Job xvi. 6. & al.

as clay; and wilt thou bring me into duft again?

Job, we fee, was fufficiently vehement in his own behalf: and yet, as if his expoftulations were all in vain, Though I Speak, faith he, my grief is not affwaged: and though I forbear, what am I eafed? God hath delivered me up to the ungodly. He breaketh me with breach upon breach. My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the fhadow of death. 1 have faid to corruption, thou art my father; to the worm, thou art my mother and my fifter. God hath overthrown me: I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard; I cry aloud, but there is no judgement.

Not that this was ftrictly true; or that his petitions even for himself were utterly without effect. God Almighty had mercy in ftore; though he kept it back from him all the long time that he was mak

ing the most pathetic fupplications for himself, and then beftowed it when he began to pray for others: The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends.

& al.

Nay, these very friends, as they are here styled, hardly merited fo favourable an appellation; accufing him of crimes he had not committed; and upbraiding him with those punishments of his fins, which were, indeed, the trials of his virtue. And he was fenfible of all the bitterness of their reproaches: Ye overwhelm the Job vi. 27 fatherless; ye dig a pit for your friend. If your foul were in my foul's ftead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would ftrengthen you with my mouth; and the moving of my lips fhould affwage your grief. He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth: mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

Yet

Yet was it required of Job to become the interceffor for thefe very persons, and to beg for them the forgiveness of those offences, which had been committed against himself. And then, at laft, after this illustrious teftimony of his charity, added to thofe of his patience and piety, when his virtues were thus brought to the height, and appeared in all their glory; then it pleased the wisdom and mercy of God, breaking forth out of obfcurity, and made confpicuous by his judgments, to restore, and double his profperity.

Now this practice of making interceffion to Almighty God in favour of others, muft naturally be of use to the petitioner; if it be of any use to him to have his mind improved in virtue, in the moft generous and noble difpofitions, and every sentiment that belongs to the great principle of Charity. He cannot

but

II.

but increase his benevolence, while he gives this proof of it, and mixes it with his religion. When he is fupplicating the throne of Grace in behalf of other men, for all manner of bleffings for them, temporal, fpiritual, and everlasting; can he wish them evil? or ever after do it? Doth the fame fountain fend forth fweet James iii. water, and bitter? Can rancour confift with fuch petitions, and dwell in a heart that is capable of these thoughts and defires? Whatever be the event of his fupplications with regard to those, who are the fubject of them; they cannot come back empty: his requests for them will at least be successful for himfelf, and his Pf. xxxv. prayer return into his own bofom.

Indeed religion, and the exercife of any part of piety, has a natural tendency to quell thofe tumults, and curb that felfishness of the mind, which are the fources of injustice. The mere reflec

13.

tion, that we are God's creatures, as other men are, and depend upon him as they do, and must be judged by him along with them, and enter fo foon upon a state of never ending felicity or punishment; these reflections must always tend to cool our contentions about little matters, to reduce us to order, and, in short, to make us do to others, as we would they fhould do to us; which is a description of the whole of our duty to them. But when to these general sentiments of piety and equity, we add those tender feelings, which will naturally arise within us while we make ourselves interceffors with our common Father for fome particular perfon among our brethren, one, it may be, who has meant or done us wrong, who purfues us with injuries undeserved, with calumnies unprovoked; we fhall then learn the power of such prayers better than 2 Cor. vi. by words; fhall be no longer traitened, as the Apostle speaks, in our own bow

12.

els: