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mighty force of love no more than the flame of a candle which at last goes out in the socket ? Nay more, when, rising above the works of God to God Himself, love fastens itself immediately on the supreme object of love, shall it be frustrated in its hopes ? Shall that love, at once so holy and so strong, be for ever shattered by death? Shall God never show Himself ? Shall God never give Himself ? Shall that which seemed the most real thing in life, prove only to be a deception and a torture ? No, the heart of man prophecies his immortality.

"Look again at the intellect of man. This likewise is too large for the world ; eternity is in its eye, and upon its forehead. How 'confined and pestered' it is 'within the pinfold' of the body! How it strives to vanquish space and to triumph over time. How it ranges through the past and anticipates the future. How boldly it endeavours to gather all phenomena however scattered into the common unity of Universal laws. Does it not seek to grasp eternity? Does it not desire to know God? And does not every fresh discovery that we make call forth in us, as it were a new power, impelling us, with ever fresh and sustained ardour, on the path of further investigations ? Can we recognize in such facts no footsteps of a Divine purpose ? Shall we only behold afar off the Promised Land, and never be suffered to enter into its borders ? Surely the intellect of man, like the heart of man, prophecies his immortality.

“Once more, look at the conscience of man. Is there not a Law to which we involuntarily do homage ? Do we not know and feel that there is an Eternal Right which claims our allegiance ? And do we not strive to render that allegiance, whilst we are ever painfully conscious that we fall far short of its just and acknowledged demands? It is of no consequence to the argument what view we hold as to the origin or the education of Conscience. It is the fact that such an authority exists, that such an authority is felt to be binding. There is implied, in every recognition of duty, the sense of a law, and therefore, we instinctively feel, of a Lawgiver, who is also a Judge, and who will punish the transgression of duty. Conscience reminds us of perpetual failure, short-coming, transgression; and conscience sets before us the penalty, and, not content with the retri. bution here, extends it into the world to come. It is not merely the Christian conscience which thus speaks, it is the conscience of all men. St. Paul scarcely describes more feelingly than many a heathen moralist and poet, the terrible disruption of the inner man, the knowledge of the Law and the obedience to appetite, the sense of right and the slavery to evil. Christianity scarcely speaks more clearly than many a heathen religion, of the retribution which the Righteous Judge shall mete out on the final day of reckoning." (pp. 25—27.)

EXCURSUS ON JOB XIX. 23—27. Had these remarkable words been found in the Epistles of St. Paul, instead of in the Book of Job, there would have been little or no controversy about their reference to a future state.

It will hardly be denied that the real ground on which they have been understood as denoting Job's expectation of a temporal restitution, is not that the words naturally, much less necessarily, suggest such an interpretation, but that the reference to the doctrine of life and incorruption which they seem to contain is an anachronism.

Had any proof been adduced that that doctrine was utterly unknown previously to the introduction of Christianity, or at that period at which it can be shown that Job lived, the inference that the passage in question has been commonly misunderstood would be conclusive.

To those, however, who believe that that doctrine was “ brought to light” by the Gospel,-i. e., not that it was then first revealed, but that it was then first cleared from the doubts and difficulties which had previously encompassed it,—the time, the mode, and the amount of the earlier revelations are all subjects, not for arbitrary definition, but for patient and candid investigation.

Assuming, then, that that same God who taught the patriarchal world, not only by the terms of the first promise, but also by the preaching and translation of Enoch, and by the typical death and resurrection of Isaac,- and who revealed to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, so much concerning “the day" of Christ and “the city which hath foundations,” that they were content, as pilgrims, to “sojourn in the land of promise as in a strange country,—could, in perfect consistency with the character of the Mosaic dispensation, impart to or through Job such a knowledge of a future life as the words in question have been commonly thought to denote; we maintain that the precise import of those words is, in common with the rest of Scripture, a subject, not for any arbitrary and foregone conclusion, but for sober and diligent inquiry into the mind of the Spirit.

We observe, too, further, that the question which we propose to examine is, not so much to what extent the patriarch himself apprehended the meaning of his own utterances, (for it must ever remain a doubtful matter how far the searchings of the prophets into the meaning of that which “the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify," were crowned with success,) but rather what, by the aid of the light reflected upon the Old Testament from the New, we may presume to be the true and genuine import of the passage under our consider

ation.

Our first enquiry must be, (and those who object to our interpretation on the ground of its inconsistency with the rest of the Book of Job, cannot complain of this enquiry,) what were the hopes and expectations of the patriarch at the time in question; i, e., was he looking for a time of restoration to health and temporal prosperity, or had he been reduced, in this respect, to a state of despair ?

Now the answer to this enquiry seems to us to lie upon the surface of the narrative.

To go no further back than the 14th chapter, we find Job expressing a passionate longing that he might be hidden in the grave (ver, 13). Again, in the 17th chapter, we find him speaking thus (ver. 13, 14):"If I wait, the grave is mine house : I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother and sister.” And once more, in the 10th verse of the chapter in which the words under our review occur, “ He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath He removed like a tree.”

The inference which we draw from these and similar expressions, is that Job was not looking for any temporal restitution, and therefore that it is more reasonable, à priori, to interpret any hope which he expresses in reference to a future condition than to the world which now is.

Moreover, the alleged inconsistency of the whole scope and tenour of this book, with the interpretation which we assign to chap. xix. 23—27, is, in our judgment, based upon misapprehension of other passages, more especially of chap. xiv.; in which remarkable chapter, Job's firm assurance of a “change” similar to that which he had witnessed in the cut-down tree (ver. 7), and of a future life to which he should receive a “call,” seems to us to be clearly expressed.

