periri hac in mortali vita viros bonos, et florentissimam fortunam, flagitiosos. Tamen Job, id quod est maxime considerandum, redargutione tali non utitur. Non id negat, quod sui amici, Patrum memoria teste confirmabant; quod tamen Job, si falsum id sibi videretur, uno verbo, Mentiris, poterat confutare. Atque etiam idem Job alterum negans, tales se miserias crimine aliquo suo fuisse commeritum, alterum tamen non dissimulat, Deum sibi adversari; in qua ipsa sancti viri confessione adversariorum causa ex parte vincebat, cum suas clades Job sic acciperet, ut iræ divinæ consueta signa, cumque inde non parum animo æstuaret. Quæ cum ita sint, nos sic existimamus, non falsos fuisse memoriæ testes Job amicos; atque adeo, PRIMIS MUNDI TEMPORIBUS, homines impios fuisse, præter solitum naturæ cursum, divinâ irâ percussos, iisque acceptos plagis, quarum sancti homines essent immunes; Deo Opt. Max. humanas res ita moderante, ut religionem in terris tueretur, et ut homines, cum talia exempla paterentur, cogitarent esse in cœlo Deum justum, a quo mortales ut recte factorum præmium sperare deberent, sic scelerum ultionem timere.— HOUBIGANT in librum Job, lectori.

But, since the writing of my dissertation, the language of the rabbinical men has been greatly changed. And, partly to keep up the antiquity of the book, but principally to guard against an extraordinary providence, several of them, in defiance of their senses, have denied that this, which this honest priest of the Oratory makes to be the subject of the book of Job, has indeed any thing at all to do with it. Amongst the foremost of these is Dr Richard Grey, the epitomiser of Albert Schultens' comment on this book. In the preface to his Abstract, amongst other things, he has criticised my opinion of the scope of the book in the following manner.-Nam quod dicit vir clariss, id præcipue in hoc libro disceptari, nempe an bonis semper bona, malisque mala, an utrisque utraque promiscue obtingent; hanc autem quæstionem (a nobis quidem alienam, minus ideo perpensam) nusquam alibi gentium præterquam in Judæa nec apud ipsos Judæos alio quovis tempore, quam quod assignat, moveri potuisse, id omne ex veritate sum hypotheseos pendet, et mea quidem sententia, longe aliter se habet.-Præf. p. 10–15. “For as to what this writer [the author of the Divine Legation] says, that the main question handled in the book of Job is whether good happens to the good, and evil to evil men, or whether both happen not promiscuously to both; and that this question (a very foreign one to us, and therefore the less attended to) could never be the subject of disputation any where but in the land of Judea, nor there neither at any other time than that which he assigns; all this, I say, depends on the truth of his hypothesis, and is, in my opinion, far otherwise." That which depends on the truth of an hypothesis has, indeed, generally speaking, a very slender foundation: and I am partly of opinion it was the common prejudice against this support which disposed the learned prefacer to give my notions no better a name. But what I have shown to be the subject of the book is so far from depending on the truth of my hypothesis, that the truth of my hypothesis depends on what I have shown to be the subject of the book: and very fitly so, as every reasonable hypothesis should be supported on a fact. Now I might appeal to the learned world, whether it be not as clear a fact that the subject of the book of Job is whether good happens to the good, and evil to evil men, or whether both happen not promiscuously to both; as that the subject of the first book of Tusculan Disputations is de contemnenda morte. On this I founded my hypothesis, that the book of Job must have been written about the time of Esdras, because no other assignable time could at all suit the subject-But it is possible I may mistake in what he calls my hypothesis: for aught I know, he may understand not that of the book of Job, but that of the Divine Legation. And then, by my hypothesis, he must mean the great religious principle I endeavoured to evince, THAT the Jews werE IN REALITY UNDER AN EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE. But it will be paying me a very unusual compliment to call that my hypothesis which the Bible was not only divinely written, but was likewise divinely preserved, to testify: which all believers profess to believe; and which none but unbelievers and answerers to the Divine Legation directly deny. However, if this be the hypothesis he means, I need desire no better a support. But the truth is, my interpretation of the book of Job seeks support from nothing but those common rules of grammar and logie on which the sense of all kind of writings are or ought to be interpreted.

