greatnefs of the things themselves, 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 artlefs drefs.-Look but into the Bible, and we see them shine through the most fimple and literal tranflations-That glorious description which Mofes gives of the creation of the heavens and the earth, which Longinus, the best critic the eastern world ever produced, was fo justly taken with, has not loft the leaft whit of its intrinfic worth; and though it has undergone fo many translations, yet triumphs over all, and breaks forth with as much force and vehemence as in the original.-Of this ftamp are numbers of paffages throughout the Scriptures;inftance, that celebrated defcription of a tempeft in the hundred and feventh pfalm; those beautiful reflections of holy Job, upon the shortnefs 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 fcarce a word which does not merit a particular explication to display the beauties of.-I might add to these, those tender and patho 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 should 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 your ways unequal?-have I any pleafure at all that the wicked should 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 afs his mafter'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 fomething 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 infpired penmen to heathen ones, in that which regards the compofition more confpicuously, hold good when they are confidered upon the foot of hiftorians. Not to mention that prophane hiftories give an account only of human achievements and temporal events, which, for the most part, are fo full of uncertainty and contradictions, that we are at a loss where to feek for truth;-but that the facred history is the hiftory of God himself, -the hiftory of his omnipotence and

infinite wisdom, his univerfal providence, his juftice and mercy, and all his other attributes, difplayed 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 history,there is yet another undoubted excellence the prophane hiftorians 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 intirely 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 hiftory 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 aught, either to

exprefs their present joy, or palliate their former injuries to him.-On all fides, there immediately enfues a deep and folemn filence;-a filence infinitely more eloquent, and expreffive, than any thing else 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 fund of eloquence in furnishing Joseph's brethren with laboured and ftudied harangues; which, however fine they might have been in themselves, would nevertheless have been unnatural, and altogether improper on the occafion. For when fuch a variety of contrary paffions broke in upon them, -what tongue was able to utter their hurried and distracted thoughts?-When remorse, surprise, fhame, joy and gratitude struggled together in their booms, how uneloquently would their lips have performed their duty?-how unfaithfully their tongues have spoken the language

VOL. VIII.