de Præscrip,

alicujus temporalis commodi, et maxime gloriæ principatusque gratia falsas et novas opiniones

of heretics) their work was not to conHæreticus est qui vert heathens, but to overturn the labours of faithful teachers, and to pull down them to build up themselves. Augustine defines a heretic to be one gignit vel sequi- who for any worldly benefit, especially for glory and pre-eminence, either frames or follows new opinions.

tur. Cont. Ep. Parm. c. 3.

2. The great sinfulness of this "gainsaying" appears sundry ways. It was made up of,

(1.) Contempt of God's ordination. Moses and Aaron were both placed in their governments by God's appointment, both immediate and express, Prov. viii. 15; Rom. xiii. 1. God was more opposed than these his servants; and therefore truly Moses tells them, that this their gathering together was "against the Lord," Numb. xvi. 11. Though Dathan and Abiram, Reubenites, had the right of natural primogeniture, yet they vainly challenge preeminence where God hath subjected them. If all civil honour flow from the king, how much more from the God of kings! His hand exalts the poor, and casts down the mighty from their throne. How insufferable a presumption is it for dust and ashes to attempt to mend his work, and to subject his ordination to their own humour!

(2.) Regardlessness of the public. They cared not what ruin and woe they brought upon the whole company of Israel, by the loss of their lawful, godly, and able governors, so that they might accomplish their own private designs. They were desirous to raise themselves upon the destruction of thousands; and their endeavour was to remove away Israel's shelters and shields, their saviours, shepherds, and pillars; yea, and at one blow to behead six hundred thousand men; to turn God's garden into a wilderness, God's well-governed family into a den of thieves; and to hasten the death of their political parents, though thousands of children would have celebrated their funerals with tears.

(3.) Hypocrisy and falsehood. The rebels pretend that all the congregation was holy, and that Moses and Aaron lifted up themselves, Numb. xvi. 3. Every word was a falsehood. Israel was as holy as Moses and Aaron were ambitious: God lifted them up over Israel, and they dejected themselves; and what holiness was there in so much infidelity, idolatry, mutiny? What could make them unclean, if this were holiness? The Israelites had scarce wiped their mouth since their last obstinacy, but these flatterers tax their governors, and flatter the people; and yet all this not out of love to these fond and flattered people, of whom they intended to make no other use but to be stirrups to advance themselves into the saddle of government. They pretend that all the people, in respect of their holiness, might make as near approaches to God as their governors; but their design was hereby to appropriate all administrations into their own hands, and to wipe the poor people of that which now they laboured to take away from their governors, namely, all power.

(4.) Discontentedness with their present condition. While they looked upon the few rulers that were above them, they never thought of the many thousands of people who were below them. They so discontentedly looked upon the difference between the Levites and the priests, that they considered not the difference between the Levites and the people; and their thankfulness that they were above so many, was drowned in discontentment that one or two were above them.

(5.) Envy at and repining against the due advancement of their faithful governors. "They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of

the Lord," Psal. cvi. 16. Had Moses and Aaron been but fellows with the rebels, none had been better beloved; but now they are advanced, the malice of these rebels is not inferior to the honour of their governors. Their fault was, that God had set them up, not that they had ever opposed God, or hurt Israel; so that the trouble of the rebels was not the badness of their governors, but the goodness of God. The cursed humour of plain downright envy, which is not troubled that things in the world go ill, either in point of sin or sorrow, but that they go so well, or

no worse.

(6.) Pride and ambition. They aspired to a dignity in which God had placed others, and for and to which they were neither called nor fitted. Their ambition to be above the people, made them desirous to be likewise above God who had put others into that dignity: they who were not fit for the oar desire to sit at the stern. Though the thing Si ille qui virtutithey desired was good, yet their de- bus pollet, invitas siring it out of God's way was wicked. quid de illo qui If they who are fittest to govern should vitiis sordet! not accept of rule unless they are drawn, then they who are unfit should not run to take it. Should ambitious Korahs get power by running, they would not be honoured by their great place, but their place dishonoured by them.

debet accedere,

Perald.

