An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of…

1. It may note, That God had delivered up Jobs children unto the reign or dominion of their own sinful hearts, or had laid the reins in their necks, suffering their lusts to hurry them whither they would, to carry them captive unto every sin, and rush them head-long into every evil. The word—here used, signifies either simply, to send, or violently to cast, or to put a thing away from us: and so, it is as much as if Bildad had said, For •••uch as ⟨p. 23⟩thy children would sin against God, he suffered them to sin their fill; they being wicked, he gave them up to do all wickednesses; They loved to wander from him, and he let them wander. We have this sense of the word (Prov. 29.15) A child left unto himself brings his mother to shame: The Hebrew is, A child sent away, sent to himself, or put into his own hands, A child sent away to himself, or left alone, bringeth shame, that is, will certainly run into vile and enormous courses, to the shame of her that bare him. A child left, or sent to himself, is one that hath no guide, no governor, no instructor but himself. A man that will learn only of himself, hath but a fool to his Master, How much more then a weak child, what a master, what a tutor hath a child, if he have none but himself. To be left or sent out to themselves is, to have none to counsel or advise them in a right way, or to give them any stop and check in an ill way. The character that Paul and Barnabas gave of the former times, when they preached to the Heathens at Lystra, was this (Act. 14.16.) We exhort you to turn unto the living God that made heaven and earth, who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways. He let them go, and never stayed them at all, they had no bridle of restraint, not so much as a word to bring them back; He suffered all Nations, as if he had said, He left them in the hand of their transgression, that their own evil hearts should do what they would with them. In which sense we may also understand that place (Act. 17.30.) when Paul at Athens disputed with the Philosophers, he tells them that now God began to look towards them, and had sent them the knowledge of Christ, The times of that ignorance God wicked at; but now he calleth all men every where to repent. The words undergo a two-fold interpretation; Some thus, to note the indulgence of God, The time past of that ignorance God winked at;