The Great Duty of Self-Resignation to the Divine Will, Section 2 · Chapter 9 – Chapter 10
CHAP. IX. Of the Example of JOB.
IX. SEecondly, The next Example of Self-Resignation shall be that of upright and holy Iob: And he will appear to be a most memorable and eminent one, by these following Particulars.
First, He was a Great man: Great for Estate and Riches. We read that he had seven thousand Sheep, three thousand Camels,Job i. 3. five hundred yoke of Oxen, five hundred She-Asses, and very great store of Servants: That he was the greatest of all the men of the East, that is of Arabia, which lay Eastward from the Land of Canaan. He was great for Wisdom, and by that means for Honour and Esteem: of which there is a particular account, Chap. xxix. The aged men when they saw him arose and stood up, ver. 8. The Princes refrained talking, and laid their hand upon their mouth; the Nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth, ver. 9, 10. Such a reverence had they for him, for the greatness of his Wisdom and excellent accomplishments, that the car that heard him blessed him, ver. 11. All gave ear to him, and waited and kept silence at his counsel: After his words they spake not again, his speeches dropped upon them, and they waited for him as for the rain, and opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain, ver. 22. 23. They received his discourse as a welcome and most desireable rain, and such especially was foreign the latter rain, before Harvest, for making the Corn more plump and fair.
Secondly, He was as Good as Great and Honourable. Such was his Humility, that he did not despise the cause of his man-servant or maid-servant, when they contended with him, Chap. xxxi. 13.
His Sobriety and Moderation of spirit is to be seen, v. 25. &c.
His Charity and Compassion, Chap. xxix. 13, 15, 16. Chap. xxx. 25. Chap. xxxi. 16, 17, 19, 20, 32.
His great Chastity, Chap. xxxi. 1, 9. So far was he from making his great Estate to serve Sensuality and Lust.
His Integrity and Honesty, Ch. xxix. 14. Chap. xxxi, 7, 38, 39.
His readiness to employ his power and interest for the relief , and not for the crushing, of oppressed Innocents, Ch. xxix. 12. Ch. xxxi. 21. And this he did boldly and resolvedly, Ch. xxxi. 34.
His exemplary Piety in keeping himself from the Idolatries of the Arabians, Ch. xxxi. 26, 27. His pious sollicitude for his Children, in their yearly Feastings, lest they might have offended God in the heat of their Banquets, Chap. i. 5. And Chap. xxiii. 11, 12. we have him expressing the great devotion of his Soul towards God, in the constancy and universality of his Obedience. My foot (saith he) hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined, neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips: I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
And God himself gives this character of Iob, Chap. ii. 3. That there was none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.
Thus was this excellent Person a great Pattern of all kinds of Vertue in his flourishing estate, and he was no less a Pattern of Self-Resignation in his afflictions and trials: For
Thirdly, This Great and Good man was sorely afflicted and tried by God. There were three Messengers that brought him the tidings of sad Calamities that befell him in his Possessions; his Oxen, Asses, Sheep and Camels, with his Servants being carried away by the Sabeans and Chaldeans, or consumed by fire from heaven. But the fourth Messenger brings the heaviest news of all, viz. That all his Sons and Daughters were crusht to pieces by the fall of the house wherein they were feasting.
This was dismal indeed, to lose all his Children at once, and that not by a natural but violent death, and to have them destroyed with such a sudden destruction, and that also in the midst of their feasting and mirth.
But besides, the more to aggravate his affliction, these several Messengers came immediately one after another, while one was speaking another came in; one wave, the more to overwhelm him, came upon the neck of the other; so that he had no respite, no time to concoct his sorrows, no diversion, no time of breathing to prepare himself to bear the next.
