really continued to live as they had formerly done, without any change of life or conversation. But St. Paul tells the Romans that they who have been buried with Christ should walk in newness of life; and in many other places he refers to the change of conduct which had taken place in those who had been called to be saints. But then these would-be teachers had undergone no such change; they had not been renovated by grace; they had not been buried with Christ, for they had not put off the former conversation, and been renewed in the spirit of their minds.

And what is he now but a false teacher and an impostor who pretends to teach others the road to heaven, without himself leading the way, who undertakes to show others how to find acceptance with God, without having first experienced that acceptance himself?

III. Purity of doctrine. "Nor handling the Word of God deceitfully." There can, of course, only be two reasons for this deceitful handling, either (a) To arrive at false doctrine, or, (b) To further some selfish end. Men do the first when they try, as some of these early teachers did, to fit Scripture into some system of human philosophy, and come to it, not to be taught by it, but to be confirmed in opinions received elsewhere, and to teach as Divine truth the views which they brought to the Sacred Book, and not the views which they brought therefrom. And men do the latter when, instead of preaching Christ, and Him crucified, they aim, by intellectual display, to preach themselves; when the object of the sermon is to show how cleverly or ingeniously they can handle texts of Scripture, and thus entertain their hearers, while their souls' disease requires healing; in short, when, by any means, they hold themselves up in the place of that Saviour for whom souls are thirsting.

And now having shown what the true minister is not, he shows in the next place what he is. "But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to men's consciences in the sight of God."* The best commentary on this will be his own fuller accounts of his ministry which he gives to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, where we shall find (as indeed he tells us here) that his conduct was the exact opposite of these false teachers'.

In opposition to their selfish motives, we find that he had but one end in view-"to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." "For three years he ceased not to warn each one of them with tears." He laboured with diligence and patience to tell them, not what would please, but what would profit, and that, not only in public discourses, but from "house to house."

In opposition to their unchanged lives, we find that he "served the Lord with all humility of mind," and feared not to call the attention of the Ephesian elders to his conduct, reminding them after what manner "He had been with them at all seasons, from the first day he came into Asia."

In opposition to their deceitful handling of the Word of God, we find him "testifying both to Jews and Greeks repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ;" "he kept back nothing that was profitable for them;" "he shunned not to declare to them the whole counsel of God."

And thus, by a faithful and fearless discharge of his duty, he commended himself to men's consciences in the sight of God. It is only by such purity of motive, having but one end in view, the glory of God and the salvation of souls; by such purity of conduct, "being examples to the flock;" and by such faithful handling of the Word of God, that we can hope to commend ourselves to the con

See a Homily on this text in HoMILIST, 1st series, 2nd vol., page 226.

sciences of those with whom we have to do, and discharge our duty as in the sight of God.

And though we, like St. Paul, may meet with difficulties in this faithful discharge of duty, we must strive to look upon our trials as he did, "for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." J. C.

Homiletic Sketches on the Book of Job.

The Book of Job is one of the grandest sections of Divine Scripture. It has never yet, to our knowledge, been treated in a purely Homiletic method for Homiletic ends. Besides many learned expositions on the book found in our general commentaries, we have special exegetical volumes of great scholarly and critical worth; such as Drs. Barnes, Wemyss, Mason, Goode, Noyes Lee, and Herman Hedwick Bernard: the last is in every way a masterly production. For us, therefore, to go into philology and verbal criticism, when such admirable works are available to all students, would be superfluous if not presumption. Ambiguous terms, when they occur, we shall of course explain, and occasionally suggest an improved rendering: but our work will be chiefly, if not entirely, Homiletic. We shall essay to bring out from the grand old words those Divine verities which are true and vital to man as man in all lands and ages. These truths we shall frame in an order as philosophic and suggestive as our best powers will enable us to do; and this in order to help the earnest preachers of God's Holy Word.

Subject: THE FOE OF FOES.

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all

that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."-JOв i. 6-12.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS. Ver. 6.-" Now there was a day,”—Now when it was the day'-Dr. Bernard; ‘And it came to pass as it might be to-day' — Dr. Lee; 'And the day came'-Dr. Good;-" When the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord." Before Jehovah. The "sons of God" here evidently denote celestial intelligences, either of the angelic or human order, i.e., the sainted spirits of departed men. All holy souls are "sons of God." "And Satan came also among them. The word "Satan" means 'adversary.' Some translate it the 'accusing angel,' and suppose that the being represented here is not that great archenemy of souls, the prince of the power of the air, so often spoken of in the New Testament; but some high officer in God's spiritual kingdom, whose mission it is to inspect and test the moral characters of God's children in this world, and to report the same to his Great Mastera recording angel. This is the view of Herder, Eichhorn, Wemyss, and others. (See Job and his Times by Wemyss.) There are many reasons against this opinion.

Ver. 7.-" And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." Some render this,-' from roaming round the earth and walking about it.' Dr. Good says, "The language means not so much the going backwards and forwards as making a circuit and circumference, going round about. The language means constant action in a wide sphere of activity."

Ver. 8.-" And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job?" In the margin, the last clause is, 'set thine heart on,' and this is the literal translation. The meaning may be, Hast thou in thy vast peregrinations specially marked my servant Job, "That there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?" The character which was given to Job in the first verse is here repeated by the Almighty Himself, and therefore Divinely endorsed.

Ver. 9.-" Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?" Is his worship disinterested? Is he not serving Thee for the sake of Thy kindness to him, and for the advantages he still expects? Ver. 10.-" Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land." The last clause has been thus translated: The works of his hands thou hast blessed, and thou hast spread abroad his substance in the earth.' The idea is-Hast Thou not so wondrously protected himself, family, and property, from plunderers, and so blessed the labour of his hands, that he therefore serves Thee?' He serves Thee, not because of what Thou art in Thyself, but because of what Thou art to him!

Ter. 11.-"But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." The last clause of this verse has been differently rendered. 'Will he bless thee to thy face?'-Dr. Good; 'In thy presence will he bless thee?'-Dr. Lee; Will he not blaspheme Thee because of Thy anger?'-Dr. Bernard. The idea in all cases is the same, viz., that if Jehovah ceased to bless him, Job would not only cease to serve him, but oppose him.

Ver. 12.-" And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is in thy power." Margin, 'in thy hand.' "Only upon himself put not forth thine hand." The license the adversary here received to afflict Job extended to his sons, daughters, and property, but no farther. He was not at present to touch Job. "So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord." He left the Council Chamber of the Eternal.

HOMILETICS.-We have two things here to notice as introductory to that subject, which we shall make the dominant theme of these verses.

First: A highly figurative representation of the Eternal and His spiritual kingdom. The language cannot be taken as a literal history of what actually occurred: it is a poetic representation; such a representation as Christ Himself often made in His parables of spiritual and eternal things. Indeed, all representations of God must be figurative, must be in accommodation to our modes of conception; for how else could any creature get an idea of the Infinite Spirit, a Being without limits in time, capacity, or space? "The language here," says a modern expositor, "is taken from the proceedings of a monarch who had sent forth messengers or ambassadors on important errands through the different provinces of his empire, and who now returned to give an account of what they had observed, and of the general state of the kingdom. Such a return would, of course, be on a fixed day, when their report would be "returnable," and they required to give in an account of the state of the kingdom."

Secondly: A remarkable meeting of the Great God and some of His intelligent creatures. Here is an insight into the Privy Council of the Eternal; the veil which separates the visible from the invisible is drawn aside, and we see the assembly of God's Cabinet Ministers, and He amongst them. Is there anything improbable in the Eternal periodically bringing