through so many ages; but the fact of superstitious persons making pilgrimages to it sufficiently attests the reality of his existence, as also do the traditionary accounts concerning the place of Job's abode. (Thevenot's Voyage, p. 447; La Roque, Voyages en Syrie, tom. i., p. 239.)"

But a point on which there may be legitimately a question, and respecting which the learned have been much divided, is the authorship of the book; some assigning it to authors subsequent to the time of Moses, others to Moses, and others to Job himself or a contemporary. Of these, however, those who contend for a date later than the time of Moses are confuted by the arguments already adduced respecting the age in which Job lived, and by the marks it bears of being (what it is all but universally allowed to be) the most ancient of the books of canonical Scripture; and the only remaining opinions of consideration are two—the one, very generally received, which attributes this book to Moses, chiefly on the ground of its having been received by the Jews into their sacred canon, though in no way connected with their history, and of some resemblances in the form of expression; and the other to Job himself, in favour of which the arguments from the internal evidence greatly preponderate. Indeed, the chief difficulty in the way of the latter most natural hypothesis is as to the character in which it could have been written at that early period; for though the language, which Bishop Lowth remarks is "pure Hebrew," may have been that of Idumæa in Job's time, for the same reason that (as he adds) " it is not improbable that all the posterity of Abraham,-Israelites, Idumæans, and Arabians whether of the family of Keturah or Ishmael,—spoke for a considerable length of time one common language;"* yet that the books of Moses were the first written in the Hebrew character may be considered as certain: and the supposition that it was handed down by tradition, and thus *Lect. xxxii., ut supra.

written in Hebrew by Moses, is scarcely admissible in the case of a work of such length, and in so very small a part consisting of narrative or history.

This difficulty, however, is completely cleared up, and both these opinions most satisfactorily reconciled, by a suggestion recently put forward, and supported by very conclusive reasoning, in a work entitled "An Examination of the ancient Orthography of the Jews, and of the original state of the Text of the Hebrew Bible," by Charles W. Wall, D. D., then Professor of Hebrew, and now Vice-Provost of the University of Dublin: in which,-having proved that the origin of alphabetic writing dates from Moses, and that it was communicated to him by Divine revelation at the giving of the Law, he proceeds to show that the book of Job, as being of an earlier date, "was originally composed in hieroglyphics (the only kind of writing known before), and afterwards transcribed by Moses into alphabetical writing." But the argument, as may be supposed, is too long to quote here in full, and would suffer by extracting from it; and therefore the reader is referred to the work itself (part i., “Containing an Inquiry into the Origin of Alphabetic Writing," &c., chap. viii.), premising only that the inspiration of this book is in no way affected by the decision; as, independent of the notice of Job above quoted in other places of Scripture, we are expressly told that he was favoured with special revelations from the Almighty, and the book is quoted by the Apostle Paul in the same way as the other inspired writings (see 1 Cor. iii. 19, with Job, v. 13).

NOTE. As a connected subject, the argument in proof of "The Divine Origin of Language" will be read with interest in the Appendix to Archbishop Magee's work on Atonement and Sacrifice, section liii.

LECTURE IV.

(G.)-PAGE 85.

FOR the proof of the statement here made, and the difference as to the prospect after death under the Christian and the preceding dispensations, the author may be allowed to refer to his "Discourses on the Life of Christ," No. XVIII., "On His Burial and Descent to Hades."

(H.)-PAGE 92.

The following extract from the works of the learned Joseph Mede will be interesting, as well from the clear way in which he shows the force of our Lord's reasoning on the passage here referred to, as from the Rabbinical authorities which he quotes. (Book IV., Epistles, No. XLIII., addressed to Dr. Twisse.)

"I doubt not but you have felt some scruple (as well as others) at our Saviour's demonstration of the Resurrection in the Gospel, Matt. xxii.; Mark, xii. God said to Moses in the bush, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' Ergo, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, must one day rise again from the dead. How doth this conclusion follow? Do not the spirits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob yet live? God should then be 'the God of the living,' though their bodies should never rise again But how would this then make for the Resurrection? Surely it doth. He that could not err said it. Let us therefore see how

it may.

