when God formed man out of the dust of the earth and had breathed into him the breath of life the result of all is and man became a living soule it is not said man became a living body though life was breathed into the body and the body stood up and lived yet the best part is named for all the dust and the clay are as it were quite forgotten in the story man became a living soule And that may be a reason why the fear of God and keeping 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Commandements Eccles 12. ult is called all man because these things chiefely concerne that part of man which upon the matter is all man The feare of God and keeping his Commandements are soule worke and tend to the eternall welfare of the soule and though the body shares in all the blessings and assists in most labours of the soule yet the soule labours most for and is the chiefest seate of blessednesse How strangely have some departed from this point of truth which the Scripture every where writes as with a Sun-beame who instead of making the soule to be the chiefe part of man deny that man hath any such part And whereas some toucht at before err'd on the right hand saying that Man was nothing but a soule These goe astray more and more dangerously on the left hand saying that Man hath no soule at all An opinion howsoever lately drest in some finenesse of wit and subtilties of Philosophy yet in it self so grosse so dishonourable to man so contrary to this Text and the whole tenour of the word of God that I hope it is very mortal and will shortly find a grave in every heart but theirs who have more reason to wish it then to maintain it I intend no dispute about it beyond the Argument before me which if it be not demonstrative as many others from Scripture are yet it carries at least a faire probability and an ingenuous ground for how can man be said to dwell in a house of clay if he himself be nothing else but a house of clay or how can the inhabitant and the house be in all but one and the same But I shall dwell too long upon these houses of clay in which man cannot dwell long for it followes Which are crushed before the moth What strength is there in houses which are crushed before the moth or as others read it Which shall be consumed after the manner of a moth Master Broughton thus Beaten to powder as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad facies tineae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in medum tineae Sept. Velut à tinea Vulg. Pagnine moth be they That is They are crushed as soon or as speedily as a moth Another They are consumed as it were with a moth A fifth translates differently from all these Which are crushed and consumed before Arcturus Arcturus is a Constellation in Heaven about the North Pole we read of it in the 9th of this Book of Job verse 9. Which makes Arcturus Orion and the Pleiades c. The same word here signifies a moth and sometimes a Constellation a knot or company of Stars The sense of this reading is made out thus They are crushed before the face of Arcturus That is they are crushed as long or whilst Arcturus doth continue in plain English as long as there is a Star in Heaven man will be a mortall man or man will never change this condition of mortality while the world stands We may thus expound it by that Psal 72. 17. where the Prophet describing the Kingdome of Christ in the extent both of place and time saith His name shall be continued as long as the Sun the Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad facies solu His name shall continue before the face of the Sun to continue before the face of the Sun is to run in a line of equall continuance with the Sun so here They are crushed before the fate of those Starres that is they shall be in such a crushing perishing condition as long as those Starres continue which is as long as the course of this world continues Our owne translation which comes cleer to the letter of the Originall is further to be looked into They are crushed before the moth It may have a three-fold interpretation First before the moth that is before in time or sooner then the moth How quickly is a moth crushed man may be crushed before it sooner then it is crusht Secondly Before the moth may be as much as in the presence of the moth as if he should say man thinks he is able to stand it out against a potent Adversary yea against God himselfe but alasse poore creature he is not able to stand before a moth or contend with a flye if God arme any of them against him Thirdly They are crushed before the moth that is man is crusht and torne vext and worne out by a thousand miseries and troubles which attend his life before ever the moth has to doe with him before ever he lyes downe in the bed of death before the moth that is for the moth to fret on or as a companion for the wormes All these renderings though they differ in words come neer and meet in the same generall sense namely An illustration of mans frailty Take them first by way of similitude Man is crushed as it were with a moth it notes thus much to us That death consumes us without noise secretly and silently To doe a thing as a moth is to doe it silently and without noise Hos 5. 12. God himselfe saith that he will be as a moth unto Ephraim and as a Lion ver 14. when he saith he will be as a Lion it implieth open judgements which come violently and visibly which come in like thunder roaring as a Lion upon them But when he saith I will be as a moth unto Ephraim the meaning is I will send silent and secret judgements upon you which shall eate out your strength corrode your power and blemish the beauty of your garments and you shall not perceive it Ye shall be undone consumed and as we speak Proverbially ye shall never know who hurt you The open enemies of the Church are threatned with secret judgements under this notion of a moth Isa 50. 9. Loe they shall wax old as doth a garment the moth shall consume them Againe Chap. 51. 6 7. Feare ye not the reproach of men neither be ye afraid of their revilings For the moth shall eate them up like a garment and the worme shall eate them like wool that is whereas your enemies have made a great noise and clamour with their revilings against you I will come against them without noise they shall perish with as little clamour as a garment doth that is eaten with moths And thus the life of man is ordinarily consumed as it were by a moth sicknesses and diseases enter secretly into his house of
In the 1 Sam. 3. 1. we have the ground of the distinction In those dayes there was no open vision Open is opposed to private or secret the word imports a vision appearing in publique and the meaning of the text is this there were no Prophets sent openly and as it were In State invested with commission and furnished with messages Fuerantquidem singulares privatae visiones cum pijs communicatae ut cum Manoah Judic 13 Sed publiâ—è Prophetarum oâ—ne munus jacebat Jun. in loc from Heaven unto the people there was no open vision yet at that time there were private visions as to Manoah Judg. 13. God revealed himselfe in those darke times to some of his speciall servants And so he hath and will at all times While he hath a Church upon the earth he never shuts himselfe quite in Heaven Open vision may faile but all visions shall not faile So open profession may faile in the raigne of Antichrist in his houre and in the power of darknesse as it did in the time of Eliah yet all profession of the truth shall never faile The Lord hath alwayes his thousands in secret who never bowed their knee to Baal In many places since Christ came in the flesh there hath been no open vision no holding forth of the truth of Christ and yet even in those places there have been private visions and a remnant reserved to whom God hath made known the mysteries of the Kingdome of Christ When darknesse covers all in appearance there may be light which appeares not and candles under a bushell when there are none in the Candlesticks A Goshen hath light while Egypt is plagued with darknesse and when the Prophets are benighted it may be day with many of the people Thirdly Some visions were without any trance or ravishment Gen. 15. 1. The word of God came in a vision to Abraham speaking to his eare and bidding him look up to Heaven with his eyes ver 5. But often we finde that visions were accompanied with trances 'T was so with Balaam the false Prophet Num. 24. 16. He hath said which saw the visions rf the Almighty falling into a trance but having his eyes open And it was so with some of the true Prophets Daniel saw a vision and when he heard the voice Then saith he was I in a deepe sleepe upon my face Dan. 10. 9. Peter was in a trance when he had the vision of a sheete let downe from Heaven Act. 10. And the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 12. 1. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth His soule had so much acquaintance with God that he became a stranger to his own body his soule was so busied in receiving knowledge from God that he was faine to put off the knowledge and care of his body wholly to God What the state of my body was I know not God knoweth Fourthly Some visions were presented only in bare naked words others were cloathed in types and figures in the shapes of beasts of the earth and soules of the ayre of trees and stones c. As to Ezekiel and Daniel in their Prophesies and to John in the book of Revelations These figures were as an Alphabet of sacred Letters which put together and spel'd made the minde of God legible to his servants Lastly The Scripture in hand hints us a fifth difference about visions In thoughts from the visions of the night that 's considerable There were visions of the day and visions of the night thus it is said Dan. 2. 19. when Daniel expounded Nebuchadnezzars dreame that God made it known to him in visions of the night opposing it to visions of the day Usually the night was the time for visions hence Numb 22. 18 19. Balaam the false Prophet when the messengers of Balack came to him saith Tarry this night and I will shew you in the morning he thought to have a vision in the night So it is observable that when Saul and his servant came to Samuel 1 Sam. 9. 19. to enquire about the straid Asses he tells him ye shall eate bread with me to day and to morow I will let thee goe and will tell thee all that is in thine heart he desired a night intimating that God used to reveale secrets unto him in the night So much concerning visions with the kindes and differences of them From this doctrine of visions we may take notice of our priviledge under the Gospel The Apostle saith at sundry times and in divers manners God spake unto our fathers by the Prophets but he hath spoken unto us one way which exceeds them all Even by his Sonne who is the brightnesse of his glory and the expresse image of his person Heb. 1. 2 3. We have a vision which outshines all the visions that ever the Prophets or Patriarchs had from the beginning of the world Their light was darknesse at most but a shadow their visions were obscurities and their revelations concealments compared with ours Our vision is Christ God manifested in the flesh Mine eyes have seen thy salvation saith old Simeon he had a vision of Christ in person The land of Judah was call'd the valley of vision because God revealed himselfe to that people more frequently and clearly than to all the world beside Where ever the Gospel is preached that Land is a valley of vision a valley of vision farre more lightsome and glorious than the land of Judah was the very darknesse of the Gospel is clearer than the light of the Law That which was made glorious had no glory by reason of that glory which excelleth 1 Cor. 3. 10. Only remember that as our priviledge is greater than theirs so is our duty A cleare light should be answered with a holier life And we who have more evidence of what God would have done should make more conscience to do it Now we are not taught by dreams and visions of the night We ought to walk as children of the day Not onely is darknesse gone but the shadows are fled away The true light now shines even he who enlightens every one that comes into the warld We need not dreams or visions now Why should we call for Candles when the Sunne is up We need not Starre-light when we have day-light or when the promised Day-starre is risen in our hearts 2 Pet. 1. 19. Here is one circumstance more in the Text about this vision very Sopor est somnus profundior somnus est plus quam do miâ—aâ—io sopor plus quam somnus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Significat gravem somnum imo plus quâ—m somnuÌ„ profundum somnuÌ„ quasi letharguÌ„â— remarkeable it was not only in the night but in the night when deepe sleepe falleth on men or on sorrowfull man man wearied with labour and travell This is a more distinct description of the time than the former
how much more If it be rendred how much lesse then it referres to the first clause of the former verse Thus if he Patricula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro qua est simpliciter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoc loco â—â—rumque desig nat sc vel quanto minus vel quanto magis Drus puts no trust in his Angels then much lesse doth he put trust in men who dwell in houses of clay If it be rendred how much more then it referres to the latter clause of that verse Thus If he charged his Angels with folly then how much more may he charge them with folly who dwell in houses of clay Which words are a description of man either in his civill condition or in his naturall constitution Some take these words in the very letter The house for that which we ordinarily call a house the house wherein man ordinarily inhabits as if Eliphaz had thus said Angels dwell in Heaven they have everlasting mansions but man dwels in a house of clay the best and goodliest houses are but clay and dust a little refined and sublimated by art or nature brick and stone all these materials or but dirt concocted by the heate of fire and Sunne so that if the allusion were to the very houses in which man-kind dwels in oppsition to the habitation of Angels these set them farre inferiour to and below the Angels As these take it for the house wherein man lives so some understand it of the house where man lyes being dead namely the grave The Chaldee is expresse paraphrasing thus How much more the wicked who dwell in a sepulcher of clay That the grave is called a house the Prophet helps us Isa 14. 18 19. All the Kings of the Nations even all of them lie in glory every one in his own house that is in the grave as the next words prove But thou art cast out of thy grave c. But I rather take it as was before intimated to be an expression of mans naturall constitution He dwels in a house of clay whose foundation is in the dust And so the Apostle is expresse 2 Cor. 5. 1. If our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved the earthly house is the body and 2 Cor. 4. 7. the body is called an earthen vessel We have this treasure namely the precious Promises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Turbidus lututentus mixtus ut cum aquae turbantur in eis lutum itae commevetur ut confundantur luto miscentur ut in cementum degenerent and truths of God in the dispensation of the Gospel in earthen vessels We dying men preach eternall life we have death in our faces while the word of life is in our mouths The word here used signifies clay either wrought or unwrought either naturall slimy dirt or dirt made up for use by art So Gen. 11. 3. when they attempted the building of that Tower it is said They had slime for morter it is the word of the Text which is used for both slime and morter they had slime which is natural for morter that is by Art and industry they made morter of slime The body of man is a house of clay but not of rude naturall clay the power and if I may so speak the art of God hath wrought it beyond it self and refined it for this goodly building the body of man The body of man is called a house or building in two respects First because of the comely fabrick it is set up by line or by rule there is admirable architecture admirable skill in building and raising up of the body of man story after story room after room and contrivance after contrivance in all so compact and set together that the most curious piles in the world are but rude heaps compared to it so then in respect of the frame and structure it is fitly called a house Secondly * Hoc corpus luteum domus animae dicitur quia anima humana quantum ad aliquid est in corpore sicut homo in domo vel sicut nanta in navi in quaÌ„tum scilicet est motor corporis anima a utem non unitur corpori accidentaliter sed formaliter ut forma materiae dicitur enim materia fundamentum formae eò quod est prima pars in generatione sunt fundamenâ—um in constitutione domus Aquin. the frame of the body is called a house in respect of the soul the soul dwels in or inhabits the body as the whole man inhabits or dwels in a house the soule guides and orders the body as the inhabitant orders the affairs of the house or as the Mariner and Pilot steer and direct the motions of the ship Not that the soul is in the body accidentally we must not strain the similitude so far as a man is in a house or a Mariner is in a ship there is a formall union between the body and the soul only the soul is said to dwell in the body and the body or the matter is after called a foundation because there is the beginning Man was begun at his body as the house is at the foundation first God formed man that is the body out of the dust of the earth and then he breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soule Thus the body is a house and it is a house of clay or a house of Coâ—pus humanum lutum digitur quod ex teâ—ra aqua gravioribus clementis abundantius constat Aquin. earth so called chiefly in two respects First because of the matter of it it is made of earth Though all Elements as Naturalists teach meet in mixt bodies yet earth is predominant in grosse or heavie bodies Secondly because of the continuance of it or the means by which it is supported for as it was at the first framed out of the earth so it is still supported and maintained by earth earthly creatures meat and drink with such like accomodations continue and repair this house from day to day untill at last it be laid down in the dust and returne to earth again So then it is called an earthly house not only from the matter of which it is made but also from the means by which it is kept in repair earth and earthy all Whose foundation is in the dust These words aggravate the weakness of mans condition Suppose man were formed out of the dust and were but clay yet had he a strong foundation that would support and strengthen him The strength of a building is in the foundation and that building whose wals are but weak may stand long being firmely founded The Church of Christ is weak of it self but because the Church hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pulvis propâ—ie rarior tenuinat qualis in superfiâ—ie terrae Meâ— in Gen. Significaâ— non simpliciâ—ur pulverem sed pulveâ—eÌ„ canosum â—â— lâ—mosum Fapius in Gen. 2. 7 Pulvis levissimus ex quo
nihil firmum aut diuturnum ompingi potest such a mighty foundation CHRIST the Rock a living and an unmoveable Rock That confession of Peter Thou art Christ the Sonne of the living God is the Churches foundation Rock therefore the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against it But when the building is weak and the foundation weak too in how tottering a condition is such a building Mans foundation is but sand or dust and the word signifies flying light unstable moveable dust such as lies on the surface of the earth and is plaid about with every puffe of winde though some I confesse take the word not strictly for this flying dust but for slimy dust or dust moistned which is slime This was the matter out of which God created man Gen. 2. 7. dust out of the earth or out of the dust of the earth That dust which can hardly be collected or kept together to make a subsistence that is laid together as the foundation of man His foundation is in the dust Hence we may observe first what the pedigree and originall of man is what treasure soever he carries about him yet he is an earthen vessell or as the Apostle speaks of the first man 1. Cor. 15. 47. he is of the earth earthy Earth is the Originall of man and man himself is no better Earthy yea the Earth is call'd his earth as if he had propriety in nothing but earth Psal 1â— 6. 4. speaking of the greatest Princes Trust ye not in Princes nor in the sonne of man his breath goeth forth and he returneth to his earth Our bodies can challenge no alliance with or propriety in any thing but earth it is our earth The wise man Eccles 12. 7. cals the body not only an Allie to the dust or a-kin to dust but plain dust Then speaking of Death shall the dust returne to the earth as it was it came from the earth and in death it returnes to the same point from whence it set out A second thing we may take notice of from mans originall which exceedingly advances the infinite wisdome and the Almighty power of God Dust and Earth are the matter out of which we are formed But doth the countenance of man represent dust and earth Could any one say who had nothing to judge by but the eye that man was made of such mean materials What characters of Beauty and Majesty sit in his visage how unlike is he to his own parent the Earth Man hath received from God not only an excellent fabrick or composure of body but if you consider it the very matter of which the body is composed is farre more excellent then earth or dust Take a piece of earth or a handfull of dust and compare them with the flesh of man that flesh is earth indeed but that flesh is farre better then meer earth This shewes the power of the Creator infinitely exceeding the power of a creature A Goldsmith can make you a goodly Jewel but then you must give him gold and precious stones of which to make it he can put the matter into a hetter form but he cannot make the matter better The Engraver can make a curious Statue exactly limb'd and proportion'd to the life out of a ruff piece but the matter must be the same you put into his hands if you give him Marble it will be a Marble Statue but he cannot mend the matter Mans work Materiam superabat opus often exceeds his matter but mans work cannot make the matter exceed it self Now God took up a rude lumpe of earth or subtile dust and he not only put that into an excellent form but he mended the matter also Man is earth but he is earth sublimated and refined Not only doth the forme exceed the matter but the matter formed exceeds the matter unformed Thirdly as this lifts up the wisdome and power of God so it should humble and lay man low Eliphaz improves this principle as an Argument to take down the spirit of Job from his supposed heights and self-conceits Surely thou art great in thy owne thoughts when thou presumest to enter a contest with God But look to thy Originall such towring lofty and ascending thoughts would quickly be abated if thou wouldest remember tha thou art but a clod of earth a little refined clay moving slime enlivened dust breathing ashes did we spiritually look upon the matter of our bodies it would take down the swelling of our spirits when our spirits are like Jordan in the time of harvest overflowing all the banks of humility and moderation this thought spiritualiz'd will bring us into our channels again and recall us to our owne bounds and banks Some Naturalists observe of the Bees that when they are up and angry do but throw a little dust upon them they are quiet and hive again Certainly when our imaginations are buzzing and humming in the aire when thy are flying and mounting up to Heaven not in holy aspirings to God which we ever ought but in bold aspirings against God which we should never dare in such a distemper of our spirits if we could but cast this dust upon them it would quiet and bring them in again Hath not man cause to lye as low in his thoughts as that from whence he was extracted should not he be humbled to the dust who is dust Especially this earth should be abased in all addresses to Heaven in all our approaches unto God as Abraham Genesis 18. 27. I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord who am but dust and ashes We should never be so low in our own thoughts as when we make use of our highest priviledges and the nearer we are admitted to come to Heaven the more should we for the magnifying of Free-grace which makes this admission remember that we are but Earth Fourthly if the body be but clay and hath but a foundation of dust then doe not bestow too much care and cost upon your clay upon your dust How many are there who bestow much paines to trim up a vile body and neglect a precious soule Most usually they who bestow most paines upon this mortall house of clay bestow least about that immortal inhabitant In an over cared for body there ever dwels a neglected soul You shall have a body cleanly washed and a soule all filth a body neatly clothed and drest with a soule all naked and unready a body fed and a soule starved a body full of the creature and a soule empty of Christ these are poor soules indeed That complaint of the Moralist against Heathens may be renewed against some Christians they are busied most between the combe and the glasse and troubled more at a disorder in their haire then at a disorder in the Common-wealth Inter ' pectinem speculum occupari Sen. he said I say then at a disorder in the Church or in their owne hearts It is a sad thing that any who bear the name of a
