Plead with your mother, plead: for she [is] not my wife, neither [am] I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
Ver. 2. Plead with your mother, plead] Here of right begins the second chapter (the former verse being not so fitly separated from the former chapter), and it is nothing else but a commentary upon the first, as Pareus well noteth. For the prophet here proceedeth in accusing the people of disloyalty and ingratitude: whereupon he denounceth a divorce and punishment: and then foretelleth their repentance and return into favour with God under the kingdom of the Messiah. Now the end wherefore both the accusation and the promise is here reiterated, is not so much to confirm what had been before affirmed, as to set forth the means whereby this cast off people was to be at length added unto the Church: viz. partly by external means (as sharp sermons and sore afflictions), and partly by the internal grace of the Spirit of God, and good affiance of his love sealed up to them, by various spiritual and temporal favours conferred upon them; as so many love tokens. Come we now to the words of this verse; where Oecolampadius begins the chapter: Plead with our mother, plead It is verbum forense, saith Mercer; an expression borrowed from pleaders at the bar: q.d. Be in good earnest with her, rebuke her roundly and openly, according to the nature of her offence: that she may be sound in the faith, and ashamed of her perfidiousness. What though she be your mother, and in that respect to be honoured by you, yet she is a perverse rebellious woman, as Saul once said of his son Jonathan's mother, 1 Samuel 20:30 (how truly I inquire not: malice little regards truth, so it may gall or kill), and therefore to be barely and boldly told her own. Besides, we cannot better show our respect to parents than by seeking their souls' health, and by dealing fairly but freely with them therein. Not as Walter Mapes (sometime Archdeacon of Oxford) did by his mother Church of Rome: for relating the gross simony a of the Pope in confirming the election of Reginald, bastard son of Jocelin, Bishop of Sarum, into the see of Bath, he thus concludes his narration, Sit tamen Domina materque nostra Roma baculus in aqua fractus: et absit credere quae vidimus: yet let our lady and mother Rome be as a stick put into the water, which seems to be broken, but is not so: and far be it from us to believe our own eyes against her. Was this charity? or stupidity rather? Charity may be ingenuous, but not servile and blockish. It is not love, but hatred (if Moses may judge), to suffer sin in a dearest friend to pass uncontrolled, Leviticus 19:17. Good Asa deposed his own mother for her idolatry: and our Edward VI would not be drawn by any persuasion of friends or fear of enemies, to indulge his sister, the Lady Mary, to have mass said in her house. The truth is, those Ammis and Ruhamahs that have found mercy from God, they have their hearts so fired up thereby with a holy zeal for him, that they cannot endure to see him dishonoured, but must appear and plead for him against any in the world. Again, as any one is more assured of his own salvation by Christ, the more he thirsteth after the salvation of others; as we see evidently in St Paul, that vessel of mercy. I am persuaded, saith he, or I am sure, that neither life nor death, &c., shall ever separate me from God's love in Christ. And what follows in the very next words, but this, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also hearing me witness in the Holy Ghost; that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites," &c., Romans 8:38,39; Romans 9:1,4. And how effectually and convincingly he pleadeth with them to draw them to Christ and hold them close to him, that golden Epistle to the Hebrews will well witness to the world's end.
