say she was one one act is enough to assimilate but it is not enough to denominate Thus much may serve to evince that though we take the words in that worst sense yet it doth not necessarily inferre that Jobs wife was a wicked an ungodly woman which is the objection against that Exposition From the words translated Curse God and die and thus expounded we may observe First That Satan is restlesse and unwearied in this designe to bring the people of God to thinke ill and speake ill of God It is that he laboured for in the carrying on of this whole businesse concerning Job and every stone is turned every way tryed to accomplish this proposed end Secondly In that he perswadeth Job by his wife when he was in this wofull condition to curse God and die Observe That Satan would perswade us to ease our selves of troublesome evills by falling into sinfull evils Job was grievously diseased you see the medicine and the cure that Satan prescribeth Goe sinne saith he curse God and die whereas one of the least evills of sin is worse then all the evills of suffering that can befall us All sorrowes are more elegible then one sin It hath been rightly taught us from Antiquitie that the lowest degree of a lye because sin is not to be made or admitted if that medium could be assured so noble an end for the saving of a world What a father and teacher of lyes then is Satan who directs many a poore soule to save it selfe from or helpe it selfe out of a small affliction by adventuring upon some great transgression Thirdly Curse God and die It is sinfull to wish our own deaths though we are under paines more painefull then death It is sinfull to desire death absolutely we may desire it with submission to the will of God To live is an act of nature but to be willing to live because God wills it is an act of grace And as it is our holinesse to doe the will of God while we live so it is our holinesse to be content to live while we suffer according to his will On the other hand to die is an act of nature but to die because God wills it is an act of grace Christ is said to be obedient unto death because he died in contemplation of Gods decree and in conformity to his good pleasure To die thus is the duty of a Christian and the crowne of all his obedience Satan would have us live as we will and die when we will he tempts us as much to die when we list as to live how we list Satan puts Job upon it peremptorily curse God and die desire or procure thy own death To wish dâ—â—th that we may enjoy Christ it is a holy wish but yet we must not wish that neither absolutely The Apostle Paul Phil. 1.23 desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ yet you see how he qualifies and debates it To wish for death that we may be freed from sinne is a holy wish but yet wee must not wish that absolutely neither we must referre our selves to the pleasure of God how long he will let us conflict with our corruptions and with our lusts with this body of death and sin which we beare about us But to wish for death because our lives are full of trouble is an unholy wish God may yea and hath as much use of our lives in our troubles as in our comforts We may doe much businesse for God in a sick-bed We may doe God as much worke when we are bound hand and foote in a prison as when we are at liberty passive obedience brings as much glory to God as active doth therefore we must not wish for death especially not with an absolute wish because we are under troublesome evils And if it be sinfull to wish for death how wicked is it to procure or hasten death to pull down our house of clay with our own hands because we are under troublesome evills Fourthly Observe further Satan would perswade that death is an end at least an ease of outward troubles Wouldest thou have an end of thy troubles and of thy sorrowes Curse God and die here is the remedy We say indeed of some remedies that they are worse then the disease but I am sure this is Death to ungodly ones it is so farre from being an end or an ease of their troubles that it is to them as Christ speakes in another case the beginning of sorrowes the entrance to eternall death and the very suburbs of Hell Yet how many doth Satan perswade when they are in Jobs case in great extremities that death will be the cure of all their troubles Fifthly Observe That Satan would make men willing to die when they are most unfit to die You see what preparation Satan directs Job unto he biddeth him curse God and die Would not Job thinke you have bin in a fit posture in a fit frame for death when he had bin cursing God Repent and die pray and die humble thy selfe and die beleeve and die take fast hold of Christ who is our life our way to life and die are the counsels and voice of the holy Ghost but Satans language is curse God and die sin and die be impenitent and die blaspheme and die And it is an experienced truth that oftentimes they seeme most willing to die who are most unfit most unready for death you shall see some men venturing yea casting away their lives without feare or wit the whole visible businesse of whose lives hath been nothing else but a working out of their own damnation without feare or trembling They as it were give diligence all their dayes to make Hell and reprobation sure and yet goe out of the world as if they were sure of Heaven This is Satans preparation curse God and dye Lastly Note this That the holiest person is lyable to the most blasphemous temptation One would have wondred that Satan should ever have ventured to suggest such a grosse thing as this to so holy a man as Job But Satan where he hath been often foyled growes impudent and will then suggest such things not because he hopes to prevaile but because he resolves to vex such as he cannot overcome He troubles as much and as many as he can So much of the counsell which Jobs wife gave him reproving him as foolish and over-credulous in holding fast that unprofitable thing his integrity and advising him to be worse then mad or out-ragious in cursing God and dying Let us now consider Jobs holy and wise reply in the tenth Verse But he said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evill These words containe Jobs reply wherein two things are considerable First A reproofe Secondly A refutation First He rejects her counsell with a sharpe and wholesome reprehension and then he refuteth her counsell by strong
this O death how sweet art thou to a man that is bitter in his soule It often falls out that to die is but a short affliction but affliction many times is a long and a continued death a frequent death as the Apostle speakes of his afflictions in deaths often 2 Cor. 11.23 That there is a bitternesse in death the speech of Agag implies 1 Sam. 15. Surely the bitternesse of death is past Yet while a man as lamenting Jeremie complaines Lam. 3.19 Remembers his afflictions and his misery the wormewood and the gall that is his afflictions and misery more bitter then gall and wormewood his sense overcomes his judgement to conclude that there is a pleasantnesse in that bitter thing which wee call death Secondly observe That As death finds many before they looke for it so some looke for death and cannot find it How many are there whom death surprizes before they are aware and seizeth upon them when they thinke not of it when-as others are expecting and longing and gaping and gasping after death and they cannot meete with it it cometh not Indeed it is a great deale better for a man to expect death when it cometh not then to have death come upon him when he expects it not Some are calling for death crying out for death before they know how to die before they know how to live yea before they know why they lived It were well for such if they might loose their longing and long for death long enough before it cometh for upon the matter poore soules they long for Hell while they long for death and while they are hastning from that life and misery which will quickly have an end they are plunging into that death and misery which will never end Thirdly observe As death is a punishment to most so not to die is a punishment to some Job speakes of it as of an affliction upon such they long for death and it cometh not Death is an affliction to all it is a punishment to all unbeleevers a punishment with a sting And as all wicked men are punished with death so some of them are punished with this that they for the present cannot die Rev. 9.6 In those dayes men shall seeke death and shall not finde it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them It is laid as their punishment that they should live and as an affliction beyond all their afflictions that then they could not die They are in a sad condition who can have no remedy or cure of their troubles but death but how sad is their condition who cannot obtaine that remedy It is like the punishment of the damned in Hell they shall long for death but it will not come and they shall ever seeke for death but shall never find it No wicked man did ever part so unwillingly with his soule when he died as he will unwillingly meet with it when he riseth againe And as the first death doth part soule and body unwillingly so the second death keepeth soule and body together unwillingly They have a tast of this misery in this life whose soules are truly said to be imprisoned in their bodies And O how desirous are they to dig down these mud-walls and make an escape but cannot Fourthly observe It is an affliction to nature to be debarred of any thing it desireth how destructive soever it be unto it It is in one sense a naturall desire to long for death and yet death is the destruction of nature A man under distempers of body in a disease a Fever c. is often troubled and grieved because he cannot have those things which will hurt him He longs for such meates and drinkes as given him would kill him and yet a deniall angers him The hope of death deferred will make the heart sick and when the desire death desired comes it is as a tree of life Griefe ariseth from the unsatisfaction of our desires and therefore though the thing had which we desire will undoe us yet the not having it doth afflict us Which long for death and it cometh not and they dig for it more then for hid treasures Take somewhat from this latter branch and they dig for it more then for hid treasure Assoone as ever Job had exprest their longing desire after death you see presently he tells us that they dig for death From this observe That where desires are true they presently produce endeavours He that longs for a thing will labour for it they are digging presently Prov. 18.1 Through desire a man having separated himselfe intermedleth with all wisedome If it be death a man desireth he will be endeavouring after it There are some velleities listlesse wishings and wouldings which produce no endeavours but true desires are ever active naturall desires are seconded with naturall endeavours and so spirituall desires with spirituall endeavours If a man desire death he will dig for it surely then he that desires Christ and longs for eternall life will be digging for the enjoyment of them Observe further That proportionably to the strength of our desires is the strength and earnestnesse of our endeavours As reall desire causeth reall indeavour so strong desires cause strong endeavours It was not a bare desire but an earnest longing as was cleared in opening the words And it is not a bare labour but hard labour digging is strong labour A meere naturall man whose desires after sin are strong and vehement acts sin with equall vehemency The holy Ghost saith he doth evill as he can that is to utmost his canning or ability He drawes iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with cart-ropes He doth evill saith another Scripture Mich. 7.3 with both hands greedily To doe a thing with both hands notes the greatest endeavour As when the Pharisees are said not to touch the burdens which they laid on others with their little finger it notes their refusall of the least endeavour Math. 23.4 So a spirituall heart having his desires turned heaven-ward he diggs for heavenly treasure every day and gives diligence to make his calling and election sure They who have strong desires after Christ labour strongly after Christ So they are exprest Pro. 2.4 where Solomon speakes of wisedome which is Christ and all that is Christs If thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures Such is the search and endeavour that ought to be after Christ and such it will be if there be true and great desires after Christ Thirdly In that he saith they dig for it as for hid treasure We may observe That the best things are hardest to come by If you will have treasures you must digge for them you may have pibble stones flints above ground but treasures lie deepe And in proportion the better every thing is the more digging it requireth And the best things ought to be most digg'd for They that will have the great blessing must
unto the father When they told Christ of some whose bloud Pilate had mingled with their Sacrifices Thinke not saith he that either these or those upon whom the Tower of Shiloe fell and slew them were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem I tell you except yee repent yee shall all likewise perish As there is no judging of the sinnes of men by such kind of exigents and events so neither of the wrath of God yet how many by such appearances judge unrighteous judgements being as barbarous as those Barbarians of Malta who seeing a Viper comming out of the heat and fastning on Pauls hand they concluding he must die presently censured him to be a murtherer whom though he had escaped the Sea yet vengeance followed on shore and would not suffer to live Wee must not ground our judgement upon the workes of God but upon his word In externals there is the same event to all Eccles 9. Men cannot be distinguish'd for eternity by what they suffer but by what they doe not by the manner of their death but by the tenour of their lives This is a certaine truth That man can never die an evill death who hath led a good life There is nothing makes death evill but the evill which followeth death or the evill that goes before death Thirdly Here was death a strange and sudden death surpriz'd the children of Job and this when they were feasting when they were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brothers house Wee may observe from that also by way of admonition Christians had need to take heed and be holy in feasting While we are eating and drinking we may be dying therefore eating and drinking we had need be holy Take heed to your selves saith Christ lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkennesse take heed lest at any time because at any time the day may come upon you unawares That day whether it be a day of generall calamity or personall may come upon you unawares It becomes us to be holy in all manner of conversation though we had an Assurance of our lives But seeing in what manner of conversing so ever we be death may surprize us and we have no assurance of our lives in our greatest joyes how holy should we be Whether you eate or drinke saith the Apostle or whatsoever you doe doe all to the glory of God Have God in your eye let him be your aime It is prophecied concerning the latter times That every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holinesse unto the Lord. The very pots in Jerusalem shall be holy that is men at their pots shall be holy to note that they should be holy in their eatings in their drinkings not holy onely when they were praying and holy when they were hearing but holy in those ordinary naturall actions of eating and drinking holy at their Tables and in all their refreshings with the creature Then indeed there is holinesse in the heart when there is holinesse in the pot and 't is but need there should be holinesse in the pot when there my bedeath in the pot We may observe somewhat more generally from all these foure sore afflictions considered together As first We see how quickly the beauty of all worldly blessings may be blasted Job in the morning had an estate as great and as good as his heart could desire in worldly things there was luster and strength in and upon all he had but before night he had nothing but sorrow to sup upon He had no retinue of servants left but foure reserved only to report his losses In one day all 's gone It is added as an aggravation of Babylons down-fall that her judgements shall come upon her in one day Revel 18.8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day death and mourning and famine and she shall be utterly burnt with fire for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her In one day all the beauty of Babylon shall be blasted We need not now trouble our selves to thinke Babylon is in a great deale of strength and beauty and glory surely there must be a long time spent in contriving and acting the destruction of Babylon no the Lord can blast her beauty and destroy her power in a day and the Text saith he will doe so in one day all her plagues shall come upon her That which Babylon hath beene gathering many yeares shall be scattered in a moment She thinkes that by her wisdome and policy she hath laid such a foundation of her owne greatnesse as shall never be shaken And therefore concludes I sit a Queene and am no widow and shall see no sorrow Yet all her strength shall not hold out one day when God in his displeasure shall lay siege against her walls So when yee looke upon other great and mighty prosperous and flourishing enemies such as flourish like greene bay trees remember the Lord in one day can wither their branches and kill their roots yee root them up Certainly the strength of the Lord is as mighty for the destroying of his enemies as it is for the afflicting of his owne people If he sometimes gives commission to take away all their comforts in a day when their estates are highest and strongest built Surely he will at last give Commissions for as speedy a dispatch against the estates of his greatest enemies And this may be unto us all matter of Admonition to prepare for changes to esteeme creatures as they are perishing substance Who ever had an estate better gotten better bottom'd or better managed then Job yet all was overthrowne and swept away in a moment We can never expect too much from God nor too little from the creature Lastly We may learne from the fore-going story of these afflictions considering that Satan was the contriver and engeneere who set all a worke That Satan is mighty both in power and policy for the effecting of his designes if God give him liberty and leave You see he doth not faile or misse in the least he brings every affliction upon Job in the perfection of it and he doth not bungle at it or doe his worke by halves but he is quicke and speedy both in laying the plot and executing it There is nothing in this inferiour world able to stand before him no creature no man if God let him alone The good Angels can match yea and master devils there is no doubt of that but if God stop his Angels and with-draw his hand the devill would quickly over-runne all the world We wrestle not with flesh and bloud but with principalities and powers Evill spirits are called powers in the abstract they have not onely a power they are not only powerfull hence called principalities such as have great authority and soveraignty as it were over others but they are called Powers It is not an empty title or a naked name that is given them but they are filled and
this life is called the blood because 〈◊〉 contained or carried in the blood Gen. 9.4 Further it is 〈◊〉 observable that the Hebrewes call the Body seperated from 〈◊〉 soule or a dead corps Nephesh Numb 5.2 c. 9.10 c. 19.11 Hag. 2.14 Though the life be quite gone out departed from the carkasse or body of a dead man yet that dead body is called life or soule to note that it shall live againe and that the soule shall returne unto it The mistery of the Resurrection from death was implied in the name of the dead Wee find also that the Heathens called a dead body a soule possibly from some glimpse of the resurection We lay up a soule in the grave saith the Poet. Animamque sepulchro condimus But how is this worke put into Satans hand The saving of his life What is Satan become a saviour what salvation can we expect from him whose name is Apollyon and Abaddon Rev. 9.11 both which signifie a destroyer Shall we send to the Wolfe to save the Sheepe or to the Vulture to save the Dove Destruction is the delight of Satan and it is his way as he hath no hope to be saved himselfe eternally so no will to save others temporally Observe then That here to save life notes only a sparing from death not a delivering from destruction but a forbearing to destroy Satan saved his life negatively that is he did not take it away he can not save positively or restore that which was ready to perish he doth not save as a deliverer but as a murtherer who would kill his brother but cannot He saves not for want of will but for want of power when he is forced to spare his nature is to devoure This devouring Lyon hunts for the pretious life even when God saith Save his life It may be questioned here Why Satan for that is implyed desired so to destroy the life of Job God would never have limited and chained him up but that Satan had a mind to suck his blood or afflict him unto death These two reasons may be given why Satan would have his life The one might be this Because it was a thing doubtfull with him though he bragged much of it whether he should attaine his end or no to make Job curse God when therefore he saw he could not overcome his spirituall life it would have bin some revenge to him to destroy his naturall life As some wicked ones his agents when by all their threats or flatteries they cannot make a 〈◊〉 sin which is to destroy his spirituall life their revenge breakes 〈◊〉 against his naturall life to destroy that This is the method of persecution first to attempt the death of the soule by drawing or terrifying unto sin and if they faile of that then death is inflicted on the body Or againe in the second place he being doubtfull in himselfe though he made no doubt in words whether his plot would be successefull to make Job curse God he I say doubting this designe might not draw him to sin resolved to take away his life that so Job might never have told tales of his victory or have reported his conquest to the world At least by his death he might obscure the businesse and bury it with some slander saying that Job died with discontent and griefe that he blasphemed God when he died that he wished for death and could not hold out any longer Much like that device of some Jesuits who have blowne it abroad that our most zealous opposers of Romish errours whom they could never move either by writing or disputing while they lived have yet recanted all when they dyed Wherefore least Satan should have drawen a curtain over the glory of Jobs victory by aspersing him after his death the Lord saith Save his life Job shall survive his troubles that matters may come to light and a true report be made and left upon record both of thy implacable malice and enmity and of his invincible patience and sincerity And this may lead us yet further to consider why God was so carefull of that precious part his life For some may say Had it not been glory to God and honour to Job like that of Martyrdome if he had died under the hand of Satan holding fast his own integrity blessing God even unto death I grant this but yet God knew that the saving of his life would be more advantagious both to himselfe and his Job for those ends wherefore he saith Save his life destroy him not First thus God intended to make Job a Monument of mercy as well as a Monument of suffering he intended to set him up to all the world as one in whom they might behold the goodnesse of God in raising up mixt with his wisdome in casting down that men might learn hope from Job as well as patience from Job Therefore saith God Save his life I have somewhat else to do with him I will raise him up again and in him an everlasting Monument both of his patience in suffering and of my own power in restoring Indeed if he had died in the conflict and left his bones in the field he had been a wonderfull example of constancy but he had not been such an example of mercy if his life had not been saved There may be this in it too Save his life saith God I will have him preserved in this combate his courage and carriage in it is my delight God loveth to see his people holding out tugging and continuing in such assaults and temptations If any thing in the world gives delight to God this is the thing that delighteth him The Heathen thought this the sport of their gods Seneca in his Book of Providence speaking of Cato and other gallant Romane spirits saith the gods delighted to look upon them in their conflicts with fortune To see them wrastle with some great calamity with some great danger was such a spectacle as would draw off Jupiter from his greatest businesse It is a most certain truth that the most true God doth love and delight to see his children wrastling with some great calamitie to see a poor man man who is but flesh and bloud wrastling with principalities and powers with the devill and powers of darknesse this is a sight that God himself as we may so speak rejoyceth in When Abraham had finished that great combate about sacrificing his sonne he calleth the place Jehovah-jireh the Lord will see or the Lord doth see the Lord doth behold as if that had been a sight which God himselfe came down to look upon As when some great man or strange shew passeth by we goe out to see it so God cometh down upon mount Moriah to see a sight And what was it To see Abraham in that great temptation assaulted and overcomming Here was a spectacle for the great Jehovah and therefore he cals the place Jehovah-jireh the Lord hath seen I doubt not but this place
