N00129:292
Useful instructions for a professing people in times of great security and degeneracy
Useful instructions for a professing people in times of great security and degeneracy: delivered in several sermons on solemn occasions: / by Mr. Samuel Willard Pastor of the Church of Christ at Groton. ; [Eight lines of Scripture texts]
printed by Samuel Green, 1673
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.
1. Some take it to be an expression of the bitterness and anguish of the Edomites, concerning the future event of those troubles which were beginning upon them: it seems War was threatened by the Assyrian; through which anguish they send to the Prophet, to know what was likely to ensue, what troubles they should meet withal: for Night is here a Metaphor of the time of affliction, as it is often in Scripture, Isa. 26. 9, &c. and then the ingemination of the Interrogatory, implies an earnestness of desire to be informed.
1. Some take it to be an expression of the bitterness and anguish of the Edomites, concerning the future event of those troubles which were beginning upon them: it seems War was threatned by the Assyrian; through which anguish they send to the Prophet, to know what was likely to ensue, what troubles they should meet withall: for Night is here a Metaphor of the time of affliction, as it is often in Scripture, Isa. 26. 9, &c. and then the ingemination of the Interrogatory, implies an earnestness of desire to be informed.
2. Others understand it to be spoken in a flouring way, and so they call the Prophet Watchman by way of derision; as if they should say, Isaiah, you pretend to be a Watchman, and have foretold much of the time of trouble and desolation to come upon us, but we still enjoy the morning of prosperity, we are a free people, and not in subjection; come, what do you say to it now? Either interpretation will stand with the Analogy of Faith: though I think the latter to be ⟨p. 49⟩more suitable to the Answer given in the following verse; in which sense the doubling of the Question is an aggravation of the scoff in a sarcasmous speech.
2. Others understand it to be spoken in a flouring way, and so they call the Prophet Watchman by way of derision; as if they should say, Isaiah, you pretend to be a Watchman, and have foretold much of the time of trouble and desolation to come upon us, but we still enjoy the morning of prosperity, we are a free people, and not in subjection; come, what do you say to it now? Either interpretation will stand with the Analogie of Faith: though I think the latter to be