undertake the office of comforting others should consider these three things especially First The nature of the affliction whether internall or externall that which will comfort a man in bodily afflictions will not doe it in soule afflictions Secondly The degree or measure of the affliction If the Playster be too narrow for the Soare how can it heale Thirdly They should consider the temper of the Person afflicted if he be pressed in conscience for sin they should not presse his conscience with sin much lesse should they thunder out judgement and terrour against him for sin if he be very weak they should use few words if he be passionate they should use gentle words lest in stead of perswading they provoke his spirit Many a soule is cast downe and swallowed up in despaire by the ignorance or unfaithfulnesse of those who would bee called Comforters and Supporters Ezek. 13.19 They slay the soules that should not dye and save them alive that should not live Unskilfull Physitians of the body kill more then bodily diseases And though the unskilfulnesse of soule-physitians doth not indeed kill soules that should dye for 't is their owne sin that kils them nor can kill the soules that should not dye for the medicine of Christs most precious blood will heale and save such from their sins yet unskilfull soule-physitians shall be judged and dealt with as having done all this because they have done their utmost to doe it which is also the meaning of that Text 1 Cor. 8.11 And through thy knowledge shall the weake brother perish for whom Christ dyed that is an indiscreet use of that liberty which thy knowledge teacheth thee doth that which may be accounted a destroying of thy weake Brother As that knowledge so the ignorance before spoken of slayes the soules that should not dye As it requires the power so the wisedome and teachings of God to comfort and extricate poore sâ—ules in and from the Labyrinth of their sorrows The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned What to doe That I should know how to speake a word in season to him that is weary Isa 50.4 It is a great peice of learning to speak aright to a weary soule to deale with them so as neither to flatter them in their sins nor oppresse them under their sins to deale with them so in th ir affliction as that we neither cause them to sleight the hand of God nor yet to sink under it He that can guid and steer the course of a soule that is afflicted and tossed with the tempest of sin and sorrow between this rock and gulfe the Scylla of presumption and the Charybdis of despaire he is a learned Pilot indeed This learning is the speciall gift of God Christ himselfe acknowledgeth that the Lord his Father had given him the tongue of the learned for this end This learning is not taught in the Schooles of men Philosophers and Oratours never taught such an art of consolation nor can it be attained by the bare teaching of the holyest Doctors and Preachers of Divine truths Wee may have a rich furniture of materials for this worke and yet make no worke of it nor be able to put truths and consciences rightly together unlesse the annoynting teach us As the Prophet brings in our great Master and Tutor in this heavenly science againe confessing of himselfe Isa 61.1 The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath annoynted me to preach good tydings to the meek he hath sent me to binde up the broken hearted to proclaime liberty to the Captives Till we are annoynted by God we cannot speake effectually to man without the spirit who is the comforter wee prove but miserable comforters we bungle at the work and rather undoe soules then doe them any good Wee may Preach good tydings good newes from Heaven the Gospel is nothing else but good newes yet no good comes of it till the good spirit comes with it both instructing the hearts of those that heare and the tongues of those that speake duely to apply the word Master Calvin upon this place saith Some Comforters have but one song to sing and they have no regard to whom they sing it All persons all estates and all conditions are alike to them The wisedome of a comforter consists in discerning and making these differences As the Apostle Jude hints unto us Ver. 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference and others save with feare As faith saves all so in a sense feare saves some that is they must be terrifyed and made afraid that they may be saved Jobs Freinds would needs save him with feare whereas they should have had compassion of him and have spoken kindly to him Because they could not make this difference therefore they tooke a wrong course with him and were justly taxed without distinction Miserable comforters are yee all Vers 3. Shall vaine words have an end As if he had sayd I have got no comfort I would faine get some rest your words have not refreshed me I desire you would not trouble me you have done me no good will you have done Shall vaine words have an end The Hebrew is Shall words of winde have an end That expression hath ben opened twice before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verba vervi i e. ventosa parum solidas rationes habentia How long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong East winde saith Bildad Chap. 8.2 Should a wise man utter vaine knowledge and fill his belly with the East winde saith Eliphaz Chap. 15.2 Job retorts it upon them Shall words of winde have an end You tell mee that my words are windy yours are so indeed I must hide my selfe from these blasts and stormes of your tongues unlesse you grow calmer Shall windy words have an end Words are windy First When they have no solid reason no substance in them reason is the substance of words and so is truth these two goe alwayes together and where these are not nothing goes out of the mouth but winde Projicit ampullas c. we say of all words which are not followed with action Words are but winde we may say so also of all words which are not accompanyed with reason Verba plena spiritu superbiae Secondly Words are windy when they have much pride and swelling conceitednesse in them The Scripture cals such words Swelling words of vanity That which swels our hearts will quickly swell our lips pride doth both Pride is a winde within us vaine words are a winde without us the proud man knowes not how to ease himselfe of this winde within but by breaking it out in words Thirdly Words are windy when they have much passion in them when they are angry and furious an angry man blusters rather then speakes and makes a noise rather then a discourse While David Psal 39.2 3. was dumb with silence while he held his peace from good his sorrow
are ready for us and we have made our bed in the darknesse it is not for us to looke for life here indeed to live to us is Christ but to dye is gaine A Beleever can willingly part with all his earthly possessions for heavenly hopes much more can he joyfully part with all his earthly hopes for the possession of Heaven Thirdly from these expressions The Grave is my house I have made my bed in the darknesse Note A Beleever looks upon death as a state of rest As the whole house is a place of rest compared with the World abroad so the Bed is the speciall place of rest Revel 14.14 Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth they rest from their labours and their workes follow them They shall follow their worke no more who are followed by their works The Grave is the house and bed of the body to all who dye Heaven is the house and rest of the soule to all those why dye in the Lord. Saints have here a rest in their labours they shall hereafter have a rest from their laboures Lastly Whereas the bed of death is made in darknesse Observe There is nothing desireable in death as considered in it selfe A darke condition is the worst condition Darknesse which in Scripture signifies all evill is a word good enough to expresse the state of death by What desireablenesse there is in death what pleasures in the Grave will appeare further in those arguments which death useth to invite us home to its house the Grave in the next Verse vvhich tels us our most lovely companions yea our sweetest and most endeared relations there are Corruption and Wormes Vers 14. I have sayd to corruption Thou art my Father and to the worme Thou art my Mother and my Sister Hyperbolae sunt quibus significat se omnem jam vitae cogitationem abdicasse Jun. This Verse is of the same sense with the former onely here Job breaks into an elegant variation of new metaphors and hyperbolicall expressions I have sayd That is I have as it were called to and saluted the retinue and attendants of death as my freinds and kindred As I have made my bed in the Grave and as that is my house so now I am finding out my houshold relations I say to this Thou art my Father and to that Thou art my Mother and Sister 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Est clamare vocare appellare per electionem nominare elegans prosopopeia per quam Job tumulum alloquitur Bold The word which we render I have sayd c. signifies not barely to say but to cry or call out I have called out to corruption so Master Broughton To the pit I cry O Father O Sister O Mother to the Worme not barely I have sayd but I cry and not barely I cry Father to the pit but he adds also a note of exclamation O Father Secondly The word imports not generally a calling or crying out to any one that comes next but to some speciall person by way of election and choice or to such as vve know vvell and are acquainted with as the termes of Father Mother and Sister imply Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat etiem occurrere alicui nam occurrentem solemus salutatione vel interrogatione aliqua proprio nomine appellare Further the word signifies not onely to call aloud and to call with election but to goe forth on purpose to call a Freind or to invite him in As when we see an acquaintance comming towards us or our dwellings we step out to meet and welcome him so the word may beare in this place As if Job seeing death drawing towards him had gone out and said O corruption my Father O wormes my Mother my Sister vvelcome vvelcome such an elegancy the word yeelds us I shall not here stay upon any anxious disquisition about the propriety of these relations how Job cals corruption his Father and the vvorme his Mother and Sister or in drawing out comparisons about them vve are to looke onely to a generall proportion not to an exact propriety in these words there 's no need to make out parallels between corruption and a Father or betweene wormes and a Mother or a Sister Onely thus much may be asserted particularly First He speakes thus to shew that he looked on death not onely not as an enemy but not as a stranger Death and he were well acquainted Secondly He speakes thus to shew that death vvas not only not a stranger to him but as one of his kindred He vvas upon as fayre termes vvith death as vvith Father and Mother Thirdly Job speakes thus to shew Vt ostendat mortem sibi in votis esse cunctis illum amicitiae necessitudinis nomininis compellat Pinet that he did not onely looke upon death as in a neere relation to him but as having a kinde of delight and contentment in death vvhat is more sweet to a man vvho hath been in a long journey and is returning home then to thinke that he is comming to his Father and Mother to his Brethren and Sisters As nature gives us kindred by blood so it is a custome to adopt and stampe to our selves kindred by kindnesse one vve call Father and another vve call Mother one is our Brother a second is our Sister a third our Cozen by the mutuall tyes or by the receits and returnes of curtesie Thus we are to take these compellations as intimating vvith vvhat spirit Job entertained the thoughts of death even with no other then if he had beene to fall into the embraces of Father and Mother and Sister He sayd to corruption as we should say to wisedome Prov. 7.4 Say unto wisedome thou art my Sister and call understanding thy Kinswoman that is Acquaint thy selfe with and be familiar vvith vvisedome so shalt thou keepe thy selfe vvhich is both thy vvisedome and thy happinesse a stranger From the strange Woman Vers 5. Further it may yet be enquired what it is which Job cals Corruption and the worme I have sayd to corruption c. What is this corruption There are two opinions about it First Some interpret him speaking to the corruption and wormes which had already seized upon his body for his diseases and ulcerous sores had bred corruption and wormes As if he had sayd I may well call corruption my Father for I am already full of corruption I may well call the worme my Mother my sister for the wormes creep in and out at my sores continually my body is as if it had layne already in the Grave full of corruption and wormes Secondly Others expound him speaking to and of the corruption and wormes which waited his comming into the Grave The vvord in the Text which wee translate Corruption signifies also the Grave because bodies doe not onely corrupt in the Grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fovea corruptio quod in fovea corpus corrumpitur but
them O what provoketh such to such wayes of answering There is yet a third reading of this clause which I will but touch Quid tibi molestum est si loquaris Vulg. When shall vaine words have an end But what trouble is it to thee if thou speakest Or Is it any trouble to thee if thou speakest As if he had sayd I cannot much wonder though thou doest not end these vaine ruffling discourses for I am perswaded they are no great trouble to thee how much soever they are to others such words cost thee little study thou needest not beat thy braines or byte thy nayles for such matter as this That which comes next and lyes uppermost is all that some men have to say when they have sayd all They that speake most to the paine of others take least paines themselves We say Good words are cheape it costs little to speake fayre but ill words are cheaper Foule language costs little in the preparation though it may prove costly enough in the event There is a profitable sense in this translation though I will not give it for the meaning of the Text. It is our duty to consider before we speake as well as before we act and to put our selves to some trouble in preparing what we have to say before we give others the trouble of hearing it When God cals us to speake either in our owne defence or for the edification of others on a sudden we may expect according to the promise Matth. 10.19 That it shall be given us in that houre what we shall speake If the providence of God straiten us the spirit of God will enlarge us that promise will helpe us when wee have no time to prepare our selves but it will not if wee neglect the time in which vve should prepare our selves For when Christ saith in that place Take no thought how or what yee shall speake we must expound it like that Matth. 6.25 Take no thought for your life what yee shall eate or what yee shall drinke Which is not a prohibition of all thought about those things but onely of those thoughts which are distracting and distrustfull Job having reproved his Freinds these three wayes for the manner of their dealing with him Now reproves them by a serious profession of his better dealing with them in case as we commonly say The Tables were turned they comming in his place and he in theirs This he doth in the two Verses following Vers 4. I also could speake as yee doe if your soule were in my soules stead I could heap up words against you and shake mine head at you 5. But I would strengthen you with my mouth and the moving of my lips should asswage your griefe Job in this context tels his Freinds two things First What he could doe And secondly What he would doe The former of these is layd downe expressely in the fourth Verse Vers 4. I also could speak as you doe if your soule were in my soules stead c. The Soule is here put as often elsewhere in Scripture for the vvhole man then his meaning is and so Master Broughton translates If you were in my place or in my condition If God should transcribe my vvounds and sorrows upon your backs and consciences or if my greife dwelt in your bowels I could speake as you doe c. The sufferings of the soule hold out the sufferings of the vvhole man upon a twofold consideration First Because the soule is the principall part of man When that vvhich is cheife suffers all may be sayd to suffer Secondly Because afflictions vvhich lye upon the soule are most afflictive The sensitive power of the body is called the soule and vve are most sensible of those afflictions vvhich fall immediately upon the rationall soule That man forgets the sorrowes of his body whose soule is sorrowfull The more inward any suffering is the more greivous it is I also could speake as you doe if your soule were in my soules stead c. Some read the vvords Interrogatively Could I speake as you doe If your soule were in my soules stead could I heap up words against you and shake my head at you Master Broughton gives that sense fully Would I speake as you if you were in my place would I compose bare words against you and nod upon you with my head The meaning is Negative If you were in my soules stead I could doe none of these things Could I doe them No as we say I could as soone eate my owne flesh as doe them If I were at ease and you in paine could I deale thus with you I would dye rather then deale so with you This reading is good and hath a greater emphasis in it then our bare affirmative reading though the sense and scope of both be the same If your soule were in my soules stead Some read this Optatively or as a wish O that your soule were in my soules stead and then the latter vvords are taken as a promise or profession of offices of love First I would heap up words for you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concinnare apte disponere The Hebrew word vvhich vve translate to heap signifies properly to prepare and fit a thing to fashion and put it into a good frame it is not a rude inartificiall heaping of things together vvithout forme or fashion as the first Chaos was but a beautifull elegant digestion or composure of them in the exactest forme and fashion like that of the severall peices of the World conjoyned in that vvorke of the six dayes creation As if he had sayd O that your soule were a while in my soules stead see how I would use you how I would deale with you truely all the hurt I would doe to you should be this I would prepare the softest and the sweetest words I could with all my skill and rhetorick to ease your sorrows I would speake musicke to your eares and joy to your hearts I would study and compose a speech on purpose to revive and raise your drooping desponding spirits So also the second branch may be interpreted And shake mine head at you or over you For to shake the head notes pitty and compassion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et movissem super vos caput condolenter Chrysost to shake the head is the posture of those vvho mourne vvith or for their Freinds Hence the word is translated to bemoane Nah. 3.7 Who will bemoane him Chap. 42.11 Jobs Freinds came to bemoane him 't is this vvord They came to shake their heads over him because of all the evill which the Lord had brought upon him One of the Ancients makes this exposition the Text I would have shaken my head over you bemoaningly or with compassion The same vvord may vvell signifie to shake the head and to pity seeing they who pity others use to shake their heads over them and say Ah my Freind or Ah my Brother So then if vve read
they lookt for and sayd Thy Brother Benhadad If thou ownest him as a Brother surely thou wilt not use him as an Enemy There is to the point in hand a holy cunning in catching up words which drop from the lips of men in affliction and 't is our wisedome to make improvement of them As for instance There was an ancient Professor as I have been informed in much distresse of conscience even to despaire he complaining bitterly of his miserable condition to a Freind let this word fall That which troubles me most is that God will be dishonoured by my fall This word was hastily catcht at and turned upon him to the asswaging of his griefe Art thou carefull of the honour of God and doest thou thinke God hath no care of thee and of thy salvation A soule for saken of God regards not what becomes of the honour of God Therefore be of good cheere if Gods heart were not towards thee thine could not be towards God or towards the remembrance of his name Thus words should be watcht yea and silence should be watcht for advantages to ease a distressed soule Lastly These words may referr to God as if Job had said Whether I speake or whether I forbeare God doth not come in to my helpe I finde no comfort from him he puts no stop to my paine nor doth he asswage the floods of griefe which are ready to swallow me up He gives me no ease at my complaining cryes nor doth he give me any at my patient silence The next Verse seemes most sutable to this exposition where Job applyes himselfe to God shewing what hee did to him both while he spake and while he held his peace he wearyed him still and left him in a wearyed condition Vers 7. But now he hath made me weary thou hast made desolate all my company We may see in this context that the spirit of Job vvas much troubled by the troublednesse of his speech At this seventh Verse he speakes in the third Person He hath made me weary and before he gets to the end of it he speakes in the second Person Thou hast made desolate In the eighth Verse Thou hast filled me with wrinkles In the ninth Verse He teareth me in his wrath The tenth Verse is Plurall They have gaped upon me Strange kinde of Grammar sometimes in the third Person sometimes in the second sometimes in the Singular sometimes in the Plurall number His minde was uneven or unsetled and so was his discourse We must not play the Criticks with the words of men in paine nor submit their sentences to a Deske of Grammarians Broken language and incongruities of speech doe well enough become broken hearts and wounded spirits God will not call his Schollers in the Schoole of affliction to the Ferula for such faults or false Latine falling from their mouthes either in prayer or conferences while their hearts are true and the language of their spirits pure But now he hath made me weary But Now Now is not here a Particle of time onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a specification of the season noting that then God eyther began or still continued to make him weary but it carryes also a strong asseveration or the certainety of the thing as in that promissory exhortation Hag. 2.4 Yet now be strong O Zerubbabell saith the Lord and be strong O Joshua Though you see things yet below expectation though this be a day of small things yet take heart and encourage your selves to carry on this reforming worke Yet now be strong even now when so many things might weaken both your hearts and hands and be yee assured that I will not reject your confidence but vvill cause you to prosper in it Nunc in principio dictionis quandam cordis dulcedinem connotare solet Bold And in promises besides the certainety of the thing promised and the speedy fulfilling of them it intimates much sweetnesse of affection in him that makes the promise On the contrary in threatnings and comminations besides the certainety and speed of them it notes the sharpnesse and severity of his spirit who gives those threats So Isa 5.5 And now goe to I will tell you what I will doe to my Vineyard Now goe too is chiding cheare As if the Lord had thus rated them What Have you served mee thus as sure as I formerly planted and hedged this Vineyard so surely will I now pull downe the hedge and root it up In this fulnesse of sense take it here But now he hath made me weary certainly or of a truth he hath I was once sweetly and strongly hedged about with mercy But now hee hath made mee weary and desolate He hath made me weary He is not expressed in the Hebrew and therefore there is a doubt who is meant by this He. Nunc autem oppressit me dolor meus Vulg. Some understand it of his griefe and sorrow and read it thus But now it hath made me weary my paine hath tyred me Secondly Others understand it of vvhat had been spoken by his Freinds your tedious discourses and severer censures have quite spent my spirits and made me weary Our translation leads us to a person and our Interpretation leads us to God He that is God hath made mee weary Job every where acknowledgeth that God vvas the Author and Orderer of all his sorrows Now he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non solum fatigationem denotat sed fastidium molestissimum tum animi tum corporis Hath made me weary Or He hath wearyed me it is but one word and it signifies not an ordinary wearinesse not such a wearinesse as comes upon us after a turne or two in the Feilds A man who walkes into the ayre to refresh himselfe may come home weary but it notes such wearinesse as vvee feele after long and tedious travell or after a hard journey yea it notes not onely wearinesse of body but the wearinesse of the minde It is possible for a man to weary his body and yet his minde remaine unmoved bare outward action stirres not the minde To ride to run to digg or thresh weary the body not the minde but those workes which with action have contention in them as to argue and dispute doe at once exercise and weary both minde and body The vvearinesse of the minde is the most painefull wearinesse Jobs wearinesse takes in both thou hast vvearied my body and vvearied my minde too I am full of soares vvithout and of sorrow within And such was that wearinesse spoken of by the Prophet Isa 47.13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels that is In going long journeys to aske counsell of thy adored wise men or Wizzards rather of Southsayers and Diviners In this pursuit thou hast laboured thy body and vexed thy soule but profited neither After all thy travels vvhat hast thou brought home but wearinesse Tyred flesh and a tyred spirit is all the fruit of our
