For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give [me] my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
Ver. 5. For their mother hath played the harlot] Being a "wife of whoredoms," Hosea 1:2 See Trapp on " Hos 1:2 " therefore I will not have mercy upon her children, but will root out all her increase, Job 31:12. Either she shall commit whoredom, and not increase, Hosea 4:10; or if she do, it is for mischief she shall bring forth children to the murderer: or at least she shall bequeath them a fearful legacy of sin and punishment, worse than that leprosy that Gehazi left to his posterity, or that Joab left to his, 2 Samuel 3:29 : lameness and gonorrhoea, &c. It is a dangerous thing to keep up the succession of a sin in the world, and to propagate guilt from one generation to another: it is a great provocation. When the wickedness of such is ripe in the field (and they have filled up the measure of their fathers' sins), God will not let it shed to grow again: but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance. Let parents therefore break off their sins and get into God's favour; if for nothing else, yet for their poor children's sake: labouring to mend that by education which they have marred by propagation and evil example. And let children of wicked parents (as they tender their own eternal good) take God's counsel, Ezekiel 20:18; Ezekiel 20:30 : Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations? Oh, walk ye not after the statutes of your fathers: neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols. True it is men are wondrous apt to dote upon their fathers' doings, and are hardly drawn off from their vain conversation received by tradition from their ancestors, 1 Peter 1:18. A bore maiori discit arare minor (Ovid). Prescription is held authority sufficient. Me ex ea opinione quam a maioribus accepi de cultu deorum nullius unquam movebit oratio, saith Cicero, No man shall ever dissuade me from that way of divine worship that my forefathers lived and died in. It is reported of a certain monarch of Morocco, that having read St Paul's Epistles, he liked them so well that he professed that were he then to choose his religion, he would, before any other, embrace Christianity. But every one ought, said he, to die in his own religion: and the leaving of the faith wherein he was born was the only thing that he disliked in that apostle. Thus he. Sed toto erravit coelo, Antiquity must have no more authority than what it can maintain. Eμοι αρχεια εστον ‘ Iησους ο Cριστος, Mine antiquity (said Ignatius) is Christ Jesus, who said not to the young man, Do as thy forefathers, but Follow thou me.
She that conceived them hath done shamefully] She hath utterly shamed herself and all her friends, husband, children, all. The woman is, or should be, the glory of the man. Solomon's good housewife was she, Proverbs 31:28,29. Her children rise up and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, "Many daughters have done virtuously: but thou excellest them all." Alphonsus, king of Aragon, was once resolved never to commend his wife, lest he should be accounted immodest or uxorious: but afterwards he changed his mind, and was so taken with his wife's virtues and constancy, that he resolved to praise her quocunque in trivio, cuique obvio, sine modo, et modestia, in all places and companies. So did Budaeus, Pareus, and others. But a wicked wife (a harlot especially) puts her husband to the blush, and is a great heart-break, as Livia was to Augustus (Eudemus was both her physician and her stallion); his children also proved stark naught: which made him wish that either he had lived a bachelor, or died childless, a "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a shame to any people," Proverbs 14:34. It is the snuff that dimmeth their candlestick, the leaven that soureth their passover, the reproach that rendereth them a proverb and a byword, an astonishment and a hissing, a taunt and a talk to other countries, Deu 28:37 Jer 25:9 Eze 5:15 Such was Israel's apostasy and idolatry, their subjecting religion to carnal policy in setting up the two calves and Baalim: when Ephraim spake "there was trembling, and then he exalted himself in Israel: but when he offended in Baal, he died," Hosea 13:1. While he kept close to God, who but Ephraim? None dared to quack, but all quaked at the name of Ephraim: he was on high, and much honoured. But when he declined to idolatry, he became contemptible: and every paltry adversary cast dirt in his face, and crowed over him. So true is that of Solomon, "The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools," Pro 3:35 What a victorious prince was Henry IV of France, till he (for political respects) turned Papist! Till then he was Bonus Orbi: the good of the world, but after that Orbus Boni, bereft of good, as the wits of the time played upon his name Borbonius, by way of anagram. Once he was (before his revolt) persuaded by Du Plessy to do public penance for having abused the daughter of a certain gentleman in Rochelle, by whom he had a son (Life of Phil. de Mornay). Hereunto he was drawn with some difficulty, being ready to fight a battle: and this was no disgrace to him. But when, by compliance at least, he became an idolater for lucre of a crown and love of life, he became a vile person, as Antiochus is called, Daniel 11:21, and was worthily lashed with rods by the pope, in the person of his ambassadors; and butchered by the instigation of those Jesuits whom he basely recalled into France, whence they had been banished, and admitted them into his bosom; making Father Cotton his confessor et sic probrose se gessit, et rem confusione dignam admisit, as here. He both shamed and undid himself.
