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Q. What was his character?

A. He was perfect and upright, fearing God and departing from evil.

Q. Of what persons did his family consist?

A. Of his wife, seven sons, and three daughters.
Q. Of what did his property consist?

A. Of seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she asses, and a great household. He was the greatest of all the men of the east.*

Q. What befel him?

A. Through the agency of Satan, his cattle were carried off by the Sabeans and Chaldeans; his children killed; and he himself smitten all over with sore boils. Q. How did he bear these trials?

A. With so much patience, as to be held up in every succeeding age as the brightest example of that virtue. †

which Job lived, surviving his trial one hundred and forty years, xlii. 16.; the allusion made xxxi. 26-28. to the most ancient species of idolatry, Sabism; and the Hebrew language spoken by Job and his friends, which proves that the different dialects were not then formed. Dr. Hales fixes the date of Job's trial at one hundred and eighty-four years before the birth of Abram. The conjecture that Job is merely a fictious character, cannot be entertained by any who believe the word of God. His association with Noah and Daniel, Ezek. xiv. 14. by God himself, stamps the reality of his existence with evidence that cannot be disputed.

* By the Children of the East, who are often mentioned in scripture, must be understood not only Mesopotamia, but Arabia and the countries between Egypt and Euphrates. + James v. 11.

Q. Who condoled with him in his sufferings?
A. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, natives of Idumea.
Q. Was he comforted by their conversation?

A. No: after a long silence, Job having bitterly cursed the day of his birth, a discussion arose between him and his friends, in which they attributed his affliction to the retributive justice of heaven; whilst he so strenuously asserted his innocence, as to impugn the justice of Divine Providence.

Q. How did this dialogue terminate?

A. "These three men ceased to answer Job because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu against Job, because he justified himself rather than God; also against his three friends, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job." Therefore, after reproving Job for contending with God, and attributing too much to himself, he defended the dispensations of providence, and exhorted him to humble himself before God.

Q. What followed this?

A. After the remonstrances and admonitions of Elihu, to which Job made no reply, the Lord answered him out of the whirlwind, reproved his presumption, shewed him the Divine power and wisdom as manifested in the creation, and hence pointed out the ignorance and weakness of man on which the patriarch, humbling himself before the Lord, exclaimed, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

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Q. Was Job afterwards blessed, with the Divine favour?

A. Yes: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar having offered sacrifice to propitiate God, whose anger had been kindled against them, Job prayed for them; "and the Lord turned the captivity of Job," and "gave him twice as much as he had before."

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Q. What was the amount of Job's wealth?

A. "He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand she asses."

Q. Was he again blessed with a family?

A. Yes "he had seven sons and three daughters." Q. How long did Job survive his trial?

A. "

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After this lived Job a hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, four generations ;" and died—" old and full of days." A. M. 2006. Q. How long did Noah survive the deluge? B. C. 1998. A. Three hundred and fifty years.†

*It is impossible to ascertain by whom the book of Job was written. The articles of the patriarchal faith contained in this ancient poem, are, the creation of the world by the Supreme; the government of the world by a superintending Providence, carried on by a heavenly hierarchy, consisting of various ranks and orders of angels, possessing different names, dignities, and offices; the apostacy of some of these powers; the amenability of both good and evil powers to the Creator; original sin; mediation and propitiatory sacrifice; a resurrection and judgment. See HORNE's Introd. vol. iv.

+ The dispersion is supposed to be alluded to in the fabulons story of the war between the gods and giants, common to the

A. M. 2008.

B. C. 1996.

Q. To whose history are the first eleven chapters of Genesis an introduction ?

A. To the history of Abraham and his posterity?* Q. Who was Abraham ? ́

A. He was the son of Terah, the eighth from Shem. Q. Why is his history so minutely detailed by Moses? A. Because he was the progenitor of the Jewish nation, which represented the Church of God; and from which the Messiah was to spring.

mythologies of Greece, Scandinavia, Hindostan, &c. ; but this circumstance being placed in them all anterior to the creation of man, seems rather to refer to the rebellion of the angels. Noah is identified with the Satyavrata of Hindostan, the Fohi of China, the Xisuthrus of Chaldea, the Dwyfan of Britain, and the Bergelmer of Scandinavia. In mythology there ar traces of him in the Phoenician Uranus, the Indian Bacchus. and the Saturn of Greece and Rome. In GALE'S Court of the Gentiles, ample information, though sometimes fanciful enough, will be found on this head. Ham is identified with the Egyptian Ammon, and the Phoenician Chronus.

This circumstance should ever be borne in mind, because it accounts, at once, for the excessive brevity of Moses on most of the points connected with the general part of his history. He designed not to write a history of the world, which could be little else than a record of human crime-but a history of the Church of the living God, and of that people, who, for ages to come, were to be the depositaries of Divine truth. Hence he dispatches, in eleven chapters, the universal history, which is necessarily scanty; but yet so valuable, that without it we should grope in Egyptian darkness, which no theories of gospei-despising philosophers could, with all their concentrated talent and learning, ever dispel.

Q. Why is the genealogy of this patriarch so carefully particularized?

A. To preserve an unbroken record of the lineage of the Messiah.

Q. Who were the brethren of Abraham ?

A. Nahor and Haran: the latter died before his father in the land of his nativity.

Q. Whom did Abraham marry?

A. Sarai, afterwards called Sarah.

Q. Where did he and his ancestors reside?
A. In Ur of the Chaldees, in Mesopotamia.
Q. Had they preserved the primitive faith?

A. No: they were idolaters and served strange gods.*

CHAPTER III.

From the Call of Abraham to the Exodus.

Q. WHAT induced Abram to leave his kindred and his country?

A. He was called thereto by the God of Glory, who appeared to him.

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Q. What persons tread in the footsteps of this patriarch?

A. The followers of Jesus, who, being called to forego this world, the land of their nativity, live as strangers and pilgrims on the earth, "looking for a

*Josh. xxiv. 2, 14, 15.

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