it seems to me
that the ordinary theory of the government of human affairs as set
forth in the Old Testament is precisely this same one that I have been
considering as the natural and necessary outcome of the ignorance and
inexperience of early man.

As time went on, now and then some deeper, more spiritual thinker
begins to question this method of reasoning, begins to wonder whether
it is quite adequate; and we have a magnificent poetical expression of
this kind of critical thought in the Book of Job. This Book of Job is
any way and every way worthy of your careful attention. It is the
nearest to a dramatic production of anything in the Bible. James
Anthony Froude said once in regard to it that, if it were translated
merely as a poem and published by itself, it would take rank as a
literary work among the few great masterpieces of the world.

But the thing that engages our attention this morning is not its power
as a dramatic production, but its criticism of God's government of the
world. It has been assumed, as I have said, and we are not through with
that assumption, that, if a man suffered, if he was ill, if his wife or
children were taken away from him, if his property was destroyed,
somehow he had offended God, and that this was a punishment for the
course of wrong-doing in which he had been engaged. But the author of
the Book of Job conceives that this does not quite match the facts; so
he gives us this magnificent character that he declares upright,
spotless, free from wrong of any kind, who yet is suffering. He has
lost his property, it has been swept away, his children have been put
to death, almost everything that he cared for he has lost, and he from
head to feet is sick of a loathsome disease; and he sits in the midst
of his deprivation and sorrow. His friends gather around him; and with
this old assumption in their minds some of them begin to taunt him.
They say, Now, Job, why not confess, why not own up as to what you have
been doing? Of course, you have been doing something wrong, or all this
would not have happened. This is the tone that one of his critics
takes. This is the kind of comfort that he receives in the midst of his
sorrow. But Job protests earnestly and indignantly that it is not true.
He says he is innocent, there are no secret wrongs in his life; and he
wishes that he might find some way by which he could come into the
presence of the great Ruler of the universe, and openly plead his
ca