Sermons upon the Book of Job

WE have to mark here, that when God hath withdrawn his hand from us, we must prepare our selves too suffer much greater miseries than we have escaped.§50 For we see after what manner god proceedeth, when he afflicteth his servants. If they be but Novices, so as they be not acquainted with the suffering of adversity, he spareth them, like as we would not lay so great a burden upon a little child, as upon a man. God then hath a regard of our ablenesse to bear, and according as we be practiced with the enduring of troubles, so sendeth he them to us smaller or greater. But when we be once as it were inured with them, then may he the better lay full §60lode upon us: for he hath also given us wherewith to bear it out. And we see how he speaketh to Peter, saying that at such time as he was young, he was left at his own ease and rest: but when thou art old (saith he) an other shall gird thee, thou shalt be tied and bound, and thou shalt be haled whither thou wouldest not. We see then what a regard God hath to hold us up, while we be yet tender: and that afterward when he hath made us strong, he sendeth us more grievous and heavy afflictions, for as much as use ought to have strengthened us already aforehand. This hath been showed in the person of Job, to the end that every of us might receive instruction by it for himself. Right hard things were they unto Job, that he was spoiled of his goods, that he lost his children, and that he was brought to poverty: But it was an other manner of thing when Satan smote him in his body, so as he was full of painful botches, whereof a man could not tell the ⟨p. 42⟩kind, saving that it was as one whole Leprosy: yea and the holy scripture showeth us, that of necessity the disease must needs have bin extreme. Lo how he is here, as it were, cast out of mens company: even he who had heretofore been honoured of all men, is here now as a rotten carrion, in so much as he is like to fall in pieces (as ye would say) in his own stench, and to endure the extremest pain in the world: for such sores could not be without great burning, which tormented him even to the uttermost. Then see we here, that this later misery was §10far more excessive than all the miseries that had happened unto him afore. And this is it that Satan meant also, when he said▪ yea, will not a man always quit skin for skin?