individual of the human race, and the We apostacy of an angelic being. hoped that our translator would, in his notes, have offered reasons for putting this construction upon the inquiry. He has produced none: and the comment, we believe, rests on no other authority than his own. We are entirely at a loss to understand why he should conceive of the word man as being emphatic in these verses. Was it not the natural and proper term by which to speak of the hero of the poem? In Num. xxvii. 18, God says unto Moses, "Take thee Joshua, the son of Nun, a man," &c. Now, is this a marked description? Does not the same mode of expression occur very frequently The truth is, Mr. Good sat down to his labours with a fixed persuasion that the Satan of the book of Job is the prince of the fallen angels; an opinion altogether gratuitous! He therefore readily perceives, even in the words a man, a confirmation of his hypothesis. In the process out of which such interpretations arise there is nothing uncommon: however, the gloss on which we are animadverting, is not a little singular. But, though the translator has in this case unconsciously deceived himself, we trust that his error will be seen and avoided by those of his readers with whom it is an object to study the Scriptures on the principles of fair and solid criticism.

There is a material difference between Ch. ii. 9, as it stands in the Hebrew text, which most of the modern translators strictly follow, and as it appears in the Septuagint and some other ancient versions. Mr. G. has, in his notes, translated the addition: nor do we blame him for giving it an English dress; though he seems as fully convinced as we are of its spuriousness. We shall take this opportunity of remarking, that some of the commentators on Job have been disposed to aggravate, and others, with as little reason, to soften, the offence of the patriarch's wife, in the question, "Dost thou hold fast thine integrity?" Scott's comment upon it is truly curious, and alike violates taste and courtesy: "The rashness," he observes," of this poor

* As in Gen. xli. 33, 38, Josh. iii. 12, 1 Sam. xi, xiii. xvi. 16, &c. &c.

distressed lady, cannot be altogether excused, but candour will make favourable allowances for the frailty of her sex and the severity of her trial." Whose good opinion could this ingenious man (for such he was) hope to conciliate by so extraordinary a piece of criticism? How unworthy is it of the correctness of judgment which, for the most part, pervades his version!"

On chap. iii. 8, "Let the sorcerers of the day curse it!" Mr. G. writes thus:

"A belief in divination or enchantment, has, from some cause or other, been exhibited, from a very early period of time, over every quarter of the globe. To exawould mine into the nature of such causes, lead us too far from the object of our pursuit. It is enough to observe at present that various passages in the Bible indicate, that such a sort of supernatural power was, in the earlier ages of the world, committed to different persons of very different characters, and even religions."

In support of this most extraordinary assertion, our annotator refers to Melchizedek and Balaam. But where shall we find any proof or presumption, of the former having been "thus miraculously endowed?" All which can be learned from Gen. xiv. 19, is that " this priest of the most high Jacob also God" blessed Abram. "blessed Pharaoh," Gen. xlvii. 10. And is such an act of benediction independent evidence that Jacob had miraculous endowments? Mr. G., however, subjoins that Melchizedek "prophesied concerning the prosperity" of Abram's family. Now from what passage of scripture is such a fact to be deduced? We can discover none, and must therefore pronounce this instance irrelevant to the author's purpose. Nor is there even the appearance of truth in the position that Balaam possessed supernatural qualifications. That he pretended to some, may be conceded. His claims and his character are strongly reprobated in the sacred writingst. He was one of the jugglers of the east; though, in a single instance, and for the purpose of defeating his impious views, the Supreme Being inspired him with the gift of prophecy. Elymas (Acts xiii. 8,) and the Jewish exorcists at Ephesus (Acts xix. 13), were of the same profession with Balaam: and their

† 2 Pet. ii. 15, Jude 11, Rev. ii. 14.

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claims and their art were, like his, a gross imposture. It is so far from being "probable" (as Mr. G. pleases to fancy) that "to many of these persons was communicated, not only an insight into futurity and a consequent spirit of predicting happiness or misery, but a power of conjuring into open view, apparitions of the most hideous monsters; of forms that perhaps had never any real existence, and even the 'wha, or images of the dead," that the fact is directly the reverse. They had “power,” indeed, "to cheat the eye with blear illusion," a power derived partly from their own skill in legerdemain and in part from the credulity of their votaries: but this was all. The case of the sorceress of Endor, has been explained, though on mutually different principles, by Dr. Chandler and by Mr. Farmer: and either of the interpretations is far more consistent with itself and with scripture than the vulgar hypothesis. Scripture uniformly discriminates between "the lying wonders" of men and the miracles which demonstrate a prophet's mission. The latitude of belief in which Mr. G. indulges on this matter, is little honourable to revelation, is subversive of its evidences and inconsistent with its authority.

