all-good, all-wise, all-mighty Father, possesses a peace of mind that passeth all understanding. Truly "blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust." (1) Reason shows this. (2) History shows this. (3) Consciousness shows this.

IV. HERE HE RECOLLECTS GENERAL INTERVENTIONS OF MERCY. "Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done," etc.

First: They are wonderful. Wonderful in their variety, condescension, forbearing and compassionate love.

Secondly: They are intelligent. Those wonderful works were not accidental, capricious, or impulsive. They are the results and embodiment of thought. "Thy thoughts which are to us-ward." All God's works are thoughts in action.

Thirdly: They are innumerable. "They cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee." Can you count the sands on the sea shore, or the drops that make up the ocean? Then you may sum up the mercies of God to you.

Conclusion: What blessed reminiscences are these! But they are only for the godly. The unconverted worldling has no part in them. His reminiscences are sad and saddening, and will become more and more so as the years are added to his life.

"Oh that our lives, which flee so fast,

In purity were such

That not an image of the past

Should fear the pencil's touch!

"Retirement then might hourly look
Upon a soothing scene,
Age steal to his alloted nook,
Contented and serene;

"With heart as calm as lakes that sleep,

In frosty moonlight glistening;
Or mountain rivers, where they creep
Along a channel smooth and deep,

To their own far-off murmurs listening."

William Wordsworth.

Homiletic Sketches on the Book of

Job.

The Book of Job is one of the grandest sections of Divine Scripture. It has never yet, to our knowledge, been treated in a purely Homiletic method for Homiletic ends. Besides many learned expositions on the book found in our general commentaries, we have special exegetical volumes of good scholarly and critical worth; such as Drs. Barnes, Wemyss, Mason Goode, Noyes Lee, Delitzsch, and Herman Hedwick Bernard: the last is in every way a masterly production. For us, therefore, to go into philology and verbal criticism, when such admirable works are available to all students, would be superfluous, if not presumption. Ambiguous terms, when they occur, we shall of course explain, and occasionally suggest an improved rendering; but our work will be chiefly, if not entirely, Homiletic. We shall essay to bring out from the grand old words those Divine verities which are true and vital to man as man in all lands and ages. These truths we shall frame in an order as philosophic and suggestive as our best powers will enable us to do; and this in order to help the earnest preachers of God's Holy Word.

Subject: Job's Second Reply to Eliphaz, in which He Reproves His Friends of Unmercifulness. Complaint.

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Though I speak," etc.-JOв xvi. 1-22.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS.-See page 214.

II. His

HOMILETICS :-We have said that the portion of Job's reply to Eliphaz and his companions contained in this chapter consists of two parts-Censure and Complaint.

The first part we have already noticed; we now pass to the other-COMPLAINT. What does he complain of?

First: He complains of the severity of his sufferings. Strong and striking and impassioned is the metaphorical language with which he sets forth his sufferings. He speaks of himself as being mangled by divine anger-"He teareth me in His wrath; as being given up to the fury of his enemies-" God hath delivered me to the ungodly," etc.; as being shivered to pieces-"He has broken me asunder;" as a butt for the arrows of his enemies-"His archers compass me round about; as crushed by an irresistible foe-" He breaketh me with breach upon breach, He runneth upon me like a giant " as reduced to the utmost humiliation-" my face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; not for

