Malachi 2

How needful is his Spirit; we cannot do any duty without it in a lively manner: when this wind blows upon our sails, then we move swiftly towards heaven. Pray therefore that God will give us of the residue of his Spirit (Malachi 2:15), that we may move more vigorously in the sph…

If a believer should not persevere, God should break his promise (Hosea 2:19): I will betroth you to me forever, in righteousness and loving kindness. God does not marry his people to himself, and then divorce them; he hates putting away (Malachi 2:16). God's love ties the marri…

So then the utility of it may make us cleave to the Lord as our God (Psalm 144:15): Happy is that people who have the Lord for their God. 3. From the necessity: 1. If God be not our God, he will curse our blessings (Malachi 2:2): And God's curse blasts wherever it comes. 2. If G…

But the question is concerning hard places of Scripture, where the weak Christian is ready to wade beyond his depth, who shall interpret here? Response. In the Church God has appointed, Ordo docentium & discentium, some to expound and interpret Scripture; therefore he has given…

Question 1. In what sense is God a Father? Response. 1. By creation; it is he that has made us; Acts 17:28. [in non-Latin alphabet], we are his offspring (Malachi 2:10). Have we not all one Father?

This is a great argument for keeping the Sabbath day holy: God is not benefited by it, we cannot add one cubit to his essential glory; but we ourselves are advantaged: the Sabbath day religiously observed entails a blessing upon our souls, our estate, our posterity. As the not k…

Whatever their persons are, their office is honorable. They are the messengers of the Lord of Hosts (Malachi 2:7). They represent no less than God himself (2 Corinthians 5:20): Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.

When a man shall have all his sins set before his eyes, and drawn out in their bloody colors, and the worm of conscience begins to gnaw — sinner, here are your debts, and the book is not canceled, you must to hell — O what a trembling at heart will the sinner have! All the curse…

But herewith they mixed so many vain curiosities and traditions of their own, that the whole of their endeavor was disapproved of God. Hence in the very entrance of their practice of this way of teaching, he threatens to destroy all them that attended to it (Malachi 2:12). The L…

Answer: Sometimes this name is attributed to all the persons in Trinity, or any of them. Malachi 2:10. Have we not all one father, etc. Luke 3:38. Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Again, as love is for good, so 'tis for one object; like a pyramid, it ends in a point; affection is weakened by dispersion, as a river by being turned into many channels. In conjugal love (where friendship is to the height) there is but one that can share in it, that's the law…

Now the marriages of Protestants with Papists are private leagues of amity between person and person, and therefore are not to be allowed. Again, in Malachi 2:11 the Lord says: Judah has defiled the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and has married the daughters of a strange…

3. Differences in Religion are not so hard, but that a prudent and pious man may find out the truth. If a man diligently and humbly study the Word of God, and heartily beg of God the spirit of direction, and take advice from able and faithful Ministers whom God has establisht in…

Now without this, let a man seem to turn and reform never so well, all is unsure work, and built upon a sandy foundation. And whoever will not acknowledge their iniquity, and be ashamed for it, God shall make them bear their shame, according to that which is pronounced in the ne…

It was the notion of many Heathens, when they saw many who had acted with much gallantry for their countries afflicted, they questioned whether there were a superintendent power over the world. This has also been the stumbling block of many taught in a higher school than that of…

The World lies in Common, and is as so much waste ground; but the Church is Gods Vineyard and Enclosure, therefore he will hedge it in with protection: Cant. 8. 1. My Vineyard which is mine is before me. The Saints are Gods Jewels, Mal. 2. 17. Therefore he will not let them be l…

But as it was a Church, and not as Jewish, it had foure sorts of ordinary office-bearers, Priests, Levites, Doctors, and Elders, and we conformablie have Pastors, Deacons, Doctors, and Elders. To their Priests and Levits, Cyprian does rightly liken our Pastors and Deacons, for h…

Ans. Otherwhiles this name is attributed to all the persons in Trinity, or any of them. Malachi 2:10. Have we not all one Father, &c. Luke 3:38. Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

VIII. We shall presently show that this synagogue also expelled from the boundaries of the church the unlawful intermarriage with Gentiles that had scarcely been avoided in a holy manner since the days of Solomon; but they also went higher still. For men instructed with the spir…

The extraordinary preaching of the word by the prophets was so much a matter of divine arrangement that, on that account, the church was neither to be praised nor blamed. God had ordained that "the lips of the priests should preserve knowledge" (Malachi 2:7). It was the duty of…

Proverbs 2:17. Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God. Malachi 2:14. But you say, Therefore? Because the Lord has witnessed between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you do unfaithfully: yet she is your companion and wife covenanted…

2. A Martyr dying for the truth of Christ may have a natural and conditional desire and inclination to live, though his living be contrary to the Lord's revealed will, commanding him to seal the Gospel with his blood, and to confess Christ before men. 3. If the brother, son, dau…

Wonder not then if so little good be done among the Papists, or in any other Churches where there is only bare reading; make account of it, as the Lord says, My people are then destroyed for want of knowledge. Was there ever any soul so desperately ignorant think you, as to take…

The people left all and went up to feed themselves there, by the tents of the shepherds. This is another part of our purchase of Christ — which God forbid it should be our case — but if it should come to that pass, rather forgo the ordinances of God, which were of his own settin…

Whom I sent.] Isaiah descends by degrees from all men in general, to the Jews in particular; then to the Priests, which were the lights of the world as it were: for it was their office to interpret the Law, to walk before others in a good example of life, and to show to them the…

