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Doc. 258.] 493
JOHN LEWIS’S TESTIMONY.
English; to be published in cheap numbers, that the public
may have it in an easier manner, in either tongue, than in
whole volumes.
It must be confessed that this nation abounds with a variety
of commentaries and expositions on the Holy Bible ; yet when
we consider what an inexhaustible fund of knowledge the
Sacred Scripture contains, the importance of the subjects it
treats of, and the vast concern every man has in those things
they relate and recommend, we may cease to wonder that so
many ingenious pens have been employed in sounding the depths
of this vast ocean; and he must be a very dull writer indeed,
who does not find a pretty large number of readers of any
work he may publish of this kind. I would be far from de
preciating the merit of any man’s performance, nay, I will
allow, that it is owing to the labours of learned and pious
men, in their disquisitions after truth in the Bible, that we of
this kingdom have been enabled to discern truth from error,
and to know more of the mind and will of God in His Word,
than the priests of Rome were willing we should. Yet give
me leave to add, that these sacred writings are capable of
speaking to the heart and understanding of man, by more
ways than have been thought of, or put into practice; and he
who can discover new treasures in these sacred mines, and
produce from them such rich jewels as were never yet seen
by the eye of man, will undoubtedly challenge our strictest
attention, and deserve encouragement in his pious labours.
This, then, may be said of our author. He has struck out a
new path through this deep abyss, which no man ever trod
before ; he has left all the commentators and expositors to
stand on their own footing ; he neither meddles nor interferes
with any of them ; his thoughts are all his own ; and the in
genious and sublime turn he has given to every thing in the
Scriptures, he has copied from no man; and therefore, even
in this respect, he has some title to the regard of the ingeni
ous and learned world.
It is true, when a reader comes to peruse his work, if he
expects to understand him with a slight and cursory reading,
he will find himself greatly mistaken ; his thoughts are too
sublime and lofty to be surveyed with a weak or a wanton
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