BROUGHTON. 210 and converse with 'the greatest ease in Hebrew.. Mr. William Cowper, afterwards Bishop of Galloway, was another of his pupils.t Mr. Broughton was a zealous advocate for the purity of the sacred text both of the Old and New Testament. " In the prophet Daniel's time, and afterwards," says he, " the sacred tongues were changed : it will not therefore beamiss to speak something of God's counsel in this matter. Adam and Eve's tongue continued, commonlyspoken by the Jews, until the captivity of Babylon, and the understanding thereof', when Haggai and Zachary prophesied, in thenext age. In this tongue every book of the Old Testament is written in a style inimitable. The characters and points are the same as those written by God on the two tables. The Masorites, of whomEzra was chief, with an Argus- eyed diligence so keep the letters and words, that none of them can perish. The sense of the tongue is preserved for us by the LXX, the N. T. And theTalmudic phrase by them, who in their schools still kept their tongue. By the help of the LXX. and N. T. we may excel all the rabbins. For their study is more easy to us than to them, in regard that they imitate the Greeks in their fables and expressions, and we have above them God, an heavenly interpreter for us in all the N. T. which, both for the infinite eleganceand variety of its words, is most divinely eloquent. In it are' the choice words of all kind of all Greek writers, nor can they all, without some fragments of the ancients, and the LXX. shew all the words in it. Ithath also somenew-framed words, as all chief authors have, and all brave expressions ; so that if any one would study in another tongue to express' the like elegancy, he may as well fly with Dadalus's wax.. wing, and miscarry in the attempt. In the N. T. is a fourfold Greek, 1. common ; 2. the LXX. Greek; 3. the Apostolic ; 4. the Talmudic. The uncorruptness of the N. T. text is undoubted to all who know the Hebrew tongue, history, and the exact Athenian eloquence. And such as pretend to correct it, do debasethe majesty of both 55 This accountmay appear to some almost incredible. Mr. Broughton's method of instruction was singular. He had his young pupil constantly withhim, and invariably required him to speak, both to himself and others, in Hebrew. He also drew up a vocabulary, which young Cotton cots- stantly used. In this vocabulary he fixed on some place, or thing, then named, all the particulars belonging to it as, heaven, angels, sun, moon, stars, clouds, &c.; or, a house, door, window, parlour, &c. ; a field, grass, flowers, trees, &c.-Thid. Clark's Eccl. Hist. p. 899.
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