Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 7 · Verse 26 – Verse 29
Verse 26. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doth them not, &c.]
Which is the greater number of hearers. For most men hear to hear, and not to practise. Some hear meerly of form, or for fashion sake, or to save the penalty of the Statute, or to finde some Recipe to procure a sleep, or to still the clamours of their consciences, or to make amends and purchase dispensation for some beloved lust, as Herod. Or expecting from the preacher some choice novelty, as …. 3. 8. some deep point, …. 12. 37. or dainty expressions, as Ezek. 33. 32. Or they … and …, Act. 17. 32. Hear and carp, as Doeg; hear and resist the holy Ghost, Act. 7. Or at least are no whit wrought upon, whether we pipe or lament to them. Or if they hear and admire, asMat. 11. 17. those. Matth. 22. 22. yet they amend nothing, or but for a season, as the stony-ground: they are hearers of forgetfulnesse, Jam.foreign. …. 25. like hour-glasses, they are no sooner full, but … out again: like nets or sives, they retain only the chaff or weeds, let go the pure water and good corn. The Word runs … them, … water thorow a riven … (that's the Apostles metaphor, Heb. 2. 1.) or as that which is written upon moist paper, as othersforeign. will have it. A generall cause of our not practising what we hear, is, that we put this spirituall treasure into broken bags, this … liquour into leaking …. Whereas our souls should be as the Ark, and our memories, as the pot of Mannah, to retain what we have received, that we may have it ready for …, as Saul had his cruse and spear at his head, and David his scrip and stones ready by his side. A heavy ear is a … judgement, Isa. 6. 10. but a slow heart, and a heavy hand, to conceive and do what we hear, paves a way to remedilesse misery; besides the fool to boot, which the Judge here putteth upon him.
Shall be likened unto a foolish man.]
And he is a fool indeed whom Christ calleth fool. Conscionable hearers are counted good men (God wot) but simple, silly, and of no parts. But wisdome is justified of her children. To walk precisely, is to walk wisely, …. 5. 15. And he that … and guideth his feet in the way, is wife, Prov, 23. 19. And, Who is a wise man amongst you, and endued with knowledge? Let him shew out of a good conversation his works, &c. Ja. 3. 13. All others are fools, because they fail in the main point of their salvation: they are troubled about many things … but neglect the one thing necessary: they trifle out their precious …, and in hearing or other services, they do worse then lose their labour, … they commit sin, and heap up …. Their house will down, as the spiders house doth, and all their building, plowing, planting sailing, come to nothing.
Which built his house upon the sand.]
Wherefore it soon sinks and shatters, as having not the loose earth thrown up first, by the practice of mortification and self- deniall. Men should first sit down, and cast what it would cost them to build the tower of godlinesse, or ere they leap into profession. They should put their hearts often to those grand questions of abnegation. Can I (as all must, that will be Christs Disciples) deny my self in all my selves (for a man hath many selves within himself, and must utterly and absolutely deny them all) take up my daily crosse (… … Christianus ….every Christian is a … or crosse-bearer, saith Luther: the rain will fall, the flouds flow, the windes blow, and beat upon his building, he shall have many trials and temptations, that looks toward heaven, troubles without, terrours within, his back-burden of both) and follow Christ thorow thick and thin, by doing and suffering his whole will? Many will follow Christ in such duties as sute with their humours, and no further, as the rusty hand of a diall; they will break the hedge of his Law, to shun a piece of foul way: They follow Christ, as the dog follows his …, till he come by a carrion, and then he turns him up. Orpha made a fair proffer of going along with Naomi, but when she had better considered it, she turned again. Lots wife set fair out of Sodom, but looked back. So do many forward hearers set their hands to Gods plough, but (loth to plough up the fallow … of their hearts, and to lay a good foundation in humiliation.) they start aside like broken bowes, and steal away, like cowardly souldiers,foreign, and so judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, and unfit…. 10. for Gods Kingdom. For the foolish shall not stand in his sight,Luke 9. 62. he hateth all the workers of iniquity. Caleb was not discouraged…. 5. 5. by the Giants, therefore he had Hebron given him, the place of the Giants, when the spies and … were never suffered to enter: No more shall they that hold not out to the death, obtain the crown of life.
Verse 27. And the rain descended, &c.]
The old heart cannot possibly hold out the hardship of holinesse, nor bear the brunt of persecution for well-doing. Like a Chesnut cast into the …, if not broken first on the top, it leaps out again; or like a false jade in a teem, which being put to a stresse, turns tail and tramples. When the godly hearer holds on his way to heaven, thorow all disasters; as those two kine of the Philistims, that bore home the Ark, held on their way, though they had calves at home, that might have made them turn back.
And it fell.]
