And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These [are] my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
Ver. 12. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees] Not her wine and her figs only, i.e. her delicious drinks and deserts (even all her plenty), sed vineta ipsa et ficeta, as Rivet observeth: which shows a great deal of anger (for fruit trees were not to be destroyed in an enemies' country), like as he discovered a great deal of fear of the Spanish Inquisitors, that brought one of them his pears (which he had sent for), tree, and all by the roots. It is wisdom to meet God by repentance, lest he stub up root and branch together, lest he "overturn, overturn, overturn, so as it shall be no more," Ezekiel 21:27; lest he cry, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" since it is not for fruit, let it be for the fire, Luke 13:7 .
Whereof she hath said, These are my rewards] The wages of my wickedness, the hire of my harlotry, Deu 23:18 Ezekiel 16:34, pretium meritorium. Adultery is costly. Whores must have their rewards, they lie in wait for a prey, Proverbs 23:21, and will soon bring a rich man to beggary, Proverbs 6:26. Solomon himself was so exhausted by such she sinners (so they call them, Cruces et crumenimulgas, suck purses the poet calleth them) that he was forced to oppress his subjects to supply his coffers: which occasioned the loss of ten tribes. Harlots know no other language but that of the horse leech, Give, give; and may fitly be compared to the ravens of Arabia, that fully gorged, have a tunable sweet voice; but empty, they screech horribly.
“ Corpus, opes, animum, famam, vim, lumina, scortum,
Debilitat, perdit, necat, aufert, eripit, orbat. ”
Idolatry also is no less costly: witness this harlot's habit, Hosea 2:13 , and the purple whore of Rome, with all her trinkets, and those masses of money that she drains out of many parts of Christendom for the support of her state. Otto (one of her mice catchers, muscipulata res, as the story calleth him), sent hither into England by Gregory IX, after three years' raking together of money for pardons, and other palterments, at last departing, he left not so much money in the whole kingdom, as he either carried with him or sent to Rome before him. What will not men part with to purchase heaven? Now they persuaded the poor people (and still they do) that good works (and what so good as to gratify the pope with great sums?) were mercatura regni coelestis, the price to be given for heaven (Bellarm.). Idolaters are all merit mongers: they will have heaven as a purchase; they lay claim to it, as wages for their work. They say, with that wretched monk, Redde mihi aeternam vitam quam debes, Give me eternal life which thou owest me, "Give me the portion that belongeth to me," Luke 15:12. God forbid, saith another Papist, that we should enjoy heaven as of mere alms to us. On the other side, the godly disclaim their own merits, beg hard for mercy, expect a recompense of reward from him, but all of free grace; accounting all that they can do for God but a little of that much that is due to him, and that they could well beteem him: they do all righteousness, but rest in none: they know that God's kingdom is partum et non paratum; that their reward is the reward of inheritance, and not of acquisition; and that if they could do anything this way, yet would it be mercy in God to "reward every one according to his work," Psalms 62:12 .
And I will make them a forest] See this more fully set forth Isaiah 5:5,6. Such is the hatred God beareth to sin that he makes bloody weals, as it were, upon the backs of the insensible creatures for man's sake. "A fruitful land turneth he into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein," Psalms 107:34. Thus he dealt by Sodom, which was once as Egypt, yea, as Eden, but is now a place of nettles and salt pits; by Judea, that once lumen totius orbis, the light of the whole world, now laid desolate; as Babylon, where Strabo saith their barley yielded three hundred fold increase, and their palm tree three hundred and sixty several sorts of commodities, as bread, honey, wine, vinegar, &c.; but what devastation befell it by the Medes, see Isaiah 13:19, &c. It were easy to instance in the seven Churches of Asia, the Palatinate and other parts of Germany, in Ireland, and now Scotland: and what may England look for? Shall we altogether pass unpunished? Shall we still sit safely under our vines and fig trees, and not be forested, and by those wild beasts of the field devoured? Sure it is, that no beast of the field doth show itself more raging or ravenous than do the wicked, when God suffers, or rather sends, them to break into his vineyard. Witness those breathing devils, the Irish rebels, more cruel than any cannibals. Cursed be their wrath; for it was cruel, transcendently so, extending itself both to the living and the dead. Ursi non saeviunt in cadavera: but these bears, Psalms 58:4, boars, Psalms 80:13, lions, leopards, did rage against dead carcases, and tore them with their teeth. Histories tell us that the first founders of Rome were nourished by a wolf: certain it is that the offspring of that people have the hearts of wolves, being savage and cruel above measure. Their city was first founded in blood, and so was the papacy: for the foundation of that see was laid when Phocas slew his liege lord and emperor, Mauritius, whom he stewed in his own blood. Whence the poet wittily;
“ Suffocas, Phoca, imperium; stabilisque Papatum. ”
The habit of that harlot is, according to her heart, purple and scarlet; and her diet is the diet of the cannibals. "I saw her drunken with the blood of the saints," Revelation 17:6. They are wholly bloody, both in their positions and dispositions, their plots and practices. The pope is said to be a leopard, or panther, with his feet like a bear, and his head like a lion, Revelation 13:2. See Trapp on " Rev 13:2 " And of their St Dominic (the father of the Dominicans) it is reported, that when his mother was with child of him she dreamed that she brought forth a wolf, with a firebrand in his mouth: and he proved, accordingly, a brutish man, skilful to destroy, to devour the man more righteous than himself, by his bloody inquisitors, Eze 21:31 Habakkuk 1:2,3. I pray that God would deliver his turtle from these savage creatures; that he would cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land, Ezekiel 34:25, that the beasts of the land may no more devour them, Ezekiel 34:28 .