England's glory, Isaiah 23.9. He has stripped us of our Jewels, Proverbs 16.8. Pride goes before destruction.

Money used to have an image and superscription upon it (Matthew 22:20). And the prophet has given us an inscription for ours (Isaiah 23:18): Her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord, and so also (Zechariah 14:20-21). Hereby we stamp the image of God upon them.

But his unchangeable love depends not on the ebbing and flowing of your transient and up and down sense: in this, you worship a dependent God. There is no rule without God to regulate him, or yet to straighten him in his walking; we are not to misplace God, for though the God of…

This duty is commended in the Church of Macedonia, that they gave their own selves, first to the Lord, and after to them that were in need, by the will of God (2 Corinthians 8:5). And thus the Prophet Isaiah foretells, that the city Tyrus being converted, should consecrate thems…

15. We glorify God in a high manner when we suffer for God, and seal the Gospel with our blood (John 21:18-19): When you shall be old, another shall gird you and carry you where you would not: This he spoke, signifying by what death he should glorify God. God's glory shines in t…

Therefore after those days, is as much as in those days; an indeterminate season for a certain. So, in that day, is frequently used in the Prophets (Isaiah 24:21, 22; Zechariah 12:11). A time therefore certainly future, but not determined, is all that is intended in this express…

The Scriptures speak of that time, as a time wherein God and his Son Jesus Christ will be most eminently glorified on earth; a time, wherein God, who till then had dwelt between the Cherubims, and concealed himself in the Holy of Holies, in the secret of his Tabernacle, behind t…

But 1. the footstool for the soles of Christ's feet (Isaiah 66:1; Matthew 5:35). 2. A footstool of clay far from the throne of glory, the office house of sin (Isaiah 24:5). The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof (chapter 26:21).

Isaiah 24:15 Therefore, glorify you the Lord in the fires. You have oft, my dear hearers, let me tell you, met with affliction; and I believe you may persuade yourselves affliction is at hand, which makes such deep impressions, when sent and blessed by heaven, as to thaw the ver…

And all these figments with that of Haran's being consumed by fire in the sight of his father, they withdraw from the supposed signification of the name [in non-Latin alphabet]; which they would have to signify fire (Genesis 11:28), but as where it relates to the Chaldeans (Ur o…

Almost all the then known world, that is all the nations that were round about the land of Canaan, far and near, that were within the reach of their knowledge, were overturned again and again. All lands were in their turns subdued, captivated, and as it were emptied, and turned…

But it shall be one day, which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light." — It is further represented, as though God would then give such light to his church, that it should so much exceed the glory of the…

And for the changing of the ordinances, I am of opinion it is he that is guilty of that sin and not we; for we have proved God settled this privilege upon the infant seed of his people, that the promise under the Gospel continues still to them, and if he exclude them from baptis…

It is in the Gospel then that we have peace, and therefore it stood the Jews in hand to be made partakers of that doctrine. And as for us that come of the Gentiles, we ought (as I said this morning) to acknowledge so much the better the double recognition wherein we stand bound…

The world is Satan's walk, the devil's circuit: From where do you come? From compassing the earth (Job 1), a place defiled with sin (Isaiah 24:5), given to the children of men (Psalm 115:16). Here God will show his bounty to all his creatures, to beasts, and all kind of men; it…

The children of Israel were the bush that was all on fire, in respect of the Egyptian persecution, which then they were under; but the Lord by a mighty hand of providence upheld them, so that the fire did not consume them. Moreover, the saints are wont to glorify God more in a d…

The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof. Isaiah 24:4. The earth mourns and fades away, the world mourns, languishes and fades away.

(2 Samuel 2:14) That which was but a play in the morning, proved bitter in the evening. So though a man in the morning of his age, look at sin but as a trifle, yet the time will come when you shall say, it is bitterness (Isaiah 24:9) and (Proverbs 23:32) it will in the end bite…

And many other parallel scriptures might be mentioned. I observed before, that when God is about to do some great work for his church, his manner is to begin at the lower end; so when he is about to renew the whole habitable earth, it is probable that he will begin in this utmos…

Response. Argument 1. By Scripture (John 6:44): I will raise him up at the last day. Isaiah 25:8. He will swallow up death in victory. That is, by delivering our bodies from the captivity of the grave, wherein death for a time had power over them (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

He neither slumbers nor sleeps. 7. He thinks nothing too good to part with to his children: He gives them the kidneys of the wheat, and honey out of the rock, and wine on the lees well refined (Isaiah 25:6). He gives them three jewels more worth than heaven, the blood of his Son…

How could we taste this honey of joy, if we were not sometimes in affliction? Again, God has promised to wipe away tears from our eyes (Isaiah 25:8). How could God wipe away our tears in Heaven, if we never shed any?

Christ therefore, that he might be a complete Savior, and able to save to the uttermost, had all his offices put upon him; and all such as hope to be found saved by him, must accept of him in them all. And hence it follows, that whoever he be that truly believes in him for pardo…

Indeed many of the saints of the Old Testament did greatly rejoice in the Lord, and had the joy of his salvation abiding with them. See (Psalm 51:12; Isaiah 25:9; Habakkuk 3:17, 18). But they had it not by virtue of the Levitical Priesthood.

