Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews

§ 13 It may then be granted, though it be not proved, that there is some dissimilitude of Style between this and the rest of the Epistles of St. Paul; and the Reasons of it are sufficiently manifest. The Argument treated of in this Epistle, is divers from that of most of the other; many circumstances in those to whom he wrote singular, the spring of his reasonings, and way of his arguings, peculiarly suited unto his Subject Matter, and the condition of those unto whom he wrote. Besides in the Writing of this Epistle there was in him an especial Frame and incitation of Spirit, occasioned by many Occurrences relating unto it. His intense love, and near relation in the flesh, unto them to whom he wrote, affectionately remembered by himself, and expressed in a manner inimitable, Rom. 9.1, 2, 3. did doubtless exert it self, in his treating about their greatest and nearest concernment. The prejudices and enmity of some of them against him, recorded in several places of the Acts, and remembered by himself in some other of his Epistles, lay also under his consideration. Much of the Subject that he treated about, was matter of ⟨p. 31⟩Controversy, which was to be debated from the Scripture, and wherein those with whom he dealt, thought they might dissent from him without any prejudice to their Faith or Obedience. Their condition also must needs greatly affect him. They were now not only under present troubles, dangers and fears, but Positi inter sacrum & saxum, at the very door of ruin, if not delivered from the snare of obstinate adherence unto Mosaical Institutions. Now they who know not what alterations in Style, and manner of Writing, these things will produce, in those who have an ability to express the Conceptions of their minds, and the Affections wherewith they are attended, know nothing of this matter. And other differences from the rest of Pauls Epistles, but what may evidently be seen to arise from these and the like Causes, none have yet discovered, nor can so do. And notwithstanding the Elegance of the Style pretended, that it is as full of Hebraisms, as any other Epistle of the same Author, we shall discover in our passage through it; which certainly a Person of that Ability in the Greek Tongue, as the Writer of this Epistle discovers himself to be, might have avoided, if he had thought meet so to do.

§ 13 It may then be granted, though it be not proved, that there is some dissimilitude of Style between this and the rest of the Epistles of St. Paul; and the Reasons of it are sufficiently manifest. The Argument treated of in this Epistle, is divers from that of most of the other; many circumstances in those to whom he wrote singular, the spring of his reasonings, and way of his arguings, peculiarly suited unto his Subject Matter, and the condition of those unto whom he wrote. Besides in the Writing of this Epistle there was in him an especial Frame and incitation of Spirit, occasioned by many Occurrences relating unto it. His intense love, and near relation in the flesh, unto them to whom he wrote, affectionately remembred by himself, and expressed in a manner inimitable,