1. The Text opened, and suitability of it to our Times shown.
Chapter One The Text opened, and suitability of it to our Times shown.
N o marvel though Israel be charged, ver. 1, to be an empty vine, seeing their heart is divided. Heart-division will cause emptiness of good both in men's spirits and in Church and State. The least dividing of the heart in any one part from another, if it be but by the prick of a pin, is deadly; a great gash in the head is curable. There may be much difference in men's opinions without any great hurt if this difference gets not to the heart; but if once it gets in there, the danger is great.
Now shall they be found faulty; now shall they be guilty, or as some say, Nunc delinquent—now they will offend—as if heart-division contracted the greatest guilt, and by it men were the greatest delinquents of any. The word signifies also to perish, to be made desolate, so Arias Montanus translates it as "Desolabuntur." Heart-division is a desolating sin; by the judgment of God upon them for it, they shall be convinced in their own consciences and in the sight of all men that they were guilty; that by such a sin as this, they had bound themselves over to the justice of God, and those desolating evils that came upon them were the righteous judgments of God upon them for those divisions that were amongst them.
Men will not be convinced of their sin until God's judgment is upon them for it; and then their consciences will, and others shall see that God is righteous and they are vile and sinful before Him, even in such things that before they pleaded for or at least could not be brought to own their own guiltiness in.
When thunder and rain came upon the men of Israel in their wheat harvest, and they were afraid they should die (1 Sam. 12:18-19), then they could say, "We have added unto all our sins this evil: to ask us a king."
The Lord convince us of and humble us for the sinfulness of our divisions by His Word so that desolating judgments be not upon us to convince and humble us.
Their heart is divided.
This heart-division is either from God or from one another.
Their heart is divided between God and their idols; they would not cast off the worship of God wholly—that was too much; they loved their idols, but they must not have all: to divide between God and them they thought was fair. Their hearts were also divided one from another; and just it is with God that those who divide from Him should divide one from another.
In 2 Kings 15 you may see what woeful divisions there were amongst them: king against people and people against king—civil wars. Their king comes upon one of their own towns and smites it and rips up all the women that were with child in it—all because they did not open to him. O the rage and cruelty of men of proud spirits when they get power into their hands!
For then their pride swells, being blown up by the flatteries of those around them: as if they were such gods upon earth as they might do whatsoever they pleased, and the lives, estates, liberties, comforts of all must lie under their feet and must submit to their lusts and humors.
You shall find further in the whole chapter there was nothing but conspiring, mischief-making, and murdering one another. In their church state there was nothing but factions and divisions one from another; some were for the true worship, some for the false. And amongst the false worshippers there were divisions too; some were for the calves that Jeroboam set up at Dan and Bethel; some were for Baal: great contention there was between these. You know the story of Jehu an idolater yet destroying the worshippers of Baal and his idols.
The Jews of old understood this text as referring to divisions among themselves, as well as their divisions from God. This is evident from a notable tradition of theirs, which St. Jerome relates in his commentary on these words. The Scripture in 2 Kings 17 tells us that Hoshea was the last king of Israel, and during his reign, Israel was taken captive. Yet, in verse 2, it is said that he did not do evil in the sight of the Lord, as the kings of Israel before him had done. The Jews questioned why Israel was not taken captive with their worst king but rather when things seemed to improve.
God chose this time.
The answer they give is that in former times, the people could claim they were forced into idolatry by their kings' tyranny. They worshipped the calves because they would lose everything if they did not. However, in Hoshea's days, there was more liberty. Those who wished could go up to Jerusalem to worship. This is why it is said that Hoshea did not do evil as other kings had done. But when they had more liberty, they began to quarrel among themselves—a common consequence of freedom. Their division became intense; some went to Jerusalem to worship, while others did not.
Those who went criticized those who stayed, and vice versa. With their hearts thus divided, they were found guilty. The desolating judgment had to
come, and this was the time for their captivity. God was exceedingly provoked by their contentions against each other at this time.
