wherein he is Fourthly observe That hope is the last refuge of the soule My dayes are spent without hope my hope is spent too If I had hope left I had somewhat left but my hope is gone It is so in naturall things it is so in spirituall things The Apostle Heb 6. tells us that hope is the anchor of the soule sure and stedfast while hope holds comfort holds and when hope 's gone all 's gone Observe lastly That sometimes a godly mans hope may lye prostrate My dayes saith he are cut off without hope Job thought as I have noted from some passages before that his case was desperate his hope lay in the dust as well as his body or his honour Every godly man is not an Abraham of whom it is said Rom. 4. 18. That against hope he beleeved in hope Nay Abraham is not alwayes Abraham he that hath such a strong hope hath it not alwayes even his hope may sometimes possibly be hopelesse There are weakenesses in the strongest and imperfections may come upon those who are perfect ebbings after the greatest flowings and declinings after the greatest heights of graces and gracious actings My dayes are spent without hope Job having thus complained of his condition and asserted his own desires of death now turnes from his friends with whom he had discoursed all this while and betakes himself to God to speake a while with him The next words are generally understood an Apostrophe to God Verse 7. Or member that my life is wind mine eye shall no more see good c. O remember that my life is wind To remember is not here taken strictly for to God all things are present Remembrance is the calling of that to mind which is past when the act of remembring is applied to God in Scriprure it hath one of these three sences 1. It notes a resolution or setled purpose in God to act his justice or inflict punishment upon his enemies Psal 137. 7. Remember O Lord the children of Edom that is Lord bring forth that decree of thine for the ruine and destruction of these bloudy Edomites who have been cruell against thy people Secondly it signifies an affection in God ready to help and releeve his own people Psal 74. 2. Remember thy Congregation which thou didst purchase of old that is doe good to thy Congregation blesse thy Congregation Thirdly To remember imports an act of present consideration to remember is fully to weigh observe and take notice of the estate of things or persons Psal 38. 39. He remembred that they were but flesh a wind that passeth away and cometh not againe that is he consider'd and weighed the estate of man So in this place O remember that my life is wind that is consider and weigh it well Lord put my condition into the ballance observe what a weak creature I am how short my llfe is therefore deal with me as with a weak short-lived creature Thou needest not lay any great stresse upon me thou needest not trouble thy self much to make an end of me my life is but wind 't is but a puffe which quickly passes away O remember that my life is wind This is a proverbial speech Vita ventus Elegans proverbiale like that before of a weavers shuttle The word translated wind signifies the holy Ghost the third Person in the blessed Trinity As also a Spirit in general And because the wind is of a spiritual nature invisible swift powerful therefore it is applied to that aerial or elementary spirit And the operation of the holy Ghost is shadowed by wind or breath Christ breathed upon his Disciples saying receive the holy Ghost John 20. 22. and the holy Ghost came as a mighty rushing wind Acts 2. 2. When Job saith remember that my life is wind he means my Quasi ventus Targum life is like the wind It is a similitude not an assertion The life of man is like the wind in two things First the wind passeth away speedily so doth mans life Secondly the wind when it is past returns no more as you cannot stop the wind or change its course So all the power in the world is not powerful enough to recallor divert the wind which way the wind goes it will goe and when it goes 't is gone Ps 78. 34. He remembred that they were but flesh wind that passeth away in this sence Job calleth his life a wind it passeth away and shall not return by any law or constitution of nature or by any efficacy of natural causes Yet here observe Job saith not His soul was a wind but his life was a wind Some have philosophiz'd the soul into a wind a blast or a breath and tell us that it goes as the soul of a beast that life and soul are but the same thing when the life 's gone out of the body the soule 's gone from its being They acknowledg a restoring of it again with the body at the resurrection but deny it any existence when separate from the body How dishonourable this is to the noble constitution of man and how dissonant to Scripture is proved in mentioning it we acknowledge that life which is the union of soul and body is a wind and passeth away In all the learned languages Hebrew Greek Latine the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus a spirando Animum quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidam dictum existimant Graeci pro respiratione seu spiritu quem ducimas aceipiunt primo quod vita nostra respiratione indigeâ—t sccundo quod flatu videatur humana vita in prima sua origine constitisse word which signifies spirit or life hath its original from respiring and when we say my wind was gone or my wind was almost beaten out of my body our meaning is my Life was almost gone In the creation Gen. 2. 7. God breathed into man the breath of life or of lives implying the many facultes and operations of life And in as much as the body of man was first formed and this life brought in after to act and move it this is an abundant proof that the soule of man is not any temperament of the body the body being compleated as a body before it and yet no life resulting Wheras beasts to whom that beastly opinion compares man in his creation had living bodies as soone as bodies their totall form being but an extract from the matter Solomen Eccl. 3. 19 20 21. brings in the Atheist drawing this conclusion from those confused oppressions which he observed in the world men carried themselves so like beasts preying upon and devouring one another that he who had nothing but carnall reason to judge by presently resolves That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts even one thing befalleth them as the one dieth so dieth the other yea they have all one breath so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast for all
potion and mistooke his case his was good searching physick for the foul stomach and grosse spirit of a hypocrite but it is enough to kill the heart of an upright-heart when God seemes angry with him and appeares against him when he is smitten without and smitten within by sore afflictions of mind and body then for his comforters to smite him with their tongues to lay at him with hard words and wound him with their unreasonable jealousies then for his counsellers and helpers to be angry with and opposite against him too Observe hence That not only words untrue but words misapplied are unsavoury and may be dangerous They are no food and they may be poison Prudence in applying is the salt and seasoning of what is spoken As a word spoken in the right season is precious and upon the wheele so is a word right placed When that faith full Prophet Ezek. 13. reproves the false prophets he saith They dawbed with untempered morter ver 10. it is the word of the text and why was theirs untempered morter even because they applied the word of God wrong They made sad the hearts of those whom God would have refreshed and they cheared the spirits of those whom God would have sadned they slay the souls that should not dye and save the souls alive that should not live This was untempered morter The Apostle advises all Col. 4 6. Let your speech be alwayes with grace seasoned with salt And speech must be seasoned not only with the falt of truth but with the salt of wisdome and discretion and therefore the Apostle adds that ye may know how to answer every one that is that you may give every man an answer fitting his case and the present constitution of his spirit Of some have compassion saith the Apostle Jude ver 22. making a difference and others save with feare This shewes the holy skill of managing the word of God when we make a difference of our patients by our different medicines and not serve all out of the same boxe Hence our Lord calleth those great Teachers of the Gospel and dispensers of his Oracles Light and Salt You are the Light of the world and you are the salt of the earth because they were to speake savoury things to every person to every pallate as well as to enlighten them with knowledge and prevent or cure the corruption of their manners and keep their lives sweet As there is an unsavourinesse in persons when they are mis-employed so there is an unsavourinesse in speeches when they are mis-applied The history of the Church speaks of one Eccebolius who changed religion so often and was so unsetled that at last Conculcate me salem insipidum Niceph. he cast himselfe down at the congregation doore and said Trample upon me for I am unsavoury salt And that word though in it self a truth which is unseasonably delivered or unduly placed may be cast at the doores of the Congregation to be trampled on for in this sence it is unsavoury salt Such corrupt the word and their's is but corrupt communication such as cannot minister grace unto the hearers and often grieves the holy Spirit of God These work-men for their ill division of the word of God have reason enough to be ashamed and the Lord may justly reprove them as he did Jobs friends Chap. 42. 7. Ye have not spoken of me nor of my wayes the thing that is right JOB Chap. 6. Vers 8 9 10 c. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Then should I yet have comfort yea I would harden my selfe in sorrow Let him not spare for I have not concealed the words of the holy One c. IN the former part of this Chapter we have had Job defending his former complaint of life and his desire of death In this context from the 8th verse unto the end of the 12th he reneweth and reinforceth that desire He not only maintaines and justifies what he had done but doth it again begging for death as heartily and importunately as he did in the third Chapter O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for The request it selfe is laid downe in the 8 â—h and 9 â—h verses and the reasons strengthning it in the 10 11 and 12 verses So these 5 verses are reduceable to these two heads 1. The renewing of his desire to dye 2. An enlargement of reasons confirming that desire O that I might have my request It is such a vehement desire and so exprest as Davids was 2 Sam. 23. 15. And David longed and said Oh that one would give me drinke of the water of the well of Bethlem which is by the gate David did not long more to tast a cup of that water then Job did to tast the cup of death The summe and scope of Jobs thoughts in this passage may be conceived thus He would assure his friends that his faith was firme and his comforts flowing from it very sweet That it was not impatience under the troubles of this life but assurance of the comforts of the next which caused him so often to call for death That these comforts caused his heart to triumph and glory in the very approaches of the most painfull death and made him despise and lightly to esteeme all the hopes of life That he was gone further then the motives which Eliphaz used from the hopes of a restitution to temporall happinesse he now was pitcht upon and lodg'd in the thoughts of eternall happinesse That he call'd for death not as that with which he had made any Covenant or was come to any agreement with but only as that which would bring him to his desired home The one Thing he desired That his comforts had not a foundation in a grave where all things are forgotten but in the Covenant of God who remembers mercy for ever and therefore it should not trouble him to die before he was restored to health riches and honour which his friends proposed to him as a great argument of comfort and of patience For in death he should have riches and glory and hence it was that he had rather endure the extreamest paines of death then stay to receive any outward comforts in this life His desires to be dissolved were not so much from the sence of his present paine for he would harden himselfe to endure yet more as from the apprehension of future joy This was not a fancie or a dreame but he had good proof and reall evidence of it in the whole course of his life which had been as a continued acting of the word of God and to a fitting him for nearest communion with God This in general The letter of the Hebrew runneth thus Who would give me that my request or that
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Impingere quod saepe consequitur ruere cadere stumble or strike the foot against a thing and so it is put for that which is the consequent of stumbling falling he that strikes his foot or stumbles at a thing is in danger of a fall So Isay 40. 30. The young men shall utterly fall it is this word but doubled falling they shall fall that is they shall utterly fall There is a threefold falling mentioned in Scripture 1. There is a falling into sinne Gal. 6. 1. If a man be overtaken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praecipuè significat peccata actualia à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad verbum praeter cadere cuÌ„ scil ultra rectam justitiae lineam cadimus de erratis etiam levioribus usurpatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in compositione minuit sensum in a fault that word like this Hebrew in the Text signifies a fall taken by stumbling or by tripping upon any thing that lies in the way In this sense we understand the fall of Adam the fall of Angels and the fals of the Saints 2. There is a falling into affliction a falling into trouble So Prov 24. 16. The just man falleth seven times a day that is he meets affliction at every turn he fals into trouble almost at every step Seven times a day is very often in the day or often every day 3. There is a falling under trouble And of persons falling so we are chiefly to understand this Text. Many fall into trouble who yet through the strength of Christ stand firmely under trouble Others no sooner fall in but they fall under it The shoulders of some are not able to beare a light affliction and the afflictions of others are so heavie that no shoulders are able to beare them the back breaks the spirit sinkes under the load To such as these Job lent his hand his shoulders his counsell was as a staffe in their hands as ligaments to their loynes and knees Job was well skill'd in setting props and buttresses of holy advice to such tottering soules Thou hast upheld him that was falling We may take the words in all or either of these three interpretations yet most properly of the latter Thou hast strengthned the feeble knees The Hebrew word for a knee signifieth in the root to blesse or to pray because in blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Genu quod flecti solet in Benedictionibus et salutationibus and praying for one or in saluting we use to bow the knee And here what we translate the feeble knees is word for word the bowing knees because when knees bow and buckle or double under us it proceeds from weaknesse and feeblenesse hence the bowing knee is called the feeble knee Dan. 6. 5. it is said of Belshazzar his knees smote one against the other he fainted his spirits sanke within him then his knees as a Symptome of his feare beat one against another The hanging down of hands notes a kinde of despaire in regard of present evils and feeble quaking knees seeme to referre to some expected evill Taking the words with that difference Jobs work of love appears more full he not only upheld in present troubles but labour'd to strengthen against such as were to come Thou hast instructed many and instructed them many even all these wayes We may note First That to teach instruct and comfort others is not onely a mans duty but his praise for here Eliphaz speaks it in a way of commendation though with an intent to ground a reproofe upon it Job himselfe speaks of what he had done in that kinde as a defence of his own innocence Chap. 29. vers 21. c. Vnto me men gave eare and waited and kept silence at my counsell after my words they spake not againe and my speech dropped upon them and they waited for me as for the rain and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain This was his practise and this was the praise of Job That which the Apostle speaks as a speciall qualification or gift of a Bishop 1 Tim. 3. 2. is an excellent a noble qualification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any person of what rank or degree soever to be apt to teach Secondly Consider who Job was he was a holy man one that had much acquaintance and communion with God Now though his friends mistook what was in his heart yet they hit right upon his practise and we knowing both what his heart was by the testimony of God and what his practise was from the testimony of men may ground a second point upon it That such as know God in truth and holinesse are very ready to communicate the knowledge Quae autem est ceâ—â—â—or eleemosyna quod majus opus miserecordiae quam docere rudes segnes ad bene agendum extimulare labentem erigere maestos consâ—lari of God unto others They who know God themselves are desirous that others should know God too David Psal 51. 13. promiseth and professeth that he would communicate his experiences of Gods love in pardoning his sinne when he had tasted the sweetnesse of a pardon Then will I teach transgressors thy wayes and sinners shall be converted unto thee when my heart hath learned more of God others shall learne more of God from my mouth This is spirituall charity and it is the most excellent and noblest charity of all Charity to the soule is the soule of charity charity to the better part is the best charity In this sence also Job was eyes to the blinde and feet to the lame by guiding them to see Job 29. 15. and by directing their feet to walk in the wayes of God To give knowledge is better then to give Gold Instruction is the highest almes Thirdly if we consider Job of whom all this is affirmed as he was a great rich man we may note thus much That honourable and great men loose nothing of their honour and greatnesse by descending to the instruction of others though their inferiours Some think it belongs onely unto Ministers to instruct What we instruct They resent it as a disparagement they trust out that work wholly into the hands of others Where shall we finde an Abraham a great Prince in his time of whom God gave this Testimony I know him that he will command his children c. and they shall keep the way of the Lord and because he was willing to teach others God condescends to teach him Shall I hide from Gen 18. 17 18 19. Abraham that thing which I doe They receive most knowledge who are most ready to impart it And we finde before this Abraham so successefull in teaching that he had an Army of scholers in his house The Text saith when he prepar'd for that expedition to rescue his Nephew Lot that he armed three hundred and eighteen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 14. 14. Prov. 22. 6. of his trained
part of his character or commendation Thou art reported to be a man fearing God is not this thy feare Feare is taken either for the whole compasse of Gods worship or for that awfulnesse of affection with which we worship God which we ought to mingle and mix in all our actions and duties Therefore saith the Apostle Heb. 12. Let us have grace to serve him with reverence and godly feare And Psalme the second Serve the Lord with feare God is to be served in love and yet God loves no service which hath not this ingredient Holy feare Feare is the most proper affection which we creatures dust and ashes who are at such an infinite distance from God can put forth in his worship God condescends so farre as to be loved by us yea he calleth for our love as a friend or as a father as a familiar as one in neer relation but considered in his Majesty glory and greatnesse feare is the most suitable affection in our approaches unto God The name of God in some languages is derived from feare and God is expresly called Fear by Jacob Gen. 31. in that dispute with Laban where he telleth him Except the fear of his father Isaac had been with him c. Verse 42 And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac Verse 53. that is by that God whom his father Isaac feared Jacob was a man so holy that he would take nothing into his mouth to swear by but onely the holy Name of God Religious swearing is one of the highest acts of worshipping as vaine swearing is one of the highest acts of prophaning the name of God Thy confidence The word which we translate confidence signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inconstantia levitas per Antiphrasin constantia considenâ—ia also and that most properly folly inconstancy levity when the Prophet Jeremy reproveth the idolatry of those times speaks to worshippers of Idols he expresses it by this word They are altogether bruitish and foolish Jer. 10. 8. And holy David Psalme 49. 13. speaking of wicked men who make riches their portion and who lay out all their endeavours in the raising of an outward estate gives this account of their practise in the 13 Verse This their way is their folly this is the course that worldly men take and they think it is a very wise course but indeed their way is their folly Some translators reade that text this their way is their confidence as here in Job and so they make the sense out thus this way of worldly men in gathering riches in heaping up abundance of these outward things is their confidence that is they have nothing else to trust unto they have nothing beyond the world to trust unto this their way is their confidence So againe Prov. 15. 26. A foolish man or a man of folly despiseth his mother And once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more Psal 85. 8. where the Psalmist goeth up like Habakkuk to his Watch-tower to hearken for an answer of his prayer I will hearken what the Lord will say for he will speake peace unto his people but let them not returne againe to folly So some reade it in this Text of Job is not this thy fear thy folly that is was it not meere folly for thee to bragge and boast of thy feare sc That thou didst feare God c. But the word is often taken in a contrary sense as we translate for constancy or confidence and sometimes for hope and thus Job 31. 24. If I have said to gold thou art my hope or my confidence and Chap. 8. 14. speaking of the Hypocrite whose hope shall be cut off the same word is used and Prov. 3. 26. The Lord shall be thy confidence and he shall keep thy foot from being taken and not to heape many places Psal 78. 7. That they may set their hope in God In this sense it is generally understood here Is not this thy fear and thy confidence sc all the trust thou hast placed in thy God Feare and confidence are acts of naturall worship Confidence or Trust is the resting of the soule upon another here the resting of the soule upon the Word or promises of God upon the power faithfulnesse and truth of God an act thus put forth by the soule is confidence Now saith Eliphaz is not this thy confidence thou hast spoken much of resting and trusting upon God and his Word upon his power and faithfulnesse is not this that which thou hast all this while talked of See what a goodly confidence it is Doth it look like a proper piece of grace Confidence is an act beyond faith a soule confiding walkes in a higher Region of grace and comfort than a soule only believing there may be believing where there is not this confiding As patience is hope lengthned so confidence is hope strengthned Assurance is the highest degree of faith and confidence is the highest degree of assurance It carries with it first cheerfulnesse opposite to sorrow secondly courage opposite to fear and despondency of spirit thirdly boldnesse adventurousnesse opposite to cowardice Confidence having a good cause and a good call will take a Beare by the tooth or a Lion by the beard Fourthly it notes boasting or a kinde of spirituall wise bragging opposite to sinfull modesty or concealement of what God hath done for us Or take it thus Confidence is the noblest exercise of faith which looking steadily upon God in himselfe and in Christ through the promises raises the soule above all fears and discouragements above all doubts and disquietments either about the removing of evill or the obtaining of good Hence confidence is well called the rest of the soule therefore such as attaine to confidence are said to be in peace in perfect peace Isay 26. 3. Him wilt thou establish in perfect peace whose heart doth trust upon thee And this act of confidence or trust is proper and peculiar to God no creature must share in it This is worship commanded in the first precept Thou shalt have no other Gods before mee Whatsoever we confide in unlesse it be in subordination unto God we make it our God And it is one of the highest acts of the soule not onely as we respect the taking in our own comforts but also the giving out glory unto God This confidence is well coupled with holy feare the more we feare God so the more we trust him such feare is the mother and nurse of confidence But confidence is directly contrary yea contradictory to carnall feare he that trusts God indeed leaves both soule and body temporall and eternall estate with him without ever sending a fearefull thought or a jealous looke after either It followes And the uprightnesse of thy wayes It is the word used in the description of Job Cap. 1. 1. There it is in the concrete perfect here in the abstract uprightnesse We may reade it Is not this the perfection of thy wayes
not perish Take perishing in the fourth sense as perishing is an eternall destruction and so the proposition of Eliphaz is true throughout strictly true That no righteous ever perished or were cut off an innocent person is in that sense past perishing a righteous man is past cutting off Joh. 10. 28. I doe give unto them eternall life and they shall never perish Rejoyce in this ye righteous ye are beyond perishing ye are past perishing while ye live in a perishing world Lastly Take it in the fifth sense and so you may have a further truth which I conceive is that which Eliphaz purposely aimeth at take perishing for outward present destruction joyned with a totall desertion and in that sense the proposition of Eliphaz is true also No righteous man no innocent man ever perished or was so cut off with any temporall judgement The Apostle is direct for it 2 Cor. 4. 8 9. We are in trouble on every side we see trouble which way soever we turne but we are not distressed we are perplexed we are in the bryars as well as ungodly men but not in despaire we are in hope still and if there be hope for us God is for us We are persecuted but not forsaken God is neere us though all the world stand aloofe we are cast downe but not destroyed we shall up againe So that while he admits of perishing in the former sense respecting outward afflictor yet he denies it constantly in this latter sense so as to be cut off quite from the comforts and supports of God That observation of David may be thus understood Psal 37. 25. I have been young and now am old yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken he doth not say in my experience I never saw the righteous afflicted but I never saw him left or forsaken in his afflictions and I never saw his seed begging their bread he puts in that because begging of bread especially in the Common-wealth of Israel and in the state of the Jewes was a note of utter dereliction for though God had told them that they should have the poore alwayes with them yet he had given an expresse Law that there should be no beggar among them therefore saith he I have not seene the righteous so forsaken that they should be forced to live by begging If any say that David himselfe begged he asked bread of Abimelech Casus transitorii non reddunt mendicum and of Nabal I answer It is a good rule and it resolves the case Transitory cases and suddaine accidents make no beggars we must not say David was a beggar or begged his bread because once he was in a straite and asked bread of Abimelech and in a second straite sent to Nabal In such sudden cases the richest man in the world may be put to aske a peece of bread A good man may fall into such wants but good men are rarely if ever or at all left in them Now to apply it particularly to the intent of Eliphaz in this place We have given three interpretations in which we have shewed how righteous men may perish and two wherein the righteous cannot possibly perish in both which the words here spoken by Eliphaz are a truth And concerning the fifth and last I conceive Eliphaz is particularly ro be understood For he speakes not here of the eternal estate of Job though that be involved when he concludeth him a wicked man but he speakes of the dealings of God in temporals He look't upon Job as a lost man a man utterly forsaken of his God as a man of a forlorne hope cut downe and pluckt up root and branch when he saw his stocke consumed his children slaine his body diseased and his spirit so distempered And so the minor or the assumption onely is false the proposition true Righteous men doe not perish thus innocent persons are not thus cut off but thou Job perishest and art cut off Hold there that 's false Job in the sense Eliphaz intended perished not was not cut off for in the sequell God gave him both comfort and deliverance Love was mingled with the affliction strength was ministred to beare the affliction and at last a gracious way was made out of the affliction The blessing of God caused him to spring out againe though his goodly branches were broken and his fruit pluckt off yet his roots were not pluckt up It will not be unnecessary for the clearing of this Scripture to subjoyne a reason why in the Old Testament or under the old Covenant there was so much stumbling at the afflictions and troubles of the righteous for it put even a David a Jeremiah and a Habakuk Psal 73. Jer. 12. 1. hard to it for an answer when they saw such under sufferings the reason was this because God in those times made more speciall temporall promises to his people in case of obedience than he hath done in the time of the Gospel Reade Deut. 28. Levit. 27. and other places where you shall finde how all the promises runne upon things that concerne the outward man they shall be blessed in their basket and in their store they shall have this and that and all outward things aboundantly and the curse threatned was the losse and deprivation of those outward blessings in case of disobedience For God did winne and carry them on in that non-age of the Church by outward and temporall promises hence they were much troubled and offended when they saw righteous men under heavy pressures and breaking afflictions Now since the comming of Christ in the flesh and the pouring out of those speciall spirituall blessings upon his people by the Holy Ghost he doth not feed us so much with these outward hopes or enjoyments Therefore in the Gospell we read what hard meate he giveth his people foretelling them plainly If any will follow me let him deny himselfe and take up his crosse There is scarce such a word in all the old Testament as that he which will follow me shall finde a crosse and be sure of persecution They were but children such words and sights might terrifie them therefore they were as it were dandled on the knee and allured by sensible comforts a land flowing with milke and honey if they did obey and they heard of rods and stripes in case of stubbornnesse and disobedience Say to the righteous it shall be well with him for they shall eate the fruite of their doings Woe to the wicked it shall be ill with him c. Isa 3. 10 11. David saith indeed many are the troubles of the righteous but it is not put among the termes of their state or service It is not said if ye will be righteous ye shall have trouble Moses never told them If any will be my disciple let him taka up his crosse c. So then Gods dealings and dispensations being most in outward things at that time they were very apt to stumble at the crosse And there
