Thy favour all my journey through,
Thou art engaged to grant:
What else I want, or think I do,

"Tis better still to want.-COWPER.

JOB Vii. 17, 18.-What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?

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God's strokes are often the magnifyings and exaltings of man. He sets his heart upon man, while he inflicts the smart of his rod he shows thereby what a high account he makes of him, and what a special affection he bears to him. When he might treat us with more severity after the breach of his covenant, and make his jealousy flame out against us in furious methods, he will not destroy his relation to us, and leave us to our own inclinations, but deal with us as a father with his children; and when he takes this course with us, it is when it cannot be avoided without our ruin: his goodness would not suffer him to do it, if our badness did not force him to it.-CHARNOCK.

DYER remarks, that "Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions."

JOB vii. 20.—I am a burden to myself.

This is sometimes the language of the afflicted. Thus it was the exclamation of Job. If we cannot approve of the strength of his complaint, we hardly know how to condemn it. God himself overlooks it, and only holds him forth as an example of patience. All sufferers cannot, indeed, say truly, as he did, "My stroke is heavier than my groaning," chap. xxiii. 2. Yet the heart's bitterness is known only to itself. We cannot determine the pressure of another's mind under suffering: for the feeling of affliction may be actually much greater than we should have supposed from the degree of it. But afflictions may be great in themselves, from their number, and frequency, and suddenness, and subject. Is this thy case? Yield not to impatience and despondency. Such afflictions have often introduced a train of mercies; and

the valley of Achor (trouble) has been a door of hope. How many in heaven, how many on earth, are now thanking God for their trials! He knows how to deliver. Say, "Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me,” Isa. xxxviii. 14. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee," Psa. lv. 22.-JAY.

Lord, I am pained; but I resign
My body to thy will;

'Tis

grace, 'tis wisdom all Divine,
Appoints the pains I feel.

Dark are thy ways of providence,
While they who love thee groan;
Thy reasons lie conceal'd from sense,
Mysterious and unknown.

Yet nature may have leave to speak,
And plead before her God,

Lest the' o'erburden'd heart should break

Beneath thine heavy rod.-DR. Watts.

JOB X. 2.-Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.

Discover to me whether it be for sin or no, or whether to exercise some grace; whether to discover me to myself, or to manifest thyself

to me in a way of sovereignty and majesty; to teach me to be humble, to learn the lesson thou wouldest teach me. If we pray that God would discover to us the reason of our afflictions, we ought to lay our souls open, and search them, and see where the light of the Spirit of God directs us to discover sin. If we have any guilt that is manifest to our consciences by his providence under afflictions, let us endeavour to pursue this discovery, and see whether it be not the true reason of God's contention; for it is by such methods as this that God's Spirit often reveals sin to us.DR. WATTS.

JOB Xiii. 15.-Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

To believe mercy in the midst of mercy, is no great matter; but to believe mercy in the midst of wrath, is a great matter, and argues strong faith. A time of contradiction is a time for faith. To believe the promise when Providence seems to contradict the promise in appearance, this is, like Abraham, to be

strong in faith, giving glory to God. Under a sense of guilt to believe pardon-under a sense and feeling of wrath to believe mercy, and plead that God would remember mercy, is the very season for faith to act; and then God gets the glory of his mercy, and we the good of it.-RALPH ERSKINE.

The REV. RICHARD CECIL, minister of St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, once observed to a friend: "Never was there a man of deep piety who has not been brought into extremities, who has not been put into the fire, who has not been taught to say, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.'”

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JOB XIV. 1.-Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

It is well they are so few, since so evil: as our relations and comforts are multiplied, so are the occasions of our sorrow. God never intended the world to be a place of our rest, but our exercise: it is a middle place between heaven and hell, and hath somewhat of either. In our passage to the other world