Excerpt from The Theological Works of Herbert Thorndike, Vol. 1: Sometime Prebendary of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminister That style must serve me for a preface to this short dis course. The love of peace and truth, my hope is, hath made some impression in the reasons whereupon it proceedeth: and it were a wrong to the world to think that those marks can be offensive. My purpose was to contribute towards the true meaning of the Scripture in these matters: if I have failed of it, the attempt will deserve your excuse. But my heart telleth me not that I have set any text on the rack to make it confess more than it means. Ecclesiastical writers I have for the most part stripped of the authority which their years and merits in the Church have won, and produced them as wit nesses at the bar of common sense, to make evidence from the historical truth of their sayings. The meaning of them is here translated and left to every man's apprehension to value; for when all is done, men must and will be judges for them selves. 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.