slanders a whole nation, is not the most proper person to declaim against the wickedness of priests and prophets.

ECCLESIASTES*.

Mr. P treats Ecclesiastes, as the reflection of a worn out debauchee, and supposes the exclamation, "All is vanity," to relate entirely to Solomon's thousand wives and concubines: and he represents him, not as a penitent but as melancholy. But in fact, these wives and concubines are but once hinted at; while the preacher shows in the most convincing and affecting manner, from experience and the nature of things, that magnificence, authority, and sensual indulgence, and even science and wisdom, unless connected with true religion, are vanity and vexation of spirit and he closes with exhorting the reader in the prospect of a future judgment, to "fear God, "and keep his commandments; for this is the whole "duty of man."

Far be it from me to vindicate Solomon in that conduct, of which he seems to have deeply repented: yet he is represented in Scripture, as drawn aside in his old age, and not as licentious in his youth. Probably his immense seraglio was principally a foolish affectation of superior magnificence, and a conformity to the eastern customs; while some of his women gained the ascendency over him, and induced him, towards the decline of life to commit those crimes, from which he had before been exempt.

*P. ii. p. 41, 42.

SOLOMON'S SONG*.

Our author is very merry upon Solomon's Songs, as he calls this book; and I agree with him, that he wants the tunes, and cannot sing such songs: that is, his heart is not in tune for themt. As this book is not quoted in the New Testament, and as few derive benefit from it till they have learned divine truth from other Scriptures; I shall not enter into any further argument about it: though I firmly believe it to be a very useful part of God's word.

The sacred writers are not accountable for the order in which the several books are placed in the Old Testament: nor are they arranged in the same manner in the Hebrew Bible, as in our translation. If, therefore, Solomon's Song has been misplaced; that does not at all disprove the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, which is the point I have undertaken to defend.

*P. ii. p. 42, 43.

Rev. i. 5. v. 9-14. xiv. 3

CHAP. IV.

The Prophets.

ISAIAH.

IT is probable, that Mr. P. is the first writer, capable of attracting the public notice, who has deemed the book of Isaiah to be bombastical rant, extrava* gant metaphor, such stuff as a school-boy would have been scarcely excusable for writing*! I shall, however, leave him to settle this point with those able critics, and admired judges of fine writing, who have decidedly preferred many parts of Isaiah's poetry, for sublimity and beauty, to all other compositions now extant in the world.

Occasional poems and sermons are not always arranged in very regular order: some able authors have published volumes of miscellanies; and we ought not to judge of an eastern writer by our rules of method. A cursory perusal will not always enable a man to discern the drift and plan of an author, when they may be clearly ascertained upon a more accurate in

* P. ii. p. 43.

vestigation; and sometimes the conclusion of one poem or message, and the beginning of another, escape the notice of a hasty reader: so that there may be much more order and connexion in this book, than Mr. P. supposes. The historical part was evidently added to illustrate the prophecies, and to prevent, not make confusion*.

It is very easy to ridicule the burden of Damascus, the burden of Moab, or the burden of Babylon; but not so easy to show, by what means the writer could foresee, that Babylon, then growing in greatness, and shortly to be the metropolis of the world, would at length be swept with the besom of destruction," as it actually hath been; so that it is not at present certainly known, where that vast and magnificent city once stood!! This single prophecy amounts to a demonstration, that God spake by the prophet Isaiah.

The prediction of Cyrus by name, above an hundred years before his birth, if allowed to have been written by Isaiah, would have subverted our author's whole system. Like an able general, therefore, he forms a stratagem of seizing our artillery, and employing it against us! He confidently asserts, (and that passes for proof with many readers,) that the whole passage was written an hundred and fifty years after Isaiah's death, in compliment to Cyrust!

But the connexion of these predictions, with the whole scope of the prophet's address to the people in the name of JEHOVAH, tends to expose the absurdity of this bold assertion. The God of Israel repeatedly appeals to prophecies already accomplished, as proofs

P. ii. p. 43, 44. + P. ii. p. 44, 45.

Is. xliv. 28. xiv. 1—4.

of his deity in opposition to the claims of idols: he adds, "New things do I declare, before they come "to pass I tell you of them :" He thus challenges his rivals, the idols of the nations, saying, "Shew "the things that are to come hereafter, that we may "know that ye are gods*:" and after various other predictions, he delivers that in question, with the greatest solemnity, as a proof of his eternal power and Godhead.

Had this prophecy stood single in the writings of Isaiah, this pretence might have been rather more plausible but the whole book is replete with predictions at least equally plain, and verified by the events in the most astonishing manner! So that it might as reasonably be asserted, that the fifty-third chapter was written after the crucifixion of Christ, and the establishment of his religion; or the fourteenth after the entire desolation of Babylon: as that the prediction concerning Cyrus was added after he had conquered the Chaldean monarchy.

The testimony of the Jews, through every age to this book as genuine, though it contains such numerous prophecies, which were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, sufficiently determines that point with all sober and competent judges; for how could it be possible to persuade a whole nation that they had always been acquainted with the prediction, during the course of an hundred and fifty years, if they had never before heard any thing of it? But infidels seem to take it for granted, that if priests be sufficiently knavish to attempt imposition, the people will always be found

Įs. xli. 23. xliii. 9.