Page:The Holy Bible faithfvlly translated into English ovt of the authentical Latin, diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greek, & other Editions in diuers languages.pdf/980

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CHAP. IIII

 

The second part.
Diuers discourses & disputes about the cause of Iobs afflictions.

Eliphaz blameth Iob as guiltie of impatience, arguing thereupon that he was not so perfect in vertue as he seemed, 7. and therfore is now punished by God, who (as Eliphaz falsly supposeth) afflicteth not innocent men: 12. alleadging for proofe an imaginarie vision.

 

The first conflict, between Eliphaz & Iob.BVT Eliphaz the Themanite answering, sayd: ²If we shal begin to speake to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it grieuously, but the word conceiued who can hold? ³Behold thou hast taught manie, and wearie hands thou hast strengthned: ⁴Them that wauered thy words haue confirmed, and trembling knees thou hast strengthned: ⁵But now a plague is come vpon thee, & thou hast faynted: hath touched thee, and art troubled. ⁶Where is thy feare, thy strength, thy patience, and the perfection of thy wayes? ⁷Remember I beseech thee, who euer being innocent hath ^[1] perished? or when haue the iust been destroyed? ⁸Yea rather I haue seen them that worke iniquitie, and sow sorrowes, and reape them, ⁹to haue perished by the blast of God, and with the spirit of his wrath to haue been consumed. ¹⁰The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lionesse, and the teeth of the welps of lions are bruised: ¹¹The tigre hath perished, because he had no prey, and the lions whelps 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 deep sleep 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 haires 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.

1. No innocent euer perished eternally: but innocent Abel was slaine temporally, & innumerable others suffer calamities for their greater merite.
2. Heretikes pretend such obscure visions more to get credite then to edifie others. S. Greg. l. 5. c. 18.
3. Iob easely granteth that man may not compare nor contend with God. ch. 9 v. 1. Yet men may be innocent & free from grieuous sinnes.