In

to be a duty to produce the testimonies of the sacred word in what I conscientiously believe to be their native meaning and unaltered force, as nearly as the idioms of different languages and remote times will permit. The reasons for deviating from the established translation will usually shew themselves to the scholar. those instances where they might not be obvious, they are accounted for in the Notes. As the object was to convey, in the most brief and direct manner, that which appears to me the genuine meaning, it has been sometimes necessary to use turns of expression a little paraphrastic; and occasionally to insert supplementary words. Such supplements every person, who is accustomed to translating, perfectly knows to be unavoidable, for transfusing into one language the true sense of terms and phrases in another.*

"The expediency grows every day more and more evident, of setting forth the Holy Scriptures, for public use, to better advantage than as they appear in the present English translation. As to the style and language, it admits but of little improvement: but in respect of the sense and the accuracy of interpretation, the improvements of which it is capable, are great and numberless."-Bishop LowTH'S Isaiah; Prelim. Disc. page 72.

PREFACE

TO THE EDITION OF 1842.

THIS Volume is republished, in compliance with many requests and even remonstrances against hesitation. Immediate duties and hindrances have occasioned a long delay. The author has subjected the whole to a careful revision. In the Discourses, he has found no reason for alteration; but he has made considerable additions to the Notes.

The subjects of these Four Discourses closely cohere. In the author's conviction, they are no other than an unfolding of the characteristic doctrine of the gospel, its very heart and essence, the first principles of the Apostolic Church, "CHRIST, THE CRUCIFIED;"-the capital truth of theology and religion, which it was the glory of the Protestant Reformation to hold up to the world with accumulated evidence. From the

descendants of the Reformers, to an awful extent, that glory has departed. Arianism and Pelagianism, Remonstrantism and Socinianism, the Unitarianism of England, the Antisupernaturalism and Pantheism of Germany, have beat with all their forces against this rock: IN VAIN. It stands and will stand for ever.

In another way, the old Antichristian enmity has risen up. Among the portentous signs of our times is the effort of some men who dishonour a venerable University, to poison the fountains, and to bring in "the man of sin, with his detestable enormities." Their cool audacity and bad faith towards the Church of England, whose children they call themselves while they are forming a gangrene in her vitals, is equalled by their artifice in keeping silence under the many refutations of their sophistry and unmasking of their jesuitry, which have been published by both Churchmen and Dissenters, in England, Ireland, and America. That affect ation is no proof of security, or of sincerity: it rather warrants the suspicion of a heart ill at ease, dark doubts and a bad conscience lurking within.

Whatever tribulations may arise, from the

oppositions to gospel truth, we need not fear. The faithful will "overcome, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony."

God, of his infinite mercy grant, that he who writeth, and they who read these lines, may rightly appropriate the cheering yet awful words! Should we "suffer trouble as evildoers, yet the word of God is not bound. - The salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. It is a faithful saying: For if we die with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he will also deny us: if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure."

In this fourth edition of the first Discourse, and third of the remaining three, the author has found nothing to retract or even to modify. Some additional clauses and paragraphs are interspersed, which he hopes will be useful. He has also added an Appendix, in reply to the Letters of the Rev. George Vance Smith.

J. P. S.

HOMERTON COLLEGE,

Oct. 27, 1846.