with him but to comfort him albeit they joyned in the one yet they not only missed of the other but run a contrary course as may not only appear in the following Debates but even in their present unseasonable silence for so long a time which did minister occasion to many tentations when their behaviour spake them so much astonished and declared that they looked on his condition as desperate since they did not so much as speak one comfortable word unto him Which long silence being added to Jobs other troubles did at last over-drive him to break forth in the following bitter complaint 7. When God hath his people to try and exercise they may expect that every promising mean will disappoint them and rather augment then ease their trouble As Job found by experience in the person of dear Friends who had come so great a length to visit him CHAP. III. Hitherto we have heard of the change of Jobs outward Prosperity into a deluge of Adversity upon his Goods Servants Children and Body all which redoubled assaults he hath sustained with invincible courage and patience notwithstanding all suggestions and tentations to the contrary Now we are led a step further to see some change in that calm of his mind which being pressed and over-charged with the greatness and continuance of his affliction the unseasonable silence of his Friends and belike with some desertion also doth breath out a little of humane Infirmity and Passion Not against God but against his own being that ever he was or that now he was not taken away by death By all which not only was there an occasion presented of the future Debates betwixt him and his Friends which are so specially useful to the Church of God in all Ages But withal the Lord doth thereby make it appear that it was by grace that Job had hitherto stood it out there being no little infirmity in him if grace had not kept it at under Besides The Lord will have the experience of this eminent Saint so mixed as infirm Believers whose weaknesses are ready to break forth in times of tentation and tryal may not be discouraged For if nothing had appeared in Job all the time of his tryal but that undaunted courage and patient submission recorded in the former Chapters how might it have weakened the hands of Christs weak Lambs whose Passions and Infirmities under tentation are their humbling burthen But now when they shall find such an eminent Worthy renowned for his Patience so much foiled by his own Impatience it will encourage them not to please themselves in these Infirmities but not to cast away their confidence because of the dross which appeared in them when they are in the furnace Considering that when God appears to try his people not only the grace of God in them but their nature will appear in its own colours As appears not only in Job but in David Psal 116.11 and othâ—r Saints So that Believers may not only reap Edification by the discoveries of Gods grace in Job but even by the breakings out of his infirmities recorded in this Book The Chapter contains a very sad lamentation of an afflicted man set forth with much Eloquence and as the Learned in the Original language observe in Poesie which continues from ver 3. of this Chapter to Chap. 42.7 And it pleased the Spirit of God to cause write it in Verse as other choice Scriptures are because of the gravity and sublimity of the Subject-matter and that it might the more easily be learned by heart and retained in the memory The Lamentation and Complaint may be summed up in a threefold wish 1. That he had nâ—ver been born which being propounded ver 1. is prosecuted at large to ver 11. 2. That he had died so soon as he was born ver 11. 19. 3. That he were now dead and that now at last he might get free from his troubles by death ver 20. 26. Vers 1. After this opened Job his mouth and cursed his day IN this Verse we have a Proposition of the first Branch of Jobs Complaint Wherein Consider 1. The time of it was after this Some while after those seven days wherein his friends sate silent beside him Chap. 2.13 Now his first heat under the tryal being over and getting leisure to ruminate upon and aggravate all his grievances and his Friends from whom he expected comfort being silent he breaks forth and opened his mouth Which phrase doth here import not so much to speak with a loud voyce or upon deliberation and boldly as simply this that he now at last brake off that silence for which he had been commended Chap. 2.10 or interrupted that long silence of himself and his Friends Chap. 2.13 2. His lamentation and complaint He cursed his day or his Birth-day as the sequel cleareth though it may be extended also to the day of his present trouble wherein his troubles were continued upon him This day he cursed that is being dâ—ssatisfiâ—d that ever he was born he pronounceth that a most vile and miserable day as the word imports which fell to be his Birth day And his passion not knowing whereupon else to wreak and avenge it self pours it self forth in wishing many strange things to befal that day as he enlargeth himself in the following verses Though it must be granted that it had been no sin in Job if he had simply lamented under so sad afflictions For Nature cannot but cry out when it is over-charged Yet this language doth indeed flie very high and is unquestionably spoken in passion as being some sparks of that which was in him by nature And this complaint is not free from indirect limiting of the Wisdom and Dominion of God of unjust fretting that he being a righteous man should be so afflicted though himself afterward yield that righteous men may be afflicted and of much rashness in expression Yet as his speeches are not to be justified so they are not to be strictly examined as being the language of a Child raving in a Feaver And we are to consider 1. That Satan doth not reach his design by all this For those speeches are not directed as Satan alledged he would against God not yet simply against the day as it is Gods creature But they chiefly hold out his impatience and discontent at his present being repenting that ever he was born or died not from the womb or was yet alive All which discontents he vents to ease himself upon the day of his birth in so far as upon it he came into the world to suffer these things And so these words are to be understood as other lamentations of the like nature such as Davids cursing of the â—ountains of Gilboah 2 Sam. 1.21 and Jeremie's passionate fits Jer. 20.14 18 Now the queâ—â—ion betwixt God and Satan was not whether Job had sin or not but Whether he was an Hypocrite or not nor yet Whether Jobs frailty would appear in the furnace but
v. 10 11 12. which now he wishes had never been Ingratitude is an heinous sin in it self and will produce ill humours 3. When any condition how empty and poor soever seems better to men thâ—n what they have and what God hath sweetned with many proofs of his love For he dwells upon his dying from the womb as a sweet condition v. 19. which yet would have deprived him of many proofs of Gods love which he had found in his life God is better and kinder to his people then they many times wish to themselves 4. When men are so devoted to themselves and their own will that they will quarrel all that God doth if it fit not their mind as if all things were to be foâ— them and subservient to their humour For he complains that he was not carried from the womb to his grave only because it would have prevented his great trouble and kept him at great case Selfishness is an ill toot of much distemper 5. When mens passions having distempered them they lay the blame upon Providence As he urgeth this as an argument against Gods dealing that it made him thus discontent with his life Whereas if he had been more sober and borne his trouble and the testimony of his Conscience with more calmness it would have prevented those distempers See Prov. 19.3 Vers 20. Are not my days few cease then and let me alone that I may take comfort a little 21. Before I go whence I shall not return even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death 22. A land of darkness as darkness it self and of the shadow of death without any order and where the light is as darkness In the close which is the second part of the Chapter Job begins to calm a little and in stead of his former expostulating with God and his last great fit of discontent v. 18 19. he tacitly submits to Gods will that he is alive and in what he hath done And seeing death in its own colours he will not rashly hazard upon it but craves this only that he may have some respite and breathing and a little ease in his life For 1. His days were short and he was not like to live long Therefore he would have some speedy help that he might draw his breath a little and have opportunity to shew that he was not the man that his Friends esteemed him or his passion seemed to prove him to be v. 20. 2. Albeit he believed a Resurrection and believed never to go to Hell and knew what it was to die in Christ who is the destroyer of death for he speaks to none of those here nor are his words to be taken in any sense relating to those yet death in it self is ugly being without restitution in this life being a dark and dâ—â—â—ry estate without any order of variety or vicissitude of light and darkness wherein much of this worlds beauty consists but whereas light comes in its turn here it is still darkness there even most dark as darkness it self as it beseems those shadows of death and the grave to be Therefore he would have some change of his condition here before he go to that unchangeable state and some blink of light and comfort before he entered into that dark passage and habitation ver 21 22 with 20. This Doctrine laying aside his mistake of speedy death by this trouble may safely be admitted with little caution as containing only a desire of that which God afterward granted to him though yet it was not necessary he should be peremptory in such a sute It teacheth 1. Saints highest sits of passion will not last but mercy will reclaim them and give them a cool of that Feaver As Job found here 2. As the Feavers and distempers of Saints may come to a very great height So ordinaâ—â—ly that height or excess of them proves the step next to their cool As Job here calms after that â—â—â—â—ly of passion v. 18 19. As God pitieth them in theâ—â—â—xtremities so their very rising to an height and extreâ—â—ty 〈◊〉 â—â—use themselves relent whereaâ— they would have thought less of their passionâ— if they continued moâ—◠〈…〉 3. Humble sober Prayer is a notable 〈…〉 and mean in calming distempered spirits it is as the shower to allay that boisterous wind For Job fâ—lls a praying in stead of quarrelling when he calms See Phil. 4.6 4. As mans life is but uncertain and short so the thoughts of this should make men imploy their time well and to be very needy and pressing after God and proofs of him and where it is thus improved it is an argument of pity and help For so much may be gathered in general from Job's arguing Are not my days few cease then c. though he mistook in his particular case that himself was shortly to die See Psal 39.13 89.47 5. Such as are exercised with much trouble and have their exercises blessed to them will be sober and esteem much of little case to get leave to breath or to comfort and refresh themselves a little with a sight of God or of his grace in them and not their own passions which they ought to abhor For this is his sute when calmed to get comfort a little not only liberty to breath from sore trouble but especially to get his spirit calmed from these passions which he now abhors in himself They who are indeed humble will not despise small things Zech. 4 10. and a victory over their own spirit will be their greatest deliverance 6. The least ease breathing or comfort under trouble cannot be had but of Gods indulgence He must cease and let him alone from vexing of him before he take comfort a little See Joh 34.29 7. It is the duty of men to acquaint themselves with death before-hand and especially in times of trouble they should study it in its true colours For Job in his trouble is so acquainted with it that he can here very pathetically describe it This is Moses study when God is making havock of the Rebels in the Wilderness Psal 90. 8. Death and the Grave in themselves and when Christs victory over them is not studied and men are hurried away to them in a tempest of trouble are very terrible and an ugly sight as bringing an irreparable loss as to any restitution in this life and being so dark and disconsolate an estate that the very common favour of a vicissitude of day and night light and darkness is a mercy when compared with it For so doth Job describe that estate here as it may appear to an afflicted Saint as he was or to one at a distance from God much more may it appear so to men in an unrenewed state or nature And indeed death is in it self a curse and if any find a beauty in it or get a sweeter sight of it it is by the special gift of God And withal it cuts the thread of our life upon which all our
and how unable he was to abide that For if the most fixed and solid things cannot endure continual assaults especially from the hand of God how much more easily can he over-turn mans hopes ver 18 19. and get a complete Victory over him especially by cutting him off ver 20. and in the mean time so exercise him with his own afflictions that he cannot be affected with the good or ill condition of his nearest relations ver 21 22. Vers 1. Man that is born of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble JOb's first Argument v. 1 2 3. whereby he pleads against Gods severe dealing toward him is taken from the condition and misery of all Men by Nature Wherein he propounds that they have but a short life and that obnoxious to many troubles and all their enjoyments are but transient and passing And from thence inferrs as to his own particular that seeing he would certainly die and had trouble enough otherwise though God dealt not thus extraordinarily with him he could not but wonder that God should notice him as if he were a fit party to be thus afflicted and exercised by him In this verse we have Job's Proposition of Mans misery wherein he evidenceth himself to be well versed by reason of his own trouble in the knowledge of mans vanity and misery which he describes First in its Universality It is common to Man or to all that are come of Adam which is the name here given to Man He speaks thus of men in general though with an eye to his own condition as appears from his inference v. 3 Because this is Mans common condition which is after mentioned And it Teacheth That whatever may be the particular and various dispensations of God toward men yet to be miserable by Nature is common to Adam and all his Posterity who come of him Aâ—l the sons of men are attended with some of thâ— common miseries of mankind and though some want the peculiar cross-lots of others yet they may have some of another kind no less sad and all of them whatever their condition be yet if their eyes be opened will find themselves but in a state of misery This teacheth men not to weary of their particular lots and tryals For did they shift never so oft they will find that they are still Man whom misery attends It Teacheth also That we have no cause to complain so long as our tryal is but common 1 Cor. 10.13 and our selfe-love should not get place to perswade us to aggravate our sorrows that we may have some pretence to complain of their singularity as Job oft-times doth for they will still be proportioned to what our case requires and to what strength God will give his own people Secondly Mans misery is described from its â—ise which is insinuated in mans Original that he is born of a woman This he mentions rather then that he is begotten of a man 1. Because the Woman was first in the transgression 1. Tim. 2.14 whence is the rise of all sin and of a defiled issue which produceth trouble So Job 15.14 2. Because the Woman is the weaker vessel 1 Pet. 3.7 And 3. Because a peculiar threatening and sâ—ntence is past against her in the matter of Conception and Birth Gen. 3 16. and so her issue must be weak and wretched like her self Hence Learn A sight of Mans original may humble him and make him see his misery when he considers what a sinful womb he comes from how ugly he comes out of it and how he begins his life with crying and weeping This is a lesson should stick by us as a document of our misery in all our mirth and jollity Thirdly This common misery of mankind is described in its parts That man is of short days and those full of trouble as Jacob also professeth Gen. 47.9 Doct. 1. Mans life is but short and it is a part of his misery that it is so For Job brings this as a proof of mans misery that he is of few days or short of days his time is but short That mans life is but short is evident from Scripture and from daily experience And it is to be accounted short especially now and â—ven in Job's time also though then they lived much longer then men do now both in respect of eternity and in respect of the continuance of Mans life if he had not sinned and even in respect of the age untill which men lived of old For as men now live but short while in comparison of the times about which Job lived so in those days their age was far short of the Patriarchs before the Floud And as mans days are thus few so for the misery that is in this shortness of his life though it be true that it is a mercy to the Godly that their days being ill are few and shortened see Math. 24.22 and that thereby they are hastened to glory Yet the shortness of mans life is in many respects a misery 1. If we consider it in the root and rise of it Mortality is the fruit of sin and therefore whatever beauty God put upon it yet in it self it is bitter and a misery 2. If we look upon it and consider what it is to natural men it must be concluded a great misery For whatever be their portion within time yet they must die and being dead sink into the pit eternally And in the mean time their life is so short and uncertain that it can hardly be measured even by days and they are exposed to so many hazards that they know not at what turn death may take hold of them and hurry them away 3. There is a misery in our few days in regard of the ill improvement of them We are for a while in the state of infancy before we know what it is to live After that many spend along time of youth before they settle and before they know how to number their days even as Rational Men And when we come to be more composed business sickness and distractions do impede and interrupt us and old age disables us to spend our time to any purpose In those inconveniences even the Godly do so much and frequently share that in that respect their short time is a misery 4. There is this misery also incident to us in our short time that both godly men and others are pulled away by death before they see many of those things which they desire accomplished So did Job apprehend to be hurried away in a cloud such also was David's exercise Psal 39.13 And this made Jacob complain of his days that they were few and evil Gen. 47.9 The study of this Point affords many useful Lessons That we do not doat on long life or an Eternity here as Luk. 12.19 20. for we will be disappointed and sin will help to shorten our dayes Psal 55.23 Prov. 10 27. And that we make not that use of the shortness of our
that it should dayly represent it self to him ready at his side in its ghastly colours For though he did indeed apprehend approaching death yet it was with so much confidence and courage that he did familiarly look upon the worms and corruption as his nearest Relations Chap. 17.14 Which sheweth how little others may be acquainted with the courage God may afford to his own people in deadly difficulties For Bildad could not discern what Job found in this tryal 2. He did mistake also in looking upon this part of Job's affliction as a proof his wickedness For hunger sickness and apprehended death have been and may be the lot of Saints As is not only to be seen in Job here but in David Psal 6.2 30.9 in Paul 2 Cor. 1.8 9. 11.27 and diverse others Hereby the Lord doth mortifie his people and fit them for Eternity and other tryals that may be before them Also by these he fits them for receiving more proofs of his love in strengthening them to bear want providing supplies for them fitting them that they shall not abuse mercies Phil. 4.11 12. and in causing them meet with many blessed disappointments of their fears But passing his Reflections the General Doctrine as it is understood of the wicked according to the tenor of the Law-sentence may teach 1. To flee or seek to shift the terrours of God will be to no purpose For he who is driven to his feet v. 11. is here supposed to be taken and in Prison See Am. 9.2 3 4. They flee only best from Gods judgments who flee into his own bosom and who-so neglect this they do but multiply their own sorrows Isa 24.17 18. 2. Albeit wicked men may have much strength not only bodily strength but strength of spirit beside the strength of their corruptions and humours when they engage in troubles So that not only their pride and height of spirit doth ripen them for the snare which doth surprize them when in the pride of their heart they puffe at trouble But it contributes to make their trouble more grievous and bitter that it hath strength of spirit and strong corruptions to work upon whereas it would be easie to subdued men Yet created strength can neither preserve from trouble nor subsist under it but the godly must renounce it and the wicked will succumb because they do not renounce it For his strength shall be hunger-bitten 3. Albeit even the godly when they are under one trouble should be looking for another and they should not limit God who if he please may send destruction to cut them off the world for such limitations are the sting of our crosses and do provoke God to encrease our sorrows yet it may be terrible to the wicked that for all that is come upon them God hath not done with them but hath only given them an earnest of yet sadder things to come upon them For after his strength is hunger bitten destruction followeth upon that If once God begin to reckon with them they cannot expect bounds to be set to their tryal as the godly are warranted to pray Jer. 10 24. but they may fear it will grow till they be cast into the pit whereas the godly may know there will be an end Prov. 23.17 18. 4. God hath calamities in readiness whereby to cut off the wicked albeit he do not always or for a time execute them For here he lets the wicked see destruction ready at his side though for a time he be kept alive in Prison And this serves to refute their own presumptuous brags and the godlies fears who see not how they can be reached God who hath issues prepared for his people 1 Cor. 10.13 hath also judgments ready for the wicked Deut. 32.34 35. 5. How presumptuous soever the wicked be before trouble come upon them or under lesser troubles Yet when trouble cometh to an height they run as far upon the other extremity of discouragement and dispair For now this arrested wicked man apprehends sadly of his condition as if destruction were ready at his side to cut him off every moment And this is the just fruit of their presumption Hearts broken with pleasure and sinful delights wherein men are imperious and presumptuous Ezek. 16.30 will make weak hearts when trouble comes to an extremity Ezek 22.14 6. Albeit even the godly ought to foresee troubles and to look out to what may probably come upon them that they be not surprized Yet it is a plague upon the wicked that they die often in their apprehensions and fears before they die really and it is a snare to all who are obnoxious to it to be anxiously tortured about future events As here the wicked man hath destruction standing ready at his side to torture him before he be actually destroyed See Matth. 6.34 And therefore when the godly are vexed with apprehensions of future events they should reckon that God can disappoint them if he will 2 Cor. 1.8.9 10. and that if they come pass and they renounce their own strength God will enable and teach them how to beat them when they are put to it Vers 13. It shall devour the strength of his skin even the first born of death shall devour his strength In the third Branch of this Similitude in this and the following verse somewhat in Job's case is reflected upon as resembling the execution and violent death of this Malefactour In this verse Job's present dead-like condition and his apprehending to be cut off in this extremity Chap. 17.13 14. are reflected on as resembling this Malefactour who being wasted in Prison and apprehending destruction v. 12. at last It or that destruction which he apprehended shall devour the strength of his skin or his body and flesh and bones which are as the word is in the Original as bars to uphold his skin And this death which devours his strength shall not be ordinary but the first born of death that is a singularly violent death which carries away the principality and preeminence from other kinds of death as the first man did from the rest of his brethren and so to say a most deadly death as the first born of the poor significe them who are most poor Isa 14.30 Here albeit both Job and Bildad did mistake in expecting that a violent and odd way of death should be the issue of this trouble and Bildad did fâ—ther err in judging that such a death should be the reward of Job's wickedness seeing godly Josiah Jonathan and others have died a violent death and all things of that kind come alike to all Eccl. 9.2 Yet this Doctrine understood of the wicked may teach 1. It is a plague upon the wicked that their fears prove real at least they may do so for any security they have against them whereas the godly meet with many blessed disappointments Isai 51.12 13 2 Cor. 4.8 9. For after that destruction hath been ready at his side v. 12. it
this Verse not so consonant to the Original That in drought and heat and Snow waters in all seasons they robb they sin till the grave which would intimate their assiduousness and pertinacy in sinning Job gives an account how these wicked men continue in the World till they be ripe by age and then dye easily Which he illustrates from a similitude where the Original as in other places implyeth the note of similitude though it be not expressed That as Snow in some places is not taken away till Summer and heat come and then the drought and heat easily turn Snow into waters and then quickly and insensibly consumes them So they dye in a great age and Death takes them to their grave in an ordinary way quickly and easily without any matter of horrour or any languishing infirmity So that here by the Grave which consumes those sinners we are to understand Death which draws to the grave and which easily and quickly pulleth sinners away Though it may point further at their being insensibly consumed in the grave of which more v. 20 as an amplification of the former Doct. 1. Wicked men may dye and goe to their graves without any remarkable token of Gods displeasure against them For so is here supposed as a thing without controversie that though as the other reading hath it they sin incessantly and in all seasons till their graves yet they live long and are not soon cut off And there is no odde thing befalls them in their life till they come to death and the grave See Psal 73.5 And albeit this dispensation of God breed tryal and exercise to godly men Psal 73.3 13 14. Yet it would be considered for breaking of that snare 1. That this indulgence is a great snare upon wicked men to embolden them to sin Psal 73.5 6 7 8 9. 2. It causeth death surprize them while they have not been trained nor made acquainted with it by former tryals Psal 73.19 20. 3. It depriveth them also of proofs of love which afflicted Saints receive for sweetening of their bitter cup Psal 73.26 Doct. 2. Even the death of the wicked may be gentle and in a common way yea and in a way short of what befalls others For when death and the grave come they make an insensible and quick dispatch as drought and heat consume the Snow waters See Psal 73.4 This the Lord doth that men may mind a judgement after death that they may not judge of mens state by the way of their death or think they are approved of God who quickly and easily sleep away and are snatched away from pain and torment and that by this experience they may learn to read wrath even in the want of rods or in an easie way of dying and living which doth not stirr up men to look how they are before God Thus even want of reproof is a judgement Ezek. 3.26 Hos 4.14 3. How easie and sweet soever the wickeds way of dying he yet that we be not ensnared thereby the Text affords several antidotes As 1. Let God deal with the wicked as he will yet they must at last dye and leave all their enjoyments and be content to get a grave for all Now under whatever mask death come unto them or whatever they think of it yet they are triumphed over by it Psal 49.14 and there is matter of terrour in it to them Psal 73.19 See Luk. 12.19 20 21. 2. Whatever be the way of their death yet it is certain they have sinned and as the other reading hath it they have continued to sin even till the grave and it is marked they have done so even here where Gods indulgence is asserted To intimate not only that there will be an after account taken of them for their sins Psal 50.21 whatever indulgence they find in life or death For sin will never be forgotten if it be not pardoned But further to assure us that there is present wrath in their lot be what it will Is 64.5 and a woe upon them Lam. 5.16 3. There is a snatching or violence as the word imports in their death as the heat and drought quickly pluck away the Snow waters Which beside the quick dispatch that is made in their death without any lingring pain and their natural antipathy against death which is common to them with all men and therefore they must be plucked violently away may import that they are never ripe nor ready for death in their resolutions or if it be otherwise it slows only from delusion or a surfet of sin and pleasures not from any assurance of the favour of God And however they judge or look upon death yet the most easie death snatcheth them away as Executioners and Serjeants hurry a Malefactour to the Scaffold And in their resolutions for death they are but like drunken and madd-men who regard not the danger till they be sober Hence it is that their Soul is required of them at death Luk. 12.20 But they do never voluntarily resign it whatever their carriage seem to be Verse 20. The womb shall forget him the worm shall feed sweetly on him he shall be no more remembred and wickedness shall be broken at a tree This easie and ordinary way of the wickeds death is further amplified and enlarged in several branches 1. That the Mother whose womb bare this wicked man and which gets the name here from affection and tenderness shall forget him not so much because he is not worthy to be remembred who had been so wicked in his life as because death takes him away so calmly without any violence or disaster which might leave an impression of horrour and resentment 2. That he shall feed the worms as others do and get an easie and sweet bed in the grave See Chap. 17.14 and 21.33 3. Though he be so grossely wicked as he may be called wickedness in the abstract yet he shall leave no more memorial of any singular or remarkable thing in his death than there is of the cutting down or mouldering away of an old rotten tree Doct. 1. Memorials within time of Estates Children affection of Friends c. are but written on the sand and little to be regarded seeing men may be forgotten by their dearest friends For the womb shall forget him and he shall be no more remembred And if he be forgotten as to the way of his death other memorials of him may also perish See Psal 37.35 36. and 49.11 12. A name with God is much surer Is 56.5 2. As some get no cure of their evils but by forgetting of them The godly may be driven upon this shift Job 9.17 either when they are overcharged and not able to overtake all their sorrows or when they are unsober and refuse the consolations of God they must drive this poor trade And it is the wickeds frequent practice after they have possibly repined a while because they know not how to make up their grievances in God So
