themselves when once entangled Mortification will be found good company in an afflicted condition 9. Whatever use God intend by afflictions in end or to the godly yet of their own nature and at first they are apt to irritate corruptions As Beasts do struggle in the net when the steps of their strength are striatened And godly men are not to mistake albeit such fruit of trouble appear at first See Isa 51.20 10. To rage and fret under affliction will be to no purpose but to increase and imbitter the tryal For as Beasts and Birds by their strength and struggling do not extricate but fasten their feet faster in the snare So the steps of the wickeds strength shall be straitened God delights thus to abase them and cross their pride and the greater their strength be to rage and fret their affliction and torture will be the greater 11. God by his judgments will marr all the wickeds projects and cut them short in their wicked courses For thus also the steps of their strength whereby they ranged through the world as wild Beasts who run at large shall be straitened and consined within the narrow compass of the snare 12. God will at last make the most insolent of the wicked know that he is too hard for them and too great a party that they should dare to engage against him or to undertake any course in contempt of his Law For as the Robber or Huntsman and Fowler who live by their prey shall prevail against the ensnared Bird or Beast so shall the Lord prevail over the wicked and executioners of his justice raised up and imployed by him shall be successful against them See Dan. 4.37 13. It is a great sin in wicked men or others when afflicted to look upon judgments as coming at adventure and not to see a Providence in them Therefore it is subjoyned to obviate all mistakes v. 10. The snare is laid for him in the ground and a trap for him in the way As the Huntsman and Fowler lay snares in the usual hunting places of Beasts or Birds whereby they are taken So God in his Providence ensnareth the wicked in his own projects and in the courses which he followeth See Amos 3.5 6. Vers 11. Terrours shall make him afraid on every side and shall drive him to his feet Followeth to v. 16. the third Similitude whereby Bildad points out the miserable estate of the wicked The similitude is borrowed from a legal procedure against a Malefactour and in it he reflects strangely upon Job and his condition as if it evidenced him to have been a great delinquent and notorious Malefactour against God It may be taken up in four branches In the first whereof in this verse Job's fears before he came into trouble Chap. 3.25 26. and those terrours which he complains did accompany his trouble Chap. 6.4 7.13 14. are reflected upon as resembling Serjeants or Officers sent out to apprehend Delinquents which do terrifie them where ever they turn them and drive them to flee if they knew whither In this reflection upon Job's condition albeit it be true that Job was haunted with terrours yet he erred in judging that therefore he was a wicked man For Job's experience doth prove that such a lot may befal the godly And so his mistake may teach 1. In General That it may be the humbling lot of Gods people not only to lie under the saddest of afflictions but to have those afflictions painted out to them in their most black and discouraging colours For so much doth Job's experience witness who in this and the following verses hath his miseries so lively and bitterly painted out in this similitude which makes him complain so sadly in the next Chapter Hereby The Lord who hath an holy hand in all this doth exercise and humble his people and lets them see what they need beside simple crosses and afflictions to humble them and try their graces and weakness and withal le ts them see what he can support them under And as men do exercise great cruelty in dealing thus with afflicted Saints as Job tells them Chap. 19.5 6 c. See also Psal 69.25 26. so the Lord oft-times makes use of this addition to their tryal to cure an ill practice in themselves For they are ready in affliction thus to paint their own crosses and represent them as black and ugly to themselves and therefore the Lord permits others to give them a fill of it to excite them to take another course and to claim to love in Gods heart as is the practice of the Psalmist in such a case Psal 22.6 7 8 9 10. 2. In Particular It may be the lot even of Gods reconciled people to be exercised by the terrours of the Lord For in this Bildad reflects upon Job's condition who had indeed terrours and yet was a godly man though Bildad unjustly concluded they were the fruits of his wickedness As all the wicked are not assaulted with terrours in this life so a godly man notwithstanding it be his allowance to have peace may yet be affrighted with terrours and not only be exercised with terrifying dispensations but tossed with inward terrours See Jer. 17.17 Psal 88.15 Only these come not upon a godly man as Officers to hale him to justice as Bildad judged of all such terrours but they arise upon other accounts and grounds And 1. Their own weakness and misapprehensions and jealousies of God and his dealing may beget causeless fears and terrours and their own spirits may become a spirit of bondage to them when God allows upon them the Spirit of Adoption See Isa 49.13 14 15. 2. If they fall in sin and walk not tenderly God may let loose terrour to drive them to Christ and when the awe of God doth not keep them from falling in sin as Chap. 31.23 he may cause them taste somewhat of that from which they are delivered by Christ to cause them walk more tenderly for the future See Psal 32.3 4. 3. Much remaining stubborness must be by this mean daunted and made tame in them and whereas under other afflictions they continue Bullocks unaccustomed to the yoke Jer. 31.18 terrours must be let loose to cause them stoop 4. By these also the Lord drives them to make continual use of Christ and of his mercy in him which otherwise would rust beside them without imployment 5. When they voluntarily entertain discouragement and unbelief under lesser exercises God may let loose his terrour to drive them from their peevish humour and cause them haste to grip to him in such an extremity wherein they may not dally but must either exercise faith or resolve on present ruine 6. By this also the Lord would put them in mind how much they are obliged to Christ who drank of that bitter cup and so he not only can sympathize with his people in such a condition as one acquainted with it Heb. 4.15 but hath taken all that is deadly out
him in their Office and carrying of Ambassages unto men It is said these came to present themselves before the Lord not that they are any time absent or out of his presence Matth. 18.10 Luke 1.19 but to express their ready willingness to receive or execute any of his Commands as Ministers of great Princes do come dayly to receive their Instructions Where it is said Satan came also among them by Satan or that Adversary we are to understand that Prince of Devils together with all these evil spirits that fall with him His coming among them or in the midst of them doth not import that he hath any communion with these blessed Spirits nor that he is in the presence of God by way of approbation as they are nor yet that he voluntarily cometh before God as they do But the borrowed expression doth only import That as on great Court days not only Princes and their Guards and Attendants do appear there but Delinquents also So Satan is made to appear before God to whom he is subject and accomptable as the sequel cleareth And as in great Conventions some naughty persons are ready to thrust in among the croud to do some ill turn So Satan is ready to catch at all opportunities to tempt or accuse as the sequel here doth also make manifest In this we may learn 1. Sâ—â—h is the greatness of God that not only all the Angels are obedient but even the very Devils are subject to him as here we see 〈◊〉 this was necessary to be premitted to this dispensation wherein so much oâ— Greatness and Soveraignty was to appear To show that mâ—n maâ— learn to cure many of then distempâ—rs of spirit occasioned by the cross dispensations of Proviâ—â—nce by taking a right view of God the Author 〈◊〉 2. Here we have also a comprehensive view of the Administration and Government of the World Wâ—â—â—â—e 〈◊〉 still to be seen and acknowledged as supreme 〈…〉 â—hings beneath instanced here in the pâ—rson and injoyments of Job are a part of the object about which his Providence is exercised So that it cannot without blasphemy be said that he hath forsaken the earth Ezek. 9.9 oâ— that he doth not take notice of the meanest things therein were it even the hairs of our head Matth. 1â— 39 The Ministers to be imployed for executing of his pleasure are not only Angels whom he imployeth both to good to his people and for evil of punishment also But Devils also whom he imployeth sometime as his Executioners against the wicked and sometime as here to be a scourge to his owne children Nâ—t out of any necessity having sufficient besiâ—e to imploy but because he seeth it best 3. This name Satan or that Adversary As it doth point out a Character of a wicked disposition and of one who is of the Devil to be an adversary to all gâ—â—d As here Satan after his own fall proves to mankind So it reaches us further that the emnity betwixt the seed of the Woman and the Sâ—rpent and hâ—s seed was known by the godly from the beginning and consequently they were taught to resolve on a 〈…〉 conflict in their course of holiness Therefore 〈…〉 he here designed by the name of Satan 〈◊〉 Lesson needful yet to be inculcated after all the â—â—â—ments of his opposition in former ages Eph. 6.10 c The forgetting whereof is the cause why we are â—o often 〈◊〉 prized while we live and walk as if we were 〈…〉 Enemies Thirdly As to the Lords calling of Satan to an account and his answer thereunto ver 7. We are not to conceive that God makes any enquity as needing Information but only that he is supreme to call Satan to an account Nor are we to dream of any speech properly so called betwixt God and Satan the terms here being only figuâ—ative and borrowed to point out some other thing Nor yet are we to understand Satans speech of his going to and fâ—â—iâ— the earth and then of his walking up and down in it as a câ—mplaint that however he used diligence in going to and fro tempting yet was he so â—emaâ—d in that he had no success not could get a desired â—eâ—â— but was still forced to walk up and doâ—n compare Matth. 12 43. It is true indeed Satan is unsatiable in his malice notwithstanding aâ—â—his success yet this form of speech is used where desired success is Zech. 1 10 11. 6.7 And here both the expressions â—o only point out his restless and assiduous activity Withal it is to be considered that Satan is said thus to go to and fro in the earth because however Devils since their fall are thrust down to Hell yet till the Judgment of the great Day till which they are reserved then to get their 〈◊〉 and sin sentence and complâ—â—â— punishment Jude ver 6. they have their chains â—â—gthened to come and tempt and afflict in this 〈…〉 world and so have also power in the 〈◊〉 to raise Tempeâ—ts c. Ephâ—s 2.2 This doth 〈◊〉 out 1. That Satan is restless â—nd assiduously diligent in obstructing mens happiness as being vexed that they should fill that room in Heaven from whâ—ch he fell For this 〈◊〉 doth he go to and fro in the earth and walk up and down in it by temptations calamities and persecutions 〈◊〉 much as he is permitted hindering men from embracing Piety or retarding their progress or weakning their hands therein See 1 Pet. 5. â— Luk 22.31 Rev. 12.12 We should remember that we sojourn in a world where Devils are and do haunt among us He is such a waâ—ker in the Earth as doth diligently mark and observe all particulars that he may apply his tentations sutably to his purpose He doth so go to and from it that no place how remote soever from other distractions can secure us from his tentations if God do not hide us And he is so incessant and restless Going to and fro and walking up and down that he will not be put away by never so many repulses but will again and again assault and tempt 2. Whatever be the malice power or restlesness of Satan Yet it as to be still fixed that he is subject and accountable to God in all he is permitted to do and that God hath an eye upon all his proceedings in the world For this Question Whence comest thou doth import Gods over-ruling Providence over him no less then if a Judicial enquiry were made into his Actions and he called dayly to give an account of them 3. Aâ—bâ—â—t God notwithstanding his over-ruling Providence do not altogether bind up Satan but do suffer him to act many strange parts in the woâ—ld by himself immediately or by his Instruments Yet it is firmly to be believed that God doth not approve of or take pleasure in these hâ—s violences For this Question doth also import Gods indignation and dislike of him and his proceedings as Questions are made use of in Scripture to testifie dislike 1 King
considering his sympathy and interest Hereby anticipating that calumny ver 4 5. that Job was but little concerned in what had hitherto befallen him 2. The motive and rise of this trouble Thou movedst me against him to destroy him This doth not import any imputation upon the blessed God as if he were moved by Satan to do any thing especially without cause as it after followeth But the borrowed expression doth only intimate thus That as God purposing to do good unto his people makes way for fulfilling of his purpose by their Prayers to him which he is pleased to say do move and prevail with him So purposing to try his people he takes occasion of the wicked calumnies cast upon them by Satan and his Instruments to manifest this his purpose 3. The causlessness of this trouble Thou movedst me without cause Albeit it be true thaâ— God did thus destroy Job to no purpose or in vain which the word will also signifie as to Satans great design who gained not his point by it Yet that is not the chief thing intended in this expression of destroying him without cause Neither doth it import that God afflicted him without any cause of reason having nothing before his eyes but only to vex him For he had holy purposes in it to try his graces refute calumnies afford a singular ground of experience for all after-ages c. But it is to be understood of the procuring cause or quarrel that God did thus afflict him without any quarrel at him Which yet must not be understood absolutely For Job had Original sin and many actual infirmities and those of themselves did not only deserve great temporal afflictions but eternal death also if God should have proceeded in justice against him But the meaning is that as to Satans accusation there was no such hypocrisie in Job as he alleadged he was guilty of to procure this stroke For he had endeavoured to serve God sincerely and did not sin maliciously or wilfully which are the faults at which God is specially angry in his peo Deut. 32.5 1 Joh. 5 18. In sum Job was no hypocrite as Satan did insinuate and the Lords chief end in afflicting him was not to punish his sin but to try him Wherein notwithstanding the Lord was just and holy even when he thus afflicted without cause For he hath soveraign power over the Being which he hath given to inflict upon it what he pleaseth And there is so much also in the most innocent as may stop their mouths under greatest tryals All these considerations put together tend to the heightening of Jobs commendation That he held fast hâ—s integrity not only in prosperity or when God was sending a light touâ—h of afflictâ—on but when he was destroying and swallowing him up and when the Lord was doing this not in pursuance of any quarrel but was destroying an innocent man to refute the calumnies cast upon his integrity To omit what hath been already observed on Ch. â— 8 we may here gather some further Instructions And First The Lâ—rds repeating of that commendation of Job being now in an afflâ—cted condition which formeth he had given him in his prosperity doth teach That the Lords estimation of his people and of his grace in them doth not alter with their external condâ—tion But true grace hath the same lustre in the Eyes of God upon the Dunghil that it hath upon the Throne Foâ— now in Jobs low estate he gets the same commendation whâ—ch he got before My Servant Job there is none lâ—ke him in the Earth c. Secondly The addition to his commendationâ— and still he holdeth fast his Integrity notwithstanding his tryal may teach 1. Constancy in Piety notwithstanding the sharp tentations of an afflicted condition is a singular commendation in Gods esteem For hereby Job so acquiâ—â— himself that the old Characters of his Piety are not sufficient without this new addition to his commendation See 1 Pet. 1.7 And the reason of this is insinuated in the word holding fast which in the Original imports a retaining and holding of a thing firmly and with our whole strength because of difficulties and opposition as the traveller keeps his garment in a windy day Implying Not only That when Gods people are assaulted with tentations it is their duty and their practice when in a right frame to put forth their strength that they may hold fast their integrity and what they have received from the Lord Heb. 4.14 Rev 2.13.25 3.11 But That it is an hard task to stand fast in tryal and therefore the more commendable to bear out in such a tempest 2. Whatever it be in Religion wherewith men please thâ—mselves yet nothing pleaseth God better than sincerity and upâ—ightness especially when it is preserved in under affliction and in a trying condition For this is the Lord commends that Job still holdeth fast his integrity And he doth as it were glory over Satan in this Hast thou considered my servant Job and still he holdeth fast his integrity The Question doth not only import that God had an eye upon him and did notice him now when he was in the furnace but that he did delight to vex Satan with thâ— sight of his constant integrity See Revel 2.13 3.10 3. As God is especially pleased with mens sincerity so it is against that that Satan plants his cheif Engines and Battery For the thing which Job had chiefly to hold fast in this tryal was his integrity Satan did not assault Jobs outward prosperity but to barter his integrity thereby Nor is it mens Formality or outward Profession that he doth so much malign if he can keep them from being sincere in â—hat they do And Saints may be helped to know their own sincerity if it were but by Satans great opposition unto them wherewith Formalists are not acquainted 4. Albeit it be no small dâ—fficulty to stand fast and to continue streighâ— and upright in sharp tryals Yet the truly sincere are by the grace of God â—â—le to do it and to abide never so many and sharp assaults For hereof we hâ—ve an experience in Job still he holdeth fast his integâ—iâ—y Greate is he who is in Believers than he that is in the world 1 Job 4.4 and even weak grace suppoâ—ted by God is a party too hard for all opposition 5. It is an act of Divine Wisdom when kâ—ngs of the world are going to ruine not to cast away Piety also and a good Conscience oâ— because God strips us of outward contentments therefore to turn our back upon that which ought to be a Cordial under all pressures For this is commended as act of great wiâ—dom in Job that when other thing wâ—re pâ—lled from him still he hold fast his integrity To take another course will nothing bâ—ne â—t men or ease their griefs but doth indeâ—d double their losses Thirdly The amplification of this commendation though thou movedst me against him to destroy him without cause
doth teach 1. When any do sincerely cleave to God in trouble God will not think lightly of their trouble but will look upon it in all the aggravations thereof that he may take occasion to let out more of his compassion and may heighten their commendation who endure such sharp assaults For thus doth God describe Jobs tryal as a destroying or swallowing of him up both to testifie his own tender compassion and to commend Job who had held fast his integrity when he had so many tentations to discover his weakness being so destroyed and swallowed up 2. When God afflicts his people he doth it not willingly Lam. 3.33 or as taking pleasure in their miseries So much is importâ—d in this Thou movedst me to destroy him Where the borrowed phrase may intimate in a sound sense That as mâ—n may be moved by solicitation to do that whâ—ch otherwise they have no pleasuâ—e to do So God goâ—th about this work of afflicting Saints not as one pleased with their pressures though he be well sâ—tâ—â—fied with their behaviour under them He is the Lord who taketh pleasure in the prosperity of his servants Psal 35.27 And therefore he doth afflâ—ct thâ—m only when it is necessary for trying of their graces or for correcting of them for their faults and purging of their corruptions 1 Pet. 1.6 7. Psal 89 30 33. Isai 27.9 And this will easily appear to the godly by his readiness to be reconciled unto them by his tender usage and kindness under trouble Psal 31.7 and by his bringing of them out of trouble when their tryal is perfected 3. Whatever God intend in afflicting his people yet such as have any hand therein shall bear the blame in whole Therefore is it all laid over upon Satan Thou movedst me c. as only guilty in this matter having done all he could to get Job ruined Hence it is that Gods afflicting of his people is so to sâ—y a blowing of the bâ—llows to kindle his displeasure against wicked Instruments Psal 47 5 6. Zech. 1.15 4. Albeit the most perfect of Saints upon earth have so much sin as of it self deserves not only temporal afflictions but eternal wrath Yet the Lord is pleased sometimes to afflict them without respect to their sin only that his grace may shine in them and that the calumnies of Satan may be refuted For so much is imported in this Thou movedst me to destroy him without cause as hath been explained See Job 9.2 3. It is true as Saints are sinful creatures so their sincerity will not be a Saviour to expiate or cover their failings nor yet ought they to omit in every tryal how cleanly soever to become thereby more acquaâ—nted with their own sinfulness and to make use of the Rod to purge it out Yet they are allowed to look out also toward Gods more high purposes in their tryals than only to chasten them for sin 5. Albeit the Lord will not respect such as come to him under justly procured strokes Yet a good Conscience under trouble is a great advantage For it is no small advantage to be destroyed without cause and not to have an evil Conscience to heighten the affliction And this the Lord noticeth and speaks of not only as heightning Jobs commendation but as being an advantage in it self See 1 Pet. 4.15 16. 6. It is a special commendation and proof of integrity to bear cleanly tryals with much submission and when mens hearts do not accuse them of dishonesty and yet they stoop and cleave to God For this is Jobs commendation Still he holdeth fast his integrity though thou movedst me against him to destroy him without cause It is true we ought so much the more to stoop and to bless God when our tryals are cleanly and not dipped in our own provocations Yet seldom do we abstain from judging of God when he judgeth except when sin stops our mouths Psal 51.4 with Rom. 3.4 Vers 4. And Satan answered the LORD and said Skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his life 5. But put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face In these verses we have Satans answer to the Lords Interrogation containing a new and further accusatino against Job as an hypocrite notwithstanding all that God had said to the commendation of his constancy under affliction Having before slandered Jobs actions and course of life during his prosperity he doth now slander his behaviour under his sufferings And though he did at first speak of those tryals which had already come upon Job as a plot which would discover his unsoundness when he desired God to try him therewith Chap. 1.10 11. Yet now he speaks diminutively of these sufferings as no sufficient tryal of his honesty Asserting that it was not any love to God made him carry so fair but meerly love to himself as not caring how many skins and bodies too were lost so himself were preserved and as desiring by his continuance in an hypocritical profession of godliness to prevent any trouble that might be sent upon his own person This Assertion he holds out and offers to clear by a common Proverb usual in in those times wherein the exchange of Commodities was the usual way of Traffick as yet one slave or captive useth to be exchanged for another Skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his life Which signifieth in general that nothing outward is so dear to a man as his own life Whence he would infer that it was no wonder Job did hypocritically stoop under his former losses that God might spare the Rod from off himself And for further confirmation of this Assertion he appeals to a new tryal desiring to have that link of the Chain loosed whereby he was restrained from touching Jobs person Avouching that if God would touch his bone and his flesh or smite him in his person so as might reach him to the marrow he would maliciously and desperately curse God even to his face Which in the Original as also Chap. 1.11 is propounded by way of tacite imprecation against himself or of an Oath importing an imprecation If he curse thee not c. This as to the form of speech is the same with that Chap. 1.9 10 11. where it was observed That it is Satans design in trouble to tempt men to curse God and How malicious a slanderer Satan is not caring how falsly he calumniate so he get Saints vexed As here not only doth he reflect upon Jobs integrity but upon his tenderness and sympathy as if he regarded not the stroke upon his Children Servants and Goods when the contrary did appear from his practice Chap. 1.20 But the subject-matter here may further teach 1. Satan is so incessant in his attempts against Saints that he will not give over when he hath got the soil but is ready to assault a fresh upon every occasion As here
much doated upon For notwithstanding all he saith here of death yet not only is death contrary to nature and as in the grave our bodies feel not the troubles of this life so as little do they feel or are sensible of the quiet in the grave But whatever rest be in death yet it is not a compleat out-gate but in Christ nor is it a common rest to all without any difference as to their states who rest there 4. He is so much out of conceit with his present case that he would be content of any were it even to be an Abortive rather then the present Thus doth our folly judge any condition better then our own whereof we would soon repent us if we were essayed with a change 5. It will be found upon tryal that his wishes came far short of what good the Lord was doing to him For albeit somewhat like that ver 16. may be true of a wicked man that an untimely birth is better then he Eccl. 6.3 Yet who in his right wits would consider Job in the whole of his life and think an Abortive comparable to him who had so eminently honoured God and was blessed of him in his former dayes and who was now imployed to give so eminent a proof of his integrity in the furnace So far short may the desires of godly men fall even of that good which they presently enjoy if they had eyes to see it And so infinitely wise is God who knoweth better how to guide us then our selves do and so gracious that he doth not ask our consent to deal better with us then we could carve to our selves Vers 20. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soul From this to the end of the Chapter we have Jobs third wish with the reasons whereby he presseth it The wish is propounded in this verse by way of Expostulation as the former was and is only repeated from thence in the Translation ver 23. to make the sense the clearer The sum of the wish is That since none of the former desires weâ—e now possible but that he was now come that length of his time he desires that now at length the Lord would put an end to his toil and expostulates that light i. e. the light of the Sun Eccl. 11.7 8. or life as is afterward added is continued with him Unto this he subjoyns the first reason of his Expostulation taken from his great trouble being in so much trouble as might denominate him a miserable man and so disconsolate and anxious by reason of trouble as made him bitter in soul As to the Expostulation his expressions do indeed flow from that great misery and bitterness which himself afterward resents Yet it is to be remarked that albeit this Expostulation reflect on God who had given and continued his life yet reverence to God doth lead him to forbear to name him in his complaint Hereby pointing out That grace even when it is most overpowered with weakness and passion will yet one way or other be letting forth some Evidences of it self and of its respect toward God if it could be discerned But further in this Expostulation we may observe 1. He continueth still in the strain and heat of his passion his Feaver is not yet calmed notwithstanding all his former ravings To teach us That distempers of mind and passions let loose under tentation and trouble are not soon and easily calmed and quieted again but they will lead men from one extravagant desire and complaint to another 2. He not only insists still to have his will satisfied which is mans great Idol albeit it be true that it were his misery to get his will in many things But still he pursues that particular desire of death as the only comfortable issue in his apprehension whereas there were many better nearer at hand as strength to bear his tryal faith in Gods love notwithstanding all his afflictions and even a comfortable issue within time after his tryal was perfected as the sequel cleared But it is our folly and weakness so to doat upon one imagined way of relief as we cannot observe any beside 3. He propounds his desire by way of Expostulation questioning Wherefore is light given which flows not so much from a desire of Information as from a bitter proud Passion full of conceit of its own skill This is a distemper incident to men especially under trouble that they dare quarrel God as if they could guide better then he and that they judge every thing unreasonable of the reasons whereof they are not capable Not considering that we ought to adore Infinite Wisdom and stoop to Soveraignty when we are in the dark 4. Albeit it was his sin to despise the good gift of life Yet his distemper teacheth That the Lord by leaving us to our selves can make our best things even our selves and our lives a burden instead of a comfort As here his experience doth teach So also Chap. 7.15 16.20 Which may teach us to acknowledge Gods goodness that any thing is made comfortable to us within time In the first reason we may observe 1. It is no strange thing to see Saints put in that pitiful plight by trouble as may even render their life a burden to them as they are men compassed with infirmities For that is the pitiful reason why he wisheth to be dead He is in misery and bitter in soul 2. Outward troubles are but a small part of Saints complaints but that which makes afflictions grievous to them is the inward exercise of mind which usually accompanieth the same For that is subjoyned to his misery that he is bitter in soul This is sharper then any outward trouble For without this trouble will be very easie and a sound mind will bear much 3. Among other sad distempers of soul accompanying trouble this is not the least when soul-serenity and tranquillity is disturbed and men are imbittered thereby insomuch that although they do not question their state of Reconciliation yet they can read no love in what they suffer nor walk under it with meekness but are taken up with hard constructions of God and his dealing For this is his case in particular He is bitter in soul 4. When Saints narrowly examine their sad lots they will find that whatever is intolerable in them cometh of themselves when either their apprehensions represent them as sadder then indeed they are or when their broken spirits do render their case more insupportable then otherwayes it would be For so must we judge of Jobs complaint It is true he was under great affliction yet it flowed from his own apprehension that he looks on himself as miserable or in misery And whereas he complains of a bitter soul much of that flowed from his own giving way to that distemper of spirit For albeit God may be said to fill us with bitterness Job 9.18 Lam. 3.15 in so far as he