is the profit of integritie that thou holdest and huggest it so fast Doest thou still retaine thine integritie This I conceive is the summe of the question it is an upbraiding a reproaching question and from that we may observe First That those things which commend us most to God usually render us most contemptible before the world Doest thou still retain thine integritie She slighteth him and scorneth him for this whereas God highly commends him speakes it to his praise That which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of the Lord. And that which the Lord esteemes highly man abominates Secondly this It is the endeavour of Satan and his instruments to perswade that the profession of holinesse is vain and unprofitable Satan hath taught wicked ones and they like forward Schollars say it without book say it openly It is a vain thing to serve the Lord Satan would faine infuse this cursed principle into the hearts of Gods own people and make them beleeve their faith is also vain Doest thou still retain thine integritie Come take a little counsell at the last work like a wise man wilt thou hold a thing thou canst get nothing by Take it on my word thou canst not thrive this way thou canst make nothing of it what dost thou meane to go on madding in such a course as this Thou shalt never get bread by it to put in thy head no nor water to wash thy hands All thou gettest by it will be a knock a rod upon thy back a dishonour upon thy name And wilt thou still be so strait-lac'd and hold fast thy integritie Thirdly observe further from Satans intendment in putting such words as these into the mouth of Iobs wife That his great designe is to take advantage from outward troubles and ill successes to discourage the hearts and weaken the hands of Gods people in holy duties That was his project quite to discourage Iob and from the ill successe he had in the service of God to get him put off his Livery and give over his service It is the course that the world instructed by Satan as here Iobs wife was still holdeth with the people of God Their language is Why are you so precise why so not c Doe you not observe you get nothing by your prayers nothing by your fasting nothing by your holinesse All that you have got you may put in your eyes and see never the worse Shew us some of your gaines what have you got where are your deliverances where are your victories where is your Salvation you have prayed till you are almost undone you have fasted till all is almost lost things are worse then they were will you still goe on in these duties of fasting and praying of humbling and seeking of waiting and beleeving This is the language of Satan this the divinity of Hell And I shall answer it in one word It is far better to die praying then to conquer blaspheming Such doctrine may stop up a hypocrites mouth and weaken his heart from duty But it will more open the mouths enlarge the hearts of those who are sincere Will the hypocrite alwayes call upon God will he delight himselfe in the Almighty saith Job No he delights in God no longer then God gives him worldly delights nor calls upon God any longer then sensible blessings are sent in unto him If God stayes his hand he stopps in duty he quickly takes out Satans lesson and will no longer hold his integrity But Grace shewes us wages in the worke A godly man hath his fruit in holinesse and therefore though he receives no outward fruit he still holds fast his integrity But what would Jobs wife advise him to doe in case he should let goe the holinesse of his life That followes in the next words having endeavoured to take him off from one course she directs him to another Curse God and dye Here is the second part of her counsell cursed counsell indeed Curse God and dye It is the same Originall word which we have opened before and met with two or three times already In the proper signification it noteth blessing and so the word is by many expositors rendred in this place Blesse God and dye Mr. Broughton translates it so in one entire sentence Doest thou still retaine thine integrity blessing God and dying We must therefore examine both sides that we may find out more fully the sense of these words Some take the words in a good sense and some take them in an ill sense Some take the words in a good sense Blesse God and dye And others who translate Blesse God and dye doe yet expound it to an ill sense First Some make a good construction out of these words of Jobs wife affirming that she gave her husband wholesome advice and so they render the words Blesse God and dye to this sense What doest thou still stand upon termes with God wilt thou not humble thy selfe shouldest thou not rather Blesse God that is pray unto God humble thy selfe and seeke his face so to blesse signifies to pray to make supplication Thou seest in what a dolefull condition thou art therefore blesse God make thy humble prayer before God and die that is desire him to take thee out of this miserable world to release thee of thy paine begge that he would cut the thred of thy life which to appearance is the only remedy of all thy troubles death will be thy best friend Thou mayest die with more ease then live as thou doest Thy life is a continuall death it were better for thee to die once then to die daily Mr. Beza is very strong in this opinion excusing yea acquitting Jobs wife in making this motion to her husband He grants indeed that she being deceived and over-wrought by Satan did work strongly for him yet denies that either the counsell in it selfe or in her intendment was evill He layes the whole matter thus That she observing her husbands silence under the hand of God in these great afflictions suspected that he stood too much upon his own integrity that he was too well opinionated and conceited of his own worth or that this proceeded from fearednesse of conscience and insensiblenesse of Gods dealing and his own condition and therefore she adviseth him to consider that surely God was very angry with him to consider that God had brought all this evill upon him to humble him and should he now defend his owne innocencie should he either be silent and not acknowledge his sin or stand upon termes with God in defence and justification of himselfe Doest thou persevere in those high thoughts of thy selfe will not all this bring thy stomack down what will not thy uncircumcised heart be humbled Doest thou still retaine thine integrity doest thou still leane upon that broken reed thy owne integrity Blesse God that is confesse thy sins and acknowledge thy transgressions Indeed confessing of sin is a blessing of God
may understand it the reason lyes all in sight That if we receive good from the hand of God we must at least with patience receive evill From this reason in generall Observe That reproofes come then most strongly upon the heart when they are backed with reason Some reprove with rage and not with reason with passion and not with wisedome they reprove with their wit rather then with their spirit Job mixes reason with his passion and gives her an argument as well as a rebuke More particularly from the matter of this reason Observe first That good and evill are both from the hand of God Give me neither poverty nor riches saith Agur Prov. 30.8 both are the gift of God Poverty is Gods guift as well as riches If God doe not give us poverty all the 〈◊〉 will not make us poore I forme the light and create darkenesse 〈◊〉 â—â—ke peace and create evill I the Lord doe all these things 〈◊〉 45.7 The same Prophet teacheth us that these two are equally the pâ—aitve of God and such a prerogative as equally distinguisheth 〈◊〉 from all Idols and false gods Shew the things that are to comâ—â—eafter that we may know that ye are gods yea doe good or doe eâ— that we may be dismayed and behold it together No creatuâ—â— hath ever answered this challenge or ever shall Isa 41.23 Creatures doe good and evill as ministers of Gods will not as masters of their owne Good of every kind and all kinds of poenall evill come forth from God Indeed God usually conveyes these to us by the hand of man but it becomes us to receive them as from the hand of God Much both good and evill comes to us at the second hand but we ought to take it as from the first This truth well wrought upon our hearts will make every good wee enjoy better and every evill wee feele not so bad This latter branch shall be cast into a second Observation Which may be this To looke on evill as coming from the hand of God will quiet the heart in bearing of evill Shall wee receive good at the hand of God and not evill And this in two respects First because of the soveraignty of God he being supreame Lord may doe what he will and his will being the supreame rule of Justice he can doe no wrong This notion of God assures us that whatsoever we receive from the hand of God is just and right hence the inference is naturall If God send evill I must receive it quietly for he sends it justly Secondly because of the assured faithfulnesse and love and goodnesse of God to his even when he sends them which are all he sends this sort of evills As if Job had said any thing is welcome that cometh from one that loves me and hath done me good as God I know doth and hath done often and will doe for ever Will not a man take a nominall evill kindly at his hand from whom he hath received much reall good While we looke only upon creatures and what they doe the burthen of trouble is intollerable but as it cometh from God from a God that loveth us we cannot but receive it in love Afflictions coming from the creature are as the rod of Moses upon the ground a biting a stinging serpent but considered in the hand of God they are as the serpent in the hand of Moses a rod to correct and a staffe to comfort us David we know fled from Saul in feare of his life envious bloody Saul had threatned to kill him In his flight David meetes with his beloved Jonathan and saith unto him 1 Sam. 20.8 Jonathan if there be any iniquity in me slay me thy selfe for why shouldest thou bring me to thy father He would die rather by the hand of Ionathan then by the hand of Saul death from the hand of Ionathan who loved him was sweete whereas from Saul it had bin a bitter cup indeed Take another instance Elijah flyeth from Iezabel 1 King 19.4 and why doth he flie from her She seekes my life saith he to take it away Thoughts of this pressed him so hard that when he came into the wildernesse the text saith hee sate downe under a Juniper tree and requested for himselfe that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life But Elijah if thou be so willing to die why doest thou flie from Jezabel she would have given thee thy wish presently and satisfied at once her own malice and thy longing I but death from the hand of a Iezabel was his feare not his desire He could welcome it from the hand of God but not from the hand of a spightfull woman But you will say death is from the hand of God though it come by the hand of the creature True but as every good we receive is so much the more sweete by how much the more we see of the hand of God in it and lesse of the creature so every evill is so much the more bitter by how much we see lesse of God and more of man in it If God will take away my life I am pleased but I beg deliverance from the hand of Iezabel He fled for his life for feare of Iezabel but he calleth upon God to die We may exemplifie this in Christ Ioh. 18.11 The cup which my Father hath given me saith he shall I not drinke it It is poculum charitatis a grace cup to poore sinners a cup though bitter in it selfe though mixt with the wrath of God as a judge due to sinners yet temper'd and sweetned with a Fathers love everlastingly assured unto me I cannot but drinke it it cometh from my Father But it may be objected that I lately assign'd it as one reason why Satan spared Jobs wife namely That she who was his neerest friend being made an instrument of his affliction the affliction might be more afflictive and vexatious And David complaines most of a friend that smote him Psal 55. I answer when love turnes to hatred and friendship to unfaithfullnesse when former kisses like that present one of Judas are changed into trecherie this is very wounding and grievous indeed But when God strikes his friends he is their friend still when he afflicts it is in faithfulnesse Psal 119.75 He is good to us when he sends us evill and he sends us evill for our good To be smitten by a friend whose very smiting is friendship and who heales us by wounding cannot be offensive Hence Davids choice Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord for his mercies are great and not into the hand of man 1 Sam. 24.14 Hence a third Observation from the strength of the argument and reason may be thus framed To consider that all the good we have descends from God makes it both reasonable and equitable that wee should beare evill quietly when he is pleased to send it Shall we receive good and not evill saith he It is
the ghost The Hebrew is but one word which costs us five in English I give up the ghost the word signifieth that last act of those who are in the agonie of death In the Greeke and Latine that act is exprest by one word Luk. 23.46 Where it is said that Christ gave up the ghost The word is conceived to note a willing cheerefull resignation of our selves in death a dying without much reluctance or resistance a being active in death rather then passive we call it well a giving up the ghost Some apply it only to the death of the godly as Gen. 25.8 of Abraham c. whose lives are not violently snatcht from them but willingly surrendred When a godly man dyes a violent death he doth not dye violently Whereas a wicked man dies violently when he dies naturally and though sometimes being weary of his life or despairing of reliefe he drives out his ghost yet in a strict sense he never gives up the ghost It is said to the wicked rich man in the Gospell Luk. 12.20 Thou foole this night shall thy soule be required of thee demanded indeed but O how unwillingly doth the rich man pay this naturall debt who is so able to pay all civill debts Yet it must be confest that we find the word often used promiscuously applied as well to the death of the wicked as of the godly To Ismael Gen. 25.8 as well as Abraham to Annanias and Saphira Acts 5.10 Yea it is applied to the death of any or all living things Gen. 7.21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth both of fowle and of cattell and of beasts and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and every man Then againe If I had not so much favour to die assoone as ever I came from the wombe or to die in the very birth yet Why did the knees prevent me or the breasts that I should sucke Here are two steps aggravating the cause of his curse against his day If I had not been borne dead saith Job or died naturally assoone as I was borne yet why was I not left to perish I should have died quickly if they had let me alone though I were born alive into the world that is the meaning of those words Why did the knees prevent me why was there any care taken of me why did the Midwife and the Assistant women take me upon their knees why did they wash me swathe me and bind me up If they had not been so kind it had been a kindnesse unto me if they had spared their labour they had done me a favour If they had omitted their care how many cares had I escaped Why did the knees prevent me or which is a further step and the fift step by which this speech ascends why the brests that I should suck As if he had said If they would needs be so favourable as to take me up upon the knee to wash me to binde me up and cloath me yet why was the brest presented to me why was I layed to the brest If they had kept me from sucking the brest I should have suckt but little breath I had died quickly So that in these words there are five gradations by which Job aggravateth the cause of this curse against his day First Because he was conceived Secondly Because the doore was opened for him to be borne Thirdly Because being borne he did not presently give up the ghost or die assoone as he came into the world Fourthly Because there was so much care taken for him as to take him upon the knee and bind him up Fifthly Because there was a brest provided and papps for him to sucke If any of these latter acts had been neglected Job had died and so escaped all these ensuing troubles of his life sorrow had been hidden from his eyes And it is observed especially in these latter acts of this gradation that Job alludes to the custome of those times wherein unnaturall women left their children upon the cold earth naked and helplesse assoone as they were borne or casting them out expose them to misery or the casuall nursery of nature lent them by beasts more mercifull then those beastly mothers who would not afford them knees to prevent nor brests to give them suck As in that place Ezek. 16.4 5. the wofull condition of such an infant is exprest to shadow out the sinfully polluted and woefuly helplesse estate of that people and of all people by nature till the Lord prevents them by the knees of free grace and suckles them with the brests of his consolation Thy father was an Amorite and thy mother an Hittite of a barbarous people and what then In the day thou wast borne thy navell was not cut neither wast thou washed in water thou wast not salted at all nor swadled at all none eye pittied thee to doe any of these unto thee but thou wast cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast borne Now this is a certaine rule that such parabolicall and allegoricall Scriptures are grounded upon known customes and things in use It is certaine there were some so unnaturall to their infants that they would bestow no care upon them when they were borne neither wash nor cleanse nor binde them up but cast them out as the Prophet speakes to the loathing of their persons The Heathen Romanes had a speciall goddesse or deity whose name imported her care and office that children when they were borne should be taken up from the earth and set upon the knee And for the preventing of this unnaturall cruelty very frequent as it seemes amongst them the Thebanes made an expresse law that infants should not be neglected or cast out when they were borne though the parents thought they would be a burden to them by reason of the charge or no delight to them by reason of their deformity Now saith Job I could wish I had had such a father or such a mother or such friends who forgetting naturall affection would have cast me out when I came first into the world Why did the knees prevent me From hence also we may observe first That an infant assoone as he liveth hath in him the seeds of death So Job speakes of himselfe Why died I not from the wombe why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of my mothers belly Or why was I not stifled in the wombe why was ever that doore opened to let me into the world I could have died as soone as I lived Not only is man acting sin but nature infected with sin the subject of and subjected to the power of death So the Apostle teacheth us Rom. 5.14 Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression And who were those Even little infants they had life yet death reigned over them they were under the
of sleepe sleepe is a short death and death is a long sleepe Many of them that sleepe in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to everlasting contempt Dan. 12.2 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth saith Christ to his Disciples Jâ—h 11.11 but I goe that I may awake him out of sleepe In the 14th verse Jesus said unto them plainely Lazarus is dead Then had I beene at rest We usually say when a man goes to sleepe he goes to rest Yet rest is more then sleepe for sometimes a man sleepes when he doth not rest his very sleepe being troubled and he troubled in his sleepe But when rest is joyned with sleepe it is perfect sleepe The word here used signifies a very quiet setled and peaceable condition Hence Noah had his name And he called his name Noah saying this sonne shall comfort us concerning our worke and toile of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed Gen. 5.29 He was rest and comfort to the old world by preaching righteousnesse even the righteousnesse which is by faith which alone gives rest unto the soule and is able to refresh us in the midst of all those toyles and labours which that first curse brought upon the world both new and old Such rest and sweet repose had I found saith Job from all my toile in the house of death and bed of the grave Having thus foure words concurring in the same sense we may here not unprofitably take notice of that elegant multiplication of words in the holy Scriptures There store is no soare and variety is no superfluity yea there Tautologie is no superfluity It is the usuall rhetorick of the Holy Ghost to speake the same thing in divers words yea sometime in the same words We find such a congeries or heaping up of words used for the most part in some heate of passion or vehemency of spirit As first when God would expresse a great deale of anger and wrath against a people he speakes thus Isa 14.22 23. I will rise up against them saith the Lord of hostes and cut off from Babylon the name and remnant and sonne and nephew I will also make it a possession for the Bittern and pooles of water and I will sweepe it with the besome of destruction Here are a multitude of words and all tending to the same purpose setting forth the fiercenesse of Gods anger and the resolvednesse of his judgement for the ruining of Babylon The towring confused pride of the King of Babylon is presented to us in such a heape of words Isa 14.13 14. heare the pure language of pride from that Kings heart Thou hast said in thine heart I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my throne above the Starres of God I will sit also upon the mount of the Congregation I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will be like the most High The manifold apostacies and backslidings of Judah are described in many words by the Prophet Zephanie chap. 1.6 And them that are turned bank from the Lord and those that have not sought the Lord nor enquired for him Chap. 3.2 She obeyed not the voice she received not correction she trusted not in the Lord she drew not neere to her God When our Lord Christ would shew the extreame ignorance and darknesse of his Disciples in those great Articles of his sufferings death and resurrection having taken the twelve unto him and discoursed of those points he concludes Luk. 18.31 34. And they understood none of these things and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things that were spoken As if Christ had said their ignorance in these mysteries was so great that they had not the least glimpse or glimmerings of light about them So here I should have lien still and been quiet I should have slept and been at rest and all to note the interrupted-quiet and tranquility of the grave As if he had said Had I died then not only had not these stormes been upon me nor these waves gone over me but the least breath of wind had never blowne upon me Hence we may observe First That in regard of all outward troubles death is the rest of man Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord for they rest from their labours And they who die out of the Lord rest from all that labour they have had in this world There is no worke nor device nor knowledge nor wisedome in the grave whither thou goest Eccles 9.10 This life is a day of working and death is a night of resting The Sunne ariseth man goeth forth to his labour untill the evening Psal 104.23 When the Sunne of our life ariseth we goe forth to our labour untill the evening of death This life is a continued motion death is a continued rest This life is but noise and tumult death is silence Our life is a stormy passage a tempestuous sea-voyage death bringeth us to the harbour There is a foure-fold rest which we obtaine in death First A rest from labour and travaile no working there Secondly There is a rest from trouble and oppression no warres no bloody battels there Thirdly There is a rest from passion no sorrow no griefe shall afflict us there In the grave there is a fourth rest better then all these a rest from sin a rest from the drudgerie of Satan a rest from the winnowings and buffetings of Satan a rest from the law of our members warring against the law of our minds When Saul went to the witch of Endor for advise with Samuel that Samuel or the Devill in the appearance of Samuel speakes as one disturb'd being raised from the grave Why saith he hast thou disquieted me to bring me up 1 Sam. 28.15 I was at rest why diddest thou call me up to a land of trouble It is the observation of an ancient Father and the resolution of an ancient Councell concerning Christs weeping over Lazarus Joh. 11. That not his death but his rising drew those teares When Christ came to the grave where Lazarus lay the Text saith that Jesus wept Why did Christ weepe saith Jerome in comforting a mother that had lost her daughter It is cleare that Christ wept over Lazarus that was dead but he did not weepe thy teares Christ did not weepe because Lazarus was dead but he wept rather because Lazarus was to be raised up againe he wept to thinke that his friend Lazarus should be brought back into so troublesome a world And it was the resolution of the third Toletane Councell that Christ did not weepe over Lazarus because he was dead but because he was to be raised up againe to feele the burdens and afflictions of this life that was their apprehension of it And it is a truth that whosoever lives the common life of nature lives in trouble But such is not the life of him who is raised from the dead The lives of such though here
