of Gods afflicting righteous men yet here he speaks also of hypocrites Not that any truly godly person can turn an hypocrite and be cut off as such but that he may clear how of Professours of godliness who meet with affliction some are sincere and others but dissemblers and that the tryal contributes to the discovering of both and the seperating of the chaffe from the wheat 2. He doth not here make mention of hypocrites with any design to reflect upon Job as one of them but partly to vindicate Gods righteousness in afflicting them who profess piety considerirg that not only he hath holy ends in dealing so with such as really are what they profess of which he hath spoken already and more is added v. 15. but that there are many unsound Professours whom in his holy Providence he discovers by affliction Partly that he may detert Job from some pranks under trouble particularly his complaining more than he did pray he lets him see that they were the pranks of hypocrites and therefore not to be persisted in by him who was a godly man 3. Albeit there was an alternative propounded in speaking of the duty of godly men under trouble v. 11 12. Yet v. 15. he mentions only their profiting by the rod and nothing of their incorrigibleness because that is the ordinary fruit that real Saints get of the rod and it is nor so usual for them when they are in trouble to provoke God by their miscarriages to cut them off And therefore he asserts of them indefinitely or more generally that they are delivered and their cars opended in oppression From v. 13 14. Learn 1. Hypocrisie is an ordinary evil cleaving to profession of Religion So that Hypocrites are very ordinarily and frequently mixed among sincere Professours For so is here supposed in that when Elihu is vindicating Gods dealing with Saints he insinuates this as one plea for him that there is need of affliction upon men of their profession were it but to discover and purge out hypocrites from anâ—â—â—g them So that men should not think it enough that they are Professours if they have no more and even sincerest of Professours have need to guard against hypocrisie which so frequently cleaves to profession 2. The hypocrisie of some may be so closely conveighed and hid in their hearts that in ordinary it doth not appear For there are hypocrites in heart who do not much appear visibly to be such 3. God is so ill pleased even with the most refined of hypocrisie that he will sooner or later have the mark pulled off it and cause the hypocrite appear in his own colours As here it is supposed that they will appear to be under wrath 4. Albeit many times prosperity will discover the unsoundness of some who flattered God under trouble Psal 78.34 35 36 37. Yea albeit close and refined hypocrites may pass through many tryals undiscovered till their tryal which toucheth upon their Idol come Yet a day of adversity is the ordinary touchstone of hypocrisie which will at last find it our and discover it As here it is in affliction and when God binds them that they appear in their colours and the scorching heat of the Sun or the fiery furnace will make the varnish to fall off See Is 33.14 So that hypocrites had need of fair weather for a shower will stain them and make them cast their borrowed colour 5. Hypocrites are especially discovered by their not crying to God in trouble As here they cry not when he bindeth them And albeit this seem to contradict other Scriptures which say they cry only when they are in trouble Psal 78.34 Yet this may also hold true of them or of some of them that when they are in trouble they may at first give over to cry as being madded that they should be in trouble or confounded with it or hoping to find relief another way And if they come to God in trouble they will soon weary and give over if they be not speedily relieved Is 58.3 Mal. 3.13 14. And to express this character of hypocrites more distinctly we may take it up thus 1. If they goe to God in trouble yet there is more of murmuring than prayer in their addresses 2. They are ready to cry more upon the account of what they want than because God binds them or because they see his hand and quarrel in their affliction Hos 7.14 16. 3. They cry more that they may get ease of their trouble than they repent of their sins which procured them 4. There is little fervency or crying in their addresses or what fervour seems to be therein flows not from humility love or hope but from pride bitterness and diffidence 5. Their first recourse is not to God so long as they have any shift beside 6. They lose all hope and weary to cry on if their strait grow and continue while they are crying 2 King 6.30 33. All these should warn us to try and examine our prayers and to look upon it as sad when trouble produceth no prayer or no right prayer Doct. 6. Though hypocrites â—â—e alwayes under wrath yet their miscarriages and discovering of themselves under trouble draws on a greater and more insupportable weight and burden of it For by this they heap of wrath Which should warn all to look to their carriage under trouble 7. Gods wrath against hypocrites will not alwayes evidence it self only by with-holding of favours or speaking sad words to them but will at last break forth in visible effects upon impenitent hypocrites to the destruction both of Soul and Body And especially if trouble be not well improved when God hath begun to reckon with them he will not be dallyed with nor spare them For they dye or their Soul or Life dyeth that is both their Soul and Life dyeth Or the phrase may have relation to the thoughts that hypocrites have of their bodily and animal life which they so esteem as if Soul and Life and all consisted in living here Or it serves to aggravate their fault who have a rational Soul as well as an animal Life and yet dare hazard to draw on death upon themselves in wrath It is true this threatening against hypocrites may admit of an exception in the visible Church Psal 78.34 38. as to the grant of a national pardon to the body of a people Numb 14.20 21 Psal 99.8 Yet God will reckon with particular hypocrites 8. As the Lord seeth it fit sometimes to cut off hypocrites early and some of them by a violent death So it is true of all of them that they dye before they be full of dayes Psal 55.23 they still abhorring death and before they cease and give over their youthfull folly and become wise in God For thus and in these respects they dye in youth 9. Hypocrites especially when they do not improve trouble are justly ranked among the worst of men and dealt with accordingly For their life is cut off
Whether he would maliciously curse and renounce God because of affliction This is so far from appearing here that albeit in so hot a furnace it is no wonder he cast a scum yet his case and his carriage being compared together it is Jobs victory and a great foil to Satan that he devords not more And albeit the Lord might by his power and grace have prevented even this measure of failing Yet it was more for his honour that Infirmity broke out so far That his weaknesses might be as comfortable to after-ages as his graces as is before marked and that the power of God might bâ— the more conspicuous in supporting him 2 Cor 12.7 8.9 and grace might shine in his cleaving to God in the midst of all this as appears from the following debate 2. Albeit his weakness do thus for a time break forth when his Reason and Experience are at under and he is sensible of nothing but pain and sorrow yet he doth not persist in this distemper nor is it the only thing that appears in the furnace but he hath much better purpose afterward in the behalf of God And therefore as in a battel men do not judge of affairs by what may occur in the heat of the conflict wherein Parties may retire and fall on again but by the issue of the fight So Job is not to be judged by those fits of distemper seeing he recovered out of them at last and so God himself judgeth of him Jam. 5.11 Yea those violent fits do serve to demonstrate the strength of grace in him which prevailed at last over them all And his victory was the more glorious that his conflict had been sharp From this verse we may learn 1. There are in the most subdued Child of God strong corruptions ready to break forth in tryal For so appears in Job an holy and mortified man as he is described Chap. 1.1 8. and Chap. 31. throughout The best of men ought to be sensible that they have by nature an evil heart of unbelief even when they are strong in the faith that they have luke-warmness under their zeal passion under their meekness c. 2. Albeit natural corruptions may lurk long even in the Furnace of Affliction Yet long and multiplied tentation will bring it forth As here we may gather from Jobs experience who was not only blameless and streight before the tryal came but having stood it out long under his tryal doth now at last discover his weakness Which may teach godly men and even those who have kept their integrity in many tryals to be still upon their guard and not to be high-minded but fear nor sing the triumph because of some petty atchievements before the compleat victory be obtained For 1. Every exercise and tryal will not be a tryal to every man nor an irritation to every corruption within him 2. The length and continuance of a tryal is a new tryal and may discover that which the simple tryal doth not reach as here we see in Job 3. When men get leisure in cold blood to reflect and pore upon their case as Job did during that long silence of himself and his friends it will prove more grievous then at first it doth 4. When men are disappointed of what they expect under trouble as Job was of his Friends comfort it will grieve them more then if they in sobriety had expected no such thing Doct. 3. The Lords in judging of the grace and integrity of his followers doth afford many grains of allowance and graciously passeth overmuch weakness wherein they do not approve themselves For notwithstanding all this weakness yet not only did the Lord before declare him a righteous man but even after the tryal he commends him as a pattern of patience Jam. 5.11 though he had vented so much passion 4. Albeit a small tryal be sufficient to discover weakness in the best of Saints if God leave them to themselves yet most usually their weakness appears not but in great and sharp tryals nor will they be so tenderly indulged if they fail in lesser trials when their exercise is not so sharp Therefore are those bitter fits of Job recorded together with his great and overwhelming trouble that his example may embolden none to allow themselves in the like bitterness and passion when their tryal is nothing like his Verse 2. And Job spake and said 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which it was said There is a manchild conceived 4. Let that day be darkness let not God regard it from above neither let the light shine upon it 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it let a cloud dwell upon it let the blackness of the day terrifie it 6. As for that night let darkness seise upon it let it not be joyned unto the days of the year let it not come into the number of the moneths 7. Lo let that night be solitary let no joyful voyce come therein 8. Let them curse it that curse the day who are ready to raise up their mourning 9. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark let it look for light but have none neither let it see the dawning of the day 10. Because it shut not up the doors of my mothers womb nor hid sorrow from mine eyes In these verses we have an account at large of Jobs wish that he had never been born set down by way of imprecation against the day of his birth ver 3. 9. to which a reason is subjoyned v. 10. The Imprecation is set forth with great variety of purpose and a flood of eloquent expressions suggested by his present sense of trouble and passion And it is denounced First Against that day in all its parts as it comprehends both day and night or is a natural day or 24. hours ver 3. Where he wisheth that albeit sometime it had been a day of good tidings of the birth of a Son it may perish A vain wish importing his desire either that that day had never been or that now it should never come in account among the days of the year or that it never be kept for a birth day as the custom was among some people but whenever it comes about that it be infamous Secondly against the day or that which is the light-part of that natural day ver 4 5. Unto which he wisheth 1. Darkness without light to shine upon it and that not ordinary darkness but like unto the shadow of death which imports great darkness Isa 9.1 2. and elsewhere like the darkness which is in deep pits where the dead are who never see the light or such darkness as seiseth upon the eyes of dying men whose day of life is drawing to the dark shades of death or palpable darkness the horrour whereof might affright men to death This darkness he further wisheth unto it not for a part of the day only but all along a cloud dwelling upon it
By all which it should be stained or its beauty hid and taken away as a Room without light and the blackness of the day should terrifie it or make it terrible to others 2. He wisheth that God may not regard it from above That it may not only want light but all other evidences of his favour and noticing of it such as dew rain c. or its being happy by any good event upon it By all which expressions so appositely chosen though he pour forth his own passion Yet withal he insinuates these truths 1. That it is a great though ordinary mercy that we enjoy the light of the day seeing it would be a curse to the day or rather to men to want it And that it is a mercy God hath so contrived the vicissitudes of light and darkness as may be most comfortable and not terrible 2. That Gods Providence doth so particularly notice every day as the blessing and comfort thereof depends on him If he do not regard it from above it will prove but a sad day Thirdly Against the night ver 6 7 8 9. Unto which he wisheth 1. That darkness may seise upon it ver 6. which though it be natural to the night to be dark he wisheth to it in a singular manner v. 9. That it may not have the very light of Stars which are comfortable in the night as small mercies are in sad times and that no light or dawning of the day may succeed to it and so it should be denyed all hope of comfort which rendereth hard conditions intolerable 2. That Nature should disclaim it from coming in the account of the course of the Sun or Moon ver 6. or that it should not be reckoned among joyful nights Which is indeed a great curse when any creature stands useless 3. Whereas it was an usual custom to have Festival Assemblies and mirth in the night 1 Thes 5.6 7. the abuse whereof is not here approved but only the custome alluded unto it is wished that this might be honoured with none such but that it be a mournful solitary night wherein men are deprived of the society of friends which is one of the great comforts of time v. 7. 4. That it may be execrated by all as well as it was by him as grieved persons would have all to be displeased with that which vexeth themselves and that with as great vehemency as those hired mourning women who have signs of sorrow and tears at their command and who in imitation of real mourners are ready to raise up and renew their mourning after they have mourned much before do use to execrate the day of their Benefactors death ver 8. The expressions allude to that custom 2 Chron. 35.25 Jer. 9.17 Amos 5.16 And this I take to be the right translation and sense of this verse rather then with some to understand it of Mariners who being tossed with a Tempest do curse the day in which they went to Sea and are ready by their wishes to raise up Leviathan which is here rendered their mourning or the Sea-monsters to swallow them up For though Jobs resentments in this Chapter be no less unreasonable then if one should wish to be violently swallowed to avoid a present tempest yet that is not the usual practice of Mariners in a Tempest Jonah 1.5 6. Neither do they hit upon the true sense who taking Leviathan also for a proper Name do understand it here figuratively of the Devil that great Dragon whom some wicked men are ready to raise up in great trouble that they may consult him about an issue as Saul did 1 Sam. 28. and all of them are ready to raise him up by their cursed invocating of him that either they may be delivered or cut off For though Job be passionate enough in this Discourse yet he was very far from this height of impiety The reason of all this Imprecation v. 10. is because that day fell out to be his birth-day upon which so much sorrow followed reckoning that if he had not been born he had not met withal that vexation If we consider this whole Imprecation against the day of his birth with the ground of it As we may not ascend so high as to tax Job of blasphemy or of condemning the order of Nature and consequently of condemning God who established it So we cannot but discern great passion and impatience evidenced by its fruits and effects in these particulars 1. His inconsiderateness That trouble being so natural to Adams posterity Chap. 5.7 as is acknowledged by himself Chap. 14.1 and submitted unto Chap. 1.21 2.10 Yet he doth now free at it They had need of much wisdome considerately to ponder all things who would be patient in trouble Iam. 1.5 with 4. 2. His rash stubbornness in fretting at trouble For albeit it be lawful to desire to be rid of trouble with submission to the will of God Yet when we see it is the Lords will that we should be under trouble it is not our duty peremptorily to stand out and refuse but to stoop and submit For by this submission we take the sting out of our own crosses Jer. 10.19 Whereas want of resolution and stooping doubleth the bitterness thereof 3. His selfishness Had this complaint been because of common troubles upon the people of God it had been more tolerable But being only for his own ease and that albeit he disputed afterward that Saints might be in the like case sorrow was not hid from his eyes ver 10. as if he had been a priviledged person was very selfish Impatience is ordinarily a great ponderer of greifs because they are ours little weighing the troubles of others 4. His absurd and unreasonable blaming of a wrong cause of his trouble For what influence had his birth-day on his trouble or on his birth either it being but a naked circumstance Impatience is still unreasonable and when a man is thereby imbittered he madly breaks forth on what comes nearest him whether it be too blame or not 5. His poor shift which he takes to help himself For beside that he wisheth a thing impossible as the expunging of a day he wisheth also that which was unprofitable for his help For suppose the day were either so expunged or marked as he wisheth what could that help him now would it recall all his sufferings But it is always found that impatience taketh the longest way and falls not upon the most speedy remedy and mean of help 6. His ingratitude and under-valuing of all the mercies he had received as not able to counter-balance his present grief contrary to his own Principle formerly Chap. 2.10 But now his birth and all the mercies he had received are his burden Ingratitude will soon bury in oblivion many favours if we be cast in any trouble But it is our duty to remember former kindnesses or present continued mercies even in the midst of trouble and to reckon that new proofs of love
