giving the impulse of a new life to his soul. So that it was not he who spoke, but the Spirit of God within him.

5. If thou shalt be able, refute me ;

Set in order before me, stand firm.

Job has now the opportunity, of which he expressed himself so desirous, that he might plead his cause before God, and hear what he would say, confident that he should be justified before him.

A messenger, inspired by the Spirit of the Most High, is now sent to address him on behalf of God. He is invited, if he can, to reply, and to take his stand as the determined defender of his own righteousness, and of the wrong grounds he had been driven to take against the doctrine of a righteous Providence. For we shall remember, that this is the main argument that Job maintained against his friends:That no delinquency of his had brought upon him the judgments which he suffered; that these judgments, as distributed by God in this present world, were not for the punishment or the chastisement of offenders; but must be referred to the arbitrary pleasure of God; that his object, in the present unequal distribution of good and evil among a corrupt and wicked race, hastening to their death, was not manifested to the children of men, and they would in vain seek to discern it.

Elihu is raised up to tell Job, from God, that he has visited him for nothing else but his unrighteousness! And that he had charged God foolishly'

respecting the dispensation of his providence.

Job, we shall also remember, had expressed a wish, that he could converse with God, so disrobed of his dreadful majesty, that he might be able, without fear or overwhelming awe, to argue the right of his case with him, as with a fellow-creature. In the mission of the inspired Elihu he had his desire. 6. Behold, I am like thee before El*,

I, too, have been formed from clay. 7. Behold my dread will not terrify thee, Nor will my hand be heavy upon thee.

This rehearses exactly Job's former declaration, that he by no means thought himself,-poor sinful dust and ashes,-to be a meet antagonist against the all-wise and all-powerful God, to dispute the justice of his visitation; he had deprecated, at great length, the idea of such presumption in mortal man, by reason of God's holiness, and the common corruption of mankind. But if it were possible to set apart the awful majesty and terrible holiness of the Divine Being, and he would act as a judge, applying that rule of comparative purity and righteousness, which was applicable to such a creature as man, then, he doubted not, he could defend his integrity. Elihu, inspired and sent of God, is a decider of that very character which he wished to approach toA man, his fellow, through whom God himself will examine and judge him.

Job, in these declarations, as we before remarked, expressed the sentiments of the self-justifying spirit

a is a direct Arabic term, implying equal, fellow, like.' GOOD. Perhaps, behold, I, one like thyself, am for God,' appearing for God.'

wherever it appears among the children of men. It puts not in a claim of absolute perfection, as matched with the purity and holiness of the Divine Being. It would not be pleased with itself, if it did not deprecate such a notion with the utmost prostrations of the most abject humility. But it conceives of a rule of right adapted only to the excellency of a creature, such as will distinguish virtue and vice, religion and impiety, as they may exist in a creature. It will hardly presume to mention works of condignity, even upon this scale; but the notion of a merit of congruity is what supports its boast. Absolute freedom from sin and corruption it knows to be a plea impossible for the human conscience to maintain before God: with the knowledge of revealed religion, all will confess the original sin and universal depravity of mankind: the guage of human purity must not plunge so deep as to stir up this ; but must be considered as a rule to measure only the comparative purity of man in his present state, the efforts, most commonly, that he has made, under a dispensation of mercy and grace, to suppress and correct these evil propensities, that the lusts of the flesh conceive not to bring forth fruit. On these grounds alone is it commonly practicable for a man, who is not entirely blinded by pride, ignorance, and sin, to have self-congratulating views of his own innocency and integrity. But here he may "thank God that he is not as other men are."

And it will be universally admitted, that,

whether we suppose a retributive Providence, now rewarding and punishing the works of men, or a future judgment to award to every man according to his works, whether we have respect to the moral government of God in general, or to that special discipline which is exercised over the church and family of God in this present life: whatever point of view we take, it must be only by some such rule that God judgeth; or all flesh must fail before him, and the souls that he hath made.' Therefore Job had uttered the demand of all human goodness -upon the grounds of equity; I cannot stand before the Holy Lord God, in whose sight the heavens are not pure. But let him descend from the height of his justice, and lay aside that sceptre of his dreadful truth, and judge as a creature would judge his fellows, according to an equitable rule, and that, too, under a dispensation of mercy for the past, at the time, at least, of sincere repentance for the sins of our youth, on our turning to God, and beginning the profession of his holy religion; then I can maintain my righteousness.'

Such a judge is sent to Job at his request; and certainly, in Elihu, as in every prophet sent with the spirit of God, we behold a type, or resemblance at least, of the great Mediator and Judge of men. The Deity does not plead against fallen man with his great strength, either in the present dispensation of his providence, in ordering the discipline of his adoptive family on earth, or in the execution of 'eternal judgment on his enemies.' Providence,

as well as the judgment, is, and ever has been, and ever will be, in the hand of a Mediator. The Mediator created, the Mediator governs, the Mediator will judge the world.

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In the beginning he came forth from absolute Deity; and though very God of very God,' he became to Deity as a son' to a father;' and this sonship I conceive, though manifestive of it, to be something different from the eternal sonship of the Second Person in the most Holy Trinity. Son of the Father' is the distinction of his personality in the everlasting Godhead. Son of God' will, per

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haps, be found more particularly to apply to the Second Person, become, or to become, the son of man,' and in that nature acknowledged and exalted as the visible offspring of the Most High, to be set, as his anointed king, over all created things. And, though he had not yet actually taken a created nature upon him, as it was determined in the eternal counsels of God concerning him; yet he circumscribed himself to the limits of that mysterious being, that should unite, in his one person, the two distinct natures of the Godhead and of the creature, and act in and through the latter. He always had acted in this capacity, and ever will, both in the execution of judgment, and in the bestowing of mercy. Elihu was, on this occasion, his representative; the Spirit of Christ spake in him; and when that Spirit refers to the humanity of the instrument, through whose faculties he speaks- I am like thee before God'-I too have been formed from the clay; what