PREFACE. IN offering these two Volumes on the "NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES" to the public, the Authoress trusts they will meet with the approbation and encouragement so largely bestowed upon "Tracts on the Parables," and the "Old Testament Histories." It is truly a great and interesting task the great Head of the Church has condescended to commit to her, and which He alone can enable her to accomplish. The work is His own, because the subject is Jesus, and the object the conversion, the instruction, and strengthening of immortal souls. But there is much that is deficient; much that has not been handled with the energy and force that the text deserves; and a conviction of this fact has often caused the sense of inability to be deeply painful, and the inquiry, "Lord! who is sufficient for these things!" Surely, the theme of redemption often becomes too sublime for man, and were he not sustained from on high, and his pen guided by the Spirit from above, his efforts to trace its wonderful consequences would end in his closing his book, and being disheartened with a task so much beyond him. But the feeblest instruments are first selected, then fitted for what they are to do the Lord the Spirit works in and by them, appointing them to their labour, and graciously enabling them to perform it, proving that it is "not by power or by might" that the servant of God is sustained, but "by the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts." It has been frequently asked, if no more of the Old Testament Histories were to be forthcoming. To this the Authoress replies, that if her life is spared, she hopes to go through ALL the most interesting facts recorded in the Old Testament; but that, feeling the deep importance of laying the New Testament, with its treasures of histories and various events, before the people, clothed in such a garb as would find a response in their hearts, and induce them to search the Scriptures for themselves, she felt that she dared not delay. Time is short-to-day only, or rather this present moment, is all we can call our own; and she was so anxious to prove Jesus to be "Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write," and to endeavour to show the union and connexion between the Old and New Testaments, that she has for the present laid aside the former, until the second volume is completed. Her earnest desire is, to induce her readers to search the Scriptures for themselves ; to take nothing for granted, but to bring all to the law and to the testimony. She would exhort them to diligently examine the Word of God, to lean not to the traditions of men, or to anything but the Bible: the time of the sifting of Christ's Church is begun, and He is standing by, directing and ruling all. Never was there such need of prayer as now, never such a fearful danger of trusting to each other: this is the great deception of the age, and woe to those who follow it; who take counsel, but not of God, who cover with a covering, but not of His Spirit; who love to have smooth things spoken to them, and deceits prophesied, but desire the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them! May the mighty truths in this volume meet with the attention they deserve, for they are the truths of God's Word! The defects, the deficiencies belong to her in whose hands they have been placed; but the everlasting Gospel, which, notwithstanding, shines pure and bright, is the work of Almighty love, and He will acknowledge it when the hand that committed it to paper is perhaps mouldered in the dust. With him she leaves it, earnestly hoping that all who read it may see God as their Father, the Son as their Redeemer, the Holy Spirit as their sanctifier, and may look forward to eternal life as their hope, and to heaven as their home. DOD OAK, SHRAWLEY, |