“For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroy’d,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him link’d in weal or woe.”
P. L. ix. 129.
It ought to be, “he destroy’d,” that is, “he being destroy’d.” Bentley corrects it, “and man destroy’d.”
Archbishop Tillotson has fallen into the same mistake: “Solomon was of this mind; and I make no doubt, but he made as wise and true Proverbs as any body has done since: Him only excepted, who was a much greater and wiser man than Solomon.” Vol. I. Ser. 53.
[48] “To see so many to make so little conscience of so great a sin.” Tillotson, Vol. I. Serm. 22. “It cannot but be a delightful spectacle to God and Angels to see a young person, besieged by powerful temptations on either side, to acquit himself gloriously, and resolutely to hold out against the most violent assaults: to behold one in the prime and flower of his age, that is courted by pleasures and honours, by the devil and all the bewitching vanities of the world, to reject all these, and to cleave stedfastly unto God.” Ib. Serm. 54. The impropriety of the Phrases distinguished by Italic Characters is evident.
[49] Το γαρ θελειν παρακειται μοι, το δε κατεργαζεσθαι το καλον ουχ ευρισχω. Rom. vii. 18.