of God by sacrifice as a duty in those days, the fifth verse of the first chapter will establish this without going further. “And it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all." We come next to the sabbath day. Divines have been much divided in opinion as to the meaning of the first verse of the second chapter, "again there was a day when the sons of God (or servants of God, as Coverdale translates it, or devout persons in Job's own house,) came to present themselves before the Lord." Some say, that this day was the sabbath; others that it was the great day of expiation; but however this may be, certain it is, that God had, centuries before this time, commanded the seventh day to be set apart for holy purposes; and there can be no doubt that Adam and his descendants worshipped God on that day; and no precept was so likely to be practically attended to as the one which commanded the day to be kept holy on which God had rested from the great work of Creation. Idolatry is our next subject, and here the account is most satisfactory. "If I beheld the Sun," said Job, "when it shined, or the

moon walking in brightness, and my heart had been secretly enticed, or my mouth had kissed my hand; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge, for I should have denied the God that is above." Chap. 31. v. 26, 27, 28. For Blasphemy he have only to appeal to the latter part of a verse before quoted, "For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Chap. 1. v. 5. The cursing of God then was a sin, if we read the whole verse, to be expiated by burnt offerings. But what does the cursing of God' mean here? Divines have interpreted the words differently; but I believe the meaning to be, that the sons of Job might have spoken irreverently of God during the merriment of their feasting. With respect to Adultery, Theft, and Murder, Job in the thirty-first chapter appeals to his accusers as to the correctness of his former life, whether, among other things he had injured his fellowcreatures by the commission of any of these crimes. "If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door; then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her. For this is a heinous crime. It is an iniquity to be punished by the Judges." v. 9, 10, 11. Again, "if my

land cry against me, or that the furrows thereof complain; if I have eaten the fruits thereof without money; and have caused the owners thereof to lose their life; let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley.” v. 38, 39, 40. I may add to this, that Job speaks in the twenty-fourth chapter of the man who removes his neighbour's land mark, and takes away his flocks, and the murderer and adulterer as rebelling against the light, that is, the moral light which God had given him in those days. So far for the moral precepts or laws just mention- . ed as having been in existence as rules for the moral guidance of men in the time of Job; and that Job considered these to have come originally from God, we may infer by an appeal to the following remarkable verses. "My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept and not declined, neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." Chap. 23, v. 11, 12. Here then there is a direct allusion to the laws in question; and how does Job characterize them? He describes them as having been the commandment of God's own lips and the words of his own mouth. And when did Job consider them as having been thus revealed

to men? He could not have alluded here to the Decalogue or ten commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, for these were not given there till probably some centuries after his own death. Nor could he have alluded here to certain precepts or laws, which God had revealed privately to himself in particular or to himself alone; for in this case neither Eliphaz, nor Elihu, nor Bildad, nor Zophar would have understood him. He could only have alluded to them as laws known to those, to whom he was then speaking, and known also as having come down to them from Noah, and to Noah from the Antediluvians, and to the Antediluvians from Adam, and to Adam from God. And I am glad to find that the learned Ellis before quoted is of the same opinion. "No other interpretation, says he, can be given of these remarkable words. They were not delivered by any immediate Revelation, and therefore must refer to a former declaration of God's will to our first parents, which was of perpetual and unalterable obligation to the sons of men." p. 303. Dr. Hales also, one of our most learned and laborious commentators makes nearly the same observations on the same two verses. It is evident," says he, "from this passage and others, (See Mant's Bible on Job Chap. 23. v.

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11, 12,) that there was some collection of precepts or rules of morality and religion in use among the Patriarchs. Such were the precepts of the sons of Noah; and there is great reason to believe, that the substance at least of the Decalogue given on Mount Sinai was of primitive Institution."

I should have thought these observations sufficient on this part of the subject, but that I have taken for granted a circumstance, which, if not true, will at once annihilate the argument which I have been so long endeavouring to raise up; for some have supposed, that the book of Job was written by Moses, and others at any rate that Job lived in the time or not till after the time of Moses. Now, in the first case, any attempt to prove that the laws or precepts now specified were divine rules for the moral guidance of men in the first or patriarchal ages because they are to be found in the book of Job, would come to nothing if Moses had been the author of that book; and, in the second case, the attempt would be equally vain; for if Job did not live till in or after the time of Moses, it would be contended, that Job had borrowed these laws from the Decalogue given by God to Moses, and therefore that it could not be true