Christian should spend much time betweene the combe and the glasse and but little betweene Ordinance and Ordinance betweene the Bible and the Pulpit betweene reading and hearing betweene both and holy meditation the body is but a house of clay it is but dust therefore be not so industrious for it We usually laugh at children when they are making Houses of Clay and Pies of Dirt. They whose care is thus over active for the body are but children of a greater stature and shew they have so much more folly in their hearts then they by how much they have more years over their heads and are foolish about more serious matters then they There is no child to the old child Fifthly seeing this house of clay is founded also in dust observe that man is a very fraile an unsteady and an unstable creature every puffe must needs subject him to ruine Look upon his foundation it is nothing but dust When CHRIST Math. 7. ult had finished his Sermon upon the Mount he compares his hearers to such as build either upon the Rock or upon the Sand they that heare and doe not are like a house built upon the sand and what becomes of that house when the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew that house fell and the fall thereof was great A foundation of dust or sand cannot stand out one storme The house of mans body is walled and roofed with clay and bottom'd upon no better then dust the strength of the Church as was toucht before is described by the matter of its foundation A Rock Matth. 16. And the new Jerusalem which as it is conceived to be the most pure state of the Church here on earth so it must be the strongest is set forth having twelve foundations and they all of stone and all those stones most precious and therefore most durable Rev. 21. 19. The strength and stability of that estate which the Saints shall inherit when these houses of earth are by death levelled to the earth the stability I say of that estate is described under the notion of a City which hath foundations Heb. 11. 10. He namely Abraham looked for a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God When the Holy Ghost saith foundations who can tell how many they may be we can easily tell the fewest they can be two is the lowest number so that at least this City hath a foundation upon a foundation The foundation of Christs perfect righteousnesse is laid upon the foundation of Gods eternall free love here is foundation upon foundation The City above hath these foundations and therefore we receive a City that cannot be shaken I note these things to shew by consent of Scripture that the stability of any condition in allusion to a building is exprest by the strength of its foundation Now all our outward glory and excellency our life and all the pompe of it hath scarce so much as deserves to be called a foundation a foundation of dust hath only the name of a foundation That Image in Daniel which typed out all the descents of worldly greatnesse had a head of gold the breast and armes of Silver the thighes of Brasse and the legs of Iron but the feet were part of Iron and part of Clay The feet are the foundation and the feet of this Image speak thus much to all the world that all worldly pompe greatnesse all worldly power and majesty must fall for the image stands upon clay and though it have a mixture of iron in the feet which is strong yet it shall not stand by the iron which is strong but fall and be broken by the clay which is weak As it was in those great Monarchies into which the outward power of Nations and Kingdomes was contracted so if you look upon any particular man though you may conceive him to have a head of gold armes and breast of silver thighes of brasse and legs of iron yet when you come to the feet the foundation of the whole body it is but dust which a small storm will dissipate and blow away The body of man hath so weak a foundation that it is sometime compared to that which hath no foundation a Tabernacle 1 Cor. 5. If the earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved saith the Apostle Now a Tabernacle hath a roofe or a covering but no foundation The Tabernacle of Tectum habet fundamentum non habet the body hath a covering but hardly any foundation only a foundation in the dust Lastly Consider the forme of speaking in this Scripture How much lesse on them who dwell in houses of clay He speakes of the whole man as dwelling in a house of clay Now we know that a body cannot properly be said to dwell in abody the house doth not dwell in a house yet he speakes as of a compleat person dwelling in a house of clay which yet is to be understood of one part of the person The soule that dwels in a house of clay that is it acts and officiates in a body composed of clay Hence observe seeing the whole man commeth under the notion of the soule That the soule of man is The man The soule goes away with the Non qued anima siâ— bono ut quidam posuerunt dicentes hominem nihil aliud esse quà m animam indutam corpore sed quia anima est principatior pars hominis unum quodque autem consuevit appellari id quâ—d est in eo principalius Aquin. in loc name of the whole person The soule is not the man in a naturall consideration as some have philosophiz'd asserting that man is nothing but a soule cloathed with a body for man is man by the union of soule and body and the perfection of man as man consists in that union but the soule is the man in a morall consideration because it is the more noble and excellent part of man and it is usuall to denominate the whole from that part which is more excellent The body is but as the Cabinet the soule is the Jewell the body is but as the sheath or the scabbard the soule is as the knife or the sword You know when a man buyeth a sword he buyes a scabbard too or when he buyes a knife he buyes the sheath too yet he saith this knife cost me so much or I gave so much for this sword he makes no mention of the scabbard or of the sheath now the body is the sheath or scabbard of the soule Dan. 7. 15. you have it exprest so I was grieved saith the Prophet in my spirit in the middest of my body so we translate it but the Chaldee is and so we have it in some Margents in the middest of my sheath The soule is the blade a blade of admirable mettle and temper the body how beautifull soever by nature or gay by art is but a velvet or an embossed sheath and scabbard therefore at first
superesse non solum excessum quantitatis significat sed etiam qualitatis dignitatis ficut verbum latinuÌ„ supero non solum superesse sed etiam vinceâ—e excellere Pined 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word signifies a quantitive remainder or overplus both of persons and things so also a qualitative excesse or remainder or that which exceeds in quality any excesse in the goodnesse of a quality is called excellency Thus Jacob cals Reuben in regard of his primogeniture the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power yet blots him in the next Verse because of his sinne thou shalt not excell Gen. 49. 3 4. This sense of the word suits well with the scope of the text in hand His excellency that is whatsoever doth excell or is best in him But what is that Some by his Excellency understand the soule as if he had said that best part of man the soule which may be opposed to clay and dust before spoken of that noble guest that royall inhabitant of this house of clay goeth out when death enters Death dissolves the union between soule and body Or rather we may take excellency for any speciall endowment first of the body as beauty or strength Secondly of the minde as wit and knowledge learning or skill Thirdly we may take it for those worldly excellencies of riches honour or authority when a man goeth out all these excellencies which are in him or which are about him go out too This excellency is the same which is called the goodlinesse of man by the Prophet Esay 40. 6. The voice said cry what shall I cry All flesh is grasse and all the goodlinesse thereof is as the flower of the field Not only is the flesh but the goodliness thereof fading also So here not only the house of clay and the foundation of dust but the excellency of it all the adorning and polishing the guilding and painting the rich hanging and precious furniture of this house go away Taking excellency here for the soule then we see wherein our excellency consists As man was the principall part of the creation so the soule is the principall part of man The constitution of the soule is mans naturall excellency and the conversion of the soule is mans spirituall excellency Secondly observe Death is the going away or the departure of the soule from the body Death is called sometime a departure of body and soule out of the world Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace saith old Simeon Luke 2. Man goes to his long home Eccles 12. 5. I go the way of all flesh saith Moses and I goe away saith our Lord Christ of his death Death is also called a departure of the soule from the body The death of Rachel is thus described Genesis 35. 18. And it came to passe that as her soule was in departing for she dyed From the other interpretation which I rather insists upon Observe that in death all a mans naturall and outward excellency whatsoever leaves him and departs from him Psal 49. 16. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich when the glory of his house is increased why for when he dyeth he shall carry nothing away with him his glory shall not descend after him though a man have an excellent out-side a great stock of riches beauty and honour though he have excellent linings of wisdome and knowledge yet all ends as to him when he ends and therefore David concludes Psal 39. Man at his best state or in his best estate is altogether vanity The excellencies that are in him goe away in that day all his thoughts perish his counsels and his projects perish with him One of the ancients standing by Caesars Tomb who was one of the most accomplisht men in the world for naturall civill and morall excellencies learned valiant noble rich and powerfull he I say standing by Caesars Tomb wept and cried out where is now the flourishing beauty of Caesar what 's Vbi nunc pulchâ—itudo Caesaris quo abiit magnificentia tua become of his magnificence where are the armies now where the honours of Caesar where are now the victories the triumphs and trophies of Caesar All 's gone all 's departed the goodlinesse of them is as the flower of the field his excellency which was in him is gone away And thus it will be said of all those who without grace are most excellent in any thing below Though your clay be curiously wrought and stampt with such beauty as renders you almost Angelicall to the eye of others Though your bodies are strongly joynted and blessed with such health as renders your lives most active and comfortable to your selves though your mindes are stored with variety of learning and you know as much as is knowable in the whole circle of Nature or of times yet when Death comes all these excellencies go away Nothing will stay by us then and go not from us but with us but the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord for whom Paul did and we ought to suffer the losse of all things and count them but dung that we may winne Christ Phil. 3. 8. For notwithstanding all other knowledge and wisdome we shall dye and conclude as this Chapter concludes of man without wisdome They dye even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without wisdome or word for word They dye not and in wisdome We may understand it two wayes First as if he had said though men are excellent in wisdom yet they dye their wisdom is to them in death as if they had no wisdome they have no more priviledge or defence against the stroak of death by all their wisdome learning Nalla est sapi entia qua mortem effugiant Merc. and knowledge then fooles or bruit beasts who have no knowledge no wisdome at all they dye even without wisdome or even as if they had no wisdome Died Abner as a foole dyeth said mourning David 1 Sam. 3. 33. yes Abner dyed as a foole dyeth And so in one sense doe the wisest of men He was the wisest of all the children of men and he spake it by the wisdome of God who asking this question How dyeth the wise man answers as the foole Eccles 2. 16. Let not any man pride himself in the excellency of his wisdome for that dwels in a house of clay whose foundation is in the dust his frailty is not curable by his excellency nor his mortality conquerable by his wisdome he shall dye as if he had no wisdome And some who have most worldly wisdome dye Non in sapientâ—a extenuatio est i. e. in magna stultitia Pined with least yea they with the greatest folly Not in wisdome may be an extenuation or a more gentle easie expression for in abundance of folly I remember it is observed concerning Paracelsus a great Physitian a man exceedingly verst in Chymicall experiments that he brag'd and boasted he had attained to such wisdom in
gale of love breathing through the covenant of Grace And as the life of man is compared by Job to a cloud so to that which is the matter of the cloud by the Apostle James Chap. 4. verse 14. where he puts the question what 's the life of man Is it not saith he even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away A vapour is exhaled from the earth by the heat of the Sunne and is the matter out of which the cloud is made Mans life is not only like a cloud which is more condense and strong but like those thin vapours sometimes observed arising from moorish grounds which are the original of clouds and more vanishing then clouds Even these are but vanishing enough to shadow the vanishing decaying quickly dis-appearing life of man As the cloud consumes and vanishes the next words speak out the mind of the comparison So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more The grave is a descent And the word which is here used for the grave is Sheol about which many disputes are raised among the learned The root of it signifies to desire or to crave with earnestness and the reason given is because the grave is always craving and asking Though the grave hath devoured the bodies of millions of men yet it is as hungry as it was the first morsel still it is asking and craving The grave is numbred among those things which are not satisfied Prov. 30. 16. In the Greeke of the new Testament it is translated Hades which by change of letters some form out of the Hebrew Adam and Adamah the earth unto which God condemned fallen man to returne Gen. 3. 19. We find this word Sheol taken five wayes in Scripture 1. Strictly and properly for the place of the damned Prov. 15. II. Hell and destruction are before the Lord how much more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then all the hearts of the children of men God looks through the darkness of hell which is utter darkness Tam infernus quam sepulchrum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. Status mortuorum vel sepalchrum nam ut anima de corpore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de sepulchro usurpatur Ps 16. Drus 2. It is put Metaphorically for great and extream dangers or miseries which seem irrecoverable and remediless these are figuratively called hell because hell properly taken is a place from whence there is no recovery There 's no release from the chaines of darknesse all changes are on earth Heaven and hell know none When David praises the Lord Psalm 86. 13. for delivering his soul from the lowest hell he meaneth an estate on earth of the lowest and deepest danger imaginable Mercy helpt him at the worst To be as low as hell is to be at the lowest 3. The word signifies the lower parts of the earth without relation to punishment Psal 139. 8. If I go down into hell thou art there He had said before if I ascend up into Heaven thou art there by Heaven he meanes the upper Region of the world without any respect to the estate of blessednesse and hell is the most opposite and remote in distance without respect to misery As is he had said let me go whither I will thy presence finds me out 4. It is taken for the state of the dead whether those dead are in the grave or no Psal 30. 3. Isa 38. 18 19. Gen. 37. 35. In all which places to go out of the world is to go to Sheol Jacob in the text alledged Gen. 37. 35. said he would go down into the grave to his son mourning yet Jacob thought his Son was devoured by a wild beast he could not goe down into the grave to his son for the bowels of a wild beast was his supposed grave but he meaneth only this I wil even die as he is dead So Numb 16. 33. where that dreadful judgement of God upon Korah Dathan and Abiram is storied it is said that they their sheep and their oxen and their tents and all went down into Sheol that is they were all devoured and swallowed up But 5. Sheol signifies the place where the body is layed after death namely the grave Prov. 30. 16. Man hath a demension of earth fitted to the dimensions of his body this portion or allotment is his Sheol Yet it signifies the grave only in generall as it is natural to man-kind not that grave which is artificial and proper to any particular man this the Hebrew expresses by another * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 word He that goeth down to the grave goes to his long home to a house out of which he is never able to see or make his way and Ainsw in Gen. 37. therefore it followes He shall come up no more No that 's sad news indeed to go down to the grave and come up no more Are all the hopes of man shut up in the grave and is there an utter end of him when his life ends Shall he come up no more Many of the Greek writers tax Job as not acquainted with the doctrine of the Resurrection as if he either knew not that mystery or doubted at this time of it And some of the Rabbins say plainly Hic abnegat Iob resuscitationem mortuorum Rab. Sol. Non negatur resurrectio ad vitam sed ad similem vitam Pined he denied it But he is so cleare in the 19th Chapter that we need not think him so much as cloudy here And if we look a little farther himself will give us the comment of this text When he saith he shall come up no more it is not a denyal of a dying mans resurrection to life but of his restitution to the same life or to such a life as he parted with at the graves mouth They who die a natural death shall not live a natural life again therefore he addeth in the next verse Verse 10. He shall return no more to his house He doth not say absolutely he shall return no more but he shall return no more to his house he shall have no more to do with this world with worldly businesses or contentments with the labour or comforts of the creature or of his Family He shall return no more to his house But some may say how doth this answer the comparison That as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more for we find another description of clouds Eccles 12. 2. where the text saith that the clouds return after raine So that it seems though clouds vanish and are consumed yet they returne and come againe The clouds are like bottles full of raine or spunges full of water God crushes these spunges or unstops these bottles and they are emptied and in emptying vanish away but yet Solomon affirms the clouds return after raine how then doth Job say that as the cloud vanisheth so man goeth to the grave
part of me chooseth death all vote for the grave I have not a dissenting member no nor a dissenting bone when David prayes Psal 6. 2. Heale me O Lord for my bones are vexed His meaning is I am vexed quite through And when he promiseth Psal 35. 10. All my bones shall say who is like unto the Lord c. his meaning is that he will praise God quite thorough soul and body Againe Lam. 1. 13. From above hath he sent fire into my bones and it prevaileth against me that is he hath utterly consumed me So here the whole man is expressed by parts soul and bones or body and soul that is whether I consider the anguish of my soul or the pains of my body I desire to die Thirdly Death rather then my bones because he had such sore putrified and afflicted bones painfull bones For when Satan desired a Commission to afflict him he words it thus Touch his flesh and his bone and he will curse thee to thy face Doubtlesse Magis optarim mori quam talia essa membra puâ—â—ida ulceribus difflaentia Merc-OssiuÌ„m mentinit quod dolor ad intima usque ossa penetravit Satan had gone as deepe as his commission he had liberty to touch his flesh and his bone and he did it He vexed his very bones as we say my bones are ewen rotted and consumed the sores and the putrifaction is sunke downe into my marrow I had rather have death than my bones that is than a body thus consumed and putrified even to the very bones Yet further some of the Hebrews give it thus Death rather than my bones because Job had nothing left him but bones he could not say my flesh for his flesh was consumed As we say Jobo vix aliud quam ossasuperesset Such a man is nothing but skin and bones a very skelleton I am nothing but bones and I had rather die than live such an Anatomie Verse 16. I loath it I would not live alway let me alone for my dayes are vanity He closeth up his complaint as he had often done before with the tedium that was upon him and the nauciousnesse of his life I loath it I am nothing but skin and bone nothing but sores and boyles my life is a burthen to mee I would not live alway I loath it The word signifies the greatest aversation possible God expresseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his greatest displicency of that wherein the Jewes were commanded to take their greatest pleasure under this notion Amos 5. 21. I dispise your feasts you thinke you keepe solemne feasts wherein I delight as much as your selves but I loath them my stomack turnes at every dish The stomack closes with wholsome meat and turnes to it that which is unwholesome the stomack turnes against the sight of it causes loathing Their feasts were of Gods own appointment and he used in a sence to feast with them but their hypocrisie spoild the banquet Job speaks of his own life what the Lord spake of their feasts I loath it even as that meat which is most burthensome to the stomack So Psal 53. 5. Thou hast put them to shame because God loathed them or because God despised them They who are loathsome to God cannot long be honourable or acceptable among men I would not live alway The word is I would not live to eternity or I would not live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever Why who can if he would Why should Job deprecate that which was not attainable I would not live alway he needed not trouble himselfe about that for he speakes of a naturall life it being impossible that he should There is no feare of living alwaies in this world nor is there any hope of avoiding it in the next Why then doth Job say I would not live alway To live alway or for ever is often used in Scripture for a long time The Ceremonies and institutions of the Jewes were said to be for ever because they were long-lived yet we know they are vanished and gone That which continues as long as it should continues alwayes So here I would not live alway that is I would not live long or I would not live out my full time I had rather be cut off in the midst of my daies or in the midst of my yeares than live to the end of them Let me alone for my daies are vanity Let me alone Or cease from me which is taken two wayes either leave off to prolong and protract my daies cease from me so doe not stand by me with thine assisting power to keepe my life whole within me I am ready to die give me no strong-water or cordiall rather pull away my pillow let me goe Or Cease from me that is cease afflicting me take off thine afflicting hand from me doe not any longer hold me in this woefull and sad condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 huic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mundus tempus hoc nomen non tam humanae vitae â—erminum quam totum vitae curâ—iculâ—m tempus humanae vitae praefinitum denotat quod cito deficit cessâ—t Cease from me The world and time while they continue are alwayes ceasing and therefore have their denomination from this word which signifies co cease For my dayes are vanity That 's the ground of his prayer why he requests God to cease from him My dayes are vanity why shouldst thou stay me longer in a vaine shadow If we take Cease from me or let me alone for the ending of his affliction it is as if he had said my life is vanity there is trouble enough in it if thou givest me the greatest ease that ordinarily a life can have yet it is but a vaine life I need not have this super-addition or accumulation of sorrows upon me Or let me alone my life is vanity why should I converse further and longer with vanity My daies are vanity He saith not my dayes are vain but they are vanity My dayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A verbo Habal quod est evanescere Râ—â— denotat quae non est quidpiâ—m aut quae cito desinit aut flâ—â—us qui exit ab ore sic enim halituÌ„ infantium appellant Pag. are Hebel which signifieth a vaine light thing a buble on the water or a breath of the mouth my dayes are but a breath or a puffe The root imports vanishing or disappearing the still almost unperceiveable breath of a little infant which will scarce move a feather Alas my dayes are fleeting and vanishing vaine yea vanity they have no consistency in them O then cease from me and let me doe what vanity must vanish out of sight Hence observe First That which a man loatheth he longs to be rid of I loath it I would no live alway When a man loaths his sin then he saith I would not sin alway I would be eased of this burthen of corruption O wretched
