treats were conveyed to him. So far as any argument from analogy, is concerned, he may not be the author, just as well as he may.

(3.) There is yet another objection to the hypothesis of Archbishop Magee, which will serve to pave the way for our ascription of the book of Job to its true author. He supposes it to have been written by an Idumèan, and therefore by an alien from the commonwealth of Israel however pious the individual himself might be.

Now this seems to me to be directly contrary to the plan adopted of God, before the promulgation of the Gospel. The chosen house of Israel was both the special vehicle and the special depositary of God's word. Others, during the patriarchal ages, both good men like Noah and Jacob, and bad men like Balaam and the chief baker, might and often did receive prophetic intimations: but, in the bare reception and oral delivery of them, terminated their commission. It was no part of their office to compose canonical books, which should be laid up as authoritative documents in the Church of God: this task was exclusively reserved for the seed of Israel, when the Levitical Dispensation should be added to the Patriarchal. Accordingly, not a single instance can be produced; for to produce the book of Job as an exception were plainly to beg the very question which is litigated: not a single instance can be produced of any one of the canonical books, anterior to

the advent of Christ, having been written by any other than an Israelite. They record indeed, as occasion leads their authors, the inspired sayings of many who were not Israelites; and thus stamp upon them the impress of divine authority: but none of them were written save by Israelites alone.

To this peculiarity, which certainly exists, unless the book of Job be a solitary exception, St. Paul alludes in more than a single passage. At that time, says he to the Ephesians, ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world1. And yet more pointedly he remarks, when sum, ming up the peculiar privileges of his kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever?. The chosen people seem here to be represented as the exclusive vehicles and depositaries of God's word. To them appertain the promises: clearly not, as if they alone were interested or concerned in them, but as being the persons whose office it was first to record them and then in the canonical books faithfully to hand them down to posterity.

1

Ephes. ii. 12.

* Rom. ix. 4, 5.

If then there be any ground for supposing that such was the special office of the natural Israel; and the circumstance of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with the sole exception of the litigated book, having been composed by members of that house strongly corroborates the supposition: if, I say, there be any ground for this supposition; then we cannot allow the book of Job to have been written by an Idumèan.

2. But, whatever may be thought of the present argument, there is evidence enough in the book itself to prove that it must have been composed by an Israelite subsequent to the delivering of the Law from mount Sinai: nor can this evidence be set aside, except by the gratuitous supposition, that the book indeed was written by Job, but that it was afterward interpolated by Moses.

In a passage already cited for a different purpose, the holy man is described as speaking in the following terms.

If I beheld the Sun when it shined, or the Moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:

THIS ALSO WERE AN INIQUITY TO BE PUNISHED

BY THE JUDGE; for I should have denied the God that is above'.

We cannot but observe, that Job here represents idolatry as A SIN LIABLE TO BE PUNISHED

1 Job xxxi. 26-28.

BY THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE. But in what state throughout the whole world did any such enactment exist, save in the Hebrew commonwealth after the Law had been delivered from mount Sinai? In pagan countries, it clearly could not exist; and, in the land of Edom, it clearly did not exist for, if it did, how are we to account for the manifest increase of idolatry in that country, to which Job evidently refers and which he no less evidently dreads? Admitting however that this point cannot be absolutely demonstrated, we may at all events reasonably argue, that, if any such statute had existed in primitive Edom, it must previously have existed in the more pure patriarchal houses of Abraham and Isaac, and must synchronically have existed in the chosen patriarchal house of Jacob: for, in the state of society which then prevailed, each of these powerful shepherds was a prince or (in modern oriental phraseology) an emir'.

In combating the difficulty, which the text now before us presents to his hypothesis, Archbishop Magee appears to have altogether failed. Scripture, says he, decides the point; as it informs us, that Abraham was called from Chaldea, on account of the increase of idolatry, to raise a people for the preservation of the worship of the true God:

'See particularly Gen. xiv. 12-24. xxi. 22—34. xxiii. 6. xxvi. 12-16, 26–29.

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so that the allusion to the exertion of judicial authority against idolatry was most naturally to be expected from a descendant of this patriarch, and, it may be added, from one not far removed'.

Most undoubtedly such an allusion might have been expected from Job, had any civil law against idolatry existed in the patriarchal houses descended from Abraham: but the existence of this law is, I apprehend, the very point to be proved, though it is the very point which Archbishop Magee has omitted to prove; for, if the law existed not before the time of Job, he plainly could not allude to it. It is perfectly true, that Abraham was called out of Chaldea, on account of the increase of idolatry, in order that he might raise up a people to preserve the worship of the true God: but how does this prove, that either he or his immediate descendants had any commission to exercise judicial authority in the punishment of idolatry? They would of course repress and discourage it, as much as lay in their power: but this is not preeisely the point. The question is, whether, in the capacity of magistrates, they inflicted punishment upon such of their dependants or subjects as might be guilty of it; just as they would have punished them for theft or murder. Now the mere call of Abraham from among the idolaters of Chaldèa

1 Disc. on the Atonem. vol. ii. p. 109.