God questioned why, when He showed them favor by easing their bondage and oppression, they chose to fall out, disdain, and wrangle with one another. As a result, He allowed them to go into captivity and let the enemy come upon them. God took no delight in such a crooked and perverse generation.
Our condition seems to parallel theirs very much. We were recently under severe and cruel bondage, where worshipping God in His own way was dangerous. We were under hard taskmasters and oppressive courts. The Lord has delivered us significantly, yet some ungrateful and sinful spirits claim nothing has changed. We have much ease and liberties that our forefathers would have marveled at and blessed God for. Instead, we waste our strength on siding, wrangling, contending, quarreling, vexing, and opposing one another instead of magnifying and praising God's name for the mercy we enjoy.
We are a divided people—our hearts, heads, and hands are divided. Peace and unity seem to have flown from us, replaced by a spirit of contention and division. The king and subjects are divided; Parliament is divided; the Assembly is divided; armies are divided; the Church is divided; the State is divided; cities are divided; the countryside is divided; towns are divided; families are divided; godly people are divided; ministers almost everywhere are divided. Indeed, what heart is not divided within itself? The thoughts, counsels, contrivances, and endeavors of men are all divided.
O blessed Savior! Are these the times you spoke of when five would be in one house divided—three against two and two against three; father against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against
mother? Oh woe to us! We find it so among us, yet there is no healing; we are broken with no binding up. It is with us as it was with Ezekiel 2:6: briars and thorns are with us, and we dwell among scorpions.
O Lord, is this your curse upon England at this time? Briars and thorns shall it bring forth. We are rending, tearing, and devouring one another while the adversary stands ready to devour us. Ephraim is against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim. A fire has come out from Abimelech and devours the men of Shechem; fire comes from the men of Shechem and devours Abimelech. Indeed, there is a fire kindled in our own bowels—it rises from ourselves. Ezekiel 19:14 says that fire has gone out from a rod of her branches, which has devoured her fruit so that she has no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation and shall be for a lamentation.
This is our situation today, and only God knows how long it will continue.
What this people were in their divided condition, we are now; what does this threaten but that we should be as they were shortly after this—a people given up to the rage and fury of the enemy? May the Lord forbid it.
There is a great outcry about our divisions, and while we cry out against them, we still increase them. We are angry with men more because they are divided from ourselves than because they are divided from the truth. We are upset because every man is not of our own mind and does not do as we do.
There was a great deal of concern in Luther's time about the seamless coat of Christ. Granvillan, the Emperor's Deputy, in a speech he made to the citizens of Worms, beseeches them for the death of Christ and for all love, that they would mend our Lord's coat, which is rent and torn on every side.
When Luther labored to bring Reformation to the Rule, they warned him to take heed that he did not rend the seamless coat of Christ. Because they
talked so much of the tunica inconsutilis, they were called the Inconsutilistæ, the seamless men.
What a stir there has been in outcries against men who would not yield to everything that was enjoined! "Oh, they rent the seamless coat of Christ." I remember Musculus in a tract he wrote "De Schismate," has a witty and pious note on this: The soldiers (says he) would not divide the seamless coat of Christ; but what made them so careful of it? Was it out of respect to Christ that they were so unwilling it should be divided? No, but out of respect for their own advantage, each one hoping it might fall to his share.
Therefore, they said, "Let us cast lots for it." So, he says, men would not have Christ's coat divided; they would have no division in the Church. But what do they aim at? Their own advantage, that they might enjoy quietly their own ease, honor, and means, that they might have none to contradict them, but that the stream may run smoothly and wholly with them. What a fine brave thing would this be! And because they see they cannot do this while their ways are looked into and crossed, they make such an outcry against dividing the seamless coat of Christ.
But certainly, until our hearts are otherwise than they are now, all our outcries will not serve our ends in stilling our divisions. If we divided less between God and our own ends, our own ways, we should not divide so much from one another. Therefore, let us first turn our thoughts to consider a little of this division between God and other things and the evil of it.