sends on the trouble which we take occasion to be imbittered at and giveth way to mens own spirits yet it flows from their own passion pride and haste that they are so imbittered 5. Whatever be in the troubles of Saints whether really or in their apprehension Yet nothing of that warrants them to complain of God and his dealing or to be weary of their own life and lot For whatever Jobs case was yet his trouble was no relevant reason why he should so passionately desire to die Some are indeed more peevish and absurd then others in this particular who upon the very least discontent and crossing of their humor were it in never so great mercy would lie down and die as Jonah 4.2 3. Yet let men be able to instruct their case to be most really sad that is no reason why they should so desire death as to complain and expostulate if they be not satisfied The like sentence may we pass upon all our reasonings against any of Gods dealing Vers 21. Which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures 22. Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave The second reason of his Expostulation and an effect of the former is taken from his earnest desire after death though it succeeded not That though he betook himself to no ill shift which might take away his life yet in his desires he longed as seriously for it as men do labour for treasures v. 21. And was not as all men naturally are afraid of death and the grave but would be glad to meet with it ver 22. Now his nature was afflicted to want what he desired and therefore he longs to be at it and expostulates that he is not satisfied If we look to the strength of this Argument Though it be the advantage of a godly man such as Job was that the testimony of his Conscience leads him to look death thus confidently in the face Yet not only doth Job now pursue this desire rather in Passion than with an eye to his Integrity and looking rather to death as the common end of all mens outward trouble then to what is beyond death But did his desire flow from never so holy a principle he soars too high and is too peremptory in it For we find that Saints in cold bloud have deprecated death in such gloomy days As we will find in many of the Psalms In particular In this reasoning we may Observe 1. He is too earnestly bent for death which was an evidence he was wrong and that God would not give it For God by his Providential Dispensation in continuing him alive retorted the Argument that because he doated much on death therefore it was not fit he should meet with it Whatever outward lot our hearts are bent upon under tentation we may suspect it is an Idol And that God will guide those whom he loveth rather any way than that 2. The excess of his inclination after death made the want of it a cross so that he complaineth it cometh not whereas if he had been sober he might have found another out-gate and however yet his grief through the want of it had been less This teacheth Partly that it is an evidence of mens insobriety in desiring lawful things when they cannot brook a disappointment nor are content having done their duty to submit to what God shall think best For if Job had soberly desired death he would not have added but it cometh not Partly that many augment their own afflictions by unsober doating on out-gates of their own which being denyed them it heightens their grief their own Affections adding Oil to the flame As Jobs vehement longing after death renders the disappointment bitter He longs and digs for death but it cometh not Whereas sobriety affords a present out-gate of Gods providing His Salvation of his allowance and carving is near Psal 85.9 when salvation of our prescribing and desired by us is far off 3. His argument is ill founded That because he exceedingly desires death Therefore he may complain and quarrel if God do not yield it to him There is no reason that our will should be a law not only whereby we will walk our selves but pointing out and prescribing to God what he should do to us And yet this is the exercise of many They have an irregular lusting will and then they repine if it be not satisfied As if they were not to acknowledge a Lord over them Vers 23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in 24. For my sighing before I eat and my roarings are poured out like the waters In these verses Job repeats the first reason of his Expostulation taken from his afflicted condition and doth enlarge it yet further that he may confirm the former reason that he did justly desire death so earnestly as he did And 1. He propounds the case in general ver 23. That any man may desire death and complain if it be with-held whose way is hid and hedged in or who is so over-whelmed with darkness and confusion and involved in a labyrinth of perplexities that he knows not what to make of his case nor whether to turn him and when he would turn himself to any hand to seek relief he finds God hedging him in on all hands without any hope of relief 2. He propounds his own case in particular v. 24. to instruct that he was a man so afflicted Shewing that his ordinary refreshments did not abate nor divert his sorrows but even before the face of his meat and while it was set before him his sighing and sorrow continued without intermission Yea his sorrows were so great as made him roare and that so impetuously and abundantly as a current of waters running down Not to insist on what hath been before marked That supposing all this were true of Jobs case yet he had his own imbittered spirit to blame for much of this disorder following upon his trouble And albeit the Lord had dealt so with him it was not a relevant reason why he should decline to stoop under Gods hand so long as he pleased leaving it upon God to order his dark path and submitting to digest his reâ—eshments with sorrow We may further from ver 23 learn 1. When people are in trouble it contributes to the heightning thereof that they do constantly pore upon it in all the aggravations thereof For Job is so much taken up with this subject that he returns to it again alter what he had said v. 20. 2. It is much to be adverted unto by these in trouble that self-love do not lead them to aggravate afflictions more because theirs then they would do if they were on others or then impartial observers would esteem of them Therefore both here and ver 20. he propounds the matter in Thesi and of any man whosoever thus afflicted to shew that he was not
crushed which yet at last will prove a Conquerour Thirdly His confirmation of this main Arguments taken from Experience is a weak proof For 1. Albeit they found by experience which was indeed their stumbling block That in that non-age of the Church God had more ordinarily trained on his people with outward encouragments and plagued the wicked Yet that did not evince that he would always follow that method seeing it was not promised His outward signal dispensations in one time or age are not a constant ground for our expectation and faith but the word alone Though indeed it be true that after eminent proofes of Gods appearing for his people and against the wicked it is not easie to submit to want the like again 2. Though the world had but lasted a short while till their days compared with its continuance since yet they could not undertake they had known all that God had done or did remember all they knew or seriously remark all they saw And consequently their observation and experience could not found an universal Principle seeing they might be deficient in it And indeed before their time there were not only instances of Noah and Lot much vexed in soul but of Abel cut off by his wicked brother which might fully answer that Question ver 7. and refute what he brought from experience But it seems that that and the like were not marked either because more rate or because their principles did so prepossess them as they did not advert to any thing which contradicted the same As it is most ordinary that prejudices and preingagements do shut out clearest truths 3. Their expâ—rience was not so large then as now and therfore it needed not seem strange albeit Job should cast the first copy to all after-ages of a godly man so afflicted Nor need Saints stumble being approved in their way by the Word to hazard upon a tryal wherein no godly man hath trode before them and when they have no experience of any in the like case before them to leave in their tryal an experience to all who shall come after them as it seemeth Abel and Job did In sum from all this we may conclude how safe and sure it is to judge of persons and lots by the word and what hazard there is to looke to dispensations or experiences without it Vers 9. By the blast of God they perish and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed 10. The roaring of the lion and the voyce of the fierce lion and the teeth of the young lions are broken 11. The old lion perisheth for lacke of prey and the stout lions whelps are scattered abroad This Argument from Experience is in these verses further enlarged And to make it have impression on Job he amplifieth the stroke of God upon the wicked with divers reflections upon the case of Job and his Children to make him apprehend how like the one case is to the other And 1. He sets before him the manner of the wickeds destruction ver 9. where by the blast and breath of God we are to understand his anger immediately let forth and his extraordinary power exerted against sinners to consume them and make them perish as Eliphaz supposeth that God had destroyed Jobs Children and some of his Goods for the expressions allude to that which had befaln them 2. He sets before him the object of those judgements which are oppressours and their Children who are compared to Lions for their cruelty and fierceness ver 10 11. Where most of the names of Lions in Scripture taken from their several Ages are gathered together to point at old Job and his Children in their several ages 3. He points out the effects of Gods destroying of them That then their terrour and cruelty signified by their roaring voyce and teeth are made to cease ver 10. and old oppressours want necessary means of subsistence and comfort as Job did and their children were scattered and gone as his were ver 11. Here it may be enquired for further clearing of the words 1. Whether by these reflections he point at Jobs Children also as oppressours Answ Though they may be called by the name of young Lions only as Children to him who was as he judged a Lion-like oppressour yet the breaking of the teeth of young Lions implyeth further that he judged them oppressours also and elsewhere we find Chap. 8.4 that they charged guilt upon his Children for which God had destroyed them 2. It may be enquired how Job could be charged as guilty of such a crime of oppression who had such a publick testimony of being a lover of Justice and Equity Job 29.11 17 or How his Children could be charged with it of whose meddling with affairs nothing is recorded far less of their cruelty Answ 1. Eliphaz's Principles led him to charge this crime upon them though there were no other evidence of it but that they were thus afflicted For his way of reasoning was thus sure they must have been oppressours else they had not been so crushed 2. If we consider that Job in doing justice and it may be his sons under him and at his command behoved to irritate those whose were in the wrong and whom he crushed Chap. 29.17 we may easily gather that these would be now ready to say God had justly rewarded him thus for wronging and oppressing of them as they judged it to be which agreeing with Eliphaz's Principles he without any further examination takes it for granted that their complaints were just This Discourse is no less faulty then the former Argument to conclude that because this is Gods common course with Oppressours therefore none of them are exempted and only such were so crushed and that every calumny against a Saint in trouble should be looked on as a just and true accusation And his mistake in these Reflections may further teach us 1. It is usual for Saints to lie under great misconstructions both concerning their afflictions and the cause of them Not only to have sore trouble lying upon them and it painted out in its worst colours as if God in wrath were a party and in all the branches thereof But imputations upon their carriage received in the world and believed by godly men as well as suggested to their own bosoms As here Job hath his case held out to him by Eliphaz as pursuâ—d by an angry God to utter ruine in his person and posterity for his great oppressions This may teach men to look and learn to a surer testimony being denyed to popular applause and not stumbling though they be misconstructed even by Saints 2. It may please God after he hath taken innocent men out of the world to suffer their names to lie under reproach behind them for the tryal of their Relations who are left behind and that all may expect that day wherein there will be a Resurrection of names as well as of bodies For here Jobs Children after their death lie
moment of the day Or being but short-lived like that creature which is said to live but one day See Psal 39.5 Or being cut off in a short time when God begins to deal with him Isa 38.12 Psal 90.5 6. Or his whole life and every day of it from morning to evening being but a daily dying and travelling from the womb to the grave All these do well enough sute the scope and may teach us 1. That death in it self is a destroying or breaking and braying in pieces as making havock of the poor man crushing his imagined excellencies and irreparably ruining him in his being though without prejudice to the power of God to be exerted in his future Resurrection Therefore it is said They are destroyed or broken in pieces 2. As death is terrible in it self so man lieth under so great hazard of it as may keep him low before God being a creature that is dying daily though he consider it not being uncertain what moment it may arrest him being unable to hinder the stroke of death to do its work in a short time and having but a short while of life if well considered how long soever it be forborn All these humbling considerations are imported in their being destroyed from morning to evening 2. That in regard the death of man is ordinary it is but little regarded ver 20. That they perish for ever is not to be understood here of eternal destruction for this sentence is true of all men even godly men But that men are continually dying and perishing in all times and ages and that though this be a great stroke and a perishing for ever without any hope of restitution to this life again Yet it is but little noticed or emproved Neither do they who are left behind make the use of that which they so ordinarily see nor do they who die ever return to give any proof of their proficiency by that stroke This teacheth 1. Death is in this respect a great stroke that it cuts off a man irrecoverably from all his enjoyments and from all opportunity of emproving any condition in this life So that if a man do not emprove time while he hath it and have no hope of somewhat beyond time he is in a poor condition In this respect all men at death perish for ever without hope of returning to this life 2. It is the constant course of divine Providence that as one generation is coming so another is going And that at all times death is still snatching some from there idols liberating others from their toil separating dearest friends and preaching the doctrine of Mortality to all For thus also they perish for ever in all ages and times 3. Albeit it be the duty of the sons of men to emprove every document of mortality which is laid before them in the experience of others Eccl. 7.2 Yet such is the stupidity of most that they profit nothing thereby nor are made to study the uncertainty of mans life or the vanity of many of mens projects on earth Luk. 12.19 20. For thus they perish without any regarding See Psal 49.13 14. 4. Such is the stupidity and corruption of men that even remarkable dispensations becoming ordinary are sleighted and do not affect them For albeit death be a singular stroke yet being ordinary for ever in all times there is no regarding or emproving of it As wonders will nor profit them who do not emprove the ordinary means Luk. 16.31 So the more ordinary and frequent wonders be our corrupt hearts will regard them the less 3. That by death men are stript of all their excellency which is in them ver 21 Which is not so much to be understood of the souls leaving the body as of their parting with all their external pomp and glory at death For both in sickness before death the memory judgment and other endowments of the mind do perish in some beauty and strength of body do languish in all and at death there is nothing left but a loathsome carcass and all worldly pomp and splendour is cut off from them It is here to be remembred that the Spirit of God doth not hear speak of men as to their eternal state but as to their externall condition which they enjoyed in the world And it teacheth 1. God is very bountiful to the sons of men in conferring many excellencies upon them both in their bodies minds and outward estate For there is supposed an excellency in them And albeit it be mans fault to value these too highly as their chief and only excellency yet their own true worth and Gods bounty in conferring of them ought not to be forgotten 2. God is also so kind as to continue all or many of these excellencies with men even to the grave For so is here supposed that their excellency doth not go away till then 3. Whatever forbearance the sons of men get in this life yet death will strip them of all their outward splendour and pomp For then all their excellency doth go away See Psal 49.17 Isa 14.9 10. c. 4. It is a very great fault and a gross neglect in men that this ordinary plain lesson of the vanity of outward excellencies is so little studied For this Question Doth not their excellency which is in them go away doth import that it is a clear case and yet withal that many do so walk as if they did not believe nor heed it and therefore must be posed if they do not believe and consider it 4. That they die without wisdom ver 21. or they die and there is no wisdom This may be true generally of all men that though some have profited much better in their life then others yet all may confess that they die before they be so wise as to understand as they ought what it is to live well or to emprove the examples of mortality which they have seen in their time It may also be understood only of the wicked who die without the knowledge of God and without that wisdom which floweth from right numbering of their days Psal 49.20 90.12 But it is more safe to understand it generally in this sense That they die without having any skill or wisdom how to avoid death And it teacheth however wicked men play many pranks with their wit in their lives and do nimbly extricate themselves imminent hazards though a prudent man foreseeing the storm may be able to avoid it Prov. 22.3 27.12 Yet death will triumph over all their skill and parts their wit cannot deliver them from death nor afford them any way to escape it Thus they die even without wisdom See 2 Sam. 3.33 Eccl. 2.16 CHAP. V. In this Chapter Eliphaz yet continueth his Discourse to Job consisting as was marked on Chap. 4. of a reprehension wherein he labours to convince Job of wickedness or hypocrisie and of some Exhortations to amend his life and turn to God considering the hand of
know also that thy seed shall be great and thine off spring as the grass of the earth 26. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season The other Head of Encouragement is That he shall not only have deliverance from trouble but restitution to his former condition instanced in these particulars 1. A peaceable Habitation ver 24. 2. That he shall visit his Habitation and not sin ver 24. whereby I do not only understand that in going about his affairs he shall not err as the word signifieth and is rendred Judg. 20.16 but shall succeed in his enterprises As godliness hath the promise c. even of a gift of good thrift Psal 112.5 But chiefly this is the meaning That he shall be taught a better and more sinless way of going about his affairs 3. That he shall have a great and numerous issue ver 25. 4. And fulness of days He should not be cut off as he now apprehended but should continue to old age and come ripe to his grave as ripe Corn is brought to the Barn ver 26. These Promises relating to things temporal must be understood with the usual Scripture cautions which assure us that all these things are put in the Believers Charter but the dispensing thereof left in the hand of their wise and tender Father With this caution we may from this purpose Learn 1. Godly men when in a right frame are taught to look upon their most prosperous condition as transitory and not their true rest For he calls Jobs house but a Tabernacle not so much because he dwelt in a Tent for his Children had Houses Chap. 1.13 18 19. and himself Chap. 42.11 as because the godly accounted so of their fairest houses 2. To a truly godly man the charge of a family is of great concernment so that the peace of it is a promise and great encouragement to him As this promise to Job imports 3. As Prosperity and Family-peace and concord therewith are a great blessing So Piety hath the promise thereof which is still fulfilled in so far as godly families may have true peace whatever befal them So much may safely be gathered from this promise Thy Tabernacle shall be in peace 4. It is no small mercy when the truth of a Promise is experimentally confirmed to us and much more when we are made to discern that it is so and made to acquiesce and be satisfied therewith So much is imported in this Thou shalt know that thy Tabernacle shall be in peace Thou shalt discern the accomplishment of this promise and be refreshed therewith So also ver 25. To discern a mercy is a new mercy in the bosome of it 1 Cor. 2.12 without which we may starve beside our food 5. Such as expect Gods blessing upon their family and affairs ought to wait on him in the diligent use of means about them For Thou shalt visit thine Habitation or go about thine affairs 6. So carnal are our hearts and so entangling are wordly affairs though lawful that without Gods special leading and assistance we cannot avoid much guilt in them For it needs a Promise not to sin when we visit our habitation 7. A truly godly man is so tender as he doth not so much mind success in his imployments as grace to keep the Conscience undefiled and in true peace And the obtaining of this will encourage him whatever his success be For this Promise is an encouragement to the godly man Thou shalt visit thy Habitation and he saith not thou shalt prosper but not sin 8. None are in a neerer capacity to go about their imployments in an holy spirituall and sober manner then those who have been bred in the School of Afflictions and to whom they have been blessed and who so attain this have an evidence that they have profited by their tryals For this Promise is made to Job upon supposition that Job will not despise the chastening of the Almighty ver 17. 9. Albeit neither all the godly nor only they have the gift of posterity but some of them will need other promises to make up that want Isa 56.4 5. Yet Children in themselves are a blessing and the more of them the greater blessing Psal 127.3 4 5. and when they are given to the godly they are the reward of Piety Psal 128.1 2 3 4. and accordingly should be improved as blessings Therefore is a promise made concerning those Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great and thy off-spring as the grass of the Earth 10. Whatever hazards we be exposed to in the world yet our times are in Gods hand to lengthen or shorten them as he pleaseth Therefore God undertakes to determine when man shall come to the grave Psal 31.15 11. Albeit as death is certain so it matters not much how the godly be sent away and liberate from their toil and warfare yet in it self it is a mercy to die a peaceable death For it is a Promise Thou shalt come to thy grave which imports not only that he should get a grave which is denied to many in times of calamity Psal 79.2 But that he should get his grave and die at home And it is indeed a crowning mercy when after the former mercies a peaceable and sweet close of all is granted 12. Albeit the godly lose nothing but gain much when by dying soon they are sent the sooner to Heaven yet as it is terrible to have our days shortened for sin Psal 55.23 so long life is in it self a blessing and is given to the godly for a blessing that they may meet with many proofs of Gods love may do much service to him in their generation and the many times that pass over them may sow liberally here that they may reap liberally the reward of free-grace hereafter and may get leave to prepare for their dissolution and the pins of their Tabernacle be taken down insensibly and at leisure For it is also a Promise Thou shalt come to thy Grave in a full age 13. Albeit all the godly are not continued to old age in the world yet they are blessed with satisfaction in their days and with ripeness and readiness to die anger being taken away doubts cleared Gods salvation seen Luk. 2.29 30. and it may be also satisfaction given in some particulars which they longed to see before their death As Gen. 48.30 1 King 1.48 For this being the chief thing in the Promise to die in a full age like as a shock of Corn cometh in in his season the promise is performed to every Saint who is ripe for death let him die never so young All these Promises as they intimate Gods condescendence to notice every particular concernment of his people and how easie it is for him to restore them if he please So they ought to perswade us to draw neer and keep neer God that so we may be assured that the
