enrich God with nothing, Ood both can and does enrich man with all things. 8. That "man's inhumnnity to mau makes countless thousands mourn." 9. That God is per• potually cognizant of all the wickedness and misery, crime and wretchedness, that exists on earth. 10. 'l'hat the only power competent to banish sin and sorrow rrom the heart or from the world is the power of God. 11. That men have usually them- selves to blame when their prayers are not beard. 12. That God is infinitely worthy of the unwavering confidence of men. Ver. 10.-Man'sforgetfulness of God, and God!s reTMmbrance of man. I. MAN'e FORGETFUJ.NEBB OF Go». "None saith, Where is God my Maker?" 1. The cause o/ it. (1) Generally, the sinfulness of the human heart. That man should so habitually neglect God is inexplicable except upon the hypothesis of a fall. But sin, having intervened to separate man from God, has caused man to turn bis back upon God, and to contrive to live withont any sort of acquaintance with him. (2) Particularly, man's neglect of God may be traced to three things: (a) a sense of guilt, which instinctively urges man to shun God's presence (Gen. iii. 8); (b) the dominion of the world, which over every sinful heart exercises an almost resistless fascination (1 John ii. 15); and (c) an absorption in self, which, by magnifying all its own little interests and concerns, its sorrows no less than its joys, prevents the human soul from seeking after God. 2. The criminality of it. (1) The character of God as Eloah, the all-sufficient and all-powerful One, demonstrates the wickedness of man in living so hab!tually in neglect of his service. (2) The relation of God to man as his Maker attests the sinfulness of such behaviour on the part of man. (3) The favour of God to man in first bestowing upon him a superior nature to that possessed by the animal creation, and secondly in making these lower creatures his instructors, gives additional evidence of man's heinous guilt in thus neglecting t.o inquire after God. (4) The power of God to assist man by giving "songs in the night" is a further proof of man's amazing criminality in not remembering God. II. Go»'s BE:MEJII.BRANCE OF :MAN. He "giveth songs in the night." 1. In the nigM of natural day. By spreading out the star-illumined canopy above man's head, he stirs, at least in thoughtful minds, such exalted ideas and holy emotions as frequently break out in anthems of praise: witness David (Ps. viii. 3, 4), Job (ix. 4-10), Isaiah (xl. 26), and the unknown Hebrew singer (Ps. cxlvii. 4). 2. In the night of devout meditation. "Let the saints sing aloud upon their beds" (P~. cxlix. 5) ; and often- times when wrapt in heavenly contemplation, remembering God upon their beds, and meditating on him in the night-watches, the mouths of saints praise him with joyful lips (Ps. !xiii. 5, 6). 3. In the night of spiritual conviction. In such a night David sang some of his sweetest songs (Ps. li.). And as God put a new song into David's mouth when he was lifted out of the horrible pit and miry clay (Ps. xl. 3), so does he put a happy anthem of praise for forgiving mercy into the lips of every believing penitent: witness the jailor of Philippi (Acts xvi. 34). 4. In the night of temporal ajftiction. Israel, escaping from the land of Egypt in a night which at one period seemed dark enough (Exod. xiv. 10), sang a song of deliverance before the morning dawn had fully risen (Exod. xv. 1). A dark dismal night of adversity it was for David when he was driven forth from his palace, from his capital, from his people, from the temple (2 Sam. xv. 30); and yet then it was that David sang, "But thou, 0 Lord, art a Shield for me, and the Lifter-up of mine head" (Ps. iii. 3). Paul and Silaa bad their songs in the prison of Philippi (Acts xvi. 25); and there is not a saint, how- ever feeble, that may not chant in the darkest night of trouble a psalm of holy confi- dence in God. 5. In the night o/ approaching dissolution. Job himself at times was not without his song, though he folt that he was standing on the verge of the tomb (eh. xix. 26-27). So did God give an anthem to Hezekiah, when he raised that weeping and praying monarch from what seemed a couch of death (Isa. xxxviii. 20). David, too, had a song ready for that dark sad night which he knew to be inevitable (Ps. xxiii, 4). It was a noble hymn which St. Paul sent forth from the Roman prison to his young son Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 6). And so does God give to all saints, who seek after him in humility, penitence, and faith, o. song to cheer them in the dying hour (1 Cor. xv. 66); and when the dark night of death breaks away, puts into their mouths the never•endrng song of Moses and the Lamb. 1510 THE WOK OF JOB. [OJI, Xil.lLl', 1,-16,
Learn: L Tile adnutage of seeking a~er God. & The lundnea•of God in thinking upon man.