A35473:535
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 15 › Verse 23
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.
Where? or whither doth he wander? That which Eliphaz is conceived to aim chiefly at in this passage, is not so much the real, as the imaginary and conceited want of a wicked man. He wanders while he stays at home, and seeks for bread, while his Barns and Tables are filled with it. He is terrified with fore-thoughts of poverty, in the midst of his riches, and when he hath bread, saith, Where is it? He is so ⟨p. 114⟩troubled with suspected evils, that he cannot take comfort in his possessed goods.
Where? or whither doth he wander? That which Eliphaz is conceived to aime chiefely at in this passage, is not so much the reall, as the imaginary and conceited want of a wicked man. He wanders while he stayes at home, and seekes for bread, while his Barns and Tables are filled with it. He is terrified with fore-thoughts of poverty, in the midst of his riches, and when he hath bread, saith, Where is it? He is so ⟨p. 114⟩troubled with suspected evills, that he cannot take comfort in his possessed goods.
Hence observe.
First, That abundance cannot satisfy: God only is fullness to us. A man may wander about in his thoughts for bread, when he hath bread enough about him, and say he shall be undone, and dye a beggar, when he hath abundance. A covetous man is an unsatiable gulf; He only is well who hath enough, and he is best who hath (in temporals) the least enough: But a covetous man hath not enough, though he hath more then enough, and much more then needs; he always dreams of dearths, and suspects the Earth will be barren: with these fears he pines, yea martyrs himself, and is not at all enriched with all his riches; he hath sufficient to maintain twenty, yet is told by his unbelief, that he hath not sufficient for one. This is vanity and vexation of spirit; The life of man doth not consist in what he hath, but in what he is, and hopes to be: his life doth not consist in abundance, either for the continuance of it, or for the comfort of it. A man doth not live more days, nor more cheerfully any day, because he lives plentifully. The creature were a God to us, if it could do this to us; but this, God hath reserved in his own hands (how much soever of the creature he gives out) that we may know our dependence on him.