If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering;
Ver. 19. If I have seen any perish for want of clothing] Job was ad omnem humanitatem effectus atque assuefactus. This liberal man devised liberal things; and as he dealt his bread to the hungry, so when he saw the naked he covered him; he hid not himself from his own flesh, Isaiah 58:7. Giles, of Brussels, and Mr Wiseheart, the Scot, are famous among the martyrs for their charity in this kind. And so is Mr Fox, the martyrologer, of whom it is reported, that as he gave away his horse at one time to a poor man when he had no money to give him; so at another, having bestowed his wife's money in a petticoat, and meeting by the way home with a poor woman that wanted clothing, he freely gave it to her; telling his wife that he had sent it to heaven before her. The poor man's belly is surely the best cupboard, and his back the best wardrobe; Ubi non pereunt, sed parturiunt, where they rot not, as those moth eaten ones in St James, James 5:2, but remain for ever. Great Alexander believed this far better than most among us, for when he had given away all almost, and his friends asked him, where it was? he pointed to the poor and said, In scriniis, in my chests. And when he was further asked, what he kept for himself.; he answered, Spem maiorum et meliorum, The hope of greater and better things. And another of his name, viz. Pope Alexander V, was so liberal to the poor, that he left nothing to himself; so that he would merrily say, that he was a rich bishop, a poor cardinal, and a beggarly pope, Wποποι. It was wont to be said,
Pauperibus sun dat gratis, nec munera curat
Curia Papalis; quod modo percipimus.
But this distich must be read backwards, saith mine author (Heidfeld.), thus, Percipimus modo quod Papalis, &c. This Pope Alexander then was a rare bird at Rome.
Or any poor without covering] Whether he craved it of me or not, if I did but see it, the poor creature was sure of it. The liberal man helps the poor and needy, Psalms 41:1. Praeoccupat vocem petituri, so Augustine expounds that text in Psa 103:1-22 He stays not till he is asked a good turn, but ministereth to the uses, not only to the necessities, of the saints, as the apostle's word is in the original, Romans 12:13, ταις χρειαις. So did Dr Taylor, martyr, when he visited the almshouse in his parish once a fortnight to see what they lacked, and to supply them. And so did Mr Fox, when, unasked, he gave the poor woman the petticoat, as above said.