Our necks [are] under persecution: we labour, [and] have no rest.
Ver. 5. Our necks are under persecution.] For that we would not stoop to the sweet yoke of thine obedience, but held it heavy, now, we are under an intolerable yoke of extreme slavery.
We labour, and have no rest.] Who once troubled God's holy rest by bearing burdens, and working thereon. Jer 17:21 In many places among us God's Sabbath is made the voider, and dunghill for all refuse businesses. The Sabbath of the Lord, the sanctified day of his rest, saith a reverend writer, a is shamelessly troubled and disquieted. The Sabbath was never so profaned, saith such another reverend man b yet living, with heart, hand, foot, tongue, pen, and press, as of late. And is it not just with God that those who would jostle his religious rest out of its right, should be restless in their condition? as Lam 5:5 Thus he. All wicked men, acted and agitated by the devil day and night, may well cry out as here, We labour, and have no rest; but they are not sensible of this woeful servitude.
a Bishop King on Jonah, lec, vii.
b Mr Ley's Fast Sermon before Parliament, April 26, 1643.