Page images
PDF
EPUB

SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE;

OR

THE NATURE AND VALUE

OF THE

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES

DISCRIMINATED,

In an Analysis of their seberal Books.

BY

EDWARD HIGGINSON.

66

'THE LETTER KILLETH; THE SPIRIT MAKETH ALIVE."

VOLUME II.

CONTAINING THE APOCRYPHA AND THE NEW TESTAMENT.

LONDON:

EDWARD T. WHITFIELD, 178, STRAND.

V2419....

(872)

"Thus [in decrying Natural Religion] are parties so discordant unconsciously leagued together in a common cause; and we hear the language of objection and disparagement so precisely the same in the mouths of the orthodox and the infidel, of the enthusiast and of the atheist, that it is often impossible to distinguish to which class the objector belongs."

Prof. BADEN FOWELL'S Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, p 218.

HACKNEY:

PRINTED BY CHARLES GREEN.

SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE;

OR

THE NATURE AND VALUE

OF THE

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES

DISCRIMINATED,

In an Analysis of their several Books.

BY

EDWARD HIGGINSON.

66 THE LETTER KILLETH; THE SPIRIT MAKETH ALIVE."

VOLUME I.

CONTAINING THE OLD TESTAMENT.

LONDON:

EDWARD T. WHITFIELD, 178, STRAND.

1853.

"Here one cannot help remarking a one-sidedness of the Protestant Divines of the 16th and, particularly, of the 17th centuries, which has been and continues to be the cause of endless confusion and lamentable untruth and ignorance. What relates the history of the Word of God in his humanity and in this world, and what records its teachings and warnings and promises, was mistaken for the Word of God itself in its proper sense. By this mistake, the faith in the real Word of God, which is the only immutable and eternal standard of truth, and has its response in the spirit within, was obscured, and is obscured to this day; and its only recipients, reason and conscience, have been and are violated, to the sad confusion of Christ's Church."

BUNSEN'S Hippolylus, II. 149.

HACKNEY:

PRINTED BY CHARLES GREEN.

PREFACE.

I DID not mean to have a Preface to this second volume; nor, indeed, shall I now write one. But I find one written for me in the observations of a recent Quarterly Reviewer, so admirably maintaining the free and natural principles of thought upon which these volumes proceed in the investigation of Scripture, that I cannot refrain from thus adopting them into my pages.

I do not desire to protect myself, by this means, under a reputed orthodox authority, though it may perhaps encourage some of my readers to free thought. To me the terms orthodox and heterodox are simply indifferent. They ought to be quite unknown in Biblical criticism, because they have no intrinsic meaning, but merely express the partialities and prejudices of those who use them. I cite the Quarterly Review, simply in order to express the gratification with which I mark the growing prevalence of that rational and self-evident, but much dissembled, principle: That the Scriptures must be studied just like all other ancient books, with all the aids of literature and science, if we would find what they really contain that distin

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »