Holy Bible

Man that is born of a woman is of few days. Job 14:1, 2 The brevity and burden of life G. J. Zollikofer. The knowledge and the conduct of mankind are very frequently at variance. How general is the conviction of the brevity of human life and of the certainty of death! How wise, virtuous, and happy would the human species be were their conduct conformable to this conviction! But how rarely is this the case! Do not the generality live as if their life were never to have an end? 1. Our life is of short duration. Many are snatched away by death while children. A considerable portion of mankind fall a prey to the grave in the liveliest period of their youth. Many are taken off by sudden disease. If a man lives long, how short life appears to him on review of it. 2. Our life is full of trouble. To how many evils and dangers, how many calamities are we not subject from our birth to our death! How often are our joys converted into sorrows! Our life is interwoven with many perils and distresses. Let us never add to their number by a disorderly and criminal conduct. If life then be so short and so insecure, how irrational is it to confine our hopes to these few moments, and to seek the whole of our happiness here on earth! We impose upon ourselves in thinking to build our felicity on the unstable possession and enjoyment of these fugacious objects. We are formed for eternity. Our present condition is only a state of preparation and discipline; it only contains the first act of our life which is never to terminate. The blessed, undecaying life should be the object of our affections, our views and our exertions; it should be the principal ground of our hopes and our comfort. ( G. J. Zollikofer. ) The brevity and troubles of human life Sir Wm. Dunbar. I. MAN'S DAYS ARE FEW. Time is a word of comparison. Time is a portion of eternity, or unlimited duration. But who can form a just conception of eternity? That which we call time we may attempt to illustrate by observing that when one event has reference to and is connected with another which precedes it, the distance between them is marked, and the portion of duration is designated time. Eternity was, before the sun and moon were made, eternity is now, and eternity will continue to be, when suns and moons shall have finished their course. To aid our meditations on the shortness of time, we may endeavour to contemplate eternity. We may draw a circle, place our finger upon any part of it, then follow by tracing the line, but when shall we reach the termination of that line? Round and round the circle we may move, but we shall come to no end. Such is eternity, it has no limits. Turning from the thought of the vastness of eternity, while contemplating which we cannot but feel our own insignificance, let us see if, in comparison, time be not a very little thing, less than a drop of water compared with the ocean, or a grain of sand with the dimensions of the globe. In the short period of a few years one generation passes away, and another and another succeed. Few are man's days, but long and important is the train of events dependent upon the manner in which they are spent. II. THE DAYS OF MAN ARE FULL OF TROUBLE. The troubles of man commence at a very tender age. In man's daily movements he is liable to many personal dangers. He is brought through distressing scenes. No stage of life is exempt from troubles, from infancy to grey hairs; but although this is a state and condition of sorrow, it need not be one of despair. Trials and troubles are our portion, but there is a state to which we may attain which will far more than compensate for all we may be called to endure here below, and true wisdom consists in securing to ourselves this inestimable blessing. ( Sir Wm. Dunbar. ) The brevity and burden of life John Taylor, LL. D. That life is of short continuance and disquieted by many molestations every man knows, and every man feels. But truth does not always operate in proportion to its reception. Truth, possessed without the labour of investigation, like many of the general conveniences of life, loses its estimation by its easiness of access. Many things which are not pleasant may be salutary, and among them is the just estimate of human life, which may be made by all with advantage, though by few, very few, with delight. Since the mind is always of itself shrinking from disagreeable images, it is sometimes necessary to recall them; and it may contribute to the repression of many unreasonable desires, and the prevention of many faults and follies, if we frequently and attentively consider — I. THAT MAN BORN OF A WOMAN IS OF FEW DAYS. The business of life is to work out our salvation; and the days are few in which provision must he made for eternity. Our time is short, and our work is great. We must use all diligence to make our "calling and election sure." But this is the care of only a few. If reason forbids us to fix our hearts upon things which we are not certain of retaining, we violate a prohibition still stronger when we suffer ourselves to place our happiness in that which must certainly be lost; yet such is all that this world affords us. Pleasures and honours must quickly fail us, because life itself must soon be at an end. To him who turns his thoughts late to the duties of religion, the time is not only shorter, but the work is heavier. The more sin has prevailed, with the more difficulty is its dominion resisted. Habits are formed by repeated acts, and therefore old habits are always strongest. How much more dreadful does the danger of delay appear, when it is considered that not only life is every day shorter, and the work of reformation every day greater, but that strength is every day less. It is absolutely less by reason of natural decay. In the feebleness of declining life, resolution is apt to languish. One consideration ought to be deeply impressed upon every sluggish and dilatory lingerer. The penitential sense of sin, and the desire of a new life, when they arise in the mind, are to be received as monitions excited by our merciful Father, as calls which it is our duty to hear and our interest to follow; that to turn our thoughts away from them is a new sin. II. THAT MAN BORN OF A WOMAN IS FULL OF TROUBLE. The immediate effect of the numerous calamities with which human nature is threatened, or afflicted, is to direct our desires to a better state. Of the troubles incident to mankind, everyone is best acquainted with his owe share. Sin and vexation are still so closely united, that he who traces his troubles to their source will commonly find that his faults have produced them, and he is then to consider his sufferings as the mild admonitions of his Heavenly Father, by which he is summoned to timely repentance. Trouble may, sometimes, be the consequence of virtue. In times of persecution this has happened. The frequency of misfortunes and universality of misery may properly repress any tendency to discontent or murmuring. We suffer only what is suffered by others, and often by those who are better than ourselves. We may find opportunities of doing good. Many human troubles are such as God has given man the power of alleviating. The power of doing good is not confined to the wealthy. He that has nothing else to give, may often give advice. A wise man may reclaim the vicious and instruct the ignorant, may quiet the throbs of sorrow, or disentangle the perplexities of conscience. He may compose the resentful, encourage the timorous, and animate the hopeless. ( John Taylor, LL. D. ) The brevity and uncertainty of man's life J. Edwards. Man's life is short. 1. Comparatively. Our fathers before the flood lived longer. Compared with the duration of the world. Compared with the years that some irrational creatures live. Eagles and ravens among birds, stags and elephants among beasts. Compared with those many days that most men abide in the grave, in the land of oblivion. Compared with the life to come. 2. Absolutely. It is a great while before he really lives, and he is a long time alive before he knows it, and understands where he is. When he comes to five, the whole work of life has to be dispatched in a short compass. Man is made of discordant elements, which jar and fall out with one another, and thereby procure his dissolution. So that it is no wonder that he drops into the grave so soon. 3. Man's life is thus short by the just judgment of God. By reason of Adam's sin and our own. 4. Man's life is abbreviated by the mercy and favour of God. Apply — (1) Be thoroughly convinced of this truth, and often revolve it in your minds. (2) Complain not of the shortness of life. (3) Make this doctrine serviceable to all holy and religious purposes.Seeing life is so short and uncertain, how absurd a thing is it for a man to behave himself as if he should live forever! Do not defer repentance. ( J. Edwards. ) The proper estimate of human life G. Goldie. Job's beautiful and impressive description of human life contains no exaggerated picture. It is a just and faithful representation of the condition of man on earth. I. MAN IS OF FEW DAYS. The short duration of human life, and its hasty progress to death and the grave, has in every age been the pathetic complaint of the children of men. If he escape the dangers which threaten his tenderer years, he soon advances to the maturity of his existence, beyond which he cannot expect that his life will be much prolonged. He must fall, as does the ripe fruit from the tree. No emblem of human life can be finer than this used in the text, "as a flower"; "as a shadow." How rapid the succession of events which soon carry man into the decline of life! How frequently is the hopeful youth cut off in the very pride and beauty of life! II. MAN'S DAYS ARE FULL OF TROUBLE. Trouble and distress are our inevitable inheritance on earth. In every period, and under every circumstance of human existence, their influence on happiness is more or less perceptible. Some reflections — 1. Since man is of few days and full of trouble, we should sit loose to the world and its enjoyments; we should moderate our desires and pursuits after sublunary objects. 2. Instead of indulging in immoderate sorrow for the loss of relations or friends, we should rejoice that they have escaped from the evils to come. 3. We should rejoice that our abode is not to be always in this world. The present state is but the house of our pilgrimage. 