Hosea 4:2

By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.

Ver. 2. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing] Heb. to swear, and lie, and kill, and steal, and commit adultery. To do all this is held, licitum et solenne, lawful, or at least pardonable. It is grown to a common practice; and custom of sinning hath taken away sense of sin.

By swearing] Heb. by cursing, or swearing with an execration and cursing, which was commonly added to an oath, to confirm it the more, Deuteronomy 29:12; Deu 29:21 Nehemiah 10:29. And, indeed, in every lawful oath God is called to witness, to bless us if we swear right, and to curse ns if otherwise. Such an oath is a special part of God's worship, and is oft put for the whole, as here false and frivolous oaths are put for the violation of the whole first table, and set in opposition to the knowledge of God in the land; like as lying is opposed to truth, and killing, stealing, whoring, to mercy or kindness. Before, God had complained of their defects, or omissions; here, of their commissions and flagitious practices. Swearers (but especially false swearers) are traitors to the state, as appeareth here and Jeremiah 23:10; they bring a curse, nay, a large roll of curses (ten yards long, and five yards broad, Zec 5:2), upon their hearts, and shall one day howl in hell. The same word that is here rendered swearing signifieth also to howl or lament, Joel 1:8. Go to now, therefore, ye swearers, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you, James 5:1; James 5:12. Weep here, where there be wiping handkerchiefs in the hand of Christ: better do so, than yell with devils who have borrowed your mouths, to utter horrid blasphemies. Swearing is "of the devil," saith our Saviour, Matthew 5:37, and it brings men to the devil, saith St James, James 5:12. They object that they swear nothing but the truth. But that is not always so. Swearing and lying are here set together, as seldom sundered. The marvel, if he that sweareth commonly do not forswear frequently; for he sweareth away all his faith and truth. But, say they swear truth, yet that excuseth not. Truth is but one circumstance of an oath, Jeremiah 4:2. Men, as they must swear in truth, so in righteousness (not rashly, furiously), and in judgment, not in jest. Swear not in jest, lest ye go to hell in earnest. It is the property and duty of a godly man to fear an oath, Ecclesiastes 9:2, and not to forbear it only. As on the other side, no surer sign of a profane person than common and customary swearing. It were well if such were served as Louis IX of France served a citizen of Paris; he seared his lips for swearing with a hot iron. And when some said it was too cruel an act, I would to God, said he, that with searing my own lips with a hot iron I could banish out of the realm all abuse of oaths. Those that plead they have gotten a custom to swear, and therefore they must be borne with, shall have the like answer from God that the thief had from the judge. He desired the judge to spare him, for stealing had been his custom from his youth, and now he could not leave it. The judge replied, it was also his custom to give judgment against such malefactors; and therefore he must be condemned.

And lying] Fitly linked with swearing. Some gravel or mud ever passeth away with much water; so do some lies with much swearing. How oft do men forget their oaths, and swear again that they have not sworn at all! Should men's excrements come from them as oft, and they not feel it, they would be full sorry, and ashamed thereof. Now swearing and lying defile men much worse than any jakes can do, Mark 7:22, and render them odious to God and good men. Lying is a blushful evil; therefore doth the liar deny his lie, as ashamed to be taken with it, and our ruffians revenge it with a stab. God ranks and reckons it with the most monstrous sins, and shuts it out of heaven, Revelation 21:8. Aristotle saith, It is in itself evil and wicked, contrary to the order of nature (which hath given words to express mens' minds and meanings), destructive to human society. Pythagoras was wont to say, that in two things we become like unto God: 1. In telling truth; 2. In bestowing benefits. Now, Mentiri, is contra mentem ire; to lie is to go against reason, to lie is to utter a known untruth with an intention to deceive or hurt. The Cretans of old were infamous for this, Titus 1:12, Kρητες αει ψευσται, the friars of late. ‘Twas grown to a proverb among our forefathers, a friar, a liar; ‘tis now among us, every liar is, or would be, a thief. Hence, lying and stealing go coupled together here; but between them both stands killing, as ushered in by the former, and oft occasioned by the latter, Proverbs 1:19 .

