The Poems of John Byrom :: :: University of Virginia Library

Our Folks gone a-visiting, Reverend Sir,
Having left me at home here, less able to stir,
I am thinking on Matters that lovingly pass'd
Where the Squire of the House and I visited last,—
At the Vicar's of Bowdon, old Friend of us two
And a lover of Learning fair, honest and true;
Especially such as shall make to appear
Any Passage of Scripture more easy and clear.

II

The Scripture was writ, and is oft understood,
By Persons unlearnèd, but pious and good,
Who have much better Helps than mere Learning can yield,
Which may yet be of use in its own proper Field;—
If it be but to mend its own Faults in a Brother,
And correct in one Man the Mistakes of another;
Or to combat our Scruples and fix a true Thought,
When the Head shall confirm what the Heart has been taught.

III

One Thing, I remember, that fell in our Way,
Was the speaking in Tongues on the Pentecost Day;

285

Which our Friend the Divine had conceiv'd in a Light
That, however so thought, does not seem to be right.
All the Comments, 'tis true, that one ever has met,
Concur with his Notions about it; but yet
The Mistake is so plain that I wish by some Means
To obtain his Review of those wonderful Scenes.

IV

It is not my Thought; for I first was appris'd
Of the Thing by a Jacob, too greatly despis'd;
Dipping into whose Writings, which little I knew,
Some Expression like this was presented to View:

286

“All Languages spoken by Peter in one;”—
A Truth which the Moment I enter'd upon,
All the Force of Simplicity, Fitness and Fact
Extorted assent that I could not retract.

V

If the honest old Vicar, our visited Friend,
To St. Luke's own Account will be pleas'd to attend,
I cannot but think that the current Conceit
Will yield to Solution so clear and complete
Of a Number of difficult Points, that arise
Upon viewing the Text with unprejudic'd Eyes;—
If “Speakers” were more than Apostles, and “spoken”
But to one in fifteen was a sensible Token.

VI

For the Names to that Number, if rightly I count
By a Baguley Bible, of Nations amount;
Who all understood what a Peter or John,
Or whoever he will, was discoursing upon,—
And to all at one Time; for how plain to be seen
That Persons nor Place could admit of fifteen;
When Parthians, and Medes, Elamítes, and the rest,
Must be too intermix'd to be singly address'd!

VII

“Are not these,” said the Men, the devout of each Land,
“Galileans that speak, whom we all understand?—”

287

As much as to say,—“By what wonderful Pow'rs
Does the Tongue Galilean become, to us, ours?”
While the good were so justly astonish'd, the bad,
Whose Hearts were unopen'd, cried out, “They are mad.”
Unaccountable Charge, if we do not recall
That in one single Tongue the Apostles speak all!

VIII

For separate Speakers and Tongues, it is clear,
Good and bad without Madness might equally hear;
And surprise in the bad would be equally keen,
How illiterate Men could speak all the fifteen.
But the Miracle, wrought in the simplest of Ways,
In both good and bad well accounts for Amaze.
One was sensibly touch'd with a Gift so Divine;
One stupidly rais'd the Reproach of “new Wine.”

IX

When St. Peter stood up, and to all the whole Throng
Show'd the Truth in a Sermon so good and so long,
But to one fifteenth Part was it only then shown,—
To the worst, the Jerusalem Scoffers alone;
Whilst all the good Strangers, not knowing one Word,
Stood unedified by?—This is greatly absurd.
God pour'd out his Spirit—that answers all Mock,—
And spake by St. Peter to all his whole Flock.

288

X

The vulgar Objection which commenting Strain
Has made to a Thing so exceedingly plain,
Is: “The Miracle then would not be in the Speaker,
It would be in the Hearers.”—Now, what can be weaker?
For the Gift in this case had a twofold Respect,
And must needs be, in both to produce its Effect,—
To account for the Fact, which the Comments forgot,
Why the pious could hear what the Mockers could not.

XI

It is nowhere affirm'd that th' Apostles acquir'd
Any Tongue but their own, tho' Divinely inspir'd.
St. Peter, St. John are soon mention'd again,
And describ'd as unlearnèd and ignorant Men.—
But enough,—or too much! For the Shortness of Time
Gives a hint to set Bounds to th' Extension of Rime.
Our Friend will acknowledge, tho' hasty the Letter,
This Question's Solution,—or give us a better.

XII

So I shall not here touch upon Hebrew and Greek;
Where a Rabbi so able, if minded to seek,

289

May observe other Points in which Learning, that makes
Many Things clear enough, has occasion'd Mistakes.
Whether this be one Instance, I only desire
That a suitable Leisure may prompt to enquire;
For to me it appears, that the Miracle done
Was all by one Language, as clear as the Sun.

EPISTLE II.

November 30, 1756.

