The drift of the context is to persuade to patience: in
this verse many things are offered to that purpose.
Behold, we count them
happy that endure. - We, it may imply - First, The judgment of all men; mere
men are wont to have high thoughts of them that can bear the brunt of
afflictions. Note:-
Obs. 1. That meek patience in afflictions is a
taking thing even in the eyes of men. There is a double reason implied in the
words tous hupomenontas, those that endure misery, and fortitude in misery. Now
misery worketh upon pity, and fortitude calleth for praises; miseries work upon
weak spirits, and constancy in miseries upon generous spirits. Fortitude in
miseries is more taken than elsewhere; there is more of choice in it than of
furious and brutish valour. Seneca observeth, that the burning of Mutius' hand
was a greater token of his courage than fighting an enemy. Those that are
engaged in a good cause need not despair; we shall gain somewhat with mere men;
a resolute constancy and a meek patience may recover those friends which the
miscarriages of a prosperous condition have lost: providence ordereth such
things for good. But remember you cannot take this comfort but in a good cause.
Sometimes wicked ones are the depressed party. All would entitle their
sufferings to persecution, as the Donatists did in Austin's time; and therefore
though sufferings are creditable, yet we must know that the persecuted cause is
not always the best. Sarah was a type of the true church, and Hagar of the
false; now Sarah she corrected Hagar. There is an unquiet generation; when they
suffer anything, they call it persecution, when it is but just punishment. As
the Moabites, when they saw the waters look ruddy through the reflection of the
morning sun, thought them mingled with blood; so many voice up persecution and
martyrs' blood when their insolences are but a little corrected and restrained.
Secondly, We, may imply the judgment of the visible church. The whole
Christian church doth acknowledge the slain prophets happy, and celebrate their
memory: makarizein, the word in the text, properly signifieth to make or
declare happy. What is in the Hebrew, 'the daughters will call me blessed,'
Gen. xxx. 13, the Septuagint render by makarisoisi. So Luke i. 48, 'All
generations shall call me blessed;' in the Greek, makariousi me pasai hai
geneai. From this consideration I observe: -
Obs. 2. That it is often
the condition of God's people to live envied and persecuted, but to die
sainted. We account the slain prophets happy, and celebrate the memory of those
which endure; the scribes and Pharisees garnished the tombs of the dead
prophets, but killed the living, Mat. xxiii. 29, 30. They pretended honour to
the saints departed, but in the meantime were injurious to the saints alive. So
John v., the Jews pretended love to Moses, but showed hatred to Christ. It
cometh to pass, partly by the providence of God, who after death cleareth up
the innocency and holy conversation of his servants; posterity acknowledged
them whom the former age destroyed; partly because living saints are an
eyesore; by the severity of their lives and reproofs they trouble and torment
the world; dead saints do not stand in the way of their lusts, for objects out
of sight do not exasperate: this may comfort God's children against the abasers
of the present age: 'The day will declare it,' 1 Cor. iii. 13; when the heat of
oppression is over, that which is now called heresy and anti-christianism will
then be accounted worship, and your sufferings will speak you not malefactors
but martyrs. Men cannot discern the present truth, 2 Peter i. 12, because
blinded with interests; but it may be truth itself may be the interest of the
next age, and the bleak wind that bloweth now in our faces may be then on our
backs; there are strange revolutions. Again, this may serve for caution to us.
Let us not rest in fond affection to saints and worthies departed; the memory
of Judas is not so accursed to us as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were to the
carnal Jews in Christ's time; Moses was dear to them, as Christ and the
apostles to us. That is the best affection which is expressed by imitation; and
stableness in the present truth is a great trial of our sincerity; dead saints
are out of our envy: how are we affected to the living, that walk in their
ways? It is good to examine what proportion and likeness there is between the
case of the present hated parties, and the case of Christ and his apostles in
the primitive times.