I was before 3. It is of great use also to look upon death and the grave as the common lot of all mankind For so doth Job describe the grave here that it is the house appointed for all living For however some get not a grave when they dye yet they get somewhat in place of it and though some as Enoch and Elijah were caught up to Heaven immediately yet they had a change in place of death and those instances are so rare and singular that they need not be stood upon as exceptions to this general assertion See Josh 23.4 1 King 2.2 Ps 89.48 Heb. 9.27 The study hereof should cause men more easily digest death as a common lot and should excite all to prepare for it it being none of these tryals wherewith some only are exercised It may also let men see that there is no cause why they should glory in their advantages within time seeing death and the grave will make all equal See Chap. 3.13 14 c. Ezek. 32.18 27. 4. It is also useful to know that God is the dispenser and orderer of all our tryals and particularly that he hath the supreme hand in bringing us to death that so we may know that our times are in his hands and not in the hands of men Ps 31.15 For saith he Thou wilt bring me to death c. 5. Albeit godly men are not unwilling to dye when God calls them to resign their life to him yet it cannot but be sad to them to be taken away in a storm For this is the scope of Jobs complaint that he was put to expect death when God was so cruel and opposite to him v. 21. So that when men are called to close their course in peace they should not decline it considering that God if be please can make death more formidable to them 6. The people of God in trouble are ordinarily too rash in their conjectures and apprehensions for the future They may be more afraid than really hurt and when they have discovered their weakness and fears God may be pleased mercifully to disappoint them For though Job was certain that he would presently dye I know thou wilt bring me to death yet he was disappointed See 2 Cor. 1.8 9 10. Verse 24. Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave though they cry in his destruction This Verse hath a dependance upon the former but the scope and meaning thereof is difficult by reason of the various readings especially of the latter part of the Verse Some conceive that Job is repeating a promise then current in the Church Namely That God will not stretch out his hand to the grave to send men to the grave if in his destroying them they cry And so the words will contain an aggravation of his complaint that God was bringing him to death v. 23. That howbeit there was such a promise and he was one who might claim a right to it being not only a cryer unto God v. 20. but a merciful man v. 25. yet God would cut him off This interpretation doth import That the best way in difficulties is to have our recourse to the promises to see what grounds of hope there are there and that Gods dispensations may sometime seem to contradict his promises As Job is here conceived to complain But it may suffice to justifie God That this was but a promise of temporal deliverance and such promises are not absolute but conditional to be performed in so farr as God seeth to be best for his people and That Job was disappointed in his apprehensions and was not cut off nor this supposed promise made void to him But I choose to follow our Translation which carries it as a cordial against approaching death That however God send him to the grave as he apprehended v. 23. yet he will not stretch out his hand to the grave or heap alluding to the custome of raising up heaps upon graves that they might be known to afflict him there but death will end all his bodily pain That in the end of the Verse is added as an amplyfication Though they cry in his destruction that is However they who are innocents and cut off do cry in the mean while that he is destroying them or however their enemies cry out while they are a cutting off that they are wicked as his friends and others did raise clamours against him yet they will be at ease there Others read it by way of confirmation thus Is there any cry there in the grave of his destroying them Certainly none at all None ever heard any such cry of these who are in the grave This encouragement which Job takes to himself is not so to be understood as if men had no joy or pain after death but he speaks only of the ease men have after death of that bodily and temporal pain which they endure in this life And albeit all this and much more might have been expected by Job had he been to dye at this time Yet he evidenceth too much weakness that he looks not to further comfort than simple case in the grave which was also his fault in his impatient wishes Chap. 3. Doct. 1. Every bitter lot that befalls the children of God hath its own consolation to sweeten it if it were well studied As here Job finds a cordial to sweeten his apprehensions of approaching death If mens eyes were opened as Hagars Gen. 21.15 16 19. and Elisha's servants 2 King 6.15 16 17. they might discern ground of encouragement even in the midst of their perplexities 2. This may sweeten all our bitterness and toyl in this life that death will put an end to it beside what further may be expected after death by godly men For so doth Job reckon that he will not stretch out his hand to the grave 3. No sad dispensations or rods upon men while they are going to the grave will frustrate them of rest there but death will make a sudden change of all their outward and temporal troubles For so much doth the subjoyned amplyfication and confirmation teach however we read and understand it Though men be crying and groaning in going to death and though clamours and calumnies be raised against them yet the experience of none doth witness that there is any cry there of Gods destroying them 4. The people of God do oft-times come short in their expectation of what is allowed upon them For Job comforts himself only in the expectation of that which is common to all as to the outward part of it whereas he might have looked for much more 5. It is also an evidence of the people of Gods weakness in trouble that they do at too much upon simple case of their pains and troubles For this is all he expresseth here though elsewhere he speak out his mind more fully Verse 25. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble Was not my soul grieved for the poor The third Evidence
after Jobs former triumph over his calumnies he makes this fresh assault 2. As Satan is incessant in his malicious endeavours so he is fall of shifts and inventions in bearing out his calumnies against the people of God or in driving in those fiery darts of bosom-tentations wherewith he vexeth them For when all he had to say before against Job is immediately refuted now he hath a new pretence whereupon to question his integrity This is daily verified in the calumnies cast by Satans Instâ—uments upon the people of God One of them is no sooner refuted but they are ready to invent another And this is also felt by Saints in their spiritual Conflicts with Bosom-tentations which come in as waves and billows one upon the back of another to over-whelm their spirits 3. It is never to be expected by the Lords people but that Satan will be ready to extenuate and decry the grace of God in them so much as he can For here again he makes it his work to blast Jobs integrity in his former tryal Which may teach them not to trust or hearken unto his suggestions 4. Whatever measure of affliction Satan be permitted to bring upon Saints yet such is his malice that nothing will satisfie him but their utter ruine For now when Job is stript of all he thinks it not enough so long as his person and life are free Put forth thine hand and touch his bone and his flesh And therefore we have little cause to fall asleep because we have endured many tryals since we know not what sharper tryals this malicious Adversary may be designing for us if he be permitted by God so to do 5. Albeit Satan be a malicious lyar and do here notably injure this holy man yet there are some Geneâ—aâ— Tâ—uths insinuated in this Discourse whereof he makes use to drive his design As 1. That life and bodily health are special and chief outward mercies Membâ—rs of the body are sometime hâ—zarded for preserving of life and men have warrâ—ntabâ—y spent all they had on Physitians for recovering of health Luke 8.43 And therefoâ—e they do hainously sin who under-value this special benefit or do prostitute it to the service of their lusts 2. But albeit every tryal have its own weight yet personal tryals are most sharp and will most narrowly search out hypocrisie or sincerity in the person so tryed and the nearer they come they will be the more searching For in so far Satan said true that a man may be more ready to curse God or miscarry if the tryal touch his bone and flesh than if it come only on what more remotely concerns him Hence it appears to have been an act of special favour that Jobs own person was excepted in the former tryal Chap. 1 12. 3 That it is a special proof of unsoundness in men whâ—n tâ—yals and â—fflâ—ctions are sleighted because they touch not themselves so neatly or when they make a shew of Piety only that tryals may be keeped from off themselves For this was the som of Satans charge against Job which is an evidence of gross hypocrisie had it been true Verse 6. And the LORD said unto Satan Behold he is in thine hand but save his life In this verse we have the Lords further loosing of the chain permitting Satan to afflict Jobs body but not to take away his life Or this form of speech and of Gods limiting of Satan see Chap. 1.12 Here we may further learn 1. After the Lords people have endured many and sharp tryals it may please the Lord to inflict yet more and sharper tryals for further discovering of what is in them As heâ—e after all that Job hath endured more is laid upon him And albeit Saints may be ready to stumble at this yet it may silence aâ—d satisfie them if they remâ—mber the soveraignty of God who may dispose of his own as he will that Gods special love and sharp tryals may very well consist together that true grace will teach men not to quarrel God because of crosses and that tryals yea many and growing tryals are necessary to discover them unto themselves to fit them for special proofs of Gods love and to vindicate their Profession from the many aspersions cast upon it 2. As it is very consistent with Gods love to his people to suffer them to be tempted in their souls by the fiery darts of Satan So the bodies also of such as are dear to God may be left in Satans hand to â—fflict them by himself or by Witches his Instruments For so was it with Job Behold he is in thine hand Hence come many of those diseases which surpass the skill of Physitians Luke 13.16 3. Whatever be Satans hand in the tryals of the godly yet they ought still to eye an over-ruling hand of Providence ordering all of them and setting bounds and limits to Satans malice in them For here the rise of this tryal is from Gods holy Providence Behold he is in thy hand and Satan is limited but save his life 4. In the sharpest tryals of Saints there is still some mercy and moderation to be observed and that Satan is never able to compass all his design For here there is an exception and a reservation of that which Satan aimed at no less than the other degrees of his affliction But save his life or spare it and do not take it away 5. The continuance and sparing of life even under sharpest afflâ—ctions is a mercy for which God is to be acknowledged For here in the midst of Jobs tryals it is reserved as a mercy to him save his life See Lam. 3.39 The mercy whereof in Jâ—bs case though much mistakâ—n by him may appear partly in this That hereby the Lord would teach his Church in all Ages that he hath power of life and death and can preserve his people and interests in most desperate cases and betwixt the very jaw bones of death Psal 66.8 9 10. 68.20 And partly in this That however Job being a reconciled man would have died at any time in Gods favour Yet the Lord will not take him away in a cloud nor give Satan any appearance of advantage to say that Job died in an ill case or fretting But will have him to live in and after those storms as a monument of Gods mercy and to clear and vindicate his integrity As indeed It is no small mercy to the Lords people when clouds upon their condition are cleared before they go hence and be no more 6. The Lords people may enjoy many mercies which yet in their darkness passion and haste they esteem rather burdens than mâ—rcies For so will we afterward find Job judging of his continued life which here is reserved in mercy Vers 7. So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with sore boyls from the sole of his foot unto his crown In this verse we have the tryal it self or Satans executing of what is permitted
yet it appears from her expressions that the thing it self was then known by the light of Nâ—ture or by immediate Revelation 9. We may also from her speech take notice of some of the wicked suggestions of Satan and our corrupt flesh in an hour of tryal As 1. When mens hearts do rise in pride against Gods dealing and do under-value Piety because of afflâ—ction and want of ease Doest thou still retain thine Integrity saâ—th she when thou art thus afflâ—cted See Mal. 3.13 14. 2. When men have such a prejudice against afflictions and tryals that they scruple at no sin which may seem to promise ease of a present trouble Curse God and die saith she and so thou wilt get out of this toil and vexation 3. When men are so earnest to avoid a present trouble as they do not consider that they may be running upon a greater afflâ—ction Curse God saith she and die that so thou may see an end of thy pain little considering that death is not the end of all trouble to all men and especially to those who enter in at the gates of death voluntarily blaspheming and cursing God as she adviseth him to do Vers 10. But he said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speakâ—th what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil In all this did not Job sin with his lips Followeth Jobs answer unto and refutation of this suggestion Albeit he had hitherto kept silence yet he cannot let this suggestion pass without a reply And though no doubt he was a tender husband who behaved himself so conscientiously even toward servants Chap. 31.13 14.15 Yet in this case the zeal of God prompts him to make a sharp return to her motion And 1. He points out how unbecoming it was that such a motion should flow from her It might possibly have been expected that one of the foolish women Nabalesses so the word is in the Original or Pagans about them should have spoken so in a day of tryal But it did not beseem one so instructed and who enjoyed so many means of knowledge as she did to be so badly principled 2. He points out the absurdity of her counsel in it self That they who have received good things from the Lord Should not be content to submit to evil things or afflictions when God seeth it meet to exercise them therewith But that whenever the tyde begins to turn they should be weary of Piety and turn blasphemers For clearing whereof consider 1. That question What or also and his propounding of the Refutation by way of Interrogation doth insinuate both the vehemence of Jobs zeal and the clear evidence of the truth propoâ—nded that it may extort a confession from those who are most prejudged if they will but consider it 2. What he speaks of receiving good and evil is not to be understood of the simple act of receiving For in that the Lord doth not sâ—â—k oâ—t confâ—ne but fâ—nds good or evil as it pleaseth him and makes them our lot But he speaks of the manneâ— of receâ—ving that as we receive and entertain good things cheerfully and contentedly so it is our duty to receive evil things submissively and patiently Doct. 1. As zeal for God is seemly and becometh Saints so tentations and suggestâ—ons should be roughly entertained and not dallyed with from whomsoever they come Foâ— Job doth entertain this motion from his wife with much zeal and indignation See Matth 16.22 23. So also ought rising suggestions in our own bosoms be entertained 2. As sin is odious and hateful in any so it is moâ—e abominable in some thâ—n others And when sin is looked upon not only in its own nature but as committed by such persons who have lived under many means and had many engagâ—ments to holy walking put upon them â—t will exceedingly heighten the sinfulness thereof For so doth Job aggravate the sin of his wife Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh 3. To renounce God and Piety under trouble or because of it is an act of the highest folly and rather beseeming Pagans then Professors of the true Religion who will find it their advantage to cleave to God in trouble and that to do otherwise were to lose more then trouble can otherwise take from them and to deprive themselves of a soveraign antidote against the venom of afflictions For in the counsel she gave Job reckons that she speaks as one of the foolish women 4 It is not enough that we reprove faults in others unless we take pains also to inform them and to root out the prejudices and corrupt principles which mislead them Theâ—efore Job after the reproof subjoyns an information What or also as the word will read adding this to the former reproof Shall we receive good c 5. When men do rightly consider their own case they will find that an hour of tentation doth so bemist them and over-cloud their judgments that they want the use of their very common Principles Therefore doth Job put home this Refutation with Questions as being so clear that her Light and Conscience could not decline it if she would advert 6. It is a very great fault in men to arrogate to themselves to be their own carvers and that they will endure no lot but what pleaseth them For we are but receivers not prescribers 7. Seeing all the good we enjoy comes by the gift of God there is no reason we should murmur if he dispose of his own as he will and take back his gift at his pleasure For We receive good at the hand of God and therefore should acquiesce in his disposing thereof at his pleasure 8. It is a very great fault to limit God constantly to one way of dealing with his people and that we cannot endure to submit to changes For Job insinuates that we must resolve both for good and evil in the service of our Generation 9. It is also a fault that men enjoying a long time of prosperity should so settle themselves in case that they cannot endure a new assault of trouble seeing these vicissitudes in our condition are necessary for us and Gods sparing of us long may very well perswade us to endure tryals in their season For Shall we receive good and shall we not receive evil 10. It is yet a further degree of miscarriage when men have received so many proofs of love from God and yet when the same hand le ts out a needful trouble they are ready to question and doubt of this love and so quarrel him For if we have received good we ought without mistaking receive evil when it is made our lot For as evil coming to us out of the hand of God changeth its nature and becometh good so it becometh them who have tasted much of Gods bounty and love not to mistake every change of dealing In a word Jobs arguing doth teach That no man doth rightly improve prosperity
are worth the waiting for albeit we be kept in a furnace of affliction These are some of Jobs infirmities which without further descanting upon the words we are to take notice of in this discourse not to conclude him wicked but passionate and to point out what tentations and infirmities we are especially to provide against in an hour of tryal For which end it is that God will have all that Job spake and said ver 2. here recorded To shew that he takes notice of his peoples behaviour under afflictions and to set up a Beacon to all after-ages in the experience of this holy man Vers 11. Why died I not from the womb why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly 12. Why did the knees prevent me or why the breasts that I should suck In these verses we have Jobs second wish to which reasons as subjoyned v. 13. 19. His wish is set down by way of Expostulation of which see on v. 20. And it amounts in sum to this That since his former wish was to no purpose seeing he was born and came into the world he now wisheth he had died so soon as he was born And therefore regrates that in the birth ha was not left in that helpless hour by the Mid-wife or that ever any care was taken of him by laying him when he was born upon their knees or by giving him suck without which he had soon perished From this complaint no less passionate then the former Observe 1. The mercies which he complains to have received of knees preventing him and breasts to give him suck do insinuate to us That so soon as we come into the world we have so many seeds of death in us that every step of our life needs a proof of mercy to preserve it Without the knees to bear us and the breasts to give us suck we would soon return to dust again So that we may truly be said to be born to die and to be going to death from the day wherein we first receive life 2. Job having quit his former wish as unprofitable and impossible he is not for all that brought to submit but bends his wit to devise new ways of his own and with a great deal of Oratory paints them out as plausible Teaching That is no easie task to bring our minds to a conformity with Gods way and will but many divers courses and shifts will we essay rather then submit to God and follow that way of relief which he hath pointed out to us Submission and patience was a nearer and more ready case of Jobs grievances then any of those yet he wâ—ll rather multiply impossible wishes then come to that 3. We may observe how all these mercies of his birth care of him in his infancy c. wherof Saints have esteemed much and made good use Psal 22.9 10 11. are now all become crosses in his account Which as it flows from great ingratitude in him or whosoever shall be found guilty of the like So it teacheth us not to place our happiness in these or any the like common mercies which may be so soon and easily imbittered and made grievous to our frail and corrupt nature Vers 13. For now should I have lien still and been quiet I should have slept then had I been at rest 14. With kings and counsellers of the earth which built desolate places for themselves 15. Or with princes that had gold who filled their houses with silver 16. Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been as infants which never saw light 17. There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest 18. There the prisoners rest together they hear not the voyce of the oppressour 19. The small and great are there and the servant is free from his master His reasons whereby he endeavours to render his passionate wish plausible may be summed up in this one the great rest and quiet like a sleep which he fancieth in death ver 13. This he further amplifieth 1. That whereas he is now abased he had then been equal with the best even with Kings and great Counsellers who built themselves stately Houses or Monuments where desolations had formerly been ver 14. and who had their Houses replenished with wealth ver 15. 2. That at least if he had died from the womb he had been in no worse case then an Abortive and so had prevented all those miseries which befel him since his birth ver 16. 3. That as he fancieth the rest of death is a singular rest beyond any ease he could find here For wicked troublers cannot pursue men thither but they who are wearied with oppression get leave to rest there ver 17. particularly prisoners or slaves are free from their oppressing creditors and exacters ver 18. and death doth so level all as Masters and Servants are equal and Servants are no more under the power of their imperious Masters ver 19. In sum he points out death as a common rest from outward violence and oppression from weakness weariness servitude or any the like toil reflecting in some of those upon his own sufferings by the Sabeans and Chaldeans and upon the wearied and tossed condition of his body In this Reason we may remark those Truths 1. That death is a rest to man from outward troubles whatever they be As is here at length deduced Which in its own kind is a mercy that outward troubles will follow us no further then death if all be well beside 2. That as nothing temporal gives men a priviledge against death Psal 49.6 7 c. So albeit there be diversity of ranks of men here yet death levels all and makes them equal Ezek. 32.21 22 c. For Kings Princes Oppressours the weary small and great the Servant and his Master do all tryst at death and are all alike there But in Jobs reasoning from these considerations and in reference to his scope we will find many mistakes 1. Whatever rest and ease be in death yet it was not the will of God that Job should be resting now but fighting and serving his Generation by the will of God after which he was in due time to fall asleep as Acts 13.36 Now it is our great fault to see a beauty in any temporal condition save in so far as it is the will of God to make it out lot who makes every thing beautiful in its season Eccles 3.11 2. His reasoning imports that his great drift in wishing he had died is his own case Now ease how desirable soever it appear is not to be impatiently sought after But we should rather acquiesce to be on service as it is carved out wherein we may meet with many proofs and experiences of what is in ourselves and in God for us 3. Albeit desires and longings after death be the fools only back-door in trouble Yet death and the rest thereof in it self considered ought nor to be so
sends on the trouble which we take occasion to be imbittered at and giveth way to mens own spirits yet it flows from their own passion pride and haste that they are so imbittered 5. Whatever be in the troubles of Saints whether really or in their apprehension Yet nothing of that warrants them to complain of God and his dealing or to be weary of their own life and lot For whatever Jobs case was yet his trouble was no relevant reason why he should so passionately desire to die Some are indeed more peevish and absurd then others in this particular who upon the very least discontent and crossing of their humor were it in never so great mercy would lie down and die as Jonah 4.2 3. Yet let men be able to instruct their case to be most really sad that is no reason why they should so desire death as to complain and expostulate if they be not satisfied The like sentence may we pass upon all our reasonings against any of Gods dealing Vers 21. Which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures 22. Which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave The second reason of his Expostulation and an effect of the former is taken from his earnest desire after death though it succeeded not That though he betook himself to no ill shift which might take away his life yet in his desires he longed as seriously for it as men do labour for treasures v. 21. And was not as all men naturally are afraid of death and the grave but would be glad to meet with it ver 22. Now his nature was afflicted to want what he desired and therefore he longs to be at it and expostulates that he is not satisfied If we look to the strength of this Argument Though it be the advantage of a godly man such as Job was that the testimony of his Conscience leads him to look death thus confidently in the face Yet not only doth Job now pursue this desire rather in Passion than with an eye to his Integrity and looking rather to death as the common end of all mens outward trouble then to what is beyond death But did his desire flow from never so holy a principle he soars too high and is too peremptory in it For we find that Saints in cold bloud have deprecated death in such gloomy days As we will find in many of the Psalms In particular In this reasoning we may Observe 1. He is too earnestly bent for death which was an evidence he was wrong and that God would not give it For God by his Providential Dispensation in continuing him alive retorted the Argument that because he doated much on death therefore it was not fit he should meet with it Whatever outward lot our hearts are bent upon under tentation we may suspect it is an Idol And that God will guide those whom he loveth rather any way than that 2. The excess of his inclination after death made the want of it a cross so that he complaineth it cometh not whereas if he had been sober he might have found another out-gate and however yet his grief through the want of it had been less This teacheth Partly that it is an evidence of mens insobriety in desiring lawful things when they cannot brook a disappointment nor are content having done their duty to submit to what God shall think best For if Job had soberly desired death he would not have added but it cometh not Partly that many augment their own afflictions by unsober doating on out-gates of their own which being denyed them it heightens their grief their own Affections adding Oil to the flame As Jobs vehement longing after death renders the disappointment bitter He longs and digs for death but it cometh not Whereas sobriety affords a present out-gate of Gods providing His Salvation of his allowance and carving is near Psal 85.9 when salvation of our prescribing and desired by us is far off 3. His argument is ill founded That because he exceedingly desires death Therefore he may complain and quarrel if God do not yield it to him There is no reason that our will should be a law not only whereby we will walk our selves but pointing out and prescribing to God what he should do to us And yet this is the exercise of many They have an irregular lusting will and then they repine if it be not satisfied As if they were not to acknowledge a Lord over them Vers 23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in 24. For my sighing before I eat and my roarings are poured out like the waters In these verses Job repeats the first reason of his Expostulation taken from his afflicted condition and doth enlarge it yet further that he may confirm the former reason that he did justly desire death so earnestly as he did And 1. He propounds the case in general ver 23. That any man may desire death and complain if it be with-held whose way is hid and hedged in or who is so over-whelmed with darkness and confusion and involved in a labyrinth of perplexities that he knows not what to make of his case nor whether to turn him and when he would turn himself to any hand to seek relief he finds God hedging him in on all hands without any hope of relief 2. He propounds his own case in particular v. 24. to instruct that he was a man so afflicted Shewing that his ordinary refreshments did not abate nor divert his sorrows but even before the face of his meat and while it was set before him his sighing and sorrow continued without intermission Yea his sorrows were so great as made him roare and that so impetuously and abundantly as a current of waters running down Not to insist on what hath been before marked That supposing all this were true of Jobs case yet he had his own imbittered spirit to blame for much of this disorder following upon his trouble And albeit the Lord had dealt so with him it was not a relevant reason why he should decline to stoop under Gods hand so long as he pleased leaving it upon God to order his dark path and submitting to digest his reâ—eshments with sorrow We may further from ver 23 learn 1. When people are in trouble it contributes to the heightning thereof that they do constantly pore upon it in all the aggravations thereof For Job is so much taken up with this subject that he returns to it again alter what he had said v. 20. 2. It is much to be adverted unto by these in trouble that self-love do not lead them to aggravate afflictions more because theirs then they would do if they were on others or then impartial observers would esteem of them Therefore both here and ver 20. he propounds the matter in Thesi and of any man whosoever thus afflicted to shew that he was not
moment of the day Or being but short-lived like that creature which is said to live but one day See Psal 39.5 Or being cut off in a short time when God begins to deal with him Isa 38.12 Psal 90.5 6. Or his whole life and every day of it from morning to evening being but a daily dying and travelling from the womb to the grave All these do well enough sute the scope and may teach us 1. That death in it self is a destroying or breaking and braying in pieces as making havock of the poor man crushing his imagined excellencies and irreparably ruining him in his being though without prejudice to the power of God to be exerted in his future Resurrection Therefore it is said They are destroyed or broken in pieces 2. As death is terrible in it self so man lieth under so great hazard of it as may keep him low before God being a creature that is dying daily though he consider it not being uncertain what moment it may arrest him being unable to hinder the stroke of death to do its work in a short time and having but a short while of life if well considered how long soever it be forborn All these humbling considerations are imported in their being destroyed from morning to evening 2. That in regard the death of man is ordinary it is but little regarded ver 20. That they perish for ever is not to be understood here of eternal destruction for this sentence is true of all men even godly men But that men are continually dying and perishing in all times and ages and that though this be a great stroke and a perishing for ever without any hope of restitution to this life again Yet it is but little noticed or emproved Neither do they who are left behind make the use of that which they so ordinarily see nor do they who die ever return to give any proof of their proficiency by that stroke This teacheth 1. Death is in this respect a great stroke that it cuts off a man irrecoverably from all his enjoyments and from all opportunity of emproving any condition in this life So that if a man do not emprove time while he hath it and have no hope of somewhat beyond time he is in a poor condition In this respect all men at death perish for ever without hope of returning to this life 2. It is the constant course of divine Providence that as one generation is coming so another is going And that at all times death is still snatching some from there idols liberating others from their toil separating dearest friends and preaching the doctrine of Mortality to all For thus also they perish for ever in all ages and times 3. Albeit it be the duty of the sons of men to emprove every document of mortality which is laid before them in the experience of others Eccl. 7.2 Yet such is the stupidity of most that they profit nothing thereby nor are made to study the uncertainty of mans life or the vanity of many of mens projects on earth Luk. 12.19 20. For thus they perish without any regarding See Psal 49.13 14. 4. Such is the stupidity and corruption of men that even remarkable dispensations becoming ordinary are sleighted and do not affect them For albeit death be a singular stroke yet being ordinary for ever in all times there is no regarding or emproving of it As wonders will nor profit them who do not emprove the ordinary means Luk. 16.31 So the more ordinary and frequent wonders be our corrupt hearts will regard them the less 3. That by death men are stript of all their excellency which is in them ver 21 Which is not so much to be understood of the souls leaving the body as of their parting with all their external pomp and glory at death For both in sickness before death the memory judgment and other endowments of the mind do perish in some beauty and strength of body do languish in all and at death there is nothing left but a loathsome carcass and all worldly pomp and splendour is cut off from them It is here to be remembred that the Spirit of God doth not hear speak of men as to their eternal state but as to their externall condition which they enjoyed in the world And it teacheth 1. God is very bountiful to the sons of men in conferring many excellencies upon them both in their bodies minds and outward estate For there is supposed an excellency in them And albeit it be mans fault to value these too highly as their chief and only excellency yet their own true worth and Gods bounty in conferring of them ought not to be forgotten 2. God is also so kind as to continue all or many of these excellencies with men even to the grave For so is here supposed that their excellency doth not go away till then 3. Whatever forbearance the sons of men get in this life yet death will strip them of all their outward splendour and pomp For then all their excellency doth go away See Psal 49.17 Isa 14.9 10. c. 4. It is a very great fault and a gross neglect in men that this ordinary plain lesson of the vanity of outward excellencies is so little studied For this Question Doth not their excellency which is in them go away doth import that it is a clear case and yet withal that many do so walk as if they did not believe nor heed it and therefore must be posed if they do not believe and consider it 4. That they die without wisdom ver 21. or they die and there is no wisdom This may be true generally of all men that though some have profited much better in their life then others yet all may confess that they die before they be so wise as to understand as they ought what it is to live well or to emprove the examples of mortality which they have seen in their time It may also be understood only of the wicked who die without the knowledge of God and without that wisdom which floweth from right numbering of their days Psal 49.20 90.12 But it is more safe to understand it generally in this sense That they die without having any skill or wisdom how to avoid death And it teacheth however wicked men play many pranks with their wit in their lives and do nimbly extricate themselves imminent hazards though a prudent man foreseeing the storm may be able to avoid it Prov. 22.3 27.12 Yet death will triumph over all their skill and parts their wit cannot deliver them from death nor afford them any way to escape it Thus they die even without wisdom See 2 Sam. 3.33 Eccl. 2.16 CHAP. V. In this Chapter Eliphaz yet continueth his Discourse to Job consisting as was marked on Chap. 4. of a reprehension wherein he labours to convince Job of wickedness or hypocrisie and of some Exhortations to amend his life and turn to God considering the hand of
