it is that God delivereth man while 't is said by Elihu he keepeth back His soul from the pit Some expound the word soul in this former part of the verse in opposition to life in the latter part of it and his life from perishing by the sword Soul and life are sometimes taken promiscuously or indifferently for the same thing yet there is a very great difference between soul and life the life is nothing else but the union between soul and body but the soul is a spirituall substance distinct from the body while remaining in it and subsisting it self alone when separate from it That bond or knot which ties soul and body together is properly that which Elihu speaks of in the next words And his life As God keeps back his soul from everlasting destruction so his life from temporall destruction Though the soul be most precioua yet life is very precious skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his life Chap. 2.5 'T is therefore no small mercy for God to keep back a mans life From perishing by the sword The sword is put sometime for warre that being the principal instrument of warre some insist much on that sence here as if the words contained a promise of being kept from perishing by the sword of an open enemy But the sword is here rather put for any kind or for all kinds of hurtfull evills what ever doth afflict vex or destroy may be called the sword Nomen gladii hoc in loco generalitèr denotare puto quicquid pungit percutit torquet cruciat vel affilgit Bold The text strictly in the letter is thus rendred and his life from passing by or through the sword we say from perishing by the sword which passing by the sword is not to escape the sword but to fall by the sword Thus 't is said of that idolatrous King Ahaz 2 Kings 16.3 He caused his sons to passe through the fire the meaning is not that he delivered them out of the fire but consumed them in the fire for he made them passe through the fire to Molech which was a sacrificing of them to that abominable idoll It is also said 2 Sam. â—2 31 when David took Rabba and destroyed the Ammonites he made them passe through the brick-kilne not to save them but to consume them Some conceive that this brick-kilne through which David made those captive Ammonites to passe was the fire or furnace of Molech that infamous Idoll of the Ammonites with whose bloody and most cruell devotions the apostatizing Jewes or people of God were in after times ensnared And if so then they might see God turning their sin into their punishment and declaring his fiery wrath against them in that by which they had declared their foolish and abominable zeale But that which I quote their punishment for is only the forme of its expression He made them pass through the brick-kilne Transire in gladium est idem quod incidere in manus et tela hostium et cadere in bello Gladius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocatur quasi missite telum Drus that is perish in it Thus here and his soul from passing by the sword is rightly translated from perishing by the sword The word rendred sword signifies also any missive weapon or weapon cast with the hand especially a dart so Mr. Broughton translates and his life from going on the dart The generall sence of this verse is plainly this The Lord withdraweth man from his purpose and hides pride from man that so he may in mercy preserve him from perishing both in body and soul or that he may keep him not only from the first but from the second death which is the separation of the whole man from the blessed presence of God for ever 'T is a great favour to be kept from the pit where the body corrupts or from the sword that wounds the flesh but to be kept from that everlasting woe which shall overwhelme the wicked in that bottomlesse pit or lake of fire and brimstone this is the highest favour of God to lost man This is the pit this the perishing from which saith Elihu the Lord keepeth back the soul and life of man First from the emphasis of the word he keepeth back importing that God as it were by strong hand or absolute authority and command keepeth the soul of man from the pit Note Man is very forward to run upon his own ruine even to run upon eternall ruine if the Lord did not hold stay and stop him Man would tumble into the pit at the very next step if God did not keep him The way of man naturally is downe to the pit and all that he doth of his own self is for his own undoing And as he is kept back from the pit so as the Apostle Peter hath it 1 Epist 1.5 he is kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation Secondly considering the season signified in the former verse that when man is going upon an evill work or walking in the pride of his heart God is keeping him from the pit Note While man hath sinfull purposes and pride in his heart all that while he is going on to destruction both temporall and eternall Every step in sin is a step to misery and the further any man proceedeth on in sin the further he wanders from God and the further he wanders from God the neerer he comes to misery As the further we goe from the Sun the neerer we are to the cold and the further we go from the fountaine the nearer we are to drought so they that hast to sin hast to sorrow yea to hell Solomon saith of such they love death There is no man loves death under the notion of death there is no beauty no amiableness in death but all they may be said to love death who love sin and live in it Every motion towards sin is a hasting into the armes and embraces of death sinners wooe and invite death and the grave yea hell and destruction Thirdly note The warnings and admonitions which God gives to sinfull man whether waking or sleeping are to keep him from perishing to keep him from temporall to keep him from eternall perishing This is the great end of preaching the Gospel the end also of pressing the terrors of the Law both have this aime to keep man from perishing When man is prest to holinesse and when he is represt from the wayes of sin 't is that he may not perish for ever God hath set up many ordinances he hath imployed many instruments to administer them many thousands goe up and downe preaching to the world and crying out to the sons of men repent and beleeve beleeve and repent and why all this cry but to keep souls from the pit and their life from perishing by the sword The Apostle Jude exhorts to save some with fear and of others to have compassion that is terrifie some that
men but the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men As if he had said Though you sin against the Father and the Son it shall be forgiven you but if you sin against the holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come that is it shall never be forgiven Seeing then there is more in sinning against the holy Ghost then against the Father or the Son who are God the holy Ghost must needs be God For though there is no degree or graduall difference in the deity each person being coeternall coequall and consubstantiall yet the Scripture attributes more in that case as to the poynt of sinning against the holy Ghost then to sinning against the Father or the Son therefore certainly the holy Ghost is God Lastly The holy Ghost is the object of divine worship are not we baptized in the Name of the Father Son and holy Ghost Is the Father and the Son God and the holy Ghost not God who is joyned with them in the same honour Shall a creature come in competition with God And doth not the Scripture or word of God direct us to pray for grace from the Spirit as well as from the Father or the Son 2 Cor 13.13 Rev 1.4 Thus we see how full the Scripture is in giving the glory of the same workes upon us and of the same worship from us to the Spirit as to the Father and the Son And therefore from all these premises we may conclude That the Holy-Ghost with the Father and the Son is God blessed and to be glorified for evermore The Spirit of God hath made me And the breath of the Almighty hath given me life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus ex ore egregiens halitus flatus anima proprie significat halitem pâ—r metonymiam effecti animam per synechdoâ—hen membri animal Pisc in Deut 10.16 The words carry an allusion as Interpreters generally agree to that of Moses describing the creation of man Gen 2.7 And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrills the breath of life and man became a living soule Elihu speakes neere in the same forme fully to the same effect The breath of the Almighty hath given me life or enlivened me As if he had sayd That soule which the Lord hath breathed into me hath made me live The soule of man may be called the breath of the Almighty because the Almighty is expressed infusing it into man at first by breathing And therefore the word Neshamah which properly signifies the breath doth also by a Metonymie of the effect signifie the soule it selfe which causeth breathing Thus our translaters render it Isa 57.16 I saith the Lord will not contend for ever neither will I be alwayes wroth for the spirit should faile before me and the soules which I have made As the soule of man was breathed in by God so the soule is that by which man breathes Breath and soule come and goe together Some comparing the originall word Shamaijm for the heavens with this word Neshamah which here we translate breath take notice of their neere affinity intimating that the soule of man is of a heavenly pedegree or comes from heaven yea the latine word mens signifying the mind is of the same consonant letters with the Hebrew Neshamah and as some conceive is derived from it So then I take these words The breath of the Almighty as a description of that part of man which is opposed to his body The Spirit of God hath made me that is hath set me up as a man in humane shape And the breath of the Almighty hath given me life that is this soule which the Almighty hath breathed into me hath made me a living man ready for any humane act or as Moses speakes God breathing into my nostrills the breath of life I became a living soule Hence observe First The soule of man floweth immediately from God 'T is the breath of God not that God liveth by breathing the way of his life is infinitely above our apprehension But 't is cleare in Scripture That the Almighty breathed into man the powers of life And therefore he is called by way of Eminence The father of spirits Heb 12.9 For though the Almighty is rightly entituled the Father of the whole man though both body and soule are the worke of God yet he is in a further sence the father of our spirits or soules then of our bodyes And here Solomon shewing how man is disposed of when these two are separated by death saith Eccl 12.7 Then shall the dust that is the body returne to the earth as it was and the spirit that is the soule shall returne to God who gave it The body is the gift of God but the body is not the breath of God it is not such an immediate gift of God as the soule is when the body of man was made at first God tooke the dust of the earth and formed his body out of it but when he gave him a soule he breathed that from himselfe it was an immediate effect of Gods power not dealing with nor working upon any prae-existing matter The spirit or soule of man is purely of God solely of God And hence we may inferre First Then the soule is not a vapour arising from the crasis or temperament of the body as the life of a beast is Secondly Then the soule of man is not traduced from the parents in generation as many learned men affirme especially to ease themselves of those difficulties about the conveyance of originall sin or defilement into the soule Thirdly We may hence also inferre then the soule is not corruptible it is an immortall substance How can that be corruptible or mortall which hath its rise as I may say immediately from God or is breathed in by the Almighty who is altogether incorruptible and immortal And whereas there is a twofold incorruptibility First by divine ordination that is God appoynts such a thing shall not corrupt and therefore it doth not so the body of man in it's first creation was incorruptible for though it were in it selfe corruptible being made out of the earth yet by the appoyntment of God if man had continued in his integrity he had not dyed And therefore it is said By sin came death yea doubtlesse if God should command and appoynt the meanest worme that moves upon the earth to live for ever or the most fading flower that groweth out of the earth to flourish for ever both the one and the other would doe so Secondly there is an incorruptibility in some things not meerely by a law or appoyntment of God but as from that intrinsecall nature which God hath bestowed upon them and implanted in them Thus the Angels are immortall they have an incorruptible nature and likewise the soule of man being breathed from the Almighty is in it's owne nature
incorruptible it hath naturally no seedes of dissolution in it because no contrariety no contrary qualities in it as all bodyes or corporeall substances have I know the Apostle saith 1 Tim 6.16 God only hath immortality it 's true he only hath it in himselfe independently originally but he derives and gives it as a talent to some creatures in a way of dependance upon himselfe Secondly Observe The soule brings in the life of the body The life of man What is the body without the soule but a lumpe of clay As soone as ever the soule departs life departs man dyeth and becomes a putrifying carkasse yet such is the folly of most men that all their care is for the life of the body which is at best a dying life they utterly neglect the soule which as it is the life of the body so it selfe never dyeth The soule is the Jewell the body is but the Cabinet the soule is the kernel the body is but the shell Will you be sollicitous about a Cabinet and a shell and slight the Jewel or throw away the kernel Will you take care of that which liveth the body and will you not take care of that which holds your life the soule Againe Note Life is the gift of God If the soule which is the cause of life in man be of God then the life of man is of God also The cause of the cause is the cause of the effect or thing caused But we need not argue it from Logick rules Scripture testimony being so aboundant in this thing Acts 17.25 He giveth to all life and breath and all things And v. 28. In him we live and move and have our being Spirituall and eternall life are the gift of God so also is naturall life And if so Then First Live to God Secondly Seeing God gives us life we should be willing to give our lives to God Yea Thirdly We should therefore be ready to give up or rather to lay downe our lives for God And as we should give up our lives to God when he calls for them by natural death so we should give up our lives for God when he calls us to beare witness to his name and truth by violent death I shall yet take notice of one thing further before I passe from this verse The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life Some upon good grounds referre the first clause The Spirit of God hath made me to the creation both of soule and body and the second or latter clause the breath of the Almighty hath given me life to that quickning which we receive by the Spirit to the duties whereinto we are called in this life The breath of the Almighty hath given me life that is hath fitted and prepared me for the severall offices and services of life As if Elihu had sayd The Spirit of God hath not only made me a man but a man for worke yea the Spirit of God hath quickned me to the present worke and businesse I am come about Thus life imports not only spirituall life in the being of it but all the furniture ornaments and abilities of a spirituall life The Septuagint render this profession made by Elihu expressely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiratio omnipotentis est quae docet me Sept Haud me latet non a meipso sed a deo hunc prudentiae sensum me accepisse Nicet to this sence holding out a strong assurance which Elihu had that God had both called and prepared him for the service he was come about and engaged in The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath instructed me Another of the Greek Interpreters speaks as much I am not ignorant that of my selfe I am able to doe nothing but I have received this power from God As if Elihu had said The Spirit of the Almighty hath quickned me to this worke I am now upon and taught me what both to say and doe in thy case O Job Hence note God giveth not only the life of nature unto men but he fits them for all the duties and services of this life We indeed are scarcely to be reckoned among the living if we have no more but a naturall life what is it to be able to eate and drinke to heare and see and speake unlesse we have more then this we deserve not to be numbred or written among the living we are upon the matter but dead lumps and clods of clay It is the breath of the Almighty that quickens us and superadds ability to doe good that frames fashions and fits us for every good word and worke This is the life of man when a man is fitted for duty and service when he is furnished for imployment to stand God and his Brethren in some stead while he is in this world then he lives The motions impulses and influences the teachings and guidings of the Spirit of God are the life of our lives We can doe nothing of our selves till the Almighty bestows a new life upon us and as we can doe nothing at all in spiritualls till he gives us a new life so we can do nothing to purpose till the Spirit acts stirres up that life in us It is the Spirit who first bestows Secondly encreaseth Thirdly excites our spirituall life puts the new creature into motion All our good thoughts and holy actings all our uprightnesse and sincerity all our strength and ability flow from the Spirit untill the holy Spirit workes in us we sit still and when the Spirit worketh we must not sit still I saith the Apostle Rom 15.18 will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed As if he had sayd My owne workes are not worth the naming I will not so much as mention any thing that Christ hath not wrought in me by the Spirit That was a mighty worke which he was enabled to doe to make the Gentiles obedient in word and deed Christ did not leave him to doe it in his owne power The breath of the Almighty enabled him and so he doth all those that are able and willing ready for and successefull in any such holy worke Let us therefore ascribe all to his working and quickening let us set down our severall Items of receit in our account-books confessing that we have nothing of our own This gift that grace that ability to doe to speake to suffer to act we have received from him Let the whole Inventory of our soules riches have Gods name written upon it and ascribed to his praise alone And if we thus uncloath our selves by giving God the glory of all we shall loose nothing by it for God will apparrell and furnish us deck and adorne us better every day The poorer we are in our selves the richer will he make us To be thus diminish't is the best way to
with us they would even stand sâ—â—ll and have nothing to doe if God did not bring us into straights or keep us for a season in them In a sick-bed the Lord shews us and we may find work enough for all our graces especially for faith and patience and submission of spirit to his worke and will We may doe better worke and doe it better in sickness then in health Seventhly God brings many upon their fick-beds to teach them the worth of health and make them thankfull for it They who are seldome sicke are as seldome thankfull for their health and scarce reckon that for a mercy the want whereof they have never felt 'T is rare that we prize what we have till we have it not Eightly God exerciseth many with sickness with a purpose to put men upon a holy purpose of improving their health better and of doing more for God while 't is well with them Lastly not a few are afflicted that God may have an opportunity to doe his worke and declare his power God himself would be hindred of much glorious work in restoring and recovering them to health did he not chasten them upon sick beds The question was put about the blind man Joh. 9.3 4. Who did sin this man or his Parents that he was born blind Jesus answered neither hath this man sinned nor his Parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him If there had not been a blind man in the world how could the power of God have been made manifest in giving sight to the blind if some were not extreamly torturingly sick how would the power of God be seene in healing the sicke and rebuking their paine For all these purposes Man is chastened with paine upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong paine We never profit by chastenings till we answer the purposes of God in sending them and unless we know what and which they are we can never answer them If we answer these nine toucht upon we shall either answer all or to be sure we shall baulke or refuse none Elihu having thus shewed us the sicke man in paine proceeds to shew us what further effect his paine and sickness wrought upon him Vers 20. So that his life abhorreth bread and his soule dainty meat This verse sheweth the second effect of sickness The former was paine This is loss of appetite or nauseousnesse His life That is his living body We may call the sick mans body a living body though it be hard to say whether we should number him among the living or the dead We read life put for the body which liveth or whereby it liveth Psal 88.3 My soule saith Heman is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave that is I am ready to dye and my body to be buryed He doth not say he hath no great stomack to but his life abhorreth bread The word here used is of a Syriack derivation Vox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syra est notat nauseare facere nam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sordes scoriam excrementum quicquid sordicum et immundum est vel in humano corpore vel ex eo excretuÌ„ Drus Merc nor is it found any where in Scripture but here The nowne signifieth any thing that is filthy excrementicious or uncleane whence the verbe is rendred to abhorre loath or nauceate because we abhorre those things which are filthy or uncleane His life abhorreth bread That is common food Sometimes bread is put for all kind of dyet as David sayd to Mephibosheth 2 Sam 9.10 Thou shalt eat bread at my table But because of that opposition in the text to dainties by bread we may here understand only ordinary food His life abhorreth bread and his soule dainty meat The Hebrew is Meat of desire Not only such meat as men usually desire for the wholesomnesse of it but such as curious palates desire for the pleasantness of it such meat is here meant Yea thirdly such meat as the man had a desire to before his sicknesse for the sutableness of it to his owne taste and appetite he then abhorreth His soule abhorreth dainty meat The turning of the stomack and losse of appetite are usuall symptomes of sickness Almost all sicknesses weaken the appetite and some take it quite away so that the patient not only hath no desire to but loathes dainty meate or meate of desire This phrase or forme of speaking is used Dan 10.3 I saith he ate no pleasant bread or no bread of desires as we put in the margin neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth 'T is used againe 2 Chro 32.27 Hezekiah made himselfe treasuries for silver and gold c. and all manner of pleasant jewells we put in the Margin for all jewells of desire So Amos 5.11 Pleasant vineyards or vineyards of desire It was the manner of the Hebrews to expresse pleasant by desirable because pleasant things are much desired His soule abhorreth meate of desire or dainty meate Hence note First 'T is a mercy to tast our meat or to take the comfort of what we eate Many have meat but cannot taste it That which giveth the best taste to our meat is a taste of the goodnesse of God in it 1 Pet 2.1 If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious It is sweet to taste meat and the goodnesse of the Lord together Secondly Note God can quickly make those things that are most desirable to us dainty meat meat of desire loathsome to us Some abhor meat because they have eaten of it long The Jewes did eate Manna and Quailes till they loathed them Num 11.20 Others loath meat because they have eaten over-much A third sort loath some meat by a naturall antipathy against it Fourthly Others loath wholsome meat out of a curiosity because it is not dainty enough Lastly Sickness causeth a loathing of all meate even of the most dainty and desirable meate And the Lord at any time can make that which was our desire our loathing We have a like description of a sick man Ps 107.18 His soule abhorreth all manner of meat and draweth neere unto the gates of death Thirdly Note The best of Creature-comforts are but vaine comforts What can dainty meat doe a man good when he is sicke and ready to dye Then gold and silver lands and houses which are the dainty meat of a covetous man are loathsome to him When a man is sicke to death his very riches are sapless and tastless to him wife and children friends and acquaintance can yeild little comfort in that dark houre yea they often prove miserable comforters When we have most need of comfort these things administer least or no comfort at all to us Is it not our wisdome then to get a stock of such comforts as will hold and abide fresh with us when all worldly comforts either leave us or become tastless to us Is it not good to get a store of