seeking to root and establish themselves on the earth Whereas the godly being in a right frame do labour to be strangers in the abundance of all things Otherwise they may surely expect to be shaken Psal 30.6 7. For it is an evidence of their folly that they are taking root and settling themselves 3. The Lord seeth it sometime sit suddainly to over-turn the wicked and their families that he may vindicate his justice in the view of the world may give warning to all the wicked of what they deserve that they abuse not his forbearance Rom. 2.4 and may encourage the godly to keep his way and trust in him whose Providence is not asleep in the world Psal 58.10 11. For it is true Eliphaz saw this verified on some that their habitation was suddainly cursed 4. Albeit the Lord do not suddainly and visibly plague every wicked man yet there is still so much of divine displeasure lying upon all of them even in their prosperity as may make godly men look upon their best estate as detestable and not to be desired For in so far this is true of all the wicked that their habitation may be seen to be accursed by right discerners And these instances of visible and suddain judgments observed by Eliphaz are evidences to discover how matters stand with all the rest It is true Saints may be tempted to judge otherwise when they look on their prosperity Psal 73.2 3 c. Yet when they go to the Sanctuary they will find that tentation to flow from their own brutishness Psal 73.16 17 21 22. And though no visible evidences of displeasure appear against every one of them Yet there is still a clear cause why their way should not be affected but their condition abominated even because they fear not before God Eccl. 8.11 12 13. 5. This is an evidence of the deplorable condition of the wicked that whatever their condition be it is a curse to them whether it be adversity or prosperity Psal 69.22 106.15 For that he saw of them suddainly cursed in their habitation or beautiful estate as the word will bear doth evidence that all of them are under and obnoxious to the curse and that visible curse is but a Declaration of what they are under before And this ought to be more adverted unto then any outward lot seeing the curse of any condition whether it be prosperity or a cross is worse then any thing beside 6. As God doth very suddainly plague some wicked men So it becometh the godly to be very clear in their judgment concerning the deserving of all and in their affections to be far from liking of their way For this suddain cursing as it relates to Eliphaz imports that in his judgment there held no long debate to conclude them miserable and that his affections do no otherwise relish their way and state then as under a sad curse And indeed It is the wisdom of the people of God not to hearken much to any debates and suggestions concerning the prosperity of the wicked nor to suffer their hearts to abate any thing of holy zeal and abhorrency of their way lest the abating of their affection and tampering with tentations prove inductive to a snare Eliphaz proceeds to branch out the particulars of this ruine of the wicked which are like the plucking up of so many branches of their roots In ver 4. he speaks of the condition of their Children who bear the prints of Gods judgments in that they are left in an unsafe condition being crushed and burne down without pity and relief from any That they are crushed in the gate may import either that they are condemned by publick Judicatories which usually met in the gates of the Cities Ruth 4.1 2 c. Or further that their afflictions whether immediately from God or from men were seconded with publick acclamations of all men for in the Gates also were the publick concourses of people Gen. 34.20 as justly and righteously inflicted and deserved by them Not to insist on the common defects of this branch of his Argument Nor how it may be the sad exercise of godly men to have their tryals represented by their own hearts or others in their blackest colours As here this reflection on Jobs Children could not but be sad and grievous to him We may further Learn 1. A chief part of a man wealth and prosperity is his Children who are a part of himself in whom he liveth after he is gone and they being pious it is his happiness to have been a parent to such heirs of glory Therefore doth Eliphaz begin at the ruine of Children as the saddest of the wickeds stroke See Psal 127.3 c. And this should teach Parents to esteem of Children and to emprove that mercy according as they are of worth in themselves 2. Albeit none will perish eternally but for their own sins Ezek. 18.2 3 4. And albeit the Lord do punish none even in this life were they only Infants but such as are guilty of sin Yet wicked Parents are ordinarily great snares and Plagues to their Children Partly while the Lord is provoked to punish Parents by afflicting their Children in their Bodies or Estates which they have from their Parents So Exod. 20.5 Thus Gods quarrel for the sins of Manasseh continued in the days of good Josiah 2 King 23.26 Thus also godly Children may bear in their bodies the fruits of their Parents uncleanness or intemperance and their Estates which they had from their Parents may moulder away in their hands Partly while the Lord who is debtor to none doth leave their Children to themselves to imitate their sins and so they serve themselves heirs to their Parents sin and punishments Matth. 23 31-35 For these causes the Plagues that come upon Children are marked as the fruit of wicked Parents sins See Deut. 28.32 And this may teach Parents as they love their Children to beware of leaving such sad debts upon the heads of their posterity 3. To be in an unsafe condition oppressed and trode upon by every one is in it self a great affliction and being the lot of wicked men it ought to be looked on as the just fruit of their insolent spirit toward God and his Law and toward others as they had power For this is the stroke drawn on by sin His children are far from safety they are crushed See Deut. 28.29 33. 4. Albeit godly men in a righteous cause may be oppressed by Judicatories on Earth and in that case they are to look up to an higher Tribunal Eccl. 5.8 Yet in it self it is a sad ingredient in trouble to be condemned by an Assembly of Gods Vicegerents which should perswade all to pray much that Judicatories may be directed of God in judgment and when such do pass a sentence against wicked men for their crimes they ought to look upon it as the sentence of Him who sitteth among the Gods Psal 82.1 pursuing them for their sins
The greatness and unsearchableness of Gods works call us to admire them and his glory shining in them not neglecting marvellous things because they are ordinary nor allowing our selves in our ordinary dispositions when God is doing great things whether in mercy or in judgment For if his works be great and unsearchable they should be marvellous things See Psal 126.2.3 118.23 Amos 3.8 5. In studying the works of God we ought not to confine our selves to any one particular but take such a view of the innumerable works done by him as may discover his infinite Glory and Majesty and his Al-sufficiency and may humble us in the sense of our inability to comprehend that glory of God which shineth even in his works For his works are marvellous things without number In particular If we consider that Eliphaz speaks this to Job as a motive to perswade him to seek unto God we may take up a threefold account upon which he thus describeth God which will afford sound general Doctrine though not seasonably applyed to Job as a man not yet converted 1. That Job being under such an extraordinary dispensation of Providence and great and marvellous things being done toward and upon him and his family He should not look upon them as springing out of the ground or to be sleighted and so neglect to seek God but should see the special hand of God to excite him to his duty And indeed This is the Lords usual method When we regard not God speaking in his Word he begins with the rod and when ordinary rods prevail not he will send judgments which will discover a finger of God Isa 26.11 And if these will not move us we proclaim our selves incorrigible 2. That being under the hand of so great a Lord whose working declareth him to he great and marvellous He should not think to prevail by striving with God who can do so great and unsearchable things But it was his safety to seek to God and stoop and commit his case to him And indeed None do know God aright but they who under afflictions look upon submission and yielding as their safety and upon their coming to God as the only way of out-gate See Chap. 9.9 And that men in trouble may be excited to this they should seriously ponder their case not as those Isa 42 24 25. Hos 7.9 and should lay to heart the severity and displeasure of God manifested therein Psal 90.11 1 Cor. 19.22 3 That in seeking and stooping to God he ought not to be discouraged by any trouble that was upon him considering what a God he is and what his works declare he can do for such as seek him And here all these properties of Gods works are grounds of confidence to such as humbly seek his face 1. God can do great things for his people Joel 2.21 Psal 126.3 65.5 If ordinary working cannot deliver them he will magnifie his work ere his Promise fail 2. God also works unsearchable things for his people things not seen in any second cause for even the eater will afford them meat to allude to that phrase Judg. 14.14 and things that they could little expect in outward appearance Gen. 16.13 Isa 64.1 2 3. 3. He also works marvellous things Not only things little expected that forgetters of prosperity Lam. 3.17 should be remembred that tossed captives should be restored and multiplied Isa 49.21 and little believed Zech. 8.6 But things whereat the world will wonder and wherewith themselves should be affected even to admiration Psal 126.1 2. 4. He can work those wonders without number Hereby clearing That he hath not one blessing only but many for his people That he will be no less potent in one tryal then in another and That former deliverances though abused by us shall not exhaust his resolution and ability to do for those who seek to him Psal 106.43 44. Judg. 10.13 16. All those considerations may exceedingly encourage the afflicted to seek to God And though the Lord do not alwayes visibly appear for them that seek him and it was Eliphaz's errour to strain those encouragements too much in temporal things Yet not only is Piety and seeking of God a reward to it self But that the Lord hath thus appeared at any time doth sufficiently demonstrate what God can and will do for every one that seeks him if it be for their good Vers 10. Who giveth rain upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields 11. To set up on high those that be low that those which mourn may be exalted to safety This general Doctrine concerning Gods working is here instanced in his common Providences in the earth particularly in giving rain ver 10. which is amplified ver 11. from Gods purpose therein which is to encourage those who are brought low and are made to mourn under such a rod Whereby also God doth demonstrate that his scope in all his working is to encourage them humbly and mournfully seek to him From ver 10. Learn 1. God is the Author of rain and other seasons and of the effects thereof on the Earth whatever be the second causes For He giveth Rain upon the Earth and sendeth Waters upon the Fields See Acts 14.17 Jer. 14.22 Psal 65 9 10. 68.9 Amos 4.7 It is our duty to see him more in those and to imploy him as we need them Jam. 5.17 18. 2. The very common works of God are full of his grace and of rich treasures for faith to feed upon For this of rain is a proof of that general ver 9. that he doth great things and unsearchable Those works are set before us that beside the benefit we reap thereby we may by the study of them be raised in our spirits to entertain high thoughts of God Psal 19.1 2 c. and induced to seek him Jer. 5.24 3. Among all other works of common Providence he instanceth in the matter of rain Partly to press Job to his duty by the study thereof For on the one hand Gods common kindness to all men in sending them rain and food Matth 5.45 should lead them to seek God Rom. 2.4 and assure them of much kindness if they seek him seeing he is so kind when they are Rebels that they may seek him And on the other hand if they will not seek God he can easily reach them and make them know how frail they are and that the want â—â— shower of rain in its season will be enough to ruine them Partly this instance is pitched upon rather then other great works of the Heavens Sun and Stars because those being constant are less observed whereas want of rain being oft-times our exercise we are made to see God in it So little of God do we observe in mercies which we ordinarily enjoy unless we be sent often to God about them If we wanted vicissitudes and changes in our condition we would be in peril to turn Atheists See Psal 55.19 From ver 11. Learn 1. It
dispositions sutable to their condition whatever it be Vers 8. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for 9 Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Followeth to ver 14. Jobs desire of death which he laboureth to press and justifie by divers Arguments He bringeth it in upon the back of the former debate thus That though they would not give him leave to complain or desire death yet he seeing no comfort within time nor hope beside would take leave His desire is propounded ver 9. That God who is Soveraign Lord of life would be pleased to destroy him and would not measure out affliction by piece-meal and with a bound up hand but would let loose his hand and make an end of him which he might easily do any death so it were speedy being better as he thought then his present condition This sute he ushers in and presseth from the ardency of his desire ver 8. He had desired it before Chap. 3. and now being the worse of their essays to cure him and of more hopeless of any comfortable issue in this life his longing after death is increased This desire hath been spoken to in part Chap. 3.20 It argues great presumption in limiting of God and doating on a remedy of his own prescribing as if it only could serve his turn And albeit he had the testimony of a good Conscience so that he needed not fear death yet many desires had been more sutable then that he should venture on any death from Gods hand and that as it might seem in justice and when he is already lying under so much of that kind It teacheth 1. God is Lord of our life who can take it away when where and by what means he will For so much doth Job's desire import that he can destroy and cut off at his pleasure 2. An afflicted mind is a great strait and pressure so that many sharp dispensations would be a deliverance if they made men rid of it For Job's pressure of mind is such that it makes him account a violent death a deliverance They who enjoy peace and tranquility of mind in sad times have an easie part of it And men would beware to make a breach upon their inward peace by shifting outward trouble See Matth. 10.28 Many by sinful shifting of trouble have been brought to that extremity that many deaths would have been easier 3. A tentation once fixed in a broken spirit cannot easily be pulled out again For Job cannot be driven from this desire on which he hath once fixed but he presseth it over and over again Men had need to beware of the first rise of such distempers and to crush them in the bud 4. Albeit a Child of God may be pestered and haunted with many sinful passions and desires in his trouble yet it is his mercy to be kept from sinful actings in prosecution of those desires For in the midst of this heat of desire Job's honesty appears in that he will not help God to take away his life how much soever he desire death but will wait on him if he may be pleased to grant his desire in his own way Some sparks of honesty may appear even in the greatest weakness of Saints As to his ardency and fervour in pressing his desire it hath been spoken to Chap. 3.21 22. and that men in their distempers are very earnest that God would do what they desire though yet it were oft-times a sad judgment if God should grant it seeing they may in that case be apt to desire that most which is most prejudicial to them Yea our ardent desires after any outward lot are oft times too great an evidence that we are wrong To these add 1. Job's practice holds forth a right pattern though in a wrong instance of pursuing our lawful desires By praying and requesting for it and a longing expectation backing the Prayer and so renewing the sute often and walking under the delay as they who are afflicted and affected thereby Psal 88.11 12 13. This being Job's practice in so unwarrantable a desire it may give a check to our sluggishness in more honest desires 2. When men give way to sinful tentations they may in Gods holy Providence meet with many occasions to entertain them As Job here longing after death his Friends disappointing of him adds fuel to the fire and makes it more vehement as thinking he was hereby confirmed in the equity of his desires Thus tempters of God fall in snares Mal. 3.15 and hearkners also to false Prophets Deut. 13.1 2 3. This may terrifie men who enter upon a way without a rule and warrant that they may meet with such snares and every confirmation they think they meet with in their way may humble them if they consider that God thereby gives them up to strong delusions Vers 10. Then should I yet have comfort yea I would harden my self in sorrow let him not spare for I have not concealed the words of the holy One The first Argument whereby he labours to justifie this desire is taken from the comfort he expected having the testimony of a good Conscience He professeth that notwithstanding all that had befaln him or could be in a violent death he should yet have comfort if it were a coming or already come And though it might be apprehended that he would repent and cool of that courage when it came to the push He professeth he would harden himself in sorrow he would harden and confirm his heart against that way of death or any sorrow attending it yea or any sorrow in the mean time provided that death were near and the sorrow hastning it forward And for a proof of this his courage and resolution he renews his request and desires that God will not spare Not that he dares desire to be dealt with in justice but it imports only his desire not to be spared as to cutting of him off but the sharper usage the better so it made an end of him And the ground of all this courage was that he had not concealed the words of the holy One he had been a sincere Professour of Gods Truth and had spoken truth in this particular that he was an upright man Or he had not put out the light of Gods Truth in his mind nor cancelled the Seal of his Spirit in his heart by sin Rom. 1.18 and had held forth the Truth of God in his Profession and Practice Psal 40.10 Phil. 2.15 16. And all this he did because God is the Holy One not to be dallied with and who cannot approve of sin By all which he clears that his desire of death was not a desperate wish but grounded upon the testimony of a good Conscience and his hope to be approved when he should come to be judged by God and not by men In this Discourse it flowed indeed from Jobs
conditions of life are vanity Gal. 1.2 Psal 39.5 and he was made to possess them as his patrimony and right as if no other portion were due to him 2. The hireling though he work sore in the day yet he gets the nights rest Gal. 1.12 But he is troubled by night as well as by day For after he hath toiled all day long which is here supposed his nights were made so wearisome by Gods appointment that when he lay down he longed for day-light that he might arise to see if that would bring him ease and so was made to measure out the evening as it is in the Original or to reckon how long it was to day-light Yea he was full of tossings to and fro or perpetually tossed inwardly in his mind and outwardly in his body through pain and want of rest and that not for a part of the night only but throughout the whole night even to the dawning of the day so that he got not any sound sleep See ver 14 15. Upon all which this inference is to be repeated that he might lawfully wish for ease in death Which though it was his failing and mistake as is before marked especially having to do with God to whom all ought to stoop and to be content if they get strength to bear what he layeth on and it may be justly suspected that his giving way to distemper of spirit added not a little to his disquietness yet his condition may afford us these Instructions 1. The Lord can when he will make our life which we think so sweet a very great burden to us and our time which ordinarily slips away insensibly very wearisome and tedious For Job is weary of his life and his Months and Nights are wearisome Creature-comforts of Bed and Board will not ease us when God hath us to try which should make us thankful when it is otherwise and teach us not to doat on time or our life For it is of God that all our outward mercies prove not crosses 2. The Lord is more absolute and soveraign over his Creatures to exercise afflict and continue troubles then any man is over his servant and hireling For here he made Job's lot more sad then the condition of any hireling is made by man He is astricted to no rule in those things but his own will to which we ought to submit 3. The coming on or continuance of trouble is not a matter at mans arbitrement God can make us to possess them and appoint them to us whether we will or not See Psal 105.17 18 19 20. Jer. 47.6 7. Which may lead us to eye God much when troubles stick on and to look to him alone for ease of them who can deliver without the consent of enemies as well as afflict us whether we consent or not See Job 34.29 Isa 49.24 25 26. 4. Albeit all men in their best outward estate are vanity Psal 39.5 Yet the Lord is pleased sometime to make some men exemplary instances of that truth of the vanity of all men and conditions For so was it with Job his months were months of vanity being empty of all comfort not having any such issue as he waited for and so disappointed his expectation and he reaping no benefit by all his toil as Psal 78.33 All which vanity as it may be read in other conditions that look not so terrible like as Job's did so they who are under such a lot may read this in it that because they see not the vanity and emptiness of every condition therefore it is made so legible to them 5 Singular troubles do very deeply affect men because they are singular For Job regrets that he was tossed beyond all others Yet Saints may read this in it also that they will be singularly regarded by God under their singular tryals 6. Gods Providence is so condescending that the trouble or quiet of every night is appointed by him For so Job holds forth Wearisom nights are appointed to me when I lie down I say When shall I arise c Where he understands God to be this appointer though he do not expresly name him till afterward that his heat grow more warm It is an evidence of our carnal mindedness when we see little of God in ordinary Providences Psal 139. were it but in a nights sleep And our negligence in this brings us to know by the want thereof how much we enjoy when we do but little observe or acknowledge it 7. As trouble makes any time promise more then the present So changes of that kind will not change our condition till God come For though Job longed for the day being full of tossings to and fro yet the day-light did not ease him See Deut. 28.67 It were our wisdom to make the best of our present lot be it never so hard for changes till we be fit for an issue will but add to our affliction Vers 5. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become lothsome 6. My days are swifter then a weavers shuttle and are spent without hope The third Argument wherein he yet insists to give an account of his trouble doth more distinctly tend to conclude the lawfulness of his desire of death For whereas it might be objected against his former reasoning That his trouble and disquiet might indeed warrant him to seek some ease but not to press so peremptorily for death He answereth That his trouble being irrecoverable left him no door of hope open but in death and therefore he behoved to press after that only The Argument runs thus as if Job had pleaded I may lawfully desire that warrantable issue which I see in the Providence of God approaching toward me and which hath already irrecoverably seised on me But I see death thus approaching and it hath already taken hold on me Therefore I may desire it Now that death is thus approaching he proves two wayes First From the present condition of his body v. 5. being in his graves-cloaths many worms breeding in his sores his body being covered with scabby clods of dust and ulcerous matter running from his sores and his skin being broken as the earth is in a drought in a loathsome manner From all which it is to be inferred that he could expect nothing but death Here we may Learn 1. Health and soundness of body is a great mercy and doth ease us of much vexation and an heavy burden As here appeareth from Job's resenting the want of it 2. Let men make never so much of their bodies yet they carry a mass of putrefaction and corruption about with them and they will come at length to be loathsom spectacles For here Job's body being touched by God his flesh is cloathed with worms and clods of dust c. 3. Death and life are in the power of the Lord and he can when he pleaseth bring down to the grave and bring up again 1 Sam. 2.6 For so much doth
