An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

First, Every affliction hath a cause.

The Proverb carries that sense, in every common understanding. Our afflictions have a cause, a certain cause, they come not by hap hazard, or by accident. Many things are casual, but nothing is without a cause. Many things are not fore seen by man, but all things are fore-ordained by God. The Prophet Amos (Ch. 3. 6.) sets forth this by an elegant similitude, Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? As if he should say, is a bird taken in a snare by chance, where none have prepared, set or industriously laid a snare or a gin to take him? The bird saw not the snare, but the snare was set for the Bird. Snares fall not on the ground at adventure, they grow not out of the earth of themselves: but the fowler, by his art and industry, invents and frames them a purpose to catch the bird: Thus, the calamity and troubles in which men are caught and lime-twigged, ensnared and shackled in the world, come not out of the ground, They are not acts of chance, but of providence: The wise and holy God sets such snares, to take and hold foolish, unruly men, like silly birds, gaping after the baits of worldly pleasures. Which meaning is clear from the scope and tendency of the whole Chapter; but the next question resolves it in the letter, Is there any evil in a City, and the Lord hath not done it? Those words are both the conclusion and explication of the former similitude. Secondly, observe

The Proverbe carries that sense, in every common understanding. Our afflictions have a cause, a certaine cause, they come not by hap hazzard, or by accident. Many things are casuall, but nothing is without a cause. Many things are not fore seene by man, but all things are fore-ordained by God. The Prophet Amos (Ch. 3. 6.) sets forth this by an elegant similitude, Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no ginne is for him? As if he should say, is a bird taken in a snare by chance, where none have prepared, set or industriously laid a snare or a ginne to take him? The bird saw not the snare, but the snare was set for the Bird. Snaresfall not on the ground at adventure, they grow not out of the earth of themselves: but the fowler, by his art and industry, invents and frames them a purpose to catch the bird: Thus, the calamity and troubles in which men are caught and lime-twig'd, insnared and shackled in the world, come not out of the ground, They are not acts of chance, but of providence: The wise and holy God sets such snares, to take and hold foolish, unruly men, like silly birds, gaping after the baits of worldy pleasures. Which meaning is cleare from the scope and tendency of the whole Chapter; but the next question resolves it in the letter, Is there any evill in a City, and the Lord hath not done it? Those words are both the conclusion and explication of the former similitude. Secondly, observe