Chap.i6. AnExpofttios upon the BookofJ O B. VerLiS. 315 allo that he might obtain from his Friends , a milder an Ewer. I have famedSack-cloth upon my skin. ¿°ÿ Sacewï, The word which we render Sack- cleth,is of the fame found inn quahie in the Hebrew, and almost in all languages ; which is obfer, habeiur 50k ved as an argument of its antiquity, and that it is the mother f nkm nms of all Languages. But how did job low Sack-cloth upon ni f relingua his skin? This is a hard piece of Semp1tery. guod anuro or The Roman Hiflorian reports ofcruel Nero, that when he Butt linguem fled out of the City ( fearing the fentence of the difpleafed ñum ota' Senate whichquickly purfued him) and hadgot into agrove tre>*. or thicket like a wild beaft , he commanded thole about him to make a trench in the Earth, fitted to the dimenfionsof his body, which he ordered them to line with loch pieces of Marble, as were to be had upon the place ; thus as it were preparing his own Tombe , he wept and often cried out ,Sce what a workman is here now ready to perifh. What that wretch laid of himfelf, I may fay of this holyman in the Text,whom I find thus bulled at his Needle, as it were preparing his own Grave - clothes, or Winding. fheet, What a workman have we here ready toperifh ? ab looked upon himfeif as a dying man, and behold he is forcing Pack; cloth upon his skin. When fir®rüja men of worth die, they are wrapt in fine linnen , fo f ofeph of r e/1ri natbea wrapt the body of Jefus, Markr 5. 46. And a living man full of loares needs the finef and fofteft linnen to wrap him in : Sack-cloth is a courfe Hubborn cloth, grievous to a found body, painful to thofe who have never a breach upon their flab ; but for a man ( as Job defcribes himfeif ) full ofbreaches, having breach upon breach, his body being brokenall over, as ifhe were but one continued breach, to lap up fuch a one in Pack-cloth, is an extream addition to his pains and forrows. How is it then, thatJobwas thus leyere to his ownloares I To clear this , Sack- cloth may be taken two Wayes. Firfl, Properly. Secondly, Improperly. Properly, lo, lack-cloth is that hairy, rough Garment which was very ufual among mourners , whether in times offorrow for fin or judgment. Sackcloth was the Livery. of S f 2 both
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