the gospel." With those persons, therefore, who would read the books of the Sacred Scripture in chronological order, a practice attended with very great advantage, the perusal of the Book of Job should follow the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis, as belonging to the patriarchal times, previous to that new era in the church of God, which commenced with the call of Abraham".

Esteeming what has been mentioned as the ultimate object of the enrolling of this book in the canon of Scripture, we may learn its more immediate object from the Apostle James " Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." St. James had said, in general, that we must take the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction and of patience." He particularizes the case of Job, because his sufferings were very great: we chiefly know him from his trials; and because in this scripture we learn, more at length than in any other, that the Lord has always an end and wise design in the trials and afflictions of his servants, however extraordinary and unaccountable they may at the time appear; and that when this end of the Lord' is seen, it will be found, as we learn from the case of Job, that, however grievous for the present the affliction may be, we shall be compelled to count them happy that endure.' That same chastening Father, whose hand had seemed so heavy, and his chidings, perhaps, so severe and cruel, will be demonstrated, in the end, to have been very pitiful and of tender mercy" towards us in all his dealings with us.

a According to Dr. Hales's Chronology, Job died forty-four years before the birth of Abraham, who entered Canaan a little more than a hundred years after Job's death.

This is the great moral of the story of Job. In so early an age did the wisdom of God see fit to read this lesson to his church for it seems to hold good under every dispensation, under the patriarchal as well as the gospel, that through much tribulation' we may be called to ' enter into the kingdom of God,' not, indeed, as a thing of course, or of necessity, but still as often seen to be fit and conducive to good, in the manifold wisdom of God, in making us partakers of His holiness. This lesson, so requisite to be known by the church in all ages, and somewhat hard to be learned, was taught at this very early period. And though the dispensations of the covenant of grace have varied, and, in some things, that which was glorious once has now no glory, by reason of that which excelleth; yet the instructions to be learned from the patience of Job,' and from the end of the Lord,' as seen in his trial, are as useful and as much needed as ever. Nothing since revealed has superseded these instructions. We live under the same Providence, it is the same chastening Father; there is the same need for correction unto righteousness. The same trial of faith now worketh patience, and there is the same blessing to "the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him."

Some vulgar notions, indeed, are still current about 'Job, the most patient man.' But we do not, in fact, find Job, in all respects, a model of patience, in the common acceptation of the term. The word, however, strictly signifies persevering continuance,' or 'constancy,' in pursuit of, or waiting for, an object, rather than the bearing of trouble with an equal, undisturbed mind. It is not what affliction finds in the mind, but what it works or produces. "Tribulation worketh patience." "Be

patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain." "Let us run with patience the race set before us." The fortitude and equanimity of Job's mind, we shall see, though it was not small, gave way in his severe troubles; but, where his faith is fixed upon the coming of his Redeemer, his very trials seem to have given him steadfastness and constancy. Though he despaired of all besides, though his faith was tried with fire, and every other dependence of his mind was burned up-for it is discovered that he had some wrong dependencies in his mind, particularly the pride and boast of a self-righteous spirit, which it was the design of God to prove and consume by the fire of affliction,-yet, notwithstanding, his faith was found unto praise, and honour, and glory; and the God of patience and of all consolation,' after he had separated his dross from the gold, restored him to prosperity, and highly exalted him. Thus is he counted happy as one that had endured chastisement, and saw "the end of the Lord, that he is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

Another great doctrine of the faith, which we shall also find in a particular manner taught and illustrated in the Book of Job, is that of Providence: not only that there is a constant and particular providence in all the affairs of men, but that that conduct of the Disposer of all things, which sometimes appears to us so strange, so mysterious, and inexplicable, and so contrary to all right and reason, in our poor estimate of things, is in every instance the dispensation of a wise, just, designing, and ever-watchful mind, whose will in all things nothing has resisted. For, though voluntary agents, men and angels are the instru ments of his providence, they cannot go beyond the word

of the Lord to do less or more of their own accord, but can only accomplish that which his counsel and foreknowledge determined to be done; so that in all events we should learn to say, not only it is "the Lord," but also the Lord is just, and wise, and good."

a The absolute dependance of angelic beings, be they good or evil, on the will of God in all their actings towards man, which is very clearly shown in the Book of Job, is carefully to be observed. And the more especially as a learned author, to whose critical labours on this portion of Scripture we owe so much, has sanctioned, in his preface and notes, what the late Bishop Horsley justly denominates "the abominable doctrine of a participation of the holy angels in God's government of the world." That is, not as simple messengers and ministers of the Almighty, which is not disputed, but as tutelar demigods, having a discretionary authority placed in their hands ;-a doctrine, as the Bishop observes, "nearly allied to idolatry," and "much the same thing as polytheism ;" and which indeed countenances one of the worst parts of the Roman Catholic superstition, dividing the worship of Christians between God and his saints, so that we have" Lords many," if not "Gods many."

