An exposition with practical observations upon the three first chapters of the book of…

If so, then how shall the soul bear an affliction, when God instead of making a way to escape, doth as it were make a hedge to stop all escape? Therefore when the Lord would support his people in their troubles, he promised that they should have a door of hope opened to them, I will give her the valley of Achor for a door of hope, Hos. 2.15. He would give her some appearance, some glimpses and openings of deliverance, in and from, their ⟨p. 463⟩present dangers. It is threatened, (Deut. 28.25.) thou shalt come out one way against thine enemies, and fly seven ways before them, they should fly many ways, but they should escape no way. Thou shalt come out one one way, and fly seven ways, that is,¹ thou shalt try this, and that, and every way to escape, but thou shalt find a hedge at every ways end, to stop and hinder thy escape. We use to say of a man in a distressed condition, He is in a wood or in a wilderness. And when God entangles men in their own devises, it is said, He poureth contempt upon Princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way, Psalm. 107.40. So Pharaoh said of the children of Israel, they are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in, Exod. 14.3. And when a people are as the children of Israel were, having a a Sea before them, an army behind them, and Mountains on either hand. Then they may say (as Job did) their way is hid, and God hath hedged them in.

If so, then how shall the soule beare an affliction, when God instead of making a way to escape, doth as it were make a hedge to stop all escape? Therefore when the Lord would support his people in their troubles, he promised that they should have a doore of hope opened to them, I will give her the valley of Achor for a doore of hope, Hos. 2.15. He would give her some appearance, some glimpses and openings of deliverance, in and from, their