the highest elevation both in parts gifts and graces shall he be more pure than his Maker Christ as incarnate or made man is called the Mighty God Isa 9. 6. God made a Mighty man or man becomming the Mighty God The Chaldee calls all Giants Gibbaraja and Nimrod the first of the Giants was called by this name a Mighty hunter before the Lord Gen. 10. 8. So then Let man be never so excellent his excellency is basenesse let him be never so strong so wise so holy he is but weake foolish filthy compared with him who made him Leave your Enosh your weakeling your poore sick creatures bring forth your Gibers your best they are as nothing yea lesse than nothing before the Lord. Shall mortall man be more just than God shall man the best of men be more pure than his Maker We are to marke the double opposition of the Text. Here is first mortall weake sick man set in opposition to the strong the mighty the all-powerfull God And then in the second place the opposition is between the strongest the best the holiest the wisest of men and the maker of all men Shall mortall man or shall the best of men be more just more pure than God their Maker There is a three-fold sense which we may give of the words joyntly First They are a deniall of all comparison between God and man No man may compare himselfe with God Shall mortall man that is mortall man ought not to be so bold and daring as to venture upon such a thing as this to stand upon termes of equality with the mighty the great the glorious God the Maker of all as the Apostle resolves in his own case 1 Cor. 4. 4. Though I know nothing by my selfe yet am I not hereby justified at all much lesse though a man know nothing by himselfe will this justifie him in this comparison that he is just as God is just But secondly Shall mortall man be more just than God It is as if he had said God who is infinite in justice would never doe that which a just man will not doe God who is infinite in power would never doe that which a weake man would not doe shall weake man be more just than God And so we may forme the argument thus No man no Judge is more just or incorrupt than God who is the supreame and Lord chiefe Justice of all men But there is no just Judge amongst men who will punish an innocent man therefore God doth not punish any one that is innocent The consequence or inference is plaine and cleare for God himselfe should either be unjust or he should be lesse just than man is if he should doe that which a just man upon true grounds would refuse to doe Therefore in Gen. 18. Abraham pleades with God under that title of a just Judge shall not the Judge of all the world doe right As if he should say faithfull Judges upon the earth will doe right therefore surely he that is the Judge of all the earth will doe right so Eliphaz here to Job Never complaine as if God had done thee wrong for certainly the just God will not doe that which a just man would not doe The word whereby God is exprest Eloha Eloha denotot judicem â—quissimum rerum arbitâ—um doth well comply with and answer this sense it being properly attributed to God as a Judge the great arbitrator and determiner of all the causes and cases of all men in the world Shall mortall man be more just than God Thirdly The sense may be taken thus If any man should come to impleade God or to pleade with God if any should dare to tax the Justice of God or be so hardy to put in a bill of complaint against him shall this man this weake man be found more just in his complaining than God hath been in sentencing shall his bill of complaint be better grounded than the Lords award of Judgement It is an allusion to those who supposing they have wrong complaine against the Judge and say that he hath erred in or perverted Judgement That word Justified here used shall man be justified before God is a Judiciarie word a Court or Law terme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Veâ—bum forense spectans ad innocentis absolutionem The same word which the Holy Ghost uses in that great work of Free Grace the justification of a sinner before God And that imports the declaring and setting forth of a man to be righteous and his cause good in Jesus Christ whereupon he is cleered and acquitted When Satan accuses or pleads against us laying such and such sinnes to our charge thus and thus this man hath offended then God is said to justifie a man that is to declare him to be just his sinnes being covered and himselfe accepted in Jesus Christ Hence that divine challenge to all accusers Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect it is God that justifieth Rom. 8. 33. So now if man should accuse and complaine against God he hath done thus and thus in the world afflicted a Job troubled a righteous person shall mortall man be more just than God Shall this man in his complaint be justified shall not God rather be justified against whom he complains Certainly he shall God shall be declared just yea he shall be declared just by man A man un-ingaged and rightly principled Such a man shall say verily there is a God that judgeth the earth In the judgement of man that judgment shall speak a God and all shall be forced to Daniels mourning acknowledgement O Lord righteousnesse belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of face Dan. 97. 9 We may enlighten it further by that of David Ps 51. 4. where he professes thus I will confesse my sins c. that thou maiest be justified when thou speakest and be cleare when thou judgest as if he should say if hereafter thou shalt afflict me and lay thy rod upon me I know many will be ready to complaine and say why doth God thus why doth he afflict David David a holy man a man after his own heart a man of whom he hath given such large testimony of whom he hath said I have found a man after my own heart Now to the intent all these may be cast in their suits and answered in their complainings I here acknowledge before all the world that I have sinned greatly therefore though thou hast pardoned my sinne and so wilt never charge it upon me to condemnation nor punish me for it in a way of satisfaction yet hereafter thou maiest in thy fatherly wisdome see it needfull to chastise me to prevent and purge out sin or to help me against the weaknesse of my nature and the strength of temptation for the time to come So here in the Text Shall man be justified before God If Job or any of his friends for him should complaine against God why he being
one commended and approved from the mouth of God for a man perfect and upright should be thus afflicted what Shall weake Job be justified before God Yea though Job be considered in his greenest flourishings of grace and highest pitch of his prosperity as he was Geber indeed the greatest the mightiest man in the Easterne world yet shall he be more pure than his Maker No cease your complainings God is just and his honour must be vindicated in what he doth or in what he shall doe against the weakest or against the mightiest against the meanest or against the best of men God will be found just and man a lyar Either of these three senses are faire from the construction of the Text and may be profitable for us I shall therefore draw them down into five or six conclusions which will be at least a portion of that marrow and fatnesse which this Scripture yeilds us to feed upon First we may observe That man naturally preferreth himselfe not onely above other men but even before God himselfe A principle of pride dwels in our hearts by nature which at some times and in some cases breeds better thoughts in us of our selves than of God himselfe And it is this height of spirit which the heavenly vision here would levell to the ground We know it was the first sin of man that man desired to be like God Gen. 3. The first temptation was baited with a parity to the Divine powers Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evill This also was the language of Lucifers heart Thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the starres of God I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds I will be like the most high I say â—4 13 14. And the practise of the man of sinne is thus prophesied That he shall exalt himselfe above all that is called God 2 Thess 2. 4. But the heart of man is yet more mad and hath out-growne those sinfull principles For in troubles and temptations when things go not according to his minde he sometimes hath thoughts not only that he is like God but that he is more just than God and if he had the ordering of things he would order them better than God he sometime thinks himselfe juster than God and if he had the punishing of offenders justice should proceed more freely and impartially than it doth which is upon the matter not onely to exalt himself as the Man of Sin doth above Nuncupative Gods or all that is called God but to exalt himself above him who is God by nature above the onely one-most God Even to speak in this Dialect of highest blasphemy that he is more just than God more pure than his Maker Secondly Take this conclusion That it is a most high presumption not onely for low weak man but for the best the highest of men to compare themselves with God or to have any thoughts concerning his wayes as if they could mend them When God cals us to amend our wayes for us to presume we could amend Gods wayes is the very top branch the highest tower yea the most towring Pinnacle of presumption We say amongst men that comparisons are odious but this is the most odious comparison of all for a man to compare himselfe with God his thoughts with Gods thoughts what he hath done or would doe with what God doth If you consider the termes of opposition that are in the Text this conclusion will be more clear unto you Consider how Enosh weak mortall man is opposite to Elohah the mighty the strong God it is presumption for a weak man to compare with a strong man what presumption is it then for a weake man to compare with the mighty God for a reed to compare in strength with a rock for darknesse to compare with light for a cloud to compare with the Sunne for death to compare with life for folly to compare with wisdome for uncleanenesse to compare with holinesse for nothing to compare with All how presuptuous Will ye provoke the Lord saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 10. are ye stronger than he It implies that some such thoughts lodge in man as if he could make his partie good with God or might be stronger than he And it is equall folly in us and provocation against the Lord to thinke our selves juster as to thinke our selves stronger than he And then marke the other termes of opposition Man and his Maker Shall the great man compare with or be more pure than his Maker as if he should say How great and excellent soever this man is he was made and made by God with whom he thus compares than whom he thinks himselfe more pure And shall the thing formed stand upon termes with him that formed it shall the potsheard or the pot contend with the Potter what though it be an excellent vessell a vessell determined for the most excellent ends and uses yet whatsoever it is it was made to be and made to be by God both in its constitution and uses Shall it then boast it selfe against its maker The Lord made Geber as well as Enosh the strong man as well as the weake the wise and learned man as well as the foolish and ignorant the Noble as well as the base the holy and righteous as well as the wicked and prophane In a word the vessels of honour are as much yea more of his making than the vessels of dishonour shall they then be more pure than their Maker hath the Lord given more to others than he hath in himselfe hath he made a creature his superior or his Peere hath his bounty impaired his own stock or hath he made man more than God That God hath made the best out of the dust is enough to lay all our pride and boasting as low as the dust That what we are we are from another should ever keep us humble in our selves Thirdly Take this Conclusion That God in himselfe is most just and pure Shall mortall man be more just than God The question hath this position in it that God is infinitely just infinitely pure therefore he is perfectly pure perfectly just God is essentiall Justice essentiall purity Justice and purity are not qualities in God but they are his very nature A man may be a man and yet be unjust but God cannot be God and be unjust A man may be a man and yet impure but God cannot be God and be impure so that Justice and purity are not qualities or accidents in God but his very essence and being destroy or deny the purity and Justice of God and you put God out of the world as much as in you lies for he cannot be God unlesse he be both just to others and pure in himselfe Fourthly Take this conclusion The best men compared with God are evill and the holiest are impure Not onely is it presumption but a lye for men to compare with God
Hoast of Senacherib an Angel smote bloody persecuting Herod Angels by name if not by nature powre out the seven vials of Gods wrath in the Revelation And at the last day Angels shall hurry the wicked to Christs Tribunall they are heavenly Pursivants and they shall bundle the Tares up together as fuell to be throwne into everlasting burnings Matth. 13. 41 42. And it may be a great comfort to us that God hath such servants When visible dangers are round about us we should remember God hath invisible servants round about us There are more with us then against us as Elisha told his fearfull servant 2 Kings 6. And in that low estate of the Church Zech. 1. 8. the Prophet is shewed Christ in a vision standing among the Mirtle trees in the bottome the Mirtle trees in the bortome noted the Church in a low estate and behinde him there were red Horses speckled and white that is horsemen speckled and white These diverse coloured Horses were Angels appointed for severall offices as the learned Junius with others interprets it The red horses being appointed for judgement the white for mercy and the speckled as he conjectures for mixt actions being sent out at once to protect and help the people of God and to execute wrath and judgement upon the adversary Thus we see the services of the Angels they are servants yet such as the most wise God put no trust in therefore we have an Angel better then Angels even the Angel of the Covenant the Lord Jesus into whose hands our safety is committed to whose care the Church is left in whom God puts the whole trust knowing that this great Angel is and for ever will be faithfull in and over his house to his highest delight and the Churches compleatest welfare And his Angels he charged with folly Nec in Angelis suis ponet lumen Tagn Nec in Angelis suis posuit lucem exactissimam Vatab. Angelis suis posuit vesaniam Tygur In Angelis suis ponet glorationem Bibl. Reg. In Angelis suis reperit vanitatem Sym. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Splenduit luxit claruit Metaphoricè in piel spiendidum illustrem claâ—uÌ„ reddidit laudavit praedicavit Per Antiph rasin inglorius insanus furore actus fuit insanivit There are very different readings of this part of the Verse Some as M. Beza read it thus He trusted not in his servants though he had put light into those his messengers Others reade it with a negation in both parts He put no trust in his servants neither hath he put light in his Angels Another thus neither hath he put perfect light in his Angels Mr. Broughton differs from all these Behold he holdeth not perfection to be in his own servants and in his Angels he judged no clear light to be Another sort read it to these senses He charged or put madnesse in or upon his Angels he put or charged vaine boasting in or upon his Angels he found vanity in or amongst his Angels he observed some evill amongst his Angels Now that which hath given occasion to this variety of translatings is the different senses which the Originall yields us The Hebrew word is very fruitfull of significations and hath as the Oracle told Rebecca concerning two contrary Nations two contrary meanings in the wombe of it and that makes the strugling amongst Interpreters The word in its proper sense signifies to shine forth with a resplendent brightnesse so Chap. 29. 3. Job wisheth O that I were as in moneths past when the candle of God shined upon my head it is a Verbe of which the word folly in this text of Job is a derivative And Isay 14. 12. Hielel signifies the Morning star whose shining brightnesse hath obtained the name Lucifer Light-bringer or Light-bearer How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer sonne of the Morning How art thou fallen from Heaven Hielel thou shining day-star Thus the word properly signifies shining or brightnesse or to shine and be bright and hence by a Metaphor to be Famous or renowned or to make one renowned or famous or to paint out a man with praises because a man is as it were decked with light and hath rayes of brightnesse cast upon him when he is honoured and adorned with praises Due commendations are to a man as a robe or vesture of light which makes him shine to all about him And hence the word Halelujah is derived praise ye Jah or the Lord used frequently both in the beginning and end of the Psalmes in the beginning of the Psalmes by way of exhortation and in the end by way of acclamation crying up the honour and glory of God And to note that in passage it is well observed that this word Hallelujah is first used in the old Testament Psal 104. 35. where the utter consumption of sinners is mentioned and in the New Testament it is first used Rev. 19. 3 6. where the utter consumption of Antichrist is prophesied Judgement on the wicked is matter of high praise to God Thirdly the word signifies by the figure Antiphrasis or contrary speaking to boast and brag vainly foolishly or vaine foolish boasting To commend or extoll our selves is pride running mad and arrogance distracted It is the highest dotage to be in love with our owne wisdome and folly to publish our own works There may be wisdom though oftentimes there is a great deale of folly in commending others but in commending our selves there can be nothing but folly therefore the very same word which signifies to boast and commend our selves signifies both the concrete to be mad vaine or foolish and the abstract madnesse and folly thus in Eccles 2. 2 12. the word is used I said of laughter thou art mad I turned my selfe to behold wisdome and folly and madnesse and Psal 75. 4. I said unto the fooles deale not foolishly or to the mad-men do not play the mad-men that is do not exalt your selves for so he clears his meaning in the fifth Verse Lift not up your hornes on high speak not with a stiffe neck that is a neck stifned with pride and a horne lifted up with vaine-glory or self-confidence From this variety of significations the variety of translations before toucht ariseth First they who read it He put light into those his messengers take the word in a proper strict sense making out the meaning thus that God having put the light of excellent knowledge into the Angels could not yet trust them all their speculative knowledge and high raised illuminations were not enough to make them steadily and steadfastly holy that is the intent of Mr. Beza's interpretation He trusted not to his servants though he had put light into those his messengers For those who retaining the word light translate negatively neither hath he put light in his Angels or neither hath he put perfect light into his Angels or as Mr. Broughton In his Angels
wilt find none to answer thee To this sense Mr. Broughton translates Call now if there be any that will defend thee that is be thy patron or advocate in word or in the example of their lives If there be any that will answer thee For ehe word which we render answer signifies not only answering unto a question but an answering to a condition or a correspondency in practise Verbum respondeâ—e in hoc loco significat poâ—â—us similitudinem vel comparationem quam responsionem Bold There is an answering by likenesse of works as well as by fitnesse of words A reall answer and a verball answer Take it so and then Call now to the Saints call them all by their names intends only thus much see if there be any that are like thee or sute either thy spirit or thy condition if there be any to whom thou mayest paralell thy selfe either in the matter or manner of thy sufferings Thou art more like a Heathen who knows not God then any of the Saints in these complainings And seeing out of the aboundance of the heart the mouth speaks these words speake thy heart abounding in sin but empty of grace Face answers face in the water But neither thy face nor heart will answer either heart or face of any of the Saints in these waters of affliction We find this word signifying similitude or comparison or the equivalence of one thing to another in that instance Eccles 10 19. Money answers all things the meaning of it is that money in a proportion or value suites paralels and fits all things There is nothing in the world but you may suite it with a proportion of money money will answer it money answers or is like all things by an equivalency though not in a formality And to which of the Saints wilt thou turne The Septuagint reade it To which of the Angels wilt thou looke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the learned Mercer adheres to that translation as thinking that by Saints are meant Angels though he be so farre from laying any bottome in the words for the Popish opinion of the mediation of Angels that he expressely condemnes it but he gives the sense thus as if Eliphaz had reproved Job of pride for contesting with God when as if he did turne himselfe to Angels he should find himselfe farre below and much overmatcht by them What thou dust and ashes more righteous and just than God Though he charged his Angels with folly yet even they are too wise and holy for thee to deale with If thou wert put into the ballance with Angels how light wouldst thou be then how much lighter then vanity art thou being weighed with God But the Hebrew is better translated Saints The word signifies a thing or person separated or set apart from common and dedicated to a speciall especially a holy use Holinesse in the generall nature of it is nothing else but a separation from common and dedication to a divine service such are the Saints persons seperated from the world and set apart unto God The Church in generall which is a company of Saints is taken out of and severed from the world The Church is a fountaine sealed and a Garden inclosed so also every particular Saint is a person severed and enclosed from the common throng and multitude of the world Come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch no uncleane thing and I will receive you 2 Cor. 6. 17. Turne thee it is both a witty and judicious conceit that Eliphaz in these words alludes to painters or Picture-drawers who when Alluâ—ere vide tur ad pictâ—res qui frequenter ad prototypum exemplar quod incitari conanâ—ur oculos dirigam ad illud convertuntur they are drawing the Picture of a Man or of any other thing frequently turne their eyes upon the proto-type upon that which they are to draw by when a man sits as they speake to have his picture taken the Artist turnes his eye often upon him so here to which of the Saints wilt thou turne thee to see thy picture or to see any one like thee where wilt thou looke now and by looking observe a Saint of thy complexion a holy man like thy selfe If the pictures of all the Saints were lost none of them could be found in or coppied out from thee The word which we translate turne Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non simpliciter respicere signâ—ficat aut aliquid intueri sed cum qu daÌ„ animi intentione ad aliquem fluem doth not signifie simply to looke about or turne the eye but to turne the eye about with much intention or curiosity of observation to make a discovery and find out somewhat Sometime it signifies to looke in compassion Psal 25. 16 Turne thee unto me saith David and have mercy upon me for I am very low To looke in compassion notes a strictnesse of observation to find out what charity or mercy should supply such a look or view of his estate David desired that God would turne his eye upon him to what end that he might consider and find out all his necessities and in mercy succour him So then To which of the Saints wilt thou turne sounds thus much upon what Saint wilt thou fix thine eye to find thy own likenesse a representation of the sufferings thou bearest or of thy bearing these sufferings Take the summe and sense of the whole verse thus Call over the roll or catalogue of all the Saints which either ever were or at this day are upon the face of the earth See if there be any whose condition or actions will answer in proportion unto thine turne thine eye upon all the holy ones see if thou canst observe any like thy selfe in the matter or manner of thy afflictions in the dealings of God with thee or in thy complainings against God Job thou standest alone for all the Saints goe to the fooles of the earth and to the prophaner Infidels among them thou mayest haply meet thy patterne and among their records reade the story of thy own impatience and miscarriage For as it followes wrath billeth the foolish and envy slayeth the silly one How like a foole and silly one art thou who hast thus almost vext thy selfe to death at thy own troubles and pinest with envy at the prosperity of others Such seemes to be the connexion and dependance of the second verse with and upon the first which I shall presently descend to open when I have added an observation or two from the former already opened It was good advice which Eliphaz gave Job in that condition namely to take view of the Saints and to compare himselfe with them Thence observe It is profitable for us to look to the example of the Saints either those departed or those alive and by them to examine both what we doe and how we suffer God hath given us not only his
he sees some good he hath above himselfe This passion is a murderer also it begins at the eyes but it rots down into the bones Envy slayeth the silly one There is not much difference between the nature of these two the foolish man and the silly one But the Originall words by which they are expressed are very different The roote signifies to perswade to intice or allure And it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sua sus per sua sus dâ—â—eptus seductus fuit hâ—nc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sua deo apud Grecos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Japheth le Jaâ—heâ—h is taken sometime in a good sense as in Gen. 9. 27. where the Holy Ghost speakes with admirable elegancy God will perswade the perswadable we translate it God will perswade Japhet Japhet had his name from being perswaded or perswadable God shall intice or perswade Japhet which was a prophecie of the calling of the Gentiles who are descendants from Japhet as the Jewes are from Shem. So that word is applied to Gods drawing or alluring men by the sweet promises and winning enticements of the Gospell God doth let it be taken in holy reverence tole men on by promises and deceive them graciously into the Gospell Hos 2. 14. I will allure her and bring her into the wildernesse And because by perswasions men are often deceived and seduced to evill therefore the word signifies also to deceive and beguile as well as to perswade and in the passive to be beguiled and deceived Hence the word in the text is derived which we translate a simple one or a man that will easily be perswaded led by another a sequatious or easie man whom you may carry with a mouth full of good words and faire promises whether you will Yet we finde this word Psal 116. 6. used in a good sense for a man without sinfull guile and craft a simple honest plaine-hearted man The Lord preserveth the simple But here and often else-where it is taken in an ill sence for a man without sence and reason without heart and spirit a man that cannot in any competency judge of things or make out his way but is meerly led and lives upon the opinion and judgement of another To such wisdome cryeth without and uttereth her voyce in the streets how long yee simple ones will ye love simplicity Prov. 1. 20 22. This silly one envie slayeth Exiguo animo abjecto spiritu He is out of his wits already and a little matter will put him out of his life Envy slayeth him that is a simple man looking upon the prosperity and blessings of God upon his neighbour will needs afflict himselfe he lookes upon himselfe as having lost all if that man gaine he fals if his brother stands and can with more ease die miserably then see another live happily In this sense it is That envie kils the silly one Now the reason why Eliphaz speakes of these two the foolish and the simple one and characters them as dying by the hand of these two lusts wrath and envie is because he conceived all Jobs troubled and as he thought muddy complaints in the third Chapter arose from these two impure and filthy springs wrath and envie from proud wrath and impotent envie he looked upon him as angry and displeased yea as enraged because God had dealt so ill with him and he supposed he saw him pale and wanne eaten up and pined with envie because others were so well because his friends enjoyed health lived in prosperity round about him As if he had said Thou art wroth at thy owne povertie sicknesse and sores and thou art envious at our plentie health and ease And may not folly and simplicitie challenge that man for Theirs whose spirit thus resents either his own evils or his neighbours good Observe hence First Every wicked man is a foolish a silly man Sinne is pure folly In the Proverbs all along wickednesse is the Interpretation of foolishnesse It is folly to take brasse Counters for gold and to be pleased with Bugles more then with Diamonds When an heyre is impleaded for an Ideot the Judge commands an apple or a counter with a peece of gold to be set before him to try which he will take if he takes the apple or the counter and leaves the gold he is then cast for a foole and unable to mannage his estate for he knows not the value of things or how to make a true election Wicked men are thus foolish and more for when bugles and diamonds counters and gold are before them they leave the diamonds and the gold and please themselves with those toyes and bables when which is infinitely more sottish Heaven and hell life and death are set before them they chuse hell rather then Heaven and death rather then life they take the meane transitory trifling things of the world before the favour of God the pardon of finne a part in Jesus Christ and an inheritance among the Saints in light All the wisdome of wicked men is wisdome in their owne conceits And Solomon assures us that there is more hope of a foole then of such that is of those who are sensible of their owne failings and are willing as the Apostle directs to become fooles that they may be wise 1 Cor. 3. 18. Opinion in it selfe is weake but self-opinion is very strong even the strongest of those strong-holds and the highest of those high Towers which the spirituall warre by those weapons which are mightie through God is to oppose and cast down which till they are cast down these fooles are impregnable and will not be led captive unto Christ Secondly observe That to vex and to be angerie at the troubles that fall upon us or at the hand which sends them is a high point of folly and of ignorance Wrath and discontent slay the foolish such are at once twice slain slain with the wrath of God and with their own To die thus is to die like a foole indeed For first this wrath of man springs from his ignorance of God Man would not be angry at what the Lord doth if he knew he were the Lord and may doe what himselfe pleases The ground of anger is a supposition of wrong Secondly This wrath of man springs from ignorance of himselfe He cannot be angry with any crosse who rightly knows himselfe First to be a creature This notion of our selves teaches us that lesson of humility to be subject to the will of our Creatour The law of our creation cals us to all passive obedience as well as unto active as much and as quietly to suffer as to doe the will of God But especially if a man did fully know himselfe to be a sinfull creature he would not be angry yea he would lay a charge upon his mouth not to utter a word and a charge upon his heart not to utter a thought against what the Lord doth with him I will beare the
