PREF ACE. 2 ?1 " Thou liftest me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance." Job xxiii. 22. Can any man invent more despicable ideas to re- present the scoundrel herd and refuse of mankind, than those which Job uses? Chap. xxx. and thereby he aggravates his own sorrows and reproaches to amaze- ment: i0 They that areyounger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock For want and famine they were solitary ; fleeing into the wilderness desolate and waste :. They cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper -roots for their meat: They were 'driven 'forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief) to dwell in the clifts of the vallies, i,r caves of the earth, and in rocks: Among the bushes they brayed, under the nettles they were gathered together; they 'were children of fools; yea, chil- dren of base men; they were viler than the earth : And now am I their song, yea, I am their. by-word, &c." How mournful and dejected is the language of his own sorrows! `° Terrors are turned upon him, they pursue his soul as the wind, and his welfare passes away as a cloud ; his bones are pierced within him, and his soul is poured out; he goes mourning without the sun, a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls; while bis harp and organ are turned into the voice of them that weep." I mast transcribe one half of this holy book, if I would shew the grandeur, the variety, and the justness of his ideas, or the pomp and beauty of his expression: I must copy out a good part of the writings of David and Isaiah, if I would represent the poetical excellencies of their thoughts and style: Nor is the language of the lesser prophets, especially in some paragraphs, much inferior to these. Now while they paint human nature in its various forms and circumstances, if their designing be so just and noble, their disposition so artful, and their colouring so bright, beyond the most famed human writers, how much more must their des- criptions of God and heaven exceed all that is possible so be said by a meaner tongue? When they speak of the dwelling - place of God, " He inhabits eternity, and sits upon . the throne of his holiness, in the midst of light inaccessible. When his holiness is mentioned, The heavens are not clean in 'his sight, he charges his angels with folly : He looks to the moon, and it shineth not, and the stars are not pure before his eyes: He is a jealous. God, and a consuming fire. If we speak of strength, Behold, he is strong : He removes the mountains, and they know it not: He overturns them in his anger: He shakes the earth from her place, and her pil- lars tremble; He makes a path through the mighty waters, he discovers the foun- dations of theworld: The pillars of heaven are astonished at his reproof. And after all, These are but a portion of his ways The thunder of his power who can un- derstand? His sovereignty, his knowledge, and his wisdom, are revealed to us in language vastly superior to all the poetical accounts of heathen divinity. " Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth; but shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? He bids the heavens drop down'from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. He commands the sun, and it riseth not, and he sealeth úp the stars. It is he that saith to the deep, Be dry, and he drieth, up the rivers. Woe to them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord ; his eyes are upon all their ways, he understands their thoughts afar off. Hell is naked before him, and destruction bath no covering. He calls out all the stars by their names, he frustrateth the tokensof the liars, andmakes the diviners mad: He turns wise men backward, and their knowledge becomes foolish.' His transcendent eminence above MI things is most nobly represented, when he " sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: All nations before him are as the drop of a bucket, and as the small dust of the ba- lance : He takes up the isles as a very little thing: Lebanon, with all her beasts, is not sufficient for a sacrifice to this God, nor are all her trees sufficient for the burning." This God, before whom " the whole creation is as nothing, yea, less than nothing and vanity. To whirls of all the heathen gods then wi!1 ye compare me, saith the Lord, and what shall 1 be likened to ?" And to which of all the hea- then poets shall we liken or compare this glorious Orator, the sacred Describer of the godhead v The orators of all nations are as nothing before him, 'and their words are vanity and emptiness. Let us turn our eyes now to come of the holy writings, where God is creating the world: How meanly do the best of the Gen-
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