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BS

2095
•C62
1867

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by

SYLVANUS COBB,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Presswork by John Wilson and Son.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

THE work of preparing and publishing a Commentary on the Christian Scriptures involves a solemn responsibility. I did not enter upon this work without grave consideration; and I invite my readers to accompany me in these preparatory meditations, that we may together place our minds in a mood to study the Record with profound attention, unto profitable attainments. I open these Scriptures with a reverential estimate of them, as reliable records of the culminating developments of a perfect system of revelation from God, -the revelation of his being and character, of the principles and purposes of his government, and of the duties, interests, and final destiny of mankind.

SECTION I.

REVELATION. INSPIRATION.

These terms have been used, of late, with so much of duplicity and tergiversation, that it seems to me expedient that I should, in the outset, define my use of them. I employ the term revelation here, in its accepted theological sense, as distinguished from nature. With me, therefore, it signifies a direct communication from God by a supernatural agency,—such as the transition to earth, and address to the eyes and ears of chosen human teachers, of an accredited messenger from the heavenly world, or the instruction of such chosen teachers by direct inspiration of the Spirit of God.

And by inspiration, in the same connection, I mean, not the ordinary excitement of thoughts or emotions in the human mind by the clamor of internal wants or the influence of surrounding circumstances; but the infusion into the mind, to, the recognition of the intellectual and moral perceptions, by a Divine afflatus, of such truth as it pleaseth God thus to impart. And the direct and primary proof of the Divine interposition in such revealments is the attestation of the presence and power of God with the inspired teacher by the accompaniment of miraculous works. then there follow multiplied and confirmatory proofs, in the adaptedness of the truths and principles revealed to the wants of our higher nature, their approval of themselves to the reason and moral judgment, and their practical fruits.

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