An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

The call and command of God is not at all obeyed by the wicked, and it is not always obeyed by the righteous. The righteous sometimes hear the word, but do not answer it, and sometimes they feel the rod, and do not attend it; they cry out of the smart of the rod, and of the sores which the lashes of the rod have made upon them, they weep over, or because of their sores, yet they do not presently give glory to God by obeying him, and leaving their sins, I mean as to that special point of duty in which God would have them obey him, and as to those special sins which God by that affliction calls upon them to leave. Many good men do not presently understand the purpose of God in this or that affliction; and while it is so with them, they must needs fail in answerableness to it. I know every godly man hath a general bent to obey God and serve him. It is not with the godly in their afflictions as with the wicked under theirs, of whom the Prophet speaks, (Isa. 9.13.) They did not turn to him that smote them; yet even such Scriptures are in a degree applicable to many of the people of God, they do not always turn to him that smiteth them; when they are exercised with variety of calamities, they mind not the Lord as they ought. And hence it is (I say) that though the righteous have a general bent to obedience, yet they sometimes come short of that obedience which a special affliction or correction calleth them to; yea, they may be so short in answering it, that the Lord may proceed to lay heavier and greater afflictions upon them, even to the taking of them out of the world, as it followeth in this verse, If they obey not They shall perish by the sword.

The call and command of God is not at all obeyed by the wicked, and it is not alwayes obeyed by the righteous. The righteous sometimes hear the word, but do not answer it, and sometimes they feel the rod, and do not attend it; they cry out of the smart of the rod, and of the sores which the lashes of the rod have made upon them, they weep over, or because of their sores, yet they do not presently give glory to God by obeying him, and leaving their sinnes, I mean as to that special point of duty in which God would have them obey him, and as to those special sins which God by that affliction calls upon them to leave. Many good men do not presently understand the purpose of God in this or that affliction; and while it is so with them, they must needs fail in answerableness to it. I know every godly man hath a general bent to obey God and serve him. It is not with the godly in their afflictions as with the wicked under theirs, of whom the Prophet speaks, (