* Contra Celfum. L.

6. Init,

It is not PROPER, that the language in which fuch truths are thus conveyed should be exquifitely refined and elegant. Because, it is addreffed to the ignorant and vulgar, to whom ↑ refinement oftentimes creates unnecessary obscurity; as well as to the wife and exalted, to whom a plain and even rude Style may be as intelligible, as the utmost elegance of Schools or Courts.

So that if we are precisely to afcertain the natural character or condition of an inspired language, we may perhaps with greatest safety define it in the words of ORIGEN *: Xaparing ΚΟΙΝΩΦΕΛΗΣ, καὶ δυναμένΘ. ΠΑΣΑΝ ἐπαγαγέθαι ακοήν. Such a Style as may be of moft extenfive use, and univerfally adapted to all hearers of all conditions. Thus, while we exclude on one hand the utmost rudeness and barbarousness, every fault that can poffibly deform a language, that is, fuch a mode of speech as is infufficient for clear intelligence; while we do not pretend to determine what qualities of fpeech the divine impreffion can or cannot convey, without a waste of miracles. So, on the other hand, we are warranted to affirm, that this KOINO EAEIA, this quality which indicates the most extenfive benevolence in the divine INSPIRER, is not to be found in the polished style of the elaborate writer or elegant Philofopher, who can be of ufe, if they are at all of ufe, only to their few literate admirers: as the author above-quoted obferves

We are not, then, to look for exquifite purity and elegance in the Apoftolical writings, even fuppofing that the authors

* ΟΛΙΓΟΥΣ μὲν ὤνησεν (εἶνε ὤνησεν) ἡ περικαλλὴς καὶ ἐπιτηδευμένη ΠΛΑΤΩΝΟΣ, καὶ τῶν παραπλησίως φρασάνων, ΛΕΞΙΣ. Πλείονας δέ ἡ τῶν ἐὐ Τελέστερον ἅμα καὶ πραγματικῶς καὶ ἐστο

χασμένως τῶν πολλῶν διδαξάντων καὶ γραψάντων. Εστι γοῦν ἰδεῖν τὸν μέν Πλά Ίωνα ἐν χερσὶ τῶν δοκούντων εἶναι φιλολόγων μόνον. Ibid.

acquired

acquired their language by miraculous infufion. And these are qualities of speech which even in the little affairs of human life and human knowledge, are accounted but of an inferior value; are facrificed to the higher and more effential excellencies of style; are in many inftances infufficient for operating upon the human mind: and fometimes become contemptible and ridiculous, if too fcrupulously and minutely regarded.* When Brutus had harangued the Romans in the Capitol, after the death of Cæfar, he fent a copy of his fpeech to Cicero, with a request that he would offer his corrections freely. The orator found that, instead of breathing that freedom, that ardor, that vehemence of spirit which the great occafion required, it was nice, elaborate, and elegant. He therefore declined the vain attempt of amending it, because it was altogether wrong, (as he plainly, tho' civilly, infinuates to Atticus) because the general Character of it was injudicious, the whole colouring improper for the Speaker, the Subject,

and the Audience.

Vid. Epift. ad Atticum. L. 15. E. 1.

And let thofe men who are fo little affected by the truths ad contained in the Apoftolical writings, as to have leisure to examine the niceties of compofition, and to be offended at their fuppofed defects in elegance and claffical refinement; let them, I fay, remember that in every work of human genius, the judicious Critic never fails to diftinguish between the merit of diction, and that of the subject-matter or information which it contains. Trifles and abfurdities he rejects with fcorn, tho' tricked out in all the gaiety of language. Solid fenfe and ufeful knowledge command his atttention. He discovers them, tho' disgraced, or even disguised, by rude language: and would look down with pity and contempt on that BEMBO who should reject them, because not expreffed agreeably to

his finical and pedantic notions of refinement. If NEWTON had written his invaluable Principia, not in his own neat Latinity, but in a Style fomewhat incorrect and corrupted, yet