4. We should prepare for the close of life by the exercise of faith, love, and obedience to our Saviour; by the regular discharge of all the duties of piety; by the sincere and unremitting practice of every Christian grace; and by having our conversation at all times becoming the Gospel. ( G. Goldie. ) On the shortness and troubles of human life W. Adey. I. THE SHORTNESS. When God first built the fabric of a human body, He left it subject to the laws of mortality; it was not intended for a long continuance on this side the grave. The particles of the body are in a continual flux. Subtract from the life of man the time of his two infancies and that which is insensibly passed away in sleep, and the remainder will afford very few intervals for the enjoyment of real and solid satisfaction. Look upon man under all the advantages of its existence, and what are threescore years and ten, or even fourscore? "He cometh up like a flower, and is cut down." An apt resemblance of the transient gaieties and frailties of our state. The impotencies and imperfections of our infancy, the vanities of youth, the anxieties of manhood, and the infirmities of age, are so closely linked together by one continued chain of sorrow and disquietude, that there is little room for solid and lasting enjoyment. II. THE TROUBLES AND MISERIES THAT ATTEND HUMAN LIFE. These are so interspersed in every state of our duration that there are very few intervals of solid repose and tranquillity of mind. Even the best of us have scarcely time to dress our souls before we must put off our bodies. We no sooner make our appearance on the stage of life, but are commanded by the decays of nature to prepare for another state. There is a visible peculiarity in our disposition which effectually destroys all our enjoyments, and consequently increases our calamities. We are too apt to fret and be discontented under our own condition, and envy that of other men. If successful in obtaining riches and pleasures, we find inconveniencies and miseries attending them. And whilst we are grasping at the shadow, we may be losing the substance. And we are uneasy and querulous under our condition, and know not how to enjoy the present hour. Substantial happiness has no existence on this side the grave. The shortness of life ought to remind us of the duty of making all possible improvements in religion and virtue. ( W. Adey. ) Job's account of the shortness and troubles of life Laurence Sterne. Never man was better qualified to make just and noble reflections upon the shortness of life and the instability of human affairs than Job was, who had himself waded through such a sea of troubles, and in his passage had encountered many vicissitudes of storms and sunshine, and by turns had felt both the extremes of all the happiness and all the wretchedness that mortal man is heir to. Such a concurrence of misfortunes is not the common lot of many. The words of the text are an epitome of the natural and moral vanity of man, and contain two distinct declarations concerning his state and condition in each respect. I. THAT HE IS A CREATURE OF FEW DAYS. Job's comparison is that man "cometh forth like a flower." He is sent into the world the fairest and noblest part of God's work. Man, like the flower, though his progress is slower, and his duration something longer, yet has periods of growth and declension nearly the same, both in the nature and manner of them. As man may justly be said to be of "few days," so may he be said to "flee like a shadow and continue not," when his duration is compared with other parts of God's works, and even the works of his own hands, which outlast many generations. II. THAT HE IS FULL OF TROUBLE. We must not take our account from the flattering outside of things. Nor can we safely trust the evidence of some of the more merry and thoughtless among us. We must hear the general complaint of all ages, and read the histories of mankind. Consider the desolations of war; the cruelty of tyrants; the miseries of slavery; the shame of religious persecutions. Consider men's private causes of trouble. Consider how many are born into misery and crime. When, therefore, we reflect that this span of life, short as it is, is chequered with so many troubles, that there is nothing in this world which springs up or can be enjoyed without a mixture of sorrow, how insensibly does it incline us to turn our eyes and affections from so gloomy a prospect, and fix them upon that happier country, where afflictions cannot follow us, and where God will wipe away all tears from off our faces forever and ever. ( Laurence Sterne. ) Man's state and duty Peter Samuel. I. MAN'S PRESENT STATE. 1. Its limited duration, expressed by the term "few days." How short life often is! In sleep alone one-third is consumed. The period of infancy must be deducted, and the time lost in indolence, listlessness, and trifling employment, in which much of every passing day is wasted. The varied employments in which men are compelled to labour for the bread that perisheth rarely furnish either pleasure or spiritual improvement. 2. The frailty of man's state. "He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down." The allusion is to man's physical origin and condition. 3. It is full of trouble. It has been remarked that man enters the present life with a cry, strangely prophetic of the troubles through which he must pass on his way to the grave. No stage of life is exempted from trouble. II. MAN'S DUTY. His chief business on earth is — 1. To prepare for death. 2. To dread sin. 3. To be humble. 4. To be grateful to the Saviour. ( Peter Samuel. ) The shortness and misery of life C. Clayton, M. A. We should hardly imagine this verse to be correct if we were to judge of its truth by the conduct of mankind at large. The text is more awfully true, because men willingly allow their senses to be stupefied by the pleasures, or distracted by the cares of this their fleeting existence. Ever and anon, however, we are startled from our stupor, and awake in some degree to our real position. I. THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE. In the first ages of the world, the term allotted to man was much longer than it is at present. In the sight of God, the longest life is but, as it were, a handbreadth. Life is compared to a vapour, or fog, which is soon scattered by the rising sun; to a swift ship; to an eagle hastening to its prey. "Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." II. THE TROUBLES OF LIFE. These come alike to all. All may say, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been." Man is "full of trouble." But we must discriminate between the saint and the sinner. When we think and talk of death, we should ever connect it with that which follows. We must stand before the judgment seat of Christ. May you all be found standing with your lamps burning, and with your loins girded, "like men that wait for the coming of their Lord." ( C. Clayton, M. A. ) The fragility of human life Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons. I. THE IMPORTANT IDEAS SUGGESTED. 1. That human life is flattering in its commencement. Man "cometh forth like a flower." Imagery more appropriate could not have been selected. Children are like flowers in the bud, unfolding their beauty as days and months increase; the expansion of the mind, and acquisition of new ideas, fascinate and involuntarily allure the affections of their parents, who watch over them with the tenderest anxiety. The flower is cut down ( Psalm 103:15, 16 ; Isaiah 40:6, 7 ; James 1:10, 11 ; 1 Peter 1:24 ). 2. Disastrous in its continuance. "Full of trouble." 3. Contracted in its span. "Few days." Life, in its longest period, is but a short journey from the cradle to the tomb ( Genesis 47:9 ). Various are the figures employed to illustrate the shortness of human life; it is compared to a "step" ( 1 Samuel 20:3 ), "a post" ( Job 9:25 ), "a tale that is told" ( Psalm 90:9 ), "a weaver's shuttle" ( Job 7:6 ), and a "vapour" ( James 1:14 ). 4. Incessant in its course. "Fleeth as a shadow." Human life is measured by seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. These periodical revolutions roll on in rapid succession. Some suppose it the shadow of the sun-dial; but whether we consider it as the shadow of the evening, which is lost when night comes on; or the shadow on a dial plate, which is continually moving onward; or the shadow of a bird flying, which stays not; the figure fully represents the life of man, which is passing away, whether we are loitering or active, careless or serious, killing or improving time. 5. Eventful in its issue. Death introduces us into the fixed state of eternity, and puts a final period to all earthly enjoyments and suffering; the soul, dismissed from its clay tabernacle, is introduced into a world of spirits, from whence there is no return. II. IMPROVE THEM BY PRACTICAL INFERENCES. Such being the character of human life, it is the duty and wisdom of piety — 1. To enrich the juvenile mind with religious instruction. "Man cometh forth as a flower," therefore let instruction drop as the rain and fall as the dew: no time must be lost. 2. Improve the dispensations of providence. 3. Be diligent. 4. Maintain a noble detachment from the world. 5. Live in a constant readiness for your change. ( Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons. ) Human life troublous and brief Goethe was considered by his compeers a man highly favoured of providence. Yet, what said he, as he drew near his end, and passed in review his departed years? "They have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has been nothing but sorrow and labour; and I may truly say that in seventy-five years I have not had four weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that was always to be lifted anew. When I look back upon my earlier and middle life, and consider how few are left of those that were young with me, I am reminded of a summer visit to a watering place. On arriving one makes the acquaintance of those who have already been some time there, and leave the week following. This loss is painful. Now one becomes attached to the second generation, with which one lives for a time and becomes intimately connected. But this also passes away, and leaves us solitary with the third, which arrives shortly before our own departure, and with which we have no desire to have much intercourse." And is cut down W. Shiels. Never a day passes but we are presented with objects which ought to make us reflect on our final exit. And serious reflections on this important event would never fail to have a due influence on our conduct here, and, consequently, on our happiness hereafter. But such is the depravity of our nature, that, regardless of the future, wholly engrossed by the present, we are captivated by the vain and empty pleasures which this world affords us. If man were capable of no higher happiness than what arises from the gratification of his carnal appetites, then to vex and torment himself with the thoughts of death would serve no other purpose but to interrupt him in the enjoyment of his sensual pleasures. But if, on the contrary, man is not only capable of but evidently designed by his Creator for a happiness of the most lasting and durable, as well as the most noble and exalted nature, then it is the greatest madness not to lay to heart and seriously to consider this great event, which is big with the fate of eternity. There is nothing in nature so full of terror as death to the wicked man. But to the righteous man death is divested of all its terrors; the certainty of the mercy of God, and the love of his blessed Redeemer, fill his soul with the most entire resignation, enable him to meet death with the most undaunted courage, and even to look upon it as the end of his sorrow and vexation, and the commencement of pleasures which will last when the whole frame of this universe shall be dissolved. 