For she is not my wife] For I have put her away by a bill of divorcement, Isaiah 50:1, with a Habe tibi quae tua sunt (which was the form of divorce among the Romans), Take thine own things and be gone. Now, the Jewish synagogue had nothing she could properly call her own, but sin and misery: when God first took her, she had not a rag to her back, Ezekiel 16:10, nor any kind of comeliness, but what he was pleased to put upon her, Ezekiel 16:14. But she (foolish woman and unwise, Deu 32:6), trusting in her borrowed beauty, played the harlot, and poured out her fornication on every one that passed by: his it was, Ezekiel 16:15. The synagogue of Rome is such another meretrix meretricissima quae gremium claudit nemini, as her own sons say of her, by way of commendation. St John calleth her the whore, the great whore, Revelation 17:1; Revelation 17:15; and further telleth us that she sitteth upon her paramours in a base manner, in an unseemly sort, she sitteth upon their very consciences, and keeps them under by force: whereas Stephen, king of Poland (one of her sons, but not altogether so obsequiuus), was wont to say, that God had required three things to himself, sc. ex nihilo aliquid facere, scire futura, et dominari velle conscientiis, that is, to make something of nothing, to know things to come, and to bear rule over men's consciences. How she forceth men to commit folly with her by the cruel Inquisition; and bow she hireth others for preferments (Luther was offered a cardinalship; Bessarion of Nice was won over to her by such an offer; Thomas Saranzius was of a poor shoemaker's son made bishop, cardinal, and pope, all in one year, and called Nicolas V; the like might be said of Aeneas Sylvius, Canon of Trent, afterwards Pope Pius II), and for a price too, is notoriously known to the Christian world. Stratagem nunc est Pontificium ditare multos ut pii esse desinant, saith a good author. It is one of the pope's stratagems to enrich men that he may oblige them to himself, and bring them into his own vassalage (John Baptist. Gelli. Dialog. 5). In various towns of Germany (as at Augsburg, &c.) there was a known allowance by the year for such Lutherans as would become Papists. Thus this whore of Rome imitateth her in the text: of whom it is elsewhere complained, Ezekiel 16:33, "They give gifts to all whores" (and so buy repentance at too dear a rate, Nolo tanti paenitentiam emere, Dem.), but "thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom: yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldst not be satisfied," Ezekiel 16:28. It was but time therefore that God should cast her off as now no wife of his, but an adulteress of the devil, as she showed herself notably in the Trent Conventicle: where with a whore's forehead that refused to be ashamed, Jeremiah 3:3, she not only established by a law their abominable idolatry, but also set forth that heathenish decree, whereby she equaleth (at least) the Apocrypha to the holy Canon, the vulgar puddle to the Hebrew and Greek fountains, unwritten verities and traditions to the sacred Scriptures: and further addeth, that the Holy Ghost himself is not to be hearkened unto speak he never so plainly and expressly, nisi accedat meretricis purpuratae effrons interpreratio, unless she may have the interpreting of his meaning according to her way. O monstrous impudence, deserving a divorce! True it is that God hateth putting away, Mal 2:16 Isaiah 50:1; he tells these Jews that he had not given their mother a bill of divorcement, ut solent morosi et crudeles mariti, as cruel and froward husbands used to do for every light offence. But what he had done this way, he was merely compelled to it; as not able to wink any longer at their flagitious practices. Hear his own words, "Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you sold yourselves; and for your transgressions is your mother put away." And yet not so far put away either, but that if she repent, she may be received again: and that is no small mercy. See Jeremiah 3:1, "They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord." Lo, God is above law; and his mercy is matchless: he will do for his people what none else in like case would ever he drawn to do: Micah 7:18, "Who is a God like unto thee?" saith the prophet, by way of admiration. David never came near his concubines more after Absalom had gone in to them; and Ahithophel judged that act would be such an injury, as David would never put up with, and therefore gave that pernicious counsel. But God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts, neither are our ways his ways, of mercy, and multiplied pardons. But "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts," Isaiah 55:8,9. We are not to measure things according to our own model; and to have as low thoughts of God and his goodness as those miscreants once had of his power when they demanded, "Can God prepare a table for us in the wilderness? Can he give us water out of the rock?" Surely a finite creature cannot believe the infinite attributes of God thoroughly, without supernatural grace: which therefore must be implored, and every one of us excited not to cast away our confidence which hath so great recompense, so great encouragement: but to say to our mother, and each to other, "Put away your whoredoms," &c., "Cast away all your transgressions," Ezekiel 18:31. "Ye have done all this wickedness" (saith Samuel to the revolted people of his time), but what of that? "yet turn not aside from following the Lord": for that were to add rebellion to sin, as Herod to all his other hateful practices added that of beheading the Baptist. Do not therefore turn aside from following the Lord, but go home again to him, and he will speak peace. "For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: since it hath pleased the Lord once to make you his people," 1 Samuel 12:20,22. He chose you for his love: and now loves you for his choice; yea, he cries after you, as once, "Return, you blacksliding children, and I will heal your backsliding." Oh that you would reciprocate and say, "Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God," Jeremiah 3:22 .
Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight] Not out of my sight (as a Lapide readeth it, neither according to the original, nor yet his own Vulgate translation), but "out of her sight," or from her face, b and her adulteries from between her breasts. Sed quid hoc sibi vult? saith Calvin here. But what may be the meaning of this? It surely seemeth harsh to say that women play the whores, either with their faces or with their breasts: and yet it is not unknown to the learned what Archesilaus the philosopher said to a young wanton, that cast lustful looks and lascivious glances upon others: Nihil interest quibus membris cinaedi sitis, posterioribus an prioribus: You may be naughty packs more ways than one. And Plutarch tells of a certain orator, that said of an impudent fellow: Quod in oculis haberet non κορας sed πορνας, that he had in his eyes not pupils, but punks. c And St Peter saith of the heretical sects of his time, that they had eyes full of the adulteress (so runs the original, μεστους μοιχαλιδος), and that could not cease to sin, 2 Peter 2:14. It is evident enough (saith Calvin) that the prophet in this text alludeth to the manner of harlots painting their faces, decking or laying out their breasts to allure lovers. Filthy dressing and naked breasts (saith another divine), this is whoredom between the breasts. A third calleth naked breasts and wrists, abhorred filth. Jerome saith, If a man or woman adorn or carry themselves so as to provoke others to lust after them, though no evil follow upon it, yet the parties shall suffer eternal damnation; because they offered poison to others, though none would drink it. In Scripture, women taxed for this were notorious wicked persons, and usually whores: as Tamar, Jezebel, those damsels, Isaiah 3:12; Isaiah 3:16,17 Dives, the rich man, Luke 16:19,31 Lupa Romana, the Roman wolf, Revelation 17:3. Our Henry VI, when a mask of women were presented unto him, whereof some of them showed their naked breasts, he left the presence, crying, “Fie, fie, ladies, in sooth ye are to blame, to bare those parts to the eyes of man that nature appointed modesty to conceal.” Frederick the Emperor, seeing some country wenches, near Florence, in dancing to show their naked legs, Eamus, said he, meretricum hic ludus est non virginum, Let us go hence, for this is not maids' play, but whores' rather. That younker in the Proverbs was met by a woman with the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart, or trussed up about the breasts, with her upper parts naked, like a bedlam. So Levi Ben Gersom, she met him with her naked breasts, yea, with something else naked, d which modesty forbids to name, as some construe that text, Proverbs 7:10. So she caught him and kissed him, Hosea 2:13, with strange impudence: and no question but having caught him, her lust grew more flagrant: as by unclean touches of the face and breasts men are more enkindled. Hence that of our Saviour in expounding the seventh commandment, Matthew 5:30, "If thy right hand offend thee," sc. by dalliance and wanton touches, "cut it off," &c. Hippocrates observeth that there are venae et viae ab utero ad mamillas, veins and passages that go from the belly to the breasts; and that is the reason he gives of the temptation to lust that is in the breasts. "Keep thyself pure," saith St Paul to his son Timothy. And again, "The younger women exhort with purity," or chastity. It is not safe to pry into the beauty of young women. Ut vidi ut perii, &c. The eyes are those windows of wickedness and loop holes of lust. "Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight." And let not the strange woman "take thee with her eyelids," saith Solomon, Proverbs 6:25. For prevention hereof, in Chrysostom's time, the women were separated from the men in the church by a wooden wall. And Tertullian saith to the Christian women, Iudicabunt vos Arabiae feminae ethnicae, &c., The heathen women of Arabia shall judge you: for they do not only cover their faces but their heads too; and rather than they will have any part appear naked, they will let the light but into one eye. In Barbary, they say, it is death for any man to see one of the Xeriffe's concubines; and for them too, if when they see a man (though but through a casement) they do not suddenly screech out. Millions of people have died of the wound in the eye. Aholah and Aholibah, that is, Israel and Judah, no sooner saw the Assyrians (those desirable young men), though but portrayed upon the wall, but they doted upon those paramours, and received them into the bed of love, Ezekiel 