Thirdly, We, may imply (and so I think chiefly)
the judgment of the children of God, as it is opposed to the judgment of the
world: Behold, we count them happy that endure; we that are enlightened by the
Spirit of God. I prefer this last consideration, because this sentence hath
reference to a passage of scripture, 'Blessed is he that waiteth,' Dan. xi. 12,
where the Septuagint have makarios ho hupomenoon. From hence note:-
Obs. 3. That the judgment of the saints and the judgment of the world
about afflictions are far different; they have different principles - the
spirit of the world, and the Spirit of God; they have different lights and
rules - that of faith and that of sense. A carnal man judgeth by appearance,
but a spiritual man looketh within the veil; the world judgeth afflictions
miserable, they happiness. It is notable that all the beatitudes are affixed to
unlikely conditions, Mat. v., to show that the judgment of the word and the
judgment of the world are contrary. Well, then, do not hearken to the judgment
of the world about afflictions, but to the judgment of the Spirit; not to what
sense feeleth, but to what faith expecteth. The men of the world are
infeliciter felices, miserable in their happiness, but the children of God are
happy in their misery. But you will say, Wherein? I answer -
(1.) The very
suffering for righteousness' sake is a kind of grace which God doth us: 1 Peter
in. 14. 'Happy are ye.' &c., so 'Blessed are they,' &c.; Mat v. 12;
'they rejoiced,' &c., Acts v. 41. God forgive me this great unthankfulness
for this exceeding great mercy, saith Bradford, that he chooseth me for one in
whom he will suffer.
Secondly, Ye have gain by the afflictions, experience,
hope, and grace, Rom. v. 3, 4; Heb. xii. 11; as also the sweet sense of divine
consolations, 2 Cor. i. 5.
(3.) God hath promised bountifully to reward it;
there is a blessing in hand, but more in hope: see James i. 12
Ye have
heard of the patience of Job. - He instanceth in Job because he was an eminent
instance of misery. From the citation we may note that the book of Job was not
a parable, but a history of what was really acted.
Obs. 1. Again from
that ye have heard. We had never heard of Job had he not been brought so low.
Affliction maketh saints eminent: Job's poverty made him rich in honour and
esteem; stars do not shine but in the night; the less we are made by
providence, the greater. You may oppose this against the temptation of lowness
and baseness: God's children never gain so much honour as in their troubles.
Many whose names now do breathe forth a fresh perfume in the churches would
have lived and died obscurely, and their bones have been cast into some unknown
charnel, undistinguished from other relics of mortality, but that God drew them
forth into public notice by eminent sufferings.
Obs. 2. Again from that
the patience of Job. He showed much impatience and murmuring, cursing the day
of his birth, &c.; but not a word of all this: where the bent of the heart
is right, the infirmities of God's people are not mentioned. So Heb. xi. 31,
there is no mention of Rahab's lie, but only of her faith, and peaceable
behaviour towards the spies. Where God seeth grace, he doth as it were hide his
eyes from those circumstances that might seem to deface the glory of it: so in
Sarah's speech, though the whole sentence be full of distrust and unbelief, God
taketh notice of her reverence to her husband: she called Abraham lord, 1 Peter
iii. 6. Wicked men watch for our halting, and feed their malice with our
failings; they can oversee a great deal of good, and pitch only upon what is
evil. But the Lord, where the heart is sincere, pardoneth the defects. Job
murmured; but the word saith, Ye have heard of the patience of Job. There was
patience in the man. Job often submitteth to God, sometimes blesseth God,
disliketh those murmurings extorted from him by the sense of his sufferings,
often correcteth himself as soon as he had spoken any unbecoming word of God
and providence, when he was reproved of God, chap. xli.; he humbled himself,
chap. xlii.
Obs. 3. Again observe, we should often in our afflictions
propound Job's pattern and example; he was famous for miseries, various in
their kind; now Chaldeans, then Sabeans, now wind, then fire, &c. When
afflictions come like waves, one in the neck of another, and you are put upon
divers trials, think of Job. They light upon all his comforts, his goods; a
life is no life without a livelihood: his children, those dear pledges of
affection; you lose one, Job many; when you lose all, it is but as Job: then
upon his own body; he was rough-cast with sores. God's afflictions usually come
closer and closer till they touch our very skins. In the plague, you may
remember how Job's body was smitten with sores; nay, his soul was exasperated
with the censures of his friends; this goeth closer and closer. God's immediate
hand silenceth the spirit: we take injuries from man very unkindly, especially
injuries from friends; these were stabs to the very heart. Perils among false
brethren was Paul's sorest trial; it is grievous to suffer from an enemy, worse
from a countryman, worse than that from a friend, and worst of all from godly
friends. But yet this was Job's case; he complaineth that they were miserable
comforters. Thus you see Job was famous for misery, and as famous for patience;
it would be too long to survey it. In all the expressions of it, two are
notable, which run through every vein of the whole book: his advancing God and
debasing himself; good thoughts of God, and low thoughts of himself: 'Blessed
be God,' &c., Job i. 23; and 'I have sinned,' Job vii. 20. Well, then, in
all your afflictions, look upon this spectacle of misery and example of
patience.
