THE

SACRED CLASSICS

Defended and Illuftrated:

OR,

An ESSAY

Humbly offer'd towards proving the

Purity, Propriety, and True Eloquence

Of the WRITERS of the

: NEW TESTAMENT.

In TWO PART S.

In the FIRST of which

Thofe DIVINE WRITERS are vindicated against

the Charge of barbarous LANGUAGE, false GREEK, and SOLECISMS.

In the SECOND is fhewn,

That all the Excellencies of STYLE, and fublime

Beauties of LANGUAGE and genuine ELOQUENCE do abound

in the Sacred WRITERS of the NEW TESTAMENT.

With an Account of their STYLE and CHARACTER,

and a Representation of their Superiority, in feveral Inftances,

to the beft CLASSICS of GREECE and RO ME.

To which are fubjoin'd proper INDEXES.

By A BLACKWALL, M. A.

The SECOND EDITION, Corrected.

LONDON:

Printed for C. RIVINGTON, at the Bible and Crown in
St. Paul's Churchyard, and W. CANTRELL Bookfeller in Derby.

MPCC XXVII,

Carth: angl: Neoporti,

THE

PREFACE

I

N refpect to the subject itself which I treat of, I cannot pretend to present my reader with a discourse entirely new: but if the copiousness and choice of my materials, with the manner and method of my managing and disposing of them, be confider d, it may appear that there is something new in this Ellay.

I have read the best and most authentic Greek writers, with a view of comparing them with the divine writers of the New Teftament; by which I have been enabled to prove the purity

A 2

and