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the hand of the enemy," may your adversary be weakened, may he be confounded, driven backward and put to rebuke, and your souls be freed from the bonds and chains of Satan; and, lastly, may He who hears, sees, and knows, and understands all our thoughts long before they are brought into action, mercifully pardon our past sins, confirm and strengthen us in all good works, and bring us to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Believe me, your affectionate friend,
THE COMFORTER.

ADDRESS VII.

ALMIGHTY FATHER, who alone canst give us our true dependence upon thee, grant us grace, that we may so partake of thy daily mercies that, with thankfulness and praise, our lips may speak the language of our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What is man that thou shouldest magnify him? And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?-JOB vii. 17, 18.

MY DEAR FRIENDS-That God should take any notice whatever of such a being as man may well astonish any pious mind. It is not astonishing, indeed, that He should care for His creatures; for in His universal providence He has shown us that His "tender mercies are over all His works." He who provides for the lion roaring for his prey and seeking his meat from God, He provides also for the young ravens that call Him; upon and no father can be so tender, no mother so careful, of her progeny, as the Lord God is for His creatures from the day of their creation down to the present moment. We must not, therefore, be so surprised at the known providence of His hand as we are astonished at the wonderful way in which He does it. The thing, however, which is most amazing is that a

being like man, so sinful as he is, and so perverse— so unlike the creature God made him at first-should be His daily care and that He should love him! Oh, tell me, ye sons of men, is it not a wonder beyond anything you can possibly conceive that such sinful creatures as we are should be thought of at all by Him? He made us, it is true, and not we ourselves; but He did not make us sinners and good for nothing. This it is that is so wonderful and makes Job exclaim-"What is man that thou shouldest magnify him? And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment ?" Job says not this on account of what God had given and taken away from him; for he says"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord!" But, in this expression of God's magnifying him, and setting His heart upon him, and visiting him and trying him, He has a reference to something more wonderful than his provision for his body. He acknowledges that he is a sinner "I have sinned, what shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of men! Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burthen to myself: and why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity; for now shall I sleep in the dust, and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be."

He is astonished that God lets him live, and earnestly enquires the purpose for which he is so afflicted. We shall see, in the course of our reflections, that he comes to the right conclusion of all his affliction. He is searching diligently to discover God's way with him he is made to perceive that

his body is but dust, and yet that his merciful God afflicts it for some wise purpose. He discovers that which we all must discover --that we have souls, and that they must be made to see their state, to know their danger, and to enquire "What they must do to be saved?" Affliction for the soul's benefit! -affliction for the soul's salvation!—that it may see how unrighteous, how unclean, how poor, how miserable, how wicked it is-this is the knowledge of Job; and which so many who would try to comfort suffering sinners think so little about. They see a man afflicted: perhaps, he is distressed in family affairs, in his business, in his body. Some disease may be upon him, and his trouble may be beyond endurance. But, if a man has a thought that those evils come upon him, not from his own imprudence but at the will of God, then does he perceive that the great and good Author of his being must do this, not because He willingly afflicts the children of men, but because there is a necessity that He should do so-that the soul should consult the best physician, even as the man for bodily disease would seek for the best advice. Do but consider the very distressed state of this good man. I do not say that there may not be many such upon the earth grievously afflicted; but there are not many as sincere in seeking, asking, praying, and conversing with God as he was. See what an afflicted soul endures when he is made to say-“ I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed me: when I lie down, I say, When shall I arise and the night be gone? And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods

of dust my skin is broken and become loathsome. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. O, remember that my life is wind mine eye shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more! Thine eyes are upon me and I am not.”

So melancholy is his own condition that gladly would he have preferred strangling and death to life; but he considers that God has some great purpose in view in thus making him a terror to himself; and he discovers that it is that he may know that his Redeemer liveth! It is for us, who know these things, to behold in them the Almighty's wisdom and goodness; who, not willing that we should for ever perish, sets His heart upon us, and would have us know that we are men, hereafter, indeed, to magnify and be magnified by God our Saviour. "Before I was afflicted (says David) I went wrong;" and so do we all of us; and unless God corrects us—unless He afflicts-unless He chastens, we shall not serve Him or come to a just knowledge of His righteous dealing with us. Job's example is given for the benefit of the world, that we may all learn that we really have nothing in this life that we can call for one moment our own: but all—yes, all we belong to God. When we tread upon the earth, and, perhaps, fancy such lands our own, and desire, it may be, to call them after our own name, we may be sure, indeed, that we are no real possessors, no real owners, but tenants only at will: and when God shall see fit to eject us, we must go out and make way for others. "Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them!" If other owners, who

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