or stones that he may need and get many proofs of God and may be afraid to make the strong God his party 2. Mans time is also so short and uncertain as he cannot be able to effectuate and compass great things especially in his declining days and after he is broken with troubles For Job seeth nothing in his end or to be expected now in the latter part of his dayes why he should desire to prolong them See Luke 12.19 20. Isai 2.22 Psal 49.11 12. 146.3.4 3. It is a very sweet disposition to comply with what we conceive to be Gods will by stooping to it Jer. 10.19 As here Job professeth to desire death because he judgeth by his own weakness under trouble that God is calling him to it Beside those General Truths here insinuated Job's mistakes may afford us further instruction in these particulars 1. God may give his people many blessed disappointments of those sad things which they certainly expect For Job expected death considering his strength and yet he lived long after He never expected restitution and yet his former prosperity was restored with advantage See Isa 51.12 13 Lam. 3.18 22. Jon. 2.4 Ezek. 37.11 12. 2 Cor. 6.9 2. Saints do reckon wrong when they reckon only by their inherent strength As Job here did For God can support them to bear much more then their strength can undertake 1 Cor. 10.13 Phil. 4.13 Their weakness may prove strength Heb. 11.34 2 Cor. 12.10 and stronger then the vigour of others Isa 40.29 30 31. He can bring them out of a furnace without a singe of their garment Dan. 3.27 and from among Lions without a scratch Dan. 6.23 3. While Job undervalues his end or any thing to be expected in it as not worth the waiting for Albeit he do not speak of spiritual advantages in order to the Glory of God the Edification of the Church in all Ages and his own profit in the School of Affliction which are of so great excellency and worth that his troubles were not to be compared with his advantages as is said to the same purpose Rom. 8.18 Yet even in reference to those advantages of Wealth Honour Children c. his reasoning is faulty For even to be at work under trouble is beautiful in its season those outward mercies given as visible proofs of love after trouble are singularly sweet were it even but for a short time and though he should not continue long to enjoy them as he apprehended All which may teach us how unfit judges we many times are of what is best for us and how gracious the Lord is who asks not our consent to do that which will be for our good Vers 13. Is not my help in me and is wisdom driven quite from me This ver contains his third Argument wherein also he appeals to their judgment In explicating whereof I shall not insist on the various tortured readings of the words but shall adhere to our Translation and take help and wisdom for the same thing wisdom being a notable help to find out an expedient for relief when we are perplexed and in straits and so a special gift of God especially when it is sanctified The force of the Argument runs thus as if Job had said However I be otherwise afflicted yet I am not so deprived of judgment but that I have better skill to judge of mine own condition how it is with me and what is best for me then you have Therefore I will not renounce my own light and give up my self blind-fold to your conduct and guiding But as I know I am innocent so I who can best judge in this case see nothing better for me then present death This Argument doth contain those truths 1. God doth not take away all his mercies together from his people but when they are deprived of some others are left for their incouragment As here Job marks somewhat that was not dâ—iven quite from him See Lam. 3 18 19.22 2. It is the duty of men to be best acquainted with their own condition As here his argument supposeth See Prov. 20.27 27.21 3. It is a choice and singular mercy under overwhelming pressures to be able truly to discern our case and to know our duty and what is good for us For in this case Wisdom is substantial wisdom as the word is and a singular help They who rightly know their case and duty are not much to be pitied See 2 Chron. 20.12 4. Men ought not rashly to quit their own light at the perswasion of any other As Job here denieth to do and the doing whereof was so severely punished in that Prophet who came from Judah 1 King 13.21 22 24 Yet these Truths and especially the last admit of these cautions here 1. Men in cleaving to their light would take heed that wilfulness be not cloaked under a pretence of wisdom or light For will may seek shelter under the wings of conscience and light whereof Job was guilty in part 2. Albeit wisdom be not alwayes quite driven from us by trouble Yet it would be remembered that trouble may much confound and perplex the best judgments 2 Chro. 12.20 So that others may discern our case and duty better then our selves And thus was it with Job though not in the stated quarrel betwixt him and his Friends yet in this desire of death 3. Overtures propounded under tentation such as this desire of Job was ought to be narrowly examined ere they be assented unto For tentations light is ordinarily wild-fire 4. Men ought to guard lest conceit cause them to magnifie themselves and undervalue all others See Prov. 26.12 In which regard especially when men are under tentation sobriety is very necessary Phil. 2.3 So was David in his trouble 2 Sam. 18.3 4. And herein also Job's passion made him somewhat exceed 5. Men ought also to guard lest their interests and affections lead and beget their light As Jobs affection and desire after death blinded his judgment And that they do not raise and harbour prejudices against others as Ahab did against Micaiah 1 King 22.8 that so they may more confidently sleight their judgment Thus dealt wicked men with Prophets of old Jer. 5.12 13. Vers 14. To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty Job having thus endeavoured to justifie his complaints and desire of death he proceeds in the third part of the Chap. sharply to reprove his Friends who instead of comforting him had bitterly censured him and his complaints and so had disappointed him of that kindness he expected from them This challenge he sometime directs against Eliphaz ver 14. who had already spoken and sometime against all his Friends ver 15. who concurred with him in opinion as appears from Chap 5.27 In this verse he layeth cruel inhumanity to the charge of Eliphaz who had added so much to his affliction And 1. He propounds what was the
things may concurr to corrupt the senses of men in particular exigents Prosperity may blunt their tenderness and bribe their light to allow them ease Desertion as befel David in the matter of Bathsheba and Hezekiah in the matter of the Ambassadours of the King of Babylon may draw forth proofs of weakness and good men may miscarry under it especially when they are not sensible that they are deserted but the refreshments of prosperity do supply the the room of spiritual life And troubles do readily produce a feverish distemper of senses especially when false Christs appears in time of trouble Matth. 24 22 23 24. This may teach us to walk in a continual jealousie of our selves and not to lean to our own understanding Prov. 3.5 CHAP. VII Job having in the preceeding Chapter excused his own complaints renewed his desire of Death and sharply rebuked his Friends for their inhumane cruelty and for their being deficient in that duty he might have expected from them in his need and withal having exhorted them that laying aside prejudices they would take a second look of his condition He now in this Chapter for their further Information falls on a new Discourse concerning his case wherein he labours to justifie his desire of death desires pity and commiseration and complains he can find it at no hand So in this Chapter 1. He studies to justifie his desire of death For seeing mans life was not perpetual but had a prefixed period ver 1. and it being lawful for all oppressed creatures to seek a lawful and attainable out-gate ver 2. Why might not he seek that lawful out-gate of death who was afflicted beyond others ver 3 4. and so neer unto death that he expected not ease but by it ver 5 6. 2. He pleads for pity in regard of his frailty and his miserable and hopeless condition ver 7 8 9 10. 3. He complains sadly of Gods dealing toward him and having resolved to ease himself that way ver 11. regrets that his trouble was greater then he needed to tame him ver 12. that it was uncessant ver 13 14. and put him to hard shifts ver 15 16. And that God needed not deal so severely with him either for tryal ver 17 18 19. or for punishment of his sin ver 20 21. Vers 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his days also like the days of an hireling IN this Discourse concerning Job's desire of death I need not debate whether the discourse be directed to God to move him to grant him that desired out-gate or to his Friends to convince them of their errour in the matter as he judged it For both may be intended in the Discourse as spoken in their audience to God His conclusion or particular desire of death is no further expressed here then in that general Proposition v. 2. and as it may be gathered from the Arguments and the account he gives of the causes pressing him to seek after it Only it is more expressly afterward poured out in the complaint His Arguments justifying this desire may be taken up in that one sum set down in the Analysis of the Chapter But for more clear unfolding of the Text I shall take up three Arguments in it Whereof the first in this verse is taken from the condition of mans life which is not to be perpetual but limited by God to such a period at which it shall end as a Souldier hath a set time of his warfare and watching and an hireling of working And therefore he thinks he may safely desire that end of his task and service on which all men ought to be resolving This argument he holds forth in a general Proposition and appeals to God or his Friends Consciences to which soever of them we take the speech to be directed if this were not a truth That there is an appointed time for man upon earth it being prefixed by God and mans frailty as his name here in the Original imports holding out that he cannot be perpetual within time The word rendered an appointed time signifieth also a warfare which is very opposite to the purpose in hand as not only pointing at the condition of mans life being a perpetual toil and a condition of many tentations and hazards such as a souldier is exposed to in wars See Chap. 10.17 But serving also illustrate the matter of prefixing a period to mans life man being like a Souldier who hath a prefixed age for his coming on service and for going off as Miles emeritus Or a certain time for which he is conduced for such a service in war and afterward disbanded and dismissed Or a prefixed time for standing on his Watch as Centinel after which he is relieved And to this purpose also serveth that other similitude of an hirelings days both pointing at their hard service and toil and the prefixed time for which they are hired This General Proposition holds forth these truths 1. The time of our life is prefixed to us by God There is an appointed time to man upon earth See Job 14.5 Which as it gives us no latitude for unwarrantable hazarding of our life for we ought to live according to his appointment who hath appointed our time So it may teach us not to live as those who are Masters of their own time Isa 56.12 Luk. 12.19 20. To be willing to die when God declares we shall live no longer for many are so far from Job's temper here that they come not the length of duty in this and not to fear them who threaten our life for his sake for they will not get our life till his time come Psal 31 13 14 15. 2. Mans life will end his glass will run and his course draw at last to a period For there is but an appointed time for man upon earth Let men think to make themselves never so perpetual yet they cannot avoid death Psal 49.6 c. Which men ought seriously to think upon Gal. 11.9 and not to be excessively eager in seeking great things seeing they must die and leave them all 3. Our life till we come to the period of it is like unto a warfare wherein as good Souldiers we are not to serve or please our selves 2 Tim. 2.4 nor to dispute our Generals Orders and should resolve to be in perpetual motion and travail and watching to â—un many hazards and look for no issue but either absolute victory or death or to be led captives by Satan And it is also like the dayes of an hireling who is bound to many hard services and much toil So much doth the Text hold forth and they who look otherwise on their life will be deceived Yet in all this we have this encouragement That we are doing our Captain and Master service that we are working our own work as well as his for a Souldier earns pay and an hireling wages by his work and that the worst of it will
have an end As for the Inference that Job would draw from this Proposition That because mans life hath a prefixed period therefore he might peremptorily desire to attain this end of his toil It is faulty in divers respects the observing whereof may give light in the rest of his Discourse And 1. The condition of our life before God is not in all respects like the condition of a Souldier or hireling For our task and service is just debt as theirs is not always it is not needed by God as men need the assistance of Souldiers and Servants we have no skill of our selves to do our work as they have nor do we know our term-day as they do and therefore cannot prescribe it Unless we take him up to be God and our selves but creatures we will never steer a steady course especially under trouble 2. It is ill reasoning to say that because God hath determined our time therefore we should fix the end of it when we will For God hath kept up that from us that we may be ready either to die or honour him in the World as he shall please to order 3. Because there is an end of our toil it is ill argued that when toil cometh we should seek presently to be at the end of it Whereas we should rather bear it couragiously remembering the end of the Lord and that it will not be perpetual Jam. 5.11 4. It was unseasonable for Job to wish so eagerly for the end of his warfare and toil when such a dark cloud was betwixt God and him Saints have acknowledged â—t a mercy that death was kept off in such a condition Lam. 3.22 Psal 27 13. But this was an evidence of his great distress and of his distemper of mind which corrupted his sense and discerning Vers 2. As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work 3 So am I made to possess months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed me 4. When I lie down I say When shall I arise and the night be gone and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day The second Argument which presseth the former and cleareth it is taken from that common liberty allowed to all creatures in their strait to press and long for a possible and lawful out-gate The sum of it is as if Job had said If hirelings being weary do long after refreshment and the end of their task when they shall receive their wages So may I under my troubles long after death which is the appointed end of my toil and that so much tâ— rather as my task is sorer then any of theirs In this Argument Consider First The Proposition of the Argument in a comparison ver 2. That as a wearied servant oâ— hireling longeth after some cool shadow or the shadow of the night wherein he may rest and longeth â—oâ— the time wherein he may receive his wages For to work as it is in the Original is taken not â—o much oâ— the end of work as for the reward of it Psal 10â— 20. Jer. 22.13 So mighâ— he long for death whâ—â—e he expected to find the only true eâ—se of his grievances and reward of his integrity In this reasoning beside the former mistakes we may further add 1. That bâ—â—ng an hireling to so great and so good a Master and so uncertain of the length of his day he ought so to long for the close oâ— it as yet he prescribed not to God 2. It was his fault to look on death as the only out-gate and shadow from this â—oil â—â—â—peâ—â—ing that sufficient grace and proofs of love in the midst of trouble might have relâ—â—sheâ— him 3. It was also his fault to eye so much his own ease and the reward of his integrity and that he 〈…〉 rather condescend to what might honour God and edifie others albeit it were greivous to himself as was Paul's practice Phil. 1.22 25. Every one of those mistakes and faults may afford us Instruction But further these Lessons may be observâ—d in it 1. It pleaseth God to let some of Adam's posterity endure much toil in earning their bread that they may be sensible of sin and that others may learn thankfulness who have an easier lot though they be in the same guilt and of the same lump For so is held out in the instance of those wearied servants and hirelings Yea it is to be marked that though many are not put to those hard pinches yet even the greatest of men want not their own toil 2. It is ordinary for men not to find rest in their present condition but they are driven still to look after somewhat they want before them For so are servants and hirelings put to desire and look for somewhat they want And this holds not only true of men in great misery but generally of all men while they are within time Contentment with every estate is a choice lesson Phil. 4.11 Heb. 13.5 and would be more easily attained if men remembered they are within time where complete satisfaction is not to be expected and if they were studying to get the right use of every lot as it cometh 3. The many tossings and vexations wherewith the godly are essayed within time may allow them to look toward death with submission to the will of God as a sweet issue and to make it welcom when it cometh For this comparison imports that there is a lawful desire of death as the servant desires the shadow See 2 Cor. 5.4 Rom 8.23 A spiritual mind finds many calls thither though with submission and therefore do Saints find so many worms in their goâ—â—ds Only it should be our care that a desire to be freed from sin and a body of death do chiefly prevail with us to look to that issue 4. Death will never be a shadow to a man from his trouble who hath not so walked as he may expect a reward of his integrity then also For so much also doth the similitude import As the hireling looks both for the shadow and reward of his work so they whoÌ„ look comfortably on death must see both these in it And therefore a desperate desire of death in wicked men is abominable Secondly we have to consider the amplification and further pressing of this Argument from his particular case ver 3 4. Where in stead of inferring from that Proposition ver 2. that he might long for death as servants do for the shadow or more earnestly long for that issue then they do for their ease He only sheweth that he had greater cause so to long then they had being more hardly put to it And to prove this he holds out the dissimilitude betwixt his case and an hirelings in two 1. The hirelings task is ordinarily for a day but this was much longer even whole Moneths of vanity or eminently vain for any fruit of ease or comfort otherwise in respect of perfection all