of the unrighteousnesse of man And then he shall though too late abhor himselfe for ever There hath been a dispute whether the sins of Beleevers shall be opened at that day but there is no question but the sins of Unbeleevers shall and that not onely to shame them but to punish and torment them yea possibly the sight of sin will be a greater torment to them then all their other torments and to be led about as the Prophet was in reference to others from one uncleane roome of their hearts to another there to behold all the abominations of their hearts will be the very pit of Hell O how abominable and as it followes in the Text. Filthy is Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Putridus foetidus graveolentus translatio a carnibus rancidis non despumatis Drus Pagninus existimat deduci a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rubigo ollae Spuma excrementum The word is derived from a root that signifies corrupt rotten putrified the scum of a Pot the rust of Mettalls the dunge or excrement of man and beasts there are no words filthy enough to expresse the filthinesse of man The word is found but three times as some observe in the Scripture in this construction and in all of them it is applyed to shew the abominable wickednesse of Man the first place is this of Job it is found also Psal 14.3 Psal 53.3 Which Psalmes are most pregnant descriptions of the corrupt state of man as if this were a word pickt out on purpose as a glasse to shew man his face and naturall complexion in There is a second translation of the word which gives more light to this How much more abominable and unprofitable is man One word signifies filthy and unprofitable because that which is corrupt and filthy â—â—â—â—lis Vulg. â—â—x putrida sunt inutilia suâ— is also unprofitable and unfit for use It is an extreame debasement unto man that he is unprofitable so filthy that he is good for nothing The Apostle puts thse together Tit. 1.16 Abominable disobedient and unto every good worke reprobate that is unfit for every good worke We may say of man in this sense as the Prophet Ezek. 15.3 doth of the Vine Sonne of man what is the Vine tree more then another tree excellent to yeeld Wine but in the third Verse we have another answer Shall wood be taken thereof to doe any worke or will men make a pin of it to hange any Vessell thereon will you build a house of Vine Timber or will you so much as make a Pin of it The Vine is not fit to make a Pin of thus we may say of a carnall man he is unprofitable Qui sibi nequam est cui usui bonus est will the Lord use him in any worke no he is reprobate to every good worke will he serve the Lords turne so much as to make a Pin of That is is he profitable for the least service No he is not He is also like the Corne growing upon the house top whereof The Reaper filleth not his hand nor he that binds up the Sheaves his bosome The reason why man appeares thus filthy is because he deales so much with filth and he is thus unfit to doe any good because he is continually doing evill as it followes in the last clause of this Verse Which drinketh iniquity like water Will you know what declares man abominable and filthy in the sight of God It is not his poverty his sicknesse his raggs or any externall defilement nothing but sinne makes him so He drinkes in iniquity like water this makes him as filthy as the dirt and mire he treads upon or as the vomit and dunge which he casteth out Hence Note in generall Sin and sin onely makes man abominable and filthy in the sight of God nothing can defile the soule but sin though a man be cloathed with filthy garments though his skin be over-run with filthy sores though he lye in a stinking Channel yet the Lord will not say he is abominable or filthy in these respects for even in such a state or at such a time Christ may have taken him in his armes and kissed him with the kisses of his lips But though he goe cloathed in Scarlet though he lye in a bed of Ivory and is perfumed with all the spices of Arabia yet sin makes him filthy and abominable in the eye of the Lord. Secondly Observe The multiplyed acts of sin are an evidence that man is habitually sinfull or that he is abominable and filthy He that doth righteousnesse is righteous and he that doth unrighteousnesse is unrighteous If man were not filthy he could not drinke iniquity that is feed upon and delight in sin which is but filthinesse This expression of mans sinfulnesse is further considerable he doth not onely commit iniquity but hee drinkes iniquity and he doth not sip at it but hee drinkes it like water Elihu speaks thus Job 34.7 What man is like Job who drinketh up scorning like water and so doth Solomon Prov. 26.6 Hee that sends a message by the hand of a foole cutteth off the feet and drinketh dammage that is he shall have dammage enough a full draught of it his belly-full of it by sending such an empty-headed messenger upon his errand So to drinke iniquity and to drinke it like water is to doe aboundance of iniquity I shall give seven observations which will discover the intendment of this manner of speaking and draw out the meaning of He drinks iniquity like water First thus Men naturally hath a strong appetite or desire to sin Mans naturall desire is to nothing else but sin Drinking implyes appetite a man doth not drink ordinarily till he is thirsty And though Drunkards have sometimes no thirst yet they have alwayes a strong desire to drink Sinfull man is a thirst for and desires the drafts of sin Ephes 4.19 He commits iniquity with greedinesse which is a Metaphor taken from eating and drinking And because man hath not a greater desire after any thing then to drinke therefore it is gone to a Proverbe among us when we would shew our willingnesse to doe a thing we say We will doe it as willingly as to drink when we are a thirst Such is the bent of man to sin that he hath no more reluctance to commit it then the thirsty man hath to drink He thirsteth after it as vehemently as David did after God Psal 42.2 My soule thirsteth for God for the living God as the Hartpanteth after the water brookes so panteth my soule after thee O God Or againe the heart of man thirsteth after the waters of iniquity as David thirsted after the waters of the well of Bethlem who will give me to drink of the waters of the Well of Bethlem At which word some of his mighty men brake through the whole Host of the Enemy to fetch that water When man thirsts for this water of iniquity his owne heart or hand
case a man in nature is composed or constituted of sin and a naturall man is nourished and preserved by sinning Vt deficienti humido resarciendo nihil aptius est aqua utilius ia hominis beatitudini quae ipsi de est consummandae natura nihil suggerit nisi peccatum Coc. Continuall acts increase the habit and as a godly man is nourished by holy acts and strengthened in spirit by spirituall obedence doing the will of God is the food of the soule As Christ speakes John 4.21 so doth every true Christian in his degree It is my meat and drinke to doe the will of my Father which is in Heaven or as Job professeth of himselfe Chap. 23.12 I esteeme the words of thy mouth more then my necessary food Thus also the old man saith It is my meat and drink to doe the will of the flesh and that is indeed the will of his Father which is in Hell The words of his mouth his Counsels and Lawes I esteem more then my necessary food So much for the opening and illustration of this Scripture-phrase Drinking iniquity like water I shall propound one Quere in generall concerning the whole Verse and so conclude it Here is a full description of sinfull man But whether Eliphaz speakes this strictly of a person unregenerate and so applyeth it to Job or whether this description be not also applicable to a man who is regenerate and godly for the maine and was so intended by Eliphaz is here a question Some conceive that the words will suite none but an unregenerate man and t is granted upon all hands that they are most sutable to him An unregenerate man is abominable and filthy he drinks iniquity like water And yet in a qualified sense we may say all this of a man regenerate Even He in reference to the remaines of corruption is abominable and filthy and He under some distempers and temptations drinks iniquity like water Agit Eliphaz cum Jobo non ut improbo sed ut errante Coc. which words of Eliphaz a moderne Interpreter paralels with those of Paul concerning himselfe Rom. 7.25 With the flesh I serve the Law of sin And delivers his opinion in this case That though Eliphaz aimed at Job in all this yet he deales with him not as with a wicked man but as with an erring brother For whereas he had sayd Chap. 13.23 How many are mine iniquities Eliphaz might judge by his words that surely he thought his iniquities were not very many and whereas he had sayd at the 26. Verse of the same Chapter Thou makest me to possesse the iniquityes of my youth Eliphaz might collect surely this man thinks his elder yeares have been so free from sin that God can finde nothing in them which might justifie him in these severe punishments Now Eliphaz opposeth these apprehensions and would both teach and convince him that as originall sin pollutes every man wholly till he is washed and borne againe by the spirit so no man is so farre washed by the spirit but that many spots and pollutions of the flesh doe still cleave to him and often appeare upon him And Eliphaz may be conceived to handle Job in this manner First To shew him that though a man be in a state of regeneration yet he can deserve nothing at the hand of God because his holinesse is still imperfect and his corruptions are abominable Secondly That the greatest sufferings and afflictions of good men in this life are very consistent with the Justice of God Thirdly That he might humble Job who as he feared was still too high in his owne opinion and thought better of himselfe then did become him Fourthly To provoke him to resist his owne corruptions stedfastly And lastly To beare the crosse which the Lord had layd upon him for his good especially for the taming and subduing of his corruptions patiently So that Eliphaz doeh not dispute with him upon this hypothesis or supposition or not upon this onely That man by nature and without the grace of God is filthy and abominable drinking iniquity like water but upon this or this in consort with the former That man in a state of grace or a godly man is filthy and abominable in reference to the flesh that dwelleth in him and that in reference to his frequent sinnings he may be sayd to drink iniquity like water And therefore Job had no reason to be proud how good so ever he was or how much good soever he had done and that there was all the reason in the World he should be patient and take it well at the hand of God how much evill so ever he should suffer This resolution of the Quere as it is profitable so probable For howsoever Jobs Freinds had branded him in diverse passages of this dispute as a wicked man and an hypocrite and were so understood by Job as appeares in his answers and replyes yet 't is most likely his Freinds spake so in reference to his actions not in reference to his state That he had done like an Hypocrite or a wicked man was clearely their opinion but there is no necessity to conclude from what they sayd that they judged him absolutely to be one JOB CHAP. 15. Vers 17 18 19 20. I will shew thee heare mee and that which I have seene I will declare Which wise men have told from their Fathers and have not hid it Vnto whom alone the earth was given and no stranger passed among them The wicked man travelleth with paine all his dayes and the number of yeares is hidden to the oppressour ELiphaz having argued against Jobs supposed opinion of Selfe-cleannesse and personall righteousnesse proceeds to the confirmation of his owne position to which he leads us by a new Exordium or Preface in the 17 18 and 19. Verses of this Chapter Secondly he largely handles and illustrates it from the 20. to the 31. Verse Thirdly hee applyeth the whole Doctrine to Job by way of dehortation at the 31. Verse and so forward to the end of the Chapter The generall argument which he brings to confirme his Tenet may be thus formed up That is true which continued experience and the consent of wise men in all ages have taught and delivered to us But the experience and consent of wise men in all ages have taught and delivered this that a wicked man travels with paine all his dayes that he is punished outwardly by want and sicknesse and inwardly by the gripes and scourges of his owne conscience Therefore this is a truth The major proposition is the sum of the Preface contained in the 17 18. and 19. Verses The minor or second Proposition is held forth in the 20. Verse and is prosecuted to the one and thirtieth I will shew thee heare thou me and that which I have seene I will declare So the Preface begins He layes downe a double proofe in this Preface a proofe first from his owne experience secondly from the
evill good to us and all good better unbeleife makes all good evill to us and all evill worse Faith like the Horse Job 39.19 laughs at the shaking of the Speare unbeleife trembles at the shaking of a leafe Faith findes food in Famine and a Table in the Wildernesse In greatest dangers faith answers I have a great God when outward strength is broken and all lyes a bleeding faith answers The promises are strong still they have not lost a drop of blood nor have they a skarre upon them When God himselfe apreares angry faith answers I know how to please him and I can goe to one in whom he is and will be wel-pleased for ever Thus faith pulls out the sting of trouble draws out the gall and wormwood of every affliction But where faith is wanting every affliction is full of gall and wormwood and every trouble vexeth with a double sting It stings such as it is a trouble and it stings them more as they see no comfort in nor way out of trouble The darknesse of darknesse is this Not to beleeve that we shall returne out of darknesse And he is waited for of the Sword This clause is neer in sense to the latter part of the former Verse and yet in this variety of expression there is some variety of intention For the clearing of it two things are to be enquired First What is meant by the Sword Secondly What is meant by waited for of the Sword The Sword is taken two wayes in Scripture First litterally for That weapon of Warr and by a Synechdoche the Sword is put for all weapons of Warr as also by a Metonymie for Warr it selfe When the Sword is threatned in Scripture Warr is threatned Secondly The Sword is taken for the power of the Magistrate who beares not the Sword in vaine Christ is described as a King armed with his Sword Isa 11.4 By the Sword that is with the Word of his mouth he will slay the wicked Nempe sua sententia tradens eum justitiae ministro Christ will pronounce a sentence of condemnation and deliver them up to execution Thus the Judge slayes the Malefactor by the sword of his mouth Further by a Synechdoche the Sword is taken for all manner of evill and trouble Quicquid pungit percutit torquet cruciat in scripturis sanctis gladius appellaturs Hieron in cap. ult Isa whatsoever hurts or afflicts is comprehended under the notion of a Sword Luke 1.35 Old Simeon tells the holy Virgin in his song Also a Sword shall passe through thy soule his meaning is not that she should be cut off in Warr by the hand of the Souldier or in peace by the sentence of the Judge but that sore troubles and afflictions like a sharpe Sword should pierce her soule Here the Sword may be taken either for the Sword of War or of Peace or for any evill that befalls the Wicked Man But how is he waited for of the Sword the Originall word is rendered two wayes First Actively Secondly Passively Some render actively Hee is waiting for of the Sword He stands expecting the Sword and that in a double sense Circumspectans undique gladium Vulg. Sc. vel quo pereat vel quo se defendat Tanquam exspecula expectat Tigur Hebraizantes tenent esse participium passinum hinc Rab. Levi. exponit Conspicitur a gladio Aspectus gladio Vatabl. Est Hebraismus ut videeri a gladio sit ab hostibus observari per insidias Decretus in manu ferri Sept. Conspectus ipse ad gladium Mont. Nempe a Deo conspectus destinatus ad gladium Praevisus enim est ad gladium Sym. he waits for the Sword which he feares will destroy him or he waits for a Sword which he desires to defend him Mr. Broughton gives this sense Having watch hee thinketh upon the Sword Againe others render it passively He is waited for of the Sword when he thinkes not of it The Sword lies in ambush to surprize him A man is sayd to be waited for by an Enemy when he intends to assault him unawares To be thus waited for by the sword is to be waited for by sword-men And it is as great a disadvantage to be seen of the Sword before we see the Sword as it is according to the old Proverb to be seen of the Wolf or of the Crocodile before we see either The wicked is waited for of the Sword not for any service but for the revenge it owes him the Sword lyes behind the doore or under a bush to snap him as he passeth The Septuagint in stead of he is waited or watched or looked for by the Sword render thus He is decreed into the hand of the Sword leading us to the appointment and destination of God who hath set him out and marked him for judgement Hee is appointed to the Sword Such a decree the Prophet seems to poynt at Jer. 15.2 where he brings in the Lord as resolved to proceed in judgement against all prayers and intreaties though made by his greatest Favorites Though Moses and Samuâ—l stood before me yet my minde could not be into this people but such as are for death to death and such as are for the Sword to the Sword That is such as are decreed into the hand of the Sword let the Sword take them the decree shall stand the sentence is irrevocable Taking the Text actively Observe That a wicked man thinks every one his enemy He dreames of danger when he sleeps and where ever he comes he waites for the Sword He that hath a minde to hurt others feares it is in the minde of every one to hurt him He that is harmelesse is fearelesse Nunquam non divinâ—m ultionem expectat vel metuit Merc. Ex omni parte inimicos sibi imminere videns Aquin. Qui de nullo confidit de omnibus timet id and while we goe about doing good we are free from the suspicion of evill Cain having murthered his Brother complaines of the Lords sentence against him Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be hid and I shall be a fugitive and a Vagabond on the earth and it shall come to passe that every man that finds me shall slay me Gen. 4.14 Cains complaint is the Comment of this Text Every one that findes me shall slay me is I wait for or I expect the Sword Cain speaks as if an Army were continually pursuing him or as if the avenger of blood were alwayes ready at his heels And that which aggravates the wonder of this jealousie is that we can give account but of one man alive in the World besides himselfe at that time and that was his owne Father Adam we read not of any Son that Abel left behind him nor had Cain any Son upon record at that time and yet he cries out as if the World had been full of Inhabitants and every
himselfe What the day of darknesse is learne upon the former Verse He beleeveth not that he shall returne out of darknesse there I shewed a fivefold darknesse here I shall reduce it to one of these two The day of darknesse is either the day of death or the day of affliction so 't is taken Eccles 5.17 All his dayes hee eateth in darknesse that is hee is in sorrow all his dayes Though he hath Sun light or Candle light enough at his Table yet he hath no light in his heart So the Prophet Amos 5.20 Shall not the day of the Lord be darknesse and not light Even very darke and no brightnesse in it There is a day of the Lord which is nothing but light and there is a day of the Lord which is nothing but darknesse that is of tribulation and anguish upon the soule that sins The Prophet Joel calls it A day of darknesse and of gloominesse a day of clouds and of thick darknesse He knowes that the day of darknesse is Ready at hand The word which we translate ready signifies two things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paratum firmum stabilem certum esse denotat Drus First that which is prepared Secondly that which is established or confirmed We translate to the former the day is ready or prepared others render to the latter sense the day is established and setled his day of darknesse shall certainely come upon him And whereas wee translate Ready at hand noting the neernesse of the danger Others Tygurina per manum intelligere videtur ipsa impiorunt scelera per paraphrasim sic sententiam elucidat Scit quod suis factis periculosa tempora accersierit to note the cause of the danger render He knowes that his owne hand hath made a day of darknesse that is The villanies and wickednesses which he hath committed cause the clouds of judgement to gather and look black upon him his unrighteousnesse hath hastned on his ruine and wrapt him up in darknesse He hath brought an evill day upon himselfe by his evill deeds or as the Prophet speaks His destruction is from himselfe He hath pulled downe his House with his owne hands and is the sole author or contriver of his owne sorrows This is an experienced truth but I rather take the words as we render The day of darknesse is ready at hand that is it is neer and will shortly seize upon him Hence Observe First Many a wicked man growes into an assurance of his approaching misery It is as hard to perswade some wicked men that their state is naught as it is to perswade some good men that their state is good yet as many of the Saints conquer unbeleife and come not onely to have some hopes but high assurances that there is a day of mercy at hand for them that they are in a present happy state and eternall happinesse waite for them so a wicked man after long debate may have his unbeleife conquered and though he hath been sowing pillowes under his owne elboes though he hath slighted all the Counsells Admonitions and threatnings of faithfull Freinds though notwithstanding all this he continue long speaking peace to his owne soule and saying all is well yet I say this man may have his unbeleife conquered and know at last that there is a day of darknesse ready at hand when his eyes are opened to see what he hath done and what he hath been he sees that God hath rejected all his confidences and that he shall never prosper in them Secondly Observe That for a man to be assured of his owne misery is the height of misery Eliphaz puts it here among the punishments of wicked men This assurance makes his heart shake this knowledge is full of feare and therefore full of torment As to know that a day of light and deliverance is ready at hand is light while we are in darknesse and deliverance while we are in trouble So to know that a day of darknesse and misery is ready at hand is darknesse to wicked men while they are in externall light and misery in the midst of all their mirth And as it is the highest comfort of the Saints to know that they have eternall life to know that they are in the favour and live in the love of God a man may be in it and not know it and then though he shall doe well at last yet his state is but uncomfortable and he that is an heyre of Heaven may walke as an heyre of Hell with a troubled spirit but to know that it is so this is Heaven before we come at Heaven so it is the deepest sorrow of any man in this life to know that he hath eternall death an assurance of this setled upon the spirit though I conceive a man cannot have an absolute assurance of it yet to have strong impressions upon the spirit that he shall never be saved or that Hell is prepared for him this is Hell before he is cast into Hell A soule that doubts of mercy and of the favour of God is in a very sad condition but the condition of that soule is unexpressibly sad which is assured of judgement and of the wrath of God Thirdly Observe That as a wicked man may know that he shall be miserable in the end so hee may know that his misery is neere at hand An evill conscience awakened is the worst Prophet it is full of sad presages like Micah to Ahab Haec est paenae impii pars nou modica quod cogatur ipse sibi ominari malum Pined it never Prophesied good but evill and it doth not onely Prophesie of evill afarr off but neer or ready at hand 'T is true an evill conscience usually puts the evill day farr off 2 Pet. 3.4 There shall be scoffers saying Where is the day of his comming c. The day of darknesse is farr enough off it hath been long talked of but we doe not see it say these despisers But when an evill conscience is awakened then he sees evill neer and himselfe dogg'd at the heeles or as the former Verse speakes Waited for of the Sword As a Beleever when the eye of faith is cleare sees mercy neer at hand Faith makes God neer and then all good is neer So an Unbeleever when the eye of his conscience is cleared sees misery neer Observe Fourthly The misery of a wicked man is unmoveable His day of darknesse is established by an irrevocable decree there is no getting it off he is under a Divine Fate A day of darknesse may come over the Saints but that day blows over David sayd once of his day of light It shall never be dark and of his Mountaine it shall never be removed yet he was deceived But a wicked mans day of darknesse shall never be light nor can he use any proper meanes to turne his day of darknesse into light He cannot pray and it is pâ—â—â—er that turnes darknesse into light he cannot
