An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of…

Secondly, Others by branches understand His followers and flatterers, who live upon him as branches upon a Tree; but to pass these restrained Interpretations:¹ I conceive we may take the Branch in general, for all that belongs to a wicked man, his Children, his Friends, his followers, his flatterers, his Honour, his Riches, his Power; all these look green, and are his beautiful branches; and all these the flame dryeth up. The Prophet complains (Joel 1.19.) O Lord to thee will I cry, for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the Wilderness, and the flame hath burnt all the Trees of the Field: The flame, of which he cries out, and which did not only dry the branches, but devour the Trees of the Field, was the extreme heat of the Sun; which as it usually sends out refreshing beams, so when God is angry, it can send out scorching flames, and those beams, which tempered with showers of rain, nourish the Earth, in the long withholding of rain scorch the Earth. And what then befell the Trees properly taken, and their ⟨p. 163⟩branches, doth often befall both Trees and branches taken in the metaphorical sense, as herein the Text, a flame dries them up. A godly man is compared to a Tree flourishing and growing by the water side; wicked men are compared sometimes to flourishing Trees, but they grow by the fire side: The flame dries up their branches.

Secondly, Others by branches understand His followers and flatterers, who live upon him as branches upon a Tree; but to passe these restrained Interpretations:¹ I conceive we may take the Branch in generall, for all that belongs to a wicked man, his Children, his Freinds, his followers, his flatterers, his Honour, his Riches, his Power; all these look green, and are his beautifull branches; and all these the flame dryeth up. The Prophet complaines (Joel 1.19.) O Lord to thee will I cry, for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the Wildernesse, and the flame hath burnt all the Trees of the Field: The flame, of which he cryes out, and which did not onely dry the branches, but devour the Trees of the Feild, was the extreame heat of the Sun; which as it usually sends out refreshing beams, so when God is angry, it can send out scorching flames, and those beames, which tempered with showers of raine, nourish the Earth, in the long withholding of raine scorch the Earth. And what then befell the Trees properly taken, and their