I

Many Thanks have been order'd this Day to attend
The Receipt of your Letter, Dear Vicar and Friend;
Which at first, being left to your Leisure to frame,
Was sure to be welcome, whenever it came.
The Point which the Muse had a Mind to propose
In her free-spoken Rimes, you have handled in Prose.
All fair on both Sides; because, say it or sing,
Truth alone in the Case is the principal Thing.

II

But I cannot but marvel, that much better Sight
Than my own should not see so Meridian a Light
As that of the speaking at Pentecost Time
By the Spirit of God to the good of each Clime
In one single Tongue, by that Spirit inspir'd,
Whose Assistance did all that could then be requir'd;

290

Whose Power, it is certain, could make itself known,
By a Number of Tongues or by one Tongue alone.

III

So needless the Many, so simple the One,
That I wonder what Judgment can hesitate on,
Or a learnèd Enquiry that finds, if it seek,
That the Tongue might be one in Construction of Greek;
Which, as Comma takes Place, as old Gregory said,—
Nazianzen I think—either way may be read.
“They speak in our Tongues;” or, as Crystalline clear
The Fact is to my Understanding, “We hear.”

IV

I sent you some Reasons from Baguley why
The Tongue was but one, which you choose to pass by,
And to comment St. Luke in a many-tongu'd Way
That darkens the Light which I took to be Day.
And Day it is still; for Account that you give
“So plain and so obvious” is Water in Sieve;
Which seems to be something at first-looking View,
But by Holes “plain and obvious” it quickly runs through.

V

“The Tongues which appear'd, and which sat upon each,
“All cloven and fiery,” you argue, “may teach,

291

“And by Notice symbolical make it discern'd,
“That they spake in such Tongues as they never had learn'd.”
Need I tell an Hebræan, that “Tongue” is the same
In Relation to Fire, as the English Word “Flame
Which appears to be cloven;” and Proof that is spun
From the Tongues or the Flames—has too much of the Pun?

VI

When you ask, “Pray, what Reason can else be assign'd
“For Tongues?” I ask you, “Pray, what Reason for Wind?”
Not to shun a fair Question; but “Tongue” being “Flame”
May have answer'd already your questioning Aim.
I think that an Air, that a Flame from Above,
Both is and betokens the Life and the Love;—
Which if Christians were blest with, one Language would do,
And, their whole Body fill'd with, there could not be two.

VII

But let them be Symbols, the Tongues, if you will,
Of the Grace which the Spirit was pleas'd to instil,—
His Gift is as Good, if, in speaking their own,
Men made the same Truth in all Languages known.
This Effect you will grant the Good Gift to intend.
Now, supposing two Ways of atttaining one End,
Is that Explication less likely or just,
Which takes the more simple, more plainly august?

292

VIII

Your Account is quite new in one Thing that I meet,
That is, “That the Speakers went into the Street,
Or went out of the House to the Multitude met.”
For of this going-out I have never read yet;
Or, if ever I did, have forgotten the Book,
And can find nothing said in th' Account of St. Luke
But what should imply both profane and devout
Coming into the House, and not them to go out.

IX

May one ask what Authority, then, you have got
For the Scene and Succession which here you allot
To the speaking Disciples, in Number fifteen,
By an Order well-fancied, but not to be seen
In the Acts or elsewhere the New Testament through;
Nor—what I shall just give a Hint of to you,—
Will you find an Apostle, not even a Paul,
In a Tongue not his own ever preaching at all.

293

X

I agree, that “the Mockers who mock'd with the Throng
Knew only their vulgar, Jerusalem Tongue.”
But when you say, further, what cannot but strike,
“That the Nations, too, all understood it alike,”—
Your order'd Confusion of speaking a Store
To a Crowd out of Doors is more puzzling and more.
In the midst of such Darkness if you can see Light,
You need not complain of the Want of Eye-sight.

XI

Thus, my dear old Acquaintance, I run thro' your Plan,
And defend my Conviction as well as I can.
As to what a Bengelius or Wesley may raise
From twelve hundred and sixty prophetical Days,—

294

As the Book is not here, if it otherwise could,
My Skill in the German can do you no good;
But the Part that you mention, my Author foretells
Will be put in our Tongue by a Doctor at Wells.

XII

So writes younger Wesley, who call'd here and din'd;
And to him I subscrib'd for it;—tho', in my Mind,
What Prophets have written, it's Learning in vain
Without some prophetical Gift to explain.
Nay, in Points that are clear, beyond any fair Doubt,
It is fifteen to one that the Learnèd are out.
This Ratio, I find, in one Instance is true;
Excuse the Presumption!—
Dear Vicar, Adieu!

EPISTLE III.

