tion, or give a right turn of thinking to the youngest inquirer after truth; he shall think the pains taken amply repaid: happy if, by such a result, at the last great day of account it shall appear, that his life, past in privacy, has not slipped away without contributing, even in the smallest degree, to the glory of his Creator and the honour of his Redeemer. In some parts a reference has been necessarily made to the original language of the Old Testament: whatever there may be of this sort, which is not suited to the English reader, it has been thrown with other matter into notes at the end; but the force of the argument retained in the text and even in the notes it is hoped every thing of impor tance has been made intelligible to him also. It would have been desirable to have no incumbrance of notes at all; but some have been found necessary as authorities, and others contain information from books not in every one's hands; which the reader may perhaps deem not the least valuable part of the whole. It would be needless to say, that a considerable time has passed since the writer first sketched the following essays; except for the purpose of assigning the reason for noticing a publication, now almost forgotten-it may be quite forgotten: but the objections contained in it are continually revived in some new form: and therefore-such is the unhappiness of the present day-a reply to any of them can never be unseasonable. The expected publication of Mr. Benson's Hulsean Lectures on Scripture Difficulties, retarded the completion of these observations, and the appearance of those lectures has induced the present writer to alter many parts of his own work, and to suppress others, and had almost determined him to lay aside altogether what he had written: unwilling to venture on the same ground with a writer of such abilities, for whom he feels an unfeigned esteem: and had he known that gentleman intended to take up the subject of Scripture difficulties, before he had himself written, he should not have suffered his own papers to appear; but as the plan of the two writers is not exactly the same, and that gentleman means to go on with the consideration of the other difficulties of Scripture, it will shorten his labour, if he shall find any thing here agreeing with his own sentiments; and if not, he will do the present writer and the public a service in correcting any mistakes, which may have been made in the attempt now submitted to the favourable acceptance of the reader. TABLE OF CONTENTS. a |