great helps, the assiduity of preaching, and the personal, and exemplary piety and constancy in our princes, be not by our sins. made unprofitable to us. For that is the height of God's malediction upon a nation, when the assiduity of preaching, and the example of a religious prince, does them no good, but aggravates their fault. SERMON CXI. PREACHED TO THE COUNTESS OF bedford, then at JOB XXX. 15. Lo, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. THE name, by which God notified himself, to all the world, at first, was, Qui sum, I am; this was his style, in the commission, that he gave to Moses to Pharaoh; say, That he whose name is, I am, hath sent thee', for there, God would have made it known, that all essence, all being, all things, that fall out, in any time, past, or present, or future, had their dependence upon him, their derivation from him, their subsistence in him. But then, when God contracts himself into a narrower consideration, not to be considered as God, which implies the whole Trinity, but as Christ, which is only the second person, and when he does not so much notify himself to the whole world, as to the Christian church, then he contracts his name too, from that spacious and extensive Qui sum, I am, which includes all time, to Alpha and Omega, first and last, which are pieces of time, as we see, in several places of the Revelation, he styles himself: when God speaks to the whole world, his name is, Qui sum, I am, that all the world may confess, that all that is, is nothing, but with relation to him; when he speaks to a Christian, his name is Alpha and Omega, first and last, that a Christian may, in the very name of God, fix Exod. iii. 14. his thoughts upon his beginning, and upon his end, and ever remember, that as a few years since, in his cradle, he had no sense of that honour, those riches, those pleasures, which possess his time now, so, God knows how few days hence, in his grave, he shall have no sense, no memory of them. Our whole life is but a parenthesis, our receiving of our soul, and delivering it back again, makes up the perfect sentence; Christ is Alpha and Omega, and our Alpha and Omega is all we are to consider. Now, for all the letters in this alphabet of our life, that is, for all the various accidents in the course thereof, we cannot study a better book, than the person of Job. His first letter, his alpha, we know not, we know not his birth; his last letter, his omega, we know not, we know not his death; but all his other letters, his children, and his riches, we read over and over again, how he had them, how he lost them, and how he recovered them. By which though it appear that those temporal things do also belong to the care and provision of a godly man, yet it appears too, that neither his first care, nor his last care appertains to the things of this world, but that there is a primum quærite, something to be sought for before, the kingdom of God; and there is a memorare novissima, something to be thought on after, the joys of heaven; and then, Cætera adjicientur, says Christ, all other cares are allowable by way of accessary, but not as principal. And therefore, though this history of Job, may seem to spend itself, upon the relation of Job's temporal passages, of his wealth, and poverty, of his sickness, and recovery, yet, if we consider the alpha and omega of the book itself, the first beginning, and the latter end thereof, we shall see in both places, a care of the Holy Ghost, to show us first Job's righteousness, and then his riches, first his goodness, and then his goods; in both places, there is a catechism, a confession of his faith before, and then an inventory, and catalogue of his wealth; for, in the first place, it is said, He was an upright and just man, and feared God, and eschewed evil, and then, his children, and his substance follow; and in the last place, it is said, That Job was accepted by God, and that he prayed for those friends, which had vexed him, and then it is, that his former substance was doubled unto him. This world then is but an occasional world, a world only to be used; and that but so, as though we used it not: the next world is the world to be enjoyed, and that so, as that we may joy in nothing by the way, but as it directs and conduces to that end; nay, though we have no joy at all, though God deny us all conveniences here, etiamsi occiderit, though he end a weary life, with a painful death, as there is no other hope, but in him, SO there needs no other, for that alone is both abundant, and infallible in itself. Now, as no history is more various, than Job's fortune, so is no phrase, no style, more ambiguous, than that in which Job's history is written; very many words so expressed, very many phrases so conceived, as that they admit a diverse, a contrary sense; for such an ambiguity in a single word, there is an example in the beginning, in Job's wife; we know not (from the word itself) whether it be benedicas, or maledicas, whether she said Bless God, and die, or, Curse God: and for such an ambiguity, in an entire sentence, the words of this text are a pregnant, and evident example, for they may be directly, and properly thus rendered out of the Hebrew, Behold he will kill me, I will not hope; and this seems to differ much from our reading, Behold, though he kill me, yet will I trust in him. And therefore to make up that sense, which our translation hath, (which is truly the true sense of the place) we must first make this paraphrase, Behold he will kill me, I make account he