BVt Eliphaz the Themanite answering, sayd: 2If we shal begin to speake to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it greuously, but the word conceiued who can hold? 3Behold thou hast taught manie, & wearie handes thou hast strengthned: 4Them that wauered thy wordes haue confirmed, and trembling knees thou hast strengthened: 5But now a plague is come vpon thee, and thou hast faynted: hath touched thee, and art trubled. 6Where is thy feare, thy strength, thy patience, and the perfection of thy wayes? 7Remember I besech thee, who euer being innocent hath ∷[1] perished? or when haue the iust bene destroyed? 8Yea rather I haue sene them, that worke iniquitie, and sow sorrowes, & reape them, 9to haue perished by the blast of God, and with the spirit of his wrath to haue bene consumed. 10The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lionesse, & the teeth of the whelpes of lions are bruised: 11The tigre hath perished, because he had no praye, and the lions whelpes are destroyed: 12Moreouer ∷[2] to me there was spoken a secret word, and as it were by stealth hath mine eare receiued the vaines of the whispering therof. 13In the horrour of a vision by night, when deepe sleepe is wont to hold men, 14feare held me, and trembling, and al my bones were made sore afrayd: 15And when the spirit passed in my presence, the heares of my flesh stood vpright. 16There stood one, whose countenance I knew not, an image before mine eies, and I heard the voyce as it were of a gentle winde. 17What, ∷[3] shal man be iustified in comparison of God, or shal a man be more pure then his maker? 18Behold they that serue him, are not stable, and in his Angels he found wickednes: 19How much more they that inhabite houses of clay, which haue an earthly foundation, shal be consumed as it were of the moth? 20From morning vntil euening they shal be cut downe: and because none vnderstandeth, they shal perish foreuer. 21And they that shal be least, shal be taken away from them: they shal die, and not in wisedom.
Chap. V.
Eliphaz prosecuteth his discourse to conuince Iob of great sinnes, because he is so vehemently afflicted. 17. exhorteth him therfore to acknowledge his sinnes, so al thinges shal succede prosperously.
CAl therfore ∷[4] if there be that wil answer thee, & ″ turne to some of the sainctes. 2Anger in deede killeth the
- ↑ No innocent euer perished eternally: but innocent Abel was slaine temporaly, and innumberable others suffer calamities for their greater merite.
- ↑ Heretikes pretend such obscure visions more to gette credite then to edifie others. S. Greg. li 5. c. 18.
- ↑ Iob easely granteth that man may not compare nor contend with God ch. 9 v. 1 Yet men may be innocent & free from greuous sinnes.
- ↑ This disputer hauing pretended an imaginarie vision from God against Iob, now he supposeth that neither God nor Angel nor other holie person wil patronage his cause, nor iudge of his case as he doth, but that al wil condemne him of impatience, follie, envie, and other sinnes.
