The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very needlessly:  to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and really happened.  It is one of those few places where we get an insight into what is going on elsewhere:  it is a lifting off the curtain of eternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly presented in the halls of heaven.  And I am moved to speak about it here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities will be acceptable to many:  especially if they have been harassed by the doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history.  It signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so long as they were true, and really happened:  given power, opportunity, and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if written by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself.  Whether then Job, the wealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or whoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true; and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been decreed a component part of revelation.  Without it, there would have been wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long and dreary interval of several hundred years:  there would never have been given for man’s help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and trust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and redeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish Scripture:  as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond all modern instance.  However, the excellences of that narrative are scarcely our theme:  we return to the starting-post of its probability, especially with reference to its supernatural commencement.  What we have shown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the denizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first chapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two chapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected.

Let us see what happened: 

“There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.  And the Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou?  Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.  And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?  Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for naught?  Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?  Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.  But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.  And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.  So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.”—­[Job 1. 6-13.]