THE Preacher's Complete Homiletical COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT (ON AN ORIGINAL PLAN). With Critical and Explanatory Notes, Endices, &c., &c. BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. New York FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND TORONTO 1892 COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF JOSHUA, WITH Critical and Explanatory Notes, Indices, etc. BY THE REV. F. G. MARCHAN T. New York FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON & TORONTO 1892 HOMILETIC COMMENTARY ON JOSHUA. Preface. THE aim of this work is not critical, but moral and spiritual exegesis. The Author's wish has been to expound the principles of Divine teaching contained in the history, and to present the result of his study of these principles in a way which may be useful to any preachers or students of God's Word, who, like himself, may feel suggestions from other minds helpful to their own. No apology seems necessary for a work of this kind; why should it be? Why should the pulpit suppose entire originality, and the class room almost none? Why should public teachers in every other department of life freely make use of the results of scholastic attainments, feel no wrong in doing so, and be thought no evil of, if it be utterly wrong in any and every measure for preachers to avail themselves of the results of such gifts or attainments in their brethren as may best bear fruit in the unfolding of moral or spiritual truth? These questions, it need hardly be said, are not meant to excuse dishonesty, but to vindicate the right of every man to walk in Homiletic fields of thought with at least as much liberty as in fields theologic, philosophic, or scientific. Probably nothing has more tended to independent thought in preaching than the very free reading of sermons, so common in religious circles in the present day: never were so many sermons published and bought as now, and it may be said with almost equal certainty, never was the pulpit so original and strong as now. The power of others, rightly used, tends to our own strength. It is with the consciousness of the absolute truth of this that this work has been written; how far it may be helpful, others must judge. In In outlines of discourses the style must necessarily be more or less abrupt. the "Main Homiletics" an effort has been made throughout to avoid two evils-the giving of mere heads of thought, which probably are of small use to any one, and the extension of thought into that fulness of style which, however suitable for the pulpit itself, would fruitlessly occupy space, and possibly tend to weariness. Reducing the "bundle of hay" will make no more "needles;" it may encourage |