(7.) Infection and contagion dispersed among others. Korah draws in two hundred and fifty into the conspiracy, "famous in the congregation, and men of renown." The plague-sore in this one Korah infects a great part of Israel. The contagion was worse than the act; his wickedness was diffusive. He would neither be alone in woe nor wickedness. His abode was so near to the Reubenites, that he soon infuses his poison into Dathan and Abiram: he errs not without many followers. Surely his sin and woe had been sufficient, though he had not drawn in partakers in both; but it is the constant guise of sinners, both to forbear labouring after happiness themselves, and to hinder others; to run into ruin themselves, and to carry others with them; though they shall dearly find hereafter that it is not in this case, the more the merrier, every sinner being but a bundle of fuel to make the fire of wrath burn the hotter against any who led him into sin.

(8.) Great ingratitude to God and their governors for all that care and cost which they laid out upon them. How unkind a requital was this to God and his servants for the many miraculous protections, directions, provisions, which primarily from him, and secondarily from them, they had received! What did Moses gain by the troublesome government, but danger and despite? Who but Moses would not have wished himself rather with the sheep of Jethro, than these wolves of Israel? How full of care was Moses that these rebels might be secure! Magistracy is like an upper garment, which a man puts on when he rides in wet and dirty weather; though magistracy be uppermost, and all the dirt and ashes fall upon it, the under garments are meanwhile kept dry and clean.

Si qua fuisset re

(9.) Boldness and obstinacy in sin. What a presumptuous wickedness was it for Korah and his accomplices to take the censers and to offer incense! Had they had the least drop of God's fear, their hands would have shaken, and the censers would have fallen out of them. Though sidus in illis gutta Korah had lately seen the judgment of timoris Dei, reGod upon Nadab and Abihu, yet his excedissent acercontumacy would not be checked. The vore munire tenmentioning of the holy censers and in- tat contra Deum; cense should have made him dread his mo, vellet solis own destruction, by intermeddling be

pente e manibus ræ. Se vulgi fa

ac si, objecto fu

lucem extinguere. Si ambitiosis ap

plaudit mundus, inebriantur exiti

al fiducia, ut in nubes ipsas conspuant. Calvin. in Numb. xvi.

yond his calling; but, as Calvin well notes, by the favour of the people he banished the fear of God, and so opposes God, as if he would have put out the sun with smoke.

2. The second thing wherein they followed Korah, was in perdition; noted in these words, and perish, or "perished," anλovro, "in the gainsaying," &c. The time both past and present is often put for the future; to import and signify the great and undoubted certainty that a thing shall come to pass; that it is as sure to be as if it were al- | ready accomplished. And thus the apostle is to be understood, in saying that these seducers perish, or perished, in Korah's gainsaying. The word drovTo denotes not only a bare dying, as in its best signification, but a dying by some miserable means; as by hunger, Luke xv. 17. Sometimes a destruction by hell, 2 Thess. i. 9; in which respect Judas is called the son of perdition and destruction, John xvii. 12; and the devil is called a destroyer, Rev. ix. 11. And Paul calleth the man of sin "the son of perdition," 2 Thess. ii. 3; he being such both actively and passively. The word, saith Gerard in Harmon. is used to denote temporal, spiritual, and eternal destruction. The simple word av signifies to destroy; but the compound, and such is this here used by Jude, is not without an additional emphasis.

Concerning the destruction of Korah we read at large in Numb. xvi. It is much controverted by learned men what kind of destruction this of Korah was. Some think that he was swallowed up in the earth with Dathan and Abiram, thus referring the words of Moses, "If the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up," &c., ver. 30, to all three, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and it being said, Numb. xxvi. 10, "the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up" (meaning Dathan and Abiram) “together with Korah, when that company died, what time the fire devoured two hundred and fifty men." And that Korah also was swallowed up, Ambrose, Richelius, Lorinus, with some others, conceive. Others think that Korah was not swallowed up with the rest; that though all his substance and tents were destroyed by that punishment, and also all that appertained to him, his children only excepted, yet they think that Korah himself was consumed with fire from heaven with "the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense," ver. 35. Of this opinion are Cajetan, Oleaster, Haimo, Perkins, Tremelius, Diodate. And their reasons are,

(1.) Because it seems by several passages in the history that Moses spake concerning Dathan and Abiram only, and those which belonged to them, when he said, "Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me," &c., "if the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up," &c., Numb. xvi. 25, 27-30.

