Ver. 1. Cry aloud.] Heb., Cry with the throat, or, With full throat. [as Jeremiah 12:6] Plenis faucibus, voce sonora, et quasi tubali: Set up thy note; not only say to the wicked, “It shall be ill with him,” (Isaiah 3:11) there is no peace to him, (Isaiah 57:21) but cry it aloud. Spare not.] Singulae particulae habent emphasin; use utmost intention of spirit and contention of speech. Thou hast to do with a hypocritical nation, than which kind of people nothing is more stupid, more uncounsellable, or impenitent; for how should such repent as have converted conversion itself into a form, yea, into sin? Bestir thee therefore against these deaf sea monsters. Sic clames ut stentora vincere possis. If a man’s house be on fire, we must not speak softly, as loath to awaken him: Sir, your house is on fire. Lift thy voice like a trumpet.] Non ut tibia, sed ut tuba; not as a pipe for delight, but as a trumpet alarm against sin and Satan. As all the country was filled with the sound of that trumpet at the giving of the law, (Exodus 19:16) and as all the world shall hear the sound of that trumpet of God (1 Thessalonians 4:16) when the law shall be required, so let the preacher’s voice be a summons to speedy repentance, or else to unavoidable judgment. There is one that descanteth thus upon the words: Various things there are, saith he, that sound louder than a trumpet—the sea, the thunder, or such like—yet he saith not, lift up thy voice as the sea, or as the thunder, but as “a trumpet”; because a trumpeter, when he sounds his trumpet, he winds it with his mouth, and holds it with his hands; and so a preacher, which is a spiritual trumpeter, must not only, by preaching well, sound forth the word of truth with his mouth, but also, by doing well, he must support and hold it up with his hands, and then doth he “lift up his voice as a trumpet.” And show my people their transgressions.] Let God’s watchmen cast away the inverse trumpets of Furius Fulvius, which sounded a retreat when they should have sounded an alarm; but deal freely and faithfully with men’s souls, taking the same liberty to cry down sin that men take to commit sin. Ne frigide arguas, et in aenigmatibus ac obscure. -Oecol. Ne parcas guttari et voci, - A Lap. Dr Playfair on Matthew 5:19.
Ver. 2. Yet they seek me daily.] In pretence at least; and this, their dissembled sanctity, double iniquity, is one of those great transgressions of theirs, against which thou must declaim, yea, proclaim hell fire, in case they amend it not. And delight to know my ways.] They seem to do so, by frequenting mine ordinances, and attending to my priests, whose lips preserve and present knowledge. As a nation that did righteousness.] But it is but as a nation that did it; they had but a “form of knowledge,” (Romans 2:20) and a “form of godliness.” (2 Timothy 3:5) Eiusdem farinae nobiscum sunt religiosi quidam in speciem, saith Oecolampadius: the Church is still full of such hypocrites, that only act religion, play devotion, wherein they may outdo better men, for the external part of religion and pretence of zeal, as the Pharisees in the Gospel fasted more than the disciples, wansing their visages, and weakening their constitutions with much abstinence. The sorcerers of Egypt seemed to do as much as Moses; so do these as much or more than sound Christians. The apostles were as deceivers, and yet true, (2 Corinthians 6:8) but these are as true, and yet deceivers. They ask of me the ordinances of justice.] As not willing to deviate; but they are ever learning, yet never come to the knowledge of the truth. And take delight in approaching to God.] Which yet no hypocrite can do from the heart; (Job 27:10) for God is light and holiness, and therefore hated by the blind and foul hypocrite, (John 3:20) all whose devotions are effects rather of art and parts than of the heart and grace; hence God abhorreth them, for he “desireth truth in the inward parts.” (Psalms 51:6)
Ver. 3. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?] Here they begin to bluster, and their hypocrisy to blister out at their lips. God, they held, was not a little beholden to them, and now also in arrears with them. For as that heathen emperor said once of his gods, Non sic deos coluimus, ut iste nos vinceret, We have not served our gods, that they should serve us no better than to allow our enemies to get the better of us; so were these proud pretenders ready to say of God Almighty, We have better deserved than to be so served; rated by these prophets, and evil entreated by our enemies; beaten on both sides. A rich chapman, that hath had a good stock and trading, is loath to be a journeyman again; he will be trading, though it be but for pins; so we, bankrupt in Adam, yet will be doing, and think to be saved for a company of poor beggarly duties, dead prayers, formal fastings, &c., and to set off with God by our good deeds for our bad, as the Papists do, and not a few ignorants among us. Behold, in the day of your fast.] Which is called a day of restraint, because therein you should amerce yourselves and abridge yourselves of all sorts of delights. Ye find pleasure.] Ye find your own desire, pleasure, or will; ye gratify your flesh, pursue your sinful lusts and purposes. Grande malum propria voluntas, saith Bernard, qua fit ut bona tua tibi bona non sint. A man’s own will or pleasure proves a great evil to him many times, making his good duties (fastings, prayers, and the like) no way good to him. In vain is the body macerated, if men’s lusts be not mortified. And exact all your labours,] i.e., Your debts and dues with rigour and extremity, not considering that utmost right is utmost wrong; and that, howsoever, you should take another time for such work. Feriis iurgia amovento, brawl not on a holiday, was one of the laws of the Twelve Tables in Rome. Ecce non diu occultant se hypocrisis et superbia. -Oecol. Antonin., Philos. Referente. Chephets significat id quod libet.