troubles turne a Pallace into a desolate place so riches and plenty power and peace meeting together in Kings and great men turne desolate places into Pallaces Kings and Counsellours are of such wealth and power that they can alter the most desolate and ruinous places into delicate edifices and stately dwellings Or lastly Which doth best suite with the subject of Jobs discourse or curse in this Chapter He speaking so much of death by the desolate places we may understand Tombes and Sepulchers places of buriall which Kings and Counsellours build to or for themselves And so taken the sence may be given thus as if Job had said if I had died I should have lien in the grave with as much ease and quiet as those great Princes and Kings of the earth who build themselves stately monuments to lie in It would have been as well with me as with any of them though interr'd under stately tombes We know it was an ordinary thing for Kings and great men especially in ancient times to prepare for themselves costly monuments while they lived as houses for their bodies being dead Which grew to such excessive charge among the Romanes that they were forced to make a Law to restraine it The Egyptians bestowed more care and cost in building their tombes then their houses Even Abraham Gen. 23.16 bought him a burying place before he built himselfe a house though while he lived he dwelt in a moveable tent yet he would be as sure as he could of a certaine grave And good Joseph of Arimathea had made himselfe a sepulcher in a rock Math. 27.60 And it is said of Absolom 2 Sam. 18.18 That in his life time he had taken and reared up a pillar that is he had artificially raised a great pile of goodly stones in the Kings dale For he said I have no sonne to keepe my name in remembrance And he called the pillar after his own name Now as this pillar was to keepe his name so he intended it likewise to keepe his body when he should die For it being related in the verse before how as soone as he was slaine they made no more adoe with him but cast him into a great pit in the wood and layed a very great heape of stones upon him The holy Ghost to shew us the vanity of man in preparing for a dead body while he neglects an immortall soule and how God disappoints the vaine conceits of men in supposing to perpetuate their own name and greatnesse The holy Ghost I say to shew this presently subjoynes in the sacred story Now Absolom in his life time c. As if he had said Doe ye observe how this ambitious Prince was buried even tumbled into a pit with a rude heape of stones cast upon him This man had prepared himselfe another kind of monument even a sumptuous pillar c. So that under or by that pillar he had archt a curious vault for himselfe to be buried in called Absaloms place namely his burying place And the word which we have here for desolate places is in Scripture clearely applied to the grave or a place of buriall We have it in Ezek. 26.20 where the Prophet foreshewing the destruction of Tyre speakes from the Lord thus When I shall bring thee downe with them that descend into the pit and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth in places desolate of old There are three words in that verse and they are all Synonima's words of the same signification First The pit Secondly The low parts of the earth Thirdly The desolate places and all these are but severall expressions for the grave or for a place to bury in It is no more but this When I shall bring thee downe even with those that lie buried in the grave So that the word which we translate desolate places being also in other places used for the grave or a place of buriall we may very well expound it so here that desolate places are the graves or sepulchers of Kings and Princes and Counsellours of the earth which we may doe especially because Job treats in this place about death and the state of the dead Now Tombes and Monuments may be called desolate places in two respects First Because when the body is layed in there all company and all friends leave it you shall have a mighty traine following their friend to the grave but there they leave him Kings and Counsellours have stately Funerals but when their subjects or friends favourites or flatterers have brought them to the tombe and opened the doore of the grave they goe no further they will not goe in with them and dwell with their bodies in the dust of death as much as they honour'd or ador'd them when they lived so that they are in desolate places Secondly Graves may be called desolate places because Tombes and Sepulchres were in desolate places they were made in some high Mountaine or caved Valley in some place remote from the company and habitations of the living for in former times they did not bury in Cities or in Townes but in places where few came till they were carried and therefore properly called desolate places It is observed that among the Romans the first Emperour that was buried in Rome was Traian And the law of the twelve Tables did prohibit both the buriall and the burning of the dead within the City So then it is cleare that anciently Tombes and Monuments were erected in desolate places and that great cost was bestowed in building and beautifying of them both which favour and illustrate the exposition given It followes in the Text Or with Princes that had gold who fill their houses with treasure The word Sar a Prince in the Hebrew as in most other languages signifies the chiefe the head the first Some Criticks conceive that our English word Sir comes from it it is very neere in sound and so is the French word Mounsier to this Originall for a Prince or Chiefe Job describeth Princes thus they are such as had gold noting both what the study and indeavours of Princes are namely to lay up gold and likewise what is requisite for them Gold is of great use in a high estate Treasures are necessary for Princes Princes that had gold Therefore Solomon that wise Prince saith of himselfe Eccles 2.8 And he putteth it among his Princely workes I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of Kings When the Wise-men came to Christ the first thing they offered him was gold and they did wisely for he was a Prince gold being the chiefe and as it were the prince of Mettals is a very proper offering for Princes And howsoever wisedome and goodnesse justice and clemency are farre more necessary requisites in Princes then gold yet there is such a necessary conjunction of these two that we find him in the Prophet Isa 3.7 refusing the governement because he was poore Be thou our Ruler say
Rhetorick can perswade death to depart all the gold and riches in the world cannot bribe death or stay its hand I saith Job should have found Kings and Counsellours and rich men even all these in the grave and we should have rested together Riches availe not in the day of wrath Prov. 11.4 but righteousnesse delivereth from death Righteousnesse delivereth from death why shall not righteous men die Surely Job might have said with righteous men with holy men should I have rested with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob these are in the grave death seaz'd on them as well as other Princes and Kings and Counsellours How then doth Solomon say that righteousnesse delivereth from death Death is there either to be understood of some dangerous judgement for saith he riches availe not in a day of wrath that is in a day of publike calamity but righteousnesse delivereth from death that is from those troubles and dangers God hath respect to a righteous person and hideth him from that death Or righteousnesse doth deliver from death that is from the evill of death from the sting of death from the bitternesse of death the bitternesse and evill of death is past to a righteous man But riches they availe not at all they cannot at all as not deliver from death so not mitigate the paine or pull out the sting or sweeten the bitternesse of death yea rather riches encrease all these That is a truth O death how bitter is thy remembrance to a man that is at ease in his possession Men may put their riches with them into the grave but riches cannot keepe them a moment out of the grave This thought How bitter Secondly When Job speakes of Kings and Counsellours and Princes these great men of the world he sheweth us what their study and businesse for the most part is in the world it is about worldly things They build desolate places they have gold they fill their houses with treasure These are their employments the current of their cares and endeavours runs out this way Hence observe That the thoughts of the greatest and wisest of the world are usually but for and about the world The poore receive the gospell and the rich receive the world As a godly man is described by his faith Abraham beleeved God By feare by uprightnesse by justice as Job in the first chapter of this Booke by meeknesse as Moses c. by the heavenlinesse of their spirits and conversations Our conversation is in Heaven Phil. 3.20 So worldly men are described by their proper studies Kings Counsellours and Princes build Pallaces gather riches heape up gold They buy they sell they build they plant they eate they drinke as the worldly world is pictur'd Luk. 17.27 28. In the 17th Psalme great men are called the men of the world as if they were for nothing but the world or all for the world as if all their provisions were laid in for this world so it followes who have their portion in this life ver 14. It is a sad thing to have received our portion It is said of the rich man Sonne remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things thou hast had thy portion In Psal 49.11 It is said concerning such men that their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations and they call their lands after their own names Their inward thoughts are upon these things It is somewhat a strange kind of speaking to say their inward thoughts for there are no thoughts but inward thoughts are all wrought in the secret shop of the heart But there is an elegancy in it the Hebrew is their inwards their internalls Their inwards are how they may get themselves a name and riches not only are their thoughts about these things but the very inmost of their thoughts the most retired thoughts and recesses of the soule are about these things these lie neerest to their hearts As the story saith of Queen Mary when she died she had them open her and they should finde Calice at her heart It was a pitifull case that a rotten Towne should lie where Christ ought at the heart of such a Princesse The heart is the place where Christ and the thoughts of Heaven should lodge All below Heaven should be below our hearts But as a godly mans inward thoughts are for Heaven and the things of Heaven for grace and for holinesse he hath thoughts upon the world but if I may so speake they are his outward thoughts not his inward thoughts That which lies neerest his heart his inward thoughts are for Heaven So the inward thoughts of worldly men are for the world the Apostle might well say Not many wise nor many rich nor many noble are called the thoughts of wise Counsellours of potent Kings and rich Princes are legible in their actions Thirdly Having expounded these desolate places to be Tombes and these houses graves Observe That some take in their life time more care for their Sepulchers then they doe for their soules Here are great men what doe they They build desolate places they will be sure to have stately monuments And they had gold they will be sure to fill their graves with treasure they will be buried richly or they will have their riches buried with them But what care did these take for their poore soules in the meane time where they should lie Had they taken order what should become of their soules When all things are disposed of this choice peece for the most part is left undisposed of unprovided for Some will carefully provide for their children they will provide for their families they will provide for their dead bodies for their carcasses but for their immortall soules there is no provision made While their bodies are assured of a resting place they may say of and to their departing soules as that trembling Emperour bespake his O our poore fleeting wandring soules whether are you going where is the place of your rest As it is said of Absolom in the place before cited He in his life time had reared up a pillar a monument or a Tombe for himselfe in the Kings dale What a carefull Prince was this for his body But how carelesse was this Prince for his soule He will have a pillar to preserve his name and yet runs out in rebellion against his owne father to the destruction of his soule The great businesse of the Saints on earth is to get assurance of a place for their soules to lodge in when they die It troubles them not much what lodging their bodies have if they can put their spirits into the hand of Christ What though their bodies be cast upon a dung-hill or trodden upon like mire in the streetes by cruell men A Heathen said The losse of a Funerall or of a Sepulcher may easily be borne I am sure a Christian may That losse will never undoe any man