(2.) When Dathan and Abiram are expressly said to be swallowed up, mention is made, ver. 32, only, in relation to Korah, that "all the men that appertained to Korah, and all their goods," were swallowed up; Korah himself being not named, as are the other two. (3.) They say that when in other places this destruction is rehearsed, as Deut. xi. 6; Psal. cvi. 17, there is mention made only of the swallowing up of Dathan and Abiram, with theirs, not of Korah at all.

(4.) Some are much confirmed in this apprehension, from that command of God, that the brazen censers of those who were burnt should be made broad plates to cover the altar, for "a memorial that no stranger come near to offer incense before the Lord, that he be not as Korah and his company," Numb. xvi. 38-40. From which command they

R

conceive that Korah was, with the rest, burnt with fire: 1. Because he joined with the rest of the company in offering incense, as is plain, because others were to take warning by his punishment not to offer incense; and ver. 6, Moses saith, "Take you censers, both Korah, and all his company;" and ver. 17, "Take every man his censer; thou also, and Aaron," &c. Now, say they, it is probable that Korah sinning by fire was also punished by fire; and that joining in the same sin, and being present when the fire devoured the rest, which was immediately after their offering incense, he was also joined in the same punishment. 2. When Moses speaks here of the offenders, he joins them together in the punishment; he calls them Korah and his company, in these words, "That he be not as Korah and his company." 3. The censers which were to be plates for the altar are called, The censers of those which were burnt: now Korah's censer was among those which were plates for the altar; because the reason why they were to be plates for the altar was their offering them before the Lord, and their being hallowed, ver. 38, which agree to Korah's censer as well as to the censer of any other. 4. God's command to make plates of the censers of those who were burnt being followed with this reason, that others “be not as Korah and his company," seems to import that others by looking upon the censers of those who were burnt should take heed of being as Korah and his company, namely, burnt as they were. And whereas it is said that "the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, together with Korah," &c., Numb. xxvi. 10; some understand that place not of Korah's person, but of his substance, goods, and retinue; and therefore Tremelius reads it, absorpsit eos, et quæ erant Korachi; the earth swallowed them up, and those things which appertained to Korah, as we find, Numb. xvi. 32. Others conceive that Korah is joined here with the other who were swallowed up, because he was a confederate in the same wickedness, and was punished by a miraculous death at the same time. But, to leave the further discussion hereof, sure we are that Korah was also destroyed. Jude here tells us that he perished. And it has been observed, that most, if not all, those whom the Scripture mentions as opposers of lawful authority, have been punished by violent death, God not vouchsafing them so much as a reprieve to a death-bed; several instances have I set down. God makes them marks of vengeance who remove the ancient land-marks, set for order and propriety in a nation; and, as Chrysostom notes, they who durst open their mouths against Moses and Aaron, making their throats an open sepulchre to bury their dignities, were justly punished when the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up such rebels.

Obs. 1. The great misery and disgrace to be a ringleader in sin. Korah is here only mentioned by Jude; he was the great wheel of the rebellion. It is thought that he exasperated Dathan and Abiram, by the pretence of their primogeniture before Moses. It is too much to follow in wickedness; but to lead, it is inexcusable, insufferable. The rebels that opposed Moses and Aaron are called Korah's company, Numb. xxvii. 3, and the rebellion itself is called the "matter of Korah," Numb. xvi. 49. He who was higher than the rest in sin, is principally branded in Scripture story with perpetual infamy.