And have seen the end of the Lord. - It may be applied to
Christ or Job. Some apply it to Christ for these reasons: - (1.) Otherwise the
main pattern of patience will be left out; (2.) The change of the verb, 'ye
have heard of Job, and ye have seen the end of Christ.' The adding of this new
word seen, seemeth to be done by way of contradistinction to heard. These
reasons, when I first glanced upon this text, inclined me to that opinion,
especially when I afterward saw the same reasons urged by learned Parteus. Many
of the ancients go this way, as Austin, Beda, Lyra, Aquinas; which last
improveth it more than I have seen any. Job and Christ, saith he, the two
famous instances, are well coupled - Job in the Old Testament, Christ in the
New; in the one we have a pledge of a temporal, in the other of an eternal
recompense; you have heard of the one and seen the other; Job suffereth, but
not to death; therefore, that they might have a complete pattern, he mindeth
them of the end of the Lord. Thus far Aquinas. If this were the sense, the
point would be, that Christ's death is the great spectacle and glass of
patience. But modern divines go another way, and with good reason: - (1.)
Because the drift of the context (see ver 6,7) is to propound not only a
perfect pattern of miseries, but a happy end out of miseries: he had spoken of
Job's patience, but if the former sense were true, nothing of his happy issue,
a thing most suitable to his purpose and most remarkable in the story. (2.) The
apostle in the former verse showeth he would instance in some prophets and holy
men of God, not in the Lord himself. (3) The Syriac translation both plainly
finem quem ei fecit Dominus - the end which the Lord made to him. (4.) The
latter clause in the text cannot so commodiously agree to the former sense, to
wit, that God is pitiful, and of tender mercy; but with this latter sense it
fitly suiteth; the end that the Lord made with him, because he is of great
mercy, &c. The former arguments may be easily answered: - (1st.) To the
first: We must not teach the apostles how to reason, or what instances to
bring. Possibly the example of Christ's patience is purposely omitted, because
the main thing in question, wherein their constancy was assaulted, was their
belief in Christ, and therefore, it was not so necessary to propound his
example so much as that of other holy men who were afflicted; that they might
not be scandalised at the cross, and from their great afflictions suspect the
way which they professed. To all this I may add, that the sufferings of Christ
are mentioned, ver. 6, as we cleared before. (2d) To the second argument, which
is grounded upon the change of the verb, heard and seen, I answer - Both words,
implying the acts of the outward sense, are put for acts of knowledge and
understanding; and seen, which is the clearer way of perception, is used in the
latter clause, because God's recompense was so ample, and far more visible than
Job's patience. And let not the phrase seem too curt, there being special
reason why the issue of Job's afflictions should be called the end of the Lord.
The points are these: -
Obs. 1. That the afflictions of God's children
must not be considered in their nature and beginning, but in their issue and
end: Heb. xii. 11, 'No affliction for the present seemeth joyous, but
grievous.' There are two words emphatical, pros men to paron, for the present,
and ou dokei, seemeth; they are smart in the apprehension of the flesh, and
smart only for the present. It is but childish to judge of afflictions by
present sense; always it is worst with Christians in the present time: see Rom.
viii. 18; 1 Cor. xv. 19; 2 Cor. iv. 16-18. Well, then, do not measure
afflictions by the smart, but by the end of them; besides our everlasting
hopes, usually that end which is seen and liable to common observance is
glorious. When Israel was dismissed out of Egypt, it was with gold and
ear-rings, Exod. xi.; so the Jews were dismissed out of Babylon with gifts,
jewels, and all necessary utensils, Ezra i.; so 'When the Lord turned the
captivity of Job, he gave Job twice as much as he had before, and every one of
his friends brought him a piece of money and an ear-ring of gold,' Job. xlii.
10, 11. Oh! wait for the end then; the beginning is usually Satan's, but the
end is the Lord's; at the beginning the power of darkness may have an hour, but
at the end the Lord will be seen.
Obs. 2. The Lord must give a happy
end to all afflictions. (1.) A temporal end; man may begin, but God must make
an end. 'The beginning of strife (saith Solomon) is as the opening of the
waters;' a fool may pull up the sluices, but there is no turning of the stream:
Penes reges est inferre bellum, penes autem Deum terminare - when man
beginneth, the Lord will exercise his own dominion and sovereignty ere the end
cometh: (2.) A gracious end: 'The fruit of it is to take away sin,' Isa. xxvii.
