"The Bishop cannot be allowed to extricate himself: sometimes by asserting, that, were Moses and the Prophets the commissioned servants of God, they could not teach a future state, since it was exclusively ordained and reserved for the ministry of Jesus; and at other times by declaring, that the doctrine was gradually opened by the Prophets to the people, and that it is plainly impertinent to adduce against his theory any text written after the time of David, because what was known from this time could not supply the want of what was unknown for so many ages before. The doctrine either was, or was not, known previous to the ministration of Christ: and we have a right to demand that the Bishop should steadily adhere either to the one or the other position. If it was known, previous to the ministration of Christ and after the time of David; then nothing can be more nugatory and irrelevant than to adduce passages, written during this intermediate period of confess ed knowledge, by way of proving the perfect ignorance of the Israelites: if, on the contrary, it was not known, or rather if his lordship finally maintains that it was not known, then it is equally nugatory to declare, that all passages, brought from writings posterior to the time of David with the view of confuting such an opinion, are manifestly impertinent. Let the Bishop take either side of the alternative; and his reasoning, in one part or other of his great work, will still be found inconclusive and contradictory: but by no rules of sound logic can he be allowed, first to take this side, and then to take that side; first to maintain that the doctrine was known before the ministration of Christ, and then to maintain that the doctrine neither was nor even could be known before the ministration of Christ; just as the one or the other opinion may best serve his current train of argument." Vol. II. pp. 98-100. We think it really necessary to adduce these severities, though somewhat mercilessly inflicted, in order to shew, more especially to our younger readers, if any of them have patience to wade through such a discussion, the measure of authority due to Warburton; or rather the extent of caution with which his very fascinating and really important work should be read. At the same time, we should have been glad to have seen what is really of value in his theory brought forward into greater prominence. And, most of all, we think that justice is not done to the actual argument deduced by the Bishop to the Divine Legation of Moses, from the exhibition of those temporal sanctions to a political code, which none but an inspired Lawgiver could have ventured to lay down. Had the Bishop stopped here, as we have already observed, all would have been well. That, after all, Mr. Faber has fully satisfied us as to why the subject of a future state should have been so sparingly and so darkly treated in the Old Testament, as confessedly it is, we cannot absolutely pronounce. We must say, we think it little better than trifling on a serious subject, to answer the inquiry by sending us to the statutes of the English realm, or to the canons of the church, to see how often the doctrine of a future state is there inculcated on the English reader. The Old Testament, like the New, was composed for what the statutes at large never were, to shew men the way to eternal happiness. The true question is, why, with that object before them, the Scriptures of the Old Testament should have made references to the eternal world, apparently so inadequate to their own ultimate design. It is very certain that a knowledge of future immortality extended widely even amongst the ancient pagans, and therefore, à fortiori, in spite of Bishop Warburton, amongst the ancient church of God. Indeed, it seems clearly to lie at the basis of all religion whatsoever, and almost to enter the mind with the first notices of the existence of a Divine Being. Consequently, it may have been deemed unnecessary to inculcate that doctrine more particularly; even as it had not been necessary to insist on the existence of a God, this being presupposed in the very attempt to instruct men in the course of His dispensations, His name, His nature, His unity and perfections: these were the particular subjects of instruction; because these had been peculiarly abused, perverted, or the knowledge of them lost. Indeed, immortality, as a right, had been clearly forfeited by the Fall: and it might possibly comport with the Divine wisdom to withhold from men too full an expression of that hope, in order to make them feel their own unworthiness of it at all; and in order to keep them low in their own sight, and at the greatest possible distance from that Luciferian pride which once said in heart, "I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, on the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." The language of distant, and even obscure hope, might far better befit our guilty race; more especially so soon after the fall, and after repeated lapses, and accumulated overthrows, than one of confident assurance, or undoubting claim. But, further, it is not to be forgotten, (and thus far we concede to Bishop Warburton,) that Christ was not as yet come, who was more clearly to open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. We must therefore naturally expect a very different language at that period from the language which befitted the new dispensation, when "life and immortality were brought to light" by the very circumstance of Christ having come to ABOLISH DEATH. Judah, the Old-Testament Christ, was not COME. He had yet to pass through human flesh, and by the cross, to his glory. It was therefore highly fit, we may imagine, that the ancient believer should in a measure fix bis eye on that earthly scene, through which Christ was yet to pass to his final triumph; as the Christian believer is now privileged to fix his eye on that triumph THE itself: and by the very same act of "looking unto Christ," to look no longer to a " Christ after the flesh,” but to look to Him as a risen, an ascended, and a glorified Saviour : thither in heart and mind to ascend, where Christ is now ascended; and with Him there continually to dwell. It was, in fine, we