upon his estate upon the branches and the fruit of that goodly tree much like that in the vision Dan. 4. 13 14. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed and behold a watcher and a holy One came downe from Heaven He cryed aloud and said thus Hew downe the tree and cut off his branches shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit c. This Allegory may be rendred in the plaine words of Eliphaz I cursed his habitation his children are far from safety The Master of the Family is the tree His children are either fruit or branches His leaves are riches and honour the beauty and pleasantnesse of his habitation Some things in the letter of the text are to be opened but I shall first observe one thing in the generall from the connection of this fourth verse with the third I suddenly cursed his habitation verse 3. Then follows his children are far from safety Observe from it That Creatures cannot stand before the curse of God How strongly soever they are rooted the blast of the breath of Gods displeasure will either blow them downe or wither them standing The curse comes powerfully suddenly and secretly it is often an invisible stroake When we see neither axe nor spade at the roote nor strome at rhe top yet downe it comes or stands without leafe or fruit When Christ in the Gospell curst the fruitlesse figg-tree his Disciples passing by that way wondred saying how quickly is this figg-tree whithered it was but onely a word from Christ Never beare fruit more and the fig-tree which had no fruit lost its life Some are such tall Cedars such mighty Oakes that men conclude there is no stirring of them no Axe can fell them or blast loosen them yet a word from the Lord will turne them up side downe or if he doe but say to them never fruit grow upon your actions or out of your counsels presently they wither The curse causlesse shall not come but when there is a cause and God speaks the word the curse will come Neither power nor policies neither threatnings or entreaties can hinder or block it up It is said of the water of jealousie in the booke of Numbers that when the woman dranke that water if there were cause of her husbands suspition presently her belly swel'd and her thighes did rot the effect was inevitable So if God bid judgement take hold of a man family or Nation it will obey A word made the world and a word is able to destroy it There is no armour of proofe against the shot or stroake of a curse Suddenly I cursed his habitation and the next news is His children are far from safety If God speake the word it is done as soone as spoken as that mysterious Letter said of the Gun-pouder plot As soone as the paper is burnt the thing is done Surely God can cause his judgements to passe upon his implacable enemies such horrid conspiratours against Churches and Common-wealths truth and peace with as much speed as a paper burns with a blaze and a blast they are consumed That in the generall from the connexion of these two verses Assoone as he was cursed his children and his estate all that he had went to wrack and ruine I shall now open the words distinctly His children are far from safety Some reade Were far from safety and so the whole passage in the time past because he speaks of a particular example which he himself had observeâ— in those daies as is cleare v. 2. Having shewed the curse upon the eoot he now shews the withering of the brauches Some of the Rabbins understand by Children the Followers or Imitators of wicked men such as assisted them or such as were like them These are morall children but take it rather in the letter for naturall children such as were borne to them or adopted by them these come under their fathers unhappinesse They are far from safety The Hebrew word is commonly rendred salvation His children are farre from salvation But then we must understand it for temporall salvation which our translation expresses clearely by safety His children are farre from safety It is possible that the children of a wicked man may be neare unto eternall salvation Though godly parents have a promise for their seed yet grace doth not runne in a bloud neither is the love of God tied or entayl'd upon any linage of men Election sometimes crosses the line and steps into the family of a reprobate father Therefore it is not said His children are farre from salvation in a strict but in a large sence We find the word salvation frequently used for safetie 2 Kings 13. 17. when Elisha bad Joash the King of Israel shot the arrow he called it the arrow of the Lords salvation which we render the arrow of the Lords deliverance So Moses bespeakes the trembling Israelites aâ— the red Sea Stand still and behold the salvation of the Lord that is behold what safety the Lord will give you from all these dangers what deliverance from the hand of Pharaoh The Prophet represents the Jewes thus bemoaning their outward judgements We roare all like Beares and mourne sore like Doves we looke for judgement but there is none for salvation but it is farre off Isa 59. 11. They are far from safety To be far from safety is a phrase importing extreame danger As when a man is said to be far from light he is in extreame darknesse and when a man is said to be far from health he is in extreame sicknesse and when a man is said to be far from riches he is in extreame poverty So here His children are far from safety that is they are in extreame danger and perill they walk as it were in the regions of trouble in the valley of the shadow of death continually That phrase is used also respecting the spirituall estate of unbeleevers They are far off from God far off from the Covenant Isa 57. 19. Ephes 12. 13. that is they have no benefit by the Covenant no interest in no favour at all or mercy from the Lord. To be far off from mercy is to be neare wrath and to be far from safety is to dwell upon the borders of danger And they are crushed in the gate In the forth Chapter Eliphaz describes man as crushed before the moth to shew how suddenly how easily man is destroyed This mans children are crushed in the gate as a man would crush a flie or a moth between his fingers They are crushed in the gate That notes two things First the publikenesse of their destruction they shall be destroyed in the sight of all men for the gate was a publike place Pro 31. 31. her workes praise her in the gates that is she is publikely knowne by her good works To doe a thing in the gate is opposed to the doing of a thing secretly To suffer in the gate is to suffer publikely Secondly to be crushed in the gate
which God raiseth his people shall be if he pleases like a mountain of Adamant which cannot be melted or like mount Sion which cannot be removed A high place is seldome a safe place All high things are tottering Nâ—tare solent excelsa omnia and the more high the more tottering Then how unsearchable is the wisdome how great the power of God who can set his people very high and yet very safe who can make a man stand as firme and steady upon the highest pinnacle of honour as upon a levell ground or in a valley of the lowest estate and condition He exalts to safety And hence wee may draw downe a difference between Gods exaltation of his own people and the exaltation of his enemies and wicked ones Wicked men are oft times exalted and God exalts them though they know it not but how He exalts them to a high place but doth exalt them to a safe place No the Psalmist after a long temptation concludes Thou hast set them in slippery places thou castest them downe into destruction how are they brought into desolation as in a mement Psal 73. 18 19. Haman was exalted high but not in safety Many are exalted as Jezabel exalted Naboth high among the people but it was to stone him rather then to honour him It is said of Pharaoh he lifted up the head of his chiefe Baker he lifted up his head out of prison indeed but he lifted up his head to the gallowes also he lifted him out of prison but it was unto his death Such is the lifting up of wicked men they may be set on high but they are never set in safety How many have we seen suddenly advanced and as suddenly depress'd We are never safe but where God sets us or while God holds us in his hand Fourthly observe It is a wonder a wonderfull work of God to exalt those that are low and set mourners in safety The 107 Psalme is a Psalme recounting the wonderfull works of God O that men would praise the Lord for his wonderfull works is the burthen of that holy song And all those wonders conclude in this ver 39. 40. Againe they are minished and brought low through oppression affliction and sorrow what then He powreth contempt upon Princes c. yet setteth he the poore on high from affliction and maketh him families like a flock How wonderfull is this that the Lord will give Kings for the ransome of his people and to raise his poore will powre contempt upon Princes The highest must downe rather then his low ones shall not be set on high There are foure things which encrease this wonder and make it exceeding wonderfull First These poore have no strength Deut. 32. 36. He sees that their strength is gone Secondly Many times they have no hope no faith When the Son of Man comes shall he finde among low ones faith this faith to be exalted upon the earth Luk. 18. 8. Thirdly They have many enemies subtill enemies powerfull enemies confident enemies enemies above hope arrived at assurance that they shall keep poore ones at an under for ever Lord saith David how many are they that trouble me So many they were that he could not tell how many Fourthly They are supposed to have no friends none to appeare for them Let us persecute and take him say they for there is Psal 71. 11. none to deliver him Not a man no nor God as they conclude They say of my soule there is no help for him in his God I need not say it is a wonder to exalt a people upon all these disadvantages The fact speakes should you see a man trod upon the ground and many there holding him downe one by the arme another by the leg a third laying a great weight upon his breast were it not a wonder to see this man rise up and rescue himselfe from them all Thus it is with the Church and servants of God when they are low all the world is upon their backs the world of wicked ones hang about them one with his power another with his policie all with their utmost endeavours to hold them downe yet the Lord sets them on high who were thus low and exalts them to safety who were thus in danger Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse and declare his wonderfull workes to the children of men And this is further cleared in the 12th verse He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hand cannot performe their enterprise As if Eliphaz should say would you know how God exalteth his people and setteth them in safety 'T is true they have many enemies many that plot and devise evill against them but the Lord breakes their plots he out-plots them He disappointeth the devices of the crafty c. And as this is a proof of the former so it is a further instance of Gods wonderfull works The first was in naturall things sending raine The second and third were in civill things first exalting his own people and secondly in defeating the policies and power of their adversaries so then this twelfth verse may be taken either as it hath reference to the former or as a further instance of Gods wisdome and power He disappointeth the devices of the crafty Or he defeateth the purposes of the subtill so Mr Broughton readeth it that their hands can bring nothing soundly to passe The Apostle in 1 Cor. 3. 19. sets the holy stampe of divine authoritie upon this whole booke by quoting this or the next verse as a proofe of his doctrine For it is written saith he He takes the crafty in their own counsell He disappoints the devices of the crafty saith Eliphaz and He takes the wise in their own craftinesse He disappointeth The word signifies to breake to breake a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fractus contritus thing to peeces and by a metaphor to disappoint or to defeate because if an engine or instrument with which a man intends to work be broken he is disappointed of his purpose and cannot goe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Confregit dissipavit Metaphoricè irritum fecit Latinè potest reddiâ—abrogari on with his work So here He breakes the devices of the crafty the crafty frame very curious engines and instruments they lay fine plots and projects but the Lord breakes them and then they are defeated or disappointed The word is often used for breaking or making voyd the law as Psal 119. 126. Ezra 9. 13 because wicked men as much as in them lies would defeate and disappoint the holy purpose designe of God in giving those lawes They would repeale abrogate the laws of God that they might enact their own lusts They would doe that by the will of God which the Lord doth with their wills Null and disappoint it The devices The word which we translate devices signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cogitavit excogitavit denotat opus ingeniosum inventum artificium quia artificium fit pâ—r cogitationem not barely cogitation or thinking but excogitation or studied thinking not only a naturall thought but an artificiall thought or thoughts made up and formed after long debate of a businesse in our own breasts This is properly exprest by devising Those pooles of water in the 7 â—h Cant. ver 4. are called from this word The pooles in Heshbon some take Heshbon for a City Numb 21. 26. and so it notes the place where those pooles were Others translate it thus * Aisworth on the Cant. Pooles artificially made And we may observe much skill and curiosity used in making pooles or water-workes So Exod. 28. 8. the holy girdle which was made for the high-Priest is called a curious girdle it is from the same root because that girdle was made of cunning work and exquisite embroyderies So that this word notes the very spirits and quintessence of sinfull wit drawne out for the devising of evill In the 119. Psalm vers 29. David useth this word to shew the accuratenesse and holy curiosity which he used in surveighing his own life I thought on my wayes that is I studied my selfe and my works with greatest exactnesse to find out every error or failing or to frame my wayes to a haires bredth if it were possible according to rule which answers the Apostles phrase Ephes 5. of walking circumspectly or exactly Grace will vie it with sinfull craft for exactnesse that will make as curious workes or devices in holinesse as the other can in wickednesse Of the crafty Here the workmen are described as well as their work their works are devices and the workmen are crafty As the man is so is his imployment we are in working as we are in being Devices are the proper trade of crafty ones The Originall word sometimes imports holy wisedome and sometimes corrupt and sinfull wisdome We reade it in a good sense Prov. 1. 4. and Prov. 22. 3. The prudent man a man that hath holy craft and skill in him foresees the plague and hideth himselfe Againe Prov. 8. 12. I wisdome dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions But usually the word is taken in an ill sense for subtill and sinfull craft for craftinesse and subtilty to doe mischiefe therefore the vulgar translates it He disappointeth the devices of the Malignants noting that it is not an honest craft but a malignant craft by which the counsells and devices of these men are contrived or acted Psal 83. 3. that word is used They have taken crafty counsell against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones And Gen. 3. 1. Now the Serpent was more subtill than any beast of the field The word properly signifies to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nadus significat etiam involutum vasâ—um cujuâ— in animo plures sunt flexiones divertiâ—ula naked and by a metaphor to be subtle fly crafty nimble because men who as tumblers racers rope-dancers are to doe a thing nimbly and speedily subtilly and slily often stript themselves of all but will never cumber themselves with many cloathes We know that craft alwayes puts a cloake or veile upon actions and walks in a disguise yet because the crafty man is so nimble to turne and wind and vary himselfe a thousand wayes both for the plotting and acting of his designes therefore he is elegantly named from nakednesse Hence also in the Greek language * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exerâ—eo unde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Locus ubi nudi se exercebantur nanc sumitur pro ludo literatio ubi ingenia litteris dâ—scendis exercentur Nudi sâ—nt agilioâ—es mâ—â—us praepediti the word which signifies nimble acting or exercising the mind or body as also places and Schooles where those exercises were performed and taught is derived from nakednesse or from being naked And it is observeable that our first parents Adam and Eve before they sinned are called Gen. 2. 25. naked And the serpent in the very next verse being the first of the third chapter is called subtle by one and the same word Our first parents were naked outwardly innocency needed none and glory shall need no cloathing they were also in opposition to evill naked inwardly they were simple plaine-hearted without any cloake of malice or wickednesse But the serpents nakednesse notes only a fitnesse slynesse readinesse or activenesse to doe evill For he was double cloath'd with craft cloakt and hooded with subtilties to act mischiefe unseen The naked-crafty ones of the text are the seed of the serpent his children and therefore they beare their fathers name The Chaldee paraphrast tells us that the crafty ones here meant by Eliphaz were especially the Egyptians who when they would oppresse the people of God said Come on let us deale wisely with Intellâ—git cogitationes Egyptiorum qui sapiemes fâ—erâ—nt ad malefaciendum Isaeli â—ac them least they multiply Exod. 1. 10. A crafty man is one who hath not alwayes more understanding then his neighbour but ever lesse conscience Yea how great soever his wit is his conscience is so little that it never stands in his light whatsoever he is doing He takes measure of his actions not by what he ought to doe but by what he would have done and yet he can seldome doe what he would for the Lord disappoints the devices of the crafty so that as it followes in the text Their hands cannot performe their enterprise To every businesse two things are required Invention and Action or the electing of Meanes and the pursuing of the End The former is Head-work the latter is Hand work The hands are the instruments of action as the head is the instrument of invention and consultation These crafty heads were at work before now their hands goe to it What they devise craftily they would act industriously but they cannot Their hands cannot performe their enterprise The word which we translate Enterprise signifies Being as also reason wisdome and vertue because wisdome vertue and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aâ—radiâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Denotat essentiam rationem sapientiam viâ—tuiem semper permanentem alijs rebus in mundo transeuntibus Hinc significat omne quod cum inteplectu ratione fic hic specialiter proeo quod qula sibi statuit ut faciat quo fineeÌ„ optatum assequatur etiam in malum Mer. reason are as it were the being stability permanency of things And therefore as in the Hebrew this word signifying wisdome vertue is derived from a root which notes Being So the word signifying wickednesse and folly is derived from a root as some Criticks observe which notes onely a negative or a not Being of any thing because wickednesse is nothing or it is good for nothing Those things which want wisedome and reason are as if they were not and
protections which are laid up for the Saints in promises are more than all the deliverances and protections received and enjoyed There is no enjoyment but that in Heaven where we shall enjoy all that ever was promised so good as hope for what is promised Alexander an Heathen had such a notion about an earthly hope which had no ground neither but the great things his own ambition promised him for when one seeing him give away all his present inheritances Perspâ—ctâ hac Dei providentia erga pauperes humiles maligni nocendi studiosi retrahent sese neque inter se amplias ineant prava iniqua adversus pios consilia Aquin. said what Sir will you make your selfe a beggar no saith he I will reserve hope for my selfe And iniquity stoppeth her mouth Here is the opposite effect iniquity the abstract is put for the concrete iniquity for men of iniquity wicked men these stop their mouthes And it is observeable that as before God made them active in their own destruction so here he makes them active in their own silence he saith not God stoppeth their mouthes but they stop their own mouthes that is the wicked seeing those wonderfull works of God have not a word to say nor a counsell to give more against the godly they are as mute as fishes as dumbe as dogs they know not how to slander or of whom to complaine and therefore they suspend and enjoyne silence upon themselves As that word of Christ Friend how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment Mat. 22. 12. so these works of Christ shall make his enemies speechlesse Iniquity stoppeth her mouth This stopping their mouthes is caused two wayes First from shame A man is sometime silent because he is asham'd to speake disappointments especially such as theirs before noted produce shame naturally and shame makes silent A man that blushes much speakes little and he that dayes not lift up his head will not be forward to lift up his voice Mich. 7. 16. I will shew marvellous things saith the Lord and what then The Nations shall see and be confounded they shall lay their hand upon their mouth their eares shall be deafe They shall see it and be confounded that is they shall be greatly ashamed confusion of face is but shame heightned and the Holy Ghost puts shame and confusion of face together in divers places Now this great shame layes their hands upon their mouthes and puts their fingers in their eares they are resolvedly both dumb and deafe at the sight of those marvellous things Secondly Admiration and amazement silence them The works of God being marvellous they shall stand admiring and wondring at them till they cannot speake Reade the like Isa 52. 15. and Psal 107. 42. where when the Prophet had reckoned up many wonderfull works of God he concludes as in the Text ver 42. He setteth the poore on high c. the righteous shall see it and rejoyce and all iniquity shall stop her mouth while the Lord seemes to doe nothing or to doe but little iniquity will doe nothing but talke or it talkes very much it is very talkative but if once God begin working iniquity has done speaking you shall heare no more of them till the next successe on their side Then observe First Wicked men will never cease slandering and censuring bragging and boasting till some eminent judgement stops their mouthes So iniquity stoppeth her mouth they will never stop their mouthes before Isa 26. 11. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for the envy at thy people I will make the judgement bigger and greater write my wrath in fairer or rather in bloodier characters that they may see them As small judgements will not open the eyes of wicked men so small judgments wil not stop their mouths but when God begins to work wonders they are dumb they have done Secondly observe That God will doe such things for his people as shall put the crafty to silence The Saints ought to live so holily that by well doing they may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men 1 Pet. 2. 15. The Lord will do so justly and gloriously as shall put to silence the malice of the wisest men These two the holinesse of the Saints and the Justice of God are stopples in the mouthes or the stop-mouthes of ungodly men As they by unrighteous acts have stopped other mens mouthes and silenced them so God by terrible things in righteousnesse will stop their mouthes and silence them for ever They shall have nothing to say at last either against the justice of God or a gainst the innocency of his people against both these their mouthes chiefly open They impute and fasten unrighteousnesse on God you talk of God and boast of his promises where is he where are they The Prophet brings them in belching out such blasphemies Isa 5. 19. They say let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it and let the councell of the holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it Words filled with as high a sense of spirituall wickednesse as wit and malice can infuse They jeere the patience of God as slacknesse and as if Justice it selfe were tired or too slow pac'd they spurre it on to ruine themselves You have often told us of the Holy One of Israel and what he would doe but threatned men live long we see You are nimbler of your tongues then your Holy One of Israel is of his hands Therefore let him make speed if he can and hasten his work that we may see it Will not the jealousie of the Lord awake at the noise of this hellish blasphemy will he not stop the mouth of this iniquity surely he will And the Prophet assures us he will at the 24th verse Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble and as the flame consumeth the chaffe so their root shall be rottennesse and their blossomes shall goe up as dust But how doth the fire devour the stubble how doth the flame consume the chaffe even in a moment fire needs no blowing to make it take hold of dry stubble Stubble is at once flame and ashes So speedy shall the consumption of these men be who called the Lord to make speed Then I believe they 'l no more bid him make haste The mouth of this iniquity will be stopt for ever Our God shall come and shall not keepe silence A fire shall devoure before him Psal 50. 3. And then the wicked shall be silent in darknesse 1 Sam. 2. 9. The fire of wrath is all heate no light Lastly all their slanders against the innocency of the Saints shall be so confuted that the adversary shall have nothing to say against them Their innocency shall be made as cleare as the light and their justice as the noon-day Yea God will so order it that these crafty oppressours
light at high-noon So then this word includes all kinds and degrees of happines yet here it is properly to be understood of the happines of this life which only is consistent with correction There are no rods in Heaven and we shall be past children before we come thither Thirdly we may answer plainly that the word in the Hebrew Simplex genuina responsio est quod nomen ipsum quo He braei beaâ—itudinem notant est plurale tantum ut latinis opes dâ—vitiae Ames in Ps 3. is only Plurall or Duall being never read in the singular number As in the Latine we have many the like words It is further observable concerning this word that it is alwayes applied unto man whereas the word Barac blessed is applied both to God and man This happinesse is a speciall and peculiar happinesse of man The Lord being infinitely above both obeying and suffering Happy is the Man Enosh the Hebrew word for Man of whom happinesse under correction is predicated is very sutable to this businesse of correction Enosh signifies a sickly weake miserable man We might render the full sence of the word thus Happy is that miserable man whom God corrects That is look upon a man according to the ordinary account of the world and calculation of reason he is a miserable man a weake sickly man yet happy is this weake sickly miserable man in the account of God and by the calculation of faith Grace makes that good sence which is a contradiction both in nature and in reason A miserable man and a happy man one and the same In Psal 1. the word Ish is used Blessed is the man that is Blessed is that excellent man that holy man that strong man walking and delighting in the Law of the Lord. Yea blessed with the same blessednesse is that miserable man smarting under the rod of the Lord whom God correcteth And yet blessednesse is joyned with all the words by which man is expressed It is joyned with Adam Psal 32. 1. Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven Adam is the generall word for Man and is therefore most fitly joyned with blessednesse in pardon of sinne because all men are sinners and no man can be blessed except he be pardoned Blessednesse is joyned also with Geber a strong powerfull and mighty man Psal 94. 12. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest O Lord and teachest him out of thy Law Blessed is Geber the great man the honourable man the highest by birth or place whom thou chastnest The Chaldee Paraphrase restraines the word Man to an individuall Beatus AbrahaÌ„ virpius quem corripuit Deus Chald. Paâ—ap to Abraham as if Eliphaz had put the instance in Abraham and said Behold happy was that holy man Abraham whom God corrected therefore despise not thou the chastning of the Almighty I can give thee a famous example of a godly man corrected Abraham thy Ancestor met with afflictions as well as thou and yet he was a most happy man therefore despise not thou the chastning of the Lord. But the word is generall and so we are to understand it though this be a truth in any or every instance among the servants of God I must yet put in a caution for the right understanding of this proposition Blessed is the man whom God corrects The meaning is not as if happinesse were the portion of every miserable man or of every man that is afflicted doe not thinke so many are at once corrected and cursed troubled and miserable in trouble To many their present sorrows are but the fore-tasts of eternall sorrowes As Christ spake in a common case These things are but the beginning of sorrowes So we may say to the particular cases of many groaning under sicknesse poverty disgrace c. Alas poore soules ye are so far from being happy in these that these are but the beginnings of your unhappinesse God doth but begin to call for some arreares due to his justice which you must be a paying and satisfying to all eternity There is no happinesse in affliction naturally considered it is accidentall to afflictions that happinesse is associated with them Affliction in it selfe is grievous and it would be only so to us did not the over-ruling admirable dispensations of God temper order dispose and worke it to an end above its own nature it is the art and wisdome of the Physitian which corrects poysonous simples and ingredients so as to make them medicineable And did not the wisedome and goodnesse of of God correct our corrections they would not be medicine to us but poyson It is not correction but the hand of God with it and in it which makes us happy Happie is the man whom God correcteth The word which we translate * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arguit redarguit corripuit praeparavit verba contra aliquem disputaÌ„do ostendendojus Quod et si verbis plerumque fiat pertinet tamen ea vox ad sevirorem discip inam verbera quae cujuspiaÌ„ peccati reprehensionem comitari solet Pined correct signifies to reprove or to convince by arguments or dispute To argue a man down from his errour by the strength and clearnesse of reason or divine authority So Levit. 19. 19. Thou shalt not suffer sinne upon thy brother thou shalt surely rebuke him Thou shalt rebuke him it is the word here used that is thou shalt bring such arguments as may convince him of his sin and lay his wickednesse open before him This word is applied to corrections and afflictions in Scripture because with convictions we feele corrections frequently joyned The Lord argues the matter and as it were disputes with some very long who yet will not let in divine truth nor be perswaded though they are perswaded What doth he then Then he sends correction with his redargution he cloaths his words with blowes disputes with a God in his hand and brings an argument from feeling when reasoning prevailes not In this booke of Job Elihu shewes it Chap. 33. 16 19. Then he openeth the eares of men and sealeth their instruction he is chastened also with paine upon his bed Hence observe First That afflictions to the children of God at sorest are but corrections Blessed or happie is the man whom God corrects You will say but what is a correction And how in a strict sence differenced from judgements and punishments and wherein doe they agree They agree first in the efficient cause God layes his hand on man in both Secondly They agree in the matter the same evill the same trouble to one man is a correction to another a judgement Thirdly they may agree also in the degree A trouble or an affliction may fall and lie as heavy and be as painfull to sence upon a child of God as upon the vilest wretch in the world he may be as poore as friendlesse as sicke as sorrowfull in his outward man as any wicked man he may lie in the
though at present he hath made thy head onely to ake a little yet can kill thy body and after he hath killed hath power to to cast into hell Luke 12. 5. Secondly In that afflictions come from Shaddai a God all-sufficient God would have us conceive in all our troubles That When he takes away any or all created comforts from us yet he is himselfe Allsufficient for us When we are chastned by the losse of any good things Shaddai doth it who hath the power of all good things in his hand When he takes away riches or health or relations if he doth not take away himselfe from us we cannot be comfortlesse for Alsufficiency stands by us Lastly He dealeth with us but as a tender nurse or mother in all his chastnings The mother strikes the child a little blow with one hand and gives it the breast with the other she gives it a little tap with one hand and a spoon with the other Consider your chastnings they are the chastnings of Shaddai who as a tender mother hath a breast ready to nourish and a spoon to feed while he chides or chastens And if by greater afflictions he wounds or makes you very sore you shall not want carefull dressing and assured healing Vers 18. For he maketh sore and he bindeth up he woundeth and his hands make whole This verse containes an exemplification of the former ground why we should not despise the chastning of the Almighty For if it should be objected against the former assertion Happy is the man whom God correcteth Where is this happinesse Is there happinesse in sores and wounds in sicknesse and weaknesse in poverty and in wants Who cannot easily want this happinesse and not complaine Eliphaz seemes to answer for God in this text If your faith cannot come up to believe this stay but a while and your sence shall teach it you Who would not be glad of a wound when he knows he shall have Shaddai for his Chyrurgion If you will not allow a man is happy when he is sore will you not allow him happy when his sore is bound up by such a hand If you will not grant a man is happy when wounded you cannot deny him happy when he is thus healed The Almighty will not leave them in their sores in their wounds As he hath a rod so he hath a swath as he hath a sword so a salve His plaister is ready for your wound and his medicines for your diseases It is true of God above all others One and the same hand smites and cures Thus of the generall Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit meaning and connexion of this verse He maketh sore The word is used in the second Chapter of this book ver 13. of Jobs friends that they stood silent for they saw his griefe was great or his sorenesse was very great It notes the griefe and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doâ—uit anima vel corpore sorenesse either of mind or body Some translate He woundeth But the next clause bears that distinctly or we may joyne both the one as the cause the other as the effect He maketh sore by wounding And bindeth up The word is appliable to any kind of binding 1. To the binding of captives in prison with chaines 2. To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ligavit colligavit the binding of ornaments upon the head Ezek. 29. 9. 3. It is used metaphorically for binding to obedience or punishment Job 34. 17. Shall even he that hateth right governe The Hebrew is shall he bind because Governours bind their subjects or servants either to doe what they command or to suffer what they inflict 4. It is also applied by a metaphor to the binding up of those civill breaches or ruines which are upon a people Isa 3. 6 7. A man shall take hold of his brother c saying be thou our Ruler and let this ruine be under thy hand In that day he shall sweare saying I will not be a Healer or a Binder up 5. It is used for the applying of ligatures with which the medicine or plaister is bound upon the wound or sore And this word doth therefore also signifie the healing of a wound because the due binding of the wound is one halfe of the patients cure and a very great part of a Partim quidem iâ—sa deligatio sanat c. Maxima deligationis vis est Hip. in Offiâ—ina Chyrurg Chyrurgions skill as the learned Physitians observe in their Discourses about wounds and chyrurgerie Ligature contributes so much to healing that the same word serves for both or either Now Shaddai the Almighty is admirable at this when he hath made a sore he can make an exact Ligature We often find these two together Psal 147. 3. He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds The Prophet Ezekiel Chap. 34. 4. complaines of the false Prophets Because they did not heale that which was sicke and bound not up that which was broken They had neither skill nor conscience either spiritually to break hearts or when they found them broken to bind them up They knew not how to fasten Gospel promises and holy counsels upon the heart that the wounds of it might be closed and were therefore Physitians of no value There are two interpretations given of these words He maketh sore and he bindeth up First Some expound them by an Enallage of the Participle for the Verbe thus He maketh sore and he bindeth up that is He making sore bindeth up as if the very act by which God smites had an influence upon the healing and a tendency to the restoring Vulnerat medetur i. e. vulnerans medetur vulnerando sanat of his afflicted ones He making sore bindeth up We find such constructions frequent in Scripture Isa 65. 22. They shall not build and another inhabit They shall not plant and another eate That is They building another shall not inhabit and they planting another shall not eate The negative is not fixed upon their building c. but upon other inhabiting And so Deut. 22. 4. Thou shalt not see thy brothers Asse or his Oxe fall down by the way and hide thy selfe from them That is Thou seeing thy brothers Asse or Oxe fall down shalt not hide thy selfe from them A man sometimes could not but see his brothers Asse or Oxe fall down but he seeing must not at any time hide himselfe from them that is not succour them so by the way that phrase of hiding may be interpreted by that of the Prophet Isa 58. 7. Thou shalt not hide thy self from thy own flesh But to the poynt here we see He maketh sore bindeth up may congruously to other Scripture speakings be rendred He making sore doth bind up as if the wound were a part of the cure and the sore a plaister We know that a wound in nature is sometime a part of the cure It is a common and a
