RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 



SHUTE BARRINGTON, LL. D. 



LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. 



My Lord, 



The following work was undertaken at your Lordship's recommen- 

 dation ; 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 unnecessary, yet not perhaps, quite impertinent, to 

 state to your Lordship and to the reader, the several inducements that 

 have led me once more to the press. The favour of my first and ever 

 honoured patron had put me in possession of so liberal a provision in 

 the church, as abundantly to satisfy my wants, and much to exceed 

 my pretensions. Your Lordship's munificence, in conjunction with 

 that of some other excellent Prelates, who regarded my services with 

 the partiality with which your Lordship was pleased to consider them, 

 hath since placed me in ecclesiastical situations, more than adequate to 

 every object of reasonable ambition. In the mean time, a weak, and, 

 of late, a painful state of health, deprived me of the power of discharg- 

 ing the duties of my station, 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 

 consequences, left me much at leisure. That leisure was not to be 

 l(S8t. It was only in my study that I could repair ray deficiencies in 

 the church. It was only through the press that I could speak. These 

 circumstances, in particular, entitled your Lordship to call upon me 

 for the only species of exertion of which I was capable, and disposed 

 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 impor- 

 tance of the subject, or to any scepticism concerning it with which 

 the present times are charged, as I do, to its connexion with the sub- 

 jects treated of in my former publications. The following discussion 

 alone was wanted to make up my works into a system : in which 



