ot displeasure, pouring upon
them his plagues for their long rebellion; as we have heard before, that
he visited the proud, and destroyed their memory. At other times God is
said to visit his people, being in affliction, to whom he sends comfort or
promise of deliverance, as he visited the seed of Abraham, when oppressed
in Egypt. And Zacharias said, that God had visited his people, and sent
unto them hope of deliverance, when John the Baptist was born. But of none
of these visitations our prophet here speaks, but of that only which we
have already touched; namely, when God layeth his correction upon his own
children, to call them from the venomous breasts of this corrupt world,
that they suck not in over great abundance the poison thereof; and he
doth, as it were, wean them from their mother's breasts, that they may
learn to receive other nourishment. True it is, that this weaning (or
speaning, as we term it) from worldly pleasure, is a thing strange to the
flesh. And yet it is a thing so necessary to God's children, that, unless
they are weaned from the pleasures of the world, they can never feed upon
that delectable milk of God's eternal verity; for the corruption of the
one either hinders the other from being received, or else so troubles the
whole powers of man, that the soul can never so digest the truth of God as
he ought to do.

Although this appears hard, yet it is most evident; for what can we
receive from the world, but that which is in the world? What that is, the
apostle John teaches; saying, "Whatsoever is in the world, is either the
lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life." (1 John
ii.) Now, seeing that these are not of the Father, but of the world, how
can it be, that our souls can feed upon chastity, temperance, and
humility, so long as our stomachs are replenished with the corruption of
these vices?

Now so it is, that flesh can never willingly refuse these fore-named, but
rather still delights itself in every one of them; yea, in them all, as
the examples are but too evident.

It behoves therefore, that God himself shall violently pull his children
from these venomous breasts, that when they lack the liquor and poison of
the world, they may visit him, and learn to be nourished of him. Oh if the
eyes of worldly princes should be opened, that they might see with what
humour and liquor their souls are fed, while their whole delight consists
in pride, ambition, and the lusts of the