the bosome and spirit of a man Let it not trouble thee that I thus speak take my words in good part If we assay to commune with thee wilt thou be grieved Secondly observe That it is no easie thing to beare reproofe To take a reproofe well is as high a point of spirituall wisdome as to give it well When we reprove the sinne we should love the man but there are few men who can love their reprovers You know what is said in the Prophet They hate him that reproveth in the gate Reproofs are usually entertained with hatred and ill taken by evill persons reproofe is not alwayes taken in good part by those who are good It is but need to have some way made for its due entertainment by the best temper'd spirits Wilt thou be grieved it may be wearisome and troublesome unto thee but I pray let it not Thirdly observe from the Preface That in some cases it is our duty to speak and reprove whether men are troubled or no. How should I be pleased if thou wouldest receive my speech in good part but I cannot withhold my selfe from speaking though thou art displeased take it how you will I must speak these reproofs must out When we see plainly that God is dishonoured and that the soule of our brother is greatly endangered we must then speak as God chargeth the Prophet whether they will heare or whether they will forbeare In such cases we must adventure to save men by Ep. Jude v. 23 feare plucking them out of the fire Lastly observe That when the heart is full it is a very hard thing not to give it vent at the lips by speaking When the heart is full of matter the tongue will be full of words the tongue must bring forth the treasures that are laid up in the heart Who saith Eliphaz can withhold himselfe from speaking The Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 20. 9. thought to stifle the message of God in his heart I said I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name he began to take up a resolution to withhold himselfe from speaking but saith he his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay I could not hold it any longer So the Apostles Acts 4. 19. We cannot but speak that which we have heard and seen it is impossible for us the Lord hath spoken who can but prophesie Amos 3. 8. that is who can withhold himselfe from prophesying when once the Lord bids him speak Words are the conceptions of our mindes and when our thoughts are form'd and organized as it were and grown to perfection when those children come to the birth a little strength will bring them forth Or rather great strength cannot keepe them from being brought forth It is as possible for her that is with childe to withhold the birth as it is for those that have pregnant conceptions or an errand from God to withhold themselves from speaking When David kept silence it is a strange connexion he roared Psal 32. 3. When he held his peace from good his sorrow was stirred Psal 39. 2. Pangs took hold on him as upon a woman in travell which made him roare His heart waxt hot the fire burned till he spake with his tongue He was then delivered Our English phrase of Delivering a mans minde may hit this sense well Their hearts are barren whose mouths are alwayes shut Who can withhold himselfe from speaking But what is it that he could not forbeare He could not forbear to tell him that as he supposed he acted against his own principles Behold thou hast instructed many and thou hast strengthened the weak hands c. Behold This word is sometime used in a way of derision as Ecce doctorem egregium Ecce medicum aliorum qui seipsum curare nesciat Gen. 3. 22. where God saith concerning Adam Behold the man is become as one of us doe you not see what a God he is how like a God he lookes so Behold thou hast instructed many some make that the sense see now your great Teacher your learned Doctor he that hath been so forward and busie in teaching others see in what disorder how uncomposed he is himselfe he would needs physick his Neighbours but knows not how to cure his own distempers But rather take it by way of ásseveration Behold as if he should say this is a thing clear and certaine all that are about thee can witnesse it that thou hast instructed many and that thou hast strengthened the weak hands But how art thou changed thou art not like the man thou wast Here are foure speciall acts of spirituall charity so we may call and distinguish them First instructing of the ignorant secondly encouraging of the weak and sloathfull thirdly supporting of those that are ready to fall and fourthly comforting those that are ready to faint In these foure duties Job had been very conversant 1 Indoctos docere Instruction of the ignorant Behold thou hast instructed many 2 Torpentes excitare Encouragement of the weak and sloathfull Thou hast strengthned the weake hands 3 Labentes erigere Supportation of the weake Thy words have upholden him that was falling 4 Maestos consolari Consolation of those who were ready to faint Thou hast strengthned the feeble knees Here you see the four uses which Job made in his counsels First 2 Tim. 3. 16. of Instruction Secondly of Exhortation Thirdly of Admonition Fourthly of Consolation Job was a perfect Preacher he applyes the word to all the services and ends of it respecting the severall conditions tempers or distempers of those with whom he had to doe Further some take the three latter to be but as explications or branches of the first Behold thou hast instructed many namely concerning the nature of afflictions and their duty in the bearing afflction yea thou hast instructed them so farre that thou hast strengthned the weake hands upholden those that were falling and strengthned the feeble knees I come now to the opening of the severall expressions Thou hast instructed many The word which we translate instructed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eâ—udivit castigavit ut patres praeceptoris solent pueros Respondet GraecoruÌ„ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 docere verbi verberibus signifieth both to correct and to teach and the Hebrews give the reason of it because usually with instruction correction is joyned and so the same Greek word signifies both to teach and to chasten As there is a voice of the Rod instruction in correction so a Rod sometimes goes with the voice correction is helpfull to instruction In either or both the senses we may understand it here thou hast instructed many thou hast taught and directed thou hast where need was chastned and corrected many Many We have heard in the first Chapter that Job prayed for his Children
this truth Heare it and know thou it for thy good So much concerning the Division or Parts of this first Speech or dispute made by Eliphaz in answer to the former complaint powred out by Job against the day of his birth and the night of his conception in the third Chapter The six Verses lately read containe as I said before the first Argument we have the Preface in the second Verse and the Argument it selfe in the four following The point which Eliphaz desires to prove and clear is this that Job was guiltie of hypocrisie of close hypocrisie at the least if not of grosse hypocrisie The Medium or reason by which he would prove it is the unsuitablenesse of his present practise to his former Doctrine His actions under sufferings contradict what himselfe had taught other sufferers And this speaks him guilty The Argument may be thus formed That mans religion is but vaine and his profession hypocriticall who having comforted others in and taught them patience under affliction is himselfe being afflicted comfortlesse and impatient But Job thus it is with thee thou hast been a man very forward to comfort others and teach them patience yet now thou art comfortlesse and impatient Therefore thy religion is vaine and thy profession is hypocriticall Is not this thy feare Here is a goodly religion indeed a proper peece of profession and such is thine this is all thou art able to make out Thus you have the Logicall strength or the Argument contained in the words We shall now examine them in the Grammaticall sense of every part as they lye here in order And first for the Preface If we assay to commune with thee wilt thou be grieved but who can withhold himselfe from speaking The words import as if Eliphaz had said thus unto Job we thy friends have all this while stood silent we have given thee full liberty and scope to speak out all that was in thine heart let it not grieve thee if we now take liberty to speak our selves and indeed a necessity lies upon us to speak Two things Eliphaz puts into this Preface whereby he labours to prepare the minde of Job readily to hear and receive what he had to say unto him First he tels him that he speaks out of good will and as a friend to him If we assay to commune with thee wilt thou be grieved Pray doe not take it ill we meane you no harme we would but give you faithfull counsell we speak from our hearts not from our spleen we speak from love to thee let it not be thy griefe Secondly he shewes that he was necessitated to speak as love provokes so necessity constrains who can withhold himselfe from speaking either of these considerations is enough to unlock both eare and heart to take in wholesome counsell What eare what heart will not the golden key of love or the iron key of necessity open to instruction when a friend speaks and he speaks as bound when kindnesse and dutie mix in conference how powerfull If we assay or try The word signifies properly to tempt either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tentavâ—t in bonum vel in malum periculum fecit expertus est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A lyâ—um quasi Graculum vel loquutoâ—ium dictum quod Deus inde responsa daret for good or evill and because in temptation an assay or experiment is made of a man how bad or how good he is Therefore the word is applyed to any assaying or experimenting of things or persons This very word is winning and gaining upon Job We will but try a little if we can doe thee any good or bring lenitives to thy sorrowes we will not be burthensome or tedious we will but assay to commune with thee The word notes serious speaking The place where God communed with his people in giving answers from Heaven is express'd by this word 1 Kings 6. 19. The Oracle he prepared in the house within c. or the communing-place where God spake Wilt thou be grieved The word signifies to be extreamly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fessus corpore vel animo insanivit furiit wearled even unto rage or fainting Here Elipphaz seemes to hint at Jobs former distemper'd speeches If we speak wilt thou promise us not to fall into such a fit of passion as even now thou wast in And yet whatsoever comes of it or howsoever thou takest it I must discharge my duty and my conscience therefore he addes who can withhold himselfe from speaking That is no man can withhold himselfe from speaking in such a case as this to heare thee speak thus would even make a dumb man speak Christ saith in the Gospel If these should hold their peace the stones would cry there is such a sense in these words if we thy friends should hold our peace when thou speakest thus the very stones would cry out against thee for speaking and against us for holding our peace The Hebrew word translated withhold signifies to shut up a thing so as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clausit coâ—â—cuit 1 Kings 8 35. that it cannot come out It is applyed to the locking up of the Clouds that they raine not to the holding in of fire that it cannot break forth Jer 20. 9. where the Prophet very elegantly fits it to the restraining of speech which is the very point in hand His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones I was weary with forbearing So it implyes that the friends of Job had as it were a fire in their bosomes which they could no longer restraine they were as Clouds full of water full of deaw and raine they were not able to suspend themselves from dissolving and showring upon Job both reproofe and counsell advises and exhortations We may observe from this Preamble That it is wisdome to sweeten reproofe with friendly insinuations Reproofe is a bitter Pill it is a wholesome yet a bitter Pill and there is need to wrap it up in Gold and Sugar that pleasing both eye and palat it may be taken downe the better It is the Apostles counsell to his Galatians Gal. 6. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken with a fault yee that are spirituall restore such an one in the spirit of meeknesse The word restore is an allusion to the Art of Chirurgerie in setting a bone out of joynt soft words and a soft hand fit the Patients minde to endure that painfull operation By fals into sinne the soule breaks or disjoynts a bone he that will set such a minde must handle it gently We may observe the holy skill of some of the Saints in prayer preparing God for receiving of Petitions by prefaces and humble insinuations as it were getting within him Thus did Abraham Gen. 18. when he prayed for Sodome Let not my Lord be angry if I who am but dust and ashes speake unto thee There is such a spirituall art in winding a reproofe into
judiciary hardning of their hearts and a hard heart is the greatest judgment on this side Hell As there is a naturally inbred and sinfully acquired hard heart so there is a judicially hardned or a divinely inflicted hard heart When to a naturall hard heart and an acquired hard heart which men get by many repeated acts of sin the Lord adds a judicially hardned or inflicted hard heart then wrath is heated to the hottest and judgment is within one step of Hell Especially if we consider that every houre of such prosperous impenitence and hardnesse of heart encreases punishment and adds to the treasury of that wrath which is stored up against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Who thinks that man happy who is let alone only to gather a mighty pile of wood and other fuell of flames to burne himselfe while ungodly men saem to the world to be gathering riches honour and pleasure hey are but gathering a heap of wrath and a pile of fire which at the last will flame so bright that it will make a revelation of the formerly secret but ever righteous judgement of God Lastly To shew that God is just in all his dealings both the righteous and the wicked learne from the end of both That we may fully discover the Justice of God we must looke upon all his works together while we looke only upon some particular peece of Gods dealings with a godly man he may seeme to deale very hardly with him or if we looke but upon some particular peece of his dealings with a wicked man God may seeme very gentle and kind towards him but take all together and the result is exact justice It was a good speech of a moderne writer We must Non est judicandum de operibus Dei ante quintum actum Per. Mart. not judge of the works of God before the fifth act that is the last act or conclusion of all This and that part may seeme dissonant and confused but lay them all together and they are most harmonious and methodicall Hence David Psal 37. after he had a great dispute with himselfe about the troubles of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked and was put hard to it how to make out the Justice of God resolves all in the close with this advice ver 37. Marke the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace Though a righteous man die in warre yet his end is peace whereas though a wicked man die in peace yet his end is warre It is said Deut. 8. 16. that all which God did to his people in the wildernesse was that he might doe them good at the latter end Come to the end therefore and there you shall find justice visible We often loose the sight of justice in our travailes and passage through the world mountaines and hils interpose which we cannot see over or through but when we come home and arrive at the end of our travailes Justice will appeare in all her state and glory rendring to every man according to his deedes To them who hy patient continuance in well doing seeke for glory and honour and immortality eternall life but unto them that are contentious and doe not obey the truth but obey unrighteousnesse indignation and wrath Joshua concludes the story of the people of Israel in their passage to Canaan with the highest testimonies of Gods justice and faithfulnesse though God dealt with them so variously in the wildernes that they often murmured in their tents as if he had done them wrong yet in the close you shall find how exact and punctuall the Lord was with them Josh 21. 45. There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel all came to passe And in that other text Josh 23. 14 Behold this day I am going the way of all the earth and you know in all your hearts and in all your soules that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you all are come to passe unto you and not one thing hath failed thereof How admirably just was God in his word If a man promise many things we take it well if he performe some of the chiefe and them in the chiefe though some what may faile God promised many things and performed all and which is more all of every one of those many things promised The texts compared make this out the one saying That not one thing failed of all the good things which God spake concerning them And the other That not ought of any good thing failed So then they had every good thing in kind with each particular part and degree of every good thing And for the truth of all this Joshua makes his appeale to themselves and to that in themselves which was best able to determine it All their hearts and all their soules which words doe not only referre to every person as if the meaning were The hearts and soules of you all but rather to all that is in every person All their hearts and all their soules that is understandings memories consciences affections yea sences their eyes and eares their hands and mouthes could bring in witnesse from their severall operations to this great truth And surely God in the end will deale as well with every Israelite as he did with all Israel A time will come it will come shortly when every Saint shall say in all their hearts and in all their soules that not one thing nor ought of any one good thing which the Lord hath said concerning them hath failed I shut up this in the words of Christ to his Disciples when they were amused about that act of his the washing of their feet John 13. 7. What I doe ye know not now but ye shall know hereafter Stay but a while and all those mysteries and riddles of providence shall be unfolded Though clouds and darknesse are round about him yet Judgement and Justice are the habitation of his Throne Psal 97. Mortall man never had and at last shall see he had no reason to complaine of God mortall man shall not be more just than God nor shall man be more pure than his maker And so much for the fifth Conclusion That God neither doth nor can doe any injustice to the creature he is just in his nature just and holy in all his wayes The sixth or last Conclusion is this That to complaine of Gods Iustior sit oportet qui immeriâ—ò affligitur quâ qui immerio affligit dealing with us is to make our selves more just and pure than Gods or when any person or people complaine of Gods dispensations toward them they though not formally yet by way of interpretation make themselves more just and pure than God This was the point wherein Eliphaz labours much to convince Job supposing that he had thus exalted himselfe
not commit all to them he would not believe upon them We finde the word belief thus used Exod. 14. 31. when the children of Israel saw the great work that the Lord had wrought in destroying the Egyptians it is said The people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses he puts God and Moses as the joynt object of their faith as they had formerly been of their unbelief Except the servants of the Lord be believed the Lord himselfe is not And when they are believed the Lord is Believe in the Lord your God believe his Prophets saith good Jehosaphat to his people 2 Chron. 20 20. Moses had told them enough of the power of God before he had undertaken they should be delivered but they would not trust Moses upon his word nor would they trust the Word of God yet now when they saw this great deliverance present sight wrought faith for the time to come they perceived by this miracle that the Lord and Moses were to be credited they doubted not to credit them another time Though that faith which comes in at the eyes only seldome goes downe so low as the heart or sees further and longer then the eye Thus we may understand the first part of the Verse He put no trust no belief in his servants he gave no credit to them as knowing perfectly what their nature and power was what both could do that if left by God they would quickly leave God and prove unfaithfull I shall observe one point before I come to the latter part of the Verse for there the suspition of disloyaltie upon the Angels comes more fully to be considered from the title here given to the Angels His servants he put no trust in his servants Angels are the servants of God They are his servants as being altogether at his command and they are his servants as being fully conformable to his commands These great and glorious Spirits come under the same title and denomination with men who dwell in houses of clay servants of God To serve God is not only the duty but it is the honour of the highest creatures It is more honour to serve God then to rule the world The stile of the good Angels is Ministring Spirits Heb. 1. but the stile and title of the evill Angel is Prince of the power of the aire God of this word you would think these were weighty titles Prince of the aire God of the world but the additions diminish their weight yea make them lighter then vanity or rather heavie only with misery There is more glory in being a servant of God than in being a god of the world or a Prince of the power of the aire I might here enlarge my enquiry into the services of Angels in what they are servants and what their offices and duties are but I shall only touch Their service may be considered either in respect of the Church or the enemies of the Church Respecting the Church and people of God they have such services as these First they are as messengers to carry and reveale the minde of God They are as Tutors and instructors of the Churches Dan. 8. 9. God sent his Angel to teach Daniel the mysterie of those visions And Rev. 1. 11. an Angel was sent to instruct John Chap. 22. 16. I Jesus have sent mine Angell to testifie these things in the Churches Secondly they are sent as guardians and protectors of the people of God to take their part and to be on their side Psal 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that feare him Psal 91. 11. He giveth his Angels a charge over them lest at any time they should dash their feet against a stone Gen. 32. 2. When Jacob journied it is said the Angels of God met him an army of Angels was his Convoy Gods Hoast coming out for his protection and safeguard and therefore he called the name of that place Nahanaim that is two Hosts or Camps either because the Angels appeared in two bands and so made as it were a guard for Jacob to passe between them Or because the great Angelicall Royall Army quartered and marched with Jacobs little Army and so two confederate Armies appeared in the field together Angels are called Chariots Psal 68. 17. The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels That is God useth Angels for defence of his people as Chariots in Warr. The ancient Prophets were called the Chariots of Israel 2 King 3. 13. and the Angels are the Chariots of God Our strongest Militia is of Spirits or of men spiritualiz'd Thirdly Angels suggest good things holy thoughts to us If the Devill who is an evill Angel a wicked spirit can suggest evill sinfull filthy thoughts and help on the heart in wickednesse then doubtlesse a good Angel can help on the heart in holinesse in heavenly thoughts and meditations Christ speaks of Judas that Satan had put it into his heart to betray him John 13. and Peter to Ananias Acts 5. Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lye to the Holy Ghost The nature of a good Angel is as fit his power given as great to deale with our spirits as either the nature or the power of an evill Angel That of the Apostle 2 Cor. 11. 14. gives a hint if not a proofe of it where he tels the Corinthians That deceitfull workers transforme themselves into the Apostles of Christ and no marvell for Sathan himselfe is transformed into an Angell of light and when is Satan in this change from an Angel of darknesse to an Angel of light even when He suggests good for evill ends or evill for good ends And if he is called an Angel of light for this reason then Angels of light good Angels suggest good for good ends otherwise Satan could not be said to imitate them in suggesting good for ill ends and under specious pretences of bringing glory to God tempting to transgresse the will of God Fourthly good Angels comfort strengthen and support in times of distresse anguish and trouble an Angel comforted Hagar Gen. 21 and Matth. 4. 10. after Christ had finished his terrible combat with that wicked Angel the good Angels came and ministred unto him Againe when he was in that most bitter Agony in the garden Luke 22. 43. an Angel appeared to him from Heaven strengthning him That which they do to Christ the Head they do to his members in their proportion Their fifth service is to conveigh and carry the soules of departed Saints to Heaven they are Heavenly Porters Luke 16. 22. Lazarus dyed and was carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosome Lastly they shall convocate and gather all the Elect together at the last day Matth. 24. 31. Their services against the wicked and all enemies of the Church have been many and great Angels assist Saints and oppose the opposers of Sion Two Angels were sent upon a message of destruction to Sodome an Angel defeated the
verba Domini Opin Nonnullorum Hebraeorum apud Merc. Yea I would account every blow an embrace and every wound a reward For not concealing the words of the holy One In these words Job gives the reason or an account of his renewed prayer and request to die As the desire of Job was strong and passionate so likewise it was well grounded He had a very high reason an excellent ground upon which he bottom'd this request to die His reason was spirituall and therefore strong He beggs to be delivered from the troubles of his life though by a painfull death because he was clear in himselfe that he had led a blamelesse life That which set him above the paines of bodily death was the tranquillity of his spirit in this testmony of his conscience I have not concealed the words of the holy One As if he had said You may wonder why I should be so forward and ready to die why I seeme so greedy after the grave why I am such an importunate suiter for my dissolution The account I give you is this I have the testimony of a good conscience within me notwithstanding all the troubles which are upon me notwithstanding all your harsh vnfriendly accusations jealousies and suspitions of me yet my own breast is my friend my heart speakes me faire and gives me good words even these It tells me that I have not concealed the words Mirum est ut mihi non parcat quum illius verba non celarim neque dissimulaverim Aben Azr. of the holy One That I have not smothered any light he hath sent me that I have not refused any councell he hath given me that I have not wilfully departed from any rule he hath prescribed me that I have been faithfull to God to his cause and to his truth that I have declared his will and spoken his minde to others that I have not hidden any thing he hath given me in charge to declare or committed to my trust the word of God hath appeared in my life and therefore I am not afraid yea I have boldnesse to die and to appear before God I have not concealed The word signifieth to hide a thing so as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Significat abscondere ne vidleatur vel audeatur ne amplius appareat it be neither heard of or seen But may not we conceal the words of the most high it is said of Mary that she hid the words of Christ in her heart and of David that he hid the commandements of God in his heart Psal 119. 11. Did not the wise merchant hide the treasure namely Gospel truth Math. 13. 44. as soon as he had found it It should seem all these concealed the word of God how then is it that Job improves this as a speciall point of comfort that he had not concealed the words of the holy One There is a double hiding or concealement of the truth There is first a hiding from danger Secondly a hiding from use There is a hiding to keep a thing safe that others shall not take it from us and there is a hiding to keep a thing close that others may not take the benefit of it with us When it is said that Mary and David and the wise Merchant hid the word of God it was lest they themselves should lose it lest any should deprive them of it they hid it from danger They layed it up as a treasure in their hearts but they did not hide it from the knowledge or use of others and that is it which Job affirmes of himselfe I have not concealed the words of the holy One And there are four wayes by which the word of God is sinfully hid or concealed from all which Job seemes to acquit himselfe The first is when we conceal the word of God by our own silence when we know the word and truth of God and yet we draw a vaile over them by not revealing them The Apostle Paul Acts 20. 27. acquits himself in this to the Church of Ephesus I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsell of God and verse 20. You know how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you Silence to what is spoken is consent and silence when we should speak is concealement There is a second way of concealing the word of God and that is by silencing others Some conceale the words of the holy One themselves and they cannot endure that others should publish them The chiefe Priests and the Rulers Acts 4 18. charged Peter and John that they should not speake at all nor teach any more in the name of Jesus They would stop the Apostles mouthes from speaking the words of the holy One These keep the truth lockt up as Christ charges the Lawyers Luk. 11. 52. by taking away the key of knowledge Thirdly There is a concealing of the word of God under false glosses and misinterpretations or a hiding of it under errours and misconstructions This is a very dangerous way of concealing the words of the holy One The Pharisees made the law of God of none effect by their expositions as well as by their traditions by the sence they made of it as well as by the additions they made unto it Fourthly The word of the holy One may be concealed in our practise and conversations The Apostle exhorts Phil. 2. 16. To hold forth the word of life in a pure conversation The lives of Christians should publish the word of life The best way of preaching the word is by the praictse of the word The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse of men who hold the truth in unrighteousnesse that is who by their unrighteous practises and ungodly conversations imprison fetter restrain and keep in the word Mans holy life is the loudest Proclamation of the word of God And a sinfull life is the concealment of it Job here acquits himselfe from all these concealements I have not eâ—ncealed the words of the holy One either by my own silence or by imposing silence upon others I have not concealed the word of the holy One by my own corrupt glosses and interpretations nor by a corrupt practise and conversation I have desired and endeavoured that the whole word of God might be visible in my actions and audible in my speeches that I might walke cloathed as it were with the holy counsels and commandements of my God There is a reading of the words different from this Whereas we Malo potentialiter exponi omnia utinam inquit non parceret Nequenim occultarem dicta sancti sed ejus in me sententiam praedicarem laudarem Merc. say I have not concealed the words of the holy One that gives it thus I would not conceale the words of the holy One and so the word of the holy One is taken not for the truths of God in generall but for that special word of decree or sentence which God should