of spirituall priviledges and benefits so death takes away all distinctions in regard of civill priviledges In death there is neither small nor great neither male nor female neither bond nor free the greatest shall lie as low as the smallest and the highest as low as the meanest every one there shall be but as his neighbour and as his brother in the flesh There is but one distinction that will out-live death and death cannot take it away the distinction of holy and unholy cleane and uncleane beleever and an infidell these distinctions remaine after death and shall remaine for ever but rich and poore honourable and base high and low King and subject these distinctions shall be done away and forgotten as if they had never been no difference no distinction but that which God makes and that which grace makes can stand out against the power and stroake of death There the small and great are the same And the servant is free from his Master The servant There are two sorts of servants There are some who are voluntary servants and others who are servants by constraint There are some who might be free but they will not and there are others who would be free but they cannot Of the former sort we reade a Law Exod. 21.5 where the servant that loved his master and refused his freedome saying I will not goe out free must be brought before the Judges and have his eare bored thorow with an awle in token of his willingnesse to serve that Master for ever Others are servants by constraint as the people of Israel in Egypt who were made to serve with rigour Exod. 1.14 to serve whether they would or no which is servitude rather then service We may understand the Text of both The servant that is either he that doth voluntarily serve and willingly puts himselfe under the command of another or he which is under the command of another whether he will or no to both these death giveth freedome whether their Masters will or no The servant is free from his Master The word which we translate is free noteth that formall manumission or setting at liberty which is used in places or Corporations where freedomes are either purchased by money or deserved by appointed service And the word here translated Master is plurall Masters it is one of the Names of God Adonai which Name the Lord hath from government That very name is given to Masters of Families because they ought to governe and order the affaires and businesse of the family with wisedome and justice Every master of a family is a governour of the family he is as it were a King in his own family The servant is free from his Master Hence note first this Sinne brought in servility and the subjection of man to man I ground it thus because Iob speakes of service as of an estate of affliction as of an estate of trouble under which many groane and from which they can get no release till death breake the bands and sets them free In the state of innocency there was a dominion granted to man over the beasts but there was no dominion granted to man over man In the state of integrity relations should have continued but subjection should not have been found only that naturall subjection of children to Parents but as for civill subjection there had been no such thing in the world Before man forsooke the service of God he needed none to serve him service comes in by sinne and the increase of it by the increase of sinne As we see when Canaan was so vile as to forget the duty of a sonne he is set below or in the worst condition of a servant Gen. 9.5 Cursed be Canaan a servant of servants shall he be unto his bretheren that is the lowest and most abject servant As God of Gods is the greatest God and Lord of Lords is the Highest Lord so servant of servants is the lowest the basest servant So then as civill subjection came at first from sin so the increase of subjection which is to be a servant of servants came from the increase and progresse of sin Observe secondly A servant is not in his own dispose Though he be a voluntary servant yet he must serve the lawfull will of his master He may yea he ought in every ingenuous service to serve willingly but he is not at his own will to serve when or where or how he will Some have thought they have a freedome from service by the liberty of the Gospell or Gospel-priviledge and that is the reason why the Apostle 1 Tim. 6.1 gives that rule Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour c. He speakes of beleeving servants Some presumed they had such freedome by Christ that they might cast off subjection to men No saith the Apostle as many as are under the yoke that is while they continue servants they must submit to their condition yea though their Masters be unbeleevers as the next verse shewes And they that have beleeving Masters let them not despise them c. nothing takes away subjection but death for as he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man 1 Cor. 7.22 So he that is the Lords free-man being called to it is and ought to be mans servant The Centurion in the Gospell shewes the servants duty I say unto one goe and he goeth and to another come and he cometh and to my servant doe this and he doth it The servant is at his Masters beck not at his own dispose and nothing can free him but death so long as he continues under the yoke in that relation Hence observe thirdly That death concludes the subjection of man to man In the grave or there the servant is free from his Master there is no more service due to man when once death that king of terrours hath carried us into his dominions JOB 3. Ver. 20 21 22. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soule Which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave c. AT this 20th verse the third and last Section of the Chapter begins Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life to the bitter in soule In the former part of the Chapter Job wished that death had surprised him assoone as ever he set his foot into the world yea before he came into the world that he might have died in the very wombe Here Job begins to expostulate why he having made so long a journey and in his latter time so troublesome a journey in the world why I say he is not at his request cut off and taken away by the stroake of death Why is light given to him that is in misery and life to the
it to enjoy Christ who is life then to live To both these we may referre that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. We that are in this tabernacle groane being burthened they were burthened with sorrowes and burthened with sins while they were in the tabernacle of the body yet saith he it is not that wee would be uncloathed but cloathed upon he did not groane for the grave but for glory not that he might be uncloathed but cloathed with immortality not barely that he might die but that mortality might be swallowed up of life Under these notions we may desire death yet with this caution that for the time of it we referre our selves to the good pleasure of God For what the Apostle James speakes of the inordinate desires and absolute resolves of worldly men about gaining in that or t'other City is by allusion appliable to these spirituall greedy merchants after Heavenly glory chap. 4.13 Goe to now ye that say to day or to morrow we will goe into such a City and continue there a yeere and buy and sell and get gaine c. For that ye ought to say if the Lord will So I may say Goe to now ye that say to day or to morrow we would die for to die to us is gaine Phil. 1.21 and goe to that heavenly City that City having foundations whose builder and maker is God and continue there forever taking in and enriching our selves with that glory which Christ hath bought for that ye ought to say when the Lord will or now if the Lord will On such conditions as these and with this caution we may desire death yea long for death But to long for death only to be ridde of the troubles of this life to desire to lye downe to sleepe in the bed of the grave only to ease our flesh and rest our outward man is sinfull The Apostle saith Acts 20.24 I count not my life deare so I may finish my course with joy But we shall account our lives too cheape if we feare to finish our course with sorrow If we thinke that it is not worth the while to live unlesse we live in outward comforts we exceedingly undervalue our lives when a crosse in our lives makes us weary of our lives This was Jonahs infirmity when he had taken pet about the gourd Chap. 4. he would needs die and he concludeth the matter It is better for me to die then to live and all was because he could not have his will because he was troubled This also was Elijahs infirmity when he was persecuted by and fled for his life from Jezabel 1 King 19.4 He requested for himselfe that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am not better then my fathers This is an infirmity at the best we ought rather to seeke to God that he would remove the evill from us then remove us from the evill for God hath a thousand doores to let us out of trouble though he doth not open the doore of the grave to let us in there and out of the world He can end our troubles and not end our lives Yet such a wish is much allayed yea in some cases lawfull if we keepe the former caution and say if the Lord will If we referre our selves to the will and good pleasure of God we may desire to be lay'd to rest by death that we may be rid of those paines and evills which we suffer in this life And yet I desire rather to raise the spirits of all above these troubles while they live then satisfie them how they may desire freedome from them by death When Solomon returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the Sunne and beheld the teares of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and on the side of their oppressors there was power but they had no comforter Then he praised the dead which are already dead more then the living which are yet alive Eccles 4.1 2. that is he pronounced the dead to be in a better condition then the living Yet know that Solomon in this place speakes the words of meere naturall reason not of divine reason For he speakes though with a divine Spirit yet in the person of a naturall man Naturall reason saith it is better to die then live under oppressions but divine reason saith there is more honour to be gained by living under oppressions then there is ease to be attained by dying from under them To beare a burden well is more desireable then to be delivered from a burden Especially if while we are bearing we can be doing doing good I meane and I meane it especially if we can doe publike good A Christian should be content yea he should rejoyce in suffering much evill upon himselfe while he can be doing any especially if he can doe much good to others A graciously publike spirit will triumph over personall troubles and labours so long as he sees himselfe a blessing or a helpe to the publike and though he longs to die for himselfe and to be with Christ which is better yet he is loath to die so long as he can say with blessed Paul Neverthelesse to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you or others Phil. 1.24 When a Heathen Emperour Caesar said he had lived long enough whether he respected Nature or Honour Tully the Orator answered him well But you have not lived long enough for the Common-wealth Much more may we say when we see able and godly men longing for death because they have lived long enough whether they respect common Nature or their own Honour But you have not yet lived long enough for the Church of God and for the common good of his people We should be willing to live so long as God or his people have a stroake of worke to be done which our abilities and opportunities fit us to doe In this sense A living Dogge is better then a dead Lion Eccles 9.4 That is it is better to live though we are the meanest working for God then die or be dead though we have bin the chiefest I inlarge this the rather because of the present troubles and the infirmity of our flesh which sometimes is ready to envy those who die because we live in sorrow and is not satisfied with this that our soules are here shelter'd from death and under the covert of Christ unlesse our bodies also may be sheltred in death and lye under the covert of the grave So much to that question Let us note something from the words themselves Which long for death and it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures Observe first That Many afflictions to our sense are worse then death They long for death because they are in misery It is said and it is a truth O death how bitter art thou to a man that is at ease in his possessions And there is a truth also in
wrestle for it or the Crowne they must strive for it We must dig for heavenly hidden treasure before we have it And yet both the treasure and the strength to dig for it are freely given Fourthly observe That Those things which we esteeme most we labour to secure most It is said that they digg'd for treasures and that the treasures were hid I told you in opening the words there is a naturall hiding of treasure and an industrious hiding Take it in the last sense men that have treasures will labour to preserve them why because treasures are much esteemed and the things we esteeme most we preserve most In the Hebrew the word that signifies treasure signifies the hiding of treasure or hidden treasure Among all treasures spirituall treasures are most hidden they are so hidden that they are called mysteries or secrets The knowledge of Christ was a hidden treasure for some thousands of yeares the Apostle in his time calls it the mysterie which was kept secret since the world began Rom. 16.25 Againe he calls it the wisedome of God in a mystery even the hidden wisedome which God ordained before the world unto our glory which none of the Princes of this world knew 1 Cor. 2.8 9. And as spirituall knowledge so our spirituall life is called a hidden life your life is hidden with God in Christ Col. 3.3 And as our life so our spirituall comforts are hidden therefore called Hidden Manna Rev. 2.17 All our spirituall estate is treasure and it is all hidden treasure so hidden that the Saints dig deepe to find it and when they have found it they hide it as Christ shewes us Mat. 13.44 speaking of the Kingdome of God which he compares to a treasure hid in the field the which when a man hath found he hideth He hideth it not to obscure it from the light but to secure it from danger Mary hid those pretious sayings of Christ her Son and her Saviour in her heart Luk. 2.51 And David having found the Commandements of God which he prized above any treasure above thousands of gold and silver he hid them in his heart Thy word saith he have I hid in my heart that I might not sinne against thee Psalm 119.11 Verse 22. Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave Having said that they long for death and dig for it as for hidden treasure Now supposing that they find death he shewes how it affects them they rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave There is little or no obscurity in these words only consider the emphasis of this expression the word which we translate rejoyce or rejoyce exceedingly noteth such a rejoycing as breakes forth in some outward gesture as when a man doth leape for joy And Mr. Broughton translates it thus which joy till they skip againe noting an extraordinary joy and gladnesse when they can find the grave that is when they die Yet some joyne the sense of this verse with the former to carry on or lengthen out the similitude thus Which long for death and digge for it as for hid treasures And finding death they are affected as they who seeking for treasures find a grave For if in digging they did but hit upon a grave then they thought themselves sure of treasure and great riches because treasure and riches was used to be put into graves as was shewed in opening the fifteenth verse of this Chapter The sense is faire and comes up to the same point from either of these expositions Observe hence first That What at one time we feare most in that at another time we may exceedingly rejoyce Death is dreadfull and the grave is a place of darkenesse yet here is joy and rejoycing yea exceeding joy and rejoycing when they find the grave Secondly They rejoyce in it but why It was that which they had longed for that which they had long sought for if at another time they had bin shewed the grave or commanded into the grave they would have taken little pleasure in it The same thing inflicted or threatned by another is dreadfull to us which desired by our selves is pleasant and delightfull It pleaseth us to have our desire satisfied though the thing desired be never so unpleasant And to be eased of present evill makes a future evill appeare in the likenesse of a persent good For Joy is an affection of the mind arising from the apprehension of some present good even as hope springs from the apprehension of some good that is to come Further We may consider the issue of all these acts after they had longed for death and digged for death and found death presently upon the finding of it they rejoyce and rejoyce exceedingly Hence observe That which any one truely desireth and endeavoureth to find causeth him to rejoyce when he hath found it If you desire death and seek for the grave the finding of these will be to you as life and as a house of mirth How much more then shall we rejoyce having found good things the best things after earnest longing and digging for them When the wise Merchant had found the treasure hid in the field the next words enforme us of his joy Matth. 13.44 When the man after long seeking on the mountaines had found his lost Sheepe and the woman after lighting her candle and sweeping her house and diligent search had found the lost groat they both rejoyced and called in their neighbours and friends to rejoyce with them Luk. 15. It troubles a man to be found of that or him whom he hates or feares Hast thou found me O mine enemy saith Ahab to Eliah 1 King 21.20 And it cannot but delight us to find that or him whom we love and long for Have I found thee O my friend will such an one say And if a miserable man rejoyces exceedingly when desiring he finds death and a grave how will the soule leape for joy when we shall find him who is the longing and desire of all Nations Jesus Christ. How exceeding exceedingly will the soule rejoyce when we shall find what we have so much longed for not death but life and life not only in Christ but with Christ when we shall find not the house of the grave but a house of glory and glory in the height an exceeding excelling superexcellent weight of glory And by this effect we may make proofe of grace here If thou hast found Christ in ordinances in duties in meditation in prayer in the promises for here in these things the longing soule diggs after Christ joy will at one time or other fill thy heart yea thy heart will leape for joy thou wilt rejoyce in Spirit as Christ did in his Father Luk. 10.21 For this joy is a fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 and one of the first fruits And God seldome misses to give the soule a tast of this joy at the first or presently after conversion though afterwards clouds may
that God takes us out of the wombe a great support to faith in greatest troubles p. 391. Vntimely birth what and why so called p. 423. Bitter day is a day of trouble p. 360. Bitternesse of soule notes the deepest sorrow p. 442. Blasphemy what pa. 218. The Holiest persons subject to the most blasphemous temptations p. 286. Blessing three wayes 1. Man blesses man 2. Man blesseth God 3. God blesses man what p. 117. All successe from the blessing of God p. 119 120. God delights to blesse those who are laborious ib. The blessing of God is effectuall p. 121. To blesse God what 213. The best outward blessing may be turned into a crosse p. 273. Bodies of the Saints abused and tortured here on earth p. 255. Booke of Job who supposed the pen-man p. 5. The subject principall p. 6. Collaterall p. 7.8 The parts and divisions of it p. 8 9 c. The scope and uses of it p. 10 11 c. C CAlling Every man ought to have a calling p. 120. Cattell the riches of the Patriarchs and why p. 38 c. Chemarims Idolatrous Priests why so called p. 360. Chrildren are blessings p. 34. A greater blessing then riches ib. The more children the more blessing ib. 35. Best to have most sons ib. To have daughters and sons the compleate blessing ib. Many Children no hindrance either of piety or equity p. 36. Love and concord among children is the fathers speciall blessing p. 48. Lawfull delight is to be permitted our children p. 54. Children at full age not out of their parents care p. 55. Childrens soules chiefely to be cared for ib. Parents ought to pray in speciall for every child p. 65. Jobs losse of his children his greatest losse shewed in 5. considerations p. 167 168. Christ His presence makes any place or condition comfortable p 431. That the heart of a beleever is never at rest but in Christ p. 475 476. Cloud what it is and what it signifies in Scripture p· 358. Conception of children the worke and blessing of God p. 389. Counsellours Their power to hurt or doe good among Kings and Princes p. 411. Creatures the best creatures left to themselves will undoe themselves p. 83. Cursing What is meant by cursing God in the heart p. 70 71 c. Cursing hath three things in it p. 131. What to curse God to his face p. 133 218. What it is to curse a thing or person p. 327. A curse containes all evill as blessing all good p. 328. Man is but the minister of any curse p. 330. In what sense the irrationall creatures are capeable of a curse p. 331. D DArkenesse Divers sorts p. 347. A darke day is a sad day p. 348. It staines the beauty of the creature p. 357. Day What it is to regard a day p. 350. Death Suddaine death no argument of Gods disfavour p. 173. Death may surprize us eating therefore be holy in eating p. 173 174. Death shakes us out of all our worldly cloathing p. 200. Death It is sinfull absolutely to wish our own death though we are in paines more painefull then death p. 284. Satan perswades that death is an end of all troubles p. 285. He would make men willing to die when they are most unfit to die p. 285. Death is the totall rest of the godly only p. 400. The outward rest of all p. 403 Death In death we have a 4. fold rest p. 403. Death is the sleepe of the body p. 404. Why so called p. 405. Their opinion refuted who say the soule sleepes when the body dies p. 404 405. No power or policy can prevent death p. 417 436. In death all are equall ib. In what sense we may desire death p. 447. Many afflictions to our feeling are worse then death p. 450. Death finds some before they looke for it others looke for death and cannot find it p. 451. Not to die is a punishment to some in this life and it will be an everlasting punishment to all the damned p. 451. Degrees in grace God hath servants of al sizes p. 103. We ought not to set up our rest in a low or lower degree of grace p. 118. Desire It is not alwayes a mercy to have our desires granted p. 137 138. It is an affliction to nature to be debar'd of what it desires though the thing desired be destructive to nature p. 452. True desires produce endeavours ib. Proportionable to the strength of desire is the strength of endeavour ib. Desires obtained fill with joy p. 455. And with joy proportionable to those desires p. 456. Devills not in fullnesse of torment yet p. 89 90. Diseases Satan can smite the body with diseases if God permit him p. 266. No disease can weare out the markes by which Christ knowes us p. 314. Division and disunion a great curse p. 362. E ENd We should resolve upon our end before we undertake any action p. 310. A wise man proposes sutable ends i. e. Man may propose his end but he cannot reach it p. 307. Eschewing evill more then the not committing of evill p. 28 29. A godly man doth not only forbeare but eschew sin all sin and all the occasions of sin p. 33. Evill of sinne Why sin called evill p. 28. Satan would perswade us to ease our selves of troublesome evills by committing sinfull evills p. 284. Affliction in what sense called evill p. 291. Evill of punishment or affliction considered as coming from God may be borne with more quietnesse p. 292. Because we receive all good from God it is equall that we should patiently beare evill p. 294. Exposition of Scripture very usefull p. 1 2. Exposition of Scripture to the heart the sole priviledge of Christ p. 2. Exposition of Scripture by our lives most excellent p. 2 3. Eye How the sight of the eye wounds the heart either with sin or sorrow p. 393. Also that the sight of the eye affects the heart with joy p. 394. F FAce of God what p. 142. Favour of God makes our worst outward troubles comfortable p. 350. The blessing of the creature depends wholy on the favour and respect which God shewes it p. 351. Feare of God taken two wayes both described p. 27. Moral honesty without the feare of God commends us not to God p. 31. Feare containes every grace p. 32. Feare keepes the life cleane p. 32. What it is to feare God for nought p. 105 c. Whether it be lawfull in times of comfore to feare troubles p. 466. Divers sorts of feare p. 467 c. To feare a feare what it imports p. 466. Holy wisedome bids us feare so as to prepare for evill in our best dayes p. 469. The more we thus feare the lesse we shall feele troubles p. 471. Feasting is lawfull p. 49. Seven rules given about feasting p. 50 c. Feastings anciently in the night p. 364 Fire of God why so called p. 160. Foole and wicked the same p. 287. Low thoughts of God and