revolt from him will not feare to runne upon his necke even upon the thicke Bosses of his Buckler Thus Eliphaz hath given us an account why the Lord afflicts a wicked man all his dayes he fights against God all his dayes We have a reason of this reason in the next words why it is that this wicked man is such a valiant Champion against God why he commits wickednesse with so much greedinesse it is Because he covers his face with his fatnesse c. The fatter and fuller he grows in fulfilling the lusts of the flesh the more hungry and sharpe set he is to fulfill them Full-feeding in sin doth not satisfie but increase a sinfull appetite JOB Chap. 15. Vers 27 28 29 30. Because he covereth his face with his fatnesse and maketh collops of fat on his flankes And he dwelleth in desolate Cities and in Houses which no man inhabiteth whiâ—h are ready to become heaps He shall not be rich neither shall his substance continue neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof vpon the earth He shall not depart out of darknesse the flame shall dry up his branches and by the breath of his mouth shall he goe away AS the two former Verses shewed sin the cause of those evills which befall a wicked man so here Eliphaz shewes us two causes of their sin First Their riches Secondly Their power The first is here described tropically by Fatnesse Vers 27. He covereth his face with fatnesse and maketh collops of flesh on his flanks Both parts of the Verse meane the same thing shewing the wicked mans worldly prosperity by the usuall visible effects of it a fat face and fleshy flanks He covereth his face with fatnesse 〈◊〉 prae aâ—pe oculus eorum i. e. exisse videntur prae genarum tumore pinguedine Bold That is he is exceeding fat a phrase like that Psal 73.7 Their eyes stand out with fatnesse The Hebrew is Their eyes are gone out of their heads through fatnesse that is They seem as gone or going out of their heads 'T is usuall in the language of the Holy Ghost to describe wicked men by fatnesse Psal 78.31 He slew the fattest of them that is the worst of them those who were most rebellious longing after dainties Singulaâ—i quodam infamiae titulo impii iniqui in scriptura vocantur pingues when God had given them bread from Heaven David sets forth his Enemies and so the Enemies of Christ of whom that Psalme is a Prophesie under this notion Psal 22.12 Strong bulls or fat bulls came about me By the fat Bulls he meanes the Scribes and Pharisees the high Priest and Rulers who as it were beset Christ with continuall conspiracies More plainely Psal 17.9 10. Keepe me from mine Enemies that oppresse me They are inclosed in their owne fat with their mouth they speake proudly Againe Psal 119.70 Their heart is as fat as grease but I delight in thy Law The Scripture speakes thus not as if fatnesse had any morall evill in it or as if leanenesse had any morall good in it Fatnesse doth not discommend us nor doth leannesse commend us to God yea a man leane in body may have the worst fatnesse he may be proud swolne and puft up in spirit and â— man fat in body may have the best leannesse much selfe-emptinesse and poverty of spirit But because they who have abundance and grow fat with the Creature are tempted to forgetfulnesse of and rebellion against God and because a body overburdened with flesh and fat renders the minde more indisposed to holy and spirituall activity and usually they who bestow most care and cost in pampering their bodies goe with pined starved and leane soules therefore fatnesse heares ill in Scripture Hoc Aegyptii inuere videbantur dum sâ—cerdotes Isiaci solerent dare Api Bovi quem colebant potum ex quodam puteo non autem ex Nilo quia ejus aqua pota creditur pinguedinem carnisque magnum facere incrementum Plutarch Tract de Iside c. Iberi etiam Galli antiqui zonae mensuram habebant quam si mulier quae gravida non esset capere non posset probro magno afficiebatur Alex. ab Alex. l. 2. c. 25. It is observed by Plutarch that the Aegyptian Priests gave their Apis a Deity which they worshipped in the forme of an Oxe the water of a Pit or Well not the water of Nilus to drinke the reason was not as some assigne it because they thought those waters were prophaned by the Crocodile for the Aegyptians had that River in high veneration but because the waters of Nilus were fatning nourishing waters therefore their Apis whom they adored as a God and from whom they expected continuall helpe must not drinke of it least the grosnesse of his flesh should disable him for their assistance Fat corpulent men are in common experience unweildy sleepy and comparatively unfit for action It was a custome as my Author reports among the ancient Spaniards and Gaules to keep a constant measure which if a Woman shee not being with Childe did exceed in the compasse of her waste she fell under disgrace and lost much of her reputation by having got so much of fat and flesh about her And doubtlesse it had somewhat of disrepute in it in Jobs time else Eliphaz a man of experience had not given this as a peice of a wicked mans description He covereth his face with fatnesse And maketh collops of flesh upon his flanks Which Master Broughton renders thus And maketh plaites upon the panch Master Calvin Translates it thus He hath larded his guts Est descriptio summae abunddamiae Jun. This latter clause of the Verse is of the same intendment with the former And that which both reprove as sinfull is the intentnesse of mans Spirit about the pampering of his Flesh He covereth his face with fatnesse he makes collops c. He doth not say Because he is fat but because he covers his face with fatnesse c. That is he sets his heart upon his belly and makes it his businesse to pamper his body He is active yea full of activity in getting this cover or mask of fatnesse upon his face and this mask discovers the naughtinesse of his heart Hence Observe That it is a signe of an evill heart or a leane soule to intend the flesh or to study the satisfying of the bodily appetite A carnall man gives himselfe to deliciousnesse his greatest labour is about that for which Christ forbids our labour The meat that perisheth John 6.27 This covering of our selves with fatnesse and makings collops of fat the Apostle reproves in those Whose God was their belly Phil. 3.19 and in those who served not the Lord Jesus Christ but their owne belly Rom. 16.18 They who serve their belly as they should serve God make a god of it and they who serve their belly at all doe not serve Christ at all We may provide for the belly but
we must not serve it and they who doe so deserve rather to be called Epicures then Christians That 's sinfull fatnesse which is got upon termes of slavery or service to the belly yea a man that is intentive upon that question What shall I eate and carefull how to feed his flesh though he doe not grow fat by it yet he shewes himselfe full of sin by it The designe of such is for the flesh though their flesh doe not thrive under that designe As a man may be very covetous though he continue poor and leane in purse so a man may be very luxurious and a great servant to Bacchus and Belly-cheare though he continue leane and poore in body The blessing of God fattens some and such fat ones blesse God David Prophesies that when The Kingdome shall be the Lords and he the Governour among the Nations which is very paralell with what those great voyces sayd after the seventh Angel had sounded Revel 11.15 The Kingdomes of this World are become the Kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ and hee shall reigne for ever and ever and when this shall be saith David Psal 22.30 Then all they that be fat upon the Earth shall eate and worship that is the great ones shall submit to Christ his Kingdome shall be inlarged and not onely the poore who are described in the latter part of that Verse in the Psalme under the name and notion of such as goe downe to the dust but the rich shall receive the Gospell Kings and Queens persons of Authority and wealth shall come to the participation of the grace of Christ Isa 60.3.10 They who have their bellye 's full of the meat that perisheth shall have their soules full of that meat which endures to everlasting life Psal 45.12 The rich among the people What people The first words of the Verse tell us he meanes the Tyrians who were a wonderfull rich people Isa 23.8 Ezek. 27. and the Tyrians are here put by a Synechdoche for all other Heathens for though Tyre were a City in the Tribe of Aser Josh 19.29 yet it was at that time possessed by Heathens Now saith the Psalmist The rich among these people shall intreat thy favour That is the Churches favour God will work their hearts to an earnest desire of admission into the society of the Saints and to live under a professed subjection to the Gospel of Jesus Christ who have abounded in worldly possessions and hold the World in subjection to their power These rich and fat ones among the people shall intreat thy favour This Prophesie was in part fulfilled Mark 3.8 where we read of great multitudes from Tyre and Sidon flocking after Christ So that it is not riches and fatnesse precisely considered but the intending of our skin or our studiousnesse to fill our selves with earthly delicates which shewes we have weak appetites to or rather a loathing of the things of Heaven Secondly This covering the face with fat is here presented by Eliphaz as a cause or occasion at least of the wicked mans arming himselfe against God Bonorum abundantia vitiorum omnium materiam subministrat Hence Observe That an evill heart turnes the blessings of God into rebellion against him The Jewes were thus charged Deut. 32.15 Jesurun waxed fat and kicked The Lord complaines of this as of a sin which he scarse knew how to pardon Jer. 5.7 How shall I pardon thee for this Thy Children have forsaken me c. When I had fed them to the full they then committed Adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the Harlots houses Those are great sins indeed which put the Lord whose title is The God pardoning sin and ready to forgive into a querie about their pardon and forgivenesse Such kind of sinning made Jerusalem a Sister to Sodom that is as like Sodom yea and Samaria too as if they had been one Mothers Daughters or as if they had been of one and the selfe-same blood and stock Ezek. 16.49 Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom pride fulnesse of bread and abundance of idlenesse was in her and in her Daughters Plenty of the Creature and plenty of sin went together and whereas Jerusalem should have served God shee served her lusts in the abundance of all things We have a saying when men are lifted up upon the enjoyment of outward good things in allusion to Beasts Provender pricks them They act more like Beasts then Men who kick against God who feeds them and turne his bread of blessings into the stones of disobedience What outward good thing will not an evill heart abuse and wax wanton with when it is so apt to abuse spirituall things and to turn the grace of God into laciviousnesse that is to grow wanton and lacivious because God is gracious Thirdly Observe They take little care for their soules who take over-much for their bodies They who desire to please appetite cannot endeavour to please God When the Apostle exhorts to put on the Lord Jesus he dehorts from providing for the flesh Rom. 13.14 Put yee on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof As if he had sayd Unlesse you forbeare providing for lusts you will have little leasure and lesse desire to put on Christ Ephes 5.18 Be not drunke with Wine wherein is excesse that is be not inordinate in the use of the creature but be filled with the spirit as if he had sayd You will never be filled with the spirit if over-filled with Wine if you give up your selves to satsifie carnall appetite you wil not have any appetite at all to spirituals There is an inward gluttony and drunkennesse when the thoughts run upon dainty Dishes and full Cups or when men chew their meat and Wine in their thoughts before they eate or drinke Now as well they or rather they more who are inwardly drunken with excessive desires of Wine as they who are visibly drunken with the excessive taking downe of Wine are farr enough either from the desire or attainement of a filling with the Spirit The spirit of the Buttery and the spirit of God have no more agreement then the flesh and the spirit yea that spirit is the grossest part of sinfull flesh and therefore can neither take care for nor beare with the things of the spirit So farr of the first cause of the wicked mans excessive sinning his excesse in the use of the Creature set forth by the ordinary effect of it Fatnesse He covereth his face with fatnesse The second follows Vers 28. He dwelleth in desolate Cities and in houses wherein no man inhabiteth which are ready to become heaps This Verse shews a second cause of the wicked mans fiercenesse against God His power over men which is described as the former by the effect of it He hath made Cities desolate It requires much power to overthrow whole Cities that which is strong cannot be destroyed without
intends unto us Sinne deales with us as Dallilah with Sampson takes us into its bosome and embraces but then it hath a plot to cut the lock of our strength to deliver us over to the Philistims to call in Legions of Devills to seize upon us and make us grinde at the Mill of their basest drudgery More distinctly sin deceives by a threefold promise First By a promise of profit Prov. 1.13 Come cast in thy lot with us let us lye in waite for blood c. We shall find all precious substance we shall fill our houses with spoyle but this precious substance proves onely a pernicious shadow and these spoiles taken spoyle those who take them Secondly Sin deceives by promising content and sweet delight what thoughts had Ahab concerning Naboths Vineyard If he could but get it he were a made man what pleasure should he have in those shady walkes what Grapes and Wine from those fruitfull Vines Sin promiseth as largely as God doth to give us not onely delight but satisfaction that we shall not have so much as an empty corner in our soules all shall be filled whereas in truth there is nothing but emptinesse and dissatisfaction in any creature especially when sin leads or helps us to the enjoyment of it Thirdly At least sin promiseth and gives its word for it that we shall be free from trouble and feele no evill That we shall have peace though we walke in the imagination of our heart Deut. 29.19 That as they flattered themselves in the Prophet wee shall not see Sword nor Famine These vanishing dreames of plenty of good things and immunity from evill carry thousands of soules captive to the basest bondage of sin Further This vanity from trusting which the deceived soule is called off by Eliphaz is conceived to be worldly riches and the fullest possession of the creature these are vanity That they are is a common theame and yet though it be much spoken of it is very little beleived we are apt to over-rate the things of the World and under-rate the things of Heaven The creature is vanity not onely in regard of the nothingnesse of it but vanity in regard of that which we call the somthingnesse of it or the best of it The Prophet Jonah makes the word which we here translate vanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vanitates mendacii sive mendaces the Epethite of that which is commonly translated vanity Jon. 3.8 They that observe lying vanities Idolls are vanity and a lye because though they can doe no good at all yet they promise much Riches are vanity and a lye because they cannot doe so much good as they promise Solomon saith in his Ecclesiastes That Money answereth all things Chap. 8.10 And so it doth as the value of all earthly things is made by Money and as Money is the price of all earthly things But though Money answereth all things by satisfying our engagements yet it answereth nothing to the satisfying of its owne engagements Money and riches have payd many a mans debts and enough of them will pay any mans debts but they have never payd their owne debts no more then Idols have and therefore they justly beare the brand of this reproach Lying vanities That they are so appeares clearely in two particulars First In the report which they make of themselves Secondly In the promises which they make to us First In the report which they make of their owne worth if you look upon the bil of the creature it puts down not only a hundred for fifty but a million for a mite For how much soever it is worth yet it beares no proportion to that which it would be esteemed worth As some rich men are not halfe so rich as they desire to be reckoned so riches themselves are not so rich by thousands of thousands as they would be reckoned There is indeed a created worth in the creature for it is the work of God but since the sin of man hath as to us both imbased and imbittered the creature it is worth nothing comparatively to that at which it is rated both in its owne and our Books Secondly The creature in this notion is a lying vanity while it perswades us that in the enjoyment thereof we shall be happy whereas our happinesse doth not consist in any creature-enjoyment unlesse God himselfe be our portion we are both poor and miserable in the fullest possession of the creature God is the living streame the creature at the best was but a Cisterne and now it is but a broken Cisterne which leaks out all the waters that passe into it unlesse God stop the chinks and mend the cracks of it by Jesus Christ Againe The creature promiseth to ease us of our cares yet it doth but multiply them The creature promiseth to satisfie our desires yet it doth only encrease and enrage them Riches are not food but fewell to our desires they doe not allay our appetite as bread doth when received into the stomack but enflame our appetite as wood doth when it is cast into the fire Further The creature promiseth to protect us hence that of Solomon Prov. 10.15 The rich mans wealth is his strong Citie That is it promiseth to be so and tells him it will doe that for him which a strong City doth for its Inhabitants defend him against all Commers and Invaders yet the same Solomon assures us in the next Chapter Vers 4. That riches profit not in the day of wrath And Ezekiel threatens the Jews That their Silver and their Gold shall not deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. Lastly The Creature promiseth to continue with us Riches tell us that though Father and Mother forsake us yet they will not though Wife and Children forsake us yet they will not they make us beleeve that they will stick closer to us then Christ himselfe and yet they are upon the wing presently they flye away as the Eagle and are gone out of sight they doe not onely perish in the using but perish from our use Is not all this and a thousand times more which might be sayd of their lying and vanity enough and more then enough to justifie those titles which the Spirit of God hath bestowed upon them that they are vanity and a lye or as Jonah calls them Lying vanities And yet to close the point we must remember that creature-riches are not a lye nor deceitfull in themselves There 's no more deceit in the greatest abundance of Gold and Silver then there is in a wholsome savory peece of bread Riches are not vaine and deceitfull as our hearts are sayd to be deceitfull Jer. 17.9 nor as lust is sayd to be deceitfull Eph. 4.22 for these things are deceitfull onely through the deceitfulnesse of our hearts and lusts Or they are deceitfull Objectively not Actively we are deceived about them not by them They doe not deceive us till we are deceived nor doe they deceive
stops as they will in his way let his first and second and third conceptions of mischeife conclude in the bringing forth of vanity yet he is not concluded by it he will try a fourth and a fifth time too His belly againe prepareth deceit Thirdly His hope to speed at last put him forward to new experiments when former ones have fayled he perswades himselfe he shall obtaine if he continue As the Saints having prayed and wayted long without an answer from God yet goe on praying their belly prepareth new prayers because they have a good ground to hope that God will heare at last So ungodly men persevere in plotting mischeife because they have strong hopes though but the shadow of a ground to hope that they shall one day accomplish their desires As the heart would breake for sorrow so both heart and hand would breake off from labour were it not for hope But where hope of attaineing lives especially where it is lively there such will labour as long as they live Though they have hitherto been deceived in their expectation yet their belly prepareth deceit Thus Eliphaz prosecutes his dehortation and though he saith not to Job as Nathan did to David Thou art the man yet Job was the man he meant the man who in his opinion had conceived mischiefe and brought forth vanity yea the man whose belly was even then preparing deceit How much Eliphaz was deceived appeares upon the whole matter what Jobs belly his minde his inward man was preparing will appeare by his owne answer in the two Chapters following JOB Chap. 16. Vers 1 2 3 4 5. Then Job answered and sayd I have heard many such things Miserable comforters are yee all Shall vaine words have an end Or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest I also could speak as yee doe if your soules were in my soules stead I could heap up words against you and shake mine head at you But I would strengthen you with my mouth and the moving of my lips should asswage your griefe THIS Chapter and that which followes conteine Jobs second answer to the second charge of Eliphaz Hee calls it an answer but in strictnesse of speech it is a rejoynder and he rejoynes with some accrimonie and sharpnesse of speech The longer contention is maintained the hotter are the spirits of the contenders and the more we are put to answer the more angry are our answers Vers 1. Then Job answered and sayd And what sayd he His answer consists of three generall parts In the first he confutes what Eliphaz had asserted which he doth to the eighteenth Verse of this sixteenth Chapter Secondly He proceeds to corroborate and confirme his owne Tenet or Opinion which he doth to the eleventh Verse of the seventeenth Chapter Thirdly He renewes his former complaints and desires which he doth from that eleventh Verse to the end of the Chapter The first part of his answer is confutation and he begins his confutation with an accusation with an accusation of those who had disputed with him and that 's the subject of these five Verses in all which he taxeth or checks his freinds for their unfreindly uncomly dealing with him and he checks them as Eliphaz had done him at the beginning of the former Chapter upon five points of errour and unfreindlinesse First For speaking unprofitably or for telling him no more then he knew before at the entrance of the second Verse I have heard many such things Secondly He chargeth them for speaking such things as did rather increase and boyle up then mittigate and allay his sorrow Miserable comforters are yee in the close of the second Verse Thirdly He accuseth them for speaking so much or for endlesse speaking their discourse was tedious they would not give over Thus he takes them up at the third Verse Shall vaine words have an end What will you be endlesse Will you never have done Fourthly He accuseth them for their causelesse speaking in the same third Verse What emboldeneth thee or what provoketh thee that thou answerest As if he had sayd Have I given thee any cause Fifthly and lastly He reproveth his and their whole carriage towards him by a serious profession of his contrary carriage or that he was purposed to deale better with them upon supposition that they were in his case and this he doth two wayes First Telling them what he could doe if they were in his case Vers 4. I also could speake as you doe if your soule were in my soules stead I could heap up words against you c. Secondly Telling them what he would doe But I would strengthen you with my mouth and the moving of my lips should asswage your griefe Vers 5. That 's the course which I would take I could deale as harshly with you as you doe with me but I would not you should finde me in another straine and temper Then Job answered and sayd Vers 2. I have heard many such things miserable comforters are yee all We finde this point tossed both wayes Jobs Freinds telling him that he spake but ordinary matter and he telling them that they spake so too Bildad chargeth Job with it Chap. 8.2 How long wilt thou speake these things And how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong winde as if he had sayd Thou speakest impertinently or what thou speakest doth not much concerne the point in hand it comes not up to the matter yea it is quite besides the marke And so Zophar Chap. 11.2.3 Should not the multitude of words be answered And should a man full of talke be justified Thou doest but Verba dare thou speakest to little purpose or little to the purpose though thou speakest much Eliphaz puts the same language upon him Chap. 15.2 3. Should a wise man utter vaine knowledge and fill his belly with the East winde Should he reason with unprofitable talke Or with speeches wherewith he can doe no good Thus his Freinds accused him of that for which he now accuseth them and he himselfe had accused them once and againe of this before So Chap. 12.2 3. Who knoweth not such things as these They are but vulgar truths which you have told me and Chap. 13.1 2. Loe mine eye hath seen all this mine eare hath heard and understood it what yee know the same doe I know also I am not inferiour to you You produce nothing all this while but what I am well acquainted with which is fully the sense of this Verse I have heard many such things that is Rhetorico modo principium sumit ab extenuatione vice quippe defensoris agit Pined Defensor causam fuisse negabit si potest aut eam vehementur extenuabit Cic. l. 2. ad Heren Every man can speak as much as this Here Job playes the Oratour or Rhetorician whose businesse and designe as the great Orator tells us is as much as he can to extenuate and lay low the arguments or reasons of him that
