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18 There the prisoners rest_together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. 19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

The grave is the common receptacle of all; where all sorts and conditions of men are equally blended, and ultimately reduced to one common dust. All men begin and end life alike. Pale death, with equal pace, knocks at the palaces of kings, and at the cottages of the poor.'-Comp. Bible.

The differences of high and low, rich and poor, are only calculated for the present world, and cannot outlive fime. In the grave, at the day of judgment, and in heaven, there are no

such distinctions. The grave takes away all civil differences. Skulls wear no wreaths and marks of honour; ' The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.'Anon.

Levell❜d by death, the conqueror and the slave,

The wise and foolish, cowards and the brave,

Lie mix'd and undistinguish'd in the grave.-Sir R. Blackmore.

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul: 21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

Much as men dread death, and much as they have occasion to dread what is beyond, yet there is no doubt that this often occurs. Pain becomes so intense, and suffering so protracted, that they would regard it as a privilege to be permitted to die. Yet that sorrow must be intense which prompts to this wish, and usually must be long continued. In ordinary cases, such is the love of life, and such the dread of death and of what is beyond, that men are willing to bear all that human nature can endure, rather than meet death. This idea has been expressed with unsurpassed beauty by Shakspeare:

'For who would bear the whips and

scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death

The undiscovered country, from whose bourne

No traveller returns-puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not

of ?'-Rev. A. Barnes.

Many indeed utter complaints under afflictions which they have brought on themselves, and wish eagerly for death, when they above all others would be shocked at its approach, and most willing to have it delayed.Orton.

22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 28 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

V. 24. Bunyan, in his early experience, was beset with a very peculiar temptation. His own words in reference

to it are as follows:- At these seasons the tempter would not let me eat my food in quiet; but, forsooth, when I

was set at the table at my meat, I must go hence to pray; I must leave my food now, and just now, so counterfeit holy also would this devil be. When I was thus tempted, I should say in myself, Now I am at my meat, let me make an end. No, said he, you must do it now, or you will displease God, and despise Christ.

Wherefore I was much afflicted with these things; and because of the sinfulness of my nature, imagining that these things were impulses from God, I should deny to do it, as if I denied God; and then should I be as guilty because I did not obey a temptation of the devil as if I had broken the law of God indeed.'-Grace Abounding.

25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. 26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Job's calamities came upon him in quick succession. He had no time after one calamity to become composed, before another came. When he heard of one misfortune, he naturally dreaded another, and they came upon him with overwhelming rapidity. When one part of his property was taken, he had deep apprehensions respecting the rest. When all his property was seized or destroyed, he had alarm about his children; when the report came that they were dead, he feared some other affliction still. The sentiment is in accordance with human nature, that when we are visited with severe calamity in one form, we naturally dread it in another. The mind becomes exquisitely sensitive. The affections cluster around the objects of attachment which are left, and they become dear to us. When

one child is taken away, our affections cling more closely to the one which survives, and any little illness alarms us, and the value of one object of affection is more and more increasedlike the Sibyl's leaves-as another is

removed. It is an instinct of our nature, too, to apprehend calamities in quick succession when one comes.

Misfortune seldom comes alone'; and when we suffer the loss of one endeared object, we instinctively feel that there may be a succession of blows that will remove all our comforts from us. Such seems to have been the apprehension of Job.-Barnes. As the sun

Ere it is risen, sometimes paints

its image

In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits

Of great events stride on before the events,

And in to-day already walks tomorrow.-Schiller.

Alas! there are times when foreshadowings of evil, vaporous and undefined, rise up over the soul, like the night mists over the meadow-land, obscuring not only the land-marks of earth, but dimming even the starguides of heaven. At such periods we find our only safety in solitude and prayer.-A. B. Edwards.

CHAP. IV.

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THEN Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, If we assay to

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hold himself from speaking? Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. 5 But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.

A helping word in trouble is often like a switch on a railway track-but

one inch between wreck and smoothrolling prosperity.-H. W. Beecher.