9. Now this is God's work; God's rod, as well as God's word, doth nothing
without his blessing, otherwise they are both poor, dead, and useless means: 'I
am the Lord that teacheth them to profit.' Isa. xlviii. 18; that is, by
afflictions. (3.) A glorious end; it is the Lord's gift, not our merit. Oh!
then, let us do duty, and God will not be wanting; let as wait upon him with
Job's patience, and he will give Job's end.
That the Lord is very
pitiful, and of tender mercy. - This clause expresseth partly the cause, partly
the manner of God's appearance in Job's end. (1.) The cause why Job had so good
an end of his troubles was God's mercy, not his own merit; it was his happiness
that he had to do with a pitiful and merciful God. (2 ) The manner of God's
appearance in the end of afflictions. You will find God merciful and pitiful,
whatever the flesh saith to the contrary; in the beginning you think him cruel,
but in the end you find him merciful. Here are two words that express God's
goodness: the first is, very pitiful, in the original polusplagchnos, of much
or many bowels. These are the tender parts in which we feel a commotion upon
every strong affection, as the mother's bowels were said to yearn to the infant
when he was to be divided, 1 Kings iii. 26; therefore we are bid to put on
bowels: Col. iii. 12. The next word is, of tender mercy, oiktismoon. It is the
word which is opposed to the hard heart, and therefore we do not render it 'the
merciful,' but 'of tender mercy.' Now the proper use and distinction of these
words in this place may be conceived thus: - (1.) The one hath respect to our
miseries, the other to our sins; pitiful in feeling our miseries, merciful in
pardoning our sins. (2.) The one noteth affection; the other acts suitable,
inward and outward mercy. From hence you may observe several notes.
Obs. 1. From that very pitiful and tender mercy. - God's mercy is
seldom spoken of without some addition of much, or great, or tender, &c.
Most commonly in the Old Testament it is expressed plurally, mercies and
loving-kindnesses, and very often are those additions of much and great
annexed: Exod. xxxiv. 6, 'Great in mercy;' 2 Sam. xxiv. 14, 'His mercies are
very great;' so Ps. cxxx. 7, 'With him there is plenteous redemption:' so
'abundant mercy,' 1 Peter i. 3; Eph. ii. 7, 'The exceeding riches of his
grace.' God delighteth to discover this attribute in its royalty and
magnificence. Certainly, there is more in God's mercy than in men's sins; our
ephah is full, but God's mercy is over-full; and there is enough in God to
supply all our wants. When you can exhaust overflowing mercy, then you may
complain; and there is enough in God to satisfy every particular believer. We
all drink of the same fountain, and yet cannot draw it dry. Oh! when shall we
learn of our heavenly Father not only to do good works, but to abound in them
more and more? He is rich in mercy, when shall we be rich in good works?
&c.;
Obs. 2. God is very tender to his people in misery. Sense doth
but make lies of God. When we hearken to the voice of our own feeling, we are
apt to say as Job, 'Thou art turned to be cruel,' Job xxx. 31; or at least as
David, 'I am cut off,' though at that very time God had a gracious respect to
him, 'nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications.' Ps. xxxi. 22.
Israel is chidden for saying 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment
passed over by my God.' Isa. xl. 27; that is, God hath left mo out of the count
of providence, and the roll of those whom he is to look after; he doth not take
notice of my case. Do but wait a little while, and you shall see that the Lord
is very pitiful and tender. God's children have been at length ashamed of their
hasty words, and when providence hath had its course, they can easily see that,
though the outside and bark of it was rough and harsh, yet it was lined with
pity and mercy.
Obs. 3. From the two words pitiful and merciful. God
hath every way provided for the comfort of his people. He hath pity for their
afflictions, and pardon for their sins. He was sensible of Job's misery and
Job's weakness; his compassion might be discouraged by our murmurings. but that
he is merciful as well as pitiful. Afflicted persons may hence comfort
themselves, and answer the objections of their sad spirits; when you have
injuries from men, you shall find pities in God. Ay! but I have sinned. I
answer - There is mercy in him as well as pity, &c.;
Obs. 4. From
the order of the words, very pitiful, and then of tender mercy! There is in
God, first, bowels, and then bounty; so Exod. xxxiv. 6, 'Merciful and
gracious.' Oh! then, let us learn of our heavenly Father, when we do good, to
do it with all our hearts; let the spring be within us: Isa. lviii. 18, 'Draw
out thy soul to the hungry,' and then satisfy the afflicted person.
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