And killing] This follows fitly upon the former; for truth hath always a scratched face. The devil was first a liar, and then a murderer, John 8:44. He cannot so well murder without slandering first. The credit of the Church must first be taken away, and then she is wounded, Song of Solomon 5:6. The people here in England once complained that Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, that noble patriot, was twice murdered: first by detraction, aud then by deadly practice. The French have a proverb: Those that have a mind to kill their neighbour's dog make the world believe he was mad first. This is their proverb, and accordingly was their practice in the massacre of Paris. A little before which they gave out, that the Protestants met by night, to plot against the state, and to commit all manner of uncleanness among themselves. This is an old trick of the devil and his instruments, first to slander the Church, and to represent her to the world in the ugliest hue, and then to persecute her, like as of old they used to put the poor Christians in bears' or lions' skins, and then bait them with dogs. Paulus Fagius reports a story of an Egyptian, who said that the Christians were a colluvies of moist, filthy, lecherous people. And for their keeping of the Sabbath; he saith, they had a disease upon them, and were therefore fain to rest every seventh day. The Papists accused the Waldenses (those ancient Protestants) for Manichees; and that they affirmed there were two beginnings of things, God and the devil, &c.; and all because they constantly affirmed that the emperor had no dependence upon the pope. They gave them out also for Arians (and published their croisados against them as enemies to Christ), and all because they denied that a crust was transubstantiated into Christ. To make way for the ruin of England by the gunpowder plot, they broadcast it abroad that the people here looked as black as devils, were grown barbarous, and did eat young children. That we held opinion to worship no God, to serve the times, to prefer profit before right, to pretend the public cause to our private lusts, to cover hatred with flattery, to confirm tyranny by shedding innocent blood, to keep faith no longer than will serve our own turns, &c. (Eudaem. Johannes.) And if the plot had taken effect, they had fathered it upon the Puritans (having proclamations ready framed for the purpose), that under that name they might have sucked the blood and revelled in the ruins of all such here as had but the love or any show of sound religion. The word here used for killing signifies to kill with a murdering weapon, such as David felt in his bones, Psalms 42:10, such as Colignius and other the poor Protestants felt in the French massacre: where the queen of Navarre was poisoned, the most part of the peerless nobility in France murdered, together with their wives and children; and of the common people a hundred thousand in one year, in various parts of the realm. What should I speak of the innocent blood of Ireland, for which God hath already and yet still will make diligent inquisition. If the blood of Abel had so many tongues as drops, Genesis 4:10, what then of so many righteous Abels? "Surely I have seen yesterday" (saith God) "the blood of Naboth," 2 Kings 9:26. Murder ever bleeds fresh in his eye: to him many years, yea, that eternity that is past, is but yesterday. Neither is he wanting to punish it even in this present world. He avengeth the innocent blood that Manasseh shed a long while after his death: he would not pardon it, no, though Manasseh repented of it, 2 Kings 24:4. The mountains of Gilboa were accursed, for the blood of Saul and Jonathan spilt upon them, 2 Samuel 1:21; and what a deal of do we find in the law made when a man was murdered! Deuteronomy 21:1,4, the valley which the expiatory sacrifice was slain in that case was from thenceforth to be neither eared nor sown: in all to show what a precious esteem God hath of man's life, and what controversy with a land for shedding of blood.

And stealing] Those publici latrones especially, public thieves that sit in purple robes, and by wrong judgment oppress and rob the poor innocents, are here intended, as Calvin thinks; see Isaiah 23:17,18; Isaiah 33:1. So are all others that either by force or fraud get into their hands their neighhours' goods; whether, I say, it be by violence or cunning contrivance, the Lord is the avenger of all such, 1 Thessalonians 4:6. So that though haply they lie out of the walk of human justice, and come not under man's cognizance, yet God will find them out, and send his flying roll of curses after them, Zechariah 5:2,3 : "he shall vomit up his sweet morsels" here, Job 20:15, or else digest in hell what he hath devoured on earth; as his "belly hath prepared deceit," Job 15:35, so God will take it out of his guts again; either he shall make restitution of his ill-gotten goods, or for not doing it he shall one day cough in hell, as Father Latimer phraseth it (Serm. before King Edw. VI).

