discerning the constitutions of men and studying remedies that whosoever did follow his rules and keep to his directions should never dye by any disease casually he might and of age he must but he would undertake to secure his health against diseases a bold undertaking But he who by his art promised to protect others to extreame old age from the arrest of death could not by all his art or power make himself a protection in the prime of his youth but dyed even as one without wisdome before or when he had seene but thirty Secondly they dye without wisdome That is they cannot carry their wisdome away with them as not their worldly riches and pompe so nor their worldly wisdome and knowledge Chap. 36. 12. Thirdly They dye even without wisdome that is they prepare not wisely for death This is the condition of most men their excellency goes away with them and they die without wisdome they have had wisdome but they die as if they had none that is they apply not their wisdome while they live to fit themselves for death They die before they understand what it is to live on why they live This wisdome is wanting in most men and of all such the Psalmist concludes to this sense of the place Man being in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Psal 49. 20. That is he perishes foolishly and without wisdome like a beast though in his life a man of honour and excellency He Moriuntur in simenâ—es vel insipienter Drus Prius moriuntur quam quicquam intellexgâ—iâ—t de divina sapientia Mer. that dies unpreparedly dies foolishly It is the wisdome of man to live in the world in the meditation of and preparation fo his departure out of this world And it is such a wisdome as is above man therefore David prayes Psal 39. 4. Lord make me to know mine end and the measure of my dayes what it is that I may know how fraile I am as if he had said Lord I have been considering this and that thing haply Davids thoughts were in the dust and he had been handling the clay out of which he was made yet saith he by all those considerations of my naturall constitution I cannot bring my heart to be so sensible of my frailty as I ought to be therefore he turnes himselfe to God Lord make me to know this thing Here is our wisdom when we seek to God to spiritualize naturall considerations and make them effectuall for the attaining of this wisdom the knowing of our end and the measure of our days But is it not some ignorance of our duty no petition for the knowledge of our end May we desire to know what God hath no where promised to reveale To petition for the literall knowledge of our end that is what yeare or day our lives shall end is a sinfull curiosity and a presumptuous intrusion into the secret will of God But to petition for a spirituall knowledge of our end that is how we may end well any day of the yeare or any houre of the day is a holy duty and an humble submission of our selves to the revealed will of God Thus to know our end how soone ceasing as one translates short lived and brittle ware we be Thus to know how defective we are as the Greeke renders it or what we lack namely to the end of our dayes is above the instruction of any creature We may preach and you hear of death as long as you and we live and yet not know he frailty of our lives till God makes us know it therefore saith he Lord make me to know how fraile I am none could teach him this lesson but God himselfe The same holy desires are breathed out Psal 90. 12. So teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts unto wisdome as if Moses had said Lord I have been numbring my dayes my selfe and telling over my life I can tell no further than three or foure score and yet though I can tell no farther I cannot apply my heart unto wisdome we need but little Arithmetick to unmber our dayes but we need a great deale of grace to number them A child may be wise enough to number the dayes of an old man and yet that old man a child in numbring his own dayes that is not able to number his own dayes so as to apply his heart to wisdome To number them so is a very speciall point of wisdome the true Christian Phylosophy perfectly Meditatio moâ—tis vita est perfecta Greg. Moral 13. Suâ— ma philosophia Bern. to meditate on death is the perfection of life And it is therefore our wisdome to die well because we can die but once Aman had need doe that wisely which he can doe no more An errour in death is like an error in Warre you cannot commit it twice We have most reason to looke to it not to erre at all where it is not possible to erre againe Actually to erre twice is more sinfull but not to have a possibility of erring twice is most dangerous We transgresse the lawes of living over and over a thousand thousand times But as for the lawes of dying no man ever transgressed them a second time That we so often transgresse the law of living is an aggravation of sin upon all men And that we can transgresse the law of dying but once is the seale of misery upon most men Let us then cry unto God to be taught this great wisedome how to die and not without wisedome JOB Chap. 5. Vers 1 2. Call now if there be any that will answer thee and to which of the Saints wilt thou turne For wrath killeth the foolish and envy slayeth the silly one c. THE five first verses of this Chapter containe the fourth Argument by which Eliphaz goes on to convince Job of sinful hypocrisie And the conviction is made two wayes from a two-fold comparison First He compares Job to the Saints and finds him unlike to them Secondly He compares Job to the wicked and finds him like to them if so then Job must needs be a hypocrite who had carried it faire all the while in the world for a great professor and yet when he comes to the tryall was unlike all the Saints and most like the wicked of the world The first Argument may be thus framed He is not a just or a holy man who in his affliction is altogether unlike holy and just men But Job thou in thy affliction art altogether unlike holy and just men Therefore thou art not a holy or a just man The proposition is implied The Minor or the Assumption is in the first verse Call now if there be any that will answer thee and to which of the Saints wilt thou turne As if he should say Inquire as much as thou wilt thou shalt find none among the Saints like thy selfe they who have been somewhat like thee of whom
love unto the world keeps awake but how few are there whom love to Christ keeps awake It was an harsh and in one sense an ignorant speech of a wise man amongst the Heathens who said There is no man who may not more holily be in any company than with himselfe alone And Nemo est cui non sanctius sit â—â—m quolibet esse quam secum Sen. yet there is a truth in it For if a man be by himself alone and deale only with his own heart probably he might be as profitably with any company as with himself One mans heart in it self is as bad as anothers and usually it is worst when it is by it selfe Some like Nebuchadnezzar being secluded from men converse only with beasts those most beastly beasts lusts in their own bosomes Dan. 4. 3. But to be alone from men to converse with God to be alone from men to converse with Christ is infinitely better then all the society of men The reason why many receive but little of Christ little of Heaven is because they are so much in the croud of the Pietas periclitatur in negoâ—iis world so long upon the Rack of earthly care they seldome let their hearts settle The Ballances must stand at an even poize before you can weigh aright If you desire to know which beares most weight in your hearts Earth or Heaven Christ or the Creature let your hearts stand still That in Psalm 4. 4. reaches this sense fully Commune with your owne hearts upon your beds and be still Our hearts will not be spoken with unlesse we be quiet And as the Picture-drawer cannot take the features of the face to the life so neither can we of our hearts or lives unlesse we have the patience to sit for it JOB Chap. 4. Vers 14 15 16. Feare came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake Then a Spirit passed before my face the haire of my flesh stood up It stood still but I could not discern the form thereof an Image was before mine eyes there was silence and I heard a voyce saying WE have already given the Logicall dependance of this whole Context from the 12 Verse unto the end of the Chapter and therein shewed how Eliphaz confirmes the principall Proposition lying in the 17 Verse by Divine Authority a Vision received from Heaven A thing saith he was secretly brought to me and mine eare received a little thereof in thoughts from visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on men Thus the manner of the vision is described in generall The effects of the vision upon Eliphaz and the particular manner how the vision appeared are now further described and set forth This 14 Verse contains one eminent effect of the vision with the consequents of it assoon saith he as I was in that heavenly rapture and extasie Fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake It was very usuall for Prophets and Holy men to be surprized with fear at the appearance of Jehovah in his messages by Angels or other visions It is naturall unto man to fear at the sight of an Angel and it is a received opinion among the Jews that whether God or an Angel did appear it was present death which they collect from divers Scriptures Ex. 33. 20. when Moses desired to see the face of God the Lord answered there is no man can see my face and live Those words of Gideon import as much Judg 6. 22. When Gideon perceived that he was an Angel of the Lord he said Alas O Lord God for because I have seen an Angell of the Lord face to face as if he had said alas woe is me I shall certainly dye And Judg. 13. 21. Manoah concludes it We shall surely dye because we have seene God when an Angel appeared to them Hence also Jacob Gen. 32. 30. after his wrastling with the Angel which was Christ called the name of the place Penuel which is The face of God for saith he I have seen God face to face and my life is preserv'd as noting that it was a wonderfull priviledge not to dye at such a sight the very appearance of God is death to the Creature And that which Hagar spake Gen. 16 13. may well be interpreted to this sense when flying from her Mistris God came to her in the Wildernesse she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her Thou God seest me the reason is added by way of admiration for she said Have I also here looked after him that seeth me Which words may well be translated Do I live after him sc God that seeth me for here one act of life is put for the whole looking or seeing for living Have I seen or Ex Habraeâ— ita reddi potest Etiamnè jam â—â—deo sâ—u lucem hanâ— espicio vivo post videntem me Parens have I beheld the light after God hath seen me that is Am I alive after God hath seen me How wonderfull The effect of this vision upon Eliphaz was not death but fear yet no ordinary fear but fear which looked almost as pale as death it was fear joyned with trembling and no ordinary trembling but such a fit of trembling as shook his very bones We have often spoken of fear both in this and in the former Chapters but such a fear as met Eliphaz we have not met with before That before was the grace of fear spirituall fear but this is the passion of fear naturall fear And it is naturall to man as some of Est homini naturale conspecto angelo etiam bono timere Bold ex Beda Origen Chrysostome the Ancients have observed to fear thus at the appearance of God by Angels Fear is caused by the apprehension of some evil imminent or at hand that 's the definition of naturall fear Now when God manifests himself though the greatest good be at hand yet the soul hath some misgivings and apprehensions of evil hence comes fear the foundation of this fear is laid in guilt sin is in the soul and guilt may be upon the soul thence naturall fear works when God who is all holy manifests himself And in special there is much unbelief remaining in the heart this fear is strengthned by unbelief Wherefore do ye fear saith Christ O ye of little faith Where there is little faith there is much fear and as unbelief prevails so fear prevails too Thirdly this fear arises from the suddennesse and unexpectednesse of the thing God as you may observe in all those Revelations of himself comes suddenly that which comes before we see it causeth fear when we see it sudden motions without us work strange commotions within And fourthly the over-powring Majesty and super-excelling excellency of God in any such revelation causeth astonishments of spirit a little appearance of God makes the creature disappear One drop of the Divine Ocean swallowes up all man and one
but a day long Jonahs Gourd came up in a night and perished in a night and man commeth up in the morning and perisheth in the evening The Naturalists speake of a Fly they call Ephemeron a creature of one day which comes forth in the morning is very active about noone but when the Sunne declineth it declines too and sets with the setting of the Sunne Man is an Ephemeron a creature of one day for howsoever his life consisteth of many dayes is often lengthened out to many yeares yet betweene morning and evening or from morning to evening he is destroyed The first step he sets upon the stage of the world is a going out of the world his ascending to the height of his natural perfection hath in it a decent One part of his life compared with another is an increase but the whole in reference to his end is a decrease his life is but a breathing death life shortning as fast as it lengthns his life is death hastning upon him continually A hand breadth is quickly measured Behold saith David Psal 29. 5. thou hast made my dayes an hand breadth nothing needs no time to passe it in mans age in it self is but little and comparatively it is nothing it fals under no calculation before the face of Eternity Mine age is nothing before thee But though the life of man be thus short and himself be destroyed between a morning and an evening yet death lasts long they perish for ever without any regarding They perish for ever Death it seemes is everlasting They perish the word is often used in this book for the dissolution of soule and body not for the annihilation of either as perishing properly imports to perish is here but to dye for thus even the righteous perish and no man layes it to heart Isay 57. 1. But doth man perish thus dyes he for ever shall there not be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 returne a resurrection shall not soule and body be reunited how is it said then they perish or dye for ever For ever is some time put for an infinite time and some time for an indefinite time 1 Chron. 23. 25 The Lord God of Israel hath given rest unto his people that they may dwell in Jerusalem for ever And yet the Jewes are now so farre from dwelling in Jerusalem that they have scarce rest or dwelling among any people The like sense of for ever reade 1 Kings 2. 33. Psal 132. 12 14. Yet further for ever is put for the finite time of one mans life 1 Sam. 27. 12. He shall be my servant for ever that is as long as he lives Psal 23. 6. I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever that is as long as I live In the text before us for ever is as long as this world lasts it notes the utmost terme of time not which is without terme eternity They perish for ever that is they shall not live in this world any more as Job 14. 14. If a man dye shall he live again As if he had said man can dye but once he cannot live againe that is in this world shall he any more return to his house to his wife and children to his riches or honours and shall he here againe enjoy such an estate as he had before That Psal 103. 16. explains it so As for man his days are as grass as a flower of the field so he flourisheth for the winde passeth over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more that is he shall never returne to that locall place or civill place in which he lived he shall not return to that place of magistracy or ministrey to that place of merchandizing or trading of husbandry or handicraft where he convers'd before Thus his place will know him no more Man dyes but once and therefore when he dies he is said to dye for ever There is a second death but it is only a second condition of life Some shall so live for ever that they shall be dying for ever The misery of all men here is that they are dying while they live the misery of the damned hereafter will be that they are living while they dye We see then that as life is a continuall going out of the world so from death there is no returning to the world they perish for ever when once you die you are dead for good and all as we say there 's an end in respect of any work proper to this world whether naturall civill or spirituall A dying man perishes for ever from eating and drinking from any outward content or pleasure When Barzillai was as it were but upon the borders of death and confines of the grave 2 Sam. 19. 25. he bespeaks David thus who had invited him to Court Can I taste what I eat and what I drink and it followes Can I any more heare the voice of singing-men and singing-women Can I any more as if he had said I am now nigh unto death these delights are gone they are perished for ever I can hardly taste any thing I eat or drink the pleasant Voice or musicall Instrument can I any more hear much more then in death it self are all these outward comforts perished and will perish for ever Againe in respect of civill works he that dyes perishes for ever no more buying or selling or trading or de aling all these things are past and past for ever Yea death puts an end to all spirituall workes such as were the Saints exercise and duty upon the earth at the grave there 's an end of them also a dying man perishes for ever in respect of repenting or believing in respect of praying or hearing the word These are heavenly works but the time for these is while you are upon the earth none of these labours are in Heaven or Hell no nor in the grave whether thou goest as the Preacher concludes Ecclesiastes 9. 10. Therefore Isay 38. 18. Hezekiah in his sickness makes it one part of his suit to God that he might be spared for saith he the grave cannot praise thee they that go downe into the pit cannot hope for thy truth the living the living he shall praise thee as I do this day To praise God shall be the work of Saints for ever and yet the Saints dying are truly said perish for ever from praising God All that praise shall cease in death which belong to the wayes of grace and then such praise begins as suits with glory which is our end That Hezekiah means it of such praise and not of all praise is cleare from his own words Verse 20. We will sing my song to the stringed instruments all the dayes of my life in the house of the Lord that is in the ordinances of thy publick worship They that are in the house of the grave cannot praise the Lord in his house And though the praises of the Lord in Heaven are transcendent
superesse non solum excessum quantitatis significat sed etiam qualitatis dignitatis ficut verbum latinuÌ„ supero non solum superesse sed etiam vinceâ—e excellere Pined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word signifies a quantitive remainder or overplus both of persons and things so also a qualitative excesse or remainder or that which exceeds in quality any excesse in the goodnesse of a quality is called excellency Thus Jacob cals Reuben in regard of his primogeniture the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power yet blots him in the next Verse because of his sinne thou shalt not excell Gen. 49. 3 4. This sense of the word suits well with the scope of the text in hand His excellency that is whatsoever doth excell or is best in him But what is that Some by his Excellency understand the soule as if he had said that best part of man the soule which may be opposed to clay and dust before spoken of that noble guest that royall inhabitant of this house of clay goeth out when death enters Death dissolves the union between soule and body Or rather we may take excellency for any speciall endowment first of the body as beauty or strength Secondly of the minde as wit and knowledge learning or skill Thirdly we may take it for those worldly excellencies of riches honour or authority when a man goeth out all these excellencies which are in him or which are about him go out too This excellency is the same which is called the goodlinesse of man by the Prophet Esay 40. 6. The voice said cry what shall I cry All flesh is grasse and all the goodlinesse thereof is as the flower of the field Not only is the flesh but the goodliness thereof fading also So here not only the house of clay and the foundation of dust but the excellency of it all the adorning and polishing the guilding and painting the rich hanging and precious furniture of this house go away Taking excellency here for the soule then we see wherein our excellency consists As man was the principall part of the creation so the soule is the principall part of man The constitution of the soule is mans naturall excellency and the conversion of the soule is mans spirituall excellency Secondly observe Death is the going away or the departure of the soule from the body Death is called sometime a departure of body and soule out of the world Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace saith old Simeon Luke 2. Man goes to his long home Eccles 12. 5. I go the way of all flesh saith Moses and I goe away saith our Lord Christ of his death Death is also called a departure of the soule from the body The death of Rachel is thus described Genesis 35. 18. And it came to passe that as her soule was in departing for she dyed From the other interpretation which I rather insists upon Observe that in death all a mans naturall and outward excellency whatsoever leaves him and departs from him Psal 49. 16. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich when the glory of his house is increased why for when he dyeth he shall carry nothing away with him his glory shall not descend after him though a man have an excellent out-side a great stock of riches beauty and honour though he have excellent linings of wisdome and knowledge yet all ends as to him when he ends and therefore David concludes Psal 39. Man at his best state or in his best estate is altogether vanity The excellencies that are in him goe away in that day all his thoughts perish his counsels and his projects perish with him One of the ancients standing by Caesars Tomb who was one of the most accomplisht men in the world for naturall civill and morall excellencies learned valiant noble rich and powerfull he I say standing by Caesars Tomb wept and cried out where is now the flourishing beauty of Caesar what 's Vbi nunc pulchâ—itudo Caesaris quo abiit magnificentia tua become of his magnificence where are the armies now where the honours of Caesar where are now the victories the triumphs and trophies of Caesar All 's gone all 's departed the goodlinesse of them is as the flower of the field his excellency which was in him is gone away And thus it will be said of all those who without grace are most excellent in any thing below Though your clay be curiously wrought and stampt with such beauty as renders you almost Angelicall to the eye of others Though your bodies are strongly joynted and blessed with such health as renders your lives most active and comfortable to your selves though your mindes are stored with variety of learning and you know as much as is knowable in the whole circle of Nature or of times yet when Death comes all these excellencies go away Nothing will stay by us then and go not from us but with us but the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord for whom Paul did and we ought to suffer the losse of all things and count them but dung that we may winne Christ Phil. 3. 8. For notwithstanding all other knowledge and wisdome we shall dye and conclude as this Chapter concludes of man without wisdome They dye even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without wisdome or word for word They dye not and in wisdome We may understand it two wayes First as if he had said though men are excellent in wisdom yet they dye their wisdom is to them in death as if they had no wisdome they have no more priviledge or defence against the stroak of death by all their wisdome learning Nalla est sapi entia qua mortem effugiant Merc. and knowledge then fooles or bruit beasts who have no knowledge no wisdome at all they dye even without wisdome or even as if they had no wisdome Died Abner as a foole dyeth said mourning David 1 Sam. 3. 33. yes Abner dyed as a foole dyeth And so in one sense doe the wisest of men He was the wisest of all the children of men and he spake it by the wisdome of God who asking this question How dyeth the wise man answers as the foole Eccles 2. 16. Let not any man pride himself in the excellency of his wisdome for that dwels in a house of clay whose foundation is in the dust his frailty is not curable by his excellency nor his mortality conquerable by his wisdome he shall dye as if he had no wisdome And some who have most worldly wisdome dye Non in sapientâ—a extenuatio est i. e. in magna stultitia Pined with least yea they with the greatest folly Not in wisdome may be an extenuation or a more gentle easie expression for in abundance of folly I remember it is observed concerning Paracelsus a great Physitian a man exceedingly verst in Chymicall experiments that he brag'd and boasted he had attained to such wisdom in
plant while it is rooted by the springs of heavenly promises And what is mine end that I should prolong my life The letter of the Hebrew is That I should prolong or lengthen out my soul that my soul should inhabit longer in the tabernacle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of my body The word prolong is differently joyned to life or dayes Deut. 5. 16. Honour thy father and thy mother as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee that thy dayes may be prolonged c Ezek. 12 22. Son of man what is that proverbe that you have in the land of Israel saying The dayes are prolonged and every vision faileth To prolong dayes and prolong life are the same Yet hear the word Nephesh soul which we translate life may be taken for desire which is a vehement act of the soul The soul expresses it self so much in desires that the same word may expresse both And so we may render Jobs sence thus What is my end that I should lengthen out or extend my desires any further after the things of this world or that I should defer and put off my desires after the things of the world to come Is there any thing in this life worth my staying for it or any thing so worthless in the next that I should not wish presently to enjoy it In this sence the word Nephesh is often used as Gen. 23. 8. Abraham speaks to the children of Heth If it be your soul or your desire we translate if it be your mind that I should bury my dead So Prev 23 2. If thou be a man given to thy appetite or whose desires are thy Lord and master as the elegancy of that place beares And again Psal 27. 12. Psal 41. 2. Eccl 6. 9. The word is applied to signifie the will or desire So here What is mine end that I should prolong my life or my desire of life His End may be considered two wayes First His end may be taken for the latter part of his life which Eliphaz promised would be very comfortable Thou shalt come to thy grave in a good old age as a shock of corn commeth into the flore As if Job should say you are promising me good dayes and a happy old age but what is mine end what 's the latter part of a mans life that he should desire to prolong his dayes to take it out why should I desire to prolong my life I am now well stricken in years and as for the end the latter part of a mans life it is nothing for the most part but trouble and sorrow As old Barzillai 2 Sam. 19. 35. when David offered him the pleasures of the Court answers I am thus old and can I taste my meat and taste my drink or hear musique What is the Fagge-end of mans life that one should hunger after it The sweetest comforts of this life are in the fore-part of life in the spring of youth in the strength and flower of age As for the winter of life what is that but wet and cold but clouds and darkness What is my end of old age that I should desire my life to be prolonged or eeked out to that But rather we may take this End First For the end of his troubles As if he had said What end so gainfull or comfortable can I have of these evils that should recompence my pains in bearing them till I receive it No worldly comforts can answer my sorrows and therefore why should I desire to prolong my life for them Secondly Take End for the very last term of life not that latter part or condition of a mans life troublesome old age as before or a renewed estate as here But take End for the ending the termination the period of life What is my end that I should prolong my life and so End is as much as death what is my death that I should desire to live I know no evil in death that should make me afraid of the end of my life I know no such trouble in dying that I should be desirous to spinne out this troublesome life longer surely the trouble and pain of death is not so much as the present trouble and pain of my life and as for any other trouble I fear none then What is my end that I should prolong my life that I should not desire death or that you should be so angry with me for desiring it Hence observe first There is no strength in man that may give him assured hope of long life What is my strength that I should hope No though man be in the flourish of his age the greenesse of his years yet what is youth or strength or beauty what all those fair leaves and fruits which hang upon and adorn this goodly tree that he should hope to hand long Man in his best estate is altogether vanity Psal 39. 5. He that hopes to live upon any of these things hopes in a vain thing trusts but in a shadow Our hopes to live this natural life as well as the spiritual and eternal must be in the living God The Image of death sits upon the best of our strength and beauty while we grow we decline and while we flourish we wither The lengthening of our dayes is the shortning of them and all the time we live is but a passage unto and should be but a preparation for death We are most miserable if in this life only we have hope and we are most foolish if our hopes of this life be in our own strength And because there is no strength in nature which may give us hope to live long It is our greatest wisdome to consider what provision we have in grace to maintain our hopes that we shall live for ever They are in an ill case who when they cannot hope to live long care not to settle their hopes of living eternally It is a most sad spectacle to see a languishing body and a languishing hope meet in one man Some have a Kalender in their bones shewing them they have but few dayes here and many distempers upon the whole body crying in their ears with a loud voice what is your strength that you should hope to live who yet prepare not at all to die They are both unready and unwilling to be dissolved when they see no hope to keep up their tabernacle from desolution Secondly taking the word in the last sense which I conceive rather to be the mind of the holy Ghost in this place observe That there is no evil in the death of a godly man which should make him unwilling to die or which should make him linger after this life What is the end of a godly man that he should prolong his life All the bitterness of death is removed or sweetned by Christ Death the King of terrours is made a servant to let us in to our comforts by the power of Christ that prince of life who hath abolished death and brought life
