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wish that the Lectures had been given at greater length I have endeavored to please them in this matter. In the present volume not more than sixty pages of the former edition are retained, constituting chiefly the First Part.

Must I make a distinct reference to the reviewers of the former little work? The following pages will show that I have not been unmindful of their animadversions. But the reader, I am sure, will pardon my declining to notice some critiques that appeared in professedly religious magazines; the writers of which by their forgetfulness of the law of truth, and willingness to resort to misrepresentation and slander, have put themselves out of the pale of honorable controversy, and precluded any notice of their efforts. The endeavor to silence inquiry by unworthy insinuations of Socinianism-Neology-Infidelity-I leave them even to repeat, if such conscious untruthfulness be still congenial with their habits, and compatible with their views of Evangelical religion.

In honorable contrast with these gentlemen is the writer of the article in the Eclectic Review; (as indeed might have been expected from the high character which that journal has so long deservedly sustained, and which in the hands of its present editor it can never lose). To his arguments, forcible in themselves, and so lucidly presented, I have given as was due the most serious attention. And while I have expressed myself frankly on the arguments themselves, I gladly take the opportunity of offering him my respectful acknowledgments for the christian courtesy which characterizes his strictures. If in my rejoinder there be a single expression which is ever so slightly offensive, I request his forgiveness, and assure him that offence was the farthest from my intentions.

If any of my readers are disposed to blame the tone in which I have maintained my own views, and animadverted on those which appear to me erroneous, though popular, let them consider that it does not become the advocates of supposed truth to suppress or disguise their honest convictions. I trust there will be found no imputations on persons; and opinions are fairly open to the freest animadversions.

I have still a painful sense of the "meagreness" and imperfection of the work. Many of the arguments I should have been glad to present at greater length; while

not a few, which might have been adduced with advantage, are omitted altogether, in order that the volume might be kept of a reasonable size. There is, however, the less ground of regret since Providence has raised up an ally whose work, I am given to understand, will issue from the press about the same time as the present volume. I allude to the Rev. E. White of Hereford, who is presenting to the public a work entitled "Life in Christ: or, Immortality the peculiar privilege of the Regenerate." I am thankfully anticipating its appearance, in the confidence of deriving much pleasure and profit from the perusal, and in the assured expectation that it will aid what I must deem the cause of truth. If I may judge from what I have already seen of that gentleman's productions, his book will, I am sure, be characterised by great vigour of thought, closeness of reasoning, beauty of style, and deep and fervent piety, while its aim and tendency will be to honor the Prince of Life, whom having not seen we love.

To that adorable Saviour, the Head over all things to his Church, I now commend the present effort, beseeching a merciful forgiveness for its faults, a happy counteraction of its unconscious errors, and his abundant blessing on its truths.

Should I again intrude on the notice of the public, I hope it will be with some work which will happily remove me from the uncongenial arena of controversy, and which will be devoted to the promotion of that personal piety, the theologia pectoris, which Luther once designated the German theology, but for which our own country has been more distinguished than, (unhappily) of late years, the father-land of the reformation.

H. H. D.

Maidstone, April 14, 1846

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"It is one thing to wish to have Truth on our side, and another thing to wish sincerely to be on the side of Truth. There is no genuine love of truth implied in the former. Truth is a powerful auxiliary, such as every one wishes to have on his side; every one is rejoiced to find, and therefore seldom fails to find, that the principles he is disposed to adopt,—the notions he is inclined to defend, may be maintained as true. A determination to "obey the Truth," and to follow wherever she may lead, is not so common. In this consists the genuine love of truth; and this can be realised in practice, only by postponing all other questions to that which ought ever to come foremost, 'What is the Truth?"" Abp. Whately.

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