Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/14

vi forth to the things which are before. Though we must never think to learn above our Bible, as long as we are here in this world, yet we must still be getting forward in it. Ye have dwelt long enough in this mountain; now turn you, and take your journey onward in the wilderness toward Canaan: our motto must be Plus ultra—Onward. And then shall we know, if thus, by regular steps, (Hos. vi. 3.) we follow on to know the Lord, and what the mind of the Lord is.

II. The books of scripture have hitherto been mostly historical, but now the matter is of another nature; it is doctrinal and devotional, preaching and praying. In this way of writing, as well as in the former, a great deal of excellent knowledge is conveyed, which serves very valuable purposes. It will be of good use to know, not only what others did that went before us, and how they fared, but what their notions and sentiments were, what their thoughts and affections were, that we may, with the help of them, form our minds aright.

Plutarch's Morals are reputed as useful a treasure in the commonwealth of learning as Plutarch's Lives; and the wise disquisitions and discourses of the philosophers, as the records of the historians; nor is this divine philosophy, (if I may so call it,) which we have in these books, less needful, or less serviceable, to the church, than the sacred history was. Blessed be God for both.

III. The Jews make these books to be given by a divine inspiration somewhat different from that both of Moses and the prophets. They divided the books of the Old Testament into the Law, the Prophets, and the —the Writings, which Epiphanius emphatically translates Γραφεῖα—Things written, and these books are more commonly called among the Greeks Ἁγιόγραφα—Holy Writings: the Jews attribute them to that distinct kind of inspiration which they call —The Holy Spirit. Moses they supposed to write by the Spirit, in a way above all the other prophets, for with him God spake mouth to mouth, even apparently; knew him, (Numb. xii. 8.) that is, conversed with him face to face, Deut. xxxiv. 10. He was made partaker of divine revelation, (as Maimonides distinguishes, De Fund. Legis, c. 7.) per vigiliam—while awake,* whereas God manifested himself to all the other prophets in a dream or vision: and he adds, that Moses understood the words of prophecy without any perturbation or astonishment of mind, whereas the other prophets commonly fainted and were troubled. But the writers of the Hagiographa they suppose to be inspired in a degree somewhat below that of the other prophets, and to receive divine revelation, not as they did, by dreams, and visions, and voices, but (as Maimonides describes it, More Nevochim — part 2. ch. 45.) they perceived some power to rise within them, and rest upon them, which urged and enabled them to write or speak far above their own natural ability, in psalms or hymns, or in history, or in rules of good living, still enjoying the ordinary vigour and use of their senses. Let David himself describe it. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue: the God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3. This gives such a magnificent account of the inspiration by which David wrote, that I see not why it should be made inferior to that of the other prophets, for David is expressly called a prophet, Acts ii. 30.

But, since our hand is in with the Jewish masters, let us see what books they account Hagiography. These five that are now before us come, without dispute, into this rank of sacred writers, and the book of the Lamentations is not unfitly added to them. Indeed, the Jews, when they would speak critically, reckon all those songs which we meet with in the Old Testament among the Hagiographa; for, though they were penned by prophets, and under the direction of the Holy Ghost, yet, because they were not the proper result of a visum propheticum—prophetic vision, they were not strictly prophecy. As to the Historical Books, they distinguish; (but I think it is a distinction without a difference;) some of them they assign to the prophets, calling them prophetæ priores—the former prophets, namely, Joshua, Judges, and the two books of the Kings; but others they rank among the Hagiographa, as, the book of Ruth, (which yet is but an appendix to the book of Judges,) the two books of Chronicles, with Ezra, Nehemiah, and the book of Esther, which last the Rabbins have a great value for, and think it is to be had in equal esteem with the law of Moses itself, that it shall last as long as it lasts, and shall survive the writings of the prophets. And, lastly, they reckon the book of Daniel among the Hagiographa,† for which no reason can be given, since he was not inferior to any of the prophets in the gift of prophecy: and, therefore, the learned Mr. Smith thinks that their placing him among the Hagiographical writers was fortuitous, and by mistake.‡

Mr. Smith, in his Discourse, before quoted, though he supposes this kind of divine inspiration to be more "pacate and serene than that which was strictly called prophecy, not acting so much upon the imagination, but seating itself in the higher and purer faculties of the soul, yet shows that it manifested itself to be of a divine nature, not only as it always acted pious souls into strains of devotion, or moved them strangely to dictate matters of true piety and goodness, but as it came in abruptly upon the minds of those holy men, and transported them from the temper of mind they were in before; so that they perceived themselves captivated by the power of some higher light than that which their own understanding commonly poured out upon them; and this, says he, was a kind of vital form to that light of divine and sanctified reason which they were perpetually possessed of, and that constant frame of holiness and goodness which dwelt in their hallowed minds." We have reason to glorify that God of Israel who gave such power unto men, and has here transmitted to us the blessed products of that power.

IV. The style and composition of these books are different from those that go before and those that follow. Our Saviour divides the books of the Old Testament into the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, (Luke xxiv. 44.) and thereby teaches us to distinguish those books that are poetical, or metrical, from the Law and the Prophets; and such are all these that are now before us, except Ecclesiastes, which yet, having something restrained in its style, may well enough be reckoned among them. They are books in verse, according to the ancient rules of versifying, though not according to the Greek and Latin prosodies.

Some of the ancients call these five books the second Pentateuch of the Old Testament,§ five sacred volumes, which are as the satellites to the five books of the law of Moses. Gregory Nazianzen, (carm. 33. p. 98. ‖ ) calls these αἱ ϛιχήραίi.e. στιχήραί [sic] πέντε—the five metrical books; first, Job, (so he reckons them up,) then David, then the three of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Song, and Proverbs. Amphilochius, Bishop at Iconium, in his Iambic Poem to Seleucus, reckons them up particularly, and calls them ϛιχηράςi.e. στιχηράς [sic] πέντε Βιβλȣςi.e. Βιβλους [sic]—