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…

Further, when Job saith, He is not a man as I am, he gives us the reason of all he had said before,¹ especially of what he had said immediately before, Though I wash my self with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, For he is not a man as I am; that is, though I by washing my self should think I were all white, and not a spot to be seen upon me (as hypocrites by covering themselves, think they are all hid, and not a sin to be found about them) yet he would throw me into the ditch again, as like to like, dirt to dirt, for he is not a man as I am, he hath other eyes, and thoughts, and ways then creatures have.

Further, when Job saith, He is not a man as I am, he gives us the reason of all he had said before,¹ especially of what he had said immediately before, Though I wash my self with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, For he is not a man as I am; that is, though I by washing my self should thinke I were all white, and not a spot to be seen upon me (as hypocrites by covering themselves, thinke they are all hid, and not a sinne to be found about them) yet he would throw me into the ditch again, as like to like, dirt to dirt, for he is not a man as I am, he hath other eyes, and thoughts, and waies then creatures have.

1. 1Ratio est omnium superiorum, et si justus sim, cum Deo tamen contendens pro so•te habeor, quia non est par utriusque nostrum conditio. Merc.

Secondly, As they contain a reason, why the Lord would judge him impure, though he should wash himself with snow-water; so also, why the Lord would afflict him, though he should wash himself with snow-water, He is not a man as I am. As if he had said, Should I see a man without spot or speck, without blame or fault, yet full of wounds and stripes, full of troubles and sorrows: Should I see him afflicted, of whom I could not say he had sinned, it were beyond my reason. But though I cannot, yet the Lord can see reason to afflict a man in whom I see no iniquity. He knows why and wherefore, he may and doth cast them into the fire, in whom I can see no dross. He is not a man as I am. God exceeds man in his actings, as much as he doth in his nature, as he is what man is not, so he can do what man cannot, Every thing is in working, as it is in being. God always works like himself, and infinitely above man.