John Trapp on Matthew 3:7

Verse 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadduces.] De his lege Joseph de bello. Two leading sects among the Jews, but notable hypocrites, yet [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1 word] 2. c. & Antiq [illegible: 1 word] l. 13. cap. 17. pressing to the ordinances. A Doeg may set his foot as far within the Sanctuary as a David, and let him. He may be caught, as those catch-poles sent to apprehend our Saviour, as Sauls messengers coming to Naioth were turned from [illegible: 1 word] to Prophets: Come (saith Latymer) to the holy Assemblies, though thou comest to [illegible: 1 word]; for God, perhaps, may take thee napping. He said unto them, O generation of vipers] Or adders, which are outwardly specious, inwardly poisonous: so are all hypocrites a meer out-side: but God will wash off their paint with rivers of brimstone. Of the viper it is said, that when he hath [illegible: 1 word] a man, he makes haste to the water, and drinks or dies for it. So did these Pharisees to baptisme, hoping, by the [illegible: 1 word] done, to avoid the wrath to come, But a man [illegible: 1 word] goe to hell [illegible: 1 word] font-water on his face: unlesse with the water of baptisme he have grace to quench the fiery darts of the devil: as that holy [illegible: 1 word] de qua. dam sancta [illegible: 1 word] quae quo [illegible: 2 words], non nisi [illegible: 3 words] nabat, [illegible: 2 words], Christiana sum. [illegible: 1 word] enim bost is statim [illegible: 1 word] baptismi & [illegible: 1 word], & fugit ab ea. Luther. virgin, whereof Luther reports, that she beat back Satans temptations with this only argument, I am a Christian. The enemy quickly understood (saith he) the [illegible: 1 word] of baptisme, and the value of that vow, and fled from her. There are that boast and bear themselves bold on their Christendome; but hath not many a ship, that hath been named Safe-guard and Good-speed, miscarried at sea, or fallen into the hands of pirates? This generation of vipers conceited themselves to be Abrahams seed: so doe many of the Serpents seed now adaies, because of their baptisme; but all in vain, unlesse they walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham. The old Serpent hath slung them, neither is there any antidote for such, but the flesh (not of the biting viper, but) of the slain Messiah, fore-shadowed by the brazen Serpent. SeeRom. [illegible: 1 word]. [non-Latin text not transcribed] derived [illegible: 1 word] [non-Latin text not transcribed] a viper. Isa. 27. 1. God hath promised to break for us the Serpents head, who hath so deeply set his lims in us: yea, with his sore, and great and strong sword, to punish Leviathan that piercing Serpent, and to [illegible: 1 word] the dragon that is in the sea. Who hath fore-warned you?] Who hath privily and under-hand, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. [illegible: 3 words] & [illegible: 1 word]. as it were, shewed you, and set you in a course of avoiding the danger, that hangs over your heads, as by a twined threed. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, and hell hath enlarged her self, and even gapes for you: who gave you an inkling thereof, and sent you hither for help, &c? From the wrath to come] Called the damnation of hell, Chap. 23. 23. which hath torments without end, and past imagination.Psal. 90. 11. For, Who knoweth the power of thine anger, saith David? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. That is, as I conceive it, Let a man fear thy wrath never so much, he is sure to feel a fair deal more thereof, then ever he could have feared. When but a drop of Gods displeasure lights upon a poor soul in this present world. What intolerable pain is it put to? The spirit of a man may sustain Prov. 18. 14. his infirmity, saith Solomon, q. d. some sorry shift a man may make to rub thorow an outward affliction, and to bear it off by head and shoulders, But a wounded spirit who can bear? q. d. the stoutest cannot possibly stand under it: there's no proportion between the back and the burden; [illegible: 1 word] able to crush and crack the mightiest amongst us. Iudas chose an halter rather then to endure it: and well he might, when as Iob (with whom God was butJob 7. 15. in jest, in comparison) preferred strangling, and any death before such a life. But all this (alas) is but present wrath, and nothing at all to the wrath to come. A phrase of speech that involves and carries in it stings and horrours, woe and alas, flames of wrath, and the worm that never dieth, trembling and gnashing of teeth, seas of vengeance, rivers of brimstone, unutterable and unsufferable tortures and torments. We read of racking, roasting, hanging, stoning, putting men under harrows of iron, and saws of iron, scratching off their flesh with thorns of the wildernesse, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Heb. [illegible: 1 word] pulling their skins over their ears, and other exquisite and unheard of miseries that men have here been put unto. But what's all this to the wrath to come? not so much as a flea-biting, as a prick with a pin, or fillip with a finger: no, though a man should go thorow a thousand cruell deaths every hour, his whole life thorowout. Oh blesse and kisse that blessed Son of God, that bore for us the brunt of this unsupportable wrath, even Iesus that delivered us from the wrath to come, 1 Thess. 1. 10. And shun sin, that draws hell at the heels of it. Is it nothing to lose an immortall soul to purchase an ever-living death?