PREFACE. 



To delineate the mora. bearings of the Christian Revelation, to display the 

 reasonableness and the excellence of its precepts, and the physical and rationa 

 grounds on which they rest, and to exhibit a few prominent features in the 

 moral aspect of the world, were some of the principal objects which the author 

 had in view in the composition of the following work. He is not aware that a 

 similar train of thought has been prosecuted, to the same extent, by any preceding 

 writer; and is therefore disposed to indulge the hope that it may prove both 

 entertaining and instructive to the general reader, and to the intelligent Christian. 



It may not be improper to remind the reader that the author s object simpiy is, 

 to illustrate the topics he has selected as the subject of this volume. As he has 

 taken his fundamental principles from the system of revelation, he was under no 

 necessity, as most ethical writers are, to enter into any laboured metaphysical 

 discussions on the foundation of morality, and the motives from which moral 

 actions should proceed. The truth of revelation is, of course, taken for granted ; 

 and all who acknowledge its divine authority, will readily admit the principles 

 which form the basis of the system here illustrated. But, although it formed no 

 particular part of the author s plan to illustrate the evidences of the Christian 

 revelation, he trusts that the view which is here given of the benignant tendency 

 of its moral requisitions, will form a powerful presumptive argument in support 

 of its celestial origin. 



The Christian reader may also bg reminded, that it is only the philosophy 01 

 religion which the author has attempted to illustrate. It formed no part of his 

 plan to enter into any particular discussion on the doctrines of revelation, or on 

 those topics which have so frequently been the subject of controversy in the 

 Christian church. It is not to support the tenets of Calvinism, Arminianism, 

 Baxterianism, Arianism, or any other isni which distinguishes the various 

 denominations of the religious world, that these illustrations are presented to 

 public view ; but to elucidate an object which it appears to be the grand design 

 of revelation to accomplish, and in the promotion of which every section of the 

 Christian church is equally interested, and to which they would do well to 

 &quot; take heed.&quot; In his illustration of this subject, the author has kept his eye 

 solely on the two revelations which the Almighty has given to mankind, 

 THE SYSTEM op NATURE, and the SACRED RECORDS just as they stand, without 

 any regard to the theories of philosophers, the opinions of commentators, or 

 the systems of theologians. He is disposed to view the revelations of the 

 Bible rather as a series of important facts, from which moral instructions are to 

 be deduced, than as a system of metaphysical opinions for the exercise of the 

 intellect. 



