each other with an eye to this that they may be infirm and that they are appointed to be helpers in such cases 5. Where God hath his own Children to try and especially when in such a case they are joyned to those who either are without grace or have strong corruptions no ties or Bonds and no Arguments they can use with Relations will hold off a cross from them For albeit she was his wife and he intreated her by the strongest Argument he could use yet she perseveres in her ill temper If persons be either graceless or entertain strong corruptions they are not to be leaned to in a day of tryal and especially if they live under good means as she did in his family and are not bettered And before a man want a needful tryal the very wife of his bosom will be a tryal Mic. 7.5 6. 6. Whatever be the undutifulness of Relations particularly in marriage Society Yet it is the duty of the godly to keep within their bounds For though he handled her more roughly in what concerned God Chap. 2.10 Yet in his complaint of her miscarriage toward him he declares he only intreated and dealt lovingly with her as became a husband to do to his wife 7. Albeit Gods institution of marriage and his command do tie man and wife to the mutual duties of love and tenderness yet Issue and Children are notable pledges and bonds of matrimonial affection and should be improved as such For he pressed a strong Argument to reclaim her to her duty when he entreated her for the Childrens sake of his own body This implyeth that love betwixt married persons should be growing daily for he supposeth it should be heightened by those means and cherished by every proof of love they get in their marriage society particularly by Gods giving them Children For which end they should be devoted to God that they may be blessed to them for that as for other ends And where married persons want Children they should seek after the more of God which will not only make up that want but will keep fast the bonds of marriage affection without them Vers 18. Yea young children despised me I arose and they spake against me The Fourth Branch of this complaint and instance is That very young ones who before respected him did now follow the croud in despising him And albeit he stood up to reprove and dash them yet to his face they persisted to speak disdainfully to him Doct. 1. It is the duty of younger persons to reverence the aged especially if they be also honourable for dignity For the want of this is complained of as a grievance young Children despised me See Lev. 19.32 2. As honour and respect among men is empty in it self so it is very inconstant and little to be leaned to For so Job sound it when very young Children withdrew their respect from him who had been reverenced by all Chap. 29.7 8 9 c. Greatness is but a lie Psal 62.9 And if men either hunt sinfully after respect or lean much to it they are in a dangerous Errour For it is but one of the passing shews of the world 3. Young ones are very apt to follow the ill example they see For when elder persons within and without doors had sleighted Job it is added Yea young Children despised me For this cause young Children were torn by Bears for mocking the Prophet as they had learned to do from their Parents and others in Bethel that nest of Idolatry 2 King 2.23 24. Therefore Parents had need to see to their Children what example they give or suffer to be given them 4. The looking to Instruments imployed in a tryal adds oft-times to the bitterness of it For so Job resents here that yea or even young Children despised him So Chap. 30.12 c. Psal 35.15 16. 69.12 But we must stoop and consider that the imploying of such Instruments is a part of our tryal wherein we should look to God and that those irritations of our corruptions are the touchstone of our humility Neither is it enough to have somewhat to say against the Instruments of our trouble if we mind not the Soveraign hand of God in it nor learn the lessons he teacheth thereby 5. Our endeavours or exercise of any power or authority we have will not ease but rather add to our tryal till God come and interpose For his arising and engaging to compesce them did not hinder them to speak against him but made their persisting to speak more bitter than if he had altogether sleighted them I arose saith he adding to the former that they despised him and yet they spake against me It is safe to sleight many such irritations and when ever we are called to use means for our own relief and they succeed not we ought to silence our own hearts with this that our tryal is not yet ended Vers 19. All my inward friends abhorred me and they whom I loved are turned against me The Fifth and last Branch of this complaint and instance is That his dearly beloved and bosom friends did abhor him as an hypocrite and not a godly man and did turn against him to weaken his hands and shake his confidence This part of his complaint is chiefly to be understood of his three Friends and in the last part of the verse he speaks of the person in the singular number This man whom I loved though the Verb be in the plural number they are turned against me An usual change of number in this language to be understood distributively that every one even to the least one whom he loved was so changed or thereby he would reflect particularly on Bildad who spake last that he among the rest was thus estranged Doct. 1. Though godly prudent men be friendly and civil to all with whom they converse yet they make distinction of friends and do admit but some only upon their secrets and counsels As here Job beside those v 13 14. had his inward friends or men of his secret as it is in the Original There is no small need of Gods guiding in our choice of friends whom we may trust from among all our familiars 2. Intimate and bosom friendship must be entertertained by love For his inward friends were they whom he loved to whom he expressed much affection at all times for entertaining of his friendship and whom he constructed well of so long as he could See Prov. 18.24 Where friendship is ill entertained it justly ends in division and alienation 3. Dearest and most intimate friends may forsake a godly man when God hath him to try and though some friend stick closer then a brother Prov. 18. 24. Yet even such a friend may fail in a time of tryal as Job here found Some of the godlies bosom-friends may be but gilded Hypocrites who will discover what they are in a tryal Psal 41.9 55.12 13 14. Others though godly may be alienated upon
Baal 1 King 18.40 But these are not to be imitated and we are to take heed to wild-fire instead of true zeal And particularly well managed and sober zeal hath those properties which may be gathered from the Text. 1. It will nor drive men rashly and in an headlong way to engage in quarrels and debates which they can avoid For he waited long to see if these mistakes might be cleared and rectified without him This rule is transgressed by all who do precipitantly rush and engage in debates and particularly by private men when they do needlesly engage in Controversies and Church quarrels which lye out of their way See Prov. 26 17 2. Right and sober zeal proceeds according to knowledge see Rom. 10.2 and will not pass judgement upon any thing but after a fair hearing and serious tryal of the matter For before his anger was kindled and brake forth he had waited and heard them patiently that he might take up the business well as he professeth v. 11. See Prov. 13.10 and 18.13 This is little observed by an any whose wit is all in their fore-head and their heart at their mouth And therefore they rush upon courses before they ponder them they are beguiled with fair masks and pretences and they look not to the consequences of courses before they do engage in them 3. True and sober zeal will never lead men to seek themselves but makes them content that a good turn be done though they be not seen in it For he waited upon them as minding if the matter were otherwise cleared not to appear Hence it may be concluded That boasters of themselves and extollers of themselves do reflect upon their own zeal as not found 4. True zeal teacheth men to reverence those with whom they have to do for their age parts and experience For he waited and heard them patiently and reverently because they were elder than he Of this afterward Only it argues passion and not zeal when men leave the defence of their cause to reflect upon persons and do behave themselves unsoberly toward them Doct. 2. Though true zeal ought to be managed with sobriety as hath been said yet it is no evidence of sobriety or of a right temper of zeal for men not to see the errours that are in the best of men and not to defend truth were it even against never so many godly men For Elihu marks errours in Job and here also and v. 3. in his three Friends and argues against them all 3. It is also no kindly mark of zeal for men to be furious at a fit and then to cool if they be not taken at first but true zeal is constant in its heat and fervour For here after all his long waiting his wrath is kindled 4. Men and even good men may have that opinion of themselves and their way which differs very farr from truth For v. 1. they judged they had said enough and that Job was obstinate and yet Elihu finds there was no answer in their mouth as hath been fully cleared v. 3. 5. They are justly censurable in the judgement of all zealous men who deserts cause of God and either in a neutral way or otherwise lye by from defending it For this kindles his wrath that they had no answer to Job especially on Gods behalf Verse 6. And Elihu the Son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said I am young and ye are very old wherefore I was afraid and durst not shew you mine opinion 7. I said Dayes should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdome The rest of this Chapter contains Elihu's general Preface directed to both parties but chiefly to Jobs three Friends And he insists the longer in Prefacing Partly because he was a young man in which case it was necessary to clear that he appeared not in this cause out of any arrogance or impudence but meerly out of love to truth and to plead that it was equitable they should lay aside all extrinsick advantages of age experience wit c. which they had on their side in this debate and that none of these should pre-judge his cause but let naked truth carry it Partly that he might here once for all condemn and lay by the three Friends with whom he deals no more after this Preface but leaves them to see the errour of their proceeding by taking notice of that right way which he followed whereby also he might insinuate into Jobs affection and invite him to hearken more patiently to what he was to say seeing he did not take part with his Friends against him In these Verses we have the first branch of this Preface wherein he gâ—â—â— a reason why he had kept silence so long and had not interposed sooner to end this difference Namely That the conscience of his own youth and his respect to their age and opinion of their wisdome made him afraid to speak in so grave an audience upon such a subject v. 6. As reckoning and judging within himself for so this phrase I said is to be understood here as Gen. 20.11 where it is said and not thought in the Original that it became such aged men and they were only fit to speak to such a matter seeing their long experience should teach them more wisdome which they might communicate to others v 7. In general Learn 1. Albeit zeal should be managed with sobriety yet that zeal is not approved which burns only in mens breasts against an evil course or errour unless it break forth also as need requires in their station For he whose wrath was kindled v. 2 3 5. now answered and said c. and spake when he was called to it Not as many who dislike evil courses if men may trust their professions and discourses and yet they never appear to do any thing against them in their stations 2. Zeal in defending of a good cause may yet suffer prejudices in mens opinions by reason of disadvantages in the person who manageth it As here his youth might readily cause them mistake his zeal and frequently we find many ready to except against and reflect upon the persons of men that thereby they may render their cause suspicious And therefore men who would find out truth had need to try a cause impartially abstracting from the consideration of persons who manage it 3. Albeit real disadvantages in mens persons do not warrant them to desert a good cause yet they should teach them to manage it with soberness and fear As here Elihu doth considering his youth wherein he is imitated but by very few young men who have any thing of zeal and honesty in them In particular Learn 1. Youth considered in it self is attended with many weaknesses For so doth Elihu grant That his youth gave him cause to fear lâ—st he run into mistakâ—s in speaking of so weighty and grave matters and that their age gave them many advantages which he wanted Who so will consider the heat of young
appear for his people and then they are confounded For so doth the connexion in port The poor hath hope and then iniquity stoppeth her mouth Wo is to them who must needs mourn when the godly are encouraged 8. It is a judgment upon wicked oppressours of tne godly poor that as they are insolent when at their hâ—ight So when God appeareth against them they may well be convinced and confounded but are rarely converted thereby For this ordinarily is all that followeth Iniquity stoppeth her mouth Whereas it should open its mouth to take shame unto it self and to glorifie God Vers 17. Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty Foâ—loweth to v. 27. the second branch of Eliphaz's Exhortation and Counsel which is pressed by divers motives and encouragements It is in effect a farther Explication of that committing of his cause to God which he had mentioned ver 8. and doth now insist upon as a necessary fruit of repententance under the name of Patience under the Rod or not despising of Gods chastening In all which we will find very sweet General Doctrine if he had not rendred it unsavoury by his rash censure of Job and had not given Job cause to suspect that he had judged that none were patient to whom the following promises were not visibly performed In thâ—s verse we have his counsel unto patience propounded negatively by disswading him from that insolent sleighting of the hand of God whereof he sâ—spected him guilty Unto which beside the Arguments couched in the very counsel that his affliction will prove but a chastisement if he improve it well and being the chastening of the Almighty it ought to be well improved the first express Argument is premâ—tted That there is mercy and happiness in being corrected Namely if it be improved as a correction and patiently borne as the connexion imports From the Exhortation and Motives insinuated therein Learn 1. Afflictâ—ons are sent upon men to reprove and convince of sin and to argue men out of their starting holes and defences which the word cannot perswade them to abandon And never to leave binding of them till they be instructed and rectified in their duty For so much do the words here expressing affliction import which are correction or a reproving and arguing and chastening or an instâ—uction a binding instruction and consequently a rectifying This should teach us to let this messenger have its errand otherwise we will protract our own trouble and disquiet 2. That affliction may work its work and we may get a good account of it it is requisite it be submitted unto with patience For without that we are not in a right frame to improve afflictions far less are we ripe to be delivered from them And though we think our case will be forgoâ—ten if we do not still bitterly resent it yet the patient and meek will find their case left on God Psal 76.8 9 147.6 149.4 Isa 29.19 Therefore is patience here pressed as that which must be the first fruit of trouble before it produce any other good fruit See Rom. 5.3 4. Jam. 1.3 4. 3. It is not a contemplation of patience when trouble is at distance which God approveth But it is required that patience appear when trouble is lying on For now it is required that he despise not the chastening See Prov. 24.10 4. It is not easie to light upon the right and patient way of bearing afflictions there being so many ways of miscarrying by impatience So much may gathered by comparing this place with Prov. 3.11 Heb. 12.5 when wearying or fainting are forbidden as well as this despising We may conceive the matter in this order 1. There is a light esteeming of affliction as that wherewith we will not be troubled nor driven off our course thereby and to the Original word Heb. 12.5 signifieth to care little for trouble See Isa 9.9 10. Hos 7.9 10. Thus men receive not correction Zeph. 3.2 when they will neither quit any sinful pleasure nor seek God notwithstanding they are corrected And this is the first degree of despising 2 If afflictions touch us so neer that we cannot get them â—hakâ—n off but must be molested and disquieted thereby then there is a rejecting and raging at them with bitterness and proud murmuration that God should so deal with us so Jer. 31.18 This is it which is imported in the Original word here and Prov. 3.11 Namely to be unwilling to lie under and to spurn at the rod and this Eliphaz suspected Job to be guilty of in his complaints 3. Though trouble fit upon us till it lay these tempests of humours which it hath raised yet with out the grace of God it will be so far from working true humility that we will only run to another extremity and in stead of despising turn faint and weary All which should teach us what need there is of depending on God for the right use of and a right behaviour under trouble For it is a gift to bear and suffer aright Phil. 1 29. And that we ought not to please our selves with every thing that looks like exercise under trouble For there may be much of that when turning to God is yet to begin Jer. 31.18 Doct. 5. It may be a motive to perswade us to walk patiently and fruitfully under trouble if we consider the saddest strokes speak not our case desperate if we will improve them and not slay our selves by revolting and rebellion when we are smitten For albeit Eliphaz in his Dispute conclude Job a wicked man and hypocrite and so smitten in wrath Chap. 4.9 Yet he allows him to look on all his afflictions as no other then fatherly corrections and chastenings if he will improve and not despise them No stroke speaks irremediable displeasure yea some may speak tender love Rev. 3.19 unless our miscarriage under it speak the incorrigibleness of our hearts 6. As God is the Author of all afflictions so a right sight of him may contribute not a little to perswade us to patient stooping under his hand Therefore is he represented to Job as the Almighty or Alsufficient to perswade him not to despise tne chastening For God being the Almighty is too strong a party for man to contend with by resisting and striving against the rod And being Alsufficient the patient stooper may look to him who can easily make up all wants As high thoughts of God are always seasonable Gen. 14.18 19 20 22. so especially undeâ— trouble to keep our hearts in aw of him and being humbe to encourage us in him From the express Argument premitted Learn 1. Right discerners will not look so much to their case in it self as whether there be a blessing in it And they will not dislike any thing that may consist with or promote their true happiness For Eliphaz judgeth it an argument to press patient enduring of trouble that we may be happy in it