know also that thy seed shall be great and thine off spring as the grass of the earth 26. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season The other Head of Encouragement is That he shall not only have deliverance from trouble but restitution to his former condition instanced in these particulars 1. A peaceable Habitation ver 24. 2. That he shall visit his Habitation and not sin ver 24. whereby I do not only understand that in going about his affairs he shall not err as the word signifieth and is rendred Judg. 20.16 but shall succeed in his enterprises As godliness hath the promise c. even of a gift of good thrift Psal 112.5 But chiefly this is the meaning That he shall be taught a better and more sinless way of going about his affairs 3. That he shall have a great and numerous issue ver 25. 4. And fulness of days He should not be cut off as he now apprehended but should continue to old age and come ripe to his grave as ripe Corn is brought to the Barn ver 26. These Promises relating to things temporal must be understood with the usual Scripture cautions which assure us that all these things are put in the Believers Charter but the dispensing thereof left in the hand of their wise and tender Father With this caution we may from this purpose Learn 1. Godly men when in a right frame are taught to look upon their most prosperous condition as transitory and not their true rest For he calls Jobs house but a Tabernacle not so much because he dwelt in a Tent for his Children had Houses Chap. 1.13 18 19. and himself Chap. 42.11 as because the godly accounted so of their fairest houses 2. To a truly godly man the charge of a family is of great concernment so that the peace of it is a promise and great encouragement to him As this promise to Job imports 3. As Prosperity and Family-peace and concord therewith are a great blessing So Piety hath the promise thereof which is still fulfilled in so far as godly families may have true peace whatever befal them So much may safely be gathered from this promise Thy Tabernacle shall be in peace 4. It is no small mercy when the truth of a Promise is experimentally confirmed to us and much more when we are made to discern that it is so and made to acquiesce and be satisfied therewith So much is imported in this Thou shalt know that thy Tabernacle shall be in peace Thou shalt discern the accomplishment of this promise and be refreshed therewith So also ver 25. To discern a mercy is a new mercy in the bosome of it 1 Cor. 2.12 without which we may starve beside our food 5. Such as expect Gods blessing upon their family and affairs ought to wait on him in the diligent use of means about them For Thou shalt visit thine Habitation or go about thine affairs 6. So carnal are our hearts and so entangling are wordly affairs though lawful that without Gods special leading and assistance we cannot avoid much guilt in them For it needs a Promise not to sin when we visit our habitation 7. A truly godly man is so tender as he doth not so much mind success in his imployments as grace to keep the Conscience undefiled and in true peace And the obtaining of this will encourage him whatever his success be For this Promise is an encouragement to the godly man Thou shalt visit thy Habitation and he saith not thou shalt prosper but not sin 8. None are in a neerer capacity to go about their imployments in an holy spirituall and sober manner then those who have been bred in the School of Afflictions and to whom they have been blessed and who so attain this have an evidence that they have profited by their tryals For this Promise is made to Job upon supposition that Job will not despise the chastening of the Almighty ver 17. 9. Albeit neither all the godly nor only they have the gift of posterity but some of them will need other promises to make up that want Isa 56.4 5. Yet Children in themselves are a blessing and the more of them the greater blessing Psal 127.3 4 5. and when they are given to the godly they are the reward of Piety Psal 128.1 2 3 4. and accordingly should be improved as blessings Therefore is a promise made concerning those Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great and thy off-spring as the grass of the Earth 10. Whatever hazards we be exposed to in the world yet our times are in Gods hand to lengthen or shorten them as he pleaseth Therefore God undertakes to determine when man shall come to the grave Psal 31.15 11. Albeit as death is certain so it matters not much how the godly be sent away and liberate from their toil and warfare yet in it self it is a mercy to die a peaceable death For it is a Promise Thou shalt come to thy grave which imports not only that he should get a grave which is denied to many in times of calamity Psal 79.2 But that he should get his grave and die at home And it is indeed a crowning mercy when after the former mercies a peaceable and sweet close of all is granted 12. Albeit the godly lose nothing but gain much when by dying soon they are sent the sooner to Heaven yet as it is terrible to have our days shortened for sin Psal 55.23 so long life is in it self a blessing and is given to the godly for a blessing that they may meet with many proofs of Gods love may do much service to him in their generation and the many times that pass over them may sow liberally here that they may reap liberally the reward of free-grace hereafter and may get leave to prepare for their dissolution and the pins of their Tabernacle be taken down insensibly and at leisure For it is also a Promise Thou shalt come to thy Grave in a full age 13. Albeit all the godly are not continued to old age in the world yet they are blessed with satisfaction in their days and with ripeness and readiness to die anger being taken away doubts cleared Gods salvation seen Luk. 2.29 30. and it may be also satisfaction given in some particulars which they longed to see before their death As Gen. 48.30 1 King 1.48 For this being the chief thing in the Promise to die in a full age like as a shock of Corn cometh in in his season the promise is performed to every Saint who is ripe for death let him die never so young All these Promises as they intimate Gods condescendence to notice every particular concernment of his people and how easie it is for him to restore them if he please So they ought to perswade us to draw neer and keep neer God that so we may be assured that the
dispositions sutable to their condition whatever it be Vers 8. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for 9 Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Followeth to ver 14. Jobs desire of death which he laboureth to press and justifie by divers Arguments He bringeth it in upon the back of the former debate thus That though they would not give him leave to complain or desire death yet he seeing no comfort within time nor hope beside would take leave His desire is propounded ver 9. That God who is Soveraign Lord of life would be pleased to destroy him and would not measure out affliction by piece-meal and with a bound up hand but would let loose his hand and make an end of him which he might easily do any death so it were speedy being better as he thought then his present condition This sute he ushers in and presseth from the ardency of his desire ver 8. He had desired it before Chap. 3. and now being the worse of their essays to cure him and of more hopeless of any comfortable issue in this life his longing after death is increased This desire hath been spoken to in part Chap. 3.20 It argues great presumption in limiting of God and doating on a remedy of his own prescribing as if it only could serve his turn And albeit he had the testimony of a good Conscience so that he needed not fear death yet many desires had been more sutable then that he should venture on any death from Gods hand and that as it might seem in justice and when he is already lying under so much of that kind It teacheth 1. God is Lord of our life who can take it away when where and by what means he will For so much doth Job's desire import that he can destroy and cut off at his pleasure 2. An afflicted mind is a great strait and pressure so that many sharp dispensations would be a deliverance if they made men rid of it For Job's pressure of mind is such that it makes him account a violent death a deliverance They who enjoy peace and tranquility of mind in sad times have an easie part of it And men would beware to make a breach upon their inward peace by shifting outward trouble See Matth. 10.28 Many by sinful shifting of trouble have been brought to that extremity that many deaths would have been easier 3. A tentation once fixed in a broken spirit cannot easily be pulled out again For Job cannot be driven from this desire on which he hath once fixed but he presseth it over and over again Men had need to beware of the first rise of such distempers and to crush them in the bud 4. Albeit a Child of God may be pestered and haunted with many sinful passions and desires in his trouble yet it is his mercy to be kept from sinful actings in prosecution of those desires For in the midst of this heat of desire Job's honesty appears in that he will not help God to take away his life how much soever he desire death but will wait on him if he may be pleased to grant his desire in his own way Some sparks of honesty may appear even in the greatest weakness of Saints As to his ardency and fervour in pressing his desire it hath been spoken to Chap. 3.21 22. and that men in their distempers are very earnest that God would do what they desire though yet it were oft-times a sad judgment if God should grant it seeing they may in that case be apt to desire that most which is most prejudicial to them Yea our ardent desires after any outward lot are oft times too great an evidence that we are wrong To these add 1. Job's practice holds forth a right pattern though in a wrong instance of pursuing our lawful desires By praying and requesting for it and a longing expectation backing the Prayer and so renewing the sute often and walking under the delay as they who are afflicted and affected thereby Psal 88.11 12 13. This being Job's practice in so unwarrantable a desire it may give a check to our sluggishness in more honest desires 2. When men give way to sinful tentations they may in Gods holy Providence meet with many occasions to entertain them As Job here longing after death his Friends disappointing of him adds fuel to the fire and makes it more vehement as thinking he was hereby confirmed in the equity of his desires Thus tempters of God fall in snares Mal. 3.15 and hearkners also to false Prophets Deut. 13.1 2 3. This may terrifie men who enter upon a way without a rule and warrant that they may meet with such snares and every confirmation they think they meet with in their way may humble them if they consider that God thereby gives them up to strong delusions Vers 10. Then should I yet have comfort yea I would harden my self in sorrow let him not spare for I have not concealed the words of the holy One The first Argument whereby he labours to justifie this desire is taken from the comfort he expected having the testimony of a good Conscience He professeth that notwithstanding all that had befaln him or could be in a violent death he should yet have comfort if it were a coming or already come And though it might be apprehended that he would repent and cool of that courage when it came to the push He professeth he would harden himself in sorrow he would harden and confirm his heart against that way of death or any sorrow attending it yea or any sorrow in the mean time provided that death were near and the sorrow hastning it forward And for a proof of this his courage and resolution he renews his request and desires that God will not spare Not that he dares desire to be dealt with in justice but it imports only his desire not to be spared as to cutting of him off but the sharper usage the better so it made an end of him And the ground of all this courage was that he had not concealed the words of the holy One he had been a sincere Professour of Gods Truth and had spoken truth in this particular that he was an upright man Or he had not put out the light of Gods Truth in his mind nor cancelled the Seal of his Spirit in his heart by sin Rom. 1.18 and had held forth the Truth of God in his Profession and Practice Psal 40.10 Phil. 2.15 16. And all this he did because God is the Holy One not to be dallied with and who cannot approve of sin By all which he clears that his desire of death was not a desperate wish but grounded upon the testimony of a good Conscience and his hope to be approved when he should come to be judged by God and not by men In this Discourse it flowed indeed from Jobs
weakness that his good Conscience could afford him no comfort but in this out-gate of death which was of his own devising whereas the testimony of his Conscience had been better imployed in bearing patiently the present trouble And indeed we are ordinarily better in our own conceit at any thing then what is our present work and duty and do fancy that we could like any case but our present lot when yet it is the will of God we should take it as it is Yet herein 1. We may with admiration behold the invincible power of a good Conscience that cannot only grapple with death when it cometh but can run to meet it and that on any tearms and at greatest disadvantage and can even then expect comfort in and by it So was it with Job here I should yet have comfort c. A good Conscience is neither afraid of death nor of wrath as it should seem cutting us off nor even of destroying of foundations Psal 11.3 4. nor of any trouble Job 34.29 even which may shake others Isai 33.14 15 16. And the reason of this is every lot to the reconciled man hath this in it from God fear not ye Mat. 28.5 Which may invite men to be careful that their own hearts do not condemn them 1 Joh. 3.21 Act. 24.16 2. We may hence also gather That no fortitude against death or any trouble is worth the speaking of but what is grounded on a good Conscience For Job founds his resolution and comfort on this I have not concealed the words of the holy One. Natural Magnanimity is of little worth without this Only they who would be resolute and magnanimous upon the account of a good Conscience ought not only to have a good Conscience in the particular cause and matter of their tryal but in their other carriage also the want whereof will weaken their hands in most cleanly tryals and especially wherein Job was somewhat faulty in the way of their deportment under trouble which ought to be such as may witness that it is Conscience and not their own spirits that lead them Jam. 1.20 3. Men in trying their resolution and courage flowing from a good Conscience ought not to take themselves at the first word but ought to search and search again For so doth Job repeat his confidence upon this ground once and again I should yet have comfort yea I would harden my self in sorrow let him not spare Our hearts are very deceitful in undertaking and therefore godly jealousie fear and suâ—pition are oft-times antecedent to true courage Hab. 3.16 17 18. 4. The testimony of a good Conscience yielding hope of a blessed issue will make present trouble to be tolerable and more easie For Job expecting to be approved of God at death would yet have comfort and harden himself in sorrow in expectation of so great a good 5. Such as would approve themselves to be sincere ought to entertain right thoughts of God particularly of his holiness For the rise of his upright walk was that he looked on God as the holy One. This doth not only evince that God is not to be reflected upon in any of his dealings Psal 22.3 and in this Job's Principles were sound though his Passions did sometimes over-drive him to complain But doth also teach that none can have communion with God but such as study holiness nor can the holy God endure wickedness Psal 5.5 6 7. Hab. 1.13 And they who want holiness may come to him the Fountain of Holiness to get it 6. Such as do rightly improve the study of the holiness of God to press the necessity of real holiness upon themselves ought with Job not to conceal the words of the holy One. Which imports 1. God must be taken up obeyed and acknowledged according as he hath revealed himself and his will in his Words For they had the words of God among them even in Jobs days though not yet written and to those he cleaves neither lying of God by Error contrary to his Word nor taking up God and his Will according to his own fancy and humour 2. When God reveals his will in any particular it is our duty not to smother or put out our light and so sin against God and his Deputy in our bosom but we ought to avow and profess it in our station For he concealed not these words 3. Beside our Profession of Truth we must be careful not to belie it in our practice For thus also he concealed not the words of the holy One as is above explained Vers 11 What is my strength that I should hope and what is mine end that I should prolong my life 12. Is my strength the strength of Stones or is my flesh of Brass The second Argument wherein he appeals to themselves is taken from his inability to subsist under this trouble and consequently the improbability of the restitution they promised him upon his repentance He had no strength that might give him ground of hope to bear this trouble and avoid death and upon his repentance to be restored as Eliphaz promised unto him For he had not flesh with sense only as Beasts have but with reason also which sharpeneth crosses Far less was his flesh of stones or brass which want both sense and reason to endure this and therefore nothing was fitter for him then to resolve for death As for those words What is mine end c Some understand them thus For what end should I live which is a very sinful question if God will have us live Others thus What evil is in mine end that I should be afraid to die wherein can death prejudice me that I should so seek to avoid it But it agrees best with the rest of the purpose thus as if Job had said Seeing my strength is so disproportionable to my trouble my end by the ordinary course of nature especially being so crushed cannot be far off So that it were folly suppose I should be delivered to hope for any continuance of time wherein I might get reparation of these great evils or what can I expect or design in the rest of my short time that I should seek to prolong it and not presently desire to die So doth himself express it Chap. 16.22 In sum his Argument is this He hath neither strength to subsist under these troubles till he should repent and be restored as Eliphaz had prescribed nor could he look for any thing in the declining part of his life the expectation whereof might encourage him to endure his present troubles till he attained it But he had rather lose all the expected good before he endured the present troubles waiting for it This Argument thus explained doth insinuate these Truths 1. God hath made mans constitution such as it is easily subduable by afflictions For Jobs strength could afford him no hope of bearing through till he saw an issue on the back of troubles Man is made weak and more infirm then brass
conditions of life are vanity Gal. 1.2 Psal 39.5 and he was made to possess them as his patrimony and right as if no other portion were due to him 2. The hireling though he work sore in the day yet he gets the nights rest Gal. 1.12 But he is troubled by night as well as by day For after he hath toiled all day long which is here supposed his nights were made so wearisome by Gods appointment that when he lay down he longed for day-light that he might arise to see if that would bring him ease and so was made to measure out the evening as it is in the Original or to reckon how long it was to day-light Yea he was full of tossings to and fro or perpetually tossed inwardly in his mind and outwardly in his body through pain and want of rest and that not for a part of the night only but throughout the whole night even to the dawning of the day so that he got not any sound sleep See ver 14 15. Upon all which this inference is to be repeated that he might lawfully wish for ease in death Which though it was his failing and mistake as is before marked especially having to do with God to whom all ought to stoop and to be content if they get strength to bear what he layeth on and it may be justly suspected that his giving way to distemper of spirit added not a little to his disquietness yet his condition may afford us these Instructions 1. The Lord can when he will make our life which we think so sweet a very great burden to us and our time which ordinarily slips away insensibly very wearisome and tedious For Job is weary of his life and his Months and Nights are wearisome Creature-comforts of Bed and Board will not ease us when God hath us to try which should make us thankful when it is otherwise and teach us not to doat on time or our life For it is of God that all our outward mercies prove not crosses 2. The Lord is more absolute and soveraign over his Creatures to exercise afflict and continue troubles then any man is over his servant and hireling For here he made Job's lot more sad then the condition of any hireling is made by man He is astricted to no rule in those things but his own will to which we ought to submit 3. The coming on or continuance of trouble is not a matter at mans arbitrement God can make us to possess them and appoint them to us whether we will or not See Psal 105.17 18 19 20. Jer. 47.6 7. Which may lead us to eye God much when troubles stick on and to look to him alone for ease of them who can deliver without the consent of enemies as well as afflict us whether we consent or not See Job 34.29 Isa 49.24 25 26. 4. Albeit all men in their best outward estate are vanity Psal 39.5 Yet the Lord is pleased sometime to make some men exemplary instances of that truth of the vanity of all men and conditions For so was it with Job his months were months of vanity being empty of all comfort not having any such issue as he waited for and so disappointed his expectation and he reaping no benefit by all his toil as Psal 78.33 All which vanity as it may be read in other conditions that look not so terrible like as Job's did so they who are under such a lot may read this in it that because they see not the vanity and emptiness of every condition therefore it is made so legible to them 5 Singular troubles do very deeply affect men because they are singular For Job regrets that he was tossed beyond all others Yet Saints may read this in it also that they will be singularly regarded by God under their singular tryals 6. Gods Providence is so condescending that the trouble or quiet of every night is appointed by him For so Job holds forth Wearisom nights are appointed to me when I lie down I say When shall I arise c Where he understands God to be this appointer though he do not expresly name him till afterward that his heat grow more warm It is an evidence of our carnal mindedness when we see little of God in ordinary Providences Psal 139. were it but in a nights sleep And our negligence in this brings us to know by the want thereof how much we enjoy when we do but little observe or acknowledge it 7. As trouble makes any time promise more then the present So changes of that kind will not change our condition till God come For though Job longed for the day being full of tossings to and fro yet the day-light did not ease him See Deut. 28.67 It were our wisdom to make the best of our present lot be it never so hard for changes till we be fit for an issue will but add to our affliction Vers 5. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become lothsome 6. My days are swifter then a weavers shuttle and are spent without hope The third Argument wherein he yet insists to give an account of his trouble doth more distinctly tend to conclude the lawfulness of his desire of death For whereas it might be objected against his former reasoning That his trouble and disquiet might indeed warrant him to seek some ease but not to press so peremptorily for death He answereth That his trouble being irrecoverable left him no door of hope open but in death and therefore he behoved to press after that only The Argument runs thus as if Job had pleaded I may lawfully desire that warrantable issue which I see in the Providence of God approaching toward me and which hath already irrecoverably seised on me But I see death thus approaching and it hath already taken hold on me Therefore I may desire it Now that death is thus approaching he proves two wayes First From the present condition of his body v. 5. being in his graves-cloaths many worms breeding in his sores his body being covered with scabby clods of dust and ulcerous matter running from his sores and his skin being broken as the earth is in a drought in a loathsome manner From all which it is to be inferred that he could expect nothing but death Here we may Learn 1. Health and soundness of body is a great mercy and doth ease us of much vexation and an heavy burden As here appeareth from Job's resenting the want of it 2. Let men make never so much of their bodies yet they carry a mass of putrefaction and corruption about with them and they will come at length to be loathsom spectacles For here Job's body being touched by God his flesh is cloathed with worms and clods of dust c. 3. Death and life are in the power of the Lord and he can when he pleaseth bring down to the grave and bring up again 1 Sam. 2.6 For so much doth
which case breathing times would be sweet But to have new troubles added to the former when they are expecting ease from them For Job expecting ease in his Bed and Couch hath affrighting dreams and terrifying visions super-added to his former sorrows This may affright men from being unruly under their present Rods lest they get sharper rods added to them 8. The Lord may permit his people to add to their own trouble by promising themselves ease that so their disappointments may heighten their afflictions For Job's Dreams and Visions are so much the more bitter as he said my Bed shall comfort me my Couch shall ease my complaint Who so study sobriety in their expectations under trouble do take away much fuel from the flame of their own bitterness and discontentments Vers 15. So that my soul chooseth strangling and death rather then my life 16. I loath it I would not live alway let me alone for my days are vanity The third Argument whereby he pleads against his being so afflicted is taken from the hard shifts to which his trouble did drive him These are recorded here as the result of his restlesness of which he had complained ver 13.14 That he was so incessantly tossed sleeping and waking that he turned desperate So that were the matter in his option he had rather be strangled and die a violent and ignominious death yea his soul choosed and desired it very earnestly rather then thus to live without any intermission of pain torture and vexation And he had rather be dead then have his bones as it is in the Original which only were now left him the flesh being consumed away Job 16.8 and to which also the pain had reached ver 15. And although some may so inordinately love life as they would have an eternity of it yet he loathed his life and would not live alway ver 16 The meaning whereof is not barely this that he declined to continue always and eternally in this life For to dâ—sire that were to wish what is impossible and to decline it would speak little of his haste to be gone But that he loathed to live any longer at all A moment of longer continuance being an eternity to him Oâ— the meaning is as the words will also read That he was so full and weary of his life that it should never be at any time that he should desire to live nothing he could ever meet with in time should make him enamoured of life This is indeed a fit of very great despair yet so bridled as he dare not hasten death unto himself though he would gladly be at it as not casting off hopes of the life to come And it teacheth 1. Much oppression will make wise men mad and constant continued troubles and disappointments of all expectations of case may drive serious and sober men to hard shifts For Job gives this as the result of his former restless condition So that my soul chooseth strangling c. A day of tentation will discover strange things and involve men in sad perplexities 2. Even the breasts of the most godly and the spirits of strong Believers have seeds of despair in them which may break forth under tryal as here we see in Job Which may teach the godly to be humble in their walking that they be not led into tentation And may affright the stout-hearted who when their Consciences are wakened may meet with this or worse 3. However there be an inclination in corrupt men who have their portion in this life to have an eternity of time and to live always in it Yet God when he pleaseth can make their being in the world their greatest burden For so it was with Job I choose strangling and death rather then my life I loath it I would not live alway 4. It is Gods way with his people not to over-charge them with exercise but when they are over-driven he will moderate his dealing For Job's scope in laying before God this his desperate fit is to plead that since he was so over-charged therefore God may be pleased to pity and not deal so severely with him See Isa 57.16 Psal 99.4 Job 37.23 24. Only we would take heed that by our unbelief misconstruction impatience c. we do not make our lot insupportable when God hath not made it so For that will be no argument to plead for pity till first we be humbled for it as our weakness Psal 77.8 9 10. 5. The Lord so orders the tentations and conflicts of his people as even when they are in the height of their fits his grace doth one way or other appear in them For when Job would most gladly be at death yet he dare not cut off himself So my God which is the language of faith is the doubters designation of God in the height of his diffidence and complaints Psal 22.1 Isa 49.14 Beside the sin of despair in this discourse these failings may further be marked which ought not to be justified and may be drawn to our use 1. That by expecting ease as is marked on ver 13 14. and meeting with disappointment his heart swells at his condition and so he falls in the snare Humility and sobriety would prevent much vexation and toil to us and cut off many tentations 2. That he speaks his tentation so broadly and without any reluctancy as appears from his doubled and fervent expressions as his confirmed judgment It is too much that a rash word of diffidence and despondency escape us although faith and repentance presently follow after to recal and correct it But it is more gross when he spake and abide by it as if we had reason for it See Jonah 4.8 9. 3. That he contemns his life and any moderation in his affliction calling all that was left him his BONES when yet God in whom we live and move and have our being had great glory in preserving such an exhausted man amidst so many pressures and perplexities Much of Gods glory may shine in many of our lots wherewith notwithstanding our peevish hearts are not satisfied 4. That he was so peremptory in his own opinion that death was his only desirable issue as if he were wiser then God who had carved out another lot for him It is our duty to believe That God hath innumerable issues for his people in his hand That he can make any thing he pleaseth an issue to them and That issues prescribed by our selves particularly that of death when we are in perplexity are ordinarily none of the best 5. That he measures all things by his present humour as if because he now loathed life therefore he would never hereafter in any case desire it Little do Saints know what changes God may work as in other things so in their dispositions and inclinations and cause them see and acknowledge mercy where they could find nothing but bitterness Upon this his desperate resolution and choice he infers a sute ver 16. That seeing
argue our blindness for he cannot be unreasonable in what he doth Vers 5. Seeing his days are determined the number of months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass 6. Turn from him that he may rest till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day The third Argument enlarging the first is taken from the certainty of his death at the time appointed by God He shews that his life is bounded by God even how many days and months he shall live that he must die at the time appointed by God and cannot pass those bounds and limits which are set to him and that in the mean time his life was but short and troublesome like the time of an hireling Whence he argues That seeing death is the appointed punishment of sin which he had acknowledged to be in himself v. 4. Gen. 2.17 And seeing God had fixed the time of that at his pleasure and had made life short and troublesome he thinks that God needs not add a new sentâ—nce to the former and bring man into judgment of new And therefore he pleads that God would not abandon him by turning altogether from him but forbear to pursue him with such rigour and let him take some breathing and respite from these extraordinary afflictions till he accomplish his course in his ordinary toil and labour whereof he will be content to see an end whensoever God will as the word imports The substance of the grounds of this Argument being made use of Chap. 7.1 2 c. to prove another conclusion that he might lawfully desire death I shall here shortly Obs 1. Mans life and days are bounded so that Man must come to a period and must quit life whether it be sweet or sowr bitter or comfortable For so is here held out His days are determined he hath bounds that he cannot pass See Psal 49.10 Eccl. 2.16 Heb. 9.27 Obs 2. God is the infallible and irresistible bounder of mans life even to months and days For his days are determined the number of his months are with thee thou hast appointed his bounds c. See Act. 17.26 This Truth 1. Doth not contradict other Scriptures which speak of the lengthening and shortening of mens days 2 King 20.1 6. Eccl. 7.16 17. Psal 55.23 For these speak of shortening or lengthening the days of Man in respect of what otherwise they might be according to probability or considering the course of Nature and second Causes but speak nothing of Gods altering the periods of Man's life which are set by himself Nor 2. Doth this warrant men to neglect lawful means which God hath appointed in order to his end as Paul reasons Act. 27.22 23 24. with 31. But it teacheth us 1. To adore the Universal Providence of God which extends it self to all persons and things See Matth. 10.24 30. Our not observing of this in common things makes us so Atheistical in greater matters 2. It teacheth us to submit to his will in all those turns and lots that befal us and in the use of all means of life to submit to live long in trouble or short while in ease as he pleaseth 3. It teacheth his people to rest confidently on him who hath Times and Seasons in his hand both of particular persons Psal 31.15 and of Nations also Gen 15.13 14. Jer. 29.10 Obs 3. Mans life till he come to his appointed end is but like a hirelings day For so is held forth v. 6. that he must accomplish as an hireling his day Not only is his life short like a day wherein the hireling is conduced to work But 1. Man ought not to be his own nor at his own work but his Masters For so it is with the hireling And if Man will not voluntarily do duty and what is commanded him Yet he shall be made to serve Providence whether he will or not And his most irregular enterprises shall be made subservient to Gods holy purposes Psal 76.10 2. Man is but an indigent empty creature standing in need of continual uninterrupted supply from God As an hireling must have wages if not meat also from his Master to maintain him at his work 3. Man must resolve to have much toil in the service of his Generation For he is like a toiled servant or hireling And this is the lot even of greatest Undertakers and Conquerours in the world Hab. 2.12 13. 4. Man is a servant who must be accountable for his work that he may be rewarded accordingly as it is with hirelings All this may teach men not to stumble if they find their life to be such as is here described And since it is thus they who sell Heaven for a Portion in this life make but a poor bargain and will get but sober chear for it Obs 4. Job's plea and desire in this Argument v. 6. hath somethings in it very commendable and imitable As 1. Turn saith he that is take away thy hand and displeasure evidenced by these severe afflictions Which Teacheth That it is only God who giveth a being or putteth an end to afflâ—ctions As this desire supposeth Also That as God appears to the afflicted to be angry when trouble is on So this affects a godly man most and the removal of this is more to him then the taking away of the affliction For he desires the cross to be removed under that notion of Gods turning frâ—m him and ceasing to pursue him in anger 2. Turn saith he from him in the third Person with an eye to what he hath spoken of all mens life and toil v. 5. and to shew that he would be content of the common lot of hirelings of Adam's posterity It Teacheth That it is an evidence of a subdued spirit when men do not seek to be singular in their lots and allowances but are content patiently to bear the common lots that befal mankind 3. Turn saith he that he may rest or have a cessation righteous and the wicked Christ will be glorified and admired in them 2 Thes 1.10 all clouds and mistakes will be cleared and when he raiseth their bodies he will raise their good Name also Vers 13. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave that thou wouldest keepe me secret until thy wrath be past that thou wouldest appoint me a set time and remember me 14. If a man die shall he live again All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change câ—mâ— 15. Thou shalt call and I will answere thee thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands The fourth Argument propounded in these verses and amplified and enlarged to the end of the Chapter is taken from the great perplexities and strange wishes to which his trouble drave him in so much that though he see somewhat of a black cloud in death in the foregoing verses yet here he would be content of something like it for a time The sum of the Argument whereof the Antecedent is expressed in
