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the Times:)-and the caufe of the confufion, and difagreement, which has arisen in the interpretation of thofe Divine Prophecies, is endeavoured to be investigated, and explained:— and the regular plan, and feries, of the Apocaptical Chronology, is endeavoured to be fhewn to be in the most perfect conformity with Hiftorical Chronology.

No parts of these sheets have ever been written as any adventurous employment of a fpeculative mind;-no part has ever proceeded from an endeavour to gratify a vain prefumptuous curiofity. The Author never ventured to read the HOLY SCRIPTURES, with any view to find out fomewhat whereon he might exercife his pen.

He red the Scriptures, from the earliest days of his life to this hour, only feeking to obtain, if poffible, the deliverance of his own foul, from falfehood, and wrong, and from wrath to come; and in order to apprehend the Truth.

And the fteady comparing of one part with another; and the endeavouring to understand the precife meaning of each word, and expreffion, as far as he could, in the original of the New Teftament; and in that excellent Verfion of the Old, which OUR BLESSED

LORD

LORD HIMSELF, and His Holy Apoftles, gave fo much credit to, as to cite from it, unavoidably wrought fuch conviction in his mind, as compelled him to adopt the ideas contained in these sheets; and alfo to communicate them to others, from a full conviction that they may poffibly be useful.

It will be observed, that in many inftances he varies fomewhat from the English Tranflation in our Bible;-but it is only because closenefs of tranflation, and the feemingly inore exact and precife, and energetic, meaning of the original words, compelled him to do fo; both in examining the Greck Teftament, and the Version just mentioned, of the Pfalms, the Law, and the Prophets.

But far be it from the most remote thought of his mind, to difparage, in the leaft degree, our Excellent English, Received Verfion, of THE HOLY SCRIPTURES; or once to wish to fee any other substituted in its room; -or any other made ufe of, further than by way of elucidation. It is an excellent, and a blessed foundation of Truth, in this Country, which ought never to be removed.

Its noble energy tan furely hardly ever be fufficiently admired. It conveys the true fense

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fenfe in all material points;-and when it needs the aid of any critical knowledge, it may almost always be obferved to be only for the purpose of conveying fome rather more enlarged, and greater, or more precifely exact idea, which from the peculiar idiom of each different language alone, the original word contains, beyond what is contained in the correfponding word ufed in the received tranflation.

A very great part of the Obfervations made in these sheets, it will be found, by those who seriously attend to them, might have been made, with the aid of the English Verfion alone.

And

now, even with regard to the Philofophical Obfervations, it may truly be added; that they have offered themselves as irresistibly to a thoughtful mind;—and are not the farfetched productions of a wandering contemplation,

All Nature cries aloud;-and bears teftimony to the Truth of THE WORD OF GOD!

Every appearance of the natural World excites curiofity; and demands to be fearched with the niceft fcrutiny.

And

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