AUTHOR OF "LECTURES ON THE SYMBOLIC CHARACTER OF THE "Then opened He their understandings that they might understand the Scrip- "The entrance of Thy Word giveth light.”—PSALM cxix, 130. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 443 & 445 BROADWAY. LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN. 1863. 75480 57773 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by ABIEL SILVER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. REGARDING the Sacred Scriptures as the Holy Word of the Great Jehovah, and believing that the Words which God speaks unto us, "they are Spirit and they are Life" to human souls, given for their regeneration and salvation; and that they are the Foundation and Embodiment of all true Laws and Rules of Life, for the establishment and preservation of order, peace, and happiness, in heaven and on earth; that they were dictated to the writers by Infinite Wisdom, and designed to be understood, loved and practised by men, and are therefore free from all contradictions and discrepancies, and expressed in the best possible form for meeting the vast variety of wants, states, and conditions of human beings, for all time and for eternity; religiously believing this, we feel it to be the highest privilege and duty of man to acknowledge them, revere them, study them, love them, and obey them; to defend and sustain them, under every circumstance or event, whereby the opinions or writings of men may tend to throw doubts into the public mind, as to |