Seventh Week-First Day.

GOD'S SECRETS.-JOB XXVIII.

LET us to-day turn back to the twenty-eighth chapter, in which Job launches out into an admirable discourse on man's search after that wisdom which consists in the knowledge of the ways of the Lord.

It ought not to escape notice, that he virtually divides this wisdom into two classes, and defines carefully the degrees in which we may have access to them.

First, there is the wisdom in natural things, in which he allows that man may make great advances; and he illustrates this by referring to the skill with which man discovers the metals hid in the earth, and the power and ingenuity he evinces in bringing them forth from their secret caves, and adapting them to use. In fact there is nothing in which the power of the human intellect is more palpably manifested, than in its researches into the laws and the mysteries of the material creation. Of this we had but a year or two ago a more striking example than could be known in the time of Job, or than has, perhaps, been offered in any former age, in the discovery of a planet, not by observation, but by mathematical calculations based upon the knowledge man has been suffered to acquire of those laws which God has established for the government of his universe. Whenever our thoughts are turned to this great event in the history of science, we are astonished, much less at the discovery itself, than at the evidence it offers of the depths to which man has been allowed to penetrate-or rather, of the heights to which he has been permitted to soar-in his search into this part of the divine wisdom.

But although man has, for the glory of God, been allowed to make large advances in the knowledge of what must in early

ages have appeared the secret and mysterious things of nature; although he can trace the hidden 'vein of silver,' and mark out the place of the unseen stars, 'Where shall he find the place of wisdom?'-of that higher wisdom which consists in the knowledge of the secrets of God's throne-the goings forth of his providence and his grace!

To this latter branch of the subject, Job turns at the 12th verse, and pursues it to the end of the chapter. In the first or natural branch, he concedes to man some knowledge, but in the latter he depones to his utter ignorance. There may be 'doctors of knowledge,' but of this knowledge no man is doctor. God may be pleased sometimes to discover parts of it to some particular man; but there is none who can claim to be master of it. It is lodged in the breast of God, and locked up among his hidden counsels. Man knows nothing of it till the Lord reveals it; and He reveals it to very few, though many unwisely, vainly, or presumptuously seek after it, and would, if it were possible, seize by storm the secrets of the inner sanctuary.

There is nothing in which the vanity of man more appears, than his dull neglect of the things that are revealed, in the eager pursuit of those which are locked up and hidden from him. There are many instances of this in Scripture, and they are always met by stern rebuke, especially from our Saviour. 'What is that to thee? follow thou me,' was the answer given to one of them, and which well applies to all of them.

Usually such seekers after God's hidden things are most apt to disregard the things that are revealed, treating them as 'milk for babes,' and regarding themselves as those who seek 'strong meat.' We follow our first parents in our hunger for the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge,'-not so much because it is luscious, as because it is forbidden. Our Lord rebuked the lawyers of his day for taking away the key of knowledge. But here is a knowledge, the key of which God himself has taken away; and yet, although the key be gone,

1 In a recent report of a 'Peace Congress' in the Times newspaper, one of the foreign delegates is described as 'Doctor of Knowledge.'

and we know who holds it in possession, rash men continually torture their ingenuity to pick the lock, or, failing in that, go very far astray in wild fancies as to the secrets which lie within. In the keen thirst for hidden knowledge, and in their fretful or proud impatience of the bar which God has set against them, they forget that it is no ignorance not to know the things which God has hidden; but it is a great. proof of ignorance to harass the mind and wear out the soul in the search after them. It is ignorance not to know that which we may know, or ought to know, or are required to know; but not to know that which lies far beyond our sphere, and which we have no means of knowing, is not ignorance. No one calls a classical scholar ignorant because he knows nothing of engineering, although that is useful and practical knowledge; still less is any one to be deemed ignorant for not knowing that which is purposely hidden from him, which he cannot know, and which would not be of practical value to him.1

Some, however, will ask, Why should God wrap up anything from us, and hide it in darkness? Is it not for the glory of his great name that the deep things of his wisdom should be known? Is it not for man's honour to know much; and the more he knows, is he not the better qualified to serve and honour God?

