A69234:448
Lectures upon the four first chapters of the prophecy of Hosea Wherein the text…Lectures vpon the foure first chapters of the prophecie of Hosea Wherein the text…
Lectures upon the four first chapters of the prophecy of Hosea Wherein the text is expounded and cleared, and such profitable instructions observed, and applied, as naturally arise out of this holy Scripture, and are fit for these times. By John Downame Bachelor in Divinity, and preacher of Gods word.Lectures vpon the foure first chapters of the prophecie of Hosea Wherein the text is exponded and cleered, and such profitable instructions obserued, and applied, as naturally arise out of this holie Scripture, and are fit for these times. By Iohn Dovvname Bacheler in Diuinitie, and preacher of Gods word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston and T. East for William Welby, 1608
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
By the day of the children of Israels birth, we may either understand the day of their forefather Abraham his calling out of an idolatrous nation, that he might be the father of the faithful; or the day of the peoples deliverance out of the bondage of Egypt, which I take to be the more probable, because he speaketh not here of the birth of one man, but of the whole nation. Now this day of the peoples birth was a time wherein they were in great misery, poverty, impotency and manifold extremities, and therefore not unfitly compared to a child's birth, seeing in many things it resembleth it, in regard of the wretchedness thereof, and that both in respect of their persons, and also in respect of their state. And first for their bodies, as the child is borne so impotent that it is unable to resist the weakest enemy; so they came out of Egypt weak, unskilful, and unarmed, altogether unable to resist their enemies the Egyptians. And so in respect of their souls, as the child is borne defiled in his blood, as it is described, Ezech. 16. 6. so 1they were defiled with their sins, especially their gross idolatry which they learned of the Egyptians: as the child is borne destitute of wisdom and actual understanding; so they were ignorant, and without the saving knowledge of God and his true religion. In respect of their states likewise there is great similitude: for as the child is borne poor and naked; so they came out in great poverty, being not only destitute of the heavenly gifts of Gods Spirit, but also of glory, power and riches: as the child liveth as it were imprisoned a close prisoner in the strait prison of the womb; so they were held in a strait and miserable servitude, till God delivered them: and as in the birth it is in greatest danger and extremity, so that it no sooner breatheth the air, ⟨p. 173⟩but it crieth out with sense of pain; so they howsoever they had formerly endured many miseries, yet they were in greatest extremity of all, even as it were in the very birth and deliverance, when as they were pursued by their enemies, and beset on all sides with unavoidable dangers, so that in anguish of soul, they cried out for fear. Lastly, as the child 2being borne is unable to help it self, either in respect of defence from outward injuries, or of provision of food and necessaries: