shew to be a sin the Gospel can shew a pardon for it whatever the Law can bind us with the Gospel can unloose The Mercy-seat covered the whole Ark The Mercy-seat noted the forgiveness of sin and if you read the description of it Exod. 25. you shall find that it was exactly to a hairs breadth of the same dimensions with the Ark wherein the Law was put intimating that there was mercy and pardon for sin let it come out of any part of the Law laid up in that Ark. As the least sins must of necessity have a pardon so the greatest sins are in a possibility of pardon And the truth is there is no sin as it is an Anomy a transgression of the Law without the compass of pardon It is not the malignity of the sin but the malignity of the sinner that makes it incurable the sin against the holy Ghost is not unpardonable because there wants mercy large enough to pardon it but because it refuseth the mercy which should pardon it and the medicine that should heal it Fifthly Observe who it is that here presseth thus for pardon it is Job and was Job never pardoned till now Or was this think you the first time that ever Job prayed for pardon Had not Job thought of this business before Without question he had he was one of whom God gave this testimony that he was a just and an upright man one that feared God and eschewed evil He that did all this and was all this must first be in favour with God and yet Job cryeth out Why dost thou not pardon my transgression Whence observe They whose sins are pardoned must yet pray for the pardon of sin Yea they who upon good grounds have assurance that their sins are pardoned must yet pray for the pardon of their sins 2 Sam. 12. 13. When Nathan told David God hath put away thy sin he assured him that he was pardoned and doubtless the heart of David opened by Faith to let in that gracious Message he was not faithless but believing Yet David in his penitential Psalm penned afterward prayes O how earnestly for pardon again and again That which a man is assured he hath he may pray to have and enjoy make it so high which some make the grand objection against this point Why should we pray say they for that which we have already I say a man may pray for that which he hath already and is assured he hath Christ himself was assured of the love of his Father and that his Father would stick to him for ever and he knew God was neer unto him yet he cries Mat. 27. 46. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Which Question may be resolved into this Petition My God my God do not forsake me When David had received a Message by the Prophet concerning a great temporal Mercy the establishing of his house that God would settle him and his Posterity in the Throne for ever the text saith 2 Sam. 7. 15. he presently went in and sate before the Lord and there makes a most earnest Prayer and what is it about He prayeth that God would settle and establish his Kingdom vers 25 26. And now O Lord God the thing which thou hast spoken concerning thy Servant and concerning his house establish it for ever and do as thou hast said c. and let the house of thy Servant David be established before thee Might not the Lord answer according to this Objection why doest thou trouble me about this Did not I send thee a Message even now that I would establish thy Kingdom Dost thou think I have forgotten my Promise or will be unfaithful to it We find not David thus chidden for praying thus Nay at v. 27. you shall see how David makes this the very ground of his prayer Lord saith he thou hast revealed to thy servant saying I will build thee an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee c. Even because thou hast revealed this unto me that thou wilt build me an house therefore upon this very ground I make this prayer that thou wouldest build it And to shew that he was full of Faith the thing should be done before he prayed it might be done he adds v. 28. Thou art that God and thy words be true and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant Now therefore let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant No man could be fuller of Assurance or fuller of Prayer than David was Likewise Christ knew and was assured that his sheepe his elect people should continue for ever and that none should be able to take them out of his hand yet how abundantly doth he pour forth his Spirit in prayer about these things Joh. 17. Again Christ was assured he should be delivered and upheld in death Yet in the daies of his flesh he offered up prayers and supplications with strong cries and tears to him that was able to save him from death and he was heard in what he feared Heb. 5. 7. He was not afraid of the event whether he should hold out and prevail or no whether he should conquer and obtain the victory or no he doubted not the success of this war though it were with principalities and powers His fear was only a natural passion which he took upon him when he took our nature upon him He was certain of the issue and knew he should carry the work through against all the armies of hell he would never have undertaken it else yet he prayeth with strong cries that he might be strengthened So then it is no argument because a Believer knoweth his sin is pardoned that therefore he should not pray for pardon for many things of which there was clear and certain evidence that they were or should be have been prayed about it is our duty for it hath been the practise both of Christ and of his people to pray in such a state Further we may Answer Matters of Faith are of Two sorts First Such as are fully accomplished acted and compleated in all the parts and circumstances of them for and about such things we are not to pray No man is to pray for the Redemption of the World for that is a thing past and yet it is a matter of Faith But the pardon of sin though it be compleat in it self and a matter of Faith to us yet it is compleating and perfecting every day more and more Pardon is given us yet we feel not all which pardon gives It is a setled act on Gods part yet it is in motion on ours that is in a perfective motion Therefore though we are assured that our sins are pardoned and shall stand pardoned for ever yet we may pray about the pardon of them Thirdly Suppose a man know his sins are pardoned yet he may pray to know it more and that his evidences may be made yet clearer to him for
this truth Heare it and know thou it for thy good So much concerning the Division or Parts of this first Speech or dispute made by Eliphaz in answer to the former complaint powred out by Job against the day of his birth and the night of his conception in the third Chapter The six Verses lately read containe as I said before the first Argument we have the Preface in the second Verse and the Argument it selfe in the four following The point which Eliphaz desires to prove and clear is this that Job was guiltie of hypocrisie of close hypocrisie at the least if not of grosse hypocrisie The Medium or reason by which he would prove it is the unsuitablenesse of his present practise to his former Doctrine His actions under sufferings contradict what himselfe had taught other sufferers And this speaks him guilty The Argument may be thus formed That mans religion is but vaine and his profession hypocriticall who having comforted others in and taught them patience under affliction is himselfe being afflicted comfortlesse and impatient But Job thus it is with thee thou hast been a man very forward to comfort others and teach them patience yet now thou art comfortlesse and impatient Therefore thy religion is vaine and thy profession is hypocriticall Is not this thy feare Here is a goodly religion indeed a proper peece of profession and such is thine this is all thou art able to make out Thus you have the Logicall strength or the Argument contained in the words We shall now examine them in the Grammaticall sense of every part as they lye here in order And first for the Preface If we assay to commune with thee wilt thou be grieved but who can withhold himselfe from speaking The words import as if Eliphaz had said thus unto Job we thy friends have all this while stood silent we have given thee full liberty and scope to speak out all that was in thine heart let it not grieve thee if we now take liberty to speak our selves and indeed a necessity lies upon us to speak Two things Eliphaz puts into this Preface whereby he labours to prepare the minde of Job readily to hear and receive what he had to say unto him First he tels him that he speaks out of good will and as a friend to him If we assay to commune with thee wilt thou be grieved Pray doe not take it ill we meane you no harme we would but give you faithfull counsell we speak from our hearts not from our spleen we speak from love to thee let it not be thy griefe Secondly he shewes that he was necessitated to speak as love provokes so necessity constrains who can withhold himselfe from speaking either of these considerations is enough to unlock both eare and heart to take in wholesome counsell What eare what heart will not the golden key of love or the iron key of necessity open to instruction when a friend speaks and he speaks as bound when kindnesse and dutie mix in conference how powerfull If we assay or try The word signifies properly to tempt either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tentavâ—t in bonum vel in malum periculum fecit expertus est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A lyâ—um quasi Graculum vel loquutoâ—ium dictum quod Deus inde responsa daret for good or evill and because in temptation an assay or experiment is made of a man how bad or how good he is Therefore the word is applyed to any assaying or experimenting of things or persons This very word is winning and gaining upon Job We will but try a little if we can doe thee any good or bring lenitives to thy sorrowes we will not be burthensome or tedious we will but assay to commune with thee The word notes serious speaking The place where God communed with his people in giving answers from Heaven is express'd by this word 1 Kings 6. 19. The Oracle he prepared in the house within c. or the communing-place where God spake Wilt thou be grieved The word signifies to be extreamly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fessus corpore vel animo insanivit furiit wearled even unto rage or fainting Here Elipphaz seemes to hint at Jobs former distemper'd speeches If we speak wilt thou promise us not to fall into such a fit of passion as even now thou wast in And yet whatsoever comes of it or howsoever thou takest it I must discharge my duty and my conscience therefore he addes who can withhold himselfe from speaking That is no man can withhold himselfe from speaking in such a case as this to heare thee speak thus would even make a dumb man speak Christ saith in the Gospel If these should hold their peace the stones would cry there is such a sense in these words if we thy friends should hold our peace when thou speakest thus the very stones would cry out against thee for speaking and against us for holding our peace The Hebrew word translated withhold signifies to shut up a thing so as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clausit coâ—â—cuit 1 Kings 8 35. that it cannot come out It is applyed to the locking up of the Clouds that they raine not to the holding in of fire that it cannot break forth Jer 20. 9. where the Prophet very elegantly fits it to the restraining of speech which is the very point in hand His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones I was weary with forbearing So it implyes that the friends of Job had as it were a fire in their bosomes which they could no longer restraine they were as Clouds full of water full of deaw and raine they were not able to suspend themselves from dissolving and showring upon Job both reproofe and counsell advises and exhortations We may observe from this Preamble That it is wisdome to sweeten reproofe with friendly insinuations Reproofe is a bitter Pill it is a wholesome yet a bitter Pill and there is need to wrap it up in Gold and Sugar that pleasing both eye and palat it may be taken downe the better It is the Apostles counsell to his Galatians Gal. 6. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken with a fault yee that are spirituall restore such an one in the spirit of meeknesse The word restore is an allusion to the Art of Chirurgerie in setting a bone out of joynt soft words and a soft hand fit the Patients minde to endure that painfull operation By fals into sinne the soule breaks or disjoynts a bone he that will set such a minde must handle it gently We may observe the holy skill of some of the Saints in prayer preparing God for receiving of Petitions by prefaces and humble insinuations as it were getting within him Thus did Abraham Gen. 18. when he prayed for Sodome Let not my Lord be angry if I who am but dust and ashes speake unto thee There is such a spirituall art in winding a reproofe into
love unto the world keeps awake but how few are there whom love to Christ keeps awake It was an harsh and in one sense an ignorant speech of a wise man amongst the Heathens who said There is no man who may not more holily be in any company than with himselfe alone And Nemo est cui non sanctius sit â—â—m quolibet esse quam secum Sen. yet there is a truth in it For if a man be by himself alone and deale only with his own heart probably he might be as profitably with any company as with himself One mans heart in it self is as bad as anothers and usually it is worst when it is by it selfe Some like Nebuchadnezzar being secluded from men converse only with beasts those most beastly beasts lusts in their own bosomes Dan. 4. 3. But to be alone from men to converse with God to be alone from men to converse with Christ is infinitely better then all the society of men The reason why many receive but little of Christ little of Heaven is because they are so much in the croud of the Pietas periclitatur in negoâ—iis world so long upon the Rack of earthly care they seldome let their hearts settle The Ballances must stand at an even poize before you can weigh aright If you desire to know which beares most weight in your hearts Earth or Heaven Christ or the Creature let your hearts stand still That in Psalm 4. 4. reaches this sense fully Commune with your owne hearts upon your beds and be still Our hearts will not be spoken with unlesse we be quiet And as the Picture-drawer cannot take the features of the face to the life so neither can we of our hearts or lives unlesse we have the patience to sit for it JOB Chap. 4. Vers 14 15 16. Feare came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake Then a Spirit passed before my face the haire of my flesh stood up It stood still but I could not discern the form thereof an Image was before mine eyes there was silence and I heard a voyce saying WE have already given the Logicall dependance of this whole Context from the 12 Verse unto the end of the Chapter and therein shewed how Eliphaz confirmes the principall Proposition lying in the 17 Verse by Divine Authority a Vision received from Heaven A thing saith he was secretly brought to me and mine eare received a little thereof in thoughts from visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on men Thus the manner of the vision is described in generall The effects of the vision upon Eliphaz and the particular manner how the vision appeared are now further described and set forth This 14 Verse contains one eminent effect of the vision with the consequents of it assoon saith he as I was in that heavenly rapture and extasie Fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake It was very usuall for Prophets and Holy men to be surprized with fear at the appearance of Jehovah in his messages by Angels or other visions It is naturall unto man to fear at the sight of an Angel and it is a received opinion among the Jews that whether God or an Angel did appear it was present death which they collect from divers Scriptures Ex. 33. 20. when Moses desired to see the face of God the Lord answered there is no man can see my face and live Those words of Gideon import as much Judg 6. 22. When Gideon perceived that he was an Angel of the Lord he said Alas O Lord God for because I have seen an Angell of the Lord face to face as if he had said alas woe is me I shall certainly dye And Judg. 13. 21. Manoah concludes it We shall surely dye because we have seene God when an Angel appeared to them Hence also Jacob Gen. 32. 30. after his wrastling with the Angel which was Christ called the name of the place Penuel which is The face of God for saith he I have seen God face to face and my life is preserv'd as noting that it was a wonderfull priviledge not to dye at such a sight the very appearance of God is death to the Creature And that which Hagar spake Gen. 16 13. may well be interpreted to this sense when flying from her Mistris God came to her in the Wildernesse she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her Thou God seest me the reason is added by way of admiration for she said Have I also here looked after him that seeth me Which words may well be translated Do I live after him sc God that seeth me for here one act of life is put for the whole looking or seeing for living Have I seen or Ex Habraeâ— ita reddi potest Etiamnè jam â—â—deo sâ—u lucem hanâ— espicio vivo post videntem me Parens have I beheld the light after God hath seen me that is Am I alive after God hath seen me How wonderfull The effect of this vision upon Eliphaz was not death but fear yet no ordinary fear but fear which looked almost as pale as death it was fear joyned with trembling and no ordinary trembling but such a fit of trembling as shook his very bones We have often spoken of fear both in this and in the former Chapters but such a fear as met Eliphaz we have not met with before That before was the grace of fear spirituall fear but this is the passion of fear naturall fear And it is naturall to man as some of Est homini naturale conspecto angelo etiam bono timere Bold ex Beda Origen Chrysostome the Ancients have observed to fear thus at the appearance of God by Angels Fear is caused by the apprehension of some evil imminent or at hand that 's the definition of naturall fear Now when God manifests himself though the greatest good be at hand yet the soul hath some misgivings and apprehensions of evil hence comes fear the foundation of this fear is laid in guilt sin is in the soul and guilt may be upon the soul thence naturall fear works when God who is all holy manifests himself And in special there is much unbelief remaining in the heart this fear is strengthned by unbelief Wherefore do ye fear saith Christ O ye of little faith Where there is little faith there is much fear and as unbelief prevails so fear prevails too Thirdly this fear arises from the suddennesse and unexpectednesse of the thing God as you may observe in all those Revelations of himself comes suddenly that which comes before we see it causeth fear when we see it sudden motions without us work strange commotions within And fourthly the over-powring Majesty and super-excelling excellency of God in any such revelation causeth astonishments of spirit a little appearance of God makes the creature disappear One drop of the Divine Ocean swallowes up all man and one
own But you shall finde in how sad a condition Saul himselfe was before the Devill had done with him for as soon as Saul heard the tydings delivered by that personated Samuel he fell into a shaking fit and was as one astonished and dead hanging upon the rack of these torments the Devill left him there was no word of comfort no sweet still musicall voice to revive and fetch him againe but away packs the wicked Spirit and leaves him overwhelm'd with sorrow And then instead of a better surely he could not have a worse the poor Witch comes to comfort and counsell him They who refuse counsell from the Prophets of God may at last be forced to receive all their comfort from a Witch a Prophet or Prophetesse of the Devill But to the point in hand we see when the Devill and wicked Angels speake terrour they leave terrour Whereas if God by good Angels speaks terrour or affrights his people with the tokens of his presence he with a sweet and still voice refreshes and comforts them before he departs And we may in that generall apply it to our selves That when God astonishes and terrifies us when he makes our bones to shake and rottennesse to enter into them wee may expect comfort and refreshing are at hand and we may build upon it that the more we tremble the more we shall be refreshed Habakkuk in the place before cited is expresse in this faith I trembled that I might have rest in the day of trouble to which he addes when he commeth up to the people he will invade or cut them to pieces with his troopes As intimating that they who will not tremble shall be made to tremble but when we actively labour to make our hearts tremble or when God makes us tremble in such a way as this we may build upon it that we shall rest in the day of trouble at least we shall rest in the end of that day God never leaves his people under a Cloud he takes off trouble and brings in a succession of comfort or conquers the trouble by mingling a prevailing portion of comfort with it If we take the Text in the latter sense we may note That silence becomes man when God speaks Speak Lord saith Samuel for thy servant heareth Heare O servant for thy Lord speaketh Silence prepares the heart to learne Pythagoras commanded his Scholers to keep silence five yeares And the Papists impose silence as a part of discipline upon their Novices Let superstition be avoided and then Silence is fittest for learners unlesse their voyce be an enquiry after learning That which the Apostle speaks respecting women in the Church is true of all in the sense I now speak of 1 Tim. 2. 12. Let the woman learn in silence so let the man learn in silence There were many among us not long since who made many teachers silent Silence is good as it is a preparative to learning but woe to that which is a hinderance to instructing They enjoyned silence on Teachers by which knowledge was suppressed we advice silence upon learners that knowledge may be encreased JOB Chap. 4. Vers 17. Shall mortall man be more just than God shall a man be more pure than his Maker IN this verse we have the argument it selfe or the matter revealed in the former vision There was silence and I heard a voyce saying What that voice said we have in these words Shall mortall man be more just than God This is the theame or subject upon which Eliphas argues and it is the maine proposition of the whole context The proofe of this proposition was given from Divine authority in the fore-going words and we have a proofe Numquid homo Dei comparatione justificabitur Vulg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Clamabat dicebat fierme potest ut homo quam Deus â—urior sit Chald. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Miser aerumnis peccatis obnoxius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in quo sensus despe randi Eusebius à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deducit quod â—blivisci significat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interpretaâ—ur quasi animal obliviosum dicas Drus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Min est comparandi particula comparatio exprimitur per praepositienem ultimi casus justificatus ab illo ie prae illo Luk. 18. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vir quasi validus ut latine à viribus dictus from reason in the following part of this Chapter Shall mortall man be more just than God or Shall man be justified in comparison of God or Shall man be just before God The Chaldee Paraphrase is yet more quick The Spirit cryed out and said Can it possibly be that man should be more pure than God The words are propounded by way of question we may resolve them into this negative proposition Mortall man is not more just than God man is not more pure than his Maker We translate Mortall man the Hebrew is but one word yet in the propriety of that language it contains both noting man with an addition such as it is of weaknesse and frailty the meanest and lowest estate of man Enosh a poor sick weak dying creature a creature of so little hope that some derive this name in the Hebrew from desperation a creature so unworthy to be remembred by God or so ready to forget God that others derive it from a word which signifies forgetfulnesse or to forget Shall man this mortall man this weake creature be more just or be justified rather than God Such a sense the words carry When man and God are compared together shall God be esteemed lesse just or lesse pure than man Luk. 18. 14. it is said of the Publican that he went downe justified rather than the other put the Pharisee and the Publican in the ballance together and the Publican was the weightier in righteousnesse or the more just of the two That in Luke is an Hebraisme and it is the same with this Put weak man and the mighty God the word Eloha which is here used for God noteth the strong God or the mighty God put him in the ballance of consideration with weake man will he not be infinitely more weighty in justice more shining in purity more glorious in holinesse Yea not only if you take man in his obscurest notion or in this terme of extenuation Enosh for a weake man a poore creepled creeping creature but take him in his best estate as he is Geber a strong man a powerfull man a holy man yet as it followes in the text shall man be more pure than his Maker that is shall such a mighty man a wise man a learned man a gracious man a man accomplished in all naturall in all acquired endowments the chiefest and choisest the creame and flower of all the men upon the face of the earth A Worthy of the first three the First of all the Worthies A man of the first magnitude of
it is well with the righteous vvhen they are in the deeps of affliction for it is but to bring them off their Mountaines of pride that they may be exalted in the strength and love of God even upon the Mountain of his Holinesse and their glory for ever Thirdly Afflictions bring the Saints nearer to God Troubles abroad cause the soule to looke inwards and homewards Is there any hurt in being brought neerer to God It is good for me to draw neer unto God says David and it is good for us to be drawn neer unto God if vve vvill not come of our selves It is a desireable violence vvhich compels us heaven-ward Heaven is but our nearest being unto God and by how much vve are nearer God on earth so much the more vve have of Heaven upon earth Afflictions as in the Prodigals example put us upon thoughts of returing to God and the more vve returne the nearer vve are unto him returning thoughts vvill not rest but under our fathers roofe yea returning thoughts vvill not rest till vve are got into our fathers armes or under the shadow of his wing and this a happy condition indeed As it vvas vvith Noahs Dove Gen. 8. 9. vvhen she vvas sent forth of the Ark she could finde no place for the soal of her foot to rest on she knew not vvhether to go for the vvaters vvere on the face of the whole earth therefore she returneth back and comes hovering about the Ark as desiring to be taken in but after the vvaters vvere asswaged he sent out a Dove vvhich returned to him no more So when it is faire weather in the world calme and serene even Doves keepe off from God and though they goe not quite away from him yet they are not so desirous of comming to him but when we finde a deluge in the world such stormes and tempests of trouble that we know not where to fix our souls for a day then we come as the Dove fluttering about the Ark and cry to our Eternall Noah that we may be near him yea within with him Wicked men like the Raven which Noah sent out first Verse 7. and returned not againe care not for the Ark of Gods presence in the greatest troubles to be neare God is more troublesome to them then all their troubles But Believers like the Dove will look home at least in foul weather God is their chiefe friend at all times and their onely friend in sad times Is there any harme in this Christ sends a storme but to draw his back to the Ark That at the last where he is there they may be also Lastly we may say it is well with the righteous in their worst condition of outward trouble because God is with them It can never be ill with that man with whom God is It is infinitely more to say I will be with thee then to say peace is with thee health is with thee credit is with thee honour is with thee To say God is with thee is all these and infinitely more For in these you have but a particular good in God you have all good when God sayes I will be with you you may make what you will out of it sit down and imagine with your selves whatsoever good you can desire and it is all comprehended in this one word I will be with thee Now God who is with the righteous at all times is most with them in worst times then he saith in a speciall sense I will be with thee When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee When thou walkest thhough the fire thou shalt not be burnt c. Isa 43. 2. When a mighty winde passed before Eliah it is said That God was 1 Kings 19. not in the winde and when the Earthquake shook the Hils and a consuming fire appeared it is said God was not in the Earthquake not in the fire God joynes not with outward troubles for the terror of his people but he joynes with outward troubles for the comfort of his people So he is in the fire and in the winde and in the Earthquake and his presence makes the fire but as a warme Sunne the stormy winde a refreshing gale and the Earthquake hut a pleasant dance So much for the removing of this objection and clearing up the justice of God respecting the afflictions of the righteous If any shall look on the other hand upon wicked men as if God came not home in his justice vvhile he suffers them to prosper First I answer their prosperity serves the providence of God and therefore it doth not crosse his justice That vvas Nebuchadnezars case Isa 10. 6. I will send him saith God against an hypocriticall nation so then he must prosper vvhile he goes upon Gods errand but mark vvhat followes Verse 12. It shall come to passe that when the Lord hath performed his whole worke upon Mount Zion sc by Nebuchadnezars power vvho vvas but doing the just vvork of God vvhile he thought ambitiously of doing his own novv it is no injustice for God to give an instrument power to do his work and vvhen his bloody lust hath performed the holy vvork of God you shall see the Lord will take an order vvith him speedily For then saith the Lord I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks God let him alone to doe the work he had set him about and it was a righteous work of God upon his people though Nebuchadnezzar went about it wlth a proud and malicious spirit against his people Secondly the prosperity of wicked men serveth them but as an opportunity to shew how wicked and vile they are to act and publish the seven abominations of their own hearts Now as it is one of the greatest mercies under Heaven for a man to have his lusts quite mortified so it is a very great mercy for a man to have his lusts but restrained It is a mercy for a man to have that fuell taken away from his corruptions upon which they feed therefore it must needs be wrath and judgement upon wicked men when God in stead of restraining their lusts giveth them opportunity to inlarge their lusts and layes the reines on their neck to run whether and which way they please without stop or controule This is wrath and high wrath a sore judgement the sorest judgement that can fall upon them wherefore when vve thinke they are in a most prosperous condition they are in the most dreadfull condition they are but filling themselves with sin and fitting themselves for destruction Many a mans lusts are altogether unmortified which yet are chill'd and overawed by judgements And there is more judgement in having liberty to commit one sinne then in being shut up under the iron barres and adamantine necessities of a thousand judgements He that is Satans treasury for sin shall be Gods treasury for wrath Thirdly Their prosperity is the
judiciary hardning of their hearts and a hard heart is the greatest judgment on this side Hell As there is a naturally inbred and sinfully acquired hard heart so there is a judicially hardned or a divinely inflicted hard heart When to a naturall hard heart and an acquired hard heart which men get by many repeated acts of sin the Lord adds a judicially hardned or inflicted hard heart then wrath is heated to the hottest and judgment is within one step of Hell Especially if we consider that every houre of such prosperous impenitence and hardnesse of heart encreases punishment and adds to the treasury of that wrath which is stored up against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Who thinks that man happy who is let alone only to gather a mighty pile of wood and other fuell of flames to burne himselfe while ungodly men saem to the world to be gathering riches honour and pleasure hey are but gathering a heap of wrath and a pile of fire which at the last will flame so bright that it will make a revelation of the formerly secret but ever righteous judgement of God Lastly To shew that God is just in all his dealings both the righteous and the wicked learne from the end of both That we may fully discover the Justice of God we must looke upon all his works together while we looke only upon some particular peece of Gods dealings with a godly man he may seeme to deale very hardly with him or if we looke but upon some particular peece of his dealings with a wicked man God may seeme very gentle and kind towards him but take all together and the result is exact justice It was a good speech of a moderne writer We must Non est judicandum de operibus Dei ante quintum actum Per. Mart. not judge of the works of God before the fifth act that is the last act or conclusion of all This and that part may seeme dissonant and confused but lay them all together and they are most harmonious and methodicall Hence David Psal 37. after he had a great dispute with himselfe about the troubles of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked and was put hard to it how to make out the Justice of God resolves all in the close with this advice ver 37. Marke the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace Though a righteous man die in warre yet his end is peace whereas though a wicked man die in peace yet his end is warre It is said Deut. 8. 16. that all which God did to his people in the wildernesse was that he might doe them good at the latter end Come to the end therefore and there you shall find justice visible We often loose the sight of justice in our travailes and passage through the world mountaines and hils interpose which we cannot see over or through but when we come home and arrive at the end of our travailes Justice will appeare in all her state and glory rendring to every man according to his deedes To them who hy patient continuance in well doing seeke for glory and honour and immortality eternall life but unto them that are contentious and doe not obey the truth but obey unrighteousnesse indignation and wrath Joshua concludes the story of the people of Israel in their passage to Canaan with the highest testimonies of Gods justice and faithfulnesse though God dealt with them so variously in the wildernes that they often murmured in their tents as if he had done them wrong yet in the close you shall find how exact and punctuall the Lord was with them Josh 21. 45. There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel all came to passe And in that other text Josh 23. 14 Behold this day I am going the way of all the earth and you know in all your hearts and in all your soules that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you all are come to passe unto you and not one thing hath failed thereof How admirably just was God in his word If a man promise many things we take it well if he performe some of the chiefe and them in the chiefe though some what may faile God promised many things and performed all and which is more all of every one of those many things promised The texts compared make this out the one saying That not one thing failed of all the good things which God spake concerning them And the other That not ought of any good thing failed So then they had every good thing in kind with each particular part and degree of every good thing And for the truth of all this Joshua makes his appeale to themselves and to that in themselves which was best able to determine it All their hearts and all their soules which words doe not only referre to every person as if the meaning were The hearts and soules of you all but rather to all that is in every person All their hearts and all their soules that is understandings memories consciences affections yea sences their eyes and eares their hands and mouthes could bring in witnesse from their severall operations to this great truth And surely God in the end will deale as well with every Israelite as he did with all Israel A time will come it will come shortly when every Saint shall say in all their hearts and in all their soules that not one thing nor ought of any one good thing which the Lord hath said concerning them hath failed I shut up this in the words of Christ to his Disciples when they were amused about that act of his the washing of their feet John 13. 7. What I doe ye know not now but ye shall know hereafter Stay but a while and all those mysteries and riddles of providence shall be unfolded Though clouds and darknesse are round about him yet Judgement and Justice are the habitation of his Throne Psal 97. Mortall man never had and at last shall see he had no reason to complaine of God mortall man shall not be more just than God nor shall man be more pure than his maker And so much for the fifth Conclusion That God neither doth nor can doe any injustice to the creature he is just in his nature just and holy in all his wayes The sixth or last Conclusion is this That to complaine of Gods Iustior sit oportet qui immeriâ—ò affligitur quâ qui immerio affligit dealing with us is to make our selves more just and pure than Gods or when any person or people complaine of Gods dispensations toward them they though not formally yet by way of interpretation make themselves more just and pure than God This was the point wherein Eliphaz labours much to convince Job supposing that he had thus exalted himselfe
against God by these grievous complainings of his present state in the fore-going Chapter There is a truth in the proposition though not in the application as hath often been hinted Jobs complaints were bitter from the sense of his paines not from any prejudice in his understanding Quisqâ—is de persecâ—tione murmurat quid aliud quam judicium feâ—ientis aâ—â—usat puriorâ—m ergo se vir factore suo existimat si contra flagellum qurelam parat camque sibi proculdubio post ponit câ—jus judicium de sua afflictione râ—dâ—â—guiâ— Gâ—eg He ever preserved high and holy thoughts of God The least suspition of whose righteous dealings is to make our selves by so much more righteous then he The reason is cleere for he that complaines thus thinks some wrong is done him Now he that complaines of wrong would be thought more just than he of whose wronging him he complaines Whosoever murmurs or repines at what God doth secretly saith this voice is in it that he could doe better or that God ought He that speaks against the rod speaks against him that smites with the rod He that sweares by Heaven sweares by the Throne of God and by him that sitteth thereon saith Christ And so he that accuses the rod of God accuses the work of God and God that wrought it He thinks himselfe more pure then his Maker who is displeased with God as a correcter To disapprove any thing which God doth is to approve our selves before God It is seasonable for us to look to our hearts in such a time as this it is a time of temptation let us not by our murmurings make it a time of provocation Possibly we may often see cause to complaine of men but we can never have cause to complaine of God There is but little good got by complaining of creatures but how much guilt and misery gets he who complaines of his Creator For a man to complaine to man is in some cases necessary but it is best in all cases to complaine to God and the worst of any case to complaine though silently of God So then complaine of man to God rather then of man to men complaine often to God but never of God Complaine before God and tell him that such have dealt negligently such falsely such unjustly such cruelly But alwayes say Lord thou hast done justly even by those who are unjust Lord thou hast done gratiously even by those who are wicked Lord thou hast done holily even by the hand of those who are unholy and thou hast dealt faithfully though these have been treacherous Thus let us complaine to God but not of God Every complaint of God will be interpreted a secret justification of our selves and a condemnation of the righteous God Man is then worse then a Devill when he would make himselfe better then God Nothing pollutes man so much as this thought that there is unrighteousnesse in God Nothing debases the creature so much as that thought desire or act wherein he prefers and exalts himselfe above the Creator Thus we have opened the generall proposition The probation of it from the vast difference between men and Angels is prosecuted at large in the latter part of the Chapter JOB Chap. 4. Vers 18. Behold he put no trust in his servants and his Angels he charged with folly ELiphaz having laid the dignity of man comparing with God in the dust by those humbling questions in the former verse what is man that he should be just and shall man be more pure than his Maker He now strengthens it further that there is no comparison between God and mortall man by a direct assertion that there is no comparison between God and immortall Angells Behold he put no trust in his servants and his Angels he charged with folly As if he had said If Angels are not able to stand before God and justifie themselves upon his enquirie then certainly man the best of men who dwell but in houses of clay cannot But Angels cannot justifie themselves before God therefore much lesse can the best of men That Angels are not able to justifie themselves before God he proves in these words Behold he put no trust in his servants and his Angels he charged with folly They that cannot be trusted by God cannot be justified by God And they that are chargeable with folly are not able to stand in judgement before the most wise the only wise and holy God Angels are excellent creatures yet because creatures they are in and of themselves fraile and weake they have no strength to stand longer then upheld no stedfastnesse to obey longer than confirmed no faithfullnesse to be loyall longer than overruled no wisedome to discerne further than they are enlightned what then will become of man if he stand alone or stand in competition with God his Maker This is the summe and generall sense of the words as they are an argument We will now consider them as they lye here in order Behold he put no trust in his servants The particle Behold in the Originall as it often notes wonder in other texts so it may much more in this Behold a wonder Angels are foolish Angels are not to be trusted yet in this place Behold is put by way of affirmation rather then of admiration Behold he put no trust in his servants is as much as verily and indeed certainly and without controversie he put no trust in his servants So Deut. 13 14. Thou shalt inquire and search and aske diligently and behold if it be true in the Hebrew thus and behold true or behold truth that is if upon enquirie it appeare that sucb and such things are certainly so then they must proceed according to the Law provided in that case Againe Deut. 19. 18. The Judges shall make diligent inquisition and behold if the witnesse be a false witnesse so we translate but the letter is Behold the witnesse a false witnesse that is if it be affirmed and doe appeare that it is a false witnesse or testimonie which is brought then the Judges shall proceed so and so c. Thus here Behold he put no trust in his servants is a vehement affirmation that God searching into those his servants finds them such as are not to be trusted But who are these untrusty servants First The Chaldee paraphrast understands by servants the holy Prophets Prophets I grant sometimes have and oftner would have proved unfaithfull some of them discovered much and others would have discovered more unfaithfulnesse if God had not mightily supported them Secondly One of the Rabbins understands it in generall of any or of all the faithfull Behold he put no trust in his servants that is not in any of the holiest and faithfullest of the children of men But the connexion of the text carries it clearely that by servants we are to understand the Angels who are called ministring spirits Heb. 1. 14. Are they not all ministring spirits or servants sent out
for the good of those that are the heires of salvation And so the words in the close of this verse are exigeticall expounding who are intended by those servants Behold he put no trust in his servants and his Angels he charged with folly that is he trusted not those servants the Angels but charged them with folly But there is a further reason more fully evidencing that it must be understood of Angels in the 19 verse where the persons standing in equall opposition to these servants and Angels are men Hâ—w much lesse saith he on them that dwell in houses of clay Now a dwelling in a house of clay is the periphrasis or description of mankinde in generall good or bad one or other high or low all mankinde dwels in a house of clay Seeing then the terme of opposition is mankinde in generall we must take somewhat which being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nutrivit in Hiphil credidâ—t fisus est A fide quae in nutrâ—endo requiritur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a raionall creature is not man for the other terme which cannot be any except Angels we cannot set any sort of men in opposition to others upon this ground because they dwell in houses of clay for the Saints on earth dwell in houses of clay as well as men of the earth therefore to make the opposition clear it necessarily follows that by Servants in the first clause of the verse Angels are implyed as well as in the latter where Angels are exprest nutriius dâ—ctus est cujus fidei pueâ— est commissus quasi fidum aut fidetem dicas saepe etiam accommodatur ad aeconomum dispensatorem proper fidelitatem eorum But if these servants be Angels how is it that he put no trust in or that as we may render it word for word out of the Hebrew he did not believe in these his servants I shall answer that when I have a little opened the wopd here translated To put trust We finde it used two wayes in Scripture sometime passively and sometime actively It is taken passively to be faithfull trusty and true in word or promise From this root the Hebrew takes the name of a Guardian or Foster-father or Steward because such to whose care children or families are committed ought to be most faithful in the discharge of so great a trust The Apostle 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. speaking of that heavenly Stewardship the ministery of the Gospel expresseth it thus Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God moreover saith he it is required in a Steward that a man be found faithfull And Numb 12. 7. where Moses is spoken of as a servant he is thus described My servant Moses is not so who is faithfull in all my house he is a man whom I may trust or give credit to for he is trusty and faithfull Heb. 3. 2 5. the Apostle comparing Christ and Moses saith of Christ That he was faithfull to him that appointed him as Moses was faithfull in all his house So that here is an elegant Antithesis His servants who according to their duty and office ought to be constant faithfull trusty he found unconstant unfaithfull not to be trusted Yet the word being in Hyphil is of an active signification and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A verbi preprietate non recedamus qua signâ—ficat cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere fidere alicui Merc Verbum de verbo in servos suos credidit when it is in construction with Beth as Grammarians observe it imports to give credit unto or confide in a person and so here he put no trust that is he did not credit or condfie in those servants or he did not believe on them He saw somewhat in them which might betray them to disloyaltie if himselfe withdrawing his assistance should make an experiment or try what was in their hearts And this sense is most suitable to the state and office of a servant trusting or not trusting faithfulnesse or unfaithfulnesse are acts proper to that relation Lord and Servant So then the Lord put no trust or he could not confide in his servants they being such as he found not perfectly sure and loyall unto him We say commonly of a man whom we cannot rrust We will not give our word for him and we will not take his Our Lord Christ is therefore called a faithfull High Priest because his Father trusted him with the whole businesse of our salvation without the least misgiving thought of his faithfulnesse or the miscarriage of the work Thus Solomon describes a faithfull Wife and a confiding Husband Prov. 31 10 11. A rare couple indeed and as rarely found Therefore he makes proclamation for such a woman who can finde a vertuous Woman for her price is farre above Rubies the heart of her Husband doth safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoile there 's confidence to the height the heart of her Husband doth safely trust in her A Husband that hath such a Jewell to his Wife knowes she will order the family with discretion at home when he 's abroad he knowes she is faithfull to him body and goods Her chastity or her frugality never came in question before his thoughts therefore saith he I shall have no need of spoile which some interpret thus her care and wisdome in providing for the family will make it like an Army which hath overcome the Tam circum fluit bonis omnibus familia ejus quam milites spolijs ex pugnata urbe out hoste superaâ—o Enemy in the field or wonne a wealthy City where the Souldiers have spoile or pillage enough they need no spoile Or as others He shall have no need of spoile that is he shall have no need to spoile or oppresse others to helpe his family All things shall be so ordered by his wives prudence that he shall not need to take any unjust way to provide for or supply his household Thus the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her Such trust the heart of God could not put in those servants his Angels he knew they might come short in their accounts Such trust Christ could not give some who seemed to trust or believe on him John 2. 23. Many seeing Christs miracles believed on him yet Christ would not believe on them we translate he would not commit himselfe to them the Greek is he did not believe or trust himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto them Christ believes in or may trust them all the world over who truly believe in him But these believed so falsely upon him that he could not believe fully upon them and the text gives the reason For he himselfe knew all men he knew they were not metall of a due temper and therefore not to be trusted So God knew all Angels the uttermost perfection power and vertue that was in Angels therefore he would
they grow and they bring forth fruit And who are these Surely the worst of men as the very next words evidence God is neare in their mouthes but he is far from their reines God is neare in the mouth of such that is they may speak of him sometimes but he is far from their reines there is nothing of God in their hearts and surely they that have nothing of God in their hearts have nothing of goodnesse in their hearts or in their lives This present glory and prosperity of wicked men lifts up the glory of Gods patience How is the glory of the patience of God exalted in letting them have ease who are a burthen unto himself in letting them prosper who are as God can be pained a paine unto himselfe in suffering them to flourish who vex his people in suffering them to laugh who make his people mourne Further He gives them leave to take root and flourish whom he could blast and root up every moment that all may see what is in their hearts If God did not permit them to take root yea and sometimes to grow up and flourish we should never see what fruit they would bring forth we should never see those grapes of gall those bitter clusters if these vines of Sodome and fields of Gomorrah were not watered with the dew and warmed with the Sun of some outward prosperity Lastly The prosperity of wicked men is a great tryall of good men The flourishing of the ungodly is as strong an exercise of their graces as their own witherings Observe secondly That wicked men may not onely flourish and grow but they may flourish and grow a great while I ground it upon this the text faith that they take root I have seen the foolish taking roote and the word notes a dcep rooting In the Parable of the sower 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 13. 21. it is said that the seed which fell into stony ground withered because it had no root noting that the cause of a suddaine decay or withering in any plant is the want of rooting whereas a tree well rooted will endure many a blast and stand out a storme Some wicked men stand out many stormes like old Oakes like trees deeply rooted they stand many a blast yea many a blow spectators are ready to say such and such stormes will certainly overthrow them and yet still they stand but though they stand so long that all wonder yet they shall fall that many may rejoyce and take up this proverb against them as of old against the King of Babylon How hath the oppressor ceased The Lord hath broken the staffe of the wicked and the scepter of the Rulers He who smote the people in wrath with a continued stroake he that ruled in the Nation with anger is persecuted and none hindreth Therefore many shall breake forth into singing yea the Fir trees shall rejoyce at him and the Cedars of Lebanon saying since thou art laid down no feller is come up amongst us Isa 14. Thirdly observe Outward good things are not good in themselves The foolish take root The worst of men may enjoy the best of outward comforts Outward things are unto us as we are If the man be good then they are good And though the Preacher tells us Eccles 9. That all things come alike unto all yet all things are not alike unto all There is a great difference between the flourishing of a wise man and the flourishing of a fool all his flourishing and fastning in the earth is no good to him because himselfe is not good Spirituall good things are so good that though they find us not good yet they will make us good we cannot have them indeed and be unlike them But worldly good things find some really good and make them worse others who had but a shew of goodnesse they are occasions of making stark nought Rooting in the earth never helpt any to grow heaven-wards Many deeply rooted in the earth have grown down and gone down to the depths of Hell Fourthly observe as a consequence from the former That the enjoyment of outward good things is no evidence can be made no argument that a man is good I have seen the foolish taking root And yet how many stick upon this evidence blessing themselves because they are outwardly blessed Yea though they meet with a discovery of their sins and sinfull bosomes in the word though they find those sins threatned yea cursed with a grievous curse in the word yet they blesse themselves and say we are rich and flourish we have a good estate and credit we take root and stand but they forget that all this may be the portion of a foole I have seen the foolish man taking root And suddenly I cursed his habitation The word here used to curse springs indifferently from two roots which yet meet and are one in signification Namely to strike through or to pierce as a man is struck through with a staffe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deducitur vel à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fodit perfodit terrebravit per me taphoram maledixit execratus est est metaphora translata ab his qui gladio aut pugione aliquem-transverberant tanquam si aliquis Dei aut hominis maledictione trajiceretur Cartw. in Prov. 11. 26. or sword or stabd with a dagger Thus Hab. 3. 14. Thou didst strike through with his Staves the head of the villages And Isa 36. 6. The piercing of a reed into the hand of him that leans upon it is exprest by this word So then it carries a metaphoricall allusion to the effect of a curse the curse of God alwayes and the curse of man upon due grounds is as a sword or a dagger piercing a man thorough and thorough through both soule and body I have cursed his habitation that is I have smitten his habitation quite through with a curse I cursed his habitation Some read I abhorred or I abhominated his habitation I was so far from envying this flourishing spreading tree or from being in love with his goodly seat and brave habitation that I loathed and could not abide it The cottage of an honest man was more delightfull to me then the tents or pallaces of wickednesse But the word beares rather to curse which is first to wish evill unto another And secondly to fore-tell to pronounce or denounce evill against another Often in the Psalmes Davids curses upon his enemies are predictions from the Spirit of God not maledictions or ill wishes from his own spirit Good men know not how to wish evill their cursings are Prophecies not prayers they fore-tell or fore-see evils but they desire them not I have Pium non decent dirae not desired the woefull day Lord thou knowest said that Prophet who had denounced many woefull dayes Jer. 17. 16. In Scripture many are said to doe that which they declare to Id fieri ab
the locks or extraordinary ruffian-like long haire and locks And the reason why we translate Robber is given from both From the first because robbers and spoylers are commonly Tosse pots and drunkards men that love their liquor a thirsty generation in that sence and they alwayes thirst for a prey they thirst for the estates or lives of others From the latter because robbers plunderers and spoilers usually wore very long haire either to disguise or make themselves the more terrible So that a robber may be denominated both from his unnaturally naturall thirst after the pot and from his uncivilly civill thirst after a purse or from his long shaggy bushy haire To this latter sence one of Absorbeaâ— pilcsâ—â— divitias eorum Rab. Mordoâ—hai Horridus Hâ—spidus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Propriè aâ—traxit per nares aut os trax it aërem ad os Per Metaphoram inhiavit ardenter cupijt qui enim ardenter aliquid cupiunt pre desiderij magnitudine ad os aeâ—em frequentius â—râ—hunt seu respirant the Rabbins translates The hairy man or the man with long haire shall swallow up their estates Hence some expresse him by a Latine word which signifies a man all overgrown with haire This Ruffian or Robber shall swallow up his substance Swallow up The word notes an utter exhaustion he shall exhaust his substance As we say when a spender or an unthrift is described He hath exhausted his estate he hath as it were suckt it up guzl'd or swallowed it down his throat the radicall word may import drawing or sucking up with a pipe properly it signifies to fetch wind or draw breath and by a metaphor to swallow down to sup or suck up as also with fervency and pleasure to desire because vehement desires are often exprest by quick breathings yea to breath after a thing is to desire it or it notes a mind to swallow it up either from the delight we have in it or hatred of it In which latter sence Daved applies it to his enemies Psal 56. 2. Mine enemies would daily swallow me up They breath after me to devoure me So then the meaning is This robber this hairy spoyler or thirsty one will be so dry that he will swallow all up he will soop and drink up the foolish mans estate to the very bottome he will draw it down to the very dreggs or lees and not leave a drop behind him The robber swalloweth up their substance In the first chapter we read Job described A man of a very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non magis ad corporis quam ad ingenij vires pertinet tres sere virtutes continet fortitudinem justitiam prudentiam great substance Job's subsistance in cattle was thus and thus Here also it is said The robber shall swallow up his subsistance but the word in the Hehrew is very different from that in the first chapter there the word signifieth properly substance in cattle but here it signifies substance in any kind of wealth or riches whatsoever And it notes three things First and most properly strength either strength of body or of mind namely valour activity and courage also wisdome and industry to get or defend our substance So Gen. 47. 6. Pharoah tells Joseph that if among his brethren there were any men of activity he should make them rulers over his cattell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly It notes riches and wealth or any worldly substance because much activity wisdome and strength is usually imployed in obtaining them or because both wisdome and strength are requisite for the keeping and retaining of them Prov. 11. 16. Strong men retaine riches as if he should say though a man have aboundance of riches yet if he have not strength he shall hardly hold them they will be wrested out of his hands Once more Riches are thus exprest because men usually account their riches to be their strength a man naturally puts confidence in his riches Prov. 13. 15. The rich mans wealth is his strong City Riches are callâ—d strength from that corrupt opinion which the world hath of them making them Idols and trusting to them as they should unto God alone Though yet there is a truth in it that Aristoteles diviâ—ias appellat vires reâ—um quia per ipsas oâ—nia possumus lib 1. Polit cap. 8. riches have much strength in them a rich man and a powerfull man are mutually put for each other Thirdly The word signifies an Army of men Psal 33. 16. There is no King saved by the multitude of an host We may take it either way this hungry man this robber shall come and swallow up his substance his riches his strength or he shall come and swallow up his very Army by which he thought to defend his substance All shall be lost neither the estate nor the means used to protect the estate shall stand before this hungry thirsty hairy robber In this description of a totall desolation brought upon the estate and family of the foolish man together with the character of the persons who shall make him desolate questionlesse Eliphaz would represent to Job the desolation brought upon his estate and children by those troops of hungry hairy thirsty robbers the Chaldeans and the Sabeans who swallowed all his substance at one morsell soopt up his estate at one draught Whence observe It is a great point of wisdome to shew a man his condition in anothers and to seem onely relating the History of our forreign observations when we meane the person to whom we speak what is proposed as seen in others works the heart to see it selfe and doth at once mitigate the sharpnesse of the reproofe and open the spirit to let it in As we see in the instance of Nathans Parable to David 2 Sam. 12. Eliphaz said onely I have seen the foolish taking root c. He doth not lay it boysterously and directly upon Job I saw thee taking root c. Thus we have opened the context of these five verses wherein Eliphaz argues Job of wickednesse and insincerity because God had dealt with him as he usually doth with the wicked and infincere whose habitations are cursed their children crushed their substance swallowed up by thirsty and eaten up by hungry robbers who take it out from the very thorns of their own cares in getting or means in securing what they have gotten JOB Chap. 5. Vers 6 7 8. Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground Yet man is borne unto trouble as the sparks flie upward I would seek unto God and unto God would I commit my cause THus far Eliphaz hath spent his discourse in reproofe and conviction And you have had out of the 4 Chapter and the precedant part of this foure heads of reason or arguments by which Eliphaz labours to reprove Job for and convince him of close sin or of grosse hypocrisie Now Eliphaz turns himself to another
after and he may say Can I any more doe those things I am not what I was my power is gone But come to God after he hath done this or that and a thousand great things he will not say can I helpe you any more can I deliver you any more can I destroy your enemies can I discover their plots and counsels any more yes Lord as thy works are unsearchable so they are innumerable and thou canst doe them for evermore The Lord saith sometime to a people as he did to Israel Judg. 10. 13. in anger I will deliver you no more But he never saith to any people out of weaknesse I can deliver you no more Psal 78. The people provoked God by making a question of this ver 20. Behold say they he smote the rock that the waters gushed out and the streames overflowed we acknowledge that God hath done a marvell but can he give bread also can he provide flesh for his people surely he cannot doe this marvell also what saith the text The Lord heard this and was wroth so a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also came up against Israel What doe you think that I can doe but one great thing that I have but one blessing but one deliverance but one wonder Know that I who smote the rock can provide you flesh I who gave you water can give you bread I who have discovered one wicked plot of the enemy can discover all I who have given you one victory can give you a thousand I who have given you one deliverance can give you innumerable deliverances Therefore take heed of setting bounds to God of limiting the Holy one of Israel Men love not to be limited but God ought not We at once provoke and dishonour the Lord by thinking that our wants can renew faster then his supplies or that our innumerable evills shall not find innumerable good things to ballance or remove them from the hand of God We weary men when we come often to them to doe great things for us yea to come often for small matters will weary men But we never weary the Lord by comming often we weary God only when we will not come often How doth the Prophet not only complaine but expostulate because that unbelieving King wearied God take it with reverence by not setting him aworke and that about the hardest and most knotty peece of work that can be the working of a miracle and that as hard a one as himselfe would aske either in the depth beneath or in the height above Is it a small thing with you to weary men but will ye weary my God also Isa 7. 13. It is no wearinesse to God to doe innumerable miracles for us but he is weary when we will not believe he can doe them To be distrusted the doing of one is more laborious to God then to doe a million of Miracles To conclude this take heed above all that you limit not God in works of spirituall mercy As to feare to aske pardon of sin because ye have asked it often His great works of forgivenesse are as much without number as any of his works He multiplies to pardon saith the Prophet Isa 55. 7. And when the people of Israel had committed a new sin it is admirable to reade by what argument Moses moves the Lord for pardon It is not this as usually with men Lord this is the first fault Lord thou hast not been often troubled to signe their pardon But pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of this people as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt untill now Numb 14. 19. as if he had said Lord because thou hast pardoned them so often therefore I beseech thee pardon them now It is a most wicked argument to move our hearts to sin because God will pardon often but when we have sinned it is a holy argument to move God to pardon againe because he hath pardoned often before For he pardons without number Secondly Seeing God doth innumerable great things for us let not us be satisfied in doing a few things at the command and for the glory of God Let us continue in acts of holinesse charity humility zeale and thankfulnesse without number Let us never stand reckoning our duties when we heare the mercies of God are beyond reckoning It is a noble rule in our friendship with men That curtesies must not be counted I am sure it is a holy rule in our obedience to God That duties must not be counted God hath no need of any one of our good works but he will not beare it if we think we have done enow or can doe too many Let out Amicitia non est reducenda ad ealculos Obediantia non est reducenda ad calculos hearts be like the heart of God as he doth great things for us let us doe in what we are able great things for God and good things for one another without number So much in generall of the proofe of Gods power by the Greatnesse c. of his works JOB Chap. 5. Vers 10 11 12. Who giveth raine upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields To set upon high those that be low that those which mourne may be exalted to safty He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise c. THis Context from the 9. to the 17. verse containes the second argument by which Eliphaz strengthens his exhortation upon Job to seek unto God The argument speakes to this efect He is to be sought and unto him our cause is to be committed who is of absolute power infinite in wisedome and goodnesse But such is God Therefore seeke to him and commit thy cause unto him That God is of infinite power wisedome c. was proved in generall at the 9. verse by those foure adjuncts of his works Great unsearchable marvellous and without number And now at the 10. verse he begins his proofe by an enumeration of the particular effects of Gods power wisedome and goodnesse The first instance is in naturall things God doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number And would you know what those things are You need not goe farre to enquire there are things very neere unto us and very common among us which yet if they be well looked unto will advance the power wisedome and goodnesse of God Every shower of raine drops down this truth that God doth great things He giveth raine upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Generale nomen est ad quamcunque plaviam Non desunt qui puâ—ant cognationeÌ„ habere cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod est humectari quòd pluvia liquesanâ—at humectet dissolvat dura Mercer fields There is not any difficulty about the meaning of these words which calls for stay in opening of them Therefore in briefe The Hebrew word for Raine in out letters Matar is so neere in
necessary practise in Chyrurgery and to that the holy Ghost may allude in this place When they perceive a wound or a sore to which medicines Illa est vox Domini percutiam ego sanabo hoc faciunt medici Ferrum gestant câ—rare veniunt Clamat secandus secaâ—ur saevitur in vulnus ut homo sanetur Aug in Ps 50. Chyrurgus saepe vulnus infligit ferro sibi spatium ad commodam curationem aperit cannot well be appied and so unfit for healing either to make a new wound in the whole flesh or to make the first bigger The murderer wounds to kill and the Physitian wounds to cure He comes as it were arm'd with instruments of cruelty The patient whose flesh is to be launced cryes out but yet he launces him The patient whose flesh is to be seared cryes out but yet he sears him He is cruell to the wound while he is most kind to the wounded An ignorant man would wonder to see a Chyrurgion when he comes for healing make the wound wider yet so he must do and he doth it upon urgent reasons As when the orifice is not wide enough to let in the medicine or to let out the corruption or cannot admit his searching instruments to the bottome In such cases he saith Vnlesse I increase your wound I cannot cure it Thus often times the Lord is compelled to wound that he may heale or fit our wounds for healing Our wound is not wide enough to let out the sinfull corruptions of our hearts to let in the searching instruments and corrasives of the Law or the blame and comfortable applications of the Gospel We may observe from the sence of the words That The woundings and smitings of God are preparatories for our cure and healing It is said Isa 53. 5. of Christ that with his stripes we are healed and it is in this sence a truth that we are healed with our own stripes We are healed with the stripes of Christ meritoriously and we are healed by our own stripes preparatorily the stripes of Christ heale us naturally our own stripes heale us occasionally or his in the act ours in the event Prov. 27. 6. Faithfull are the wounds of a friend his wounds are faithfull because he wounds in faithfulnesse The healings of many are unfaithfull They heale the hurt of the daughter of my people deceitfully is the Lords complaint by the Prophet they skin over the wound but they doe not cure it Let the righteous smite me it shall be a kindnesse and let him reprove me it shall be an excellent oyle which shall not break my head Psal 141. 5. Much more may we say Let the righteous Lord smite me and it shall be a kindnes to me let the righteous Lord reprove and correct me it shall be as an excellent oyle which shall not breake mine head it shall heale my heart How healing then are his salves whose very sores are a salve Secondly Take the words in the plaine rendring of them noting onely thus much that God makes sore and bindeth up So we have two distinct acts often ascribed to God in a figure to set forth judgement and mercy the afflictions and deliverances of his people Hos 6. 2. Let us return unto the Lord for he hath torne and he will heale us he hath smitten and he will bind us up 1 Sam. 2. 6. The Lord killeth and maketh alive Deut. 32. 39. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heale Hence observe It is the property of God to take care of all the sicknesses sores or evils of his peopls As God is the great correcter and instructer of his people so he is the great Physitian of his people If he make a wound he will take care for the healing of it He doth not make sores and leave others to bind up Mighty men wound but they take no care for healing they can impoverish and spoyle but they care not to repaire they can pull down and root up let who so will build and plant Shaddai the Almighty God doth both If he break thy head come to him humble thy selfe before him and he will surely give thee a plaister which shall cost thee nothing but the asking And whereas he doth not willingly afflict or grieve he doth most willingly comfort and heale the children of men Lam. 3. 33. He speaks of it as a paine to himselfe to make us sore but to make us sound is his delight and pleasure Satan is the Abaddon the destroyer and he only destroys he makes wounds but he heals none he kills but he makes none alive The second branch of the verse He woundeth and his hands make whole is but a repetition of the same thing yet with some addition to or heightning of the sence To make sore and bind up are not so deep either in judgement or in mercy as to wound and make whole The word used for wounding imports a dangerous and a deadly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transfodit transfixit vel cruentavit wound or to make a man all gore blood It signifies to strike quite thorough and it is divers times applied to note that stroke which God gives his worst enemies Psal 68. 21. But God shall wound the head of his enemies or he shall strike them quite through the head Verse 23. He shall dip his foot or make it red in the blood of the ungodly And Psal 110. 5. The Lord shall strike through Kings in the day of his wrath Hence observe That God sometimes makes very deep and great wounds in his own servants Such wounds as by the sight of the eye you cannot distinguish them from the wounds of his mortall enemies He strikes thorough both heads and hearts of his own people Or as Simeon said to the blessed Virgin Mary Luke 2. 35. A sword pierceth through their soule also But then lastly note God never makes a wound too great for his own cure The power of God to save is as great as his power to destroy his healing power and his wounding power are of the same extent His justice cannot out-act his mercy both are infinite And not onely doth he heale the wounds which himselfe makes but he can heale the wounds which men make even all the wounds which the utmost power and malice of man can make He is able to doe more good to shew more mercy than all creatures are able to doe hurt or mischiefe We finde the state and condition of a people sometimes so wounded and sick that men have despaired of recovery Being consulted they may answer your sore cannot be bound up and your wound cannot be healed your estate is gangren'd and past cure So he said as was toucht before Isa 3 8. In that day shall a man sweare saying I will not be an healer for in my house is neither bread nor cloathing Alas I heale you
I cannot heale you your troubles are past my skill to remedy or redresse Thus man is sometimes at a stand he cannot heale what men have wounded but God is never at a stand your old festred sores and wrankled wounds which have taken wind discourage not his chirurgery When a people are in such a pickle or pittifull plight as the Prophet Isaiah describes the kingdome of Judah in Chap. 1. 5 6. The whole head is sicke and the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores they have not been closed neither bound up neither mollified with oyntment When I say the case of a people is thus and they can get no healer Yea though a people like the woman Mark 5 25 have had an issue of blood in bloody battels which is now almost Englands case many yeares and have suffered many things of many Physitians and have spent all that they have and are nothing bettered but rather grow worse yet if Christ doe but touch such a sicke diseased bleeding people in mercy and they touch him by faith they shall be healed and their fountaine of blood will immediately dry up Or if their condition requires some longer operation he can effectually take such a course for their cure He is abundantly furnished with all instruments and abilities for the making of a perfect cure It is well observed that three things are necessary for a Chyrurgion First He must have an Eagles eye one that is good at healing had need be good at seeing Secondly He must have a Ladies hand soft and tender to handle the sore gently Thirdly A Lions heart a stout strong heart for if he faint how shall his patient keep up his courage These three are exceeding necessary in Chyrurgery about naturall bodies but much more in Chyrurgery about Civill and Ecclesiastical bodies the healing of Churches and Kingdoms And where shall we find whither shall we send for Physitians qualified with this Eagles eye to look into all our sores and sicknesses with this Ladies hand to deal gently and tenderly with our wounds with this Lions heart stoutly and couragiously without fears and faintings to go thorough with the work Well if men should not be found thus furnished the Lord is He hath an Eagles eye an All-seeing eye seven eyes of providence and wisdome to look through our sores and into all our distempers He hath as in allusion we may speak a Ladies hand soft and tender to deal gently and graciously with a people He can dresse our wounds and paine us little scarce be felt while he doth it And he hath the Lions heart infinite courage and strength of spirit to undertake the most gastly wounds or swolne putrified sores Let us therefore rest our selves assured that whatsoever our personall or our nationall sores our personall or our nationall wounds be be they what they will or what we can call them desperate incurable such as have discourag'd many from medling with their cure or sham'd those that have yet our Shaddai the Almighty God can bind them up and heale them fetch the core from the bottome and close the skin upon the top so tenderly dresse and so perfectly cure them that a scarre shall not remaine unlesse it be to mind us of his infinite skill and goodnesse or of our own duty and thankfullnesse JOB Chap. 5. Vers 19 20 21. He shall deliver thee in six troubles yea in seven there shall no evill touch thee In famine he shall redeem thee from death and in war from the power of the the sword Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh ELiphaz still prosecuteth his former Argument to take Job off from despising the chastnings of the Almighty spoken of at the 17th verse And having shewed first in generall that they are happy whom the Lord corrects and secondly That the Lord heals as well as wounds is as ready to bind up as to make the sore he illustrates this by giving First An assurance of deliverance from evill and that 1. In the generall at the 19th verse 2. By an enumeration of particular cases of greatest dangers and outward evills And secondly to shew the happinesse of those whom God corrects he gives an assurance of positive blessings which shall in due time be heaped upon their heads whom God had before wounded with sorrows and loaded with afflictions The nineteenth verse is a promise of deliverance from evill He shall deliver thee from six troubles yea in seven there shall no evill touch thee To deliver notes here the snatching or pulling of a man out of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spoltavit rapuit eripuit tanquam ab hoste â—ut malo Eripere praedam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Augustia interdum significat hostem quasi angustiatorem dicas the hand of an enemy out of the mouth of danger The Hebrew word for Trouble comes from a roote which signifies to straiten or to narrow a thing up in a little compasse and so by a metaphor to vex and trouble because they who are straitned in any kind are pained and troubled And when we heare of any in trouble we usually say such are in straits And this word is often translated a strait 2 Sam. 24. 14. I am in a great strait saith David when he was put upon that hard election between sword pestilence and famine So Judg. 11. 7. and 1 Sam. 13. 6. The holy language expresses an enemy or adversary by this word because an enemy puts us upon straits and so to much trouble And to raise the force of this word to the highest it is used to signifie the pangs and throwes of women in child-bearing in which the mother labours in grievous straits while the infant labours for enlargement Troubles ever meet us in or bring us into straits they may well change names which are so neere in nature I find the word so translated here in some books He shall deliver thee in six straits and in seven when thou art so encompast about shut in and incircled by evils on every side that thou knowest not which way to move or turne much lesse to get out then the Lord will give enlargement and either find a way out for thee or make one as he did for Israel at the red sea through those mighty waters In six yea in seven This phrase of speech is very considerable Some numbers in Scripture have a kind of eminency or excellency in them I intend not any large discourse about numbers only in briefe Those three numbers Three Six and Seven are applied to a speciall signification by the Holy Ghost A great number a perfect number is expressed by any one of these three numbers A three-fold cord that is a cord of many or sufficient folds is not easily broken Eccles 4. 12. Three times thou shalt
Terrour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notes the most terrible terrour or affrightment Terrour is the extreame of feare or feare confused into amazement and astonishment Death is therefore called the King of terrours because there are so many powerfull terrours in death Psal 55. 4. That vexation which Saul felt when God sent out an evill spirit with commishion to vex him is exprest by this word 1 Sam. 16. 14. An evill spirit from the Lord troubled or terrified him Such terrors for the matter such for the manner and present workings of them seized upon upright-hearted Job and false-hearted Saul A beleever a child of God an heire of Heaven may feele himself haunted and pierced with hellish terrours These are called the Terrours of God eyther first by a common Hebraisme because great and strange terrours In that language God is often put as an Epithite to shew exceeding greatnesse himselfe being the greatest So Chap. 1. ver 16. Fire of God c. Secondly Terrours of God because he sent and commanded that Army of Terrours When Jacob journeyed with his little Army Gen. 35. 5. It is said The terrour of God was upon the Cities round about and they pursued them not that is the Lord sent an Army of terrours to oppose the Cities least they should arme against Jacob. The terrour of man is very terrible and therefore the Apostle armes the Saints against it 1 Pet. 3. 14. Be not afraid of their terror The terror of God is infinitely greater and thereupon the Apostle argues 2 Cor. 5. 11. Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade Those terrours of God may be taken two wayes Either actively or passively Actively for that work of God in terrifying and troubling Thy terrours that is the terrours which thou didst afflict me with Or passively for those afflictions which oppresse Nomen terroris frâ—quenter in Scripturis sumitur pro flagellis malisque gravissimis a Deo missis the mind when God leads that army against us sets it in array to charge and commands it to encampe about us in either sence we may take this of Job as also that of Heman Psal 88. 15. While I suffer thy terrours I am distracted Further There is a two-fold terrour First caused by outward imminent danger Secondly caused by inward guilt Or Terrour comming from the wrath of man and terrour coming from the wrath of God Thus it was threatned Levit. 26. 16. I also will doe even this unto you I will appoint over you terrours Deut. 32. 25. The sword without and terrour within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin That is feare shall kill those who escape the sword A people cannot stand before the Army of men who are once surprised with an Army of terrours Hence Josh 2. 9. Your terrour is fallen upon us saith Rahab to assure the spies that the Canaanites could not stand before the people of Israel Againe The terrours of God afflict the soule First When sin is set openly to the eye of conscience in array against us An army of sins are an army of terrours The Church is called Terrible as an army with banners Cant. 6. 10. when she is strengthned and armed for the exercise of all that power which Christ hath given her and when our sins stand before us in all that strength which the law hath given them they also are terrible as an army with banners Secondly When God hides his face from us an army of terrours quickly faces us Though an army of sins come out in array against us yet if God appear to us in the fulnesse and freenesse of his grace if Christ our Captaine will but leade us on against this army we shall quickly overcome them or they will will fly before us But an army of sins is exceeding terrible when Christ appears not in the field for us or when God hides his face from us and leaves us in the dark It is usuall in Scripture to set forth terrours as the effect of that darknesse and the hidings of the face of God Naturally terrour accompanies darknesse children are afraid in the dark and not onely children but men Histories tell us of great Emperours who durst not be in the dark for fear And as naturall terrours meet us in naturall darknesse so spirituall terrours in spirituall darknesse When the light of Gods countenance is clouded and as it were benights the soule then terrour takes hold upon us Under either of these notions we may understand the terrours of this text The terrours of God doe set themselves in array against me It was true in respect of outward troubles they were very terrible But especially in regard of inward troubles when God set his sins in array before him or hid his face and obstructed the course of his wonted communion Set themselves in aray against me The Originall imports a very exact curious artificiall ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinavit ratione proportione disposuit instruxit and disposall of things As if the Lord had even studied to be exact and exquisite in afflicting Job he puts his sorrowes into a method and his troubles into order The providence of God observes a rule and is harmonious in those things which appeare to us a chaos a heape of confusion The word is applied First To the ordering of speech or disputations There is a kind of embattailing in disputation when it is regular and artificiall Job 32. 14 Now he hath not directed his speech against me saith Elihu concerning Job as if he had said Job hath not marshalled his arguments against me but all the charge hath been upon you Secondly I find the word used in reference unto prayer Prayer ought to be full of holy order and composednesse Psal 5. 3. In the morning will I direct my prayer to Thee and looke up In the morning will I put my prayer in array I will posture my prayer in a gratious order my heart in order and my words in order every petition shall as it were keep ranke and file when I am seeking unto God Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God is the counsell of the Holy Ghost by Solomon Eccles 5. 2. But properly the word is applied to the marshalling and imbattailing of an Army Jer. 50. 9 Loe I will raise and cause to come up against Bâ—bylon an assembly of great nations from the North countrey and they shall set themselves in array against her c. So then whereas Job saith The terrours of God are set in array against me he would intimate that God afflicted him both orderly and resolvedly It was not some confused terrour or sudden surptiâ—al but the Lord God like some great Commander or General mustered and marshal'd his army and led it up exactly form'd to a pitcht battell against him Observe from hence first Afflictions come sometimes by multitudes You shall have a whole Army
