Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.
Ver. 16. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, &c.] Let the priests, God's ministers, see to it, that the people come together; and for the better too, as much as in them lies. For they are to the people in place of watchmen, of sentinels, of ambassadors, and in Christ's own stead, who seems to say unto them, as Psalms 50:5, "Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice," that they may meet me with entreaties of peace, disarm mine indignation conceived against them, and quench the flame thereof with their tears; not quench the spirit in their teachers by their crossness and backwardness to business of this nature.
Assemble the elders] Whether for age, as Job 15:10, or for place of authority, as Joshua 7:6 1 Samuel 15:30 Ruth 4:4. These must be chief doers and most forward at fasts, as was Joshua, Jehoshaphat, the King of Nineveh, Ezra, &c. For, 1. They are most guilty in regard of their years and their office, which either addeth two wings to their sins, viz., example and scandal, whereby facile volant, non facile violant, they soar much higher, and fly much farther; 2. Their presence, counsel, and countenance may be a great furtherance to the work. See Ezekiel 46:10. The prince in the midst of the people, when they go in shall go in; and when they go forth shall go forth. A. Lapide saith, that the elder sort are to meet, because they are least lustful and more prayerful. It should be so, I confess; but how many old goats are there abroad that even hang over hell, which gapeth for them? and as the canker soonest entereth into the white rose, so doth corruption easily creep into the white head. He was a rare old man of whom we read, that being tempted to sin said, Nay: lest he should stain his white head.
Gather the children, and those that suck the breasts] For they are Church members, and to them also pertain the public dangers and calamities; out of which times and cases, children and novices are not to be tied to these austerities of religion (as our Saviour showeth, Mat 9:17), as little, as new wine is to be put into old vessels. Add hereunto, that the parents might by the sight of their poor children (subject to God's wrath by their default) be brought to a farther sense of their own sinfulness; and moved by their cries and laments ut ferventius orent, et plorent, to cry and pray more earnestly, Eph 2:3 Romans 5:12 .
Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber] The newly married man was by the law allowed to cheer up his wife, Deuteronomy 24:5, and therefore exempted from warfare and other public employments abroad, Deuteronomy 20:7, and the wedding day is called the "day of the rejoicing of a man's heart," Song of Solomon 3:11. They were wont to have a week of feasting at such times, Genesis 29:27. Fulfil her week, sc. of banquet and bride's ale, as they call it. And it is noted as an absurd thing in Samson's wife, that she wept all the seven days of such a feast, when mirth was so much in season, Judges 14:17. But is it a time for men to hang their hearts upon the merry pin when God calls them to hang up their harps upon the willow trees? when the sword is sharpened to make a sore slaughter, when it is furbished and glittereth, and contemneth the rod (i.e. lesser and lighter judgments that usually forerun it), should we then make mirth? Ezekiel 21:10. Should men eat, and drink, and marry, and be merry, when tomorrow they may look to die, and are already stumbling in the valley of the shadow of death? Such a thing the old world may do, buried in security, and to be shortly therefore buried in one universal grave of waters. But holy Noah was vexed at it; and Ambrose thinks (not without reason) that during the time of the Deluge, all the while that he was in the ark, he came as little at his wife as Uriah did while the ark and Judah and Israel abode in tents, and Joab and the host encamped in the fields, 2 Samuel 11:11. Nehemiah, though a great courtier, and the king's cupbearer, could not but be sad when it went ill with the Church; all comforts then were but Ichabods to him, he had no joy of them, Nehemiah 2:2,3. Sorrow at such a time is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better, Ecclesiastes 7:3. The mad world is a perfect stranger to the truth of this sacred position, as having so far banished sadness, that they are professed enemies to seriousness; and stick not to light a candle at the devil (as they say), for sinful lightsomeness. But woe be to such mad mirthmongers, saith our Saviour, Luke 6:25, and after him St James, James 5:1; James 5:5, and before them both, the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 22:12,14, and the prophet Amos, Amos 6:4; Amos 6:6. What so lawful as the use of the marriage bed? Hebrews 13:4; and for whom more lawful than for the bridegroom and bride? Yet in a common calamity, and in a day of restraint (as a fast day is called, Joe 2:15), married couples must abstain, 1 Corinthians 7:5, where the apostle speaketh of a public fast, as Peter Martyr observeth. Hence, Zechariah 8:19, they separated themselves at such a time. And it is spoken of as a foul sin, Isaiah 58:3, "Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure." All sensual delights, though never so lawful at other times, must be then suspended and laid aside; as music, mirth, perfumes, Daniel 6:18, brave apparel, Exodus 33:4, all ornaments of the body, soft lying, 2 Samuel 12:16, all cheerfulness and outward joy, Judges 20:26 1 Samuel 7:8. The Roman censor punished one that showed himself out of a window with a garland upon his head in the time of the second Punic war.