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with the ashes of oak leaves: that he will return thither, and then will cast off his English dress, and wear a dried skin like the savages, the better to ingraciate himself with them. It would be well for virtue and religion if this humour would lay hold generally of our over-heated bigots, and send them to cool themselves in the Indian marshes. I fancy that Ven and Webster would make a very entertaining, as well as proper figure, in a couple of bear skins, and marching in this terror of equipage like the Pagan Priests of old.

Jamque sacerdotes primusque potitius ibant

Pellibus in morem cincti, flammasque ferebant.

Dear Sir, do me the justice to believe, that nothing can be more agreeable than the hearing of you, but the hearing from you; and that I am

Your very affectionate,

To Mr. Des Maizeux: Newarke, Sept. 13, 1758.

And obliged humble servant,
W. WARBURTON.

LETTER II.

Newarke, Sept. 26th, 1738.

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RECD yours of the 23d instant. You need make no apology for it. For you can engage my esteem no way so certainly as by manifesting your inclination to Learning; your disposition to seek for truth, and your desire of qualifying yourself for the profession you are designed for.

The Hebrew will be extream useful to you for a critical knowledge of the Old Testament, and of advantage for understanding the language of the New. I should recommend to you Leusden's Hebrew Bible as the most commodious for you. If you propose to set upon the language while you reside in Cambridge, I suppose you Vol. XI. Churchman's Mag. for July, 1806. E will

will have a Master who will give you directions in the elements of the tongue. If you do not, but intend to study it without, you will find the best directions in Le Clerk's Ars Critica. But a Grammar of Buxtorf, and Bithner's Lyra will be sufficient.

In reading the New Testament you would do well to read the Gospels with Toinard's Harmony, and the Epistles of St. Paul with Lock, the Revelations with Mede and Sir Isaac Newton, and use Grotius and Hammond quite through. For a Lexicon, Leigh's Critica Sacra, you will find very useful.

In reading Modern Theological writers you would do well to begin with Burnet's de fide et offic. Christ. and Lock's Reasonableness of Christianity. Then Limborg's Theology and Episcopius's Institutions. When you have got this view of the general body of Theology, you may enter upon Controversy. --Against the Atheists, the best books in their several kinds, are Cudworth's Int. System, and Mr. Baxter's Inquiry into the nature of the human soul. Against the Deists you may read the present Bishop of Durham's * two answers to Collin's Grounds and Reasons, and Dean Connibere's answer to Tindal's Christianity as old as the Creat. Those two books of Collins and Tindal being the very fort and strength of infidelity, you will come at once into the grand principles of the controversy. Against the Jews you may read Limborg's Amica Collatio cum erudito Judæo, where you will see the two greatest champions of the two Religions engaged. Against the Papists I need recommend no other to you than Chillingworth, and against the Presbyterians, than Hooker, both of which are the most finished master-pieces.

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When you have gone thus far, if you would still enlarge your mind, and put your foregoing studies to their utmost use: It would be proper for you to read those books that treat of the Laws of Nature and of Nations, and those which tell you what a State is and what a Church what are the privileges of Citizens and of the Members of Religious Communities. To begin at the foundation, you may read Wollaston and Cumberland de.

* Dr. Edward Chandler. His Lordship's book is entitled "A Defence of Christianity from the prophecies of the Old Testament, where are considered all the objections against this kind of proof, advanced in a late discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion." 3 vols. 8vo. See an Account of Bishop Chandler in our seventh volume, EDITOR. page 321.

Legibus Naturæ. Then proceed on to Grotius de Jure Bel. et Pac, and Puffendorff's de Jure Naturæ et Gentium. After that Lock of Government and Stillingfleet's Irenicum; and Puffendorff de Habitu Religionis Christianæ ad Vitam Civilem. Then Lock's Letters of Toleration; Bayle's Commentaire Philosophique; and Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. You will now be qualified to go on with profit, to the remaining part of your Theological Studies, and that is Ecclesiastical History: for that of the Catholic Church of the first ages, you may read Mr. Le Clerk's Hist. Eccles.: and for our own Reformation, Burnet. I imagined it was your desire to have your course of studies comprised in as narrow a compass as possible. I have done so. And when you have well studied these, I think you will need few more on the same subject. All that I have here recommended to you are master-pieces in their several kinds; so that it would be worth your while to buy them they alone will make an excellent library. You see I have confined myselfe only to your questions, which concern your Theological Studys only, and that the general principles of them. But there are many other studys, that it is necessary notto be ignorant of to judge soundly. In all points of this be assured I shall be always ready to serve you. Being with much esteem,

Sir, your very humble Servant,
W. WARBURTON.