he opposeth Job stands as Defendant here his Freinds as Plaintifs therefore he endeavours to render their Charge weak and what they sayd sinnewlesse I have heard many such things as these Job doth not accuse his Freinds as giving out false and erroneous Doctrine for himselfe had heard and learned those things before but he accuseth them for bringing proofes which were not to the purpose or which were in sufficient to prove their purpose As if he sayd I expected when you would produce some stronger arguments to maintaine your opinion or clearer answers unto mine I waited for some new matter and to have heard somewhat that I had not heard before but you have deceived my expectation For I have heard many such things as these Hence Note First Some truths are of very common observation Who knoweth not such things as these Every Childe that hath been Catechised knowes them 'T is no disparagement to any truth that it hath been often heard and is commonly knowne The more common a truth is the more weighty it may be Yet Which gives us a second Observation Ordinary truths will not serve in extraordinary cases and that which every man knows and heares will not resolve us in those points which few men know or heare As Jobs Person was a Phaenix in the World his age afforded not his second There is none like him in the earth saith God himselfe to Satan Chap. 1.8 So Jobs condition was a Phaenix it had no second there was no man tryed like him in the whole earth and therefore his case eould not be measured by the common Standard or rule of Providence He had need heare that which was never heard before who beares and feeles that which was never borne nor felt before There are some temptations on afflictions as the Apostle speakes 1 Cor. 10.13 Which are common to man Common truths may comfort and satisfie the consciences of such But there are temptations such were Jobs which are not common to man we can hardly finde their paralell or a president of them in the Records of any Age Common truths will not comfort nor satisfie the consciences of such Every dispensation hath a doctrine suitable to it dispensations which are seldome seen call up doctrines which are seldome heard Secondly Job complaines that he heares onely those things which he had often heard Hence Observe It troubles a man in trouble to be often pressed with the same thing A man at ease is pained with unnecessary repetitions much more a man in paine and though they who like and love the things which they have heard doe both love and like to heare them often yet in some cases they may heare them too often Some indeed speak very prophanely what Job spake justly who when they would not put off submission to and attendance upon holy Doctrine say we know before we goe what he will say We know such things as the Preacher usually speaks what can he tell us that we have not heard before That 's the language of the prophane We know as much as he can teach us Though it be granted that a man knowes as much as the Preacher can tell him yet he ought to heare it againe Though the matter be knowne before yet to heare it often may work a better knowledge and leave a stronger impression upon the heart then ever 'T is profitable to write the same things therefore it cannot be unprofitable to heare them Phil. 3.1 Brethren to write the same things to me it is not greivous and to you it is profitable If to write then to speake the same things is profitable In the Story of the Acts of the Apostles when Paul had preached in the Synagogue the Jewes being gone the Gentiles besought him That those words might be preached the next Sabbath Acts 13.42 The repeating and inculcating the same thing is not alwayes blameable and it is sometimes desireable but when a man is under sore afflictions and temptations when he is burthened with many sorrows it is very greivous to have those things that have been often answered or assented to againe objected or asserted A weake stomack must have variety and change to entice the appetite and so must a troubled and distempered spirit I have heard many such things And hereupon he infers Miserable comforters are yee As if he had sayd This is a miserable way of comforting alway to be beating upon and inculcating the same thing Job calls his Freinds Physitians of no value Chap. 13.4 Here he expounds himselfe while he calls them Miserable comforters He is a Physitian of no value who in stead of curing increaseth the disease and he is a miserable comforter who in stead of abating our sorrow adds to it and heightens it Miserable comforters are yee It seems the Freinds of Job at least to his sense had forgotten the designe they proposed to themselves when they first undertook this visit Chap. 2.11 They made an appointment together to come and mourne with him and to comfort him That was the intendment of Jobs Freinds at their fiâ—st addresses Yet after so long a conference he makes this report Miserable comforters are yee yee rather vex then heale any soare you my Freinds have troubled me more then my wounds you have wounded my spirit more then Satan did my flesh Consolatores malorum i. e. malos potestâ—s consolari August Miserable comforters are yee One of the Ancients renders the words thus Yee are comforters of evill men or possibly you may comfort evill men but you cannot comfort me As that which is one mans meat is another mans poyson so that which is one mans comfort is another mans sorrow All good men cannot take in their comforts the same way but the way of comforting good and evill men differ as much as good and evill The words of flattery and falsehood will serve to comfort the one no words will comfort the other but those of sincerity and truth I dare not conceive Jobs Freinds such as would sow Pillows under the elbowes of evill men yet surely they put hard Stones under the sore and aking armes of this good man Consolatores Onerosi Vulg. The Vulgar translation speakes thus Yee are burden some comforters A comforter should take off burdens sorrow is a burden As the judgements that God threatned upon the Jewes and other Nations are represented in the Prophets under the name of burthens The burthen of Judah the burthen of Israel the burthen of Moab the burthen of Babylon the burthen of Idumea So any affliction upon a person is his burthen and the businesse of those who come to comfort a soule in affliction should be to take off his burthen at least to lighten it Jobs Freinds did indeed binde the burthen faster upon his spirit and therefore he might well call them Burthensome comforters False hearts count all truth a burthen The Land saith Amaziah is not able to beare his words Amos 7.10 yet his were
the vvords as a wish O that your soules were in my soules stead yet Job did not wish it for their hurt but that he might have an opportunity to shew how much hee would labour to bee their Servant in Love to doe them good Hence Note A good man doth not wish ill to those who have rewarded him with evill upon any other termes then a discovery of his owne goodnesse 'T is sin to wish that they who are in a comfortable condition might fall into our misery though they have been miserable comforters to us in our misery We may not in this case wish paine or sorrow to any sort of men except upon one of these two considerations First That vve may give them an experiment of our tendernesse towards them in doing them all the good vve can in their affliction Or secondly That God may give an experiment of his graciousnesse towards them in doing them good by their afflictions The Prophet Isaiah Chap. 14.10 foreshewes how they vvho had been vveakened by the power of Babylon should insult over vveakned Babylon All they shall speake and say unto thee Art thou also become weake as we Art thou become like unto us The people of God shall at last rejoyce in reference to the glory of God and publick good to see their destroyers destroyed and those weake who have weakned them But the people of God in reference to any private or personall interest cannot rejoyce at the destruction or in the weaknesse of any man much lesse can they wish them weake that they might have an opportunity to rejoyce over them Paul was a Prisoner and in bonds yet he did not wish the worst of his Enemies in Prison or in Bonds with him he onely wisht that they might enjoy the same liberty by Jesus Christ which himselfe enjoyed For when he had almost perswaded King Agrippa to become a Christian he sayd I would to God that not thou onely but also all that heare me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am except these bonds Acts 26.28 29. I would keep my chaines and troubles to my selfe I would have none of you know my sorrows but I would that all your soules were in as good a state as mine and knew my comforts A holy heart wisheth all well as well as it selfe and if at any time he wisheth that to the worst of his enemies which is penally evill he doth it with an eye both to their spirituall and eternall good Thus of the words as they are read in the forme of a wish We read them as a Supposition If your soules were in my soules stead And then the two latter branches must be interpreted as acts of unfreindlinesse shewing what Job could but would not doe as was toucht before I could heap up words against you That is I could make long speeches and enlarge my selfe in discourse I could speake terrour and thunder out whole volleys of threats against you I could deafe your eares with loud voyces and sad your hearts with heavy censures There is a figure in Rhetorick called Congeries or The Heape Many words to the same sense especially when there is little in them but words are called justly a heape of words Now saith Job Quassare caput apud authores Latinos gestus est hominis irati aut minantis aut lamentantis Drus .. Ridentes caput motitant Drus I could be as nimble at this figure as you and with my speech I could mix your action Shake my head at you Shaking the head notes scorne and threatning Psal 22.7 All they that seeme laugh me to scorne they shoot out the lip and shake the head saying He trusted on the Lord c. So the afflicted Church complaines Psal 44.14 Thou makest us a by-word among the Heathen a shaking of the head among the people We have this action joyned with two more which signifie the greatest contempt by lamenting Jeremiah Lam. 2.15 All that passe by clap their hands at thee they hisse and wag their head at the Daughter of Jerusalem saying Is this the City that men call the perfection of beauty the joy of the whole Earth Our blessed Saviour upon whom contempt and scorne was to vent it selfe all manner of wayes hee being to beare all that scorne as well as all that paine which was due to our sins our blessed Saviour I say was scorned this way Matth 27.39 And they that passed by reviled him wagging their heads So then to shake or wagg the head at a man in affliction speakes as sometimes our pity so most times our contempt and as it is usually accompanyed with audible mockings so it selfe is a visible mock Which being interpreted speakes thus to the person afflicted Thou evill-doer or thou hypocrite thou doest even well become thy sufferings all these miseries are well bestowed on thee c. In this sense Job seemes to speake here I could shake my head at you I have indeed been as one mocked of his Freind Chap. 12.4 and I could mock my Freinds I could laugh at your calamity and mocke when your feare commeth but my conscience beares witnesse with me that if it should come I would not Hence Note First A godly man hath a power to doe that evill which he hath no will to doe A carnall man hath a will to many evills for which hee hath no power or opportunity A godly man would not doe any evill how much power and opportunity soever he hath And indeed though he hath a naturall or civill yet hee hath not a morall power to doe any evill In which sense the Apostle speakes of a regenerate person 1 John 3.9 He that is borne of God cannot sin He hath a naturall power to sin any sin to lye to be drunk to be uncleane c. He may have a civill power to oppresse to deceive to wrong his Brother yet he cannot turne either his hand or his heart to such works as these are he hath learned better and is better He is borne of God his blood and pedigree is so high that hee cannot meddle nor trade in such low things Wisedome is too high for a foole saith Solomon Prov. 24.7 and folly is too low for a wisedome When Joseph was solicited by his Mistresse to commit folly with her he answers How can I doe this great wickednesse and sin against God Gen. 39.9 Joseph wanted neyther power nor opportunity to doe that wickednesse yet he saith How can I doe it Paul and his fellow-Apostles had wit and parts sufficient to oppose the truth yet he saith 2 Cor. 13.8 We can doe nothing against the truth but for the truth Paul was a great doer and he saith Phil. 4.13 I can doe all things through Christ strengthening of me but Paul could doe nothing to the dishonour of Christ Doubtlesse Paul could have maintained an argument and drive on an objection as farr as another man against the truth if he would have set himselfe to
turne it into joy And this is more considerable in reference to the persons with whom Job had to doe they had given him very hard measure yet he would not requite them with hard measure he would measure that to them which was good and hee would give them good measure It is the common rule of humanity to doe good to those who doe us good it is more then beastly even devillish cruelty to hurt those that doe us good it is the height of Christianity to doe good to those who have been a hinderance to us and to comfort those who have caused our sorrow The Apostolicall rule is Recompence to no man evill for evill Rom. 12.17 And againe v. 19. Dearely beloved avenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath The Apostle doth not meane that we should give place to our owne wrath if we doe so wee give place to the Devill as the same Apostle intimates Ephes 4.26 27. Our owne wrath must be stopt and resisted quenched and put out Then what or whose wrath is it that we are commanded to give place unto This wrath may be taken two wayes First For the wrath of that man who is our enemy we must give place to his wrath not by approving him or his wrath but by not answering him with wrath If when another storms we are calme if when he rages we shew all gentlenesse and meeknesse both of speech and spirit then we give place to his wrath that is We make it roome to passe away and evaporate Solomons Proverb is the summe of this Exposition Pro. 15.1 A soft answer turneth away wrath but greivous words stirr up anger Secondly When Paul adviseth us not to avenge our selves but rather to give place to wrath we may understand it of the wrath of God and the very next words which the Apostle alleadgeth from Deut. 32.35 carry the sense clearely this way For it is written vengeance is mine I will repay faith the Lord As if the Apostle had sayd if you take upon you to avenge your selves you take Gods work out of his hand it belongs to God as much to take revenge as it doth to give reward And therefore as a man who having done good is over carefull and anxious how to get his reward takes rewarding worke out of Gods hand and shall have no more reward then he can get himselfe as Christ tels the Pharisees in that case Matth. 6.2 Verily I say unto you yee have your reward And all that a man can get himselfe is not worth the having So the man who having suffered wrong goes about to revenge himselfe takes revenging worke out of Gods hand and shall be righted no further then hee can right himselfe which is but little if any thing at all whereas if he would give place to the wrath of God that is Let God alone by such wayes as his Justice shall raise up to right him against his adversary he would right him fully So that our Interest doth not lye in returning evill for evill but in returning good for evill to our enemies as Saint Paul concludes Rom. 13.20 Therefore if thine Enemy hunger feed him of he thirst give him drinke for in so doing thou shalt heape cooles of fire on his head That is thou shalt eyther melt and mollifie his spirit towards thee as hardest mettals are by coales of fire some such melting we may see in Saul towards David when he forbore to take vengeance on him 1 Sam. 24.16 Chap. 26.21 or thou shalt heape coales of divine vengeance upon him by making his malice and hatred against thee more inexcusable Which latter though it may be looked upon as a consequent of our doing good to our Enemies yet we must take heed of making it the end why we doe so for that were to seeke revenge while we forbeare it and to doe good for that end were to be overcome of evill which the Apostle forbids in the close of that Chapter Job in this Text was farr from professing aâ— readinesse to asswage the griefe of his unkinde or enemy-like Freinds upon hope that God would encrease their sorrow Secondly Observe Words duly spoken and applyed are of great power How forcible are right words Is Jobs question Chap. 6.25 He doth not there answer his question nor tell us how forcible they are but here he doth They are of such force that they strengthen weak soules and asswage the most swelling floods of sorrow God at first gave being and motion to all creatures with the moving of his lips He by the moving of his lips hath ever since ordered all their motions The word of man produceth great effects the tongue sets all hands on worke and what almost cannot the tongue of man doe The tongue is a little member saith the Apostle James Chap. 3.5 â—ond boasteth great things Now as the tongues of vaine men boast great things which they cannot doe so the tongues of wise men can really doe great things Vaine men as we say will take thirteene to the duzzen but cannot performe one Wise men though they speake not much yet they can performe much with a word speaking And though as the same Apostle declaimes most holily against the tongue of a wicked man Vers 8. that his tongue is such an unruly evill that no man can tame it yet there have scarse ever been found any men so unruly but the tongues of wise and godly men have tamed them yea the tongue of a vvise man is to an unruly man and often to a multitude of unruly men as a bit in a Horses mouth or as a Rudder to a Ship turning him or them about which way soever he listeth as this Apostle teacheth us by these similitudes Vers 3.4 the tongue of every man is to and doth to himselfe vvhether it be good or evill And as the tonge is thus powerfull in civillizing the â—ude and in appeasing the humours of those who are most ' outragious so it is very powerfull in supporting those that are ready to sinke and in asswaging the griefe of those who are most disconsolate and sorrowfull Lastly Whereas Job speakes peremptorily as if he saw the effect or were assured of it aforehand I would strengthen you with my mouth and the moving of my lips should asswage your greife Job knew that the successe of all his counsells depended upon the concurrence and blessing of God yet thus he speakes Hence Note A man may say he hath done that for the doing of which he hath used suitable and faithfull endeavours whether the thing be done or no The Lord saith to Jerusalem by the Prophet Ezekiel Chap. 24.13 Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged Now as God takes it upon him that he had purged them though they vvere not purged because he gave them so many meanes and helpes for their purging so any man in his proportion may take it upon him that he hath strengthned their faith abated their griefe
addresses for comfort to any but God or in the way of God The Septuagint translate yet higher Sept. Exponunt de defectu rationis q. d. vix prae dolore sum mei compos Thou hast made me mad or besides my selfe The Hebrew word signifies to distract or to put one out of his wits As if Job had sayd I am scarse my owne man being over-burdened with those sorrowes God hath layd upon me Hence Observe First A state of affliction is a wearisome estate A man may be vvearyed who never stirrs foot from the place where he stands or sits O the vvearinesse of a sick bed Suffering vvearies more then doing and none are so vveary as they who are vvearied with doing nothing Observe Secondly Some afflictions are a wearinesse both to soule and body There are afflictions which strike quite through and there are afflictions which are onely skin-deep As there is a filthinesse of the flesh and a filthinesse of the spirit properly so called for though every sin of the flesh or outward man defile the spirit yet there are many filthinesses of the spirit which are never acted by the flesh or outward man Thus the Apostle distinguisheth 2 Cor. 7.1 There are also some filthinesses which strike quite through flesh and spirit body and soule Thus there are some afflictions which are meerly upon the flesh there are other afflictions vvhich are purely upon the spirit the skin is whole the body is in health but the soule is vvounded an Arrow sticks vvithin And there are a sort of afflictions vvhich strike quite through body and soule as old Simeon tells the Virgin Mary a Sword shall peirce through thy soule Luke 2.35 or as the Psalmist speakes of Joseph Psal 105.18 according to the letter of the Hebrew Whose feet they hurt with fetters his soule came into Iron or the iron entred into his soule Such afflictions are like the Roll spoken of by the Prophet Ezekiel Chap. 2. Written with lamentations mourning and woe within and without Some woes are vvritten onely vvithout some vvoes are writen onely vvithin others are written without and within Their Characters are legible upon the flesh and their effects descend and sinke into the spirit Jobs afflictions were of this extension he was smitten all over and vvritten quite through with woes and lamentations Thirdly As the word reacheth the distemper of the braine Observe Some afflictions doe not onely afflict but unsettle the minde They unsettle not onely the comforts but the powers and faculties of it a man under some afflictions can scarse speak sense vvhile he acts faith or doe rationally while hee lives graciously A soule that hath grace yea much grace may appeare much scanted in the use of reason As oppression from men makes a wise man madd Eccles 7.7 And the more wise a man is the more madd it makes him Fooles can beare oppression and not be troubled much because they doe not understand vvhat justice and right meanes and that 's the reason why in those parts of the World vvhere Tyrants reigne they love to keep the people ignorant poore and low for such are not much sensible of their oppressions but oppression is very grievous to an ingenious vvise and understanding man and therefore 't is sayd to make him madd The purest intellectualls have the quickest sense of injuries Thus also some afflictions from the hand of God may in a degree make a godly wise man madd and put him for a present plunge beyond the command of his understanding It is the confession of holy David Psal 73.22 I was even as a beast beefore thee so foolish was I and ignorant If David a godly man acted below reason when he saw the prosperity of the wicked how much more may a godly man act below reason under the feelings of his owne adversity Heman is expresse in this Psal 88.15 While I suffer thy terrours I am distracted Yet the word in the Psalme doth not signifie properly the distraction of a man that is madd but the distraction of a man that is in doubt or the distraction of a man who knowes not what to doe not of a man who knows not what he doth yet that distraction doth often lead to a degree of this for a man who is much troubled to know what to doe and cannot know it grows at last to doe he knows not what We may also take in that about distraction arising from affliction which was toucht about distraction caused by oppression Those Christians who are highest in spirituals and have the quickest sense of Gods dispensations towards them doe soonest fall into it whereas a soule upright in the maine yet being of weake and low parts and of small experience in the things of God will goe yea groane under a heavy burden of affliction all his dayes and not be much moved with it Fourthly Observe A godly man may grow extreame weary of his afflictions Affliction is the burthen which God layes upon us and it is our duty not onely to beare it but to beare it with contentednesse yea we should labour to beare it with joyfulnesse My brethren saith the Apostle James Chap. 1. Account it all joy when yee fall into diverse temptations that is Into diverse afflictions But yet the best cannot alwayes rejoyce in temptations nor tryumph under a crosse when affliction according to that description of the word Heb 4.12 comes quick and powerfull as a two edged Sword and peirceth to divide betweene the soule and the spirit the joynts and the marrow when affliction I say cuts to the quick a Beleever is put hard to it he may be so farr for a time from tryumphing and rejoycing that he can scarsely finde himselfe contented or patient his burden may cause him to cry out O the wearinesse Carnall men cry out at every burden of duty in the service of God O what a wearinesse is it They are tyred with an houres attendance in holy things O the burthen Much more doe they cry out under the lighter burdens of affliction How tedious is a day or an houre of affliction two or three fits of an ague an aking tooth a soare finger O what a wearinesse is this They sinke presently True Beleevers as they have more patience in doing so in suffering yet even their patience doth not alwayes hold out they as Job speak sometimes mournfully and complainingly But now he hath made us weary Thou hast made desolate all my company Quod loquitur nunc in secunda nunc in tertia persona nihil in sententia mâ—tat id quod admodum frequens est in Scriptura Pined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vastari seu desolari ita ut videntes obstupescant horreant It was Hee in the first clause Thou in the second hee and thou are the same person in Jobs Grammar as was toucht before Thou hast made desolate The word Shamam signifies to waste and destroy and that not by an ordinary destruction