1. Some particulars that ought to make us reflect on death. Such as the decay of the vegetable world. There seems to be a surprising resemblance between the vegetable and animal systems. The Scriptures make frequent allusions to this resemblance, e.g. , the grass. Sleep is another thing which ought to make us mindful of death. Death and sleep are equally common to all men, to the poor, as well as to the rich. We ought never to indulge ourselves in slumber till we have laid our hand on our breast, and in the most serious manner asked ourselves whether we are prepared alike to sleep or die. 2. The decay of our bodies, by sickness or old age, ought to make us reflect on our last change. The life of every man is uncertain; and the life of the aged and infirm much more than that of others; they, therefore, in a peculiar manner, ought to devote their meditations to this subject. 3. The death of others is another circumstance which ought to lead us to reflect on our own. From attending to these circumstances, and improving the feelings described, we may be enabled to appreciate the discoveries and embrace the consolations of the Gospel, which alone can enable us to conquer the fear of death, and to look forward with devout gratitude to that happy state where sorrow and death shall be known no more. ( W. Shiels. ) Frailty of life Some things last long, and run adown the centuries; but what is your life? Even garments bear some little wear and tear; but what is your life? A delicate texture; no cobweb is a tithe as frail. It will fail before a touch, a breath. Justinian, an Emperor of Rome, died by going into a room which had been newly painted; Adrian, a pope, was strangled by a fly; a consul struck his foot against his own threshold, his foot mortified, so that he died thereby. There are a thousand gates to death; and, though some seem to be narrow wickets, many souls have passed through them. Men have been choked by a grape stone, killed by a tile falling from the roof of a house, poisoned by a drop, carried off by a whiff of foul air. I know not what there is too little to slay the greatest king. It is a marvel that man lives at all. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Job 14:3, 4 On the corruption of human nature J. Seed, M. A. The disobedience of our first parents involved their posterity, and entailed a depravity of nature upon their descendants; which depravity, though it is not a sin in us, till the will closes with it, and deliberately consents to it; yet is certainly sinful in itself, and therefore is styled original sin. Adam was formed in the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness; but it is plain that we who are born with strong propensions to vice are not created in righteousness and true holiness. It is clear that we are fallen from our original and primitive state of innocence. Far be it from me to vilify human nature, as if it were totally bad, without any remains or traces of its primitive greatness. But no creature could come originally from God's hand but what was perfect in its kind; no rational creature can be perfect in his kind, in whom there is a strong propension to vice, that is, to what is unreasonable, and a great irregularity of the appetites and affections. There is a latent stock of corruption in us, though sometimes unsuspected by us, which often discovers itself as soon as there are suitable objects to call it forth. We see the wisest of men, in their unguarded hours, betrayed into unaccountable follies. Reason was originally given us to govern the passions in all cases. It does not now regulate and govern them in all cases; it is certain, therefore, that we are in a fallen, disordered state. If men proceed to action while their passions are warm, they do not see things justly, and therefore are apt to act too hastily; if they stay till their passions are cool, they are apt not to act at all. Moreover, we do not love or hate, rejoice or grieve, hope or fear, so far as is consistent with reason, and no further. We love the things of this world beyond the proportion of good which is in them. The love of virtue and heavenly happiness does not keep pace with the worth of the objects beloved. The truth is that ever since the fall, the body clogs the native energy of the soul, and pins it down to this low, ignoble sphere. Into what can this universal depravation, which prevails everywhere among the sons of men, be resolved, but into an universal cause, the inborn corruption of nature, and an original taint, derived from our first parents? Can it be resolved into education? If mankind were in a state of integrity and primitive uprightness, there could scarce be, one would think, so much evil in the world as there really is. Man was originally formed for the knowledge and worship of God only; yet in all countries men are immersed in idolatry and superstition. Man was formed for loving his neighbour as himself; yet the world is generally inclined to the ill-natured side. Again, we were designed for an exact knowledge of ourselves; and yet we see ourselves through a flattering glass, in the fairest and brightest light. Lastly, we were formed for the attainment of beneficial truth; yet there are not many certain truths, demonstrable from intrinsic evidences, from the abstract nature of the thing; though reason can prove several, by the help of external evidences. Setting revelation aside, mankind would have reason to wish that they did not know so much as they do, or that they knew a great deal more...It is one thing to say that God was, or could be, the author of evil; and another to say that when evil was introduced by man, He did not work a miracle to prevent the natural consequences of it; but suffered it for the sake of bringing a greater good out of it; and that, by redemption, He has advanced man to much superior happiness than he could have had any title to, if he had continued in a state of innocence. This is the scriptural solution of the difficulty. What remains but that we strive to recover that happiness, by our humility and meekness, which our first parents lost by pride? The consideration and sense of unworthiness will dispose a man to accept the offers of salvation by Jesus Christ, and make him endeavour to fulfil the terms of it. ( J. Seed, M. A. ) Out of nothing comes nothing Job had a deep sense of the need of being clean before God, and indeed he was clean in heart and band beyond his fellows. But he saw that he could not of himself produce holiness in his own nature, and, therefore, he asked this question, and answered it in the negative without a moment's hesitation. The best of men are as incapable as the worst of men of bringing out from human nature that which is not there. I. MATTERS OF IMPOSSIBILITY IN NATURE. 1. Innocent children from fallen parents. 2. A holy nature from the depraved nature of any one individual. 3. Pure acts front an impure heart. 4. Perfect acts from imperfect men. 5. Heavenly life from nature's moral death. II. SUBJECTS FOR PRACTICAL CONSIDERATION FOR EVERYONE. 1. That we must be clean to be accepted. 2. That our fallen nature is essentially unclean. 3. That this does not deliver us from our responsibility: we are none the less hound to be clean because our nature inclines us to be unclean; a man who is a rogue to the core of his heart is not thereby delivered from the obligation to be honest. 4. That we cannot do the needful work of cleansing by our own strength. Depravity cannot make itself desirous to be right with God. Corruption cannot make itself fit to speak with God. Unholiness cannot make itself meet to dwell with God. 5. That it will be well for us to look to the Strong for strength, to the Righteous One for righteousness, to the Creating Spirit for new creation. Jehovah brought all things out of nothing, light out of darkness, and order out of confusion; and it is to such a Worker as He that we must look for salvation from our fallen state. III. PROVISIONS TO MEET THE CASE. 1. The fitness of the Gospel for sinners. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." The Gospel contemplates doing that for us which we cannot attempt for ourselves, 2. The cleansing power of the blood. 3. The renewing work of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost would not regenerate us if we could regenerate ourselves. 4. The omnipotence of God in spiritual creation, resurrection, quickening, preservation, and perfecting. Application — Despair of drawing any good out of the dry well of the creature. Have hope for the utmost cleansing, since God has become the worker of it. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) But man dieth...and where is he? Job 14:10 Am I to live forever D. G. Watt, M. A. ? — I. THE BELIEF INDICATED THAT MAN'S NATURE IS TWO FOLD. There are two distinct processes ever going on within our frame. We may lose our physical organs, but the soul may think, wish, or purpose, as energetically as ever. The brain is the organ of the mind; but this does not warrant our saying that the brain and the mind are of the same material, or that they are only different sides of that material thing. If there are manifestations in our constitution which matter cannot give account of, it would be absurd to follow that up by saying that man goes out of life altogether when he dies and wastes away. We should rather believe that as our nature is two fold, that part which is spiritual may survive that which is material. II. A DOUBT EXPRESSED AS TO WHAT BECOMES OF THE MAN WHEN HE DIES. Death tells us nothing. There is no evidence in it of what becomes of the man. Death fails to prove anything as to the survival of the soul. Yet the belief has been general, that those who have passed away are still somewhere. Why should men have believed that the soul still had a place? Every sense was against it. III. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THE CONVICTION IS BUILT THAT MAN LIVES AFTER DEATH. I go behind the Bible, and look at the action of our own nature. 1. The indestructibility of force or energy. When once a force has begun to be in operation that force continues. It is never blotted out. 2. The incompleteness of man's life here. God is a teacher who sets us a task which we cannot prepare in school. 3. The best affections which distin