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Impingere quod saepe consequitur ruere cadere stumble or strike the foot against a thing and so it is put for that which is the consequent of stumbling falling he that strikes his foot or stumbles at a thing is in danger of a fall So Isay 40. 30. The young men shall utterly fall it is this word but doubled falling they shall fall that is they shall utterly fall There is a threefold falling mentioned in Scripture 1. There is a falling into sinne Gal. 6. 1. If a man be overtaken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praecipuè significat peccata actualia à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad verbum praeter cadere cuÌ„ scil ultra rectam justitiae lineam cadimus de erratis etiam levioribus usurpatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in compositione minuit sensum in a fault that word like this Hebrew in the Text signifies a fall taken by stumbling or by tripping upon any thing that lies in the way In this sense we understand the fall of Adam the fall of Angels and the fals of the Saints 2. There is a falling into affliction a falling into trouble So Prov 24. 16. The just man falleth seven times a day that is he meets affliction at every turn he fals into trouble almost at every step Seven times a day is very often in the day or often every day 3. There is a falling under trouble And of persons falling so we are chiefly to understand this Text. Many fall into trouble who yet through the strength of Christ stand firmely under trouble Others no sooner fall in but they fall under it The shoulders of some are not able to beare a light affliction and the afflictions of others are so heavie that no shoulders are able to beare them the back breaks the spirit sinkes under the load To such as these Job lent his hand his shoulders his counsell was as a staffe in their hands as ligaments to their loynes and knees Job was well skill'd in setting props and buttresses of holy advice to such tottering soules Thou hast upheld him that was falling We may take the words in all or either of these three interpretations yet most properly of the latter Thou hast strengthned the feeble knees The Hebrew word for a knee signifieth in the root to blesse or to pray because in blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Genu quod flecti solet in Benedictionibus et salutationibus and praying for one or in saluting we use to bow the knee And here what we translate the feeble knees is word for word the bowing knees because when knees bow and buckle or double under us it proceeds from weaknesse and feeblenesse hence the bowing knee is called the feeble knee Dan. 6. 5. it is said of Belshazzar his knees smote one against the other he fainted his spirits sanke within him then his knees as a Symptome of his feare beat one against another The hanging down of hands notes a kinde of despaire in regard of present evils and feeble quaking knees seeme to referre to some expected evill Taking the words with that difference Jobs work of love appears more full he not only upheld in present troubles but labour'd to strengthen against such as were to come Thou hast instructed many and instructed them many even all these wayes We may note First That to teach instruct and comfort others is not onely a mans duty but his praise for here Eliphaz speaks it in a way of commendation though with an intent to ground a reproofe upon it Job himselfe speaks of what he had done in that kinde as a defence of his own innocence Chap. 29. vers 21. c. Vnto me men gave eare and waited and kept silence at my counsell after my words they spake not againe and my speech dropped upon them and they waited for me as for the rain and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain This was his practise and this was the praise of Job That which the Apostle speaks as a speciall qualification or gift of a Bishop 1 Tim. 3. 2. is an excellent a noble qualification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any person of what rank or degree soever to be apt to teach Secondly Consider who Job was he was a holy man one that had much acquaintance and communion with God Now though his friends mistook what was in his heart yet they hit right upon his practise and we knowing both what his heart was by the testimony of God and what his practise was from the testimony of men may ground a second point upon it That such as know God in truth and holinesse are very ready to communicate the knowledge Quae autem est ceâ—â—â—or eleemosyna quod majus opus miserecordiae quam docere rudes segnes ad bene agendum extimulare labentem erigere maestos consâ—lari of God unto others They who know God themselves are desirous that others should know God too David Psal 51. 13. promiseth and professeth that he would communicate his experiences of Gods love in pardoning his sinne when he had tasted the sweetnesse of a pardon Then will I teach transgressors thy wayes and sinners shall be converted unto thee when my heart hath learned more of God others shall learne more of God from my mouth This is spirituall charity and it is the most excellent and noblest charity of all Charity to the soule is the soule of charity charity to the better part is the best charity In this sence also Job was eyes to the blinde and feet to the lame by guiding them to see Job 29. 15. and by directing their feet to walk in the wayes of God To give knowledge is better then to give Gold Instruction is the highest almes Thirdly if we consider Job of whom all this is affirmed as he was a great rich man we may note thus much That honourable and great men loose nothing of their honour and greatnesse by descending to the instruction of others though their inferiours Some think it belongs onely unto Ministers to instruct What we instruct They resent it as a disparagement they trust out that work wholly into the hands of others Where shall we finde an Abraham a great Prince in his time of whom God gave this Testimony I know him that he will command his children c. and they shall keep the way of the Lord and because he was willing to teach others God condescends to teach him Shall I hide from Gen 18. 17 18 19. Abraham that thing which I doe They receive most knowledge who are most ready to impart it And we finde before this Abraham so successefull in teaching that he had an Army of scholers in his house The Text saith when he prepar'd for that expedition to rescue his Nephew Lot that he armed three hundred and eighteen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 14. 14. Prov. 22. 6. of his trained
exprest the righteous perish that is they dye as it is explained afterward they are taken away from the evill to come they rest in their beds sc in their graves so Matth. 8. 25. Master save us we perish say the Disciples when they thought they should all be drowned Lord helpe us or else we all dye presently and so we translate Job 34. 15. where Elihu speaking of the power of God thus describes it If he should but shew himselfe all flesh saith he shall perish together that is all flesh shall dye they are not able to stand before Gods power and greatnesse the word which he useth there strictly taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to expire or give up the ghost yet we translate it all flesh shall perish together that is they shall all give up the ghost and dye if God should appear in his power and greatnesse Thirdly by perishing we may understand outward afflictions and troubles falling upon either godly or wicked these are called a perishing Josh 23. 13. Joshua tels the people If you will not obey and walk according to the Commandements of God ye shall quickly perish from off this good Land that is ye shall be removed by outward afflictions from your Land you shall goe into captivity And so if I perish I perish saith Esther Chap. 4. 17. that is if I bring trouble and affliction upon my selfe let it be so I will venture it A Syrian ready to perish was my father Deut. 26. It is meant of Jacob a man much verst in trouble as he himselfe acknowledgeth Few and evill have been the dayes of my pilgrimage Fourthly to perish notes eternall misery as it is put for the miseries of this life so for the life of misery for that life which is an everlasting death John 3. 16. God so loved the world that he gave Omnimodam rei perditionem significat oâ—pâ—â—niâ—uâ— enim generationi his onely begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life perishing is opposed to everlasting life and therefore implyes everlasting death Fifthly to perish notes utter desolation and totall ruine A cutting off or a destroying the very name and remembrance of a person or of a people He that speaks lyes shall perish Pro. 19. 9. that is he shall be utterly destroyed In this sense the word is used for the Devill because he is a destroyer to the utmost as Christ is a Saviour to the utmost He is called Abaddon from Abad the word here used Rev. 9. 12. and Apollyon his businesse is to destroy totally and eternally Thus also Antichrist The first-borne of the Devill 2 Thess 2. 3. is called the sonne of perdition take it actively he is a destroying sonne one that destroyeth bodies and soules as in Scripture a bloody man is called Ish dammim a man of blood and passively he is a sonne of perdition that is a man to be destroyed both body and soule These two latter senses namely eternall destruction in Hell and utter destruction in this life are joyned together Prov. 15. 11. Hell and destruction or Hell and perishing are before the Lord and Chap. 27. 20. we have the same words againe Hell and perdition or Hell and destruction are never full So that to perish in a strict sense notes even in this life an utter extirpation so some render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abscondit ne amplius auditur vel videatur per metonymiam sublatuâ— doletus succisus Sublata enim è medio non apparent amplius sed absconduntu◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it here Who ever saw the righteous plucked up by the roots so as there should be no remembrance no remainder of them The other word which is joyned in the Text cut off carries the same sense though it signifies properly to hide a thing yet it is so to hide it as it appeareth no more or so to hide it that it can neither be heard of nor seen any more Hence by a Metonymie it signifies to take away or to cut off because things that are taken away and cut off are as things hidden and seen no more Here then is the height of the sense either to take it for perishing in Hell or for such a perishing in this life as is joyned with totall desolation and desertion Then for the termes innocent and righteous The word we translate innocent signifieth empty And it is therefore applyed to an innocent person because innocent persons are emptied of malice and wickednesse their hearts are swept and cleansed purged and washed there is in some sense a vacuum a holy vacuum in the hearts of holy persons they are freed from that fulnesse of evill which lyes in their hearts by nature that filth is cast out Every mans heart by nature is brim full top full of wickednesse as the Apostle describes the Gentiles Rom. 1. 29. being filled with all unrighteousnesse and it is a truth of every mans heart it is a Cage full of uncleane Birds a stable full of filthy dung he hath in him a throng of sinfull thoughts a multitude of prophane ghests lodging in him Now a person converted is emptied of these these ghests are turned out of their lodgings the roomes are swept and emptied therefore an holy person is called an empty person Emptied not absolutely emptied of all sinne but comparatively there is abundance cast out so that considering how full of sin he was he may be said to be emptied of sinne and that his malice is cast out In the fourth of Amos the Prophet threatens cleannesse of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 teeth it is a suitable judgement that uncleane hearts and lives should be punished with cleane teeth or innocency of teeth for it is the word of the Text. Famine is elegantly so called Want of bread makes empty or cleane teeth And where were the righteous that 's the other terme cut off One may put the question where were the righteous surely Job had very good eyes if he could finde any righteous man upon the earth he might seem to have clearer eyes then the Lord himselfe if he could finde any righteous God looked downe from heaven and he saw none righteous no not one Psal 53. 3 4. Yet here Eliphaz bids Job enquire about the righteous where they were cut off To clear that By righteous here we are to understand not righteous persons in a strict and legall sense but in a Gospel mollified sense righteous with an allay righteous by way of interpretation and not in the strictnesse of the letter And so men are called righteous first in reference to the work of regeneration There are none righteous in the root or originall in their first setting and plantation in the soyle of the world but there are righteous persons as regenerate and transplanted into the body of Christ as wrought and fashioned by the Spirit of Christ Secondly there are none righteous that is none exactly perfectly compleatly
place He breakes the very voice of the Lions they shall not only not roare but they shall not so much as speake either against the lambes or against the sheepe or for themselves the voice of the fierce Lion shall be taken away God is able to silence Lions and stop their mouths not only from devouring and roaring but from speaking Thirdly When their voice is taken away and their roaring yet their teeth may remaine and there will be biting and tearing still though they have done roaring and yelling therefore with a third stroake God breakes out their teeth the teeth of the young Lions are broken So the Psalmist prayes Psal 58. 6. Breake their teeth in their mouthes breake out the great teeth of the young Lions O Lord that is take away the instruments by which they oppresse the meanes by which they teare and rend as Lions with their cruell teeth Fourthly Christ deales further with these Lions he not only breakes their teeth by which they used to hurt others but he takes away their prey and their meate they shall not have wherewith to live themselves they were wont to suck the blood of the slaine and to eate the flesh of the poore but now the Lord will pluck away their prey they themselves shall be starved or pincht with hunger Lastly Not only shall their meate be taken away but they themselves shall be scattered and dispersed that is the last step of their calamity Their dens shall be broken up and their lurking places shall be opened they shall run from place to place from Nation to Nation This is the judgement of the Lord upon Lions and the portion of the cruell enemies from our God Who hath not seen the truth of all this in our dayes we have had Lions roaring Lions rending tearing Lions amongst us It was usuall among the Heathens in their persecutions to cry out Away with the Christians to the Lions This we have often Christianos ad Leones seene in the figure poore Christians sent to the Lions put under the power of men as cruell as bloody as insatiable as Lions Many a one might say as David Psal 57. 4. My soule is among Lions When the watch-man in the Prophet was asked Watch-man what of the night he answered A Lion my Lord Isa 21. 7. Our sorrowfull watch-men standing upon their Towres considering those sad times being asked what of the day have answered We see a Lion a company of Lions tearing and rending in many parts of the Nation not bodies and estates only but soules and consciences God hath wonderfully delivered his darling from the Lions his Daniels from the Lions den He hath already delivered us so farre that the Lions dare not roare as they were wont the teeth of many of the young Lions are broken many of the old Lions are ready to perish for want of prey and not a few of their whelps are scattered abroad God hath raised up Sampsons to teare these Lions which roared upon us he hath stirred up Davids to smite these Lions and rescue the prey out of their teeth And though many Lions are amongst us yet they dare not roare much lesse teare as they have done though the beasts be alive yet for the most part the Lions are dead they are beasts still as base and vile and bloody in their natures as ever but their powerfull Lion-like strength is abated That glorious prophecie is in some sense and in some part fulfilled at this day The wholfe dwels with the lambe the leopard lies downe with the kid and the calfe and the young lion and the fatling together and a little childe may leade them they cannot they dare not hurt nor destroy in all our mountaine Isa 11. 6 8. I am sure we may set our seale to this truth of Eliphaz we have seene Lions and fierce Lions old Lions and young Lions even the stout Lions whelps some scattered abroad some destroyed some consumed by the mighty power of God Further It is here said in the text That the old Lion shall perish for want of prey It is a strange expression Lions have the greatest power to get provision to satisfie their hunger yea their appetites and humour yet these shall want these Lions who have all their life time preyed upon the estates of other men even these shall want Note hence the justice of God Such as have made others want shall at last come to want themselves they shall perish for want of prey they shall have nothing to eate when thou ceasest to spoile thou shalt be spoiled saith the Prophet and when Isa 33. 1. thou shalt make an end to deale treacherously they shall deale treacherously with thee We must not understand it as if wicked men doe ever give over sinning sinne and their desire of sinning is in a kinde infinite they never say now we have done and will sin no more but the meaning is when thou canst sin no more nor deale treacherously any more when thou hast done thy utmost and spent thy strength in spoiling others or taken all their spoile so that thou hast done spoiling because there is no more to spoile then others shall spoile thee And thou Lion who hast preyed upon others a long time shalt not have a bit thy selfe but shalt perish for want of prey It is the promise of God unto his own people Psal 34. 10. That the Lions shall lack and suffer hunger but they that feare the Lord shall not want any good thing He expresses it by Lions to note that certainly they that feare him shall not want for if any creatures in the world can preserve themselves from hunger Lions can if they doe but roare the very beasts will fall downe as a prey before them but yet saith God these even these shall rather perish for hunger than any one that feareth me shall want God provides for his lambes for innocent persons for those who feare him though they have no strength to provide for themselves but the wicked who have greatest power and have been most active to provide for themselves shall pine with want they who have caused so many to be bitten with hunger shall at last be hunger-bitten and for want of meate gnaw their tongues Lastly Where it is said that the Lions whelps are scattered abroad Observe God will not onely destroy the persons of wicked men but their families and posterities they and their whelps shall all be scattered he will not leave them so much as a name or a remembrance Psal 36. 6. I sought his place saith the Prophet and he could not be found there was no print of him no man could remember that there was such a man in the world unlesse to curse his memory I shall only give one caution respecting this and so conclude the point That which is here affirmed in the generall by Eliphaz concerning the destruction of wicked men Lions and fierce Lions is not to be taken as a
Mem Genitivum indâ—cet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thoughts which I had after the visions of the night So Hos 6. 2. From two dayes Heb. After two dayes or in thoughts which I had in the visions of the night or in thoughts of the visions of the night The Originall beares any of these readings In thoughts The Hebrew word signifies properly the boughes of a tree and so some translate In the bougbes sprigs or branches of the visions of the night but we render it well in the thoughts And thoughts are called boughes or branches First because thoughts grow from the mind sprout and shoote up from the minde as branches from the stock of a tree From the root or stock of a mans understanding a branch of thoughts growes up sometimes like a tall Cedar of Libanus as high as Heaven Secondly the boughes and branches of a tree are many thick interwoven and crossing one another such are the thoughts of a man he hath many even multitudes of them In the multitude of my thoughts saith David The mind puts forth many branches and twiggs they sprout and shoote forth every way thousands of various thoughts are moving upon various objects and to various ends some are earthly some heavenly The branches of some minds are but bryars and thornes others bear the Lilly and the Rose their roote is in Heaven and they grow heavenward Thirdly thoughts are called branches because the branch or the bough brings forth and beares the fruit the stock or the body of a tree brings forth fruit at the branches So all the fruit of our soules is borne upon or from our thoughts our actions are the fruits of our thinkings Thoughts are possible actions looke what a man thinketh that he doth or would doe And such as our thoughts are such our actions are or would be Thoughts are the first-borne the blossomes bloomes of the soule the beginnings of our strength whether for good or evill therefore the Hebrew word is elegantly translated from a bough or a beanch to a thought The Hebrew word for speech prayer and meditation springs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stirps fâ—uâ—ex quia Sermo è corde ut arbor è terra nascitur Shind Elegans metaphâ—â—a sumpta à super eminentibus arboâ—um ramusculis est pâ—imogenta hujus voâ—is significatio ad phantasmatum extremitates ac velut teneras cogitationum summitates notionem suam extendit Bold Quousque claudicatis inter duas prominentias Merc. Quasi Elias audueret populum quod duas eminentias sibi constituerent Deum Baalem quasi aequales inter quas nulla est comparatio 2 Cor. 6. 15. Bold from a roote of the same signification because speech prayer and meditation spring up from the Spirit as a stalke or branches from the stock of a tree There is one thing further to be observed from this word for it is a very elegant word and therefore I spend a little the more time upon it In thoughts from the visions of the night The word signifies not onely a bough but the highest bough the top-bough of a tree A tree hath some under-boughs and some top-boughes as the Prophet speakes Isa 17. 6. Two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough it is the same word which here in the text we translate thoughts as if Eliphaz should say in my very uppermost or highest thoughts in those very top-branches of my budding phancie which I had from the visions of the night The highest the top-branches which grow from the soule of a godly man are for or about the highest mercies top-mercies for Heaven and heavenly things A wicked mans highest and uppermost thoughts are for the earth his thoughts for the earth out-grow all his other thoughts But a godly mans thoughts for Heaven and spirituals outgrow all his other thoughts his thoughts for Heaven are the highest and uppermost branches of his soule We have this word used in the 1 Kings 18. 21. How long saith Elijah will you halt between two opinions That word which we there translate opinions is here translated thoughts hence some render that in the Kings thus How long doe ye halt between two top-thoughts or high thoughts As if this were the thing which Elijah reproved in that people that they had high thoughts both of God and of Baal top-thoughts of both and they as it were set Baal a dumb Idol as high in their thoughts estimations and opinions as they did the living God Why do ye halt between two uppermost opinions highest thoughts or thoughts of equall height concerning God and Baal Your thoughts of your Idol are as high as of God himselfe What! will you make an Idoll equall with God An Idoll is a base thing a low thing a thing below upon the dung-hill therefore called a dunghill god The true God is on high he is in the highest Heavens he is higher than the Heaven of Heavens and doe you debase him thus by halting between two thoughts of equall height concerning Him and Baal They who set up an Idol make it equall unto God All false worship is a setting of our posts by Gods posts and of our threshold by his threshold a making both of equall height and worth And to cleere it yet further Psal 119. 13. the same word is used by David when he professes I hate vaine thoughts or as some reade it I hate vaine things He calls Idolatrous thoughts vaine thoughts because they are wavering inconstant or unsetled thoughts in further allusion to the boughes of a tree as the top-most and highest boughes of a tree are shaken with every puffe of wind and waver too and fro with every blast so are the thoughts Quasi dicat Idolatriam odio habui quae plura eminentia supremo cultu reveretur cum sit unum of Idolaters or because as before Idolatry sets up Too high Thoughts adoring an Idoll as much or in competition and rivality with the everliving God The higher our thoughts are of God the more excellent they are but the higher our thoughts are of false worship the vainer they are and to have as high thoughts of an Idoll as of the living and true God are the vainest thoughts of all those high thoughts are low thoughts the lowest thoughts thoughts most hatefull I hate vaine thoughts From the visions of the night As I have opened that word about the thoughts somewhat largely so this of the visions requires more enlargement yet I shall doe it as briefely as I may Visions were a speciall way of divine revelation Heb. 1. 1. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake to our Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Prophets saith the Apostle God spake at sundry times and he spake in divers manners Now amongst those divers manners of speaking speaking by or in visions was one The Jewish Doctors observe foure degrees of divine revelation The first they Paulus Fagius in Exod. 28.