Prayer Meditation and the whole course of holy obedience The life of man is a continued temptation and that 's a spiritual warfare a continual bickering with a world of enemies And though they without stand still yet a soul can scarce passe one hour but he shall have many fights and bouts with his own heart In this sence Is there not an appointed time of warfare or temptation to man upon earth Our life is a warfare in divers respects First it is a warfare because Christians do or ought to live under the greatest command of any in the world they ought to stand armed at a call A Souldier is under absolute command he must not dispute the Orders of his General but obey them The Centurian in the Gospel saith I have Souldiers under me and I say to one go and he goeth to another come and he cometh and to a third do this and he doth it which he speaks not as commending the special vertue and good disposition of his own Souldiers but as describing the duty of all Souldiers therefore Souldiary is well defined To be the obedience of a stout and valiant mind Militia est obedientia quadam fortis invicti animi arbitrio carentis suo out of his own dispose A Souldier moves upon direction so must a Christian he is in a warfaring condition he must have a charge or a word from his Commander for every step he treads or action he undertakes Secondly it is a warfare in regard of perpetuall motions and travels A Souldiers life is an unsetled life while he is in actuall service he hath no rest he is either marching or charging and when he comes in his quarters his stay is but little he cannot build him a house he can but pitch him down a tent for a night or two he must away againe Mans life hath no stop we have here no abiding City we dwell in tents and tabernacles waifaring and warfaring out our dayes Thirdly a warfare because of continual watching It is the watch-word which Christ gave his followers I say unto you watch that 's the souldiers word and work too warring and watching goe together The Souldier stands Centinel fearing the enemies surprise A Christian should stand upon his guard and his watch at all hours is not that a warfare Fourthly a warfare because Christians ought to keep their rank and file that is the places and relations wherein God hath set them A Souldier commanded to stand such a ground must not stirre though he die for it and if he stirs by Martial law he shall die There is so much keeping of order in warre and Battels that whatsoever keeps order is said to fight or warre The Sarres are said to have fought against Sisera in their courses Judg. 5. 20. The Stars are embattaild or encampt in their sphears out of which they move not and are therefore often called the Militia or host of Heaven Fifthly a warfare because so full of hazzards troubles and labours or because so much hardship is to be endured A Souldier converses with dangers and dwels in the territories of death continually This caused Deborah to begin her Triumphant Song with praise to the Lord because the people offered themselves willingly Many are forc'd and press'd to the warrs and most who are not press'd by the Authority of others are press'd by their own hopes of gaine or desire of vain-glory and renown A true Voluntiere in warre is a rare man There is so much danger in it that there is seldome much of the will in it The whole life of man is full either of visible or invisible dangers he passes the pikes every day The Apostle reckons eight distinct perlis in one verse which met him which way soever he turned 2 Cor. 11. 26. He was in deaths often And though there are but few such Heroes as he yet 't is seldome but any of us are in deaths Especially while we remember the mighty spirituall enemies and oppositions which encompasse and beset us every day We wrastle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers c. And are therefore advised to take to us the whole armour of God never to stir without our sword Sixthly a warfare in regard of the issue victory and triumph or slavery and death is the issue of our lives Either we overcome and are more then conquerours that 's the Apostles language Rom. 8. or else we are conquered and more then captives that 's the Apostles sence too both in allusion They are taken captive by the Devill at his will To be led captive by the Devill is the lowest captivity lower then any captivity unto men In reference to 2. Tim. 2. 26. the spirituall part of our warfare there 's no comming off upon equall rermes We must be victors or slaves conquer or die Only this is the Saints assurance that as the Captaine of their salvation was made perfect by sufferings and conquer'd by dying so at the worst shall they spirituall death as sinners hath no power over them at all and when they die as men naturall or by men violently they shall receive fuller power Thus our life is a warfare upon earth But take the word as we translate for an appointed time Is there not an appointed time to man upon the earth And the reason why it beares that sence is grounded upon these two things 1. Because there is a speciall season of the yeare most fit and Non significat tempus simpliciter sed tempus certum ac constitutum ea analogia quod determinato anni tempore exerceri solet militia Militia ideo tempus determinatum dicitur quia non quae vis aetas bello apta est sed determinata certa sutable for warre 2 Sam. 11. 1. And it came to passe at the return of the yeare when Kings go forth to battell The time for war is such a known appointed season that the same word signifies warfare and any appointed season 2. Because men go out to war at a speciall time of their age There is an appointed setled time of mans life wherein he is fit to beare arms Every age is not fit for arms Old men and children are not fit for the field Hence we finde Numbers the first throughout that the muster of the children of Israel is thus made ver 3 20 22 c. From twenty yeares old and upward all that are able to goe forth to warre The Roman and Greek histories are distinct in this In some Common-wealths from Fifteen to Fifty in others from Twenty to Sixty and in ours the appointed time is between Sixteen Sixty so men are press'd and listed for war And because there is such an appointed or a set time of life in all States to goe out to war therefore that word is elegantly applied to signifie a set or an appointed time for any businesse Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth Vpon earth
are vanity all goe to one place all are of the dust and all turn to the dust again And whereas the Atheist heard some speake of the ascent of mans spirit after this life he puts it off as but talke and guessing ver 21. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth That is who can tell that there is such a difference between the spirit of a man and of a beast who ever saw the one ascending or the other descending or from what Anatomie was this learned Thus the Atheist derides the doctrine of the soul and will therefore laugh and be merry with his body while it lasts that 's his portion For who shall bring him to sâ—e what shall be after him ver 22. Is it not strange that any who are called sober Christians should plant their opinions in this soyle of Atheisme and make that a proofe of their faith which Solomon brings only as a proofe of some mens infidelity The Preacher in this Book personated those whom he abhor'd and sometimes speakes the practises of other men not his own opinion There is no more reason to ground this Tenet of the Soules Mortality upon those texts then there is of encouragement to intemperancie in that chap. 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheare thee in the dayes of thy youth and walke in the wayes of thine own heart Or in that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 32. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die If any would learne Solomons own sence about this point let him reade it as plaine as words can make it Eccl. 12. 7. Then namely when man dies shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it So then to the next before us the soule is not a wind but the Hujusmodi sententiâ— regressum animarum in corpora minin è negant sed necessitatem moriendi confirmant celeri atem life And all those Scriptures where life is compared to wind and dying to the passing of it without returning deny the regresse or returning of the soule to a naturall not to an eternall life and imply the short stay of the soule in the body and certaine departure from it not a not being when it parts These two must part and so part as never to returne to that estate againe Thus Iob expounds himselfe in the words following Mine eye shall no more see good Or as the Hebrew I shall not return to see good answerable to the metaphor of a wind it passeth away and returnes no more To see In this place as often elsewhere is to enjoy I shall not Videre bonum pro frui nota locutio est enjoy good Psal 4. 6. Who will shew or who will cause us to see any good It was not the bare sight of good which they desired but the enjoyment of it So Ier. 17. 6. The man whose heart departeth from God is threatned that he shall not see when good cometh that is he shall not enjoy good when it comes For though to see good be a mercy yet to see it and not to tast it is a curse Therefore at the last day they who thought themselves high in Gods favour but were indeed under his wrath are told that they shall Lam. 13. 26. see Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdome of God and themselves shut out they shall see what they cannot enjoy and that sight shall adde to their sorrow The Prophet cries out Lament 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction that is I am the man that hath felt and had experience of afflictions And Psalm 16. 10. the great promise to Christ is that though he took a corruptible body upon him yet he should not see corruption that is partake of corruption corruption should have no communion with much lesse power over him And we have the same use of the word in this book chap. 20. ver 17. where Zophar tells the hypocrite that God will deprive and strip him of every good thing He shall not see the rivers the floods the brookes of honey and butter It is a rhetoricall expresson comparing the affluence of outward things to floods and rivers and brooks which send forth their streames plentifully as if he had said though there be great store of honey and butter those two are specified for the rest though there be rivers brooks and streames of these commodities yet he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall see none of them that is he shall not enjoy or tast a drop of Sicut Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latini bonum aliquando pro pulchro commodo utili usurpant Isa subinde Hebraei vocabudum Tob Fagius in Gen. 2. 18 them That unbeleeving Lord is told by Elisha that he should see plenty in Samaria the next day but should not eate thereof 2 King 7. 2. Not to see is not to eat and he that sees but eates not is not releeved but troubled at the sight Mine eye shall not see good What good when a man dies shall he see no more good we see but little good while we live and the greatest good is to be seen when we die or rather while we live what doe we see but evill and when the Saints die what have they to see but good how is it then that Iob saith when I die mine eye shall not see good what miserable creatures were we if there were no good to be seen beyond the line of this life our richest stock of comfort lyes in the good we shall see hereafter which is therefore called the blessed-making vision And Iob knew well enough that his eyes should see good after death for he saith chap. 19. 27. with these eyes shall I see God he knew also his soule had an eye to see good and a better good then ever he saw in the world while his body lay in the grave Then his meaning of Mine eye shall no more see good is no more worldly good none of †these good things which I have seen I shall be above the smart of earthly sorrows and above the sence of earthly joyes Good is either natural or civill or spirituall When God created the world he looked upon all that he bad made and he saw that all was very good Civill good is the order peace and prosperity of the world death stops the sight of all this good As for eternall or spirituall good death cannot close or dimme the eye against those objects Then here is no plea for Atheists against the resurrection nor any against the soules Being or being awake till the resurrection Iob speakes only about the speare and course of nature when man dies naturally and is in the state of the dead he enjoyes nothing he acts nothing according to the estate of the living * In his
should see none of it when he died so because when he died others should see him no more all his beauty riches and good things must be buried with him There is an elegancy in putting these two together to see and be seen Death stops both it takes us from seeing and it takes us from being seen As all the good we have will be hid from our eyes so all our glory and excellency will be obscured from the eyes of others in the dark chambers of the grave Thine eyes are upon me and I am not Job speaks of a three-fold eye 1. Of his own eye Mine eye shall see no more good Verse 7. 2. Of the eye of men The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more 3. Of the eye of God Thine eyes are upon me and I am not He doth not say Thine eyes are upon me and thou shalt not see me Gods eye looks into the grave and can see there when we are out of the eyes of men we are in the eye of God therefore he saith Thine eyes are upon me and I am not as if he had said Lord if thou shalt defer a little to help me and then shouldest come to look for thy Job I shall be dead I shall be laid in the grave I shall not be capable of remedy if my remedy be deferr'd it is too late to give a man a cordial when he is dead Thou shalt Tuornm beneficiorum si forte cupias humanitus loquitur cum occulto questu neglectus sui uon ero capax Cocc not have a Job to helpe if thou dost not help him quickly Some understand it in a spiritual sence Thine eyes are upon me as if he should say Lord thine eyes are upon me to search me and try out my wayes and alas I am not I am not able to stand before thy justice before thy pure eyes which can behold none iniquity But rather take it as an appeal to God whether or no he were not near death Thou Lord seest I am as a dead man as a man not to be numbred among the living Therefore if thou wilt deliver me let thy loving-kindnesse speedily prevent me for I am brought very low As a sick man in some acute disease hastens his Physitian Sir give me somewhat presently or I am gone you cannot but see I am a borderer upon death Thine eyes are upon me and I am not That is I am not alive I am not among the children of men Not to be doth not import a not-being but a not appearing I am not as I was nor can I long be at all Rachel wept for her children because they were not Josephs brethren said to their Father Joseph is not and Job himself in the 21. of this Chapter explains this to be his sence Thou shalt seek me in the morning and I shall not be Death is a great devourer it sweeps all that appears of man into the grave The world shall no more enjoy him nor he the world this is mans not being when he dies as the two following verses further explain by an elegant similitude Verse 9. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth downe to the grave shall come up no more 10. He shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more Job having moved the Lord to take notice of and compassionate his transitory condition his life being but like the hastening wind He gives us another comparison to the same sence and purpose There his life was but a wind and here it is but a cloud As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more c. The cloud in a naturall notion is a thick and moist vapour drawn up from the earth by the heat of the Sunne to the middle region of the aire and by the coldnesse of that heavenly country where snow and haile c. are made and stor'd up is further condens'd congeal'd and thickn'd and so hangs or moves partly from natural causes the Sunne and wind but especially by supernatural the mighty power and appointment of God like an huge mountain in the aire To this cloud Job compares the vanishing estate of this life As the cloud such a cloud as you see hanging in the aire is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consumed or spent The same word is used at the 6. Verse My life is spent without hope A cloud comes to it's height and then 't is quickly disperst and vanisheth away The letter of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ambulavit ivit per metalepsin de rebus evanescentibus intereunti bus c. is It goeth or walketh away The walke of the clouds is according to the walk of the winds we cal it the Rack of the clouds When the Heavens are as it were all masked with clouds and a black vail or curtain drawn between us and the Sun the winds in a little time dissipate and scatter them It is usual in Scripture to compare those things which are vanishing suddenly consumed to clouds In which sence Isai 44. 22. the sins of the Saints are compared to a cloud and the pardoning of their sins to this consuming and scattering of the cloud I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins A cloud is but a kind of a blot in the pure parchment-roll of the skies I am sure a cloud of sinne is a foule blot in the roll of our lives Blot a fair writing and you cannot read it but blot out the blots and then 't is legible again yet the blotting out of sinne intimates it fair written as an evidence or a record against us till a pardon blots it out In which sence Christ is said to have blotted out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us Col. 2. 14. Thy sins O Israel so the Lord seems to speak in the Prophet are as a cloud to hinder the shining of the light of my countenance upon thee like blots they hinder thee from reading the evidences of my favour or they stand like evidences of guilt against thee But I have blotted out this cloud that is I have pardon'd thy sins and by the breath of my favour and free grace scatter'd thy transgressions with all the evils and sequels which they naturally bring forth So that now the light shines fair and warm upon thee the evidences which were against thee cannot be read and thou mayest read the evidences of my love and mercy towards thee The sins of the Saints are but vanishing clouds whereas sin in it selfe and the sins of all those who are out of Christ are an abiding cloud they are a cloud firme and immoveable like a mountain of brass or a rock of stone Sins make such a cloud as no power in Heaven or earth is able to consume but the power of mercy and a
and returns no more In that place of Ecclesiastes Solomon is only giving us a description of old age and the sad condition of man in it he calleth it the evil day and wisheth men would be wise to consider their latter end remembring their Creatour and laying up a good foundation before those evil dayes overtake them before the light of the Sun and Moon and Stars be darkened and the clouds return after the raine In old age the clouds returne after the raine thus as in some very wet time when we think it hath rained so much as might have spent and quite exhausted the clouds or drawn those bottles dry yet you shall see them return again it wil rain day after day as fast as ever so in old age when rheumes distil so freely that you would think an old man had emptied himselfe of all yet the clouds will return again and flouds of watery humours overflow Thus the clouds of old age returne And in this sence the clouds of the ayre returne after they are consumed and spent into raine But how doth a cloud return not the same cloud numerically that cloud which was dissolved doth not return the same Sunne goes down and vanisheth out of our sight in the Evening and returneth again the same individual and numerical Sun in the morning but that numerical cloud which vanished comes not again Thus man vanisheth and returns as the clouds return after the raine that is after one generation Si id quod nunquam fuiâ— nunc est quomodo quod nunc est post interritum dcnuo fore negatur Nam si hoc mirum illud magis mirum videtur of men are dead they return again in their children another generation springs up other return to life there is none till all shal return at the general judgement of quick and dead As now we are who never were so all shal return who were but are not It was a witty answer of a learned Jew disputing with a heathen Philosopher who opposed the Resurrection If that saith he which never was in the world now is is it strange that that which now is should be again after it is not in the world If this be a wonder the other is much more wonderful Neither shall his place know him any more His place may be taken three wayes First For the calling and condition of a man in this life that 's the place of a man a mans Calling is his place Or secondly Locally for his house or inheritance where he dwelt he shall come to that place no more Or thirdly Place is taken for dignity magistracy for the eminency of a mans calling therefore we say of a Magistrate or a man in honour he hath a Great place or he is a man of place and Rank in all these senses his place shall know him no more His place shall not know him That 's an elegancy of the holy language Places are without life and without sense much more without knowledge knowing is an act of reason how is it then said his place shall know him no more Did it ever know him Ther 's a double figure in it Some understand it by an Hypallage or transmutation of the words his place shall know him no more that is he shall know his place no more So that is expounded Psal 103. 16. The place thereof shall know it no more speaking of man passing away like a wind So Psal 37. 10. Thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be his place shall not be places continue while the world continues Then his place shal not be is he shall not be in his place Or secondly understand it by a Prosopopeia frequent in Scripture which is the imitation of life by things without life when a place takes upon it the person of a man or when a place acts or imitates the speech of a man sence and reason are often ascribed to things without life and so the meaning of his place shall know him no more may be Quosi diceret ipsae res inanima quae serviura parent ad nutum mortalibus mortuis tamen null usui sunt Illos non agnoscunt dominos Ea enim est vis verbi cognoscendi non cognoscendi conceived thus When a man lives and comes home to his house his house as it were welcomes him home and his place is glad to entertain him as in the Psalme the little hils are said to rejoyce at the showers so when a man comes home his house and all he hath have as it were a tongue to bid him welcome and open armes to receive and embrace him but when he dies he shall return no more and then his place shall know him that is receive him no more Observe from this briefly because it is a similitude of the same importance with that opened in the former words first That death is the conclusion of all worldly comforts and relations As the cloud vanisheth and returneth not so in that sence there is an utter conclusion of man he is gone and there is no returning God by his almighty power hath fetched back some and the vanishing clouds have been brought again so Lazarus and others at the death of Christ was raised from the grave but in a natural way death seizeth all fast for ever your places your relations your credits your Friends shall know you no more or give you farther entertainment Secondly observe That God hath given us not only the book of Scripture but the book of the creature therein to learn and read our own frailty and mortality The creatures preach what man is and that is a reason why the holy Ghost spends so much time and is so frequent in giving us the measure of our selves by creatures these are every houre in our eye we meet with and see and handle and feel them continually The wind the vapours the clouds set forth what we are When I consider said David Psal 8. 3. 4. the Heavens the work of thy fingers the Moone and the Starres which thou hast ordained what is man that thou art mindfull of him To consider the greatnesse of the works of God should abase man it should amaze us to remember that God hath made such things for our use who are our selves so uselesse in comparison of what we ought to God And when man considers the Heavens and the earth and weighs how many things there are in them which set forth his frailty he hath reason to cry out O Lord what is man Man is but a wind a cloud a vapour even such a thing as I see most perishing and vanishing in the whole compasse of the creation Psalm 19. 1. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work The heavens are excellent creatures and full of glorious wonders they speake the power and wisdome of God they shew forth his handy work they can be the work of none but
part of me chooseth death all vote for the grave I have not a dissenting member no nor a dissenting bone when David prayes Psal 6. 2. Heale me O Lord for my bones are vexed His meaning is I am vexed quite through And when he promiseth Psal 35. 10. All my bones shall say who is like unto the Lord c. his meaning is that he will praise God quite thorough soul and body Againe Lam. 1. 13. From above hath he sent fire into my bones and it prevaileth against me that is he hath utterly consumed me So here the whole man is expressed by parts soul and bones or body and soul that is whether I consider the anguish of my soul or the pains of my body I desire to die Thirdly Death rather then my bones because he had such sore putrified and afflicted bones painfull bones For when Satan desired a Commission to afflict him he words it thus Touch his flesh and his bone and he will curse thee to thy face Doubtlesse Magis optarim mori quam talia essa membra puâ—â—ida ulceribus difflaentia Merc-OssiuÌ„m mentinit quod dolor ad intima usque ossa penetravit Satan had gone as deepe as his commission he had liberty to touch his flesh and his bone and he did it He vexed his very bones as we say my bones are ewen rotted and consumed the sores and the putrifaction is sunke downe into my marrow I had rather have death than my bones that is than a body thus consumed and putrified even to the very bones Yet further some of the Hebrews give it thus Death rather than my bones because Job had nothing left him but bones he could not say my flesh for his flesh was consumed As we say Jobo vix aliud quam ossasuperesset Such a man is nothing but skin and bones a very skelleton I am nothing but bones and I had rather die than live such an Anatomie Verse 16. I loath it I would not live alway let me alone for my dayes are vanity He closeth up his complaint as he had often done before with the tedium that was upon him and the nauciousnesse of his life I loath it I am nothing but skin and bone nothing but sores and boyles my life is a burthen to mee I would not live alway I loath it The word signifies the greatest aversation possible God expresseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his greatest displicency of that wherein the Jewes were commanded to take their greatest pleasure under this notion Amos 5. 21. I dispise your feasts you thinke you keepe solemne feasts wherein I delight as much as your selves but I loath them my stomack turnes at every dish The stomack closes with wholsome meat and turnes to it that which is unwholesome the stomack turnes against the sight of it causes loathing Their feasts were of Gods own appointment and he used in a sence to feast with them but their hypocrisie spoild the banquet Job speaks of his own life what the Lord spake of their feasts I loath it even as that meat which is most burthensome to the stomack So Psal 53. 5. Thou hast put them to shame because God loathed them or because God despised them They who are loathsome to God cannot long be honourable or acceptable among men I would not live alway The word is I would not live to eternity or I would not live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever Why who can if he would Why should Job deprecate that which was not attainable I would not live alway he needed not trouble himselfe about that for he speakes of a naturall life it being impossible that he should There is no feare of living alwaies in this world nor is there any hope of avoiding it in the next Why then doth Job say I would not live alway To live alway or for ever is often used in Scripture for a long time The Ceremonies and institutions of the Jewes were said to be for ever because they were long-lived yet we know they are vanished and gone That which continues as long as it should continues alwayes So here I would not live alway that is I would not live long or I would not live out my full time I had rather be cut off in the midst of my daies or in the midst of my yeares than live to the end of them Let me alone for my daies are vanity Let me alone Or cease from me which is taken two wayes either leave off to prolong and protract my daies cease from me so doe not stand by me with thine assisting power to keepe my life whole within me I am ready to die give me no strong-water or cordiall rather pull away my pillow let me goe Or Cease from me that is cease afflicting me take off thine afflicting hand from me doe not any longer hold me in this woefull and sad condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 huic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mundus tempus hoc nomen non tam humanae vitae â—erminum quam totum vitae curâ—iculâ—m tempus humanae vitae praefinitum denotat quod cito deficit cessâ—t Cease from me The world and time while they continue are alwayes ceasing and therefore have their denomination from this word which signifies co cease For my dayes are vanity That 's the ground of his prayer why he requests God to cease from him My dayes are vanity why shouldst thou stay me longer in a vaine shadow If we take Cease from me or let me alone for the ending of his affliction it is as if he had said my life is vanity there is trouble enough in it if thou givest me the greatest ease that ordinarily a life can have yet it is but a vaine life I need not have this super-addition or accumulation of sorrows upon me Or let me alone my life is vanity why should I converse further and longer with vanity My daies are vanity He saith not my dayes are vain but they are vanity My dayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A verbo Habal quod est evanescere Râ—â— denotat quae non est quidpiâ—m aut quae cito desinit aut flâ—â—us qui exit ab ore sic enim halituÌ„ infantium appellant Pag. are Hebel which signifieth a vaine light thing a buble on the water or a breath of the mouth my dayes are but a breath or a puffe The root imports vanishing or disappearing the still almost unperceiveable breath of a little infant which will scarce move a feather Alas my dayes are fleeting and vanishing vaine yea vanity they have no consistency in them O then cease from me and let me doe what vanity must vanish out of sight Hence observe First That which a man loatheth he longs to be rid of I loath it I would no live alway When a man loaths his sin then he saith I would not sin alway I would be eased of this burthen of corruption O wretched
Almighty chastens us p. 329. Children of wicked parents often wrapt up in the same judgement with their parents p. 200. Children of godly parents nearest the blessing p. 389. Blessings upon children are the parents blessings p. 390. Chirurgion Three necessary qualifications for him either in a natural or mystical sence p. 337. Christ confirmed the good Angels p. 139. No stability in any estate out of Christ ib. Christ is not onely a principle but a pattern of holiness 175. Faith can live upon nothing but Christ p. 487. Cloud what p. 613. Dying man like a cloud ib. Commendations with a But wound p. 17. Committing our cause to God what it imports p. 228. Committing our cause to God a great ease to the soul 231. A caution about committing our cause to God p. 232. Complaining when sinful 622. Concealing the word of God sinful four wayes of concealing it p. 462 463. Confession of sin a general confession may be a sound one p. 679. Divers ingredients of it p. 680. The holiest have cause to confesse sin and why p. 682. Sin not confessed gets strength three mayes p. 683. It makes the soul very active about the remedies of sin p. 684. Confidence Holy confidence what it is p. 21. Confidence in God settles the heart in all conditions p. 30. Conscience the testimony of it the best ground of willingness to die p. 465. Correction what it is p. 313. The greatest afflictions upon the children of God are but corrections 314. How a correction differs from a judgment ib. 315. A child of God is happy under all corrections 316. What it is to despise corrections opened 319 320 Crafty men who they are 273. Craft wisedome of natural men is craft 275. Crafty men Satan desires to get to his side and service why pag. 276 277 c. Crafty men full of hopes 279. and industry ib. They want power to effect what they devise 279. It is a wonderful work of God to stop the devices of crafty men p. 281. In what sence any of their devices prosper 282. How God takes the wise in their craftiness p. 284 287. No craft of man can stand before the wisdome of God p. 286. Creatures a book wherein we may learn much both of God and our selves 618. Creatures cannot give us any comfort without God 633. He can make any creature helpful to us ib. Counsel in counselling others we should shew our selves ready to follow the same counsel p. 233. God turns the counsels of wicked men against themselves p. 287. What counsel is 290. Rash hasty counsels are successless pag. 292. Curse What it is to curse p. 190 The Saints in Scripture rather prophesie of then pray for curses upon the heads of wicked men 191 No creature can stand before the curse of God p. 196. D DAlilah What it signifies pag. 303. Darkness in the day time what it signifies p. 293. Death consumes us without noise p. 153. Man cannot stand out the assauts of death p. 154. We are subject to death every moment 155. Death hastens upon us all the dayes we live 156 157. What death is p. 162. In death all natural and civil excellencies go away p. 162. Greatest wisedome to prepare to die well 164. How man is said to perish for ever when he dies 157 158. Few of the living observe how suddenly others do or themselves may die 159. Thoughts of death laid to the heart are a good medicine for an evil heart 160. A happy death what 390. A godly man is a volunteer in death 395. When a godly man dies he hath had his fill of living 396. In what sence a man may be said to die before his time and in the midst of his dayes 397. Assurance of a better life carries us through all the paine of death with comfort 457. So doth the testimony of a good conscience 465. No evill in the death of a godly man 480. Death the end of worldly comforts pag. 618 Deliverance is of the Lord pag. 341. The Lord can deliver as often as we can need deliverance 341. God delivers his people from evill while they are in trouble pa. 344. Despaire A godly man may think his estate desperate p. 545. Devices what p. 272. Discontent at the dealings of God with us a high point of folly 182. Discontent at the afflictions of God afflicts more than those afflictions p. 183. Dreams The several sorts and causes of them p. 636 637. Our dreams are ordered by God 638. Satan makes them terrible p. 639. E EGg White of an egg what it emblems p. 443 End two wayes taken p 599. Envy what it is p. 180. Fnvy a killing passion ib. 181. Envy a sign of folly p. 184. Errour he that is shewed his errour should sit down convinc'd 529. He is in a fair way to truth who acknowledges he may erre p. 533. What is properly called an errour as distinct from heresie 533. Vpon what terms an errour is to be left p. 534 Eternity how the longest and the shortest p. 644. Example of God and Christ how our rule p. 175. Exhortation a duty p. 229. It must be joyned with reproof ib. The best Saints on earth may need brotherly exhortations ib. Exhortations must be managed with meekness p. 230. Experience the mistress of truth 186. Experience works hope pag. 305. F FAll A three-fold fall in Scripture p. 12. Family To order a family well is a great point of wisdome p. 387. A family well ordered is usually a prosperouus family ib. Famine A very sore judgement the effect of it p. 345 346. How many wayes the Lord redeems from famine p. 347. Fatherless who p. 546. Such in a sad condition 548. A grievous sin to oppress them p. 549. Faith ought to be great because God can do great things p. 224. We must beleeve not only what we cannot see but what we cannot understand 248. Faith should encrease in us when God works wonders for us p. 253 254. Fear Natural what p. 92. It is natural for man to fear at the appearances of God why ib. Four effects or symptoms of natural fear 93. It is a strong passion 98. From what kind of fear God exempts his people in times of danger p. 358. Fear Holy fear what it is pag. 19 20. They who have most holy fear in times of peace shall have most confidence in times of trouble 27. It keeps the heart and life holy 30. Fear of God ever joyned with love to our brethren p. 495. Fearful persons cannot be helpfull p. 516. Eellow-feeling of others afflictions a duty p. 415. It adds to a mans affliction when others have no feeling of it 416. We cannot be truly sensible of the afflictions of others till we troughly weigh them 417. He that hath not been afflicted seldome feels the afflictions of others ib. Fool who and what a fool is p. 177. Every wicked man is a fool 181 186. A fool ever worst when he is at ease p. 186.
