things from

you, to repeat one thing often." "The heavens," saith he, "have been locked up from giving any dew or rain to you; and the earth hath been so hard and dry by that means, that no fruit could grow." Marvel not if the earth be barren, when moisture comes not from heaven: for nothing can multiply here, except it be blessed from heaven. And this is true not only in worldly things, but also in spiritual gifts All good of the soul; to teach us to look up to heaven, and from heaven. thence to beg and look for all goodness from God's hands. "What hast thou," saith St Paul, "which thou hast not 1 Cor. iv. received of God?" And St James saith, "Every good gift James i. and every perfect gift is from above, coming from the Father of light." For as the rain and dew from above watering the ground makes it fruitful; so the grace of the Holy Ghost, coming from God the Father for his Son Christ's sake, stirs up our minds to all goodness. Thus by outward blessings God will teach us to look up to him for all goodness. For as it is betwixt the earth and the clouds, so is it betwixt God and our hearts: both be unfruitful, except they receive blessing from above.

gion will

heavens

earth be

But it had been among them now, as it was in the time of Achab, when Jesabel did so persecute the true prophets, that they were compelled to hide themselves in caves and dens False reliof the earth. Elias told the king, that there should be no not let the dew nor rain in all the country, but at his word when he rain, nor the said it should be, (for God had given that privilege to the fruitful. prophet, to set forth his doctrine ;) and it rained not of three 1 Kings xvii. years and a half, nor was any dew, but great hunger, famine and scarceness of all fruits in the country. So now, James v. when God's house lay unbuilded, the heavens did not water the earth, but great barrenness was of all things. This is one of the plagues that God threatens to send on all countries for contemning his word, saying, "I will make heaven Deut. xxviii. as hard as brass over your heads, that ye shall not wring out of it a drop of dew or rain to comfort the earth; and I will make the earth as hard as iron, that it shall not give her fruit." And so, for false worshipping of God, all countries have been divers times thus punished.

The diver

sity of

under the

England hath had many great droughts and dearths, both plagues in the time of popery and the gospel: but if ye mark it well, gospel and

popery.

you shall find great diversity betwixt them. In the dearths under the gospel it was not for want of things, that God did not send them plenteously; but through the wickedness of man, which in so great plenty and blessings of God made a needless dearth. For farms were raised, that farmers might not forth to sell as they were wont. Many things were gotten into few men's hands, and they would sell as they list, and not as things were worth according to charity, being content with a reasonable gains. Corn was carried out of the realm, or sold through many hands or it came to the market; and every one would raise the price, and have some part of gains some would feed their hogs with it, else let it foist in their barns and be eaten with mice, rather than they would bring it to the market to pull down the price. Men of honour and worship were become sheepmasters and graziers; tillage was turned into pasture, and towns into granges; and all not to make things cheaper, which might have been suffered, but dearer, which was and is hurtful and not tolerable. But since the pope was restored, ye have had unseasonable weather both in wet and drought; the earth hath not brought forth her fruit, and strangers have devoured much of that which ye had. All your Latin processions and singing of gospels under bushes, nor yet your Ora pro nobis, could get you God's blessings, but rather increased his anger. When were ye compelled to eat acorns for bread, but in your popery and falling from God? When was Calais lost, but in popery? When was Bullen gotten, and the Scots vanquished so manfully, as under the gospel? But this is the greatest plague of all, and least regarded of you, that the heavenly comfort of God's word was locked up from you, and comfortable dew of God's favour did not fall on you, nor your earthly hearts could bring forth good fruit and works of repentance. And so that curse was fulfilled on you which is Amos viii. written: "I will send a hunger into the earth, not a hunger of bread, but a hunger to hear the word of God, that ye shall go from the east unto the west to hear it, and shall not find it." The good men and true prophets of God, feeling what a grief it was to want this dew of God's word, and seeing heaven locked up from the plentiful preaching of the same,

[Or: i.e. ere, before. So in p. 91, &c. En.]

and desiring the coming of Christ and comfortable promises of his gospel, cry out: "O ye heavens, send down your dew Isai. xlv. from above, and let the clouds rain righteousness; let the earth be opened, and bring forth the Saviour." But God be merciful unto us, and soften our hearts! we are come to such a hardness of heart, that those things which good men most desired, we most abhor; and the gospel which they thought most happiness and treasure, we are weary of it and would not have it.

:

The second verse the Hebrew now reads thus: "I have called a drought upon the earth and the hills, &c."; and then it should be nothing but a repeating, or an exposition in more words, of that dearth and scarceness that was among them, and so often spoken of before: but the Greek, which I had rather follow, reads thus: "I will bring the sword upon the earth and hills, &c." If our Hebrew books were without points, as theirs were which turned it into Greek, these points might be well joined to, which signify so as the Greek is or else, these points a little changed, it may be so translated also as the Greek reads it. I think it better to be an increasing of the plague, which God threatens them withal to stir them up to this building, rather than an often rehearsing of these plagues which were past. And where he names here the hills, if we read it a drought, as the Hebrew Choreb, now pointed is, it is not so great plague or marvel to see Chereb, the hills barren and dry: but if with the Greek we read the sword, that is to say, their enemies should come and utterly destroy all, and they which fled to the hills to save themselves, should not escape, nor their castles and towers, which they had builded in the top of mountains, should defend them; it were more wonderful, and would strike a greater fear into them, and stir them up sooner to build this house, that they might avoid these great dangers ensuing. Thus he would pull them from trusting in their strong holds on the mountains, or else from that holiness which they put in those hills within Jerusalem, where they thought no enemies could prevail.

drought.

sword.

In Jerusalem were two hills; Moria, on which was builded Moria. the temple, and Sion, where was the king's palace; unto Sion. which both God had promised many blessings, and therefore

holy as to

defend the wicked.

they might think themselves sure there. The city was compassed aforetime about with three walls: within the innermost was the temple and the priests' lodgings; within the second wall were the Levites' houses, the king's palace, and the university, houses of learning three hundred or more; within the uttermost were the merchants and the people: and yet their enemies with the sword should destroy all No place so these. There is no place so holy, as to defend a wicked man; nor the place makes the man holy, but a good man makes every place wheresoever he be holy. When Jeremy preached that God would destroy the temple for the wickedness of the priests, the priests could not abide to hear that, but cried out, "The temple of God, the temple of God;" yet Jeremy said still, he would do unto that house as he did unto Silo, and destroy it. There is no creature of God so holy, but if a man do abuse it, God will give both him and it to his enemies' power, if they do not amend. God suffered his holy ark, wherein were the tables written with his own finger, and Aaron's rod, and a pot full of manna, with other relics, to be given into the Philistines' hands for the wickedness of the people and the priests which bare it, Ophni and Phinees, Eli's sons. So likewise should these holy hills and all of them be devoured with the sword, if they builded not this house of God.

Jer. vii.

1 Sam. iv.

As long as they kept God's true religion, God defended them and his temple, after it was builded: but when they forsaked God's word and religion, God forsaked them, and gave them into the hands of Antiochus, which defiled the 1 Macc. i. temple, set up idols in it, made a school of fence and heathen

learning of it, and killed all those that would not follow him. So was this prophecy and curse then fulfilled, and they destroyed; but specially when Titus and Vespasian with the Matt. xxiv. Romans destroyed it, according as Christ said, there should not be one stone left standing upon another: so there should nothing save them, except they would not only build this house, but also defend and maintain his word and true religion. Those with all other like are written for us, to keep us in due fear and reverence to God and his word, lest we suffer the like plagues as they did for falling from his holy word.

ens that we

them.

threaten

in them a

ever.

But here let us chiefly mark the goodness of God in God threatthis and all his other threatenings: for he doth not tell us may avoid this, because there is no remedy to escape it; but that in hearing this we should repent and so escape it. All the threatenings of God are to be understood with this condition, God's if ye do not repent and amend; as Jonas coming unto Ni- ings have neve said, "Yet forty days and Nineve shall be destroyed:" condition presupposing, if they did not ask mercy; but they asked it Jonah iii. and escaped. Jeremy saith, "If this people repent them of Jer. xviii. their evil, I will repent also, saith God, of that evil which I purposed to send upon them." If God were disposed to plague as often as he threatens, he would never give warning nor time to repent in, nor promise mercy to them that repent, but would suddenly come and destroy without all mercy.

warning

plagues.

And where he works all for our comfort, it were a double sorrow, both to be punished, and know it so certainly aforehand that it cannot be escaped: but he gives them and us this warning, that we might turn and by repentance obtain mercy in time. God never sends plague into the world, God gives but he gives warning before it come, that they may repent before he and escape, as Amos saith: "The Lord will do nothing, Amos iii. but he sheweth it first by his servants the prophets." Before he drowned the world, he stirred up Noe, whom Peter 2 Pet. ii. calls the eighth preacher of righteousness; who as he was making his ark a hundred and twenty years, and told them the anger of God towards them for their sins, that they might amend and avoid the danger coming by repentance, so some laughed at him, and few cared for him, and therefore were all drowned save eight persons. Lot preached in Gen. xix. Sodom, and when they would not amend, fire from heaven destroyed them. Before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nabuchodonozor God sent many prophets many years to warn them beforehand, whose writings also we have, as Esay, Jeremy, Osee, &c.; and before the last destruction by the Romans Christ himself came, and also sent his apostles to teach repentance: but when all was in vain, then they utterly perished. Have not we in England been as diligently warned by our preachers, and almost all in vain? What shall we look for then, but destruction, if we amend not? Thus God