NOTE S APPERTAINING TO THE FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH OF BOOK VI. To P. 290. [A] O give an example only in Bishop BULL, whose words in a Latin tract, for a future state's not being in the Mosaic Dispensation, I have quoted in the fourth section of this Sixth Book; yet in an English posthumous sermon, he seems to speak in a very dif ferent manner.I should not have illustrated this censure by the example of so respectable a Person, but for the indiscretion of my Answerers, who, to support their own ill logic, have exposed his morals. P. 298. [B] Job's Life, by means of the Devil and his false Friends, was an exercise of his Patience; and his History, by means of Criticism and his Commentators, has since been an exercise of ours. I am far from thinking myself unconcerned in this mischief; for by a foolish attempt to support his Name and Character, I have been the occasion of bringing down whole bands of hostile Critics upon him, who, like the Sabeans and Chaldeans of old, soon reduced him back to his Dunghill. Some came armed in Latin, some in English, and some in the language of Billingsgate. Most of them were professedly written against me; but all, in reality, bear hardest on the good old Patriarch. beo However, 200 However, though I am, as I said, to be reckoned, along with these, amongst Job's Persecutors; yet I have this to say for myself, that the vexation I gave him was soon over. If I scribbled ten pages on his back, my Adversaries and his have made long furrows and scribbled ten thousand. Now, though amongst all these Job found no favour, yet by ill-hap my System did: But to whom I am most obliged, whether to those who attacked it, or to those who espoused it, is not easy to say: for, by a singular event, the Assailant's have left me in possession of all its supports, and the Defenders have taken them all away the better, I presume, to fit it to their own use. Learned Naturalist's tell us of a certain Animal in the watery waste, which, for I know not what conceit, they call Bernard the Hermit; and which, in courtesy, they rank with the testaceous tribe, though Nature (so bountiful to the rest of its kind) hath given This no habitation of its own, but sent it naked and unhoused into the world. In recompence, she has enabled it to figure amongst the best of its tribe: for, by a noble endowment of instinct, it is taught to make its way into the best accommodated, and best ornamented shells of its brethren; which it either finds empty, or soon makes soy to fit them up for its own ease and convenience. ad bas Mola boTDA? B P. 298. [C] But if the reader would see the abisurdity of supposing the book of Job to be written thus early, and at the same time, to teach the resurrection and a future state, exposed at large, he may read the third chapter of The free and candid Exa→ mination of the BISHOP of London's Principlèsust P. 300. [D] Calmet makes the following observation, in his comment on the 1st verse of chap. xxxvii). L'Ecrivain de cet Ouvrage a observé de ne point employer ce nom de Jehovah dans les discours directs, qu'il fait recits tenir à Job et à ses Amis mais dans les recits, qui sont au commencement, et à la fin du Livre, See Mr. G's discourses on the book of Job. it 68 21 น il use de ce terme, comine font d'ordinaire les Ecrivains Hebreux. Ce qui demontre que l'Ouvrage a été eerit par un Juif, et depuis Moyse; puisque ce nom incommunicable ne fut connu que depuis l'apparition tu Buisson ardent. offes & ingrovbi, yer Is Jaymon digeeft provi dremos cat Lucdis P. 303. [E] The Cornish Critic thinks otherwise. These false friends (says he) are described as having so much fellow-feeling of Job's sufferings, that they fasit with hiin seven days and nights upon the ground without being able to speak to him. If this be the dramatic way of representing false friends, how shall we know the false from the true?" p19. Sempronius, in the Play of Cato, is all along warmer than even Cato himself in the cause of liberty and Rome If this be the dramatic way of representing a false patriot (may our Critic say) how shall we know the false from the true? I answer, by observing hun with his mask off. And do not Job's false friends unmask themselves, when they so cruelly load their suffering Acquaintance with the most injurious reflections Indeed the Critic deserves our pity, who cannot see that the formal circumstance of sitting silent seven days ̋ was a dramatic embellishment in the Eastern manner The not knowing that the number seven was a sacred number amongst the Jews, may indeed be inore excusable. But he goes on," I have been s often struck with surprise to see him [the author of the very earnestly endeavouring to support his allegorical interpretation of the book of Job by arguments drawn from the contradictions, which he fancies he has there espied, to the truth of the history or tradition upon which his allegory is built. Than which, in my apprehension, there can scarce be a greater absurdity I would desire him to consider attentively the allegorical ode in Horace, na „Siɔvis, referent, &c. that though every thing therein may be accommodated to a republic, yet it is true in the literal or primary sense only of a ship, and 86 that there is not one single stroke in it that can be understood of a republic and not of a ship; and this might shew him his mistake in applying passages in the book of Job to the Jewish People, "MERELY because they cannot be understood of Job: "which is directly annihilating the allegory he would "establish. For it is as plain that in an allegory two things or persons must be concerned, as that two "and two must go to make four." pp. 99, 100.The insolence, the fraud, the nonsense of this passage, is as much without example as it was without provocation. I desire to understand, by what other means, except by revelation, an allegorical writing can be known to be allegorical, but by circumstances in it which cannot be reconciled to the story or fable which serves both for a cover and vehicle to the moral? And yet this man tells us that to attempt to prove the nature of a writing to be allegorical from this circumstance is one of the greatest absurdities. When the allegory is of some length, and takes in the life and adventures of a certain person, it can scarce be otherwise but that some circumstances in it must be varied from the fact, to adapt it to the moral. In a shorter, where the object is more simple, there may be no need for any variation. And this shews the disingenuity of this man, in bringing the ode of Horace into comparison. For which too, the little he knows, he is indebted to the author of the Divine Legation. And how little that is we shall now see... In the first place, I have shewn this Ode not to be of the nature of an allegory, where the story is only the cover and vehicle to the moral: but of the nature of a relation containing a double sense, primarily and secondarily in which an information is conveyed in both senses: consequently there ought not to be à single stroke in it that can be understood of a republic and not of a ship: But this is a species of writing entirely distinct from the allegory in question; so that the urging it was impertinent: and the following 10 observation observation is made with his usual insolence:-this might shew him his mistake in applying passages of the book of Job to the Jewish People MERELY because they cannot be understood of Job! but not with insolence only, but with fraud: For I do not apply passages in the book of Job, MERELY for this reason; no nor principally; but only as one of many reasons. However, contending for such discordant circumstances in the vehicle-story, he says, is directly annihilating the allegory. Now I understood it was the establishing it; as it is the only means of getting to the knowledge of its being an allegory. He goes on, -For it is as plain that in an allegory two things or persons must be concerned, as that two and two must go to make four. What he means by this jargon of two's being concerned, I know not. If he means that the fable and the moral must go to the making up the allegory, nobody will dispute it with him. But if he means, that all the personages in the fable must have all the qualities, attributes, and adventures of the personages in the moral, all sop's fables will confute this profound reasoner on allegories. However, something, to be sure, he did mean: He had a notion, I suppose, that there was a right and wrong in every thing: he only wanted to know where, they lie: There fore, to make these cursory notes as useful as I can, I will endeavour to explain his meaning. It is certain then, that though the justice of allegoric writing does not require that the facts in the fable do in reality correspond exactly with the facts in the moral, yet the truth of things requires the possibility of their so corresponding. Thus, though the Ass perhaps never actually covered himself with a Lion's skin, and was betrayed by his long ears, as sop relates; yet we have an example before us, sufficient to convince us that he might have done so, without much expence of instinct, But when Dryden made his Hind and Panther dispute about the doctrine and discipline of particular Churches; as they never possibly could VOL. V. G& have |