Sermons upon the Book of Job

For (sayeth he) look me upon a poor bondman or slave (for he speaketh not of servants, hinds, or serving men as they be in these days: but of such as were slaves: and afterward he addeth covenant servants (that are hired for wages,) look me then upon a slave how he longeth for the shadow: that is to say, for the rest of the night, by cause he never ceaseth labouring all day long: very well then, such a one desireth the shadow. Again, he that is at wages, longeth to have his days work at an end: and if he have a mooneth or more or less to serve, he hath an eye to the end of his term, that he may have some rest. But as for me (saith he) I have neither rest nor release. When I lay me down, I say, how shall I come to the morning? And when shall I rise again? When I am up in the morning▪ the day seemeth to me to be a whole year long. Then seeing ⟨p. 138⟩I am in this plight. It is well seen, that God is not contented to plague me after the ordinary manner of men: but that he meaneth to thunder down upon me, that I may not know what to do nor what to say. This is the complaint that Job maketh, saying that his misery is excessive▪ and no common misery, so as here is no cause why any man should say to him, Thou seest that so long as men are in this world, they have many miseries to endure, thou hast experience of it, and thou knowest after what manner God is wont to deal in that behalf: but God (saith he)§10 uttereth all his force against me, so as it seemeth he will overwhelm me altogether: and when I compare myself with others whom he correcteth, I see my self to be in the bottom of hell, and them to have yet some hope of help, that they shall be delivered of their miseries. And here we have to mark that which hath been touched already heretofore: that is to wit, that Job was not pressed with bodily adversity only, but that his chief grief was to feel that God was against him. And therefore addeth he this that ensueth immediately. Behold (saith he) my §02flesh is as it were clinged to my bones, and my skin is alto broken and as it were rotten: I am in that behalf as a poor forlorn caitiff, and yet notwithstanding my life passeth and glideth away even as a weavers shuttle, which runneth so swiftly as a man perceiveth it not, neither can he measure the nimbleness of it.