Isaiah 3

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…

They are in such a condition, that nothing can make them miserable; take away their money, their treasure is in heaven; banish them their Countrey, they are Citizens of the New Jerusalem; cast them into bonds, their Consciences are free; kill their bodies, they shall rise again;…

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…

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,…

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…

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.

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…