here; and his sanctifying, though perfect in Christ, in its personal application, still needs perfecting and replenishing. Though the character given be indelible, holy things, on account of profanations and contracted defilements, need frequent cleansings and "reconcilings."

The religious hope of believers, under the Abrahamic covenant, and under the covenant of the earlier patriarchal church, rested upon the same substantial grounds; but life and immortality' is now brought to the light;' promises then waited for have been fulfilled, or are now being fulfilled; the ancient believers had the promise of life from their covenant Elohim; but we have it from him "in actuality, or more abundantly." We can now read and acknowledge that the Redeemer has been, to put away sins by the sacrifice of himself. We may know and feel-have the answer of the conscience' that Jesus is now risen from the dead, and is made a quickening spirit. Our life which is hidden with him in God, doth already begin to flow through the veins of his mystical body, restoring the dead to life, and animating, in a degree, the inert mass, which lay spiritually dead before; but still we wait for the glory that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ at his second coming.

What has been said, from a comparison of spiritual things with spiritual,' will give us a sufficient idea of Job's religion, and of the religion which he had established in his family. What his

days, as, for the same reason, under the ceremonial law, the whole process of the covenant was gone through on every such occasion: the atoning victim bled afresh, and the baptism into its death was again renewed. Because this was not the real covenant, nor this the true victim, nor this the one baptism :' all was but a shadow of good things to come,' and not the very image of the things;' all was designed to exercise the expecting faith of the people of God on their future Redeemer, and the everlasting covenant in his blood. They could not, the apostle observes, "with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then," he argues, "would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged, would have had no more conscience of sins.

But how much greater is the fulness of grace, as manifested in the Gospel dispensation to us, who are sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ once for all!" "for by one offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified." The christian believer, once purged, has no more conscience of sins, that is, in view of God's holy law and eternal judgment; the one sacrifice, by its one baptism, has purged for ever his guilt, and brought him into a new state of existence before God; but still he has conscience of sins in the view of the holy discipline of his chastening Father; still he needs new applications of mercy

We learn much from the circumstance, that Job's faith in Him that was to come, notwithstanding his weakness, and infirmities in other respects, shines forth in such strength and splendour, when he despairs of all besides; "ye have heard," says St. James, “ of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

But there was also something' in Job that did 'offend the eyes of his Heavenly Father,' notwithstanding his real and exemplary piety; and this is plainly opened to us, in what follows, to have been a leaning in Job's heart to pride and self-righteousness; and we see that it was corrected by this severe, yet fatherly chastisement; for Job is brought to 'abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes.' And how particularly striking is the admonition contained in the story of Job to “the brother of high degree," to those children of God, who have been indulged with long and uninterrupted prosperity, and, what is more, who have been maintained, in a long course of great usefulness, and of splendid virtues, whereby they have adorned their christian profession, lest they should harbour pride, and think too much of their works and attainments; lest they should forget what they are, and withdraw something from the praise of the glory of that grace by which alone they are saved.

And besides this trying of faith, for its purifying, as gold is tried,' and for the exainple of others,

and besides this correction unto righteousness that Job needed, we shall discover, I think, in the sequel, that the Almighty had a design to fit and prepare Job for an important station in his visible church on earth, and for scenes of future usefulness as his servant and minister. And one great moral to be learned from the story of Job, is, that the Lord is full of design and of wise purpose, in all his dealings in providence,-that nothing is by chance, nothing is done in vain, nothing without a definite object.

A scene is now opened to us in heaven: the secrets of the unseen world are disclosed for our instruction. When Paul was caught up into the third heavens, he could give no account of what he saw; the realities of heavenly things were undescribable by human ideas, or by human words. And perhaps it will be thought that, in some respects, in the scene before us, earthly things are made to stand as the types of heavenly, and allusions taken from the usual proceedings of human potentates are employed merely to convey some imperfect notions of the operations of the divine government.

Ver. 6. And it was the day when the Sons of the Elohim came to present themselves before Jehovah; and the adversary came also among them.

Conceive of the All-Glorious, the Eternal and Incomprehensible Deity as a human monarch. Then there was a day, when the king would take

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account of his servants,' of those ministers of His that do his pleasure,' and by whom he executes the decrees of his foreknowledge and providence in heaven and earth.

But when we take into consideration another mystery revealed in scripture, this humanizing of the DEITY, and of the governing providence of creation, will not appear altogether figurative, or merely allegorical. For we learn, that the Divine Person, who created and who sustaineth all things by the word of his power,' was the future Redeemer of men; and that although the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, and the majesty co-eternal, yet that, in his work of creation, and in the formation of intelligent creatures, the Son wrought not in the manifestation of the full splendour of the Divine Majesty.

Finite could not receive the impress of infinite, nor could the highest of created intelligences comprehend the Almighty to perfection. But we gather from revelation, that all creation, in its formation, and in its destination, has a special reference to the manifestation of the Godhead in personal union with a created nature. Very glorious indeed must be that created nature, which can be made to embody the fulness of the Godhead, and hold, in oneness of person, the Infinite, yet that created nature must still be finite, because it is a creature. The infinite, in this mysterious person, must shine through the finite. As the created light was made to tabernacle in the sun,