Sermons upon the Book of Job

which is,§30 that when God showeth himself a judge towards us, and we feel him to be against us, it is an intolerable torment: insomuch that we could find in our hearts, that the mountains should fall upon us. And Jesus Christ also saith: we could find in our hearts that the whole world should be turned upside down, and we had much lever that all creatures rose up against us, that every of them should bring our bane, and that we were to pass through infinite dangers: so we might not come before the face of God so dreadful against us. Ye see then whereat Job §40had an eye. And true it is, that this is not known to many. Why so? Because the more part are so blockish, that there is nothing else but hardness and stubbornness in them. If a man or a woman be pinched with sickness: they cry out alas. If they be pinched with poverty, or hunger, or any other thing: every man can complain as he hath occasion. But as for the torment of mind, we can no skill of it, when God persecuteth us and showeth us how dreadful his wrath is. And for proof hereof, our consciences are so rocked asleep, that hardly can one §50be found among a thousand, that ever tasted what is meant by the hand of God so terrible as Job setteth it forth here. But yet nevertheless we have need to be so much the better fenced, as we be of the less power against such afflictions. For if God spare us for a time, we know not that he keepeth us for the end. We see many that have been careless and have made good cheer all the time of their life: yea and even when men have laboured to make them feel God and his judgement, they have turned all into mockage: but whose jollity God hath so §60abated when they drew toward death, that instead of the jesting and sporting whereunto they had been given, they have been fain as then to feel the terrors of hell, and were (as ye would say) locked up in them, yea and utterly overwhelmed of them, because God had cast his lightning upon them. I say we shall see some come to this state. And why so? God punisheth the pride wherewith they were puffed up in their own conceit to grieve him with. Therefore when the scripture speaketh to us of the dreadfulness which they conceive that feel God to be their judge: let us learn, how it is to the end that every of us should think upon it.

which is,