The womb

The sore affliction here of the church is compared to the pangs of a woman in travail, who earnestly crieth out, and striveth to be delivered; a frequent allusion to express any exquisite pain by. (Isa. xiii. 8. Jer. xiii. 12) She had, in this her sore distress, cried with strong groans and cries unto God, to be delivered; but all in vain; she brought forth nothing but wind,' pain without profit. (Jer. xii. 13) Wind is a usual expression, whereby the scripture describeth frustraneous events. (Jer. v. 13. Hos. viii. 7, and xii. 1) of the church miscarried, and brought forth flatum pro fœtu' they looked for salvation and deliverance, but they were totally disappointed; they had the pains of a travailing woman, but not the comfort of a child born. (John xvi. 21) When they looked for deliverance from one calamity, they fell into another; or as some render it, instead of bringing forth a child, or working any deliverance, they were delivered of their own spirit,' or 'gave up the ghost.' The next words are a literal explication of the metaphor, "We have not wrought any salvation' or deliverance. All our conceptions and cries end in vanity and disappointment. All our hopes, touching the ruin of our enemies, ver. 14, are come to nothing: they are not fallen;' but we are dead men, very carcasses; we dwell in the dust,' we are as low

as calamity can make us."

Now above all this misery, the church, by faith, lifteth up her head, in the assurance of a glorious resurrection. She turns away from the view and sense of her own sufferings, from the conceptions and parturitions of her own counsels, and carnal contrivances, and, with a triumphant apostrophe, turns to God.

Thy dead men shall live.] The pronoun is very emphatical, for they are the words of the church to God, as appears by the continuation of the context, from ver. 16: so it is not meant of all, but of God's dead men,' whether figuratively in any desperate calamity, or really in their graves; for the words will extend to both.

Shall live] or do live;' are prisoners of hope; have a seed of life in them, even in the grave. It is the apostle's similitude and illustration. (1 Cor. xv. 36, 37, 38) With my dead body] In the original it is body, they shall live;" by a usual enallage

thus ;

66

My dead of the number,

'Every one of my dead bodies shall live. Some make it an expression of the prophet's faith, applying to himself the comfort of that common salvation; preaching nothing to them which he was not in his own particular assured of. Some take it as an answer of Christ to the church's faith a, as if it related to that. (Mat. xxvii. 52, 53) I conceive them to be the words of the church, still comforting herself in the assurance of God's mercy to every one of her mystical members; which assurance is expressed by a kind of hypotyposis, calling the dead to come forth out of the dust, and to rejoice for her deliverance.

For thy dew is as the dew of herbs] "Thy divine word, power, and promise, is able to do unto us as dew unto herbs; though they seem outwardly dried up and dead, yet having a vital root, they do, by the fall of the dew, send forth their leaves and beauty again. Now God hath more care of us than of herbs, and his spirit more efficacy than the dew; and, therefore, however we may be withered and consumed with calamity and death, yet he will raise us up again, and clothe us with beauty and glory." Thus the scripture often argues from natural to supernatural things. (Jer. xxxi. 35, 36. Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21. Psal. lxxxix. 36, 37. 1 Cor. xv. 36) And this similitude of dew, reviving and refreshing decayed herbs, we frequently meet with. (Prov. xix. 12. Isa. lxvi. 14. Hos. xiv. 5, 6)

And the earth shall cast out the dead] As a woman doth an untimely birth: the grave shall be in travail with the dead, (the apostle seems to point at such a metaphor, Acts ii. 24) and shall be delivered of them. Another version thus, "Thou shalt cast the giants in the carth." They who here as giants did trample on the church, and were formidable unto her, shall then fall and perish, when thy people shall awake and sing, as ver. 14. So elsewhere," They shall take them captives whose captives they were, and they shall rule over their oppressors." (Isa. xiv. 2) "The sons of them that afflicted them, shall come bending unto them." (Isa. lx. 14, and lxv. 13, 14)

In the words, we observe two general parts. 1. The church's complaint under very great calamity and disap

c Calvin.

d Sasbout.

• Λύσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θανάτου.

pointment, ver. 18. 2. Her triumph over all her enemies and sufferings, ver. 19. The complaint, being expressed by the metaphor of conception and parturition, intimateth, 1. The greatness of their affliction. 2. The contrivances they used to procure deliverance from it. 3. The disappointment of them all; we have brought forth wind;' as elsewhere, 'Ye shall conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble.' (Isa. xxxiii. 11)

In the triumph, we may consider, 1. The matter of it; deliverance from the lowest to the best condition, from 'death to life, from a carcass to a resurrection, from corruption to glory, from dust to singing.'. 2. The reasons of it; 1. In regard of the subject, mortui tui,' "God's dead men," cadaver meum,' the church's dead body. 2. In regard of the author and virtue whereby it should be effected, the word, the power, the spirit of God; metaphorically expressed, 'ros tuus, "thy dew is as the dew of herbs."

From the first general, the prophet's complaint, we may observe three things.