I

I hope that the Vicar will pardon the Haste,
With which an Occasion once more is embrac'd
Of getting some Knowledge in Points that I seek
From one so well vers'd both in Hebrew and Greek,
In a Question of Fact where a friendly Pursuit
Has the Truth for its Object, and not the Dispute,—
Which, tho' Haste should encroach upon metrical Leisure,
Will be sure, if it rise, to be kept within Measure.

295

II

It would save much voluminous Labour sometimes,
If Disputes were tied down to dispassionate Rimes,
As well as to Reasons.—But, not to digress,
Having weigh'd his Responses both larger and less,
I resume the same Subject, same Freedom of Pen,
To entreat for some small Satisfaction again
In Relation to Points which, appearing absurd,
Have extorted poetical Favour the third.

III

Three Things are laid down in Prose Favour the last,
And Regard to his Thoughts would have none of them pass'd.
To his first it was paid, to his future shall be;
But let “Veritas magis amica” be free!—
First, “manage the Comma,” says he, “how you will;
“Speak or Hear, the same Sense will result from it still.”

296

Yes, the Sense of the Context, “λαλουντων αυτων;”
“While they speak in their Tongue, we all hear in our own.”

IV

“The Hebrew word ‘
,’ or ‘Tongue,’ says he next,
“Whene'er it is us'd by itself in a Text,
Never signifies ‘Fire,’ never signifies ‘Flame;’”
And believing it true, I say also the same.
But in joint “
,” “Tongue of Fire,” or “a Blaze,”
Foreign Languages claim no Symbolical Phrase.
Tho' “Tongue” may occasion Mistake to befall,
It has here no Relation to Language at all.

V

“Short Issue,” he thinks, “the Dispute will admit,”
And desires me to answer this Query, to Wit:
“Were the ‘Tongues,’—the ‘new Tongues,’ which a Promise was made
That Disciples should speak, as St. Mark has display'd,—

297

New Languages such as have never been got
By learning before-hand to speak them, or not?”
To which for the present, till Somebody show
That it must have this Meaning, my Answer is: “No.”

VI

Now, this, if he can, I could wish he would do,
And prove the Construction “new Languages” true
In the Sense that he means; for, when all understood
One Person who spake, it was really as good
As if Numbers had spoken, or Promisèd Grace
Were interpreted “Languages” here in this Place.
The Effect was the same, and may answer the Pith
Of all that his Second has favour'd me with.

VII

Still difficult, then, if we carefully sift,
Is the Vulgar Account of the Pentecost Gift,
Which the Learnèd advance, and establish thereon
What the Vicar has built his Idéas upon,
With Additions thereto which, as far as I see,
Not one of the Learnèd has added but he.
For Example, if some, very few, I presume,
Have describ'd the Disciples as quitting the Room.

VIII

But let them be many;—what Reason, what Trace
Do we find of their leaving the sanctified Place?

298

Of a Wind from above did they fear at the Shake,
And the House, thro' a Doubt of its falling, forsake?
Or did they go forth to the gathering Quire,
Lest the many bright Flames should have set it on Fire?
If a Thought could have enter'd of going away,
What Circumstance was not strong Motive to stay?

IX

Then again: “that the Foreigners, all of them, knew
The Language then us'd at Jerusalem too.”—
For the Miracle's Sake one would here have demurr'd,
Which is render'd so needless, improper, absurd,
That Jerusalem Mockers would really have had
A Pretence to allege that the pious were mad.
For of speaking strange Tongues what accountable Aim,
Or of hearing fifteen, when they all knew the same?

X

Add to this: the Disciples, the Hundred-and-twenty,
Spake amongst one another strange Tongues in like Plenty;—
“One by one,” says the Vicar, who very well saw
What Confusion would rise without some such a Law
As the Text has no Hint of; which says, “they began
To speak by the Spirit,” not “Man after Man.”
Could Time have suffic'd for so doing, yet why
Speak the Tongues of such Men as were none of them by?

XI

The Vicar saw, too, that this could not attract
Any Multitude thither, supposing it Fact;

299

And so he conceiv'd that “a Rumour was spread
By the Men of the House,”—of whom nothing is said.
Now, when Men of his Learning are forc'd to find out
Such unchronicl'd Salvos to dissipate Doubt,
One is apt to infer a well-grounded Suspense,
And the more to look out for more natural Sense.

XII

I wish my old Friend would consider the Case,
And how ill it consists with Effusion of Grace
To speak Parthian, and Median, and so of the Rest,
To none but themselves, being present, address'd!
Unless he can grant, on revolving the Point,
That indeed there is something not rightly in Joint,
Or solve one's Objections, or show one the Way
How to clear up the Matter,—what can a Man say?

EPISTLE IV.

