TO THE 
RIGHT HONORABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND 
SHUTE BARRINGTON, LL. D. 
LORD BISHOP OP DURHAM. 
MY LORD, 
The following work was undertaken at your Lordship’s recom¬ 
mendation; 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 favor of my first and ever honored 
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. 
Vour Lordship’s munificence, in conjunction with that of some other ex¬ 
cellent 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 reason¬ 
able ambition. In the meantime, a weak, and, of late, a painful state 
of health, deprived me of the power of discharging the duties of my sta- 
„ion, 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 lost. It was only in my study that I 
could repair my 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 
importance of the subject, or to any skepticism concerning it with which 
the present times are charged, as I do, to its connexion with the subjects 
treated of in my former publications. The following discussion 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 jeli- 
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