Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah

TO the end the Prophet might affect the hearts of the Jews the more with this calamity he takes upon him the person of a mourner: and not that only, but with bitter lamentation he bewails the desolation of Gods Church. For this place must not be expounded like the for•er, wherein he expressed and set forth the sorrow and heaviness of foreign nations: But in regard he speaks here of the afflictions of the Church whereof himself was a member, he hath good cause to mourn in good earnest, and to call upon others to lament with him. That which happens to the Church then in general, ought no less to move us, then if each of us felt the misery upon himself in particular: otherwise where shall this sentence be verified, The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up? Psal. 69.10. Now the Prophet mourns not §1apart nor in secret without witnesses, first, because he meant (as I said even now) to provoke others by his example not only to mourn and weep, but rather to repent, that so they might prevent the judgement of God which hung over their heads, and might provoke him no more for the time to come. §2Secondly, to the end that himself who was as the herald and messenger of God, might publish and declare the wrath that was like to fall upon them; showing by this his own deed, that it was no vain thing which he spake.