bruise and breake the heart of their tender Father Afflictions presse most when they are least expected Let us observe then this mixture of malice and cunning in Satan in choosing his time To carry a man from one extremity to another puts him upon the greatest extremity To make the day of a mans greatest rejoycing to be the day of his deepest sorrowes this is cutting if not killing sorrow To be brought from extreame sorrow to extreame joy suddenly doth rather amaze then comfort the spirit of a man It is said that when the Lord turned againe the captivity of Zion the people were like them that dreame the change was so great so sudden that they were rather astonished and amazed then comforted with it for a while So much more to be hurried from extreame joy to extreame sorrow from the borders of comfort to the brinke of death on a sudden is not so much to afflict a man as to confound and distract him This course Satan takes with Job It were well if we could be wise in this respect to imitate Satan to choose out our day to do good when there is greatest probability of successe as he chose out his day to do mischief It is the Apostles rule as you have opportunity doe good if wee could be wise to lay hold upon opportunities it would be a wonderfull advantage to us as a word fitly spoken is word upon the wheele so a worke fitly done is a worke upon the wheele it goeth on takes upon the heart both of God and man Let us consider whether now we have not a season whether this be not a day that holds forth to us a glorious opportunity Surely we may present this day unto you as a day to be doing in Let us therefore be as quick in this our day to doe good as Satan was in that day to doe hurt This is a day wherein great things are a doing and grievous things are a suffering by many of our bretheren therefore you should be working this day make a day on 't This is a day in which sonnes of Belial men that will not beare Christs yoke are combining to breake it and to cast his coards from them Then joyne this day to helpe Christ else as Mordecai said to Esther If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time this was a day for Esther to worke in then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jewes from another place but thou and thy fathers house shall be destroyed So I may say to you in reference to the present opportunity if you altogether hold your peace hold your purses and hold your hands at this time at such a day as this enlargement will come to the Church some other way but you may be destroyed who thinke to hold and keepe your peace either by saying or doing nothing If ever you will appeare this is a day to appeare in to doe good Let us be wise to manage and improve our day That it may never be said of us as our Lord Christ did of Jerusalem If yee had knowne even ye in this your day the things which belong unto your peace Luk. 19.42 It is a sadder thing to have had a season and not to know it sc not to use it then not to have had it Solomon tells us Eccles 8.6 That Because to every purpose there is a time and judgement therefore the misery of man is great upon him Misery cannot be great to a man because there is a time for every purpose but because men are either so blind that they cannot see or so sluggish that they will not make use of the proper time for every purpose Thus the preacher himselfe expounds it Chap. 9.12 For man also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evill not and as the birds are taken in a snare so are the sonnes of men snared in an evill time when it falleth suddenly upon them Consider what Solomons experience taught him Let not your inadvertency of these times make you a new experiment of that ancient truth And leave men that should be wise especially that pretend to wisedome to be numbred among and compared with a silly bird a silent fish Then again Forasmuch as it was the day of their great feast of their feast with wine upon which this great affliction assaulted Job Observe That the fairest and clearest day of our outward comfort may be clouded and overcast before the evening It was as faire a day as ever began in Jobs family a feast and a feast with wine and that in the eldest Brothers house and yet all was darkenesse before night This is true in reference to ungodly men great and terrible judgements fall suddainly upon them their light is turned into darknesse in a moment as Christ compares it to the dayes of Noah and the dayes of Lot As it was saith he in the dayes of Noah they did eate they dranke they married wives they were given in marriage untill the day that Noah entred into the Arke and the flood came and destroyed them all and as it was in the dayes of Lot c. both which are in two words set out by the Apostle when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction commeth Thus it is with ungodly men their Sunne often sets at noone when they say yea when they conclude all 's well then judgement mixt with wrath is at the doore This is a truth also in reference unto godly men and the Churches of God all their outward comforts may be clouded in a day while they are eating and drinking not sinfully but in a holy manner suppose as the Apostle adviseth to the glory of God yet even at that time all may presently be taken away And therefore as the Apostle saith rejoyce as if you rejoyced not in the creature and eate as if you did not eate and buy as if you possessed not Why For the fashion of this world the Scheme of this world passeth away You see it did with Job in what a goodly fashion was his worldly estate in the morning how was it drest and adorned in perfect beauty in all its excellencies as we heard it before described yet before night all the fashion of it past away and the beauty of it was quite blasted Therefore you that have great estates and good estates estates well gotten and well govern'd be not high-minded trust not in uncertaine riches If riches increase and if they increase in a right way yet set not your hearts upon them for the fashion of worldly things quickly passeth away Riches make themselves wings to fly away when thou art making doores and locks bolts and barres to keepe them in That for the time in the 13th verse But what did Satan upon this day That is set forth in the 14th v. and so on And there came a messenger unto Job and said The Oxen were plowing and
from Heaven to consume them That is conceived by Expositors to be an especiall reason why the sheepe were consumed namely to cast Iob upon this apprehension that his very Sacrifices were rejected of God that he might conclude of himselfe as Solomon saith of the wicked that his Sacrifices were an abomination to the Lord and to shew that God would now have no more of his Sacrifices God himselfe made one Sacrifice of them all But Origen brings in Job excellently retorting this suggestion upon Satan I sacrificed now one and then another of my Sheepe to God but now blessed be God who hath accepted all my flocke as one Burnt-offering Againe The Sheepe were consumed by fire as to make Job conceive that his former services were rejected so to take him off and discourage him from offering any more such services to make him despaire of ever thriving in the way of those duties and conclude surely God is so angry now that all my services all my sacrifices will never appease him nor profit me therefore I were as good lay by these duties as performe them when I get no good This is a dangerous temptation if Satan by such prejudices against holy duties can cause us to lay them by the day is wonne for then the soule is left naked and unarm'd We have not then so much as a bulrush in our hands to smite him or a paper breast-plate to secure our selves If we give over praying and seeking we have no ground to expect Christ either assisting or protecting us That for the second affliction While he was yet speaking there came also another and said the Caldeans made out three Bands and fell upon the Camels and have carried them away c. This is the third affliction the taking away of the Camels the destroying of the servants that waited upon them There is not much to stay upon in this having before opened most of the passages of it in the 15th verse While he was yet speaking there came also another and said the Caldeans made out three Bands Caldeans sometime note a condition or a ranke of men such as were Diviners Soothsayers and Astrologers these are in Scripture called Caldeans As the Indians called such skilfull persons Gymnosophistes and the Persians called them their Magi and the Romans called them Augures so the Assyrians called them Caldeans When Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dreame it is said that he sent for the Diviners and the Astrologers and the Caldeans and afterward the Caldeans take up all he said to the Caldeans and the Caldeans said to the King The Caldeans were put for all those that undertooke the art of divining and interpreting dreames But here by the Caldeans are to be understood not a condition of men but a Nation of men or the people inhabiting Chaldea frequently spoken of by the Prophets and described to the life by the Prophet Habakkuk chap. 1. where the Lord threatned to send the Caldeans against his people and then describes them That hastie and bitter Nation their Horses are swifter then the Leopard and more ravening then the evening Wolves Such a kind of people they were who were stirred up by Satan to take away the Camels of Job These are said to make out three Bands to spoile They were a people like the Sabeans delighting in warre and robbery so much the Etymologie of their Name Chasdim which is the word in the Originall implieth being derived from Sadad which signifieth to robbe and spoile These were a wicked generation yet these prevaile over the estate of Job victory doth not alwayes attend a just cause The way of the wicked often prospers and the way of these wicked Caldeans prospered so often that the Prophet Habakkuk complaines to God as one scandaliz'd at it Thou art of purer eyes then to behold evill and canst not looke on iniquity wherefore lookest thou upon them that deale treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous then he If ever wee should be brought upon a like case to argue it thus with God or as Jeremie did chap. 12.1 to plead with God about his judgements let us remember to establish our hearts before we open our mouthes with the Prophet Jeremies conclusion in that place Righteous art thou O Lord though the wicked devoure the man that is more righteous then he It is very rare that God makes one good man his rod to scourge another he usually makes the worst of men his rod his staffe his Sword to inflict either tryalls or judgements upon his people The durty Scullion scowres the silver vessell and makes it both cleane and bright for his masters use Verse 18. While he was yet speaking there came also another and said thy Sonnes and thy Daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest Brothers house Verse 19. And behold there came a great wind from the wildernesse and smote the foure corners of the house and it fell upon the young men and they are dead and I only am escaped alone to tell thee THis was as the fourth and last so the greatest of all Satans assaults the most fierce and terrible charge that Job had all the day and Satan reserves this untill the evening till Job was spent and spiritlesse as he hoped I shall note this in generall from it That Satan usually keepes his greatest strength and most violent temptations unto the last When he thinkes we are at the weakest then he commeth with his strongest assaults If Satan had sent Job word of the death of his children first all the rest would have beene as nothing to him he would not have regarded the losse of his Cattell when he heard that all his children were crushed to death by the fall of the house As some one great evill falling upon us takes the heart off from having any sense or joy in a lesser good so one great evill swallowes up the sense and feeling of a lesser evill that great evill which fell upon the Wife of Phineas when she heard that the Arke of God was taken afflicted her so extreamely that she could not at all rejoyce in the birth of her sonne she had no sence of that Here was therefore the cunning of Satan lest Job should have lost the smart of the lesser afflictions least they should have beene all swallowed up in the greater he brings them out in order the least first the greatest is reserved for the last We observe in warre that when once the great Ordnance are discharged the Souldiers are not afraid of the Musket so when a great batterie is made by some thundering terrible judgement upon the soule or upon the body or estate of any man the noyse and feares of lesser evills are drown'd and abated Therefore Satan keepes his greatest shot to the last that the small might be heard and felt and that the last comming in greater strength might find the least strength to resist it
