Job 28:2-11

(2) Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone. (3) He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death. (4) The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men. (5) As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire. (6) The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold. (7) There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen: (8) The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. (9) He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. (10) He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing. (11) He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.

In those verses the sacred writer points out to what a vast extent in things of nature and of art, the faculties of the human mind are capable of being carried. How beautiful the language is! how strikingly magnificent! The discoveries which men have made in things of the earth; and the vast improvements made by the wisdom of man for the splendor and conveniency of life, are among the most incontestible testimonies, how great are the faculties of the mind of man. In natural things to what an height hath the human intellect soared? And if we pass on from the days of Job to the present age of the world, and take but the most slight and superficial view of things, how noble, how endowed, how intelligent is man: But Reader! do not fail to recollect at the same time, and connect with it into the same point of view, that with all man's boasted wisdom in things of nature and art; yet in respect of divine things, since the fall, the wisest of men, and the most learned, have uniformly been living witnesses to that divine truth, the world by wisdom knew not GOD : 1 Corinthians 1:21. And it should seem indeed as if GOD had been pleased, in order to draw a line of distinction between natural and revealed knowledge, to furnish certain of his creatures with greater insight, larger abilities, than others; and to have enabled them to investigate to the utmost point of human science; but by withholding, at the same time, from the wise and prudent, and revealing unto babes, things of a divine nature, to show at once the greatness and littleness of mere human knowledge. Job, in these several verses, is engaged to display the extent of natural discoveries, and hereby to lay a stronger foundation for reasoning on the subject of those which are divine.