those to doe it to whom he giveth his power strength and wisdom There is no meere creature could be strength and security enough for us against our great malicious and mighty enemies therefore God himselfe either is or makes the hedge There is no strength in man but Satan can over-match it Satan can over power all the strength and out-wit all the wisdome that is in the creature Flesh and blood are no match for a spirit And we wrestle not against flesh and bloud but against Principalities and Powers and spirituall wickednesse in high places Ephes 6.12 But if God makes an hedge about us it is not in the power of all the enemies in the world whether men or devils to make a gappe in it they are sure that are under the protection of God They that dwell in the secret place of the most high they shall abide safe under the shadow of the Almighty Ps 91.1 Fifthly You see here how farre the hedge goeth an hedge not onely about his person and houshold but about all that he hath Take the meanest thing that Job hath God protects it and hedgeth it about Then we may note this That God hath an especiall care and doth exceedingly price even the meanest thing that belongs to one of his servant God would not bestow an hedge about it if he did not prize it A man will not hedge or wall that about which he doth not value God highly values the meanest thing that belongs to one of his servants The Psalmist saith Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints But not only is the bloud the life of the Saints precious in the sight of God but every member every haire of their head is precious God numbers these Not only are their children precious but every thing that 's called theirs their servants their houshold their cattell their Oxen their Asses whatsoever they have is all precious in the sight of God Lastly Observe That Satan hath a deadly spight not onely against the persons of the godly but against every thing that belongs unto a godly man Satan would not only hurt and annoy them in their persons but in every thing that 's theirs If God if we may so speake with reverence should leave but a dogge that belongs unto one of his servants unguarded Satan would doe it a mischiefe Satan would be doing at the least thing rather then not doe mischiefe If he cannot destroy our soules he would be at the very haire of our heads therefore Christ to comfort the Disciples in the time of trouble assures them that the very haires of their heads were numbred As if he should say God will have an account of every haire the enemies cannot pull off a haire but God will call them to a reckoning for it And it notes too that the enemies will take hold of any thing that belongs to the people of God if they cannot get all they will get a haire if they can why else is it exprest that the very haires of their heads are numbred Those words at once intimate Gods care of all and Satans malice against all It followeth Hast thou not made an hedge about him c. Thou hast blessed the worke of his hands and his substance is increased in the Land Thou hast blessed The root Barac which from the word here used doth signifie to bow the knee as well as to blesse because men used to how the knee in blessing God or man Blessings are carryed three wayes First From man to man one man blesseth another There were Propheticall or extraordinary blessings as Isaack blessed Jacob and Jacob blessed his sonnes upon his death-bed and there is a popular or ordinary blessing to wish well to another is to blesse another every time we pray for our friends we blesse our friends So man from man Secondly Man blesseth God and then man blesseth God when he praiseth God when he takes notice of and returnes thankes for the blessings received from God Blesse the Lord O my soule c. Psal 103.2 and forget not all that is forget not any of his benefits Thankfully to remember benefits is to blesse the Lord. The Cup in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is called the Cup of Blessing 1 Cor. 10.16 because therein we commemorate the death of Christ and render thanks to the Name of the Lord for the unspeakeable benefits conveighed to us by his blood Thirdly as here in the Text God blesseth man Now God blesseth man when he causeth that to prosper which man undertakes Mans blessing unto man it is only a wish an optative blessing but Gods blessing unto man is an operative blessing as Aquinas expresseth it Dei benedicere est benefacere when God wisheth us good he doth us good So then the sense is Thou hast blessed that is thou hast caused him to prosper and thrive in what he undertakes as we shall see in the object of the blessing Thou hast blessed the worke of his hands The worke of his hands We are not to understand it strictly for manuall or hand labours as if Job were a man imployed in ordinary manual services in the labour of his hands but according to an ordinary use of speech amongst the Hebrewes and likewise amongst other Nations by the worke of the hands is understood any kind of labour any kind of businesse whatsoever As it is said of Christ Isa 53.10 that the pleasure of the Lord did prosper in his hands Now the worke that Christ had to doe was not a handy worke yet it did prosper in his hands that is he managing and going about it it did prosper and tooke successe It was effectuall for the redemption and salvation of his people This was prospering of the worke in his hands In this sense the worke of the head may be called the worke of the hands the worke of the tongue the worke of the hands any worke any businesse that a man doth may be called the worke of his hands So then Thou hast blessed the worke of his hands that is thou hast blessed every thing that Job goeth about as a Magistrate as a Minister or as a Master of a Family in any of in all his relations thou hast caused his endeavours to prosper In the 28th of Deuteronomie an universall blessing is thus promised vers 6. Blessed thou shalt be when thou commest in and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out betweene those two are contained all the labours and undertakings of that people by their going forth is meant the beginning of their labours and by their comming in is meant the end and conclusion of their labours so that beginning and ending when they set their hands to a businesse and when they tooke their hands from a businesse they should be blessed that is they should have a through blessing upon all their labours So here Thou hast blessed the worke of his hands that is every thing he putteth
creature excellence This fire being a strange and extraordinary fire is said to be the fire of God This fire of God is conceived to have been some terrible flash of lightning which in a moment destroy'd and consumed the sheepe and shepheards And this is more probable because it is said to fell downe from heaven that is out of the aire for so often in Scripture heaven is put for the aire the middle region of the aire where Satan hath great power therefore he is called the Prince of the aire and he can doe mighty things command much in that Magazin of Heaven where that dreadfull Artillery which makes men tremble those fiery Meteors thunder and lightning are lodged and stored up Satan let loose by God can doe wonders in the aire He can raise stormes he can discharge the great Ordnance of Heaven thunder and lightning and by his art hee can make them more terrible and dreadfull then they are in nature If the skill and art of man can heighten naturall things then much more the skill of Satan I doubt not but many fearefull impressions are made in the ayre by devils carrying nature by Gods permission farre above it's owne course and these are properly marvels or wonders such as the Magitians wrought in Egypt by the helpe of Satan for miracles are quite out of the devils spheare But he can doe wonders and such was this fire falling from Heaven c. A marvell or wonder is nature mightily improv'd a miracle is nature totally cross'd if not contradicted Observe this for the nature of that fire the effect of it followes in the next words It hath burnt up the sheepe and the servants and consumed them The word in the Originall is It did burne them and eat them up Fire is a devouring element Devouring fire as before a devouring Sword these were devouring judgements upon Job Yet it doth not necessarily inferre that the sheepe were all burnt to ashes but that the sheepe were all killed by that flame of lightning that came from Heaven for it is said of Nadab and Abihu of which we spake before that a fire went out from God and did consume them it is the same Originall word that is here in the Text A fire went out from God and did eat them up yet wee know their bodies were not consumed for they were carried out to their buriall and their garments were upon them So that this consuming doth not note the burning of things to ashes but a striking of them to death it is a devouring fire because it is a destroying fire it takes away life and thus lightnings kill rather by piercing and penetrating than by consuming and devouring But now here it will be questioned for the further opening of this why Satan chooses thus to consume the sheepe with fire why doth he not rather use spoylers to take them away He could doubtlesse have got the Sabeans to have fetched away the flocks of sheepe as well as the droves of greater cattell he could have procured them easily why then doth he cause fire from Heaven to come down the fire of God to consume them I answer his reason for this was to put the greater sting into the affliction He would not have the sheepe taken away after the same manner that the Oxen and Camels were that he might aggravate Jobs trouble and provoke him if he could to be passionate against God yea and for that was his great designe to blaspheme God therefore he procures fire from Heaven to fall upon the sheepe thereby to beget an opinion in Job that God was now become his enemy as well as man When we suffer from man then the afflicted soule flies to God makes his complaint and moane to him as doubtlesse Job did when he heard of those cruell Sabeans and what they had done but lest Job should resort in his thoughts to Heaven and comfort himselfe in God againe the next messenger telleth him that God is his enemy too that the fire of God is fallen upon the sheepe an extraordinary fire as if hee should say God fighteth against thee as well as the Sabeans Alas now to whom should Job make his moane That speech of Eli concerning sinne may well be applyed to suffering If one man sinne against another the Iudge shall judge him but if a man sinne against the Lord who shall intreat for him So if a man suffer from men he may goe unto God but if God himselfe doe appeare to be an enemy and to fight against us to whom shall we goe Indeed Iob knew how to goe to God though he did appeare as an enemy but that is the greatest straight and to doe thus notes the greatest spirituall both skill and strength Hence observe That Satans great designe against the people of God or any servant of God is to provoke them to ill thoughts of God to perswade them that God is their enemy to bring the love and good will of God into suspition therefore he causeth this great fire and it is like formed the servants language in that cutting phrase The fire of God is fallen upon the sheepe Thou canst not put this off as thou mightest doe the other and say this is but the malice or the covetousnesse of the Sabeans that rob'd me of my goods and slew my servants No thou shalt see now that God himselfe is angry Heaven frownes upon thee the fire of God from Heaven consumes thee Turne over the records of all antiquity and see whether God ever dealt thus with any but those cursed Sodomites upon whom God rained fire from Heaven Thou who commest so neare them in the punishment hast reason to judge thy selfe not farre behind them in sin Secondly observe Those afflictions are most grievous wherein God appeares to be against us The malice oâ— devils and the rage of men may be endured but who can stand before God when he is angry If God doth but with-draw his comforts the soule sinkes under smallest tryals how then can it stand if God should reveale his wrath against us when we are in great tryals It may here be questioned why the sheepe were consumed with fire rather than any other of his cattell rather then any other of his substance There are two things in that First the sheepe were used in Sacrifice When the daies of their feasting were ended Job offered Sacrifice and the sheepe chiefly were offered in Sacrifice Now Satan by consuming the sheepe hoped to fasten this upon Iob if possibly he could that God was angry with his very Sacrifices God was angry with his services As if he should say Doest thou thinke that the offering up of thy sheepe in Sacrifice hath beene pleasing to God Certainly if the fire of those Sacrifices had delighted God if he had smelt a savour of rest in them as he is said to have done when Noah offered Sacrifice after the flood Gen. 8.21 he would never have sent a fire
And that this was a greater affliction then any of or then all the former is so cleare that I shall not need to stay long in the confirming of it only to quicken the point a little take notice of the greatnesse of it in 5 respects First It appeareth without controversie to be the greatest of all because it was upon his children a mans children are more then all that he hath in the world a mans children are himselfe every child is the father multiplyed A sonne is the fathers bowells and therefore when Paul wrote to Philemon concerning Onesimus whom saith he I have begotten in my bonds sc to the faith of Christ Receive him who is mine owne bowels A spirituall sonne is the very bowells of a Minister he doth but allude to a naturall sonne a sonne is the very bowels of the father this affliction reached unto the very bowels of Job himselfe Satan had no leave to afflict the body of Job and yet you see he afflicts him in his very bowels Secondly The greatnesse of it is seene in this his children were all taken away To loose all our children is a grievous as to loose an only child Now that is made a cause of the highest sorrows Zach. 12.10 They shall mourne for him as one that mourneth for an only sonne that is they shall mourne most bitterly Now as the measure of mercies may be taken by the comforts which they produce so we may take the measure of an affliction by the sorrow which it produceth And that is the greatest affliction which causeth the greatest sorrow Thirdly It was a further greatning of the affliction that they were all taken away suddenly Had death sent them summons by its usuall messenger sicknesse but a day before to prepare themselves it had much sweetned the bitternesse of this cup but to heare they were dead before he knew they were sick yea when he thought they were merry and rejoycing how sad was this Fourthly That they died a violent death by a mighty wind casting the house downe upon them Had they dyed in their beds though suddenly it had bin some ease to the Fathers heart violent death hath an impression of wrath upon it And men can hardly judge well of those who fall by such judgements Suspition will arise if censure passe not from better men then Barbarians if they see a viper on the hand of a Paul Act. 28. It is more then probable from our Saviours question that those eighteene upon whom the Tower in Siloe fell and slew them were commonly supposed greater sinners or sinners above all men that dwelt in Hierusalem Luk. 18.4 Fifthly They were all taken away when they were feasting and this did exceedingly aggravate the affliction upon Job that his children were all destroied feasting for you know what the thoughts of Job were concerning his children at their feasting after they had done he offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all for he said it may be my sonnes have sinned and cursed God in their hearts Now at this time when Satan knew that Job was most solicitous lest his children should sinne at that time doth he destroy them that so their father might be afflicted with the thought that his children died unreconciled to God that they died with sinne upon them unrepented of That they died a double death death at once seasing upon both soule and body This then was a further degree of Satans malice to wound vexe and grieve the spirit of Job unto the utmost How sadly and pissionatly did David lament Absoloms death Some conceive this was the head of the Arrow that pierced him because he feared his sonne died in a sinfull condition he was suddenly taken away in his rebellion unreconciled either to God or man Such a thought might fall upon Jobs heart my children are suddenly dead and dead feasting it may be they forgot God it is possible they sinned in feasting and cursed God in their hearts Alas my children died before they could so much as thinke of death I feare they are gone rejoycing to Hell where they shall weepe for evermore Doubtlesse Satan did or might fasten such a temptation upon his heart who was so tender of his childrens soules and so fearfull of their sinning in feasting So then it is cleare from all these particular considerations that this was the greatest affliction Be prepared then not onely to receive another affliction but to receive a greater affliction and have thoughts of receiving the greatest affliction at the last Satan will come with his strongest assaults when thou art weakest At the time of death when he seeth he can doe no more but that he must then doe it or never doe it then thou shalt be sure to have the strongest temptations It should therefore stirre up the people of God still to looke for more and more strength to beare afflictions and tentations and to beg from Christ the greatest strength at last because they may justly feare the greatest temptations at last If as Satan doth greaten his temptations Christ doth greaten his assistance we shall be able to beare them and be more then conquerours over them So much of this fourth charge in the generall I shall now open the words more particularly for those in the 18th verse I shall not need to say any thing of them they have been handled before at the 13th verse which runnes thus And there was a day when his sonnes and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their Eldest brothers house The 19th verse describes the manner of this tryall And behold there came a great wind from the wildernesse c. And behold Ecce or behold in Scripture ever notes more then ordinary matter following 1. Great things call for attention 2. That which is sudden and unexpected calls us to behold it 3. Rare things things seldome seen invite all to see and wonder at them Here is matter of admiration What God threatens in the Law he seemes to fulfill upon Job I will make their plagues wonderfull There is no Ecce prefixed to any of the former three affiictions but this as being the most strange and terrible comes in with an Ecce And behold There came a great wind It was a wind and a great wind that came The wind is elegantly said to come as the Sunne out of his chamber and rejoycing as a strong man to runne a race Psal 19.5 Hence the word which the Latines use for the wind is derived from a word that signifies to come Because the wind comes with force and violence The wind in the nature of it is an exhalation arising from the earth drawne upwards by the power of the Sunne and other Heavenly bodies but meeting and conflicting a while with the cold of the middle region of the ayre is beaten backe againe And being so light that naturally it cannot descend and so resisted that it cannot peaceably ascend it takes a
worldly comforts and possessions Death is called an uncloathing 2 Cor. 5.4 We that are in this Tabernacle doe groane being burdened not for that we would be uncloathed that is not that we would die Death is called an uncloathing because it pulleth all outward things off from a man it pulleth off all his raiment his riches his lands his honours yea death uncloathes the very bones our flesh weares off quickely in the grave Wee have a usuall phrase among us and it is a very proper one when a rich man dies we say he left a great estate he leaves it indeed for he cannot carry it with him he must goe out naked how well cloathed so ever he was while he was here The Apostle doth more then intimate that some rich men do scarce beleeve this for sound doctrine he speaks as if he would beat them off from some thought of carrying the world with them out of the world while they live they are buried in their riches and when they die they hope their riches will be buried with them yea and rise with them againe Such a conceit I say the Apostle seemes to meet with for in the 1 Tim. 6.7 having said We brought nothing with us into this world he addeth in the next words and it is certaine we can carry nothing out he doth not say we brought nothing into the world and we can carry nothing out as Job here speakes but as if Jobs assertion had come into question in Pauls time he saith we brought nothing into this world and it is certaine never doubt of the truth of it we can carry nothing out we shall goe out as we came-in Many as the Prophet Habbakkuk speakes Chap. 2.6 lade themselves with thick clay But as the question there followes How long This lading must be laid downe againe If riches end not before thee as thine they must end with thee Yet if any would carry riches and cloathing out of the world it will be their wisdome to labour for spirituall riches for spirituall cloathing when such die as they shall not be found naked so they shall not goe out naked All your other cloathing and riches must be left on this side the grave but get spirituall cloathing and riches and you shall goe out of the world adorn'd and enrich'd for ever the cloathing of grace the robe of righteousnesse a vesture of spirituall ornaments will endure to all eternity Thirdly note here further how the Holy Ghost describes the life of man Naked came I into the world and naked shall I returne The life of man it is nothing else but a comming and a returning Here is nothing said of staying or abiding We have here no continuing City while we are here we can hardly be said to continue here and after a few dayes we shall not be here at all It is but a comming and a going it is but a flood and an ebbe and then we are carried into the Ocean of eternity We may yet consider the words as they are an argument and so I shall note two things from them So Job uses them as an argument both to support himselfe and to acquit God Then observe First That a godly man in his straights studieth arguments to acquit and justifie God in all his dealings with him Job could not have found out upon longest study a better or a stronger argument for the acquitting of God then this is I have as much as I brought then what wrong is done me in all this As wicked men when they fall into straits or troubles especially when they fall into sin study arguments how to shift themselves out and lay all the blame upon God as Adam and Eve our first Parents in Paradise there it began when they had sinned and were naked they began to devise shifts how to put it from themselves and to fasten the fault upon God David on the other side labours as much to cleare God if ever he should be stript naked Psa 51.4 I will confesse my sinne that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest and cleare when thou judgest Weigh the reason why David confesseth his sinne in that Psalme I doe it saith he that I may by this meanes acquit God whatsoever God shall doe with me hereafter whatsoever affliction God shall bring upon me men it may be will begin to judge Gâ—d for it and to say that he hath dealt hardly with me notice having been taken what an eminent servant of God I have been Behold saith he I confesse my sinne before thee that thou maist be cleare when thou judgest or as the Apostle Paul quotes the place according to the Septuagint Rom. 3.4 That thou mightest overcome when thou art judged David knew men would be apt to judge God if they saw him afflicted and therefore to stop their mouthes or to give God the day against them he confesses his sin thereby shewing cause why God might chastise him either for correction of sin past or prevention of sin to come Secondly As the argument referreth unto Job himselfe we may observe this That the consideration of what we once were and of what at last we must be may releeve our spirits in the greatest outward afflictions of this life Art thou for the present in a naked condition Consider thou wast naked once and ere long shalt be naked againe Consider the two extreames the beginning and the ending and that will beare thee up in the middle condition There is many a man that complaines and saith I have nothing but the cloathes upon my backe left me and they are but raggs but meane ones neither Why With nothing but the cloathes upon thy backe Know O man thou wast borne with nothing but thy skin upon thy backe Consider this and leave complaining this was one thought which helped Job to beare this burden the want of all And the Apostle Paul useth this argument to the very same purpose 1 Tim. 6.6 having said That godlinesse with contentment is great gaine he subjoynes presently this argument of Job for saith he we brought nothing into this world and it is certaine we shall carry nothing out To consider what not long agoe we were and what very shortly we must be will mightily work the soule to contentation in what estate soever wee are It followes The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away This is the second argument which Job useth to both the former purposes and it is a more spirituall and sublime argument than the former A man who hath nothing in him but nature may say as much as Job did before though he could never say it with Jobs spirit for though godly persons use naturall arguments and common reasons yet being concocted in their spirits they become heavenly and spirituall Naturall men I say or Heathens have taken up such an argument as that as when word was brought to a Heathen Philosopher that his sonne was dead I knew saith he that I
