"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 concern ing 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 old 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 66 piety that rightly applied a consolation, or whether it "was his vanity that arrogated a false confidence to "himself.

"This difficulty therefore being removed, namely, why "his friends were not immediately put to silence when "Job had so solemnly and magnificently talked of a "future judgment, nothing hinders us from applying "that celebrated text cap. xix, not to a temporal resti"tution to his former condition, but to a resurrection to "eternal life. But if, to the arguments brought by our "Commentator, you add also those, which a writer "above all praise, the present Bishop of Sarum, hath "most beautifully interwoven in his Dissertation on the

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Opinion of the Ancients concerning the Circumstances "and Consequences of the Lapse of Mankind, I believe you "will want nothing to confirm you in the opinion of the antiquity of the book, and my sense of this most perplexed passage." Thus far the very candid and learned writer; who will not be displeased with me for examining the reasons he hath here offered against my explanation of the book of Job.

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He begins with saying, that I have by many arguments sufficiently specious, endeavoured to proce that the whole book of Job is dramatical and allegorical, yet founded in true history, and written by Esdra in solace of the Jews, &c. And then immediately subjoins, Now in a matter very uncertain, and which hitherto hath been made more · uncertain by the different opinions of learned men, hardly any hypothesis can be thought of which will satisfy in all its parts. Let us attend to the opening of his cause. 1. le owns my hypothesis to be sufficiently specious, and vet calls the subject, which this hypothesis explains; a matter very uncertain; nay, HITHERTO rendered more uncertain. By what? why, if you will believe himself,

by

by many arguments sufficiently specious; for this is the character he is pleased to give of these of mine, which fill up the measure of those different opinions, from whence so great uncertainty is accumulated. 2. He says that in an uncertain matter scarce any hypothesis can satisfy. Now, though this be a common-place thought, it is nevertheless a very false one. For it is only in uncertain matters that hypotheses are invented, to be applied, to account for the appearances of things: and sure it is not of the nature of an hypothesis to be unsatisfactory? 3. It is equally false that an uncertain matter is, otherwise than by accident, rendered more uncertain by diversity of opinions. For the greater the diversity is, the greater is the chance of coming to the truth as the more roads men take in an uncertain way, the greater the likelihood of finding out the right. 4. It is not required in a satisfactory hypothesis that it should satisfy in all its parts: for then the greatest and most momentous truths would never be acquiesced in, since some of the fundamental points of religion, natural and revealed, do not satisfy in all their parts; there being inexplicable objections even to demonstrative propositions. 5. But what is strangest of all, though he says hardly any hypothesis can be thought of which will satisfy in all its parts; yet, before he comes to the end of his paragraph, he has found one that does satisfy: and, stranger still, it is the common one, whose incapacity of giving satisfaction was the reason for the critics excogitating so many different ones. However, in this hypothesis he rests, like a prudent man as he is. Therefore (says he) as I am of their opinion who think the book of Job the oldest in the canon, so I am fully persuaded that it was written by Moses himself, who took it from authentic records, and put it into the dress of poetry. Indeed, to make way through so much doubt and uncertainty, to an opinion he may find his account in, he has kept a wicket open by the insertion of the particle vir; vir ulla forsan hypothesisbut this will scarce serve his purpose; for the reasons why hardly any hypothesis can satisfy, extend as well to that he has given as to those he has rejected: unless he will suppose the rest to be discredited by dissenting from

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that,

that, and not that from the rest: which perhaps after all may be his thought.