23:16,17. Et divaricavit tibias suas, Ezekiel 16:25, and multiplied their whoredoms. The very sight of the altar at Damascus set Ahaz agog to have one of the same fashion, 2 Kings 16:10. And Jeroboam, coming out of Egypt, where the ox was worshipped, brought home two calves with him; and set them up at Dan and Bethel. The Nicodemites and Familists hold it no sin to be present at idol service, and allege a text for it out of Apocryphal Baruch. But Mr Burroughes, a good interpreter, well observeth, that that which is intended specially here, in these words, "Let her put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries," &c., is, that they should not be content merely with change of their hearts, to say, Well, we will acknowledge the Lord to be the true God, and our hearts shall wholly trust in him; but for these external things, what great matter is in them? Oh no, they must abstain from all appearance of evil, from the badges of idolatry, &c. Thus he. Those badges or ensigns of idolatry they usually carried between their breasts (saith another author), to testify that the idol had their hearts; whereas Christ should have been there, Song of Solomon 1:13, who to show his dear love to his Church appeared to John, girt about the paps with a golden girdle, Revelation 1:13. See Trapp on " Rev 1:13 " Cor sedes amoris. The heart is the seat of the affections. Hence God calleth for it; "My son, give me thine heart": and the devil strives for it, Luke 22:3 Acts 5:3. Once he strove about a dead man's body, Judges 1:9, but his design therein was to have set up an idol for himself in the hearts of the living. His eldest son and successor, the pope, useth the same policy. It was a watch word in Gregory XIII's time, in Queen Elizabeth's days, My son, give me thy heart: dissemble, go to Church, be a Papist in heart, and then do what ye will: take the oath of allegiance, supremacy, anything that shall be put to you, I will absolve you. Do but carry a crucifix between your breasts (that is the place where they wear such idols), and kiss it when you have sworn (as Louis XI of France used to do), and it shall suffice. An oath upon the conscience of a popish idolater is like a collar upon a monkey's neck, - that he will slip on for his master's pleasure and slip off again for his own. Pascenius scoffs King James for the invention of the oath of allegiance. Equivocation the Jesuits have invented, or revived rather, ad consolationem afflictorum Catholicorum, for the comfort of afflicted Catholics, as Garnet and Blackwell profess. So impudent is idolatry, such frontless whoredoms appear in their very faces, they openly prostitute themselves; Imo volunt extare signa foeditatis sum, saith Calvin, here they hang out their filthy superstitions in the sight of the sun, as Sodom: they set them upon the cliff of the rock, as Jerusalem, Ezekiel 24:7,8, ut similes sint publicis scortis, like common whores that solicit lovers, and send to them, as she, Ezekiel 23:2,21. It was a sad complaint God made, Hos 7:1 of this prophecy, "When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, then it broke forth as the leprosy in their foreheads": their fornications were not only covert, but overt. Their whoredoms in the face were their worshipping the two golden calves and Baalim (saith Pareus); their "adulteries between their breasts" were their trust in idols, in the arm of flesh, in confederacies, &c., when they would seem nevertheless to trust in God alone: as now the Papists profess to do, and have therefore coined diverse nice distinctions of worship, per se, et per accidens, proprie, et impropriae, and a hundred the like evasions. But there is no hiding of their asses' ears by these subtilties. Dr Reynolds, in his Books de Idolatria Romana, hath (among others) proved them rank idolaters. Weston writes, that his head ached in reading that book; but they all yield it unanswerable: and yet they "repent not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk," Revelation 9:20. But, as those that make them are like unto them, so are all those that trust in them, stockish and stupid; given up to the efficacy of error, to believe a lie, yea, and that against common sense, Isaiah 44:17, which is no small stumblingblock to both Jews and Mahometans.
a The act or practice of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferments, benefices, or emoluments; traffic in sacred things. ŒD
b So the Septuag. εκ προσωπου μου .
c Lib. περι δυσωπιας. Kορη puellam et pupillam oculi significat.
d שׁית pro שׁת quasi nudato pudendo. And verse 18, Nerveh dodim inebriabimur uberibus.