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

Every scourge doth not slay,¹ and many which slay do not slay suddenly. We usually hear the clashing of the scourge before we feel the smart of it. The Lord shows the scourge, and threatens it before he smites with it, he lets judgement hang like a black cloud over the heads of some, long, before it falls upon them. But others He slays suddenly.

Every scourge doth not slay,¹ and many which slay doe not slay suddenly. We usually hear the clashing of the scourge before we feel the smart of it. The Lord shews the scourge, and threatens it before he smites with it, he lets judgement hang like a black cloud over the heads of some, long, before it fals upon them. But others He slaies suddenly.

1. 1[Greek or Hebrew] Subito, statim, ita ut non sentiatur donec res fiat.〈non-Latin alphabet〉 Subito, statim, ita ut non sentiatur donec res fiat.

Some take this suddenness of the scourge in slaying for a mitigation of the judgement, and others for the heightening of it. In the former sense suddenness doth not imply the sudden coming of it, but the sudden killing of it, a scourge which doth it's work quickly; so that a man doth not hang long as it were upon the rack of an affliction. The Church of the Jews (Lam. 4.6.) complains of their afflictions, as if the judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah had been more easy and eligible then that which the Lord brought upon Jerusalem; not that they thought God had dealt worse with them then with Sodom and Gomorrah, but as to this particular, because Sodom was overthrown in a moment, but Jerusalem was pined away by degrees with famine. A sudden scourge is a kind of mercy. Better die once then die always: Or, as the Apostle speaks concerning the afflictions of the Saints (