Obs. 2. Bad parents may have good children. Jeroboam, Amon, Ahaz, and here Korah, are pregnant proofs hereof. God is free in his gifts of grace. He disperses them where and to whom he pleases. They who have nothing in themselves or parents to commend them to God are received by him, to show that

the foundation of all God's love is in his own bosom, and that the privileges of nature commend us not to him. God also will hereby show the excellency of grace's original; that it is not by generation, but regeneration; not native, but donative; not by the first, but second birth. The bad parents of a godly child proclaim that their child has a heavenly Father, and that good which they never bestowed upon it; as the wicked child of godly parents proclaims that they who contributed a natural, could not afford a spiritual being. Yea, further, hereby God will manifest the power of his grace, which in a sort gathers grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles, and can bring pure water through a filthy and polluted channel; and that the power and poison of natural and sinful example cannot hinder the irresistible strength of his own Spirit. How wisely doth God hereby beat Satan, and batter his kingdom with his own weapons, and strike him through with arrows taken out of his own quiver! How should the consideration hereof engage the godly children of Godless parents, (1.) To love, admire, and serve that God who has transplanted them out of Satan's nursery into his own orchard; who made white paper of dunghill rags! If Judas said, Lord, why wilt thou manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? well may a godly child say, Lord, why wilt thou manifest thyself to me, and not to my father and mother? (2.) To be humble in considering the rock out of which they were hewn, and the fountain from which they flowed, and the poorness and impurity of their beginning, even when they are in the midst of their highest proceedings in holiness. To pity likewise, and to labour to do good by a spiritual Gropy, or natural affection spiritualized, to the souls of their poor unregenerate parents, that they may study to requite them for being the causes of their natural being, by procuring their parents' spiritual birth; and truly, no way but this can that maxim be confuted, The child can never recompense the parent.

Deo et parenti non redditur æquivalens.

Obs. 3. Great is our proneness to follow corrupt example. Hundreds here run after one rebel.

Obs. 4. Corrupt greatness is very influential on inferiors. Let but an eminent Korah go before, and the rest will follow. Great men seldom sin alone; witness Absalom, Jeroboam, Simon Magus.

Obs. 5. Ambition knows no bounds. A high condition seems but low to a high spirit. Korah was a Levite, and his privilege and dignity thereby was not small: "Seemeth it a small thing to you," saith Moses, "that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself?" yet his ambition made it seem contemptible, because he had not the priesthood also. Absalom, though a king's son, and his father's beloved son, and newly taken into favour, yet because he had not the kingdom, could not be content. Haman, though the greatest favourite of the greatest monarch in the world, yet because he had not the obeisance of poor Mordecai, accounted all his preferments worth nothing. The greatest honours only widen and enlarge the ambitious man's desires; they entice, but not content a man. The subjects whom kings have advanced to highest dignities, have ever been forwardest to oppose and depose those who have exalted them, and all because they have thought that they could never be high enough; witness the conspiracy of the nobles exalted to highest English honours in the reign of William the First, and that famous example of the great Stanley, in the reign of Henry the of Henry VII. Seventh, who, though the greatest peer in the realm, and laden with many favours and

Vid. Daniels's History of Wilham 1. p. 40. and Sir Francis

Bacon's History

great offices, yet was a man of that exorbitant and unbounded ambition, that nothing would please him but a preferment which used to go to the king's eldest son. No rewards can clear accounts with them that overvalue their merits. Though Pelion be laid upon Ossa, and one mountain of greatness upon another, yet will an ambitious mind look upon them all as too low. Kingdom added to kingdom, and, could it be so, world to world, would but be a drop to the stomach of the elephant, ambition. The best way to satisfy the thirst of one in a fever is, instead of giving him drink, to cure his distemper. Let us not think to satisfy our lusts by making provision for them; it is Christian wisdom rather to study to kill than content inordinate desire; and more to bring our hearts to our condition, than our condition to our hearts. Let us look upon that station of life wherein God has set us as the best for A garment which fits us is better for us, though it be plain, than one which is gaudy and three or four handfuls too big. God best knows how to order our estates. Should we be our own carvers, we should often cut our fingers. Let us also compare our receipts with our deserts; and though the former seem small when they stand by themselves, yet if we set them by the latter, they will appear of a large size, and a tall stature.

us.