but that a set time will put an end to it Thus also doth the Psalmist rowze up his confidence under tentations Psal 77.8 9 10. which is worthy of imitation 2. He desires not death desperately as it is only a back-door to shun present trouble but he propounds this extraordinary desire in a way of believing and bodeing well of God in the issue This many do forget in their passionate desires when they cast away all confidence 3. It flowed from his desire of Gods favour and to have it cleared toward him for encouragement to all others to walk in the ways of holiness that he declines to go away for ever in a cloud and would be remembered and appear again when wrath is passed that others seeing the end of the Lord might be incouraged as well as himself would be refreshed And here whatever his failings were his general scope is good to desire to enjoy Gods favour above all things Psal 4.6 7. and that others be not stumbled nor discouraged Psal 69.6 4. As he doth not proudly think he is able to stand out this storm So neither doth he flee from God or to Hills and Mountains Rev. 6.15 16 17. to be hid from this apprehended wrath But knowing that God alone can hide a man from his own indignation he fleeth to him for that effect O that thou wouldest hide me c. Which is a practice well beseeming Saints that whatever anger they apprehend in God they still flee to himself for succour Doct. 5. The perplexities and hard shifts to which Gods people are put is an argument of help especially when somewhat of sincerity appears in the midst of them For as Job's particular scope in this wish is that he may be satisfied in this desire so his general scope in propounding the whole matter to God by way of Plea and Argument in this debate and complaint is to plead for pity and moderation toward a man who was thus perplexed And though it be a mans fault and weakness to be thus distempered yet if we take with it and lay it before God as our weakness as Job doth here v. 14. it will plead pity Isai 57.16 17 18. Namely in so far as is for our good though yet he will humble us that we may know our weakness and will not suffer us to want needful exercise In his correcting of his wish v. 14. wherein as hath been said 1. He corrects it in point of judgment as thinking it absurd to expect that a man once dead should return to this life again 2. He corrects it in his practice resolving to wait submissively and patiently till his great and final change by death shall come We may Learn 1. Such is the Lords mercy towards his tossed Children that their hottest fits of distemper will have sweet cools and abatements As here Job retracts and condemns his former wish 2. A special mean to calm distempered spirits is when they do not persist rashly in their passionate apprehensions and humours as Jonah 4.4 9. but do reflect upon and examine their own frame and desires and when finding that they are wrong they make use of their light and judgment to argue and reason themselves out of their distempers however their affections be pestered Thus doth Job reflect and make use of his light to argue against his own wish If a man die shall he live again See Psal 42.5 3. It is not to be approved in our selves that Gods means and comforts will not satifie us unless impossibilities and wonders be shewed for us and to us For Job finding his desire impossible doth reject it with indignation as his Question imports 4. When our imagined issues fail us there is a nearer and surer issue to be found in Patience Submission and Hope All those are comprehended under waiting which Job fixed upon after he hath found his own desire to be absurd I will wait saith he See 1 Cor. 10.13 2 Cor. 12.7 8 9 10. 5. Such as resolve to find an issue of their trouble in patient submission must let patience have its perfect work Jam. 1.4 They must not fix their own time how long they will wait upon God and no longer as 2 King 6.33 but must submit that God be the appointer of the time of their patience and exercise For saith he All the days of my appointed time will I wait 6. As it is at death that Saints get a complete relaxation case of all their troubles so they must resolve if it be Gods will to wait all their life in a continual warfare without a satisfactory issue of their troubles For Job resolves to wait till his change come even all the days of his appointed time or life and that in a warfare as the word tendered appointed time also signifies 7. It may encourage Saints to wait thus long that death unto them is not a destruction but a change as here he calleth it And indeed it is a great change as in many respects common to all men in that it turns an animated body to a rotten carcase that it is a change wherein a man is fixed everlastingly in that state of his person wherein it finds him that it levels the greatest of men with the meanest Job 3.13 14 17 18 19. Ezek. 32.17 32 c. So Particularly to the godly in that then they are delivered from sin misery toil and discomfort Rev. 14.13 and then they will have the better of the wicked who trampled upon them in the world Luke 16.25 which will be made manifest in the Resurrection Psal 49.14 From v. 15. wherein he resumes his former wish and expatiates upon the advantages he expected if it were granted Learn 1. Passions may be strong in exercised Saints that they will not be permitted to continue in their resolutions of submission For here after he had corrected and rejected his own wish v. 14. he falls upon it again We must not mistake such tossings For submission must be a new gift every moment 2. Passions and Tentations are oft times fed and cherished with many pleasing fancies of happiness if we got our will in our desires As here those sweet apprehensions how it would be with him if God would hide him till the storm were over drew him to his wish and to hearken to the tentation again Then saith he thou wouldest call and I would answer c. whereas now it is far otherwise v. 16. Herein he failed in thinking his own way of guiding would be far better than that which God took in fancying those advantages which God had never promised on his terms and in fancying them to come in a way of his own when he might have expected them with more advantage in Death and at the Resurrection This doth warn us never to promise our selves any good out of Gods way and to limit our expectation of comforts and issues to Gods Promises lest our loving fancies breed us much trouble if they be not satisfied
against hope Rom. 4.18 Secondly Concerning our temporal hopes in particular to which Job speaks here And 1. We should see Gods hand in all the crushings of our hopes we meet with for if he did not reject our confidences we would prosper better in them and not be humbled with so many disappointments Jer. 2.37 And when we study this we will also find that it is in Gods hand to recover our destroyed hope when he will and it will be comfortable to consider that the world is not gone from under his hand and guiding 2. In such cases we should make sure a better hope that will not be destroyed and should bless God for it See Heb. 6.18 Hab. 3.17.18 3. We should study to ground our hopes well in every thing For a crush in a little may do much harm in other things The ill grounded hopes of the two Disciples had humbling effects upon them Luk. 24 17-26 4. Hence we should learn to be sober in our hopes about those things and not to soar high lest our fall and disappointment be the sadder 5. We should keep God our Friend who hath the destruction of hope in his hand not only by having his word engaged for every thing we expect but by personal reconciliation with him and constant dependance upon him for the attainment of our lawful hopes Jam. 4.13 14 15. Vers 20. Thou prevailest for ever against him and he passeth thou changest his countenance and sendest him away In this verse we havâ— the second Particular or Branch of the Application of these similitudes That as none of the sore mentioned creatures can resist God but he removes them and changes their condition at his pleasure So he also prevaileth against man till having wrought a notable change upon him he send him away by death As for the first part of the verse this prevailing forever may be understood diverse ways Namely 1. As the waters by continual dropping prevaile at last over the hard stones notwithstanding all their resistance So God by continual and renewed incursions for ever pursuing Man doth overcome his stubbornness at last and makes him pass or quit the field and succumb 2. That even at every assault God prevails for ever oâ— to victory as the word also signifieth and gets a com let victory for ever at all times when he assaults him So often as he assaults so many Victories gâ—ts he and so often causeth he Man succumb though yet he will not give it over 3. That beside these particular victories he doth at last prevail over Man by death when he maketh him pass for ever out of this world This last not secluding the rest as previous to it is cheifly to be understood here which therefore is enlarged in the following part of the verse Thou changest his countenance and sendeth him away that is as deluges do deform the face of the Earth so Gods strokes do first waste Man and mar his Temperature Complexion and Countenance as a begun Victory over him and then having made him an ugly spectacle he sends him away by death Though Job in his reasoning that his condition was intolerable because of all this was in a mistake For albeit God by those many assaults did overcome and bring at under his vigour and bodily strength yet neither was God fighting against him as an Enemy nor was he sent away by death at this time and so his condition was not irrecoverable And though he had been cut off it was not therefore insupportable Yet the General Truths here asserted may Teach 1. Albeit men be oft-times so presumptuous as to strive and wrestle with God yet there is no resisting of him but he is sure to prevail As Job here asserts as also Chap. 9.4 And as Pharaoh Julian the Apostate and many others have found And therefore submission and stooping is the best of it See 1 Sam. 2.9 Psal 18.26 Jer. 44.28 2. As God doth easily prevail over Man so his Victory is compleat and his stroke irremediable till his own hand help it For he prevails for ever and to Victory at every assault So that as it is folly to strive so it is twice folly not to adore his hand and stoop when he hath overcome See Isai 9.9 10 c. Mal. 1.4 3. Proud and contentious Man requires many assaults to bring him down and keep him down And God is fitted for him For he prevails for ever again and again and if we think to bear out in one assault or stubbornly to abide it if he get the Victory over us in some particular he hath more of them wherein he will be victorious till we find our resistance in vain 4. God can pursue his Victory when he pleaseth to the utter undoing and death of the creature and so make him cease to struggle and acknowledge his weakness when he ceaseth to be For Thou prevailest and he passeth or goeth that is he dieth It is an allusion to Souldiers who quit the Field when they are beaten and can keep it no longer 5. God by afflictions can and doth give documents of mens frailty before they remove by death by wasting and consuming their bodily vigour and complexion and that either by outward afflictions or grief of mind or both For Thou changest his countenance and thou sendest him away See Psal 39.11 This warns men not to doat on beauty and to make sure Gods favour who is the health of our countenance Psal 42.11 It serves also to humble men whose lot it is to have their frailty thus discovered when they are made to look like their grave before they go to it And Job's recording this as one of Gods ways toward men comfort those as being under no strange lot whose sorrows will not hide but their very continuance must speak them 6. Whatever be the way of mens going out of the world yet Divine Providence hath an hand in it For saith he Thou sendest him away Vers 21. His sons come to honour and he knoweth it not and they are brought low but he perceiveth it not of them 22. But his flesh upon him shall have pain and his soul within him shall mourn The last particular or branch of this Application is in these Verses which because Job had formerly spoken of death some do understand of the state of the dead man who in the former verse is said to be sent away That being gone he remains ignorant of what most nearly concerns him and his v. 21. Only his body is pained and his soul mourns v. 22. Which seeing it cannot be understood literally for mens flesh hath no pain when it sleeps in the grave Nor doth it speak any thing to the condition or place of souls departed unless we will say their bodies go to share with them and that even the most godly men such as Job esteemed himself to be must share in these sorrows Therefore some understand it figuratively as pointing out in a Poetical representation
the godly from envying of them and make them be content with their own lot 6. It is an evidence of wickedness or at best of a wicked and evil disposition when the common tryals and exercises of mankind become intolerably bitter and are not digested because they are common So the oppressour is wicked in that it vâ—xeth him that the number of years is hid from him although it be so with all mankind 1 Cor. 10.13 7. It is also an evil evidence in men when their end or death is looked on as an Enemy and when they dare not seriously think on it or how much time they have spent and how near they are to death by the course of nature as being never ready nor willing to die Thus both the Interpetations of the last part of the verse agree in one That it evidenceth his wickedness that he is vexed because his days are hidden and determined by God so that he can neither avoid death nor knoweth when it shall surprize him and that he is so vexed with this as it makes him hide all thoughts of death from himself It is true the godly may have their own vexations and fears about death and so it is not simply true that to fear death is the evidence of a wicked man Yet the difference betwixt the godly and wicked in this is very clear For partly the godly's fear is of another nature then that of the wicked is The godly desire to die if they were reconciled to God whereas the wicked seek not Gods favour and so love not death on any terms except despair drive them upon that hopeless remedy or a satiety of time or want of strength to prosecute the delights of it make them weary thereof Partly the fears of the godly are groundless as the wickeds are not but their tentations and fears and apprehensions are real plagues upon them And if godly men in their fits of security or distemper have any other fears of death in any thing like unto the wicked they ought to labour to be rid of them as no evidence of their Piety nor of their good frame for that time 8 It is also an evidence of an evil disposition when it vexeth men and imbitters their lives unto them that they are left in all conditions upon Gods hands and Providence as here it is a vexatiâ—n to the wicked oppressour that his years are hid or determined by God as Chap. 14.5 This doth not at all please the wicked because they cannot trust God nor willingly submit to him whereas it is enough to the godly in greatest troubles that their times are in Gods hand Psal 31.13 and this should be their encouragement in all cases 9 Whatever sweetness men think they reap by wickedness and oppression Yet this is Wormwood in the midst of it and the Worm in the root thereof that it is but temporary and they know not how soon death may put a period to it For this is also implied that it is the wicked oppressours pain and vexation that the number of years is hid that death will put a period to his enjoyments and he knoweth not when it may steal upon him Vers 21. A dreadful sâ—und is in his ears in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him Followeth in this verse another branch of the wicked or oppressours misery and a special cause and part of his vexations pain to wit his perpetual terrour of Conscience every thing putting him in a fright as Cain was and his Conscience suggesting the dreadfulness and terrour of deserved vengeance as if the sound of its approach were daily â—inging in his ears As for that which is subjoyned in the end of the verse it may be understood thus with a reflection upon Job's case That the wicked man is not only surrounded with fears and terrours but God makes his fear prove real and sends unexpected ruine upon him when he is in the height of his prosperity as bâ—fel Job Whereas the godly are oft-times mercifully disappointed and are not made to feel what they fear This Interpretation though it hold out that which oft-times though not universally proves true yet it agrees better with the scope here where he is speaking especially of the wickeds inward vexation to understand it as as a further amplification of that terrour upon the wicked mentioned in the former part of the verse That his terrour is so great that notwithstanding his present prosperity he is still apprehending that destruction will come upon him in the midst of it From this verse according to the former Rules and Cautions Learn 1. The end of a wicked course and particularly of oppression is very terrible even that which is dreadful or the matter of many fears or terrours as the word is in the plural number in the Original and destruction and ruine from the hand of some destroyer So much are we here taught that the Consciences of many of them do sometime suggest this unto them Which should be well considered by themselves and by others also that they stumble not at their prosperity 2. This end of wicked men is not only dreadful when it cometh but the very apprehension thereof by a wakened Conscience is an Hell upon Earth For it is a dreadful sound or voice of terrours in the midst of prosperity and like the sight of an armed and cruel destroyer 3. Whatever be the temper and condition of particular wicked and impenitent men yet they have so little fence and security against this storm of terrour that when their Consciences are not alarmed with it it is an evidence they are dead and deluded For that a dreadful sound it in the ears of any of them it shews that this is the deserving of all and the nature of their condition tends to it and that they are but mad and stupid who continue impenitent in sin and yet are not at this exercise and that so much the more is owing them that they are forborne for the present And accordingly there is a standing sentence in the Law concerning this Levit. 26.36 Deut. 28.65 66 c. 4. Whatever be the exercises which God may send upon godly men for their correction humiliation and tryal and whatever may be their fits of fear through the power of tentation Yet distracting and tormenting fears and terrours are none of their allowance For it is the wickeds lot only to have a dreadful sound in his ears See Matth. 28.4 5. Psal 112.7 5. The prosperity of wicked men who do not repent nor seek to be at peace with God is neither a sufficient security against their fears nor against their actual destruction For so both the Interpretations of the latter part of the verse may agree in one In prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him As he will not always get his heart kept free of the fears of ruine seeing he hath no better fence then his outward prosperity and nothing of the Peace of God
Original thus Mine eye poureth out or droppeth unto God And he who is true God and doth now subsist to exerce his Office shall plead for a man that is for Job himself spoken of in the Third Person to shew that it is a common priviledge of all godly men such as he was with God and the Son of Man as Christ was to become true Man also for his friend So the meaning of this will be Christ who is God and will become Man shall plead with God on my behalf who am at friendship with him This Interpretation hath those Truths in it That Christ the Mediatour was then known as in his Offices so also what he was or would be as to his Persons and Natures That it is in Christ only that godly men can think to stand or have their integrity approved and That Christs pleading and intercession is a sweet Antidote against the scorn and mistakes of dearest friends As he subjoyns this to what he said of them v. 20. But this doth not so well agree with Job's scope here who as formerly doth assert his integrity rather by wishing he might plead his cause with God if it were possible then by believing it was pleaded as is also implied in the repetition of this wish Chap. 17.3 And withal this verse so interpreted will have no connexion with the reason subjoyned v. 22. Therefore I had rather understand it according to his former practice of his wish that himself might plead his cause with God And for the Original Text which seems to favour the former reading it would be considered that the copulative particle and may be variously â—endered either and or as or otherwise as may best fit the scope Likewise the particle rendered for in both parts of the verse may be rendered for or with or to as frequently it is And if we render the verb which signifieth pleading not only in the Optative mode by way of wish as here it is but Impersonally also not that he or one might plead but that there might be pleading if I say the verb be thus rendered the Text will run fairly thus O that there might be pleading for a man that is that a man might have leave and opportunity to plead with God as a man pleadeth with his neighbour or friend And so the words contain a desire that he might plead his Integrity as familiarly with God as one man pleads with another who is his friend I shall not insist on the particular weaknesses that may be marked in this desire of which see Chap 9 34 35. Chap. 13.20 21 22. Here we may Learn 1. Mens scorn and misconstructions should put men to seek to have their condition cleared betwixt God and them For this Job would be at when scorned by his Friends 2. There is no small disadvantage on the creatures part in seeking to plead with God considering the distance that is betwixt God and them For that Job can wish this only imports that God cannot be pleaded with as with a neighbour or friend And this should be minded not only to terrifie those who presume to enter the lists with God as a Party but to make us sober and humble in all our approaches to him 3. Integrity doth not fear Gods Tribunal in Christ oppose it who will For this wish whatever weakness be in it imports also the strength of his faith that at all disadvantages of scorn from Friends and afflictions from God he is content to plead if he might 4. Men who have a good Conscience have need to guard well under afflictions and misconstructions that they miscarry not For Job did over-drive in the rashness and presumption of his offer It is not enough men have a good Conscience unless they bear it fair and soberly 5. Weaknesses may very often recurr and prevail over Saints in an hour of tryal As Job falls again and again upon his passionate wish This should humble us but not crush us as if we had no grace when we are thus assaulted and borne down 6. Saints may be long exercised with wishes and desires which are not satisfied For so was it with Job who not only is not satisfied as to the passionate and presumptuous way which he propounds for clearing of his integrity but even the substance of his desire which was to have his integrity made manifest is not granted till his tryal was perfected And in general it holds true that many desires of the godly are not satisfied either because they desire not good things in a right way or because it is unseasonable to grant their good desires or because God hath a mind to try them yet more Vers 22. When a few years are come then I shall go the way whence I shall not return In this verse we have the reason pressing this wish taken from the certainty as he judged of his near approach unto death which makes him desire to be cleared before he be removed In this he seems to reflect upon what Eliphaz had said of the wickeds being without hope to be delivered from trouble Chap. 15.22 For he expects no issue from his trouble but by death Only he is under no slavish fear as the wicked are nor will he grant that he is wicked though he have those apprehensions Doct. 1. Saints in their troubles may be in a great mistake concerning their condition and the issue thereof For albeit this General be true that mans life is but short being measured by a few years or years of number any time that can be numbered being short in comparison of Eternity yet he is mistaken in that he thought to die so shortly which that it is his mind in this expression though he speak of years appears from Chap 17 1. 2. Men had need to have their condition cleared against death come it being a dark passage in it self we have need of no clouds beside For upon this supposition that he is to die shortly he desireth to plead his cause that he may be cleared before-hand 3. Men ought so much the rather to have all clear against death that after it there is no helping of our condition if it be wrong as it is in other turns of our life For if once a man go that way he shall not return and this consideration made Job the more solicitous to be cleared 4. The more near men apprehend death to be approaching they should be the more busie For so was Job here supposing that death was near 5. Reproach and unjust imputations are in special a tryal whereof Saints would desire a good account before they die seeing other outward miseries end at their death but reproach will live after them as a blot upon their name For it is upon this account in part that he would be cleared that his Friends might cease to scorn and reproach him as a wicked man 6. The Conscience of mens integrity will not be quelled even with approaching death For Job
premitted these Generals we may from this verse in particular safely gather those sound Instructions 1. Man is but a frail putrified creature and will appear to be so if God begin to deal with him For so are we here taught Mans life hangs but upon a thread of breath going in and out at his nostrils And albeit man draw his breath easily in ordinary yet when God contends with him by affliction and pain his breath will be so corrupt as he cannot draw it without difficulty Yea God can make it favour of his inward putrefaction and proclaim what a rotten piece this beautiful structure of Man is and that he carrieth his death about with him and can soon be made loathsome company to his dearest friends This 1. Teacheth man to be out of conceit with himself his constitution and life Isai 2.22 2. It teacheth him that whatever God please to do for his tryal he should beware by his conceit or bitterness to provoke God to contend and give him a proof what he is See Psal 9 22. 39.11 Isai 45.9 3. It teacheth him that when God doth contend he should be thereby well instructed in the lesson of Humility and knowledg of his own frailty which is the thing his dispensations inculcate Doct. 2. Affliction and debility of body should cause men think on death and the grave and make ready for them For from this that his breath is corrupt he concludes that his days are extinct and the graves for him as it is in the Original that is he is ready or near to be buried and thinks upon it as the only issue of his trouble It is true Job mistook here and his excess cannot be justified as was said before Yet those are found Truths in this case 1. Mortality is a study wherein men ought to be more frequent as being born to die and dying daily 2. Though other tryals may surprize men yet they should beware of being surprized with death and the grave seeing they are known to be unavoidable and the time of their coming is uncertain 3. Though men ought not peremptorily to determine what will be the particular event of every affliction that befals them yet every affliction and debility either when they are under it or got out of it should be looked upon as Godâ— giving them the Alarm and putting them in mind to consider how they will look upon death For however they escape at one time yet that is a Summons which will be renewed 4. At every such Alarm it is the duty of all and will be the endevour of sincere Saints to meet and welcome Death and the Grave and to be as ready for those as they are for them as here Job was Doct. 3. Whatever be the external splendour of men yet it will all be extinguished at death like a bright Candle ending in a snuffe For so the metaphor here doth import My days are extinct Mans life is in a daily decay like a Candle burning to a snuffe And when death comes the vigour and comely complexion of the body doth all evanish His Members Organs Arteries Sinews c. are then swallowed up in silence and obscurity like a Watch when the string is broken and Man savours of putrefaction and becomes dust which is his original And not only so but all his pomp and glory ceaseth Psal 49.17 18. and his thoughts perish Psal 146.4 This doth exceedingly condemn these who content and please themselves in their well adorned bodies their feathers of honour and rides of amibitious thoughts but do not study to have somewhat which will be proof against death Doct. 4. It doth point out yet further the vanity of man that all his Patrimony when dead is a Grave though some get not so much Graves for me saith he This is his Earth Psal 146.4 whom many times the Earth it self cannot satisfie and contain This we should look upon as a sensible demonstration of the vanity of men who hunt after things which they must certainly leave at last although as it fares not with many these things should not forsake them all their lives and who seek to bear so much bulk and are so troublesome upon earth when yet a little Earth will contain them and render them tame enough at last Doct. 5. He names Graves in the plural number not only because dead men have as it were Grave above Grave their Winding-sheet Coffin if they were in use then and the Grave it self But further 1. As Jephthah is said to have been buried in the Cities of Gilead as it is in the Original â— Judg. 12.7 because he was buried in some one or other of them So this may import some one Grave or other And Job speaks so as not caring which or where it were so it proved a Grave For albeit some be ambitious to make themselves famous by their very Monuments and decency in burials and burial-places according to mens quality ought not to be condemned Yet that is not a thing to be much regarded If men get a Grave to hide their bodies from violence and take them out of sight it is little matter what a grave it be for state or magnificence The stately Monuments of many do only serve to continue the memory of their naughtiness who did not live holily nor have left savoury Monuments of their Piety and Charity as Doreas did Acts 9.39 And on the other hand the dust of the godly is respected by God and their memory smells well in the nostrils of Saints though they got but course burial and it may be only the ashes of a fire or the belly of a wild Beast 2. It may point out that his afflictions and pressures were so great and many that every place presented him with Death and a Grave Thus was Paul in deaths often 2 Cor. 11.23 For albeit there be but one way of entering into this world yet there are many ways of dying and going out of it So that men should look upon their life as daily surrounded with Deaths and Graves Doct. 6. The godly under their sad exercises may be much mistaken about the issue of their tryals For albeit all those things formerly marked be good Exercises and sound Truths and this will be the issue of mans life at last Yet for present Job notwithstanding all his weakness was supported and preserved till he got a more sweet issue then he expected Hence 1. When we have looked on our conditions at the worst and we are not to deceive our selves by undervaluing of them we ought yet as is said before to leave a latitude to what God can bring out of them 2. We ought to believe that God not only can but usually doth disappoint the fears and expectations of his own Children under trouble and makes them recal their hasty conclusions Psal 31.22 So that their thoughts are not the Rule whereby he walks 3. We are to believe that it is possible and usual for God