unto the father When they told Christ of some whose bloud Pilate had mingled with their Sacrifices Thinke not saith he that either these or those upon whom the Tower of Shiloe fell and slew them were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem I tell you except yee repent yee shall all likewise perish As there is no judging of the sinnes of men by such kind of exigents and events so neither of the wrath of God yet how many by such appearances judge unrighteous judgements being as barbarous as those Barbarians of Malta who seeing a Viper comming out of the heat and fastning on Pauls hand they concluding he must die presently censured him to be a murtherer whom though he had escaped the Sea yet vengeance followed on shore and would not suffer to live Wee must not ground our judgement upon the workes of God but upon his word In externals there is the same event to all Eccles 9. Men cannot be distinguish'd for eternity by what they suffer but by what they doe not by the manner of their death but by the tenour of their lives This is a certaine truth That man can never die an evill death who hath led a good life There is nothing makes death evill but the evill which followeth death or the evill that goes before death Thirdly Here was death a strange and sudden death surpriz'd the children of Job and this when they were feasting when they were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brothers house Wee may observe from that also by way of admonition Christians had need to take heed and be holy in feasting While we are eating and drinking we may be dying therefore eating and drinking we had need be holy Take heed to your selves saith Christ lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkennesse take heed lest at any time because at any time the day may come upon you unawares That day whether it be a day of generall calamity or personall may come upon you unawares It becomes us to be holy in all manner of conversation though we had an Assurance of our lives But seeing in what manner of conversing so ever we be death may surprize us and we have no assurance of our lives in our greatest joyes how holy should we be Whether you eate or drinke saith the Apostle or whatsoever you doe doe all to the glory of God Have God in your eye let him be your aime It is prophecied concerning the latter times That every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holinesse unto the Lord. The very pots in Jerusalem shall be holy that is men at their pots shall be holy to note that they should be holy in their eatings in their drinkings not holy onely when they were praying and holy when they were hearing but holy in those ordinary naturall actions of eating and drinking holy at their Tables and in all their refreshings with the creature Then indeed there is holinesse in the heart when there is holinesse in the pot and 't is but need there should be holinesse in the pot when there my bedeath in the pot We may observe somewhat more generally from all these foure sore afflictions considered together As first We see how quickly the beauty of all worldly blessings may be blasted Job in the morning had an estate as great and as good as his heart could desire in worldly things there was luster and strength in and upon all he had but before night he had nothing but sorrow to sup upon He had no retinue of servants left but foure reserved only to report his losses In one day all 's gone It is added as an aggravation of Babylons down-fall that her judgements shall come upon her in one day Revel 18.8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day death and mourning and famine and she shall be utterly burnt with fire for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her In one day all the beauty of Babylon shall be blasted We need not now trouble our selves to thinke Babylon is in a great deale of strength and beauty and glory surely there must be a long time spent in contriving and acting the destruction of Babylon no the Lord can blast her beauty and destroy her power in a day and the Text saith he will doe so in one day all her plagues shall come upon her That which Babylon hath beene gathering many yeares shall be scattered in a moment She thinkes that by her wisdome and policy she hath laid such a foundation of her owne greatnesse as shall never be shaken And therefore concludes I sit a Queene and am no widow and shall see no sorrow Yet all her strength shall not hold out one day when God in his displeasure shall lay siege against her walls So when yee looke upon other great and mighty prosperous and flourishing enemies such as flourish like greene bay trees remember the Lord in one day can wither their branches and kill their roots yee root them up Certainly the strength of the Lord is as mighty for the destroying of his enemies as it is for the afflicting of his owne people If he sometimes gives commission to take away all their comforts in a day when their estates are highest and strongest built Surely he will at last give Commissions for as speedy a dispatch against the estates of his greatest enemies And this may be unto us all matter of Admonition to prepare for changes to esteeme creatures as they are perishing substance Who ever had an estate better gotten better bottom'd or better managed then Job yet all was overthrowne and swept away in a moment We can never expect too much from God nor too little from the creature Lastly We may learne from the fore-going story of these afflictions considering that Satan was the contriver and engeneere who set all a worke That Satan is mighty both in power and policy for the effecting of his designes if God give him liberty and leave You see he doth not faile or misse in the least he brings every affliction upon Job in the perfection of it and he doth not bungle at it or doe his worke by halves but he is quicke and speedy both in laying the plot and executing it There is nothing in this inferiour world able to stand before him no creature no man if God let him alone The good Angels can match yea and master devils there is no doubt of that but if God stop his Angels and with-draw his hand the devill would quickly over-runne all the world We wrestle not with flesh and bloud but with principalities and powers Evill spirits are called powers in the abstract they have not onely a power they are not only powerfull hence called principalities such as have great authority and soveraignty as it were over others but they are called Powers It is not an empty title or a naked name that is given them but they are filled and
shame for they were at liberty but it is therefore said that the men were greatly ashamed because amongst them it vvas a marke of shame and slavery to be shaven Hereupon David giveth order that they should tarry at Jericho till their beards were growen it was a dishonour to be shaved And it is noted in Plutarch concerning Demosthenes that when he had a mind to sit close at his study and vvould not goe abroad or be interrupted by visits of friends at home that he would shave himselfe that so he might be ashamed to goe forth or see any body but be constrained to keepe to his booke for tvvo or three moneths together till his haire vvere grovvne againe The bondage and reproach that Nebuchadnezzar brought upon Tyrus is thus described Every head was made bald And Aristotle observes that the haire vvas a token of liberty Thus the shaving of the head in Job might be a signe both of his sorrovv and great reproach that vvas come upon him being one novv that vvas ready to be mocked and made the scorne and by-vvord of the vvorld as vve see afterward he was during this affliction Yet it is considerable from Scripture example that the cutting off the haire and shaving of the head had not alvvayes either of these significations hitherto discuss'd but did vary according to the diversity of places and of times In the Booke of Genesis we reade that cutting and shaving of the haire vvas a token of joy and liberty both together When Joseph vvas delivered out of prison it is said that he shaved himselfe and came to Pharaoh And it is noted concerning Mephibosheth as a matter of his sorrow for Davids absence that he let his haire grovv He trimmed not his beard being much troubled at the Kings absence I confesse neither of these instances come home enough to the point both of these neglecting the care and culture of their bodies in their troubles now being delivered prepare themselves by shaving and trimming the hayre for the presence of those Kings But it is in some Nations shaving hath beene a marke of Honour All the Romane Emperours were shaved till Nero. And it was an ancient Proverbe Thou art a slave for thou wearest lockes or long haire There is an Objection that may be made concerning this act of Job because afterward it is said that in all this Job sinned not whether or not Job might shave his head without sinne for you have an expresse rule to the contrary Levit. 19.27 cap. 21.5 You shall not round the corners of your heads neither shalt thou marre the corners of thy beard and so you have it againe in Deut. 14.1 that they should not cut their haire or make any baldnesse upon their heads for the dead namely by shaving or cutting off the haire How is it therefore here that Job shaved himselfe for the death of his children and in regard of those great troubles that were upon him I answer briefly for that first Job lived as we have cleared when we spake of the booke in generall before that Law was given which did prohibit the cutting of the haire in that manner Secondly It appeares in those places where those Lawes are set downe that the Lord did forbid only conformity to the Heathen they must not shave or cut themselves as the Heathen did who cut their heads round like a halfe globe as it is observed concerning them and were wont to dedicate their lockes to their Idoll-gods That vain fashion and grosse superstition were the things forbidden in that Law of Moses Thirdly Though the Jewes were forbidden to shave their heads as mourning for the death of their friends yet in the judgment of learned Junius the shaving of their heads was not only permitted but commanded in case of mourning for sinne or in times of solemne repentance and humiliation He instanceth in two places before mentioned First the Prophet Isaiah reproving the unseasonable mirth and desperate security of the Jewes in a time of publike trouble and treading downe tells them In that day did the Lord God of Hoasts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldnesse and to girding with sack-cloth Isa 22.12 Secondly There is councell given answerable to that reproofe by the Prophet Micah cap. 1.16 Make thee bald and pole thee for thy delicate children enlarge thy baldnesse as the Eagle for they are gone into captivity from thee We will observe something from these two actions the renting of his garments and the shaving of his head These referre to the expression of his sorrow for those losses in estate and the death of his children As the other two actions his falling upon the ground and worshipping referre to the expression of that homage and honour that he tendered up to God in the middest of these sorrowes From those two acts of sorrow learne we First That when the hand of God is upon us it becommeth us to be sensible of it and to be humbled under it Job hearing these sad relations doth not stand out stoutly as if nothing had touch'd him but to shew that sorrow did even rent his heart he rent his garments to shew that his affliction touch'd his spirit he shav'd his head There are two extreames that we are carefully to avoyd in times of affliction and the Apostle doth caution all the sonnes of God against them both in one verse Heb. 12.5 My sonne despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him Those are the two extreames despising and fainting when God doth correct He would not have us despise his chastning to say I doe not regard this let God take all if he will If my estate must goe let it goe if my children die let them die this is a despising of the chastening of the Lord and God cannot beare it that we should beare it thus lightly There is another extreame that is fainting If when goods are taken away the heart be taken away and when children die then the spirit of the Parent dies too this is fainting Take heed of these two extreames Job walkes in the middle in the golden meane betweene them both He doth not carelesly despise neither doth he unbeleevingly faint he riseth up and he rents his garments He would have it knowne that he fainted not under the stroake and he would have it knowne that he felt the stroake he was not like a stocke or a stone he would not carry it with a stoicall apathy but with Christian fortitude and magnanimity Sencelesse ones are taxed Jerem. 5.3 Thou hast striken them and they have not grieved Such are compared by Solomon to him that lyes downe in the midst of the Sea or as he that lyeth upon the top of a mast secure and carelesse in the greatest dangers They have stricken me shalt thou say and I was not sicke they have beaten me and I felt it not Prov. 23.34 35. The Prophet
worldly comforts and possessions Death is called an uncloathing 2 Cor. 5.4 We that are in this Tabernacle doe groane being burdened not for that we would be uncloathed that is not that we would die Death is called an uncloathing because it pulleth all outward things off from a man it pulleth off all his raiment his riches his lands his honours yea death uncloathes the very bones our flesh weares off quickely in the grave Wee have a usuall phrase among us and it is a very proper one when a rich man dies we say he left a great estate he leaves it indeed for he cannot carry it with him he must goe out naked how well cloathed so ever he was while he was here The Apostle doth more then intimate that some rich men do scarce beleeve this for sound doctrine he speaks as if he would beat them off from some thought of carrying the world with them out of the world while they live they are buried in their riches and when they die they hope their riches will be buried with them yea and rise with them againe Such a conceit I say the Apostle seemes to meet with for in the 1 Tim. 6.7 having said We brought nothing with us into this world he addeth in the next words and it is certaine we can carry nothing out he doth not say we brought nothing into the world and we can carry nothing out as Job here speakes but as if Jobs assertion had come into question in Pauls time he saith we brought nothing into this world and it is certaine never doubt of the truth of it we can carry nothing out we shall goe out as we came-in Many as the Prophet Habbakkuk speakes Chap. 2.6 lade themselves with thick clay But as the question there followes How long This lading must be laid downe againe If riches end not before thee as thine they must end with thee Yet if any would carry riches and cloathing out of the world it will be their wisdome to labour for spirituall riches for spirituall cloathing when such die as they shall not be found naked so they shall not goe out naked All your other cloathing and riches must be left on this side the grave but get spirituall cloathing and riches and you shall goe out of the world adorn'd and enrich'd for ever the cloathing of grace the robe of righteousnesse a vesture of spirituall ornaments will endure to all eternity Thirdly note here further how the Holy Ghost describes the life of man Naked came I into the world and naked shall I returne The life of man it is nothing else but a comming and a returning Here is nothing said of staying or abiding We have here no continuing City while we are here we can hardly be said to continue here and after a few dayes we shall not be here at all It is but a comming and a going it is but a flood and an ebbe and then we are carried into the Ocean of eternity We may yet consider the words as they are an argument and so I shall note two things from them So Job uses them as an argument both to support himselfe and to acquit God Then observe First That a godly man in his straights studieth arguments to acquit and justifie God in all his dealings with him Job could not have found out upon longest study a better or a stronger argument for the acquitting of God then this is I have as much as I brought then what wrong is done me in all this As wicked men when they fall into straits or troubles especially when they fall into sin study arguments how to shift themselves out and lay all the blame upon God as Adam and Eve our first Parents in Paradise there it began when they had sinned and were naked they began to devise shifts how to put it from themselves and to fasten the fault upon God David on the other side labours as much to cleare God if ever he should be stript naked Psa 51.4 I will confesse my sinne that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest and cleare when thou judgest Weigh the reason why David confesseth his sinne in that Psalme I doe it saith he that I may by this meanes acquit God whatsoever God shall doe with me hereafter whatsoever affliction God shall bring upon me men it may be will begin to judge Gâ—d for it and to say that he hath dealt hardly with me notice having been taken what an eminent servant of God I have been Behold saith he I confesse my sinne before thee that thou maist be cleare when thou judgest or as the Apostle Paul quotes the place according to the Septuagint Rom. 3.4 That thou mightest overcome when thou art judged David knew men would be apt to judge God if they saw him afflicted and therefore to stop their mouthes or to give God the day against them he confesses his sin thereby shewing cause why God might chastise him either for correction of sin past or prevention of sin to come Secondly As the argument referreth unto Job himselfe we may observe this That the consideration of what we once were and of what at last we must be may releeve our spirits in the greatest outward afflictions of this life Art thou for the present in a naked condition Consider thou wast naked once and ere long shalt be naked againe Consider the two extreames the beginning and the ending and that will beare thee up in the middle condition There is many a man that complaines and saith I have nothing but the cloathes upon my backe left me and they are but raggs but meane ones neither Why With nothing but the cloathes upon thy backe Know O man thou wast borne with nothing but thy skin upon thy backe Consider this and leave complaining this was one thought which helped Job to beare this burden the want of all And the Apostle Paul useth this argument to the very same purpose 1 Tim. 6.6 having said That godlinesse with contentment is great gaine he subjoynes presently this argument of Job for saith he we brought nothing into this world and it is certaine we shall carry nothing out To consider what not long agoe we were and what very shortly we must be will mightily work the soule to contentation in what estate soever wee are It followes The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away This is the second argument which Job useth to both the former purposes and it is a more spirituall and sublime argument than the former A man who hath nothing in him but nature may say as much as Job did before though he could never say it with Jobs spirit for though godly persons use naturall arguments and common reasons yet being concocted in their spirits they become heavenly and spirituall Naturall men I say or Heathens have taken up such an argument as that as when word was brought to a Heathen Philosopher that his sonne was dead I knew saith he that I
especially there meant and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death or the goings out from death that is God hath all wayes that lead out from death in his own keeping he keepeth the key of the door that lets us out from death when a man is in the valley of the shadow of death where shall he issue out where shall he have a passage No where saith man he shall not escape but God keepeth all the passages when men think they have shut us up in the jawes of death he can open them and deliver us To him belong the issues from death It is an allusion to one that keepeth a passage or a door And God is a faithfull keeper and a friendly keeper who will open the door for the escape of his people when they cry unto him It is exprest so in Psal 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the graves mouth as when one cutteth or cleaveth wood upon the earth that is we are even ready to die to be put into the grave What then But mine eyes are upon thee O God the Lord in thee is my trust leave not my soul destitute Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me Let the wicked fall into their own nets whilest I withall escape that is make me a way to escape As if he should say Thou hast the key of the gate by which we may issue out from death Lord I look that thou shouldest now open it for me Let it comfort us that God hath our lives and the issues from death in his own hand When Satan thought he had Job fast enough lockt up in the valley of the shadow of death God kept him safe he opened a door and let him out Thirdly note that as God hath life in his hand in a speciall manner so he takes speciall care of the lives of his people Save his life saith God I will look to that Psal 116.15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints Precious is their death not that death it self is precious a privation hath no preciousnesse in it but their life is precious therefore he will have a great price for their death God puts off the life of a Saint at a deare rate Woe unto those who violently and unjustly take away that which is so precious in the esteeme of God at one time or other he will make them pay dear for such Jewels Fourthly observe It is mercy to have our lives though we lose all things else You see here God saith concerning Job Save his life I have given thee his estate thou hast spoiled that now I will leave his body in thine hand wound that afflict that but save his life Here was mercy Therefore it was a speciall promise and priviledge made and granted to some in times of great publike sufferings and common calamities as to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian Jer. 39.18 and to Baruch the Scribe Jer. 45.5 that their lives should be given to them for a prey as if God had said It is no ordinary favour in times of common danger to have your lives for a prey you complain for this losse and that losse and you have cause too but think withall that you have your lives And why is it said that they should have their lives for a prey A prey you know properly is that which we take out of the hand of an enemie that which was in his possession the lives of these persons were said to be given to them for a prey in those perillous times because God by his care and providence did as it were fetch back their lives from the hand of the enemie their lives in naturall reason were in their enemies hands but God undertakes to fetch them back and recover them out of their hands and so they were promised to have their lives for a prey Thus God giveth to many of his people their lives for a prey and they are to blesse God in this behalfe whatsoever afflictions and troubles are upon them that yet they have their lives Lastly we may hence raise our meditations to consider the wonderfull love of God to us in Christ when God sent Christ into the world to save sinners he put him into the hands of Satan and his instruments yet he doth not say as here to Satan Save his life Afflict him as thou wilt persecute him in his cradle despise him slander him revile him accuse him crowne his head with thornes scourge him buffet him spit in his face c. but save his life No this bound is not set to the malice of Satan or the rage of men God gives them leave to take life and all Concerning his servant Job God saith to Satan Spare his life but when he sendeth his Son he gives no order to have him spared but gives his cruell enemies full scope How wonderfull is the love of God who for our sakes was so expensive of his Sons life when as he thus spared the life of a servant If Satan had been chained up from taking the life of Christ he had been at liberty to triumph over our lives to all eternity We had all died if God had said to Satan concerning Christ Save his life Thus we see the Commission of Satan against Job and the limitation of it Satan was not tyed up so short as he was in the former Chapter and yet still he is tyed There he might meddle with Jobs estate but not with his body here he may meddle with his body but not with his life Though God lengthen Satans chain yet he never lets Satan loose though he be at more liberty then before yet he is in custody there is a But of restriction upon him still It is our comfort that though Satan as Philosophers speake of liquids water and the like cannot keep himself in his own bounds yet he is easily kept in bounds by the word and power of God Verse 7. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boiles from the sole of the feet unto his crowne Verse 8. And he took him a potsheard to scrape himselfe withall and he sate down among the ashes So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. He is presently upon execution as soon as he hath his commission We have explained these words in the former Chapter See then what he doth He smote Job with sore boiles from the sole of his feet unto his crown He smote Job saith the Text. In the former afflictions Satan had instruments to work by He stirred up the Caldeans and Sabeans he moved the fire and the winde into a conspiracie against Job Here he that he might be sure it should be done fully doth it himselfe He smote Job When the devil smiteth he smiteth thorowly he smiteth home When Angels strike they strike to purpose It is said Act. 12. that an Angel of the Lord smote Herod and he was eaten of wormes and
say she was one one act is enough to assimilate but it is not enough to denominate Thus much may serve to evince that though we take the words in that worst sense yet it doth not necessarily inferre that Jobs wife was a wicked an ungodly woman which is the objection against that Exposition From the words translated Curse God and die and thus expounded we may observe First That Satan is restlesse and unwearied in this designe to bring the people of God to thinke ill and speake ill of God It is that he laboured for in the carrying on of this whole businesse concerning Job and every stone is turned every way tryed to accomplish this proposed end Secondly In that he perswadeth Job by his wife when he was in this wofull condition to curse God and die Observe That Satan would perswade us to ease our selves of troublesome evills by falling into sinfull evils Job was grievously diseased you see the medicine and the cure that Satan prescribeth Goe sinne saith he curse God and die whereas one of the least evills of sin is worse then all the evills of suffering that can befall us All sorrowes are more elegible then one sin It hath been rightly taught us from Antiquitie that the lowest degree of a lye because sin is not to be made or admitted if that medium could be assured so noble an end for the saving of a world What a father and teacher of lyes then is Satan who directs many a poore soule to save it selfe from or helpe it selfe out of a small affliction by adventuring upon some great transgression Thirdly Curse God and die It is sinfull to wish our own deaths though we are under paines more painefull then death It is sinfull to desire death absolutely we may desire it with submission to the will of God To live is an act of nature but to be willing to live because God wills it is an act of grace And as it is our holinesse to doe the will of God while we live so it is our holinesse to be content to live while we suffer according to his will On the other hand to die is an act of nature but to die because God wills it is an act of grace Christ is said to be obedient unto death because he died in contemplation of Gods decree and in conformity to his good pleasure To die thus is the duty of a Christian and the crowne of all his obedience Satan would have us live as we will and die when we will he tempts us as much to die when we list as to live how we list Satan puts Job upon it peremptorily curse God and die desire or procure thy own death To wish dâ—â—th that we may enjoy Christ it is a holy wish but yet we must not wish that neither absolutely The Apostle Paul Phil. 1.23 desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ yet you see how he qualifies and debates it To wish for death that we may be freed from sinne is a holy wish but yet wee must not wish that absolutely neither we must referre our selves to the pleasure of God how long he will let us conflict with our corruptions and with our lusts with this body of death and sin which we beare about us But to wish for death because our lives are full of trouble is an unholy wish God may yea and hath as much use of our lives in our troubles as in our comforts We may doe much