after they were all dead. They listened, but evidently did not "Do you see "Yes, sir." How do you know it is a watch?" it ticks, sir." "Very well, can any of you hear it tick? All of you listen now.' After a pause, "Yes, sir, we hear it." He then took off the case, and held the case in one hand and the watch in the other. "Now, children, which is the watch? you see there are two which look like watches." "The little one in consistent member of the his vate devotion, "There is no immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end-which is the peculiarity of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself — and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as your right hand, sir." "Very well, again. Now I will take the church, then case, and put it away down here in my hat. Now, let us see if under the pasyou can hear the watch ticking?" "Yes, sir, we hear it!" toral care of the exclaimed several voices. "Well, the watch can tick, and go. having at Rev. Mr. Dunn, and keep time, you see, when the case is taken off, and put in usual time remy hat. The watch goes just as well. So it is with you, tired to his children. Your body is nothing but the case-the body may be chamber for pritaken off and buried in the ground, but the soul will live and was found dead think, just as this watch will go, as you see, when the case is on his knees. taken off."e-Reasons against the resurrection. First it is alleged e Dr. J. Todd. that the resurrection of bodies resolved to dust and ashes is against thing strictly common sense and reason. Ans. It is above reason, but not immortal but against reason. For impotent and miserable man, as experience showeth, can, by art, even of ashes make the curious workmanship of glass; why then may we not in reason think, that the omnipotent and everlasting God is able to raise men's bodies out of the dust? Secondly, it is said that men's bodies being dead are turned into dust, and so are mingled with the bodies of beasts and other creatures, and one man's body with another, and that by reason of this confusion men cannot possibly rise with their own bodies. Ans.-Howsoever this is impossible with men, yet it is possible with God. For He that in the beginning was able to create all things of nothing, is much more able to make every man's body at the resurrection of his own matter, and to distinguish the dust of men's bodies from the dust of beasts; and the dust of one man's body from another. The goldsmith by his art can sunder divers metals one from another, and some men out of one metal can draw another, why then should we think it impossible for the Almighty to do the like? It may be further tion." objected thus: a man is eaten by a wolf, the wolf is eaten by a lion, the lion by the fowls of the air, and the fowls of the air eaten again by men; again, one man is eaten of another as it is usual among cannibals. Now, the body of that man which is turned into so many substances, especially into the body of another man, cannot rise again; and if the one doth, the other doth not. Ans.-This reason is but a cavil of man's brain; for we must not think that whatsoever entereth into the body, and is turned into the substance thereof, must rise again, and become a part of the body at the resurrection; but every man shall then have so much substance of his own as shall make his body to be entire and perfect; though another man's flesh once eaten be no part thereof. Again, it is urged that because flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God, therefore the bodies of men shall not rise again. Ans.-By flesh and blood it is not meant the bodies of men simply, but the bodies of men as they are in weakness, without glory, subject to corruption. For not to suffer even from the power of itself: all others have a dependent being, and within the reach of destrucSir T Browne. Bonaparte was visiting the picture gallery of Soult with Dénon and was struck with one of Raffaelle's pictures, which Dénen compli mented with the term immortal." How long may it last?' asked Bonaparte. Wel, so ne four or five hundred years longer, said Dénon. lité!' said Bonaparte, disdain Belle immorta a Ps. cxxxviii. 8; Phi. 1. 6. Pr. v. 21. c Ewald, Dill flesh and blood in Scripture signifies sometimes the original sin and corruption of nature, and sometimes man's nature subject to miseries and infirmities, or the body in corruption before it be glorified, and so it must be understood in this place. 15, 16. (15) thou.. thee,a faith that the voice of the living God would penetrate the region of the dead. thou.. hands, though departed fr. this life, he would not be forgotten. (16) now.. steps, the present diligent oversight a pledge of the future. dost.. sin, or, acc. to some," "wilt thou not pass over (and forgive) my sin?" ་་ God sees everything.-The master of three drunken and thievish b Ps. cxxxix. 1-slaves, having observed a great change in their conduct. asked its 3; Je. xvi. 17; cause. One of them replied, "Massa, God Almighty in top!" (above). He was answered. "Was not God Almighty in top when you got drunk, and robbed me?" Yes, massa; but we not know then." He then asked them how they came to know. They answered, "Massa, we been gone a chapel, and preacher tell we so; and now we 'fraid to get drunk, and rob, like fore time. God will see, and He will be angry: Him see ebery thing." mann. T. Chemi v. 15. "The path of d Chapman. transgressions sealed a Ho. xiii. 12: De. xxxii. 