and the discovery which all nature affords, of the Divine goodness, to lead us to put a like construction on the evils which we suffer, from a hand that hath so frequently loaded us with good? 2. The good things we receive from God are undeserved; the evils we suffer are justly merited. Every reasonable person must feel the weight of this consideration, for producing patience and submission. 3. The good things which at different times we have received and enjoyed, are much greater than the evils which we suffer. Of this fact, I am sensible it will be difficult to persuade the afflicted. But, would they weigh, in a fair balance, the whole of their circumstances, they would find it true. 4. Not only the goods of life are, upon the whole, greater than its evils; but the evils which we suffer are seldom, or never, without some mixture of good: as there is no condition on earth of pure unmixed felicity, so there is none so miserable, as to be destitute of every comfort. 5. As the evils which we suffer are thus alleviated by a mixture of good, so we have reason to believe, that the evils themselves are, in many respects, good. Influenced by such considerations as these, let us look up with reverence to the great Disposer of events; and under any distress with which He is pleased to visit us, let us utter no other voice but this, Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?'-Dr. Hugh Blair. It is a happy thing when the Christian gratefully accepts God's blessings with God's restrictions; God's summer with God's winter; God's parental encouragements with God's fatherly chastisements.-Anon. It is not the cracking of one string, or all, that can mar the music of God's providence.-Gurnall. The famous oriental philosopher, Lokman, while a slave, being presented by his master with a bitter melon, immediately ate it all. How was it possible,' said his master, 'for you to eat so nauseous a fruit?' Lokman replied, 'I have received so many favours from you, it is no wonder I should, for once in my life, eat a bitter melon from your hand.' The generous answer of the slave struck the master so forcibly, that he immediately gave him his liberty. With such sentiments,' says Bishop Horne, should man receive his portion of sufferings at the hand of God.'-Anecdotes. Whate'er thy lot-where'er thou be- A bruised reed He will not break, He wounds to heal. 'In all this did not Job sin with his lips.-The lips do offend both ways; negatively, as well as positively,-by speaking, and by not speaking. Sometimes silence is a loud sin. Job sinned not with his lips, either by being silent when he should speak, or by speaking wherein and when he should be silent.-Caryl. 11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him, and to comfort him. Some, from a kind of modesty (that is the best we can say of it), will not come to a friend in trouble, unless they 12 And when they lifted up their be sent for. I do assure you of this, it is good manners to be an unbidden guest at a house of mourning.-Caryl. eyes afar off, and knew him not, 13 So they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great. When grief is very great, words give little ease; precious words are wasted and thrown away; comfort itself is a trouble in the greatness and height of trouble. I am sure, a mind fully charged with sorrow, hath no room for comfort, is not at leisure for counsel. It is a profitable rule in visiting friends that are sick, or in distress, when you see them in extremity of pain of body, or in extremity of anguish and trouble of spirit, to keep silence, to wait awhile. Let the waters assuage a little, and the winds fall before you meddle. Let them come to themselves before you move them. As sudden anger, so sudden sorrow, is a kind of frenzy. No wise physician would give a medicine in a fit: the body must settle, before it is fit for physic; and so must the mind too. Silence is as good as physic in some distempers, both of mind and body. A talkative comforter is another disease to a sick man; unseasonable counsel is a wound instead of a plaister; and instead of healing, tortures the patient. It is as high a point of prudence to know when, as to know what, to advise a distressed friend.-Caryl. CHAP. III. AFTER this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. The holiest person in this life does not always preserve the same frame of holiness. There is a great deal of difference between what Job spake in the former chapters, and what he speaks now. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' This was the language we lately heard; but now cursing. At the best, in this life, we are but imperfect; yet, at some time we are more imperfect than we are at another. Faith is never strong; yet, at some time it is weaker than at another. Our love to Christ is never very hot; but yet, at some time it is colder than at another; we cannot keep it in the same degrees of heat. A man at one time can both do and suffer; and a while after, he can neither do nor suffer as he could at that time; he is out of frame, and bungles in both. Take the life of a Christian all together, it is a progress, it is a continual growing; yet take his life apart, consider him in every circumstance and stage of his life, then there are many stops and stands in his life, yea many declinings. As it is with a child take a child; and his life, from his birth to his full age, is in a growing condition; yet consider him at some particular time, and the child may abate; the child may not only be not stronger, but much weaker than he was a year or a month before. So it is with us from the first hour of our spiritual life, till we attain the full stature of it in Christ. Only this is our comfort, that in heaven our souls shall be established in such a frame of holiness, as shall never be moved nor abated in the least degree. But now we are up and down, one day patient, and another day impatient; now believing, and another day distrusting; now the heart melts and is very tender; anon, it is very hard and relentless.Caryl. We may observe, to the honour of the spiritual life above the natural, that though many have cursed the day of their first birth, never any cursed the day of their new birth, nor wished they never had had grace, and the Spirit of grace given them. Those are being itself, and which will never be a the most excellent gifts, above life and burden.-M. Henry. 2 And Job spake, and said, 'Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. 'Let the day perish,' &c.-That is, as we say, 'Let it be blotted out of the calendar.' It was an ancient custom to mark certain days as fortunate or unfortunate, because on them some fortunate or calamitous event had occurred.-Comp. Bible. What hath this day deserv'd? That it in golden letters should be Among the high tides in the calendar? Nay rather turn this day out of the week; This day of shame, oppression, perjury: Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child Pray that their burdens may not fall this day, Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd: But on this day let seamen fear no wreck; No bargains break that are not this day made: This day all things begun come to ill end; Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change. Shakspeare. 'And the night,' &c.-The distribution Job here makes, denotes his resolvedness to curse the hour of his birth. Lest he should miss the time of the day, he curses both the divisions of time in every day. As Benhadad in his charge for the taking of those young men, that came out of Samaria, to show how fully he was resolved to have them taken, saith, 'Whether they be come out for peace, take them alive; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive'; (1 Kings xx. 18;) as if he had said, 'I'll have them taken, whatsoever comes on't, or for whatsoever they come, they shall not escape.' Or as Herod, who, that he might be sure to slay Christ in His infancy, commands all infants to be slain; so Job, that the curse might not miss the time of his birthday, curses all the time of that day, the day and the night.-Caryl. In our sober moments we should meditate on the consequences which would have resulted, had our vain and impatient wishes been granted, to ourselves, our relatives, and our neighbours; and we shall often find that they were unnatural and cruel, as well as impious, and destructive to our own happiness. Indeed, the habit of wishing is altogether foolish and sinful. Those wishes which respect the past, can only express our impatience and if the object of our desires at the present, or for the future, be lawful, we should make it the subject of our prayers; if not, we should silence ourselves and the tempter by saying, 'It is written, Thou shalt not covet.'-Scott. 5 'Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: 10 Because it shut not up the 8 11 Why doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? 12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? 18 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, V.11-13. Yonder white stone, emblem of the innocence it covers, informs the beholder of one, who breathed out its tender soul, almost in the instant of receiving it. There, the peaceful infant, without so much as knowing what labour and vexation mean, lies still and is quiet; it sleeps and is at rest.' Staying only to wash away its native impurity in the laver of regeneration, it bids a speedy adieu to time, and terrestrial things. What did the little hasty sojourner find so forbidding and disgustful in our upper world, to occasion its precipitant exit? "Tis written, indeed, of its suffering Saviour, that when He had tasted the vinegar mingled with gall, He would not drink. And did our new-come stranger begin to sip the cup of life: but, perceiving the bitterness, turn away its head, and refuse the draught? Was this the cause, why the wary babe only opened its eyes: just looked on the light: and then withdrew into the more inviting regions of undisturbed repose? Happy voyager! no sooner launched, than arrived at the haven! But more eminently happy they, who have passed the waves, and weathered all the storms of a troublesome and dangerous world! who, through much tribulation have entered into the kingdom of heaven'; and thereby brought honour to their Divine Convoy, administered comfort to the companions of their toil, and left an instructive example to succeeding pilgrims! Highly favoured probationer! accepted, without being exercised! It was thy peculiar privilege, not to feel the slightest of those evils, which oppress thy surviving kindred; which frequently fetch groans from the most manly fortitude, or the most elevated faith. The arrows of calamity, barbed with anguish, are often fixed deep in our choicest comforts. The fiery darts of temptation, shot from the mouth of hell, are always flying in showers around our integrity. To thee, sweet babe, both these distresses and dangers are alike unknown!