I.

Job 20

Zophar was in a great tumult of mind when he made this closing speech. He was determined to end with commination, and sound of storm and ruin. Probably there is no such chapter in all the sacred canon. Zophar did not know where to begin, nor could he connect his senses well together for a little time; he made haste, without progress; he went forward, and came back again: but once fairly started he never lost his feet; he grew in power of denunciation; the spark at last burned like an oven. It is interesting to go back thousands of years, and to ascertain what was thought of wicked men at that early period in the world's history. Have we improved in our conception of wickedness? According to some authorities, the Book of Job was written by Moses. There is a general consensus of opinion that it is a production of the patriarchal age. It was undoubtedly written before the giving of the law, as it came by Moses; for there is not in the whole poem a single reference to Mosaic legislation. It is helpful to bear this in mind, because it assists us to fix the time of the authorship, and if that time was very remote how interesting is the question, What was thought of wickedness then? Was it treated as youthful, as a mere exhibition of inexperience, an unexpected variation of human conduct? or were the early ages well instructed in morals, having large and clear view of conduct, motive, and issue of life? Awful is the thought that wickedness, disobedience—call it by what name we may—was at the first treated like an old enormity. The law of penalty did not grow from little to more, from more to much; the law of penalty began where the law of penalty will end; it began in death, and in death it terminates. All penalty is of the nature of death. Whoever receives one stroke upon his body for wrong done dies,—not in the obvious and literal sense of giving up the ghost and being buried in a grave; that is a narrow and unworthy conception of death; that is how dogs die. Every child set in the corner in chastisement dies. Would God we could recover that idea! It might make us sometimes thoughtful, solemn, and take out of all punishment the idea of frivolity. Said the Lord God, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Men have thought that the utterance meant in effect, thou shalt drop down dead; thou shalt be a dead body, and none shall live to dig thy grave; thou shalt rot in the hot sands, and be a pestilence in the air. Nothing of the kind. When you uttered one forbidden word you died. We are all dead men. If we live it is by the miracle of grace. "You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." We lose much by too scrupulous a literalness. We say, Adam did not fall down dead; he lived; he was turned out of Paradise, and he became the father of the human race; he did not die. So talking we are frivolous, superficial, utterly uninstructed in spiritual thought and purpose. Man dies when he does wrong; hidden life is death. The point of interest, however, in this particular chapter relates to the judgment which was formed of wickedness in ages long gone. Zophar states the case with extreme vivacity of language, with striking picturesqueness of illustration. Let us follow this frank speaker in all his graphic talk.

"Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?" (Job 20:4-5).

We speak of Zophar as being old, and Zophar himself went back upon the thousands of years that had expired before his time; so that from the very first wickedness had a bad reputation, and was doomed to early judgment. Observe the words. The wicked has triumphing, and the hypocrite has joy: these things are allowed. There is great triumphing in wickedness. Men may become proud of it; they may laugh themselves into delight when they view the abundance of success which they have achieved in villainy. Manasseh was the worst king of Judah, yet he lived the longest: might not he have lifted up his head and said: They call wickedness death; I have outlived all the kings of Judah who have tried to do a little better than their predecessors? The worst pope lived longest and died richest: might not he have said: There have been simpletons on the throne, princes of Rome, that tried to pray; I never tried; I muttered the sacred words, but I took care to let them all fall into the dust and not to rise to heaven, and I shall leave more property than the princes of the Tiara that went before me? There is a triumphing in wickedness. It is possible for a man to be so strong that he can crush all weaker men, to put them out of his way by oppressive and overwhelming strength. All this is admitted in the Scriptures. And there is joy in wrong-doing. There is a stolen laughter; there is a fatness of prosperity which is all put on from the outside. Hypocrisy can live in the biggest house in the terrace. Wickedness can have hundreds of acres of park-land more than righteousness. Let it be clearly understood that all this is taken into account. But what was said about it of old, since man was placed upon the earth? When the wicked were triumphing an invisible hand wrote the word "short" upon all the mad hilarity: this is but a bubble, a flash of fire; presently it will go out, and nothing will be left but the smoke and an intolerable odour. The hypocrite had joy. He laughed behind his vizor; he chuckled when men thought him good; he made merry with them in his heart; but an invisible hand wrote upon that white vizor, "for a moment." There is the drawback to wickedness. A man shall take to the practice of any form of vice, and for the first mile he shall gallop. But watch him. Why does he not gallop the second mile? Perhaps he does, at least for a furlong or two; he may even go into the third mile, and still his well-spurred steed may be flying through the air. He gallops well, but, see, he leaps! "Where is he?" And the answer is, "Where is he?" There is no road down there; at the end of that little path there is a smoking, reeking pit. Such was the repute, then, in which wickedness was held of old, since man was placed upon the earth.