conditions of life are vanity Gal. 1.2 Psal 39.5 and he was made to possess them as his patrimony and right as if no other portion were due to him 2. The hireling though he work sore in the day yet he gets the nights rest Gal. 1.12 But he is troubled by night as well as by day For after he hath toiled all day long which is here supposed his nights were made so wearisome by Gods appointment that when he lay down he longed for day-light that he might arise to see if that would bring him ease and so was made to measure out the evening as it is in the Original or to reckon how long it was to day-light Yea he was full of tossings to and fro or perpetually tossed inwardly in his mind and outwardly in his body through pain and want of rest and that not for a part of the night only but throughout the whole night even to the dawning of the day so that he got not any sound sleep See ver 14 15. Upon all which this inference is to be repeated that he might lawfully wish for ease in death Which though it was his failing and mistake as is before marked especially having to do with God to whom all ought to stoop and to be content if they get strength to bear what he layeth on and it may be justly suspected that his giving way to distemper of spirit added not a little to his disquietness yet his condition may afford us these Instructions 1. The Lord can when he will make our life which we think so sweet a very great burden to us and our time which ordinarily slips away insensibly very wearisome and tedious For Job is weary of his life and his Months and Nights are wearisome Creature-comforts of Bed and Board will not ease us when God hath us to try which should make us thankful when it is otherwise and teach us not to doat on time or our life For it is of God that all our outward mercies prove not crosses 2. The Lord is more absolute and soveraign over his Creatures to exercise afflict and continue troubles then any man is over his servant and hireling For here he made Job's lot more sad then the condition of any hireling is made by man He is astricted to no rule in those things but his own will to which we ought to submit 3. The coming on or continuance of trouble is not a matter at mans arbitrement God can make us to possess them and appoint them to us whether we will or not See Psal 105.17 18 19 20. Jer. 47.6 7. Which may lead us to eye God much when troubles stick on and to look to him alone for ease of them who can deliver without the consent of enemies as well as afflict us whether we consent or not See Job 34.29 Isa 49.24 25 26. 4. Albeit all men in their best outward estate are vanity Psal 39.5 Yet the Lord is pleased sometime to make some men exemplary instances of that truth of the vanity of all men and conditions For so was it with Job his months were months of vanity being empty of all comfort not having any such issue as he waited for and so disappointed his expectation and he reaping no benefit by all his toil as Psal 78.33 All which vanity as it may be read in other conditions that look not so terrible like as Job's did so they who are under such a lot may read this in it that because they see not the vanity and emptiness of every condition therefore it is made so legible to them 5 Singular troubles do very deeply affect men because they are singular For Job regrets that he was tossed beyond all others Yet Saints may read this in it also that they will be singularly regarded by God under their singular tryals 6. Gods Providence is so condescending that the trouble or quiet of every night is appointed by him For so Job holds forth Wearisom nights are appointed to me when I lie down I say When shall I arise c Where he understands God to be this appointer though he do not expresly name him till afterward that his heat grow more warm It is an evidence of our carnal mindedness when we see little of God in ordinary Providences Psal 139. were it but in a nights sleep And our negligence in this brings us to know by the want thereof how much we enjoy when we do but little observe or acknowledge it 7. As trouble makes any time promise more then the present So changes of that kind will not change our condition till God come For though Job longed for the day being full of tossings to and fro yet the day-light did not ease him See Deut. 28.67 It were our wisdom to make the best of our present lot be it never so hard for changes till we be fit for an issue will but add to our affliction Vers 5. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become lothsome 6. My days are swifter then a weavers shuttle and are spent without hope The third Argument wherein he yet insists to give an account of his trouble doth more distinctly tend to conclude the lawfulness of his desire of death For whereas it might be objected against his former reasoning That his trouble and disquiet might indeed warrant him to seek some ease but not to press so peremptorily for death He answereth That his trouble being irrecoverable left him no door of hope open but in death and therefore he behoved to press after that only The Argument runs thus as if Job had pleaded I may lawfully desire that warrantable issue which I see in the Providence of God approaching toward me and which hath already irrecoverably seised on me But I see death thus approaching and it hath already taken hold on me Therefore I may desire it Now that death is thus approaching he proves two wayes First From the present condition of his body v. 5. being in his graves-cloaths many worms breeding in his sores his body being covered with scabby clods of dust and ulcerous matter running from his sores and his skin being broken as the earth is in a drought in a loathsome manner From all which it is to be inferred that he could expect nothing but death Here we may Learn 1. Health and soundness of body is a great mercy and doth ease us of much vexation and an heavy burden As here appeareth from Job's resenting the want of it 2. Let men make never so much of their bodies yet they carry a mass of putrefaction and corruption about with them and they will come at length to be loathsom spectacles For here Job's body being touched by God his flesh is cloathed with worms and clods of dust c. 3. Death and life are in the power of the Lord and he can when he pleaseth bring down to the grave and bring up again 1 Sam. 2.6 For so much doth
Job's mistake in his reasoning teach us It was his mistake to conclude that he would shortly die were the probabilities never so pregnant since God by his soveraign Providence might interpose as afterward he did Secondly He proves it from a general Proposition of his case ver 6. which may relate especially to the days of his former prosperity not secluding the days of his whole life which were for most part spent in prosperity which were more swiftly passed away then the Weavers shuttle crosseth the breadth of the Web and were spent without hope of recovery And therefore there was nothing for him but death and the fair encouragements they held out to invite him to repentance were to no purpose And so however he complained that days of trouble were long ver 3 4. yet here he complains that his days of prosperity were soon over From this regret we may Learn 1. As the days of our life are short and being over are irrecoverable so men are ready out of partiality and self-love to think that good days end too soon and ill-days though indeed short of them last too long As Job here regrets the speedy spending of his former days while he looks on a short while of trouble as intolerably long 2. Our days of greatest prosperity or our longest life in the world will when it is over seem but short and nothing as here Job reckons See Isa 38.12 Psal 90.9 Which may discover the emptiness of time and of the enjoyments thereof however we delude our selves therewith 3. As hope is a man's last refuge in trouble as here Job when his days are spent looks next if any hope remain So sense will soon lose hopes when there is no cause why it should do so For so doth Job's sense conclude here that his days were spent without hope whereas there was hope in his end And here men ought to guard that they become not so effeminate and delicate through prosperity as a blast of trouble will faint their spirits and ruine their hopes Vers 7. O remember that my life is wind mine eye shall no more see good 8. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more thine eyes are upon me and I am not 9. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more 10. He shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more The second part of the Chapter may be taken up as an Exhortation to his Friends and particularly to Eliphaz who spake last in name of all the rest for the word is in the singular â—â—mber That considering his case that it was irrecoverable ver 7 8 and he might see it was so ver 8. and that he was shortly to be cut off from all the comforts of time ver 9 10 they would deal more tenderly with him and not crush him or drive him from his confidence in God or feed him with false hopes upon condition of his repentance which he never expected to see But considering that the following complainâ— is directed to God we may rather take this also as a desire directed to God wherein he pleads for pity in regard of his sad case and apprehending present death in its ugly shape and reflecting upon God's dealing with him he is forced to cry unto God that he would pity him and moderate the extremity of his afflictions as David also pleads Psal 39.13 In it we may consider First His case which he layeth out before God in great variety of expressions 1. That his life is wind v. 7 His former prosperity being passed away like a puffe of wind and his life now hanging by a thread of breath ready to pass away and never to return See Psal 78.39 Jam 4.14 2. That his eye shall see no more good ver 7. and the eye of him that hath seen him shall see him no more ver 8. That is He should never enjoy his former prosperity nor others see him repossessed of it or being dead he should be deprived of all worldly comforts and of any opportunity of conversing with his former acquaintance 3. That Gods eye being upon him he is not v. 8. That is being once dead if God should relent and desire to see him and do him good he should not find him of which ver 21. or rather That God thus fastening his eye upon him in anger would look him to nothing 4. He illustrates the state of the dead wherein he expected shortly to share by a similitude ver 9 10. That as a cloud being spent with pouring out of rain evanisheth and doth not return again to wit the same cloud in number otherwise clouds the same in kind do return Eccl. 12.2 so man being once spent by trouble and sent to the grave can no more return or have to do with his house and station then if they had never known one another In all which Discourse we would not understand Job as if he were denying the Resurrection of the body or the good things of heaven after death For in those things he is very clear Chap. 19.25 26 27. But he is only asserting that in ordinary there is no returning after death to this life to enjoy the good things of time as Isa 38.11 Secondly We are to consider his sute in reference to this his case which is comprehended in one earnest desire that God in afflicting him would remember as it is ver 7. this his frailty and how soon he would be shaken out of time By Gods remembring which is spoken of him after the manner of men we are to understand his pondering and weighing of his condition and his strength to bear it as Psal 78.39 and his giving proof of his affection by helping pitying and relenting toward him as he found his need require as the desires of afflicted Saints are elsewhere summarily comprehended in this one word Psal 74.2 From this whole purpose thus explained we may Learn 1. The true means of getting ease in troubles and grievances is neither our reasoning with men or with our selves but our laying out of our case before God As is Job's practice here Without this our counsels in our own hearts will not diminish our sorrow Psal 13.2 See also Gen. 25.22 2. Trouble when sanctified contributes not a little to make common truths be well studied and sensibly pondered For so doth Job in his trouble speak so sensibly of the frailty of his life and his estate in death Whereas want of exercise makes nauseating and unfruitful hearers even of the most precious truths 3. The things of time are indeed good things as Job here call's them See also Luk. 16.25 They supply many of mans defects and prevent many of his anxieties They are evidences of the goodness of God Matth. 5.44 45. especially to those who are themselves pure and to whom the use of those things is sanctified by the Word and
v. 10 11 12. which now he wishes had never been Ingratitude is an heinous sin in it self and will produce ill humours 3. When any condition how empty and poor soever seems better to men thâ—n what they have and what God hath sweetned with many proofs of his love For he dwells upon his dying from the womb as a sweet condition v. 19. which yet would have deprived him of many proofs of Gods love which he had found in his life God is better and kinder to his people then they many times wish to themselves 4. When men are so devoted to themselves and their own will that they will quarrel all that God doth if it fit not their mind as if all things were to be foâ— them and subservient to their humour For he complains that he was not carried from the womb to his grave only because it would have prevented his great trouble and kept him at great case Selfishness is an ill toot of much distemper 5. When mens passions having distempered them they lay the blame upon Providence As he urgeth this as an argument against Gods dealing that it made him thus discontent with his life Whereas if he had been more sober and borne his trouble and the testimony of his Conscience with more calmness it would have prevented those distempers See Prov. 19.3 Vers 20. Are not my days few cease then and let me alone that I may take comfort a little 21. Before I go whence I shall not return even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death 22. A land of darkness as darkness it self and of the shadow of death without any order and where the light is as darkness In the close which is the second part of the Chapter Job begins to calm a little and in stead of his former expostulating with God and his last great fit of discontent v. 18 19. he tacitly submits to Gods will that he is alive and in what he hath done And seeing death in its own colours he will not rashly hazard upon it but craves this only that he may have some respite and breathing and a little ease in his life For 1. His days were short and he was not like to live long Therefore he would have some speedy help that he might draw his breath a little and have opportunity to shew that he was not the man that his Friends esteemed him or his passion seemed to prove him to be v. 20. 2. Albeit he believed a Resurrection and believed never to go to Hell and knew what it was to die in Christ who is the destroyer of death for he speaks to none of those here nor are his words to be taken in any sense relating to those yet death in it self is ugly being without restitution in this life being a dark and dâ—â—â—ry estate without any order of variety or vicissitude of light and darkness wherein much of this worlds beauty consists but whereas light comes in its turn here it is still darkness there even most dark as darkness it self as it beseems those shadows of death and the grave to be Therefore he would have some change of his condition here before he go to that unchangeable state and some blink of light and comfort before he entered into that dark passage and habitation ver 21 22 with 20. This Doctrine laying aside his mistake of speedy death by this trouble may safely be admitted with little caution as containing only a desire of that which God afterward granted to him though yet it was not necessary he should be peremptory in such a sute It teacheth 1. Saints highest sits of passion will not last but mercy will reclaim them and give them a cool of that Feaver As Job found here 2. As the Feavers and distempers of Saints may come to a very great height So ordinaâ—â—ly that height or excess of them proves the step next to their cool As Job here calms after that â—â—â—â—ly of passion v. 18 19. As God pitieth them in theâ—â—â—xtremities so their very rising to an height and extreâ—â—ty 〈◊〉 â—â—use themselves relent whereaâ— they would have thought less of their passionâ— if they continued moâ—◠〈…〉 3. Humble sober Prayer is a notable 〈…〉 and mean in calming distempered spirits it is as the shower to allay that boisterous wind For Job fâ—lls a praying in stead of quarrelling when he calms See Phil. 4.6 4. As mans life is but uncertain and short so the thoughts of this should make men imploy their time well and to be very needy and pressing after God and proofs of him and where it is thus improved it is an argument of pity and help For so much may be gathered in general from Job's arguing Are not my days few cease then c. though he mistook in his particular case that himself was shortly to die See Psal 39.13 89.47 5. Such as are exercised with much trouble and have their exercises blessed to them will be sober and esteem much of little case to get leave to breath or to comfort and refresh themselves a little with a sight of God or of his grace in them and not their own passions which they ought to abhor For this is his sute when calmed to get comfort a little not only liberty to breath from sore trouble but especially to get his spirit calmed from these passions which he now abhors in himself They who are indeed humble will not despise small things Zech. 4 10. and a victory over their own spirit will be their greatest deliverance 6. The least ease breathing or comfort under trouble cannot be had but of Gods indulgence He must cease and let him alone from vexing of him before he take comfort a little See Joh 34.29 7. It is the duty of men to acquaint themselves with death before-hand and especially in times of trouble they should study it in its true colours For Job in his trouble is so acquainted with it that he can here very pathetically describe it This is Moses study when God is making havock of the Rebels in the Wilderness Psal 90. 8. Death and the Grave in themselves and when Christs victory over them is not studied and men are hurried away to them in a tempest of trouble are very terrible and an ugly sight as bringing an irreparable loss as to any restitution in this life and being so dark and disconsolate an estate that the very common favour of a vicissitude of day and night light and darkness is a mercy when compared with it For so doth Job describe that estate here as it may appear to an afflicted Saint as he was or to one at a distance from God much more may it appear so to men in an unrenewed state or nature And indeed death is in it self a curse and if any find a beauty in it or get a sweeter sight of it it is by the special gift of God And withal it cuts the thread of our life upon which all our
and how unable he was to abide that For if the most fixed and solid things cannot endure continual assaults especially from the hand of God how much more easily can he over-turn mans hopes ver 18 19. and get a complete Victory over him especially by cutting him off ver 20. and in the mean time so exercise him with his own afflictions that he cannot be affected with the good or ill condition of his nearest relations ver 21 22. Vers 1. Man that is born of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble JOb's first Argument v. 1 2 3. whereby he pleads against Gods severe dealing toward him is taken from the condition and misery of all Men by Nature Wherein he propounds that they have but a short life and that obnoxious to many troubles and all their enjoyments are but transient and passing And from thence inferrs as to his own particular that seeing he would certainly die and had trouble enough otherwise though God dealt not thus extraordinarily with him he could not but wonder that God should notice him as if he were a fit party to be thus afflicted and exercised by him In this verse we have Job's Proposition of Mans misery wherein he evidenceth himself to be well versed by reason of his own trouble in the knowledge of mans vanity and misery which he describes First in its Universality It is common to Man or to all that are come of Adam which is the name here given to Man He speaks thus of men in general though with an eye to his own condition as appears from his inference v. 3 Because this is Mans common condition which is after mentioned And it Teacheth That whatever may be the particular and various dispensations of God toward men yet to be miserable by Nature is common to Adam and all his Posterity who come of him Aâ—l the sons of men are attended with some of thâ— common miseries of mankind and though some want the peculiar cross-lots of others yet they may have some of another kind no less sad and all of them whatever their condition be yet if their eyes be opened will find themselves but in a state of misery This teacheth men not to weary of their particular lots and tryals For did they shift never so oft they will find that they are still Man whom misery attends It Teacheth also That we have no cause to complain so long as our tryal is but common 1 Cor. 10.13 and our selfe-love should not get place to perswade us to aggravate our sorrows that we may have some pretence to complain of their singularity as Job oft-times doth for they will still be proportioned to what our case requires and to what strength God will give his own people Secondly Mans misery is described from its â—ise which is insinuated in mans Original that he is born of a woman This he mentions rather then that he is begotten of a man 1. Because the Woman was first in the transgression 1. Tim. 2.14 whence is the rise of all sin and of a defiled issue which produceth trouble So Job 15.14 2. Because the Woman is the weaker vessel 1 Pet. 3.7 And 3. Because a peculiar threatening and sâ—ntence is past against her in the matter of Conception and Birth Gen. 3 16. and so her issue must be weak and wretched like her self Hence Learn A sight of Mans original may humble him and make him see his misery when he considers what a sinful womb he comes from how ugly he comes out of it and how he begins his life with crying and weeping This is a lesson should stick by us as a document of our misery in all our mirth and jollity Thirdly This common misery of mankind is described in its parts That man is of short days and those full of trouble as Jacob also professeth Gen. 47.9 Doct. 1. Mans life is but short and it is a part of his misery that it is so For Job brings this as a proof of mans misery that he is of few days or short of days his time is but short That mans life is but short is evident from Scripture and from daily experience And it is to be accounted short especially now and â—ven in Job's time also though then they lived much longer then men do now both in respect of eternity and in respect of the continuance of Mans life if he had not sinned and even in respect of the age untill which men lived of old For as men now live but short while in comparison of the times about which Job lived so in those days their age was far short of the Patriarchs before the Floud And as mans days are thus few so for the misery that is in this shortness of his life though it be true that it is a mercy to the Godly that their days being ill are few and shortened see Math. 24.22 and that thereby they are hastened to glory Yet the shortness of mans life is in many respects a misery 1. If we consider it in the root and rise of it Mortality is the fruit of sin and therefore whatever beauty God put upon it yet in it self it is bitter and a misery 2. If we look upon it and consider what it is to natural men it must be concluded a great misery For whatever be their portion within time yet they must die and being dead sink into the pit eternally And in the mean time their life is so short and uncertain that it can hardly be measured even by days and they are exposed to so many hazards that they know not at what turn death may take hold of them and hurry them away 3. There is a misery in our few days in regard of the ill improvement of them We are for a while in the state of infancy before we know what it is to live After that many spend along time of youth before they settle and before they know how to number their days even as Rational Men And when we come to be more composed business sickness and distractions do impede and interrupt us and old age disables us to spend our time to any purpose In those inconveniences even the Godly do so much and frequently share that in that respect their short time is a misery 4. There is this misery also incident to us in our short time that both godly men and others are pulled away by death before they see many of those things which they desire accomplished So did Job apprehend to be hurried away in a cloud such also was David's exercise Psal 39.13 And this made Jacob complain of his days that they were few and evil Gen. 47.9 The study of this Point affords many useful Lessons That we do not doat on long life or an Eternity here as Luk. 12.19 20. for we will be disappointed and sin will help to shorten our dayes Psal 55.23 Prov. 10 27. And that we make not that use of the shortness of our