And committing adultery] "This is also a heinous crime" (saith holy Job), "yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges," Job 31:11. Heathens have punished it very severely. Of one people we read that they used to put the adulterer's or adulteress's head into the paunch of a beast where the filth of it lay, and so stifled him. God punished those stinking Edomites with stinking brimstone for their loathsome brutishness; and adjudged adultery to death: because society and purity of posterity could not otherwise continue among men. We read not, in any general commandment of the law, that any should be burnt with fire, but the high priest's daughter for adultery, Leviticus 21:9; yet it seems it was in use before the law, or else Judah was much to blame for sentencing his daughter-in-law Tamar to the fire, Genesis 38:2,3. Let us, beware of that sin, for which so peculiar a plague was appointed, and by very heathens executed see Jeremiah 29:22,23. If men be slack to take vengeance on such, yet God will hold on his controversy against them and avenge the quarrel of his covenant (for so wedlock is called, Pro 2:17), either by his own bare hand, or else by the hands of the adulterers themselves. See an instance of both these even in our times. In the year 1583, in London, two citizens committing adultery together on the Lord's day were struck dead with fire from heaven in the very act of uncleanness: their bodies being left dead in the place, half burnt up, sending out a most loathsome savour, for a spectacle of God's controversy against adultery and sabbath breaking. This judgment was so famous and remarkable that Laurentius Bayenlink, a foreign historian, hath thought good to register it to posterity (Opus Chronologiae Orbis Universi, Antwerp, 1611, p. 110). Mr Cleaver reports of one that he knew that had committed the act of uncleanness, and in the horror of conscience he hanged himself, but before, when he was about to kill himself, he wrote in a paper, and left it in a place, to this effect: Indeed, saith he, I acknowledge it to be utterly unlawful for a man to kill himself, but I am bound to act the magistrate's part, because the punishment of this sin is death. This act of his was not to be justified, viz. to be his own executioner; but it shows what a controversy God hath with adulterers, and what a deep gash that sin makes in the conscience.

They break out] Like wild horses over hedges, or proud waters over the banks. The Septuagint renders it εκκεχυται, they are poured out. And St Jude hath a like expression, speaking of the libertines of his time, Hosea 4:11, they run greedily, Gr. εξεχυθησαν : they were poured out, or poured away as water out of a vessel: they ran headlong, or gave themselves over to work all uncleanness with greediness, to satisfy their lusts, and to oppose with crest and breast whatsoever stands in their way; bearing down all before them. So Sodom and Gomorrah are (in Jdg 1:7) said by unbridled licentiousness to "give themselves over to fornication," in scortationem effusae (Beza). And when Lot sought to advise them better, they set up the bristles at him, with

Base busy stranger, comest thou hither thus,

Controller-like, to prate and preach to us?

Thus these effractories (as the Psalmist somewhere calleth them), these breach makers, break Christ's bands in sunder (as Samson did the seven green withes, Jdg 16:9), and cast away his cords from them, Psalms 2:3. These unruly Belialists get the bit between their teeth, like headstrong horses; and casting their rider, rise up against him. They, like men (or rather like wild beasts), "transgress the covenant," Hosea 5:7, resolving to live as they list, to take their swing in sin: "for who" (say they) "is Lord over us?" Psalms 12:4. Tremellius reads that text, tanquam hominis, just as man, they transgress it as if it were the covenant of a man: they make no more of breaking the law than as if they had to do with dust and ashes like themselves, and not with the great God that can tame them with the turn of his hand, and with the blast of his mouth blow them into hell. Hath he not threatened to "walk contrary to those that walk contrary to him," to be as cross as they for the hearts of them, and to bring upon them seven times more plagues than before, and seven times and seven to that, till he have got the better of them? for is it fit that he should cast down the bucklers first? I think not. He will be obeyed by these exorbitant, yokeless, lawless persons, either actively or passively. The law was added because of transgression: and is given, saith the apostle, 1 Timothy 1:9, "not to the righteous," for they are αυτονομοι, a law to themselves (as the Thracians boasted), but to the lawless and disobedient, who count licentiousness the only liberty, and the service of God the greatest slavery; who think no venison sweet but that which is stolen, nor any mirth but that which a Solomon would say to, Thou mad fool, what doest thou? Ecclesiastes 2:2. Lo, for such rebels and refractories, for such masterless monsters as send messages after the Lord Christ, saying, "We will not have this man to reign over us," for these, I say, was the law made, to hamper them and shackle them, as fierce and furious creatures; to tame them and tear them with its four iron teeth, 1. Of irritation, Romans 7:7 Romans 7:2. Of induration, Isaiah 6:10

3. Of obligation to condign punishment, Genesis 4:4 Genesis 4:4. Of execration, or malediction, Deuteronomy 28:16,17, &c. Let men take heed, therefore, how they break out against God: let them meddle with their matches, and not contend with him that is mightier than they: it is the wise man's counsel, Ecclesiastes 6:10 .