that plow iniquity and sow wickednesse reape the same which he applies parsonally to Job Chap. 22. v. 5 6. Is not thy wickednesse great and thine iniquities infinite Thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought and and stripped the naked of their cloathing c. The whole scope of his speech bends the same way and is as if he had said to Job Though thy carriage hath been so plausible among us that we are not able to accuse thee of sin yet these judgements accuse thee and are sufficient witnesses against thee These cry out with a loud voyce that thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought c. Though we have not seen thee act these sins yet in these effects we see thou hast acted them The snares which are round about thee tell us thou hast laid snares for others he that runs may read how terrible how troublesome thou hast been to the poore in the terrours which have seaz'd thy spirit and in the troubles which have spoyl'd thee of thy riches Bildad the Shuite speaks second His opinion is not so rigid as that of Eliphaz He grants that afflictions may fall upon a righteous person yet so that if God send not deliverance speedily if he restore him not quickly to his former estate and honour then upon the second ground of the fourth princple such a man may be censured cast and condemned as unrighteous That such was Bildads judgement in this case is cleare Chap. 8. 5 6. If thou wert pure and upright surely now he would awake for thee and make the habitation of thy righteousnesse prosperous Though thy beginning was small yet thy latter end shall greatly increase And vers 20 21. Behold God will not cast away a perfect man c. till he fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoycing As if he had said I connot assent to my brother Eliphaz affirming That every man afflicted is afflicted for his wickednesse I for my part believe and am perswaded that a godly man may be afflicted for the tryall exercise of his graces c. but then I am assured that God never lets him lie in his afflictions for as soon as he cries and cals the Lord awakes presently makes his habitation prosperous again and increases him more then ever I grant the Lord may cast down a perfect man but he will not in this life cast him away no he will speedily fill his mouth with laughing and his lips with rejoycing Zophar the third Opponent differs from the two former in this great controversie affirming That the reason of all those afflictions which presse the children of men is to be resolved into the absolute will and pleasure of God that we are not further to enquire about his wisdome justice or mercy in dispencing them his counsels being unsearchable and his wayes past finding out Thus he delivers his mind Ch. 11. 7 8. Canst thou by searching find out God Canst thou by searching find him out to perfection It is as high as heaven what canst thou do Deeper then hell what canst thou know vers 12. Vaine man would be wise though man be borne like a wild Asses colt In the rest of his speech he comes nearest the opinion of Bildad vers 14 15 16. and gives out â—s hard thoughts of Job as either of his brethren numbring him among the wicked assigning him the reward of an hypocrite Chap. 10. 29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God and the heritage appointed unto him by God These I conceive are the Characteristicall opinions of Jobs three friends about his case All consistent with those four principles which they hold in common all equally closing in the censure and condemnation of Job though in some things dissenting and falling off from one another But what thinks Job or how doth he acquit or extricate himself from these difficulties very well His sentence is plainly this That The providence of God dispences outward prosperity and affliction so indifferently to good and bad to the righteous the wicked that no unerring judgement can possibly be made up of any mans spirituall estate by the face upon the view of his temporall He declares this as his opinion in cleare resolute and Categoricall termes Ch. 9. v. 22 23. This is one thing therefore I said it He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked if the scourge slay suddenly he will laugh at the triall of the innocent Which opinion hath no quarrell at all with any of those three principles held by Job joyntly and in consort with his three friends but only with their fourth which he throughout refutes as heterodox unsound in it self as uncomfortable to the Spirits and inconsistent with experiences of the Saints In the Strong hold and Fort-royal of this holy truth Job secures himself against all the assaults and scatters all the Objections of his Opponents resolving to maintain it to the very death he will lay his bones by this position say his unkind friends what they can against him let the most wise God doe what he pleases with him That he was a sinner he readily grants that he was an hypocrite he flatly denies That the Lord was righteous in all his dealings with him he readily grants That himself was righteous because the Lord had dealt so with him he statly denies How perfect soever he was he confesses that he needed the free-grace and mercies of the Lord to justifie him but withall asserts that he was perfect enough to justifie himselfe against all the challenges of man In these acknowledgements of his sinfullnesse and denials of insincerity In these humblings of himself before God and acquittings of himself before men in these implorings of mercy from the Lord and complainings of the unkindnesse of his brethren the strength of Jobs answer consists and the specialties of it may be summ'd up 'T is true that through the extremity of his pain the anguish of his spirit and the provocation of his friends some unwary speeches slipt from him For which Elihu reproved him gravely and sharply of which himselfe repented sorrowfully and heartily all which the most gracious God passed by and pardon'd freely not imputing sin unto him Thus Christian reader I have endeavoured as heretofore of the whole Book so now to give a brief account concerning the Argumentative part of it And to represent how far in this great Controversie the Answerer and his Objectors agree in judgement and where they part If this discovery administer any help as a Threed to lead your meditations through the many secret turnings and intricacies of this dispute the labor in drawing it out is abundantly satisfied And if any further light subservient to this end shall be given in from the Father of lights that also in it's season may be held forth and set upon a Candle-stick What is now received together with the textuall Expositions upon this first Undertaking between
the soule but thou art driven with every blast in this thy hope Hope makes Heb. 6. 1â— not ashamed but thou either art or oughtest to be ashamed is this thy hope The feare of the Lord is cleane but thou art defiled Rom. 5. 5. is this thy feare Then againe consider this when Job carries himselfe thus in his trouble Eliphaz telleth him what is not this thy feare thou art surely but an hypocrite for if thy feare were true it would have preserved thee from these impatient complainings and distempers Hence observe That true feare holy feare preserves the soule and keepes it holy Holy feare is as a golden bridle to the soule when it would runne out to any evill It is like the bankes to the sea which keepes in the raging waves of corruption when they would overflow all If thou haddest feare indeed thou wouldest never thus breake the bounds of patience The feare of the Lord is to depart from evill that 's the definition of it therefore if thou haddest any feare of God indeed thou wouldest never have done this evill Curse thy day Prov. 14. 27. The feare of the Lord is a fountaine of life to depart from the snares of death that is either from sinne which is spirituall death or from damnation which is prepetuall death the feare of the Lord is a fountaine of life to depart from both these snares of death where this feare is not we are ready to joyne with every evill and so to fall into the jawes of every death Abraham Gen. 20. 11. argues so The feare of the Lord is not in this place therefore they will kill me when we perceive a bent of spirit to devise evill and a readinesse of the hand to practise it we may conclude the feare of the Lord is not lodged in that heart Fourthly observe That trust or confidence in God settles the heart in all conditions Is not this thy confidence Thy confidence certainly is but a shadow for if it had been reall thou hast been established and upheld notwithstanding all that weight of affliction that lies upon thee When there was an unquietnesse upon the soule of David he first questions his soule about it Why art thou disquieted O my soule and then directs trust in God Psal 42. 11. So the Prophet promiseth Isa 26. 3. Him wilt thou establish in perfect peace whose heart doth trust upon thee They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion Psal 125. 1. He that is carried and tost thus about with every winde of trouble and gust of sorrow shewes he hath not cast out this anchor of hope upon the Rock Jesus Christ But here a question must be answered for the cleering of all and likewise for discovering the strength or weaknesse of this argument brought by Eliphaz in this particular case of Job Eliphaz taxed Job with hypocrisie because his graces did not act or they did not act like themselves like graces he gave not proofe of them at that time Hence the doubt is Doe a mans fallings or declinings from what he was before or what he did before argue him insincere Is there sufficient strength in this Argument for Eliphaz to say Job thou hast been a comforter of others thou hast profest much holinesse heretofore and now thou art come to the triall thou canst not make it out thy selfe therefore thou hast no grace therefore all thy religion is vaine For the resolving of that I answer first that the proposition is not simply true that every one who faileth or declineth or falleth off from what formerly he was or held forth is therefore an Hypocrite or that his graces are false and but pretences there may be many declinings and failings many breaches and backslidings and yet the spirit upright Indeed falling away and quite falling off are an argument of insincerity and hypocrisie for true grace is everlasting grace true holinesse endures for ever Therefore we are here to consider whence these failings were occasioned in Job and how a failing may be exprest and continue so as to conclude insincerity or hypocrisie First it was from a sudden perturbation not from a setled resolution Job was not resolvedly thus impatient and unruly an unexpected storme hurri'd his spirit so violently that he was not master of his own actions Job had not his affections at command they got the bridle as it were on their necks and away they carried him with such force that he was not able to stop or stay them Secondly it came from the smart and sense of pain in his flesh not from the perversnesse of his spirit If the taint had been in his spirit then Eliphaz had a ground a certain ground to have argued thus against him Thirdly Jobs graces were hid and obscured they were not lost or dead the acts were suspended the habits were not removed when the grace which hath been shewed is quite lost that grace was nothing but a shew of grace painted feare and painted confidence but in Jobs case there was only a hiding of his graces or a vaile cast over them Lastly We must not say he fals from grace who falleth into sin nor must it be concluded that he hath no grace who falls into a great sinne It followes not that grace is false or none because it doth not work like it selfe or because it doth not sometimes work at all True grace workes not alwayes uniformly though it be alwayes the same in it selfe yet it is not alwayes the same in its effects true grace is alwayes alive yet it doth not alwayes act it retains life when motion is undiscern'd Wherefore they who doe not work like themselves or do not work at all for a time in gracious wayes are not to be concluded as having no grace or nothing but a shew of grace And so much be spoken concerning this first Argument contained in these six Verses the conviction of Job from his failing in the actings of his grace the putting forth of that fruit which formerly he had born and shewed to the world JOB Chap. 4. Vers 7 8. Remember I pray thee who ever perished being innocent or where were the righteous cut off Even as I have seen they that plough iniquity and sow wickednesse reape the same IN these two Verses and the three following Eliphaz coucheth and confirmeth his second Argument wherein he further bespatters the innocency of Job and hopes to convince him of hypocrisie The Argument is taken from the constant experience of Gods dealings in the world Remember I pray thee who ever perished being innocent We may give it in this forme Innocent persons perish not righteous men are not cut off But Job thou perishest and thou art cut off Therefore thou art no innocent or righteous person The major proposition is plaine in the seventh Verse for that question Who ever perished being innocent or where were the righteous cut off is to be resolved into this Negation No innocent person
righteous but inchoatly and intentionally so many are righteous and are called righteous in the language of the Scripture Thirdly there are none righteous that is none righteous by way of merit or desert none are so righteous as that they can challenge any thing at Gods hand of right the most righteous person is an unprofitable servant he hath nothing to plead before God but free grace Nothing to shew unto God but Christs fulnesse and his own emptinesse the riches of Christ and his own poverty Yet there are righteous in Gods acceptance he accounteth and accepteth them for righteous and honours them to be called righteous Lastly we may answer it thus there are none righteous in themselves or from themselves none have any righteousnesse of their own making but the Scripture shewes us those who have righteousnesse and are righaeous in another and from another we have the righteousnesse of justification in Christ and the righteousnesse of sanctification from Christ righteousnesse is both imputed to and floweth into the soule by vertue of the union which is promised in the covenant of grace with Christ the righteous with the Lord our righteousnesse In these respects there are righteous persons and of such we may understand this enquiry where were ever the righteous cut off The righteous by regeneration the righteous by inchoation the righteous by acception or the righteous by imputation where were any such righteous in all the world of whom thou canst say they have ever perished or have been cut off Having opened the sense of the single termes we will look to the sense of the proposition and consider wherein we may cleare the truth of it that innocent persons doe not perish or that the righteous are not cut off Take perishing or cutting off in the first sense namely for annihilation and returning to nothing and so neither righteous nor unrighteous guilty nor innocent can perish no man shall perish so man is of an everlasting make Then take perishing in the second sense as perishing is put for dying and going out of the land of the living thus all righteous and innocent persons perish and are cut off namely by the sword and sithe of death we may say all God indeed hath made some few exceptions out of the generall rule but the Statute is plaine It is appointed unto all men once to dye Enoch was translated and so was Elijah and many shall be found alive when Christ commeth to judgement who shall not die they shall be but changed and have a metaphoricall not a proper death This makes some small abatement from but doth not crosse the generall rule that all must die Take perishing in the third sense for some temporall outward suffering in the world either from the hand of God immediatly or mediately from the hand of man Thus righteous and innocent persons may perish too that is they may fall under fore and great afflictions thus righteous Abel perished and thus Jacob was a Syrian ready to perish and thus the godly party among the Jewes in the time of the captivity perished thoy perished from off the Land as it was threatned Josh 23. with the rest of the wicked of which the two baskets of figgs one bad and the other good were a famous type Jer. 24. 3. And in regard of this outward present temporall perishing we finde it often that the righteous perish while the unrighteous flourish Psal 73. 12. Behold saith David these are the ungodly that prosper in the world and at the fourth verse All the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning As sure or as soone as I rise I have a whipping and my break-fast is bread of sorrow and the water of adversity these prosper and I perish And the Prophet Jer. 12. 1 2. expostulates with holy submission about this flourishing estate of the wicked and perishing estate of the godly Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper c. And in the next verse Thou hast planted them yea they have taken roote they grow yea they bring forth fruit What a gradation is here of the flourishing prosperity of wicked men while the righteous seeme to wither Thou hast planted them but every tree that is planted doth not take roote but these take roote Every tree that taketh roote doth not grow up to any strength but these take roote and they grow there are trees that grow yet they bring not forth fruit but these bring forth fruit also Yea saith he they bring forth fruit these were flourishing trees indeed yet in the meane time thousands of righteous persons perished in and by outward troubles Sometime we find on the other hand that the wicked perish in outward troubles while the righteous are delivered and have Arkes provided to save them in a common deluge God makes that difference sometime even in this life he pulled Lot out of Sodome while Sodome perished by fire And righteous Noah was saved in the Arke while the world of the ungodly perished by water And lastly Both the righteous and the wicked may be wrapped up in the very same outward perishing condition yet alwayes with a difference though both alike perish yet their perishing is not alike As it is with the righteous and wicked in regard of sinne so of sufferings they may both commit the same sinne for the matter as it is a transgression of the Law but a righteous man can never sinne as the wicked he sins not with such formalities of sinning he hath not such a heart such a temper and bent of spirit as a wicked man hath in sinning to sinne so is utterly inconsistent with the new nature Thus also it is with the perishings afflictions and troubles which they fall into God sometimes sends the very same affliction for the matter as suppose poverty want imprisonment captivity and the like upon the one as upon the other But are the righteous smitten as God smites those that smite them Surely no in measure he debateth with them Isa 27. 7 8. They sinne not against God with the same heart or at the same rate as the wicked doe and God never strikes them with the same heart or at the same rate as he doth the wicked he cannot doe it the strength of his love to them makes this imposition for him Therefore though as the Preacher resolves the case Eccles 9. 1. No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before him In the matter of events love or hatred are not visible yet in the manner of events there is much love and hatred visible and the spirits of such as are under those events may discerne love or hatred when no eye can One seeth hatred and another seeth love aboundance of love mixed in his cup of sorrow God never gives his own a cup of pure wrath to drinke there are alwayes some ingredients of comfort and sweetnesse put into it This is the third sense how righteous ones may or may
angry are exprest by the different frame of the nostrils as namely when the Lord is said to be slow to anger the Hebrew is long of nostrils Psal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 103. 8. The Lord is slow to anger or Exod. 34. 6. Long-suffering In both places the Originall is long of nostrils that is of anger or long ere he be angry On the other side a passionate cholerick man a man ready to conceive anger is said to have a straite or a short nostrill He that is soone angry dealeth foolishly Prov. 14. 17. The Hebrew is he that hath a short or a narrow nostrill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Brevis narium i. e. praeceps ad iram 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Spiritu furoris ejus deficiunt dealeth foolishly because such men are most apt to conceive anger So then while Eliphaz saith by the breath of his nostrils they are consumed it is as if he had said by the wrath and displeasure of God they are consumed and the Septuagint translate it directly by anger They are consumed by the breath or spirit of his anger so others in the Latine They are consumed by the spirit of his fury And both these words breath and blast are found together in one place 2 Sam. 22. 16. At the blast of the breath of his nostrils the whole verse runneth thus The channels of the sea appeared the foundations of the earth were discovered at the rebuking of the Lord at the blast of the breath of his nostrils that is at the great displeasure of the Lord. So we see what we are here to understand by the breath and by the blast of the Lord. And in this passage Eliphaz seems to hint at the manner of the death of Jobs children who were destroyed by the strength of a mighty winde smiting the foure corners of the house so that it fell upon them that winde may well be called the breath and the blast of God both in regard of the wonder and strangenesse of it as also because though Satan was the instrument he had the ordering and disposing of it Satans breath all the winde he can raise cannot blow away a feather unlesse the Lord give and continue leave and strength to doe it Observe first God can easily destroy wicked men He doth it by a blast or by a breath Though to themselves and others they appeare as great Mountains yet before God they are but as dust or chaffe of the Mountains by a blast or by a breath he scatters and consumes them So David compares them Psal 1. 4. The ungodly are not so not so how they are not as a tree planted by the waters side that is the portion of the righteous how are the ungodly then they are as the chaffe that the winde scattereth or driveth away the best of them the most solid of them are no better And Isa 17. 13. The Nations shall be chased as the chaffe of the mountaines before the winde and as a rolling thing before the whirlwinde Though Nations mighty strong powerfull Nations come out against God and his people Fear them not For if God set himselfe against them they are no more before him then a little chaffe he scatters them by the breath of his displeasure You know it is no trouble for a man to breath or to make a blast with his mouth and this phrase is used to shew with what ease and facility God destroys all the plots and counsels of wicked men it putteth him to no paine no sweating no travel or labour to doe it men are put to much expence of paines and run many hazzards to oppose the wickedness of men but God doth it with a breath 2 King 19. 7. When God sent to Hezekiah to assure him that he would deliver him from Senacherib he not onely promiseth to doe it but shews him how he will do it even as in this Text Behold I will send a blast upon him that 's all I will doe I will not trouble my self much about the businesse you must gather armies and make great preparations against the enemy but I will doe it with a blast And which is yet more speedy Some understand this blast to note only the will and pleasure the intent or purpose of God by the blast of God they perish that is if he doe but will it it is done it is no more for him to act it then intend it The Septuagint translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 near this sence by the command of God they perish as if Eliphaz had said it is as easie for God to doe it as to say it shall or to command it to be done Men can command great things and talke much what they will doe and all proves but talking and commanding one man may command more in an houre then a Million can doe in a year but with God it is all one to command accomplish It is noted for a high speech that of Caesar to Metellus who opposing him when he came into the Roman Treasury to take the money there heaped together Caesar whose great spirit could not bear opposition saith to him Let me alone or I will lay thee dead upon the ground And presently at once to quallifie that threat and magnifie his owne power addes Young man it is harder for mee to speak this then to doe it It is most certainly so with God he can as easily doe any thing as speak it Yet further we finde the easinesse of Gods destroying his enemies set forth a degree higher He doth it by a looke as by a blast of his nostrils so by a cast of his eye that 's a small trouble and that 's all that it needs cost God to destroy the strongest the vilest and violentest foe in the world thus he consumed the Hoast of Pharaoh even with a look Exod. 14. 24. It came to passe that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the hoast of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and troubled the hoast of the Egyptians If God hide his face from his people they are troubled and if he look upon his enemies they are troubled He darts out both beams of life and beams of death from his eyes When a godly man is afflicted if he can but get the Lord to look upon his trouble he is delivered And when wicked men prosper if God do but look upon their glory they are withered With such ease doth the Scripture expresse the destruction of wicked ones it is by a breath by a word by a command by a look An intimation from the eye of God is execution Secondly note God can suddenly destroy the counsels and the plottings the ploughings and the sowings of wicked men In proverbial speaking to doe a thing suddenly and to doe a thing with a breath are the same God can as soon destroy his enemies as a man can breath Psal 73. 10. How are they brought into desolation in
one commended and approved from the mouth of God for a man perfect and upright should be thus afflicted what Shall weake Job be justified before God Yea though Job be considered in his greenest flourishings of grace and highest pitch of his prosperity as he was Geber indeed the greatest the mightiest man in the Easterne world yet shall he be more pure than his Maker No cease your complainings God is just and his honour must be vindicated in what he doth or in what he shall doe against the weakest or against the mightiest against the meanest or against the best of men God will be found just and man a lyar Either of these three senses are faire from the construction of the Text and may be profitable for us I shall therefore draw them down into five or six conclusions which will be at least a portion of that marrow and fatnesse which this Scripture yeilds us to feed upon First we may observe That man naturally preferreth himselfe not onely above other men but even before God himselfe A principle of pride dwels in our hearts by nature which at some times and in some cases breeds better thoughts in us of our selves than of God himselfe And it is this height of spirit which the heavenly vision here would levell to the ground We know it was the first sin of man that man desired to be like God Gen. 3. The first temptation was baited with a parity to the Divine powers Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evill This also was the language of Lucifers heart Thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the starres of God I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds I will be like the most high I say â—4 13 14. And the practise of the man of sinne is thus prophesied That he shall exalt himselfe above all that is called God 2 Thess 2. 4. But the heart of man is yet more mad and hath out-growne those sinfull principles For in troubles and temptations when things go not according to his minde he sometimes hath thoughts not only that he is like God but that he is more just than God and if he had the ordering of things he would order them better than God he sometime thinks himselfe juster than God and if he had the punishing of offenders justice should proceed more freely and impartially than it doth which is upon the matter not onely to exalt himself as the Man of Sin doth above Nuncupative Gods or all that is called God but to exalt himself above him who is God by nature above the onely one-most God Even to speak in this Dialect of highest blasphemy that he is more just than God more pure than his Maker Secondly Take this conclusion That it is a most high presumption not onely for low weak man but for the best the highest of men to compare themselves with God or to have any thoughts concerning his wayes as if they could mend them When God cals us to amend our wayes for us to presume we could amend Gods wayes is the very top branch the highest tower yea the most towring Pinnacle of presumption We say amongst men that comparisons are odious but this is the most odious comparison of all for a man to compare himselfe with God his thoughts with Gods thoughts what he hath done or would doe with what God doth If you consider the termes of opposition that are in the Text this conclusion will be more clear unto you Consider how Enosh weak mortall man is opposite to Elohah the mighty the strong God it is presumption for a weak man to compare with a strong man what presumption is it then for a weake man to compare with the mighty God for a reed to compare in strength with a rock for darknesse to compare with light for a cloud to compare with the Sunne for death to compare with life for folly to compare with wisdome for uncleanenesse to compare with holinesse for nothing to compare with All how presuptuous Will ye provoke the Lord saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 10. are ye stronger than he It implies that some such thoughts lodge in man as if he could make his partie good with God or might be stronger than he And it is equall folly in us and provocation against the Lord to thinke our selves juster as to thinke our selves stronger than he And then marke the other termes of opposition Man and his Maker Shall the great man compare with or be more pure than his Maker as if he should say How great and excellent soever this man is he was made and made by God with whom he thus compares than whom he thinks himselfe more pure And shall the thing formed stand upon termes with him that formed it shall the potsheard or the pot contend with the Potter what though it be an excellent vessell a vessell determined for the most excellent ends and uses yet whatsoever it is it was made to be and made to be by God both in its constitution and uses Shall it then boast it selfe against its maker The Lord made Geber as well as Enosh the strong man as well as the weake the wise and learned man as well as the foolish and ignorant the Noble as well as the base the holy and righteous as well as the wicked and prophane In a word the vessels of honour are as much yea more of his making than the vessels of dishonour shall they then be more pure than their Maker hath the Lord given more to others than he hath in himselfe hath he made a creature his superior or his Peere hath his bounty impaired his own stock or hath he made man more than God That God hath made the best out of the dust is enough to lay all our pride and boasting as low as the dust That what we are we are from another should ever keep us humble in our selves Thirdly Take this Conclusion That God in himselfe is most just and pure Shall mortall man be more just than God The question hath this position in it that God is infinitely just infinitely pure therefore he is perfectly pure perfectly just God is essentiall Justice essentiall purity Justice and purity are not qualities in God but they are his very nature A man may be a man and yet be unjust but God cannot be God and be unjust A man may be a man and yet impure but God cannot be God and be impure so that Justice and purity are not qualities or accidents in God but his very essence and being destroy or deny the purity and Justice of God and you put God out of the world as much as in you lies for he cannot be God unlesse he be both just to others and pure in himselfe Fourthly Take this conclusion The best men compared with God are evill and the holiest are impure Not onely is it presumption but a lye for men to compare with God
men we need not the helpe of fooles to counsell us or of unfaithfull ones to act for us Besides Creatures are no helpe to God For the truth is God and the creature are no more than God alone I say God and the utmost perfection of all creatures put together are no more than God alone The reason of it is because if there be any perfection in creatures it is but what God himselfe hath put into them What a man gives to another is no addition to himselfe much lesse is that which God gives man or Angel any addition to God God is infinite and no addition can be made to infinite When the creature doth most for us the creature of it selfe doth nothing for us God doth all in all by all The creature doth you no more good at one time than at another all the good which is done at any time God doth it So then every way God hath no need of creatures And it is our comfort I am sure it ought to be that he hath not He saith to wisemen I have no need of your counsels to rich men I have no need of your purses and to great men I have no deed of your power hee sees all is vanity Lastly If God trust not Angels let not us trust in man if he charges his Angels with folly let not us adore the wisedome of man This discovery of imperfection in Angels should lay all creatures low before us and take us off from confidence or boasting in any arme of flesh To this sense Eliphaz prosecutes the argument in the following words to the end of the Chapter If Angels the chiefest and choicest of creatures be thus weake what then is man who dwels in a house of clay whose foundation is in the dust and who are crushed before the moth JOB Chap. 4. Vers 19 20 21. How much lesse on them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust which are crushed before the moth They are destroyed from morning to evening they perish for ever without any regarding it Doth not their excellency which is in them goe away they die even without wisedome THese three verses containe a description of man in opposition to the Angels The forme of the argument was given before to this effect That if Angels those excellent creatures cannot stand before God or be justified in his sight then much lesse man a weake creature man who dwels in a house of clay and whose foundation is in the dust Two things this Context holds forth to us concerning the weaknesse of man in opposition to Angels First It shewes that man is a materiall substance so are not Angels Angels are spirits spirituall substances Secondly It shewes us that man is a mortall substance so are not Angels spirits die not That man is a materiall substance is proved in the beginning of the 19. verse from those words He dwels in a house of clay whose foundation is in the dust That man is a mortall substance is implied in the former That which is made of clay and dust must needes be brittle ware But besides that his mortality is implied in those words it is proved expresly and in termes in the words following to the end of the Chapter And this mortality of man is set forth by divers adjuncts or circumstances 1. By a similitude shadowing the quicknesse or the suddennesse of mans death They are crushed before the moth 2. By the shortnesse of life They are destroyed from morning to evening 3. By the everlasting power which death hath upon us respecting this world They perish for ever 4. By the common and generall insensiblenesse and inconsideration of this fraile life of this long lasting death Man saith he is destroyed from morning to evening he dieth quickly perisheth for ever he lies as long as the world lasts in his grave yet such is the stupidity of man that none regard all this he dies without any regarding 5. And least any should say surely man is not such a pitifull creature as this sad description represents him man was the most excellent part of the inferior creation God planted many noble endowments upon man and is there no more to be said of him but this he is crush'd like a moth and dies no man regarding That objection is taken away in the last verse as if the Holy Ghost had said I grant that man besides dust and clay which are his materials hath many heavenly yea divine endowments he hath the impressions of Gods Image in reason and understanding stamped upon him but though he be thus qualified yet all his excellency all that which may be accounted the choisest and the best in him will not keepe him sweet or protect him from death and rottennesse Doth not saith he their excellency which is in them goe away as if he had said If you alledge that man is more than dust and clay then weaknesse and corruption t is granted but what then Doth not their excellency that is in them goe away doth it not vanish and where is it and where is he All naturall perfections whatsoever man hath under the notion of a reasonable creature be they never so high and raised quickly passe wither and decay They have no abiding excellency in them Doth not their excelleny that is in them goe away They have wisdome but they die without wisedome even as bruit beasts either their wisdome decayes while they live or it is not able to keepe them alive wisedome parts and learning stand them in no stead to prevent death Now if their excellency goe away they must goe too if wisedome cannot keepe them alive die they must as we shall see further in opening the severall parts having thus given the sense in generall These things considered we may see the strength of the Argument in the 19. verse How much lesse on them who dwell in houses of clay c. as if he should say Forasmuch as Angels cannot stand in competition with God or approve themselves in his sight certainly much lesse can man how great thoughts soever he hath of himselfe much lesse can man be justified in his sight who comes so many degrees short of Angelicall perfections For his soule which is within him though it be a noble and a spirituall substance and that wherein he is most like to Angels yet this soule of his sojournes dwels and acts in a body composed of corruptible clay and hath no better a foundation in a naturall capacitie than the very dust And so subject is this man to mortality thus composed of dust and clay as what through the inward distempers of his body what through outward accidents and casualties he is as transitory and as subject to death as the meanest worme as the poorest creature in the world he is crushed before the moth How much lesse on them that dwell in houses of clay The Hebrew beares a double rendring either how much lesse as we or