And this darkness had two parts; first, that which was external with respect to the will of God concerning sinners and their acceptance with him; secondly, on the minds of men in their incapacity to receive such divine revelations to that end as were or should be made. This was…

Wise men may guess when they see probabilities, and foretell that which depends on natural causes; the Devil can many times shrewdly interpret the predictions of the word, but a certain prescience of what is future, and merely in itself contingent, is the prerogative of God (Isa…

As the dung of the earth. Seventhly, they are as straw that is troden for dung, in Isaiah 25:10. As straw troden for the dunghill.

A time, wherein both God will be greatly glorified, and his saints made unspeakably happy in the view of his glory; a time, wherein God's people should not only once see the light of God's glory, as Moses, or see it once a year with the High Priest, but should dwell and walk con…

(Micah 7:7) I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation: My God will hear me. (Isaiah 25:8-9) God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord has spoken it. And it shall be sai…

All the Song reports great things of the kingdom of grace. Ask of Isaiah, What saw you there, he answers, (Isaiah 25:6) It is a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow. And Ezekiel says, That there shall be a brave summer in that land.

Some feed ordinarily on the fat and marrow of the Lord's house (Psalm 63:5). And there is a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined (Isaiah 25:6). And has not the King a banqueting house, a wine cellar (S…

For sometimes God gives not only a comfortable but a glorious issue. There is nothing lost by waiting on providence, though we abide the blows of Satan for a while, yet abide them; God is — it may be — preparing the greater mercy for you (Isaiah 25:9): "And it shall be said in t…

(2.) Afflictive Providences have not accomplished that design upon our hearts they were sent for, when we are so earnest and impatient for a change of them; and till then the rod must not be taken off, Isaiah 10:12 (3.) The more prayers and searchings of heart come between our w…

Christ called her to eat and drink abundantly, to be filled with his love. See the like Isaiah 25:6. So Job's children were eating and drinking wine, that is, they were at a plentiful and solemn feast that day.

First, the King here spoken of is Christ, as was cleared (verse 4). His Table or feasting-house is the Gospel (Proverbs 9:1, etc.), where the feast of fat things is prepared (Isaiah 25:6). His sitting at his Table, or her sitting with him at it, imports familiar fellowship with…

He is their dwelling place (Psalm 90), then when in this world they had none; their refuge in the time of trouble. So (Isaiah 25:4; 26:1; 31:4) promises, and instances to make this good abound; they are known to all: the time would fail me to insist upon them. I might go over al…

"Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." There is a kind of a veil now cast over the greater part of the world, which keeps them in darkness: but then this ve…

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 in hand, they lose with it their spiritual food and soul-subsistence; for the Gospel is their feast of fat things (Isa…

And when did the Ephesians and other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart? And if Christ shall destroy in this mountain…

And the continuance of this vail on the revelation of the glory of Christ, while a vail of ignorance and blindness was upon their hearts and minds, proved the ruin of that Church in its apostacy, as the Apostle declares (2 Corinthians 3:7, 13, 14). This double vail (the covering…

First, the choice mercies of God are communicated to his people: If you would have any share in Gods choice mercies, his peculiar mercies, come amongst Gods people, join with them: as that place is observable in Psalm 134:3 The Lord that made Heaven and earth, bless you out of S…

None eat of this banquet but such as wait at the table. Isaiah 25:6, 9: In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make to all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines well refined; and it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him; we will be gla…

1. Because when Christ says (John 5:4), "The believer has passed from death" — as it is a curse — "and shall never come to judgment and condemnation," he cannot mean that they have half passed from the curse, and half not. 2. Believers are delivered, in Christ, from the victory,…

No doubt, Christ God-Man is in Covenant with God, being a person designed from eternity, with his own consent, and in time yielding to that, and yet he stands not in that covenant-relation that we stand in: as we shall hear. Argument 1. What argument does prove that there is a p…

And the continuation of this veil on the revelation of the glory of Christ, while a veil of ignorance and blindness was upon their hearts and minds, proved the ruin of that church in its apostasy, as the apostle declares (2 Corinthians 3:7–14). This double veil God promised to r…

5 It is comfort in case of the Saints' sufferings; The Church of God is exposed in this life to many injuries, but she has an Husband in heaven, that is mindful of her, and will turn her waters into wine; now it is a time of mourning with the Spouse, because the Bridegroom is ab…

Now how could this equality have stood together, unless he had been the same God whose name is Jah and Jehovah: that rides upon the Cherubim, that is king of all the earth and Lord of the worlds? Now however they babble against it, it cannot be taken from Christ which Isaiah say…

Pliable: This is very pleasant; and what else? Christian: There shall be no more crying, nor sorrow; for he that is owner of the place will wipe all tears from our eyes (Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 7:16, 17; 21:4). Pliable: And what company shall we have there?

Who are these that fly as Doves to the windows? The gracious soul flies as a Dove to an Ordinance, upon the wings of delight; The Sacrament is his delight: On this day the Lord makes a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the Lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on t…

Christ rides into the Believer's heart in these chariots. Ordinances are convivium pinguium, the feast of fat things, Isaiah 25.6. The soul feasts with Christ here, Canticles 2.4.

