ON HOSEA XIV.- VERSES 3, 4 131 he will betake himself unto creatures like himself, though they be enemies unto God, and enemies unto him too for God's sake, (for so was the Assyrian unto Israel,) yet, " If Ephraim see his sickness, and Judah his wound, Ephraim will go to the Assyrian and king Jareb for help," Hos. v. 13. If he must beg, he would rather do it of an enemy than a God, yea, though he dissuade him from it and threaten him for it. Ahaz would not believe though a sign were offered him, nor be persuaded to trust in God to deliver him from Rezin and Pekah, though he promise him to do it ; but under pretence of not tempting God in the use of means, will weary God with his provocation, and rob God to pay the Assyrian, " who was not a help, but a distress unto him," 2 Kings xvi. 5. 8. 17, 18. 2 Chron. xxviii. 20, 21. Isa. vii. 8. 13. xxx. 5. Well, God is many times pleased to way -lay human counsels, even in this case too, and so to strip them not only of their own provisions, but of their foreign succours and supplies, as that they have no refuge left but unto him. Their horses fail them, their Assyrian fails them, Hos. vii. 11, 12. viii. 9, 10. Their hope hath nothing either really good to comfort them at home, or as matter of help and aid to support them from abroad. They are brought as Israel into a wilderness where they are constrained to go to God, because they have no second causes to help them. And yet even here wicked men will make a shift to keep off from God, when they have nothing in the world to turn unto. This is the formal and intimate malignity of sin to decline God, and to be impatient of him in his own way. If wicked men be necessitated to implore help from God, they will invent ways of their own to do it. If horses fail, and Asshur fail, and Israel must go to God whether he will or not, it shall not be to
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