or departed from a good conscience Further Others conceive Job bespeakes his friends in this quicke language Return yea return again to recall his Forte in dignaebundi discessum papabane-aut jaÌ„ surrexerâ—nt discessuri quaere illos invitat ad promovenâ—aÌ„ disputationem Pined friends who were ready to goe away in a pett or in a fume as we use to say They were rising to be gone and Job hastily calls them back Return I pray return As a man in discourse growing so hot that the house cannot hold him but he will breake away is usually re-invited pray stay sir return again so Job return againe my righteousnesse is in it you shall see I mill make the matter good Hence observe first taking the rerurn in a Metaphoricall sence That a passionate or inconsiderate man goes from hemself and from the matter Passion carries from the businesse before us An angry mans discourse runs wild he had need be reduced Consideration is the returning of a man unto himself or his comming home As the passions of the concupiscible appetite and intemperancies of youth carrie a man beyond his boundes and therefore the Prodigall repenting is said to come to himself Luk. 15. 17. so likewise do the passions of the irascible appetite Anger disorders and discomposes the spirit as much as luxury Secondly observe To persist in evill is worse than the committing if evill The one is common to man the other peculiar to the Devill and his peculiars who know no repentance It is bad enough to doe ill but not to returne from evill is inexcusable therefore the Lord often by his Prophets laies this as the heaviest charge of all upon his people He taxes them with their departures from him But especially with their refusals to returne unto him Yet have ye not returned unto me this is more sinfull than all the sins you have committed you have not returned you goe on and persevere in evill The sword of God proclaimes alike voice in our eares at this day Return return again We have departed and gone away from God let us not draw that ancient change upon our selves I have smitten you yet have ye not returned unto me It is not sinning but not returning which brings finall condemnation impenitency seales the stone of destruction upon Persons and Nations Thirdly whereas these words Returne let it not be iniquity are referred to Jobs friends as if he had said Let not this your passion make your sinne fouler and greater you have sinned already but if you returne not your sin will be iniquity shortly Note He stops his sin from bâ—ing an iniquity who hastens his returning from sin Every sin the least sin is sin as the least drop of water is water but every sin in a strict sence is not iniquity The nature is the same but the degree varies As many a child never comes to be a man so many a sin comes not to be an iniquity Happy â—s he that taketh those little ones and dasheth them against the stones That returnes before his sin be iniquity Fourthly observe further how Job cals upon his friends when he sees them transported as he thought with passion he leaves complaining of his owne sorrowes and gives them good counsell he for that present forgets his owne ruines that he might amend them It is our duty to reclaime and to appease those by gentle intreaties who we suppose have wronged us or gone astray from truth Job doth not raile upon or revile his friends but beseeches them to be better advised and consider what they did Fifthly in that he saith Return yea return again taking this for a call to a more serious consideration of the businesse we may note That a mans cause and condition must be considered and considered again twice that is fully considered before he be condemned We must give account of every idle word much more then of every unjust sentence or censure It is but wisdome to consider that strictly about which we must give so strict an account Sixthly in that he saith My righteousnesse is in it Observe That a good cause the more it is searched into the better it will appeare the deeper you digge into it the more truth and holinesse you will finde in it Search a godly man and the lower you goe the better he proves the nearer you come to his heart the richer treasures of grace and uprightnesse will be discovered at his tongue or his lips may be gilded over with good words but Whereas take an hypocrite and you may have a little good mettal search him to the bottome and there is all rottennesse even seven abominations at his heart A godly man is not gilded but gold Search a Job quite through try him to the center righteousnesse is in all his wayes the further you search the better he is and he will be best of all at last Vers 30. Is there iniquity in my tongue Gannot my taste discerne perverse things Formula est seipsum compellantis animum suum scrutantis facta examinantis Coc Verbaper stultitiam temeritatem prolata latentis pravitatis indices Thus he concludes his Directory to his friends and his preparatory for what himself intended to pursue in the next Chapter Is there iniquity in my tongue doth my tongue speak unequall or evil things Hath any thing bin spoken by me against common right or against the divine rule hath my tongue uttered any iniquity from my heart Hath the sinfulnesse of my heart broken forth at my lips Or hath it appeared that I have done wickedly by what I have said When my words are duly weighed I shall not appeare the man you make mee The word signifies calamity or misery as well as iniquity and so we may take it here Is there calamity in my tongue That is do my words bespeake or invite my afflictions We finde the word used in that sence Psal 52. 2. Thy tongue deviseth mischiefe or calamity Iniquity devised or framed by the tongue is often a scourge upon the back Micha 7. 3. the great man uttereth his mischievous desire The mischievous evill words of his soule Is there saith Job any such mischievous device in my tongue Dober Havoth Naphshi Have I spoken poison to infect you or blasphemie to dishonour God Cannot my taste discerne perverse things Cannot my taste The Hebrews is Cannot my pallate And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Palatum eleganti Metaphora a sensibus externis ad interiores translata appellat illam animae facultatem qua justa ab injustis vera â falsis aequa ac recta ab iniquis perversis dignoscuntur nonsecus ac palato cibi dulces ab amaris c. Merc. Habet anima suum palatum because the pallate is exquisite in tasting therefore by a trope the organ is expressed for the act Cannot my taste discern cannot my pallate Or as others Cannot my mouth discern perverse things That faculty of
the Holy Ghost Good and bad beleevers and unbeleevers speak often the same good words but they cannot speak the same things nor from the same principles nature speaks in the one in the other grace The one may say very passionately he hath sinned and sometimes almost drown his words in tears but the other saith repentingly I have sinned and floods his heart with Godly sorrowes Thirdly to clear it yet more the general confession of the Saints have these four things in them First Besides the fact they acknowledge the blot that there is much defilement and blackness in every sin that it is the onely pollution and abasement of the creature Secondly They confess the fault that they have done very ill in what they have done and very foolishly even like a beast that hath no understanding Thirdly They confess a guilt contracted by what they have done that their persons might be laid lyable to the sentence of the law for every such act if Christ had not taken away the curse and condemning power of it Confession of sin in the strict nature of it puts us into the hand of justice though through the grace of the new Covenant it puts us into the hand of mercy Fourthly Hence the Saints confess all the punishments threatned in the Book of God to be due to sin and are ready to acquit God whatsoever he hath awarded against sinners O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of face as at this day to the men of Iudah and to the inhabitants of Ierusalem Dan. 9. 7. And as in this confession for the matter they acknowledge the blot the fault the guilt the punishment of sin so for the manner which sets the difference yet wider between the general confessions of wicked and Godly men they confess First freely Acknowledgements of sin are not extorted by the pain and trouble which seazeth on them as in Pharaoh Saul and Judas But when God gives them best dayes they are ready to speak worst of themselves And when they receive most mercies from God then God receives most and deepest acknowledgements of sin from them They are never so humbled in the sight of sin as when they are most exalted in seeing the salvations of the Lord. The goodness of God leads them to this repentance they are not driven to it by wrath and thunder Secondly they confess feelingly when they say they have sinned they know what they say They taste the bitterness of sin and groan under the burdensomeness of it as it passes out in confession A natural mans confessions run through him as water through a pipe which leaves no impression or sent there nor do they upon the matter any more taste what sin is then the pipe doth of what relish water is Or if a natural man feels any thing in confession it is the evil of punishment feared not the evil of his sin committed Thirdly they confess sincerely they mean what they say are in earnest both with God and their own Souls Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile Psal 32. 2. The natural man casts out his sins by confession as Sea-men cast their goods over-board in a storm which in the calm they wish for again They so cast out the evil spirit that they are content to receive him again when he returns though it be with seven worse then himself Even while they confess sin with their lips they keep it like a sweet bit under their tongues And wish it well enough while they speak it very ill Fourthly they confess beleevingly while they have an eye of sorrow upon sin they have an eye of Faith upon Christ Iudas said he had sinned in betraying innocent blood Mat. 27. 4. but instead of washing in that blood he defiles himself with his own he goes away and hangs himself No wicked man in the world continuing in that state did ever mix Faith with his sorrowes or beleeving with confessing he had sinned So much for the clearing of the words and the sence of this general confession Hence observe first While a Godly man maintains his innocency and justifies himself before men he willingly acknowledges his infirmity and judges himself before God Iob had spent much time in wiping off the aspersions cast upon him by his friends but he charges himself with his failings in the sight of God Secondly observe God speakes better of his servants then they doe of themselves When God speakes of Job we find not one blot in all his character all is commendation nothing of reproof He saith c. 1. v. 21. in all this Job sinned not but for all that Job saith I have sinned A hypocrite hath good thoughts of himself and speakes himself faire He flatters himself in his own eyes until his iniquitie be found to be hateful Psal 36. 2. A godly man thinks and speaks low of himself he accuses himself in his own eyes though his integrity be found very acceptable with the Lord. Thirdly observe The holiest man on earth hath cause to confess that he hath sinned Confession is the duty of the best Christians First The highest form of believers in this life is not above the actings of sin though the lowest of believers is not under the power of it And if the line of sinning be as long as the line of living then the line of confessing must be of the same length with both While the Ship leaks the pump must not stand still And so long as we gather ill humors there will be need of vomits and purgings Secondly Confession is a soul-humbling duty and the best have need of that for they are in most danger of being lifted up above measure To preserve us from those self-exaltations the Lord sometimes sends the Messenger of Satan to buffet us by temptations and commands us to buffet our selves often by confession Thirdly Confession affects the heart with sin and ingages the heart against it Every confession of the evill we do is a new obligation not to do it any more The best in their worst part have so much freedome to sin that they have need enough to be bound from it in variety of bonds Fourthly Confession of sin shews us more clearly our need of mercy and indears it more to us How good and sweet is mercy to a soul that hath tasted how evil and how bitter a thing it is to sin against the Lord. How welcome how beautiful is a pardon when we have been viewing the ugliness of our own guilt Fiftly Confession of sin advances Christ in our hearts How doth it declare the riches of Christ when we are not afraid to tell him what infinite sums of debt we are in which he onely and he easily can discharge how doth it commend the healing vertue of his blood when we open to him such mortal wounds and sicknesses which he only and he easily can cure Wo be to those who commit sin abundantly that grace may abound but
for his Sonnes and Daughters but now we see Jobs piety extended further than his own children Yea the word may well be carried out beyond his own family He prayed for his children and not only did he pray for them but also teach and instruct them and not only them but others he inlarges his Schoole he instructs many it is an indefinite word a word of number without a number Jobs Schoole of holy discipline was a large one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Debilis laxus hinc Rephaim significat mertuos ex eo quod in illis omne robur vires naturales elanguerunt he set up his Schoole where ever he came he was an universall Teacher an Apostle of the old World thou hast instructed many And thou hast strengthned the weak hands The word signifies Remisse hands or the hands that hang down loose and lax Hence by a Metaphor it notes one that is negligent or idle a man with his hands hanging down and his armes loose is the embleme of idlenesse or of sadnesse Thou hast strengthned the Manus lâ—ssae dejecta bâ—achâ—a pertinent ad habâ—â—um aut molliter aut segniâ—er ambulantis aut curâ—ere non valentiâ— E contra vero adducere brachia manus comprimere fortiter jâ—ctare cubiâ—os strenue currentis est weak hands that is those that were idle or grieved negligent or dejected Hence the word Rephaim is used to signifie those that are dead and the reâ—son is because all strength naturall vigour and activity depart when life departeth Giants also are expressed in the Hebrew by this word because they are such dreadfull persons that their very aspect or sight terrifies the spirit makes the hands hang down and the knees of beholders feeble they called those mighty men weake from that effect wrought upon others because they made others weak and tremble at their approaches Hence when Goliah the Giant challenged and defied the Hoast of Israel it is said that all the men of Israel when they saw the man fled from him or fled from his face he overcame them with his looks and were fore afraid 1 Sam. 17. 24. This weaknesse of hands as we finde instanc'd in Scripture arises four wayes First from sloth and idlenesse as we noted before some have strong heads but they have weak hands they are sufficiently instructed but they cannot act or they are unactive and an unactive man is a weak-handed man Secondly weaknesse of the hands cometh from fear and so that phrase to strengthen the hands notes incouraging of a person as Zech. 8. 9 13. Fear not let thy hands be strong that is let not fear weaken thy hands and Jer. 38. 4. the Princes came to the King and begg'd of him that Jeremiah might be put to death and they give the reason from this For say they he weakneth the hands of the men of war that remaine in the City and the hands of all the people that is he discourages them makes them believe they shall never be able to stand out against the King of Babylon but that he shall certainly take the City this is called weakning of their hands So Isa 35. 3. Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirme the feeble knees say to them that are of a fearfull heart be strong fear not So yee see weaknes of the hands is caused by fear when the bands of the heart are dissolved as it were and loosned by fear the hand must needs be dissolved and loosned from labour the hand is not able to work at all when fear works much upon the heart Thirdly weaknesse of the hands ariseth from irresolution when a man is not resolved what to do not setled upon a busines then his hands are weak Hence it was the counsell of Achitophel to Absalom that he should go up upon the house top in the sight of all Israel and abuse his fathers Concubines and he giveth the reason of it then saith he shall the hands of all that are with thee be 2 Sam. 16. 21. strong his meaning is then they will be so resolved to stick to thee that they will doe their utmost he grounds his counsell upon the present irresolution of the people he doubted whether Absaloms party would adhere cordially to him or no therefore saith he doe an act which may render thy selfe and all that are with thee irreconcileable to the King this will unite them to thee and their hands will be strong If once they be out of hope to be receiv'd into the Kings favour thou maist be out of feare that they will returne to the Kings obedience In any lawfull and good designe it is best to raise up resolution and ingage it to the highest Where the heart is strongly resolved the hands will act strongly The reason why men are slow and dull in great undertakings is because they are off and on full of neutrality and indifferency in what they undertake Unsetled spirits can never settle actions A double minded man is James 1. 8. unstable and weak-handed in all his wayes Lastly there is a weaknesse of the hands which is I conceive most proper to this place arising from sorrow and griefe from the weight and burthen of affliction or from a sudden surprise of trouble As it is said of Balteshazar Dan. 5. 6. who seeing the hand-writing upon the plaister of the wall presently changed countenance and his thoughts troubled him so that the joynts of his loynes were loosed and his knees smote one against another Thou hast strengthned the weake hands that is those whose hands are weak by reason of manifold trialls and tribulations thou hast spoken words to them which have been as sinewes to their hands annd strength unto their joynts In this sence the Apostle uses both the expressions of the Text Heb. 12. 6. where having treated about the nature of afflictions together with the fruit and benefit of them he concludes thus wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees as if he should say it is probable that affliction hath made your hands hang downe that sorrow and grief have loosned your spirits and your loynes too therefore now be of good cheer lift up your hands that hang down and the feeble knees Thie Symptome or effect of sorrow is elegantly Columbis prâ— cantu gemitus est inamoenuÌ„ murmur Sanct. in Ezek. cap 7. described Ezek. 7. 17. where the Prophet having shewed that many should mourne as Doves of the Valleys adds all hands shall be feeble and all knees shall be weak as water Thy words have upheld him that was falling Some afflictions lie so hard and heavie upon us that they doe not only weaken but cast downe Job stood ready to uphold such as were ready to fall timely advice may catch a man before he is quite down and prevent his fall The word which we translate falling signifies in its first sense to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
part of his character or commendation Thou art reported to be a man fearing God is not this thy feare Feare is taken either for the whole compasse of Gods worship or for that awfulnesse of affection with which we worship God which we ought to mingle and mix in all our actions and duties Therefore saith the Apostle Heb. 12. Let us have grace to serve him with reverence and godly feare And Psalme the second Serve the Lord with feare God is to be served in love and yet God loves no service which hath not this ingredient Holy feare Feare is the most proper affection which we creatures dust and ashes who are at such an infinite distance from God can put forth in his worship God condescends so farre as to be loved by us yea he calleth for our love as a friend or as a father as a familiar as one in neer relation but considered in his Majesty glory and greatnesse feare is the most suitable affection in our approaches unto God The name of God in some languages is derived from feare and God is expresly called Fear by Jacob Gen. 31. in that dispute with Laban where he telleth him Except the fear of his father Isaac had been with him c. Verse 42 And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac Verse 53. that is by that God whom his father Isaac feared Jacob was a man so holy that he would take nothing into his mouth to swear by but onely the holy Name of God Religious swearing is one of the highest acts of worshipping as vaine swearing is one of the highest acts of prophaning the name of God Thy confidence The word which we translate confidence signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inconstantia levitas per Antiphrasin constantia considenâ—ia also and that most properly folly inconstancy levity when the Prophet Jeremy reproveth the idolatry of those times speaks to worshippers of Idols he expresses it by this word They are altogether bruitish and foolish Jer. 10. 8. And holy David Psalme 49. 13. speaking of wicked men who make riches their portion and who lay out all their endeavours in the raising of an outward estate gives this account of their practise in the 13 Verse This their way is their folly this is the course that worldly men take and they think it is a very wise course but indeed their way is their folly Some translators reade that text this their way is their confidence as here in Job and so they make the sense out thus this way of worldly men in gathering riches in heaping up abundance of these outward things is their confidence that is they have nothing else to trust unto they have nothing beyond the world to trust unto this their way is their confidence So againe Prov. 15. 26. A foolish man or a man of folly despiseth his mother And once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more Psal 85. 8. where the Psalmist goeth up like Habakkuk to his Watch-tower to hearken for an answer of his prayer I will hearken what the Lord will say for he will speake peace unto his people but let them not returne againe to folly So some reade it in this Text of Job is not this thy fear thy folly that is was it not meere folly for thee to bragge and boast of thy feare sc That thou didst feare God c. But the word is often taken in a contrary sense as we translate for constancy or confidence and sometimes for hope and thus Job 31. 24. If I have said to gold thou art my hope or my confidence and Chap. 8. 14. speaking of the Hypocrite whose hope shall be cut off the same word is used and Prov. 3. 26. The Lord shall be thy confidence and he shall keep thy foot from being taken and not to heape many places Psal 78. 7. That they may set their hope in God In this sense it is generally understood here Is not this thy fear and thy confidence sc all the trust thou hast placed in thy God Feare and confidence are acts of naturall worship Confidence or Trust is the resting of the soule upon another here the resting of the soule upon the Word or promises of God upon the power faithfulnesse and truth of God an act thus put forth by the soule is confidence Now saith Eliphaz is not this thy confidence thou hast spoken much of resting and trusting upon God and his Word upon his power and faithfulnesse is not this that which thou hast all this while talked of See what a goodly confidence it is Doth it look like a proper piece of grace Confidence is an act beyond faith a soule confiding walkes in a higher Region of grace and comfort than a soule only believing there may be believing where there is not this confiding As patience is hope lengthned so confidence is hope strengthned Assurance is the highest degree of faith and confidence is the highest degree of assurance It carries with it first cheerfulnesse opposite to sorrow secondly courage opposite to fear and despondency of spirit thirdly boldnesse adventurousnesse opposite to cowardice Confidence having a good cause and a good call will take a Beare by the tooth or a Lion by the beard Fourthly it notes boasting or a kinde of spirituall wise bragging opposite to sinfull modesty or concealement of what God hath done for us Or take it thus Confidence is the noblest exercise of faith which looking steadily upon God in himselfe and in Christ through the promises raises the soule above all fears and discouragements above all doubts and disquietments either about the removing of evill or the obtaining of good Hence confidence is well called the rest of the soule therefore such as attaine to confidence are said to be in peace in perfect peace Isay 26. 3. Him wilt thou establish in perfect peace whose heart doth trust upon thee And this act of confidence or trust is proper and peculiar to God no creature must share in it This is worship commanded in the first precept Thou shalt have no other Gods before mee Whatsoever we confide in unlesse it be in subordination unto God we make it our God And it is one of the highest acts of the soule not onely as we respect the taking in our own comforts but also the giving out glory unto God This confidence is well coupled with holy feare the more we feare God so the more we trust him such feare is the mother and nurse of confidence But confidence is directly contrary yea contradictory to carnall feare he that trusts God indeed leaves both soule and body temporall and eternall estate with him without ever sending a fearefull thought or a jealous looke after either It followes And the uprightnesse of thy wayes It is the word used in the description of Job Cap. 1. 1. There it is in the concrete perfect here in the abstract uprightnesse We may reade it Is not this the perfection of thy wayes
notwithstanding all these shakings Would not thy feare be thy confidence It would Hence observe First That they who feare most in times of peace have most reason Timidum esse ad â—ala patrandâ— genus est fortitudinis fiduciae to be confident in times of trouble They who feare most in one sense feare least they who feare God most feare creatures least and creature-troubles least We have this point in so many words Prov. 14. 26. In the feare of the Lord is strong confidence The feare of the Lord is the cure of all other feares They who are most fearefull of the evill of sinne are most couragious among the evills of suffering To be fearefull thus raiseth the highest acts of confidence Psal 112. 7 8. We reade of one that will not be afraid for any evill tidings his heart is fixed Who is this confident man this fearelesse man It is this divine coward as we may call him you shall finde him so express'd vers 1. Blessed is the man that feareth God he shall not be afraid for any evill tidings Exod. 20. 20. When the people of Israel were much amazed and astonished at the giving of the Law Moses comes to cure them of that feare but what is the medicine Feare not for God is come to prove you and that his feare may be before your faces that ye sinne not As if he had said when God hath put his feare into your hearts such feares as these will be removed and vanish when your hearts are filled with this feare of God you will have confidence to heare and see the thunder and lightning of Mount Sinai you shall not feare no not this terrible tempest in which the Law it selfe is given So when the people were in a feare another time Samuel thus bespeakes them in that shaking fit 1 Sam. 12. 20. Feare not onely feare the Lord. If you will be confident in such a time as this for by prayer he procured thunder and raine in that time of wheate-harvest feare the Lord. The feare of the Lord will be our confidence in the wettest day in the most tempestuous and stormy night that ever fell upon the secure sinfull world A man fearing God is the onely dread-nought Secondly We may observe from the other branch for the sense is the same And would not thy uprightnesse be thy hope The uprightnesse of a mans wayes in good times doth mightily strengthen his hope in evill times When a man can looke back and approve his heart to God that he hath been upright in peace and plenty how full of hope will he be in trouble and in wants It was that which Hezekiah pleaded before God in the day of his trouble and tryall 2 King 20. 3. I beseech thee O Lord remember how I have walked before thee in truth and with an upright and perfect heart This was it when he lay upon his sick-bed and as he thought upon his death-bed that put life into him and bare up his spirit A fourth interpretatian is taken from our reading Is not this thy feare thy confidence the uprightnesse of thy wayes and thy hope So the words containe foure distinct affrming Questions Is not this thy feare Is not this thy confidence Is not this the uprightnesse of thy wayes and is not this thy hope This is thy feare c. As if Eliphaz had said Job without doubt thou hast shewed all thy goodnesse at once or Is not this all that thou art able to make out and shew Is not this all that thou canst say for all the testimony thou canst give of thy religion and holinesse Hast thou not shewed all Surely thy great boast of Religion is nothing but this Eliphaz seemes to call Job to make a further or cleerer proofe of his grace Is not this thy feare or if this be not shew me somewhat else Thou art a man very famous in the world much talked of and highly commended for feare and for confidence for uprightnesse and for hope what hast thou more to answer that report and save thy own credit with the credit of thy friends who have been so large in their commendations of and testimonies concerning thee Note hence First Afflictions discover that unto us which before we knew not Is not this thy feare thou diddest not know of what make or constitution thy feare was untill now That 's Eliphaz his supposition and it is a truth That some hypocrites know not that their graces are false till they are brought to such tryals They carry false counterfeit coine about them and suppose it currant money till they come to the ballance or a touch-stone Some are active hypocrites who go about intentionally to deceive and put a faire mask over a filthy face Others are passive hypocrites who are miserably deceived by the collusions of Satan and the base treachery of their own spirits Many a man is brought to see which before he could not by reason of those mists of hypocrisie what his feare is what his faith by those changes which affliction works in him Secondly thus We ought to make our graces visible in our actions Is not this thy feare Shew me what thy feare is if this be not make proofe of it The Apostle bids Timothy 2 Tim. 4. 5. Make full proofe of his Ministery It may be said to some Ministers is not this your Ministery if it be not make full proofe of it Or as the Apostle James in a case neere this James 2. 14. 18. Shew me thy faith by thy workes so we may say Shew me thy feare by thy workes Is not this it if it be not make it appeare what it is The tree is knowne by the fruits doe men gather grapes of thornes or figgs of thistles or doe men gather crabs from vines or sloes from figg-trees As an evill tree cannot bring forth good fruit so neither doth a good tree bring forth evill fruit If thou sayest thou art a vine make proofe of it by the fruit thou bearest or else I must conclude thou art but a thorne or a thistle We may question many for this grace and for the other grace they pretend unto For their actions have not the least print or impression of such graces upon them If any one should hold forth much faith and confidence in God and this man should run or take unlawfull courses to helpe himselfe might we not say Is this thy confidence Or if one speaking much of confidence in God for the accomplishing of a businesse should yet sit still and doe nothing himselfe might we not say Is this thy confidence this is to tempt God not to trust in him Once more if a man should professe much confidence in God and yet be taken up altogether about the creature swallowed up with creature-thoughts or swallowing in creature-delights seeking to and engaging this creature and that creature with neglect of God may we not say Is this thy confidence Hope is an anchor of
speaking to me Thus it suits well with what he said at the 12 Verse Now a thing was secretly brought unto me And we may further clear it by that 1 Kings 19. 12. where the expression is of the same importance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vox sabtilis silentii dulce susurrum vox sine sono here we have silence and a voice there after the noise of a great winde and of an Earthquake it is said that Elijah heard as some render it the voice of a subtile fine slender attenuated silence or as we translate a still small voice a sweet ravishing whisper a voice without a sound Hence we have a kinde of musick which in our common language we call still musick A twofold reason may be given why the Lord spake as it were in silence First that the secret manner of speaking might be an Argument that the matter spoken was a secret a mystery not common or ordinary Secondly to dispose the hearer to receive it with more care reverence and attention A man must set himselfe to heare with diligence while another speaks with silence A loud voice findes us out comes to us but we must come to a low voice and finde that out When the Speaker takes least pains with his tongue the hearer must take most pains with his eare And this manner of speaking was used by the ancient Heathen in their mysterious Oracles and Revelations As when God revealed a secret he spake secretly and as it were whispered those truths in the eare whispering is speaking within one degree of silence so the Devill who imitates God in what he can that he may draw credit unto his own deceivings is described in his instruments to speak thus Isa 8. 19. When they shall say unto you seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto Wizards that peep and that mutter they speak as it were silently they onely whisper their diabolicall incantations and lying impostures And Isa 29. Thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground and thy speech shall be low out of the dust and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar Spirit out of the ground and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust The Prophet in this alludes to the manner of Witches and Inchanters who had familiar Spirits which he here applyes in a threat unto the people the time shall come that you shall be brought down by your enemies that you shall speak out of the ground you shall lye at their feet like poore captives that cry submissively and pitifully for quarter O mercy mercy spare my life that 's the thing aimed at by the Prophet that God would abase them so before their enemies that they should whisper out of the ground to their enemies for pity as a Witch whispers from the ground to her miserable Clients who come for counsel Tertullian in his Apologetick describes the heathen Magitians thus they speak belohing and gasping humming and hawing rather then speaking The old Poet cals this Poppisme by which sortes ducent frontemque ma numque Praebebit vati crebrum poppisma petenti Juvenal Auruspâ—â—es de circo ex orâ—s pressi sono quod poppisma dicitur fuâ—u a colligebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word he shews how their Idol Prophets answered the deluded people their miserable Clients when they came for counsell To which the Hebrew word Tâ—sipht saph used by Isaiah in the eighth Chapter before cited is very like both in sound and sense There yet another interpretation of these words more proper and answerable to our translation There was silence and I heard a voice saying This referres the silence to Eliphaz as a preparation to his hearing the voice there was silence that is I stood still and spake never a word but waited to heare what should be spoken I was silent and all things about me wâ—re husht and silent too Then I heard a voice and so Junius gâ—osses Being saith he compos'd and strengthned a little after my former fear I attended Me â—ontinebaâ— tacitus expectans revelationem silently to the Spirit that I might hear what should be spoken unto me We reade Rev. 8. 1. that there was silence in Heaven for halfe an houre and Verse 5 we reade of voices and thunderings before those great voices there was great silence usually before great speaking there is great silence I was silent and all were husht then I heard a voice silence prepares for audience In Congregations before the Preacher begins all hold their peace In Courts of justice when the Judge is to speak the Crier cals for silence It was a usuall word amongst the rites of the Heathen Favour your tongues or spare your speech when the mysteries of their superstition were Favete linguis revealed we may take the present Text in this sense that Eliphaz set himselfe in a silent posture to attend the message which was to be revealed unto him There was silence and I heard a voice saying If we take the former interpretation then for as much as Eliphaz after those terrours and tremblings the shaking of his bones and standing up of his haire the confused form of a spirit and an amazing Image before his eyes for as much I say as after all these he hears a still silent voice We may observe That God after terrours usually sends in comfort and refreshings God having terrified Elijah by a mighty rushing winde in the vision before noted by an Earthquake which brake the Rocks and by a fire then comes as here in the Text a still small voice a voice of silence and God was in that voice It is put as a principall distinction amongst the Ancients to know whether a revelation were from a good Angel or from a bad Angel When a revelation was made by a good Angel though he fill'd the heart with fear at the beginning of his speech yet he gave comfort in the end and closed with in consolation We may observe in those revelations such heartning chearing language as this Be not afraid be of good chear so to Daniel so to John so to Zechariah so to Mary so to Gideon But when a revelation was made by an evill Angel or by a Witch as it filled the hearers with feare so it left them full of feare it wounded them with terrours and it applyed no cure no playster nothing medicinable to heale those terrours We finde indeed 1 Sam. 28 that when Saul consulted with the Witch of Endor as soon as the Spirit appeared it is said that the Witch her selfe was afraid and there is no mention made of Sauls being afraid at the first so that Saul fals a comforting the Witch and said to her be not afraid She was afraid not of the Spirit that appeared but of Saul because he had made a law against Witches and hence Saul comforts her in assurance of impunity notwithstanding that sinne both against the law of God and his
