John Trapp on Amos 2:9

Verſe 9. Yet deſtroyed I the Amorite before them] It is not uſuall with God to hit men in the teeth with what he hath done for them Jam. 1.5. unleſſe in caſe of unthankfulneſſe, as here. Then indeed people ſhall hear of what they have had; and be taught the worth of good turns by the want of them. Good turns aggravate unkindneſſes: and our offences are not a little increaſed by our obligations. Hence this approbation; and it is as if God ſhould ſay: This people hath not only done the evills afore-mentioned, but alſo after the receipt of mercies without meaſure and many miraculous deliverances; as if I had even hired them to be wicked: and as if that were to paſs for truth which the ſnake in the fable ſaid to the country man, that had ſhewed it kindneſs, Summum praemium pro ſummo beneficio eſt Ingratitudo. Speed 622. ex Pariſien. In the yeere 1245. the Pope was denied entrance into England: it being ſaid that the Pope was but like a mouſe in a fachell, or a ſnake in ones boſome, who did but ill repay their hoſteſs for their lodging. God had done exceeding much for this perverſe people: and this they now heare of with ſtomack enough, as well they deſerved. At Athens, if a ſervant proved ungratefull, for his manumiſſion, his maſter had an action [non-Latin text not transcribed] againſt him:Val. Max. lib. 2. cap. 1, and might recover him again into bondage. Lycurgus the Lacedemonian law-giver would not make a law againſt Ingratitude: as holding it monſtrous not to requite a kindneſs, not to acknowledge a good turn. The old Romanes decreed that ſuch as were found guilty of this fault, ſhould be caſt: alive to the Cormorant, to be pulled in peeces and devoured. Our Saviour f[illegible: 2 letters]ly yokes together the evill, and the unthankfull Luk. 6.35. and God here ſumms up all this peoples ſins in this One, as the Epitome of all the reſt.

yet I deſtroyed the Amorite] when once his iniquity was full Gen. 15. when he had filled the land from corner to corner with his uncleanneſſe Ezrh. 9.11. then ſent I my hornets before them, which drove them out before them. But not with their ſword nor with their bow. Ioſh. 24.12. See this thankfully acknowledged by this Church, after ſhe had payed for her learning, Pſal. 44.2, 3. with 9.10.

whoſe height was like the height of the Cedars &c.] For ſtature and ſtrength they ſeemed inſuperable, Num. 13.28. &c. But God ſoon topt them and tamed them, he took them a link lower, and made them know themſelves to bee but men. Pſal. 9.20. or if trees, cedars, oakes (as Plato ſaith of man, that he is but arbor inverſa) yet,

I deſtroyed his fruit from above, and his root from beneath] I left him little enough to be proud of: leſſe then Nebuchadnezzar, who had a ſtump left, and was reſerved for royall State againe Dan. 4.15. God cut off theſe Amorites, that is, all the ſeven nations, head and tayle, root and branch, old and young together Deut. 7.2. Ioſh. 6.21. (Behold the ſeverity of God,) as if he had forgotten that forepart of his back-parts Jehovah, Jehovah, gracious, mercifull &c. and had taken up that Emperours Motto, Fiat juſtitia, pereat mundus, Let Juſtice be done, though never ſo many be undone.