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<p>This is such a description of bad times as, some think, could scarcely agree to the times of Hezekiah, when this prophet prophesied; and therefore they rather take it as a prediction of what should be in the reign of Manasseh. But we may rather suppose it to be in the reign of Ahaz (and in that reign he prophesied, <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.1.1" href="/passage/?search=Mic.1.1">Mic. 1:1</a>) or in the beginning of Hezekiah’s time, before the reformation he was instrumental in; nay, in the best of his days, and when he had done his best to purge out corruptions, still there was much amiss. The prophet cries out, <i>Woe is me</i>! He bemoans himself that his lot was cast in such a degenerate age, and thinks it his great unhappiness that he lived among a people that were ripening apace for a ruin which many a good man would unavoidably be involved in. Thus David cries out, <i>Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech</i>! He laments, 1. That there were so few good people to be found, even among those that were God’s people; and this was their reproach: <i>The good man has perished out of the earth</i>, or <i>out of the land</i>, the land of Canaan; it was a <i>good land</i>, and <i>a land of uprightness</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.26.10" href="/passage/?search=Isa.26.10">Isa. 26:10</a>), but there were few good men in it, none upright among them, <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.7.2" href="/passage/?search=Mic.7.2">Mic. 7:2</a>. The <i>good man</i> is a <i>godly man</i> and a <i>merciful man</i>; the word signifies both. Those are completely good men that are devout towards God and compassionate and beneficent towards men, that love mercy and walk with God. “These have perished; those few honest men that some time ago enriched and adorned our country are now dead and gone, and there are none risen up <i>in their stead</i> that tread in their steps; honesty is banished, and there is no such thing as a good man to be met with. Those that were of religious education have degenerated, and become as bad as the worst; <i>the godly man ceases</i>,” <a class="bibleref" title="Ps.12.1" href="/passage/?search=Ps.12.1">Ps. 12:1</a>. This is illustrated by a comparison (<a class="bibleref" title="Mic.7.1" href="/passage/?search=Mic.7.1">Mic. 7:1</a>): they were <i>as when they have gathered the summer fruits</i>; it was as hard a thing to find a good man as to find any of the summer-fruits (which were the choicest and best, and therefore must carefully be gathered in) when the harvest is over. The prophet is ready to say, as Elijah in his time (<a class="bibleref" title="1Kgs.19.10" href="/passage/?search=1Kgs.19.10">1 Kgs. 19:10</a>), <i>I, even I only, am left</i>. Good men, who used to hang in clusters, are now as the <i>grape-gleanings of the vintage</i>, here and there a berry, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.17.6" href="/passage/?search=Isa.17.6">Isa. 17:6</a>. You can find no societies of them as bunches of grapes, but those that are are single persons: <i>There is no cluster to eat</i>; and the best and fullest grapes are those that grow in large clusters. Some think that this intimates not only that good people were few, but that those few who remained, who went for good people, were good for little, like the small withered grapes, the refuse that were left behind, not only by the gatherer, but by the gleaner. When the prophet observed this universal degeneracy it made him <i>desire the first-ripe fruit</i>; he wished to see such worthy good men as were in the former ages, were the ornaments of the primitive times, and as far excelled the best of all the present age as the first and full-ripe fruits do those of the latter growth, that never come to maturity. When we read and hear of the wisdom and zeal, the strictness and conscientiousness, the devotion and charity, of the professors of religion in former ages, and see the reverse of this in those of the present age, we cannot but sit down, and wish, with a sigh, <i>O for primitive Christianity again</i>! Where are the plainness and integrity of those that went b
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