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THE

ADVANTAGE AND NECESSITY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION

SHEWN FROM THE

State of Religion

IN THE

ANCIENT HEATHEN WORLD;

ESPECIALLY WITH RESPECT TO

THE KNOWLEDGE AND WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE GOD:

A RULE OF MORAL DUTY:

AND

A STATE OF FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

TO WHICH 18 PREFIXED,

A Preliminary Discourse on Matural and Revealed Religion.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

BY JOHN LELAND, D. D.
AUTHOR OF THE VIEW OF THE DEISTICAL WRITERS, &c.

THE THIRD EDITION.

VOL. I.

GLASGOW:

Printed at the University Press,

FOR R. PRIESTLEY, LONDON: AND A. AND J. M. DUNCAN,

TRONGATE, GLASGOW.

1819.

TIBKVIA

To the king.

Most Gracious Sovereign!

THE following Treatise, which is designed to show the advantages we enjoy by the gospel revelation, is with great humility addressed to your Sacred Majesty. To this the author was encouraged by the favourable notice your Majesty, when Prince of Wales, was pleased to take of a book he formerly published with an intention to serve the Christian cause, and which you so far honoured with your princely approbation, as to send a considerable number of them to America, at your own expence. So early a proof of your Majesty's zeal for Christiani-. ty afforded pleasing prospects, that when you should ascend the throne of your ancestors, you would make religion the object of your royal care, and both patronize it by your authority, and adorn it by your example.

The Divine Providence has now placed your Majesty at the head of one of the most powerful and flourishing nations in the world, and put it in your power to give illustrious proofs of your concern for the honour of God, and your regard to the happiness of mankind, by promoting the valuable interests of piety, virtue, and useful learning; which is the most likely way to draw down a blessing from heaven upon your Majesty's person and government, and to advance and secure the true glory and prosperity of your people.

When a king who has no earthly superior, preserves a just sense of his own subjection to the King of kings, and whilst he receives the homage of his subjects who are his fellow-creatures, is himself careful with an unfeigned devotion to pay his duty to the great Creator and Lord of all, to whom he must be accountable for his conduct; when he

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