Now therefore restore the man [his] wife; for he [is] a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore [her] not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that [are] thine.
Ver. 7. Now therefore restore.] Let knowledge reform what ignorance offended in. "The times of ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent". Act 17:30 As a master, when he sets up his servant a double light, expects more work and better. We have a privilege not only above the blind Ethnics, but above the Church of the Old Testament. The sea about the altar was brazen; 1Ki 7:23 and what eyes could pierce through it? Now our sea about the throne is glassy, Rev 4:6 "like unto crystal," clearly conveying the light and sight of God to our eyes. God hath "destroyed the face of the covering cast over all people". Isa 25:7 "And we all with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord," must see to it, that we be "changed into the same image, from glory to glory". 2Co 3:18 If those good souls passed "from strength to strength," Psa 84:7 travelling many a weary step, to see the face of God in Sion, in the obscure glass of the ceremonies; voe torpori nostro, woe to us, if, now that such a light is sprung up, we walk not as children of that light! To know heavenly things, is to "ascend into heaven". Pro 30:3-4 And to know our Master's will is a great talent; of all other, there is a "much" in that. Luk 12:48 But then, not to do his will so known, is to "be beaten with many stripes." None so deep in hell, as your knowing men, a because they "imprisoned the truth" (which is as a prophet from God) "in unrighteousness"; Rom 1:18 they kept it in their heads, as rain in the middle region, not suffering it to warm their hearts, or work upon their affections; therefore came wrath upon them to the utmost. None are oftener drowned than they that have most skill in swimming. So none sooner miscarry than men of greatest parts.
For he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee.] The proper work of a prophet. "If they be prophets, let them entreat the Lord": Jer 27:18 they shall be heard, when others shall not; as the father's blessing is most effectual; as the child could not be raised till Elisha came himself, nor the sick be healed, till the elders of the Church be called for. Jam 5:14 The apostles divided their time between praying and preaching. Act 6:4 So did the priests of the Old Testament; "They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, they shall put incense before thee". Deu 33:10 As with every sacrifice there was incense, so should every ministerial duty be performed with prayer. St Paul begins his Epistles with prayer, and proceeds and ends in like manner. What is it that he would have every of his Epistles stamped with by his own hand, but prayer for all his people. 2Th 3:17-18
Thou shalt surely die.] So dear to God are his saints, that he grievously punisheth even kings for their sakes; as Jehoram "in his bowels with an incurable disease," 2Ch 21:18 the two Herods by the lousy malady. b Maximinus the emperor, a cruel persecutor, cast upon his bed of sickness by God, was glad to crave the prayers of the Church, as Eusebius relates it. Valens being to subscribe an order for the banishment of Basil, was smitten with a sudden trembling of his hand, that he could not. Afterward he was burned to death by the Goths, whom he had corrupted by sending them Arian teachers. c The putting out of that French king's eyes, which promised d before with his eyes to see Anne du Bourg (one of God's true servants) burned, who seeth not to be the stroke of God's own hand? Then, his son Francis, not regarding his father's stripe, would needs yet proceed in the burning the same man. And did not the same God give him such a blow on the ear as cost him his life? As for Charles IX, author of the French massacre, though he were wittily warned by Beza to beware (upon occasion of that new star appearing in Cassiopeia, Nov. 1572, which he applied to that star at Christ's birth, and to the infanticide then) with, Tu vero, Herodes sanguinolente, time; yet because he repented not, God gave him blood to drink, as he was worthy; for the fifth month after the vanishing of this star, Constans fama est illum, dum e variis corporis partibus sanguis emanaret, in lecto saepe volutatum, inter terribilium blasphemiarum diras tantam sanguinis vim proiecisse, ut paucas post horas, mortuus fuerit. e This Charles IX, in the massacre of