and will not the Lord doe so Isa 3. 10 11. Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with him for they shall eate the fruit of their doings woe unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him But how doe the dispensations of God answer this direction to man when his providence seemes to huddle up all together to make the same portion serve both the righteous and the wicked I answer it first in the generall and then in some particulars In the generall the troubles of the righteous are good for them and therefore they have that which is promised God saith say to the righteous it shall be well with him when a righteous man is troubled it is vvell with him therefore he hath that which God promiseth him and when a wicked man prospereth it is ill with him therefore he hath that vvhich God thratneth against him Outward mercy is judgement to wicked men and their prosperity is their undoing therefore do not think that God varies a tittle from the tenour of his word when he saith it shall be ill with wicked men and yet you see them prosper for it is never worse with them then when they prosper then when they think it is best and when the world thinks so too the prosperity of fools shall destroy Prov. 1. them and what prosperity is there in destruction The meat in their mouthes is as a sword in their bowels If you saw the Lord formally sending a Sword to devoure wicked men you would think it justice the prosperity of wicked men is as sharpe as a Sword that can but destroy and so doth this It is their judgement that they are without judgements and not to be smitten is their scourge Now more particularly to answer this objection about the justice of God And it will be but needfull considering the times we live in threaten us with a common deluge or an overflowing scourge vvhich may sweep away both good and bad together First in reference to the godly Are they in a sad estate outwardly are they in great afflictions I answer though they are afflicted yet they prosper When they are impoverished they are enriched when they are as having nothing they possesse all things What is there vvhat can there be even in their saddest estate which doth not conduce to their good vvhich will not be a benefit unto them For first their troubles are but trials now is there any hurt in a triall or perturbation in a probation Troubles try their graces and their corruptions too Trouble tryes grace that it may be honour'd and corruption that it may be mortified there is no hurt in all this rather it is a most happy condition which makes grace conspicuous whereby a mans best side his inside wherein his glory lies The Kings Daughter is glorious within is turned outward That Scripture Dan. 11. 33 34 35. is very pregnant to the point in hand where the Prophet foretelling troublesome times saith They that understand amongst the people shall instrust many yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame by captivity and by spoyle many dayes They that understand that is godly men shall fall by these judgements some of them by the sword they shall utterly be cut off some by flame they shall be burnt to ashes others by captivity and by spoile their estates shall be plundered their persons imprisoned How doth this answer the justice of God will carnall reason object that it shall be thus ill with the righteous to whom the Lord promiseth it shall be well Yes well enough For it followeth Now when they shall fall they shall be holpen with a little helpe and some of them of understanding shall fall that is by captivity and by spoile to try them and to purge them and to make them white Here are two remarkable ends why They of understanding fall into these evils First for probation to try them Secondly for cleansing and purgation to purge them and make them white Gold is never wrong'd by being tryed A spotted garment a distempered body are not damnified by washing or by purging To be freed from filth without and bad humours within the body is more then a common favour How high an act of favour then is it to have ill humours and filthy spots washed purged out of the soule Such base humours a good man may have as call for these strong working pils Spoyling and Captivity to cast them out Now those men of understanding have no more hurt intended them by God when they fall into spoilers hands then when a diseased body fals into a Physitians hand or when a defiled garment fals into a Fullers hand sc to purge and make them white Affliction is a cleanser Christ is the onely lavatory and his blood the onely Fountaine to wash away the guilt of sinne yet God hath other Fountains and Lavatories to wash away the pollution of sin That blood cleanses in this sense also principally and all the waters or fires of affliction have no efficacy at all to refine or cleanse but in vertue of that blood A Crosse without a Christ never made any man better But with Christ all are made better by the Crosse We may then say at least that it is well with the righteous in affliction forasmuch as through the blessing of God they are bettered by affliction When you see a godly man cast out in the open aire and having the waters of sorrow powred continually upon him know that he is only laid out a whitening and will appeare shortly more resplendant then ever Secondly afflictions are sent to humble Pride is such a weed as often growes in the best soyle Now that which humbleth us cannot hurt us we lose nothing by the abatements of our pride no the more pride loses the more we gain And we seldome or never lose any thing but by pride Now saith God Deut. 8. 1. If you would have an account vvhy I brought my people about in the wildernesse through so many difficulties know this vvas my designe it was to humble them God resists pride wheresoever he findes it they in vvhom pride totally prevailes are Gods enemies and he resists them they in vvhom pride hath some yea great prevalency may be Gods friends and God will resist pride in them the difference is observable betvveen resisting of pride and resisting the proud the resisting of the person and the resisting of the sin The great resistance vvhich God makes against the pride of mans heart is by the rods of affliction he vvhips them into humility and by taking away carnall comforts takes them off from carnall confidence And O blessed affliction which makes us lesse to our selves and all creatures lesse to us We are never so much in Gods eye as vvhen vve are least in our own nor have vve ever so much of God as vvhen vve expect little or least from man say therefore
notes a man hasty bold inconsiderate rushing on hand over head without feare or wit A man who either is master but of little knowledge or that which he hath be it little or much masters him It agrees fully in sense and is the same to a letter in found with our English word Evill Such the Prophet Zech. 11. 15. describes Take saith he the instruments of a foolish sheapheard he doth not meane the instruments of a rude and meerely ignorant sheapheard a man that hath no knowledge or learning but of a rash and imprudent shepheard or of a lazie and idle shepheard who though hath knowledge yet knowes not how or hath no heart to improve his knowledge for the good of his flock The Prophet Ezekiel gives us the character of such Chap. 34. 4. The diseased have ye not strengthened nor have ye healed that which was sicke nor bound up that which was broken c. but will ye know what work they made with furie and with crueltie have ye ruled them ye have been moved with fury not with pity and acted by passion not by reason much lesse by grace So in this place the foolish man whom envy slayes is not a meere ignorant one that hath no brains but one hare-brayn'd and uncompos'd Eliphaz hints at Job secretly in this word whom he knew reported for a man of great knowledge and learning according to the learning of those times yet he numbers him with Nâ—n his solum sed calamo iâ—os â—imur in scribendo eumque 〈◊〉 fraâ—gâ—mus pectoâ—â—s penecallo alcato res tesseris cuicunque instrumento quilâ—bet ex quo dâ—fficultatem se paâ—â— arbitratur August â—ra stultitiae comeâ— sooles because he conceived him wrathfull rash intemperate not having any true government of himselfe Anger resteth in the bosome of fooles Eccles 7. 9. A foole is not able to judge of the nature of things or times or occasions and therefore he is angry with every thing that hits not his nature or his humour He will be angry with the Sunne if it shine hotter then he would have it and with the winds if they blow harder then he would have them and with the clouds if they raine longer then serves his turne They that are emptiest of understanding are fullest of will and usually so full of will that we call them will-full Hence unlesse every thing be ready to serve their wills they are ready to dye by the hand or judgement of their passions Wrath kills this foolish man Wrath may be taken here two woyes either for the wrath of God or for the wrath of man In the former sense the meaning is That the wrath of God kills foolish men Which is an undoubted truth but I rather adhere to the latter which gives the meaning thus That the wrath of a foolish man kills himselfe his own wrath is as a knife at his throate and as a sword in his own bowels The word which we translate wrath signifies indignation anger teastinesse or touchinesse Properly wrath is anger inveterate anger is a short fury and wrath is a long anger when a man is set upon 't when his spirit is steeped and soak't in anger then 't is wrath Esau raked up the burning coales of his anger in the ashes till his Fathers Funerall The time of mourning for my father will shortly come then will I slay my brother But our word rather notes a servent heate and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distemper of spirit presently breaking forth or an extreame vexation fretting and disquieting us within As Psal 112. 10. The wicked shall see it and be grieved that is he shall have secret indignation in himselfe to see matters goe so He shall gnash with his teeth and melt away Gnashing of the teeth is caused by vexing of the heart And therefore it followes he melts away which notes melting is from heate an extreame heate within The sense is very suitable to this of Eliphaz wrath slayeth the foolish or wrath makes him melt away it melts his grease with chafing as we say of a man furiously vext Hence that deplorable condition of the damned who are cast out of the presence of God for ever is described by weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth which imports not onely paine but extreame vexing at or in themselves Those fooles shall be slaine for ever with their own wrath as well as with the wrath of God Wrath killeth c. But how doth wrath kill a foolish man his wrath sometimes drawes his sword and kils others but is his wrath as a sword to kill himselfe Many like Simeon and Levi in their anger have slaine a man but that the anger of a man should slay himselfe may seeme strange The passion of vvrath is such an engine as recoyles upon him that uses or discharges it As the desire of the slothfull killeth him Prov. 21. 25. so the wrath of a foolish man kils him that place enlightens this how comes desire to stay the slothfull thus A man slothfull in action is full of desires and quick in his affections after many good things he would faine have them he longs for them but the man is so extreame lazie that he will not stirre hand or foot to get the things which he desires and so he pines away with wishing and woulding and dies with griefe because desire is not satisfied So in like manner wrath is said to slay a man first because it thrusts him headlong upon such things as are his death he runnes wilfully upon his own death sometimes by the dangerousnesse of the action whence casuall suddaine death surprises him sometime by the unlawfulnesse of the action which brings him to a legall or judiciary death Secondly his wrath is said to kill him because his wrath is so vexations to him that it makes his life a continuall death to him and at last so wearieth him out and wasts his spirits that he dyes for very griefe and so at once commits a three-fold murder First he murders him intentionally against whom he is wroth Secondly he really murders his own body and thirdly he meritoriously murders his soule for ever except the Lord be more mercifull then he hath been wrathfull and the death of Christ heal those wounds by which he would have procured the death of others and hath as much as in him lies procured his own And envie slayeth the silly one These two expressions meet neere upon a sense Envy is the trouble which a man conceives in himselfe at the good which another receives This disease gets in at the eyes and eares or is occasioned by seeing or hearing of our neighbours blessings In the 1 Joh. 2. All the lusts in the world are reduced to three heads The lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life Envy is the chiefest lust of the eyes and it is properly called the lust of the eye because a man seldom envieth another untill
aliquo dicitur in Scriptura quod faciendum denunciatur be or fore-tell that it shall be As to give an instance or two Levit. 13. in the case of the Leper the text saith that when the Priest makes up his judgement concerning the Leper having found the tokens of Leprosie upon him he shall defile him ver 3. and ver 8. or make him uncleane so the Originall gives it which we translate The Priest shall pronounce him uncleane In that sence the Ministers of the Gospell whose businesse is to cleanse defile many yea one way to cleanse men is thus to defile and pronounce them Lepers So Isa 6. 8. the Lord sends the Prophet against that people and saith to him Make the heart of this people fat and make their eares heavy and shut their eyes Praedic excaeeanaos oâ—ulos aures aggravandas Now the Prophet did not act this himselfe he did not deafen their eares or blind their eyes but onely fore-told or denounced that this judgement should fall upon them because they had so long stopped their eares at last their eares should be stopt and made heavy enough and because they had so long winked and shut their eyes at last they should be blind and their eyes shut fast enough How fast are those eyes and eares lockt up which are thus double lockt Once more Jer. 1. 10. The Lord gives the Prophet a strange commission See saith he I have this day set thee over the Nations and over Kingdomes to roote out and to pull downe and to destroy and to throw downe and to build and to plant One would think this commission more fitting for a Caesar or an Alexander for great Commanders attended with numerous Armies than for an unarmed Prophet what could he doe could he roote out Kingdomes and destroy Nations Yes by denouncing the destroying judgements and consuming wrath of God due unto them for their rebellions and provocations Thus a poor weak Prophet can overturne a whole Kingdome and roote up the strongest Nations And the truth is that never was any Nation or Kingdome rooted up by the sword but it was first rooted up by the word first God hewed them to pieces and slew them by his Prophets and then let in Armies of cruell enemies to doe it So here in the text I have seen the foolish taking root but suddenly I cursed his habitation The clear meaning is I foretold a curse I knew what would shortly become of his habitation It Non per invidiam iram dira imprecacarer sed animus pâ—aesagiret male ipsi fore Coc. was not anger against his person or envy at his estate that moved me to curse him but it was an eye of faith which shewed me him markt with a curse in the just threatnings of God I saw a curse hanging over his family and dwelling over his riches and honours And though he then flourished that yet he should quickly wither and be destroyed root and branch The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked Prov. 3. 33. Man doth but see it there the Lord sent it there The word is considerable which we traslate Habitation It signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a quiet a setled a peaceable a beautifull habitation And so carries an aggravation of the judgement upon this foolish man his judgement is the worse upon him because he thought himselfe so well so well seated so well setled so secured and accommodated that he should never be removed They are most troubled with removings who thought themselves setled troubles afflict them deepest who supposed themselves beyond trouble When David thought God had made his mountaine so strong that it could not be moved how was he troubled as soon as God hid his face Ps 30. 6 7. And if they are so troubled with shakings who look upon their estates as setled by the favour of God how will they be troubled to meet with totterings and shakings much more with ruinings and destructions whose estates at best are bottom'd onely upon their policies often upon their sins We may observe from hence First The estate of some wicked men is out of the prayers of Gods people When they goe by their dwellings they cannot say The blessing of the Lord be upon you we blesse you in the name of the Lord Psal 129. 8. It is a great mercy to stand under the influences of prayer and for a man to have his estate land dwellings watered with showers of blessings and hearty good wishes from the mouths of Saints Their blessings or their cursings are next to the blessings and cursings of Christ nay they are his It is an argument that Christ hath blessed or cursed a man when the spirits of his people generally are carried to either It is one of the saddest presages in the world for a man to be cast out of the prayers of the Saints or to be cast by their prayers that is when their prayers are against him and he presented naked to the displeasure of Christ It shewes that the sin of a man is a sin unto death when the faithfull cease praying for him 1 Joh. 5. 16. What can it prognosticate then but approaching ruine and destruction when they bend the strength of prayer against him There was never any habitation of wickednes so firmly founded or strongly fortified but that Great and Holy Ordinance hath or may shake and batter it to the dust The fair Towers and walls of Babylon the seate and state of Antichrist have long been under this curse All the Saints whose eyes God hath unscaled and brought out from Egyptian darkness have seene That foolish man taking roote and have cursed his habitation Secondly observe A wicked man in prosperity is under the curse of God He is often under the curse of man but ever under the curse of God Esau have I hated saith God Rom. 9. 13. yet even at that time the fatnesse of the earth was his dwelling and of the dew of Heaven from above Gen. 27. 39. While the meate was in the mouthes of the murmuring Israelites the wrath of God was upon them They did at once eate their lust and their death wrath was mingled with their meate and while he gave them their request he sent leanenesse into their soules Psal 106. 15. This is the most dreadfull curse of all To have a fate estate a well fed body with a leane starven soule Thirdly Observe a vast difference between godly and wicked men between the foolish and the wise When a godly man withers in his outward estate and is pluckt up by the rootes yet God loves him when a godly man is poore God loves him when he is sick God loves him when he is in prison God loves him when he is in disgrace God loves him and when the world hates him most then God usually shewes that he loves him most The world cannot cast a godly man into any condition but he meets with the love
of presumption against God We may commit a doubtfull cause to God desiring that he would try and examine whether it be good or bad But we must not commit a doubtfull cause to God desiring him to protect it or us in it whether it be good or bad And if in this sence we may not commit a doubtfull cause to God What shall we thinke of those who shall dare to commit an openly unjust and wicked cause to God A wicked mans prayer is alwayes sinfull but how abominable is it when he prayes to be prospered or directed in acting his sin or to be strengthned in suffering impenitently for his sin There is no gracious act but a wicked man at one time or other will imitate He will pray and repent and forgive and commit his cause to God and when he dyes commit his soule to God There is no trusting to a mouth full of good words while the heart will not empty it selfe of wickednesse It is good alwayes to commit our cause and our soules to God but a cause or a soule are not therefore good because committed unto God The language of Israel is often spoken by the men of Ashdod And many who never had the least part of holinesse in them can yet set themselves when there is no remedie to act a part in it The Apostle Peter gives us this rule 1 Epist 4. 19. Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their soules to him in well-doing as unto a faithfull Creatour Except we suffer according to the will or from the hand of God and also doe well in our sufferings Christ will not admit this Feofement though we commit our selves to him he will not accept the trust But he that suffers according to or by the will of God and doth well in suffering that is hath a good cause and a good conscience He I say may commit all to God and in the mercy of the most High he shall not miscarry Lastly Whereas Eliphaz saith I would seeke unto God were I in thy case observe That It is a wise course in advising others to shew our selves readie to follow the same advise It wins exceedingly upon others to take our counsell when it appeares we are ready to follow the same counsell our selves We ought to doe nothing unto others but what we would have done unto our selves and we should advise nothing to others but what we our selves would doe It puts strength into a rule when he that gives it is ready to enliven it by his owne practice As a Physitian for the encouragement of his patient to take a nauseous medicine will say to him Sir you seeme unwilling to drinke it but if I were sicke and distempered as you are I would drinke it readily and that you may see there is no hurt in it I will tast a little my selfe His tasting sweetens it and the patient likes it well Thus when either Minister or private friend offers advise or counsell and shall say thus I would doe this I would follow This takes upon the heart whereas it disparages prayer or any duty to say to another Seeke unto God put your case unto him fast and pray When he that gives the counsell neglects all these duties and is carelesse of communion with God Christ saith of the Pharisees that they bound heavy burthens upon the shoulders of others These burdens were counsels and directions rules and canons they would have men doe thus and thus in the manner of Gods worship or daily converse with men But They themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers Mat. 23. 4. That is they would not practise them in the least degree As to do evil with both hands Mic. 7. 3. notes the highest degree both of desire endeavour in doing evill So not to touch that which is good with a finger notes a total neglect of doing good A finger is the least member and a Touch is the least act then these Pharisees not touching with a finger imports they did not act at all It is good to act a rule privately by way of experiment before we put it upon others but it is most necessary to act it by way of example when we have published it to and press'd it upon others It was a speech of one of the Ancients I never taught my people any thing but what I had first practised and experimented my selfe Doctrine is sooner followed by the eye then by the eare He that like the Scribes and pharisees Mat. 23. 3. saith and doth not shall find but few to doe what he saith No man ought to teach any thing which he is not willing as he is call'd to doe and observe himselfe It is very sinfull to give counsell which we will not take Our works ought to be the practise of our words and as practicable as our words Woe unto those of whom it may be said as Christ of the Pharisees Mat. 23. 3. Whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and doe but doe not ye after their works JOB Chap. 5. Vers 9. Which doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number c. THis context unto the 17 verse containes the second argument by which Eliphaz strengthneth his former Exhortation To seeke unto God and to commit his cause unto him The argument may be thus formed He is to be sought unto both in duty and in wisdome and unto him our cause is to be committed who is of absolute infinite power wisdome and goodnesse But God is of absolute infinite power wisdome and goodnesse Therefore it is our duty and our wisdome to seeke unto God and unto God to commit our cause That God is infinite in power wisdome and goodnesse Eliphaz proves by an enumeration or induction of divers effects and works which call for infinite power wisdome and goodnesse to produce and actuate them These effects are laid down first in generall v. 9. Who doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number Then these works or effects are given in particulars and the first particular instance of Gods mighty power is in naturall things or his preservation of the world at the 10 verse Who giveth raine upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields The second instance is given in civill things or his administrations in the world at the 12 13 14. verses And that we may consider two wayes 1. In destroying the counsels and plots of the wicked in the 12 13 and 14. verses He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot performe their enterprise c. 2. In delivering those who are in trouble at the 15. verse He saveth the poore from the Sword c. These are works of Power Further the goodnesse of God shines forth in two things 1. By the present intendment or end aimed at in these mighty works ver 11. To set up on high those that be low that those which mourne may
my people and thy people That is those Armies of flies which invade thy people shall not meddle with my people To see one perish with and our selves saved from the sword is redemption in war To see others hunger-starved and our selves still fed is redemption from famine though our selves were never in the hands or between the teeth of famine A people devided from the troubles of others are redeemed from those troubles Such redemption our Saviour speaks of Mat. 24. 40 41. Two shall be in the field the one shall be taken the other left two women shall be grinding in the Mill the one taken the other left In Famine Famine is the want of bread and bread is the stay and staffe of life Lev. 26. 26. Isa 3. 1. Psal 105. 16. when this stay is gone our lives fall quickly or slip away When this staffe is broken the thread of life breaks too Man goes by the bread in his belly more than by the staffe in his hand Except bread hold us by the arme and stay us up down we fall Famine is so like or so near or so certaine a harbinger of death that the text puts them together In famine he shall redeem thee from death Famine is numbred among the sore judgements of God if it be not the sorest judgement Ezek. 6. 11. Jer. 24. 10. And therefore redemption from it is one of his choicest outward mercies We may collect how sore a judgement famine is by the effects of it First It causeth faintnesse and madnesse Gen. 47. 13. Secondly Hunger burneth Deut. 32. 24. That word is not used in the Hebrew except here Famine kindles a fire in the bowels When the naturall heat hath no fewell put to it to feed upon it feeds upon nature Sutable to this is the description of lamenting Jeremiah in the famine of Jerusalem Their faces are blacker then a cole Lam. 4. 8. and Chap. 5. 10. Our skin was black like an Oven because of the terrible famine Both the coal and the oven contract their blacknesse from burning heat Thirdly It causeth pining and languishment Lam. 4. 9. Fourthly Shame and howling Joel 1. 11. Fifthly Rage and cursing Isa 8. 21. Lastly It breaks all the bonds of nature and eats up all relations Read that dreâ—dfull threatning Deut. 25. 53 54. and that dreadfull example Lam. 4. 10. Tender mothers eating their children Famine eats up our bowells of compassion and then it eats our bowells by relation And which comes yet nearer Famine is such a devourer that it causeth man to devoure himself The Prophet describes a man in a fit of Famine snatching on the right hand and yet hungry eating on the left and yet unsatisfied when he cannot fill his belly abroad he comes home to himself and makes bold with his own flesh for food Every man eating the flesh of his own arme Isa 9. 20. We read of many great Famines in Scripture and withall of Gods care to redeem his people from them Abraham Gen. 12. who at the call of God denied himself and came out of his own into a strange Land was presently entertained with Famine One would have thought God should have made him good chear and have spread a plentifull table for him causing his cup to over-flow while he was in a strange Land and a meer stranger there yet he met with a famine but the Lord redeemed him from that famine by directing him to Aegypt that famous store house for his people Jacob and his sons were redeemed from famine in the same Egypt afterward their house of Bondage It is a precious comfort to have bread in such a promise as this when there is none upon the Board God takes care for the bodies of his people as well as for their souls he is the father of both and the provider for both And while we remember what sore afflictions have bin upon many Nations and people by famine While we remember Samaria's Famin 2 Kings 6. Jerusalems Famin Lam. 4. and that storied by Josephus in the Roman siege of that City While we remember the late famins in Germany and the present one in many parts of Ireland While we consider that the Sword threatens this Nation with famine Surely we should labour to get under such a promise as this is that we may plead with God in the midst of all scarcity and wants Lord thou hast promised to redeem Thine in famin from death There is no dearth in Heaven And whatsoever dearth is on Earth the plenty that is in Heaven can supply it How sad would it be if your poor children should come about you crying for bread and you have none to give them How much sadder would it be if your poor children should be made your bread and ground to pieces between your teeth as in the famin of Jerusalem In such a time to look up to God in the strength of this promise will be a feast to us though we should perish in the famin But how doth God redeem from famin First The Lord can make the barrell of meal and the oyle that is in the cruze though but little yet to hold out and last while the time of famine lasts Such a miracle redeemed the poor widdow from death in that great famin 1 Kings 17. Secondly He can redeem by lengthning one meal to many days Elijah went forty dayes in the strength of one dinner Man liveth not by bread without God but man may live by God without bread Thirdly Not onely are the stores of the creatures his and the fruitfulnesse of the earth at his command but if he please he can open the windows of Heaven he can bring bread out of the clouds he can make the winds his Caterers to bring in Quails and abundance of provision for his people Thus also he can redeem his from death in the time of famine Or fourthly He can doe it in a way of ordinary providence by making the land yeeld it's naturall increase and by giving strength to the Earth to bring forth plentifully for the use of man Fifthly While the common judgement lasts he can make some speciall provision for his And make a redemption of division as he did in another case for his people Exod. 8. 22. And lastly We may improve this promise not only for redemption from death in famine but for plenty of consolation though we should die in famine When the bread is quite taken away from your Table your hearts may feed upon such a word as this as upon marrow and fatnesse Christ can feast your soules when your bodies are ready to starve he can fill your spirits with joy and sweetnesse when there is nothing but leannesse in your cheeks Thus the Prophet Habakkuk triumphs in God Habak 3. 17. Though the Fig-tree shall not blessom neither shall fruit be in the Vines the labour of the Olive shall faile and the fields shall yeeld no meat The flock shall be cut off from the fold
