Excerpt from The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, Vol. 1: A Critical, Historical and Dogmatic Inquiry Into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments The particular scope and method of this book are set forth in the introduction, and the fuller justification of its purpose and plan must be left to the results reached by the entire course of its discussions. All its parts, however, have been made as impersonal as possible for the author has not been willing to seem to be inculcating his own opinions rather than seriously and thoroughly investigating the truth of a great subject. A few words of a more personal and familiar kind will surely, then, be both suitable and welcome. I speak these words in the preface, in order that my readers and I may enter upon this difficult investigation, being already on good terms and disposed to keep in right relations with each other. A certain mutual justice and courtesy must enter into these right relations for, while every author should feel bound to render a fair equivalent for the time which he asks of his readers, and should never rudely discredit their cherished opinions, he may feel also that he, in turn, has certain just claims to make upon them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.