the Mind may be express'd by Actions as well as by Words, and whatever Actions were perform'd with this intention, properly come under the notion of Style, or different ways and modes of Expression; and all Objections made against them under any other notion, proceed upon a mistake, and can be of no force. The Prophetick Schemes of Speech which seem most strange to us, were usual with the Eastern Nations, as a Mr. Mede shews of the Indians, Perfians and Egyptians. The Revelation of St. John chiefly consists of Allusions to the Customs, and History, and Notions, and Language of the Jews, as he and Dr. Lightfoot have shewn in many places, which are most contrary to our manner of speaking. And fome Passages allude to the customs of other Nations, well known and practised at that time. Thus the Slaves were wont to have their Master's Name or Mark upon their Forehead, and the Soldiers to have the Name of their General upon their Right Hand; and the like Marks were wont to be received by Men, in token that they had devoted themselves to their Gods: from whence we read of the Mark of the Beast received by his Worshippers, in their Right Hand, or in their Foreheads, Rev. xiii. 16. and of his Father's Name written in the Forebeads of those that stand in Mount Sion with the Lamb, Rev. xiv. 1. St. Paul alludes to the Grecian Games in his Epistle to the Corinthians, who were much addicted to those Sports, and had one fort of them, the Isthmian, perform'd among them, I Cor. ix. 24, 25. and he alludes to the distinction among the Romans, between Freemen and Slaves : For which he gives this reason, that it was in condescension to them, I speak after the manner of Men, because of the Infirmity of your Flesh, Rom. vi. 19. Melchifedec is * Eft enim Actio, quasi corporis quædam eloquentia. Cie. Orator. * Comment. in Apocal. Part. 1. b Vid. Grot. ad loc. faid to be without father, without mother, without * defcent, Heb. vii. 3. because his Pedigree is unknown; which was a most significant way of Expression to the Jews, who were so careful and exact in their Genealogies. But the very fame manner of Expression is also us'd by Livy, Horace, Seneca, and Dion Caffius, upon the like occafions. There is much of Nature, but very much likewife of Use and Custom, in the several Schemes and Forms of Rhetorick. We meet with a fudden Change of the Person speaking, Jer. xvi. 19, 20, 21. xvii. 13. and with interlocutory Discourse, Ifa. Ixiii. and many places of Scripture are obscure to us, for want of diftinguishing the Persons who speak: Thus, for instance, Jer. xx. 14. the Prophet seems transported abruptly, from one Extreme to another, but if they be the Words of the wicked (mention'd ver. 13.) under the Divine Vengeance, from the 14th ver. to the end of the Chapter, the Sense will be more easy. This abe rupt Change of the Person is taken notice of by Longinus, as an Excellency in Homer, Hecataus, and Demosthenes; and the want of distinguishing the Persons speaking, has been a great Cause of misunderstanding the Scriptures, as Justin Martyr and Origen observe. Many Instances of the like nature might be given in the best Heathen Poets. And the reading the ancient Poets, is the best help for the understanding all other Authors of great Antiquity; for the ancienter any Author is, the nearer his Style comes to Poetry. The * ̓Αλμεαλόζη. • Patre nullo, matre serva, Liv. l. iv. c. 3.-nullis majoribus or tos, Hor. Serm. 1. i. fat. 6. duos Romanos reges effe, quorum alter Patrem non habet, alter Matrem. Nam de Servii Servii Matre dubita tur: Anci Pater nullus; Numæ nepos dicitur, Sen. Epift. cviii. ἀπάτωρ αὐτό (Σηβήρο) + ἔμπροθεν χρόνον ὑπ ̓ ἀφανείας ὄνιθ, Dion. Caff. l. lxxvi. Justin. Apol. 2. Origen, Philocal. c. 7. E 3 first first design of Writing was to delight, so as to be the better able to instruct, which made Verse much more ancient than Prose; and tho' it be natural for Men to speak in Profe, and not in Verse, yet, it seems, the humour of the Greeks would not bear the writing Philofophy in Profe, till the time of Cyrus; for then Pliny tells us, Pherecydes first wrote in Prose, which must be understood of Philosophy, for he ascribes the first Writing of Profe in History to Cadmus Milefius. Orpheus, Hefiod, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Empedocles, Thales, and Eudoxus, wrote their Philosophy in Verse. And the ancient Writers now extant in Profe, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, have many Expreffions, which are seldom or never met withal besides, but in the Poets. H. Stephens made a Collection of the Poetical Words us'd by Xenophon, which is prefix'd to his Works. And the Orators both among the Greeks and Romans, were as exact and