Then again Zophar says:—

"Though his excellency mount: up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?" (Job 20:6, Job 20:7.)

Observe the two parts of the statement. His excellency mounts up to the heavens. There is no mistake about this, men may say, as they look upon wickedness achieving its aim and wearing its coveted laurels. There are men who have been wicked who fill as large a space in history as has been filled by men who have been virtuous. Some tyrants have a longer biography than Christ had. So we are not to judge anything before the time. If we look when his excellency mounts up to the heavens, and his head reaches unto the clouds, we shall form a wrong judgment altogether: the day must be taken in its completeness, and not in any particular hour of the circle through which it runs. The second part of the statement has in it the word "perish." That is the doom of wickedness. Why do we try the experiment for ourselves when age after age it has been tried and age after age has confirmed the doom? What reason have we to suppose that we are abler men than those who have gathered together all the resources of wickedness, and used them all the day round? What resources have we that Solomon had not? But we need not go to history for a confirmation of the doom; that confirmation is within our own hearts. No man ever had any real joy in ill-gotten money. His money and he never were friends. They were mutually-suspecting partners. The money said, You have no right to me, you villain! and the owner said, Not for worlds would I let it be known how I got you into my possession! They have lived a kind of made-up life together. The bad man's unclean hands have chinked the gold, but could get no music out of it: it was the sweat of poverty, it was the groan of weakness, it was the price of blood. We have never done wrong but we ourselves have known the meaning of the word "perish." The lamp of life has gone out; as for the little lamp of self-approval, it has been crushed out by some sudden and tremendous force, so that it could never be lighted again. We have never done a mean deed without being ashamed to meet an honest neighbour. What fantastic tricks we have played in our meanness! We have taken offence at others because we have done wrong ourselves; we have become thin-skinned because our conscience has given way, and has followed us like an avenging creditor demanding the uttermost farthing. Then the fool's laugh has curled our lip; then the untrue gladness has tried to gleam in our eyes: but within, what a tumultunderstanding slain, conscience angry, love dead! Wickedness is not worth the doing, were it merely a question of equivalent and result. It tastes well in the mouth; it poisons the vitals.