When a man daily seeks the face of God for pardon of sin and peace of conscience, the heart of such an one shall daily rejoice. Secondly, daily to remember the Lord, is to wait upon him, and that brings continual rejoicing (Isaiah 25:9). In that day it shall be said, Lo, this is…

The great danger of not appearing openly to acknowledge, rejoice in, and promote that great work of God, in bringing in that glorious harvest, is represented in (Zechariah 14:16-19): "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left, of all the nations, which come against…

2. God's power is an inexhaustible power, it is never spent or wasted. Men, while they exercise their strength, weaken it: but God has an everlasting spring of strength in him (Isaiah 26:4). though he spends his arrows upon his enemies (Deuteronomy 32:23).

Quest. 5. What are the visible signs of our love to God? Resp. 1. If we love God, then our desire is after him (Isaiah 26:8): The desire of our soul is to your name. He who loves God breathes after communion with him (Psalm 42:2): My soul thirsts for the living God.

Therefore Christian be not discouraged; though you have no strength of your own, yet God will give you this strength. The iron has no power to move, but when the lodestone draws it it can move (Isaiah 26:12). You have wrought all our works in us.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun. 2. The bodies of the saints shall arise out of their graves with triumph: the bodies of the wicked shall come out of the grave with trembling, as being to receive their fatal doom: but the godly, when they awake out of the dust, s…

Nothing will quench the soul's thirst but the blood of Christ; he faints away, his heart breaks with longing for God (Psalm 84:2; Psalm 119:20). 3. An unfeigned desire is active; it flourishes into endeavor (Isaiah 26:9): With my soul have I desired you, indeed, with my spirit w…

When Jacob was in fear of his life by his brother, then he wrestles with God and weeps in prayer, and would not leave God till he had blessed him (Hosea 12:4). It is with many of God's children as with those who formerly had the sweating sickness in this land, it was a sleepy di…

That is: throw and cast your whole soul, your whole weight, upon it. He only has perfect peace whose mind is stayed on God (Isaiah 26:3). Have not half your soul upon that rock which is higher than you, but climb up and get all upon it.

So does David also (Psalm 15:17), and in sundry other places. And Isaiah is express to the same purpose (Isaiah 26:19): "Your dead shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise: awake and sing, you that dwell in dust: for your dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth…

This indignation to be executed by fire is described in the last place by its efficacy and effects: it is the fire that shall devour, or eat up the adversaries. The expression is taken from Isaiah 26:11. For the fire of your enemies, is there, not that which the enemies burn wit…

Now they are from him, when we acknowledge him, and deny our selves in all we do: when so to do is the frame and disposition of our hearts: when there is that principle in us, that enables us (through divine assistance) so to do; and disposes our hearts to desire that we actuall…

And he that will pray aright, must put on the person and the very affection of a poor wretched beggar, and certainly not being grieved with the rueful condition in which we are in ourselves, it is not possible for us to pray effectually, Psalms 130:1. Out of the deepest called u…

But Christ is not only the author, but the great conservator of the peace between us and heaven, partly by his intercession: as foreign states have their agents in princes' courts to preserve a mutual correspondence; so Christ takes up all differences that fall out between us an…

Go to God by acts of faith and trust, and never doubt but he will secure you. Isaiah 26:3: 'You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.' God takes it well when you come to him thus: 'Father, my life, my liberty, or estate are hunted…

Psalm 130:1: Out of the depths I called upon you, O Lord: that is, when I was in my greatest misery, and as it were, not far from the gulfs of hell, then I cried to God. Isaiah 26:16: Lord, in trouble have they visited you: they poured out a prayer when your chastening was upon…

Now all creatures in the world are subject to breaking, your estates are in danger to be broken in pieces, therefore they are not Gods; that's the argument of the Holy Ghost here: yes it may be many of your estates are broken in pieces already, Oh what poor Gods were those that…

We have had a fair season, and we have seemed to be very busy, the Lord grant we do not sow the wind, as it follows in the next words, They have sown to the wind: This is a proverbial speech that signifies, the taking a great deal of pains to little purpose: as a man that should…

And one thing that we have good reason to understand by it, is her exercising strong desires, and wrestling and agonizing with God in prayer, for this event; because we find such figures of speech used in this sense elsewhere: so, Galatians 4:19, "My little children, of whom I t…

When He slew them, they sought Him." The prophet has similar things (Isaiah 26:10, 11). For dispensations of divine providence of this kind very often so affect the minds of sinful men that, though they "have brass and triple iron around their hearts," they cannot restrain thems…

4. And by faith I live not, Christ lives in me, and I am crucified and mortified; that is, by faith I know that I did live the life of God, and was crucified to the world; whereas I was dead in sins, before I believed. 5. And because believing is somewhat more than a naked act o…

The will of God is revealed in the breathing of the Spirit, that stretches forth itself in such a humble and faithful manner, as that the soul is very sensible of its need of it, we pour out our souls before God, for what we stand in need of in feeling desires, and this good Han…