potion and mistooke his case his was good searching physick for the foul stomach and grosse spirit of a hypocrite but it is enough to kill the heart of an upright-heart when God seemes angry with him and appeares against him when he is smitten without and smitten within by sore afflictions of mind and body then for his comforters to smite him with their tongues to lay at him with hard words and wound him with their unreasonable jealousies then for his counsellers and helpers to be angry with and opposite against him too Observe hence That not only words untrue but words misapplied are unsavoury and may be dangerous They are no food and they may be poison Prudence in applying is the salt and seasoning of what is spoken As a word spoken in the right season is precious and upon the wheele so is a word right placed When that faith full Prophet Ezek. 13. reproves the false prophets he saith They dawbed with untempered morter ver 10. it is the word of the text and why was theirs untempered morter even because they applied the word of God wrong They made sad the hearts of those whom God would have refreshed and they cheared the spirits of those whom God would have sadned they slay the souls that should not dye and save the souls alive that should not live This was untempered morter The Apostle advises all Col. 4 6. Let your speech be alwayes with grace seasoned with salt And speech must be seasoned not only with the falt of truth but with the salt of wisdome and discretion and therefore the Apostle adds that ye may know how to answer every one that is that you may give every man an answer fitting his case and the present constitution of his spirit Of some have compassion saith the Apostle Jude ver 22. making a difference and others save with feare This shewes the holy skill of managing the word of God when we make a difference of our patients by our different medicines and not serve all out of the same boxe Hence our Lord calleth those great Teachers of the Gospel and dispensers of his Oracles Light and Salt You are the Light of the world and you are the salt of the earth because they were to speake savoury things to every person to every pallate as well as to enlighten them with knowledge and prevent or cure the corruption of their manners and keep their lives sweet As there is an unsavourinesse in persons when they are mis-employed so there is an unsavourinesse in speeches when they are mis-applied The history of the Church speaks of one Eccebolius who changed religion so often and was so unsetled that at last Conculcate me salem insipidum Niceph. he cast himselfe down at the congregation doore and said Trample upon me for I am unsavoury salt And that word though in it self a truth which is unseasonably delivered or unduly placed may be cast at the doores of the Congregation to be trampled on for in this sence it is unsavoury salt Such corrupt the word and their's is but corrupt communication such as cannot minister grace unto the hearers and often grieves the holy Spirit of God These work-men for their ill division of the word of God have reason enough to be ashamed and the Lord may justly reprove them as he did Jobs friends Chap. 42. 7. Ye have not spoken of me nor of my wayes the thing that is right JOB Chap. 6. Vers 8 9 10 c. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off Then should I yet have comfort yea I would harden my selfe in sorrow Let him not spare for I have not concealed the words of the holy One c. IN the former part of this Chapter we have had Job defending his former complaint of life and his desire of death In this context from the 8th verse unto the end of the 12th he reneweth and reinforceth that desire He not only maintaines and justifies what he had done but doth it again begging for death as heartily and importunately as he did in the third Chapter O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for The request it selfe is laid downe in the 8 â—h and 9 â—h verses and the reasons strengthning it in the 10 11 and 12 verses So these 5 verses are reduceable to these two heads 1. The renewing of his desire to dye 2. An enlargement of reasons confirming that desire O that I might have my request It is such a vehement desire and so exprest as Davids was 2 Sam. 23. 15. And David longed and said Oh that one would give me drinke of the water of the well of Bethlem which is by the gate David did not long more to tast a cup of that water then Job did to tast the cup of death The summe and scope of Jobs thoughts in this passage may be conceived thus He would assure his friends that his faith was firme and his comforts flowing from it very sweet That it was not impatience under the troubles of this life but assurance of the comforts of the next which caused him so often to call for death That these comforts caused his heart to triumph and glory in the very approaches of the most painfull death and made him despise and lightly to esteeme all the hopes of life That he was gone further then the motives which Eliphaz used from the hopes of a restitution to temporall happinesse he now was pitcht upon and lodg'd in the thoughts of eternall happinesse That he call'd for death not as that with which he had made any Covenant or was come to any agreement with but only as that which would bring him to his desired home The one Thing he desired That his comforts had not a foundation in a grave where all things are forgotten but in the Covenant of God who remembers mercy for ever and therefore it should not trouble him to die before he was restored to health riches and honour which his friends proposed to him as a great argument of comfort and of patience For in death he should have riches and glory and hence it was that he had rather endure the extreamest paines of death then stay to receive any outward comforts in this life His desires to be dissolved were not so much from the sence of his present paine for he would harden himselfe to endure yet more as from the apprehension of future joy This was not a fancie or a dreame but he had good proof and reall evidence of it in the whole course of his life which had been as a continued acting of the word of God and to a fitting him for nearest communion with God This in general The letter of the Hebrew runneth thus Who would give me that my request or that
passe out against him A if he had said Let not God spare me let him write â—s bitter a sentence against me as he pleaseth for my part I would not conceale the word of the most High but I would publish his judgement and sentence against me yea I would praise him and extoll him for it The vulgar Latine to this sence I would not contradict the word of the holy One Let him not spare me for as for my part whatsoever God shall determine and resolve whatsoever word God shall speake concerning me I will never withstand or open my mouth against it This is a truth and carries in it a high frame of holinesse when we can bring our hearts to this that let God write as bitter things against us as he pleaseth we will never contradict his word or decree but our minds and spirits shall submit wholly and fully to his dispositions of us and dispensations towards us It is as clear an evidence of grace to be passive under as to be active in the word of God Not to contradict his writ for our sufferings as not to conceale what he speaks for our practise But I rather stick to the former interpretation Job giving this as a reason of his great confidence in pursuing his petition for death because he had been so sincere holding forth the word of God both in doctrine and in life And so we may observe from it First That the testimony of a good conscience is the best ground of our willingnesse to die That man speakes enough for his willingnesse to die who hath lived speaking and doing the will of God and he is in a very miserable case who hath no other reason why he desireth death but onely because he is in misery This was one but not the only reason why Job desired death he had a reason transcending this I have not concealed the words of the holy One and I know if I have not concealed the word of God God will not conceal his mercy and loving kindness from me David bottoms his hopes of comfort in sad times upon this Psal 40. 9 10. I have preached righteousness in the great Congregation I have not refrained my lips O Lord thou knowest he was not actively or politickly silent I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart if lay there but it was imprisoned or stifl'd there I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvations I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great Congregation Upon this he fals a praying with a mighty spirit of beleeving vers 11. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me O Lord let thy loving-kindness and thy truth continually preserve me for innumerable evils have compassed me about The remembrance of our active faithfulness to the truth of God will bear up our hearts in hoping for the mercy of God He that in Davids and in Jobs sence can say I have not concealed the words of the most high may triumph over innumerable evils and shall be more then a conquerer over the last and worst of temporal evils death God cannot long conceal his love from them who have not concealed his truth Secondly observe positively That the counsels of God his truths must be revealed God hath secrets which belong not to us but then he puts them not forth in a word nor writes them in his book he keeps his secrets close in the cabinet of his decrees and counsels but what he reveals either in his word or by his works man ought to reveal too It is as dangerous if not more to conceal what God hath made known as to be inquisitive to know what God hath concealed Yea it is as dangerous to hide the word of God as it is to hide our own sins And we equally give glory to God by the profession of the one as by the confession of the other Paul with much earnestnesse professes his integrity about this as was even now toucht Act. 20. Fourthly observe That the study of a godly man is to make the word of God visible I have not concealed that is I have made plain I have revealed or I have published the words of the holy One Much of Jobs mind is concealed under that word I have not concealed For in this negative there is an affirmative as if he had said this hath been my labour and my businesse my work in the world to make known so much of the will of God as I know This was the work of Christ here below Father I have glorified thee upon earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do Joh. 17. 4. What this work was he shewes vers 6th I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world Lasty observe That it is a dangerous thing for any man to conceale the word of God either in his opinion or in his practice For it is as if Job had said if I had ever concealed the words of God I had bin but in an ill case at this time God might now justly reveale his wrath against me if I had concealed his word from others or God might justly hide his mercies from me if I had hid his word from men Smothered truths will one time or other set the conscience in a flame and that which Jeremiah spake once concerning his resolution to conceale the word of God and the effect of it will be a truth upon every one who shall set himselfe under a resolution to doe what he under a temptation did Jer. 20. 9. Then I said I will not make mention of him nor speake any more in his name what followes Then his word was in my breast as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing If a gracious heart hath taken up such a sodaine resolution to conceale the word of God he quickly repents of it or smarts under it He findes that word as a burning fire in his bones he is not able to bear it I was weary with forbearing saith the prophet Nothing in the world will burthen the conscience so much as concealed truth and they who have taken a meditated resolution that they will not reveale the word of God may be sure that word will one time or other reveale it selfe to them in the Light and heat of a burning fire seeding upon their consciences I have not concealed the words whose words The words of the Holy One Who is that The Holy One is a periphrasis for God When you hear that Title The holy One you may know who is meant This is a Title too bigge for any but a God All holinesse is in God and God is so holy that properly he onely is Holy Hence the Scripture sets God forth under this as a peculiar attribute The Holy One The Prophets often use this addition or stile The Holy One of Israel The Holy One Is One separate or set apart from all filthinesse
and a vaine thing of a good conscience The meaning then is faith and a good conscience are our best helds and friends because faith carries us unto Christ who is our best help Faith pitches upon Christ and a good conscience feasts us in the favour of God Faith alone is no help but faith is our help because it is not alone Grace left alone would be our strength but little more then nature is and our spirit little more then the flesh And therefore our comforts are not to be resolved into this That we have grace in our hearts but into this That we and our graces are in the hand of Christ Faith can live no where but upon Christ That which faith respects as our help is Christ in whom we beleeve not the act of beleeving We are helped by the grace within us but the grace within us is not our help Secondly Observe A godly man in the darkest affliction or night of sorrow finds a light of holy wisdome to answer all the objections of his enemies and the suspitions of his friends Is wisdome departed quite from me Doe you think I have nothing to say nothing to reply by way of apologie for what I have don or spoken Though Job had many afflictions upon him and his friends against him yet see how he recollects himselfe Is not my help in me he makes out the goodnesse of his cause in the midst of a thousand evils and can plead his own integrity in the throng of many jealousies and contradictions Is not my help in me Doe you think you have so daunted me that I am not able to make out my own estate or that I know not what I am The truth is sometimes God leaves his servants in so much darkness for their tryal and exercise that they cannot see their own estates but cry out they are lost and undone Many a good soul cannot reflect upon his graces or get his heart into any communion with Christ in promises This is walking in darkness and seeing no light As our sins are sometimes secrets to us so also our graces may But let a man be encompast with never so many outward afflictions yet if his spirit be free he is able to judge of his own interests through all the black clouds which hang over him through all the distractions and confusions that are about him The eye of faith is usually quickest in a dark night And while trouble is near at hand beholds Christ near at hand He can never be without help who carries his help about him or within him Nor can he utterly want counsel to direct him whose heart is as a councel Table where Christ the wisdom of God is ever President and in the Chair My worldly comforts are quite driven from me but wisdome is not I am afflicted and therefore should not be thus suspected but pittied Vers 14. To him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed from his friend but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty This verse begins the third Section of the chapter wherein Job draws up a strong charge against his friends for their uncharitablenesse See the progresse and links of his Discourse First he refuted and answered their objections against him from the first to the 8 verse Secondly he renewed his complaint which was the ground of all their objections from the 8th verse unto the end of the 13th Here at verse 14. he begins a charge against his friends of unkindness indiscretion yea of cruelty in managing of this dispute against him He giveth it first in general or by way of Preface To him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed from his friend But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty As if he had said You should have dealt otherwise with me then you have in this case though blessed be God I find help within me God hath given me the light of his spirit and wisdome to discern my own condition yet it is no thank to you I have found no help in my friends you have dealt unfriendly with me you should have pittied me but you have opposed me and so forsaken that duty which the fear of the Almighty teaches He proceeds to illustrate this more particularly by way of similitude comparing his friends to a brook whose waters fail when we are athirst or when there is most need of water To him that is afflicted The word signifies Him that is melted and the reason is because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solvit dissolvit liquidum fluidum reddidit Sic mea perpetuis liquescant pectora curis Ovid. de Pont 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tributum sic dictum quia paulatim liquescere facit facultates maximo si nimium imponatur Buxtorf b Quidam Pontificii volunt suam Missam hac voce hebraica fuisse appellatam Recte quidem per eam scilicet pietas omnis liquefacta est dâ—ssoluta Rivet affliction dissolves the spirit of a man and as it were melts his heart therefore it is called the fire of affliction To be dissolved or melted and to be afflicted are the same And that effect is ascribed to fear and trouble of spirit arising from affliction Psalm 22 15. My heart saith David a type of Christ in the middest of my belly is like melting wax By reason of the heat and greatness of his trouble and the anguish of his spirit he was as metal melted in a furnace At the defeat of the Israelites before Ai it is said the hearts of the people melted and became as water Josh 7. 5. And in the sixth Psalm verse 6. David cryes up the exuberance of his sorrowes by this word I melted or watered my couch with tears Thus the Prophet threatning a day of great fear against Jerusalem tells them They shall be as when a Standard-bearer fainteth Isa 10. 18. When the Battell waxes hot and a vanquisht army is running and crying for quarter the standard bearer is in greatest danger all make up to him and then he fainteth or melteth away with fear a Tributes and taxes are exprest in the Hebrew by a word coming from this root because if heavily imposed they melt away the estates of a people b It is a witty observation that whereas some of the Papists conceive their word Masse was derived from this Hebrew word Massas which signifyeth to melt One of ours answers let it be so It suites this sense of the word exactly and the effect oâ— that abhominable Idolatry for the Masse hath dissolved and melted away truth and pitty out of the Popish Territories To him that is offlicted pitty should be shewed That word pitty in the Hebrew signifies a sacred sweet affection of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pietas bonitas benignitas per Antiphrasin impletas crudetitas ex Calâ—aicae linguae usu benignity goodness and piety And by Contraries in which sense words are often used in that language it notes First Reproach Prov. 14. 34 Sin is
