illness which preceded his dissolution. On one occasion, he observed, 'I have looked again and again from this sick bed into my prospects for eternity, and the ground of my hope towards God, and I desire to be thankful, after such a review, that I have a firm and unshaken confidence in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. I am filled, if not with a joyful hope, yet with a peaceful serenity of mind, so that I do not recollect at any period of this long illness to have felt a moment's solicitude as to its issue, whether it terminate in life or death; such has been the mercy of God to an unworthy sinner, and an unprofitable servant.'

"During the evening of Saturday he referred, with much feeling, to a hymn on which he had often dwelt before, repeating several of the verses; after it was read, he said, I cannot think how any Christian can doubt the love of Christ, it is so clear, so certain.'

"He frequently remarked, too, on looking back on life, I consider this year as the happiest I have ever passed.'

"On the Sabbath morning previous to his death, he looked with much delight on the unclouded bright sky, saying, 'What a glorious Sabbath morning,' and then repeated a line of one of Doddridge's hymns, Shew the bright world, and shew it mine.' In the course of the day, he made the following and similar remarks:- Should this be the taking down of this clayey tabernacle, it has been a most merciful dispensation; there is a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' A cloud has never passed over my mind; Satan has never been permitted to harass me.' Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. To his now mourning widow, he once said, on seeing her much cast down, to you I must propose the test which our Saviour put to his disciples, if ye loved me, you would rejoice because I go to the Father."-On Monday morning, the last day of his life, he appeared much revived, and heard the fourteenth chapter of John with great interest, remarking particularly the nineteenth verse, because I live, ye shall live also,' saying, that is sufficient, we need no other promise.' He went down stairs during that day, and no symptom indicated a change till towards the close of it: he did not retire, however, till late, but appearances soon showed that death was approaching. He remained perfectly sensible. To the oft repeated enquiry whether he felt pain, he replied, only oppression.'Fear not, I am with thee,' was suggested to him; a faint smile lighted up his countenance, indicating at once, his possession of his faculties, and his enjoyment of the promise. It is not a dark valley to you? Oh no." Your mind is calm?' NOT A RUFFLE,' was his characteristic reply- Not a ruffle-and with these, his last words, kept, by the power of God, through faith,' in perfect peace,' he fell asleep,' and entered into his joy.' 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.""

* Congregational Hymn Book, page 546. "O, Thou from whom all goodness flows, I lift my soul to Thee," &c.

ESSAYS ON THE BOOK OF JOB,

No. I.

BY THE REV. RALPH WARDLAW, D.D., GLASGOW.* IF the Holy Scriptures had presented themselves to us on the same footing as any other book; if they had not demanded for their doctrines, under the awful sanction of divine anthority, an immediate and exclusive reception; if they had not appealed to the conscience, with their heavy charges of guilt and denunciations of wrath; if they had not peremptorily required the subjection of the heart to their mortifying proposals, and to their pure and self-denying requirements; if they had not come with a divine claim upon the whole man, for the surrender and consecration to God of all his powers of body, and faculties and affections of soul; if they had but left men at liberty to read, and criticise, and speculate, and judge for themselves, to praise or blame, receive or reject, obey or disobey, at their pleasure, without searching their hearts, detecting their sins, revealing their dangers, and alarming them with premonitions of evil that accord with the secret apprehensions of their own minds, and, at the same time, offering them no means of relief but in the relinquishment of all their fancied worthiness, and the acceptance of mercy, as miserable and hopeless offenders, through the merits and mediation of another: they would have engaged universal attention; every man would have been more eager than another to explore their contents; the study of them would have been an unfailing branch of a polite and liberal education; every verse of them would have been valued as a gem of antiquity; every tongue would have been eloquent, and every pen busy in their elucidation and eulogy, as the rarest and richest literary curiosity to be found on earth. But amidst all, that, to the carnal mind, constitutes what may justly be termed "the offence of the Bible," the servants of God must not cease to press upon the attention of men, "whether they will hear or whether they will forbear," the great purpose of God in giving them a revelation of his will. Never, surely, can this be too frequently, or too strongly urged upon their serious notice; for, if the very end be missed for which the revelation has been imparted, of what real benefit can it be to its possessors ?