But after all this, affliction comes nearer still and more close to him. God permitted Satan to exercise his cruelty upon his Body, which was stricken with sore boyls, and that all over, even from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, Chap. ii. 7. He was full of anguish in every part*The word for biles in this place is foreign which signifieth burning biles, from the Chaldee foreign to be hot.. There was nothing about him left whole and entire but the skin of his teeth, Chap. xix. 20. or the skin about his gums or lips: nothing was whole about him but his mouth to complain with. To have one such bile is very painful, but to have such angry, and noisome things all over the body, how exquisitely tormenting must it needs be?They were inflaming ulcers. But here is added also foreign sore or malignant biles.
And in this sad plight he sate down (not on an easie Couch or soft Bed, but) among the ashes, v. 8. or upon a Dunghil without the city, as the Septuagint hath it*foreign.: Where he had none to dress his sores but himself, nor any thing (that we read of) to help himself with, but some piece of earthen vessel cast on the Dunghill. Instead of using Oyls and Salves that were proper for the mitigation of his pain, and the healing his Sores, he scraped them, or squeezed out the raging matter of them, with a potsherd. He was so changed by his blains and botches, and in so squalid a condition, that his Friends knew him not, Chap. ii. 12. His Brethren went far from him, and his acquaintance were estranged from him, his kinsfolk failed him, and his familiar friends forgot him; they that dwelt in his house, and his maids counted him for a stranger, he was an alien in their sight. He called his servant, and he gave him no answer, he intreated him with his mouth. His breath was strange to his wife, though he entreated for the Childrens sake of his body. The young Children despised him and spake against him: His inward friends abhorred him, and those whome he loved were turned against him: as he most pathetically complains, Chap. xix.
His three Friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, when they first came to see him, sate down upon the ground seven days and nights, and could not speak for astonishment at so strange a spectacle; and what they afterwards spake was both impertinent and highly uncharitable: instead of giving him any relief it added more to his grief, and aggravated his torment. They were Physicians of no value, Ch. xiii. 4.and miserable comforters, as Iob told them.Ch. xvi. 2.
And whereas he might have hoped that the Wife of his bosom, she to whom he had been so true and faithful, (Ch. xxxi.9.) might have been some comfort to him, she on the contrary was not onelyonly estranged from him, but also a disheartner of his patience, and assisted Satan in his designs against him. Satan had touched his bones and his flesh, but that speech of his Wife,Ch. 2. 9. Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die, must needs smite him to the heart.
And now have I not set before you a sad and most pitiable condition, full of such difficult circumstances as might be apt, any one of them, to make the duty of quiet submission to the Will of God, very hard and grievous? For this rich and wealthy man to lose all his Estate, and that Estate which he had done so much good with, by acts of mercy and pity; and together with his Estate, all his ten Children by one sudden stroke: For this great and honourable Person to be brought so low as to sit upon an Ash-heap, to be debased to a Dunghill: For this so greatly reverenced and esteemed person, and that had been so humble in the heighth of his Honours, and employed his power for the relief of the oppressed, to be now the object of the greatest contempt, and vilified by the most vile: For so good a man, that feared God and eschued evil, to be delivered up to the malice of the Devil, who would be sure not to spare him, but to lay on hard enough: For such a man, I say, to be thus lamentably afflicted both by men and devils, foes and friends too, and not to have so much as one comfort left him, who can sufficiently set forth the pittifulness of this case? The Scriptures mention Iob's Wealth, Greatness, and Goodness, that the greatness of his sufferings, and his patient submission might the more appear.
For one that had but little before, to lose that, that was low before, to fall lower, is not so sharp a trial, as from possessing a great abundance, to be deprived of all, and that at once, to be immediately brought out of the extream of Prosperity into the extream of Adversity.
Had he by a riotous course, like the Prodigal in the Gospel, brought himself to streights; or had he by some hainous sin provoked the Almighty to inflict upon him some sore judgement, he had had no such trial of patience, but might thank himself for what was come upon him: But for one who had always kept a conscience void of offence both towards God and men, that walked in all the Commandments of God with a perfect and upright heart, to be so strangely and fearfully plagued, what a trial is here!
But Behold now Iob's Resignation, and Submission to the Will of God, it was great to admiration, as great as his sufferings.
