Job 31:18 (For from my youth he was brought up with me, as [with] a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb;)
Ver. 18. For from my youth he was brought up with me, &c.] i.e. Ever since I could do anything it hath been my delight to be doing good to the poor orphans, whom I have tenderly bred, as a father useth to breed his children. Non est vulgare Dei donum, saith Mercer, This is no ordinary mercy for men to be of a merciful disposition and melting hearted toward the poor and necessitous, as some are naturally, and from the womb. Such are said to have been Artaxerxes Longimanus, Titus the emperor, Otho III, Stephen king of Hungary, Oswald king of England, &c.
And I have guided her from my mother's womb] Ductavi illam, meaning the widow, or the orphan, to whom I have been a manly guide, and that of a child little. See the previous note. Sutton's hospitals and many more monuments of charity in this kind are worthily alleged by some of our divines, to prove that, for their time and ability, Protestants have equalled and exceeded Papists in this way of good works. Job's desire of doing good appeared early, as if it had been born with him; like as Plutarch writeth of Coriolanus, that he was so natural and expert a soldier, that he might seem to have been born with his arms upon his back and his weapons in his hands, εγγενη και εμφυτα ..