The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 363

proof was wanting. Yet was the charge of EliphA,;: 5. Wholly imagined. It was purely I creation of the Arabilm seer's fancy. Not only did Job declare it untrue, but EliphaPJ himself must have known it to be baseless (cf. eh. iv. 3, 4). Either Eliphaz he.d allowed his excited ancl wrathful imagination to beguile hie judgment, which was not like a seer, or he had taken up a slanderous report against Job, in spite of hie better knowledge, which wns not like a aaint. But passion can disperse piety and confound reason, while malice will constrain even good people to believe lies. Envying and 11trife are the parents of confusion and every evil work (Jas. iii. 16). II. A CHARGE OF PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 1. The import of this form Qf infidelity. It denies not the existence, but the overruling providence of God-in this respect differ• ing from theoretical atheism. It places the Supremo at an infinite distance from the univenre which he has called into being, setting him" in the height of heaven," banish- ing him, as it were, beyond the stars, where" he walketh in the circuit of the heavens" wrapped about by "clouds" which "veil him that he seeth not," alike iinorant of a~d unconcerned about, anythin,: that transpires in this lower sphere, and, of course, ~ever interfering in any way with "the work of his hands," which, like a perfect piece of mechanism, goes without inspection or repair-in all this contradistinguished from pantheism, which believes in a God at hand, but at the same time confounds the Creator with his works. Practical atheism says, " The Almighty was once here pre- sent, but he has withdrawn ages ai?o; nature reigns, and all physical phenomena are the necessary result of mechanical laws" (Pearson on 'Infidelity,' eh. iii.). 2. The antiquity of this form of i".fidelity. This was the creed of the men of the nntediluvian world, "the old way of the wicked, who were cut down out of time" (i.e. before their time), "whose foundation was overflown by a flood" (literally, "a river poured out was their firm foundation")-" a strong but suitable expression, referring probably to Noah's flood" (1Jmbreit). Though not the faith of Job, it was that of some of Job's contem- poraries (eh. u::i. 14), as afterwards of some of David's (Ps. x. 11) and Asaph'11 (Ps. lxxiii. 11), and at a later time of many Hebrews before and durin!( the exile (Isa. xxix. 15; Ezek. viii 12). Among Greek philosophers it WM the teaching of Epicurus and the atomists. The French encyclopaadists, the English deists of the last, and the Comtists of the present century, ell concur in this opinion. It is the latest finding of modern materialistic science. 3. The origin of this form Qf infidelity. (1) Intels lectual pride. The belief that man can, or ought to be able to, explain everything has as its correlatit'e the astounding assumption that nothing can exist which man does not understand. Practically this is the fundamental article in the modern scien- tific religion of agnosticism, which consigns to the limbo of the unknowable everything outside the domain of the senses and the reason, among other things such a doctrine as that of an overruling providence. The human mind discerns an insuperable difficulty in harmonizing the theory of a continual Divine interposition with the scientific dogma of the reign of law-" How doth God know? can he judge through the dark? "-with the insignificance of this earth, which, in comparison with the bounclless universe, is but 1111 a drop to the ocean, and in particular with the majesty of God, whose Divine perfections and glory are thought not to admit of such a condescension to details as is implied in an overruling providence. (2) Heart-depravity. Even more than in intel- lectual obliquity does practical atheism take its rise in moral perversion. It is the doctrine of'' the wicked," of the moral fool, of those whose hearts are alienated from God by wicked works, who are so destitute of spiritual life that they have nothing the Almi"'bty can do for them, and who desire nothing more earnestly than to have no furth;r thought of God, to be left alone to their own infidelity and sin. 4. The wicked- ness of this form of i11fidelity. Were there no indications of God's overruling providence discernible, such amazing incredulity might in part at least be excusable. But proof in abu[jdance existed whieh these atheists might have studied had they been willing, for "he had filled their houses with good things." So Paul told the men of Lystra that God had never left himself without a witness (Acts. xiv. 17), and the Athenians that he was not far to seek, or find, from any one who looked upon the world with open eye aud honest mind (.Acts xvii. 26-28). Hence such infidelity is criminal, and to be held in abhorrence by ell good men, as well as by Eliphaz and Job (eh. xxi. 16). 6. The final, doom of this form of infideUty. In opposition to Job, who maintained that IDilll of atheistical principlea flourished and wwe happy all their lives, (jliphaz  Oll, x.xu. 1-80.] THE BOOK OF JOB. 377