Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by ABIEL ARBOT LIVERMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREUTERED AT THE PREFACE. THE kind approval of friends, and the generous patronage of the public, for which the author feels a lively gratitude, have operated with other and more serious motives, and induced him to add to the Commentary upon the Gospels one upon the Acts of the Apostles. Like the previous volumes, this has been prepared in the midst of many professional duties and cares; which are mentioned, not by way of complaint,- for experience teaches us that the most energetic exercise of our faculties, consistent with health, yields the greatest happiness, but they are stated, as excuses for imperfections, and foils to a keen-edged criticism. All the aids that could be procured, in ancient or modern commentators, have been resorted to, and the results embodied in the following pages, rather than the processes and reasonings by which those results were obtained. The work has been composed, less for the learned or professional man, than for the general reader, who, it is hoped, in most instances, will be content to trust the honesty and veracity of the writer, and not care to have the margins crowded with a multiplicity of references to tome, book, chapter, section, and edition, where a remark may be found, or a fact confirmed. The reputation of a learned work might be thus enhanced at little cost, except of paper and print; but it is thought that it would add scarcely any thing to the value of an exposition of this description. A catalogue below will indicate the authorities |