All these places show that there can be no sincerity and seriousness in this duty, unless there be this ascension of the soul to God, it is an act of spiritual friendship, therefore called an acquainting ourselves with God (Job 22:21). Now as acquaintance is kept up by frequent…

So his works of judgment (Psalm 119:120): My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments, when the wicked of the earth are put away like dross. A lion trembles to see a dog beaten before him, and it is imputed as a fault to the wicked, that they do not take…

I fear many of us are guilty of a kind of spiritual fine-spun Idolatry, by heterogeneous thoughts in holy duties, that pluck us from God, when we are approaching to him. The Lord humble us for this, and fix our thoughts upon God, that we may say as the Church (Isaiah 26:8), The…

Do I not hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. So holy Desire, exercised in Longings, Hungrings and Thirstings after God and Holiness, is often mentioned in Scripture as an important Part of true Religion; Isaiah 26. 8. The Desire of our Soul is to thy Name, and to the Remembrance…

Many shall be purified and made white and tried: But the Wicked will do wickedly: And none of the Wicked shall understand. Isaiah 26:10. Let Favour be showed to the Wicked, yet will he not learn Righteousness; in the Land of Uprightness will he deal unjustly.

"Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusts in you; yes, in the shadow of your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast" (verse 1). This trust and dependance on God, though it is not argumentative in respect of the dignity of the act…

And so for afflictions, 'tis a great wickedness, when God's hand is listed up not to see it. Isaiah 26:11 The Ox knows his owner, and the Ass his masters crib, Isaiah 1:3 the most dull and stupid creatures know their benefactors. O look to the hand of God in all; and know, that…

(2.) The peculiar care and kindness of Providence to us, is a consideration which exceedingly heightens the mercy in it self, and endears it to us. So, when in general calamities upon the world, w are exempted by the favor of Providence, covered under its wings; when God shall c…

Your betters have waited long upon God for mercy, and why should not you? David waited till his eyes failed, Psalm 69. 3 The Church waited for him in the way of his judgements, Isaiah 26:8 Are you better than all the saints that are gone before you? Is God more obliged to you th…

It's plain, that this is our duty, because the neglect of it is every where in Scripture condemned as a sin. To be of an heedless inobservant temper is very displeasing to God; and so much appears by that Scripture, Isaiah 26:11 Lord when your hand is lifted up they will not see…

The reasons of this are taken, 1 from their envy, 2 from their carnal fear, the two principles whereby they are acted in reference to the Saints of God. 1. Their envy: They have a devouring envy at them, which at length shall shame them and consume them (Isaiah 26:11). They are…

Besides they observe the number of the verses at the end of every book: as also that [in non-Latin alphabet] in [in non-Latin alphabet] Leviticus 11:42 is the middle letter of the Law; [in non-Latin alphabet], Leviticus 10:16 the middle word; Leviticus 13:33 the middle verse; th…

Take him as he was a magistrate, when Job sat in judgment or had any business brought before him, he gave every one his due, he did not spare or smite upon ends; he did neither at any time justify the wicked or condemn the godly, but was upright in judgment: he was not biased by…

Her case is in the last words, I am sick of love: a strange disease, yet natural to a believer. This sickness implies pain as of a woman in travail, whose showers are sharp, and pangs vehement till she bring forth: The same word is used to this purpose, (Isaiah 26:17) Like as a…

Looking on them in this state, they have principles (as I said) that will carry them out to an enquiry into their state and condition. 1. They are full of envy against them; "They shall be ashamed of their envy at your people" (Isaiah 26:11). Looking on them, as wholly separated…

It is said (Daniel 9:13), all this evil is come upon us, yet made we not our prayer to the Lord our God; and when God had consumed Israel because of their iniquities, the prophet complains (Isaiah 64:7), there is none that calls upon your Name, that stirs up himself to take hold…

Then shall be accomplished concerning Antichrist the things which are written in the 18th chapter of Revelation of the spiritual Babylon, that great city Rome, or the idolatrous Roman government, that has for so many ages been the great enemy of the Christian church, first under…

Now the means used with them are of two sorts. (1.) Such as are afforded to the Gentiles, who have not the Gospel, namely, the light of a natural conscience, and the common strivings of the Spirit of God in them; they are therefore said to be a law to themselves, and their consc…

Psalm 139:17: How precious are your thoughts to me. And the Church says (Isaiah 26:8): Yea, in the way of your judgements we have waited for you, O Lord, the desire of our soul is to your name. Jeremiah 15:16: Your words were found, and I did eat them, and your word was to me th…

And these and the like the soul is more able to bear: that the habit and stock is rich, as Christ, from the personally indwelling Godhead, was strong in his desertions peculiar to him; and the richer the habit of grace be, the more able is the soul to stand out: the strong ship…

Proud fools would cashier both Law and Gospel: but that eminent preacher Mr. Will. Fenner, God will not help that man to go that has legs to go and will not. God is to be waited for in the way of his judgements (Isaiah 26:8), so you must not look to fetch God out of his walk, th…

He is not a gracious guest who sets on fire his own lodging. With my soul I have desired you in the night; yea, with my spirit within me early will I seek you: and that is a work of the Spirit to learn righteousness, when the Lord's judgments are on the earth (Isaiah 26:9). v. 1…

