A35473:1062
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…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of the book of Job being the sum of twenty three lectures delivered at Magnus near the bridge, London / by Joseph Caryl.An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of the book of Job being the summe of twenty three lectures delivered at Magnus neer the bridge, London / by Joseph Caryl.
London: printed by Matthew Simmons, 1650
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION Upon the Fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth Chapte… › Chapter 16 › Verse 2
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly, They (as was touched before) tired out his afflicted soul with tedious discourses, and unpleasing repetitions; they always harped upon the same string, and that makes no music to a disconsolate soul. As God complains of those prayers as unpleasing, which are full of unnecessary repetitions; so also those counsels are unpleasing to man, which are made up of needless repetitions. To press the same point, though true, oft, and oft, is a weariness to the spirit; and because it suggests this suspicion, that the hearer doth oppose, or resist that truth, it proves an upbraiding, rather then a teaching, or a comforting: Comfort must be stolen in unawares, by a holy sleight of hand, it must not be beaten in with beetles, as it were, by force of hand.
Secondly, They (as was toucht before) tyred out his afflicted soule with tedious discourses, and unpleasing repetitions; they alwayes harped upon the same string, and that makes no musicke to a disconsolate soule. As God complaines of those prayers as unpleasing, which are full of unnecessary repetitions; so also those counsels are unpleasing to man, which are made up of needlesse repetitions. To presse the same point, though true, oft, and oft, is a wearinesse to the spirit; and because it suggests this suspition, that the hearer doth oppose, or resist that truth, it proves an upbraiding, rather then a teaching, or a comforting: Comfort must be stolne in unawares, by a holy sleight of hand, it must not be beaten in with beetles, as it were, by force of hand.
Solomon tells us (Prov. 25.12.) As an earring of Gold, 1and an ornament of fine Gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear. What he speaks of a reprover is as true of a comforter; and he only is fit to be a reprover, who is skilled, or knows how to be a comforter. He that will open or lance a sore, had need be acquainted with the means of healing it. The spirit of God, who is the Reprover (John 16.8