An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

First, The sorest afflictions that fall upon sinners in this life are little or nothing to what God might lay upon them.

There is no condition here actually so bad, but possibly it might be worse; though the darkness of night be upon us, yet it may be ⟨p. 116⟩darker with us; God can make a night so dark, that the former darkness may be called light; God can add so much bitterness to that which is very bitter, so much weight to that burden of affliction, which is already very heavy, that the former bitter may be called sweet, and that former weight of affliction, light. Are any poo•, sick, or pained, God can make them poorer, sicker, and so increase their pain, that former poverty, sickness, pain, may go for riches, health, and ease. And as present sufferings of one kind or other, are but little to what they may be, so they are but little to what we have deserved they should be: The least mercy is more than we deserve, and the greatest affliction is less than we deserve.¹ He hath visited thee little or nothing, (so the word is) saith Elihu, according to this reading of the Text. The Lord hath not only not visited thee too much, O Job, but he may be said, not to have visited thee at all, or the All of thy visitation is nothing to that which the Lord could have brought upon thee. David gives a general assertion near this concerning the dealings of the Lord, in his angry dispensations, (Psal. 103.10.) He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities; that is, our sins and our iniquities might have born out the Justice of God in laying heavier evils and troubles upon us, than yet he hath done. Sinners never have their full punishment till they come to hell. As the sweetest joys and strongest consolations which the godly find and feel on earth, are only tastes and first-fruits of that they shall have in heaven; so all the sorrows and sufferings of the wicked in this world, are but tastes, light touches and beginnings of sorrow, compared with the pains and sorrows of the next world, where sinners shall be paid their wages in full.