In the ninth verse Zophar uses a word which, put into English, is very familiar to us. The; word is "no more"—"the eye also which saw him shall see him no more,"—nor want to see him. That is the worst of it. Who mourns over the loss of that which is not desired? Why mourn we our dead with long lamentation and with rivers of tears? Because we would see them again. No man wants the wicked-doer to come any more. There are some loved ones whom we would like to spend a day with. Could they but lean over heaven's gate and talk down to us from amid the glory, we should be glad to see them. There are those who have gone whom we should seek out had we to creep around the circumference of the earth to enjoy the opportunity. But no man wants the bad thinker and evil actor back again. Let him rot in his grave! There are graves on which even children would not plant a flower; graves that never dry; graves that are soaked, and which the sun will never bless; and the only epitaph that should be written upon the cold stones is—"no more." What a poor life is that which ends in such an issue! The better life is before us—the sweet possibility of so living that men will never allow our names to die; when men think of our names they will straighten themselves up to some new effort in virtue; when our conduct is recalled it will come upon the reviving memory like an inspiration, and we shall be blessed for thoughts of mercy and for deeds of charity. But suppose the wickedness should never be discovered? That is impossible. Discovery is a large word. It is not to be judged by the letter. Discovery comes in providences that hunt a man to death in a thousand ways. God's providences guard all the golden gates, stand upon all the hilltops, watch with jealousy the frontier-land, so that there shall be no crossing; and men may ask, Why this bewilderment, perplexity; why this continual backdriving, why this impossibility of progress? Other men pass on, and we cannot advance; and when that question is asked seriously, clear away down in the deep sanctuary of the heart, an angel will answer, This is the black harvest of a black seedtime. Blessed be God for this punishment. We are kept right by penal statutes. Were there no punishment, how soon would the world commit self-slaughter, perish, and disappear; and the bright stars all round the belt of heaven would say, Where is the little earth? The answer might be: The law of punishment was suspended,—nay, abolished; men were allowed to do what they pleased, without any results of a penal kind, and they have one and all leaped into destruction. How much do we owe to that which we fear! Whilst it may be wrong to preach so as to excite only the fears of men, there is no real preaching, no complete preaching, that omits any appeal that can call men to thoughtfulness or sober them into gravity for a moment. Such preaching will never be popular. Who likes to hear of punishment, of death, or hell? Nothing is easier in the world than to be popular, to excite whole towns, by telling lies, or tricking out the truth with a vain show. And were life's history but so many sunny days, this would be easy and pleasant; but there is an after-time. "So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand." That is right. God must be severe with watchmen. The law of trusteeship must be the severest in all the statutes of the land. Were the preacher to call you by endearing names, and assure you of an immediate heaven, do what you please, how pleasant the intercourse! How joyous every occasion of meeting! That might be so for a day or two, but "the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment." And the hypocritical preacher will have the hottest of all hells! He never told the people the reality of the case; he had his philosophies, and his theories, and his new conceptions; he yesterday hit upon a novel hypothesis by which to set the universe at a new angle, so that men saw it as they never saw it before: but who made him a hypothesis-monger? Who asked him to awake his invention, when he ought to have declared a revelation? O Wickedness, thou hast a bad character! thy reputation is ancient enough, but from the first God's wolves have been out upon thee, and they will tear thee to pieces. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Do not be misled by fine-drawn distinctions between infirmity and wickedness. Whatever distinctions are to be drawn, let God draw them. As for us, let us be severe upon ourselves. When a man tries to look at his actions so as to make them as white as possible, he is doing wrong. Self-forgiveness should be impossible. We speak a great mystery, but it touches the soul of things. When the law pronounces a man legally innocent, let him retire into his conscience, and it his conscience say, You have escaped because the letter of the law could not touch you, but only on that ground, let him never go out into society again; let him live in the hell of his own remorse. That is the true purgatorial fire. It does not prevent the heaven of God's forgiveness beyond, but it is God who alone can forgive sin—no man can forgive himself. The lie you told a quarter of a century ago shall add bitterness to your feast this day. You need not speak about it, or make yourself a hero in suffering because of it, or say, Behold how sensitive is my moral nature, and how responsive to every appeal is my conscience: you can have intercourse with yourself within, and that intercourse will often make you hold down your head, whilst other men are holding up theirs and enjoying the feast. Walk softly all your days. Do not imagine that this will interfere with the divine forgiveness; and do not imagine that it will destroy another feeling, sacred and enrapturing, which will come out of the consciousness of the divine forgiveness. Life is a great mystery. It is not made up of simplicities which a child can handle, and enumerate, and set in regular order, as so many, and no more. Life is conflict; life is self-contradiction; life is torment with joy, and joy with torment. There is a moral memory, a conscience which is an inspired recollection, and which says, Remember the hole of the pit out of which you were digged. When men forget the past they misinterpret and misapply the present.

