to virtue, truth is the most valuable of all earthly acquisitions ; and, whatever may be the aim of other teachers of theology, for myself I can say, that I shall have no higher ambition, in the situation to which I have been appointed in this institution, than to act as a pioneer in leading others on to truth. Patiemurne extingui aut opprimi VERITATEM ? EGO VERO LIBENTIUS VEL SUB HOC ONERE DEFECERIM.-Lactantius de Opificio Dei. c. xx. PASTORAL THEOLOGY, AND THE HEBREW, CHALDEE AND SYRIAC LANGUAGES. BEING THE SECOND OF THE SERIES OF INAUGURAL LECTURES IN THE LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO. STATIONERS' HALL COURT: AND J. GREEN, NEWGATE STREET. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO THE COURSES ON PASTORAL THEOLOGY, AND THE HEBREW, CHALDEE AND SYRIAC LANGUAGES. In the announcement of the address to be this day delivered, Pastoral Theology takes precedence of the Languages which are to be taught by the same Professor. But the order now proposed to be followed is that in which the two departments were successively undertaken. Another reason will, probably, be perceived in the course of the remarks about to be laid before you, for speaking first of the Languages. The Hebrew Language, as one of the oldest in the world, might well seem deserving of attention independently of its connection with Theology. As the language of historians, moralists, and poets, the latest of whom lived more than two thousand years ago, and whose writings, in their respective dates, range over a period of, at least, a thousand years more, and probably contain fragments that have descended from a much higher antiquity than the age of their oldest known or reputed author, it might seem strongly recommended to a place among the studies of a liberal and learned education. These earliest chroniclers of the things done and said in the days of their fathers as well as in their own,these eldest voices of the human race, which break forth from the darkness of the past to tell us how men, so very long ago, and through so many successive generations, thought, felt, believed, were instructed, admonished, and comforted,might be expected to attract some portion, at least, of that curiosity which is awakened by the records and memorials of later times. The language of Palestine might be thought to have claims on the attention and reverence of the scholar, as well as the languages of Greece and Rome. The moral and religious importance too of the writings which are transmitted to us in this language,—the antecedent probability, that the first teachers and historians of Christianity would have their minds deeply imbued with the spirit of Hebrew literature and theology, as well as their modes of expression very much influenced by their familiarity with the sacred books of their nation; and the fact, that, throughout the New Testament, there are continual references and appeals to what had been taught, believed, aed predicted in the Old;-in short, the close, or rather, as to many it seems, inseparable connection between the Jewish and the Christian systems of morality and religion, as the one designedly and providentially introductory to the other, would appear to demand for the Hebrew language a much greater degree of attention than, in this country at least, it has yet received. The most ancient and valuable remains of Hebrew Literature, are indeed, to a great degree, made accessible to all from early childhood, in a version not only venerable for its age, but justly endeared to us by its simple and artless beauty, sufficiently removed too from the language of modern times and ordinary life, to give it very much the character of an original. But, not to speak of the inaccuracies which have been repeatedly acknowledged in that version by the learned of various denominations, even if it were the very best that could be made, it could not altogether supply the place of the original. "If" (says Dr. Nicholson in the preface to his translation of Professor Ewald's Grammar,*) "there is |