for his life. But put forth Thy hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face." Satan receives further permission to lay upon him any affliction short of death. By the stroke of the adversary Job is now covered with boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. In his distress his wife upbraids him for his integrity, and calls upon him to curse God and die. But the suffering Patriarch still retains his integrity, and justifies the ways of God: "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" While suffering under his severe afflictions, his three friends come to mourn with and to comfort him; and with them Job communes on the mysteries of Divine Providence as manifested in its afflictive dispensation; in which the sufferings of the righteous seem as if calculated to destroy the very foundations of faith in the operation of a power which is exerted to throw the shield of protection over innocence; as if fidelity to God were the very means of losing His protection and blessing; as if services rendered to God were rewarded by the malignity of Satan. In this dialogue Job utters the very language of despair-that feeling which takes possession of the soul when its distress seems to it more than it can bear, and life appears as a curse and not a blessing. He curses the day of his birth, and laments that he had not passed from the womb to the grave. In this dialogue Job's friends successively reason with him on the justice of the Divine judgments; and assert, with the view of vindicating the ways of God to man, that actual sin is the cause of all affliction. Job vindicates himself, and contends against the doctrine that his sufferings are the effect of his personal wickedness; and assures them that they are miserable comforters, since he himself could readily have produced all the reasoning that they had advanced. But what man is unable to accomplish God ultimately effects. At last the Almighty reveals Himself to Job and vindicates His sovereignty and power, declaring the unreasonableness and presumption of feeble man in attempting to resist, or refusing to submit to, the Divine Will and overruling Providence. Job descends from his loftiness, profoundly humbles himself before his Maker in dust and ashes, unconditionally submitting himself to the Divine Being as the Supreme Ruler and Moral Governor of the world. The humbled Patriarch is accepted for his contrition and abasement. The Divine blessing descends upon him; poverty is exchanged for wealth, and sorrow for joy. His friends rejoice with him and enrich him with gifts. Flocks and herds are again possessed with increase; sons and daughters are born unto him; and his latter end is better than his beginning.

The whole of this sacred drama contains, in the first place, a most useful and general lesson. It teaches us that, however great may be the afflictions of the righteous, the Lord will deliver him out of them all-that God afflicts only to purify, and humbles only to exalt. But besides, or within, this general truth, the book contains a more interior and spiritual wisdom. All discipline and trial has, in the providence of God, one great end in view, and that end is the soul's regeneration and salvation. The Book of Job is nothing but a history of this spiritual change. To see this we have only to exchange natural for spiritual ideas to regard the history as relating to the soul instead of the body, and to spiritual instead of temporal states and possessions. The case so skilfully and circumstantially represented in this production of ancient wisdom is the same as that which was afterwards actually represented by the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness, where they were tried and tempted previous and preparatory to their entering into Canaan; and which is briefly described by the Lord in the Gospel in the case of the young man who came to inquire of Him what he must do to inherit eternal life. When the Lord answered him, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments," he replied, "All these have I kept from my youth up." Like Job, this young man was upright in respect to the outward law, and Jesus loved him for his obedience; but there was one thing which he lacked; he must sell all that he had, and give to the poor, and come and follow the Lord Jesus. Job had observed all the Commandments; he was righteous, devout, and charitable, and the Lord loved him. But one thing he lacked: he must part with all his possessions; he must be reduced to poverty and brought into humiliation, and be made to know that in himself he is nothing but dust and ashes. He must be brought to see that in himself he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked; and must come to the Lord to be made prosperous, rich, and happy; to have his eyes anointed with eye-salve that he may see; and have the nakedness of his hereditary corruption covered with the garment of fine linen, pure and white, which is the righteousness of saints. This is the truth which is unfolded in the history of Job. It is the same truth which the Lord taught on another occasion when He uttered the words, "Whosoever shall hate father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and his own life, for My sake and the Gospel's, he shall receive an hundred-fold in this time, of fathers and mothers, and brethren and sisters, with persecutions, and in the world to come life everlasting.”

This truth was amplified and illustrated in the case of Job. He was bereaved of his children and stripped of his possessions; but he was blessed at last with children more precious and with stores more abundant. His gains were more than his losses, but he received those gains with persecutions. These are the points which invite our attention, and which I propose to consider so far as will enable us to derive some of the practical instruction which this sacred allegory contains.

To Job there were born seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was 7000 sheep, and 3000 camels, and 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 she-asses, and a very great household. In the language of correspondence sons and daughters are the spiritual affections of truth and goodness, sheep and camels, and oxen and asses, the rational and natural affections of goodness and truth; sheep and camels the more interior, and oxen and asses the more exterior. The numbers seven and three, which enter so largely into Scripture enumerations, signify what is holy and what is perfect, and the number five what is comparatively defective and imperfect. The more interior affections and thoughts are therefore numbered by sevens and threes, and the lower by fives.