of life there cannot be any miscarriage in pitching upon either of these Interpretations I shall give you some notes from hence First observe what a blessing life is Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Life is the most precious treasure the most excellent thing in nature And let me tell you life is the treasure that is now so much digged for there are many abroad that are digging for your precious lives Consider what lyes at stake and what will you give for the securing or reducing of it Have we not cause to say of some of our bloody brethren as Jacob did Gen. 32.12 when his brother Esau was marching towards him I feare him saith he least he will come and slay me and the mother with the children Losse of life was the thing Jacob feared And Hesters speech in her petition to the King imports that all other losses might have been borne but losse of life Cap. 7. ver 3 4. Let my life saith she be given at my Petition and my people at my request for we are sold I and my people to be destroyed to be slaine and to perish But if we had been sold for bond-men and for bond-women I had held my tongue See how she wrought for life for her own life and the life of her people and thought liberty not worth the asking for compared with life Moses made many demurrs and excuses I am not eloquent c. when God gave him Commission to goe into Aegypt but we heare of no delayes at all when once God had said Returne into Egypt for all the men are dead which sought thy life Exod. 4. ver 19. God had not spoken thus if he had not knowne there was such a scruple in his mind which would have galled him worse in his travels to Egypt then any peble in his shoe Secondly If life be the most precious thing the richest jewell in the world then in the next place learne to value your lives You see how Satan values life here out of an ill intent only to extenuate and undervalue all the sufferings of Job he sets his life at a very high rate that he might make all his losses of no rate not worth the speaking off Let our intent be good and then it is good for us to value our lives high and to sell them at as deare a rate as we can if we must sell them You know what Solomon saith in the person of a naturall man A living dog is better then a dead Lion Eccles 9.4 We reade what is said of the woman in the Gospell that had spent all she had upon Physitians What was it for Onely to restore her health which is a degree below life Certainly if she spent all that she had to obtaine health which is onely the comfort of life shall not we spend a part of that we have to save our lives As ships in danger to be wrack'd in a storme are often preserved by casting some of their rich lading into the Sea So it is possible yea probable that the casting away of some of your estates in this great storme may be a meanes to save both your ship and your lives your estates kept may sinke the vessell and then you must sinke with it and certainly die or swim from it and hardly live When Esau Gen. 25.32 was hungry and could not obtaine a messe of pottage from his brother but upon very hard tearmes the sale of his birth-right Sell me thy birth-right saith Jacob a precious jewell indeed which Esau should have valued more then his life but he comes to his price on this ground Behold I am at the point to die and what profit shall this birth-right doe to me He was prophane Esau for saying so that 's the Apostles stile Heb. 12.16 It was profanenesse to preferre one morsell of meat before his birth-right because the birth-right was a spirituall priviledge as well as a naturall but there is no meere naturall blessing but we may both in wisdome and conscience part with to keepe our lives when yee are ready to die yee may say what will this estate these riches doe us good If that your estates may be the price of your lives yee have reason and it is your duty to part with them willingly give some give all for what will these riches do you good when you are ready to die or already dead Further be ready to give more than your estates for your lives Give some of your bloud for your lives that 's more Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life and which is yet more give a limbe for your lives The whole is better then a part And which is highest of all venture your lives to save your lives That which I intend is only this doe not barter away your lives upon meane rates upon low tearmes If it comes to it as wee have great cause to feare it will we see many have been put to it already sell your lives as deare as you can Indeed there are none in so great danger to loose their lives as they that will not venture their lives That of Christ is true in this sense also he that will save his life shall loose it such saving tends to undoing yea it tends to death And whosoever will venture to loose his life shall most probably find it Math. 16.25 Let it not be said that you died to save charges let it not be said that you died to save your skins or to save your bloud yea let it not be said that you died to save your lives I meane that you feared to hazard your lives for the securing of your lives Give all that you have for your lives venture life and all your safety depends upon this hazard by such a noble liberality you are in the fairest way not only to save all you have but to gain more then you have Thirdly If your lives be so much worth what are your soules worth What is this life which is valued thus above all that a man hath The Apostle James makes the question and gives the answer It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away Jam. 4.14 a mans breath it is but in his nostrils it is gone presently yet you see in a true value all the world is below that If you are to esteeme your lives so at what price will you set your soules To save your lives and save your soules are two things A man may save his life and yet loose his soule yea many labour to save their lives in doing that which will be the losse of their soules poore creatures Therefore looke to that set a high rate indeed upon your immortal soules when estates and liberties and lives are called for count them all as trash that you may save your soules hazard not your soules If life be more worth then all the world
the soule is more worth then a thousand lives What will it advantage a man to gaine the world and loose his soule Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soule The truth is a man should not gaine much to get the whole world and loose his life that losse is a losse irreparable irrecompensible from the creature Nature teacheth us to prize our lives above the world and grace teacheth us to value our soules above our lives Therefore how unnaturall are they that preferre a little profit before their lives but O how ungracious are they who preferre a little profit before their soules Some will sinne as we say for six-pence selling their owne soules as those false Prophets did the soules of their people for hand-fulls of barley and for peeces of bread Ezek. 13.19 And whereas a man should give all for his life they will give their soules for a thing of nought Know therefore the worth of your soules Jesus Christ thought soules worth his life and therefore dyed to save soules How much then doe our soules transcend our owne lives And if Christ laid downe his life to ransome soules doe you rather lay downe a thousand lives if you had them then indanger your soules either by acting sinne or by submitting unto errour In that case let estate goe let liberty goe let life let all goe for life hath not so much preheminence over all as the soule hath over life Fourthly If your lives are worth so much then what is the Gospell worth If a man would give all for his life what should he give for his Religion to maintaine and uphold that in the purity and power of it Life is a precious thing a thing of great value but when the Gospell comes in competition then life is a poore commodity and our breath but a perishing vapour Such was the judgement of that great Apostle Act. 20.24 when the Holy Ghost had witnessed in every City that bonds and afflictions did abide him in preaching the Gospell he thus resolves But none of these things move me neither count I my life deare unto my selfe so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministery which I have received to testifie the Gospell of the grace of God His life came to a low rate in his esteeme how cheape was life when the Gospell was spoken of I count not my life deare saith Paul as all other outward things are meane and low compared with life so life it selfe is a meane a low thing in comparison of the Gospell This life is but the life of the body but the Gospell is the life of the soule Many men live but no soule lives on this side or without the Gospell Now if you will offer much to save your lives will not you offer much more to save the Gospell In and about this we may make the best improvement of Satans argument Skin for skin and all that a man hath should he give for the Gospell for Gospell ordinances for Gospell priviledges for Gospell light Where or for what will you venture and bid high if not for the precious Gospell Lastly If life be worth all then hereby we may take measure of the love and bounty of Christ to poore sinners who not onely spent himselfe in all to his life but spent life and all that they might not perish the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was exceeding great towards us That though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poore 2 Cor. 8.9 That though he was in the forme of God and thought it no robbery to be equall with God yet he made himselfe of no reputation Phil. 2.6 7. But how superabundant was his grace towards us that though he was the Prince of life Act. 3.15 Yet became obedient unto death even the death of the crosse Phil. 2.8 that we might live If a man loves his life so that he will give skin for skin and all that he hath to redeeme it then O how did Christ love his Church who gave not only his riches and his reputation but his life also for it's redemption JOB 2.5 6 7 8. But put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face And the Lord said unto Satan Behold he is in thine hand but save his life So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boyles from the sole of his foote unto his crowne And he tooke him a pot-sheard to scrape himselfe withall and he sate downe among the ashes IN this fifth verse Satan goeth on and makes a motion unto God as we observed his method in the former Chapter but put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face This is Satans motion In the sixth verse we have a grant of this motion bound up yet with a limitation as it was in the former Chapter For the motion But put forth thine hand now and touch c. What it importeth to put forth the hand that was opened in the former Chapter vers 11. where we have the same expression therefore we shall not stay upon it here Consider now only that which is differing a new object upon which the hand must be put forth and which Satan desireth might now be touched It is the laying of his hand not upon his Cattell or upon his estate or upon his children but upon his flesh and his bone Touch his bone and his flesh that is afflict his body The bone and the flesh are the two chiefe parts the materiall parts of the body of them the whole Fabrique doth consist the bone it is as the timber in this house and the flesh it is as the lime and morter filling of it up Touch this saith Satan And in that he saith touch his bone and his flesh he intends and requires a deepe and a sore affliction upon his body for if he had said only thus Touch his flesh that had beene an affliction upon his body For we know often in Scripture the flesh is put for the whole body and sometimes for the whole man therefore Satan is not satisfied with an expression generall but he putteth it in direct and expresse termes Touch his flesh and his bone that is touch him so as that the paine and the distemper may sinke into his very bones into his very Marrow touch him thus and then you shall see what he will doe The Bone it selfe is a part without feeling yet to touch the bone imports the greatest paine that can be felt Touch his bone and his flesh and then saith he He will curse thee to thy face What it is to curse to the face hath bin opened already in the former Chapter at the eleventh verse and I must referre you thither for the sence of this phrase only in a word take it thus Hee will curse thee to thy face is as if
he had many weakenesses upon him yet he preached the Gospell And then it followes in the next verse My temptation which was in my flesh you despised not observe he calleth his bodily infirmity a temptation The afflictions of the body are great temptations to the soule It is very considerable to this purpose what the Apostle James saith when he speaks of the severall conditions of the Saints and their duties in them Chap. 5. v. 13 14. Is any man afflicted let him pray he speakes that in generall Is any man merry let him sing Psalmes Is any man sick Is he pained by sicknesse in his body What shall he doe then He doth not say Is any man sick let him pray but Is any man sick let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him As if he should say A sick man is very unfit to pray himselfe though for himselfe he hath need to call others to pray with him and for him he hath enough to doe to wrastle with his pain and conflict with that affliction In other afflictions let him pray but if he be sick let him send for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him A diseased body unfits the mind for holy duties The prayer of sick Hezekiah is called chattering like a Crane or Swallow so did I chatter Isa 38. it was rather chattering then praying such a disquietnesse and uncomposednesse was upon his spirit thorough or by the infirmity of his flesh Paine is a piercing shaft in Satans quiver of temptations Though the spirit of a man will sustaine his infirmity yet oftentimes a wound in the body wounds the soule and the diseases of the flesh make the spirit sick A wounded spirit no man can beare and a wound in the body is a burden too heavy for many men And if it be so Then the pain and the weaknesse of the body is no advantage to repentance and returning unto God How pittifully are they mistaken who put off repentance till their bodies be in paine till they are sick and weake they doe it upon this ground because when they are in paine they thinke they shall repent with more ease Observe if Satan thinks to have such an advantage upon a holy man as to make him blaspheme when he is in paine doest thou thinke paine will be an advantage to thy repentance It is said that at the powring out of the fourth Viall Rev. 16.9 when God did smite the inhabitants of the earth and scorched them with great heat that they blasphemed the Name of God they did that which Satan presumed Job would doe and they repented not to give him glory It is a woefull thing to put off repentance to a pained body paine in its own nature fits us rather to blaspheme and turne from God then to returne to him Never thinke to have helpe for the cure of your soules by the diseases of your bodies usually we find that either sick persons repent not or theirs is but a sickly repentance At the most paine can but restraine your lusts it can never heale them The actings of some sins are quickned by diseases At the most a disease can but abate the acts of sin it can never destroy the life of it Death it selfe cannot kill sin The sins of wicked men live when they are dead the grave cannot consume them no nor the fire of Hell wast their strength the sins of unbeleevers shall remaine not only in their guilt but in their power to all eternity So much of Satans motion But put forth thy hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face Verse 6. And the Lord said unto Satan Behold he is in thy hand but save his life Here we have the Lords grant unto that motion of Satan He is in thy hand but save his life Thou mayest doe with his bone and his flesh what thou wilt He is in thine hand We have opened what it is to have a thing put into the hand in the former Chapter where the same expression is used therefore I shall passe those words here Note only this that the Lord saith here He is in thy hand to prevent Satans cavill as if he had said Thou movest me to touch his bone and his flesh well lest thou shouldest say that I have dealt too gently with him and have smitten him with favour I will put the rod or staffe into thine hand doe thou with 〈◊〉 bone and his flesh what thou canst spare him not We know the Lord is able to strike stronger stroakes and give deeper wounds infinitely then Satan can if he pleaseth yet the love of God to his children stops his hand and breakes the blow He corrects in judgement and debates in measure Isa 27.8 when he strikes his children he strikes them as children gently Thus 2 Sam. 7.14 speaking of Davids family If he commit iniquity saith God I will chasten him with the rod of men the word there used is Enosh which signifies a weake man I will chasten him with the rod of a weake man of one that hath but a weake arme or hand the hand of a sickly fraile man A weake a sickly man cannot strike very hard Thus saith God I will chasten thy children if they commit iniquity they shall rather see my care then feele my power in their corrections Now I say lest Satan should pretend partiality God puts Job into Satans hand and gives him liberty to lay on as hard as his hand acted with utmost malice could smite him thou hast liberty to smite him into the very valley of the shadow of death to bring him so neere death that he may looke into the graves mouth but no further Save his life Here is Satans chaine the limitation or restraint of his power When God puts any of his servants into Satans hand he keepes Satan in his owne hand And as all the Elect are in Gods hand to keepe them from taking hurt so the Devill is in Gods hand to keep him from doing hurt to his Elect. Save his life The word Nephesh here used signifieth properly the soule and the soule is in Scripture often put for the life because the soule is the spring the fountaine of life life is derived or diffused into the body from or by the soule and as soone as the soule is parted from the body life departs Hence both this Hebrew word and the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have their names from breathing or respiring For life goes out when breath goes out when we cease breathing we cease living Our life is but a blast a breath the Lord formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrills the breath of life and he became a living soule Gen. 2.7 This is that vitall spirit by which all quick things move therefore Beasts Birds Fish and creeping things are called living soules Gen. 1.20 24. And
also of Jobs triall might have born the same name As the Lord will be seen in the mount of our afflictions to provide for us so he will see us in the mount of our afflictions to please himself The Psalmist describeth God looking down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand that did seek God Psal 53.2 Surely then if any do seek God much more if they suffer from him or for him in a holy manner he will look downe from Heaven to see them Thirdly I will note that as another ground why God would have his life spared because he had much use of him when he was in that condition full of sores and scabs A godly man is never in such an estate but God hath some use of his life Therefore saith God Save his life though he be full of sores or rather from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot one continued sore though he be a most lamentable creature and cannot wag hand or foot in any service of man yet spare his life for he may thus stand me in great stead and do me more service then many thousands who as we speake are sound winde and limbe and have not one blemish upon the whole body A godly person is ever usefull to God though he cannot stirre a limbe yet his life may be usefull to God whereas a wicked man though strong and healthy though furnisht with outward comforts and accommodations is altogether unserviceable he will not doe God a stroake of worke though he have received great pay and wages afore-hand A godly man will serve God in and by his poverty in and by his sicknesse when diseased when distressed when nothing is to be seen upon him but scabs and boiles Grace will work through all the defects and decayes of nature And when the life of nature can scarce move one member of the outward man upon the earth the life of grace moves all the members of the inward man toward Heaven Though the outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4.16 Lastly God saved his life as a punishment and vexation upon Satan The Talmudists are vouched to affirme that it was not so grievous to Job to be afflicted in his body as it was to Satan when God restrained him from destroying his life As if a man should be permitted to crack the glasse but he must not spill the wine That his life must be kept whole in him was Satans wound It is a torture to malice not to do the utmost mischiefe So much for the clearing of these words Behold he is in thine hand but save his life From the Lords grant observe first That God doth oftentimes give up the bodies of his faithfull servants to be abused and tormented by Satan and his instruments He is in thine hand thou maiest do with him what thou wilt on this side death Touch his flesh and his bone or touch his flesh to the bone strike as hard wound as deep as thou canst It is said Revel 2.10 that Satan should cast some of them that is of the servants of God into prison God gave up their bodies to irons and fetters to the stocks and shackles He permits those bodies which are Temples of the holy Ghost to be thrust into dungeons and the chambers of death Therefore doe not thinke it strange to see the bodies of the children of God put into cruell and bloudy hands though they are vessels of honour and Temples of the holy Ghost yet God may give up those bodies to be defiled and polluted with the outrages of the most abominable wretches consider what the Apostle speakes of the Jewish Martyrs Heb. 11. How were their bodies abused and mangled They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were slaine with the sword they wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy Their bodies had not a house to dwell in nor garments to put on in whose soules God himselfe dwelt and had put upon them the garment of Salvation Who is able to expresse yea to conceive what strange inventions of crueltie have been brought into the world to vex and torment the bodies of the Saints The stories of the Primitive times are full but the fathers of the Romish inquisition have exceeded them all Satan here invents a strange disease as an engine to torture Jobs body in that he mixt the rack and the wheel the sword and the saw the fiery gridiron and the boyling oil The pain of a thousand deaths was heightn'd in that malignant distemper Secondly he is in thine hand but save his life saith God The matter wherein Satan is limited is life then note That life and death are in the hand of God It is truth that all we have is in the hand of God but God keeps our life in his hand last of all and he hath that in his hand in a speciall manner So David expresses it Thou holdest my soul in life though the soul continue life may not continue there is the soul when there is not life life is that which is the union of soul and body Thou holdest my soul in life that is thou holdest soul and body together So Daniel describes God to Belshazzar Dan. 5.23 The God in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all thy wayes hast thou not glorified The breath of Princes is in the hand of God and the same hand holds the breath of the meanest subject This may be matter of comfort to us in such times as these are times of danger and times of death when the hand of man is lifted up to take thy life remember thy life is held in the hand of God And as God said here to Satan Afflict the body of Job but save his life so God saith still to bloudy wretches who are as the limbs of Satan The bodies of such and such are in your hands the estates of such and such are in your hands but save their lives The life of a man is never at the mercy of a creature though it be a common speech of men when they have a man under them Now I have you at my mercy though some brag as Laban did to Jacob It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt yet God often checks them as he did Laban from so much as speaking hurt Gen. 31.29 but the God of your father spake unto me yester-night saying Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad Creatures though full of love cannot speak good and though full of malice they cannot speak bad if God forbid then much lesse can they do us hurt and least of all hurt our lives if God with-hold David triumphs in his interest in such a God Psal 68.20 Our God is the God of salvation that is of deliverance of outward deliverance for that is