For she hath said, I will go after my lovers] Amasios meos, My sweethearts, those that have drawn away my heart from my husband. But if that persecutor could say to the martyr, What a devil made thee to meddle with the Scriptures? how much better might it be said to the synagogue, and so to all apostates, What a devil meant you to go a whoring from such a husband who is totus, totus desiderabilis, altogether lovely, even the chief of ten thousand, Song of Solomon 5:16, after dumb idols, and false prophets, who are their brokers (proxenetae et proci) and spokesmen? Athenaeus brings in Plato bewailing himself and his own condition, that he was taken so much with a filthy whore. Adultery is a filthiness in the abstract: so is also idolatry: and therefore idols are called by a word that signifieth the very excrements that come out of a man, gelulim, Eze 22:8 a term too good for those dung hill deities, those abominable idolatries, as St Peter expresseth it, 1 Peter 4:3. Mention is made in histories of a certain heathen people that punish adultery with death: and with such a death as is suitable to the sin. For they thrust the adulterer's or adulteress's head into the paunch of a beast where lieth all the filth and garbage of it, there to be stufficated to death. Sodom and Gomorrah had fire from heaven for their burning lust, and stinking brimstone for their stinking brutishness. They are also thrown out (as St Jude phraseth it) for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, προκεινται, Judges 1:7. And in the like pickle are the beast and the false prophet (those arch-idolaters), for these both are cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone, Revelation 19:20. And worthily, since they declared their sin as Sodom, they hid it not, Isaiah 3:9. And as this housewife in the text, who said, "I will go after my lovers"; she did, of wickedness forethought, upon deliberation, de industria, ex consilio, wilfully and of purpose, impudently and without all shame of sin, say, "I will go after." This was shameless indeed: they should rather have gone after her, than she after them. Moses fitly compareth a whore to a salt bitch that is followed after by all the dogs in a town, Deuteronomy 23:18. "Am I a dog's head?" said Abner to Ishbosheth, 2 Samuel 3:8, that is, Am I so given to lust and lasciviousness as dogs are that run after every salt bitch? But this harlot verified that saying in Ezekiel: The contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms: whereas none followed thee to commit whoredoms, thou followest them; and gloriest in thy so doing, as Lot's daughters did in their detestable incest, naming their children, Moab, that is, a birth by my father; and Benammi, that is, begotten by one of my near kindred. These all might have held their tongues with shame enough. But such kind of sinners are singularly impudent, Jeremiah 3:3, infatuated, Hosea 4:11, and past feeling, Ephesians 4:19. And so are idolaters wickedly wilful, and irreclaimable for most part. See Jeremiah 44:16,17; Jer 2:10 Isaiah 44:19,20 : "A seduced heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul; nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" How stiff are Papists to this day in defence of their image worship! how severe against such as deface or but disgrace them! Murder is not so heinous a sin.
That give me my bread and my water, &c.] What can be more like to the doings of the Papists than this? saith Danaeus. Who knows not what suit they make, and what thanks they return to their he-saints and she-saints, and how they sacrilegiously transfer the glory due to God alone, to the creature. The Lord rightly resolveth the genealogy of grain, wine, and oil into himself, Hos 2:22 of this chapter. And the apostle tells us that it is he that "filleth men's hearts with food and gladness," Acts 14:17 .