He goes on in this manner. Nempe id unum voluisse mihi videtur sacer scriptor, ut iis omnibus, utcunque afflictis, humilitatis et patientiæ perpetuum extaret documentum ex contemplatione gemiua, hinc infinitæ Dei perfectionis, sapientiæ et potentiæ; illinc humanæ, quæ in sanctissimis quoque viris inest, corruptionis, imbecillitatis et ignorantiæ. "For this SOLE purpose of the sacred writer seems to me to be this, to compose a work that should remain a perpetual document of humility and patience to all good men in affliction from this twofold consideration, as on the one hand of the infinite perfection, power, and wisdom of God; so on the other, of human corruption, imbecility, and ignorance, discoverable even in the best of men." Such talk in a popular discourse, for the sake of a moral application, might not be amiss: but to speak thus to the learned world, is surely out of season. The critic will be apt to tell him, he hath mistaken the actor for the subject; and that he might on the same principle as well conclude that the purpose of Virgil's poem is not the establish

ment of an empire in Italy, but the personal piety of Eneas. But to be a little more explicit. The book of Job consists of two distinct parts; the narrative, contained in the prologue and epilogue; and the argumentative, which composes the body of the work. Now when the question is of the subject of a book, who means any other than the body of it? yet the learned Doctor mistaking the narrative part for the argumentative, gives us the subject of the introduction and conclusion for that of the work itself. And it is very true that the beginning and the end do exhibit a perpetual document of humility and patience to all good men in affliction. But it is as true that the body of the work neither does nor could exhibit any such document. First it does not: for, that humility and patience, which Job manifests before his entering into dispute, is succeeded by rage and ostentation when he becomes heated with unreasonable opposition. Secondly, it could not; because it is altogether argumentative; the subject of which must needs be a proposition debated, and not a document exemplified. A precept may be conveyed in history; but a disputation can exhibit only a debated question. I have shown what that question is; and he, instead of proving that I have assigned a wrong one, goes about to persuade the reader, that there is no question at all. He proceeds. Quamvis enim in sermonibus, qui in eo habentur, de religione, de virtute, de providentia, Deique in mundo gubernando sapientia, justitia, sanctitate, de uno rerum omnium principio, aliisque gravissimis veritatibus dissertetur, hunc tamen quem dixi unicum esse libri scopum, tam ex initio et fine, quam ex universâ ejus œconomiâ cuivis opinor manifestum erit. Ea enim, ut rem omnem summatim complectar, Jobum exhibet, primo quidem querentem, expostulantem, effræno luctui indulgentem; mox (quum ut sacri dramatis natura postulabat, amicorum contradictione, sinistrisque suspicionibus magis magisque irritatus et lacessitus esset) imprudentius Deum provocantem, atque in justitia sua gloriantem; ad debitam tandem submissionem suique cognitionem revocatum, tum demum, nec antea, integritatis suæ tam præmium, quam testimonium a Deo reportantem. "For although in the speeches that occur, there be much talk of religion, virtue, and providence, of God's wisdom, justice, and holiness in the government of the world, of one principle of all things, and other most important truths, yet that this which I have assigned is the only scope of the book will appear manifest to every one, as well from the beginning and the end as from the economy of the whole. For to say all in a word, it first presents Job complaining, expostulating, and indulging himself in an ungovernable grief; but soon after (when, as the nature of the sacred drama required, by the contradiction of his friends, and their sinister suspicions, he became more and more teased and irritated) rashly challenging God, and glorying in his own integrity: yet at length brought back to a due submission and knowledge of himself." The reader sees that all this is just as pertinent as if I should say, Mr CHILLINGWORTH'S famous book against Knot the jesuit, was not to prove the religion of protestants a safe way to salvation, but to give the picture of an artful caviller and a candid disputer. "For, although, in the arguments that occur, there be much talk of protestantism, popery, infallibility, a judge of controversies, fundamentals of faith, and other most important matters, yet that this which I have assigned is the only scope of the book, will appear manifest to every one, as well from the beginning and the end, as from the economy of the whole. For it first of all presents the sophist quibbling, chicaning, and indulging himself in all the imaginable methods of false reasoning: and soon after, as the course of disputation required, resting on his own authority, and loading his adversary with personal calumnies; yet at length, by the force of truth and good logic, brought back to the point; confuted, exposed, and put to silence." Now if I should say this of the book of Chillingworth, would it not be as true, and as much to the purpose, as what our author hath said of the book of Job? The matters in the discourse of the Religion of Protestants could not be treated as they are without exhibiting the two characters of a sophist and a true logician. Nor could the matters in the book of Job be treated as they are without exhibiting a good man in afflictions, complaining and expostulating; impatient under the contradiction of his friends, yet at length brought back to a due submission, and knowledge of himself. But therefore, to make this the sole or chief scope of the book, (for in this he varies,) is perverting all the rules of interpretation. But what misled him we have taken notice of above. And he himself points to it, where he says,"The subject I have assigned to the book of Job appears the true both from the BEGINNING and the END." It is true, he adds, and from the economy of the whole likewise.