Benson Commentary Job 14:1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. Job 14:1 . Man that is born of a woman — A weak creature; and, withal, corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and all other calamities were brought into the world. Is of few days — Few at the most, in comparison with the days of the first patriarchs, much more in comparison with the days of eternity. Man is now a short-lived creature in himself, and withers so soon of his own accord, that he needs no violent hand to cut him off. And full of trouble — Liable to a variety of miseries. He is not only troubled, but full of trouble, Hebrew, ???? ??? , sebang rogez, satur trepidæ corporis et animi commotionis, full of disquietude and commotion in mind and body; exposed to labour and toil, affliction and pain, grief and fear: a day seldom passing without some cause of vexation and distress, some disorder, some calamity or other. And, therefore, Job intimates, man is a fitter object for God’s compassion than for his anger or severity. Job 14:2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. Job 14:2 . He cometh forth like a flower — Tender and delicate, fair and beautiful, his faculties and members opening and expanding themselves by degrees; and is cut down — By the scythe of some spreading malady; or cropped by the rude hand of some ruthless distemper; or nipped and withered by the frost of some wasting weakness and decay. He fleeth also as a shadow — Which, being caused by the sun, follows its motions, and is in perpetual variation, until, at last, it quite vanishes and disappears. “The flower,” says Henry, “is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost in the shadows of night. Of neither do we make any account, in neither do we put any confidence.” Job 14:3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? Job 14:3 . And dost thou open thine eyes on such a one? — Dost thou, the infinite Jehovah, the self-existent, independent, and supreme Lord of all, the Almighty, open thine eyes on such an insignificant and helpless creature? Dost thou, the immutable, the eternal God, behold and take account of such a frail, changeable, and short-lived being? Dost thou, ever- blessed and most holy, regard such an infirm, polluted, and miserable object? Dost thou take any thought or care about him? Is he not infinitely beneath thy notice? And dost thou stoop so low as even to observe his ways, yea, all his ways? And bringest me into judgment with thee — Pleadest with me by thy judgments, and thereby, in a manner, forcest me to plead with thee. Dost thou bring me, such a worthless worm as I am, into judgment with thee, who art so quick-sighted to discover the least failing, so holy to hate it, so just to condemn it, so mighty to punish it? The consideration of our inability to contend with God, of our own sinfulness and weakness, should engage us to pray, Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant. Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. Job 14:4 . Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? — I confess I am an unclean creature, and therefore liable to be abhorred by thy holiness, and condemned by thy justice, if thou wilt deal rigorously with me. But, remember, this is not my peculiar case, but the common lot of every man, who descended from sinful parents, and, being infected with original corruption, must unavoidably be unclean. Why, then, dost thou inflict such peculiar and extraordinary judgments upon me for that which is common to all men? And although my natural corruption do not excuse my actual sins, yet I hope it may procure some mitigation of my punishment, and move thy divine pity to deal less severely with me. Observe, reader, clean children can no more come from unclean parents, nor clean performances from an unclean principle, than pure streams can proceed from an impure spring, or grapes from thorns. Our habitual corruption is derived, with our nature, from our progenitors, and is therefore bred in the bone: and our blood is not only attainted by a legal conviction, but tainted with an hereditary disease. And hence flow all actual transgressions, which are the natural product of habitual corruption. This holy Job here laments, as all that are sanctified do, tracing the streams up to the fountain. The Chaldee paraphrase reads this verse, Who can make a man clean that is polluted with sin? Cannot one? that is, God: or, who but God, who is one, and will spare him? God can change the skin of the Ethiopian, and to him we ought to direct our prayer, saying, It is the prerogative of thy grace to bring a clean thing out of an unclean, and that grace I humbly implore. Job 14:5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; Job 14:5-6 . Seeing his days are determined — Limited to a certain period. The number of his months is with thee — Exactly known to thee, and in thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed his bounds, &c. — Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond which he cannot prolong his life. Turn from him, that he may rest — Withdraw thine afflicting hand from him, that he may have some present ease and comfort. Till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day — Give him some respite till he finish his course, and come to the period of his life, which thou hast allotted him, as a man appoints a set time to a hired servant; which period will be as welcome to him as the end of his day of labour and toil is to the hireling. This idea is implied in the word ???? , jertzeh, here rendered, he shall accomplish. Which properly means, he shall be pleased, or delighted. And the sense seems to be, As the poor mercenary rests and rejoices when he has finished the work of the day, and received his wages; so must that be an acceptable and joyful time, which puts a period to the life and sufferings of a man sinking under the burden of numerous and heavy troubles, and which introduces him into a state of perfect rest and endless felicity. Job 14:6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day. Job 14:7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Job 14:7-10 . For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down — If the body of a tree be cut down, and only the stem or stump be left in the ground, yet there is hope; that it will sprout again — Hebrew, ???? Š, jachalip, will yet renew itself, will revive and flourish as the spring comes on. Though the root wax old — Begin to wither and decay; and the stock thereof die — Namely, in outward appearance; yet, through the scent of water — By means of water; scent or smell being here figuratively ascribed to a tree. The moisture of the earth, and the rain of heaven, have sufficient influence upon it to revive it, and cause it to bud; and bring forth boughs like a plant — As if it were a tree newly planted. But man dieth and wasteth away — Man, though a far nobler creature, is in a much worse condition, as to this world, for when once he loseth his present life he never recovers it. Two words are here used for man, ??? , geber, a mighty man: though mighty, he dies: ??? , adam, a man of earth: being made of earth, he returns to it. He dieth and wasteth away: before death he is dying daily, continually wasting away; in death he gives up the ghost: the spirit leaves the body and returns to God, the Father of spirits, who gave it. After death, where is he? — Not where he was; his place knows him no more: his body, all that is visible of him, is rotting away in the grave. But where is the thinking, intelligent principle, the self-conscious being, the proper man? Is this nowhere? Yes, it is somewhere; and it is a very awful consideration to think where they are that have given up the ghost, and where we shall be when we give it up. It is gone into the world of spirits; gone into eternity, gone to return no more to this world. Job 14:8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Job 14:9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. Job 14:10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Job 14:11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: Job 14:11 . As the waters fail from the sea — This may mean, either, 1st, As the waters go, or flow out from the sea, and return not thither again, Ecclesiastes 1:7 : or, 2d, As waters, that is, some portion of the waters, are exhaled from the sea by the sun, or are received and sunk into the dry and thirsty earth: or, 3d, As the waters of the sea fail, when the sea forsakes the place into which it used to flow; and the flood decayeth and drieth up — As a flood, or a river, or a pond (for the word signifies any considerable confluence of waters) in a great drought decayeth, and is dried up, in which cases the same waters never return to their former places, so it is with man; when once the fountain of his life is dried up he dies, and never revives again as to the present life. Job 14:12 So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. Job 14:12 . So man lieth down — In his bed the grave, sleeping the sleep of death. And riseth not till the heavens be no more — That is, until the time of the general resurrection and restitution of all things, when these visible heavens shall pass away, and be no more, at least in the same form in which they are now. This whole paragraph is interpreted in a somewhat different way by a late writer. “After a tree is cut down, we see, nevertheless, the old stock flourish again, and send forth new branches; and shall man then, when he once expires, he extinct for ever? Is there no hope that he shall revive, and be raised again hereafter? Yes, there is, according to the doctrine delivered to us by our ancestors: but then they inform us, at the same time, that this resurrection shall not be but with the dissolution and renovation of the world, Job 14:11-12 . The waters go off from the sea, and the flood (the river) will decay and dry up. And man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more; (till then) they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep.” The meaning seems to be, that as we see every thing in flux, and subject to change, so the whole shall one