-- “ Et cum charissima semper
Munera sint Author quae preciosa facit. ”
This should make us lift up many a humble, joyful, and thankful heart to God: well content if we may have offam et aquam, bread and water, and the gospel; and vowing with Jacob, Genesis 28:20, that if God will give us bread to eat and raiment to put on, then shall he be our God, and we will honour him with the best of our substance. As for other gods, whether pagan or papagan, say we as that heathen did, Contemno minutulos istos deos modo Iove mihi propitium habeam, I care not for these petty deities: I trust in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy: all things, I say, both ad esum, et ad usum, for back and belly (besides better things), which is all that carnal people care for. There be many (too many) that say (and can skill of no other language), Who will show us any good? Psalms 4:6; who will give us bread, water, wool, oil? &c.; they look no higher, know no heaven but plenty, hell but penury, God but their belly, whereunto they offer sacrifice, with Poliphemus, and care for no more, quam ut ventri bene sit ut lateri, than that their bellies may be filled, their backs fitted. Let them have but plenty of victuals, and the queen of heaven shall be their good lady, Jeremiah 44:17. Base spirits look only after low things: gain and credit carry them any way. They work for their penny a day; and are like little children, which will not say their prayers unless they may be promised their breakfast. Whereas a true worshipper of God soareth aloft, hath his feet, at least, where other men's heads are, trades for higher commodities, cannot be put off with mean matters. When great gifts were sent to Luther, he refused them with this brave speech, Valde protestatus sum me nolle sic satiari: I deeply protested that I would not be put off by God with these low things (Melch. Adam). The Papists offered to make him a cardinal if he would be quiet. He replied, No, not if I might be pope. They sent Vergerius, the pope's nuncio, b to tempt him with preferment, and to tell him of Aeneas Sylvius, who following his own opinions, with much slavery and labour, could get no further preferment than to be Canon of Trent, but being changed to the better, became bishop, cardinal, and, finally, Pope Pius II. The same Vergerius also minded him of Bessarion of Nice, who of a poor collier of Trapezond, became a great renowned cardinal, and wanted not much of being pope. But what said Luther to all this? Contemptus est a me Romanus et favor et furor, I care neither for the favour nor fury of Rome. The bramble thought it a brave business to reign over the trees: not so the vine and fig tree. We read of Pope Silvester, that he gave his soul to the devil for seven years' enjoyment of the popedom; which Luther spurned at. One good cast of God's loving countenance was more to David than a confluence of all outward comforts and contentments. "Thou hast put gladness in my heart," saith he, "more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased," Psalms 4:7. Their grain and their wine he calleth it; because it is their portion (poor souls), and they are too well paid of it. Wealth upon any terms is welcome to them, and those are their lovers that will keep them to it, yea, though it be the devil himself: whose language also here they seem to have learned when they say, "My grain and my water," &c. All is their own if you will believe them: like as the devil said to our Saviour, Luke 4:6, "All this wealth is mine, and to whomsoever I will, I give it." But God is the true proprietary, the owner of all: and it is his alone to say Cui vole, do illa, Daniel 4:22. The devil is god of this world, 2 Corinthians 4:4; but it is but titular only, as a king at chess; or at best, by usurpation only, as Absalom was a king; and as the pope is lord of all the kingdoms of the world, both for temporals and spirituals, to dispose of them at his pleasure. When he makes cardinals, he useth these big swollen words, Estote confratres nostri, et principes mundi, Be you brethren to us, and princes of the world. And by such high honours, bishoprics, and benefices, he prevaileth with very many to be wholly at his devotion. One of his poor beneficiaries ingenuously confessed that he and those of his rank preached the gospel for nothing else, nisi ut nos pascat et vestiat, than to get a poor living by it. Let saints say, Non est mortale quod opto, We breathe after better things: we have the moon under our feet, Revelation 12:1, and are above grain, wool, flax. The devil shall not stop our mouths with these palterments. Balaam may run and ride after the wages of wickedness, and get a sword in his guts. Ahab may make a match with mischief, and sell himself to do wickedly; Judas hunt after lying vanities, and hasten to his own place; but Moses was of another spirit, and "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," Hebrews 11:24. And those worthies that were tempted with offers of profit and preferment, could not be won over, but resisted the devil, and he fled from them, Hebrews 11:37. The world was crucified to St Paul, and he to the world, he was of too generous a spirit: he was no malleable matter: all was but dung and dog's meat in his account, Philippians 3:8. Dr Taylor, martyr, was promised not only his pardon, but great promotion; yea, a bishopric: but he would have none of it. Another Dr Taylor, Bishop of Lincoln, was violently thrust out of the parliament house in his robes, in Queen Mary's reign, and deprived. So was Hirmanius, Archbishop of Colen, for certain reformations done by the aid and advice of Martin Bucer. I dare say (said Bishop Bonner to Mr Hawkes, martyr) - that Cranmer would recant if he might have his living: so judging others by himself. But Latimer and Shaxton parted with their bishoprics in King Henry VIII's time, rather than submit to the Six Articles. And John Knox refused a bishopric offered him by King Edward VI, as having aliquid commune cum Antichristo (Knox's Life, by Mr Clark): so did Miles Coverdale in Queen Elizabeth's reign, choosing rather to continue a poor schoolmaster. Pliny saith of Cato, that he took as much glory in those dignities and honours that he denied as he did in those that he enjoyed (Plin. Nat. Hist. praef.). He was wont also to say that he had rather men should question why he had no statue or monuments erected to him, than why he had: certainly it is so with the saints; and upon better grounds.
a Plin. Tacit. Utinam aut caelebs vixissem, aut orbus periissem.
b A permanent official representative of the Roman See at a foreign court. ŒD