The wise-man and fools house come under a double difference. 1. In the foundation: this to see to, and above ground, is little discerned. The Temple is said to be as low under ground, as it was high above. 2. In the building it self. The unprofitable hearer is not cimented to Christ by faith, but laid loose, as it were, upon a sandy foundation, and so slips beside the ground work in foul weather. He is not set into the stock as a science, but only stuck into the ground as a stake; and is therefore easily … up. Whereas the true Christian is knit fast to1 Pet. 2. 5. Christ the Rock, by the ligament of a lively faith; and, as a lively stone, is built up a spirituall house, growing up in the mysticall body with so much sweetnesse and evennesse, as if the whole Temple (like that of Salomon) were but one entire stone, He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit, 1 Cor. 6. 17. So that although 1. Shakings and waverings in the very purpose of holy-walking may befall a Saint by violent temptations, Psal. 73. 2, 13. Yea, 2. Intermissions of the exercise of grace, as of life in a palsey or …. 3. Particular falls we are not exempted from. Peter himself, though a pillar fell from his former stedfastnesse, in part; yet from …, prolapsion, from utter and irrecoverable falling away, they are …, because founded upon a Rock, which can never be removed: He is both the Authour and finisher Heb. ….of their faith: He hath praied and procured, that it utterlyLuk. 22. fail not.
And the fall thereof was great.]
Great and griovous, because irreparable, irreedifiable, as Hiericho and the Temple at Ierusalem. God laies them aside like broken …, of which there is no further use; and sith they will needs wallow again, as swine, in the filth of their former pollutions, he proncunceth upon them that fearfull sentence, Let him that is filthy be filthy still; that unclean spirit entereth him again; and his dispositions to evil are seven times more enflamed then ever. He hath despised and despighted the SpiritHeb. 10. 26. of grace, and is in the ready road to the unpardonable sin. The Apostate cannot lightly chuse unto himself a worse condition, Heb. 10. 26. He casts himself into hel-mouth, Heb 10. …. where the back slider in heart shall be filled with his own waies; and have theProv. 14. 14. greater …, by how much he fell from greater hopes and possibilities of better; as … from his Monarchy, and as Cranmer from his high preferment to so low a condition, as that there was left him neither hop: of …, nor place of worse.
Verse 28. And it came to passe, when … had ended these sayings.]
All this then was but one Sermon, though twice preached at severall times, as some collect out of Luke. A long Sermon it was, and yet the people staid it out. So did not those …, Joh. 6. and therefore fell away from Christ: So did not Judas, and therefore met … devil at the door. It is a lamentable… 13. thing, that a winters-tale shall be heard with more patience and pleasure then a powerfull Sermon: that if a Preacher exceed his glasse sometimes, … sit at as little …, as if they were in a fit of an ague: and others prophanely turn their backs upon the…. 44. Propitiatory, and depart without the blessing. In the CouncelCanon 32. of Agathon it was decreed that none should presume to go out before the Minister had blessed the Congregation. And in the fourth Councel of Carthage, Let him that goes out of the Auditory, when the Minister is speaking to the Congregation, be excommunicated, Ite missa est, foreign, were the old forms of dismission. And although Zachary was long ere he came forth, yet theLuk. 1. people staied his coming. But the Word of the Lord is to the wicked a burthen, Jer. 27. 33. cords and bonds, Psal. 2. 3. Yokes and bonds, Jer. 5. 5. Hence they are so soon sated, and their attentions tired out and jaded, as it were.
The people were astonished at his doctrine.]
They were strangely transported and rapt with an ectasie of admiration and amazement.foreign. Ubi … quasi attonitus, …, …, sed apertis oculis … quietus …. Lyser.They were at … a passe, that they could neither say nor do, but stood amazed with their eyes set in … heads, as the word importeth. And surely the word never worketh so kindely, as when it is received with admiration: yet may we not rest in that, as too many do; but get it mingled with … in our …, that works by love, holding fast the faithfull word, as Paul bids Timothy, that part of it especially that in hearing he is pleased to sweeten unto us by the taste of his speciall goodnes.
Verse 29. For he taught them as one having authority.]
Never man spake as he spake, said those Catch-poles that came to take him, but were taken by him. For matter, his doctrine was not his own, but his Fathers that sent him. For manner, this Prince…. 7. 16. of Preachers had the tongue of the learned: yet without … of learning, he delivered himself so plainly, that the simplest… 50 4. might conceive him, and so powerfully that his enemies could not but confesse, that he was true, and taught the way of God …. …. 22. 14.And for end, he … sought his Fathers glory, in the salvation of mens souls. A fair president for Preachers: who shouldOptimi ad … bi sunt …, … Lutherus, qui pueriliter, trivialiter, populariter & simplicissime …. Melch. Ad. in vita. thus seek to get within the people, and to maintain the credit of their ministry, that their words may carry an authority, and command attention.
And not as the …]
Who first stuck in the bark of the law, and pierc'd not into the heart and sense of it. 2. Delivered for doctrines the commandements of men about washings, tithings, &c. 3. They sought not the glory of God, but praise of men: and were therefore mad at our Saviour, as one that bare away the bell from them, for a powerfull preacher. 4. They rejectedforeign. Publicans and sinners, though penitent: So did not Christ. 5. They taught coldly and carelesly: but he zealously, and imperiously, as the Law-giver, and not as an Interpreter onelyonly: as that Prophet like unto me, saith Moses: yea farre beyond him.Epiphan lib. 1. …. or any other that ever spake with a tongue. For he could, and did speak to the hearts of his hearers: Together with hisScribarum doctrina erat …, elumbis …. word there went forth a power, as to heal the bodies of those, Luk 5. 17. so the souls of his elect: he was a Minister of the spirit, and not of the letter onelyonly, &c.Heb. 2.