pute, and in the heat of altercation, this peculiar difpenfation is touched upon yet more precifely. Job, in fupport of his doctrine, paints at large the happy condition of profperous wicked men ; a principal circumftance of whofe felicity is, that they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave, i. e. without sickness, or the terrors of flow-approaching death. The lot which profperous libertines of all times, who believe no future reckoning, moft ardently wish for. Now in the declining times of the Jewish Economy, pious men had always their anfwer ready, The profperous wicked man (fay they) fhall be punifhed in his Pofterity, and the afflicted good man rewarded in them. To the first part of the folution concerning the wicked, Job answers thus, God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it. As much as to fay, the evil man fees and knows nothing of the punishment; in the mean time, he feels and enjoys his own felicity, as a reward. To the fecond part, concerning the good, he answers thus, His eyes fhall fee bis deftruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty: For what pleasure bath be in his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off in the midft. i. e. The virtuous man fees and feels nothing but his own miferies: for what pleasure can the good things referved for his pofterity, af ford to him who is to tafte and enjoy none of it being not only extinct long before, but cut off untimely?

and not a particular punishment, which felects out the children of tranfgreffing parents, but a general one, which in the nature of things, neceffarily attends the total overthrow of a State of Community.

Chap. xxi. ver. 13.

* Ver. 19.

§ Ver. 20, 21.

In another place, Job fays, That idolatry was an iniquity to be punished by the judge. Now both this and the former fpecies of punishment were, as we have fhewn, peculiar to the Mofaic Difpenfation. But a Jew might naturally mistake them for a part of the general Law of God and nature: and fo, while he was really defcribing the Economy under which he lived, fuppofe himself to be representing the notions of more ancient times: which, that it was his defign to do, in the laft instance at least, appears from his mentioning only the most early species of idolatry, the worship of the Sun and Moon. Again, the language of Job with regard to a future ftate is the very fame with the Jewish Writers. He that goeth down to the grave (fays this writer) fhall come up no more they fball not awake or be raised out of their fleep. Thus the Pfalmift, In death there is no remembrance of thee.Shall the dead ARISE and praife thee! And thus the author of Ecclefiaftes, The dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a REWARD. And we know what is was that hindred the Jews from entertaining any expectations of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, which was a popular doctrine amongst all their Pagan neighbours.

But there is, befides this of Customs and Opinions, another circumftance that will always betray a

h Chap. xxxi. ver. 28. Mr. LOCKE thought this fo decifive a proof that the book of Job was written after the giving the Law, that he fays, THIS PLACE ALONE, WERE THERE NO OTHER, is fufficient to confirm their opinion who conclude that. book to be writ by a Jew.-Third Letter for Toleration, p. 81-20 Let thofe Critics reflect upon this, who think there is no foot ftep nor fhadow of allufion to any thing relating to the people of Ifrael.

* Ver, 26.

* See Vol. IV. p. 354.

feigned

1

feigned Compofition, made in an age remote from the fubject: and that is, the use of later phrafes. These are more easily discovered in the modern, and even in what we call, the learned languages: but lefs certainly, in the very ancient ones; efpecially in the Hebrew, of which there is only one, and that no very large Volume, remaining. And yet even here, we may detect an author of a later age. For, befides the phrafes of common growth, there are others, in every language, interwoven alike to the current style, which owe their rife to fome fingular circumstance of time and place; and fo may be easily traced up to their original: though, being long used in common fpeech in a general acceptation, they may well escape even an attentive Writer. Thus Zophar, fpeaking of the wicked man, fays: He shall not fee the rivers, the floods, the BROOKS OF HONEY AND BUTTER'. This in ordinary speech only conveyed the idea of plenty in the abstract; but feems to have been firft made a proverbial saying from the defcriptions of the holy Land". Again, Eliphaz fays, Receive, I pray thee, THE LAW FROM HIS MOUTH, and lay up his words in thine heart": That is, be obedient: but the phrase was taken from the verbal delivery of the Jewish Law from mount Sinai. The Rabbins were fo fenfible of the expreffive peculiarity of this phrafe, that they fay the LAW OF MOSES is here Ipoken of by a kind of prophetic anticipation. Again, Job cries out: O that I were—as I was in the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD WAS UPON MY TABERNACLE, that is, in full fe curity: Evidently taken from the refidence of the

Divine Prefence or SHEKINAH, in a vifible form, on the ark, or on the tent where the ark was placed. And again-O that one would hear me! Bebold my defire is that the Almighty would anfwer me, and that mine Adverfary had written a book. Surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a CROWN to me P. A phrafe apparently taken from the use of their PHYLACTERIES; which at least were as ancient as their return from Captivity, and coeval with their fcrupulous adherence to the Law.

A third circumftance, which will betray one of these feigned compofitions, is the Auhor's being drawn, by the vigour of his imagination, from the feat of Action and from the manners of the Scene, to one very different; especially, if it be one, of great fame and celebrity. So here, tho' the Scene be the deferts of Arabia, amongst familyheads of independent Tribes, and in the fimplicity. of primitive Manners, yet we are carried by a poetic fancy, into the midft of EGYPT, the beft policied, and the most magnificent Empire then exifting in the word.Why died I not from the womb (fays the chief Speaker) for now I should have lien ftill and been quiet, Ifhould have flept; then bad I been at reft; with KINGS and COUNSELLORS OF THE EARTH, which build DESOLATE PLACES for. themselves. i. e. magnificent buildings, in defolate places, meaning plainly the PYRAMIDS, raised in the midst of barren fands, for the burying places of the kings of Egypt.-Kings and counfellors of the earth-was, by way of eminence, the defignation of the Egyptian Governors. So Ifaiah the counsel of the wife counsellors of Pharaoh is be

Chap. xxxi. ver. 35-6. ¡ VOL. V.

D

4 Chap. ii. ver. 13, 14

come

come brutish. How fay ye unto Pharaoh, I am the fon of the wife, the son of ancient kings. But it may be obferved in general, that though the Scene confined the Author to fcattered Tribes in the midst of Deferts, yet his images and his ideas are, by an infenfible allure, taken throughout, from crouded Cities and a civil-policied People. Thus he speaks of the Children of the wicked being crushed in the gate, alluding to a City taken by ftorm, and to the deftruction of the flying inhabitants preffing one another to death in the narrow paffage of the City-gates.-Again, of the good man it is faid, that be fhall be bid from the Scourge of tongues; that peftilent mischief which rages chiefly in rich and licentious Communities. But there would be no end of giving inftances of this kind, where they are fo numerous.

Hitherto the Author feems unwarily to have betrayed his Times and Country. But we shall now fee that he has made numerous allufions to the miraculous Hiftory of his Ancestors with ferious purpofe and defign. For this poem being written, as will appear, for the comfort and folace of his Countrymen, he reasonably fuppofed it would advance his principal end, to refresh their memories with fome of the more fignal deliverances of their Forefathers. In the mean time, decorum, of which we

$

ISATAH Xix. 11.

Chap. v. ver. 4. The Septuagint renders it very expreffively κολαβεισθείησαν ἐπὶ θύραις ἡσσόνων.

t Ver. 21. evidently taken from these words of the Pfalmift, Thou shalt keep them fecretly in a pavi ion from the firife of tongues, Pf. xxxi. 20. For which was the copy and which the original can here admit no doubt, fince the image was an obvious one in the Pfamitt, who lived in a great city, lefs natural in Job who lived in a defert, as we have obferved above.