Yet certain modern missionaries, it would seem, are of the annotator's opinion: he even adduces their sentiments as corroborating his own. Speaking of a “sick man" in one of fhe South-Sea islands, they say, "We are informed, that the condition the brethren saw him in, was owing to his having been cursed by the priest, who was chanting over him for his recovery. There is such a mystery of iniquity in the execrations used by the natives, that the wisdom which is from beneath is very manifest by them. Though we cannot credit all that is reported concerning them, yet we think that the powers of darkness are busy agents with the execrators and execrated, in a manner beyond their common influences, and that the bodies of the execrated arc in reality affected thereby." Transactions of the Missionary Society, Vol. i.

The motives of those who labour for the conversion of the Heathens, we, assuredly, respect: and we wish success to all measures for this purpose which are framed with wisdom

and executed by men of enlightened piety. Let our readers judge of the qualifications of the missionaries who could gravely form and transmit the opinion recorded in the preceding paragraph!

Mr. Good waives an examination into "the nature of the causes" of the ancient and general "belief in divination or enchantment." Such an undertaking, he tells us, "would lead" him "too far from the object of" his "pursuit." In truth, however, the inquiry is neither long nor difficult. All these causes may be summed up in one word, and that is- IGNORANCE. When we observe that certain effects disappear under a particular state of things, we can have little hesitation in determining to what circumstances the former existence of them should be attributed. On Christianity being preached with success at Ephesus (Acts xix. 17, &c.) "many of them who used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men; so mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed!" It was the triumph of Christian knowledge over the miserable artifices of men who gratified their avarice at the expense of the deluded rabble. This passage represents the character and the overthrow of " the Jewish exorcists at Ephesus:" and the same victory has been gained in other countries and ages since the publication of the gospel. Let Mr. Good say, how it happens that we read of divination and sorcery in periods and regions distinguished by mental darkness, while these wretched pretensions are seldom advanced, and never with general and permanent success, in spots where science and genuine religion take up their abode? "In the deep windings of the grove, no

more

The bag obscene, and grisly phantom dwell;

Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or

roar

Of winds, is heard the angry spirit's yell;
No wizard mutters the tremendous spell,
Nor sinks convulsive in prophetic

swoon.".

We must not dismiss the note which has called forth these remarks, before we declare that we are far from being satisfied with Mr. G's rendering, "the sorcerers of the day." The public translation is not only more literal,

but more intelligible. By "sorcerers of the day" an English reader would naturally understand sorcerers living at the period adverted to by the writer or the speaker. Yet this is not the sense of the original.

The present annotator observes upon ch. iv. 18, that it "probably alludes to the apostacy of the angels under Satan." Now we will not deny that men who are previously convinced of the truth of this doctrine, may behold here a probable reference to it: nor will we dispute that, if the tenet be established on independent evidence, this verse may be deemed a confirmation of the popular belief. The meaning of a passage of scripture is to be investigated, however, on other and sounder principles. It must be examined, first, verbally, and then in respect of its connexion: and the interpreter must dismiss from his mind a bias towards "systematizing." A man who came to the perusal of this verse before he had heard of "a defection in the heavenly host," would scarcely conceive that the speaker or the poet has any such event in view. Conjecture, moreover, is not evidence: and no sentiments should be inculcated as revealed truths, on the precarious authority of a probable allusion.

says, the allusion in the second clause of the verse before us, "is necessarily to the heavenly servants and angels." We perceive no “opposition" in that clause to the first: both have the same meaning; the reference being simply to advocates in a court of justice

Of Mr. Good's facility in discovering probable allusions, the existence of which may well be questioned, we have an indication in his note upon ch. vii. 6, "Slighter than yarn are my days."

"I believe," says he, "with most commentators, that the allegory of the web of life, as previously woven by the fates, and tissued for every individual, was co-eval with the author of the present poem, and is probably here referred to. It seems equally to be referred to by Isaiah, xxxviii. 12."

