The History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland

But yet for the better understanding of the Prophets mind, we may consider how God doth visit man, and how man doth visit God, and what difference there is, betwixt the visitation of God upon the reprobate, and his visitation upon the chosen.

But yet for the better understanding of the Prophets minde, we may consider how God doth visite man, and how man doth visite God, and what difference there is, betwixt the visitation of God upon the reprobate, and his visitation upon the chosen.

God sometimes visiteth the reprobate in his hot displeasure, pouring upon them his plagues for their long rebellion; as we have heard before, that he visited the proud, and destroyed their memory. Other times, God is said to visit his people being in affliction, to whom he sendeth comfort, or promise of deliverance, as he did visit the seed of Abraham, being oppressed in Egypt: and Zechariah saith, That God had visited his people, and sent unto them hope of deliverance, when John the Baptist was borne. But of none of these visitations speaketh our Prophet here, but of that only which we have already touched, to wit, when that God layeth his correction upon his own children, to call them from the venomous Breasts of this corrupt world, that they suck not in over-great abundance the poison thereof; and doth, as it were, wean them from their mothers Paps, that they may learn to receive other nourishment. True it is, That this weaning (or spanning, as we term it) from worldly pleasure, is a thing strange to the flesh, and yet it is a thing so necessary to Gods children, that unless they be weaned from the pleasures of the world, they can never feed upon that delectable Milk of Gods eternal verity; For the corruption of the one, doth either hinder the other to be received, or else so troubleth the whole powers of man, that the soul can never so digest the truth of God, as that he ought to do.

God sometimes visiteth the reprobate in his hot displeasure, pouring upon them his plagues for their long rebellion; as we have heard before, that he visited the proud, and destroyed their memory. Other times, God is said to visite his people being in affliction, to whom he sendeth comfort, or promise of deliverance, as he did visite the seed of Abraham, being oppressed in Egypt: and Zachary saith, That God had visited his people, and sent unto them hope of deliverance, when Iohn the Baptist was borne. But of none of these visitations speaketh our Prophet here, but of that onely which we have already touched, to wit, when that God layeth his correction upon his own children, to call them from the venemous Breasts of this corrupt world, that they suck not in over-great aboundance the poyson thereof; and doth, as it were, wean them from their mothers Paps, that they may learn to receive other nourishment. True it is, That this weaning (or spaning, as we terme it) from worldly pleasure, is a thing strange to the flesh, and yet it is a thing so necessary to Gods children, that unlesse they be weaned from the pleasures of the world, they can never feed upon that delectable Milk of Gods eternall verity; For the corruption of the one, doth either hinder the other to be received, or else so troubleth the whole powers of man, that the soul can never so digest the truth of God, as that he ought to do.