to live when he dies or he is at the end of his naturall race before he hath set one step in his spiritual Gray haires are the shame and should be the sorrow of old-age when they are not found in the way of righteousnesse From the former branch of this verse observe First To have a comely buriall to come to the grave with honour is a great blessing It was threatned upon Jehojakim the sonne of Josiah as a curse That he should have the buriall of an Asse and be drag'd and cast out beyond the gates of the City Jer. 22. 19. That man surely had lived like a beast whom God threatn'd by name that when he died he should be used as a beast though we know the bodies of many of the servants of God have been scattered and may be scattered upon the face of the earth like dung The dead bodies as the complaint is Psal 79. 2. of thy servants have they given to be meat to the fowles of the heaven the flesh of thy Saints to the beasts of the earth Yet to them even then there is this blessing reserved beyond the blessing of a buriall they are ever laid up in the heart of God he takes care of them he embalmes them for immortality when the remains of their mortality are troden under foot or rot upon a dunghill Secondly observe A godly man is a volunteer in his death He commeth to the grave A wicked man never dies willingly Though he sometime die by his own hand yet he never dies with his own will Miserable man is sometimes so over-prest with terrours and horrours of conscience so worne out with the trouble of living that he hastens his own death Yet he Comes not to his grave willingly but is drag'd by necessity He thrusts his life out of doores with a violent hand but it never goes out with a cheerfull mind He is often unwilling to live but he is never willing to die Death is welcome to him because life is a burden to him Only they come to the grave who by faith have seene Christ lying in the grave and perfuming that house of corruption with his owne most precious body which saw no corruption Observe thirdly To live long and to die in a full age is a great blessing Old Eli had this curse pronounced upon his family 1 Sam. 2. 31. There shall not be an old man in thy house Gray haires are a crown of honour when they are found in the way of righteousnesse It is indeed infinitely better to be full of grace than to be full of daies but to be full of daies and full of grace too what a venerable spectacle is that To be full of years and full of faith full of good workes full of the fruits of righteousnesse which are by Christ How comely and beautifull beyond all the beauty and comelinesse of youth is that Such are truly said to have filled their daies Those daies are fill'd indeed which are full of goodnesse When a wicked man dies he ever dies emptie and hungrie he dies empty of goodnesse and he dies hungry after daies That place before mentioned of Abraham Gen. 25. 8. is most worthy our second thoughts He dies in a good old-age an old man and full so the Hebrew we reade full of years As a man that hath eaten and drunke plentifully is full and desires no more So he dyed an old-man and full that is he had lived as much as he desired to live he had his fill of living when he died And therefore also it may be called a full age because a godly man hath his fill of living but a wicked man let him live never so long is never full of daies never full of living he is as hungry and as thirsty as a man may speake after more time and daies when he is old as he was when he was a child faine he would live hill He must needs thinke it is good being here who knowes of no better being or hath Impij quamvis diu vivant tamen non implent dies suos quia spem in rehus temporarijs collocantes perpetua vita in hoc mundo peâ—frui vellent no hopes of a better It is a certaine truth He that hath not a tast of eternity can never be satisfied with time He that hath not some hold of everlasting life is never pleased to let goe this life therefore he is never full of this life It is a most sad thing to see an old man who hath no strength of body to live yet have a strong mind to live Abraham was old and full he desired not a day or an houre longer His soul had never an empty corner for time when he died He had enough of all but of which he could never have enough and yet had enough and all as soon as he had any of it eternity In that great restitution promised Isa 65. 20. this is one priviledge There shall be no more there an infant of daies nor an old man that hath not fil'd his daies There is much controversie about the meaning of those words The digression would be too long to insist upon them Only to the present point thus much that there is such a thing as an Infant of daies and an old man that hath not fill'd his daies An infant of daies may be taken for an old child that is an old man childish or a man of many years but few abilities A man whose hoary head ann wrinkled face speak fourscoure yet his foolish actions and simple carriage speake under fourteene An old man that hath not fill'd his daies is conceived to be the same man in a different character An old man fils not his dayes First When he fulfils not the duty nor reaches the end for which he lived to old-age That man who hath lived long and done little hath left empty daies upon the record of his life And when you have writ downe the daies the months and yeares of his life his storie 's done the rest of the book is but a continued Blanke nothing to be remembred that he hath done or nothing worth the remembrance Now as an old man fils not his daies when he satisfies not the expectation of others so in the second place his daies are not fill'd when his own expectations are not satisfied that is when he having lived to be old hath yet young fresh desires to live when he finds his mind empty though his body be so full of daies that it can hold no longer nor no more He that is in this sense an infant of dayes and an old man not having filled his dayes though he be an hundred yeares old when he dies yet he dies as the Prophet concludes in that place accursed he comes not to his grave under the blessing of this promise in the text in a full age Lastly observe Every thing is beautifull in its season He shall come to his grave like a
griefe either through want of power or through the restraint of power both wayes griefe increases Some who have been dying Apud SophocleÌ„ electra faelicem vocat Niobem cui lugere filiorum interâ—tum permissum est cum id sibi matris crudelitas negaverita upon cruell rackes or under bloudie tortures have yet esteemed this beyond all their tortures that they might not freely speak out their minds and sorrows to have their mouthes stopt was worse to them then to have their breath stopt It is a pain to be kept from speaking To command a man to swallow or eat downe his words is next to the command of eating and swallowing downe his own flesh The cruelty of a disease may gagge a man as well as the cruelty of a Tyrant Such is my griefe that my words are swallowed up JOB Chap. 6. Vers 4 5 6 7. For the arrowes of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit the terrours of God doe set themselves in aray against me Doth the wilde Asse bray when he hath grasse Or loweth the Ox over his fodder Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt Or is there any taste in the white of an Egge The things that my soule refused to touch are as my sorrowfull meate JOB continueth his reply and his complaint He had exprest the greatnesse of his calamity by comparing it with the sand of the sea for weightinesse now he proceeds in the same sad aggravation by comparing it to an arrow for sharpenesse and to an army for terriblenesse For the arrows of the Almighty are within me The terrours of the Lord set themselves in array against me We are in this verse to open a quiver full of poysoned arrowes and to marshall an army full of divine terrours The arrows of the Almighty c. An Arrow is a deadly engine so called in the Hebrew from its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sagitta à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dimidiavit discidit qaod scindit rem percussaâ— effect cutting or wounding Being taken properly it is an instrument shot out of a Bow of wood or iron either for sport or fight But here figuratively And arrows in Scripture are taken in a figure divers wayes First For the word of God Psal 4. 5. Thine arrowes are sharpe in the heart of the Kings enemies whereby the people fall under thee That is thy words are sharpe and peircing whereby thou convincest and beatest downe sin and sinners either converting or destroying them The Rider on the white Horse going out conquering and to conquer who is conceived to be Truth or the word of God triumphing is described with a Bowe in his hand Rev. 6. 2. Secondly Arrows are put for the bitter and reproachfull words of men Ps 64. 3. 4. Ps 120. 4. They bend their bowes to shoot their arrows even bitter words Thirdly For any evill or mischievous purpose which a man intends or aimes to the hurt of his brother Psal 58. 7. When he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrowes let them be as cut in peeces Bending of the bow notes the preparing and setting of mischiefe The arrow shot out of this bent bowe is the mischiefe acted and finished Psal 2. The wicked bend their bowe they make ready their arrow upon the string they prepare mischiefs against their neighbour Fourthly For any kind of affliction judgement or punishment Zech. 9. 14. And the Lord shall be seene over them and his arrow shall goe forth as the lightning Particularly 1. For Famine Ezek. 5. 16. When I shall send upon them the evill arrowes of famine 2 For Pestilence Psal 91. 5. Thou shalt not be affraid for the terrour by nigbt nor for the arrow that fleeth by day What the terrour and the arrow are is explained in the next verse which is not an addition of other evils from which safety is promised but an explication of the same The pestilence that walks in darknesse and the destruction being the same pestilence wasting at noone-day The meaning of all is Thou shalt be kept or antidoted against the plague both night and day 3. Those thunder-bolts and haile-stones which God sends out of the Magazine of heaven and discharges in his wrath against wicked men are called the arrows of his indignation 2 Sam. 22. 15. Psal 144. 6. Hab. 3. 11. compared with Josh 10. 11. Further the arrows of God signifie inward afflictions troubles of the mind and spirit God often shoots an arrow which pierces into the very soule It was said of Joseph The iron entred into his soule And it is in this sense very usuall for the arrowes of God to enter into the soules of his people Psal 38. 1 2. O Lord rebuke me not in Thy wrath c. For Thine arrows sticke fast in me Where stuck they He meanes it not of his body haply the skin of that was not razed There is an arrow which touches not the sides but stickes fast in the soule of a childe of God Understand it here of the arrowes of affliction and those either externall outward calamities fastning in the flesh of Job or internall galling him to the soule and spirit Therefore he saith The Haret lateri Leâ—halis aruÌ„do arrows of the Almighty are within me the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit These arrowes are described in the text two waies 1. From the Efficient cause The arrowes of the Almighty They drink up my spirit Effect 2 They are the arrowes of the Almighty Shaddai Of which word we have spoken in the former Chapter verse 17th at large it being one of the names of God noting out his power and omnipotence There he cals them the chastnings of Shaddai the Almighty And here The Arrowes of Shaddai the Almighty 1. Because they are sent out from him His arme bends and draws the bow And 2. Because of the mighty force and strength in which they are sent home to the marke The strength in which those arrowes come and the depth of the wound which they make speak an Almighty arme drawing the bow None but an Almighty arme can shoot an arrow thus deep up to the feathers in the soul and spirit It is not in the power of all the tyrants in the world to strik or shoot thus deep The soule of a Saint hath such armour upon it as no bodily weapon can enter And therefore the Martyrs when all was wound in their flesh spoke and triumph'd because their spirits were whole and untoucht Onely a spirit can shoot arrowes into our spirits We finde it frequent among heathen Poets and others to describe Poetae deos arcu jaâ—ulis sagittisque armant intelligentes quas inserunt mortalibus clades quae feriunt eminus quod propriâ—m Dei videtur Bold their gods arm'd with bowes and arrowes And in that they shadowed their power to wound the minds of men and to wound them suddenly and secretly The Scripture describes the true God
thus furnished with his Quiver of arrowes and his bowe Psal 7. 13. He ordaineth his arrowes against the persecutors God â—ath an arow for the wounding of his enemies and an arrow for the wounding of his friends He hath arrowes for both and both are wounded and both are wounded with poyson'd fierie arrowes yet with a vast difference these are wounded and poyson'd that they may be healed and they are wounded and poyson'd that they may be destroyed Arrowes are 1. Swift instruments 2 Secret 3. Sharpe 4. Killing I will make mine arrowes drunke without bloud Deut. 32. 42. They are instruments drawing bloud and drinking bloud even unto drunkenesse afflictions are like arrowes in all these properties 1 Afflictions often come very speedily with a glance as an arrow quick as a thought 2. Afflictions come suddenly unexpectedly an arrow is upon a man afore he is aware so are afflictions Though Job saith The thing he feared came upon him he looked for this arrow before it came yet usually afflictions are unlooked for guests they thrust in upon us when we dreame nâ—t of them 3. They come with little noise an arrow is felt before or as soon as it is heard an arrow flies silently and secretly stealing upon and wounding a man unobserved and unseen Lastly all afflictions are sharpe and in their owne nature killing and deadly That any have good from them is from the grace of God not from their nature The poyson whereof drinketh up my spirits There 's the effect of his afflictions Some reade it The furie Quarum indignatio Vulg. Furor Sept. Fervor Tâ—gur pluâ—iâ—â— VenenuÌ„ or anger whereof drinkes up my spirit It may be called the fury and anger of an arrow because the arrow is often sent in fury and in anger We reade also of the fire of an arrow or of a fiery arrow Ps 76. 4. There brakest thou the arrows of the bow Arrows even firing themselves by the swiftnesse of their motion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sagitta ignita incalescens motu The word of the Text is derived from a roote signifying to waxe very hot and in the Nowne heate Hence by a Metaphor it signifies anger because angry men waxe hot Anger is breathed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caluit incaluit ira sic dicta quod iraâ—â— inca â—escunt fire Isai 42. 25. Therefore he hath powred upon them the furie of his anger and the strength of battell and it hath set him on fire round about Fire and fury are neare in name and in nature When fury burns within fire quickly burns without and so by a Metonymie the same word signifies poison the reason is because poisons heat and inflame poysons inflame the flesh and as it were set the body on fire or because an angry man like an angry Serpent seemes to breath out fire or spet poyson Paul before his conversion breathed threatnings fire and sword against the Church Act. 9. 1. And therefore either way the word is well rendred The anger whereof or the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit And in the Greek the same word signifies anger and Psal 58. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. poyson because of that inflammation which is about the heart of a man throughly angry In these words Job seemes to allude to the custome of cruell savage men who when they pursued their enemies with deadly Venenatis gâ—avida sagitâ—is pharetra Hor. Qui mortis saevo gem nent ut vulnera causas Omnia vipereo spicula Felle linunt Ovid. l. 1. de ponto Mos erat persarum ut ponant venenum serpentis in sagittis suis R. Solo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hatred and would wound them to death used to dip the head of their arrows the top of their speares or the point of their swords or whatsoever weapon they fought with in poison that so every wound might be a death The poison of such an arrow speare or sword drinks up the spirit and corrupts the bloud presently Some poison strikes the heart almost as soon as the weapon strikes the arme Job compares the arrowes which God shot into him not to ordinary arrowes which kill only by piercing but to poison'd arrowes which kill by insecting As if God had set himselfe to the utmost to powre out the fiercenesse of his indignation upon him not only shooting an arrow but an arrow dipt in poison such an arrow as the most barbarous and cruell men shoot at their most professed and mortall enemies Drinketh up my spirit Poison gets quickly to the spirit and there drinks poison is subtle and spiritfull and therefore if I may so speake incorporates with that which is most subtle in man his spirit Flat pal'd grosse or dreggish liquor will not quench the fiery thirst of poison it drinkes nothing but pure spirits yet some reade It drinketh up my blood but this amounts to the same sencâ— for the spirit of a living creature is in the blood the spirits swim in the blood There are different opinions about this spirit or what we are to understand by it First Some take spirit here for the breath or for the act of Toâ— confossus vulneâ—ibus â—ix respiâ—are valeo Aquin. breathing As if he had said I have received so many wounds by these poisoned arrowes that I begin to faint and cannot draw my breath These arrowes sup up my spirit and by wounding stop my breath Secondly Others understand it more generally taking spirit for his strength and vigour spirits are so strong that they are put for strength The Aegyptians are men and not God and their horses flesh and not spirit Isa 31. 3. that is they are not strength but weaknesse So here it drinketh up my spirit that is the strength that is in me all the powers and abilities of body and Dolores mei â—â—c penitus enervant atque exhausto robore deâ—iciunt Pined soule are wasted and consumed These calamities spend upon my spirit where the stock of my strength is laid up or which is the lock wherein my strength lies A third apprehends that by spirit he meanes his judgement reason and understanding as if he had said showers of arrowes and troubles come so thick upon me that they even darken my mind and drink up the strength of my understanding Hence I may seeme to speake distractedly unadvisedly weakly I have not that spirit to quicken that strength of reason to judge which formerly I had the paines of my body disable and distemper my mind And therefore if I have spoken any thing below what I ought it is because I am cast below what I was The terrours of God doe set themselves in array against me Arrowes and terrors are the same thing in a different cloathing of words Or the arrow is the affliction it selfe and the terrour is the effect or consequent of it The word here used for
who walke in a spheare below beasts who are more foolish and ignorant then a beast Take heed of complaining without cause if beasts are satisfied with what is agreeable to nature man should be so much more When Nature hath not enough Grace hath all Grace will not bray or low when there is no grasse no fodder surely then they have a scarcity of grace in their hearts who bray and low over their grass and fodder Spirituall accommodations will make a good heart forget temporall incommodities and it is reason they should God promiseth Isa 30. 20. Though I give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction yet thy teachers shall no more be removed into a corner but thine eyes shall see thy teachers As if he had said though your bodies are coursely fed yet your souls shall be feasted Good cheare shal daily be served into them both at your eyes and eares Thine eyes shall see thy teachers and thou shalt heare a voice behind thee Thy sight and thy hearing shall be refreshed with heavenly Messengers and good news from heaven Now besides this promise exprest there is a duty implyed in the text namely that because their spirits were so well fed therfore they must not complain though their flesh come short in feeding The bread of affliction should be pleasant to us while we eate Gospel-dainties In these times God gives more plenty of spirituall food than formerly yet many complaine because their naturall bread is shortned Remember beasts complaine not when they have what is suitable to nature then let not Christians complaine when they have what is suitable to grace though nature have but spare diet and short commons Vers 6. Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt He proceeds to another similitude It is as if Job had said Nature will complaine when it wants meat yea oftentimes nature will complaine when it wants pleasant meat Nature is not pleased if it want a graine of salt if it have not sauce it is not satisfied Therefore surely I am to be borne with and not to be charged thus deeply who complaine when you offer me that which is unsavoury when you give me meat without salt without sauce without any thing to render it either pleasing to my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Est quod debito condimento temperamento caret sive in defectu sive in excessu Sales pro facetijs quod sint quasi condimentum sermonis Literae Sparsae sale humanitatis Gicer ad Artic. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Est prepositio absque fine Sed quidam accipiunt pro nomine composito ex Min quod est ex beli à Balab quod est veâ—â—stâ—s Hâ—nc locam reddunt Infaluatum ex vetustate salis potius quam insipidum absque salae Bold Job rem prae horrore prorsus impossibiliem vult significare Numquid comodetur c. At impossibile omnino non est comedere insipiduÌ„ sine sale carnes autem corruptae ex vetustate salismanducars nulla tenus possunt Bold pallate or easie to my digestion Unlesse I were sencelesse like a stock or a stone how should I not disrelish and disgust saplesse saltlesse how much more bitter things Can that which is unsavorie The word which we render unsavorie is the same used Chap. 1. ver 22. which wee there opened at large Job did not charge God with folly or foolishly or he spake not unsavorily of God There is a threefold application of that word in Scripture 1. To unpleasant meats 2. To untempered morter 3. To indiscreet speeches which want the seasoning either of wit wisdome or of truth Lam. 2. 14. Thy Prophets have seene vaine and foolish things for thee Lying visions without truth vain words without wisdome So here Can that which is unsavourie be eaten without salt Seasoning makes unsavory things sweet As salt gives a relish to meat so wisdome and wit to words And therefore the Latines expresse wise witty speeches pleasant discourse a good grace in speaking and a salt by the same word There is another Interpretation of that word which we render b without for some understand it not as a Preposition governing the word Salt but as a compound word noting the oldnesse or stalenesse of meat wherein the very salt it selfe is putrified and so whereas we say Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt They translate thus Can that which is unsavoury through the corruption of salt be eaten Or can that meat be eaten which having been salted is now putrified Salt which keeps meat from corruption may in time be overcome with the corruption of the meat And a learned Interpreter gives the reason why he rather chuseth this interpretation of the word because saith he it carries a stronger Emphasis with it Job speakes as of a thing in a manner unpossible to be done Now it is very possible to eat unsavoury meat without salt A good appetite will downe with unpleasant food and hunger will dispence much with Cookery But when season'd or salted meat corrupts and putrifies whose stomach doth not loath and abhorre it Therefore it is a fuller and a more flat deniall to say Can that which is unsavoury thorough the corruption of salt be eaten then Then to say Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt Or is there any taste in the white of an Egge These words are much obscured by most Translators and have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 found almost as many expositions as Expositours Some translate thus Is there any taste in that which being taken brings death So the Vulgar Doubtlesse a man hath but little pleasure to taste An potest aliquis gustare quod gustatum affert mortem Vulg. that which tasted will be his death So the words are an aggravation of the unsavourinesse of those things which were offered him by his friends to touch or take them was to take poison or to drinke in a deadly cup. To cleare up this Exposition they make the Hebrew word Challamuth which we translate Egge a compound from Muth signifying to die whence Maueth death and Chala signifying froth or fome or from Chali signifying infirmity As if the word having these parts put together had this sence The froth and foame of death Or The infirmitie of death That is deadly froth on deadly infirmity As if he had said is there any pleasing taste in the spettle of dying men who we know often fome and froth at their mouthes when they lie drawing on Others thus Is there any taste in the spettle of a healthy man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanus confortatus convaluit The word Rir which we translate white signifies spettle or froth As when David acted the mad-man before the King of Gath it is said that he let his spettle fall downe upon his beard 1 Sam. 21. 13. And the word which we translate Egge signifies Health and the verbe to be healthy Chap. 39. 4.
