God Compared to a Bear

    GOD COMPARED TO A BEAR

    "I will meet them as a Bear bereaved of her whelps" Ho 13:8.

    THIS is the third simile God makes use of in this place, "I will meet them as a Bear bereaved of her whelps."

    SIMILE

    I. The Bear is a very fierce creature, very terrible. Two she-bears tore forty-two children at once. His voice is fierce, saith one, he is fearless in his rage.

    PARALLEL

    I. Who is so fierce and terrible as the great God, whose anger is resistless, and whose just wrath, when provoked, is unavoidable?

    SIMILE

    II. It is observed, that the Bear will not willingly fight with, or set upon a man, unless he is forced thereunto.

    PARALLEL

    II. God doth not willingly afflict, fight with, or grieve the children of men, till their daring impudence, and oft-repeated provocations, force him (as it were) to do it.

    SIMILE

    III. No creatures (as naturalists tell us) love their young more than the Bear.

    PARALLEL

    III. No creatures that God has made, love their young. or offspring, as God doth them that fear him. "A woman may forget her sucking child, yet will not he forget his children," Isa 49:15, his love exceeds the love of women to their tender babes.

    SIMILE

    IV. The Bear is furious, and in a dreadful rage, when she is bereaved of her young, as appears by Hushai's words to Absalom: "Thou knowest, that thy father and his men---they be chased in their fury, as a Bear bereaved of her whelps," 2Sa 17:8. "In the field let a Bear robbed of her whelps, meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly," Pr 17:12. She is fierce at all times, as was hinted before; but above all, if she be robbed of her whelps.

    PARALLEL

    IV. O how furious is the Almighty! how is he in an holy rage, if any hurt his poor children! "They that touch you, touch the apple of mine eye," Ec 2:8. What then will become of the bloody persecutors, that have not only bereaved God of his children, but cruelly torn them to pieces, bored out their eyes, roasted them alive, flayed their skins off, and burned them at the stake to ashes, and put them to all the horrid tortures they could devise? If God will meet his own people, if they will sin against him, and provoke him, as a Bear bereaved of her whelps; how will he meet Babylon, bloody and merciless papists, and other cursed persecutors of his people? "The day of vengeance, saith he, is in my heart, and the year of recompences: For the controversy of Zion he will strike through kings, in the day of his fierce wrath." "Shall not God avenge the cause of his own elect, that cry unto him day and night?" "Yea, he will avenge them speedily," and come forth against their enemies, as a Bear bereaved of her whelps.