Each chequer'd pebble, and each shining shell, Where can unpolish'd nature boast a piece, Charm'd with the fight, my ravish'd breast is fir'd Oh were I equal to the bold defign, } No N° 633. Wednesday, December 15. Omnia profecto, cum fe a cæleftibus rebus referet ad hus manas, excelfius magnificentiufque et dicet et fentiet. Cicero. When a man defcends from the contemplation of heavenly bodies to treat of human affairs, he will both think and write in a more exalted and magnificent manner. HE following difcourfe is printed, as it came to Thy following difcourfe is pr Cambridge, December 12. T was a very common inquiry among the ancients, why the number of excellent orators, under all the encouragements the most flourishing states could give them, fell fo far fhort of the number of those who excelled in all other fciences. A friend of mine ufed merrily to apply to this cafe an obfervation of Herodotus, "who fays, that the most useful animals are the most fruitful in their generation; whereas the fpecies of those beasts that are fierce and mifchievous to mankind are but fcarcely continued. The hiftorian inftances in a hare, which always either breeds or brings forth; and a lionnefs, which brings forth but once, and then lofes all power of conception. But, leaving my friend to his mirth, I am of opinion, that in these later ages we have greater caufe of complaint than the ancients had. And 'fince that folemn feftival is approaching, which calls for all the power of oratory, and which affords as noble a fubject for the pulpit as any revelation has taught us, the defign of this paper fhall be to fhow, that our mo derns have greater advantages towards true and folid eloquence, than any which the celebrated fpeakers of antiquity enjoyed. THE first great and fubftantial difference is, that their common places, in which almost the whole force of amplification confifts, were drawn from the profit or honefty of the action, as they regarded only this prefent VOL. VIII Z ftate . state of duration. But Christianity, as it exalts morality to a greater perfection, as it brings the confideration of - another life into the question, as it propofes rewards and 'punishments of a higher nature, and a longer continuance, is more adapted to affect the minds of the audience, naturally inclined to pursue what it imagines its greatest intereft and concern. If Pericles, as hiftorians report, could shake the firmest resolutions of his hearers, and fet the paffions of all Greece in a ferment, when the prefent welfare of his country, or the fear of hoftile invafions, was the subject; what may be expected from tha: orator, who warns his audience against thofe evils ' which have no remedy, when once undergone, either from prudence or time? As much greater as the evils in a future ftate are than thefe at prefent, fo much are the motives to perfuafion under Christianity greater than thofe which mere moral confiderations could fupply us with. But what I now mention relates only to the power of moving the affections. There is another part of eloquence, which is indeed its mafter-piece; I 6 of the • marvellous or fublime. In this the Chriftian orator has the advantage beyond contradiction. Our ideas are fo infinitely enlarged by revelation, the eye of reafon has fo wide a profpect into eternity, the notions of a deity are so worthy and refined, and the accounts we have of a state of happiness or misery fo clear and evident, that the contemplation of fuch objects will give our difcourfe a noble vigour, an invincible force, beyond the power of any human confideration. Tully requires in his perfect orator, fome skill in the nature of heavenly bodies, because, fays he, his mind will become more extenfive and unconfined; and when he defcends to treat of human affairs, he would both think and write in a more exalted and magnificent manner. For the fame reafon that excellent mafter would have recommended the ftudy of thofe great and glorious myfteries which revelation has difcovered to us; to which the nobleft parts of this fyftem of the As world are as much inferior, as the creature is lefs excellent than its Creator. The wifeft and most knowing among the Heathens had very poor and imperfect notions of a future ftate. They had indeed fome uncertain hopes, either received by tradition, or gathered by reason, that . : the existence of virtuous men would not be determined by the feparation of foul and body: but they either dif-` believed a future ftate of punishment and mifery; or, upon the fame account that Apelles painted Antigonus * with one fide only towards the fpectator, that the lofs of his eye might not caft a blemish upon the whole piece; fo thefe reprefented the condition of man in its faireft view, and endeavoured to conceal what they thought was a deformity to human nature. I have often obferved, that whenever the above-mentioned orator in his philofophical difcourfes is led by his argument to the mention of immortality, he feems like one awaked out of fleep roufed and alarmed with the dignity of the fubject, he ftretches his imagination to conceive fomething uncommon, and, with the greatnefs of his thought, cafts, as it were, a glory round the fentence. Uncertain and unfettled as he was, he feems fired with the contemplation of it. And nothing but such a glorious profpect could have forced fo great a lover of truth, as he was, to declare his refolution never to part with his perfuafion of immortality, though it should be proved to be an erroneous one. But had he lived to fee all that Chriftianity has brought to light, how would he ‹ have lavished out all the force of eloquence in those nobleft contemplations which human nature is capable of," "the refurrection and the judgment that follows it? How had his breaft glowed with pleafure, when the whole compafs of futurity lay open and expofed to his view! How would his imagination have hurried him on in the pursuit of the mysteries of the incarnation! How would` he have entered, with the force of lightning, into the affections of his hearers, and fixed their attention, in fpite of all the oppofition of corrupt nature, upon those glorious themes which his eloquence hath painted in fuch lively and lafting colours! This advantage Chriftians have; and it was with no Imall pleasure I lately met with a fragment of Longinus, which is preferved, as a teftimony of that critic's judgment, at the beginning of a manufcript of the New Teftament in the Vatican library. After that author has numbered up the most celebrated orators among the Grecians, he fays, Add to these Paul of Tarfus, the patron Z 2 6 of an opinion not yet fully proved. As a Heathen, he con-demns the Chriftian religion; and, as an impartial critic, he judges in favour of the promoter and preacher of it. To me it feems, that the latter part of his judgment adds. great weight to his opinion of St Paul's abilities, fince, under all the prejudice of opinions directly oppofite, he 'is conftrained to acknowledge the merit of that apoftle. And, no doubt, fuch as Longinus defcribes St Paul, fuch 'he appeared to the inhabitants of thofe countries which he vifited and bleffed with those doctrines he was divinely 'commiffioned to preach. Sacred flory gives us, in one circumftance, a convincing proof of his eloquence, when the men of Lyftra called him Mercury, because he was the chief fpeaker, and would have paid divine worship to him, as to the god who invented and prefided over eloquence. This one account of our apoftle fets his character, confidered as an orator only, above all the 'celebrated relations of the skill and influence of Demofthenes and his contemporaries. Their power in fpeaking. was admired, but still it was thought human: their eloquence warmed and ravished the hearers, but ftill it was thought the voice of man, not the voice of God. What advantage then had St Paul above those of Greece or Rome? I confefs I can afcribe this excellence to nothing but the power of the doctrines he delivered, which may have ftill the fame influence on the hearers; which have ftill the power, when preached by a skilful orator, to make us break out in the fame expreflions, as the difciples, 'who met our Saviour in their way to Emmaus, made use of, Did not our hearts burn within us, when he talked to us by the way, and while he opened to us the fcriptures? I may be thought bold in my judgment by fome; but I muft affirm, that no one orator has left us fo visible marks and footsteps of his eloquence as our apoftle. It may perhaps be wondered at, that in his reafonings upon idolatry at Athens, where cloquence was born and flourished, he confines himself to ftrict argument only; but my reader may remember what many authors of the best credit have affured us, that all attempts upon the affections, and ftrokes of oratory, were exprefsly forbidden by the laws of that country, in courts of judicature. His want of eloquence therefore here, 6 . |