Chap. xxvii. 3, 4. “A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both,” &c. We see what we may expect of the enraged, exasperated malignant party. Their wrath against all the godly, for their faithful secluding and purging them out of places of trust, is weighty and insupportable like the sand of the sea. It will crush them under it if God support not. It is [pg 519] like a swelling river, or a high spring tide, it goes over all banks, since the state and church have drawn the sluice and let it out. But when it is joined with envy and malice, against godliness and piety itself, who can stand before that? No means can quench that heat. Ver. 6: Faithful men's reproofs, remonstrances, and warnings, applied in love and compassion, are better than an enemy's kisses and flatteries, than his oils and ointments are. Therefore we would pray against the one, and for the other, that God would smite us with the mouth of the righteous, but keep us from the dainties of the wicked Joabs, Judases, and Ahithophels. Verse 8 speaks sadly against ministers that withdraw from their charges so unnecessarily, as a bird that wandereth too long from her nest: the young starve for cold or famine, or are made a prey. So these who, having no necessary call to be elsewhere, especially not being members of the Commission, yet stay not with their flocks, are guilty of their soul's ruin. Ver. 10: O how doth this speak against the present course of judicatories! They have forsaken their old faithful friends, when they proved ever constant, and have gone in to their wicked countrymen's house in the day of their calamity. But a neighbour in affection and piety, is nearer than a brother in flesh and near in habitation.
Chap. xxviii. 1: “The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth; but the righteous is bold as a lion.” Wicked men are now chosen for stoutness and courage, but they have no sure foundation for it. It is but like the rage and temerity of a madman or drunkard. But godly men, once satisfied in grounds of conscience about their duty, would have been bold as lions. A good conscience would have made them bold, Psal. cxii. 7, 8, Lev. xxvi. 36. Now, ver. 2, behold the punishment of our sins, our governors are changed, there is almost a total alteration, and we are faces about, which cannot but bring ruin to the land, especially when men of understanding and piety are shut out. Ver. 4, with chap. xxix. 27: It is a great point and argument of declining and forsaking the law of God, when men praise the wicked, change their names though they themselves be not changed, and leave off contending with, or declaring against them, and do rather plead for them. But godly men, that keep the law, contend with, discountenance, and oppose them, as David, “I hate them that hate thee,” and earnestly contend with them. Thus they are kept from partaking with other men's sins. Ver. 5: It is not very likely that all the ungodly should now understand the duty of the times and discern the right way, and that so many that fear God understand it not, seeing the Lord's secret is revealed to them, Psal. xxv. 14. Verses 6, 7: A poor man, and weak means, if they be of upright men, are better and stronger than many rich and strong perverters. A companion of evil men and a keeper of the law agree not in one person; the one is an honour, the other a shame to all that have interest in them. Ver. 9: Their prayers and professions are abomination, no acceptation of those that turn away their ears from obedience to the law, who walk contrary to it. Ver. 10: These cunning and crafty men that have enticed some godly men, and led them on in the present course, shall themselves smart for it, when the godly seduced shall see good things after all this. Ver. 12: When wicked men have power and trust, good men hide and retire themselves from such a congregation or assembly of the wicked. See chap. x. 10, 11. Should we thus choose our own plague, tyranny, oppression, calamity, and misery, and cast away our own glory? Then, (ver. 13) repentance requires time and ingenuous confession, and real forsaking. If both these join not, it is but a covering and hiding of sin. If a man confess, and yet walk and continue in them, he is but using his confession as a covering to retain his sins, and such shall not find mercy of God, or prosper before men. Ver. 14: It is not so despisable a thing to fear alway, and to be very jealous of sin as it is now made. It is counted a reproach to have any scruples at the present course. But happy is he that abstaineth from all appearance of evil, but he that emboldeneth himself, and will not question any thing that makes for advantage, falls into mischief. Ver. 15, 17 show the lamentable condition of a people under wicked rulers. They are beasts