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BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS.

JOB TO ECCLESIASTES.

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[ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.]

LONDON:

ALFRED GADSBY, STEAM MACHINE PRINTER,

CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET.

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BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS.

JOB.

THE BOOK OF JOB.-I call that, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism, or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book! All men's book! It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem, man's destiny, and God's ways with him here on this earth. And all in such free flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in its epic melody, and repose of reconcilement. There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true, every way; true eyesight and vision for all things; material things no less than spiritual; the horse, hast Thou clothed his neck with thunder?' he laughs at the shaking of the spear!' Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind; so soft and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.-Carlyle.

CHAP. I.

THERE THERE was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

Job is said to be perfect; that is, not holy as God, or sinless, for fault is afterwards found with him (ch. ix. 20; xlii. 6); but his piety was proportionate-had a completeness of parts-was consistent and regular. He exhibited his religion as a prince, a father, an individual, a benefactor of the poor. He was not merely a pious man in one place, but uniformly so. He was consistent everywhere.-Rev. Albert Barnes.

Job eschewed evil.' It is more to say a man doth eschew evil, than to say a man doth not commit evil. It had been too bare an expression to say, Job did not commit evil; but when

VOL. III.

it is said, Job eschewed evil, this shows that not only the hand and tongue of Job did not meddle with evil, but that his heart was turned from evil. As there is a great deal of difference between these two, the doing of good and a delight in doing good; between being at peace, and following peace,-—a man may do good, and not be a lover of good, a lover of the commandments of God, a delighter in them; he may be at peace, and not be a lover and follower of peace; so a man may be one that commits not such and such sins; he may do no hurt; and yet, in the mean time, he may be one that loves those sins that he commits not.-Caryl.

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