08.00.3. Prefatory Note

Prefatory Note THE circumstances in which this publication originated, as stated in the beginning of the work, will explain any apparent want of order in the treatment of the subject, especially in the first two or three Chapters, which were written without any view to a full and systematic discussion of it. Had time permitted, I might have remodelled the whole, so as to give it greater compactness and completeness; and I might have embodied all I had to say in the work itself, without having recourse to an Appendix of addenda. As it is, I have endeavoured to correct, and I have somewhat enlarged, my hastily prepared contributions to the Magazine; and, with the Preliminary Dissertation and explanatory Notes, I would fain hope that, by the blessing of God, this treatise may be instrumental in aiding some who may desire to study this branch of theology, by directing the course of their inquiries, and laying down a few soundings and landmarks—the rather, as I have sought to avoid the perplexities of recent and personal controversies.

EDINBURGH, May 22, 1845.