may well believe, this species of preparatory faith to which the Apostle alludes in Heb. xi., when he says of the ancient fathers, they "died in faith, not having RECEIVED PROMISE:" and adds, "God having provided some BETTER thing for us; that they, without us,”—that is, perhaps, without our time arriving, when Christ should actually renew the full assurance of immortality by His own resurrection from the dead, " should not be made perfect," or possess that full and perfect hope which Christians now enjoy. We have said thus much on the ground of the comparatively feeble light of the Old Testament on this subject, as contrasted with that of the New; but we by no means admit that the former is not perfectly and most clearly visible to every careful observer. Our readers may refer to a short paper in our volume for 1820, p. 504, from the pen of the late Henry Martyn, in which some of the proofs of the Old-Testament belief in a future state, are concisely but irrefragably noticed. We omit any further mention of Mr. Faber's ingenious fifth chapter, shewing the actual notices of a future state in the Pentateuch, and adopting the hieroglyphical notions of Bishop Warburton, so far as to make the whole mystery of the tabernacle worship a kind of contrived hieroglyphical representation of the passage from earth to heaven, and which he contends to have been more or less understood by the very actors in the scene themselves; and we proceed to the second and very important discussion in this book, embraced in the three sections of the sixth chapter, "respecting the attestation of Moses to the doctrine of a future state, as discoverable in the Book of JOB." Whatever may be the ultimate decision of the theological world upon the several opinions maintained in this lengthened chapter, it will be impossible not to acknowledge the labour and thought which have been lavished upon it, the research which it manifests into some, though not all, of the opposing hypotheses; and the consistency with which, from beginning to end, the author pursues his own views of the subject. His conclusion is, that the Book of Job is intended for a conveyance of the great doctrine of redemption, and of justification through the power and grace of the Messiah, who was to come. We cannot approach such a discussion but with friendly feelings to the author; and with a wish at least to offer our few remarks in a spirit accordant with his own. The following summary of the state of the question will shew its progress previous to this inquiry by Mr. Faber, as well as the order in which he has himself laid down his own discussion. "Various have been the opinions entertained respecting both the age in which Job himself flourished, the author of the book which describes his fortunes, and the drift and object of its composition. "I. Eusebius places Job two whole ages before Moses; concurring in opinion with many of the Hebrew writers, who describe him as living in the days of Isaac and Jacob. Shuckford supposes him to have been contemporary with Isaac. Spanheim places him between the death of Joseph and the departure of Israel from Egypt. And Kennicott and Heath, assenting to the general arrangement of Spanheim, represent him as contemporary with Amram the father of Moses; Eliphaz, the Temanite, whom they make the fifth from Abraham, being contemporary with both. "II. So much for the man: nor has there been less discrepancy respecting the author of the book. Some place Job's trial still higher namely, 184 years before Abraham's birth, judging principally from the length of his life, his silence respecting the conflagration of Sodom, and a curious astronomical calculation of Dr. Hales. "Huet, Michaelis, and Kennicott, sup- fallen into his hands either in the land of "III. The object of the work likewise "Houbigant thinks, that it was composed for the purpose of shewing that a good man might be afflicted in this world without any imputation upon the Divine justice; though, in the early ages, notoriously impious men were struck by the hand of Heaven beyond the ordinary course of nature. Warburton, taking up the same leading idea, contends, that it was written by Ezra for the comfort of the Israelites, when they found the extraordinary providence of the Theocracy withdrawn from them. Garnet deems it an ingenious allegory, in which the condition of Job is considered as descriptive of the sufferings of the Jews during the captivity. Grey, the epitomiser of Schultens, contents himself with pronouncing it a perpetual document of humility and patience to all good men in affliction. And Sherlock supposes it to have been written in opposition to the ancient doctrine of two independent principles; one of good, the other of evil." Vol. II. pp. 194-197. First, as to the age, family, and country of Job-the country had been settled by Dr. Good (to whose laborious comment on Job Mr. Faber never, that we observe, refers,) to have been Idumea, a part of Arabia Petrea. With a boldness, however, far exceeding that of this commentator, Mr. Faber advances into his text, what the other had placed in the humble position of a note; namely, a genealogy, manifestly spurious, in the epilogue of the Seventy to the Book of Job, in which Job is made to be 1. Jacob, &c. 5. Moses. Eliphaz the Temanite, perhaps the eldest of Job's comforters, is likewise discovered the second in descent from Isaac, being a son of Esau, while Bildad, and Zophar are relegated to the aboriginal, and we presume uncircumcised, Shemmite kings of the country. A still more curious piece of antique history, however, is ventured by Mr. Faber, in accounting for the invasion of the territory and property of Job about this time, by certain bands of marauding Chaldeans. These are brought over the desert, a very long distance, five hundred miles, by Bishop Lowth, and others, for the purpose of plundering Job: whilst some have, with far less convenience and antiquarian correctness, carried the country of Job itself to be plundered into the neighbourhood of Chaldea. Mr. Faber, with his usual vigour and stretch of conjectural deduction, plants these very Chaldeans, or " Chusim, or Chusdim, or Anakim, or Fanakim," in the neighbourhood of Job, or Jobab, at the period in