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Printed by John Stark.

DIRECTIONS

1241

FOR THE

STUDY OF THEOLOGY,

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM A BISHOP TO HIS SON

ON HIS ADMISSION INTO HOLY ORDERS.

BY

THE RIGHT REV. GEORGE GLEIG, LL. D.

F. R. S. E. F. SS. A.

AND HONORARY ASSOCIATE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE.

In all your sermons and discourses, speak nothing of God but what is honourable and
glorious; and impute not to him such things, the consequents of which a wise and good man
will not own.
JEREMY TAYLOR.

Θεὸς οὐδαμῆ οὐδαμῶς ἄδικος, ἀλλ' ὡς οίον τε δικαιότατος, καὶ
οὐκ ἐστὶν ἀντῳ ὁμοιότερον ουδὲν, ἤ ὃς ἂν ἡμων ἄν γέννηται ὅτι δικαιότατος.

PLATO.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS CADELL, STRAND: AND

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH.

MDCCCXXVII.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Letters, which were, at different times, written to my Son, on his admission into Holy Orders, have, by some friends who read them in manuscript, been deemed not unworthy of a wider circulation. I have therefore been induced to publish them as directions for such a course of reading, as, if pursued steadily, may furnish Students of Theology, and the younger Clergy, with as much professional knowledge as is perhaps sufficient, not to make them consummate Divines, but to enable them to discharge the duties of a Parish Priest with credit to themselves, and benefit to those who may be committed to their pastoral care.

I must confess, however, that this is not the only object which I have in view in publishing these Letters; for I am willing to hope, that the course of study recommended in them may enable the judicious reader of

b

every description to satisfy himself respecting the true nature of the GOSPEL, on which, though the phrase is in every one's mouth, the religious public seems at present to be very much divided. Both these objects are confessedly of great importance; and on that account I may surely hope, without arroLetters will be read with can

gance,

that my

dour and attention.

Some of the illustrations which they will be found to contain of the most important doctrines of Holy Scripture, I had indeed occasion to publish long ago in various miscellaneous works in which I was then engaged; but those illustrations were never before brought together in one volume; nor were the doctrines themselves arranged by me in that order, in which they can be studied with the greatest advantage. To understand correctly any doctrine of the Christian creed, without having a comprehensive view of the objects of the several religious dispensations of God to men, seems to be impossible; for, in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as in every other species of composi

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