As soon as the last Messenger had delivered the heaviest tidings of all the four, (for they came, as was said, so thick one upon another, that he had not time to say any thing before, the latter coming while the former was yet speaking) I say the last had no sooner brought him the dismal news of all his ten Children being slain at once, but he put himself into the lowest and most humble posture, rent his mantle, (or robe) shaved his head, and fell down on the ground and worshipped, and said: Job. 1. 21.Naked came I out of my mothers womb, and naked shall I return *Namely to the womb of the earth, to which 'tis like in uttering these words he pointed with his finger.thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
What more emphatical expression of an humble and profound submission to the Divine Will could have been uttered by the tongue of a man? Naked came I out of my mothers womb, and naked shall I return thither: I have as much still as I brought into the world with me: For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out, 1 Tim. vi. 7. That which I have lost it was not mine own, it was but lent me by God, who might call for it again whensoever he pleased: I came into the world without it, and without it may I go again out of the world, and be never the less happy.
The Lord gave; I acknowledge his goodness and favour in what I once enjoyed, and that I so long enjoyed it: And the Lord hath taken away; I acknowledge and submit to the Lord's good pleasure in stripping me of all these comforts and enjoyments. He doth not say, the Lord hath given, but the Sabeans and Chaldeans have taken away, but he looks beyond men and all inferiour causes to God, and saith, The Lord hath taken away. The Seventy adde here somewhat more, foreign, as it pleaseth the Lord, so things come to pass.
Blessed be the name of the Lord: To bless God when he bestoweth his blessings on us is very easie: It is no hard thing to say, The Lord hath given, blessed be the name of the Lord: But to bless God even when he hath taken away, and deprived us at once of all our comforts, this is hard indeed, this is heroick, this argues an excellent spirit, more than thousands of thanksgivings in a prosperous condition; this is an admirable instance of Self-Resignation.
Not to murmur and repine at such exceedingly severe providences is a great expression of a resigned temper; how great an evidence then is an heart born up in such miserable circumstances in a thankful and praising frame?
And that Iob should now bless God when Satan hoped and was so confident that he would curse him to his face, Ch. i. 11.was a great foil and defeat given to him, such a disappointment as could not but vex him at the very heart.
Nor is that other Expression of Iob's, Chap. ii. 10. unlike to this, namely his answer to that wretched speech of his wife's, He said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh; what? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? What? is God bound always to be heaping his favours upon us? Must we have nothing but sun-shine, fair and calm days, without wind, or clouds or rain? Must we be fed with nothing but marrow and fatness, taste nothing but what is sweet and delicious, must we have all smooth and flowery way in our journey? And if he for a while cloud himself, if he stop the streams of his comforts that flowed so abundantly upon us, if he give us to tast of the sowre and bitter, the waters of Marah, must we therefore repine and complain, and think evil of him, and grow weary of his service? Having received so much good from him, is it not equitable and fit that we should bear some evil and hardship when he sends it? Should not the memory of his many and long continued mercies more sweeten and endear our good God to us, than some present crosses and adversities imbitter our thoughts of him, and sowre our spirits with discontent?
Oh the heighth and excellency of Grace in this holy man! He was Vir ante Evangelia Evangelicus: A person of the true Evangelical and Christian spirit before Christ or his Gospel came into the world. How had patience its perfect work in him! There could not be a braver spectacle, a more lovely sight on the whole earth for God and Angels to behold, than such a Soul in the midst of such trials; the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit being in the sight of God foreign of great price. If Seneca could say of Cato, *Ecce spectaculum ad quod respiciat operi suo intentus Deus.Behold a sight which that God who diligently observes the work of his own hands may fix his eye upon, well may it be said of holy Iob.
This honourable Elogium is given of him Chap. 2. 10. In all this Iob sinned not with his lips: And the like in Chap. i. 22. where it is added, nor charged God foolishly. He did not speak unworthily of God or his disposals, nor had he any disbecoming thoughts of him or them: Nay, he was so far from repining and fretting at the severest of them, that, as was said, he took them gratefully at his hands.
