114 / 514
job
SINS AND SORROWS SPREAD BEFORE GOD.
[SERB.
own
rod,
can he
be
unacquainted
with
any thing
that
e-
lates
to
our
sorrows
?
Nor
can
we
use
arguments
with
God
to awaken
his
ear,
or
move his
compassion,
as
though he had neglect-
ed
us,
or forgotten our
distress
;
for
all
things
are
for
ever naked and
open
before the
eyes
of
him
with
whom
we
have
to
do,
Heb.
iv.
1.
The
Shepherd
of
Israel
cannot
slumber
;
nor
does his mercy
want
out
awaken-
ings.
But
in
this
sort
of
expressions, the
great God
conde-
scends to
talk,
and
to
transact
affairs with
us,
and per-
mits
us
to
treat
him in
a
way
suited to our
weakness
:
He
would have
us
plead
and argue with
him,
that
we
may
shew how
deep a
sense
we
have of
our
own
wants,
and
how
entirely
we
depend on
his mercy. Since we
cannot
cònverse with
him
in
a
way
equal
to his own
majesty and
Godhead,
he
stoops to talk
with us
in
such
a
way
as
is
most agreeable to
our
state,
and
most
easy
to
our apprehension
:
He
speaks such language as
we
can understand,
and invites us to
humble conference
with him
in
the
same way.
Come,
says
God
to
his
peo-
ple,
by
Isaiah
his
prophet,
Come
stow,
and
let
us
reason
together;
Is.
i.
18.
And
he often, in holy
scripture,
represents
himself
as
moved and influenced
by
the pray-
ers
and
pleadings
of
his afflicted
saints
;
and
he
has
or-
dained, before
-hand, that
the
day when
he
prepares
their
hearts
to
pray,
_shall
be
the day
when
his
ear shall
hear
the
desire
of
the
humble,
and
shall
be
the season of
their
deliverance,
Ps.
x.
17.
If
you
enquire,
how
a christian pleads
with his God,
and
whence does
he
borrow
his
arguments
?
I
answer,
that
according
to the various sorrows and
difficulties
which
attend
him,
so
various
may
his
pleadings
be
for
the
removal
of
them.
There
is
not
a
circumstance
which
belongs
to
his affliction,
but
he may
draw
some
argument
from it
to
plead for
mercy
;
there
is
not
one
attribute of
the
divine
nature, but
he may
use
it
with
holy skill,
and thereby plead for
grace;
there
is
not
one
relation
in which
God
stands to
his
people,
nor
one
promise
of
his
covenant,
but
may
at
some
time
or,other,
afford an
argument
in
prayer. But the strongest
and
sweetest
argument
that
a
christian
knows,
is
the name
and mediation
of Jesus
Christ
his
Lord.
It
is
for
the