THA

SERMON XLII

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES

Search the Scriptures. - ST. JOHN V. 39.

HAT things of the most inestimable use and value, for want of due application

and study laid out upon them, may be passed by unregarded, nay, even looked upon with coldness and aversion, is a truth too evident to need enlarging on. — Nor is it less certain that prejudices, contracted by an unhappy education, will sometimes so stop up all the passage to our hearts, that the most amiable objects can never find access, or bribe us by all their charms into justice and impartiality. - It would be passing the tenderest reflection upon the age we live in, to say it is owing to one of these, that those inestimable books, the Sacred Writings, meet so often with a disrelish (what makes the accusation almost incredible) amongst persons who set up for men of taste and delicacy; who pretend to be charmed with

what they call beauties and nature in classical authors, and in other things would blush not to be reckoned amongst sound and impartial critics. But so far has negligence and prepossession stopped their ears against the voice of the charmer, that they turn over those awful sacred pages with inattention and an unbecoming indifference, unaffected amidst ten thousand sublime and noble passages, which, by the rules of sound criticism and reason, may be demonstrated to be truly eloquent and beautiful.

Indeed the opinion of false Greek and barbarous language, in the Old and New Testament, had, for some ages, been a stumbling-block to another set of men, who were professedly great readers and admirers of the Ancients. The Sacred Writings were, by these persons, rudely attacked on all sides: expressions which came not within the compass of their learning, were branded with barbarism and solecism; words which scarce signified anything but the ignorance of those who laid such groundless charges on them. Presumptuous man! Shall he, who is but dust and ashes, dare to find fault with the words of that Being, who first inspired man with language, and taught his mouth to utter;

who opened the lips of the dumb, and made the infant eloquent? - These persons, as they attacked the inspired writings on the foot of critics and men of learning, accordingly have been treated as such: and though a shorter way might have been gone to work, which was, that as their accusations reached no farther than the bare words and phraseology of the Bible, they, in no wise, affected the sentiments and soundness of the doctrines, which were conveyed with as much clearness and perspicuity to mankind, as they could have been, had the language been written with the utmost elegance and grammatical nicety. And even though the charge of barbarous idioms could be made out; yet the cause of christianity was thereby no ways affected, but remained just in the state they found it. Yet, unhappily for them, they even miscarried in their favourite point; - there being few, if any at all, of the Scripture expressions, which may not be justified by numbers of parallel modes of speaking, made use of amongst the purest and most authentic Greek authors. — This, an able hand amongst us, not many years ago, has sufficiently made out, and thereby baffled and exposed all their presumptions and

ridiculous assertions. - These persons, bad and deceitful as they were, are yet far outgone by third set of men. - I wish we had not too many instances of them, who, like foul stomachs, that turn the sweetest food to bitterness, upon all occasions endeavour to make merry with sacred Scripture, and turn everything they meet with therein into banter and burlesque. But as men of this stamp, by their excess of wickedness and weakness together, have entirely disarmed us from arguing with them as reasonable creatures, it is not only making them too considerable, but likewise to no purpose to spend much time about them; they being, in the language of the Apostle, creatures of no understanding, speaking evil of things they know not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption. -Of these two last, the one is disqualified for being argued with, and the other has no occasion for it; they being already silenced. Yet those that were first men- . tioned, may not altogether be thought unworthy of our endeavours; - being persons, as was hinted above, who, though their tastes are so far vitiated that they cannot relish the sacred Scriptures, yet have imaginations capable of being raised by the fancied excellencies