God as he hath done by the Preaching of the Gospel turnes men from Idols to serve and worship him the living God then he famisheth those Gods When Idols lose their esteeme their leannesse riseth up and they goe downe Thus also it is with man his leannesse may be said to rise when his credit fals Further There is a twofold leannesse First Of the soule or inward man Secondly Of the body or outward man When the Jewes lusted in the Wildernesse and called for flesh to satisfie the flesh God saith the Text Psal 106.15 gave them their request but sent leannesse into their soule The soule in a proper sense is neither fat nor leane and therefore the soule in this place of the Psalme must be taken improperly or else the leannesse of it must The soule is put improperly for the body or for the whole man and so he sent leannesse into their soules is the curse of God caused them to pine secretly or he slew the fattest of them openly and smote downe the chosen men in Israel So this leannesse is expounded Psal 78.31 as if he had sayd God made them a thin and a leane company before he had done with them Yet besides this I conceive the Text doth intend some spirituall judgement and then the soule is taken in a proper sense but leannesse in an improper sense and so he sent leannesse into their soules is while they inordinately desired meat for their bodies God withheld the ordinary food of their soules He did not administer his grace and holy spirit which are the fatners of the soule while they were thus hungry after dainties for the flesh Jobs Freinds thought him a leane soule but he here confesses the leannesse of his body and in that his continuall sorrow the cause of it So the Prophet cryes out My leannesse my leannesse woe unto me Isa 24.16 My leannesse rising up Fatnesse riseth up and not leannesse when a man growes leane his flesh fals and abates skin and bone stick together Why then doth hee say My leannesse riseth up Though when a man is leane his flesh falls yet his bones rise A fat mans bones are as it were buried in flesh you can scase feele his ribs but when he growes leane his bones stick out and rise up That is the meaning here my leannesse rising up Maciei videtur dare personam ut paulo ante rugis Job ascribes a rationall act both to his wrinkles and to his leannesse as if both did speak and which is more give evidence concerning him he brings them forth as witnesses at the barr this speakes and that speakes he doubles it My wrinkles witnesse against me and my leannesse rising up witnesseth to my face When a witnesse is to give in his evidence in any cause before a Judge he riseth up or standeth forth that all may see him Job presents his leannesse in the proper posture of a witnesse rising up The Originall varies somewhat in the latter clause from the former we render both by vvitnessing but vve may read it thus Thou hast filled me with wrinkles that hath been or is a witnesse or as Master Broughton reads a proofe my leannesse rising up or vvhich riseth up against me answers or speaketh to my face The meaning is These outward evils are evidence enough to my Freinds that God is angry with me and that I am wicked against God Job grants that those wrinkles and this leannesse vvere witnesses of his afflictions he never questioned their testimony as to that point neither indeed could he Jonadab sayd to Amnon Why art thou being the Kings Son leane or thin from day to day wilt thou not tell me 2 Sam. 13.4 His leannesse told his Freind plaine enough that all was not vvell he read that in his face onely hee could not read the particular illnesse there Magnum certè peccatum quod tantum in florente illa aetate deformitatem senilem speciem induxit Putant tantas afflictiones testes esse magnae culpae irae Dei. Coc. If vve see a young man especially the Son of a Great man or of a King who is waited upon with all worldly delights vvrinkled and leane is it not a witnesse that he hath been sick or is overwhelmed vvith sorrow these testifie to his face he cannot conceale it But Jobs Freinds said these were vvitnesses of his sin they produced the wrinkles of his body as a vvitnesse of his vvrinkled soule and the leannesse of his outward man as an argument of his inward leannesse they sayd these testified plainely that he was not onely a great sinner but an Hypocrite And thus they argued all along this vvas their constant plea Job must needs be according to this opinion a man of an evill life because his life was filled with evills Thou hast filled mee with wrinkles which is a witnesse against me c. Hence Observe First Great afflictions leave their marks behinde them Little afflictions leave no wrinkles no leannesse behinde them vve recover out of them and nothing appeares of them as it is in sinning some sins leave no mark such are our daily infirmities and common failings but there are other sins which leave a mark behinde them you cannot get them off suddenly it may be you cannot claw off the marks of some sins as long as you live though the sin be fully pardoned yet the mark the vvrinkle the leannesse of it may remaine to your dying day David being defiled with adultery and murder prayes Cause the bones which thou hast broken to rejoyce Those two vvere such sins as broke his very bones they vvere to his soule as the breaking of a bone is to the body If a man break a bone though it be vvell Set yet it leaves a mark David carryed the skarr of those sins to his Grave Though God had forgiven those sins and did not remember them to impute them to David yet when God had occasion to speake of David to his highest commendation he could not forbeare the mention of those sins 1 Kings 15.5 David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the dayes of his life save onely in the matter of Vriah The vvrinkle or staine of that sin stuck upon Davids reputation when the guilt of it vvas quite removed and vvashed off from his person 'T is so with afflictions some afflictions leave no mark others goe deep Though all afflictions are light comparatively to the weight of glory as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 4.17 For our light affliction which is but for a moment workes for us a farr more exceeding and eternall weight of glory Yet afflictions being compared among themselves some are light and some are heavy As a Cart that is heavy laden cuts deep into the earth and tells you where it hath gone so doth the vvheele of a heavy affliction drawne over body soule or state Secondly
sentence is but one word in the Hebrew yet more then a single word it is elegantly doubled in construction to imply double affliction Grammarians tell us that two words put together or the same word twice put encrease the sense Ordinary words will not serve to expresse an extraordinary condition he speakes great and compounded words because his sorrows were great and compounded sorrows Jobs was not a single but a double breaking yea his vvas a manifold breaking He vvas often broken and utterly broken the repeated stroaks which fell upon him by divine dispensation from all hands had beaten him to dust and atomes He hath broken me in sunder Further The root of the vvord signifies to make voyd to dissipate to scatter to bring to nought or to make nothing of Psal 33.10 The Lord brings to nought the counsell of the heathen So againe Isa 8.10 It is used often for breaking the Law by frequent and vvilfull sinning against it Proud sinners vvould break the Law in sunder or pull it all in peices They have made voyd thy Law Psa 119 As if they would not onely sin against the Law but sin away the Law not onely vvithdraw themselves from the obedience of it but drive it out of the World they would make voyd and repeale the holy acts of God that their owne wicked acts might not be questioned and lest the Law should have a power to punish them they vvill deny it a power to rule them that 's the force of the simple vvord here used as applyed to highest transgressing against the Law of God Now as vvicked men by sinning vvould batter the Law to peices so God by afflicting doth sometimes break good men to peices Consider what course usage the holy Law of God hath in the hearts and lives of vvicked men O how they tear it and vex it and batter it every day Thus doth the Lord deal vvith many of his holy servants vvho had they their vvish would not make the least breach in the Law and vvhose hearts are often broken vvith godly sorrow because they cannot but break it yet to these he doth not onely give a bruise or a blow but breaks them asunder There is yet another elegancy in the signification of the vvord For as Hebreicians observe it notes a bruising like that of Grapes or Olives vvhich are trodden in a presse to make Wine or Oyle Confractus sum velut uvae aut olivae in torculari hence also a Noune from this Verbe signifies the Wine-presse Isa 63.3 Now Grapes and Olives being trodden are broken and bruised in peices not onely is their forme and beauty totally spoyled but all their sweetnesse juyce and liquor is vvrought out of them and they are left as a dry lumpe Now look vvhat Grapes and Olives are vvhen taken out of the Presse even such a lumpe vvas Job he vvas broken asunder in the Wine-presse though not of Gods vvrath as his Freinds mis-judged yet in the Wine-presse of his chastisements and severest tryalls all his vvorldly moysture vvas squeezed out and his earthly glory vvas quite defaced he had nothing left of that but as it were a dry huske yet his spirituall estate was still juicy and his soule by these pressings treadings and breakings had distilled much sweet Oyle and Wine and much more was still remaining in him From these heightned significations of the word layd together Observe in generall God doth not onely afflict those whom he loves but afflict them soarely and severely He afflicts some not onely to the empayring and abating but to the undoing and ruining of their outward comforts and worldly enjoyments Nothing can be sayd to descipher an afflicted state beyond what this word will beare And that God doth afflict his chosen ones to the utmost rack of this phrase will appeare also from all that follows to the end of the fourteenth Verse the opening of which will be a continuall proofe and illustration of this great and often experimented truth upon and among the precious Sons of Sion This I shall hint all along besides those observations which arise out of them He hath broken me asunder and what follows in the same Verse He hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to peices Is not this to deale severely A loving Father takes his Son about the neck and kisses him what a rough salute did the Lord give this Son of his when he tooke him by the neck and shook him to peices Such a carriage seemes not to be after the manner of men much lesse after the manner of Fathers yet this was the manner of God to Job who was also his Freind and Father He hath taken me by my neck The neck is as the tower and strength of the body and when a man is taken by the neck he is assaulted in his chiefest strength and taken at the greatest advantage There is a threefold metaphor or allusion in these words which being considered distinctly will let out their meaning yet more fully First They beare an allusion to Wrestlers who take one another by the neck or collar he that is the strongest not onely takes his Antagonist by the neck but shakes him as if he would shake him to pieces God wrestled with the Patriarch Jacob literally and corporally though the greatest labour and stresse of Jacobs wrestling was spirituall and internall And when he saw that he prevailed not Jacob prevailed with God for so much strength that now God could not according to that dispensation prevaile against Jacob yet he touched the hollow of Jacobs thigh and made him halt God wrestled with Job not corporally yet in corporall things the stresse also of his wrestling was spirituall and he prevailed with God and over Satan yet God was pleased not only for the present to touch a joynt and make him halt but even to shake every joynt and limbe to peices Secondly It is an allusion to Sergeants or Bailiffs that are sent to arest men for debt or for their evill deeds This sort of men are boysterous enough they having power will not forbeare to lay hold on Persons obnoxious and take them by the neck when they attach them We have that usage expressed Matth. 18.28 The evill Servant to whom the Lord had forgiven ten thousand Talents a vast debt found one of his fellow Servants who owed him an hundred pence an inconsiderable summ and would needs exact the utmost from him the Text saith The same Servant went out and found one of his fellow-servants which ought him an hundred pence and he layd hands upon him and took him by the throat saying Pay me that thou owest He took him by the throat the word signifies properly to choake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Premebat sauces illius debitoris tanquam suffocaturus obtorto collo premebat Eras or to take another so rudely by the throat as to choake or as wee say throttle him It is translated to choake with water Mark 5.13
Oracles of God like little Children who must have the same precepts and lines often and often inculcated upon them he gives it us in the forme of this Text Isa 28.10 For precept must be upon precept line upon line that is they must be continually followed with precepts they must have many and yet they scarse learne one or as others expound that place the Prophet describes the scornefulnesse of that people who jeered the Messengers of God for their frequency in Preaching with a riming scoffe Precept upon precept line upon line here a little and there a little which single tearms the Prophets had often used in their Sermons Now which way soever we take the proper sense of that place yet the common sense of the words reaches this in Job for precept upon precept speakes there a multitude of precepts even as here breach upon breach speakes a multitude of breaches or breaches all over And the Apostle Paul expresseth himselfe in this straine while he gives the reason of the recovery of Epaphroditus from a dangerous sicknesse Phil. 2.27 He was sick saith Paul nigh unto death but God had mercy on him and not onely on him but on mee also least I should have sorrow upon sorrow that is many sorrows heaped up together So then when Job complaines of his breaking with breach upon breach the plaine meaning is that he had many very many breaches His very wounds were wounded there was nothing in him Vulnera ipsa vulnerat Non habet in nobis jam nova plag◠locum or about him to be smitten but what had been smitten already As if he had said I am so full of breaches and afflictions that there is no whole space or roome left for a new breach for another affliction As he that lyes upon the ground can fall no lower so he that is all broken cannot be broken any more Job had breach upon breach in his estate his Cattle and goods were taken away Job had breach upon breach in his Family most of his Servants and all his Children were destroyed Job had breach upon breach in his body that was sick and soare Job had breach upon breach in his credit hee was called Hypocrite againe and againe Job had breach upon breach in his soule that was filled with feare and terrour from the Lord. Hence Note The best Saints on earth are subject not onely to great but various troubles to breach upon breach God is pleased to smite them sundry times and he smites them sundry wayes 'T is no argument that a man shall be no more afflicted because he is afflicted or that God will not smite againe because he hath smitten already God doth not stay his hand by looking upon the number but upon the effect and fruite of our afflictions Every Childe of his whom he corrects must looke for more corrections till repentance hath had its perfect worke and every Champion of his whom he tryes must looke for more tryalls till faith and patience have had their perfect worke God would not give his Children so much as one blow or one breach not so much as a little finger of theirs should ake were it not for one of these ends and untill these ends be attained they shall have many blowes and breaches even till the whole head be sick and the whole heart faint till from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundnesse in them but wounds and bruises and putrifying soares As the Vine-dresser cuts and cuts Vt in vineis labor labori cura curae semper additur c. Sanct. prunes and prunes the Vine this day and the next day because once cutting or pruning will not serve to make it fruitfull So the Lord prunes and cuts and pares and breaks and breaks not to destroy his people but to make them as pleasant Vines bring forth abundantly eyther the fruits of godly sorrow for their sins committed against him or the proofes and experiments of the graces which they have received from him This latter was Jobs case and the cheife cause why he was broken with breach upon breach And no sooner had the Lord by his roaring Cannon made breaches in him fayre and assaultable but he presently takes his advantage as Job shewes elegantly pursuing the Allegory in the last clause He runs vpon me as a Giant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sicut fortis potens idem valet Gigas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When a breach is made in the wall the beseigers run up to assault and storme the place Job keepes to the Souldiers language the Lord hath made breach upon breach and now He runs upon me as a Giant There are three things in this expression First The speed which God made to assault him He runs Secondly The strength that God puts forth in assaulting him he runs not as a Childe not as a weak man no nor as the ordinary sort of strong men but as a Giant or mighty man who exceeds other men as Goliah did David both in strength and stature Quando aliquis dicitur aut currere aut aliquid agere sicut Gigas nihil aliud denotat quam magno animo strenuè rem aliquam aggredi Bold Thirdly Running as a Giant notes courage as well as strength A Giant runs fiercely and fearelesly David compares the Sun at his rising to a Bridegroome comming out of his Chamber and to a Giant or strong man it is the word of this Text who rejoyceth to run a race Psal 19.5 Giants are swift and Giants are strong Some men are strong but not swift of foot but no man can be swift of foot unlesse he be competently strong Giants are both in excesse And therefore Job puts both together He runs upon me as a Giant And yet I conceive this running doth rather imply the fiercenesse of the Giant then his swiftnesse Giants are dreadfull and terrible to behold they are called Nephilim in the Hebrew of diverse Texts which comming from the root Naphal to fall signifies fallers and that in a twofold sense First Because they Apostatiz'd or fell from God his truth and worship which Moses seemes to intimate while he describes the first great personall defection of the World Gen. 6.4 There were Giants in the earth in those dayes these he opposeth to the Sons of God in the same Verse who had also greatly corrupted themselves so that Vers 5. God saw the wickednesse of man was great upon the earth For the Sons of God they who owned a profession of Religion being the Posterity of Seth they mingled themselves with the wicked of the World as for the Giants they disowned God and were totally departed or fallen from his obedience and were therefore as some apprehend called Nephilim or Fallers Secondly They were so called because either through the vastnesse of their strength and stature or through the feircenesse of their mindes and spirits they were men of violence great oppressors
Cloud to us in the day of distresse That is best which is good to us in our worst estate The favour of God the pardon of sin the fruites of the spirit are alwayes pleasant to the Saints but then most when the yeares or times are upon them of which they not onely say with the Preacher Eccles 12.1 Wee have no pleasure in them but vve have much paine and trouble in them The face of the new creature is never foul with vveeping nor is the horne of our salvation defiled when vvee lye in the dust or on the dunghill Job having according to his manner accurately described his calamities and shewed vvith vvhat deep sense and self-abasement he had entertained them he passeth to a refutation of that inference vvhich his Freinds drew and had often pressed upon him from those premises of his affliction Eliphaz suggested him impious and unjust because hee was thus smitten Job plainly denyes it Vers 17. I have not received these wounds in my body and estate for any injustice in my hands no nor for any impiety in my heart also my prayer is pure This Verse takes off both parts of that generall assertion as to Jobs personall condition Chap. 15. Vers 34. The Congregation of Hypocrites shall be desolate fire shall consume the Tabernacles of bribery There Eliphaz closely hinted that Job was an Unjust man and an Hypocrite Job answers no my Tabernacle is not the Tabernacle of bribery there is no injustice in my hands my Congregation or those with whom I joyned in vvorship vvere not a Congregation of Hypocrites my prayer is pure As if he had sayd Though it be a truth that the Congregation of Hypocrites shall be desolate yet it doth not follow that every man is an Hypocrite whose Congregation is made desolate for mine is desolate and yet I know my prayer is pure And though fire shall consume the Tabernacles of bribery yet every man is not guilty of bribery whose Tabernacle is consumed with fire for so is mine and yet I avouch it there is no injustice in my hands Vers 17. Not for any injustice in my hands The word that we translate injustice signifies rapine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Propriè rapina violentia injuria violence or wrong done by violence any open tyrannicall oppression The Harpie being a ravenous Foule hath his name from this root in Hebrew as also in the Greek from one of the same importance because he doth not subtlely surprize his prey but openly assault it It signifies also violence mingled with scorne and contempt as is observed upon that of the Prophet Ezek. 22.26 Her Priests have violated my Laws The Priests did not goe behinde the doore they made an open breach upon the Law of God they did not sin secretly as if they had been afrayd to be seen but avowedly and before the Sun Hence some have rendred that Text Her Priests have contemned my Lawes noting eyther that it was a violation vvith contempt or that Lawes which are once contemned cannot be long unviolated Thus Job professeth there is no such injustice in my hand Job did not disclaime all faylings in doing justice but all intendments of doing injustice he did not peremptorily deny that there was no injustice in his hand arising from mistakes of the Law but none from contempt of the Law Not for any injustice In my hand Injustice is ascribed to the hand not because injustice is alwayes though usually it be done with the hand vvith the hand men take away and vvith that men detaine the right of others David speakes thus 2 Chro. 12.17 Seenig there is no wrong in mine hand that is I have done no wrong The hand is the great instrument of action most injustice is done by the hand though much be done by the tongue and a Judge who gives an unjust sentence with his tongue may be sayd to have injustice in his hands Besides he may be sayd to have injustice in his hands who keeps any thing in his hands vvhich vvas gotten by injustice he also may be sayd to eate injustice who feeds upon vvhat he got unjustly Prov. 4.17 They eate the Bread of wickednesse and drink the Wine of violence that is they eate Bread and drink Wine gotten by wickednesse and violence Job disclaimes injustice in all these notions There is no injustice in my hands as if hee had sayd I have not gotten wealth by injustice nor enricht my selfe by making others poore I have not been as an Harpie to scratch and teare from others to feed my selfe Hee gives a full account of this Chap. 29. and Chap. 30. wiping off those aspersions of injustice by a large narrative of his proceedings in that publick capacity as a Magistrate the breviate of vvhich is summed up in this negative There is no injustice in my hand Further Injustice may be taken two wayes Either strictly for the act of a Magistrate perverting the Law and going besides the rules of righteousnesse Or largely for any wrong that one neighbour in a private capacity doth another To doe justice is every ones duty as well as the Magistrates vve use to say Every man is eyther a Foole or a Physitian vvee may say Every one is eyther a doer of justice or a dishonest man For though to doe justice is chiefely the Magistrates work yet no man who hath any thing to doe in the World can live as he ought vvithout doing justice In this large sense also vve may expound Jobs disclaimer of injustice as if he had sayd I have not willingly fayled in any of those duties which the Law of love towards my neighbour calls for and obliges me unto There is no injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure Prayer is taken two vvayes as injustice is Eyther largely for the whole vvorship of God My house shall be called the house of prayer Matth. 21.13 that is All kinde of publick worship shall be performed and tendered to me there Prayer being so principall a part of vvorship may vvell comprehend all the parts of worship that which is chiefe in any kinde often denominates all the rest So Love is put for all the duties of the Law and Faith for all the duties yea and for all the Doctrines of the Gospell though in both many other duties and Doctrines are contained Strictly Prayer is that part or worship which consists in calling upon God Prayer is the making knowne of our desires or the opening of our hearts to God It is the ascent of our soules to God David being about to pray saith Vnto thee O Lord doe I lift up my soule In this place we may take prayer in both the notions of it My prayer Is pure The word signifies shining bright glorious a gracious prayer shines so bright that there is a glory in it My prayer is pure Zophar charged Job for saying My doctrine is pure Chap. 12.4 Now Job himselfe saith My prayer is pure The truth of
lives in any knowne sinne unrepented of Secondly That which is unquiet and unsetled about the pardon of those sins which we have repented of We should get both these evil consciences but especially the first cured and removed by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ before we draw nigh to God in prayer as also our bodies washed in pure water which is either an allusion to the old Ceremonies among the Jewes who before they came to worship at the Tabernacle purged themselves with diverse outward washings leading them to the consideration of that morall puritie both of heart and life in which God is to be worshipped or it is an allusion to Baptisme in speciall in which there is an externall washing of the body signifying the washing of the soule by the blood of Christ and by the effectuall working of the spirit The sum of all is unlesse the person be pure his prayer is not pure These are the ingredients which constitute pure prayer all these met in Job and therefore he concluded not onely confidently but truely My prayer is pure And as these are the ingredients of prayer so they are all necessary ingredients so necessary that if any one of them be wanting the whole prayer is impure They are necessary by a double necessity First As commanded by God in prayer Secondly As meanes without which man cannot attaine his end in prayer The generall end of prayer is that prayer may be heard accepted and answered God heares accepts answers no one prayer without some concurrence of all these The Incense of the Ceremoniall Law was a shadow of prayer which is so great a duty of the morall Law But if this Incense had not been made exactly according to the will of God both for the matter and the manner of the composition prescribed Exod. 30.34 35 36. If after it had been thus made it had not also been offered according to those rules given Levit. 16.12 13. it had been an abomination to the Lord or as the Prophet Isaiah speaks Chap. 66.3 Such a burning of Incense had been but as the blessing of an Idol We may conclude also That if prayer be either composed or presented in any other way then God himselfe hath directed it is not onely turned away but turned into sin That man hath spoken a great word who can say in Jobs sense My prayer is pure Thus Job justifies the prayer he made to God and mainetaines his justice towards men There is no injustice in my hands also my prayer is pure A high profession yet in the next words he goes higher and makes both an imprecation against himselfe if it were not thus with him and an appeale to God for his testimony that it was thus with him JOB CHAP. 16. Vers 18 19. O Earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place Also now behold my witnesse is in Heaven and my record is on high JOB having with much confidence asserted the integrity of his heart and the righteousnesse of his way both towards God and Man confirmes what he had thus confidently asserted by a double Argument First By a vehement imprecation Vers 18. O earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place Secondly By a free appeale an appeale to God himselfe Vers 19. Also now behold my witnesse is in Heaven and my record is on high He shewes the necessity of this appeale Vers 20. My Freinds scorne me therefore I am constrained to goe to God When men have done us wrong and will not doe us right it is both time and duty to appeale to God Upon this ground Job appeales Est juramenti deprecatorii forma quo asseverat nullius sibi iniquitatis consâ—ium esse Aben. Ezra and he concludes according to our translation his appeale with a passionate yet holy wish Vers 21. O that one might plead for a man with God as a man pleadeth for his Neighbour The reason both of his appeale and wish is given us further Vers 22. he looked on himselfe as a man standing upon the very confines of death the Grave was ready for him therefore hee beggs that this businesse might be dispatched and his integrity cleared before hee dyed Hee was loath to goe out of the World like a Candle burnt downe to the Socket with an ill savour He that hath lived unstained in his reputation cannot well beare it to dye with a blot and therefore he will be diligent by all due meanes to maintaine the credit which he hath got and to recover what he hath lost This was the reason of Jobs importunity discovered in these two Verses now further to be opened Vers 18. O earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place There are two branches of this imprecation or rather these make two distinct imprecations The first in these words O earth cover not thou my blood The second in these Let my cry have no place Job engages all upon the truth of what he had sayd being willing that his worst might be seen and his best not heard if he had not spoken truth O earth cover not thou my blood Poeticum sane patheticum in dolore aut re alia gravissima res mutas mortuasve omni sensu audituque carentes testes auditores compellare Job speaks pathetically or as some render him Poetically while he bespeakes the earth and makes the inanimate creature his hearer The sacred Pen-men doe often turne their speech to the Heavens and to the Earth Thus Moses Deut. 32.2 in the Preface of his Sermon his last Sermon to that people Give eare O yee Heavens and I will speak and hear O earth the words of my mouth So the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 1.2 Heare O Heavens and give eare O Earth I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me God speaks to that which hath no eares to heare eyther to reprove those who have eares but heare not or to raise up and provoke their attention in hearing Thus Job O earth c. as if the earth were able to take his complaint and returne an answer as if the earth were able to make inquisition and bring in a verdict about his blood O earth cover not thou my blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 texit operuit abscondit The word signifies not onely common but a twofold metaphoricall covering First Covering by way of dissimulation to dissemble a matter is to cover a matter In that sense Solomon speakes Prov. 12.16 A fooles wraâ—h is presently knowne but a prudent man covereth shame that is He dissembleth his wrath or his anger he will not let it alway break forth for that would be a shame to him Secondly The word signifies to cover by forgetfulnesse That which is not remembred is hid or covered Eccles 6.4 He commeth in with vanity speaking of man and departeth in darknesse and his name shall be covered with darknesse that