day be changed. The sea itself will at length be quite absorbed; and the running rivers, which now flow perpetually, as if supplied by everlasting springs, will nevertheless, in time, quite cease and disappear. This visible frame of things shall be dissolved, and the present heavens themselves shall be no more: and then, and not before, comes the resurrection and general judgment. Job 14:13 O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! Job 14:13 . O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave — The grave is not only a resting-place, but a hiding-place to the children of God: Christ has the key of the grave to open and let in now, and to let out at the resurrection. God hides his people in the grave as we hide our treasure in a place of secrecy and safety; and he that hides will find what he has hid, and nothing shall be lost. O that thou wouldst hide me, not only from the storms and troubles of this life, but for the bliss and glory of a better life; let me lie in the grave reserved for immortality, in secret from all the world, but not from thee, not from those eyes which saw my substance when first curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, Psalm 139:15-16 . Thus, it was not only in a passionate weariness of this life that he wished to die, but in a pious assurance of a better life, to which at length he should arise. Until thy wrath be past — As long as our bodies lie in the grave there are some effects of God’s wrath against sin, but when the body is raised, that wrath is wholly past, and death, the last enemy, is totally destroyed. That thou wouldest appoint me a set time — Not only fix a time when thou wilt end my sufferings and my life, but when thou wilt remember my flesh lodged in the grave, as thou didst remember Noah and every living thing in the ark, Genesis 8:1 . The bodies of the saints shall not be forgotten in the dust; there is a time appointed, a set time, for their being inquired after. Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again ? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Job 14:14 . If a man die, shall he live again? — He shall not in this world, but he shall in another and better; and, therefore, all the days of my appointed time will I wait — Hebrew, ???? , tsebai, of my warfare, namely, with my spiritual enemies, or of my service and suffering, or of the station and place God has assigned me. The idea which the word conveys is partly, at least, that of a post or station given a man by God to maintain, till he be released from it, and called to a better state; as if Job had said, Whatever station or condition God shall please to appoint me, either here or in the intermediate state, I shall still wait in earnest expectation for the future renovation and resurrection; here evidently intended by the change which he expected to come. “I must insist upon it,” says Mr. Peters. “that Job, in this verse, declares very clearly his hope of a future resurrection. I know it is a common opinion, that by the change here mentioned, is meant the change of death; but the sense above given suits best with the context, as also with the Hebrew word ????? , chalipah, which properly signifies a change for the better, a renewal.” Houbigant renders the beginning of this verse, For though a man die, yet he shall revive again; and, therefore, I will wait, &c, observing, in agreement with Mr. Peters, that nothing can be so absurd as to suppose the words contain any doubt of a future life. Job 14:15 Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands. Job 14:15 . Thou shalt call and I will answer thee — 1st, At death, thou shalt call my body to the grave and my soul to thyself, and I will cheerfully answer, Here I am. Gracious souls readily answer death’s summons, and appear to his writ. Their spirits are not forcibly required of them, as was that of the rich man, Luke 12:20 , but willingly resigned by them, and the earthly tabernacle not violently pulled down, but voluntarily laid down. 2d, At the resurrection thou shalt call me out of the grave by the voice of the archangel, and I will answer and come at thy call. For thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands — A love for the soul, which thou hast made, and new-made by thy grace; and for the body, which is also the work of thy hands, and to which thou wilt have a desire, having prepared glory for it in a world of glory. Job 14:16 For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin? Job 14:16-17 . For now — Or rather, But now, for this seems to be added by way of opposition, as if he had said, I believe thou wilt pity, help, and deliver me, and even wonderfully change my person, state, and place; but, for the present, it is far otherwise with me. Thus Job returns to his complaints; and, though he is not without hope of future felicity, he finds it hard to get over his present grievances. Thou numberest my steps — Thou makest a strict inquiry into all my actions, that thou mayest find out all my errors. Dost thou not watch over my sin? — The Hebrew should rather be rendered, Do not watch over, or take notice of, my sin, as the Chaldee paraphrast writes. Thus the vulgar Latin, Parce peccatis meis, Spare my sins; that is, forbear to punish me for them. He longed to go hence, to that world where God’s wrath would be past, because now he was under the continual tokens of it; as a child, under the severe discipline of the rod, longs to be of age! As if he had said, O that my change were come! for now thou seemest to number my steps, and watch over my sin, and seal it up in a bag, Job 14:17 , as writings, or other choice things are preserved, that they may be all brought forth upon occasion, and not one of them forgotten; or, as bills of endictment are kept safe to be produced against the prisoner. Thou keepest all my sins in thy memory. But herein Job speaks rashly; or, rather, this verse ought to be rendered, in conformity with what was observed concerning a clause of the last, Do not seal up my transgressions in a bag, nor note my iniquities in thy register. Job 14:17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity. Job 14:18 And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. Job 14:18-19 . As the mountain falling cometh to naught, &c. — As when a great mountain falls, by an earthquake or inundation, it moulders away like a fading leaf, (as the Hebrew ward signifies,) and as the rock, when, by the violence of winds or earthquakes, it is removed out of its place, and thrown down, is never re-advanced; and as the waters, by continual droppings, wear away the stones, so that they can never be made whole again; and as thou wastest away, by a great and violent inundation, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth, herbs, and fruits, and plants, which once washed away are irrecoverably lost; in like manner thou destroyest the hope of man: when man dies, all hope of his living again in this world is lost. Thus, as before he declared the hopelessness of man’s restoration from death to this animal life, by way of opposition to such things as did, in a manner, rise from death to life, Job 14:7-10 ; so now he declares the same thing, by way of similitude to such things as, being once lost and gone, are past all hopes of recovery. Job 14:19 The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man. Job 14:20 Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. Job 14:20 . Thou prevailest for ever against him — When once thou takest away this life, it is gone for ever; for he speaks not here of man’s future and eternal life in another world. And he passeth — That is, he dieth: man’s death is often called a passage or a going, to intimate that it is not an annihilation, but only a translation of him into another place and state. Thou changest his countenance — That is, his visage, which, by death and its harbingers, is quite altered, both in colour and shape. When a man has been a few days sick, how apparent is the change in his countenance! and much more when he has been a few minutes dead! The countenance that was majestic and awful, becomes mean and despicable; that which was lovely and amiable, becomes ghastly and frightful! Where then is the admired beauty? Nay, the approach of death will frequently, through discomposing the mind, make the strongest and stoutest to change countenance: it will make the most cheerful and smiling countenance to look grave and serious, and the most bold and daring to look pale and timorous. By changing his countenance, may also be meant changing the face and state of his affairs, as to worldly riches, pleasures, and honours; all which he leaves behind him. Thou sendest him away — To his long home, by death. Job 14:21 His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them. Job 14:21 . His sons come to honour — Hebrews ????? , jicbedu: increase either in number or in greatness. The LXX. render it, ?????? ?? ????????? , become many; and the word ?????? , vejitzgnaru, and they are brought low, they interpret in the opposite sense, ??? ?? ?????? ???????? , if they be diminished, or become few. He knoweth it not, &c. — Either, 1st, He is ignorant of all such events; or, 2d, Is not concerned nor affected with them. A dead or dying man minds not these things. The consideration of this should moderate our cares concerning our children and families. God will know what becomes of them or happens to them, when we are gone. To him, therefore, let us commit them: with him let us leave them; and not burden ourselves with needless, fruitless cares concerning them. Job 14:22 But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn. Job 14:22 . But his flesh upon him shall have pain — Or, while his flesh is upon him; and his soul within him — While the soul is clothed with, or united to, the body, he feels sharp pains in his body, and bitter grief in his soul. Dying work is generally hard work; dying pangs sore pangs. It is folly, therefore, for men to defer their repentance to a deathbed, and to have that to do, which is the one thing needful, when they are really unfit to do any thing. But it is true wisdom, by making our peace with God in Christ, and keeping a good conscience, to treasure up comforts, which will support and relieve us against the pains and sorrows of a dying hour. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Job 14:1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. XII. BEYOND FACT AND FEAR TO GOD Job 12:1-25 ; Job 13:1-28 ; Job 14:1-22 Job SPEAKS ZOPHAR excites in Job’s mind great irritation, which must not be set down altogether to the fact that he is the third to speak. In some respects he has made the best attack from the old position, pressing most upon the conscience of Job. He has also used a curt positive tone in setting out the method and principle of Divine government and the judgment he has formed of his friend’s state. Job is accordingly the more impatient, if not disconcerted. Zophar had spoken of the want of understanding Job had shown, and the penetrating wisdom of God which at a glance convicts men of iniquity. His tone provoked resentment. Who is this that claims to have solved the enigmas of providence, to have gone into the depths of wisdom? Does he know any more, he himself, than the wild ass’s colt? And Job begins with stringent irony- "No doubt but ye are the people And wisdom shall die with you. The secrets of thought, of revelation itself are yours. No doubt the world waited to be taught till you were born. Do you not think so? But, after all, I also have a share of understanding, I am not quite so void of intellect as you seem to fancy. Besides, who knoweth not such things as ye speak? Are they new? I had supposed them to be commonplaces. Yea, if you recall what I said, you will find that with a little more vigour than yours I made the same declarations. "A laughing stock to his neighbours am I, I who called upon Eloah and He answered me, - A laughing stock, the righteous and perfect man." Job sees or thinks he sees that his misery makes him an object of contempt to men who once gave him the credit of far greater wisdom and goodness than their own. They are bringing out old notions, which are utterly useless, to explain the ways of God; they assume the place of teachers; they are far better, far wiser now than he. It is more than flesh can bear. As he looks at his own diseased body and feels again his weakness, the cruelty of the conventional judgment stings him. "In the thought of him that is at ease there is for misfortune scorn; it awaiteth them that slip with the foot." Perhaps Job was mistaken, but it is too often true that the man who fails in a social sense is the man suspected. Evil things are found in him when he is covered with the dust of misfortune, things which no one dreamed of before. Flatterers become critics and judges. They find that he has a bad heart or that he is a fool. But if those very good and wise friends of Job are astonished at anything previously said, they shall be more astonished. The facts which their account of Divine providence very carefully avoided as inconvenient Job will blurt out. They have stated and restated, with utmost complacency, their threadbare theory of the government of God. Let them look now abroad in the world and see what actually goes on, blinking no facts. The tents of robbers prosper. Out in the desert there are troops of bandits who are never overtaken by justice; and they that provoke God are secure, who carry a god in their hand, whose sword and the reckless daring with which they use it make them to all appearance safe in villainy. These are the things to be accounted for; and, accounting for them, Job launches into a most emphatic argument to prove all that is done in the world strangely and inexplicably to be the doing of God. As to that he will allow no question. His friends shall know that he is sound on this head. And let them provide the defence of Divine righteousness after he has spoken. Here, however, it is necessary to consider in what way the limitations of Hebrew thought must have been felt by one who, turning from the popular creed, sought a view more in harmony with fact. Now-a-days the word nature is often made to stand for a force or combination of forces conceived of as either entirely or partially independent of God. Tennyson makes the distinction when he speaks of man: "Who trusted God was love indeed And love creation’s final law, Though nature, red in tooth and claw With ravin, shrieked against the creed," and again when he asks- "Are God and nature then at strife That nature lends such evil dreams, So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life?" Now to this question, perplexing enough on the face of it when we consider what suffering there is in the creation, how the waves of life seem to beat and break themselves age after age on the rocks of death, the answer in its first stage is that God and nature cannot be at strife. They are not apart; there is but one universe, therefore one Cause. One Omnipotent there is whose will is done, whose character is shown in all we see and all we cannot see, the issues of endless strife, the long results of perennial evolution. But then comes the question, What is His character, of what spirit is He who alone rules, who sends after the calm the fierce storm, after the beauty of life the corruption of death? And one may say the struggle between Bible religion and modern science is on this very field. Cold heartless power, say some; no Father, but an impersonal Will to which men are nothing, human joy and love nothing, to which the fair blossom is no more than the clod, and the holy prayer no better than the vile sneer. On this, faith arises to the struggle. Faith warm and hopeful takes reason into counsel, searches the springs of existence, goes forth into the future and forecasts the end, that it may affirm and reaffirm against all denial that One Omnipotent reigns who is all-loving, the Father of infinite mercy. Here is the arena; here the conflict rages and will rage for many a day. And to him will belong the laurels of the age who, with the Bible in one hand and the instruments of science in the other, effects the reconciliation of faith with fact. Tennyson came with the questions of our day. He passes and has not given a satisfactory answer. Carlyle has gone with the "Everlasting Yea and No" beating through his oracles. Even Browning, a later athlete, did not find complete reason for faith. "From Thy will stream the worlds, life, and nature, Thy dread sabaoth." Now return to Job. He considers nature; he believes in God; he stands firmly on the conviction that all is of God. Hebrew faith held this, and was not limited in holding it, for it is the fact. But we cannot wonder that providence disconcerted him, since the reconcilation of "merciless" nature and the merciful God is not even yet wrought out. Notwithstanding the revelation of Christ, many still find themselves in darkness just when light is most urgently craved. Willing to believe, they yet lean to a dualism which makes God Himself appear in conflict with the scheme of things, thwarted now and now repentant, gracious in design but not always in effect. Now the limitation of the Hebrew was this, that to his idea the infinite power of God was not balanced by infinite mercy, that is, by regard to the whole work of His hands. In one stormy dash after another Job is made to attempt this barrier. At moments he is lifted beyond it, and sees the great universe filled with Divine care that equals power; for the present, however, he distinguishes between merciful intent and merciless, and ascribes both to God. What does he say? God is in the deceived and in the deceiver; they are both products of nature, that is, creatures of God. He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them. Cities arise and become populous. The great metropolis is filled with its myriads, "among whom are six-score thousand that cannot discern between their right hand and their left." The city shall fulfil its cycle and perish. It is God. Searching for reconciliation Job looks the facts of human existence right in the face, and he sees a confusion, the whole enigma which lies in the constitution of the world and of the soul. Observe how his thought moves. The beasts, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, all living beings everywhere, not self-created, with no power to shape or resist their destiny, bear witness to the almightiness of God. In His hand is the lower creation; in His hand also, rising higher, is the breath of all mankind. Absolute, universal is that power, dispensing life and death as it broods over the ages. Men have sought to understand the ways of the Great Being. The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat. Is there wisdom with the ancient, those who live long, as Bildad says? Yes: but with God are wisdom and strength; not penetration only, but power. He discerns and does. He demolishes, and there is no rebuilding. Man is imprisoned, shut up by misfortune, by disease. It is God’s decree, and there is no opening till He allows. At His will the waters are dried up; at His will they pour in torrents over the earth. And so amongst men there are currents of evil and good flowing through lives, here in the liar and cheat, there in the victim of knavery; here in the counsellors whose plans come to nothing; there in the judges who sagacity is changed to folly; and all these currents, and cross currents, making life a bewildering maze, have their beginning in the will of God, who seems to take pleasure in doing what is strange and baffling. Kings take men captive; the bonds of the captives are loosed, and the kings themselves are bound. What are princes and priests, what are the mighty to Him? What is the speech of the eloquent? Where is the understanding of the aged when He spreads confusion? Deep as in the very gloom of the grave the ambitious may hide their schemes; the flux of events brings them out to judgment, one cannot foresee how. Nations are raised up and destroyed; the chiefs of the people are made to fear like children. Trusted leaders wander in a wilderness; they grope in midnight gloom; they stagger like the drunken. Behold, says Job, all this I have seen. This is God’s doing. And with this great God he would speak; he, a man, would have things out with the Lord of all. { Job 13:3 } This impetuous passage, full of revolution, disaster, vast mutations, a phantasmagoria of human struggle and defeat, while it supplies a note of time and gives a distinct clue to the writer’s position as an Israelite, is remarkable for the faith that survives its apparent pessimism. Others have surveyed the world and the history of change, and have protested with their last voice against the cruelty that seemed to rule. As for any God, they could never trust one whose will and power were to be found alike in the craft of the deceiver and the misery of the victim, in the baffling of sincere thought and the overthrow of the honest with the vile. But Job trusts on. Beneath every enigma, he looks for reason; beyond every disaster, to a Divine end. The voices of men have come between him and the voice of the Supreme. Personal disaster has come between him and his sense of God. His thought is not free. If it were, he would catch the reconciling word, his soul would hear the music of eternity. "I would reason with