But this reasoning, if carried fully out, would imply that we had a right to the highest degree of possible knowledgestopping not short of the knowledge possessed by God himself. If He impart to us less than He himself knows-which is inevitable, seeing that He alone is all-knowing,-the line of withheld knowledge must be drawn somewhere; and who shall complain that it is drawn where it is? Knowledge must be of various degrees, suited to the various states of God's creatures. We know there are beings higher than ourselves in our present state-angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. They have necessarily a higher measure of knowledge than has been given to us, though not higher than we may hereafter

1 Our language wants a word for that species of not knowing which is not ignorance. Some old writers propose Nescience.

attain to. It is one of the privileges of their condition, and one of the sources of their perfected happiness. That which we so crave to know, is doubtless part of their familiar knowledge; but if none of the secrets of the divine wisdom were hidden from us, what would be the privileges of their condition? We should be in this respect equal to them; and, being so, the future would lose some of its brightness, while we have no reason to suppose that the present would lose any of its grief.

Besides, if we are already so much puffed up by the little we do know, what would become of us, if these our mortal tabernacles were made the receptacles of angelic knowledge? God knows that we could not stand it. It is, therefore, in his fatherly care to keep us humble-to prevent us from being exalted above measure, that He veils many most high things from our knowledge. If Paul himself was not free from this peril-if, with added knowledge, an added thorn in the flesh' was needful to avert the danger and to keep down his mind— how would it fare with us? Let us understand that the knowledge of even the best and holiest things does not of itself make us better or more holy; while the knowledge of some things is very apt to make us more and more unholy. It is certain that the Lord will keep nothing from us-no knowledge, no wisdom -which has any natural tendency to make us more holy, or more humble, or which will render us more fit for communion with Him; but when He sees that we should only damage ourselves by the possession of certain kinds and measures of knowledge, even though that knowledge be in itself good, He will be careful to hide it from us. A razor is in itself a good thing, especially if it be a good one; yet we had a little daughter who slashed her visage sadly with one she had seen her father use and put away. The instrument was the same in her hand as in her father's; but while it was safe in his hands, in hers it was full of danger; and therefore, though good in itself, it was, from regard to her safety, henceforth hidden from her-placed beyond her reach. So does God deal with us, as we with our children. He bestows most freely all that is good

for us, and suited to our condition; but He keeps back all that would wound us, all that is unsuited to our present state.

Although the Lord is ever ready to satisfy our real wants, and to impart to us all the knowledge we really need, He will not satisfy the idle curiosity and vain aspirings of our intellect. Our faith is more precious in his eyes than our knowledge. By being left unacquainted with the secrets of the divine wisdom in some things, we are in the better position for glorifying his wisdom in all things. If we cannot see the reason of his doings, we are yet enabled, from what we do know, to conclude that the Lord is holy in all his ways, and righteous in all his works; and in this confidence can rest content, happy, waiting in the posture that best becomes a believer, and which honours Him more than any amount of knowledge of his high secrets which He could bestow upon us.

We know the whole counsel of God concerning faith and repentance; concerning eternal life, and the way into it; concerning the mystery of Christ crucified. All this-all that concerns our salvation, has been made open and plain to us. Is not this enough? What more do we want? Let us be content. Let us be patient. Let us wait.

WE might naturally suppose that by this time we are perfectly acquainted with Job's lamentable condition. But we are undeceived when we come to read the contrast which he draws in the thirtieth chapter, between his existing state and the circumstances of happiness and honour set forth in the previous chapter; for we have here several new particulars which disclose to us that his social condition was even more deplorable than we had previously imagined. Essentially the treatment of a fallen man by his acquaintance, and by the unthinking multitude, has been the same in all ages and in all countries;