HEAVEN UPON EARTH; OR, JESUS THE BEST FRIEND OF MAN. "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee."-Job xxii. 21. THEY who have improved their experience of things by wisdom, and gathered up the value of man's life, by comparing his desire with his enjoyments, his troubles and sorrows with his content and joy, have concluded the worth of the life of man to be below nothing; they have drawn a black line upon the whole, and shut up all in darkness. Thus Jacob of old, in the account which he gives of his life to Pharaoh, Gen. xlvii. 9; Job v. 7; and also Solomon, who had an extraordinary measure of wisdom by divine dispensation, who had a large spirit like the sand of the sea-shore, he gave himself great liberty in trying what that good under the sun for the sons of men was, Eccl. ii. 1. When he had taken a taste of all the world's contents, yet he finds a bitterness mixed in all delights, which abideth no longer than the pleasure, ver. 11, 17. And whosoever shall enter into himself, and feel the workings of his own mind, shall be able to read over the transcript of the same in his own conscience. Who is he among the sons of men, that in his natural life hath attained to a state wherein he was able to say, Here I will stay, it is now well with me, I desire no addition to my present condition? If there be any such, I dare undertake to prove him unacquainted with himself. Where now shall I fasten the blame of this universal evil? Shall we fall out with our life, as a thing not worth the having? Shall we shrink into our former nothing, and cast up our being and Life into the hands of God, as that out of which we gathered nothing but bitterness and disquiet? Far be this from us; this were to justify that evil and wicked servant, who said of God, that "he knew he was a hard Master, reaping where he had not sown, and gathering where he had not strawed.” This would be to accuse God of having made us to an unavoidable necessity of misery. How then comes it to pass, that we are all held fast in this common calamity? It is from thyself, O man, it is from thyself; this evil is because of our falling from God. It is a righteous thing with God, that when man departed from him, he should reap the fruit of his own doings; and indeed it is impossible for a creature of our composure and constitution, but to feel itself dissatisfied with all worldly material employments, and to find trouble and disquiet in itself, while it is deprived of its true good. If we would have a true account of our disquiet and dissatisfaction, this is it. God made man, of all the works of his hands, to be the nearest to himself, and hath fitted his principles for a higher life than that which hath the things of this world for its object; but man hath made himself like the beasts that perish. We have given our souls into captivity to our bodies, or rather, we are fallen from our union with God, and are gathered up into ourselves, and become deprived of a sufficiency in separation from God; then it must needs be, that we, being gone down into a lower state than that which we were made to, should find nothing but dissatisfaction and emptiness: here we are by nature, and hitherto we have brought ourselves by forsaking God. Now the great inquiry will be, what remedy there is for this our woful condition; is there any way whereby we may be delivered from this misery? If there be, what way is it? These words which I have chosen to speak to, do contain the answer to this inquiry. "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee.". This is the counsel of one of Job's three friends to him in the time of his great affliction. You have heard of the affliction of Job, and how his three friends came to relieve him with their counsel; but the devil, who had a commission from God to try his utmost with Job, yet sparing his life, made use of his friends, who are to be a comfort in the hour of adversity, to be a great means of his disquiet, so that he cries out of them, "Miserable comforters are ye all," ch. xvi. 2. And the great way of their troubling him was, by misapplying, by making false application of true principles. In their discourses there are many excellent truths; yet, by their hard construing, and ungrounded condemning of him, they by God are reproved, as not having spoken the thing that was right, ch. xlii. 7 ; yet in many things their counsel was suitable and seasonable; of which sort the words in the text may be accounted. In this chapter Eliphaz had been inquiring into the cause of Job's great affliction; and holding this for an undeniable principle, that the righteous God, being the great disposer of affliction, did bring this evil upon him because of his sin, he measured the greatness of his sins by the greatness of afflictions; he made account, because God's hand was gone forth in an extraordinary manner against Job, therefore there was some extraordinary guilt upon him: "And thou sayest, How doth God judge through the dark clouds?" ver. 5, 13. Thus we have this apprehension of Job, as one under great affliction because of his great sins; and the text is Eliphaz's counsel to Job under this character; and so is suitable advice to those that are under sickness or great afflictions, and that are under the guilt of great sin. "Acquaint thyself with him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee." The words are a doctrine for the soul under a sense of its lost condition, with a promise very comfortable upon the embracing thereof. The doctrine is, "Acquaint thyself with him, and be at peace." The promise, "Thereby good shall come unto thee." These words, "Be at peace," may be referred either to the former, as an addition to the doctrine, "Be at peace;' ." that is, keep yourselves in a quiet submission to the hand of God; or to the latter; and so, "Be at peace," is as much as, "Peace shall be to thee." In the doctrine we are to consider the act and object. |