"Who," he
says, "can call in question the fact that the Hebrew idiom is
coeval with the world itself, save such as seek to win vainglory
for their own sophistry?"
Two years after Willett, in England, comes the famous Dr.
Lightfoot, the most renowned scholar of his time in Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin; but all his scholarship was bent to suit
theological requirements. In his _Erubhin_, published in 1629, he
goes to the full length of the sacred theory, though we begin to
see a curious endeavour to get over some linguistic difficulties.
One passage will serve to show both the robustness of his faith
and the acuteness of his reasoning, in view of the difficulties
which scholars now began to find in the sacred theory." Other
commendations this tongue (Hebrew) needeth none than what it hath
of itself; namely, for sanctity it was the tongue of God; and for
antiquity it was the tongue of Adam. God the first founder, and
Adam the first speaker of it.... It began with the world and the
Church, and continued and increased in glory till the captivity
in Babylon.
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