only do they in so doing bear testimony for God and his Truth in that particular but they retain that which will be a strong Bulwark against many other assaults which Job expresseth well Chap. 10 15. If I be wicked wo were unto me For further clearing of this Point It may be enquired 1. What course shall we take to be clear off the truth of our integrity and righteousness when it is cryed down by men and sad dispensations seem to condemn us Answ In Job's case where the only thing in question was his Piety the matter may be cleared by these many Characters of true godliness recorded in the Word But for more general satisfaction in all cases those rules would be observed 1. Men may be righteous as to the state of their persons being justified by faith when yet some of their actions may be faulty Every thing that we ought to mourn for as a sin doth not alter the state of our persons but our feet may need to be washed when our body is already clean Joh. 13.9 10. This consideration may contribute to solve many doubts arising upon the sense of guilt and if well improved will advance and not hinder our repentance 2. Men ought to beware of turning such Scepticks as to question whether there be righteousness and unrighteousness a right and a wrong in the courses of men in the world or to be so unsettled as to quit and abandon every course as wrong which is crossed and borne down No dispensation of Providence condemneth any thing as sinful which the word accounts integrity It is a woful way of being above Scriptures when Providences thrust the Bible out of our hands and do hinder us to go to the Law and the Testimony thereby to judge of our own and others cause and way 3. Men may be heinously guilty of many sins before the Lord and because of them justly punished by him immediately or mediately And yet may be innocent as to the instruments afflicting them and as to the cause of their tryal by men David when he is lying in the dust before God because of his folly and sins of his youth yet croweth over Saul as an innocent man in the matter of his tryal and suffering And when God sent Judah into captivity yet he pleads their cause against the Chaldeans Thus the Church distinguisheth betwixt her case before God and before men in her suffering Mic. 7.9 and we ought not to confound them 4. Men may be righteous both before God and men in the main point of their tryal and yet may sin in many accessories and in the way of managing that which is right As here in this case Job bears all the strokes and God pleads more against his carriage then the carriage of his Friends and yet the issue of all is Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right as my servant Job hath Chap. 42.8 It may be enquired 2. How they who under sufferings have a testimony of their integrity in any of the forementioned respects shall improve it or adhere to it in a right and acceptable way Answ Here Job's errour who managed a good cause sinfully may give us warning that we are apt to miscarry in this And therefore these rules are to be observed 1. Men are then right and do in a right way adhere to their integrity when they are so fixed as they are ready to suffer and abide a storm for their adherence thereunto It is a dangerous case when men are confirmed in their way meerly because it prospereth in their hand for what will they do when that Argument fails them or when let a cause be never so just men cannot suffer any thing for it And when I speak of suffering I do not only mean that men in a righteous cause do act in their stations amidst many hazards or do resolve to endure trouble from implacable men who bring them at under But that they do not accept deliverance albeit it were offered upon their forsaking what is right Heb. 11.35 2. Right maintainers of their integrity ought to be no less tender and zealous for it when sin would assault it within and so wound the Conscience then when tryals and outward dispensations would decry it 3. In this case also the Conscience of our integrity ought not to imbitter our spirits against God who exerciseth and afflicteth us which was Jobs fault Chap. 40 8. For albeit the Conscience of uprightness may help a man to courage and confidence in trouble yet we ought to be humble before God making as good use of cross dispensations as if we were unrighteous and mourning for any thing that God may have to say against us And this seems to have been Job's way at sometimes Chap. 9.15 10.15 though his passion did at other times ouer-drive him 4. Is there iniquity in my tongue c ver 30 The sum whereof is They ought to hear him for he will speak right things and if it were otherwise his judgment and experience would â—s easily discern it as his taste doth discern meat and having a tender Conscience he would abominate any unsound Principles as his taste would disrelish unsavoury meats In this matter he is so confident that he believes themselves are perswaded of it and therefore propounds it by way of question posing them if they judged otherwise of him And yet he did mistake himself for in some respects there was iniquity or sin at best in his tongue nor did his taste discern the perversity or sinfulness that was in his passionate desire of death upon which he insists so much in the next Chapter Hence Learn 1. It is duty of godly men and their property when in a right frame that their Consciences are very tender touch-stones of their Principles and way either to prevent their engaging in an evil way or to cause them relent it if they be engaged For so is here supposed that there should not be iniquity in their tongue and that their taste should discern perverse things Thus Joseph's Conscience broke the snares laid by his Mistriss Gen. 39 9. Thus David's reins did instruct him Psal 16.7 and his heart smote him when he had faln in an appearance of evil 1 Sam. 24 5. Hence it is a challenge that men are not ashamed when they do evil Jer. 6 15. This may give a check to men who bear down this light in themselves the doing whereof may soon lead them to do evils which even Pagans would be ashamed of Ezek. 16.27 2. Whatever be the duty of Gods people or their practice at sometimes in this particular Yet there may be great hazard in the best of men their leaning to their own discerning and spirits For Job missed his mark here in venturing too much on this Our own light spirits or impulses are dangerous guides seeing we have the Word wherewith we may consult in every thing and not only are all men lyars but many
Mens getting much of their will in their own lots makes them prove untender to those who are afflicted of which see v. 5. which oft-times provokes God to send troubles upon themselves 2. It may be the lot of a child of God to be hardly dealt with by many others who are also no less deer to God then himself and who are speeding at his hand in Prayer This is indeed a sad tryal yet it must be endured when it is our lot 3. Whatever mens carriage be yet their piety and access to God and the answers they receive from him should make them tender toward others and it is their fault when it is not so Men calling on God and answered by him should not be mockers of their neighbour But I incline rather to understand this of Job who was mocked and yet was truly godly and that because of the general assertion that followeth in this verse The just upright man is laughed to scorn And if any object that Job would hardly assert that God answered him when he called upon him seeing he elsewhere regrets that God did not answer him see Chap. 30.20 The answer is easie That his sense did indeed suggest that God did not hear him and when his Friends did let him alone or when he is engaged in his complaints he regrets that it was so But now their opposition drove him to his Thrift to assert it by faith whatever his sense suggested to the contrary And so the people of God are oft-times put to it by great extremities to quit their complaints and to learn to speak the language of faith unless they will resolve presently to sink and succumb under their burden It Teacheth 1. A godly man meeting with opposition from others should not therefore quit his integrity nor give over Prayer but should rather essay it to see what speed he may come that way For Job when he is mocked of his neighbour calleth upon God See Psal 109.4 2. Godly men will not lose their labour in seeking of God neither will God reject all those whom even godly men scorn nor should godly men doubt of Gods acceptance though men mock and scorn them For though he was mocked of his neighbour Yet his faith concludes that when he calleth upon God he answereth him See Chap. 13.16 16.20 3. Eminency in Piety will not hold off tryals not only tryals from the prophane as 2 Sam. 6.16 20. but even from godly men For Job is mocked by his godly Friends though thus favoured of God as to be drawn to call upon him and be answered by him Men must look upon Piety not as a shelter to keep off any tryal but rather as fitting them to bear tryal 4. Though men be answered by God and get his approbation yet it is a sharp tryal to them when they are mocked by men As Job here regrets It is not only a dangerous sin in those who thus wrong them and do mock and would shame their counsel Psal 14.6 But it gives them a sore wound who though they hold fast their confidence may be easily disturbed in their spirits and who do not love to live in the heat of such distempers and irritations Thirdly He sums up what he hath said of this own case in a general assertion The just upright man is laughed to scorn or mocked for it is the same word with that in the beginning of the verse Where from his own experience he contradicts their assertion concerning the prosperity of the godly Chap. 11.13 14 15 c. And proves that a godly man may be in trouble It teacheth 1. Faith will stand without a visible supporter and a mans hold by faith though God will not let it want a battel and exercise is enough against all the world For Job confidently refutes them from his own experience and by the testimony of his own integrity concluding from what he knew himself was and what he suffered though there were no other evidence that the just upright man might be laughed to scorn and consequently might suffer other things also 2. Particular debates are best cleared when they are drawn to general heads and assertions As Job draws what he had said of his own ill usage and piety into a general Proposition that an upright man is mocked Otherwise we may be so bemisted through passion or interests as to condemn that in particular cases which we would approve if looked upon abstractly and in general or contrariwise would approve that in the one case which we would condemn in the other 3. Such as would approve themselves as honest notwithstanding their afflictions ought to be just by imputed righteousness and upright in their conversation or any righteous or just course they undertake they should follow it sincerely and uprightly without by-ends or hypocrisie So much may be gathered from this character a just upright man 4. Proud insolency in debates is disapproved of God and is the evidence of an ill cause As here he checks them for it as an evidence they were wrong that they laughed him to scorn Vers 5. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease In this verse Job prosecutes the challenge of inhumanity and the general assertion in the end of the former verse And illustrates the whole matter from a similitude taken from the snuff of a Lamp The meaning whereof is as if Job had said However I shined brightly like a burning Lamp in any prosperity Yet now being in trouble and like to sink under it and you being so much at ease that I appear useless ye despise me like the snuffe of a Lamp when it is a dying or extinguishing which is so unprofitable and hath so noisome a smell that it cannot be endured but must be trod upon By this also he contradicts Zophar who spake of the bright and shining condition of all the godly Chap. 11.17 Hence Learn 1. Godly men may not only be under present sad afflictions but under tentations of further and worse to come upon them even ready as they think to slip with their feet Either to slip by siâ—ning as Psal 73 2.â—0 to sink through discouragements under affliction or to be really crushed and cut off by trouble Psal 38.16 17. 2. God may keep his people and support them that they fall not even when they are ready to slip â—or perswaded to their sense that they will fall And so as it were bear them up by a very thread For thus did he support Job who in his own eyes was ready to slip 3. When a child of God is in this great hazard he ought yet to be prepared for further tryal As here Job tells that in this sad plight he was as a Lamp despiâ—ed and loaded with contempt and ignominy 4. Friendship is oft times changâ—able And few friends do give proof that they are born for adversity For Job formerly a shining Lamp
They grope in the dark without light and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man The last proof and instance of the Assertion is Gods taking away of wisdom from the chief persons in Nations or from their Heads or Rulers Numb 1.16 Judg. 11.8 upon which followeth perplexity and irresolution like the case of men who have lost their way in a Wilderness or like those who must grope in the dark wanting light or like drunken men who stagger hither and thither See Psal 107.4 27 Isai 59.10 This is again repeated and inculcated beside what is already said of Rules Not only because great men will not readily believe this certain Truth but will trust to their own understandings but to shew that the ruine of Nations formerly mentioned comâ— ordinarily to pass through the infatuation of their Rulers Whence Learn 1. Plagues and ruine come upon Nations as by other means so particularly by Gods Plagues upon their Rulers giving them up to misgovernment as the dependance of this upon the former verses teacheth See Eccl. 10.16 17. This informs people that they are not a little concerned in the matter of their Rulers but ought to hold them up to God as those that will prove means and occasions of much good or evil to them 2. A special stroke upon Rulers and a mean of peoples ruine is their want of wisdom and counsel without which the people perish Prov. 11.14 For such is the stroke here he taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the Earth Where by heart we are not only or so much to understand magnanimity as wisdom as the following discourse makes clear 3. Let men have never so much wit and never so much of the spirit of their calling Yet it is in Gods power to deprive them of it when he pleaseth For He taketh away the heart c. See Isai 19.13.14 4. When God deserts men and blasts their wit they will prove wonderful silly and will be filled with perplexities uncertain of their way void of light and counsel and staggering and irresolute So much do all these three similitudes of wanderers in a Wilderness gropers in the dark and drunken staggerers teach See Isai 51.20 Those considerations do warn men That they lean not to their wit That they suffer not their wit and policy to drive them out of Gods way lest that draw on perplexities That they do not abuse nor sleight divine light lest they miss it and feel the want of it in a day of perplexity And That they be sober-spirited lest they get drunkenness and reeling of their judgments to the full for their plague CHAP. XIII In this Chapter Job goeth on with his Replie wherein as was marked in the entry to Chap. 12. he first makes use of his former Doctrine Chap. 12 13 c. to shew his knowledge and what cause he had to decline them to ver 13. 2. He quits them and addresses himself to complaine to God ver 13-20 3. He enters upon his complaint ver 21-28 But I shall follow it in this order 1. He concludes his former discourse clearing himselfe from the imputation of ignorance ver 1.2 2. He appeals from them to God or quits them and betakes himself to God to have his cause debated which he avowes to be his desire ver 3. and gives reasons for it Some whereof are taken from their carriage in the debate with him Namely That they were ignorant erroneous and unskilful in their dealing with him ver 4. and so had to better purpose held their peace ver 5. And That which he wisheth they would remark ver 6. they were sinfully partial in their discourses upon the matter debated betwixt God and him ver 7.8 Which was nothing else but a mocking of God as they might feel to their hurt ver 9. For God would certainly reprove them for their partiality ver 10. And as God was too excellent to be thus injured by them so they were too weak a partie to endure the just displeasure of so excellent a Lord ver 11.12 Other Reasons are taken from the thing it self or from the lawfullness of debating his cause with God For he professeth that if they would let him alone he will plead his cause with God at his peril ver 13. Seeing this his attempt flowed not from despair ver 14 but from grounds of confidence and the conscience of his integrity befall him what will ver 15. being assured that God will be his salvation which is far from the condition of the hypocrite ver 16. and therefore he desires they would let him speak being confident that God would approve of him ver 17.18 And as he is confident of his cause So his greife would crush him if he got not ease by speaking ver 19. 3. Having thus pleaded in defence of his resolution he enters upon his complaint and debating of the matter with God And having premitted a caution concerning what he desires of God previous to the debate ver 20 21 22. He expostulates that God should deal so sharply with him an innocent and righteous man ver 23.24 and should thus crush a weak creature ver 25 as he pursued him ver 26.27 till he was unable to subsist under his hand ver 28. Vers 1. Lo mine eye hath seen all this mine ear hath heard and understood it 2. What ye know the same do I know also I am not inferiour unto you IN these verses Job draws a conclusion from his former discourse concerning Gods Power and Wisdom whereby he vindicates himself from the imputation of ignorance whâ—ch had been cast upon him Chap. 11.6 12. He declares that he had been a diligent student of Gods ways not limiting him to one way of dealing as they did by observation and hearing and a digester of what was presented to him in his understanding by meditation and that he was not inferiour to them in knowledge that is in those things which they spoke of God their skill was not singular as themselves judged Otherwise by this comparison bewixt himself and them he doth not own all they said for sound knowledge but only what they spake concerning the Power and Wisdom of God Of this last see Chap. 12.3 In General Obs 1. How digested and well rooted Job is in what he hath formerly spoken having observed and meditated upon it and having them concurring with him in it which might witness that it was not his singular phancy It were good if men were thus careful to be sure of their Opinions before they brought them forth to inculcate them upon others Obs 2. He prefixeth a Lo or Behold to this conclusion and inference that they might notice how far they had mistaken him and be ashamed of their rash judgment It is mens duty to be well advised and examine matters well before they condemn any For rash judgment proves ordinarily false and reflects upon the Judger rather than upon thoe who are judged by