Hence we are to gather wherein man's chief happiness consists, namely, in having our minds illuminated of God, to comprehend that salvation which is manifested to us in Christ. For as long as we are strangers to this knowledge we are the unhappiest people under heaven; for so th…

And certainly, if they had done their duty, it would have been proper for them to direct the whole people, and to go before them as their leaders. For the priests had been appointed, that from their lips all might seek the knowledge of the Law, and, in short, that they might be…

And therefore these things agree in each respect: and very fittingly are to be applied namely and specially to the Pope, with his Cardinals, Bishops, Monks, Friars, Nuns, and all the rest of his filthy Spirituality, and rumpwood retinue. For they being appointed to be as it were…

That this was the cause and end of his call and separation is evident from hence, that immediately thereupon God assures him that in his seed all the kindreds of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 12:1, 2, 3; Chap. 22:18), which is all one as if he had expressly said to him, f…

Because you have despised knowledge, therefore also will I despise you. Mal. 2. 9. Therefore have I made you to be despised and vile, before all the people; because ye kept not my way, but have beene partiall in the Lawe.

Observation 1. Since our Lord Jesus had a Church militant, he has thought good to guide it mediately, by a standing ministry and ordinances; and that is to set out his vineyard to keepers. 2. There ought none without Christ's tack or lease, enter upon the ministry, and become ke…

Every sermon they study, they do but draw up a bill of indictment against themselves; and every time they preach, they do but pronounce the sentence of their own damnation: And woe to such pastors, when they whom Christ has set over his sheep, shall themselves be found at the la…

God indeed seemed to connive at this in the holy men of old; yet it never was otherwise than a sin from the foundation of the world. And therefore the Prophet Malachi refers us to the primitive institution of marriage, to show the obliquity of this practice (Malachi 2:15). Did n…

A covetous miser could not take such delight in his bags, nor a young heir in a large inheritance, as holy David did in God's Word. All the saints are priests to God; now of Levi it is said (Malachi 2:6) that the law of truth was in his mouth, and his lips kept knowledge as a st…

The God with whom we have to do demands the heart, looks at the principle, and requires truth in the inward parts, not only in the duties of his own immediate worship, that those be done in the spirit, but also in the duty we owe to our neighbor, that that also be done with a pu…

It is an instance of unquietness to be ever and anon quarrelling with our allotment. Those wives wanted a meek and quiet spirit, that covered the altar of the Lord with tears (Malachi 2:13) — not tears of repentance for sin, but tears of vexation, at the disappointments they met…

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

He is not like the hard hearted Jews, who upon every slight occasion would put away their wives. The Lord hates putting away (Malachi 2:16). Though therefore the Church, through her weakness, does depart from him, and play the harlot, yet return again to me, says the Lord (Jerem…

1. That the world might be increased: and not simply increased, but with a legitimate brood, and distinct families, which are the seminaries of cities and commonwealths. Indeed also that in the world the Church by a holy seed might be preserved, and propagated (Malachi 2:15). 2.…

And that is a Part of his Duty, at proper Seasons, in some of his public Ministrations; for he must conceal nothing of the Counsel of God from them, that may be useful or profitable to Men: The Methods of his Worship, and Institutions of his Gospel, should be treasured up in his…

The curse is taken out of our blessings, and the sting out of our afflictions. As long as sin remains unpardoned, our blessings are cursed (Malachi 2:2): "If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of Hosts, I will even send…

1. That God is a Father. He is a Father, 1. By Creation, he has given us our Being, Malachi 2:10. Have not we all one Father? has not one God created us?

4. That the remembrance of the most illustrious examples of his justice, power, and goodness, should comfort us, though we do not perfectly feel the effects of his righteous government. 1. I will prove we are apt to suspect God's righteous administrations when we see not the eff…

We know not the value of mercies so much by their worth as by their want, [illegible], a thing too near the eye cannot be seen, God must set things at a distance to make us value them. If he take them not away, yet many times he blasts them as to their natural use (Malachi 2:2):…

8 God witnesses against sin by the many great and severe judgments which he has executed upon, as well as threatened to sinners, and which he will in all ages execute on many, and to all eternity on some sinners; for what God has done, shows what God will do; as the Apostle infe…

1. Sin is contrary to the nature of God; God's name is holy, and as his name is, so is he and his nature, all holy, yes, he is so, and cannot but be so: And therefore God takes it more ill, that men should think him wicked like themselves (Psalm 50:16-22), than that they think h…

But then says sin (11) it is but your infirmity, you cannot help it: this is a thing (tell sin) that none but fools and children can pretend to; besides, to plead for infirmities, is more than an infirmity, and that which is but an infirmity today, may become a disease tomorrow,…

What if poisoned bread be given to dogs? The long furrows in the backs of the godly have a seed of blessing in them, when the table of the wicked becomes a snare, and their honor their halter (Malachi 2:2). SECT. 9.

Noah's sacrifice was a perfume (Genesis 8:21): the Lord smelled a sweet savor. The sighs of a wicked man are an unsavory breath; his solemn sacrifice is dung (Malachi 2:3); there is such a noisome stench from a sinner's duties that God will not come near (Amos 5:21): I will not…

This is the soundness of heart that excludes a blushing consciousness, and misgiving; exempts it from the fear of a shameful discovery. "Let my heart be sound in your statutes" is explained as having respect to all God's commandments (Psalm 119:6, 80); to which is opposite, that…