A commentary or exposition upon the four Evangelists, and the Acts of the Apostles: wherein the text is explained, some controversies are discussed, divers common places are handled, and many remarkable matters hinted, that had by former interpreters been pretermitted. Besides, divers other texts of Scripture which occasionally occur are fully opened, and the whole so intermixed with pertinent histories, as will yeeld both pleasure and profit to the judicious reader. / By John Trapp M. A. Pastour of Weston upon Avon in Gloucestershire.

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 a∣bove 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 there∣fore easily 〈◊〉〈◊〉 up. Whereas the true Christian is knit fast to* 1.1 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* 1.2 of their faith: He hath praied and procured, that it utterly* 1.3 fail not.

And the fall thereof was great.]

Great and griovous, because ir∣reparable, irreedifiable, as Hiericho and the Temple at Ierusalem. God laies them aside like broken 〈◊〉〈◊〉, of which there is no fur∣ther 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 Spi∣rit* 1.4 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 the* 1.5 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 condi∣tion, as that there was left him neither hop: of 〈◊〉〈◊〉, nor place of worse.

Notes

• * 1.1

  1 Pet. 2. 5.
• * 1.2

  Heb. 〈◊〉〈◊〉.
• * 1.3

  Luk. 22.
• * 1.4

  Heb. 10. 26.
• * 1.5

  Prov. 14. 14.