Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

the degree of information conveyed to their understanding. Purity, seriousness, and humility of mind, are the only sure guides to the eternal temple of religious truth. The opposite qualities will ever lead to error and impiety. And who is there who can avoid observing the want of seriousness, and above all. of humility of mind, in the opponents of Revelation? Whatever other characters they possess, I may venture to affirm, that either seriousness or humility, or both, are almost uniformly wanting. And yet assuredly these are peculiarly required on subjects affecting the destiny of the entire human race, and leading us to contemplate the nature and the dispensations of the supreme and incomprehensible God. May all who are led to peruse these pages be impressed with due feelings of seriousness and humility, and guided by that spiritual wisdom without which the "things of God appear to man foolishness."* May they be disposed to study, to receive, and to obey the will of their heavenly Father, "with all their heart, and with all their soul, "and with all their strength." Then will they be able to "know "of the doctrine whether it be of God;"‡ then will their understandings be enlarged, their faith confirmed, their salvation secured: And at the great day of final account, may it be found that he who thus warns and exhorts others, is not "himself a "cast-away."

*1 Cor. ii. 14.

+ Mark xii. 30.

John vii. 17.

P. S. In page x. I have said, "that the internal evidence of the four last books of the Pentateuch was a subject not preoccupied by any writer of established reputation." The learned reader will easily see that Warburton's celebrated work on the Divine Legation of Moses, was not forgotten when I made this assertion, as it appears to me to have increased, not superseded the necessity of reconsidering this subject with the closest attention. Vide infra, where the system of this eminent writer is reviewed.*

* Dr Graves's references are made to the 4to. edit. of 1788, now perhaps in very limited use;— but the sections and other divisions of the work being specified, the references will become perfectly facile to the recently published 8vo edition.

[ocr errors]

MORAL PRINCIPLES OF THE JEWISH LAW.

[ocr errors]
« ÖncekiDevam »