businesse for God in a sick-bed We may doe God as much worke when we are bound hand and foote in a prison as when we are at liberty passive obedience brings as much glory to God as active doth therefore we must not wish for death especially not with an absolute wish because we are under troublesome evils And if it be sinfull to wish for death how wicked is it to procure or hasten death to pull down our house of clay with our own hands because we are under troublesome evills Fourthly Observe further Satan would perswade that death is an end at least an ease of outward troubles Wouldest thou have an end of thy troubles and of thy sorrowes Curse God and die here is the remedy We say indeed of some remedies that they are worse then the disease but I am sure this is Death to ungodly ones it is so farre from being an end or an ease of their troubles that it is to them as Christ speakes in another case the beginning of sorrowes the entrance to eternall death and the very suburbs of Hell Yet how many doth Satan perswade when they are in Jobs case in great extremities that death will be the cure of all their troubles Fifthly Observe That Satan would make men willing to die when they are most unfit to die You see what preparation Satan directs Job unto he biddeth him curse God and die Would not Job thinke you have bin in a fit posture in a fit frame for death when he had bin cursing God Repent and die pray and die humble thy selfe and die beleeve and die take fast hold of Christ who is our life our way to life and die are the counsels and voice of the holy Ghost but Satans language is curse God and die sin and die be impenitent and die blaspheme and die And it is an experienced truth that oftentimes they seeme most willing to die who are most unfit most unready for death you shall see some men venturing yea casting away their lives without feare or wit the whole visible businesse of whose lives hath been nothing else but a working out of their own damnation without feare or trembling They as it were give diligence all their dayes to make Hell and reprobation sure and yet goe out of the world as if they were sure of Heaven This is Satans preparation curse God and dye Lastly Note this That the holiest person is lyable to the most blasphemous temptation One would have wondred that Satan should ever have ventured to suggest such a grosse thing as this to so holy a man as Job But Satan where he hath been often foyled growes impudent and will then suggest such things not because he hopes to prevaile but because he resolves to vex such as he cannot overcome He troubles as much and as many as he can So much of the counsell which Jobs wife gave him reproving him as foolish and over-credulous in holding fast that unprofitable thing his integrity and advising him to be worse then mad or out-ragious in cursing God and dying Let us now consider Jobs holy and wise reply in the tenth Verse But he said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evill These words containe Jobs reply wherein two things are considerable First A reproofe Secondly A refutation First He rejects her counsell with a sharpe and wholesome reprehension and then he refuteth her counsell by strong
only begotten sonne that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish here is the removing of evill but have everlasting life here is the bringing in of good And this is the better part of the blessing So on the other side to have all good light and life removed is the most bitter part of the curse Let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it Darknesse and the shadow of death These words are the fourth branch of the curse upon his day he repeates the former curse but with new additions He had said before let this day be darknesse now he saith let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it The shadow of death The word considered in the composition of it may be translated image of death And because the shadow of a body gives us the image of a body as in the shadow of a man you have the image and proportion of a man in the shadow of a Tree you have the image and representation of a Tree because I say the shadow gives the image of a body therefore the Hebrewes by a Metonymie call an image a shadow So that the shadow of death is such darknesse as is like death the very image of death He was not contented in generall to say let darkenesse staine it but if any would know what kind or degree of darknesse he intends these words expound his meaning to be the worst darknesse that can be Any darknesse is evill but darknesse and the shadow of death is the utmost of evils David put the worst of his case and the best of his faith when he said Psal 23.4 Though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no evill that is in the greatest evill I will feare no evill The estate of those men who lived beyond the line of the Gospell and that is a very dolefull place to live in though a paradise for outward pleasure is thus described by the Prophet Isa 9.2 The people that walked in darknesse have seene a great light Jesus Christ they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined Againe The shadow of a thing in Scripture notes the power of a thing and to be under the shadow of a thing is to be under the power of a thing The bramble Judg. 9.15 said unto the trees if in truth yee anoint me King over you then come and put your trust in my shadow that is trust to that helpe which I am able to afford you So likewise to be under the shadow of the Almighty under the shadow of his wings is to be under the power of the Almighty for safety and protection Thus we may conceive it here to be under the shadow of death is to be so under the power or reach of death that death may take a man and seize upon him when it pleaseth Though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death that is though I be so neere death that it seemes to others death may catch me every moment though I be under so many apparances and probabilities of exreame danger that there appeares an impossibility in sence to escape death yet I will not feare Thirdly To be under the shadow of death is to be under the influences of death the influences of death are those feares and doubtings divisions and vexations of spirit those distractions and distempers of mind which fall upon man in times of imminent and unavoidable danger Let the shadow of death staine it that is let it be filled with those feares and cryes and confusions which usually accompany or prepare the way for death Fourthly Let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it that is such darknesse as dwells with death such darkenesse as fills the house of death the grave The grave is a darke house We use to say of that which we would have forgotten let it be buried in darknesse There is no worke in the grave and therefore there needs no light in the grave neither indeed can there be Lastly thus Darknesse and the shadow of death that is deadly darknesse thick stifling darknesse such as is in deepe pits and mines under the earth where vapours and noysome dampes doe many times strike men with death We may here take notice how Job heapes up words words very like in sound and all alike in sense or concurring to make up one sense Such amplifications in Scripture are vehement asseverations As Joh. 1.20 It is said of the Baptist He confessed and denied not but confessed I am not the Christ And those phrases Thou shalt dye and not live I shall not dye but live Thou shalt be below and not above So Job of his day Let it be darkenesse let not the light shine upon it let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it The word which we render staine signifies properly to redeeme a thing either by price or by power to redeeme a thing by paying for it or to redeeme a thing by rescuing of it Hence among the Jewes he that was to redeeme his deceased brothers land and marry the widdow was called Goel from this word as we may reade in the fourth of Ruth So the avenger of blood was called Goel Numb 35.12 because he likewise did redeeme the blood of his brother fetch it back againe as it were by a price in the execution of justice The learned Junius with some others translates according that sense of the Originall word O that darknesse and the shadow of death had redeemed that day or fetched back that day he referres it to the day past upon which he was borne and so takes it for an allusion to the first state of things we know at the first darknesse had dominion over all over all that Chaos or rude matter which God made at first Darknesse saith Moses was upon the face of the deepe Gen. 1.2 Then God gave a command to light saying let there be light ver 3. presently light went forth and rescued the creature from under the power of darknesse Now saith Job here Oh that darknesse and the shadow of death had redeemed that day or fetched againe that day out of the hands of light Oh that darknesse had recovered that which in the beginning was under its power that so my day being wrapt up in darknesse might be without forme and voide But the word is frequently translated and well here to pollute or to staine a thing as Mal. 1.7 Yee offer polluted bread upon mine altar and ye say wherein have we polluted thee And that of lamenting Jeremie They have polluted themselves with blood so that men could not touch their garments Lam. 4.14 So darknesse is said to staine or pollute the day as filthinesse or blood staines and pollutes discoulours and defiles the beauty of a garment Darknesse obscures and blindes the beauty of the most glorious creatures naturall darknesse doth it Suppose you should come into a roome furnished with
the spheare of nature can see no misery so miserable or evill so bad as not to be But a Divine can he sees two things worse First An everlasting staine and guilt of sin lying upon the soule Secondly The everlasting wrath and displeasure of God powred out upon the whole man Hence Christ saith of Judas who betrayed him Mat. 26.24 It had beene good for that man if he had not been borne because that accursed act joyned with his impenitence and unbeleefe subjected him to everlasting misery to wrath for evermore It had been good he had never been borne rather then to fall into such a sin and from that to fall into Hell Not to be borne is in this place as much as not to be And it had been good for him not to have beene borne is as much as to say it had been better for him not to have beene borne It had been better for him not to have been then to have committed such a sin to lie under such wrath and to loose such happinesse for ever Though a state of damnation considered abstractedly be better then no state at all that is then a not being yet in the concrete it is not better to be damned then not to be In it selfe eternall misery is better then a non-entity but a man eternally miserable is worse then a non-ens And without doubt it will be the eternall desire of the damned and that desire is both a part and an encrease of their misery that they never had been or now might cease to be rather then continue to be miserable Now to shut up and resolve the question as to the ground of it Jobs complaint in this Text I say Job was only in the present feeling of temporall troubles and he was beyond the feare of eternall Therefore number this among his failings that he wisht he had never been conceived because he was thus afflicted JOB 3. Ver. 14 15 16 17 18. Verse 14. With Kings and Counsellours of the earth which build desolate places for themselves Or with Princes that had gold who filled their houses with silver Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been as infants which never saw light There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voice of the oppressour c. FRom the 10th verse of this Chapter to the end of the 19th we have shewed you that Job layeth downe the cause of his former bitternesse and complainings against his day At the 10th verse he is angry because it hindred not his conception and his birth And at the 13th he giveth a further cause of that cause For then saith he I should have been at rest Now being about to prove that in death he should have found rest he doth it by an induction of particulars As if he had thus said Where all sorts of persons even they who have been hardest wrought and most troubled in the world find rest there surely I should have found rest also But in death persons that have been hardest wrought and most troubled in the world find rest therefore there I should have found rest too Now for the proving of this assumption that in death all sorts of persons find rest even those who have been most travail'd tired and worne out in the world To prove this I say he gives instance in divers almost all rankes degrees and conditions of men First In those who are great rich and wise in Kings and Counsellours of the earth which build desolate places for themselves And in Princes who had gold who filled their houses with treasure c. With Kings and Counsellors of the earth With Kings The word here used properly noteth such as rule by Law such as are opposed to Tyrants who rule according to the dictates of their own will With such Kings Counsellours are usually joyned With Kings and Counsellours of the earth Great Princes have their Councells and it is a happy conjunction when good Kings and good Counsellours meet together Yea many times bad men are good Kings when they are attended with good Counsellours Whereas evill Counsellours often make a good man a bad King and by their poisonous whispers and instillations at the eare corrupt the hearts and taint the spirits of the best Princes In the multitude of Counsellours saith Solomon Prov 15.21 there is safety The safety of Kings and the safety of Kingdomes doth consist in following this multitude Where