-Hervey. Consider this, ye mourning parents, and dry up your tears. Why should you lament that your little ones are crowned with victory, before the sword is drawn, or the conflict begun? Perhaps the Supreme Disposer of events foresaw some inevitable snare of temptation forming, or some dreadful storm of adversity impending. And why should you be so dissatisfied with that kind precaution, which housed your pleasant plant, and removed into shelter a tender flower, before the thunders roared; before the lightnings flew; before the tempest poured its rage? O remember! they are not lost, but taken away from the evil to come. (Isa. lvii. 1.) At the same time, let survivors, doomed to bear the burden and heat of the day, for their encouragement reflect, that it is more honourable to have entered the lists, and to have fought the good fight, before they come off conquerors. They who have borne the cross, and submitted to afflictive providences, with a cheerful resignation; have girded up the loins of their mind, and performed their Master's will, with an honest and persevering fidelity; these, having glorified their Redeemer on earth, will, probably, be as stars of the first magnitude in heaven. They will shine with brighter beams, be replenished with stronger joys, in their Lord's everlasting kingdom.-Hervey. 14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; Yonder entrance leads, I suppose, to the vault. Let me turn aside, and take one view of the habitation and its tenants. The sullen door grates upon its hinges; not used to receive many visitants, it admits me with reluctance and murmurs. What meaneth this sudden trepidation, while I descend the steps, and am visiting the pale nations of the dead? Be composed, my spirits; there is nothing to fear in these quiet chambers. Here, even the wicked cease from troubling.' Good heavens! what a solemn scene! How dismal the gloom! Here is perpetual darkness, and night even at noonday. How doleful the solitude! Not one trace of cheerful society, but sorrow and terror seem to have made this their dreaded abode. Hark! how the hollow dome resounds at every tread. The echoes, that long have slept, are awakened; and lament and sigh along the walls. A beam or two finds its way through the grates, and reflects a feebler glimmer from the nails of the coffins. I pore over the inscriptions, and am just able to pick out that these are the remains of the rich and renowned. No vulgar dead are deposited here. The most illustrious and right honourable have claimed this for their last retreat: and, indeed, they retain somewhat of a shadowy pre-eminence. They lie, ranged in mournful order, and in a sort of silent pomp, under the arches of an ample sepulchre ; while meaner corpses, without much ceremony, 'go down to the stones of the pit.' My apprehensions recover from their surprise. I find here are no phantoms, but such as fear raises. However, it still amazes me to observe the wonders of this nether world. Those who received vast revenues, and called whole lordships their own, are here reduced to half a dozen feet of earth, or confined in a few sheets of lead. Rooms of state and sumptuous furniture, are resigned for no other ornament than the shroud, for no other apartment than the darksome niche. Where is the star, that blazed upon the breast; or coronet, that glittered round the temples? The only remains of departed dignity are, the weather-beaten hatchment and the tattered escutcheon. I see no splendid retinue surrounding this solitary dwelling. The lordly equipage hovers no longer about the lifeless master. He has no other attendant than a dusty statue, which, while the regardless world is as gay as ever, the sculptor's hand has taught to weep!-Hervey. I thank you, ye relics of sounding titles and magnificent names. Ye have taught me more of the littleness of the world, than all the volumes of my library. Your nobility arrayed in a winding sheet, your grandeur mouldering in an urn, are the most indisputable proofs of the nothingness of created things. Never, surely, did Providence write this important point in such legible characters, as in the ashes of my lord, or on the corpse of his grace! -Ibid. 15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: 16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. "There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. V. 17. This life is a continual motion; death is a rest. This life is but noise and tumult; death is silence. Our life is a stormy passage, a tempestuous sea-voyage; death brings us to the harbour. There is a fourfold rest which we obtain in death:-1. A rest from labour and travail; no working there. 2. A rest from trouble and oppression; no wars there. 3. Arest from passion; no sorrow, no griefs shall afflict us there. 4. A rest from sin, a rest from the drudgery of Satan, a rest from the winnowings and buffetings of Satan; a rest from the law of our members, warring against the law of our minds.-Caryl. |