We find them possessed of extraordinary gifts, and yet doubting about their ordinary proceeding; not agreeing, either who were to be admitted, or what were the terms of admission, into the gospel covenant: for the Holy Ghost, imitating the course of God's natural providence, and treating them first like babes, gradually supplied their minds with wisdom, till they came to the full stature of a perfect Christian.

But this wisdom consisted not in enticing words of human device the business of Christianity was to instruct mankind in the mysteries of their redemption; to teach them what duties God requires of them, and what will be the consequences of their obedience or disobedience to his commands; and here the graces of human eloquence might surely be spared. The joys of heaven, and the terrors of future torments, may be allowed to have their influence, though set forth in plain and artless, or even in rude and uncouth language. Of whatever kind the language be, it had probably no other source than the natural abilities of the writers. The form and character of St. Paul's epistles, we shall find to have been derived from the circumstances of his early life. Tarsus, where he was born, and where his parents dwelt, was, in that age, a celebrated seat of learning: but, in every seat of ancient learning, eloquence held a principal rank; and each species of it was denominated from the place, where it was most practised, or in the greatest perfection. Thus we read of the chaste Attic eloquence, and of the florid Asiatic; and Tarsus also gave name to its peculiar mode.* The last is indeed the least known, because, from the very nature of it, its productions were not likely to remain. The Tarsic eloquence was employed in sudden and unpremeditated harangues: and St. Paul, long accustomed to compositions of this sort, transferred the style and manner from speaking to writing. He seems to have written his epistles with the force of a speaker; not opening the way to his subject, nor advancing gradually towards it, but rushing into it. Little solicitous about method, he is often drawn from his design by the

*Some account of the schools, exercises, &c. of Tarsus, may be seen in Strabo, lib. xiv. See also Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, vol. ii.

accidental use of an expression or a word; and neither when he quits his purpose, nor when he returns to it again, does he employ the usual forms of transition. Sometimes he assumes another person, and introduces a kind of dialogue; in which it is not always easy to distinguish who is speaking, the objector or answerer. Lastly, he abounds with broken sentences, bold figures, and hard, far-fetched metaphors. These peculiarities in the apostle's manner occasion continual difficulties, and therefore could not escape the notice of his commentators; of whom the most rational* impute them to such a warm temper, and a mind so full of religious knowlege, that his thoughts seem to strive for utterance, and his zeal suffers him to attend to nothing but the great mysteries revealed to him: but what they excuse as the effect of fervent zeal and plentiful knowlege, either necessarily belongs to unprepared discourses, or may be admitted into them without blame. He, who speaks on a sudden, cannot make those regular approaches to his principal design, nor dispose his matter in that exact order, which we find in studied compositions. He may safely pass from one subject, or one person, to another, without the ceremonies which a reader requires, but which a speaker supplies the want of by his countenance, his voice, and every motion of his body: and those agitations of mind, which, in numerous assemblies, are mutually excited by the speaker and the hearers, excite in their turn, and, in the same measure, justify, a bolder and more vehement kind of oratory.

But St. Paul did not learn at Tarsus the general form only of his writings; he collected there also many of their minuter ornaments. In that city was one of the largest and most celebrated places of exercise then in Asia: and there is no matter, from which the apostle borrows his words and images in greater abundance than from the public exercises. He fre quently considers the life of a Christian as a race, a wrestling, or a boxing; the rewards, which good men expect hereafter, he calls the prize, the victor's crown; and, when he exhorts his disciples to the practice of virtue, he does it usually in the very same terms in which he would have encouraged the combatants. But many of these allusions, which occur in every

* See Locke's Introduction to his Paraph.

page of the original, can hardly be preserved in a translation.

From the apostle's country, we descend to his family, and here we find another source of his figurative expressions. His parents were Roman citizens; and words or sentiments, derived from the laws of Rome, would easily creep into their conversation. No wonder, then, that their son sometimes uses forms of speech peculiar to the Roman lawyers; and applies many of the rules of adoption, manumission, and testaments, to illustrate the counsels of God in our redemption.

Nor are there wanting in St. Paul's style some marks of his occupation. To a man employed in making tents, the ideas of camps, arms, armour, warfare, military pay, would be familiar: and he introduces these and their concomitants so frequently, that his language seems to be such as might rather have been expected from a soldier, than from one who had lived in quiet times, and was a preacher of the gospel of peace.

When we observe farther, that, being educated in the school of Gamaliel, and instructed in all the learning of the Jewish doctors, he not only uses the Hebrew idiom, but has many references to the Hebrew Scriptures, and the received interpretations of them; there will remain little that is peculiar in his manner of writing, of which the origin may not be traced to one or other of the before-mentioned circumstances.

But now, if any man shall say (and something like it, I believe, has been said) that the Holy Spirit, though he suggested to the sacred writers, not only the religious wisdom with which they abound, but every sentence and word they delivered, yet directed them in such a manner as to leave to each his own peculiar style, and that very form and method of teaching, to which his natural genius, or his education, would have inclined him; such an opinion differs but little from his, who should tell us, that God, by a miraculous exertion of his power, made the winter winds to blow, or the vernal showers to descend, which may indeed have been sometimes true, but never can be proved: and could it be proved that the Holy Scriptures were thus dictated, it does not appear that any important conclusions would be deducible from it. That which is important, is also clear; that, whatever be thought of the coloring, the substance of these writings was from heaven.

had

SUMMARY OF DISCOURSE XVI.

1 CORINTHIANS, CHAP. XIII.-VERSE 11.

PRELIMINARY observations on a passage in the Cyropædia of Xenophon, as affording a useful lesson to those who are just passing from childhood to manhood, teaching them to attend to the different laws which nature has appointed for these different ages, &c. The suggestion, however, of the text is far more distinct and clear, though not very happily rendered by our translators: explanation of it given. We cannot get a better view of the diversity of character belonging to each period of life, than by searching for the several marks alluded to, in the speech, the inclinations, and the judgment.

I. The apostle, by placing the characteristic of childhood in the speech, may possibly be understood to intimate, that a child speaks before he thinks: it is certainly a fault very observable in such children as are not restrained, but is very unbecoming and inconvenient in men; this fault dilated on and fully exposed.

Another part of the character of a child is, that he speaks all he thinks; but the same unlimited openness is not suitable to transactions among men: this also shown.

II. The next mark, by which the apostle distinguishes the characters of a man and a child, is taken from the difference of their inclinations: those of a child are always governed by trifles, &c.: of the chief enjoyments which life affords, he cannot form a notion; or if he could, being out of his reach, they would not excite his desires. But manly prudence includes in it atten

tion to the different kinds of good, with the power of comparing them, as to their intenseness and duration. Folly of him, who suffers his mind to be continually engaged by worthless amusements, described: he is still a child, not in innocence, but in perverseness.

Nor ought we to wonder at the vehement inclinations of a child for these trifles; since all his happiness is collected in them, and all his wishes lead to the same point, &c. at length, he is taught by friends, or by experience, that these are not the things in which happiness consists; and he begins by degrees to relish the enjoyments, and to form the inclinations of a man. When these are well formed, they differ, in both qualities remarked above, from those of a child: they are neither vehement nor fickle, for a man's views of happiness are not confined to one acquisition: this subject dilated on. The wisest choice soon becomes to him the most pleasing; and his inclinations are "steady, because they follow his judgment.

III. In the judgment consists the third great distinction between the characters of a man and a child. With little experience, and less exercise of his rational faculties, a child cannot have formed for himself any principles on which he may build real knowlege: he depends on others, &c. until, by slow degrees, he gains such principles: this subject enlarged on. But it becomes a man to judge and act for himself, to examine what is proposed to him, and to direct his conduct by his own judgment, not by a blind submission to authority: this enJarged on.

Opinions, received on the slightest evidence, are often held with the strongest confidence; and those which are held for a time with strong confidence, are yet resigned without reluctance. Both these apparent inconsistencies may be observed in the judgments of children, and of such men as think like children this topic enlarged on. Very different is the process of a manly understanding, which, before it yields to any