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DAVID'S PSALMS,

(IN COMMON USE)

WITH NOTES,

CRITIĊAL AND EXPLANATORY,

DEDICATED

TO MESSIAH.

Thy word is to my feet a lamp, and to my paths a light. Psal. cxix. 105.

Thou will light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness,
Psal. xviii. 28.

To the law and to the tesimony, if they speak not according to this word,
it is because there is no light in them. Isa. viii. 20.

GLASGOW:

PRINTED AND SOLD BY N. DOUGLAS, THE AUTHOR,

NO. 161. STOCKWELL STREET.

1815.

147.9.

446.

EXERTIONS are making in our day for the spread of the truth that were never known in those of our forefathers.. The Missionary and Bible Societies are like the two buckets of, a well that in their constant motion continually supply each other. While the fountain exists that supply cannot be exhausted. No danger is to be apprehended from the] peru-, sal of the Scriptures in a good translation. No less strenuous exertions are making by many, which are not less detructive of genuine Christianity than ruinous to the souls of men. These doctrines, in the words of inspiration, corrode and eat like a cancer, and leave nothing but a barren jejune system, devoid of harmony, consistency, efficacy. and beauty. Such productions, however elegantly written, convey no savour of piety to a pious mind, as experience evinces. The authors of such works are all advocates for the literal sense of Scripture, in which there is no spirit, the mystical terms not suiting their purpose, as being too evangelical to stand with their glosses. Thus the key given us by the sacred writers themselves, especially in their quotatations from the Book of Psalms, and elucidations of them, is laid aside, and we are taught to substitute that of fallible men in its stead. Say, is that liberty likely to produce sound legitimate interpretations?

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In harmony with such a mode of glossing Scripture, the authors of such works plead that the fittest disposition for inquiring after truth, and receiving it when discovered, is a total indifference about all religious truth, and all the, doctrines and modes of religion, or a mind in a state of equilibrium between truth and error. So far is this from being really the case, we may assert it as a fact, that only good and pious men will ever search after truth in earnest. He that is not a friend to religion in any mode, may be pronounced an enemy to it in every mode. The very essence of true piety is deeply involved in the controversy between those who oppose and

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