33-35. b Re. vi. 14. e U. R. Thomas. d Dr. Thomas. v. 19. "Is a man because he makes slow progress in his Omniscience of God. Though all the doors are sure, and all our servants He sees through doors, and darkness, and our thoughts; To think amiss ourselves before His search, All cause, that others think not ill of us.d 17-19. (17) my.. bag," counted, hoarded up, so that there can be no diminution or loss when the day of settlement comes. sewest, one sewn to another. (18) mountain . . nought, etc., the most solid of earthly things are movable, why should man hope to be exempt fr. the law of change? (19) waters, etc., same idea is here illus. by small things, as in v. 18 by great. God's perfect remembrance of our sins and our sorrows. To be taken in connection with Psa. lvi. 8.-This fact impliesfound fault with I. God's intimate acquaintance with us. II. God's great care of us.-The wear, tear, and dissolution of the worid. The speaker seems to have been impressed with this law as it acted in the two I. The mental. II. The corporeal. great departments of life. says, Never The subject teaches the unwisdom of worldliness, and-III. The mind; the water value of Christianity.d which runs 80 softly. will, in time, wear away undertaking, he the stones." Roberts. Sealed in a bag.-The money that is collected together in the treasuries of Eastern princes is told up in certain equal sums, put into bags, and sealed.-Chardin. -These are what in some parts of the Levant are called purses, where they reckon great "Hope is like the expenses by so many purses. The money collected in the temple sun, which, as in the time of Joash, for its reparation, seems, in like manner, to we journey towards it. casts have been told up in bags of equal value to each other, and the shadow o probably delivered sealed to those who paid the workmen (2 Kings our burden be-xii. 10). If Job alludes to this custom. it should seem that he hind us."-Sa considered his offences as reckoned by God to be very numerous, mue! Smiles, LL.D. as well as not suffered to be lost in inattention, since they are only considerable sums which are thus kept.< e Harmer. B.C. cir. 1520. the end of human life from him." 20-22. (20) thou, the God of nature, and all power. him, poor weak man. passeth, he is dissolved away. thou. countenance, by disease and time; all. to change of death. and.. away, fr. presence of living. (21) his sons, etc.," having passed away, he is unaffected by the honours or disgraces of his posterity. (22) flesh.. pain, while he lives he is sure of only this one thing. mourn, over his pain, and his sin. Lessons to be learned from the speech of Job.-I. The com- Good. parative insignificance of worldly prosperity or adversity in viewv. 22. C. J. Furof the eternal world. II. The infinite importance of securing long, 179. a place of happiness beyond the grave-1. For ourselves; 2. For our children and friends. III. The value of the Gospel, and the duty of making ourselves acquainted with its precious contents. IV. The paramount necessity of a personal interest in Him who is "the way, the truth, and the life." Death always near." My ancestors," said a sailor, "were all seamen, and all of them died at sea: my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, were all buried in the sea." Then said a citizen, "What great cause have you then, when you set out to sea, to remember your death! and to commit your soul to the hands of God!" 66 Yea, but," said the mariner to the citizen, "where. I pray, did your father and your grandfather die?" 66 "Why," said he, "they died all of them in their beds." "Truly, then," said the mariner, "what a care had you need to have every night, when you go to bed, to think of your bed as the grave, and the clothes that cover you as the earth that must one day be thrown upon you! for the very heathens themselves that implored as many deities as they conceived chimeras in their fancies. yet were never known to erect an altar to Death, because that was ever held uncertain and implacable." Death answers many a prayer.— The dew is on the summer's greenest grass, Yet wherefore tremble! Can the soul decay? Or that which thinks and feels, in aught e'er fade away? Are there not aspirations in each heart After a better, brighter world than this? c Dr. Robinson. "Paid the debt of nature.' No: it is not paying a debt: it s rather like binging & note to a bank to obtin solid gold in exchange for it. In this case, you bring this cumbrous body, which is nothing worth, could not wish to retain long: you lay it down, it. from the eternal treasures, liberty, victory, knowledge, rapture."-J. Foster. d Spencer. and which you and receive for B.C. cir. 1520. without any rent in his hand, without any soul, to this purpose, to surrender it unto Thee."-Dr. Donne. "To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die."-Campbell. e Robert Nicol. the answer of Eliphaz unprofitable talk a Mat. xii. 36, 37. 