Again, as it is Idolatry, so it is a vain thing to do it; for we are not able to do it (Psalm 37:5). He will bring it to pass; there the Lord takes it as peculiar to him only; therefore in Isaiah 26:12 (you may compare them both together) it is said there, Lord you will ordain p…

Hitherto there have been diverse lords: the Heathens had their several Deities, the Turks their Mahomet, the Jews their imaginary Messiah, the Papists their lord the Pope — many nations do not as yet call Christ Lord. Other lords have dominion over them (Isaiah 26:13). But then…

1. In that it is compared to things of the most infallible increase and progress: for besides that, its growth is frequently likened to that of plants and trees well watered, and in a fruitful soil, which fail not to spring, unless it be from some external violence; it is likewi…

He has a hiding place and a covert, and rivers of water, and the shadow of a great rock for his security. This is the great mystery of faith in this matter of our acceptation with God by Christ: whereas the soul of a believer finds enough in himself and upon himself to rend the…

It is spoken of him in reference to his being sent by Christ after his ascension: I will send him who proceeds — namely, when I send him. As God is said to arise out of his place, Isaiah 26:21, not in regard of any change in him but of the new work he would effect, so here the m…

Answer: 1. It is no otherwise the work of the Spirit, but as all graces and good works which are in us, are his: he works in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). He works all our works in us (Isaiah 26:12); the work of faith with power (2 Thessalonia…

Pray, there is the insufficiency of it, and the necessity of his watching, by whose power we are effectually preserved, and that power is our fort. Salvation has God appointed for walls and bulwarks (Isaiah 26:1), what more safe than to be walled with salvation itself. So (Prove…

Now you have but one to serve, and that's a great ease, and it's no slavery, but true honor to serve so excellent a lord and in so high services: for he puts you upon nothing, but what is neat and what is honorable, you are as a vessel of honor in his house for his best employme…

That the sea should be higher than the earth, and yet not drown it, is a wonder: so that the wicked should be so much higher than the Church in power, and not devour it, is because Christ has this inscription on his vesture and his thigh, King of Kings (Psalm 124:2), If it had n…

To love God in heaven is no wonder, but to love God when he chastises us, this discovers sincerity. 2. For purgation: To purge out corruption, Ardet palea, purgatur aurum (Isaiah 27:9). And this is all the fruit to take away his sin.

When God shakes the tree of the body, he is now gathering the fruits of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11). Sickness is God's lance to let out the imposthume of sin (Isaiah 27:9). 3. In case of God's providences to his church: we wonder what God is doing with us, and are ready to kil…

The wicked dying in their sins can expect no mercy from God as a Father. Many say, he that made them will save them, but (Isaiah 27:11): It is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them. Though God was their Father by creation, yet beca…

So it is to God to have the breasts of his mercy drawn. Isaiah 27:4: "Fury is not in me" — that is, I do not delight in it. Acts of severity are rather forced from God; he does not afflict willingly (Lamentations 3:33).

When Israel was compassed in between Pharaoh and the Red Sea, no question some of their hearts did begin to tremble, and they looked upon themselves as dead men, but providence so ordered it, that the Sea was a safe passage to Israel, and a sepulcher to Pharaoh and all his host.…

I will correct you in measure. God will in the day of his east wind stay his rough wind (Isaiah 27:8). The physician that understands the constitution and temper of the patient, will not give too strong medicine for the body nor will he give one dram or scruple too much.

Answ. (1.) Peace is made for all that believe. (2.) The way of attaining it is laid open to them (Isaiah 27:5). (3.) Patient abiding in faith will in due time bring them into this peace.

They therefore do but deceive their own souls, who trust to peace with God on the mediation of Christ, who are not at peace with God in their own souls by repentance; for the one is not without the other. As he who is at peace with God on his own part by repentance, shall never…

[〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], is to give light or knowledge by teaching; the same with [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] which therefore is so translated oft-times by the Greeks. As by Aquila (Exodus 4:12; Psalm 119:33; Proverbs 4:4; Isaiah 27:11) as Drustus observes. And it is so by t…

But I must not too far digress. The command of God, the love and care of Christ towards his Church, the ends of God's patience and long-suffering, the future manifestation of his glory in the salvation of believers and the condemnation of those that are disobedient, the necessit…

Afflictions do not fall out by chance, but by counsel (Job 5:6; Ephesians 1:11). By this counsel of God they are ordained as means of much spiritual good to saints (Isaiah 27:9): 'By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.' Hebrews 12:10: 'But he for our profit.'