Which he endeavours to prove in this manner: "For it first presents Job complaining, expostulating, and indulging himself in an ungovernable grief: but soon after (when, as the nature of the sacred drama required, by the contradiction of his friends, and their sinister suspicions, he became more and more teased and irritated) rashly challenging God, and glorying in his own integrity: yet at length brought back to a due submission and knowledge of himself; and then at last, and not before, receiving from God both the reward and testimony of his uprightness." This is indeed a fair account of the CONDUCT of the drama. And from this it appears, first, that that which he assigns for the SOLE SCOPE of the book cannot be the true. For if its design were to give a perpetual document of humility and

patience, how comes it to pass, that the author, in the execution of this design, represents Job complaining, expostulating, and indulging himself in an ungovernable grief, rashly challenging God, and glorying in his own integrity? Could a painter, think you, in order to represent the ease and safety of navigation, draw a vessel getting with much pains and difficulty into harbour, after having lost all her lading and been miserably torn and shattered by a tempest? And yet you think a writer, in order to give a document of humility and patience, had sufficiently discharged his plan, if he made Job conclude resigned and submissive, though he had drawn him turbulent, impatient, and almost blasphemous throughout the whole piece. Secondly, it appears from the learned author's account of the conduct of the drama, that that which I have assigned for the sole scope of the book is the true. For if, in Job's distressful circumstances, the question concerning an equal or unequal providence were to be debated : his friends, if they held their former part, must needs doubt of his integrity; this doubt would naturally provoke Job's indignation; and, when it was persisted in, cause him to fly out into the intemperate excesses so well described by the learned doctor: yet conscious innocence would at length enable patience to do its office, and the conclusive argument for his integrity would be his resignation and submission.

The learned writer sums up the argument thus: Ex his, inquam, apparet, non primario agi in hoc libro de providentia, sive inæquali, sed de personali Jobi integritate. "From all this, I say, it appears, that the personal integrity of Job, and not the question concerning an equal or unequal providence, is the principal subject of the book." He had before only told us his opinion; and now, from his opinion, he says it appears. But the appearances, we see, are deceitful; and so they will always be, when they arise only out of the fancy or inclination of the critic, and not from the nature of things.