The first great trial to which Job was subjected being his deprivation, by a succession of calamities, of his whole family and possessions, it may be necessary here to consider the ground of the spiritual experience of which this is the symbol.

The spiritual life begins and ends in peace, but between its first and last states there is an intervening state of labour and tribulation. In this respect the spiritual life precisely resembles the natural; and this resemblance is no doubt the result of an analogy between them. Natural life begins in the peace of infancy, and, if well spent, ends in the serenity of old age. But between this peaceful beginning and ending there is an intervening period of toil and anxiety, often of bereavement, and sometimes of adversity. If we take life under any other aspect we shall find the same course of experience. The young enter on the business of life full of hope and gladness, but find difficulties, discouragement, and disappointments; but by virtuous perseverance these may be overcome, and the end may be ease and competence. In married life we see the same truth exemplified. The youthful pair enter on the holy state of matrimony with hearts full of joy and hope. But they come to know that there are anxieties, and labours, and trials, that they had been wisely prevented from antici

pating. These, however, are among the means which Divine Wisdom employs for breaking down the selfhood and making marriage an inward spiritual union, in which early sentiment is confirmed by future experience. And when the toils and the troubles of an active and family life are completed, the married partners, matured in mutual conjugal love as well as in years, come into a state of tranquil ease, and feel increased joy in their sons and daughters, now become more virtuous and beautiful in the love of others, and as husbands and wives, and in the new generation that is rising up from them. Such would be the progression and end of married life if God's original order in creation were preserved. In these instances the first the last state is the first

state exists for the sake of the last, and perfected by knowledge and experience. The intervening state of labour, of care, and of trial, is necessary as the means of making the last state more excellent than the first. The religious life is begun, carried on, and perfected in the same manner. It begins in the innocence of ignorance and ends in the innocence of wisdom; it begins in hope and ends in fruition. The intervening state is to improve and exalt the first state into that which is to form the last. The necessity for this intervening state, especially in the religious life, arises from the circumstance that under the innocence and peace of infancy there lies concealed hereditary evil. The human understanding is naturally dark, and the human heart is naturally corrupt. Before religion can become the religion of the heart and life hereditary evil must be removed. The middle period of the spiritual life, which properly belongs also to the middle period of natural life, is that in which the removal of evil is effected. It is an instance of the Lord's good and wise providence that these evils are kept in abeyance till the mind has acquired the means of overcoming them.

The evils of our nature cannot be removed till they are seen, and they cannot be seen till they are excited, and they cannot be excited except by temptation, which is produced by the agency of evil spirits. Satan is the principal, but secret agent, in all the afflictions of Job. He acts, however, only by the Divine permission, and with limitations assigned him by the will of God. And this is to teach us that the Lord has the keys of hell, and that it is of His power and mercy that we are not tempted above that we are able to bear. To the powers of darkness the Lord says, as in Job He is represented as saying to the ocean, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

But, as we learn from the Book of Job, Satan not only acts secretly, but indirectly. Satan despoils Job of his possessions, but it is through the instrumentality of subordinate agents. The Sabeans fall upon the oxen and the asses while peacefully ploughing and feeding, and slay the servants with the edge of the sword; fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sheep and their shepherds; the Chaldeans fall upon the camels and carry them away, killing their keepers; and a great wind from the wilderness smites the four corners of the house where his sons and daughters are eating and drinking, and they are buried in the ruins. This resembles the records of the Word, that when the Israelitish people sinned God stirred up adversaries to punish and correct them. The adversaries that are stirred up are the foes of our own household, the evils of our own hearts, and the falsities of our own understandings. It is upon these that evil spirits immediately act, and through them that they seek to destroy us. The Sabeans and the Chaldeans are the evil affections and deceitful thoughts of our own minds; the fire and the wind are the destructive self-love of our own hearts and the deceitful suggestions of our own understandings. When the evils of our corrupt nature and their ever attendant falsities are stirred into activity, they seem for the time to consume and carry away every good affection and thought, and deprive the mind of every joy and delight of life. These are the results of severe temptation. Yet the good and the true are not actually destroyed; they only disappear from the mind's perceptions and affections, to come again into manifestation in greater perfection and increased abundance. In temptation good and truth do not cease to exist, they only cease to have a manifest, or conscious and sensible existence.

This temptation fails, however, to destroy the integrity of the Patriarch or to disturb his trust in God. His pious ejaculation is, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." But one temptation does not end the conflict. Even when successfully resisted one temptation is followed by another and a greater. As man advances in regeneration more interior evils are brought into activity, that they may be seen and acknowledged, and thereby removed.

Satan is therefore permitted to put forth his hand against Job the second time; and now the affliction is personal; his body is covered with boils from the foot to the crown. This affliction evidently denotes a more interior temptation than that which preceded it. The