210 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. refused,: and when he was offered the mastership of Trinity college, Cambridge, by the Earl of Manchester, he declined the honourable preferment. Mr. Gataker, content with his own pastoral charge, was more ambitious of doing goOd to others than of exalting him- self; he therefore assiduously applied himself in thosetur- bulent times to his ancient studies, which could give offence to no party, and which might entitle him to the gratitude and approbation of all the friends of good literature. With this object in view he published his judicious and laborious dis- course on the name by which God made himself known" to Moses and the people of Israel. In this performance he shewed himself a very great master of Hebrew ; and the work was so well received by all competent judges, that it has been often reprinted. This very profound; curious, and instructive treatise is entitled; " De nornine Tetragrammato Dissertatio, qua vocis Jehovah apud nostros receptor usus defenditur, & a quorundam cavillationibus iniquis pariter atque inanibusvindicatur," 1645. The work was reprinted in 1652 ; it is also inserted amongst his " Opera Critica ;" and it found a place among the ten Discourses upon this subject, collected and published by Hadrian Reland, the first five of which were written by John Drusius; Sextinus Amama, Lewis Capel, John Buxtorff; and James Alting, who opposed the received usage, which is defended in-the-other five disser- tations, the first dwhichwas written by Nicholas Fuller, the second byour author, and the three others by John Leusden. This celebrated seholar,"by his continual application to the study of the best Greek authors, his wonderful memory, his uncommon penetration, and his accurate judgment, was, enabled to look into the very principles and elements of that copious, elegant, and expressive language. This might seem beneath the attention of so great a man ; but he resolved to vindicate these inquiries, and to shew how much a thorough knowledge of grammatical learning contributes to the im- provement of science. He was aware that the singularities of his opinion might lessen his reputation, if they were not clearly and fully established. He knew that they did not spring either from a naked imagination, or an affectation of opposing common opinions ; but were in reality the produce ofmuch reading and reflection, and theyhad, at least to him- self, the appearance of certain, though not vulgar truths. It Clark's Lives, p. 152-155.
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