Leviticus 26

Is it not sad to grieve our Comforter? 3. Sin is an act of contumacy against God; a walking antipodes to heaven (Leviticus 26:27): If you will walk contrary to me. A sinner tramples upon God's law, crosses his will, does all he can to affront, yes to spite God.

So that image-worship is contrary to our own homilies, and does affront the authority of the Church of England. Secondly, image-worship is expressly against the letter of Scripture (Leviticus 26:1). You shall make no graven image, neither shall you set up any image of stone to b…

All God's judgments set themselves in battle array against the disobedient. First, temporal judgments (Leviticus 26:15-16). Second, eternal: Christ comes in flames of fire to take vengeance on them that obey not (2 Thessalonians 1:8).

2. He who has a child-like heart grieves for sin, as it is an act of enmity. Sin is diametrically opposite to God: It is called a walking contrary to God (Leviticus 26:40): If they shall confess their iniquity, and that they have walked contrary to me. Sin does all it can to spi…

It consists in two things. (1.) Humiliation (Leviticus 26:41): "If their uncircumcised hearts be humbled." There is (as the schoolmen say) a two-fold humiliation, or breaking of the heart.

Pharaoh's head was crowned, though his heart was hardened. Position 7. Mercy coming to us in a covenant is sweetest: it was mercy that God would give Israel rain, and bread to the full, and peace, and victory over their enemies (Leviticus 26:4-6). But it was a greater mercy, tha…

We justify God, and confess he punishes us less than we deserve (Ezra 9:13). (3.) Patient submission to God's will lies in the accepting of the punishment (Leviticus 26:41): And they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity. Accepting of the punishment; that is, taking al…

See this in Joseph's brethren, who went on a long time without any remorse for selling their brother: But when they were stayed in Egypt, then they are roused up, and can say, Genesis 42:21, This trouble is come upon us, for selling our brother. Secondly, afflictions serve to hu…

O let not that which God has threatened as a judgment upon the wicked ever seize upon the breasts of the righteous. 'I will send faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies,' said God, 'and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them' (Leviticus 26:36). O what poor-…

James commands not such a confession. Daniel's, Ezra's, Peter's confession were some other thing (John 1:20; Acts 19:18; Hebrews 11:13; Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 4:2; Mark 3:6; Joshua 7:19; Daniel 9:4; Romans 10:10; 1 Timothy 6:13; Psalm 32:5; James 5:16; Leviticus 5:5; Leviticus 1…

Being then deprived of such a mercy, they justly felt the difference between the present evils, and the former benefits which they once enjoyed. This text will be the easier to understand out of Moses, whom the Prophets often follow: for in the promises, he says thus in express…

Again he shows by the effects, how desirable a thing it is to be converted to God; seeing this is the fruit of true repentance, that God will receive into his favor the repentant; and will so bless them, that nothing shall be wanting: indeed, rather they shall be satisfied to th…

For this cause he shows how the Jews being returned home from their captivity, to enjoy a true and full deliverance, shall not labor in vain; neither shall their works be fruitless. The law threatens the death of friends, wars, loss of goods, and anguish of mind (Leviticus 26:22…

But the Lord deals thus with the wicked, never ceasing to afflict them, till he has wholly overwhelmed and rooted them out, because they having been often summoned to repentance have refused, and still refuse to be reconciled to him. We are not therefore to marvel if plagues aft…

And justly does the Lord speak in this manner; for that deliverance was a sort of birth of the nation. Then were openly produced letters of adoption, when, by the promulgation of the law, they became “the Lord’s portion,” (Deuteronomy 32:9,) “a royal priesthood, and a holy natio…

there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few, (1 Samuel 14:6.) As the blessing of God can make one loaf suffice as well as twenty for satisfying a great multitude, so, if that be wanting, a hundred loaves will not be a sufficient meal for ten men; for when the sta…

Third, this repentance that has been described, is indeed the special condition of remission of sin. This seems very evident by the Scripture, as particularly, Mark 1:4: John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins. So, Luke…

Secondly observe, Satan tries another way, and he tries a way more probable and efficacious for his ends than the former; when a weaker will not do it, he provides stronger means. As God in punishing or chastening sinners, when a lesser judgment will not humble them, he sends a…

3. Because they will not hearken to the voice of lesser afflictions; when God's word is not heard, he speaks by his rod; when his rod is not heard, he shoots with his arrows and strikes with his sword; and if lesser afflictions be not minded, then God speaks by more dreadful awa…

5. God does expect that London should be humble under these judgements. God inflicted judgements on the children of Israel in the wilderness, to humble them (Deuteronomy 8:16), and he promises after the sorest distresses which he brings his people into for their sins, to remembe…

But now, when this was brought to pass, God set up his tabernacle in the midst of his people, as he had before promised them. Leviticus 26:11. "I will set up my tabernacle among you" The tabernacle was set up at Shiloh, Joshua 18:1, and the priests and Levites had their offices…

O 'tis a spending day to him. When he has gathered in the crop of one duty, he is not to sit down satisfied with it, or say as that rich worldling did (Luke 12:19), Soul take your ease, you have goods laid up for many years, but must to plow again, and count it well if the vinta…

So does God; wherever he plants a church there does he fix his habitation, intending there to dwell (Psalm 46:5): God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. Thus God came to dwell upon his own fee and inheritance, in Judea (Leviticus 26:11-12): And I will set my taberna…