The Bible is a revelation to men, as sinners. It is of immense consequence, to the very understanding of the document, that this be kept in mind. The overlooking of it must inevitably lead to many and fatal mistakes. In this point, the sinful state of man, lies the fundamental difference between the Bible and all the systems of human philosophy respecting his character, condition, and pros

* This paper is the first of a valuable series which has appeared in the Scottish Congregational Magazine, at distant intervals, since February, 1835. Having obtained permission from their gifted author, we intend to reprint them consecutively in succeeding numbers. To those of our readers, and we believe their number is but few, who see our northern namesake, we have no need to apologize for this course, as they can appreciate the advantage of having the whole discussion included in the present volume; while those who have not seen them before, will, we doubt not, feel happy to possess, in our pages, dissertations on so interesting a subject, and from so competent a pen.

pects. Almost all the discrepancies between the one and the other, many and wide as they are, may be traced to this one article. Human philosophy spurns at so degrading a representation of human nature, as fallen, guilty, impotent, and hopeless: whereas the Bible proceeds throughout on the assumption of this being its true state and character; and all its provisions and proposals for its recovery are of course adapted to this assumption. They are provisions and proposals of mercy; of grace to the unworthy, of pardon to the guilty and condemned, of deliverance to the lost, of renovation to the polluted, to those who are at enmity with God, and who have in them, by nature," no good thing." We must do with the Bible as we do with its Divine Author. We must maintain its dignity. We must not let down its lofty pretensions, nor allow its true and transcendently important recommendations to be lost sight of, and merged in any of an inferior description. The glory of the Godhead in the salvation of a lost world, is its magnificent design, and the discovery of the means for effecting this design, its glorious characteristic. We "do despite" to both the Bible and its Author, if we represent it otherwise, or “seek to please men" by recommending it to them on inferior grounds.

Now there are not a few persons to be found, who profess a great respect for the Scriptures, and even a belief in their divine original, by whom, notwithstanding, the most determined hostility is entertained to its grand fundamental principles-those principles which they must be humbled to receive, in faith and love, before they can derive any saving benefit from the discoveries of divine revelation. They are men of taste, perhaps; and in this capacity they are fervent admirers of the beauty and sublimity, the simplicity, the energy, and the pathos, of many portions of sacred writ. They can refer to them, they can repeat them, they can expatiate upon them, with all the excitation of a delighted enthusiasm. And the elevation of mind, and the tenderness of feeling, inspired by such passages, is, we fear, not unfrequently mistaken for something pious and good, and serves to engender or to cherish a secret sentiment of self-complacency and conscious elation. It is of vast consequence to expose such delusion; to show the vanity of having the ear charmed by the "lovely song," the natural affections touched by its plaintive tenderness, the taste gratified by its appropriate imagery, or the imagination fired and elevated by its sublimity and grandeur, whilst the great things of God's law," the truths declared by those "holy men of God," whose commission was "to show unto men the way of salvation," are neglected, disbelieved, scorned, or hated. We have been led to these remarks by an association that will be obvious to every reader. There is, perhaps, no book of the inspired volume in which there is more of the finest poetic imagery, of impassioned loftiness, of melting tenderness, of vehement eloquence, or of exquisite display of the native workings of the human heart, than is to be found in the book of Job: so that, in the perusal of it, a person whose heart is yet unvisited by the renewing grace of God may experience the alteration of various descriptions of delightful emotion, swelling with the grand, and melting with the plaintive,

awed by the fearful, charmed by the beautiful, kindled by the indignant, and silenced and convinced by the argumentative varieties of the poem. Even the sublime exhibitions of Deity himself, whether from the lips of the speakers or from his own, may have a certain commanding and elevating influence upon the mind. How many men of taste and science have there been, who have themselves spoken of the Divine Being in terms of apparently devotional rapture, contemplating his power, and wisdom, and goodness in the works of creation, viewing him as a wonderful artificer, of prodigious skill, and of boundless benevolence!-while, after all, they have been amongst the "wise and prudent," from whom God hides the blessed discoveries of his grace, and "reveals them unto babes." They have had a partial knowledge of him, and a sentimental impression of his attributes as the God of nature, while their minds have been in utter ignorance of him, and their hearts in settled and bitter alienation from him, as the God of salvation, the God of holiness, and justice, and love in Christ Jesus.