Some of them shall you scourge in your Synagogues, which suppose it were not meant of the executing and inflicting of the punishment upon them, but only as some would have it, of passing the sentence, yet this will not help them, for still it was a civil and secular use of the p…

Yes, there is a promise of taking away their sins, when the Lord shall take away their idols. Isaiah 27:9: By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit, to take away his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are…

God is a golden shield to his people, and a flaming sword to his enemies, Zach. 2. 5. For I saith the Lord will be unto her a wall of fire round about. A wall, That is defensive; a wall of fire that is offensive, Isa. 27. 2. In that day sing ye unto her a Vineyard, of red wine,…

And what fruit indeed is there brought forth to God in the world but by his Churches? and God expects much fruitfulness among his people; however, as you shall hear, they are charged with being empty. Thirdly, no plant requires so great care as the Vine; what a deal of do is the…

Oh! this (I say) is the evil of our hearts, it comes from our fullenness, frowardness, and unbelief ever so to conclude, it may be God intends only to prune you and to take away superfluities, that so the sap may go down more at the root, that you may have more humility, and sel…

They rendered the interpretation of the word, not the word itself. That this was their custom, Jerome observes, on Isaiah 27:12, where on the contrary they render a Hebrew word by "Rhinocurura." "For the stream of Egypt," he says, "the LXX (Septuagint) translated 'Rhinocurura,'…

XVIII. From peculiar characteristics, or from their peculiar imaginary use, idols have received certain names. XIX. Of this kind is the term rendered "They shall not stand — the groves and the sun-images," Isaiah 27:9. LXX.: idols.

The second is (Hosea 4): My people perish for want of knowledge. The third is (Isaiah 27): This is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them, will have no mercy upon them. Think not then little of ignorance, neither think yourselves to be well, so long as you liv…

Or what just reason can there be to be dissatisfied with, or to complain of God's giving to, and ordering that for us, whereof we stand in need, and which we cannot want without being considerably prejudiced and worsted by the want? Sixthly, if it be considered, that in all your…

(Job 7:21), "And why do you not pardon my iniquity, and take away my transgression?" (Isaiah 27:9), "This is all the fruit, to take away his sin" — this cannot be the potential and ineffectual removing of sin, common to all the world, but proper to the Church, and brought to pas…

He prays like a king, who is in joint commission with God. If God puts that honor upon our prayers, that we are said to have power with God, as Jacob (Hosea 12:3) — that if God be never so angry, yet by taking hold of his strength, we hold his hands (Isaiah 27:5) — that God crie…

What punishment is sufficient for the least of our offenses, committed against his infinite Majesty? This ought therefore to be referred to the mercies of God, that he always smiting in measure, as it is in (Isaiah 27:8), will give them no more blows, neither yet continue them a…

Song of Solomon 8:11, 12. Isaiah 27:2, 3. And therefore every Thing in a true Christian is calculated to reach this End.

Your poverty does but clog your pride; reproaches clog your ambition: want prevents wantonness: sickness of body conduces to the prevention of many inward gripes of conscience, and groans under guilt. The Providences of God may be observed to conduce to our holiness, not only by…

A Well of water is discovered to Hagar, just when she had let the Child, as not able to see its death, Genesis 21. 16, 19. Rabshakh meets with a blasting Providence, hears a rumour that frustrated his design, just when ready to give the shock against Jerusalem, Isaiah 27. 7, 8.…

One Word of God can do more, than ten thousand words of men to relieve a distressed soul. If Providence have at any time directed you to such Promises, as either assure you that the Lord will be with you in trouble, Psalm 91:15 or that encourage you from inward peace, to bear ch…

If, as some expound it, the hedge be the Law of God, then the Serpent is the remorse of Conscience, and the sharp teeth of affliction, which he shall quickly feel, if he be one that belongs to God. The design and aim of these afflictive Providences, is to purge and cleanse them…

To some all Providences are over-ruled and ordered for good, according to that blessed Promise, Romans 8:28 not only things that are good in themselves, as Ordinances, Graces, Duties and Mercies; but things that are evil in themselves, as Temptations, Afflictions, and even their…

God will not continue his course of physic, to them one day beyond health recovered. This is all the fruit of their afflictions; to take away their iniquities (Isaiah 27:9), and when that is done, who shall keep bound what God will loose? When sin is taken away from within, trou…

Secondly, though God be a merciful God, yet God's saving mercy is not so large as to extend to all creatures that live, that he has made. You read (Isaiah 27:11): This is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them will not have mercy upon them, and he that formed…

His eyes are always open upon them. They are never out of his heart, nor thoughts; they are engraven on the palms of his hand, and their walls are continually before him; or as he expresses it (Isaiah 27:3), I the Lord do keep my Vineyard, I will water it every moment, lest any…

But many tokens they have of it when it does come; for they heap up, out of some allegorical passages in the Scripture, such stupendous prodigies as never were nor shall be in the world. One of the principal of them is the sounding of the great trumpet which all Israel shall hea…

These they called [in non-Latin alphabet] the dispersion or scattering of Israel, when they were sifted among all nations, like the sifting of a sieve (Amos 9:9). In Psalm 147:2 they are called [in non-Latin alphabet], which the LXX, according to the phrase in their days, render…

Satan has a boundless malice against the people of God. Some observe this from his name Leviathan (Isaiah 27:1). In that day the Lord with his great and strong Sword shall punish Leviathan the piercing Serpent.