chesed a reproach to any people Secondly Impiety and cruelty harshness and severity Thirdly It signifies any abhominable wickedness Levit. 20. 17. where Moses speaking of incest incest between brother and sister calls that abomination by this word Chesod A wicked thing That may have a good name the nature whereof is so ill that it is not to be named Further The word as we translate imports more than a bare act of pitty or commiseration as suppose a man see his brother in misery compassionates him but relieves him not this is not pity Such the Apostle James describes in his first Chapter vers 15. If a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food and you say unto them be filled be warmed be cloathed poor creatures ye are hungry yea are naked I pitty you I am sorry to see you thus be filled be cloathed I wish it were otherwise with you and yet in the mean time he gives them nothing wherewith either to cloath or feed them Is this fulfilling the law of love Is this charity Nothing lesse The pity here spoken of is not a verbal piety Our saying to a brother in trouble be comforted or I would course were taken for you I wish you well with all my heart and so we bestow a mouth-ful of good words but not so much as a morsell of bread or a cup of cold water Good words alone are cheap charity to mans expence and they are so cheap in Gods esteem that they will not be found of any value at all in the day of reckening good words not realized if they be found any where will be found in the treasures of wrath This is not the pitty which Job teacheth us should be shewed to him that is afflicted The Apostles quesion shakes such out of all claime to this grace 1 John 3. 17. whosoever saith he hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother in need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how doth the love of God dwell in him Though a mans mouth be open with good words yet if he shut his bowels from good deeds there is no love to God or man hous'd in that mans heart It is no Pitty to speak of onely to speak pitty and therefore the Apostle addes verse 18 My little children let us not love in word and in tongue but in deed and in truth that 's the true meaning of this word to him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed But you my friends have not given me so much as the sound of pitty you have not bemoaned me much less have you relieved me which is the substance of pitty reall pitty You have not loved me in tongue giving me good words much less in deed and in truth Deed-pitty is both the duty and the disposition of a godly man therefore this word Chasid in the concrete is often used in Scripture to signify a godly man He is one that hath obtained much grace and pitty from the Lord and he is kind gracious and pittiful unto men The holy Proverb assures us That a good man is merciful pittiful to his beast much more to a man and most of all to a godly man who is his brother in the nearest bond And it is considerable how this word was used by way of distinction among the Jewes who cast their whole people or nation into three ranks and it is grounded upon Rom. 5 6 7. where the Apostle alludes to those three sorts First There were Reshagnim ungodlymen the prophane rabble Secondly there were the Tsadikmi righteous men And thirdly there were Chasidim good men or pittiful mâ—n scarcely saith the Apostle will one die for a righteous man for a man fair and just in his dealings peradventure for one of the Chasidim for a good man some one may chance to dy He that had been pittiful might haply find pitty and having done so much good in his life all would desire he should live still But herein God commended his love to us that while we were â—et sinners Reshagnim in the worst raâ—ke of men Christ died for us No man had either love or pitty enough to die for them who had so much impiety The farthest that the natural line oâ— mans pitty can reach is to do good to those who do him good or are good Pitty notes out such a sort of men and such a sort of actions as Antiqui vocant Ciconâ—am pietatis cultricem Ciconiis pietas eximia est Soâ— are fullest of love of bowels of brotherly kindeness and compassion Hence the Stork which by divers of the ancients was put for the Emblem of love and benignity is exprest in the Hebrew by this word Levit. 11. 19. The Storke is very tender towards her young ones and her young ones are as tender of her when she is old as naturalists have observed So then this word imports the height of all offices and affections of love from man to man especially from Christian to Christian in times of trouble and cases of extremity This Pitty you should have shewed me saith Job But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty That is he forsakes all godlinesse goodness and religion Fear takes in all that 's good and so it is conceived that Job retorts the words of Eliphaz in the fourth chap. Is this thy fear or where is thy fear thy Religion Now Job saith Is this your fear You have forsaken the fear of the Almighty Is this your Religion to deal so harshly with a distressed friend or to give him such cold comfort Surely you have forsaken that fear of the Almighty which you charged me with Have not I reason to ask Is this thy fear or to conclude You have forsaken the fear of the Almighty These words are diversly rendred Some thus He that takes away pitty from his friend hath forsaken the fear of the Almighty And Qui tollit ab â—mico suo misericordiam timorem Domini derelinquit Vulg. that 's a truth and a good sense though not so clear to the letter of the Text. Mr. Broughton joins this with the former verse By him whose mercy is molten toward his friend and who leaveth the fear of the Almighty So referring this melting to mercy and not to the man joining it with the former thus Have not I my defence and is judgment driven away from me by him whose mercy is molten away toward his neighbour and who leaveth the fear of the Almighty As if Job had said Eliphaz doest thou thinke thou haste driven away all wisdome from me by thy dispute Doest thou think that I have lost my reason as thou hast lost thy pitty Thou thinkest wisdome and understanding have forsaken me but it appears by thy dealings that thou hast forsaken the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdome Thirdly it is rendred in the contrary sense The word Chesid An dissoluto à sodali suo convitium et quod timorem omnipotentis
doing evil is not good to us and our doing good is to us no better then evil Verse 25. How forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Job speakes by way of admiration How forcible I cannot In Haebreo Admirativum est elegans patheticum Bold tell how forcible It is an elegant way of expressing the highness of our thoughts As Psal 84. 1. How aimable are thy dwelling places O Lord of hosts He admires in stead of speaking they are so aimable as I cannot tell how aimable they are Put your thoughts to their utmost conceptions of beauty and that beauty is in the dwellings of the Lord So saith Job here How forcible are right words they are so forcible as I cannot tell how forcible they are I must admire and be silent How forcible are right words The Chaldee Paraphrase reads it how sweet are right words interpreting it by that Psal 119. 103. Oh how sweet are thy Commandements unto me they are sweeter than the honey and the honey comb But the Originals differ though that be a good sense We read How forcible The word signifies any thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acrimoniae notionem habet strong potent or mighty It notes also acrimony sharpnesse or smartnesse and so it is often applyed to words either good or bad 1 King 2. 8. when David lay upon his death bead giving his last advices to Solomon Thou saith he hast Shimei with thee who cursed me with a grievous curse In the Hebrew it is this word who cursed me with a sharp strong forcible curse he cursed me with all his heart with all his might he laid load upon me Evil words are strong right words are strongest Job had before at the 6th verse of this Chapter called the discourses of Eliphaz unsavoury in this he taxes them for flat or weak right words have a pleasing acrimony upon the palate of the soul and a power upon the judgement to sway and carry it but yours are dull and feeble Some render it after the letter of the Hebrew words of right or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eloquia rectitudinis Mont. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aquil. truth Others in the Concret how forcible are the words of a right or upright man But take it as we translate How forcible are right words Words are right three wayes 1. In the matter when they are true 2. In the manner when they are plain direct and perspicuous 3. In their use when they are duely and properly applied when the arrow is carried home to the white then they are right words or words of righteousnesse When this three-fold rightnesse meets in words how forcible how strong are such words But what doth your arguing reprove I confess there is great strength in right words and in the words of the upright but you have been long disputing the matter with me and what have you got where are your gains The word signifies to rebuke with conviction and argument to shew what is right and to refute that which is contrary Job 13. 3. the word is so used Surely I would speak to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arguit redarguit praeparavit verba contra aliquem disputando ostendendo jus the Almighty and I desire to reason with God to reason it out as it were by force of Argument with God The word is answerable in sence to that in the Greek used by the Apostle Heb. 11. 1. Faith is a conviction or the evidence of things not seen that is an evident conviction faith gives a stronger evidence then any reason yea then sence therefore though faith be of things that fall not under sence and are above reason yet faith is an evidence or a conviction fuller then any Logical conviction or demonstration The Argument from such authority as faith grounds upon is stronger and more convincing then any or then all the reason in the world What doth your arguing reprove Word for ward what doth Quid disceptando conficiet disceptatio vestra q. d. quod vos reâ—â—â—guitis redarguendi verbo non est donandum your disputation dispute Or what doe your arguments argue as if he had said your arguing is no arguing your reasons are no reasons that which you have been arguing all this while with me doth not so much as deserve the name of an argument in my case it hath no power or strength in it Job laies a charge upon his friends by this opposition Right words are forcible but your arguments are not right or you are not right who argue therefore what force what power is there in what you have spoken I can blow it all off as easily as a man can blow off a feather Mr. Broughtton varies somewhat from this sence And what can your blame soundly blame that is you shall finde nothing blame worthy or reprovable in me Observe hence first Words rightly spoken are very forcible Take it in the general What mighty things have words words duly spoken done Abigail a weak woman by a few right words overcame the strength and wrath of mighty David and turned his whole army back David with all his men were in the heat of resolution and upon a hot march to destroy Nabal yet she stops them And that woman speaking to Johab when Sheba fled to the City with a few right words prevailed to save the City and stay the fury of war Take the point more strictly The words of truth are full of power full of strength Naked truth is too hard for armed errour Truth hath the strength of God in it therefore that must needs prevail The Apostle professes 2 Cor. 1. 3. We can doe nothing against the truth He means it in regard of the bent of his spirit his heart could not move against truth but we may use it in another sence We can doe nothing against the truth that is let us put out the uttermost of our power we can never prevail against the truth Look upon truth in the promises that will conquer all Look upon truth in the threatnings that 's forcible to overcome all Jer. 1. 10. God gives the Prophet a commission I have set thee over the Nations and over the Kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down to build and to plant Here is a strange commission for a Prophet How could Jeremiah plant or root up build or pull down Nations He never drew sword yet he performed this commission fully by his word he pulled them down and rooted them up by the word of threatning and he planted them and built them with the word of promise Zech. 1. 10. Your fathers are dead they are gone but my words saith the Lord which I spake by my servants the Prophets did not they take hold of your fathers Your fathers are dead and the Prophets are dead but my words live still and did not they hold
shall not read either fear or falsenesse written in my forehead the lines and characters of my countenance shall shew you nothing but the soundnesse and integrity of my conscience For it is evident unto you if I lie you will anon read the lie in my face if there be a lie in my heart therefore break not off with me turn not away in discontent let us discourse a little more about this businesse and the truth will appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is evident unto you if I lie The Hebrew is it is before your face if I lie that is as we translate it will quickly be evident and appear unto you by a little sober debate of this businesse whether I am right or no. Et in faciem vestrum si mentior sc despeream vel moriar vel non sit mihi propitius Deus vel tale quippiam Mer. Some think there is a kind of secret imprecation in this speech It will be evident unto you if I lie As if he had said Let not the Lord be mercifull or gracious unto me let not the Lord pity or spare me If I am false hearted and lie unto you It is frequent and familiar in the Hebrew to give such expressions of an oath As in that oath of God Psalm 95. 11. quoted Heb. 3. 11. Vnto whom I sware in my wrath If they shall enter into my rest which we translate by a plain negative in both places They shall not enter into my rest And Psal 89 39. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David or if I lie unto David then let not my word be taken any more So Job here it will he evident to you if I lie and if I doe let me not have help or strength or support from God any more To lie may be taken two wayes either strictly as to lye is to Mentire est contramentem ite speak that which is false with an intent to deceive To speak against clear knowledge is the proper strict sence of a lie Or to lie signifies to fail or to come short in that which is expected from us by others To frustrate any of their hopes is to lie to them and so it is applied often times to the fruites of the earth Hab. 3. 17. Though the labour of the Olive shall fail the word is though the labour of the Olive should lie that is though you coming to find fruit of the Olive should find none there The Olive whose fair leaves promise and speak you fair as if you should have fruit if when you come it yeelds none this Olive lies to you So Hos 9. 2. The new wine shall lie we translate it The new wine shall fail that is the vines which speake thus much that you shall have new wine shortly if when you come there is none the vines lie In either of these sences we may understand it Spem mentita seges Hor. If I lie that is if I speak any thing against my mind wittingly or willingly or if I fail in this business if I am like the vine or like the olive when they give no fruit according to expectation it will be evident unto you you shall see if we discusse this controversie a little further the truth will out whether I shall fail or belie your expectation or no. That place Chap. 24. 25 will expound it so who will make me a lyar saith Job and make my speech nothing worth as if he had said my words shall be made good and I will not fail in that which I have undertaken or taken upon me There is a further apprehension about these words Look upon Totus hic versus eleganter insinuat rem sorensem nempe judic is strict issimum examen cosentes testes interrogat non solum verbis sed etiam nutibus oculorum intuitu Bold me it is evident unto you if I lie as iâ— they were an allusion to the carriage of Judges and Magistrates towards offenders in publick judiciary tryals when an offender or one accused for any offence is brought before a judge and stands at the bar to be arraigned the judge looks upon him eyes him sets his eye upon him and he bids the offender look up in his face look upon me saith the judge and speak up guiltiness usually clouds the forehead and cloaths the brâ—w The weight of guilt holds down the head The evil doer hath an ill look or dares not look up how glad is he if the judge look off him We have such an expression Psal 11. 4. speaking of the Lord the great Judge of Heaven and earth His eye-lids try the children of men as a Judge tries a guilty person with his eye and reades the characters of his wickednesse printed in his face Hence we have a common speech in our language such an one looks suspiciously or he hath a guilty looke At that great Goale-delivery described Rev. 6. 16. all the prisoners cry out to be hid from the face of him that sate upon the throne They could not looke upon Christ and they could not endure Christ should looke on them The eye-lids of Christ try the children of men That of Solomon may help this sence Pro. 20. 8. A King that sitteth in the throne of judgement scattereth away all evill with his eyes Wickednesse cannot endure to be under the observation of any eye much lesse of the eye of Justice Hence the actors of it say Who seeth us It is very hard not to shew Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu Ovid. secund Metam the guilt of the heart in the face and it is as hard to have it seen there Job seemes to offer himself to the view of the severest Judge Be content look upon me if I am guilty it will quickly appeare unto you my hypocrisie will breake out in my face and you may reade my conscience in my countenance It is noted of Paul Acts 13. 59. that when he had to deal witb Elymas the Sorcerer he set his eyes upon him and said O full of all subtilty The Apostle beate him downe as it were with a cast of his eye Job bids his friends looke upon him as long and as critically as they pleased he was not afraid of there lookes Lastly thus looke to me that is attend well what I say for I will explaine my minde so fully and clearely to you that it will quickly be evident to you whether I am right or wrong We may observe from this passage first That uprightnesse hath much boldnesse He that hath a good cause and a good conscience is not afraid to be searched to the bottome he cares not who lookes upon him or who lookes into him David in regard of the uprightnesse of his heart calls unto God himself Search me and try me it there be any way of wickednesse in me Psal 139. 23. David was so assured at his
are vanity all goe to one place all are of the dust and all turn to the dust again And whereas the Atheist heard some speake of the ascent of mans spirit after this life he puts it off as but talke and guessing ver 21. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth That is who can tell that there is such a difference between the spirit of a man and of a beast who ever saw the one ascending or the other descending or from what Anatomie was this learned Thus the Atheist derides the doctrine of the soul and will therefore laugh and be merry with his body while it lasts that 's his portion For who shall bring him to sâ—e what shall be after him ver 22. Is it not strange that any who are called sober Christians should plant their opinions in this soyle of Atheisme and make that a proofe of their faith which Solomon brings only as a proofe of some mens infidelity The Preacher in this Book personated those whom he abhor'd and sometimes speakes the practises of other men not his own opinion There is no more reason to ground this Tenet of the Soules Mortality upon those texts then there is of encouragement to intemperancie in that chap. 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheare thee in the dayes of thy youth and walke in the wayes of thine own heart Or in that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 32. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die If any would learne Solomons own sence about this point let him reade it as plaine as words can make it Eccl. 12. 7. Then namely when man dies shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it So then to the next before us the soule is not a wind but the Hujusmodi sententiâ— regressum animarum in corpora minin è negant sed necessitatem moriendi confirmant celeri atem life And all those Scriptures where life is compared to wind and dying to the passing of it without returning deny the regresse or returning of the soule to a naturall not to an eternall life and imply the short stay of the soule in the body and certaine departure from it not a not being when it parts These two must part and so part as never to returne to that estate againe Thus Iob expounds himselfe in the words following Mine eye shall no more see good Or as the Hebrew I shall not return to see good answerable to the metaphor of a wind it passeth away and returnes no more To see In this place as often elsewhere is to enjoy I shall not Videre bonum pro frui nota locutio est enjoy good Psal 4. 6. Who will shew or who will cause us to see any good It was not the bare sight of good which they desired but the enjoyment of it So Ier. 17. 6. The man whose heart departeth from God is threatned that he shall not see when good cometh that is he shall not enjoy good when it comes For though to see good be a mercy yet to see it and not to tast it is a curse Therefore at the last day they who thought themselves high in Gods favour but were indeed under his wrath are told that they shall Lam. 13. 26. see Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdome of God and themselves shut out they shall see what they cannot enjoy and that sight shall adde to their sorrow The Prophet cries out Lament 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction that is I am the man that hath felt and had experience of afflictions And Psalm 16. 10. the great promise to Christ is that though he took a corruptible body upon him yet he should not see corruption that is partake of corruption corruption should have no communion with much lesse power over him And we have the same use of the word in this book chap. 20. ver 17. where Zophar tells the hypocrite that God will deprive and strip him of every good thing He shall not see the rivers the floods the brookes of honey and butter It is a rhetoricall expresson comparing the affluence of outward things to floods and rivers and brooks which send forth their streames plentifully as if he had said though there be great store of honey and butter those two are specified for the rest though there be rivers brooks and streames of these commodities yet he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall see none of them that is he shall not enjoy or tast a drop of Sicut Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latini bonum aliquando pro pulchro commodo utili usurpant Isa subinde Hebraei vocabudum Tob Fagius in Gen. 2. 18 them That unbeleeving Lord is told by Elisha that he should see plenty in Samaria the next day but should not eate thereof 2 King 7. 2. Not to see is not to eat and he that sees but eates not is not releeved but troubled at the sight Mine eye shall not see good What good when a man dies shall he see no more good we see but little good while we live and the greatest good is to be seen when we die or rather while we live what doe we see but evill and when the Saints die what have they to see but good how is it then that Iob saith when I die mine eye shall not see good what miserable creatures were we if there were no good to be seen beyond the line of this life our richest stock of comfort lyes in the good we shall see hereafter which is therefore called the blessed-making vision And Iob knew well enough that his eyes should see good after death for he saith chap. 19. 27. with these eyes shall I see God he knew also his soule had an eye to see good and a better good then ever he saw in the world while his body lay in the grave Then his meaning of Mine eye shall no more see good is no more worldly good none of †these good things which I have seen I shall be above the smart of earthly sorrows and above the sence of earthly joyes Good is either natural or civill or spirituall When God created the world he looked upon all that he bad made and he saw that all was very good Civill good is the order peace and prosperity of the world death stops the sight of all this good As for eternall or spirituall good death cannot close or dimme the eye against those objects Then here is no plea for Atheists against the resurrection nor any against the soules Being or being awake till the resurrection Iob speakes only about the speare and course of nature when man dies naturally and is in the state of the dead he enjoyes nothing he acts nothing according to the estate of the living * In his