I cannot heale you your troubles are past my skill to remedy or redresse Thus man is sometimes at a stand he cannot heale what men have wounded but God is never at a stand your old festred sores and wrankled wounds which have taken wind discourage not his chirurgery When a people are in such a pickle or pittifull plight as the Prophet Isaiah describes the kingdome of Judah in Chap. 1. 5 6. The whole head is sicke and the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores they have not been closed neither bound up neither mollified with oyntment When I say the case of a people is thus and they can get no healer Yea though a people like the woman Mark 5 25 have had an issue of blood in bloody battels which is now almost Englands case many yeares and have suffered many things of many Physitians and have spent all that they have and are nothing bettered but rather grow worse yet if Christ doe but touch such a sicke diseased bleeding people in mercy and they touch him by faith they shall be healed and their fountaine of blood will immediately dry up Or if their condition requires some longer operation he can effectually take such a course for their cure He is abundantly furnished with all instruments and abilities for the making of a perfect cure It is well observed that three things are necessary for a Chyrurgion First He must have an Eagles eye one that is good at healing had need be good at seeing Secondly He must have a Ladies hand soft and tender to handle the sore gently Thirdly A Lions heart a stout strong heart for if he faint how shall his patient keep up his courage These three are exceeding necessary in Chyrurgery about naturall bodies but much more in Chyrurgery about Civill and Ecclesiastical bodies the healing of Churches and Kingdoms And where shall we find whither shall we send for Physitians qualified with this Eagles eye to look into all our sores and sicknesses with this Ladies hand to deal gently and tenderly with our wounds with this Lions heart stoutly and couragiously without fears and faintings to go thorough with the work Well if men should not be found thus furnished the Lord is He hath an Eagles eye an All-seeing eye seven eyes of providence and wisdome to look through our sores and into all our distempers He hath as in allusion we may speak a Ladies hand soft and tender to deal gently and graciously with a people He can dresse our wounds and paine us little scarce be felt while he doth it And he hath the Lions heart infinite courage and strength of spirit to undertake the most gastly wounds or swolne putrified sores Let us therefore rest our selves assured that whatsoever our personall or our nationall sores our personall or our nationall wounds be be they what they will or what we can call them desperate incurable such as have discourag'd many from medling with their cure or sham'd those that have yet our Shaddai the Almighty God can bind them up and heale them fetch the core from the bottome and close the skin upon the top so tenderly dresse and so perfectly cure them that a scarre shall not remaine unlesse it be to mind us of his infinite skill and goodnesse or of our own duty and thankfullnesse JOB Chap. 5. Vers 19 20 21. He shall deliver thee in six troubles yea in seven there shall no evill touch thee In famine he shall redeem thee from death and in war from the power of the the sword Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh ELiphaz still prosecuteth his former Argument to take Job off from despising the chastnings of the Almighty spoken of at the 17th verse And having shewed first in generall that they are happy whom the Lord corrects and secondly That the Lord heals as well as wounds is as ready to bind up as to make the sore he illustrates this by giving First An assurance of deliverance from evill and that 1. In the generall at the 19th verse 2. By an enumeration of particular cases of greatest dangers and outward evills And secondly to shew the happinesse of those whom God corrects he gives an assurance of positive blessings which shall in due time be heaped upon their heads whom God had before wounded with sorrows and loaded with afflictions The nineteenth verse is a promise of deliverance from evill He shall deliver thee from six troubles yea in seven there shall no evill touch thee To deliver notes here the snatching or pulling of a man out of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spoltavit rapuit eripuit tanquam ab hoste â—ut malo Eripere praedam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Augustia interdum significat hostem quasi angustiatorem dicas the hand of an enemy out of the mouth of danger The Hebrew word for Trouble comes from a roote which signifies to straiten or to narrow a thing up in a little compasse and so by a metaphor to vex and trouble because they who are straitned in any kind are pained and troubled And when we heare of any in trouble we usually say such are in straits And this word is often translated a strait 2 Sam. 24. 14. I am in a great strait saith David when he was put upon that hard election between sword pestilence and famine So Judg. 11. 7. and 1 Sam. 13. 6. The holy language expresses an enemy or adversary by this word because an enemy puts us upon straits and so to much trouble And to raise the force of this word to the highest it is used to signifie the pangs and throwes of women in child-bearing in which the mother labours in grievous straits while the infant labours for enlargement Troubles ever meet us in or bring us into straits they may well change names which are so neere in nature I find the word so translated here in some books He shall deliver thee in six straits and in seven when thou art so encompast about shut in and incircled by evils on every side that thou knowest not which way to move or turne much lesse to get out then the Lord will give enlargement and either find a way out for thee or make one as he did for Israel at the red sea through those mighty waters In six yea in seven This phrase of speech is very considerable Some numbers in Scripture have a kind of eminency or excellency in them I intend not any large discourse about numbers only in briefe Those three numbers Three Six and Seven are applied to a speciall signification by the Holy Ghost A great number a perfect number is expressed by any one of these three numbers A three-fold cord that is a cord of many or sufficient folds is not easily broken Eccles 4. 12. Three times thou shalt
and there shall be no herd in the stalls Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation He was feasting upon God while he imagines the world starving he sees all things in God though the world should afford him nothing That soule is well fed and taught which can be rejoycing while it 's own body is starving And in war from the power of the Sword War is the second evill Famine and war goe often together yea they two seldome goe without a third the Pestilence 2 Sam. 24. Jer. 18. 22. And though in the order of the words famine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bellum à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vesci edere per Metaphorà pugnare quia gâ—adius in bello devoraâ— hominum corpora In bello se mutuò homines devorant obsumunt be set before war yet usually war is the fore-runner of famine The sword cuts off provision and when it selfe hath devoured much flesh it leaves no bread for those who survive It is observable that the originall word for war here used comes from a root signifying to eat or to devoure and so by a Metaphor it signifies to fight or strike with the sword And the reason why the same word which signifies war signifies to eat is because the Sword is such an Eater or rather a Devourer and it eats two ways First the Sword eats up the bodies of men drinks up their bloud dispeoples a Land And then Secondly It eates up and consumes the fruits of the earth and hence War is the mother of Famine Therefore we find that when the great peace and so the plenty of the Church of Christ is prophecied of and described Isa 2. 4. and in Micah it is thus expressed They shall beat their swords into plow shares and their speares into pruning-hookes As if he should say while the sword is abroad in the field the plow shares will do little there For the most part Justice is silent in time of war the sound of the trumpet Inter arma silent leges and drum is too loud for the Law and when the Law stands still the plongh stands still Therefore when the sword is in motion both are at a stand Hence the promise that Swords shall be beaten into plow-shares and speares into pruning-hookes that is with peace you shall have bread and wine which note the abundance of all other things The ancients embleam'd peace by Eares of corne and Concord by a Cornu-copia a horne of plenty riches are the fruit of peace And safety is the priviledge of the Saints in time of war In war they shall be delivered from the power of the sword The Hebrew is They shall be delivred from or out of the hand of the sword Sometime in Scripture we read of the face of the sword which notes the sword coming and approaching to a people And sometimes we read of the mouth of the sword which notes the sword come devouring and eating up a people And here we have the hand of the sword they shall be delivered out of the Gladius manu apprehensus elevatus symbolum est extremi discriminis praesentis hostis Quasi diceret etiam in ipsa pugna vel inter tot manus gladios agitantes contra te vibantes salvaberis hand of the sword which notes as we translate the power of the sword Or that forme of speaking may be understood by an Hypallage From the hand of the sword that is from the sword in the hand which phrase imports present danger when the sword is unsheathed and drawn out when it is in the hand ready to strike then the enemy is ready to charge and then the Lord delivers He shall deliver from the sword in the hand or out of the hand of the sword So Psal 127. 4. Children of the youth are as arrowes in the hand of the mighty that is as arrowes ready to be shot And Psal 149. 6. Let the high praises of God be in their mouthes and a two edged sword in their hands noting actuall revenges taken on the enemies of God and actuall praises given to the name of God at the same time So then the meaning of these words He shall deliver thee from the power of the sword or out of the hand of the sword is this suppose thou art in such a condition that the swords are drawn about thy eares and thou art in the midst of a thousand deaths and dangers in the very heat of a battell yet then the Lord God can and will deliver thee And this likewise is a comfortable promise for us to lay hold on in these times It is a time of war to us all and there are many of our friends and brethren as it were in the very hand of the sword Desires are often sent to the Congregation by one for a husband by another for a brother by a third for a servant by many for their friends gone forth to meet a sword in the hand of an enemy skilfull to destroy Here is a promise to comfort and support such The Lord in time of war can deliver out of the very hand of the sword or when swords are in hand when thousands of swords are drawn together preparing for or smiting in the day of battell know then God is a deliverer In the most present dangers God shews the most present help Psal 23. 5. Thou shalt spread my table and cause my cup to overflow before the face of my enemy even then when my enemy is nearest and looketh on As when the sword is in the hand of the Angel so when it is in the hand of man A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee Psal 91. 7. Not nigh thee what when they die on this side and one that side on every hand of a man doth it it not come nigh him Yes nigh him but not so nigh as to hurt him The power of God can bring us nigh to danger and yet keep us far from harme As good may be locally near us and yet vertually far from us so may evill The multitude throng'd Christ in the Gospel and yet but one toucht him so as to receive good so Christ can keep us in a throng of dangers that not one shall touch us to our hurt Yet we are not to take this or the like holy writs of protection as if God would deliver all his people from famine and from the sword we know many precious servants of his have fallen by these common calamities The Lord knows how to distinguish his when sword and famine doe not Neither doth this word fall though they doe If the servants of Christ are not delivered from these troubles they are delivered by them and while they are overcome by one trouble they conquer all Vers 21. Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue neither shalt
pavillion a secret hiding place for his Favourites where he preserves their credit and reputation untoucht against all the blots and causelesse blemishes of malignant spirits Thus they are hid from the strife of tongues Hence his Saints and people are called His stored or his hidden ones Psal 83. 3. Observe first The tongue is a scourge The tongue is a terrible engine The Scripture gives us variety of comparisons to set forth the evill of an ill tongue It is here called a scourge and it is a scourge of many lashes or knotted cords or rather stinging scorpions scoffing is one slander a second false accusations a third The former strictly taken is a lye told any neighbour and the latter is a lye told the Magistrate The tongue Psal 52 2. is called a sharpe rasor Psal 57. 4. it is compared to speares and arrowes and a sharpe Sword and if at any time with much using this Sword be blunted in the edge or point the Scripture speakes of whetting the tongue Psal 64. 3. It is as the sharpe arrowes of the mighty man and coales of juniper Psal 120. 4. They bend their tongues like a bow Jer. 9. 3. Their tongue is as an arrow shot out ver 8. In a word It is a fire and a world of mischiefe Jam. 3. 6. Jer. 18. 18. we reade of smiting with the tongue and of devouring words Psal 52. 4. As there are devouring opinions opinions which not only hurt the judgements of men but devoure their consciences and eat up truth as it were at a bit so there are devouring words words that eat up a mans reputation and devour his good name as bread Slanderous mouthes lâ—ve the whitest bread the finest of the wheate A mans credit which hath not a branne in it how sweet a morsell is it to such mouthes Though the truth is every name by how much the more pure and spotlesse it is by so much the more deadly will it be in the stomacks of these devourers A good name swallowed by an ill man will as Jonas did the Whale make him one time or other Stomach-sick if not conscience-sick and he shall be forced to vomit it out safe againe It is a sad thing when thus the people of God are wounded and scourged by the tongues of wicked men but I will tell you of a sadder scourging that is when the people and servants of God scourge one another with their tongues I beseech you leave this work to wicked men take not the scourge of the tongue out of their hands let us not only not slander but not speake hardly one of another The ancient Christians in the Primitive times were deepely wounded by the scourge of the tongue what strange things did ungodly men feigne and then fasten on them They reported them as black as hell as if their holy meetings were not to worship God but to defile themselves with incest and uncleannesse but among Christians themselves we reade not of this scourge at that time No Christians loved one another to the amazement of Heathens They were so farre from this scourging or wounding of one another that they were ready to be scourged to be wounded to be burned to die one for another This caused their Pagan persecuters to cry out Behold how the Christians love one another We are scourged by wicked ones as They O that we could love one another as They. Sons of Belial have revived the ancient reproaches and accusations against the brethren O that we could revive the ancient imbraces and most endeared affections of the Brethren Observe secondly It is a great mercy to be delivered from the Scourge of the tongue The Apostle speaks of it as a wonderfull mercy that he was delivered out of the Mouth of the Lion 2 Tim. 4. 17. Surely it is no ordinary mercy though lying be very ordinary to be delivered out of the Mouth of a lyar This is joyned in one promise with deliverance from the most deadly instrumenrs of warre Isa 54. 17. No weapon formed against thee shall prosper that is no weapon of warre neither Sword nor Speare shall hurt thee Then followes And every tongue that shall rise up against thee in judgement thou shalt condemne This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. The tongue of a Ziba or of a Tertullus will devour and destroy as bad as the Sword of a Caesar or a Pompey The holy story tels us what woefull work the tongue had made upon Joseph and Mephibosheth if the good providenee of God had not spoken a good word for them Lastly Let me add one seasonable word of admonition to these tongue scourgers As the word is They that smite with the sword shall perish with the sword so they that smite with the tongue shall perish with the tongue The tongues of the Saints are in some sence sharper and sorer scourges then the tongues of wicked men The word of God in their mouths is a Two-edged Sword yea sharper then any Two-edged Sword A Prophet or a Minister of Christ can strike as hard with his tongue as and infinitely harder then any Prophane wretch or railing Rabshakeb in the world Truth well set home will wound deeper than slander can I saith the Lord Hos 6. 5. have hewed them by my Prophets and slaine them by the words of my mouth In the 11th of the Revelation it is prophecied That fire shall goe out of the mouths of the two Witnesses and devour their enemies vers 5. That is the word of their mouths shall be as a fire to scorch and consume the gain saying world and with this instrument their tongue for that only is sutable for the work of Witnesses they are said to have tormented those that dwell upon the earth ver 10. Some indeed are Sermon-proofe and Word-proofe They at present doe even laugh at all our spirituall Artillery Let whole volleyes of threats be discharg'd upon them let them be hackt and hewed all day long with the Sword of the Word they feele it not it may be they jeer at it at least they regard it not As they Jer. 18. 18. conspiring against the Prophet Come let us devise devices c. let us smite him with the tongue And least any should say if we smite him with the tongue he will smite us againe For these Prophets are notable at that weapon To secure themselves they resolve thus Let us not give heed to any of his words As if they had said we know he will speake bigge words and threaten us terribly with Sword and pestilence and famine and hell c. But let 's arme our selves against him and make no more of all then of a Squibb or a pot-gun then of a stabbe with a wooden dagger or a charge with a Bull rush Let us not give heed to any of his words But let these know though now they are hardned against the spirituall scourge and sword in the mouth of Christs Ministers yet at the last
Christ himselfe will smite them with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked Isa 11. 4. He once made a Scourge of cords and whipt the buyers and sellers out of the Temple he will at last make a Scourge of words which shall whip all impenitents and unbelievers out of his presence into hell where they shall gnash their teeth and gnaw Those tongues which have scourg'd his faithfull servants with many stripes only for doing or speaking his their Masters will Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it commeth The word Destruction signifies a confluence or meeting together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more praedonum impetu Hostili vastari de populari of all kinds of evill when evils breake in together as theeves and robbers into a house to spoyle and take away all Isa 60. 18. Jer. 48. 3. When such destruction comes thou shalt have this priviledge Not to be afraid of it Not afraid the word signifies any kinde of feare holy fearing as well as naturall here it is used for excessive distracting feare It is not meant that a man shall be secure or senslesse when destruction commeth So to be fearlesse is worse then to be reasonlesse But this is the meaning Thou shalt not be afraid That is thou shalt not bee dismayed with fear thou shalt not be amazed or astonished with feare thou shalt not be at thy wits end much lesse at thy Faiths end when destruction commeth Feare is good in it's kind yea it is an excellent grace Some feare in time of destruction is the daughter of faith Heb. 11. 7. By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with feare prepared an Ark to the saving of his house He fears destruction savingly whose fear moves him to prepare due means of safty Such preparatory fears are holy fears and well become the Saints when destruction cometh Exod. 9. 20. He that heard of the destruction coming and feared the word of the Lord made his servants and cattle flee into the houses God would not have his people when they hear destruction is comming stand at the doore in a daring manner to meet it and lay themselves open to it no he would have them flee into the house and enter into the chamber and shut the doors about them hiding themselves as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast Isa 26. 20. The feare which God promiseth his people protection from is unbelieving frare or feare which is the daughter of despaire Such as that Isa 7. 2. where when a report came of destruction comming it is said That the heart of the King and the heart of his people was moved as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind They were so afraid so unsetled and disorder'd within that they knew not how to settle and order their affaires without Such a feare the Prophet Jeremy threatens upon Pashur Jer. 20. 3. The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur but Magor-missabib For thus saith the Lord behold I will make thee a terrour to thy selfe and to all thy friends Feare round about and fear within this feare God promiseth to deliver his people from in times of danger Observe hence The power and presence of God is able to uphold his people in the face of dangers and in the presence of destruction They shall not be afraid of destruction when it commeth Suppose God doth not keepe the destruction off from them yet he will keepe finking feares off from them How terribly soever men looke upon them they shall not be a terrour to themselves neither will God be a terrour to them Many a man is his own Bugg-bear And there is nothing can be so terrible to us except an angry God as we may be to our selves But he to whom God is not a terrour and to whom himselfe is not a terrour will not be afraid of the King of Terrours So long as we are at peace with God and our selves destruction cannot come so fast as consolation will And destruction cannot carry that away wherein consolation lies The best part of the Saints estate is out of the reach of destroyers They can destroy houses and goods They can carry away gold and silver but they cannot destroy faith and hope shey cannot carry away grace or holinesse They may burne your writings and the evidences of your Lands and Tenements but they cannot burne your evidences for Heaven or weaken your tenure and interests in Jesus Christ Upon the wings of this assurance the Saints are carried beyond the borders of feare when destruction comes into their borders or death is breaking open their doores and climbing up unto their windowes Yea this assurance which carries them beyond the confines of feare sets them down in a very comfortable place in the Land of joy or upon the mountaines of delight It is too little to say They shall not be afraid when destruction comes for at destruction they shall laugh As Eliphaz undertakes with his next breath Vers 22. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh neither shalt thou be afraid of the Beasts of the Earth 23. For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field and the Beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee In the former words we had a promise of redemption from famine and from feare at the comming of destruction Here both the mercy and the promise are heightned or the promise is made yet more mercifull At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh It is a high priviledge to be redeem'd from famine and not to be afraid of destruction but to laugh at these is the highest priviledge But is it not a sin to laugh at these And if so how will it be any priviledge at all I saith the wise man Eccl. 2. 2. said of laughter it is madd and of mirth what doth it And is not this madd laughter to laugh at destruction and to be merry in famine The Prophet vehemently reproves joy in sad times Isa 22. 12 13. and brands it for an iniquity that shall not be purged from them till they die And can it then be commendable to rejoyce in famine c. It is comely for man to be merry when God is angry And to be rejoycing when the Lord is destroying To cleare this I shall open the sence of the Text and shew that this Laughter is neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—aeÌ„ quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sumitur in bonam vel in malam partem pro loci ratione risus gaudij risus contemptus sinne nor madnesse but the holinesse and sobriety of the Saints At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh The word is ordinarily used for laughing whence Isaac hath his name The sonne of the promise was called Isaac because Abraham laughed or because he rejoyced at the promise
verse but it was the calamity of his spirit the affliction lying there A man can sustaine his infirmity but a wounded spirit that is when a man hath got a blow a wound an affliction upon his spirit who can beare Pro. 18. 14. As if Salomon had said I challenge all the world to find me out a man that can bear a burdened wounded spirit unlesse Christ put under his hand no strength of mans spirit can bear the burthen of a wounded spirit A spirit hath no weight at all only fleshly and materiall substances are ponderous but a wounded spirit is heavier then wounded flesh The spirit is strong enough to beare the burthen'd flesh but nothing in flesh can beare a burthen'd spirit In the close of the verse we have the effect of this heavy weight of affliction both spirituall and corporall Therefore saith he my words are swallowed up That is I want words to expresse my griefe a Verba deficiunt quibus mognitudinem doloruÌ„ exprimam Nulla possum oratione â—â—nsequi quanto infester dolore Merc. Vix satis esse queant tanto jaÌ„ verba dolori All language is too narrow for the vastnesse of my sorrows Some reade it b Propterea verba mea amaâ—a Symmach Therefore my words are bitter or therefore my words are steep'd in bitternesse as if he had said I my self feed upon bitter things I feed upon gall and wormewood therefore no wonder if my words tast of them The Vulgar goes farther from the letter of the Text rendring c Proptereaverba mea sunt dolore plena Vul. Therefore my words are full of sorrow as if he had said the sorrows which are in my mind flow out upon my tongue The Septuagint yet further off d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sep. Therefore it seemes my words are evill or ill taken My griefe renders my words more liable to exception or mis-interpretation M Broughton translates Therefore my words come short there is a weight upon me heavier than the sand of the sea Therefore my words come short or my expressions come not up to my intention We translate near that sence and answerably to the originall My words are swallowed up The Hebrew word signifies to lick up or to swallow downe and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lambit absorbuit per Metaphoram perdidit corrupit by a Metaphor to destroy or to consume in the prophecy of Obadiah vers 16. The word is used to that purpose They shall drink and they shall swallow downe And Prov. 20. 25. It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy or who swalloweth downe that which is holy So here Therefore my words are swallowed up that is when I would speake my words are as it were halfe-eaten before spoken or my words are snatcht downe in the Verba semesa Jun. speaking by the sharpe teeth and devouring stomack of my griefe and sorrowes Others from the letter reade Therefore my words are corrupted Verba mea corrupta sunt aut peâ—dita R. Levi deleta R. Moyses intercisa Theod Lasta Chald. Verbum perâ—inâ—t ad pronunciationem corruptâ—m ad â—albutiâ—m wearied lâ—st blotted blubber'd so cut-off that I cannot speak distinctly alluding unto those that stammer A stammerer is in such haste to speake that he eats his words and as we use to say proverbially in our language he clips the Kings English he swalloweth up halfe his mind when he would bring it out in words such is the meaning of Job My words are swallowed up I cannot speak all my griefe takes me off and cuts me short And so he seemes to excuse himselfe First in case he had spoken abruptly and brokenly my paine hath been so great that I can hardly speake therefore take no advantage Vix loqui possam vox faucibâ—a haeret Vat. of the abrupt language and broken sentences which have fallen from me for the truth is my griefe hath swallowed up my words I have rather sighed then declared my mind reall sorrow as well as poeticall passionate imitation of sorrow makes many an Ap siopesis or sudden stop and breach when the tongue is upon the swiftest speed and quickest motion And secondly he seemes to excuse himselfe for the matter of his speech I have not yet spoken all my mind I have not given you my full sense about my condition for through griefe I was forced to swallow up my words and to suppresse what I had further to say Therefore suppose my speech hath been imperfect yet be not scandalized at it for if you will have patience to stay I shall anone bring up the words againe which my sorrowes have snatcht from me and swallowed downe Stay a while and you shall heare more you shall heare all I will speake more largely and more distinctly than I have done One of the Rabbins takes the Rab. Kimchi words actively and referrs the act of swallowing to Jobs friends as if he had said Yee my friends have swallowed down my words Ye have not leasurely fed upon and digested them but swallowed them in such hast that ye have not tasted them As a man that swallowes down a morsell greedily without chewing never tastes either the sweetnesse or the bitternesse of it It is a usuall Metaphor to expresse hearing by eating and we have it as many interpret at the sixth verse of this Chapter Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt It is a truth that when words are thus swallowed or gobled downe we take not out the strength or intent of them But I stay not upon this exposition because it strains too hard upon the grammaticall construction and other circumstances of the Text. Observe out of the former meaning First Great griefe interrupteth speech and makes broken language Therefore my speech or my words are swallowed up As sometimes our words devoure so sometimes our words are devoured some men speake swallowing words and others swallow their words Psal 57. 4. Thou lovest all devouring words or thou lovest all swallowing words O thou deceitfull tongue There are swallowing words as well as swallowed words Malice makes a man swallow the integrity of another with his words And grief will make a man swallow downe his own words so that he cannot speake to maintaine his own integrity Secondly observe That some afflictions exceed all complaints and are too bigge for expression That note reaches M Broughtons sence my words come short of what my condition is there is no language large enough no Oratory eloquent enough to describe or make known my sorrowes Lastly observe Not to be able to expresse our griefe is an increase of our griefe Therefore my words are swallowed up This is an addition to my sorrowes that I cannot make knowne my sorrowes It is a great part of my trouble that I can tell you but a part of my trouble Let a man be hindred from expressing his
