Job 26

Job 26:3

To what purpose serve these hints, either to support the cause of the Almighty, or to direct him in his government of the world, or to comfort a dispirited, and instruct an ignorant, soul? Who can be a whit bettered by nught you have so confidently uttered, that is quite foreign to the point in hand?

Job 26:4

Do you imagine that I need to be instructed in these points? or that you, as one inspired of God, can by such hints revive and refresh my spirit?

Job 26:5

I myself can discourse to far better purpose concerning God. While terrible monsters, minerals, pearl, coral, and the like, are formed in the bottom of the sea, or heart of the earth, and fishes and animals on the surface of it, the departed ghosts tremble, and travail in pain, in the deep and dark regions of misery

Job 26:6

The whole state of the dead, whether of soul or body is perfectly obvious to God’s all-seeing eye; and all the depths and miseries of hell are perpetually visible to him

Job 26:7

He spreads the heavens over the apparently empty regions of air; and so balances the earth by his power, that it hangs like a ball in the air, supported by nothing

Job 26:8

He binds up large collections of water in the clouds (by which he covers his glory, and on which he rides in majesty) as in firm bags, till he please to make them distil in dew, rain, snow, or hail

Job 26:9

He conceals his own glorious abodes; he firmly fixes the visible heavens, and spreads his vailing collection of clouds over them, to conceal his glory and restrain the scorching beams of the sun

Job 26:10

Every where, while the revolutions of day and night continue, he has fixed the shores and boundaries of the sea, that, rage as it will, it cannot exceed them

Job 26:11

The lofty mountains, which seem the supporting pillars of heaven, tremble and shake when he corrects men by earthquakes, thunders, or tempests

Job 26:12

By his power he tosses the sea into a terrible fury, and as it were divides it into ridges and mountainous billows; and, by his wise government, he again calms it at pleasure, and mortally wounds the crocodiles, and other proud monsters which inhabit it

Job 26:13

By the influence of his holy Spirit he at first adorned the heavens by his power; he formed the milky way, and all their winding constellations. By his wind he clears up the sky; and his almighty power strikes prostrate the most direful and destructive monsters of sea or land

Job 26:14

Nay, behold, these are but the outlines, and a very small parcel of his works. It is but very little that we either hear or know concerning him; but the thunder-like declarations of his prevailing, his infinite excellency, who can comprehend?

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XXVI.—Sometimes self-conceited persons may be ridiculed out of their notions when reasoning is not effectual: and in disputes much is ordinarily said that is not to the present purpose; and not the edification of their neighbour, but victory over him, is the great aim of the disputants. Little is it remembered that not the displays of God’s highness, but of his grace in Christ, can give ease to a wounded spirit. But it is happy when disputes end in men’s glorifying God with one mind and one mouth. The perfections of the Deity are plainly marked in all his works of nature and grace; and all things must be well done where God himself is the sole or principal agent. Let me therefore in all behold his hand, his face. If he conceal the glories of his throne from this lower world, let me walk by faith, not by sight. If he has garnished the heavens, let me set my affections on things above, and not on 11 things of the earth. If his perfections are unsearchable, let me always admire and adore him