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None that shall cast a cord - You will no more have your inheritance divided to you by lot, as it was to your fathers; ye shall neither have fields nor possessions of any kind.

Therefore thou shalt have none that shall east a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord - Thou, in the first instance, is the impenitent Jew of that day. God had promised by Hosea to restore Judah; shortly after, the prophet himself foretells it Micah 2:12. Now he forewarns these and such as these, that they would have no portion in it. They had “neither part nor lot in this matter” Acts 8:21. They, the not-Israel then, were the images and ensamples of the not-Israel afterward, those who seem to be God‘s people and are not; members of the body, not of the soul of the Church; who have a sort of faith, but have not love. Such was afterward the Israel after the flesh, which was broken off, while the true Israel was restored, passing out of themselves into Christ. Such, at the end, shall be those, who, being admitted by Christ into “their portion,” renounce the world in word not in deed. Such shall have “no portion forever “in the congregation of the Lord.” For “nothing defiled shall enter there, nor whatsoever worketh abomination or a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb‘s book of life” Revelation 21:27.

The ground of their condemnation is their resistance to light and known truth. These not only “entered not in” Luke 11:52, themselves, but, being hinderers of God‘s word, them that were entering in, they hindered.

Woe to the people that devise evil during the night, and rise early to carry it into execution! It is bad to do mischief on a sudden thought, much worse to do it with design and forethought. It is of great moment to improve and employ hours of retirement and solitude in a proper manner. If covetousness reigns in the heart, compassion is banished; and when the heart is thus engaged, violence and fraud commonly occupy the hands. The most haughty and secure in prosperity, are commonly most ready to despair in adversity. Woe to those from whom God turns away! Those are the sorest calamities which cut us off from the congregation of the Lord, or cut us short in the enjoyment of its privileges.