Tenthly, The profaneness, lewdness, blindness, and 1wickedness of the Clergy, of them in the Ministry, brings the Judgment of Fire, and provokes the Lord to lay all waste before him, Zeph. 3. 4-6. Her Prophets are light and treacherous persons, her Priests have polluted the Sanctuary, they have done violence to the law, I have cut off the nations, their towers are desolate, I have made their street w•ste, that none passeth by, their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. Their Prophets and Priests were rash, heady, and unstable persons, they were light, faithless men (or men of faithlessness, as the Hebrew runs) They were neither faithful to God, nor faithful to their own Souls, nor faithful to others Souls; they invented and feigned Prophesies of their own, and then boldly maintained them, and imposed them upon their Hearers: they were profane and light in their carriages, they fitted their Doctrines to all fancies, humours, parties, and times; they betrayed their trust, they betrayed the lives of men into the hand of divine Justice, and the Souls of men into the hands of Satan; they polluted the Sanctuary, they polluted the Holy things of God, by managing of his Worship and Service in a profane carnal way, and with a light, slight, perfidious spirit, and by perverting the true sense of the Law in their ordinary teaching of the people. They did violence to the Law, or they contemned, removed, or cast away the Law, as the Original run•: the Hebrew word here used, signifies also to ravish. Their Prophets and 2Priests did ravish the Law of God by corrupting the Law, and by putting false glosses upon it, and by turning of it into such shapes and senses as would best suit the times, and please the humours of the people. Now for these abominations of their Prophets and Priests, God denounces a dreadful Woe against the City of Jerusalem in vers. 1. Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city, Lam. 4. 11-13. The ⟨p. 152⟩Lord hath accomplished his fury, he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured •he foundation thereof. For the sins of her Prophets and the iniquity of her Priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.
Tenthly, The prophaneness, lewdness, blindness, and 1wickedness of the Clergy, of them in the Ministry, brings the Judgment of Fire, and provokes the Lord to lay all waste before him, Zeph. 3. 4-6. Her Prophets are light and treacherous persons, her Priests have polluted the Sanctuary, they have done violence to the law, I have cut off the nations, their towers are desolate, I have made their street w•ste, that none passeth by, their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. Their Prophets and Priests were rash, heady, and unstable persons, they were light, faithl•ss men (or men of faithlesness, as the Hebrew runs) They were neither faithful to God, nor faithful to their own Souls, nor faithful to others Souls; they invented and feigned Prophesies of their own, and then boldly maintained them, and imposed them upon their Hearers: they were prophane and light in their carriages, they fitted their Doctrines to all fancies, humours, parties, and times; they betrayed their trust, they betrayed the lives of men into the hand of divine Justice, and the Souls of men into the hands of Satan; they polluted the Sanctuary, they polluted the Holy things of God, by managing of his Worship and Service in a prophane carnal way, and with a light, slight, perfidious spirit, and by perverting the true sense of the Law in their ordinary teaching of the people. They did violence to the Law, or they contemned, removed, or cast away the Law, as the Ori•inal run•: the Hebrew word here used, signifies also to ravish. Their Prophets and 2Priests did ravish the Law of God by corrupting the Law, and by putting false glosses upon it, and by turn•ng of it int• such shapes and senses as would best suit the times, and please the humours of the people. Now for these abominations of their Prophets and Priests, God denounces a dreadful Wo against the City of Jerusalem in vers. 1. Wo to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city, Lam. 4. 11-13. The ⟨p. 152⟩Lord hath accomplished his fury, he hath poured out his fierce •nger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured he foundation thereof. For the sins of her Prophets and the iniquity of her Priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.
- 110.
- 2Psal. 50. 17.