one commended and approved from the mouth of God for a man perfect and upright should be thus afflicted what Shall weake Job be justified before God Yea though Job be considered in his greenest flourishings of grace and highest pitch of his prosperity as he was Geber indeed the greatest the mightiest man in the Easterne world yet shall he be more pure than his Maker No cease your complainings God is just and his honour must be vindicated in what he doth or in what he shall doe against the weakest or against the mightiest against the meanest or against the best of men God will be found just and man a lyar Either of these three senses are faire from the construction of the Text and may be profitable for us I shall therefore draw them down into five or six conclusions which will be at least a portion of that marrow and fatnesse which this Scripture yeilds us to feed upon First we may observe That man naturally preferreth himselfe not onely above other men but even before God himselfe A principle of pride dwels in our hearts by nature which at some times and in some cases breeds better thoughts in us of our selves than of God himselfe And it is this height of spirit which the heavenly vision here would levell to the ground We know it was the first sin of man that man desired to be like God Gen. 3. The first temptation was baited with a parity to the Divine powers Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evill This also was the language of Lucifers heart Thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the starres of God I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds I will be like the most high I say â—4 13 14. And the practise of the man of sinne is thus prophesied That he shall exalt himselfe above all that is called God 2 Thess 2. 4. But the heart of man is yet more mad and hath out-growne those sinfull principles For in troubles and temptations when things go not according to his minde he sometimes hath thoughts not only that he is like God but that he is more just than God and if he had the ordering of things he would order them better than God he sometime thinks himselfe juster than God and if he had the punishing of offenders justice should proceed more freely and impartially than it doth which is upon the matter not onely to exalt himself as the Man of Sin doth above Nuncupative Gods or all that is called God but to exalt himself above him who is God by nature above the onely one-most God Even to speak in this Dialect of highest blasphemy that he is more just than God more pure than his Maker Secondly Take this conclusion That it is a most high presumption not onely for low weak man but for the best the highest of men to compare themselves with God or to have any thoughts concerning his wayes as if they could mend them When God cals us to amend our wayes for us to presume we could amend Gods wayes is the very top branch the highest tower yea the most towring Pinnacle of presumption We say amongst men that comparisons are odious but this is the most odious comparison of all for a man to compare himselfe with God his thoughts with Gods thoughts what he hath done or would doe with what God doth If you consider the termes of opposition that are in the Text this conclusion will be more clear unto you Consider how Enosh weak mortall man is opposite to Elohah the mighty the strong God it is presumption for a weak man to compare with a strong man what presumption is it then for a weake man to compare with the mighty God for a reed to compare in strength with a rock for darknesse to compare with light for a cloud to compare with the Sunne for death to compare with life for folly to compare with wisdome for uncleanenesse to compare with holinesse for nothing to compare with All how presuptuous Will ye provoke the Lord saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 10. are ye stronger than he It implies that some such thoughts lodge in man as if he could make his partie good with God or might be stronger than he And it is equall folly in us and provocation against the Lord to thinke our selves juster as to thinke our selves stronger than he And then marke the other termes of opposition Man and his Maker Shall the great man compare with or be more pure than his Maker as if he should say How great and excellent soever this man is he was made and made by God with whom he thus compares than whom he thinks himselfe more pure And shall the thing formed stand upon termes with him that formed it shall the potsheard or the pot contend with the Potter what though it be an excellent vessell a vessell determined for the most excellent ends and uses yet whatsoever it is it was made to be and made to be by God both in its constitution and uses Shall it then boast it selfe against its maker The Lord made Geber as well as Enosh the strong man as well as the weake the wise and learned man as well as the foolish and ignorant the Noble as well as the base the holy and righteous as well as the wicked and prophane In a word the vessels of honour are as much yea more of his making than the vessels of dishonour shall they then be more pure than their Maker hath the Lord given more to others than he hath in himselfe hath he made a creature his superior or his Peere hath his bounty impaired his own stock or hath he made man more than God That God hath made the best out of the dust is enough to lay all our pride and boasting as low as the dust That what we are we are from another should ever keep us humble in our selves Thirdly Take this Conclusion That God in himselfe is most just and pure Shall mortall man be more just than God The question hath this position in it that God is infinitely just infinitely pure therefore he is perfectly pure perfectly just God is essentiall Justice essentiall purity Justice and purity are not qualities in God but they are his very nature A man may be a man and yet be unjust but God cannot be God and be unjust A man may be a man and yet impure but God cannot be God and be impure so that Justice and purity are not qualities or accidents in God but his very essence and being destroy or deny the purity and Justice of God and you put God out of the world as much as in you lies for he cannot be God unlesse he be both just to others and pure in himselfe Fourthly Take this conclusion The best men compared with God are evill and the holiest are impure Not onely is it presumption but a lye for men to compare with God
and more perfect then those in his house on Earth yet it is a higher act of grace to desire to live to praise God then to be willing to dye that we may praise him because in this we deny our selves most Praysing God on earth is a work as well as a reward but praising God in Heaven is a reward rather then a work And we put forth the most spirituall acts of grace when we cheerfully goe on with a work which we know stands betweene us and the best part of our reward But I returne to the Text. They perish for ever without any regarding or without any laying it to heart The word heart is not in the mouth but it is in the heart of this Scripture For the sense is paralell with that Esay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Absque apponente Pereunt eoquòd nemo opponat eis medicinam 57. The righteous perish and no man layes it to heart The Chaldee gives a strange glosse They perish or dye because no man giveth them medicine as if he had said there is no Physitian can give an Antidote against death or by any medicines prolong mans life It is a truth that the decayes and ruines of Nature will at last exceed the repairs of Art but this glosse hath little regard to the text which we translate well They perish without any regarding it that is none or very few regarding it The negative is not absolutely universall excluding all as if there were none in the world who take notice of the shortnesse and frailty of mans life or of his for ever perishing condition So in that place of Isaiah the righteous perish and no man layes it to heart that is there are very few scarce any to be found who lay to heart in comparison of the number which neglect the death of righteous men Observe hence Few of the living regard how suddenly others do or themselves may dye Till we see a friend gasping and dying till we see him bedewed with cold sweats and rackt with Convulsions till our eye thus affects our hearts our hearts are seldome affected with the sense of our mortality It is one reason why Solomon advises to go to the house of mourning Eccles 7. It is better to goe to the house of mourning then to the house of mirth for saith he that is the way of all men all must dye and the living will lay it to heart or the living will regard it As if he had said the living seldom lay death to heart till they come to the house of death He seems to promise for the living that then they wil yet his undertaking is not so strict as if every man that goes to the house of mourning did certainly lay it to heart but he speaks probably that if living man will at any time lay death to heart then surely he will when he goes to the house of mourning When will a man think of death if not when he sees death and looks into that dark chamber of the grave There are many who lay it to heart only then for a fit at a Funerall they have a passion of the heart about mortality And very many have gone so often to the house of mourning that they are growne familiar with death and the frequency of those meetings take off all impressions of mortality from their hearts As we say of those Birds that build roost in steeples being used to the continuall ringing of the bels the sound disquiets them not or as those that dwel near the fall of the river Nylus the noise of the water deafens them so that they minde it not Many have been so often at the grave that now the grave is worn out of their hearts they look upon it as a matter of custome and formality for men to dye and be buried and when the solemnity of death is over the thoughts of death are over as soone as the grave is out of their sight preparations for the grave are out of mind It is storied 2 Sam. 20. 12. that when Amasa was slain by Joab and lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the high way every one that came by him stood still but anon Amasa is removed out of the high way into the field a cloth cast upon him then the text saith all the people went on after Joab It is so still we make a stop at one that lyes gasping and groaning at one that lyes bleeding and dying but let a cloth be throwne over him and he draw aside put into the grave and covered with earth then we goe to our businesse to trading and dealing yea to coveting and sinning as if the last man that ever should be were buried Thus men perish for ever without any regarding If this kinde of perishing were more regarded or regarded by more fewer would perish Thoughts of death spiritualliz'd have life in them thoughts of death laid to the heart are a good medicine for an evil heart It followes Verse 21. Doth not their excellency which is in them go away they dye even without wisdome This Verse as I noted in the begining prevents an objection which might be made as if man had wrong done him and that it were too great a diminution to his honour whom God made the chief creature in the inferiour world and but little inferiour to Angels themselves that he should be looked upon only as a heape of dust or a lumpe of clay as a mortall momentany perishing creature therefore he grants that man hath an excellency but all the excellency that he hath whether naturall or artificiall bred in him or acquired by him as a man when he goes goes too Doth not their excellency which is in them go away or journieth not their excellency with them as Mr. Broughton translates alluding to our passing out of the world as in a journey when a man dies he takes a journey out of the world he goes out for ever and saith he doth not his excellency journey along with him yes the question affirmes it when man goes his excellency goes too The word Jether which we translate excellency signifies primarily a residue or a remaine and that two ways First a residue of persons Judges 7. 6. But all the rest of the people bowed downe on their knees to drink water So the vulgar understands it here They who are left after them shall be taken away from them namely their heirs or posterity Secondly it signifies a residue of things Ps 17. 14. where describing worldly men who have their portion in this life he saith their bellies are fill'd with hid treasure they are also full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes Thus others take it here Doth not the wealth and riches which men leave when they dye dye also and go away as their persons are mortall so are their estates there is a moth will eat both And Iather quod est
he sees some good he hath above himselfe This passion is a murderer also it begins at the eyes but it rots down into the bones Envy slayeth the silly one There is not much difference between the nature of these two the foolish man and the silly one But the Originall words by which they are expressed are very different The roote signifies to perswade to intice or allure And it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sua sus per sua sus dâ—â—eptus seductus fuit hâ—nc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sua deo apud Grecos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Japheth le Jaâ—heâ—h is taken sometime in a good sense as in Gen. 9. 27. where the Holy Ghost speakes with admirable elegancy God will perswade the perswadable we translate it God will perswade Japhet Japhet had his name from being perswaded or perswadable God shall intice or perswade Japhet which was a prophecie of the calling of the Gentiles who are descendants from Japhet as the Jewes are from Shem. So that word is applied to Gods drawing or alluring men by the sweet promises and winning enticements of the Gospell God doth let it be taken in holy reverence tole men on by promises and deceive them graciously into the Gospell Hos 2. 14. I will allure her and bring her into the wildernesse And because by perswasions men are often deceived and seduced to evill therefore the word signifies also to deceive and beguile as well as to perswade and in the passive to be beguiled and deceived Hence the word in the text is derived which we translate a simple one or a man that will easily be perswaded led by another a sequatious or easie man whom you may carry with a mouth full of good words and faire promises whether you will Yet we finde this word Psal 116. 6. used in a good sense for a man without sinfull guile and craft a simple honest plaine-hearted man The Lord preserveth the simple But here and often else-where it is taken in an ill sence for a man without sence and reason without heart and spirit a man that cannot in any competency judge of things or make out his way but is meerly led and lives upon the opinion and judgement of another To such wisdome cryeth without and uttereth her voyce in the streets how long yee simple ones will ye love simplicity Prov. 1. 20 22. This silly one envie slayeth Exiguo animo abjecto spiritu He is out of his wits already and a little matter will put him out of his life Envy slayeth him that is a simple man looking upon the prosperity and blessings of God upon his neighbour will needs afflict himselfe he lookes upon himselfe as having lost all if that man gaine he fals if his brother stands and can with more ease die miserably then see another live happily In this sense it is That envie kils the silly one Now the reason why Eliphaz speakes of these two the foolish and the simple one and characters them as dying by the hand of these two lusts wrath and envie is because he conceived all Jobs troubled and as he thought muddy complaints in the third Chapter arose from these two impure and filthy springs wrath and envie from proud wrath and impotent envie he looked upon him as angry and displeased yea as enraged because God had dealt so ill with him and he supposed he saw him pale and wanne eaten up and pined with envie because others were so well because his friends enjoyed health lived in prosperity round about him As if he had said Thou art wroth at thy owne povertie sicknesse and sores and thou art envious at our plentie health and ease And may not folly and simplicitie challenge that man for Theirs whose spirit thus resents either his own evils or his neighbours good Observe hence First Every wicked man is a foolish a silly man Sinne is pure folly In the Proverbs all along wickednesse is the Interpretation of foolishnesse It is folly to take brasse Counters for gold and to be pleased with Bugles more then with Diamonds When an heyre is impleaded for an Ideot the Judge commands an apple or a counter with a peece of gold to be set before him to try which he will take if he takes the apple or the counter and leaves the gold he is then cast for a foole and unable to mannage his estate for he knows not the value of things or how to make a true election Wicked men are thus foolish and more for when bugles and diamonds counters and gold are before them they leave the diamonds and the gold and please themselves with those toyes and bables when which is infinitely more sottish Heaven and hell life and death are set before them they chuse hell rather then Heaven and death rather then life they take the meane transitory trifling things of the world before the favour of God the pardon of finne a part in Jesus Christ and an inheritance among the Saints in light All the wisdome of wicked men is wisdome in their owne conceits And Solomon assures us that there is more hope of a foole then of such that is of those who are sensible of their owne failings and are willing as the Apostle directs to become fooles that they may be wise 1 Cor. 3. 18. Opinion in it selfe is weake but self-opinion is very strong even the strongest of those strong-holds and the highest of those high Towers which the spirituall warre by those weapons which are mightie through God is to oppose and cast down which till they are cast down these fooles are impregnable and will not be led captive unto Christ Secondly observe That to vex and to be angerie at the troubles that fall upon us or at the hand which sends them is a high point of folly and of ignorance Wrath and discontent slay the foolish such are at once twice slain slain with the wrath of God and with their own To die thus is to die like a foole indeed For first this wrath of man springs from his ignorance of God Man would not be angry at what the Lord doth if he knew he were the Lord and may doe what himselfe pleases The ground of anger is a supposition of wrong Secondly This wrath of man springs from ignorance of himselfe He cannot be angry with any crosse who rightly knows himselfe First to be a creature This notion of our selves teaches us that lesson of humility to be subject to the will of our Creatour The law of our creation cals us to all passive obedience as well as unto active as much and as quietly to suffer as to doe the will of God But especially if a man did fully know himselfe to be a sinfull creature he would not be angry yea he would lay a charge upon his mouth not to utter a word and a charge upon his heart not to utter a thought against what the Lord doth with him I will beare the
Indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him saith the Church Micah 7. 9. As if she had said the remembrance of my sinne takes away all pleading much more all quarrelling in how angry a posture soever the Lord sets himselfe to afflict me And therefore my spirit is resolved that because my flesh hath sinned my flesh shall beare the indignation of the Lord. He that knowes what it is to sinne knowes that all sufferings lâ—sse then hell are lâ—sse then sinne If a man were convinced of this that what he beares is lesse then his sinne deserves he would beare it with thanks not with complaints Irascitur quia omnia sibi ceberi puâ—at Yea he would say that as he hath deserved all these and more then all these stroakes so he hath need of them The bundle of folly in his heart cals for a bundle of rods upon his backe and he sees want of correction might have been his undoing Therefore to be angry with affliction argues a man ignorant of himselfe as a creature much more as a sinfull creature Once more the foolishnesse of such wrath appeares to the eye of nature and common reason because this wrath brings no ease or remedy at all to those wounds but rather makes them more painfull if not remedilesse It is an argument of folly to doe a thing whereby we cannot helpe our selves but it is folly and madnesse to doe that which hurts which makes our wound fester and our disease grow desperate Did any man ever ease himselfe by fretting or raging under the crosse How many have made their crosse more heavie upon them by raging at it A mans owne wrath is heavier to him then his crosse A stone is heavie and sand weightie but a fooles wrath is heavier then them both Prov. 27. 3. A fooles wrath is very heavie to others but it is heaviest to himselfe The text is expresse for it which may be a third observation To be angry and discontent at Gods judgements is more destructive to us then the judgements themselves The wrath and judgements of God afflict onely but your owne wrath destroyes wrath slayes the foolish Probably God came onely to correct you but wrath kils you The wrath of man is a passion but it is very active upon man and eats up the spirit which nurses and brings it forth Frowardnesse and anger are at once our sinne and our torment He that is angry when God strikes strikes himselfe whereas humble submission to the blow turnes it into a kisse or an embrace and they that sit downe quietly and believingly under any evill beare it at present with more ease and in the end find it in the inventory of their goods So David It is good for me that I have been afflicted Fourthly note That to envie another mans good or prosperity is an argument of the worst simplicitie Envy slayeth the silly one Envie is a common theame I will not stay upon it but shall onely give you two reasons to demonstrate the silly simplicity of an envious person 1. The good of another is not thy hurt thou hast not the lesse because another hath more Leah's fruitfulnesse was no cause of Rachels barrennesse Thy portion is not impaired by thy brothers increase thou hast thy share and he hath but his how silly a thing then is it to envie him that hath much vvhen as his having much is not the cause why thou hast little Againe this troubling thy selfe that others have more will not get thee any more envie never brought in earnings or encrease 2. A man of wisedome will make all the good of another his good Take away envie and that vvhich is mine is thine and if I take away envie that vvhich is thine is mine To have a heart to blesse God for his blessings upon another is it selfe a great blessing and gives thee likewise a part in those blessings Thus we may enjoy all the joyes and comforts the favours and deliverances the Tolle invidiam quod meum est tuum est si ego tollam itvidiaÌ„ quod tuuÌ„ est meum est health and peace the riches and plenty the gifts yea and the very graces of all those in vvhose graces and gifts plenty and riches peace and health c. We can really and cordially rejoyce Whereas an envious man ever stands in his own light and cannot rejoyce in his own mercies for grieving at his Brothers So farre of the second part of the argument whereby Eliphaz would convince Job of wickednesse his likenesse to the wicked in bearing of or rather fretting against his troubles JOB Chap. 5. Vers 3 4 5. I have seen the foolish taking root but suddenly I cursed his habitation His children are far from safety and they are crushed in the gate neither is there any to deliver them Whose harvest the hungry eateth up and taketh it even out of the thorns and the robber swalloweth up their substance TWo parts of the fourth argument were cleared in the two former verses In these three Eliphaz argues further to the same effect His argument is grounded upon his own experience which had shewed many examples of foolish men like Job as he supposed both in his rising and in his falling in his good days and in his evill I have seen the foolish taking root and suddenly I cursed his habitation c. The argument may be thus framed Foolish men flourish a while and then come to certaine and sudden destruction they and their children and their estates are all crushed and swallowed up But thou didst flourish a while and grow up like some goodly tree yet sudden destruction came upon thy children and upon thy estate the robbers have consumed and swallowed all up Therefore thou art foolish c. I have seen the foolish taking root but suddenly I cursed his habitation I have seen thee taking root and I observe thy habitation cursed Thy outward condition is so paralell with theirs that I know not how to distinguish thee from them in thy inward and spirituall condition I have seen the foolish taking root Eliphaz urgeth experience He urged experience in the fourth Chapter v. 8. Even as I have seen they that plow iniquity and sow wickednesse reap the same c. He urgeth experience here againe and this superadded experience seemes to answer an objection which might be made against that former experience For some might say many wicked men plow iniquity enough and sow wickednesse abundantly yet they reap comforts and the contentments of this world they have what their hearts desire a full harvest of riches pleasures and honours It is true saith Eliphaz I grant it I have observed the like also I have seen the foolish taking root yea but I can answer quickly and remove this objection it doth not at all weaken my former assertion grounded upon that experience for as I have seen him take root so suddenly I cursed his habitation his children are far
of presumption against God We may commit a doubtfull cause to God desiring that he would try and examine whether it be good or bad But we must not commit a doubtfull cause to God desiring him to protect it or us in it whether it be good or bad And if in this sence we may not commit a doubtfull cause to God What shall we thinke of those who shall dare to commit an openly unjust and wicked cause to God A wicked mans prayer is alwayes sinfull but how abominable is it when he prayes to be prospered or directed in acting his sin or to be strengthned in suffering impenitently for his sin There is no gracious act but a wicked man at one time or other will imitate He will pray and repent and forgive and commit his cause to God and when he dyes commit his soule to God There is no trusting to a mouth full of good words while the heart will not empty it selfe of wickednesse It is good alwayes to commit our cause and our soules to God but a cause or a soule are not therefore good because committed unto God The language of Israel is often spoken by the men of Ashdod And many who never had the least part of holinesse in them can yet set themselves when there is no remedie to act a part in it The Apostle Peter gives us this rule 1 Epist 4. 19. Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their soules to him in well-doing as unto a faithfull Creatour Except we suffer according to the will or from the hand of God and also doe well in our sufferings Christ will not admit this Feofement though we commit our selves to him he will not accept the trust But he that suffers according to or by the will of God and doth well in suffering that is hath a good cause and a good conscience He I say may commit all to God and in the mercy of the most High he shall not miscarry Lastly Whereas Eliphaz saith I would seeke unto God were I in thy case observe That It is a wise course in advising others to shew our selves readie to follow the same advise It wins exceedingly upon others to take our counsell when it appeares we are ready to follow the same counsell our selves We ought to doe nothing unto others but what we would have done unto our selves and we should advise nothing to others but what we our selves would doe It puts strength into a rule when he that gives it is ready to enliven it by his owne practice As a Physitian for the encouragement of his patient to take a nauseous medicine will say to him Sir you seeme unwilling to drinke it but if I were sicke and distempered as you are I would drinke it readily and that you may see there is no hurt in it I will tast a little my selfe His tasting sweetens it and the patient likes it well Thus when either Minister or private friend offers advise or counsell and shall say thus I would doe this I would follow This takes upon the heart whereas it disparages prayer or any duty to say to another Seeke unto God put your case unto him fast and pray When he that gives the counsell neglects all these duties and is carelesse of communion with God Christ saith of the Pharisees that they bound heavy burthens upon the shoulders of others These burdens were counsels and directions rules and canons they would have men doe thus and thus in the manner of Gods worship or daily converse with men But They themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers Mat. 23. 4. That is they would not practise them in the least degree As to do evil with both hands Mic. 7. 3. notes the highest degree both of desire endeavour in doing evill So not to touch that which is good with a finger notes a total neglect of doing good A finger is the least member and a Touch is the least act then these Pharisees not touching with a finger imports they did not act at all It is good to act a rule privately by way of experiment before we put it upon others but it is most necessary to act it by way of example when we have published it to and press'd it upon others It was a speech of one of the Ancients I never taught my people any thing but what I had first practised and experimented my selfe Doctrine is sooner followed by the eye then by the eare He that like the Scribes and pharisees Mat. 23. 3. saith and doth not shall find but few to doe what he saith No man ought to teach any thing which he is not willing as he is call'd to doe and observe himselfe It is very sinfull to give counsell which we will not take Our works ought to be the practise of our words and as practicable as our words Woe unto those of whom it may be said as Christ of the Pharisees Mat. 23. 3. Whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and doe but doe not ye after their works JOB Chap. 5. Vers 9. Which doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number c. THis context unto the 17 verse containes the second argument by which Eliphaz strengthneth his former Exhortation To seeke unto God and to commit his cause unto him The argument may be thus formed He is to be sought unto both in duty and in wisdome and unto him our cause is to be committed who is of absolute infinite power wisdome and goodnesse But God is of absolute infinite power wisdome and goodnesse Therefore it is our duty and our wisdome to seeke unto God and unto God to commit our cause That God is infinite in power wisdome and goodnesse Eliphaz proves by an enumeration or induction of divers effects and works which call for infinite power wisdome and goodnesse to produce and actuate them These effects are laid down first in generall v. 9. Who doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number Then these works or effects are given in particulars and the first particular instance of Gods mighty power is in naturall things or his preservation of the world at the 10 verse Who giveth raine upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields The second instance is given in civill things or his administrations in the world at the 12 13 14. verses And that we may consider two wayes 1. In destroying the counsels and plots of the wicked in the 12 13 and 14. verses He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot performe their enterprise c. 2. In delivering those who are in trouble at the 15. verse He saveth the poore from the Sword c. These are works of Power Further the goodnesse of God shines forth in two things 1. By the present intendment or end aimed at in these mighty works ver 11. To set up on high those that be low that those which mourne may