Terrour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notes the most terrible terrour or affrightment Terrour is the extreame of feare or feare confused into amazement and astonishment Death is therefore called the King of terrours because there are so many powerfull terrours in death Psal 55. 4. That vexation which Saul felt when God sent out an evill spirit with commishion to vex him is exprest by this word 1 Sam. 16. 14. An evill spirit from the Lord troubled or terrified him Such terrors for the matter such for the manner and present workings of them seized upon upright-hearted Job and false-hearted Saul A beleever a child of God an heire of Heaven may feele himself haunted and pierced with hellish terrours These are called the Terrours of God eyther first by a common Hebraisme because great and strange terrours In that language God is often put as an Epithite to shew exceeding greatnesse himselfe being the greatest So Chap. 1. ver 16. Fire of God c. Secondly Terrours of God because he sent and commanded that Army of Terrours When Jacob journeyed with his little Army Gen. 35. 5. It is said The terrour of God was upon the Cities round about and they pursued them not that is the Lord sent an Army of terrours to oppose the Cities least they should arme against Jacob. The terrour of man is very terrible and therefore the Apostle armes the Saints against it 1 Pet. 3. 14. Be not afraid of their terror The terror of God is infinitely greater and thereupon the Apostle argues 2 Cor. 5. 11. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade Those terrours of God may be taken two wayes Either actively or passively Actively for that work of God in terrifying and troubling Thy terrours that is the terrours which thou didst afflict me with Or passively for those afflictions which oppresse Nomen terroris frâ—quenter in Scripturis sumitur pro flagellis malisque gravissimis a Deo missis the mind when God leads that army against us sets it in array to charge and commands it to encampe about us in either sence we may take this of Job as also that of Heman Psal 88. 15. While I suffer thy terrours I am distracted Further There is a two-fold terrour First caused by outward imminent danger Secondly caused by inward guilt Or Terrour comming from the wrath of man and terrour coming from the wrath of God Thus it was threatned Levit. 26. 16. I also will doe even this unto you I will appoint over you terrours Deut. 32. 25. The sword without and terrour within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin That is feare shall kill those who escape the sword A people cannot stand before the Army of men who are once surprised with an Army of terrours Hence Josh 2. 9. Your terrour is fallen upon us saith Rahab to assure the spies that the Canaanites could not stand before the people of Israel Againe The terrours of God afflict the soule First When sin is set openly to the eye of conscience in array against us An army of sins are an army of terrours The Church is called Terrible as an army with banners Cant. 6. 10. when she is strengthned and armed for the exercise of all that power which Christ hath given her and when our sins stand before us in all that strength which the law hath given them they also are terrible as an army with banners Secondly When God hides his face from us an army of terrours quickly faces us Though an army of sins come out in array against us yet if God appear to us in the fulnesse and freenesse of his grace if Christ our Captaine will but leade us on against this army we shall quickly overcome them or they will will fly before us But an army of sins is exceeding terrible when Christ appears not in the field for us or when God hides his face from us and leaves us in the dark It is usuall in Scripture to set forth terrours as the effect of that darknesse and the hidings of the face of God Naturally terrour accompanies darknesse children are afraid in the dark and not onely children but men Histories tell us of great Emperours who durst not be in the dark for fear And as naturall terrours meet us in naturall darknesse so spirituall terrours in spirituall darknesse When the light of Gods countenance is clouded and as it were benights the soule then terrour takes hold upon us Under either of these notions we may understand the terrours of this text The terrours of God doe set themselves in array against me It was true in respect of outward troubles they were very terrible But especially in regard of inward troubles when God set his sins in array before him or hid his face and obstructed the course of his wonted communion Set themselves in aray against me The Originall imports a very exact curious artificiall ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinavit ratione proportione disposuit instruxit and disposall of things As if the Lord had even studied to be exact and exquisite in afflicting Job he puts his sorrowes into a method and his troubles into order The providence of God observes a rule and is harmonious in those things which appeare to us a chaos a heape of confusion The word is applied First To the ordering of speech or disputations There is a kind of embattailing in disputation when it is regular and artificiall Job 32. 14 Now he hath not directed his speech against me saith Elihu concerning Job as if he had said Job hath not marshalled his arguments against me but all the charge hath been upon you Secondly I find the word used in reference unto prayer Prayer ought to be full of holy order and composednesse Psal 5. 3. In the morning will I direct my prayer to Thee and looke up In the morning will I put my prayer in array I will posture my prayer in a gratious order my heart in order and my words in order every petition shall as it were keep ranke and file when I am seeking unto God Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God is the counsell of the Holy Ghost by Solomon Eccles 5. 2. But properly the word is applied to the marshalling and imbattailing of an Army Jer. 50. 9 Loe I will raise and cause to come up against Bâ—bylon an assembly of great nations from the North countrey and they shall set themselves in array against her c. So then whereas Job saith The terrours of God are set in array against me he would intimate that God afflicted him both orderly and resolvedly It was not some confused terrour or sudden surptiâ—al but the Lord God like some great Commander or General mustered and marshal'd his army and led it up exactly form'd to a pitcht battell against him Observe from hence first Afflictions come sometimes by multitudes You shall have a whole Army
nice delicate dames of Jerusalem with such things as their proud spirits and naughty soules refused to touch Isa 3. 24. It shall come to passe that instead of sweet smell there shall be a stinke and instead of a girdle a rent and in stead of well set haire baldnesse and instead of a stomacher a girding with sackcloath and burning instead of beauty Take heed of coynesse and curiosity many a dainty tooth hath been taught by hunger to knaw bones and water for a crust of bread Observe secondly That which makes afflictions most grievous to us is the unsuitablenesse of our spirits to afflictions Delight and content consist in suitablenesse of the object to our affections and desires God offers spirituall food to the naturall man but his soule refuses to touch it he loathes Angels food and is weary of the manna of the word The precious Gospel the bread of life is an affliction to him because his heart is unsutable to it how will such be afflicted at the last when they find That as their sorrowfull meate for ever which their souls will for ever refuse to touch They who loath Christ and his wayes shall find nothing in the end to feed upon but what is most contrary to their appetite even fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest these shall be the portion of their cups and the meate in their dish for ever How sorrowfull will that meale be But we may rather apply all to the words of Eliphaz in the two former Chapters And Jobs ready submission in the first and second Chapters to the afflicting hand of God argues for him that afflictions how grievous soever were not the things which his soule refused to touch And the apprehension of a learned interpreter atisfies me in it This sense saith he is too low for a man Sensus humilior est quam hominem deceat gravioribm malis exagtiatum Pined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 afflicted with troubles farre above these which concern'd his outward man The Septuagint are expressely for this opinion who translate those words Is there any tast in the white of an egge thus Is there any tast in vain words they are so farre off the judgement that these unsavoury things the things which Jobs soule refused to touch and the white of the egge in the Text are all meant of vain words that they put it into the very text It is a usuall boldnes with them and a very unwarrantable one to vary so from the words of the Originall and make their glosse the text but it shews us how strongly they were engaged to that sence Most of the Greek writers concurre with them in it viz. that Joh aimes at the counsels and speeches of Eliphaz which wanted the seasoning of wisedome and prudence yea of truth and soundnesse as applied to the spirit of so sick a man as Job was And besides many moderne writers are cleare in the same apprehension giving the summe of all plainly to this effect as the mind of Job in those fore going passages I would not have complained of the things which ye have spoken if they had been meate for me but I assure you your counsels are not nourishing I can find no food much lesse any sweetnesse or fatnesse in them Your counsels want the due seasoning of wisdome and the right temperament of holy zeale They are either unsavory or tastlesse Taneum abest ut sermonibus vestris recreet aut corum condimento reficiatur vita mea uté contrà â—â—bum ipsum mihi amarioreÌ„ vitamque injucundiorem reddâ—t Jun. Absit ut vir sâ—nctu aliquando amicorum suorum dicta despexerit qui humilio servut fueris Greg. saplesse stuffe Such as I am so farre from being refreshed with that indeed they are a burden to me and the remedy you prescribe me is worse then my disease How can you expect that I should submit or subscribe to what you have spoken or that I should rest and acquiesse in your reproofes or advices seeing I assure you they are not for me they hit my state or spirit no more then unsavoury meate doth my palate or that which I abhorre to touch can please my tast And therefore with my soule I refuse and reject what you have spoken And you have not only not satisfied me all this while but you have vext or tired me and instead of mitigating my sorrowes have added to them But an objection arises against this and one of the Ancients is very angry with those who make this application to the counsels of Eliphaz as if Job had rejected them as unfit food and unsavoury meate Let no man saith he think that this holy man despised the counsell of his friend who himselfe was humble as a fervant To which I answer That the counsels of Eliphaz are to be considered either in the doctrine or in the use His counsels in the doctrine of them were good and savoury he spake wholesome food but as to Jobs case he was quite mistaken in their use and so instead of easing troubled him A Physitian may give his sick patient that which is good in it selfe very cordiall and soveraigne and yet it may kill him instead of curing him if it be not proper for his body and his disease Thus it is also in giving counsell what we speake must be fitted to the person and to the season There are many good counsels of which we may say as Hushai did of Achitophels ill ones 2 Sa. 17. 7. They are not good at this time That which is good counsell to a man at one time may be or might have been ill to the same man at another I have many things to say saith Christ but ye cannot beare them now Joh. 16. 12. And that which one man can beare another cannot at the same time And therefore the Apostle was made all things to all men 1 Cor. 9. 2. And accounted himselfe debtor both to the wise and to the foolish to the learned and unlearned to the weake and to the strong that is he looked upon it as his duty to speake truths suiting the state of every degree and sort of men which is the meaning of his rule to all the dispencers of holy mysteries that they divide the word aright The rightnesse respects not only or not so much the subject or word divided as the object or persons â— Tim. 2. 15. to whom the division is to be made in giving every one his portion or foode convenient for him One man may surfet with that which another digests kindly what fattens a second may sicken or starve a third This plainly is the meaneing of Job what Eliphaz had said was not savoury foode for him nor drest for one in his condition His soule did even refuse to touch what he spake because his soule was not of that temper for which Eliphaz had fitted his speech He was a Physitian of no value to him because he brought a wrong
hardnesse or bear evil As if he had said thou dost not know what hardship thou shalt be put unto in thy ministry I who am a veterane 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an old beaten though never conquered souldier in this warfare of Christ have been put to much hardship in my time and from my owne experience I advise thee to inure thy selfe to hardship to lie hard to fare hard to work hard to hear hard words and receive hard usage A tender spirit and a delicate body which must have warme and soft and fine and sweet continually is unfit for the warfare of the Gospel Such a sence is here I know I must endure more than now I doe but I would harden my selfe against that time and resolve to endure it let come what could come I am resolved and have fore-thought the worst Further for the clearing of these words it is considerable that some learned Interpreters put the two middle expressions into a parenthesis and read the whole thus I should have comfort though I should scorch with paine and though God should not spare me for I have not concealed the words of the holy One. One thus This yet is my comfort even while I scorch with pain Iunius and God doth not spare me that I have not concealed the words of the holy One Mr. Broughton as I touched before comes near this sence and translation So I should yet find comfort though I parch in paine when he would not spare For I kept not close the words of the most Holy That is when the long expected houre of my death shall come though God to take away my life should heat the fornace of my affliction seven times hotter then hitherto so that I must parch in paine yet I should have comfort Or take it in Master Broughtons owne glosse in all these pangs if God would make an end of me it should be my comfort and I would take courage in my sicknesse to beare it by my joy that I should die because I professed the Religion of God So that the strength of Job to bear the hand of God was from the conscience of his former integrity in doing the will and maintaining the truth of God Let him not spare Job having taken up his hope that he should have comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pepercit clementia usus fuerit and this resolution that he would harden himselfe in sorrow speaks now as if he were at a point let God doe what he pleaseth let him not spare as if he had said what course soever the Lord shall see good to take for the cutting me off I am content he should goe on with it Let him not spare The word signifies to indulge or shew mercy to him whom by all right a man might justly destroy Ezek. 5. 11. Because thou hast done thus and thus saith God therefore will I also diminish thee neither shall mine eye spare neither will I have any pity Job seemes to invite what God threatens others Let him not spare let him not have any pity let him take his full swing in destroying of me In this sence it is said Rom. 8. 32. That God spared not his own sonne That is he abated not any thing which justice could inflict Christ therefore saves to the uttermost because he suffered to the uttermost He was not spared one blow one drop one sigh one sorrow one shame one circumstance of all or any one of these which justice could demand as a satisfaction for mans sinne Yea though in a sence he cryed to his father that he might be spared yet he was not There is a three-fold mercy in God There is a preventing mercy mercy that steps between us and trouble And there is a delivering mercy mercy that takes us out of the hand of trouble There is a third kinde of mercy coming in the middle of these two and that is called sparing mercy and that is two-fold First sparing for the time when God delaies and staies long ere he strike Secondly sparing for the degree when the Lord moderates and mitigates abates and qualifies our sufferings not letting them fall so heavie upon us as they might This sparing mercy stands I say in the middle of the two former it is not so much as preventing mercy stopping trouble that it come not neither is it so much as delivering mercy removing it when it is come Now Job did not only not aske delivering mercy that he asked not sparing mercie Let him not spare me in the time let him not delay or loose time let him come as soone as he will And let him not spare me in the degree and measure let him strike me as hard and lay his hand as heavily upon me as he will David Psal 39. 13. makes this his request O spare me that I may recover strength before I goe hence and be no more That is abate and mitigate my sufferings that I die not but Job desireth not to be spared at all He rather saith take away all my strength that I may goe hence and be seen no more Observe hence That the hope troubles will end comforteth yea hardneth in bearing present troubles Then will I comfort my selfe then will I harden my selfe let him not spare if I may have my request and die The sharpest sting of trouble is that it is endless and it is next to that when we can not looke to the end of it nor see any issue or way out of it That which discourages the damned in bearing their sorrowes and softens both their flesh and spirits to receive home to the head every arrow of wrath and dart of vengeance is they see no end and are assured there will be none They know they cannot be cut off and therefore they cannot harden themselves in sorrow no that very consideration makes their hearts which have been hardned to commit sin tender to receive punishment and exactly sencible of their pains could they see that at last they should be cut off even they would be hardned to bear the torments of Hell in the meane time though that time should be very long yea as long as time can be onely not endlesse The pain it selfe doth not afflict so much as the thought that they shall be afflicted for ever As the assurance that the glory of Heaven shall never end infinitely sweetnes it so the assurance that the paines of hell shall never end infinitely sharpens them And not to see the ending of worldly troubles neer puts us further off from comfort then the bearing of those troubles Therefore saith Job if I might be assured that God would cut me off I would harden my selfe in sorrow and let not God spare I would not desire him to hold his hand to mitigate or abate my paines * Eâ— haec mihi merces esset ejus seu pro eo quod nâ—n occultavi unquam sed diligentisâ— simè observavi quam commendatissima habui
verba Domini Opin Nonnullorum Hebraeorum apud Merc. Yea I would account every blow an embrace and every wound a reward For not concealing the words of the holy One In these words Job gives the reason or an account of his renewed prayer and request to die As the desire of Job was strong and passionate so likewise it was well grounded He had a very high reason an excellent ground upon which he bottom'd this request to die His reason was spirituall and therefore strong He beggs to be delivered from the troubles of his life though by a painfull death because he was clear in himselfe that he had led a blamelesse life That which set him above the paines of bodily death was the tranquillity of his spirit in this testmony of his conscience I have not concealed the words of the holy One As if he had said You may wonder why I should be so forward and ready to die why I seeme so greedy after the grave why I am such an importunate suiter for my dissolution The account I give you is this I have the testimony of a good conscience within me notwithstanding all the troubles which are upon me notwithstanding all your harsh vnfriendly accusations jealousies and suspitions of me yet my own breast is my friend my heart speakes me faire and gives me good words even these It tells me that I have not concealed the words Mirum est ut mihi non parcat quum illius verba non celarim neque dissimulaverim Aben Azr. of the holy One That I have not smothered any light he hath sent me that I have not refused any councell he hath given me that I have not wilfully departed from any rule he hath prescribed me that I have been faithfull to God to his cause and to his truth that I have declared his will and spoken his minde to others that I have not hidden any thing he hath given me in charge to declare or committed to my trust the word of God hath appeared in my life and therefore I am not afraid yea I have boldnesse to die and to appear before God I have not concealed The word signifieth to hide a thing so as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Significat abscondere ne vidleatur vel audeatur ne amplius appareat it be neither heard of or seen But may not we conceal the words of the most high it is said of Mary that she hid the words of Christ in her heart and of David that he hid the commandements of God in his heart Psal 119. 11. Did not the wise merchant hide the treasure namely Gospel truth Math. 13. 44. as soon as he had found it It should seem all these concealed the word of God how then is it that Job improves this as a speciall point of comfort that he had not concealed the words of the holy One There is a double hiding or concealement of the truth There is first a hiding from danger Secondly a hiding from use There is a hiding to keep a thing safe that others shall not take it from us and there is a hiding to keep a thing close that others may not take the benefit of it with us When it is said that Mary and David and the wise Merchant hid the word of God it was lest they themselves should lose it lest any should deprive them of it they hid it from danger They layed it up as a treasure in their hearts but they did not hide it from the knowledge or use of others and that is it which Job affirmes of himselfe I have not concealed the words of the holy One And there are four wayes by which the word of God is sinfully hid or concealed from all which Job seemes to acquit himselfe The first is when we conceal the word of God by our own silence when we know the word and truth of God and yet we draw a vaile over them by not revealing them The Apostle Paul Acts 20. 27. acquits himself in this to the Church of Ephesus I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsell of God and verse 20. You know how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you Silence to what is spoken is consent and silence when we should speak is concealement There is a second way of concealing the word of God and that is by silencing others Some conceale the words of the holy One themselves and they cannot endure that others should publish them The chiefe Priests and the Rulers Acts 4 18. charged Peter and John that they should not speake at all nor teach any more in the name of Jesus They would stop the Apostles mouthes from speaking the words of the holy One These keep the truth lockt up as Christ charges the Lawyers Luk. 11. 52. by taking away the key of knowledge Thirdly There is a concealing of the word of God under false glosses and misinterpretations or a hiding of it under errours and misconstructions This is a very dangerous way of concealing the words of the holy One The Pharisees made the law of God of none effect by their expositions as well as by their traditions by the sence they made of it as well as by the additions they made unto it Fourthly The word of the holy One may be concealed in our practise and conversations The Apostle exhorts Phil. 2. 16. To hold forth the word of life in a pure conversation The lives of Christians should publish the word of life The best way of preaching the word is by the praictse of the word The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse of men who hold the truth in unrighteousnesse that is who by their unrighteous practises and ungodly conversations imprison fetter restrain and keep in the word Mans holy life is the loudest Proclamation of the word of God And a sinfull life is the concealment of it Job here acquits himselfe from all these concealements I have not eâ—ncealed the words of the holy One either by my own silence or by imposing silence upon others I have not concealed the word of the holy One by my own corrupt glosses and interpretations nor by a corrupt practise and conversation I have desired and endeavoured that the whole word of God might be visible in my actions and audible in my speeches that I might walke cloathed as it were with the holy counsels and commandements of my God There is a reading of the words different from this Whereas we Malo potentialiter exponi omnia utinam inquit non parceret Nequenim occultarem dicta sancti sed ejus in me sententiam praedicarem laudarem Merc. say I have not concealed the words of the holy One that gives it thus I would not conceale the words of the holy One and so the word of the holy One is taken not for the truths of God in generall but for that special word of decree or sentence which God should
passe out against him A if he had said Let not God spare me let him write â—s bitter a sentence against me as he pleaseth for my part I would not conceale the word of the most High but I would publish his judgement and sentence against me yea I would praise him and extoll him for it The vulgar Latine to this sence I would not contradict the word of the holy One Let him not spare me for as for my part whatsoever God shall determine and resolve whatsoever word God shall speake concerning me I will never withstand or open my mouth against it This is a truth and carries in it a high frame of holinesse when we can bring our hearts to this that let God write as bitter things against us as he pleaseth we will never contradict his word or decree but our minds and spirits shall submit wholly and fully to his dispositions of us and dispensations towards us It is as clear an evidence of grace to be passive under as to be active in the word of God Not to contradict his writ for our sufferings as not to conceale what he speaks for our practise But I rather stick to the former interpretation Job giving this as a reason of his great confidence in pursuing his petition for death because he had been so sincere holding forth the word of God both in doctrine and in life And so we may observe from it First That the testimony of a good conscience is the best ground of our willingnesse to die That man speakes enough for his willingnesse to die who hath lived speaking and doing the will of God and he is in a very miserable case who hath no other reason why he desireth death but onely because he is in misery This was one but not the only reason why Job desired death he had a reason transcending this I have not concealed the words of the holy One and I know if I have not concealed the word of God God will not conceal his mercy and loving kindness from me David bottoms his hopes of comfort in sad times upon this Psal 40. 9 10. I have preached righteousness in the great Congregation I have not refrained my lips O Lord thou knowest he was not actively or politickly silent I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart if lay there but it was imprisoned or stifl'd there I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvations I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great Congregation Upon this he fals a praying with a mighty spirit of beleeving vers 11. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me O Lord let thy loving-kindness and thy truth continually preserve me for innumerable evils have compassed me about The remembrance of our active faithfulness to the truth of God will bear up our hearts in hoping for the mercy of God He that in Davids and in Jobs sence can say I have not concealed the words of the most high may triumph over innumerable evils and shall be more then a conquerer over the last and worst of temporal evils death God cannot long conceal his love from them who have not concealed his truth Secondly observe positively That the counsels of God his truths must be revealed God hath secrets which belong not to us but then he puts them not forth in a word nor writes them in his book he keeps his secrets close in the cabinet of his decrees and counsels but what he reveals either in his word or by his works man ought to reveal too It is as dangerous if not more to conceal what God hath made known as to be inquisitive to know what God hath concealed Yea it is as dangerous to hide the word of God as it is to hide our own sins And we equally give glory to God by the profession of the one as by the confession of the other Paul with much earnestnesse professes his integrity about this as was even now toucht Act. 20. Fourthly observe That the study of a godly man is to make the word of God visible I have not concealed that is I have made plain I have revealed or I have published the words of the holy One Much of Jobs mind is concealed under that word I have not concealed For in this negative there is an affirmative as if he had said this hath been my labour and my businesse my work in the world to make known so much of the will of God as I know This was the work of Christ here below Father I have glorified thee upon earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do Joh. 17. 4. What this work was he shewes vers 6th I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world Lasty observe That it is a dangerous thing for any man to conceale the word of God either in his opinion or in his practice For it is as if Job had said if I had ever concealed the words of God I had bin but in an ill case at this time God might now justly reveale his wrath against me if I had concealed his word from others or God might justly hide his mercies from me if I had hid his word from men Smothered truths will one time or other set the conscience in a flame and that which Jeremiah spake once concerning his resolution to conceale the word of God and the effect of it will be a truth upon every one who shall set himselfe under a resolution to doe what he under a temptation did Jer. 20. 9. Then I said I will not make mention of him nor speake any more in his name what followes Then his word was in my breast as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing If a gracious heart hath taken up such a sodaine resolution to conceale the word of God he quickly repents of it or smarts under it He findes that word as a burning fire in his bones he is not able to bear it I was weary with forbearing saith the prophet Nothing in the world will burthen the conscience so much as concealed truth and they who have taken a meditated resolution that they will not reveale the word of God may be sure that word will one time or other reveale it selfe to them in the Light and heat of a burning fire seeding upon their consciences I have not concealed the words whose words The words of the Holy One Who is that The Holy One is a periphrasis for God When you hear that Title The holy One you may know who is meant This is a Title too bigge for any but a God All holinesse is in God and God is so holy that properly he onely is Holy Hence the Scripture sets God forth under this as a peculiar attribute The Holy One The Prophets often use this addition or stile The Holy One of Israel The Holy One Is One separate or set apart from all filthinesse