argue our blindness for he cannot be unreasonable in what he doth Vers 5. Seeing his days are determined the number of months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass 6. Turn from him that he may rest till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day The third Argument enlarging the first is taken from the certainty of his death at the time appointed by God He shews that his life is bounded by God even how many days and months he shall live that he must die at the time appointed by God and cannot pass those bounds and limits which are set to him and that in the mean time his life was but short and troublesome like the time of an hireling Whence he argues That seeing death is the appointed punishment of sin which he had acknowledged to be in himself v. 4. Gen. 2.17 And seeing God had fixed the time of that at his pleasure and had made life short and troublesome he thinks that God needs not add a new sentâ—nce to the former and bring man into judgment of new And therefore he pleads that God would not abandon him by turning altogether from him but forbear to pursue him with such rigour and let him take some breathing and respite from these extraordinary afflictions till he accomplish his course in his ordinary toil and labour whereof he will be content to see an end whensoever God will as the word imports The substance of the grounds of this Argument being made use of Chap. 7.1 2 c. to prove another conclusion that he might lawfully desire death I shall here shortly Obs 1. Mans life and days are bounded so that Man must come to a period and must quit life whether it be sweet or sowr bitter or comfortable For so is here held out His days are determined he hath bounds that he cannot pass See Psal 49.10 Eccl. 2.16 Heb. 9.27 Obs 2. God is the infallible and irresistible bounder of mans life even to months and days For his days are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds c. See Act. 17.26 This Truth 1. Doth not contradict other Scriptures which speak of the lengthening and shortening of mens days 2 King 20.1 6. Eccl. 7.16 17. Psal 55.23 For these speak of shortening or lengthening the days of Man in respect of what otherwise they might be according to probability or considering the course of Nature and second Causes but speak nothing of Gods altering the periods of Man's life which are set by himself Nor 2. Doth this warrant men to neglect lawful means which God hath appointed in order to his end as Paul reasons Act. 27.22 23 24. with 31. But it teacheth us 1. To adore the Universal Providence of God which extends it self to all persons and things See Matth. 10.24 30. Our not observing of this in common things makes us so Atheistical in greater matters 2. It teacheth us to submit to his will in all those turns and lots that befal us and in the use of all means of life to submit to live long in trouble or short while in ease as he pleaseth 3. It teacheth his people to rest confidently on him who hath Times and Seasons in his hand both of particular persons Psal 31.15 and of Nations also Gen 15.13 14. Jer. 29.10 Obs 3. Mans life till he come to his appointed end is but like a hirelings day For so is held forth v. 6. that he must accomplish as an hireling his day Not only is his life short like a day wherein the hireling is conduced to work But 1. Man ought not to be his own nor at his own work but his Masters For so it is with the hireling And if Man will not voluntarily do duty and what is commanded him Yet he shall be made to serve Providence whether he will or not And his most irregular enterprises shall be made subservient to Gods holy purposes Psal 76.10 2. Man is but an indigent empty creature standing in need of continual uninterrupted supply from God As an hireling must have wages if not meat also from his Master to maintain him at his work 3. Man must resolve to have much toil in the service of his Generation For he is like a toiled servant or hireling And this is the lot even of greatest Undertakers and Conquerours in the world Hab. 2.12 13. 4. Man is a servant who must be accountable for his work that he may be rewarded accordingly as it is with hirelings All this may teach men not to stumble if they find their life to be such as is here described And since it is thus they who sell Heaven for a Portion in this life make but a poor bargain and will get but sober chear for it Obs 4. Job's plea and desire in this Argument v. 6. hath somethings in it very commendable and imitable As 1. Turn saith he that is take away thy hand and displeasure evidenced by these severe afflictions Which Teacheth That it is only God who giveth a being or putteth an end to afflâ—ctions As this desire supposeth Also That as God appears to the afflicted to be angry when trouble is on So this affects a godly man most and the removal of this is more to him then the taking away of the affliction For he desires the cross to be removed under that notion of Gods turning frâ—m him and ceasing to pursue him in anger 2. Turn saith he from him in the third Person with an eye to what he hath spoken of all mens life and toil v. 5. and to shew that he would be content of the common lot of hirelings of Adam's posterity It Teacheth That it is an evidence of a subdued spirit when men do not seek to be singular in their lots and allowances but are content patiently to bear the common lots that befal mankind 3. Turn saith he that he may rest or have a cessation righteous and the wicked Christ will be glorified and admired in them 2 Thes 1.10 all clouds and mistakes will be cleared and when he raiseth their bodies he will raise their good Name also Vers 13. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave that thou wouldest keepe me secret until thy wrath be past that thou wouldest appoint me a set time and remember me 14. If a man die shall he live again All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change câ—mâ— 15. Thou shalt call and I will answere thee thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands The fourth Argument propounded in these verses and amplified and enlarged to the end of the Chapter is taken from the great perplexities and strange wishes to which his trouble drave him in so much that though he see somewhat of a black cloud in death in the foregoing verses yet here he would be content of something like it for a time The sum of the Argument whereof the Antecedent is expressed in
but that a set time will put an end to it Thus also doth the Psalmist rowze up his confidence under tentations Psal 77.8 9 10. which is worthy of imitation 2. He desires not death desperately as it is only a back-door to shun present trouble but he propounds this extraordinary desire in a way of believing and bodeing well of God in the issue This many do forget in their passionate desires when they cast away all confidence 3. It flowed from his desire of Gods favour and to have it cleared toward him for encouragement to all others to walk in the ways of holiness that he declines to go away for ever in a cloud and would be remembered and appear again when wrath is passed that others seeing the end of the Lord might be incouraged as well as himself would be refreshed And here whatever his failings were his general scope is good to desire to enjoy Gods favour above all things Psal 4.6 7. and that others be not stumbled nor discouraged Psal 69.6 4. As he doth not proudly think he is able to stand out this storm So neither doth he flee from God or to Hills and Mountains Rev. 6.15 16 17. to be hid from this apprehended wrath But knowing that God alone can hide a man from his own indignation he fleeth to him for that effect O that thou wouldest hide me c. Which is a practice well beseeming Saints that whatever anger they apprehend in God they still flee to himself for succour Doct. 5. The perplexities and hard shifts to which Gods people are put is an argument of help especially when somewhat of sincerity appears in the midst of them For as Job's particular scope in this wish is that he may be satisfied in this desire so his general scope in propounding the whole matter to God by way of Plea and Argument in this debate and complaint is to plead for pity and moderation toward a man who was thus perplexed And though it be a mans fault and weakness to be thus distempered yet if we take with it and lay it before God as our weakness as Job doth here v. 14. it will plead pity Isai 57.16 17 18. Namely in so far as is for our good though yet he will humble us that we may know our weakness and will not suffer us to want needful exercise In his correcting of his wish v. 14. wherein as hath been said 1. He corrects it in point of judgment as thinking it absurd to expect that a man once dead should return to this life again 2. He corrects it in his practice resolving to wait submissively and patiently till his great and final change by death shall come We may Learn 1. Such is the Lords mercy towards his tossed Children that their hottest fits of distemper will have sweet cools and abatements As here Job retracts and condemns his former wish 2. A special mean to calm distempered spirits is when they do not persist rashly in their passionate apprehensions and humours as Jonah 4.4 9. but do reflect upon and examine their own frame and desires and when finding that they are wrong they make use of their light and judgment to argue and reason themselves out of their distempers however their affections be pestered Thus doth Job reflect and make use of his light to argue against his own wish If a man die shall he live again See Psal 42.5 3. It is not to be approved in our selves that Gods means and comforts will not satifie us unless impossibilities and wonders be shewed for us and to us For Job finding his desire impossible doth reject it with indignation as his Question imports 4. When our imagined issues fail us there is a nearer and surer issue to be found in Patience Submission and Hope All those are comprehended under waiting which Job fixed upon after he hath found his own desire to be absurd I will wait saith he See 1 Cor. 10.13 2 Cor. 12.7 8 9 10. 5. Such as resolve to find an issue of their trouble in patient submission must let patience have its perfect work Jam. 1.4 They must not fix their own time how long they will wait upon God and no longer as 2 King 6.33 but must submit that God be the appointer of the time of their patience and exercise For saith he All the days of my appointed time will I wait 6. As it is at death that Saints get a complete relaxation case of all their troubles so they must resolve if it be Gods will to wait all their life in a continual warfare without a satisfactory issue of their troubles For Job resolves to wait till his change come even all the days of his appointed time or life and that in a warfare as the word tendered appointed time also signifies 7. It may encourage Saints to wait thus long that death unto them is not a destruction but a change as here he calleth it And indeed it is a great change as in many respects common to all men in that it turns an animated body to a rotten carcase that it is a change wherein a man is fixed everlastingly in that state of his person wherein it finds him that it levels the greatest of men with the meanest Job 3.13 14 17 18 19. Ezek. 32.17 32 c. So Particularly to the godly in that then they are delivered from sin misery toil and discomfort Rev. 14.13 and then they will have the better of the wicked who trampled upon them in the world Luke 16.25 which will be made manifest in the Resurrection Psal 49.14 From v. 15. wherein he resumes his former wish and expatiates upon the advantages he expected if it were granted Learn 1. Passions may be strong in exercised Saints that they will not be permitted to continue in their resolutions of submission For here after he had corrected and rejected his own wish v. 14. he falls upon it again We must not mistake such tossings For submission must be a new gift every moment 2. Passions and Tentations are oft times fed and cherished with many pleasing fancies of happiness if we got our will in our desires As here those sweet apprehensions how it would be with him if God would hide him till the storm were over drew him to his wish and to hearken to the tentation again Then saith he thou wouldest call and I would answer c. whereas now it is far otherwise v. 16. Herein he failed in thinking his own way of guiding would be far better than that which God took in fancying those advantages which God had never promised on his terms and in fancying them to come in a way of his own when he might have expected them with more advantage in Death and at the Resurrection This doth warn us never to promise our selves any good out of Gods way and to limit our expectation of comforts and issues to Gods Promises lest our loving fancies breed us much trouble if they be not satisfied
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
premitted these Generals we may from this verse in particular safely gather those sound Instructions 1. Man is but a frail putrified creature and will appear to be so if God begin to deal with him For so are we here taught Mans life hangs but upon a thread of breath going in and out at his nostrils And albeit man draw his breath easily in ordinary yet when God contends with him by affliction and pain his breath will be so corrupt as he cannot draw it without difficulty Yea God can make it favour of his inward putrefaction and proclaim what a rotten piece this beautiful structure of Man is and that he carrieth his death about with him and can soon be made loathsome company to his dearest friends This 1. Teacheth man to be out of conceit with himself his constitution and life Isai 2.22 2. It teacheth him that whatever God please to do for his tryal he should beware by his conceit or bitterness to provoke God to contend and give him a proof what he is See Psal 9 22. 39.11 Isai 45.9 3. It teacheth him that when God doth contend he should be thereby well instructed in the lesson of Humility and knowledg of his own frailty which is the thing his dispensations inculcate Doct. 2. Affliction and debility of body should cause men think on death and the grave and make ready for them For from this that his breath is corrupt he concludes that his days are extinct and the graves for him as it is in the Original that is he is ready or near to be buried and thinks upon it as the only issue of his trouble It is true Job mistook here and his excess cannot be justified as was said before Yet those are found Truths in this case 1. Mortality is a study wherein men ought to be more frequent as being born to die and dying daily 2. Though other tryals may surprize men yet they should beware of being surprized with death and the grave seeing they are known to be unavoidable and the time of their coming is uncertain 3. Though men ought not peremptorily to determine what will be the particular event of every affliction that befals them yet every affliction and debility either when they are under it or got out of it should be looked upon as Godâ— giving them the Alarm and putting them in mind to consider how they will look upon death For however they escape at one time yet that is a Summons which will be renewed 4. At every such Alarm it is the duty of all and will be the endevour of sincere Saints to meet and welcome Death and the Grave and to be as ready for those as they are for them as here Job was Doct. 3. Whatever be the external splendour of men yet it will all be extinguished at death like a bright Candle ending in a snuffe For so the metaphor here doth import My days are extinct Mans life is in a daily decay like a Candle burning to a snuffe And when death comes the vigour and comely complexion of the body doth all evanish His Members Organs Arteries Sinews c. are then swallowed up in silence and obscurity like a Watch when the string is broken and Man savours of putrefaction and becomes dust which is his original And not only so but all his pomp and glory ceaseth Psal 49.17 18. and his thoughts perish Psal 146.4 This doth exceedingly condemn these who content and please themselves in their well adorned bodies their feathers of honour and rides of amibitious thoughts but do not study to have somewhat which will be proof against death Doct. 4. It doth point out yet further the vanity of man that all his Patrimony when dead is a Grave though some get not so much Graves for me saith he This is his Earth Psal 146.4 whom many times the Earth it self cannot satisfie and contain This we should look upon as a sensible demonstration of the vanity of men who hunt after things which they must certainly leave at last although as it fares not with many these things should not forsake them all their lives and who seek to bear so much bulk and are so troublesome upon earth when yet a little Earth will contain them and render them tame enough at last Doct. 5. He names Graves in the plural number not only because dead men have as it were Grave above Grave their Winding-sheet Coffin if they were in use then and the Grave it self But further 1. As Jephthah is said to have been buried in the Cities of Gilead as it is in the Original â— Judg. 12.7 because he was buried in some one or other of them So this may import some one Grave or other And Job speaks so as not caring which or where it were so it proved a Grave For albeit some be ambitious to make themselves famous by their very Monuments and decency in burials and burial-places according to mens quality ought not to be condemned Yet that is not a thing to be much regarded If men get a Grave to hide their bodies from violence and take them out of sight it is little matter what a grave it be for state or magnificence The stately Monuments of many do only serve to continue the memory of their naughtiness who did not live holily nor have left savoury Monuments of their Piety and Charity as Doreas did Acts 9.39 And on the other hand the dust of the godly is respected by God and their memory smells well in the nostrils of Saints though they got but course burial and it may be only the ashes of a fire or the belly of a wild Beast 2. It may point out that his afflictions and pressures were so great and many that every place presented him with Death and a Grave Thus was Paul in deaths often 2 Cor. 11.23 For albeit there be but one way of entering into this world yet there are many ways of dying and going out of it So that men should look upon their life as daily surrounded with Deaths and Graves Doct. 6. The godly under their sad exercises may be much mistaken about the issue of their tryals For albeit all those things formerly marked be good Exercises and sound Truths and this will be the issue of mans life at last Yet for present Job notwithstanding all his weakness was supported and preserved till he got a more sweet issue then he expected Hence 1. When we have looked on our conditions at the worst and we are not to deceive our selves by undervaluing of them we ought yet as is said before to leave a latitude to what God can bring out of them 2. We ought to believe that God not only can but usually doth disappoint the fears and expectations of his own Children under trouble and makes them recal their hasty conclusions Psal 31.22 So that their thoughts are not the Rule whereby he walks 3. We are to believe that it is possible and usual for God