how much more If it be rendred how much lesse then it referres to the first clause of the former verse Thus if he Patricula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro qua est simpliciter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoc loco â—â—rumque desig nat sc vel quanto minus vel quanto magis Drus puts no trust in his Angels then much lesse doth he put trust in men who dwell in houses of clay If it be rendred how much more then it referres to the latter clause of that verse Thus If he charged his Angels with folly then how much more may he charge them with folly who dwell in houses of clay Which words are a description of man either in his civill condition or in his naturall constitution Some take these words in the very letter The house for that which we ordinarily call a house the house wherein man ordinarily inhabits as if Eliphaz had thus said Angels dwell in Heaven they have everlasting mansions but man dwels in a house of clay the best and goodliest houses are but clay and dust a little refined and sublimated by art or nature brick and stone all these materials or but dirt concocted by the heate of fire and Sunne so that if the allusion were to the very houses in which man-kind dwels in oppsition to the habitation of Angels these set them farre inferiour to and below the Angels As these take it for the house wherein man lives so some understand it of the house where man lyes being dead namely the grave The Chaldee is expresse paraphrasing thus How much more the wicked who dwell in a sepulcher of clay That the grave is called a house the Prophet helps us Isa 14. 18 19. All the Kings of the Nations even all of them lie in glory every one in his own house that is in the grave as the next words prove But thou art cast out of thy grave c. But I rather take it as was before intimated to be an expression of mans naturall constitution He dwels in a house of clay whose foundation is in the dust And so the Apostle is expresse 2 Cor. 5. 1. If our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved the earthly house is the body and 2 Cor. 4. 7. the body is called an earthen vessel We have this treasure namely the precious Promises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Turbidus lututentus mixtus ut cum aquae turbantur in eis lutum itae commevetur ut confundantur luto miscentur ut in cementum degenerent and truths of God in the dispensation of the Gospel in earthen vessels We dying men preach eternall life we have death in our faces while the word of life is in our mouths The word here used signifies clay either wrought or unwrought either naturall slimy dirt or dirt made up for use by art So Gen. 11. 3. when they attempted the building of that Tower it is said They had slime for morter it is the word of the Text which is used for both slime and morter they had slime which is natural for morter that is by Art and industry they made morter of slime The body of man is a house of clay but not of rude naturall clay the power and if I may so speak the art of God hath wrought it beyond it self and refined it for this goodly building the body of man The body of man is called a house or building in two respects First because of the comely fabrick it is set up by line or by rule there is admirable architecture admirable skill in building and raising up of the body of man story after story room after room and contrivance after contrivance in all so compact and set together that the most curious piles in the world are but rude heaps compared to it so then in respect of the frame and structure it is fitly called a house Secondly * Hoc corpus luteum domus animae dicitur quia anima humana quantum ad aliquid est in corpore sicut homo in domo vel sicut nanta in navi in quaÌ„tum scilicet est motor corporis anima a utem non unitur corpori accidentaliter sed formaliter ut forma materiae dicitur enim materia fundamentum formae eò quod est prima pars in generatione sunt fundamenâ—um in constitutione domus Aquin. the frame of the body is called a house in respect of the soul the soul dwels in or inhabits the body as the whole man inhabits or dwels in a house the soule guides and orders the body as the inhabitant orders the affairs of the house or as the Mariner and Pilot steer and direct the motions of the ship Not that the soul is in the body accidentally we must not strain the similitude so far as a man is in a house or a Mariner is in a ship there is a formall union between the body and the soul only the soul is said to dwell in the body and the body or the matter is after called a foundation because there is the beginning Man was begun at his body as the house is at the foundation first God formed man that is the body out of the dust of the earth and then he breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soule Thus the body is a house and it is a house of clay or a house of Coâ—pus humanum lutum digitur quod ex teâ—ra aqua gravioribus clementis abundantius constat Aquin. earth so called chiefly in two respects First because of the matter of it it is made of earth Though all Elements as Naturalists teach meet in mixt bodies yet earth is predominant in grosse or heavie bodies Secondly because of the continuance of it or the means by which it is supported for as it was at the first framed out of the earth so it is still supported and maintained by earth earthly creatures meat and drink with such like accomodations continue and repair this house from day to day untill at last it be laid down in the dust and returne to earth again So then it is called an earthly house not only from the matter of which it is made but also from the means by which it is kept in repair earth and earthy all Whose foundation is in the dust These words aggravate the weakness of mans condition Suppose man were formed out of the dust and were but clay yet had he a strong foundation that would support and strengthen him The strength of a building is in the foundation and that building whose wals are but weak may stand long being firmely founded The Church of Christ is weak of it self but because the Church hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pulvis propâ—ie rarior tenuinat qualis in superfiâ—ie terrae Meâ— in Gen. Significaâ— non simpliciâ—ur pulverem sed pulveâ—eÌ„ canosum â—â— lâ—mosum Fapius in Gen. 2. 7 Pulvis levissimus ex quo
clay they lye in the frame and between the rafters of this house sucking up the spirits and wasting the strength spending the heate and drinking up the naturall moisture of the body we know not how we consume but we consume we know not how we decline but we decline we dye we know not how but we dye Is it not then as with a moth creeping upon us yea feeding upon us without noise Againe Take it by way of similitude not as before actively or instrumentally they are crushed as by a moth or as a moth crushes but passively or subjectively They are crushed as a moth that is they are crushed as a moth is crushed alluding to the easinesse of crushing a moth A moth is dust as soone as you crush it the least touch kills it Man in his house of clay is so weake that if God doe but touch him he dies and falls to dust the Lord needs not bring his great Artillery and make batteries against the body of man the body of man is no such strong Fort or Bulwarke to stand out a long siege or endure much assaulting and opposition he is crushed as a moth betweene your fingers Hence David most humbly deprecates the stroake of God which he saw comming or felt as come because he was not able to beare it Psal 39. 10. Remove thy stroake away from me I am consumed by the blow of thine hand Lord if thou strike me thus I shall quickly consume And least you should think that Davids flesh he being a King was tender and delicate and so lesse able to beare any hardship therefore in the following words he puts the case in generall concerning man or man-kind Take the man whose strength is as the strength of stones and his flesh as brasse yet this man breakes and vanishes under the hand of God so he affirmes ver 11. under this passive consideration of a moth When thou with rebukes doest correct man for iniquity thou makes his beauty to consume away like a moth And then closes with that common axiome of mans mortality surely every man is vanity Selah Further Man may well be said to be crushed or die even as a moth for as the garment breeds the moth and then the moth eates the garment so besides that power of God or the outward stroake of his hand of which David spake mans own distempered body breeds ill humours they diseases and these breed death As it was with Jonas gourd so it is with us we give life and suck to a worme in our own roots which sucks out our life causing our leaves to fall and our goodly branches suddenly to wither Thirdly From that sense he is crushed before Arcturus or as long as the Starres continue Observe That as mans state is fraile and weake so it will be the for ever of this world Doe not looke that ever there shall rise up a generation of men that shall have better houses then houses of clay or houses stronger built then our present buildings As we are risen up in our fathers stead a generation of sinfull men so we are risen up in our fathers stead a generation of weake mortall men and our children will arise in the stead of us their fathers a generation of men as mortall as we their fathers Till the whole compages and course of nature be changed man shall not exchange the infirmity of his nature He shall never be without crushing sicknesses till he is above them The sad story of man holds on still and growes yet more sad before it was crushing now it is destroying Verse 20. They are destroyed from morning to evening they perish for ever without any regarding it We may understand the former verse of naturall death and this of casuall and violent death Destuction and perishing import violence Though I conceive naturall death be here also intended They are destroyed from morning to evening they perish for ever without any regarding it or as Mr. Broughton reads it between a morning and evening they are wasted without any regarding or without any thinking upon it They are destroyed that is they are subject or liable to destruction A mane ad vesperam i. e. per torum diem quâ—ppe mane vespera sunt paâ—tes diei Drus That phrase from morning to evening notes the whole day it is as much as to say they are destroyed continually or all the day long as the Apostle speaks out of the Psalme Rom. 8. 36. For thy sake are we killed all the day long The morning and the evening are the parts of a naturall day Gen. 1. 5. or the two termes of a civill day these include and take in the full compasse of the day This sense teacheth us That man is destroyable every moment He wasts in one sense while he growes and dies from the morning of his birth and comming into the world to the evening of his returne and going out of the world And not only so but he is obnoxious to the violent assaults of death every day and all houres of every day From the morning when he rises to the evening when he goes to bed he walkes among armies of dangers and within the Gunshot of destruction The Apostles catalogue of perils is true to this day 2 Cor. 11. 26. In perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils of mine own countrymen in perils by the Heathen in perils in the City in perils in the wildernesse in perils in the sea in perils among false brethren Every place is a peril and every person a peril Where can we goe with whom can we meete and not goe among or meete with perils And doe not all these perils speake destruction from morning to evening Pauls experiences both in regard of a natural but especially of violent death brought forth these conclusions which come full up to the point I die daily 1 Cor. 15 31. in deaths often 2 Cor. 11. 23. we are killed all the day long Rom. 8. 36. Secondly Take the words as a proverbiall speech by which the shortest time is signified As Isa 38. 12. Hezekiah complayning sets forth his mortall sicknesse threatning present death and cutting off thus Mine age is departed and removed from me as a sheapheards tent I have cut off like a weaver my life he will cut me off with pining sicknesse from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me that is either continually or suddenly from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me I am wasting perpetually or before night within the compasse of this day thou wilt destroy and make an end of me these were the thoughts of my heart when I was in the hands of that acute dispatching disease The Psalmist Psal 90. 5 6 describes man as grasse in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up in the evening it is cut downe and withereth that is man continueth but a very short time His life is but a spanne long or
and more perfect then those in his house on Earth yet it is a higher act of grace to desire to live to praise God then to be willing to dye that we may praise him because in this we deny our selves most Praysing God on earth is a work as well as a reward but praising God in Heaven is a reward rather then a work And we put forth the most spirituall acts of grace when we cheerfully goe on with a work which we know stands betweene us and the best part of our reward But I returne to the Text. They perish for ever without any regarding or without any laying it to heart The word heart is not in the mouth but it is in the heart of this Scripture For the sense is paralell with that Esay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Absque apponente Pereunt eoquòd nemo opponat eis medicinam 57. The righteous perish and no man layes it to heart The Chaldee gives a strange glosse They perish or dye because no man giveth them medicine as if he had said there is no Physitian can give an Antidote against death or by any medicines prolong mans life It is a truth that the decayes and ruines of Nature will at last exceed the repairs of Art but this glosse hath little regard to the text which we translate well They perish without any regarding it that is none or very few regarding it The negative is not absolutely universall excluding all as if there were none in the world who take notice of the shortnesse and frailty of mans life or of his for ever perishing condition So in that place of Isaiah the righteous perish and no man layes it to heart that is there are very few scarce any to be found who lay to heart in comparison of the number which neglect the death of righteous men Observe hence Few of the living regard how suddenly others do or themselves may dye Till we see a friend gasping and dying till we see him bedewed with cold sweats and rackt with Convulsions till our eye thus affects our hearts our hearts are seldome affected with the sense of our mortality It is one reason why Solomon advises to go to the house of mourning Eccles 7. It is better to goe to the house of mourning then to the house of mirth for saith he that is the way of all men all must dye and the living will lay it to heart or the living will regard it As if he had said the living seldom lay death to heart till they come to the house of death He seems to promise for the living that then they wil yet his undertaking is not so strict as if every man that goes to the house of mourning did certainly lay it to heart but he speaks probably that if living man will at any time lay death to heart then surely he will when he goes to the house of mourning When will a man think of death if not when he sees death and looks into that dark chamber of the grave There are many who lay it to heart only then for a fit at a Funerall they have a passion of the heart about mortality And very many have gone so often to the house of mourning that they are growne familiar with death and the frequency of those meetings take off all impressions of mortality from their hearts As we say of those Birds that build roost in steeples being used to the continuall ringing of the bels the sound disquiets them not or as those that dwel near the fall of the river Nylus the noise of the water deafens them so that they minde it not Many have been so often at the grave that now the grave is worn out of their hearts they look upon it as a matter of custome and formality for men to dye and be buried and when the solemnity of death is over the thoughts of death are over as soone as the grave is out of their sight preparations for the grave are out of mind It is storied 2 Sam. 20. 12. that when Amasa was slain by Joab and lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the high way every one that came by him stood still but anon Amasa is removed out of the high way into the field a cloth cast upon him then the text saith all the people went on after Joab It is so still we make a stop at one that lyes gasping and groaning at one that lyes bleeding and dying but let a cloth be throwne over him and he draw aside put into the grave and covered with earth then we goe to our businesse to trading and dealing yea to coveting and sinning as if the last man that ever should be were buried Thus men perish for ever without any regarding If this kinde of perishing were more regarded or regarded by more fewer would perish Thoughts of death spiritualliz'd have life in them thoughts of death laid to the heart are a good medicine for an evil heart It followes Verse 21. Doth not their excellency which is in them go away they dye even without wisdome This Verse as I noted in the begining prevents an objection which might be made as if man had wrong done him and that it were too great a diminution to his honour whom God made the chief creature in the inferiour world and but little inferiour to Angels themselves that he should be looked upon only as a heape of dust or a lumpe of clay as a mortall momentany perishing creature therefore he grants that man hath an excellency but all the excellency that he hath whether naturall or artificiall bred in him or acquired by him as a man when he goes goes too Doth not their excellency which is in them go away or journieth not their excellency with them as Mr. Broughton translates alluding to our passing out of the world as in a journey when a man dies he takes a journey out of the world he goes out for ever and saith he doth not his excellency journey along with him yes the question affirmes it when man goes his excellency goes too The word Jether which we translate excellency signifies primarily a residue or a remaine and that two ways First a residue of persons Judges 7. 6. But all the rest of the people bowed downe on their knees to drink water So the vulgar understands it here They who are left after them shall be taken away from them namely their heirs or posterity Secondly it signifies a residue of things Ps 17. 14. where describing worldly men who have their portion in this life he saith their bellies are fill'd with hid treasure they are also full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes Thus others take it here Doth not the wealth and riches which men leave when they dye dye also and go away as their persons are mortall so are their estates there is a moth will eat both And Iather quod est
notes a man hasty bold inconsiderate rushing on hand over head without feare or wit A man who either is master but of little knowledge or that which he hath be it little or much masters him It agrees fully in sense and is the same to a letter in found with our English word Evill Such the Prophet Zech. 11. 15. describes Take saith he the instruments of a foolish sheapheard he doth not meane the instruments of a rude and meerely ignorant sheapheard a man that hath no knowledge or learning but of a rash and imprudent shepheard or of a lazie and idle shepheard who though hath knowledge yet knowes not how or hath no heart to improve his knowledge for the good of his flock The Prophet Ezekiel gives us the character of such Chap. 34. 4. The diseased have ye not strengthened nor have ye healed that which was sicke nor bound up that which was broken c. but will ye know what work they made with furie and with crueltie have ye ruled them ye have been moved with fury not with pity and acted by passion not by reason much lesse by grace So in this place the foolish man whom envy slayes is not a meere ignorant one that hath no brains but one hare-brayn'd and uncompos'd Eliphaz hints at Job secretly in this word whom he knew reported for a man of great knowledge and learning according to the learning of those times yet he numbers him with Nâ—n his solum sed calamo iâ—os â—imur in scribendo eumque 〈◊〉 fraâ—gâ—mus pectoâ—â—s penecallo alcato res tesseris cuicunque instrumento quilâ—bet ex quo dâ—fficultatem se paâ—â— arbitratur August â—ra stultitiae comeâ— sooles because he conceived him wrathfull rash intemperate not having any true government of himselfe Anger resteth in the bosome of fooles Eccles 7. 9. A foole is not able to judge of the nature of things or times or occasions and therefore he is angry with every thing that hits not his nature or his humour He will be angry with the Sunne if it shine hotter then he would have it and with the winds if they blow harder then he would have them and with the clouds if they raine longer then serves his turne They that are emptiest of understanding are fullest of will and usually so full of will that we call them will-full Hence unlesse every thing be ready to serve their wills they are ready to dye by the hand or judgement of their passions Wrath kills this foolish man Wrath may be taken here two woyes either for the wrath of God or for the wrath of man In the former sense the meaning is That the wrath of God kills foolish men Which is an undoubted truth but I rather adhere to the latter which gives the meaning thus That the wrath of a foolish man kills himselfe his own wrath is as a knife at his throate and as a sword in his own bowels The word which we translate wrath signifies indignation anger teastinesse or touchinesse Properly wrath is anger inveterate anger is a short fury and wrath is a long anger when a man is set upon 't when his spirit is steeped and soak't in anger then 't is wrath Esau raked up the burning coales of his anger in the ashes till his Fathers Funerall The time of mourning for my father will shortly come then will I slay my brother But our word rather notes a servent heate and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distemper of spirit presently breaking forth or an extreame vexation fretting and disquieting us within As Psal 112. 10. The wicked shall see it and be grieved that is he shall have secret indignation in himselfe to see matters goe so He shall gnash with his teeth and melt away Gnashing of the teeth is caused by vexing of the heart And therefore it followes he melts away which notes melting is from heate an extreame heate within The sense is very suitable to this of Eliphaz wrath slayeth the foolish or wrath makes him melt away it melts his grease with chafing as we say of a man furiously vext Hence that deplorable condition of the damned who are cast out of the presence of God for ever is described by weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which imports not onely paine but extreame vexing at or in themselves Those fooles shall be slaine for ever with their own wrath as well as with the wrath of God Wrath killeth c. But how doth wrath kill a foolish man his wrath sometimes drawes his sword and kils others but is his wrath as a sword to kill himselfe Many like Simeon and Levi in their anger have slaine a man but that the anger of a man should slay himselfe may seeme strange The passion of vvrath is such an engine as recoyles upon him that uses or discharges it As the desire of the slothfull killeth him Prov. 21. 25. so the wrath of a foolish man kils him that place enlightens this how comes desire to stay the slothfull thus A man slothfull in action is full of desires and quick in his affections after many good things he would faine have them he longs for them but the man is so extreame lazie that he will not stirre hand or foot to get the things which he desires and so he pines away with wishing and woulding and dies with griefe because desire is not satisfied So in like manner wrath is said to slay a man first because it thrusts him headlong upon such things as are his death he runnes wilfully upon his own death sometimes by the dangerousnesse of the action whence casuall suddaine death surprises him sometime by the unlawfulnesse of the action which brings him to a legall or judiciary death Secondly his wrath is said to kill him because his wrath is so vexations to him that it makes his life a continuall death to him and at last so wearieth him out and wasts his spirits that he dyes for very griefe and so at once commits a three-fold murder First he murders him intentionally against whom he is wroth Secondly he really murders his own body and thirdly he meritoriously murders his soule for ever except the Lord be more mercifull then he hath been wrathfull and the death of Christ heal those wounds by which he would have procured the death of others and hath as much as in him lies procured his own And envie slayeth the silly one These two expressions meet neere upon a sense Envy is the trouble which a man conceives in himselfe at the good which another receives This disease gets in at the eyes and eares or is occasioned by seeing or hearing of our neighbours blessings In the 1 Joh. 2. All the lusts in the world are reduced to three heads The lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life Envy is the chiefest lust of the eyes and it is properly called the lust of the eye because a man seldom envieth another untill
upon his estate upon the branches and the fruit of that goodly tree much like that in the vision Dan. 4. 13 14. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed and behold a watcher and a holy One came downe from Heaven He cryed aloud and said thus Hew downe the tree and cut off his branches shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit c. This Allegory may be rendred in the plaine words of Eliphaz I cursed his habitation his children are far from safety The Master of the Family is the tree His children are either fruit or branches His leaves are riches and honour the beauty and pleasantnesse of his habitation Some things in the letter of the text are to be opened but I shall first observe one thing in the generall from the connection of this fourth verse with the third I suddenly cursed his habitation verse 3. Then follows his children are far from safety Observe from it That Creatures cannot stand before the curse of God How strongly soever they are rooted the blast of the breath of Gods displeasure will either blow them downe or wither them standing The curse comes powerfully suddenly and secretly it is often an invisible stroake When we see neither axe nor spade at the roote nor strome at rhe top yet downe it comes or stands without leafe or fruit When Christ in the Gospell curst the fruitlesse figg-tree his Disciples passing by that way wondred saying how quickly is this figg-tree whithered it was but onely a word from Christ Never beare fruit more and the fig-tree which had no fruit lost its life Some are such tall Cedars such mighty Oakes that men conclude there is no stirring of them no Axe can fell them or blast loosen them yet a word from the Lord will turne them up side downe or if he doe but say to them never fruit grow upon your actions or out of your counsels presently they wither The curse causlesse shall not come but when there is a cause and God speaks the word the curse will come Neither power nor policies neither threatnings or entreaties can hinder or block it up It is said of the water of jealousie in the booke of Numbers that when the woman dranke that water if there were cause of her husbands suspition presently her belly swel'd and her thighes did rot the effect was inevitable So if God bid judgement take hold of a man family or Nation it will obey A word made the world and a word is able to destroy it There is no armour of proofe against the shot or stroake of a curse Suddenly I cursed his habitation and the next news is His children are far from safety If God speake the word it is done as soone as spoken as that mysterious Letter said of the Gun-pouder plot As soone as the paper is burnt the thing is done Surely God can cause his judgements to passe upon his implacable enemies such horrid conspiratours against Churches and Common-wealths truth and peace with as much speed as a paper burns with a blaze and a blast they are consumed That in the generall from the connexion of these two verses Assoone as he was cursed his children and his estate all that he had went to wrack and ruine I shall now open the words distinctly His children are far from safety Some reade Were far from safety and so the whole passage in the time past because he speaks of a particular example which he himself had observeâ— in those daies as is cleare v. 2. Having shewed the curse upon the eoot he now shews the withering of the brauches Some of the Rabbins understand by Children the Followers or Imitators of wicked men such as assisted them or such as were like them These are morall children but take it rather in the letter for naturall children such as were borne to them or adopted by them these come under their fathers unhappinesse They are far from safety The Hebrew word is commonly rendred salvation His children are farre from salvation But then we must understand it for temporall salvation which our translation expresses clearely by safety His children are farre from safety It is possible that the children of a wicked man may be neare unto eternall salvation Though godly parents have a promise for their seed yet grace doth not runne in a bloud neither is the love of God tied or entayl'd upon any linage of men Election sometimes crosses the line and steps into the family of a reprobate father Therefore it is not said His children are farre from salvation in a strict but in a large sence We find the word salvation frequently used for safetie 2 Kings 13. 17. when Elisha bad Joash the King of Israel shot the arrow he called it the arrow of the Lords salvation which we render the arrow of the Lords deliverance So Moses bespeakes the trembling Israelites aâ— the red Sea Stand still and behold the salvation of the Lord that is behold what safety the Lord will give you from all these dangers what deliverance from the hand of Pharaoh The Prophet represents the Jewes thus bemoaning their outward judgements We roare all like Beares and mourne sore like Doves we looke for judgement but there is none for salvation but it is farre off Isa 59. 11. They are far from safety To be far from safety is a phrase importing extreame danger As when a man is said to be far from light he is in extreame darknesse and when a man is said to be far from health he is in extreame sicknesse and when a man is said to be far from riches he is in extreame poverty So here His children are far from safety that is they are in extreame danger and perill they walk as it were in the regions of trouble in the valley of the shadow of death continually That phrase is used also respecting the spirituall estate of unbeleevers They are far off from God far off from the Covenant Isa 57. 19. Ephes 12. 13. that is they have no benefit by the Covenant no interest in no favour at all or mercy from the Lord. To be far off from mercy is to be neare wrath and to be far from safety is to dwell upon the borders of danger And they are crushed in the gate In the forth Chapter Eliphaz describes man as crushed before the moth to shew how suddenly how easily man is destroyed This mans children are crushed in the gate as a man would crush a flie or a moth between his fingers They are crushed in the gate That notes two things First the publikenesse of their destruction they shall be destroyed in the sight of all men for the gate was a publike place Pro 31. 31. her workes praise her in the gates that is she is publikely knowne by her good works To doe a thing in the gate is opposed to the doing of a thing secretly To suffer in the gate is to suffer publikely Secondly to be crushed in the gate
hath he not reason to marvell at our unbeliefe Christ having wrought miracles to gaine the beliefe of his country men marvailed at their unbeliefe Mark 6. 2 6. Unbeliefe is a great sin at all times but in a time when mervailes are wrought for the cure and healing of it unbeleefe is a marvellous sin Will not Christ think you marvell at our unbeleefe if we beleeve not after all these marvels Ye will not beleeve saith Christ and he rebukes the Jewes for it Joh. 4. except you see signes and wonders Surely if they were so charged because they would not beleeve except they saw signes and wonders how shall they be charged who will not beleeve when they see signes and wonders especially when God seemes to work a wonder a purpose that they might beleeve God loves and prizes the faith of man so highly that sometimes he bids a miracle for it rather then goe without it And surely now as God hath wrought marvels to abate the marvellous pride of the Adversary so to overcome the marvellous unbeleef of his own people As hath been observed concerning the Lords swearing As I live I desire not the death of a sinner c. O happy man for whose sake the Lord sweares but O most unhappy who doest not beleeve the Lord when he sweares So we may say of the Lords-wonder-workings O happy people for whom the Lord works wonders but O most unhappy people who beleeve not the Lord when he works wonders Thirdly Seeing God works extraordinary things for us let not us stay in ordinary duties Let our works have somewhat of a marvell in them too Let our repentance and the change of our lives be marvelous let our zeal courage for Christ be marvelous like that of the Apostles who carried themseves with such heroical magnanimity in the work of the Gospel that when the High-priest and Councel who had convented and threatned them saw their boldnesse They marvelled saith the text Acts 4. 13. Let our love and thankfullnesse be marvellous let us pray marvellously and believe marvellously marvels don by God should ever work faith in man And faith in man doth sometime work marvelling in God Christ speakes with a kind of admiration to the woman of Canaan O woman great is thy faith Mat. 15. 28. O that his people in this Nation would set Him thus a wondring once more O England great is the faith in me O England great is thy love to me O England great is thy zeale for me O England great is thy repentance exceeding glorious thy Reformation I will close this point with this one word God hath begun to doe so many marvels amongst us that I verily believe the work he is about will end in a marvel too and we in the close shall be made either a wonder of mercy or a wonder of judgement to all the Nation 's round about The fourth Attribute of the works of God raises the glory of them all They are innumerable He doth marvellous things without number The Hebrew word for word is Vntill there be no number Without number may be taken three wayes First Strictly and absolutely for that which is without number and thus there is no number innumerable Things absolutely without number would be infinite but there cannot be two Infinits As God is so One and without number that he is Infinite so whatsoever could be so many that it were without number would be infinite too Secondly Without number is that which man cannot reckon or cast up the summe of it Rev. 7. 9. John speakes of a great multitude which no man could number As a small number is said to be such as a child may write Isa 10. 19. So such a multitude as a man cannot write notes the greatest number And Heb. 12. 22. there is mention made of an innumerable company of Angels So God calleth Abraham out and saith Look now towards Heaven and tell the Starres if thou be able to number them Gen. 12. The Starrs are innumerable that is beyond mans Arithmetique Thirdly Things are said to be without number or innumerable in a more common sense when they are a very great number and so we find it frequent in Scripture As that which is very high is said to be as high as heaven Thus the discouraging Spies describe the Cities of the Canaanites to be Cities walled up to Heaven Deut. 1. 28. And when Sea-men or Marriners are tossed upon the waves and billowes of the Sea they are said to mount up to the Heaven and to goe downe againe to the depths Psal 107. 26. So here a very great number is said to be innumerable or without number In this third and in that second sense the great works of God are innumerable God hath done so many marvellous things as are inpossible for man to reckon His mighty works are not only beyond the writing of a child but of the wisest men The man who numbers most dayes cannot number the wonders of God I shall note but one or two Instructions from this That the works of God are innumerable First Then what God hath done he can doe it againe a second time yea a third a fourth time ten times yea ten thousand times over if our necessity and his good pleasure meet together for his works are innumerable Eliphaz speakes not only of what God had done but of what he can doe yea of what he is a doing he doth innumerable marvels Some men can doe great things many have done great things but they cannot doe them without number even a child may write all that any man can doe and at most it needs but a man to reckon all the great things which all men have done The hand of God shortens not in an eternity but the hand of man shortens every day sometimes in a day and therefore he cannot doe things innumerable Man cannot doe that to day which he could yesterday whether we respect his civill abilities or his naturall As old Barzillai said unto David 2 Sam. 19. when the King invited him home with him and offered him all the pleasures of the Court Can I any more heare the voice of singing men and singing women or can I any more tast what I eate and what I drinke As if he should say It is true Sir I have known the time when I could have made use of this royall favor and have taken in the pleasures of your Court I once delighted in musick and my eare could tast a sweet voice I once delighted in rich fare and my pall at could tast meate and drinke but can I any more doe thus my naturall strength is gone my senses cannot renew innumerable acts of pleasure if grace doth not weane us from the abuse yet nature will tire in the use of worldly comforts But the civill abilities of man wither sooner then his naturall you may see a man that hath done great things in a State or Common-wealth come to him a while
as by stopping them so by putting them forward The Princes of Zoan are become fooles saith the Prophet Why The Lord hath a mingled a perverse spirit or a headlong vertiginous â—pirit in the midst thereof and they have caused Aegypt to erre in every worke thereof as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit Isa 19. 13 14. Verse 14. They meet with darknes in the day time and grope at noon day as in the night Here is a further agravation of the misery upon crafty froward Counsellours They meete with darknes in the day time Some understand this for the darknesse of trouble falling upon these men suddenly in the day of their prosperity as if the holy Ghost had said In the day time of their greatest glory when they think their Sun at the height then they are clouded and over cast they meet with the darknes of sorrow and are benighted in a moment Amos 8 9. I will cause the Sun to go down at noon and I will darken the Earth in the clear day it is meant of great afflictions as the next words interpret And I will turn your feasts into mourning But rather by darknes in the day time we are to understand the Diurnae tenebrae ignorationem denotant rerum clarissimaâ—um ignorance of those things which are very plain and clear They meet with darknes in the day time that is they are puzled to find out and discover those things which are as cleare as the light God often sends such a spirit of giddiness and blindness upon the counsels of his enemies that easie things are hard plaine things obscure and common questions very ridles to them They meet with darknes in the light There is a double light necessary to the seeing or discovery of a thing First an externall light And secondly an internall light External light is of the Medium or place in which we see the aire must be enlightned Internall light is of the Organ or instrument by which we see the eye must be enlightned Though there be much light in the aire a blind eye sees nothing So the meaning of these words may be explained They meet with darknes in the day time though these men have outward light though the busines they are about be plaine a clear case as we speak yet they are so darkned in their understandings that they canot apprehend or make it out The Idoll sheapheard is threatned with this woe Zach. 11. 17. The Sword shall be upon his arme his power shall be broken and upon his right eye his understanding shall be darkned The Idol shepheard shall be like an Idoll having eyes but seeing not He was before a blind Seer sinfully and now he shall be a blind-Seer judicially Aâ— that wicked Priest so these wicked Politicians in the text shall have a sword upon their right eye a wound in the best of their understandings which shall make them also blind-Seers and make the light to be darknes round about them The latter clause clears it farther They grope at noon-day as in the night To grope at noon-day is the description of a blind-man For what the eye is to a man that sees the same is the hand to a man Palpare in meridâ—e est caeci periphrasis Caecus tentat palpat manibus antequam pedem effeâ—t Praebent manus â—aecis â—ulorum usus ministeâ—ia Sanct. in ca. â—9 that cannot see A man that sees looks his way but a blind man feeles it his hand is in stead of an eye to direct his way They as it is said in the text Grope at noon-day as in the night When the Sodomites were smitten with blindnesse They wearied themselves to find the door of Lots house Gen. 19. 11. And when the Philistines had put out Sampsons eyes and he was brought to make them musick at their feast he said to the lad that held him by the hand Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth c. he could not see them but he could grope or feel them out Groping infers either want of light or want of sight These in the text had light enough therefore the failing was in their eys They grope at noon-day This fearfull judgement the Lord threatens against his own people Deut. 28 29. Thou shalt grope at noon-day as the blind gropeth in darknes And it was brought upon them as themselves lamentably complaine Isa 59 10. We grope for the wall like blind-men and we grope as if we had no eyes we stumble at noon-day as in the night In that as it is here added as a further aggravation of the judgment of God upon these who thought themselves Eagle-eyed all eye and all the world blind That they shall meet with darknes in the day time We may observe first It is a sore judgement not to see when there is light It is like starving at a full Table or perishing with thirst in the midst of a fountaine It is a great judgement not to have light to see by but it is a greater judgement not to see by the light It is a great judgment to a people when they have not the light of the Gospel when Christ who is the light is not shiningly preached among them but if light shine if Christ be preached and a people see it not This is a farre greater judgement The poore Gentiles before the light of the Gospell came to them sate in darknes and in the shadow of death and in that estate they could only like blind men grope after God as the Apostle elegantly expresses it Act. 17. 27. He hath made of one bloud all Nations of men c. that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him The Gentiles were inexcusable if they did not find the Lord by Feeling after him in the darke What then are they who find him not by seeing in the light The Apostle shewes us them as lost men and blinded by Satan to whom the light of the glorious Gospel doth not shine when it shines 2 Cor. 4 3 4. To grope in Gospel-light to be in darknesse when truth is at her high-noon is as the shadow of death It is the worst of sins to sin against the light and it is the worst of judgements not to see the light by which we may avoid sinne The heat of divine wrath breaks out in this when abused light is hunished with want of sight or when light is sent and eyes taken away Isa 6. 9 10. When the Prophet brought killing light to the Jews he saith See ye indeed but perceive not that is because ye have had light and would not see beleevingly Now ye shall have light which ye shall not see perceivingly or distinctly as the man in the Gospell saw but he did not perceive when he saw men walking as trees he had not a distinguishing eye or a discerning sence as the Apostle speaks Heb. 5. 14. But why shall