It is not enough that we be prisoners of hope, but we must turn to our strong hold, Zechariah 9:12. not enough that we are weary and laden, but we must come to him, Matthew 11:27, 28. It will not suffice that we are weak, and know we are weak, but we must take hold on the streng…

Were there no more mercy, grace, Compassion, to be shewed in this case, than it is possible should be treasured up in the heart of a man, it would be impossible that Ephraim should be spared; But says he, I am God and not Man; Consider the infinite largeness, bounty, and goodnes…

All that wait on God on the account of mercy and grace shall have an undoubted Issue of peace. He shall redeem Israel; let him says God lay hold of my Arm, that he may have peace, and he shall have peace, Isaiah 27:3. Obs.

They are called so, 1. For their feebleness in themselves (Ezekiel 15:2-3, etc.), yet excelling in fruit beyond others. 2. Because of God's separating them from others, and taking pains on them above all others (Isaiah 27:2-3); for these, and other reasons, they are called the v…

Believers have a notable security and defense, Christ's bed and his guard, if he be sure, they are sure, one watch watches both him and her. The same power of God (Isaiah 27:2), the twenty thousand of Angels, which are his Chariots (Psalm 68:17), are for the believer's protectio…

Next, this garden is enclosed: it is a special property of gardens to be so; to be enclosed is by a wall or hedge to be fenced from the trampling and eating-up of beasts, and also from the hazard of winds: so (Isaiah 5:2) the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts (which is his Church) i…

O then labor to pacify his anger, you cannot fly from him, O then fly to him; you cannot stand in his sight when he is angry, O then fall down at his feet; make peace with this adversary, while you are upon the way, before he deliver you to the officer death, and cast you into t…

"Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land." The glorious times which are approaching, are as it were the church's jubilee, which shall be intr…

GOd having to do in a way of correction with divers sorts of offenders, does not use the like severity with them all, but proportions his correction to their abilities and strength, Ier. 30. 11. I will not make a full end of you, but will [correct you in measure] and will not le…

He sets a guard of angels to encamp round about them that fear him (Psalm 34:7), and will not trust them with a single guard of angels neither, though their power be great, and love to the saints as great. But he watches over them himself also (Isaiah 27:2-3): "Sing to her, a vi…

But I insist not here, though this also affords matter of awful consideration. 2. With respect to the time to come: and then to stand in God's sight, intends to enjoy his special favor and love, and we have this infelicity expounded in Isaiah 27:11, and there are two seasons whe…

As if God had no other way to show himself merciful, but by saving sinners in their sins; whereas we are told that Christ's great design is to save them from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Hence we have God using that sarcasm (Isaiah 27:4): Fury is not in me: who would set the briar…

5. There are some personal influences upon a single man that are more private, which are very desirable: but there be some more public influences on the Church; so the Lord walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and raines down ministerial blessings on his Church, holds…

So Christ speaks to the Spirit (Canticles 4:16): Awake O North-wind, and come you South, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. So there is a commission given that the Spirit in its efficacy blow upon the plants and flowers that grow there; the Church is also…

Others teach with difficulty. Difficulty in finding out a truth, and in inculcating it (Isaiah 28:10): Precept must be upon precept, line upon line; some may teach all their lives, and the word take no impression. They complain as (Isaiah 49:4): I have spent my labour in vain.

2. If you want Assurance wait for it; if the figures are graven on the dial, it is but waiting a while and the sun shines: When grace is engraven in the heart, it is but waiting a while and we shall have the sunshine of Assurance. He that believes makes not haste, (Isaiah 28:16)…

6. God's Justice is such, that it is not fit for any man or angel to expostulate with God, or demand a reason of his actions. God has not only authority on his side, but equity: he lays judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, (Isaiah 28:17) and it is below him to…

God is represented with a rainbow round about him (Revelation 4:3), an emblem of his mercy. Acts of severity are rather forced from God; justice is his strange work (Isaiah 28:21). Therefore the disciples, who are not said to wonder at other miracles of Christ, yet did wonder wh…

It could not be a nesciency that God was ignorant, because there is mention made of a cry; but the Lord speaks there [illegible], after the manner of a judge, who will first examine the cause before he passes the sentence. God when he is upon a work of justice, is not in a riot,…

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 with this sin, God says of him as of Ephraim (H…

Those who are poor in the world, yet as soon as they come into this kingdom, grow rich, as rich as the angels: Other kingdoms are enriched with gold, this is enriched with the Deity. 4. The kingdom of heaven excels all other kingdoms in holiness: Kingdoms on earth are for the mo…

Mercy is God's right hand, that he is most used to. Inflicting of punishment is called God's strange work (Isaiah 28:21); he is not used to it. And when the Lord would shave off the pride of a nation, he is said to hire a razor, as if he had none of his own (Isaiah 7:20): "He sh…

Every good gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights. Wisdom is the gift of God (Isaiah 28:26). His God does instruct him to discretion.

