tant, far diftant, day of vifitation, when the heavens shall be no more, there will be an end of all fear of God, an end of all prayer and fupplication to him. Taking it in this light, we fee how the charge arises; but could he poffibly charge Job's hope of temporal deliverance with fuch confequences? If not, it is a great evidence in what manner he understood Job; and, I think, we need no other interpreter.

This very paffage is to me no inconfiderable argument of the reality of the history contained in the Book of Job, and of the antiquity of the Book itself: for, fuppofing the book to be a mere poetical fiction, upon what ground of probability does the author furnish Job with fuch exalted sentiments of religion, and at the fame time suppose them to be fuch fecrets to all his friends? Is there any fuch inftance in any author? Cicero, in his Dialogues, introduces philosophers of different opinions; but we find them all acquainted equally with the common notions of their own times and it would be abfurd in any author to fuppofe the contrary, without very evident reason; and there can be no fuch reafon but the evidence of hiftory. Confequently, the Book of Job muft be founded in hiftory, and not in invention. In the time of Job, true religion was preferved among a few, and communicated by fpecial revelation: whether therefore Job had himself this knowledge by prophecy, or received it by tradition in his own house from those who had, he might very well know what his friends and neighbours knew not. This circum

This fenfe of the paffage is confirmed by a like reflection in the Book of Job, chap xxi. from ver. 7. to ver. 15.

ftance is natural, and agreeable to the times, fuppofing the history to be true: but it is unnatural, and without probability, which is the very life of poetical fiction, fuppofing the book to be a mere fable or parable.

I have been much longer in examining these paffages in the Book of Job, than I intended; but this book is fo obfcure, and hard to be understood, that I found it would be to little purpose to produce the paffages, without endeavouring to fix the meaning of them. And if I have not mistaken in so doing, the time has not been ill employed for the evidence arifing from this book is in all refpects confiderable; and it is of great moment to fee those great strokes of true religion, and of God's purpose from the beginning, with respect to the children of men, preserved in an author who cannot be charged with Jewifh education or prejudices; but who was born in another country, of another family, and does not appear to have heard of Mofes, or his law, and yet the fecret of God was with him.

I will be very fhort in what follows.

We may confider the book of Pfalms, the Proverbs, and Ecclefiaftes, as the productions of one and the fame age; and there is no reason to think, but that the writers had the fame opinions in the fubjectmatters of our inquiry. If we find less than it may seem reasonable to expect from these writers, upon the fubject of the fall, and the promise made to Adam, there is a plain reason to be given why it is fo; for the great promises made to David of a Son, whofe kingdom fhould endure for ever, had eclipsed all the ancient hopes, and fo entirely poffeffed the mind

of the Pfalmift, and of his fon Solomon, that they feldom look higher than the immediate promifes of God to themselves. And yet God's method of opening gradually his purposes to different ages was upderstood by Solomon, who tells us, that the path of the juft is as the fhining light, that fhineth more and more unto the perfect day, Prov. iv. 18. The cafe was much the fame with the fucceeding prophets; they were minifters of new declarations made by God, and had no occafion to treat of the old. And of the later writers, none treat exprefsly of this fubject; if ever they mention it, it is only occafionally, and in tranfitu. All the help therefore to be had in this cafe must come from hints and allufions, and ways of speaking, which refer to ancient things, and fhew the writer's sense concerning them. Thus, when Solomon tells us, he applied his heart to know—the reafon of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness; and then declares the refult of all his inquiry, Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have fought out many inventions, Ecclef. vii. 25, 29. When he tells us, that there is not a juft man upon the earth, that doeth good, and finneth not, ver. 20: not one who can fay, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my fin, Prov. xx. 9. When David tells us, that he was fhapen in iniquity, that in fin did his mother conceive him, Pfalm li. 5. and that in the fight of God no man fhall be juftified, Pfal. cxliii. 2. When we read in the. Book of Wisdom, that God made not death; neither hath he pleasure in the deftruction of the living. For he created all things, that they might have their being; and the generations of the world were healthful; and

there is no poifon of deftruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon the earth. For righteousness is immortal. But ungodly men with their works and words called it to them, Wifd. i. 13, 14, 15, 16. And again, that God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his fide do find it, Wisd. ii. 23, 24. When the Son of Sirach tells us, that error and darkness had their beginning together with finners, Ecclus. xi. 16; that death is the fentence of the Lord over all flesh, Ecclus. xli. 3; that the covenant from the beginning was, Thou shalt die the death, Ecclus. xiv. 17; that, of the woman came the beginning of fin, and through her we all die, Ecclus. xxv. 24; that God, at the firft, filled man with the knowledge of understanding, and fhewed him good and evil, Ecclus. xvii. 7; and left him in the hand of his (own) counfel, Ecclus. xv. 14: when, I fay, we read and compare all these paffages together, can there be any reafonable foundation to doubt in what sense the ancient Jewish church understood the hiftory of the fall, or what confequences they afcribed to it?

When we find the wicked, and the enemies of God, represented under the image of a ferpent, Ifaiah xiv. 29. xxvii. 1. Micah vii. 17. of leviathan the crooked ferpent; of a dragon, Ifa. xxvii. 1: when we hear the wretchedness of the idolater described by the prophet in the following terms, He feedeth of afhes: a deceived heart hath turned him afide, that he cannot deliver his foul, Ifa. xliv. 20: and when we hear David finging the triumphs of his Son, to whom the everlafting kingdom was promifed, in fuch ftrains.

as thefe, His name fhall endure for ever: his name fhall be continued as long as the fun: and men fhall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed, Pfalm lxxii. 17. His enemies fhall lick the duft, ver. 9. He fhall tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon fhall he trample under feet, Pfal. xci. 13. He fhall bruife his enemies with a rod of iron, Pfalm ii. 9: when we hear likewife the prophet describing the kingdom, which he foretold, in like figures, and reprefenting the state of the wicked under that kingdom in these very words; and duft fhall be the ferpent's meat, Ifa. lxv. 25: can we give any tolerable account of these things, but by fuppofing David to understand, that the Son promised to him, in whofe time righteousness and truth were to be established, was the very feed of the woman, who fhould bruife the ferpent's head? Could the prophets understand their predictions to belong to any other, when the triumph of his reign was to be a victory over the serpent, whofe food fhould then be duft? Of the fame perfon David and the prophets foretel, that he should rule over all nations, that men Should be bleffed in him, that all nations fhould call him blessed; which is the diftinguishing character of the bleffed feed promised to Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, From all which it is evident, that the feed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head; the feed promised to Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth fhould be bleffed; the Son promised to David, to fit on his throne for ever; and the King, who fhould rule out of Sion, foretold by the prophets, is ONE and the SAME perfon: that the purpose of God, in giving the word of prophecy, was the fame in every age: that Chrift has, under different degrees of