supposition) must in the days of Ezekiel have been the mere legendary tale of Job. Now, to avoid this glaring incongruity, we must, I appre hend, adopt a directly opposite supposition: which supposition will plainly involve both the then existence and the divine inspiration of the book before us. As Ezekiel, in mentioning the man Noah, virtually cites the book of Genesis; so, in conjointly mentioning the man Job, we must analogically conclude, that he also virtually cites the book of Job. But, if he thus cite the book, he both proves its existence prior to the time of Ezra, and places its claim to inspiration on the same footing with that of the book of Genesis.

Much the same remark applies to the reference made by St. James. Ye have heard, says he, of the patience of Job; and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy 1. Now, in thus mentioning the man, he certainly refers to the book: and, in thus referring to the book, he plainly refers to it as a well-known and universally-received portion of the sacred canon.

But, if this were not sufficient, the question of that book's inspiration is for ever settled by the authority of St. Paul. It is written, says he; the usual formula employed by him in citing the inspired books of the Old Testament: It is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness'. Now the book, whence this quotation is made,

1 James v. 11.

21 Corinth. iii. 19.

is the book of Job'. It will follow therefore, that, in the judgment of St. Paul, the book of Job is an inspired production.

We have now to inquire, whether there be any possibility of ascertaining the author of the work: a question, which (it is clear) can only be detertermined by such internal evidence as the book itself may afford.

I. For this purpose, we must begin with considering the age, to which that production ought generally to be ascribed.

1. Among the most prominent of those, who bring the work down to a very late period, is the learned Bishop Warburton. He pronounces it to be the composition of Ezra; and esteems it a sort of allegorical drama, though founded like Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel on real circumstances, written for the purpose of explaining to the Jews, that the partial and miraculous providence, which had hitherto attended their commonwealth, had now ceased to operate. If then such be its author and such its drift, we may expect, after the manner of the other sacred books, that it would frequently refer to various familiar points of Jewish history, and that it would specially allude to the events then taking place in the days of Ezra. Accordingly, the bishop produces many supposed references to facts which have been occurring from the time

of Moses down to the restoration of Judah, and wishes particularly to shew a studied allusion to the several transactions in which Ezra himself was concerned.

Numerous are the objections, to which such a theory seems liable; objections, which so far as I can judge, are altogether insurmountable.

(1.) I allow that some of the references to early events are very well made out by the bishop: but, when we descend to a lower period, it requires a most lively imagination to discern their propriety.

Hence we cannot but feel, that a series of mere fancied references to events, with which the adduced passages may possibly not have the slightest connection, is a very sandy foundation to build an hypothesis upon.

(2.) So again: there is reason, we have seen, to believe, that Ezekiel refers to the book of Job.

But, if this belief be well founded, the system of the bishop is irreconcileable with chronology: for, in that case, Ezekiel mentions the poem as being already in existence, prior to the restoration of Judah from Babylon.

(3.) Should such an argument however be deemed less certainly conclusive, what shall we say to the internal evidence afforded by the style of the composition?

This, I am aware, the bishop makes very light of: yet every reader even of moderate taste cannot but feel and acknowledge its force. When

VOL. II.

the Holy Spirit communicated the gift of inspiration, he conveyed facts and doctrines, not a copiousness of words or a construction of periods. The divine behests were delivered to the prophet indeed: but he himself was left to communicate them to man in his own phraseology. Hence we have that variety of style in the sacred books, which cannot be accounted for in any other manner. Such being the case, while the inspired historian of Job is plainly a man instinct with poetical fire and equal to the most sublime flights of a rapt imagination; we may venture to say, without any unbecoming irreverence, that the no less inspired Ezra, eminently devout and pious as he was, may well be esteemed, with the sole exception perhaps of Nehemiah, the very worst and most tasteless writer in the whole canon. We need only to read what we know him to have actually written, and we shall be convinced that he was a mere man of business; admirably indeed qualified to execute the work entrusted to him, but as little capable of producing the poem of Job as the author of those extraordinary verses which occur in the allegory of the Pilgrim's Progress was capable of writing the Faery Queen, or the Paradise Lost Doubtless Ezra, if such had been his commission, might, for all practical purposes, have communicated the moral of the book of Job, just as well as its incomparable author. But would he have done it in the same manner? It is almost impossible to believe, that he would.

5

So far as we can judge from the historical book of Ezra, not a spark of poetry would have been discernible from the beginning to the end of the discourse. As a steady man of business, Ezra would have faithfully communicated the high practical lessons revealed to him: and there we should have had an end of the matter. He would have turned neither to the right hand nor to the left, in order to cull a single poetic ornament or illustration. In short, I cannot think the observation of Bishop Lowth too strong, when combating the system of his great antagonist, that the ascription of the book of Job to such a writer as Ezra is scarcely less paradoxical than Hardouin's strange whim of assigning the golden verses of Horace and Virgil to the iron age of monkish pedantry and ignorance.

(4.) There is however another argument, which, being of a more tangible nature, may possibly by some be deemed more directly conclusive.

If Ezra wrote the book of Job with the drift which Bishop Warburton supposes, it plainly would altogether fail of producing the desired effect, unless its purport were fully explained to those for whose benefit it was intended. But, if once its purport had been so explained, the Jews could never have forgotten that explanation during the short period between Ezra and the birth of Christ. It would duly have been handed down in the public schools, and would have been taught by each expounding scribe in the syna