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seperatus and uncleannesse No evil dwells with God none comes near him Therefore he is The Holy One He is so separated from evil that he cannot behold evil or look on iniquity Hab. 1. 13. except with a vindictive eye Sin never got a good look from God or ever shall Further God is called The Holy One in three respects First Deus vocatur Sanctus Israel vel Sanctus simpliciter vel quod sancté a nobis colendus est vel quod ipse solus vere sanctus est Because he is all holy in himself Secondly Because we receive all holiness from him Thirdly Because we are to serve him in holiness and righteousness all our daies A Holy God must have a holy Service God is The Holy One First In his Nature his essence is purity Or he is essential purity Secondly he is holy in his Word those are frequent adjuncts of the word of God holy pure and clean Thirdly He is holy in his works There is not the least imaginable stain or defilement upon any thing he hath done These three put together lift up the glory of God in this title The Holy One. He that is holy throughout in his nature holy in his word holy in his works is the Holy One Yea he is as Moses stileth him in his triumphant song Exod. 15. Glorious in holinesse A glorious holy One Or again We may consider God The holy One First Radically and fundamentally because the Divine nature is the root and original the spring of all holinesse and purity All holinesse is in God and there is no holinesse to be had but in God alone Secondly God is The holy One by way of example and patterne or in regard of the rule and measure of holinesse 1 Pet. 1. 16. Be ye holy as I am holy the Holinesse of God it is the exemplar and patterne of all the holinesse that is in the creature Thirdly God is The holy One by way of motive He is as the rule of holinesse so likewise the reason of our holinesse therefore another Scripture saith Be ye holy for I am holy I am The holy One and that is the reason why you must be holy too Fourthly God is The holy one effectively because he works conveies and propagates all holiness to and in the creature Nothing can frame a heart to holiness but the finger of God Man can no more make himself or another holy than he can redeem another or himself Fiftly He is called The holy One by way of eminency or super-excellency because his holiness is infinitely beyond all the holiness of men and Angels Angels are holy and God is pleased to say of men that they are holy but not man nor Angel can be called The holy One. His supereminency in holiness shines forth in such beams and rayes as these First Holiness in God it is not a quality but his essence Holiness in Angels is a quality the essence of many Angels continues though their holiness be lost and vanished the lapsed Angels who are now devils keep their nature but their holiness is gone therefore holiness was but a quality or accidental to them So in the Saints holiness is an infusion a quality a grace most men never had any holiness and the man would remain though his holiness should be lost But in God his essence and his holiness are the same The holiness of God It is the holy God as the wisdom of God it is the wise God and the power of God it is the powerful God The attributes of God for our learning are distinguished from his nature but in him they are the same Secondly God is The holy One eminently above men and Angels because he is absolutely perfect in holiness Absolutely perfect first because he is holy extensively if we may so speak of God in all parts he is holy throughout and then he is holy intensively as he is holy in all parts so he is altogether holy in every part Holy men have holiness in every part yet they are holy but in part and though Angels be holy in every part extensively and have also a perfection of holinesse yet they have not an absolute perfection of holiness therefore Angels themselves are chargeable with folly compared with God Chap. 4. 18. God is so light that in him there is no darkness at all he is so holy in him that there is no unholiness at all But men the best of men all the saints upon earth have darkness with their light and unholiness mixed with their holiness Therefore in the third place the eminency of God in holiness appeareth in this that God is ever equally holy ever in the same degree and frame of holiness Angels are so too because they are confirmed and though at the present the Saints are not yet when Christ shall set them up in that glorious estate they shall keep the same frame for ever But the Saints upon earth are unequally holy For first they are growing their estate here is an encreasing estate they are more holy one year than another as they grow more in knowledge so in every grace And then in regard of the exercise they are more holy at one time than at another which of the Saints hath not found or doth not find much variety in his spirit Now a heart enlarged in prayer and anon straightned now a heart believing and anon doubting now humble anon lifted up with pride c. But as the holy One is perfectly and absolutely holy so he is ever equally in the same degree and tenor of holiness not the least variety or shaddow of turning in him Put all these together and the title is clear How God by an excellency is called The holy One. As he is so strong that all the power of the creature compared with his is weakness and so wise that all the wisdom of the creature compared with his is folly So he is so holy that compared with him all holiness is unholy and he alone The holy One. Observe hence First That the holiness of man consists in his conformity unto God Holiness is our likeness to God or the application of our minds and actions to God as the Scholles define it God the holy One Sanctitas dicitur per quam mens seipsum suos actus applicat Deo is if we may so speak the standard the patern and the object of all holiness There is a two-fold conformity to God in holiness First a conformity to the nature of God Secondly a conformity to the will of God or to that which God wills These make up the total holiness of the creature First Holiness is our conformity to the nature of God And therefore beleevers are said to be partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. This participation is our analogical resemblance unto the divine nature First in his attributes Secondly in his affections In his attributes when we are patient mercifull just
God Deicidium Sin would not allow him a being in the world who gave the world it's being Sin in the nature of it is The unholy thing and God is The holy One These two must contend for ever so far as things or persons are unholy they directly strike at the Being of God Sin would put down all rule and all dominion but it 's own Observe Fourthly They who despise holiness despise God himself They who despise holiness despise the very glory of God God is glorious in holiness and this is his glorious Name THE HOLY ONE Some of the Prophane wretched Jewes derided and blasphemed God under this title the Prophet had long threatned judgement and had told them that the holy God would be avenged of them for their filthiness and profaness for their hypocrifie and idolatry But when these wretches saw God delaying to come out and bring forth the treasures of his wrath against them they fall a jeering and they jeer at God under this title Isa 5 19. Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it as if they had said God is too slow let him make more hast and let the counsel of the holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it him that you have so often told us of The holy One let him make hast and bring on his work Without question God came speedily upon those and he will come speedily upon all those unclean spirits and tongues who blaspheme that holy Name The holy One Lastly Hence we learn Why none can see God why none have any fitness for communion with God but holy Ones holy persons the reason is because God is the holy One. That great Law is gone out from the mouth of God Levit. 10. 3. I will be sanctified in those that come near me why sanctified Because God is the holy one Unlesse we sanctifie God we cannot draw nigh to God As holinesse is a separation from evil so iâ— is an approximation to the chiefest good But some may demand how can man sanctifie God God sanctifies us but can we sanctifie him We cannot sanctifie God as he sanctifies us We doe not sanctifie God by adding or communicating any holiness unto him but we sanctifie God by acknowledging his holiness or by acknowledging that he is The Holy One drawing nigh unto God with a holy heart with holy affections is the sanctfying of God For this is the language of such preparation I have a holy God to go unto therefore I must have a holy heart to come unto him with this is sanctifying God And that 's the reason why none can see God but they that are holy Heb. 12. 14. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord because God himself is holy therefore they cannot see God who are unholy There must be an inward holiness holiness in the Organ to take in the holiness of the object God first works holiness in us and then we behold him the holy God And that was the reason why the Prophet Isa chap. 6. when the voice proclaimed that thrice holy Name of God Holy Holy Holy cried out I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips I have an unclean heart and how shall I stand before this holy holy holy God This made his spirit recoyl though he was a holy Prophet If the remainders of unholinesse in him made his spirit faint when there was an appearance of the holy God How will they that are nothing but corruption or a lump of uncleanness lying still in the dregs of nature be able to stand before God The holy One the holy holy holy One This is the summe of the first reason upon which Job grounds his request to die it was not the misery he suffered but the integrity in which he had lived He had not concealed the words of the holy One therefore as his affliction made his life troublesome to him so the goodness of his cause and conscience made death welcome to him JOB Chap. 6. Vers 11 12 13 14. What is my strength that I should hope And what is mine end that I should prolong my life Is my strength the strength of stones Or is my flesh of brass Is not my help in me And is wisdom driven quite from me To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty JOB as hath been shewed in this context from the 8th verse renewes his former request and desire of death confirming it by divers arguments some of which were opened in the 10th verse especially that from the clearness and integrity of his own conscience in that he had not concealed the words of the the holy One He had dealt faithfully in the cause of God and therefore he was not afraid to appear before God And his desire did not hang about his lips as if it would return and deny it self therefore in this 11th verse he puts forth two reasons further why he moves or re-enforces his motion to die The first is grounded upon the small hope he had to live long if he should desire it What is my strength that I should hope The second is grounded upon the strong hope yea assurance which he had that it should be well with him in death or that death could be no dammage to him And what is my end that I should prolong my life Put these two together And then consider is it any wonder that a man in much misery desires to die speedily when he hath no hope no ground of hope that he can live long and when he hath no fear no ground no nor shaddow of fear that it shall be ill with him when he dies This I conceive is the sum and strength of his reasoning contained in the 11th verse I shall now open the words distinctly What is my strength that I should hope Some render it What is my strength that I should bear that I should be able to sustain this weighty burthen this mighty load of affliction pressing my wounded soul and wearied body Thus it refers to his present sufferings to the enduring and standing under which he found his own strength altogether insufficient And so the My in the text What is my strength seems to be His sustinendis impar sum haec mea vita miseriis obnoxia sustentatur non meis viribus sed divina gratia fide dilectione in filium Dei Pined opposed to some other strength As if Job had said Eliphaz you advised me in the former Chapter verse 8. to seek unto God and to commit my cause unto him to seek help at his hands Why do you think I have not done that all this while Do you beleeve that I have stood out these assault in My own strength What is My strength that I should bear That I should bear this burthen so long as I have born it Surely I have been held up by the power of
chesed a reproach to any people Secondly Impiety and cruelty harshness and severity Thirdly It signifies any abhominable wickedness Levit. 20. 17. where Moses speaking of incest incest between brother and sister calls that abomination by this word Chesod A wicked thing That may have a good name the nature whereof is so ill that it is not to be named Further The word as we translate imports more than a bare act of pitty or commiseration as suppose a man see his brother in misery compassionates him but relieves him not this is not pity Such the Apostle James describes in his first Chapter vers 15. If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food and you say unto them be filled be warmed be cloathed poor creatures ye are hungry yea are naked I pitty you I am sorry to see you thus be filled be cloathed I wish it were otherwise with you and yet in the mean time he gives them nothing wherewith either to cloath or feed them Is this fulfilling the law of love Is this charity Nothing lesse The pity here spoken of is not a verbal piety Our saying to a brother in trouble be comforted or I would course were taken for you I wish you well with all my heart and so we bestow a mouth-ful of good words but not so much as a morsell of bread or a cup of cold water Good words alone are cheap charity to mans expence and they are so cheap in Gods esteem that they will not be found of any value at all in the day of reckening good words not realized if they be found any where will be found in the treasures of wrath This is not the pitty which Job teacheth us should be shewed to him that is afflicted The Apostles quesion shakes such out of all claime to this grace 1 John 3. 17. whosoever saith he hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother in need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how doth the love of God dwell in him Though a mans mouth be open with good words yet if he shut his bowels from good deeds there is no love to God or man hous'd in that mans heart It is no Pitty to speak of onely to speak pitty and therefore the Apostle addes verse 18 My little children let us not love in word and in tongue but in deed and in truth that 's the true meaning of this word to him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed But you my friends have not given me so much as the sound of pitty you have not bemoaned me much less have you relieved me which is the substance of pitty reall pitty You have not loved me in tongue giving me good words much less in deed and in truth Deed-pitty is both the duty and the disposition of a godly man therefore this word Chasid in the concrete is often used in Scripture to signify a godly man He is one that hath obtained much grace and pitty from the Lord and he is kind gracious and pittiful unto men The holy Proverb assures us That a good man is merciful pittiful to his beast much more to a man and most of all to a godly man who is his brother in the nearest bond And it is considerable how this word was used by way of distinction among the Jewes who cast their whole people or nation into three ranks and it is grounded upon Rom. 5 6 7. where the Apostle alludes to those three sorts First There were Reshagnim ungodlymen the prophane rabble Secondly there were the Tsadikmi righteous men And thirdly there were Chasidim good men or pittiful mâ—n scarcely saith the Apostle will one die for a righteous man for a man fair and just in his dealings peradventure for one of the Chasidim for a good man some one may chance to dy He that had been pittiful might haply find pitty and having done so much good in his life all would desire he should live still But herein God commended his love to us that while we were â—et sinners Reshagnim in the worst raâ—ke of men Christ died for us No man had either love or pitty enough to die for them who had so much impiety The farthest that the natural line oâ— mans pitty can reach is to do good to those who do him good or are good Pitty notes out such a sort of men and such a sort of actions as Antiqui vocant Ciconâ—am pietatis cultricem Ciconiis pietas eximia est Soâ— are fullest of love of bowels of brotherly kindeness and compassion Hence the Stork which by divers of the ancients was put for the Emblem of love and benignity is exprest in the Hebrew by this word Levit. 11. 19. The Storke is very tender towards her young ones and her young ones are as tender of her when she is old as naturalists have observed So then this word imports the height of all offices and affections of love from man to man especially from Christian to Christian in times of trouble and cases of extremity This Pitty you should have shewed me saith Job But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty That is he forsakes all godlinesse goodness and religion Fear takes in all that 's good and so it is conceived that Job retorts the words of Eliphaz in the fourth chap. Is this thy fear or where is thy fear thy Religion Now Job saith Is this your fear You have forsaken the fear of the Almighty Is this your Religion to deal so harshly with a distressed friend or to give him such cold comfort Surely you have forsaken that fear of the Almighty which you charged me with Have not I reason to ask Is this thy fear or to conclude You have forsaken the fear of the Almighty These words are diversly rendred Some thus He that takes away pitty from his friend hath forsaken the fear of the Almighty And Qui tollit ab â—mico suo misericordiam timorem Domini derelinquit Vulg. that 's a truth and a good sense though not so clear to the letter of the Text. Mr. Broughton joins this with the former verse By him whose mercy is molten toward his friend and who leaveth the fear of the Almighty So referring this melting to mercy and not to the man joining it with the former thus Have not I my defence and is judgment driven away from me by him whose mercy is molten away toward his neighbour and who leaveth the fear of the Almighty As if Job had said Eliphaz doest thou thinke thou haste driven away all wisdome from me by thy dispute Doest thou think that I have lost my reason as thou hast lost thy pitty Thou thinkest wisdome and understanding have forsaken me but it appears by thy dealings that thou hast forsaken the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdome Thirdly it is rendred in the contrary sense The word Chesid An dissoluto à sodali suo convitium et quod timorem omnipotentis
as one that travelleth and thy want as an armed man Want strips us but is it selfe not only cloathed but armed Evils have so much life and strength in them that they are compared to the strongest who live armed men Hence observe first It is an aggravation of unkindnesse to those who are in want not to be kind to them when they are modest in asking a supply of their wants Love ought to prevent asking and should be moved to give most to them who being in need complain least Again He speakes this to wipe off that aspersion as if the losse of his estate were the thing which grieved and pinched him so sore Did I say unto you bring me a reward c. It is an argument that a man overloves that which he hath lost when he is over-importunate to have his losses repaired If you had seen me call out unto you for an estate then you had reason to think that the losse of my estate was the losse of my patience Thirdly Observe the temper of a gracious heart under losses and afflictions A gracious heart under losses is not forward to complain to creatures or to ask help of men Did I say bring unto me or give me a reward of your substance He complaines to God and sheweth him his trouble he openes his want to God and asketh supplies of him but he is very modest and slow in complaining to or in suing for help at the hand of creatures It is not unlawful for those that are in want to make their losses and wants known to men It is a duty rather so to doe onely it must be done with caution least when we ask of creatures too importunately we give an argument against our selves that we are too much in love with creatures As it is reproved in those Rulers before spoken of Hos 4. 18. that they did love give ye It is a crime in the rich to love give ye And certainly it is a sin at least an infirmity in those that are poor and in want to love give ye or to say as Iob here had not bring to me Solomon speakes of the daughters of the horsleach that they are alwayes crying give give noting their insatiable thirst after blood Some poor are alwayes crying give give which notes a very inordinate desire after riches Iob is very careful to take off the suspition of such a blemish from himself I did not say bring ye or give ye me of your substance It is the duty of those that are full to give to their empty brethren it is their sin if they give not and it is their shame if they are not most free in giving to those who are most modest in asking But when God hath emptied us we should not be eager in filling our selves When God takes creatures from us we should take heed of pursuing them we should not doe any thing which may argue our hearts glued to them when the Lord hath loosen'd them out of our hands It is an honour to a poor Christian when in his greatest straights he can approve himself to God and men and can say as the Apostle Acts 20. 33. I have coveted no mans silver or gold or apparel It is as sinful to covet in our wants as it is in our abundance And it is as bad if not worse to be greedy of the creature when we are empty as when we are full A poor man oppressing the poor Prov 28. 3. and covering from the rich are sights of equal abomination Vers 24. Teach me and I will hold my tongue and cause me to understand wherein I have erred c. This and the next verse contain the fourth branch of Jobs reply and the general sence of them is a submission of himself to his friends if yet they should speak reason or discover his error Teach me and I will hold my peace as if he had said Though I have to the best of my understanding thus far acquitted my self and cleared mine own innocency though I have as I think with truth and justice laid this charge of uncharitablenesse and unfriendly dealing with me upon you yet you shall see I am ready to hear you I am teachable if you can yet teach me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iecit projecit per metaphoram 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rigavit quando transfertur ad pluviam quae lapidum sagitarum instar ex coelo decidit in terram eamque ferit rigat foecundat Hinc per Metathoram significat etiam docere Quod doctrina veluti instiletur animis dicentium ininutatim indatur eosque impuat I will keep silence and if you cause me to understand wherein I have erred I shall doe so no more Teach me The Original word notes in strict sence to cast a thing forth to throw a thing as a dart or a stone is thrown either downward or upward or in a direct motion forward Hence by a Metaphor it signifies raine because raine is as it were darted forth from the clouds and cast down upon the earth And from hence yet one remove further the Metaphor is carried to signifie teaching Hence the holy Prophet is commanded to drop his word Ezek. 20. 46. 21. 2. Sonne of man set thy face toward the south and drop thy word towards the south Sonne of man set thy face toward Jerusalem and droop thy word toward the holy places And the reason is this because Doctrines Truths and wholesome Instructions are instilled and cast down among the people or dropt into their spirits as rain is cast or dropp'd from heaven upon the earth And so we may read the word◠out of the metaphor thus rain down upon me doe ye O my friends like clouds full of water dissolve and showre down instructions upon me and see if I doe not receive and drink them in And from this word all doctrine and instruction in the Hebrew is called Torah Prov. 13. 1. and Psal 1. 1. And the Jewes by way of eminency call the five books of Moses as also all the books of the old Testament the Torah that is the Law or rule of holy doctrine which God rained down from Heaven and distilled graciously upon his people for their growth in knowledge and in holiness And so a Teacher from the same root is called Moreh Job 36. 22 Who teacheth like Him who raineth like him there is no man can distill truths as God doth Moses Deut. 32. 2. elegantly sets forth his preaching by an allegory of rain and dew My doctrine shall drop as the rain my speech shall distil as the dew as the small rain upon the tender herb and as the showres upon the grasse And the Apostle Paul Heb. 6 7 8. compares a taught people to ground that is well watered with rain For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth fruit is blessed but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh unto
cursing whose end is to be burned A people well instructed are like that ground which is under continual showers and dews And doctrine is fitly compared to rain and teaching to raining First because all true holy doctrine comes from God as the rain doth The rain is Gods proper gift Jer. 14. 22. Can any of the vanities of the Gentiles give rain All the men in the world are not able to make one drop of rain So we may say of this figurative rain of truth and holy doctrine Can any of the vanities of the Gentiles yea can any of the most learned among the sons of men give this rain Can any man make any one truth which hath not first been made above Truth like rain comes from Heaven it drops from beyond the clouds Art not thou He O Lord our God therefore we will wait upon Thee say they of the natural rain Jer. 14. 22. and so we must in regard of the spiritual Hence the word which Moses uses Deut. 32. 2 for Accipere est discipuli ficut dare praeceptoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doctrine dropping as the rain signifies a received learning Holy Truths are so called in that language because the doctrine of Religion is received from God not devised by men So the Apostle phrases it 1 Cor. 11. 23. I received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you And Christ himself As my Father hath taught me so I speak these things John 8. 28. That which Nicodemus said of Christ is true of every one that teacheth truth Joh. 3. 2. Thou art a Teacher come from God As truth it self so the teachers of it are from God as a lye and the tellers of it are from the Devil John 1. 44. Secondly Like rain as in regard of the original whence it comes so in regard of the effect rain refresheth the earth when the earth is weary and faint when the earth gaspes and is parched how doth a showre of rain revive it When the Psalmist had spoken of the rain coming down upon the earth he presently adds this effect The little hills rejoyce on every side they shout for joy they also sing Thus also a people wearied and languishing and fainting in ignorance when they receive truths and holy instructions how do their hearts rejoyce how do they laugh and sing In the Parable Mat 13. Some are said to receive the word with joy Even they who are but formalists and hypocrites for it is spoken of them rejoyce and are refreshed for a season with the word Truth is such a gracious showre that they sometimes receive it with joy who have no grace And if truth refresh men who are but nature or move in spiritual workes but upon natural principles how will it refresh those who have grace and spiritual principles sutable to it Thou O God saith David Psal 68. 9 10. didst send a plentiful rain whereby thou didst refresh thine inheritance when it was weary That is a truth in the letter and some understand it of natural rain but others interpret that plentiful rain in a figure for the rain of doctrine which God sent down upon his people when he gave the Law and dropt those heavenly Oracles from Mount Sinai upon his people Israel that showre of the Law came indeed in a storm Thunder and lightning and a terrible tempest accompanied it But though the thunder terrified yet the showre refreshed and the Saints have ever delighted in the matter of those instructions and holy counsels given there though Moses a chief amongst the Saints seared and quaked exceedingly at the manner of giving them Thirdly as rain so teaching makes fruitful The Prophet Isaiah makes out this part of the similitude expressly Chap. 55. 10 11. As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returns not thither but waters the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater So shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth c. Hence also the people of God are compared Deut. 32. 2. to grasse and tender herbs which grow and flourish which are fed and bring forth fruit when watered with the rain It cannot be denied though it be much to be lamented that many souls upon whom much of this rain falls are altogether barren and unfruitful But Oh! How barren are those souls upon whom not a droop of this rain ever fell They that are deprived of these showres are under a grievous curse even such a curse as David imprecates upon the mountains of Gilboa 2 Sam. 1. 21. Ye mountains of Gilboa let there be no dew neither let there be rain upon you c. When God saith unto a people let there be no dew no raine upon you no Moses to drop doctrine upon you no Paul to plant no Appollo's to water you with the word this is the saddest showre of curses that can fall upon a people as without rain so without the word ordinarily there can be no fruitfulnesse You see at this time how upon a little with-holding of the natural raine we presently fear barrennesse and famine the want of spiritual rain brings in a This was preacht in a time of drought worse barrennesse though there are not many who fear it or are sensible of it Fourthly the word taught is like rain in regard of the dispensing of it The rain comes not down alike at all times showres are very various sometimes it raines softly then we call it a still soaking rain sometimes we have a strong mighty rain at another time rain is accompanied with thunder and lightning while the showres descend the great Ordnance of heaven discharge from the clouds and fill the air with terrour Thus also it is or should be in teaching Many soules require a still soft quiet rain Others must have stronger showres mighty raine you must powre down upon them A third sort must have thunder joyned with rain they need a Boanerges a sonne of thunder a mixture of terrour with instruction to bore their eares and break their hearts Those teachers mistake their work who in stead of raining are alwayes thundering and lightning As if their pulpit were set upon Mount Sinai And I believe it is as great a mistake to think Teachers need never thunder The word of God in all parts of it and in all manner of dispensations of it is exceeding useful A Minister without teaching is as Iude speakes a cloud without water And he shall doe but little good upon some if he have nothing but water in his cloud Fire sometime must mingle with the rain and a Tempest come after or before the dewing distilling still voice The word of God is compared to fire as well as unto water Only it must be the wisdome and it is the duty of every Teacher to know how to give every one his portion or as the Apostle Jude counsels ver 22 23. Of some to have