P. S. I would not have you shew this letter to any one.

To, Mr. W. Green, A. B.

Of Clare-Hall, in Cambridge.

FOR THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE.

REMARKS ON THE PREFACE TO ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL.

(Continued from Vol. X. page 334.)

Πεχείρησαν ανατάξασθαι διηγησιν, &c. If Silas, or Philip, or

epistle to the Ephesians, wrote before St. Luke, we should have very little reason to think that they are not here

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adverted

adverted to by that Evangelist among the many, and consequently no great reason to think disrespectfully of all the party on the contrary, we should have some reason to believe, that they were, in general, if not all, writers duly qualified for the purpose. But as this is a point, about which neither ancients nor moderns have been able to agree (some having pronounced them censurable, though in different degrees, and others, on the contrary, that they were entitled to equal credit with Luke, as far as their narratives extended) let us endeavour to qualify ourselves to form a more satisfactory estimate of their performances, by examining attentively all that St. Luke has said of them.

The first thing observable in the account which Luke has given of those many, is the word gnav. This, however, ought not to have been permitted to arrest our attention a single moment, if those writers who have attempted to explain St. Luke's meaning, had not unaccountably omitted to pay due attention to the following part of the passage, and had they not moreover varied considerably in their reports of what ought to be the acceptation of this word. That they should have varied a little in their interpretation of this word, in any other case, might have been excusable, but that they should have differed so considerably in their reports of what ought to be its acceptation in this case, where other words are attached to it, to enable them to ascertain its meaning, is not a little remarkable. Such a partial mode of interpreting an author's meaning is not to be expected from men of candoar and discernment at any time; and especially in such a case: nor is it to be won dered at, that it should have led several of the ancients, and as many in later times, as have implicitly followed their opinions, to give incoherent accounts of the Evan-. gelist's report concerning those early productions. Origen, among the former, in his homily on the preface to St. Luke's gospel, after having pronounced that St. Luke, as well as the two eye-witnesses, and St. Mark, wrote by inspiration, (without at all regarding what Luke himself says of his motive for writing in the beginning of the third verse) asserts that it denotes those writers who presumed to meddle with the sacred subject, without being instigated to it by the Holy Spirit, and applies it to those in particular who composed the gospel according to the twelve. His words are, " Matthew did

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not take in hand, but wrote by the instigation of the Holy Spirit: in like manner Mark and John, as also St. Luke: but they who composed the gospel of the twelve took in hand." Origen, it should be observed, in order to prevent mistakes evidently makes a distinction between the four evangelists, whose works still remain,! and the authors ascribed to the twelve, and between those parties only. Of the former he says, that they all wrote by the instigation of the Holy Spirit; and of the latter, he barely intimates that they wrote, not by the instigation of the Holy Spirit, but of their own freewill. Of other evangelists he has not made any mention, That others, however, had written before Luke, we are assured by Luke himself;--that he could not by "the many," of whom he speaks, have meant only the compilers of the gospel ascribed to the twelve, we may pretty safely conclude, as they produced only one gospel by their joint efforts ;---and that he could not have meant any of that party, we may as safely conclude, if the gospel ascribed by them to the twelve, had not then been compiled." Eusebius, the next among the ancients who have given an opinion on this point, says that the word ignav implies a severe censure. Theophylact, the last among the ancients whose opinion we shall notice, with a little more judgment than either Origen or Eusebius, thinks that this word implies, that those early productions were unfinished or incomplete§.”

word

"Here," says Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 140, " Origen discovers, in the επεχείρησαν a tacit censure on the part of Luke, of those who had written before him, a censure inapplicable to men inspired by the Holy Spirit."

† See Magazine for May p. 333.

Hist. Eccl. 1. iii, c. 24.

§ Isaac Casaubon, in his note on this word, says, Interpretes putant de pseudapostolis loqui Evangelistam propter verbum expoar, quasi innuat Lucas hos quidem επεχειρησαι sed non τελεί ωσαι ut Theophilactus interpretatur. Et sane TEXELPE si propriam significationem spectes, nihil aliud est quain aggredi et incipere aliquid. Verum si necessario ex eo consequitur hos, quod susceperant et instituerant non perfecisse, quia Texnoa tantum dicuntur, quid dicemus de simili ejusdem Lucæ loco initio Actorum ubi scripsisse se ait περι I wov ατοο Ιησος ποιειν τε καὶ διδασκειν, &c.

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o In his note of 1 Acts, i. Casaubon remarks, that it is common with the Seventy, by way of imitating the Hebrew idiom, to use such a mode of expression as we find, 2 Gen. iii. xxTEπavor aπo t' egyŴv, αυτό, ὧν ήρξατο ο Θεος ποιησαι.

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