or condemnes He that is righteous knowes that all his sins are covered by the freegrace of God in the righteousnesse of Jesus Christ and he knowes that he hath not covered his sin as Adam by excuses nor sewed the Fig-leaves of carnall reasonings together to hide his nakednesse he knowes also that he lives not in any knowne sin nor hath wickedly departed from the Lord. Now because in all these respects he knowes nothing by himselfe therefore he cares not who knows him he cals not for Masks or Visors for Curtaines or coverings to obscure or disguise himselfe or his actions under eyther from the sight of God or man but is willing to stand forth in the open light For though the best of men may have done some act which is not fit for the open light yet considering the whole frame of their hearts and lives towards God together with what hath past betweene God and their soules about that act they are not afrayd that the worst act which ever they have done should stand forth in the open light and as for those crimes which men uncharitably charge upon them every honest heart speakes boldly the sense of this first part of Jobs imprecation O earth cover not thou my blood From the second branch of Jobs imprecation Let my cry have no place Observe Not to have prayer heard and accepted by God is the greatest misery that can befall man God is the last refuge of a distressed soule and the meanes by which we make God our refuge or flye to him for refuge is beleeving and servent prayer Prayer is a duty and yet it is a priviledge it is a priviledge not onely to receive an answer of prayer but to put up our requests in prayer he therefore that askes a stop upon his owne prayers hath at once asked a stop upon all his mercies he cannot looke to be releeved who tells God he doth not looke to be heard and when prayer hath no place of acceptance in Heaven wee can have no place of contentment on the Earth Upon this account we may conclude That Man cannot bespeake any thing worse for himselfe then not to be heard when he speakes to God As it is one of the highest honours done to God that men make prayers to him so it is one of the deepest afflictions of man for God not to heare his prayers Such was Sauls condition 2 Sam. 28. God doth not answer me neither by dreames nor by Vrim nor by Prophets He could get no answer from God his cry had no place This troubled him more then the invasion of the Philistims I am sore distressed saith he the Philistims make Warr upon me and God is departed from me When trouble comes and God goes away man is in a wofull estate We have no promise to receive unlesse we aske and though we doe aske wee cannot receive unlesse our prayer be received God receives the prayer of man before man receives any thing from God in prayer All our treasure lies in Heaven our comfort is in Heaven our protection is in Heaven and prayer is the messenger which we send to Heaven in the name of Christ for all things or for whatsoever else we need on earth Now if prayer cannot get in if God will not heare prayer if hee send back our messenger without audience what can wee receive The sinfulnesse of man appeares in nothing more then in this That he calleth not upon God Psal 14.4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge Who eate up my people as they eate bread and call not upon the Lord Now as the sin of man appeares exceedingly in not calling upon God so the wrath of God appeares exceedingly in not hearing man when he cals Prov. 1.20 Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seeke me early but they shall not finde me God will powre out wrath upon the Families that call not upon his name Jer. 10.25 but hee powres out most wrath upon those Families whom he heares not when they call upon his name All our mercies are shut out at once when prayer is shut out nor shall that person have any place or roome in Gods heart whose cry hath no place in his eare Holy Job was sensible enough of this nor durst hee have imprecated that his cry should have no place but that being conscious of no evill hee was assured that his cry had place and therefore as in the sincerity of his soule he made that imprecation so in the confidence of his soule he proceeds to make his Appeale to God in the next words Vers 19. Also now behold my witnesse is in Heaven and my record is on high As if he had sayd I feare no evidence that can be brought against me on earth and I rejoyce in the witnesse I have in Heaven though I have none to testifie for me here yet I have one that will testifie for me above My witnesse is in Heaven and my record is on high Vtitur testificatione caeli postquam terrae testimonium produxit Eugub Some conceive that as Job had spoken to the earth before so now he speakes to Heaven O earth cover not my blood O Heaven witnesse for me But he saith not my witnesse is Heaven but my witnesse is in Heaven nor doth he call the Heavens to witnesse for him but he cals him who is in Heaven to witnesse and that is God There are two branches of this appeal Idem bis dicit conscientiae suae integrae declarandae causa Lavat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synonymum est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hieron in Trad. and they both intend the same thing My witnesse is in Heaven and my record is on high The words witnesse and record are of the same signification though they differ in the letter The one is properly an Hebrew word and the other Syriack When Jacob and Laban were in that contest Gen. 31.47 Jacob tooke a Stone and set up a Pillar for a witnesse And Jacob sayd to his Brethren Gather stones and they made an heape and they did eate there upon the heap and Laban called it Jegar-sahadatha that is a heap of witnesses as it is in the Margin but Jacob called it Galeed or Gilead Jacob speaking the pure Hebrew and Laban the Syriack language they take in both the words of Jobs appeale My witnesse is in Heaven my record is on high Est forma juramenti quo deum invocat innocentiae suae testem atque conscientiae spectatorem Cajet Job speakes the same thing twice to shew how strongly he beleeved that the Lord would be witnesse for him My witnesse is in Heaven my record is on high Heaven and high are the same as witnesse and record are And when he saith on high or in the high place he useth not the word Bamoth by which those high places are expressed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In excelsis malimin altissimis quia excelsa
with God Secondly That God would judge the Sonne of man in respect of his Neighbour In the former he petitions for mercy with God in the latter for right against man or in the former he sues for a judgement of acceptation for himselfe and in the latter for a judgement of reproofe and redargution upon his friends This difference is grounded upon the different construction of the vvords in the originall For the word which is rendred to plead or judge is construed with or governs as gramarians speake the Dative case in the first and the Accusative case in the latter clause of the verse Hence the former is rendred That he would judge or plead for a man with God which notes favour and a benigne defence or patronage of his cause with God so this is used by the Prophet Isai 11.4 He shall reprove argue judge or plead with equity for the meeke of the earth that is he shall reprove or plead in favour of the meeke or on their side he shall undertake their cause and make their defence for them And thus at last God did judge or plead for Job giving sentence in his behalfe and casting the scales on his side against his friends and therefore the latter clause is rendred thus That he would judge the Sonne of man in respect of his Neighbour that is that he would reprehend and reprove him for the wrongs vvhich he hath donâ— to and for the uncharitable censures vvhich he hath layd upon his Neighbour The meaning of the whole verse according to this translation may be represented and paraleld in that prayer of David Psal 35.1 2 3. Plead my cause O Lord with them that strive with me fight against them that fight against me c. say unto my soule I am thy salvation Thus Job as David desires the Lord to speake a word of comfort to him and to tell his enemies or his uncomfortable friends their owne I shall only leave one observation upon this exposition When Christ comes gratiously to assert the innocency of his owne people he will severely rebuke those who have done them wrong Laban had given Jacob hard usage vvhile he was a Servant in his House and when he was gone Laban persued him vvith hard thoughts but God pleaded for Jacob and rebuked Laban Gen. 31.42 the Prophet foretels That the mountaine of the Lords house shall be established in the top of the mountaines that is he vvill not only deliver but advance his oppressed Church The house of the God of Jacob Isai 21.2 3. and when he doth this He shall judge among the Nations and shall rebuke many people Vers 4. Some have observed the same difference in these latter words of Isay which hath been noted in the text of Job and render it thus He shall judge among the Nations that is the Heathen Nations who have vexed his Church And he shall rebuke or plead it is the same word in the Grammaticall construction as here in Job For or in the behalfe of many people that is for many of his owne people who have been opposed by those Nations the effect whereof wee have in the next words And they shall beate their swords into plow-shares that is God will so judge those Nations that his people shall not need to stand upon their guard or learne warr any more because their enemies shall either be turned to them or be totally overturned woe to the Nations when God stands up for his people he will certainly ruine Babylon when he undertakes the controversie and pleades the cause of Zion Yea the day hastens when he will Convince all that are ungodly of all the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jud. vers 15. that is against his people for his sake Fourthly Besides these three expositions of the Text I finde another which is more litterall and yet more spiritual then any of the three and it is that which our late learned Annotators have given us Mine eye powres out teares unto God And he will plead for a man with God and the Sonne of man for his friend The mind of which translation is this He that is Christ Jesus the Mediatour betweene God and man will plead for a man that is for me he speakes in the third person for modesties sake though he meanes himselfe he will plead for me though you plead never so much against me for me I say he will plead with God that is with God his Father the Hebrew word here used for God is in the singular number Eloah not Elohim and so it is in the close of the former verse Mine eye powreth out teares to Eloah God and he will plead with God which more then intimates a distinct personalitie or subsistence in the divine nature One who is and is called God acting towards another who is and is called God though God be but one or unissimus One-most in nature Job weepes to God the Son in assurance that he will plead for him with God the Father He will plead for a man with God And the Son of man that is Jesus Christ whom he called God before he cals now The Sonne of man this Title is frequently attributed unto Christ in the New-Testament Matth. 8.20 The Foxes have holes c. but the Sonne of man hath not where to lay his head so Matth. 10.23.11.19.12.8 c Jesus Christ is called the Sonne of man First to shew the truth of his humane nature he being lineally descended from David according to the flesh and is therefore styled The Sonne of David Secondly to shew the depth of his abasement Christ humbled yea emptyed and nothing'd himself when Being in the forme of God he was made in the likenesse of men Phil. 2. when being the Sonne of God he submitted to so meane a style The Sonne of man Ezekiel amongst all the Prophets is oftenest called Son of man The reason which some assigne is very probable That God spake to him under that Title to keep him humble in the midst of his many visions and revelations for which end Paul in the same case had A I horne in the flesh the Messenger of Satan to buffet him 2 Cor. 12. and though Jesus Christ needed nothing either to make or keepe him humble he being infinitely beyond the reach of pride yet he needed much to shew and give proofe how humble he was Nor could there be any greater evidence of it then this that he was pleased to be The Sonne of man Yet I conceive Son of man may be here only an Hebraisme denoting man which kinde of speaking is also usuall among the the Greekes And that Job might speake of Christ under this notion is cleare from that faith which he discovered in the mysterie of his incarnation that great mysterie of godlines God manifested in the flesh of which he spake so confidâ—ntly Chap. 19.25 26 27. I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter
day upon the earth whom I shall see for my selfe and mine eyes shall behold c. Job believed that he should see this Redeemer with humane eyes and therefore he did believe that his Redeemer should have a humane Nature or be The Son of man Jesus Christ was A Son of man in reference to his participation with us in all things which concerne created nature And he was The Son of man by way of Eminency in reference to his freedome from any participation with us in corrupted nature otherwise then in the paenall effects of that corruption as the Apostle states it Heb. 2.17 chap. 4.15 In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren and he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sinne He that is in all things like man except sinne is rightly called The Sonne of man for sinne is not at all the forme but all the deformity of man Hence Jobs faith prophesied The Sonne of man will plead For his friend The word in the Hebrew comes from a root which signifies to feed either our selves or others because friends use often to feed together and sometimes one friend seeds or provides and offers food to another It is taken sometimes largely for a Neighbour and not seldome strictly for a speciall friend Deut. 13.6 if thy friend who is as thine own soule entice thee c. that is if the nerest and friend that thou hast in the world entice thee c. in this strict sense the word is to be taken here Job was not one of Christs friends at large he was a special a Bosome-friend Job was not according to the known use of that word among us A friend of Christ extraordinary but he was Christs friend in ordinary a man who dayly convers'd with Christ and Christ with him a man who dayly performed Offices of dutifull love to Christ and a man to whom Christ dayly performed the Offices of bountifull and mercifull love Hence his holy assurance that Christ would perform that Office of mercy for him The Son of man will plead for his fiend The vvords thus opened are as I may say An Epitome of the Gospel a little gospel yea I may cal them the whole Gospel what is the Gospel but this good newes that Christ God-man mediates for his people All that Christ was is expressed in this what so-Christ did more then this on earth is implyed in this and this is all Christ now doth for us in Heaven He ever lives to make intercession for us saith Saint Paul Heb. 7.25 which is the same in effect with what holy Job professeth in this Text Hee will plead for a man with God and the Sonne of man for his Friend There is one thing further to be noted for the clearing of this Text For possibly the Reader may scruple how the same words should be rendred by some as a wish O that one might plead for a man with God and by others as a conclusion He will plead with God for a man Againe how the latter branch should be rendred by some in the forme of a similitude As a man for his neighbour and by others as a direct assertion And the Son of man for his Freind I answer to the first That the same word may be thus diversly rendred according to differing Moods of Grammar and so the signe of the Optative Moode which is in the forme of a wish is by some judged most sutable to the scope of this place So that a wish may here be understood and safely supplyed though it be not expressed To the second scruple I answer that the particle Vau in the Hebrew placed at the beginning of a word though it be usually taken as a Conjunction knitting one sentence to another yet according to the exigence and scope of the Scripture it undergoes diverse other significations As first A disjunctive Exod. 12.15 Ye shall take it out from the Sheep or from the Goates The Hebrew is And from the Goates but because the Law did not command both but gave a liberty to chuse eyther of the two therefore we render not And but Or from the Goates So Judg. 11.31 See the Margin of our Bibles which shewes that Jepthtah did not binde himselfe to offer up whatsoever should meet him in Sacrifice but one of the two he did binde himselfe to eyther to dedicate that to the Lord or to offer it up for a burnt Offering Secondly It is often used Adversatively and is rendred But Gen. 42.10 Psal 44.17 c. Thirdly Causally and it is rendred For Psal 60.11 Isa 64.5 c. Fourthly Besides diverse other acceptions of it which I shall omit it is used Comparatively or as a Note of likenesse Prov. 25.25 As cold water to a thirsty soule so is good newes from a farr Countrey The Hebrew is And good newes So Pro. 26.7 and very frequently in that Book Thus in the Text the particle Vau is taken by some as a note of likenesse comparing the two parts of the Verse with each other but by others it is taken onely as a conjunction copulative knitting both parts of the Verse together He will plead for a man with God and the Son of man for his Freind From the words according to this latter readinâ—â— Observe First There is an Advocate between God and Man Sin hath made a breach there needs a Mediator to heale it God and sinfull man are as we speake Two and they cannot be made One but by a Third Man was created in a state of amity with God that state needed no Mediatour man being restored is in a state of reconciliation unto God that state needs a Mediatour both to settle and continue it And hee who is the Mediatour betweene both parties is an Advocate a pleader a Patron for the one partie There was need of a Mediatour even in regard of God himselfe that both his State might be preserved and his Justice satisfied But there was need of an Advocate onely in regard of man that so his wants and miseries might be declared and that mercy together with helpe in the time of need might be obtained The Apostle Gal. 3.20 describing the nature of a Mediatour saith A Mediatour is not of one or as we supply not a Mediatour of one A Mediatour is of two yea and for two But an Advocate though he be betweene two yet he is but for one or of one eyther of one individually taken or of one specifically taken eyther of one man or of one sort or company of men who though they are many in number yet their state or case is one Thus Christ is an Advocate for one or of one all that he is an Advocate for being in one and the same condition for the maine though some particulars in every mans case may vary The Greek word which is rendred Advocate in the New Testament is applyed to the holy Ghost But there is a great difference betweene
not mine eye continue in their provocation And therefore he renews his appeale to God and beggs to be heard before indifferent Judges or Umpires Lay downe now put me in a surety with thee who is he that will strike hands with me In the fourth and fifth Verses he further urgeth the reasons of his appeale or he backs his motion that God would doe him right from the insufficiency of his Freinds to doe him right Thou hast hid their heart from understanding As if he should say Who would stand to the judgement of those who want understanding Thou hast hid their heart from understanding therefore shalt thou not exalt them so To this honour of judging my cause and deciding this controversie yea I finde them so unfit to be eyther my Judges or my Arbitrators that they are indeed but Flatterers and therefore they may rather expect some sudden judgement upon themselves or their Children then that God should doe them this honour to judge for me He that speakes flattery to his Freinds even the eyes of his Children shall faile Vers 5. Thus I have opened Jobs scope in the context of these five Verses which I have put together because the matter runs in a continued dependence And though for the maine it be the same with which he concluded in the sixteenth Chapter yet the variety of reading and expression will yeeld us variety of meditation I descend to particulars Vers 1. My breath is corrupt my dayes are extinct the graves are ready for me Here are three things every of which speakes a dying man First Corrupt breath Secondly Extinguished dayes Thirdly A grave made ready Pereo spiritu agitatus Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ligavit constrinxit per antiphrasin significat solutus ruptus corruptus accommodatur etiam ad dolores intensissimos quales sunt parturientium quia cor valde constringunt First My breath is corrupt Ruach There are three interpretations given of that word My breath some understand it of his minde or whole inward man As if he had sayd My thoughts are or my minde is exceedingly troubled and so most of the Greek Interpreters read it and then the word which we translate Corrupt may signifie greived pained or afflicted and it is often applyed to those paines which are most painefull even the paine of a Woman in travell And so the sense is made out thus as if Job had sayd I am extreamely troubled ' or I am pained like a Woman in the houre of travell as shee is in bodily paine so I am pained in minde I hvve felt many inward pangs and throwes and yet I am not delivered But I conceive this exposition unsuitable to the scope of the place Job being about to describe the state of his body or of his outward man and not the affliction and trouble of his minde Secondly The word Ruach signifieth the vitall powers or spirits which support man Spiritus vitales qui animae instrumentum sunt ad vitae functiones Aquin. and serve him in all the functions of life spirits are the promoters of action and when the vitall spirits are corrupted man is unable not onely to act but to live The expence of spirits is the most chargeable expence to the life of man and when a mans spirits are much spent he is like a dead man though he be alive Wee say ordinarily when we are weary Our spirits are spent that is Our vitall spirits which give activity and strength to the whole body Thirdly Rather understand it literally and strictly for the breath which comes forth by respiration My breath is corrupt and then the corrupting here spoken of is not to be taken for any ill savour in his breath they who have corrupt breath are offensive to others in breathing Corruptio non hic denotat spiritum graveolentum sed spiritum qui cum ingenti nisu dolore emittitur Pined Medici Asthma vocant quia Asthmaticus suffocari videtur ideo legitur hic jam quidem Ago animam Tygur The breath is said to be corrupt because it smels of the corruption of those parts from whence it is drawne we must not understand Job so But when he saith My breath is corrupt his meaning is that eyther hee had obstructions and stoppings of breath which distemper Physitians call the Tissicke a man under that infirmity may be sayd to have his breath corrupted because he breathes difficultly And as it is so in some diseases so it is alway so in the approaches of death a little before a man dyes his breath shortens he breathes hardly or he hardly breathes he lyes gasping for life and catching for breath Such a state Job here intends The Tygurine translation takes that sense My life is departing or I am giving up the ghost Hence Note The breath of man is corruptible though his soule be not These two are very distinct Some make the soule and breaâ—h one thing and argue the corruptibility of the soule from such Texts as this But the breath differs not onely from the soule but from the life The soule hath a life of its owne and the life of the body is its union with the soule breathing is the acting of life proceeding from that union and ending when that union is dissolved Breath may be corrupt and life may banish but the soule continues the breath is so vanishing that the Prophet gives caution Isa 2.22 Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrills The breath of man is so ready to cease that it is our wisedome to cease from man for when breath goes man is gone and all goes with him in that day his thoughts perish and therefore Job had no sooner sayd My breath is corrupt but he adds My dayes are extinct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vox tantum hoc loco reperta significat excidere amputare extinguere My dayes that is The time appointed for my life which is measured by dayes by naturall dayes or by artificial dayes Our dayes come and goe continually and when our tale of dayes is come and gone our dayes are extinct The word which here we translate extinct is found no where else in the Hebrew of the Old Testament It is rendered three wayes First Thus my dayes are cutt off which metaphor is often used in reference to life our dayes are as it were so many threads Excissi sunt Pagn and our life is like a peece of clooth woven together by many dayes when the Webb be it more or lesse longer or shorter is finished the thred is cut My dayes are cut off Secondly The Vulgar reads it my dayes will be shortned they shall be put in a narrow roome into a little compendium I shall soone be able to read over the volume of my dayes Breviabuntur dies mei Vulg they are but short a meer Epitome Thirdly We read my dayes are extinct or put out Which is a
