It is observable when he began to show his resentment; not till he heard of the death of his children; and then he arose, then he rent his mantle. A worldly unbelieving heart would have said, 'Now the meat is gone, it is well the mouths are gone too; now there

are no portions, it is well there are no children; but Job knew better things, and would have been thankful if Providence had spared his children, though he had little or nothing for them, for Jehovah-jireh '-the Lord will provide.-M. Henry.

Children, relations, friends, honours, houses, lands, and endowments, the goods of nature and fortune, nay, even of grace itself, are only lent. It is our misfortune to fancy they are given. We start, therefore, and are angry when the loan is called in; we think ourselves masters, when we are only stewards, and forget that to each of us it will one day be said, 'Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.'-Bp. Horne.

If we are the Lord's, we need not fear to see our treasures disappear, to have the cradle become empty, and friend after friend fall away; for father, and mother, and brother, and sister, and husband, and wife, and child, are but sparks struck out from God-glowing names which, grouped together, mean God. So let us take our dear ones and enshrine them in Him, and place them in that crystal sphere where loss can never come.— Henry Ward Beecher.

There are bitter mercies and sweet mercies. Some mercies God gives in wine, some in wormwood. Now, we must praise God for the bitter mercies, as well as the sweet; thus Job did: The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Too many are prone to think, nothing is a mercy that is not sweet, and leaves a pleasant farewell on their palate; but this is the childishness of our spirits, which, as the Christian grows more judicious, will wear off. Truly, none of our temporal things (whether crosses or enjoyments) considered in themselves abstractedly, are either a curse or a mercy they are only as the covering to the book;

it is what is written in them that must resolve us whether they be a mercy or not. Is it an affliction that lies on thee? If thou canst find it comes from love, and ends in grace and holiness, it is a mercy, though it be bitter to thy taste. Is it an enjoyment? If love doth not send it, and grace end it, it is a curse, though sweet to thy sense. There are sweet poisons as well as bitter cordials. The saints commonly have greater advantage from their afflictions in the world, than enjoyments of the world. Their eyes are oftener enlightened with wormwood than honey,-those dispensations that are bitter and unpleasing to sense, than those that are sweet and luscious.-Gurnall.

When we are heavily afflicted or bereaved, we may err in thinking that the chastisement is for some particular offence. If there be ground for regarding it as such, we undoubtedly should do so; if not, it is better to forbear judging than to misjudge. Possibly, chastening for a particular sin may not be in God's design: it is not always. We may be sure it never is His principal design in taking away one relative from another. He made all things (principally) for Himself; He made us but secondarily for one another. If His principal design in making such a creature was not to please me, His principal design in taking it away was not to displease or afflict me. He hath His own greater and higher end concerning His own creature, to glorify Himself upon it, and by it, in a greater world than this. Many afflictions are for trial; and that in such a case is an awful thought! The jealous God hath me

now under trial, how I can bear, how I can submit, how I can reverence His hand, how I can behave myself towards Him when He afflicts; whether I will venture to contend with Him, or be sullen and morose towards Him; because He hath bereaved me of a child I delighted in, whether I better loved Him or my child.' The trial may be manifold; of my faith, of my patience, of my fear of Him, of my love to Him; and I may add, it may

be intended for a trial of Gratitude, and a mighty trial that is! We are required, in everything to give thanks. And Job did it, and said, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord,' when with all his substance He took away all his children at once: The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken. The injunction, 'In everything give thanks,' signifies that there is in everything some matter of praise.-Howe.

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'And still he holdeth fast his integrity.'-Whatsoever a godly man loses, he will be sure to lay hold of his graces; he will hold spirituals, whatever becomes of temporals. He will be sure to take fast hold of these, when all is going; when riches are going, when children are going, when friends are going, when liberty is going, yea when life is going too, then he lays fast hold upon his integrity, and saith (as Jacob to the angel), I will not let thee go. And he saith it without exception; for he knows he cannot be blessed, if that go. Integrity is his Benjamin; all the children he hath shall go, but this son of his right hand must not; for indeed his life is bound up in the life of grace; and if he part with that, he must lie down with sorrow in his grave. Wherefore he is resolved not to part with that, whatever he parts with. As it is with a man at sea, in a shipwreck; when all is cast overboard, the corn that feeds him, and the clothes that

cover him, yet he swims to the shore, if he can, with his life in his hand. Or as it is with a valiant standardbearer, that carries the banner in war; if he sees all lost, he will wrap the banner about his body, and choose rather to die in that, as his windingsheet, than let any man take it from him; he will hold that fast, though he lose his life for it.

So doth Job here; so doth every one that is of Job's heavenly temper and resolution in the greatest storm, in the hottest assault, he will wrap himself round about with his integrity, wind that about him, and will not let it go. Kill him if you will, destroy him if you will, he will never part with his integrity, though he part with life.. -Caryl.

A man that is in danger of drowning, will lay hold upon anything, upon a straw, upon a rush, though it have no strength to support him. Men in danger will lay hold upon somewhat; they that are wise will lay hold upon

the Rock, upon that which will do them good in an evil day. They will lay hold upon Christ, they will lay hold upon promises, (in laying hold upon our integrity all that is done),

then they are sure to live; for 'Wisdom' (that is Christ) is a tree of life to all that lay hold upon her.' (Prov. iii. 18.)-Ibid.

This is a proverb 'taken from the exchanges which were customary in those days: the meaning is, there may be some proportion in bargains, releases, and exchanges of other things; but for his life a man will give all; he will give 'skin upon skin,' that is, will pile one piece of property upon another, and give all that he has, in order to save his life: and the idea Satan here suggests is, that if Job were so afflicted in his body that he was likely to die, he would give up all his religion in order to purchase life. -Diodati; Barnes.

We remember, indeed, having somewhere heard of a sordid wretch, who stood higgling for some time at the bottom of a well, about the paltry sum which was demanded of him to draw him out; but even in his case the inextinguishable love of life at last compelled him to accept the terms of his deliverance.-L.

We are a mysterious sort of creatures! Yet I acknowledge the wisdom of God is great and admirable, in planting in our natures so strong a love of this bodily life, without which the best would be more impatient of living on earth, so long as God thinks it requisite they should; and to the worst, death would not be a sufficiently formidable punishment; and, consequently, human laws and justice would be, in great part, eluded.-Howe.

The implanting of this principle in our nature, affords a striking proof of the kindness of that Being, who, in giving to man duties which he has to continue for many years to discharge, in a world which is preparatory to the nobler world that is afterwards to receive him, has not left him to feel the place, in which he is to perform the duties allotted to him, as a place of barren and dreary exile. Dr.

Thomas Brown.

To a Christian, who has attained 'the full assurance of hope,' how intolerable must this exile have appeared, had it not been counterbalanced, in some degree, by the love of life! If duty had not been neglected, how much of that interest, and ardour, and zeal, which is happily now sometimes manifested, might never have been displayed!-Dr. Payne.

In

It is a singular fact that we often witness an increased attachment to life in aged persons, when the means of enjoyment are diminished. order to explain this apparent inconsistency, we must remember that, by the influence of the suggesting principle, life, as a mere object of conception to the old, retains still many charms, which in reality it does not possess. The life of which they think, is the life of which they have often thought; and that life was a life full of hopes and enjoyments. The feelings, therefore, which were before associated with the notion of the loss of life, are those which still occur, on the contemplation of its possible loss; with the addition of those enjoyments, which a long series of years must have added to the complex conception, and the loss of which, as one great whole, seems to be involved in the very notion of the loss of that life, of which the enjoyments formed a part. It must be remembered, too, that if life be regarded as in any degree a blessing, the mere circumstance of the increased probability of its speedy termination, must confer on it no slight accession of interest. This is only one of many instances of the operation of a very general principle of our nature; the likelihood of loss, being itself almost a species of endearment, or, at least, producing, in every case, a tenderness

that is soon diffused over the object which we contemplate, that seems thus to be more lovely in itself, merely, because, from its precariousness, we love it more.-Dr. Thomas Brown.

'Men are very shy,' says a pagan moralist, of destroying their lives all at once, losing their lives altogether; but they make no difficulty of losing them all by parts;' that is, this day of my life I pursue an end, that is worth nothing; and I do so to-morrow, and the next day, and so from year to year, as long as my life lasts. Here is a life quite thrown away; and a man is led to it by the inward complexion and temper of his soul, as he hath mismade himself, mis-shapen himself; for he was made upright, but he would be

trying inventions, and this it hath come to.-Howe.