him More particularly Learn 1. Men that would attain to sound and approved knowledg ought to be very accurate observers of Gods works and ways of Providence Isa 5.12 Psal 28.5 Such was Job's practice here mine eye hath seen or observed all this or all these works of Providence formerly recorded He hath a treasury of those Observations This was the practice of the godly especially before the Word was written and much more ought we to study those and profit by them now when we have the written Word by which we may read them One eye upon Providences without us and another upon our heart and condition within will make wise men if we look upon them through the Perspective of the Scriptures 2. Approved Students of Gods works will not grow proud of their own Observations but knowing how short their time is and how much they may be blinded in present things and times they will take the help of others either in their Discourses or Writings to better their knowledge For Job not only saw this but he took help of hearing mine ear hath heard whosoever know any thing as they ought to know it they will be far from conceit of their own knowledge or from neglecting means whereby they may be helped to make proficiency 3. Such as are right Students of those excellent things will not content themselves with bare observation and hearing of them as many go no further but will be careful to digest them in their understandings and to ponder them that so they may become practicable and be solidly rooted in their hearts For Job also understood it Notional men who have some Thoughts of Divine Truths only fleeting in their brain are upon the matter but fools 4. The example of others should stir up men to know God and his works and not to come behind with any in those necessary things For saith Job What ye know the same do I know also as being excited by what they spake on this subject to give proof that he had known the same things also 5. This comparison betwixt him and them beside what is already marked Chap. 12.3 That it is necessary to vindicate and commend our selves not out of contention or from any contempt of others but when Truth and a good cause suffers through our sides may Teach That it is needful to see what God hath done to us or in us even for our own comfort when others would decry us it being very comfortable when we find our selves to be in a better condition then others judge us to be As Job finds it was with him when they undervalued him as an ignorant Vers 3. Surely I would speak to the Almighty and I desire to reason with God Followeth to v. 20. Job's appealing from them and his betaking himself to debate his cause with God which here he propounds as his professed desire yea and delight to set about it Zophar Chap. 11.5 6. had wished that God would take him in hand and then he was sure Job would be made to see his own ignorance of the Wisdom and Power of God and God would condemn him and pass sentence against him in his cause Now Job as formerly he hath declared and proved that he is not so ignorant as they took him to be So here he declines not Zophar's overture but doth himself also wish and desire to reason his cause with God as not fearing to compeer before him as a Father in Christ according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace He saith he desires or as it is in the Original it would be his delight to reason with God whereby he not only signifieth his eagerness to be at it but implyeth also that there were disadvantages and discouragements in his way such as sharp rods humbling desertions and apprehensions of Gods terrour which he would gladly have removed out of the way that he might deal with more freedom and boldness in defence of his cause And so his meaning in desiring to reason with God will be that he would gladly set about it if he durst And albeit afterward he both resolves v. 13. and actually enters upon the debate v 23 c. upon all hazards Yet he still retains the sense of those disadvantages and his desire to have them taken away that he might go about it more confidently v. 20 21 22. What faults were in Job's actual reasoning with God will come to be considered in their own place Only while he desires to reason or argue with God we are not to conceive that he resolves to plead his own sinlesness Or to accuse God or to justifie his own boisterous fits in debating with God But only humbly to maintain that he is righteous notwithstanding his afflictions which was a true and just plea though his passion did over-drive him in the prosecution thereof And in this he is not to be justified It Teacheth 1. Men should debate Controversies as in the sight of God and not dare to maintain that before men which they dare not avow in the presence of God For Job dare speak that to the Almighty which he hath spoken before them When men forget thus to mind God their Parts Interest and Reputation may bear them out and not only make them stiffe in their own way but afford them much to say for themselves which yet would be found empty and vain before God 2. Albeit Honesty and a good Cause may be borne down and so traduced as if it were but lies and mens humours that it will get no entainment in the world Yet it is enough if God approve of it And men should satisfie themselves with that not being discouraged that they are left upon God alone for hâ—s approbation For notwithstanding all the mistakes of his Friends Job is satisfied that he may reason with God and hopes for his approbation It is good that men be sometime thus mistaken in the world that they may try how matters stand betwixt God and them how they will be satisfied with divine approbation when other testimonies are denyed them and how they have taken with former applause in the world And this is needful to be well adverted unto for those who are much affected with applause in a right way may readily take a wrong course to retain it or to recover it if it be lost 3. Mâ—intainers of a good Cause may not only be deserted by all and lâ—ft on God but in coming to him for his approbation they may have sad discouragements desertions tentations afflictions c. to weaken their hands though they be right in their cause For so Job can but desire to reason with God if he durst as hath been explained See Job 19.5 6. 23.3 10. Psal 80.4 The right cause must go against all winds and tides and the maintainers thereof must be throughly tryed Their desertions tentations discouragements and cross lots ought not to be misconstructed as if thereby God intended to condemn them 4.
the godly from envying of them and make them be content with their own lot 6. It is an evidence of wickedness or at best of a wicked and evil disposition when the common tryals and exercises of mankind become intolerably bitter and are not digested because they are common So the oppressour is wicked in that it vâ—xeth him that the number of years is hid from him although it be so with all mankind 1 Cor. 10.13 7. It is also an evil evidence in men when their end or death is looked on as an Enemy and when they dare not seriously think on it or how much time they have spent and how near they are to death by the course of nature as being never ready nor willing to die Thus both the Interpetations of the last part of the verse agree in one That it evidenceth his wickedness that he is vexed because his days are hidden and determined by God so that he can neither avoid death nor knoweth when it shall surprize him and that he is so vexed with this as it makes him hide all thoughts of death from himself It is true the godly may have their own vexations and fears about death and so it is not simply true that to fear death is the evidence of a wicked man Yet the difference betwixt the godly and wicked in this is very clear For partly the godly's fear is of another nature then that of the wicked is The godly desire to die if they were reconciled to God whereas the wicked seek not Gods favour and so love not death on any terms except despair drive them upon that hopeless remedy or a satiety of time or want of strength to prosecute the delights of it make them weary thereof Partly the fears of the godly are groundless as the wickeds are not but their tentations and fears and apprehensions are real plagues upon them And if godly men in their fits of security or distemper have any other fears of death in any thing like unto the wicked they ought to labour to be rid of them as no evidence of their Piety nor of their good frame for that time 8 It is also an evidence of an evil disposition when it vexeth men and imbitters their lives unto them that they are left in all conditions upon Gods hands and Providence as here it is a vexatiâ—n to the wicked oppressour that his years are hid or determined by God as Chap. 14.5 This doth not at all please the wicked because they cannot trust God nor willingly submit to him whereas it is enough to the godly in greatest troubles that their times are in Gods hand Psal 31.13 and this should be their encouragement in all cases 9 Whatever sweetness men think they reap by wickedness and oppression Yet this is Wormwood in the midst of it and the Worm in the root thereof that it is but temporary and they know not how soon death may put a period to it For this is also implied that it is the wicked oppressours pain and vexation that the number of years is hid that death will put a period to his enjoyments and he knoweth not when it may steal upon him Vers 21. A dreadful sâ—und is in his ears in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him Followeth in this verse another branch of the wicked or oppressours misery and a special cause and part of his vexations pain to wit his perpetual terrour of Conscience every thing putting him in a fright as Cain was and his Conscience suggesting the dreadfulness and terrour of deserved vengeance as if the sound of its approach were daily â—inging in his ears As for that which is subjoyned in the end of the verse it may be understood thus with a reflection upon Job's case That the wicked man is not only surrounded with fears and terrours but God makes his fear prove real and sends unexpected ruine upon him when he is in the height of his prosperity as bâ—fel Job Whereas the godly are oft-times mercifully disappointed and are not made to feel what they fear This Interpretation though it hold out that which oft-times though not universally proves true yet it agrees better with the scope here where he is speaking especially of the wickeds inward vexation to understand it as as a further amplification of that terrour upon the wicked mentioned in the former part of the verse That his terrour is so great that notwithstanding his present prosperity he is still apprehending that destruction will come upon him in the midst of it From this verse according to the former Rules and Cautions Learn 1. The end of a wicked course and particularly of oppression is very terrible even that which is dreadful or the matter of many fears or terrours as the word is in the plural number in the Original and destruction and ruine from the hand of some destroyer So much are we here taught that the Consciences of many of them do sometime suggest this unto them Which should be well considered by themselves and by others also that they stumble not at their prosperity 2. This end of wicked men is not only dreadful when it cometh but the very apprehension thereof by a wakened Conscience is an Hell upon Earth For it is a dreadful sound or voice of terrours in the midst of prosperity and like the sight of an armed and cruel destroyer 3. Whatever be the temper and condition of particular wicked and impenitent men yet they have so little fence and security against this storm of terrour that when their Consciences are not alarmed with it it is an evidence they are dead and deluded For that a dreadful sound it in the ears of any of them it shews that this is the deserving of all and the nature of their condition tends to it and that they are but mad and stupid who continue impenitent in sin and yet are not at this exercise and that so much the more is owing them that they are forborne for the present And accordingly there is a standing sentence in the Law concerning this Levit. 26.36 Deut. 28.65 66 c. 4. Whatever be the exercises which God may send upon godly men for their correction humiliation and tryal and whatever may be their fits of fear through the power of tentation Yet distracting and tormenting fears and terrours are none of their allowance For it is the wickeds lot only to have a dreadful sound in his ears See Matth. 28.4 5. Psal 112.7 5. The prosperity of wicked men who do not repent nor seek to be at peace with God is neither a sufficient security against their fears nor against their actual destruction For so both the Interpretations of the latter part of the verse may agree in one In prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him As he will not always get his heart kept free of the fears of ruine seeing he hath no better fence then his outward prosperity and nothing of the Peace of God
will glory in it over all misconstructions from men For saith he by way of admiration and gloriation Behold my witness is in Heaven c. 7. Such as do rightly value this approbation of God will be careful also to feed much upon the thoughts of it as a soul-refreshing subject to be much considered meditated upon and tenderly cherished that it be not over-clouded especially when they are misconstructed in the world For these causes doth he twice mention it in divers terms My witness is in Heaven and my record on high 8. Such as do seek to have this testimony of God will be careful to entertain high thoughts of God that thereby they may be excited to sincerity that so they may not be deluded in boasting of it Therefore doth he mention this witness as being in heaven and on high or in high places not only to express how sufficient a witness he is but to shew what thoughts he had of him when he endevoured to approve himself unto him 9. Gods approving of sincere Saints will not make them insolent before him nor diminish their reverent and high thoughts of him Therefore also when he claims to this testimony doth he look on his witness as in Heaven and on high Vers 20. My friends scorn me but mine eye poureth out tears unto God The Third Argument confirming the Assertion and the former Arguments also is taken from his practice and carriage under trouble That however and even while they were scorning him yet he was humbly mourning to God and continued in that practice notwithstanding that discouragement As for their scorn we need not restrict it to what is said Chap. 15.4 where he is challenged for casting off of Prayer though he was very tender in going about that duty Nor need we search their discourses to find any express and palpable way of mocking him But the thing he points at in this is That with much Oratory and fine Expressions as the word also signifieth they set themselves to undervalue him and decry his integrity and piety and all the defences whereof he made use to justifie himself and they were so far from using him tendeâ—ly that they grated upon his sores and reflected upon his piercing afflictions as badges of his wickedness all which he looks upon as an insolent and scornful deportment Doct. 1. Scorn is a very sad tryal especially when it is added to other afflictions For Job resents it as such Thus David often complains of it Psal 35.21.40.15 70.3 and God looks upon it as persecution Heb. 11.36 Gen. 21.9 with Gal. 4.29 2. Saints under affliction must not expect to get through without contempt and scorn That this may be as it were the sharp point to carry in the dart of afflictions to wound the spirit and so their tryals may be complete For Job was here essayed with it See Psal 123.4 3. Men may be guilty of scorning the afflicted who yet seem to be very serious And all those are guilty of it who by prejudices and misconstructions weaken the hands of afflicted godly men and do sleight their afflictions and under-value them and their Piety because of their afflictions let them conveigh it under never so specious pretences and in never so fine and eloquent terms For Job finds scorn in their deportment toward him 4. Albeit scorn and contempt be a sharp tryal to godly men in affliction come from whom it will Yet it heightens the tryal when it comes from friends and godly friends who should be tender and compassionate to friends in affliction For it added to his tryal that his Friends scorn him or were his scorners 5. As afflicted Saints ought to be well exercised before God that they may be approved of him So this will aggravate their guilt who scorn them whom God approves For Job in his affliction was pouring out tears to God and this heightens their fault that they scorned him who was thus exercised See Ps 69.10 11. 6. Scorn and discouragements should not deter Saints from Prayer but rather to excite them to go about it For so is here implied that not only they did scorn him who was praying but he prayed on notwithstanding their scorn To do otherwise gives Satan great advantage 7. Men ought to be very tender in Prayer especially when afflictions and injuries are let loose to drive them to it For in this case Job did not only pray but his eye poured out tears or dropped unto God And albeit tears which are external evidence of tenderness are not always at command yet tenderness it self would not be wanting Thus David was so to say only Prayer in trouble as it is in the Original Psal 109 4. 8. To continue in Prayer and tenderness notwithstanding trouble scorn and discouragements is a sure evidence of honesty and will prove a sweet Cordial though others do not notice it For it is a proof of Job's honesty that when his Friends scorn him his eye poureth out tears to God and he comforts himself in this against all their scorn 9. A sincere and tender man persevering to seek God under all disadvantages may yet be suspended from comfort and from getting an answer For though Job was thus exercised yet his tryal went on Which teacheth us not to judge of supplicants or their supplications by their present success Vers 21. O that one might plead for a man with God as a man pleadeth for his neighbour Followeth the Third Part of the Chapter wherein Job prosecuteth his former desire and wish that he might plead his cause with God in this verse And presseth it from the consideration of his present condition being as he thought near unto death v 22. And though this desire be another Argument confirming his Assertion v. 17 taken from his confident undertaking if he could to plead his integrity before God himself and therefore it is joyned with the former Arguments by the copulative and which is expressed in the Original Yet I have taken it up as a new purpose and part of his discourse because it is so largely insisted on and prosecuted in the following Chapter As for his desire in this verse There is a difficulty how to understand his way of expressing it that one might plead for a man with God This some understand not of his pleading for himself because of that which followeth as a man pleadeth for his neighbour where the word pleading which is not in the Original is repeated from the former part of the verse but of the pleading of some other for Gods approbation to him in this debate And indeed it is a special work of Charity to help a distressed man in his Prayers and Desires to God But this Interpretation agrees not with Job's practice elsewhere where he desires to plead his cause himself Others do understand it of Christ the Intercessour and do read the end of the former verse and this whole verse by way of confident Assertion from the