man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death When a man delights in sinne he would sinne alway he thinkes he can never have enough of sinning it is so in any other instance where once affection is alienated we would be estranged and taken off from conversation We care not to be with that from which our hearts are departed Assoone as ever Amnon had defiled he loathes his sister and assoone as he loathed her he turned her out of doores And Amnon said unto her arise and be gone 2 Sam. 13. 15. He that loathes his life is glad when a doore opens for it's departure I loath it I would not live alway Secondly observe Trouble makes a little time seeme long He had said before that his life was swifter then a Weavers shuttle now I would not live alway O how long is my life how tedious He lookes upon it as if it were a kind of eternity as if his life would never have an end never be done I would not live alway Paine makes every houre a day and every day a moneth and every moneth a yeare yea an age He thinks his life will never end whose affliction doth not he thinkes he shall never die because his troubles live Every man is ready to say he lives too long when he lives not as he would The soules under the Altar cried out Revel 6. 10. How long Lord how long Lord wilt thou cease to avenge c. of our good dayes we complaine How short Lord how short And of our evill daies we cry out How long Lord how long This is a long day and this a long night indeed this is a long fit this a lasting affliction As the eternity which we shall have in heaven is the longest so it is the shortest Eternity is longest in regard of duration but it is shortest in regard of apprehension The eternity of heaven shall be to us no more tedious than a minut or a moment Eternity is so full of pleasure and satisfaction that it breeds no fullnesse of it selfe living at the well head of comfort in immediate communion with God by Jesus Christ our comforts renew as much as they continue whence freshnesse of appetite and fullnesse of satisfaction are perpetually interchangeable The joyes of that estate are so many that the yeares seeme but few Eternall joy makes eternity but as a moment as eternall pain will make every moment an eternity Thirdly Observe forasmuch as Job saith I would not live alwaies he intimates that there is such a desire in some men for he speaks of a life in this world There is a principle in man drawing out his heart in desires to live alway in the world I saith Job would not live alway let others make that their choice if they will I will not Most are very greedy of that commodity and would not part with it upon any termes and no wonder for as the Psalmist describes them They have their portion in this life He that hath his portion in this life would ever have this life he that hath nothing beyond this world would never goe heyond the world Such must needs be all for life all for the world because these are their all You shall never come to a worldly man and find him in a mind to die Let orhers take heaven he is contented with his earth let others make their best of the next life the present shall serve his turne From the reason of this request My dayes are vanity Observe The life of man is a vain life Vanity hath two things in it whereof the one may seem quite contrary to the other it hath emptinesse in it and it hath fulnesse in it it hath emptinesse of comfort and fulnesse of vexation that 's the right vanity Vanity with vexation of spirit My daies are vanity they are empty of good and full of evill Foure waies the vanitie of mans dayes may be demonstrated First they are vaine comparatively So our daies are more then vaine or lesse then vanity for they are nothing Psal 39. 5. Mine age is nothing before thee As in comparison of God Isa 40. 15. 17 The Nations are as the drop of a bucket c. they are vanity yea they are nothing yea they are counted to him lesse then nothing So our daies are vaine they are nothing but vanity they are lesse than vanity or nothing Nothingnesse is the substance of vanity and all troublesomenesse is the accident of it We cannot forme up an apprehension of our life so little as it is we cannot reach so low in our thoughts as the bottome of mans vanity in either notion As we are not able to raise our hearts so high as the excellency of that estate which we have by Christ no mans thoughts are bigg enough or can be to comprehend or to take in that So we cannot little our thoughts enough to consider the estate sinne hath brought us into therefore it is said to be as nothing and lesse than nothing and how little that is which is lesse then nothing no man can proportion Secondly our dayes are vanity because they are so unconstant and changeable so subject to motion and alteration That 's a vaine thing which is ever upon it's change That which sets the glory of God highest in opposition to the vanity of the creature is That with him there is no variablenesse nor shaddow of turning Jam. 1. 17. or shaddow by turning some translate it so no shadow by turning because the Tropique or turning of the Sunne makes the shaddow while the Sun is in the Zenith that is directly over our heads in the highest point of the heavens we cast no shadows Now the Lord never turneth he is ever fixed at a point and so makes no shaddow or thus as we render it no shaddow of turning that is not only is there no turning in God but there is not so much as a shaddow of it not so much as the least imagination of a shaddow This sets up the glory of God highest And in opposition to this point of highest perfection in God lies the lowest point of the creature vanity that in them there is nothing but turning in them there is nothing but variableness and the substance of turning The fashion of the world passeth away it is ever passing never standing at a stay It is more then passing it is posting from stage to stage night and day As the nature of Sicut bomo omnes in scipso res velut mundus quidam ita omnium mutationum seminae continct man containes the seeds and principles of all things in the world and is therefore called a little world So his nature contains the seeds and principles of all the changes in the world Therefore his daies are vain Thirdly the vanity of these daies appeares in this because they are unsatisfying dayes That 's a vaine thing which doth not satisfie for vanity is emptinesse and emptinesse can
the dayes of man be vanity let us set our eyes and hearts upon that which is something upon that which is all upon that which is lasting upon that which is everlasting upon that which is true upon that which is truth upon that which will not deceive upon that which cannot deceive upon that which will be more in fruition then ever it was in expectation The excellency of that estate we have in spirituals consists in this that as it promiseth much so it performeth much and rather more than it promiseth a beleever finds himselfe satisfied in Christ beyound expectation the soul did not expect so much as it finds As the Queen of Sheba comming to Solomon had satisfaction beyound report and promise so shall all who come to Christ he makes us large promises and if we beleeve we shall find larger performances We shall at last say that the halfe of those good things which we now enjoy were not told us in the promises God hath layed up all good in his word but our thoughts are not able to take out the extent of those good things Hence it is said that when Christ appeares He shall come to be admired in his Saints things shall be so far beyound their apprehension that they shall be all in admiration JOB Chap. 7. Vers 17 18. 19. What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him And that thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment How long wilt thou not depart from me nor let me alone till I may swallow down my spittle THese three verses containe a farther argument whereby Job strengthens his complaint The summe of the argument is taken from a comparison of the power majesty and greatnesse of God with the meannesse and misery with the lownesse and poverty of man What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him Why should the great the wise the powerfull the glorious God contend or have to do with weak miserable vaine man How unequall is this Paria paribus congandent match What is man The word is what is miserable man Enosh man encompast about with sorrowes What is this sorrowfull miserable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 man Job concluded in the former verse man is vanity And yet here he questions What is man The question rellisheth of contempt rather then of ignorace and carries with it a low estimation of man let him be what he will not a want of information what man is What is man As we use to say to or of those we slight who are you or what 's he It imports the vanity and deficiency of the creature Or the words are a diminitive admiration He admires the smallnesse the littlenesse the meannesse the nothingnesse of man Questions in Scripture often abate the sence Zech. 4. 7. Who art thou O great mountaine thou lookest very big and very great but who art thou tell me who thou art or I will tell thee thou art now but a molehill thou shalt be a nothing shortly Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plaine it is a contemptuous undervaluing question against the proud opposers of the Church Who am I O Lord and what is my house saith David 2 Sam. 7. 18. His question extenuates On the other side questions often increase the sence and raise it to the highest Exod. 15. 11. Who is a God like unto thee where is there such a God as thou art So Mich. 7. 18. Who is a God like unto thee pardoning iniquity transgression and sinne The question puts the brightest glory upon God in pardoning sin Hence man is abased in a question what is man how low how poore a creature is he Or take the question barely for a desire of resolution as if this were a peece of a Catechisme about mans frailty what is man He had told us in the words immediatly forgoing the text that man is vanity why then doth he enquire in these words what is man It is not to learne what man is but to teach us the wonder that man being such should be thus regarded As if he had said Forasmuch as man is vanity what is vanity that thou shouldest magnifie it will any one esteeme vanity and prize a thing of nought man is vanity that 's the answer to the question The Scripture gives many answers to this question Aske the Prophet Isaiah what is man and he answers chap. 40. 6. Man is grasse All flesh is grasse and the goodlinesse thereof as the flower of the field Aske David what is man He answers Psal 62. 9. Man is a lye not a lyar only or a deceiver but a lye and a deceit All the answers the holy Ghost gives concerning man are to humble man Man is ready to flatter himselfe and one man to flatter another but God tels us plainly what we are That thou shouldest magnifie him or make him great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a three-fold sense of that word magnifie used in Scripture Magnus quantitate vel qualitate annis bonore existimatione authoritate Shind 1. It implies only a manifestation or declaration of anothers greatnesse or an opening of his intrinsicall worth and dignity in which sence man is often said to magnifie God he declares and publishes the infinite internall worth and dignity of God Luke 1. 46. the Virgin beginneth her Song thus My soule doth magnifie the Lord. It is impossible we should give the least addition to the greatnesse of God Then magnifying of God is only a declaring that God is great So Psal 34. 3. O magnifie the Lord with me that is let us joyne our hearts and our tongues in this great work to lift up the honour and Name of our God 2. To magnifie is to esteeme or prize greatly So the Apostle speaking of his office shewes how highly he priz'd it by breaking forth into this holy boast Rom. 11. 13. I magnifie mine Office I esteeme this as my greatest priviledge and honour that God hath called me to be an Apostle And Acts 5. 19. when the Pharisees were so angry with the Apostles and many were afraid to joyne with them the text saith the people magnified them that is the people had high thoughts of them and esteemed them greatly But thirdly which is chiefely intended in this place to magnifie is to make great or to give some reall addition of worth and respect Thus the Lord magnifies man he magnifies him by adding somewhat to him by giving glory and lustre to man who in himselfe is vile and mean and contemptible And thus God magnifies man foure wayes First He magnifies man in the work of creation of that we reade Psal 8. 4. where this question is put What is man that thou shouldest be mindfull of him or the sonne of man that thou visitest him The third verse shewes us what it was which raised the Psalmist to this admiration
what is man that thou shouldest magnifie him If God magnifie man one man should not vilifie and debase another one man should not contemne and slight another Who art thou that centemnest thy brother Thou canst not really magnifie thy brother and wilt thou debase him It is a most dangerous attempt to abase those whom God magnifies to despise those whom God honours That on whom God sets his heart against him man should set his heart or tongue or pen. God seekes occasion to magnifie us though we give him advantages every day to cast dishonour upon us Let man takc heed how he dishonours those whom the great God now doth and intends to honour more When Pharoah magnified Joseph he caused the people to cry Abrech that is bow the knee before him Gen. 41. 43. And when Ahasuerus intended to advance Mordecai He commanded him to be arrayed in royall aparrell c. and proclamation to be made Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour Esth 6. 11. Princes expect that al should favour and honour those whom they honour and make their favourites Surely then the great God will not beare it that they should be despised whom he delights in and casts honour upon But here a Question arises How this is appliable unto Job why doth Job who lay upon a dung-hill and was cast into so low a condition speake of magnifying Was Job magnified Doth Job wonder at his preferment and exaltation when he was brought downe to the dust Poore Job Thou wast almost nullified and made no body and dost thou speake as if thy honour were too big for thee What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him We may answer First By connecting this word magnifie with the words that follow What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him As if he had said What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him by setting thine heart upon him And so setting the heart upon man is an explication of what is meant by magnifying man And that 's a cleare truth when God sets his heart upon a man he magnifies him sure enough that act of God is the exaltation of the creature Man needs no greater honour then this that God sets his heart upon him he that knows that knows himself high enough Whatsoever man sets his heart upon he as man can exalts and magnifies it If a man sets his heart upon another man he magnifies that man Yea if a man sets his heart upon a beast or a stoue he in a sence deifies that beast that stone If he sets his heart upon any creature he makes that creature a god to him for nothing should have the heart but God alone And the reason is because setting the heart upon any thing is the highest exaltation we can give it Therefore nothing ought to have the heart set upon it but God for he is Lord over all And the Lord cals us to set our hearts upon him because that is the highest honour creatures can give him Now as our setting our hearts on God magnifies him so the setting of his heart on us doth wonderfully magnifie us And he therefore sets his heart upon us that we might at once see and admire how much he honours us If a King set his heart upon a man that man is greatly magnified he is magnified in the opinion of others and not only in the bare opinion of others but there is a real dignity put upon that man on whom a King puts his heart How much more if God sets his heart upon man is man really magnified That God sets his eye upon a man is a magnifying of him It was the priviledge of Solomons Temple that the Lord promised his eye would be upon that place and it was a high honour to the Temple that God would looke upon it continually 1 King 8. 29. If it be a condescension for God to eye the creature He humbleth himselfe to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth Psa 113. 6. How great is his condescention in setting his heart upon the creature So there is a truth in this sence and we may make a comfortable improvement of it What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him by setting thine heart upon him Secondly Job may have respect to his former greatnesse when God magnified him and made him the greatest man in the East and is now be-moaning his owne change in the changeablenesse of mans condition who when he is lifted up to the highest fairly built and adorned yet in a moment may be cast downe and Quorsum in me loâ—â—pletando tuam operam pâ—suisti tuam providentiam ostendisti quare me ad cum statum evexisti in qua parsistere non poteram ruin'd Therefore Job comes with his wonder Lord what is man What is the ordinary state of man that thou shouldest take care to make him great As if he had said why didst thou magnifie me to make me the greatest man in the East Why didst thou set thine heart upon me to blesse my family and provide for me as if thou hadst none else to provide for Thou seest mans beauty is blasted in the twinckling of an eye and then all thy worke is lost It is not worth the while to doe that which may be undone so soone Would any one be at cost to build a house to bestow a great deale of charge pains upon it and it may be spend some yeares about the adorning and furnishing of it and when all 's done it is such a house that the next breath of wind may levell with the ground What is such a house that a man should build it When man is raised up and built a puffe of wind a blast of affliction blowes him downe and brings him to the dust what is this man that he should be magnified This is a good sence of the words that Job reflecting upon his former greatnesse and honour now defaced and overthrowne breakes out into this expostulation what is man Why should God in his providence lay out so much to magnifie and set a man up who may be so quickly down as you see I am at this day But thirdly rather take it thus What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him Namely by dealing with him thus in chastnings and afflictions by disciplining and tutoring him with the rods of thy correction But you will say Is it a magnifying of a man to afflict a man Yes it is a magnifying of man man is magnified two wayes by affliction First in that God who is so great will discend to chastise and correct or to order the Chastisements and corrections of man Man is magnified when God deales or contends with him That Indignus sum quem vel percutias contemptior sum quam ut adversus me manum extendas God wrastles and strives with man is an honour to man David 1 Sam. 24. 14.