have cause to boast of the penny-worth he hath had by sin which hath occasion'd the sorrows of that repentance One houres communion with God in wayes of holiness is better then all the profits and pleasures which any man hath got while he was committing that sin or running any course of sin whereof he now repenteth At the best sin dishonours God troubles our consciences and breakes our peace at the best nothing is got by sin which is worth the having at worst the soule is lost by it which of all things we have is most worth the having Thirdly Note Sin is exceeding dangerous and destructive to man Some would sin for the pleasures and carnal contentments which are found in sin though they knew they should make no earnings or get no profit by it yea though they knew they should be and dye beggers by it Once more if this were all that they should loose heaven by it or if the meaning of loosing their soules were only this that their soules should be no more they would easily venture it But there is an affirmative in the negative and when 't is sayd sin profiteth not the meaning is it brings trouble and renders us miserable for ever Fooles that is all sinfull men saith the Spirit of God Psal 107.17 because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted and all such among these fooles as dye in their sin are damned and who is able to summe up the dammage of damnation Fourthly Learne Sinners shall be forced at last to confesse that there is no profit in sin True penitents confesse it willingly now and impenitents shall confesse it at last whether they will or no they shall have such a conviction of the evill of sin by their sufferings as will make them say what hath pride profited me and what hath envy profited me what hath malice and wrath profited me And what hath the fraudulent deceiving of my neighbour profited me this will be the cry of sinners to all eternity Oh what hath sin profited us That which is the willing confession of a gracious repentant here will be the forced confession of damned impenitents for ever hereafter This will be a bitter repentance Hell is and will be full of the words of repentance but no fruit of repentance shall be found there The damned shall not find either amendment in themselves or mercy from God This will be the confession of all sinners at last as of those that repent and are saved so of those who repent when damned we have sinned and perverted that which was right and it hath not profited us And when once man hath made this hearty confession to God of his sin and folly then God maketh him a gracious promise of deliverance and mercy as appeares in the tenour of the next verse Vers 28. He will deliver his soule from going into the pit and his life shall see the light There is a two-fold reading of this 28th verse as was shewed in opening the former For whereas that 27th verse is understood by some as the humble confession of the sick man recovered and so read in this forme He looketh upon men and saith I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profited me not then this 28th verse is rendred to make up that sence as a thankfull acknowledgement of his recovery He hath delivered my soule from going into the pit and my life seeth the light Thus as we had his confession of repentance in the verse fore-going I have sinned Juâ—ta hanc loctionem erit etiamnuÌ„ hic versus ex coÌ„fessione restituti aegri dei in se summam beneficentiam agnoscâ—ntis Merc c. so here we have his confession of praise and thankfulness He hath delivered my soule from going into the pit Mr Broughton translates to this sence He saved my soule from going into the pit that my life doth see the light Thus the sick man being restored breakes out into thanksgiving The Lord in mercy hath freed me from death hell and the grave I need not feare Satans accusations my body enjoyes the light of the world and my soule the light of Gods countenance shining upon me which is better then life But because our owne reading is cleare in the originall text and holds out the scope of the context fully enough therefore I shall prosecute that only He will deliver his soule from going into the pit The words are an assertion of the favour and goodnesse of God to the penitent sick man He that is God looketh upon men and if he heare any saying I have sinned and perverted that which is right and it profiteth me not if he make such an humble and gracious confession this will be the issue the Lord will deliver his soule from going into the pit At the 18th verse we had words of the same import He keepeth back his soule from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword And againe at the 24th verse Deliver him from going downe to the pit To be delivered from the pit as was there shewed is to be delivered from death And the word soule as was then likewise expounded is put for the person As if it were sayd He will deliver him the penitent man from death and that both from temporall death the death of the body and from eternall death the destruction of body and soule or he will deliver him first from the pit of the grave and secondly from the pit of hell He will deliver his soule from the pit And his life shall see the light Videre lucem periphrasis est vitae sicut è contrario tenebrae sunt symbolum mortis Pined That is he shall live to see the light To see the light is a circumlocution of life As if it had been sayd He shall recover out of his deadly sickness and behold the light of the Sun as living men doe Thus David prayed Psal 56.13 That he might walke before God in the light of the living And thus the wicked man is threatned with eternall death Psal 49.19 He shall goe to the generation of his fathers they shall never see light That is they shall never enjoy life but be shut up in a perpetuall night of death or in the night of perpetuall death Secondly When 't is sayd his life shall see the light we may understand it not only for a bare returne to life or that he shall live but that he shall live comfortably and prosperously he shall lead a happy life To see the light is to live and rejoyce light is pleasant it is comfortable to behold the Sun as Solomon speakes To see light comprehends all the comforts of this life and of that to come which is called the inheritance of the Saints in light Col 1.12 For as darkness is put not only for death but for all the troubles of this life and the torments of the next so light is put both for life and
therefore though he know well enough how to doe evill yet he is truely sayd not to know how to doe it Thirdly Not to know a thing is not to be accustomed or practised in it Thus when Elihu saith I know not to give flattering titles he seemes to say It is not my manner I have not been used to flatter As use doth not only make fitnesse but encreaseth our knowledge so disuse doth at once unfit us to doe a thing and diminisheth our knowledge how to doe it And therefore what we use not to doe we are rightly sayd not to know to doe I know not to give flattering titles Hence note The spirit of a good man is set against all that is evill he cannot close nor comply with it His understanding assenteth not to it his will chuseth it not his conscience cannot swallow it though not a camel but a gnat the least of sin-evils much lesse doth he give himselfe up to the free and customary practise of great sins A good man may well be sayd not to know to sin because though he knoweth the nature of all sins yet he knowingly declines the doing of every sin I know not to give flattering titles In so doing my Maker would soone take me away Those words in so doing are not expressed in the Originall but supplyed to make up the sence and yet we may very well read the text without them I know not to give flattering titles my Maker would soone take me away or as Mr Broughton renders my Maker would be my taker away My Maker Elihu expresseth God by the work of creation or by his relation to God as a creator Elihu doth but include himselfe in the number of those whom God hath made he doth not exclude others from being made by God as much as himselfe while he saith My Maker God is the maker of every man and is so in a three-fold consideration First He is the maker of every man in his naturall constitution as he is a man consisting of a reasonable soule and body I am fearefully and wonderfully made sayd David with respect to both Psal 119.14 Secondly God is every mans maker in his civill state as well as in his naturall he formeth us up into such and such a condition as rich or as poore as high or as low as Governours or as governed according to the pleasure of his owne will Prov. 22.2 The rich and the poore meete together the Lord is the maker of them both he meaneth it not only if at all in that place that the Lord hath made them both as men but he hath made the one a rich man and the other a poore man Thus the Lord is the maker of them both And as the Lord makes men rich so Great and honorable Psal 75.6 Promotion cometh not from the East nor from the West nor from the South It cometh from none of these parts or points of earth or heaven it cometh from nothing under heaven but from the God of heaven God is the Judge he putteth downe one and setteth up another Thirdly The Lord is the maker of every man in his spirituall state as good and holy and gracious Ephes 2.10 We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works till we are wrought by God we can doe none of Gods worke nor have we any mind to doe it Now when Elihu saith My Maker would soone take me away we may understand it in all these three sences he that made me this body and soule when I came into the world he that ordered my way and state all this while that I have been in this world he that formed me up into a new life the life of Grace and hath made me a new man in this and for another world This my Maker would soone take me away Hence note It is good to remember God as our maker Man would not make such ill worke in the world if he remembred God his maker or that himselfe is the work of God We should remember God our maker First as to our being as from him we receive life and breath Secondly as to our well-being as from him we receive all good things both for this life and a better Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy creator not only that God is a creator but thy creator remember this in the dayes of thy youth And surely if thou remembrest him well thou wilt not forget thy selfe so much as to forget the duty which thou owest him Thinke often upon thy maker and then this thought will be upon thee alwayes If I owe my selfe wholly unto God for making me in nature how much more doe I owe my selfe unto God for making me a new creature We ought to live wholly to him from whom we have received our lives He that hath made us should have the use of us He hath made all things for himselfe Prov 16.4 chiefely man who is the chiefe of all visibles which he hath made Those two memento's That we are made by the power of God and that the price by which we are redeemed is the blood of God should constraine us at all times and in all things to be at the call and command of God My Maker Would soone take me away Invoce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tolleret me alludit ad praecedens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 q d. Si capiam faciem me capiet Coc We had the same word in the former verse there 't is used for accepting a person here for taking away a person The Learned Hebricians take notice of an elegant flower of Rhetorick in this expression If I take persons God will take away my person so we may translate the Text If I take men my God will take me away Yea my maker would not only take me away at last or as we say first or last but he would make dispatch and be quicke with me My maker would Soone take me away Some render He would take me away as a little thing But the mind of our translation is he would take me away in a little time The originall word beares either signification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so may the scope of the text My Maker would take me away as a little thing he would blow me away as a feather or as dust and crush me as a moth and he would doe it in a moment in a little time all the men of the world yea the whole world is but a little thing before God and he can quickly take both away Isa 40.15 Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the Ballance Behold he taketh up the Islands as a very little thing Now if Whole Islands if all nations are such little things as drops and dusts then what is any one particular man how big soever he be And how soone can God take him away Little things are taken away in a little time So the word is
And if we look into the first of John ver 2 3. we read thus In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made There our maker for the making of all things is attributed to him is the Son the second person in the holy Trinity or the Word who as it followeth in that Chapter was made flesh Why then doth Elihu here ascribe his making to the Spirit And how are these Scriptures reconciled I answer By that received Maxime in Divinity The workes of the holy Trinity towards the creature are undevided So that while this Scripture ascribes the making of man to the Spirit or Third person in the Trinity it doth not at all crosse those which ascribe it to the first or second the Father or the Son The Spirit of God hath made me Hence note First Man as to his bodily making or the making of his body is the workmanship of God As we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good or holy workes Eph 2.10 so we are his workmanship created to common and naturall workes We have heard of that divine consultation or resolution rather Gen 1.26 Let us make man The Father made man and the Son made man and the holy Spirit made man The Father by the Son through the holy Spirit made man What a glorious what a mighty power is put forth for the production of such a poore creature as man is And this is true not only of the first man in his creation but of every man since the creation there is a concurrence of a divine power and workmanship in the setting up of man as man Psal 100.3 It is he that made us and not we our selves God doth not only make us holy men but he makes us men Hence David Psal 13 9-14 I am fearefully and wonderfully made He speaks there of the frame of his body though that be much more true in reference to the admirable frame of the new creature which is set up in the soule so indeed we are fearefully and wonderfully made Isa 27.11 This is a people of no understanding But did God ever make a people without naturall understanding Surely no but they were a people without spirituall understanding they did not understand what the mind and meaning of God was and what their owne duty was Such are a people of no understanding how wise soever they are in their owne eyes or in the eyes of the world what followeth Therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour That is God who made and formed them both in their naturall capacity as men as also in their civill and spirituall capacity as a Church and Nation or as a Nationall Church understanding it of the Jewes will not have mercy on them will not favour them We read the same Church at once looking to God as their maker and most earnestly moving and imploring his pity upon the same account Isa 64.8 9. But now O Lord thou art our father we are the clay and thou our potter and we all are the work of thy hand As if they had sayd Thou O Lord hast moulded us as thy creatures and fashioned us as thy Church when we were but a rude masse or heape without forme or comeliness therefore doe not marre thy owne worke doe not breake the vessels of thine owne making or as it followeth in the same Chapter Be not wroth very sore O Lord neither remember iniquity for ever behold we beseech thee we are all thy people Hence consider First That we owe not only our well-being but our very being unto God And therefore Secondly No man ought to looke upon himselfe as his owne So the Apostle argues 1 Cor 6.19 Know ye not that your body is the temple of the holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your owne No man is his owne he is Gods who hath made him Saints and believers especially are not their own in that repsect as also because their bodies are the temple of the holy Ghost that is the holy Ghost hath sanctified them for himselfe for his peculiar service and for his habitation Now as the bodyes of Saints are the temple of the holy Ghost because he doth sanctifie them so they are the temple of the holy Ghost because he hath reared them up and built them That consideration should urge us to duty our bodies are temples built as well as temples sanctified by the holy Ghost And therefore we are not our owne at all nor in any respect and if we are not our owne at all but the Lords then we ought to be alwayes for the Lord. Hence Thirdly Hath the Spirit of God made us as Elihu saith then let the Spirit use us how sad is it that when the Spirit of God hath made our bodies and soules we should let the wicked spirit use either as he doth both the bodies and soules of carnall men to his base services The evill spirit did neither make your bodies nor your soules why should he have the command of either Therefore as your members have been weapons of unrighteousnesse to sin so let them be instruments of righteousnesse unto God Seeing the holy Spirit hath made us let not the evill spirit use so much as a little finger of us for he hath not made not only so much as a little finger of our hand but so much as the least haire of our heads as Christ saith we our selves cannot Math 5.36 white or blacke And therefore let not the evill spirit make use of one haire of our heads white or black as a flagge of pride and vanity or to be an occasion of sin to others He that maketh the house ought to have the possession and service of it either to dwell in it himselfe or to receive rent and profit from him that dwells in it The spirit having made us should not only have the rent and revenue but the full possession of us for ever That which is of God should be for God for him alwayes and only for him Secondly In that the making of man is attributed to the Spirit Observe The Spirit of God is God The holy Ghost is not only a power of God or a word gone out from God but the holy Ghost is God This is cleare from the efficiency of the holy Spirit The Spirit of God hath made me The work of creation is attributable to none but God That power which at first set up man in his creation continueth him to this day this power and great prerogative is given to the Spirit therefore the Spirit is God Psal 33.6 By the word of the Lord his substantiall Word or Son were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath or
Spirit of his mouth that is Jehovah by his Eternall Son and Spirit made all things The heavens and their host are there expressed by a Synecdoche of the part for the whole creation or for all creatures both in heaven and in earth Againe Psal 104.30 Thou sendest forth thy Spirit they are created The Spirit of God creates every day what is it that continueth things in their created being but providence That 's a true axiome in Divinity Providence is creation continued Now the Spirit of God who created at first creates to this day Thou sendest forth thy Spirit they are created The work of creation was finished in the first six dayes of the world but the work of creation is renewed every day and so continued to the end of the world Successive providentiall creation as well as originall creation is ascribed to the Spirit The Scripture is full of arguments to prove that the holy Ghost is God Which because this fundamentall truth is blasphemously spoken against I shall a little touch upon First As the Spirit createth and makes the naturall man consisting of body and soule so he regenerateth which is a greater creation the whole into a spirituall man therefore he is God John 3.5 Except a man be borne againe of water and of the Spirit that is of the Spirit who is as water he cannot enter into the kingdome of God The holy Ghost is also call'd The sanctifier sanctification is regeneration in progress and motion regeneration is sanctification begun and sanctification is regeneration perfecting from day to day 2 Thes 2.13 We are bound to give thanks to God for you brethren beloved of the Lord because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and beliefe of the truth And the Apostle Peter writes to the Elect 1 Pet 1 2. according to the foreknowledge of God the father through sanctification of the Spirit Now who can doe these great things but God who can regenerate or give a new nature who can sanctifie or perfect that new nature but God alone Men and Angels must let these workes alone for ever or as we translate Psal 49.8 these acts cease for ever from men and Angels as much as the redemption of man from the grave or from hell from corruption or condemnation Secondly The Spirit is omniscient He knoweth all things 1 Cor 1.12 2 10.19 The Spirit knoweth all things yea the deep things of God He is not only acquainted with and privie to the surface and outside of things but he searcheth things to the bottom of them Nor doth he search only the deepe or bottome things of common men or of the chiefest of men Kings and Princes whose hearts are usually as much deeper then other mens as their persons and places are higher but the Spirit searcheth the deep things the bottome things of God the things of God that lye lowest and most out of sight the Spirit understandeth therefore the Spirit is God For as the Apostle argueth 1 Cor 2.11 No man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man that is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God or he that is God if the spirit that is in man were not man or the intellectuall power in man it could never know the things of man and if the Spirit of God were not God he could never search and know the deep the deepest things of God Thirdly As the Spirit of God knoweth all things as he searcheth the deep things even all the secrets and mysteries of God so he teacheth all things even all those secrets and mysteries of God which 't is needful or useful for man to know The Spirit is a teacher and he teacheth effectually Joh 16.13 When the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himselfe that is he shall not teach you a private doctrine or that which is contrary to what ye have learned of me but whatsoever he shall heare that shall he speake and he will shew you things to come Which last words are A fourth argument that he is God As the Spirit teacheth so he foretelleth all things 1 Tim 4.1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressely that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devills The Spirit of God clearly foreseeth and infallibly foretelleth what shall be before it is therefore he is God The Lord by his holy Prophet Isa 41.23 challengeth all the false Idol gods of the Heathen to give that proofe of their Divinity Shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that ye are Gods As if he had sayd Doe that and we will yield the cause Men and Devills may guesse at but none can indeed shew things to come but God Fifthly The Spirit appoints to himselfe officers and ministers in the Church therefore he is God Acts 13.2 The holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them Sixthly The holy Ghost furnisheth those Officers whom he calleth with power and gifts as he pleaseth that they may be fit for the work or ministery of the Gospel 1 Cor 12.8.11 To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdome to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit c. But all these worketh that one and the selfe-same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will Now who can give wisdome and knowledge who can give them prerogatively following in this distribution or division of gifts no rule nor giving any other reason of it but his owne will except God only Seventhly The holy Ghost is sinned against therefore he is God Some possibly may object and say This is not a convincing or demonstrative argument that the holy Ghost is God because he is sinned against For man may sin against man All second table sins are sins against our Neighbour and the Apostle tells the Corinthians 1 Ep 8.12 that while they used their lawfull liberty in eating with offence they sinned against the Brethren I answer Whosoever is properly sinned against is God because God is the Law-giver And though many actions of men are direct wrongs to man yet in every wrong done to man God also is wronged and in strict sence he only is sinned against by man For the reason why any action is a wrong to man is because it is against some Law of God And if to be sinned against in strict sence be proper to God only then the argument stands good that the Holy Spirit is God because he is sinned against especially if we consider that there is such an Emphasis put upon sinning against the holy Ghost in the holy Scripture more if possible then upon sinning against the Father or the Son Math 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you saith Christ All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto
commanded a deep sleep to fall on Adam when he tooke the rib out of his side and formed the woman We read also Gen 15.12 that a deep sleep fell on Abraham when God revealed to him what should become of his posterity and how they should be in Egypt and there much oppressed foure hundred yeares c. It is said also 1 Sam 26.12 A deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon them that is upon Saul and his guards who lay round about him And that might be called a sleep from the Lord both because it was a sleep which the Lord sent and because it was an extream deep sleep Secondly there are dreams in ordinary sleep or in very slumbrings or noddings upon the bed we may call them waking dreames Thus Elihu sheweth God taking severall times or seasons for the revealing of himselfe in dreams sometimes in deep sleep and often in the least and slightest sleeps called slumbrings I shall not here insist upon or discourse the way of Gods manifesting himselfe to the Ancienrs by dreams visions but referre the Reader to what hath already been done upon the 4th Chapter at the 12th and 13th verses where Eliphaz speaks almost in the same manner as Elihu here about visions And indeed there is a very great Consent between their two parts in this booke that of Eliphaz and this of Elihu They were both holy and propheticall men both of them had the same designe in speaking about dreams and visions namely to convince and humble Job and both of them expresse themselves in terms of a very neere Cognation So that if the reader please to consult that place Job 4.12 13. he will find these words farther cleared as to the nature and severall kinds of visions And if he turne to what hath been done upon the 14th verse of the 7th Chapter he may find the doctrine of dreams further opened Only let me adde here a note or two First It hath been the use of God to reveale his mind by dreams And I may give you five reasons why God used to apply himself to man in dreams First because in sleep man is as I may say at best leisure for God to deal with him he is not distracted with businesse nor hurried with the labours of this life but is at rest Secondly when we are awake we are very ready to debate and discusse what we receive by our own reason we are ready to Logick it with God but in sleep we take things barely as offered without discussions or disputes Thirdly in sleepe when all is quiet that which God represents takes and leaves a deeper impression upon the mind of man Common experience teacheth us how dreams stick and how those apprehensions which we have in our sleep dwell abide with us when awake Fourthly I conceive the Lord doth this chiefly that he may shew his divine skill in teaching instructing man or that he hath a peculiar art in teaching he teaches so as none of the masters of learning were ever able to teach and instruct their Schollars There was never any man could teach another when he was asleep they that are taught must at lest be awake yea they must not only be awake but watchfull but now God is such a teacher such an instructor that when we are asleep he can convay instruction and teach us his lessons this I say doth wonderfully magnifie the divine skill and power of God who is able to make us heare and understand doctrine even when we are asleep and cannot heare There may be also a fifth consideration moving God to this Possibly God would hereby assure us that the soul is a distinct essence and hath its distinct operations from the body and that even death it self cannot deprive the soul of man of its working For what is sleep but a kind of death sleep is a short death and death is along sleepe Now when the body is upon the matter laid aside the soul can goe to work when the body lyes like a block and stirs not the soul can bestir it self about many matters and run its thoughts to the utmost ends of the earth yea and raise them up to the highest heavens in blessed intercourses with God himself There 's no need to prove the matter of fact that 't is so what night with reference to some or other doth not utter this poynt of knowledg nor need I stay to prove that this is if not a demonstrative yet a very probable argument of the distinct substantiallity of the soul from the body namely its operations when the body with all its proper and peculiar faculties and powers is a sleepe and contributes nothing to those operations For though it be granted that some irrationall creatures who have no immortall part nor any thing substantiall in them distinct from their bodies though it be granted I say that these may have dreames yet their dreams differ as much from those of men as themselves doe Secondly Note The revelation of the mind of God by dreams and visions was much yea most used in those ancient times When God had not so fully revealed his mind by Scripture or his mind in the Scripture then he spake often in dreams and visions and hence the old Prophets were called seers The Apostle reports God speaking at sundry times and in divers manners in times past unto the fathers by the Prophets Heb. 1.1 The Greek text hath two very significant words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the former most properly implying how God gave out his mind in divers measures or how he parcelled it out the other implying the severall wayes in which he gave it out As the measures were various sometimes more sometimes lesse of his mind about divine matters and mysteries being dispersed so the wayes manners and formes of this dispensation were very various yet the most usuall way was by dreams and visions Numb 12.6 If there be a Prophet among you saith the Lord I the Lord will make my self known unto him in a vision and speak to him in a dreame Yea we find that in the first dayes of the Gospel dreames and visions were frequent The Apostle falling into a trance had a vision Acts 10.10 He saw heaven opened and a certain vessell descend c. And when Christ would have the Apostle Paul carry the Gospell into Macedonia a vision appeared to him in the night Acts 16.9 There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying come over to Macedonia and help us The same Apostle saith 2 Cor. 12.1 2. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord whether in the body I cannot tell or out of the body I cannot tell Pauls soul was wrapt up in such high and intimate converses with God that he even forgot how it was with his body or had little to doe with it Which suites well with that description which the Apostle John gave of himself when he had the whole mind of God
very great progress in his spirit Both these wayes we may understand it here though chieflly I conceive in the latter Sometimes God keepeth man either by his power or by perswasions and commands sent to him from setting so much as one foot forward in any sinfull way leading to the pit yet often he suffers him to goe on a great way and when he is advanced far towards yea is near very neer to the pits brink even ready to drop into it then then the Lord graciously keeps his soule from falling into it This word is used â—in the negative twice to set forth the high commendation of Abraham Gen. 22.12.16 When God had commanded Abraham to offer his Son and he was so ready to doe it that presently God tells him Now I know thou fearest God seeing thou hast not withheld or kept back thy son thine only son from me Abraham might have had many reasonings within himselfe to keep back and withhold his Son from being a Sacrifice but saith the Lord thou hast not withheld or kept him back There the word is used in the negative as also upon the same occasion at the 16 verse of the same Chapter And so by Job Chap. 7.11 Therefore I will not refraine or keep back my mouth It is as hard a matter to keep back or hold the mouth in as it is to keep back a head-strong horse with a bridle Therefore the Holy Ghost useth that Metaphor Psal 39.1 But saith Job I will not refraine my mouth I will not keep it back let it take its course I will speak in the bitternesse of my spirit The word imports powerfull acting take it either in the negative or affirmative When the tongue is kept back 't is done by a mighty power of grace and O how great as well as gracious is that power which the Lord putteth forth to keep back a poor soul that is going going apace too from falling into the pit He keepeth back His soul from the pit But doth the soul fall into the pit I answer first The soul is often in Scripture by a Synecdoche put for the whole man He keepeth back his soul that is he keepeth him from the pit secondly possibly 't is said he keepeth his soul from the pit to teach us that man by running on in sin ruines his best part it is not only his body and his skin that he destroyeth by sin but his very soul 'T is a mercy that God telleth us aforehand the worst of that danger and the greatnesse of the hazard or how great a matter we venture upon evill wayes and workes He keepeth back his soul from the pit What pit The word is rendred variously First thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foveat corruptio mors he keeps back his soul from corruption Eruens animam ejus a corruptione Vulg. The word is used for corrupting by sin Gen. 6.12 And God locked-upon the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth that is all men were grown wicked and stark naught In the very next verse vers 13. The same word is used to denote corrupting by punishment due to sin Behold I will destroy or corrupt them with the earth that is I will destroy the face of the earth or deface the beauty of the earth and I will also destroy all men from off the face of the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Prohibebit animam ejus a fovea Targ. Secondly the Septuagint render He spares his soul from death Thirdly the Caldee Paraphrase as we He prohibits his soul from the pit these three corruption death and the pit are of neer aliance and the same word in the Hebrew tongue signifieth corruption the pit and death The pit or grave is the place of corruption and the seat or house of death We find the pit and destruction put together Psal 55.23 they shall goe to the pit of destruction So then the same word may well serve to signifie a pit corruption and death because in the pit dead bodies or carkasses putrifie and corrupt Yet David prophecying of Christ speaks his assurance of escaping corruption Videre foveam est amplius quaÌ„ sepeliri nimiruÌ„ ut is demum perfectè dicatur videre foveam non qui ad tempus est in fovea sed qui ejus vim corruptricem experitur sive videt corruptionem in ea videre enim est sentire sive pati aliquid Coc. though not the pit or grave Psal 16.10 Thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption or the pit It is this word that is thou wilt not suffer him to corrupt in the pit of the grave though being dead was buried and laid in the pit yet he did not see corruption in the pit That is corruption had no power no mastery over him for he loosed the bonds of death it being impossible that he should be held by them the third day yea with the first of that day or as soon as it might be truly said that it was the third day Christ was buryed in the latter part of the sixth day of the week and arose early the first day of the week even when it did but begin to dawn towards the first day of the week Math. 28.1 And therefore seeing as naturalists according to Scripture evidence Joh. 11.39 testifie corruption doth not naturally take hold of the body till the fourth day after death The dead body of Christ was altogether free from corruption or Christ as was fore-shewed by David in the Psalme saw no corruption Further this word pit is taken not only for death the grave and corruption but for those contrivances and plots which are made and laid for any mans death or distruction Thus David said of his malicious and subtle enemies Ps 7.5 Fovea denotat omnia vitae discrimina Pin. Into the pit which they have digged themselves are fallen that is they are taken in their own plots Those words of the Psalmist are an allusion to Hunters or Fowlers who make pits to ensnare birds or beasts we must not imagine that there were pits literally made for David but the pit was a plot or a contrivance to doe him mischief and he blessed God that as himself had escaped that mischief so that the mischief-plotters and contrivers were taken with it themselves We have David speaking againe under the same metaphor Ps 9.15 The Heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made And Psal 35.7 Without cause they have hid for me their net in a pit which without cause have they digged for my soul that is they have laid a plot to undoe and destroy me And if we take pit in this sence it may hold well enough with the scope of the Text for what is the pit into which pride and evill purposes thrust sinfull man but that mischief and misery which Satan is continually plotting against him And from this mischievous plot
you may save them make them afraid that they may not be damned save them with fear plucking them as it were out of the fire Sinners are runing into the fire and do not perceive it they are tumbling down to hell and consider it not they must be pulled out of the fire else they will burn in it for ever The great businesse of the Gospell is to pull souls like firebrands out of the burning Fourthly note They who turn from their evill purposes and the pride of their hearts escape wrath the pit and the sword The wages of sin is death and well are they that escape that misse such wages If a sinner turne from his purpose from his sinfull way if his pride be subdued and he emptied of himself then his soul if kept from destruction and his life from perishing by the sword JOB Chap. 33. Vers 19 20 21 22. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pain So that his life abhorreth bread and his soul dainty meat His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen and his bones that were not seen stick out His soul draweth neare unto the grave and his life to the destroyer THe context of these foure verses containeth a description of the second meanes which the wisdome of God is pleased often to use for the humiliation of man and for the discovery or revelation of his mind unto him He speaketh in a dream in a vision of the night as was shewed before he speaketh also by paines and sicknesses as is now to be considered Vers 19. He is chastened also with pain That particle which we render also gives the text an emphasis He is chastened also For it imports that here is a further addition or supplement of meanes whereby the Lord doth awaken sinners to attend and obey his voyce The subject of these foure verses is a sick man or the sickness of man A sorrowfull subject And the sickness of man is set forth in these foure verses by foure sad symptomes or effects The first is paine grievous paine ver 19. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong paine The second symptome of this sickness is loss of appetite and his nauceating all manner of food v. 20. So that his life abhorreth bread and his soul dainty meat The third symptome of his sickness is a generall languishment or consumption all his body over v. 21. His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen and his bones that were not seene stick out The fourth and last symptome of this grievous sickness is fainting swooning or a readiness to expire and give up the ghost v. 22. His soul draweth near to the grave and his life to the destroyer That is he is sick and even sick to death All these are speciall symptomes of a sick man or of the sickness of man I begin with the first Vers 19. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed The word which we render to chasten hath a twofold signification in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reguit reprehendit corripuit verbis sive factis First to reprove or convince both by authority and reason Lev 19.17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke him or reproving thou shalt reprove him that is Thou shalt surely reprove him And in that famous Prophecy concerning Christ Isa 11.4 He shall reprove with equity we put in the margin He shall argue with equity or convince by such reasons and arguments as shall carry the greatest equity in them Thus when Christ had finished his Sermon on the mount it is sayd Math 7.28 29. The people his Auditors were astonished at his doctrine for he taught them as one having authority and not as the Scribes This Sermon carrying so great a reproofe of the Scribes and Pharisees both as to their life and doctrine throughout may well be expounded as a fullfilling of that ancient prophecy It being confessed in another place of the Gospel even by the Officers that were sent to attach him John 7.46 Never man spake like this man The words of Christ had so much evidence so much equity in them that they who came to take and catch him were taken and caught if not to conversion yet to such a conviction by what he spake that they could not though they highly displeased their Masters in saying so but say Never man spake like this man As if they had sayd Surely the man that speakes thus is more then a man Secondly The word often signifies to correct which is also to instruct correction is for instruction Chastning is the most reall reproving And so we render it He is chastened Man is instructed not only by speech and counsell but by stripes and corrections Thus David prayed Psal 6.1 O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure The first word which we render rebuke is that in the text As if he had sayd Lord doe not rebuke me by angry afflictions let me not find thee greatly displeased and my selfe sorely chastned at once He deprecates the same againe and how grievous the effects of such dispensations are he sheweth Psal 38.1 Rebuke me not in thy wrath Psal 39.11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity He means it not only of word-rebukes but of hand-rebukes also when thou with such doubled rebukes dost chasten man for iniquity What then The effects of it follow even the staining of the glory of all flesh Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth And so some interpret that Psal 105.15 He reproved Kings for their sakes speaking of his owne people the Lord did not only speak to those Kings but made them feel his hand for his peoples sake Abimelech felt his hand for Abrahams sake And so did Pharoah that hard-hearted King in a whole decade of plagues for Israels sake whom he had oppressed and would not let goe We render the word in this second sense for a rebuke by blowes or by correction which yet hath a language in it and speaks with a loud voyce to man He is chastened with paine upon his bed Paine is both the concomitant and effect of sickness The word noteth First the paine of the body caused either by the violence of inward distempers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doluit corpore vel animo or from the outward stroake of a wound Gen 34. When the sons of Jacob had prevailed with the Shechemites to receive Circumcision It came to passe on the third day when they were sore or pained with the wound of it Simeon and Levi came upon them Gen 34.25 Secondly the word signifieth as bodyly paine caused any way so paine of the mind which is griefe or sorrow Psal 69.29 I am poore and sorrowfull Sorrow is alwayes the effect of paine either outward or
Psal 38.3 Legendo vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et lis ossium ejus vehemens est i. e. dolor ossium ejus per quem cum ipso velut litigat Pisc Sunt ex Hebraeis qui 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multitudo quia per י scribatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etsi legatur per ו exponunt pro contentione quasi deus cumossibus ejus contendat Merc As if Elihu had sayd the paine and anguish by which God doth contend with all his bones is strong or God hath a strong controversie with his bones upon his sicke bed Lastly The vulgar translates He maketh all his bones to wither decay and rott When there is a consumption or a withering among the bones how intolerable is the paine Broken bones cause the acutest paines but decaying bones the most constant paine Withering bones are opposed to fatned bones in that promise made to him that fasts spiritually not carnally only in abstaining from flesh Isa 58.11 The Lord will make fat thy bones As if he had sayd Doe not feare that thou shalt pine by spirituall fasting I will make fat thy bones Which is true even in regard of that which is naturall the Lord reneweth bodily strength to those who humble themselves soule and body The body shall not suffer in this service of the Lord if the soule be truly afflicted in it Yet when he saith he will make fat thy bones it respects especially their spirituall strength that thrives best in a day of holy abstinence and fasting Here when 't is sayd their bones shall wither through paine it notes the declining of the whole body because as the bones are strong in themselves so they are the strength and support of the whole outward man When God smites the bones then he shakes the pillars and rafters of our earthly house and threatens the downfall of it He is chastened with paine upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pain Taking these words in connection with the former where Elihu spake of those dreames and visions by which God speakes to man and supposing as there he doth that because the man is not well awakened by those dreames and visions from his security therefore the Lord sendeth pain and sickness upon him as a second meanes to humble him and make him understand himselfe Observe They that will not be instructed by dreames that is by gentler meanes shall be instructed by paines They who will not take instruction even in their sleep shall be taught by that which will keep them awake Severall Scriptures tell us of the Lords proceeding with man from words to blowes And if the Lord proceeds from dreames which are warnings in sleepe to blowes if when he hath spoken to us in a dreame we hearken not he will chasten us with paine even the multitude of our bones with strong paine And then much more will he proceed from words to blows with them that are warned to awake if they heare not and take warning That 's an awakening word to those who sleepe waking Psal 7.12 13. If he turn not he will whet his sword He bath bent his bowe and made it ready If men will not returne upon word-admonition and reproofe the Lord hath his arrowes and his sword to reprove them with Turne ye at my reproofe saith the Lord Pro 1.23 I give you warning to turne but if you doe not then as presently it followeth I will laugh at your calamity and mock when your feare cometh As you have seemed to mock at my counsels so I will mock at your calamities that is I will shew you no pity as you have shewed me no respect Thus the Lord deales with proud rebellious man who casts off his yoake yea sometimes he deales very severely with his owne people for they may put him to it if words will not serve their turne words in sleepe and words when awake they may expect blowes next and be made to feele the hand of God because they have not understood or not obeyed his will Secondly From the manner of expression He is chastened with paine upon his bed The Spirit of God useth a word referring to instruction both by smiting and speaking to shew that there is a voyce in the rod. Hence note The chastisements of God upon us are our documents When God sends sicknesse and grievous paines he reproves sinners from Heaven and chides them for the errours of their lives The chastenings of the Lord are speakings He speaketh by his rods beyond all the eloquence of words Mic. 6.9 Hear ye the rod. The voyce of God is in his rod that speaks so loud from Heaven in many stroaks that the prophanest sinners on earth are sometimes forced to heare and acknowledge it As those Magicians were forced by the plaine evidence of the fact to say Ez. 8.19 This is the finger of God So they must say This is the voyce of God He speaks to us and speaks to purpose in these afflictions The voyce of God in affliction exceeds all the rhetorick and perswasions of mortall-men The crosse is a schoole in which they who are dull at hearing what God speaks to them in his word are wonderfully quickened up by his rod. The words of the wise saith Solomon are goads And surely these goads of affliction are pricking piercing words for the promoting and putting on of a lazy soul in Gods worke Job had desired God to speak with him Elihu answers Why dost thou desire more answers or directions from God Hath not God spoken to thee in these soares and sicknesses in these chastisements with pain upon thy bed Is God wanting to thy instruction hath he not clearly told thee his mind and thy duty hath he not written yea engraven his will upon thy diseased flesh What are the paines the corruption the consumption the strange deformity and sad transfiguration of thy body but as so many voyces of God speaking and speaking aloud to thee repent and humble thy selfe Therefore attend hearken to and meditate upon the answers which he hath impressed or printed legibly upon thy head face and wrinkled forehead Thou hast his answer his own way therefore be satisfied and doe not stand defiring that God would answer thee after thy way nor complaining because he doth not And we may reply not only to obstinate sinners but to many of the people of God when they enquire what the mind of God is or what he intends towards them His providences give you many items and memorandums which if you can spell out and read you may know his meaning This lesson the signification of the word offereth us as the connection of the words offered in the former Thirdly learne hence Man is a poor crazy creature subject to all diseases and infirmities Yea he is not only subject to them but he is the subject of them His body is as it were a vessell of naturall corruption as his soul is a vessell of morall
that food which how sick soever we are our stomacks will never loath yea the sicker we are our soules will the more like hunger after and feed the more heartily upon The flesh of Christ is meat indeed Joh 6.55 Feed upon him by faith in health and in sicknesse ye will never loath him His flesh is the true meat of desires such meat as will fill and fatten us but never cloy us A hungry craving appetite after Christ and sweet satisfaction in him are inseparable and still the stronger is our appetite the greater is our satisfaction And which is yet a greater happiness our soules will have the strongest appetite the most sharp-set stomacke after Christ when through bodily sickness our stomacks cannot take down but loath the very scent and sight of the most pleasant perishing meate and delicious earthly dainties Looke that ye provide somewhat to eat that will goe downe upon a sick-bed your sick bed meat is Christ all other dainty food may be an abhorring to you Further Not only are we to consider the sickness of the body as the cause of this tastlesness and listlesness after bread But we are to consider the sick man abhorring dainty meate under the hideings of Gods face or in feares about his spirituall state as appeares by that which followeth If there be a messenger with him an interpreter one of a thousand to shew unto man his uprightnessâ— or to set him right in his spirituall state c. The sick man for want of that as well as for want of health can taste no sweetness in the rarest dainties Hence note A sense of divine displeasure or the hideing of divine favour from the soule renders all outward comforts comfortlesse to us If a man have never so much health yet the appearances of divine displeasure will make him sick of his most pleasant things Carnall men can eat and drink and live upon pleasures yea upon the pleasures of sin and goe on merrily with them a while because they know not the meaning of the displeasure of God nor doe they know what the favour of God meaneth they understand not what they want yea they flatter themselves that they have enough and are well enough though they have nothing and are nothing that is of any worth But if God once awaken them out of this dreame and shew them their cursed condition all will be gall and wormwood to their taste or as gravel between their teeth As the sense of divine favour makes bitter things sweet and sorrowfull things comfortable to us the soure herbs of affliction dainties to us So not only common but dainty meat all the cates and viands of this world will be not only tastless but bitter to us when God frownes upon us An earnest in the love and favour of God is the good of all good things For the close of all take these two Counsells upon the occasion of these words First Receive your bread and dainty meate with prayer and thankesgiving you may quickly else come to abhorre your bread yea and your dainties The word and prayer both sanctifie and sweeten all creature-enjoyments Secondly Take heed of abusing your meate ye may quickly be brought to a loathing of it When they who have given themselves up to luxury and intemperance lye upon their sick-beds and find their stomacke turned from all their dainties it will be most grievous to them to consider how they have abused their dainties to feed their lusts As some who abuse the creatures are punished with the want of them so others with an abhorrence and loathing of them So much for this second symptome of sickness His life abhorreth bread and his soul dainty meat The third followeth and appeareth in the generall decay and languishment of the sick mans body Vers 21. His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seene and his bones that were not seene stick out In this verse and the next Elihu still insists upon his description of the sick mans condition and in them he gives us two other sad effects or symptomes of his sickness First The generall wast and consumption of the body vers 21. Secondly The utmost perill of life v. 22. Elihu describes the first effect of sicknesse the first here but the third in order by two things First By the disappearing of that which used to be seene and appeare very faire and beautifull the visible part grows as it were invisible his flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seene Secondly By the appearing of that which used not to be seene his invisible parts not so in their own nature but as to their place I say his invisible parts grow visible His bones which were not seen stick out Thus with much elegancy he sets forth the sorrowfull and deplorable estate of the sick man His flesh is consumed away As if he had sayd Before his sicknesse he was full of flesh fat and faire but falling into sickness he falls away and is worne as we say to skin and bones his flesh is consumed Flesh in Scripture is taken two wayes First Improperly and Tropically Secondly Literally or Properly In a Tropicall and Improper sense flesh signifieth our sinfull corruption Gal 5.17 The flesh evermore lusteth against the spirit that is the unregenerate part in man against the regenerate These two are always contending and combating with one another in all those whom Christ hath conquered to himselfe Happy are they that finde their flesh in this sense consuming away and 't is that which every man is studying who knows what godlinesse meanes the consumption of this flesh even the mortification of his lusts of pride and earthliness of wrath envie and unbeliefe Secondly flesh by a figure is put for the whole naturall body consisting of many parts dissimilar to flesh Thus the Psalmist complained in prayer that the Lord had given the flesh of his Saints to the beasts of the earth Psal 79.2 that is he had exposed their bodies through the rage and cruelty of their enemies to the teeth and bowells of savage and ravenous beasts Thirdly flesh is also put for the whole man consisting both of soul and body Gen. 6.12 13. The Lord saw that all flesh had corrupted their wayes That is all men who are made up of a body and soul had corrupted their wayes by letting loose and acting their sinfull corruptions Fourthly flesh is sometimes put for that which is bâ—st in man his greatest naturall perfections whatsoever in him is lesse then grace whatsoever is highest in him below the spirit is called flesh in Scripture When Peter Math. 16.17 had made that blessed confession which is the rock upon which the Church is built thou art Christ the Son of the living God presently Christ tells him flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee that is the highest and the most perfect piece of nature hath not taught thee this lesson the Evangelist saith of all true beleevers who have received
Prophet being commanded to cry and putting the question what shall I cry had this answer All flesh is grasse There indeed flesh is taken in the most comprehensive notion as to all externalls not only the flesh of the body but all the riches honours and dignities of this world come under the name of flesh there All flesh is grasse Isa 40.6 But why doth he call it grasse 'T is so under a two-fold consideration First for the greenenesse and fairenesse of it God hath put beauty upon this fading flesh both for the comfort and for the tryall of man that flesh is faire as a flower is matter of delight and to abstract our thoughts or weane our hearts from that which is faire and delightfull is matter of tryall How hardly are we taken off from affecting flesh our owne or others while this grasse continues beautifull and greene Secondly Flesh is grasse because soone gone as it followeth in the Prophet The grasse withereth and the flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord or his breath like a blasting East winde bloweth upon it Which yet some expound more spiritually of the Spirit of God discovering the vanity and mutability of all earthly things to the soule for that presently causeth the gayest and best of them to wither or be as a withered flower before our eyes In which sense David sayd Psal 119. â—6 I have seene an end of all perfection Take flesh in the largest sense and 't is a consuming thing The fashion or scheame of the world passeth away and so doth the fashion of all those perfections or most perfect enjoyments which are but of a worldly birth and extraction Flesh under every forme is a fading thing especially the flesh of the best-form'd face body of man Whence take these six inferences If the flesh the fairest outside of man be a fading thing then First Be not desirous much lesse ambitious to make a faire shew in the flesh for it may prove but a vaine shew and at last not so much as a shew Flesh may so consume away that it cannot be seene When the Apostle tells us of some who desire to make a faire shew in the flesh Gal 6.12 he specially meanes it of those that brave it and boast themselves in the outward part of religion and would appeare much in the forme 'T is a most vaine thing to desire to make a faire shew in the flesh of spirituall things as hypocrites and formalists doe And 't is a very vaine thing to desire to make a faire shew in the flesh of corporall things as proud and vain-glorious men love to doe Many desire to make a faire shew in the flesh of their bodyes they love to have faire faces and faire skins to be fairely drest and deckt is a great part of their care But take heed of desiring to make a faire shew in this or in any thing that is called flesh For when you have done all flesh will be a nothing And after you have bestowed much cost upon the flesh of this body that it may be seene a sickness may come and consume it that it cannot be seene Secondly Take heed of priding your selves in the flesh when your flesh possibly unsought by you makes a faire shew Though you have beauty and the goodliest structure of body that ever was seene though you have riches and honour the highest built estate that ever was enjoyed what have you to be proud of will it not consume and moulder away may it not melt like a snow-ball or like wax before the fire be not proud of any thing called flesh how goodly a sight soever it is to thâ— world for in a little in a very little time there may be nothing of flesh left in sight His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seene Thirdly Be not over-carefull to provide for your flesh the outward man this body or any thing that concernes it As the Apostle utterly forbids us to make provision for the flesh to fullfill the lusts thereof Rom 13.14 that is those lusts that are exercised in the flesh so be not much carefull not at all unduely carefull to make provision for your flesh to satisfie the necessities of it for 't is but a perishing thing Be not carefull what you shall eate and drinke and wherewith you shall be clothed as Christ himselfe adviseth Math 6. The flesh that you prepare for your flesh is not more perishing then the flesh for which it is prepared Meates for the belly and the belly for meates but God shall destroy both it and them 1 Cor 6.13 It will not be long before there shall be an end both of the meate that is eaten and of eating meate Fourthly If the flesh may soone be so consumed by the hand of God that it cannot be seene then be not unwilling to wast and consume your flesh which is seen in working for God or in doing good worke which is the worke of God your flesh may consume upon worse termes quickly then working for God why then should you be unwilling to consume it in Gods worke Are not some so tender of their carkasse and their skin that they are afraid though that feare be their shame and sin of taking too much paines in the worke of God lest they should dammage their bodyes endanger their health and consume their flesh This flesh will wast with idleness is it not better to wast it by industry in usefull services The Apostle was willing to spend and be spent in the service of the Corinthians That is he was willing to spend not only his purse and his paines but to be spent as to his bodyly strength health and life He cared not for his owne flesh so he might be serviceable to their spirits and promote their spirituall good 2 Cor 12.15 Fifthly Be not unwilling to waste and consume your flesh in duty with God as the flesh consumes in work for God so in duty with God in prayer and fasting and selfe-humbling these are duties with God Some are afraid of taking too much paines in these soule-workes with God lest they hurt their bodies their flesh We can never lay out our strength or bring our flesh to a better market we can never put it off at a higher rate if it must be put off then in wayes of communion with God Yet let us remember we have a promise that our bodyes shall thrive as well as our soules even in those duties of communion with God which are most expensive and severe to our flesh prayer with fasting Isa 58.61 And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfie thy soule in drought and make fat thy bones Which though it may have a more spirituall meaning yet there is a truth in it as to the poynt in hand Holy Fasting which is a soule-fatning duty as all agree is under a gracious promise that it shall also be a body-fatning yea a bone-fatning duty Now though we
have a good assurance that while we are trading with God for the gaine and encrease of our soules our bodyes shall not waste nor be loosers yet we should be ready to waste and weare off the flesh from our bodyes for the gaine and encrease of our soules Sixthly Why should we be unwilling to offer our flesh to be consumed by the fury of men or by the rage of flames in the cause of God seeing it may ere long consume by sickness and not be seene why should we be afraid to let our flesh consume or rot in prisons or by tortures for Christ seeing a disease will doe it and hath often done it Thousands of the blassed Martyrs and suffering Saints have rejoyced they had flesh to consume when God called them to it So some interpret that Scripture before mentioned 2 Cor 12.14 where the Apostle professed I am willing to be spent for you how spent as an offering or sacrifice by fire in the service of your faith and in bearing my witness to those truths of the Gospel which I have preached to you And indeed he in that sense spent his flesh at the last he suffered death and let his flesh fall in holding up and holding out the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ It is better that our flesh should be thus consumed if God call us to it then that we leave it to be consumed by age or sickness by wormes or rottenness How freely should we offer up this flesh to so noble a consumption seeing we cannot keepe it long from so meane a consumption doe what we can Secondly Note Sickness is a consumer sickness is a consumer of all that will consume It consumes the body and it consumes the purse yea it consumes all our worldly comforts and concernments it consumes every thing but grace We say A time of sickness is a spending time the usuall reference of that expression is to spiritualls In health we gather grace and lay up truths which we spend in sickness But though sickness be a spending time yet it is not I am sure it ought not to be a wasting time to grace and spiritualls A spending time it is that is a time wherein a godly man may lay out a great deale of his spirituall stock and heavenly treasure a great deale of faith and patience a great deale of sweet contentation and selfe-submission to God But sickness is not a wasting time to any of these graces or heavenly treasures yea where grace is reall and active it is not only not wasted or consumed but encreased and improved occasionally by sickness God having promised that all things shall worke together for good to them that love him Rom 8.28 will not suffer the best things of those that love him their graces to take hurt by the worst of bodyly sicknesses Sickness doth only dammage the body and deface the beauty of the flesh and it quickly doth as Elihu affirme of his sick man in the text His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seene yea as it followeth And his bones that were not seene stick out Flesh and bones are the two eminent materialls of this faire and most regular building The Body of man The Bones of a healthy and strong man are not seene because they are covered with flesh they are only felt or perceived through their clothing skin and flesh God hath put these very comely and beautifull garments as a covering upon our bones but sickness pulls away these coverings it pulls away the cloaths from our bones and makes them appeare as it were naked When the fat is dript away and the flesh is spent the bones seeme to start out We commonly say of a man that hath been consumed by a lingring sickness He is a very Skelleton he lookes like an Anatomy which is nothing else but a pack of bones the flesh is gone Thus David mourned Psal 31.10 My life is spent with griefe my yeares with sighing my strength faileth because of mine iniquity and my bones are consumed The sin-sickness of a sencible soule consumes the bones more then any bodyly sickness This was not only the consuming but the breaking of Davids bones Psal 51.8 And as his sorrow for his owne transgressions so his sorrow for the afflictions of Sion had the like effect in him Psal 102.3 4 5. My dayes are consumed like smoake or into smoake they vanish like smoake and my bones are burnt as a hearth My heart is smitten and withereth like grasse so that I forget to eate my bread By reason of the voyce of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin Et comminuentur ossa ejus non videntur interpretantes vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in significatione Syriaca Pisc SignificationeÌ„ Syriacam malo quam omnes penè hebraei sequuntur Merc Some read this Text His bones are diminished lessened wasted or broken in pieces as if the consumption reached not only his flesh but his bones too That 's a fierce disease which at once invadeth and wasteth the bones The word which we render to stick out signifieth in the Syriack Idiom the abating lessening or breaking of any thing into lesser parts or pieces And so those words are not seen in the text which according to our translation refer to the time of health when a man is so fat and full fleshed that his bones cannot be seen scarcely felt those words I say are referred according to this translation to the time of sickness which is supposed so to diminish and wast the bones that by an ordinary straine of Rhetorick they are said not to be seen His bâ—â—â—â— are diminished they are not seen We also render this word◠〈◊〉 that first propheticall word concerning our restoring by Christ Gen. 3.15 by bruising It that is the womans seed shall bruise thy head that is the Devills and thou shalt bruise his heele When bones are bruised and as it were shuffled together they cannot be seen in their proper places or as once they were fixt by nature This various reading doth not vary the generall sence of the Text but only heighten and encrease it We render fully and significantly his bones that were not seen stick out Hence note There is no man so strong there is nothing in man so strong that can stand out against the strength of sickness Our bones are not made of brasse sickness will diminish them and pain master them Secondly Whereas 't is said His flesh that was seen is not seen and his bones that were not seen stick out or are seen Observe Sicknesse makes a wonderfull change in man It puts that out of sight which was seen and it brings that in sight which was not seen This holds true not only as to that which is naturall in man his flesh and bones of which this text treats in the letter but 't is true also as to that which is morall and spirituall in man his virtues and his vices his graces and his lusts
or corruptions How often is the flesh in a morall sence that is the outward profession of a hypocrite consumed in sickness and no more seen will the hypocrite alwayes call upon God Job 27.10 He will not He that doth all to be seen that 's the character of a hypocrite Math. 6.5 will in a little time doe such a little or rather such a nothing in Religion that it cannot be seen at all His profession is sick when he is fick and then also that which was not seen sticks out the hypocrite covereth many of his corruptions his impatiency murmuring and unbelief in a day of prosperity with the skin at left or fair shew of faith but in a day of trouble those dead bones appear and stick out A day of sorrow sicknesse and trouble is a great discoverer it occasions the appearance and sticking out of many base lusts that were not seen before 'T is so also in the better way with godly men their corruptions that appeared upon them before are abated wasted and consumed by affliction and many of their graces which lay hid and unseen stick out and appear gloriously in a day of trouble or upon a sick bed Their patience submission of spirit under the hand of God their long-sufferance and sweet self-resignation to the will of God which lay hid shew themselves Sicknesse and affliction make wonderfull changes and discoveries both as to the outward and inward man 't is seldome seen or known either how good or how bad any man is till he is in paine or reduced to some extreamity till his very bones are vexed or till as Elihu further describes the sick man in the next verse Vers 22. His soul draweth nigh to the grave and his life to the destroyer When the disease is at the height as Physitians speak then the sick mans soul draweth nigh unto and is ready to goe downe into the grave But doth the soul goe to the grave I answer the soul here as frequently in Scripture is put for the person as if he had said the man draweth nigh to his grave The soul being the noblest and most princely part of man is honoured with the denomination of the whole man or because all the world is nothing to us as Christ told his Disciples Math. 16.26 if we lose our souls therefore man is spoken of as if he were nothing but a soul Gen. 14.21 The King of Sodom said unto Abram give me the souls and take the goods to thy self we translate give me the persons and put in the Margin give me the souls Thus 't is said Gen. 46.27 All the souls of the house of Jacob that came into Egypt were threescore and ten The Apostles rule of obedience to Magistrates runs in this straine Let every soul that is let every man be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13. And I conceive the Apostle expresseth it so because there ought to be an inward subjection to that as to any other Ordinance of God the soul must be subject as well as the body to the powers of this world that is there must be though no subjection of conscience yet a conscientious subjection unto Magistrates Thus here his soul that is himself the man draweth neer Vnto the grave to corruption say some to the pit say others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corruptioni sepulchrum a graecis vocatur Sarcophagus Both are joyned or meete in the grave for that is the pit of corruption The Greeks call the grave Flesh-eater to draw nigh to the grave imports such a prevalency of diseases as bring a man to the graves mouth to the very poynt of death and then as we say he is drawing on Whither is a sick man drawing on surely to his grave David Psal 107.18 having described the condition of sick men adds they draw nigh unto the gates of death Here which is the same Elihu saith his soul draweth near to the grave Hence note Diseases and death are near one another A sick bed and a grave are not far distant David speaking of himself and others in extreame danger of death by the cruell plots and cunning snares of the enemy hath a like expression Psal 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the graves mouth as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth as if he had said we are so near death that 't is a miracle if we escape it Though we are yet alive yet we have the sentence of death in our selves and are within sight of our graves What David spake there of himself in consort with others Heman spake personally of himself Psal 88.3 My life draweth nigh unto the grave We are alwayes in our health drawing towards the grave but in sickness we are drawing near unto it There is but a little distance between any man and the grave there is scarcely any distance at all between a man that is very sick and the grave Now if the sick man be drawing near unto the grave then First Let them that are sick remember the grave 't is our duty to be alwayes remembring and meditating upon the grave in our health much more should that be our remembrance meditation when we are sick most of all when we are sick unto death or ready to dye and drop into the grave Secondly If the sick are drawing neare unto the grave then let sick men draw near unto God if ever you will draw near unto God the living God be sure to doe it upon the borders of death 't is good yea best to draw nigh unto God when we are well and all is well with us even at best in the world Psal 73.25 But when we are in danger or drawing nigh unto death O how earnestly should we draw nigh unto God in the actings of faith and love To whom should we goe as Peter said to Christ Joh. 6.68 in the appearances and approaches of temporall death but unto him who hath the words of eternall life It is high time for us to draw nigh unto God when any of the comforts of this life are withdrawing from us is it not more then high time therefore to draw nigh to him when life it selfe is withdrawing from us and we drawing nigh to the grave How miserable is their condition who have death near them and God far from them Though we walke through the valley of the shadow of death yet as David professed he would not Psal 23.4 we need not feare any evill while God is with us but how will the very shadowes of death put us in feare if God be not with us and what confidence can we have of his being with us if we are not acquainted with him if we use not to draw neare to him Thirdly If they that are sick draw near unto the grave then it is good for such as come to visit their sick friends wisely to mind them of the grave when will a discourse with our friends of death and the grave
