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our justification, and promises to us the gift of his Holy Spirit to convert and sanctify our hearts? Is it nothing to us, that, notwithstanding all our offences, pardon is offered to us, if only we repent and turn to God; with whom, being justified freely by faith, we obtain peace and an interest in his promises here, and everlasting glory hereafter? Shall we slight this bountiful provision of the grace of God to supply all our wants? Shall we refuse to yield to him our hearts, and to devote to him our lives? No: He deserves, not less than he requires, our obedience; he invites us by gratitude, as much as he commands us by the obligations of his law. Be it then ours, his Holy Spirit assisting us, to understand, to feel the value of, and to embrace for our eternal welfare, this mystery of Divine wisdom, this unspeakable gift of God to man, in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ: to whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all praise and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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SERMON XII.

JOB'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND PRAYER.

JOB X. 12-16.

Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit. And these things hast thou hid in thine heart: I know that this is with thee. If I sin, then thou markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity. If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction, for it increaseth.

IN these words Job addresses God as his Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor; and he seems to ask, why, knowing his weakness and frailty, he laid upon him such heavy burdens as those which he was called upon to bear. He appears to have felt some difficulty in reconciling the past mercies of God with his present afflicting dispensations; and he sometimes betrays almost a tone of reproach in his language, as if he had been sought out and punished with more than

the ordinary strictness of God's righteous judgments. Yet, amidst all, he acknowledges that his Creator doubtless had wise, though to him unknown, reasons for his dispensations: "These things," said he, "thou hast hid in thine heart:" they were planned in thine infinitely wise, holy, and beneficent, though unsearchable, counsels "I know this is with thee:" to me, indeed, it is a source of trouble and perplexity; but to thee it is plain: it was rightly though mysteriously devised; it is equitably though severely executed. And then, as though glancing at the righteousness of God's law, on the one hand, and, on the other, at the sinfulness of mankind generally, and in particular at his own personal transgressions, with a sense of the imperfection of his best obedience, he adds, "If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head: I am full of confusion; therefore see mine affliction, for it increaseth."

This affecting passage sets before us, First, Job's acknowledgment of his infinite obligations to God; Secondly, the judicial relation in which he stood towards Him, and his conscious guilt and confusion at the prospect; Thirdly, his appeal to Him to compassionate his affliction.

I. First, then, we have Job's acknowledgment of his infinite obligations to God: "Thou

hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit." This acknowledgment is threefold, comprising the blessings of creation, preservation, and the additional mercies which through the "favour" of God he had been permitted to enjoy.

1. The blessing of creation : "Thou hast granted me life."-Job is supposed to have existed at an early period of the world, and most probably before the time of Moses; yet he was well acquainted with that fundamental doctrine, with which Moses opens the Book of Genesis, that God created the heavens and the earth, and all that they contain.-He does not attribute his existence to chance, or necessity; but speaks of it expressly as a grant from the Almighty; a grant bestowed for the most wise, benevolent, and momentous purposes. Practical atheism is at all times too common, even among many who profess and call themselves Christians. How few, comparatively, are accustomed, like Job, constantly to refer their being to God; and that not merely as an article of their belief, but with a deep impression of what they owe to him; with a practical conviction that they are not their own; and with a due sense of their obligation to live to His glory. They do not, indeed, doubt in theory for who can for a moment doubt it?that "it is He that hath made us, and not we

ourselves;" but as concerns those feelings of love and gratitude, of duty and responsibility, which such a belief ought to inspire, they live as widely separated from Him "in whom they live and move and have their being," as though no such relationship existed. Yet it is certain that an habitual feeling of reverence towards God as our Creator, though not the whole of religion, is a necessary and indispensable part of it. The Gospel of Christ, in pointing out to us other truths, essential to be known by us as fallen and guilty creatures, does not overlook, but on the contrary uniformly takes for granted, and displays, this first natural and unalterable bond of union between the Creator and his creatures. The grant of life was the first benefit we were capable of enjoying, and it opened the way to all that followed. Without it, we had been infinitely lower than the very beasts that perish; we could not have shared even the meanest enjoyments of the basest reptile; we had been as the dust on which we tread, without power or consciousness; a mere blank amidst those happy tribes of beings whom the all-wise and benevolent Creator designed to enjoy the blessings of his providence, or the higher delights of his eternal presence.

2. But to the benefit of creation Job adds that of preservation: "Thy visitation hath preserved my spirit."-The same Almighty Hand

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