6 Ex. xiv. 21; Is. 8; Jo. xxvii. iv. 8. c Ps. xlviii. 7. Death comes to take me where I long to be; To lands which know not one unhappy hour; I have a hope, a faith-from sorrow here I'm led by death away-why should I start and fear? CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH. b 1-3. (1) answered, here begins the second colloquy betw. Job and his friends. (2) wise man, such as you profess to be. vain knowledge," Heb. knowledge of wind. belly, seat of thought and desire. east wind, withering, parching, and violent. (3) should.. talk? words to no purpose. The egotistic talker.—Almost every circle is blessed with the egotist, who exercises a kind of dictatorship over it. Are you in a mistake as to a matter of fact? He cannot suffer you to proceed till you are corrected. Have you a word on the end of your tongue? He at once comes to your relief. Do you talk bad grammar? He quotes rules and gives examples like a pedagogue. Does he discover that there is a link wanting in the chain of your argument? He bids you stay till he has supplied it. Do you drop a word to which he has devoted much research? He asks you whether you know its primitive signification, and straightway inflicts upon the circle a long philological disquisiWhen you relate an incident which you suppose new and a happiness to affecting, your friend listens without emotion. When you have be attained to done, he observes that he heard the same long ago, and adds a but by long accustomance, and very material circumstance which you omitted. "The wise man can never be without pleasure in himself, uor can anything out of himself mo lest and trouble him. Nor is this tion. He is never by doing by our taken by surprise, and it is impossible to give him any informamind just as we tion. And yet he never takes the lead in conversation, nor do by our bodies advances an original thought. It is his business to come after, in time of pestilence, that is, by and pick up the words which others let slip in a running talk, carefully avoid- or to check their impetuosity, that he may point out to them ing all commerce their missteps. Had he lived in the days of Solomon, he would have flattered the royal sage with an intimation that some of his proverbs were but plagiarisms; or, had he been a contemporary of Solomon's father, would have felt himself bound to give the slayer of Goliath some lessons on the use of the sling, and hinted to the sweet singer of Israel his private opinion, that the shepherd bard did not perfectly understand the use of the harp. with those that are sick."-Flecknoe. d G. W. Harvey. self-condemnation a Lu. xviii. 1; Ja. iv. 2. 0.4. R. P. Buddi- 4-6. (4) prayer, a rather, devout meditation. (5) uttereth, i.e. teacheth. chooseth. . crafty, instead of teachings of wisdom. (6) thine.. thee, by the sentiments thou dost utter. Christian speech.-Observe-I. That the interests of religion are greatly in the keeping of its professors. II. That a believer in trouble should be careful, so to speak, as to bear a good testimony to religion before the world." Dogmatical talking. When men of judgment creep and feel their way, B.C. cir. 1520. Jacox in Homilist, Eds. Ser. iii. 222. "The pure and noble, the graceful and dignifled simplicity of language, is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scriptures and Homer. The whole Book of Job, with regard both to sublimity of thought and morality, exceeds, beyond all comparison, the most noble parts of Homer." -A. Pope. c Cowper. let the past teach . 11, 26; Pr. iii. 32. b Spk. Com. "When a majority of people agree on any subject, should an individual pertinaciously oppose them, it will he asked, What! were you born before all others?' 'Yes, yes; he is the And those the most where neither has a right." 7-10. (7) art.. born? sug. of old belief in the original wisdom of Adam; or, hast thou lived fr. the creation and treasured up all the wisdom since? (8) hast.. God?" or "wast thou present as a hearer in the counsel of Eloah?" restrain..a De. xxix. 29; Ro. xi 34; 1 Co. thyself? hast thou a monopoly of wisdom? (9) what.. not? by wh. exceptional knowledge, or means of knowing, thy superior wisdom may be proved. (10) with us, etc., we are speaking the experience of ancient sages. Provision for happiness in old age.-It is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat, no less than with the playful kitten; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance, or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all. "perception of ease.” Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important respect the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well ascribed by Rousseau to the interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life, under all, or most, of its various forms.c first man; no wonder he has so much wisdom! Salam to the first! man.'" -Roberts. "Hope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his banker; but his drafts noured, since balance cause he draws largely on a small capital, is not yet in possession, and if he were, would die." C. Colton. c Paley. 11-13. (11) consolations, assurances of restoration, etc., there must |