of your fathers you esteemed my words as wind but they were a strong wind they blew down the power of your fathers The Apostle gives this honour to all the word of God which is all right that it is mighty or forcible through God to bring down strong holds and to bring every thought into subjection unto Christ And Heb. 4. 12. The word of God is mighty in operation The energie of it is such that nothing can stand before it no lust can stand before it no errour can stand before it it bears down all with fine force Therefore take heed of standing in the way of right words Truth comes with such a force that no man is able to beare up against it It is better to have all the men of the world against us Than to have one word of God against us One word of truth will doe more against us than all the Armies in the world no force can stand against this force the force of the word will destroy the force of the sword Truth will be the great Conquerour at last Thirdly Take it in the Concrete in reference to the speaker How forcible is the word of an upright man Then Observe The words of one that is upright hearted carry great strength and power with them Truth loses by the patronage and defence which some give it Truth gets little by the tongues of those men who have no grace in their hearts Truth in the mouth of a wicked man is weakened by the falseness of his heart and filthiness of his life Sometimes precious truths are spoken by vilest men but what force have they they are not received or owned Christ could not abide to hear the Devil speak truth A godly man speakes with Authority as it is said of Christ He spake as one having authority and not as the Scribes the Scribes taught that which was truth sometimes and the Scribes had alwayes authority to teach the chair of Moses was theirs they were not intruders upon an office they had no call to When Christ saith the Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chair Matt. 23. 2. He speakes not onely de facto of what they did but de jure of what they had right to doe They were not usurpers or actors beyond their line But though the Scribes had the right of authority to teach yet their teaching had no force of authority it was but talke And it appears plainly that the words of that hypocritical generation the Scribes and Pharisees bare no weight with the people because Christ gives them a charge to observe and doe what the Scribes and Pharisees bid them As intimating that the doctrine of those Scribes though true was low-priz'd and lay much unpractis'd Mat. 23. 3. We must not shorten the hand of God as if he might not use those who have no truth to publish a truth He may imploy what instruments he pleases and he can make those that are evil instruments of good But look upon it ordinarily thus it is the word of truth hath most power strength and force from the lips of those who are upright in heart and holy in life How forcible are their words The words of the wise are like goads or like nailes fastened by the Masters of the Assembly Eccl. 11. But the words of wicked masters in the assembly are like nailes without points they will not drive or take hold there is no fastning of them Or the words of wicked men are like weak nailes which break in the driving What doe you arguing reproving teaching you that carry your selves thus what force have your words Truth loses both strength and credit in your mouthes Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy selfe thou that preachest a man should not steal doest thou steal thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery doest thou commit adultery c are the Apostles chiding expostulations with the Jewish Doctors Rom. 2. And upon this he charges them with dishonoring God and causing his name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles vers 23 24. But what was the blasphemy Surely this The Gentiles grew to have a low esteeme of the word of God his Law was of no force with them because those teachers were so false to it and unspoke with their lives whatsoever their tongues had spoken That which hath no force upon the speakers heart hath seldome any upon the hearers What doe your teachings teach or your comfortings comfort what doe your arguings argue or your reprovings reproove Shall vice reprove sin as we speake proverbially or if it doth sin is not much hurt with those reprofs Words spoken from the heart goe to the heart and words read in the life are most forcible to reforme the life Then the word goes forth cloathed with list and power when the preacher can reade his Sermon in his own heart and the people in his life He that speakes onely out of books does much after his rate who as we say speakes without book And he that lives not what he speakes what in him lies kills what he speakes And how shall such a dead letter t is almost a miracle if it doth conveigh a quickning spirit Such arguings seldome reprove any but the arguer and him they alwayes reprove JOB Chap. 6. vers 26 27 28 29 30. Doe ye imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as wind Yea ye overwhelm the fatherlesse and you digge a pit for your friend Now therefore be content look upon me for it is evident unto you if I lie Return I pray you let it not be iniquity yea return again my righteousness is in it Is there iniquity in my tongue Cannot my taste discern perverse things IN the two former verses Job made an humble submission of himself unto the better counsel and instruction of his friends if they could yet shew him wherein he had erred In these five verses he doth two things further First he expostulates with his friends about their former speech and carriage toward him Secondly he admonishes them to be better advised more moderate and considerate in what they had yet to say unto him The former of these is contained in the 26. and 27. verses And there are two branches of it 1. He taxes them for making so light of what he had said Doe ye imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as wind ver 26. 2. He taxeth them for laying such heavy load upon him in what they had said Yea ye overwhelm the fatherlesse and you digge a pit for your friend vers 27. As if he had spoken plainly thus You have carried the matter hitherto with me as if I had spoken nothing but bare empty words words without any weight yea as if I were rageing mad distracted desperate not knowing nor caring what I did or what I speak as if my whole discourse were no better then meere vapouring a puffe of wind
Peter Their speech bewrayeth them and you may smell the filth of their hearts by their breath Secondly observe from these words Is there iniquity in my tongue He whose heart is upright may know that he is upright When Job questions Is there iniquity in my tongue He resolves There is no iniquity in my tongue None of that iniquity which you charge me with I grant a believer hath not alwaies a sight of his own integrity and uprightness many a soule bears false witness against himself and oppresses his owne innocency yet for the most part sincerity hath a witness in it self and holiness carries a light by which it is seen to him that hath it An upright heart may know his own uprightness Thirdly in that Job is thus stiff in maintaining his own uprightness and in denying any iniquity to be in his tongue Observe It is a duty to maintain our own integrity and uprightness Job was upon it before and is now upon it again and he will be upon it afterward he never gives over justifying of himself against man though he had not a word to plead for himself against God Fourthly from the latter clause Cannot my taste discern perverse things Observe Reason distinguishes truth from falshood as the pallate distinguishes bitter from sweet Reason it is the souls-taster Princes have their tasters before they eat least there should be poison in the dish God hath given unto man a taster for his spiritual meat The Pope will not suffer the meat he provides and cooks to be tasted but will have it swallowed whole or else he will thrust it whole down their throats It is alike spiritual tyranny to starve souls and to cram them It is our duty when meat is set before us we are at a full table of knowledg where variety of doctrins and opinions are served in then to call for our taster We may be surfetted else if not poison'd There may be a wild guord among good hearbs in the pot and so death in the pot too therefore first taste then eat and digest A Christian hath a taste to discern error from truth why then should he be denied the use of it A woe is pronounced against those who offer unwholsome doctrin Isa 5. 20 Wo to those that call evil good good evil that put light for darkness and darkness for light that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter A like wo is due to them who will not give others leave to discern for themselves what is good or evil light or darkness bitter or sweet as good let another live for us as another taste for us And their misery will be little less then the woes of these men who cannot or will not take pains to distinguish when evill is called good and good evil when light is put for darkness and darkness for light when bitter is put for sweet and sweet for bitter or as Job speaks here whose taste cannot discern perverse things There are some whose taste is so far from discerning perverse things that it is easie to discern their taste is perverse for bring them wholesome true and savoury doctrine they say it is bitter or false doctrine Bring them false doctrin a lie a dream a fancie a meer humane invention dish out such provision before them that 's excellent chear This was the heaviest curse which God sent upon the Gentiles Rom. 1. 28. God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient that is to a mind void of judgement a mind that could not taste or distinguish things therfore the issue or effect was They did things which were not convenient as if a man not being able to judge of meats eats poyson or meats most contrary to his health and constitution It is a fearful judgement to be given up to an unapproving mind to a mind that cannot discern truth from false-hood the Oracles of God from the forgeries of men superstition from holy worship It is a sad thing to loose our spiritual senses Such as play the wantons with the word of God and walk below the truths they know are at last given up to a reprobate mind to a mind not able to know the word of truth and then they swallow down error for truth and suck in deadly poison like sweet pleasant wine The Apostle speaking of the difference of doctrins under the metaphor of meats saith Milk is for babes but strong meat is for them of full age even for those that by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil That is their spiritual senses exercised to taste this from that doctrin and not to swallow every doctrin alike It is a great blessing when a people have senses exercised And it is a blessing we have much cause to pray for in these times That many pallats are out of taste is too apparent by the multitude of heterodox opinions which go down without disrelish Some which would even make a man tremble to name them are entertained with delight Some which dissolve our comforts and breaks us off from comfortable communion with Christ Some which shake if not overthrow the very foundations of faith are swallowed as pleasant morsels Doth not this convince that there 's a want of Jobs taste among us to discern perverse things Therefore get your senses exercised be established in the present truth that ye as this holy man in the middest of all bodily distempers and outward troubles which usually put the natural pallate out of taste may yet even then as he have your inward senses exquisite and your spiritual pallate exact to discern right from perverse things Lastly note False doctrine or true doctrine falsely applied is a perverse thing False doctrin perverts First Reason Secondly Scripture Thirdly the souls of men The Apostle Acts 20. 30. prophecies to the Church of Ephesus and with them to all Churches That out of themselves men should arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Holy doctrin draws men to God and false doctrine draws men to man As itching ears heap teachers to themselves 2 Tim. 4. 3. So false tongues heap disciples to themselves That which is perverse in it's nature is perverting in its effect JOB Chap. 7. Vers 1 2 3 4. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his dayes also like the dayes of an hireling As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work So am I made to possess moneths of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me When I lie down I say When shall I arise and the night be gone and I 'am full of tossings too and fro unto the dawning of the day WHere the knot of connection between this and the former Chapter lyeth is not so discernable which hath given occasion for much diversity of conjecture about it First It may be conceived that Job in
againe according to which the web was woven on for fifteen yeares more But this speech of Hezekiah as a weaver I have cut off my life is like that of the Apostle I have finished my course He compares the passing of his life to a shuttle and the conclusion of it to the cutting off of the thread Nights and dayes passe this shuttle forward and backward to and againe the night casts it to the day and the day to the night beween these two time quickly weares off the thred of life The heathen Poets had a fiction answering this allusion of the holy Ghost they tell us a story or a fiction rather of three sisters whereof the one held the wheele or the distaffe the Tres Parcae elotho Lachesis Atropos second drew out the thred and a third cut it off In this they shadow the state of mans life our ordinary phrase for living long is spinning a long thred and for dying the cutting off the thred of life And they are spent without hope Some translate they are spent so as that there is no hope left The word which here we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 english spent signifies both consumption and consummation or sometimes in a good sense the end or perfecting of a thing and sometime in an ill sense the end or consuming of a thing Gen. 2. 1. So the Heavens and the earth were finished It is this word they were ended God ended his works by way of perfection and consummation he made his work compleate But here and often in Scripture it notes ending by way of consumption or as we translate the spending of a thing Jer. 14. 12. I will consume or make an end of them by the sword And Exod. 33. 3. God commands Moses to goe with the people into the wildernesse for saith he I will not goe up in the midst of them lest I consume them in the way And to shew how deep an expence and consumption of time was upon him Job tells us it had devoured and eaten up all his hope It is worse to have our hope spent then to have our dayes spent now saith he my dayes are spent and that is not all my hope is spent Some translate so my dayes are spent and I have Cum inopia spei vel defectu spei sc longioris vitae want or penury of hope as I have spent my dayes so I have spent my hope And his hopelessenesse may refer two wayes I have no hope or my hope is spent First in regard of long life I see I am so afflicted with this disease that there is no hope I should hold out under it Secondly without hope that is without hope of being in a better condition that is of having my estate restored unto me again if I should have health restored and a longer life continued In both these sences as he saw the thred of his dayes cut off so he saw the thred of his hope cut off he was near death and his hope was dead My dayes are spent without hope or there is no hope remaining This also is a negative to both parts of Eliphaz his promise either of longer life or of a better We may observe hence first a common truth which I shall not insist upon about that pretious commodity a commodity more pretious then the gold of Ophir Time All time is short and we have a very short estate in time Man is not master of one day and a servant but of few dayes The holy Ghost gives us very many remembrances of this which is an argument that we are very apt to forget it Man is slow to take notice of the swiftnesse of time and very dull in apprehending the speed of his dayes It is a wonder that such a plaine common doctrine should be handled so often and that the Holy Ghost should as it were labour for similitudes and fetch in all things that are more then ordinarily transitory in nature to teach us the transitorinesse of our condition We meete with many in this booke all hinting at the sudden invisible motion of time This is a point easie to be known but very hard to be beleeved every man assents to it but few live it And surely the holy Ghost would not spend so many words about it nor gather up so many illustrations of it from sence if it were not of much importance to our faith We usually slight the hearing of common principles â—nd a Sermon preacht upon this subject the shortnesse of our lives and the speed of time is judg'd a needlesse shortning of time and the houre seemes very long which runs out upon the speed of time we think it an easie doctrine and a Theame for boyes But the truth is if the heart did well disgest how few our dayes are we should have better dayes and men would live holier if they knew indeed their lives were no longer Therefore though I only touch this subject yet doe ye dwell upon it and stay long in your thoughts upon the shortnesse of your lives Common truths neglected cause a neglect of every truth Had we more serious thoughts of Heaven and hell that these are and what these are that there is a God and who he is that there will be a judgement and what it will be we should more profitably improve and trade our time and talents Secondly note Time passeth irrecoverably When the weavers shuttle is once out of his hand 't is gone presently there is no hope time past should be recalled or time in motion stopt To consider time under that notion should make us very good husbands of our time or as the Apostle advises to redeeme the time Redemptions are made by purchase to redeem a thing is to buy it with a price the price we redeeme time with is our labourand faithfull travell It is matter of mourning to consider that so little care is taken in spending that which when it is gone we have no hope it can be restored to us again Thirdly In that Iob complained before that his life was so long and now complaineth of the shortnesse or swiftnesse of his life we may note That Man thinks good daies end too soone and that evill dayes stay too long or will never have an end We love the company of good dayes and are therefore sorry when they depart When the Disciples were upon the Mount and had such a good day of it how desirous were they to have continued there and sorry they were the day was at an end Master saith Peter it is good for us to be here The sudden passing of our comforts is our trouble Time is alwayes of the same pace no creature keeps his pace more evenly then time doth it alwayes moves at the same rate neither faster nor slower but man thinks this time short and that time long this time speedy and that time slow according to the severall objects he meets with and to the conditions
Thirdly They as the sea have huge treasures in their houses yet all satisfies not their desires they are as greedy as if they were not worth a groat Looke upon man in the other comparison He is a whale a devourer In the worst of bruits you may see the picture of mans nature They who have power to doe what they will and will doe when their advantage is in it to the utmost of their power These are your Leviathans upon dry land Senacherib was a mighty whale gaping to swallow up the people of God and therefore the Lord expresses his dealing with him in a word very sutable to this sence 2 King 19. 28. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine eares therefore I will put my hooke in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips c. See how God uses him Senacherib came raging and threatning to swallow all up God uses him like an unruly beast of the earth or like a devouring fish of the sea He puts a hooke in his nose It is said of Leviathan that he scorns the hooke and the angle Job 41. Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hooke implying that no hook no tackle is strong enough to hold this sea-monster but God hath a hooke can hold him Some men are like this sea-monster no tackling of mans making will hold them no power under heaven can stop them then the Lord prepares his engines and inctruments he can make a hooke will catch Senacherib the great whale as if he were but a sprat I will put my hook into his nose and turne him about or pull him up What devouring enemies have come out against us threatning to swollow or as the Moabites said of the children of Israel Num. 22. 4. to licke up all that were round about as the oxe licketh up the grasse of the field Yea they thought as it is said of Leviathan that they could draw up Iordan into their mouths that is remove the greatest difficulties and overcome all opposition But how often hath God put a bridle into the lips of the horse and a hooke into the nose of these whales Further if we consider the words as Iobs question in application unto himselfe Am I a whale Am I a sea Observe Man is apt to have good thoughts of himself Iob would not be the whale or the sea Secondly note Man is apt to judge that God layes more upon him than there is need Am I a whale or a sea as if Iob had said Lord thou needest not deale thus strictly and severely with me or bestow so much care to watch me I would have come in at a call thou needest not have bounded me with these afflictions and put such a hooke in my nose a nod or a beck would have fetched me in Wise men suite their preparations to their occasion we carry not out a peece of Ordinance to shoot at a flye which we can kill with a phillip so saith Job Lord I need not all this a little admonition a little chastning or a check should have reduced me such are mans thoughts But the most wise God never layes more upon man than he hath need of when God streightens us with such afflictions he seeth there is somewhat of the sea in us he must bound us somewhat of the whale in us he must watch and bring us under If we see God bestow more rods and blowes upon us we must conclude we could not be without them some apprehend that such is Jobs meaning in the sixteenth verse What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him as if he had said it is too great an honour for man to be afflicted by thy hand If we see a King make great provisions of warre to goe out against an enemy we say he magnifies the enemy It is an argument they have great strength against whom we prepare great strength So Job Lord thou magnifiest me thou makest me to be lookt at as some powerful creature a sea a whale against whom thou actest so much of thy power Job having as he resolved begun to complaine of his sorrows now amplifies them Verse 13. When I say my bed shall cemfort me my couch shall ease my complaint 14. Then thou skarest me c. He amplisies his sorrows upon this generall ground because they were such as he could not find any ease or abatement of no not at any time no not by any meanes As if he had said my griefe and my paine is so remedilesse that neither artificiall nor naturall meanes give me any ease those things which have the greatest probability of refreshing yeeld me none He instances in those ordinary wayes which give sick and distempered bodies some abatement or intermission of their paines lying down upon their bed or couch When I say my bed shall comfort me my chouch shall ease my complaint As if he had said while I was wrastling all day and conflicting with my sorrowes I yet had some hope to find comfort at night and that I should meete with rest in my bed but my hope failes me ever or while in the day time my thoughts are overburthened and my spirit overwhelmed within me I think sometimes to deceive my paines a little by taking a nap or a slumber upon my couch but alas my paines will not be deceived when I say my bed shall comfort me my couch shall ease my complaint I find in stead of ease farther trouble and in stead of comfort terrours For then thou skarest me with dreames When I say my bed shall comfort me The word signifies to mourne and repent as well as to comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doluit paenituit per antiphrasin dolere desijt consolationem invonit because comfort usually followes holy mourning and repenting Godly sorrow is the mother of spirituall joy In the words we have either that ordinary figure Prosopopeia the fiction of a person when acts of life and reason are ascribed to things without life and so Job brings in his bed as his friend speaking to him when I say my bed shall comfort me my bed and I will conferre together I am perswaded that will afford me a word of comfort Or we may rather understand it by a Metonymy of the effect when I say my bed shall comfort me Comfort is the common and usuall effect or benefit of lying down upon the bed The bed is said to comfort because ordinarily we find comfort in resting upon the bed that being a meanes or instrumentall cause of comfort is called a Comforter My couch shall ease my complaint The words are indifferently translated in Scripture either for a bed or for a couch but if we take them distinctly then the bed is the place where we rest in the night and the couch by day When Job saith My couch shall ease my complaint It notes his complaint or sorrow lay as a heavy burthen or weight upon him for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the dayes of man be vanity let us set our eyes and hearts upon that which is something upon that which is all upon that which is lasting upon that which is everlasting upon that which is true upon that which is truth upon that which will not deceive upon that which cannot deceive upon that which will be more in fruition then ever it was in expectation The excellency of that estate we have in spirituals consists in this that as it promiseth much so it performeth much and rather more than it promiseth a beleever finds himselfe satisfied in Christ beyound expectation the soul did not expect so much as it finds As the Queen of Sheba comming to Solomon had satisfaction beyound report and promise so shall all who come to Christ he makes us large promises and if we beleeve we shall find larger performances We shall at last say that the halfe of those good things which we now enjoy were not told us in the promises God hath layed up all good in his word but our thoughts are not able to take out the extent of those good things Hence it is said that when Christ appeares He shall come to be admired in his Saints things shall be so far beyound their apprehension that they shall be all in admiration JOB Chap. 7. Vers 17 18. 19. What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him And that thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment How long wilt thou not depart from me nor let me alone till I may swallow down my spittle THese three verses containe a farther argument whereby Job strengthens his complaint The summe of the argument is taken from a comparison of the power majesty and greatnesse of God with the meannesse and misery with the lownesse and poverty of man What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him Why should the great the wise the powerfull the glorious God contend or have to do with weak miserable vaine man How unequall is this Paria paribus congandent match What is man The word is what is miserable man Enosh man encompast about with sorrowes What is this sorrowfull miserable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 man Job concluded in the former verse man is vanity And yet here he questions What is man The question rellisheth of contempt rather then of ignorace and carries with it a low estimation of man let him be what he will not a want of information what man is What is man As we use to say to or of those we slight who are you or what 's he It imports the vanity and deficiency of the creature Or the words are a diminitive admiration He admires the smallnesse the littlenesse the meannesse the nothingnesse of man Questions in Scripture often abate the sence Zech. 4. 7. Who art thou O great mountaine thou lookest very big and very great but who art thou tell me who thou art or I will tell thee thou art now but a molehill thou shalt be a nothing shortly Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plaine it is a contemptuous undervaluing question against the proud opposers of the Church Who am I O Lord and what is my house saith David 2 Sam. 7. 18. His question extenuates On the other side questions often increase the sence and raise it to the highest Exod. 15. 11. Who is a God like unto thee where is there such a God as thou art So Mich. 7. 18. Who is a God like unto thee pardoning iniquity transgression and sinne The question puts the brightest glory upon God in pardoning sin Hence man is abased in a question what is man how low how poore a creature is he Or take the question barely for a desire of resolution as if this were a peece of a Catechisme about mans frailty what is man He had told us in the words immediatly forgoing the text that man is vanity why then doth he enquire in these words what is man It is not to learne what man is but to teach us the wonder that man being such should be thus regarded As if he had said Forasmuch as man is vanity what is vanity that thou shouldest magnifie it will any one esteeme vanity and prize a thing of nought man is vanity that 's the answer to the question The Scripture gives many answers to this question Aske the Prophet Isaiah what is man and he answers chap. 40. 6. Man is grasse All flesh is grasse and the goodlinesse thereof as the flower of the field Aske David what is man He answers Psal 62. 9. Man is a lye not a lyar only or a deceiver but a lye and a deceit All the answers the holy Ghost gives concerning man are to humble man Man is ready to flatter himselfe and one man to flatter another but God tels us plainly what we are That thou shouldest magnifie him or make him great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a three-fold sense of that word magnifie used in Scripture Magnus quantitate vel qualitate annis bonore existimatione authoritate Shind 1. It implies only a manifestation or declaration of anothers greatnesse or an opening of his intrinsicall worth and dignity in which sence man is often said to magnifie God he declares and publishes the infinite internall worth and dignity of God Luke 1. 46. the Virgin beginneth her Song thus My soule doth magnifie the Lord. It is impossible we should give the least addition to the greatnesse of God Then magnifying of God is only a declaring that God is great So Psal 34. 3. O magnifie the Lord with me that is let us joyne our hearts and our tongues in this great work to lift up the honour and Name of our God 2. To magnifie is to esteeme or prize greatly So the Apostle speaking of his office shewes how highly he priz'd it by breaking forth into this holy boast Rom. 11. 13. I magnifie mine Office I esteeme this as my greatest priviledge and honour that God hath called me to be an Apostle And Acts 5. 19. when the Pharisees were so angry with the Apostles and many were afraid to joyne with them the text saith the people magnified them that is the people had high thoughts of them and esteemed them greatly But thirdly which is chiefely intended in this place to magnifie is to make great or to give some reall addition of worth and respect Thus the Lord magnifies man he magnifies him by adding somewhat to him by giving glory and lustre to man who in himselfe is vile and mean and contemptible And thus God magnifies man foure wayes First He magnifies man in the work of creation of that we reade Psal 8. 4. where this question is put What is man that thou shouldest be mindfull of him or the sonne of man that thou visitest him The third verse shewes us what it was which raised the Psalmist to this admiration
the Holy Ghost Good and bad beleevers and unbeleevers speak often the same good words but they cannot speak the same things nor from the same principles nature speaks in the one in the other grace The one may say very passionately he hath sinned and sometimes almost drown his words in tears but the other saith repentingly I have sinned and floods his heart with Godly sorrowes Thirdly to clear it yet more the general confession of the Saints have these four things in them First Besides the fact they acknowledge the blot that there is much defilement and blackness in every sin that it is the onely pollution and abasement of the creature Secondly They confess the fault that they have done very ill in what they have done and very foolishly even like a beast that hath no understanding Thirdly They confess a guilt contracted by what they have done that their persons might be laid lyable to the sentence of the law for every such act if Christ had not taken away the curse and condemning power of it Confession of sin in the strict nature of it puts us into the hand of justice though through the grace of the new Covenant it puts us into the hand of mercy Fourthly Hence the Saints confess all the punishments threatned in the Book of God to be due to sin and are ready to acquit God whatsoever he hath awarded against sinners O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of face as at this day to the men of Iudah and to the inhabitants of Ierusalem Dan. 9. 7. And as in this confession for the matter they acknowledge the blot the fault the guilt the punishment of sin so for the manner which sets the difference yet wider between the general confessions of wicked and Godly men they confess First freely Acknowledgements of sin are not extorted by the pain and trouble which seazeth on them as in Pharaoh Saul and Judas But when God gives them best dayes they are ready to speak worst of themselves And when they receive most mercies from God then God receives most and deepest acknowledgements of sin from them They are never so humbled in the sight of sin as when they are most exalted in seeing the salvations of the Lord. The goodness of God leads them to this repentance they are not driven to it by wrath and thunder Secondly they confess feelingly when they say they have sinned they know what they say They taste the bitterness of sin and groan under the burdensomeness of it as it passes out in confession A natural mans confessions run through him as water through a pipe which leaves no impression or sent there nor do they upon the matter any more taste what sin is then the pipe doth of what relish water is Or if a natural man feels any thing in confession it is the evil of punishment feared not the evil of his sin committed Thirdly they confess sincerely they mean what they say are in earnest both with God and their own Souls Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile Psal 32. 2. The natural man casts out his sins by confession as Sea-men cast their goods over-board in a storm which in the calm they wish for again They so cast out the evil spirit that they are content to receive him again when he returns though it be with seven worse then himself Even while they confess sin with their lips they keep it like a sweet bit under their tongues And wish it well enough while they speak it very ill Fourthly they confess beleevingly while they have an eye of sorrow upon sin they have an eye of Faith upon Christ Iudas said he had sinned in betraying innocent blood Mat. 27. 4. but instead of washing in that blood he defiles himself with his own he goes away and hangs himself No wicked man in the world continuing in that state did ever mix Faith with his sorrowes or beleeving with confessing he had sinned So much for the clearing of the words and the sence of this general confession Hence observe first While a Godly man maintains his innocency and justifies himself before men he willingly acknowledges his infirmity and judges himself before God Iob had spent much time in wiping off the aspersions cast upon him by his friends but he charges himself with his failings in the sight of God Secondly observe God speakes better of his servants then they doe of themselves When God speakes of Job we find not one blot in all his character all is commendation nothing of reproof He saith c. 1. v. 21. in all this Job sinned not but for all that Job saith I have sinned A hypocrite hath good thoughts of himself and speakes himself faire He flatters himself in his own eyes until his iniquitie be found to be hateful Psal 36. 2. A godly man thinks and speaks low of himself he accuses himself in his own eyes though his integrity be found very acceptable with the Lord. Thirdly observe The holiest man on earth hath cause to confess that he hath sinned Confession is the duty of the best Christians First The highest form of believers in this life is not above the actings of sin though the lowest of believers is not under the power of it And if the line of sinning be as long as the line of living then the line of confessing must be of the same length with both While the Ship leaks the pump must not stand still And so long as we gather ill humors there will be need of vomits and purgings Secondly Confession is a soul-humbling duty and the best have need of that for they are in most danger of being lifted up above measure To preserve us from those self-exaltations the Lord sometimes sends the Messenger of Satan to buffet us by temptations and commands us to buffet our selves often by confession Thirdly Confession affects the heart with sin and ingages the heart against it Every confession of the evill we do is a new obligation not to do it any more The best in their worst part have so much freedome to sin that they have need enough to be bound from it in variety of bonds Fourthly Confession of sin shews us more clearly our need of mercy and indears it more to us How good and sweet is mercy to a soul that hath tasted how evil and how bitter a thing it is to sin against the Lord. How welcome how beautiful is a pardon when we have been viewing the ugliness of our own guilt Fiftly Confession of sin advances Christ in our hearts How doth it declare the riches of Christ when we are not afraid to tell him what infinite sums of debt we are in which he onely and he easily can discharge how doth it commend the healing vertue of his blood when we open to him such mortal wounds and sicknesses which he only and he easily can cure Wo be to those who commit sin abundantly that grace may abound but