And blood toucheth blood] i.e. there is a continuation, and, as it were, a concatenation of murders, and other horrible villanies, as was at Jerusalem in the murder of Zacharias, the son of Barachias; the blood of the sacrificer was mingled with the blood of the sacrifice, and, as Luke 13:1, the like occured. So at Athens, when Sulla took the town, there was ανελεης σφαγη, a merciless slaughter; the gutters running with blood. And so at Samaria (which the prophet may here probably intend), when there was such killing of kings (and they fall not alone); Hosea killed his predecessor Pekah, as he had done Pekahiah; Menahem killed Shallum, as Shallum had done Zacharias: so true is that of the poet (Juvenal),

“ Ad generum Cereris sine crude et sanguine pauci,

Descendunt Reges, et sicca morte tyranni. ”

What got most of the first Caesars by their adoption, or designation to the empire, Nisi ut citius interficerentur, but to be killed so much the sooner? All, or most of them, till Constantius, died unnatural deaths, as afterwards, Phocas the traitor killed the good Emperor Mauritius, stewing him in his own broth. Heraclius slew Phocas, putting him to a shameful and tormentful death. Conradinus, King of Germany and Duke of Sweden, was beheaded by Charles, King of Naples and Sicily; and the headsman presently beheaded by another, ne extaret qui iacraret tam generosum sanguinem a se effusum (saith mine author), that there might not be any left to boast that he had spilt so noble blood. Our Richard III, that bloody and deceitful man, is said to have used the instruments of his cruel plots (his cut-throats, I mean) as men do their candles; burn the first out to a suuff, and then, having lighted another, tread that underfoot. Fawkes (that fatal actor of the intended gunpowder tragedy) should have been thus rewarded by his brethren in evil had the plot taken effect. It is that famous and never-to-be-forgotten 5th of November, 1651, wherein I write these lines, and therefore, in way of thankfulness to our ever gracious deliverer, I here think good to set down the relation as Mr John Vicars (in his Quintessence of Cruelty, or Poem of the Popish Gunpowder Plot) hath declared it to the world, as he had it from Mr Clement Cotton, the composer of the English Concordance, who also received it from Mr Pickering, of Titsmarsh Grove, in Northamptonshire, and it is thus: This Mr Pickering, being in great esteem with King James, had a horse of special note, on which he used to hunt with the king: this horse was borrowed from him (a little before the blow was to be given) by his brother-in-law, Keyes (one of the conspirators), and conveyed to London, for a bloody purpose, which thus was plotted. Fawkes on the day of the fatal blow was appointed to retire himself to St George's Fields, where this said horse was to attend him to make his escape as soon as the Parliament House was blown up. It was likewise contrived, that the said Mr Pickering (noted for a Puritan) should be that very morning murdered in his bed, and secretly conveyed away: as also that Fawkes himself should have been murdered in St George's Fields, and there so mangled and cut in pieces that it might not be discovered who it was. Whereupon it was to be rumoured abroad that the Puritans had blown up the Parliament House: and the better to make the world believe so, there was Mr Pickering with his horse ready to make an escape, but that God stirred up some, who seeing the heinousness of the fact, and he ready to escape by flight, in detestation of so horrible a deed fell upon him, and killed him, and so had hacked him in pieces. And yet to make it to be more apparent to be so indeed, there was his horse found also, which was of special speed and swiftness, to carry him away: and upon this rumour, a massacre should have gone through the whole kingdom upon the Puritans. But when this plot, thus contrived, was confessed by some of the conspirators, and Fawkes in the Tower was made acquainted with it (who had been borne in hand to be bountifully rewarded for his service in the Catholic cause), when he saw how his ruin was contrived, he also thereupon confessed freely all that he knew touching that horrid and hideous conspiracy, which (before) all the torture of the rack could not force him to. The truth of all this is attested by Mr William Perkins, an eminent Christian and citizen of London, who had it from the mouth of Mr Clement Cotton: which I could not but here insert, as coming to my mind and pen, on the very day whereon (46 years since) it should have been acted, when myself was but four years of age, and it being the utmost that I can remember; but if ever I forget, let my right hand forget her cunning. Remember, O Lord, these children of Edom, &c., these Romish Edomites, Esauites, Jesuits, who said, "Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation, O daughter of Babylon," &c., Psalms 137:5; Psalms 137:7,8. The Rabbis call the Romists Edomites (they interpret the mount of Esau, Obad. Obadiah 1:21, to be meant of Rome), and well they may, for their blood guiltiness, for which they are hated of God, Psalms 5:6. Who cannot but remember that their sins (as a cart rope) have reached up to heaven, Revelation 18:5, there having been a concatenation, or a continued series of them, as the Greek there imports, ηκολουθησαν, and (as some here interpret) "blood touching blood," according to Isaiah 1:15, "Your hands are full of blood"; and Hosea 4:4, "The filth of the daughter of Zion, and the blood of Jerusalem." This sense, the Chaldee paraphrase maketh. The Septuagint (with their μισγυουσι, "mingle blood with blood") seem to understand it of incestuous matches and mixtures forbidden, Leviticus 18:6, and yet avowed by David George and his disciples, and practised in the court of Spain, by papal dispensation.