Paris, beholding the bloody bodies of the butchered Protestants, and feeding his eye upon that woeful spectacle, is said to have breathed out this bloody speech, Quam bonus est odor hostis mortui ! f Another great queen, seeing the ground covered with naked carcasses of her Protestant subjects said, g that it was the bravest piece of tapestry that ever she beheld; h but it was not long that she beheld it. Our Queen Mary, though non natura sed Pontificiorum arte ferox - ipsa solum nomen regium ferebat, coeterum omnem regni petestatem Pharisaei possidebant - died i of a tympany, or, as some (by her much sighing before her death) supposed, she died of thought and sorrow, either for the loss of Calais, or for the departure of King Philip. This king, going from the Low Countries by sea into Spain, with resolution never to remove thence, fell into a storm, in which almost all the fleet was wrecked, his household stuff of very great value lost, and himself hardly escaped. He said he was delivered by the singular providence of God, to root out Lutheranism, which he presently began to do, protesting that he had rather have no subjects, than Lutheran subjects, j Whether it was this Philip or his successor, I cannot certainly tell. But Carolus Scribanius tells a lamentable story of one of those two Philips. k Hear him else, Ulcerum magnitudinem, multitudinem, acerbitatem, foetorem, lecto tanquam durae cruci, anno integro, affixionem, ut in nullam prope commoveri partem possit, acres continuosque annorum sex podagrae dolores, febrim hecticam cum duplici per annos duos, tertiuna intima, adeoque et ossium medullas, depascentem gravissimam 22. dierum dysenteriam, quae nec moram daret, nec detersionem admitteret, perpetua stomachi fastidia, nullo potu sitim medicandam, capitis et oculorum insanos dolores, ingentem puris ex ulceribus redundantiam, quae binas indies scutellas divite paedore impleret: inter haec, malignissimi odoris gravitatem, quae omnem illi somnum ademerat; haec inquam, rex potentissimus longo tempore prepessus' est. So true is that of an ancient, Potentes potenter torquebuntur ." Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings: kiss the Son, lest he be angry". Psa 2:12 He can soon break men with his iron mace, and dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel. Ingentia beneficia, ingentia flagitia, ingentia supplicia, as the Centurists have it. Christ shall reign, when kings and Caesars shall lie in the dust. His name is "King of kings, and Lord of lords"; Rev 19:16 and this name is written "upon his vesture," that all creatures may see his power, and "upon his thigh," to show the eternity of his monarchy, in his children and posterity. This "everlasting Father" shall have an endless government. Isa 9:6-7 "He shall see his seed," the fruit of his thigh; "he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands". Isa 53:10 I shut up this discourse with the story of Ladislaus, king of Bohemia and Hungary, who most unjustly had caused Ladislaus, son to Hunniades, to be beheaded; and together with many other Popish princes, had conspired to root out the true Christians in Bohemia; which should have been put in execution at the time of his marriage; immediately before, in the midst of his great preparations he fell sick, and within thirty-six hours died of a pestilent sore in his groin. l Like as Attilas, m that king of the Huns, and scourge of Christendom, had died before, being suffocated in his own blood, at such a time as he celebrated his wedding, having distempered his body with excess in wine and venery, adeo ut proverbio de eo dictum sit, eum per eandem partem animam profudisse, per quam acceperat, n He went out of the world the same way that he came into it, and sent his soul as a harbinger to the devil to provide room for his body.
a Sapientes sapienter descendunt in infernum. - Bern.
b Non desunt qui ad phthiriasin referunt, quo avus quoque ipius Herod. Mag. periit. - Beza Annot. in Acts xii
c Orosius.
d He protested, Siquam sui corporu partem Lutherianismo sciret infectam revulsurum illico, ne longius serperet. - Sleid Comment. lib. ix.
e Act. and Mon., 1914. - Camden's Elis., fol. 165. - Act. and Mon., fol. 1949.
f Spec. Bel. Sac., p. 248.
g M. Newcomen, Fast Serm., 27.
h Like Hannibal's O Formosum Spectaculum .
i De Alexandra Josephus. - Act. and Mon., fol. 1901.
j Hist. of Coun. of Trent, 417.
k Carol. Scriban., Instit. Princip., cap. 20.
l Bucholcer.
m Paul. Jovius.
n Jacob. Revius.