fpeak with a voice like me, or imitate the awful thunder? Canft "thou fend the lightnings on thy errand, or will the meteors ever "liften to thy command? Raise thyfelf up; put on thy dazzling

crown, and array thee with majefty and glory; let us behold "thee feated on thy throne in all the pomp and majefty thou canst "devife; call thy guards around thee, and let humble princes wait

thy pleasure, that thou mayest attract the eyes of all mankind upon "thee, and excite their awe; then exert thy wrath and indignation; "then make thy adverfaries tremble at thy fight; frown in difplea"fure on the haughty and imperious; and make them hang their "heads with fhame and confufion: Let every proud oppreffor trem"ble at thy looks, and throw himself proftrate at thy very feet: "with thy fierce rage crush the race of the wicked, wherever thou "meetest with them; throw them all without diftinction into one general grave, that the world may be burthened with them no "more; cover the faces of those with perpetual fhame, who behave "in an infolent manner, and overlook their neigbours. When I fee "thee, Job, capable of doing fuch great things as these; then will I readily acknowledge thee to be independent, and to want no man"ner of aid or affiftance.

"If thou art not, however, as yet fufficiently humbled; if thou "art not as yet fully convinced of thy weakness, think for a little "while on thy fellow-creature, the BEHEMOTH, which I have "made in a country not far diftant from thee, and which makes "the Nile in Egypt the peculiar place of his abode; contemplate on the prodigious ftrength, not only of his loins, but of the navel "of his belly, where all other animals are generally weakest and "moft tender. His wide extended tail moves like a mountain; the "finews of his thighs are knit so fast together, that they are bound "like complicated cords. His bones are as firm as brafs, or as bars "of iron, that are duly tempered in the fire. Among all the won"derful works of God he is chief, and an inconteftable inftance of

"This

his omnipotence? He that made him has armed his jaws with "fuch deftructive fangs, that no mortal creature durft approach "him; he only that made him has power to controul him. In "the night he grazes upon the hills; where he is abfolute lord "and mafter, amongst the beafts of the field, who play in those "verdant pastures. In the day time however, he repofes himself in "fome retired fhade, under the fhelter of the tall reeds in the "marfhes. The trees cover him with their fhadow; he is fur"rounded with willows and oziers, which grow in profufion on the

banks of the river. Behold, he drinketh a river at a draught! "When he enters Jordan, the waters thereof, fwell as high as "mountains, and he swallows down, as it were, with his wishful 66 eyes, the billows that furround him. What mortal is fo hardy as "to approach within his reach? Or who dares to encounter him in "a fair and open combat? Where is the man, who will prefume "to fasten a hook in his nose in hopes to fecure him?"

а

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS on CHAP. XL.

VER. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII.

HAST THOU AN ARM LIKE GOD? OR CANST THOU THUNDER WITH A VOICE LIKE HIM? DECK THYSELF NOW WITH MAJESTY AND EXCELLENCY, AND ARRAY THYSELF WITH GLORY AND BEAUTY. CAST ABROAD THE RAGE OF THY WRATH; AND BEHOLD EVERY ONE THAT IS PROUD, AND ABASE HIM. LOOK ON EVERY ONE THAT IS PROUD, AND BRING HIM LOW: AND TREAD DOWN THE WICKED IN THEIR PLACE. HIDE THEM IN THE DUST TOGETHER, AND BIND THEIR FACES IN SECRET.

THE foregoing verfes require no long comment for their explication. They may, I conceive, with propriety be termed a description of the Deity; and the inspired penman has expreffed himself with great pomp and fublimity, though at the fame time with that brevity which is one of the most distinguishing characteristicks of a great genius. Prophane authors, in their defcriptions of the Deity, not only afcribe to him fuch paffions as are peculiar to the human fpecies, but oftentimes represent him

as

as frequently guilty of the moft enormous vices.-Thus the Jupiter of the ancients was often fuppofed to be so transported with the refiftlefs charms of their then reigning beauties, that, Proteus like, he would transform himself into a variety of the moft agreeable forms, in hopes to allure them to his wanton embraces; and, in fhort, they filled the heavens with fuch a fet of profligate and abandoned inhabitants, as were fit companions only for infernal fpirits.-Our Milton, in his Paradice Loft, has fet the gods of the heathens in their true light, by giving them their proper place in his catalogue of fallen angels; fee Book I.-Such monftrous reprefentations as are abovementioned had, doubtlefs, a very fatal inuflence on the morals of mankind; and that licentioufnefs which they produced at laft overthrew the nobleft nations in the world :The facred fcriptures therefore are full of paffages tending to remove fuch unworthy and pernicious notions of the Deity.-They reprefent him as happy in the enjoyment of his own incomprehenfible perfections ;-as exerting his almighty power in the government of the univerfe, by fuch laws as proclaim aloud his wisdom and goodness.--What can be more worthy of the true God, than to behold every one that is proud, and to abafe him, to bring him low, to tread down the wicked, and to hide them in the duft together?-Such reprefentations as these enlarge our ideas, and have a natural tendency to create in us an awful regard for, and a becoming dread of offending him, who is of purer eyes than to behold the least iniquity.--Such of my readers as are converfant in the writings of the most approved ancient and modern poets, will readily acknowledge the infinite diftance that there is between their defcriptions of the fupreme Being of heaven, and its bleffed inhabitants, and those of the inspired penmen. As I have introduced fo many poetical extracts in the laft chapter, I fhall purposely avoid all other citations in this, but Dr. Young's paraphrafe upon the text.-The Almighty there addreffes himself to Job in the following terms.