after and he may say Can I any more doe those things I am not what I was my power is gone But come to God after he hath done this or that and a thousand great things he will not say can I helpe you any more can I deliver you any more can I destroy your enemies can I discover their plots and counsels any more yes Lord as thy works are unsearchable so they are innumerable and thou canst doe them for evermore The Lord saith sometime to a people as he did to Israel Judg. 10. 13. in anger I will deliver you no more But he never saith to any people out of weaknesse I can deliver you no more Psal 78. The people provoked God by making a question of this ver 20. Behold say they he smote the rock that the waters gushed out and the streames overflowed we acknowledge that God hath done a marvell but can he give bread also can he provide flesh for his people surely he cannot doe this marvell also what saith the text The Lord heard this and was wroth so a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also came up against Israel What doe you think that I can doe but one great thing that I have but one blessing but one deliverance but one wonder Know that I who smote the rock can provide you flesh I who gave you water can give you bread I who have discovered one wicked plot of the enemy can discover all I who have given you one victory can give you a thousand I who have given you one deliverance can give you innumerable deliverances Therefore take heed of setting bounds to God of limiting the Holy one of Israel Men love not to be limited but God ought not We at once provoke and dishonour the Lord by thinking that our wants can renew faster then his supplies or that our innumerable evills shall not find innumerable good things to ballance or remove them from the hand of God We weary men when we come often to them to doe great things for us yea to come often for small matters will weary men But we never weary the Lord by comming often we weary God only when we will not come often How doth the Prophet not only complaine but expostulate because that unbelieving King wearied God take it with reverence by not setting him aworke and that about the hardest and most knotty peece of work that can be the working of a miracle and that as hard a one as himselfe would aske either in the depth beneath or in the height above Is it a small thing with you to weary men but will ye weary my God also Isa 7. 13. It is no wearinesse to God to doe innumerable miracles for us but he is weary when we will not believe he can doe them To be distrusted the doing of one is more laborious to God then to doe a million of Miracles To conclude this take heed above all that you limit not God in works of spirituall mercy As to feare to aske pardon of sin because ye have asked it often His great works of forgivenesse are as much without number as any of his works He multiplies to pardon saith the Prophet Isa 55. 7. And when the people of Israel had committed a new sin it is admirable to reade by what argument Moses moves the Lord for pardon It is not this as usually with men Lord this is the first fault Lord thou hast not been often troubled to signe their pardon But pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of this people as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt untill now Numb 14. 19. as if he had said Lord because thou hast pardoned them so often therefore I beseech thee pardon them now It is a most wicked argument to move our hearts to sin because God will pardon often but when we have sinned it is a holy argument to move God to pardon againe because he hath pardoned often before For he pardons without number Secondly Seeing God doth innumerable great things for us let not us be satisfied in doing a few things at the command and for the glory of God Let us continue in acts of holinesse charity humility zeale and thankfulnesse without number Let us never stand reckoning our duties when we heare the mercies of God are beyond reckoning It is a noble rule in our friendship with men That curtesies must not be counted I am sure it is a holy rule in our obedience to God That duties must not be counted God hath no need of any one of our good works but he will not beare it if we think we have done enow or can doe too many Let out Amicitia non est reducenda ad ealculos Obediantia non est reducenda ad calculos hearts be like the heart of God as he doth great things for us let us doe in what we are able great things for God and good things for one another without number So much in generall of the proofe of Gods power by the Greatnesse c. of his works JOB Chap. 5. Vers 10 11 12. Who giveth raine upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields To set upon high those that be low that those which mourne may be exalted to safty He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise c. THis Context from the 9. to the 17. verse containes the second argument by which Eliphaz strengthens his exhortation upon Job to seek unto God The argument speakes to this efect He is to be sought and unto him our cause is to be committed who is of absolute power infinite in wisedome and goodnesse But such is God Therefore seeke to him and commit thy cause unto him That God is of infinite power wisedome c. was proved in generall at the 9. verse by those foure adjuncts of his works Great unsearchable marvellous and without number And now at the 10. verse he begins his proofe by an enumeration of the particular effects of Gods power wisedome and goodnesse The first instance is in naturall things God doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number And would you know what those things are You need not goe farre to enquire there are things very neere unto us and very common among us which yet if they be well looked unto will advance the power wisedome and goodnesse of God Every shower of raine drops down this truth that God doth great things He giveth raine upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Generale nomen est ad quamcunque plaviam Non desunt qui puâ—ant cognationeÌ„ habere cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod est humectari quòd pluvia liquesanâ—at humectet dissolvat dura Mercer fields There is not any difficulty about the meaning of these words which calls for stay in opening of them Therefore in briefe The Hebrew word for Raine in out letters Matar is so neere in
sister and I have prevailed and she called his name Napthali The Hebrew is with wrastlings of God that is divine and vehement wrastlings As if she had said I have used great and earnest endeavours both with God in prayer and all other meanes as a wrastler by might and flight to obtaine these blessings given before to my sister and now I have prevailed And it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No â—â—ne liteâ—â—sâ— gâ—minatis uâ— insignis vafricies quâ—si duplicaâ—a caâ—â—ditâ—s signifâ—â—etur Conâ—oâ—tuplâ—catus is observeable that the Hebrews call an extraordinary cunning wrastler Pethalthol which is this word doubled in the latter syllable because he is a man of a double or extraordinary skill in wrastling the word is doubled and so it expresses one that is double witted or that hath craft enough for two or three though not honesty enough for one And this word is applied to the Lord himself Psal 18. 26. * Vâ—iur hoc veâ—bo ut indicetur maxima quaedam invicta Dei quasi distorâ—io implâ—â—atio sacra caliditas adversus pravos calidos distortos q. d. adversus Cretensès cretiz at Deus cum vafro luctatorevare luctatur Deus supplantatores supplantaâ— with the froward thou wilt shew thy selfe froward that is If men will be winding and turning and thinking to catch others or over-reach the Lord himselfe with tricks and turnings of wit the Lord will meet and answer them in their own kind he can turne as fast as they he can put himselfe into such intricate labyrinths of infinite wisdome and sacred craft as shall entangle and ensuare the most cunning wrastâ—er or tumbler of them all He will Cretize the Cretians supplant the supplaâ—tâ—rs of his people Some of the Greekes * Olymprodorus vertit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hominâ—s varios nodosoâ— imâ—licitos intricatos interpret this elegantly by a word in that language noting a thing that hath many knots folds or twists wreathes or plaits in it as plaited haire or a folded garment thereby shadowing out men like a serpent of knotted twisted enfolded spirits men who wreath and plaite their actions so closely and artificially that few can understand or tell what to make of them or where to find them The counsels of these cunning intricate froward men Are carried headlong It is very observeable Isa 44. 25. how the Prophet threatneth that the counsels of the wise shall be turned backward And here their counsels shall be carried headlong that is froward God hath wayes of all sorts to crosse ungodly policies he turns them sometime backward and sometime forward by both or either they are disappointed Counsels are turned backward when the event is quite crosse to the designe or the motion of things to the resolutions of the mind As if a man purposing to goe Eastward should be turned about he knowes not how with his face into the West Counsels are carried headlong when Omne consilium aâ—ta um in seâ—â—â—naâ—â—one est stultitia Rab. Sol. they goâ— too fast forward and make so much haste on in their way that they tire and are out of breath or stumble and breake themselves before they can attaine their journies end The Originall word signifâ—â—s to hasten and thence to be precipitate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a radiâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accelâ—rare festinare aâ—q inde praecipitem esse impruden tem stultum tam prudentia tranquilâ—â—aâ—e deliberatione gaudet Eruto impeturuunt in suâ—m pestem Coc. rash or foolish in counsell Prudence uses to goe softly wisdome keeps a kind of state in her pace and loves to goe step by step not headlong A prudent man sets his head before his feet his head goes before his feet in consultation but he loves to goe upon his feet not upon his head in action It is the curse of the froward their councels are carried headlong when they should go steddily upon their feet they run upon their heads or run their heads against the next wall The meaning in a word is They shall make more hast then good speed or they shall go so fast to their ends that their end shall be their undoing As the Lord in mercy makes the rash understand so in judgement he makes the understanding rash As this is here threatned so the former is graciously promised Isa 32. 4. The heart of the rash shall understand knowledge and the tongue of the stammerer shall speake plainly When the Prophet would shew how great a blessing God powres out upon his people by Christ he thus expresses it Christ who is the wisdome of the Father causeth the heart of the rash to understand knowledge it is the word of the text the heart of those who naturally run headlong upon businesses who have no steadiness nor stableness in their understandings shall be stayed and ballanced with wisdome and gravity from above Christ will take them off their hurrying pace and teach them to goe and doe to advise and act with sobriety and deliberation The letter clause of the promise joints fitly with this And the tongue of the Vt bâ—â—sit do lâ—â—gâ—ae accelerationem habet cum fitan haesiâ—ia ut nihil experite pronunciare possit quo magis propeâ—at eo minus proficit citata illa lingâ—a votubilitate Ita qui intelligentia festinus est nullum profert utilâ— integrum consilium sed manca omnia 〈…〉 Bold Bold stammerer shall speake plainly such as stammering is to speech the same is rashnesse to counsell A man that stammers huddles his words he that hath an impediment in speech speakes fastest and because he cannot speake one word well he speakes many words at once This hast is his hinderance in making so much hast to speak he cannot speak at all therefore we usually advise stammerers to take heed of speaking hastily that they may speak plainly The Prophet joynes these sweetly to note the complete abilities of a Cstristian The rash shall understand the stammerer shall speake plainly that is he shall advise judiciously and speake elegantly depth of wisedome and sweetnesse of elocution shall meet in him though before rude and rustick But the counsels of the froward though men of great parts and filed speech shall be crried headlong Observe hence Hasty counsels are successelesse counsels Hast in counselling alwaies makes waste and so doth hastinesse in acting Hast in either may hurt as much as sloth though usually we may divide the miscarriages that are in the world between hastiness in counsell and slownesse in action I know not which is the greater prejudice to an honest designe to be quick in concluding or to be dull in executing They who will not take time to consult about what they aâ— may have time enough to repent of what they have done And they who will not take the time for doing what they consult loose all the time they took for consultation Note Secondly That God disappoints evill counsels
unto us a place of broad rivers A river that shall not be drawn dry or sluced out as Euphrates was by Cyrus when he took Babylon but shall sill its bankes and shoares perpetually that is the Lord will be there a perpetual defence A river that shall never be impoverish'd but shall keep a full stock and treasure of streames and waters Dalilah had her name from this root and it carries an elegant allusion to the qualities of all Dalilahs or insinuating lascivious women they drayne the strength exhaust the purses dry up the credit wast the All of the mightiest Sampsons whose hearts are entangled by their flatteries or ensnared by their beauties The poore have hope The word hath been opened at the 6th verse of this Chapter to note strong and earnest expectation The poore man observing the wonders which God doth in the world cannot be out of hope though he be out of possession And though his own strength be gone yet he lives upon the strength of Christ he hopes strongly that 's the force of the word when he feeles no strength When I am weake saith the Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 12. 10. then am I strong that is I am strongest through hope in Christ when I am weakest through sense in my selfe More distinctly this hope may be taken two wayes 1. For the object or thing hoped for 2. For the act or grace of hope In the former notion of hope the sense runnes thus God having taken the wise in their own craftinesse and disappointed the device of the crafty having delivered the poore from the sword from their mouth and from the hand of the mighty now the poor hath the thing he looked for the thing he prayed for the thing for which he hath been seeking and waiting upon God So the poore hath hope that is he hath the mercy he expected salvation from the sword c. he is made partaker of his hope by those glorious administrations of the justice and mercy of God Hence observe First Gods poore hope for good in the worst times When deliverance comes these poore have but that which they looked for they looked for light when they were in the darkest condition When they were exhausted they knew God was not exhausted and when they were drawn dry they knew the Lord was not though their treasure was spent yet they were assured the treasury of Heaven was full When strength is gone and money is gone and friends are gone yet God is not gone and therefore they know the good may come which they hope for Turne ye to the strong holds ye priseners of hope saith the Prophet Zech. 9. 12. The people of God though prisoners are yet prisoners of hope that is they have hope of deliverance and enlargement in their greatest streights The power of God is never imprison'd and while his people can make this out their spirits are not Secondly observe It is no vain thing to hope in God The poore hath his hope The Prophet brings in the Jewes thus trumphing in God Isa 25. 9. And it shall be said in that day What day was that The former verse points it out A day wherein death shall be swallowed up in victory wherein teares shall be wiped away from off all faces c. And in that day the people of God shall thus boast of God and as it were shewing him to the world shall say Loe this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation vaine hopes fill our face with shame but hopes fulfilled fill our hearts with rejoycing The poore hath his hope he can shew his hope 't is visible As Hannah when she came to present her Son unto Eli For this child I prayed as if she should say Sir here is my prayer you could not heare my prayer when I was in the Temple you thought I was drunken but now you may see my prayer here it is for this child I prayed and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asâ—ed of him 1 Sam. 1. 27. So the soule saith In such a time of trouble personall or nationall I was praying and seeking God I was beleeving and hoping men knew not understood not the workings of my soule toward Christ yet now they may see them here is the thing I prayed for here is that I hoped for So first the poore hath hope Secondly The poore hath hope that is the grace of hope or the gracious actings of hope and taking it so the sense rises thus So that is God having done such great things in disappointing the devices of the crafty and in saving his poore by this meanes the poore come to have hope the grace of hope strengthned and confirmed in them Hence observe That The experience we have of Gods power and mercy in saving us out of former troubles breeds and nourishes hope against future times of trouble So the poore hath hope Though the poore man was in a hopelesse condition before yet now seeing the works of God he hath hope laid up for ever Psal 64. 9 10. All men shall feare and declare the workes of God for they shall wisely consider of this thing And what followes The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and trust in him that is if they have fail'd in their trust hâ—â—etofore and not given God honour by confiding in him yet these wonderfull works of God of which he speakes in that Psalme worke this hope Rom. 5. 4. Tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope Graces have a generation one from another though all have but one generation from Christ at once We have here the genealogy of hope in three descents Experience is the next or immediate parent of hope So the poore hath hope Thus it is begotten 2 Cor. 1. 10. God who hath delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver in him we trust that he will yet deliver us An armed daring Goliah should be looked upon as vanquisht already when we can but remember a vanquisht Lion and a Beare Againe The poore hath hope He doth not say God having thus destroyed the ungodly and saved his own people from the sword c. now they have liberty now they have peace now they have aboundance of riches and prosperity but he makes this the issue now they have hope Whence note That Hope is a greater and better possession unto the people of God here than all the great and good things which they possesse Put as much into their hands us you can there is more than that put in their hearts by hope The poore hath hope he lookes over all his possessions and pitcheth upon expectation as his portion The estate which a beleever hath in the promises is more than the estate he hath in possession Riches in the promise is better than riches in the chest And so the deliverances and
instruments of Gods displeasure This is grosse dispising But besides every undervaluing or inadvertency of the correcting hand of God hath a degree of this despising it That exhortation ought never to be forgotten which speaketh to us as unto children Hebr. 12. 5. My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him The Greek word imports the Litling or thinking of them little Do not think the chastnings of God little doe not little or slight them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in thy thoughts Neither faint when thou art rebuked that is doe not thinke thy afflictions so great that thou must needs sinke and faint under them These are the two extreames into which our hearts usually run when chastnings are upon us Some erre by neglecting the hand of God as light and others by fainting under it as too heavy As a good heart takes notice of or will not despise a little the least comfort So it will take notice of and not despise a little the least crosse When a man hath a small losse in his estate if he say this will not undoe me I can beare this I will fare as well and goe as fine as ever for all this such speeches or thoughts are a despising of the chastening of the Lord. We are to observe the hand of God taking away as well as giving a penny So when a man hath a little fit of sicknesse If he say I shall rubb out this well enough this is to despise the chastning of the Lord We are to blesse God for every hours health and to be sensible of his hand in every hours sicknesse or aking joynt Every affliction is a messenger from God it hath somewhat to say to us from Heaven and God will not beare it if his messengers be despised how meane so ever If you send a child with a message to a friend and he slight and despise him you will take it ill I remember what the story relates of Galienus the Emperour who when the report came to him that Egypt was lost what then said he cannot I live without the flax of Egypt And when the report was brought that a great part of his dominions in Asia was wasted Cannot I live said he without the delicacies of Asia To speake thus from a principle of mortification toward the creature is the character of an excellent spirit but to speake thus from a contempt of the Providence of God is the character of a proud or of a stupid spirit When we heare of the losse of a child of a friend or of a losse in our estate To say what then I can beare that well enough I have more children other friends estate enough besides that This I say is a high despising of affliction There is one thing further in the fifth place observable in this word Despise not thou the chastnings of the Lord. The word is Extenuatio est nam plus signficatur quam dicitur sc maximi facito disciplinam Domini nihil tibi antiquius aut potius sit quam ut illius correctionem aequo animo accipies an extenuation or a lessening of the sense The holy Ghost intends more than is expressed for the truth is when he saith Despise not c. his meaning is this shew reverence highly prize and esteeme the chastning of the Lord. As for instance when the Apostle saith in 1 Thess 5. 20. Despise not prophecying Doe you thinke this is all that is due unto an Ordinance of God that a man should not despise it Surely no he meanes then prize prophecying highly have it in great esteeme So in 1 Tim 4. 12. and Tit. 2. 15 when he saith Let no man despise thy youth is that all the holy Ghost meanes That Timothy a godly Pastour should only not be despised by his people No his meaning is that they should honour respect and reverence him as one that watched over them in the Lord. I might give you divers other Scriptures where when the holy Ghost only forbiddeth the sin he intendeth the duty or grace in strictest opposition to that sin So here Despise not thou the chastning of the Almighty layes this charge and duty upon us highly to esteeme the chastning of the Lord we must put afflictions amongst our comforts and rank them with our blessings Not to despise is but the first step beyond sin but that includes the last and furthest step of duty which becomes us under chastenings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aradiâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vincevit ligavit per Metaphoram castâ—gavit erudâ—vit verbis aut verberibus ad disciplinam vel poenam transfertuâ— Sicut vox Lamad quae doctrinam significa◠〈◊〉 all 〈…〉 So much of the act forbidden despising Now for the object chastning The originall verb fignifies to instruct or to teach so it is translated Chap. 4. v. 3. Thou hast instructed many Instruction is both by words and blowes The wisdome of God mixes a rod with his word and chastening with teaching Therefore it is promiscuously used in Scripture sometime for teaching and sometime for chastning Chastning belongs properly to children who are wanton and ungovern'd who have a bundle of folly in their hearts which the rod of correction driveth out To be chastned hath a double aspect upon us first upon our priviledge Secondly upon our weaknesse To be chastned notes our priviledge and relation as children unto God our father He hath revenges for his enemies but chastnings are a part of his childrens portion yet in that we are chastned it taxes us of weaknesse we are but children foolish unruly wanton and therefore we goe almost all our dayes with a rod at our backs Though the Saints on earth comâ—â—â—d among themselves are some Children and others men yet 〈…〉 earth compared with those in Heaven or with what themselves shall be in Heaven are children and therefore they have what fits their state chastening and correction This chastening is sometime put for revenge or the exactest and severest retribution of justice Thus it is said Prov. 7. 22. That the foolish young man caught by the subtill harlot went after her as a foole to the correction of the stocks That is as a wicked man goes to punishment And when the Prophet describes the sufferings of Christ which were vindictive in the highest degree he expresses it in this word The chastizement of our peace was upon him Isa 53. 5. though Christ were the infinitely and most entirely beloved Son of his Father yet he did not chastize him as a Son but as an enemy or malefactour for he chastened him in our stead and under the same notion that we must have been chastened who were enemies and malefactors So then the word signifies sometime judiciary chastening but here fatherly chastening which will yet appeare more clearely in opening the last terme of this verse which shewes us the efficient cause of this chastening The Almighty Despise
I cannot heale you your troubles are past my skill to remedy or redresse Thus man is sometimes at a stand he cannot heale what men have wounded but God is never at a stand your old festred sores and wrankled wounds which have taken wind discourage not his chirurgery When a people are in such a pickle or pittifull plight as the Prophet Isaiah describes the kingdome of Judah in Chap. 1. 5 6. The whole head is sicke and the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores they have not been closed neither bound up neither mollified with oyntment When I say the case of a people is thus and they can get no healer Yea though a people like the woman Mark 5 25 have had an issue of blood in bloody battels which is now almost Englands case many yeares and have suffered many things of many Physitians and have spent all that they have and are nothing bettered but rather grow worse yet if Christ doe but touch such a sicke diseased bleeding people in mercy and they touch him by faith they shall be healed and their fountaine of blood will immediately dry up Or if their condition requires some longer operation he can effectually take such a course for their cure He is abundantly furnished with all instruments and abilities for the making of a perfect cure It is well observed that three things are necessary for a Chyrurgion First He must have an Eagles eye one that is good at healing had need be good at seeing Secondly He must have a Ladies hand soft and tender to handle the sore gently Thirdly A Lions heart a stout strong heart for if he faint how shall his patient keep up his courage These three are exceeding necessary in Chyrurgery about naturall bodies but much more in Chyrurgery about Civill and Ecclesiastical bodies the healing of Churches and Kingdoms And where shall we find whither shall we send for Physitians qualified with this Eagles eye to look into all our sores and sicknesses with this Ladies hand to deal gently and tenderly with our wounds with this Lions heart stoutly and couragiously without fears and faintings to go thorough with the work Well if men should not be found thus furnished the Lord is He hath an Eagles eye an All-seeing eye seven eyes of providence and wisdome to look through our sores and into all our distempers He hath as in allusion we may speak a Ladies hand soft and tender to deal gently and graciously with a people He can dresse our wounds and paine us little scarce be felt while he doth it And he hath the Lions heart infinite courage and strength of spirit to undertake the most gastly wounds or swolne putrified sores Let us therefore rest our selves assured that whatsoever our personall or our nationall sores our personall or our nationall wounds be be they what they will or what we can call them desperate incurable such as have discourag'd many from medling with their cure or sham'd those that have yet our Shaddai the Almighty God can bind them up and heale them fetch the core from the bottome and close the skin upon the top so tenderly dresse and so perfectly cure them that a scarre shall not remaine unlesse it be to mind us of his infinite skill and goodnesse or of our own duty and thankfullnesse JOB Chap. 5. Vers 19 20 21. He shall deliver thee in six troubles yea in seven there shall no evill touch thee In famine he shall redeem thee from death and in war from the power of the the sword Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh ELiphaz still prosecuteth his former Argument to take Job off from despising the chastnings of the Almighty spoken of at the 17th verse And having shewed first in generall that they are happy whom the Lord corrects and secondly That the Lord heals as well as wounds is as ready to bind up as to make the sore he illustrates this by giving First An assurance of deliverance from evill and that 1. In the generall at the 19th verse 2. By an enumeration of particular cases of greatest dangers and outward evills And secondly to shew the happinesse of those whom God corrects he gives an assurance of positive blessings which shall in due time be heaped upon their heads whom God had before wounded with sorrows and loaded with afflictions The nineteenth verse is a promise of deliverance from evill He shall deliver thee from six troubles yea in seven there shall no evill touch thee To deliver notes here the snatching or pulling of a man out of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spoltavit rapuit eripuit tanquam ab hoste â—ut malo Eripere praedam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Augustia interdum significat hostem quasi angustiatorem dicas the hand of an enemy out of the mouth of danger The Hebrew word for Trouble comes from a roote which signifies to straiten or to narrow a thing up in a little compasse and so by a metaphor to vex and trouble because they who are straitned in any kind are pained and troubled And when we heare of any in trouble we usually say such are in straits And this word is often translated a strait 2 Sam. 24. 14. I am in a great strait saith David when he was put upon that hard election between sword pestilence and famine So Judg. 11. 7. and 1 Sam. 13. 6. The holy language expresses an enemy or adversary by this word because an enemy puts us upon straits and so to much trouble And to raise the force of this word to the highest it is used to signifie the pangs and throwes of women in child-bearing in which the mother labours in grievous straits while the infant labours for enlargement Troubles ever meet us in or bring us into straits they may well change names which are so neere in nature I find the word so translated here in some books He shall deliver thee in six straits and in seven when thou art so encompast about shut in and incircled by evils on every side that thou knowest not which way to move or turne much lesse to get out then the Lord will give enlargement and either find a way out for thee or make one as he did for Israel at the red sea through those mighty waters In six yea in seven This phrase of speech is very considerable Some numbers in Scripture have a kind of eminency or excellency in them I intend not any large discourse about numbers only in briefe Those three numbers Three Six and Seven are applied to a speciall signification by the Holy Ghost A great number a perfect number is expressed by any one of these three numbers A three-fold cord that is a cord of many or sufficient folds is not easily broken Eccles 4. 12. Three times thou shalt