question; making them to be that line of shepherd kings who, with more of the wolf in them than the shepherd, invaded the territory and usurped the sovereignty of Egypt about the time here spoken of; who formed, in fact, the new dynasty that arose over Egypt, and knew not Joseph;" and who were finally overwhelmed in deserved destruction, for their numerous crimes, in the reign of Pharaoh, the last of their race, at the Red Sea. Their religion is found to tally with what 66 might have been expected from Babylon at that time: and the passing allusion of Job to Sabianism," If I beheld the sun when it shined," &c. is made to fix the very worship of these conquering invaders; together with the just sense entertained by Job of its really idolatrous and even atheistical tendency. Job's wife is considered as having far advanced in this iniquity, from her advice to her husband, to 66 BLESS THE ALEIM and die;" whilst Balaam, it seems, in about the same age, furnishes the instance of a man just in a state of lapse from the purity of his, probably Idumean, faith, into the corruption of surrounding paganism *. The authorship of the Book of Job is a question clearly different from that of the age and history of Job himself. Some indeed, in spite of Ezekiel's positive assertion, have questioned the existence of such a person as Job. Others, admitting the reality of the person, have nevertheless imagined the work to be a mere drama or romance, founded like the fashionable tales of the present day, upon some obscure piece of traditional history, only with a moral suited to the particular occasion which they have imagined for its composition. Of this latter class indeed, is Mr. Faber, as well as his great antagonist Bishop Warburton. The sense of Warburton was, that the equal distribution of temporal rewards and punishments was now ceasing; and that the afflictions even of a righteous man were no impeachment of the justice of God. In consequence of this hypothesis, it was necessary for him to bring the authorship down to a very late period; and he is pleased to fix it to the time, and to the pen, of " the very worst and most tasteless writer,' says Mr. Faber, "in the whole canon" of It is curious that the offering prescribed to Job for his friends, chap. xlii., is exactly that which Balaam offers in his visit to Balak; namely, seven bullocks and seven rams. Scripture, namely, the "devout and pious" Ezra. Mr. Faber, therefore, having so little reverence for this inspired writer, refers the work to a much higher origin, and is at last induced to fix it upon "the vivid and masterly pen of the highly educated legislator of the Israelites," Moses himself. This notion of the Book of Job being the authorship of Moses claims very ancient and respectable authority. An old commentator, taking the name of Origen, seems to have manufactured it" ex antiquorum dictis." It has always had some supporters: and Professor Michaelis, followed by Dr. Good, has taken all claim of priority from the present conjecture of Mr. Faber. On that part of the argument which is original, we believe, in Mr. Faber's theory, we cannot indeed pass a very favourable verdict. His demonstration of the authorship of Moses rests upon a text in which Job is made to declare, of the before mentioned worship of the stars, that "it were an iniquity to be punished by the judge." (chap. xxxi. 28.) Now, religious restraints by law Mr. Faber considers to have been first instituted by Divine command under Moses; and therefore no author before Moses could have uttered such a sentiment: a sentiment, however, which by an entire mis take, a slip of the pen, Moses himself puts into the mouth of Job so many years before. But surely this is a very heavy charge against the ability, at least, and correctness, if not even the inspiration, of Moses: and can we believe that so gross an anachronism, and we much suspect with no very worthy motive, could have been palmed upon the Israelites, by one who knew that he was himself for the first time instituting what might have appeared an of fensive law of religious intolerance? We, for our part, are content to understand the expression rather in a proverbial sense: and thus many of the ancient versions seem to unCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 269. derstand it. In point of style, Bishop Lowth sees as many arguments against the authorship of Moses, as Mr. Faber does for it. The book was unquestionably a textbook to all succeeding ages; and if written before the days of Moses, he no doubt had studied it, as well as David and others of after-time. Hence a similarity of expression between Job and Moses proves little as to priority: nor can we decide the point, till canons are instituted, by which, in the manner of Hurd on Imitation, it shall be determined which of two similar productions is the original, and which the copy. At this we observe Dr. Good hints. We quite agree with Mr. Faber, that the Book of Job is a most ancient production; and the attempt of Bishop Warburton to assign it to Ezra, for the maintenance of his own hypothesis, is clearly unavailing from the utter inadequacy of the book to prove any such hypothesis. In this case, as usual, Mr. Faber triumphs over his antagonist. We allow further, that the book was written by one who was k ó τυχων ανηρ: and, if none but Moses were rightly so described, to Moses we suppose it must be conjecturally attributed— by those at least who must, per force, arrive at some conclusion, however insufficient their premises. But, after all, we must leave the question undecided which we know to be unrevealed. With a judicious Reformer, we say, "Quod quum incertum sit, in medio relinquimus." We shall not disturb the peace of the relics of the Jewish Legislator, either by seeking to discover the * Dr. Good is quite satisfied without the help of this passage to demonstrate the authorship of Moses. He renders it, "This would be a profligacy of the understanding or judging powers;" a rendering we by no means assent to: as the origijudgment, and, it must be allowed, princinal word is uniformly applied to external pally human judgment. But we are not pleased with hypotheses standing upon single points, like inverted pyramids. 2 T |