Sermons upon the Book of Job

Is that man worthy too be praised, which hath no feeling at all of his adversity? We see sometimes a poor madman laugh and scorn the whole world, yea even when he is at deaths door: but that is because he hath no feeling of his misery. This therefore deserveth not to be taken and esteemed for a virtue, for it is rather a blockishness. The brute beasts have sometime no feeling, yet are they not patient for all that. So then let us mark, that this word Patient, or Pacientnesse betokeneth not that men should become blockish, so as they should have no heaviness at all, nor be cumbered with any grief when they feel adversities: but the virtue is when they can moderate themselves, and hold such a measure, as they cease not to glorify God in the middest of all their miseries: nor be so overcombred and swallowed up with sorrow and anguish, as to quail altogether: but fight against their own passions, until they may be able too frame themselves too the good will of God, and too conclude, as Job ⟨p. 32⟩doth here, and finally to say, that he is righteous in all respects. And now let us see what we have to mark here, where it is said, that Job rent his garment, and shore his head: for such fashions were customable in the East countries, according as we know that there were mo ceremonies in those countries, than are in these cold countries where we dwell. For when there happened any thing that might move men to great trouble: they rent their garments in token of sorrow. Mark this for a special point. And likewise in that country where men were §10wont to wear long heads: they polled themselves when they mourned, like as on the contrary part, where men use to poll their heads, they let their hear grow when they make any sorrow. Therefore Jobs rending of his garment, and his polling of his head, are tokens of the heaviness that he conceiveth here. For it is certain that he did it not upon any hypocrisy, as oftentimes they that mean to counterfeit, do disguise themselves, too the end that men should think them too be in great heaviness, when they cease not to laugh in their hearts. Job used no §20such hypocrisy. Let us assure our selves then, that when he tare his garment and shore his head, he was full of extreme anguish and sorrow: and that when he cast himself to the ground, the same was another like record thereof.