still fufficiently intelligible; what should we think of that man who, tho' capable of following the divine Philosopher through all his stupendous discoveries, should yet fit down in wilful ignorance, left his ear should be shocked with phrases not exactly Ciceronian? But in the case of truths intimately connected with our immediate intereft or happiness, a fastidious attention to the manner in which they are conveyed, becomes infinitely more unreasonable and extravagant. If we were affured upon the fulleft evidence, that a man could teach us a speedy and infallible method of becoming rich, or powerful, or great; fhould we weigh his phrafes, and measure his periods? fhould we not receive his directions with attention and respect; far from cavilling at his expreffions? should we not stretch all our faculties to comprehend them, were they even delivered with an oracular obfcurity, far from murmuring, or rejecting them, because, in fome lefs important inftances it might not be, at once, easy to comprehend their full force and import? Or, to borrow another allufion no lefs appofite to the point before us; fhould the wretch, long wasted, afflicted, and tormented with fickness, reject the charitable affiftance of his physician, because his directions were inelegantly expreffed, or not in a manner confonant to his notions of critical perfection; fhould he find leifure to entertain a doubt of his well-approved fkill, for this reafon; could we believe him in his found mind? could we acquit him of infatuation and abfurdity?And can it be deemed reasonable

and

and judicious to indulge fuch fantastical fcruples, when we are vifited by the PHYSICIAN of SOULS?

And what adds to the unreasonableness of thefe delicate readers, and what some of them may perhaps account ftill more shameful, is, that their objections are oftentimes ignorantly and erroneously alledged. However * an eminent Philofopher may have spoken of the Apoftolical compofition in strong and general terms, and made up of Greek terms and Hebrew or Syriac idioms; yet it has been † proved, that fuch expreffions are not to be understood without great limitation: as many of those instances of phrafeology which are noted as Hebraisms or Syriafms, are found to be not all peculiar to these languages, but warranted by the authority of the most approved Greek writers :-- -that, in other inftances, even where the subject-matter doth not make it necessary to recur to Hebrew phrafeology, the mode of expreffion is beautiful, forcible, and univerfally intelligible:—that, as to the charge of impurity or barbarousness of particular terms, XENOPHON himself, when writing of the affairs and customs of Perfia, adopts the terms of that country, uncenfured by the feverest critic: that the like liberty is equally juftifiable in speaking of Roman customs and transactions; that Kñvo☺, Κουσιοδία, Κεντουρίων, are no more barbarous than Κανδός, Ακικάνης, Παρασάγης: That, Cicero (that model of elocution by which some men would try the merit of the facred writings) found it neceffary to invent words and phrases in order to explain the Greek philofophy to his countrymen :And that, as to thofe forms of expreffion in the New Testament, which men of affected accuracy have condemned as

*Mr. Lock. Vid. Preface to the Paraphrafe on St. Paul's Epiftles. + Vid. BLACKWALL'S Sacred Claffics.

rude

* Door SOUTH.

rude Solecifms, they are in numberless inftances exactly parallelled in the Claffical Writers of Greece; they are justified by the rules of liberal Criticism; and however they may offend the cold pedantic grammarian, they are no other than those free figurative modes of speech which naturally occur to the animated writer; and, in human compofition, are oftentimes regarded as proofs of fuperior genius.

Nor can I venture to pronounce so severe a sentence on those writers who have endeavoured to defend the purity of Scripture-Greek, as that their labours have been idly employed, or that they are false zealots, who have shewed themselves foolish. For although we may not think it necessary to join issue with our adverfaries, upon this point of purity: yet the learned researches of those who efteem it a point of moment, are not without their advantages. They detect the prefumption of affected Critics and commentators: They fhew that such men have objected rafhly and unwarrantably; have dared to fix their mark of reprobation upon phrases and expreffions, supported by the most indifputable authorities. So far therefore,

they contribute to put to filence the ignorance of foolish men ̧ And if there be thofe, who concur in fuch precipitate cenfures, in order to render the authority of the divine writings fufpected, while we endeavour to fupport their authority against the whole force of such cenfures, even upon the suppofition that they are fairly founded, it must reflect double shame upon fuch adverfaries, if it be proved in any inftances that their objection is groundless; and that * they betray as small a guft of the elegancies of expreffion, as of the facredness of the matter, in thefe divine writings,

CHAP.