they not perceive when they see The Prophet tels us because the Lord had said Shut their eyes least they see The work of a Prophet is to open eys but when men wilfuly shut their eys then God shuts them judicially and blinds them with light The Apostle quoting this text Acts 28. 27 expounds it so Their eyes have they closed least they should see for this God closed them that they could not see Paul was preaching and he preached Christ the true light The Sun of righteousnesse Behold the misery spoken of in this text They met with darknes in the day time This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darknes rather than light Why love they darknesse Because they see not the light And because they see not the light therefore they cannot love it It is impossible to see the light the beautifull face of the truth as it is revealed in Christ and not to love it A Heathen said if vertue much more if Gospell truth were seen every eye would be taken and every heart led captive by it A great part of the world hath not this light to see and the greatest part of those who have this light see it not They must needs meet with darknesse who are darknesse in the day-time And they must grope at noon day as in the night who are night If men heare the law and the testimony and neither speake nor doe according to that word it is as the Prophet gives the reason because there is no light in them or as the Hebrew No Morning in them Isa 8. 20. Till the day starr arises in our hearts the day before our eyes is night Secondly observe Plain things are often obscure to the wisest and most knowing men They grope at noon day as in the night That which a man may see with halfe an eye as we say these men who thinke themselves All eye cannot see Men of acute and sagacious understandings men quick-sighted like Eagles prove as dull as Beetles Owles and Bats see in the darke better then in the light And in a sense it is true of these they can see about the works of darknesse but the light of holinesse and justice they cannot see The reason is given in that of Christ The light that is in them is darknesse no wonder then if the light without them be darknes if the inward light the light that iâ— in them be darknesse how great is that darknesse so great that it quite darkens the outward light Inward darkness is to outward light as a great outward light is to a small one in regard of our use or benefit it extinguishes and overcomes it Hence these men cannot see the plainest object in the clearest light Light shineth in darknes and the darknes comprehendeth it not Joh. 1. 5. Christ breaks forth into a vehement gratulation to his Father Mat. 11. 25. I thanke thee O Father Lord of heaven nnd earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes The wise and prudent could not see so much as children They were so wise in their own conceits that they could not conceive the things of God As it is in spirituals so likewise in regard of civill counsels God hides wisedome from the wise and understanding from the prudent They shall not be able to doe or see what a child might have done or seen they shall doe such things and so absurdly that a child would not do them Mysteries are plain when the Lord opens and plainest things are mysterious when he shuts the eyes of our understanding Thus farre Eliphaz hath set forth the power and justice of God against subtill crafty counsellours Now he shews the opposite effect of his power and goodnesse Vers 15. But he saveth the poore from the Sword from their mouth and from the hand of the mighty But he saveth the poor It is very observeable in Scripture that usually if not alwayes after the mention of judgement and wrath upon the wicked the mercy goodnesse and love of God unto his own people are represented least any should thinke that judgement is a worke wherein God delighteth he quickly passeth from it and concludes in what he delighteth Mercy As he retains not his anger for ever towards his own people so he stay â—s not long upon the description of his anger against his enemies because he delighteth in mercy Mich. 7. 18 A subject of mercy is most pleasant both to the hand and pen of the Lord. He wishes rather to write in hony than in gall and to draw golden lines of love then bloudy lines of wrath Satan is a Destroyer and he doth nothing but destroy and pull down The Lord destroyeth and he pulleth down he defeats and disappointeth but he hath another worke besides he saves and delivers he builds up and revives the hopes of his people He saveth the poore These poore are Gods poore Some may be called the Devils poore for they have done his worke and he hath given them poverty for their wages Satan will give all his hirelings full pay when they die The wages of sin is death while they live many of them receive only the earnest of it poverty and trouble All that are poore stand not under the rich influences of this promise He saveth the poore Wicked poore are no more under Gods protection then wicked oppressouâ—s or wicked rich men are This poore man cryed and the Lord heard Ps 34. 6. Not every or any poore man Some poor men may cry and the Lord heare them no more then he did the cry of Dives the rich man in hell Luk. 16. Forget not the Congregation of thy poore Psal 74. 19 Thy poore by way of discrimination There may be a greater distance between poore and poore then there is between poore and rich There are many ragged regiments Congregations of poore whom the Lord will forget for ever But his poore shall be saved And these poore are of two sorts either poore in regard of wealth and outward substance or poor in regard of friends or outward assistance A rich man especially a godly rich man may be in a poore case destitute and forsaken wanting patronage and protection God saveth his poore in both notions both those that have no friends and those that have no estates The Hebrew word for Poor springs from a root signifying desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a radiâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod est desiderare quasi pauper omnia deâ—ideret cum nihil habeat inde Ebion haerâ—tiâ—us quasi mentis inteligentiae inops Schiud Quia omnibus indiget omnia cupit gâ—ata habeâ— Rab. Da. and the reason is because poore men are commonly rich in desires They that are full of sensible wants are full of earnest wishings They that are emptiâ—st of enjoyments are fullest of hopes and longings And the reason why poverty of spirit in our spirituall
your selves despise it It is most just with God that they who loath his will should at last loath their own desires And that the creatures should not long please them who take no heed to please the Creator The least mixture of Gods displeasure sowres our sweetest contents and makes our very pleasures loathsome Where also by the way we may observe the great difference between earthly and spirituall things The best of earthly things used too much or too often grow loathsome Angels food Manna or Quailes will not goe down long with us But Christ the spirituall Manna and all heavenly things the more we have of them and the longer we are dieted with them the more we shall delight in them These will not loath us after two or five or ten or twenty dayes or after a whole months feeding on them No we shall feed on them dayes without number or the whole day of eternity without any loathings use and delight shall never cease or abate appetite shall renew every moment though our enjoyment be but one and the same Yea the Saints shall be so farr from loathing the pleasant cup of glory that they ought not to loath and Christ strengthning them they shall not loath the bitter cup of sorrow Their stomachs shall not turne though dieted more then two or five or ten or twenty dayes with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction That is the first sense of the word in allusion to nauseating at the sight or long use of meate Loath not the chastning of the Lord. Or the word may seeme to carry a reference to physick or medicines as well as meate which you know is many times given in a better pill or in a distastfull potion The sick man is apt to loath the potion brought him and turne his head away from it what he take it no not he He had rather die then drink such a draught he is ready to through it against the wall and spil it one the ground rather then drinke it But then his friends or the Pbysitian perswade with him Be not angry though it â—e loathsome to your stomach yet it is wholesome for your body It is an enemy only to your disease therefore loath it not So here Eliphaz as it were brings in God standing like a Physitian or a father or a tender mother at the beds-side where a sick child oâ— friend lies using many entreaties and perswasive reasons to take a bitter potion my child or my friend doe not loath doe not dispise no nor distast this medicine doe not cast it away though it â—e bitter in your mouth yet take it downe and the effects of it will be sweet to your whole body We find in Scripture afflictions compared to a cup Our Lord Jesus calls all his sufferings for our salvation a cup and it was a cup tempered with the venome and poison with the gall and wormewood of all our sinnes it was a loathsome potion indeed and such as would have turned the stomachs of all men and Angels to have drunke it So much of the first sense of the word as it signifies loathing whether in respect of meates or medicines Now forasmuch as here is a charge given under this notion not to loath chastnings We may observe There is or possibly may be an aversnesse in the best of Gods children for a time from the due entertainement of chastnings He speakes as if most were loth to take them downe and therefore he exhorts not to loath them Even the Lord Jesus Christ so farre as he was partaker of our nature seemed to loath the bitter cup of sufferings Hence he prayed hard once and againe ye a third time Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me Mat. 26. 39. Yet at another time he speakes as if he had been a thirst for that cup and angry with Peter who would have hindred his draught The cup which my Father giveth me shall I not drinke it Joh. 18. 11. and shortly after he indeed drunke it up to the bottome Affliction is also a bitter cup to the Saints and they as Christ pray again and again yea thrice against it because to sense no chastning seemeth joyous but grievous Heb. 12. 11. through grace perswades them to drinke it and faith gives them a tast of much sweetnesse when they have drunke it As a sick man is backward to take a distastfull medicine till his reason hath overcome his sense so a godly man is unwilling to beare afflictions till his faith hath overcome his reason Nor can he quietly endure the troublesome smart of the rod till he is assured of the peaceable fruits of righteousnesse which grow from it to those who are exercised by it When the Apostle is carryed up on those Eagles wings of assurance to see a house not made with hands eternall in the Heavens then he groanes earnestly under the burden of his earthly Tabernacle and desires to die yet looking upon death he saw no forme or comelinesse in that why he should desire it and therefore he seemes to correct himselfe at least to draw his mind plainer with the next drop of his pen Not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life He speakes somewhat like a man who in a time of heate hastily strips himselfe to goe into the water but putting a foot in and finding it cold calls for his cloathes againe The Apostle in a true holy heate of spirit had in his desires almost stript himselfe of his body but putting a foot into the grave he found that so cold that he had no great mind to it and therefore had rather keepe on the cloathing of his body and have a suite of glory over it then lay it downe The Saints desire to live with Christ but in it selfe they desire not to die They had rather their mortality should be swallowed up of eternall life then their temporall life should be swallowed up of mortality They that have grace like not the disunions of nature Now as it is in the case of death which iâ— to the Saints the last and greatest affliction so likewise in the case of all afflictions which are as renewed and lesser deaths Though they embrace and kisse them both in a holy submission to the will of God and in an assured expectation of their own good yet they have nothing pleasing in them much which creates so much loathing that the best doe but need counsell and encouragement to take and digest them And then if there be some aversnesse even in the best from these potions of affliction tempered with the mercy and goodnesse of God no wonder if there be an abhorrence in wicked men from those deadly potions mixt only with his wrath and justice The Psalmist presents the Lord to us with a cup in his hand Psal 75. 8. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup the wine thereof
and there shall be no herd in the stalls Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation He was feasting upon God while he imagines the world starving he sees all things in God though the world should afford him nothing That soule is well fed and taught which can be rejoycing while it 's own body is starving And in war from the power of the Sword War is the second evill Famine and war goe often together yea they two seldome goe without a third the Pestilence 2 Sam. 24. Jer. 18. 22. And though in the order of the words famine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bellum à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vesci edere per Metaphorà pugnare quia gâ—adius in bello devoraâ— hominum corpora In bello se mutuò homines devorant obsumunt be set before war yet usually war is the fore-runner of famine The sword cuts off provision and when it selfe hath devoured much flesh it leaves no bread for those who survive It is observable that the originall word for war here used comes from a root signifying to eat or to devoure and so by a Metaphor it signifies to fight or strike with the sword And the reason why the same word which signifies war signifies to eat is because the Sword is such an Eater or rather a Devourer and it eats two ways First the Sword eats up the bodies of men drinks up their bloud dispeoples a Land And then Secondly It eates up and consumes the fruits of the earth and hence War is the mother of Famine Therefore we find that when the great peace and so the plenty of the Church of Christ is prophecied of and described Isa 2. 4. and in Micah it is thus expressed They shall beat their swords into plow shares and their speares into pruning-hookes As if he should say while the sword is abroad in the field the plow shares will do little there For the most part Justice is silent in time of war the sound of the trumpet Inter arma silent leges and drum is too loud for the Law and when the Law stands still the plongh stands still Therefore when the sword is in motion both are at a stand Hence the promise that Swords shall be beaten into plow-shares and speares into pruning-hookes that is with peace you shall have bread and wine which note the abundance of all other things The ancients embleam'd peace by Eares of corne and Concord by a Cornu-copia a horne of plenty riches are the fruit of peace And safety is the priviledge of the Saints in time of war In war they shall be delivered from the power of the sword The Hebrew is They shall be delivred from or out of the hand of the sword Sometime in Scripture we read of the face of the sword which notes the sword coming and approaching to a people And sometimes we read of the mouth of the sword which notes the sword come devouring and eating up a people And here we have the hand of the sword they shall be delivered out of the Gladius manu apprehensus elevatus symbolum est extremi discriminis praesentis hostis Quasi diceret etiam in ipsa pugna vel inter tot manus gladios agitantes contra te vibantes salvaberis hand of the sword which notes as we translate the power of the sword Or that forme of speaking may be understood by an Hypallage From the hand of the sword that is from the sword in the hand which phrase imports present danger when the sword is unsheathed and drawn out when it is in the hand ready to strike then the enemy is ready to charge and then the Lord delivers He shall deliver from the sword in the hand or out of the hand of the sword So Psal 127. 4. Children of the youth are as arrowes in the hand of the mighty that is as arrowes ready to be shot And Psal 149. 6. Let the high praises of God be in their mouthes and a two edged sword in their hands noting actuall revenges taken on the enemies of God and actuall praises given to the name of God at the same time So then the meaning of these words He shall deliver thee from the power of the sword or out of the hand of the sword is this suppose thou art in such a condition that the swords are drawn about thy eares and thou art in the midst of a thousand deaths and dangers in the very heat of a battell yet then the Lord God can and will deliver thee And this likewise is a comfortable promise for us to lay hold on in these times It is a time of war to us all and there are many of our friends and brethren as it were in the very hand of the sword Desires are often sent to the Congregation by one for a husband by another for a brother by a third for a servant by many for their friends gone forth to meet a sword in the hand of an enemy skilfull to destroy Here is a promise to comfort and support such The Lord in time of war can deliver out of the very hand of the sword or when swords are in hand when thousands of swords are drawn together preparing for or smiting in the day of battell know then God is a deliverer In the most present dangers God shews the most present help Psal 23. 5. Thou shalt spread my table and cause my cup to overflow before the face of my enemy even then when my enemy is nearest and looketh on As when the sword is in the hand of the Angel so when it is in the hand of man A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee Psal 91. 7. Not nigh thee what when they die on this side and one that side on every hand of a man doth it it not come nigh him Yes nigh him but not so nigh as to hurt him The power of God can bring us nigh to danger and yet keep us far from harme As good may be locally near us and yet vertually far from us so may evill The multitude throng'd Christ in the Gospel and yet but one toucht him so as to receive good so Christ can keep us in a throng of dangers that not one shall touch us to our hurt Yet we are not to take this or the like holy writs of protection as if God would deliver all his people from famine and from the sword we know many precious servants of his have fallen by these common calamities The Lord knows how to distinguish his when sword and famine doe not Neither doth this word fall though they doe If the servants of Christ are not delivered from these troubles they are delivered by them and while they are overcome by one trouble they conquer all Vers 21. Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue neither shalt
assault This the Greeke seemes to favour rendring it thus Though we have laine between the inheritances or the lots sc our own and the enemies either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Ainsworth way the sense reaches this point fully Though Beleevers lye among the pots or ncarest dangers yet they are assured that they shall have wings as the wings of a Dove which are covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold There is gold and silver in the eye of faith while there is nothing but blacknesse and death in the eye of sense yea faith assures them that they shall be white as snow in Salmon as it follows in that Psalme that is they shall have whitenesse after blacknesse or light in the midst of darknesse Salmon signifies darke duskish or obscure for it was a hill full of pits holes and glins very darke and dangerous for passengers but when the snow was upon it it was white and glistering now saith he they shal be like Salmon in the snow though black in themselves yet white lightsome and glorions either through pardon of sin or victory over their enemies to both which whitenesse hath reference in Scripture Againe In that it is said At destruction and famine thou shalt Non solum singulas arumnas superabit sed omnium illarum in unum coeuntiam agmen Integrum ex omnibus exâ—rcitum fâ—gabiâ— laugh as from that word laughing we see what spirits the Saints have in troublesome times So inasmuch as he gathers together and rally's all the scattered troopes of afflictions to charge at once upon a beleever and yet concludes At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh Observe That A godly man laughs at or is above all evils though brought against him at once It hath been said That Hercules could not match two here are two Destruction and famine overmatcht by one bring whole legions and armies of troubles to encounter a Saint he overcomes them all He famishes famine and destroyes destruction it selfe The Apostle Rom. 8. 35. musters up as it were all evils together into a body and dares any or all to battell with a beleever Who shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or distresse or persecution or famine or nakednesse or perrill or sword which of these shall undertake the challenge or will you bring any more then come life or death Angels or principalities or powers things present or things to come height or depth or any other creature none of these single nor all of these joyned shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Every heightned Saint is a spirituall Goliah who in the name of the living God bids defiance to this huge host and they all run and tremble before him Rejoyce saith the Apostle James 1. 2. when you fall into divers tempatations A beleever hath joy not only when he grapleth with a single temptation but let there come many divers temptations variety of temptations variety for kind and multitude for number yet he rejoyceth in the middest of all Neither shalt thou be affraid of the beasts of the earth Having thus lifted a godly man above the afflicting reach of those two great evils famine and destruction want of good things and spoiling of their goods he proceeds to instance another great evill wherein a godly man is exempt from and set above fear Neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth Beasts of the earoh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vita vivents bestia fera The root of that word signifies life and so any living creature especially a wild beast because they are so active and full of life therefore they are named from life And these are called the beasts of the earth First Because beasts are produced from the earth and the earth received a charge to produce them Gen. 1. 24 25. And God said let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind and God made the Beast of the earth after his kind Or secondly Because Beasts have nothing but earth to live upon as men whose portion is only in creatures are called men of the world or men of the earth The word for * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Complectitur totum terrarum orbeÌ„ tum habitabilem tum qui non est habitabliis deductum volunt a verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 curraâ—e vel quia coelum perpetuo rotatu circa terram currit vel quâ—d omnia animalia currant super faciem terrae earth signifies the whole earth habitable or inhabitable And though the earth stand still yet this word is derived say some from running either because the heavens runne round aboui the earth with a continuall rotation or motion or because all creatures men and beasts move or run upon the face of the earth Though others deduce it from a word which signifies to desire Alii à verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. voluiâ— conâ—upiviâ— deductum voluat eo quod terra jugiter appetat afferre wish or will a thing because the earth is perpetually desirous of bringing forth fruit for the use and helpe of man But it is not agreed on what we are to understand by the beasts of the earth First Some take the words improperly and so the beasts of the earth are interpreted men A company or society of men and these in a double sense For the word notes sometimes a company of men in a good sense and sometimes a company of men in an ill sense I shall give you an instance of both for the clearing of this text It signifies men or a company of men in a good sense Psal 68. 10. where speaking of that raine of liberalities that is blessings of all sorts which God sent upon his inheritance to confirme and refresh it he saith Thy Congregation hath dwelt therein Thy camp or leagure thy host or troop dwelt there so 2 Sam. 23. 13. which the vulgar translates Thy beasts and the Greeke Thy living Animalia tua habitabunt in ijs Vulg. Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 creatures dwelt therein The same word is used and some apprehend in allusion to this Psalme Rev. 4. 6. Chap. 5. 8 9 in those mysticall descriptions of Christ and his Church In this sense it suites not at all with the promise of the text These beasts are not to be feared but honoured and loved mans greatest spirituall comforts on earth are found in the society of these beasts But commonly this word referred unto men signifies an association of wicked men men of the earth worse many of them then the beasts of the earth These are spoken of in the same Psalme ver 30. Rebuke the company of speare men or Archers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The rout or crue of the Cane that is men that beare reeds or canes whereof speares and arrowes were wont to be made therefore the
4. This people are as they that strive with the Priefl To strive with the Priest is to strive with God that 's a sad strife Strivers with the Prist are the worst of people how vile then are this people who are as bad as they But to the present poynt if it be so great a sin to remove the land-stones it must needs be a great mercy to have those stones preserved So then to be in league with the stones of the field may have this good sence also the boundary-stones shall be preserved none shall remove them and they shall preserve thy estate that none shall invade or wast it Hence Observe God can doe us good by any thing if he pleaseth and nothing can doe us good without God Though we have carefully set up bounds though we have made strong fences yet these will not keep out evill or annoyance unless there be a league a league of Gods making for us And God can produce our comforts out of improbables yea impossibles to nature He can fetch us bread and a blessing from stones It was a temptation upon Christ when he was hungry to make bread of stones If thou be the son of God command that these stones be made bread Mat. 4. 2. But it is our comfort that God can turn stones into bread that he can make those things which are most improbable to do us good very good unto us It is a sin for us to turne stones into bread or to expect stones to be turned into bread that is to put God upon miracles from us when means or indeavours may help us but God out of the superaboundance of his power and goodnesse alwayes can and sometimes will work miracles turning stones into bread for us Then we turne stones into bread when we live upon sin whosoever eateth a bit of bread out of bread out of the hand of sin turneth stones into bread Then God turnes stones into bread for us when out of his infinite power and goodnesse he gives us supplies by unusall meanes and comforts us by that from which we can expect no more comfort then we doe bread and water out of stones Further when stones seeme to be most angry with a godly man then he is in league with them Stones in a proper sense flew about the eares of Steven and kil'd him yet Steven was in league with the stones even while they took away his life God turned these stones into bread for him and every stone was as a glorious Diamond in his Crown of Martyrdome There are two Interpretations of this league with stones which some make great store and treasure of different from all these Pineda Crimen hoc appellabant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cujus rei admissum tale est plerique inimiâ—orum soâ—ent praedium inimici 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est lapides ponere indicio futuros qâ—od si quis eum agrum coluisset malo letho periturus esset insidiis eorum qui scopulos posuissent Quoe res tantum timorem habet ut nemo agrum accedere audeat crudelitatem timens eorum qui scopelismon fecerunt Idem ex Vlpiano The former is grounded upon a custome in Arabia where or neare which it is supposed Jobs friends dwelt It was saith the learned Authour a very capitall offence in that country if any man did cast or carry heapes of stones into his neighbours ground For that action had this signification or meaning in it The man who afterwards ventured to plow or till that ground should surely dye by the hands of those who cast in those stones So that the sight of such stones was terrible and ominous to the owner of the Land as speaking death and ruine to him if he medled with it Hence t' was often left unus'd and untill'd Against this barbarous custome it being an occasion of murders and blood shed a very severe Law was made That whosoever should be discovered to have cast such Stones into his neighbours ground should have judgment of death by the Magistrate In allusion to this Law or custome the interpretation of this promise Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field is made out thus The ordinary Stones of the field shall be so farre from hurting that even those Stones which speake anger and malice shall not hurt thee God will reconcile or subdue the rage of thine enemies and though they have cast these Stones of defiance into thy Land yet they shall desire a league of peace with thee or fall before thee The second is grounded upon a custome in warre of which we reade 2 Kin. 3. 25. that when the Moabites fled before Israel The pursuing Israelites beat down their Cityes and on every good peece of Land cast every man his Stone and filled it c. Eliphaz might have an eye to this as if he had said Thy land shall not be buried under the heapes of stones thrown there by a conquering hand that is thou shalt have a league of amity with or victory over all that are round about thee And the Beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee That is they shall through the power of God be made peaceable to thee To be at peace with the Beasts is the same in proportion with being in league with Stones It was mans priviledge by creation to have power over the Beasts of the field and it is the priviledge of Redemption To be at peace with them This is the ordinary priviledge of every Believer But there is a more transcendent priviledge of the Church in the most flourishing estate of it here on the earth represented under this notion Isa 11. 6 7 8 9. The Wolfe shall dwell with the Lambe and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid and the Calfe and the young Lion and the fatling together and a little childe shall leade them c. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the Aspe and the weaned childe shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountaine This Peace with Beasts is within a degree of glory with God whether we understand it in the letter of beasts in kind or in the Allegory of men symbolizing in rage and fiercenesse in power and poysons in stings and teeth with beasts and Serpents The Text before us goes lower then this promise And to be at peace with the Beasts of the field is only a gracious assurance that they shall not hurt us or that they shall be usefull to us In the firmnesse of this promise of peace with the Beasts the fearlesnesse of a godly man is founded He shall not be afraid of the Beasts of the earth for the Beasts of the earth shall be at peace with him Hence observe The courage and fearlesnesse of a godly man is grounded in divine reason not on humane presumption When we see a man stout in the midst of danger
or are cut downe by some hand of justice The off-spring of a godly man are compared to grasse but in another reference To grasse first because of their multitude and secondly because of their beauty they shall flourish and be green as the grasse which is very pleasant to the beholders eye And in this also Eliphaz aimes at the death of Job's children Thou hast lost thy children they perished miserably but if thou Hoc dicit quia Iob filios amiserat Merc. returne that blessing shall returne thy seed shall be great and thy off spring shall be as the grasse of the earth The blessing of children hath been shewed in the first Chapter therefore I shall but name a point or two now First That The posterity of godly parents stand neerer then others under the influence of heavenly blessings As grace doth not runne in a blood so neither do blessings infallibly runne in a blood yet the children of those who are blessed are neerest a blessing And their possibilities for mercy are fairest Many promises are made to them they are heires apparent of the promises in their parents right others to appearance are strangers from the promises Though we know free grace chuseth often out of the naturall line The mercies of God are his own and it is his prerogative to have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth Secondly When he summes up the blessings of a godly man the blessings of his children are cast into the account Whence note That the blessings of the children are the blessings of the parent As the parent is afflicted in the afflictions of his children so he is blessed in their blessings Relations share mutually both in comforts and crosses Children are their parents multiplied and every good of the child is an addition to the parents good A flourishing and a numerous posterity is a great outward blessing Some have the choisest of spirituall blessings who want this Isa 56. 3. God comforts those that have no children Doe not say that thou art made a dry tree for I will give thee in mine house a place and a name better than of sons and daughters As if he had said the name of sons and of daughters is a very great comfort but it is not the greatest comfort the best biessing thou shalt have a name and a place better than of sons and daughters Vers 26. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age like as a shock of corne commeth in his season From personall present blessings of this life and the blessings of posterity Eliphaz descends to shew the blessing of a godly man in death A happy death is the close of temporall happinesse and the beginning of eternall A happy death stands between grace and glory like the Baptist between the law and the Gospel and is the connexion or knitting of both And as it was said of John That among them who are borne of women there arose not a greater then he neverthelesse he that is least in the kingdome of heaven is greater then John So we may say that among all the blessings of this life there is none greater then a blessed death neverthelesse that which is least in eternall life is a greater blessing then a blessed death It was an observation among the Heathen That no man is to be accounted blessed untill he die But when life is shut up with a blessing then man is fully blessed As in reasoning so in living the conclusion lyes in the premises A happy death is the result of a holy life Thou shalt come to thy grave That phrase notes two things First A willingnesse and a chearfulnesse to die Thou shelt come thou shalt not be dragged or hurried to thy grave as it is said of the foolish rich man Luk. 12. This night shall thy soule be taken from thee But thou shalt come to thy grave thou shalt die quietly and smilingly as it were thou shalt goe to thy grave as it were upon thine owne feet and rather walke then be carried to thy Sepulcher Secondly it notes the honor and solemnity of burying Thou shalt come to thy grave with honour as it is said of Ahijah the son of Jeroboam 1 King 14. 12 13. When Messengers were sent to the Prophet to enquire whether he should recover the Prophet tels them The child shall die and all Israel shall mourne for him and bury him For he only of Jeroboam shall Come to the grave because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam He only shall come to thy grave the rest shall be thrust into the grave or lye unburied but he shall come that is he shall be buried with honour others shall have reproach cast upon them when the earth is cast upon them Thou shalt come to thy grave In a full age So we translate The word is expounded two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Senium senectutis tempus wayes In a full age that is in an age when thou shalt be full full of estate full of wealth and honour thou shalt have abundance when thou diest And so it points at Jobs present poverty though thou hast nothing now scarse a ragge to thy backe or a sheet to winde thee in if thou shouldst die yet seeke unto God and thou shalt die in a full age in a golden Age thy wants shall be supplied and thy losses repaired to the full But rather a full Age notes here a sulnesse of daies though the other fullnesse of estate be not excluded The Prophet puts the same difference between aged men and men full of dayes as is between children and young men Jer. 6. 11. I am full of the fury of the Lord I will powre it out upon the children abroad and upon the assembly of young men together The aged with him that is full of dayes That is all ages shall feele the fury of the Lord. A full age is an age full of daies or compleate to the utmost time of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life Some of the Jewish Writers observe that the numerall letters of this word Chelad make up threescore which they conceive is In numeris notat 60 ea prima senectus est non matura Quidam Hebrae orum viâ—idem senectam nomine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 putant significari ut Caph sit similitudinis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—uâ—è virtutem humidum sonat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Senctutem itaque pollecetur-non quidem mâ—lestam morbosam sed vegetaÌ„ paelicem the age here meant but threescore is not a full old-oge it is rather the beginning of old-age Therefore fulnesse of age is by others interpreted to be strength of age thou shalt die in an old age yet thou shalt have strength and comfort in thy old-age thine old-age shall not be a troublesome age thou shalt not be weake and crazy distempered and sick a burthen to
