Behold, [is it] not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
Ver. 13. Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the fire] Labour in vain to quench the fire, wherewith Babylon shall be burnt, Jeremiah 51:58. Or have laboured to no purpose in building that city and enlarging that empire, which now God will have down. Is it not evident, that they have lost oleum et operam, oil and work, yea, hazarded their own lives, as those do that strive against a flame. What profit hath he that laboureth for the wind, Ecclesiastes 5:16, much less he that laboureth in the fire, that devouring element, see Isaiah 33:14. Possibly he may be saved himself, yet so as by fire, but his work shall be burnt, that loss he shall suffer, 1 Corinthians 3:15. As they that seek after the philosopher's stone labour in the very fire to as little purpose as may be; for they must use so much gold, and spend so much gold, and then perhaps they can turn as much into gold by it as they have spent in making of it. Hence one calls alchemy a multiplying of something by nothing; another an Omne, Aliquid, Nihil all things, some things, nothing, another, an art without art, never taught by Moses and Miriam, as some have doted, and delivered, that this was a piece of their Egyptian learning. But it is certain that those holy souls never either learned or taught any such laborious loss of time and money. Demetrius Phalereus complaineth of these alchemists long gone not without indignation, quod certis consumptis incertorum gratis, quae se capturos sperabant, non ceperunt, quod vero habebant abiecerint, that they cast away certainties for uncertainties, that they attained not what they hoped for, but cast away what they had (Athenaeus). Julius Scaliger also, Fornaculas istas odi, saith he, odio plus quam Vatiniano. Sunt enim noctuae ad aucupia crumenarum. I cannot abide those furnaces; indeed, they are pick purses, &c.; know there is a true alchemy called by some the Spagirick art, being in great use in medicine. This I condemn not, so it be warily and wisely dealt in. But this by the way only. It seemed to some an impossible thing that Babylon should so suddenly be destroyed as was foretold, Habakkuk 2:7. It will be done certo, cito, penitus, suddenly, surely, severely, saith the prophet, for the Lord of hosts hath undertaken the doing of it. Annon ecce a Domino exercituum (so the Hebrews hath it by an emphatic aposiopesis a device)? Is it not, look you, of the Lord of hosts? The people shall labour in the very fire.
The nations also shall weary themselves for very vanity] viz. In seeking to save Babylon, which by a Divine decree is to be destroyed without remedy, Psalms 137:8. So is Rome, that other Babylon, Revelation 18:2, cito itidem casura, si vos essetis viri, said Petrarch long since (De rein. ut. fort. dial. 118). It would soon be down would you but stand up as men. Neither shall the Jesuits (that ultimus diaboli crepitus) be able to uphold it; there is a cold sweat upon all the limbs of antichrist already.
a A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed. ŒD