able word "Mores"1 The Feelings, absolutely so called, are vehement : the " Mores" are calmer feelings quiet and composed. I would recommend the reader to peruse on this subject, Quin- tilian VI. 2 : for the whole disquisition cannot be introduced into this Preface.2 The styles of the writers of the New Testa ment have, in common with all other styles, their own peculiar Subjects, Feelings, and "Mores" Everyone treats of the Sub jects ; those who are wiser and endued with spiritual experience pay due regard to the Feelings; the "Mores" (let me say it without offence), have been almost entirely lost sight of, except that the Modesty3 of Scripture has been sometimes mentioned. And yet these " Mores" pervade in a wonderful manner all the discourses and epistles of the New Testament, forming a certain continual recommendation4 of him who acts, speaks, or writes, and realizing in a pre-eminent degree the " Decorum" 5 We
phrased here by "Moral sentiments," "Subjective moral principles," or ex pressed chemically as " Moral principles held in solution," or rendered, per haps, " Moral tone ;" but none of these phrases are the exact counterparts of the original. — (I. B.)
1 The word Mores, when used as it is by Bengel in the present passage, is as impossible to render as the expression which it is intended to represent : the expression " Les moeurs," with the force which it frequently has in French philosophical writings, comes probably as near to it as any modern phrase. Montesquieu (Esprit de loix xix. 16), says, " II y a cette difference entre les Loix et les Moeurs, que les Loix reglent plus les actions du Citoyen, et que les Moeurs reglent plus les actions de 1'homme. II y a cetle difference entre les Moeurs et les Manieres que les premieres regardent plus la conduite interieure ; les autres 1'exterieure." I give this, however, rather as an illustration than an explanation. — (I. B.)
2 I cannot, however, forbear quoting the following passage : — " Quare in iis quse verisimilia esse volemus simus ipsi similes eorum, qui vere patiun- tur, affectibus ; et a tali animo proficiscatur oratio, qualem facile judicem volet. An ille dolebit, qui audiet me, cum hoc dicam, non dolentem ? Iras- cetur, si nihil ipse qui in iram concitat, idque exigit, simile patietur ? Siccis agenti oculis lacrymas dabit ? Fieri non potest. Nee incendit nisi ignis, nee madescimus nisi humore, nee res ulla dat alteri colorem quern ipsa non habet. Primum est igitur, ut apud nos valeant ea quse valere apud judicem volumus, afficiamusque antequam afficere conemur. Quint. VI. 2, § 3. — (I. B.)
3 See the Gnomon on Actsii. 30, and Rom. i. 26. — (I. B.)
* See Aristotle on the W<m; tfw, Rhet. I. 2, §§ 3, 6, II. 1 , § 6, etc.— (I.B.) s DECORUM, the neuter of the adjective Decorus, a, urn ; derived from the
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. to
have dropped something on this subject in our App. Crit. p. 372 (i.e. Sect. 1 of the Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Ed. II., pp. 4, 5), and more in our Harmony of the Four Evangelists, pp. 57, 103, 111, 214, 216, 242, 278, 281, 282. (Ed. II., A.D. 1747, pp. 56, 69, 171, 183, 340, 342, 380, 382, 451, 454, 455) : but in the present work I have bestowed fuller consideration on the "Mores" as well as the Feelings. These "Mores" are for the most part of such a kind, that you can more easily reach them by a perception of the heart than by a circuit of words. And this will be a principal reason why our Commentary may be considered frequently too subtile, frequently too frigid. I doubt not, however, that those who have by de grees become accustomed to it will agree with me in my admira tion of the language of the sacred writers. The painter by the most delicate stroke of his brush, the musician by the swiftest touch of fleeting notes, exercises the highest skill of his art : and in the perfection of anything whatever, those minute particulars which escape the ears and eyes of the ignorant and unrefined, bestow the most exquisite delight on those who are capable of appreciating them, — a delight springing from the very root and essence of the thing itself. Such is the case with Holy Scrip ture. Let each one, then, take in what he is capable of re- impersonal verb DKCET, it becomes, or is becoming : used in the sense of Aristotle's TO ELPEIION, which signifies that which is becoming, proper, or suitable, to the person, character, office, condition, or circumstance, under consideration. — (I. B.)