city challenge that man for theirs, whose spirit thus resents his own evils or his neighbour's good?

“Every wicked man is a foolish and a silly man. Sin is pure folly. The wisdom of the wicked is in their own conceit, and there is more hope of a fool than of such, that is, of those who are sensible of their own failings, and are willing to become fools that they may be wise.

"To have an heart to bless God for bestowing blessings upon others, is itself a great blessing. Whereas an envious man stands always in his own light, and cannot rejoice in his own mercies for grieving at the good of others. Eliphaz had said, chap. iv. 8, I have seen,' &c. and now he applies to Job, both in his rise and fall, another part of his own experience, which seems to answer an objection that might be made against what he said he had seen, viz. Many wicked men plough iniquity enough, and sow wickedness abundantly, and yet they reap a full harvest of riches, &c. I grant it, saith Eliphaz, but this does not weaken my former assertion, for

"Verse 3. I have seen the foolish taking root; but suddenly I cursed his habitation.' "He flourishes and takes root, but he withers and is quickly pulled up. The worst of men may enjoy the best of outward comforts, and in their greatest fulness and abundance. But outward things are to us as we are. a good man they are good, and to a fool they are not good, because he is not good himself.

Το

Observe, The difference of spiritual good things, though they find us not good, the possession of them will make us good; they have a transforming influence: but wordly good things have injured many a good man. The enjoyment of outward good things is no evidence of being good.

"And suddenly I cursed his habitation,' that is, I have smitten his habitation quite through with a curse. The curses in the Psalms are often predictions from the Spirit of God, not maledictions from David; these curses are prophecies, not prayers; they foresee and foretell evils, but they desire them not. "While thousands admire and envy wicked great ones, and think none happy but such as they are, a godly man looks through all their outward glory, and pities and mourns over them as miserable creatures.*

"Verse 4. His children are (or were) far from safety.' That is, they are in extreme danger and peril; they walk in the regions of trouble continually.

They are crushed in the gate,' which intimates the publicity of their destruction, and that all business shall go against them.

"Neither is there any to deliver them.' None shall be found either able or willing to rescue them from oppressors, or protect them from danger.+

* The outward estate may flourish, but the soul cannot prosper that taketh root in the earth.-Henry.

†They who believe the word of God can see a curse in the house of the wicked, Prov. iii. 33, though it be never so finely or firmly built.-Henry.

"Verse 5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up.' That is, all he hath gotten by right or wrong; by industry or by deceit ; by secret practices or open violence; he shall not reap what he sowed; the labour shall be his, and the benefit shall be reaped by others. The hun

gry shall eat up his harvest.

"The man who fraudulently takes from others, and hoards up for himself and children, shall be deprived of it by others.

"He taketh it even out of the thorns.' When a man seeks riches with much care and anxiety of mind, it may be said he gets them out of the thorns. Or rather, when a hungry man comes with a commission from God to eat the harvest of the foolish, he will press through thorns to obtain them, that is, notwithstanding all the care of the worldly wise man to protect them.

"A godly man's care is to maintain communion with Christ so as to grow in grace; and yet their spiritual harvest would be ruined, and their prayers and cares prove unavailing, if Christ did not keep it for them. His care of his people's spiritual welfare is such a thorn hedge as the devil cannot break through. We are kept by the power of God as with a garrison, 1 Pet. i. 5.

"And the robber swalloweth up their substance.' Some translate, The thirsty shall drink or swallow up their wealth. So there is both the hungry and thirsty to consume their

substance.

"To show a man his condition by repre

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senting another, and to seem relating the history of our foreign observations only when we mean the person to whom we speak, is a forcible way of giving instruction and admonition. "Thus Eliphaz, in the fate of the foolish man, would represent to Job the desolation brought upon himself by these troops of hungry and thirsty robbers, who swallowed all his substance at one morsel, and supped it up at one draught.

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Eliphaz, having thus reproved and tried to convince Job, now exhorts him. First, from verse 6-16 inclusive. The sum of which is, That he would earnestly beseech him to beg pardon, seek unto, and commit himself and his cause unto God. The second branch of the exhortation is from verse 17 to end, and the scope is, That Job would humble himself, and patiently submit unto and under the correcting hand of God, and quietly wait his time of deliverance.

"He produces two arguments to enforce his exhortation, the matter of which is contained in verse 8. The first is taken either from the efficient or meritorious cause of his afflictions in verse 6, 7.

"The 2d argument is contained in verse 9 to 12, and is founded on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God; as if he had said, Who would not seck unto a God who is infinitely able to deliver? Who would not commit his cause unto him who is gracious and ready to deliver, and who is infinite in wisdom to find out ways and means of deliverance, even when,

to the eye of sense and reason, our condition seems altogether desperate?

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"Verse 6. Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground.'

"The word for affliction signifies also iniquity; the soil where it grows is man's heart; the effect is mentioned, affliction. The cause iniquity is supposed, the mother and the daughter are called by the same name.

"Trouble properly signifies toilsome labour as a fruit of sin. Thy troubles are not like these herbs that grow spontaneously out of the earth. There is some hand or other that both plants and waters them. Man weaves a spider's web out of his own bowels, and then he is entangled in the same web. The troubles which seize upon him are twisted with his own fingers. As if Eliphaz had said, the sin wherein thou wast born hath given conception to all the sorrows of thy life; wherefore, then, dost thou complain of the day wherein thou wast born?

"Verse 7. Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.'

"As the sparks have a principle in themselves by which they ascend, so it is a natural course for man, as soon as he is born, to sin and work his own sorrow. He needs no tutor; sinning and sorrowing are not his art but his nature. Sorrow and sin are the portion, and all the portion, that man hath by nature, and these we are possessed of as soon as born; we need not wait the death of our parents for the