ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 1, 2. 41, calves of our lips : they shall not be bestowed upon those that need them not, or that know where else to provide themselves. It is true, we have gone to the Assyrian, we have taken our horses instead of our prayers, and gone about to find out good ; we have been so foolish as to think that the idols which have been beholden to our hands for any shape that is in them, could be instead of hands, and of God unto us, to help us in our need ; but now we know that men of high degree are but a lie, that horses are but a vanity, . that an idol is nothing, and therefore can give nothing. That power belongeth unto thee, none else can do it ; that mercy belongeth unto thee, none else will do it ; therefore since in thee only the fatherless find mercy, be thou pleased to do us good. We will consider the words, 1. Absolutely, as a single prayer by themselves ; 2. Relatively, in their connexion, and with respect to the scope of the place. 1. From the former consideration we observe, that all the good we have is from God ; he only must be sought unto for it ; we have none in ourselves ; " I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good," Rom. vii. 18. we can neither think, nor speak, nor do it. And, missing it in ourselves, it is all in vain to seek for it in things below ourselves. They can provide for our back and belly, and yet not that neither with- out God :- the roots out of which the fruits of the earth do -grow, are above in heaven, the genealogy of corn and wine is resolved into God, Hos. ii. 22. But if you go to your lands, or houses, or treasuries for medicine, for a sick soul, or a guilty conscience, they will all return an ignoramus* to that inquiry ; salvation doth not grow in the furrows of the field, neither are * Confess their inability to answer. v3
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