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EDIEU ET

By the King's Authority.

ADVERTISEMENT.

This New Whole Duty of Man is published by the sanction of his Majesty's Royal Licence, granted to William Bent, of London, bookseller; and from him a part has been assigned to the London booksellers mentioned below.

Beside this octavo edition there is another in duodecimo, printed on a smaller type; and every genuine copy of each of them has, on the back of the title, the signature of the above proprietor.

WBent

The octavo edition may be had with a set of fine plates.

Sold also by F. C. and J. Rivington; Scatcherd and Letterman; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; W. Baynes and Son; H. T. Hodgson; J. Mawman; J. Richardson; J. M. Richardson; J. Booth; Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy; T. Hamilton; Sherwood, Neely, and Jones; Edwards and Knibb ; G. and W. B. Whittaker; and Simpkin and Marshall.

J. M'Gowan, Printer, Great Windmill-street, 1821.

11954

BRARY

THE following reasons, I hope, will justify me to a candid and considerate reader, for publishing this Whole Duty of Man; and, I trust, they are also sufficient to remove and prevent any prejudices, that at first appearance may possibly be entertained or suggested against it.

It being now near one hundred years since the publication of the OLD Whole Duty of Man, it need not be matter of surprise to any, if the generality of readers begin to be but a little affected by that work.

The cause of which dislike is to be ascribed in a great measure, I presume, to the distance of those times in which that treatise was wrote; for not only the words, but the manner of expression, and the ways and methods of treating such subjects are, and ought to be very different now from what they were formerly. And though I am far from denying that a vein of sound learning and morality is visible throughout that book, or that it was well adapted for those unhappy times of strife and confusion in which it was written; * yet all this lying under the aforementioned disadvantages, it is apprehended the people of the present age are never likely to be better reconciled to it. For the case in reality was this: During the times of confusion, many of the preachers (and writers) had not only forborn to inculcate the duties of morality, but had laboured to depreciate them; to persuade the people that faith was all, and works nothing. And therefore, in order to take off those unhappy impressions, the clergy found themselves obliged to inculcate, with more than ordinary diligence, the necessity of moral duties in the christian life, and to labour to restore them to their proper share in the christian scheme.' Besides,

The OLD Whole Duty of Mun, as appears by Dr. Hammond's Letter, dated March, 1657, was first published under the usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, who had subverted the constitution both in church and state.

+ See the bishop of London's second pastoral letter, page, 64, 8vo. edition.

A

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