tions be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" When Joseph spake words of peace to his brethren, he took them to God's goodness, in sending him before them to Egypt. So there are times when the Lord carries our hearts away from our sins to His overruling mercy; and notwithstanding our folly and guilt, in contending about and dishonouring our Lord, we have learnt more of Him, we have been driven to our hiding-place, and our souls have realised its security and strength more than ever. We have learnt more of Him, and we can tell more of Him than heretofore. "Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"!

We may well understand how the resurrection was to the disciples a being begotten again to a lively hope. It restored Him whom they loved, in whom they trusted, and whom they served. Their souls breathed afresh, winter passed away, and every energy, affection, and hope reappeared. While, then, it had such blessed fruit in them, let us remember that it was because they found Him unharmed either by death or the grave; nay, that He had proved Himself the spoiler and vanquisher of both. “O Death, where is thy sting, O Grave, where is thy victory!"

M.

PARADOX.

THE Gentiles were received as a body-but not as a body were the Gentiles received. Both these statements are in a sense true. The house of Stephanas, or any other such, was not grafted as if it were the body of the Gentiles; yet, at the same time, God represents the whole of the Gentiles who were received as a body, responsible to God; and this the Gentiles will understand, when they are punished, in a frightful manner, by the just judgment of God.

No XII.

JOB.

THE Book of Job will not require a long examinationnot that it fails in interest, but because, when the general idea is once laid hold of, it is the detail which is interesting, and detail is not our present object.

In the Book of Job we have one portion of those exercises of heart which this division of the Holy Book supplies. These are not joyful exercises, but those of a heart that, journeying through a world in which the power of evil is found, and not being dead to the flesh, not having that divine knowledge which the Gospel furnishes, not possessing Christ in resurrection, is not capable of enjoying in peace the fruit of God's perfect love, whatever its own conflicts may be; but which struggles with the evil or with the non-enjoyment of the only real good, even while desiring to possess it.

This division contains the Books of Job, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs. The Proverbs have a peculiar character; they guide us through this evil by the wise man's experience. These books differ very much from each other. We shall examine each in its place.

In Job we have man put to the test. We might say, with our present knowledge, man renewed by grace, an upright man, and righteous in his ways, in order to show whether he can stand before God in presence of the power of evil, whether he can be righteous in his own person before God. On the other hand we find the dealings of God, by which He searches the heart, and gives it the consciousness of its true state before Him.

All this is so much the more instructive from its being set before us outside of all economy, all especial revelation on God's part. It is the godly man, such as one of Noah's descendants would be, who had not lost the knowledge of the true God, when sin was again spreading in the

world, and idolatry was setting in. But the Judge was there to punish it. Job was encompassed with blessings, and possessed real piety. Satan, the accuser of the servants of God, goes to and fro in the earth seeking occasion for evil, and presents himself before the Lord among His mighty angels, the "bene-Elohim ;" and God states the case of Job, the subject of His government in blessing, faithful in his walk. Satan attributes the piety of Job to this manifest favour, and to his prosperity. God gives all this into the hands of Satan, who speedily excites the cupidity of Job's enemies; and they attack him and carry off all his possessions. His children perish through the effects of a storm which Satan is allowed to raise. But Job, dwelling neither on the instruments employed, nor on Satan, receives this bitter cup from the hand of God without murmuring. Satan suggests again that man will, in fact, give up every thing if he can preserve himself. God leaves every thing to Satan, except the life of His servant. Satan smites Job with a dreadful disease; but Job submits himself under the hand of God, fully recognising His sovereignty. Satan had exhausted his means of injuring Job, and we hear nothing more of him. But the depths of Job's heart were not yet reached, and to do this was the purpose of God, whatever Satan's thoughts may have been. Job did not know himself, and up to this time, with all his piety, he had never been in the presence of God. How often it is the case that even throughout a long life of piety, the conscience has never been really set before God. Peace -such as can never be shaken—and real liberty are not known as yet. There is a desire after God, there is the new nature, the attraction of His grace has been felt; nevertheless, God and His love are not known. If Satan is foiled the grace of God having kept Job's heart from murmuring-God has yet His own work to accomplish. That, which the tempest that Satan had raised against Job failed in doing, is brought about by the sympathy of his friends. Poor heart of man! The uprightness, and even the patience of Job had been manifested, and Satan had no more to say. But God alone can search out what the heart really is before Him; and the absence of

