An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

First, God alone can give this grace and peace, Because he was at first the ¹maker of the heart, he is the Father of all flesh, and of all spirits. Having therefore such an immediate dominion over the heart of man, to put into it what he pleaseth, to raise up what affections he will; no wonder if he alone giveth comfort. Elihu speaketh fully to this, Job 35. 10. None saith, where is God my maker, that giveth songs in the night? In the night] when the soul may be most possessed with sad and dejected thoughts, even then he can give songs, and that because he is a maker: That as he who maketh an instrument of Art, the Clock or Watch, he can make it strike, when, and how he pleaseth; if there be any hinderance in the motions of it, he can presently rectify it, because he made it; thus it is with God, he knoweth all the workings, and turnings of thy heart, he made every power and ⟨p. 119⟩ability of thy soul, and so he alone can fill it with joy or bitterness, as he pleaseth. Though our hearts be not in our power, yet they are in Gods power, and what he bids it think, it thinketh; whereas we have not our own thoughts and motions in our own power. It is God therefore that made the heart, who can make it peaceable and joyful.

First, God alone can give this grace and peace, Because he was at first the ¹maker of the heart, he is the Father of all flesh, and of all spirits. Having therefore such an immediate dominion over the heart of man, to put into it what he pleaseth, to raise up what affections he will; no wonder if he alone giveth comfort. Elihu speaketh fully to this, Job 35. 10. None saith, where is God my maker, that giveth songs in the night? In the night] when the soul may be most possessed with sad and dejected thoughts, even then he can give songs, and that because he is a maker: That as he who maketh an instrument of Art, the Clock or Watch, he can make it strike, when, and how he pleaseth; if there be any hinderance in the motions of it, he can presently rectifie it, because he made it; thus it is with God, he knoweth all the workings, and turnings of thy heart, he made every power and