Question - "Why would a Christian writer of sermons have any ground for studying a pagan poet?"

Answer - "A sermon is a work which demands regularity of plan as well as a poem. It requires, too, something of the same unity, arrangement, divisions, and lucid order as a tragedy; something of the exordium, and the peroration, which belong to the composition of the orator. I do not mean that he is constantly to exhibit all this, but he should always understand it. 

A writer of verse, it is true, may please to a certain degree by the force of mere genius, and a writer of sermons will instruct by the mere power of his piety; but neither the one nor the other will ever write well, if they do not possess the principles of good writing, and form themselves on the models of good writers.

The Spirit of God can work, and often does work, by feeble instruments; and divine truth by its own omnipotent energy can effect its own purposes. But particular instances do not go to prove that the instrument ought not to be fitted, and polished, and sharpened for its allotted work. "