Zophar, then, was very frank and distinct about the wicked, and he went so far as to say that the children of the bad man shall come into an evil inheritance We cannot prevent this. Here is the fact, if the Bible were burned. Men talk about not being responsible for what another man did long, long ago. Such reasoning is false, because untrue to fact, as known amongst ourselves, outside the Church. Why that eruption in that man's body? Did he make it? No. Who made it? It has come down through ten generations, that same stigma, that same cruel signature. Why are these people so sensitive, nervous, fidgetty, wanting in self-control? what is the matter with them? Their father lived a life that expresses itself so in his innocent little children. They cannot bear this, and they cannot endure something else, and they are afraid and weak, fragile, wanting in robustness of nerve and thought, and all kinds of force. Why? Yet their father says he has pursued a certain course for forty years, and never felt the worse for it. What a fool's boast! Would he but look at his children he would see that he has made them suffer for it. This is not in the Bible, this is not a theological doctrine made by the priests and foisted upon society by the tricksters of the pulpit; this is reality. With such realities before us, it is impossible to deny that we may today be suffering because long ages since a man broke loose from God's altar and forgot to pay God's tribute. We are not dissociated individuals, each having his own individuality, his own eternity, his own self-contained and complete personality. Humanity is one. The solidarity of the human race is now affirmed by the highest teachers of science. Let us thank God that humanity is one: for then one Saviour may handle the delicate and difficult situation; and if death came by one, so life may come by one,—if by one man's disobedience great evil was wrought, by one man's obedience great triumphs may be achieved. The evangelical conception is to our thinking day by day clearer, in all its reach and meaning, and it is easier to sneer at it than to disprove it.

Zophar indicates another thought which is full of pleasing reflection. He pictures, in the tenth verse, the children of the bad man seeking to please the poor, and trying in some way to restore their goods. Let us make this the meaning, if we can do so without straining the letter. It has, at all events, a meaning which does occasionally exemplify itself in that manner The difficulty is this, that sometimes we do by way of grace and goodness what we ought to do by way of right and justice. We say to men, Be pleased to take this; it gives us pleasure to convey it; we wish to be courteous and hospitable and kind; be good enough to receive this token of our good-will. By so doing we are practising tricks of vanity and self-display. We should rather say, My father robbed your family fifty years ago: take this as part-payment. Would God we could pay you to the uttermost farthing; but it is yours, not ours, and I will go away and try to make some more, and I will bring it to you; yea, if God spare my health, I will try to pay you fourfold. It was a bad deed; the man, the literal robber, is not here himself, but I cannot rest with the stigma upon my name: take it, not as a favour, but as a right, and put down on paper that I have paid you so much in the pound.

Note

The age in which Job lived is a question that has created much discussion. The most probable opinion fixes it as earlier than Abraham. The book may be read, therefore, between the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Genesis, as a supplement to the concise record of the early condition of our race, given by Moses.

The arguments adduced in support of the latter opinion are as follows. (1) The long life of Job, extending to two hundred years. (2) The absence of any allusion to the Mosaic law, or the wonderful works of God towards Israel in their departure from the land of bondage, and their journey to Canaan; which are constantly referred to by the other sacred writers, as illustrating the character and government of Jehovah. (3) The absence of any reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; which memorable event occurred in the vicinity of the country where Job resided; and which as a signal and direct judgment of the Almighty upon the wicked, would hardly have been omitted in an argument of this nature. (4) The worship of the sun and moon being the only form of idolatry mentioned; which was, without question, the most ancient, chap. Job 31:26-28. (5) The manners and customs described, which are those of the earliest patriarchs. (6) The religion of Job is of the same kind as that which prevailed among the patriarchs before the Mosaic: economy. It is the religion of sacrifices: but without any officiating priest, or sacred place. (7) To these arguments Dr. Hales has added one derived from astronomy, founded on chaps, Job 9:9, and Job 38:31, Job 38:22. He states, that the principal stars there referred to, appear, by a retrograde calculation, to have been the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn about b.c. 2130, or about one hundred and eighty-four years before the birth of Abraham.

