RICHARD W. DICKINSON, D.D. AUTHOR OF RELIGION TEACHING BY EXAMPLE, OR, SCENES FROM SACRED HISTORY, ETC. PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM COLLINS. NORTH MONTROSE STREET, GLASGOW, AND PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 1850. PREFACE. We have found in the Past the archetypes of the Present, and seen ourselves in the mirror of Sacred Writ. They to whom reference is made in the following pages, are not fictitious characters. They were men of like capacities and passions with ourselves; and hence all their acts have their counterpart in those of the men of the present day. We have our Cains and Abels, our Naamans and Gehazis, our Ahithophels, Asas, and Amaziahs. We, too, with those that will in turn claim the reader's attention, have the same temptations and trials, the same fears and sorrows, the same weaknesses and unbelief. The relations which they sustained to God and eternity, bind us; the wants and woes of which they were sensible, are common to us, as the descendants of the same parent; and as we, also, by reason of sin, must die, we need, no less than they of old whom God owned as his servants, a heaven-born faith, and a Divine Saviour. We have, therefore, inquired at the Oracles of God, to ascertain in what light certain characters were regarded, and what were the results of their manner of life and religious practices: and as the word of the Lord was to them, or the expression of God's will in relation to their actions, such are the responses of the Sacred Oracles to us. |