and how wisely he has said it, in the following passage : " We
CHAP. VII.] EXAMPLES OF SCPJPTUPAL ELOQUENCE. 127 tion), that all those powers and beauties of eloquence which they make their boast, are to be found in the sacred wiitings which God in His goodness has provided to mould our characters, and to guide us from this world of wickedness to the blessed world above. But it is not the qualities which these writers have in common with the heathen orators and poets that give me such unspeakable delight in their eloquence ; I am more struck with admiration at the way in which, by an eloquence peculiarly their own, they so use this eloquence of ours that it is not conspicuous either by its presence or its absence for it did not become them either to condemn it or to make an ostentatious display of it ; and if they had shunned it, they would have done the former ; if they had made it prominent, they might have appeared to be doing the latter. And in those passages where the learned do note its presence, the matters spoken of are such, that the words in which they are put seem not so much to be sought out by the speaker as spontaneously to suggest themselves; as if wisdom were walking out of its house,—that is, the breast of the wise man, and eloquence, like an inseparable attendant, followed it without being called for.^
Chap. vii.—Examples of true eloquence drawn from the Epistles of Paul and the Prophecies of Amos.
11. For who would not see what the apostle meant to say, and how wisely he has said it, in the following passage : " We glory in tribulations also : knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; and experience, hope and hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" ?^ Now were any man unlearnedly learned (if I may use the expression) to contend that the apostle had here followed the rules of rhetoric, would not every Christian, learned or unlearned, laugh at him ? And yet here we find the figure which is called in Greek /cXZ/xa^ (climax), and by some in
Latin gradatio, for they do not care to call it scala (a ladder), when the words and ideas have a connection of dependency the one upon the other, as we see here that patience arises out of
Cf. Cicero, Orator. 21 : "Sed est eloquentia?, sicut reliqnarum reruni, fundamcntuni sapieiitia.
' Kom. V. 3-5.