God For however Job's afflictions were eminently sharp yet God was not so far against him in wrath as he apprehended See Isa 40 27 28 c. 49.13 14 15. It is a special mercy to find wisdom whereby to discern our case without mistakes We will ere all be done see much cause to complain of our infirmity that mistook God when he was good Psal 77.8 9 10. And they are happy who cannot but believe love and have sweet thoughts of God in every lot and do not by their own mistakes imbitter their own crosses but do reckon that the harshest of dispensations may consist with love and flow from it 4. As tentations will soon make a mans life his burden So a mans self when he seems to be rejected of God is a very heavy burden to have himself to answer and care for in all things In both these respects this is the consequent of Job's sad apprehensions so that I am a burden to my self wearied of my life and left by thee to take charge of my self This may teach us as not to doat upon our life so to be sensible of what burdens God holds dayly of us and to study dependance on God in all things not provoking him to let us feel our own weight His Second inference ver 21. is That since God was a Preserver and neither his satisfaction nor Gods stroke for sin could make up the friendship Therefore he desires that God would put an end to the quarrel by pardoning his guilt and taking away his sin in its pollution and sad effects Whence Learn 1. The only way for making up of peace betwixt God and sinners is by free pardon and the Lords passing from the quarrel when men are sensible of their sin and inability For Job finds no issue unless God pardon his transgression See also Psal 32.1 2. And this affords us great encouragement that when neither any thing we can do nor any stroke inflicted by God can make up the friendship there is yet another way of attaining it by Gods free pardon 2. The grossness and heinousness of sin will not hinder Gods pardoning of them who come to him in the due order to obtain it For Job supposeth here that he pardoneth even transgression or rebellion and iniquity or crookâ—d perversnese See Isa 1.18 3. Albeit pardon cannot be merited by us but is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ yet only those sinners are pardoned who coming to God through Christ for pardon are sensible of their sin and inability to rid themselves of that burden as Job declareth he is ver 20. and who do so esteem of pardon that they cannot want it and are most solicitous about it as a priviledge without which they are undone So much doth Job's pathetick question impart And why dost thou not pardon By such God will be looked on as singular because he pardoneth iniquity Mic. 7.18 4. As the filth and pollution of sin must be abhorred and pursued by every pardoned man so it is the power of God alone that can effectually remove it For so much is imported in what is subjoyned to pardon of taking away iniquity not only by pardon but by renovation which he seeks with the former and seeks it to be done by God who alone can remove it If we do not employ the power of Christs death for Renovation and Mortification of sin as well as the price of it for pardon Law-convictions and discoveries will but make sin more alive Rom. 7.8 9. and our pollution will continue and grow notwithstanding our diligence and pains 5. When Sin is pardoned and Renovation endeavoured it doth not only bring peace with God but ease also if not an out-gate of all afflictions for sin For so much also is imported here when he pardoneth transgression he also taketh or makes to pass away iniquity in its sad effects and punishments inflicted for it So iniquity is taken for the punishment of sin Gen. 19.15 Psal 31.10 49.5 It is true pardoned men are not alwayes freed from afflictions yet being pardoned the sting and bitterness is taken out of them 1 Cor. 15.55 56. Isa 33.24 A pardoned man may sing of blessedness in the midst of his troubles Psal 32.1 2. 144 15. For then troubles come for necessary profit so that it were a prejudice to want them how humbling soever they be Heb. 1â— 10 They are fraught with love sweetened with the hope of glory Rom. 5.2 3. and do occasion many gracious visits from God Psal 31.7 It is a plague upon men that they follow not this method in their troubles of pressing first and chiefly after pardon of sin which would turn saddest storms into Summer days whereas they seek unto many refuges in their difficulties forgetting their resting place Job shuts up these his Inferences with this confirmation of his plea ver 21. That if God did not grant his desire but would still proceed in a course of severity he would indeed be crushed and cut off thereby but the Lord so to say would himself repent it and would miss poor Job when he had destroyed him and seek him early to do him good but should not find him and so speaking after the manner of men and upon an impossible supposition he should repent that he had dealt so severely with his poor servant In this pleading Learn 1. Job's mistake that he would presently die if God withdrew not his hand doth tell us That our apprehensions do breed us many crosses wherewith we will never really meet 2. His mistake that in the case wherein he is he will die if God relent not is yet grounded on this general verity That however we think lightly of sin yet a wakened Conscience wanting pardon of sin and reconciliation and pursued with strokes and wrath will soon over-charge a frail creature even to the cutting off of his life if God interpose not For Job being in the condition himself describes convinced of sin pursued by wrath and not pardoned it was only the power of God that prevented this consequent of all this Now shall I sleep in the dust And God is pleased oft-times to put his people to those pinches that they may think seriously on death and provide furniture for it 3. It is the duty and property of faith to keep the Covenant-style and take a Covenant-look of all their lots how terrible soever they be For though Job be dreadfully tossed now when he apprehends he is passing over the Bar of death yet he takes a Gospel look of it and gives it the Gospel-name a sleep 4. Faith in the truly sincere will not and ought not quit its grip although it obtain none of its desires But though strokes wrath pursue even to the death and sense Friends and all outward probabilities say God hath cast off yet faith will believe love and that God will own them although he should seek them after death and shew wonders to the
was a godly man approved of God Vers 11. Can the rush grow up without mire Can the flag grow without water 12. Whilest it is yet in his greenness and not cut down it withereth before any other herb 13. So are the paths of all that forget God and the hypocrites hope shall perish Bildad having commended the way of probation proceeds to the thing to be proved And holdeth forth the Doctrine of the Antients concerning the case of Hypocrites in three similitudes The first whereof in these verses is taken from the rush or flag And it is 1. Propounded ver 11 12. That a bulrush or reed cannot grow without mire and water Yea and when it flourisheth it withereth without any violence or cutting down sooner then any herb that is not so flourishing-like 2. It is applyed That forgetters of God and hypocrites and all their hopes both things expected and their expectation of them do so perish ver 13. Where the similitude seems to hold in these two 1. That an hypocrite cannot hold up without prosperity more then a reed can grow without water 2. That as reeds and bulrushes have their fits of suddain withering even when they are most green which demonstrates their want of substance So hypocrites get sudddain strokes from God that he may declare them to be such And he blasts their outward condition and prosperity that their profession may be seen to be blasted by their abandoning thereof in trouble as Chap. 4.4 5 6. This Doctrine is full of the errour formely taxed For 1. If this be understood of the prosperity and outward condition of hypocrites it is not true that all of them or only they are thus made to wither within time 2. If it be understood of their inward condition or spiritual and gracious frame to which they pretend Though it be true that great troubles will discover hypocrisie Mat. 13.20 21. Isa 33.14 Yet every trouble will not make that discovery And on the other hand it is to be considered that even real Saints may have their own fits of blasting and withering notwithstanding the truth of their grace For the Bride Cant. 5.2 and the wise Virgins Mat 25.5 may fall a sleep And particularly under calamities many of the Superfluities of Saints and some hypocrisie in their profession may be blown away Yea judgments may abate much of their life and vigour in Piety though they have not only true grace still but some measure of liveliness also And therefore Saints are not to bâ— judged as to the truth of their grace by their sits and swoundings under sharp and discouraging afflictions in which condition these who are least sensible may seem to have most vigour in their profession though it be otherwise With these Cautions this Doctrine may teach 1. The holding forth of this Doctrine under similitudes by Bildad and those Ancients to whose judgments he refers Job doth point out their desire to speak plainly and to the capacity of people which is indeed a necessary duty and an evidence of honesty For notional Religion and high-flown conceptions about it are an evidence of emptiness See 1 Tim. 1.4 5 6 7. And though many do account men spiritual in their Doctrine because of their sublimated and refined notions and expressions Yet Christ condescended to preach in Parables and Paul laid aside the wisdome of words 1 Cor. 1.17 And indeed many of those fine conceptions are nothing else but those enticing words and that philosophie and vain deceit whereby the simplicity of the Gospel is corrupted and the spirits of professours are spoiled and taken off the substance of Religion Colos 2.4 8. 2. This their way of teaching doth also point out their spiritual mindedness In that as it was their care to imprint heavenly truths in their own and others minds by the consideration of those common objects So habituating themselves and others who would hearken to their Doctrine with meditation upon spiritual things every common object represented to their senses did put them in mind thereof and furnish some memento for that end And this is a pattern most worthy of imitation 3. Whereas Eliphaz in his Doctrine spake much of the wicked Bildad deals chiefly with the hypocrite such as he conceived Job to be and declares them to lie under the same lash and vengeance which Eliphaz declared to be the portion of the wicked Hereby this may be pointed out which is a truth whatever particular mistake be in his Doctrine That hypocrites especially gross dissemblers in the mattter of Religion are in no less woful case then the very wicked and openly prophane Their shew of godliness will help them nothing but only contribute to make up their dittay and to render their sin the more odious and their judgment the more sad that they have done wickedly under a mask of Piety and so prophaned the holy name of God 4. Here also some Characters of wicked and gross hypocrites may be found They are forgetters of God He is not much in their hearts nor before their eyes in their walking how neer soever he seem to be in their mouths Isa 29.13 Jer. 12.2 He is not owned and acknowledged in the good things they get nor his Providence adored and submitted to in what they want Nor is he esteemed of and delighted in continually as their portion but sleighted neglected and forgotten And notwithstanding all this their wickedness yet they are full of hope and presumptuous expectations They are seldom if at all vexed with diffidence as the godly who are allowed to hope in God are in their confidence Nor is their confidence any thing weakened or questioned by reason of their guilt till God by his stroke crush it altogether and make it perish 5. It is an undeniable mark of tâ—â—e grace to keep green and lively when we want prosperity and when the cross doth not cause our Profession to wither but we grow up like the Palm-tree under the burden Psal 92.12 For so much would Bildad himself grant while he makes it an evidence of the hypocrite that he withereth when God smites him See Job 17.8 9. 6. God doth not look chiefly to outward shews or appearances in men nor are we so much to regard those but to look chiefly to our solid â—00â— and that we be substantial in our way For in this other herbs are preferred to the rush and slag that they endure longer then they though yet they do not flourish so fair 7. Whatever be the Lords way and dispensations within time yet this will be the issue of all â—â—al hypocrites Their greatest flourishing shall not hinder a remarkable stroke and the pulling off of the mask of their rotten Profession and all their hopes and expectations will end in disappointments In this sense Bildads Doctrine is sound though he intended more in it See Job 11.20 18.14 Prov. 10.28 Vers 14. Whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a spiders web 15. He shall
So that his naked Word is not lightly to be regarded whether it be for a man or against him 4. The obediential subjection of insensible creatures to the command of God will be a witness against proud contentious men who being endued with reason ought to be more plyable to his will For so may this instance be referred to Job's principal scope which is to reprove contenders and quâ—â—rellers with God ver 3 4. And indeed if those creatures be obedientially subject to be ordered so as may be for the honour and service of their Maker and if it be the Suns splendour not to shine at Gods command and the brightness of the Stars to be sealed up when he pleaseth how guilty must men be who seek only to please themselves and to have their interests and humours served in every thing without submission to what may glorifie God Vers 8. Which alone spreadeth out the heavens and treadeth upon the waves of the Sea The power of God is here further instanced 1. In the Heavens which as God when at first he created them spread out as a stately curtain Psal 104.2 So when he pleaseth he again as it were spreads them out in their serenity by drawing off the vail of clouds that were upon them 2. In the Sea which he hath under his power as this phrase of treading imports Psal 91.13 and can settle the waves thereof and pave it as a flour upon which one walketh Hence Learn 1. The Heaven or Firmament in its extension and serenity and brightness is a stately document of the Power Majesty and wisdom of God as here we are taught and Psal 8.3 19.1 This gloriously imbroidered Canopy doth demonstrate what stately works God can produce of nothing and should put us in mind of the glory of our invisible Countrey which is above 2. The Lord as he made the Heavens his alone and needs not the help of Angels to rule the motions So can do greatest works his alone without the help of our strength or counsel as in this instance we are taught Which is the more to be heeded that hereby the Lord hath given a standing pledge and document of his mercy which endures for ever toward his people Psal 136.4 5. See Job 37.18 Isa 59.16 2 Tim. 4.16 17. 3. The Sea also is a Theatre upon which many of Gods wonders are to be seen Psal 107.23 24. both for variety of creatures fed there Psal 104.25 27. His bounding of its fury against the Land Job 38.8 11 and compescing of the tempests that arise there Psal 107.29 30. 89.9 This is it whereby his power is commended here He treadeth upon the waves or heights and risings of the Sea And hereby doth he demonstrate his power to compesce the tumults of men whether when they assault his people Psal 65.7 93.3 4. or let loose their corruptions like a troubled Sea Isa 57.20 or are mad upon Errours Jude ver 13. or do rise and swell against Gods dispensations to contend with him because of them which is the particular Job is upon In all which cases God can either calm or if they will not be calm crush them Vers 9. Which maketh Arcturus Orion and Pleiades and the chambers of the South A further instance of Gods power and of his wisedom also is That not only he made the glorious Constellations but hath ordered some of them by their rising and appearing to distinguish and by their influences to moderate the seasons of the year As Arcturus for the Harvest at which time of old they began the year and therefore it is first mentioned here Orion the Winter Pleiades the Spring and the Chambers of the South the Summer whereby it is most like the Stars of the Constellation called Canis Major in which the Dog-Star is most conspicuous are designed For they arise with the Sun in Summer and may be called the inward parts as some read it or Chambers of the South because they are so far inward to the South beyond the Aequinoctial line much further then Orion is and so more remote from those who live on this side the Line and near the North-pole and because they arise in the time of great heat as if they came out of some warm chambers I shall not enter to speak of these Constellations nor dip on their names in the Hebrew and the signification thereof Only we may hence Learn 1. The wisdom and power of God is to be seen and adored in ordering the seasons of the year wherein there are such changes as are useful for man for the Earth and Creatures living on it and in the fixing whereof the fidelity of God is to be remarked Gen. 8.22 and he is to be eyed in any variations we find in those as rendering himself conspicuous therein when we will not notice him in his ordinary way 2. As Gods glorious power and wisdom shine in making and ordering the Stars and their influences Job 38.31 32. whereby he invites men to seek him Amos 5.8 and to believe his Universal Providence and particular care of all his people Psal 147.3 4 5. So it is very commendable to be versed in that study as Job here hath been Noâ— so as to seek to draw the fore-knowledge of particular contingent events were it but even the temper of the weather on such and such particular days from them Jer. 10.2 Isa 47.13 But that we may be led to see and acknowledge God in them Vers 10. Which doth great things past finding out yea and wonders without number All these Particular instances are here shut up in a General That God doth great and incomprehensible things which can neither be searched out nor reckoned Of this See further Chap. 5.9 Here Learn 1. The documents of Gods power and glory are so many that who so would essay to recount them he will weary before he be well begun For Job is forced to give over here Gods works being past finding out and without number And no wonder for the whole Earth is full of his glory Isa 6.3 2. Every one of those works of God are great and marvellous even the least of Gods creatures will over-charge the best wits to consider the power and wisdom of God in making of it For they are all great things and wonders 3. The number and gloriousness of Gods works should contribute to humble man before him and put him from quarrelling Gods work about himself whose works speaks his praise in Heaven and in Earth in so great frequency and variety For this tends also to his scope of silencing mans contending with God that He doth great things past finding out and wonders without number Vers 11. Loe he goeth by me and I see him not he passeth on also but I perceive him not In this verse that Argument ver 4. is confirmed as to the point of wisdom especially In that God as Job had observed in his experience dayly presenteth himself to view in
in the world and what they ought to submit unto if it be made their loâ— As 1. When they are in a settled estate and all things go smoothly with them they may meet with a breach and wound For he breaketh me and there are wounds 2. This breach may be made suddainly and violently as if it were in great displeasure He breakâ—th me with a tempest This may teach us to digest breachâ—s and find them more sweet when come on in a more mild and calm way 3. This breach may be made by many strokes reaching uâ— in many of our concerns in body mind goods fâ—â—â—nds c. and reaching each of them by stroke after stroke He multiplieth my wounds This may teach us when we are under calamity rather to be looking and preparing for more then quarrelling what is lying upon us and to account it a mercy to want any tryal which in probability might befal us and that one waye of trouble is not following upon the back of another 4. These multiplied breaches and wounds may come upon us incâ—ssantly not suffering us to take our breath that we learn to acknowledge the mercy of breatâ—â—ng times See also Chap 7.19 5. Upon all these sâ—d ingredients in the Saints cup there may follow the sad affliction of being imbitterâ—d yea filled with bitterness at and because of them See King 4.27 Hereby the Lord discovers his mercy to those who possess a quiet mind under trouble and calleth them to be humbled whose bitter dispositions he permits to break loose and so discovers what is in their hearts Doct. 4 In all these sad tossings of Saints it is their duty and advantage not to lose the sight of Providence but to see an hand of God doing all these things that they may be humbled before him who puts them in the furnace to discover their dross and may be comforted when they know they are in his hand who is infinitely wise compassionate and faithful Therefore doth Job ascribe all this to God He breaketh me c. Yea even his bitterness he looks upon it as his weakness which God will have for wise ends discovered See Lam. 3.15 5. Saints are also bound to believe that all their sad lots from God may consist with their being righteous and approved of him For notwithstanding all Gods terrible dispensations toward him yet he asserts God did them without cause This is Gods own verdict concerning Job and his tryals Chap. 2 3. The meaning whereof is not that God had no cause nor end in doing all this nor yet that Job wanted sin to deserve all of it if that were his meaning it were a most passionate and unjust complaint even when he is declining to complain or contend But that he was not guilty of gross wickedness and hypocrisie which are the evils which God pursues with his wrath This Job was not convinced nor guilty of and therefore refuseth to take with it And this teacheth godly men not to mistake as if sad afflictions did prove them wicked and were sent to cause them renounce the testimony of their own Consciences And it may warn the wicked who may expect sad things when such things as these are done even to the righteous 6. The strokes which are inflicted upon Saints walking in their integrity should humble them and make them afraid of gross provocations for so much doth the scope of all this argument teach He who was so afflicted being innocent could not expect that contending with God would prosper in his hand It is a very sweet frame of spirit when mens good Conscience under trouble makes them the more tender and afraid to sin though oft-times their corruptions and weakness over-drive them to do otherwise Vers 19. If I speak of strength loe he is strong and if of Judgment who shall set me a time to plead The fourth ground of Job's resolution not to contend is the same in substance with that general Argument v. 12. taken from the power dominion of God which he repeats and acknowledgeth to be of force in his case to keep him from contending The sum is as if Job had said It were madness in me to offer to strive with God For if I presume to do it by the strong hand he is strongest and invincible and I am lying on a dunghil like a filthy Leper And if I offer to plead by way of argument and law there is no Superiour Judge to set a day for pleading betwixt him and me to cause parties compeere to give security to me in pleading and to execute the sentence But he is Supreme Judge who can do no wrong and from whom there is no appeal Hence Learn 1. God is the Omnipotent and strong Lord for whom nothing is too hard and with whom no creature can grapple for If a speak of strength lo he is strong This may teach Saints to trust in him in greatest difficulties and when he maketh use of weak means of help 1 Cor. 1.25 and to stoop before him 1 Cor. 10.22 2. As God is Omnipotent and invincible in power so he is also supreme and soveraign Judge accountable to none and before whom none can stand in judgement by the help of any creature For If I speak of judgment who shall set me a time to wit to plead as is well added in the Translation For the word imports an appointing of a solemn time for any affair and here for judgment and pleading in judgment as the context makes clear 3. God is then rightly known and acknowledged in his power and soveraignty when it humbleth us and makes us stand in awe to sin before him for Job brings in those as an argument here why he will not contend with God Vers 20. If I justifie my self mine own mouth shall condemn me If I say I am perfect it shall also prove me perverse The fifth ground of his resolution is taken from the prejudice that would redound to himself by his pleading himself to be righteous and perfect before God Which is not to be understood as hath been marked before of his righteousness by justification nor of his sincerity and integrity in begun renovation and sanctification For these and even this last particularly he pleads before his friends and before God also according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace But it is to be understood of perfect righteousness and sinlesness before God and according to the Law and Covenant of Works and of his pleading of this or any other righteousness to the prejudice of the Righteousness of God who afflicted him And so the meaning is as if Job had said If I should presume thus to plead my righteousness He could not only put my Conscience to it to make me condemn my self with my own mouth but that same very proud speech in justifying my self were sufficient to condemn me not only by reason of the many failings which God would find in the way of my managing my defence
whether godly or wicked from God And so he contradicts what Bildad had said Chap. 8.20 and doth assert nothing but what is the undoubted Truth of God Hence Learn 1. Matters of Truth and Errour are not things of light or small importance but Truth is to be cleaved unto oppose it who will and Errour in judgment is to be looked upon as more dangerous then simple ill practice as not only corrupting the Truth of God and the rational understanding of Man which is the most noble of his faculties but leading also the sinner to sin securely and to defend it obstinately Therefore is Job so resolute in this matter I have said it and will stand to it 2. Controversies ought to be well stated that it may be seen where the stress and weight of them is and that men do not father more upon a mans opinion than is meet For they so managed the debate as if this assertion of Job had been injurious to God which it was not save in so far as he did not maintain it calmly and soberly And therefore having yielded to all they could say on Gods behalf he draws the state of the question to this one thing whether afflictions do prove men wicked 3. One Truth doth not contradict nor interfere with another though mens weakness do not alwayes discern how it can be so And particularly it is no prejudice to the Righteousness of God in afflicting that an honest man humbly plead his sincerity and integrity before him though afflicted by him nor is it humility or a glorifying of God to quit the testimony of his sincerity because of sharp afflictions For Job having acknowledged the Righteousness of God in the former part of the Chapter doth also maintain this one thing as nothing contrary to it 4. Men are not to quit Truth or to be driven from it upon any specious pretences or extrinsecol considerations or odious aspersions cast upon it or the adherers to it For they pressed Job to abandon this truth as injurious to God c. when yet they could not refute what he said for it But Job still adheres to it This is one thing therefore I said it It is Satans great design to make Truths odious in the world upon some such extrinsick accounts and imputations But Truth is Truth still for all that and who so are led by their affections respect to parties or interests c. and not by a sound judgement in judging of Truth or Errour they are a ready prey for Satan whom he will soon ensnare in an Errour 5. In particular it is a fixed truth to be received by all and particularly by godly men That outward lots come alike to all that so neither their own afflictions nor the prosperity of others do shake them This is the great Truth which God in his Providence hath cleared in Job's experience and the debates recorded in this Book A truth to which the Scriptures Eccles 9.1 2. Ezek. 21 3. and frequently elsewhere bear witness And therefore men would be very sincere would by faith grip to Gods love in every lot and would mortifie their own lusts lâ—st otherwise tentations contrary to this truth doth shake them as we find in some cases cross Providences have occasioned though not a denyal yet low thoughts of Piety even in godly men because they were afflicted Psal 73.10 14. Much more will it do so in hypocrites Mal. 3.13 14 15. Only this truth should be understood aright That all things come alike as to the outward lot and dispensation For otherwise if we look to Gods love toward a godly man whatever his case be to his blessing upon his lot and to the fruit given him of his humbling tryals and sometime even to the sense of Gods love and favour shed abroad in the godlies hearts under tryal though at other times they may be inwardly deserted and outwardly afflicted borh at once I say in these respects the case of the godly and wicked may differ very far but yet the outward lot is the same 6. Saints ought to resolve that they may be like the wicked not in some lesser calamities only but even in being destroyed and sent out of the world by a sad stroke that so they may learn not to doat on time or those temporal issues that are given to men while they are continued in it For even to this doth Job extend the general assertion He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked He smites the one and the other indifferently as it pleaseth him even till he destroy him and cut him off Vers 23. If the scourge slâ—y suddenly he will laugh at the tryal of the innocent Follow the Arguments confirming this Assertion Whereof the first in this verse is taken from experience of scâ—urges or common calamities in the world When God sends out a scourge of Sword Famine or Pestilence suddenly to overthrow and cut people off not only are the wicked reached thereby which is hâ—â—e supposed but even the innocent that is such as are righteous and free of gross provocations for in any other sense none are innocent or free of sin in this life Yea further in trying of the innocent by these scourges the Lord seems to act as one delighted with it and little resenting the great extremities wherewith they are pressed Hence Learn 1. While he calleth any of these common calamities a scourge which imports a correction for a fault it teacheth That whatever may be Gods end in cleanly tryals and sufferings yet National calamities are punishments for sin They are the result of Gods accurate searching out and noticing of sin and should drive men to search into their own ways Lam. 3.39 40. For the root in the Original from whence the word in the Text riseth which is rendered a scourge signifieth diligently to run up and down which may also point at the commonness of these scourges as God pleaseth to direct them even as a whip is moved to and fro according as he pleaseth who maketh use of it and to consider and try 2. Though God may sometime threaten when yet he forbeareth Amos 7 1 2 3 c. and sometime may inflict lesser calamities when yet he preserves the afflicted alive yet it should be remembered that God hath deadly Arrows in his Qâ—iver especially in National calamities or when lesser rods have not profited a people For this is a scourge which slayeth 3. God is pleased sometimes to send scourges very unexpectedly when nothing like that is dreamed of but the contrary seems most probable that he may surprize the wilfully secure and presumptuous may warn all to be continually upon their guard and may teach men to improve the mercy of warning before hand For here the scourge slayeth suddenly 4. Albeit when God sendeth common calamities upon a people his quarrel be chiefly against the wicked and profane yet as the godly have so much sin as doth deserve a share in that cup so it