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any injustice in mine hands, also my prayer is pure." He seems to have struggled for language to set forth the sufferings with which he was afflicted. In the description of the severity of his sufferings two facts appear in connection with them. (1) They were mental as well as physical. His corporeal sufferings were inexpressibly distressing. Satan smote him. with sore boils from the sole of his foot to his crown; "and he took him a potsherd to scrape him, and he sat down upon the ashes." A torturing ulcer seems to have covered his whole body, producing an eruption attended with acutest pains through every part of his frame. But in addition to this, and worse than this, there was mental agony. He speaks of "grief," "bereavement ""Thou hast made desolate all my company; abasement-“] "his horn in the dust;" of tears"my face is foul with weeping;" of contempt-"my friends Scorn me. Mental suffering is the worst: a wounded spirit who can bear? If the mind is free from suffering, endowed with noble principles, and in the full possession of its faculties, it can alleviate, deaden, and bear away the greatest physical sufferings. All sensation seems to be in the mind; and if the mind is flooded with elevated thoughts and happy emotions, it carries off the sense of bodily suffering. Hence martyrs sung exultingly in the flames. But terrible indeed is the condition of the man whose body and mind are in tortures. This seems to have been Job's case now, when he made this reply to his companions. Another fact appears here in connection with his sufferings: (2) They were by the permission of God. Greatly as the arguments, appeals, and conduct of his so-called friends distressed his soul, he felt that they were acting towards him by divine. permission. Hence he says, "God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked." He saw God in all. Satan had bereft him of his children, but in that he saw the Almighty; he 66 says, Thou hast made desolate all my company." Satan had covered his body with a torturing ulceration, but in that also he saw the Almighty"Thou hast filled me with wrinkles." His so-called friends

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had, in their arguments, treated him, as he thought, with a savage cruelty; but he saw God even in their treatment-" He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me. God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.”

Now the feeling that all his sufferings came upon him by the knowledge and permission of the great God would perhaps rather intensify than mitigate his anguish. He would be likely to ask, Why should the God whom I love and seek to serve allow this? Am I deceived in His character? Can it be that a holy and benevolent Being would permit the Prince of Evil and ignorant and malignant men to torment one who feels in his heart that he loves and adores Him? What good man has not experienced something like this in passing through the trials of life?

Secondly: He complains of the undeservedness of His suffer ings. "Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure." As if he had said, "These sufferings cannot have come upon me in consequence of any wrong I have done, nor of any disrespect on my part towards God, for my prayer also was pure. The prayers I addressed to Him in the days of my prosperity, and particularly at the time I offered up the sacrifices, according to the number of my sons, were not mere outward show, but were made in all sincerity of heart." In his complaint of the undeservedness of His sufferings, three things are to be observed. (1) His deprecation. "Also now, behold, My witness is in heaven, and My record is on high." In other portions of the Scripture we have impassioned

appeals to the earth (Isaiah i. 2). Strong emotions often per sonify the impersonal, invest dead nature with the attributes of intelligence and heart. Job felt himself in his sufferings to be an injured man; and those injuries he wished not to be hid, but to be exposed to the eyes of men, and to be known everywhere. He would not have the earth to hide him, nor the universe to obstruct his cries, "Let my cry have no place," let its echoes not stop anywhere, but vibrate through immensity. This is natural. A man conscious of injuries wishes his injuries known-known, that love may sympathize and that justice may avenge. Another thing to be observed here is, (2) His assurance. "Behold, my witness is in heaven, my record is on high." Or, as some render it, "my testimony is in high heaven," or as in the margin, in the high places. He means, I appeal to Omniscience to prove my sincerity. "God knows!" Injured men, humanity everywhere, groaning under a sense of injustice, involuntarily appeal to heaven. My injuries are known in high places; and from high places I shall have justice ere long. Another thing to be observed is, (3) Supplication. "My friends scorn me, but mine eye poureth out tears unto God." Mark (a) the earnestness of his prayers, "Poureth out tears." Though men scorned him, he believed in a sympathizing God, and unto Him he turns and pours out his soul in tears. Tears are the best prayers. No devout expressions, no liturgical language has such influence in heaven as tears. Tears are electric with the best natures here and are they not so in the highest? Mark (b) the subject of his prayers. "Oh that one might plead for a

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man with God." His idea seems to be, that there might be some one to come forward and plead in favour of man before God, as every man ought to plead in favour of his fellow. As man should interpose on behalf of him to whom injustice is done, he would that some one would plead on his behalf with God. The patriarch here ignorantly conceives the Almighty to be influenced as man is. Eternal justice requires no one to plead in order to get the right done. Eternal love requires no one to plead in order to get mercy shown. (c) Urgency.