a gift as whosoever hath it is sure and safe for ever And therefore the gift being much more precious than that of Simon Magus Take heed of offering this kind of mony for it your works and doings To doe so is the worst Simonie in the world Better offer literall money for those gifts of the holy Ghost then this figurative money for the favour of God in the pardon of sin What Peter threatned Simon Magus may be affirmed of them Their money must perish with them That is their prayers and teares their sorrows and their humblings their almes and good deeds forasmuch as they have thought that this gift of pardon may be obtained by such money They have neither part nor lot in that mercy for their hearts are not right in the sight of God A good worke trusted to is as mortall as a sin unrepented of Againe There is somewhat to be done when we have sinn'd but nothing to be paid That 's Gospel-language when a man hath sinned to say What shall I doe Those converts in the Acts who enquired What shall we doe were told by the Apostles of some what to be done Repent and be baptized believe and thou shalt be saved These are waies wherein salvation is tender'd not works for which it is bestowed It is a dangerous error so to lift up the grace of God as to deny the industry of man through grace because he can do nothing by way of satisfaction that therefore he must doe nothing The Apostles gave Gospel-counsell yet when men asked them what shall we doe to be saved They said not ye must doe nothing God will save you by his free-grace no they called them to repent and beleeve c. Take heed when ye have sinned to say we need not mourne for sin we need not be humbled we need not repent for Lord what can we do unto thee O thou Saviour of men These are the inferences of our own spirits not of the Spirit of Christ They who lift up the grace of Christ to lessen the necessity of gracious actings in themselves shew they know not the meaning of his grace and have not indeed tasted how gracious the Lord is To deny our owne righteousnesse and to be very active in the waies of righteousnesse is the due Gospel-temper The Apostle Phil. 3. 8. counts all things but losse and dung all duties and humblings all legall righteousnesse and obedience not that he refused righteousnesse or neglected duties but he would not mingle them with Christ or bring them in as contributions to the purchase of blessednesse Our righteousnesse and holy duties are dung and drosse in justification but they are gold and precious things in sanctification without these we cannot walk worthy of our holy calling or as it becomes the Gospel of Christ So much for these words what shall I doe unto thee O thou preserver of men Here is the Compellation or the title under which Job bespeaks the Lord and it is a royall one The preserver of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Narsar conservavit observa vit custodivit dise dit de qualibet custodia dicitur significat etiam se ris vectebasque elaudere licet proprie custos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur sed confundi scias Drus The words signifies both to preserve and to observe and hence it is applied to our keeping the law of God Psal 119. 22. I have kept thy testimonies I have kept them by observation that is I have obeyed thy Commandements The word is often applied to God in reference to mans protection and preservation Deut. 32. 10. Moses describes the care of God over his people Israel He found them in the wildernesse as a people wandring and going astray and he kept them as the apple of his eye that is he looked to them and had a continuall tender care over them So Psal 17. 8. Keep me as the apple of thine eye The Septuagint render it O thou observer of men What shall I doe unto thee O thou who art the observer and looker into the very hearts of men Lord saith he what wilt thou have me to doe Thou lookest quite through me and seest all that is in me I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui prespectam habis mentem hominum Sept. need not declare my selfe unto thee thou knowest me altogether Thou who art the searcher of the heart and the trier of the reins Thou who art a most vigilant watcher over all my waies what have I done or spoken but thou knowest and canst easily observe Thus Job speaks at the 14th of this booke vers 16. Thou numberest my steps a man observes another curiously when he tels how many steps he treads it is an expression noting the exactest observation Salomon joynes the act of keeping with observing Prov. 24. 12. If thou saiest behold he knoweth it not this is the refutation of an Atheist doth not he that pondereth the hears consider it and he that keepeth thy soule doth not he know He that preserves us in our wayes must needs see us in all our waies Again Preserving or keeping may be understood two waies First There is a preserving or keeping of man that he shal not escape And Secondly A preserving or keeping of man that he shall not Custos hominu sc qui homine talibus malis quasi quadam custodia includis it non sit effugium take hurt Some understand it in the first sence O thou preserver of men that is O thou who art so strict a keeper and watcher over men that they cannot escape thine hand A man is said to be in safe custodie when he is a prisoner and so the sence is thus given Lord thou hast me fast enough I cannot breake away from thee I am lockt up within iron-gates and barrs what wouldest thou have me doe unto thee Thou maiest put what conditions thou pleasest upon me I must submit Such language we have Lam. 3. 5 7. which may illustrate this He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travell he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out he hath made my chaine heavie You see he speakes of God as we may speake with reverence as of the master of a prison who saith to his under-officers there is such a one looke to him well make his chaine heavie that he may not get a way put him in a place where there is a strong wall least he breake prison This sence of the word makes Job speaking like Jeremy He hath builded against me he hath compassed me about he hath made my chaine heavie upon me But the second sence according to the letter of our Translation is most cleare and apt O thou preserver of men Thou who keepest man least he take hurt or fall into danger As if Job had bespoke God thus Thou art the Saviour and protectour of men thou hast not only given man a being but thou providest for his
But I conceive our translation carries the sense fairer in a reflection upon his owne tired spirits So that I am made a burthen to my selfe that is thou dost even throw me upon my self whereas heretofore thou wast wont to bear me and take my burthen upon thy self Alas I faint I cannot stand under my self I am weary of my life because I am left alone to bear it I know not what to do with my self I am so burthensome to my self Hence observe First Outward afflictions poverty sickness want c. are burthens and they make a man burthensome to himself It is a great burthen to have our comforts taken away from us The removing of comforts lies like a heavy weight upon the spirit the removing of health from the body is a weight upon the soul fear is a burthen care is a burthen and so is pain Therefore God cals us to cast all those burthens upon him Psal 55. 22. Secondly observe Man left to himself is not able to bear himselfe Man is much borne down by the weight of natural corruption Hence the Apostle cals it A weight and the sinne which doth so easily beset us Heb. 12. 1. or dangle about our heels to burden us as long garments do a man that runneth Our ordinary callings and affaires left upon our own backs presse us to the earth much more do our extraordinary troubles and afflictions And therefore he adviseth Cast thy burthen upon the Lord he assures in the next words and he shall sustaine thee As implying that man cannot sustaine or beare his owne weight And though it should seem we have strengh to spare for others and are therefore commanded to bear one anothers burthens Gal. 6. yet no man of himself no not the holiest Atlas nor the spirituallest Porter on earth is able to bear his owne self unless Christ be his supporter who is also therefore said to uphold all thiags by the word of his power Heb. 1. 3. Because no creature in a natural or man in a spiritual capacity can bear his own weight Thirdly From the connexion between these two phrases Thou hast set me as a marke against thee so that I am a burthen to my self what is it that makes my life to be so burthensome to me It is this because I am set as a mark before thee that is because thou seemest to be an enemy to me And so the note from the connexion is this That which presses and burthens the soule ahove all is the apprehension that God is against us Job in many things looked unto God under these temptations with sad thoughts as if he were his enemy so he express'd himself in the sixth Chapter The poyson of his arrows drinks up my spirits he setteth himselfe in battel array against me In these temptations and desertions this was the burden of his spirit that God appeared as an adversary Why doest thou set me as a marke against thee Let the Sabians and the Chaldeans shoot at me as much as they will let fire and windes contend with me and make me the marke of their utmost fury I can beare all these Job was light hearted enough when he thought he contended onely with creatures and that creatures onely contended with him but in the progresse of this triall he finds God against him withdrawing comforts from and shooting terrours at him now he is a burthen to himself he can beare this no longer As Caesar said in the Senate when he had many wounds given him yet this wounded him most that he was wounded by the hand of his son What thou my sonne So when a believer looks this way and that way and fees many enemies Satan and the creatures all in armes against him he can beare all their charges and assaults but if he apprehend God opposing and wounding him he weepes out this mourneful complaint What thou my Father What thou my God Thou who hast so often shined upon me dost thou darken thy face towards me and appeare mine enemy These apprehensions of God will make the strongest Saint on earth a burden too heavy for himselfe to beare That which causeth the most burdensome thoughts in the Saints is the inevidence of their pardon Sin unpardon'd is in it self a burden and our not knowing sin to be pardon'd is a greater burden but our jealousies and fears that it is not pardon'd is the greatest burden of all and that which adds weight yea an intolerableness to all other burdens Hence Job in the next verse and with the last breath of his answer points directly at that which pincht him Verse 21. And why doest thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquitie for now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shall seek me in the morning but I shall not be In the former verse we found Job humbly confessing his sin and earnestly enquiring of the Lord a reason of his sorrowes why he had shot him so full of arrows that now he was not so much wounded as loaded And become a burthen to himself In this verse he sues for the pardon of those sins and so for the removal of those sorrows That the bow might speedily be unbended and not a shot more made at his bleeding breast In the answer of which suite he desires speed and expedition lest help being retarded come too late for he professeth that he cannot hold out his siedge long he must needs make his bed in the grave and then being sought for he shall not be found And why dost thou not pardon my trangressions We may consider the words two waies 1. In the Forme of them Matter 2. In the forme they are a vehement expostulation Jobs spirit hath been heated all along with the fire of his sufferings and here he speakes in the heat of his spirit and with fiery desires after mercie He keepes up his heart to the same height and tenour still There it was Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee Here 's another Why and why dost thou not pardon my transgression As before he was grieved to be set up as a mark for afflictions to aime at so now he desires to be made a marke for mercy to aim at I shall note one thing from hence before I come to open the words They who are sensible of the evill of sinne will pray heartily for the pardon of sinne Expostulation is earnest prayer expostulation is a vehement postulation a vehement enquiring after or desiring of a thing Why dost thou not pardon my sinne may be resolved into this O that thou wouldest pardon my sinne Or Wilt thou not pardon my sinne The matter of this prayer requires such a forme such a vehemency of spirit in him that prayes If there be any petition in the world about which the spirit should be fired it is in this when wee pray for pardon of sinne Will not a man whose body is defiled by falling into the mire call hastily for some to
sound to our english water that some think it a derivative from it By the Rain we are to understand not the showres only which fall from Heaven but all those blessings and benefits for the support of our naurall life which are the fruits of raine He sendeth raine as it were on his errand to bring or carry the blessings of plenty and to drop fatnes on the earth He giveth rain to the earth and then the earth giveth her encrease The Rabbins have a saying that raine is the husband of the earth because those showers foecundate the earth and make that great mother of plenty Imber maritus terrae fruitfull in bringing forth all things usefull and comfortable for the life of man He giveth raine upon the face of the earth so the letter of the Originall that is upon the earth as the face of Heaven and the face of the sea so the face of the earth is an Hebraisme for the earth it selfe It is sayed in the latter clause of the verse that he sendeth waters upon the fields We must distinguish these waters from the raine taking them for rivers and streams of water as the Psalmist speaks He causeth the rivers to runne among the hils and the Prophet Habaccuk Thou cleavest the earth with the rivers The word is of the Dual number it the Hebrew and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Forma duali significantur aquae duplices superiores in coelo ut nubes inferiores in terra ut mare fonâ—es flumina by some applied to those two sorts of waters or to the waters above and to the waters that are beneath So the waters are distinguished Psal 104. v. 3. we reade of the upper waters Who layeth the beames of his chambers in the waters who maketh the clouds his chariot and of the inferior or lower waters Gen. 1. 9. The Lord said let the waters under the earth be gathered into one place and both are put together ver 7. God made the firmament and divided the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament So that the waters above and the waters below may both here be understood It is added further He sendeth waters upon the fields The word we traslate fiolds signifies any place that is without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nomen proprâ—è est sed juniâ—tur saepe adverbialiter pro fortis in universuÌ„ pro loco exteriori Merc. Deserta horrida loca mortali bu inaccessa doores as streets and high-wayes and because fields are without sub dio covered only with the canopie of the heavens therefore we translare he sendeth waters upon the fields And it takes in all sorts of fields whether till'd or untill'd though som conceive that here Eliphaz meanes those fields especially which are untilled unsowne or unmanured fields where men come not namely desarts and wildernesses as if he should say there is no place but God sends waters to it Hence the vulgar reade in stead of fields all places He moistens all places with waters Here first Forasmuch as an instance of Gods greatnesse power Irrigat aquis universa Vulg. and insearchable wisedom is given in the raine a naturall thing we may note That The common blessings of God are not dispensed without a speciall providence Nature workes not without the God of nature He doth great things and what He sendeth raine The whole course of nature moves as it is turned by the hand of God and directed by his connsell It is not in the frame of nature as in many artificiall frames which being once set up will stand or goe alone When the Artificer hath made a clock and put it in frame and hung on the weights let him goe whether he will the clock will goe and if there were roome for the weights to descend the clock continuing in frame would goe perpetually though no hand helped or toucht it But it is not so in the frame and workings of naturall things God hath set all creatures in a frame and curiously ordered them one within another but there is no motion of the least wheele much lesse of the whole fabrique without the speciall hand of God when raine comes God saith goe raine is his gift not the clouds the cloud receives a commission from God to distill and dissolve upon man The most full spongy clouds Cum plenae sunt nubes effundunt pluviam non tamen absque Dei jussis Drus distill no more then the rock did in the wildernesse till the Lord speaks to them As When he uttereth his voice there is a multitude of waters in the Heavens and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth Jer. 10. 13. So till he uttereth his voice not one single drop of all that multitude of waters fals from heaven nor will those vapours descend and returne againe to the earth except he bid them He giveth raine upon the earth Raine is the speciall gift of God Speciall not in that sense as grace is a speciall gift for raine is a common gift but speciall because it is that of which and about which God takes speciall notice as we reade Amos 4. 8. I caused it to raine saith God upon one place or upon one City and not upon another There is a speciall discriminating worke about the raine it raines by appointment not accident upon one place rather then another And Isa 5. 6. when God expresses displeasure against his vineyard he saith I will command the clouds that they shall raine upon it The clouds are as vast bottles full of raine but they cannot unstop themselves or let out one drop untill God himselfe commands them He melteth the clouds as it is in Job and then the raine falleth downe Thou O God didst send a plentifull raine whereby thou didst confirme thine inheritance when it was weary Psal 68. 9. How wearie or drie soever the Earth is unlesse God by a word broach those vessels of raine the very inheritance of God cannot have a draught no nor a drop to quench its thirst Therefore though raine be a common blessing in respect of all places and persons yet we ought to acknowledge a speciall hand in giving it And this checks that naturall Atheisme which reigns in their hearts who thinke that they are beholding only to the motion of the winds or change of the Moon for rain and hence in times of drought they looke most when the wind will turne or when the Moone will change To confute this the Prophet tels us by the way of question That as Idols cannot so neither can the Heavens give raine Jer. 14. 22. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause raine Or can the Heavens give showres They cannot Indeed the holy Prophet Elias speakes such language as if he had carried the keyes of the clouds at his girdle or had been master of the raine 1 King 17. 1.
As the Lord liveth there shall not be dew nor raine these yeares but according to my word But the Apostle James shews us what word this was namely a word of prayer not of command Chap. 5. 17. Elias prayed and it rained not againe he prayed and it rained All the power of man cannot prevaile with the heavens to raine but the prayer of faith can prevaile with the God of heaven To send raine was the worke of God though it were at the word of a man They who denie God in one worke will quickly denie him in another And if we deny him in lesser yea the least of his works in a drop of raine we are in danger to deny him in the greater And they who denie God in his working have but an easie step to the deniall of his being This should teach us to walke in dependance upon God for all naturall comforts He giveth raine All creatures drinke from Heaven that they may have their eyes and their hearts in Heaven And if we must walk in dependance upon God for naturall comforts how much more for spirituall if for the rain of the clouds how much more for the dews of his Spirit and the rain of grace upon our hearts Further observe It is a great wonderfull and unsearchable worke of God to send raine For we must put the stampe of those foure characters upon all these workes And so raine is a great a wonderfull and an unsearchable worke of God so great and wonderfull that as hath bin proved no creature can communicate with God or share in the honour of this worke The Rabbins have a saying that upon every apex or Tittle of the Law their hangs a mountaine of sence and holy Doctrine We may say that in every drop of raine there is an ocean of wisedome of power of goodnes and of bounty If we study the ordinary In ea mira Dei in suas creaturas spectaâ—ur benignitas clemenâ—iae simul potentia undè passim Propheâ—e praesertim in hoc libâ—o quandò socij Job aut Job ipse admiranda Dei opera prâ—ponunt pluviam inter ea primo loâ—o ponunt Merc. workes of God we shall learne somewhat extraordinary in them common things are ful of wonder and among all common things none fuller of wonders then the raine To illustrate this a little in some particular considerations First There is marvellous power seen in causing and giving raine Is it not marvellous power which raises the vapours and holds as we may so speake A sea of water above the earth That such mighty seas and floods of water hang in the ayre and thence are distill'd and sprinkled downe as Job speakes in small drops are acts and arguments of the wonderfull power of God Secondly Behold in the raine the wonderfull goodnes of God who by this meanes cooles and refreshes nourishes and suckles all earthly living creatures When the ground is enapt and gapes as it were with open mouth the Lord opens these bottles and gives it drinke And a miracle of goodnes is seene in this forasmuch as when his very enemyes hunger he thus feeds them when they are naked he thus cloaths them when they thirst he thus gives them drinke Mat. 5. 45. He sendeth raine upon the just and upon the unjust They are maintained in life by the goodnesse of God whose lives maintaine a continuall warr against his justice And as there is a wonder of goodnesse in giving rain for the use of evill men So there is a wonder of bounty in sending raine upon those places which are not of use to any man he sendeth waters upon the fields that is all over the world Hence when Elihu would set forth the marvellous power and bounty of God he exemplifies it in this Job 38. 25. Who hath devided a water course for the overstowing of waters to cause it to raine on the earth whereno man is and on the wildernes where there is no man Such an open and bountifull house doth the Lord of Heaven and earth keep that rather then any shall want he will in a sence let the water runne wast God will not have so much as an herbe or a plant to want though there be no man to come there yet the grasse and shrubs shall have drinke and tast of his bounty And so legible is that goodnes of God which is written with drops of rain so wonderfull his power and bounty in giving rain that the Prophet wonders at the stupidity of those men who are not convinced of and taught obedience by it They have not said let us fear the Lord that giveth the first and the latter raine in his season Jer. 5. 24. As if he should say what a strange thing is it that sweet showers of raine have not softened the hearts of men into the feare of God and made them blossome with and bring forth abundantly the fruits of holines Hereupon it is very remarkeable how Moses makes this a motive to perswade the children of Israel to obedience in Canaan because that country stood in much need of raine which Egypt from whence they came did not Deut. 11. Therefore shall ye keepe all the Commandements which I command you this day ver 8. For the land whither thou goest in to possesse it is not like the land of Egypt from whence ye came out where thou sowest thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot like a garden of herbes That is Egypt being a flat plaine country all upon a levell when the Land wanted moysture thou didst not stay for or depend upon the raine to moisten it but with thy foot thou diggedst draines and madest sluces or water-courses from the river side meaning Nilus that famous river which ran quite through Egypt and that refreshed thy lands and made them fruitfull But Canaan is another kind of Country vers 11 12. the Land whether thou goest in to possesse it is a Land of hils and valleyes and drinketh water of the raine of Heaven A land which the Lord thy God careth for his eyes are upon it c. As if he had said Canaan is not a country capable of being water'd by the foot it is so mountanous and uneven All the labour of hand or foot cannot bring the streams upwards to give thy thirstie land drinke it must drinke from heaven or be burnt up and parcht with thirst and if so then that must be the Lords care his eye must observe when tbou wantest raine his hand must make water-courses in the heavens and open the sluces and cataracts of the clouds for thee And wilt thou not serve this God in duty who in bounty thus serveth thee and gives thee such a sensible evidence of his care over thee The Apostle Paul preaches this to the Gentiles as Naturall Theologie to leave them inexcusable Though he suffered all Nations to walke in their owne wayes in that he gave them not either the light or restraint of
not question me upon the least infirmity From the former proverbial exposition Observe first Afflictions are continued upon some without any intermission Iob had not so much whole skin as one might set a pin on nor so much whole time as a man might spit in Every hour brought a wound with it and the renewing of every moment renewed his affliction Observe secondly A short refreshing may be a great mercy Dives in hell desires not a large draught but a drop of water which alas could not have eased him so long as a man is swallowing down his spittle The eternity of pain in hell shall not find so much abatement as that either in time or in degree Every affliction in this life by how much it is with less intermission by so much the more like it is to hell and every comfort by how much the more it is unbroken and without stops by so much it is the more like to Heaven Consider then your mercies who have un-interrupted mercies dayes and years of ease and not pained so long as a man is swallowing down his spittle your mercies are like the glory and the joy of Heaven From the latter proverbial exposition Note That God observes the least the most secret motions of man He tels our steps our wandrings and those not onely corporal but moral and spiritual He knows how many steps our hearts fetch every day and how far they travel Thou hast searched and known me saith David Psal 139. 1 2. and this search is not made in the out-rooms onely but in the inner parlour and closest closets Thou understandest my thoughts and those not onely present or produced but to come and unborn thou knowest them a far off What can scape that eye which a thought cannot And he that sees man swallowing down his spittle how shall not he both hear and see him coffing up and spitting out the rottenness and corruption the filth and flegm of his sinful heart JOB Chap. 7. Vers 20 21. I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men why hast thou set me as a mark against thee so that I am a burden to my self And why doest thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity for now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shalt seek me in the morning but I shall not be JOB having in the former part of this Chapter contested with his friends and expostulated the matter with God now turns himself into another posture even to humble his soul and make confession of his sin He had justified himself against the accusations of men but now he accuses and judges himself in the presence of his God He will a while forget his sorrows and bethink himself of his sins I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men The words may be taken two waies 1. As a confession or a prayer 2. As a confession or a grant I shall first open them under the notion of a repenting prayer and confession of sin I have sinned As if he had said Lord if thou holdest me thus long upon the rack of this affliction to gain a confession of me to make me confess here I am ready to do it I do it I have sinned The word signifies to miss the mark we aim at or the way wherein we would walk And so it is put strictly for sins of infirmity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat errare aberrare declinare deflectere a via vel scope when the purpose of a mans heart is like the Archers when he draws his bow to hit the white or like the honest travellers in his journey to keep the right way and yet he miscarries and is drawn aside I have sinned But is this a sufficient confession What! to say only in general I have sinned Did not hard-hearted Pharaoh Ezod 9. 25 False-hearted Saul 1 Sam 15. 24. and Traitor-Judas Matth. 27. 4. make as good a confession as this Every one of these said I have sinned and what doth Job say more It is surely no great cost nor pain to sinful nature to bring up such a confession as this I answer First a general confession may be a sound confession It is one thing not to express particular sins with the circumstances of those sins and another thing purposely to conceale them I grant implicit confession may be as dangerous as implicit faith And to digg in the earth and hide our sins in the Napkin of our excuses is worse than to hide our Talents in the Napkin of our idleness And as it is most dangerous knowingly to conceale sin from God so it is very dangerous to do it through ignorance or inadvertency Some confess sin in general termes only because they know not what their sins are or have quite forgot them As Nebuchadnezzar called the Astrologers and Sorcerers and Chaldeans and told them he had dreamed a dreame but he could not tell what it was For the thing was gone from him Dan. 2. 5. Some such there are who can or will only say They have sinned they have sinned but what they cannot tell or they doe not remember Those things are gone from them That which is written of the learned Bellarmine a great Cardinal and a Champion for Auricular particular Confession of sinne to man seemes very strange That when he lay upon his death-bed and the Priest after the Popish manner came to absolve him he had nothing to confess at last he thought of some sleight extravagancies of his youth which was all he had to say of his owne miscarriages We see a man may de a Schollar in all the knowledg of the world of nature and of Scripture and yet not know his own heart nor be studied or read in himself He that is so in a spiritual notion can never want particular matter in his most innocent daies to confesse before the Lord and to shame himselfe for What though he hath escaped the pollutions of the world and is cleansed from the filthiness of the flesh yet he knowes that still in his flesh there dwels no good thing and that in his spirit there are at least touches of many spiritual filthinesses as pride unbelief c. besides his great deficiencies in every duty and in his love to Jesus Christ which is the ground of all So then in any of these sences to confesse sin only in general is a sinful confession And yet Job made a holy confession here and so did the Publican Luk. 18. when he smote his breast and said onely thus God be merciful to me a sinner For secondly though to speak a general confession be an easie matter and every mans work yet to make a general confession is a hard matter a work beyond man As no man in a spiritual sence can say Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12. 3. so no man can say in a Holy manner I have sinned but by