care for Oxen God doth care for Oxen The Apostle having shewed the goodnesse of God to beasts providing by a law that they should not be muzled presently he questions Doth God take care for Oxen As if he had said surely there is some what more in it or saith he it altogether for our sakes Not altogether doubtlesse God had regard to Oxen But for our sakes no doubt it was written that is chiefly for our sakes That he which ploweth should plow in hope and he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope So when Christ speaks of the Lillies Mat. 6. If God so cloath the Lillies of the field how much more will he cloath you You shall have the strength of his care to provide for you to feed and cloath you thus God sets his heart upon man he lookes to his people as to his houshold to his charge he will see they shall have all things needfull for them And so not laying to heart which is the contrary signifies carelesnesse Isa 47. 7. It is reported of Babylon Thou saidst I shall be a Ladie for ever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart that is thou didst not regard these things to take care about them And Ezek. 40. 4. the expression is very full where God cals the Prophet to attention and he calleth him all over Behold saith he with thine eyes and heare with thine eares and set thine heart on all that I shall shew thee He wakens the whole man See and see with thine eyes Heare and heare with thine eares and set thine heart upon it the sum of all is be thou very intentive and diligent about this businesse to the utmost Secondly To set the heart notes an act of the affections and desires A man sets his love upon what he sets his heart that 's the meaning of Psalm 62. 10. If riches increase set not your heart upon them That is let not your love your affections your desires close with these things when riches abound let not your desires abound too It is an admirable frame of heart to have narrow scant affections in a large plentifull estate He is the true rich man who loves his riches poorly Set your affections on things that are above Col. 3. 2. Thirdly To set the heart notes high esteeme and account this is more than bare love and affection 2 Sam. 18. 3. when a counsell of warre was held by Davids Commanders about going out to battell against Absolom they all vote against Davids person all undertaking upon this ground they will not care for us they will not set their hearts upon us or value us their hearts are set upon thee thou art the prize they looke for and therefore the heate of the battell will be against thee Againe 1 Sam. 4. 20. When the wife of Phineas was delivered of a son a son is the womans joy and glory yet the text saith when the women that stood by told her that a son was borne she answered not neither did she regard it she did not set her heart upon it because the glory was departed from Israel In either of these sences the Lord sets his heart upon man he greatly loves man The love of God to man is the spring of mercy to man yea love is the spring of love love acted springs from a decree of love Deut. 7. 7. The Lord thy God did not set his love upon you c. because ye were more in number then any other people but because the Lord loved you Love also led in that highest work of mercy the giving of Christ God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son Josh 3. 16. As love is the spring and root of all the reall duty which mans performes to God and is therefore called the fulfilling of the law Our love fulfilleth the will of God so the love of God is the root of all that good we receive his love fulfilleth our will that is whatsoever we will or ask according to the will of God the love of God fulfills it for us Our love fulfills the law of Gods command and Gods love fulfills the law of our wants and lawfull desires His heart is set upon us and then his hand is open to us Further God doth not only love man but his love is great and his esteeme of man very high and he reallizes the greatest love by bestowing the greatest mercy How did God set his heart upon us when he gave his Son who lay in his bosome for us He set his bosome upon us when he gave us his Sonne who came out of his bosome Hence let us see our duty Should not we set our heart upon God when God sets his heart upon us the soveraignty of God cals for our hearts He as Lord may use al that we have or are And there is more than a law of soveraignty why we should give God our hearts God hath given us his heart first he who calleth for our hearts hath first given us his What are our hearts to his heart The love of God infinitely exceeds the love and affection of the creature What were it to God if he had none of our hearts But woe to us if we had not the heart of God This phrase shews us the reason why God calls for our hearts he gves us his own it is but equall among men to love where we are loved to give a heart where we have received one how much more should we love God and give him our hearts when we heare he loves us and sets his heart upon us whose love heart alone is infinitely better then all the loves and hearts of all men and Angels There is yet a fourth consideration about this expression the setting of the heart Setting the heart is applied to the anger and displeasure of God so the phrase is used Job 34. 14. If he set his heart upon man all flesh shall perish together that is if God be resolved to chastise man to bring judgements upon him all flesh shall perish together none shall be able to oppose it As it is the hightest favour to have God set his heart upon us in mercy and love so it is the highest judgement to have God set his heart upon a man in anger and in wrath to set his heart to afflict and punish The Lord answers his own people Jer. 15. 1 2 3. that notwithstanding all the prayers and motions of his beloved favourites in their behalfe his heart could not be towards them Then his heart was strongly set against them or upon them in extreame anger therefore he concludes they that are for the sword to the sword and they that are for destruction to destruction c. If God set his heart to afflict he will afflict and he can doe it And there may be such a sense of the text here What is man that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him that thou shouldest come
he is afflicted many a good soule would not beleeve that they had such an unbeleeving heart such a proud heart till God tried him and then corruption discovered it self The reason why God brought his people such a way about in the wildernesse was Deut. 8. 2. to prove them to try them to know what was in their heart God knowes what is in the heart of man intuitively and he needs not goe about he can goe the neerest way into every mans heart he proves it only to make it known to others and to make a man know himselfe They could not thinke their hearts were so rebellious so ful of murmuring and unbeleefe if God had not taken them about to prove and try them those forty yeares Prosperity and comforts are trials too whatsoever God doth with a man he some way or other tries him Looke not only upon your afflictions as trials your mercies also are tryals God gives you them to see what you will doe with them he gives riches and honour and credit to see how men will use and improve them as by afflictions so by outward comforts he tries both what grace and what corruption is in our hearts He gives comforts to see how we can live upon God in Christ when we have the creature and that we may shew how much we make of him without whom we cannot live when we have all things besides him Prosperity tries corruption then pride and creature-confidence breake forth which before were undiscerned We say Magistracy shewes a man nature when it is exalted shewes it selfe as much as when it is vext He trieth every moment A moment is the least part and division 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad momenta of time To try every moment is to try not only frequently but continually Hence observe The temper and state of mans heart is so various that there needs new experiments of him every moment Why doth God try us every moment Because we are one moment in one temper and the next moment in another The acting frame of a mans heart this houre cannot be collected from the frame it was in an houre before therefore there is a continuall triall Some things if they be tried once they are tried for ever if we try gold it will ever be as good as we found it unlesse we alter it as we try it to be so it continues to be But try the heart of man this day and come againe the next and you may find it in a different condition to day beleeving to morrow unbeleeving to day humble to morrow proud to day meeke to morrow passionate to day lively and enlarged to morrow dead and straightned pure gold to day and to morrow exceeding drossie As it is with the pulse of a sick man it varieth every quarter of an houre therefore the Physitian tries his pulse every time he comes because his disease alters the state of his body so it is with the distempered condition of mans spirit God having tried our pulse the state of our spirit by crosses or by mercies this day next day he tryes us too and the third day he tryes us againe and so keepe us in continuall trials because we are in continuall variations That sicknesse and disease within us alters the state and condition of the soule every moment Our comfort is that God hath a time wherein he will set our souls up in such a frame as he shall need to try us but that once Having set us up in a frame of glory he shall not need to try our hearts for us or to put us to the triall of our selvs any more we shall stand as he sets us up to all eternity I must yet come downe from the thoughts of this blessed eternity and shew you Job tried out with his time and earnestly calling but for a minutes respire from his paines and sorrows in the voice of the nineteenth vers Verse 19. How long wilt thou not depart from me nor let me alone till I may swallow down my spittle In this verse Job makes application of the two former to himselfe as if he had said seeing man is a creature so weake and unworthy in himselfe and I am such among the rest why doest thou visit me and try me every moment How long shall it be ere thou depart from me or how long wilt thou not looke away from me The word under another construction signifies to looke upon a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quando construitur cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat aspicere respicere cum detectatione Gen. 4. 5. sed cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat avertere recedere man with respect and complacency So Gen. 4. 5. The Lord had respect unto or he looked graciously upon Abel and his offering But here to looke away and so Isa 22. 4. Looke away from me I will weepe bitterly And because they who withdraw their eyes from us are ready also to withdraw their presence from us therefore it signifies to depart How long wilt thou not depart from me c. But is this the voice of Job Is he burthen'd with the presence of God Or doth he thinke the time long till God be gone from him The wicked say unto God depart from us Chap. 21. 14. And the Lord threatens this as the sorest judgement against his owne people Jer. 6. 8. Be instructed O Jerusalem lest my soule depart from thee And by the Prophet Hosea Chap. 9. 12. Woe also unto them when I depart from them The promise of strongest consolation to the Saints is this I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13. 5. And the very offer of a departure did so afflict Moses that he was ready to throw up all Lord if thy presence goe not along with us carry us no further Exod. 33. 15. How earnestly doe the servants of God deprecate the hiding of his face how bitterly have they complained upon those hidings how importunately have they praied that he would returne looke on them behold them cause his face to shine and lift up the light of his countenance upon them And is Job so weary of Gods company that he beggs of him to depart Is the voice of Job Will a man that is in darknesse bid the Sunne goe from him Or will a man that is thirstie say to a fountaine turne away from me I answer the Lords presence may be considered two waies First as his pleased comforting presence Secondly as his angry afflicting presence When Job saith How long wilt thou not depart from me his meaning is How long wilt thou not with-draw thine afflicting hand from me We may expound it by that of David Psal 39. 10. Remove thy stroke Usquoque non parcis mihi Vulg. Iram alio converte Jun. away from me I am consumed by the blow of thine hand Hence some translate How long doest thou not spare me And another glosses Turne thine anger away from me Or
is stronger then they were So I may say be yee not strivers or strugglers with God for your bands are made strong It is said Exod. 4. 25 26. That the Lord met Moses in the Inne and sought to kill him The Lord is never to seeke to doe what he pleases but thus he speakes after the manner of men who offer or assay at any businesse They seeke to do it But Zipporah having circumcised her sonne He let Moses goe It is this word He slacked or loosened having before as it were arrested and attached him or clapt him in prison for making that great default the neglect of Circumcision Sometimes we find the Lord himself speaking as if he were at the mercy or under the power of man and therefore calling in this word to be loosened or let alone Deut. 9. 14. Let me alone that I may destroy them The prayer of faith is as a band upon Gods hand holding him so fast that he seems as one that cannot strike or destroy till a Moses will give him leave by ceasing to pray unto him To be sure we are at Gods mercy and under his power so that nothing but the prayer of faith can loosen us And therefore Job doth not attempt to break the cords or cut them asunder nor seeks he to untie their knots but desires God himself to do it let me alone loosen me I will be a prisoner till thou openest the door for my deliverance As Jephtahs daughter said to him Judg. 11. 37. when he had bound himself and her in the bands of a rash vow Let me alone for two months or loosen me from the ingagement of my vow for two months as if she had said I will not loose my self by a wilful refusal but doe thou give me a willing dispensation So a godly man bespeaks the Lord in his straights Loosen me Lord. Unlesse God be pleased to loosen him he will be contented and when in a good frame of heart and freeness of spirit well-pleased with his bands In some sence he speakes as Paul and Silas when they were in prison Acts 16. 37. Let the Lord himself come and fetch us out That is let us see such means of our inlargement and freedome from trouble as may assure us that the Lord hath loosened and enlarged us A godly man had a thousand times rather be put into a prison by God than put himself into a paradice He had rather be bound by Gods hand than loosened by his own That place toucht before may reach this sence Prov. 24. 10. if thou faintest so we or loosnest thy self in the day of adversity Thy strength is small that is the strengh of thy faith and patience is small There is nothing discovers our weakness more than striving to break the cords of our afflictions The stronger we are in faith in love in humility the more quietly we lie bound Faith seeks ease and release onely in God to say Lord loosen me is a duty to loosen our selves is both our sin and our punishment Till I may swallow down my spittle Some conceive that from this Hebrew word Rak which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saliva undè quidam deducunt Raca Mat. 5. 22. quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interpretantur i. e. conspuendum vel dignum qui conspuatur Alii a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vacum quasi cerebro vacuus judicio carens Drus we translate spittle Raca is derived Mat. 5. 22. as if to call a man Raca were as much as to say he is worthy to be spit upon or that one should spit in his face though others spring that word from Rik which signifies empty as if it were as much as to call a man an empty fellow without wit or brains or within one degree of a foole which is the next word in Matthew But what is Iobs intendment in desiring God to let him alone Till he might swallow down his spittle First Some refer it to a bodily distemper as if Iob were troubled with a (a) Inter caetera mala Synanchen habuisse se perhibet Hieron squinsie or sore throat which hindered the swallowing of his spittle (b) Dimitta me ut gustum aliqâ—em hujus vitae capiam Albert. Another takes it in a Philosophical notion as if Iob had said Lord let me have some ease that I may at least tast once more what it is to live or how sweet life is For that sence of tast works by the salival humour or spittle in the mouth which mixing with the juice or sap that is in meats affects and delights the pallate Thirdly these words are taken as the discription of a man ready to die who is disabl'd either to swallow his spittle or to void it As if he had said I am now even at the point of death let me alone a little Davids prayer comes near this sense Psal 39. 13. O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more Fourthly It may be taken proverbially and that two waies First To note the shortest time even so much as may serve a Serno proverbialis talis est neque ad scalpendas aures mihi otium est man to spit As if he had said O let me have a little intermission a little respit such is the sence of that phrase Chap. 9. 18. He will not suffer me to take my breath And the like are those used in some countries I have not leisure or time to scratch my ear or to pare my nails My sorrows know no interim my feaver is one continued fit I have no well daies no nor a good hour Ne tantillum quidem temporis est quoÌ„ non tenter aâ—te Coc. therefore let me at least have so much time of ease as I may swallow my spittle let me have the shortest time That I may once more know though but for a moment what it is to be without pain To whlch interpretation that also subscribes which makes these words to be a circumlocution for silence For while a man is swallowing his spittle his speech stops he cannot bring up his words and let down the spittle at the same time so his meaning is I am forced to complain continually I would be silent and forbear speaking but my grief will not suffer me The second proverbial understanding of the word is that they Elegans proverbialis loquutio ad denotandum diligentem in alium intuitum quo minim as in alio discernet actiones Saliva ferè imperceptibiliter obsorvetur import a very strict watch held upon another in all his motions so that he cannot stir a finger or move his tongue silently in his mouth unobserved If I do but stir my tongue to swallow my spittle which is one of the most unperceivable acts of man thou takest notice O do not hold so strict a hand and so curious an eye upon me Let me have a little liberty do not examine every failing do
never fill our dayes are but as a dream And what is spoken in Isaias Chap. 29. 8. concerning the dreamer is verified of a meere naturall life It is saith the Prophet As when a hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth but he awaketh and his soule is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint neither hunger nor thirst can be appeased by dreames satisfaction comes not in at the doore of imagination Our daies of themselves can give us no more satisfaction no better a break-fast then a dreame of meat and drinke doth to a hungry or a thirsty man All creatures are not able to fill one There is a satisfaction which comes to us thorough the creature but the creature doth not satisfie God can make any thing satisfie the least of his creatures shall fill the greatest He can give us as much as we expect from them that is looke what satisfaction a man would have from a creature that God can give when he pleaseth But the daies of man are vanity in this because we cannot take this satisfaction our selves from the creature neither is any creature able to give it us When creatures have done their best we are hungry and restlesse still empty and unsatisfied still There is no rest till we returne to God or till God turne his face to us Fourthly the vanity of our daies appears in this that they are deceiveable daies that 's very vaine to us which deceives us And in this the great vanity of the creature consists it promiseth much and performeth nothing Great promises are made and hopes are raised very high Riches will tell us what they will doe for us and honours will tell us what they will doe for us and how happy they will make us and the wine will tell us O how that will refresh us and the sweet and the fat will tell us how they will fatten us All these make golden promises but leaden performances They cannot make good what they promise unlesse they can with evill As Satan said to Christ when he had not so much as a shoelaâ—chet to dispose of All this will I give thee So the creature joyning with our hearts makes wonderfull promises of high content and then leaves us most discontented This is vanity and vexation of mans spirit If the creature were not so free to enter bond and give us security for the paiment of great good it would not be so ill with us If the creature would say directly to us it is not in me as Job brings in the creatures disclaiming wisedome chap. 28. The sea saith it is not in me and the earth saith it is not in me So if creatures would speak plainly comfort is not in us help is not in us satisfaction is not in us and so tell us how vaine they are their vanity were lesse to us though the same in it selfe It is worse to be deceived of good then to want it Surely saith David of this life every man walketh in a vaine shew Psal 39. 6. there is a shew of this and that and the other Qnasi nihil habeat humana vita verum solidâ—m sed apparens umbratile imag narium thing a promise of it but it is a vain shew it is but like a Pageant which feeds the eye and delights the fancie or pleases the eare but passeth away and leaveth you as empty as before In the fifth verse of that Psalme the inventory of mans temporall estate is summed up and the totall amounts but to this Every man at his best estate is altogether vanity and least any should think he hath miscounted an affirmation is prefixt Surely every man at his best estate is altogether vanity Every man is vanity and every man is vanity at his best estate not only in his afflictions and in his losses in his troubles and in his sorrows such as Job now was in but take a man in the height and perfection and accomplishment of all creature comforts and accrewments take the cream the pith the marrow the sweetnesse of all extract a quintessence of all that can be had in creatures all is vanity Man at his best estate is vanity yea altogether vanity When Cain was born there was much adoe about his birth I have got a man-child from God saith his mother she looked upon him as a great possession and therefore called his name Cain which signifies a possession But the second man that was born into the world bare the title of the world vanity his name was Abel which is the word here used They called his name Abel that is vanity a premonition was given in the name of the second Abel viventium â—mâ—ium typus representatio Pined man what would or should be the condition of all men Psal 144. 4. there is an allusion unto those two names we translate it Man is like to vanity the Hebrew is Adam is as Abel Adam you know was the name of the first man the name of Abels father but as Adam was the proper name of the first so it is an appellative or common to all men now Adam that is man or all men are Abel vaine and walking in a vaine shadow And this word is by some translated nothing his dayes are nothing Temtus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pined Idols are nothing time is but the Idol of eternity and things temporall but the Idol of things eternall This word signifies in the Hebrew an Idol and a vaine thing Deut. 32. 31. Jer. 2. 5. the word Abel is translated Idol and the Apostle 1 Cor. 8. tells us that an Idol is nothing in the world that is an Idol is the vainest thing in the world or the greatest vanity So that upon the matter our estate and our dayes here are but an Idol that is the representation of a thing which is not so much vanity and folly so much trouble and sorrow so much affliction is mixed with the dayes and life we now leade as A nothing is all it can justly be called or an Idol a shew of what is not And therefore we may well make it an argument as Job here to take us off from the world and to chide worldlings with as David did Psal 4. O ye sons of men how long will yee love vanity or as Solomon about that adored Idol of the world riches Prov. 23. 5. wilt thou set thine eyes or as the Originall wilt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou cause thine eyes to fly upon that which is not An Eagle will not catch flies that 's no game for her much lesse will she make a flight at nothing when there is no game sprung at all And wilt thou make a flight with thy heart for the eye which Solomon chiefely intends is the eye of the soul when nothing springs before thee but that which is not To close this point if the creature be so vaine and