God thou shalt plunge me whereas before and after he is speaking to his Friends Vers 32. For he is not a man as I am that I should answer him and we should come together in judgment 33. Neither is there any days-man betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both 34. Let him take his rod away from me and let not his fear terrifie me 35. Then would I speak and not fear him but it is not so with me Job's second proof that he is righteous is his humble offering if he might to justifie himself before God that he was sincere and free of that hypocrisie wherewith his Friends charged him In this discourse he both gives a further reason of his declining to pretend to sinlesness and therefore it is connected with what precedes by the particles For by shewing that as the matter stood he could not noâ— durst debate the matter with God considering the inequality of the parties in themselves v. 32. and that there was no superior Judge to whom recourse might be had v. 33. And yet he proves his sincerity by offering to plead his cause on more equal terms v. 34 35 In sum the purpose and his offer may be thus conceived That albeit there can be no pleading against God as unrighteous nor any contending with him according to the strict rule of justice For God is Supreme Lord and he being but a poor creature could not answer nor defend himself against his challenges who knew him better then himself did nor were they equal parties to engage in a debate v 32. Nor yet is there any Superiour Judge or aâ—guer or reprover that is to reprove him who did wrong his party â—n pleading and by his sentence reprove him that had the wrong cause who might lay his hand upon them both or use his power to bring both parties together to judgment to ordain a Law and enforce the parties to stand to the sentence But God is Supreme having dominion over him at his pleasure and by the rigour of the Law might condemn him v. 33. Yet if God would take away the present rod that was upon him and remove his terrour which confounded him he would plead his cause without fear and maintain that he was sincere according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace and no hypocrite v. 34 35 This reasoning whatever sound truths be in it is not handsomely expressed For it speaks an indirect challenge that he was put to a disadvantage in maintaining of his integrity Nor can it be denyed but this way of offering to maintain his integrity savours of too much height of spirit though he haâ— a good cause And as this began his ill humour of complaining which breaks out Chap. 10. So it is at this and the like speech Job 13.20 21 22. which Elihu hinâ—s in his offâ—r Job 33.6 7 And God himself gives him the check for these and the like speeches when he calls him to dâ—bate with him Job 38.3 40 7 Hence we may be warned how hard it is to keep a right frame of spirit toward God under trouble and to bear and manage a good Conscience when we are afflicted so as it may be a support to us and not an occasion of challenge against God that such as we are afflicted But laying aside this weakness in his discourse we may Observe these Truths in it 1. However vain man swell high in his own eyes and do carry so as if he had no equal or Superiour and Lord over him yet there is an infinite distance betwixt God and Man For saith he He is not a man as I am but the great Lord. See Eccl. 6.10 Jer. 49.19 This distance both in respect of his dreadful Majesty and blessed perfections we should mind in all our ways when we are presumptuous in sinning Psal 50.21 when we approach to God Eccl. 5.1.2 when we expect good things from him according to his promise Hos 11.8 9. Num. 23.19 c. 2. When God is rightly taken up in his Majesty and Holiness man will see that he cannot answer God nor defend himself before him or abide his strict enquiry and judgment who seeth more of man then he can see of himself and who judgeth not only on words and actions but on a mans nature and inclinations For He is not a man as I am that I should answer him See 1 Cor. 4.4 Psal 143.2 3. As the man who knoweth God will see that he cannot abide his strict judgment So far less will he dare to quarrel so Supreme so Holy and All-seeing a Party or deal with him as if he were his equal For He is not a man as I am that we should come together in judgment as equal Parties who have liberty of mutual accusations Every quarreller would make God but his equal but they dare not attempt that who know that all they have is of him 4. God ought also to be acknowledged to have supreme and absolute dominion and to be accountable to none For neither is there any days mâ—â— betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both And the study of his Soveraignty is enough to silence all our reasonings against him 5. Afflictions may give a sore daâ—h to mâ—ns câ—urage in maintaining their integrity even according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace For saith he let him take his rod away from me before I dispute my honesty Saints ought not to stâ—mble albeit sorâ— afflictions shake their confidence and courage not a little 6. That which makes trouble so apt to shake Saints is their apprehending God as terrible and dreadful through that Perspective of 〈◊〉 Therefore he addeth being under the rod and let not his fear terrifie me God may seem to be terrible to them whom he loveth dearly And albeiâ— it be the Saints weakness â—ot to sâ—e love under that yet it iâ— an evidence of their tenderness that they are apprehensive of iâ— when afflicted and can bear it woâ—â—t of any other ingredient in their cup. 7. Integrity as it hath sâ—â—ll to do with God as its Judge and Witness So it will not decline his Judgment on a Mercy-seat and looks fâ—â— best quarters at his hand As knowing that he sâ—eth infirmities in his sincere servants to cover and â—mend them Psal 139.23 24. For on these terms formerly mentioned Then would I speak saith he and 〈◊〉 feaâ— him Where though the height of his spirit in this offer cannot be justified yet he seems â—o mean no other thing by this not fearing but that he would speak without fear of perturbation not without fear of reverence 8. Whatever disadvantage integrity meet with yet it will never quit its claim For then would I speak saith he He is ready to dispute though as mâ—â—â—ers stand he dare not So that they who have a good Conscience and want these disadvantages may be bold As for that which is subjoyned in the end of v 35. by way of regret But
able to make it convincing to others nor though his light were convincing as to that point of Truth is he able to search out and discover all these idols and lusts which imbarque men in ways of Errour and against Truth And though he could discover all these yet he is not able to over-awe man nor put him from his pride which will not suffer him to be convinced or to retract what he is engaged in for another man All this lets us see what a Tyrant Eâ—â—our is when men once give up themselves slaves to it And how much need there is of humble self-denyal and humble dependance on God in those who would effectually oppose it Job 32.13 2 Cor. 10.4 5. 2 Tim. 2.25 26. 2. God is able to convince and argue a man out of his Errours were he otherwise never so stiffe and obstinate in them For he puts it upon God to speak and open his lips against him as knowing he could effectually convince He can hold out light clearly and make it convincing He can turn mens idols and lusts which do engage them into dâ—ttays which their Consciences cannot refuse and he can cause his terrour drive men from their Errours This sheweth that matters are not hopeless in times when Errour prevaileth though mens abilities and diligence prove ineffectual And it warneth these who will not be convinced of their Errours by others to beware of making God their party 3. The wisdom of the Lord is a secret a great and unsearchable depth and his footsteps in his proceedings are not easily traced For there are the secrets of wisdom See Psal 147.5 This calls for sobriety in our inquiries about the counsels of God and that we avoid presumption and conceit of our knowledge and wisdom 4. God himself is the only discoverer of his deep counsels to men in so far as is for their good and behoof For He must shew the secrets of wisdom He must not only give us his Word whereby we may understand so much as is needful of his working but must open our eyes to take up what is revealed there Psal 119.18 And therefore we must not go about this search in our own strength 5. It is in particular one secret of the wisdom of God that he knows much more of us then we can know of our selves For in this the secrets of wisdom are double according to the Law to that which consists in our own soundest judgment and knowledge as hath been explained His Law is spiritual Rom. 7.14 And the best sight of our selves cannot bring us up to know the truth of our selves according to the sentence of the Law beside that we are oft-times blinded with tentation desertions lusts self-love c. and so cannot discern what otherwise might be obvious enough unto us This tells us that in our best estate within time we should be far from any conceit of perfection 1 Cor. 4.4 And that we should rather beside our laying to heart our known failings be bewailing our hid and secret Errours which we cannot comprehend Psal 19.12 6 God can do no wrong in afflicting the most righteous man For beside that God may by reason of his absolute Dominion afflict the most innocent every son of Adam though regenerate hath sin in this life which deserves all his afflictions and much more according to the rule of strict justice Ezra 9.13 And therefore in stead of quarrelling what God doth when he afflicts him he is bound to admire that God doth not prosecute him with greater severity considering his deserving Lam. 3.22 Therefore saith he Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less then thine iniquity deserveth Besides these Truths Zophar's mistakes in this way of Reâ—utation are useful to be observed And 1. He is earnest in his wishes that God would appear in this cause expecting certainly that God would approve of his sentence and opinion And yet he was deceived for God condemned him among the rest when he determined in the Controversie It teacheth That even godly men should be sober and cautious in their appealing to God in the matter of their opinions And should take heed that their self-love do not blind them and cause them dream of Gods approving of that which indeed he abhors So also tentation may represent God as a pâ—â—ty as Zophar suggests to Job here when he is none 2. He doth here assault Job by laying before him such found Truths of Gods knowledge of man mans ill deservings c. which had they been as pertinent as they are true in themselves the debate had been at an end yet Job is not convinced by them as concluding nothing against him to prove him wicked It teacheth That a sincere man who hath fled to Christ for refuge may in his affliction look upon and acknowledge the Omniscience of God the perfection of his Law his Justice in afflicting the desert of sin and his own impurity and yet all those not discourage him nor prove him wicked because afflicted For 1. Albeit all that be true yet such a man hath fled to Christ in whom he is hid and his sins covered And so God deals not with him according to all these faults which he by his Omniscience findeth in him nor according to strict Justice or the rigour of the Law which are satisfied in Christ but according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace 2. Albeit there be sin in godly men beyond what they know of themselves yet all their afflictions are not chastisements for sin but some are sent only for the tryal of their faith patience and other graces 3. Albeit God be pursuing sin in his Saints by afflictions and might pursue them yet more yet it followeth not that they are wicked For he pursued David for his further humiliation and for the vindication of his own glory whom yet he had pardoned 2 Sam. 12.9 14. Thus ought we to joyn the Law and the Gospel acknowledging the just sentence of the Law and yet having recourse to Christ in the Gospel to be secured against the execution thereof Otherwise such as make not use of Christ must be at the poor shift to turn Atheists Psal 14.1 2. to pervert the sense of the spritual Law and mince their own sins to procure to themselves security and stupidity in stead of true peace Vers 7. Canst thou by searching find out God canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection 8. It is as high as heaven what canst thou do deeper then hell what canst thou know 9. The measure thereof is longer then the earth and broader then the sea In the third place that he may inculcate this Doctrine of the Wisdom and Justice of God upon Job he subjoyns to v. 12. several amplifications and considerations concerning God and his Attributes And First in these verses he commends the unsearchable wisdom of God shewing that although he had wished God might shew Job so much of it as might convince him that God
it is our duty to hold that Principle fast Otherwise we loose the reins to all impiety Whereas a sight of God and his Providence will help us to reckon that there are other purposes in all those dispensations then we have yet seen 6. Mens prosperity 〈◊〉 Gods eminent hand in giving of it or mens seeming to see an hand of God in it is no evidence of divine approbation For God bringeth abundantly into the hand even of those Robbers Not only do they prosper but Gods hand may be eminently seen in heaping those favours upon them And they may seem to acknowledge it as Zech. 11.5 who yet are notoriously wicked and abhorred of God Every good turn done by God to us and every acknowledgment thereof by us will neither witness his special love nor our honesty Vers 7. But ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee and the souls of the air and they shall tell thee 8. Or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee In these verses Job proves the first branch of his Assertion that wicked men may prosper from the consideration of what is obvious among all the creatures if it were observed Though here he direct his speech in the singular number to Zophar who spake last yet it is intended to them all That if they look upon all the creatures wild and tame the earth and commodities thereof they will not only find that those do most frequently serve the wicked which may be the meaning in part and they enjoy greatest plenty of the good things of this life wild Beasts Fowls Fishes and the tame Herds and Flocks and other increase of the Earth being ordinarily heaped upon them But which I take to be the most proper meaning here their study of the creatures would yet further confirm his assertion thus Among Beasts save in so far as they are tamed by men and Fowls of the Air and Fishes in the Sea nothing is more ordinary then to see the greater of them devour the lesser Hab. 1.13 14. and the ravenous devouring the harmless yea the most tame of them are most frequently destroyed for the use of man And therefore it is no wonder if God permit it to be so also among men that wicked men oppress the righteous As for his sending them to the earth beside those creatures formerly mentioned to be taught by it it may be understood of men on the earth as it is cleared v. 10. That man is in Gods hand as well as other creatures among whom they might ordinarily have seen the most wicked most cruel and prevalent over others as was usual among these Arabians Or of the very earth it self and other things upon it beside the Beasts formerly mentioned where it is obvious to be seen that the best earth is most frequently manured and torn up with tilling whereas the barren places are suffered to continue as they were the greater Trees wear out the lesser by hindering them to take root withholding the Sun from them dropping upon them and intercepting the moisture that should nourish them And the best fruits are cut down ground and prepared for mans use whereas noisome weeds and useless things are let alone All which tend to prove Job's conclusion That oppressours may prosper and best men may suffer From this Argument thus explained Learn 1. All the creatures and the various lots that befal them do preach much of God and his Providence As here Job proves his point concerning Gods Providence toward Man from what is obvious in the world and the creatures that are therein See Psal 19.1 2. Psal 148. throughout Where every creature hath somewhat to say to Gods praise and Rom. 1.19 20. So that men do sinfully neglect an opportunity if they do not ask at them or learn some lessons which they teach and declare by meditating upon them 2. Hence it is mans great neglect that there is much to be learned even among his feet and from things dayly in his view which yet he doth not see nor observe For Job insinuates that the Truth maintained by him was obvious everywhere and yet Zophar had not noticed it See Prov. 6.6 Isai 1.3 3. God by all the passages of his Providence would have this Truth inculcated That afflictions follow upon Piety and wickedness may enjoy the advantages of this present world For that is the Lesson which Job propounds as obvious and taught by all the creatures Mistaking and stumbling at this breeds many a plea with God and renders afflictions intolerable whereas to be familiarly acquainted with this Principle breaks the snare Vers 9. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this 10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind Here Job proves the second branch of his Assertion that God doth all this And holds it for a truth that none can be ignorant of That nothing can be disposed of without the good pleasure and Providence of God v. 9. who hath the life and breath of all creatures men as well as others in his hand v. 10. Hence Learn 1. A Providence is not seen and adored in dispensations which do not please us Therefore this Truth that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this must be not only asserted but proved See Mal. 2.17 As it is Satans great design to shake us loose in this So when we do not distinctly see and adore Providence in ordinary we meet with intricate and thorny questions about it in strange dispensations 2. Though men in their firs presume to debate and question the matter of Gods Providence yet they will not get it shifted nor denyâ—d Therefore he puts it home with a question who knoweth not in all these or by what may be gathered from these instances that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this intimating that they could not but know it and that when they take greatest pains to be Atheists yet they will be far enough from their point And when the fool would say in his heart there is no God yet it may be questioned if he be altogether destitute of knowledge and his very terrours will witness against him that he cannot be rid of some apprehensions of a Deity Psal 14.1 4 5. 3. When men turn Atheists and fall a questioning the Providence of God they ought to be sharply dealt with and refuted For this question imports also Job's indignation against any wrong thoughts about the Providence of God It is the common interests of Saints not to let the Providence of God be denyed in the faith whereof they are so often comforted in dark cases And zeal for God should cause them abhorr any thoughts prejudicial to his glory 4. As God hath a dominion over all his creatures particularly over living things and man in special So the study of this dominion will help to open our eyes to see him
filthy should therefore be abominable and nothing should be abominable or detested by us but what is really filthy as here they are conjoyned 6. It is not sufficient we have a General notion of Mans pollution unless we be so well acquainted with it as we may be able to instance it in particulars Therefore he here subjoyns this as a proof that Man is abominable and filthy he drinketh Iniquity like water Wherein Mans vile and abominable condition by nature is hinted at in these particulars 1. That it is as natural to him to sin as it is to eat or drink 2. That he is possessed with fiery and raging lusts which make him thirst and long after satisfaction to them as a thirsty man doth after drink 3. That much lust make sin desirable to him as drink is to a thirsty man 4. That lust makes him stand upon no iniquity how ugly and base soever whereby he thinks to reap satisfactâ—on he will drink iniquity be what it will as a thirsty man will be glad of very water when he is extreamly dry Vers 17. I will shew thee hear me and that which I have seen I will will declare 18. Which wise men have told from their fathers and have not hid 〈◊〉 19. Vnto whâ—m alone the earth was given and no stranger passed among them Followeth the second part of the Chapter wherein Eliphaz having taxed Job for so many faults in his discourses and carriage he proceedeth in prosecution of the last charge that Job was erroneoâ—s in asserting his own righteousness to prove the point in Controversie betwixt them that Job was a wicked man because none but wicked men were afflicted as he was where though he spake to the point in general terms yet in many things he reflects upon Job This part of the Chapter consists 1. Of a Preface v. 17 18 19 2. Of a Narration concerning the miserable estate of the wicked wherein he labours to prove his Opinion v. 20. 30. 3. of a Conclusion drawn from this Narration v. 31. 35. In the preface in these verses 1 He excites Job to attend to what he had to say v. 17. 2. He informs him how he would prove his point Namely not only by telling him what himself had learned by Observation and Experience v. 17. but also what was the invariable experience of all ages For what he was to speak wise men before them had not only inculcated it upon their Children from their own observation and experience but had it before inculcated upon themselves from their Fathers v 18. As for what is added to the commendation of these who taught this Doctrine that to them alone the Earth was given and no stranger passed among them v. 19. It may be understood either of the Fathers of these wise men v. 18 such as Noah Shem c. who lived in the most Primitive age after the floud and who there alone were the first Planters of the Earth and were free of the molestation of strangers and enâ—mies people being then but few and well known one to another and so they had the experience of all men then living known to them which from them and their successours he is now to communicate to Job Or it may rather be understood both of these Wise men and their Fathers from whom he had this Doctrine who in what Age soever they lived were â—o eminent for wisdom that they had the Earth given them Or were advanced to govern in these Countreys where they lived and did so manage their government as they had the Earth alone or lived in peace and quiet keeping off as it is after added all Foreigners who might be ready to invade or molest them and were free of all strangers who might bâ—ing in idolatrous Opinions to corrupt the sound Doctrine that was among them By all which commendations of his own doctrine and of the Patrons thereof he would fastâ—n upon Job that he was a man condemned by the verdict of all the godly-wise in all ages whose experience led them to conclude that such afflictions as he smarted under were proper only to the wicked As to the validity of this way of Probation by Experience much hath been spoken on Chap. 4.7 Chap. 8.8 9 10. and elsewhere Communication of experiences from Generation to Generation was indeed a special mean of knowledge in these days and in the times before them Nor could they then call for Scripture-proofs in matters controverted seeing it was not then written and what they knew of the mind of God beside the Law written in their hearts and observations and remarks upon Providences of God was by extraordinary Revelations thus transmitted from one to anothâ—r Yet this his way of Probation is defective 1. Because he produceth no Revelation for his Opinion save only that one Chap. 4.17 which he mistook but only the Observations of wise and godly men 2. Though these Wise men and their Fathers told all the experiences they had learned yet in their time they could not have all experiences of all things and conditions of men For the world had not continued so long especiaâ—ly since the Floud as that all things could have readily occurred which God might be pleased to do in after-ages of the world 3. It is not certain they did observe all they saw or might have known and so could not tell it For it is certain some godly men were afflicted at the very beginning as witness Abel 4. Their Posterity could not undertake that they had remembered all was told them but hearing so much of the sad lots of the wicked they might readily forget any thing they heard of the suffering of some of the godly whereof probably there were so few experiences in that infancy of the world 5. Neither is it certain that Posterity understood what was told them in the true sense of it For the Truth in this Narration seems to be this That some particular wicked persons and Societies had been dealt with as is here recorded and the Fathers having transmitted the knowledge of this to warn and deter their Posterity from sin their Posterity did hence conclude that all and only the wicked were so dealt with Whereas the Lord may see it fit to make some to be Examples and Beacons to warn others and yet not always strive with others who fall in the like faults for so the world should soon be destroâ—ed which the Lord is pleased to preserve as for other ends so that he may gather in his Elect many of whom do spring out of the loins of such wicked transgressours And as the Lord may thus spare the wicked So he may let the godly taste of the outward lot that befals some wicked men that none may know love or hatred by these outward things The consideration of all this may Teach us 1. It is a great mercy we have the sure rule of the written Word seeing the Observatioâ—s and inculcated Doctrine of the godly-wise
his cloathing for a pledge and so left him naked It is not to be doubted but Eliphaz doth falsely charge Job here as his own Apologies do witness see Chap. 31. And so it teacheth That godly men under affliction may lie under most horrid and unjust aspersions Ill Principles concerning Gods afflicting of men and mens taking the report of byassed and prejudged persons may easily give a rise to such imputations as it did to Eliphaz And therefore men should carefully guard against both and that they neither raise nor entertain groundless ill reports of sufferers Yet the General Doctrine wherein he speaks of such evils as are gross faults though Job was free of them and his way of managing the challenge which he supposed to be just may teach 1. General challenges will not suffice to convince and humble the guilty unless particulars be condescended upon Therefore doth he subjoyn particular instances to that General Challenge v. 5. that he may more effectually convince 2. The faults hereafter mentioned however Job was free of them ought not to be looked upon as infirmities or simple sins only but as wickedness and great wickedness For that is the Character given of them all v. 5. 3. Men in prosecution of justice and their legal rights may be guilty of horrid oppression For though giving of pledges was in some cases approved by the Law of God yet here it is challenged as a great wickedness to take a pledge c. See Chap. 24.3 4. And particularly it is implyed in the words 1. That violent imposing of Sureties or Pledges even for what is due to us is cruelty As is implyed in his taking a Pledge as the word is here translated though it be not so emphatick in the Original whereas he should have stood without and received what the man might best spare so it were of sufficient value Deut. 24.10 11. 2. That it is yet greater cruelty if this pledge be taken unjustly or for nought Either when men obtain Law-sutes upon which they take pledges by fraud circumventions and forged cavillations or do take pledges above the worth of what is due and it may be detain them though the debt be paid 3. That it adds to the cruelty when this is done to a brother by nature common profession or bonds of common sufferings see James 2.15 16. 1 John 3.17 Or it may be extended to all those who are in need to whom we should be Brethren and Neighbours Luke 10.29 37. 4. Whether men have a just cause or not yet it is cruelty utterly to strip the poor to strip the naked of his clothing or by stripping him to leave him naked See Chap. 24.3 9. Exod. 22.26 27. Deut. 24.6 12 13. Vers 7. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry In the second place He accuseth Job of unmercifulness and sinful Parsimony in not relieving these who were in misery Here the General Doctine passing his mistake of Job teacheth 1. Beside what we are bound in justice to do to our neighbour the Lord doth exercise and try us by dayly objects of charity and compassion such as the weary and hungry who were in those times as also in all ages the object of mens compassion See Deut. 15.11 2. It may teach men sobriety when they consider that a very little will suffice these who are really indigent that even bread and water will refresh those weary and hungry ones Those doing good at some times should teach us with how little we should be content at all times 1 Tim. 6.6 7 8. And albeit in Scripture sometime all sort of food be expressed under the name of bread and water as Deut. 9.9 1 Kings 13.8 9. Isa 3.1 and elsewhere yet the reason is because men should be content if they get so much 3. Charity may be very acceptable to God through Christ even when men bestow a very little provided that their power can reach to no more that what they give suffice the indigent and that it be given with an honest heart For so bread and water had been acceptable if he had given them See Matth. 10.42 Mark 12 41 44. 4. It is an evidence of a wicked man to want bowels of compassion and not to be charitable to the indigent for this is one proof of that great wickedness v. 5. Not to give water to the weary c. Hence the want of mercy especially toward godly men in affliction is so severely plagued James 2.13 Psal 109.14 15 16. 5. It is not enough to forbear to do wrong to the poor unless we do them good as we have power and they stand in need omission of what is good being culpable as well as commission of evil Therefore is this challenge joyned with the former v. 6. as being a proof of wickedness as well as that Vers 8. But as for the mighty man he had the earth and the honourable man dwelt in it In the third place He accuseth Job that while he dealt thus with the poor the mighty and honourable man had the earth and dwelt in it What is here said of the mighty and honourable man may be understood 1. Either of Job himself that he neglected or oppressed the poor v. 6 7. that he might become a mighty and great man and that he might engross that Country to himself and reign in it and possess it for his Children and Cattel 2. Or of others that while Job thus wronged the poor yet he was favourable to great men and gave all countenance and encouragement for settleing of them in their possessions Both those are real faults and may readily concur in the practice of wicked men and so the gâ—neral expression may be extended to take in both though none of them were truly charged upon Job However the General Doctrine may teach 1. Oppression or unmercifulness are so much the more abominable when they are the faults of men who have enough in the world For so is here supposed that it was a hainous sin in Job to do those evils v. 6 7. being a great man 2. Mens aspiring to be rich and great ordinarily is not free of sin For here they are supposed to go together a wronging of the poor and a study to be great and honourable See 1 Tim. 6.9 3. Oppression and unmercifulness are sinful ways of advancing our selves as here also we are taught 4. The Lord abhorrs partiality even toward the poor much more that men should partially respect the persons of great men For here also it is charged as a great wickedness v. 5. that while he wronged the poor v. 6 7. yet the mighty man had the earth or land See Exod. 23.3 Lev. 19.15 Vers 9. Thou hast sent widows away empty and the arms of the fatherless have been broken In the last place He more particularly accuseth Job that he had wronged the fatherless and widow That he sent widows away empty either