"I say, therefore, the words must be understood with supply of that they have reference unto, which is the Covenant that the Lord made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in respect whereof He calls Himself "their God." This Covenant was to give unto them and to their seed the land wherein they were strangers. Mark it,— not to their seed or offspring only, but to themselves. To Abraham, Gen. xiii. 15; xv. 7; xvii. 8. To Isaac, xxvi. 3. To Jacob,

XXXV. 12. To all three, Exod. vi. 4, 8; Deut. i. 8; and xi. 21; and xxx. 20. If God then make good to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob this His Covenant whereby He undertook to be their God, then must they needs one day live again to inherit the promised land, which hitherto they have not done. For the God that thus covenanted with them covenanted not to make His promise good to them dead, but living. This is the strength of the Divine argument, and irrefragable; which otherwise would not infer any such conclusion [as the resurrection of the body].

"And this to be our Saviour's meaning may appear, in that the Jews at that time used from these very places, thus understood, to infer the resurrection against the Sadducees out of the Law. As it is to be seen expressly of two of them (Exod. vi. 4; Deut. xi. 21) in the Talmud, ubi in Gemara sic habetur, Traditio Rab. Simai,—' Quo loco astruit Lex Resurrectionem mortuorum?' Nempe ubi dicitur, Atque etiam constabilivi fœdus cum ipsis, ut dem ipsis terram Canaan.' (Exod. vi. 4.) Non enim dicitur vobis, sed ipsis.'

"Iterum rogârunt Sadducæi Rabbi Gamalielem (Præceptor fuit Pauli Apostoli) undenam probaret Deum mortuos resuscitaturum? Non quieverunt usque dum produceret ipsis istum versum—' Quam terram juravit Dominus patribus vestris se daturum illis.' Hinc constat Legem testificari Resurrectionem mortuorum.

"To persuade this by stronger testimonies than of Rabbins, I pray compare with that which hath beer said verses 8, 9, 10, of Hebrews xi., adding to them verses 13-16 of the same chapter: in the last of which you need not stumble at the epithet émovρaviov, heavenly; because it denotes not only that which is in heaven, but that which is from heaven; as it is said, verse 10,

They looked for a city whose builder and maker is God.' And consider well the latter part of this sixteenth verse with our Saviour's argument.

...

"The sum of what I would say is this:-God covenanted to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their own person (as well as to their seed) the land wherein they were strangers (that is, the land of Canaan), for an inheritance. Mark those words well,- The land of thy pilgrimage; The land whereon thy head lies,' Gen. xxviii.; 'The land which thou seest,' Gen. xiii.; and the like. And in St.

เ

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Paul, The place which he should after receive for an inheritance,' Heb. xi. But this was not performed to them while they lived; therefore must they one day live again, that they may be partakers of this promise; and consequently the saints shall live on earth after their resurrection."

For additional arguments of the Rabbinical writers in proof of the resurrection of the dead, and the life immortal, from other passages of the Old Testament Scriptures,-see Wetstein's Greek Testament, note on St. Matt. xxii. 30, 31. But for a full and connected view of the evidence that the doctrine of a future state is taught in the Old Testament Scriptures generally, and in the writings of Moses specially, the reader is referred to the late Dr. Graves's well-known work on the Pentateuch (a series of Discourses originally delivered at the Donnellan Lecture), Part III., Lect. iv., "On the Knowledge of a Future Life among the Jews." On the review of which evidence it is with surprise that the following passage will be read from a writer of Mr. Davison's high reputation,-influenced, it would seem, by the specious but superficial (and, as Dr. Graves has shown, in many respects contradictory) reasoning of the founder of the Lectureship at which his Discourses were preached, the late Bishop Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses,' -reiterating the assertion that the doctrine of a future state is not revealed in the books of Moses, and was consequently unknown to the patriarchs as well as the Jewish people:

"As a future eternal state is not made the sanction of the Law of Moses, so neither is the doctrine of it made an explicit revelation either in the Law, or any other part of the Pentateuch. The text cannot be produced which simply declares it; and that none such exists is evinced, or confirmed, by the discourse of our Saviour in His refutation of the Sadducees. For when, in proof of the resurrection of the dead, He referred those deniers of it to Moses, calling the Lord 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,' we must suppose that He selected this

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