One term, indeed, which Mr. Good uses as an epithet, for an order in his imagined celestial hierarchy, Melizim,'' intercessors,' will convey to the mind of the pious believer a fearful apprehension, lest an infringement upon the office of the ONE MEDIATOR between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ," is intended; and especially, as Mr. Good, when he states, as one of the chief doctrines of the patriarchal religion, "The propitiation of the Creator, in the case of human transgressions, by sacrifices, and the media. tion and intercession of a righteous person," is by no means explicit in stating whether he means sacrifice as to the act itself, the opus operatum, or, as a typical and sacramental rite, having reference to the SHEDDING of the precious blood of Christ,-whether the own proper righteousness of the patriarchal priest was the prevailing mediation for the souls of men; or whether the priestly office of the patriarchal ages was merely emblematical of the GREAT MEDIATOR's office, of whose righteousness alone' we are to make mention,' and not, in this view, of the imitative righteousness, with which the faithful priest is clothed.

With respect, however, to this doctrine of the tutelar protection of angels, and their intermediate government as a kind of mesne lords, I must own I had discovered nothing like it in the Book of Job; and am very far from thinking, as this author asserts," that the plain and common sense of the terms referred to, in the very ancient poem before us," afford any argument to prove that "such a doctrine was of patriarchal belief." I am still disposed to say with Bishop Horsley, "Confidently I deny that a single text is to be found in holy writ, which, rightly understood, gives the least countenance to this doctrine;"-" the most that can be made of angels is, that they are servants, occasionally employed by the Most High God to do his errands for the elect *.”

* Sermons, vol. ii. p. 416, 417.

A chief difference, in a general point of view, which will be found, in the present exposition of the Book of Job,

Mr. Good, I apprehend, from his representation of Bishop Horsley, page 73, has not made himself master of his meaning: since, if the reader compares the two authors together, he will find Bishop Horsley's opposition to the doctrine to be not" apparent only," as Mr. Good terms it," and merely under an apprehension of its abuse," but as strong and decided as language can express. He will find a wide difference between the concessions of the Bishop respecting the ministration of angels, and the doctrine maintained by Mr. Good, which the Bishop terms " abominable, nearly allied to idolatry, or rather much the same thing with polytheism." I think, too, Mr. Good to be particularly unfortunate in his emendation of the Bishop's translation of Dan. iv. 14, or 17.

To the division of the "Ourin," watchers, "is the decree, and to the Kedosin," holy ones," the introspection." How this is giving the words a' more Chaldaic bearing' than that approved by the Bishop, I am at a loss to discover! I should have thought it had been more usual at least, both in the Chaldee and in the Hebrew, to have understood as expressive of the instrument rather than of the object. For the meaning of the word, we need not travel far. In the 24th verse, or 21st in the Chaldee of the same chapter, it is used again; and what in the verse before us is called "the decree of the watchers," is there called the decree of the Most High, the same word being used in each place. How the word comes to mean "a division of a host," does not appear from the Chaldee; for this Mr. Good has recourse to the Hebrew ; for which, however, there is no occasion, as the prophet's repetition of the word in a sentence where the meaning is not disputed, is quite satisfactory as to the sense in which he uses the word in the place before us. By the decree of THE WATCHERS is this order," or "warrant," or " judicial decision."

The word y, which after the LXX. and vulgate, we translate 'watchers' being an araž syμvov, must rest upon its own merits. But as derived from y, according to the usual etymology, it is indeed a most expressive epithet of Deity, of the ever-wakeful, ever-watchful providence of the Omniscient"the unsleeping eyes of God." For it is a mistake to take the secondary idea of watching, keeping guard, since, in its primary notion, it expresses the active employment of the energies of the mind. "Primaria significatio est fervere, æstuare. Hinc surrexit, excitavit se, evigilavit."

Lastly, what can Mr. Good mean by the declaration," the term op is still less applicable to the Godhead!!" We have only to translate it as it is usually translated in Scripture "holy ones," and every person will perceive that is a very common appellation of Deity among the sacred writers. In the Hebrew of Joshua xxiv. 19, and of Proverbs ix. 11, you will find it used as here in the plural number, in application to the sacred Godhead. Nor is there the least reason to suppose, that the term in the Chaldean dialect had a different acceptation, which rendered it inapplicable to the Supreme Being. Compare Dan. iv. 16. That the same term is used of the saints, or consecrated ministers of God, though liable to defilement and defectibility, unsuitable to their holy station and office,' certainly affords