CONTRIBUTORS TO THE EXPOSITOR. THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OF CANTERBURY. REV. PROFESSOR PLUMPTRE, M.A., D.D. REV. W. SANDAY, M.A., D.D. REV. J. RAWSON LUMBY, B.D. REV. RAYNER WINTER BOTHAM, M.A., B.Sc. REV. PRINCIPAL TULLOCH, D.D. REV. PROFESSOR A. B. DAVIDSON, M.A., D.D. REV. PROFESSOR W. MILLIGAN, D.D. REV. PROFESSOR W. ROBERTSON SMITH, M.A. REV. PROFESSOR ALEX. RCBERTS, D.D. REV. PROFESSOR A. B. BRUCE, D.D. REV. JAMES MORISON, D.D. REV. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. REV. PROFESSOR JOHN GIBB, M.A. REV. PRINCIPAL A. M. FAIRBAIRN, M.A., D.D. REV. PROFESSOR D. W. SIMON, M.A., PH.D. REV. PROFESSOR H. R. REYNOLDS, D.D. PROFESSOR JOHN MASSIE, M.A. REV. HENRY BURTON, M.A. MR. R. W. DALE, M.A. REV. HENRY ALLON, D.D. REV. ALEX. RALEIGH, D.D. THE EXPOSITOR. EDITED BY THE KEV. SAMUEL COX. VOLUME VIII. London: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXVIII. THE EXPOSITOR. THE BOOK OF JOB. IV.—THE SECOND COLLOQUY. (CHAPTERS XV.-xxi.) 6. JOB TO ZOPHAR (CHAP. XXi.). In his last speech Job had risen to a clear and firm conviction of a retributive life beyond the grave. But this new and sustaining conviction was based on a prior conviction, at which also he had only newly arrived, a conviction which was still strange and terrible to him, viz., that this life was not, as he had always conceived it to be, a purely retributive one. Like the Friends, he had long taken it for granted that, under the rule of a just and righteous God, righteousness must invariably result in prosperity and happiness, unrighteousness in calamity and misery. His own unmerited losses and pains and griefs had constrained him to question this traditional and accepted dogma, however; and, to his consternation, no sooner did he attempt to verify it, than he found it to be untrue alike to the facts of his own experience, and to facts which he had many times observed in the life and experience of other men. Heretofore he had not paused to consider what these facts signified, or how they bore on his narrow and inadequate interpretation of the mystery of Providence. The facts had, so to JULY, 1878. I VOL. VIII. 253666 |