firmetur, facile

Obs. 6. A mere man is firm and steady in no relation. Natural relations, unless backed Nature bonitas by grace, are very slippery and unstable nisi pietate confoundations of friendship. Korah, a illabescit. Cart. wicked man, though a near kinsman to Harm. Moses, proves his greatest adversary. Abel's brother, Joseph's brethren, David's son, could not be kept from murder and treachery by the bond of nature. A sinner will as easily break the bonds of nature, as Samson did his cords, till his locks (his lusts) be cut off. It is not the alliance, but the renovation of nature, that can establish friendship. No natural man accounts his own brother that lay in the same womb with him so near to him as the lust that lodges in his heart. He provides friends most wisely for himself, who either finds or makes them friends to God. An enemy to God will not long be a friend to thee. Natural love oft ends in an unnatural hatred. A bad man will not conscientiously be a good husband, son, brother. Grace doth not slay, but sanctify; not annihilate, but elevate nature; turns water into wine, and spiritualizes carnal affection. How just with God is it, that he whom thou dost not desire to make God's friend shall prove thy foe! that thy child which is most indulged by thee in sin, should afterward prove the greatest grief to thy heart! God suffering, to thy sorrow, him to rebel against thee, whom thou hast suffered and seen without sorrow to rebel against God.

Obs. 7. Innocence is no shelter from opposition. The goodness of no person or cause can exempt either from hatred. No man meeker than Moses, none better beloved than Aaron, none more beneficial to Israel than both; no cause more righteous than holding a government, to which they were appointed by God himself; yet neither the persons nor their cause could be free from the conspiracies and contests of sinners. Jesus Christ himself endured their contradictions and gainsayings, Heb. xii. 3. It is no sign of a good man to have few opposers, nor of a good cause to have many abettors. He who is not opposed by the stream goes with it. The world will hate where God loves. So far is holiness from exempting the godly from the ill-will of sinners, that it draws it forth. Let other qualifications of learning, amiableness, birth, never so much abound, yet grace mars the taste of all these in a carnal palate.

Antipathies can never be smothered or reconciled. The meekest Moses, will he be a Moses, shall be gainsayed, notwithstanding his meekness. The wicked rise up against the faithful, not for doing any evil against, but for not doing evil with them. If in our keeping close to God we meet with unkindness from the wicked, let us not wonder; if with love, let us be thankful; but yet withal suspicious of ourselves that we do, or at least cautious that we do not, sinfully correspond with them.

Obs. 8. Instruments of public good often meet with unkind requitals. Moses and Aaron, Israel's deliverers and defenders, were gainsayed by an unthankful people. Israel owed to these faithful governors, under God, their provision, peace, and protection; but for this the tribute which they paid was conspiracy and rebellion. Nothing is so easily forgotten as the benefits we enjoy by governors. The lightest injuries are easily remembered, and are like feathers that swim on the top of the water: weighty favours, like a piece of lead, sink to the bottom, and are forgotten. Gideon had been a famous deliverer of Israel; but the benefits which that unthankful people enjoyed by him were so neglected, that they slew his sons, Judg. ix. 5. Though Jehoiada was the renowned restorer of Israel's government and peace, yet was his son destroyed by them, who, next to God, owed all that was dear to them to his faithfulness and wisdom, 2 Chron. xxiv. 21, 22. It is a kingly honour, to meet with unthankful returns from those to whom we do much good. The mother's breast gives milk to the froward infant that strikes it. God would have all, especially public officers, in all the good they do, eye his glory and command, and not the applause of men. No opposition must discourage us in the faithful discharging of our places, nor chase us from the station wherein God has set us. Obs. 9. Excellency and superiority are the marks of envy. Though Moses and Aaron cannot be opposed for their sin, yet they may be envied for their power. As equals are envied because they are such, and inferiors lest they should be our equals; so principally superiors, because we are not equal to them. Joseph was envied because he was higher than his brethren in his father's favour, and dreamed that he should be higher than they in his worldly condition; the Israelites likewise were envied because they increased more than Egyptians; David by Saul, because the women ascribed more thousands to him than to Saul; Moses by Miriam and Aaron, because advanced by God above them; and here Moses and Aaron by Korah and his accomplices, because of their superiority. The object of hatred is oft the sin of others; but of envy, always the excellency of others, either real or seeming, of body, mind, estate, or fame, the cause being pride, or an inordinate self-love; the envious ever deeming his own excellency to be diminished and obscured by another's happiness. Thus

tis memor non est, qui est fraternæ immemor charitatis: hoe

dum sibi datum

negat, qui tantam substantiam acSer. 4.