there are good Counsellours and a multitude of them we may expect good and much good a multitude of blessings upon a Nation Now when Job had named these eminent persons Kings and Counsellours he addeth somewhat further by way of their description he giveth as it were a character of them from their studies and imployments With Kings and Counsellours of the earth which build desolate places for themselves It may seeme very doubtfull what is here meant by these desolate places and the building of them The word in the Hebrew is desolations or destructions It comes from Charab which signifies to dry up because dry places are desolate places as a desolate wildernesse for the drinesse of it being unfit to sustaine man or beast Hence the name of the Mount Horeb Exod. 3.1 called so from drinesse because there was no water Deut. 8.15 The same word also signifies a sword because the sword as we see by woefull experience makes places desolate But what Job should meane by this That Kings and Counsellours of the earth build solitary places for themselves is questionable First Some take it for an expression of vast and mighty buildings Pallaces and houses of such largenesse and content that when great Princes and Kings have their full retinue and families in them they can scarce be seen But I see no reason at all for that sense and therefore I passe it a little touch will make that opinion desolate Others by these desolate places conceive that Job meaneth Forrests and Parkes places of pleasure which Kings and great men use to build and make up for delight and recreation Or thirdly That by desolate places are meant houses built in desolate or solitary places in Woods and Forrests Princes and great men wil have their houses farre remote from Townes and places of resort that they may be free from suitors and retire when they please from the throng of the multitude It is said concerning Solomon 1 King 7.2 that after he had built the Temple and his own house for his Kingly residence he built a house in the Forrest of Lebanon But this may be called a building in rather then a building of desolate places Fourthly Rather I conceive that Kings and Counsellours of the earth may be said to build desolate places when finding places desolate and ruined they with vast expences raise up and build stately Fabriques upon them to get themselves a name As want and poverty warre and
they vers 6. and let this ruine be under thine hand that is be thou our Prince and take charge of us Not I saith he I will not be an healer for in mine house is neither bread nor cloathing make me not a Ruler of the people As if he had said I am but a poore man a man of a weake estate Princes must have treasure and great estates to beare up the dignity of their places As covetousnesse so poverty is very unbecoming in a Prince The Romane story tells us that when two great Consulls stood in competition for a great employment in the affaires of that Common-wealth One of the Senators being as'kt upon which of the two he would bestow his vote Answered upon neither And gives this reason One hath nothing and the other can never have enough One was so poore that he had nothing to support him and the other was so covetous that nothing would satisfie him Therefore as before Job joyned Counsellours with Kings so here he joyneth gold with Princes The next expedient for Princes to counsell and wisedome are gold and treasures We find indeed that God gives it in charge to the Kings of Israel concerning their gathering of treasures that they should not be excessive Deut 17.17 Neither shall he greatly multiply to himselfe silver and gold He doth not say your Prince or your King shall not multiply silver or gold but he shall not greatly multiply silver or gold that is he shall not set his heart upon them or thinke he never hath enough he shall not greatly doe it but let him be carefull to doe it proportionably to his occasions either of peace or warre Further It is added Who fill their houses with treasure The word which we here translate treasure is ordinarily translated silver The root from which it springs signifieth to desire and the reason is because treasure silver or gold are such desireable things or things upon which the desires of most men are set therefore the Hebrewes give silver a name proper to its own nature or rather to the nature of men whose desires are enflamed after it With this desireable thing Princes fill their houses What are these houses A house is a place wherein man liveth or inhabiteth while he liveth this is the ordinary acception of the word and so it may be taken here for the ordinary dwelling houses or Pallaces of Princes And then it is an heightning of the sense They had gold yea they had so much as they filled their houses with it Then againe That we may keepe in this clause to the exposition given in the last of the desolate places we may understand by the houses that these Princes filled with treasure the graves the Tombes wherein they were buried And it is the language of Scripture to call the grave a house mans house Two Texts I will give you for it one out of this booke Job 30.23 where Job speaking of the grave calleth it the house appointed for all living And Eccles 12.5 where Solomon calls it our long home Man dieth and goeth to his long home the word in the Originall is he goeth to the house of his age or to the house of age God is called the rock of ages because he is an everlasting strength Isa 26.4 The grave is called an house of age because it is a very lasting house an abiding house a house where man must abide till God sound him up by the voice of a Trumpet to the resurrection So then the grave is likewise called an house the house of all living because thither every one that is living is travailing man travailes to the grave as to his house And a long-home in opposition to our short home our uncertaine abode in those houses wherein we dwell upon the earth Princes saith Job that had gold and this is one use they make of it they fill their houses that is their graves or their tombes with this treasure In those times it seemes they did not only bestow great cost upon their Tombes and places of buriall but they put great store of treasure into the Tombes with them According to this interpretation the meaning of Job may be thus represented If I had died before and had been buried poorely and obscurely yet I should have done as well as Kings and Counsellours who with vast expence of treasure build stately Tombes for themselves yea as well as Princes that put their treasure into their Tombes with them That it was a custome to put in much treasure into Tombes is observed by Josephus in his 13th book of Antiquities and 15th chapter shewing how Hircanus opened Davids Sepulcher and tooke out three thousand Talents And in his 16th booke chap. 11. he notes that afterward Herod opened the Sepulchre of David and thought to have found a great deale of treasure there but found only some precious garments c. And the story is famous out of Herodotus concerning Semiramis That she having built a stately Tombe makes this inscription upon it Whatsoever King shall succeed here and wants money let him open this Tombe and he shall have enough to serve his turne Which Darius in after-ages being in streights for want of treasure attempting to doe in stead of money found only this reproofe written and laid up there Vnlesse thou hadst been extreamely covetous and greedy of filthy lucre thou wouldest not have opened the graves of the dead to seeke for money The Lord threatens by the Prophet Jeremie that the Chaldeans shall bring out the bones of the King of Judah and the bones of his Princes and the bones of the Priests and the bones of the Prophets c. out of their graves chap. 8.1 It is conceived that the reason why the Chaldeans digg'd up and raked in the graves of the Jewes was not so much from cruelty as from covetousnesse They having heard that the Jewes used to put rich ornaments upon the dead or riches into their graves with them Or this might be as a just punishment of that grredinesse after gaine so eminent in the Jewes that the Prophet in the very Chapter where this is threatned chargeth them thus ver 10. Every one from the least to the greatest is given to covetousnesse Thus it is cleare that there was a custome to put riches and treasure into the grave with the dead to which Job might allude in this place So much for the opening of the words from the sense given Observe first That neither power nor wisedome nor riches are any priviledge at all against the stroake of death Here are Kings men that have great power Counsellours men full of wisedome Princes that have riches so much gold that they can stuffe their graves with it yet these cannot defend themselves against death Death will not obey the authority of Kings nor doth it feare their frownes the subtilty or policy of Counsellours is not able to defeate it there is no eloquence no
twelve bretheren and behold the youngest is this day with his father and one is not Gen. 42.13 that is one is dead So Jacob speakes at the 30th verse of the same chapter Joseph is not c. Hence that answer of the Wise-man to Alexander who demanding of him whether the living or the dead were more in number said The living for the dead are not As infants that never saw the light This clause may be an exposition of the former clause shewing what Job meanes by an untimely birth even an infant that never saw the light Yet all infants that never see the light are not untimely births Infants are often still-borne when their mothers have gone out their time to the last houre before the paines of travaile come upon them And therefore I rather understand this as distinct from the former In the one Job intending such as are borne before time which births are commonly called abortions or miscarriages And in the other those who die in the birth who are commonly called still-borne The word which is here used for an infant signifies properly a weaned infant but it is likewise transferred to signifie an infant dying in the birth which is therefore said never to see the light So Salomon expresseth it too in that place Eccles 6.5 Moreover he hath not seene the Sunne And in allusion to this David when he curseth the plots of wicked men that though they have conceived mischiefe and though they have gone with it a long time and are ready to bring it forth yet in Psal 58.8 saith he let them be that is let their counsels and designes be like the untimely birth of a woman that they may not see the Sunne that is let them be dashed and blasted let them never bring forth their poisonous brood to the hurt and trouble of the world To these saith Job I am sure I should have bin like if not to Kings and Counsellours and had beene as well and all one to me In death untimely births and those that goe downe to the grave as a sheafe of corne that cometh in ripe are all one there is no difference in the grave betweene the infant that never saw the Sunne and him that hath lived to see an hundred recourses of the Sun The speech of Job proceedes to a third sort he strengthens his argument of rest in death I should certainely have had rest in death for in death even they who have been most vexed who have had least rest who have been even restlesse in the world they have found rest in death this he cleares by a further induction in the 17 18 19 verses There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voice of the oppressour The small and great are there and the servant is free from his master When he had spoken of the rest of death concerning those great and mighty ones and the rest of death concerning untimely births and infants then he speakes of the rest which poore oppressed ones or which wicked oppressours have in death all these have a rest in regard of outward bodily troubles agitations and labours in the grave therefore certainely there I should have been at rest There that is in the grave the wicked cease from troubling True rest and wickednesse never meete rest and the wicked meete but seldome And it is but halfe a rest and it is rest but to halfe a wicked man to his bones in the grave and it is rest to that halfe but for a little time only till the resurrection The word which is here used for wicked is considerable Though every wicked man be a sinner yet every sinner is not a wicked man It is one thing to sin and another thing to be wicked there are divers words in the Hebrew tongue which signifie as it were the divers statures of sinners and the degrees of sinne And the Hebrew which usually expresseth many things by one word doeth here use many words to signifie one thing only differing in degree First A sinner is called sometime Cata that 's the lowest expression noting one that doth misse a marke or his way he aimes at the marke yet misses it he would goe in the right way yet mistakes it or is misled So every man the holiest men are sinners they often misse the marke the white which God sets up though they take their aime and level carefully at it Secondly A sinner is called Peshang which signifieth a willingnesse to sin and an unwillingnesse to obey it signifieth pride in sinning or a sinning from pride which is plaine rebellion Thirdly The word here used and in divers other places signifieth wickednesse in the height and men most active in wickednesse So that when Job saith There the wicked are at rest he meanes those who had beene restlesse in sin who could not sleepe till they had done mischiefe nor scarce sleepe for doing mischiefe He meanes those who had out-run others in the sinfull activity or rather turbulency and unquietnesse of their spirits such as are without peace themselves and seeke to molest and disturbe the peace of others The Prophet describes them to be like the troubled sea which cannot rest Isa 57.20 The proper signification of the word wicked in the Hebrew is the word unquiet vexatious or without rest 1 Sam. 14.47 Wheresoever Saul turned himselfe he vexed the enemy So Job 34.29 And the reason of it is given because men of this height and stature in sin are men of troubled unquiet and restlesse spirits As it notes a height in holinesse and grace to have a kind of unquietnesse upon the spirit till we can doe good and compasse holy designes and purposes when we are not only pious but zealous As David resolves Psal 132.3 4. Surely I will not come into the Tabernacle of my house nor goe up into my bed I will not give sleepe to mine eyes nor slumber to mine eye-lids untill I find out a place for the Lord c. So unquietnesse upon the spirit till it can put sin into act and compasse an evill project notes a compleatenesse in the sinner Sin wakes and workes in them to purpose who cannot sleepe till they have wrought out their sin of these it is properly that Job speakes here these troublers of themselves and troublers of Israel these whom the Lord shall trouble this day or one day There sc in the grave these wicked ones cease from troubling there they have a kind of rest being dead who could not rest while they lived there at least they cease from raging This word Ragaz notes any vehement motion either of mind or body arising from feare or grief or anger or the concurrence of them all As when David heard of the death of Absolom the Text saith 2 Sam. 18.33 The King was much moved c. He was as it were for a time enraged or distracted much troubled
