A fruitfull commentarie vpon the twelue small prophets briefe, plaine, and easie, going ouer the same verse by verse, and shewing every where the method, points of doctrine, and figures of rhetoricke, to the no small profit of all godly and well disposed readers, with very necessarie fore-notes for the vnderstanding of both of these, and also all other the prophets. The text of these prophets together with that of the quotations omitted by the author, faithfully supplied by the translatour, and purged of faults in the Latine coppie almost innumerable, with a table of all the chiefe matters herein handled, and marginall notes very plentifull and profitable; so that it may in manner be counted a new booke in regard of these additions. VVritten in Latin by Lambertus Danæus, and newly turned into English by Iohn Stockwood minister and preacher at Tunbridge.

Vers. 7

I said, surelie thou wilt feare me: thou wilt receiue in∣structions: so their dwelling should not be destroyed howsoeuer I visited them, but they rose earlie and corrupted all their workes.

* 1.1ANother place of the former garnishing and setting out of the iudgemēts of God, namelie the vehement & earnest desire of God him selfe, to haue the Iewes repent, & so to escape their de∣structiō except they were vtterlie voyde of al hope and thinking vpon better thrift & amendment. And this desire is set forth by attributing vnto God the affections of men, to the end the fa∣therlie meaning of GOD touching the Iewes and his milde af∣fection and loue towards them, might be the better expressed. But the Iewes contemned or despised al that same care and most gentle affectiō of God toward them: nay moreouer they disap∣poynted God himself of his hope of them, like vnto vnthankefull & vtterlie disobedient Children. So then here are two things set downe by waie of matching together of contraries, first the minde, meaning, and affection of GOD towardes the Iewes:* 1.2 secondlie, on the contrarie part, the stubbornes of the Iewes a∣gainst God. As for the minde and meaning of God toward the Iewes, the same was twofold, first,* 1.3 that they by repenting might escape this scourge, being warned by the ouerthrow and ruine of other nations. And repētance in this place is described by two partes thereof, to wit, by the feare of GOD, [unspec 1] or calling backe of their lyfe vnto God, and by the feeling or vnderstanding of their punishment or fault, which he calleth the receiuing of discipline, or instruction, and it is the way, and necessarie preparation vnto the earnest feare of God. Secondlie, [unspec 2] the minde and meaning of God was, that if the Iewes would not wholy scape the iudgemēts of God, at leastwise they shuld not in such sort prouoke God, that he should not onelie be content with those light punishments, wherewith he had corrected them before: but must adde also thereunto the ouerthrow and destruction of the citie it selfe, the place, and Countrie wherein they dwelled, vnto the shewing of the which punishment vpon them, they draue God in the end. And this was the great patience and goodnes of God toward them. Now on the contrarie parte the minde of the Iewes was most stubborne and lewde: for they did not onelie corrupt their

workes, that is, dealt wickedly: but they corrupted all their works, that is to say, they openly shewed themselues vnto all men to be lewd and wicked. And that with no small indeuour, but with a most earnest and continuall desire, in so much that they rose early and made hast to commit those vices, as if the whole pleasure and drift of their life were set thereupon.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The earnest desire of God to haue the Iewes repent.
• * 1.2

  1 The minde of God toward the Iewes.
• * 1.3

  2 Their stubborn against God.