metaphor taken from fire from a Torch or Candle which is the sense of the Tygurine translation My dayes faile as a Candle or as a Lamp which when the oyle is consumed goes out Mr. Broughton keeps to the metaphor of fire Deus mei ritu lucernae deficiunt Tygur My dayes are quenched There is a flame of life in the body the naturall heat is preserved by the naturall moysture these two Radicall heat and Radicall moysture worke upon each other and as long as Radicall moysture holds out to feed the Radicall heat life holds out but when the heat hath once sucked and drunk up all the moysture in some acute diseases it drinks all at a draught as the flame drinkes up the Oyle of the Lampe Vita extinguitur quando humor nativus in quo vita consistit extinguitur then wee goe out or as Job speakes here Our dayes are extinct Excessive moysture puts out the fire and for want of moysture it goeth out Hence Note First Mans life as a Fire or Lampe consumes it self continually There is a speciall disease called a Consumption of which many dye but the truth is every man who dyes dyes of a Consumption he that dyes of a Surfet may be sayd in this sense to dye of a Consumption The fewell and food of mans life is wasted sometimes more sparingly and gradually but 't is alwayes consumed except in those deaths which are meerely occasionall or violent before man dyes Againe Job speaks peremptorily My dayes are extinct He was not then dead but because hee saw all things in a tendency to death and was himselfe in a dying posture therefore he concludes My dayes are extinct Hence note Secondly What we see in regard of all preparatorie meanes and wayes ready to be done we may speake of as already done The Scripture speakes often of those things which are shortly and certainly to come to passe as come to passe and as the Apostle argues in spirituals We know that we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren and he that believeth hath eternall lif So we may argue about naturals he that is sick beyond the help of meanes and the skill of the Phisitian is translated from life to death and we may conclude of a man in this case he hath tempoall death or he may say of himselfe as Job doth in the next words The graves are ready for me The Originall is very concise it is only there The graves for me we supplie those words Are ready And because of that shortnes of the Language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sepulchra mâ—hi Cum mutila sit oratio indifferens est ut variis modis porfici possit there have been many conjectures for the supplie or filling up of the sence Some thus The graves for me that is there is nothing for me to thnke of now but only a grave I may lay aside all other businesse and attend that alone how I may lye downe in the dust with peace I am not a man for this world it is best for me to retire or withdraw my soule quite from the earth seeing I have no hope to keepe my body long out of it or if I doe let out my soule to the earth it shall be only to so much of it as will hold my body or serve to make me a grave The graves for me Secondly The graves for me that is I desire or wish for nothing but a grave A grave for my money as wee say of a thing that we greatly desire so saith Job A grave for me As if he had more largely spoken thus As I perceive I am going to the grave so I desire to goe thither I have as to this sence made a covenant with death Sepulchra mihi supple opto quaero cogito aut quid simile Sepulchra mihi inhiant ego sepulchris q. d. Aliis omnibus rebus valedico atque renuncio Jun. and an agreement with the grave The grave and I shall not fall out now that I am ready to fall into it For if I had my vote or might put downe in writing what I would have I would write A Grave A Grave for me as I am declining and decaying in my body so my spirit and my minde are as willing that my body should decay I am as ready for the grave as that is for me A grave for me So the words carry a reciprocation of readinesse betweene Job and the Grave The grave gapes for me and I gape for the grave Wee may parallell this kinde of speaking with that in the Booke of Canticles Chap. 2.16 where the Spouse saith My beloved is mine and I am his The Originall is My beloved to me and I to him There are no more words then needs must be The largenesse of their affection bred this concisenesse in language My beloved to me and I to him We are to one another as if we were but one The expression notes two things First Propriety My beloved to me or my beloved is mine that is I have a propriety in him Secondly It notes possession I have him I have not onely a right to him but I enjoy him I have not onely a title but a tenure God hath given me Liverie and Seisin as our Law speakes he hath put me into possession of Jesus Christ and I have given Jesus Christ full possession of me I am no longer my owne but his and at his dispose So here The grave for me and I for the grave The grave is my right yea the grave is my possession The grave is a house that every one hath right to and some are so neere it that they seeme possessed of it The grave is mine saith Job or I am as a dead man ready to be carryed to my grave The grave is not made ready till man is undressed by death and so made ready for the grave We say of very old men though in health and we may say of very sick men though young They have one foot in the grave Job speakes as having both his feet in the grave Yea wee may say that Job speakes as if he had not onely his feet in the grave but which is farr more his heart in the grave There are many who have their feet in the grave whose hearts are at furthest distance from it Job had both Heman Psal 88.4 5. describes his condition in such a language My soule is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh to the grave I am accounted with them that goe down into the pit I am as a man of no strength free among the dead like the slaine that lye in the grave whom thou remembrest no more and that are cut off from thy sight That Scripture may be a Comment on this My breath is corrupt my dayes are extinct the graves are ready for me Further Job speakes in the Plurall number he saith not the grave is ready for me but The graves
Brethren may be carryed beyond their usuall course in holinesse Thus he tels the Corinthians 2. Epist 9.2 That their zeale had provoked many But to what had it provoked them Not to anger and passion towards any but to charity yea and liberality towards the poore And though the Apostle useth another word in the Greek yet he meanes the same thing when hee assures us Rom. 11.11 that the Jewes stumbled not that they should fall but that they might rise for so it followes But rather through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie The salvation of the Gentiles bred emulation in the Jewes What Shall they goe away with all the salvation Shall the Gentiles possesse Heaven alone whom wee thought the meanest people upon the Earth Come let us also put in at least for a part and get a share in Gospel-mercies and priviledges with them Thus they were provoked to emulation and this emulation was and shall be through the power of God who is wonderfull in counsell and excellent in working a help to faith in Christ and so to their rising from their fall And the Apostle was so intent upon the promoting of this designe of God that he professeth Vers 13 14. that he magnified his Office among the Gentiles not onely to save them but saith he If by any meanes I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh and might save some of them He hoped the Jewes would at last beleeve for anger or for very shame and goe to Heaven in a holy chafe Now I say as there is a provocation which heates and hightens the minde of man to an eager pursuite of the best things so there is a provocation which abates and blunts his edge which chills and flats his spirits to any thing that is good which was the ground of the Apostles dehortation Provoke not your Children lest they be discouraged And as the effect of such provocations is to some a discouragement in doing their duty so the effect of it in others is a thrusting them onn to doe that which is most contrary not onely to their duty but to their disposition Rayling speeches uncomely and uncivill language have provoked many both to speak and to doe that which they never dreamt of or which was most remote from their naturall temper and inclination For though such distempers lye in the bottome of nature yet unlesse they had been stirred and spurred up those distempers would not have appeared and broken out Moses was the meekest man upon the earth yet when they provoked his spirit he spake unadvisedly with his lips Psal 106.33 There are three ill effects of provocations First Provoking speeches raise up hard thoughts of the speaker It is a high worke of grace to thinke well of them who speak ill of us or to us Secondly Provoking speeches blow up hard words of the speaker many excuse it when they give ill language You provoked me And though they be not to be excused who doe so when they are provoked yet their sin is the greater who provoke them Thirdly Provoking speeches are sometimes the cause of revengefull practices and very often of licentious practices Sober admonitions and grave reproofes reclaime those who goe astray but violent rebukes make them desperate Some care not what they doe when they heare others say they care not what Many Children have run ill courses by over much indulgence and neglect of discipline and so have not a few by the over mvch severity and sharpnesse of those that are over them Patience is hard put to it to keep eyther minde or tongue or hand in compasse when wee are provoked Great provocations are great temptations When God is provoked he is tempted Heb. 3.8 Harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the Wildernesse when your Fathers tempted me c. Wee may expound it two wayes First That while they tempted God by questioning his power for them and presence with them they provoked him he was greatly displeased with them for it Secondly That while they provoked God they tempted him they tempted him to destroy them or to act that power against them which they did not beleeve after so many experiences able enough to deliver or protect them If then God himselfe be so tempted that as he is pleased often to expresse himselfe after the manner of men hee can scarce hold his hands or forbeare to doe that which he had no mind to doe when he is provoked how much more is weake man tempted to doe that which his corruptions are alwayes forward enough and too too much to doe when hee is provoked Againe When he saith Doth not mine eye continue in their provocation Learne thirdly Hard words stick upon the spirit They hang about the minde and are not easily gotten off Good words dwell much upon the spirit and so doe ill words when a man hath onee got a word of promise from God about any mercy set home upon his heart the eye continues in that consolation O it is a sweet word the soule lyes sucking at it night and day And when a man hath once got a word of command from God about any duty set home upon his spirit his eye continues in the direction of it O how I love thy Law saith David Psal 119.97 It is my meditation all the day he could not beate his thoughts off from it when love had fastned on it As these good words cleave to a gracious soule and dwell with it so it is hard even for a gracious soule to dislodge hard words O how doth the eye continue in those provocations And doth not experience teach us that vaine thoughts throwne into the minde by Satan will not easily be driven out How often doth the eye continue in his provocations The spirit of a man hath a strong retentive faculty it will hold the object close and as it were live and lodge in it How many make their abode in provocations and reside upon bitter words received from their Brethren How many lye downe with them at night and rise with them in the morning yea and walke with their eye upon them all the day long And here it may be questioned Was not this a sin in Job That rule of love then was in being which is now expressed Ephes 4.26 Be yee angry and sin not let not the Sun goe downe upon your wrath Then how could Job suffer his eye to continue in these provocations I answer There was an infirmity in this 't is our duty as to forgive so to forget or lay aside the thought of injuries and wrongs received And it is the Character of wicked men They sleep not unlesse they have done mischiefe Pro. 4.16 Their eye continues in their owne corruption or in the temptation of Satan till they have brough it forth For as when good men have strong impressions unto good upon their spirits they cannot sleep
our hearts and our thoughts are the writings of our hearts when our purposes and thoughts are broken the Tables of our hearts are broken Hence Observe First Right purposes are good but it is not good to live upon purposes Action must presently follow resolution and performance must be speeded after purposes else they are to little purpose When David had sayd I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord Psal 32.5 he instantly confessed them And when he sayd I will take heed to my wayes Psal 39.1 he instantly tooke heed to them His purpose was in nature before his practice but in time they went together There is a double danger in delaying purposes First That the minde of the purposer may change and his spirit grow flat towards them Secondly that the seasons may change and though hee have a mind yet he may want means and opportunity to performe them There is danger in both wayes and much sin in the former way of breaking purposes The danger of both will be more discovered in the second Observation Secondly Observe When great afflictions come especially when death comes all our purposes are broken off As man is apt to busie himselfe about many things which he cannot know so about many things which though they are possible to be done yet he shall never doe It is in man to purpose but wee must aske leave of God before we can performe Crosse providences breake many purposes but death breakes all All our purposes concerning the World and the things of the World dye with us When the breath of great Princes goeth forth Psal 146.4 In that very day all their thoughts perish Great Princes are full of great thoughts but they who cannot keep themselves from perishing shall never keepe their thoughts from perishing The imaginary frames which they set up the contrivances plots and projects of their hearts are all swept away like the Spiders webb or broken like the Cockatrices Egge when themselves are swept away from the face of the Earth and broken by the power of death The thoughts of many Princes and Politicians dye while themselves live Achitophels purposes were broken and disappointed while himselfe looked on and he was so vexed to see it that hee executed himselfe because his purposes were not executed In these times of publick shaking how many purposes have we seen goe to wrack They who have been long laying their designes and brooding upon their counsels have had their egs broken in a moment their thoughts blown away like Chaffe before the wind or the lightest dust before the whirlwind Now as the purposes of many about gathering riches about taking their pleasure about advancing themselves to or establishing themselves in honor and high places have perished before they dyed so when such dye all their purposes shall certainly perish And as the purposes of all about worldly things perish in the approaches of death so doe the purposes of some about spirituall and heavenly things How many have had purposes to repent to amend their lives and turne to God which have been prevented and totally broken off by the extremity of paine and sicknesse but chiefly by the stroake of death when they have as they thought been about to repent and as we say turne over a new leafe in their lives they have been turned into the Grave by death and into Hell by the just wrath of God Some interpret this Text as Jobs complaint of the unsettlement of his thoughts about heavenly things and the breaking of his purposes in the pursuit of eternity He could not make his thoughts about Heaven hold or hange together even those thoughts were full of gaps and empty spaces or rather like Ropes of Sand. Many honest and gracious soules have found worke enough upon a death-bed or a sick-bed to attend the paine and infirmity of their bodyes When they have purposely set themselves the habituall bent of their hearts being alwayes set that way actually to seek God Non poterat jugi contemplatio in rerum divinarum ut quondam solebat intendere propter vim doloris Phil. to meditate upon the precious promises to put forth fresh lively workings of Faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ they have been suddenly recalled yea even forcibly fetcht back by some violent assault of paine or a previous charge of death So that those thoughts which should be and they desired that they might be like their objects most durable and steady were yet more like some odd ends or broken pot-sheards more like vanishing flashes or wandring fansies then that beautifull frame of heart or those well combined and fastned meditations which they intended For though all the troubles of this life and the approaches of death it selfe cannot breake disappoint or scatter those fixed purposes and thoughts which a Beleever hath had Propter multiplices animi motus perturbationes jam dolebat jam timebat nunc se erigebatin spem meliorem nunc iterum concidebat or those results and resolves which he hath often made in his own soule about the hopes and concernments of eternall life yet he may be pitifully puzzled amuzed and interrupted in his present motions and meditations about them Hence take this Caution Seeing not onely our worldly thoughts perish but our spirituall thoughts may be much broken by strong temptations and variety of bodily distempers in times of trouble and sicknesse let us hasten to settle our purposes and thoughts about eternall life yea to see our soules passed from death to life before we see sicknesse and sorrow much more before we see our selves ready to passe from life to death Purposes to repent or to minde heavenly things not onely may but for the most part are broken off and lost when sicknesse and sorrow finde us Beware of this deceit of the Devill who tells us we shall have leasure to seek God when wee are sick and that we shall have a faire opportunity to settle all the affaires of our souls when we are going out of the body then he tels us we shall have nothing else to doe and therefore we shall surely do it then Let not Satan deceive us with these vaine words for then he intends us most blowes then is his season to breake our thoughts into a thousand peices and to vex us with the splinters even when we lye upon our sicke beds or are bewildred with affliction There is scarse one of twenty but findes breakings and convulsions upon his thoughts at the same time when he feeles them upon his body How often have sick men been heard to say We cannot set our selves to think seriously of Heaven or to act Faith c. To suffer and be sicke is worke enough for any man at one time He had not need to have his greatest worke to doe when he hath such worke to doe They who have had brave spirits and fixed holy purposes upon their death-beds were such as had been long excercised in them before
Woe to those who put off their beginnings in grace till they are readdy to finish in nature A dying man is unfit for any businesse how much more for this He is extreamely indisposed for worldly purposes much more for heavenly and therefore as soone as a man that hath any Estate begins to be sick Freinds will move him Pray Sir settle your Estate make your Will you know not how God may deale with you if your disease should encrease a little more you may be totally disabled to doe it therefore pray hasten Yea we finde that most men of valuable Estates in the World make their Wills in their health when they are free from sicknesse and furthest from death when they have the greatest activity of minde and body They wisely remember how some who had a full purpose to make their Wills in sicknesse have been suddenly overpowred by the malignity of a disease and could never doe it but have left all at six and sevens If so shall any man leave his soule undisposed of or at six and sevens till such a time A sick man being minded of any worldly businesse unlesse he have a great minde to it thinkes it excuse enough to wave it because he is sick I pray doe not trouble me with it saith he I cannot thinke of it now you and I will speak about it hereafter when I am recovered Doe sick men thinke it reason they should be excused from worldly businesse because they are sick and shall any man resolve that it is best to deale about spirituall businesses when he is sick If Job who had a holy and a sound minde under a diseased body sayd My purposes are broken off and the thoughts or possessions of my heart how much more will they feele these breaches whose minds are sick and more diseased then their bodyes Further Observe The difference betweene God and man what a vaine creature man is and how excellent God is God never had one of his purposes broken whatever hee purposed he hath carryed to perfection hee never lost a thought nor any of the possessions of his heart The counsell of the Lord stanâ—eth for ever and the thoughts of his heart to all Generations Psal 33.11 'T is the glory of God that his purposes stand he is able to make them stand though all the World should combine as one man to cast them downe 'T is the dishonour of man that hee so often falls from his owne purposes and eates up his owne resolves and 't is the punishment of some men that their purposes receive a fall that their most solemne debates and setled resolves are scattered and confounded The Lord in judgement bringeth the counsell of the Heathen to nought he maketh the devices of the people of none effect Psal 33.10 All the thoughts of man are loseable and most men lose their thoughts It is the comfort of Beleevers that they are not bottom'd upon their owne purposes or thoughts but upon the thoughts and purposes of God that 's their basis and that shall never be broken God is unchangeable and therefore his purposes cannot break When mans purposes are broken hee eyther changeth or suffers a change of which Job complaines in the next Verse Vers 12. They change the night into day and the light is short because of darknesse Here are two things to be opened First What is meant by changing the night into day Secondly Who it is that changeth the night into day They change the night into day Hath not the Lord made a promise yea a Covenant which is more then a promise and annexed a signe to it which is the ratification of a Covenant Gen. 8.22 that to the end of the World while the earth remaineth Seed time and harvest and Summer and Winter and cold and heate and day and night shall not cease that is they shall not cease in their turnes and seasons How is it here sayd They change the night into day as if the night and day were out of course when as the Lord hath covenanted that they shall continue in their course I answer There is a twofold change of times of day and night First A naturall Change Secondly A metaphoricall Change The united power of all creatures in Heaven and Earth cannot make a naturall change of day into night and God the Creator hath promised that he will not make that change he will not breake the succession of night and day while the Earth remaineth But a metaphoricall change of night into day and of day into night hath been often made for when the night is so full of trouble to us that we cannot sleep the night is changed into day and when the day is so full of trouble to us that wee can neyther doe our worke Hoc tormentum cordis nec nox interrumpebat quae est tempus deputatum humanae quieti graviuâ— est pati somni defectum in nocte quam in die Aquin. Meae cogitationes molestae animum rodentes noctem mihi convertunt in diem efficiunt ut noctes ducam in somnes Merc nor take our comforts then the day is changed into night The night is the time appointed for naturall rest therefore the night may be sayd to be changed into day when we cannot rest and this is a great affliction for though in some sense and in Scripture sense too to have the night changed into day is a mercy and notes a change from a troubled estate into a comfortable estate yet to have the night changed by our restlesnesse or want of sleep is both an affliction it selfe and an argument that we are burdned and over-pressed with other manifold afflictions In this sense Job complaines of the change of his night into day and thus God often changeth times and seasons both to particular persons and whole Nations Dan. 2.21 Daniel answered and sayd Blessed be the Name of God for ever and ever for wisedome and might are his and hee changeth the times and the seasons hee removeth Kings and hee sets up Kings He changeth the times and seasons that is He makes seasons comfortable or troublesome peaceable or unquiet hee changeth the night into day or the day into night as himselfe pleaseth And the light is short because of darknesse Propter calamitates Jun. That is The day is to me as no day because of my calamity and misery my day is short because darknesse suddenly overtakes it Artificiall dayes are long or short according to the distance which the darknesse of the night keepes from them Our metaphoricall dayes are long or short according to the distance which the darknesse of trouble keepes from them Thus the change of day into night and of night into day is to be reckoned by the condition we are in When we cannot sleep in the night our night is changed into day and when sorrow seazeth on us in the day our day is changed into night or The light is short to us by
