A35538:288
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second, being the five last, chapters of the book of Job being the substance of fifty-two lectures or meditations / by Joseph Caryl ...
London: printed by M. and S. Simmons, 1666
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION WITH Practical Observations UPON The Thirty-eighth, T… › Chapter 38 › Verse 4-6
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.
To stretch forth the line, signifies in Scripture:
First, The exercise of power. And then, Who hath stretched the line upon it, is, Who hath ordered and governed the earth? The Apostle Paul spake of the line, and of stretching forth the line in this sense (2 Cor. 10.8.) where having said, that he had power from God, a spiritual power, not for destruction, but for ⟨p. 63⟩edification; he presently adds (vers. 13.) But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule (or line, as we put in the Margin) which God hath distributed unto us; for we stretch not our selves beyond our measure: That is, we are not greedy of, nor do we grasp more power than is given and allowed us of God; nor will we exercise our power further than Christ hath appointed and commanded us. This stretching forth of the line is the exercise of power, and that's a metaphorical sense of it.
Secondly, To stretch the line, is to build, or to make preparation for building (Zech. 1.16.) Thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Again (chap. 4.10.) Who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. When the Lord would assure his people that Jerusalem should be restored, he doth it by promising the stretching forth of the line, and the sight of the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, commanding, overseeing, and directing the work. The line and plummet being of much and most necessary use for the right setting of a building, signified that God was about to build.