more than this, he affirms that there is no expectation after death, and consequently no hope remaining for him." Which are such blasphemies, that Maimonides is fain to seek excuses for him; and, for that end, alledges a common saying among their wise men, That a man is not apprehended or seized on because of bis grief; that is, what he says in extremity of pain, is not imputed to him for sin. But there is no need of this apology; for the places he alledges do not prove him guilty of uttering such things as (to speak in his words) are evil in the highest degree; though Manasseh Ben-Israel is so presumptuous, as to charge him with such a profane denial of Divine Providence, at least here below the moon, that he makes him impute all his misery to the malignant aspect of the planets, under which he was conceived and born. To which opinion of Job, say they, every one of his friends opposed a particular opinion of their own, differing each of them from the other. And first, Eliphaz endeavours to establish this for a certain truth, that as afflictions do not come by chance, but by the providence of God, so they are sent for the sins of men ;" and therefore, without all doubt, Job was a great offender, which was the cause he was handled on this manner. "This opinion," says Maimonides, "he held to the last; only was fain to add, in conclusion, that all the ways whereby we deserve punishment do not appear." Then after him (when Job had argued against this) comes Bildad, who produces a new opinion, grounded upon the doctrine of permutation, or recompence, as they speak; that is," he believed the evils which Job endured here should, if he proved innocent, be changed into good things, and, in the issue, be highly serviceable to him in another world." After whom succeeds Zophar, with a different resolution from all these, which was, "That God acts according to his own pleasure, and that we are not to search for any cause of his actions out of his own will; nor to say, Why doth he this, and not that? In short, we are not to seek the way of equity, and the decree of wisdom, in his doings; for it necessarily belongs to his essence, that he do what he will; and our understanding is too shallow to comprehend the secrets of his wisdom, whose right and property it is that he may do according to his pleasure, and for no other cause." And these four opinions about Providence, Maimonides undertakes to shew, have had their several as serters since, who have propagated them among their scholars. Job's opinion, he saith, is the same with Aristotle's, who attributed all to accident. Bildad was followed by the sect of Mutazali, (a kind of Pharisees among the Ismaelites), who ascribed all to wisdom. Zophar, by the sect of Assaria, who attributed all to will and pleasure. And Eliphaz, he fancies, held the opinion of the law, which is, that God deals with men according to their works. But when that all these men had disputed, nothing moved Job, there stands up another, whose name was Elihu, "who first proves the providence of God from prophetical dreams, xxxiii. 15. and to those things which Eliphaz had said, adds, according to the imagination of Manasseh. Ben-Israel, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, (which he labours to find in ver. 14.), and thereby in a wonderful way, says he, resolves all the doubt, by determining that Job, and other just men, may be punished for sins which they committed in a former body." But as there is no footstep, that I can see, for this fond conceit, which he honours with the name of a mystery, so it is evident these men follow their own vain inventions in all this discourse, directly contrary to the book itself. For they make Job's opinion the very worst of all the rest; when the Lord himself tells Eliphaz, in the conclusion of the book, (xlii. 7.) that he was angry with him and his two other friends, because they had not spoken of him so rightly as Job had.. And it doth not appear by their speeches, that they held several opinions about Providence, and took every one of them a different way (that is a mere Rabbinical subtlety) to solve the doubt, wherein Job's unusual sufferings had perplexed them. they seem to have harped all of them upon one and the same string, as I have represented in the arguments before each chapter. But From whence the conclusion of Maimonides will be very evident, (which is the best thing he says), that "the scope of the book is, to establish the great article of Providence, and thereby to preserve us from error, in thinking that God's knowledge is like our knowledge, or his intention, providence, and government, like our intention, providence, and government. Which foundation being laid, nothing will seem hard to a man, whatsoever happens; nor will he fall into dubious thoughts concerning God, whether he knows what is befallen us or no, and whether he takes any care of us. But rather he will be inflamed the more vehemently in the love of God; as it is said in the end of this prophecy," Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." So say our wise men, "They that act out of love, will rejoice in chastisement." To all DEVOUT CHRISTIANS, Especially those that frequent the Daily Prayers of the CHURCH, The Author dedicateth this PARAPHRASE upon the Book of PSALMS; Wishing them increase of Grace and Comfort, BY Singing praises unto God with understanding, PSAL. xlvii. 