Hv INTRODUCTION. 



appears so and is so to us, though really less 

 than the planets and fixed stars ; the sun is 

 said to rise, and other parallel expressions, 

 which are true with respect to us, and to the 

 appearance of the thing, though not with 

 respect to the fact physically considered. 

 When the sacred writers speak of the Deity 

 in terms borrowed from the human figure, as 

 if he had hands, eyes, feet, and the like, and 

 as if he was agitated by human passions, it is 

 for the sake of illustrating the Divine attri- 

 butes and proceedings by those passions, 

 faculties, senses, and organs in man, by which 

 alone we can gain any idea of what may be 

 analogous to them in the Divine Nature. 



But though such condescension is shown 

 by the Holy Spirit to the ignorance and 

 imperfections of his people, by adopting, as 

 it were, a phraseology founded upon their 

 innocent errors, and those misapprehensions 

 of things into which they were led by their 

 senses : it is not thence to be concluded that 

 this popular language pervades the whole of 

 the Holy Word ; or that it is impossible, or 

 even difficult, to distinguish things spoken 

 ad captum, from statements relating to the 

 physical constitution of nature which are to 



