one fourcc of the fublime, " « a^oJ^o x«i (t^^trixnyM waSst." Few In its 

 radicals, incopious of derivatives, it owes more to the infpiration of 

 lUM that gave it birth, than to its own fecundity. Yet, that I may 

 not feem to undervahie its excellence, I hold it the firil ^ all lan- 

 guages, and, from the words that are to be continued in heaven, pre- 

 fume it will be the Iq^ and the eternal, I refpeft, becaufe it is the 

 facred language, the fame in which Mofes wrote his laws, the fame 

 that the prophets fpake, and above all, the fame that Chrift, who 

 Avas the light, and the wifdom of the Father, employed to ma- 

 nifeil the divine will, and preach redemption to mankind. On thefe 

 accounts I revere it : and, fure, of divine authority muft be that 

 language, v/hofe power gave fpeech to the dumb, and made even 

 the deaf to hear! Added to this, we have Chrill's own command to 

 " fearch the fcriptures," which we cannot thoroughly do, except in 

 their original language, the very circumftance that confecrates its cha- 

 rafter, as if Providence had rendered it unfamiliar, to excite our enqui- 

 ries, and fanftify it to himfelf. Perhaps no ftronger proof can be brought 

 of its divine original, than its difdain of artificial aid, and its ability to 

 fuftain its importance mider difficulties that would have cruflied a lan- 

 guage lefs divine. 



Sunt pauca: voces, has unus devorat annus ; 

 Jn reliquis Babylon cernitur, atque chaos. 



Unyielding to the profane touch of heathen Pantheonifm, Apollo 

 and his nine harmonious maids have no acquaintance with it. What 

 Donatus faid of the poet Virgil, may with little alteration be applied 

 here; had he been doomed to write his iEneis in Hebrew, he would 

 have performed it with no better fuccefs, than if he had attempted it 

 in High-Dutch. The Hebrew prasleftions, indeed, by the very learned 

 and amiable Lowth, liave detected a few daclyles and fpondees in the 

 pfalms, and perhaps in one or two other places of the facred writ- 

 ings : but while the difcovery was not wholly new, accident more 



than 



