then, but beware of transgressing the rules of charity, of prudence, or of good manners.
“If it be necessary that I should publish the remainder of the Reply to the author of the Divine Legation, grant, oh Lord! that I may conduct it with all that decency and prudence, that strict regard to charity as well as truth, which may become a Christian and a minister of Christ; that I may have a constant check upon myself with regard to every thing that may be either light and ludicrous, or bitter and sarcastic: if my antagonist has given but too much into this way of writing, the greater shame to him; and the greater shame to me if I should not endeavour to avoid so palpable a fault.”
Under the influence of an opinion, or rather of a prejudice similar to those of plenary inspiration, and an immaculate preservation of the text, and unmindful that the Gospels themselves convey a large portion of their instruction under the form of allegory or parable, Mr. Peters maintained the historical authenticity of the book of Job against Dr. Warburton, who argued in favour of the opposite and manifestly the correct hypothesis. Yet so accurate and so extensive were the Hebrew learning and the general erudition of this profound scholar, that he completely worsted the most celebrated critic of his age, and drove him from a sober investigation of facts, of ancient opinions, or of the peculiar form and nature of moral instruction used by eastern nations at various and remote periods, into virulent and personal abuse.
It is curious to observe that the Book of Job has not the most remote allusion to anything connected with the Jews, neither to their laws or their ritual, nor to their patriarchs, or to their leader and legislator.
And it is more curious that in all the writings transmitted to our time by this extraordinary people, from the Book of Genesis to the last prophecy antecedent to its Babylonish captivity, not the slightest reference is made to a state of future existence; unless the strange narrative
respecting the Witch of Endor should be deemed an exception, suspected as it is of interpolation; and at all events utterly unfitted for announcing, and that too incidentally, the most important of revealed truths. Previously, moreover, to the captivity, no personification is ever mentioned of the Principle of Evil.—“Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made; and he said unto the woman,” &c. No allusion is here made to any supernatural being; nor did the serpent lose the disgraceful credit till three thousand five hundred years after the fact, of having by his own unassisted subtilty, malevolence, and craft, led our first parents into the fatal snare predestined to work the utter and eternal destruction of countless millions of the human race, but for the stupendous mystery of their subsequent redemption.
In the Book of Job reference is made to a future life; and the Principle of Evil not only appears as a distinct personage, but is placed in collision and in debate with the Principle of all Good, driving the Divinity itself to the clumsy expedient, suited only to the imperfections of a finite intellect, of ascertaining by an actual experiment, whether a man were capable of sustaining certain degrees of bodily pain and of mental affliction, without murmuring against his Creator, the Lord and Giver of life, in whom we live, and move, and have our being.
It seems plain, therefore, from the doctrine of a future state first noticed in this work, from the first introduction of a being hostile to the happiness of all others and delighting in their misery, and from the absence of any allusion to a single fact connected with the Mosaic dispensation, or to the history embodied in the Sacred Records; and, lastly, from the dramatic form of the whole; that the Book of Job must be a parable, a moral tale, a poem wholly unconnected with the Jewish faith. It seems not to be improbable that such a composition, teaching the important duties of resignation and submission to the Divine will,
Αγου δε με, Ω Ζευ, και συ γ’ ἡ Πεπρωμενη,
Οποι ποθ’ ὑμιν ειμι διατεταγμενος,