He proceeds-And on this our opinion a good account may be given of all those texts, if any such there be, wherein allusion is made to the Jewish law or history before the book was written, no less than if we should allow it to have been written by Esdra, of whom the learned think differently. Now, not to insist upon this, that the common hypothesis, here followed, which makes Aloses the author, supposes him to have wrote it before this mission; and consequently, before the Jewish law and affairs, alluded to, were given and transacted: not, I say, to insist on this, though no probable reason can be assigned for Moses's writing such a work but for the people in captivity; I will readily allow that Moses might write any thing that happened to him or his people, in or before his administration, as easily as Esdra could do. But the question is, which of the two is most likely to have done so. Our Author grants this to be a work of imitation, or of the drainatic kind; in which the manners and adventures of the persons acting are to be represented. Now could Moses mistake, or, in such a work, give without mistaking, the history of his own time for the history of Job's? that is, make Job speak of the Egyptian darkness, or the passage of the Red Sea? Adventures of the writer's own atchieving. Esdra indeed either way might well do this, as he lived so many ages after the facts in question. Could Euripides, for example, have been so absurd as to make Orestes and Clytemnestra speak of his own time or actions? Though he might, without much absurdity, have made them mix the manners, or allude to some adventures of the time of Draco. But our Author's caution deserves commendation; if (says he) there be any such: the use of this is evident, that if his own solution will not hold, he may be at liberty to deny the thing itself. But what he means, by observing it, in discredit of Esdra's claim, that learned men think differently of him, as if they did not think differently of Moses too, is, I confess, not so evident.

He goes on-And as to those places, which in the opinion of the Author of the D. L. rifer to histories of later times,

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times, such as the sickness and recovery of Hezekiah, chap. xxxiii, ver, 25. and the destruction of the Assyrian army, chap. xxxiv. ver. 20. it will sufficiently appear, by the motes to which I refer, the reader, that there is no need to understand them in this sense, and that they are more commodiously understood otherwise. On this point I agree to join issue with him, and to refer myself to the judgment of the public...

Further, (says he) that the work is dramatical, or, to speak more properly, a true history in the form of a drania, and adorned with a poetical dress, was always my opinion: but that any allegory lies under it, I can by no means persuade myself to believe; because not only the age of the writer, but the very scope of the book (as far as I can see) leads us to conclude otherwise. As to the scope of the book, we shall examine that matter by and by: but his other argument, from the age of the writer, deserves no examination at all, as it is a downright begging the question; which is concerning the writer and his age. Now these, by reason of the writer's silence, being uns certain, must be determined by the subject and circumstances of the work, which are certain: for our Author, therefore, to disprove a circumstance, brought to determine the question, by an argument in which the question is taken for granted, I should think unfair, were it not become the authorized logic of all those, writers who give their own opinions for principles. It rests then at last, we see, in his belief and persuasion and this is always regulated on the belief and persuasion of those who went before. Thus he believes the book to be dramatical, because others have believed so too: he believes it not to be állegorical, because he could find no other in that belief before the Author of the D. L. But let us now hear what he has to say concerning the scope of the book.

For us to what this Writer [the Author of the D. L.] says, that the main question handled in the book of Job is whether good happens to the good, and exil to ecil 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, that inclined our Author to give my notions no better. But he should have been a little more careful in timing his observation: for, as it happens, what I have shewn 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 shewn to be the subject of the book; and very fitly so, as every reasonable hypothesis should be supported on fact. Now I appeal to the whole 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 establish my hypothesis, that the book of Job must have been written about the time of Esdra, because no other assignable time can be suited to the subject.-But 'tis possible I may mistake what he calls my hypothesis: for aught I know he may understand. not that of the book of Job, but that of the book of the Divine Lega tion. And then, by my hypothesis, he must mean the great religious principle I endeavour 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 written to testify; which all Christians profess to believe; and which none but Infidels directly deny. However, if this be the hypothesis he means, I need

desire no better a support. But the truth is, m.

pretation of the book of Job seeks support from nothing but those common rules of grammar and logic on which the sense of all kinds of writings are or ought to be interpreted.

He goes on in this manner. For the SOLE purpose of the sacred Writer seems to me to be this, to compose a work that should remain a perpetual document of humility und patience to all good men in affliction, from this two

fold