Can that arm measure with an arm divine?
And canft thou thunder with a voice like mine?
Or in the hollow of thy hand contain
The bulk of waters, the wide spreading main,
When mad with tempefts all the billows rife
In all their rage, and dafh the distant skies?
Come forth, in beauty's excellence array'd,
And be the grandeur of thy pow'r display'd ;
Put on omnipotence, and frowning make
The fpacious round of the creation shake :
Dispatch thy vengeance, bid it overthrow
Triumphant vice, lay lofty tyrants low,
And crumble them to duft:

V. VOL. III.

Mmm

VER.

VER. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. BEHOLD NOW BEHEMOTH, WHICH I MADE WITH THEE, HE EATETH GRASS AS AN OX. LO NOW, HIS STRENGTH IS IN HIS LOYNS, AND HIS FORCE IS IN THE NAVEL OF HIS BELLY. HE MOVETH HIS TAIL LIKE A CEDAR: THE SINEWS OF HIS STONES ARE WRAPT TOGETHER. HIS BONES ARE AS STRONG PIECES OF BRASS, HIS BONES ARE LIKE BARS OF IRON. HE IS THE CHIEF OF THE WAYS OF GOD: HE THAT MADE HIM, CAN MAKE HIS SWORD TO APPROACH UNTO HIM. SURELY THE MOUNTAINS BRING HIM FORTH FOOD, WHERE ALL THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD PLAY. HE LIETH UNDER THE SHADY TREES, IN THE COVERT OF THE REEDS AND FENS. THE SHADY TREES COVER HIM WITH THEIR SHADOW: THE WILLOWS OF THE BROOK COMPASS HIM ABOUT. BEHOLD HE DRINKETH UP A RIVER, AND HASTETH NOT; HE TRUSTETH THAT HE CAN DRAW UP JORDAN INTO HIS MOUTH. HE TAKETH IT WITH HIS EYES: HIS NOSE PIERCETH THROUGH SNARES.

BEHEMOTH is a word of Egyptian termination, fignifying, not the elephant, which feldom lies down, and never among reeds, as this doth, fee ver. 21. of this chapter, but a creature in that country called by the Greek writers Hippotamos, that is, the river-horse; for it appears by the fecond Book of Efdras, chap. vi. ver. 49. that the Hebrews reckon Behemoth, not among the land animals, but among those belonging to the water, which were created on the fifth day. And there are none that we know, of that fort, to whom the characters here mentioned belong, but the creature here particularly named.. DR. PATRICK.

The latter part of this defcription is evidently an hyperbole, and it seems surpris ing to me that any commentator fhould strain so hard as fome have done for a new conftruction of it.-Now an hyperbole, literally fpeaking, is an impoffibility; it is the importance therefore of the fubject, that juftifies the use of that rhetorical figure. -Thus, for inftance, St. John having wrote an account of the life, fufferings and death of our blessed Lord and Saviour, in order to give the reader an idea of the importance of a life fo full of meritorious actions, makes ufe of the following hyperbole. -There are also, fays he, many other things which Jefus did, the which if they fhould be written every one, I fuppofe that even the world itfelf could not contain the books that fhould be written.

Mild is my BEHEMOTH; tho' large his frame,
Smooth is his temper, and repreft his flame,

While

While unprovok'd: this native of the flood
Lifts his broad foot, and puts afhore for food;
Earth finks beneath him as he moves along,
To feek the herds, and mingle with the throng.
See, with what ftrength his hardn'd loins are bound,
All over proof, and shut against a wound!
How like a mountain-cedar moves his tail!
Nor can his complicated finews fail.

Built high and wide, his folid bones furpafs
The bars of steel, his ribs are ribs of brass;
His port majestick, and his armed jaw,

Give the wide foreft, and the mountain law;
The mountains feed him; there the beafts admire
The mighty ftranger, and in dread retire.
At length his greatnefs nearer they furvey,
Graze in his fhadow, and his eye obey.
The fens and marshes are his cold retreat,
His noon-tide shelter from the burning heat;
Their fedgy bofoms his wide couch are made,
And groves of willows give him all their shade:
His eye drinks Jordan up, when fir'd with drought,
He trufts to turn his current down his throat;
In leffen'd waves it creeps along the plain,
He finks a river, and he thirfts again.

DR. YOUNG.

The RIVER-HORSE, is an amphibious animal, well known to the ancients, but which the prefent Egyptians are very little acquainted with. It seems to be a native of Ethiopia, in the upper parts of the Nile, and seldom comes down into Egypt; but M. Thevenot tells us, he faw one of these animals which was taken at Girge, the capital of upper Egypt, in the year 1658, and afterwards brought to Cairo. It was about the bigness of a camel, of a tawny colour, the hinder part made like an ox, and the head like a horfe. Its eyes and ears were small, but it had great open noftrils, thick large feet, almost round, and four claws on each; the tail was like an elephant's, and it had no more hair upon its body than there is upon that creature. In the lower jaw, it had four great teeth, fix inches long, two of them crooked the other straight, but standing out forwards, and all of them as thick as the horns of an Ox. It was dead when it was fhewn at Cairo, having been fhot by fome Janizaries, as it was graz▾ ing near the river. These monsters are very rare, especially in the middle and lower parts of Egypt; no fuch animal having been seen there for many years before. The ancients, as well as the moderns, affirm, that this beaft, when he is out of order, has Mmm 2

a method