66

posed to adorn. To this, the Professor objects," I can never bring myself to allow to a SEMI-BARBAROUS POET, writing after the Babylonian Captivity, such a piece of subtilty and refinement."-A mighty piece of refinement truly, for a Writer, who lays his scene in an early age, to paint, the best he could, the manners of that age. Besides (says the Professor) which is the principal point, the style savours wonderfully of Antiquity, "and its peculiar character is a certain primitive and "noble simplicity. So that they who degrade this Book "to the times posterior to the Babylonian Captivity, seem to judge almost as insanely of Hebrew literature as Father Harduin did of the Roman, who ascribed the golden Poems of Virgil, Horace, and the rest, to the "iron ages of the Monks."-Verum Poetæ semibarbaro post Captivitatem scribenti tantam subtilitatem ut concedam, impetrare a me non possum. Porro vero Stylus Poematis, quod vel maximum est, præcipue vetustatem sapit; est ejus peculiaris character apxaïruos. Adeo ut qui id infra Captivitatem Babylonicam deprimunt, non multo sanius in Hebraicis judicare videantur, quam in Latinis Harduinus; qui aurea Virgilii, Horatii, cæterorumque poetata ferreis Monachorum Sæculis adscripsit. Idem ib.

The learned Professor is a little unlucky in his comparison. The age of Job, as fixed by him, and the age of the Writer of his history, as fixed by me, run exactly parallel, not with the times of Virgil and Frederic Barbarossa, as he would insinuate, but with those of Ennius and Virgil. Job, the hero of the Poem, lived in an age when civil Society was but beginning to shew itself, and what is more, in a Country where it never yet was formed: And Ezra (whom I suppose to be the Author of the Poem) was an eminent Citizen in the most perfect civil goverment in the World, which he was sent home to restore, laden with the literary treasures of the East; treasures that had been long accumulating under the warm influence

L 4

influence of a large and powerful Empire. From this second transplantation of the Republic, Science got footing in Judea; and true Religion took deeper root in the hearts of its Inhabitants. Henceforward, we hear no more of their absurd Idolatries. A strict adherence to the Law now as much distinguished them from others, as did the singularity of the Law itself. And a studious cultivation of the LANGUAGE, in which that Law was written, as naturally followed, as it did amongst the Sarazens, who cultivated the Arabic, on the same principle. And to understand how great this was in both, we need only consider, that each had the same aversion to a translation of their Law into a foreign language. It is true, that in course of time, when the Jewish Policy was abolished, and the Nation was become vagabond upon Earth, while the Arabs, on the contrary, had erected a great Empire, a manifest difference arose between them, as to the cultivation of the two Languages.-Yet for all this, the Professor calls Ezra, a SEMI-BARBARIAN; though we agree that he wrote by the inspiration of the Most High; amidst the last blaze indeed, yet in the full lustre of expiring Prophecy.

But the learned Professor has an internal argument from TASTE, full as good as the other from Chronology. "The book of Job savours of Antiquity, and those who cannot relish it, have as depraved a taste as Father Harduin, who could not distinguish Partridge from Horseflesh."

The truth is, the Greek and Latin Languages having, for many Ages, been the mother-tongues of two of the greatest People upon earth (who had shared between them the Empires of Eloquence and of Arms) became daily more and more copious by the cultivation of Arts; and less and less pure by the extension of Commerce. In these two languages there yet remains a vast number of

* See what hath been said on this head in the preceding Volume, book vi. § 2.

