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to our language, thereby to convey to us the light of revelation, fo has he been pleased graciously to accommodate it to us with the most natural and graceful plainnefs it would admit of.—Now, it is obfervable that the most excellent prophane authors, whether Greek or Latin, lofe most of their graces whenever we find them literally tranflated.-Homer's famed representation of Jupiter, in his first book;his cried-up defcription of a tempest ;—his relation of Neptune's fhaking the earth, and opening it to it's center;-his description of Pallas's horses; with numbers of other longfince-admired paffages,-flag, and almost vanish away, in the vulgar Latin translation.

Let any one but take the pains to read the common Latin interpretation of Virgil, Theocritus, or even of Pindar, and one may venture to affirm he will be able to trace out but few remains of the graces which charmed him fo much in the original.-The natural conclufion from hence is, that in the claffical authors, the expreffion, the fweetnefs of the numbers, occafioned by a musical placing of words, constitute a great part of their beauties;

-whereas, in the Sacred Writings, they confift more in the greatnefs of the things themfelves, than in the words and expreffions.— The ideas and conceptions are fo great and lofty in their own nature, that they neceffarily appear magnificent in the most artless dress.

-Look but into the Bible, and we see them fhine through the most simple and literal tranflations. That glorious defcription which Mofes gives of the creation of the heavens and the earth, which Longinus, the best critic the eaftern world ever produced, was so justly taken with, has not loft the leaft whit of its intrinfic worth; and though it hath undergone fo many translations, yet triumphs over all, and breaks forth with as much force and vehemence as in the original.—Of this stamp are numbers of paffages throughout the Scriptures;-instance, that celebrated description of a tempeft in the hundred and seventh pfalm; thofe beautiful reflections of holy Job, upon the fhortnefs of life, and instability of human affairs, fo judiciously appointed by our church in her office for the burial of the dead;-that lively defcription of a horfe of war, in the

thirty-ninth chapter of Job, in which, from the 19th to the 26th verfe, there is scarce a word which does not merit a particular explication to display the beauties of.-I might add to these, those tender and pathetic expoftulations with the children of Ifrael, which run throughout all the prophets, which the most uncritical reader can scarce help being affected with.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerufalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.-What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done?-wherefore, when I expected that it fhould bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?—and yet, ye fay, the way of the Lord is unequal.-Hear now, O house of Ifrael,—is not my way equal? -are not yours unequal?-have I any pleasure at all that the wicked fhould die, and not that he should return from his ways and live?—I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.-The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib ;-but Ifrael doth not know, my people doth not confider.

There is nothing in all the eloquence of the heathen world comparable to the vivacity and tenderness of these reproaches;—there is something in them fo thoroughly affecting, and fo noble and fublime withal, that one might challenge the writings of the most celebrated orators of antiquity to produce any thing like them.-Thefe obfervations upon the fuperiority of the inspired pen-men to heathen ones, in that which regards the composition more confpicuously, hold good when they are confidered upon the foot of historians.—Not to mention that prophane hiftories give an account only of human atchievements and temporal events, which, for the most part, are fo full of uncertainty and contradictions, that we are at a lofs where to seek for truth;—but that the facred hiftory of God himself,-the hiftory of his omnipotence and infinite wisdom, his univerfal providence, his justice and mercy, and all his other attributes, displayed under a thousand different forms, by a series of the most various and wonderful events that ever happened to any nation, or language:-not to infift upon this vifible fuperiority in facred

hiftory, there is yet another undoubted excellence the prophane historians feldom arrive at, which is almost the distinguishing character of the facred ones; namely, that unaffected, artless manner of relating historical facts,which is fo entirely of a piece with every other part of the holy writings.-What I mean will be best made out by a few instances.—In the history of Jofeph, (which certainly is told with the greatest variety of beautiful and affecting circumftances) when Jofeph makes himself known, and weeps aloud upon the neck of his dear brother Benjamin, that all the house of Pharaoh heard him;-at that inftant, none of his brethren are introduced as uttering any thing, either to express their present joy, or palliate their former injuries to him.-On all fides, there immediately ensues a deep and folemn filence;—a filence infinitely more eloquent and expreffive, than any could have been fubftituted in its place.-Had Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, or any of the celebrated claffical hiftorians, been employed in writing this hiftory, when they came to this point, they would, doubtless, have exhausted all their

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