searched it and what follows so it is He speaks with authority not timerously as if he doubted whether it were so or no but so it is we will bide by it we have it upon enquiry and diligent search Observe fourthly The truths we know our selves we should communicate unto others Here it is we have searched it but we will not put the light we have found under a bushell we will not hide the talent we have in a napkin Here it is make what use of it thou canst know it for thy good Observe fifthly Truth may challenge credit and command the eare Hear thou it Truth needs not stand begging audience or creep upon the ground with flattering insinuations or humble submissions to gaine acceptance Truth is a great Prince and may speak in the language of Princes We will We require It commands rather then entreats or all its entreaties commands every word a law or a charge Hear thou it Observe in the sixth place That It is needfull to make speciall application of generall doctrinall truths Eliphaz had delivered a doctrinall truth and here he makes application And though he failed much in the application of it to Job yet there were generall truths very appliable in the things he delivered Therefore he stays not in generals nor leaves his doctrine hovering in the ayre but brings it home to the heart and layes it close to the conscience Hear thou it and know it thou for thy good And not onely are nationall and speculative truths to be brought home and applied but even common experimentall truths such were these discussed and handled by Eliphaz Observe seventhly A man may know much and yet get no good by it Know this for thy good The Devil is a great Scholler he knows much but he knows nothing for his benefit but all for his hurt Many a man knowes almost all that is knowable but he knowes nothing which is to him profitable Nothing gaines by his knowledge but onely his pride he is puffed up with knowledge not built up and that knowledge which puffes up will at last puffe down or cast us down Eightly Observe A godly man may make a profitable use of any Truth You see what truths Eliphaz spake many of them ordinary common Doctrines and many of them sore threatnings and judgements upon wicked men yet know thou this for thy good There is no veine of Doctrine in the book of God but a man may make use yea treasure of it All truth is so symbolical to the regenerate part that it cannot but more sublimate and spiritualize a spirituall heart though it selfe be a truth about things earthly and temporall Observe lastly All truths especially truths contained in the promises are the portion of a godly man Know thou it for thy good saith he As if he should say if thou art a godly man then all the good things I have here spoken of belonging to godly men belong to thee they are thy portion also While a believer reads the book of God he sees great riches many precious things in the promises and whatsoever good he findes there there is nothing of it too good for him he may know it all for his own good those sweet delicious promises of the pardon of sin of the love of God of the freenesse of grace of the glory to come the promises of Christ and of all that is Christs all these things are his when he reads them he may set his mark upon them and know them for his goods know them as his own proper goods Unbelievers are strangers to the promises and the promises are as strange to them they know not the promises and the promises will not know them They know not a letter of Scripture for their good The very promises are threatnings to them and the very blessings of the book of God are their curse As the clouds passe over this and that piece of ground and then dissolve upon a third by the directing and all disposing providence of God So the promises which are full of blessings full of comforts as the clouds are of showers passe over a wicked mans head and let not down one drop of mercy or comfort upon him but leave him like the dry hearth or barren wildernesse which seeth not when good cometh Jer. 17. 6. But when the cloud moves a little farther and meets with the family or person of a godly man there it dissolves and powreth out a plentifull raine both of temporall and spirituall blessings to refresh and confirme that inheritance of the Lord Psal 68. 9. And so much for this fifth Chapter wherein with the fourth we have handled the first part of the dispute undertaken against Job by Eliphaz the first of his three friends The whole discourse consisting of divers arguments to convince and humble him under the hand of God of divers counsels and motives to perswade and direct him to seek unto God and submit to his correcting hand All he was to speak being let in by a loving preface and all he spake being ratified with an assuring conclusion that all he had spoken was for his good if he would hear believe and obey In the next Chapters we shall hear Job making his defence scattering the charge thus brought against him stiffely maintaining and importunately renewing his first complaint JOB Chap. 6. Vers 1 2 3. But Job answered and said O that my griefe were throughly weighed and my calamity laid in the ballances together For now it would he heavier than the sand of the sea therefore my words are swallowed up c. THis sixth Chapter begins Jobs replication which is continued to the end of the seventh He replies exactly to the severall parts of the charge given by Eliphaz who in the two fore-going Chapters undertook both to reprove the impatience of Job and to advise him a more holy and better temper'd carriage towards God under his afflictions In this reply Job shapes and formes up answers unto both I shall endeavour to give you a briefe of the whole and then to particulars First Job enters with a refutation of those reproofes of impatience which Eliphaz had heap't upon him and with that subjoyns a refusall of the counsels in his sence which he had given him In this work seven verses of the Chapter are spent Secondly We have a renovation or a re-inforcement of his grief and desire to die from the 8 to the end of the 13 verse O that I might have my request that God would cut me off c. As if he had said I am so far from being satisfied with what thou hast spoken against me or from recanting and recalling what I have spoken in those my breathings after death that I will be bold to make the same suit to God againe O that I might have my request and that God would cut me off c. Thirdly He proceeds to a charge of rash censure of uncharitable yea of deceitfull dealing upon his
who walke in a spheare below beasts who are more foolish and ignorant then a beast Take heed of complaining without cause if beasts are satisfied with what is agreeable to nature man should be so much more When Nature hath not enough Grace hath all Grace will not bray or low when there is no grasse no fodder surely then they have a scarcity of grace in their hearts who bray and low over their grass and fodder Spirituall accommodations will make a good heart forget temporall incommodities and it is reason they should God promiseth Isa 30. 20. Though I give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction yet thy teachers shall no more be removed into a corner but thine eyes shall see thy teachers As if he had said though your bodies are coursely fed yet your souls shall be feasted Good cheare shal daily be served into them both at your eyes and eares Thine eyes shall see thy teachers and thou shalt heare a voice behind thee Thy sight and thy hearing shall be refreshed with heavenly Messengers and good news from heaven Now besides this promise exprest there is a duty implyed in the text namely that because their spirits were so well fed therfore they must not complain though their flesh come short in feeding The bread of affliction should be pleasant to us while we eate Gospel-dainties In these times God gives more plenty of spirituall food than formerly yet many complaine because their naturall bread is shortned Remember beasts complaine not when they have what is suitable to nature then let not Christians complaine when they have what is suitable to grace though nature have but spare diet and short commons Vers 6. Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt He proceeds to another similitude It is as if Job had said Nature will complaine when it wants meat yea oftentimes nature will complaine when it wants pleasant meat Nature is not pleased if it want a graine of salt if it have not sauce it is not satisfied Therefore surely I am to be borne with and not to be charged thus deeply who complaine when you offer me that which is unsavoury when you give me meat without salt without sauce without any thing to render it either pleasing to my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Est quod debito condimento temperamento caret sive in defectu sive in excessu Sales pro facetijs quod sint quasi condimentum sermonis Literae Sparsae sale humanitatis Gicer ad Artic. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Est prepositio absque fine Sed quidam accipiunt pro nomine composito ex Min quod est ex beli à Balab quod est veâ—â—stâ—s Hâ—nc locam reddunt Infaluatum ex vetustate salis potius quam insipidum absque salae Bold Job rem prae horrore prorsus impossibiliem vult significare Numquid comodetur c. At impossibile omnino non est comedere insipiduÌ„ sine sale carnes autem corruptae ex vetustate salismanducars nulla tenus possunt Bold pallate or easie to my digestion Unlesse I were sencelesse like a stock or a stone how should I not disrelish and disgust saplesse saltlesse how much more bitter things Can that which is unsavorie The word which we render unsavorie is the same used Chap. 1. ver 22. which wee there opened at large Job did not charge God with folly or foolishly or he spake not unsavorily of God There is a threefold application of that word in Scripture 1. To unpleasant meats 2. To untempered morter 3. To indiscreet speeches which want the seasoning either of wit wisdome or of truth Lam. 2. 14. Thy Prophets have seene vaine and foolish things for thee Lying visions without truth vain words without wisdome So here Can that which is unsavourie be eaten without salt Seasoning makes unsavory things sweet As salt gives a relish to meat so wisdome and wit to words And therefore the Latines expresse wise witty speeches pleasant discourse a good grace in speaking and a salt by the same word There is another Interpretation of that word which we render b without for some understand it not as a Preposition governing the word Salt but as a compound word noting the oldnesse or stalenesse of meat wherein the very salt it selfe is putrified and so whereas we say Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt They translate thus Can that which is unsavoury through the corruption of salt be eaten Or can that meat be eaten which having been salted is now putrified Salt which keeps meat from corruption may in time be overcome with the corruption of the meat And a learned Interpreter gives the reason why he rather chuseth this interpretation of the word because saith he it carries a stronger Emphasis with it Job speakes as of a thing in a manner unpossible to be done Now it is very possible to eat unsavoury meat without salt A good appetite will downe with unpleasant food and hunger will dispence much with Cookery But when season'd or salted meat corrupts and putrifies whose stomach doth not loath and abhorre it Therefore it is a fuller and a more flat deniall to say Can that which is unsavoury thorough the corruption of salt be eaten then Then to say Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt Or is there any taste in the white of an Egge These words are much obscured by most Translators and have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 found almost as many expositions as Expositours Some translate thus Is there any taste in that which being taken brings death So the Vulgar Doubtlesse a man hath but little pleasure to taste An potest aliquis gustare quod gustatum affert mortem Vulg. that which tasted will be his death So the words are an aggravation of the unsavourinesse of those things which were offered him by his friends to touch or take them was to take poison or to drinke in a deadly cup. To cleare up this Exposition they make the Hebrew word Challamuth which we translate Egge a compound from Muth signifying to die whence Maueth death and Chala signifying froth or fome or from Chali signifying infirmity As if the word having these parts put together had this sence The froth and foame of death Or The infirmitie of death That is deadly froth on deadly infirmity As if he had said is there any pleasing taste in the spettle of dying men who we know often fome and froth at their mouthes when they lie drawing on Others thus Is there any taste in the spettle of a healthy man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanus confortatus convaluit The word Rir which we translate white signifies spettle or froth As when David acted the mad-man before the King of Gath it is said that he let his spettle fall downe upon his beard 1 Sam. 21. 13. And the word which we translate Egge signifies Health and the verbe to be healthy Chap. 39. 4.
potion and mistooke his case his was good searching physick for the foul stomach and grosse spirit of a hypocrite but it is enough to kill the heart of an upright-heart when God seemes angry with him and appeares against him when he is smitten without and smitten within by sore afflictions of mind and body then for his comforters to smite him with their tongues to lay at him with hard words and wound him with their unreasonable jealousies then for his counsellers and helpers to be angry with and opposite against him too Observe hence That not only words untrue but words misapplied are unsavoury and may be dangerous They are no food and they may be poison Prudence in applying is the salt and seasoning of what is spoken As a word spoken in the right season is precious and upon the wheele so is a word right placed When that faith full Prophet Ezek. 13. reproves the false prophets he saith They dawbed with untempered morter ver 10. it is the word of the text and why was theirs untempered morter even because they applied the word of God wrong They made sad the hearts of those whom God would have refreshed and they cheared the spirits of those whom God would have sadned they slay the souls that should not dye and save the souls alive that should not live This was untempered morter The Apostle advises all Col. 4 6. Let your speech be alwayes with grace seasoned with salt And speech must be seasoned not only with the falt of truth but with the salt of wisdome and discretion and therefore the Apostle adds that ye may know how to answer every one that is that you may give every man an answer fitting his case and the present constitution of his spirit Of some have compassion saith the Apostle Jude ver 22. making a difference and others save with feare This shewes the holy skill of managing the word of God when we make a difference of our patients by our different medicines and not serve all out of the same boxe Hence our Lord calleth those great Teachers of the Gospel and dispensers of his Oracles Light and Salt You are the Light of the world and you are the salt of the earth because they were to speake savoury things to every person to every pallate as well as to enlighten them with knowledge and prevent or cure the corruption of their manners and keep their lives sweet As there is an unsavourinesse in persons when they are mis-employed so there is an unsavourinesse in speeches when they are mis-applied The history of the Church speaks of one Eccebolius who changed religion so often and was so unsetled that at last Conculcate me salem insipidum Niceph. he cast himselfe down at the congregation doore and said Trample upon me for I am unsavoury salt And that word though in it self a truth which is unseasonably delivered or unduly placed may be cast at the doores of the Congregation to be trampled on for in this sence it is unsavoury salt Such corrupt the word and their's is but corrupt communication such as cannot minister grace unto the hearers and often grieves the holy Spirit of God These work-men for their ill division of the word of God have reason enough to be ashamed and the Lord may justly reprove them as he did Jobs friends Chap. 42. 7. Ye have not spoken of me nor of my wayes the thing that is right JOB Chap. 6. Vers 8 9 10 c. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Then should I yet have comfort yea I would harden my selfe in sorrow Let him not spare for I have not concealed the words of the holy One c. IN the former part of this Chapter we have had Job defending his former complaint of life and his desire of death In this context from the 8th verse unto the end of the 12th he reneweth and reinforceth that desire He not only maintaines and justifies what he had done but doth it again begging for death as heartily and importunately as he did in the third Chapter O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for The request it selfe is laid downe in the 8 â—h and 9 â—h verses and the reasons strengthning it in the 10 11 and 12 verses So these 5 verses are reduceable to these two heads 1. The renewing of his desire to dye 2. An enlargement of reasons confirming that desire O that I might have my request It is such a vehement desire and so exprest as Davids was 2 Sam. 23. 15. And David longed and said Oh that one would give me drinke of the water of the well of Bethlem which is by the gate David did not long more to tast a cup of that water then Job did to tast the cup of death The summe and scope of Jobs thoughts in this passage may be conceived thus He would assure his friends that his faith was firme and his comforts flowing from it very sweet That it was not impatience under the troubles of this life but assurance of the comforts of the next which caused him so often to call for death That these comforts caused his heart to triumph and glory in the very approaches of the most painfull death and made him despise and lightly to esteeme all the hopes of life That he was gone further then the motives which Eliphaz used from the hopes of a restitution to temporall happinesse he now was pitcht upon and lodg'd in the thoughts of eternall happinesse That he call'd for death not as that with which he had made any Covenant or was come to any agreement with but only as that which would bring him to his desired home The one Thing he desired That his comforts had not a foundation in a grave where all things are forgotten but in the Covenant of God who remembers mercy for ever and therefore it should not trouble him to die before he was restored to health riches and honour which his friends proposed to him as a great argument of comfort and of patience For in death he should have riches and glory and hence it was that he had rather endure the extreamest paines of death then stay to receive any outward comforts in this life His desires to be dissolved were not so much from the sence of his present paine for he would harden himselfe to endure yet more as from the apprehension of future joy This was not a fancie or a dreame but he had good proof and reall evidence of it in the whole course of his life which had been as a continued acting of the word of God and to a fitting him for nearest communion with God This in general The letter of the Hebrew runneth thus Who would give me that my request or that
help in me is wisdome driven quite from me Though I have no strength and so no help in my self wisdom is not therefore driven quite from me As if he had said will you conclude that I am a wicked man an hypocrite and a fool because I am not able to help and deliver my self out of these troubles Fifthly consider the words as we translate them with which most of the Rabbins and Jewish writers concur only they usually expresse the text affirmatively we interrogatively yet both equivalent and meet in the same meaning Our Question Is not my help in me is to be resolved into this affirmation my help is in me and the latter branch Is wisdome departed from me into this negation wisdome is not departed from me my help is in me and my An non auxilium meum in me quo me tueri possum ac defendere innuit innocentiam suam ac vitae integritatem qua nunquam destitutus fuit aut rectam ratienem sapientiam quam postea Tusiah Appellat Drus. An judicio ratione destituor ut dignoscere nequeam recta ab insulsis qualia sunt verba vestra non sum mentis inops wisdome is not departed from me Jobs sence may be taken thus Have I not that in me which is and will be a help unto me notwithstanding all the objections and assaults which you make against me Have not I that in me which may furnish me with wisdome to answer all the exceptions which you have taken at my complaints Master Broughtons translation favours this sence very much have not I my defence and is judgement driven away from me Though I thus complain and desire death yea renew my desire Have not I my defence have I nothing to say why I made that request have I no argument to help my selfe and bear up my spirit under the weight of these calamities Is wisdome quite departed from me Doe you take me for a man deserted of God deserted of his spirit and deserted of my own wisdom and understanding too because I am deserted of the world and destitute of outward comforts And so the help which Job knew he had in store was the Innoceney and integrity of his heart Is not my help in me I have no help no strength no comfort in my flesh what is my flesh my flesh is not of brasse but have I no help in me neither my outward man is destroyed my house of clay is almost battered down tottering failing it is but have I nothing within to help at a dead lift have I no grace no hope no testimony of a good conscience no witness in my self Doe you think me clean disâ—obed and stript and emptied of all wisdome and comfort Hath the Devil think you robbed me of my grace have the Sabeans plundered and spoiled me of my understanding Is not my help within me notwithstanding all the troubles that are upon me Thus the interpretation is fair and clear that when all his outward comforts were gone when the strength of his flesh could hold no longer yet then he had help within him his spirit could bear though his flesh could not Grace can hold out beyond nature and when bodily strength can do no more wisdom comes in with her Auxiliaries Is not my help in me and is wisdome departed from me The word wisdome in the Hebrew is of various significations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Significat â—egem sapientiam subsistentiam Et lex â—epulsa est á me Pagn Nâ—nquid officium impulsum fuit à me Vatab. Num subsistentia impulsa est a me Regia Quid facult as subsistendi me destituit Tygyr as was touched Chap. 5. 12. Here one renders it The law is not departed from me As if his meaning were I never forsooke the law of God Another thus Was my duty driven from me As if his meaning were I ever kept close to the rule of my place and calling A third Is my subsistence driven from me So a fourth Is my ability of subsisting gone from me As if he had said cannot I live because I have not the world to live upon To which sence those words of Christ are appliable Luke 12. 15. The life of man consists not in the aboundance of the things which he possesseth All which interpretations meet to make up a compleat Apology of Jobs piety constancy patience and flourishing resolutions in his dying withering condition The Sabeans drove away his cattel but they could not drive away his understanding They offered violence to his substance but his reason and his graces were untoucht Hence observe first That when all outward helps depart from a godly man he hath somewhat abiding in him to help and stay up his heart As when the outward glory and strength of the Church is utterly decayed Yet the Prophet tells us Isa 6. 13. in it shall be a Tenth as a Teyle tree and as an Oake whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves so the Holy seed shall be the strength thereof Thus also when the outward glory and strength of any true member of the Church is utterly decayed even then he shall be as an Oak his substance shall be in him the seed of Holinesse shall be his substance Is not my helpe in me I know my estate is gone my beauty is gone my strength is gone the strength I mean of my flesh yet I have invisible supports somewhat unseen to trust unto It is the comfort of beleevers that they have an estate riches and possessions lying as far beyond the reach of mens power as their eye and as far beyond the reach of Satans malice as either When they feel nothing but pain in the flesh when nothing but weakness inhabits the house of clay the outward man then the inward man is renewed with sweet refreshings and strong consolations day by day The spirit of a man of a godly man will bear his infirmities when his body cannot The strength of nature is not as the strength of stones nor is the flesh of brass but the strength of grace is stronger then the strength of stones and the spirit is more dureable then brasse Grace wears not out by using nor doth it spend by employing Afflictions are but the higher services and employments of grace A stock of grace is an inexhaustible treasure and a good heart assures us better then the barrs of a Castle Faith and a good conscience are under Christ our best helpes in trouble they are friends that will never forsake us They are to us as their Authour who hath promised that he will not Grace is our participation with the Divine Nature and grace participates with the divine nature in this it is an unchangeable good an everlasting comfort And yet we must take this warily grace and holiness faith and a good conscience are not to be trusted upon no more then riches or any outward meanes We may make an Idol of our faith
and a vaine thing of a good conscience The meaning then is faith and a good conscience are our best helds and friends because faith carries us unto Christ who is our best help Faith pitches upon Christ and a good conscience feasts us in the favour of God Faith alone is no help but faith is our help because it is not alone Grace left alone would be our strength but little more then nature is and our spirit little more then the flesh And therefore our comforts are not to be resolved into this That we have grace in our hearts but into this That we and our graces are in the hand of Christ Faith can live no where but upon Christ That which faith respects as our help is Christ in whom we beleeve not the act of beleeving We are helped by the grace within us but the grace within us is not our help Secondly Observe A godly man in the darkest affliction or night of sorrow finds a light of holy wisdome to answer all the objections of his enemies and the suspitions of his friends Is wisdome departed quite from me Doe you think I have nothing to say nothing to reply by way of apologie for what I have don or spoken Though Job had many afflictions upon him and his friends against him yet see how he recollects himselfe Is not my help in me he makes out the goodnesse of his cause in the midst of a thousand evils and can plead his own integrity in the throng of many jealousies and contradictions Is not my help in me Doe you think you have so daunted me that I am not able to make out my own estate or that I know not what I am The truth is sometimes God leaves his servants in so much darkness for their tryal and exercise that they cannot see their own estates but cry out they are lost and undone Many a good soul cannot reflect upon his graces or get his heart into any communion with Christ in promises This is walking in darkness and seeing no light As our sins are sometimes secrets to us so also our graces may But let a man be encompast with never so many outward afflictions yet if his spirit be free he is able to judge of his own interests through all the black clouds which hang over him through all the distractions and confusions that are about him The eye of faith is usually quickest in a dark night And while trouble is near at hand beholds Christ near at hand He can never be without help who carries his help about him or within him Nor can he utterly want counsel to direct him whose heart is as a councel Table where Christ the wisdom of God is ever President and in the Chair My worldly comforts are quite driven from me but wisdome is not I am afflicted and therefore should not be thus suspected but pittied Vers 14. To him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed from his friend but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty This verse begins the third Section of the chapter wherein Job draws up a strong charge against his friends for their uncharitablenesse See the progresse and links of his Discourse First he refuted and answered their objections against him from the first to the 8 verse Secondly he renewed his complaint which was the ground of all their objections from the 8th verse unto the end of the 13th Here at verse 14. he begins a charge against his friends of unkindness indiscretion yea of cruelty in managing of this dispute against him He giveth it first in general or by way of Preface To him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed from his friend But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty As if he had said You should have dealt otherwise with me then you have in this case though blessed be God I find help within me God hath given me the light of his spirit and wisdome to discern my own condition yet it is no thank to you I have found no help in my friends you have dealt unfriendly with me you should have pittied me but you have opposed me and so forsaken that duty which the fear of the Almighty teaches He proceeds to illustrate this more particularly by way of similitude comparing his friends to a brook whose waters fail when we are athirst or when there is most need of water To him that is afflicted The word signifies Him that is melted and the reason is because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solvit dissolvit liquidum fluidum reddidit Sic mea perpetuis liquescant pectora curis Ovid. de Pont 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tributum sic dictum quia paulatim liquescere facit facultates maximo si nimium imponatur Buxtorf b Quidam Pontificii volunt suam Missam hac voce hebraica fuisse appellatam Recte quidem per eam scilicet pietas omnis liquefacta est dâ—ssoluta Rivet affliction dissolves the spirit of a man and as it were melts his heart therefore it is called the fire of affliction To be dissolved or melted and to be afflicted are the same And that effect is ascribed to fear and trouble of spirit arising from affliction Psalm 22 15. My heart saith David a type of Christ in the middest of my belly is like melting wax By reason of the heat and greatness of his trouble and the anguish of his spirit he was as metal melted in a furnace At the defeat of the Israelites before Ai it is said the hearts of the people melted and became as water Josh 7. 5. And in the sixth Psalm verse 6. David cryes up the exuberance of his sorrowes by this word I melted or watered my couch with tears Thus the Prophet threatning a day of great fear against Jerusalem tells them They shall be as when a Standard-bearer fainteth Isa 10. 18. When the Battell waxes hot and a vanquisht army is running and crying for quarter the standard bearer is in greatest danger all make up to him and then he fainteth or melteth away with fear a Tributes and taxes are exprest in the Hebrew by a word coming from this root because if heavily imposed they melt away the estates of a people b It is a witty observation that whereas some of the Papists conceive their word Masse was derived from this Hebrew word Massas which signifyeth to melt One of ours answers let it be so It suites this sense of the word exactly and the effect oâ— that abhominable Idolatry for the Masse hath dissolved and melted away truth and pitty out of the Popish Territories To him that is offlicted pitty should be shewed That word pitty in the Hebrew signifies a sacred sweet affection of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pietas bonitas benignitas per Antiphrasin impletas crudetitas ex Calâ—aicae linguae usu benignity goodness and piety And by Contraries in which sense words are often used in that language it notes First Reproach Prov. 14. 34 Sin is
chesed a reproach to any people Secondly Impiety and cruelty harshness and severity Thirdly It signifies any abhominable wickedness Levit. 20. 17. where Moses speaking of incest incest between brother and sister calls that abomination by this word Chesod A wicked thing That may have a good name the nature whereof is so ill that it is not to be named Further The word as we translate imports more than a bare act of pitty or commiseration as suppose a man see his brother in misery compassionates him but relieves him not this is not pity Such the Apostle James describes in his first Chapter vers 15. If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food and you say unto them be filled be warmed be cloathed poor creatures ye are hungry yea are naked I pitty you I am sorry to see you thus be filled be cloathed I wish it were otherwise with you and yet in the mean time he gives them nothing wherewith either to cloath or feed them Is this fulfilling the law of love Is this charity Nothing lesse The pity here spoken of is not a verbal piety Our saying to a brother in trouble be comforted or I would course were taken for you I wish you well with all my heart and so we bestow a mouth-ful of good words but not so much as a morsell of bread or a cup of cold water Good words alone are cheap charity to mans expence and they are so cheap in Gods esteem that they will not be found of any value at all in the day of reckening good words not realized if they be found any where will be found in the treasures of wrath This is not the pitty which Job teacheth us should be shewed to him that is afflicted The Apostles quesion shakes such out of all claime to this grace 1 John 3. 17. whosoever saith he hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother in need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how doth the love of God dwell in him Though a mans mouth be open with good words yet if he shut his bowels from good deeds there is no love to God or man hous'd in that mans heart It is no Pitty to speak of onely to speak pitty and therefore the Apostle addes verse 18 My little children let us not love in word and in tongue but in deed and in truth that 's the true meaning of this word to him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed But you my friends have not given me so much as the sound of pitty you have not bemoaned me much less have you relieved me which is the substance of pitty reall pitty You have not loved me in tongue giving me good words much less in deed and in truth Deed-pitty is both the duty and the disposition of a godly man therefore this word Chasid in the concrete is often used in Scripture to signify a godly man He is one that hath obtained much grace and pitty from the Lord and he is kind gracious and pittiful unto men The holy Proverb assures us That a good man is merciful pittiful to his beast much more to a man and most of all to a godly man who is his brother in the nearest bond And it is considerable how this word was used by way of distinction among the Jewes who cast their whole people or nation into three ranks and it is grounded upon Rom. 5 6 7. where the Apostle alludes to those three sorts First There were Reshagnim ungodlymen the prophane rabble Secondly there were the Tsadikmi righteous men And thirdly there were Chasidim good men or pittiful mâ—n scarcely saith the Apostle will one die for a righteous man for a man fair and just in his dealings peradventure for one of the Chasidim for a good man some one may chance to dy He that had been pittiful might haply find pitty and having done so much good in his life all would desire he should live still But herein God commended his love to us that while we were â—et sinners Reshagnim in the worst raâ—ke of men Christ died for us No man had either love or pitty enough to die for them who had so much impiety The farthest that the natural line oâ— mans pitty can reach is to do good to those who do him good or are good Pitty notes out such a sort of men and such a sort of actions as Antiqui vocant Ciconâ—am pietatis cultricem Ciconiis pietas eximia est Soâ— are fullest of love of bowels of brotherly kindeness and compassion Hence the Stork which by divers of the ancients was put for the Emblem of love and benignity is exprest in the Hebrew by this word Levit. 11. 19. The Storke is very tender towards her young ones and her young ones are as tender of her when she is old as naturalists have observed So then this word imports the height of all offices and affections of love from man to man especially from Christian to Christian in times of trouble and cases of extremity This Pitty you should have shewed me saith Job But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty That is he forsakes all godlinesse goodness and religion Fear takes in all that 's good and so it is conceived that Job retorts the words of Eliphaz in the fourth chap. Is this thy fear or where is thy fear thy Religion Now Job saith Is this your fear You have forsaken the fear of the Almighty Is this your Religion to deal so harshly with a distressed friend or to give him such cold comfort Surely you have forsaken that fear of the Almighty which you charged me with Have not I reason to ask Is this thy fear or to conclude You have forsaken the fear of the Almighty These words are diversly rendred Some thus He that takes away pitty from his friend hath forsaken the fear of the Almighty And Qui tollit ab â—mico suo misericordiam timorem Domini derelinquit Vulg. that 's a truth and a good sense though not so clear to the letter of the Text. Mr. Broughton joins this with the former verse By him whose mercy is molten toward his friend and who leaveth the fear of the Almighty So referring this melting to mercy and not to the man joining it with the former thus Have not I my defence and is judgment driven away from me by him whose mercy is molten away toward his neighbour and who leaveth the fear of the Almighty As if Job had said Eliphaz doest thou thinke thou haste driven away all wisdome from me by thy dispute Doest thou think that I have lost my reason as thou hast lost thy pitty Thou thinkest wisdome and understanding have forsaken me but it appears by thy dealings that thou hast forsaken the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdome Thirdly it is rendred in the contrary sense The word Chesid An dissoluto à sodali suo convitium et quod timorem omnipotentis