my petition might come He had sent up a request a prayer a prayer for death and he thought his prayer too long gone upon that message Prayer was not quick enough in its returne from Heaven every houre was a yeare till he heard of it therefore saith he O that some body would give me that my request might come back againe unto me The word whereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he expresses his request notes a very strong desire a strong cry a strong prayer implying that Job had sent up mighty requests or strong cries about it As it is said of our Lord Christ Heb. 5. That in the dayes of his flesh he sent up strong cryes unto God who was able to deliver him Christ sent up strong cryes to be delivered from death and Job sent up strong cryes for death A word of the same root signifies the grave the grave is a craving a begging thing the grave is never satisfied as it is in the Proverbs The grave saith not it is enough And the grave is therefore exprest by a word that signifies to desire or request or to ask a thing importunately because the grave hath a mouth as it were continually open to ask and beg and cry out for more morsells it consumeth all and is never full such a desire Job put forth for death And that God would grant me the thing that I long for It is a repetition of the same desire in other words What it is to long hath been opened in the third Chapter ver 21. Who long for death Here Job reneweth the same suit againe O that I might have the thing that I long for or the thing which I expect with great expectation and vehemency of affection I shall not stay upon it But only give you the generall sence a little varied In this passage Job shewes himselfe assured that his comforts should not end though his life ended before he was restored to earthly comforts And he thus seemes to answer Eliphaz who had made large promises of outward felicity I am not stayed at all in Job expectaâ—ionem proximam facit mortem tanquam eam quae patiendi ultimam quietis ac faeli â—itatis primam representet liâ—â—â—â— my desires to die because I may possibly live in greater worldly honour and fullnesse then ever I enjoyed All that is in the creature is below wy longing I have not a sweet tooth after worldly dainties I shall not envy any who cut-live me to enjoy them let them divide my portion whatsoever it may be among them also The thing which I long for is death not for it selfe but as that which will bring me to the last of my ill dayes and the first of my best Jobs thoughts were in a higher forme then his friends They thought a golden offer of riches would have made him a gogge to live But Jobs heart lived above these even upon the riches of eternall life To enjoy which he even longs for temporall destruction and cutting off I have spoken at large in the third Chapter concerning the lawfulnesse of such a request and how farre Job might be approved in it therefore I need not discusse it here Only observe in generall That A praying soule is an expecting soule Job had prayed and prayed earnestly and though it was but a prayer to die yet he lived in the expectation of an answer When prayer is sent up unto God then the soul looks for it's return Prayer is as seed sowne After this spirituall husbandry the soul waits for the precious fruits of Heaven Psal 62. 1. My soule waiteth upon God and Psal 85. 8. I will hearken what the Lord God will say Job had sent up his request and now he was hearkening for an answer O that I might have the thing that I looke for Habbakkuk in the second of that prophecie verse 1. having prayed about the great concernments of those times resolves I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the Tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me They who send Embassadours to forreigne Princes waite for a returne Thus it is with the soul having put up it's request and sent an Embassie to God Observe Secondly Answer of our prayer is the grant of God Nothing stands between us and our desires but his will If he signe our petition no creature can hinder us of our expectation Observe Thirdly God often keepes the petitions of his servants by him unanswered Observe Fourthly The returne of prayer is the souls solace and satisfaction As cold water to a thirsty soule so is good news from that farre Country Prov. 25. 25. O that my request might come and O that I might have the thing that I long for Would you know what his request was He explains that in the 9 â—h verse and a man would wonder that one should be so very earnest to have such a request Many have prayed to God to save and deliver them but how unnaturall doth this prayer seeme to be cut off and destroyed Yet the thing which Job doth more then pray for long for is this That it would please God to destroy him and that he would let loose his hand and cut him off That it would please God to destroy me Some reade That he who hath begun would make an end in destroying of me For the word signifies both to be willing to doe a thing and likewise to begin to doe a thing therefore they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Significat liâ—ere velle inchoare acquiescere in re quapiam eamque tota voluntate amplecti make out the sense thus That he who hath begun thus to destroy me to teare and consume me would finish his worke and make an end of me As if Job had said I am already neare unto destruction a borderer upon the grave God hath begun to destroy me I would have him to goe on and perfect that worke As in workes of mercy Deut. 32. 4. He is the Rocke and his worke is perfect When he beginnes to deliver he will make an end So likewise when he beginnes to destroy he can make an end too Job desires that his afflictions might be perfected to the destruction of his dying body and that mercy might begin in the triumphs of his soule But rather take it in the other sense as we render it To be willing to doe a thing Even that it would please God or even that God would be willing to destroy me As if he had said I find as it were a kind of unwillingnesse in God to make an end of me his bowels seeme to yerne over me he seemes yet to be upon the dispute whether to cut me quite off or no now I even desire that God would lay aside that his tendernesse and compassion that he would determine and resolve to destroy me that he would acquiesce and fully rest satisfied in that resolution The word here used to destroy notes to
deseruerit An hac amicitiae jus c. ut nunc ego à vobis audio Merc. being taken for reproach and harsh dealing and so the meaning is made out with a kind of admiration thus Should reproaches be cast upon a man that is afflicted from his friend should he be told that he hath forsaken the fear of the Almighty and that wisdome is driven from him Do you think I am not able to discover your dealings should you go about to reproach me in this condition should you tell me thus harshly that I am departed from the fear of God Is this thinke you a fair carriage towards me when you saw me melted and afflicted you should have given me sweet and comfortable words not reproachfull words Job according to this sence sound his friends dealing with him as the Jews with Christ to whom being a thirst they gave vinegar to drink Or as David in the type speaks they gave me gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink here seems to be a like meaning You have given me reproaches in stead of comforts slandered me instead of refreshing me and is this the course you should take As Absalom said to Hushai 2 Sam. 16. 17. Is this thy kindnesse to thy friend when he seemed to fall away from David unto him So Iob might speak to Eliphaz Is this thy kindnesle to thy friend to load him with reproaches when you see him over-laden with afflictions A fourth thus Shall he that consumes by the reproaches of his friend forsake the fear of the Almighty The meaning whereof is this Doe Qui tabescit ab amico suo proâ—ro etiam timorem omnipotentis retinquet Foelices soli videntur sapere miseri desipere you think that all men whose riches and comforts are lost have lost their reason and judgement And doe you think that they who are reproacht by men doe not fear God The world commonly judges none wise but they that are rich And that they fear God most who rejoyce most But my practise and example I doubt not shall consute that opinion and give all the world to know that a man consumed and spent by the reproaches of men and the stroakes of God may yet fear God and keep up his stock to the full in holinesse and in wisdom Contabescens charitatem non tam dicitur erga guem socij charitas contabescit quam quuÌ„ per sociâ— charitatem preposter ram fcilicet sine scientia exercitam contabescit Cocc Fifthly This melting is referred not to the pitty of his friends but to Job melting or consuming by that which they called pity Thus. Shall he be charged to have forsaken the fear of the Almighty who consumes by the charity of his friends that is who is more afflicted by the counsels which his friends in love give him then by all his other afflictions As the mercies of the wicked are alwayes cruel Prov. 12. 10. So sometime the mercies of the godly are especially when they give preposterous and indiscreet counsel and this interpretation suites well with the title which Iob gave his friends Miserable comforters are ye all Chap. 16. 2. That is you have done your good will to comfort me but God hath not shewed you the way nor given you the tongue of the learned that yee might know how to minister a word in season to him that is weary and so notwithstanding all your good intentions ye have added to my miseries A sixth thus * Hunc dissolutum prae doloribus ab amico ejus exhibenda misericordia dereliquit eundem dissolutum timor Saddai dere inquit Horum duorum versiculorum terminos ita digerimus ut in posteriori vâ—x dissolutus sit mascu ini generis accusativi casus â—egaturque à verbo dere inquit cujus duo nominativi sint misericordia timor Saddai ille verò dissolutâ—s sit Job loquente de seipso in tertia persona Apparet ex hoc explâ—atione â—um nominativo ut in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 31. 1. Ezr. 1. 5 Coc. Dissoluto à socio ejus benignitas est sc impendenda alioqui timorem Omnipotentis deserit Drus Vau apud Hebraeos varie sumitur interdum pro a ioqui That pity which friends should shew this man melted with afflictions hath forsaken him but hath the fear of the Almighty forsaken him also The meaning whereof may be made out to this effect As if Job had said thus You plainly see that there is no help in me for my pains and uncessant troubles have quite bereaved me of all that strength upon which I should naturally subsist And as for you my friends that pitty and compassion which you should afford a man thus melted with sorrows is quite fled and gone from your hearts and lips But what then Is the fear of God departed also from this sorrowful soul It is confessed strength is gone from my body and I see pitty towards me is gone from your soules O how miserable then were I if I should goe from my God and forsake his fear You shall see that though the pitty of men hath forsaken me a melted man yet as you object the fear of God hath not A seventh reading varying from ours only in a word gives the sence very fair and easie * to him that is afflicted or melted pitty should be shewed by his friend otherwise he forsakes the fear of the Almighty Whereas we say but he forsaketh this translation saith Otherwise he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty that is if a man do not shew pitty to his friend in affliction that man sheweth that he hath forsaken the fear of the Almighty Thus as I hinted at the entrance of this passage Interpreters are much divided about the Grammatical construction of these words There is a truth in every sence given and their variety may teach us to adore the fulness of the holy language which leads our thoughts so many wayes as also to be humbled for our own blindness of mind and narrowness of heart to see or comprehend the mind of God fairly written to us But I take the last to be the clearest meaning of Job in this passage and that to which most of the former are reducible and therefore staying upon this sence I shall give two or three observations from it First It is the common duty of friends and the speciall duty of godly friends to pitty and help one another in affliction I say to pitty and to help for that is the compasse of the word we have not done our duty in pittying the distressed unless we come to real assisting them We satisfie not our obligation to the bond and Law of love by giving comfortable words As that faith which is alone without works doth not justifie us so that pitty which is alone without works doth not justifie our faith such empty pitty will goe for little better then cruelty and not
vain words are no words they are but wind Hence those prophane ones in Jeremy who said the true Prophets had belied the Lord and were but wind adde presently And the word is not in them That is the words of these Prophets are no words Indeed the Lord answers for his Prophets at the 14th verse telling the people because they had thus dishonoured his messengers that they should find those words which they accounted wind to be a fire Thus saith the Lord because ye speak this word behold I will make my words in thy mouth fire and this people wood and it shall devour them Whosoever esteems the word of God to be wind shall find it to be a fire and they who will not be taught by it shall be consumed by it But to the point in hand we see in that Scripture vain words are windie words and windie words as are no words The Prophets as they supposed were wind and thence they inferre the word is not in them That is their words have no substance strength or power at all in them So Hos 12. 1. Ephraim feedeth on wind and followeth after the East-wind What was the wind that Ephraim fed upon Some vain words some promises he had from the creature to be delivered some hopes raised by the word of man who is a wind therefore his feeding upon those hopes was but a feeding upon wind there was no ground or strength to make those words good So the next words interpret He daily increaseth lyes Such words are by the learned called bubbles And why Bullatus nugas Pers Sat 5. utpoâ—e similia bullis vento plenis bubbles Because a bubble upon the water is only filled with wind toucht it and it is nothing These words have nothing in them but the breath of the speaker Unlesse the spirit of reason fills our mouths we speak nothing but our breath or as we phrase it in our language we doe but vapour The Apostle Peter describes such 2 Epist 2. 18. They speak great swelling words of vanity And the Apostle Jude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uses the same expression in the 16th verse of his Epistle Their mouth speaketh great swelling words that is words greatly swelled with vanity Or swel'd as the flesh swels by the gathering of corruption and ill humours The greatnesse of these words was their disease and not their nature Wise men speak great things and fools speak great words Secondly Observe That windie empty words will never either convince or convert Such words doe no work they are wind and they passe away like wind without any impression upon the hearers They trouble the eare but touch not the heart When the noise of them is past all is past They are a sound and besides that a nothing Windy meats are not nourishing for the body neither are windy words for the soul Some knowledge doth not build up but puffe up 1 Cor. 8. 1. and that 's all the knowledge which such words can breed when they breed any Thirdly observe We are apt to judge the words of those that are greatly afflicted to be but vain windy words And we are ready to conclude they complaine more then they need When the Israelites groaning under the pressures of that bondage sent to Pharaoh for some abatement of their burdens we will not diminish the tale of the bricks only let straw be given us no saith Pharaoh Exod. 5. 17. They are idle let more work be laid upon the people that they may labour therein and let them not regard vain words He resolved to deal wisely with them and therefore must count them mad their persons were near Jobs condition and their words were fully under the same censure Fourthly hence note That it is very sinfull to esteem the words of the afflicted to be but wind It was great uncharitablenesse in Jobs friends thus to expound and glosse the text of his complaints We should heare a man in affliction as if every word were drenched and steeped in the sorrowes of his heart and take every sentence as coming bloudy from his wounded spirit Lastly observe how Job describes his own estate he was as a man desperate not utterly desperate for in another place he professes in highest confidence that though God kill him yet he will trust in him yet desperate he was in regard of outward help or temporal succour A godly man in affliction may sometime think his case desperate and remedilesse Wicked men resolve in the Psalme There is no help for him in his God and a good man under a cloud of temptation may say Surely there is no help for me in my God that is I see not which way I shall be helped I have no assurance no evidence that God will help me Not that he doubts the power of God to help him But the providence of God seemes to speak that he will not I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul saith holy David Heman looked upon himself as a man that had no strength free among the dead Psal 88. 5. As if he had got a discharge from the service of this world and was enfranchiz'd a Citizen of the grave where all are free As to note that only in passage It is said of Azariah being smitten with leprosie and so put from the exercise of the government which was a civil death that he dwelt in a several house or in a house of freedome 2 Kin. 15. 5. Verse 27. Yea you overwhelm the fatherless and you digg a pit for your friend After he had convinced them of their uncharitableness in accounting his words light and windie he shewes them how they dealt with him what kind of words theirs were towards him their words were as swords their words were blowes every expression of theirs to his ear was an oppression upon his spirit Yea overwhelm the fatherless He sets forth their as he conceived cruelty against him by two things very odious both First the undoing of a fatherless child Secondly the digging of a pit not for an enemy but for a friend First Ye overwhelm the fatherless The Original is full of Emphasis word for word it may be translated thus You throw your selves upon the fatherlesse and so it is an allusion to hunters either to men when they hunt wilde beasts or to wilde beasts when they hunt their prey as soon as the hunter can reach the game hee overwhelmes it he casts himself down or layes all his strength upon it A dogge having caught the hare falls upon it and keeps it under Some conceive that expression Gen. 49 9. concerning Judah compared to a lion reaches this sense Judah is a Lions whelp from the prey my sonne thou art gone up he stooped down he couched as a lion and as an old Lion who shall rouse him up As if that that crouching and lying down were when he hath taken his prey who dares to stirre up a Lion when he hath his prey under
Peter Their speech bewrayeth them and you may smell the filth of their hearts by their breath Secondly observe from these words Is there iniquity in my tongue He whose heart is upright may know that he is upright When Job questions Is there iniquity in my tongue He resolves There is no iniquity in my tongue None of that iniquity which you charge me with I grant a believer hath not alwaies a sight of his own integrity and uprightness many a soule bears false witness against himself and oppresses his owne innocency yet for the most part sincerity hath a witness in it self and holiness carries a light by which it is seen to him that hath it An upright heart may know his own uprightness Thirdly in that Job is thus stiff in maintaining his own uprightness and in denying any iniquity to be in his tongue Observe It is a duty to maintain our own integrity and uprightness Job was upon it before and is now upon it again and he will be upon it afterward he never gives over justifying of himself against man though he had not a word to plead for himself against God Fourthly from the latter clause Cannot my taste discern perverse things Observe Reason distinguishes truth from falshood as the pallate distinguishes bitter from sweet Reason it is the souls-taster Princes have their tasters before they eat least there should be poison in the dish God hath given unto man a taster for his spiritual meat The Pope will not suffer the meat he provides and cooks to be tasted but will have it swallowed whole or else he will thrust it whole down their throats It is alike spiritual tyranny to starve souls and to cram them It is our duty when meat is set before us we are at a full table of knowledg where variety of doctrins and opinions are served in then to call for our taster We may be surfetted else if not poison'd There may be a wild guord among good hearbs in the pot and so death in the pot too therefore first taste then eat and digest A Christian hath a taste to discern error from truth why then should he be denied the use of it A woe is pronounced against those who offer unwholsome doctrin Isa 5. 20 Wo to those that call evil good good evil that put light for darkness and darkness for light that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter A like wo is due to them who will not give others leave to discern for themselves what is good or evil light or darkness bitter or sweet as good let another live for us as another taste for us And their misery will be little less then the woes of these men who cannot or will not take pains to distinguish when evill is called good and good evil when light is put for darkness and darkness for light when bitter is put for sweet and sweet for bitter or as Job speaks here whose taste cannot discern perverse things There are some whose taste is so far from discerning perverse things that it is easie to discern their taste is perverse for bring them wholesome true and savoury doctrine they say it is bitter or false doctrine Bring them false doctrin a lie a dream a fancie a meer humane invention dish out such provision before them that 's excellent chear This was the heaviest curse which God sent upon the Gentiles Rom. 1. 28. God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient that is to a mind void of judgement a mind that could not taste or distinguish things therfore the issue or effect was They did things which were not convenient as if a man not being able to judge of meats eats poyson or meats most contrary to his health and constitution It is a fearful judgement to be given up to an unapproving mind to a mind that cannot discern truth from false-hood the Oracles of God from the forgeries of men superstition from holy worship It is a sad thing to loose our spiritual senses Such as play the wantons with the word of God and walk below the truths they know are at last given up to a reprobate mind to a mind not able to know the word of truth and then they swallow down error for truth and suck in deadly poison like sweet pleasant wine The Apostle speaking of the difference of doctrins under the metaphor of meats saith Milk is for babes but strong meat is for them of full age even for those that by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil That is their spiritual senses exercised to taste this from that doctrin and not to swallow every doctrin alike It is a great blessing when a people have senses exercised And it is a blessing we have much cause to pray for in these times That many pallats are out of taste is too apparent by the multitude of heterodox opinions which go down without disrelish Some which would even make a man tremble to name them are entertained with delight Some which dissolve our comforts and breaks us off from comfortable communion with Christ Some which shake if not overthrow the very foundations of faith are swallowed as pleasant morsels Doth not this convince that there 's a want of Jobs taste among us to discern perverse things Therefore get your senses exercised be established in the present truth that ye as this holy man in the middest of all bodily distempers and outward troubles which usually put the natural pallate out of taste may yet even then as he have your inward senses exquisite and your spiritual pallate exact to discern right from perverse things Lastly note False doctrine or true doctrine falsely applied is a perverse thing False doctrin perverts First Reason Secondly Scripture Thirdly the souls of men The Apostle Acts 20. 30. prophecies to the Church of Ephesus and with them to all Churches That out of themselves men should arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Holy doctrin draws men to God and false doctrine draws men to man As itching ears heap teachers to themselves 2 Tim. 4. 3. So false tongues heap disciples to themselves That which is perverse in it's nature is perverting in its effect JOB Chap. 7. Vers 1 2 3 4. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his dayes also like the dayes of an hireling As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work So am I made to possess moneths of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me When I lie down I say When shall I arise and the night be gone and I 'am full of tossings too and fro unto the dawning of the day WHere the knot of connection between this and the former Chapter lyeth is not so discernable which hath given occasion for much diversity of conjecture about it First It may be conceived that Job in
