proachable Elihu and even by God himself. Nor is this all we additionally find him, at length giving up the matter, and fairly confessing that he is so vile as to abhor himself and to repent in dust and ashes.

3. As for the hypothesis of Garnet, that the poem is an ingenious allegory, in which the condition of Job shadows out the sufferings of the Jews during the Babylonian captivity, little need be said upon an opinion so palpably fanciful and gratuitous.

There is nothing in the whole train of reasoning, which in the slightest degree can be made to bear upon that part of the Jewish history. Job indeed is brought out of great affliction into great prosperity; and the Jews were brought out of captivity into the land of their ancestors : so far therefore we may discover a similitude between the two cases. But the whole similitude begins and ends with the historical part of the book the moment we turn to the drama, we are encountered by a succession of arguments, than which nothing can well be more foreign to the captivity of the Jews in Babylon.

4. Neither yet can I find any sufficient warrant for adopting the hypothesis of Bishop Sherlock, that the book was composed in opposition to the old Magian doctrine of two independent principles.

It is obvious, that the mere introduction of Satan, at the commencement of the poem, is not

enough to establish any such system as that of the bishop and, as there is nothing in the general texture of the work which might naturally induce a belief that this is its object, so his lordship brings nothing forward which may fairly be deemed an attempt to prove his point, save the insulated circumstance that God is said to have formed the crooked serpent'. Now, though I believe with the Seventy that Satan or the apostate dragon is intended by this expression, it may yet be well suspected, that a single insulated declaration can scarcely suffice to establish the object of a long poem. Had the drift of the work been to oppose the doctrine of an independent and uncreated principle of evil, we should surely have found, interwoven throughout with its whole contexture, a regular train of consistent and wellsustained argument against the dogma in question. But to seek for any thing of this description were altogether lost labour. Nothing occurs, save a naked and detached assertion, that God formed the crooked serpent: and such an assertion might just as well occur in any other sacred poem on any other theological subject. Nay, even if we grant that in this particular place (as is undoubtedly the case with a remarkable passage in Isaiah) the author alluded to the Magian doctrine of two independent principles; our concession will by no means pledge us to maintain,

1 Job xxvi. 13.

2 Isaiah xlv. 7.

that the confutation of that doctrine was the special object of the entire work. But, I think, it may be reasonably doubted, whether any such concession ought to be made even in regard to the particular place itself. If we may judge from the general context of the passage, the Magian doctrine could not at all have been present to the mind of its author: for he is merely enumerating various instances of God's almighty power; and among these instances, he very appositely adduces the fact, that he even formed the crooked serpent himself'. Thus defective, so far as I can judge, is the proof set up by Bishop Sherlock'.

5. The theory of Bishop Warburton, wonderfully ingenious as it is, can scarcely, if subjected to a strict examination, be esteemed more solid.

His lordship imagines, that the poem was written by Ezra for the comfort of the Israelites, when they found the extraordinary providence of the Theocracy withdrawn from them, and when in consequence they observed the frequent prosperity of the wicked and the frequent depression of the pious.

Such an opinion seems to me alike inconsistent with the bishop's own acknowledgments and with the internal structure of the poem itself. (1.) According to his lordship, Job's three

1 Job xxvi. 5—14.

2 Sherlock's Dissert. ii. p. 243–247.

friends, who enigmatically represent Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem, argue, upon the ancient principles of the Theocracy, that severe temporal afflictions are an undoubted proof of guilt: while the patriarch, on the contrary, who personifies the Jewish nation, strenuously denies their conclusion, and maintains himself to be innocent though troubled and afflicted. How then is the dispute to be settled, so as to vindicate God's justice to man, without calling in the aid of a future state? For, if the bad be prosperous, and if the good be afflicted in this world; while no other world is to be expected in which all such irregularities may be rectified: no choice is left to us, save either Atheism or Epicureanism. Now the bishop's theory leaves this important question wholly unsettled; when yet, even by his own acknowledgment, it might in the days of Ezra have been settled with the utmost facility. He contends, that the book of Job is wholly silent respecting a future retributory state. Hence, when Elihu comes to act as the moderator of the dispute, and when God at length finally shuts it up; the question in debate is simply resolved into God's sovereign will and pleasure and wisdom and power.

Such, if we may believe Bishop Warburton, is the drift of this celebrated poem. But here, even to say nothing of chronological difficulties, two very natural objections immediately present themselves.

The first is, that an inspired poem, written purposely to resolve a most important question which greatly staggered and distressed the Jews upon their return from Babylon, does in fact leave the question quite unresolved. For the Jews, being in much perplexity on account of the cessation of an equal providence, and being still ignorant of a future state as the bishop in this stage of his argument contends, instead of being presented with the true solution of the difficulty, namely the doctrine of a future retributory state, are simply taught, that the wicked are prosperous, and that the good are afflicted, here, BECAUSE it is God's good pleasure that it should be so. Now, what comfort, or what edification, the perplexed Jews could derive from such a mode of settling the matter, I am unable to comprehend. After much preparation and much discussion, the author leaves the matter just where he found it. I acknowledge, that we are no longer under an equal providence: I confess, that the wicked are often much more prosperous than the good. But why should this stagger your faith? Be comforted and be happy under your troubles. For know, that the whole is of God's sovereign will and good pleasure. This, according to Bishop Warburton, is the entire argument and drift of the book of Job.

Here then comes in the second objection. However his lordship, when it happens to suit his present purpose, may assert that the Jews, in the time of Ezra, were ignorant of a future