A35535:3061
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty second, the thirty third, and…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the thirty second, the thirty third, and…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty second, the thirty third, and the thirty fourth chapters of the book of Job being the substance of forty-nine lectures / delivered at Magnus near the Bridge, London, by Joseph Caryl ...An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the thirty second, the thirty third, and the thirty fourth chapters of the booke of Job being the substance of forty-nine lectures / delivered at Magnus neare the Bridge, London, by Joseph Caryl ...
London: printed by M. Simmons, 1661
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.
Thirdly, As God is long before he hideth his face, and long in hiding it from a Nation, so (which makes it dreadful) his face being once hid, continueth long hid from Nations. He doth not return presently to them, as he often doth to particular persons. The Eclipses of Divine favour abide long upon Nations and Churches. We commonly say, Great bodies move slowly; And God is usually slow in his motions both from and towards great bodies; as he doth not quickly remove from them, so he doth not quickly return to them. He stayeth long before he hideth his face, and he makes them stay long before he causeth his face to shine upon them again. When for the sin of Israel God gave up both them and the Ark into the hands of the Philistines (though the Philistines vexed with the hand of God upon them, sent it back shortly after, yet) it was long before it was fully settled among them, (1 Sam. 7.2.) And it came to pass while the Ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, that the time was long, for it was twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. The Ark (which was a sign of ⟨p. 742⟩Gods presence with them) being removed, was not soon restored to its proper place; yea it was 20. years more after that, before it was set in its place by David, (2 Sam. 6.17.) And whereas it is said, that in those first twenty years, they lamented after the Lord, this signifieth, that all those years God was (comparatively to what he had sometimes been) but as a stranger in the land, leaving them under the cruel oppressions of the Philistines: nor did they recover his favourable presence, till they solemnly repented and reformed, putting away their strange gods, and Ashteroth, preparing their hearts unto the Lord to serve him only, as Samuel exhorted them to do at the third verse of that chapter. The Jewish Nation in after ages had sad experience of this in the Babylonish captivity; when God hid his face from them, it was seventy years before he looked upon them again: and since that Nation provoked him (by their rejection of the Gospel) to lay them aside, God hath hid his face from them above these sixteen hundred years, and they are to this day a scattered unsettled people, and wanderers among the Nations, having their hearts hardened, and their eyes shut against the light of the glorious Gospel.