As deformed and diseased a Creature as Iob was, as to his outward man, he was most sound, fair and lovely within: Though his Body lay among the ashes and potsherds, yet was he as to the inward Constitution of his Soul as the wings of a Dove, beautified with such interchangeable colours, by the Sun shining upon her,Ps. lxviii. 13. that they are as it were covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
In the Song of Hannah it is said, that God raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill: But here we have a far greater wonder, God exalted Iob even when he debased him to the dust, and made him in his lowest estate a glorious person; more glorious to all ages than ever he would have been had there been nothing in his story, but that he was for his Wealth and Honour the greatest of all the men of the East. So that Iob even whilst he was of this low degree, might rejoyce in that he was exalted, to allude to that of St. Iames, Chap. 1. 9.
Great afflictions accompanied with an unconquerable patience canonize men, and advance them to a peculiar degree of honour and glory above the rest of mankind. Behold we count them happy that endure, foreign, we call them blessed, James v. 11.
St. Chrysostom thus magnificently speaks of Iob's foreign, his Dunghill, that it was foreign, more stately than any Kingly Throne: And of his foreign, his Sores, that they were foreign, richer than any jewels and precious stones; nay, that they were foreign, more splendid and glorious than the very Sun-beams: And again, foreign, that no King sitting upon his Throne is so illustrious, as was Job then upon the Dunghill, honourable and glorious.
That very Ash-heap or Dunghill where the illustrious debased Iob sate was a Throne of glory, no Royal Seat of Majesty or Chair of State was so glorious; here his patience was inthroned, here the humble Greatness and Majesty of his mind shined forth, and the Spirit of Glory rested on him.
What a pleasure was it to Heaven to see this Champion come off so bravely, and to baffle all the attempts and arts that the Devil could use to break his spirit, and force him to impatience and unworthy reflections upon God and his Providence!
God said twice to Satan: Hast thou considered my servant Iob, that there is none like him in all the earth? foreign Hast thou set thine heart upon my servant Iob? Hast thou taken special notice of him? God seemeth to glory and make his boast of this excellent person, as a more worthy sight than any that presented it self to the view of observation in any part of the world. But he was much more worthy of esteem and admiration after he had been proved by such sore trials: when the trial of his faith and patience was found unto praise and honour and glory. So great was his Patience, so exemplary his Resignation, that the holy Scripture sets a special mark both upon it and him. Upon it James 5. 11. Ye have heard of the patience of Iob: upon him, in that he is mentioned as one of God's three most peculiar Favourites, Ezech. 14.
And now, having given some account of his woful afflictions and his great patience under them, we will speak briefly of the reward this his submission and Resignation of himself to the Will of God was at last crowned with. After the Apostle had said, in the forementioned place, Ye have heard of the patience of Iob, it follows, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. And in the 42. Chapter of Iob we find him most amply rewarded even in this life. In the seventh and eighth verses we read that he found such special favour in the eyes of God, that his three friends, who had added to the heavy weight of his afflictions, and had not spoken of God that which was right as Iob had done, could not atone his anger with a Burnt-offering without Iob's intercession in their behalf. And in the tenth verse it is said, that the Lord turned the captivity of Iob, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Iob twice as much as he had before. And in the twelfth verse, that the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand Sheep, and six thousand Camels, and a thousand yoke of Oxen, and a thousand She-asses: whereas he had before but half this number of each of these, as hath been shewn.
Thus in his Goods and Possessions which were either destroyed by fire, or carried away by his thievish Neighbors the Sabeans and Chaldeans, and so were never to be enjoyed by him more, God gave him (in these) double: But as to his Children he gave him the just number he had before, viz. seven sons and three daughters, v. 13. These it is likely were not doubled, because though they were taken away by death, yet they were not utterly lost, but their spirits returned to God that gave them, they were still alive with God, where their Father should again meet them in the other life.