In Isaiah 57:17, if lesser crosses would do it, he would not bring out the great rod. If a rod will thresh out the cummin, he is not accustomed to run the wheel over it or use a flail to do it (Isaiah 28:27). Now lesser afflictions work with most of his, through his blessing — m…

If all Churches come out of Babylon by degrees; then you condemn all Churches that are not of your judgement? We condemn no Churches that are built upon the tried stone: the precious corner stone; the sure foundation (Isaiah 28:16), Jesus the Christ. Seeing other foundation can…

But in the latter sense they cannot be so. It is Christ himself, and he only, who is so the Foundation as to bear the weight, and to support the whole Building of the Church of God (Isaiah 28:16; Matthew 16:18; 1 Corinthians 3:10, 11; Ephesians 1:20, 21, 22; 1 Peter 2:4, 5). He…

But I must not too far digress. The command of God, the love and care of Christ towards his Church, the ends of God's patience and long-suffering, the future manifestation of his glory in the salvation of believers and the condemnation of those that are disobedient, the necessit…

Concerning which Sedulius observes, that the title of foundation is attributed both to Christ, and to the Apostles and Prophets. That where it is said (Isaiah 28:16), Behold, I lay in Sion a stone, &c., it is certain, that by the rock or stone Christ is signified. That, in Ephes…

Mercy is represented as his delight and pleasure: so (Micah 7:18) mercy pleaseth him: 'tis an act exercised with complacency. Judgment is called his strange work (Isaiah 28:21). God loveth to bless and protect; to destroy is not suitable to his disposition; 'tis a thing that he…

Now as Reformation, where Humiliation has not gone before, usually comes to little purpose, so Humiliation where Reformation follows not after, comes likewise to little purpose. In (Isaiah 28:24) Does the Husbandman plow all day to sow? The text is brought to note thus much, Tha…

The elder translators, the Seventy, always render that word by diatheke; Aquila and Symmachus do otherwise, using syntheke as well. Our Ballius, in his treatise De Foedere Divino, ch. i., asserts that the Seventy render the Hebrew word by syntheke at Isaiah 28:15. But the learne…

The doctrine has been written "plainly," so that "he who reads it may run" (Habakkuk 2:2). God has given His word — "precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little here, a little there" (Isaiah 28:10; Hebrews 5:13, 14). These propositions, t…

The giving of the admonitions is, by little and little, by often repetitions, in greatest plainness which may be, to make them understand some chief grounds and seeds of religion, of good manners, and behavior towards all, and so to begin some conscience in them. [Isaiah 28:10.…

1. As it makes the report of Christ, and brings the tidings of such things, as that He is born, and that He has suffered, and for such an end, and that we may partake of the benefit of them on such terms; it makes the proclamation narratively, and tells what He did, what good ma…

May we not then say, O sinners, if you will believe that you have a good resting place, a sure foundation, a tried cornerstone? As it is (Isaiah 28), cited (Romans 9), where the Apostle has it, He that believes on Him shall never be ashamed; there is a sufficient surety, a full…

Isaiah preached long in many kings' reigns, and yet all along his prophecy he complains of it, as in Isaiah 6:11: "How long, Lord, shall their eyes be blind, and their ears heavy, etc." And in Isaiah 28:9: "Whom shall I teach doctrine? Those that are weaned from the milk, and dr…

Thus also we prescribe means and time to God, take upon us to set rules to him, how he should govern the world. And one usual way of tempting God now is, when we will not go fair and softly in the path and pace of God's appointing, but are offended at the tediousness thereof, an…

Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and what then can hinder? 2. Patience, we must be contented with the Son of God to tarry his leisure, and undergo our course of trial; as Christ patiently continued till enough was done to instruct the Church (Isaiah 28:16). He that b…

Again in our afflictions and temptations we may not make haste, for help and deliverance before the time, but wait the leisure of God, who has decreed the time of deliverance. He that believes makes no haste (Isaiah 28:16). Habakkuk must wait because the vision is for a time app…

And because they profess Christian religion, and sometimes come to the church, and to the Lord's table, they think all is well, and they suppose there is no danger. Thus they make a covenant with hell and death (Isaiah 28). But they deceive themselves: for God is unchangeable, a…

For as he will deny anything in justice that denied to Dives a drop of water to cool his tongue (Luke 16:24-25), so he will recompense anything in mercy, that will recompense a cup of cold water (Matthew 10:42). This integrity in judgment without partiality is signified by the w…

Wherefore also it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion the head-stone of the corner, elect, precious, and he that believes in him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, which believe, he is precious: but unto them who are disobedient, the stone which the build…

Sometimes he states, in a dark manner, what might be more clearly expressed; and sometimes he explains his mind fully, without ambiguity and without metaphor, but strikes their senses with dullness and their minds with stupidity, so that they are blind amidst bright sunshine. Su…

Lo, I lay in Zion a foundation-stone, a precious and elect stone, against which both houses of Israel shall stumble! (Isaiah 28:16.) The same mode of expression frequently occurs in the New Testament.

He threatens, therefore, that he will come as their Judge, and that he will make them forget those luxurious enjoyments to which they are now so entirely devoted; not that the coming of Christ will strike them with terror—for they think that they have made a covenant with death,…

Acts of mercy are God's proper work towards his people, which he will certainly awake, and keep alive in the saddest times. Mercy you see is his work, his proper work, as he calls judgment his strange act (Isaiah 28:21). He retains not his anger for ever, because he delights in…

Every wind that passes over it causes it to wither: this is the best of flesh; of all that in and by ourselves, we are, we do, we enjoy, or hope for. The crown of the pride of man, and his glorious beauty, is but a fading flower (Isaiah 28:1). What joy, what peace, what rest can…