be seasonable if not when we see them dying and going to the grave yet some when they visit sick friends will not speak a word of either they fear it may hasten death to hear of it that speaking of the grave may put them into it then which I know no fear more foolish or more to be feared Yea some will forbid visiters to mention death when their Relations lye sick O doe not speak of death to my Husband saith the Wife c. But remember it if the sick are drawing near to the grave they that visit them should remember them of the grave both in prayer and in conference to speak of death cannot hurt the body but the not speaking of it may hurt the soul and hinder it from getting out of the snares both of spirituall and eternall death Yet godly prudence and great caution is to be used about it none should doe it bluntly nor suddenly but having by discreet insinuations first hinted to the sick man his danger of death we should then by faithfull counsells prepare him for it and by comfortable Scripture cordialls strengthen and arme his spirits against it Such savoury and well mannaged discourses of death may through the blessing of God be a savour of eternall life to the sick man and will not in the least prejudice his recovery from sickness when his soul draweth near to the grave Aâ—d his life to the destroyers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mortificantibus Mont The Hebrew is to those that kill or to lâ—fe destroyers There is a difference among Interpreters who are here intended by these Destroyers to whom the sick mans life draweth near or who are these life destroyers First some thus his life to the destroyers that is to his enemies that are ready to destroy him But that 's improper to the text which speaking of sickness cannot intend any destroying enemy but the last enemy which is to be destroyed death or the antecedents and usuall attendants of it sicknesses Ad Angelos morti praefectos non incommodè resertur sequentis versiculi ratione habita ubi Angeli vitam annunciantis unius de mille mentionem facit ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligas mortis â—umcios Merc Secondly by the destroyers others understand Angells who are commission'd and sent of God to cut the thread of life and to take mortalls out of this world by mortall diseases and so the destroying Angell in this verse stands in opposition to that comforting Angell spoken of in the next verse if there be a messenger or an Angell c. That Angells have such a Ministry is clear 2 Sam. 24.16 Where David having chosen to fall into the hands of God an Angell is presently dispatcht to doe execution upon his people And when the Angell stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it the Lord repented him of the evill and said to the Angell that destroyed the people it is enough stay now thine hand c. That destroyer so he is called Exod. 12.23 who slew all the first borne of the Egyptians Gods last and greatest plague upon them his tenth plague is by most interpreted to be an Angell yea by some a good Angell because appointed and directed by God to spare his people the Jewes and to poure out his vengeance upon the Egyptians his and their enemies For most usually the wicked are plagued by good Angells and the good as Job in this book was are afflicted by evill Angells Howbeit that text say some Psal 78.49 leadeth us rather to beleeve that it was an evill Angell He cast upon them meaning the Egyptians the fiercenesse of his anger wrath indignation and trouble by sending evill Angells among them Yet possibly those Angells which destroyed the Egyptians are called evill Angells not because they were so in their nature but because they were Ministers of evill to that hard-hearted people Which way soever we take it there is a truth in it applicable to the Scripture here in hand And so some expound that of Solomon Prov. 17.11 An evill man seeketh only rebellion therefore a cruell Messenger shall be sent against him The text may be rendred a cruell Angell that is an Angell with a Message of wrath and destruction shall be sent unto him The Apostle 1 Cor. 10.10 speaking of those dreadfull judgments which God sent upon his people the Jewes in the Wildernesse such as we are like to find in these Gospell times if we provoke him for all those things are said to have happened unto them for Types or examples vers 11. And there he gives us warning neither murmure ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer That is by the Pestilence or Plague as 't is expressed Numb 14.12 37. which the Apostle Paul calleth a destroyer because doubtless it was executed by some invisible destroyer or Angell The Devill whom John in the Revelation Chap. 9.11 calleth the Angell of the bottomlesse pit is there also set forth by this Title whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon The Devill is the Apollyon the Abaddon both which signifie a destroyer yea the Devill Heb. 2.14 is said to have the power of death as if he were set over that sad work and Lorded it over dying men yet let us know to our comfort the Devill hath not the power of death as a Lord or Judge but only as an Executioner thus the sick mans life may be said to draw nigh to the destroyer that is to the destroying Angell or to the messenger of death Thirdly we may take the destroyers not for persons sent to destroy but for diseases and sicknesses these are destroyers And thus it may be said of a sick man his life draweth nigh to the destroyers that is he is in the hand or under the power of such diseases as probably will destroy him That seems to be Mr. Broughtons understanding of the words Praestat generale est et ad omnia mortis signa et mortifera quicquid illud sit referre Merc who renders his soul draweth nigh to the grave and his life to killing maladies Whatsoever is a death-bringer whatever is deadly or mortall to man may be comprehended under this expression The Destroyers And so these words His life draweth nigh to the destroyer may signifie only thus much he is deadly or as we commonly expresse it mortally sick There 's no hopes of him he is past recovery the Physitians have given him over Heman Psal 88.3 4 5. speaks to this sence and near in this language of himself My soul is full of troubles my life draweth nigh unto the grave I am counted with them that goe down into the pit I am as a man that hath no strength Free among the dead like the slaine that lye in the grave whom thou remembrest no more Heman was alive yet with respect either to the anguish of his soul
then ten thousand of those vanishing delights Yet how many are there who run themselves to the graves mouth and into the thickest throngs of those destroyers for the taking up of such pitifull and perishing delights who to please their flesh for a few moments in surfeiting drunkenness and wantonness bring many dayes yea moneths and yeares of paine and torment upon their flesh yea and not only shorten I meane as to what they might probably have had by the course of nature the number of their dayes but suddenly end extinguish them It hath been sayd of old Gluttony kills more men then the sword that is it casts â—â—em into killing diseases 'T is a maxime in warre Starve your enemy if you can rather then fight him cut his throat without a knife destroy him without drawing a sword that is with hunger Some are indeed destroyed with hunger and hunger if not relieved will destroy any man Yet surfeiting destroyeth more then hunger and 't is a more quicke and speedy destroyer We have knowne many who have cut their owne throats by cutting too much and too fast for their bellyes Pampering the Body destroyeth more bodies then starving Many while they draw nigh to their Tables their soules as Elihu here saith are drawing neere to the grave and their life to the destroyers Therefore remember and consider O ye that are men given to appetite as Solomon calleth such Pro 23 2. or rather as the Hebrew elegancy there hath it ye that are Masters of appetite studying your Bellyes till indeed ye are mastered by appetite to you I say remember and consider Health is more then meate and life then dainty faire All the content that intemperance can give you cannot recompence you for the paines that sickness will give you you may have pleasure for an houre or two and sickness for a moneth or two for a yeare or two And if all the pleasure we take in satisfying that which though it may be glutted yet will not be satisfied a lust cannot recompence the paines that are found in a sick bed for a few dayes moneths or yeares how will it recompence any for those everlasting paines that are found in hell where the damned shall be alwayes conversing with death and destruction and yet never dye nor be destroyed Fourthly Forasmuch as sickness is often accompanied with such grievous dolours and racking tortures let the sick pray much that they may be armed with patience who knows what tryalls and extremities sickness may bring him to Though the beginnings and first appearances of it are but small like the cloud which first appeared to the servant of Eliah onely of a hands-breadth yea though it begin but with the little finger of the hand yet as that little cloud did the whole face of the heaven so this little distemper may over-spread the whole body and put you to the exercise of all your patience it may hang and encrease upon you till it hath broken your bones and consumed your flesh and brought you to the graves mouth therefore pray for patience Lastly Let not the strong man glory in his â—â—â—ngth nor the healthy man in his health sicknesse may come shortly and then how strong soever any man is downe he must and lye by it There 's no wrestling away sickness any way if God send it and bid it come but by wrestling with God as Jacob did Gen 32. in prayer If you thinke to wrestle away bodily sickness by bodily strength and striving with it you will be throwne and get the fall Who can stand before a feaver or a consumption when they arrest us in the name of the Great King and carry us prisoners to our beds Therefore let no man glory in his strength if any man doe it shewes at present his morall weakness and his naturall weakness may quickly teach him another lesson and spoyle his glorying JOB Chap. 33. Vers 23 24 25 26. If there be a messenger with him an interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness Then he is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down to the pit I have found a ransome His flesh shall be fresher then a childes he shall return to the dayes of his youth He shall pray unto God and he will be favourable unto him and he shall see his face with joy for he will render to man his righteousness THese words hold forth the third way by which God speakes or reveales himselfe to man and recovers him out of his sin As if Elihu had said When God hath brought a man to his sick bed and he yet continueth in his blindness not perceiving either his owne errour or the purpose and intention of God to him If then besides all this God so order the matter that in his mercifull providence he provideth for his further instruction and sends a speciall messenger as he doth me to thee an interpreter which is a singular favour of God to explain and expound the meaning of his dealings with him and what his owne condition is to bring him to a true sight and sence of his sin and to set him upright in the sight of God by the actings of faith and repentance this soone altereth the case and hereupon God is presently appeased towards him Then he is gracious and then many blessed fruits and effects of his grace doe follow and are heaped on him Here therefore we have a very illustrious instance of Gods loving kindness to poore sinfull man recovering and fetching him backe when he is as it were halfe dead from the gates of death restoring him both as to soule and body putting him into a perfect so farre as on this side heaven it may be called perfect state and giving him indeed what he can reasonably desire of him In the context of these foure verses Consider First The instrument or meanes by which God brings this about and that is by sending a messenger or a choice interpreter to the sick mans bed to counsel and advise him Vers 23. If there be a messenger with him c. Secondly We have here the motive or first moving cause of this mercy that is the grace or free favour of God then he will be gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going downe to the pit that is being gracious he will give forth this word for his deliverance Then he is gracious to him c. v. 24. Thirdly We have here the meritorious Cause of this mercifull deliverance and that is a ransom I have found a ransom at the latter end of the 24th verse Fourthly We have the speciall benefits of this deliverance which are two-fold First Respecting his body He is delivered from the pit of death v. 24. And not only so but he hath a life as new as when he began to live His flesh shall be fresher then a childes the dayes of youth shall returne to him againe v. 25. Secondly We have the benefit respecting
Christ to declare to man this righteousness for his uprightness And that hence it is as Elihu proceeds in the next verse to assure the sick man that God is and will be gracious to him Vers 24. Then he is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going downe into the pit I have found a ransome These words hold out the generall issue and fruit of the labours and good counsell of that messenger or Interpreter dealing with the sick man and shewing him his uprightness There are three distinct interpretations which run quite through this verse and they arise from a different apprehension about the antecedent in this pronoune He then he is gracious unto him He who is that All the Popish interpreters refer it to the Guardian-Angel sent to attend on this sick man Then he the Angel will be gracious and he will say deliver him But as I then layd by that opinion that the messenger was an Angel properly taken so I shall not stay upon that which is a consequent of it here Secondly Severall of our Protestant interpreters referre this he to the Messenger or Interpreter to the Prophet or any spiritually wise and holy man sent of God to assist and help the sick man in his distresse Some are so positive in this opinion that they deny the text any other reference Hoc de nuncio dicitur non de deo aptè enim tribuitur nuncio etinterpreti voluntatis dei ut miscreatur hominis in summo vitae discrimine constituti Merl Et de gratia eum alloquutus dixerit redime cum nec desceÌ„dat in soveam expiatione quam inveni Jun Summa orationis quae apud deum pro afflictis habenda est Jun This is to be understood of the Messenger saith one and not of God And I grant 't is sutable to the business of the messenger who comes to comfort and instruct the sick man that he should pitty and compassionate him in that disconsolate condition and likewise pray for him according to the tenour of these words in the text or to the same effect O Lord God be gracious to him and deliver him let him not goe downe to the pit for the ransome sake which I have found As if Elihu had sayd When that faithfull messenger shall have declared the benefits and grace of God to the afflicted man then pittying his afflicted soule he shall pray for him O God deliver him from death and condemnation from the pit and from destruction for I have found and shewed him a ransome by which his soule may be delivered and his sins pardoned In the 19th Chapter of this Booke at the 27th verse Job useth this word in his application to his friends for their pitty to him and more favourable dealing with him Have pitty upon me have pitty upon me O my friends for the hand of God hath touched me As if he had sayd The hand of God presseth me sore O let not your hand be heavie upon me too This exposition carrieth a great truth in it and is not at all inconsistent with the letter of the text yet I shall not insist upon it but adhere rather to a third which makes the antecedent to this He to be God himselfe Then he is gracious That is when the messenger hath dealt with the sick man when he hath opened his condition to him and shewed him his uprightness or how he may stand upright before God or what his righteousnesse is before God and hath brought his heart to an unfeigned sorrow for his sin and to the actings of faith upon the promise then God is gracious and then he gives out the word for his restoring and orders it to be presently dispatcht away to him saying deliver him unloose him unbind him let him not goe downe into the pit I have found a ransome Taking this for the generall sence of the Text I shall proceed to open the particulars Then he will be gracious or then he will have mercy upon him as Mr Broughton translates Then and not before till then the Lord lets his bones ake and his heart tremble till then he suffers him to be brought so low that he is reckoned among the dead but then though not before he sheweth himself gracious unto him When a poor man is reduced to the utmost extreamity then is Gods opportunity then is the season of mercy and the Lord therefore lets us be at the lowest that we may be the more sencible of his goodness in raising and lifting us up The Lord suffers many as Paul spake of himself 2 Cor. 1.9 to have the sentence of death in themselves that they may learn not to trust in themselves but in him who raiseth the dead We seldome give God either the glory of his power by trusting him or of his goodnesse by thanking him for our deliverances till we are brought to the last cast as we say or to such an exigent as leaves no visible meanes in probabillity no nor of possibility to escape And when 't is thus with us then he is gracious Secondly Then he is gracious that is when the man is doubly humbled when the mans heart is graciously broken when the man is growne into an abhorrence of himself and of his sin or loathes himself for his sin as much as he loathed his meat as 't is said in the former verse when his heart is thus taken quire off from all that is below in the world and gathered up beleevingly to Jesus Christ in the word of promise Then he is gracious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Misertus gratificatus gratia prosecutus fuit ex gratia donavit benesecit The Originall word hath many comfortable significations in it yet all resolvable into this one he is gracious It signifies to pity to have compassion tenderly to regard to bestow grace to doe good there is enough in the bowells of this word to bear up the spirit of the sickest body or of the most troubled soul It is said Gen. 6.8 Noah found grace or favour in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was the only man that held out the grace of God in that age him only did God find perfect or upright in his Generations Gen. 6.9 and Noah only was the man that found grace or favour in the eyes of the Lord in that generation Gen. 6.8 God was gracious to him and his when the whole world periâ—hed by water That proper name John is derived from this word when God gave Zachary and Elizabeth a Son in their old age he also directed how he would have him called ye shall call his name John which name as we may well conceive was assigned him either because God did very graciously and favourably bestow that gift upon his Parents in their old age and so shewed them much favour a child at any time is a great favour from God especially in old age or secondly because John was to open the Kingdome of Grace to preach the
commune with thee There was a gracious manifestation of the presence of God above the Mercy-seat because that typified Jesus Christ the true Propitiatory or ransome covering and hiding out of the sight of God for ever all our defections iniquities and transgressions And hence the same word which signifies expiation or redemption signifieth also the procuring cause of our Redemption here called as also in the New Testament A Ransome I have found a Ransome A ransome is properly a price demanded for release out of bondage And when the Captive is released the price is paid To be redeemed and to be ransomed is the same thing Isa 35.9 10. The redeemed shall passe there and the ransomed of the Lord shall returne and come to Sion and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall obtaine joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Graeci dicunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod non est aliud quam sanguis Christi in quem et vetores crediderunt Merc Thus here Deliver him saith the Lord from going downe to the pit I am satisfied I have found a price a ransome Both Law and Gospel meet in this here is the Law by which the man being humbled confesseth his own sin and the wrath of God due to it Here is also the Gospel by which he hath been taught to beleeve that his sins are pardoned and the wrath of God turned away from him for the ransome which Christ hath paid So then 't is not as popish Expositers tell us I have found a ransome that is I have found the mans good workes I have found his repentance I have found his tears his prayers his almes I now see that in him for which I may be propicious to him and deliver him from the sickness under which he is detained Apparet in homine aliquid aequitatis ex quo ei misererâ— possum quam quaerebam Aquin thus they generally make somewhat in man or done by man his ransome at least to have a share in it The heart as was shewed before is prepared for deliverance by the workings of faith and repentance But the ransome upon which deliverance is given is nothing at all wrought in us or by us Woe to us notwithstanding our prayers and repentance our reformations and humiliations To put these in place of a ransome or to hope for deliverance from the pit upon their account is to pervert the whole Gospel Others give a better sence yet not clear enough thus He hath humbled himself and I am as well satisfied as if I had received a ransome but I lay that by also For when God saith I have found a ransome we are to understand it of a reall ransome of full pay or satisfaction not of a ransome by favour and acceptation This satisfaction to the justice of God is only and wholly made by Jesus Christ without any the least contribution from man The perfect ransome which the Lord finds is the blood of his own Son which is called the blood of the Covenant because thereby the Covenant is confirmed and all Covenant mercies assured to us Upon this price or ransome God restores the sick sinner and pardons him he heales both his body and his soul And that Job had knowledge of this ransome as the only meanes of deliverance appeares Chap. 17.3.19.25 Deliver him for I have found a ransome Hence Observe First The redemption or deliverance of man by a ransome is the invention of God and the invention of God only If all men on earth yea if all the Angells in Heaven had sat from the foundation of the world to this day in counsell beating their braines and debating this question How man sinfull man might be delivered out of the hand of the Law or from that condemnatory sentence under which the Law had cast and detained him with satisfaction or without dammage to the Justice and righteousness of God they could never have found it out nor any thing like it This is Gods own invention or if God had said to fallen man I see thou art in a lost pitifull condition but sit down and consider how I may doe thee good and not wrong my selfe how I may relieve thee and not dishonour my selfe I will freely doe it If God I say had given man a blank to write downe what he would have done to bring this about he could never have found it out but must have perished for ever in his sin The thought of a ransome in this way had never entred into the heart either of men or Angells if God himself had not revealed it Therefore the Apostle Peter having spoken of the great diligence of the old Prophets searching into and inquiring about that great mystery the way and means of mans salvation câ—ncludes 1 Epist 1.12 Which things the Angells desire to look into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word there used notes a curious prying into that which hath some veyled or secret rarity in it We may conceive the Apostle in that word alluding to the Cherubims which by Gods command to Moses were made with their eyes looking downe to the Mercy-seat or propitiatory in the Holy of holyes Exod. 25.20 figuring the ransome in the Text yea and expressed by the same Hebrew word The living Angells doe that which those representative Angells seemed to doe they look earnestly at the mystery of our redemption made or ransome given by Jesus Christ There is such an exquisiteness in this invention the deliverance of man by Christ that the Angells desire to look into it even as men desire to see rare inventions And this exceedingly commends the wisdome of God in our redemption that it was a secret to the very glorious Angells They did not know it but as it was made knowne to them nor did God as it seemes make it knowne to them firstly or immediately but it was revealed to them occasionally by the revelation of it first to the Church as the Apostle doth more then intimate Eph. 3.10 To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places that is the holy Angells might be known by the Church the manifold wisdome of God As if had it not been for the light given to and spread abroad in the Church the Angells had been in the dark to this day about that matter And doubtless if the Angells did not gather up their knowledge of that mystery by the ministery of the Apostles preaching it to the world in a way of information yet by their contemplation of what was done in the Church of the goodness of God to the Church they saw as in a glasse that manifold wisdome of God which before they saw not or were ignorant of Now if the holy Angells knew not this mystery but as it was revealed much lesse could man We saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2.6 7 8 9. speake wisdome among them that are perfect yet not the wisdome of this world nor of the
to him spoken of in the former verse and the declaration of it in that word or warrant which went out from God to the messenger about his deliverance from going downe to the pit This mercy or recovery in the full extent of it hath a two-fold respect First to his body Secondly to his soule The mercy as it respects his body is layd downe in the 25th verse His flesh shall be fresher then a childes he shall returne as in the dayes of his youth The mercy which respects his soule or the state of his inward man is layd downe in the 26th verse He shall pray unto God and be will be favourable unto him and he shall see his face with joy for he will render unto him his righteousness In this recovery of his soule-state we may further consider First the causes of it First The Instrumentall cause prayer He shall pray unto God Secondly The principall or efficient cause of it together with the first moving cause The kindness of God He will be favourable unto him Secondly The consequence of this his renewed soule-state He shall see his face with joy Thirdly The matter wherein this joyfull state doth consist in the close of the 26th verse For he will render to man his righteousness So much for the scope and parts of these two verses which shew the blessed issue which God gives this distressed and sick man from his afflictions and sorrowes Vers 25. His flesh shall be fresher then a childes By flesh he meanes the naturall flesh of the body this flesh shall be fresh yea fresher and not only fresher then it was before he fell sick in his man-hood but then it was in his child-hood fresher then a childes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mollitur recreatus fuit alibi quam hic non legitur Ex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod virentem significat ac vegetuÌ„ ut cap 8. 16. et 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod syriacè significat crescere q. d. revirescet plantarum more et germinum Merc The word which we render comparatively fresher signifies to wax soft or tender 'T is no where read in the whole Bible but here Grammarians say it is compounded of an Hebrew word which signifies to be greene or flourishing Chap 8.16 and of a Syriack word which signifies to increase and grow as a plant we render it as noting the man mending apace as some sick men upon recovery doe in his strength and health He shall be fresh-coloured who before was pale and wan he shall be full-fleshed who before was fallen and leane so that when he saith His flesh shall be fresher then a childes 'T is an Elegant hyperbolical expression to shew his perfect recovery from that mortal sickness to health As if he had sayd God will restore him so that there shall be no scarr nor print no dregs nor appearance of his former disease seene upon him We know how tender and soft how delicate and faire the flesh of a little child is how sweete his countenance is how full of good blood his veines are how healthy and strong as to his time his whole body is Thus it shall be with this sick man His flesh shall be freshâ—r then a childes he shall be as if he were new-borne or entred a second time upon the stage of this world Our spirituall estate of renovation by Christ is set forth as a youthfull or child-like state as to the purity and perfection of it Eph 5.27 Christ shall present us to himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing The Church hath her sin-spots and wrinckles now in her militancy but when Christ shall present the Church at last triumphantly to himselfe then as himselfe was ever without spot or wrinckle so shall the Church be Her flesh shall indeed be fresher then a childes being perfectly recovered out of her spirituall sickness Notat perfectissimum sanitatis modum qui nullum transacti morbi vestigium relinquit Mert And thus in proportion Elihu assures the penitent sick man that when his peace is renewed with God and his spirit set right for God his very flesh shall be without spot or wrinckle fresher then a childes The latter part of the verse beares the same sence He shall returne as in the dayes of his youth That is he shall not barely recover his health and get upon his leggs againe as we say he shall not meerely escape death and the grave but he shall have an addition of bodily ability he shall as it were be young againe As sickness makes a young man look old so recovery from sickness makes the old man look young That 's to returne to the dayes of his youth Hence Note First Bodily beauty health and strength are the Gift of God He gives them and takes them away at pleasure or having taken them away he can give them backe when he pleaseth He kills and he makes alive he bringeth downe to the Grave and bringeth up as Hannah sayd in her Song 1 Sam 2.6 How low soever a man is brought by sickness either proper or metaphoricall the Lord is able to rayse him up againe We read v. 21. in how pitifull a plight the sick man was how rather like a carkasse then a living man he lookt His flesh was consumed that it could not be seene and his bones which were not seene stood out as much as to say He was nothing but skin and bones yet when in that case all hopes were gone and all natural helps fayled it was no hard matter with God to cure him When the skill of the Physician and the vertue of medicines fayle the power of God fayleth not As it is in reference to those outward dangers and desperate exigents which we meete with in this world by enemies and persecutors when we look upon our selves as dead men when all hope of deliverance seems past gone then the Lord alwayes can and often doth deliver The Apostle gives us his experience of it 2 Cor 1.9 10. We had the sentence of death in our selves he spake not thus in regard of sickness but of trouble and persecution As if he had sayd The malice and wrath of our enemies was such that we thought we should never escape We had the sentence of death in our selves but providence suffered it to be so that we should not trust in our selves but in God who rayseth the dead As it is I say in such dangers so in dangerous deadly sicknesses when a poore creature hath the sentence of death in himselfe when he makes no other reckoning but to dye as good King Hezekiah sayd of himselfe in his sickness Isa 38.13 I reckoned till morning that as a Lyon so will he breake all my bones from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me yet then as in his case so in many cases the Lord stretcheth forth a healing hand and takes the sick man up againe to continue in