thy selfe or friends thou shalt die as some translate in a good old-age or as Mr. Broughton thou shalt die in lusty old-age Time shall not wither thee nor drinke up thy blood and spirits Thou shalt have a spring in the Autumne and a Summer in the winter of thy life As it was with Moses Deut. 34. 7. who died when he was an hundred and twenty yeares old yet saith the text His eye was not dimme nor his naturall force abated This is to die in a full old-age full of daies yet full of strength and health It is a great blessing when a man is in this sense youthfull in old-age when others see with foure eyes and goe with three leggs he uses neither staff nor spectacles but renews his strength like the Eagle Or we may take the sense more generally for any one that liveth long and liveth comfortably as it was said of Abraham Gen. 25. 8. That he died in a good old-age an old man and full of yeares He died in a good old-age The young-man is counsel'd To remember his Creator in the dayes of his youth before the evill daies come Eccles 12. 1. What are those Those evill daies are the daies of old-age The words following being an Allegoricall elegant description of old age Old-age in it selfe is the evill day The lives of many old-men are a continuall death They live as it were upon the racke of extreame paines or strong infirmities therefore it is a speciall blessing for man to be old and yet to have a good old-age that is a florid comfortable old-age To have many yeares and few infirmities is a rare thing In some old-age flourishes and in others old-age perishes Job gives us this difference in the use of this word Chap. 30. 2. Yea whereto might the strength of their hands profit me in whom Chelad old-age was perished As if he had said some old-men are active and strong but these who were faded and flatted in all their abilities in what stead could they stand me They were a trouble to themselves and therefore could be no comfort unto others This full old-age is explained further by way of similitude He shall die in a full age lie as a shock of corne commeth in in his season When a young man dye he is as greene corne The Psalmist imprecates that some may be like the grasse or corne on the house-top that withereth before it is cut downe whereof the mower Psal 129. 6 7. filleth not his hand nor he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosome The life of a man sometimes is like corn growing upon the house top that withereth Or as it is in the parable of the sower Mat. 13. like the corne that fell on the high-way side or among stones and thornes which came not in in it's season it never staid the ripening or reaping but was eaten up or dried or choaked before the harvest Now here man is compared unto corne sowed in good ground well rooted and continuing out it's season and is brought in ripe at harvest Old-age is the harvest of nature Some divide mans life into seven parts comparing it to the seven planets Some into five comparing it to the five acts of an interlude but commonly the life of man is divided into foure parts and so it is compared to the foure seasons of the yeare And in that division old-age is the winter-quarter cold and cloudy full of rheumes and catarrhs of diseases and distellations But here old-age is the harvest though thou art a very old-man thou shalt not die as in winter but thou shalt die as it were in harvest when thou art full ripe and readie as a shock of corne that is laid up in the barne The generall judgement of the world is compared to a harvest and death which is a particular day of judgement is a harvest too Those words He shall come to his grave as a shock of corne are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ascendere significat â—vanescere velut in auras tolli velè medio tolli further considerable the Hebrew is He shall ascend as a shock of corre and that referring to death is sometimes translated by cutting off or taking away Psal 102. 25. Cut me not off in the midst of my daies The letter is Let me not ascend in the midst of my daies Whether it have any allusion to that hope or faith of the Saints in their death that they doe but ascend when they die or to their disappearing to the eye of sence when they die because things which ascend vanish out of sight and are not seene In either sence when the Saints are cut downe by death they ascend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Propriè significat acervum frugum qui in And they are elegantly said To ascend as a shock of corne because that is taken from the earth and reored or stackt up and so by a Metaphor it signisies a Tombe or a monument errected or high-built over a dead corpse much after the manner of a shock of corn area erigitur Metaphoricè tumultum ceu currulum teâ—rae vel monumentuÌ„ sepulcro imposiâ—um So the word is used He shall remaine in the tombe or Heape Job 22. 32. So then the sum of this verse is a promise of comfort and honour in death He shall die in a full age when he is readie and ripe for death Yet this is not to be taken strictly that every godly man dies in such a full old age in an age full of daies or full of comforts Many of Gods best servants have had evill daies in their old age their old age hath had many daies of trouble and sickness of paine and perplexity But thus it is with many in old age and this is especially to be look't upon as an Old Testament promise when the Lord dealt more with his people invisible externall mercies Yet in one sense it is an universall truth and ever fulfilled to his people for whensoever they die they die in a good age yea though they die in the spring and flower of youth they die in a good old age that is they are ripe for death when ever they die when ever a godly man dies it is harvest time with him though in a naturall capacity he be cut down while he is green and cropt in the bud or blossome yet in his spirituall capacity he never dies before he is ripe God ripens his speedily when he intends to take them out of the world speedily He can let out such warme rayes and beams of his Spirit upon them as shall soone maturate the seeds of grace into a preparednesse for glory whereas a wicked man living an hundred yeaers hath no full old-age much lesse a good old-age he is ripe indeed for destruction but he is never ripe for death he is as unreadie and unripe for death when he is an hundred years old as when he was but a day old He hath not begun
to live when he dies or he is at the end of his naturall race before he hath set one step in his spiritual Gray haires are the shame and should be the sorrow of old-age when they are not found in the way of righteousnesse From the former branch of this verse observe First To have a comely buriall to come to the grave with honour is a great blessing It was threatned upon Jehojakim the sonne of Josiah as a curse That he should have the buriall of an Asse and be drag'd and cast out beyond the gates of the City Jer. 22. 19. That man surely had lived like a beast whom God threatn'd by name that when he died he should be used as a beast though we know the bodies of many of the servants of God have been scattered and may be scattered upon the face of the earth like dung The dead bodies as the complaint is Psal 79. 2. of thy servants have they given to be meat to the fowles of the heaven the flesh of thy Saints to the beasts of the earth Yet to them even then there is this blessing reserved beyond the blessing of a buriall they are ever laid up in the heart of God he takes care of them he embalmes them for immortality when the remains of their mortality are troden under foot or rot upon a dunghill Secondly observe A godly man is a volunteer in his death He commeth to the grave A wicked man never dies willingly Though he sometime die by his own hand yet he never dies with his own will Miserable man is sometimes so over-prest with terrours and horrours of conscience so worne out with the trouble of living that he hastens his own death Yet he Comes not to his grave willingly but is drag'd by necessity He thrusts his life out of doores with a violent hand but it never goes out with a cheerfull mind He is often unwilling to live but he is never willing to die Death is welcome to him because life is a burden to him Only they come to the grave who by faith have seene Christ lying in the grave and perfuming that house of corruption with his owne most precious body which saw no corruption Observe thirdly To live long and to die in a full age is a great blessing Old Eli had this curse pronounced upon his family 1 Sam. 2. 31. There shall not be an old man in thy house Gray haires are a crown of honour when they are found in the way of righteousnesse It is indeed infinitely better to be full of grace than to be full of daies but to be full of daies and full of grace too what a venerable spectacle is that To be full of years and full of faith full of good workes full of the fruits of righteousnesse which are by Christ How comely and beautifull beyond all the beauty and comelinesse of youth is that Such are truly said to have filled their daies Those daies are fill'd indeed which are full of goodnesse When a wicked man dies he ever dies emptie and hungrie he dies empty of goodnesse and he dies hungry after daies That place before mentioned of Abraham Gen. 25. 8. is most worthy our second thoughts He dies in a good old-age an old man and full so the Hebrew we reade full of years As a man that hath eaten and drunke plentifully is full and desires no more So he dyed an old-man and full that is he had lived as much as he desired to live he had his fill of living when he died And therefore also it may be called a full age because a godly man hath his fill of living but a wicked man let him live never so long is never full of daies never full of living he is as hungry and as thirsty as a man may speake after more time and daies when he is old as he was when he was a child faine he would live hill He must needs thinke it is good being here who knowes of no better being or hath Impij quamvis diu vivant tamen non implent dies suos quia spem in rehus temporarijs collocantes perpetua vita in hoc mundo peâ—frui vellent no hopes of a better It is a certaine truth He that hath not a tast of eternity can never be satisfied with time He that hath not some hold of everlasting life is never pleased to let goe this life therefore he is never full of this life It is a most sad thing to see an old man who hath no strength of body to live yet have a strong mind to live Abraham was old and full he desired not a day or an houre longer His soul had never an empty corner for time when he died He had enough of all but of which he could never have enough and yet had enough and all as soon as he had any of it eternity In that great restitution promised Isa 65. 20. this is one priviledge There shall be no more there an infant of daies nor an old man that hath not fil'd his daies There is much controversie about the meaning of those words The digression would be too long to insist upon them Only to the present point thus much that there is such a thing as an Infant of daies and an old man that hath not fill'd his daies An infant of daies may be taken for an old child that is an old man childish or a man of many years but few abilities A man whose hoary head ann wrinkled face speak fourscoure yet his foolish actions and simple carriage speake under fourteene An old man that hath not fill'd his daies is conceived to be the same man in a different character An old man fils not his dayes First When he fulfils not the duty nor reaches the end for which he lived to old-age That man who hath lived long and done little hath left empty daies upon the record of his life And when you have writ downe the daies the months and yeares of his life his storie 's done the rest of the book is but a continued Blanke nothing to be remembred that he hath done or nothing worth the remembrance Now as an old man fils not his daies when he satisfies not the expectation of others so in the second place his daies are not fill'd when his own expectations are not satisfied that is when he having lived to be old hath yet young fresh desires to live when he finds his mind empty though his body be so full of daies that it can hold no longer nor no more He that is in this sense an infant of dayes and an old man not having filled his dayes though he be an hundred yeares old when he dies yet he dies as the Prophet concludes in that place accursed he comes not to his grave under the blessing of this promise in the text in a full age Lastly observe Every thing is beautifull in its season He shall come to his grave like a
shock of corne that is brought in in his season Even pale death hath beauty in it when it comes in season Eccles 7. 17. Be not wicked over much why shouldst thou dye before thy time No man can dye before Gods time but a man may dye before his time that is before he is prepared by grace and before he is ripened in the course of nature Those two wayes a man dyes before his time First when he dyes without any strength of grace Secondly when he dyes in the strength of nature In this sense the Prophet describes the hand of God upon him Psal 102. 23. He weakned my strength in the way â—â— shortned my dayes and therefore prayes in the 24th verse I said O my God take me not away in the midst of my dayes That is in the strength or best of my times according to the line and measure of nature A godly man prayes that he may not dye out of season but a wicked man never dies in season That threatning is ever fulfilled upon him in one sense if not in both Psal 55. 23 The blood-thirsty and deceitfull man shall not live out halfe his dayes A wicked man never lives out halfe his daies for either he is cut off before he hath lived halfe the course of nature or he is cut off before he hath lived a quarter of the course of his desires either he lives not halfe so long as he might or not a tenth not a hundreth part so long as he would and therefore let him dye when he will his death is full of terror trouble and confusion because he dies out of season He never kept time or season with God and surely God will not keep or regard his time or season Vers 27. Loe this we have searched it so it is heare it and know thou it for thy good As Eliphaz began his dispute with an elegant preface so he ends it with a rhetoricall conclusion as if he had said Job I have spoken many things unto thee heare now the summe and upshot of all Loe this we have searched it so it is heare it and know it for thy good Two things he concludes with First with an assertion of the truth of what he had spoken So it is Secondly with a motion for his assent to what was spoken Heare it Or the words may fall under a three-fold consideration As the 1. Conclusion of his speech 2. Confirmation 3. Application And this application is strengthned by a three-fold Motive By a motive first from experience Loe this we have searched it we have found the thing to be true Secondly By a motive from the truth of the thing in it selfe so it is we have searched it we have experience of it so it is the thing is certaine And then Thirdly From the fruit and benefit of it if he submit unto and obey the truth delivered know it for thy good thou shalt reap the profit of it These are three motives by which he strengthens his exhortation in applying the truth he had beaten out in his former discourse We have searched it As if Eliphaz had said we have not taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scrutatus perscrutatus est remota aut abstrusa these things upon trust or by an implicite faith we have not received them by tradition from our fathers but we have searched and tryed and found out that thus the matter stands in Gods dispensations both to a wicked man and to a godly man in all the particulars run thorough in this Chapter Or we have searched that is we have learned these truths by experience That God punisheth not the innocent that man cannot compare in justice with God that hypocrites shall not prosper long and that mans afflictions are the fruit of his transgressions The word signifies a very diligent and exact scrutiny Deut. 13. 14. Thou shalt enquire and make search and aske diligently it is to search as Judges Diligenti inquisitione verita is scrutatiene nec non reconditorum divinae providentiae judiciorum consideratione rem ita se habere compeâ—imâ—â— search and enquire about any crime or question in Law determinable by their sentence and as we search to find the meaning of a riddle Judg. 14. 14. The word is also applied to the searchings and enquiries of a Spie Judg. 18. 2. sent to bring intelligence A spie is an exact inquisitor into all affaires given him in charge for discovery So here we have searched out we have spied out and tryed this thing to the utmost we have as it were read over all the records of divine Truths we have examined all experiences and examples and this is the result the summe of all Loe thus it is A question arises here how Eliphaz can say we have searcht it when as Chap. 4. he saith A thing was secretly brought to me It seemes these were matters attained and beaten out by study not sent in by divine revelation and so are rather the opinions of men then the oracles of God Men inspired by the Holy Ghost speak another language As Thus saith the Lord or this we have received not this we have searched Scripture is given by inspiration from God not by the disquisitions of men Some have hence concluded this speech of Eliphaz Apocryphal Ex quo intelligimus hanc Eliphae dissertionem non or aculi fuisse sed studij nec ad Dei revelantis responsa sed ad humani ingenij inventa pertinere Janson in loc as being rather matter of humane invention then divine inspiration Or the work of mans wit rather then of Gods Spirit But I answer First The Apostle Paul hath sufficiently attested the Divine Authority of this discoruse by alledging a proof out of it 1 Cor. 3. 19. Secondly That which was secretly brought to Eliphaz was that one speciall Oracle Chap. 4. 17. Shall mortall man be more just then God shall a man be more pure then his maker The other part of his discourse to which these words Loe this we have searched refer were grounded upon the experiences which himselfe and his friends had observed in and about the providence of God in all his dealings both with the godly and the wicked all agreeable to that grand principle received by immediate revelation And therefore as he told Job before that the generall position was brought him in a vision so all ages and the records kept of them in all which he had made a diligent enquirie came up fully to the proofe of it As if he had said The Lord told me so and all he hath done in the word proclaimes that it is so His word is enough to assert his own justice but his works witnesse with it Loe this we have searched so it is We have searched He speaks in the plurall number he begun his speech in the fourth Chapter and he concluds it here in the plurall number Yet we are not to think that this was a discourse penn'd
Terrour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notes the most terrible terrour or affrightment Terrour is the extreame of feare or feare confused into amazement and astonishment Death is therefore called the King of terrours because there are so many powerfull terrours in death Psal 55. 4. That vexation which Saul felt when God sent out an evill spirit with commishion to vex him is exprest by this word 1 Sam. 16. 14. An evill spirit from the Lord troubled or terrified him Such terrors for the matter such for the manner and present workings of them seized upon upright-hearted Job and false-hearted Saul A beleever a child of God an heire of Heaven may feele himself haunted and pierced with hellish terrours These are called the Terrours of God eyther first by a common Hebraisme because great and strange terrours In that language God is often put as an Epithite to shew exceeding greatnesse himselfe being the greatest So Chap. 1. ver 16. Fire of God c. Secondly Terrours of God because he sent and commanded that Army of Terrours When Jacob journeyed with his little Army Gen. 35. 5. It is said The terrour of God was upon the Cities round about and they pursued them not that is the Lord sent an Army of terrours to oppose the Cities least they should arme against Jacob. The terrour of man is very terrible and therefore the Apostle armes the Saints against it 1 Pet. 3. 14. Be not afraid of their terror The terror of God is infinitely greater and thereupon the Apostle argues 2 Cor. 5. 11. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade Those terrours of God may be taken two wayes Either actively or passively Actively for that work of God in terrifying and troubling Thy terrours that is the terrours which thou didst afflict me with Or passively for those afflictions which oppresse Nomen terroris frâ—quenter in Scripturis sumitur pro flagellis malisque gravissimis a Deo missis the mind when God leads that army against us sets it in array to charge and commands it to encampe about us in either sence we may take this of Job as also that of Heman Psal 88. 15. While I suffer thy terrours I am distracted Further There is a two-fold terrour First caused by outward imminent danger Secondly caused by inward guilt Or Terrour comming from the wrath of man and terrour coming from the wrath of God Thus it was threatned Levit. 26. 16. I also will doe even this unto you I will appoint over you terrours Deut. 32. 25. The sword without and terrour within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin That is feare shall kill those who escape the sword A people cannot stand before the Army of men who are once surprised with an Army of terrours Hence Josh 2. 9. Your terrour is fallen upon us saith Rahab to assure the spies that the Canaanites could not stand before the people of Israel Againe The terrours of God afflict the soule First When sin is set openly to the eye of conscience in array against us An army of sins are an army of terrours The Church is called Terrible as an army with banners Cant. 6. 10. when she is strengthned and armed for the exercise of all that power which Christ hath given her and when our sins stand before us in all that strength which the law hath given them they also are terrible as an army with banners Secondly When God hides his face from us an army of terrours quickly faces us Though an army of sins come out in array against us yet if God appear to us in the fulnesse and freenesse of his grace if Christ our Captaine will but leade us on against this army we shall quickly overcome them or they will will fly before us But an army of sins is exceeding terrible when Christ appears not in the field for us or when God hides his face from us and leaves us in the dark It is usuall in Scripture to set forth terrours as the effect of that darknesse and the hidings of the face of God Naturally terrour accompanies darknesse children are afraid in the dark and not onely children but men Histories tell us of great Emperours who durst not be in the dark for fear And as naturall terrours meet us in naturall darknesse so spirituall terrours in spirituall darknesse When the light of Gods countenance is clouded and as it were benights the soule then terrour takes hold upon us Under either of these notions we may understand the terrours of this text The terrours of God doe set themselves in array against me It was true in respect of outward troubles they were very terrible But especially in regard of inward troubles when God set his sins in array before him or hid his face and obstructed the course of his wonted communion Set themselves in aray against me The Originall imports a very exact curious artificiall ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinavit ratione proportione disposuit instruxit and disposall of things As if the Lord had even studied to be exact and exquisite in afflicting Job he puts his sorrowes into a method and his troubles into order The providence of God observes a rule and is harmonious in those things which appeare to us a chaos a heape of confusion The word is applied First To the ordering of speech or disputations There is a kind of embattailing in disputation when it is regular and artificiall Job 32. 14 Now he hath not directed his speech against me saith Elihu concerning Job as if he had said Job hath not marshalled his arguments against me but all the charge hath been upon you Secondly I find the word used in reference unto prayer Prayer ought to be full of holy order and composednesse Psal 5. 3. In the morning will I direct my prayer to Thee and looke up In the morning will I put my prayer in array I will posture my prayer in a gratious order my heart in order and my words in order every petition shall as it were keep ranke and file when I am seeking unto God Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God is the counsell of the Holy Ghost by Solomon Eccles 5. 2. But properly the word is applied to the marshalling and imbattailing of an Army Jer. 50. 9 Loe I will raise and cause to come up against Bâ—bylon an assembly of great nations from the North countrey and they shall set themselves in array against her c. So then whereas Job saith The terrours of God are set in array against me he would intimate that God afflicted him both orderly and resolvedly It was not some confused terrour or sudden surptiâ—al but the Lord God like some great Commander or General mustered and marshal'd his army and led it up exactly form'd to a pitcht battell against him Observe from hence first Afflictions come sometimes by multitudes You shall have a whole Army
who walke in a spheare below beasts who are more foolish and ignorant then a beast Take heed of complaining without cause if beasts are satisfied with what is agreeable to nature man should be so much more When Nature hath not enough Grace hath all Grace will not bray or low when there is no grasse no fodder surely then they have a scarcity of grace in their hearts who bray and low over their grass and fodder Spirituall accommodations will make a good heart forget temporall incommodities and it is reason they should God promiseth Isa 30. 20. Though I give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction yet thy teachers shall no more be removed into a corner but thine eyes shall see thy teachers As if he had said though your bodies are coursely fed yet your souls shall be feasted Good cheare shal daily be served into them both at your eyes and eares Thine eyes shall see thy teachers and thou shalt heare a voice behind thee Thy sight and thy hearing shall be refreshed with heavenly Messengers and good news from heaven Now besides this promise exprest there is a duty implyed in the text namely that because their spirits were so well fed therfore they must not complain though their flesh come short in feeding The bread of affliction should be pleasant to us while we eate Gospel-dainties In these times God gives more plenty of spirituall food than formerly yet many complaine because their naturall bread is shortned Remember beasts complaine not when they have what is suitable to nature then let not Christians complaine when they have what is suitable to grace though nature have but spare diet and short commons Vers 6. Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt He proceeds to another similitude It is as if Job had said Nature will complaine when it wants meat yea oftentimes nature will complaine when it wants pleasant meat Nature is not pleased if it want a graine of salt if it have not sauce it is not satisfied Therefore surely I am to be borne with and not to be charged thus deeply who complaine when you offer me that which is unsavoury when you give me meat without salt without sauce without any thing to render it either pleasing to my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Est quod debito condimento temperamento caret sive in defectu sive in excessu Sales pro facetijs quod sint quasi condimentum sermonis Literae Sparsae sale humanitatis Gicer ad Artic. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Est prepositio absque fine Sed quidam accipiunt pro nomine composito ex Min quod est ex beli à Balab quod est veâ—â—stâ—s Hâ—nc locam reddunt Infaluatum ex vetustate salis potius quam insipidum absque salae Bold Job rem prae horrore prorsus impossibiliem vult significare Numquid comodetur c. At impossibile omnino non est comedere insipiduÌ„ sine sale carnes autem corruptae ex vetustate salismanducars nulla tenus possunt Bold pallate or easie to my digestion Unlesse I were sencelesse like a stock or a stone how should I not disrelish and disgust saplesse saltlesse how much more bitter things Can that which is unsavorie The word which we render unsavorie is the same used Chap. 1. ver 22. which wee there opened at large Job did not charge God with folly or foolishly or he spake not unsavorily of God There is a threefold application of that word in Scripture 1. To unpleasant meats 2. To untempered morter 3. To indiscreet speeches which want the seasoning either of wit wisdome or of truth Lam. 2. 14. Thy Prophets have seene vaine and foolish things for thee Lying visions without truth vain words without wisdome So here Can that which is unsavourie be eaten without salt Seasoning makes unsavory things sweet As salt gives a relish to meat so wisdome and wit to words And therefore the Latines expresse wise witty speeches pleasant discourse a good grace in speaking and a salt by the same word There is another Interpretation of that word which we render b without for some understand it not as a Preposition governing the word Salt but as a compound word noting the oldnesse or stalenesse of meat wherein the very salt it selfe is putrified and so whereas we say Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt They translate thus Can that which is unsavoury through the corruption of salt be eaten Or can that meat be eaten which having been salted is now putrified Salt which keeps meat from corruption may in time be overcome with the corruption of the meat And a learned Interpreter gives the reason why he rather chuseth this interpretation of the word because saith he it carries a stronger Emphasis with it Job speakes as of a thing in a manner unpossible to be done Now it is very possible to eat unsavoury meat without salt A good appetite will downe with unpleasant food and hunger will dispence much with Cookery But when season'd or salted meat corrupts and putrifies whose stomach doth not loath and abhorre it Therefore it is a fuller and a more flat deniall to say Can that which is unsavoury thorough the corruption of salt be eaten then Then to say Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt Or is there any taste in the white of an Egge These words are much obscured by most Translators and have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 found almost as many expositions as Expositours Some translate thus Is there any taste in that which being taken brings death So the Vulgar Doubtlesse a man hath but little pleasure to taste An potest aliquis gustare quod gustatum affert mortem Vulg. that which tasted will be his death So the words are an aggravation of the unsavourinesse of those things which were offered him by his friends to touch or take them was to take poison or to drinke in a deadly cup. To cleare up this Exposition they make the Hebrew word Challamuth which we translate Egge a compound from Muth signifying to die whence Maueth death and Chala signifying froth or fome or from Chali signifying infirmity As if the word having these parts put together had this sence The froth and foame of death Or The infirmitie of death That is deadly froth on deadly infirmity As if he had said is there any pleasing taste in the spettle of dying men who we know often fome and froth at their mouthes when they lie drawing on Others thus Is there any taste in the spettle of a healthy man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanus confortatus convaluit The word Rir which we translate white signifies spettle or froth As when David acted the mad-man before the King of Gath it is said that he let his spettle fall downe upon his beard 1 Sam. 21. 13. And the word which we translate Egge signifies Health and the verbe to be healthy Chap. 39. 4.
potion and mistooke his case his was good searching physick for the foul stomach and grosse spirit of a hypocrite but it is enough to kill the heart of an upright-heart when God seemes angry with him and appeares against him when he is smitten without and smitten within by sore afflictions of mind and body then for his comforters to smite him with their tongues to lay at him with hard words and wound him with their unreasonable jealousies then for his counsellers and helpers to be angry with and opposite against him too Observe hence That not only words untrue but words misapplied are unsavoury and may be dangerous They are no food and they may be poison Prudence in applying is the salt and seasoning of what is spoken As a word spoken in the right season is precious and upon the wheele so is a word right placed When that faith full Prophet Ezek. 13. reproves the false prophets he saith They dawbed with untempered morter ver 10. it is the word of the text and why was theirs untempered morter even because they applied the word of God wrong They made sad the hearts of those whom God would have refreshed and they cheared the spirits of those whom God would have sadned they slay the souls that should not dye and save the souls alive that should not live This was untempered morter The Apostle advises all Col. 4 6. Let your speech be alwayes with grace seasoned with salt And speech must be seasoned not only with the falt of truth but with the salt of wisdome and discretion and therefore the Apostle adds that ye may know how to answer every one that is that you may give every man an answer fitting his case and the present constitution of his spirit Of some have compassion saith the Apostle Jude ver 22. making a difference and others save with feare This shewes the holy skill of managing the word of God when we make a difference of our patients by our different medicines and not serve all out of the same boxe Hence our Lord calleth those great Teachers of the Gospel and dispensers of his Oracles Light and Salt You are the Light of the world and you are the salt of the earth because they were to speake savoury things to every person to every pallate as well as to enlighten them with knowledge and prevent or cure the corruption of their manners and keep their lives sweet As there is an unsavourinesse in persons when they are mis-employed so there is an unsavourinesse in speeches when they are mis-applied The history of the Church speaks of one Eccebolius who changed religion so often and was so unsetled that at last Conculcate me salem insipidum Niceph. he cast himselfe down at the congregation doore and said Trample upon me for I am unsavoury salt And that word though in it self a truth which is unseasonably delivered or unduly placed may be cast at the doores of the Congregation to be trampled on for in this sence it is unsavoury salt Such corrupt the word and their's is but corrupt communication such as cannot minister grace unto the hearers and often grieves the holy Spirit of God These work-men for their ill division of the word of God have reason enough to be ashamed and the Lord may justly reprove them as he did Jobs friends Chap. 42. 7. Ye have not spoken of me nor of my wayes the thing that is right JOB Chap. 6. Vers 8 9 10 c. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Then should I yet have comfort yea I would harden my selfe in sorrow Let him not spare for I have not concealed the words of the holy One c. IN the former part of this Chapter we have had Job defending his former complaint of life and his desire of death In this context from the 8th verse unto the end of the 12th he reneweth and reinforceth that desire He not only maintaines and justifies what he had done but doth it again begging for death as heartily and importunately as he did in the third Chapter O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for The request it selfe is laid downe in the 8 â—h and 9 â—h verses and the reasons strengthning it in the 10 11 and 12 verses So these 5 verses are reduceable to these two heads 1. The renewing of his desire to dye 2. An enlargement of reasons confirming that desire O that I might have my request It is such a vehement desire and so exprest as Davids was 2 Sam. 23. 15. And David longed and said Oh that one would give me drinke of the water of the well of Bethlem which is by the gate David did not long more to tast a cup of that water then Job did to tast the cup of death The summe and scope of Jobs thoughts in this passage may be conceived thus He would assure his friends that his faith was firme and his comforts flowing from it very sweet That it was not impatience under the troubles of this life but assurance of the comforts of the next which caused him so often to call for death That these comforts caused his heart to triumph and glory in the very approaches of the most painfull death and made him despise and lightly to esteeme all the hopes of life That he was gone further then the motives which Eliphaz used from the hopes of a restitution to temporall happinesse he now was pitcht upon and lodg'd in the thoughts of eternall happinesse That he call'd for death not as that with which he had made any Covenant or was come to any agreement with but only as that which would bring him to his desired home The one Thing he desired That his comforts had not a foundation in a grave where all things are forgotten but in the Covenant of God who remembers mercy for ever and therefore it should not trouble him to die before he was restored to health riches and honour which his friends proposed to him as a great argument of comfort and of patience For in death he should have riches and glory and hence it was that he had rather endure the extreamest paines of death then stay to receive any outward comforts in this life His desires to be dissolved were not so much from the sence of his present paine for he would harden himselfe to endure yet more as from the apprehension of future joy This was not a fancie or a dreame but he had good proof and reall evidence of it in the whole course of his life which had been as a continued acting of the word of God and to a fitting him for nearest communion with God This in general The letter of the Hebrew runneth thus Who would give me that my request or that
beat a thing to powder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contudit contrivit comminuit or to beat a thing to pieces Psal 143. 3. He hath smitten my life downe to the ground that is He hath beaten me as it were to dirt So Job here I would have the Lord even beat me to dust or dirt The word is used for contrition of spirit Isa 57. 15. I dwell with him that is of an humble heart and of a contrite spirit That is with him that hath a spirit beaten to powder or all to pieces as any hard thing is with a hammer or pestle A hard heart is a heart all in a lumpe condensate and closed together but an humble a repenting heart is a heart beaten small and ground to powder Thus Job desires here O that it would please God to beat my life downe to dust and breake me all to shatters that he would crush me as Eliphaz spake in the 14th Chapter ver 19. as a Moth. Observe then in how sad a condition Job was who not onely makes but renewes such a request as this Some upon a suddaine pang wish to die and hastily call for death yet are willing it should take it 's own time and come leisurely and as soon as death appeares they are crying as hard for life It is rare for any mans second thoughts to keepe up to such desires Job spake once and he speakes it over again O that I might die yea he wooes destruction and is an importunate suiter for the grave How sad is a mans outward condition when he hath only this complaint left that he cannot die when a man hath no helpe but in destruction or healing but in a deeper wound Job in this appeares like a man that is to be pressed to death lying under a heavy weight yet the weight not heavy enough to crush him to death he cries out more weight more weight It will be a kindnesse to crush out my breath and bowels the greatest favour I expect in this world is but to have more weight laid upon them that I may die Some of the Martyrs when the fire was scant have cried out more fire The cruellest flame was their friend and the more the fire raged the more merciful it was to them The book of our Martyrs reports of reverend Latimer that when he was giving witnesse to the truth and glorifying the name of Christ in the fire he cried out Oh I cannot burne the fire came not fast enough upon him Such this expression of Job seemes to be Oh I cannot die I cannot be destroyed I cannot perish yet O that the hand of God would lay more weight upon me that I might die He seemes to aske such a curtesie as that Amalekite said King Saul craved of him 2 Sam. 1. 9. Stand I pray thee upon me and slay me for anguish is come upon me because my life is yet whole in me This is the favour the only favour that remaines for me I am capable of no worldly comfort but a quicker dispatch out of the world And that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Here is the same Petition though other language That he would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Loco movit evulsit excussit let loose his hand That 's an elegant expression The word signifies to loose the bond that a man may have use of his hands or feet As prisoners are loosed Psal 146. 2. The Lord looseth the prisoners So that it is as if Job had said Lord thou hast been smiting and wounding me but I see thou hast not given thy hand the full scope thy hand is as it were bound or tied behind thee As you know a man that hath great advantage of another or is much his over-mach will say to him I will fight with thee with Translatio ab his qui manum vinctam habent my hand tied behind me The truth is God is able to contend with all the creatures with his hand bound behind him with his hands fast bound that is without putting forth the least part to speake on of his power He can overcome with speaking Job observing here that God contended with him as it were with his hands bound or tied up desires now that God would give himselfe full scope and put out his strength and not strike as if his hand were a prisoner And he may have a respect in speaking thus to the Non se gera◠erga me instar hominis colligatam habentis manum restraint or binding up of Satans power In this worke Satan was Gods hand God put power into the hand of Satan All that he hath is in thy power or in thy hand Chap. 1. 12. First God loosened Satans hand to take away his estate Next he let loose his hand a little further to the afflicting of his body but saith God spare his life there he bound up his hand againe Now Job alluding probably to that restraint Lord saith he loosen thy hand a third time doe not only loosen it to take away my estate to take away my health and strength but O that thou wouldest loosen it to take away my life too enlarge I pray thee Satans Commission who is thy hand let it quite loose that he may make an end of me and cut me off The word here used to cut off comes up to heighten Jobs sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inexplebilem cupiditatem atque immanem aviditatem vulnerandi humani sanguinu perfundendi sign ficat still signifying to cut off with an unsatiable appetite of revenge As if he should say Cut me off spare me not spare not my blood doe it as they who are most greedy of blood and thirst most vehemently after revenge Let Satan that blood-sucker come with as great revenge thy hand being loosened from restraining his as ever the greatest Tyrant hastned with to suck the blood of innocents Let him greedily cut me off even as if he were to have some great gain or get some rich booty by my blood What profit is there in my blood saith David Psal 30. 9. Let him make what profit he can of my blood saith Job The word signifies to covet or desire gaine And it notes the worst kind of covetousnesse covetousnesse of filthy lucre or covetousnesse of bloodie lucre Hence Job saith Let God cut me off as if he were to have profit or raise Avidè me absumat quasi ex mea morte ingens lucrum reportaturus Pined himselfe a revenew out of my blood or let Satan come upon me and take his penny-worths out of my blood let him murder me as if he were to find all manner of treasure in my bowels and could thence fill and adorn all his chambers of darknes with spoils We may note from hence First That God dispenceth and acteth his power as he pleaseth He looseth his hand gradually as to him seemeth good First To the estate then to the body