all self-will, perfect agreement with the will of God, absolute submission like that of Christ, these things God. alone could test, and thus lay bare the nothingness of man's heart before Him. God did this with Job; revealing at the same time that He acted in grace in these cases for the good of the soul which He loved.

If we compare the language of the Spirit of Christ in the Psalms we shall often find the appreciation of circumstances expressed in almost identical terms; but instead of bitter complaints, and reproaches addressed to God, we find the submission of a heart which acknowledges that God is perfect in all His ways. Job was upright, but he made this his righteousness; which evidently proves that he had never been really in the presence of God. The consequence of this was that, although he reasoned more correctly than his friends, he attributed injustice to God and a desire to harass him without cause. See chap. xix., xxiii., 10, 13; xiii., 15-18; xvi., 12. We find also in xxix. that his heart had dwelt upon his upright and benevolent walk with complacency, commending himself, and feeding his self-love with it. "When the eye saw me it gave witness to me." And therefore God brings him to say, "Now mine eye seeth Thee and I abhor myself." It is with these chapters xxix., xxx., xxxi, which express his good opinion of himself, that Job ends his discourse; he had told his whole heart out. He was self-satisfied: he used the grace of God to make himself lovely in his own eyes. If (chap. ix.) he confessess man's iniquity, it is because it is useless to attempt being just with such a God. The Sixth chapter, as well as the whole of his discourse, proves that it was the presence and the language of his friends. that were the means of bringing out all that was in his heart. We see also in chap. xxx. that the pride of his heart was detected. As to the friends of Job, they do not call for any extended remarks. They urge the doctrine that God's earthly government is a full measure and manifestation of His righteousness, and of the righteousness of man, which should correspond with it. A doctrine which proves a total ignorance of what God's righteousness is, and of His ways; as well as the absence

of all real knowledge of what God is. We do not see either that the feelings of their hearts were influenced by communion with God. Their argument is a false and cold estimate of the exact justice of His government as an adequate manifestation of His relation with man. Although Job was not before God in his estimate of himself, he judges rightly in these respects. He shows that although God shows His disapprobation of the wicked yet that their circumstances overthrow the argument of his friends. We see in Job a heart which, although rebellious, depends upon God, and would rejoice to find Him. We see too that when he can extricate himself by a few words from his friends, who, he is quite sensible, understand nothing of his case, nor of the dealings of God, he turns to God although he does not find Him, and although he complains that His hand is heavy upon him. That is to say, we see one who has tasted that God is gracious, whose heart, wounded indeed and unsubdued, yet claims those qualities for God-because it knows Him-which the cold reasonings of his friends could not ascribe to Him; a heart which complains bitterly of God, but which knows that could it once come near Him, it would find Him all that it had declared Him to be, and not such as they had declared Him to be; a heart which repelled indignantly the accusation of hypocrisy-for Job was conscious that he looked to God, and that he had known God and acted with reference to Him.

But these spiritual affections of Job did not prevent his turning this consciousness of integrity into a robe of self-rightecusness which hid God from Him, and even hid him from himself. He declares himself to be more righteous than God. Chap.x.7; xvi. 14-17; xxiii.11—13; xxvii., 2-6. Elihu reproves him for this, and on the other hand explains the ways of God. He shows that God visits man and chastises him, in order that when subdued and broken down-if there is one who can show him the point of moral contact between his soul and God in which his soul would stand in truth before Him—God, may act in grace and blessing, and deliver him from the evil that oppresses him. Elihu goes on to show him that if God chastises, it is becoming in man to set himself