The à priori probability of a reference in chap. xix. 23—27, to the future, is confirmed, in our judgment, by the very remarkable manner in which the declaration of Job's faith in his “Goel,or Redeemer, is ushered in; the incongruity in the supposition that it was his expectation of a temporal restitution which he desired should be recorded in imperishable words, being, as it seems to us, manifest and insuperable.

The substance of that expectation may be thus expressed. And as for me, I know that my Goel lives, and at the last (or, in the latter day) He shall rise up (or, shall continue) upon the earth (literally, the dust). And after, as to my skin (or flesh) they have cut down (or shattered, or destroyed) this, even without (or out of) my flesh, I shall see God: That, as for me, I shall see for myself, even mine eyes have seen, (the future of certainty) and not a stranger; my reins are consumed in my bosom."

We have endeavoured in this rugged version to represent as faithfully as may be (without assuming a meaning and connexion which might well be assigned to certain words) this confessedly difficult passage, of which every explanation which restricts its reference to the present world seems to us fraught with insuperable difficulty.

The words I know that my Goel,” i.e. my Kinsman, Avenger, and Deliverer, lives," about the translation of which there can be little or no controversy, are of themselves conclusive (as it appears to us) of the reference of this passage to a future life, and (whatever translation or interpretation be adopted of the words which follow) a complete justification of the use made of it by the compilers of our Burial Service in conjunction with those words which contain its full exposition, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

We are content to adopt Rosenmüller's explanation of the rem arkable and deeply significant word “Goel” here employed. “ The word Goel (says Rosenmüller) properly denotes the man who, by reason of consanguinity, was under the obligation of avenging any one's murder, and after the death of his next of kin to take the entire management of his affairs, and to assert and defend his rights."* If, bearing in mind this definition of the word Goel, we compare the language of Job with the promise contained in Hosea xiii. 14,-“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them (literally, I will be, or act the part of their Goel) from death: 0 death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction,”-it seems impossible to admit any interpretation of the former passage which must be felt and confessed as inadmissible in the case of the latter.

Whether the word “ day” ought to be understood as to be supplied after “latter” or “ last," or whether, as in two passages in Isaiah (viz. xliv. 6, and xlviii. 12), (in both of which the word “Goel” occurs in closer or more remote connexion with this word, as applied to Israel's Redeemer), the word should be understood as used in the sense of the “last Adam,” or the Omega (as well as the Alpha), affects but very indirectly the question which we are now considering. In like manner, whether we read “in my flesh," as in the Authorised Version, or, as the Hebrew seems to us to denote more strictly, “out of, or apart from, my flesh,”+ the reference to the Resurrection

* "Goel proprie eum notat, qui the body,' or 'out of my body.' Each consanguinitatis jnre alicujus cædem rendering is equally tenable on gramvindicare tenebatur et omnino post matical grounds; but the specification proximi mortem rerum suarum curam of the time and the place requires a gerere, et jura vindicare atque tueri.” personal manifestation of God, and a (In loc.) — The following remark of personal recognition on the part of Dathe (in loc.) is very striking as Job. Complete personality, in the showing how insuperable is the diffi. mind of the ancients, implies a living culty which his interpretation in body." — Smith's Dictionary of the volves :-“Vocabulum Goel dicitur Bible, Article “Job,” by Canon Cook, hoc loco improprie de Deo, cum alias, to which we refer our readers for quod satis constat, proprie de homine some valuable remarks on this and usurpetur, qui ex jure sive potius of other passages in the book of Job, ficio cognationis ulcisci debebat cædem having reference to the same subject, aut gravem injuriam in alium ejusdem viz., Job's confident expectation of “a cognationis admissam.”

future and perfect manifestation of the + “From my flesh' may mean 'in divine justice."

seems equally clear.* In the one case, the word must be understood as denoting the fact that body and soul shall be reunited; in the other, the truth, as certainly affirmed by St. Paul, that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” (1 Cor. xv. 50.)

Our present limits will not admit of any further investigation of the phraseology here employed. That there is considerable difficulty in the interpretation of this passage, as in that of almost the whole of this remarkable book, we do not for a moment deny. Our position is this, that, admitting, to the very utmost of all that has been alleged, the existence of obscurity and antiquity in these words, their reference to a future state appears to us indisputable; and that, whilst every attempt to interpret them as having reference to Job's expectation of temporal restitution is involved in insuperable difficulties, the words “Because I live, ye shall live also," afford the key-note to the unravelling of their deepest meaning, and the explanation of their otherwise incomprehensible allusions.

STEUART TRENCH'S REALITIES OF IRISH LIFE. Realities of Irish Life. By W. Steuart Trench, Land Agent in

Ireland to the Marquis of Lansdowne, Marquis of Bath, and Lord Digby. With Illustrations by his Son, J. Townsend Trench. Third Edition. London : Longmans, Green, f. Co. 1869.

Mr. STEUART TRENCH's book, “Realities of Irish Life,” is, beyond all doubt, one of the most remarkable publications which have for some time appeared, and may well be termed “the Book of the Season.” It has been reviewed in all the chief periodicals and newspapers of the day-in the Quarterly and Edinburgh, in the Times, Saturday Review, Spectator, &c. &c.; while it has been read in Clubs and Colleges, by politicians and Parliamentary men, and by persons concerned generally for the welfare of Ireland, not to mention the large numbers who desire sensation and excitement; in fact, by a host of readers throughout the three kingdoms, as they may have been able to obtain and peruse this large and somewhat costly

* It is worthy of observation that Rosenmüller translates the word which the Authorized Version renders and in my flesh,' et absque carne med,' i.e. ‘ond without my flesh,' and vindicates this

Vol. 68.-No. 378.

translation by observing that the prefix employed in the Hebrew is com. monly used to denote the want or deficiency of something.

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