failings in the by And this was a chief cause of Job's disappointment when he got his desire that though he was approved of as to the state of his person yet there was a necessity to humble him for his sinful miscarriages Doct. 5. Their form of proceeding in judgment here alluded unto may also teach us somewhat The Parties entering of security or pledges that they should stand to and perform what was determined May condemn them who make it their work to frustrate justice by drawing out of contentions even after sentences pronounced to an endless length and may teach Judges not only to determine well but to take care that there be effectual execution according to the sentence And their entering of this suretyship or concluding of bargains by striking hands one with another doth commend their plain and sincere ingenuity in that a bargain so closed would bind them whereas many ties and obligations will not bind many in this age Vers 4. For thou hast hid their heart from understanding therefore shalt thou not exalt them Followeth the Third Branch of this Part of the Chapter wherein Job fortifieth and presseth his desire to plead his cause with God or with some in his Name by a threefold reason The first is taken from the incompetency of his Friends to determine or Umpire in this business and therefore some other was needed Of this he gives two Evidences First in this verse that they were unfit and unable Agents for God as being deprived of light and understanding in the point debated and therefore they should not be exalted or should have no honour by appearing in this cause and particularly should not have the honour to prevail in the debate but when God should appear and determine in the cause he should pass sentence against them and they should want approbation and be ashamed Doct. 1. Even wise and eminently pious men may err and want light in many Truths and Controversies For so did Job Friends who were very godly men The best of men unless they be extraordinarily inspired by God should not arrogate to themselves a priviledge of being infallible or that they cannot be wrong but should be afraid of ignorance and errour as well as others 2. It is not to be looked on as an injury though men in defence of Light and Truth which is on their side do declare even good men who are opposite to them to be in the dark For Job sticks not nor looks upon it as an injury to assert that all those three godly men wanted understanding in this matter False Prophets did indeed take it ill to have delusion and errour charged upon them 1 Kings 22.23 24. But godly men should make another use of it and should rather try whether the charge be true 3. Men who would rightly judge of Gods strange dispensations toward his people should not content themselves with a superficial view thereof but ought to have hearts fraughted with solid understanding whereby they may penetrate so far as is lawful and attainable into those mysteries of his Providence For this doth Job deliderate in his Friends that they had not an heart of understanding See Psal 41.1 4. The knowledge of Truth or light in difficult Cases is of Gods giving or with-holding as he pleaseth For Thou hast hid their heart from understanding saith he to God See Deut 29.4 Psal 119.18 And as this calleth upon men to abide near God that they may get light as they need it from him So they who would not want light or be left in the dark or an errour should 1. Beware of living unfruitfully and contentiously under and against light Isai 6 9 10. Luk. 19.41 42 43. 2. They should beware of that great sin of not receiving the Truth in love when it is revealed 2 Thes 2 10 11 12. 3. They should beware of Interest engaging or bribing the Affections to blind the Judgment which is more dangerous then simple Ignorance and may be imported in this that their heart is hid from understanding 4. They should beware of Pride and conceit of their own Abilities or a proneness to be proud of any success they have in carrying on of their Opinions For this marred those Friends success in their dealing with Job as Elihu tells them Chap. 32.13 Doct. 5. As God and not mens own self-love is the Supreme and Impartial Judge of men and what they are So men may be really ignorant and looked on as such by God who yet do not believe it not will be convinced of it Therefore Job speaks this not to themselves but to God who is impartial in his Judgment and knew that what he said was true though themselves would not acknowledge it Thou saith he hast hid their heart c. 6. Exaltation Eminency and Advancement is of God only Psal 75.5 6 7. And as his Providence is to be adored therein so whoever attempt to exalt themselves against him or his Rods or by sinful ways he can abase them Daâ— 4.37 Mal. 1.4 Therefore he speaks of Exaltation as Gods works only 7. It is the knowledge and owning of Truth only that makes men precious and truly eminent For not to be exalted followeth upon hiding of their heart from understanding To call erroneous men precious men is a Soloecism in Scripture-dialect 8. When the Lord is to debase persons or parties ordinarily he makes use of themselves and their want of judgment to bring it about For so much also may be imported in the connexion betwixt these two that men want understanding when they are not be exalted Thus Princes and Counsellers turn fools when Kingdoms are to be ruined Isai 19.11 12 13. 9 It is a Truth which men may foretel without Prophesie that a wrong Cause or Errour will not always prevail nor be exalted in the end nor will the followers thereof have any honour by their undertaking For because they are wrong it followeth Therefore thou shalt not exalt them Vers 5. He speaketh flattery to his friends even the eyes of his children shall fail The meaning of the words in this verse is clear and obvious That who so flatter their Friends their posterity shall be disappointed of their hope and expectation But Job's scope in them is not so well agreed upon I do not think that Job subjoyns this by way of Apologie for his sharp language of his Friends v. 4. shewing that he durst not flatter them for fear of judgments Nor yet that his scope is to prevent an Objection of his Friends who might be ready to say that since he would not admit of their free censures as sound he desired to be slattered and therefore he refuseth that and disswades them from flattering him under the pain of judgments to come upon them and their Posterity But I take the words to contain a second Evidence of his Friends incompetency to determine in this business that as they were unfit v. 4. so they were unsound and unjust
time For thus also no man shall look for his goods as hath been explained Vers 22. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits every hand of the wicked shall come upon him Followeth to v. 29. The third part of this Narration Containing a further Amplification both of the downfal and subsequent miseries of a wicked man Wherein he is represented as a terrible delinquent pursued by God And having already spoken of the procuring cause of his fall and miseries he gives here a further account of the time and efficient cause of his ruine both instrumental v. 22. And principal v. 23. of the means of his ruine or weapons imployed against him to make him miserable v. 24 25 26. of the witnesses that shall be led against him in this process v. 27. of the effects of all v. 28. In this verse we have an account of the time of the wicked mans ruine and of the instruments imployed to bring it about Namely That when he is at the height of his prosperity and full and abounding in all things that are sufficient for a contented life then straits shall come upon him and that by the means of all the wicked or troublesome men as the word signifies that are about him who shall do to him as he did to others Here he hath another unjust reflection upon Job's case who was oppressed by the Sabeans and Caldeans when he was in a flourishing condition and his Children were feasting But the General Doctrine teacheth 1. Albeit wicked oppressours may for a time take elbow-room enough in the world yet when God reckons with them they will be pinched For then he is in straits or straitened And by this partly the Lord meets with their lawless dispositions and he straitens them who will not be hemmed in by his Law And partly he plagues them for their taking liberty and loosing the reins to themselves in prosperity by causing trouble pinch them sore 2. The height of the wickeds prosperity is so far from securing them that ordinarily ruine comes upon them when they are so exalted For in the fulness of his sufficiencie and when he abounds in all things and hath a full sufficiency of them he shall be in slâ—â—ites See Psal 92.5 6 7. Luke 12.19 20. 1 Thess 5 3. As in then most flourishing condition they are for most part in wants through the want of satisfaction and contentment Eccl. 5.10 So God in the time brings real wants and straits upon them and oft-times their stroke is but waiting for them till they be higher that the stroke may be sadder 3. Such as wickedly and unjustly oppress others God justly turns them ove unto as wicked hands who will shew them as little pity For as he oppressed the poor v 19. So every hand of the wicked â—â—â—â—els of those are about him and can reach him shall come upon him Thus the very wickedness of 〈◊〉 instruments of vengeance which prompts them to be cruel ought to be remarked Ezek. 7.21 22 â—3 24. Vers 23. When he is about to fill his belly God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him and shall rain it upon him while he is eating In this verse we have a more particular account of the time of the wicked mans ruine together with the principal Efficient Cause thereof Namely God who shall rain the fury of his anger or some effects of his hot displeasure upon the wicked man even when he is about to satisfie himself with his purchases and with what he wished for to make him happy Thus the words are to be understood not so much literally that while he is eating his meat his ruine comes as befel Job's Children and the People of Israel Numb 11.33 as according to the scope of the former Metaphor v. 12 13 14 15. that he shall be destroyed even when he is about to glut himself with these sweet morsels which he had acquired with so much labour and toil Doct. 1. Who ever be the Instruments of the wickeds ruine yet God is the Principal Cause of it who should be waited upon that he may bring it about in his due time and should be seen in it when it cometh to pass For God shall cast upon him c. And though the word God be not in the Original yet it is to be reputed from v. 15. And the expressions of fury of his wrath and raining it down upon the wicked do evince that it is his work 2. When God is a mans party all instruments that he shall be pleased to employ will also be against him For every hand of the wicked shall be against him v. 22. when God is pursuing him in the fury of his wrath .. 3. God can holily make use of wicked men and their wicked actions to scourge other wicked men As this verse compared with the former doth also teach See Isa 10 5. 4. God chooseth the time for plaguing of wicked men so as they may be most surprised and their plagues prove most bitter to them For he is plagued when he is about to fill his belly and is eating when he is at the height of his expectation and beginning to joy in it this cometh upon him He begins to eat and taste of sweetness but gets not leave to fill his belly 5. It is the great misery of the wicked that whatever plague come upon them it flows from wrath and the fury of wrath As here we are taught And it warns men not to judge of the greatness of a stroke by what it is in it self but by the measure of divine displeasure that is manifested in and by it 6. Wicked men may expect that the effects of Divine displeasure will not only come suddenly and unexpectedly upon them as a plump-shower in the fairest day and will fall upon them from heaven whence the ruine cometh when there is no appearance they can be reached by any upon earth but that they will be powred down abundantly upon them to compense all former delays and sparing them All this is imported in this that God will rain wrath upon him when he is about to fill his belly and is eating Vers 24. He shall flee from the iron weapon and the bow of steel shall strike him through 25. It is drawn and cometh out of the body yea the glistering sword cometh out of his gall terrours are upon him In these verses and the next that followeth this ruine of the wicked man is illustrated from the consideration of the means of it or the weapons employed to bring it about And in these verses he asserts 1. That though the wicked man flee one mean of ruine yet another shall reach him As a man fleeing the sword or the like Iron weapon which kils at a nearer distance is overtaken by an arrow shot out of a Bow of steel or of brass which they used to temper well in those days v. 24. 2. That as when a man is thus
wounded by an arrow at a distance his Enemy approacheth nearer and draweth out his Arrow and woundeth him again with his Sword So God shall never cease to pursue the wicked man by one mean or other till those weapons be drawn out of his very gall or leave him with a bitter and deadly wound v. 25. wherein he seems to allude to what Job had complained of Chap. 16.13 3. That being thus left in the pangs of death he shall be haunted and tormented with terrours v. 25. From this according to the General Rules Learn .. 1. As wicked men must be fought with and their stubbornness crushed before they will stoop to God So God is provided for them having deadly weapons and instruments of destruction at command For here are the Iron Weapon the bow of steel and the glistring sword wherewith God is provided to bring down stubborn man See Psal 7.11 12 13. 2. Though wicked men have the stoutness to resist when God pursueth and are more careful to avoid than to improve plagues yet all will be to no purpose for they cannot escape nor stand out under Gods hand For here it is assured that let them flee as they will they will be reached 3. Though wicked men escape one plague it is only because they are reserved for another and for a more sudden and unexpected stroke like an arrow coming out of a Bow at a distance For he shall flee from the Iron Weapon and the Bow of steel shall strike him through See Isa 24 17 18. 4. God will at last conquer and triumph over all the stubbornness of wicked men For it shall not be a sleight hurt but shall strike him through and he shall wound him as often as he pleaseth and draw his weapons out of his body 5. Since wicked men will not amend or turn to God under afflictions as the godly do God doth justly pursue them with deadly plagues For the wounds here given him are deadly 6. The strokes that come upon wicked men will prove bitter and terrible to them For the Sword cometh out of his very gall the seat of bitter humours and terrours are upon him It is no wonder the wicked man dies alwaies violently because he hath never will to die and he wants the peace of God which might secure his heart against the terrour of such sad dispensations Vers 26. All darkness shall be hid in his secret places a fire not blowen shall consume him it shall goe ill with him that is left in his tabernacle In this verse we have a further account of the means of the wickeds ruine wherein is declared 1. That when the wicked man it terrified and deadly wounded as hath been said in the former verses he will seek to all hiding places and refuges as a wounded and pursued man seeks to secret and obscure corners but in vain for darkness shall meet him there 2. That he shall be consumed by a fire not blown that is by plagues sent upon him suddenly and from God without the hand of any creature 3. That this ruine shall not only reach himself but his family Whence Learn 1. Wicked men will be known by the refuges to which they betake themselves when they are terrified or plagued For the wicked man hath his secret places 2. Terrour discouragement and want of peace will meet a pursued wicked man even in his hiding places and refuges For darkness is hid or reserved and laid up for him in his secret places 3. His dark and dâ—eery condition is not such in part only but wholly and altogether to him For it is all darkness or every kind of it without any light of counsel or direction of comfort for the present or hope of Issue for the future 4. God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.29 and will especially prove such to incorrigible wicked men For a fire cometh from him to consume them 5. God delights much to appear against wicked men by sending judgments upon them whereof their is no apppearance in the second causes For it is a fire not blown by men but such as was rained down upon Sodom and upon Job's cattle Chap. 1.16 Not that every plague upon wicked men comes so immediately from God as second causes have no hand in them For the contrary is asserted in the preceding and following verses But the meaning is that though there were no second causes which could reach them yet God would reckon with them And beside all these plagues wherein he makes use of second causes he is oft-times pleased to appear more immediately against them 6. Wicked men are causes of misery not only to themselves but to all that are theirs For it shall go ill with him that is left in his Tabernacle and then his stately habitation appears to be a Tabernacle only Vers 27. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him In this verse we have an account of the witnesses led in the process against this delinquent Not simple witnesses to depone and give their testimony only but means of his destruction also with those formerly mentioned or such witnesses as having given their testimony had their hands first upon the delinquent to execute the sentence to confirm the truth of their Testimony See Deut. 17.7 So the meaning of the verse is that Heaven and Earth and all the creatures in them shall conspire the wicked mans ruine thereby to convince him how wicked he is In this he doth reflect upon the various strokes from Heaven and Earth that had been inflicted upon Job's substance and family and upon Job's appeal to Heaven and Earth Chap. 16.17 18. but very unjustly seeing the word had not born witness against him However the General Doctrine teacheth 1. Iniquity will not be got hid so long as either men have Consciences which God can force to tell out what they are or so long as there are insensible creatures to be witnesses against the ungodly For the Heaven shall reveal his iniquity Sin will find men out Numb 32.23 And God hath oft-times by strange means found out notorious delinquents 2. God can imploy all the creatures to speak to a wicked man by plagues who otherwise will not notice what he is For thus they are witnesses to reveal his iniquity by rising up against him 3. All Gods Creatures are Enemies to wicked men and will prove so if they get a Commission from God for that effect For Heaven and Earth are ready to rise up against him if they be imployed Which sheweth that wicked men dwell among more Enemies than they are aware of Vers 28. The increase of his house shall depart and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath All the procedure against this delinquent is here summed up in the effects thereof Namely the ruine of his Children and Prosperity in that day of divine displeasure Whence Learn 1. When God pursueth wicked men the effects of it will be