writings

writings on all sorts of Subjects. So that modern Critics (in the foremost rank of whom will always stand the in comparable BENTLEY) had by long application to them, through their various and progressive refinements and depravations from age to age, acquired a certain sagacity, in passing a tolerable judgment concerning the time of the Writer, by his style and manner. Now Pedantry, which is the ape of Criticism, would mimic the same talent of discernment, in the narrowest and most barren of all Languages; little subject to change, both from the common genius of the East, and from the peculiar situation of a sequestered People. Of this Language, long since become a dead one, the only remains are in one small Volume; the contents of which, had not Providence been mercifully pleased to secure, while the Tongue was yet living, by a translation into Greek, the HEBREW VERITY, transmitted to us in the manner it was found in the most ancient MSS. where no vowel-points are used, nor space left to distinguish one word from another, and where a great number of terms occur only once, would at this day be a mere arbitrary CIPHER, which every Rabbinical or Cabalistic juggler might make the key of his unrevealed Mysteries." Idem accidit etiam Mahometanis (says Abraham Ekell.) ante inventa ab Ali Abnaditalebo puncta vocalia: Tanta enim legentium erat dissentio, ut nisi Othomanni coërcita fuisset authoritate, et determinata lectio punctis, quæ Ali excogitaverat, JAM DE ALCORANO ACTUM ESSET." And if this had been the case of the Arabic of the Alcoran, a copious and a living language, what had become of the Hebrew of the Bible? a very narrow and a dead one. Of which an ancient Jewish Grammarian gives this character: "Lingua ista [Arabica] elegans est, et longe lateque scriptis dilatata, et qui eam loquitur nulla dictione deficit: Lingua vero sancta pauca est præ illa, cum illius nihil extet nisi quod in Libris Scripturæ reperitur, nec suppeditet omnes dictiones loquendi necessarias." Yet this is the language whose peculiarities

of

of style and composition, correspondent to every age and time, the Professor seems to think, may be as easily distinguished as those of the Greek or Latin Classics. So much for the Author of The Divine Legation: and indeed too much, had not Mr. LoCKE's defence been involved in his that excellent person having declared (speaking of the words of Job, that Idolatry was an iniquity to be punished by the Judge) "THIS PLACE ALONE, WÉRE THERE NO OTHER, is sufficient to confirm their opi"nion who conclude that book to be writ by a JEW."

From The Divine Legation, the learned Professor turns again to the Examiner, who seems to sit heavy on his stomach.--This excellent Writer desired to know of the learned, Where they could find a civil or religious Constitution out of Judea, which declared that the Children should suffer for the crime of their Parents. To which the Professor replies in these very words-In præsens Horatiano illo versiculo contentus abito Examinatorum omnium CANDIDISSIMUS-For the present, let this MOST CANDID of all Examiners go about his business, and be thankful for this scrap of Horace,

"Delicta majorum immeritus lues,

"Romane."

This is true Poetical payment: He is called upon for his reckoning, and he discharges it with an old Song. But the Examiner is not a man to take rhime for reason. He asked for an old system of Laws; and the contemptuous Professor gives him an old Ballad: But a little more civility at parting had not been amiss; for he, who did not spare the Bishop, would certainly demolish the Professor, should he take it into his head to examine the Prælections as he hath done the Sermons.

NOTES

APPERTAINING TO

THE FIFTH AND SIXTH SECTIONS

OF

BOOK VI.

DR.

P. 7. [A]

R. STEBBING, in what he calls Considerations on the command to offer up Isaac, hath attempted to discredit the account here given of the Command: And previously assures his reader, that if any thing can hinder the ill effects which my interpretation must have upon Religion, it must be his exposing the absurdity of the conceit. This is confidently said. But what then? He can prove it. So it is to be hoped. If not However, let us give him a fair hearing.-He criticises this observation on the word DAY, in the following manner: Really, Sir, I see no manner of consequence in this reasoning. That Christ's day had reference to his office, as Redeemer, I grant. The day of Christ de"notes the time when Christ should come, i. e. when "He should come, who was to be such by office and employment. But why it must import also that when "Christ came he should be offered up a Sacrifice, I do

not in the least apprehend: Because I can very easily "understand that Abraham might have been informed "that Christ was to come, without being informed that he was to lay down his life as a Sacrifice. If Abraham

saw that a time would come when one of his sons "should take away the curse, he saw Christ's day." [Consid. p. 139.] At first setting out (for I reckon for nothing this blundering, before he knew where he was,