We may here reflect that if men, in order to save their natural lives, are considered as acting reasonably, when they renounce all their interests, stoop to any concessions, accept of any terms, and become willing to endure any hardships; how reasonable is it, that we should be influenced by the fear of everlasting punishment, and the hope of eternal life, to renounce the world, mortify our lusts, deny ourselves, submit to the cross; humble and abase ourselves in the very dust before God, and count all but dung that we may win Christ and be found in Him!'. Scott.

A godly man is ever useful to God. Though he cannot stir a limb, yet his life may be useful to God. Whereas a wicked man, though strong and healthy, though furnished with outward comforts and accommodations, is altogether unserviceable; he will not do God a stroke of work, though he have received great pay and wages beforehand. A godly man will serve God in and by his poverty, in and by his sick

ness, when diseased, when distressed, when nothing is to be seen upon him but scabs and boils. Grace will work through all the defects and decays of nature. And when the life of nature can scarce move one member of the outward man upon the earth, the life of grace moves all the members of the inward man toward heaven. (2 Cor. iv. 16.)-Caryl.

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As Satan prefers to take up his quarters in man above all inferior creatures, so he had rather possess the souls of men than their bodies. None but the best room in the house will serve this unclean spirit to vomit his blasphemies, and eject his malice in against God: and why? but because the soul is the proper seat of holiness and sin. This, one gives as the reason, why amongst all the ways that Satan plagued Job, he did not choose to make a forcible entry into his body, and possess him corporally; for certainly he might, that being short of taking away

his life the only thing reserved by God out of his commission-and being in his power, sure it was not to spare Job that trouble. No pity dwells in a devil's heart; but the very reason seems to be what an ancient hath noted; the devil waited for higher preferment; he hoped to possess his soul, which he longed for a thousand times more.-Gurnall.

No doubt the disease, which Satan inflicted on Job, was as painful and loathsome as it could be made. Sore boils, or ulcers (one of which is often found to exercise all our patience),

covered Job from head to foot; so that his excessive torture must have been incapable of relief from change of posture; and he would be so offensive, that few would come near him. . . When we are most healthy and vigorous, we should remember to what loathsome diseases our bodies are liable, and that they may shortly become a mass of putrefaction, which could scarcely be known or endured by our most affectionate friends. Instead then of being vain of them, or bestowing pains in decorating, or pampering them, let us

seek for the incorruptible ornaments and unfading beauties of holiness. Let us be thankful for our present measure of health, or the attendance which we receive in sickness; and let us look, through the grave, to the risen and glorified Jesus, and expect His second coming, when He shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.'Scott.

As great worldly felicity has often been rendered insipid and spiritless, so great calamities have often been rendered much the more bitter, by the want of a mutual helpfulness between those who sustain the conjugal relation. All the succour Job had from his wife, was an impious endeavour to provoke and irritate his spirit ;-that taunting scoff, Dost thou still retain thy integrity?' and that horrid advice, Curse God and die!' Whereas, that rational, religious, soul-composing thought, Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' was deeply fixed in the mind of the one; how much more effectually relieving had it been, if it had circulated between both the relatives; and they had alternately propounded and enlarged upon it to one another! Howe.

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Rebels as we are, we live in the very midst of God's munificence. The earth is full of His riches.'' His tender mercies are over all His works.' Is not the present mingled condition of things, precisely what we might have expected to find, under the administration of a justly offended, but kind and merciful Being, over a province of His dominions, which, though in a state of unnatural and base revolt, He had not finally proscribed and abandoned?— sin, in ten thousand forms, sending up

every instant to the Eternal Throne, from all parts of the world, the call for vengeance; and the inexhaustible and indomitable goodness of Jehovah still lingering to smite, staying the uplifted hand of Justice, and in spite of the desert of primitive retribution, still 'kind to the evil and unthankful,' still 'making the sun to rise and the rain to descend' on the children of disobedience;' filling with good the mouth which, instead of speaking His praise, blasphemes His name, and pouring showers of blessing on the soil that yields Him nothing in return but briers and thorns!-Dr. Wardlaw.

There are many reasons why we, who receive good from the hand of God, should receive with patience the evils which He is pleased to inflict; 1. The good things which God has bestowed, afford sufficient evidence for our believing that the evils which He sends, are not causelessly or wantonly inflicted. Let me desire you to consider, whether, if some powerful friend had placed you in an opulent and comfortable station, and, in the general conduct of your affairs, had discovered the most disinterested kindness, you would not ascribe any occasional discouragements you received, to some unknown reason or cause, rather than to his unfaithfulness or cruelty? Ought not the experience which we have had,