An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eighth, ninth, & tenth chapters of…

This is the cause of this smiting, and never was there such perverseness in the hearts of men to turn things quite cross,¹ to cry out of Truth for Falsehood, to cry out of the Ways of Christ as the Ways of Sedition, and the great troublers of the Kingdom, to cry out of the Saints that are for peace, as the great Stirrers up of the Kingdom, and to justify ⟨p. 280⟩the wicked in many places;² What favour hath many Malignants? and those that have most appeared in the Cause of God,³ how are they discountenanced? This is the Cause why God would smite them, and why their Carcasses should be torn in the very streets. The Lord hath smitten us this day as he did the people in 1 Kings, 14. 15. ⁴The Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water, (and then it follows after) he shall root them out of the good Land. So it's here, Ephraim is smitten, and his root dried up. The Lord this day hath smote us as a reed is shaken to and fro, that which men cried up at first, they cry down again presently after, and forward for a little while, and then quite the other way again, and wavering and unconstant in all their ways, and know not indeed what they would have; thus the Lord hath smote us, yea the Lord hath smitten us so as he hath fetched blood, fetched blood, yea, the Lord hath smitten us by those that should protect us, and that's a sore smiting, to smite us by the hand of such as should protect us; that threatening that is denounced in Zach. 11. 6. ⁵Oh how is it made good upon us this day, saith the text there, I will no more pity the inhabitants of the Land saith the Lord; but lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbours hand, and into the hand of his King, and they shall smite the Land; and out of their hand I will not deliver them. It's a very strange Scripture,