your flowers of Discourse Such as are in trouble may indeed be in a Fever and so apt to mistake in many things Yet they will soon miss that in a Comforter which others will not 4. Albeit godliness teach men modesty and sobriety and to be tender of the reputation of others yet that doth not hinder them to tell men what they are when they are called to it in the defence of Truth and that they may give a check to their proud conceit of themselves For Job here spares not to tell his Friends Friends freely of their want of wisdom 5. Tenderness will not prompt men to tell others their faults that they may insult over them or dash and discourage them but out of love to reclaim them For he tells them this that they may return or change their Opinion and come now to themselves or to close with him and learn of him 6. It is the duty and commendation of men when they are found to be wrong not to persist in it because of their reputation but to quit it and come and learn truth As Job's Exhortation to them imports Vers 11. My days are past my purposes are broken off even the thoughts of my heart In the rest of this Discourse Job proceeds to prove their folly and want of wisdom in giving him any hopes of restitution by shewing how low he was brought and how hopeless his condition was in it self v. 11 12. how he could in reason expect no issue out of it in this life v. 13 14. and consequently how groundless their offers were v. 15 16. In the first place to prove that his health or restitution was hopeless in it self he not only declares that his trouble gave him to understand that his days were near an end in the beginning of this verse but further he gives two Evidences of his low and wasted condition One in the rest of this verse is That by reason of his misery pain and trouble all his purposes were broken off even those thoughts which had been the long possessions as it is in the Original of his heart Whereby we are to understand not so much those particular thoughts of his restitution and deliverance from this trouble to which he speaks afterward for it appears not he had any such thoughts since his trouble came upon him whatever thoughts he sometime had of the continuance of his prosperity when he enjoyed it Ch. 29.18 As in general that all his well ordered purposes and exercises wherewith he had been so long acquainted and all his refreshful thoughts in the days of his prosperity were plucked up by the extremity of his trouble and other exercise put in his hand as it is in the following verse Leaving Job's mistake about his approaching death and the end of his days we may here Learn 2. The days of men are but passing and will at last come to a period For Job's apprehension that his days are past supposeth this as a General Truth that mans days will pass 2. The Lord may in deep wisdom bring men to the gates of death and exercise them with thoughts thereof that they may give a proof how they will look upon it and may find what grace will do in such an exigent and that he may evidence his power in delivering from it For these among other causes is Job brought to apprehend approaching death My days are past 3. Man being a rational creature and not at his rest in this life hath his mind full of purposes resolutions and projects whereby especially when he prospereth and is in vigour he refresheth and delights himself and endeavours to add to the satisfaction of his actual enjoyments For so is supposed that Job had purposes and thoughts which were so delectable and habitual to him that they became the possessions of his heart Men had need to look well what those thoughts are which haunt their hearts for thereby they will know themselves better then by their actings 4. Not only will death make the thoughts and projects of most men to perish Psal 146.4 But even sore afflictions in this life will break over-turn and interrupt many of their sweet thoughts and purposes For saith he My purposes are broken off or plucked up even the possessions of my heart Not only can the Lord make sore afflictions batter down all mens thoughts and expectations of good things within time even after they have long stood out under some measure of tryals and have had possessions of heart and settled thoughts that it should be otherwise Mat 1.4 And when afflictions seem thus to over-turn our expectations it is our duty to quit and yield them up to God as Job in this discourse doth apprehending he was to die But even Saints are not to think it strange if the Lord by sore affliction over-turn their orderly sweet thoughts and exercises under prosperity and about the improvement of it to his glory and in place thereof fill them with restless confusion as it was with Job And as from this Truth in general men should learn to curb their vain thoughts and purposes which time and even a cross before the end of their time can over-turn and to labour after other purposes and designs which affliction can never overthrow however it interrupt them So the godly in particular should take warning to improve their time well in spiritual thoughts and purposes while they have ease considering that affliction may put an interruption unto them 5. Unto a godly man it is not only a sad exercise but an evidence of his very low condition when his troubles do drive him from all his sweet purposes and resolutions For Job propounds it not only as matter of lamentation but as an evidence of his low condition and that his days were past that his purposes are broken off c. As indeed however he mistook the matter of his death Yet as it was no ordinary but very deadly trouble that could drive him a godly man off those Principles and thoughts which were so delectable to him So it could not but waste and spend him much more that he was deprived of them Vers 12. They change the night into day the light is short because of darkness Another Evidence of his low and spent condition is taken from his restless anxious thoughts And that in stead of his former sweet thoughts and purposes his present calamities and his anxious thoughts about them did so toss him that he got not the nights rest but night was as day to him and his dark condition through trouble made the day seem short or nothing at all Whence Learn 1. Anxious thoughts are very frequent in trouble and have a strange Empire and Command over the afflicted For saith he They that is my purposes and thoughts which before were sweet v. 11. are now so changed that they change the night into day c. or so haunt me that they take up all my time by night and by
in dishonour yet it will be raised in honour Vers 18. He shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world Secondly It is declared that the wicked shall be driven and chased out of the world from a cheerful to a dark and sad estate It is said in the plural number in the Original they shall drive him whereby we are to understand that either those whom he oppressed or the variety of judgments sent out by God shall do this to them Here passing his mistakes we may observe 1. It is a sad plague on the wicked and an evidence of their woful condition that they are driven and chased away out of time as here is said They do not voluntarily deliver up their soul but it is taken from them Luke 12.20 Some of them die in despair others of them are pursued and hurried away with visible vengeance and others though they die softly or seem too weary of their life because they cannot have all the satisfaction they desire in it yet really they never live out half their days Psal 55.23 nor are they ever content in cold bloud to die if they had strength and opportunity to satisfie their lusts in the world Whereas it is otherwise with the godly and it is the duty of all who would approve themselves to God to be still willing and ready to depart upon a call and then they will be chased by no tempest but in the throng of troubles they will voluntarily follow their Fathers messenger sent about them And whatever shake we get to loose us from time yet love should have a chief hand in drawing us away 2. The wickeds change by death is so much the sadder that at death they have seen the fairest day that ever they will see though some of them may ignorantly leap as it were out of hot water into the fire For they are driven from light to darkness from life to death from sparks of their own kindling to eternal darkness from temporal felicity to eternal misery from honour to disgrace and ignominy and they are chased out of the world where all their happiness lay Vers 19. He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people nor any remaining in his dwellings Thirdly It is declared that their family shall be desolate their issue familiars and acquaintance being cut off As Bildad here doth falsely apprehend that Job should never have issue nor a family again So in this stroke which he appropriates to the wicked God is pleased to deal variously both with good and bad For even the godly sometime have no issue and if they have sometime they are violently cut off and sometime they do not imitate the pâ—ous steps of their Parents And though God may be pleased sometime to plague the posterity of the wicked Yet it is no less true that sometime they may have a numerous and great posterity as Cain had whose off spring were chief inventers of Arts Gen. 4. Yea sometime they may bring forth Children who are heirs of glory However this may teach 1. Wicked men do deserve that their families should be ruined as well as themselves as here is threatened And as the wicked should seriously mind this what a plague they are to their Relations So their posterity though godly should remember it that they may be sober and may acknowledge that mercy which hath prevented them 2. This stroke is no plague on a godly man if it be his lot As Bildad supposeth such a stroke was only a judgment For they will get a better name than that of Sons and Daughters Isa 56.3 4 5. And they want not Kindred or Children so long as there are other godly persons with whom they may hold Communion And they make up the want of Children by being Instrumental in their Station to convert and bring forth many Children to God Vers 20. They that come after him shall be astonied at his day as they that went before were affrighted Lastly It is declared that the effects of their calamities shall be astonishment and fear in the present and succeeding Generations By those who went before who were affrighted we are not to understand those who lived before he was and before God plagued him For such could not be affected with what they could not know But it is to be understood of these who were before those who come after him or those who have seen his prosperity and ruine also Those shall be affected with it together with those who afterward shall hear of it Leaving his mistakes Learn 1. The justice of God manifested on wicked men is in it self very affrightful For his day or the day of his calamity breeds astonishment and affrightment or horrour and that so great as the word signifieth as makes their hair stand up See 1 Sam. 3.11 Herein the justice of God is to be adored who makes their plagues a terrour when men think upon them as they have been terrible and dreadful to others in their way 2. Such as are witnesses of Gods judgments upon wicked men ought especially to be affected with it For those that went before and saw these plagues did even lay hold on horrour as it is in the Original 3. The sense of Gods judgments should continue long among men For they that come after him when he is gone and so they do but hear of his ruine shall be astonied As this condemns them who are not so much as affected with present and incumbent judgments so they who forget by-past proofs of Gods indignation against sin are justly made spectacles and monuments of justice themselves 4. Fear Astonishment and Horrour are but common and fruitless effects of judgments unless they be accompanied with Faith and Repentance For he mentions those as the effects of such strokes among the generality of men who yet are usually far enough from a right use of them And if such impressions as these be not enough they are far behind who have not so much Vers 21. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked and this is the place of him that knoweth not God In this verse Bildad sums up his scope in this Discourse by way of conclusion Shewing that certainly those calamities are the lot only of the wicked And therefore Job considering what had befaln him behoved to conclude that he was a wicked man Of this Assertion I have often spoken before and shall not repeat Only in General Learn 1. Ignorance of God is an ordinary and great evil among men For it is marked as the wickeds great fault that they know not God 2. They prove themselves to be ignorant of God who walk not holily let them pretend what they will For the wicked here are they who know not God see Tit. 1.16 It is their ignorance of God and their Atheism that emboldens them to do wickedly Psal 14.1 2 c. And from this also do the failings of Saints flow Psal 9.10 Isa 51.12 13. 3.
Cor. 15.25 26. and shall bring all his Enemies who would not suffer him to reign over them and slay them before him Luke 19.27 Believers need not fear the long continuance of Enemies nor that one Enemy riseth up after another For Christ will out-live and triumph over them all 3. When all those Enemies are destroyed then time will have an end and the General Judgment will come For when he thus stands last then it will be the latter day or the last of time 1 Cor. 15.24 25 26. This was a truth known and believed in the very infancy of the Church as appears from Enoch's Prophesie recorded Jude v. 14 15. 4. The Redeemer of Sinners will be their Judge at the last day For He shall stand over the Earth which as it will be terrible to the wicked who shall then be forced to see him whom they still declined to own So it may comfort all those who have made their peace with him and with God through him in time 5. Our Redeemer will testifie his love to his People by coming to Earth again to fetch them as he came at first to redeem them For he shall in that day stand again upon or over the Earth for this end See John 14.2 3. Vers 26. And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God In this verse Job prosecutes that encouragement of his Redeemers living and standing upon the Earth professing his faith of a blessed Resurrection in that day to enjoy the presence of God And that notwithstanding that after his skin now broken with sores is pierced the worms also destroy his body Doct. 1. As the bodies of the dearest Children of God may be deformed in their lives so they have no exemption from death notwithstanding their integrity but they must did as well as others that they may enter into their rest For Job looks to be destroyed or cut off by death 2. Believers being dead they have no priviledge in their graves but the worms will feed upon and destroy their bodies as well as others For Job supposeth that after my skin the worms will destroy this body In the Original it is only this not this body but the sense is the same For he thus designs his body as pointing at it with his finger when he spake and intimating that it was not worthy to be called a body being so spent Withal worms who are said shall destroy his body are not expressed in the Original but only they shall destroy but the sense is still the same For the worms are they who use to pierce dead mens skins and then destroy their flesh See Psal 49.14 Both these points should teach the godly that since they are not exempted in those cases they should not plead exemption in lesser things 3. Though mens bodies be thus confirmed in the grave yet they will be raised up again and will be animated with their souls to exerce their Functions For here he believes that notwithstanding this havock to be made of his body yet in his flesh he shall see God The faith of this Article may assure us of the power of God to do what he will Acts 26.8 Rom. 4 17. and of his unchangeable love to his people who seeks after their dust after it hath been so long buried in oblivion Matth. 22.31 32. 4. It is the great happiness of Believers that after death they see and enjoy God and that not darkly and in a glass but face to face For he comforts himself with this that after death he shall see God See 1 Cor. 13.12 Psal 16.11 5. It completes the happiness of Believers that not only their souls but the whole man shall enjoy this sight of God For this is Job's comfort in my flesh I shall see God at and after the Resurrection Not that the soul sleeps or is suspended this sight till then See 2 Cor. 5.6 8. Phil. 1.23 Luke 23.43 with 2 Cor. 12.2 4. but that the happiness of Believers will be completed when the whole person which fought the good fight of faith shall get the Crown See Psal 17.15 1 Thess 4 16 17. 6. The hope of a blessed Resurrection should sweeten all bitterness by the way and it is the mark of a godly man to eye it much for that end As Job doth here comfort himself in that over all his sorrows 7. Faith believing a Resurrection must look over many impediments and objections which to carnal sense seem insuperable as here Job looks over the destruction of his body in believing this Thus in every other case difficulties should but heighten faiths courage and quicken its diligence 8. The belief of Christs living and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth may assure the godly of a blessed Resurrection For having asserted the one v. 25. he subjoyns the other here as a necessary consequent following upon the former For if he live he will not only care for them when they are dead but will cause them live also Joh. 14.19 and his Resurrection is a sure pledge that they also shall be raised again Eph. 2.5 6. Rom. 8.11 Vers 27. Whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me In this verse Job yet insists upon this Article of the Resurrection and sheweth his strong faith about it Asserting 1. That he shall see God for himself that is not only he himself and not another shall see him but he shall see him for his own profit and advantage 2. That it shall not be another body but the same wherein he shall see God 3. That all this shall be though his very reins and what is most inward in him were consumed as they were already consumed in part Some read this last part of the verse without Though which is not in the Original as an Assertion that his reins were consumed in him with earnest desire and longing after that day And so it is a special proof of his integrity and honesty But I shall not insist upon that reading seeing the Original language many times wants such Particles which are sufficiently implied in the sense in that language Doct. 1. There is need of many acts of faith about the Resurrection that we may make sure that we believe it and may draw out the rich comforts of it Therefore doth Job so much insist upon that subject 2. Believers should be frequent in studying their own happiness which they shall enjoy at the Resurrection in the sight and vision of God Therefore also doth Job insist on this in particular I shall see and behold him 3. This sight of God cannot but be comfortable to the godly as being for their behoof and advantage their interest in him being then made fully clear and their joy consummate in his favour and presence whereas the wicked shall see him but as the God of others and to their own