It is worthy of notice, that if Job lived between the deluge and the call of Abraham, we have an additional proof that God has never left the world without witnesses to his truth.—Angus's Bible Handbook.

An Ancient Conception of Wickedness.

II.

Job 20

Zophar has drawn a dreary picture of the wicked man and the issue of all wicked action. His language has been incisive, picturesque, unmistakable as to emphasis and meaning. He thus speaks of the wicked man:

"His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust. Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue; though he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth: yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him" (Job 20:11-14).

According to Zophar, the wicked man is not permitted to keep that which he has attained; he falls back from every point of supposed progress; he yields every assumed victory. "He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again" (Job 20:15). He shall not be for ever rich. He may have the handling of much gold, but he will be a beggar at the last. He shall suck the poison of asps which lies in the hedge. He shall suppose himself to be enjoying a luxury, but he shall awake too late, to find that he has been feeding upon the poison of asps.

Zophar leaves the wicked man no point of redemption, no rag of reputation, no standing-ground in the assembly of the ages. He kindles a hell around the evil-doer, and burns him, so that there is nothing left of him but hot ashes. The judgment is complete, all-including, terrible in all its aspects and issues.

But all this might be taken as so much denunciation in words, were not some substantial moral reason assigned for all this visitation. Here is the strength of the Bible. We may stand and gaze upon its Niagara-like denunciations, we may wonder at the torrent of "woes proceeding from the gracious lips of the Son of God, and we may say, All this is eloquent expression: but is it anything more? Now, wherever there is denunciation there is explanation, and in all cases the woe never exceeds the moral reason; there is no excess of utterance; the reason is deep enough to hold all the torrent. We have that reason even in the speech of Zophar. He, not supposed by all commentators to be logical and coherent, strengthens his speech by a "because." If we can find in that "because" room enough for the judgment, we may turn again to the judgment and read its words with new significance and new appreciation:—

"Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor; because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not" (Job 20:19).

That is the reason! It is sufficient! This is a moral universe, governed by moral considerations, judged by moral standards. This is not a mere creation, in the sense of a gigantic framework well put together, excellently lighted, and affording abundant accommodation for anybody who may choose to come into it; this is a school, a sanctuary, a place of judgment, a sphere in which issues are determined by good conduct. Let us dwell upon this point until we feel much of its meaning.