especially there meant and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death or the goings out from death that is God hath all wayes that lead out from death in his own keeping he keepeth the key of the door that lets us out from death when a man is in the valley of the shadow of death where shall he issue out where shall he have a passage No where saith man he shall not escape but God keepeth all the passages when men think they have shut us up in the jawes of death he can open them and deliver us To him belong the issues from death It is an allusion to one that keepeth a passage or a door And God is a faithfull keeper and a friendly keeper who will open the door for the escape of his people when they cry unto him It is exprest so in Psal 141.7 Our bones are scattered at the graves mouth as when one cutteth or cleaveth wood upon the earth that is we are even ready to die to be put into the grave What then But mine eyes are upon thee O God the Lord in thee is my trust leave not my soul destitute Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me Let the wicked fall into their own nets whilest I withall escape that is make me a way to escape As if he should say Thou hast the key of the gate by which we may issue out from death Lord I look that thou shouldest now open it for me Let it comfort us that God hath our lives and the issues from death in his own hand When Satan thought he had Job fast enough lockt up in the valley of the shadow of death God kept him safe he opened a door and let him out Thirdly note that as God hath life in his hand in a speciall manner so he takes speciall care of the lives of his people Save his life saith God I will look to that Psal 116.15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints Precious is their death not that death it self is precious a privation hath no preciousnesse in it but their life is precious therefore he will have a great price for their death God puts off the life of a Saint at a deare rate Woe unto those who violently and unjustly take away that which is so precious in the esteeme of God at one time or other he will make them pay dear for such Jewels Fourthly observe It is mercy to have our lives though we lose all things else You see here God saith concerning Job Save his life I have given thee his estate thou hast spoiled that now I will leave his body in thine hand wound that afflict that but save his life Here was mercy Therefore it was a speciall promise and priviledge made and granted to some in times of great publike sufferings and common calamities as to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian Jer. 39.18 and to Baruch the Scribe Jer. 45.5 that their lives should be given to them for a prey as if God had said It is no ordinary favour in times of common danger to have your lives for a prey you complain for this losse and that losse and you have cause too but think withall that you have your lives And why is it said that they should have their lives for a prey A prey you know properly is that which we take out of the hand of an enemie that which was in his possession the lives of these persons were said to be given to them for a prey in those perillous times because God by his care and providence did as it were fetch back their lives from the hand of the enemie their lives in naturall reason were in their enemies hands but God undertakes to fetch them back and recover them out of their hands and so they were promised to have their lives for a prey Thus God giveth to many of his people their lives for a prey and they are to blesse God in this behalfe whatsoever afflictions and troubles are upon them that yet they have their lives Lastly we may hence raise our meditations to consider the wonderfull love of God to us in Christ when God sent Christ into the world to save sinners he put him into the hands of Satan and his instruments yet he doth not say as here to Satan Save his life Afflict him as thou wilt persecute him in his cradle despise him slander him revile him accuse him crowne his head with thornes scourge him buffet him spit in his face c. but save his life No this bound is not set to the malice of Satan or the rage of men God gives them leave to take life and all Concerning his servant Job God saith to Satan Spare his life but when he sendeth his Son he gives no order to have him spared but gives his cruell enemies full scope How wonderfull is the love of God who for our sakes was so expensive of his Sons life when as he thus spared the life of a servant If Satan had been chained up from taking the life of Christ he had been at liberty to triumph over our lives to all eternity We had all died if God had said to Satan concerning Christ Save his life Thus we see the Commission of Satan against Job and the limitation of it Satan was not tyed up so short as he was in the former Chapter and yet still he is tyed There he might meddle with Jobs estate but not with his body here he may meddle with his body but not with his life Though God lengthen Satans chain yet he never lets Satan loose though he be at more liberty then before yet he is in custody there is a But of restriction upon him still It is our comfort that though Satan as Philosophers speake of liquids water and the like cannot keep himself in his own bounds yet he is easily kept in bounds by the word and power of God Verse 7. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boiles from the sole of the feet unto his crowne Verse 8. And he took him a potsheard to scrape himselfe withall and he sate down among the ashes So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. He is presently upon execution as soon as he hath his commission We have explained these words in the former Chapter See then what he doth He smote Job with sore boiles from the sole of his feet unto his crown He smote Job saith the Text. In the former afflictions Satan had instruments to work by He stirred up the Caldeans and Sabeans he moved the fire and the winde into a conspiracie against Job Here he that he might be sure it should be done fully doth it himselfe He smote Job When the devil smiteth he smiteth thorowly he smiteth home When Angels strike they strike to purpose It is said Act. 12. that an Angel of the Lord smote Herod and he was eaten of wormes and
it is a giving of glory to God and our giving glory to God is our blessing of God Josh 7.19 Give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him Thus blesse God that is confesse thy sin and so prepare thy selfe to die in a holy manner seeing thou art past hope of life addresse thy selfe piously for death Thus he and all upon these grounds First because he could not be perswaded that a wife the Governesse of such a holy family as Jobs was a wife the companion of such a holy man as Job was should be so full of the Devill so wicked to speake the Devils words with the Devils heart And secondly because Satan himself could not be so sencelesse as to beleeve or hope that such desperate counsell could ever take upon Jobs heart And therefore he conceives that she advised him only as any one would a dying friend or a malefactor condemned and ready to be carried to execution yet persisting in his sin or unlamenting the wickednesse which procur'd that sentence Her errour saith he was only this that she judged him wicked because he was thus smitten and that he trusted upon his integrity because he held it fast whereas indeed Job looked for no good but out of the hand of Free-grace and accounted his very Integrity but dung to the righteousnesse and redemption of the promised Messiah But with humble respect to so reverend an Authour there are two reasons strong against this Exposition in my apprehension which I shall propose and submit to the readers judgement The first is this It had been quite against Satans designe that Jobs wife should give her husband good counsell For it had been so farre from being an addition to Jobs affliction that it had been a great abatement of it to heare his wife speake so holily and administring such wholesome counsell in the substance of it though mistaken in the application of it to him And surely a heart so composed as Jobs was under all these pressures would have shaped out such an answer as this My deare wife I thanke thee for thy care and counsell thou hast a holy jealousie over me that I am not in such a posture of spirit as becomes a dying man Though there be an errour in thy advise as applied to me yet I take it as an errour of love and thy reproofe though misplaced is very acceptable and pretious unto me But which makes my second reason He reproves her for it and tells her plainely Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh Whereas if that had been the meaning of her words she spake as one of the wise women like a wise woman indeed It is an act of wisedome and of love both to suspect ill of another when that suspition leads us only to advise him for his good It is an excellent thing when jealousies are improved into faithfull counsels Surely then Job had never numbred her with the foolish women if that speech of hers had imported only an humble preparation for his approaching death In the second place Some who translate the words Blesse God and die doe yet expound them as very sinfull counsell though the words sound faire yet the sense is made very foule These understand them as an Ironie as if his wife scoffing and jeering her husband had said Doest thou still retaine thine integrity blesse God and die thou shalt have enough of thine integrity take thy fill of blessing of God thou art all for blessing God and holding fast thy integrity goe on if thou wilt and blesse God still and see what thou shalt get by it thou shalt have no other reward but a wound thou shalt receive no wages of this Master but death blesse God and die repeate that speech now which you used under the first affliction Repeate againe that beloved maxime with which you seeme to be so much delighted The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord you shall see it will not fright death away or be any security from the graveâ— you thought when you spoke those words first that they would have prevented a second trouble and that God who saw you take the former stroake so kindly at his hands would not strike you againe But you see good words are no defence against blowes And if thou shouldest be so foolish to flye for refuge to the same submissive language experience would quickly teach thee that as before it could not protect thee from this soare disease so now it would be no protection from the arrest of death Blesse God and die Some strengthen this sense from the forme of speaking here used which is imperative Blesse God and die She bids him doe it I doe it and spare not Such expressions import a mixture of scorne as Lam. 4.21 Rejoyce and be glad O daughter of Edom Here is a grant if not a command a seeming direction if not an injunction to rejoyce and be glad what is given as the occcasion of this joy The Cup also shall passe thorough unto thee What cup A cup of blood a cup of trembling And is this to be rejoyced in Surely in such joy the heart must be heavy and the acting of such mirth is sorrow yet he bids her rejoyce as if he had said be as merry as you can yet the cup shall passe thorough unto thee thou shalt not escape So Eccles 11.9 Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thine heart cheere thee and walke in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes doe so but know that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement Thus here Blesse God and die Goe on I pray take thy fill of blessing God blesse him as much and as long as thou wilt yet I see the image of death in thy face die thou shalt Mr. Broughton seemes to encline to such a meaning in his translation doest thou still hold thine integrity blessing God and dying As if she had said wilt thou be such a foole to goe on blessing God and dying blessing God while he is killing thee which was indeed Jobs wisedome and his resolution a little after Though he kill me yet will I trust in him So farre of those who translate the text blesse God and die with that two-fold exposition upon it I shall now consider what sense we are to make out of these words as we translate them and as they are indeed most generally translated Curse God and die This reading of the text seemes most answerable to Satans designe which being to provoke Job to curse God it was most proper to sute his wives spirit with such thoughts and to put his own words into her mouth Curse God and die This thred is of the same spinning with the former and carries Satans plot home upon his own principles She speakes this adversaries mind as fully as he could himselfe when she bids her
husband Curse God and die But could Job die when he listed that she biddeth him curse God and die What meanes this language Some interpret her meaning to be this die by thy owne hand destroy thy selfe as sons of Belial use to say goe hang thy selfe murther thy selfe make an end of thy selfe As God by these plagues is thy Judge so be thou to end the matter thy owne executioner Or as others Curse God that so he may be provoked to take thee out of the world quickly Or curse God and die ease thy heart somewhat and give it vent by breaking out against God in blasphemies take this revenge upon him and then let him doe his worst curse God though thou die for it Lastly curse God That so the Magistrate taking notice of it thou mayest be cut off by the Sword of Justice We know blasphemers were sentenc'd to death without mercy by the Law of Moses and it is not improbable that the light of nature might carry those Nations to as high and severe a revenge against that highest sin We know Socrates was adjudged to death by the Athenians as their naturall divinity taught them for an injurious or dishonourable speech concerning their gods I conceive her counsell curse God and dye had some of these intendements in it The best of them is bad enough and so bad that it renders this Objection against them all It is objected That surely any of these carry too high a straine of wickednesse for Jobs wife surely she could not imagine much lesse have the boldnesse to offer such advice to her husband I answer first in generall A good man may have a very bad wife A husband cannot infuse holinesse or make his wife good Marriage doth not change the heart Marriage with Christ doth but not marriage with a Christian or the holiest man that ever lived Therefore that reason is not cogent Secondly this speech and a holy person are not altogether inconsistent possibly Jobs wife was a good woman though actually she spake thus wickedly Divers of the Jewish doctours have an opinion that it was not Jobs wife that spake but the devill in her likenesse I shall leave that among their other dreames It is conjectured by others though it were not the devil that spake personating his wife yet that it was the devill speaking in or by the person of his wife as he spake in or by the serpent Gen. 3. Or as persons really possest of the devill who speake Satans words and do Satans works not their own Some I say carry it thus that she was for that time not only acted but actually possest by the devill and so spake the devils language One of the Ancients is expresse to this purpose These are the devils words not the womans words which another illustrates by that in the third of Genesis where it is said The serpent said unto the woman but it was the devill that spake unto the woman by the serpent so here it is said His wife spake unto him but the truth is it was the devill spake unto him in and by his wife And if so put the language into the worst exposition given or give a worse if truth will beare it and it will be no wrong to such an Orator I beleeve we cannot expound the words to a higher sense or straine of wickednesse then Satan could speake But we need not make Satan himselfe the speaker and yet cleare the matter too though we neither say as the Jewish doctours that it was the devill personally taking the shape of Jobs wife or as those Christian Fathers that the devill did actually possesse her yet we may say and so salve the difficulty that she was mightily over-powred and acted by the temptation of Satan to be an instrument of temptation in this grosse manner against her husband Though she were not acted as the Serpent was in whom Satan spake to Eve yet we may well say she was acted as Eve by whom Satan spake to Adam Eve spake the devils minde being prevailed upon by his temptation to perswade her husband to eat against the command of God and Jobs wife overcome by a like temptation attempts the perswasion of her husband to curse God For as it is possible for one that is good to fall into the grossest and most blasphemous temptation himself so it is possible for one that is good to be made an instrument of such temptations unto others We may see an instance neere if not fully reaching this assertion in the Apostle Peter who hearing Christ fore-telling his sufferings takes him aside and began to rebuke him saying Be it farre from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee Mat. 16.22 23. Peter acted Satans part in this against his Master though unwittingly yet so wittily so to the life that he got his name by it Christ said to Peter get thee behind me Satan It was Peters tongue but Satan tun'd it Isaac said of his sonne Jacob in Esaus dresse The hands are the hands of Esau but the voice is the voice of Jacob Christ perceived here Satans counsell in Peters words he saw the wicked spirit through the cloathing of Peters flesh and therefore rebukes the Organ under the title of the chiefe agent Get thee behind me Satan Now as Peter though a holy man and full of good intentions to his Master yet spake the Devils mind and language so fully that the Devill himselfe as to that purpose could scarce have mended it So likewise Jobs wife might be a godly woman in the maine though abused and misled by Satan she thus excited her husband in the grossest construction those words can beare to curse God and die There is somewhat in the Text which may give us a hint of this that though she spake this yet Job esteemed her a good woman For observe Jobs answer to this advice What doth he say He doth not say Thou wicked woman thou abhominable wretch why doest thou give me such counsell All that he saith is this Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh Observe it he doth not call her foolish or wicked woman but thou speakest as one of the foolish women As if he should say How now wife what words are these that I heare from thee thou dost not speake now like thy selfe I use to heare other language from thee thou and I have had other kind of conference and I have received other kind of counsell from thee then this Whence is it that thou art so unlike thy selfe where are thy words season'd with salt which have so often ministred grace unto the hearers thou art degenerated in manners and corrupted in thy speech thou speakest now as one of the foolish women Intimating that she used to speake wisely and discreetely or as Solomon describes the vertuous woman Pro. 31·26 that heretofore she opened her mouth with wisedome and now she spake only as a foolish or wicked woman He doth not
only begotten sonne that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish here is the removing of evill but have everlasting life here is the bringing in of good And this is the better part of the blessing So on the other side to have all good light and life removed is the most bitter part of the curse Let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it Darknesse and the shadow of death These words are the fourth branch of the curse upon his day he repeates the former curse but with new additions He had said before let this day be darknesse now he saith let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it The shadow of death The word considered in the composition of it may be translated image of death And because the shadow of a body gives us the image of a body as in the shadow of a man you have the image and proportion of a man in the shadow of a Tree you have the image and representation of a Tree because I say the shadow gives the image of a body therefore the Hebrewes by a Metonymie call an image a shadow So that the shadow of death is such darknesse as is like death the very image of death He was not contented in generall to say let darkenesse staine it but if any would know what kind or degree of darknesse he intends these words expound his meaning to be the worst darknesse that can be Any darknesse is evill but darknesse and the shadow of death is the utmost of evils David put the worst of his case and the best of his faith when he said Psal 23.4 Though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no evill that is in the greatest evill I will feare no evill The estate of those men who lived beyond the line of the Gospell and that is a very dolefull place to live in though a paradise for outward pleasure is thus described by the Prophet Isa 9.2 The people that walked in darknesse have seene a great light Jesus Christ they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined Againe The shadow of a thing in Scripture notes the power of a thing and to be under the shadow of a thing is to be under the power of a thing The bramble Judg. 9.15 said unto the trees if in truth yee anoint me King over you then come and put your trust in my shadow that is trust to that helpe which I am able to afford you So likewise to be under the shadow of the Almighty under the shadow of his wings is to be under the power of the Almighty for safety and protection Thus we may conceive it here to be under the shadow of death is to be so under the power or reach of death that death may take a man and seize upon him when it pleaseth Though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death that is though I be so neere death that it seemes to others death may catch me every moment though I be under so many apparances and probabilities of exreame danger that there appeares an impossibility in sence to escape death yet I will not feare Thirdly To be under the shadow of death is to be under the influences of death the influences of death are those feares and doubtings divisions and vexations of spirit those distractions and distempers of mind which fall upon man in times of imminent and unavoidable danger Let the shadow of death staine it that is let it be filled with those feares and cryes and confusions which usually accompany or prepare the way for death Fourthly Let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it that is such darknesse as dwells with death such darkenesse as fills the house of death the grave The grave is a darke house We use to say of that which we would have forgotten let it be buried in darknesse There is no worke in the grave and therefore there needs no light in the grave neither indeed can there be Lastly thus Darknesse and the shadow of death that is deadly darknesse thick stifling darknesse such as is in deepe pits and mines under the earth where vapours and noysome dampes doe many times strike men with death We may here take notice how Job heapes up words words very like in sound and all alike in sense or concurring to make up one sense Such amplifications in Scripture are vehement asseverations As Joh. 1.20 It is said of the Baptist He confessed and denied not but confessed I am not the Christ And those phrases Thou shalt dye and not live I shall not dye but live Thou shalt be below and not above So Job of his day Let it be darkenesse let not the light shine upon it let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it The word which we render staine signifies properly to redeeme a thing either by price or by power to redeeme a thing by paying for it or to redeeme a thing by rescuing of it Hence among the Jewes he that was to redeeme his deceased brothers land and marry the widdow was called Goel from this word as we may reade in the fourth of Ruth So the avenger of blood was called Goel Numb 35.12 because he likewise did redeeme the blood of his brother fetch it back againe as it were by a price in the execution of justice The learned Junius with some others translates according that sense of the Originall word O that darknesse and the shadow of death had redeemed that day or fetched back that day he referres it to the day past upon which he was borne and so takes it for an allusion to the first state of things we know at the first darknesse had dominion over all over all that Chaos or rude matter which God made at first Darknesse saith Moses was upon the face of the deepe Gen. 1.2 Then God gave a command to light saying let there be light ver 3. presently light went forth and rescued the creature from under the power of darknesse Now saith Job here Oh that darknesse and the shadow of death had redeemed that day or fetched againe that day out of the hands of light Oh that darknesse had recovered that which in the beginning was under its power that so my day being wrapt up in darknesse might be without forme and voide But the word is frequently translated and well here to pollute or to staine a thing as Mal. 1.7 Yee offer polluted bread upon mine altar and ye say wherein have we polluted thee And that of lamenting Jeremie They have polluted themselves with blood so that men could not touch their garments Lam. 4.14 So darknesse is said to staine or pollute the day as filthinesse or blood staines and pollutes discoulours and defiles the beauty of a garment Darknesse obscures and blindes the beauty of the most glorious creatures naturall darknesse doth it Suppose you should come into a roome furnished with