cut off before it came 5. Saints do therefore mistake and quarrel their own condition because they are blind and cannot discern all out-gates that God hath in his hand or will not stoop to any of them but such as they please For Job seeth or will be satisfied with no issue but either that he should have been taken away from trouble or it with-held or speedily removed from him And doth not consider that when God doth neither of these he can give strength to uphold which ought to satisfie 1 Cor. 10.13 6. When Saints have carped and quarrelled never so much Gods way is still better than any they can prescribe For albeit self-love and love to ease would judge Jobs overtures to be best yet God was more honoured by the way he took Yea it was better both for Job and others in the issue that God did as he did than if Jobs desires had been granted None of a sound judgement who shall now reflect upon the whole procedure will preferr what Job desired to these manâ—fold advantages Job himself reaped and godly men to the end of the World do reap by the pains God took upon him 7. God will not judge of his own children by the fits of their infirmity which break forth in trouble but will judge them patient and submissive who yet have many sits of passion For Job here proves weak and peevish and yet is commended for his patience Jam. 5.11 They must not be cast away as altogether dross in whom some dross appears while they are in the furnace CHAP. XXIV In the former Chapter Job hath been asserting his own integrity and powring out his complaint that he a godly man found such hard measure Now in this Chapter he proceeds to refute their common Argument whereby they endeavoured to conclude him wicked Namely That experience did testifie that all and only the wicked were remarkably plagued in this life as he was In opposition to which he proves by their own Argument taken from experience that there are many sorts of wicked men who goe out of the World in an ordinary way without any remarkable or singular plagues In the Chapter we have First A general Proposition that the experience and observation of godly men can instruct no such thing as that wicked men are generally plagued in this life v. 1. Secondly To confirm this Proposition he produceth on the contrary many instances of wicked men who are spared and do dye but in an ordinary way And 1. He instanceth Oppressours whether these who still converse with men in civil societies v. 2 3 4. or those who turn open Robbers v. 5 11. who yet are not visibly punished v. 12. 2. He giveth instances of these who follow works of darkness v. 13. such as Murderers Thieves and Adulterers v. 14 15. who shun the light v. 16 17. and of Pyrates by Sea v. 18. All which notwithstanding their wickedness are cut off only in the ordinary way v. 19 20. 3. He gives instances yet again of Oppressours who are cruel both to the poor and afflicted v. 21. and to the mighty v. 22. And sheweth that though God have an eye upon them to call them to an account yet they are brought down only in an ordinary way as others v. 23 24. Thirdly To all these instances Job subjoynes a Conclusion confirming the truth of his discourse and instances asserting that they could not be contradicted by any of his Friends v. 25. Verse 1. Why seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty do they that know him not see his dayes IN this Verse we have Jobs general Proposition Wherein in opposition to Eliphaz his Doctrine that not only the wicked are remarkably punished in this life but the godly do see it Chap. 22.19 he asserts that the experience and observation of the godly cannot instruct any such thing as that the wicked are generally plagued in this life For understanding of the words as they are translated it is to be remarked that Job here repeats a principle of his Friends Namely That times are not hidden from the Almighty or that he had his own times prefixed which were well known to himself for punishing of the wicked in this life Against which assertion and their sense of it Job argues thus If it were true as they asserted that these times were not hid from him How then came it to pass that godly men who knew him did not see these dayes of his nor could discern these times wherein the wicked were visibly plagued And consequently since they did not see them it behoved rather to be inferred that they were hid from the Almighty in his Friends sense or that he had prefixed no such times for punishing of the wicked as they alledged For further clearing of the words Consider 1. By times and dayes of the Almighty we are to understand as the sequele of the Chapter clears the times prefixed by him for remarkable and visible plaguing of the wicked in this life which times in Scripture are frequently called the day of the Lord Isa 2.12 and 13.6 Joel 2.11 the day of his wrath Job 20.28 Prov. 11.4 and a day of vengeance ser 46.10 2 While Job disputes against their assertion that these times are not hidden from the Almighty we are not to understand it as if Job denied Gods simple prescience of things that are to come to pass or his purposes how to dispose of wicked men But he only denyeth that God hath fixed any times for the punishment of all and every one of them visibly in this life He neither denyeth that God hath a prescience and providence about things below nor yet doth he maintain in opposition to them that times are simply hid from the Almighty Only he denyes such a providence and purpose about wicked men as they asserted And that because if there were any such thing it could not but be visible to Saints and Spiritual observers when it were accomplished whereas he is able to give instances which Saints have observed contrary to their assertion v. 2. c. 3. As for the force of his Argument that if there were any such times not hidden from the Almighty Saints who knew him could not but see them it tends not to prove this that Saints must needs see and know every thing that is not hidden from God For who can know all his secret purposes or who may dare to pry into them But his scope is to prove that if times were not hidden from God in their sense but he had his prefixed times wherein Judgements should visibly break forth upon the wicked Then as any body might see these remarkable plagues so especially Saints could not but see these visible executions of his purposes And particularly by this he refutes their Argument taken from experience and their observation of the plagues that had befallen the wicked generally by shewing that the experience of Saints doth not prove their assertion but rather the
however men may be too stupid in not observing and making use of ordinary stroaks yet they should not be remembred with too much resentment were there never so much affection to the parties who are smitten For the womb shall forget him he shall be no more remembred but broken as a tree Which may both import a defect that there is not only no resentment but no use made of this death because it comes but in an ordinary way in which case singular tryals come Is 26.10 11. And also a duty not to make too much noise of ordinary tryals by way of resentment murmuring and repining which argue the strength of lusts though it be our mercy to be exercised thereby lest God do strange acts Is 28.21 to rouze us up 3. The best of men will putrifie in the grave and make a sweet feast to the worms For it is here marked as an ordinary lot that the worm shall feed sweetly on him So low must the highest stoop as being but worms themselves Job 25.6 And then mens high thoughts will fall when Death the great Leveller takes hold upon them 4. The wicked deserve so much severity even in this life that an ordinary death is an easie and great favour to them For it is a proof of Gods indulgence that such sinners dye but an ordinary death and have no odde thing in the way of it to be remembred when they are gone If wicked men were pursued according to their deservings there would be moe than these of old who should not dye the common death of all men Numb 16.29 5. No indulgence of God doth prove the innocency of wicked men nor is their sin the less hainous in Gods sight nor ought others to think more lightly of it that he spareth them For those who are thus spared are yet even wickedness in the abstract It is an horrid sin to call evil good yea or to have more favourable and diminishing conceptions of sin because of sinners success or Gods indulgence towards them And our hearts should rise against prospering sin and call it wickedness otherwayes we are in hazard to be tempted to concurr with sinners in it Verse 21. He evil extreateth the barren that beareth not and doth not good to the widow From this to v. 25. Job returns yet to give more instances of Oppressours who are cut off but in an ordinary way In this Verse he gives an instance of some who oppress the barren and widows who either want Children or Husbands to relieve and succour them Whence Learn 1. Oppression is one of the most rise and odious sins and lyeth as near vengeance as any Therefore doth Job instance that as a sin which God would not pass over if he alwayes punished notorious sinners as his Friends asserted See Exod. 37. Ps 12.5 Eccl. 4 1 2 3. and 5.8 2. Barrenness is a sharp tryal wherewith the Lord is pleased to exercise some Women For here the barren is joyned with the widow as a person already afflicted Yea among the people of Israel it was a special reproach 1 Sam. 1.5 6 c. Luk. 2.24 25. And here 1. Godly persons who are exercised with that tryal ought to remember and make use of the Eunuch's promise and blessing Is 56.4 5. 2. They should also remember that some have been exercised with that tryal that they might afterward receive singular proofs of love in obtaining their Children Thus barren Sarah and Rebekah got Sons of the promise Hannah a Samuel Elizabeth John the Baptist c. 3. All ought to guard lest being unmortified under this tryal they get Children that will but augment their sorrow And however it succeed we should beware of Abraham's tentation Gen. 15.2 and of Rachel's distemper Gen. 30.1 For both sinned in it and Rachel took a sinful course to help it Gen. 30 3. though God at last gave a good issue 4. This should teach them who have Children from the consideration of the tryal of others to improve them as a blessing that their name do not stink for their ill breeding of them Doct. 3. Widowhood is another tryal and exercise of some of Adam's posterity For here the widow is a person afflicted whom men ought not to oppress And by this tryal 1. The Lord would let some see how little sensible they have been of mercy when they were under the shadow of an Husband who cared for them and how ill they have improved marriage society 2. He would invite them to give him more imployment 1 Tim. 5.5 3. He would also sit them for proofs of his love who is the Widows God Ps 68.5 Doct. 4. It pleaseth the Lord to exercise great variety in afflicting the children of men by withholding mercies from some as the barren who want children and depriving others of them after they had them as the widow whose Husband is taken away Hereby as the Lord fits tryals in his deep wisdom to every ones strength temper and need of tryals and none ought to judge that the tryal of another were fitter for them than their own So he would teach these who never had these outward mercies to be content considering how they might be tryed with the want of them after enjoyment and he would teach these who enjoy them to be sober considering that enjoyment especially if they be immoderate in their affections toward what they enjoy may but imbitter and put an edge upon an after-tryal 5. When persons are already under some tryals it may please the Lord yet to exercise them with more tryals For here the barren and the widow are under oppression Hereby to omit how this may be procured by hainous sins and peoples incorrigibleness Is 9.12 Lev. 26.21 22 c. 1. The Lord proves his absolute and soveraign dominion to inflict upon the children of men what he pleaseth 2. He prevents security and takes away all grounds of presumption that one tryal shall hide us from another Amos 9.4 But being once shaken loose in any thing we should loose our hearts from all things if the Lord please to strike 3. He discovers more of our weakness that we may be humbled for it and study to amend it by continued and multiplyed tryals than would appear in one tryal only 4. He quickens us to our duty by a new tryal when habitual sit-fast tryals become blunt and we fall asleep under them 5. He teacheth that being once broken with trouble it is sit to hold us still going and in exercise whatever breathing-times we get lest our spirits should be worse imploy'd if we were idle 6. He fits his people for many proofs of his love by the manifold tryals and times that pass over them 2 Cor. 1.5 Doct. 6. It is the height of cruelty and oppression to add affliction to the afflicted For this is marked as an eminent oppression to be punished as soon as any when men evil entreat the barren c. This holds true of Oppressours whether they
he gives proof of his condescendence to our weakness so by the other he demonstrates his Soveraignty And as he chears up his people by his dispensations which they can see through and discern his heart and love in them so he excites them to expect more eminent proofs of him that his purposes about them are wrapt up in darkness seeing choicest mercies have been communicated by most unlikely means And withall when the Lord thus walks towards his people he doth it that their Enemies may discover themselves and break their necks by reason of these dispensations of Providence Doct. 5. Man hath naturally a great conceit of his own ability and will be essaying to sound the depth of this Wisdom of God Therefore Job not only asserts that man cannot find it out but gives reasons to prove his assertion which imports that man must be disputed out of this opinion of his own abilities Man is a very presumptuous Creature Job 11.12 and is better as he thinks at anothers lesson than he is indeed at his own and is more busie in passing a judgment upon Gods guiding of the World and of himself and others in it and that many times for this end that he may take occasion to reflect and carp at Gods dispensations or abuse them to some ill end as here Jobs friends endeavoured to defend their ill cause thereby than at his duty And even godly men through fear sense of guilt discouragement love to murmuring c are apt to lean to their own verdict of Gods dispensations that so they may feed their distempers thereby The consideration of this should humble men and put them to employ God for attaining a right sight of Providence and it should teach godly men to beware of taking every impression that is offered of Gods dispensations but to hold them by that view which the Covenant affords them both of mercies and tryals Ps 89.31 32 33 c. 6. Jobs first argument That there is no place where man may find this Wisdom neither upon earth nor in the depth or Sea may yet further teach 1. However God bless diligence and pains in lawful endeavours and men may find out so much as is needful to know of this wisdom in the use of means yet no pains will bring them to comprehend it fully For men will nor find it among themselves since they know not the price or order of it nor yet among other Creatures beside them in the land of the living nor in the depth or Sea In a word they will find it neither far off nor near hand which may be a warning to men not to employ their pains where they may certainly expect no success 2. Wit and parts will prove foolish and weak in this search after this Wisdom for mans wit whereby he finds out many secret things v. 1 2 c. will do no more here as to the full knowledge of this wisdom than other Creatures in the land of the living in the depth or in the Sea 3. Even where much of this Wisdom is manifested as in the Sea yet man will remain ignorant of it either he will see much and yet not perceive or when he perceiveth much there is yet more hid Doct. 7. From that sentence man knoweth not the price or order of it we may gather some evidences and effects of any measure of some knowledge of this wisdom which is attained by men And 1. In what men study to know of Divine Providence they must observe an order or series of it that they pass not a judgment upon what is only present but wait on till he discover light out of darkness order out of confusion a deliverance even in going to Babel Mic. 4.10 and till after he hath humbled and proved he do good at the latter end Deut. 18.16 2. Mens knowledge of this wisdom of God must beget affection and what they know they must prize and value for we do read Providence backward when we do not esteem of it and say Good is the Lord and his Word whatever the particular dispensation be Is 39.7 8. Verse 15. It cannot be gotten for gold neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof 16. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir with the precious onyx or the saphir 17. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold 18. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls for the price of wisdom is above rubies 19. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it neither shall it be valued with pure gold The second reason proving both the excellency and impossibility of attaining this wisdom is That it is not exposed to sale nor hath man any price which may purchase it though he should give whatsoever is precious and rare for it It is not needful to insist in describing these several kinds of Gold and Jewels mentioned here only the words hold out That though men had all sorts of Silver and Gold Coin and of Jewels and had the best of every kind as the gold of Ophir and fine Gold were and those of them which were rare and far fetched as Gold from Ophir and the Topaz from Ethiopia and were the excellency of these precious things yet further improved by Art as fine Gold made in Jewels or Vessels as the word is yet this wisdom is excellent above all these nor could it be purchased by them Doct. 1. God hath plentifully furnished this Earth with precious and excellent things divers whereof are here enumerated Hereby God demonstrates his Riches his indulgence toward rebel man le ts see his rich allowances not only for necessity but for ornament if men would serve him and seek better things and hereby also the Lord tryeth men whether they will be tempted to prefer these things which have a lustre in their eyes to more excellent things 2. Men have naturally an high esteem of these fine things that are in the world for so much is here imported in that this wisdom cannot be commended but by comparing it with these things They are indeed excellent in themselves but men are naturally inclined to prize them too much while they look at the things which are seen rather than the things which are not seen as the Apostle speaks in another case 2 Corinth 4.18 3. It may point out the vanity of the best of earthly things that they borrow much of their lustre from their being precious rare and far fetched as here Gold is excellent because it must be fetched from Ophir and the Topaz from Ethiopia whereas where things most abound people will give them away in exchange for very toys 4. The wisdom of God in governing the world is excellent and inestimable above the best things of Nature improved by Art as here we are taught So that 1. Great is Gods condescendence in employing what is so excellent about us 2. We ought to silence all
sufficient to prove mens piety that they use some Hospitality even toward strangers unless they do it readily chearfully and so as may witness no constraint or unwillingness in the matter For Job opened his doors to the Traveller or toward the way to witness how willing he was to receive them and to wait upon them that he might invite and bring them in As men ought to be ready to every good work Tit. 3.1 So in particulars in their charity they ought to be ready to distribute willing to communicate 1 Tim. 6.18 And they ought to use Hospitality without grudging 1 Pet. 4.9 Verse 33. If I covered my transgressions as Adam by hiding mine iniquity in my bosome The eleventh Vertue whereof he makes profession the truth whereof he confirms by a tacite asseveration is Ingenuity in confessing of his faults when at any time he fell into them So that he was no fosterer of sin as a bosome-darling nor did be hide and palliate extenuate and excuse his sins but did freely confess them before God and before others also as the cause required in all the aggravations thereof and did judge himself for them While he adds that he did not thus cover his sin as Adam the name Adam may be taken properly for the name of the first man whose fall and the covering of his transgression Gen. 3.12 were not unknown to Job nor yet his own natural inclination derived to him by that fall of Adam to imitate him in the like course though by grace he was enabled to overcome that his inclination Or the name may be taken appellatively as the common name of all mankind who being infected by the fall of Adam do generally use to palliate and cloak their sins And so the meaning is That he did not act after the manner of men by nature in confessing and acknowledging his sins but acted upon a principle of regeneration whereby he became a new man Both those readings may be joyned together for as Adam first began so all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation do follow his footsteps in cherishing and hiding of their sin Doct. 1. As the most righteous of meer men in this life are not free of sin so they make conscience to remark their failings For Job had and can here tell he had transgressions and iniquity Whereby also he obviates an exception that might be put in against this Apology and vindication of himself as if he delighted only to found his own praises and boast of his perfections therein To obviate this he clears here That he asserts not his perfection and sinlessness in all things but only his sincerity in this his Apology and that he looks upon it as indeed it is as a part of a godly mans integrity and proof of his righteousness to be sensible of his failings 2. It is the mark of a godly man ingenuously to take with his faults neither denying or hiding them nor defending excusing or extenuating them For Job did not cover nor hide his sin or did not cover it that it might be hid and not appear at all or not appear in its true coloers As for the sins of other men it is our duty to cover them by endeavouring to turn them from them by admonitions Lev. 19.17 with Jam. 5.20 by forgetting and digesting wrongs and injuries in love Pro. 10.12 1 Pet. 4.8 by constructing as tenderly and charitably as lawfully we may of their failings 1 Cor. 13.5.7 by not blazâ—ng abroad their infirmities Gen. 9.21 22. and other the like acts of love But as for mens own sins Albeit it be not required that they should uncover all even their secret sins to men nor is it possible that they can distinctly overtake and enumerate them all in their confessions to God Ps 19.12 And albeit it should be their desire and endeavour to have their sins covered before God by a free pardon Ps 32.1 Jer. 50.20 Yet they should beware of sinful coverings of their own whereby they think to spare their sins or avoid the punishment which they deserve Hence Men should not conceal their sin as thinking it enough if they get them hid from the eyes of men as Achan did Josh 7.20 21. They should not deny their sin as Ananias and Saphira did Act. 5.2 8. They should not justifie their sin with Jonah Jon. 4.9 They should not extenuate their sin with Aaron Exod. 32.24 nor excuse it with these who are mentioned Luk. 14.18 19. They should not cast the blame of their miscarriages upon others as some father them upon Satan as Evah did Gen. 3.13 Whereas however Satan be a cunning and active Seducer yet mens own dispositions are the great movers in their debordings Others do blame others with whom they have to do as Aaron did Exod. 32.22 23 24. and Saul 1 Sam. 15.13 14 15. as many say they swear only because others will not believe them that they are passionate and do injuries to others because they provoke them and that they do such and such evils because they see others who it may be are better men than themselves do so or worse all which are but figg-tree leaves since we are bound to live by rules and not by examples and since no miscarriage of others warrants us to sin against God Others do not spare to cast the blame of their sinning even on God himself and his dispensations at least indirectly as Adam did Gen. 3.12 Thus many do blame ill times their poor and mean condition their callings c. for their miscarriages and debordings All these are sinful wayes of covering sin unto which this may be added That men knowing themselves to be guilty and not being willing to defend their sin should not cover it by not confessing of it or repenting for it as David did Ps 32.3.5 3. As godly men may fall even in gross faults and many of them So if they be indeed tender they will not think light of them especially if they should endeavour to palliate and hide them Therefore Job not only supposeth that he had transgressions in the plural number but he calls his transgressions iniquity Whereby he not only intimates his own tender frame of heart which made him aggravate all his miscarriages but doth further shew that if he did endeavour to cover his least failing this were a way to make it more sinful and even an iniquity Thus David speaks of an iniquity of that sin which he long concealed Ps 32.3.5 4. Men by concealing or extenuating of their faults do not only aggravate them before the Lord but do also evidence their great love to them For so much is imported in hiding of covered sins in his bosome that men do cover their sins because they delight lovingly and warmly to embrace them And so the words may also be read hiding mine iniquity in my love or because I love it In this respect the phrase my transgressions and mine iniquity will import not generally every
meekly stoop Job 23.6 and 37.23 Psal 99 4. We may hazard much upon him and stoop to dark dispensations when we consider how much is made clear unto us 2. There is nothing can make a dispensation intollerably sad if it speak and have a lesson to us nor is ouâ— condition hopeless so long as God is in speaking tearms For whereas Job complained of it as a sad case that he knew not what God said or meant by all he did to him Elihu gives him this as a comfort that God speaks or was in speaking tearms and inculcating some lesson thereby See Psal 94.12 Dispensations are very terrible when they are dumb and nothing is said by God under them as 1 Sam. 28 5 6. Which they have need to look to to whom neither word nor rod speak any thing 3. As God is still speaking by his Word to them who enjoy it So there are none of his dispensations if they be well read but they say somewhat to us and even those of them which are most dark and wherein his Soveraign dominion shines most have lessons in them if it were but to teach us submission For he asserts it as universally true that God speaks to man Thus all the works of Creation and Providence Mercies and Crosses do preach some instruction See Ps 19.1 2. Mic. 6.9 Eccles 7.14 And therefore we should not only see what God doth but observe what God saith by it as his Messenger Nor are we to mistake though it seem to speak reproof only and no comfort for if that be well improved it will produce comfort at last 4. It is nothing strange to see God say much when yet man doth little perceive it For that is the challenge here As for mens perceiving of what he speaks by the Word it will come to be spoken of in its own place v. 16. But as for his dispensations and particularly afflictions which are principally intended here and afterward instanced not only are they oft-times not at all considered Is 42.25 Hos 7.9 but read wrong when they are considered 2 Chron. 28.23 Jer. 44.17 18. And hence it cometh to pass that dispensations are but ill improved and the bad fruits thereof are but answerable to mens inadvertency ignorance or errour in observing of them Is 1.5 and 9.9 10. and 22.12 13. Hos 5.13 and 7.14 16. Now it is nothing strange as to see the natural man not perceive the things of God 1 Cor. 2.14 So even to see godly men ignorant of or mistaking God in his dispensations like Samuel who ran to Eli when God called him as Job did here mistake perceiving somewhat but not rightly and because of that did miscarry Hence we find Saints made sensible of their own bruitishness in the things of God Prov. 30.2 3. particularly in reading and â—mproving the dispensations of God Ps 73.21 22. with v. 11 12 13 14. Now these mistakes ignorances and the fruits following thereupon may flow from those among other causes 1. An aversion to affliction or to the dispensation under which we are This so stupifieth and distempers some that when once that is made their lot they can advert to nothing else but are madded like wild bulls in a net Is 51.20 2. Inadvertency and levity of Spirit Whence it cometh to pass that men lay not their condition to heart Is 42.25 especially if the matter wherewith they are exercised be light 3. Selfishness Whence it cometh to pass that if dispensations do not nearly touch men themselves even though they concern the Nation or common interests wherein they are also concerned they do not lay them to heart Is 5.11 12. Am. 6.3 4 5 6. So that if the goad be not still in their own sides they are sensible of nothing 4. Idols byasses and unsound principles Whence it comes to pass that as the Proverb hath it As the Fool thinks so the Bell clinks or sounds that in his ears men do read Providential dispensations not as God speaks by them but as themselves are affected and according to the Idol of their own hearts Thus Ahaz 2 Chron. 28.23 and those Jews Jer. 44.17 18. being possessed with this principle That the prospering way was only right and approved they put a wrong Commentary upon Gods Providences 5. Ignorance Whence it cometh to pass that men run away from God because of some dispensations which he hath sent of purpose to bring them to him 6. Atheism and mens losing a sight of Providence in what occurrs in the World Whence it comes to pass that men read what they please in their lots and never enquire after Gods mind in them See Ezek. 9.9 and Zeph. 1.12 7. When men goe not to the Word and gather Gods mind in his dispensations from it they will walk in the dark and multiply mistakes For they to whom chastenings are blessed must be taught out of the Law Ps 94.12 8. Men do oft-times involve themselves in darkness and mistakes because they make use of false Perspectives in reading Gods dispensations Thus many do look upon their lots as their passion and pride and the conscience of their own ill deservings do represent them unto them Yea they look more to what the dispensation saith or is like to produce of it self than to what God saith or will do by it 9. While men do not consider that God speaks divers lessons by one dispensation as in Jobs case God preached both submission to his Soveraignty and humiliation for sin thereby and frequently humiliation and comfort may be designed in one and the same dispensation they do lose or neglect one part or other of their lesson From all this we may gather That men should be humbled for these causes of their mistakes That they should employ God much for light to help them to understand his dispensations otherwise they will wander and That they should make much use of the Word which only is the true Commentary to expound dispensations Fourthly Consider this Argument as it is amplified and the challenge aggravated from this consideration That God condescends to speak once yea twice or frequently and yet man comes no better speed in perceiving of it It teacheth 1. It proclaims the Lords great condescendence and kindness that he doth not take neglecters of means of instruction at their first word but followeth them with mean after mean and with frequent renewing of the means to cause them learn their lesson and receive instruction For he not only speaketh once but yea twice where a certain number is put for an uncertain importing that he speaks frequently See Is 28.13 Ps 62.11 It is great mercy that God who is not bound to any speaks if it were but once and men should be afraid to neglect the very first admonition Heb. 3.7 8. seeing they have no assurance that after he hath spoken once he will speak any more and the way of propounding this here first once then twice or the second time imports that