or fitness they have in themselves to continue but as their coming is extrinsical not out of the ground but from the air so is their continuance I grant these great Land-flouds sometimes stay with us a while not because they have any ordinary natural supply or stay they are onely blackish by reason of the ice after a great Rain in winter a great frost comes and then your water-courses or brooks swelling above their channels are surprized by cold and cannot get away the cold condenceth the waters and freezeth them up and the snow is kept close from melting then these torrents or streams seem to be lasting fountains and treasures of water Or take it thus He compares those friends who administer no comfort in trouble to brookes which in time of rain when we have no need overflow with water but in cold winter weather are lockt up with frosts or in hot summer-weather are exhaled and dried up by the Sun As it follows Vers 17. What time they wax warm they vanish when it is hot they are consumed out of their place These streams you might think living lasting streams or standing fixed waters when you saw them frozen into great mountains of ice and snow compact together but stay a while and you shall see what becomes of them at the next thaw they are consumed out of their place Such friends have I and such is the friendship of mankind unless God renew the heart or restrain it from its natural baseness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diffluere diffundi Buxt The word which we translate to wax warm is used but this once in Scripture it signifies also scattered or dissipated And the reason is because heat or warmth dissipates and separates those Dissipati Vulg. things which were united or congealed The Sun warms the streams and then the waters which stood on a heap scatter and disperse The sum of all is These streams in winter have nothing to stay their consuming but their hardning and as soon as heat comes they dissolve and are gone in Summer these brooks are dry This is yet further illustrated in the 18. verse The pathes of their way are turned aside they go to nothing and perish What he had said before in those words They vanish and are consumed out of their place he saith again in these The paths of their way are turned aside they goe to nothing and perish That is these streams are as if they had never been you cannot find them in their former channels these waters are quite spent the Sunne at a few draughts empties these vessels and drawes them dry so that there is not a drop lest either for man or beast The word which we render Turned aside signifies To gather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inclinavit percelluit up a contract into a narrow compass as when a man of courage gathers or shrinks up himself or as we say buckles to a businesse that he may put out the uttermost of his strength S◠Judg. 16. 29. When Sampson came to the pillars on which the house stood the text saith He turned himself with all his might It is the word of the text as if Sampson would collect all the power he had into one place to pull the pillars out of theirs He that would do a great service will have all his outward strength about him or near at hand And at such a time a man will have all his inward strength close together and therefore puts his body into less room if he can that all his members may act as one We shrink up the body also in sudden fear The word is so used Ruth 3. 8. When Boaz that good man awakning found Ruth at his feet and perceived there was a woman on the floor he gathered or shrunk up himself as a man that is afraid in his bed will gather up his limbs neerer together and lies in lesse room In such a manner the heat gathers or shrinks up the waters Thus the paths of these waters saith Job are shrunk up or gathered together as it were into one channel or they creep under the banks to shelter themselves from that great Drinker and river-drier the Sun but all their subterfuges are in vain the Sun dries up all nothing remains so it follows in the next words They goe to nothing and perish It is the word used Gen. 1. 2. The earth was without form and void 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vacuitas There was a nothingness upon that confused heap before a second creation stampt a form upon it that which is uselesse is but as good as nothing The Jews expresse an Idol by this word 1 Sam. 12. 21. which suits excellently with that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 8. An Idol is nothing in the world So these streams these rivers which seemed such goodly pleasant streames such as might have relieved the thirsty traveller at all seasons come to them in summer they are gone to nothing that are like that rude masse when the world lay undigested into parts void and without form Before I come to the general Observations from the whole similitude observe from this description of passing streames That Things or persons cannot hold long which are not supplied from aninward principle Job describes streames having no spring to maintaine them the rain filled them the cold froze them and the warmth of the Sun emptied them As it is in things so in persons no man can hold out either in gracious and spiritual or just and honourable civil acts unlesse he have a principle within answerable to Metapbora insignis Hieroglyphicum clarissime exprimens vanitatem magnae speciei pietati◠charitatis quae non ex vera fide provenit Coc. what he undertakes Iob. 27. 10. Will the hypocrite alwayes call uon God Not alwayes why because he hath not a spirit or spring of prayer Therefore hypocrites are well compared to such brooks as Job here describes A failing brook is a clear Emblem of a false heart both to God and man And that is the reason why regeneration is set forth by the gift of a new principle of a new heart or of a new nature It is to no purpose to work a man by some extrinsical motive by hopes or by feares by threatnings or by promises by rewards or punishments to doe or forbear good or evil unlesse he have a new heart all vanishes and comes to nothing A regenerate person hath a new heart a new spirit is a new creature a new man all which notes a lasting principle an everlasting frame of holinesse in the main though it may sometime decline and need repaires It is farre better to be a rivolet a little spring then to be a great torrent It is better to have a little spring of grace than a great loud stream of profession It is reported by Geographers in their descriptions of America that in Peru there is a river called the Diurnall river or the
friends To be afraid of provoking God to cast us down Deut. 17. 13. they shall hear and fear and do no more presumtuously What shall they hear They shall hear how God hath cast men down or cast down a Nation by his judgements they shall hear of this and fear How shall they fear they shall fear to doe presumtuously fear to provoke that God who can thus cast down men and Kingdoms It is good to be thus afraid but there is a sinful fear when fear disorders or unfits us to put our hands to the help of those who are cast down and to administer comfort to those who are in sorrow such was the casting down and the fear here meant They were so afraid that they could not lend Job a hand or give him advised counsel to support his spirit I shall adde one Observation from the general scope of the similitude That an unfaithfull friend failes us most when we have most need of him That is the summe of all In winter when there is water in every ditch those brooks abound with water but in the summer especially in a dry summer when the rain of the land is dust as Moses speaks these brooks are dust too they vanish and are consumed out of their place they afford no refreshing at all When the man that went down from Hierusalem to Jericho and fell among theeves Luke 10 30. lay in the way stript and wounded even half dead A certain Priest came that way saith the text and when he saw him he passed by on the other side and likewise a Levite when he was at the place came and looked on him and passed by on the other side but the Samaritan went to him not from him and had compassion on him Job speaks very neer this language but fully this sence of his friend They like the uncharitable Priest and Levite passed by him as the streams of brooks they pass away Whereas they should have been like the good Samaritan a fountain a river of settled springing comfort to him This is the great difference between the love of God and that of most men God is the best friend to us at all times he is best to us in the best times if we had not him to friend it would be very ill with us when we have most friends But God is best of all to us in the worst times a best friend to us when we have no friends he is our spring when the rain falls but he is our surest sweetest spring when there is neither rain nor dew upon the face of the earth Therefore he is compared as Jer. 2. so in other places unto a living fountain where you may be sure to find water in the hottest season This infinitely commends the love of God beyond that of men who at the best are but broken cisterns which leak out the comforts they are trusted with and for the most part are but like Jobs brookes they turn aside and passe away when we have most need of them It is observed of the Samaritans in Josephus that when ever the Jews affairs prosper'd they would be their friends and professe much kindnesse but if the Jews were in trouble and wanted their assistance then they got them far enough off they would not have to do with them or own them The rich man hath many friends saith Solomon Prov. 14. 20. but the poor is hated even of his own neighbour Vbi deficit pecunia labascit amicitia Worldly friendship ends with riches and he that wants mony seldom abounds with friends But consider how farre this is from the very nature of a brother and from the law of friendship Solomon Prov. 17. 17. describes a true friend to be one who loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity As if he had said this is the reason God hath raised up relations and made men neer one to another because himself orders there shall be times of adversity when they shall have need of one another Some render the place A brother is born in adversity as if the meaning were That when a man is in trouble God raises up a brother to help him Or as the Septuagint hath it A brother is born for this end and purpose to help in adversity Therefore a brother loses the very end and purpose why he was born if he refuse to help those who are in adversity Ruth was a true pattern of a faithful friend and brother though a daughter I went out full saith her mother in law but the Lord hath brought me home empty But though she was emptied of the world yet Ruths heart was full of loue to her I will not leave thee God do so to me and more also if ought but death part thee and me So saith faithfulness in friends especially in Christian friends It is one of the greatest duties and commendations of Christian profession to stick to and stand by one another be it fowl weather or be it fair blow the winds high or low let it be stormy or calme ever to be the same The Heathens wondered in the primitive times at the great love of the Christians to one another Let us take heed we do not put Heathens naturall carnal men to wonder O how little do Christians love one another Let us not give them occasion to say O how the Christians hate one another how like are they at best to streames of brooks who fail when their friends and brethren need the benefit of their assistance Let me only give you this caution God suffereth men to be thus unfaithful unto men yea sometimes a Christian brother to Talia patitur Deus suis accidere ne hominibus nimis fidunt sed omne solatium spem fiduciam in ipso solo vivo vero Deo ponant Lavat fail a Christian brother which is their sin and ought to be their sorrow I say God leaves them to this evil of their own hearts that we may have a greater good out of it then the highest actings of their love and faithfulnesse could estate us in Namely that we may learn to trust upon God alone and may better know what creatures are Trust not in a brother Jer. 9 4. so as to let out your hearts upon him think not you are safe in the love of a brother no not of a godly brother The Apostle 1 Tim. 6 17. to draw off rich men from trusting in their riches useth this argument Charge them that are rich that they trust not in uncertain riches but in the living God Why should they not trust in riches He giveth the reason in the Epithite uncertain They are uncertain riches therefore trust them not So we may say of men trust not in men no not absolutely in godly men for the best of men are uncertain possibly they may be as these streames of brooks whose waters failed Psal 146. 3. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the son
compassion making a difference and others to save with fear pulling them out of the fire A difference must be made some are to be dealt with compassionately and gently rained upon others must be saved with fear that is they must be made afraid with thunder and lightning with stormy and tempestuous doctrine Some spirits will not be kept out of the fire but by casting them into the fire so much that text in Jude imports Others save with fear pulling them out of the fire As if he had said your terrifying them with the fire will be as a pulling them out of the fire A showre of spiritual brimstone such as God rained on Sodom in the letter is best for them if you spare them you destroy them Teach me and I will be silent or I will hold my tongue The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fedit terram per metaphoram fodit cogitatione siluit word properly taken signifies to digge or to plow And sometime improperly to meditate or think and it implies much thoughtfulness because a musing meditating thoughtfull man is ever digging into matters he rests not in the out-side and face of things but puts in his plow deep turning them up to the very bottom From whence by one step further into the Metaphor it is translated to signifie silence or to hold our peace because they who have many thoughts have fewest words Musing men are no great talkers when the mind is much at worke and very busie the tongue usually doth little Job promises silence as if he meant to sit down and consider fully what they should further say unto him This promised silence or holding of his tongne may have a threefold reference First in general to the duty of a learner Teach yee me and I will keep silence I will learn Or secondly to his former complaints Teach me and I will be silent That is I will give over complaining I confess I have made a bitter complaint in the 3d Chapter but if you will teach me better I will complain no more Thirdly it may have reference to that which they should speak to him in their next advices Teach me aright and I will hold my tongue that is I will reply no more I will not gain-say your counsels but rather if I have offended acknowledge my errour and sit down in silence I will not wrangle when I cannot answer I can doe nothing against the truth but for the truth From hence we may observe first That a gracious spirit is a teachable spirit A gracious heart cals for teaching Teach me and I will hold my tongue As a gracious heart cals for strengthning from Christ so it cals for teaching from Christ and from any who can teach the truth as it is in Christ A weak soul saith Lord draw me and I will runne after thee an ignorant soul saith Lord instruct me that I may understand thee Give me the wisdome of the prudent that I may understand my way and I shall walk therein A godly man loves not to be at his own disposing nor at his own Tutoring He that will learn of none but himself hath sure enough a fool to his Master And there is more hope of a fool then of him that is thus wise in his own conceit Pro 26. 12. Secondly Observe A teachable spirit is an excellent spirit A man that is willing to be taught is in a better condition then many who are able to teach It argues a holier temper of the heart to be willing to be taught than to be able to teach And it is far worse to be unwilling to learn then not to be knowing Vnteachablenesse is more dangerous then ignorance It is sad to consider how unteachable many are they will not be taught or they think they have learned all they have devoured all knowledge they are full and need no more some deceived souls and they most carry it as if they had a spirit of infallibility what teach them they are above teaching It is a sweet frame of spirit when a man sees he may be out of frame He is in a fair way to truth who acknowledges he may be in an errour And he who will not acknowledge that he may be in an error is certainly out of the way of truth The Apostle resolves it 1 Cor. 8. 2. If any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know Not as if the Apostles meaning were that all knowledge must be sceptical or uncertain all in quaeries and nothing in conclusions that we should halt between two opinions and hang like meteors in the air Nor doth he commend to us that proud modesty which will not let us acknowledge we know what we know but his mind is to meet with those who think they know any thing so well that they need not or cannot know it better and abound so in their own sence that they have no room to admit the sence of others As he who thinks himselfe so good that he cannot be better was never so good as he should so he that thinks he knows so much that he can learn no more knowes nothing as he ought It is best to be fixed in judgement but it is very ill to be fixed in opinion It is to be feared that man is much divorced from right reason who is so married to his own that he resolves nothing but death shall part him and his opinion What if this man have espoused a fancy of his own not any truth of God To be so fixed that a man may be fixed in evil it is as dangerous as to be so unfixed that he may be unfixed in good It was a high breathing of holiness when David said Psal 57. 7. My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed While we are upon a known duty or have known truth on our side our hearts cannot be too much fixed set upon them To be of an unfixed moveable wavering spirit in goodnesse is within one degree of falling into evil but to say I am fixed I am fixed I am resolved resolved when yet things are doubful and under difficult dispute is actually to be in an errour though possibly the thing we fix on be a truth The Apostle cautions his Ephesians and us in them Chap. 4. 14. That they and we be not henceforth children tossed too and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine and yet they are under a rebuke who will not be moved by any wind of doctrine that is let never so powerful and forcible a wind of truth breath and blow upon them they will not be carried or moved in judgement by it Observe thirdly Silence becometh learners Yet not all silence There is a speaking helpful to learning To move doubts is the way to be resolved and to ask the question the readiest means for instruction But he that will have all the talk shall have but little profit The ear is the
of your fathers you esteemed my words as wind but they were a strong wind they blew down the power of your fathers The Apostle gives this honour to all the word of God which is all right that it is mighty or forcible through God to bring down strong holds and to bring every thought into subjection unto Christ And Heb. 4. 12. The word of God is mighty in operation The energie of it is such that nothing can stand before it no lust can stand before it no errour can stand before it it bears down all with fine force Therefore take heed of standing in the way of right words Truth comes with such a force that no man is able to beare up against it It is better to have all the men of the world against us Than to have one word of God against us One word of truth will doe more against us than all the Armies in the world no force can stand against this force the force of the word will destroy the force of the sword Truth will be the great Conquerour at last Thirdly Take it in the Concrete in reference to the speaker How forcible is the word of an upright man Then Observe The words of one that is upright hearted carry great strength and power with them Truth loses by the patronage and defence which some give it Truth gets little by the tongues of those men who have no grace in their hearts Truth in the mouth of a wicked man is weakened by the falseness of his heart and filthiness of his life Sometimes precious truths are spoken by vilest men but what force have they they are not received or owned Christ could not abide to hear the Devil speak truth A godly man speakes with Authority as it is said of Christ He spake as one having authority and not as the Scribes the Scribes taught that which was truth sometimes and the Scribes had alwayes authority to teach the chair of Moses was theirs they were not intruders upon an office they had no call to When Christ saith the Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chair Matt. 23. 2. He speakes not onely de facto of what they did but de jure of what they had right to doe They were not usurpers or actors beyond their line But though the Scribes had the right of authority to teach yet their teaching had no force of authority it was but talke And it appears plainly that the words of that hypocritical generation the Scribes and Pharisees bare no weight with the people because Christ gives them a charge to observe and doe what the Scribes and Pharisees bid them As intimating that the doctrine of those Scribes though true was low-priz'd and lay much unpractis'd Mat. 23. 3. We must not shorten the hand of God as if he might not use those who have no truth to publish a truth He may imploy what instruments he pleases and he can make those that are evil instruments of good But look upon it ordinarily thus it is the word of truth hath most power strength and force from the lips of those who are upright in heart and holy in life How forcible are their words The words of the wise are like goads or like nailes fastened by the Masters of the Assembly Eccl. 11. But the words of wicked masters in the assembly are like nailes without points they will not drive or take hold there is no fastning of them Or the words of wicked men are like weak nailes which break in the driving What doe you arguing reproving teaching you that carry your selves thus what force have your words Truth loses both strength and credit in your mouthes Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy selfe thou that preachest a man should not steal doest thou steal thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery doest thou commit adultery c are the Apostles chiding expostulations with the Jewish Doctors Rom. 2. And upon this he charges them with dishonoring God and causing his name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles vers 23 24. But what was the blasphemy Surely this The Gentiles grew to have a low esteeme of the word of God his Law was of no force with them because those teachers were so false to it and unspoke with their lives whatsoever their tongues had spoken That which hath no force upon the speakers heart hath seldome any upon the hearers What doe your teachings teach or your comfortings comfort what doe your arguings argue or your reprovings reproove Shall vice reprove sin as we speake proverbially or if it doth sin is not much hurt with those reprofs Words spoken from the heart goe to the heart and words read in the life are most forcible to reforme the life Then the word goes forth cloathed with list and power when the preacher can reade his Sermon in his own heart and the people in his life He that speakes onely out of books does much after his rate who as we say speakes without book And he that lives not what he speakes what in him lies kills what he speakes And how shall such a dead letter t is almost a miracle if it doth conveigh a quickning spirit Such arguings seldome reprove any but the arguer and him they alwayes reprove JOB Chap. 6. vers 26 27 28 29 30. Doe ye imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as wind Yea ye overwhelm the fatherlesse and you digge a pit for your friend Now therefore be content look upon me for it is evident unto you if I lie Return I pray you let it not be iniquity yea return again my righteousness is in it Is there iniquity in my tongue Cannot my taste discern perverse things IN the two former verses Job made an humble submission of himself unto the better counsel and instruction of his friends if they could yet shew him wherein he had erred In these five verses he doth two things further First he expostulates with his friends about their former speech and carriage toward him Secondly he admonishes them to be better advised more moderate and considerate in what they had yet to say unto him The former of these is contained in the 26. and 27. verses And there are two branches of it 1. He taxes them for making so light of what he had said Doe ye imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as wind ver 26. 2. He taxeth them for laying such heavy load upon him in what they had said Yea ye overwhelm the fatherlesse and you digge a pit for your friend vers 27. As if he had spoken plainly thus You have carried the matter hitherto with me as if I had spoken nothing but bare empty words words without any weight yea as if I were rageing mad distracted desperate not knowing nor caring what I did or what I speak as if my whole discourse were no better then meere vapouring a puffe of wind
shall not read either fear or falsenesse written in my forehead the lines and characters of my countenance shall shew you nothing but the soundnesse and integrity of my conscience For it is evident unto you if I lie you will anon read the lie in my face if there be a lie in my heart therefore break not off with me turn not away in discontent let us discourse a little more about this businesse and the truth will appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is evident unto you if I lie The Hebrew is it is before your face if I lie that is as we translate it will quickly be evident and appear unto you by a little sober debate of this businesse whether I am right or no. Et in faciem vestrum si mentior sc despeream vel moriar vel non sit mihi propitius Deus vel tale quippiam Mer. Some think there is a kind of secret imprecation in this speech It will be evident unto you if I lie As if he had said Let not the Lord be mercifull or gracious unto me let not the Lord pity or spare me If I am false hearted and lie unto you It is frequent and familiar in the Hebrew to give such expressions of an oath As in that oath of God Psalm 95. 11. quoted Heb. 3. 11. Vnto whom I sware in my wrath If they shall enter into my rest which we translate by a plain negative in both places They shall not enter into my rest And Psal 89 39. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David or if I lie unto David then let not my word be taken any more So Job here it will he evident to you if I lie and if I doe let me not have help or strength or support from God any more To lie may be taken two wayes either strictly as to lye is to Mentire est contramentem ite speak that which is false with an intent to deceive To speak against clear knowledge is the proper strict sence of a lie Or to lie signifies to fail or to come short in that which is expected from us by others To frustrate any of their hopes is to lie to them and so it is applied often times to the fruites of the earth Hab. 3. 17. Though the labour of the Olive shall fail the word is though the labour of the Olive should lie that is though you coming to find fruit of the Olive should find none there The Olive whose fair leaves promise and speak you fair as if you should have fruit if when you come it yeelds none this Olive lies to you So Hos 9. 2. The new wine shall lie we translate it The new wine shall fail that is the vines which speake thus much that you shall have new wine shortly if when you come there is none the vines lie In either of these sences we may understand it Spem mentita seges Hor. If I lie that is if I speak any thing against my mind wittingly or willingly or if I fail in this business if I am like the vine or like the olive when they give no fruit according to expectation it will be evident unto you you shall see if we discusse this controversie a little further the truth will out whether I shall fail or belie your expectation or no. That place Chap. 24. 25 will expound it so who will make me a lyar saith Job and make my speech nothing worth as if he had said my words shall be made good and I will not fail in that which I have undertaken or taken upon me There is a further apprehension about these words Look upon Totus hic versus eleganter insinuat rem sorensem nempe judic is strict issimum examen cosentes testes interrogat non solum verbis sed etiam nutibus oculorum intuitu Bold me it is evident unto you if I lie as iâ— they were an allusion to the carriage of Judges and Magistrates towards offenders in publick judiciary tryals when an offender or one accused for any offence is brought before a judge and stands at the bar to be arraigned the judge looks upon him eyes him sets his eye upon him and he bids the offender look up in his face look upon me saith the judge and speak up guiltiness usually clouds the forehead and cloaths the brâ—w The weight of guilt holds down the head The evil doer hath an ill look or dares not look up how glad is he if the judge look off him We have such an expression Psal 11. 4. speaking of the Lord the great Judge of Heaven and earth His eye-lids try the children of men as a Judge tries a guilty person with his eye and reades the characters of his wickednesse printed in his face Hence we have a common speech in our language such an one looks suspiciously or he hath a guilty looke At that great Goale-delivery described Rev. 6. 16. all the prisoners cry out to be hid from the face of him that sate upon the throne They could not looke upon Christ and they could not endure Christ should looke on them The eye-lids of Christ try the children of men That of Solomon may help this sence Pro. 20. 8. A King that sitteth in the throne of judgement scattereth away all evill with his eyes Wickednesse cannot endure to be under the observation of any eye much lesse of the eye of Justice Hence the actors of it say Who seeth us It is very hard not to shew Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu Ovid. secund Metam the guilt of the heart in the face and it is as hard to have it seen there Job seemes to offer himself to the view of the severest Judge Be content look upon me if I am guilty it will quickly appeare unto you my hypocrisie will breake out in my face and you may reade my conscience in my countenance It is noted of Paul Acts 13. 59. that when he had to deal witb Elymas the Sorcerer he set his eyes upon him and said O full of all subtilty The Apostle beate him downe as it were with a cast of his eye Job bids his friends looke upon him as long and as critically as they pleased he was not afraid of there lookes Lastly thus looke to me that is attend well what I say for I will explaine my minde so fully and clearely to you that it will quickly be evident to you whether I am right or wrong We may observe from this passage first That uprightnesse hath much boldnesse He that hath a good cause and a good conscience is not afraid to be searched to the bottome he cares not who lookes upon him or who lookes into him David in regard of the uprightnesse of his heart calls unto God himself Search me and try me it there be any way of wickednesse in me Psal 139. 23. David was so assured at his