who were the oppressours of a people are turned to be very righteousnesse how great is that righteousnesse And where there is great righteousnesse and great peace how great is the joy of that people Yet howsoever the wise God shall order these outward dispensations yet His prisoners have freedome in though not from their captivity And they shall heare the voice of his Spirit speaking more comfort to their hearts then the voice of their oppressours can speake terrour to their eares And their eares shall not long be smitten with the hard speeches of ungodly men death a blessed death will shortly lead them into the house and chambers of silence where as Job here speakes they shall never heare the voice of the oppressour any more Verse 19. The small and the great are there and the servant is free from his master The last instance which Job gives of rest in death is contained in this 19th verse In the words before he said There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voice of the oppressour here he adds The small and the great are there and the servant is free from his master The small and the great are there Small and great There is a two-fold quantity in which men may be considered There is a naturall quantity and there is a civill quantity and in both quantities small and great are there First There is a naturall quantity by which men are distinguished into small and great children and men of full growth in the grave such small and great are mixed little children children of a span long mingle their dust with men of highest stature Againe There is a civill quantity and so the small are the poore the low and the meane they are small ones in a civill account And civill greatnesse is power riches and honour the honourable they are the great men and the rich are great men in a civill quantity so the word is used Chap. 1. ver 3. Job was the greatest of all the men of the East he was the greatest in civill quantity in regard of his power honour and riches The Prophet Jeremie opposes the poore and the great chap. 5. ver 4 5. Therefore I said surely these are poore c. I will get me unto the great men sc the rich and honourable the Princes and the Magistrates The small and the great are there In Scripture when we find the two extreames small and great are extreames in quantity we are to understand all the middle acts or things or persons that is all that lies between those extreames We reade such Scripture language concerning the actions of men Psal 139.2 Thou knowest my down-sitting and my uprising Here are two extreames the two termes of a mans actions and of his life his down-sitting and his uprising now when it is said God knowes these two we are to understand that God knoweth whatsoever a man doth all his actions between his down-sitting and his uprising So in that promise of a continuall blessing from God Psal 121.8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in Here are two extreames between these we are to include and suppose all that a man doth while he is abroad God shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in that is every thing thou takest in hand according to his will from the time thou goest forth or beginnest thy worke in the morning till thy coming home from worke or the end of thy worke in the evening thus it is cleare about things or actions It is likewise cleare about persons Psal 49.2 when David calls high and low rich and poore to heare he calls all to heare Give care all ye inhabitants of the world ver 1. So when it is said in this Text The small and the great are there it is not as if those only were there or that those of a middle quantity either in regard of naturall or civill proportion were not there For death seizeth upon middle men as well as small and great There are graves of all imaginable sizes and dimensions between small and great According to that of the Apostle Heb. 9.27 It is appointed to men once to die to men indefinitely of what sort or degree or size or quantity or quality soever It is appointed to men therefore small and great are there and many of all sorts are there There is a further elegancy yet in the Originall we reade it small and great are there but the Hebrew strictly read in the letter runs thus the small and the great are there the same Or as Mr. Broughton renders it little and great are there all one The words taken thus yeeld these two points to our meditation First this Death seizeth equally upon all sorts and degrees of men The small and the great are there the small cannot escape the hands or slip through the fingers of death because they are little the greatest cannot rescue themselves from the power or breake out of the hands of death because they are bigge That the small are there should be an admonition to young ones take heed of putting off repentance untill you are great for the small are in the grave That the great are there should be an admonition to the greatest and strongest to prepare for death for all your strength and greatnesse your honours your swelling Titles your vast riches cannot oppose much lesse prevent or overcome death The small and the great are there Secondly Observe That death makes all men equall or That all are equall in death As death equally takes hold of all men so death makes all men equall not only are the small and the great there but there the small and the great are the same Death takes away all distinctions and the grave knowes no difference among the sons of men While men live they are at a great distance one from another There is and there ought to be distinctions among men and men ought to know their termes of distance and to acknowledge men in their greatnesse power and places As there is one glory of the Sunne and another glory of the Moone and another glory of the Starres for one Starre differeth from another Starre in glory 1 Cor. 15.41 So there is one terrestriall glory of Kings and another glory of Nobles and another glory of the Common-people and these have not the same glory in common even among them one man differs from another man in this worldly glory but when death comes there is an end of all degrees of all distinctions There the small and the great are the same As the Apostle speakes of our being in Christ in regard of the priviledges of the Gospell Col. 3.11 In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile there is neither male nor female there is neither bond nor free that is all have a like and an equall share in Christ and in the priviledges of the Gospell the Gospell makes no distinction between poore and rich in regard
of spirituall priviledges and benefits so death takes away all distinctions in regard of civill priviledges In death there is neither small nor great neither male nor female neither bond nor free the greatest shall lie as low as the smallest and the highest as low as the meanest every one there shall be but as his neighbour and as his brother in the flesh There is but one distinction that will out-live death and death cannot take it away the distinction of holy and unholy cleane and uncleane beleever and an infidell these distinctions remaine after death and shall remaine for ever but rich and poore honourable and base high and low King and subject these distinctions shall be done away and forgotten as if they had never been no difference no distinction but that which God makes and that which grace makes can stand out against the power and stroake of death There the small and great are the same And the servant is free from his Master The servant There are two sorts of servants There are some who are voluntary servants and others who are servants by constraint There are some who might be free but they will not and there are others who would be free but they cannot Of the former sort we reade a Law Exod. 21.5 where the servant that loved his master and refused his freedome saying I will not goe out free must be brought before the Judges and have his eare bored thorow with an awle in token of his willingnesse to serve that Master for ever Others are servants by constraint as the people of Israel in Egypt who were made to serve with rigour Exod. 1.14 to serve whether they would or no which is servitude rather then service We may understand the Text of both The servant that is either he that doth voluntarily serve and willingly puts himselfe under the command of another or he which is under the command of another whether he will or no to both these death giveth freedome whether their Masters will or no The servant is free from his Master The word which we translate is free noteth that formall manumission or setting at liberty which is used in places or Corporations where freedomes are either purchased by money or deserved by appointed service And the word here translated Master is plurall Masters it is one of the Names of God Adonai which Name the Lord hath from government That very name is given to Masters of Families because they ought to governe and order the affaires and businesse of the family with wisedome and justice Every master of a family is a governour of the family he is as it were a King in his own family The servant is free from his Master Hence note first this Sinne brought in servility and the subjection of man to man I ground it thus because Iob speakes of service as of an estate of affliction as of an estate of trouble under which many groane and from which they can get no release till death breake the bands and sets them free In the state of innocency there was a dominion granted to man over the beasts but there was no dominion granted to man over man In the state of integrity relations should have continued but subjection should not have been found only that naturall subjection of children to Parents but as for civill subjection there had been no such thing in the world Before man forsooke the service of God he needed none to serve him service comes in by sinne and the increase of it by the increase of sinne As we see when Canaan was so vile as to forget the duty of a sonne he is set below or in the worst condition of a servant Gen. 9.5 Cursed be Canaan a servant of servants shall he be unto his bretheren that is the lowest and most abject servant As God of Gods is the greatest God and Lord of Lords is the Highest Lord so servant of servants is the lowest the basest servant So then as civill subjection came at first from sin so the increase of subjection which is to be a servant of servants came from the increase and progresse of sin Observe secondly A servant is not in his own dispose Though he be a voluntary servant yet he must serve the lawfull will of his master He may yea he ought in every ingenuous service to serve willingly but he is not at his own will to serve when or where or how he will Some have thought they have a freedome from service by the liberty of the Gospell or Gospel-priviledge and that is the reason why the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.1 gives that rule Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour c. He speakes of beleeving servants Some presumed they had such freedome by Christ that they might cast off subjection to men No saith the Apostle as many as are under the yoke that is while they continue servants they must submit to their condition yea though their Masters be unbeleevers as the next verse shewes And they that have beleeving Masters let them not despise them c. nothing takes away subjection but death for as he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man 1 Cor. 7.22 So he that is the Lords free-man being called to it is and ought to be mans servant The Centurion in the Gospell shewes the servants duty I say unto one goe and he goeth and to another come and he cometh and to my servant doe this and he doth it The servant is at his Masters beck not at his own dispose and nothing can free him but death so long as he continues under the yoke in that relation Hence observe thirdly That death concludes the subjection of man to man In the grave or there the servant is free from his Master there is no more service due to man when once death that king of terrours hath carried us into his dominions JOB 3. Ver. 20 21 22. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soule Which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave c. AT this 20th verse the third and last Section of the Chapter begins Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life to the bitter in soule In the former part of the Chapter Job wished that death had surprised him assoone as ever he set his foot into the world yea before he came into the world that he might have died in the very wombe Here Job begins to expostulate why he having made so long a journey and in his latter time so troublesome a journey in the world why I say he is not at his request cut off and taken away by the stroake of death Why is light given to him that is in misery and life to the