For our own part, we have met with very few commentators who have found traces of Heathen mythology in the book of Job. Admitting, however, the probability that some are scattered throughout it (and we make the concession simply for the sake of the argument), what are the marks of this specific allegory having a place in the poem? Doubtless, human life is represented both here and in Isaiah as being analogous in certain respects to the operation of the weaver. What then! In every age and country where the operation is at all familiar, would not such a metaphor, such a comparison, very naturally suggest itself? But, after all, where, we repeat, is "the allegory of the web of life,"

We are aware that Mr. G. renders the latter clause, " and chargeth his angels with default." But, really, the original word does not express an act of revolt: it signifies "imperfection," the inferiority of even the highest of created beings to their Maker. Some failure, some inconstancy in duty, is the necessary &c. In Job and in Isaiah we have result of the comparative “imperfection" of their nature. Yet how distant this from "the apostacy of the angels under Satan!"

only the weaver and the web. Where are the fatal scissors? Where, the three sister-destinies? Even a schoolboy will perceive that these chaThe word translated by the anno- racteristic signs of the allegory are tator "heavenly hosts" (v. i), is of wanting. We leave to others the invarious and extensive application; the quiry, whether this mythologic ficseveral writers of the Old Testament tion" was co-eval with the author of using it of any beings or persons the present poem?" It is sufficient whatever who are set apart from for us to have shewn that the poem itothers, or selected to a specific office. self gives no countenance to the supIt is therefore altogether arbitrary to position. In Job ix. 26, the patriarch imagine that the "heavenly hosts" complains that his "days are passed must be here intended by the author. away as the swift ships:" and we In the concluding verses of the last should not have been greatly astonchapter men are the subject: and ished had Mr. Good discerned in the hence the presumption arises, that image a probable reference to the Arthey continue to be spoken of, and gonautic expedition; the point of chrothat Mr. G. is mistaken when he nology being first adjusted. The chief

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tain's vessel in that far-famed voyage, was celebrated, we know, for speed.' We have no pleasure in detecting and exposing the mistakes of the worthy annotator. Yet our readers should be informed that his imagination often triumphs over his judgment, and that he too easily beholds Pagan as well as Rabbinical mythologies in this ancient poem.

Let us next attend to some of his remarks upon ch. xiv. 12, &c.

"It has been a subject of dispute among the commentators, whether Job, in the present place, refers to a definite term in which a resurrection will take place, or denies it by the strongest figure he could command. Yet I think the latter part of the sentence, in vers. 14, 15, is so strongly in favour of the former opinion, that no man can refuse his assent to it, who gives it the attention it is entitled to: nor do I well know how a full persuasion of such a belief could be more definitely drawn up. It appears to me so strong as to settle the question of itself, and without the concurrence of other passages that might be called in to its aid."

It would seem then that, in Mr. Good's judgment, the doctrine of a resurrection is "definitely" taught in this book, instead of being only developed! Yet in the sentences just quoted, he has done nothing more than express the confidence of his own persuasion, without the use of reasoning to illustrate its soundness and to vindicate it from objections, Heath (not. in loc.) is equally confident on the other side: and Rosenmüller considers the 14th and 15th verses as referring to the catastrophe of the poem: "hic spectatur tacitèque innuitur historiæ exitus." In the first instance Job wishes to be concealed in the grave (13), till the storm of the divine anger be past. However, he immediately corrects himself; apprehensive (14) that, if he die, he shall not live again. In consequence, he determines upon waiting till God shall appear (15) in his

behalf.

of the "Critical Dissertation on the Book of Job," interprets the verses in the same manner with Mr. G. He thus paraphrases vers. 7-11: “After a tree is cut down, we see, nevertheless, the old stock flourish again, and send forth new branches: and shall man then, when he once expires, be extinct for ever? Is there no hope that he shall revive, and be raised again hereafter?" 187.

According to this paraphrase, Job reasons from the renewal of vegetation in the spring, to the resurrection of the human body: expectation prevails over doubt in the speaker's mind; and he institutes a comparison rather than a contrast. We think, however, that King James's translators have accurately rendered the particle at the beginning of the tenth verse by a word denoting opposition: "But man dieth," &c. It is remarkable, too, that in those supposed analogies of nature, which many Christian writers consider as presumptive of the doctrine of a resurrection, the Heathen poets saw nothing which was thus animating and consolatory, but the reverse.‡

Concerning xvi. 18, "hide no blood shed by me," Mr. G. affirms, “The passage has an evident reference to the cry of the blood of Abel from the EARTH." Gen. iv. 10.

