A35538:651
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 16-18
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.
Secondly, Learn this from it; There is nothing a secret unto God.
That which here is denied to Job, is to be affirmed of God. Job knew not those secrets, but God knew them. Job himself said (chap. 9.8.) God treadeth upon the waves (or as the Hebrew is, the heights) of the sea. Here the Lord intimateth that he walketh in the depth of the sea: Both set forth his glory. God ⟨p. 150⟩commands from top to bottom, he treads upon the waves aloft; he walks in the depths below, nothing can escape either his Power or his Eye. It is the sole privilege of God to walk in the search of the sea, that is, to find out and plainly to discern the most secret things. And by him the most unsearchable depths are searched out, or rather, are known to him without search. He knoweth even the depth of mans heart, which is the greatest depth in the world, next to the depth of his own heart. God enters into the springs of that sea, the Sea of mans heart, and walketh in the search of that depth. There are innumerable springs in the heart of man, which bubble up, and send forth their streams of good or evil continually; all which the Lord sees more plainly than we see any thing that is done above ground, or in the open light. Moses doth not only report (Gen. 6.5.) That God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth (that is, that his outward practises o• conversation was very wicked) bu• that he saw every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Consider, God saw not only the thoughts of man, but every imagination (which is the least thing imaginable) of mans thoughts. He saw (as the word which we render imagination properly signifies) every figment, every little creature which the thoughts of mans heart was about to frame; and O how many, how exceeding many, or innumerable, are they! yet God saw not only some, or many, but every one of them. It was said by one of the Ancients upon this place,1