the land of the living Secondly From the way of expressing this in allusion to a childe or a youth Note God he can quickly make the greatest changes in nature either for the better or for the worse He can turne youth into old age and old age into youth That is he can make a young or a healthy man weake as an old man and an old or sickly man strong as a young man and as it is with naturall so with politicall bodyes as with persons so with nations A nation that is flourishing in its youth heate strength and glory rich and full of peace and plenty God can bring an oldness upon it and cause it to decline every day The Prophet spake of the state of Israel in this notion Hos 7.9 Gray haires are here and there upon them and they perceive it not they thought ttemselves to be in a very youthfull flourishing condition as a state but the Lord brought gray haires that is they were decaying withering weakning and became a decrepid nation And when a nation is gray-hayred old and withered he can make it youthfull he can recover the honour and power of it and cause the dread of it to fall upon the neighbouring nations round about He turnes a land into a wilderness which before was as the Garden of God And he can change that land into a Garden of God which now is a desolate wildernes The unchangeable Lord is visible and glorious in all these changes The health and strength both of the body politick and naturall are at his dispose He can bring a decay upon what is built and repaire what is decayed whether in nations or persons When the earthly house of this Tabernacle is ready to drop downe into the grave and crumble into dust God by a word speaking repayreth it to as much beauty and strength as when the first stone being layd the top-stone was set up When Naaman had once submitted to and obeyed the Prophets counsell which at first he despised washed in Jorden His flesh saith the text 2 Kings 5.14 came againe like unto the flesh of a little childe The holy Psalmist charged his owne soule to praise the Lord and all that was within him to blesse his holy name Psal 103.1 5. Who had satisfied his mouth with good things so that his youth was renewed as the Eagle This renovation of his youth may be understood three wayes First as to his naturall state or bodyly strength Secondly as to his civill state or worldly successes as to his honour and kingly renowne Thirdly as to his spirituall state or the hightning of his gifts graces and comforts 'T is probable David had found a declension in all these and at last through the goodness of God and his blessing upon him the renewing of them all from that oldness to a youthfullness againe like that of Eagles We find the same allusion in the Prophet Isa 40.31 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up as with Eagles wings Some Naturalists say the Eagle reneweth her strength by sucking blood when her stomack is so weake that shee cannot seed upon the flesh of her prey Saints indeed renew their strength as the Eagle while by faith they sucke the blood of Jesus Christ and they get cure of their owne weaknesses while they believingly lay hold upon his strength Thirdly We heard in the former verse of a divine warrant issued out for this mans recovery Then he is gracious to him and saith deliver him Here we have the warrant executed His flesh shall be fresher then a childes Hence observe The commands and warrants of God are effectuall they shall be obeyed and made good to man If God say deliver him from a sick bed he shall be delivered I will worke saith the Lord Isa 43.13 14. and who shall let it for your sake I have sent to Babylon and have brought downe all their Nobles or barrs as the margin reads it I will have it done I will breake all those Nobles who are as barrs in the way of my peoples deliverance So when the Lord sends his warrant for the delivering of a sick man he will break all those barrs and bands by which diseases and sicknesses hold him as a prisoner in his bed Nothing can stand against the word of God as by a word speaking he gave the creature a being when it had none The Lord only spake the word Let there be light let there be a firmament c. and it was so Thus also the word or warrant of God reneweth a wel-being to those with whom it is worst or a comfortable life to those who are compassed about with the sorrowes of death The word of God prevailes over all or is effectuall to every purpose Psal 33.9 He spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Further In this restoring of the sick we have a shadow of the resurrection The raysing of a dying man from his bed is like the raysing of the dead from the grave The spring of the yeare is a shadow of the resurrection because then the earth returnes to her youth and is fresh as a child In winter all things are dead and desolate their glosse and beauty is gone but then cometh the spring and all revives againe the face of the earth looks fresh corne and grasse trees and plants flourish and put forth their buds and blossomes Now what the spring of the yeare is to the body of the earth the same is the returne of health to the body of man In both we have an exemplar of the resurrection as also in the regeneration or new birth of the soule by the power of the holy Ghost For till then we are like old sickly men in the old man yea we are dead But no sooner doth the Spirit bring us forth by a second creation into the life of the new man but we become in spirit fresh like Children our youth returnes to us againe that is we returne to that state wherein we were first created and set up by God in righteousness and true holiness yea into a better and surer state then that Man through grace is not only as he was in the first day of his creation but better He returnes to the day of his youth and receives such a youth as shall never decay into old age yea the older he is in nature the younger that is the stronger and more beautifull he shall be in grace He shall according to that promise Psal 92.14 still bring forth fruit in old age he shall be fat and flourishing This renewed youthfullness and flourishing condition of the restored sick man in spiritualls is specially and fully set forth in the next verse For Elihu having shewed the recovery of the sick mans body he proceeds to the recovery of his soule which eminently returnes to the dayes of its youth both in the puttings forth of or exercising the grace of God
that condition a body without a soule but his life was for that time withdrawne there was no appearance of it no sencible breathing no motion no vitall visible operation Thus we may conceive what is meant by the rendring unto man his righteousness Hence observe First A justified person is a righteous person He hath a clothing of righteousness that which we call his righteousness is not properly but imputedly his It is not a cloathing of his owne making but made for him and bestowed freely upon him Rom 10.3 They being ignorant of the righteousness of God and going about to establish their owne righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God It is Gods righteousness not our owne and yet it is our owne as well as the righteousness of God it being imputed and reckoned unto us for our righteousness it is the believers righteousness as given to him it is Christs righteousness as wrought by him Secondly Observe A justified person under great afflictions and temptations often looseth the comfortable sight and sence of his owne righteousness And so may look upon himselfe as an unrighteous person as having no righteousnes or as being unreconciled unjustified For as many bold sinners hypocrites presume they have a righteousness when they have none and boast themselves to be in the number of the justified when they are not So many an afflicted and tempted soule who is indeed justified in the sight of God may be unjustified in his owne Great afflictions have an appearance of divine displeasure which stands most opposite to justification As affliction is a kinde of darkness so it often leaves the soule in much darkness And he that is in the dark is full of feare he is apt to question his state whether he hath any thing of God in him or no. For though it be not good for a Christian alwayes to begin to live he should come to a poynt and labour for a certainty yet some are brought to such a pass that their former evidences and experiences are even dead and lye prostrate and they constrained to begin a new reckoning about their spirituall estate or as it were to begin againe to live Thirdly Note Mans righteousness or justification is as lost to him when he wants the evidence that is the comfort sweetness and peace of it When his soul-state is so ravel'd and intangled that he can make nothing of it then his righteousness is as lost Those things which appeare not are to us as if they were not Not to know what we have is a degree of not having When grace doth not act or is not used we are sayd in Scripture to lack grace or to have none 2 Pet 1.9 But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off The whole context carrieth it of believers who are in a state of grace who yet not using grace are sayd to lack it and are called blinde as not able to see afar off how it was with them when the work of conversion first began so have upon the matter forgotten that they were ever purged from their old sins That is they act as a man that hath never had any acquaintance with God or knew so much as the meaning of repentance from dead workes He in the Gospel who had but one talent and did not use it is sayd to have none From him that hath not shall be taken away even that he hath Math 25.29 'T is a strange expression to say that shall be taken away from a man which he hath not yet the idle servant is sayd not to have that one talent which he had because he did not use it but layd it by as a dead stocke Now as in reference unto the grace of sanctification in us when we doe not act we are sayd to lack it or not to have it so in reference to the peace of justification when we have not the comfort of it we are sayd to be without it And therefore when peace is restored to the soule righteousness or justification is restored also Further from the connexion of these words He shall see his face with joy for he will render unto man his righteousness Note Fourthly When the sight of our righteousness or justified state in Christ returnes to us our comforts returne We may be justified or in a justified state and not rejoyce But if we know we are in a state of justification we cannot but rejoyce It will make a man rejoyce to purpose when he seeth the righteousness of justification is clearely his Isa 45.25 Surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness and strength One shall say this He shall not only have righteousness in the Lord but he shall say he hath that is he shall be able to make it out he shall have the light of it upon his spirit and then as it followeth in the Prophet In him shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory When they are able to say this then they shall not only rejoyce but glory Glorying is the height of joy or joy is in its full strength The Apostle saith Rom 14.17 The kingdome of God is not meat and drink What is it then but righteousness and what else peace and joy in the holy Ghost Righteousness brings in peace that 's the first fruit The warre is ended the controversie determined between God and the soule and when once peace is entred joy will follow It is usuall to make triumphs when a formerly broken peace is made between two nations When Abimilech sent commissioners to make a covenant of peace with Isaac the holy Story saith Gen 26.30 He made them a feast and they did eate and drinke Surely when God sends his holy Spirit to speake peace to a troubled soule against whom his terrors have been set in array as Job sayd in his own case Chap 6.4 and the arrowes of the Almighty within him have drunke up his spirit he I say having his peace thus restored to him cannot but have the joy of the Lord restored to him as David prayed his might Psal 51.12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation That is shew me that I am justified that my sin is pardoned this will bring back into my bosome the joy of thy salvation and my drooping soul shall be not only refreshed but feasted as with marrow and fatness Joy is a certaine consequent upon the sight of our justification Yea joy is not only a consequent but a fruit and effect of it joy floweth out of the nature of it nor is it ever interrupted or suspended but upon the hiding of righteousness out of our sight And therefore joy returnes unfayleably when the Lord is pleased thus to render unto man his righteousness JOB Chap. 33. Vers 27 28 29 30. He looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profiteth me not He will deliver his soule from
againe Gen 12.11 It came to passe when he was come neere to enter into Egypt that he said unto Sarah his wife Behold now I know that thou art a faire woman to look upon Read Psal 132.6 Ezek 30.9 Luke 1.32 In the present text it may have all these intendments for is it not a wonderfull thing that God should be gracious to poore creatures is it not strange that he should take so much paines with and exercise so much patience towards them Secondly Lo God worketh all these things He is ready to doe them he waiteth to be gracious or to magnifie his grace in doing them Thirdly Lo God worketh all these things is not this a matter of great consideration ought we not to sit downe and weigh it well Fourthly Lo all these things worketh God certainly God hath and will work all these things this is a truth out of all question a truth of which there is no doubt to be made As the Apostle saith 1 Tim 3.16 Without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh So I may say without controversie great is this mystery of Gods manifesting himselfe to frayle flesh and doing all these things here spoken of awakening the consciences of men by dreames and working upon them by grievous sicknesses sending an interpreter one of a thousand to declare unto man his uprightness and at last delivering his soule from going downe into the pit Lo all these things worketh God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 operatus est egit perfecit usurpatur etiam pro gubernatione rerum creatarum There is somewhat peculiar in that expression he worketh The native sence of the word implyeth First a willing worke not forced or constrained Secondly a full and compleat worke not an essay or offer not a worke begun only but carried on to perfection The wicked are called workers of iniquity Psal 5.5 because they are free and ready to sin they have a strong tyde and bent of spirit to doe evill and they doe it not to halves but throughly they doe not only begin or nibble at the baite a little as a good man often doth but greedily swallow it downe hooke and all they are fully in it and doe it fully they make a worke of it and so are workers of iniquity The Lord doth good as the wicked doe evill All these things worketh God He worketh them willingly he worketh them compleatly Isa 26.12 Lord thou wilt ordaine peace for us for thou also hast wrought all our workes in us Thou art the Author and finisher of them We are invited Psal 46.8 to come and behold the workes of the Lord what desolations he hath made in the earth The building workes and the desolating workes of God whether respecting persons or nations are perfect workes Lo all these things worketh God Hence note What ever good we see wrought among or for the children of men God is the worker of it As he over-ruleth the evill which is done and both sendeth and ordereth the evill which is suffered so he is the worker of all the good that is done God worketh it all either immediately by himselfe or mediately by second causes and what instrument soever is set a worke yet the worke as to the matter and manner of it as also to the result and issue of it is the Lords He was the worker of all that hath been spoken of in the former context though we reade of a messenger of an interpreter yet the work was Gods 'T is sayd Gen 39.22 The keeper of the prison committed to Josephs hand all the prisoners that were in the prison and whatsoever they did there he was the doer of it Not that he did every thing with his own hand in the prison but he gave the rule and ordered all that was done Much more may I say of the Lord whatsoever is done in the world especially among his people God is the doer of it All goes through his hand Lo all these things worketh God Further From the prefix Lo. Observe The workes and dealings of God with men are wonderfull those especially which he worketh for the humbling of a sinner and for the delivering of a soule from going downe to the pit The breaking of the heart the raysing of it by faith the renewing of its peace and comfort are wonderfull works of God And the reason why we wonder no more at them is because we consider so little of them Hence againe from the word Lo. Note The workes of God are to be deeply considered to be stayed upon We must not passe them by lightly whether they be towards our selves or others God hath made his wonderfull workes to be remembred saith David Psal 111.4 or to be considered that 's the designe of God in his works he hath made them for that end that they should be remembred and attended to or they are such as cannot but be remembred they leave their markes and memorialls behind them God sets such a stamp of his power wisdome justice and goodness upon his workes that they will not be forgotten And as his outward providential workes are such so his spirituall workes are much more such The godly-wise understand them so they have a criticall eye in discerning those invisible workes of God with a poore soule in reducing him from sin and bringing him to himselfe David calleth all the godly to the consideration of those workes in his owne case Psal 66.16 Come and heare all ye that feare God and I will declare what he hath done for my soule What God doth for our bodyes is very considerable but what he hath done for our soules can never be enough considered nor admired Lo all these things worketh God oftentimes with man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The originall is twice thrice so we put in the margin and render it often-times in the text Some expound it of those three distinct wayes in which God dealeth with man before described The Septuagint are expresse for that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schol. All these things worketh the strong God three wayes with man Which the Scholiast exemplifies in the three wayes here noted by Elihu First awakning him by dreames and visions Secondly troubling him by sicknesses and afflictions Thirdly teaching him by Prophets and Interpreters Yet I conceive the text doth not strictly recapitulate those three severall wayes before spoken of in these words twice thrice but only shewes us that God useth all these wayes or any other as his wisdome shall thinke fit many times or oftentimes for the producing of those blessed effects Lo all these things worketh God oftentimes with man Twice thrice is a double certain number put for any single uncertain number And it only teacheth or assureth us that God debateth with the sons of men in all or any of these wayes oftentimes or more then once If they doe not answer his call or purpose which they
they try and judge it But I conceive we need not insist strictly upon this For whether we compare these two senses in their severall operations to wise men or whether we compare them in their operations one with another yet according to the sense of our translation the meaning of Elihu is the same namely that those wise men to whom he spake should not only hear but try what they heard because they had received a power so to do for the ear tryeth words even at the mouth tasteth meat There is a twofold eare there is an outward eare Auris interna dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae vox alibi legitur in Graeca editione pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum sit ipsa mens quae verba et res dijudicat Drus and an inward eare And so a twofold tryall The outward eare tryeth words of what signification they are whether they are as we say good English or Latine c. It tryeth them also as to their grammaticall sense or the construction of what is spoken in the letter The inward eare or understanding tryeth them as to their logicall sense scope and tendency as to their use and force in the matter they are spoken to Both wayes the eare tryeth words as the mouth tasteth meate only with this difference that the tryall which the mouth makes is meerly sensitive and both begun and perfected in the mouth but the tryall which the ear makes is chiefly intellectuall it is begun at the ear but perfected by the understanding It is the mind which judgeth the eare only brings in the report of things to the mind Hence Note First The sense of hearing is a great mercy and of great use to mankind The eare is the chiefe Gate or inlet to the soul Aurem audientem dicit auditorem verbi obedientem Beda nor were our eares given only for an Ornament to the head but for the enriching and bettering of the heart The naturally rationall eare given to heare and try words is a mercy but when a spiritually rationall ear is given with it to heare and try words that 's a mercy indeed Solomon saith Prov. 20.12 The hearing eare and the seeing eye the Lord hath made even both of them These naturall senses are of Gods own creation and the use of them his blessing yet common to all mankind good and bad but the spirituall senses of seeing and hearing are a speciall priviledge promised to the elect and a fruit of Gospel grace Isa 35.5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the eares of the deafe shall be unstopped He meaneth it not either only or chiefly of the bodily eyes and eares though Christ wrought miracles upon them and healed both the blind and deafe in the dayes of his flesh but of the eyes and eares of the soul which are often darke and stopt while the other are free enough in the exercise of their severall faculties The seeing eye which both Solomon and Isaiah intend is the eye which so seeth as that it followeth the good which it seeth and that 's their hearing eare which beleeveth and obeyeth what it heareth A superficiall seeing eye is a blind eye and a formall hearing eare is a deafe eare in the sight and account of God We say it is the symptome of some distemper or growing disease upon the body when the pallate doth not rellish meate Surely it argueth a diseased and sick soul when we have no mind to heare nor find rellish in the word of God Secondly Note Words are not to be received nor submitted to nor beleeved as true till they are tryed Itching eares are bad 2 Tim. 4.3 Trying eares are good You will not swallow your meat till you have chewed and tasted it nor should you swallow words till you have tryed them why else have we eares to heare why are we trusted with reason to judge things with or with rules to judge them by There is no greater Tyranny in the World then to command a man to beleeve by an implicit faith as others beleeve or to impose our opinions and assertions upon those that hear them and not to give them liberty to try them This is to be at once as the Apostle James expresseth it Chap. 3.1 many Masters or many Masters where we should not be one But some will say when the Word of God is preached is that to be tryed by men have we a liberty to take that into consideration or to take and refuse it as we are perswaded in our own judgments I answer The word of God is not to be brought to the barre nor to be tryed by man The word of God is our Judge therefore ought not to be judged by us the word of God is perfect and how can we that are imperfect judge that which is perfect The word of God is truth and all men are lyars we are not therefore to judge the word of God nor try that Yet when any man speaks of or from the word of God we are to try what he speakes that is whether what he speaks be according to the word of God and his doctrine or interpretation grounded on the Text. Every one that speakes about spirituall things professeth he brings the word of God and it must be tryed whether he doth so or no. It is a truth to which all are to submit without dispute by beleeving that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners to wash away their sins with his blood This is the word of God yet when this truth is Preached we may consider whether it be mannaged according to the word of God or no. This great doctrine which containes the summe of the Gospel may have such things mingled with it as are not to be received for the word of God Some in the primitive time thought and taught that there was no salvation by Christ unlesse they still kept the ceremoniall Law and were circumcised though they held that fundamentall truth that Christ dyed to save sinners yet when they came to the explication of it they destroyed it by urging a necessity of continuing the ceremoniall Law whereas others judged rightly that faith only without the use of any Jewish ceremony purifieth the heart Therefore a counsell of spirituall and godly wise men was called to consider of this matter Acts 15.6 What to doe not to try the Word of God but to try which of those two different opinions was according to the Word of God Thus when we hear a Sermon though the Word of God and Christ crucified be the generall subject of it and that is not to be tryed but received by faith and obeyed yet what is spoken upon it and delivered about it as the mind of God in the Scripture that is to be tryed 1 Cor. 2.15 He that is spirituall tryeth or judgeth all things And againe 1 Cor. 14.29 the Apostle gives this counsell about prophesying Let one or two speak and let the