God." He clings to God-given reason as his instrument of discovery. Very bold is this whole position, and very reverent also, if you will think of it; far more honouring to God than any attempt of the friends who, as Job says, appear to hold the Almighty no better than a petty chief, so insecure in His position that He must be grateful to any one who will justify His deeds. "Poor God, with nobody to help Him." Job uses all his irony in exposing the folly of such a religion, the impertinence of presenting it to him as a solution and a help. In short, he tells them, they are pious quacks, and, as he will have none of them for his part, he thinks God will not either. The author is at the very heart of religion here. The word of reproof and correction, the plea for providence must go straight to the reason of man, or it is of no use. The word of the Lord must be a two-edged sword of truth, piercing to the dividing asunder even of soul and spirit. That is to say, into the centre of energy the truth must be driven which kills the spirit of rebellion, so that the will of man, set free, may come into conscious and passionate accord with the will of God. But reconciliation is impossible unless each will deal in the utmost sincerity with truth, realising the facts of existence, the nature of the soul and the great necessities of its discipline. To be true in theology we must not accept what seems to be true, nor speak forensically, but affirm what we have proved in our own life and gathered in utmost effort from Scripture and from nature. Men inherit opinions as they used to inherit garments, or devise them, like clothes of a new fashion, and from within the folds they speak, not as men but as priests, what is the right thing according to a received theory. It will not do. Even of old time a man like the author of Job turned contemptuously from school-made explanations and sought a living word. In our age the number of those whose fever can be lulled with a working theory of religion and a judicious arrangement of the universe is rapidly becoming small. Theology is being driven to look the facts of life full in the face. If the world has learned anything from modern science, it is the habit of rigorous research and the justification of free inquiry, and the lesson will never be unlearned. To take one error of theology. All men are concluded equally under God’s wrath and curse; then the proofs of the malediction are found in trouble, fear, and pain. But what comes of this teaching? Out in the world, with facts forcing themselves on consciousness, the scheme is found hollow. All are not in trouble and pain. Those who are afflicted and disappointed are often sincere Christians. A theory of deferred judgment and happiness is made for escape; it does not, however, in the least enable one to comprehend how, if pain and trouble be the consequences of sin, they should not be distributed rightly from the first. A universal moral order cannot begin in a manner so doubtful, so very difficult for the wayfaring man to read as he goes. To hold that it can is to turn religion into an occultism which at every point bewilders the simple mind. The theory is one which tends to blunt the sense of sin in those who are prosperous, and to beget that confident Pharisaism which is the curse of church life. On the other hand, the "sacrificed classes," contrasting their own moral character with that of the frivolous and fleshly rich, are forced to throw over a theology which binds together sin and suffering, and to deny a God whose equity is so far to seek. And yet, again, in the recoil from all this men invent wersh schemes of bland goodwill and comfort, which have simply nothing to do with the facts of life, no basis in the world as we know it, no sense of the rigour of Divine love. So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remain with us and confuse theology until some think it lost in unreason. "But ye are patchers of lies, Physicians of nought are ye all. Oh that ye would only keep silence, And it should be your wisdom". { Job 13:4-5 } Job sets them down with a current proverb-"Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise." He begs them to be silent. They shall now hear his rebuke. "On behalf of God will ye speak wrong? And for Him will ye speak deceit? Will ye be partisans for Him? Or for God will ye contend?" Job finds them guilty of speaking falsely as special pleaders for God in two respects. They insist that he has offended God, but they cannot point to one sin which he has committed. On the other hand, they affirm positively that God will restore prosperity if confession is made. But in this too they play the part of advocates without warrant. They show great presumption in daring to pledge the Almighty to a course in accordance with their idea of justice. The issue might be what they predict; it might not. They are venturing on ground to which their knowledge does not extend. They think their presumption justified because it is for religion’s sake. Job administers a sound rebuke, and it extends to our own time. Special pleaders for God’s sovereign and unconditional right and for His illimitable good nature, alike have warning here. What justification have men in affirming that God will work out His problems in detail according to their views? He has given to us the power to apprehend the great principles of His working. He has revealed much in nature, providence, and Scripture, and in Christ; but there is the "hiding of His power," "His path is in the mighty waters, and His judgments are not known." Christ has said, "It is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority." There are certainties of our consciousness, facts of the world and of revelation from which we can argue. Where these confirm, we may dogmatise, and the dogma will strike home. But no piety, no desire to vindicate the Almighty or to convict and convert the sinner, can justify any man in passing beyond the certainty which God has given him to that unknown which lies far above human ken. "He will surely correct you If in secret ye are partial. Shall not His majesty terrify you, And His dread fall upon you?" { Job 13:10-11 } The Book of Job, while it brands insincerity and loose reasoning, justifies all honest and reverent research. Here, as in the teaching of our Lord, the real heretic is he who is false to his own reason and conscience, to the truth of things as God gives him to apprehend it, who, in short, makes believe to any extent in the sphere of religion. And it is upon this man the terror of the Divine majesty is to fall. We saw how Bildad established himself on the wisdom of the ancients. Recalling this, Job flings contempt on his traditional sayings. "Your remembrances are proverbs of ashes, Your defences, defences of dust." Did they mean to smite him with those proverbs as with stones? They were ashes. Did they intrench themselves from the assaults of reason behind old suppositions? Their ramparts were mere dust. Once more he bids them hold their peace, and let him alone that he may speak out all that is in his mind. It is, he knows at the hazard of his life he goes forward; but he will. The case in which he is can have no remedy excepting by an appeal to God, and that final appeal he will make. Now the proper beginning of this appeal is in the twenty-third verse ( Job 13:23 ), with the words: "How many are mine iniquities and my sins?" But before Job reaches it he expresses his sense of the danger and difficulty under which he lies, interweaving with the statement of these a marvellous confidence in the result of what he is about to do. Referring to the declarations of his friends as to the danger that yet threatens if he will not confess sin, he uses a proverbial expression for hazard of life. "Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, And put my life in my hand?" Why do I incur this danger, do you say? Never mind. It is not your affair. For bare existence I care nothing. To escape with mere consciousness for a while is no object to me, as I now am. With my life in my hand I hasten to God. "Lo! He will slay me: I will not delay- Yet my ways will I maintain before Him". { Job 13:15 } The old Version here, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," is inaccurate. Still it is not far from expressing the brave purpose of the man- prostrate before God, yet resolved to cling to the justice of the case ashe apprehends it, assured that this will not only be excused by God, but will bring about his acquittal or salvation. To grovel in the dust, confessing himself a miserable sinner more than worthy of all the sufferings he has undergone, while in his heart he has the consciousness of being upright and faithful-this would not commend him to the Judge of all the earth. It would be a mockery of truth and righteousness, therefore of God Himself. On the other hand, to maintain his integrity which God gave him, to go on maintaining it at the hazard of all, is his only course, his only safety. "This also shall be my salvation, For a godless man shall not live before Him." The fine moral instinct of Job, giving courage to his theology, declares that God demands "truth in the inward parts" and truth in speech-that man "consists in truth"-that "if he betrays truth he betrays himself," which is a crime against his Maker. No man is so much in danger of separating himself from God and losing everything as he who acts or speaks against conviction. Job has declared his hazard, that he is lying helpless before Almighty Power which may in a moment crush him. He has also expressed his faith, that approaching God in the courage of truth he will not be rejected, that absolute sincerity will alone give him a claim on the infinitely True. Now turning to his friends as if in new defiance, he says:- "Hear diligently my speech, And my explanation with your ears. Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified. Who is he that will contend with me? For then would I hold my peace and expire." That is to say, he has reviewed his life once more, he has considered all possibilities of transgression, and yet his contention remains. So much does he build upon his claim on God that, if any one could now convict him, his heart would fail, life would no more be worth living; the foundation of hope destroyed, conflict would be at an end. But with his plea to God still in view he expresses once more his sense of the disadvantage under which he lies. The pressure of the Divine hand is upon him still, a sore enervating terror which bears upon his soul. Would God but give him respite for a little from the pain and the fear, then he would be ready either to answer the summons of the Judge or make his own demand for vindication. We may suppose an interval of release from pain or at least a pause of expectancy, and then, in verse twenty-third ( Job 13:23 ), Job begins his cry. The language is less vehement than we have heard. It has more of the pathos of weak human life. He is one with that race of thinking, feeling, suffering creatures who are tossed about on the waves of existence, driven before the winds, of change like autumn leaves. It is the plea of human feebleness and mortality we hear, and then, as the "still sad music" touches the lowest note of wailing, there mingles with it the strain of hope. "How many are mine iniquities and sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sin." We are not to understand here that Job confesses great transgressions, nor, contrariwise, that he denies infirmity and error in himself. There are no doubt failures of his youth which remain in memory, sins of desire, errors of ignorance, mistakes in conduct such as the best men fall into. These he does not deny. But righteousness and happiness have been represented as a profit and loss account, and therefore Job wishes to hear from God a statement in exact form of all he has done amiss or failed to do, so that he may be able to see the relation between fault and suffering, his faults and his sufferings, if such relation there be. It appears that God is counting him an enemy ( Job 13:24 ). He would like to have the reason for that. So far as he knows himself he has sought to obey and honour the Almighty. Certainly there has never been in his heart any conscious desire to resist the will of Eloah. Is it then for transgressions unwittingly committed that he now suffers-for sins he did not intend or know of? God is just. It is surely a part of His justice to make a sufferer aware why such terrible afflictions befall him. And then-is it worthwhile for the Almighty to be so hard on a poor weak mortal? Wilt thou scare a driven leaf- Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble- That thou writest bitter judgments against me, And makest me to possess the faults of my youth, And puttest my feet in the stocks, And watchest all my paths, And drawest a line about the soles of my feet- One who as a rotten thing is consuming, As a garment that is moth eaten? The sense of rigid restraint and pitiable decay was perhaps never expressed with so fit and vivid imagery. So far it is personal. Then begins a general lamentation regarding the sad fleeting life of man. His own prosperity, which passed as a dream, has become to Job a type of the brief vain existence of the race tried at every moment by inexorable Divine judgment; and the low mournful words of the Arabian chief have echoed ever since in the language of sorrow and loss. "Man that is born of woman, Of few days is he and full of trouble. Like the flower he springs up and withers; Like a shadow he flees and stays not. Is it on such a one Thou hast fixed Thine eye? Bringest Thou me into Thy judgment? Oh that the clean might come out of the unclean! But there is not one." Human frailty is both of the body and of the soul; and it is universal. The nativity of men forbids their purity. Well does God know the weakness of His creatures; and why then does He expect of them, if indeed He expects, a pureness that can stand the test of His searching? Job cannot be free from the common infirmity of mortals. He is born of woman. But why then is he chased with inquiry, haunted and scared by a righteousness he cannot satisfy? Should not the Great God be forbearing with a man? "Since his days are determined, The number of his moons with Thee, And Thou hast set him bounds not to be passed. Look Thou away from him that he may rest, At least fulfil as a hireling his day," Men’s life being so short, his death so sure and soon, seeing he is like a hireling in the world, might he not be allowed a little rest? might he not, as one who has fulfilled his day’s work, be let go for a little repose ere he die? That certain death, it weighs upon him now, pressing down his thought. For even a tree hath hope; If it be hewn down it will sprout anew, The young shoot thereof will not fail. If in the earth its root wax old, Or in the ground its stock should die Yet at the scent of water it will spring, And shoot forth boughs like a new plant. But a man: he dies and is cut off; Yea, when men die, they are gone. Ebbs away the water from the sea, And the stream decays and dries: So when men have lain down they rise not; Till the heavens vanish they never awake, Nor are they roused from their sleep. No arguments, no promises can break this deep gloom and silence into which the life of man passes. Once Job had sought death; now a desire has grown within him, and with it recoil from Sheol. To meet God, to obtain his own justification and the clearing of Divine righteousness, to have the problem of life explained-the hope of this makes life precious. Is he to lie down and rise no more while the skies endure? Is no voice to reach him from the heavenly justice he has always confided in? The very thought is confounding. If he were now to desire death it would mean that he had given up all faith, that justice, truth, and even the Divine name of Eloah had ceased to have any value for him. We are to behold the rise of a new hope, like a star in the firmament of his thought. Whence does it spring? The religion of the Book of Job, as already shown, is, in respect of form, a natural religion; that is to say, the ideas are not derived from the Hebrew Scriptures. The writer does not refer to the legislation of Moses and the great words of prophets. The expression "As the Lord said unto Moses" does not occur in this book, nor any equivalent. It is through nature and the human consciousness that the religious beliefs of the poem appear to have come into shape. Yet two facts are to be kept fully in view. The first is that even a natural religion must not be supposed to be a thing of man’s invention, with no origin further than his dreams. We must not declare all religious ideas outside those of Israel to be mere fictions of the human fancy or happy guesses at truth. The religion of Teman may have owed some of its great thoughts to Israel. But, apart from that, a basis of Divine revelation is always laid wherever men think and live. In every land the heart of man has borne witness to God. Reverent thought, dwelling on justice, truth, mercy, and all virtues found in the range of experience and consciousness, came through them to the idea of God. Every one who made an induction as to the Great Unseen Being, his mind open to the facts of nature and his own moral constitution, was in a sense a prophet. As far as they went, the reality and value of religious ideas, so reached, are acknowledged by Bible writers themselves. "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity." God has always been revealing Himself to men. "Natural religion" we say: and yet, since God is always revealing Himself and has made all men more or less capable of apprehending the revelation, even the natural is supernatural. Take the religion of Egypt, or of Chaldaea, or of Persia. You may contrast any one of these with the religion of Israel; you may call the one natural, the other revealed. But the Persian speaking of the Great Good Spirit or the Chaldaean worshipping a supreme Lord must have had some kind of revelation; and his sense of it, not clear indeed, far enough below that of Moses or Isaiah, was yet a forth reaching towards the same light as now shines for us. Next we must keep it in view that Job does not appear as a thinker building on himself alone, depending on his own religious experience. Centuries and ages of thought are behind these beliefs which are ascribed to him, even the ideas which seem to start up freshly as the result of original discovery. Imagine a man thinking for himself about Divine things in that far away Arabian past. His mind, to begin with, is not a blank. His father has instructed him. There is a faith that has come down from many generations. He has found words in use which hold in them religious ideas, discoveries, perceptions of Divine reality, caught and fixed ages before. When he learned language the products of evolution, not only psychical, but intellectual and spiritual, became his. Eloah, the lofty one, the righteousness of Eloah, the word of Eloah, Eloah as Creator, as Watcher of men, Eloah as wise, unsearchable in wisdom, as strong, infinitely mighty, -these are ideas he has not struck out for himself, but inherited. Clearly then a new thought, springing from these, comes as a supernatural communication and has behind it ages of spiritual evolution. It is new, but has its root in the old; it is natural, but originates in the over nature. Now the primitive religion of the Semites, the race to which Job belonged, to which also the Hebrews belonged, has been of late carefully studied; and with regard to it certain things have been established that bear on the new hope we are to find struck out by the Man of Uz. In the early morning of religious thought among those Semites it was universally believed that the members of a family or tribe, united by blood relationship to each other, were also related in the same way to their God. He was their father, the invisible head and source of their community, on whom they had a claim so long as they pleased him. His interest in them was secured by the sacrificial meal which he was invited and believed to share with them. If he had been offended, the sacrificial offering was the means of recovering his favour; and communion with him in those meals and sacrifices was the inheritance of all who claimed the kinship of that clan or tribe. With the clearing of spiritual vision this belief took a new form in the minds of the more thoughtful. The idea of communion remained and the necessity of it to the life of the worshipper was felt even more strongly when the kinship of the God with his subject family was, for the few at least, no longer an affair of physical descent and blood relation. ship, but of spiritual origin and attachment. And when faith rose from the tribal god to the idea of the Heaven-Father, the one Creator and King communion with Him was felt to be in the highest sense a vital necessity. Here is found the religion of Job. A main element of it was communion with Eloah, an ethical kinship, with Him, no arbitrary or merely physical relation but of the spirit. That is to say, Job has at the heart of his creed the truth as to roans origin and nature. The author of the book is a Hebrew; his own faith is that of the people from whom we have the Book of Genesis; but he treats here of man’s relation to God from the eth