What is it that excites all this divine antagonism and judgment? Was the object of it a theological heretic? Was the man pronounced wicked because he had imbibed certain wrong notions? Was this a case of heterodoxy of creed being punished by the outpouring of the vials of divine wrath? Look at the words again—"because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor." His philanthropy was wrong. The man was wicked socially—wicked in relation to his fellow men. All wickedness is not of a theological nature and quality, rising upward into the region of metaphysical conceptions and definitions of the Godhead, which only the learned can present or comprehend; there is a lateral wickedness, a wickedness as between man and man, rich and poor, poor and rich, young and old; a household wickedness, a marketplace iniquity. There we stand on solid rock. If you have been led away with the thought that wickedness is a theological conception, and a species of theological nightmare, you have only to read the Bible, in its complete sense, in order to see that judgment is pronounced upon what may be called lateral wickedness—the wickedness that operates amongst ourselves, that wrongs mankind, that keeps a false weight and a short measure, that practises cunning and deceit upon the simple and the ignorant, that fleeces the unsuspecting,—a social wickedness that stands out that it may be seen in all its black hideous-ness, and valued as one of the instruments of the devil. There is no escape from the judgment of the Bible. If it pronounce judgment upon false opinions only, then men might profess to be astounded by terms they cannot comprehend, by metaphysics that lie beyond their culture: but the Bible goes into the family, the marketplace, the countinghouse, the field where the labourer toils, and insists upon judging the actions of men, and upon sending away the richest man from all his bank of gold, if he have oppressed and forsaken the poor. Compare this with Christ's judgment of opinions:—"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." And he shall say unto them on the right hand, You have had excellent opinions, you have been good judges of philosophy, you have been sharp-minded, keen-eyed; you have been very brilliant metaphysicians: therefore go into the golden heavens, and enjoy the New Jerusalem, and be at rest for evermore. How poorly the judgment would have read! And to them on the left hand the Judge shall say, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for you have been as owls in the sanctuary, seeing nothing of the mystery of daylight, you have been without cleverness, ability, mental astuteness; you know nothing about long words and difficult terms: therefore go down, and sink into eternal night. How unjust the judgment! We have not had equal chances in this matter. But the judgment shall run contrariwise, on a great broad human and social level—"I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat." Any man can divide his crust with another,—if not divide it in equal halves, divide it so that the other man, aching with hunger, shall at least appease his desire. "I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink." Any one can hand a cup of cold water. The merit is not in the water, but in the cup and in the handling. The well is deep, and thou hast nothing to draw with, but I have a vessel with which I can draw; and if I see thee die of thirst, because I will not lend thee the vessel or show thee how to draw the water, I care not if I am as metaphysical as Athanasius and as learned as Augustine, there is no hell too hot and deep for me. This is the commandment of God: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbour as thyself." Where can we find in all the range of Holy Scripture a single instance in which a man was, so to say, promoted to heaven because he had clear views, because all his opinions were exquisitely right and were laid out in faultless intellectual mosaic? The Pharisees were men of learning: did the Lord ever pronounce a single eulogium upon them? The scribes lived in letters, all day they were writing words, explaining terms, reading the law; they were in very deed the literary men of their day: when did Christ gather them together in a common feast and say, Now shut the door, and let the ignorant be excluded, whilst we, wise men and learned, instruct one another in terms of brotherhood and love? To whom did Jesus Christ ever say, Whatever they say unto you, do it; because they sit in Moses' seat and their word is right enough: but do not follow their example? These were the learned men of the time! On the other hand, how often is conduct made the rule of judgment? There can be no difficulty in pointing out instances illustrative of this:—the poor woman who followed the Saviour into the house of Simon, stood behind him, and cried over him, and washed his feet with her tears, and dried them with the hairs of her head; she was forgiven all her sins: the poor widow who passed the treasury and dropped in all her living. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me." That verse should be read backwards sometimes, so that the littleness of the deed may be seen in the littleness of the receiver: inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these—we fix our minds always upon the person receiving the benefaction: whereas we ought to say—If done to the least, it was the least that could be done, yet upon this minimum of excellence God sets the seal of heaven. We have stated this thus broadly and fervently, but if it went without modification it would present a totally incomplete and mischievous view of the case. Do let us beware of all half-truths. It is distressing to see how men will eagerly snatch at half a truth when it pleases them, and forget the other half that would modify it, and hold it in just proportion, and chasten the receiver, and keep him within the grip and discipline of God. A man's conduct is not necessarily good because he has no opinions. A person is not necessarily of the very highest quality of character because he professes to know nothing about God, and the spiritual world, and the mysterious laws that are said to govern human motive and human destiny. It might be supposed from some eloquent speakers that if a man only endeavoured to be charitable, if he cared nothing for what people thought, if he opened his door to all sorts of men and never asked them a question about the law or the gospel, he would be an excellent person, and would be sure of heaven. Let us protest against this sophism; yea, let us call it more than a sophism: it is the deceit which men like; it is easy piety; it gratifies many a sensibility without bringing the whole soul under discipline, and under a sense of indebtedness to him from whom alone is every good gift and every perfect gift. Let us reason rather in some such way as this: here is a man who is endeavouring to do good; therefore God is working in him, though the man himself know it not; having begun by being charitable, he may end by being also truly spiritual: in the meantime, the charity is excellent, it is to be encouraged, a divine blessing goes along with it, without it there could be no piety; but in itself it is incomplete, yet, who knows? Persevere in doing the will, and at last you may know the doctrine: multiply your good deeds. Do not discourage yourself in sacrifice, in gift of every kind, in service of every range and quality, but proceed, and be abundant in good labours, because you are doing more than you think you are doing: you are undergoing a process of education, and some day there may strike you a new light, an illumination above the brightness of the sun, and you may then see the explanation which had never entered into your conception before. Let us resist the foolish suggestion that it is sufficient to be easy, genial, unsuspecting, even liberal in donation;—all that is right, good, invaluable: but unless the fountain be pure the stream cannot continue to be good; here and there it may be limpid enough, very attractive and most useful, but a clean thing cannot come out of an unclean; the stream is only right when the fountain is right; not until the heart is right with God can the hands—both of them, and all day—be right with society.