as particular persons and he hath national plagues for national sins so that the multitude of sinners cannot secure themselves in their sin against God For they shall dye that is both rich and poor v. 19. and the people and the mighty as after followeth 4. When God reckons with Nations no particular persons will be able to secure themselves by any personal priviledges and advantages For even the mighty shall smart with the people See Is 3.1 2 3. 5. God may justly pursue his quarrel against a Nation not only to the impoverishing thereof but even to the cutting of many of them off and to sending of them into captivity out of their Land For they shall dye and pass away and be taken away So that an afflicted Nation have reason to acknowledge God in what they suffer less than this 6. Let a people seem to be never so strong and sure rooted Yet a short time may make a great change upon them For in a moment shall they dye Death can soon sweep multitudes of them away 7. Surprizals are sad ingredients in trouble and they are justly the lot of an impenitent people For their sin deserveth that they should be surprized at midnight See 1 Thes 5.3 So that as the people of God are oft-times surprized with unexpected deliverances Is 17.14 So the wicked may meet with plagues which they discern not before they come 8. National stroaks are full of darkness and discomfort farr beyond personal tryals Therefore also do these stroaks come at midnight and are very dark 9. Perplexities which attend such dark stroaks are very bitter to them who smart under them For being at midnight the people are troubled So that we should guard against perplexity of spirit providing we be not stupid at such times lest if that door be once opened we be over-whelmed therewith 10. The Lord needs no help nor probable means to bring about the greatest changes For they shall be taken away or they that is the judgements inflicted by God shall take away even the mighty without hand Verse 21. For his eyes are upon the wayes of man and he seeth all his goings 22. There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves 23. For he will not lay upon man more than right that he should enter into judgement with God In these Verses the equity and justice of this proceeding is held out 1. In general from the ground thereof Namely the Omniscience of God who as he is careful to observe mans wayes so he actually seeth all of them v. 21. And that so exactly as nothing can hide mans wickedness from him v. 22. And therefore he cannot do unjustly through ignorance and mistakes as men often do 2. In particular from his inclinations and proceedings upon his seeing mans wayes and therefore it comes in as a reason that he who seeth all will be just and proceed against the workers of iniquity That he will not excessively and unjustly afflict man that so he may prevent mans quarrelling with him which Job had often essayed v. 23. From v. 21. Learn 1. All Gods proceedings in the World are upon sure and just grounds though we do not discern them For here a reason is given of these proceedings v. 20. For his eyes are upon the wayes of men c. 2. Gods perfect knowledge is a proof of his justice in his procedure For that is the reason given here to prove the equity of the former proceedings Which not only teacheth Judges to try well before they come to give sentence and see it executed in imitation of this Soveraign Judge but warns us when we quarrel Gods proceedings to suspect that we see not things so well as he doth 3. Gods knowledge is certain and effectual to reach and take up what he intends to observe For not only are his eyes upon them but he seeth things as they are without mistaking So that we should trust his verdict of things rather than our own 4. Gods knowledge is also universal of all the things of men of all sorts of men and in all times and places For his eyes are upon the wayes of man and he seeth all his goings See Chap. 31.4 and the parallel places marked in the Margin both here and there So that he will not judge of men by their fits and we should remember his eye upon us in all places and should believe that he seeth his people even when he seems not to notice their condition as he saw the affliction of Israel in Egypt before he appeared to deliver them Exod. 3.7 From v. 22. Learn 1. Men and especially wicked men are not easily convinced of Gods Omniscience Therefore it must be here told again and inculcated 2. Men also have their subterfuges whereby they seek to hide their courses from God and whereby they do deceive themselves and others and think to do so with God also For so is here supposed that they seek darkness like the shadow of death where they may hide themselves not so much from punishment for that is not the scope here as from being known or seen Hence it is that they seek to conveigh their designes secretly and make use of fair pretences handsome conveighances c. 3. All mens subterfuges and lurking holes will not avail them at Gods hand But as no shelter can secure them from his pursuing vengeance Amos 9.1 2 3 4. So no darkness nor shadow of death will hide them from his All-seeing eye See Psal 139.7 8 c. 4. As Gods Omniscience is for the comfort of godly men walking in his way 2 Chron. 16.9 So it is matter of terrour to the workers of iniquity As here it is inculcated for their terrour 5. Every worker of iniquity carrieth his own dittay and doom in his bosome however such do seem to carry with a high hand For while they seek to hide themselves they do openly profess that if they be not hid they are undone for they are neither able to defend their cause nor to resist that vengeance which they are convinced they deserve From v. 23. Learn 1. God is the Imposer and layer on of mens lots and exercises as here we are taught So that his people should know that they are in a Friends hand they should stoop to him and not add loads of their own through unbelief mistakes discouragement impatience c. with his burdens 2. God doth exercise and afflict man in great moderation and equity For he will not lay upon man more than right The words than right are a Supplement the Original hath only He will not lay upon yet or still that is he will not inflict and inflict yet still more and so impose excessively or too much either above mens deservings Neh. 9.33 Ezr. 9.13 or above the strength which he is ready to give them or more than he will do them good by or so as there is no moderation to be seen in his
He deals with Job to convince him of his miscarriages to Chap. 42.7 Insisting upon Elihu 's last Argument taken from his Greatness which might let Job see how far he had miscarried in quarrelling him as shall be more fully cleared when I come to give a general account of his Scope in his debate with Job on v. 4 c. 2. He decides the principal Controversie betwixt Job and his Friends in a few words Chap. 42.7 8 9. His dealing with Job is divided into two Speeches By the first whereof contained in Ch. 38 39. 40.1 2. he brings him to some sense and confession of his weakness Ch. 40 3 4 5. And by the second from Chap. 40.6 till the end of Chap. 41. he brings him to a more ample confession of his Folly Chap. 42.1 6. This Chap. may be taken up in these three First An Historical transition of the Writer of the Book Shewing that God did appear and speak in this Cause and began first to deal with Job v. 1. Secondly An introduction premitted by God himself to the dispute with Job wherein he checks him for his presumption v. 2. And provokes him to the dispute v. 3. Thirdly The Dispute it self begun in this Chapter wherein he non-plusseth him with a number of Questions Concerning the Earth v. 4. 7. the Sea v. 8-11 Light and Darkness v. 12-21 Various Meteors with the Causes thereof v. 22 38. And concerning his Providence about Beasts and Birds which is instanced in the Lion v. 39 40. And the Ravens v. 41. to which many moe are added throughout the next Chapter Verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job out of the Whirlwind and said IN this Verse we have the Historical Transition wherein is declared that God manifesting his glorious presence in a Whirlwind did by an audible voice speak to Job In it consider First That the Lord answered Job As for the time when he began to speak it is indefinitely expressed Then the Lord answered Where in the Original we have only the Copulative And which hath various significations to be gathered from the Circumstances of the place where it is used And here it imports that after Elihu had spoken God also answered Job And particularly it is not probable that God brake in and interrupted Elihu for he doth formally conclude his Discourse Chap. 37.23 24. Nor yet that he hindered Job to answer Elihu for I find not that Job had any such inclination Yet it seems God began to speak immediately after Elihu had closed and it may be the Tempest and Whirlwind wherein God appeared being somewhat singular had made Elihu draw to a close It is said He answered Job which is an usual phrase in Scripture where there hath been no precedent question moved but mens case and condition is only spoken to But here this Answer is relative to many Propositions formerly made by Job in his appeals to God and in his desires that he would give him an hearing beside that his complaints and murmurings made God a party who therefore appears to plead for himself and returns a sutable answer to his Proposals and Desires Doct. 1. Albeit the world be troubled with many controversies and debates and that even amongst Gods people yet it is matter of comfort that they will once be all decided as here a notable and hot dispute begins to be decided And albeit there will still be some differences till the end of the world yet beside what particular decisions within time there may be of some controversies such as this the right and wrong that is in all debates will be one day finally decided 2. It is proper to God and his Prerogative to be the decider of Controversies as here he proved in this cause So that mens decrees in their own favours or against others will not carry it but all causes however they have been once decided amongst men will be over again decided by God Which may warn all to take heed how they judge and may encourage them who are wronged by men Eccl. 3.16 17. 5.8 3. As God is the competent decider of Controversies so even in debates among godly men he must appear before they come to a close As here he appeareth in this Cause For though Elihu's authority was sufficient to convince the parties quarrelling in respect thaâ— he was employed by God and spake clear and convincing truths yet he had not Majesty enough fully to compesce all their boiling humors and to over-awe these great men against whom he argued And though such an extraordinary manifestation may not always be expected to clear every controversie his mind being now fully manifested in his written Word dispensed by his ordinary Messengers Yet Gods Spirit must interpose to accompany the light which we get from the Word and to make it effectual and calm mens spirits and passions which are raised by debates 4. Albeit there be a right and wrong in every controversie debated among men Yet ordinarily when God cometh to decide controversies he finds cause to humble both parties Some for false opinions and their way in promoting thereof and others for their failings in their way of maintaining truth for here when God appeareth he deals with Job who had maintained truth as well as with the Friends who had erred And this had need to be adverted unto by those who because they are on truths side in a debate are not sensible of their failings in maintaining it 5. Albeit Godly men discover much dross in the furnace yet God according to his rich mercy and free grace accounts them worthy to be waâ—ted upon that he may purge their dross and recover them out of the snare Therefore after that Jobs Friends had given him over as incorrigible God will not deal so with him but takes pains upon him though he had indeed miscarried 6. It is no small proof of Gods Favour to his people that he pursueth them hotly for their failings and lets not their folly thrive in their hand Therefore he begins with this sharp Answer to Job first because he respected him and leaves the censure of the three Friends last 7. Whatever mercy or favour God intend to any of his people yet he may suspend it till first they be humbled for their folly nor were it a mercy to deal otherwise with them Therefore also doth he begin with this sharp answer to Job to humble him befor he decide the main controversie in his favours And godly men will find that their not being humbled stands in the way of many mercies which otherwise they might enjoy See Ezek. 43.11 8. This answer had been long desired by Job and he often complained that his desire was not granted yet it came at last And albeit it was sharp yet in the issue it proved refreshful and comfortable This teacheth That Gods delaying long to satisfie the pressing desires of his people doth not say that he will never answer but at last he may
such thing that was among men Particularly among the Chaldeans who lived near those Parts For albeit the study of Astronomy did help them in distinguishing of the course of the Year and gave them some general hint of the season and temper of the Weather which they gathered by long observation and experience and looked upon the rising Constellations rather as Signs than as Causes thereof for their Observations did not always hold yet to subject to the Influences of the Stars which at most are but a general and universal cause determined in their operations by the second and more immediate causes and by the subject matter upon which they work to subject I say to their Influences those things which depend upon contingent causes and the will of man so as to make predictions from them concerning such Events and Effects is a meer folly founded upon so many fond suppositions which have no being in nature but are only the Chimaera's of the Astrologers own brain For if they cannot foretell what will be the temper of the air in every particular day as experience doth witness wherein yet these Constellations have special influence who will credit them in other things See Isa 47.13 Jer. 10.2 3. 3. It speaks forth the glory of God that he commands all the Stars in their motions and influences and not Fate or they themselves for so much do those Questions import that God can do that which Job or no creature else can do And this calls upon us to fear him Amos 5.8 And proves that he hath skill to guide all his Saints Psal 147.3 4 5. 4. It may humble contentious and quarrelling man before God when he considereth that God is more powerful than he and that all authority belongs to God and submission to God is his work and duty For here is intimated that God only and not man can rule guide and command 5. Man may see reason to submit to God if he consider 1. That God guides the Sun Moon and Stars as here and what is man that he should plead exemption 2. That he ordereth the Seasons wisely throughout the Year whereof these Constellations are signs and why should man carp or offer to prescribe to the infinitely wise God 3. If Clouds Rain and Lightnings c. obey God as here is supposed why should man rather carp and dispute than submit 4. If man cannot command one Shower or Flash of Lightning or Star why should he offer to prescribe to God in greater matters All those checks of Job's murmuring may be intimated in these Questions Verse 36. Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts or who hath given understanding to the heart 37. Who can number the clouds in wisdom or who can stay the bottles of heaven 38. When the dust groweth into hardness and the clods cleave fast together In these Verses is shewed that as God is more powerful and hath more Authority than Job as hath been intimated in the former Verses so he is nothing like God in wisdom to order those things For all mans wit is of him v. 36. Nor could mans wit be able to order the clouds that they should be so many and have so much rain in them or to order those bottles of heaven the clouds to be so high or low and no more to consist of so many Vapours and no more to rain so much and then to stay them that they rain no more v. 37. Which rain is seasonably restrained when the Earth which the drought turns into dust is consolidated and brought to a consistence again by rain as Mettal when it is melted runs together to which the word alludes here and when the clods which the drought doth cleave asunder are made to cleave together again v. 38. Hence learn 1. God doth not only employ Authority and Power of which in the former Verses but Wisdom also in ordering of the Affairs of the world and about man as here is added 2. Mans wit is but borrowed and he holds it of God for Who but God hath put Wisdom in the inward parts See Chap. 32.8 Eccl. 2.26 And we should acknowledge his mercy in conferring such a gift 3. True wisdom doth not fleet in the brain but is solid and setled in the inward parts and heart as here is intimated 4. Since mens wit is but borrowed they neither should be proud of their borrowed Loan as if they could guide all nor make a God of their wit far less should they compete with him who gave it as if they could guide better than he For God gives a check to Job's conceit of his own skill by putting him in mind whence he had it See Psal 94.9 10. 5. Mans wit would sooner break than guide all well if he had his will for he could not guide the clouds nor moderate rain And though we oft-times think we could guide even the seasons better than they are guided yet we should consider that he hath more to do than to satisfie us and hath even our selves to exercise with dependance 6. It commends Gods wisdom in guiding that it shines in every thing we do ordinary things by guess but he even numbers the clouds in wisdom 7. It commends his wisdom also that he hath means provided and in readiness against the time they be needed as he hath the rain in bottles 8. Also his wisdom shines in that though the means of our help be far off yet he can make them reach us as he maketh Bottles of heaven to furnish us 9. It is no small proof of his wisdom that he dispenseth mercies when they are needed and only as they are needed for he lends rain when there is drought and then stayeth the bottles of heaven when the dust groweth into hardness or firmness and consistency c. Verse 39. Wilt thou hunt the prey for the Lion or fill the appetite of the young Lions 40. When they couch in their dens and abide in the Covert to lie in wait 41. Who provideth for the Raven his food when his young ones cry unto God they wander for lack of meat Followeth to the end of Chap. 39 and therefore some begin that Chapter here the fifth head of Instances whereby he convinceth Job taken from Beasts and Birds in whom much of Gods glory doth shine considering his provision for them their strength and other qualities After the Lord had led him up to the Stars and Clouds and Meteors in the air lest he might object that these were above him as other Instances were of things before him Therefore he leads him now to his Parks and his Aviaries or Volaries to see if he could pretend to any thing like his Providence about them and his dominion over them And here we may mark in general 1. Though those be inferiour Instances yet they come nearer Job to conclude that he should be abased before God for seeing he could not reach nor order these things which are so near him how much
less other things 2. Here Gods Providence is commended in the most ordinary and common things to assure us that he will guide well in the special Affairs and Concernments of his people Mat. 6 26-30 3. These Instances teach us that somewhat of God may be seen in things of least worth As Prov. 6 6 c. All those Instances to the end of Chap. 39. may be reduced to six whereof the first in these verses is his feeding of ravenous beasts and birds instanced in the Lions v. 39 40. And the young Ravens v. 41. As for the first Albeit some do understand the first word here of the old decrepit Lion who cannot range for his prey but must lie in wait if any prâ—y come by him and the other word of young Lions Whelps who lie in their Dens till meat be brought to them by the stronger Lions who go abroad Nah. 2.12 Yet the first word doth not signifie a decrepit Lion but rather one who is very terrible Gen. 49.9 And seeing all Lions do catch their prey as is here described Psal 10.9 I take up the meaning rather thus That albeit Lions do need prey to fill their appetite or for their life and albeit they use industry for catching of it and seeing they would be outrun by some other beasts they do crouch that they may steal upon them as they come by Yet this prey must be brought unto them not by Job who for all the wealth he had could not feed them long but by God who hears their cry Psal 104.21 For the second v. 41. The words may be understood thus that God and not Job provides food for the Ravens when the young ones cry for want and their Dams wander seeking food for them and themselves Though others understand this of the young Ravens only who as some write are forsaken of their Dams till they grow black like themselves and so are made to cry and wander about the Nest for â—ack of food in which case though none regard them yet God heaâ—s their cry as directed to him and feeds them and that as they also write with Dew and with Flies or Worms which are bred of the Ravens dung in and about the Nest Or rather it is to be understood of these young Ravens which being thrust our of the Nest by their Dams so soon as they are able to fly are put to hard shifts in seeking food See Psal 147.9 From the words considered abstractly and in themselves Learn 1. God hath his own use for the most ravenous creatures His glory shineth in making of them and in his Providence about them As here we are taught 2. Even excellent Creatures such as the couragious and sturdy Lions as well as the Ravens and other baser Creatures have their abasements and evidences that they are but Creatures in that their Life must be continually preserved by meat And so is it with man also Eccl. 6 7. 3. Creatures have no cause to lean to their own endeavours for supply of their necessities for God must bring a prey to the ramping Lion and to the wandring Raven See Psal 145.15 16. 4. Needy cries which are neglected by all lie at Gods door to be noticed by him as here the young Ravens are said to cry unto God So Lions Psal 104.21 From the scope of this Instance in reference to Jobs condition Beside that this and the rest of the Instances do point out somewhat of that infinite distance that is betwixt God and Job and all men we may further Learn 1. If God have use for and do preserve ravenous beasts and birds he hath also use for Oppressors and Oppression and work to be done by them in the world which the people of God especially when under them should observe and submit unto See Isa 54.16 2. If he feed all those then is he all-sufficient and not to be complained of See Psal 104.27 3. Men are bound to observe Gods mercy toward them were it but in his providing meat for these ravenous beasts who otherwise would be ready to come among men and devour them 4 He who is so careful of the beasts and birds cannot without extream injustice be complained of as being cruel to men 5. If he care for thâ—se Creatures much more will he care for Saints Psal 34.10 Mat 6.26 30. 6. If a man though very wealthy could not be able to feed these Creatures for which God provides how can he presume to guide the world and affairs in it 7. The glory of God shines not only in this that he feeds those beasts but that he can make them afford food to others as Elijah was fed by ravens and Samson got honey out of the Lion Thus out of the Eater he gives meat and can make very cruel and ravenous enemies do his people service Ps 106.46 Jer. 15.11 CHAP. XXXIX In this whole Chapter the Lord prosecutes that Head of Instances begun in the former Chapter taken from his Providence about Beasts and Birds And unto the Instance propounded in the former Chapter five more are here added Namely his care in preserving and continuing the kinds of several Creatures v. 1. 4. His ordering the liberty and untameableness of some wild beasts v. 5-12 His care in adorning some Birds and his care of the careless among them v. 13 18. His endowing of the Horse with Strength and Courage v. 19 25. And his Providence about the Birds of prey the Hawk and the Eagle v. 26-30 Verse 1. Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth or canst thou mark when the Hinds do calve 2. Canst thou number the moulths that they fulfil or knowest thou the time when they bring forth 3. They bow themselves they bring forth their young ones they cast out their sorrows 4. Their young ones are in good liking they grow up with Corn they go forth and return not unto them THe second Instance though the first in this Chapter is Gods care to preserve the Species and Kinds of Creatures in helping them when they bring forth and caring for their young ones This is instanced First In the wild Goats which live among the Rocks of whom see 1 Sam 24.2 the time of whose bringing forth Job is ignorant of v. 1 Secondly In the Hinds Concerning whom 1. He declares that Job is ignorant how long time they are with young and at what time they calve v. 1 2. The meaning whereof is not that Job is simply ignorant of this for a man may learn somewhat of that by experience But he doth not so know it as to prescribe it nor doth he know when they gender and conceive that he might come and be assistant at their bringing forth 2. He declares that Job hath no skill in their natural Midwifry v 3. When they who have great pain in bringing forth and therefore it is marked as a singular effect among others of the Thunder that it makes the Hinds to