I. That the Lord exercises his own people, yea his whole church, sometimes with sore and sharp afflictions, with the pangs and throes of a woman in travail. Sometimes we find them in a house of bondage, in Egypt; sometimes in a grave, in Babylon; often oppressed with Philistines, Midianites, Canaanites, Ammonites, Edomites, Syrians, under the tyranny of the four great monarchies of the earth. So the christian church, first, under the persecutions of the heathen emperors of Rome, and then under persecutions of antichrist and her witnesses prophesying in sackcloth 1260 years'. As Christ first suffered, and then entered into glory, (Luke xxiv. 26) so must his church. (Rom. viii. 17) Christ hath a double kingdom, that of his patience, and that of his power: we must be subjects under the kingdom of his patience, before we come to that of his power. The church must pass through the sea and the wilderness, to Canaan: they must be in a working and suffering condition, before they come to the rest or sabbath which remaineth for them. (Heb. iv. 9.) David's militant reign must go before Solomon's peaceable reign.

f Rev. xi. 3. xii. 6.

Our sins must this way be mortified: our faith, hope, love, patience, humility, Christian courage and fortitude, be exercised our conformity unto Christ, evidenced: the measure of the wickedness of the enemy, filled: the glory of God magnified in supporting them under, in delivering them out of, all their afflictions; and raising them up, when they are at lowest.

Therefore we should not esteem it strange, when we fall into divers temptations, or see the church of God in the world in a suffering or dying condition. (1 Pet. iv. 12, 13, 17. James i. 2) If we will have Christ for our husband, we must take him for better, for worse. 1. His afflictions are short, and but for a moment. (Isa. liv. 7. 2 Cor. iv. 17) 2. Sanctified by the spirit of glory and of God resting upon us. (1 Pet. iv. 13, 14) 3. Seconded with grace and the power of Christ to support us under them. (2 Cor. xii. 9) 4. Operative unto peace, righteousness, and glory. (Rom. viii. 28. Heb. xii. 11) 5. Not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. (Rom. viii. 18) 6. Proportioned to our need, (1 Pet. i. 6) and to our strength. (1 Cor. x. 13) If we will come to glory, we must go the same way unto it as Christ did, the way of holiness, and the way of sufferings. (Acts xiv. 22) And surely if there be enough in a woman's child to recompense the pains of her travail; (John xvi. 21) there will certainly be enough in the glory to come, to recompense all our pains, either in our obedience, or in our afflictions.

II. We might here note, that even God's own servants, in time of trouble and calamity, are very apt to betake themselves to their own conceptions and contrivances for deliverance they are big oftentimes with their own counsels, and in pain to bring forth and execute their own projections, in order to the freeing of themselves from trouble. Abraham, when he was afraid of Pharaoh and Abimelech, dissembled his relation unto Sarah &. David, fearing Achish the king of Gath, feigned himself mad; (1 Sam. xxi. 11, 12, 13) when he feared the discovery of his adultery, he gave order for the killing of Uriah. (2 Sam. xi. 15) One sin is the womb of another. When Asa was in danger from Baasha

g Gen. xii. 13. xx. ii.

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king of Israel, he bought his peace with the spoils of the temple. (2 Chron. xvi. 1, 2) When Jonah was afraid of preaching destruction unto Nineveh, he fled unto Tarshish from the presence and service of the Lord. (Jonah i. 3) When Peter was afraid of suffering with Christ, he flies to that woful sanctuary of denying and forswearing him. (Matth. xxvi. 69-74) Thus the fear of man causeth a snare. (Prov. xxix. 25)

This, therefore, is a necessary duty in time of fear and danger, to look up (as the church here, after disappointment by other refuges, doth) with a victorious and triumphant faith unto God, and to make him only our fear and our dread; not to trust in fraud, and perverseness, or to betake ourselves unto a refuge of lies, (Isa. xxx. 12, and xxviii. 15) but to build our confidence upon that sure foundation, on which he that believeth, shall not need to make haste. If we lean not upon our own understanding, nor be wise in our own eyes, but in all our ways acknowledge him, and trust in him, and fear him, and depart from evil,-we have this gracious promise, that he will direct our paths. (Prov. iii. 5, 7) The more we deny ourselves, the more is he engaged to help us. But when we travail with our own conceptions, and will needs be the contrivers of our own deliverance; it cannot be wondered, if the Lord turn our devices into vanity, and make our belly prepare wind and deceit: (Job xv. 35) as it here followeth,-"We have brought forth wind, we have not wrought any deliverance;' all our endeavours have been vain and successless."

III. Carnal counsels and human contrivances are usually carried on with pain, and end in disappointment, and do obstruct the progress and execution of God's promises unto us. If we would go on in God's way, and use the means which he hath directed, and build our faith and hope upon his promises; we have then his word to secure us, his spirit to strengthen us, his grace to assist us, his power and fidelity to comfort us; we have him engaged to work our works for us, and his angels to bear us in our ways. But when we seek out diverticles and inventions of our own, when we will walk in the light of our fire, and in the sparks which we have kindled, (Isa. 1. 11) and be wise in our own conceit, (Rom. xii. 16) and walk after our own thoughts; (Isa. lxv. 2)