a trade of sin procuring it 5. As the trade of sin is old so also are the instances of Gods judgments pursuing for it And as men make an habitual trade of sin so his judgments are also conspicuous For this is also the old way which wicked men have trodden even the judgments of the Lord which they have suffered for their sin Not that God as frequently plagues as they sin and so makes the one path to be trodden as oft as the other but that there are some instances of Gods judgments no less conspicuous than mens sins are notoure and open So that wicked men sinning after these instances of Gods manifested anger against sin do sin against that witness and do split upon rocks whereupon God hath set very conspicuous Beacons 6. As wicked mens courses do prove them to be men of iniquity and slaves to it so the fruit and issue thereof doth prove that they follow and labour for vanity therein For so the words will also read men of vanity Yea the name here given to men in the Original taken from death or Mortality doth point out That were there no other plague inflicted upon wicked men their very mortality demonstrats the folly of their course seeing all the imagined contentments they expect by sin serve at best but for this natural life and will flee away and serve in no stead to secure against death or comfort them in it 7. God propounds the example of wicked mens ways and the plagues following thereupon to be marked and observed by others for the information of their judgments concerning sinful courses and the fruites thereof and for exciting of them to look well to their own ways For this question Hast thou marked the old way c. Imports that it was Job's duty to mark these instances that thereby as he judged of him he might be helped to correct his opinions and practices See Psal 107.43 Hos 14.9 Luk. 13.1 2. c. God in his great indulgence will not always destroy all sinners by visible judgments For so he should soon destroy the whole world which yet he continues for wise ends particularly that he may gather his elect out of it But yet he seeth it meet to set up some sinners as Beacons to warn all the rest So that they are stupid and mad who do not observe and improve such examples and who looking upon the way of Gods judgments upon men do not reflect upon the way of their sin procuring these judgments that they may avoid it but do persist in sin against all such warnings or think themselves innocent because they are not smitten as others were or do look rather upon mens following of duty then their sins as the cause of their calamities as Jer. 44.16 17 18. 8. Men in the heat of present distempers and debates will readily be in the dark and be misled unless they make use of the light that somtime they have had oâ— the experiences they may find abstract from their present case to clear them Therefore he leads Job from the consideration of his own present case to mark the old way as a more effectual mean to clear his mistakes And it is indeed a General Truth however he erred in the particular 9. Godly men may be much be mistaken by others as if they did not read a right the strokes of God upon themselves oâ— others For this question Hâ—st thou marked c imports also a challenge that he had not observed these things Which yet was most false for had he observed them never so much he could never read Eliphaz's opinion therein nor that it was consumed thereby For 1. Though great calamities ought to daunt stubbornness and deterr men from standing out in rebellion against God Yet they ought not to be so formidable as to affright men from the testimony of a good Conscience For that is a part of Godly mens tryal to cleave to their integrity notwithstanding they be afflicted 2. No rods should make men condemn that in themselves or their cause which is approved by the Word of God as Job's integrity was 3. No judgments upon wicked men should make us think that all the wicked will be so dealt with as Job's Friends did and so make us assoâ—â— all those who are spared 4. Nor should any judgments inflicted upon men for their wickedness make us condemn Godly men because they fall under the same outward lot which was another of his Friends mistakes In a word Afflictions upon godly men ought to make them the more tender but not discourage them noâ— make them cast away the evidences of their integrity Vers 16. Which were cut down out of time whose foundation was overflown with a flood In the second branch of this argument Eliphaz propounds the particular to be observed of the way 〈◊〉 Gods judgments upon these wicked men That they perished suddenly out of time or as the Original hath it they were cut down and no time that is they were cut of in a moment and before they could expect it and that the foundations of their imagined happiness were overthrown as by a deluge and floud This may very well be understood of the general deluge but doth not at all prove Eliphaz hiâ— conclusion as hath been shewed v. 15. In General Learn 1. It is very commendable in godly men and a duty incumbent to them that they be acquainted with and keep in memory the proceedings of God against sinners For here those men are notably versed 〈◊〉 the History of the old world and many other passagâ—s of divine providence in the world See Psal 78.5 â— Here we are to consider 1. If they learned these things only by Tradition without the written word and yet kept them so fresh in memory How much more should we remember them who have them written to us to relieve the infirmity of our memories 2. As they remembered those examples not for contemplation but for use and practice And accordingly Eliphaz produces this instance for directing of Job how to judge of his afflictions and improve them though he erred in the application So we ought likewise to make use of what is recorded in the Word or otherwise comes to our knowledge for the like end and not as theâ—e did Psal 78.19 20. 106.12 13. Prov. 23.35 For all these acts of God are loud preachings to warn and direct sinners Psal 78.22 23 c. 3. If they remembered and studied to improve what was done long before their own time much more ought we to be sensible of and to improve what our selves do see and feel that we be not as these who saw Gods works and yet neither considered nor made use of them Psal 10â— 7 Doct. 2. The instance of Gods severity against the old world is full of documents to sinners in all ages Therefore it is made use of here as a speaking lesson though it do not prove his point as also 2 Pet. 2.5 c.
a godly mans esteem For here Job reflects on this as a desirable coâ—dâ—tion when he had darkness and Gods light whereby he might walk through it when he had humbling steps and God remembring him in his low estate as Ps 136.23 Such a trade as that is the most enriching trade that a Saint can drive and far beyond ease and idleness with whatsoever refreshment it seem to be attended 9. Gods people must not expect that they will alwayes get easily and comfortably through their difficulties or that they shall have a life-time of these sweet proofs of Gods favour which they sometimes finde For now Jobs case is altered He may wish for the Dayes when by his sight he walked through darkness but doth not enjoy them In those dayes see got easily through his difficulties and could see through a thick cloud but now he sticks in the mire and is involved in the clouds of thick darkness Thus we finde the people of God walking in darkness without any light Is 50.10 groping like blinde men Is 59.10 yea foolish and ignorant like very beasts Ps 73.22 This other life is no less necessary and needfull in its season as contributing to squeeze out our lusts and corruptions to pluck up these weeds in us which are apt to abound when we receive showres of refreshfull influences to discover us to our selves and exercise our faith and to fit us for proofs of Gods care and love when we are emptied Ps 73.22 23. And particularly Saints are not to mistake if after they have got easily through trials for a while they finde them stick faster afterward For hereby the Lord trains them on in his service till they be so engaged that they cannot retire and then he ministers strong Physick which will be more operative upon them As they grow in grace so their trials may grow in sharpness and continuance Whereas their Spirits were fresh and vigorous at first they may crush them afterwards by discouragement and then difficulties which were easie before become unsupportable burdens and their Spirits growing peevish and bitter they may make themselves an uncomfortable life And besides instead of lively tenderness security and lazyness may creep upon them and then they will take worse with disquiet and exercise than formerly they did All which should be adverted unto in this change of Saints lot and exercise Verse 4. As I was in the dayes of my youth when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle In the third Branch of this Description to Verse 18. Job gives an account of the parts of his former prosperity And first to verse 7. of his prosperity as a Parent and Master of a Family wherein also he continues to point out the presence and favour of God as the fountain and cause of his good Condition The good condition of his Family is generally propounded in this Verse and instanced in two Particulars v. 5 6. In the general Proposition he wisheth to be as he was in the dayes of his Youth when the secret of God was upon his House and Family Where consider 1. By the dayes of his youth we are to understand the time of his former prosperity which began early in his youth and was very sweet then unto him Some instead of youth read winter as the word will also bear And it points out that these dayes of his prosperity in his youth were dayes of case like a Souldier in his winter-quarters Or the words may also be read the dayes of my reproach or These dayes of his Prosperity for which he was now reproached by his Friends as if he had been a wicked man in them but he would be content he had them again All these Readings come to one purpose but that which we have in our Translation is clearest in this place 2. By the secret of God which was upon his tabernacle we are to understand both that special favour of God which the World knoweth not wherewith he was made acquainted in his youth when God dwelt in his Family as in his Church and the providence of God which protected his Family and made it to prosper Ps 91.1 3. He calleth his House and Family his Tabernacle not so much because these Arabians dwelt sometimes in Tents for we finde here a City where he dwelt v. 7. and his Sons had Houses chap. 1.18 19. as because he looked upon his House as but a Tabernacle that might easily be pulled down when God would and as the place of his pilgrimage his constant Dwelling-place being above Doct. 1. Acquaintance with God in youth is a great mercy and will prove comfortable to men when they come to old age For Job reflects upon the dayes of his youth as desirable dayes not onely for the prosperity thereof but because of the favour of God from which that flowed See Eccl. 12.1 Many have sad reflections upon the sins and follyes of youth who did not begin to look toward God in time 2. Rewards of Piety will begin as early as men can begin to be godly For these dayes were desiâ—able also upon the account of prosperity that flowed from the favour of God And albeit these temporal advantages do not alwayes accompany Piety yet men when ever they begin to seek God shall finde they do it not in vain Is 45.19 And they who are long a beginning to seek God do lose many precious opportunities and advantages they might have enjoyed especially when they had youth and vigour to have improved them 3. Prosperity accompanying Piety is a mercy especially when men have youth and health to make use of it and it should be improved as such For Job accounts his former prosperous condition in his youth desirable However Prosperity in it self be still a Mercy yet to the wicked who want piety it proves a snare and though it be a mercy at any time yet especially in youth and when old age hath not taken away mens pleasure in their dayes Eccl. 12.1 And therefore such as are made partakers of this mercy ought to remember the account they must make to God for it 4. Such as do make right use of Prosperity they do look upon it as an uncertain passing thing As Job calls it here his Tabernacle See 1 Cor. 7.29 30 31. Undervaluers of Gods bounty in a prosperous lot do proclaim their ingratitude and their immortified lusts and that they are seeking happiness in temporal enjoyments which because they cannot finde they are therefore discontented and deprive themselves of that good which is really to be found in the good things of this life As Solomon missing of happiness and finding only vanity as to any felicity the creatures can bring to man in his pursuits after pleasure and delights falls a dispairing and hating of all his labour and hates his very life till he recollect himself and acquiesce in that good thing which God allows in the use of the creatures though they cannot make man happy Eccl. 2.1
And albeit men may pretend many excuses why they should not pity such even in a just cause such as their multitude unworthiness ingratitude c. Yet it is the will of God that men who have wealth skill to advise power or authority do help them in what is right and as they need For so did Job here satisfie the desires of the poor and the expectation of the widows Men ought to consider that they are advanced not for themselves only but for the good of others also as Mordecai said to Esther Est 4.14 And as it is an evidence of the grace of God in them to be helpful to those whom God doth compassionate Ps 68.5 So the neglect thereof is a cause of Gods controversie against great men especially Is 1.23 And doth provoke him to cause themselves smart under the like difficulties Pro. 21.13 4. It is not sufficient in Gods account that men do somewhat for the poor widows or others in distress unless as the desires and expectations of the indigent are earnest and pressing so it be chearfully and speedily done For Job was so active in doing good that he caused not the eyes of the widdows to fail or did not out-weary them with expecting and looking for relief before he gave it for so this phrase signifieth in Scripture Ps 69.3 and 119.82 123. Lam. 4.17 nor did he cause them weep out their eyes with complaining of his backwardness See Pro. 3.27 28. 5. Men should walk so streightly and deal so ingenuously in the matter of their carriage as if they were to give an Oath upon it that they are what they declare themselves to be and as if they were to undergoe a present curse and judgement if it be otherwise For so much is imported in this taciâ—e Oath and Imprecation If I have with-held c. whereby he confirmeth this assertion and many others in this Chapter Which is both a tacite Oath and appeal to God that he speaks true and implyes a consenting to what God shall please to inflict if he do lye though he do forbear to express it as elsewhere he doth Mens want of seriousness and their putting of an evil day farr from them make them very loose in their walk and professions But if they would look upon Nadab and Abihu consumed by fire Lev. 10. Zimri and Cozbi cut off by Phinehas Num. 25. Jeroboams hand withering 1 King 13. Uzziah smitten with leprosie 2 Chr. 26. All of them in the very act of their sin If I say they would look upon these as beacons warning all what they deserve and for ought they know what they may meet with they might see cause to look better to their way Verse 17. Or have eaten my morsel my self alone and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof 18. For from my youth he was brought up with me as with a Father and I have guided her from my Mothers womb 19. If I have seen any perish for want of cloathing or any poor without covering 20. If his loyns have not blessed me and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep The next branch of this profession of Humanity confirmed also by a tacire asseveration is That he was a liberal Communicator of his own substance to the indigent both in food and apparel As for his meat he professeth not only that he did not eat it alone but Orphans shared with him in it v. 17. But that he had been habituated from his youth to tenderness and fatherly care of Orphan boyes and had also been a Guide Conducter and Patron to Orphan maids whose weak Sex exposed them to many hazards even from his infancy v. 18. Where it is to be considered that Job speaks of persons of both Sexes of whom he had been tender and careful He was brought up and I guided her Which some understand thus That by the first are meant the fatherless spoken of v. 17. and by the second the widow of whom he had spoken v. 16. And it is not to be doubted but Job was liberal to all those and many others in distress But the words run more smoothly if we understand them of fatherless boyes and girls who were poor and that having spoken in general of the fatherless v. 17. here he points out more particularly his tenderness to every sort and sex of them It is further to be considered that while he professeth he was thus tender not only from his youth but from his mothers womb the meaning of that hyperbolick expression is only this That as the grace of God began early to work in him and which probably was a mean of that his parents began soon to instruct him in the principles of piety compassion and charity so the fruits of his tenderness appeared very early as if it had come into the world and been born with him As for his humanity and liberality in the matter of cloathing he professeth that he gave apparel to the naked and poor who were ready to perish through want v. 19 So that they had cause to bless him being warmed by the apparel that was made of the fleece of his sheep v. 20. It is said the loynes of the poor blessed him where the loynes are put for the whole body that was cloathed possibly because their garments were girded upon their loynes and the meaning is that the poor man was excited to bless him when he found his loynes or body warmed with the apparel he had given him Or whatever the poor man did the very covering of his loynes and body spake Job to be a blessed man who had done that act of compassion From Verse 17. Learn 1. It is not enough that men be liberal of their power credit and authority to do good thereby unto others unless they expend of their wealth and meat also as need requires without which neither professions of love Jam. 2.15 16. nor of piety Isa 58.5 6 7. will avail Therefore beside what is professed v. 16. Job addes this that he had not eaten his morsel alone 2. As it is the commendation of great men if they be sober in their diet So albeit men had never so little they are bound to communicate of it to others as their need requires In both these respects he calls his allowance his morsel because he was sober in his diet and because he was charitable Not onely because he was a great and rich man who might well spare somewhat to others but he was ready to have given a share even of a little Nature needs but little to maintain it and charitable men will straiten themselves much that they may be beneficial to others And if men would indeed be sober their very supersluities might relieve many who are in distress 3. As hospitality is a commanded duty Rom. 12.13 and ought to be performed to these who are really indigent not to the rich onely who are able to requite us Luâ—e 14.12 13 14. far less to sturdy vagrants