Zophar gives a view of the wicked which is very significant:—

"In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits" (Job 20:22).

That is a marvellous instance of divine judgment. A man may have much, and yet be in poverty. We have heard of some such instances in actual life Men are said to have quite an abundance of property, and yet they cannot meet an immediate obligation: their property is consolidated; it is not immediately available, so that comparatively rich men have sometimes to ask favours of their friends. All this may be good in commerce, perfectly intelligible in business relations; it involves no dishonour whatever: but take it as a suggestion of something far beyond itself. Here is a man who has "fulness of sufficiency," and yet he is in straits. He has plenty of the wrong stuff. A man at a toll-gate who has a million-pound note is as badly off as the man who has not a single halfpenny: neither of the men can pass through the toll-gate. There may be a poverty of wealth as well as a poverty of destitution. So the wicked man may be in straits of all kinds; he may have plenty of money, and not know how to spend it; he may have an abundance of property, and be without thoughts, impulses of a heavenly kind, aspirations that seek the skies. The bad man may have no explanation of the miseries which torment him; he may be mad with impatience because his spirit has never been chastened by heavenly experience. The good man may have nothing, and yet may abound; he may be hungry, and yet may be satisfied: his affliction is a sanctified sorrow; he says, This is for the present, and "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby;" and the Lord may come tomorrow, or on the third day he may be here: one look, and I shall forget my lifelong trouble; one vision of Christ, and all earth's tragedy will be sunk in oblivion. The good man, whose whole estate is in God, can never be in straits; he meets a mystery, and hails it, turns it into an altar, and under its darkening shadow prays his mightiest prayers The good man entertains as a guest black affliction, weird grief, awful sorrow, and says to the guest, You are not welcome for your own sake, but a blessing shall come even out of you: God sent you: you may eat my flesh and my bones, and drink my blood, and seem to conquer, but inasmuch as I believe God, and in God, and live in God, you cannot hurt me; I have a word singing in me now, and this is what it says—"Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do:" stop as long as God wants you to stop: your victory will be your failure; when you have conquered in your little purpose, you will have but cut the tether, and given me all the room of heaven. "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." "Moses... refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter... esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." Liberty is in the mind; freedom is in Christian hope: he who is in Christ, and seizes the future in Christ's spirit and in Christ's name, is not poor, cannot be poor; he is rich with unsearchable riches.

So Zophar has described the estate and condition of the wicked. Who will be wicked now? Who will dare this fate? We know it to be true; we need no logician or rhetorician to prove this truth and drive it home upon us: we know it to be true. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God;" "Our God is a consuming fire;" "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment." We cannot tell the meaning of these terms; we have never pretended to define them; if they could be defined they would be weakened: let them stand there, in all their dumb significance, too vast for language, too awful for metaphor. If this be the fate of the wicked, it follows that the fate of the righteous must be otherwise. "Le me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." I would rather die with Christ by my side in the poorest hovel in creation, than die without him in a king's palace, with regiments of soldiers gathered in serried ranks around the royal walls. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them: "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;" they shall serve God day and night in his temple, and his name shall be in their foreheads, and a white stone of mystery in their palm. May this be our sweet fate! That it may be so we must adopt the divine means for securing the gracious end: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Seeing that we have to face: the future, that every man has to read the dark book for himself, who says that he will refuse the light of Christ's presence,—the joy of Christ's comfort?