to the Scriptural acceptations of the original word, he despised, he hated, and he loathed himself. A counterfeit of this self-abasement, self-displeasure, and self-detestation, sometimes passeth current for the genuine spiritual affections of the text, to the delusion of many souls. But you may easily, and ye ought carefully, to distinguish them. The counterfeit ends in a return to sin, or ends in despair; the genuine, in repentance unto life, as we shall see very soon. The counterfeit springs from a sense of the disgrace and the sufferings occasioned by sin; the genuine is produced by a lively and affectionate regard to the perfections of God, as we shall now show you. Formerly Job had high thoughts of himself, xxxi. 6; now he sees and apprehends more fully and strongly the glorious grandeur of God, which causeth angels to veil their faces before him, and glorified spirits to prostrate themselves in his presence; and he looks down with self-contempt on his own littleness and nothingness as a creature of the dust, as an intelligent creature of limited and perverted faculties, as a renewed creature, in whom the chaos of imperfection and sin struggles against and retards the new creating work of God. Formerly Job thought himself entitled to sit in judgment on the government of God, and to question the equity and wisdom of his procedure, xix. 7; now he sees the glory of wisdom, that cannot err; of righteousness, that can do no iniquity; and of goodness, that doth not afflict

willingly, neither grieve the children of men; and he looks down on his perverse folly, his impious injustice to God, and his daring presumption, with indignation, and resentment, and unalterable hatred. Formerly Job pled the integrity of his life, and the purity of his heart and conduct, xxiii. 10; now, he sees the glory of God's holiness—which is light, in which there is no darkness at all; beauty, in which there is no blemish; loveliness, that engageth every affection of the renewed heart; and he looketh down on sin, on his own sin, as the thing, in the whole universe of God, the most opposite to his nature, that abominable thing which the soul of God hateth,-pervading every power of his soul, every action of his life, and rendering him and his services, Eas a thing altogether unclean in the eyes of divine holiness,―he looketh down on it with loathing that sickens his soul. When a man thus despiseth, and hates, and loathes himself for sin that he hath done, for sin that dwelleth in him, his life is a living death, a state of wretchedness altogether intolerable; he is ready, he is desirous to go out of himself, to take refuge in the revealed mercy of God, and thankfully to avail himself of the manifestations of his sovereign grace. This was precisely what Job did when brought to this mortifying knowledge of himself.

2d, Job" repented in dust and ashes." Job had already turned from sin unto God, in the change of his mind and the tenor of his life. Indeed, the life of the godly man is nothing else than a continued

repentance, a continued departing farther from sin, and a continued approach to God in affection and practice. And there are circumstances which render the steps of his progress remarkably greater and more quick at one time than at another, that carry him so fast and so far forward, that all which was formerly done is forgotten, and seems as nothing. Peculiar manifestations of God's mercy, connected with his righteousness, are among the most powerful means of quickening the repentance of believers, as in the experience of Job. His awful views of the grandeur, and holiness, and justice, and wisdom of God, and his deep and agonizing views of his own guilt and vileness, would have plunged him into the abyss of despair, had not God manifested the glory of his mercy, that hath no pleasure in the death of sinners, that rather wills that all should come to the knowledge of the truth and live. Even the manifestation of mercy would not have encouraged him to repent; a view of God's mercy alone would have left room to apprehend the demands of inviolable justice, and the execution of those threatenings denounced by unchangeable truth. Therefore God must have appeared to him, as he did symbolically afterwards under the law, as seated on a throne of grace, whereon he had received the atonement that satisfies the demands of his justice, and exhausts the curse denounced against sin, and renders him just when he justifies believers in this method of reconciliation. It is when Job sees that

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the exercise of mercy to returning sinners in this way actually magnifies the justice and truth of God, actually brings an accession of glory to his perfections and government, that he is drawn to repent by the cords of love and the bands of a man. He renews the confession of his sins, with a heart-rending sense of their evil, as committed against God. Against thee, O Lord, thee only have I sinned, and in thy sight done this evil." He hath already renounced sin, all sin; but he renews his renunciation with increasing solemnity and self-abhorrence, and with increasing purpose of heart, especially against his own sin, and all the temptations to it. He hath already turned to God; but he repeats his dedication to him with a devotedness more enlightened and grateful,-more entire and fervent. This is the repentance brought forth, when a man is turned by the Spirit of God, in answer to the prayer, "Turn me and I shall be turned ;" this is the repentance which includes in it actual amendment, "a dying to sin, and a living unto righteousness,"

this is the "repentance unto life, not to be repented of;" without which all anguish and remorse for sin is insignificant, or a gross and dangerous delusion.

When Job thus repented, it was "in dust and ashes." The ancients of the patriarchal and Mosaic ages clothed themselves in sackcloth, put ashes on their heads, and sat down on a heap of ashes, to denote the depth of their humiliation and of their,

sorrow for sin before God, Isaiah lviii. 5, 6. By this they intimated that the vilest situation was not too low for their unworthiness, nor could it sufficiently express their indifference to earthly comfort and joy. All humiliation and sorrow for sin ought to be deep. To sin against the bounties of Providence, the long-suffering patience of God, the free offers of mercy and grace, the plain demands of his law, the conflicts of natural conscience, and the strivings of the Holy Spirit, calls for great selfabasement and profound godly grief. But oh! what abasement so low, what grief so profound, as becomes the confessed iniquities, transgressions, and sins of a favoured servant, an honoured friend of God? He sins against regenerating grace, redeeming love experienced, against pardon received, friendship bestowed, the honours of sonship conferred, against the image of God in being renewed on his heart, against the hope of the foretaste of heaven, against prayers, and promises, and vows sacramentally offered, against all the anguish of an awakened and all the heavenly peace of an approving conscience. Let God appear in the glory of his love and righteousness, as the object of holiest awe and supreme love, and set these sins in array before the astonished conscience of the renewed offender, in all their baseness of ingratitude, in all the criminality of aggravations, and how feebly will shame and confusion of face, and bones that are broken and out of joint, convey the humiliation and sorrow of heart