1808. J 
demn him with with 2 fhamefal death ; 
for by his own faying he fhall be re- 
f{pected. ~ 
Such things they did imagine, and were 
deceived, (If. 13—~21). . 
He pleafed God and was beloved of 
him ; fo that living among finners he was 
tranflated. (IV. 10). 
He being made perfect in a fhort time 
fulfilled a long time ; for his foul pleafed 
the Lord, who therefore hafted to take 
him away fromamong the wicked. ‘This 
the people faw, and underitcod it not. 
(IV. 15). | 
Thou haft chofen me to bea king of 
thy people, and a judge of thy fons and 
daughters. (IX. 7). 
Thus the righteous that is dead, fhall 
condemn the ungodly which are living ; 
and youth that is foon perfeéted, the 
many years and old age of the unrigh- 
teous. 
For they fliall fee the end of the wife, 
and fhall not underftand what God in his 
counfel hath decreed of him, and to what 
end the Lord hath fet him in fafety. 
They fhall fee him and defpife him, 
but God fhall laugh them to fcorn ; and 
they fhall hereafter be a vile carcafs, and 
a reproach among the dead for evermore ; 
for he fhall rend them, and caft them down 
headlong. (IV. 19.) 
The inference, however obvious, is in 
its character too bold, and in its poifible 
confequences too magnitudinous, to be 
lightly ftated in words... . 
Yet why may he not, after rifing above 
the cataftrophe, which was,expected to 
terminate his exiftence, (the fecond chap- 
ter of the Wifdom is fub/equent to that 
<atafirophe, or prophetic of it) have him- 
felf dictated a new preface.at leaft to thofe 
previous and long-ineditated writings, de- 
ftined to condenfe and to preferve his fa- 
vourite ideas of moral perfection, and to 
record the unperifhable fubftance of | his 
extraordinary tuition and intuition ? 
Could any individual elfe confiftently thus 
talk? Can any impoftor be fuppofed to 
have a rational motive for thus perfonat- 
ing him? Claiming the fame prematurity 
of wifdom and pre-eminence of fuffering ; 
inculcating the fame amiable though afce- 
tic morality ; delighting in the fame tech- 
nical defignation ; and: arrogating with 
lofty confidence the fame final all-retribu- 
tive jurifdittion, Whoever the author 
was, he feems already -aware (Wifdom 
VII. 1—6) that wonderful ftories were 
in circulation concerning his own birth. 
If the fulpicion, of which an_intima- 
. e e * s 
_ tion has juft been hazarded, were founded 
Whowrote the 7: ijdorm 2 
223 
jn truth, no traces of the exiftence of 
the Wifdom would occur in any writer 
before the thirtieth or thirty-third year | 
of the Chriftian wra, which isin fact the 
cafe, But from the moment of the fecef 
fion of its fublime author, it. would be 
clung upon by his foremof difciples 3 
it would be put into the hands of all the 
apoftolic characters ;,it would be fondly 
confulied ani carefuily ftudied by them; 
it wotld tinéture by repeated perufal 
the ideas, or the fiyle of every one ; it 
would be quoted direétly or indire@tly by 
them all, from the very commenc: ment of 
their miffion, This alfo is the cafe; let. 
us particularize. 
Whois the earlie? contributor to theChrift. 
tian Scriptures ? Probably James. He was 
already confidered as a pillar of the charch 
underHerod Agrippa (Aéts XI!.17) who 
died in 42 or 43, acd who hai previoufly 
executed James. | His General Epittle di 
plays education, probity and fenle; the ~ 
whole letter is one perpetual imitation of 
the Wifdom ; where he is not burtowing 
thought and words, he is parodying the 
imagery, and copying the compofition.— 
Compare 
James, I. 6—12, with Wifdom V. 14—16. 
17—18, VII, 25——266 
26 nt 
—— Il 9—13, ———-__ ‘VI. 6—¥7, 
—— Il. 13-13, —_— YT. 6-—33. 
—— IV. 4 _——— jIl. 16. 
———- V, 6 ee MI. 78. 
It is moreover obfervable that James, 
where he quotes (1. 12) from the Wildooa - 
(V.16) an unofual exprefion, the crown of 
life, which does not occur in the Golpel, 
afcribes it to the Lord nimfelf; fo that 
James, whofe intimacy of acquaint. 
ance preciudes miftake, mutt have con-. 
fidered the Wifdom as written by the very 
Founder of Chriftianity. 
Next after James, tf not before hira 
even, wrote Peter, woo difplays a more 
boiling zeal, but lefs imteilectual cu'ture. 
He was attached, creduloufly attached, 
(obferve his reliance on the book of 
Enoch, 2 Peter If. 4) to the lezcndary 
writings of his countrymen. His vifit 
to Babylon, whence the two Epiitles are 
dated, may be placed, it fhould teem, be- 
tween the years 54 and 58 ; becaufe he 
borrows a paffage from Paul (compare 
2 Peter LIL. 10, with 1 Theffalonians V. 
2) writtenin the firi of thefe two vears, 
and lends a pifiage to Paul (compare 
1 Peter Ti.rg3——15 with Romans Xifi.1— 
5) wriften in the jalt of thefe two years, 
if the year 56 then, to take the average, 
eter had already written a Golpel -(¢ 
Peter 