But although the leading design of the divine revelation ought ever to be kept in our view, and all the different portions of it should be studied in the relations which they respectively bear to the introduction, development, or confirmation of that design; yet these different portions were, at the same time, intended to subserve certain special and collateral ends; illustrating, as they admirably do, various select views of the character, the procedure, and the will of the Supreme Governor. Take, for example, the Old Testament history. Its great end is to place before the reader's mind the progressive discovery of the import of the first promise to fallen man, and so to introduce the "fulness of the time," and the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh. But there is another valuable purpose which it at the same time serves, by giving us a most interesting and instructive exemplification of the great principles on which Divine Providence conducts the government of the world, as well as of the operation of the good and evil passions, in righteous and in wicked men, in an endless variety of circumstances and relations; an exemplification, calculated at once to direct us in the interpretation and suitable improvement of public and private events, and to admonish us against evil, and encourage us in good. Or take, as a more specific example, the book before us-the book of Job. It contains the discussion of a highly interesting point in the providential administration of God, in the form of a controversy between the afflicted patriarch and his friends, a controversy which is finally settled by the interposing authority of the Divine Being himself. It is, along with this, full of instruction, incidentally conveyed, on various collateral topics, bringing before us, in the most pleasing manner, the peculiarities of the patriarchal religion, and the operation of the principles, and graces, and hopes of the saints of God in early times.

There are four points to which, in this and succeeding papers, I shall shortly direct the attention of your readers: -1. The question whether it be fact or fiction. 2. Its date and authorship. 3. Its general structure and style of composition. 4. The parti

cular purpose or purposes of its introduction into the canon of inspired scripture.

For the present, I shall confine myself to the first of these topicsthe question whether it be fact or fiction.

Some readers, possibly, may be startled by the very proposal of such a question. Fiction!-fiction in the word of the God of truth! But their apprehensions may be easily allayed. They may at once be convinced, that to say it cannot be fiction, because such a God would never make use of fiction to subserve the illustration and enforcement of truth, is not satisfactory, seeing the parabolic mode of instruction is made use of by the Spirit of truth, and by the blessed Redeemer himself, into whose lips grace was poured, who is "the faithful and true witness," and of whose characteristic designations "THE TRUTH" is one. The parables of the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and others, are, we apprehend, decisive specimens of the illustration of truth by fiction. Still, however, it is readily granted, that there is a material difference between introducing a parable as a parable, either declared to be so, or from its connexion and circumstances so understood by all who hear or read it, and the construction of an entire book, without any premonition of its being fiction, but opening, in its very first sentences, in the ordinary style of historical or biographical narration" There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, one that feared God and eschewed evil. And there was born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance, also, was seven thousand sheep, &c. &c.; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the East." "The general style and manner of the writer," it has been truly said, every where bespeaks a literal relation of actual events; entering into circumstantial details of habitation, kindred, and names, and adhering, with undeviating exactness, to the manners and usages of the age and country of which it seems to treat." This latter circumstance, however, can hardly be regarded as at all militating against its fictitious character, in as much as such adherence must have been a characteristic of a skilful fiction, as much as of a real narrative.

There are several considerations, drawn from the Book itself, which have been alleged in evidence of its fictitious character; most of which might be set aside by the simple admission-an admission which none will refuse-that the book, although founded in actual facts, is a poem, and has the characteristics of poetry. The beginning and close, although in the form of narrative, are still poetic narrative, and the intermediate parts, though substantially recording a real controversy, are yet in the highest style of eastern imagery and poetical embellishment.

1. An objection, for example, to its being regarded as a matter-offact narrative, has been founded on the uniformity of certain numbers, which is alleged to be unnatural, and, as a reality, unlikely; such as the precise doubling of the sheep, the oxen, the camels, and the asses of Job, on the return of his prosperity; of the first from seven thousand to fourteen; of the second, from three thousand to six; and of the other two from five hundred to a thousand each; together

N. S. VOL. IV.