will kill me, I look not for life at his hands, his will be done upon me for that; and then, the rest of the sentence (I will not hope) (as we read it in the Hebrew,) must be supplied, or rectified rather, with an interrogation, which that language wants, and the translators used to add it, where they see the sense require it: and so reading it with an interrogation, the original, and our translation will constitute one and the same thing; it will be all one sense to say, with the original, Behold he will kill me, (that is, let him kill me) yet shall not I hope in him? and to say with our translation, Behold though he kill me, yet will I hope in him: and this sense of the words, both the Chaldee paraphrase, and all translations (excepting only the Septuagint) do unanimously establish. So then, the sense of the words being thus fixed, we shall not distract your understandings, or load your memories, with more than two parts: those, for your ease, and to make the better impression, we will call propositum, and præpositum; first, the purpose, the resolution of a godly man, which is, to rely upon God; and then the consideration, the inducement, the debatement of this beforehand, that no danger can present itself, which he had not thought of before, he hath carried his thoughts to the last period, he hath stirred the potion to the last scruple of rhubarb, and wormwood, which is in it, he hath digested the worst, he hath considered death itself, and therefore his resolution stands unshaked, Etiam occiderit, Though he die for it, yet he will trust in God. In the first then, the resolution, the purpose itself, we shall consider, quem, and quid; the person, and the affection to whom Job will bear so great, and so reverent a respect; and then, what this respect is, I will trust in him. I would not stay you, upon the first branch, upon the person, as upon a particular consideration (though even that, the person upon whom, in all cases, we are to rely, be entertainment sufficient for the meditation of our whole life) but that there arises an useful observation, out of that name, by which Job delivers that person, to us, in this place: Job says, Though he kill me, yet he will trust in him; but he tells us not in this verse, who this he is. And though we know, by the frame, and context, that this is God, yet we must have recourse to the third verse, to see, in what apprehension, and what notion, in what character, and what contemplation, in what name, and what nature, what attribute, and what capacity, Job conceived and proposed God to himself, when he fixed his resolution so entirely to rely upon him; for, as God is a jealous God, I am sure I have given him occasion of jealousy, and suspicion, I have multiplied my fornications, and yet am not satisfied, as the prophet speaks: as God is a consuming fire, I have made myself fuel for the fire, and I have brought the fires of lust, and of ambition, to kindle that fire; as God visits the sins of fathers upon children, I know not what sins my fathers and grandfathers have laid up in the treasure of God's indignation: as God comes to my notion, in these forms, horrendum, it were a fearful thing to flesh and blood, to deliver one's self over to him, as he is a Ezek. xvi. 29. jealous God, and a consuming fire; but in that third verse, Job sets before him, that God, whom he conceives to be Shaddai, that is, Omnipotens, Almighty, I will speak to the Almighty, and I desire to dispute with God. Now, if we propose God to ourselves, in that name, as he is Shaddai, we shall find that word in so many significations in the Scriptures, as that no misery or calamity, no prosperity or happiness can fall upon us, but we shall still see it (of what kind soever it be) descend from God, in this acceptation, as God is Shaddai. For, first, this word signifies dishonour, as the Septuagint translate it in the Proverbs3, He that dishonoureth his parents, is a shameless child; there is this word; Shaddai is the name of God, and yet shaddai signifies dishonour. In the prophet Esay it signifies depredation, a forcible and violent taking away of our goods; Væ prædanti, says God in that place, Woe to thee that spoilest, and wast not spoiled*; Shaddai is the name of God, and yet shaddai is spoil, and violence and depredation. In the prophet Jeremy, the word is carried farther, there it signifies destruction, and an utter devastation, Devastati sumus, says he, Woe unto us, for we are destroyed; the word is shaddai, and is destruction, though Shaddai be the name of God: yea, the word reaches to a more spiritual affection, it extends to the understanding, and error in that, and to the conscience, and sin in that; for so the Septuagint makes use of this word in the Proverbs, To deceive®, and to lie; and in one place in the Psalms', they interpret the word of the devil himself. So that, (recollecting all these heavy significations of the word) dishonour and disreputation, force and depredation, ruin and devastation, error and illusion, the devil and his temptations, are presented to us, in the same word, as the name and power of God is, that, whensoever any of these do fall upon us, in the same instant when we see and consider the name and quality of this calamity that falls, we may see and consider the power and the purpose of God which inflicts that calamity; I cannot call the calamity by a name, but in that name, I name God; I cannot feel an affliction, but in that very affliction, I feel 3 Prov. xix. 26. 4 Isaiah xxxiii. 1. 5 Jer. iv. 13. 7 Psalm cxi. 6. |