Nor would the Author of this Work, or those who have imbibed the spirit of his system, join with the philosophers of the day in throwing aside and treating with a contempt, as ignorant as it is arrogant, the treasures of ancient wisdom. _He_, says the son of Sirach, _that giveth his mind to the law of the Most High, and is occupied in the meditation thereof, will seek out the wisdom of all the ancient_. In the estimation of the true philosopher, the case should not be greatly altered in the present day; and now that two thousand years have added such rich and manifold abundance to those ancient "sayings of the wise," he will still approach them with reverence, and receive their instruction with gladness of heart. In seeking to explore and unfold these deeper and more solemn mysteries of our being, which inspire us with awe, while they baffle our comprehension, he will especially beware of trusting to his own understanding, or of contradicting, in compliance with the self-flattering inventions of a single age, the universal faith and consciousness of the human race. On such subjects, though he would call no man master, yet neither would he willingly forego the aids to be derived, in the search after truth, from those great oracles of human wisdom--those giants in intellectual power who from generation to generation were admired and venerated by the great and good. Much less could he think it becoming, or consistent with his duty to hazard the publication of his own thoughts on subjects of the deepest concernment, and on which minds of greatest depth and power had been occupied in former ages, while confessedly ignorant alike of their doctrines and of the arguments by which they are sustained.
It is in this spirit, that the Author of the work here offered to the public has prepared himself to deserve the candid and even confiding attention of his readers, with reference to the great subject of which he treats.
And although the claims of the Work upon our attention, as of every other work, must depend more upon its inherent and essential character, than upon the worth and authority of its Author, it may yet be of service to the reader to know, that he is no hasty or unfurnished adventurer in the department of authorship to which the Work belongs. The discriminating reader of this Work cannot fail to discover his profound knowledge of the philosophy of language, the principles of its construction, and the laws of its interpretation. In others of his works, perhaps more fully than in this, there is evidence of an unrivalled mastery over all that pertains both to logic and philology. It has been already intimated, that he is no contemner of the great writers of antiquity and of their wise sentences; and probably few English scholars, even in those days when there were giants of learning in Great Britain, had minds more richly furnished with the treasures of ancient lore. But especially will the reader of this Work observe with admiration the profoundness of his philosophical attainments, and his thorough and intimate knowledge, not only of the works and systems of Plato and Aristotle, and of the celebrated philosophers of modern times, but of those too much neglected writings of the Greek and Roman Fathers, and of the great leaders of the Reformation, which more particularly qualified him for discussing the subjects of the present Work. If these qualifications, and--with all these, and above all--a disposition professed and made evident seriously to value them, chiefly as they enable him more fully and clearly to apprehend and illustrate the truths of the Christian system,--if these, I say, can give an Author a claim to serious and thoughtful attention, then may the Work here offered urge its claim upon the reader. My own regard for the cause of truth, for the interests of philosophy, of reason, and of religion, lead me to hope that they may not be urged in vain.