7. THE PRE FAC E. THE HE work itself proves so long, that I must make the preface the shorter; which shall be confined to these two heads: First, A brief account of the book of Psalms; Secondly, Of my paraphrase upon it. I. FOR the first,The book is a most admirable piece of poetry, which moves more powerfully, and touches the mind more sensibly, than sentences in prose; especially when it is in such perfection, as we find it in these divine inspirations. For, as Melancthon truly speaks, this is the most elegant work extant in the world; and hath performed that, I may add, which Plato himself wished for, but confessed was above the reach of mere men. There was no more efficacious way, that philosopher clearly saw, of instructing youth, than by odes and songs; about which he discourses at large, and gives a great many cautions in his Second Book of Laws, but after all, concludes at last *, Tõto † Oiỡ na Deíx tivòs, äv éin, "This must be the work of God, or of some divine man :" wherein he plainly acknowledges the defect of their institution, (though certain poems were pretended then to have been anciently made by their goddess Isis), and marvellously justifies the Hebrew discipline, who taught their children or scholars by hymns. Which Moses, the man of God, began to compose, Exod. xv. Deut. xxxii. ; and other inspired persons afterwards imitated, Judges, v. 1 Sam. ii.; but was brought to perfection by David: Who, as he was an admirable artist in music, 1 Sam. xvi. 18. and himself invented some musical instruments, as we learn from the prophet Amos, vi. 5. so was an incomparable poet, 2 Sam. xxiii. 1. 2. and took all occasions to exercise this faculty, not on such low subjects as those to which it is commonly debased, but in abundance cf divine meditations; which are gathered together in this book; wherein he calls upon them to listen unto him, saying, "Come, ye children, hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord," Psal xxxiv. 11. It is called in their language, Sepher Tehillem, the book of Psalms, or Hymns, i. e. praises of the Lord; because, though there are many complaints, and imprecations, and prayers in it, yet the greatest part are praises or thanksgivings unto God; and in those other, there are many mixtures of acknowledgements of what God had formerly done for him, or of confidence what he would still do, or of resolutions how thankful he would be, when God granted him deliverance: Which gave them such a strange power "to cure heaviness, to extirpate grief, to wipe away sorrow, to lay aside troublesome thoughts and passions, to ease us of our cares, to recreate those who are oppressed with any sort of pains, (they are the words of Proclus, archbishop of Constantinople +), as well as to move compunction for sin, and to stimulate unto piety," that no book in the world is to be compared with it for these purposes. And as it is called the book of Psalms, or praises, from the major part, so they are called David's Psalms, because he made the most of them, though it must be confessed, there were several other authors, by whom some of them were composed. In the Hebrew they are divided, like Moses's law, into five books, as I shall shew in due place; and so may be called a second Pentateuch: which seem to have been collected by several persons, (as will appear in the preface to each of them); for no other reason but that can be given, why all that belong to one subject were not put together; or at least, all those composed by David, placed by themselves, and not so mixed, as they are, with those made by other authors. Some think they were gathered together by the friends of Hezekiah, before the captivity. But if they had been so, they would, in all probability, have been disposed in such order as they were penned; all the : sacred books being preserved in the temple, (as Josephus witnesses *), with great care from whence they might have taken the copies of them, with the names of all their authors, which now, in many of them, are wanting. Which makes it more likely, that, after the temple and the sacred records were burnt by the king of Babylon's army, some pious persons collected as many as they could find, by inquiring among their friends, in those good men's hands who had transcribed them heretofore for their own private use, every one as he had For the songs of Zion the people were very well acquainted withal, though it lay desolate, as it appears by the 17th Psalm; where the Babylonians desire to hear one of them sung by the mournful captives; who preserved them, no doubt, to their comfort in that sad condition, and added to them such as were made by divine men, during its continuance, and after their return from captivity. When, as St Athanasius + resolves in his Synopsis, (following the Hebrew tradition). Ezra put them together in one volume, as we now have them, which is not affirmed without reason; for we find that the fourdation of the second temple was no sooner laid, but Ezra (as the Hebrews call him) restored the ancient custom of psalmody, or singing psalms of praise, (Ezra, iii. 10.11.), which David had appointed to accompany the sacrifices as soon as the ark was settled, (1 Chron. vi. 31. xvi. 17. Ecclus. 1. 15. 16. &c.), and which Solomon continued after he had built the temple, and brought the ark into it, 2 Chron. v. 12. 13. Now, when all those bloody sacrifices were abolished, by the offering which Christ made of himself, the sacrifice of praise alone remained, as the principal service of the Christian church: several persons being inspired, not only to pray divinely, but to prophesy also, or to sing psalms, and hymns of praise; as we read in the epistle to I Cor. xi. 5. xiv. 15. 26. And in the book of Revelation, we find the apostles and elders thus employed, Rev. iv. 9. 10. 11. in which the people bare a part; as we learn from the next chapter, ver. 9. 13. and xiv. 1. 2. 3. So that St Austin might tell Januarius, that concerning singing hymns and psalms, we have instructions, and examples, and precepts, both of our Lord himself, and of his apostles: According to which, the churches of Africa sung Divina Cantica Prophetarum, the divine songs of the prophets, while the drunken Donatists sung the composures of human wit. "Nor can I see," saith he, "what Christians can do more profitably and more holily than this, when they meet together, and are not reading, preaching, or praying." Those Divina Cantica, no doubt, were principally the Psalms, of David, in singing of which Christian people delighted, above all other exercises of devotion. The manner of their singing, also, was like that in Ezra's time, Ezra, iii. 11.; one beginning the hymn, and the rest answering the rà age sixia, extremes, or last words of it, as the author of the Apostolical Constitutions tells us, which Eusebius calls the 'Axgortasuria Tav õμvær, the last part of the hymns, which, he expressly says, were sung by the whole company; who hearkened in silence to him that sung the rest, till he came to the close, which they all repeated together §. And when that manner of singing the psalms, which we now use in our Quires, was brought in by Flavianus, and Diodorus, who, at Antioch, divided the chore into two parts, (singing the Psalms of David, y diadoxus, alternately, one verse by this half of the quire, and the next by the other), it thence spread itself, as it were, by a joint consent, all the world over. Thus Theodoret informs us in his Ecclesiastical History, Book ii. chap. 19. By which means the people came to be so well acquainted with them, that (as the same Theodoret tells us in his preface to this book of Psalms) both in city and country this was the employment of Christian people. They that minded no other book of the scriptures, yet had this so by heart, that both in their houses, and in the streets, and in the high-ways, they were wont to recreate themselves with the singing of these holy songs. But I must not enlarge any further on this subject, nor fill this preface with the high commendations which the ancients give both of Psalmody, and of this book of Psalms; which St Basil (who alone would furnish me with the sense of all the rest, if it were fit to transcribe his preface to it) calls the "common treasure of all good precepts," (containing the perfections of all the rest of the scriptures), xxxncias pary," the voice of the church," in which may be found onoga riza, "a complete body of theology." Which will make this paraphrase, I hope, the more acceptable; of which it is time now that I give an account. II. There being two ways of paraphrasing, one which keeps to the metaphors, and pursues them in more words of the like kind; another which puts those borrowed forms of speech into proper and common expressions; I have chosen the latter, and endeavoured, by giving a clear interpretation, and expressing, as well as [ could, the true force and just value of every phrase, to make the original words plain and easy in our language as may be seen particularly, xviii. 2. xix. 8. 9. In which endeavour it is likely I may sometimes meet with the censures of those who do not consider the import of the Hebrew words, but not be thought much faulty, I hope, by such as can and will consult them; for they will find I have carefully weighed them, and taken some pains rightly to expound them; not largely, nor making discourses upon them, but || Lib. II. Cap. 57. * Antiq. L. III. C. 1. + Tom. II. p. 86. Epist. cxix. Cap. 18. |