A
LETTER
TO
THE REV. DR. LELAND.
FIRST PRINTED IN 1764.
A
LETTER
TO THE
REV. DR. THOMAS LELAND,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN:
IN WHICH
HIS LATE DISSERTATION
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ELOQUENCE
IS CRITICISED;
AND
THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER’S
Idea of the Nature and Character of an inspired Language, as delivered in his Lordship’s Doctrine of Grace,
IS VINDICATED
From ALL the Objections of the learned Author of the Dissertation.
A LETTER TO THE REV. DR. LELAND.
REV. SIR,
I have read your Dissertation on the principles of human Eloquence, and shall very readily, I dare say, be indulged in the liberty, I am going to take, of giving you my free thoughts upon it. I shall do it, with all the regard that is due from one scholar to another; and even with all the civility which may be required ONE, who hath his reasons for addressing you, in this public manner, without a name.
You entitle your work A Dissertation on the principles of Eloquence: but the real subject of it, is an Opinion, or Paradox, as you chuse to term it, delivered by the Bishop of Gloucester in his late discourse on Grace. This opinion, indeed, concerns, or rather, in your ideas, subverts, the very principles of Eloquence, which your office, it seems, in a learned society obliged you to maintain: so that you cannot be blamed for giving some attention to the ingenious Prelate’s paradox, which so incommodiously came in your way. Only the more intelligent of your hearers might possibly think it strange that, in a set of rhetorical lectures, addressed to them, the Controversial part should so much take the lead of the Didactic: or rather, that the Didactic part should stand quite still, while the Controversial keeps pacing it, with much alacrity, from one end of your Dissertation to the other.
Yet neither, on second thoughts, can you be blamed for this conduct, which one way or other might serve to the instruction of your young auditory; if not in the principles of Rhetoric, yet in a better thing, the principles of Logic. It might, further, serve to another purpose, not unworthy the regard of a rhetoric lecturer. The subject of Eloquence has been so exhausted in the fine writings of antiquity, and, what is worse, has been so hackneyed in modern compilations from them, that your discourse wanted to be enlivened by the poignant controversial air, you have given to it, and to be made important, by bringing an illustrious character into the scene.
All this I am ready to say in your vindication, if your conduct may be thought to require any. Having, therefore, nothing to object to the general design, or mode of your dissertation, I shall confine myself entirely to the MATTER of it, after acquainting the reader, in few words, with the occasion and subject Of this debate.
The Bishop of Gloucester, in late theological treatise on the doctrine of Grace, which required him to speak fully to the subject of inspiration, found it necessary to obviate an objection to what he conceived to be the right notion of inspired scripture, which had been supported by some ingenious men, and very lately by Dr. Middleton. The objection is delivered by the learned Doctor, in these words.
“If we allow the gift [of inspired languages] to be lasting, we must conclude that some at least of the books of scripture were in this inspired Greek. But we should naturally expect to find an inspired language to be such as is worthy of God; that is, pure, clear, noble and affecting, even beyond the force of common speech; since nothing can come from God but what is perfect in its kind. In short, the purity of Plato, and the eloquence of Cicero. Now, if we try the apostolic language by this rule, we shall be so far from ascribing it to God, that we shall scarcely think it worthy of man, that is, of the liberal and polite; it being utterly rude and barbarous, and abounding with every fault that can possibly deform a language. And though some writers, prompted by a false zeal, have attempted to defend the purity of the Scripture-Greek, their labour has been idly employed[130].” Thus far the learned Doctor.