verba Domini Opin Nonnullorum Hebraeorum apud Merc. Yea I would account every blow an embrace and every wound a reward For not concealing the words of the holy One In these words Job gives the reason or an account of his renewed prayer and request to die As the desire of Job was strong and passionate so likewise it was well grounded He had a very high reason an excellent ground upon which he bottom'd this request to die His reason was spirituall and therefore strong He beggs to be delivered from the troubles of his life though by a painfull death because he was clear in himselfe that he had led a blamelesse life That which set him above the paines of bodily death was the tranquillity of his spirit in this testmony of his conscience I have not concealed the words of the holy One As if he had said You may wonder why I should be so forward and ready to die why I seeme so greedy after the grave why I am such an importunate suiter for my dissolution The account I give you is this I have the testimony of a good conscience within me notwithstanding all the troubles which are upon me notwithstanding all your harsh vnfriendly accusations jealousies and suspitions of me yet my own breast is my friend my heart speakes me faire and gives me good words even these It tells me that I have not concealed the words Mirum est ut mihi non parcat quum illius verba non celarim neque dissimulaverim Aben Azr. of the holy One That I have not smothered any light he hath sent me that I have not refused any councell he hath given me that I have not wilfully departed from any rule he hath prescribed me that I have been faithfull to God to his cause and to his truth that I have declared his will and spoken his minde to others that I have not hidden any thing he hath given me in charge to declare or committed to my trust the word of God hath appeared in my life and therefore I am not afraid yea I have boldnesse to die and to appear before God I have not concealed The word signifieth to hide a thing so as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Significat abscondere ne vidleatur vel audeatur ne amplius appareat it be neither heard of or seen But may not we conceal the words of the most high it is said of Mary that she hid the words of Christ in her heart and of David that he hid the commandements of God in his heart Psal 119. 11. Did not the wise merchant hide the treasure namely Gospel truth Math. 13. 44. as soon as he had found it It should seem all these concealed the word of God how then is it that Job improves this as a speciall point of comfort that he had not concealed the words of the holy One There is a double hiding or concealement of the truth There is first a hiding from danger Secondly a hiding from use There is a hiding to keep a thing safe that others shall not take it from us and there is a hiding to keep a thing close that others may not take the benefit of it with us When it is said that Mary and David and the wise Merchant hid the word of God it was lest they themselves should lose it lest any should deprive them of it they hid it from danger They layed it up as a treasure in their hearts but they did not hide it from the knowledge or use of others and that is it which Job affirmes of himselfe I have not concealed the words of the holy One And there are four wayes by which the word of God is sinfully hid or concealed from all which Job seemes to acquit himselfe The first is when we conceal the word of God by our own silence when we know the word and truth of God and yet we draw a vaile over them by not revealing them The Apostle Paul Acts 20. 27. acquits himself in this to the Church of Ephesus I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsell of God and verse 20. You know how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you Silence to what is spoken is consent and silence when we should speak is concealement There is a second way of concealing the word of God and that is by silencing others Some conceale the words of the holy One themselves and they cannot endure that others should publish them The chiefe Priests and the Rulers Acts 4 18. charged Peter and John that they should not speake at all nor teach any more in the name of Jesus They would stop the Apostles mouthes from speaking the words of the holy One These keep the truth lockt up as Christ charges the Lawyers Luk. 11. 52. by taking away the key of knowledge Thirdly There is a concealing of the word of God under false glosses and misinterpretations or a hiding of it under errours and misconstructions This is a very dangerous way of concealing the words of the holy One The Pharisees made the law of God of none effect by their expositions as well as by their traditions by the sence they made of it as well as by the additions they made unto it Fourthly The word of the holy One may be concealed in our practise and conversations The Apostle exhorts Phil. 2. 16. To hold forth the word of life in a pure conversation The lives of Christians should publish the word of life The best way of preaching the word is by the praictse of the word The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse of men who hold the truth in unrighteousnesse that is who by their unrighteous practises and ungodly conversations imprison fetter restrain and keep in the word Mans holy life is the loudest Proclamation of the word of God And a sinfull life is the concealment of it Job here acquits himselfe from all these concealements I have not eâ—ncealed the words of the holy One either by my own silence or by imposing silence upon others I have not concealed the word of the holy One by my own corrupt glosses and interpretations nor by a corrupt practise and conversation I have desired and endeavoured that the whole word of God might be visible in my actions and audible in my speeches that I might walke cloathed as it were with the holy counsels and commandements of my God There is a reading of the words different from this Whereas we Malo potentialiter exponi omnia utinam inquit non parceret Nequenim occultarem dicta sancti sed ejus in me sententiam praedicarem laudarem Merc. say I have not concealed the words of the holy One that gives it thus I would not conceale the words of the holy One and so the word of the holy One is taken not for the truths of God in generall but for that special word of decree or sentence which God should
passe out against him A if he had said Let not God spare me let him write â—s bitter a sentence against me as he pleaseth for my part I would not conceale the word of the most High but I would publish his judgement and sentence against me yea I would praise him and extoll him for it The vulgar Latine to this sence I would not contradict the word of the holy One Let him not spare me for as for my part whatsoever God shall determine and resolve whatsoever word God shall speake concerning me I will never withstand or open my mouth against it This is a truth and carries in it a high frame of holinesse when we can bring our hearts to this that let God write as bitter things against us as he pleaseth we will never contradict his word or decree but our minds and spirits shall submit wholly and fully to his dispositions of us and dispensations towards us It is as clear an evidence of grace to be passive under as to be active in the word of God Not to contradict his writ for our sufferings as not to conceale what he speaks for our practise But I rather stick to the former interpretation Job giving this as a reason of his great confidence in pursuing his petition for death because he had been so sincere holding forth the word of God both in doctrine and in life And so we may observe from it First That the testimony of a good conscience is the best ground of our willingnesse to die That man speakes enough for his willingnesse to die who hath lived speaking and doing the will of God and he is in a very miserable case who hath no other reason why he desireth death but onely because he is in misery This was one but not the only reason why Job desired death he had a reason transcending this I have not concealed the words of the holy One and I know if I have not concealed the word of God God will not conceal his mercy and loving kindness from me David bottoms his hopes of comfort in sad times upon this Psal 40. 9 10. I have preached righteousness in the great Congregation I have not refrained my lips O Lord thou knowest he was not actively or politickly silent I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart if lay there but it was imprisoned or stifl'd there I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvations I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great Congregation Upon this he fals a praying with a mighty spirit of beleeving vers 11. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me O Lord let thy loving-kindness and thy truth continually preserve me for innumerable evils have compassed me about The remembrance of our active faithfulness to the truth of God will bear up our hearts in hoping for the mercy of God He that in Davids and in Jobs sence can say I have not concealed the words of the most high may triumph over innumerable evils and shall be more then a conquerer over the last and worst of temporal evils death God cannot long conceal his love from them who have not concealed his truth Secondly observe positively That the counsels of God his truths must be revealed God hath secrets which belong not to us but then he puts them not forth in a word nor writes them in his book he keeps his secrets close in the cabinet of his decrees and counsels but what he reveals either in his word or by his works man ought to reveal too It is as dangerous if not more to conceal what God hath made known as to be inquisitive to know what God hath concealed Yea it is as dangerous to hide the word of God as it is to hide our own sins And we equally give glory to God by the profession of the one as by the confession of the other Paul with much earnestnesse professes his integrity about this as was even now toucht Act. 20. Fourthly observe That the study of a godly man is to make the word of God visible I have not concealed that is I have made plain I have revealed or I have published the words of the holy One Much of Jobs mind is concealed under that word I have not concealed For in this negative there is an affirmative as if he had said this hath been my labour and my businesse my work in the world to make known so much of the will of God as I know This was the work of Christ here below Father I have glorified thee upon earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do Joh. 17. 4. What this work was he shewes vers 6th I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world Lasty observe That it is a dangerous thing for any man to conceale the word of God either in his opinion or in his practice For it is as if Job had said if I had ever concealed the words of God I had bin but in an ill case at this time God might now justly reveale his wrath against me if I had concealed his word from others or God might justly hide his mercies from me if I had hid his word from men Smothered truths will one time or other set the conscience in a flame and that which Jeremiah spake once concerning his resolution to conceale the word of God and the effect of it will be a truth upon every one who shall set himselfe under a resolution to doe what he under a temptation did Jer. 20. 9. Then I said I will not make mention of him nor speake any more in his name what followes Then his word was in my breast as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing If a gracious heart hath taken up such a sodaine resolution to conceale the word of God he quickly repents of it or smarts under it He findes that word as a burning fire in his bones he is not able to bear it I was weary with forbearing saith the prophet Nothing in the world will burthen the conscience so much as concealed truth and they who have taken a meditated resolution that they will not reveale the word of God may be sure that word will one time or other reveale it selfe to them in the Light and heat of a burning fire seeding upon their consciences I have not concealed the words whose words The words of the Holy One Who is that The Holy One is a periphrasis for God When you hear that Title The holy One you may know who is meant This is a Title too bigge for any but a God All holinesse is in God and God is so holy that properly he onely is Holy Hence the Scripture sets God forth under this as a peculiar attribute The Holy One The Prophets often use this addition or stile The Holy One of Israel The Holy One Is One separate or set apart from all filthinesse
God Deicidium Sin would not allow him a being in the world who gave the world it's being Sin in the nature of it is The unholy thing and God is The holy One These two must contend for ever so far as things or persons are unholy they directly strike at the Being of God Sin would put down all rule and all dominion but it 's own Observe Fourthly They who despise holiness despise God himself They who despise holiness despise the very glory of God God is glorious in holiness and this is his glorious Name THE HOLY ONE Some of the Prophane wretched Jewes derided and blasphemed God under this title the Prophet had long threatned judgement and had told them that the holy God would be avenged of them for their filthiness and profaness for their hypocrifie and idolatry But when these wretches saw God delaying to come out and bring forth the treasures of his wrath against them they fall a jeering and they jeer at God under this title Isa 5 19. Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it as if they had said God is too slow let him make more hast and let the counsel of the holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it him that you have so often told us of The holy One let him make hast and bring on his work Without question God came speedily upon those and he will come speedily upon all those unclean spirits and tongues who blaspheme that holy Name The holy One Lastly Hence we learn Why none can see God why none have any fitness for communion with God but holy Ones holy persons the reason is because God is the holy One. That great Law is gone out from the mouth of God Levit. 10. 3. I will be sanctified in those that come near me why sanctified Because God is the holy one Unlesse we sanctifie God we cannot draw nigh to God As holinesse is a separation from evil so iâ— is an approximation to the chiefest good But some may demand how can man sanctifie God God sanctifies us but can we sanctifie him We cannot sanctifie God as he sanctifies us We doe not sanctifie God by adding or communicating any holiness unto him but we sanctifie God by acknowledging his holiness or by acknowledging that he is The Holy One drawing nigh unto God with a holy heart with holy affections is the sanctfying of God For this is the language of such preparation I have a holy God to go unto therefore I must have a holy heart to come unto him with this is sanctifying God And that 's the reason why none can see God but they that are holy Heb. 12. 14. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord because God himself is holy therefore they cannot see God who are unholy There must be an inward holiness holiness in the Organ to take in the holiness of the object God first works holiness in us and then we behold him the holy God And that was the reason why the Prophet Isa chap. 6. when the voice proclaimed that thrice holy Name of God Holy Holy Holy cried out I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips I have an unclean heart and how shall I stand before this holy holy holy God This made his spirit recoyl though he was a holy Prophet If the remainders of unholinesse in him made his spirit faint when there was an appearance of the holy God How will they that are nothing but corruption or a lump of uncleanness lying still in the dregs of nature be able to stand before God The holy One the holy holy holy One This is the summe of the first reason upon which Job grounds his request to die it was not the misery he suffered but the integrity in which he had lived He had not concealed the words of the holy One therefore as his affliction made his life troublesome to him so the goodness of his cause and conscience made death welcome to him JOB Chap. 6. Vers 11 12 13 14. What is my strength that I should hope And what is mine end that I should prolong my life Is my strength the strength of stones Or is my flesh of brass Is not my help in me And is wisdom driven quite from me To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty JOB as hath been shewed in this context from the 8th verse renewes his former request and desire of death confirming it by divers arguments some of which were opened in the 10th verse especially that from the clearness and integrity of his own conscience in that he had not concealed the words of the the holy One He had dealt faithfully in the cause of God and therefore he was not afraid to appear before God And his desire did not hang about his lips as if it would return and deny it self therefore in this 11th verse he puts forth two reasons further why he moves or re-enforces his motion to die The first is grounded upon the small hope he had to live long if he should desire it What is my strength that I should hope The second is grounded upon the strong hope yea assurance which he had that it should be well with him in death or that death could be no dammage to him And what is my end that I should prolong my life Put these two together And then consider is it any wonder that a man in much misery desires to die speedily when he hath no hope no ground of hope that he can live long and when he hath no fear no ground no nor shaddow of fear that it shall be ill with him when he dies This I conceive is the sum and strength of his reasoning contained in the 11th verse I shall now open the words distinctly What is my strength that I should hope Some render it What is my strength that I should bear that I should be able to sustain this weighty burthen this mighty load of affliction pressing my wounded soul and wearied body Thus it refers to his present sufferings to the enduring and standing under which he found his own strength altogether insufficient And so the My in the text What is my strength seems to be His sustinendis impar sum haec mea vita miseriis obnoxia sustentatur non meis viribus sed divina gratia fide dilectione in filium Dei Pined opposed to some other strength As if Job had said Eliphaz you advised me in the former Chapter verse 8. to seek unto God and to commit my cause unto him to seek help at his hands Why do you think I have not done that all this while Do you beleeve that I have stood out these assault in My own strength What is My strength that I should bear That I should bear this burthen so long as I have born it Surely I have been held up by the power of
and immortality to light by the Gospel A believer buries all his feares of death in the grave of Christ He looks upon death as the funeral of his so rows and the resurrection of his joyes When the Psalmist had described the troubles and stormy conflicts of a godly man together with the flourishing outward pompe of the wicked he concludes with this advice Mark the righteous man observe him well take special notice of him the latter and of that man is peace if his end be peace there is nothing in his end which can make him afraid of it or put it off All desire peace they especially Pacem te poscimus omnes who are wearied out with war The life of the holiest man is a warfare and his end is peace Then what is his end that he should prolong his life When a worldly man looks upon his end he saith O what is my end that I should desire to die His end is such as makes him justly afraid to die There is nothing in the end of a wicked man but matter to feed the fear of death and the desire of prolonging life as long as he can This is the reason why when God cals him to die he is deaf at the call yea that call is death to him before he dies Lot had a mind to prolong his time in Sodom it was a goodly City and he was not well assured whether to goe or how he should be lodged next night This caused him to linger so long till the Angels came and thrust him out Natural men have all their portion and estates in the Sodom of this world And if they hear a message of departing or going out they linger and make excuses they run behind the door or hang about the posts till God thrusts them out of the world and puls from them their pleasures by head and shoulders as we say They would never leave the world if they might enioy it because they have nothing to enjoy beyond it A worlding groans because he must be uncloathed of his house of earth and the Saints groan earnestly that they may be cloathed upon with their house from heaven Who would not be willing to exchange a suit of flesh a suit of sackcloth and sorrow for a suit of glory for a cloathing of immortality and garments of everlasting praise Ver. 12. Is my strength the strength of stones Or is my flesh of brass These words may refer to the former part of the eleventh verse What is my strength that I should hope What is it Let us seriously Deficio Saxeus aut Calibe us non sum Lapides corpora sunt non solum gravia sed robusta dura quae non facilè cedunt aliis corporibus undè robur lapidum pro duritie examine and consider what my strength is Is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh of brass Am I made of such hard mettle think you that I am able to endure any thing Only a body of brass and sinewes of Iron are strong enough to endure this tryal Stones and brass are hard bodies and heavy bodies they can bear blows and knocks without breaking They yield not easily to the hammer It is hard to make an impression upon them with many and those violent strokes To say a man is as strong as stones or that he hath a body of brasse is to give him strength which is not mans and to set him two degrees below himself Beasts are stronger and can endure more hardship then man Trees are stronger and can endure more than Beasts Stones are yet stronger and can endure more then Trees Therefore while he asks whether his strength be not only like that of beasts who have no reason or like that of trees which have no sense but like that of stones and brass which have no vegetation or growth he puts it to the utmost as if he had said If a man had as much strength as a Beast or a Tree he must needs fall at these stroaks and troubles but it seems ye put me lower then senseless beasts or trees and that I can stand it out against all storms and batteries like a stony rock or a brazen wall I confesse though the oxe loweth when he wants fodder and the wilde Asse brayeth when he hath no grasse yet the stone complains not when you give it no food nor doth brass cry out when you melt it in a Furnace unless you can find that I am in nature like stones or brass you have no reason to find fault with me Allow me to be either man or beast and you must allow me to be sensible of my sorrows and destroyable by them Only stones can be thus trampled on and brass thus hammer'd without pain and dying As when man in his spiritual capacity is said in Scripture to have a heart of stone an iron sinew a brow of Brass It notes him resolved against all threats and strong against all oppositions of the word to commit the evil of sin So in his natural capacity to say his strength is the strength of stones notes him a man able to bear all the evils of trouble and to stand against all the stormes of tribulation Such kind of speaking is frequent among the ancient Writers Homines Adamantini ferrei saxei nati è scopulis â—li robur aes trip ex circa pectus Hor. Graeci vocant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who when they would express a man of undanted courage a man whose strength would not easily be broken or his spirit be taken down A man insuperable whom no difficulties could overcome Of such an one they say he hath An heart of brass and a back of steel he is a man made up of stones born of a rock He is a man of Adamant he hath Treble brass about his breast as he was described who first ventured in his ship to sea The comman use of the word hath made it proverbial in all languages for a man of more strength then is commonly found in man or for a Master of dangers and extremities Jobs question denies Is my strength the strength of stones Or is my flesh of brass No it is not As if he had said I am made of flesh and bloud as well as others I must shortly yeeld to these stroaks I am not able to hold out and to contend everlastingly with afflictions I cannot stand against these assaults and batteries for ever I am made of the same mould whereof your selves are I am sensible how it is with me I feel what I endure and I cannot long endure what I feel My strength is not the strength of stones Note hence First Mans natural constitution makes him sensible of affliction and subauable by it Mans body is no impregnable Castle We are not made of stones and brasse but of flesh and bloud I will not contend for ever saith God Isa 57. 16.
but they proved nothing at all to him For as the word Yea in Scripture notes assurance constancy fidelity and faithfulness so the word Not or Nay both in the Hebrew and in the Greek signifies unconstancy and unsettleness especially when these two are joined together And so it hath a clear sense with that 2 Cor. 1. 20. where the Apostle speaking of Christ and of his faithfulness saith The Son of Qui respondet expectationi etiam dicitur Etiam non qui varius inconstans God was not yea and nay but in him was yea That is he was not various inconstant and uncertain but he was the very same look what you have found Christ at one time you shall find him a second and a third time yea the same for ever He will not start from you an inch So vers 17. of the same Chapter When I was minded to come did I use lightnesse Or the things that I purpose do I purpose after the flesh that with me there should be yea yea and nay nay That is that with me there should be I and No something and nothing It is of a near importance with the words of Job Ye are no to me you promised to be I to me to be yea yea bu now it comes to the tryal ye are No No to me that is ye are nothing to me ye are no such thing as I expected you would be For ye see my casting down and are afraid Ye see my casting down That is my affliction To be cast down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dejectus Metaphorice territus fuit mente jacuic and to be afflicted are the same The word signifies dejection and consternation of spirit to be heart-fallen the falling of a mans mind as well as of his estate Deut. 1. 21. Fear not neither be discouraged let not your spirit or courage fall Jobs casting down was in his body and goods his spirit and courage stood upright upon their feet Ye saith Job see my outward casting down the casting down of my estate abroad ye see how all is broken and lost and now what is the help ye give me Do ye stand to me or lift me up now I am thus cast down Do ye supply me with comfort and prop me up with counsell no ye are afraid your selves ye are so far from removing my trouble that you your selves are troubled Ye are afraid Their fear may be referred to his person or to his condition ye are afraid to come nigh me ye are afraid I will infect you or ye are afraid some such evil will fall upon your selves I thought ye had come as friends to deliver me from my fears and now ye are fallen into fears your selves Thus Ye are not ye are no such thing as ye promised me ye promised to comfort at least Vos me visistis nulla miserecordia moti Sept. to pitty me but ye doe not So the Septuagint Ye visit me but ye are not moved with any compassion towards me I had been as well without your companion Or if no such men had ever been in the world Observe first from these words For now ye are nothing He that is not what he ought to be or what he promised to be is nothing To be uselesse is in a sence to be essence-lesse To be uselesse in the world is to be as out of the world A man who lives onely to eat and drinke and sleep may be said not to live at all What we say in our English proverbe is true both of persons and of actions As good never a white as never the better as good not to be as doe no good The Apostle Judge speaking of unprofitable persons ver 12 cals them Trees without fruit And what then Twice dead plucked up by the roots As if the Apostle had said I look upon fruitlesse persons as dead persons yea as doubly dead that is dead sure enough As a man can be borne but once in one kind Nicodemus argued from a truth though not to a truth because he could not destinguish naturall from Spiritual John 3 4. So a man can die but once in one kind These men of whom the Apostle speaks were alive naturally though dead spiritually how then is it said that they were twice dead They were judged twice-dead either because a spiritual death is so great a death that it may well goe for two yea one spiritual death is worse then a thousand natutal deaths Or secondly they are said to be twice-dead because they were dead both in regard of the truth of grace and in regard of any outward actings of grace For some hypocrites who are indeed dead in sinne yet act grace in many outward fruits as if they were alive But of these persons it is said their fruit withereth and they are without fruit They were not so much as externally active they had no life of union with Christ and they did no good with the life of their profession in Christ and therefore are justly said to be twice-dead They who have leaves and look fresh and lively as if they hade more then one life in them yet if Vselesse are called liveless and they who doe nothing in the world are to be reckoned no-bodies in the world In the Parable of the Prodigall the conclusion is This my son was dead and is alive Why dead Because he was unanswerable to those purposes to those ends for which he received life He was a prodigal and had deserted his fathers service therefore his father looked upon him as if all that while he had not been at all That 's the description of the dead as Jacob said of Joseph when he concluded him torne by a wilde beast Joseph is not and Rachel would not be comforted for her children because they were not so saith the Father of the Prodigal This my son was dead or he was not he was no help nor comfort to me We no longer deserve the name or reputation of Any thing then we do those things for which we are If we leave our duty upon the matter we loose our nature and are as if we had no being while we reach not at least while we reach not after the end of our being A Heathen concludes of such a man He hath onely been he hath not lived But Fuit non vixit we may from the warrant of Jobes Rhetorick go a degree further and deny that he hath been For he is as if he had never bin a meer nothing From those words Ye see my casting down and are afraid Note That some man is able to bear more than another is able to behold The sight of fearful things causeth fear Further observe from it A fearful man will never be a helpful man Courage in a day of trouble either of our own or others is a great cure of trouble yea a victory over it There is one fear very good when we see the casting down of our
gale of love breathing through the covenant of Grace And as the life of man is compared by Job to a cloud so to that which is the matter of the cloud by the Apostle James Chap. 4. verse 14. where he puts the question what 's the life of man Is it not saith he even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away A vapour is exhaled from the earth by the heat of the Sunne and is the matter out of which the cloud is made Mans life is not only like a cloud which is more condense and strong but like those thin vapours sometimes observed arising from moorish grounds which are the original of clouds and more vanishing then clouds Even these are but vanishing enough to shadow the vanishing decaying quickly dis-appearing life of man As the cloud consumes and vanishes the next words speak out the mind of the comparison So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more The grave is a descent And the word which is here used for the grave is Sheol about which many disputes are raised among the learned The root of it signifies to desire or to crave with earnestness and the reason given is because the grave is always craving and asking Though the grave hath devoured the bodies of millions of men yet it is as hungry as it was the first morsel still it is asking and craving The grave is numbred among those things which are not satisfied Prov. 30. 16. In the Greeke of the new Testament it is translated Hades which by change of letters some form out of the Hebrew Adam and Adamah the earth unto which God condemned fallen man to returne Gen. 3. 19. We find this word Sheol taken five wayes in Scripture 1. Strictly and properly for the place of the damned Prov. 15. II. Hell and destruction are before the Lord how much more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then all the hearts of the children of men God looks through the darkness of hell which is utter darkness Tam infernus quam sepulchrum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Status mortuorum vel sepalchrum nam ut anima de corpore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de sepulchro usurpatur Ps 16. Drus 2. It is put Metaphorically for great and extream dangers or miseries which seem irrecoverable and remediless these are figuratively called hell because hell properly taken is a place from whence there is no recovery There 's no release from the chaines of darknesse all changes are on earth Heaven and hell know none When David praises the Lord Psalm 86. 13. for delivering his soul from the lowest hell he meaneth an estate on earth of the lowest and deepest danger imaginable Mercy helpt him at the worst To be as low as hell is to be at the lowest 3. The word signifies the lower parts of the earth without relation to punishment Psal 139. 8. If I go down into hell thou art there He had said before if I ascend up into Heaven thou art there by Heaven he meanes the upper Region of the world without any respect to the estate of blessednesse and hell is the most opposite and remote in distance without respect to misery As is he had said let me go whither I will thy presence finds me out 4. It is taken for the state of the dead whether those dead are in the grave or no Psal 30. 3. Isa 38. 18 19. Gen. 37. 35. In all which places to go out of the world is to go to Sheol Jacob in the text alledged Gen. 37. 35. said he would go down into the grave to his son mourning yet Jacob thought his Son was devoured by a wild beast he could not goe down into the grave to his son for the bowels of a wild beast was his supposed grave but he meaneth only this I wil even die as he is dead So Numb 16. 33. where that dreadful judgement of God upon Korah Dathan and Abiram is storied it is said that they their sheep and their oxen and their tents and all went down into Sheol that is they were all devoured and swallowed up But 5. Sheol signifies the place where the body is layed after death namely the grave Prov. 30. 16. Man hath a demension of earth fitted to the dimensions of his body this portion or allotment is his Sheol Yet it signifies the grave only in generall as it is natural to man-kind not that grave which is artificial and proper to any particular man this the Hebrew expresses by another * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word He that goeth down to the grave goes to his long home to a house out of which he is never able to see or make his way and Ainsw in Gen. 37. therefore it followes He shall come up no more No that 's sad news indeed to go down to the grave and come up no more Are all the hopes of man shut up in the grave and is there an utter end of him when his life ends Shall he come up no more Many of the Greek writers tax Job as not acquainted with the doctrine of the Resurrection as if he either knew not that mystery or doubted at this time of it And some of the Rabbins say plainly Hic abnegat Iob resuscitationem mortuorum Rab. Sol. Non negatur resurrectio ad vitam sed ad similem vitam Pined he denied it But he is so cleare in the 19th Chapter that we need not think him so much as cloudy here And if we look a little farther himself will give us the comment of this text When he saith he shall come up no more it is not a denyal of a dying mans resurrection to life but of his restitution to the same life or to such a life as he parted with at the graves mouth They who die a natural death shall not live a natural life again therefore he addeth in the next verse Verse 10. He shall return no more to his house He doth not say absolutely he shall return no more but he shall return no more to his house he shall have no more to do with this world with worldly businesses or contentments with the labour or comforts of the creature or of his Family He shall return no more to his house But some may say how doth this answer the comparison That as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more for we find another description of clouds Eccles 12. 2. where the text saith that the clouds return after raine So that it seems though clouds vanish and are consumed yet they returne and come againe The clouds are like bottles full of raine or spunges full of water God crushes these spunges or unstops these bottles and they are emptied and in emptying vanish away but yet Solomon affirms the clouds return after raine how then doth Job say that as the cloud vanisheth so man goeth to the grave
of God only The clouds also shew forth the handy work and power of God Psal 147. 8. Who covereth the heavens with clouds The hand of God drawes those curtaines and puts that maske upon the face of Heaven But as the heavens declare the glory of God so they publish and declare the weaknesse of man the vapours and the winds shew forth how fraile he is As the invisible things of God to wit his eternall power and Godhead are seen in the things which are made God is as it were visible in the creatures so likewise the frailty and mutability the weaknesse and inconstancy of man is visible in the things which are created we may reade a lecture of our own transitorinesse in the most transitory texts of nature And that is an admirable contrivance and complication of things that out of the very same text of the creature where the infinite wisdom power of God may be learned man also may learn his own frailty He that studies the creature much shall find much of God and of himselfe Some conceive when Isaac Gen 24. 63. went forth into the field to meditate that he studied the booke of the creatures probably the holy man did so but we are sure he might How will it shame those men at last who know not God not themselves when they have or might have had without cost or travell so many tutors and instructers JOB Chap. 7. Vers 11 12 13 14 15 16. Therefore I will not refraine my mouth I will speake in the anguish of my spirit I will complaine in the bitternesse of my soule Am I a sea or a whale that thou settest a watch over me When I say my bed shall comfort me my couch shall ease my complaint Then thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me through visions So that my soul chuseth strangling and death rather then life I loath it I would not live alwayes let me alone for my dayes are vanity IN the context of these six verses we may take notice of foure things 1. Jobs violent resolution to complaine ver 11. 2. His vehement complaint ver 12. 3. An amplification of his sorrowes ver 13 14. 4. A renovation of his often repeated desires to die and the tediousnesse of his life ver 15. 16. Therefore Job having in an apostrophe to God shewed his weake condition takes up a fresh resolution of complaining to God Therefore I will not refraine my mouth c. as if he had said The consideration of these things is so farre from putting me to silence that it doth rather enlarge my heart and open my mouth to speake and complaine once more seeing death is by Gods appointment the certain end of all outward troubles and perceiving my self upon the very borders or brink of death my body past cure my estate irrecoverable and remedilesse therefore I will complaine yet againe I will yet farther lay open my misery before the Lord and presse him to hasten me thorough the confines of this land of sorrow that I may accomplish my dayes and see an end of these troubles for my soule is in great bitternesse I will not refraine my mouth The word signifies to stop inhibit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Proprie est continere probibere cum ad liuguam orationem refertur â—ffert suppressionem quandam cohibitionem eluctantis spiritus sermonis conantis se aperto ore effundere or prohibit Those writs which stay the processe of inferiour Courts are called Prohibitions and then no man may open his mouth more in that businesse untill the Prohibition be dissolved or taken off I saith Job will not give my self a prohibition I will not silence or suppresse my sorrowes I will give my heart full liberty to meditate and my tongue to speake out my sufferings Being emptied of all my comforts I will surely take my fill of complainings It will be some ease to me to make known how I am pained I will not refraine my mouth That word is used Isa 58. 1. Cry aloud spare not when the Prophet is commanded to tell the people of their sins the Lord sets his tongue at liberty spare not thou art not silenced or limited therefore cry aloud Theirs were crying sins and crying sins must have crying reproofs loud sinners must not be whispered to therefore Cry aloud spare not I will not spare my mouth saith Job or refraine as we translate But I will speake in the anguish of my spirit or in the straightnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ie in angustiis spiritus mei coarctat me spiritus pectore inclusus patefaciam liberum illi aditum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Proprie meditari vel ex meditatione interius animo concepta aliquid exterius agere loqui orari conqueri Vocem edam querulam musfitando meditandi Merc. of my spirit I am in a straight I am pent in my spirit and unlesse I let my spirit out my heart will breake I must give it vent and ayre I will speake in the anguish of my spirit I will complaine in the bitternesse of my soule The word render'd complaine signifies to meditate and so to speake upon meditation or to speake deliberately It implies first a forming and fashioning of what we would say in our thoughts Thoughts are the moulds of our words Job intends not rash speaking what he intended to speake should be moulded shapt and wrought in his heart before brought forth by his tongue Prayer is exprest by this word because prayer ought first to be formed in the heart Prayer is the manifestation of our desires to God If the tongue speakes before the heart before the heart makes up our requests we take Gods name in vaine Hannah takes up this word 1 Sam. 1. 16. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial for out of the aboundance of my complaint or meditation so the word is rendered and greife have I spoken Hunnah was praying her voice was not heard only her lips moved which caused Eli to suspect and censure her for drunk or distracted but she answers in words of turth and sobernesse O my Lord count not thine handmaid a daughter of Belial for though my voice hath not been heard yet I have been speaking out of the aboundance of my complaint that is out of the aboundance of my meditation my complaints are not the work of my tongue but of my heart and my lips moved not untill my heart moved my complaint is my meditation Hence likewise that phrase of powring out prayer Psal 142. 2. I powred out my complaint before him He that powres out must have somewhat yea much within where there is a constant stream there also is a fountain I powred out my complaint or my complaining prayer it is the same word here I have gathered the bitter waters of sorrow into my own heart and now I powre them forth in complainings I will complain