But he proceeds. Hanc enim (quod omnino observandum est) in dubium vocaverant amici, non ideo tantum quod afflictus esset, sed quod afflictus impatientius se gereret, Deique justitiæ obmurmuraret: et quis strenuus videlicet aliorum hortator fuerat ad fortitudinem et constantiam, quum ipse tentaretur, victus labasceret. "For that [i. e. his personal integrity] it was which his friends doubted of, not so much on account of his affliction, as for the not bearing his affliction with patience, but murmuring at the justice of God. And that he who was a strenuous adviser of others to fortitude and constancy, should, when his own trial came, sink under the trial of his disasters." But why not on account of his afflictions? Do not we find that even now, under this unequal distribution of things, censorious men (and such doubtless he will confess Job's comforters to have been) are but too apt to suspect great afflictions for the punishment of secret sins. How much more prone to the same suspicion would such men be in the time of Job, when the ways of providence were more equal? As to his impatience in bearing affliction, that symptom was altogether ambiguous, and might as likely denote want of fortitude as want of innocence; and proceed as well from the pain of an ulcerated body, as the anguish of a distracted conscience. Well, our author has brought the patriarch thus far on his way, to expose his bad temper. From hence he accompanies him to his place of rest; which, as many an innocent man's is, he makes to be in a bad argument. Quam accesserat sanctissimi viri malis hæc gravissima omnium tentatio, ut tanquam improbus et hypocrita ab amicis damnaretur, et quod unicum ei supererat, conscientiæ suæ testimonio ac solatio, quantum ipsi potuerunt, privandus foret, quid misero faciendum erat? Amicos perfidiæ crudelitatis arguit: Deum integritatis suæ testem vindicemque appellat: quum autem nec Deus interveniret, ad innocentiam ejus vindicandam, nec remitterent quicquam amici de acerbis suis censuris, injustisque criminationibus, ad SUPREMUM ILLUD JUDICIUM provocat, in quo REDEMPTOREM sibi afluturum, Deumque a suis partibus staturum, summa cum fiducia se novisse affirmat."Now when," says the learned writer, "the most grievous trial of all was added to the other evils of this holy person; to be condemned by his friends as a profligate, and an hypocrite, and to be deprived, as much as in them lay, of his only remaining support, the testimony of a good conscience, what was left for the unhappy man to do? He accuses his friends of perfidy and cruelty; he calls upon God as the witness and avenger of his integrity: but when neither God interposed to vindicate his innocence, nor his friends forebore to urge their harsh censures and unjust accusations, he appeals to that LAST JUDGMENT, in which with the utmost confidence he affirms that he knew that his REDEEMER would be present to him, and that God would declare in his favour." To understand the force of this representation, we must have in mind this unquestionable truth; "that, be the subject of the book what it will, yet if the sacred writer bring in the persons of the drama disputing, he will take care that they talk with decorum, and to the purpose." Now we both agree that Job's friends had pretended at least to suspect his integrity. This suspicion it was Job's business to remove; and if the doctor's account of the subject be right, his only business. To this end he offers various arguments, which failing of their effect, he at last (as the doctor will have it) appeals to the SECOND COMING OF THE REDEEMER OF MANKIND. But was this likely to satisfy them? They demand a present solution of their doubts, and