is doe not exact the utmost of others which the Law in the rigour of it will allow he that will not remit any thing of his right is not only over-righteous but may soon doe wrong or Thirdly when he saith be not over-righteous as he would not have men stand strictly upon their right with others so he would not have them speak much of their own righteousnesse but rather sometimes take blame to themselves then which was Jobs case proclaime themselves altogether blamelesse As we are not to betray our innocency so not give a shadow of any boasting in it We seldome lose by saying little of our selves And in most cases we should rather trust God who hath promised he will doe it Psal 37.6 to bring forth our righteousnesse as the light then be over-industrious in bringing it to light or in bringing it out of that darknesse with which it lyeth obscured either by or among men As we ought never to lye against our right so it may not be convenient at some times to speake all the truth of it which we can This at least was Jobs fault and it will be any mans who doth like Job yea though he should be which few have been or are like to be under as great sufferings as Job The greatnesse whereof he aggravated to the hight in the next words with which Elihu chargeth him My wound is incurable without transgression An incurable wound is the worst of wounds and though to be wounded without transgression is best for him that receives it yet it is worst for him that gives it My wound is incurable The Hebrew is my arrow the arrow is a wounding weapon and in this Text 't is put for the wound it self Job complained Chap. 6.4 The arrows of the Allmighty drink up my spirits There are arrows of two sorts and answerably there are wounds of two sorts There are first externall secondly internall arrows God shooteth his arrows both into the flesh and spirit the former make a wounded body the latter a wounded soule Job may intend both for he received wounds in both his flesh was wounded and all that belong'd to flesh his estate his credit and good name were wounded his soule and spirit were wounded also the arrowes of God were shot thick at him and hit him from head to foot The Archers as dying Jacob said of Joseph Gen. 49.23 Gravissima est sagitta mea absque transgressione Bez 24. sorely grieved him they all shot at him and one of them Satan hated him but though his bow as to the maine abode in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by tht hands of the mighty God of Jacob yet he cryed out as if there had been no helpe no healing no hope for him My wound Is incurable Hanc sagittam Elihu vocat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. gravem doloratam pessimè habentem hinc Enosh homo ab infirmitate et fragilitate dictus The word which we render incurable signifies not only what is very dolorous or grievous but mischievous mortall and deadly And from this word man is called Enosh in the Hebrew to shew how infirme and fraile he is sin having given him a wound which is incurable by any thing but the blood of Jesus Christ Job felt his wounds and he spake of them as a man swallowed up with desperation and expected no cure of his present sad condition My wound is incurable and he concluded with that which is yet harder My wound is incurable Without transgression Mr. Broughton translates My stroak is sore without trespasse Job in saying his wound was incurable shewed a defect in his faith but in saying it was incurable without transgression he seemeth to shew his defect in truth For surely had there not been transgression in him there had never been a wound upon him God had never so much as broken our skin but for sin Man had never felt so much as the scratch of a pins poynt by the hand of God if he had not once prevaricated and Apostatiz'd from God We ow all our sorrows to our sins all our woundings to our transgressings How then doth Job say My wound is incurable without transgression The word here used is not usually put to signifie sin in generall though some take it so but some speciall kind of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denotat grave scelus vel Apostasiâ—m Scult that of more then an ordinary degree a sin with a malignity a provoking sin As if the meaning of Elihu were that he heard Job say Though his sin were not great though it were not any rebellion against light nor dangerous Apostacy though his were a very curable sin yet his wound was altogether incurable his wound was great though his sin was little Now because Justice doth usually apportion the punishment inflicted both to the nature and measure of the sin committed therefore Elihu takes it and he had too much occasion to doe so as a great reflection upon the justice of God when he heard Job thus bemoaning himselfe My wound is incurable without transgression To receive the least wound without transgression is a great wound to justice how greatly then doth he wound the Justice of God who saith he hath received a great yea an incurable wound without transgression But where spake Job these words when said he My wound is incurable without transgression we must bring in that Job hath said to every one of these charges I answer Job spake of the arrows of God Chap 6.4 and that they were incurable he saith in other words Chap 16.13 His arrowes compasse me round about he cleaveth my reines asunder he powreth out my gall upon the ground When a mans reines are cleft in sunder with an arrow and his gall powred on the ground his wound is incurable But where did he say My wound is incurable without transgression Elihu might collect that from Chap 9.17 He breaketh me with a tempest and multiplyeth my wounds without cause and from Chap 16.16 17. My face is foule with weeping c. not for any injustice in my hands While Mary washed the feete of Christ with her teares Luke 7.38 she might be sayd to foule her owne face with her teares Teares which in a qualified sence or as a token of true repentance wash and cleanse the soule doe yet blubber and disfigure the face My face saith Job is soule with weeping though my hands are not foule with sinning or any evill doing This was in effect to say what Elihu here censureth him for saying My wound is incurable without transgression Hence note First God hath his arrows he can wound us when and where he pleaseth He shooteth and misseth not his marke He hath a quiver full of deadly arrows take heed how ye provoke him Jbb had a whole quiver of arrows emptied upon him for triall for the exercise of his patience Woe to those upon whom God emptieth his quivers
all flesh perisheth and turneth again unto what it once was dust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hebrew word which we render to gather signifieth to add one thing or person to another When Rachel had conceived and bare a son Gen. 30.22 23. she called from this word his name Joseph and said the Lord shall add to me another son Thus here If God add or gather to himself his spirit and his breath that is the spirit and breath of man c. We may distinguish between these two Spiritus animam flatus vitam quae ab anima provenit conservatur significat ego opinâ—r idem esse hoc loco Sanct. spirit and breath Some insist much and curiously upon this distinction The spirit denoting the soul or the internal rational power of man and the breath that effect of life which followeth or floweth from the union of soul and body The life of man is often expressed by breath Cease ye from man whose breath or life is in his nostrils Isa 2.22 If once man's breath goeth out his life cannot stay behinde the spirit of a man is in this sence distinct from his breath for when the breath is vanished and is no more the soul or spirit liveth The Apostle in his prayer for the Thessalonians 1 Thess 5.23 puts soul and spirit together The very God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved harmless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ There 't is most probable by the soul he intends the inferiour powers in man or his affections and by the spirit his higher powers of reason and understanding yet the spirit is often put for that whole part of man which is contradistinct to his body Into thy hands I commend my spirit that is my soul not forgetting my body And I conceive we may safely expound it here in that latitude as comprehending the whole inner man Yet it is all one as to the sence of this place whether we take spirit and breath distinctly or for the same the spirit being so called from spiration or breathing If he gather unto him his spirit and his breath The gathering of the spirit and breath of man unto God is but a periphrasis or circumlocution of death or of man's departure out of this life when man was formed or created Gen. 2.7 it is said God breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul And when man dyeth his breath or spirit may be said to be gathered or returned back unto God so then the meaning of Elihu in this double supposition If he set his heart upon man if he he gather to himself his spirit and his breath is clearly this if God were once resolved or should but say the word that man must presently die die he must and that presently Hence Note First God can easily do whatsoever he hath a minde to do If he do put his heart upon the doing of any thing it is done Men often set their hearts yea and their hands unto that which they cannot do if men could do that which they set their hearts to do or have a minde to do and thereupon set their hands to do we should have strange work in the world 'T is a mercy to many men that man is often frustrated in his thoughts and purposes in his attempts and undertakings and 't is a glorious mercy to all that have an interest in God that God never lost a thought nor can be hindred in any work he setteth his heart upon He that can lett or stop all men in their works can work and none shall lett or stop him What God will do is not defecible or undoeable if I may so express it by any power in heaven or earth And as God can do what he will and ask no man leave so he can do what he will without trouble to himself 't is but the resolve of his will the turning of his hand or the cast of his eye all which are soon dispatcht and 't is done Thus God breathed out his wishes for the welfare of Israel Psal 81.13 O that my people had hearkned unto me c. I should soon have subdued theâ—r enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries As if he had said I could and would have eased them of all their enemies even of all that rose up against them easily even with the turning of my hand What is more easily done or moâ—e speedily done then the turning of a hand Many things are hard to man and indeed very few things are easie to him except it be to sin or to do evil he can do evil easily some things are not only hard but too hard impossible for man but there is nothing hard much less too hard for God he can easily do the hardest things yea the hardest things are as easie to him as the easiest for as Psal 139.12 Darkness hideth not from the sight of God the darkness and the light are both alike to him so hardness hinders not the work of God hardness and easiness are both alike to him if he set his heart upon it From this general truth take two inferences First How should we fear before this God How should we tremble at the remembrance of and walk humbly in our highest assurance with this God We are much afraid to displease those men who can easily hurt us and in whose hand it is to ruine us every hour But O how little are we in this thought to fear the Lord to take heed of displeasing the Lord who can with ease either help or hurt either bring salvation or destruction who in a moment can thrust the soul out of the body and cast both into hell Secondly We may hence make a strong inference for the comfort of the people of God when their straits are most pinching and their difficulties look like impossibilities and are so indeed while they look to man when their enemies are strongest and the mountains which stand in the way of their expected comforts greatest if then God will be entreated to set his heart and cast his eye upon them their straits are presently turned into enlargements difficulties become easie and mountains plains If we can but engage the Lord his own promise is the surest engagement and indeed all that we can put upon him or minde him of if I say we can thus engage the Lord to be with us who can be to our hurt many will be to their own against us Secondly Note Our life is at the beck dispose and pleasure of God He can gather the spirit and the breath to himself whensoever he pleaseth Psal 104.29 Thou hidest thy face and they are troubled and thou takest away their breath they die and return to their dust If God hideth his face from us 't is death while we live but if he take away our breath we cannot live but die Psal 90.3 Thou
turnest man to destruction and sayest Return ye children of men Here 's man turning and returning upon the saying of God man turneth to death he returneth to dust and shall at last return from the dust and all this when God saith he must Our life is a very frail thing and it is in the hand of God to continue or take it away to let us hold it or gather it home to himself Thirdly From the manner of speaking If he gather to himself his spirit and his breath Note When man dieth he is gathered to God When as Solomon allegorizeth the death of man Eccl. 12.6 7. The silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl broken c. Then shall the dust that is the body return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it that is each part of man when he departeth this world shall go its proper way and return to that which is most congenial to it his body to the earth from whence it is his soul to God of whom it is God is a Spirit the creating Spirit and our created spirits are gathered to God when they are separated from the body yet remember there is a two-fold gathering or returning of the spirit to God First To abide and be blessed with him for ever thus the spirits of believers or saints only are gathered to God when they depart out of this world Secondly There is a gathering of the spirit to God to be judged and disposed of by him to receive a sentence of life or death from him And thus the spirit of every man or woman that dieth is gathered to God be they good or bad believers or unbelievers Heb. 9.27 It is appointed for men once to die but after this the judgement 'T is the Statute Law of God man must die and the sound of Judgement is at the heels of death That Text saith but after this the Judgement The general day of judgement shall not be till the resurrection of man from the dead But there is a personal judgement or a determining of every mans state when he dieth and for that end every mans spirit is gathered to God to receive his sentence The spirits of wicked men are gathered to him and condemned the spirits of the righteous are gathered to him and acquitted We are come saith the Apostle Heb. 12.23 to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect David knew he must be gathered to God but he earnestly deprecated such a gathering as most shall have Psal 26.9 Gather not my soul with sinners nor my life with bloody men It is this word when sinners die they are gathered but David would not be gathered as they are gathered They are gathered to God but it is that they may be for ever separated from him they are gathered to a day of vengeance and wrath Therefore David prayed Gather not my soul with sinners Death is called a gathering in a threefold reference First A gathering to our people Thus it is said of Aaron Num. 20.24 Aaron shall be gathered unto his people for he shall not enter into the land c. Death separates the people of God from their people that is from those that are like them on earth but it will be a means of bringing them into the society of their people or fellow believers who are gone before them into heaven Secondly Death is called a gathering to our Fathers 2 Chron. 34 28. Behold I will gather thee to thy Fathers and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace There 's a gathering to a more special company and that with other like Scriptures are an argument that we shall know our relations in heaven For to be gathered to our Fathers spoken of in the first part of the verse is more then to be gathered to the grave spoken of in the latter and by our fathers we are to understand more of our fathers then the grave hath in its keeping which is but their bodies even their souls which are kept in heaven Thirdly According to the phrase of this Text death is called a gathering to God If he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath Whence Note Fourthly The spirit or soul of man hath its original from God It is of him to whom it returneth The soul or spirit of man is of God in a more special way then his body is for though God giveth both yet the Scripture in the place before named speaks of the soul as the gift of God but passeth by the body Eccles 12.7 The dust shall return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it 'T is God not man alone who hath given us these bodies but 't is not man but God alone who hath given us these spirits therefore men are called the fathers of our flesh that is of the body in way of distinction from God who is the father of spirits Heb. 12.9 We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live that is shall we not rather be subject to God then to man Father of spirits is an Attribute or Title too high and honourable for any but God One of the Ancients in his gracious breathing after God brake out into this holy Passion My soul O God came from thee and my heart is unquiet or restless until it return to thee again God is our center and our rest He gathereth to himself mans spirit and when he doth so what then what 's the issue of it Elihu tells us what in the next verse Vers 15. All flesh shall perish together and man shall turn again to his dust As if he had said As soon as ever the spirit is gathered the flesh is consumed or as we render perisheth All flesh may be taken in the largest sence not only for all men that live but for all living creatures Thus largely Moses extendeth it Gen. 6.17 Behold saith the Lord I will bring a flood of water to destroy all flesh that is all the Beasts of the earth and Fowls of the ayre together with Mankinde except a few of each in the Ark so Psal 136.25 Who giveth food to all flesh that is to man and beast for his mercy endureth for ever Yet some understand this first part more narrowly for all flesh except man because he addeth in the latter part of the verse and man shall return again to his dust But I conceive we are to take all flesh here for all men and only for men it being usual in Scripture to put the same thing twice under different expressions So then All flesh that is every man be he who he will shall perish Thus as all flesh is restrained to man so it extendeth over all men yea over all things of man Isa 40.6 All flesh is grass and all the
have grace they are both greatly regarded and when neither of them have grace neither of them are at all regarded by the God of all grace Thus 't is plaine God regardeth the rich no more then the poore nor the poore any whit lesse then the rich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est dives opalentus quidam volunt deductum a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 servando quod multos servare et juvari possit vela 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clamando quod â—pulenti liberiùs et audaciùs loquantur The word rendred rich signifieth also bountifull Isa 32.5 'T is also rendred The helpfull the saving man for though rich men are not alwayes helpfull with their riches nor ready to save others in distresse yet rich men may doe both they have alwayes in their hand power and usually opportunity to be helpfull to the poore and to save the distressed And surely as the Lord regardeth not the rich more then the poore so he regardeth those rich men least of all who have no regard to helpe and save the poore Once more Some derive the word which we translate rich from a roote which signifieth to clamour or to speake out and boldly which complyes wel with that sentence of Solomon Pro 18.23 The poore useth entreaties that is he speaketh humbly or by way of supplication but the rich answereth roughly And as God regardeth not the rich more then the poore so he regardeth those rich men least who speake loudly and roughly to the poore Having thus opened the assertion of Elihu that God regardeth not the rich more then the poore let us consider The reason of it in the next words For they are all the work of his hands As if he had sayd God cannot but deal impartially with all because all are the work of his hands what reason hath he to respect one more then another seeing the one is no more to him then t'other they are all the work of his hands Man as man is the off-spring of God Acts 17.28 He is also the work of his hands that is man is made by his power As man descendeth from man so he is called the fruit of the womb but as man is the off-spring of God so he is called the worke of his hands and his hands have wrought the poor man as well as the rich They are all the work of his hands in a two-fold respect First In their naturall constitution God hath moulded them in the same fashion he hath given each of them a body and a soul A body framed of the same parts a soule consisting of the same powers God hath bestowed as much care and cost upon the making of a poore mans body and soule as upon the rich mans The richest man in the world cannot boast that he hath any one member in his body or faculty in his soule more then a poore man hath Secondly Look upon the rich and poore in their Civil state and so likewise they are the work of his hands and that I conceive is here intended as much as if not more then the former not only is God the maker of the poor and of the rich in their naturall state soule and body but as pooâ— and rich he is the maker of them that is he maketh one man poore and another man rich as himselfe pleaseth Prov 22.2 The rich and the poor meet together the Lord is the maker of them all He hath made them men and he hath made them rich or poore men There is as much of the power and wisdome of God seene in making some men poore and others rich as there is in making them men yea God thinks himselfe as much honoured in our acknowledgements that the poore with their poverty as that the rich with all their riches are the work of his hands Hence Note First Poor men are as much the work of God as the rich As they have the same nature and are of the same matter as they are both made of the same stuff or are both of a piece so they have the same maker and their maker hath been at as much charge in the making of the one as in the making of the other yea and usually the poore man yeilds him a better rent and brings more into his Treasury then the rich man doth Secondly Note It is the Lord who makes men poor and makes men rich Agur prayed Prov. 30.8 Give me neither poverty nor riches Agur knew poverty was a gift of God as well as riches It hath been said though prophanely Every man is the fashioner of his own fortune or the contriver of his own condition Some who acknowledge God hath made them men think they have made themselves rich or great men and we commonly look on those who fail in their worldly Estates that they have made themselves poor and low in the world I grant there is a sense wherein men make themselves rich and make themselves poor that is when they do either by their sins God is not so engaged in the making of a man rich when he enricheth himself by his sin by deceiving or oppressing his brethren as when he groweth rich in a way of righteousness He that is enriched by oppression or deceit or sets his nest on high by flattery or by fraud cannot thank God for his riches or honours and if he doth he blasphemously makes God a partner in those sins by which he hath got his riches and honours For though it be a truth that there is a hand of God in his gettings for all the craft and policy and oppression which men use will never be able to make them either rich or great if God did not permit and order it so yet the heart of God is not with him in it and God will not own his own hand in giving them wealth or power further then as they are a testimony against them of his goodness and their ingratitude We may also say of some poor men they have made themselves poor not God He made Job poor The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away was his humble acknowledgement chap. 1.21 but there are some of whom we cannot so much say God hath made them poor by his sad providences to them as that they have made themselves poor by their idleness and improvidence or by their prodigality and vain profuseness yet even of such poor men we may truly say there be a righteous hand of God upon them in leaving or giving them up to the lusts of their own heart their laziness or lavishness which produce their utter undoing and bring them to a morsel of bread So that let men be in what condition they will the Lord is the former of it The diligent hand maketh rich but it is with the blessing of God and when an indiligent man becomes poor it is the curse of God upon him for his sin as well as the consequent of his sin Yea when an honest diligent man becomes
