First American from the Second London Edition, with Improvements. PHILADELPHIA: PRINTED FOR, AND PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM W. WOODWARD, Disc. I. On the Gift of Preaching. By Bp. WILKINS 17 V. Rules of Conduct. By Dr. WATTS 135 164 2 PREFACE ΤΟ ΤΗΣ FIRST EDITION. THE professed general design of this publication is, to afford to Students and young Ministers a portable, yet comprehensive Encheiridion; in which they will find the most important and interesting rules and directions that relate to preaching, considered both as an art and a duty, reduced into perspicuous method, with all the brevity which is consistent with the nature of the subject. The FIRST Discourse, On the Gift of Preaching, was originally published, about the middle of the last century, by Bishop WILKINS, who was eminent as a man of general science, and still more so as a devout christian and orthodox divine. His predilection for analysing all subjects in a scholastic manner, which was the too common fault of his contemporaries, often operated unfavourably against the elegance and forcible effect of his writings. In the present abridgment, it is proposed to preserve all the advantage of method, while the forbidding stiffness of it is avoided. The principal things left out are a very complex analysis of a body of divinity, and a large list of books, the greater part of which are obsolete. The former is, to almost every reader of the present day, utterly useless, tending only to per B |