An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

But further, These Priests and such as were eminent in Israel rejected knowledge, because they had their houses and goods and comings in amongst the ten Tribes. (I beseech you observe it for this concerns us) I say the Priests that were amongst the ten Tribes, they were settled there and had their houses and in comes and their estates there; but now there was this taught, that we must worship God at Jerusalem, at the Temple, they rejected this knowledge especially, they saw ⟨p. 94⟩that if they did embrace that truth of worshipping God in his own way, then farewell our incomes, farewell our livings, farewell our houses, we must leave our brave dwellings and all our maintenance and go from Samaria, and we must go to Judah, and how shall we live there? Upon this they shut their eyes against the knowledge of that very truth that should have brought them to the true worship of God; Rather than they would lose their estates they would reject that knowledge; And that I think to be the meaning of the holy Ghost here, They despised as other knowledge, ¹so that knowledge of the true worship of God; so it is turned by some, Scientiam illam, that kind of knowledge they rejected; For they knew that these truths were suffering truths,² Now suffering truths are truths that will hardly go down with men nor with many a Minister, they had therefore rather be ignorant of them; as the holy Ghost in Ezekiel speaks of men that shut their eyes against the Sabbath, so they shut their eyes against those truths that should have brought them to the true worship of God. And in this case it is not enough for a man to say, God knows I go not against my conscience, if my conscience were convinced that such and such things must be in the worship of God, if my conscience told me than this were the Word of God, I would obey it: But the reason they see this not to be the Word of God, why their consciences tell them not so, is, Because they have no mind to know it, they reject that knowledge, it is against their case and preferment, and it is suffering truth, and therefore they shut their eyes against it. This is no excuse, Mark the judgment follows upon this.

But further, These Priests and such as were eminent in Israel rejected knowledg, because they had their houses and goods and comings in amongst the ten Tribes. (I beseech you observe it for this concerns us) I say the Priests that were amongst the ten Tribes, they were setled there and had their houses and in comes and their estates there; but now there was this taught, that we must worship God at Jerusalem, at the Temple, they rejected this knowledg especially, they saw