take Jobs picture as in the day of his afflictions must draw him thus A man clothed with worms and clods of dust there 's his garment his skin scabby and discolor'd full of chaps and running sores angry biles and enflamed ulcers his posture lying on the ground scraping himself with a pot-sheard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 caroper Synecdochen corpus in Piel Bisher significat Evangelium My flesh is clothed with worms My flesh That is my body by a Synechdoche and the word which we translate flesh springs from a root or hath neare relation to it which signifies to bring and publish good tidings or welcome news and therefore the Gospel is exprest by it Evangelium is the same in Latin or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke with this in the Hebrew And some Criticks give the reason why flesh is exprest by this word which signifies to publish or bring good tydings because there should be a taking of flesh or a making of flesh namely the incarnation of our Lord Iesus Christ which should be the best tidings and the most joyfull news that ever the world heard of Is clothed with worms In the first Chapter of this booke at the 21. verse Iob describes himself thus Naked came I out of my mothers wombe and naked shall I return but now it seemes Iob hath got clothing and being ready to lie downe in the grave he had a vesture put upon him now it seemes Iob should not goe naked out of the world for he said My flesh is clothed but what is this clothing My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust that 's a suite of clothes very fit and sutable for the grave but it is usually put on in the grave Iob is in his grave-clothes before he dies or he speakes this to shew that he accounted himself dead while he lived or as Heman mourns Psa 88. Free among the dead A member of that Corporation a brother of that society already For he was now in their habet or livery A gown of worms set or embroidered with clods of dust My flesh is clothed with wormes It is frequent in Scripture when the holy Ghost would heighten the sense of what we are enjoy would to note the abundance of Quavis re vestiri dicimur Cujus accessione vel dedecoramur vel ocnamur a thing or how man is adorned or defiled with it all over then to expresse it under the notion of cloathing God himself is exprest cloathed with Majesty because he is Majestie all over and there is nothing but glory upon him God is also described clothed with judgement and with justice why Because these are his honour and his ornament he is justice and judgement all over we find Job in the 29. of this book at the 14 verse speaking thus of himself in his state of Magistracy I put on righteousnesse and it clothed me my judgement was as a robe and a diademe that is I was full of righteousnesse I was altogether reghteous in dispensing re wards and punishments in exercising my power among the people To be cloathed with humility to be cloathed with the Spirit to be clothed with Christ are phrases of the same importance So on the other hand to be cloathed with pride with shame with dishonour Let mine enemies saith David be cloathed with shame Psal 109. 29. Let them be cloathed with dishonour Psal 35. 26. that is let them be ashamed and dishonour'd all over or exceedingly ashamed or dishonoured And so a great desolation is called a cloathing with desolation Ezekiel 7. 27. That which stripps a man naked is in this sence called his cloathing cloathed with desolation Thus we are to understand Job when he saith That his flesh was cloathed with wormes his meaning is he had many wormes crawling upon his flesh or lying within his flesh and so were as a lining to his upper garment of nature These worms spread themselves all over him as a filthy and loathsome garment covering his whole body And besides this figure Job spake properly while he was thus full of sores and botches and boyles to say he was cloathed with wormes wormes are proper to sores many sores breed wormes and wormes are a disease in the flesh as well as within the bowels and such diseases are accounted the foulest and filthiest diseases of all other Such was Jobs his sores and boiles corrupted and bred wormes which made him an abhorring to himself Putrifaction is the foyle out of which worms grow Rotten flesh breeds wormes and a rotten conscience breeds a worm Isa 66. 24. Their worme shall not die why doth the holy Ghost say of those men who were never washed nor healed of their sinne-sores of their soul-sicknesses and pollutions that when they die they have a worme that dieth not It is in allusion to this because as a corrupt body or corrupt putrid flesh breeds noisome wormes so a corrupt conscience a soule full of filthinesse and uncleannesse which was never washed or healed in the fountain of the bloud of Christ this soul this conscience breeds wormes even that gnawing worme which shall live with it feed upon it and cloath it for ever Both the naturall and the spirituall worme arise from rottennesse and derive their pedigree from sores sicknesses and putrifaction And clods of dust Wormes and clods of dust Here are strange materials course stuffe for Jobs cloathing clods of dust Some conceive that Job sate in the dust and so the dust gathered about him as a garment Others that these clods of dust were the scrapings of his sores for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifies the filings of any mettall or the scrapings of an uncleane thing It is said expressely in the second Chapter that he tooke a pot-sherd to scrape himself those clods of filthy dust or scales scrap'd from his putrifying sores these with the crawling wormes bred in them cover'd his whole body like a garment and therefore he complaines I am cloathed with worms and clods of dust You see what his garment was see now to carry on the allusion his skin upon which this garment was put My skin saith he is broken and become loathsome The skin is the immediate garment of the flesh his sicknesse had worne out his skin he had many holes and rents in that garment which needed mending and it was all over so filthy that it needed washing My flesh is broken and become loathsome Sores breake the skin and defile the skin Jobs skin was so broken and chapt so defiled and filthy that he was loathsome to all beholders and to himself This is the picture of Job A few daies before you might have pictured or drawn him thus Job cloathed with silk and scarlet his garment set with precious orientall stones his skin smooth and beautifull his face cheerfull and manly his eye quick and piercing But now Job is cloathed with worms and clods of dust his skin is broken and become
wherein he is Fourthly observe That hope is the last refuge of the soule My dayes are spent without hope my hope is spent too If I had hope left I had somewhat left but my hope is gone It is so in naturall things it is so in spirituall things The Apostle Heb 6. tells us that hope is the anchor of the soule sure and stedfast while hope holds comfort holds and when hope 's gone all 's gone Observe lastly That sometimes a godly mans hope may lye prostrate My dayes saith he are cut off without hope Job thought as I have noted from some passages before that his case was desperate his hope lay in the dust as well as his body or his honour Every godly man is not an Abraham of whom it is said Rom. 4. 18. That against hope he beleeved in hope Nay Abraham is not alwayes Abraham he that hath such a strong hope hath it not alwayes even his hope may sometimes possibly be hopelesse There are weakenesses in the strongest and imperfections may come upon those who are perfect ebbings after the greatest flowings and declinings after the greatest heights of graces and gracious actings My dayes are spent without hope Job having thus complained of his condition and asserted his own desires of death now turnes from his friends with whom he had discoursed all this while and betakes himself to God to speake a while with him The next words are generally understood an Apostrophe to God Verse 7. Or member that my life is wind mine eye shall no more see good c. O remember that my life is wind To remember is not here taken strictly for to God all things are present Remembrance is the calling of that to mind which is past when the act of remembring is applied to God in Scriprure it hath one of these three sences 1. It notes a resolution or setled purpose in God to act his justice or inflict punishment upon his enemies Psal 137. 7. Remember O Lord the children of Edom that is Lord bring forth that decree of thine for the ruine and destruction of these bloudy Edomites who have been cruell against thy people Secondly it signifies an affection in God ready to help and releeve his own people Psal 74. 2. Remember thy Congregation which thou didst purchase of old that is doe good to thy Congregation blesse thy Congregation Thirdly To remember imports an act of present consideration to remember is fully to weigh observe and take notice of the estate of things or persons Psal 38. 39. He remembred that they were but flesh a wind that passeth away and cometh not againe that is he consider'd and weighed the estate of man So in this place O remember that my life is wind that is consider and weigh it well Lord put my condition into the ballance observe what a weak creature I am how short my llfe is therefore deal with me as with a weak short-lived creature Thou needest not lay any great stresse upon me thou needest not trouble thy self much to make an end of me my life is but wind 't is but a puffe which quickly passes away O remember that my life is wind This is a proverbial speech Vita ventus Elegans proverbiale like that before of a weavers shuttle The word translated wind signifies the holy Ghost the third Person in the blessed Trinity As also a Spirit in general And because the wind is of a spiritual nature invisible swift powerful therefore it is applied to that aerial or elementary spirit And the operation of the holy Ghost is shadowed by wind or breath Christ breathed upon his Disciples saying receive the holy Ghost John 20. 22. and the holy Ghost came as a mighty rushing wind Acts 2. 2. When Job saith remember that my life is wind he means my Quasi ventus Targum life is like the wind It is a similitude not an assertion The life of man is like the wind in two things First the wind passeth away speedily so doth mans life Secondly the wind when it is past returns no more as you cannot stop the wind or change its course So all the power in the world is not powerful enough to recallor divert the wind which way the wind goes it will goe and when it goes 't is gone Ps 78. 34. He remembred that they were but flesh wind that passeth away in this sence Job calleth his life a wind it passeth away and shall not return by any law or constitution of nature or by any efficacy of natural causes Yet here observe Job saith not His soul was a wind but his life was a wind Some have philosophiz'd the soul into a wind a blast or a breath and tell us that it goes as the soul of a beast that life and soul are but the same thing when the life 's gone out of the body the soule 's gone from its being They acknowledg a restoring of it again with the body at the resurrection but deny it any existence when separate from the body How dishonourable this is to the noble constitution of man and how dissonant to Scripture is proved in mentioning it we acknowledge that life which is the union of soul and body is a wind and passeth away In all the learned languages Hebrew Greek Latine the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus a spirando Animum quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidam dictum existimant Graeci pro respiratione seu spiritu quem ducimas aceipiunt primo quod vita nostra respiratione indigeâ—t sccundo quod flatu videatur humana vita in prima sua origine constitisse word which signifies spirit or life hath its original from respiring and when we say my wind was gone or my wind was almost beaten out of my body our meaning is my Life was almost gone In the creation Gen. 2. 7. God breathed into man the breath of life or of lives implying the many facultes and operations of life And in as much as the body of man was first formed and this life brought in after to act and move it this is an abundant proof that the soule of man is not any temperament of the body the body being compleated as a body before it and yet no life resulting Wheras beasts to whom that beastly opinion compares man in his creation had living bodies as soone as bodies their totall form being but an extract from the matter Solomen Eccl. 3. 19 20 21. brings in the Atheist drawing this conclusion from those confused oppressions which he observed in the world men carried themselves so like beasts preying upon and devouring one another that he who had nothing but carnall reason to judge by presently resolves That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts even one thing befalleth them as the one dieth so dieth the other yea they have all one breath so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast for all
are vanity all goe to one place all are of the dust and all turn to the dust again And whereas the Atheist heard some speake of the ascent of mans spirit after this life he puts it off as but talke and guessing ver 21. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth That is who can tell that there is such a difference between the spirit of a man and of a beast who ever saw the one ascending or the other descending or from what Anatomie was this learned Thus the Atheist derides the doctrine of the soul and will therefore laugh and be merry with his body while it lasts that 's his portion For who shall bring him to sâ—e what shall be after him ver 22. Is it not strange that any who are called sober Christians should plant their opinions in this soyle of Atheisme and make that a proofe of their faith which Solomon brings only as a proofe of some mens infidelity The Preacher in this Book personated those whom he abhor'd and sometimes speakes the practises of other men not his own opinion There is no more reason to ground this Tenet of the Soules Mortality upon those texts then there is of encouragement to intemperancie in that chap. 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheare thee in the dayes of thy youth and walke in the wayes of thine own heart Or in that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 32. Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die If any would learne Solomons own sence about this point let him reade it as plaine as words can make it Eccl. 12. 7. Then namely when man dies shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it So then to the next before us the soule is not a wind but the Hujusmodi sententiâ— regressum animarum in corpora minin è negant sed necessitatem moriendi confirmant celeri atem life And all those Scriptures where life is compared to wind and dying to the passing of it without returning deny the regresse or returning of the soule to a naturall not to an eternall life and imply the short stay of the soule in the body and certaine departure from it not a not being when it parts These two must part and so part as never to returne to that estate againe Thus Iob expounds himselfe in the words following Mine eye shall no more see good Or as the Hebrew I shall not return to see good answerable to the metaphor of a wind it passeth away and returnes no more To see In this place as often elsewhere is to enjoy I shall not Videre bonum pro frui nota locutio est enjoy good Psal 4. 6. Who will shew or who will cause us to see any good It was not the bare sight of good which they desired but the enjoyment of it So Ier. 17. 6. The man whose heart departeth from God is threatned that he shall not see when good cometh that is he shall not enjoy good when it comes For though to see good be a mercy yet to see it and not to tast it is a curse Therefore at the last day they who thought themselves high in Gods favour but were indeed under his wrath are told that they shall Lam. 13. 26. see Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdome of God and themselves shut out they shall see what they cannot enjoy and that sight shall adde to their sorrow The Prophet cries out Lament 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction that is I am the man that hath felt and had experience of afflictions And Psalm 16. 10. the great promise to Christ is that though he took a corruptible body upon him yet he should not see corruption that is partake of corruption corruption should have no communion with much lesse power over him And we have the same use of the word in this book chap. 20. ver 17. where Zophar tells the hypocrite that God will deprive and strip him of every good thing He shall not see the rivers the floods the brookes of honey and butter It is a rhetoricall expresson comparing the affluence of outward things to floods and rivers and brooks which send forth their streames plentifully as if he had said though there be great store of honey and butter those two are specified for the rest though there be rivers brooks and streames of these commodities yet he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall see none of them that is he shall not enjoy or tast a drop of Sicut Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latini bonum aliquando pro pulchro commodo utili usurpant Isa subinde Hebraei vocabudum Tob Fagius in Gen. 2. 18 them That unbeleeving Lord is told by Elisha that he should see plenty in Samaria the next day but should not eate thereof 2 King 7. 2. Not to see is not to eat and he that sees but eates not is not releeved but troubled at the sight Mine eye shall not see good What good when a man dies shall he see no more good we see but little good while we live and the greatest good is to be seen when we die or rather while we live what doe we see but evill and when the Saints die what have they to see but good how is it then that Iob saith when I die mine eye shall not see good what miserable creatures were we if there were no good to be seen beyond the line of this life our richest stock of comfort lyes in the good we shall see hereafter which is therefore called the blessed-making vision And Iob knew well enough that his eyes should see good after death for he saith chap. 19. 27. with these eyes shall I see God he knew also his soule had an eye to see good and a better good then ever he saw in the world while his body lay in the grave Then his meaning of Mine eye shall no more see good is no more worldly good none of †these good things which I have seen I shall be above the smart of earthly sorrows and above the sence of earthly joyes Good is either natural or civill or spirituall When God created the world he looked upon all that he bad made and he saw that all was very good Civill good is the order peace and prosperity of the world death stops the sight of all this good As for eternall or spirituall good death cannot close or dimme the eye against those objects Then here is no plea for Atheists against the resurrection nor any against the soules Being or being awake till the resurrection Iob speakes only about the speare and course of nature when man dies naturally and is in the state of the dead he enjoyes nothing he acts nothing according to the estate of the living * In his
in the bitternesse of my soul What the bitternesse Amarum non solum dulci opponitur sed etiam jucundo Amariorem me fecit senectus i. e asperiorem Plauâ— of the soule is hath been expounded already in the third Chapter therefore I shall not stay upon it It notes only the height or extremity of affliction Bitter is opposed to unpleasant as well as to sweet In the bitternesse of my soule The affliction appeared most upon his body but it afflicted him most in his soule He speaks little of the pain of his body in comparison of the trouble upon his spirit he insists principally upon that I will speake in the anguish of my spirit I will complaine in the bitternesse of my soule not in the pains of my flesh or sufferings of my body and yet that forme of speaking excludes not his sence and sensiblenesse of bodily paines for a man may well say his soul is in bitternesse by reason of the paines of his body Being in this condition we see what his remedy was he falls a crying and a complaining before God telling how it was with him Jobs complaints have been spoken of in former passages of the Book and why he complaines hath been shewed An afflicted soule finds some ease in complaining of affliction To complaine out of impatience distrust and hard thoughts of God is very sinfull in that sence we must be silent as David Psal 39. 9. when the hand of God was heavy upon him I was dumbe I opened not my mouth because thou didst it in reference to the dealing of God with him David had not a word to say Our Lord Christ the great patterne of suffering was as a sheepe before the shearer dumbe and opened not his mouth no impatient speech came from him Though the griefe of Job was very great and so it might somewhat as hath formerly been cleared excuse the greatnesse of his complaint yet in this Job shewed himselfe a Docemur quantae sint hominis virâ—s sibi à Deo derelisti Merc. man subject to like passions as we are Man thinks to get cure by complaining but usually he gets a wound What poore shifts are we poore creatures often put to How often doe we entangle our selves because we are straightned Though Jobs heart kept close to God in the maine though his spirit was preserved untoucht of blaspheming yet we find him touching too often and too loud upon this string of complaining He cannot be excused from some motions of impatience while we hear him setling upon these resolutions to take his fill of or to let loose the reins of his passion to complain I will complaine in the bitterness of my soul Anguish is a very ill guide of the tongue It must needs be troubled matter which passion dictates Observe further That when sorrow continues and hangs long upon us it grows boysterous and resolute We have three wils in the text as if Job had turned all his reason into Will and his will into passion I will not refraine I will speak in the anguish of my spirit I will complaine in the bitternesse of my soule He was grown to a kinde of resolvednesse in his sorrow It is as unsafe for man in this sence to will what Nec tamen is fuit Job qui quod sibi licere non putaret protervè ac procaciter vellet aggredi Meri he doth as to do what he will we ought to will the will of God but we must submit our own We should not mourne over our afflictions nor rejoyce over our comforts but as God wils Yet in this the wil of Job was rather strong then pertinacious He was not a man of that rough make to oppose his wil against the wil and good pleasure of God though that were a paine to him Having thus resolved to complain he complains in this very high Language Verse 12. Am I a sea or a whale that thou settest a watch over me These are his first words words full of deep complaint like the sea which whether he was or no he would be answered Am I a sea Tell me His question is of like importance with that at the 12. verse of the 6. Chapter Is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh brasse He expostulates with God why hast thou laid such trouble upon me Am I stone or brass that I should be able to bear it And here like a sea swolne with bitter waters in the bitterness of his soul he begins to break the bounds again Am I a sea or a whale that thou settest a watch over me A sea or a whale The sea and the whale are often joyned in Scripture Psal 104. 25 26. O Lord how manifold are thy works c. the earth is full of thy riches so is the great and the wide sea there goe the ships there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein Againe Psal 74. 13. 14. Thou diddest divide the sea by thy strength thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters thou brakest the head of Leviathan in pieces But why doth Job speake this language In briefe the meaning is this The sea you know is a mighty boisterous and unruly creature and the whale is the strongest mightest and most dreadfull creature in the sea the greatest of the creatures whether upon sea or land The sea is the most boisterous of all the inanimate creatures and the whale is the most boisterous of all living creatures So that here Job gives instance in two creatures which are the most head-strong violent and out-ragious in the whole creation The whale and the sea And he sets forth his own weaknesse by the Antithesis of these two creatures surpassing all in strength with which God only is able to graple and encounter And in asking Am I a sea or a whale he may be conceived to speake thus Lord thou seemest to deale with me in a way beyond all thy dealings with the children of men Thou carriest thy selfe towards me as if I were more proud heady hard to be reclaimed then any man in the world thou seemest to take such a course with me as with the unruly sea and with the boisterous whale to keepe me in compasse He speaks as if God laid too heavy an affliction upon him and tooke too strong a course to tame him or as if he might be more gently dealt with and that God needed not prepare such bonds and fetters for him or lay such law upon him as upon the mighty sea and the monstrous whale But for the words in particular Am I a sea There are three things in the sea specially considerable at which Mare barbarum indomitum elementum est Job might have an aime here First the turbulency of the sea the sea is stormy and turbulent so stormy and turbulent that it threatneth to over-whelme all to over-whelme the ships sailing upon it to over-whelme the Visat est
sence we may observe First That The holiest man on the earth by all his sufferings and doings cannot satisfie the justice of God for one sin I have sinned what shall I doe unto thee When the Angels had sinned what could they doe unto God in this respect These three negations lay upon them and doe lie to this day and shall to all eternity They sinned but once yet could they not escape out of the hand of God Though spirits and powers yet they could not maintaine their state against the power of God and are therefore cast into prison and reserved in chaines of darknesse to the judegement of the great day They could not pacifie the wrath of God towards them God is as highly displeased and his wrath burns as hot against them as ever Now if sinning Angels could doe nothing to God what can sinfull man doe The Question is put Micha 6. 6. Where with shall I come before the Lord And bow my selfe before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a yeare old will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand rivers of oyle shall I give my first-borne for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soule These Questions are denials come not before God with any of these Then what is it that God doth require He hath shewed thee what is good to doe judgement and righteousnesse to walk humbly with thy God But why these things What though I cannot make a price for my sin with calves and rams and rivers of oyle though my children will not be accepted as a ransome for my transgressions yet can I make a price for them out of justice and righteousnesse and humble walking No not out of these neither The Lord doth not require these for the paiments of our debt as we are sinners but for the paiments of duty as we are creatures There is a double debt to God a debt to the justice of God for sins commited and a debt to the law of God for duties enjoyned The former no man is able to pay but with eternall sufferings The latter the Saints through grace do pay by their dayly holy actings There is a three-fold deficiency in al that man can do to satisfie the justice of God Frist all is imperfect and defiled our services smell of the vessell thorough which they passe and taste of the caske into which they are put There is a stampe of our sinfullness even upon our holy things And can that which is sinfull satisfie for sin Secondly whatsoever we doe is a debt before we doe it All our duties are owing before we performe them And can we pay the debt of sin by those duties which were due though sin had never been commited Thirdly The greatest deficiency is this our works want the stampe of Gods appointment for that purpose God hath no where set up mans righteousnesse as satisfaction for mans unrighteousnesse Hence if it should be supposed we had performed perfect righteousnesse according to the whole will of God commanded yet we could not satisfie the justice God offended unlesse God had said that he would accept that way of satisfaction it is the appointment and institution of God which renders what we doe acceptable unto himselfe Surely all that Jesus Christ did or suffered for us in the flesh had not satisfied the justice of God if God had not appointed that Christ should come to doe and suffer those things for the satisfying of his justice It was the compact between Christ and his Father which made him a Saviour Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire Sacrifices were refused by God it being impossible that they should purge sin Heb. 10. 4. Then the eare of Christ was opened or bored as a servant according to the law in that case Exod. 21. 6. to receive and doe the will of his Father Or as the Seventy interpret which the Apostle follows God prepared him a body Then Christ undertakes the worke And said loe I come to doe thy will O God Why In the volume of the booke it is written of me That is thou hast decreed and ordained from everlasting The record is cleare for it that I am he whom thou hast ordained to doe thy will Hence the Apostle concludes at the 10th verse That we are sanctified that is saved by that will through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all As inserting that the very offering of the body of Jesus Christ could not save us but by the will and ordination of God His hanging and dying on the crosse had not delivered us from death unlesse it had been written in the volume of the Booke There is nothing satisfactory but what the law or the will of the Law-giver makes or agrees to accept as satisfactorie In the volume of the booke there is nothing written which appoints man such a work and therefore he cannot doe it There is some what to be done by way of thankfullnesse but nothing can be done by way of paiment That question Psal 116. 12. affirmes as much What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits We must render unto the Lord for his benefits but we cannot render to the Lord for our sins We ought to take up the Cup of Thanksgiving but Christ hath and he alone was able and he alone was ordained to take and drinke the Cup of Satisfying Secondly observe which depends upon the former That pradon and forgivenesse of sinne come in at the doore of free-grace Free-grace doth all What can I do J can doe nothing O thou preserver of men J can only nor that without thy helpe acknowledge my sin it must be thine infinite goodness to pardon it When a man hath travell'd through all duties and doings he must at last sit downe in Gods love and rest in this that God is mercifull to poore sinners Isai 55. 1. Come unto me O all yee that are thirstie come without money or without price There is nothing in the creature that God requires as a price of his favor his milk and his hony his bread and his water are al gifts and bounties unto his people He cals us to buy these because we shall have them as willingly from God as any things from man for our mony he cals it a buying without mony because no value can be set upon it high enough nor any heart receive it freely enough To offer mony that is to think to obtain any of that favor by what we do is the most dangerous offer in the world We read how dreadful the issue was to Simon Magus when he offered mony for the gifts of the holy Ghost and yet those gifts were such as a man may have and go to hell with them for they were but gifts of miracles and of healing and the like But this gift of the favour and love of God in the pardon of sin is such
