1 Preef. in Esaiam et Amosum. 2 Franciscus Picus, Exam. Doct. Gent. lib. ii. cap. ii; Bibliander. de Ratione Discendi Hebrxe.; Mornaus de Veritat. Christ. Relig. cap. xvi. ; Rivet. Isagog. ad Sac. Script. cap. xxviii. ; Glassius, Philol. Sac. Preef. ad Rhetor. ; Origen. tom. iv. in Evang. Johan.; Hieron. Epist. cli, ad Algas; Cornelius a Lapide Pref. in Epist. Paul.
52 CANONICAL AUTHORITY OF THE [EXERC. I.
had to do, in suiting of words and speech, wherein all true, solid eloquence consisteth, is every way as proper, as elegant, as that of Isaiah. Neither will the knowing reader find him wanting in any of the celebrated styles of writing, where occasion unto “them is administered. Thus some affirm that St Paul used sundry expres- sions (and they instance in 1 Cor. iv. 3, Col. 11. 18) that were proper to the Cilicians, his countrymen, and not so proper as to the purity of that language wherein he wrote; but as the first of the expres- sions they instance in isa Hebraism, and the latter purely Greek, so indeed they will discover a Tarsian defect in St Paul, together with the Patavinity in Livy that Pollio noted in him.
28. Eloquence and propriety of speech, for the proper ends of them, are the gift of God, Exod. iv. 10, 11; and therefore, unless pregnant instances may be given to the contrary, it may well be thought and expected that they should not be wanting in books written by his own inspiration. Nor indeed are they; only we are not able to give a right measure of what doth truly and absolutely belong unto them. He that shall look for a flourish of painted words, artificial, meretricious ornaments of speech, discourse suited to entice, inveigle, and work upon, weak and carnal affections; or sophistical, captious ways of reasoning, to deceive; or that “suada,” or aidavoroyia, that smooth and harmonious strana of periods, wherein the great Roman orator gloried, the “ lenocinia verborum,” the dog and “grandiloquentia,” of some of the heathens, in the Scripture, will be mistaken in hisaim. Such things become not the authority, majesty, greatness, and holiness, of Him who speaks therein. An earthly monarch that should make use of them in his edicts, laws, or proclamations, would but prostitute his authority to con- tempt, and invite his subjects to disobedience by so doing. How much more would they unbecome the declaration of His mind and will, given unto poor worms, who is the great possessor of heaven and earth!
Besides, these things bald not indeed unto real eloquence and propriety of speech, but are eatieneaill invented crutches, for the relief of our lameness and infirmity. Men despairing to affect the minds of others with the things themselves which they had to pro- pose unto them, and acquainted with the baits that are meet to take hold of their brutish affections, with the ways of prepossessing their minds with prejudice, or casting a mist before their understandings, that they may not discern the nature, worth, and excellency, of truth, have invented such dispositions of words as might compass the ends they aimed at. And great effects by this means were pro- duced; as by him whom men admired,—
—— ‘Pleni moderantem frena theatri.”’
And therefore the apostle tells us, that the rejecting of this kind
SECT. 28-30. | EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 53
of oratory in his preaching and writing was of indispensable neces- sity ; that it might appear that the effects of them were not any way injluenced thereby, but were the genuine productions of the things themselves which he delivered, 1 Cor. ii. 4-7. This kind of elo- quence, then, the Scripture maketh no use of, but rather condemneth its application unto the great and holy things whereof it treateth, as unbecoming their excellency and majesty. So Origen to this purpose: “Icws yap ef xhAAos nal qepiCordy Ppdoens, wo ra rap "BAAno Javwalomevee, eine 1 ypupn, diaevénosy kv vig 0d rhy GAAOEaY xenparnnévas Tay GVOPATONW, GAKG THY EUOasvowuevny dxoroudiay nal +d TIS Pphoews nLAAOS eLuyaywynnevat TOS Gxpowmevous, nal eLamwuryrous adrovs TPooeinnDevecs, tom. iv. in Johan. ;—“ If the holy Scripture had used that elegancy and choice of speech which are admired among the Greeks, one might have suspected that it was not truth itself that conquered men, but that they had been circumvented and deceived by appearing or fallacious consequences, and the splendour or elegancy of speech.”
29. That the proper excellency of speech or style consisteth in the 7) spémov, or meet accommodation of words unto things, with con- sideration of the person that useth them, and the end whereunto they are applied, all men that have any acquaintance with these things will confess. BolAgras 4 pois vols vojwucw erecdas ryy AEs, od rh A&Eer re vonware, saith Dionysius of Halicarnassus ;—“ Nature re- quireth that words should follow, or be made to serve, sentences or things, and not things be subservient to words:”’* whence the too curious observation of words hath been censured as an argument of an infirm and abject mind.” However, it may be pardoned in them who placed all their excellency in aiduvoroyia, and disposing per- suasive, alluring words; as Isocrates spent ten years in his Panegyrics, and Plato ceased not unto the eightieth year of his age to adorn his Discourses, as Dionysius testifies of them both.
30. The style of the holy Scripture is every way seve unto what may rationally be expected from it; for,—