curious in the Feet and Measure of their Prose, as the Poets could be in Verse. Great part of the Scriptures is in Verse, and the different way of writing in different Ages and Nations, appears in nothing more, than in the several forts of Poetry. That way of writing all Verse in Rhime, which in these parts of the World is most in use and esteem, would have been ridiculous to the Greeks and Romans: Thơ' the use of Rhime in Verse is so far from being without Example in Antiquity, that it is perhaps the most ancient of all ways of writing Verse. Acrosticks, tho' of no esteem, and little us'd in many Ages and Countries, are of great Antiquity among the Greeks and Romans, as well as in the Eastern Nations. Verses composed in the Acrostick and Alphabetical way, were found to be a help to the Memory, and this Benefit, and the Ornament which it was then suppos'd to give to Poems, is the • Plín. Hift. J. v. c. 29. l. vii. c. 56. Vid. Harduin. ad loo. caufe cause why it is sometimes used in the Scriptures: and sometimes the Inspiration was so strong upon the Writers Mind, as to interrupt the Art and Method, which he had propos'd to himself, as Pfal, xxv. and cxlv. or perhaps it might be customary upon certain occasions to omit some Letter in the Alphabet in such Compositions, for reasons which we are ignorant of, but which might be very fatisfactory and agreeable to the Sense of those Times and Countries. Η The Ω ἄσιμο is an Example of this among the Greeks, us'd by Pindar and other ancient Poets: The old Spartan, Dorick and Æolick Dialect chang'd ∑ into P, the rough Sound of this Letter being more agreeable, it seems, to those People; and if any of them had written Acrosticks and Alphabetical Poems, ∑ would have been omitted. It appears by what is yet remaining of the Old Roman Laws, that, on the contrary, the Romans sometimes us'd S for R; as Afa for Ara, Cafmen for Carmen. Rhopalick Verses, which begin with a Monosyllable, every Word increasing by one Syllable more than the former, are to be found in * Homer : and the Leonine or Monkish Verses with a double Rhime, one in the middle, and the other at the end, are not without Precedent, but seems from Virgil to have been anciently us'd in Charms: To say nothing of the Poems compos'd of divers sorts of Verse, and fram'd into the shape of several things by Simmias Rhodius, some of which are ascribed to Theocritus. The Repetitions so frequent in Homer, were not for want of Words, (for no Author ever wanted them less than he) but out of Choice, though later Poets have not thought fit to imitate him in this, and Martial turn'd it to Ridicule. It is certain, that nothing Dionyf. Halicarn. τει Σωίθεσ. Ὀνομ. Athena l.x. c. 21. * ὦ μακαρ ̓ Αλρείδη, μοιρήλως, ὀλβιόδαιμον, Iliad. iii. v, 182. Limus ut hic durefcit, & hac ut cera liquefcit, Uno eodemque igne, Ecl. 8. د is more various, than the Wit and Fancy of Man, and it is as certain, that whoever would write to any purpose, must write in some such manner, as the Temper of the People, to whom he writes, will bear, and as their Customs require. But before I leave this particular, it may be proper to confider the Style of Scripture, in the Metaphorical and Figurative use of Words, in speaking of the Works and Attributes of God. There never was any Book written in a strict and literal Propriety of Words, because all Languages abound in Metaphors, which by constant use become perhaps better known to the Natives of a Country, than the original Words themselves, and in process of time often cause them to be quite laid aside. But then this borrow'd and metaphorical Sense of Words may be very strange to Men of other Countries, especially when they are taken from things peculiar to the place, where they are us'd. This use of Metaphors arifeth partly from the Likeness that is perceiv'd between things, which makes one thing to be express'd by another, and gives a delightful Illustration to the things discours'd of, and partly from our want of fit Words to express the various natures of things, especially of things spiritual, which we commonly speak of in negative terms, and rather deny, that they are like things sensible, than positively affirm what they are: Thus we fay, that they are immaterial, invisible, incorruptible, &c. And when we speak positively of them, we must use fuch Words, as sensible Objects can furnish us withal, fince we can have no other; for we understand their Nature so imperfectly, that we are not able to frame a Language on purpose to express it; and he who should go about such a Work, would weither be understood by others, nor well know what he meant himself. But of all Beings, God himself is so far above our Comprehenfion, that we can never speak of |