This gentleman must excuse us if we say that, whenever he speaks of

gratify them: all that we know of him is, that he passed his life in retirement, yet very usefully and respectably, and that a volume of his sermons, well calculated for Warburton, with most unjustifiable concountry congregations, is before the world. tempt, styled him the Cornish Critic: and Bishop Lowth more than intimates that Peters gave Warburton a Cornish hug "which if a man has once felt it to the purpose, he will be sore of as long as he lives." Letter, &c. by a late Professor, pp. 23, 24. (Note.)

Contrast the declamation of Minucius Felix (Octavius. xxxiv.) —“ Vide adeo quam in solatium nostri, resurrectionem futuram omnis natura meditetur, expectandum nobis etiam corporis ver est"

with the well-known plaintive strains of Moschus (Idyll. iii. 104-112). The force of this imagined analogy, has been ably estimated in a sermon on "The Necessity of Revelation to teach the Doctrine of a Future Life," by John Kenrick, M. A, pp. 14-17 (2nd, Ed.).

Feb. 15, died Mr. DAVID ELLIS, aged 21 years, at the house of his father, Mr. John Ellis, Hackney Road, Loudon. He was the last person on whom Dr. Priestley performed the ceremony of baptism in this country. His amiable and excellent character deserving to be recorded, we shall here insert the conclusion of the Funeral Sermon, preached on occasion of his death, at the Gravel-Pit Meeting, Hackney, (in the burial-ground adjoining to which he had been interred) on Sunday morning, Feb. 26: the sermon consisted of reflections on the mortality of man.

"Of the justness of these reflections,, there never was perhaps a more striking and delightful proof than in the character and especially the dying experience of my young friend, whose recent decease has led me to this subject and for the benefit and encouragement of the young, I think it right to depart from my general custom and to state a few particulars which I have gathered from my interviews with him, and from a perusal of some of his papers, as well as from the information of his family, who in the midst of their affliction must be soothed by the remembrance of his kind affections, his good deeds, his habitual unaffected piety, and his truly Christian death.

"With no splendid talents or acquirements our young friend by his native good sense, with the help of useful books and of public instruction, seems to have entered fully into the nature and design of the gospel, and to have obtained the most just and enlightened views of Christianity. His religion was the first object of his attention and concern. He was accustomed to record his thoughts and feelings upon what he heard in this House of Prayer, and to intermix prayers for the prosperity of this congregation, and especially of those of you that were of his own standing in life. In the fundamental principle of our faith and worship, he was firm and unmoveable, and though he had but just attained to man's estate, had

made sacrifices to it, which were I at liberty to state them would give you a high opinion of his Christian integrity. But whilst he was fixed in his religious principles, he respected the principles of others, and of those that attended his funeral by his desire as his friends, there were members of various Christian communions.

"One habit of his deserves to be particularly pointed out to the young who survive him, for it was probably the foundation of his improvement of mind and excellence of character, I mean the habit of occasional retirement. Without this, there can be no self-examination and consequently no growth in virtue and piety.

"The deceased was an example of the truth of the Psalmist's devotional sentiment, that a young man can cleanse his way only by taking heed thereto according to God's commandments. The Bible was his constant companion: nor was he pious only in public-he made conscience of private prayer.

"His last illness was of some weeks' duration, with several changes. He seems to have had a pre-sentiment that it would be fatal. But as he told me he submitted from a sense of religious duty to a painful surgical operation, advised by his medical attendants. His fortitude on that occasion was exemplary.

"The prevailing sentiment of his mind in his illness was gratitude to his family and attendants: on the last sabbath that he spent on earth, this day fortnight, he took occasion to address these latter as a dying man, and to urge upon them an attention to religion, as the only means of preparing themselves for a dying pillow.

"On the day of his death, Wednesday, the 15th day of this month, he was, with one short intermission, as collected and composed as in any period of his life. His thoughts and language too were all adapted to his condition, and from first to last he exhibited a serene and even cheerful piety. By his desire some of the psalms and a portion of the gospel of Mark were read to him: and contemplating his wasting frame, he repeated some verses of hymns, expressive of penitence, and at the same time of a steady hope in the resurrection of the just.

"It was thought proper to announce