19.26 And to flock continually about Christ crucified and cleave to him as the Eagle doth to the slain or Carcase Having ended all those particular Instances save we remarkable Ones which are added in the next Speech we may Ones them all up in these three general Remarks 1. God cannot fully be seen in any one of his Creatures all of them together are little enough and too little to point him out 2. Yet somewhat of him may be seen in every one of the Creatures even the least of them 3. Then do we observe God well in one or all of them not when we think we may boast of our skill in knowing them their causes properties c. But when we see God in them and are not such Naturalists as turn meer Atheists and when we so study them as we see cause to be abased and humbled before God whose Glory shineth in them For that is the scope of all those Instances propounded unto Job CHAP. XL. This Chapter contains 1. The Conclusion of Gods former Discourse and his Application thereof to Job v. 1 2. 2. Job's taking with his Fault before God v. 3 4 5. 3. A part of Gods second Speech to Job to humble him yet more wherein after an Introduction v. 6 7. He reprehends him for reflecting upon his righteousness in defending his own Integrity v. 8. And subjoyns a proof of the Justice of this Reprehension taken from the inequality and infinite distance that is betwixt himself and Job v. 9 14. Which Proof he further confirms by an Instance of Behemoth v 15-24 To which another is added in the following Chapter Verse 1. Moreover the Lord answered Job and said 2. Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him he that reproveth God let him answer it VVE may gather from what is said by the Writer of this Book v. 1. That the Lord had stayed a little after the former Discourse waiting if Job would make any further Reply but finding him silent and astonished He quickens him up by this superadded Conclusion Wherein 1. He propounds a general Question concerning his Complaints and Quarrellings shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him or instruct which is only in the Original Some read it thus Is contending with the Almighty Instruction or Erudition that is however Contenders pretend to have Wit and Reasons on their side yet is it any evidence of Wisdom and Skill and of a man well instructed to offer to contend with God The words may also be read thus Shall contending with the Almighty instruct or shall it be any edification so to do But according to our Translation the words point out the sinfulness of his complaints as being in effect a contending with him who is Almighty and that such a contending as if he would presume to instruct guide and direct God and not be directed by him And so in sum He would have him forbear his complaints unless he would presume to be wiser than God 2. He layeth before him the hazard and difficulty of such an undertaking That he who offers to reprove or argue with God must answer that is either he must answer these former Questions to prove himself able to debate with God which would be too hard for him Or he must answer and give an account for his presumption which he durst not do In general Learn 1. When much is said to mens condition it will be to no purpose unless it be applied that so they may be convinced or otherwise affected as their case requireth For God must lay the former Doctrine home and answer not to any thing Job spake but as his need required It is our great fault that we see and hear much which we neither perceive nor observe and if we could observe the penetrating power of the Word and the particular eye that God hath upon hearers when he sends out his Word Heb. 4.12 13. we would be more tender in applying Whereas ordinarily we pass what we hear as if we were not at all concerned but it were spoken at random by men 2. No hearing of seasonable Doctrine and that even by godly men in affliction who need that a word should be spoken to them will make them take it home unless God himself apply it as here he rowzed up Job See Acts 16.14 We should employ God much in hearing were even himself speaking immediately as he did to Job much more when men speak that he may put forth his hand to apply the word which he sends Nor should we lean to our own dispositions under affliction which may either prove stupid or tempt us to misapply the Word 3. God is very faithful in dealing with his wayward people for he will not let Job pass without applying what he had heard but roâ—zeth him up out of his dumpish and confounded frame to lay his case to heare It is one of our covenanted mercies not to get away with our faults Psal 89.30 31 32 c. and that blunt and stupifying convictions are not taken off our hand till they work better Of which more afterward 4. As God is faithful so he is tender in waiting upon his distempered people for he waits upon Job and takes leisure to produce all the former Instances and now to lay home his faults very mildly Thus did he wait upon Jonah in his peevish Fits Which may assure us that God doth not handle his people roughly beyond what they need however they may complain that it is otherwise and they may be cruel to then selves by their own distempers And it may warn us to deal patiently and mildly with others with whom we have to do so long as there is hope of doing them good 5. That he propounds this Challenge in Theft or in general without naming Job in particular may teach 1. Men should be upon their guard that their own self-love do not sway them in looking upon their way but they should judge of themselves as they will be ready enough to judge of others For whatever Job might think of his own practice yet he could not but condemn this fault in general 2 Whatever difference God put betwixt his people and others yet this allows them no particular priviledge to sin and particularly to mistake and quarrel God Therefore he propounds this Challenge in Theft to shew that he would not so respect any good thing in Job as to assoyl him from a fault in this Doct. 6. His laying this charge home to Job's Conscience as his Conscience hath been often posed before in the dispute by way of Question as being assured that the Cause will be decided there in his Favours doth teach 1. Even the dear Children of God and when they are in their most tender exercises do not always act according to the Principles and Dictates of Conscience but as wicked men do detain the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1.18 So their Tentations Passions and Lusts may over-drive their light which
persons but their faults whereof they shall have proof so soon as they abandon their faults for this distance is kept up only to testifie how God was dissatisfied with Job's miscarriages and to bring him to repent for them after which he speaks kindly to him 6. Proud daring to contend with God is a fault wherewith he is highly offended and which he will not easily let pass for this in particular is the fault which here again he reflects upon in that Ironical Challenge Gird up thy Loins like a man I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me Verse 8. Wilt thou also disanul my judgment wilt thou condemn me that thou maist be righteous This Verse contains the Sum and Scope of this second Speech of God which is to convince Job that he had done ill in disannulling or making void and of none effect Gods judgment or his procedure in the world and toward himself which is made void and disannulled when Gods purpose and determination is reflected upon as an unjust Sentence and such as ought to have no effect or when men so complain as if they would have the guiding of Affairs taken out of Gods hand and put into their own This the Lord not only chargeth home upon Job as a great fault even himself being Judge as the Question imports but propounds it very emphatically Wilt thou also disanul c. Where the Emphasis may lie in the Person Thou Wilt thou a godly man do so as the wicked are ready to do Or in the Particle also which is most emphatick in the Original wilt thou not be content to plead in defence of thine own Righteousness but thou must also disanul my judgment And this is prosecuted in the latter part of the Verse That Job was not content to plead that he was righteous which God did not quarrel but he would needs also condemn Gods way of proceeding with him that thereby as by an Argument he might prove his own righteousness In sum this Challenge imports as if God had said O Job as the case now stands betwixt Me and Thee thou being a righteous man and yet afflicted by me and thou complaining that I should deal so with thee a righteous man There is no Medium here but either I in my proceeding with thee or thou in thy Complaints of me must be wrong Now I refer the determination of this Case to thy own Conscience in cold bloud whether it be seemly to raise thy Righteousness upon the Ruines of the Glory of my Righteousness in governing the Affairs of the World or whether it were not sitter that thou maintained thy righteousness some other way and so as thou forbear to quarrel my righteousness who have afflicted hee I we consider this purpose generally and abstractly it imports 1. God hath a Judgment in the World not only a Sentence or Verdict concerning the ways of men to which they ought to submit but a determination and purpose daily manifested in his Providence and Procedure in and about all things And this as it is comfortable to the Godly Psal 11.3 4 So it is terrible to the Wicked And therefore they shift the thoughts of iâ— not only when Providence doth not act according to their mind Mal. â— 17 But in their evil courses Psal 10.11 13. 14.1 2. 59.7 94.5 6 7. Ezek. 8.12 9.9 which is but a poor shift 2. As a Providence is to be acknowledged so it is to be looked upon as a Judgment or a righteous procedure not to be disanulled nor God who is the Author of it to be condemned See Psal 145.17 Gen. 18 25. Here it is that men fail and stumble before they turn gross Atheists And none are more ready to carp at Providence than Hypocrites Isa 58.3 Mal. 2.17 3.14 15. Therefore it should be their care who believe a Providence to commend God in all he doâ—h Psal 22.3 with v. 1 2. And that we may cure our Mistakes we should study 1. That God is Soveraign and absolute in all that he doth and not to be contended with 2. That seeing godly men have corruptions which need purging they must not expect that their lot within time will ever be fully to their mind 3. That when providential dispensations are most dark to us ordinarily God hath most special purposes of Love to manifest thereby 4. That he makes every thing beautiful and useful in its season Eccles 3.11 And when he seems not to be a God of judgment or compassion as he is called Isa 30.18 yet he is a God of knowledge weighing actions and what our condition requires 1 Sam. 2.3 and will prove a God of Judgment to them who wait for him Isa 30.18 Rev. 13.10 In particular If we consider the Plea as it stands here betwixt Job a righteous man and the righteous God afflicting him it teacheth 1. When men are indeed righteous whatever be their loâ— or failings yet God allows it as acceptable service that they stand to the maintenance thereof for here he concedes that Job is righteous and doth not find fault simply that he maintained it had he done it fairly It is true righteous men should not desperately and Roman-like bear out the testimony of their integrity under trouble without humbling of themselves under it nor yet should they who are truly righteous fancy themselves sinless or that they can be wrong in no cause or that they should not be afflicted in Fatherly displeasure seeing they are truly Godly Yet they should not so eye Providence in their afflictions as to let cross dispensations disturb the peace of their Consciences concerning their Integrity 2. However God allow righteous persons to maintain their integrity yet when they do not cast away their Confidence they do hardly manage this claim well and beside their Pride and Vanity in ordinary they do especially miscarry in defending their integrity under affliction As here Job did A good Conscience and a Cup of bitter Affliction are seldom well carried when they meet together This miscarriage of Saints under cleanly trials causeth them meet with many foul Crosses Psal 51.4 And where Trials are most cleanly men will never carry right under them unless the Conscience of sin and daily failings be their daily exercise for herein Job failed 3. Saints do then manage the testimony of a good Conscience under trouble ill when they make too many complaints under Afflictions and cannot stoop that God should exercise them so much as he pleaseth blessing him that they have a good Conscience to support them for here God reflects upon Jobs complaints as disanulling his Judgment c. The root of which is mens conceit which makes them think they should be dealt with according to their own mind because they are righteous and their love to ease which makes them dislike afflictions upon any terms 4. Albeit in in our passions we think little of complaining yet such complaints are terrible reflections upon God
a pleading of our own righteousness to the prejudice of Gods Righteousness and a condemning of his proceedings as if he were not fit to sit upon the Throne for thus doth God expound his Complaints as disanulling his Judgment and a condemning of him that he may be righteous So also doth unbelief reflect upon him 1 John 5.10 5. Those Complaints when well pondered will be found to be most unjust seeing God is to be justified whoever be condemned Psal 51.4 Rom. 3.4 Therefore doth the Lord challenge them here as a great fault 6. Though we think lightly of those escapes under trouble yet they are hainous provocations highly displeasing to God for here they are the matter of a sad quarrel and God rejects all his confessions till he be more sensible of this fault 7. As the Consciences of all men cannot but condemn those presumptuous reflections upon God so a Child of God especially will take it ill in cold blood that he should entertain wrong thoughts of God for he refers this case to be decided by Job himself when he is sober So that such a tender disposition may be an evidence of a godly man in a good frame and they who do miscarry in this will find sad company of their Consciences when they are put to it to speak impartially Verse 9. Hast thou an arm like God or canst thou thunder with a voice like him 10. Deck thy self now with Majesty and Excellency and array thy self with Glory and Beauty 11. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath and behold every one that is proud and abase him 12. Look on every one that is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked in their place 13. Hide them in the dust together and bind their faces in secret 14. Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee In these Verses the Lord proves the Justice of the former Reprehension That since there is no comparison or equality betwixt him and Job therefore Job should not debase or impeach His Righteousness to cry up his own nor offer to contend with him as his Equal This inequality betwixt God and Job is held out partly by way of Question if he could claim to any Majesty like Gods v. 9. Partly by way of Proposition that if he would compare with God he behoved to do what God doth v. 10-14 And particularly this inequality is instanced 1. In the matter of Power v. 9. That there is nothing in Job like Gods Power and Arm. 2. In the external signs of Power and Greatness v. 9 10. Jobs Voice which would scarce affright a petty Creature is nothing like Gods thundering voice and he who was lying now full of Boils could put on no Majesty and Glory like unto that wherewith God is seen to be attended and surrounded in his special apparitions unto men and that which shines daily in the Creatures proclaiming his Excellency Psal 104.1 3. In the effects of Power and Greatness v. 11 12 13. Jobs wrath is very impotent v. 11 He cannot as God doth know the proud every where and reach them and abase them v. 11 12. and all wicked men to tread them down every where and where they are most insolent v. 12. Nor can he bury them in death and hide their faces in secret oblivion as the faces of Malefactors Esth 7.8 and the Dead in their Graves John 11 44. use to be covered v. 13. From all which God draweth this Inference v. 14. That when Job doth all those things as he doth and not till then he will acknowledge that his own right hand can save him that is that he is self-sufficient and so may enter the Lists with God as his Equal Hereby also intimating that since he needed often to be saved and delivered and could not help himself but behoved to depend upon God for it it became him not to be so proud In this purpose Observe 1. In general That those who contend with God about his Righteousness in his Dispensations do little know God or themselves and do little consider his Greatness and the Inequality that is betwixt Him and them for so much doth this Argument in the scope thereof teach that Job when he quarrelled God little minded what He was and how unlike himself was to God For this greatness of God doth not only prove that he can do no wrong but doth intimate that opposition to him will be full of hazard to the opposer Obs 2. In these Questions and Proposals of what Job should be or do if he would prove an equality with God we have several Instructions concerning God which are to be well studied Such as 1. God is of great and incomparable power and force to support some and crush others as he pleaseth for there is no Arm like Gods See Psal 89.13 Deut. 33.27 Isa 51.9 2. Gods strength is attended with incomparable Majesty Glory and Beauty to conciliate reverence and to affright all from opposing of him for no man can thunder with a voice like him nor deck himself with Majesty and Excellency and array himself with Glory and Beauty as God doth 3. Though Gods tender mercies be over all his works yet he is not all mercy but hath wrath and displeasure when he is provoked for it is a part of his praise that he hath rage of wrath 4. Gods power and anger are not idle but are let forth in effects every where all the world over as there is cause for he casts abroad the rage of his wrath and compenseth all delays with the severity thereof when it cometh Isa 42.14 5. As the humble need not be afraid of Gods Power Majesty or Wrath So the proud shall not escape the effects thereof for here the proud are singled out as his especial party See Psal 138.6 6. As no man can know all that are proud as God doth for they are but few men that any one man can know in respect of the multitudes that swarm upon the earth and among these they know many may mask their proud and lofty hearts from them under a shew of humility So neither can any man overtake all the proud men he knoweth to punish them seeing they may flee from him nor dare he grapple with every proud person who stayeth beside him seeing many of them may have more power than himself But God hath perfect knowledge of every proud person can overtake them wherever they flee and can crush all of them were they never so strong for he beholds every one that is proud and abases him and locks on every one that is proud and brings him low or makes him crouch Where the expressions are doubled not only to confirm the truth of the Assertion against all the presumptuous Dreams of proud men Obad. v. 3. But to shew that as he beholds and sees every proud man so with a look he can confound the proudest of them and bring them low Exod. 14.24 See Dan.
he looked upon as an act of mans folly to think to measure Gods deep counsels by their shallow conceptions for that was their folly in particular 4. When men have their sin discovered to them and they do not flee to Christ they lie under great hazard of reaping the fruit of their folly for so is here intimated that if they will not do as he directs he will deal with them after their folly in that they have not spoken of him the thing that is right c. Verse 9. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did according as the Lord commanded them the Lord also accepted Job The 3. last Branch of this part of the Chap. contains an account of their obedience to the former Direction with the issue of all Both they and Job do obey what was commanded and God accepts Job offering and praying for them and consequently accepts them also It is not needful to enquire how this acceptance was evidenced whether by Fire from heaven consuming the Sacrifice as was usual at other times Lev. 9.24 Jud. 6.21 1 King 18.38 1 Chron. 21.26 2 Chron. 7.1 or otherwise seeing the Scripture is silent Doct. 1. It is a Character of godly men that they are easily convinced and do tremble when God threatens as here they lay aside all their height of Spirit and do stoop and go to Job according as God had commanded And albeit it be hard to draw off men when they are engaged in a course yet if God interpose the stiffest will be made to stoop 2. God is still as good as his word to his people for he promised to accept Job v. 8. and here he performs accordingly 3. It sufficeth to assure poor sinners of acceptance with God if their Intercessor Christ be accepted in their stead and name as here Job is accepted for them Verse 10. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his Friends also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before Followeth the third part of the Chapter and the last part of the Book wherein a Close is put to Jobs sharp trials and an account is given of his prosperous estate afterward till his peaceable death This restitution of Job is spoken of in general in this Verse and then it is branched out in some particulars v. 11-17 In this general sum and account of his Restitution we have to consider First The substance and sum of the mercy The Lord turned the Captivity of Job Where the term Captivity doth not import as some of the Râ—bbins dream that all Jobs losses of Children Servants and Goods were only an Illusion of Satan blinding the eyes of the Messengers who brought him word of these Losses which they thought they saw really lost according as they represented to him And that those Persons and Goods were only carried away by Satan and his Instruments and kept in safety till now they are restored again But the plain meaning is That whereas Job had been delivered up to Satans power to afflict him Chap 1 2. who held him under the pressure of troubles as in a prison as himself complains Chap. 13.27 And David in the like case Psal 69.33 Now the Lord did liberate him and set him at freedom And albeit this General be afterward instanced only in his Restitution as to his external state yet it includeâ— more That his bodily sickness was healed that he was restored to serenity of mind after his perplexities that the aspersions of his Friends were wiped off and he was delivered from their bitter encounters These are all supposed here if not principally intended in this General Doct. 1. Whatever affection the Lord bear to the persons of his own Children and whatever be his ultimate design in afflicting them yet their afflictions will be sharp in their season and will hem in their spirits and humours and shut them up on every hand for Jobs Trouble was a Captivity See Job 36.8 Heb. 12.11 This is the way to make afflictions operative so that the sharpness thereof is no evidence that God doth not own his Children under it or that he will not deliver them from it 2. There is no sharpness in the affliction of Saints but God how long soever he continue it doth notice and ponder it for here after all this long tract of trouble wherein Job was ready to think he was forgotten the Lord noticeth that it was a Captivity His Sympathy doth not weary though we weary to look to it nor is his sympathy so fond as we desire but he can let them lie long under trouble with whom he doth sympathize all the while 3. As the Lord will give all his people proofs of his sympathy by putting an end to all their troubles sooner or later Psal 34.19 So sometime he seeth it meet visibly to deliver them in this life As here Job who had been a pattern of sharp trials is now made a publick and visible monument of Gods kindness and Gods dealing to him is a pledge to all that a good Cause and a good Conscience will still have a good issue See Jam. 5.11 And the Lord is pleased thus to deal with some of his people not that all of them should always expect the like But 1. To give some publick Documents to the world of the advantage of Piety Psal 58.10 11. 2. To humble them who obstruct the manifesting of such kindness to themselves by their not walking fruitfully under trouble 3. To excite us to guard against miscarriages and diffidence under trouble seeing God may humble us by refuting all those by his gracious dealing such as he shewed to Job 4. To assure tender walkers that whatever the Lord do for them in their particular trial yet he wants not power nor good will to do for them as he did for Job Doct. 4. Men are not warranted to cast away their confidence because there is no probable mean of their deliverance to which they may look for the Lord turned the Captivity of Job when nothing else could promise it See Esth 4.14 Dan. 3.16 17 18. 5. Albeit unbelief be the great fault of Saints yet God is so gracious as to send deliverance when they little expect it for Job looked for no such thing as this Chap. 17.13 14. It is of the Lords great mercy that he passeth over the unbelief of his people Psal 77.7 8 9 10. Isa 40.27 28 c. 64.3 Yet we should not presume because of this to cherish unbelief nor suffer our selves through want of hope of deliverance to be driven on such courses as may make us ashamed when deliverance cometh 6. The more sober men are in their expectations the more near are they to deliverance and the less weight they lay upon prosperity as a reward of piety they are the more like to get it For not only did Job in his siâ—s lay his account never to be restored
after Jobs former triumph over his calumnies he makes this fresh assault 2. As Satan is incessant in his malicious endeavours so he is fall of shifts and inventions in bearing out his calumnies against the people of God or in driving in those fiery darts of bosom-tentations wherewith he vexeth them For when all he had to say before against Job is immediately refuted now he hath a new pretence whereupon to question his integrity This is daily verified in the calumnies cast by Satans Instâ—uments upon the people of God One of them is no sooner refuted but they are ready to invent another And this is also felt by Saints in their spiritual Conflicts with Bosom-tentations which come in as waves and billows one upon the back of another to over-whelm their spirits 3. It is never to be expected by the Lords people but that Satan will be ready to extenuate and decry the grace of God in them so much as he can For here again he makes it his work to blast Jobs integrity in his former tryal Which may teach them not to trust or hearken unto his suggestions 4. Whatever measure of affliction Satan be permitted to bring upon Saints yet such is his malice that nothing will satisfie him but their utter ruine For now when Job is stript of all he thinks it not enough so long as his person and life are free Put forth thine hand and touch his bone and his flesh And therefore we have little cause to fall asleep because we have endured many tryals since we know not what sharper tryals this malicious Adversary may be designing for us if he be permitted by God so to do 5. Albeit Satan be a malicious lyar and do here notably injure this holy man yet there are some Geneâ—aâ— Tâ—uths insinuated in this Discourse whereof he makes use to drive his design As 1. That life and bodily health are special and chief outward mercies Membâ—rs of the body are sometime hâ—zarded for preserving of life and men have warrâ—ntabâ—y spent all they had on Physitians for recovering of health Luke 8.43 And therefoâ—e they do hainously sin who under-value this special benefit or do prostitute it to the service of their lusts 2. But albeit every tryal have its own weight yet personal tryals are most sharp and will most narrowly search out hypocrisie or sincerity in the person so tryed and the nearer they come they will be the more searching For in so far Satan said true that a man may be more ready to curse God or miscarry if the tryal touch his bone and flesh than if it come only on what more remotely concerns him Hence it appears to have been an act of special favour that Jobs own person was excepted in the former tryal Chap. 1 12. 3 That it is a special proof of unsoundness in men whâ—n tâ—yals and â—fflâ—ctions are sleighted because they touch not themselves so neatly or when they make a shew of Piety only that tryals may be keeped from off themselves For this was the som of Satans charge against Job which is an evidence of gross hypocrisie had it been true Verse 6. And the LORD said unto Satan Behold he is in thine hand but save his life In this verse we have the Lords further loosing of the chain permitting Satan to afflict Jobs body but not to take away his life Or this form of speech and of Gods limiting of Satan see Chap. 1.12 Here we may further learn 1. After the Lords people have endured many and sharp tryals it may please the Lord to inflict yet more and sharper tryals for further discovering of what is in them As heâ—e after all that Job hath endured more is laid upon him And albeit Saints may be ready to stumble at this yet it may silence aâ—d satisfie them if they remâ—mber the soveraignty of God who may dispose of his own as he will that Gods special love and sharp tryals may very well consist together that true grace will teach men not to quarrel God because of crosses and that tryals yea many and growing tryals are necessary to discover them unto themselves to fit them for special proofs of Gods love and to vindicate their Profession from the many aspersions cast upon it 2. As it is very consistent with Gods love to his people to suffer them to be tempted in their souls by the fiery darts of Satan So the bodies also of such as are dear to God may be left in Satans hand to â—fflict them by himself or by Witches his Instruments For so was it with Job Behold he is in thine hand Hence come many of those diseases which surpass the skill of Physitians Luke 13.16 3. Whatever be Satans hand in the tryals of the godly yet they ought still to eye an over-ruling hand of Providence ordering all of them and setting bounds and limits to Satans malice in them For here the rise of this tryal is from Gods holy Providence Behold he is in thy hand and Satan is limited but save his life 4. In the sharpest tryals of Saints there is still some mercy and moderation to be observed and that Satan is never able to compass all his design For here there is an exception and a reservation of that which Satan aimed at no less than the other degrees of his affliction But save his life or spare it and do not take it away 5. The continuance and sparing of life even under sharpest afflâ—ctions is a mercy for which God is to be acknowledged For here in the midst of Jobs tryals it is reserved as a mercy to him save his life See Lam. 3.39 The mercy whereof in Jâ—bs case though much mistakâ—n by him may appear partly in this That hereby the Lord would teach his Church in all Ages that he hath power of life and death and can preserve his people and interests in most desperate cases and betwixt the very jaw bones of death Psal 66.8 9 10. 68.20 And partly in this That however Job being a reconciled man would have died at any time in Gods favour Yet the Lord will not take him away in a cloud nor give Satan any appearance of advantage to say that Job died in an ill case or fretting But will have him to live in and after those storms as a monument of Gods mercy and to clear and vindicate his integrity As indeed It is no small mercy to the Lords people when clouds upon their condition are cleared before they go hence and be no more 6. The Lords people may enjoy many mercies which yet in their darkness passion and haste they esteem rather burdens than mâ—rcies For so will we afterward find Job judging of his continued life which here is reserved in mercy Vers 7. So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with sore boyls from the sole of his foot unto his crown In this verse we have the tryal it self or Satans executing of what is permitted