from my spirit but hid sorrow from mine eyes It is a proverbiall speech among us What the eye sees not the heart grieves not And when the Lord would shew how he was moved with the sufferings and knew the sorrowes of his people in Egypt he doubles it upon this sense I have seene I have seene or I have surely seene the affliction of my people Exod. 3.7 Your sorrowes are not hid from mine eyes Mine eye affects my heart saith the Prophet Jeremie Lam. 3.51 That is mine eye afflicts my heart While Jeremie went about the City and saw so many wofull spectacles in the ruine and captivity of his people that sight smote him to the heart It is said that when Christ came to Jerusalem and beheld the City he wept over it Luk. 19.41 And for the sorrow of repentance the sight of the eye hath a great influence upon the heart They shall looke on me whom they have pierced and they shall mourne c. Zach. 12.10 As the eye doth affect or rather infect the heart with sin from sin-occasioning objects a sin that is in the eye will be presently at the heart which caused Job to say Chap. 31.1 I made a covenant with mine eyes why then should I thinke upon a maide He meaneth sinfully to lust after her as if he had said there is a quick a speedy passage from the eye to the heart though in the fabrick of the body there seemes a great distance betweene them Therefore I have made a covenant with my eyes to avoide occasions of sin least mine eyes should pollute my heart with motions unto sin And as it is in pleasure-provoking objects that which is a pleasure to the eye will presently be a pleasure to the heart a refreshing to our spirits And that pleasure which shall last for evermore in Heaven is from a vision that shall last for ever Joy shall for ever be before the eye and therefore joy shall for ever fill the heart The joy of Heaven consists in vision in seeing God as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 or in seeing face to face 1 Cor. 13.12 which is the vision beatificall So likewise there is an afflicting vision The eye affects the heart with sorrow-occasioning objects if sorrow be in the eye it will not stay long from the heart Hence when Sarah-Abrahams wife was dead Abraham thus bespeakes the people among whom he dwelt If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight c. Gen. 23.8 It did afflict the heart of Abraham with sorrow to see the body of his deceased wife or the coffin wherein she lay whom he had so entirely loved therefore bury her out of my sight It is very observable that when Joseph would doe somewhat purposely to afflict and touch the heart of his bretheren with more remorse for their former unkindnesse unto him the history saith Gen. 42.24 that hee tooke from them Simeon and bound him before their eyes He heard them in their private conference whisper one to another We are verily guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soule when he besought us and we would not heare therefore is this distresse come upon us When Joseph perceived their consciences began thus to worke he resolves to give them a pill at their eyes even a dolefull spectacle yet the lively picture of their dealing with him to make their consciences worke faster with godly sorrow He tooke from them Simeon and bound him before their eyes And Judah when he pleadeth afterward chap. 44. for the carrying back of Benjamin you know what a patheticall oration he makes O saith he doe not detaine Benjamin for when I come to thy servant my father and the lad be not with us seeing that his life is bound up in the lads life It shall come to passe that when he seeth that the lad is not with us he will dye ver 30 31. That very sight will kill my father and for me to see my father dye will be death to me also For so he concludes ver 34. How shall I goe to my father and the lad be not with me lest peradventure I see the evill that shall come upon my father Oh saith he let me carry him back my father will die if he see not the lad and so shall I if I see the evill that shall come upon my father he knew that sight would be as a sword to his heart and as a dagger in his bowels The Lord threatens his people thus in case of disobedience Deut. 28.31 Thine Oxe shall be slaine before thine eyes thine Asse shall be violently taken away from before thy face Thy sonnes and thy daughters shall be given to another people c. So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see ver 34. and ver 67. he shewes what convulsions and divisions of spirit the visions of the eye would bring upon them In the morning thou shalt say would God it were Even and at Even thou shalt say would God it were morning for the feare of thine heart wherewith thou shalt feare and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see The feare of the heart and the sight of the eye are neerely joyned The sight of the eye caused the feare of the heart and both were as concauses of those distracting thoughts and wishes of hastening the morning to the evening and againe suddenly reducing back the evening to the morning Unlesse sorrow be hid from the eyes it can hardly be kept from the heart It is an usuall custome if a man be but let blood to bid him turne away his head if he be faint-hearted for the sight of his blood will make his heart faint And so from more gastly spectacles men commonly turne away their faces c. Which is to hide sorrow from their eyes It followes Why died I not from the wombe why did not I give up the ghost when I came out of the belly why did the knees prevent me c. These two verses containe a further aggravation of the former reason by three other steps Before he spake against his conception and his birth now Why died I not from the wombe As if he had said though I were conceived and secondly though I were borne yet why did not I make my cradle my grave or my first swadling cloathes my winding sheet though I were borne yet why did not I die so soone as ever I was borne why died I not from the wombe why gave I not up the ghost when I came out of the belly Having received the discourtesie of a birth death would have been a favour It had been best for me not to have been borne and next best to have died quickly or assoon as I was borne that 's the meaning in generall of the 11 and 12th verses But I shall a little examine and enlighten the particular expressions Why did not I give up
dominion of death and subject to that king of terrour Sin is the seed of death and the principle of corruption God doth infants no wrong when they die their death is of themselves for they have the seed of death in them We may affirme in one sense that when infants die they have no losse and we are sure in every sense when they die they have no wrong All death except death to sin is the wages of sin and therefore can be no injury to the sinner Secondly We may observe concerning man in his birth what a helplesse creature man is If I saith Job had been left a little I had bin gone quickly there had been an end of me I could not have helped my selfe if the knees had not prevented me if the brests had not given me suck if I had been destitute of these succours then presently I should have been free among the dead I should have been quiet and gone into silence Thirdly Observe That every step of life stands in need of a step of mercy When the infant is conceived there must be an act of mercy to quicken it an act of mercy to nourish it in the wombe an act of mercy for the birth an act of mercy being borne to take it upon the knee an act of mercy to binde it up an act of mercy to give it suck The beginning of our lives and the progresse of our lives our generation and our preservation call for acts of mercy or else poore creatures as we are we quickly perish and returne unto our dust We owe our lives to God at first and we owe them every moment if he did not renew mercy every moment we could not continue life one moment As it is with our spirituall life so it is with our naturall Our lives are hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 Of and from our selves we cannot subsist either in grace or nature It followes For now should I have lien still and been quiet I should have slept then had I been at rest These words are an inlargement of the former reason taken from a description of the state and condition of the dead For now saith Job I should have lien still If you should aske me a reason of my former reason why I was so angry with that day or night wherein I was conceived and borne wherein I had that to me unacceptable mercy to be preserved and kept alive This I subjoyne for the reason of it If none of those unwelcome favours or naturall rights had been done me then I had lien still I had been quiet I should have slept I had been at rest Either I should have been as one that never was or I should have been at rest and quiet The argument lyes thus Rest and quiet are desireable things but death in the omission of those succours would have given me rest therefore I desire those succours had been omitted This conclusion is in the 11th and 12th verses which we heard before The assumption is in this 13th verse which he further confirmes in the 6 verses following by an argument which we may thus forme I will prove saith he that in death I should have rest and been quiet and lien still for all conditions and sorts of men are quiet and lie still in death There or in that estate where all degrees and sorts of persons are at rest there sure I should have found rest but in death all sorts and degrees of persons have found rest therefore I should have found rest too Now that all sorts of people lie still and are at rest in death he proves by an elegant enumeration of the severall sorts and conditions of men He makes an argument by way of induction of all or most of the rankes of men First He shewes it in Kings and Counsellours of the earth these men that make such a bussell in the world when once they are dead they are quiet enough And then he shews it in Rich-men and Princes who load themselves with thick clay who toile and moile all their days to heape up and amasse much wealth when these come to the grave ther 's an end of all their labours then they must give over all their pursuite of riches Fourthly He shewes it in children either abortives borne before natures time or borne in full perfection of nature ver 16. Lastly He shewes it in oppressors and the oppressed in prisoners and those that imprison them in the small and in the great in the servants and in their Masters Thus making an innumeration of all these from thence he infers That if all these are quiet when they are in the grave then surely his condition had been so too I should have been quiet and lien still then I should have slept and been at rest We must here take notice that Job speaking of the state of death speakes only in reference to an outward condition and our resting from outward calamities and troubles he doth not handle the point at all concerning mans eternall estate For death is not rest to all sorts of men in that sense Kings and Counsellours and rich men c. may rest from the troubles of this world and goe to a world of everlasting troubles Such a totall rest is the sole priviledge of the Saints Thus only blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their workes follow them Rev. 14.13 When the Saints die they rest from their labours and their works follow them through free-grace in glorious rewards When the wicked die they rest from their labours but their workes follow them through divine Justice in everlasting punishments And Job resting assured of his own eternall rest wishes only a rest from those temporall commotions Further We may observe 4 words used by Job to expresse the same thing First I should have lien still And been quiet there is a second I would have slept there is a third and fourthly Then I had been at rest I should have lien still The word signifies to lie down in any kind and it signifies to sleepe Gen. 19.4 Before they lay downe that is before they went to bed It is applied likewise to the sleepe of death 2 Sam. 7.12 Isa 43.17 They shall lye downe they shall not rise that is they shall die so the next words expound it They are extinct they are quenched as towe And been quiet The word signifieth also to be silent we may put both together then had I lien still and been silent and you know death and the grave are called silence I had been like those that goe downe into silence saith the Psalmist Ps 115.17 that is like those that go down into the grave And Hezekiah in his mourning describes that silence Isa 38.18 The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee I should have slept Sleepe is the image of death and death is more then the image
Rhetorick can perswade death to depart all the gold and riches in the world cannot bribe death or stay its hand I saith Job should have found Kings and Counsellours and rich men even all these in the grave and we should have rested together Riches availe not in the day of wrath Prov. 11.4 but righteousnesse delivereth from death Righteousnesse delivereth from death why shall not righteous men die Surely Job might have said with righteous men with holy men should I have rested with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob these are in the grave death seaz'd on them as well as other Princes and Kings and Counsellours How then doth Solomon say that righteousnesse delivereth from death Death is there either to be understood of some dangerous judgement for saith he riches availe not in a day of wrath that is in a day of publike calamity but righteousnesse delivereth from death that is from those troubles and dangers God hath respect to a righteous person and hideth him from that death Or righteousnesse doth deliver from death that is from the evill of death from the sting of death from the bitternesse of death the bitternesse and evill of death is past to a righteous man But riches they availe not at all they cannot at all as not deliver from death so not mitigate the paine or pull out the sting or sweeten the bitternesse of death yea rather riches encrease all these That is a truth O death how bitter is thy remembrance to a man that is at ease in his possession Men may put their riches with them into the grave but riches cannot keepe them a moment out of the grave This thought How bitter Secondly When Job speakes of Kings and Counsellours and Princes these great men of the world he sheweth us what their study and businesse for the most part is in the world it is about worldly things They build desolate places they have gold they fill their houses with treasure These are their employments the current of their cares and endeavours runs out this way Hence observe That the thoughts of the greatest and wisest of the world are usually but for and about the world The poore receive the gospell and the rich receive the world As a godly man is described by his faith Abraham beleeved God By feare by uprightnesse by justice as Job in the first chapter of this Booke by meeknesse as Moses c. by the heavenlinesse of their spirits and conversations Our conversation is in Heaven Phil. 3.20 So worldly men are described by their proper studies Kings Counsellours and Princes build Pallaces gather riches heape up gold They buy they sell they build they plant they eate they drinke as the worldly world is pictur'd Luk. 17.27 28. In the 17th Psalme great men are called the men of the world as if they were for nothing but the world or all for the world as if all their provisions were laid in for this world so it followes who have their portion in this life ver 14. It is a sad thing to have received our portion It is said of the rich man Sonne remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things thou hast had thy portion In Psal 49.11 It is said concerning such men that their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations and they call their lands after their own names Their inward thoughts are upon these things It is somewhat a strange kind of speaking to say their inward thoughts for there are no thoughts but inward thoughts are all wrought in the secret shop of the heart But there is an elegancy in it the Hebrew is their inwards their internalls Their inwards are how they may get themselves a name and riches not only are their thoughts about these things but the very inmost of their thoughts the most retired thoughts and recesses of the soule are about these things these lie neerest to their hearts As the story saith of Queen Mary when she died she had them open her and they should finde Calice at her heart It was a pitifull case that a rotten Towne should lie where Christ ought at the heart of such a Princesse The heart is the place where Christ and the thoughts of Heaven should lodge All below Heaven should be below our hearts But as a godly mans inward thoughts are for Heaven and the things of Heaven for grace and for holinesse he hath thoughts upon the world but if I may so speake they are his outward thoughts not his inward thoughts That which lies neerest his heart his inward thoughts are for Heaven So the inward thoughts of worldly men are for the world the Apostle might well say Not many wise nor many rich nor many noble are called the thoughts of wise Counsellours of potent Kings and rich Princes are legible in their actions Thirdly Having expounded these desolate places to be Tombes and these houses graves Observe That some take in their life time more care for their Sepulchers then they doe for their soules Here are great men what doe they They build desolate places they will be sure to have stately monuments And they had gold they will be sure to fill their graves with treasure they will be buried richly or they will have their riches buried with them But what care did these take for their poore soules in the meane time where they should lie Had they taken order what should become of their soules When all things are disposed of this choice peece for the most part is left undisposed of unprovided for Some will carefully provide for their children they will provide for their families they will provide for their dead bodies for their carcasses but for their immortall soules there is no provision made While their bodies are assured of a resting place they may say of and to their departing soules as that trembling Emperour bespake his O our poore fleeting wandring soules whether are you going where is the place of your rest As it is said of Absolom in the place before cited He in his life time had reared up a pillar a monument or a Tombe for himselfe in the Kings dale What a carefull Prince was this for his body But how carelesse was this Prince for his soule He will have a pillar to preserve his name and yet runs out in rebellion against his owne father to the destruction of his soule The great businesse of the Saints on earth is to get assurance of a place for their soules to lodge in when they die It troubles them not much what lodging their bodies have if they can put their spirits into the hand of Christ What though their bodies be cast upon a dung-hill or trodden upon like mire in the streetes by cruell men A Heathen said The losse of a Funerall or of a Sepulcher may easily be borne I am sure a Christian may That losse will never undoe any man
I am sure with passions or the working of many passions together The word you see in the Hebrew hath a neere affinity in sound and sense with our English word raging and we translate it so Psal 2. Why doe the heathen rage It is the same word So here the wicked cease from raging or from troubling that is from that madnesse of rage in troubling the poore especially such as feare God Wicked men are not only sinfull but they are mad in their sin As Paul speakes of himselfe before his conversion I punished them oft in every Synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them even unto strange Cities Acts 26.11 In Paul unconverted see the picture of a wicked mans spirit he could not cease from troubling but in death he shall And there the weary are at rest The weary Some by the weary understand those whom the wicked have wearied by troubling of them and that is a truth that in the grave the wearied those that wicked men have turmoiled and vexed are at rest so the sense is made out thus that in the grave they that trouble others and the troubled the poore persecuted and the proud persecutors are at rest But rather by the wearied we are to understand only the wicked themselvs There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest that is there those wicked men who weary and tire out themselves with vexing and troubling of others are at rest they then cease from those vexatious undertakings which have consumed their spirits and worne out their bodies And the reason why I rather expound the weary to be the wicked though the other be a good sense is because Job afterward speakes of the rest of those that are wearied who are passive under the cruelties and plottings of those wicked ones There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest Hence observe first That wicked men are troublers both of themselves and others There the wicked cease from troubling as if the wicked did nothing in the world but trouble the world As before Job had given the speciall character of great ones and Princes They get gold build Palaces and Sepulchers and fill them with treasure So when he speakes of wicked ones he saith There the wicked cease from troubling As intimating that while they live in the world they are a perpetuall trouble to the world The Prophet Isaiah is expresse chap 57.20 The wicked are as the troubled sea that cannot rest they can doe any thing better then be quiet they have not strength enough to sit still they cannot rest King Ahab had this apprehension of Elijah 1 King 18.17 when the kingdome of Israel was full of trouble for God did vex them with great adversity Art not thou he saith Ahab that troublest Israel No saith Elijah who could make up a better judgement then Ahab in that point I am not he that troubleth Israel but it is thou and thy fathers house Ahab had sold himselfe to worke wickednesse and so had stock enough to purchase trouble for Israel wicked ones are the troublers of all they are troublers of their own families troublers of the places and Cities where they live the troublers of a whole Kingdome troublers of the Churches of Christ and the troublers of their own soules they are borne to trouble both active and passive they love to trouble and they have what they love It is the character and the argument of an extreame wicked man to be a troubler Even as it is a great argument of great grace when you see one a comforter of others or busie to helpe others to doe good to others The tree is knowne by the fruites Secondly Taking the latter words of this verse There the weary be at rest for those wicked men who are wearied by troubling others we may observe That wicked men by troubling others doe as much weary and tire out themselves And though they find that in troubling others they weary themselves yet they will not give it over they will trouble still Job saith thus of a wicked man in the 15th of this booke ver 20. The wicked man travaileth with paine all his dayes not only doth he put others to paine but himselfe is in paine and they are frequently expressed in Scripture as wearying themselves sometimes as weary of themselves so Jer. 9.5 They weary themselves to commit iniquity And thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels Isa 47.13 Thou art wearied in the greatnesse of thy way Isa 57.10 and that was but a way of troubling the Church She wearieth her selfe with lies Ezek. 24.12 The sins which wicked men commit only in and against themselves weary them but they are most wearied when they are persecutors of others It is observed of Antiochus Epiphanes that famous troubler of the Church by him that hath written the Itinerary of the Saints that he did undertake more troublesome journeyes and went upon more hazardous designes meerely to trouble and vex and oppose the Church of the Jewes then ever any of his predecessors did about any other conquest or noble enterprise that he travail'd more miles to doe mischiefe then as the Authour doth compare their journeys any of the Saints did to doe good and therefore he concludes the story of him with this generall truth concerning persecutors All such wicked men goe with more trouble to eternall death then the Saints doe to eternall life they toyle themselves more and suffer more to worke out their own damnation then the godly doe in working out their salvation To be wicked in the height is the height of trouble Solomon saith that a good man is mercifull to his beast but a wicked man is unmercifull to himselfe he will tire himselfe more then a good man will tire his beast This is a certaine truth he that will follow sinne and serve his own lusts especially the lust of pride and oppression whosoever serveth those lusts serveth a hard master a master that will make him toile and sweat and weary himselfe while he lives and at the last pay him with death The worke of sin is bad enough but as to the sinner the wages of sinne is worse The last thing I shall note from it is this There the wicked cease from troubling There where is that At the grave when they come to die they make an end of their troubling not before Observe then Wicked men will never cease troubling untill they cease to live In the grave they cease troubling there they are at rest If they should live an eternity in this world they would trouble the world to eternity As a godly man never gives over doing good he will doe good as long as he lives though he fetches many a weary step so wicked men never give over doing evill untill they step into the grave And the reason of it is because it is their nature to doe