the soule whereby we discerne or distinguish just from unjust truth from false-hood as sweet is distinguished from bitter by the pallate is elegantly called the pallate of the soul Cannot my taste discern The Hebrew is Cannot my taste * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scriptura saepe linguae faucibus manibus tribuit quod men t is intellectus proprium est sc med tari intelligere Magna est rationis orationis cognatio understand perverse things It is usuall in Scripture to ascribe understanding not onely to the senses but also to the tongue and sometimes to the hand Understanding is ascribed to the tongue in the place before named Psal 52. where the tongue is said to de vise mischiefe The tongue properly cannot devise the tongue doth but utter mischiefe it is the mind or heart that deviseth The shop is within where mischiefe is forged and framed yet the contrivance of it is in that text given to the tongue There is a two-fold reason of it why the holy Ghost attributes the worke of the understanding to the tongue hand or senses First there is a great affinity beween reason and speech and therefore the tongue which is the instrument of speech is honoured with the worke of the understanding And so grat is the affinity beween reason and speech that no creature void of reason can speak Speech is a peculiar property of the rationall creature Speech is or ought to be the immediate issue or birth of reason Words are conceived in the mind and born at the tongue And words are the image of the mind We may see what work is wrought in the mind by that which is spoken by the tongue The shape of a mans heart when he speakes himself comes out at his mouth And therefore before a man speakes he meditates Meditation is the conception of words As speaking is the production of them Thus the Lord charges Joshua Chap. 1. 8. The book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night One would think it should rather have been said The book of the Law shall not depart out of thine heart but thou shalt meditate therein or if not cut of thy mouth then Ita meditaberis ut exipsa cogitatione mentis effervescente redundent ebulliant in ore verba thou shalt speak of it Meditation is too high a worke for the mouth Yet because there ought to be much meditation about the Law of God before a word of it comes out of the mouth therefore the Lord saith The book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that is as oft as thou shalt speak thou shalt meditate thou shalt not speake rashly it shall not be the work of thy tongue alone but of thy mind and tongue together There is a second reason why acts of the understanding are ascribed to the tongue or to the senses because when a thing is well spoken or duly acted by any sense Reason is the guide and the bodily Organ is under the dictates of the minde or understanding So Gen. 41. 14. when old Jacob in giving the blessing unto Josephs children Manasseh and Ephraim laid his right hand upon the younger and his left hand upon the elder the text saith he made his hands to understand we translate he guided his hands wittingly there was so much reason such divine reason in that act of Jacobs hands in laying his right-hand upon the younger that the Prudenter egit manibus sun ac siiplae manus mysteriorum consciae erant Onkel Hebrew gives it with this elegancie he made his hands to understand which one of the Jewish Writers learnedly expounds thus He order'd his hands wisely as if they had been made acquainted with that great mystery of Gods counsels that the greater blessing was the portion of the younger sonne And so the Psalmist Psal 78 72. speaking of Davids raigne and government saith He governed them by the skilfulnesse of his hands The Hebrew is by the understanding of his hands and more the understandings of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In intelligentiis manuum vel volâ—rum his hands Or as one renders it The discretions of his hands or the prudency of his Palmes ascribing all kind of politicall knowledge and understanding unto David David in the outward administrations of the kingdome acted with so much reason and justice that his very hands are said to understand His hands understood more than the heads of other Princes As Davids hands so Jobs pallate or taite had an understanding Cannot my pallate understand Yet further it is frequent in Scripture metaphorically to translate things which are only acted or apprehended by the inward senses to the outward Taste properly is of meat and drink the humour or moisture which is in meats sutable to the salivall humour in the mouth causeth pleasantness of taste Here Job speaks of Doctrines or of actions Cannot my taste discerne perverse things If a thing be perversly or properly truely or falsely spoken cannot I taste it quickly And hence the word of God is compared to those things which are the object of taste as to milk and to strong meat 1 Cor. 3. 2. I saith the Apostle have fed you with milk and not with meat That is with easie and common truths not with the more mysterious parts of Gospel-knowledge because ye were not able to bear it The taste of such mysteries was too strong for your pallates The same Metaphor is enlarged by the Apostle Heb. 5. 12 13 14. And in this Book we find it more than once Doth not the eare trie words and the mouth taste his meat Job 12. 11. Chap. 34. 3. That is doth not the eare try words as the mouth tastes meat Cannot my taste discern Perverse things That is words ill spoken or wrong placed The word signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also any calamity or sad accident And so Mr. Broughton renders it Cannot my pallate declare all kind of heavy sorrowes Do ye think I have lost my judgment of things and that I cannot tell when I am pinch't or pain'd First in that he saith here Is there iniquity in my tongue Observe The tongue oft-times discovers the iniquity of the heart If there be iniquity in the heart it will one time or other break forth at and blister upon the tongue He that is rotten at his heart is commonly rotten in his talk Matth. 12. 34. Out of the aboundance of the heart the mouth speakes And when there is aboundance of iniquity in the heart there is seldome a dearth or scarcity of it in the mouth especially in times of trouble that iniquity and corruption that disease and plague of the heart will break forth at the lips As Evill words corrupt good manners So evil words discover that our manners are corrupt There are few men but as the Damosel spake to
are vanity all goe to one place all are of the dust and all turn to the dust again And whereas the Atheist heard some speake of the ascent of mans spirit after this life he puts it off as but talke and guessing ver 21. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth That is who can tell that there is such a difference between the spirit of a man and of a beast who ever saw the one ascending or the other descending or from what Anatomie was this learned Thus the Atheist derides the doctrine of the soul and will therefore laugh and be merry with his body while it lasts that 's his portion For who shall bring him to sâ—e what shall be after him ver 22. Is it not strange that any who are called sober Christians should plant their opinions in this soyle of Atheisme and make that a proofe of their faith which Solomon brings only as a proofe of some mens infidelity The Preacher in this Book personated those whom he abhor'd and sometimes speakes the practises of other men not his own opinion There is no more reason to ground this Tenet of the Soules Mortality upon those texts then there is of encouragement to intemperancie in that chap. 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheare thee in the dayes of thy youth and walke in the wayes of thine own heart Or in that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 32. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die If any would learne Solomons own sence about this point let him reade it as plaine as words can make it Eccl. 12. 7. Then namely when man dies shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it So then to the next before us the soule is not a wind but the Hujusmodi sententiâ— regressum animarum in corpora minin è negant sed necessitatem moriendi confirmant celeri atem life And all those Scriptures where life is compared to wind and dying to the passing of it without returning deny the regresse or returning of the soule to a naturall not to an eternall life and imply the short stay of the soule in the body and certaine departure from it not a not being when it parts These two must part and so part as never to returne to that estate againe Thus Iob expounds himselfe in the words following Mine eye shall no more see good Or as the Hebrew I shall not return to see good answerable to the metaphor of a wind it passeth away and returnes no more To see In this place as often elsewhere is to enjoy I shall not Videre bonum pro frui nota locutio est enjoy good Psal 4. 6. Who will shew or who will cause us to see any good It was not the bare sight of good which they desired but the enjoyment of it So Ier. 17. 6. The man whose heart departeth from God is threatned that he shall not see when good cometh that is he shall not enjoy good when it comes For though to see good be a mercy yet to see it and not to tast it is a curse Therefore at the last day they who thought themselves high in Gods favour but were indeed under his wrath are told that they shall Lam. 13. 26. see Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdome of God and themselves shut out they shall see what they cannot enjoy and that sight shall adde to their sorrow The Prophet cries out Lament 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction that is I am the man that hath felt and had experience of afflictions And Psalm 16. 10. the great promise to Christ is that though he took a corruptible body upon him yet he should not see corruption that is partake of corruption corruption should have no communion with much lesse power over him And we have the same use of the word in this book chap. 20. ver 17. where Zophar tells the hypocrite that God will deprive and strip him of every good thing He shall not see the rivers the floods the brookes of honey and butter It is a rhetoricall expresson comparing the affluence of outward things to floods and rivers and brooks which send forth their streames plentifully as if he had said though there be great store of honey and butter those two are specified for the rest though there be rivers brooks and streames of these commodities yet he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall see none of them that is he shall not enjoy or tast a drop of Sicut Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latini bonum aliquando pro pulchro commodo utili usurpant Isa subinde Hebraei vocabudum Tob Fagius in Gen. 2. 18 them That unbeleeving Lord is told by Elisha that he should see plenty in Samaria the next day but should not eate thereof 2 King 7. 2. Not to see is not to eat and he that sees but eates not is not releeved but troubled at the sight Mine eye shall not see good What good when a man dies shall he see no more good we see but little good while we live and the greatest good is to be seen when we die or rather while we live what doe we see but evill and when the Saints die what have they to see but good how is it then that Iob saith when I die mine eye shall not see good what miserable creatures were we if there were no good to be seen beyond the line of this life our richest stock of comfort lyes in the good we shall see hereafter which is therefore called the blessed-making vision And Iob knew well enough that his eyes should see good after death for he saith chap. 19. 27. with these eyes shall I see God he knew also his soule had an eye to see good and a better good then ever he saw in the world while his body lay in the grave Then his meaning of Mine eye shall no more see good is no more worldly good none of †these good things which I have seen I shall be above the smart of earthly sorrows and above the sence of earthly joyes Good is either natural or civill or spirituall When God created the world he looked upon all that he bad made and he saw that all was very good Civill good is the order peace and prosperity of the world death stops the sight of all this good As for eternall or spirituall good death cannot close or dimme the eye against those objects Then here is no plea for Atheists against the resurrection nor any against the soules Being or being awake till the resurrection Iob speakes only about the speare and course of nature when man dies naturally and is in the state of the dead he enjoyes nothing he acts nothing according to the estate of the living * In his
saith Am I a sea or a whale that thou settest a watch over mâ— The providence of God watches over all his creatures All their motions are by his permission or commission they stirre not but by his leave The providence of God is his watch and therfore it is called the eye of providence and providence hath such an eye as never sleeps nor slumbers and therein lieth our security that we have a providentiall eye open for us when ours are shut and we asleep Secondly observe God expresses most care to keepe those creatures from hurting man which are most apt to hurt man We see Job instances in these two by name the sea and the whale and tels us that God puts a guard upon them he watches the least cretures but it speaks most security to man to hear that these are under a watch The Lord watches over all wicked men that they should not hurt his people but such of them as are most harmefull who are very seas and whales men who would swollow and drowne his people with a deluge of rage and malice over these the Lord watches in a special manner His eye of jealousie which is alwaies awake is surely wakefull upon these As the Lord hath a speciall eye upon the Saints to doe them good so he hath a speciall eye upon the wicked that they doe no hurt or no more then shall turne to good Hence the Psalmist admonishes all and it may have a particular application to wicked men Psal 32. 9. Be yee not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come neare unto thee If the Lord sees men so brutish that they will not be ruled by reason he will rule them by rigour He hath a whip for the Horse a bridle for the Asse and a rod for the fools back Prov. 26. 3. A rocky shore for the sea and a prison for the whale rather then they shall come neare to hurt his beloved people Secondly note That Man in the passion and distempered sinfullnesse of his nature is like the sea or the whale A cruell man is as hurtfull as the most hurtfull creature In the place before noted while man is warned Not to be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding It is intimated that many men are and it is a truth that all men left to themselves would be like unto a horse or a mule yea like unto a sea or a whale in doing mischiefe The Prophet Isai 57. 20 compares wicked men unto the troubled sea that cannot rest There is not in the whole compasse of nature a clearer shadow of mans nature than the sea First The sea is very vast and would if let alone be boundlesse Man is naturally vast and boundlesse in his desires he is never satisfied Secondly The sea is unstable alwayes fleeting and moving Gen. 49. 3. Dying Jacob characters Reuben thus unstable at water The heart of man is a moveable thing ebbing and flowing forward and backward tumbling up and downe as the vast Ocean Thirdly The sea is often provoked with stormes and tempests it is the great stage where the winds act their parts and strive as it is exprest in the Revelation There are many winds striving upon the sea of mans heart continually and therefore he is so boisterous and so stormy he hath winds within him and winds from without him The winds in his own bowels make the greatest commotions The Apostle James questions Chap. 4. 1. Whence comes contentions and warrs and fightings among you Come they not hence even of your lusts that warre in your members Lusts are as boisterous winds in the soule which make it unquiet and unruly strong lusts and desires like strong winds and contrary lusts and desires like contrary winds contend upon this sea Most men are Tit. 3. 3. serving divers lusts and pleasures not only many but divers or divers not only in number but in nature one lust as a contrary wind striving with another and so making a storme in the heart And this storminesse is caused also by an outward blast Satan blowes upon the heart and the world blowes so that till the holy Ghost breaths heavenly gales to overcome and blow downe those stormes raised by the blast of stronglusts and temptations the soul will be ever like a sea tumbled up and down or as the Apostle Jude speaks vers 13. like a raging wave of the sea foming out it 's own shame And this is further considerable that as the sea is most turbulent and tempestious most loud and roaring about the bankes where it is restrained so man is most boysterous where he is kept in and stopt if God doe but set bounds to him by afflictions he begins to rage at those bounds It is that which Iob in a degree complain'd of he thought God would bind and bound him in by affliction and he began to be somewhat unquiet in his shackles But when God sets bounds to wicked men by afflictions and hedges up their way with thornes they are angry indeed their corruptions breake forth the more by how much the stronger banks are made against them The great banke and bound which God hath set up to keepe the lusts of men from over-flowing all his word and will his laws and ordinances by which he speaks to man as to the sea Hitherto shalt thou come but no further Against these bankes the hearts of men naturally rage most How doe their lusts roare and rise up against the holy and righteous will of God there the fome of their corruptions is most wrought and cast up As Paul himselfe acknowledged of his naturall condition Rom. 7. 8. Sinne saith he taking occasion by the law wrought in me all manner of concupiscence my lusts and corruptions were more mad because they were more restrained I was like the sea which makes most noise at and most assaults the bankes which stay it So ver 13. Sinne that it might appeare sinne wrought death in me by that which is good there was a good a holy and a righteous law set before me but the basenesse of my heart was such that I was the worse for that which taught me what was good and should have made me better Further man is as a sea in this he ever casts up mire and dirt when he is moved corruption moves every stirring stirrs up the pudle of his heart As he is a sea for largenesse so he is a very sinke for filthinesse Isa 57. 20. The wicked are like the troubled sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt Lastly Covetous oppressours have a nearer resemblance to the sea in three things They as the sea suck in all the rivers and streames of profit which flow into them from any part of the world and yet are not filled Secondly They as the sea wrack and over-whelme thousands and are not at all moved with their out-cries
never fill our dayes are but as a dream And what is spoken in Isaias Chap. 29. 8. concerning the dreamer is verified of a meere naturall life It is saith the Prophet As when a hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth but he awaketh and his soule is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint neither hunger nor thirst can be appeased by dreames satisfaction comes not in at the doore of imagination Our daies of themselves can give us no more satisfaction no better a break-fast then a dreame of meat and drinke doth to a hungry or a thirsty man All creatures are not able to fill one There is a satisfaction which comes to us thorough the creature but the creature doth not satisfie God can make any thing satisfie the least of his creatures shall fill the greatest He can give us as much as we expect from them that is looke what satisfaction a man would have from a creature that God can give when he pleaseth But the daies of man are vanity in this because we cannot take this satisfaction our selves from the creature neither is any creature able to give it us When creatures have done their best we are hungry and restlesse still empty and unsatisfied still There is no rest till we returne to God or till God turne his face to us Fourthly the vanity of our daies appears in this that they are deceiveable daies that 's very vaine to us which deceives us And in this the great vanity of the creature consists it promiseth much and performeth nothing Great promises are made and hopes are raised very high Riches will tell us what they will doe for us and honours will tell us what they will doe for us and how happy they will make us and the wine will tell us O how that will refresh us and the sweet and the fat will tell us how they will fatten us All these make golden promises but leaden performances They cannot make good what they promise unlesse they can with evill As Satan said to Christ when he had not so much as a shoelaâ—chet to dispose of All this will I give thee So the creature joyning with our hearts makes wonderfull promises of high content and then leaves us most discontented This is vanity and vexation of mans spirit If the creature were not so free to enter bond and give us security for the paiment of great good it would not be so ill with us If the creature would say directly to us it is not in me as Job brings in the creatures disclaiming wisedome chap. 28. The sea saith it is not in me and the earth saith it is not in me So if creatures would speak plainly comfort is not in us help is not in us satisfaction is not in us and so tell us how vaine they are their vanity were lesse to us though the same in it selfe It is worse to be deceived of good then to want it Surely saith David of this life every man walketh in a vaine shew Psal 39. 6. there is a shew of this and that and the other Qnasi nihil habeat humana vita verum solidâ—m sed apparens umbratile imag narium thing a promise of it but it is a vain shew it is but like a Pageant which feeds the eye and delights the fancie or pleases the eare but passeth away and leaveth you as empty as before In the fifth verse of that Psalme the inventory of mans temporall estate is summed up and the totall amounts but to this Every man at his best estate is altogether vanity and least any should think he hath miscounted an affirmation is prefixt Surely every man at his best estate is altogether vanity Every man is vanity and every man is vanity at his best estate not only in his afflictions and in his losses in his troubles and in his sorrows such as Job now was in but take a man in the height and perfection and accomplishment of all creature comforts and accrewments take the cream the pith the marrow the sweetnesse of all extract a quintessence of all that can be had in creatures all is vanity Man at his best estate is vanity yea altogether vanity When Cain was born there was much adoe about his birth I have got a man-child from God saith his mother she looked upon him as a great possession and therefore called his name Cain which signifies a possession But the second man that was born into the world bare the title of the world vanity his name was Abel which is the word here used They called his name Abel that is vanity a premonition was given in the name of the second Abel viventium â—mâ—ium typus representatio Pined man what would or should be the condition of all men Psal 144. 4. there is an allusion unto those two names we translate it Man is like to vanity the Hebrew is Adam is as Abel Adam you know was the name of the first man the name of Abels father but as Adam was the proper name of the first so it is an appellative or common to all men now Adam that is man or all men are Abel vaine and walking in a vaine shadow And this word is by some translated nothing his dayes are nothing Temtus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pined Idols are nothing time is but the Idol of eternity and things temporall but the Idol of things eternall This word signifies in the Hebrew an Idol and a vaine thing Deut. 32. 31. Jer. 2. 5. the word Abel is translated Idol and the Apostle 1 Cor. 8. tells us that an Idol is nothing in the world that is an Idol is the vainest thing in the world or the greatest vanity So that upon the matter our estate and our dayes here are but an Idol that is the representation of a thing which is not so much vanity and folly so much trouble and sorrow so much affliction is mixed with the dayes and life we now leade as A nothing is all it can justly be called or an Idol a shew of what is not And therefore we may well make it an argument as Job here to take us off from the world and to chide worldlings with as David did Psal 4. O ye sons of men how long will yee love vanity or as Solomon about that adored Idol of the world riches Prov. 23. 5. wilt thou set thine eyes or as the Originall wilt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou cause thine eyes to fly upon that which is not An Eagle will not catch flies that 's no game for her much lesse will she make a flight at nothing when there is no game sprung at all And wilt thou make a flight with thy heart for the eye which Solomon chiefely intends is the eye of the soul when nothing springs before thee but that which is not To close this point if the creature be so vaine and
care for Oxen God doth care for Oxen The Apostle having shewed the goodnesse of God to beasts providing by a law that they should not be muzled presently he questions Doth God take care for Oxen As if he had said surely there is some what more in it or saith he it altogether for our sakes Not altogether doubtlesse God had regard to Oxen But for our sakes no doubt it was written that is chiefly for our sakes That he which ploweth should plow in hope and he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope So when Christ speaks of the Lillies Mat. 6. If God so cloath the Lillies of the field how much more will he cloath you You shall have the strength of his care to provide for you to feed and cloath you thus God sets his heart upon man he lookes to his people as to his houshold to his charge he will see they shall have all things needfull for them And so not laying to heart which is the contrary signifies carelesnesse Isa 47. 7. It is reported of Babylon Thou saidst I shall be a Ladie for ever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart that is thou didst not regard these things to take care about them And Ezek. 40. 4. the expression is very full where God cals the Prophet to attention and he calleth him all over Behold saith he with thine eyes and heare with thine eares and set thine heart on all that I shall shew thee He wakens the whole man See and see with thine eyes Heare and heare with thine eares and set thine heart upon it the sum of all is be thou very intentive and diligent about this businesse to the utmost Secondly To set the heart notes an act of the affections and desires A man sets his love upon what he sets his heart that 's the meaning of Psalm 62. 10. If riches increase set not your heart upon them That is let not your love your affections your desires close with these things when riches abound let not your desires abound too It is an admirable frame of heart to have narrow scant affections in a large plentifull estate He is the true rich man who loves his riches poorly Set your affections on things that are above Col. 3. 2. Thirdly To set the heart notes high esteeme and account this is more than bare love and affection 2 Sam. 18. 3. when a counsell of warre was held by Davids Commanders about going out to battell against Absolom they all vote against Davids person all undertaking upon this ground they will not care for us they will not set their hearts upon us or value us their hearts are set upon thee thou art the prize they looke for and therefore the heate of the battell will be against thee Againe 1 Sam. 4. 20. When the wife of Phineas was delivered of a son a son is the womans joy and glory yet the text saith when the women that stood by told her that a son was borne she answered not neither did she regard it she did not set her heart upon it because the glory was departed from Israel In either of these sences the Lord sets his heart upon man he greatly loves man The love of God to man is the spring of mercy to man yea love is the spring of love love acted springs from a decree of love Deut. 7. 7. The Lord thy God did not set his love upon you c. because ye were more in number then any other people but because the Lord loved you Love also led in that highest work of mercy the giving of Christ God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son Josh 3. 16. As love is the spring and root of all the reall duty which mans performes to God and is therefore called the fulfilling of the law Our love fulfilleth the will of God so the love of God is the root of all that good we receive his love fulfilleth our will that is whatsoever we will or ask according to the will of God the love of God fulfills it for us Our love fulfills the law of Gods command and Gods love fulfills the law of our wants and lawfull desires His heart is set upon us and then his hand is open to us Further God doth not only love man but his love is great and his esteeme of man very high and he reallizes the greatest love by bestowing the greatest mercy How did God set his heart upon us when he gave his Son who lay in his bosome for us He set his bosome upon us when he gave us his Sonne who came out of his bosome Hence let us see our duty Should not we set our heart upon God when God sets his heart upon us the soveraignty of God cals for our hearts He as Lord may use al that we have or are And there is more than a law of soveraignty why we should give God our hearts God hath given us his heart first he who calleth for our hearts hath first given us his What are our hearts to his heart The love of God infinitely exceeds the love and affection of the creature What were it to God if he had none of our hearts But woe to us if we had not the heart of God This phrase shews us the reason why God calls for our hearts he gves us his own it is but equall among men to love where we are loved to give a heart where we have received one how much more should we love God and give him our hearts when we heare he loves us and sets his heart upon us whose love heart alone is infinitely better then all the loves and hearts of all men and Angels There is yet a fourth consideration about this expression the setting of the heart Setting the heart is applied to the anger and displeasure of God so the phrase is used Job 34. 14. If he set his heart upon man all flesh shall perish together that is if God be resolved to chastise man to bring judgements upon him all flesh shall perish together none shall be able to oppose it As it is the hightest favour to have God set his heart upon us in mercy and love so it is the highest judgement to have God set his heart upon a man in anger and in wrath to set his heart to afflict and punish The Lord answers his own people Jer. 15. 1 2 3. that notwithstanding all the prayers and motions of his beloved favourites in their behalfe his heart could not be towards them Then his heart was strongly set against them or upon them in extreame anger therefore he concludes they that are for the sword to the sword and they that are for destruction to destruction c. If God set his heart to afflict he will afflict and he can doe it And there may be such a sense of the text here What is man that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him that thou shouldest come
he is afflicted many a good soule would not beleeve that they had such an unbeleeving heart such a proud heart till God tried him and then corruption discovered it self The reason why God brought his people such a way about in the wildernesse was Deut. 8. 2. to prove them to try them to know what was in their heart God knowes what is in the heart of man intuitively and he needs not goe about he can goe the neerest way into every mans heart he proves it only to make it known to others and to make a man know himselfe They could not thinke their hearts were so rebellious so ful of murmuring and unbeleefe if God had not taken them about to prove and try them those forty yeares Prosperity and comforts are trials too whatsoever God doth with a man he some way or other tries him Looke not only upon your afflictions as trials your mercies also are tryals God gives you them to see what you will doe with them he gives riches and honour and credit to see how men will use and improve them as by afflictions so by outward comforts he tries both what grace and what corruption is in our hearts He gives comforts to see how we can live upon God in Christ when we have the creature and that we may shew how much we make of him without whom we cannot live when we have all things besides him Prosperity tries corruption then pride and creature-confidence breake forth which before were undiscerned We say Magistracy shewes a man nature when it is exalted shewes it selfe as much as when it is vext He trieth every moment A moment is the least part and division 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad momenta of time To try every moment is to try not only frequently but continually Hence observe The temper and state of mans heart is so various that there needs new experiments of him every moment Why doth God try us every moment Because we are one moment in one temper and the next moment in another The acting frame of a mans heart this houre cannot be collected from the frame it was in an houre before therefore there is a continuall triall Some things if they be tried once they are tried for ever if we try gold it will ever be as good as we found it unlesse we alter it as we try it to be so it continues to be But try the heart of man this day and come againe the next and you may find it in a different condition to day beleeving to morrow unbeleeving to day humble to morrow proud to day meeke to morrow passionate to day lively and enlarged to morrow dead and straightned pure gold to day and to morrow exceeding drossie As it is with the pulse of a sick man it varieth every quarter of an houre therefore the Physitian tries his pulse every time he comes because his disease alters the state of his body so it is with the distempered condition of mans spirit God having tried our pulse the state of our spirit by crosses or by mercies this day next day he tryes us too and the third day he tryes us againe and so keepe us in continuall trials because we are in continuall variations That sicknesse and disease within us alters the state and condition of the soule every moment Our comfort is that God hath a time wherein he will set our souls up in such a frame as he shall need to try us but that once Having set us up in a frame of glory he shall not need to try our hearts for us or to put us to the triall of our selvs any more we shall stand as he sets us up to all eternity I must yet come downe from the thoughts of this blessed eternity and shew you Job tried out with his time and earnestly calling but for a minutes respire from his paines and sorrows in the voice of the nineteenth vers Verse 19. How long wilt thou not depart from me nor let me alone till I may swallow down my spittle In this verse Job makes application of the two former to himselfe as if he had said seeing man is a creature so weake and unworthy in himselfe and I am such among the rest why doest thou visit me and try me every moment How long shall it be ere thou depart from me or how long wilt thou not looke away from me The word under another construction signifies to looke upon a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quando construitur cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat aspicere respicere cum detectatione Gen. 4. 5. sed cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat avertere recedere man with respect and complacency So Gen. 4. 5. The Lord had respect unto or he looked graciously upon Abel and his offering But here to looke away and so Isa 22. 4. Looke away from me I will weepe bitterly And because they who withdraw their eyes from us are ready also to withdraw their presence from us therefore it signifies to depart How long wilt thou not depart from me c. But is this the voice of Job Is he burthen'd with the presence of God Or doth he thinke the time long till God be gone from him The wicked say unto God depart from us Chap. 21. 14. And the Lord threatens this as the sorest judgement against his owne people Jer. 6. 8. Be instructed O Jerusalem lest my soule depart from thee And by the Prophet Hosea Chap. 9. 12. Woe also unto them when I depart from them The promise of strongest consolation to the Saints is this I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. And the very offer of a departure did so afflict Moses that he was ready to throw up all Lord if thy presence goe not along with us carry us no further Exod. 33. 15. How earnestly doe the servants of God deprecate the hiding of his face how bitterly have they complained upon those hidings how importunately have they praied that he would returne looke on them behold them cause his face to shine and lift up the light of his countenance upon them And is Job so weary of Gods company that he beggs of him to depart Is the voice of Job Will a man that is in darknesse bid the Sunne goe from him Or will a man that is thirstie say to a fountaine turne away from me I answer the Lords presence may be considered two waies First as his pleased comforting presence Secondly as his angry afflicting presence When Job saith How long wilt thou not depart from me his meaning is How long wilt thou not with-draw thine afflicting hand from me We may expound it by that of David Psal 39. 10. Remove thy stroke Usquoque non parcis mihi Vulg. Iram alio converte Jun. away from me I am consumed by the blow of thine hand Hence some translate How long doest thou not spare me And another glosses Turne thine anger away from me Or