your flowers of Discourse Such as are in trouble may indeed be in a Fever and so apt to mistake in many things Yet they will soon miss that in a Comforter which others will not 4. Albeit godliness teach men modesty and sobriety and to be tender of the reputation of others yet that doth not hinder them to tell men what they are when they are called to it in the defence of Truth and that they may give a check to their proud conceit of themselves For Job here spares not to tell his Friends Friends freely of their want of wisdom 5. Tenderness will not prompt men to tell others their faults that they may insult over them or dash and discourage them but out of love to reclaim them For he tells them this that they may return or change their Opinion and come now to themselves or to close with him and learn of him 6. It is the duty and commendation of men when they are found to be wrong not to persist in it because of their reputation but to quit it and come and learn truth As Job's Exhortation to them imports Vers 11. My days are past my purposes are broken off even the thoughts of my heart In the rest of this Discourse Job proceeds to prove their folly and want of wisdom in giving him any hopes of restitution by shewing how low he was brought and how hopeless his condition was in it self v. 11 12. how he could in reason expect no issue out of it in this life v. 13 14. and consequently how groundless their offers were v. 15 16. In the first place to prove that his health or restitution was hopeless in it self he not only declares that his trouble gave him to understand that his days were near an end in the beginning of this verse but further he gives two Evidences of his low and wasted condition One in the rest of this verse is That by reason of his misery pain and trouble all his purposes were broken off even those thoughts which had been the long possessions as it is in the Original of his heart Whereby we are to understand not so much those particular thoughts of his restitution and deliverance from this trouble to which he speaks afterward for it appears not he had any such thoughts since his trouble came upon him whatever thoughts he sometime had of the continuance of his prosperity when he enjoyed it Ch. 29.18 As in general that all his well ordered purposes and exercises wherewith he had been so long acquainted and all his refreshful thoughts in the days of his prosperity were plucked up by the extremity of his trouble and other exercise put in his hand as it is in the following verse Leaving Job's mistake about his approaching death and the end of his days we may here Learn 2. The days of men are but passing and will at last come to a period For Job's apprehension that his days are past supposeth this as a General Truth that mans days will pass 2. The Lord may in deep wisdom bring men to the gates of death and exercise them with thoughts thereof that they may give a proof how they will look upon it and may find what grace will do in such an exigent and that he may evidence his power in delivering from it For these among other causes is Job brought to apprehend approaching death My days are past 3. Man being a rational creature and not at his rest in this life hath his mind full of purposes resolutions and projects whereby especially when he prospereth and is in vigour he refresheth and delights himself and endeavours to add to the satisfaction of his actual enjoyments For so is supposed that Job had purposes and thoughts which were so delectable and habitual to him that they became the possessions of his heart Men had need to look well what those thoughts are which haunt their hearts for thereby they will know themselves better then by their actings 4. Not only will death make the thoughts and projects of most men to perish Psal 146.4 But even sore afflictions in this life will break over-turn and interrupt many of their sweet thoughts and purposes For saith he My purposes are broken off or plucked up even the possessions of my heart Not only can the Lord make sore afflictions batter down all mens thoughts and expectations of good things within time even after they have long stood out under some measure of tryals and have had possessions of heart and settled thoughts that it should be otherwise Mat 1.4 And when afflictions seem thus to over-turn our expectations it is our duty to quit and yield them up to God as Job in this discourse doth apprehending he was to die But even Saints are not to think it strange if the Lord by sore affliction over-turn their orderly sweet thoughts and exercises under prosperity and about the improvement of it to his glory and in place thereof fill them with restless confusion as it was with Job And as from this Truth in general men should learn to curb their vain thoughts and purposes which time and even a cross before the end of their time can over-turn and to labour after other purposes and designs which affliction can never overthrow however it interrupt them So the godly in particular should take warning to improve their time well in spiritual thoughts and purposes while they have ease considering that affliction may put an interruption unto them 5. Unto a godly man it is not only a sad exercise but an evidence of his very low condition when his troubles do drive him from all his sweet purposes and resolutions For Job propounds it not only as matter of lamentation but as an evidence of his low condition and that his days were past that his purposes are broken off c. As indeed however he mistook the matter of his death Yet as it was no ordinary but very deadly trouble that could drive him a godly man off those Principles and thoughts which were so delectable to him So it could not but waste and spend him much more that he was deprived of them Vers 12. They change the night into day the light is short because of darkness Another Evidence of his low and spent condition is taken from his restless anxious thoughts And that in stead of his former sweet thoughts and purposes his present calamities and his anxious thoughts about them did so toss him that he got not the nights rest but night was as day to him and his dark condition through trouble made the day seem short or nothing at all Whence Learn 1. Anxious thoughts are very frequent in trouble and have a strange Empire and Command over the afflicted For saith he They that is my purposes and thoughts which before were sweet v. 11. are now so changed that they change the night into day c. or so haunt me that they take up all my time by night and by
shall now devour him 2. However a wicked man may get some Serjeants shifted yet the Executioner will come at last whom he will not get declined For destruction will come at last which shall pay all home And this is enough let them escape never so often considering how dreadful it will be and how soon it may take hold of them Luke 12.19 20. 3. Death is a great Conquerour and Triumpher over men in their Bodies Dignities and outward Estate For It shall devour the strength or bars of his skin Yea it triumphs over Princes notwithstanding all their grandeur See Job 3.13 14 15 18 19. Psal 49.14 17. 146.3 4. Ezek. 32.23 26 27 c. This tells that men have need and ought to provide somewhat that will be Deaths-proof 4. A violent death is an addition to the sadness and terrour of death Therefore is that called the first born of death Though the godly may fall in common calamities and go to Heaven in a fiery Chariot and wicked men may die peaceably yet this is the desert of the wicked and is executed upon some of them nor have any of them any security against it and it is a mercy in it self to die a quiet and ordinary death 5. God hath reserved singular judgments for wicked men and their plagues are really such however they appear outwardly For their death come what way it will is still the first born of death considering all the consequences thereof whereas the godly are bound to judge that they are dealt with in a different manner though they fall under the same outward dispensation 6. God will at last make it evident that he is too hard for the stoutest of men and that all their strength must succumb and fall before his power For the first born of death shall devour his strength Vers 14. His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle and it shall bring him to the King of terrours In this verse the resemblance is further prosecuted and Job's renouncing of all confidence and hope in his family as making for death Chap. 17.13 14 15. is pointed at as resembling this wicked Malefactour his being desperate of all hopes in his wealth friends and family and his being brought to death which is the Prince and King of Terrours both in it self and in what it appears to be and really proves to the wicked man Here there are also several mistakes As 1. That Job was to die and be cut off at this time 2. That his renouncing of all his temporal enjoyments is looked on as an act of despair whereas it flowed only from his cleanly self-denial a practice which the world doth not understand 3. That Job did fear death or looked on it as the King of terrours who was rather too eager to be at it 4. Or suppose Saints do sometime fear death yet it is a mistake to think that therefore they are wicked For they may be afraid as considering they have a soul to save while the wicked may mock at death and step laughing into Hell And godly men may get proofs of their own weakness when God is to give them most notable proofs of his grace and love But passing those mistakes there are general sound Truths here also as it relates to the wicked And 1. Wicked men may have their own confidences whereby they uphold their hearts when many other things fail them For so is here supposed that there is his confidence This is a great snare to make them stubborn in an ill way Isa 57.10 though when those are removed it will not reclaim them Jer. 2.25 2. It is the wickeds plague that their confidences are but low base and perishing Such as his family wealth or friends all which are comprehended under the name of his Tabernacle See Psal 146.3 4 5. 3. All the carnal confidences of a wicked man will at last come to utter ruine His props will all fail him and his hopes will end in despair and he must quit them For his confidence shall even be rooted out of his tabernacle His confidences will at last prove too weak to bottom his hopes and Gods jealousie is provoked to crush them 4. If not before yet certainly at death all carnal confidences shall come to ruine For then his confidence shall be rooted out when he cometh to the King of Terrours 5. Death of all outward strokes is the chief terrour to men as being the punishment threatened and inflicted for sin and as cutting off all their outward enjoyments at one stroke Therefore is it called the King of Terrours or the chief of Terrours which are visible on Earth So that men had need to prepare for it and to close with Christ in whom they may triumph over it 1 Cor. 15.54 55. 6. Beside what death is in it self and as it is the common lot of all men it is especially dreadful and the King of Terrours to the wicked For it is in reference to them it is so designed here The godly may die in some trouble and fear though that be not their allowance but slow from their weakness But as for the wicked though some of them may die peaceably as others of them die full of horrour Yet to all of them it is terrible if they considered whither they are going Death in its most terrible colours may look sweetly upon the godly and the mildest aspect of it may be dreadful to the wicked 7. The more carnal confidence men have the more terrible will death be when it cometh and all their hopes are cut off For it is his confidence rooted out that brings him to the King of terrours Not so much because the ruine of his hopes hastens his death as because it makes death terrible that he hath fed upon so many vain hopes Vers 15. It shall dwell in his tabernacle because it is none of his brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation In the last Branch of this Similitude the destruction of Job's family is reflected upon as resembling the consequents of a Malefactours death or the confiscation of his Estate and ruine of his House He seems to allude here to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone and declares that destruction or terrible desolation for the relative It must be referred to what hath been spoken before of the wicked himself v. 11 12 14. as befalling his house also according as it is capable thereof shall dwell in his house and eat up his substance which he had so unjustly acquired and was indeed none of his by right And that his habitation shall be consumed as Sodom was by brimstone or brimstone shall be scattered upon it as a sign of perpetual desolation which the strawing of a place with Salt doth also signifie Judg. 9.45 Here there is an unjust reflection upon Job's purchase of his wealth and upon the stroke of God by fire upon some of his goods Chap. 1.16 as if that evidenced his wealth
of Moses See Lev. 25.25 Ruth Chap. 3. 4. and elsewhere It teacheth 1. It was known of old that the Redemer of sinners as he even then lived being the Eternal God so in the fulness of time should become Man and their Kinsman that he might redeem them so much doth his very Name here import as also his Name Immanuel God with us or in our nature Isa 7.14 This is held out in that Promise in the Garden Gen 3.15 and in the Churches desire to see that day Cant. 8.1 2. The confidence of the godly even before the Redeemers Incarnation was fixed upon him as to be incarnate for their Redemption and Comfort For here Job looks upon him and closeth with him as the Kinsman having right to redeem Thus was he made use of as the Lamb slain from the very foundation of the world or from that very day wherein Adam first heard of the Promise of the Seed of the Woman Rev. 13.8 And the eyes of Believers were upon that day wherein he should come in the flesh to pay the price Luke 10.23 24 Job 8 56. This may point out the infinite fulness of Christ who is the joy of all ages even of those who lived before he came may shew us how sure a bargain that it which is made betwixt the Father and him in that it was useful and effectual to save sinners even before he said down the price and the practice of those Believers of old may make us ashamed if we esteem not highly of him 3. The knowledge of the Redeemer as our Kinsman and flesh of our flesh is the notable encouragement of Believers and help to their faith For here it upholds and refresheth Job that he is such a one For 1. This clears up the admirable condescendence and love of God the Father and his Son Christ far above what shined in the type of the Temple which yet ravished fouls 2 Chron. 6.18 in that such a gift is given to sinners Isa 9.6 Joh. 3.16 Rom. 8.32 and that he would come to us who could not go to him and would be made like us in all things without sin that we might be made like to him 2. This is the sure foundation and pledge of the Reconciliation to be made betwixt God and Man through him in that such an union is made betwixt God and Man in his Person That he is Immanuel secures the Church that it cannot be ruined And therefore his Incarnation is given as a sign that the Church shall be preserved Isa 7.14 and secureth Salvation to sinners Mat. 1.21.22 23. 3. This assures us that he is a fit party to undertake our debt as having right to redeem us being of the same nature with us as well as he hath power to do it as he is God 4. All his fulness as God is treasured up in our flesh in him who is a Kinsman who hath taken our nature and sinless infirmities who is acquainted with our distresses and with sorrows and griefs 5. Hereby Believers are assured that he will prove the nearest friend to them of any will own them though all forsake them will faithfully keep their counsels when they pour out their grievances in his bosom will sympathize with them and take share in all their sorrows c. 6. To all this may be added That poor Believers are ennobled by having such a Kinsman who will own them and make them Kings and Priests unto God Rev 1 5 6. All those may let us see how sweet and refreshful this study of Christ may be to Believers Obs 5. He saith he knoweth his Redeemer liveth He lived even then as he doth from everlasting to everlasting as God and he liveth also after his sufferings as our Kinsman For that this is also imported in what Job saith may be gathered from what he subjoyns as the consequents of his living that his Redeemer shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth and that he shall set him in his flesh and with bodily eyes v. 26. It teacheth 1. It is the great comfort of Believers to know that their Redeemer and Kinsman is God also As here he was known to live before his Incarnation and he is called God v. 26. whom Job expected to see with bodily eyes in his Humane Nature Hereby they see their treasure in him is infinite They see all those sufferings he endured to be of infinite value as being the sufferings of him who is God Act 20.28 They see all that pity and bowels of compassion that are in him not to be a mans or our Kinsmans only for so they might be exhausted but to be his who is Infinite and Unchangeable God 2. It adds in particular to their comfort that he is the living God who liveth eternally and so is able to give spiritual life to his people when they are dead to preserve it when it is given and recover it when they lose any degrees of it and who lives for ever to make them eternally happy with himself 3. It may yet further comfort Believers That however their Redeemer behoved once to die yet not only was he still alive as God but after all his sufferings he is alive as Man For in this respect also doth Job comfort himself that his Redeemer liveth And it is comfortable that not only was he to out-live all his sufferings even death it self by which he could not be held but that he is alive to be Executor of his own Testament and to apply his own Purchase Heb. 7.25 that he hath triumphed over death Rev. 1.18 and by his living again hath assured his people that their debt which he undertook is discharged Rom. 4 25. Obs 6. Job adds further That he knoweth his Redeemer shall stand at the latter day upon the earth The Original may also be read thus He shall stand last upon the Earth Both those readings may be joyned as they will be both verified in Christ at the last day when He shall stand last upon the earth or dust as a Conquerour in the place of Battle after he hath foiled all his Enemies and shall also stand on or over the earth as the word also will bear in the clouds when he cometh to judge the world Both those being joyned together do teach 2. The Redeemer of sinners did undertake all his Peoples Enemies as his own As is here presupposed in his triumphing over them We should send all our Enemies to the right Party who only is able to grapple with them who hath satisfied all that can be craved in justice and who declined none of these Enemies so that they have themselves to blame if they got not satisfaction in him and since he hath escaped them they cannot be heard to pursue any of those who serve themselves Heirs to his Conquest 2. Our Redeemer will out-live all the opposition of all his Enemies and will stand last in the field when he shall destroy the last Enemy Death 1
jovialâ—y They die in a moment peaceably and without any bands in their death v. 13. This whole Discourse tending to one purpose I need not insist upon every word of it but shall reduce the whole to these Heads First This question Wherefore do the wicked live c being considered abstractly from the scope and as spoken to God might import Job's stumbling at this dispensation and his desire of solution about the causes of it as Jer. 12.1 Hab. 1.13 And the Answer to such a Question might be That God suffers them thus to prosper not because he loves them or minds their good in it or cannot reach them but because he would witness his long-suffering Rom. 2.4 would try the faith and patience and other graces of his Children would teach them to imitate him who is good to his very Enemies Mat. 5.44 45. and would suffer the wicked to discover themselves more and more and run upon snares c. But Job doth not here stumble at this lot v. 16. and he propounds the case not to God but only to his Friends to refute their Opinions As if he had said If that be true which ye assert concerning the ruine of wicked men How cometh it to pass that dayly experience lets us see so many wicked men prospering This being Job's scope in the Question it teacheth 1. Men once engaged in an Errour may be so blind and so be misled with prejudices and mistakes that they will not see clearest Refutations of it as they could not remark constant at least frequent Experiences witnessing against them Some men being once engaged think themselves so interessed as they will not see what may reclaim them and there are so many delusions and strong delusion and some are so given over to them that it is no wonder they cannot see the Truth 2. The more obvious and clear that light be against which men sin by their Errours their sin is the greater and the more inexcusable As when men sin not only against Divine Revelation in things which are above the reach of Reason or against sound Principles of Reason in things that may be proved thereby but even against sense and experience whereof Job makes use here to refute and aggravate the Errour of his Friends Thus men are said to become unreasonable or absurd 2 Thess 3.2 and natural brute Beasts 2 Pet. 2.12 And men are given up to such dispositions not only for the tryal and exercise of the Lovers of Truth who oppose them and cannot get them convinced by any means or arguments and to excite us to pity Adam's faln Posterity when left to themselves and to cause all men read their own dispositions and inclinations by nature in their way But that this may be a warning unto and if they persist a punishment of these who see not the evil of more refined and polished Errours Secondly The gale of the wickeds prosperity in their Persons Children Family and Wealth within and without doors v. 7 8 9 10. may teach this Truth That the doctrine of Zophar and his Companions is not true of all the wicked But many of them have a constant and full portion of prosperity A Truth which the Lord in this Book doth inculcate for guarding of the hearts of the godly who because they need rods to mortifie their corruptions and have many Enemies are exercised with another lot And it is a Truth which may hold out these Instructions 1. Prosperity is not of so much worth and excellency as many think nor is it the conduit whereby God conveys and communicates his special love to all to whom he gives it For if it were so it would not be dispensed as it is And it is because the godly think so much of it that they want it so much And God is more gracious to them than to it give to them when they are in such a frame as makes them ready to abuse it 2. Though dispensations both of prosperity and adversity be not dumb and say nothing nor should be useless Yet they alone and of themselves say nothing to clear the state of a mans soul before God nor can a man judge thereof by any such lot The highest gale of Prosperity here mentioned may consist with Gods hatred and all Job's Adversity may consist with love 3. The godly should not envy the wickeds prosperity as the Psalmist did Psal 73 3 c. but should rather pity them seeing they will get no more Nor should they quarrel much with the wicked about these things which are their only portion and not theirs 4. The godly should not be stumbled at adversity nor cast down with the want of prosperity If there were no more to be considered but the will of God who ordereth all these things it were enough But much more ought they to be satisfied when they consider That their portion is secured whatever befal them in the world That they are only separated a little sooner from the contentments of time for they will part with them at last as the wicked must also do That whatever their lot be they are supported and provided for and have food and rayment though possibly not to their carnal hearts desire That in their adversity they are called to bring up a good report of the riches of the grace and favour of God wherein all their wants are made up and not to mourn over these Idols whereof they are deprived but to let see that they can be crucified to the world as well as it is crucified to them That they are but fitted to move toward their Countrey being delivered from many impediments of a prosperous condition which clogged them And in a word That there is a blessedness even in adversity to them Psal 44.11 We will never attain the right use of our present lot nor are we fitted for any issue from adversity till we come to under value prosperity and to rejoyce in the love of Christ in the want of other things Rom. 8.35 39. And till we be more mindful and careful of the blessing of our sad conditions than of an issue of them For without this if we were delivered we would but run mad in seeking to satisfie our unsubdued and long starved lusts 5. When the godly look upon all these particulars of the wickeds prosperity in their persons children family wealth c. they may also on the contrary see how many doors God hath whereby to let in trouble upon them by afflicting them in any of these Whence may be gathered partly how frail man is and how God hath him at an advantage to make him miserable if he please by many means Falling upon him either in his Person or his Children or within or without doors Partly How many things the wicked need to patch up some shew of happiness to themselves seeing they will not delight in God Partly That the godly ought to remember what tryals in all or any of these enjoyments
pleasure in his house after him c. The meaning whereof is not that he needs not care how it fare with his family after him as many do too anxiously seeing himself is cut off in his own person nor yet that though he expects that his prosperity shall be continued in his family yet it cannot comfort him seeing himself is cut off For his Children being to be destroyed in his own time v. 19. he cannot expect the prosperity of his family when he is gone But the meaning is That though sometime he pleased himself with the expectation of the continuance of his house and family yet he shall be deprived of all that comfort when he and his posterity are cut off violently and before the time for then all his expectations shall be frustrated Whence Learn 1. It is a part of the wickeds folly that they feed themselves with vain hopes and imaginary comforts and pleasures in them as the wicked man here seeks to find pleasure in his house after him or in the apprehension of the continuance of his family See Luke 12.19 Which may put us to try what vain thoughts we may be feeding upon 2. One of wicked mens vain dreams is their hope of perpetuating their house and glory Psal 49.11 And that they feed before-hand upon an apprehension of the eternity thereof For he takes pleasure in his house after him what he presently enjoys will not serve his turn unless he antedate imagined contentments and pleasures to come 3. Such vain hopes of a long tract of prosperity to themselves and their posterity after them are oft-times blasted to the wicked before their own eyes And as God mercifully oft-times disappoints the fears of the godly so he walks contrary to the wickeds hopes For it cometh sometime to this in the wickeds own time What pleasure hath he in his house after him 4. If no less will bear down the wickeds vain hopes God can do it by a speedy cutting off of themselves and all the prosperity of their family and condition For this takes away his pleasure when the number of his months is cut off in the midst Albeit mans months and time be determined Chap. 14.5 yet the number thereof is said to be cut off in the midst when they die violently before the time they might have continued by the ordinary course of nature and before the ordinary term of mans life be expired Psal 90.10 and sooner than they are ready for death or expect it Psal 55.23 and before they be well setled in their prosperity 5. Mans life is so short and uncertain that they are most wise who reckon it by shortest periods As here it is reckoned by months and elsewhere by days Psal 90.12 6. It speaks great wrath and imbitters the wickeds sad lot that they expected the contrary and fed upon vain dreams which are disappointed For this speaks the wrath of the Almighty v. â—0 and renders his condition sad that when he was taking pleasure in his house after him the number of his months is cut off Vers 22. Shall any teach God knowledge seeing he judgeth those that are high From this to v. 27. Job speaks of Gods various dispensations toward wicked men conjunctly that he may silence the carpings of mans wit in these matters This Narration consists of three Branches In the first whereof in this verse he gives an account of his scope in this Discourse which is to demonstrate that none should presume to teach or set bounds to God in these things as his Friends by their doctrine tyed up God to one way of proceeding with wicked men Whereas God being the Supreme Judge of the highest he ought not to be controuled by any but may deal variously with the sons of men at his pleasure Whence Learn 1. In Gods guiding of the world and particularly in his dispensations towards wicked men much of his Knowledge and Wisdom do shine and they come not to pass at random or adventure For so is here imported that there is knowledge in these affairs or God makes his Wisdom manifest in them See Psal 92.5 6 7. 2. Most part of men do not see this Wisdom of God but because they cannot comprehend they do carp at it or would carve out a way of Providence of their own which they think most fit For here it is imported that some men would prescribe a way of their own as his Friends did in the debate betwixt him and them 3. To carp at what God doth or prescribe what God should do in his Providential dispensations is in effect to presume to teach God as if we were wiser than he For so is here imported that they by their Principles and by their censuring of his Doctrine wherein he gave a true account of the dispensations of Providence did presume to teach God knowledge 4. The sinfulness of this course of prescribing unto God is such as should make it to be entertained with indignation by all who fear God and be looked on as abasing God and dishonourable to him who guides all things better than man can prescribe For so much doth this question import Shall any teach God knowledge 5. God is nor only Infinite in Power above the highest but in authority also being a Judge who can call them to an account when he pleaseth For he judgeth those that are high whether faln Angels Jude v. 6. or great men Eccl. 5.8 See Rev. 6.15 16. 6. The absolute Soveraignty of God manifested in his judging even of the highest may discover the folly of mens presuming to teach him wisdom seeing herein shines his Soveraignty not to be carped at his Wisdom sutable to his Authority and his purposes far beyond our reach Therefore is this brought in here as a reason of the challenge Shall any teach God knowledge seeing he judgeth these who are high Vers 23. One dieth in his full strength being wholly at ease and quiet 24. His breasts are full of milk and his bones are moistened in the marrow 25. And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul and never eateth with pleasure In the Second Branch of this Narration in these verses he gives an account of the various dispensations of God toward wicked men 1. For prosperity That some die in full strength of body having inward and outward case and without any disquiet till their death v. 23. which is further amplified v. 24. That they are in great vigour and their bones full of marrow like breasts full of milk or rather that they have affluence of all things instanced in the abundance of milk wherewith their breasts namely of their Cattel or their Milk-pails as the word also signifieth are filled and that because of this affluence they are in great vigour every one of their bones for the verb is singular being moistned with marrow or as the words will also read the marrow of their bones being watered and refreshed by reason of their plenty of food
and their encouragement in their prosperous condition This last may also import their power and strength to maintain their prosperous condition And so these two verses will contain four Branches of the prosperity of the wicked their vigour and strength of body their peace and quietness v. 23. their plenty or affluence of all things and their power to maintain all this v. 24. any of which if they be wanting will render their prosperous condition defective 2. For Adversity That some of them die in great disquiet and bitterness having had their very meat imbittered to them all their days v. 25. Whence Learn 1. God exerciseth great variety in his dealings with the Children of Men that he may prove he is debtor to none that none may know love or hatred by outward things and that the wit of man may not think to comprehend his way For so are we taught here by these various Instances 2. It is profitable for men to be acquainted with this that God exerciseth such variety in his dispensations especially in their prosperity that so they may not stumble at it in their adversity For Job sheweth he had been acquainted with all this before-hand and therefore did not stumble at his own lot as his Friends did 3. Bodily strength is no fence against death which observeth not the Laws of Nature but the appointment of God For here some die in their full strength or in the strength of their perfection 4. To live plentifully at case and in strength and power till death come is no infallible mark of Gods favour For here the wicked have that being wholly at ease and quiet and their breasts full of milk c. all which will but make the separation by death sadder to them 5. Bitterness of mind is the saddest of troubles as here it is instanced as the sad lot of some of the wicked that they have bitterness of soul 6. Bitterness of soul will make all mens necessary comforts and refreshments of body bitter to them For a man in such a frame even never eateth with pleasure 7. Bitterness of soul justly followeth some wicked men not at some fits only but even to their graves For some die in the bitterness of their soul Only unto all this it would be added That however this be the just lot of the wicked yet the godly may have some tasts of this soul-bitterness as Job's own experience to name no other doth teach Chap. 3.20 24. And therefore 1. We should beware of pride and murmuring which do imbitter us we should beware of feeding or entertaining our bitter humours or of provoking God by our doating upon time to imbitter it unto us 2. We should observe that there are degrees of imbittering our condition As no Saints can say they have all bitterness and no pleasure at all so none have their condition wholly pleasant but some have less pleasure than they have pain and some have little pleasure and much sorrow Therefore we should beware of complaining or to make our lives altogether bitter because we have not all the satisfaction we desire Vers 26. They shall lie down alike in the dust and the wormes shall cover them In the last branch of this Narration in this verse he gives an account of the issue of the wickeds life and their equality in death notwithstanding the various lots they found in their lives Whence Learn 1. Whatever be mens lot within time sweet or sowr yet they must die and leave it as here we are taught 2. Death will bring all men to the dust and to be trampled upon by the worms For they ly down in the dust and the worms shall cover them See Psal 49.14 3. Death it self will not make a visible difference among men by what is visibly in it but leaves them equal and alike till the resurrection For they and others also as well as wicked men lie down alike c. Even those who had an harder lot than others in their lives are but equal with those who lived at ease in the grave Vers 27. Behold I know your thoughts and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me 28. For ye say Where is the house of the prince and where are the dwelling places of the wicked Followeth to v. 34. the third part of the Chapter Wherein Job applieth his general doctrine to the present debate in hand and to refute their thoughts concerning him and his case It may be reduced to three Heads The first whereof in these verses is the stating of the Controversie or a proposition of their thoughts concerning him and his family and the thing which they dâ—ave at in their discourses and which he is to refute He propounds in general v. 27. that he knew their designs and thoughts in all their discourses and their unjust devices to conclude him wicked And v. 28. he layeth out-their thoughs more particularly That in all these generals which they had spoken of the ruine of wicked great Ones their houses and families of which see Chap. 15.34 18.21 20.28.29 he was the Butt they aimed at and that by reason of the ruine of his family who was a prince Chap. 29.25 and the overturning of the house where his children were met Chap. 1.18 19. they would have it concluded that he was a wicked man So that they might as well have named him and his children in their discourses as hold in general as they did This may serve to clear that we have stated the controversie aright betwixt Job and his Friends from the beginning and that the debate runs upon this whether greatest temporal afflictions such as befel Job and his Children do prove men to be wicked So that unless we carry this along as the great Controversie debated betwixt them in contradictory terms we cannot but mistake in expounding this Book Withal Job's way here sheweth That in all debates it is needful the controversie be rightly and clearly stated As he states the case distinctly here when he is to make use of his former doctrine to refute them Where this method is not followed men will easily be bemisted with confusion and errour may be adorned with specious pretences and truth loadned with reproches and odious consequences The only remedy whereof as also in clearing of inward soul exercises and tentations when clouded with confusions is to draw questions to a clear and true state that we may be able to judge of the merits of the cause and not by a mistake draw wrong conclusions from a weak or false ground In particular Obs 1. If we consider that general Doctrine in it self v. 28. which they intend to apply unto him it teacheth That God in his holy Providence may sometime give a strange and sad account of wicked mens lots It may be said of them Where is the house of the Prince c Here if we abstract this from their erroneous principle that this is the lot of all the wicked and
