the sons of God; and were so called on the account of their religious parent, and their adherence to his religion and counsel, who taught them the good old way, and who rose up early and sent and sanctified them daily; yea, and offered a sacrifice every morning according to the number of them all; lest, saith he, they have been seduced, and sinned, and have been overcome by Satan to curse God in their heart. Thus did Job continually, and thus will every believing parent do, who knows the grace of God in truth; his family will follow his soul into his closet both morning and evening; yea, and at all other times by day or by night.

Furthermore, his retinue was very great; he had a very great household, which he endeavoured to keep in good order; he never despised the cause of his man servant, or of his maid servant; for some of them were brought up with him, and the same God that formed Job in the womb formed them also.

Add to this, as a ruler or magistrate Job shone with peculiar lustre; his judgment was as a robe and a diadem. When he went out through the city, when he prepared his seat in the street, the young men saw him and hid themselves, the aged arose and stood up, all waited for his counsel, and after his judgment and sentence of the case they spake not again, but abode by his decision. The cause that he knew not he searched out, he plucked the spoil out of the teeth of the oppres

sor, and made the widow's heart to sing for joy. In these things he kept a good conscience, declaring, "My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live." But the glory of all this ought to have been given to God, who works in us both to will and to do.

Moreover, the grace of God was abundant upon him; hence his confession and complaint. O that it was with me as in months past, as in the days of my youth; when the Almighty was with me, when my children were about me, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle, when the glory of God was fresh in me, when his visitations preserved my spirit, when the candle of God shined upon my head, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.'

But now he saw not his signs; his substance was all cut off; God gave, and God took it away. His flourishing family all assembled in their eider brother's house; all on a sudden the house is smitten at all the four corners, and they are all buried in its ruins, and sent to the house appointed for all living. The servants in the field all fall by the sword, or go into captivity; none is left but one of each band to bring the heavy tidings of the others destruction. His health leaves him, and a loathsome disease siezes him, till his flesh corrupts; he is poured out as milk, and curdled like cheese; and the corruption of his flesh sticks to the colour of his coat; his breath is strange to his wife, and she turns atheist; the youths push

away his feet; his religious friends deal as deceitfully as a brook that fails in summer; the devil fills him with oaths and curses against God; and they that had reaped the benefits of his administrations asked contemptuously, "Where is the house of the prince?" But the worst of all, the greatest of all losses, the heaviest of all calamities, is, his God and Saviour is gone; and this loss can never be repaired by the finding of another. "O that I knew where I might find him! I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him." The Messiah is his all in all; and to lose him is to lose all that is worth keeping, and all that is good or worth getting, and all that can be lost both to soul and all. But this pearl of great price cannot be finally lost when once he is found, and all is parted with for the sake of him.

Thus this good man had seen the leadings of God's providence, and observed these things, and had understood the lovingkindness of the Lord, as all that watch his hand and handy-works shall do; he had enjoyed the presence of God, and the leadings of his Spirit, and of his grace and counsel; and by faith in him, and watchfulness on him, by feeling for his presence and walking in the light of his countenance, he had cleaved to him, enjoyed union and communion with him; and, like Enoch and Noah, he had walked humbly

and tenderly with his God. But now he is gone; he is gone in a path that Job knew not, and he was leading Job in paths that he had not known: God's paths now were in the mighty waters, and his footsteps were out of sight. This was to Job not the old beaten track, but an unfrequented path. Job looks to every footstep of the old way, but he was not there: barrenness was in the field, death in his offspring, sickness in his body, sin and wrath in his soul, destruction triumphing in his servants, deism in his wife, ingratitude in his friends, triumph in his enemies, and all the artillery of hell invading his mind. Which way his God is gone he knows not, but he submits to infinite wisdom, and confesses his own ignorance; where he is, or which way he is gone, I know

not.

"But he knoweth the way that I take", or the way that is with me. Now in such desperate cases as these, or when at a loss in such perilous paths, in thich no ray of light shines, no voice of wisdom or mercy is heard, no footstep of God to be traced, nor any known line to be drawn; when there is none to cast up the way, gather out the stones, lift up the standard, or take up the stumblingblocks out of the way, or to read the handwriting against us; not one interpreter among a thousand to shew unto man the uprightness of God, and what that uprightness is that God requires in a man; when the sun goes down over the prophets, and the shadows of the eve

hing are stretched out; when there is no more among us any prophet that knoweth how long; when we see not our signs nor tokens for good; when the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst; when those who utter error against the Lord make empty the soul of the hungry, and cause the drink of the thirsty to fail; when providence seems to run counter to the promise and to all the expectations of hope; when the smiles of heaven seem to favour the wicked, and the saint is chastened every morning and plagued every day; when Ziklag is burnt with fire, and the Amalekites rejoice in the spoil; when the man after God's own heart is going to be stoned, and those that were doomed to destruction are enriched with his all; when Samson grinds in the prison, and the Philistines are entertained with sport made by the Nazarite of God; I say, in such cases as these the saint of God should be at a point. God, according to our view of things, is gone, and we know not which course he has steered. But this we know, that, however a just God may seem to favour the counsel of the wicked, yet judgment must come, sooner or later, to vindicate the righteousness of the just, and to be passed in their behalf; "For judgment shall return unto righteousness, and all the upright in heart shall follow it." For no weapon formed against the just shall prosper; every mouth that shall rise against them in judgment they shall