A35473:1249
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 7
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.
Man is naturally (as the Philosopher calls him) a sociable creature, he loves company; they who are for a solitary life, Monks and Anchorites, seem to have put off the nature of man. ⟨p. 253⟩There is an elective aloneness, or retiredness, at some times very useful for contemplation and prayer: And we are never less alone, then when we are so alone; for then God is more specially with us, and we with him. It is said of Jacob (Gen. 32.24.) Then Jacob was left alone, not that Jacobs company had left and forsaken him, but that Jacob for a time had left his company: So, some render the Text actively, He stayed, or remained alone. Jacob stayed alone purposely, that he might have freer communion with God in that recess and retirement from the creature: It is good for man to be alone from the company of man, that he may enjoy (more fully) the presence of God.
Man is naturally (as the Philosopher calls him) a sociable creature, he loves company; they who are for a solitary life, Monkes and Anchorets, seeme to have put off the nature of man. ⟨p. 253⟩There is an elective alonenesse, or retyrednesse, at some times very usefull for contemplation and prayer: And we are never lesse alone, then when we are so alone; for then God is more specially with us, and we with him. It is sayd of Jacob (Gen. 32.24.) Then Jacob was left alone, not that Jacobs company had left and forsaken him, but that Jacob for a time had left his company: So, some render the Text actively, Hee stayed, or remained alone. Jacob stayed alone pueposely, that hee might have freer communion with God in that recesse and retirement from the creature: It is good for man to be alone from the company of man, that he may enjoy (more fully) the presence of God.
Yet God himself said at the first when man was created, It is not good for man to be alone: There was no moral evil in that aloneness (for when God spake this word, there was no such evil in the visible World) but God called it evil, because it was so inconvenient for the civill well-being and inconsistent with the natural propagation of man. And therefore as in reference to both these evils, God said with his own mouth, It is not good for man to be alone; so in reference to the former of the two, God said by Solomon, Two is better then one, and woe to him that is alone (