An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of…

First, Some truths are of very common observation: Who knoweth not such things as these? Every Child that hath been Catechised, ⟨p. 212⟩knows them. 'Tis no disparagement to any truth, that it hath been often heard, and is commonly known. The more common a truth is, the more weighty it may be. Yet,

First, Some truths are of very common observation: Who knoweth not such things as these? Every Childe that hath been Catechised, ⟨p. 212⟩knowes them. 'Tis no disparagement to any truth, that it hath been often heard, and is commonly knowne. The more common a truth is, the more weighty it may be. Yet,

Which gives us a second Observation.

Ordinary truths will not serve in extraordinary cases, and that which every man knows and hears, will not resolve us in those points which few men know or hear: As Jobs Person was a Phoenix in the World, his age afforded not his second, There is none like him in the earth, saith God himself to Satan (Chap. 1.8.) So Jobs condition was a Phoenix, it had no second; there was no man tried like him in the whole earth; and therefore his case eould not be measured by the common Standard, or rule of Providence. He had need hear that which was never heard before, who bears and feels that which was never borne nor felt before. There are some temptations on afflictions, as the Apostle speaks (1 Cor. 10.13.) Which are common to man: Common truths may comfort and satisfy the consciences of such. But there are temptations (such were Jobs) which are not common to man, we can hardly find their parallel, or a president of them in the Records of any Age: Common truths will not comfort, nor satisfy the consciences of such. Every dispensation hath a doctrine suitable to it; dispensations which are seldom seen call up doctrines which are seldom heard.