tempt in the day but as he hath a power given him but permitted he causes sometimes sinfull and fifthly dreames as Augustine bewailes in the tenth book of his Confessions sometimes terrible and troublesome Aug. confess li. 10. Ca. 30. dreames sometimes treacherous and deluding dreames It is by some conceived that the dreame of Pilats wife Mat. 27. 19. was from the Devill she comes to Pilat and desires him to have nothing to doe with that Just man for saith she I have suffered many things this night in a dreame because of him The reason why some conceive that dreame was from the Devill is this because thereby Satan would have hindred the work of mans redemption if Christ had not died and so by saving him would have destroyed us all I will not assert this but it is cleare to the point in hand that there are dreames from the temptations motions and suggestions of the Devill who hath a power over us as God lengthens out his chain both day and night But when it is said Thou skarest me with dreames what dreames were these divine or Diabolicall Job speaks unto God Thou skarest me with dreames doubtlesse divine dreames had an influence upon his spirit and left terrifying impressions there But Satan having power to afflict Job which way he pleased was instrumentall here and yet Job saith to God Thou skarest me As before when Satan by his instruments took away all from him he said The Lord hath taken so here when Satan vexed him with visions representing horrid and fearfull spectacles yet he saith Thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me with visions as pointing still unto the power and providence of God who hath all second causes Satan and all at his own dispose Observe here first That even our dreames are ordered by God Though Satan be the instrument yet we may say Thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me with visions Job was not ignorant that second causes had a great power upon the body to produce dreames and nightly fancies he was not ignorant that the strength of a disease might doe very much in this and that Satan his former enemy was busie to improve the distempers of his body for the trouble of his mind yet he overlooks all these as he did before and saith Lord thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me with visions Dreames are in the hand of God As our waking times are in the hand of God so are our sleeping times when we are sleeping we are in the armes of an ever waking Father Satan hath not power to touch us sleeping or waking without leave Secondly Ged can make our sleepe an affliction Jobs were skaring and terrifying dreames Some dreames are for warning and admonition The Lord warned Joseph in a dream Some are for counsell and instruction he revealed great things in dreames Others are for comfort and consolation Many a soul hath tasted more of heaven in a night-dreame than in many daies attendance upon holy Ordinances As the lusts of wicked men have dreames attending them so also have the graces of the Saints Jobs dreames were for terrour and afflictions Observe secondly Satans desire of troubling poore souls is restlesse It is restlesse indeed for he will not give them leave to rest they shall not sleep in quiet their very dreames shall be distractions and their nightly representations a vexation to them Note further That if God permit Satan can make dreames very terrible to us He can shew himselfe in a dreame and offer ugly sights extreamly perplexing to the Spirit He is able to cast himself into a thousand ill favour'd shapes into horrid and dreadfull shapes he can cloath himself with what habit he pleases if God give him a generall Commission And hence the devill terrifies not only by temptations to the mind but by aparitions to the eye and is seen at least conceived to be seen especially by such as labour under strong diseases like a Lion a Beare a Dogge gaping grinning staring whence we say of any terrifying sight it looks like a devill We depend upon God as for sleep so for the comfort of sleep Many lie downe to sleep and their sleep is their terrour As that evill spirit in the Gospel went about seeking rest but found none So he hinders some and would more from finding rest when they seeke it Therefore blesse God for any refreshing you have by sleepe Blesse God when your dreames are not your skares nor your beds your racke See the effect what deepe impressions dreadfull dreams made in Jobs spirit he was so affrighted with them that he professes with his next breath Verse 15. My soule chuseth strangling and death rather then life I loath it I would not live alwayes So that my soul chooseth strangling He renews his former often repeated motion but with a greater ardency He not only prefers death before his troubled condition but a violent death and in the opinion of some the worst of violent deaths strangling which though it be not the most painfull of violent deaths yet it is looked upon as the most ignominious of violent deaths Some referre these words to the terrour which Job had in his dreames and visions as if they were so violent upon him that they almost distracted him and made him mad that they even put him upon desperate thoughts of destroying himselfe My soule chooseth strangling that is I am often tempted and almost prevailed Ab hujusmodi spectris multos sejam strangulasse profiliisse in puteos asserit Hippoc. with to make my selfe away The learned Physitians tell us that their Patients have often attempted to destroy themselves thorough the terrours of dreams and visions Yet we may understand the word strangling only of naturall and ordinary Every death is a kind of strangling and some diseases stop and choke a man even as strangling doth so that My soule chooseth strangling may be taken in generall My soul chooseth death rather then life My soul chooseth He puts the soul as it is often in Scripture for the whole man and the sence of all is as if he had said If I might be my own chooser if I might have my election I would even take the worst of deaths rather than the life which now I live My soul chooseth strangling And death rather then life If we take strangling for a speciall death then here death is put in generall As thus if strangling be too easie a death let me die any kind of death Death rather then life The Hebrew in the letter is And death rather than my bones which some render thus And death rather than to be with my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Os a robore dictum nihil in ipso taem sorte firmum quod vis doloris non debilitarat confregerat Aquin. bones To be with our bones is to live Others make this choosing an act of his bones My soul chooseth strangling and my bones death that is every
but thorough my comelinesse thou art very beautifull The worth of man is out of himselfe the Church shines by those rayes by that lustre which Christ casts upon her Secondly observe from this question What is man c. Man hath layed himselfe so low that he is not worthy of one thought from God What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and set thy heart upon him It is a wonder that God should vouchsafe a gracious looke upon such a creature as man it is wonderfull considering the distance between God and man as man is a creature and God the creatour What is man that God should take notice of him is he not a clod of earth a peece of clay but consider him as a sinfull and an uncleane creature and we may wonder to amazement what is an uncleane creature that God should magnifie him will the Lord indeed put value upon filthines and fix his approving eye upon an impure thing One step further what is rebellious man man an enemy to God that God should magnifie him what admiration can answer this question will God prefer his enemies and magnifie those who would cast him downe Will a Prince exalt a traytor or give him honour who attempts to take away his life The sinfull nature of man is an enemy to the nature of God and would pull God out of Heaven yet God even at that time is raising man to Heaven Sinne would lessen the great God and yet God greatens sinfull man Thirdly observe Though man be low in himselfe yet God bestows many thoughts and cares upon him Though there be no reason at all in man why God should magnifie him yet God doth and will Free grace overlooks all the distance that is between God and us as we are creatures and it overlooks that greater and vaster distance which is between God and us as we are sinfull creatures Many a man is ready to think himselfe so good and so great that his brother is not worthy one of his thoughts or a cast of his eye he thinks it too much to looke towards a man that is of the same make with himselfe because he is a little lower statur'd in estate or degree A great rich man thinks he doth a poore man a very great favour if he turns about and speaks to him We may well cry out with admiration O the pride of man to man and O the love of God to man one man hath scarce humility enough to speake to another who in nature is equall to him and yet God who is infinitely above us hath love enough to magnifie and set his heart upon him The language of the holy Ghost is very graduall about this point Eirst What is man that thou art mindfull of him and the sonne of man that thou visitest him Psal 8. 4. To be mindfull of a man is not so much as to visit him we may be mindfull of those whom we goe not to see or to whom we send no helpe Secondly What is man that thou takest knowledge of him or the sonne of man that thou makest an account of him Psal 144. 3. It is much that God will take knowledge of a man or cast an eye upon him but it is a great deale more that God will make account of him but the third and highest step of favour is this of the text that the Lord will magnifie man and set his heart upon him as if he could not be without him Observe Fourthly The true apprehension of the greatnesse of Gods mercy and goodnesse to us makes us little in our owne eyes I ground it thus when Job had considered how the Lord exalts and greatens man he then abases and diminishes man what is man that thou shouldest magnifie him Nothing should draw man so low in himself as to thinke how high God doth and how much higher yet God intends to raise him In the 1 Chron. 17. 16. When David enquired of God by Nathan whether he should build him an house God answered no he should not but his sonne after him should But though the Lord would not have David build him an house yet the Messenger who was to carry this report must tell David That the Lord would build him an house and establish his sonne upon the throne after him vers 10. 11. Assoon as David had this answer brought him of Gods wonderfull goodnesse toward him and of those large promises to his family he breaks out into this diminutive admiration Who am I O Lord God and what is mine house that thou hast brought me hitherto And yet this is a small thing in thine eyes O God for thou hast also spoke of thy servants house for a great while to come and hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree O Lord God We hear not of such an humble speech falling from Davids lips till Gon sent him that message of advancement And so 2 Sam. 9. 8. when David out of that aboundant love he bare to Jonathan enquired Is there any that is left of the house of Saul that I may shew him kindnesse for Jonathans sake Mephibosheth was found And when David told him I will take care for thee Thou shalt eat bread at my table continually This favour astonisheth Mephibosheth what is thy sevant that thou shouldest looke upon such a dead dogg as I am He spake of himselfe below men when he heard David speake so highly of him A living dogg is better then a dead Lion but what is worse then a dead dogg The like impression Davids excessive kindnesse made upon the spirit of Abigail 1 Sam. 25. 41. when he sent messengers to her after the death of her husband Nabal to assure her that he would be her husband This honour that David annointed King over Israel should desire her to be his wife abases Abigail in her own eyes Let me saith she be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. Davids wife said she it is too much preferment for me to be Davids servant I shall be honour'd enough to be his servants servant and that in the lowest service to wash their feet As ingenuous spirits when they heare messages of great favours tender'd them fall low in their own thoughts So much more will gracious spirits Those magnifying offers of Christ and pardon of sin by him of a crowne of life and an exceeding weight of glory purchas'd by him these magnifying promises I say bring the soule upon the knee upon the meditation and acknowledgement of it's owne meannesse and vilenesse What am I that the Lord should respect me that the Lord should redeeme me that he should regenerate me than he should set his love upon me prepare heaven and glory a crowne and a kingdome for me what am I There is nothing doth more emptie us of self-conceit and high thoughts than duly to consider what high thoughts God hath of us Note one thing further from these words
is stronger then they were So I may say be yee not strivers or strugglers with God for your bands are made strong It is said Exod. 4. 25 26. That the Lord met Moses in the Inne and sought to kill him The Lord is never to seeke to doe what he pleases but thus he speakes after the manner of men who offer or assay at any businesse They seeke to do it But Zipporah having circumcised her sonne He let Moses goe It is this word He slacked or loosened having before as it were arrested and attached him or clapt him in prison for making that great default the neglect of Circumcision Sometimes we find the Lord himself speaking as if he were at the mercy or under the power of man and therefore calling in this word to be loosened or let alone Deut. 9. 14. Let me alone that I may destroy them The prayer of faith is as a band upon Gods hand holding him so fast that he seems as one that cannot strike or destroy till a Moses will give him leave by ceasing to pray unto him To be sure we are at Gods mercy and under his power so that nothing but the prayer of faith can loosen us And therefore Job doth not attempt to break the cords or cut them asunder nor seeks he to untie their knots but desires God himself to do it let me alone loosen me I will be a prisoner till thou openest the door for my deliverance As Jephtahs daughter said to him Judg. 11. 37. when he had bound himself and her in the bands of a rash vow Let me alone for two months or loosen me from the ingagement of my vow for two months as if she had said I will not loose my self by a wilful refusal but doe thou give me a willing dispensation So a godly man bespeaks the Lord in his straights Loosen me Lord. Unlesse God be pleased to loosen him he will be contented and when in a good frame of heart and freeness of spirit well-pleased with his bands In some sence he speakes as Paul and Silas when they were in prison Acts 16. 37. Let the Lord himself come and fetch us out That is let us see such means of our inlargement and freedome from trouble as may assure us that the Lord hath loosened and enlarged us A godly man had a thousand times rather be put into a prison by God than put himself into a paradice He had rather be bound by Gods hand than loosened by his own That place toucht before may reach this sence Prov. 24. 10. if thou faintest so we or loosnest thy self in the day of adversity Thy strength is small that is the strengh of thy faith and patience is small There is nothing discovers our weakness more than striving to break the cords of our afflictions The stronger we are in faith in love in humility the more quietly we lie bound Faith seeks ease and release onely in God to say Lord loosen me is a duty to loosen our selves is both our sin and our punishment Till I may swallow down my spittle Some conceive that from this Hebrew word Rak which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saliva undè quidam deducunt Raca Mat. 5. 22. quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interpretantur i. e. conspuendum vel dignum qui conspuatur Alii a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vacum quasi cerebro vacuus judicio carens Drus we translate spittle Raca is derived Mat. 5. 22. as if to call a man Raca were as much as to say he is worthy to be spit upon or that one should spit in his face though others spring that word from Rik which signifies empty as if it were as much as to call a man an empty fellow without wit or brains or within one degree of a foole which is the next word in Matthew But what is Iobs intendment in desiring God to let him alone Till he might swallow down his spittle First Some refer it to a bodily distemper as if Iob were troubled with a (a) Inter caetera mala Synanchen habuisse se perhibet Hieron squinsie or sore throat which hindered the swallowing of his spittle (b) Dimitta me ut gustum aliqâ—em hujus vitae capiam Albert. Another takes it in a Philosophical notion as if Iob had said Lord let me have some ease that I may at least tast once more what it is to live or how sweet life is For that sence of tast works by the salival humour or spittle in the mouth which mixing with the juice or sap that is in meats affects and delights the pallate Thirdly these words are taken as the discription of a man ready to die who is disabl'd either to swallow his spittle or to void it As if he had said I am now even at the point of death let me alone a little Davids prayer comes near this sense Psal 39. 13. O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more Fourthly It may be taken proverbially and that two waies First To note the shortest time even so much as may serve a Serno proverbialis talis est neque ad scalpendas aures mihi otium est man to spit As if he had said O let me have a little intermission a little respit such is the sence of that phrase Chap. 9. 18. He will not suffer me to take my breath And the like are those used in some countries I have not leisure or time to scratch my ear or to pare my nails My sorrows know no interim my feaver is one continued fit I have no well daies no nor a good hour Ne tantillum quidem temporis est quoÌ„ non tenter aâ—te Coc. therefore let me at least have so much time of ease as I may swallow my spittle let me have the shortest time That I may once more know though but for a moment what it is to be without pain To whlch interpretation that also subscribes which makes these words to be a circumlocution for silence For while a man is swallowing his spittle his speech stops he cannot bring up his words and let down the spittle at the same time so his meaning is I am forced to complain continually I would be silent and forbear speaking but my grief will not suffer me The second proverbial understanding of the word is that they Elegans proverbialis loquutio ad denotandum diligentem in alium intuitum quo minim as in alio discernet actiones Saliva ferè imperceptibiliter obsorvetur import a very strict watch held upon another in all his motions so that he cannot stir a finger or move his tongue silently in his mouth unobserved If I do but stir my tongue to swallow my spittle which is one of the most unperceivable acts of man thou takest notice O do not hold so strict a hand and so curious an eye upon me Let me have a little liberty do not examine every failing do
sence we may observe First That The holiest man on the earth by all his sufferings and doings cannot satisfie the justice of God for one sin I have sinned what shall I doe unto thee When the Angels had sinned what could they doe unto God in this respect These three negations lay upon them and doe lie to this day and shall to all eternity They sinned but once yet could they not escape out of the hand of God Though spirits and powers yet they could not maintaine their state against the power of God and are therefore cast into prison and reserved in chaines of darknesse to the judegement of the great day They could not pacifie the wrath of God towards them God is as highly displeased and his wrath burns as hot against them as ever Now if sinning Angels could doe nothing to God what can sinfull man doe The Question is put Micha 6. 6. Where with shall I come before the Lord And bow my selfe before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a yeare old will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand rivers of oyle shall I give my first-borne for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soule These Questions are denials come not before God with any of these Then what is it that God doth require He hath shewed thee what is good to doe judgement and righteousnesse to walk humbly with thy God But why these things What though I cannot make a price for my sin with calves and rams and rivers of oyle though my children will not be accepted as a ransome for my transgressions yet can I make a price for them out of justice and righteousnesse and humble walking No not out of these neither The Lord doth not require these for the paiments of our debt as we are sinners but for the paiments of duty as we are creatures There is a double debt to God a debt to the justice of God for sins commited and a debt to the law of God for duties enjoyned The former no man is able to pay but with eternall sufferings The latter the Saints through grace do pay by their dayly holy actings There is a three-fold deficiency in al that man can do to satisfie the justice of God Frist all is imperfect and defiled our services smell of the vessell thorough which they passe and taste of the caske into which they are put There is a stampe of our sinfullness even upon our holy things And can that which is sinfull satisfie for sin Secondly whatsoever we doe is a debt before we doe it All our duties are owing before we performe them And can we pay the debt of sin by those duties which were due though sin had never been commited Thirdly The greatest deficiency is this our works want the stampe of Gods appointment for that purpose God hath no where set up mans righteousnesse as satisfaction for mans unrighteousnesse Hence if it should be supposed we had performed perfect righteousnesse according to the whole will of God commanded yet we could not satisfie the justice God offended unlesse God had said that he would accept that way of satisfaction it is the appointment and institution of God which renders what we doe acceptable unto himselfe Surely all that Jesus Christ did or suffered for us in the flesh had not satisfied the justice of God if God had not appointed that Christ should come to doe and suffer those things for the satisfying of his justice It was the compact between Christ and his Father which made him a Saviour Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire Sacrifices were refused by God it being impossible that they should purge sin Heb. 10. 4. Then the eare of Christ was opened or bored as a servant according to the law in that case Exod. 21. 6. to receive and doe the will of his Father Or as the Seventy interpret which the Apostle follows God prepared him a body Then Christ undertakes the worke And said loe I come to doe thy will O God Why In the volume of the booke it is written of me That is thou hast decreed and ordained from everlasting The record is cleare for it that I am he whom thou hast ordained to doe thy will Hence the Apostle concludes at the 10th verse That we are sanctified that is saved by that will through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all As inserting that the very offering of the body of Jesus Christ could not save us but by the will and ordination of God His hanging and dying on the crosse had not delivered us from death unlesse it had been written in the volume of the Booke There is nothing satisfactory but what the law or the will of the Law-giver makes or agrees to accept as satisfactorie In the volume of the booke there is nothing written which appoints man such a work and therefore he cannot doe it There is some what to be done by way of thankfullnesse but nothing can be done by way of paiment That question Psal 116. 12. affirmes as much What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits We must render unto the Lord for his benefits but we cannot render to the Lord for our sins We ought to take up the Cup of Thanksgiving but Christ hath and he alone was able and he alone was ordained to take and drinke the Cup of Satisfying Secondly observe which depends upon the former That pradon and forgivenesse of sinne come in at the doore of free-grace Free-grace doth all What can I do J can doe nothing O thou preserver of men J can only nor that without thy helpe acknowledge my sin it must be thine infinite goodness to pardon it When a man hath travell'd through all duties and doings he must at last sit downe in Gods love and rest in this that God is mercifull to poore sinners Isai 55. 1. Come unto me O all yee that are thirstie come without money or without price There is nothing in the creature that God requires as a price of his favor his milk and his hony his bread and his water are al gifts and bounties unto his people He cals us to buy these because we shall have them as willingly from God as any things from man for our mony he cals it a buying without mony because no value can be set upon it high enough nor any heart receive it freely enough To offer mony that is to think to obtain any of that favor by what we do is the most dangerous offer in the world We read how dreadful the issue was to Simon Magus when he offered mony for the gifts of the holy Ghost and yet those gifts were such as a man may have and go to hell with them for they were but gifts of miracles and of healing and the like But this gift of the favour and love of God in the pardon of sin is such
thus when God sends his archers their bowes shoote so true that they cleave the reines asunder the reines are in the middest of a man and to cleave the reines is to shoot level as pouring out the gall or unbowelling imports to shoot dead Fourthly observe this Why hast thou set me as a mark God takes the most eminent and choisest of his servants for the choicest and most eminent afflictions He makes a Job the white Why hast thou chosen me There was great reason God should choose him he was the most eminent in holiness and grace of all about him he was the most remarkable man for grace and goodness therefore he must be the marke They who have received most grace from God are able to bear most affliction from God God doth this in infinite wisdome as the Apostle Rom. 14. 11. gives an excellent advice in reference to weake brethren such as are weak receive but not to doubtful disputations take heed how you ingage your weake brethren in doubtfull disputes you may loose them so take those that are strong and able such as have their senses exercised to discern both good and evill such as are well ballasted for a storme take these men if you will to doubtfull disputations but doe not take weake brethren If God will not have us take a weak Christian to a doubtful disputation surely then he calls such to sufferings of whose strengh he is well assured A man under great affliction is brought to a very doubtful disputation therefore the Lord will not bring a weak one one low in grace to it but he takes out the strong As the General of an Army chooses out the valiantest and most experienced veterane Souldiers to put them upon hard adventures it is not wisdom to venture a fresh-water Souldier upon difficult services God will not put new wine into old bottles as it is in acting duties so in sufferings And as Christ orders the word in such wisdom that he will not have counsel given to any soul who is unprepared to receive it or unable to bear it Iohn 16. 12. I have many things yet to say unto you but you cannot beare them now therefore I will deferre until you have got more strength So God saith of a young Christian one that is newly come in thou hast great afflictions to undergoe before thou dyest but thou art not fit to beare them yet I will defer thy triall till thou art grown more hardie through more communion with me to fit thee for that encounter As our Lord Christ told Peter Joh. 21. 18. When thou wast young thou girdest thy self and walkedst whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whether thou wouldest not That is when thou wast young and unexperienced thou enjoyest thy liberty but when thou shalt be grown older in years and stronger in grace thou shalt willingly stretch forth thy hands and quietly suffer thy self to be bound to the Crosse Peter was not nailed as Christ but tied to the Crosse and there die in witness of my truth for this Christ spake signifying by what death he should die and glorifie God ver 19. Fiftly In that he saith Why hast thou set me as a marke against thee Why doest thou run thus against me Observe Man in sinning runneth contrary to God and God in afflicting seemeth to run contrary to man Every act of sin is a direct opposition unto God we set God as a marke and shoot arrows of disobedience against him sin is a missing the mark of duty but it ames to hit the Lord as a mark who charges us with that duty In affliction God runneth upon us and makes the trangressor his marke Moses Levit. 26. 41. speakes both wayes If your uncircumcised hearts be humbled and ye acknowledge that ye have walked contrary unto me and that I have walked contrary unto you that I have made you a marke and shot at you by my judgements and that you have made me a marke shooting at me by your sins then I will remember c. So that our sinning is a walking contrary unto God and Gods corrections are his walking contrary to us There is an excellent expression noting how sin strikes and as it were shoots at God Iob 15. 25 26. He stretcheth out his hand against God speaking of a wicked man and strengtheneth himselfe against the Almighty here this word is used he runneth upon him even on his neck upon the thick bosses of his bucklers See how he describes a wicked man in his natural course what doth he he runs upon God he runneth upon him even upon his neck as a man that encounters an enemy runs upon him and sets his feet upon his neck he runneth upon the thick bosses of his bucklers a warrier hath bosses upon his arms both for beauty and defence The enemy runs upon the very bosses and fears nothing such is a wicked man He runs against God wil not God run upon him He wil certainly be upon the bosses of their bucklers and upon their necks too one time or other till they shall be forced to cry out that as they have been burdens unto God so now they are burdens to themselves Thus Job concludes in his own case So that I am a burthen to my self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tulit onus à tollendo ac ferendo dictum Sum super te onus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alii vertunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ouerosus molestus quo alluditur ad importunos peccatores qui auribus Iudicum perstrepunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tibi quod scriba mutarunt in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mibi quòd indignum divina majestate arbitrarentur ut homuncio et oneri essâ—t Abe Ezr. Drus The former words are the cause and these the effect Thou hast set me as a marke what follows O I am a burthen to my selfe The Septuagint reade thus so that I am a burthen unto thee or so that I am burdensome to thee And then his meaning may be conceived thus Lord thou settest me as a marke so that I become burthensome unto thee I have such a weight of afflictions upon me that I am forced to complainings and expostulations wherein I am afraid I am burthensome to thee as poor Suters when they cry long in the ears of a Judge or Magistrate he saith forbear you are very troublesome very burthensome to me The Rabbins observe that this was the ancient reading of the Text I am a burthen unto thee and that the Scribes who wrote out the Bibles in Hebrew made this alteration a burthen to my self because they conceived it was unbecoming the Majestie of God that Job should say he was a burthen to him There is a general truth in that translation a burthen unto thee The sins of man are burthensome to God the frowardness and impatience of men are burthensome unto God
though sin cannot be more pardoned in respect of God at one time than at another yet in regard of man it may He apprehends the pardon of his sin more now than before and may hereafter apprehend it more than now And it is worth the while to bestow pains in prayer for pardon to have the pardon a little more inlightned The degrees of any grace or favour as well as the matter and substance of them are worthy all our seekings and most serious enquiries at the throne of Grace Fourthly He that hath assurance of the pardon of sin is to pray for the pardon of sin because he continueth still to sin And though it be a truth that sin uncommitted is pardoned in the decree and purpose of God yet we must not walk by the decrees of God but by his commandements and rules His decree pardons sin from all eternity but his rule is that we should pray for pardon every day as we pray for the bread we eat every day Matth. 6. 11 12. We must not say God hath pardoned all sin at once therefore no matter to ask it again or I have once had the sight of pardon and therefore the sight of sin shall never trouble me seeing we are directed to search our hearts for sin and to seek to God for pardon continually So long as we sin it becomes us to be suitors for the pardon of sin He that hath ceased to sin may cease to ask the forgiveness of sin till then I know neither rule nor promise that gives a dispensation for this duty To close this point there are two Cases wherein believers are especially to renew their suits about the pardon of sin First which though it be lamentable yet it is possible in the case of falling into scandalous and gross sins These not only weaken assurance and be-night the soul but exceedingly dishonour God and grieve the holy Ghost This caused David to pray and cry for the pardon and purging of his sin as freshly and as strongly as if he had never received a pardon or any evidence of Gods love of which yet he had great store before that day Ps 51. Secondly In times of great troubles and trials whether personal or National the Saints re-inforce prayer about pardon This was Jobs case his personal afflictions occasion'd him to begg the remission of sins and not only remission for sins then committed but for all the sins he had committed either before or after Conversion Even our formerly pardon'd sins need pardon when we loose the sight of pardon and when the soul hath no visions but visions of terrour it must seek visions of peace in the free-grace of God renewing and sealing pardon in the bloud of Jesus Christ Job having thus breathed his spirit in arguings complaints and prayers moves the Lord for a speedy end and gracious answer otherwise he sees no way but he must breath back his spirit into the hands of the Lord who gave it and lay his body in the dust from whence it was taken For now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shalt seek me in the morning but I shall not be Now shall I sleep in the dust What he means by this sleep hath been handled Chap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Propriè est cubare hinc mortui 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocantur ut etiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 13. where it was shewed that death is called a sleep why and in what manner death is a sleep The word here translated to sleep signifies properly to lie down but the sence is the same because men lie down when they compose and fit themselves to sleep And the dead are called down-lyers as well as sleepers in the Hebrew The Septuagint reads it now shall I go to the earth David speaks near this language Psal 22. 15. Thou hast brought me to the dust of death Observe hence whether we are travelling and where we must take up a lodging for our bodies ere long They whose heads are highest they who lie in beds of Ivory must lie down in a bed of earth and rest their heads upon a pillow of dust Most sleep in the dust while they live but all must sleep in the dust when they die Earthly men have earthly minds and they cannot rest but in earth for it is their Center Onely he who hath laid up his heart in Heaven can comfortably think of laying down his head in the dust Further it is remarkable in how pleasing a notion Job speaks of death when his life was most unpleasant to him He complained of restless nights in the third fourth thirteenth and fourteenth verses of this Chapter yet he could think of a time when he should lie quietly in his bed and not have so much as a waking moment or a distracting dream And when he was once gone to this bed the curtains of darkness being close drawn about him he should open his eyes no more till the eye-lids of that eternity-morning opened therefore he concludes Thou shalt seek me in the morning sc of time but I shall not be In the Hebrew Thou shalt seek me in the morning is but one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Si dilucula veris me ficto verbo word And some cut out a latine word fit to serve it We may English it strictly to the letter If thou morning me that is if thou commest to seek me as the force of this word hath been formerly given with never so much diligence and care I shall not be found thou wilt not have Job alive upon the earth to bestow thy mercies upon For I shall not be The Hebrew is And not I that is I shall not be alive I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non ego subaudi sum vel ero Cum jam in isto not be to be had he means a non-existence not a non-essence a being he should have but he should not appear to be It is as if he had said Lord I shall not be a Subject capable of outward deliverances and bodily comforts unless they come speedily Lord if thou wilt give me any help give it for death hastens upon me as if it hoped to be too nimble for or to out-run thy succours Mr. Broughtons translation seems to intend another sence pulvere decumbam aut quid non tempesti ivè requisivisti me ut non essem Jun. which others of the learned Hebricians favour too He renders the latter part of the verse thus Whereas I lie now in the dust referring it to his present condition I am now lying in the dust to be pitied of the keeper of men so he himself expounds Lord I lie in the dust a pitiful object then Why doest thou not quickly seek me out that I should no more be which he interprets I would by a quick death be rid from these pains As if in these words Job had again renewed his former desire of death concerning which many