(1.) You must humble yourselves under his mighty hand (when you are exercised with great and sore temptations) and accept the punishment of your iniquity, without murmuring; that's the only way to get it off, when you own it as the fruit of sin. (Leviticus 26:41) If then their u…

And therefore the apostle makes it to be an argument of God's bounty to the heathen, that as he gave them food, so he gave them gladness of heart: (Acts 14:17). He gave them rain from Heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness: that is, gave them a…

O what a heavy judgment was it, to be given up to the counsels of their own heart! 2. It reproves such as do not consult with God's word about their affairs, but merely live as they are acted by their own lusts, or walk at all adventures; so the expression in the marginal readin…

God's judgments are to break our carnal dependencies. 3. Still the hope increases, when we acknowledge his justice and wisdom in all our troubles (Leviticus 26:41). If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity, kiss the…

How few are there that give him thanks for his seasonable discipline, and observe God's faithfulness and the benefit they have by afflictions, but rather murmur, repine and fret through impatience? If it be good to be afflicted, let us accept of it, for good is matter of choice…

When the soul keeps silence to God, and a due and suitable impression is left upon it, of his justice by a meek and humble submission (Micah 7:9): I will bear the indignation of the Lord, for I have sinned against him. When God is angry, and chastises for sin, we must stoop humb…

The Lord your God shall circumcise your heart, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, that you may live. It was figured in the cutting of the foreskin, or the circumcision of the flesh; which because it was an action done with pain, sometimes note…

1. Then the sinfulness of sin not only appears by, but consists in this, that it is contrary to God, yes, contrariety and enmity itself in the very abstract: Carnal men, or sinners, are called by the name of enemies to God (Romans 5:8, 10; Colossians 1:21), but the carnal mind o…

For herein lies the spiritual evil of sins and that hidden poison and malignity of the corruption of our natures, that they jostle professedly against the Almighty so far as he is pleased to communicate himself to us in the ways of his holiness and goodness. Thus the blasphemer…

First, we must mourn for sin as it is an act of hostility and enmity. Sin does not only make us unlike God, but contrary to God (Leviticus 26:40): They have walked contrary to me. Sin affronts and resists the Holy Ghost (Acts 7:51).

For the Lord expressly tells them, when he took them by the hand as his married people, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage (Exodus 20), he meant no other Covenant than he made with Abraham, of believing (Genesis 15), and of walking before him…

Quest. Whether are there fewer threats of temporal evils under the New Covenant than under the Old? Answ. It cannot be denied, except the threats of the Sword, Famine, Pestilence on Jerusalem, and the desolation upon the Jews (Matthew 23; Matthew 24) but in place of all the dise…

(5.) Infants are debarred from Covenant-calling and gathering in under the wings of Christ: contrary to Matthew 28:19-20, Matthew 23:37, Psalm 147:19-20, and excluded from God's Covenant-choice: contrary to Deuteronomy 7:6-9, 13-14, Deuteronomy 10:15, and left being heirs of wra…

Only there is a warrant to say that the Covenant is everlasting: first, because it goes beyond time and stands with the dead in Christ (Matthew 22:32); second, because two great promises of the Covenant — the rising of the body and life everlasting — are fulfilled after time is…

The servant is smitten and sickened, for the master's sake, and God may take from them what he gave them, their lives without sense of pain and dolor, for all beings, yea defects and privations are debtors to the glory declarative of God (Proverbs 16:4; Romans 11:36), yea and no…

We look little to anything but to have and enjoy the dead lump and body of gold, dead lands without Christ. See (Hosea 2:18, 22; Ezekiel 34:25, 27; Ezekiel 36:29; Leviticus 26:6; Psalm 37:9, 11, 29; 1 Timothy 4:8; Hebrews 13:5-6; Matthew 6:25-26; Psalm 34:10). O fair inheritance.

Our turning away our eye from the Covenant is the cause why we succumb; Christ, under his sorest assault with hell and hell's pursuivants and officers, devils, and the felt anger of a forsaking God, doubles his grips on the Covenant, my God, my God (Psalm 22:1) (Matthew 27), O m…

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…

Then if both agreed to dispense with that law-way to save man; here is covenant-condescension between Jehovah and the Son, of quieting law, and pitching on a mild Gospel-way. 7. Argument, from the promises made to Christ: He to whom the promises are made, as to the seed, so as i…

Sin is a walking Antipodes to God, and if men walk contrary to God, is it a wonder God walks contrary to them? Leviticus 26.17. If you will walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you, and I even I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.

Verse 5: I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. And this is not an Old Testament spirit only, for the same promise is (1 John 1:8-9): If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive (Leviticus 26:40): If they shall…

It is not of weight that is brought to take off the force of these pregnant Scriptures: The church consisting of mixed persons, good and bad, elect, and reprobate (say they) is according to the wicked party punished in justice, but not the believing party: But I answer, all Juda…

1. Use: All without this covenant are miserable; Christ undertakes not for them. The Lord deals with them by law — read Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26, Job 20, chapters 18 and 27. They have bread, but it is not sure; not so the believer (Isaiah 33:16): 'His bread shall be given hi…

Fourthly, seek after knowledge as for hidden treasure (verse 4-5), make account you do not seek for trifles when you seek for knowledge, but look at the knowledge of God and his grace as precious things, and reverence the Ordinances. It is irreverence, especially for young men,…

I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and am not worthy to be called your son; it were, he thought, a shame to such a father, to have such a spendthrift to be his son, he had not the temperament of a son in him, and now he would be content to be as a hired servant. Now o…