Thomas Boston

“ They despise the Christian entertainment on words and promises: They despise us as we do the dust; as we do the crawling of the worm, like Sanballet, when he mocked the Jews, saying, "What do these Jews? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burnt?" But notwithstanding of all that, the worms lick up the Christian way of doing by faith.
4. Yet united to Christ, though a worm, worm Jacob. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself is of the worm family, Psal. xxii. 6 "This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob." ”

“ When the mystery is finished, and the web cut out, it will appear an admirable piece! There will not be left then the least vestage of all the mountains that stood between heaven and them; the threshen mountains will then be blown away with the wind, and they will lay by the flail as an instrument they have no more use for. ”

“ Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel: I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy Redeemer, the holy One of Israel.
Behold! I wilt make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth: Thou shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaff. RELIGION is a mystery, and the truly religious are a mystery too. They are a mystery to the world, John iii. I. "The world knoweth us not. ”

“ First, The Lord lays in his people's way mountains of difficulties, quite above their strength; difficulties which they look to, as a worm to a mountain before it, 2 Cor. i. 8. "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life?" However plain the way to hell be, the way to heaven will be a mountainous way in the experience of all that travel it: They will never want mountains in the way, till they come to the hill of God. ”

“ As unknown, and yet well known; as dying and, behold! as we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet. possessing all things. That is a strange connection, an old man and a new man in one man; but not more strange and surprising than this in the text, a worm threshing the mountains! ”

“ Worm Jacob threshing the mountains. What a hopeless-like encounter is a worm threshing a mountain! So hopeless-like are the encounters that the people of God have to make in their way to the eternal rest. These threshers are certainly threshers in hope, I Cor. ix. 10. But the naked eye cannot discover the true ground of hope in it; it is faith only that shews it hopeful, when sight represents it as a hopeless case; and therefore they must close their eyes, and thresh in faith, as Abraham did, Rom. ”

“ Lastly, Worm Jacob has many mountains to thresh. One wound is enough, we would think, to the worm; but there is plurality of them. The truth is, this world is full of mountains to the people of God; and when they have threshed one, they will have another to fall to, till they be out of this mountainous country. Having passed one difficulty, they will get another to grapple with till they be within the gates of the city. ”

“ Without me, ye can do nothing.—They creep into others of them, and nestle in them; the mountains of their corruptions, which, in a special manner, stand between heaven and them, and at length they will be eternally buried under them. ”

“ JESUS CHRIST JEHOVAH, the most high GOD, and the worm Jacob's kinsman Redeemer, hath, by his word of promise, engaged his almighty power on the side of the worm against the mountains. Let not the worm fear or doubt the success. A worm seconded by Jesus Christ, will be an overmatch for all the mountains and hills setting up their heads from earth or hell. ”

“ Wherein, after recapitulating the various difficulties he had to encounter with, he particularly mentions the happy deliverance he met with, and the surprising manner of the same. Some mountains God's people are kept threshing at all their days, especially the mountain of corruption; and they never fall quite down till death. But, as a pledge for the time to come, God makes now and then some mountains to fall down before the worm Jacob, wherewith he is surprised and transported with wonder how it came to pass, Mark xvi. ”

“ Actually humbled, in respect of their frame; as the worm dill retains its creeping way, on the mountains as in the valley; so God's people do difficulties to be happily surmounted, still keep up the sense of their own utter emptiness and weakness for them, 2 Cor. iii. 5. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." If the worm Jacob, being so well again, he will be so unwieldy, that he will thresh the mountains till he fall anew, 2 Cor. ”

“ Object, But have not others, as well as worm Jacob, mountains of difficulties in their way, which they become matters of at length?
Answ. This world is so mountainous that none can get through it without meeting mountains in their way. Carnal men make a shift to creep through some of them, but they can thresh none of them, as worm Jacob doth ”

“ The Breaker is gone up before them: they have broken up, and have passed thro' the gate, and are gone out by it, and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them. Nahum ii. 12. All thy strong holds shall be like fig-trees with the first ripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall fall into the mouth of the eater. ”