The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: [therefore] I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.
Ver. 10. The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound] A wickedness condemned by the law and light both of nature and Scripture, Deuteronomy 27:17; Deu 19:14 Proverbs 22:28. The princes are mentioned, because corruption in a people (as putrefication in a fish) begins at the head. Now the landmark of limit is removed many ways: as, first, religione, in religion; when the true is changed into that which is false, as was here in Queen Mary's days, against her promise to the Suffolk men (Tarnon.). Secondly, in regione, in the civil state; when one man violently invadeth the right of another (as Ahab did Naboth's vineyard), and no man must question them, because it is facinus maioris abollae (Juvenal), the fact of a great one. Thirdly, in officio, in a man's office or particular station, when he keeps not within his circle, but takes liberty to transgress, prescribing new worships, as 2 Kings 16:10,11 2 Chronicles 28:23; taking upon them to teach ministers what to teach them, as Micah 2:6; or themselves invading the ministerial office uncalled thereunto, as did Jeroboam, 1 Kings 12:33; 1 Kings 16:3, and Uzziah, 2 Chronicles 26:16, to their cost. This (saith an interpreter) is grandis culpa, et atrox crimen, a foul fault, a crimson crime. Let our lay preachers and levellers look to it, unless they covet a curse. Deuteronomy 27:17, "He that breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." Fourthly, in negotio, in businesses and transactions, in contracts and covenants: he removeth bounds who defrauds and circumventeth another in any matters, 1 Thessalonians 4:6. These must remember that God is the avenger of all such; and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the punishing hands of the living God, Hebrews 10:31. The Papists fall foul upon us as innovators, and removers of the ancient bounds, because we reject their ecclesiastical traditions and unwritten verities (as they call them) commended unto us by the ancients, and embraced by whole nations tbr many ages. To whom we answer, that multitude and antiquity are but ciphers in divinity; they must (at least) have no more authority than what they can maintain. Let them boast, with the Gibeonites, of their old shoes, mouldy bread, &c., we hold us to the Scriptures, for our limits and landmarks unmoveable and immutable. And when they shall ask us, as they often do, where was your religion before Luther? we answer, as one once did, In the Bible, where yours never was. Erasmus met with an adversary so silly as to charge him for a remover of the ancient bounds, because he had anew translated the New Testament; a work of singular use to the Church of Christ in those dark times. (Erasm. in Apolog.).
Therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water] Which shall overflow the banks to overwhelm those that remove the bounds. Yea, God will pour it upon them by whole pailfuls, or spouts (as they call them at sea). Or if but by vials, as Revelation 16:1 , which are vessels of narrow mouths, and pour out slowly, howbeit they drench deeply, and distil effectually the wrath of God, which wretched sinners shall never be able to avoid or abide. Oh when God shall set himself to set open the cataracts of his wrath as once at Noah's flood, and to come against a sinner with a deluge of destruction, to pour out his indignation upon him, as water hastily, heavily, irresistibly, what will he do, and where will he find refuge? This made David pray so hard, "Let not the waterfloods overflow me; nor the deep swallow me up," Psalms 69:15. It is the privilege of every godly person, that in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh to him, Psalms 32:6. Or if they come up to his neck, yet they shall not take away his breath: for his head is ever above water. Washed he may be (as Paul was in the shipwreck), drowned he cannot be. Sink he may seem to do once and again to the bottom; but he shall up again with Jonah, if out of the deep he call upon the Lord, who will set him on a rock that is higher than he.