I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
Ver. 11. I will also cause her mirth to cease] Idolaters are frolic and jovial, the greatest mirth mongers, the merry Greeks of the world; set altogether upon the merry pin, they spend their days in pleasure, and suddenly turn into hell, Job 21:13. Thus it was with these old idolaters. See Amos 6:4. And thus it is with the Papists at this day. They have a proverb among them, Spiritns Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus, A Calvinistic spirit is a melancholy spirit. Turn Protestant once, and you must for ever bid adieu to mirth and jollity, and lead a monkish, melancholy life. In their supplication to King James for a toleration, they used this as an argument for their religion above ours, because more suitable and pleasing to man's nature. It is indeed an alluring, tempting, bewitching religion, Revelation 13:14. Sir Walter Raleigh knew what he said, That were he to choose a religion for licentious liberty, lasciviousness, and merry making, he would be a Papist. Hence the whole world is said to wonder after the beast, which is said to be like unto a leopard or panther (πανθηρ, quod omnium animalium amicus sit. Isidor). Now the panther is admired and followed by most other beasts of the field (and thence hath his name), either for the beauty of his hide, or for the sweetness of his smell. So is the pope for those sensual delights and swinish pleasures he alloweth his followers. Lupanar utriusque Veneris Roma condidit, saith Agrippa, concerning Pope Sixtus Quintus. But what should I rake in that dunghill? Such sinful mirth, as it is base born, so it is of short continuance: God will make it to cease, and to go soon out in a vexing snuff. For what reason? There is a snare (or cord) in the sin of the wicked, sc. to strangle their joy with, but the righteous sing and are merry, Proverbs 29:6, yea, they are merry (or right set in their minds, as the apostle's word, ενθυμει, signifies, Jam 5:13), and therefore they sing, yea, and shall sing for joy of heart, when wicked men shall cry for sorrow of heart, yea, howl again for vexation of spirit, Isaiah 65:14. Meanwhile their mirth is but the hypocrisy of mirth. It may wet the mouth, but not warm the heart; smooth the brow, but not fill the breast. It is like a little counterfeit complexion; as they repent only in the face, Matthew 6:16, so they rejoice only in the face, 2Co 1:5; 2 Corinthians 1:12. Indeed, they revel rather than rejoice, and the end of that mirth is heaviness, Proverbs 14:13; as lightning is attended with thunder, and as comets end in a pestilent vapour. Let the Lord but turn his hand and take away his grain, &c., destroy vine and fig trees, &c., and this carnal mirth is at an end: their light is put out in obscure darkness, they lie down in sorrow, and are all amort, they are filled with unmedicinable perplexities, and are ready to run mad, Deuteronomy 28:34. Whereas a godly man, as he hath a constant spring of comfort within him, and can be merry without music, so he can stand under the greatest weight of affliction without buckling, as Paul: he can be mediis tranquillus in undis, as Noah: he can confidently say, with Habakkuk, Habakkuk 3:17, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."
Her feast days, her new moons] Not the matter of their joy only shall be abolished, but the times too; she shall neither have holy days nor good days (as they are called, Est 8:17), to keep and celebrate. Here then the Lord shows how he will uncover this harlot's nakedness, viz. first he will strip her of her spirituals, and next of her temporals, Hosea 2:12. Her feast days, new moons, sabbaths, and solemn feasts were but apish imitations of those commanded by God, whose ape Satan will needs be. Habent et vespse favos; simiae imitantur heroines: wasps also have honey combs as well as bees; and apes will be doing at men's actions. Satan's synagogue may seem a true Church. The ten revolted tribes kept also divers solemn days, partly commanded by the law (as new moons and sabbaths) and partly instituted by Jeroboam, in honour of their idols, as now among the Papists, in pretended honour of the saints, with feasting, dancing, ringing, roaring of organs, &c. These solemnities, therefore, the Lord here first utterly disowneth, calling them her feast days, her sabbaths, &c., and none of his, because they did lacte gypsum miscere, mingle lime with milk, as Irenaeus saith of Plato; Non mea, tua sunt, as Martial saith of his epigrams, ill read by another. And secondly, that he will take them away (sc. by carrying themselves away captive. See Hos 9:4-5), and so pull off their vizor, wash off their varnish of rites and ceremonies, and lay them open to all in their own colours.