Inscrutable is His mysterious plan,

Unfathomed also by the mind of man.

No righteous judgment thou canst hence command,
Against a God thou dost not understand;
His ways are dark, His dealings seem severe,
But know the issue doth not yet appear;

His wisdom, power, and goodness are supreme,
The darkest cloud contains the brightest beam.
The latent spark within the fleecy shroud,
When He commandeth bursts the blackest cloud.
In awe and rev'rence, pensive, meek, and dumb,
Submit to God, and wait till help shall come.
In words of rashness once thou didst declare,
When crushed with grief, and filled with fell despair:
Oh! that I knew where Him my soul could meet!
That I might now approach His heavenly seat!
Before Him there I'd order all my cause,

And plead my innocence before His laws.
Then teach us now the words a senseless clod,
Shall utter boldly to Almighty God!
For we, alas! His presence dare not reach,
We know not how to order this our speech.
Our minds are dark, His wisdom's so profound,
Our knowledge nought, and His doth so abound;
Our presence mean, while His doth overawe,

And crush us down before His holy law.
Then how could we before His presence plead,
In expectation we should then succeed?

Or once with hope arraign Almighty God,
About the dealings of His chast'ning rod?
When here we do not fully understand,

The simplest works of His Almighty hand?
Abashed, confounded on that dreadful day,

We should not know the words we ought to say.
Shall He be told that now of Him I speak?
And explanations of His dealings seek?

O'erwhelmed with awe, and rev'rence most profound,
I dare not venture on such holy ground;
For if a man shall dare with Him contend,
Dispute His justice, or His dealings mend;
His soul shall drink Jehovah's bitter cup,
And by His anger shall be swallowed up.
I dare not longer by my speech encroach,
Behold the whirlwind's terrible approach!
For now we cannot steadfastly behold,
The azure skies in majesty untold;
The dazzling luster of Jehovah's light,
Confounds and blinds our unprotected sight.

His clouds are bright and roll in mountains high,

His noisy thunder rocks the lurid sky.

But lo! the winds disperse and cleanse them wide,

A dazzling glory now the folds divide.
Behold the gorg'ous op'ning how it clears!
The glor'ous symbol of His throne appears!
But lo! He holdeth back its awful place,
And spreads a cloud upon its burning face.

A stream of splendor shooteth bright and high,
And fluid gold o'erspreads the northern sky.
How terrible His majesty appears!

No tongue can tell the number of His years.
How great in power, let ev'ry mouth confess!
How vast in justice, and in righteousness!
Although His laws are holy, just, and strict,
By sore oppression He will not afflict;
And therefore men His Holy name should fear,
With pious rev'rence, and with love sincere.
The meek and simple He will not despise,
Nor yet respecteth He the proud or wise.

CHAPTER XX.

THE LORD'S ANSWER TO JOB FROM THE WHIRLWIND.

THE previous Chapter closes with a description of the Almighty's approach in a whirlwind, by Elihu, to answer Job, and close the controversy. Elihu is overwhelmed by the bright light he sees in the clouds; the fluid gold which appeared to be poured out over the azure sky; the vivid lightnings playing in wild and terrific awe; the thunders rolling; the clouds parting, and opening a passage of ineffable brightness for the appearance of the Almighty; the roar and trembling of Jehovah's tabernacle; and the great and terrible majesty of God. Under the trepidation of the moment he ceases his speech in an abrupt and hurried manner. Elihu's discourse had prepared the way for the Almighty. He had maintained, in justification of his own speech, that inspiration was superior to age, and that God, through it, giveth understanding to man. Job had on several occasions expressed a wish that God would answer him. All the speakers, no doubt, felt the need of some more authoritative and satisfactory solution of the nature and design of human suffering, and the divine dealings, and government of God over the world. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar had argued, with vehemence, censoriousness, and great severity, that God punished only the wicked in this life, and that according to their sins, while he signally spared the righteous; that consequently Job, being so extraordinarily afflicted, must be a very great sinner, suddenly and justly overtaken by divine vengeance therefor. They were all silenced by Job, but not convinced. They advanced all their arguments, elaborately prepared, tersely expressed, and skillfully leveled against the patriarch, in a series of three speeches each, except Zophar, who spoke but twice; Elihu, however, supplied his place, speaking four times. The last time round the speakers were well nigh confounded. Eliphaz is briefer, and apparently less hopeful than before. Bildad's last speech is only six verses in length. It is irrelevant to the controversy, betrays confusion, and a full conviction of inability to reply to Job. Zophar declined to speak at all. All the speakers had said many rash and intemperate things, and had indulged in cruel reflections upon Job; while he had, in several instances, given utterance to complaints and murmurings against God that were unjustifiable and irreverent. At this stage of the controversy Elihu comes forward, and with great assurance announces his ability to unravel the mystery of Job's sufferings, reconcile God's dealings with

case.

His creatures here, with strict justice, and also with benevolence and love. Although he took higher ground than Job's three friends, yet he did not by any means do what he expressed his ability to perform. He alleged that calamities and afflictions are disciplinary to the extent of deterring man from the commission of future sin, and also of causing man to renounce a wicked life, and turn to God. He argued that God accomplished this in three ways: by dreams; by inspired messengers or teachers; and by sickness and pain. He held that God was so great that man ought to believe Him to be just and righteous. He did not, like the others, hold that these afflictions necessarily proved the victim of them to be wicked. However, in the application of his argument to Job, he took it for granted that he was an unjust and wicked man; and that, softened by sorrow, he should repent and trust in God, as the only hope of deliverance from his horrible sufferings. But still his speech did not reach the Job maintained that he was not insincere, nor unjust; that he was both perfect and upright; that his trials and sufferings were therefore disproportioned to his character and life, and hence were cruel and unjust, Up to this time no satisfactory reply had been made to Job. It was necessary, therefore, for more light to be shed on the dark subject. The Almighty now comes forward, in a terrible tempest, and addresses Job. The first design of His reply appears to be to reprove him for his rash and presumptuous murmurings against Himself; his reflections upon His government and dealings with man; and to produce in him a proper spirit of penitence, humiliation, and profound submission to Him, in view of His infinite greatness and wisdom. He implies the utter inability of Job to understand His ways, and that hence he ought not to judge Him. At the close of His answer He accepts Job, because, in the main he had spoken the thing that was right concerning Him, and generally had a true spirit of sincerity, uprightness, and piety. He restores him to health, and reduplicates all his former possessions. But it is not a little remarkable that the Almighty does not attempt to solve the mystery of His ways. What Job desired to know was why, being so sincere and upright as he felt and knew himself to be, he was yet horribly afflicted, even beyond the vilest of the vile. This precise difficulty was not met. The Almighty does not tell Job that His afflictions were chastisements for his sins; nor that they are to restrain him from sin; nor that they are to be rewarded in another world. Neither does He inform him why there is such obvious inequality between the temporal prosperity and adversity of the righteous and wicked in this life; nor reconcile his apparent condemnation of the righteous here from their afflictions, with His approbation of their righteous character; nor his seeming satisfaction with the wicked from their prosperity, with His detestation of their character, and His exact justice. He makes no reference to the retributions of a future state as a place of final adjustment of all their inequalities. This obviously shows that the knowledge of God has been progressively revealed to mankind. Gradual development is one of the most signal characteristics of the Almighty, both in nature and revelation. In Job's day scarcely anything was known about a future state. His highest dream of happiness hereafter was rest in the shades of Sheol-a region of quiet darkness beyond