he sends them to a future judgment. Nor can our author say (though he would insinuate) that this was such a sort of appeal as disputants are sometimes forced to have recourse to, when they are run aground and have nothing more to offer: for Job, after this, proceeds in the dispute; and urges many other arguments with the utmost propriety. Indeed there is one way, and but one, to make the appeal pertinent; and that is, to suppose our author mistaken, when he said that "the personal integrity of Job, and not the question concerning an equal or unequal providence, was the main subject of the book:" and we may venture to suppose so, without much danger of doing him wrong: for, the doctrine of a future judgment affords a principle whereon to determine the question of an equal or unequal providence; but it leaves the personal integrity of Job just as it found it. But the learned author is so little solicitous for the pertinency of the argument, that he makes, as we shall now see, its impertinence to be one of the great supports of his system. For thus he concludes his argument. Jam vero si cardo controversiæ fuisset, utrum, salva Dei justitia, sancti in hac vita adfligi possent, hæc ipsa declarata litem finire debuerat. Sin autem de personali Jobi innocentia disceptetur, nil mirum quod veterem canere cantilenam, Jobumque ut fecerant, condemnare pergerent socii, quum Dei solius erat, qui corda hominum explorat, pro certo scire; an jure merito sibi Jobus hoc solamen attribueret, an falsam sibi fiduciam vanus arrogaret. "But now if the hinge of the controversy had turned on this, whether or no, consistently with God's justice, good men could be afflicted in this life, this declaration ought to have finished the debate: but if the question were concerning the personal innocence of Job, it was no wonder that they still sung their old song, and went on as they had begun, to condemn their much-afflicted friend; since it was in the power of God alone to explore the hearts of men, and to know for certain whether it was Job's piety that rightly applied a consolation, or whether it was his vanity that arrogated a false confidence to himself." This is a very pleasant way of coming to the sense of a disputed passage: not, as of old, by showing it supports the writer's argument, but by showing it supports the critic's hypothesis. I had taken it for granted that Job reasoned to the purpose, and therefore urged this argument against understanding him as speaking of the resurrection in the 19th chapter. "The disputants," say I, "are all equally embarrassed in adjusting the ways of providence. Job affirms that the good man is sometimes unhappy; the three friends pretend that he never can be so; because such a situation would reflect upon God's justice. Now the doctrine of a resurrection supposed to be urged by Job, cleared up all this embarrassment. If therefore his friends thought it true, it ended the dispute; if false, it lay upon them to confute it. Yet they do neither: they neither call it into question, nor allow it to be decisive. But without the least notice that any such thing had been urged, they go on as they began, to enforce their former arguments, and to confute that which they seem to understand was the only one Job had urged against them; viz. the consciousness of his own innocence.”Now what says our learned critic to this? Why, he says, that if I be mistaken, and he be right in his account of the book of Job, the reason is plain why the three friends took no notice of Job's appeal to a resurrection; namely, because it deserved none. As to his being in the right, the reader, I suppose, will not be greatly solicitous, if it be one of the cousequences that the sacred reasoner is in the wrong. However, before we allow him to be right, it will be expected he should answer the following questions. If, as he says, the point in the book of Job was only his personal innocence, and this not, as I say, upon the PRINCIPLE of no innocent person being miserable; I would ask how it was possible that Job's friends and intimates should be so obstinately bent on pronouncing him guilty, the purity of whose former life and conversation they were so well acquainted with? If he will say, the disputants went upon that PRINCIPLE, I then ask how came Job's appeal to a resurrection not to silence his opposers? as it accounted for the justice of God in the present unequal distribution of things.

P. 396, Q. "This is one thing," says Job, "therefore I said it, he destroyETH THE PERFECT WITH THE WICKED," chap. ix. 22; as much as to say, this is the point or general question between us, and I stick to the affirmative, and insist upon its truth. The words which follow are remarkable. It had been objected, that when the good man suffered, it was for a trial; to this Job replies: "If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent, ver. 23, suddenly, or indiscriminately," as Schultens rightly understands it; as much as to say, when the sword devours the innocent and the wicked man without distinction, if the innocent will distinguish his ill hap from the wicked man's, and call it a trial, the wicked man will mock at him; and indeed not without some show of reason.

P. 396, R. "Supposing," says the Cornish answerer, "we should allow such an equal providence to have been administered in Judea; yet, since he himself reckons it the utmost extravagance to suppose it any where else; what an idea does he give us of the talents of Ezra! who, according to him, has introduced persons who were no Jews debating a question so palpably absurd as that it NEVER entered into the head of any one man living to make a question of it out of the land of Judea! consequently could not with the least probability or propriety be handled by any but Jews. Is this like one who, he would make us to believe,

was a careful observer of decorum? certainly the rule of decorum would have obliged him reddere personæ, &c. as Horace speaks-either to look out for proper persons to debate his questions, or to fit his question to the persons." I should have reason to complain of this insolence of language, so habitual to these answerers, did it not always carry its own punishment along with it. For, look, in proportion to their rudeness, is generally their folly, or ill faith."Supposing," says this man, "we should allow such an equal providence," &c. Now, when the reader considers I am only contending for the actual administration of such a providence as the Bible, in almost every page, represents to have been administered, will he not naturally suppose this to be some infidel writer making a gracious concession even at the expense of his own cause? But when he is told that the writer is a minister of the gospel, will he not conclude that his head is turned with the rage of answering ?