blood which makes young men rash and precipitant and their zeal to out-strip their knowledge and light their youthful lusts want of experience c. will easily perceive that youth is not easie to manage aright Whereas to men of age many of these snares are broken Time and experience will let them see many things to be but folly and vanity which youth will not believe that they are such Those strong passions which do oft times master and over-power even true grace in younger persons may be more subdued and cooled in them c. This may let us see that it is a great mercy to be helped well through a time of youth and to be kept from the snares of it and the sad effects of these disadvantages which attend it 2. One great advantage of age above youth is in the matter of wisdome gathered by study and experience and in the cooling of their heat and passions which usually represent things to men through false Perspectives For this is the advantage intimated here On his own part he was afraid and durst not shew his opinion considering that he was young and they old Not only was he afraid lest he should goe without the bounds of his station in offering to speak before them but lest being but a young man he should miscarry in speaking to the matter it self And on their part he reckoned this their advantage That dayes or men of dayes should speak that is Not only is it their priviledge to speak when young men should be silent and hear but it is expected they should be able to speak to purpose on such weighty subjects and that multitude of years should teach wisdome that is their long life should be so improved as they may be taught much experimental knowledge by living long in the world which also they should teach and communicate to others It is true this difference betwixt age and youth doth not universally hold as Elihu afterwards tells them yet many times it proves true that age out-strips youth in these things as Rehoboam found by experience in the matter of his Counsellours 1 King 12. And however it hold eventually yet the characters here assigned of youth and old age do point out that it is a great defect in young men not to be well acquainted with their own precipitancy and want of experience And that it is a great shame for aged persons if as they have place to speak so they be not wise and able to speak to purpose and if the long time they have had hath not so taught them as makes them both able and willing to communicate their light to others who possibly are not so able or sensible of the good and evil of courses as themselves are But they themselves are no less rash and head-strong than if they were still children 3. It is an evidence of grace and a great mercy to young persons when they are made to discern and take notice of the disadvantages they lye under For so is Elihu sensible here of what might rationally be expected from his youth and their age Thus Solomon is sensible of the disadvantages of his youth 1 King 3.7 8 9. When young men are not sensible of their disadvantages they cannot but run headlong on snares while they think themselves wise enough and so prove in effect but mad fools Whereas these who are afraid lâ—st they do miscarry and so are not rash to do or speak any thing they prove themselves to be most able and do seldome miscarry 4. When God gives young men a blessed sight of their own disadvantages it will produce much sobriety As here it doth in Elihu See Tit. 2.6 And if we consider the words we will find these evidences of sobriety in young men 1. They who are sober will have no conceit of themselves For Elihu here is free of that And where conceit is it is an evidence that the weaknesses of youth are not well studied 2. Sober young men will have a good esteem of aged men and their opinions till they find very clear cause to judge otherwise For he judged that such should speak and teach wisdome 3. They will still be modest and respect age even when they are dis-satisfied with their opinion As here he waited till they had spoken out and reckoned that dayes should speak or had place to speak before him 4. They will be farr from presumptuous boldness and full of humble fears in their undertakings especially when they are called to oppose others who are elder than themselves As here he enters with much fear upon this undertaking Verse 8. But there is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding 9. Great men are not alwayes wise neither do the aged understand judgement 10. Therefore I said Hearken to me I also will shew mine opinion Followeth to v. 21. the second branch of this Preface wherein he gives five Reasons why he now interposeth to speak in this cause The first Reason in these Verses is more general containing this in summ That the fountain of wisdome not being in man himself but from God who giveth it to whom he pleaseth v. 8. And who doth not always give it to great men and men of experience v. 9. Therefore though he be a young man yet they having given over he will hazard to speak somewhat in that cause v. 10. Which he might well undertake being indeed inspired by God as he tells them v. 18 19. though here he speak of that inspiration only in general and abstractly v. 8. which might supply his want of years and experience For clearing of this purpose Consider 1. These tearms of Wisdome understanding and Judgement are here to be taken promiscuously for a gift of discerning to judge betwixt right and wrong and truth and errour in matters and opinions together with a gift of prudence or ability to speak rightly and pertinently to a cause For these are the particulars of which Elihu is treating which he expresseth by all these words 2. As for that Spirit which he saith is in man Some understand it of the reasonable Soul of man and take up the purpose thus That all men have a reasonable Soul which by the special inspiration of God may be so elevated that even young men by that assistance may comprehend these things which aged and experienced persons cannot know without it Others understand it of the Soul of man yet they take up the scope of the Verse thus That though there be such a Spirit in man yet it is not that but the inspiâ—ation of the Almighty which makes truly wise But it is clearer to understand it of the Spirit of God and so the latter part of the Verse is exegetâ—ke and explains the former That it is by that Spirit in man even by the inspiration of the Almighty that any attain to this understanding here spoken of 3. As for this Spirit or inspiration as it is not
matter and such a fervent inclination to speak that he could not without grief and trouble forbear And while he saith his belly is ready to burst like new bottles he means not new bottles for these are not so ready to burst Mat. 9.17 but bottles filled with new wine which by its working is ready to burst the bottles wherein it is put if they be not very strong From this we may not only gather that this Doctrine of Elihu slowed from the Spirit of God but further Learn 1. It must be the Spirit of God in men furnishing them with light and accompanying what they say that will clear Controversies and bring them to an happy close For the Spirit is given him here for that end 2. As men may certainly know that it is the Spirit of God and not a delusion that acts them So they have need to make it sure that it is so especially in debates wherein it is not easie for men to know of what Spirit they are In both these respects he confidently asserts That it is the Spirit of God and not the fury of a rash young man which moveth him to speak I will answer v. 17. For I am full of matter the Spirit within me constraineth me 3. Such as have the Spirit of God may without vanity assert that it is so in the maintenance of truth and of what is right For so doth Elihu assert of himself though a young man when he is to deal on Gods behalf with so eminent parties See 1 Cor. 7.40 4. Albeit the Spirit of God where he dwells keeps men humble and empty in themselves yet he doth not make an empty sound and noise only but supplyeth men with furniture for the work he calls them unto For saith he I am full of matter or of words that is of words pertinent to the purpose and not empty words only And he expresseth his furniture by being full of words to shew that the Spirit of God did not only furnish him with pertinent matter but with fit words whereby to express it As he must do to all those whom he assists 5. Though the Spirit of God do not lead men to be rash and furious yet he fills them in whom he dwelleth with an holy fervour in the cause of God and with an earnest desire and zeal to appear for it especially when others have wronged it For this is the Spirit within him or the Spirit of his belly that is the Spirit which hath taken his seat in and hath wakened up his zeal and affections which in Scripture-phrase are said frequently to be seated in the belly or bowels in behalf of God and his truth so much wronged by them And so this Spirit constrained him that he must appear and speak as wine in a bottle seeketh a vent See Psa 45.1 6. The Spirit of God leads men to look upon the want of an opportunity to serve God as their greatest burden and on his service as their greatest delight and refreshment For so much doth this similitude import Behold my belly or affections moved and excited by the Spirit of God is as wine that hath no vent it is ready to burst like new bottles I will speak that I may be refreshed or may breath as the bottle gets air when it is opened See Jer. 20.9 7. Whatever fervour men have yet it must not be their own case only farr less the setting out of their gifts in a way of ostentation but edification they should mind Therefore unto his own being refreshed he adds I will open my lips and answer or speak to the cause and on Gods behalf so as ye may be edified Verse 21. Let me not I pray you accept any mans person neither let me give flattering titles unto man 22. For I know not to give flattering titles in so doing my Maker would soon take me away These Verses contain the third branch of this general Preface relating chiefly to Job wherein he gives an account of the way he resolves to follow in managing this cause Some do take up the words as Elihu's wish and prayer to God that he may be helped to manage that cause well and impartially But it seems rather that he expresseth his resolution in a desire to Job and to the whole Auditory that he may have liberty and allowance to deal freely as in a cause of God and a cause concerning mans salvation And that it be not expected that he should yield to any mans humours and affections or authority in this matter but that he will faithfully and freely speak what he thinks of the whole cause or of any man concerned Which course he resolves to take not only because it is not his custome to flatter nor doth he approve of it but because he was restrained from such courses by the fear and awe of God As for the two expressions to accept mans person or face and to give flattering titles to men they may be taken for one and the same thing for the one is repeated for both v. 22. Yet it may be gathered from the same repetition that the giving of flattering titles is the evil he would avoid and the accepting of mans person is the cause or tentation which might drive him to commit that evil And so for clearing and applying this purpose I shall consider four Particulars in the words First Consider the evil which he declines and is careful to avoid he will not give flattering titles to men The word is only used in these Verses and Isa 44.5 and 45.4 and it signifies to give Titles Epithetes a By-name or Sir-name to things And so it is translated a Sir-name in the fore-cited places of Isaiah where it is taken in a good sense But here it is taken in a bad sense for flattering titles or designations which he declines not only in reference to their persons that he will use no Rhetorical or flattering compellations or insinuations to them by way of Preface to conciliate their attention to what he is to say but will fall roundly to his work But in reference to the matter it self he will not goe about the bush as we speak nor mince the truth but speak it out plainly and freely and give things their right names without flattery or circumlocution And in this respect also they are said not to be given to man because regard to their persons did not cause him flatter them in their sin And if he had done otherwise he had spoken rather to their persons to please them than to their condition as it was in it self Of which more will be spoken on the next word Some Learned men do take the word to signifie the naming of a thing obscurely as by some Enigmatical By-name or Epithete and not by its usual proper and known name And this notion suits well to this purpose That as he would not flatter them so he would not give a By-name to things nor change their names either by
This is a work of God wherein much of him is to be seen Psal 139.14 2. A man sensible of his own infirmity when he goeth about a work of God is like to prosper and ought to be attended unto it being an evidence he will not despise them with whom he hath to do and that he will not provoke God For he propounds that he is sensible he is but a weak creature as an Argument why Job should hear him 3. Such as consider their obligations to God were it but upon the account of their being made by him will be faithful in their serving of him For this is his motive and an Argument that he will be faithfull in publishing the truth of God as he professeth Chap. 36.3 that he will ascribe righteousness to his Maker 4. Such as do consider how easily God makes man will from thence also gather how easily God can enable him and endow him with gifts if he please For this also is an Argument why Job should not despise him because of his youth seeing he was Gods workmanship as well as himself and the Spirit who made him and gave him life could as easily furnish him with abilities Verse 5. If thou canst answer me set thy words in order before me stand up The fourth Argument of attention and a consequent of the former is That being sensible they were fellow-creatures he would not take advantage of his afflictions nor quarrel at what he should say in his own defence so as to interrupt him as it seems his other Friends did but if he had any thing to say he will allow him to stand up and answer or to take courage and stand to it and reply if he can This his frank offer doth neither proceed from insolency nor from any doubt he had of the truth of his own cause but serveth to testifie his patience and meek condescendence to Job that thereby he may engage him to hearken more attentively Doct. 1. It is an evidence of honesty when men desire not to prevail in their cause unless it be just and right For here he desires not Job to be of his opinion unless he can convince him by reason in a fair dispute 2. Equity ought to be observed in all Disputes and whatever respect be otherwise due to mens eminency or gifts yet in Disputes Parties are Peers as in Games all are Equals Therefore he desires here that reason may only carry it and that neither Jobs advantages over him in respect of eminency in dignity or piety nor his advantages in having to do with an afflicted man might bear any sway 3. It doth evidence a sound and sober Spirit when men how clear soever their own light be are content to hear the judgement and light of others For though he doubted not of the truth of what he was to speak yet saith he If thou canst answer me set thy words in order before me or order them the best thou can to defend thy self against my accusations 4. A man that hath a good cause and an answer to return to what is objected against him may stand to it and take courage For saith he Stand up or be couragious and resolute intimating that he had cause so to do if he had truth on his side Verse 6. Behold I am according to thy wish in Gods stead I also am formed out of the clay 7. Behold My terrour shall not make thee afraid neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee Some read the first part of v. 6. thus I am as thou of God the same in substance with what followeth in the Verse and an intimation that he is his fellow-creature But our Translation rendereth it better and so it is the last Argument pressing attention and an amplification of the two preceding Arguments That Job could not now decline to hear him and plead his cause with him if he had any thing to say seeing in his appearing God had granted him that which he had so often desired For he had often desired to plead his cause with God himself provided that he would not appear terrible to him nor bear him down with his great power and sad afflictions See Chap. 9.32 35. and Chap. 13.18 22. And now he had his desire For he is ready to appear as a Champion for God and in his stead having his Commission for that effect from an impulse of the Spirit upon him and being of the same mettal and mould with himself being formed out of the clay in the creation of the first man as well as he he needed not fear his terrour nor would he crush him with his power Doct. 1. Men may obtain many of their passionate desires and yet be much humbled when they are granted For here Job gets his will Behold I am according to thy wish or mouth that which thou spake and desiredst with thy mouth in Gods stead and yet when all this is granted he loseth his cause as to any thing he had to plead against God and is humbled for his miscarriages however he prevailed in his cause against his Friends 2. God needs not except he please appear in terrible Majesty to put passionate men to silence seeing he can make a weak man like themselves beat them For however Job thought he might hazard to debate even with God and might expect to prevail yet Elihu a man like himself offers to put him to silence in Gods stead as indeed he did however God thought fit to appear himself at last that he might put the cap-stone upon what Elihu had begun to do 3. It is mans great mercy that seeing he could not endure that God should appear in glorious Majesty to speak to him Exod. 20.18 19. nor the more glorious ministry of Angels God is pleased to employ weak men in his stead For saith Elihu as a Messenger sent of God upon this business Behold I am in Gods stead Which should both teach these Messengers to deal with those with whom they have to do as in Gods stead 2 Cor. 4.17 and 5.20 And should teach others to reverence them as the Ambassadours of Christ 1 Cor. 4.1 Gal. 4.14 And not to despise them because they are men of like passions considering that God in employing such condescends to the weakness of men who cannot admit of other Messengers 4. Those who are employed in that eminent trust of speaking in Gods stead ought to be well ballanced with humility lest being puffed up they fall into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 For so is Elihu sensible what he is even formed out of the clay when he is thus employed in Gods stead 5. Men will be helped to humility by considering their base and vile Original common to them with all men and that however God put some lustre and beauty upon all men and more eminently upon some by conferring special gifts and employments upon them yet men are nothing else but as it were so many bitts and parcels
good For here he finds faults even in holy Job So that it is the duty even of good men to be frequent in the study of their infirmities 2. Men ordinarily do not easily discern their faults nor are they easily convinced of them For Job had vindicated those expressions against the exceptions of his three Friends and yet Elihu finds him faulty in them Men of able parts meeting with an unskilfull Reprover may soon acquit themselves of what he can say whereby they do but ensnare themselves in an opinion that they are right And therefore in judging of our way it is good to eye God and Conscience much which would put an end to many debates 3. However men carry in ordinary yet sore trouble and sharp tryals may discover weaknesses in the best For it is in the time of Jobs tryal that those faults are found Trouble is a Furnace which will discover dross and they who are not upon their guard then will find the snare the greater And as it is good to watch and mark our failings then so we must be careful not to reject all as Reprobates whose weaknesses break forth at such a time Only whatever pity God have for the weakness of his Children under tentation Yet no humble man will give himself a dispensation to miscarry or prove weak 4. Godly men do then most readily miscarry under trouble when they look only to their own integrity who are afflicted For albeit men may lawfully maintain their integrity yet Elihu by citing Jobs expressions about it v. 9. would intimate to him that he had managed that cause ill when he looked not more to Gods Soveraignty and to the remainders of sin in himself It is needful that men under trouble have an eye upon their guilt and sin even albeit God be but exercising their faith and other graces and where there is much sincerity the sight of sin must not be lost as Elihu tells him afterward And when it is not so men get sinful crosses because they do not manage more cleanly tryals well Psal 51.4 5. Men do then manage their integrity ill when because they are sincere they will not submit meekly to needful exercise and tryal For herein did Job miscarry while looking upon his integrity v. 9. he takes it not well that God exercised him as he did v. 10 11. Upright men should have no more to say against Gods exercising of them than if they had not such a testimony of their integrity but they should rather bless God that they have that testimony to support them A querulous and murmuring good Conscience is in so farr not good 6. Men under trouble are apt to have hard thoughts of God and his dealing For Elihu by citing his words v. 10 11. doth intimate that he quarrels him for his complaints as an injury done to God It is not easie to keep up right thoughts of God in times of tryal and therefore men should be upon their guard as to that evil and if they be kept free from it they ought to acknowledge that they are preserved from a great snare 7. Godly men cannot but be sadly affected when they find God opposite unto them and watching over them to mark their faults and take all advantages against them For this his complaint though he bitter in it yet testifieth his honesty that he resents that as his great affliction Men ought to try what affects them most in trouble for thereby they may get a proof of their sincerity or unsoundness 8. It is a very great mistake to suspect God of cruelty and severity towards his Children under never so sad trouble For he quarrels Job that he should say God sound occasions and counted him for his enemy For if it were so it would have produced sadder effects than any he had yet felt Godly men should mourn when they commit so horrid injustice against God and should be convinced that they are in the wrong when they hearken to such tentations See Psal 77.7 8 9 10. And it is the greatest hast to bring us first to mourn for these miscarriages before we be delivered out of trouble 9. Though Gods sharp dealing be a lesson ill to read yet it will not warrant mens quarelling of him more than if they complained without the least probable cause For all those evidences which he produceth v. 11. are no proof nor give him warrant to say that God counted him for an enemy v. 10. For even the saddest of dispensations will not prove his enmity against Saints but they may consist with and slow from his love to them Verse 12. Behold In this thou art not just I will answer thee that God is greater than man Followeth to v. 31. the second part of Elihu's Speech or his refutation of these assertions of Job concluding this in summ That there is no cause why a godly man should complain or querulously seek a reason of such dispensations Seeng God is not only Soveraign and absolute v. 12 13. but doth clearly speak more to men by those lots than they do well perceive or mark v. 14 30. In this Verse we have 1. Elihu's general censure of Jobs speeches intimating That whatever he was as to the state of his person or in other things Yet in this he cannot but account him unjust that as was marked Chap. 32.2 he should so justifie himself as to complain of Gods dealing toward him a righteous man and that he should not only desire to argue with God as is insinuated v. 13. upon that matter but because he saw not a reason of Gods dealing therefore he will presumptuously conclude that there was no reason nor could God give any reason for it all which may be gathered from the following dispute 2. We have the first Argument whereby he refutes Job propounded in general Namely That God is greater than man Which is to be understood not only in respect of his beeing power authority c. but also in respect of his holiness wisdome and every other Attribute And albeit Jobs Friends made ill use of this Argument to prove Job wicked Yet it proves Elihu's conclusion strongly Namely That the best of men should be more humble than Job was before and under the hand of so great a God and in their pleading with him and should deferr more to his wisdome and holiness than to their own For whereas Job talked so much of his righteousness and complained that he was afflicted being such a man Elihu answers That God who had afflicted him was infinitely above him in the matter of righteousness and every way greater than he and therefore he should have been more sober in his discourses From this Verse Learn 1. In clearing of marches betwixt right and wrong or truth and errour men should not only make use of clear light and Arguments but they should set affection on work also and strive to put conscience to it which would help much in debates Therefore before
meekly stoop Job 23.6 and 37.23 Psal 99 4. We may hazard much upon him and stoop to dark dispensations when we consider how much is made clear unto us 2. There is nothing can make a dispensation intollerably sad if it speak and have a lesson to us nor is ouâ— condition hopeless so long as God is in speaking tearms For whereas Job complained of it as a sad case that he knew not what God said or meant by all he did to him Elihu gives him this as a comfort that God speaks or was in speaking tearms and inculcating some lesson thereby See Psal 94.12 Dispensations are very terrible when they are dumb and nothing is said by God under them as 1 Sam. 28 5 6. Which they have need to look to to whom neither word nor rod speak any thing 3. As God is still speaking by his Word to them who enjoy it So there are none of his dispensations if they be well read but they say somewhat to us and even those of them which are most dark and wherein his Soveraign dominion shines most have lessons in them if it were but to teach us submission For he asserts it as universally true that God speaks to man Thus all the works of Creation and Providence Mercies and Crosses do preach some instruction See Ps 19.1 2. Mic. 6.9 Eccles 7.14 And therefore we should not only see what God doth but observe what God saith by it as his Messenger Nor are we to mistake though it seem to speak reproof only and no comfort for if that be well improved it will produce comfort at last 4. It is nothing strange to see God say much when yet man doth little perceive it For that is the challenge here As for mens perceiving of what he speaks by the Word it will come to be spoken of in its own place v. 16. But as for his dispensations and particularly afflictions which are principally intended here and afterward instanced not only are they oft-times not at all considered Is 42.25 Hos 7.9 but read wrong when they are considered 2 Chron. 28.23 Jer. 44.17 18. And hence it cometh to pass that dispensations are but ill improved and the bad fruits thereof are but answerable to mens inadvertency ignorance or errour in observing of them Is 1.5 and 9.9 10. and 22.12 13. Hos 5.13 and 7.14 16. Now it is nothing strange as to see the natural man not perceive the things of God 1 Cor. 2.14 So even to see godly men ignorant of or mistaking God in his dispensations like Samuel who ran to Eli when God called him as Job did here mistake perceiving somewhat but not rightly and because of that did miscarry Hence we find Saints made sensible of their own bruitishness in the things of God Prov. 30.2 3. particularly in reading and â—mproving the dispensations of God Ps 73.21 22. with v. 11 12 13 14. Now these mistakes ignorances and the fruits following thereupon may flow from those among other causes 1. An aversion to affliction or to the dispensation under which we are This so stupifieth and distempers some that when once that is made their lot they can advert to nothing else but are madded like wild bulls in a net Is 51.20 2. Inadvertency and levity of Spirit Whence it cometh to pass that men lay not their condition to heart Is 42.25 especially if the matter wherewith they are exercised be light 3. Selfishness Whence it cometh to pass that if dispensations do not nearly touch men themselves even though they concern the Nation or common interests wherein they are also concerned they do not lay them to heart Is 5.11 12. Am. 6.3 4 5 6. So that if the goad be not still in their own sides they are sensible of nothing 4. Idols byasses and unsound principles Whence it comes to pass that as the Proverb hath it As the Fool thinks so the Bell clinks or sounds that in his ears men do read Providential dispensations not as God speaks by them but as themselves are affected and according to the Idol of their own hearts Thus Ahaz 2 Chron. 28.23 and those Jews Jer. 44.17 18. being possessed with this principle That the prospering way was only right and approved they put a wrong Commentary upon Gods Providences 5. Ignorance Whence it cometh to pass that men run away from God because of some dispensations which he hath sent of purpose to bring them to him 6. Atheism and mens losing a sight of Providence in what occurrs in the World Whence it comes to pass that men read what they please in their lots and never enquire after Gods mind in them See Ezek. 9.9 and Zeph. 1.12 7. When men goe not to the Word and gather Gods mind in his dispensations from it they will walk in the dark and multiply mistakes For they to whom chastenings are blessed must be taught out of the Law Ps 94.12 8. Men do oft-times involve themselves in darkness and mistakes because they make use of false Perspectives in reading Gods dispensations Thus many do look upon their lots as their passion and pride and the conscience of their own ill deservings do represent them unto them Yea they look more to what the dispensation saith or is like to produce of it self than to what God saith or will do by it 9. While men do not consider that God speaks divers lessons by one dispensation as in Jobs case God preached both submission to his Soveraignty and humiliation for sin thereby and frequently humiliation and comfort may be designed in one and the same dispensation they do lose or neglect one part or other of their lesson From all this we may gather That men should be humbled for these causes of their mistakes That they should employ God much for light to help them to understand his dispensations otherwise they will wander and That they should make much use of the Word which only is the true Commentary to expound dispensations Fourthly Consider this Argument as it is amplified and the challenge aggravated from this consideration That God condescends to speak once yea twice or frequently and yet man comes no better speed in perceiving of it It teacheth 1. It proclaims the Lords great condescendence and kindness that he doth not take neglecters of means of instruction at their first word but followeth them with mean after mean and with frequent renewing of the means to cause them learn their lesson and receive instruction For he not only speaketh once but yea twice where a certain number is put for an uncertain importing that he speaks frequently See Is 28.13 Ps 62.11 It is great mercy that God who is not bound to any speaks if it were but once and men should be afraid to neglect the very first admonition Heb. 3.7 8. seeing they have no assurance that after he hath spoken once he will speak any more and the way of propounding this here first once then twice or the second time imports that
dispensations 3. Man is a very querulous Creature and full of discontents so that he is ready to complain of his lot when he should be improving it As here is supposed 4. Man is ready to come to that height in his complaints as even to quarrel God and to presume to think that he will call him to an account For that is the height of his impatience that he will enter into judgement with God 5. The Lord takes pleasure to keep up a right understanding betwixt himself and man particularly betwixt his people and himself and doth use all necessary means which may prevent their quarrels with him For here he doth what may prevent their entring into judgement with him 6. Whatever men think yet none of Gods dispensations gives them any cause to quarrel him For he layeth not that upon man that he should enter into judgement with God Hence it is that the people of God have retracted their complaints upon second thoughts Psal 77.7 8 9 10. Lam. 3.18 22. Verse 24. He shall break in pieces mighty men without number and set others in their stead The exercise of Gods Dominion and Justice is yet further instanced to v. 29. in what he doth to mighty men whereby he clears further what he had said of Kings and Princes v. 18. That he will reckon even with the most mighty of them and prosecutes what he had spoken of mighty men v. 20. In this Verse the instance is propounded That he breaks multitudes of mighty men and puts others in their places Whence Learn 1. It is seriously and much to be studied that mens might cannot resist Gods hand Therefore is that truth here again repeated Wherein we may read the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly power and might especially if men abuse it to the dishonour of God who can so easily reach them And Gods people may comfort themselves in this when they are oppressed by mighty men that the God whom they serve is able to break that yoak of oppression 2. The more eminent wicked men be the more conspicuous will Gods hand be in plaguing them Therefore also is this instance so much insisted upon because the glory of God shines eminently in it And therefore eminent examples of Gods power and justice should be well marked 3. It is not an ordinary stroak but even ruine and crushing that wicked great men may expect from God who when he begins will also make an end 1 Sam. 3.12 For he shall break in pieces mighty men 4. God can reckon with many mighty men as well as with one For he shall break in pieces mighty men without number The word is without searching out and so it may import That he needs no search to find out a quarrel against them nor should we dipp and search into the reasons of such dispensations But it rather imports That he will break so many that there is no searching into the number of them So that the multitude of those that combine against him will not secure them against him and the multitude of those who have been crushed by him may assure those who follow their footsteps that they shall not be able to stand 5. As God may raise up whom he will and conferr power and authority upon them Psal 107.40 41. and 113.7 8. Dan. 2.21 Psal 75.6 7. So when God hath crushed many mighty men he will yet have a care of the government of the World and will not want others to serve him in those stations For he sets others raiseth them up and establisheth them in their stead Verse 25. Therefore he knoweth their works and he overturneth them in the night so that they are destroyed 26. He striketh them as wicked men in the open sight of others Followeth a threefold Amplification of this calamity of mighty men First More generally from the cause and rise of it v. 25. That God doth this because he takes notice of their wicked wayes The words are not Because he knoweth but Therefore he knoweth their works but the sense is one Either thus He destroyes them therefore because he knoweth their works and brings them to remembrance Or however they think that God doth not notice their wayes yet his judgements will demonstrate the contrary from which it may be concluded that therefore it is certain he knoweth their wayes because he overthrows them Secondly From the manner of it 1. That he overturns and destroyes them in a dark night of trouble and inexpectedly or turns about the night that is he turns their day of prosperity into a dark night of trouble so that they are destroyed v. 25. 2. That he punisheth them visibly and exemplarily as being eminently wicked men v. 26. Doct. 1. However wicked men will not believe that God noticeth their wayes Yet God will in due time give proof that he doth know and observe them For therefore he knoweth their wayes or gives proof of it by smiting of them 2. The calamities of wicked men will sadly overturn all their enjoyments and projects For he overturneth them or simply overturneth and maketh a dreadful revolution 3. Hence it comes to pass that the wickeds trouble is very dark and terrible unto them as it is not with godly men For it is a night or in the night 4. Wicked men may expect not to be threatened only but to be actually and throughly destroyed For he overturneth so that they are destroyed or crushed 5. There are stroaks peculiar to wicked men which all the wicked do deserve and may in justice expect For he strikes them as wicked men not that he strikes them as if they were wicked men when yet they are not such nor yet only because they are wicked but that he inflicts those calamities which are the common desert of all wicked men 6. How high soever wicked men be yet God who is no accepter of persons will reach them for their wickedness as well as others For thus also he strikes them even those mighty ones as other wicked men 7. God seeth it meet sometime to make the calamities of wicked men publick exemplary and remarkable that others may fear For he striketh them in the open sight of others or in the place of beholders as at a publick execution And the word to strike imports such a striking as will cause men admire and clap their hands and whereby God will openly triumph over them who so often insulted over his Law See Prov. 1.24 25 26. Verse 27. Because they turned back from him and would not consider any of his wayes 28. So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him and he heareth the cry of the afflicted The third Amplification of this calamity is taken from a more particular account of his Justice in it which is cleared from the consideration of their sin Wherein 1. The fountain and root of all their sin is Apostacy from God and their not considering of his wayes or the way which
