If this Volume verify its title in any good measure, and be an Exposition of the Apostle Paul’s Dissertation on the Resurrection of Life, no apology is required for its publication: if it do not, no apology that might be offered could be satisfactory.
The importance of the subject will be universally admitted; and its difficulty will be acknowledged most readily by those who have most carefully studied the Dissertation itself, and are most extensively acquainted with what has been attempted for its illustration.
Most of the interpretations which have been given of it have been examined; and while all of them appear to me liable to objections, it is but justice to acknowledge, that to some of them, as will appear from the margin, I have been greatly indebted; and that probably there is not one of them from which useful hints have not been derived.
I have done what I could to apprehend clearly, and to expound distinctly, the meaning of the apostle; and the results of my labour are respectfully offered to the consideration of my brethren, and devoutly commended to the blessing of our common Lord. With Musculus, in reference to another divine oracle, I am ready to say, “Vincimur majestate eorum quæ in illo capite sunt ab apostolo dicta;” and to add, as he does, “Si cui datum est mysteria hæc penitius introspicere, communicet quod habet ecclesiæ Christi.”
The disproportion of the first, the Introductory part, to the other parts of the Exposition may probably strike some readers. It struck myself; but not till it was in type. The truth is, the illustration of the first eleven verses was originally written about thirty years ago, when I had no intention of expounding the remaining part of the chapter, and when I had some indistinct thoughts of giving to the public that illustration in a separate form. The subjects of the Introductory part are so transcendently important in a practical point of view, that I can scarcely regret the large space they occupy in the Volume, though obtained at the expense of interfering with the symmetry of the Exposition as a piece of exegetical art.
The Discourse on our Lord’s Resurrection may be considered as a long note on the first section of the first part of the Exposition. The object in adding the articles in the Appendix must be obvious. They have all a direct bearing on the subject of the Treatise; they are all of superior merit; and, with perhaps a single exception, they all lie out of the way of the great body of readers.
This work, like some of its precursors, has had the important advantage, during its passage through the press, of the supervision of my much-valued friend, the Rev. Dr John Taylor of Auchtermuchty; and if the numerous Greek and Latin quotations it contains be, as is believed, freer from mistakes than is common in publications of this sort, it is chiefly owing to the kindly-offered and cheerfully-rendered services of a young relative, every way qualified for such a work, by accurate knowledge of the two languages, and by the habit of correcting a classical press.
Arthur’s Lodge, Newington,
December 1851.