But I conceive our translation carries the sense fairer in a reflection upon his owne tired spirits So that I am made a burthen to my selfe that is thou dost even throw me upon my self whereas heretofore thou wast wont to bear me and take my burthen upon thy self Alas I faint I cannot stand under my self I am weary of my life because I am left alone to bear it I know not what to do with my self I am so burthensome to my self Hence observe First Outward afflictions poverty sickness want c. are burthens and they make a man burthensome to himself It is a great burthen to have our comforts taken away from us The removing of comforts lies like a heavy weight upon the spirit the removing of health from the body is a weight upon the soul fear is a burthen care is a burthen and so is pain Therefore God cals us to cast all those burthens upon him Psal 55. 22. Secondly observe Man left to himself is not able to bear himselfe Man is much borne down by the weight of natural corruption Hence the Apostle cals it A weight and the sinne which doth so easily beset us Heb. 12. 1. or dangle about our heels to burden us as long garments do a man that runneth Our ordinary callings and affaires left upon our own backs presse us to the earth much more do our extraordinary troubles and afflictions And therefore he adviseth Cast thy burthen upon the Lord he assures in the next words and he shall sustaine thee As implying that man cannot sustaine or beare his owne weight And though it should seem we have strengh to spare for others and are therefore commanded to bear one anothers burthens Gal. 6. yet no man of himself no not the holiest Atlas nor the spirituallest Porter on earth is able to bear his owne self unless Christ be his supporter who is also therefore said to uphold all thiags by the word of his power Heb. 1. 3. Because no creature in a natural or man in a spiritual capacity can bear his own weight Thirdly From the connexion between these two phrases Thou hast set me as a marke against thee so that I am a burthen to my self what is it that makes my life to be so burthensome to me It is this because I am set as a mark before thee that is because thou seemest to be an enemy to me And so the note from the connexion is this That which presses and burthens the soule ahove all is the apprehension that God is against us Job in many things looked unto God under these temptations with sad thoughts as if he were his enemy so he express'd himself in the sixth Chapter The poyson of his arrows drinks up my spirits he setteth himselfe in battel array against me In these temptations and desertions this was the burden of his spirit that God appeared as an adversary Why doest thou set me as a marke against thee Let the Sabians and the Chaldeans shoot at me as much as they will let fire and windes contend with me and make me the marke of their utmost fury I can beare all these Job was light hearted enough when he thought he contended onely with creatures and that creatures onely contended with him but in the progresse of this triall he finds God against him withdrawing comforts from and shooting terrours at him now he is a burthen to himself he can beare this no longer As Caesar said in the Senate when he had many wounds given him yet this wounded him most that he was wounded by the hand of his son What thou my sonne So when a believer looks this way and that way and fees many enemies Satan and the creatures all in armes against him he can beare all their charges and assaults but if he apprehend God opposing and wounding him he weepes out this mourneful complaint What thou my Father What thou my God Thou who hast so often shined upon me dost thou darken thy face towards me and appeare mine enemy These apprehensions of God will make the strongest Saint on earth a burden too heavy for himselfe to beare That which causeth the most burdensome thoughts in the Saints is the inevidence of their pardon Sin unpardon'd is in it self a burden and our not knowing sin to be pardon'd is a greater burden but our jealousies and fears that it is not pardon'd is the greatest burden of all and that which adds weight yea an intolerableness to all other burdens Hence Job in the next verse and with the last breath of his answer points directly at that which pincht him Verse 21. And why doest thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquitie for now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shall seek me in the morning but I shall not be In the former verse we found Job humbly confessing his sin and earnestly enquiring of the Lord a reason of his sorrowes why he had shot him so full of arrows that now he was not so much wounded as loaded And become a burthen to himself In this verse he sues for the pardon of those sins and so for the removal of those sorrows That the bow might speedily be unbended and not a shot more made at his bleeding breast In the answer of which suite he desires speed and expedition lest help being retarded come too late for he professeth that he cannot hold out his siedge long he must needs make his bed in the grave and then being sought for he shall not be found And why dost thou not pardon my trangressions We may consider the words two waies 1. In the Forme of them Matter 2. In the forme they are a vehement expostulation Jobs spirit hath been heated all along with the fire of his sufferings and here he speakes in the heat of his spirit and with fiery desires after mercie He keepes up his heart to the same height and tenour still There it was Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee Here 's another Why and why dost thou not pardon my transgression As before he was grieved to be set up as a mark for afflictions to aime at so now he desires to be made a marke for mercy to aim at I shall note one thing from hence before I come to open the words They who are sensible of the evill of sinne will pray heartily for the pardon of sinne Expostulation is earnest prayer expostulation is a vehement postulation a vehement enquiring after or desiring of a thing Why dost thou not pardon my sinne may be resolved into this O that thou wouldest pardon my sinne Or Wilt thou not pardon my sinne The matter of this prayer requires such a forme such a vehemency of spirit in him that prayes If there be any petition in the world about which the spirit should be fired it is in this when wee pray for pardon of sinne Will not a man whose body is defiled by falling into the mire call hastily for some to
cleanse and wash him Will he not say if it come not speedily why do ye not bring away the water there sin is the defiling and bemiring of the soul and pardon is the cleansing of it If a man be deeply and deadly wounded will hee have onely some few feeble desires or make cold requests for a Chyrurgion Will hee not call and call aloud Call and call again for helpe and healing Sins are the wounds of the soul and pardon is the only cure of it If a man hath broken his bones will he not be very earnest to have them set again Sin is the breaking of the bones and pardon is their setting How doth David cry to the Lord Psal 51. 8. That the bones which he had broken might rejoyce Sin had broken his bones first and the hiding of Gods favour from him was a second breaking If a mans peace or the peace of a Nation be disturbed is there not earnest crying as at this day to have it repaires and re-established Sin troubles our peace the peace of the soul and the peace of Kingdomes Sin is the great make-bate and pardon is the returning of our peace and quieteth all again and therefore no marvel if we cry out Why doest thou not pardon our sinnes He that is greatly in debt and fears every hour to be arrested and cast in prison is trying all friends to get security and protection Sinning is a running in debt with God and it brings us under the danger of his arrest every-moment forgiveness cancels the bond when the sin is pardoned the debt is paid and the soul discharged And therefore no wonder if in this case we hear or make strong cries Why doest thou not pardon our sinnes My son saith Solomon Prov. 6. 4. speaking about suretiship if thou be surety for thy friend if thou hast ingaged thy self for another Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eye-lids deliver-thy self as a Roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the fowler Not to give rest to the eye nor slumber to the eye-lids notes the hottest pursuit and greatest intention of spirit about a business Thus busie Solomon advises a man to be who becometh surety for another Then what should we do who have contracted huge debts our selves How should we in this sense give our eyes no rest and our eye-lids no slumber till our souls be delivered as a Roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the fowler that is from all the power and challenge which the Law without us conscience within us Satan pursuing us and the justice of God threatning us can any way make or have against the peace of our souls That 's the first thing from the manner or form in which Job sues for the pardon of sin His spirit doth not fall he grows not flat upon this point but is as high and earnest here for the pardon of sin as in any of his requests for the ease of his pained bodie or the dissolution of it Why doest thou not pardon my sinne and take away mine iniquity I shall first shew what is meant by pardoning and taking away and then what by transgression and iniquity and so put the sence of all together Why dost thou not pardon my transgression The * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accipiunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tanquam à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oblitus fuis Septuagint reads it Why dost thou not forget my transgression Or bury it in the grave of oblivion and the word may signifie to forget as well as to take away But generally it imports the lifting up or taking away of that which lies heavy upon us either in a morall or in a natural notion Hos 11. 4. I was to them as they that take off the yoak And because pardon is the taking away or lifting off of sin therefore it is often put for the act of pardoning Hence also it is applied to that gesture of the Priests when they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tollere levare per Metaphoram donare cò quòd munera donaria in altum elevari solerent sicut sacrificia cum Deo offerebantur received gifts and sacrifices because they were wont to elevate and lift them up Hence Christ the substance of all the Sacrifices is said to be lifted up himself saith As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness so must the Sonne of man be lifted up Joh. 3. 14. we may say as Aaron lifted up the Sacrifices at the altar so the Son of man was lifted up This lifting up noted also the acceptance of those Sacrifices and the favour of God to those who brought them When Pharaoh bestowed a great favour upon his chief Butler Gen. 43. 30. according to his dream he lifted up his head Ioseph expounded so After three daies Pharaoh shal lift thine head that is he shall freely pardon thy offence and bestow some great honour gift or reward upon thee And in this sence it is proper to the text when sin is pardoned a mans head is lifted up himself is advanced indeed The Lord proclaimes his name in this tenor Exod. 34. 7. The Lord the Lord forgiving or lifting up iniquity and Psal 32. 1. Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven or lifted up Further this word signifies not only to take or lift off a burthen from another and lay it down but so to lift it off from another as for a man to take it upon himself and bear it in his stead from whose shoulders it was taken And in this strict sence we are especially to understand it in the point of pardon for pardon is not the taking away of sin from a man and laying it none knows where but sin being taken off from man some other shoulders are prepared to bear it even the shoulders of our Lord Christ on him our sin is laid All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all Isa 53. 6. when the burthen of dept was taken off from us it was charged on Christ He did not take or lift the burthen of sin from us and throw it by but he bare it himself nothing but this could compleate the work of pardon therfore it was also prophecied Isa 53. 4. Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows And 1 Pet. 2. 22. who his own self bare our sins in his body on the tree that is in his humanity or humane nature while he dwelt with us in the body Body is not here opposed to Soul but includes it as sometime the whole work is laid upon the soul of Christ not excluding his body Isa 53. 10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin By the whole man this offering was made and the whole man bare our sins on the tree That passage Mat.
things have been spoken from preceding passages of his reply and I will not double upon them here But I take the former reading and meaning of the words as most proper to the coherence conclusion of Jobs discourse and so they are but a repetition or re-inforcement of what he spake at the 7 and 8. verses There he said O remember that my life is wind mine eye shall no more see good the eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more Thine eyes are upon me and I am not Here he speaks the same thing in some variety of words Thou shalt seek me in the morning and I shall not be The severity of my sickness threatens to prevent thy earliest preparations for my relief Thus through the strength of Christ some discoveries have been made about this first congresse or charge between Eliphaz and Job But Job hath not yet done Behold a second and a third Combatant ready to enter the list against him And when these three have once tryed their skill and strength upon him they all three charge him a fresh a second time and two of them a third Was ever poor soul held so hard to it as he How much doth the life of grace make him exceed man when he as a man could scarce be reckon'd among the living Truth and grace will triumpth and prevail notwithstanding all the disadvantages of flesh nature Is it not strange that a man should not be weary with arguing while he often professes he was wearied with living That while he could scarce fetch his breath for pain he should do so much work in a manner without a breathing For as the Messengers of his troubles gave him no rest But while one was yet speaking there came another also and said c. And while a second was yet speaking a third came and said c. So neither did these disputants about his troubles While Eliphaz and Job were yet speaking Bildad answered and said c. While Bildad and Job were yet speaking Zophar answered and said What Eliphaz said and Job answered in this first undertaking you have heard The opening of what Bildad had to say and Job to answer waits till the Lord shall be pleased to vouchsafe it a further opportunity What is now as himself hath pleased to enable his unworthy instrument offered waits upon him for his blessing To him all blessing is for ever due on him let praises ever waite for all his blessings Amen FINIS A TABLE Directing to some special Points noted in the precedent Expositions A ADvancement is from God pag. 267. The difference between Gods advancing his own People and enemies pag. 270 Afflictions Sore afflictions indispose for duty p. 15. Affliction often disturbs the seat of reason p. 17. Times of affliction special seasons for the use of our graces p. 23. Affliction discovers our hearts and our graces to our selves p. 28 29. Afflictions good for the Saints p. 115. They are but trials 116. Affliction is a cleanser how p. 117. They are sent to humble us ib. To bring the Saints nearer God p. 118. Man naturally seeks the reason of his afflictions out of himself p. 220. Every affliction hath a cause pa. 221. It comes not by the power of any creature ib. It is from the Lord p. 222. It is our wisedome and our duty to seek God in times of affliction p. 230. We are to seek him about foure things in affliction ib. It is a great ease to the soul to do so p. 231. Affliction and happiness meet in the same person p. 309 310 312. Yet every one that is afflicted is not happy p. 313. The best of Gods children sometimes entertain afflictions unwillingly p. 321. They sometime apprehend them as unuseful p. 323. As disgraceful p. 324. The least affliction ought not to be sleighted p. 324 325. We ought highly to prize them 326. Afflictions of others are to be throughly weighed and wherein that consists pag. 315. It is an addition to a mans affliction when others are not sensible of it pag. 416. Afflictions are heavy burdens p. 420. They come by multitudes 433. Afflictions are the higher services of grace p. 487. They are measured out by the hand of God 589. Man apt to think he needs not so many or so great Afflictions p. 630 631. It makes a little time seem very long to us 643. Affliction is the magnifying of a man two wayes p. 659 660. Why called visitations 665. They are tryals 668 669. They are bands and such as man cannot break 674. It is a great ease to an afflicted mind to know the reason why afflictions are sent p. 699 703. God brings his eminentest servants to the most eminent tryals by afflictions pag. 701. Angels are the servants of God p. 129. Their several services for the Church 129 130. And against the wicked 131. Angels how chargeable with folly p. 135. Pride and self-confidence the sins of Angels p. 138. Angels as creatures mutable ib. Yet now confirmed by Christ 139. God hath no need of Angels p. 141. Answering how taken in Scripture p. 409. It is the duty of a man to answer when he is questioned or charged with any fault ibid. Application of general truth very necessary p. 403. Arrows how taken in Scripture p. 425. Arrowes of God why so called p. 427. Afflictions like arrowes in four things ib. 428. Poyson'd arrowes p. 429. Assurance To be assured of a mercy is better than the enjoyment of a mercy p. 383. B BEasts in what sence put for men in Scripture pag. 368. Beasts of the earth hurtful to us three wayes p. 369. Beasts how at peace with us p. 378. Sin hath made the beasts and all creatures hurtful to man 379. It is from special providence that the beasts hurt us not 380. Beasts complain not without cause p. 440. Man in passion worse than beasts p. 628 630. Behold a note either of derision or of asseveration p. 8. Belial wicked men why called sons of Belial p. 47. Blast and breath of God what they signifie in Scripture p. 55 56. Blessednesse three degrees of it p. 384. Body of man compared to a house in two respects p. 145. Why called a house of clay 146. How it should humble us 147 148. Much care of the body is usually joyned with neglect of the soul p. 148. Bread the staffe of life p. 345. It is a pretious comfort to have bread in a promise when we have none upon the board p. 347. Brethren many sorts of them p. 497. Brethren deceitful 499. The deceit of a brother is double deceit especially of a brother in the faith ib. Burial A comely burial is an honour and a blessing p. 394. C CHarity Four acts of spiritual charity p. 8. Spiritual charity best p. 13 14. Charity especially spiritual charity is open handed p. 14. Chastnings see Afflictions What is properly a chastning p. 326. How we may improve this notion that Shaddai God
tempt in the day but as he hath a power given him but permitted he causes sometimes sinfull and fifthly dreames as Augustine bewailes in the tenth book of his Confessions sometimes terrible and troublesome Aug. confess li. 10. Ca. 30. dreames sometimes treacherous and deluding dreames It is by some conceived that the dreame of Pilats wife Mat. 27. 19. was from the Devill she comes to Pilat and desires him to have nothing to doe with that Just man for saith she I have suffered many things this night in a dreame because of him The reason why some conceive that dreame was from the Devill is this because thereby Satan would have hindred the work of mans redemption if Christ had not died and so by saving him would have destroyed us all I will not assert this but it is cleare to the point in hand that there are dreames from the temptations motions and suggestions of the Devill who hath a power over us as God lengthens out his chain both day and night But when it is said Thou skarest me with dreames what dreames were these divine or Diabolicall Job speaks unto God Thou skarest me with dreames doubtlesse divine dreames had an influence upon his spirit and left terrifying impressions there But Satan having power to afflict Job which way he pleased was instrumentall here and yet Job saith to God Thou skarest me As before when Satan by his instruments took away all from him he said The Lord hath taken so here when Satan vexed him with visions representing horrid and fearfull spectacles yet he saith Thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me with visions as pointing still unto the power and providence of God who hath all second causes Satan and all at his own dispose Observe here first That even our dreames are ordered by God Though Satan be the instrument yet we may say Thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me with visions Job was not ignorant that second causes had a great power upon the body to produce dreames and nightly fancies he was not ignorant that the strength of a disease might doe very much in this and that Satan his former enemy was busie to improve the distempers of his body for the trouble of his mind yet he overlooks all these as he did before and saith Lord thou skarest me with dreames and terrifiest me with visions Dreames are in the hand of God As our waking times are in the hand of God so are our sleeping times when we are sleeping we are in the armes of an ever waking Father Satan hath not power to touch us sleeping or waking without leave Secondly Ged can make our sleepe an affliction Jobs were skaring and terrifying dreames Some dreames are for warning and admonition The Lord warned Joseph in a dream Some are for counsell and instruction he revealed great things in dreames Others are for comfort and consolation Many a soul hath tasted more of heaven in a night-dreame than in many daies attendance upon holy Ordinances As the lusts of wicked men have dreames attending them so also have the graces of the Saints Jobs dreames were for terrour and afflictions Observe secondly Satans desire of troubling poore souls is restlesse It is restlesse indeed for he will not give them leave to rest they shall not sleep in quiet their very dreames shall be distractions and their nightly representations a vexation to them Note further That if God permit Satan can make dreames very terrible to us He can shew himselfe in a dreame and offer ugly sights extreamly perplexing to the Spirit He is able to cast himself into a thousand ill favour'd shapes into horrid and dreadfull shapes he can cloath himself with what habit he pleases if God give him a generall Commission And hence the devill terrifies not only by temptations to the mind but by aparitions to the eye and is seen at least conceived to be seen especially by such as labour under strong diseases like a Lion a Beare a Dogge gaping grinning staring whence we say of any terrifying sight it looks like a devill We depend upon God as for sleep so for the comfort of sleep Many lie downe to sleep and their sleep is their terrour As that evill spirit in the Gospel went about seeking rest but found none So he hinders some and would more from finding rest when they seeke it Therefore blesse God for any refreshing you have by sleepe Blesse God when your dreames are not your skares nor your beds your racke See the effect what deepe impressions dreadfull dreams made in Jobs spirit he was so affrighted with them that he professes with his next breath Verse 15. My soule chuseth strangling and death rather then life I loath it I would not live alwayes So that my soul chooseth strangling He renews his former often repeated motion but with a greater ardency He not only prefers death before his troubled condition but a violent death and in the opinion of some the worst of violent deaths strangling which though it be not the most painfull of violent deaths yet it is looked upon as the most ignominious of violent deaths Some referre these words to the terrour which Job had in his dreames and visions as if they were so violent upon him that they almost distracted him and made him mad that they even put him upon desperate thoughts of destroying himselfe My soule chooseth strangling that is I am often tempted and almost prevailed Ab hujusmodi spectris multos sejam strangulasse profiliisse in puteos asserit Hippoc. with to make my selfe away The learned Physitians tell us that their Patients have often attempted to destroy themselves thorough the terrours of dreams and visions Yet we may understand the word strangling only of naturall and ordinary Every death is a kind of strangling and some diseases stop and choke a man even as strangling doth so that My soule chooseth strangling may be taken in generall My soul chooseth death rather then life My soul chooseth He puts the soul as it is often in Scripture for the whole man and the sence of all is as if he had said If I might be my own chooser if I might have my election I would even take the worst of deaths rather than the life which now I live My soul chooseth strangling And death rather then life If we take strangling for a speciall death then here death is put in generall As thus if strangling be too easie a death let me die any kind of death Death rather then life The Hebrew in the letter is And death rather than my bones which some render thus And death rather than to be with my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Os a robore dictum nihil in ipso taem sorte firmum quod vis doloris non debilitarat confregerat Aquin. bones To be with our bones is to live Others make this choosing an act of his bones My soul chooseth strangling and my bones death that is every