the tryal of his faith and other graces but only that his folly and miscarriage under the rod for which also God humbleth him though he employ Elihu first to handle him more sharply did draw on fatherly displeasure From v. 16. Learn 1. General truths will not avail nor prove usefull particularly to persons in affliction till they be applyed Therefore doth he subjoyn this particular Application to the former general Doctrine 2. There is no general promise recorded in Gods Word but it will be forth-coming to every one of his people as they have need Therefore that promise v. 11. is applyed to Job as that he had right unto if he had been in a right frame Yea the promise made to Joshua a great and eminent man Josh 1.5 is repeated Heb. 13.5 as belonging to every particular distressed Hebrew in the general scope of it abstracting from what was personal and relative to his special employment in it 3. The Children of God for their exercise or because of their folly may be brought under great distress As here is supposed in the contrary promises For the promise to remove them out of the mouth of straitness as it is in the Original imports That they may be under pressures which are ready to devour and swallow them up like a beast of prey And the promise of a fat table imports That they may be exercised with penury and want And the conjunction of those two promises imports That their penury and other sad pressures may goe together 4. It may encourage men to stoop to God and to receive instruction under the rod That there is no condition so sad but repentance and turning to God will amend it As here these promises import And albeit he will not take off all our pressures within time nor yet alwayes deliver his penitent people yet our being near to God takes away the bitterness of pressures and affords sweetness in every lot and may assure us that God will care for our table and will have an eye upon our pressures And though godly men before they repent may complain that possibly the promise will never be performed yet let rhem once repent and be near God and that will silence all their complaints 5. It may be matter of sad thoughts to godly men under trouble when they consider how much better their condition might have been were it not for their own folly As here he lets them see Even so would he have removed thee c. if thou had not thus miscarried See Psal 81.13 14. Isa 48.18 19. From v. 17. Learn 1. It is not unusual to see godly men fail in an hour of tryal and so to run away from their own mercy As here he lets him see that his case was farr otherwise than it might have been 2. As it is a kindness to tell Friends their condition freely so they have need to have it told them by others they being ready sometime to take it up too sadly and at other times to look too easily and partially upon it Therefore doth he so freely tell Job his condition here 3. As godly men in their fits of distemper may homologate too much the principles and wayes of the wicked so it is their great fault so to do For here he chargeth him with fulfilling the judgement of the wicked Of many pranks of the godly in trouble it may be said What will they leave to the wicked to do when they do so 4. The longer these courses be persisted in it is the greater sin For it aggravates his fault that he fulfilled this judgement of the wicked or confirmed them in their way by the length that he proceeded in it 5. Sin would appear more formidable if it were looked upon as inseparably attended with judgement As here the wickeds way is called their judgement not only because it is their judgement and determined sentence and fixed principle to follow it but because it is the cause of a sentence of judgement from God 6. Whatever others do find of judgements attending sin the godly may lay their account not to escape For this sinful course is proved to be judgement or sentenced by God because judgement and justice take hold on thee 7. As godly men may come under fatherly displeasure and this will be sad to them when they discern it So it is yet sadder that their own folly should change the nature of their cleanly tryals and mix anger with them As here he lets Job see that his cleanly tryals were turned into judgement and justice though with moderation as Chap. 35.15 8. Whatever Saints may dream of yet Gods fatherly chastisements will not only reach them when they miscarry but will hold them fast till they quit their folly For they take hold on thee The word also signifieth and is else-where rendered to support or sustain but here as also Prov. 5.22 it signifieth to apprehend or hold fast and includeth the person of whom hold is taken as is supplyed in the Translation Verse 18. Because there is wrath beware lest he take thee away with his stroak Then a great ransome cannot deliver thee 19. Will he esteem thy riches No not gold nor all the forces of strength Elihu having stated Jobs case doth now give him his counsel relative to his case as it stands And though the counsel be but one in substance that he would amend his faults yet I shall take it up as it lyeth in the words in three branches which will clear wherein Elihu thought Job had fulfilled the counsel of the wicked The first whereof in these words is That heing now under wrath he should be afraid to provoke God by his miscarriages when he was under his hand to cut him off without remedy For then no ransome or wealth or power could rescue him Whence Learn 1. It is no proof of true friendship only to reprove men for their faults without giving them counsel how to rectifie what is amiss For here Elihu subjoynes advices to his former reprehensions hereby witnessing that he was a Friend indeed who was not seeking nor taking advantage of him in reprehending his faults 2. It is a special part of our duty especially under trouble to examine and try our condition how it stands and it is a proof of real friendship to help us in this tryal As here Elihu points out unto Job how it is with him and tells him there is wrath 3. It is the great and concerning Question of Saints to try how God is pleased with them and to try what wrath or displeasure may be in their cuâ— when they are afflicted Therefore doth he give Job an account of that especially 4. As Saints may be under wrath or fatherly displeasure as he told Job in the former Verse and here again repeats it So when they are in such a case they ought especially to take heed to their walk that they do not rage and free against God For because there is
pointing out the causes effects and signes thereof Which may teach us in general That many things may concurr in one work of God to demonstrate his glory shining in it In the Verses Consider First The Causes and Antecedents of this rain v. 29 30. Which are 1. The Clouds a proper material cause of rain 2 The noise of his Tabernacle or of the Clouds which are called his Tabernacle Ps 18.11 and his Chariot Ps 104.3 whereby we are to understand either the high winds which sometime goe before rain or rather because of that which followeth of Lightning v. 30. the Thunder which is an antecedent going before rain at some-times and a cause thereof in so farr as by bursting through the watery cloud it breaketh it and causeth it dissolve in rain 3. Light or Lightnings which accompany the Thunder and are antecedents to the rain Of these he saith That none can understand the spreading of the clouds how they cover the Sky sometime very speedily and are hurried here and there or the noise of thunder which is made in the clouds Or how the lightnings having broken through the clouds do not only spread themselves upon them as if they were all covered therewith but do even cover the Sea and that with such impetuousness as if they would dive into the very roots and bottom thereof Doct. 1. The vâ—ry dark clouds are bright documents of Gods incomprehensible majesty and his glory shines in spreading them out and driving them here and there and yet keeping them from breaking For here the spreading of the clouds is a document of his greatness which none can understand fully and as it points him out So that even a dark cloudy day may be a speaking Preaching to those who have discerning and a spiritual mind 2. Thunder and lightnings coming before rain are another document of the greatness of God which none can fully comprehend For this is another proof of his assertion Can any understand the noise of his Tabernacle Behold he spreadeth his light upon it or upon his Tabernacle c. The noise of thunder before rain doth not only point out the glorious majesty of God whose voice it is as is at length prosecuted Ps 29. But doth further shew that every thing that is terrible is not hurtful to all who are ready to be affrighted therewith As thunder doth but rarely destroy any and but few of those who hear its dreadful noise The lightnings comming from the place where rain is and upon which the rain followeth may teach us How little we need to look to probabilities in what we want since men may expect rain even whence fire cometh And the lightnings being spread upon the clouds and darting down to the very bottom of the Sea may let us see How God can enlighten our darkness Psal 18.28 even by a light brought out of our dark cloud Psal 112.4 How immense and omnipresent he is who can not only spread his light upon the cloudy Sky but cover the Sea with it and that very suddenly How infinite and effectual his knowledge is who can make his light spread so farr as even to lighten the World Ps 77.18 even the Sky and Sea and can make it cover the very bottom or roots of the Sea and penetrate thither And How much of Gods glory is manifested in the World which man cannot overtake to comprehend seeing he not only fills the Earth and Sky with his glory but doth manifest it in the Sea where men do not so frequently converse to see his wonders in the deep Ps 107.24 and that to the bottom thereof where man cannot dive to see it 3. Then are the works of God rightly studied and God rightly seen in them when men do not drown themselves in nature and in the study of the second causes but do see God in them whose works they are As here it is called his light And when they look upon Gods revealing of himself by them as but an obscuring of himself that he may reveal himself to their capacity As the clouds are called his Tabernacle where in manifesting himself to men he involves and hides himself that he cannot be seen as he is in himself Thus also the very brightness as well as the dark clouds is but the hiding of his power Hab. 3.4 Secondly The Effects of rain which cometh out of these clouds after the thunder and lightning or the Ends for which it cometh upon the Earth v. 31. Namely to plague some and give plenty to others It is said he doth these things by them in the plural number that is not only by rain but by thunder and lightning which may have influence upon the Earth either for hurt as when they destroy and blast the Creatures or for good as when they scour and purifie the Air that the influences thereof may be more benign And they have also a more mediate influence upon the effects of the rain they way whereof they prepare by bursting through the cloud This teacheth 1 Means and second causes will prove unto men even according as God employes them for judgement or mercy as here we see See Deut. 8.3 2. Even that which is a judgement to some may prove a mercy to others For by rain and thunder c. he judgeth the people and giveth meat 3. Tempestuous and terrible-like things may do good to whomsoever God pleaseth As by thunder lightning and rain he gives meat So that men need not be afraid of improbable-like things if God interpose 4. As meat is a great mercy being so necessary daily and a mercy wherewith if we have raiment also we should be content 1 Tim. 6.8 So God is to be acknowledged as the giver of it who employeth second causes to produce it and blesseth them for that effect and puts his blessing in it when it is produced without which it would do us no more good than the Earth from which it cometh Deut 8 3. Therefore it is marked as his great mercy to some that he giveth meat See Psal 104.27 28. 5. God when he pleaseth can give proof that he is not close handed in his dispensations bâ—t can give meat in abundance as here we are taught See Act. 14.17 So that when we are straitened in these thâ—ngs we are not to quarrel or question his fulness but should look to another cause Thirdly The Time and Way of this preparation for the rain v. 32. Namely That God when he pleaseth covereth the light of the Sun and Sky with these clouds and hindereth the bright shining thereof upon the Earth by the interposition of the clouds The Original Text in the latter part of the Verse is very concise but the Supplements which make it clear are necessarily understood in it For his command upon it that is upon the light or against it which is the reading of the Original imports an interdâ—ction that it should not shine and that which cometh betwixt or occurreth which is
Thunderbolt But Elihu speaks of it as it points out somewhat of God That it is a voice of God sounding under the whole Heaven with Lightnings going before it Hereby teaching That however men may lawfully search into the natural causes of things in studying the works of God yet to rest there without ascending up to see somewhat of God in them will tend little to edification but is near of kin to Atheism Particularly in this Description Consider 1. This Thunder in its nature and kind is a sound and noise of the voice of God v. 2. that is a voice whereby he speaks to men and makes himself and his mind known as men declare their mind by their word So Psal 29. throughout Hence we may learn 1. The works of God do us good in so far as they speak and are Gods voice to us as here the thunder gets that name not only because of its loud noise but because thereby somewhat is spoken to us 2. Thunder hath a speaking voice to right discerners it speaks what the Majesty and Dreadfulness of the Speaker is what the efficacy of his Word is when he pleaseth to make use of it which can pierce like a Sword and Thunderbolt Heb. 4.12 What dreadful Language he hath for them who will not hear the calm 〈◊〉 and how great his Mercy is in speaking to us 〈◊〉 â—â—k men seeing we could not endure his thundering voice Exod. 20.18 19. 2. As for the extent of his sound and voice He directeth it under the whole heaven v. 3. Not than it is heard in all places at once but that he may send it where he pleaseth under the whole heaven and where-ever he sendeth it it is heard far and near Which as it speaks his Majesty whose voice is heard so far off So further 1. It saith that he will be heard by them to whom he he is pleased to speak and hath a voice for the deafest 2. That the most dreadful thunder is subject to his command to be directed whither he pleaseth 3. The concomitants of this thundering voice are Lightnings which v. 3. are declared to be of a like extent with the voice and for the order betwixt these two it is declared v. 4. that the thunder followeth the Lightning Not in order of Existence for the cloud must break with a noise before the Lightning appear but in that order wherein they appear to our senses For our sight being a quicker sense than that of Hearing and the Light passing through the Air in an instant while the sound thrusts it self through the air but by degrees we see the light before we hear the sound Hence we may gather 1. Gods Majestick Lightnings attending his voice may yet discover more of the Majesty of the Speaker and may shew what pains he takes and what splendor and glory he displayeth to have his voice regarded and what need we have of warnings to excite our attention to hear as Lightnings in ordinary excite us to hearken to the voice that followeth 2. This order here put betwixt the Voice and Lightnings doth point out That the hearing is a more dull and slow sense than seeing And therefore we should be careful to quicken it in hearing yet so as the many turns and windings in our ear which is the cause of this flowness should warn us to be very cautious and circumspect in trying what we hear 3. Meditation should be a means to make our thoughts rise and grow in taking up the excellency of God For now after he hath thought and spoken a while of this voice of God he calleth it the voice of his excellency 4. The necessary connexion betwixt the voice and these Concomitants v. 4. Where the Relative them may be referred to Lightnings many of them in the plural number which are not stayed or kept back when his voice of thunder is heard or to be heard And thus thunder is still accompanied with Lightnings though sometime we see lightnings when we hear not thunder Or it may be referred both to Lightnings and Rain of which he hath spoken Chap. 36.27 28 30. both which accompany the thunder It may point out 1. That Gods fixing and observing of an order and course of Nature in Thunders Lightnings Rain as also in day and night summer and winter may be of use to strengthen the Churches Faith in other cases as use is made of it in expecting a Day and a Summer after a Night and Winter of trouble Psal 74.16 17. 2. The many Glimpses and Rays of glory which he manifests together in those concurrent works of his power when we are surrrounded with them all at once may let us see how unable we are to take up all his works or all that is in them we cannot have studied his glory shining in the Lightnings when presently we are alarmed with the glorious voice of his Thunder and with the rain after that which will sooner confound us than we can fully comprehend them Thirdly A Conclusion of this Instance and a transition to the rest of his Instances v. 5. Wherein is shewed that as God is marvellous in his thunderings so he hath many other incomprehensible works some of which are afterward instanced as proofs of this Hence learn 1. When men have had never so many after-thoughts of Gods workings they will never see cause to abate their estimation thereof or of his glory shining therein but rather to encrease it as here he shuts up the former Instance with this God thundereth marvellously with his voice 2. Men see little if they see not matter of admiration in Gods works for he thundreth marvellously as there are indeed many wonders in it How dreadful the sound is which is made by a Vapour in the Air how it should kindle it self by its conflict with the watery Cloud how the Thunderbolt should melt the money and yet not burn the Purse in which it is and break the bones and yet make no visible breach in the skin and many the like wonders which are recorded by Naturalists and Historians 3. It is not one work only wherein we may see the marvellous hand of God but any one doth demonstrate what is in all whether we see it or not as here he subjoyns to this commendation of the Thunder great things doth he c. to teach us to see that in Snow Rain c. which are the following Instances which we see in Thunder 4. As men are ignorant of Gods works so the cause thereof and of our not seeing wonders in them flows from our own shallowness and incapacity for great things doth he which we cannot comprehend Verse 6. For he saith to the Snow Be thou on the earth likewise to the small rain and to the great rain of his strength 7. He sealeth up the hand of every man that all men may know his work 8. Then the Beasts go into dens and remain in their places The second sort of Instances to confirm