all wicked men within time nor visibly at their death but they are reserved for a day of judgement As here their Tombs or Tokens do witness 4. Whatever be the lot of wicked men in life or death yet destruction and wrath will befal them be they more or fewer For they meet with a day of destruction and of wrath And this is spoken of them in the singular number in the beginning of the verse to shew that if there were but one he shall not escape and in the plural number in the end of the verse to shew that were they never so many God can reach them 5. Whatever plagues wicked men do escape within time it is but owing them to be paied with interest nor are they spared in mercy For they are but reserved to the day of destruction 6. Wicked men shall not be able to shift Gods vengeance at the resurrection and general judgment nor shall any thing secure them against it For they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath or wraths that is extream wrath wherin all things shall concur which may signifie and express displeasure and the extremity thereof 7. It is the duty of men to be so spiritual minded as to gather instructions and edifying lessons from the most common things which they see As here Job learns this lesson from the Tombs of wicked men which are to be seen by all Travellers Vers 31. Who shall declare his way to his face and who shall repay him what he hath done 32. Yet shall he be brought to the grave and shall remain in the tomb 33. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him and every man shall draw after him as there are innumerable before him In the third place This assertion is farther amplified and enlarged that not only wicked men whose wickedness is not so gross but even these who are most eminently wicked are reserved for judgements in the life to come and are not visibly rewarded in this life Where 1. He gives an account of their insolent and eminent wickedness v. 31. that none dare freely reprove them far less are they able to requite and recompense them 2. Unto this he subjoyns his assertion v. 32 33. the meaning whereof is not so much that death shall reach these wicked men for though that be true yet it is not his scope here as that notwithstanding all that insolency of wicked men v. 31. yet they bear not any extraordinary marks of Gods anger in their death Which he instanceth in several particulars 1. That not only they get a grave some one or other for the word is plural graves in the Original but they shall be brought to it in state and pomp as the word imports and shall not get the burial of an asse Jer. 22.19 2. That they shall remain in the tomb or heap Their bodies shall remain inviolate in the grave yea they shall have a stately heap and tomb erected over them and possibly their image shall be graven as if they were watching so it is in the Original above their tombs as is the custome in the tombs of great men to make Statues of them above them which may be seen by all 3. That the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him They shall have a quiet and contented rest there as to their outward estate embracing and being embâ—aced by their common parent the earth and free from outward troubles 4. That albeit death seem sad enough yet that is but a common lot of every man who shall draw after them as there are innumerable before them From all which Learn 1. As it is a mark of wicked men that they cannot endure free reproof such as Paul gave to Peter Gal 2.11 See 1 Sam. 25.17 so they are oftimes plagued with the want of it they being such as men dare not reprove them to their faces whatever they speak of them behind their backs For who shall declare his way to his face Yea it is oft-times their great misery that they are flattered when they ought to be reproved Psal 49.18 2. Wicked men through Gods indulgence and long suffering may get above the reach of humane opposition and be left upon Gods own hand to reckon with them in due time For who shall repay him what he hath done 3. Were wicked men never so high and insolent yet death shall reach them For he shall come to the grave 4. The way of the wickeds death and burial may be such as bears no mark of visible displeasure but Gods indulgence and forebearance may follow them even to the grave As here we are taught So that we ought not to limit God in these things 5. There may be much pomp and state in mens burial and in their tombs and monuments who yet are under the heavy wrath of God And are suffering sadly in their souls For so is here also declared as hath been explained 6. As the grave is a sweet bed wherein men rest who never got leave to rest before So they who doat upon and desire after much sweetness here must at last be content of the clods of the earth to rest in For the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him 7. Death being the common Rendezvous of all men all ought to prepare for it and none ought to stumble at it as a strange lot For So is intimated of the death of the wicked that every man shall draw after him as there are innumerable before him See Eccl. 7.2 Vers 34. How then comfort ye me in vain seeing in your answers remaineth falshood This verse contains the last part of the Chapter and a conclusion of the former debate Wherein from what hath been said he shews that they did but in vain endeavour to comfort him seeing they proceeded on a false ground while they perswaded him to take with wickedness because he was afflicted and propounded grounds of encouragement to him only upon these terms Whence Learn 1. It is the duty of men and an evidence of their being in a good frame when they entertain charity so far as is possible even toward these who are most severe unto them For Notwithstanding all his Friends cruelty and sharpness yet he hath charity for them that in their intentions they designed to comfort him according as they purposed when they first came to visit him Chap. 2.11 2. Mens endeavours to comfort their afflicted friends may oftimes prove unsuccessful for the further tryal and exercise of the afflicted For saith he ye comfort me in vain 3. False principles will never afford true and solid comfort and they do but lose their labour who make use of them For saith he ye comfort me in vain seeing in your answers there remaineth falshood or prevarication and double dealing 4. It is great wisdom in men under affliction to discern offered comforts that they neither snatch at a delusion and false comfort nor admit of what overthrows the new
by men Verse 14. The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy and in the night is as a thief 15. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight saying No eye shall see me and disguiseth his face In these Verses Job produceth some instances of these Rebels against the Light namely Murderers who rise by day-break to kill and rob men and spend the night in thieving and Adulterers who take advantage of the twilight to hide themselves and seek to promove their design of being hid from the sight of men by masking or otherwise disguising of their faces Doct. 1. Murther Theft and Adultery are in special works of darkness which prove men to hate the light and which do highly provoke God For these are brought in here as instances of that general Character of wicked men v. 13. and as sins which God would visibly plague if he took that course with all sinners which Job's Friends asserted he did 2. In particular Murther is a sin lying as near a stroak as any For he instanceth the murderer first here See Gen. 4.10 11. Is 26.21 And though this crime be oft-times covered with the mask of War or Authority yet that will not hide it but rather make it more odious 3. The secret wayes of committing murder will not hide it from God but it doth rather aggravate the crime that men think to cover it by that means For the murderer that riseth with the light to kill is a sinner who is obnoxious to vengeance if God please to pursue Sin will find out sinners in Gods time Num. 32.23 4. Bloud-thirsty men are very infatiable in their cruelty and will cut off men upon a very small tentation or for very little advantage For the murderer killeth even the poor and needy by whose death he can reap little or no profit and this he doth without any compassion or regard to their miserable and low condition 5. Oppression especially when it reacheth the life renders the oppressed the object of Gods pity so far as that he is ready to avenge it in due time For in this respect also those whom the murderer killeth are the poor and needy whose cause God will own as his frequent promises concerning the poor and needy do import whatever they have been before Thus Joab is said to have cut off two men more righteous better than himself 1 Kin. 2.32 though otherwise they were not very good men but Rebels against their lawful Prince So that it will not assoil men that these whom they cut off are naughty if they have not a call and warrant to cut them off 6. Wicked men being once engaged are indefatigable in their course and are still either at one trade of sin or other For when this murderer is not killing he is a thief which shews that there is a concatenation of sins and that the wicked are still at one or another of them And their care to lose no time in the pursuit of their sinful designs may give a check to them who lose many opportunities of doing good 7. It will not assoil men that they come not the length of cruel murder if yet they commit other acts of injustice For it is a charge sad enough that he is as a thief a very thief or somewhat like it Wicked men do at some times commit only such lower acts of injustice not because they want a disposition and inclination to grosser evils but because they want a tentation and opportunity or power to bring them to pass 8. Adultery is an old sin in the world and hath been looked on as a sin deserving Gods vengeance For adultery was accounted a sin in Job's dayes and a sin which God would not spare if he did alwayes visibly plague the wicked The sin of uncleanness contributed toward the destruction of the old World and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrhah And if it was so hateful to God in them who had fulness of bread and idleness to foster it Ezek. 16.49 it must be much more abominable when it abounds in time of poverty and affliction 9. It is a plague upon sinners particularly upon unclean persons when they commit wickedness with resolution As the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight with a resolution to perpetrate his wickedness then 10. It is also a plague upon wicked men and especially lustful persons that when they are not acting sin yet their hearts are still resolving and plotting how to go about it As the adulterer waits for the opportunity of the twilight wherein he may commit that sin upon which he is musing and resolving throughout the day 11. It is a Character of wicked men that they forget the eye of God upon them and that their consciences whatever light they have do not fear nor abhor sin but all that they fear is the discovery of their sin which may bring shame and punishment For all that the Adulterer expects is no eye shall see me which imports not so much his presumption that he shall not be seen by God or men though sometimes sinners may be plagued with that also as his desire that it may be so 12. An evil conscience is never truly quiet nor thinks it self secure enough For even in the twilight he disguiseth his face that he may yet less be discerned whereas they may sleep sound who are in Gods way Verse 16. In the dark they digg through houses which they had marked for themselves in the day-time they know not the lâ—ght 17. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death if one know them they are in the terrours of the shadow of death In these Verses Job points out yet further how these evil doers hate the light and make use of darkness Shewing that they do nothing in the day which may be true of the Adulterer but chiefly of the Murderer especially when he turns Thief but mark out the houses which they break in upon in the night and that they are such strangers to the light that it surprizeth them with the terrours of death as if they were entring into its dark shade if the morning overtake them or any body come to see and know them while they are at their wicked pâ—anâ—s Doct. 1. It is a character of wicked men to be incessant in sinning and witty to improve all times and seasons for it For in the day time they mark and in the dark they digg thorow houses 2. It is also a character of wicked men that they make all their own they can come by For they mark for themselves and then digg thorow 3. It is not usual to see wicked men interrupted in their evil courses by any convictions or impediments from themselves For when they mark they also digg through if they be not otherwise impeded 4. Albeit wicked men goe on in their sinful courses yet they want not convictions that they are wrong nor are they free of deadly
as evidences of his glorious dominion See Psal 104.24 25 26 and 107.23 24 c. 6. Gods providence reacheth even to the depths of the Sea as here we are also taught There providence can find out a Rebel Amos 9.13 There the bodies of Saints will find a resting place till he call for them Rev. 20.13 And there Jonah will find a Whale to preserve him Jon. 1.17 7. Gods providence is to be seen and adored not only in living but in lifeless creatures even in even in every pile of grass and in those dead things which are formed from under the waters We need no wonders to demonstrate the glory of God which is obvious in every even in the meanest thing And he is so glorious in riches that as it were he casts away Pearls and other precious things into the depth of the Sea and waters and buries Minerals in the bowels of the Earth Whereby also he tells us that our hearts should not lust so much after these things which his providence hath set out of our way Verse 6. Hell is naked before him and destruction hath no covering The second evidence and effect of Gods Dominion is his omniscience and that he knoweth and consequently ordereth what is most obscure and remote from the knowledge of men So that hell and the place of destruction whether we understand it of the grave and horrid station of the dead and under that comprehend all things that are in the deepest bowels of the Earth and hid under gross obscurity and darkness or of the place of the damned is no less naked before him than if it wanted a skin or covering For so the latter part of the Verse is an explication of the former Doct. 1. Hell and destruction are but one thing For here the one is explained by the other See Prov. 15.11 If we understand this of the grave death and the grave do not only destroy and cut off all our temporal enjoyments as to us but do destroy our persons and dissolve our bodies into dust And therefore nature looks upon it as a destruction and no wonder Saints sometime look so upon it also So that we have no cause to do at upon our bodies which will be brought to this issue at last and if men place their happiness in their temporal enjoyments and life the day will come wherein they will have done with all of that See Psal 49.16 17. Is 10.3 and 14.9 10 11. But the godly may rejoyce in God who out of that eater brings forth meat unto them and doth warrant them to take a more comfortable look of death If we understand it of the place of the damned that is a place of everlasting destruction 2 Thâ—ss 1.9 without any redemption or hope of recovery as there is in other sad conditions and then misery will triumph over these who have long insulted over it So that nothing should be looked upon as a ruine where this is away Mic. 7.8 1 Cor. 11.32 2. God is omniscient and seeth the most secret and hidden thing were it even in Hell or the bowels of the Earth For hell is naked before him that is before God and destruction hath no covering See Psal 139.8 c. Heb. 12.13 Hence 1. If these things be naked before God much more are men and their hearts known to him See Prov. 15.11 So that though men dig deep to hide their counsels from the Lord and seek many coverings of secrecy denial extenuations and pretences yet all these will serve in no stead before him but will only render their courses more odious to him who hates dissimulation and who is provoked to give men a sad proof of his omniscience when they would attempt to deceive him Jer. 2.35 See Is 29.15 and 30.1 Job 31.33 2. If God know all things so well we are bound to trust his verdict concerning us in his word and not our own deceitful hearts Jer. 17.9 10. 3. His eye upon us is still to be remembred and that as was said to â—â—hazi by Elisha 2 King 5.26 his heart goeth with us wherever we go See Psal 44.20 21. and 139.7.8 c. Job 31 4. and 34.21 22. So that if our own hearts condemn us much more may he condemn us who is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things 1 Joh. 3.20 4. When at any time the word of God fines us out we should not look upon it as falling forth by chance but as directed to us by his all seeing eye and providence For therefore is the Word quick and powerful to discern the thoughts and iâ—tents of the heart because all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do Heb. 4.12 with 13. See 1 Cor. 14 24 25. 5. This also may comfort the godly under afflictions Psal 31.7 and 142.3 when they are slâ—ndered by men Job 16 19. and secretly plotted against Psal 94 7 8 c. 2 King 6 11 12 31 32. Is 29.15 16. Verse 7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing The third evidence and effect of Gods powerful dominion and providence is his fixing of Heaven and Earth As for the first part of the Verse He stretcheth out the North over the empty place it may indeed be understood thus that he spreads that part of the Heavens which is near the North Pole over the empty or uninhabited place of the Earth as that part of the Earth under the Pole is uninhabited But it is clearer to understand the whole Verse thus That the Lord stretcheth out the whole Heaven which here he denominates from the north or Northern Hemisphere thereof under whâ—ch himself lived like a curious vault above that void and empty space which is betwixt the Earth and it and he hangeth the globe of the Earth and Water upon nothing causing it hang as a ball in the air And for further clearing of the words consider 1. He calls that interjacent space betwixt the Heaven and the Earth the empty place because though there be no vacuity in Nature yet the Air which fills that space to common sense seems to be nothing and sure it is an empty place of any thing which might support that fabrick of the Heavens 2. Though the Earth be elsewhere said to have foundations upon which it is setled Psal 104 5. yet that is to be understood of the deepest placeâ— of the Earth near the center thereof which are as foundations to these parts of it which are above them not that the whole Earth hath any foundations Or it may be thus understood that the Earth is no less fixed than if it were setled upon the firmest foundations And whereas it is said Psal 24.2 That the Earth is founded upon the seas and established upon the floods the word rendred upon may in that place be more fitly rendered above to point out the great power of God who hath made the dry Earth stand
some of them As here to be buried in death c. or to dye in an odde way without leaving any memorial of themselves behind them and without any solemnity witnessing mens respect unto them Death in it self is terrible to them as being the King of terrours as being a curse to them without any mitigation a cutting off of all their contentments and happiness and an haleing of them as Malefactors before their Judge and to eternal torments never to see a glad day again And when God lets out some glimpse of this upon some of them in the way of their death it should be the more heeded and lay'd to heart 4. Whatever may be the lot of godly men yet it is in it self a misery to dye undesired and unlamented as here they are buried in death or ignominy and forgetfulnesse and are not lamented but even his widows shall not weep See 2 Chron. 21.20 Jer. 22.28 This may import somewhat of duty that in a sad time particular losses should be swallowed up in the thoughts of more publick calamities as we see in Phineas wife 1 Sam. 4.20 21 22. with Ps 78.64 See also Ezek. 24.16 17 18. It may import also a judgement upon the living that their case is rather to be lamented who are left behind than they who are cut off Jer. 8.3 and 22.10 Rev. 9.6 And that as their private Interests come ordinarily betwixt them and the care of the Publick good So God may send publick calamities which will make them forget their particular sorrows But further consider 1. Whatever fault there may be in others their not remembering nor mourning for these their dead relations Yet it is Gods judgement upon them that they want these marks of respect and favour as indeed men may observe Gods righteous judgement in that wherein instruments acts sinfully 2. Though this also may be the sad lot of Godly men that they are cut off as the filth and off-scouring of the earth Ps 79.2 3. Yet 1. The chief thing to be looked to in a stroak is the guilt procuring it and if that be done away as it is to godly men all is well whatever befall them 2. Such as study piety do take the sure way to be remembered Prov. 10.7 when all other memorials of men will faile 3. However others do esteem of godly men yet they may be ill wanted as being Pillars to uphold the world and means of preserving the places where they are And it is a sad case when they are not lamented Is 57.1 4. Godly men may be missed when they are gone even by those who sleighted them when they had them and desired and it may be endeavoured to be rid of them Therefore Moses dead body behoved to be hid from Israel lest they should Idolize it Deut. 34.6 though they often sleighted him in his life Verse 16. Though he heap up silver as the dust and prepare raiment as the clay 17. He may prepare it but the just shall put it on and the innocent shall divide the silver The second sort of calamities which befall some of the wicked in these two and the next following Verse is the loss of their wealth and estate instanced in these Verses in their moveables such as silver and apparel which though they prepare them in great abundance yet they shall not enjoy but they shall come to the innocent and righteous See Eccl. 2.26 This doth nothing favour their fancy who dream that Saints shall so inherit the earth and have only such a right to all things as they may without sin deprive others of what they have When Saints thus mind earth heaven which is their true portion and inheritance will be forgotten as experience doth witness and such a principle is a ready mean to beget many hypocrites in hopes of temporal advantages But to say nothing how ill purchase may sometime be well bestowed and employed by the conversion of the owners as Is 23.18 Luk. 19.8 Job speaks here only 1. Of a providential dispensation to some wicked and godly men as Prov. 13.22 and 28.8 and that God by his providence may sometime bring the wealth of the wicked into godly mens hands as when Israel got the Egyptians wealth and the Canaanites land by his special warrant and providence not that this befalls all the wicked or all the godly 2. He speaks of what comes to the hands of godly persons by right and lawful means and noâ— by ill purchases For the eighth Command stands firm in its authority except when God dispenseth therewith by his own immediate authority as in the case of Israel's spoiling of the Egyptians 3. He speaks most especially of Gods providence in bringing back the wickeds ill purchase to the righteous owners who whatever they be otherwise are just and innocent as to those who oppressed them Doct. 1. Wealth is another Idol of wicked men beside their children wherewith they are ensnared as here is supposed 2. It is not a little of wealth that wicked men aim at and seeing they put it in Gods room it is no wonder they be insatiable seeing never so much of it will not serve their turn to be an happiness instead of God For they endeavour to heap it up as the dust and clay See Eccl. 5.10 Is 5.8 Luk. 12.15 3. Though wicked men be most tenacious of their wealth and sparing to make use of it yet Apparel is the great Idol of some of them whereby they express their pride and vain-glory and upon which they will spare no cost For with heaping up of silver they also prepare raiment and so this Idol makes their covetousness serve and stoop to it 4. God may suffer wicked men to prosper for a time in getting some satisfaction to their insatiable desires For they may heap up silver as the dust and prepare raiment as the clay This bounty the Lord rains upon them in anger and for a snare for it stops the mouth of conscience and hardens them against all challenges and intimations of Gods displeasure Hos 12.7 8. 5. Wicked men the more they do increase in wealth do but see the vileness thereof the more and do but encrease their own toyl For their heaps are but as the dust and clay as silver was in Solomon's dayes yea they but load themselves with thick clay Hab. 2.6 The deeper men dig in this dunghill they will find but the more vanity and vexation in it See Eccles 5.11 6. Wicked men by all their endeavours about wealth and by their success therein will never reach the end they propound to themselves As here is instanced in some for a document to all who may prepare but get not leave to make use of what they have prepared 7. God in his providence may sometime bring the unlawful purchase of the wicked into the hands of the righteous owners or of them who will employ it better than they For so as hath been explained the just shall put it on
