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Vers. 7. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their Judges: all their kings are fallen, there is none among them that calleth unto me.
An instance is given of this challenge, shewing that these plots which were so generall among them, gr••w to the height of fre∣quent conspiracies against their Kings and Judgess, that every
one might set himself upmost, according as we finde it was a∣mong them after Jeroboam the second, in whose dayes Hosea first began to prophesy. See 2 Kings 15. Their condition under all these confusions, is amplified from the great and universal stupi∣dity that was among them, in that they called not on God, nor employed him in all these distempers. Doct. 1. An ill ordered Church is ordinarily plagued in justice with an ill ordered State: and when men inflamed with lusts get leave to rage over all bounds in the matters of God, and in other things, it is righte∣ous with God to let them loose to the overturning of policy, and humane society; For, they who were as an heated oven in adul∣tery bodily or spiritual, v. 4. are now hot as aen oven, and devour∣ed their Judges, &c. 2. Sedition and conspiracies against autho∣rity, are in effect but the fruits of strong and raging lusts, let them have what pretext soever men please to put upon them, and the actors pretend to what they will; For, They are all hot as an oven, and upon this followeth, and have devoured their Judges, all their Kings are fallen, that is, many or most of them are cut off by violent deaths. And by Judges, we are to understand, either the Kings themselves, or inferiour Officers their creatures, who were cut off by these who made the change, to establish their own faction. 3. Profane and corrupt men, their fawning upon, or seeming to comply with the humors of these in authority, even in every thing, and without any respect to the commands of God, is yet no assurance, but they may, when they have opportunity, turn disloyal: And they may take as little notice of Gods Law subjecting them to the higher powers, as they did of his other commands, in their sinful compliances with Rulers humours; For, they who make the King glad with their wickednesse, v. 3. and who observed their Birth or Coronation-dayes with much riot & sensuality, v. 5. now, they have devoured their Judges, &c. 4. These violent lusts and turbulent effects of them, are the fruit of not calling on God, who being sought unto, would subdue these lusts, and correct these evils, which lust leads men to apply vio∣lent remedies unto. When God giveth up a people to such courses of sedition and conspiracy, it is a token that neither the Land, which is in such a distemper, nor the actors in these courses are given to prayer, at least in a right and sincere way; For, where these courses are, it may be said, there is none among them that calleth unto me, or, generally they neglect it. 5. It is an evi∣dence of great stupidity, and the cause of a controversie from the Lord, when greatest commotions, alterations and confusions
will not make a people sensible, nor stir them up to look to God and call on him: For, the words may import also this challenge that all these overturnings of the state did nothing at them, the people never thought on turning to God, or employing of him, there is none among them that calleth unto me.