I

I have, with Attention, dear Vicar, repass'd
Your obliging Reply to the Lines in my last;

300

Am sorry 'tis final; yet cannot but say
That your Patience to hear me has gone a great Way,
And extinguish'd all Right to require any more,
If I “put you to prove ‘Two and Two to make Four;’”—
Very difficult Task, as one cannot deny,
When there's Nothing more plain to demónstrate it by!

II

But if “Two and Two, Four,” I am thinking, has claim
To self-evident Truth, has this Comment the same:
“The New Tongues which are mention'd in Promising Page
Are the Old ones, subsisting for many an Age?”
Is it really as plain, as that Four is twice Two,
That in no other Sense they could ever be “new”
But as new to the Speaker, John, Peter, or Paul,
While the Tongues in themselves had no Newness at all?

III

Were this a true Thesis and right to maintain,
Yet “Two Halves are one Whole” is, however, more plain,
Till the Proof, which is wanted, shall make it appear
How the two Propositions are equally clear.

301

“This Proof may be had from the Chapter,” you say,
“Which relates what was done on the Pentecost Day,—
The best of all Proofs.”—But, to do the fair Thing,
Give me Leave to examine what Reasons you bring!

IV

“That ‘γλωσσαι’ is ‘Languages’ oft, if you seek
“In the Septuagint or the New Testament Greek,
“Acknowledge you must.”—Yes; 'tis really the Case.—
“‘Ταις ημετεραις γλωσσαις’ in this very Place
“Must mean, ‘in our Languages.’ Sense, you must own,
“Is the same as in ‘τη διαλεκτω ημων,’—
“‘In our Languages,’ or ‘in our Dialect.’”—Yes,
“Two and Two making Four” is not plainer than this.

V

But how it flows hence, that in cited St. Mark
It has no other Meaning, I'm quite in the dark.
Few Words of a Language are always confin'd
To a Meaning precisely of just the same Kind.
For the Roots of the Hebrew in Hutchinson's School,
I remember, they had such a Kind of a Rule;

302

But the Reach of its Proof has been out of my Pow'r,
Tho' I've talk'd with their Master full many an Hour.

VI

I believe that by Grace, which the Spirit instill'd,
“They shall speak with New Tongues” was exactly fulfill'd
In our Saviour's Disciples; that, Grace being got,
They did so “speak in Tongues,” as before they could not.
With respect to good Strangers partaking of Grace,
For “speak with new Tongues” “with new Languages” place,
And the Promise fulfill'd we may very well call
By one Spirit-form'd Tongue which instructed them all.

VII

If the bold Alexandrian Stroke of a “No”
Had been “Yes,” in my Last—and it would have been so,
If the Facts had requir'd it,—what could it have shown,
Tho' the Text had this Meaning, if not this alone?
For how do all Languages, spoken in One,
Disagree with the Promise insisted upon?
I allow it fulfill'd; let the Vicar allow
The Fulfilling, itself, to determine the How.

303

VIII

God's Wonderful Works when Disciples display'd,
And spake by the Spirit's Omnipotent Aid,
Ev'ry one understood in a Language his own
“Loquentibus illis,”—“λαλουντων αυτων,”—
“While they spake,”—at the first; for good Greek and good Sense
Forbid us to form an unwritten Pretence
For dividing of Tongues, when the Spirit's Descent
Gave at once both to speak and to know what was meant.

IX

But thus to interpret, it seems, you forbid
By placing the Stop as old Gregory did,
Who thought as you think; tho' you bring, I agree,
At least a more plausible Reason than he,
From a Passage that suits with your Meaning alone:
Acts the 10th, “for they heard”—“ηκουον γαρ αυτων
Λαλουντων,” “them speaking,”—and “γλωσσαις”—“in Tongues;”
Where, indeed, to that Greek that Construction belongs.

X

By transposing two Words the grammatical Lot
Shows when they are absolute, when they are not.
But be it “them speaking,” as you would collect,
“In our Languages” still it will never affect

304

The Force of those Reasons, from which 'tis inferr'd
That at once they were spoken, at once they were heard;
Nor of those which deny that “Tongues,” quatenus “new,”
Mean always precisely what “Languages” do.

XI

That Evidence, Vicar, which here you have brought,
Cross-examin'd, will certainly favour this Thought.
For Cornelius converted, and Company too,
Without Intervention of Languages new,—
How can any one think, but from Prejudice bred,
Tho' honest, from what he has often heard said,
That then they were all on a sudden inspir'd
To speak with strange Tongues, when no Reason requir'd?

XII

But now, being got to the End of a Tether
Prescrib'd to your Trouble, I leave to you whether
“Tongues” anywhere else in the Sense you assert
Were spoken to Purpose, that is, to convert,—
Or whether your Patience can bear to excuse
A Reply to your Hints on the Sense that I choose?
In the mean Time I thank you for Favours in Hand
And, speaking or silent, am
Yours to Command.