Name of the second imports one so sweet as Aromatick Cassâ—a and the Name of the third implieth that she was one so fair as if an Horn or large measure of Paintry or Varnish had been powred upon her to make her appear beautiful 2. Their Estate and Portions and that they were made joint heirs with their brethren of their Fathers Lands and Estate v. 15. Which doth not import that they were never married but that their Father was careful to settle them near himself and his Sons that so they might have a Society among themselves for Gods Service because of the many Idolaters that were about them who might be ready to infect and corrupt them Doct. 1. Children in themselves are a â—lessing as continuing us in them to serve God even when we are gone for here they are ranked among Jobs Blessings See Psal 127.3 128.3 So that it is a sin to murmure at this mercy or not to improve Children aâ— a Blessing 2. It is in special a Blessing to them who have Wealth to have Children who may succeed to them in their Estates for this mercy of Children is subjoined to Jobs wealth v. 12. to intimate that his wealth would not have been so sweet if he had wanted Children to enjoy it after him So that it is the fault of men of great Estates and Power if they breed not their Children well who are to succeed to their Estates and Dignities whereby they not only wrong their own Families but their Countrey also wherein their posterity may have power And they are also culpable who having great Estates do not marry that so themselves may have a care of educating their Heirs if God give them any but do suffer those who shall succeed them to be bred by they cannot tell whom 3. Even the multitude of Children is a blessing as here it heightens Jobs mercy that he had so many And albeit Job was a rich man and had enough to give them yet they are indefinitely a blessing to poor or rich Psal 127.5 not to be murmured at though not to be doated upon either 4. Every sex of Children sons or daughters is a mercy as here is distinctly marked though we ordinarily doat upon those we want whether sons or daughters 5. Though Favour be deceitful and Beauty vain Prov. 31.30 and God may compense want of Beauty with excellent qualities nor must men cast off their Children because of deformities yet beauty is in it self a mercy not to be abused with a polluted life or wiâ—h pride because of it for therefore is the singular beauty of Jobs Daughters marked 6. It is a great blessing both to Parents and Children when Children are dutiful and obedient for so were Jobs Daughters as appears from his care to provide for them and his delight to have them near himself and this is marked as one of his mercies 7. It is a great blessing and an evidence that Children are dutiful when they live in love one with another as here the sons and daughters delight to live near together See Chap. 1.4 8. It should be a special part of Parents care and an evidence of their love to their Children to study to prevent their infection in the matter of Religion and so to settle them that they be not cast upon tentations so much did Job evidence by setling his Daughters among their Brethren Verse 16. After this lived Job an hundred and forty years and saw his sons and his sons sons even four generations The fourth Particular in this account is his long life after his restitution even for the space of 140 years so that he saw four generations come of him before he died If we apply that General v. 10. to this also and make this sum double to what he lived before his trial we may conclude that he was 70 years old which is the half of 140 when his trial began and lived in all 210 years beside the time of his trial Which if there were not somewhat singular in it might help to prove to the antiquity of this History and that Job lived before these days wherein mens lives began to be shortned as Moses sheweth Psal 90.10 But this supposition of the doubling of his years not being so certain we may only here Learn 1. Albeit our life on earth be but a warfare yet long life is a mercy in it self and to godly men a reward of piety and a benefit to the Church with whom they are continued for therefore is Jobs long life marked as one of his mercies See Psal 34.12 13. It is true godly men have some loss by their long life being so much the longer kept from heaven yet death being in it self a fruit of sin the deferring thereof is in it self a mercy And a long life may be full of rich advantages to godly men while they see Gods goodness in the land of the living before they go hence Psal 27.13 while they have opportunity to honour God and do him much service Phil. 1.23 24 25. while they get many proofs of Gods love Gen. 48.15 1 Kings 1.29 while they have opportunity to sow largely for a rich harvest 2 Cor. 9.6 and get leisure to ripen for death which is their difficult step and great trial All which doth not import that we should doat upon long life but it serves to condemn the Godly who are weary of their life and all those who make little good use of a long life but do thereby render themselves obnoxious to a sudden stroke Psal 68.21 2. It is yet a further proof of kindness when God sweetens our long life with mercies particularly of posterity as here Job saw his sons and his sons sons even four generations 3. Our long life is then especially sweet when we see the Church well and are doing good therein in our stations as Job here had opportunity to train up and see a Church of his posterity See Psal 128.5 6. Verse 17. So Job died being old and full of days The last particular in this account is his happy death when he is full of days Whence learn 1. Did men live never so long and in great prosperity yet they must at last die as here Job did See Psal 49.6 7 8 9. Heb. 9.27 2. It is a mercy in it self when men are ripe to be taken away for it is ranked among Jobs mercies that he died being old It is true young persons do doat upon time expecting an happiness in it but when men come to what Job attained of years or any thing proportionable to it they will count it their mercy to get their Pass to be gone if they be godly 3. Were men never so old when they die yet to be full of days and satisfied with the time they have lived is a mercy and gift of it self for it is here marked as a distinct mercy that he was not only old but full of days when he died And this is a mercy
3. Many of the dispensations of Providence in the world and particularly of the lots of Saints may be such as might astonish right discerners For saith he both in reference to his own condition and his doctrine concerning Gods Providence Mark me and be astonished We adore not God in what is ordinary And therefore singular dispensations are sent to rouze us up And albeit stupid astonishment be not good yet this imports that in effect Gods dispensations cannot well be pried into but ought to be wondered at 4. Men will be so much the more astonished at the dispensations of God in the world and toward Saints when they consider them narrowly and do remember that they have been in an errour and have not considered them well before For this is required of them in particular that they be astonished when they shall consider them well and reflect upon their own mistakes about them As it is not unusual that men get open eyes to be astonished at their own mistakes in things wherein they thought they were very clear 5. A wise consideration of Gods dispensations will cause men silently to adore rather than to carp and foolishly talk and prate of them For he supposeth that if they mark well they will find all their former babbling so refuted as may cause them lay their hand upon there mouth Vers 6. Even when I remember I am afraid and trembling taketh held on my flesh The last Argument confirming the former is taken from his own sense of his condition and of what he was to say When he thinks upon the deep counsels of God and his various and strange dispensations in the world and toward himself and other Godly mâ—n it causeth him tremble and admire at the Majesty Wisdom and Power of God shining therein and at the ignorance and incapacity of shallow man Whence he would infer that they ought to learn at him who was so well trained and exercised in that study and should hear him speak of that subject who was so sensibly affected with it Whence Learn 1. What men do press upon others they should first essay it themselves that they may recommend it by their practice as well as by their counsels Therefore Job having recommended astonishent and rereverence to them v. 5. doth press it further here by his own Practice When I remember I am afraid 2. Such as would take up and understand the ways of God to any purpose or good effect ought to be much at serious meditation For I Remember saith Job when he gives an account of his fear and trembling intimating that his meditating upon these things produced these effects 3. Afflictions are then blessed when they fix mens wandering and unstable minds and draw them seriously to ponder and consider what God and his Dispensations are For so Job in his affliction is brought to remember these things more seriously 4. It is a further evidence of the blessing of an afflicted condition when those serious thoughts do not evanish or miscarry in mens hands but do produce sutable effects and impressions upon their hearts For Job's Remembring of those things had such effects of fear and trembling 5. However men at ease may lightly pass over things of greatest importance and concernment Yet in an afflicted condition men especially godly men will find that thoughts of God and his dealing ought to take deeper impression upon them For however his frinds looked upon all things yet he was affected with them 6. Gods dispensations may be very affrightful even to his own Children when they think upon them in their afflictions For saith Job when I remember I am affraid and trembling taketh hold on my flesh He had such an awful regard of God manifesting himselfe by these dispensations as made him fear yea and tremble Wherein beside that fear and reverence which he owed in duty to God and that horrour which their ignorance and mistakes might beget in him there wants not some excess unto which Saints remembring God in trouble are apt to fall Psal 77.3 Which as it flows from their crushed spirits becoming a spirit of bondage unto them And it may be their fruit of not delighting in mercy that they are put to this School So it is oft times very needful to excite them to renew their peace with God Vers 7. Wherefore do the wicked live become old yea are mighty in power 8. Their seed is established in their sight with them and their off-spring before their eyes 9. Their houses are safe from fear neither is the rod of God upon them 10. Their bull gendereth and falleth not their cow calveth and casteth not her calf 11. They send forth their little ones like a flock and their children dance 12. They take the timbrel and harp and rejoyce at the sound of the organ 13. They spend their days in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave Followeth unto v. 27 the second part of the Chapter wherein Job refutes their common assertions concerning the miseries of all and only the wicked And resolving to clear this question more fully he doth not content himself as formerly for most part with contradicting of their assertion only and proving that many wicked men did prosper But giving an account of the various lots of wicked men both separately and conjunctly he clears how God exercises a great variety in these things and that however they might produce some instances of wicked men who had been plagued yet these were not sufficient upon which to found a General Assertion nor did they refute his opinion who notwithstanding these instances could make it appear that even many of them prospered to their graves And consequently these outward dispensations of Providence could not convincingly prove a man to be either righteous or wicked From this to v. 17. Job in the first place proves from experience the prosperity of many wicked men even till death The Narration consists of three Branches the first whereof in these verses is an assertion contradictory to what his Friends maintained that many of the wicked have a constant and uninterrupted gale of prosperity even to their grave This he branches out in several particulars opposite to the many branches of the wickeds misery mentioned by Zophar and the rest And namely First that in their life 1. In their persons they live to old age in strength vigour and power or wealth v. 7. 2. In their relations they prosper also their children and off spring are many and setled in their sight v. 8. 3. Their families within doors are peaceable without fear of trouble from a Rod of God v. 9. 4. Without doors their Wealth is great and their Cattel fruitful without miscarrying v. 10. 5. And as their Children and Off-spring are many so because of their great prosperity they live in great mirth and Jollity v. 11.12 Secondly That in death after they have lived long in much prosperity and have spent their days in mirth and
jovialâ—y They die in a moment peaceably and without any bands in their death v. 13. This whole Discourse tending to one purpose I need not insist upon every word of it but shall reduce the whole to these Heads First This question Wherefore do the wicked live c being considered abstractly from the scope and as spoken to God might import Job's stumbling at this dispensation and his desire of solution about the causes of it as Jer. 12.1 Hab. 1.13 And the Answer to such a Question might be That God suffers them thus to prosper not because he loves them or minds their good in it or cannot reach them but because he would witness his long-suffering Rom. 2.4 would try the faith and patience and other graces of his Children would teach them to imitate him who is good to his very Enemies Mat. 5.44 45. and would suffer the wicked to discover themselves more and more and run upon snares c. But Job doth not here stumble at this lot v. 16. and he propounds the case not to God but only to his Friends to refute their Opinions As if he had said If that be true which ye assert concerning the ruine of wicked men How cometh it to pass that dayly experience lets us see so many wicked men prospering This being Job's scope in the Question it teacheth 1. Men once engaged in an Errour may be so blind and so be misled with prejudices and mistakes that they will not see clearest Refutations of it as they could not remark constant at least frequent Experiences witnessing against them Some men being once engaged think themselves so interessed as they will not see what may reclaim them and there are so many delusions and strong delusion and some are so given over to them that it is no wonder they cannot see the Truth 2. The more obvious and clear that light be against which men sin by their Errours their sin is the greater and the more inexcusable As when men sin not only against Divine Revelation in things which are above the reach of Reason or against sound Principles of Reason in things that may be proved thereby but even against sense and experience whereof Job makes use here to refute and aggravate the Errour of his Friends Thus men are said to become unreasonable or absurd 2 Thess 3.2 and natural brute Beasts 2 Pet. 2.12 And men are given up to such dispositions not only for the tryal and exercise of the Lovers of Truth who oppose them and cannot get them convinced by any means or arguments and to excite us to pity Adam's faln Posterity when left to themselves and to cause all men read their own dispositions and inclinations by nature in their way But that this may be a warning unto and if they persist a punishment of these who see not the evil of more refined and polished Errours Secondly The gale of the wickeds prosperity in their Persons Children Family and Wealth within and without doors v. 7 8 9 10. may teach this Truth That the doctrine of Zophar and his Companions is not true of all the wicked But many of them have a constant and full portion of prosperity A Truth which the Lord in this Book doth inculcate for guarding of the hearts of the godly who because they need rods to mortifie their corruptions and have many Enemies are exercised with another lot And it is a Truth which may hold out these Instructions 1. Prosperity is not of so much worth and excellency as many think nor is it the conduit whereby God conveys and communicates his special love to all to whom he gives it For if it were so it would not be dispensed as it is And it is because the godly think so much of it that they want it so much And God is more gracious to them than to it give to them when they are in such a frame as makes them ready to abuse it 2. Though dispensations both of prosperity and adversity be not dumb and say nothing nor should be useless Yet they alone and of themselves say nothing to clear the state of a mans soul before God nor can a man judge thereof by any such lot The highest gale of Prosperity here mentioned may consist with Gods hatred and all Job's Adversity may consist with love 3. The godly should not envy the wickeds prosperity as the Psalmist did Psal 73 3 c. but should rather pity them seeing they will get no more Nor should they quarrel much with the wicked about these things which are their only portion and not theirs 4. The godly should not be stumbled at adversity nor cast down with the want of prosperity If there were no more to be considered but the will of God who ordereth all these things it were enough But much more ought they to be satisfied when they consider That their portion is secured whatever befal them in the world That they are only separated a little sooner from the contentments of time for they will part with them at last as the wicked must also do That whatever their lot be they are supported and provided for and have food and rayment though possibly not to their carnal hearts desire That in their adversity they are called to bring up a good report of the riches of the grace and favour of God wherein all their wants are made up and not to mourn over these Idols whereof they are deprived but to let see that they can be crucified to the world as well as it is crucified to them That they are but fitted to move toward their Countrey being delivered from many impediments of a prosperous condition which clogged them And in a word That there is a blessedness even in adversity to them Psal 44.11 We will never attain the right use of our present lot nor are we fitted for any issue from adversity till we come to under value prosperity and to rejoyce in the love of Christ in the want of other things Rom. 8.35 39. And till we be more mindful and careful of the blessing of our sad conditions than of an issue of them For without this if we were delivered we would but run mad in seeking to satisfie our unsubdued and long starved lusts 5. When the godly look upon all these particulars of the wickeds prosperity in their persons children family wealth c. they may also on the contrary see how many doors God hath whereby to let in trouble upon them by afflicting them in any of these Whence may be gathered partly how frail man is and how God hath him at an advantage to make him miserable if he please by many means Falling upon him either in his Person or his Children or within or without doors Partly How many things the wicked need to patch up some shew of happiness to themselves seeing they will not delight in God Partly That the godly ought to remember what tryals in all or any of these enjoyments