contrary 4. From this reasoning of Job that godly men do not see such dayes of God we are not to think that Job would universally conclude that God hath prefixed no times for punishing any of the wicked even visibly in this life or that godly men see no such instances at all of Gods plaguing them exemplarily For God revealed his purpose concerning Sodom to Abraham even before it was executed Gen. 18. And Job himself Chap. 21.17 18 25. grants that there were some such instances to be seen But his meaning is That it holds not universally true of all and only the wicked that they are singularly punished in this life as his Friends asserted But God punisheth some of them so visibly in this life as others may discern it Others and many of them he permits to walk on in their wicked course and yet lets them die an ordinary death reserving their punishment to be inflicted in another World This being the meaning of the words the sense will easily agree with another reading which takes the whole words as spoken by Job according to his own sense of things but with a little difference of Translating thus Why are not the times hidden by instead of from the Almighty or surely they are hidden by him seeing they who know him see not his dayes That is to say the time and way of Gods punishing the Wicked is so various that Saints cannot discern it so as to make a fixed general Rule of it far less can they judge of mens state whether they be godly or wicked by their outward lots But God hides those with himself sometime plaguing some of them visibly and again sparing many of them all their life long so that none can know Love or Hatred by these things From this general Proposition Learn 1. The judgements to come upon the wicked are here designed by the times and days thereof To let them see that whatever be the Lords dealing and indulgence toward them Yet 1. Their Prosperity is changeable if and when he pleaseth as being measured but by time which is still in flux and motion and wherein men are obnoxious to changes and cannot get fixedness 2. The change of their condition may be very sudden and speedy even in a day See Psal 30.5 Prov. 27.1 Is 17.14 Doct. 2. That judgements and miseries will come upon the wicked is most certain though the time thereof be not so determined that men can know it For the Question betwixt Job and his Friends is not about the thing it self Whether wicked men shall be miserable in end but about the times and dayes of it So that though it come not in our way nor when we would fix the time yet it will come 3. The times wherein God will reckon with wicked men are in his hand to fix and determine them as he pleaseth For it is imported here that these times are in Gods hand and hidden by him to plague the wicked when he will though he do not fix the times as his Friends asserted he did and that he is the Almighty to make his purposes effectual So that the wicked are not Masters of their own times but God may surprize them ere they be aware Luke 12.19 20. 4. Times of Gods Judgements upon wicked men are called dayes and his dayes 1. To shew that by these Iudgements as by clear day light the wicked and their wayes will be discovered what they are since they would not see them selves and their courses in the Word but judged partially because of their prosperity See 1 Cor. 3.12 13. Is 10.3 Ezek. 28.9 2. To shew that as the wicked will take their day and time of it wherein they walk after the imaginations of their own hearts and contemn God So then God will take his time of it wherein he will make his Holiness and Iustice to shine and cause the wicked know themselves So Is 2.12 and frequently Doct. 5. It is the Character of truly Godly men that they know God For here they are designed to be they who know him See Joh. 17.3 This imports 1. That godly men consider with whom they have to do in their Religion and walking 2 That they do not take him up by guess or at randome as the wicked do but from sound light so that they know him indeed 3. They entertain this knowledge by keeping up acquaintance and familiarity with him 4 And by studying to observe his hand and take him up in his dispensations and providences in the World as here they would endeavour to see his dayes 5. All this knowledge is not in their head only but sinks in their heart and appears in practice Ps 9.10 Dan. 11.32 Doct. 6. Godly men are most like to know any passages of Providence or purposes of God about men in the World For so doth Job's arguing import that if there were any such thing as his Friends asserted Saints would most readily know it Albeit they must not nor is it required of them to know every thing and particularly all Gods purposes See 2 King 4.27 yet they are most likely to know Gods secrets in so far as it is good for men to know them Gen. 18.17 18. Ps 25.14 and they are most accurate Observers of his Works 7. There is no experience or observation of Saints that can prove the wicked to be alwayes visibly plagued in this World For so much doth Job assert and argue here and confirms it by contrary instances in the rest of the Chapter So that we are not to take the evidences of mens state before God from their outward lots and we must leave the providences of God about men as a Mystery into which we cannot dive and wherein he will not be limited or prescribed unto by us Verse 2. Some remove the land-marks they violently take away flocks and feed thereof 3. They drive away the ass of the fatherless they take the widows ox for a pledge 4. They turn the needy out of the way the poor of the earth hide themselves together In the second part of the Chap. Job proceeds to confirm that the experience of Saints proved no such thing as his Friends asserted But on the contrary that experience will bear witness that many wicked men escape unpunished in this life And first to v. 13. he produceth instances of Oppressors and Robbers v. 2. 11. who yet are not visibly punished v. 12. In these Verses he seems to speak of these Oppressors who converse in Civil Societies as among men and yet oppress their Neighbours And first he sheweth that some of the wicked for though in the Original it be universal or indefinite they remove c. yet the scope leads us to understand it but of some of them do remove their Neighbours Land-marks v. 2 which God expresly forbids Deut. 19.14 Prov. 22 28 and 23.10 and that under pain of a Curse Deut. 27.17 2. He declareth that some of them also take away the Flocks of
no covering in the cold and are wet with the showers of the mountains c. 3. When men are under great afflictions small mercies will be very great in their eyes As those stripped persons are content to embrace a rock for want of a better shelter Undervaluers of meâ—cy do proclaim that they are so dealt with as they forget the difficulties of others See Heb. 11.37 38. Verse 9. They pluck the fatherless from the breast and take a pledge of the poor 10. They cause him to goe naked without clothing and they take away the sheaf from the hungry 11. Which make Oyl within their walls and tread their Wine presser and suffer thirst In these Verses Job proceeds yet to give an account of further acts of these Robbers cruelty and of the aggravations thereof And 1. That they spare not even the weakest but pull the very fatherless babes from their mothers breasts that they may keep them themselves or sell them to others for slaves or cause their mothers redeem them again v. 9. 2. That they spare not even the poorest but take the apparel of the poor for a pledge and take away the sheaf which the hungry have gathered among the reapers v. 9 10. Where that they are said to take a pledge doth not import that they do legally pursue or make use of any pretences of Law but only that they take somewhat as a pledge from the poor Mothers for redemption of their Children or take other rewards from these they reach to deliver them our of their hands 3. For what is subjoyned v. 11. some understand it of oppressing Masters who not only defraud labourers of their hire Jam. 5 4. to deprive them even of meat and drink and that when they are about the labours of their harvest making their oyl and treading their wine-presses which is the time wherein very beasts are not denyed the plentiful use of the creatures Deut. 25.4 But the context leads us rather to understand it of the condition of the poor formerly mentioned if not of others also by reason of these Robbers That though they tread their Wine-presses and make their Oyl within their walls for greater safety yet they are robbed and get not leave to enjoy the fruit of their labours but suffer thirst Doct. 1. There is no age nor condition of persons exempted from tryals but God may exercise them therewith when he will For even babes upon the breast and others may be tryed No men should plead exemption to themselves and as they should acknowledge it a mercy when they are free so when they have been long spared they should look that possibly they may be met with ere their course be ended 2. As God distributeth conditions and lots in the World as he pleaseth and maketh some fatherless poor hungry and thirsty So it is not to be expected that former afflictions will exempt men from new tryals when the wicked are let loose or God hath them to exercise For even the fatherless upon the breast the poor the hungry and thirsty are exposed to new tryals by these Robbers God in his Soveraignty may so dispose of men if he please and mens sins deserve all this Is 9.12 17 21. and 10.4 especially when they improve not former troubles Lev. 26.21 22 c. Amos 4.6 12. 3. It is a mercy to parents to get leave to enjoy their own children and a sad affliction to be robbed of them As here it is a great tryal that they pluck the fatherless from the breast Which as it condemns the barbarous cruelty of those Nations who pull away Infants that they may sell them to others or make Slaves of them themselves So it should quicken Parents who are free of such a tryal to look well how they educate their Children that they may find them their company and liberty a mercy to themselves and others with whom they live 4. God will own the cause of the indigent and afflicted especially when they are wronged in their very livelyhood and necessary apparel For so Joh supposeth that if God avenge any Injuries visibly in thâ—s life he will avenge Injuries done to fatherless babes to the poor hungry and thirsty We ought to be sober when we are deprived of superfluities only for that is oft-times a just chastisement upon Gods part and may prove a mercy to us if we mortifie lusts diligently when their fuel is taken from them and when it cometh to extremities God will appear and be a party against those that wrong us especially when we are humbled before him 5. It is a great addition to tryals when mens endeavours to prevent them do not avail them That even within their walls where they think to secure their harvest they get not so much as a drink of their own Wine but suffer thirst and that when they have gathered their sheaf it is taken away Endeavours to prevent trouble though it be our duty to use them will but imbitter us with disappointments and so augment our afflictions till our tryal be perfected Especially if we think to secure our selves by our own endeavours without turning to God Is 22.9 10 11. Mal. 1.4 Verse 12. Men groan from out of the city and the soul of the wounded cryeth out yet God layeth not folly to them Here Job closeth this instance of Oppressours and Robbers shewing how God spareth them notwithstanding their cruelty For however by reason of the cruelty of these Oppressours in Cities or Civil Societies and these open Robbers formerly mentioned men are heard to groan because of oppression from out of the very Cities and the soul of the robbed and wounded to death belike by Robbers without do cry out of this horrid cruelty yet the Lord doth not visibly charge this sin and folly upon the Oppressours but suffers them to escape unpunished in this life Because the supplement to them in the end of the Verse is not in the Original therefore some render the words thus God disposeth no absurdity But the sense of this must fall in with the former reading That notwithstanding Oppressours be thus cruel yet the Lord doth no absurd or unbeseeming act in not pursuing them visibly but permitting them to vent their cruelty Doct. 1. Oppression may draw very deep even to enter Cities and may put the oppressed not only to secret groans but to crying out through deadly wounds Which may teach oppressed people to observe and acknowledge Gods mercy when they meet with a more gentle measure 2. Oppression is a crying sin and as it makes the oppressed groan and cry out so God will hear those though none other regard them as he hears the cryes of the young Lions and Ravens Psal 104.21 Job 38.41 For so are we here taught that their groans and cryes are heard and God would avenge them if he did not see it fit to testifie his long suffering 3. The moe they be who are oppressed it adds to the weight and hainousness
however men may be too stupid in not observing and making use of ordinary stroaks yet they should not be remembred with too much resentment were there never so much affection to the parties who are smitten For the womb shall forget him he shall be no more remembred but broken as a tree Which may both import a defect that there is not only no resentment but no use made of this death because it comes but in an ordinary way in which case singular tryals come Is 26.10 11. And also a duty not to make too much noise of ordinary tryals by way of resentment murmuring and repining which argue the strength of lusts though it be our mercy to be exercised thereby lest God do strange acts Is 28.21 to rouze us up 3. The best of men will putrifie in the grave and make a sweet feast to the worms For it is here marked as an ordinary lot that the worm shall feed sweetly on him So low must the highest stoop as being but worms themselves Job 25.6 And then mens high thoughts will fall when Death the great Leveller takes hold upon them 4. The wicked deserve so much severity even in this life that an ordinary death is an easie and great favour to them For it is a proof of Gods indulgence that such sinners dye but an ordinary death and have no odde thing in the way of it to be remembred when they are gone If wicked men were pursued according to their deservings there would be moe than these of old who should not dye the common death of all men Numb 16.29 5. No indulgence of God doth prove the innocency of wicked men nor is their sin the less hainous in Gods sight nor ought others to think more lightly of it that he spareth them For those who are thus spared are yet even wickedness in the abstract It is an horrid sin to call evil good yea or to have more favourable and diminishing conceptions of sin because of sinners success or Gods indulgence towards them And our hearts should rise against prospering sin and call it wickedness otherwayes we are in hazard to be tempted to concurr with sinners in it Verse 21. He evil extreateth the barren that beareth not and doth not good to the widow From this to v. 25. Job returns yet to give more instances of Oppressours who are cut off but in an ordinary way In this Verse he gives an instance of some who oppress the barren and widows who either want Children or Husbands to relieve and succour them Whence Learn 1. Oppression is one of the most rise and odious sins and lyeth as near vengeance as any Therefore doth Job instance that as a sin which God would not pass over if he alwayes punished notorious sinners as his Friends asserted See Exod. 37. Ps 12.5 Eccl. 4 1 2 3. and 5.8 2. Barrenness is a sharp tryal wherewith the Lord is pleased to exercise some Women For here the barren is joyned with the widow as a person already afflicted Yea among the people of Israel it was a special reproach 1 Sam. 1.5 6 c. Luk. 2.24 25. And here 1. Godly persons who are exercised with that tryal ought to remember and make use of the Eunuch's promise and blessing Is 56.4 5. 2. They should also remember that some have been exercised with that tryal that they might afterward receive singular proofs of love in obtaining their Children Thus barren Sarah and Rebekah got Sons of the promise Hannah a Samuel Elizabeth John the Baptist c. 3. All ought to guard lest being unmortified under this tryal they get Children that will but augment their sorrow And however it succeed we should beware of Abraham's tentation Gen. 15.2 and of Rachel's distemper Gen. 30.1 For both sinned in it and Rachel took a sinful course to help it Gen. 30 3. though God at last gave a good issue 4. This should teach them who have Children from the consideration of the tryal of others to improve them as a blessing that their name do not stink for their ill breeding of them Doct. 3. Widowhood is another tryal and exercise of some of Adam's posterity For here the widow is a person afflicted whom men ought not to oppress And by this tryal 1. The Lord would let some see how little sensible they have been of mercy when they were under the shadow of an Husband who cared for them and how ill they have improved marriage society 2. He would invite them to give him more imployment 1 Tim. 5.5 3. He would also sit them for proofs of his love who is the Widows God Ps 68.5 Doct. 4. It pleaseth the Lord to exercise great variety in afflicting the children of men by withholding mercies from some as the barren who want children and depriving others of them after they had them as the widow whose Husband is taken away Hereby as the Lord fits tryals in his deep wisdom to every ones strength temper and need of tryals and none ought to judge that the tryal of another were fitter for them than their own So he would teach these who never had these outward mercies to be content considering how they might be tryed with the want of them after enjoyment and he would teach these who enjoy them to be sober considering that enjoyment especially if they be immoderate in their affections toward what they enjoy may but imbitter and put an edge upon an after-tryal 5. When persons are already under some tryals it may please the Lord yet to exercise them with more tryals For here the barren and the widow are under oppression Hereby to omit how this may be procured by hainous sins and peoples incorrigibleness Is 9.12 Lev. 26.21 22 c. 1. The Lord proves his absolute and soveraign dominion to inflict upon the children of men what he pleaseth 2. He prevents security and takes away all grounds of presumption that one tryal shall hide us from another Amos 9.4 But being once shaken loose in any thing we should loose our hearts from all things if the Lord please to strike 3. He discovers more of our weakness that we may be humbled for it and study to amend it by continued and multiplyed tryals than would appear in one tryal only 4. He quickens us to our duty by a new tryal when habitual sit-fast tryals become blunt and we fall asleep under them 5. He teacheth that being once broken with trouble it is sit to hold us still going and in exercise whatever breathing-times we get lest our spirits should be worse imploy'd if we were idle 6. He fits his people for many proofs of his love by the manifold tryals and times that pass over them 2 Cor. 1.5 Doct. 6. It is the height of cruelty and oppression to add affliction to the afflicted For this is marked as an eminent oppression to be punished as soon as any when men evil entreat the barren c. This holds true of Oppressours whether they
Wicked mens condition be what it will is not desirable as they have it their mercies being cursed and snares unto them and much more their crosses For so is here imported that the estate of the wicked is the worst estate imaginable to a right discerner So that Job thinks it fit for no friend but only the worst of his enemies who not only hate him but rise up against him if he durst wish them so much evil 3. It is the mark of a godly man that in his greatest adversity he abhorrs the state and condition of the wicked in their greatest prosperity For so doth Jobs wish import which is not a prayer against his enemies but an evidence that he detests their lot and consequently a proof that himself is not wicked See Job 36.21 Verse 8. For what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his Soul In the next place to v. 11. Job proves that he is no hypocrite especially by his cleaving to God in trouble Where he propounds several characters of hypocrites leaving them to gather that he was free of them In this Verse we have the first evidence that he is no hypocrite That whereas hypocrites though they may be full of presumption in prosperity yet all their gain and advantages will afford them no solid hope when death cometh upon them He on the contrary in the depth of his distress and apprehension of approaching death was still full of hope as may be gathered from his expressions Chap. 6.10 and 12.4 and 13.15 and else-where As for this and the rest of these evidences and arguments proving that he is not an hypocrite they are thus to be understood That where those evidences are contrary to these characters of the hypocrite they do infallibly conclude a man not to be an hypocrite Yet if some weak seeker of God find those wanting in some of their measures and degrees and at some times it should be remembred that every real Saint is not a Job nor can produce such eminent works of grace and sincerity as he had nor wâ—ll real Saints be measured by their infirmities or sits of weakness not by the emanations of their flesh if they renounce and mourn for them As on the contrary hypocrites will not be judged by that stupidity which they may have in trouble instead of faith and hope Doct. 1. Hypocrâ—sie is to be avoided as well as gross wickedness by every one that would approve themselves to God For Job clears that he is free of both and having purged himself of wickedness v. 7. he now comes to purge himself of hypocrisie Yea the name here given to the hypocrite signifieth also one that is prophane to shew that God looks upon every hypocrite as such a one however he mask his wickedness 2. Hypocrisie and Coveâ—ousness of love of gain are evils which frequently concurr and goe together For the hypocrite here is he that hath gained Not that every covetous wretch puts on a mask of profession but that hypocrites make use of a cloak of Religion only for their own advantage See Matth. 23.14 1 Tim. 6.5 3. God may let the covetous designes of hypocrites succeed in their hand and so answer them according to the Idol of their hearts whereas he will famish these Idols if godly men hanker after them For it is supposed here of the hypocrite that he hath gained 4. Much of mens contentment especially of godly men or these who pretend to godliness depends upon their hopes For here hope is supposed so necessary to the Sons of men their present enjoyments being so empty especially to godly men that even hypocrites pretend to the hopes of godly men as they pretend to their piety See 1 Cor. 15.19 5. The Hypocrite may be so bolstered up with prosperity that he may live in a presumptuous dream of hope even till his death which is a sad snare upon him For here it is supposed that he hath hope which he never questions till God come to take away his Soul 6. Approaching death is the great touchstone of mens hopes As here it is supposed their hopes will fail who had stood out long before 7. It is an evidence of an hypocrite that he is never really willing to dye For God takes away his Soul by force as the word imports He doth not willingly resign it as Luk. 2.29 but violence is used upon him as Luk. 12.20 8. Death will blast all the hypocrites hopes and will discover these follies in them which they would not read in the Word For saith he What is the hope of the hypocrite when God taketh away his Soul See Prov. 11.7 So that they who study not mortality well will never be sincere and hypocrites may expect that their hopes will fail them when they have most need of them 9. Though the gain and advantages of hypocrites do in this life delude them and put to silence any clamours of their consciences yet none of these will support them nor keep life in their dying hopes at death For What is the hope of the hypocrite even though he hath gained when God taketh away his Soul 10. Those whose hopes in God are not brangled by adversity nor by approaching death if they have also thâ—se other characters after mentioned are undoubtedly no hypocrites For so would Job inferr in his own savours that he is no hypocrite seeing it is not with him as it is with them in the matter of hope Verse 9. Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him The second evidence that he is not an hypocrite may be thus understood That God hears not the cry of an hypocrite in his trouble whether that of approaching death v. 8. or any other because he doth not cry to him as is said Chap. 36.13 as Job now doth in his distress And it is indeed true That to be dumb as to crying to God in trouble is a very black character Ezek. 24.23 And that hypocrites will essay many shifts before they goe to God in distress But this phrase that God will not hear his cry in trouble as it is frequently recorded in Scripture doth rather import that the hypocrite may indâ—ed cry in trouble but God will not hear him as for many other reasons so among the rest for these reasons subjoyned v. 10. Thus the Argument is of the same nature with that v. 7. whereby he proved that he was not wicked That he abhorts the condition of the hypocrite because God will not hear him in trouble and therefore he was no hypocrite And for further clearing of this it may be enquired Quest If this be a mark of an hypocrite That God doth not hear his cry in trouble how will Job clear himself of it who complains so often that he is not heard To which it is answered Answ 1. When Job complains he is not heard he speaks the language of Sense but here he speaks the language of Faith
implying that he was heard Thus also else-where Faith interposeth with a good word of God in the midst of his complaints See Chap. 10.13 and else-where 2. However his Sense judged of Gods hearing of him yet his abhorrence of such a state wherein a mans prayers are rejected by God proves that he is no hypocrite For though an hypocrite may be vexed that he is not heard in trouble yet he doth not so abhorr that condition and what procureth it as the godly man doth of which afterward Doct. 1. God may sometime alarum prospering hypocrites with trouble which they cannot gâ—t avoided For notwithstanding it is supposed v. 8. that the hypocrite may gain and keep up his hopes till death yet here it is also supposed that trouble may come upon him irresistably Thus the Lord deals with some of them that all of them may see how little security they have for the continuance of their prosperity 2. Troubles do usually surprize hypocrites and take hold of them at unawares For so much also is imported in that trouble cometh upon him He hath no will to think upon troubles and he doth not look out for them as Job did Chap. 3.25 26. It is true Godly men may also be surprized not only with the troubles that come upon others 2 King 4.27 but with what cometh upon themselves also when they are over-powred with security Psal 30.6 7. or with impatient haste to be delivered Jer. 14.19 Yet it is a great disadvantage to be thus surprized And therefore we should look out and seriously consider what the condition of the times the usual lots of Saints and the predictions of the Word do prognosticate unto us that so we may be resolved upon it and study to prepare for it Only we must set about this with these cautions 1. That our fears or conscience of guilt do not make every thing we apprehend real to us For fear may create many crosses which we will never see We may be put to resolve upon many tryals wherein God will accept our resolutions and require no more And when the condition of the times and our ill deservings may threaten sad things God according to his Soveraignty in grace may mercifully disappoint us Is 57.17 â—8 2. In what trouble may indeed come upon us let us not judge of our ability to bear it by what we have before-hand but expect furniture to bear it when it cometh upon us 1 Cor. 10.13 and that we shall find grace to help in the time of need Heb. 4.16 3. Though there be a great difference betwixt trouble only apprehended and trouble really felt and smarted under Yet as Christ felt all the trouble he had apprehended and resolved upon and therefore it was sad to him and his Soul was troubled and heavy unto death when it came So we may apprehend more than we meet with and that more bitter ingredients shall be in our cup than God puts into it and so we may find it really more easie than it was in our apprehensions Doct. 3. As Prayer is the kindly product of blessed trouble and we should be fervent and cry in our prayers especially when we are in distress Luk. 22.44 Heb. 5.7 So even hypocrites and other wicked men may for a time pray yea and seem to cry earnestly to God in trouble For so is here supposed that the hypocrite may pretend to the practice of godly men and cry when trouble cometh upon him So also is supposed Prov. 1.28 Ezek. 8.18 and frequently It is true they do not cry alwayes in trouble Job 36.13 Nor do they continue constant at it when they have begun as is hereafter intimated v. 10. Yet at some times and for a fit they may essay how they will speed by betaking themselves to God And this speaks sadly to these who come not even this length but by under prayerless trouble Ezek. 24.23 Dan. 9.13 4. The great ground of sinners hope under trouble depends upon Gods hearing of their prayers For even an hypocrite will then be put to enquire if God will hear his cry See Deut. 4.7 Mic. 7.7 1 Joh. 5.14 Trouble will not suffer men to rest upon their prayers as they are a work wrought and it is sent to chasten them for their formality in their ordinary walk in that they content themselves with praying and never look after any account of the success of their prayers Trouble will put men to see their need of Gods help and how great a mercy it is to get audience of him and how great a judgement it is to have that door shut upon them And therefore we should study not to be formal in prayer and to prize the answer of our prayers Only we are to judge of our success by the Word 1 Joh. 5.14 15. For otherwise our sense may think we get a cold account of the success of our prayers when yet the issue will be well And when we speed not in going to God beware of taking an ill shift 1 Sam. 28.6 7. See 1 Chron. 10.13 14. where it is said Saul enquired not of the Lord because when God answered him not he gave over to wait upon him and went to the Witch at Endor 5. Though it be a lawful errand to have recourse to God because we are afflicted Jam. 5.13 yet God will not hear the cry of hypocrites and wicked men in their trouble For saith he Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him It is sufficient to procure this that they are not reconciled to God and so have not the promise of audience and that they are under much guilt Is 1.15 Mic. 3.4 But more particularly the cause why they get not audience is Because they do not hear God speaking to them in his Word Prov. 1.24 28. Because they do not employ God by prayer till trouble come Judg. 10.10 13 14. Because they have no more to do with God but only that he would deliver them from trouble Exod. 10.17 but do never mind their guilt Psal 66.18 not to turn from it Hos 7.14 16. And Because they seek good things for an evil end Jam. 4.3 And albeit God may have some regard to the prayers of hypocrites and wicked men in temporal things 1 King 21.27 28 29. as he doth also respect the pressing necessities of his other creatures and may encourage such as are sincere by his taking notice of hypocrites Yet this is his ordinary way not to hear them nor have they any promise that he will hear them Joh. 9.31 6. Men ought seriously to consider before-hand how empty the presumptuous dreams of hypocrites are and of how dangerous consequence it is not to be heard of God in trouble For this Question imports that the consciences even of hypocrites if put to it could not deny the truth of this whatever they fancy to the contrary and that they ought seriously to consider of this disadvantage before they feel it 7. The Prayers of
