OF ITS TEACHINGS." The present title, however, may be sufficiently correct, and as it was the title of the Lecture out of which the book grew, I hardly felt at liberty to give it any other. I have written the work under great disadvantages. During the greater part of the time that I have had it in hand, I have been afflicted with grievous and depressing pains. I have also been much from home, employed in preaching and lecturing, and away from my books. It is, in consequence, full of imperfections. Some parts are too long, and some too short, and others are out of their proper places. The book is altogether a poor affair compared with what it should have been, or with what it might have been, if one could have done the subject justice. Then why did I not put off its publication awhile? Because I could not tell whether I should ever be better circumstanced. And people wanted the work; and it was time they had it. And faulty as it is in form, it is, in general, what I meant it to be in substance. And the publication of it now will not hinder me from improving it hereafter. If a second edition should be wanted, I may make it both bigger and better. And if I live and have health I shall try to do both. Meanwhile I leave it to my readers and to God, and pray that it may prove a means of checking the bad spirit of impiety, and of promoting the spread and triumph of truth and righteousness. A thousand times |