George Smith
Published: 2015-07-04
Total Pages: 594
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Excerpt from Elements of Divinity The author avails himself of the usual privilege of a preface, to state in a few words the origin, object, and plan of the present work. As indicated in the preceding Dedication, the idea of its production did not originate with himself. He had, indeed, for many years, highly appreciated the position occupied by Local Preachers, and deeply felt the difficulty experienced by many of them in obtaining that amount and kind of biblical and theological knowledge, so necessary for the efficient discharge of their arduous and important duties. But no means occurred to his mind of meeting this difficulty, and supplying the acknowledged want. This was done by his brethren, at the close of some of their regular Quarterly Meetings. They urged that he could deliver a course of Lectures to them on those occasions, on such branches of scriptural and religious knowledge as were more particularly applicable to the wants of Local Preachers, which would be of great service to themselves, and, if published, prove extensively useful to some of their brethren in other parts of the kingdom. Although his judgment did not unite in this sanguine opinion, he felt that the call, so far as it referred to the preparation and delivery of a few Lectures of this kind, was irresistible; and, under a painful sense of the arduous and responsible nature of the task, the course was begun. After several of these Lectures had been delivered, their publication being still urged as desirable and necessary, they were successively sent to the press, published in quarterly numbers, and are at length presented to the public in their present form. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.