him to do Who finding the chain loosed goeth actively about it And expresseth his great rage and malice in inflicting a most painful kâ—nd of disease and that not on one or some parts of Jobs body only which had been sore enough but so universally as there is not a part of his body left free Only as some conceive his tongue and lips escape that thereby as Satan designed it he might blaspheme God Hence learn 1. Satans going forth from the presence of the Lord doth not only import his activity in cruelty when ever he finds an opportunity But that albeit he can act nothing but that only which God permâ—ts yet he doth not â—ye God whose presence he neglects but seeks only to vent his own malice thereby And therefore he must be accountable to God as a cruel Murtherâ—r in those actings which God doth holily permit and order 2. Submission and stooping unto God under tryals will not always prevent new tryals For notwithstanding Jobs meek and pious submission Chap. 1.20 21. the Lord permits Satan to add this new tryal When tryals have not shaken our Submission and Patience the Lord takes pleasure to put us to give new proofs of that resolution and he may see it fit also as the event clears in Job to discover the seeds of impatience and passion in us that we may ascribe the glory of our standing out not to our selves but to God 3. When God hath any of his people to try they are to expect that the tryal will be sharp and a tryal indeed For so dealt he with Job who is smitten with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown Which how sharp it was may appear from Jobs own frequent complaints of his loathsom breath of worms and dust upon his body of his skin eaten up and broken his bones assaulted c. And indeed This was a very sore tryal whether we consider the exquisite pain and the ugliness and deformity that was in and accompanied this stroke or the contemptible and low condition to which it brought him having no sound part of his body whereon to lie being loathsom not only to his servants but to his most intimate Relations All which may teach the Children of God to submit to that measure of humiliation which it shall please God to prescribe and that they should not mistake or stumble albeit their bodies be made like the bodies of Job and Lazarus 4. The people of God ought not to stumble albeit their afflictions be such and so great as they seem to differ nothing from the plagues of the wicked and albeit they can see no sign of love in the nature and kind of their affliction till they look up to the heart of the striker For Job is smitten with boils and sore boils the same with the Plague inflicted upon the Egyptians Exod. 9.9 and that which is threatned to be inflicted upon incorrigible Rebels Deut. 28.27 as the word in the Original cleareth 5. Tryals are so fitted to the measure of grace in sufferers as the strongest shall undergo so much as they can bear by divine assistance whereas the weaker shall have no more than they may also subsist under For eminent Job gets an eminent tryal so that he and his boils and weaker ones with their lesser tryals are equal 6. Albeit too many do doat upon the beauty of their own bodies and so sin against God yet it may humble us when we consider that they are composed of such materials as if God should let the humors loose they would become a burden to our selves and loathsom to all For here Satan getting leave to inflame his blood and trouble the humors of his body it becomes full sore boils Vers 8. And he took him a potsheard to scrape himself withall and he sat down among the ashes In this verse an account is given of Jobs carriage under this tryal No mention is made of any thing he said till afterward that his Wife put him to it But his practice gives some account of the inward frame of his spirit 1. That he took him a potsheard to scrape himself withal Where we are to conceive as himself complaines afterward Chap. 19.13 17. that his disease was so loathsome that none would come near unto him to minister unto him Cloaths Oyls or other things necessary So that he was necessitated to serve himself And withal that his own hands were so swelled with Boyls or his disease was so loathsome that he could not touch his sores immediately with his fingers but behoved to take a Potsheard or what came nearest to hand to scrape away the filthy matter that ran out of his Boyls 2. That he sate down among the ashes Which was not so much an act of necessity that he could not get leave to stay in the house because of the ill favour of his sores but behoved to go out and ly upon the dunghil This indeed may be the lot of Saints to be so basely esteemed of and intreated Lam. 4.5 1 Cor. 4.9 13. Yet it appears that he had his wife with him ver 9. and he had his Bed and Couch still Chap. 7.4 13. But it was in him a voluntary act of repentance and humiliation whereof this was an external ceremonial sign Chap. 42.6 Math. 11.21 which it seems he performed at least at solemn times both in the house and possibly when he went abroad also as when his Friends saw him afar off and sat down on the ground with him Chap. 2.12 13. And this external Ceremony which now is ceased was made use of Partly to express the greatness of trouble that it brought the afflicted even to the dust as Job 30.19 Partly to express their stooping to God considering their original and that they were but dust Gen. 3.19 And partly as humility is full of hope to express their pleading for favour at Gods hand considering they were but dust Psal 103.14 Doct. 1 When God hath any of his people to try under afflâ—ctions it pleaseth him sometime to bind up the bowels of compassion and sympathy in all about them that so the tryal may work As here Job is left to shift for his own ease in his pain 2. In judging of mens integrity under tryal the Lord looks not only or so much to what they say as to their actings For albeit Job say nothing as yet under this distress being probably over-whelmed and tentations boyling within him yet he doth that which witnesseth his patient submission 3. It is no smal proof of submission and patience when men under pressures and bodily infirmities do not turn desperate but do conscientiously use all lawful means which may make their condition so easy as can be For this speaks for Job that he casts not off care of his body but makes use of such lawful means of ease as he could get He took him a potsheard to scrape himself withall 4. As proud risings of heart under trouble are
much mud and such gross tentations and fiery darts be cast in 2. Sense will soon weary under trouble and be ready to subscribe to the worst that tentation can say or suggest For the positive Assertions implied in these Questions were the language of Sense and it is Faith only that can so much as question them See Psal 31.22 Lam. 3.18 19. Isa 38.11 and frequently Saints bewray their weakness in this Sense must still be bribed ere it will speak good of God and hence it proves our greatest enemy in ill times And this may also suggest to us that our first thoughts of our case and of Gods dealing under trouble are not readily the truth they are but our sense faintness and hast taking the first start of us till faith follow after and correct them Psal 31.22 116.11 12. Jonah 2.4 3. In times of greatest tentations and faintings some small sparkles of faith and honesty will still appear in Gods people For here when tentation and sense are uppermost and faith is very far from triumphing over difficulties yet it appears in those questions Thus Saints in the midst of their saddest complaints call God their God Isa 40.27 49.14 This may encourage wrestlers considering that God marks their weak endeavours as the fruits of true faith though themselves judge not so Yea he will esteem more of these wrestlings then when we are fairest before the wind in our believing it being most eminent and cleanly faith when there is least of sense going along with it to help it And albeit the Lord do reprove weak faith and will much more be angry at those mistakes which do so overcharge faith yea albeit weakness of faith may obstruct Believers in their doing of eminent service Matth. 17.19 20. yet God never refused to do the weak Believers business Mar. 4.39 40. 9.22 24 25. and the Psalmist even by such wrestlings under tentation came to prevail at length Psal 77.7 8 9 with 10. 4. It is the duty of the people of God and an evidence of grace and faith in them that they do not willingly admit of an ill report of God and that they are not prone to misbelieve or to set their seal to what Tentation and Sense say and to close with every report that their own hearts would bring up of God For when Job's sense not only thought these things but will needs utter them in a complaint to God that he oppressed and despised him faith makes a question of them when it can do no more As it is our fault that we are slow of heart to believe Luk. 24.45 so also that there is in us a willingness to misbelieve and cast away our confidence which is forbidden Heb. 10.35 and was the fault of that wicked King 2 King 6.33 And albeit whenever we distrust and do not believe there is much of will in it Joh. 5.40 yet then especially are we guilty of wilfulness in that sin when we look not upon faith as a commanded duty and so mourn not for the want of it as for other sins but it may be plead for it â—s Jonah did for his passion Jon. 4.9 When we are not as careful yea more careful to study what may strengthen faith as we are to study what may discourage us when we will not imploy the little faith we have in wrestling and debating with sense and tentations because we have not that faith which might easily carry us over all our tentations and when we will not simply at Gods command cast out the net of believing but will turn judges of the Promises and of the profit of believing 2 King 6.33 and when we find things hard or improbable in our bitterness we cast all our confidence away This is an evil we should be careful to avoid Considering That faith how weak soever is most commendable when we are most unwilling to part with it in great difficulties That the sin of unbelief is heinous enough in disobeying God reproaching him forsaking our own mercy c. even when it flows from our infirmity and weakness albeit we do not make it our wilful iniquity by giving up our selves to it without any appearing of the grace of God to witness against it That zeal for God should cause us not be taken alive as the word will read 2 Tim. 2.26 by his Enemy unbelief far less will it allow us voluntarily to turn to his Enemies party That wilful misbelievers do cast away that shield which should cover them and all their armour Eph. 6.6 And what can be the issue of that but deadly wounds one upon the back of another and what will they do next when they have cast away their confidence or will any condition bring an issue till they return to believe again as the Psalmist found Psal 77.7 8 9 with 10. And That God may be provoked to make unbelief the punishment of the wilful distruster when he would gladly be rid of it as finding how it crusheth and sinketh him but cannot 5. Weak and willing believers may be excited and and notably strengthened to resist tentation and the suggestions of Sense by studying the Nature of God how unsutable that is to him which Sense suggesteth what a wrong is done to him by its conclusions and how absurd it were to judge so of God as it would represent him For so doth Job's faith here militate against the suggestions of his sense Is it good unto thee that thou shouldst oppress c As if he had said Can this be said of thee without a notable injury done to thy holiness goodness c. 6. Those suggestions of sense which faith questioneth as absurd and yet cannot answer nor repel them must be propounded and laid out before God that he may clear them For so doth Job here speak the matter to God Is it good unto thee c Where as the matter questioned which he uttereth is the language of sense for which Job is afterward reprehended So his propounding of it by way of question unto God imports beside his infirmity and weakness in the thing a complaint of it to God and a calling upon him to resolve the difficulty And this is a more profitable way of discussing tentations then to take counsel about them in our own hearts the result whereof will be sorrow Psal 13.2 See also Psal 73.15 16 17. Secondly Having spoken in general to the way of pleading and to faith and senses part in it I come in the next place to consider what is Faith and Graces part in this Argument For all those apprehensions of sense being questioned by faith it imports not only that they are not true of which I shall make further use on the next Head but that they were grievous to his spirit to apprehend such things in Gods dealing Hence we may gather those sound Truths here 1. Though the Lord be Soveraign and Absolute yet he is an holy and righteous God who takes no pleasure
in oppression especially of his own people He will not imploy his great power to crush his own people Job 23.6 37.23 but his strength loveth judgement Psal 99.4 Nor doth he afflict willingly or deny unto men their just claims and defences Lam. 3.33 34 35 36. Therefore Job questions this as not to be yielded that it is good or pleasing unto God to oppress 2. An interest in God whether more general as we are his creatures or more specially as we are renewed and made of new to him as it calls for our reverence and respect to him Psal 100.2 3. So it is a ground of confidence that he will deal favourably and tenderly For Job pleads aganst the evils apprehended by his sense upon this accout that he is the worke or labour of Gods hand And albeit this conclude more strongly upon the account of his being a new creature renewed by God yet even his being one of his creatures hath its own weight in the plea as he afterward distinctly vrgeth it ver 8 9. c. 3. One of the saddest sights a Saint gets of his trouble is when he misseth Gods affection in it and it seemeth to speak wrath For Job cannot digest this that his stroak seemed to be such as if it were good and pleasant to God to oppresse him and as if he despised him See Job 13.24 Others will not much miss this if their lot be otherwise tolerable But Saints will resent this in most easie tryals 4. Zeal to the honour of God when it seems to be reflected upon by his afflicting of Saints will not a little grieve their spirits For this also affects Job that the counsel of the wicked should seem to be shined upon or get a favourable aspect See Josh 7.8 9. Our forgetting of this is the cause why we speed so ill in our particulars before God 5. It is the property of real and lively Saints to love Piety so well that it will exceedingly afflict them when Gods dealing to his people seems to harden men in impiety and to introduce Atheism and open ungodliness For this also was his affliction when he apprehended the counsel of the wicked to be thus shined upon as hath been explained See also Mal. 3 14 15. Eccl. 8.11 This afflicted David and put him to his Prayers Psal 7.6 7. 69 6. Thirdly I come in the last place to consider Job's mistakes his weakness and reckoning by sense which are most predominant in this Argument Wherein as his speech implieth that he was so far over powered as not only to think but even to utter those apprehensions of God though with some reluctancy and opposition made by faith So his questions about them imply that they were false and not to be yielded unto but the contrary maintained Hence from his failing and weakness we may learn these Cautions for our Instruction 1. It is an ill way of pleading our righteousness under trouble to reflect upon the Righteousness of God who afflicts us as Job's sense suggested to him that he being a righteous man Gods afflicting of him could be nothing else but oppression 2. It is a great fault to censure Gods sharp dispensations toward his people as oppression seeing he is Soveraign Lord of our being not accountable to any for what he doth and doth by no affliction deprive them of their righteousness nor of any benefit they can claim by it Therefore Job was in a mistake when he complained of oppression 3. It is injurious to God when his people think he respects any profit whereof he reaps none or pleasure without an eye and respect to their good For Job did mistake when his sense judged that it was good unto God to oppress or ruine him 4. It is also a wrong to judge of Gods affection by our sense of his external dispensations As if because he afflicted his people therefore he thought it good or took pleasure in it and despised and contemned them Whereas when God doth afflict them he proceeds so to say with much aversion if their good could be otherwise promoted Jer. 9 7. Lam. 3.33 he doth affectionately remember them under it Jer. 31.20 yea he honours them by taking so much pains upon them and setting them upon such a stage whence his grace in them may eminently shine and appear 5. It is an act of rash judgment to think that God despiseth his creatures because he tryeth and exerciseth them or despiseth his own work in his people when he giveth it a shake that it may stand more firm and casteth dust upon it that he may scour it better Job 23.10 For Job failed in thinking God despised the work of his hands 6. It is not only weakness but wickedness if persisted in to think That God approves of wickedness as Mal. 2.17 See Eccl. 8.11 12 13. That his favourable and smiling Providences do import any approbation of wicked men and not rather a snare upon them Psal 11.6 Or That God cannot take ways to vindicate his own honour and commend Piety though he do not take our way but let our tryals whereby the wicked may take occasion to stumble and be hardened go on For herein Job failed exceedingly in thinking God shined upon the counsel of the wicked in any of these respects formerly mentioned in the Explication And particularly in thinking there was no way to discountenance the wicked in their impiety but by delivering of him whereas the wicked had some knowledge of Gods will as it was then made known and we have it more clearly in the written Word whereby they might judge of Gods thoughts of their way and God should in due time manifest his mind yet further to them though Job's tryal continued for a while Vers 4. Hast thou eyes of flesh or seest thou as man seeth 5. Are thy days as the days of man are thy years as mans days 6. That thou enquirest after mine iniquity and searchest after my sin The fourth Argument wherein he enlargeth that apprehension of oppression v. 3. is taken from this That there was no necessity why God should thus torture him to find out or pursue his sin but it looked rather like ignorant and passionate man then the Holy and Omniscient God to keep this way of procedure Here eyes and days and years are attributed to God to express his knowledge and eternal duration in terms borrowed from among men because of our incapacity And the meaning of the Argument is as if Job had said Lord thou art not like a man that thou should need thus to put me upon the rack A man might possibly do thus to an innocent man in regard his eyes see but what is outward and he is oft times led with suspicions passions and malice and therefore he may be induced to torture an innocent man that he may draw out a confession of what he suspects he is guilty of v. 4. And man is born to learn somewhat every day in the
a great security And should be no less safe in an house of digged-up mud or in his Tent about which the Arabians used to dig holes for fastning of the stakes or some earth to make the bottom of the Tent close Or made a ditch to receive the water which in a shower of rain might run down from the Tent that so it might not run into the Tent then in a walled City nor should he need to keep a Watch or Guard about him but might sleep quietly And which further confirms the security of his condition whereas he is now contemned and all seek advantage against him then many men or as the Word doth also signifie even great men should respect him and make humble and earnest suits to him or as it is in the Original should entreat his face or countenance and protection to get counsel help justice or preferment by him In this if we guard against the understanding of temporal Promises in an absolute sense we may Observe 1. Great and wonderful may the vicissitudes of time and mens lot within time be And when God pleaseth to interpose he can make a mans case differ wonderfully from what it hath been For so doth this Promise imply and it is indeed possible and Job afterward found it true that he who had been spoiled should be secure Obs 2. The Penitents allowance is security or quiet confidence Which is not to be understood of secure neglect of duty or neglect of seeking God Not yet however Zophar understood it of a secure neglecting to foresee and prepare for difficulties Job 3.25 26. For neither of those are our duty and so cannot be our mercy But the true security allowed to Penitents is to be confident as to events Not that they shall certainly avoid dangers from men or otherwise But that they shall be free of aniety about them either as to their coming upon them or their getting through under them This is indeed their allowance And it is their duty to study to be rid of vexing anxiety which flows from insobriety and diffidence and impedes duty See Phil. 4.6 Psal 127.1 2. For it cannot avail any thing as Matth. 6.27 It oft-times creates us needless troubles Isai 51.11 13. It antedates our real tryals and makes them a cross before they come Matth. 6.34 It draws us upon snares when we are anxiously fearful of men Prov. 29.25 It is not beseeming the peace of a good Conscience Rom 5.1 2 3. and should rather be left to the wicked Deut. 28.66 It gives God little to do but takes his work off his hand 1 Pet. 5.7 and therefore crusheth us because none but God can bear that burden of caring for events And it looks not like faith in his Providence who can cause troublers do us good Jer. 15.11 who can restrain them as he did Laban Gen. 31.24 can fill them with terrour Gen. 35.5 can plague them as he did Sennacherib and can bring good out of what he suffers them to do This being Saints allowance they should press after it and accompt it service to God and not carnal security to seek to be rid of this anxiety Obs 3. The ground of this security is because there is hope Whereby we are to understand not only the grace of hope which the true Penitent hath but dayly new favours strengthning this grace His trouble 's not returning and proofs of love being given him do strengthen his hope and possess him with holy confidence and security This passing his mistakes Teacheth 1. A reconciled Penitent hath still ground of hope Ezra 10.2 After his repentance if he have been a godly man before his evidences are renewed and his hopes revive so that he cannot be desperate unless he will cast away his hope Heb. 10.35 2. As whatever good a penitent man hath he must quit it all and go out of himself to hope in God so hope is enough to secure a man though there be no more For Thou shalt be secure because there is hope Here we should beware of pride which will be ready to undervalue this whereas humility will grip too little 3. Albeit we should not ground our hope on what is seen Rom. 8.24 or upon any thing beside the word Yet when God further confirms us by proofs of his love it should make us ashamed to be diffident For when thus there is hope as hath been explained then we should be secure It is a sin and shame to be diffident after many experiences Psal 78.19 20. And as our not hoping when we have but the naked Word obstructs those proofs of love so our ill improvement of them and our quarrelling still provokes God to send us back again to the naked Word Obs 4. The amplification of this security is That he shall dig about him and take his rest in safety c. or in a poor Cottage or Tent he shall be safe enough This Teacheth That hope in God must not rest upon nor judge by outward probabilities But should give glory to God so much the more as probabilities are few So much may safely be gathered from this Otherwise it is not alwayes true that Saints are safe in Zophar's sense But as God can secure in a most unsafe condition So extremity of troubles and all disadvantages should but raise the spirits of a Penitents hope as Psal 142.4 5. Obs 5. The publick evidence of this his security is sleeping safely and without fear This holds not true in this sense that a reconciled man may not be surprized in his sleep but this is true in it that it is his allowance to sleep confidently when he is called to it under Gods protection as Psal 3.5 However It Teacheth 1. Reconciliation with God makes common mercies to be double mercies Even very sleep comes by promise and by gift to a reconciled man His dinner of green hearbs is a sweet feast if he could discern the mercies in it 2. The Providence of God is over and about the reconciled man in all the turns of his life were it even in watching over him when he sleeps 3. Gods help is nothing the further off from a reconciled man that he can be little active to procure it or do for himself For when we sleep and cannot do for our selves he will do for us 4. Quiet and safe rest without affrightments is a mercy as here is supposed And it is put in the godlies Charter as the rest of temporal promises to be forth coming for him as may be for his good And when a people are deprived of it by Fires Invasions or other Alarms in the night As it is a tryal to the godly so it may put all to search how they have been thankful for ordinary preservation and rest And how they mind judgment wherein it is said the the Lord will come as a theif in the night Obs 6. The confirmation of this his security and safety is that he shall be in honour and
respect and many and even great men shall make suit to him or intreat his face It Teacheth 1. A reconciled man gets all his losses made up one way or other As here is supposed that he will be restored to his dignity again And indeed that is not lost which is in Gods hand but however we may not limit God in these temporal things a good account may be made of it upon our repentance 2. Albeit contempt be a sad lot and oft-times the fruit of our own or others idolizing of us Yet if such as are under it be reconciled to God or study to be so they may expect a good accompt of it For so much may safely be gathered from this Promise 3. Albeit God do not free every godly man from contempt in the world for this promise is not made visibly out to all And albeit he do not raise every godly man whom he vindicates from contempt to honour and state For this Promise is made to Job who was before a Magistrate Yet thus far it holds true in general That as men and particularly great men do respect or vilifie godly men only as may contribute to advance their own interests For as they sleight them in their low condition so they will fawn upon them in their prosperity So whatever mens esteem be true Piety is indeed honourable and would be more respected if it were more known And it is the duty of godly men so to walk as they may conciliate respect to their Profession and not cause the world stumble at it And if they walk so God may so eminently do for them and advance them as even great men yea their very enemies may be glad to sue for their favour Vers 20. But the eyes of the wicked shall fail and they shall not escape and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost Zophar's Second Argument pressing his Exhortation is held out in a threatening If Job hearken not to his counsel but think to be deliveâ—ed without repentance He propounds it in general terms without applying it to Job as he had done by the Promises And denounceth that a wicked man may long look for an issue and wear his eyes expecting it ere it come that he shall not escape Gods rods and vengeance any other way then by repentance and any hope he hath shall evanish and die and give him no ground to lean upon but rather end in despair In this Argument as he mistakes Job accounting him a wicked man So his doctrine concerning plagues upon the wicked is no more sound then what he had said in the matter of temporal Promises to the godly For a man may get expected favours escape rods and be satisfied in his hopes and yet be a wicked man still Only he deserves all that is here threatened and he may sometime meet with it in this life and however will meet with it at last Hence Learn 1. Both Law and Gospel terrours and allurements are necessary to stir up men to the duties of Repentance We need terrours to break as well as encouragements to melt our hard hearts Therefore he makes use of both here And of threatnings last Not because that is the order constantly to be observed For the Law should make way for Promises But because he judged him obstinate by reason of his former replies and possibly perceived by some evidences that Job was not taken with what he said which makes him give over to encourage him any more and leave him with this sad word 2. When men are called to threaten such as they suppose to be wicked as they should not dally with sin so in their greatest sharpness they should witness some tenderness to their persons Therefore he only propounds the Doctrine in general Not only to shew that he thought it the lot of all the wicked which therefore Job whom he judged to be wicked needed not think to decline But to witness his tenderness in that he leaveth it to Job to apply it himself 3. General Doctrine ought to be applied by every hearer albeit he who delivers it do not or for some reasons find it not fit to apply it For here he judgeth it to be Job's duty to apply what he speaks in general 4. Albeit wicked men oft-times have enough yet seeing they place their happiness in it they cannot be satiâ—fied but are plagued with the lust of the eye expecting and desiring more For It is supposed they have their eye upon somewhat they expect Not only are they put to look for deliverance when God plagues them which is the thing principally implied here relative to Job's present condition but even in their best condition they are still looking for more 5. As Believers may have much humbling exercise about their hope Psal 119.82 either when they expect that for which they have no ground in the Word at least not in their present condition Lam. 4.17 Jer. 14.19 Or when God would humble and try them Psal 69.3 and about their faintings which yet they will be forced to recall and abandon Lam. 3.18.22 Psal 31.22 Also whatever particular good thing expected by the wicked may be given them Yet they will never meet with all they gape for Deut. 28.32 And in the issue they will be sadly disappointed For thus the eyes of the wicked shall fail 6. Albeit wicked men be fugitives from the Word and so far as they can from corrections as is implyed Zech. 1.6 Jer. 5.3 And albeit they may escape some particular dangers and get terrours of Conscience shaken off Yet all they fear and seek to shun will unavoidably meet them at last without a possibility of declining it For they shall not escape 7. Wicked men are not easily put from their hopes and carnal confidences whatever threatenings or disappointments they meet with For though their eyes fail and it be threatened that they shall not escape Yet it is supposed that they will yet hope for other things 8. Wicked mens hope is but a cold coal and evanishing thing It is but like a sob or two of a dying man and then he is gone For their hope shall be as the giving up of the Ghost or as a puff of breath of a dying man Whether we look to their hope or their enjoyment of what they hope for they get but a laughter or two of it and a little whiles sport with their own deceivings and then they see the folly of their hope and what they got of what they hoped for doth evanish And so their hope as it is in the Original is the giving up of the Ghost or gives up the Ghost and puffeth out its breath and perisheth CHAP. XII In this and the two following Chapters we have a new Discourse of Job's wherein he replies to what Zophar or his other Friends had said For he speaks to them in the plural number and still joyns them together in his replies to any one of them because they