is stronger then they were So I may say be yee not strivers or strugglers with God for your bands are made strong It is said Exod. 4. 25 26. That the Lord met Moses in the Inne and sought to kill him The Lord is never to seeke to doe what he pleases but thus he speakes after the manner of men who offer or assay at any businesse They seeke to do it But Zipporah having circumcised her sonne He let Moses goe It is this word He slacked or loosened having before as it were arrested and attached him or clapt him in prison for making that great default the neglect of Circumcision Sometimes we find the Lord himself speaking as if he were at the mercy or under the power of man and therefore calling in this word to be loosened or let alone Deut. 9. 14. Let me alone that I may destroy them The prayer of faith is as a band upon Gods hand holding him so fast that he seems as one that cannot strike or destroy till a Moses will give him leave by ceasing to pray unto him To be sure we are at Gods mercy and under his power so that nothing but the prayer of faith can loosen us And therefore Job doth not attempt to break the cords or cut them asunder nor seeks he to untie their knots but desires God himself to do it let me alone loosen me I will be a prisoner till thou openest the door for my deliverance As Jephtahs daughter said to him Judg. 11. 37. when he had bound himself and her in the bands of a rash vow Let me alone for two months or loosen me from the ingagement of my vow for two months as if she had said I will not loose my self by a wilful refusal but doe thou give me a willing dispensation So a godly man bespeaks the Lord in his straights Loosen me Lord. Unlesse God be pleased to loosen him he will be contented and when in a good frame of heart and freeness of spirit well-pleased with his bands In some sence he speakes as Paul and Silas when they were in prison Acts 16. 37. Let the Lord himself come and fetch us out That is let us see such means of our inlargement and freedome from trouble as may assure us that the Lord hath loosened and enlarged us A godly man had a thousand times rather be put into a prison by God than put himself into a paradice He had rather be bound by Gods hand than loosened by his own That place toucht before may reach this sence Prov. 24. 10. if thou faintest so we or loosnest thy self in the day of adversity Thy strength is small that is the strengh of thy faith and patience is small There is nothing discovers our weakness more than striving to break the cords of our afflictions The stronger we are in faith in love in humility the more quietly we lie bound Faith seeks ease and release onely in God to say Lord loosen me is a duty to loosen our selves is both our sin and our punishment Till I may swallow down my spittle Some conceive that from this Hebrew word Rak which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saliva undè quidam deducunt Raca Mat. 5. 22. quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interpretantur i. e. conspuendum vel dignum qui conspuatur Alii a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vacum quasi cerebro vacuus judicio carens Drus we translate spittle Raca is derived Mat. 5. 22. as if to call a man Raca were as much as to say he is worthy to be spit upon or that one should spit in his face though others spring that word from Rik which signifies empty as if it were as much as to call a man an empty fellow without wit or brains or within one degree of a foole which is the next word in Matthew But what is Iobs intendment in desiring God to let him alone Till he might swallow down his spittle First Some refer it to a bodily distemper as if Iob were troubled with a (a) Inter caetera mala Synanchen habuisse se perhibet Hieron squinsie or sore throat which hindered the swallowing of his spittle (b) Dimitta me ut gustum aliqâ—em hujus vitae capiam Albert. Another takes it in a Philosophical notion as if Iob had said Lord let me have some ease that I may at least tast once more what it is to live or how sweet life is For that sence of tast works by the salival humour or spittle in the mouth which mixing with the juice or sap that is in meats affects and delights the pallate Thirdly these words are taken as the discription of a man ready to die who is disabl'd either to swallow his spittle or to void it As if he had said I am now even at the point of death let me alone a little Davids prayer comes near this sense Psal 39. 13. O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more Fourthly It may be taken proverbially and that two waies First To note the shortest time even so much as may serve a Serno proverbialis talis est neque ad scalpendas aures mihi otium est man to spit As if he had said O let me have a little intermission a little respit such is the sence of that phrase Chap. 9. 18. He will not suffer me to take my breath And the like are those used in some countries I have not leisure or time to scratch my ear or to pare my nails My sorrows know no interim my feaver is one continued fit I have no well daies no nor a good hour Ne tantillum quidem temporis est quoÌ„ non tenter aâ—te Coc. therefore let me at least have so much time of ease as I may swallow my spittle let me have the shortest time That I may once more know though but for a moment what it is to be without pain To whlch interpretation that also subscribes which makes these words to be a circumlocution for silence For while a man is swallowing his spittle his speech stops he cannot bring up his words and let down the spittle at the same time so his meaning is I am forced to complain continually I would be silent and forbear speaking but my grief will not suffer me The second proverbial understanding of the word is that they Elegans proverbialis loquutio ad denotandum diligentem in alium intuitum quo minim as in alio discernet actiones Saliva ferè imperceptibiliter obsorvetur import a very strict watch held upon another in all his motions so that he cannot stir a finger or move his tongue silently in his mouth unobserved If I do but stir my tongue to swallow my spittle which is one of the most unperceivable acts of man thou takest notice O do not hold so strict a hand and so curious an eye upon me Let me have a little liberty do not examine every failing do
a gift as whosoever hath it is sure and safe for ever And therefore the gift being much more precious than that of Simon Magus Take heed of offering this kind of mony for it your works and doings To doe so is the worst Simonie in the world Better offer literall money for those gifts of the holy Ghost then this figurative money for the favour of God in the pardon of sin What Peter threatned Simon Magus may be affirmed of them Their money must perish with them That is their prayers and teares their sorrows and their humblings their almes and good deeds forasmuch as they have thought that this gift of pardon may be obtained by such money They have neither part nor lot in that mercy for their hearts are not right in the sight of God A good worke trusted to is as mortall as a sin unrepented of Againe There is somewhat to be done when we have sinn'd but nothing to be paid That 's Gospel-language when a man hath sinned to say What shall I doe Those converts in the Acts who enquired What shall we doe were told by the Apostles of some what to be done Repent and be baptized believe and thou shalt be saved These are waies wherein salvation is tender'd not works for which it is bestowed It is a dangerous error so to lift up the grace of God as to deny the industry of man through grace because he can do nothing by way of satisfaction that therefore he must doe nothing The Apostles gave Gospel-counsell yet when men asked them what shall we doe to be saved They said not ye must doe nothing God will save you by his free-grace no they called them to repent and beleeve c. Take heed when ye have sinned to say we need not mourne for sin we need not be humbled we need not repent for Lord what can we do unto thee O thou Saviour of men These are the inferences of our own spirits not of the Spirit of Christ They who lift up the grace of Christ to lessen the necessity of gracious actings in themselves shew they know not the meaning of his grace and have not indeed tasted how gracious the Lord is To deny our owne righteousnesse and to be very active in the waies of righteousnesse is the due Gospel-temper The Apostle Phil. 3. 8. counts all things but losse and dung all duties and humblings all legall righteousnesse and obedience not that he refused righteousnesse or neglected duties but he would not mingle them with Christ or bring them in as contributions to the purchase of blessednesse Our righteousnesse and holy duties are dung and drosse in justification but they are gold and precious things in sanctification without these we cannot walk worthy of our holy calling or as it becomes the Gospel of Christ So much for these words what shall I doe unto thee O thou preserver of men Here is the Compellation or the title under which Job bespeaks the Lord and it is a royall one The preserver of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Narsar conservavit observa vit custodivit dise dit de qualibet custodia dicitur significat etiam se ris vectebasque elaudere licet proprie custos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur sed confundi scias Drus The words signifies both to preserve and to observe and hence it is applied to our keeping the law of God Psal 119. 22. I have kept thy testimonies I have kept them by observation that is I have obeyed thy Commandements The word is often applied to God in reference to mans protection and preservation Deut. 32. 10. Moses describes the care of God over his people Israel He found them in the wildernesse as a people wandring and going astray and he kept them as the apple of his eye that is he looked to them and had a continuall tender care over them So Psal 17. 8. Keep me as the apple of thine eye The Septuagint render it O thou observer of men What shall I doe unto thee O thou who art the observer and looker into the very hearts of men Lord saith he what wilt thou have me to doe Thou lookest quite through me and seest all that is in me I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui prespectam habis mentem hominum Sept. need not declare my selfe unto thee thou knowest me altogether Thou who art the searcher of the heart and the trier of the reins Thou who art a most vigilant watcher over all my waies what have I done or spoken but thou knowest and canst easily observe Thus Job speaks at the 14th of this booke vers 16. Thou numberest my steps a man observes another curiously when he tels how many steps he treads it is an expression noting the exactest observation Salomon joynes the act of keeping with observing Prov. 24. 12. If thou saiest behold he knoweth it not this is the refutation of an Atheist doth not he that pondereth the hears consider it and he that keepeth thy soule doth not he know He that preserves us in our wayes must needs see us in all our waies Again Preserving or keeping may be understood two waies First There is a preserving or keeping of man that he shal not escape And Secondly A preserving or keeping of man that he shall not Custos hominu sc qui homine talibus malis quasi quadam custodia includis it non sit effugium take hurt Some understand it in the first sence O thou preserver of men that is O thou who art so strict a keeper and watcher over men that they cannot escape thine hand A man is said to be in safe custodie when he is a prisoner and so the sence is thus given Lord thou hast me fast enough I cannot breake away from thee I am lockt up within iron-gates and barrs what wouldest thou have me doe unto thee Thou maiest put what conditions thou pleasest upon me I must submit Such language we have Lam. 3. 5 7. which may illustrate this He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travell he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out he hath made my chaine heavie You see he speakes of God as we may speake with reverence as of the master of a prison who saith to his under-officers there is such a one looke to him well make his chaine heavie that he may not get a way put him in a place where there is a strong wall least he breake prison This sence of the word makes Job speaking like Jeremy He hath builded against me he hath compassed me about he hath made my chaine heavie upon me But the second sence according to the letter of our Translation is most cleare and apt O thou preserver of men Thou who keepest man least he take hurt or fall into danger As if Job had bespoke God thus Thou art the Saviour and protectour of men thou hast not only given man a being but thou providest for his
shew to be a sin the Gospel can shew a pardon for it whatever the Law can bind us with the Gospel can unloose The Mercy-seat covered the whole Ark The Mercy-seat noted the forgiveness of sin and if you read the description of it Exod. 25. you shall find that it was exactly to a hairs breadth of the same dimensions with the Ark wherein the Law was put intimating that there was mercy and pardon for sin let it come out of any part of the Law laid up in that Ark. As the least sins must of necessity have a pardon so the greatest sins are in a possibility of pardon And the truth is there is no sin as it is an Anomy a transgression of the Law without the compass of pardon It is not the malignity of the sin but the malignity of the sinner that makes it incurable the sin against the holy Ghost is not unpardonable because there wants mercy large enough to pardon it but because it refuseth the mercy which should pardon it and the medicine that should heal it Fifthly Observe who it is that here presseth thus for pardon it is Job and was Job never pardoned till now Or was this think you the first time that ever Job prayed for pardon Had not Job thought of this business before Without question he had he was one of whom God gave this testimony that he was a just and an upright man one that feared God and eschewed evil He that did all this and was all this must first be in favour with God and yet Job cryeth out Why dost thou not pardon my transgression Whence observe They whose sins are pardoned must yet pray for the pardon of sin Yea they who upon good grounds have assurance that their sins are pardoned must yet pray for the pardon of their sins 2 Sam. 12. 13. When Nathan told David God hath put away thy sin he assured him that he was pardoned and doubtless the heart of David opened by Faith to let in that gracious Message he was not faithless but believing Yet David in his penitential Psalm penned afterward prayes O how earnestly for pardon again and again That which a man is assured he hath he may pray to have and enjoy make it so high which some make the grand objection against this point Why should we pray say they for that which we have already I say a man may pray for that which he hath already and is assured he hath Christ himself was assured of the love of his Father and that his Father would stick to him for ever and he knew God was neer unto him yet he cries Mat. 27. 46. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Which Question may be resolved into this Petition My God my God do not forsake me When David had received a Message by the Prophet concerning a great temporal Mercy the establishing of his house that God would settle him and his Posterity in the Throne for ever the text saith 2 Sam. 7. 15. he presently went in and sate before the Lord and there makes a most earnest Prayer and what is it about He prayeth that God would settle and establish his Kingdom vers 25 26. And now O Lord God the thing which thou hast spoken concerning thy Servant and concerning his house establish it for ever and do as thou hast said c. and let the house of thy Servant David be established before thee Might not the Lord answer according to this Objection why doest thou trouble me about this Did not I send thee a Message even now that I would establish thy Kingdom Dost thou think I have forgotten my Promise or will be unfaithful to it We find not David thus chidden for praying thus Nay at v. 27. you shall see how David makes this the very ground of his prayer Lord saith he thou hast revealed to thy servant saying I will build thee an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee c. Even because thou hast revealed this unto me that thou wilt build me an house therefore upon this very ground I make this prayer that thou wouldest build it And to shew that he was full of Faith the thing should be done before he prayed it might be done he adds v. 28. Thou art that God and thy words be true and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant Now therefore let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant No man could be fuller of Assurance or fuller of Prayer than David was Likewise Christ knew and was assured that his sheepe his elect people should continue for ever and that none should be able to take them out of his hand yet how abundantly doth he pour forth his Spirit in prayer about these things Joh. 17. Again Christ was assured he should be delivered and upheld in death Yet in the daies of his flesh he offered up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears to him that was able to save him from death and he was heard in what he feared Heb. 5. 7. He was not afraid of the event whether he should hold out and prevail or no whether he should conquer and obtain the victory or no he doubted not the success of this war though it were with principalities and powers His fear was only a natural passion which he took upon him when he took our nature upon him He was certain of the issue and knew he should carry the work through against all the armies of hell he would never have undertaken it else yet he prayeth with strong cries that he might be strengthened So then it is no argument because a Believer knoweth his sin is pardoned that therefore he should not pray for pardon for many things of which there was clear and certain evidence that they were or should be have been prayed about it is our duty for it hath been the practise both of Christ and of his people to pray in such a state Further we may Answer Matters of Faith are of Two sorts First Such as are fully accomplished acted and compleated in all the parts and circumstances of them for and about such things we are not to pray No man is to pray for the Redemption of the World for that is a thing past and yet it is a matter of Faith But the pardon of sin though it be compleat in it self and a matter of Faith to us yet it is compleating and perfecting every day more and more Pardon is given us yet we feel not all which pardon gives It is a setled act on Gods part yet it is in motion on ours that is in a perfective motion Therefore though we are assured that our sins are pardoned and shall stand pardoned for ever yet we may pray about the pardon of them Thirdly Suppose a man know his sins are pardoned yet he may pray to know it more and that his evidences may be made yet clearer to him for
Almighty chastens us p. 329. Children of wicked parents often wrapt up in the same judgement with their parents p. 200. Children of godly parents nearest the blessing p. 389. Blessings upon children are the parents blessings p. 390. Chirurgion Three necessary qualifications for him either in a natural or mystical sence p. 337. Christ confirmed the good Angels p. 139. No stability in any estate out of Christ ib. Christ is not onely a principle but a pattern of holiness 175. Faith can live upon nothing but Christ p. 487. Cloud what p. 613. Dying man like a cloud ib. Commendations with a But wound p. 17. Committing our cause to God what it imports p. 228. Committing our cause to God a great ease to the soul 231. A caution about committing our cause to God p. 232. Complaining when sinful 622. Concealing the word of God sinful four wayes of concealing it p. 462 463. Confession of sin a general confession may be a sound one p. 679. Divers ingredients of it p. 680. The holiest have cause to confesse sin and why p. 682. Sin not confessed gets strength three mayes p. 683. It makes the soul very active about the remedies of sin p. 684. Confidence Holy confidence what it is p. 21. Confidence in God settles the heart in all conditions p. 30. Conscience the testimony of it the best ground of willingness to die p. 465. Correction what it is p. 313. The greatest afflictions upon the children of God are but corrections 314. How a correction differs from a judgment ib. 315. A child of God is happy under all corrections 316. What it is to despise corrections opened 319 320 Crafty men who they are 273. Craft wisedome of natural men is craft 275. Crafty men Satan desires to get to his side and service why pag. 276 277 c. Crafty men full of hopes 279. and industry ib. They want power to effect what they devise 279. It is a wonderful work of God to stop the devices of crafty men p. 281. In what sence any of their devices prosper 282. How God takes the wise in their craftiness p. 284 287. No craft of man can stand before the wisdome of God p. 286. Creatures a book wherein we may learn much both of God and our selves 618. Creatures cannot give us any comfort without God 633. He can make any creature helpful to us ib. Counsel in counselling others we should shew our selves ready to follow the same counsel p. 233. God turns the counsels of wicked men against themselves p. 287. What counsel is 290. Rash hasty counsels are successless pag. 292. Curse What it is to curse p. 190 The Saints in Scripture rather prophesie of then pray for curses upon the heads of wicked men 191 No creature can stand before the curse of God p. 196. D DAlilah What it signifies pag. 303. Darkness in the day time what it signifies p. 293. Death consumes us without noise p. 153. Man cannot stand out the assauts of death p. 154. We are subject to death every moment 155. Death hastens upon us all the dayes we live 156 157. What death is p. 162. In death all natural and civil excellencies go away p. 162. Greatest wisedome to prepare to die well 164. How man is said to perish for ever when he dies 157 158. Few of the living observe how suddenly others do or themselves may die 159. Thoughts of death laid to the heart are a good medicine for an evil heart 160. A happy death what 390. A godly man is a volunteer in death 395. When a godly man dies he hath had his fill of living 396. In what sence a man may be said to die before his time and in the midst of his dayes 397. Assurance of a better life carries us through all the paine of death with comfort 457. So doth the testimony of a good conscience 465. No evill in the death of a godly man 480. Death the end of worldly comforts pag. 618 Deliverance is of the Lord pag. 341. The Lord can deliver as often as we can need deliverance 341. God delivers his people from evill while they are in trouble pa. 344. Despaire A godly man may think his estate desperate p. 545. Devices what p. 272. Discontent at the dealings of God with us a high point of folly 182. Discontent at the afflictions of God afflicts more than those afflictions p. 183. Dreams The several sorts and causes of them p. 636 637. Our dreams are ordered by God 638. Satan makes them terrible p. 639. E EGg White of an egg what it emblems p. 443 End two wayes taken p 599. Envy what it is p. 180. Fnvy a killing passion ib. 181. Envy a sign of folly p. 184. Errour he that is shewed his errour should sit down convinc'd 529. He is in a fair way to truth who acknowledges he may erre p. 533. What is properly called an errour as distinct from heresie 533. Vpon what terms an errour is to be left p. 534 Eternity how the longest and the shortest p. 644. Example of God and Christ how our rule p. 175. Exhortation a duty p. 229. It must be joyned with reproof ib. The best Saints on earth may need brotherly exhortations ib. Exhortations must be managed with meekness p. 230. Experience the mistress of truth 186. Experience works hope pag. 305. F FAll A three-fold fall in Scripture p. 12. Family To order a family well is a great point of wisdome p. 387. A family well ordered is usually a prosperouus family ib. Famine A very sore judgement the effect of it p. 345 346. How many wayes the Lord redeems from famine p. 347. Fatherless who p. 546. Such in a sad condition 548. A grievous sin to oppress them p. 549. Faith ought to be great because God can do great things p. 224. We must beleeve not only what we cannot see but what we cannot understand 248. Faith should encrease in us when God works wonders for us p. 253 254. Fear Natural what p. 92. It is natural for man to fear at the appearances of God why ib. Four effects or symptoms of natural fear 93. It is a strong passion 98. From what kind of fear God exempts his people in times of danger p. 358. Fear Holy fear what it is pag. 19 20. They who have most holy fear in times of peace shall have most confidence in times of trouble 27. It keeps the heart and life holy 30. Fear of God ever joyned with love to our brethren p. 495. Fearful persons cannot be helpfull p. 516. Eellow-feeling of others afflictions a duty p. 415. It adds to a mans affliction when others have no feeling of it 416. We cannot be truly sensible of the afflictions of others till we troughly weigh them 417. He that hath not been afflicted seldome feels the afflictions of others ib. Fool who and what a fool is p. 177. Every wicked man is a fool 181 186. A fool ever worst when he is at ease p. 186.
Peter Their speech bewrayeth them and you may smell the filth of their hearts by their breath Secondly observe from these words Is there iniquity in my tongue He whose heart is upright may know that he is upright When Job questions Is there iniquity in my tongue He resolves There is no iniquity in my tongue None of that iniquity which you charge me with I grant a believer hath not alwaies a sight of his own integrity and uprightness many a soule bears false witness against himself and oppresses his owne innocency yet for the most part sincerity hath a witness in it self and holiness carries a light by which it is seen to him that hath it An upright heart may know his own uprightness Thirdly in that Job is thus stiff in maintaining his own uprightness and in denying any iniquity to be in his tongue Observe It is a duty to maintain our own integrity and uprightness Job was upon it before and is now upon it again and he will be upon it afterward he never gives over justifying of himself against man though he had not a word to plead for himself against God Fourthly from the latter clause Cannot my taste discern perverse things Observe Reason distinguishes truth from falshood as the pallate distinguishes bitter from sweet Reason it is the souls-taster Princes have their tasters before they eat least there should be poison in the dish God hath given unto man a taster for his spiritual meat The Pope will not suffer the meat he provides and cooks to be tasted but will have it swallowed whole or else he will thrust it whole down their throats It is alike spiritual tyranny to starve souls and to cram them It is our duty when meat is set before us we are at a full table of knowledg where variety of doctrins and opinions are served in then to call for our taster We may be surfetted else if not poison'd There may be a wild guord among good hearbs in the pot and so death in the pot too therefore first taste then eat and digest A Christian hath a taste to discern error from truth why then should he be denied the use of it A woe is pronounced against those who offer unwholsome doctrin Isa 5. 20 Wo to those that call evil good good evil that put light for darkness and darkness for light that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter A like wo is due to them who will not give others leave to discern for themselves what is good or evil light or darkness bitter or sweet as good let another live for us as another taste for us And their misery will be little less then the woes of these men who cannot or will not take pains to distinguish when evill is called good and good evil when light is put for darkness and darkness for light when bitter is put for sweet and sweet for bitter or as Job speaks here whose taste cannot discern perverse things There are some whose taste is so far from discerning perverse things that it is easie to discern their taste is perverse for bring them wholesome true and savoury doctrine they say it is bitter or false doctrine Bring them false doctrin a lie a dream a fancie a meer humane invention dish out such provision before them that 's excellent chear This was the heaviest curse which God sent upon the Gentiles Rom. 1. 28. God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient that is to a mind void of judgement a mind that could not taste or distinguish things therfore the issue or effect was They did things which were not convenient as if a man not being able to judge of meats eats poyson or meats most contrary to his health and constitution It is a fearful judgement to be given up to an unapproving mind to a mind that cannot discern truth from false-hood the Oracles of God from the forgeries of men superstition from holy worship It is a sad thing to loose our spiritual senses Such as play the wantons with the word of God and walk below the truths they know are at last given up to a reprobate mind to a mind not able to know the word of truth and then they swallow down error for truth and suck in deadly poison like sweet pleasant wine The Apostle speaking of the difference of doctrins under the metaphor of meats saith Milk is for babes but strong meat is for them of full age even for those that by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil That is their spiritual senses exercised to taste this from that doctrin and not to swallow every doctrin alike It is a great blessing when a people have senses exercised And it is a blessing we have much cause to pray for in these times That many pallats are out of taste is too apparent by the multitude of heterodox opinions which go down without disrelish Some which would even make a man tremble to name them are entertained with delight Some which dissolve our comforts and breaks us off from comfortable communion with Christ Some which shake if not overthrow the very foundations of faith are swallowed as pleasant morsels Doth not this convince that there 's a want of Jobs taste among us to discern perverse things Therefore get your senses exercised be established in the present truth that ye as this holy man in the middest of all bodily distempers and outward troubles which usually put the natural pallate out of taste may yet even then as he have your inward senses exquisite and your spiritual pallate exact to discern right from perverse things Lastly note False doctrine or true doctrine falsely applied is a perverse thing False doctrin perverts First Reason Secondly Scripture Thirdly the souls of men The Apostle Acts 20. 30. prophecies to the Church of Ephesus and with them to all Churches That out of themselves men should arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Holy doctrin draws men to God and false doctrine draws men to man As itching ears heap teachers to themselves 2 Tim. 4. 3. So false tongues heap disciples to themselves That which is perverse in it's nature is perverting in its effect JOB Chap. 7. Vers 1 2 3 4. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his dayes also like the dayes of an hireling As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work So am I made to possess moneths of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me When I lie down I say When shall I arise and the night be gone and I 'am full of tossings too and fro unto the dawning of the day WHere the knot of connection between this and the former Chapter lyeth is not so discernable which hath given occasion for much diversity of conjecture about it First It may be conceived that Job in