It is much easier, however, to give good instructions and to render help to others, than to benefit by them ourselves. Nec prosunt Domino, quæ prosunt omnibus artes.

'No longer his all-healing art avails; But every remedy its master fails.' Those wonderful powers of oratory, which rendered Cicero so often successful in defending the cause of others, were found utterly to forsake him, when he was called upon to plead his own.-L.

It would make one smile to see how handsomely and roundly a Christian can untie the knots and scruples of another, who afterwards, when brought into the like condition, is troubled with the same himself. He that helped his friend over the stile, is now unable to stride it himself. God so orders things, that we should need one another. She that is midwife to others, cannot well do that office to herself; nor is he that is the messenger to bring peace to the spirit of another, able to speak it to his own.-Gurnall.

Advice in such circumstances, is

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nevertheless not to be despised; although a man's own performances may be condemned by a reference to his own precepts; nor should his precepts be undervalued, through his own failures in their application. A whetstone,' says Horace, though itself incapable of cutting, is yet useful in sharpening steel.' A youthful Achilles may acquire skill in hurling the javelin under the instruction of a Chiron, though the master may not be able to compete with the pupil in vigour of arm.-Abp. Whately.

We should all be concerned to practise our own lessons. Job did not do this so well as he should; and this is too common a case. Those who are ministers are conscious of their weakness, and how difficult it is to behave, as they exhort others to do. This should be a motive to them, and to Christian parents, and to all, who by their office or relations are instructors of others, to be peculiarly watchful over their own conduct, lest they give occasion for that reproof, Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?'-Orton.

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Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

It is as if Eliphaz had said, Thou thyself, and all that know thee, have spoken much of thy grace, but now is the time to use it, where is it? Show it me now, where is thy fear and thy confidence?' If a man have been reported very skilful at his weapon, when he comes into danger, then is the time to show his skill: and we may say to him, Where is thy skill now? Where is thy art now? So here; now, that thou hast most need of thy graces, where are they? Bring them forth; are they to seek now? Is thy righteousness as the morning dew, and as a cloud vanished away?

Times of trouble will put every grace to a stress; and we had need look to it, that we have not our graces to seek, when we have most need to use them; that when it shall be said to us, Where is your faith? Where is your hope? we may be able to hold them forth, and answer the question in our actions; Here they are; here is my fear, here is my confidence, here is my hope, here is my uprightness: I can make proof of them, and render them visible in my life: I can (through the strength of Christ) act them, and walk according to the rule of every one of these graces.'-Caryl.

Remember, I pray thee, who ever where were the righteous cut off?

This kind of reasoning is commonthat when men are afflicted with great and sudden calamities they must be peculiarly guilty. It prevailed in the

perished, being innocent? or

time of the Saviour, and it demanded all His authority to establish the opposite principle. (See Luke xiii. 1–5.) It is that into which men naturally

and easily fall; and it requires much observation, and long experience, and enlarged views of the Divine administration, to draw the true lines on this subject. To a certain extent, and in certain instances, calamity certainly does prove that there is peculiar guilt. Such was the case with the old world that was destroyed by the deluge; such was the case with the cities of the plain. But this principle does not run through all the calamities which fall on men. A tower may fall on the righteous as well as the wicked; an earthquake may destroy

the innocent as well as the guilty; the pestilence sweeps away the holy and the unholy, the profane and the pure, the man who fears God and him who fears Him not; and the inference is now seen to be too broad when we infer, as the friends of Job did, that no righteous man is cut off by special calamity, or that great trials demonstrate that such sufferers are less righteous than others are. Judgments are not equally administered in this world, and hence the necessity for a future world of retribution.-Barnes.

Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

When it is said, 'They shall reap the same,' we are taught that the punishment of sin shall be like the sin in kind. It shall be the same, not only in degree, but also in likeness. Punishment often bears the image and superscription of sin upon it. You may see the father's face and feature in the child. 'Whatsoever a man soweth,' saith the apostle,

that shall he also reap.' If a man sow wheat, he shall reap wheat. The harvest tells you what kind of grain was sowed in every field. If a man sows wheat, he shall not reap tares; and if a man sow tares, he shall not reap wheat. Thus God often returns the sin of man upon him. Sin comes to him in his own likeness, and He may read the name of it stampt upon the affliction; or by the judgment inflicted, interpret the wickedness committed. This was openly confessed by Adonibezek, (Judg. i. 7,) As I have done, so God hath requited me;' just so; and what was that? He speaks out in the former words: 'Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table.' There was his sowing, and his reaping was the same. They caught him,' says the text, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.' The very first law that was formally made and published after the fall, was a law of retaliation, or of counterpassion, (Gen. ix. 6,) Whoso sheddeth man's blood,'-what shall he reap?

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'By man shall his blood be shed;' he must reap the same. 'The judicials of Moses are to the same effect: 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,' &c. 'They have moved me to jealousy,' saith the Lord, by that which is not God, and I will move them to jealousy, by those who are not a people.' 'Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land which is not yours.' (Jer. v. 19.) God payeth them in their own coin. 'Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.' (Pr. xxi. 13.) And so concerning the preaching of the word, contemned (Zech. vii. 13); Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts.' They reap as they sowed. They would not hear, that was their sin; they shall not be heard, that's the punishment; they shall see how good it is to be wilfully deaf, when God commands, by His being judicially deaf, when they complain. The Sodomites had a fire of unnatural lust among them, and God sent a shower of fire, unnaturally from heaven, to destroy them. The Egyptians killed the Israelitish children,that was the seed they sowed; they reaped the same: God slew their children, even all their first-born in one night. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, there was their wickedness; they

reaped the same; God by fire from heaven, in a strange manner, slew them in a moment.

and give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.' Again, the Lord tells him, Thou hast slain Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon, therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house.' You see, here was sword for sword, and defilement for defilement; even holy David reaped the same which he had sowed.-Caryl.

Yea, we find the Lord sometimes dealing thus with His own dear servants; He will cause them to reap that which they have sown in kind. David had defiled his neighbour's wife; 'Therefore,' saith the Lord, 'I will take thy wives from before thine eyes, 'By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. 10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken. "The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad. 12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof. 13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men. 14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. 15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: 16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, "7 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

V. 12-17. 'Twas in the dead of night. All nature lay shrouded in darkness. Every creature was buried in sleep. The most profound silence reigned through the universe. In these solemn moments, Eliphaz alone, all wakeful and solitary, was musing upon sublime and heavenly subjects. When lo! an awful being from the invisible realms, burst into his apartments! A spirit passed before his face.

Astonishment seized the beholder. His bones shivered within him, his flesh trembled all over him; and the hair of his head stood erect with horror. Sudden and unexpected was the appearance of the phantom; not such its departure. It stood still, to present itself more fully to his view. It made a solemn pause, to prepare his mind for some momentous message. After which, a voice was heard: a voice, for the importance of its meaning, worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance; for the solemnity of delivery, enough to alarm a heart of stone. It spoke, and this was the purport of its words: Shall man, frail man, be just before the mighty God?

Shall even the most accomplished of mortals be pure in the sight of his Maker? Behold! and consider it attentively-He put no such trust in His most exalted servants as should bespeak them incapable of defect; and His very angels He charged with folly; as sinking, even in the highest perfection of their holiness, infinitely beneath His transcendent glories; as falling, even in all the fidelity of their obedience, inexpressibly short of the homage due to His adorable majesty.

'If angelic natures must not presume to justify either themselves or their services, before uncreated purity; how much more absurd such a notion, how much more impious such an attempt, in them that dwell in houses of clay; whose origin is from the dust, and whose state is all imperfection !'— Hervey.

I would observe from hence, the very singular necessity of that poverty of spirit, which entirely renounces its own attainments; and most thankfully submits to the righteousness of the incarnate God. To inculcate this lesson, the son of the Blessed came down from

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