in it 4. It is not sufficient to understand it thus that all wicked men do deserve all this and will be made to suffer these or the like calamities here or hereafter For neither can it be cleared what Job's scope should be in asserting these things in that sense nor will the words bear such a large interpretation seeing they do expresly speak of calamities that befall them in this life Therefore 5. This part of the discourse which is contained in the rest of this Chapter is to be understood by way of concession and that Job grants such things to befall some of the wicked at sometimes though not all of them and at all times as his Friends asserted Thus the summ of his whole answer in this and the following Chapter will amount to this That though he had spoken much of the prosperity of the wicked yet all that was without prejudice to this truth That God dealt otherwise with some of them as here he declares and concedes Only this concession and truth could not militate any thing against him his opinion or lot seeing whatever God do at sometimes yet his wisdom in governing the affairs of the World is so unsearchable and his dispensations of providence are so various that there can be no rule fixed for them but his will nor can any reason be sought beside his soveraign good pleasure why he doth afflict a godly man and spare a wicked man In a word though some of God's providential dispensations and the causes and reasons thereof be clear and obvious yet those must not be made a Standart or Rule by which men may measure and cognosce upon all his deep and unsearchable counsels And from all this we may observe How much debates in God's providence do contribute to clear truth For Job both Chap. 21. and here more at length doth speak more clearly to the matter of the wickeds calamities than he seemed to do in his other discourses And withall this discourse together with what he had spoken Chap. 21. doth warrant us to interpret his Friends doctrine upon this subject as we have done upon every occasion For it is clear from Job's concessions that he and they did not controvert whether the wicked deserved all they spoke of or whether some of the wicked felt it but only whether such plagues did so universally befall the wicked and them only as every man must be concluded to be wicked who smart under the like dispensations In these Verses we have First An introduction to the following Narration v. 13. or a particular preface the same in substance with Zophar's conclusion of his discourse Chap. 20.29 though with some little difference to that part of the Narration which is contained in the following part of this Chapter Wherein he concedes that what he is to speak of is the portion which wicked men and oppressours shall receive from God not all of them though they all deserve it but some only in this life Secondly A begun account of the several sorts of calamities which do befall some of the wicked in this life The first whereof v. 14 15. are calamities which befall the wicked in their children and in their off-spring or posterity which may take in more than their next and immediate issue These though they may multiply for a time shall suffer by sword and famine v. 4. And if any of them remain after these strokes or escape these judgements formerly mentioned they shall be buried in death v. 15. Whereby is not meant their everlasting death and that they shall never have that comfortable morning Ps 49.14 however they shall rise again for Job is speaking here of visible judgements But the meaning is That they shall dye as overwhelmed by some infamous death where they shall lye rotting in forgetfulness and buried under ignominy and contempt This is further amplified from this that his widows shall not weep v. 15. where he speaks of his widows in the plural number which may be taken distributively that the widows of every one of these buried persons who remain of the wicked mans posterity shall forbear to weep for them Or it may be every one of them had many Wives and yet none of them shall weep when they are made widows by their death This is sometimes verified in publick calamities Psal 78.64 Ezek. 24.16 17. But here it seems more especially to import That they have been so wicked and cruel and shall be so remarkably plagued that they shall not be lamented when they are gone even by their nearest relations Or that they shall want publick funeral solemnities and lamentations by their widows and other hired mourners as was an ancient custome Jer. 9.17 18. And so that they are buried in death may further import that they are presently buried after death without waiting for any solemnity as being cut off by some singular judgement and beloved by none In summ they shall be so cut off as shall bury their memory or make it rot above ground and they shall dye unlamented of their dearest relations because of their wickedness and inhumanity and for an evidence of all this they shall be presently buried when they dye without any funeral pomp or solemnity From v. 13. Learn 1. Oppression under whatsoever pretext it be committed is an evidence of wickedness For the wicked man is here instanced in the Oppressour as evidencing himself to be wicked by his oppression 2. It pleaseth the Lord at some times visibly to plague some wicked men as here Job concedes to his Friends It is true he will not still plague and cut off all wicked men For then the World should soon be consumed wicked men would want a stumbling block upon which they stumble to perdition if wickedness were still plagued and did not sometimes prosper they would also be free of many an aggravation of their sin in that they continue to provoke an indulgent God and the godly would wanâ— much exercise of their faith and patience Yet he is pleased by plaguing of some at some times to declare his hatred and manifest his justice against sin that so he may confirm the truth of his threatenings to deterr others who are lying under the same lash and therefore have cause to tremble if they goe on in these courses against which God doth so signally manifest his displeasure 3. Men in judging of Gods dealing or favour toward them should not so much look to their casual or accidental enjoyments as to what is their portion and heritage For here Job layeth the stress of all upon mens portion and heritage intimating that if this be not comfortable it is little matter what men enjoy for a time It evidenceth mens great madness when instead of choosing God for their portion they take the things of this life for a portion which are of no worth nor are they suitable to be the happiness of rational and immortal Souls Psal 17.14 And it speaks no less
some of them As here to be buried in death c. or to dye in an odde way without leaving any memorial of themselves behind them and without any solemnity witnessing mens respect unto them Death in it self is terrible to them as being the King of terrours as being a curse to them without any mitigation a cutting off of all their contentments and happiness and an haleing of them as Malefactors before their Judge and to eternal torments never to see a glad day again And when God lets out some glimpse of this upon some of them in the way of their death it should be the more heeded and lay'd to heart 4. Whatever may be the lot of godly men yet it is in it self a misery to dye undesired and unlamented as here they are buried in death or ignominy and forgetfulnesse and are not lamented but even his widows shall not weep See 2 Chron. 21.20 Jer. 22.28 This may import somewhat of duty that in a sad time particular losses should be swallowed up in the thoughts of more publick calamities as we see in Phineas wife 1 Sam. 4.20 21 22. with Ps 78.64 See also Ezek. 24.16 17 18. It may import also a judgement upon the living that their case is rather to be lamented who are left behind than they who are cut off Jer. 8.3 and 22.10 Rev. 9.6 And that as their private Interests come ordinarily betwixt them and the care of the Publick good So God may send publick calamities which will make them forget their particular sorrows But further consider 1. Whatever fault there may be in others their not remembering nor mourning for these their dead relations Yet it is Gods judgement upon them that they want these marks of respect and favour as indeed men may observe Gods righteous judgement in that wherein instruments acts sinfully 2. Though this also may be the sad lot of Godly men that they are cut off as the filth and off-scouring of the earth Ps 79.2 3. Yet 1. The chief thing to be looked to in a stroak is the guilt procuring it and if that be done away as it is to godly men all is well whatever befall them 2. Such as study piety do take the sure way to be remembered Prov. 10.7 when all other memorials of men will faile 3. However others do esteem of godly men yet they may be ill wanted as being Pillars to uphold the world and means of preserving the places where they are And it is a sad case when they are not lamented Is 57.1 4. Godly men may be missed when they are gone even by those who sleighted them when they had them and desired and it may be endeavoured to be rid of them Therefore Moses dead body behoved to be hid from Israel lest they should Idolize it Deut. 34.6 though they often sleighted him in his life Verse 16. Though he heap up silver as the dust and prepare raiment as the clay 17. He may prepare it but the just shall put it on and the innocent shall divide the silver The second sort of calamities which befall some of the wicked in these two and the next following Verse is the loss of their wealth and estate instanced in these Verses in their moveables such as silver and apparel which though they prepare them in great abundance yet they shall not enjoy but they shall come to the innocent and righteous See Eccl. 2.26 This doth nothing favour their fancy who dream that Saints shall so inherit the earth and have only such a right to all things as they may without sin deprive others of what they have When Saints thus mind earth heaven which is their true portion and inheritance will be forgotten as experience doth witness and such a principle is a ready mean to beget many hypocrites in hopes of temporal advantages But to say nothing how ill purchase may sometime be well bestowed and employed by the conversion of the owners as Is 23.18 Luk. 19.8 Job speaks here only 1. Of a providential dispensation to some wicked and godly men as Prov. 13.22 and 28.8 and that God by his providence may sometime bring the wealth of the wicked into godly mens hands as when Israel got the Egyptians wealth and the Canaanites land by his special warrant and providence not that this befalls all the wicked or all the godly 2. He speaks of what comes to the hands of godly persons by right and lawful means and noâ— by ill purchases For the eighth Command stands firm in its authority except when God dispenseth therewith by his own immediate authority as in the case of Israel's spoiling of the Egyptians 3. He speaks most especially of Gods providence in bringing back the wickeds ill purchase to the righteous owners who whatever they be otherwise are just and innocent as to those who oppressed them Doct. 1. Wealth is another Idol of wicked men beside their children wherewith they are ensnared as here is supposed 2. It is not a little of wealth that wicked men aim at and seeing they put it in Gods room it is no wonder they be insatiable seeing never so much of it will not serve their turn to be an happiness instead of God For they endeavour to heap it up as the dust and clay See Eccl. 5.10 Is 5.8 Luk. 12.15 3. Though wicked men be most tenacious of their wealth and sparing to make use of it yet Apparel is the great Idol of some of them whereby they express their pride and vain-glory and upon which they will spare no cost For with heaping up of silver they also prepare raiment and so this Idol makes their covetousness serve and stoop to it 4. God may suffer wicked men to prosper for a time in getting some satisfaction to their insatiable desires For they may heap up silver as the dust and prepare raiment as the clay This bounty the Lord rains upon them in anger and for a snare for it stops the mouth of conscience and hardens them against all challenges and intimations of Gods displeasure Hos 12.7 8. 5. Wicked men the more they do increase in wealth do but see the vileness thereof the more and do but encrease their own toyl For their heaps are but as the dust and clay as silver was in Solomon's dayes yea they but load themselves with thick clay Hab. 2.6 The deeper men dig in this dunghill they will find but the more vanity and vexation in it See Eccles 5.11 6. Wicked men by all their endeavours about wealth and by their success therein will never reach the end they propound to themselves As here is instanced in some for a document to all who may prepare but get not leave to make use of what they have prepared 7. God in his providence may sometime bring the unlawful purchase of the wicked into the hands of the righteous owners or of them who will employ it better than they For so as hath been explained the just shall put it on
and the innocent shall divide the silver either divide it among themselves or because the word is singular divide it to others who stand in need See Psal 105.44 Wicked men cannot secure who shall be their heirs Esth 8.2 Psal 39.6 And therefore such as have right and are oppressed by others should keep Gods way as lying nearest the promise and blessing 8. It is a mark of piety to use riches well For therefore it comes in the just and innocent mans hands that he may not only put on the rayment but divide the silver Piety is tryed as by mens purchase and estimation so by their using of riches and therefore when godly men abuse wealth it is just they be also stripped of it Verse 18. He buildeth his house as a moth and as a booth that the keeper maketh In this Verse Job sheweth that the wicked mans house or more setled estate shall be as uncertain as his moveables This he illustrates by two similitudes one is of a moth which houseth it self in cloath but is either swept out of it with a brush or eats it self out of house by eating the cloath so the wicked man ruines his house and estate by sin and shall be thrust out of it The other similitude is that his house shall prove but like a keepers booth which is set up for a season and then pulled down Is 1.8 and 24.20 Lam. 2.6 Doct. 1. Wicked men whose names are written in the earth Jer. 17.13 do seek to fix and settle themselves there without minding any higher portion For in this sense it is true of the wicked man in a peculiar manner that he buildeth his house See Ps 49.11 2. Wicked men care not whom they wrong so they may fix and settle themselves For he builds his house as a moth which eats the best cloath and that which belongs not unto it 3. Were the estate of the wicked never so fixed in appearance yet it is but built upon the sand and is but as a moths house and a keepers booth Their very ill purchase as the moths eating of the cloath will eat them out and make the stones and timber cry out against them Hab. 2.10 11. 4. It is easie for God to ruine the estate of wicked men how strong soever they seem to be For he will prove but as a moth and his house but as a keepers booth There is a greaâ— difference betwixt what mans estate may seem to be and what it will really prove in the hand of a sin-revenging God Verse 19. The rich man shall lie down but he shall not be gathered he openeth his eyes and he is not The third sort of calamities which suddainly befall some of the wicked is the ruine of themselves or their persons especially to which the following Verses chiefly speak though they may relate also to his ruine in the matter of his wealth which may be suddenly brought to pass And this is propounded in borrowed terms v. 19. illustrated by other similitudes v. 20 21. and amplified from the Author in inflicting the stroak v. 22. and from the effect and consequent thereof v. 23. In this Verse the suddenness and unexpectedness of the wicked mans ruine is propounded Some do expound the words thus that though the wicked man shall lie down or die calmely yet he shall not be gathered with the Saints to a blessed life after death but then his eyes shall be opened and he shall see that he is a gone man however he thought himself happy before This interpretation doth indeed hold out a sad discovery which a wicked man gets of himself at death when he is departing from his supposed happiness and made to see that he is lost and gone But it doth not agree with Job's scope here who is speaking of these visible judgements which befall some of the wicked in this life Therefore the plain and simple meaning of the words is That the wicked man shall be as one new lien down and not as yet gathered or fully composed for sleep but half sleeping half waking and then a terrible alarm comes upon him and as he lifts up his eyes he is presently gone Doct. 1. Though riches and piety may consist together yet ordinarily rich men are under a great tentation to be wicked Therefore is the wicked man called here the rich man because as he followed wicked courses to attain riches so his confidence in his riches imboldens him to be yet more wicked See Luke 18.24 25. with Mark 10.23 24. 2. Wicked men may expect that besides stroaks upon their concernments and enjoyments their very persons shall not escape which is the sharpest of outward tryals Job 2.4 for so is here threatned 3. Wicked men may be very near destruction when it appears not to be so For when he lyeth down and is not yet gathered he openeth his eyes and he is not To which also another reading agreeth he lyeth down and nothing is gathered or taken away from him but when he openeth his eyes after his sleep he is not See 1 Thâ—ss 5.3 4. It is a sad ingredient in trouble when it cometh suddenly and unexpectedly For so is here intimated that it is an aggravation of the wicked mans ruine that so suddenly he is not And when a stroak cometh in such a way it should be looked on as the just fruit of mens not looking out and preparing for trouble but dreaming of a perpetual happiness 5. When God beginneth to reckon with wicked men he will not do his work by halves but payeth them home once for all For so is here imported in that the wicked man is not when God begins to call him to an account See Nah. 1.9 1 Sam. 3.12 Verse 20. Terrours take hold of him as waters a tempest stealeth him away in the night 21. The east-wind carrieth him away and he departeth and as a storm hurleth him out of his place In these Verses the suddenness and dreadfulness of the wicked mans ruine is illustrated by two similitudes 1. That terrours or terrible plagues shall hurry him away as an innundation of waters breaking in impetuously upon an house built beside it doth carry all away with it v. 20. 2. That he shall be surprized with destruction as when a tempest or whirlwind falleth upon things in a dark night and carrieth them away none can see whither v. 20. This last similitude is yet insisted on v. 21. wherein he declareth that judgements like an East-wind which was very violent in those countries and made a great storm Hosea 12.1 shall carry the wicked man away and drive him out of his fixed habitation From v. 20. Learn 1. No one similitude is sufficient to illustrate the sad condition of wicked men when pursued by God therefore are divers similitudes made use of here to point out how sad their condition shall be 2. Wicked mens ruine will be very violent and terrible and will fill them with terrours seeing they have
by lesser veins man doth follow them out till it be reached 2 Gold whose place they find out where they fine it This is not to be understood as if men set up their Furnace for fining of Gold in the place where they find it But the meaning is either that they do in part refine it there by taking it from among the most of the dross before they bring it out or That it hath a place where they that is Nature and the second causes therein working do fine and purifie it in the bowels of the Earth Or the words may be thus read and understood That the Gold which men Fine hath a place where men find it out by Industry and Art 3. Iron which lieth not so deep but the Oar of it is found neer the dust and superfice of the earth 4. Brass which men do melt out of a stony Oar called by Naturalists Cadmia and Chalcitis Concerning all this it is to be observed that Job propounds this instance of mans industry and skill not secluding other Arts and Sciences wherein men also give proof of their Invention and Wisdom but because this is indeed a notable proof of mans skill and a task wherein Nature much resists mans endeavours and wherein the effects of mans wisdom and industry are sensible and obvious to the view of all Doct. 1. God hath stored this Earth with all things necessary to make it a commodious habitation for man so that both above and beneath ground it is full of needful riches As here Job instanceth particularly in Minerals under ground things above ground being obvious to all 2. God is to be seen in what is more base as well as in what is more precious and his bounty is to be acknowledged in it as being needful for the use of man for he demonstrates his riches in Iron and Brass as well as in Silver and Gold the one being no less needful and of more common use than the other 3. God hath put the choicest of the Earths and Times Treasures not only under mens feet but under ground also that they may not seek their happiness there nor omit their other more needful searches while they make enquiries after them for all these Minerals are under ground 4. However men are apt to quarrel Gods allowances yet he hath so ordered that what is most necessary is to be had in greatest abundance and most easily for therefore Iron and Brass are neerer the superfice of the Earth than Silver or Gold and there is greater abundance of these whereas there are but veins of Silver 5. What is most rare and difficultly attained is most precious as Silver and Gold are upon that among other accounts Hereby the Lord prevents that contempt of these Mercies which would be more vile if they were more plenteous as Silver was in Solomons days And thus also doth he commend the excellency of Spiritual things by their being difficultly attained 6. Even the most precious of natural things require much art to cause them have a lustre in our eyes for Gold must be Fined which sheweth their emptiness as to satisfying of the heart of man that they need art and dexterity to set them off 7. Men are incessant in their study and care to find out what is or what they think is for their worldly accommodation be it above or under ground as here they are supposed to be in finding out of these Mettals Which though it be not unlawful in it self may bear witness against them for their negligence about better things See Luke 11.31 8. Skill in Arts and dexterity for finding out of the Secrets of Nature is an old and common gift for here in Jobs days they had skill to find out these Mettals We find that this skill was among Cains posterity before the Flood Gen. 4.22 which sheweth how little such gifts are to be rested upon for attaining of happiness thereby and what a wonder it is to see many men so quick in these inventions who yet are so blunt in taking up Spiritual Wisdom See Mat. 11.25 1 Cor. 1.23 26. Verse 3. He setteh an end to darkness and searcheth out all perfection the stones of darkness and the shadow of death In the rest of this purpose to v. 12. this general Proposition is amplified and enlarged by giving an account of the difficulties which man overcometh by his industry and skill that so he may reach those and other precious things in the bowels of the Earth Wherein also is held out more of the Earths Riches and a commendation of mans painfulness in seeking them out and so both branches of the Proposition are further cleared The first difficulty in this verse is Darkness to which mans industry assigns yet more narrow bounds and puts a period to it by making it â—â—de to Light coming in its place either when he opeâ—â— the Earth to let in the light of day where darkness was before or by bringing in of Candles and Lamps into the dark Mines And this man doth because by that means he searcheth out what iâ— precious and perfect in the bowels of the Earth and findeth out these precious Stones which lie not only in Darkness under the Earth but in the shadow of Death that is in the deep bâ— wâ—lâ— of the Earth where there is a deadly shade and where things would lie in eternal obscurity as buried in death were it not for mans searching and where there is darkness which might affright men to death and where many have been actually choked and smothered to death Doct. 1. God hath beset man with much exercise and sore toil in his undertakings about things of the world as here is instanced in these who work in Mines And this the Lord doth partly that he may exercise afflict and humble all the Sons of men in their worldly employmentâ— that they may remember their happiness lieth noâ— there partly that he may cause men to find it a dear bargain who sell their souls for these things 2. Men are so addicted to the things of time that they stand upon no pains difficulty or hazard so they may reach them for they will hazard upon Darkness and put an end or period to it in that place where they work and it was before and on the shadow of death that they may find out these Minerals Which may make men ashamed of their negligence in better undertakings where they are easily damped with any darkness of discouragement and where they will hazard nothing though in pursuing of these things below they will hazard upon deadly terrours and upon death it self 3. God in his Providence may make men succeed in their endeavours about the world even when their undertakings are difficult As here they search out all perfection c. Hereby as God recompenseth mens lawful toil and endeavours and encourageth them to undertake higher and more hopeful employment so he raineth Snares upon others who chuse these things for their
expecting that his tryal should have come to such an height For Chap. 3.25 He seems to say that he feared the very thing that was come upon him though no doubt the feaver of passion in which he then was made him speak as largely as might be of his former solâ—citudes to aggravate the sadness of his condition But they are to be reconciled thus In so farr as his confidence was right and allowable it might well consist with a godly solicitude about his duty especially when his Children feasted Chap. 1.5 to which that passage Chap. 3. seems chiefly to relate And in so farr as this confidence was culpable it is to be conceived that sometime that godly solicitude and sometime this pleasing expectation was his exercise And as when he was most tender and looked most accurately to the hazards that accompany a prosperous condition he was ready to apprehend there might be some faults committed which might provoke God to send a change So when at other times he was taken up with his great prosperity and the apparent stability thereof he began to dream of case as David did Ps 30.6 7. In this purpose Observe 1. If we consider what is right and allowable in this expression of Jobs confidence we may Learn 1. As this is a vanity in all temporal prosperity that if it do not leave us yet we must dye and leave it so whatever prosperity a man have or whatever be his thoughts about it yet it should not hinder his thoughts of dying And a godly man when in a right frame will not forget death in the height of his prosperity For his thoughts when he abounds in prosperity are I shall dye Thoughts of mortality and death are a necessary and useful exercise Ps 39 4. and 90 12. And it is a good evidence that we are not quite abused and debauched with our prosperity when it doth not banish thoughts of death and mortality as a burden to us nor cause us dream of an eternity of it 2. Albeit godly men dye with Gods favour in general calamities and when they are cut off in evil company as Jonathan fell with Saul And a wicked man may dye under Gods wrath at home and when he hath no bands in his death Ps 73.4 Yet in it self it is a mercy to dye at home in peace and not to be hurried out of the world in general confusions and calamities For Job looks upon dying in his warm nest as a desirable mercy It is a sad tryal when it is otherwise and may be the fruit of mens ill improving of their houses and families in their lives Yet if men see Gods salvation before they dye Ps 91.16 with Luk. 2.29 30. it is no great matter where they dye or what be the particular way of it And it becometh Saints whatever be the way of their death not to be thereby chased out of the world Job 18.18 but to be still ready and willing to goe when or wheresoever he calls them Only this may warn these who see their friends dye at home beside them that they have less cause to complain than if they had dyed another way 3. A long life is also in it self a good desirable thing Especially if it be attended with prosperity For so doth Job reckon it to multiply his dayes as the sand which is an Hyperbolical expression of many dayes as also of other things Gen. 22.17 and 41.49 Thus we find long life promised as a blessing Exod. 20.12 And the contrary is threatned as a curse Ps 55.23 For godly men who live long receive many proofs of Gods love and many experiences and times which pass over them may through Gods blessing promote the work of mortification in them This should not cause men be impatiently fond of long life and not to be full of dayes whenever God calls them Yet it may condemn them who weary of life and do not improve long life as a mercy and advantage but even in old age they dye children 4. Godly men lay the surest foundation that any man can lay of prosperity and long life and the tenure of their holding of these mercies is surer than any other For in so farr Jobs confidence and expectation was right and sound Godliness having the promise even of this life 1 Tim. 4.8 See also Deut. 28.1 2 3 c. Ps 34.12 13 14. 1 Cor. 3.21 22 23. And as godly men need not to be tormented with the fear of that wrath which hangs over the wicked's head So these promises are put in their Fathers hand to dispense the good things that are contained therein according as he knoweth they will be food and not poyson to them So that undoubtedly they take the wrong course who abandon piety that they may enjoy any of these mercies Obs 2. If we consider Jobs excess in this It teacheth That when godly men do prosper they very readily exceed in their hopes and confidence about outward mercies For even Job was not free of security in this And if we narrowly consider his carriage in this we may observe a few particulars 1. Such is the weakness even of godly men that they can hardly live in a prosperous condition and not be overtaken with some security carnal confidence or other miscarriage So was it here with Job and so was it with David Ps 30.6 7. And we find Paul in hazard to miscarry even after he was caught up to the third Heaven 2 Cor. 12.6 7. And the Church falling asleep at a feast Cant. 5.1 2. Experience hath taught that prosperity is ill to guide For David was in a better frame when driven to the Wilderness by Saul than when he is lying at home and dallying with Bathsheba And this may taech us how needful changes are to keep us from setling upon our lees and how gracious God is when he continues somewhat in our lot that may be as pricks in our eyes and thornes in our sides 2. As wicked men exceed in their carnal confidences that their prosperity shall continue Ps 10.5 6. Especially because they bottom their confidence upon their wit and policy their power the stability of their estates the friendship they have and other the like unwarrantable grounds So a sleep of security is dangerous though it pretend to a better ground of confidence As David pretended to Gods favour and the experience of his kindness when he securely dreamt that he should never be moved Ps 30.6 7. And Job no doubt looked higher than to what he afterward expresseth when he was thus confident It is not much to be regarded how specious the grounds of our confidence are if we fall asleep upon them 3. It is a bad symptome when mens enjoyments are looked upon as very sweet and warm and do bulk much in their minds For here Job accounts his house his nest not for frailty but for warmth and sweetness When we take too well with our good condition it is a token
