1. xvii. 18. xx. 16. xxii. 26. xxvii. 13. It is true by the rules of good husbandry a man should never be surety, but there happens oftentimes cases wherein charity ought to be preferred before good husbandry; as appears by the parable of the Samaritan, who became surety for the expense of the Jew, that was found hurt on the road. There is, methinks, no great need that God should send prophets to teach men good husbandry; on the contrary it was very necessary that Christ should preach liberality.

Some learned men have believed that Ecclesiastes is a dialogue; where a pious. man disputes with an impious one who is of the opinion of the Sadducees. And in effect there are things directly opposed one to another, which it cannot be supposed the same person speaks. The epicurean conclusion (to eat, drink and be merry, because a man has nothing else) which is up and down in many places of this book, is altogether contrary to that conclusion at the end of the work; fear God, and keep his commandments, &c. But it is extremely difficult to distinguish the persons, or to find out exactly in the

name of what person the author speaks in every passage. However it be, there appears in nothing of prophetic; and there is little likelihood that the spirit of God would set out, with so great strength, the arguments of Sadducees, or perhaps of worse men, to answer them but in two or three words. Read the beginning of the ninth chapter, and make reflection on these words: the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love and their hatred, and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

Grotius is of opinion that this book was not writ by Solomon himself, but that it is a work composed under his name, by one that had been in Chaldea; because there are divers Chaldean words in it.If this conjecture be true, as is not impossible, then this book will be nothing but a piece of wit and fancy, composed

by some of those that had been in the captivity. And I know one who has studied much the critics of the holy scripture, that suspects the author of this book to have been of the opinion that the Sadducees were of afterwards, about the immortality of the soul and the world to come. It seems to him that this author says nothing which a true Sadducee might not say. But for my part, I think it best to determine nothing herein.

It is commonly believed that the song of Solomon is a mysterious book, describing the mutual love between Christ and his church. But there is no proof of it neither in the Old nor New Testament, nor in the book itself. All that can be said is, that the Jews explain this book allegorically of God, of Moses, and of the Jewish church. But a man need but read their allegories, to see that they are the visions of Rabbins, having no foundation but in the fanciful extravagance of their brains; which frame of mind our divines have so much inherited from them, that they give themselves wholly up to find mysteries in every thing. Nay it

must be confessed that some of them

have in that out done the Rabbins; and that there is nothing so chimerical in the Chaldee Paraphrast, as in the commentaries of those who pretend this book ought to be explained by Revelations ; and that in it are to be found all the wars about religion of this past age, in Germany, the interim, the league of Smalcald, the peace of Passau, &c.

There being then no proof of the mysteries that are pretended to be in this book; if we judge by the book itself, we shall find it to be an idyle, or eglogue, where Solomon brings himself in as a shepherd, and one of his wives (perhaps Pharaoh's daughter, as the learned think) as a shepherdess; that the stile is the same with that of the pastoral poems of the Greeks and Latins, saving that it is more rough and dithyrambic, according to the genius of the Hebrew poetry. You may compare the similitudes Solomon makes use of in the fourth chapter with those Ovid uses in the pastoral song he makes Polyphemus sing, in the xiiith book of his Metamorphosis.

The book of Job is also a piece that has nothing in it of prophetic. The crit

ics, who have any thing of a nice judgment, agree that it is a sort of tragi-comedy. It is likely there was such an one as Job (since the prophet Ezekiel speaks of him) and that he met with great afflictions, which afforded subject to some Jew of the captivity to exercise his wit upon. There are in this book, as well as in Ecclesiastes, many Chaldean words, which show that it was composed either in Chaldea, or after the return from the captivity. Divines agree that God inspired not Job's friends with what the author makes them say; and this book being written in verse, seems to be a work of meditation, wherein the Author would make his parts appear. Neither Job, nor his friends could talk in that manner, extempore.The design of the work is to show, that Providence oft times afflicts good people, not to punish them for any particular sin, as if they had deserved those afflictions more than others, but simply to try them, and give them occasion to exercise their virtue. This is without doubt a truth, but there is no need of being a prophet to know it. And on the other side there is one very remarkable fault in this book. The Author brings in Job complaining