this O death how sweet art thou to a man that is bitter in his soule It often falls out that to die is but a short affliction but affliction many times is a long and a continued death a frequent death as the Apostle speakes of his afflictions in deaths often 2 Cor. 11.23 That there is a bitternesse in death the speech of Agag implies 1 Sam. 15. Surely the bitternesse of death is past Yet while a man as lamenting Jeremie complaines Lam. 3.19 Remembers his afflictions and his misery the wormewood and the gall that is his afflictions and misery more bitter then gall and wormewood his sense overcomes his judgement to conclude that there is a pleasantnesse in that bitter thing which wee call death Secondly observe That As death finds many before they looke for it so some looke for death and cannot find it How many are there whom death surprizes before they are aware and seizeth upon them when they thinke not of it when-as others are expecting and longing and gaping and gasping after death and they cannot meete with it it cometh not Indeed it is a great deale better for a man to expect death when it cometh not then to have death come upon him when he expects it not Some are calling for death crying out for death before they know how to die before they know how to live yea before they know why they lived It were well for such if they might loose their longing and long for death long enough before it cometh for upon the matter poore soules they long for Hell while they long for death and while they are hastning from that life and misery which will quickly have an end they are plunging into that death and misery which will never end Thirdly observe As death is a punishment to most so not to die is a punishment to some Job speakes of it as of an affliction upon such they long for death and it cometh not Death is an affliction to all it is a punishment to all unbeleevers a punishment with a sting And as all wicked men are punished with death so some of them are punished with this that they for the present cannot die Rev. 9.6 In those dayes men shall seeke death and shall not finde it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them It is laid as their punishment that they should live and as an affliction beyond all their afflictions that then they could not die They are in a sad condition who can have no remedy or cure of their troubles but death but how sad is their condition who cannot obtaine that remedy It is like the punishment of the damned in Hell they shall long for death but it will not come and they shall ever seeke for death but shall never find it No wicked man did ever part so unwillingly with his soule when he died as he will unwillingly meet with it when he riseth againe And as the first death doth part soule and body unwillingly so the second death keepeth soule and body together unwillingly They have a tast of this misery in this life whose soules are truly said to be imprisoned in their bodies And O how desirous are they to dig down these mud-walls and make an escape but cannot Fourthly observe It is an affliction to nature to be debarred of any thing it desireth how destructive soever it be unto it It is in one sense a naturall desire to long for death and yet death is the destruction of nature A man under distempers of body in a disease a Fever c. is often troubled and grieved because he cannot have those things which will hurt him He longs for such meates and drinkes as given him would kill him and yet a deniall angers him The hope of death deferred will make the heart sick and when the desire death desired comes it is as a tree of life Griefe ariseth from the unsatisfaction of our desires and therefore though the thing had which we desire will undoe us yet the not having it doth afflict us Which long for death and it cometh not and they dig for it more then for hid treasures Take somewhat from this latter branch and they dig for it more then for hid treasure Assoone as ever Job had exprest their longing desire after death you see presently he tells us that they dig for death From this observe That where desires are true they presently produce endeavours He that longs for a thing will labour for it they are digging presently Prov. 18.1 Through desire a man having separated himselfe intermedleth with all wisedome If it be death a man desireth he will be endeavouring after it There are some velleities listlesse wishings and wouldings which produce no endeavours but true desires are ever active naturall desires are seconded with naturall endeavours and so spirituall desires with spirituall endeavours If a man desire death he will dig for it surely then he that desires Christ and longs for eternall life will be digging for the enjoyment of them Observe further That proportionably to the strength of our desires is the strength and earnestnesse of our endeavours As reall desire causeth reall indeavour so strong desires cause strong endeavours It was not a bare desire but an earnest longing as was cleared in opening the words And it is not a bare labour but hard labour digging is strong labour A meere naturall man whose desires after sin are strong and vehement acts sin with equall vehemency The holy Ghost saith he doth evill as he can that is to utmost his canning or ability He drawes iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with cart-ropes He doth evill saith another Scripture Mich. 7.3 with both hands greedily To doe a thing with both hands notes the greatest endeavour As when the Pharisees are said not to touch the burdens which they laid on others with their little finger it notes their refusall of the least endeavour Math. 23.4 So a spirituall heart having his desires turned heaven-ward he diggs for heavenly treasure every day and gives diligence to make his calling and election sure They who have strong desires after Christ labour strongly after Christ So they are exprest Pro. 2.4 where Solomon speakes of wisedome which is Christ and all that is Christs If thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures Such is the search and endeavour that ought to be after Christ and such it will be if there be true and great desires after Christ Thirdly In that he saith they dig for it as for hid treasure We may observe That the best things are hardest to come by If you will have treasures you must digge for them you may have pibble stones flints above ground but treasures lie deepe And in proportion the better every thing is the more digging it requireth And the best things ought to be most digg'd for They that will have the great blessing must
wrestle for it or the Crowne they must strive for it We must dig for heavenly hidden treasure before we have it And yet both the treasure and the strength to dig for it are freely given Fourthly observe That Those things which we esteeme most we labour to secure most It is said that they digg'd for treasures and that the treasures were hid I told you in opening the words there is a naturall hiding of treasure and an industrious hiding Take it in the last sense men that have treasures will labour to preserve them why because treasures are much esteemed and the things we esteeme most we preserve most In the Hebrew the word that signifies treasure signifies the hiding of treasure or hidden treasure Among all treasures spirituall treasures are most hidden they are so hidden that they are called mysteries or secrets The knowledge of Christ was a hidden treasure for some thousands of yeares the Apostle in his time calls it the mysterie which was kept secret since the world began Rom. 16.25 Againe he calls it the wisedome of God in a mystery even the hidden wisedome which God ordained before the world unto our glory which none of the Princes of this world knew 1 Cor. 2.8 9. And as spirituall knowledge so our spirituall life is called a hidden life your life is hidden with God in Christ Col. 3.3 And as our life so our spirituall comforts are hidden therefore called Hidden Manna Rev. 2.17 All our spirituall estate is treasure and it is all hidden treasure so hidden that the Saints dig deepe to find it and when they have found it they hide it as Christ shewes us Mat. 13.44 speaking of the Kingdome of God which he compares to a treasure hid in the field the which when a man hath found he hideth He hideth it not to obscure it from the light but to secure it from danger Mary hid those pretious sayings of Christ her Son and her Saviour in her heart Luk. 2.51 And David having found the Commandements of God which he prized above any treasure above thousands of gold and silver he hid them in his heart Thy word saith he have I hid in my heart that I might not sinne against thee Psalm 119.11 Verse 22. Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave Having said that they long for death and dig for it as for hidden treasure Now supposing that they find death he shewes how it affects them they rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave There is little or no obscurity in these words only consider the emphasis of this expression the word which we translate rejoyce or rejoyce exceedingly noteth such a rejoycing as breakes forth in some outward gesture as when a man doth leape for joy And Mr. Broughton translates it thus which joy till they skip againe noting an extraordinary joy and gladnesse when they can find the grave that is when they die Yet some joyne the sense of this verse with the former to carry on or lengthen out the similitude thus Which long for death and digge for it as for hid treasures And finding death they are affected as they who seeking for treasures find a grave For if in digging they did but hit upon a grave then they thought themselves sure of treasure and great riches because treasure and riches was used to be put into graves as was shewed in opening the fifteenth verse of this Chapter The sense is faire and comes up to the same point from either of these expositions Observe hence first That What at one time we feare most in that at another time we may exceedingly rejoyce Death is dreadfull and the grave is a place of darkenesse yet here is joy and rejoycing yea exceeding joy and rejoycing when they find the grave Secondly They rejoyce in it but why It was that which they had longed for that which they had long sought for if at another time they had bin shewed the grave or commanded into the grave they would have taken little pleasure in it The same thing inflicted or threatned by another is dreadfull to us which desired by our selves is pleasant and delightfull It pleaseth us to have our desire satisfied though the thing desired be never so unpleasant And to be eased of present evill makes a future evill appeare in the likenesse of a persent good For Joy is an affection of the mind arising from the apprehension of some present good even as hope springs from the apprehension of some good that is to come Further We may consider the issue of all these acts after they had longed for death and digged for death and found death presently upon the finding of it they rejoyce and rejoyce exceedingly Hence observe That which any one truely desireth and endeavoureth to find causeth him to rejoyce when he hath found it If you desire death and seek for the grave the finding of these will be to you as life and as a house of mirth How much more then shall we rejoyce having found good things the best things after earnest longing and digging for them When the wise Merchant had found the treasure hid in the field the next words enforme us of his joy Matth. 13.44 When the man after long seeking on the mountaines had found his lost Sheepe and the woman after lighting her candle and sweeping her house and diligent search had found the lost groat they both rejoyced and called in their neighbours and friends to rejoyce with them Luk. 15. It troubles a man to be found of that or him whom he hates or feares Hast thou found me O mine enemy saith Ahab to Eliah 1 King 21.20 And it cannot but delight us to find that or him whom we love and long for Have I found thee O my friend will such an one say And if a miserable man rejoyces exceedingly when desiring he finds death and a grave how will the soule leape for joy when we shall find him who is the longing and desire of all Nations Jesus Christ. How exceeding exceedingly will the soule rejoyce when we shall find what we have so much longed for not death but life and life not only in Christ but with Christ when we shall find not the house of the grave but a house of glory and glory in the height an exceeding excelling superexcellent weight of glory And by this effect we may make proofe of grace here If thou hast found Christ in ordinances in duties in meditation in prayer in the promises for here in these things the longing soule diggs after Christ joy will at one time or other fill thy heart yea thy heart will leape for joy thou wilt rejoyce in Spirit as Christ did in his Father Luk. 10.21 For this joy is a fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 and one of the first fruits And God seldome misses to give the soule a tast of this joy at the first or presently after conversion though afterwards clouds may