339 Bible Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1837, By J. U. PARSONS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 4 Cambridge Press: 1250 PREFACE. PHILOSOPHERS of all ages have deplored the inefficiency of tems of Ethics, however pure, to reform and regulate soci. And while their own hearts have struggled against ir precepts, they have buried the last hope of essentially efitting their race, by witnessing how powerless all their monstrations of duty and right fell upon the multitude. What heathen or Christian philosophy never could accomsh, God proposes to do by his word. THE BIBLE, AS A REVELATION FROM GOD, AND THE BIBLE LY, CAN RESTORE MAN, AND REBUILD THE RUINS OF HIS FALL. this end it is expressly and PERFECTLY adapted. "The v of the Lord is perfect, CONVERTING THE SOUL." The spel of Christ is WISDOM and power. It may not be unprofitable to bestow a few thoughts on the "fect adaptation of this instrumentality to its purpose, the covery of the world to holiness and God; and the manner which it should be employed to promote that object. When the word of God challenges for itself perfection, it ust by no means be limited in our minds to a freedom from culcating errors in sentiment, or immoralities in practice. he moral code of Plato or Seneca might be as pure as that the gospel, and yet be perfectly powerless in reclaiming en. Truth from their lips is truth; but it is the production the statuary; fair in its proportions, comely in its features, e combination of all beauties in its design, and adorned ith every grace; yet cold, motionless, lifeless - a statue of one. In the Bible, it is the production of the great Archict of the universe, who breathes upon a fabric of clay, and becomes a living soul. It is vivified by the same divine aspiration which clothed the universe with life. |