jachad_ is used in the same sense, Ezra iv. 3, "We ourselves
together will build;"(1333) they mean not they will all build in the like
fashion, or in the same manner, but that they will build all of them
together, one as well as another; so Psal. ii. 2, "The rulers take counsel
together;" Jer. xlvi. 12, "They are fallen both together." The other
place, Prov. xxvii. 19, if you take it word by word as it is in the
Hebrew, is thus: "As in water faces to faces; so the heart of man to man."
Our translators add the word _answereth_, but the Hebrew will suffer the
negative reading, _As in water faces answer not to faces_. The Septuagint
reads: "As faces are not like faces, so neither are the hearts of men
alike." The Chaldee paraphrase thus: "As waters and as countenances, which
are not like one another, so the hearts of the sons of men are not alike."
Thus doth Mr Cartwright, in his judicious commentary, give the sense: "As
in the water face doth not answer fully to face, but in some sort, so
there may be a conjecture, but no certain knowledge of the heart of man."
But let the text be read affirmatively, not negatively, what shall be the
sense? Some take it thus:(1334) A man's heart may be someway seen in his
countenance as a face in the water. Others(1335) thus: As a face in the
water is various and changeable to him that looketh upon it, so is the
heart of man inconstant to a friend that trusteth in him. Others(1336)
thus: As a man seeth his own face in the water, so he may see himself in
his own heart or conscience. Others(1337) thus: As face answereth face in
the water, so he that looketh for a friendly affection from others, must
show it in himself. It will never be proved that any such thing is
intended in that place as may warrant this argumentation. There is a
particular corruption in one man's heart--for instance, ambition--which
makes him unfit to be trusted with government; therefore the same
corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water
answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or
blemish in the one but it is in the other. I am sure Paul taught us not so
when he said, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than
themselves," Phil. ii. 3. Nay, the brother himself hath taken off the edge
of his own argument (if it had any) in his epistle printed before his
sermon, where, speaking of his brethren, from whose judgment he dissenteth
in point of government, he