Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

and much to exceed my pretenfions. Your Lordship's munificence, in conjunction with that of fome other excellent Prelates, who regarded my services with the partiality with which your Lordship was pleased to confider them, hath since placed me in ecclefiaftical fituations, more than adequate to every object of reasonable ambition. In the mean time, a weak, and, of late, a painful fate of health, deprived me of the power of discharging the duties of my station, in a manner at all fuitable, either to my sense of those duties, or to my moft anxious wishes concerning them. My inability for the public functions of my profeffion, amongst other confequençes, left me much at leifure. That leisure was not to be loft. It was only in my study that I could repair my deficiencies in the church. It was only through the press that I could fpeak. Thefe circumstances, in particular, entitled your Lordship to call upon me for the only fpecies of exertion of

[ocr errors]

which I was capable, and difpofed me without hesitation to obey the call in the best manner that I could. In the choice of a subject I had no place left for doubt: in saying which, I do not so much refer, either to the supreme importance of the fubject, or to any scepticism concerning it with which the present times are charged, as I do, to its connection with the subjects treated of in my former publications. The following difcuffion alone was wanted to make up my works into a fyftem: in which works, fuch as they are, the public have now before them, the evidences of natural religion, the evidences of revealed religion, and an account of the duties that refult from both. It is of small importance, that they have been written in an order, the very reverse of that in which they ought to be read. I commend therefore the prefent volume to your Lordship's protection, not only as, in all probability, my last labor,

A 2

labor, but as the completion of a confiftent and comprehensive design.

Hitherto, My Lord, I have been speaking of myself and not of my Patron. Your Lordship wants not the teftimony of a dedication; nor any teftimony from me: I confult therefore the impulse of my own mind alone when I declare, that in no respect has my intercourse with your Lordship been more gratifying to me, than in the opportunities, which it has afforded me, of observing your earnest, active, and unwearied folicitude, for the advancement of fubftantial Chriftianity; a folicitude, nevertheless, accompanied with that candor of mind, which fuffers no fubordinate differences of opinion, when there is a coincidence in the main intention and object, to produce any alienation of esteem, or diminution of favor. It is fortunate for a country, and honorable to its government, when qualities and difpofitions like

these

these are placed in high and influencing ftations. Such is the fincere judgment which I have formed of your Lordship's character, and of its public value: my perfonal obligations I can never forget. Under a due sense of both these confiderations, I beg leave to subscribe myself, with great respect and gratitude,

[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »