in the close and familiar association of the one God with the ancestors of our race, and the patriarchs of Israel, however we may explain it. Whatever names we may give to these beautiful and sacred traditions which were transmitted in the families of God's people from generation to generation, and finally used by the sacred historians in their holy books; whatever names we may give them in distinction from the legends and myths of other nations, none can fail to see that poetic embellishment natural and exquisitely beautiful, artless and yet most artistic, which comes from the imagination of the common people of the most intelligent nations, in these sources that were used by divine inspiration in giving us ancient history in its most attractive form. Indeed the imagination is in greater use in Hebrew history than in any other history, with all the oriental wealth of color in the prophetic historians. The dialogues and discourses of the ancient worthies are simple, natural, and profound. They are not to be regarded as exact reproductions of the words originally spoken, whether preserved in the memory of the people and transmitted in stereotyped form or electrotyped on the mind of the historian, or in his writing by divine inspiration; but they are rather reproductions of the situation in a graphic and rhetorical manner, differing from the like usage in Livy and Thucydides, Herodotus and Xenophon only in that the latter used their reflection and imagination merely; the former used the same fac ulties guided by divine inspiration into the truth and restrained from error. In biblical history there is a wealth of beauty and religious instruction for those students who approach it not only as a work of divine revelation from which the maximum of dogma, or of examples and maxims of prac tical ethics are to be derived; but with the higher appreciation and insight of those who are trained to the historian's art of representation, and who learn from the art of history, and the styles and methods of history, the true interpretation of historical books, where the soul enters into the enjoyment of the concrete, and is unwilling to break up the ideal of beauty, or destroy the living reality, for the sake of the analytic process, and the abstract resultant, however important these may be in other respects, and under other circum stances. (2) Advancing from historical prose, we come to the Oration. The Bible is as rich in this form of literature as in its history and poetry. Indeed, the three run insensibly into one another in Hebrew prophecy. Rare nodels of eloquence are found in the historical books, such as the plea of Judah (Gen. xliv. 18-34); the charge of Joshua (Jos. xxiv.); the indignant outburst of Jotham (Judges ix.); the sentence pronounced upon Saul by Samuel (1 Sam. xv.); the challenge of Elijah (1 Kings xviii.). The three great discourses of Moses in Deuteronomy are elaborate orations, combining great variety of motives and rhetorical forms, especially in the last discourse, to impress upon Israel the doctrines of God, and the blessings and curses, the life and death, involved therein. The prophetical books present us collections of inspired eloquence, which for unction, fervor, impressiveness, grandeur, sublimity, and power, surpass all the eloquence of the world, as they grasp the historical past and the ideal future, and entwine them with the living present, for the comfort and warning, the guidance and the restraint of God's people. Nowhere else do we find such depths of passion, such heights of ecstasy, such dreadful imprecations, such solemn warnings, such im. pressive exhortations, and such sublime promises. Each prophet has his own peculiarities and excellences. "Joel's discourse is like a rapid, sprightly stream flowing into a delightful plain. Hosea's is like at waterfall plunging down over rocks and ridges; Isaiah as a mass of water rolling heavily along." Micah has no superior in simplicity and originality of thought, spirituality and sublimity of conception, clearness and precision of prophetic vision. "Isaiah is not the especially lyrical prophet, or the especially elegiacal prophet, or the especially oratorical or hortatory prophet, as we would describe a Joel, a Hosea, or Micah, with whom there is a greater prevalence of some particular colors; but just as the subject requires, he has readily at cominand every different kind of style, and every different change of delineation; and it is precisely this, that, in point of language, establishes his greatness, as well as, in general, forms one of his most towering points of excellence. His only fundamental peculiarity is the lofty, majestic calmness of his style, proceeding out of the perfect command which he feels that he has over his matter." Jeremiah is the prophet of sorrow, and his style is heavy and monotonous, as the same story of woe must be repeated again and again in varied s. rains. Ezekiel was, as Hengstenberg represents, of a gigantic appearance, well adapted to struggle effectively with the spirit of the times of the Babylonian captivity-a spiritual Samson, who, with powerful hand, grasped the pillars of the temple of idolatry and dashed it to the earth, standing alone, yet worth a hundred prophetic schools, and, during his entire appearance, a powerful * Wünsche, Weissagungen des Prophten Joel, Leipzig, 1872, p. 38. proof that the Lord was still among His people, although His visible temple was ground to powder.* Malachi closes the line, "Although like a late evening closing a long day, he is yet at the same time the gray of dawn, bearing a noble day in its bosom."† In the New Testament the three great discourses of Jesus and His parabolic teaching present us oratory of the Aramaic type; simple, quiet, transparent, yet reaching to unfathomable depths, and as the very blue of heaven, every word a diamond, every sentence altogether spirit and life, illuminating with their pure, searching light, quickening with their warm, pulsating, throbbing love.‡ The discourse of Peter at Pentecost will vie with Cicero against Catiline in its conviction of the rulers of Israel, and in its piercing the hearts of the people. The discourses of Paul on Mars' Hill, and before the Jews in Jerusalem, and the magnates of Rome at Caesarea, are not, surpassed by Demosthenes on the Crown. We see the philosophers of Athens confounded, some mocking, and others convinced unto salvation. We see the Jewish mob at first silenced, and then bursting forth into a frantic yell for his blood. We see the Roman governor trembling before his prisoner's reasonings of justice and judgment to come. We do not compare the orations of Peter and Paul with those of Cicero and Demosthenes for completeness, symmetry, and artistic finish; this would be impossible, for the sermons of Peter and Paul are only preserved to us in outline; but, taking them as outlines, we maintain that for skilful use of * Hengstenberg, Christology, T. &. T. Clark, Edin., 1864, Vol. II., p. 3. Nägelsbach, article Maleachi, in Herzog, 1 Aufl., viii., p. 756. See A. B. Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ, London, 1882, for a fine appreciation of the literary forms of the parables. circumstance, for adaptation to the occasion, for rhetorical organization of the theme, for rapid display of argument, in their grand march to the climax, and above all in the effects that they produced, the orations of Peter and Paul are pre-eminent. Nowhere else save in the Bible have the oratorical types of three distinct languages and civilizations combined for unity and variety of effect. These biblical models ought to enrich and fortify the sermon of our day. If we should study them as literary forms, as much as we study Cicero and Demosthenes as models of sacred eloquence, the pulpit would rise to new grandeur and sublimer heights and more tremendous power over the masses of mankind. (3) The Epistle may be regarded as the third form of prose literature. This is the contribution of the Arainaic language to the Old Testament in the letters contained in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. But it is in the New Testament that the epistle receives its magrificent development in the letters of James, Peter, Paul, Jude, and John-some familiar, some dogmatic, some ecclesiastical, some pastoral, some speculative and predictive, and in the epistle to the Hebrews we have an elaborate essay. How charming the letters of Cicero to his several familiar friends! What a loss to the world to be deprived of them! But who among us would exchange for them the epistles of the apostles? And yet it is to be feared that we have studied them not too much as doctrinal treatises, perhaps, but too little as familiar letters to friends and to beloved churches, and still less as literary models for the letter and the essay. It might refresh and exalt our theological and ethical treatises, if their authors would study awhile with Paul in his style |