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There is something striking in the expression "possessing the iniquities," etc. It is as though the iniquities of youth so adhered and cleaved to a man in riper years that there was no possibility of shaking them off. The sins committed in the spring-time of life tell fearfully on its maturity and its decline. Two general points of view.

I. THE WARNING TO THOSE WHO ARE JUST AT THE OUTSET OF LIFE. We must make good the truth, and illustrate the fact, that men possess in afterlife the iniquities of their youth. The power of the warning must depend on the demonstration of the truth. How difficult, with reference to the things of the present state of being, it is to make up by after diligence for lost time in youth. If there have been a neglected boyhood, the consequences will propagate themselves to the extreme line of life. The ability changes with the period, and what we do not do at the right time, we want the strength to perform at any subsequent time. The same truth is exemplified with reference to bodily health. The man who has injured his constitution by the excesses of youth, cannot repair the mischief by after-abstinence and self-denial. The seeds of disease which have been sown while the passions were fresh and ungoverned, are not to be eradicated by the severest moral regimen which may be afterwards prescribed and followed. The possession of the iniquities of the youth which we wish most to exhibit is that which affects men when stirred with anxiety for the soul, and desirous to seek and obtain the pardon of sin. The indifference to religion which marks the commencement of a course will become in later life an inveterate and powerful habit. However genuine and effectual the repentance and faith of a late period of life, it is unavoidable that the remembrance of misspent years will embarrass those which you consecrate to God. Even with those who began early, it is a constant source of regret they began not earlier. By lengthening the period of irreligion, and therefore diminishing that of obedience to God, we almost place ourselves amongst the last of the competitors for the kingdom of heaven.

II. THE EXPLANATION WHICH THIS FACT AFFORDS OF PROCEEDINGS WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE SEEM AT VARIANCE WITH GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT. Job spoke matter of fact, whether or no he judged rightly in the view he took of his own case. The principle is, that the sins which righteous men have committed during the season of alienation from God, are visited upon them in the season of repentance and faith; so that they are made to possess, in suffering and trouble, those iniquities which have been quite taken away, so far as their eternal penalties are concerned, There is a vast mistake in supposing that the righteous may sin with impunity. We seem warranted in believing that peculiar trouble falls on the righteous, because riley are righteous, and because, therefore, God's honour is intimately concerned in their being visited for transgression. If God is to be shown as dis. pleased with the iniquities of His own people, as well as of His enemies, it must be seen in this life. The consequences of sin in God's people must be experienced on this side the grave.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.

WEB: For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth: