A New And Complete Concordance To The Holy Scriptures On The Basis Of Cruden Classic Reprint

Excerpt from A New and Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures, on the Basis of Cruden The question may reasonably be proposed, Why add another to the many works of the kind already published? In reply, the following explanations are subjoined: A perfectly complete concordance would be one by which any passage of the Bible might be found by any word which the passage sought for contained. But such a concordance, though per feet in completeness, would be so large and unwieldy, as in a great measure to defeat its own utility. Accordingly, Cruden omits many Of the minuter words from his columns of reference, and not unfrequently words of considerable consequence to the passages which contain them. The London edition of 1836 is before me, and selecting a passage at ran dom, I find that the 17th verse of the 49th Psalm is vainly sought by any of the words printed in italics. For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. See in like manner, John 21 13, Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. Many such examples will present themselves in the familiar use of his concordance. No doubt the passages may generally be found without difiiculty by means of some other term embodied in them or their immediate con text; but that just shows what I am now wishing to establish, that Cruden himself very properly proceeds, to a great extent, on the principle of harmless abbreviation. In the de sire, however, to make his concordance what it professes to be, complete, he has crowded many pages with words of inferior moment, by which, it may be safely averred, the portions of Scripture to which they belong are seldom, if ever, consulted. In all ordinary cases, then, these supernumerary references obstruct, instead of promoting a prompt and ready access to the passages desired. Might not an important service, then, be rendered to scrip tural knowledge by reducing Cruden's work as much as possible in its dimensions, so as to render it less cumbrous and less costly, without materially impairing its actual useful ness? It did not appear that the design was quite satisfactorily accomplished by any of the minor concordances already in existence. Brown's Concordance is so small as to be quite inadequate. Bagster's, by referring only to chapters and verses, without introducing any of the words, leaves the inquirer uncertain in which of all the localities referred to he is to find what he is seeking. Butterworth gives the reference, sometimes with and some times without quotations, thus occasioning, to a considerable degree, the same sort of per plexity; and all the other abridgments which there was an opportunity of examining, appeared liable to some such objections. Hence the present work was undertaken; and the religious community will judge how far it was required, and how far it is fitted to sup ply the deficiency. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from A New and Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures: On the Basis of Cruden's As respects the plan followed, abbreviations have been made, not only by the erasure, as already stated, of superfluous references, but also by omitting explanations of words, as being more appropriate to a dictionary than a concordance - by contracting quotations, while careful not to obscure them-and by excluding wholly the Concordance to the Apocrypha. As I suggested the work at first, and held deliberations with the publishers about the nature and advantages of it, they solicited me to write these introductory observations, though I had no participation in the subsequent labours. The first part was executed by a relative of my own, and also occasional portions afterwards, amounting in all to about one fifth of the whole. The rest is the performance exclusively of my esteemed friend, the Rev. J ohh Eadie, of cambridge-street Secession Church, Glasgow. In such a production, it may be easy to find faults or to propose amendments but from the care which has been bestowed upon the undertaking, the strongest hopes are entertained that it will give general satisfaction, and as an humble help to the knowledge of God's word, conduce to the freedom of its course, that it may be glorified. It may be specially serviceable to ministers, preachers, and students, in travelling, when they cannot conveniently carry a larger concordance with them-to private families, who have too much regarded such an auxiliary to biblical attainment as a concomitant of some official station - to the teachers, and even the pupils of Sabbath schools, by enabling them to compare scripture with itself, and adduce readily the passages by which its doctrines may be proved. And may he who alone can communicate saving efficacy to any means of doing good, command on this instrumentality the blessing from on high, that ignorance may be dispelled, enmity sub dued, and his own word grow mightily and prevail. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.