ON HOSEA XIV.---VERSE 9. 279 secessions from one another,) but in matters which concern life and godliness. These things, I say, cannot but be matter of humiliation unto all that fear God, and love the prosperity of Sion, and occasions the more earnestly to excite them unto this wisdom in the text, to hear what God the Lord says, and to lay his righteous ways so to heart, as to walk stedfastly in them, and never to stumble at them, or fall from them. Now there are two things which, I take it, the pro- phet in this close of his prophecy seems principally to aim at : namely, the judgments, and the blessings of God. His righteous ways in his threatenings against impenitent, and in his promises made unto penitent sinners. These are the things which wise and prudent men will consider in times of trouble. For judgments ; there is a twofold knowledge of them : the one natural, by sense ; the other spiritual by faith. By the former way wicked men do abundantly know the afflictions which they suffer, even unto vexation and anguish of spirit. They fret themselves, Isa. viii. 21, They are gray-headed with very trouble and sorrow, Hos. vii. 9. They gnaw their tongues for pain, Rev. xvi. 10. They pine away in their iniquities, Lev. xxvi. 39. They are mad in their calamities, have trembling hearts, failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind, &c. Deut. xxviii. 34. 65. and yet for all this they are said in the scripture, when they burn, when they consume, when they are devoured, not to know any of this, or to lay it to heart, Isa. xlii. 25. Hos. vii. 9. Jer. xii. 11. and the reason is, because they know it not by faith, nor in a spiritual manner in order unto God. They did not see his name, nor hear his rod, nor consider his hand and counsel in it, nor measure his judgments by his word, nor look on 2A2
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