helples as is imaginable yet the Lord is able to save them he wil do it in the fittest season As this is true in reference to Princes and Nations in their publique capacity so private Christians may take up the comfort of it What though great distress and affliction be nigh and no hand to save you yet the Lord can save without hand if you are low he can raise you though none lend a hand to raise you if poor he can enrich you if weak he can strengthen you though you have no means for either It is an everlasting spring of comfort that the Lord can do all things without hand that he needs not be beholding to the creature nor stands in need of their help to effect either threatned judgments against Babylon or his promised mercies unto Sion Thus we have seen Elihu describing the righteous though severe dealings of God both with people and Princes who despise his counsels and provoke his wrath The reason why they fall under his wrath is further discovered in the next words JOB Chap. 34. Vers 21 22. For his eyes are upon the wayes of man and he seeth all his goings There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves IN the former verse Elihu reported the judgement of God both upon the people and upon the Princes of the earth In a moment shall they die c. In these two verses he gives us a proof that the Lord is righteous in judgement both upon Princes and people or he assignes the ground of it That the words are a reason of the former the Causal Particle in the beginning of the 21th verse puts it out of question Vers 21. For his eyes are upon the wayes of men As if he had said God doth not these things he troubles not Nations and Nobles People or Princes by an absolute and soveraigne power or because he will but he finds just cause to do it What men do is enough to justifie God in what they suffer He hath alwayes power enough in his hand to destroy all men and to turn this world back into its first nothing but he never useth his power nor puts it forth without cause For his eyes are upon the wayes of man c. God is a Spirit the simplicity of his Essence is his first and highest perfection he is purely incorporeal yet as the passions of man's minde so the members of his body are often in Scripture attributed unto God we read of the face of God of the hand of God of the ear of God and as in many other places so in this of the eyes of God Now as the ear of God notes only his power of hearing and the hand of God his power of working so the eye or eyes of God note only his power of seeing knowing and discerning the wayes of men And when Elihu saith his eyes are upon the wayes of man his meaning is only this he clearly discerns and understands the wayes of man These words his eyes are upon the wayes of man intimate First A present act he doth not say they were or they will be upon the wayes of man but they are Secondly They imply as a present so a continued act his eyes are so upon the wayes of man that they are never off them The eyes of God dwell as it were upon the wayes of man His eyes are said indeed to run to and fro through the whole earth 2 Chron. 16.8 yet they do not wander from one object to another but are fixed and setled upon every one Thirdly they imply an intentive act or the seriâ—usness of the heart of God upon the wayes of man We may behold a thing and yet take no great notice of it but when our eyes are said to be upon any thing this imports they are busied much upon it Fourthly This manner of speaking signifieth not only a clear sight but that which is operative carrying with it a most exact scrutiny or disquisition of the wayes of men according to that expression of the Psalmist Psal 11.4 His eyes behold his eye-lids try the children of men God doth not only behold but his eye-lids try the wayes of men that is he so looks upon them that he looks through them and discerneth what they are to the utmost God doth not only behold the body and bulk of our actions but the soul and spirit of them and while he seeth them he seeth into them All this and much more then we can apprehend is comprehended in those words His eyes are upon The wayes of man The word is plural not way but wayes which shews the extensiveness of the sight or knowledge of God The word being put indefinitely is to be taken universally His eyes are not confined to this or that object to this or that place to this or that person but his eyes look over all His eyes are upon the wayes of man Yet further the wayes of man may be distinguished First As they are either internal or external The internal wayes of man are the wayes of his heart as the Prophet hath it Isa 57.17 He went on frowardly in the way of his heart And these wayes of the heart our inward wayes are first our thoughts what we imagine and conceive secondly our affections what we love and what we hate what we rejoyce in and what we mourn for declare the way of our hearts Thirdly The wayes of the heart are a man's purposes resolutions and intentions what to do Fourthly The wayes of the heart are man's designes or his aims what he drives at or proposeth as his end in all that he doth In this latitude we are to understand the present Text when Elihu saith the eyes of God are upon the wayes of man remember they are upon his thoughts upon his affections upon his purposes upon his designes and aimes all these are before the Lord as it is said of Christ Johâ— 2.25 He needed not that any should testifie of man for he knew what was in man that is both the state of his heart and all the movings of it And if the Lord's eyes be upon the internal wayes of man then certainly they are upon the external wayes of man if he knoweth what work the heart is at or about certainly he knoweth what the hand is at or about He that knoweth which way the minde goeth cannot but know which way the foot goeth His eyes are upon the external wayes of man but 't is his chief glory that his eyes are upon the internal wayes of man Gen. 6.5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth He saw man's actions or outward wayes were very wicked but besides that saith the Text He saw that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually He saw the wayes within what was formed up or as the word there notes what creatures were made and fashioned in the minde of
Balak I will give thee a good fee if thou wilt no saith Balaam Numb 23.20 The Lord hath blessed and I cannot reverse it We may put this query When he giveth quietnesse who can make trouble especially to three sorts of persons First To politick men some presume they can trouble nations and shake the surest foundations of peace with the engine of their braine with their wit and subtlety Yet this engine proves uselesse and unserviceable to that end where the Lord gives quietnesse Ahitophell was as an oracle of God for wisdome in his times and he stretcht his braines upon the tenters to make trouble but God sayd there should be peace and therefore as David prayed his wisdome was turned into foolishness There is no wisdome saith Solomon the wise Pro 21.30 nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. Secondly We may put the question who can make trouble to mighty men their power the strength of their Armies and arme cannot doe it Senacharib came with a mighty host to disturb Israel but he could not make trouble he could not so much as shoot an arrow against Jerusalem when the Lord forbad it Thirdly We may put the question who can make trouble to magicall men or sorcerers They cannot doe it by their wicheryes and enchantments by their closest correspondencies with the devill himselfe This was Balaams conclusion who it seemes traded that way to doe mischiefe Numb 23.23 Surely there is no inchantment against Jacob neither is there any divination against Israel according to this time it shall be sayd of Jacob and of Israel what hath God wrought When God is resolved to give a people quietnesse though the devill would he cannot disturbe them We need not feare witches or magicians who correspond with hell to trouble the earth if God say there shall be peace neither policy nor power nor witchery can prevaile against the purpose of God Then happy are that people who have the Lord for their God Psal 144.15 what can a people desire more to make them happy then to have the Lord for their God if we consider these two things First God hath a negative voyce upon all the counsells of the wisest men in the world if he saith it shall not be it cannot be whosoever saith this or that shall be Lam 3.37 Who is he that saith and it cometh to passe when the Lord commandeth it not if he gives not his assent nothing can passe into a law The Lords single negative stops the affirmative votes of all men joyned in one Secondly The Lords power is paramount He can effect what he willeth whether men will or no. That 's plaine in the text If he give quietnesse who can make trouble To come a little nearer This day this fifth of November which we solemnize in a thankfull remembrance of our deliverance from the Gun-powder treason is a very great confirmation of this truth Who is there that was alive at that day as severall here I know were yea who is there that hath heard of that day of the substance and circumstances of the matter and manner of the Gunpowder treason but can tell us that a Popish party at home with their correspondents abroad intended to make trouble in this nation surely there was a purpose to make trouble in the nation that day if ever there were a purpose to make trouble in any nation What did they leave unattempted to promote the trouble of this nation Counsels were joyned for a conjunction of forces to trouble this nation The men ingaged in that plot may properly be called Trouble-makers It was their business or their designe to trouble the waters that themselves might fish in those waters of trouble We may with respect to their purpose though God prevented it graciously truly say to them what Ahab sayd falsly to Elijah These were the men that would have troubled our Israel they would have made trouble in every way and in every thing wherein trouble could be made by men Would it not have made trouble to destroy the King the chiefe Governour of these three nations with his royall issue in one day Would it not have made trouble to blow up the representative of the nation the Parliament in one day Would it not have made trouble to put the whole body of the people into a confused heape without a head in one day Would it not have made trouble in the nation to have seene Papal power with Popish Doctrine and worship brought in againe upon us within a few dayes Would it not have made trouble to have seene poore soules imprison'd persecuted and consumed to ashes for their conscientious witness-bearing to the truths of the Gospel Would it not have made trouble to have lost our civil liberties and to have had a yoke of spirituall Bondage layd upon our necks by worse then Egyptian task-masters Would it not have made trouble to spill the blood of thousands Was it not an attempt to make trouble to attempt all these things which would probably that I say not certainly have been the issue of that plot if it had succeeded Let us therefore praise the Lord who was pleased to prevent it and sayd it shall not be They did every thing to make trouble but make trouble they did every thing but prosper in their designe They took secret counsell they took oaths yea they took the Sacrament to assure the secrecy of those counsels and oaths All this they did towards the making of trouble yet they could not God sayd at that time let England be in quietness and therefore only those Romish Emissaries and incendiaries could not make trouble Againe If we consider the present season wherein we live 't is a confirmation of this truth God hath given us quietnesse for some yeares and hath he not preserved this quietnesse hitherto against all those both persons and things that would have made trouble if God had not confirmed our peace we had been in trouble long before this time but yet our peace continueth yet it continueth and is it not wonderfull that it should continue if we consider First The sins of the nation which are the seed of trouble especially those two generall sins first unthankfullnesse for our peace Secondly our ill improvement of it How have many abused their peace to nurse up their pride wantonness and vaniy and being delivered from the feare of men have even cast off the feare of God! what just cause is there that we should loose that peace which we have used so ill and have almost turned into a warre with God himselfe yet hitherto the Lord hath given England quietness and none could make trouble Secondly If we look upon the divisions both in opinion and affection that are found among us is it not a wonder that yet we have peace if God had not given quietnesse doubtlesse these differences of which we are so sadly full had filled us with trouble long before this time Thirdly While
heaven to bear But pardon easeth the soul of that burden or 't is the unburdening of the soul Hence also pardon is called the removing of sin Psal 103.12 Thou removest our sins from us as far as the East is from the West Pardon removes sin even to the utmost distance such is that of the East from the West Pardon is called in another Scripture the casting of sin behinde Gods back Isa 38.17 Thou hast cast all my sins behinde thy back Ye when God by pardon takes sin from off our backs he doth not only cast it behinde his owne back but he layeth it upon the back of his Son Sin must lye somwhere till it is satisfied for therefore pardon takes sin off from us and layeth it upon Christ Isa 53. 6. He hath laid on him the iniquities of us all While sin is unpardoned we bear it and that it might be pardoned Christ hath born it 1 Pet. 2.24 He bare our sins in his body on the tree Pardoned sin is taken off from the sinner and laid upon Christ and he can do well enough with it he can bear it and discharge it fully none else can Indeed heaps of sin lye on the souls of some sinners and they feel them no more then a fly what 's the reason of it Because they are dead in their sins and nothing is a burden to a dead man throw a thousand Milstones upon him he feels none of them but a soul that is awakened that hath but so much life put into it as to feel a conviction of sin O how is that soul prest and burden'd with the weight of sin Yet till pardon take sin off from the soul there it must lye there it must abide therefore Christ saith John 9.41 Because ye say ye see your sin remains What 's that You are unpardoned your sin is upon you still you think your selves very wise and understanding you think you can do well enough without me therefore your sin remaineth that is it stands in full power and force against you Fifthly Here are no conditions God saith not I pardon upon such and such terms but I pardon Hence Note God pardons freely he doth not clog pardon with hard terms 'T is the glory of God that he pardons freely The pardon of sin may be considered First In the Decree of God from everlasting Secondly In the Execution of his Decree which is when any are effectually called and converted Thirdly As to the manifestation and Declaration of it to the person pardoned A poor sinner may be unpardoned in his own sence or in the Court of Conscience when he is pardoned in the Court of Heaven Now as pardon is free in the Decree of it so in the Execution of it as also in the Declaration of it to the soul for though somthing yea much must be done in the soul before pardon is declared yet nothing is deserved all is of free grace God doth not manifest pardon till man repents and believes yet he doth not pardon him because he repents and believes It may be objected Surely there is somthing in us which moves God to pardon for saith not Christ of Mary Luke 7.47 Many sins are forgiven her for she loved much Hence Papists argue that pardon of sin is from somthing in us she repented much believed much loved much therefore much was forgiven her I answer That Scripture declares her great love to be the effect of great pardoning mercy not the cause of it Christ saith to Peter much is forgiven her this woman was a noted sinner and it appears plainly that much hath been forgiven her for she loved much That her many sins are forgiven her this is the testimony she loved much The love of God to us not our love to him is the reason and original of pardon Isa 43.25 I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake God pardoneth sin for his own sake and for Christs sake not for ours In one Scripture God saith Exod. 34.6 7. I will by no means clear the guilty In another John 6.37 Christ saith He that comes to me I will in no wise cast out Till the sinner cometh to Christ his sins are upon his own account that is he stands guilty and God saith I will by no means clear the guilty no man shall ever be clear'd of the punishment due to his sin while the guilt of his sin is untaken off by the blood of Jesus Christ but besides respect to the blood of Christ which is the ransome paid for us God respects nothing out of himself as the reason why he pardoneth us I forgive I will not destroy Our Translation reads it I will not offend The word signifies first to offend or sin it signifies also to destroy and because destruction is a fruit or effect of sin one word may well serve for both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so we render it Micah 2.10 This is not your rest because it is polluted it shall destroy you even with a sore destruction Canaan was the resting place of God himself Psal 132.14 and it was the resting place of the Jewes after their travel through the wilderness Jer. 31.2 but when once they had polluted the land by sin the land gave them no rest but destroyed them that is they were destroyed out of the land Here God declaring himself gracious in pardoning penitent sinners promiseth rest to them and freedome from destruction I forgive I will not destroy Hence observe first God is able to destroy Thus God reported himself by Moses Deut. 32.39 See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand God doth not say I cannot but I will not destroy James 4.12 There is one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy There is but one supream Law-giver and that 's God and this one Law-giver is able to save and to destroy There are many Law-givers that are neither able to save nor to destroy or if they be able to destroy they are not able to save Men in authority or worldly Powers have not power alwayes to act their authority but there is one Law-giver that 's able to save and to destroy he can save those that obey his Lawes and destroy all those that transgress them he is too strong for the strongest sinner there is no making peace with him by opposing or overcoming his strength but by taking hold of his strength that is by submitting to it Isa 27.5 Secondly Note To forgive sin or to shew mercy to sinners is an act to which God declares himself more enclin'd or better pleased with then to destroy sinners Every one that sinneth deserves to be destroyed yet saith the Lord I pardon I will not destroy I could destroy and any one sin committed by any man would justifie me against all the world in his
is sayd he will render unto man his righteousness we are not to understand it of righteousness in kinde but of the reward or fruit of his righteousness For here Elihu speaks of a person already righteous or at least of him who had repented of and turned from his unrighteousness So that to returne or render unto man his righteousness is to returne the mercy promised to those that are righteous Reddet justitiam i. e. praemium justitiae Drus For as iniquity or unrighteousness is often put for the punishment of unrighteousness so equity or righteousness is often put for the reward of righteousness or for that which God according to his righteous promise returnes unto a righteous person Thus we may understand Elihu here As if he had sayd God dealt with this man before as with a sinner or he afflicted him for his sin But now he will deale kindly with him as with a righteous person and removing his affliction and taking his hand off from him he will render his righteousness to him he will not reckon with him for any former unrighteousness From this notion of the word Observe God usually deals with men as they are and according to what they doe If a godly man sin he shall smart for it and if a sinner return and repent God will shew him kindness Though the mercy and kindness which God shews to a returning sinner be not for his returnings or repentings yet 't is according to them The favour which God sheweth any man is for Christs sake or for what Christ hath done and suffered but it is according to what himselfe hath done or suffered David experienced this himselfe Psal 18.20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousnes c. That is as I have been a righteous and just person so the Lord hath dealt with me And he gives the rule with respect to all others v. 25. With the upright thou wilt shew thy selfe upright with the pure thou wilt shew thy selfe pure c. That is Thou wilt be such to men in thy dispensations as they are in their conversations and dispositions in the frame and bent of their hearts and lives And as it followeth v. 27. Thou wilt save the afflicted or humble people but wilt bring downe high lookes that is those that are proud and high-minded The Prophet holds out the same truth in way of direction Isa 3.10 Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with him for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings that is they shall have good for the good they have done or according to the good which they have done Rom 2.10 Glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile If any object But may it not be ill with men that doe good and are good doth the Lord alwayes render to man according to his righteousness I answer It is well at present with most that doe well look over all the sons of men and generally ye shall find that usually the better they are the better they live Secondly I answer It shall be well with all that doe well in the issue and for ever This truth will abide to eternity God will render unto man according to his righteousness Secondly We may take the word righteousness Justiam quam ei confert in Christo reputans eum pro justo Jun for the righteousness of justification Mr Broughton inclines to that sence He will restore unto man his justice And presently adds by way of glosse Justice is Christ It is Christs Justice or righteousness that is restored to man Christ is indeed The Lord our righteousness Jer 23.6 And thus severall others of the learned expound these words He will render unto man his righteousness That is he will bestow upon him or restore to him righteousness in Christ he will account him righteous though he hath no righteousness of his owne which will hold in Gods account Elihu I grant calleth it Mans righteousness his righteousness yet we may well understand him calling it so not because it is wrought by but because it is imputed to or bestowed upon man as his righteousness That is ours which is freely given us so is righteousness in justification by faith in Christ We have no righteousness wrought in us or by us for that purpose but we have a righteousness wrought for us and freely bestowed upon us for that purpose which is therefore truely called mans righteousness But some may question how can it be sayd that God doth render or return to man this righteousness that is the righteousness of justification Can this righteousness be lost can a person justified fall out of a justified state I answer The righteousness of justification which is true also of the righteousness of sanctification as to the substance and being of it cannot be lost But it may be lost as to the comfortable enjoyments and fruits of it or as to our apprehension of it And the Lord is sayd to returne to man the righteousness of his justification not as if the grace it selfe were lost or taken away from him but because the sight and sence of it the sweetness and joy of it Non enim ablata justitia redditur sed ablatae justitiae sensus Coc the workings and effects of it having been lost are now restored to him againe When the Lord by his Spirit gives the soule a cleare and fresh evidence of it or reneweth the testimony of his Spirit with our spirits that our sins are forgiven and that we are justified beloved and accepted in Christ then the Lord is sayd to render unto man his righteousness otherwise neither the faith by which this righteousness is applyed nor the righteousness it selfe which is applyed to us by faith is at any time lost or removed Only in this sence as in many other Scriptures so in this the Lord is sayd to render unto man his righteousness both of sanctification and justification For when a beleever through sin hath blotted his own evidences and God hath left him under the darkness of his own spirit for his negligent unwatchfull unworthy walking or when the Lord hideth his face to try him what he will doe whether he will trust in his name while he walketh in darkness and seeth no light when I say after withdrawings for either of these reasons or for any other the Lord gives him in a renewed evidence of his love then he is sayd to render unto man his righteousness It is in this case as with a man that labours under some strong and dangerous disease which taketh away his sences and leaves him halfe dead we say the man is gone yet he recovers his speech returnes and his spirits revive and then we say his life is rendred to him or he is brought back from the grave we have fetched him againe not that his life was quite taken away for he was not a carkasse in