The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know [it]: the prophet [is] a fool, the spiritual man [is] mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.
Ver. 7. The days of visitation are come] A visitation that is like to prove a vexation; for every transgression and disobedience, that is, omission and commission, shall receive a just recompense of reward from the God of recompenses (so he is called, Jer 51:56), whose eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men, Psalms 11:4; the former points out his knowledge, the latter his judgment, or his critical descant in his visitation or inquisition, the days whereof are set, Stat sua cuique dies, and Israel's days are come, are come, it is repeated for more assurance, as "Babylon is fallen, is fallen," certo, cito, penitus; and as Ezekiel 7:5,7, the prophet tells them, "The end is come, is come, is come"; and so some ten or twelve times, that he might beat it into them, and awaken them out of the snare of the devil. The wicked's happiness will take its end surely and swiftly; but it is hard persuading them so; and the Jews, as they were ever noted for obstinate and overweening, so to this day they are light, aerial, and Satanical, apt to work themselves into the fool's paradise of a sublime dotage. But they shall know it to be so as I have said, by woeful experience, that mistress of fools.
Israel shall know it] sc. To his sorrow, he shall pay for his learning, buy his wit, open his eyes (as the mole doth) when death is upon him, oculos incipit aperire moriendo (Plin.); roar and look upward, Isaiah 8:21, as the hog doth when the knife is at his throat. O Lord (saith the same prophet, Isa 26:11), "when thy hand is lifted up" (and thy hand is a mighty hand, James 4:10, it falls heavy), "they will not see," they wink wilfully, or seek straws to put out their eyes with, as Bernard hath it, Festucam quaerunt unde oculos sibi eruant; " but they shall see," will they nill they, "and be ashamed" of their former oscitancy, or rather obstinacy, when that hand of God, which was lifted up in threatening, shall fall down in punishing, and the "fire of thine enemies shall devour them"; how much more at that last and great visitation, that terrible day of retribution, when they shall answer for all, with the flames about their ears. Tunc sentient magno suo malo, then shall they feel, to their eternal woe, the truth of all the threatenings, which till then they heard, and read, as a man doth an almanac prognostications of wind or foul weather, which he thinks may come to pass, and it may be not; and give nothing so much credit to them as the prior of St Bartholomew's, in London, did to an idle and addle-headed a astrologer, when he went and built him a house at Harrowon-the-hill to secure himself from a supposed flood that that astrologer foretold.
The prophet is a fool, &c.] φανλος, a naughty man: the Hebrew word here is evil, and signifieth a rash and unadvised fellow, that is headstrong and headlong; such were their false prophets that promised peace when war was at their gates, and made all fair weather before them when the tempest of God's wrath was even bursting out upon them; such a tempest as should never be blown over. These should now appear to be fools, or rather impostors, that had brought the credulous people into a fool's paradise.
The spiritual man is mad] Heb. the man of the spirit, or ventosus, the windy man, that uttereth vain and empty conceits, humani cerebelli Minervas, the brats of his own brain, light, airy nothings, the disease of this age, full of flashes and figments, idle speculations of "men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth." These pretend altogether to the spirit, and would be thought the only spiritual men; as the Swenkfeldians (whom, for their ill favour, Luther called Stenckfeldians), who bewitched many with those glorious words (which were ever in their mouths) of illumination, revelation, the inward and spiritual man, &c., and entitled themselves the confessors of the glory of Christ. So the enthusiasts and Anabaptists, what boast make they of the spirit; professing that they will deliver nothing but what they have immediately revealed to them from heaven. Munzer (their ringleader) wrote a base book against Luther (which he dedicateth to King Jesus), wherein Lutherum flagellat quod euthusiasmorum spiritu careat et nil nisi carnalia sapiat, he falls foul upon Luther, as wanting the spirit of revelation, and one that savoureth nothing but carnal things. All his followers look upon Luther as more pestiferous than the pope; and for Calvin they say (and I have heard it), that it had been happy for the Church if he had never been born. It was their practice of old (as Leo Judae observed in his epistle before Bullinger's book against the Catabaptists), and is still, to discourage and disparage Christ's faithful ministers all they can, as carnal, and not relishing the things of the spirit; the right offspring they are of those ancient heretics called Messalanii (the same with the Euchites and Enthusiasts), who, in A.D. 371, professed to be wholly made up of the spirit, gave themselves much to sleep, and called their dreams and wild phantasies prophecies and revelations.
For the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred] Heb. the great Satanic hatred that thou hast borne against God and thy neighbour, but especially God's faithful prophets, whom thou heartily hatedst for their plain dealing; as Ahab did Micaiah, because he never spoke good to him. It is very probable that Micaiah was that disguised prophet who brought Ahab the fearful message of displeasure and death, for dismissing Benhadad; for the which he was ever since fasted in prison, deep in disgrace. Lo, this is the world's wages. Truth breeds hatred, great hatred, as the text hath it, devilish hatred, and this is through the multitude of men's iniquities, the overflow of sins, which wretched men hold so dear to themselves, that they cannot but rage against those that disclaim against them, and proclaim hell fire against their hateful practices; they cannot stand still to have their eyes picked out, how should they? say. Now, for such, what wonder is it if God in justice give them up to the efficacy of error that they may believe a lie, since they would not receive the love of the truth? 2 Thessalonians 2:11, ut infatuati seducantur, et seducti iudicentur (Augustin in loc.), that being infatuated they may be seduced, and being seduced, perish? what wonder also if he deliver them up, as to "strong delusions," so to "vile affections," and abominable actions, that they may receive in themselves that recompense of their error that is meet, Romans 1:27. What marvel, if men that will not endure sound doctrine be left to seducers? if those that have itching ears meet with clawing preachers? if such as turn away their ears from the truth, be turned to fables and fopperies? 2 Timothy 4:3,4. It is for the multitude of men's iniquities, and especially for their great hatred to the truth, that the Church is so pestered with impostors, 2Pe 2:1-2 who bring in "damnable heresies," even denying the Lord that bought them. Do not our modern seducers so among us, when (among other portentous opinions held by them) they stick not to affirm, that Christ is a carnal or fleshly thing; that those that are grown Christians may go to God immediately without a Christ; that Christ did not rise again, &c. Others contemn him by the notion of the man dying at Jerusalem - Oh horrible! (Dr Homes' Character of the Present Times, 200.) There was a time when the popes were so notoriously naughty as to speak thus basely of Christ; to deny, or at least to doubt the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, &c.; and then a poor popeling cried out, that the sins of that synagogue were so great, as that it deserved not to be ruled by any other than reprobates. Certain it is, that God plagues contempt of the truth (that great gospel sin) with an inundation of errors and enormities.
a Applied contemptuously to one whose intellect seems muddled. ŒD