But there is this said concerning these new daughters of Iob which was not said of the former, that in all the land were no women found so fair as they, ver. 15. And lastly we read in ver. 16. that after this lived Iob an hundred and fourty years, and saw his sons, and his sons sons, even four generations. After which, the happy days he enjoyed here concluded in an unspeakably more happy Eternity.
And thus, as Satan said, doth Iob serve God for nought? so we see that his great Patience and exemplary Submission to the Will of God under the sorest and severest trials, was not in vain in the Lord, but abundantly recompenced.
But before I conclude this Example of Resignation, I must take notice that so great was Iob's Patience, that some of the Rabbins of old, and some of late, have imagined the account that we have of him to be rather a moral fiction, a Romance and Parable, than a real History. So very averse are men to think any higher degrees of goodness attainable than what they themselves are willing to come up to.
But that we may not doubt whether it were a true History, besides other arguments, that in Ezech. xiv. 14. 20. doth evidently prove it so to be. There it is twice said, Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Iob were in it, they should but deliver their own souls by their righteousness: intimating, that if there were any hope or help for a Nation, none were more likely to prevail than these three persons, most dear to God for their singular Piety.
A like expression there is Ier. xv. 1. Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be to this people. Now Noah and Daniel, Moses and Samuel being no imaginary but real persons, why should it be thought that Iob onelyonly was so?
Let it be farther considered, that in Iam. 5. 10, 11. we are directed to the Prophets and to Iob as examples of Patience. Now the Prophets being no fictions, but such as really spake in the name of the Lord, how should Iob come to be joyned with them, if there were never such a one in being? Surely are not exhorted to the imitation of one who never was, nor encouraged to a real duty by an imaginary and feigned reward.
If this Story were a mere fiction, the argument to patience which St. Iames useth in those words, Ye have heard of the patience of Iob, and have seen the end of the Lord, &c. might have been thus excepted against by those suffering Christians to whom he there speaketh, viz. What do you tell us of one Iob, of his patience and reward, there was never such a person, there were never such things practised as are said of him, and therefore how can what you have told us concerning him signifie any thing to our encouragement?
CHAP. X. Of the Example of ELI.
X. A third Example shall be that of Eli. He was both the High-Priest and Judge, the chief of both Capacities, Sacred and Civil, and judged Israel fourty years: But being greatly faulty in not using his power to the restraining his two sons Hophni and Phinehas, that rendred the Service of God and the Priesthood vile, by their Covetousness, Luxury, and Uncleanness, God sent Samuel with this sad message to him, namely, that he would judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knew of, but did not restrain by his authority: That his two sons should die on one day; that the dignity of the Priesthood should be taken from his Family, and given to another.
This sentence, though most righteous, was so severe, that it is said that both the ears of every one, that heard of the execution of it, should tingle, 1 Sam. iii. 11. And it was an irreversible sentence; for God saith, that he hath sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice, nor offering for ever, ver. 14. A dreadful expression of his great displeasure.
And now how was Eli affected with this message? His Resignation of himself, and free Submission to the Will of God is exprest ver. 18. in that speech of his, It is the Lord: Let him do what seemeth him good: or, what is good in his eyes. Let him do, not what I, but what he thinks best, who is both infinitely wise and just, and knoweth better than I how to dispose of all for his own glory. He is holy in all his ways, and therefore 'tis fit his will should take place.
His heart did not fret against the Lord, nor was he cut to the heart when this sad cutting message was brought him, which was no less than the cutting off of his arm, and the arm of his fathers house: As it is exprest Chap. ii. 31. And he gave proof of it: For when he heard that his two sons were slain in Battel, (which was the sign God gave of the approching ruine of his house, Chap. ii. 34.) he seemed to bear this unconcernedly in comparison of the following tidings.
For when he heard that the Ark of God was taken, that sad word strikes him backward, and made him sink down in a deadly swound: Then he fell off from his Seat, and brake his neck with the fall, Chap. iv. 18. The good old man was so resigned to the Will of God as to his own concerns, that he could patiently bear the departure of the glory of his house, but the departure of the Glory from Israel, of the Ark, which was the token of God's special favour and residence among them, this he could not bear.