An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…

And as it was with Joseph so with Job, and so will ever be. If the cold winter blasts of any adversity bind up our comforts, either in our callings or relations, there is no unloosing them until the word of the Lord come. Solomon giveth this counsel (Eccles. 7.13, 14.) Consider the work of God; that is, his working ⟨p. 245⟩in the world. The reason of this counsel follows; For, who can make that strait which he hath made crooked? Solomon intends this specially of the dealings of God in the world; not that there is any crookedness or unrighteousness, any iniquity or injustice in the ways of God; but he means by crooked, that which is troublesome and grievous. Now if God himself make a thing crooked, till he himself make it strait, it is not in the power of all the men in the world to do it. The moral sense of that Text, is the very same with the point in hand; If God bind, who can loose? There is no striving, no contending with the providences of God: we must deal with, and apply to God himself for the altering of them, we cannot alter them our selves; we must desire him to mend his work, we cannot: This Solomon plainly intimates in the next, or 14. verse; In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider (in a time of adversity things grow crooked and awry from what we would have and desire, or from what is comfortable to us) for God hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him. Sometimes he makes things crooked, sometimes strait; sometimes he gives a day of prosperity, sometimes of adversity, that no man may be able to say directly, what shall be next. And seeing there is no loosing the bands of Orion till God himself loose them; therefore let all who are companions in tribulation, say one to another, as they in a like case are represented, (Hosea 6.1.) Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath wounded, and he will heal; he hath torn, and he will bind us up: O•, as this Text speaks, He hath bound us, and he will loosen us.

And as it was with Joseph so with Job, and so will ever be. If the cold winter blasts of any adversity bind up our comforts, either in our callings or relations, there is no unloosing them un•il the word of the Lord come. Solomon giveth this counsel (