considered his owne body as dead too much and so attained not to Abrahams strength of Faith Yet we have three things to say for him First there was a great difference between his case and Abrahams Job had no such ground of Faith as Abraham had Abraham received a speciall yea an absolute promise from God that he should have a Son but Job received only a conditionall promise from man grounded upon the generall promises of God that he should be restored This consideration abates much from the objection of his unbeleife though it cannot be denyed but his Faith might and should have risen higher upon the power of God who as he was Al-sufficiently able so he did afterwards actually raise him up Secondly The designe of God being in Jobs example to set forth a patterne of patience as his designe was in Abrahams example to set forth a patterne of Faith he was pleased to let Jobs Faith run it selfe out about spirituals and eternals not minding temporals that so his patience might have a perfect worke in bearing the full weight of his affliction to the end while his Faith did not so much as put under a little finger to ease him with the least beleife that it should as to this life be taken off or have an end Lastly As 't was hinted Job had much Faith to some purposes though none to this hee had a full trust in God though he should kil him but he had no trust that God would not kill him he beleeved God loved him while he did afflict him though hee did not beleeve that God would deliver him from his afflictions As no mans Faith workes alike at all times so 't is rare that any mans Faith workes alike to all things Some who beleeve and hope mightily for the things of Heaven have but little eyther Faith or Hope for earthly things Not because a Faith which serves for Heaven is not enough 't is rather more then enough to serve for Earth But because most of those whose Faith is strong and much enlarged for Heaven take so much satisfaction there and are there so much at home that they account themselves Pilgrims and strangers here and are not much mindfull as the Apostle speakes Heb. 11.15 or desirous of their earthly Countrey and concernments What wee doe not much desire to have wee doe not much beleeve though we beleeve that we shall have it A full soule saith Solomon loatheth the Honey combe Those soules which are full of Heaven though they doe not loath yet they are not hungry after though they can thankfully receive and enjoy any Honey-combe of this World No man having drunk old Wine straightway desireth new for hee saith the old is better Luke 5.39 Doubtlesse Job had drunk the old Wine of Gods favour and love in the Redeemer and so his thirst was much slacked if not totally quenched towards the new Wine of a temporall restauration And hence we may not onely charitably but more then probably conclude That it was not for want of Faith that Job did not beleeve or hope for what his Freinds promised him but because he had employed his Faith upon better and more pleasing pâ—â—â—ises Thus Job hath finisht his answer to the second charge of Eliphaz And through the helpe of Christ somewhat is here tendered for the illustration and exposition of it His other two Freinds Bildad and Zophar stand ready to enter the Lists with him and to renew their charge what they sayd and what answer they received shall if God continue life and strength with these peaceable opportunities in convenient time be presented to publick view A TABLE Directing to some speciall points noted in the precedent EXPOSITIONS A ABominable what that is which is called abominable or an abomination p. 65 66. Sinfull man how abominable to God 66 67. Abundance cannot satisfie 113. Advocate between God and man 389. How the holy Ghost is an Advocatâ— 389 390. In what manner Christ performes the offiâ—e of an Advocate 390. Christ is an effectuall mediatour or Advocate 393. Five things to shew the effectualnesse of Christs pleading for us as an Advocate 394. Affections of men and their opinions of others are very variable 452. Affliction great afflictions hinder the sense of tendred mercies 39. Some afflictions bring a wearinesse boâ—h upon soule and body 247. Some afflictions distract 248. A godly man may grow extreame weary of affliction 249. Great afflictions like great sins leave a mark 261. Great afflictions how made witnesses of sin against a man 262. The witnesse which affliction gives censured two wayes 262 263. God afflicts his owne severely 290. God seemes to take pleasure in afflicting his 294. Affliction comes not by chance but by speciall direction 295. God hath many wayes to afflict 297. He sends breach upon breach 309. Great afflictions have three things in them in reference to others 451. Age old age three degrees of it among the Jewes 31. Amalekites their enmity against the Jewes 126. Angels how imperfect 62. Angels by some called Heavens and why 63. Answering two things alwayes may two things usually doe embolden men to answer 222. Antiochus Epiphanes his painefull life 89 Appetite of the end infinite 207. Appeales to God lawfull 363. It is a daring worke to appeale to Gâ—d 368. Apis the Aegyptian Idol why his Preists did not give him the water of Nilus to drinke 147. Apostacy from profession worse then continued prophanenesse 286. Archers seven Archers shot at Job 297. Arminians why they deny the Intercession of Christ for all 393. Assurance of approaching miseries how great a trouble to the minde 118. A wicked man may have this assurance 118. Arrhabo an earnest whence it comes 420. Astonishment at the dealings of God 468. Augustus Caesar his peircing eye 266. Aygoland a King of the Moores why he refused baptisme 471. B. Barathrum why it signifies Hell 455. Begging or wandring for bread a great affliction 111. Beleeving a wicked man hath neyther a ground nor a heart to beleeve 104. A wicked mans beleeving is presuming 104. Belial whence derived 10. Who is Belial 85. Blood what it signifies in Scripture 347. Bloody sins shal not passe undiscovered 357. Why God is sayd to make inquisition for blood in speciall 358. Body to minde the seeding of it sinfull 148. They take little care for their soules who take overmuch care for their bodies 150. Branch what it signifies in Scripture 189. Bread what it signifies in Scripture 111. Breath of God what it signifies in Scripture 164. Breath of man 167 168. Breath of man taken three wayes 402. The breath of man is corruptible 403. Breath is not the soule ibid. Bribe-takers and Bribe-givers both alike wicked 195. Bribery is an odious sin 197. That which is got by bribery will not hold long 197. By-word to be made a by-word notes two things 447. Great sufferers are usually made a by-word 447 448. It is very burdensome to the spirit of a man
Observe which is the naturall theologie of the Text. Wrinkles and leannesse in youth or strength of age are an argument of extraordinary sorrow Thirdly Take the words according to the sense of Jobs freinds which Job also hints as meeting with their objection They witnesse against me that is You use them you bring them as witnesses against me Then Note Great afflictions are looked on as proofes or witnesses of great sins We no sooner heare of or see a man under great afflictions but our first thought is surely he hath committed some great sin This is almost every mans suspicion but it is an ill grounded suspicion This point was spoken to Chap. 10.17 where Job tels the Lord Thou hast renewed thy witnesses against me c. There 't was shewed how afflictions are brought in by God and man as a vvitnesse and this was the greatest evidence and upon the matter all the evidence which the Freinds of Job brought against him his wrinkles and his leannesse I shall here onely add this caution Take heed of passing judgement upon the evidence of such vvitnesses as these wrinkles and leannesse for though every vvrinkle vvitnesse that a man is a sinner were it not for sin we should have remained ever in our body and outward condition as Beleevers shall be restored by Christ without a wrinkle yet they are not vvitnesses that a man is wicked I may say two things of these vvitnesses First They are alwayes doubtfull witnesses Secondly For the most part they are false witnesses It is a very questionable and uncertaine evidence which afflictions give against us For no man knowes love or hatred by all that is before him We can but guesse at the best by vvhat they say Rugae meae testimonium dicunt contra me suscitatur falsiloquus adversus faciem meam contradicens mihi Vulg. But usually they beare false witnesse against the innocent so they did against Job they witnessed that of him to his Freinds which was not right Therefore the Vulgar translates the latter branch though not well to the letter of the Originall yet well as to the sense A falâ—e witnesse is risen up against my face contradicting me that is Opposing or weakning all that I have said concerning my owne innocence Yea if we make affliction a witnesse we may rather make it a witnesse of sincerity and of grace a marke of adoption and sonship a mark of divine Favour and Fatherly love then of mans wickednesse or of Gods rejection and disfavour The word is cleere and expresse for this Heb. 12.6 7 8. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth c. But if yee be without chastisement whereof all are partakers then are yee Bastards and not Sons So then our wrinkles and our leannesse may upon Scripture warrant be brought as witnesses for us but we have no warrant to conclude upon their witnesse either against our selves or others But it seemes Job had a higher witnesse against him if such witnesses might be allowed then a wrinkled skin or a leane face Behold now his torne flesh and his limbs rent in sunder as if not onely like Daniel he had been cast into a Lyons Den but as if which Daniel did not he had felt the worst of the Lyons teeth and pawes Vers 9. He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me he gnasheth upon me with his teeth mine enemy sharpeneth his eye upon me Strange language He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me Job gives us a description of the Lords dealing with him in allusion to the fury of wilde Beasts Lyons Tygers and Bears who gnash their teeth and sparkle with their eyes when they either fight one with another or fall upon their prey He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me 'T is doubted whom Job meaneth by this Tearer Some judge this Title applicable onely to the Devill and interpret Job speaking of him the Devill hateth me He teareth me in his wrath Job was delivered into the hand of the Devill Chap. 2. And this is the courtship of Hell He teareth Secondly Others understand it of his extreame paine and torturing disease that tore him like a savage Beast A third expounds it of his Freinds as if he compared them to wilde Beasts who in stead of comforting his spirit did upon the matter teare his flesh between their teeth Fourthly 'T is conceived he meanes those vaine ones of whom hee speakes Chap. 19. that came about him and troubled him But fifthly and most generally this Text is interpreted of God himselfe He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me For though Job speaks here distractedly discovering rather his griefe then his enemy or as a man wounded and smitten in the darke Ejusmodi querimoniae in neminem certo jactatae afflicti hominis propriae sunt he perceives he hath an enemy he feeles the smart and beares the blowes but he is not able to see who hurts him yet in this confusion of language his heart was still upon God who ordered and disposed all those armies of sorrow which assaulted him on every side He teareth me in his wrath The Hebrew word Taraph is neer in sound to our English Teare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ferarum praedam rapientium lacerantium proprium est and it signifieth to teare as a Lyon his prey Gen. 49.9 Judah is a Lyons whelpe from the prey my Son thou art gone up The same word in the Verbe notes Tearing and in the Nowne a prey because the prey is torne by the teeth or clawes of the Lyon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Est totis viribus adversari idem cum Satan unde Satanas dictus Ira sua rapit quasi odio intestino prosequatur me Jun. He teareth mee in his wrath Wilde Beasts teare not so much from wrath as for hunger they teare out of a desire to fill themselves rather then out of malice to destroy others But Job saith He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me The word signifies not an ordinary but an inward hatred and with the change of a letter it is the same by which the Devill is expressed Satan an adversary or the adversary so called because of his extreame hatred against mankinde yea against Christ himselfe Job speakes of God as if he bare such a hatred against him as Satan doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Frenduit dentibus est invidentium irascentium irridentium habitus Loquitur ad similitudinem bestiae quae homini comminando dentes contra ipsum parat Aquin. an inward perfect hatred Thus some translate He prosecutes me with inward hatred A hard expression of God Doth he teare a harmelesse soule and teare him in wrath Yet this is not all to make up the measure of this excessive language take two aggravations more He gnasheth upon me with his teeth Job pursues the allusion still Beasts as it were whet their teeth that they may devoure their
then a Conqueror over them all 'T is not onely granted that Job did hope for a day of joy after his night of sorrow but affirmed that he had a day of joy in his night of sorrow for he could say in a true sense what the Apostle Paul after did as sorrowfull yet alwayes rejoycing yet his night by reason of his outward troubles and many assaults of inward terrour was changed into a laborious toyling day and his outward light of comfort was short and quickly ended when he had it By reason of the faces as the Originall hath it or sudden appearances of darknesse JOB CHAP. 17. Vers 13 14 15 16. If I waite the Grave is mine house I have made my in bed the darknesse I have sayd to corruption Thou art my Father to the worme Thou art my Mother and my Sister And where is now my hope As for my hope who shall see it They shall goe downe to the barrs of the pit when our rest together is in the dust JOB prosecutes the former Argument and shewes yet more fully the vanity of those hopes which his Freinds would nourish in him about a temporall restauration Hee shewes also that though himselfe should nourish them and even strive to hope yet hee could no more keepe such hopes from languishing then himselfe from dying If I waite the Grave is mine house If I waite Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affinitatem habet cum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perpemdiculum linea Waiting is an act of the minde in expectation of some future good The Originall word signifies an earnest waiting or waiting joyned with much intention of spirit and strong desires as if the minde did let out a Cord or Line to take hold of the thing for which we waite Waiting is nothing else but patience lengthened out upon a promise There are three acts of the soule upon the promises First Beleeving Secondly Hoping Dicitis amici si me humiliem manere meam expectationem atqui cemitis vires meas vitam meam venisse ad ultimam lineam quippe mala mea curâ—m respuunt Coâ— Thirdly Waiting We beleeve the truth of the promise we hope for the good layd up in the promise we waite till that good be given out unto us If I waite saith Job God waites upon us and we waite upon God God waits in mercy we waite in duty God waites to be gracious Isa 30.18 and man waits to be refreshed with the grace of God Job in this place seemes to make light or little of this duty of waiting If I waite or although I waite or what if I waite what shall I get by it Where 's the profit Or what are my commings in He tells us what If I waite all that I shall get by it will be a Grave or a bed in darknesse And all my preferment will be to call corruption my Father and to say of the Worme Thou art my Mother and my Sister Here 's all I am like to have for all my waiting But was this all he looked for by waiting Yes it was all he looked for and all he thought himselfe in a capacity to receive in this World though in that hee was deceived hee had no expectation but to dye and goe downe to the dust he had no hope to rejoyce in any kindred or alliance but wormes and corruption these were his Mother and his Sisters and Brethren If I wait here 's all I shall have Thus as I intimated before the words carry a strong confutation of those hopes which his Freinds endeavoured to raise up in him that God would raise him up Docet praecisam esse sibi his malis omnem vitae spem vel si eam maximè animo fovere velit Si expectem i. e. si expectare studeam Merl. and make him as a Prince among the people if he repented and turned to God No saith hee what doe you tell mee of a great House and of a great Name of a rising Sun and of the morning light why am I so often told of these things I tell you once for all the Grave is my house darknesse is my bed and the wormes are my kindred and companions let me heare no more of these groundlesse prophecyings and unsavory flatteries for my wound is incurable and I am at the last cast If I waite the Grave is my house Againe The word which we translate to waite comming as was toucht before Si aedificavero infernus domus mea Rab. Dan. from a Root which signifies a Carpenters Line by which he measures his buildings Some render the Text thus If I build the Grave is my house As if hee had sayd I have no other house to build but a Grave or when I have builded my best I shall have no other house but a Grave The Grave The same word signifieth Hell as was shewed Chap. 11.8 and therefore I will not stay here upon it If I waite the Grave Is my house He cals the Grave a house because there wee rest as in a house Man goeth forth of his house to labour and comes home to his house for rest Aegyptij defunctorum sepulchra domos aeternas Appellitant Diodor. lib. 1. Some tell us that Job calls the Grave his house in allusion to those formes of making Graves or Sepulchers used in ancient which are also continued in these times with arches and contrivances like a house And have made my bed in the darknesse Intelligi potest de lecto bene ornato super quem reponi solebant principum cadavera Mausoleis quod juxta Hebraeum in plurail dicitur stravi strata mea magnificum quid sâ—nat Pompaticum Bold He speaks still in prosecution of the allusion In a house there are Dining Roomes and there are sleeping Roomes there is the Bed-Chamber and the Bed in the Chamber The Grave is my house saith Job and there I have a Bed I have made it In the darknesse The Grave is a darke place and the Grave is called Darknesse in a double respect First Because there is no light of the body there Secondly Because there is no light of the Sun there The light of the body is the eye and the light of the ayre is the Sun but in the Grave the Sun shines not or if it did yet there the eye sees not therefore the Grave is darknesse I have made my bed in the darknesse And darknesse is most fit for a bed sleepe loves darknesse A working Roome must be light but 't is no matter how darke a sleeping Roome be when we goe to sleep if it be not darke we make it darke that so we may sleep the better The Apostle gives that as an argument why the Saints should not sleep as doe others because they were once darknesse but now light in the Lord. He that is in aeriall light can hardly get his body to sleep and will you who are in spirituall light compose your
soules to sleep All sorts of sleepers covet the darke and therefore they who sleep in death are elegantly described making their bâ—d in darknesse that so they may have as it were all accommodations for their rest I have made my bed in the darknesse It may be questioned towards the clearing of this Verse Did not Job waite Why doth he say If I waite Was hee upon Iffs or And 's about that great and necessary duty Hee resolved peremptorily Chap. 14.14 All the dayes of my appointed time will I waite till my change come And is hee so much changed already into an unresolvednesse about his waiting I answer This supposition about waiting is not a negation nor is it a note of his irresolution to waite for any thing but only for that particular about which his Freinds were so busie to awaken and heighten his expectations Job waited upon God for all things which he desired to have onely he did not waite upon God for that which the visible dispensations of God seemed to tell him aloud that he should not have a temporall deliverance yea when he saith If I waite namely for this thing it is an Argument that he acknowledged it a duty to waite upon God for all those things for the receiving of which he had any rule or ground of hope from God Every exception confirmes the rule Hee that saith he doth not wait upon God about that for which hee hath no warrant saith strongly that he ought to waite upon God where he hath a warrant From which consequence we may Observe this unquestionable truth That it is the duty of man to waite upon God Waiting upon God is a duty of the first Commandement it is a part of naturall worship It is not in mans liberty whether he will waite or no hee is commanded to waite David speaks it double and no doubt he laboured to act it double Psal 40.1 Waiting I waited or I waited patiently upon God The Apostle gives that advice to the Saints Heb. 10.36 Yee have need of patience that after yee have done the will of God yee may receive the promise There is doing the will of God and then there is receiving the promise yet we must doe somewhat after we have done the will of God before we can receive the promise and that is we must waite upon him You have need of patience saith the Apostle What kinde of patience There are three sorts of patience First The patience of labouring that he puts in the former part of the Verse it is our doing the will of God Secondly There is the patience of suffering Thirdly There is the patience of waiting after we have both done and suffered the will of God We have need of this patience the patience of waiting that we may receive the promise that is the mercy promised God hath preventing mercies and they come to us before we wait for them but his rewarding mercies must be waited for he will exercise the grace of patience in us by causing us to wait for our reward as he exerciseth the graces of love and zeale in commanding us to doe his will and usually without waiting after we have done his will there is no receiving of the reward for doing his will And for the promises and Prophesies in generall though God never faile his owne time yet he seldome comes at ours That great promise about the deliverance of the people of Israel out of Aegypt was performed punctually to an houre Exod. 12.41 42. It came to passe at the end of foure hundred and thirty yeares even that very night it came to passe that God brought out all the Host of Israel The time being out in the night God did not stay till morning but brought them out that very night We count it a very veniall sin to breake our word for a day or to let a man waite a day beyond the time promised we commonly say A day breakes no square It is not so with God he keeps his time punctually he will not break his word one day Wee read of the shortning of evill times but not of their lengthening God never makes his people waite for good longer then hee hath promised But though God keep his time exactly and come just at the moment he hath prefixed and foreshewed yet we are apt to antedate the promise of God and to set it a time before Gods time We are short sighted and short breathed that which is but a moment in the Kalendar of Heaven seemes more then an age to us Now in this regard there is much need of patience of waiting patience to tarry not onely our time but Gods time which is the meaning of the Prophet Habakkuk Chap. 2.3 The vision is for an appointed time but at the end it will speake and not lye though it tarry waite for it because it will surely come and will not tarry The Prophet advises Though it tarry waite for it there 's our duty yet hee presently affirmes It will not tarry So then it may tarry and yet it tarryeth not it may tarry beyond our time but it tarryeth not beyond Gods time It will come and will not tarry that is not beyond the time which God hath prefixed though it may soone tarry beyond the time which we have prefixed therefore if it tarry waite there is no remedy but patience The Apostle James gives the rule Chap. 1.4 Let patience have her perfect worke that is Let all manner of patience worke in you to the end and let it worke to all those ends or purposes to which it is appointed Patience hath her perfect worke First When it puts forth perfect acts Secondly When it perseveres in acting Patience ascends by three steps to the perfection of her worke The first is a silent not a sullen submission or resignation of our selves to the dispose of God Psal 39.9 I was dumb saith David and opened not my mouth because thou didst it Secondly A kinde of thankfull acceptation or kissing of the Rod which smites us If their uncircumcised hearts be humbled saith the Lord Levit. 26.41 and they accept the punishment of their iniquity The phrase imports a welcome receiving of it as of a love-token from the hand of a Freind or that the Rod is not onely justly but mercifully and graciously inflicted This a great perfection of patience and to this Jobs patience attained the very first day of his sorrows while he blessed the Name of the Lord not onely for giving him so many good things but also for taking them away Chap. 1.21 The third step is spirituall joy and serious cheerfulnesse under sorrowfull dispensations This the Apostle exhorts the Brethren to Vers 2. Count it all joy when yee fall into diverse temptations And presently adds intimating that the highest perfection of patience consists in this joy Let patience have her perfect worke As if hee had sayd I have told you what the perfect worke of patience is doe not