"I KNOW BUT ONE BOOK, THAT CAN JUSTIFY OUR IMPLICIT ACQUIESCENCE IN IT; AND ON THAT BOOK, A NOBLE DISDAIN OF UNDUE DEFERANCE TO PRIOR OPINION--CASTS NEW AND INESTIMABLE LIGHT."--Young. PREFACE That thick darkness overspread the church after the irruptions of the northern barbarians, and the desolations which they occasioned in the Roman empire, is known and acknowledged. Those conquerors professed the religion of the conquered; but corrupted and spoiled it. Like the new settlers in the kingdom of Ephraim, they feared the Lord and served their own gods. In those corruptions antichristian error and domination originated. The tyranny of opinion became terrible, and long held human minds enslaved. Few had sentiments of their own. The orders of the vatican were received as the mandates of heaven. But at last some discerning and intrepid mortals arose who saw the absurdity and impiety of the reigning superstition, and dared to disclose them to a wondering world! Among those bold reformers, LUTHER, CALVIN, and a few contemporary worthies, hold a distinguished rank. Greatly is the church indebted to them for the light which they diffused, and the reformation which they effected. But still the light was imperfect. Dark shades remained. This particularly appeared in the dogmatism and bigotry of these same reformers, who often prohibited further inquiries, or emendations! They had differed from Rome, but no body must differ from them! As though the infallibility which they denied to another, had been transferred to themselves! Too many others, and in more enlightened times, have discovered a strand measure of the same spirit.....a spirit which hath damped inquiry and prevented improvement. Hence, probably, the silence of some expositors on difficult scriptures, and the sameness observable in some others. For the complaint of the poet is not without reason, "That commentators each dark passage shun, and hold their farthing candle to the fun." And the sameness which we see in several writers is probably dictated by fear of singularity, and of incurring the charge of heresy. Minds are different. When a dozen expositors interpret a difficult text alike, they must, for some reason, have borrowed from one another.