A69234:500
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.
And this is the meaning of these words. The instructions 1that we are to gather out of them, are these. First, we may observe, that howsoever the Lord doth often suffer the wicked and reprobate to go forward in their sins, without any check and controlment, and to have a prosperous course, and wished success in their wicked designs, without any let or hinderance; yet he dealeth not thus with those that belong unto his election: but if they, through the corruption of the flesh, either of ignorance, or of infirmity, resolve to prosecute wicked courses, though he may suffer them for a time, yet in the end he will lay in their way the thorns of crosses and afflictions, to hinder them from achieving their ⟨p. 196⟩wicked ends; that so being stayed, they may return back again unto him by true repentance. So he suffered the Gentiles to go forward without stop, in their idolatries: but when the Israelites forsook him, and followed idols, he laid continually thorns of affliction in their way, to cause them to desist in their course, and to return unto him, as appeareth in the history of the Judges, and the Kings: the like examples we have in Jonah, in David, 2. Sam. 11. 12. in reprobate Jeroboam, 2and elect Manasseh, in the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Apostle Paul, Act. 9. in the rich Glutton, & the prodigal 3son, Luk. 15. & 16. Whereby it appeareth, that the Lord will not suffer those which belong unto him, to be so evil as they would be: but when they resolve to go forward in sin, he layeth in their way a hedge of thorny afflictions, either trouble of mind, or sickness, or loss in their state, that so they may not go on in the paths of sin, but return again by true repentance. Whence we may gather a notable sign, whether we belong to Gods election, or be in the number of the reprobate; for if we go forward in our wicked courses, without stop or hinderance, with ease and prosperity, it is a sign that we belong not to God, for then he would not suffer us to go on in the way of perdition: but if we no sooner resolve upon some wicked design, but straight we are either crossed in it, or afterward afflicted, that we cannot proceed in it as we purposed, surely it is a sign that the Lord hath a care of us, in that he holdeth us back from running headlong to everlasting destruction.