All rights reserved. No part of this publication S. B. N. - 0: 576.29166.8 Printed in offset by Franz Wolf, Heppenheim/Bergstrasse THE following Work was undertaken at your Lordfhip's recommendation; and, amongst other motives, for the purpose of making the most acceptable return I could make for a great and important benefit conferred upon me. It may be unneceffary, yet not, perhaps, quite impertinent, to state to your Lordship and to the reader, the feveral inducements that have led me once more to the prefs. The favor of my first and ever honored patron had put me in posfeffion of fo liberal a provision in the church, as abundantly to fatisfy my wants, 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 fince 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 flate of health, deprived me of the power of discharging the duties of my ftation, in a manner at all suitable, either to my sense of those duties, or to my most anxious wishes concerning them. My inability for the public functions of my profession, amongst other confequences, left me much at leifure. That leifure 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. These circumftances, in particular, entitled your Lordship to call upon me for the only fpecies of exertion of 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 fubject I had no place left for doubt: in faying which, I do not fo much refer, either to the fupreme importance of the subject, 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 system: in which works, such 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 result 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 |