bery and murders perpetrated by the Sabeans. This lightning is called by the messenger "the fire of God;" and as thunder is his voice, so lightning is his fire. But on this occasion Satan, no doubt, was permitted to be the kindler of it; and doubtless he possesses great power. He is called in Scripture "the prince of the power of the air." If we should sustain losses, or suffer calamity, by the violence or fraud of wicked men, we should, in such a trial, view the providence of God, by whom such events are permitted. But when afflictions seem to come immediately from his own hand, there is something more awful in them, than when they are inflicted through the agency of man. Still, in whatever way' afflictions may overtake us, they spring not out of the dust. They are given to us by weight and measure. In the providence of God "clouds and darkness are round about him." The believer, nevertheless, may be assured that righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne."

By a third messenger, the patriarch was informed of the loss of three thousand camels, with the murder of all the servants that were looking after them, one only excepted, who brought the dismal intelligence, by three bands of the Chaldeans.

If the fire of God, which fell upon Job's honest servants, who were in the way of their duty, had fallen upon the Sabean or Chaldean robbers, who were committing enormous sin, God's judgments then would have been like the great mountains, evident and conspicuous; but when the way of the wicked prospers, and good men are afflicted, the divine

b

dispensations are then like a great deep, which is not easily fathomed. In the present instance the Sabeans and Chaldeans carry off the cattle of Job as their booty, and his numerous servants are murdered, or die by lightning, and thus Job is at once stripped of all his substance. Yet, this is not all: this is not yet the worst. As the clouds return after the rain, so of melancholy tidings to Job:

the messengers

For "while he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating, and drinking wine, in their eldest brother's house and behold there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”

To the loss of Job's oxen, his asses, his sheep, his camels, and his servants, is now added the loss of all his children-seven sons and three daughters; and that not by any lingering disease, under which he might have visited them, prayed with them, and pronounced his blessing upon them, before they were called to leave the world and enter the eternal state; but by a sudden death-buried together under the ruins of their eldest brother's house, a stately edifice, struck by the resistless whirlwind.

These are the peculiar and complicated afflictions of Job, mentioned in the first chapter of the book which contains the history of his sufferings.

To these calamities afterwards were added others, which more immediately affected his own person. Satan, having permission to try him to the utter

most, smote him from head to foot with the most loathsome ulcers. Hear the account, as given in the second chapter: "So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes."

In the midst of all these troubles and afflictions, one might have hoped that he would have found some comfort in the kind offices of his neighbours, the compassion of his friends, and the tender assi duities of his wife. But not so-his servants turned their back upon him; "They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I entreated him with my mouth." The friends who came to comfort him, loaded him with the most unfounded accusations, and asserted that his sufferings were evidences of his peculiar wickedness, which God was now disclosing and punishing. His wife derided his affiance in God, counselled him to renounce it, and to curse God,

and die."

If we look at any of these trials separately, may we not ask, were they not great? But if we view them collectively, can we suppose they were ever exceeded by any endured by mortal man ?-Let us now proceed to consider,

II. The patience which Job manifested under his affliction.

The trials of this patriarch called for the most

extraordinary degree of patience, and submission to the will of God. And was it not exercised in the most wonderful manner? Observe his conduct, when informed of the circumstances by which he was suddenly deprived of all his property, and bereaved of his numerous family of children. "Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped; and said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." He mourns as a man, and manifests his sorrow by the usual customs of grief; but he submits with patience, as a believer. Behold him again, after he was visited with his peculiarly distressing bodily affliction; when his wife gave him that desperate-that horrible advice, "Curse God and die." On this occasion all was meekness and submission in the patriarch; his reproof was kind, affectionate, mild, though firm and consistent. "He said unto her, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips."

It is true that, after this, we find Job cursing the day of his birth, and uttering some other sinful expressions. Nor would we conceal or extenuate his guilt. We find the patriarch failing in the very grace for which he is especially commended by God. How are we to account for this fact? No man can of himself overcome his propensity to sin. Nothing

but the grace of God can effect this victory; and therefore when a believer is left to himself, and to his own powers, he can do nothing. Hence God is sometimes pleased to leave a man to his own strength, in order to teach him that this is perfect weakness, and to lead him to a dependence upon him, "without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy." If we obtain dominion over sin, it is because we are under grace-not only under a dispensation of grace, but under its immediate influence. The man Christ Jesus alone was without sin. Job, like all others of the children of Adam, was a sinner. But though he betrayed his impatience in some instances, and uttered not a few hasty and sinful words, yet his arguments were, on the whole, right, in opposition to those made use of by his friends; and God himself declared that they had not spoken of HIM the thing that was right, as his servant Job had. But after the Lord himself had condescended to argue with Job, and convinced him of his ignorance and imbecility, the patriarch was deeply humbled for his sin, as we find by his own penitent confessions." Behold (said he), I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer: yea, twice, but I will proceed no further;--I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore do I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." On the whole, we see that his patience, his general conduct, his penitence and his faith, notwithstanding some failures and infirmities, evidence that he pos