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Job_2:4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
Ver. 4. And Satan answered the Lord] This impudent adversary had yet an answer in his mouth, and would not be so set down. Of him and his agents (those false teachers, as the apostle calleth them) it may be truly said,
- Nihil est audacius illis
Deprensis: iram atque animos ex crimine sumunt (Juvenal).
Nothing is more bold to those caught, they are angry but proud from their crime.
Skin for skin] Any skin for his own; cattle, servants, children may be easily parted with by him, to save himself in a whole skin, to keep himself whole: others read it, skin after skin, or skin upon skin; both the Cutis skin and the Pellis hide shall go so that life may be preserved; as a man will hold up his arm to save his head, or suffer the loss of a limb to save his life. Ut corpus redimas; ferrum patieris et ignes. So that the body mey be redeemed; endure the sword and the fire. Job is still integra cute, skin whole, saith Satan; and so long there is little trial of him: that man is rich enough who is well. I read of one, who being asked how old he was, answered that he was in health; and to another that asked how rich he was, answered that he was not in debt: q.d. he is young enough that is in health, and rich enough that is not in debt. Now all this Job was yet, and therefore Satan ill paid and unsatisfied.
And all that he hath will a man give for his life] Life is sweet, we say; and man is a life loving creature, saith the heathen, æùïí öéëïæùïí (Aesop), fond of life, and afraid of death, which is Nature’s slaughterman, and therefore the most terrible of terribles, as Aristotle styleth it, ôùí öïâåñùí öïâåñùôáôïí . The Gibeonites refused not to be perpetual slaves, so they might but live. Those that are overcome in battle are content to be stripped of all, so they may have quarter for their lives. Mariners in a tempest cast their lading into the sea, though never so precious, in hope of life. If Job may escape with the skin of his teeth, it is some favour; he may not think much to sacrifice all that he hath to the service of his life, his conscience only excepted. Some good people have strained that too for love of life, as when Abraham denied his wife; David changed his behaviour; Peter denied his Master; Queen Elizabeth (though afterwards she could say, When I call to mind things past, behold things present, and expect things to come, I hold them happiest that go hence soonest, yet) in Queen Mary’s time, she sometimes heard divine service after the Romish religion, and was often confessed; yea, at the rigorous solicitation of Cardinal Pole, she professed herself a Romish Catholic; yet did not Queen Mary believe her (saith mine author), remembering that she herself, for fear of death, had by letters written with her own hand to her father, both renounced for ever the bishop of Rome’s authority, and with it acknowledged her father to be supreme head of the Church of England under Christ, and her mother’s marriage to have been incestuous and unjust. Those good souls did better that loved not their lives unto death, Rev_12:11, that by losing their lives saved them, Mat_10:39, that held with that martyr (Julius Palmer), that life is sweet only to such as have their souls linked to their bodies as a thief’s foot is in a pair of fetters.