both. The shewing it principally respected a whole People highly ennobles the subject: and the fixing an anonymous writing on one of the most eminent of GOD's Prophets greatly strengthens its authority. But the chief advantage of my interpretation, I presume, lies in this, That it renders one of the most difficult and obscure books in the whole Canon, the most easy and intelligible; reconciles all the characters to Nature, all the arguments to Logic, and all the doctrines to the course and order of God's Dispensations. And these things shewing it superior, in excellence, to any human Composition, prove, what universal Tradition hath always taught, that it is of divine Original.

II.

Having brought down the date of this book so low, it is of little importance to our subject, whether the famous passage in the nineteenth chapter be understood of a RESURRECTION from the dead, or only of TEMPORAL DELIVERANCE from afflictions*. Yet as our interpretation affords new assistance for determining this long debated question, it will not be improper to sift it to the bottom.

I make no scruple then to declare for the opinion of those who say that the words [I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter

day upon the earth. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another†,] can signify no more than JOB's confidence in a TEMPORAL DELIVERANCE; as all agree they may signify. And therefore I shall the less insist upon a common observation, "That our Translators, who were in the other opinion, have given

* See note [CC] at the end of this volume.

Chap. xix, ver. 25, & seq.

BB 2

a force

a force to their expression which the Original will by

no means bear."

My reasons are these, 1. To understand the words, of a Resurrection, is repugnant to the whole tenor of the Argument and to understand them of a temporal deliverance, is perfectly agreeable thereto. 2. The end and design of the Composition, as explained above, absolutely requires this latter sense, and disclaims the former. 3. The former sense is repugnant to Job's own express declaration in other places.

I. We must observe that the book of Job is strictly argumentative and though sententious, and abounding with poetic figures, yet they are all subservient to the matter in dispute. In this respect, much unlike the writings of David and Solomon, which treat of divine or moral matters in short and detached sentences. On which account, the ablest of those, who go into the sense of a Resurrection, have found the necessity of reconciling it to the Context. Thus much being granted, we argue against the sense they put upon it, from these considerations:-1. First the Disputants are all equally embarrassed in adjusting the ways of Providence. Job affirms that the Good man is sometimes unhappy: yet he appears to regard that Dispensation as a new thing and matter of wonder, upright men shall be astonished at this*; which, our interpretation well accounts for. The three friends contend that the Good man can never be unhappy, because such a situation would reflect dishonour on God's attributes. Now the doctrine of a Resurrection, supposed to be here urged by Job, cleared up all this embarras. If therefore his Friends thought it true, it ended the dispute: if false, it lay upon them to confute it. Yet they do neither: they neither call it into Chap. xvii. ver. 8.

question

question, nor allow it to be decisive. But, without the least notice that any such thing had been urged, they go on, as they began, to inforce their former arguments, and to confute that which, they seem to understand, was the only one Job had urged against them, viz. The consciousness of his own innocence. But to be a little more particular. It fell to Zophar's part to answer the argument contained in the words in question, which I understand to be this-" Take, says Job, this "proof of my innocence: I believe, and confidently expect, that God will visit me again in mercy, and

restore me to my former condition." To this Zophar, in effect, replies: But why are you so miserable now? For he goes on, in the twentieth chapter,. to describe the punishment of the Wicked to be just such a state as Job then laboured under. He does not directly say, The Good are not miserable; but that follows from the other part of the proposition (which he here inforces as being a little more decent) The bad are never happy. Now suppose Job spoke of the Resurrection, Zophar's answer is wide of the purpose. 2. But what is still more unaccountable, Job, when he resumes the dispute, sticks to the argument he first set out with; and though he found it gave his Friends little satisfaction, yet he repeats it again and again, But this other argument of a Resurrection, so full of Piety and Conviction, which they had never ventured to reply to, he never once resumes; never upbraids his Adversaries for their silence; nor triumphs, as he well might, in their inability to answer it. But, if ever it were the object of their thoughts, it passed off like a Dream or Reverie to which neither side gave any attention. In a word, the Dispute between Job and his Friends stands thus: They hold, that if GOD afflicted the Good man, it would be unjust; therefore

the Good man was not afflicted. Job says, that GoD did afflict the Good man: but that Reason must here submit, and own God's ways to be inscrutable. Could he possibly rest in that answer, how pious soever, if he had the more satisfactory solution of a FUTURE STATE? To this let me add, that if Job spoke of a Resurrection, he not only contradicts the general tenor of his argument, maintained throughout the whole disputation, but likewise what he says in many places concerning the irrecoverable dissolution of the body *. It is true, that even in the sense of a temporal deliverance he contradicts what he had said, in his despair, in the seventeenth chapter: But there is a manifest difference between a contradiction of opinion and belief, as in the first case; and of passion and affection only, as in the latter. And for this contradiction he seems to apologize, when he comes to himself, by desiring that this confidence in bis Deliverer might be engraved on a Rock, as the opinion he would stand to. 3. But what is strangest of all, When cach party had confounded themselves, and one another, for want, as one would think, of this principle of a Resurrection, which so easily unravelled all the perplexities of the dispute, the fourth Friend, the Moderator, steps in, as the precursor of the Almighty, who afterwards makes his appearance as the great Decider of the Controversy. Here then we might reasonably expect the Doctrine of the Resurrection to be resumed; and

* See ch. vii. ver. 9. 21. Ch. x. ver. 21. Ch. xvi. ver. 22. Ch. xiv. ver. 7, & seq. Could one who said, For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, &c. But man dieth, &c. could such a one (I speak of the personated character) think of the body, like him who said, But some man will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain; it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain, &c, 4

that

that the honour of the solution which it affords, was reserved for These; but, to our great surprise, they neither of them give us the least hint concerning it.Those who contend for this interpretation, suppose that the notion was here delivered in order to support its truth. What reason then can they give why neither the Moderator nor Decider should employ it, to clear up difficulties, when Job himself had touched upon it before Elihu justifies God's conduct; God bears witness to Job's innocence: yet both concur in resolving all into Power Omnipotent. This tends more to cloud than clear up the obscurities of the debate: Whereas the doctrine of a Resurrection had rendered every thing plain and easy. In a word, no solution is given, though a decision be made. All this, on the common System, is quite unaccountable to our faculties of understanding.

Let us see next whether my sense of the words agree better with the tenor of the Dispute. Job, now provoked past sufferance at the inhumanity and malice of his pretended Friends, gives himself up to despair; and seems, as we have observed, to contradict that part of his position which he had hitherto held †, "that God would at length bring the Good man out of trouble." For which being reproved by Bildad, (Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the ROCK be removed out of his place? i.e. because it is thy pleasure so obstinately to maintain that God does not govern by equal Laws, shall it therefore be so? The consequence of which would be a speedy desolation.-Shall the Rock or Providence * Chap. xvii. Chap. xviii. ver. 4.

↑ Ch. xiii. 15, 16.—xiv. 13.

of

By the Rock I suppose is meant the extraordinary Providence of God; this being the common name by which it went amongst