they who rejoyce in soule would even willingly be rid of their bodies they are above the body So they who are bitter in soule are desirous to be ridde of their bodies the body is a burden when the soule is bitter This bitternesse of soule caused those bitter complaints before and now this vehement expostulation Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery Wherefore We are apt to thinke there is no reason for that for which we can see no reason Job was in a darke condition and could not see the reason and therefore almost concludes there was none When we are posed we thinke all the world is posed too If we cannot interpret and expound the dealings of God we thinke none can nay in such cases some are ready to thinke at least to speake as if they thought that God himselfe can scarce give a good account of them This wherefore goes through the earth and reaches Heaven Tell me O my friends shew me O my God Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery Why Job there may be many reasons many answers given to this wherefore a man should be in light though he be in misery and why his life should be continued though his soule be in bitternesse What if God should appeare and tell thee It shall be thus and the reason of it is because I will have it so Is not that therefore answer enough to any mans wherefore The will of God is reason enough for man and ought to be the most satisfying reason If God say I will have life remaine in a man that is bitter in soule that man should say Lord it is reason I should because it is thy pleasure though it be to my own trouble Yet it is but seldome that God makes his will his reason and answers by his bare preâ—â—gative He hath often given weighty reasons to this quaerie First The life of nature is continued that the life of grace may be encreased Again Such live in sufferings That they may learne obedience by the things which they suffer God teaches us by his workes as well as by his word his dealings speake to us And It is as great an act of holinesse to submit our selves to the will of God in his workes as it is to the will of God in his word Another reason of this wherefore may be this God sets up some as patternes to posterity he therefore gives the light of life to some that are in misery to shew that it is no new nor strange thing for his Saints to be darkenesse And what if God doth it to magnifie the strength of his own power in supporting and the sweetnesse of his mercy when he delivers such bitter soules Further observe first That The best things in this world may come to be burthens to us See here a man weary of light and life light one of the most excellent creatures that God made the most excellent next to life yea life the best the most excellent thing in nature both these become burthensome How gladly would Job have bin rid of light how gladly rid of his life Consider then how burthensome other things which at the best are burdens may be unto you If you heare a soule complaining of light and life and why are these given me when I am in misery Then what comfort thinke you will honour give you or what comfort will riches give you or what comfort will beauty give you in such a condition as makes you weary of light and life What comfort will sin give you what ease will your lusts give you in such a condition as makes you weary of light and life I never heard of any of the Saints that were troubled at any time with their grace or weary of the favour of God I never heard any of them say why is grace given to one that is in misery or the light of Gods countenance to the bitter in soule I never heard any say wherefore is faith given to a man that is in misery or hope and patience to the bitter in soule grace was never a burden to any man under greatest burdens or unsavoury to the bitterest soule when you are weary of all other things in the world these will be your supports Therefore labour after those things which you shall never be weary of even after those things which will be more pleasant to us then ever light was when light shall be to others more troublesome then ever darknesse was to any let us labour after those things which will be more sweet to us then ever life was when life shall be to others â—ore bitter then ever death was to any Secondly observe It is a trouble to possesse good things when we cannot injoy them Would you know how Job spake here as one weary of light and life It was not under the notion of light and life as if he had been weary of these in themselves but it was because he could not enjoy these Solomon assures us Prov. 25.20 that As hee that taketh away a garment in cold weather and as vineger upon Nitre so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart Musick to one that is in sorrow doubles his sorrow why because he cannot enjoy the musick a heavy heart can worse intend musick then a heavy eare only those things which we can injoy in the use of them please in the possessing of them Of all temporalls the possession and enjoyment may be separated but for spiritualls the very possession of them is joy therefore enjoyment their presence is a pleasure and therefore their presence shall ever please We may distinguish between their use and their comfort but we can never seperate them One thing further When Job saith Wherefore is light given and life given The meaning of it is wherefore is light continued and wherefore is life continued for he speakes of himselfe and others that had light and were alive and yet he saith wherefore is light given c. From this we may learne That Every act of continuance of good things to us is a new act or deed of gift to us Mercy is given every moment it is enjoyed not only is a new mercy and a renewed mercy a new gift but continued mercy is a gift and a new gift life is a new gift every houre of time we live on the earth and glory will be a new gift every minute of eternity we shall live in Heaven Which long for death and it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures This 21. verse doth further explicate who are the bitter in soule even such as long for death when a soule from naturall principles finds a sweetnesse in death that soule is in bitternesse Our affliction and our misery is indeed worme-wood and gall as the Church complaines Lam. 2.19 when death is as honey and long'd for as the honey-combe There is bitternesse in the death of the body and yet some are so
bitter in soule that they account the very bitternesse of death sweetnesse They say not as Agag 1 Sam. 15.32 Surely the bitternesse of death is past but O that the sweetnesse of death would come To be rid of sin makes us long for death spiritually to be rid of paine makes us desire death naturally therefore he saith the bitter in soule long for death The word which we translate by longing signifieth a very vehement desire as you know in our tongue to long for a thing is the highest and hottest acting of desire after a thing It signifieth properly to gape or to breathe Hence by a Trope it signifieth strong desire because they who desire a thing much are said to gape or breath after it just as an hungry man gapes after meate wheresoever he sees it and his mind runnes upon it when he cannot see it that is the force of the word Hence also the word is used in Scripture to note the strong actings of faith and vehement expectations of hope in God when the soule is raised up mightily to beleeve the word of promise then it longs after and opens its mouth wide as it were to receive the thing promised As in Isa 8.17 I will waite upon the Lord who hides his face from the house of Jacob and I will looke for him The Prophet Hosea applies the word to robbers and theeves who stand watching and longing for the traveller and looking at every turning chap. 6.9 As troopes of robbers waite for a man Yet further to cleare this we may take notice that in the Hebrew there are two words which come from this roote whereof the one signifieth the Palate of the mouth because the palate is the part affected with the tast of such meates as we long for Hence we say the mouth waters after such or such a pleasing dish The other word signifies a Fish-hooke and the reason is double either because those hookes are pleasantly baited which when the fish sees he longeth after it and greedily swallowes it downe Or because when the angler hath cast in the hooke he is in great expectation waiting and looking earnestly when the fish will be enticed and bite By all these uses of the Originall word we may collect the exceeding intensivenes of that desire which is here exprest by longing for death They long for death even as a hungry man longeth for any meate or as a woman with child longeth for some speciall meate as a fish longs for the baite or as an angler longeth till the fish bites or as a beleever which as it is the most spirituall so the most ardent desire of all desires to have any promise fulfilled upon which he hath pitch'd his faith and anchors at by hope Which long for death and it cometh not that is it cometh not so soon as they would have it for death will come at one time or other but death doth not come at their time or their pace It cometh not in the Hebrew it is only thus which long for death and it is not we supply it cometh not And dig for it more then for hid treasures To illustrate the greatnesse of this desire after death he adds a similitude of those who seeke for treasures if there be any naturall desire more strong then that of a woman with-child or a longing woman it is the desire of a covetous man the desire of gaine or treasure covetousnesse is the strongest appetite Observe but what a gradation there is in this expression to set forth the greatnesse of their desire after death they doe not only long for it but they dig for it digging you know is no ordinary labour it is an extraordinary worke a hard labour As longing is a strong desire so digging is strong labour hard labour And then it is no ordinary digging neither but digging for a treasure men will dig hard for treasure you see men will dig hard for a stone for iron for coales how then will they dig for a mine of gold or silver A man will dig the earth for a little money but when a man diggeth hoping to find money in the earth that will make him worke indeed now they dig after such a manner And beyond that he saith they dig for it as for hidden treasure that 's a further degree of their endeavour after it That which we translate hidden treasure is but one word in the Hebrew It signifies any hidden thing especially treasures because treasures use to be hid or close layed up And there is a two-fold hiding of treasures There is a naturall hiding and there is an industrious and artificiall hiding There is a naturall hiding so treasures are hid that lie in the bowels of the earth they are naturally hid Then treasures are hid by industry and by art when we are afraid we shall be spoiled of our treasures or that they shall be taken away then there is a hiding them and often a digging to hide them in the earth As now in these times of spoile and violence if a rich man heare that those spoilers are nigh he presently hides his treasure Now either as robbers digge and search for treasures industriously hid or as miners dig and search for treasures naturally hid so saith Job with such earnestnes doe these dig for death There is one thing here to be resolved by way of question before we come to the Observations Namely whether it be lawfull to wish for or to desire death Job here proposeth such as long for death Is it lawfull to desire death doth he speake here only de facto of a thing which some doe or of that which may be done I answer first That death in it selfe is no way desireable and it is not an object of desire We cannot desire that for it selfe which is an enemy or destructive unto us If any should desire death as death or under the notion of death they should desire that which is destructive that which is their enemy so the Apostle calls death 1 Cor. 15. The last enemy which shall be destroyed is death Death is an enemy therefore as death no man can desire it Indeed many have desired death but still we find somewhat else at the bottome of that desire But what bottome or ground makes the desire of death lawfull I answer First It is a holy desire of death if we desire death to be free from sin when the soule saith thus because I see only the end of living will be the end of sinning therefore I long for death that I may sin no longer Secondly It is lawfull to desire death that we may have more full communion with Christ the Lord of life I desire to be dissolved saith Paul but why not that he desired dissolution but that he might be with Christ Phil. 1.23 Christ is life and Christ is our life It is better to enjoy life then to live How much better then is
come over us or at leasâ— our light of joy not be so cleare Further If a man long after any truth and digs it how exceeding joyfull will he be when he can find that truth When a Philosopher had found out the resolution of a question in the Mathematicks he was so ravisht with it that he ran about crying â— have found it I have found it Surely the finding of one Divine truth which is the mind of Christ should affect us more then the compleate knowledge of all that is knowable or can be known in the whole course of nature Every truth is beautifull but thâ— truths of God are beauty Thus we may try our desires in all theiâ— pursuits by this issue of them joy in finding the things which wâ— pursue Lastly observe That as he doth rejoyce so this joy answers to thâ— desire in the degree of it Proportionable to our desires and endeavours in seeking are our joyes and comforts when we have found There is not only a joy but a proportionable joy the desire was very great and the endeavour was very great and now the joy come up to both that is very great too not only doe they rejoyce buâ— they rejoyce exceedingly they rejoyce so as they skip for joy That is I am sure it ought to be more apparant in our regulaâ— desires after things good for us then in our irregular desires after things which are hurtfull to us If that exceeding desire after death will produce exceeding joy in death then exceeding desire afteâ— life and spirituall good things will work exceeding joy when wâ— have found them desire is that which widens the vessell to takâ— in abundance of joy large desires after any thing open the hearâ— and inlarge the faculties to take in abundance of joy when we havâ— found the thing which we desire JOB 3. Ver. 23 24 25 26. Verse 23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in For my sighing cometh before I eate and my roarings are powred out like the waters For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of is come unto me I was not in safety neither had I rest neither was I quiet yet trouble came AT the 20th verse of this Chapter Job begins to expostulate concerning the continuance of his life and he casts his complaint into an argument which was formed to his purpose thus There is no reason or if there be shew me a reason why his life is continued that liveth miserably and would die willingly But I am the man who live miserably and would die willingly therefore why is light or life continued unto me The former part of this argument is contained in the 20 21 22 23. verses In which Job demonstrates that there is no reason or at least if there be a reason it is such as he could not make out why that man should have his life continued who lives in misery and is willing to die Three of those verses we have already finished and there remaineth the 23. which is a part of the same reason to be yet opened In this 23th verse he as it were repeates his argument He had said before Why is light given to him that is in misery c. and so he doth illustrate it in the two verses following In this 23th verse he re-inforceth what he had said in other words Why is light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in He doubleth his call for a reason or proofe of this thing Why is light given Those words are not here expressely in the Hebrew but they are supplied by our Translatours and by Translatours in other Languages from the 20th verse to make up the sense The Originall runs thus To a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in But the question is implied as in the former and here to be prefixed Why is light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in Mr. Broughton readeth it without the question Why is light given thus The Wight or man whose way is hid over whom the puissant casteth a covering To a man whose way is hid Job speakes not here of a way in a proper sense the way wherein men travaile and passe in their journeyes from place to place but the way is a way in a Metaphor And so in Scripture the way of a man is taken First for the purpose or intention of a man Secondly for the course and conversation of a man and that either for the course wherein we walke toward others or for the course wherein others walke toward us When it is said here Why is light given to a man whose way is hid the way is either the course wherein Job walked respecting God or the course which God tooke respecting Job Why is light given to a man whose way is hid The way of a man in his walking before God is two-fold First Internall Secondly Externall There is an internall an inward way which the soule treads in converse with God a secret path a path which no eye hath seene And then there is the outward way of walking That speech of God to Abraham takes in both Walke before me and be perfect that is converse and carry thy selfe uprightly before me in thy affections and in thy actions Now when Job saith his way was hid he meanes neither of these for though the internall way whether it be the way of sinne or the way of obedience be a path so secret as that it is alwayes hid from the eyes of men yet Job knew well enough that God saw even that way and therefore he could not complaine that his most secret way was hid from God Yea in another place he comforts himselfe with this that God knew the secret wayes of his heart For when his friends accuse him and charge him with hypocrisie he supports himselfe with this My witnesse is above and my record is in Heaven there is one there that knoweth the way the secret way of my spirit with him to be sincerity though you charge the way of my spirit with hypocrisie The soule hath many wayes of communion with God which are altogether hidden from the eye of man man cannot see or discerne the private passages betweene God and the spirit either when the soule approves it selfe to God or rejoyceth and exults in God And as concerning this way this inward way as Job knew that it was not hid from God so I conceive it did not trouble him that this way was hid from man As there are in God certaine Arcana Consilij secret mysteries and hidden wayes of counsell which he will not communicate to holy men so there are in holy men Arcana pietatis some secrets some mysteries of godlinesse which they doe not communicate to the world and therefore the complaint doth not lye in either of these respects The Church
the workes of his providence argue the greatest folly p. 289. Sin the greatest folly p. 290. Friend unkindnesse from a friend troubles most p. 273 274. A friend who p. 301. It is an act of true friendship to mourne with and comfort our afflicted friends p. 305. G GArments Renting of garments in what cases used p. 179. Gaine will make some doe any thing p. 381. Ghost giving up the ghost what it imports p. 396. Giants and infants are expressed by a word coming from the same roote in the Hebrew p. 421. Gift what it is p. 203. Every outward as well as spirituall good thing is Gods gift p. 203 204. God gives no more then we get honestly p. 205. That God gives all destroyes 4 Monsters at once two in the rich two in the poore p. 205 206 c. That the Lord gives should make us willing to give to the Lord p. 207. A godly man the most considerable object in the world page 93 94. Such are most aimed at and assaulted by Satan p. 95. A godly man will not let nature worke alone p. 193. He acquits God in all his dealings with him p 202 A godly man can never be in so ill a condition but God hath use of his life p. 254. Godlinesse hath the promises of this life performed to it p. 45. Time spent in duties of godlinesse no hinderance to our calling p. 45. Gold and silver how proper and necessary for Princes p. 414 415. Good and evill how alike from the hand of God p. 292. Grace preserves it selfe pure among the impure p. 24. Grace the best blessing p. 29 c. where one grace is every grace is p. 30. Holy practise makes grace visible p. 52. It encreases by opposition p. 229 Grace and the favour of God are sweete to us when all other things are bitter and burdensome p. 444. Graves and Sepulchers called desolate places p. 412. Care and cost anciently bestowed in building of them p. 413. Why called desolate places p. 414. Grave called a house p. 416. Much treasure formerly put in graves p. 416 417. Some take more care for their graves and sepulchers then they doe for their soules p. 420. H HAnds worke of the hands may be applied to any businesse though a worke of the head p. 117 118. To put forth the Hand what it meanes p. 124. Hand of God what it signifies in Scripture p. 125. Either mediate or immediate p. 126. To put into the hand what it notes p. 137. Health a great blessing p. 266. Yet quickly blasted ibid. Heart must be especially looked to p. 74. Man can but guesse at the heart of another p. 75. The heart continually evill p. 76. Satan can but guesse at the heart p. 135. Hedge what it imports when God makes a hedge about a man p. 111 112. Job had a three-fold hedge p. 113. There is a hedge of affliction and a hedge of protection p. 460. Holinesse Holiest persons doe not alwayes keepe the same degree of holinesse p 342. Honesty what we get honestly we can loose patiently p. 205. Hope The want of that afflicts us most which we hope for most p. 385. A hopelesse condition is the worst condition p. 386 462. Honour God will honour them who honour him p. 225. What it is to honour God or man p. 327. Humiliation must encrease as afflictions either personall or publick doe encrease p. 268 c. I IGnorance How God is said to winke at times of ignorance p. 352 351. Impatience is a charging of God with folly p. 219. Infants weepe as soon as they are borne p. 393. They have the seed of death in them as soon as borne p. 398. Intentions It argues a malitious spirit when a mans actions are faire then to accuse his intentions p. 108. Integrity to hold integrity in evill times is not only good but admirable p. 229. The world would perswade that the holding of integrity and profession of holinesse are vaine p 276. Job when he lived p. 18. Joy Godly joy and sorrow mutually cause one another p. 305. What at one time is our feare at another time may be our joy p. 454. Justice in our dealings honours our profession of godlinesse p. 31. K KNowledge wicked men hate it and why p. 373. Knowledge of misery which we cannot be delivered from makes us more miserable p. 440. Keyes four keyes specially in the hand of God p. 390. L LEviathan why so called p 369. What it is to rayse up Leviathan ib p. 370 c. Two other significations of the word p. 378. The name of a song p. 380. Life Our life here is but a coming and a going p 201. Life is the most pretious treasure in nature p. 240. Not to be parted with for a trifle p. 241. The soule far more pretious then life p 243. So also is the Gospell ib. c. The love of Christ in parting with life for us p. 244. What life is in the naturall consideration of it p. 251 441. Life and death are in the hand of God p. 256. Mercy to have life though we loose all else p. 257. Likenesse of quality and of equality p. 100. All the Saints on earth like one another and like Christ in quality but unlike in equality ib. Light a great blessing the sorts of it p. 353. Light-haters who p. 373. Longing for a thing notes the strongest desire p. 447. M MAn the word man in Scripture signifies more then a reasonable creature or the nobler sex p. 20 c. 3 Hebrew words for Man their difference ib. Man taken 1. for any Eminent man 2. for a Magistrate p. 20 21. Mercies Some mercies received exceed our own praises as some troubles exceed our own mournings p. 381. In sad times small comforts passe for great mercies p. 384. Every step of our lives needes a step of mercy p. 399 445. Morning to doe a thing in the morning is to doe a thing diligently p. 59. Morning best praying-time p. 60. Mourne To mourne with those that are in affliction our duty p. 306. The report of others sufferings should cause us to mourne p. 307. Great troubles warrant solemne mournings p. 319. Mourning a profession p. 375 c. Mouth to open the mouth what p. 325. A foole doth not open his mouth and speake but his speech opens his mouth p. 326. N NAkednesse two-fold p. 197 c. Every man borne a naked helplesse creature p. 200. Name what it importeth when God knoweth a man by name p. 97 98. Name of God taken 4. wayes p. 212. What it is to blesse the Name of God p. 213. Nature Changes in the course of nature are full of terrour p. 360. Negative words in Scripture are not alwayes denialls p. 180. O OPpressors of three sorts p. 430. The words of oppressors are wounding words p. 432. They who will not heare the voice of the Preacher may justly be given up to heare the voice of the oppressor p. 433. P