and not men towards the people, especially towards the best, Dan. vii. 4, 5, Zeph. iii. 3. Ver. 17: How doth that agree with our sparing of bloody men, of our soliciting for their impunity, of our pardoning them? Are they not, by the appointment of God's law, ordained for destruction, and haste to it? Should any then stay them? Should [pg 520] they not then far less employ them? And, (ver. 24) if it be so heinous to take our father's goods upon this pretence, because they are our own, how much more sacrilege is it to rob God of his interests, and give over his money to bankrupts, and say it is no transgression to rob the land of its defence, and make them naked, as Ahaz his confederacy did? Certainly it is murder. Ver. 28 and chap. xxix. 2 and xi. 12 and xxviii. 28 are to one purpose. We have forsaken our own mercy and wronged our own souls; and destroyed ourselves in choosing our own judgment, and making our own rod to beat us withal. Chap. xxix. 1: We being so often reproved by his word and providence for the sin of association with the wicked, and being so lately punished for it, and having so lately reproved ourselves for it in our declarations and fasts, yet to harden our necks, what can we expect but utter destruction, and that without remedy, as we sentenced ourselves? Ezra ix. 13 and xiv. 13, Isa. xxx. 13, 14. Shall not this iniquity be to us a breach ready to fall, even this iniquity of going down to Egypt for help, &c. Then, (ver. 6) there is a snare to entrap thy feet in the sins of the wicked; if thou be joined with them, thou cannot well escape. Ver. 8: Wicked profane contemners of God and his people bring ruin on a city or commonalty, they set it on fire and blow it up. But godly men pacify wrath, turn away judgments, and purge all from provocations, which is the only means to turn it away. Ver. 16 shows, when wicked men gather together, and grow in state and power, they grow worse, and sin with greater boldness, and transgression then overflows the land, tanquam ruptis repagulis.[404] There is no obstacle. See Psal. xii. And ver. 24 shows, he that is partner and fellow receiver with a thief, or conceals such offenders, endangers his own destruction; and he that stays with, and associates with wicked men, must hear cursing and cannot bewray it. He will see many abominations, that though he would, he cannot remedy. Ver. 25: Fear of man and of the land's danger, hath brought many into a snare, to run from the Lord to an arm of flesh, but he that trusts in the Lord shall be safe. Ver. 27: Here is the deadly enmity between the two seeds, they cannot reconcile well. See ver. 10 and chap. xxi. 3. It is no wonder the godly abominate such men who are God's enemies and the land's plague.
Chap. xxx. 11, 14 describes the malignant party, who make nothing of the godly magistrates or their mother church and land, but curse, malign, oppose as much as they could, and are oppressors, monstrous tyrants, mankind beasts, or beastly men. The subject of their cruelty is the godly afflicted man. They eat up all and will not leave the bones, as the prophet complains, “I lie among men whose teeth are as spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” And then, ver. 12, 13, 20 describe our enemies, the invaders. They think themselves godly and righteous, yet are not purged from their filthiness. They are given up to strong delusions to believe lies, and there is no lie greater than this, that they are a godly party in a godly cause and way. They wipe their mouth after all their bloodshed, and say, I have done no evil. They wash their hands, as Pilate, as if they were free of the blood of these just men, whose souls cry under the altar. Ver. 21-23: It is a burden to the world and a plague to mankind, when servants, unworthy men, and persons unfit for high places are set in authority, and when wicked men have their desire of plenty and honour, (chap. xix. 10.) and when an odious woman, or men of hateful vicious dispositions, come to preferment and are espoused by a state,—nought they were while alone, but worse now when they have crept into the bed and bosom of the state; her roots were nought before, but now she is planted in rank mould, and will shoot forth her unsavoury branches and blossoms,—and when handmaids, kept in a servile estate because of their disposition and quality, get their masters ushered out, and they become heirs, at least possessors of the inheritance or trust. Ver. 33 shows how necessarily war and contention follow upon unnecessary provocations by word or deed, such as we have given many to England, though indeed they have given moe.[405] And lastly, chap. xxxi. 20, 26, 31 shows how word and work should go together, and men should be esteemed and praised according to their works and fruit of their hands.