cepit Chrysol.

the elder brother, Luke xv., deemed Paterna largita- himself wronged by the love which his father showed to the younger; and by reason of envy against his brother, he forgets his father's bounty to himself; and he who had received all his father's inheritance, denies that ever his father had given him a kid. Of all sinners, the envious is most his own scourge and torment. He had rather suffer misery than see others in prosperity; as some have noted of the Philistines, who could hardly be brought by the smart of their own distresses to send the ark back to Israel. It is said, that God turned the heart of the Egyptians to hate his people, Psal. cv. 25; but, as Augustine well notes, not by making the heart

Non illos malos faciendo, sed

August. in loc.

Liv.

of the Egyptians evil, but the estate of istis bona quibus mali facilthe Israelites prosperous. What a moth lime possunt to the soul, saith Cyprian, is envy, invidere largiento do, incitasse diciturn another's good into our own hurt, tur ad odium. to make another's glory our own pun- Cypr. de Zel. et ishment! The meditation of this cursed distemper of the envious may provoke us to contentment in a low condition. They are high towers upon which the lightnings of envy fall. It is oftentimes a mercy to be in misery. How many righteous and well-deserving persons have been made faulty and guilty only for their being wealthy and honourable! How abundantly does the sweet safety of a retired life recompense for all that obscurity which seems to debase it! How oft have I known those who have lived in envied honour, to envy those who have lived in safe obscurity!

civilis exemptus.

2.

a nobis; in po

testate nostra est, ut demus imperiHadrian, in Epist. Treu. Mogunt. &

um cui volumus. ad Archiep.

Colon.

Obs. 10. Heretical seducers are commonly turbulent and seditious. They here followed Korah in his opposing authority. They who deny the only Lord God, as these seducers did, will make nothing of despising dominion. They who oppose God's dominion will never regard man's. Impious men will not be obedient subjects. The order of obedience prescribed by the apostle, is first to "fear God," and then to "honour the king," I Pet. ii. 17. "My son," saith Solomon, "fear thou the Lord and the king," Prov. xxiv. 21. The Romish offspring of antichrist, who throw off and deprave the law of God, will not submit to civil authority. They openly Cunctus totius teach that the clergy are exempted orbis clerus infrom the power of the magistrate. So perio magistratus long as the arch-heretic the pope lives, L. 2. Decret. Tit. Korah and these seducers will never die. In one pope are many Korahs, seducers, rebels, libertines. He usurps a dominion over all the princes in the world; he makes himself the Imperator quod sun, and from him, as the fountain of habet, totum habet light, he pretends that all civil governors, as the moon, borrow their light: to himself he saith is given all power in heaven and in earth; and as profanely he applies that passage, Psal. lxxii. 8, "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth;" and that of Prov. viii. 15, "By me kings reign." And when he speaks concerning the distribution of empires and kingdoms, he imitates his father in these words, They are delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will I give them. It would be endless, and in some respect needless, as having touched upon this sad subject before, to relate the many bloody machinations and murderous enterprises of the pope's emissaries against the persons of Christian princes. Under the wing of this whore of Babylon, in the nest of the pope's chair, have been hatched those stabbings, poisonings, powder-plots, and, which is worse, the defence of all these by his janizaries, the Jesuits, in their writings in blood, which have filled the ears and hearts of true Christians with horror and amazement. Nor would it be unsuitable to the present subject, to mention the seditious turbulence of the heretical crew of Anabaptists of late years, who, to all their other erroneous tenets, add this, that before the day of judgment Christ should have a worldly kingdom erected, where the saints only are to have dominion, and magistracy is to be rooted out; and with what an inundation of blood these idle, and at first neglected, dreams and opinions have filled Europe, the histories of the last age have related to us, and the Lord grant that we who have read and not been warned by them, may never ourselves become a history to the age which shall come after us.

Obs. 11. It is a sin for those who are uncalled to