He tells his reader that I say, "That the debated question in the book of Job could NEVER enter into the head of any man living out of the land of Judea." Now, the very words from whence he pretends to deduce this proposition, convict him of imposture." This," say I, "could never have been made matter of dispute, FROM THE MOST EARLY SUPPOSED TIME OF JOB'S EXISTENCE even to ours, in any place out of the land of Judea." Which surely implies it might have been a question then; or why did I restrain the case to the times since Job's existence? Was it for nothing? In fact I was well apprised (and saw the advantages I could derive from it) that the question might as reasonably have been debated at the time when Job lived, as at the time when, I supposed, the book of Job was written. But as this was a matter reserved for another place, I contented myself with the hint conveyed in this limitation, which just served to lay in my claim to the use I should hereafter have for it. The truth is, the state of God's providence in the most early supposed time of Job's existence is a subject I shall have occasion to consider at large in the last volume of this work,* where I employ it, amongst other proofs, to illustrate and confirm the conclusion of my general argument by one entire view of the harmony which reigns through all the various parts of the divine government as administered over man. Of this, my answerers have no conception. Their talents are only fitted to consider parts, and such talents best suit their business, which is to find fault.-They will say, they were not obliged to wait. But who obliged them to write? And if they should wait longer, they will have no reason to complain: for the cloudy and imperfect conception they have of my argument as it now stands, is the most commodious situation for the carrying on their trade. However, whether they prefer the light of common sense to this darkness occasioned by the absence of it, or the friendly twilight of polemics to both, I shall not go out of my way to gratify their humour. I have said enough to expose this silly cavil of our Cornish critic, and to vindicate the knowledge of the writer of the book of Job, and his observance of decorum, in opening a beauty in the contrivance of this work, which these answerers were not aware of,

P. 397, S. The Use and Intent of Prophecy, &c. p. 208, 3d edit.-Grotius thinks the book was written for the consolation of the descendants of Esau, carried away in the Babylonish captivity; apparently, as the same writer observes, to avoid the absurdity arising from the supposition confuted above; and yet, as he farther observes, Grotius, in endeavouring to avoid one difficulty, has fallen into another. "For, suppose it writ," says the author of the Use and Intent of Prophecy, &c., "for the children of Esau: they were idolaters; and yet is there no allusion to their idolatry in all this book. And what ground is there to think they were so righteous as to deserve such an interpretation to be put upon their sufferings, as the book of Job puts on them, if so be it was written for their sakes? Or can it be imagined, that a book writ about the time supposed, for the use of an idolatrous nation, and odious to the Jews, could ever have been received into the Jewish canon?"-P. 208. These are strong objections, and will oblige us to place this opinion amongst the singularities of the excellent Grotius.

P. 567, T." Here," says the Cornish critic, "take the poem in the other light, as an allegoric fiction, and what could it possibly afford besides a very odd amusement? for the truth of history is destroyed: and we have nothing in the room of it but a monstrous jumble of times and persons brought together, that were in reality separated from each other by the distance of a thousand or twelve hundred years. Had the author been able to produce but one precedent of this sort amongst the writings of the ancients, it might have afforded some countenance to this opinion: but, I believe, it would be difficult to find it."-P. 47. What then, I beseech you, becomes of Solomon's Song, if you will not allow it to be a precedent of this sort? Here, in the opinion of the church, as appears by the insertion of it into the canon, or at least in the opinion of such churchmen as our critic, Solomon, under the cover of a love-tale, or amorous intrigue between him and an Egyptian lady, has represented Christ's union and marriage with the church. Surely, the patience or impatience of Job had a nearer relation in nature to the patience or impatience of the Jewish people, than Solomon's love intrigue had, in grace, to the salvation obtained by Jesus Christ. Yet this we are to deem no odd amusement for the WISE MAN. But for a prophet, to employ the

* That is, in book vii according to the author's plan.—It never saw the light.