as particular persons and he hath national plagues for national sins so that the multitude of sinners cannot secure themselves in their sin against God For they shall dye that is both rich and poor v. 19. and the people and the mighty as after followeth 4. When God reckons with Nations no particular persons will be able to secure themselves by any personal priviledges and advantages For even the mighty shall smart with the people See Is 3.1 2 3. 5. God may justly pursue his quarrel against a Nation not only to the impoverishing thereof but even to the cutting of many of them off and to sending of them into captivity out of their Land For they shall dye and pass away and be taken away So that an afflicted Nation have reason to acknowledge God in what they suffer less than this 6. Let a people seem to be never so strong and sure rooted Yet a short time may make a great change upon them For in a moment shall they dye Death can soon sweep multitudes of them away 7. Surprizals are sad ingredients in trouble and they are justly the lot of an impenitent people For their sin deserveth that they should be surprized at midnight See 1 Thes 5.3 So that as the people of God are oft-times surprized with unexpected deliverances Is 17.14 So the wicked may meet with plagues which they discern not before they come 8. National stroaks are full of darkness and discomfort farr beyond personal tryals Therefore also do these stroaks come at midnight and are very dark 9. Perplexities which attend such dark stroaks are very bitter to them who smart under them For being at midnight the people are troubled So that we should guard against perplexity of spirit providing we be not stupid at such times lest if that door be once opened we be over-whelmed therewith 10. The Lord needs no help nor probable means to bring about the greatest changes For they shall be taken away or they that is the judgements inflicted by God shall take away even the mighty without hand Verse 21. For his eyes are upon the wayes of man and he seeth all his goings 22. There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves 23. For he will not lay upon man more than right that he should enter into judgement with God In these Verses the equity and justice of this proceeding is held out 1. In general from the ground thereof Namely the Omniscience of God who as he is careful to observe mans wayes so he actually seeth all of them v. 21. And that so exactly as nothing can hide mans wickedness from him v. 22. And therefore he cannot do unjustly through ignorance and mistakes as men often do 2. In particular from his inclinations and proceedings upon his seeing mans wayes and therefore it comes in as a reason that he who seeth all will be just and proceed against the workers of iniquity That he will not excessively and unjustly afflict man that so he may prevent mans quarrelling with him which Job had often essayed v. 23. From v. 21. Learn 1. All Gods proceedings in the World are upon sure and just grounds though we do not discern them For here a reason is given of these proceedings v. 20. For his eyes are upon the wayes of men c. 2. Gods perfect knowledge is a proof of his justice in his procedure For that is the reason given here to prove the equity of the former proceedings Which not only teacheth Judges to try well before they come to give sentence and see it executed in imitation of this Soveraign Judge but warns us when we quarrel Gods proceedings to suspect that we see not things so well as he doth 3. Gods knowledge is certain and effectual to reach and take up what he intends to observe For not only are his eyes upon them but he seeth things as they are without mistaking So that we should trust his verdict of things rather than our own 4. Gods knowledge is also universal of all the things of men of all sorts of men and in all times and places For his eyes are upon the wayes of man and he seeth all his goings See Chap. 31.4 and the parallel places marked in the Margin both here and there So that he will not judge of men by their fits and we should remember his eye upon us in all places and should believe that he seeth his people even when he seems not to notice their condition as he saw the affliction of Israel in Egypt before he appeared to deliver them Exod. 3.7 From v. 22. Learn 1. Men and especially wicked men are not easily convinced of Gods Omniscience Therefore it must be here told again and inculcated 2. Men also have their subterfuges whereby they seek to hide their courses from God and whereby they do deceive themselves and others and think to do so with God also For so is here supposed that they seek darkness like the shadow of death where they may hide themselves not so much from punishment for that is not the scope here as from being known or seen Hence it is that they seek to conveigh their designes secretly and make use of fair pretences handsome conveighances c. 3. All mens subterfuges and lurking holes will not avail them at Gods hand But as no shelter can secure them from his pursuing vengeance Amos 9.1 2 3 4. So no darkness nor shadow of death will hide them from his All-seeing eye See Psal 139.7 8 c. 4. As Gods Omniscience is for the comfort of godly men walking in his way 2 Chron. 16.9 So it is matter of terrour to the workers of iniquity As here it is inculcated for their terrour 5. Every worker of iniquity carrieth his own dittay and doom in his bosome however such do seem to carry with a high hand For while they seek to hide themselves they do openly profess that if they be not hid they are undone for they are neither able to defend their cause nor to resist that vengeance which they are convinced they deserve From v. 23. Learn 1. God is the Imposer and layer on of mens lots and exercises as here we are taught So that his people should know that they are in a Friends hand they should stoop to him and not add loads of their own through unbelief mistakes discouragement impatience c. with his burdens 2. God doth exercise and afflict man in great moderation and equity For he will not lay upon man more than right The words than right are a Supplement the Original hath only He will not lay upon yet or still that is he will not inflict and inflict yet still more and so impose excessively or too much either above mens deservings Neh. 9.33 Ezr. 9.13 or above the strength which he is ready to give them or more than he will do them good by or so as there is no moderation to be seen in his
of Gods afflicting righteous men yet here he speaks also of hypocrites Not that any truly godly person can turn an hypocrite and be cut off as such but that he may clear how of Professours of godliness who meet with affliction some are sincere and others but dissemblers and that the tryal contributes to the discovering of both and the seperating of the chaffe from the wheat 2. He doth not here make mention of hypocrites with any design to reflect upon Job as one of them but partly to vindicate Gods righteousness in afflicting them who profess piety considerirg that not only he hath holy ends in dealing so with such as really are what they profess of which he hath spoken already and more is added v. 15. but that there are many unsound Professours whom in his holy Providence he discovers by affliction Partly that he may detert Job from some pranks under trouble particularly his complaining more than he did pray he lets him see that they were the pranks of hypocrites and therefore not to be persisted in by him who was a godly man 3. Albeit there was an alternative propounded in speaking of the duty of godly men under trouble v. 11 12. Yet v. 15. he mentions only their profiting by the rod and nothing of their incorrigibleness because that is the ordinary fruit that real Saints get of the rod and it is nor so usual for them when they are in trouble to provoke God by their miscarriages to cut them off And therefore he asserts of them indefinitely or more generally that they are delivered and their cars opended in oppression From v. 13 14. Learn 1. Hypocrisie is an ordinary evil cleaving to profession of Religion So that Hypocrites are very ordinarily and frequently mixed among sincere Professours For so is here supposed in that when Elihu is vindicating Gods dealing with Saints he insinuates this as one plea for him that there is need of affliction upon men of their profession were it but to discover and purge out hypocrites from anâ—â—â—g them So that men should not think it enough that they are Professours if they have no more and even sincerest of Professours have need to guard against hypocrisie which so frequently cleaves to profession 2. The hypocrisie of some may be so closely conveighed and hid in their hearts that in ordinary it doth not appear For there are hypocrites in heart who do not much appear visibly to be such 3. God is so ill pleased even with the most refined of hypocrisie that he will sooner or later have the mark pulled off it and cause the hypocrite appear in his own colours As here it is supposed that they will appear to be under wrath 4. Albeit many times prosperity will discover the unsoundness of some who flattered God under trouble Psal 78.34 35 36 37. Yea albeit close and refined hypocrites may pass through many tryals undiscovered till their tryal which toucheth upon their Idol come Yet a day of adversity is the ordinary touchstone of hypocrisie which will at last find it our and discover it As here it is in affliction and when God binds them that they appear in their colours and the scorching heat of the Sun or the fiery furnace will make the varnish to fall off See Is 33.14 So that hypocrites had need of fair weather for a shower will stain them and make them cast their borrowed colour 5. Hypocrites are especially discovered by their not crying to God in trouble As here they cry not when he bindeth them And albeit this seem to contradict other Scriptures which say they cry only when they are in trouble Psal 78.34 Yet this may also hold true of them or of some of them that when they are in trouble they may at first give over to cry as being madded that they should be in trouble or confounded with it or hoping to find relief another way And if they come to God in trouble they will soon weary and give over if they be not speedily relieved Is 58.3 Mal. 3.13 14. And to express this character of hypocrites more distinctly we may take it up thus 1. If they goe to God in trouble yet there is more of murmuring than prayer in their addresses 2. They are ready to cry more upon the account of what they want than because God binds them or because they see his hand and quarrel in their affliction Hos 7.14 16. 3. They cry more that they may get ease of their trouble than they repent of their sins which procured them 4. There is little fervency or crying in their addresses or what fervour seems to be therein flows not from humility love or hope but from pride bitterness and diffidence 5. Their first recourse is not to God so long as they have any shift beside 6. They lose all hope and weary to cry on if their strait grow and continue while they are crying 2 King 6.30 33. All these should warn us to try and examine our prayers and to look upon it as sad when trouble produceth no prayer or no right prayer Doct. 6. Though hypocrites â—â—e alwayes under wrath yet their miscarriages and discovering of themselves under trouble draws on a greater and more insupportable weight and burden of it For by this they heap of wrath Which should warn all to look to their carriage under trouble 7. Gods wrath against hypocrites will not alwayes evidence it self only by with-holding of favours or speaking sad words to them but will at last break forth in visible effects upon impenitent hypocrites to the destruction both of Soul and Body And especially if trouble be not well improved when God hath begun to reckon with them he will not be dallyed with nor spare them For they dye or their Soul or Life dyeth that is both their Soul and Life dyeth Or the phrase may have relation to the thoughts that hypocrites have of their bodily and animal life which they so esteem as if Soul and Life and all consisted in living here Or it serves to aggravate their fault who have a rational Soul as well as an animal Life and yet dare hazard to draw on death upon themselves in wrath It is true this threatening against hypocrites may admit of an exception in the visible Church Psal 78.34 38. as to the grant of a national pardon to the body of a people Numb 14.20 21 Psal 99.8 Yet God will reckon with particular hypocrites 8. As the Lord seeth it fit sometimes to cut off hypocrites early and some of them by a violent death So it is true of all of them that they dye before they be full of dayes Psal 55.23 they still abhorring death and before they cease and give over their youthfull folly and become wise in God For thus and in these respects they dye in youth 9. Hypocrites especially when they do not improve trouble are justly ranked among the worst of men and dealt with accordingly For their life is cut off
wrath he would have him looking well to his carriage 5. It may excite men under trouble to be watchfull over their own Spirits and carriage if they consider that when God is once provoked and hath begun to contend he will readily cut them off who continue stubborn under corrections For because there is wrath beware lest he take thee away with a stroak 6. Though men in passion be ready not to regard any hazard so they may get a vent to their humours Yet they will soon relent when it cometh to a peremptore For so he supposeth that Job would seek to be delivered if God were about to take him away 7. It may affright men from provoking God to cut them off if they consider that when God is once provoked to proceed to that he will not readily turn back and the stroak when it cometh is irrecoverable Psal 49.7 8 9. For then a great ransome cannot deliver thee neither can it prevent cutting off if once he set about it as there may be such irrevocable sentences concernâ—ng outward stroaks even within time 2 King 23.26 27. Zâ—ph 2.1 2. nor recover thee to lâ—fe again when once thou art cut off 8. It may discover the vanity of wealth and strength and all mens other temporal enjoyments that they can do them no good in their greatest distresses and when they have most need of help and relief For Will he esteem thy riches No not gold nor all the forces of strength Verse 20. Desire not the night when people are cut off in their place In the second branch of the counsel he gives a check to Jobs passionate desire of death and enforceth the former counsel by obviating an Objection For whereas Job might be ready to reject the former advice as being a man who was so farr from being afraid that he should be taken away with a stroak that he did earnestly desire death Elihu forbids him to desire it in that way wherein people or many wicked men meet with it who are violently or suddenly cut off or made to ascend like the light of a candle dying out as men surprized by night in their very beds or place of rest Doct. 1. Death in it self is a dark passage to Nature For it is like the night wherein the Sun of those delights which deceive fools goeth down Men had need to prepare for it and to have much of the light of Faith not alwayes expecting Sense whereby they may see to goe through it 2. The darkness of Deaths passage is many times augmented by the way of mens death when they are violently surprized and cut off in a dark hour of trouble like men cut off by Murderers upon their beds in a dark night For so is death here described to Job Men should not refuse or be unwilling to dye when death comes in an ordinary way since God can make it much sadder 3. Godly men have need to be very suspicious of their own inclinations and desires in a time of trouble considering that they are then in a feaver For Elihu adviseth Job to abandon his desires We are ordinarily least sober in our desires when we have greatest cause of sobriety and that is a sad conjunction 4. In particular Albeit Saints especially ought to be ready for death at all times nor ought they to stumble though God cut them off in common calamities or in some odde way Yet such a way of death ought not to be prayed for or desired by them For saith he Desire not the night c. Yea all their longing after death when they are under a cloud ought to be suspected and well tryed Verse 21. Take heed regard not iniquity For this hast thou chosen rather than affliction In the last branch of his counsel he summs up his advice in this general That he should not be more taken up with affliction than with sin under it and that his miseries should not tempt him to impatience Whence Learn 1. Whenever trouble cometh on as God layeth trouble and sin before us to try us which of them we will choose So it is not our misery that Satan so much designes as our sinning Therefore he adviseth Job to have his eye chiefly upon iniquity 2. Present pressing trouble is so strong a tentation to sin that even godly men may be over-driven with the tentation For he regarded iniquity and choosed it rather than affliction See Ps 125.3 3. This miscarriage of Saints flows from their inadvertency and their not considering how poor a choice sin is and how unfit a mean to ease them of trouble but rather to augment it Therefore he bids him take heed that so he may not make this choice intimating that his inconsiderateness made him run to impatience to get ease by complaining but in vain 4. Whatever be mens thoughts in an hour of tentation yet the greatest of troubles should be chosen rather than the least sin nor doth any trouble warrant them to sin either as they think to get ease or to bring actual deliverance to them For saith he Regard not iniquity or look not to it as an ease or mean of help so as to choose it rather than affliction Verse 22. Behold God exalteth by his power Who teacheth like him Followeth the second part of Elihu's Speech begun in this Chapter and continued till v. 23. of Chap. 37. containing a commendation of the greatness of God which cannot be comprehended nor ought to be quarrelled by any Creature This greatness of God is here to be taken in a large sense as comprehending his infinite Wisdome his absolute Dominion and infinite Power whereby it is confirmed and proved in the following discourse And he doth instance and prove it from the very common works of Providence whereof God also makes use afterward to prove the same conclusion that he may reprehend Job who was ignorant of what was so obvious and withall may in divers of them point at such things as reflect upon Jobs weaknesses The summ of this part of the Discourse is That God is a great and absolute Lord and therefore ought not to be quarrelled but submitted unto in his dispensations Of this Proposition there are three general Proofs in this Chapter Whereof the first in this Verse is taken from the singular monuments of his power and wisdome In that he is not only exalted himself as the words may be read and understood and set on high by the demonstrations of his great power in the government of the World but exalteth others who are humble and low by this his power And in that he is so infinitely wise as he is a singular Teacher Hereby Elihu would insinuate that it was Jobs duty to stoop more patiently to God in whose power it was yet to exalt him and to adore and lean to his wisdome and set about to learn those lessons which God was teaching him by his dispensations toward him In general from this part of the Discourse and
Weapon offend him But Swords Darts Arrows and Sling-stones are all as Straw Wood and Stubble to him and he scorns them all v. 26 27 28 29. Yea so firm is his body that he lieth on sharp pointed Rocks in the Sea as on Mire and by his bulk and weight tumbleth them down into the mire which is in the bottom of the Sea v. 30. This points out 1. Mens defences against hazards and the means whereby they think to help themselves may soon be made vain and of none effect as no Armour or Weapon will avail against Leviathan Whereby man is taught that his strong refuge and rich supply are without him and to be sought in God 2. As there is no prevailing against Leviathan by fighting with him who crusheth the sharpest rocks so many of our vexing Lots are not overcome by wrestling and resisting but by submission Verse 31. He maketh the deep to boil like a Pot he maketh the Sea like a pot of Ointment 32. He maketh a path to shine after him one would think the Deep to be hoary In the last Branch of this Description it is declared that his bulk is so great that by moving his body he makes the Deep to tumble and boil like a pot of Ointment or of the composition of the Apothecaries which cast up a great Scum when they boil v. 31. Which is further explained v. 32. That he leaveth a path of Foam behind him wherever he moveth as if an hoar-frost were upon the Sea This points out 1. That the very motions and tumblings of Creatures especially those vast and great ones are remarkable and somewhat of God may be seen in them for the motions of Leviathan are here produced to prove this 2. If this Creature do thus tumble and toss that part of the deep Sea where he cometh how much more should the Majesty of God move and affect us who are but weak things in comparison of the Sea which yet is moved by a Creature Verse 33. Vpon earth there is not his like who is made without fear 34. He beholdeth all high things he is a King over all the Children of pride These Verses contain a summary Conclusion of this Description That he is singular above all the Beasts on Earth and fearless v. 33. And that he looks on every high thing with contempt in comparison of himself being indeed King or Chief of all fierce irrational Creatures v. 34. This points out 1. When we have studied Gods works we should fix somewhat of the excellency of them in our hearts as here this Conclusion sums up the Description for that end 2. God hath replenished the Sea with Creatures of a vaster bulk than those on the dry Land whereby is intimated that there is much more of Gods glory unseen by us than any thing we do see for upon the earth there is none like Leviathan in the Sea considering his vast bulk fierceness and other things 3. To be without any fear is but the property of an irrational Creature and so no excellency proper to man for Leviathan is made without fear being created so by God 4. To contemn others who are in any eminency as nothing in respect of our selves is also but a brutish quality for he beholdeth all high things or looks upon them with contempt 5. Beasts do outstrip some men in this that their loftiness flows from some real ground or excellency in them whereas many men are proud while they are really nothing Gal. 6.3 For Leviathan is indeed King or Chief over all the Children of pride or over all these irrational Creatures which are high things as the word signifieth and carry themselves loftily because of some excellency in them Not that he exerciseth any dominion over them at least all of them particularly those on the Land but that he is indeed chief and excellent above them as a great King is above inferiour Princes or common Subjects CHAP. XLII This last Chapter contains a comfortable and sweet Close of all these hard Occurrents which have passed in this Book And 1. That previous debate betwixt God and Job for humbling of Job for his miscarriages is closed with Job's Confession of his faults wherein God acquiesceth without pressing him any further v. 1-6 2. The Controversie so long debated betwixt Job and his Friends is finally decided by God in Job's Favours v. 7 8 9. 3. Which is the fourth and last part of this Book a Close is put to Job's sharp trials by Gods returning of his Captivity and continuing of him in a prosperous state for many years after this till his death v. 10-17 Verse 1. Then Job answered the Lord and said IT is to be remembred that when God appeared to decide the Controversie betwixt Job and his Friends Chap. 38. before he enter upon the principal Cause He as Elihu had endeavoured before deals first with Job to humble him for his failings And albeit Gods first Speech brought Job to some sense Chap. 40.3 4 5. yet the Lord not being satisfied therewith he dealeth with him of new which now produceth a fuller answer witnessing his through conviction and humiliation wherewith God is satisfied as appears by his insisting no longer on the Debate with him In this Verse it is recorded by the Writer of the Book that Job did answer or return a satisfactory acknowledgment of his folly and miscarriage Whence Learn 1. When God takes man to task to humble him by Word or Rod or both man must down to the dust so low as is meet God will carry his point one way or other with all men whom he thus takes to task and will cause them either bow or break as here the Lord never gives over dealing with Job till he mould him to his mind So that he who formerly raged at his Afflictions is now calmed he who looked only to his integrity to kindle his passion looks now on his folly and weakness to lay him low in the dust It is sad when Gods Cures are not operative and it doth speak his Patients to be reprobate silver And it is a folly to be long in stooping to God seeing Jobs experience tells we must do it at last one way or other And it may humble men though they stoop at last as Job did that these need so much pains to be taken upon them before they be brought to it 2. Whatever become of the wicked who may be broken before they stoop yet the Lords pains to humble his Children will not be in vain but they will be throughly convinced at last As here Job was As it is a true evidence of pitty to be easily convinced by God so they who find that an hard work should not be diffident of what God can do who brought Job so low after all his stiffness and they should look upon his continuing to take pains as a pledge of what he is about to do and that he purposeth to prevail at last 3. Gods
he looked upon as an act of mans folly to think to measure Gods deep counsels by their shallow conceptions for that was their folly in particular 4. When men have their sin discovered to them and they do not flee to Christ they lie under great hazard of reaping the fruit of their folly for so is here intimated that if they will not do as he directs he will deal with them after their folly in that they have not spoken of him the thing that is right c. Verse 9. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did according as the Lord commanded them the Lord also accepted Job The 3. last Branch of this part of the Chap. contains an account of their obedience to the former Direction with the issue of all Both they and Job do obey what was commanded and God accepts Job offering and praying for them and consequently accepts them also It is not needful to enquire how this acceptance was evidenced whether by Fire from heaven consuming the Sacrifice as was usual at other times Lev. 9.24 Jud. 6.21 1 King 18.38 1 Chron. 21.26 2 Chron. 7.1 or otherwise seeing the Scripture is silent Doct. 1. It is a Character of godly men that they are easily convinced and do tremble when God threatens as here they lay aside all their height of Spirit and do stoop and go to Job according as God had commanded And albeit it be hard to draw off men when they are engaged in a course yet if God interpose the stiffest will be made to stoop 2. God is still as good as his word to his people for he promised to accept Job v. 8. and here he performs accordingly 3. It sufficeth to assure poor sinners of acceptance with God if their Intercessor Christ be accepted in their stead and name as here Job is accepted for them Verse 10. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his Friends also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before Followeth the third part of the Chapter and the last part of the Book wherein a Close is put to Jobs sharp trials and an account is given of his prosperous estate afterward till his peaceable death This restitution of Job is spoken of in general in this Verse and then it is branched out in some particulars v. 11-17 In this general sum and account of his Restitution we have to consider First The substance and sum of the mercy The Lord turned the Captivity of Job Where the term Captivity doth not import as some of the Râ—bbins dream that all Jobs losses of Children Servants and Goods were only an Illusion of Satan blinding the eyes of the Messengers who brought him word of these Losses which they thought they saw really lost according as they represented to him And that those Persons and Goods were only carried away by Satan and his Instruments and kept in safety till now they are restored again But the plain meaning is That whereas Job had been delivered up to Satans power to afflict him Chap 1 2. who held him under the pressure of troubles as in a prison as himself complains Chap. 13.27 And David in the like case Psal 69.33 Now the Lord did liberate him and set him at freedom And albeit this General be afterward instanced only in his Restitution as to his external state yet it includeâ— more That his bodily sickness was healed that he was restored to serenity of mind after his perplexities that the aspersions of his Friends were wiped off and he was delivered from their bitter encounters These are all supposed here if not principally intended in this General Doct. 1. Whatever affection the Lord bear to the persons of his own Children and whatever be his ultimate design in afflicting them yet their afflictions will be sharp in their season and will hem in their spirits and humours and shut them up on every hand for Jobs Trouble was a Captivity See Job 36.8 Heb. 12.11 This is the way to make afflictions operative so that the sharpness thereof is no evidence that God doth not own his Children under it or that he will not deliver them from it 2. There is no sharpness in the affliction of Saints but God how long soever he continue it doth notice and ponder it for here after all this long tract of trouble wherein Job was ready to think he was forgotten the Lord noticeth that it was a Captivity His Sympathy doth not weary though we weary to look to it nor is his sympathy so fond as we desire but he can let them lie long under trouble with whom he doth sympathize all the while 3. As the Lord will give all his people proofs of his sympathy by putting an end to all their troubles sooner or later Psal 34.19 So sometime he seeth it meet visibly to deliver them in this life As here Job who had been a pattern of sharp trials is now made a publick and visible monument of Gods kindness and Gods dealing to him is a pledge to all that a good Cause and a good Conscience will still have a good issue See Jam. 5.11 And the Lord is pleased thus to deal with some of his people not that all of them should always expect the like But 1. To give some publick Documents to the world of the advantage of Piety Psal 58.10 11. 2. To humble them who obstruct the manifesting of such kindness to themselves by their not walking fruitfully under trouble 3. To excite us to guard against miscarriages and diffidence under trouble seeing God may humble us by refuting all those by his gracious dealing such as he shewed to Job 4. To assure tender walkers that whatever the Lord do for them in their particular trial yet he wants not power nor good will to do for them as he did for Job Doct. 4. Men are not warranted to cast away their confidence because there is no probable mean of their deliverance to which they may look for the Lord turned the Captivity of Job when nothing else could promise it See Esth 4.14 Dan. 3.16 17 18. 5. Albeit unbelief be the great fault of Saints yet God is so gracious as to send deliverance when they little expect it for Job looked for no such thing as this Chap. 17.13 14. It is of the Lords great mercy that he passeth over the unbelief of his people Psal 77.7 8 9 10. Isa 40.27 28 c. 64.3 Yet we should not presume because of this to cherish unbelief nor suffer our selves through want of hope of deliverance to be driven on such courses as may make us ashamed when deliverance cometh 6. The more sober men are in their expectations the more near are they to deliverance and the less weight they lay upon prosperity as a reward of piety they are the more like to get it For not only did Job in his siâ—s lay his account never to be restored
Name of the second imports one so sweet as Aromatick Cassâ—a and the Name of the third implieth that she was one so fair as if an Horn or large measure of Paintry or Varnish had been powred upon her to make her appear beautiful 2. Their Estate and Portions and that they were made joint heirs with their brethren of their Fathers Lands and Estate v. 15. Which doth not import that they were never married but that their Father was careful to settle them near himself and his Sons that so they might have a Society among themselves for Gods Service because of the many Idolaters that were about them who might be ready to infect and corrupt them Doct. 1. Children in themselves are a â—lessing as continuing us in them to serve God even when we are gone for here they are ranked among Jobs Blessings See Psal 127.3 128.3 So that it is a sin to murmure at this mercy or not to improve Children aâ— a Blessing 2. It is in special a Blessing to them who have Wealth to have Children who may succeed to them in their Estates for this mercy of Children is subjoined to Jobs wealth v. 12. to intimate that his wealth would not have been so sweet if he had wanted Children to enjoy it after him So that it is the fault of men of great Estates and Power if they breed not their Children well who are to succeed to their Estates and Dignities whereby they not only wrong their own Families but their Countrey also wherein their posterity may have power And they are also culpable who having great Estates do not marry that so themselves may have a care of educating their Heirs if God give them any but do suffer those who shall succeed them to be bred by they cannot tell whom 3. Even the multitude of Children is a blessing as here it heightens Jobs mercy that he had so many And albeit Job was a rich man and had enough to give them yet they are indefinitely a blessing to poor or rich Psal 127.5 not to be murmured at though not to be doated upon either 4. Every sex of Children sons or daughters is a mercy as here is distinctly marked though we ordinarily doat upon those we want whether sons or daughters 5. Though Favour be deceitful and Beauty vain Prov. 31.30 and God may compense want of Beauty with excellent qualities nor must men cast off their Children because of deformities yet beauty is in it self a mercy not to be abused with a polluted life or wiâ—h pride because of it for therefore is the singular beauty of Jobs Daughters marked 6. It is a great blessing both to Parents and Children when Children are dutiful and obedient for so were Jobs Daughters as appears from his care to provide for them and his delight to have them near himself and this is marked as one of his mercies 7. It is a great blessing and an evidence that Children are dutiful when they live in love one with another as here the sons and daughters delight to live near together See Chap. 1.4 8. It should be a special part of Parents care and an evidence of their love to their Children to study to prevent their infection in the matter of Religion and so to settle them that they be not cast upon tentations so much did Job evidence by setling his Daughters among their Brethren Verse 16. After this lived Job an hundred and forty years and saw his sons and his sons sons even four generations The fourth Particular in this account is his long life after his restitution even for the space of 140 years so that he saw four generations come of him before he died If we apply that General v. 10. to this also and make this sum double to what he lived before his trial we may conclude that he was 70 years old which is the half of 140 when his trial began and lived in all 210 years beside the time of his trial Which if there were not somewhat singular in it might help to prove to the antiquity of this History and that Job lived before these days wherein mens lives began to be shortned as Moses sheweth Psal 90.10 But this supposition of the doubling of his years not being so certain we may only here Learn 1. Albeit our life on earth be but a warfare yet long life is a mercy in it self and to godly men a reward of piety and a benefit to the Church with whom they are continued for therefore is Jobs long life marked as one of his mercies See Psal 34.12 13. It is true godly men have some loss by their long life being so much the longer kept from heaven yet death being in it self a fruit of sin the deferring thereof is in it self a mercy And a long life may be full of rich advantages to godly men while they see Gods goodness in the land of the living before they go hence Psal 27.13 while they have opportunity to honour God and do him much service Phil. 1.23 24 25. while they get many proofs of Gods love Gen. 48.15 1 Kings 1.29 while they have opportunity to sow largely for a rich harvest 2 Cor. 9.6 and get leisure to ripen for death which is their difficult step and great trial All which doth not import that we should doat upon long life but it serves to condemn the Godly who are weary of their life and all those who make little good use of a long life but do thereby render themselves obnoxious to a sudden stroke Psal 68.21 2. It is yet a further proof of kindness when God sweetens our long life with mercies particularly of posterity as here Job saw his sons and his sons sons even four generations 3. Our long life is then especially sweet when we see the Church well and are doing good therein in our stations as Job here had opportunity to train up and see a Church of his posterity See Psal 128.5 6. Verse 17. So Job died being old and full of days The last particular in this account is his happy death when he is full of days Whence learn 1. Did men live never so long and in great prosperity yet they must at last die as here Job did See Psal 49.6 7 8 9. Heb. 9.27 2. It is a mercy in it self when men are ripe to be taken away for it is ranked among Jobs mercies that he died being old It is true young persons do doat upon time expecting an happiness in it but when men come to what Job attained of years or any thing proportionable to it they will count it their mercy to get their Pass to be gone if they be godly 3. Were men never so old when they die yet to be full of days and satisfied with the time they have lived is a mercy and gift of it self for it is here marked as a distinct mercy that he was not only old but full of days when he died And this is a mercy