An Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians, Vol. 1

IT is a cause of joy to your grateful subjects to behold your Majesty uniformly evincing a lively interest in, and attention to, whatever is adapted to promote the welfare and increase the happiness of your subjects. Her Majesty the Queen, your Eoyal Consort, also proves herself a help-meet indeed in all that can second your beneficent aims — can render your Court exemplary in character, beneficial in influence, and attractive to the virtuous, the patriotic, and the good — and can secure to you both the affections of your subjects, and the protection and blessing of heaven.

Sire, it is the operation and the love of true Religion, with obedience to that Righteousness which is its essence, that exalts a nation — ennobles its princes — and will be the safeguard of them and their people. That Religion and Righteousness were never elucidated, at large, in a human composition, with greater excellence of manner, or power of argument, than in the Volumes here presented to your Majesty's approbation ; the matter of which was put forth two centuries ago in the Latin language, and has never before been published in Endish.

In presuming to lay before your Majesty's subjects, in their vernacular tongue, this incomparable Exposition of a most interesting portion of the Word of God, to whom could the individual vvho has ventured on the hardy task, under all the considerations connected with it, crave permission to dedicate this Edition, but to your Majesty, whom the Providence of God has placed as a NursingFather over the Church of which he is an unworthy Minister.

Should your Majesty, and your Royal Consort, deign to give any countenance to the performance of one, who rests all his claim thereto on the unrivalled merits and the unspeakable utility of his Author, and who would not permit himself to aspire to it on any lower grounds, your Majesty may, by such condescension, be instrumental in promoting the welfare of the Church ; for your countenance will commend to the attention of many, a work singularly adapted to impress upon the judgment those principles, which will be influential, where reason is under any due subjection to an humble desire to receive and obey the truth : thus will be ensured the practice of those duties which we all owe to God, to our Country, to Religion, and to each other.

That Peace, Prosperity, and Happiness may

attend your Majesty's reign, and bless you and her

Majesty the Queen, for years to come, is the earnest

Your Majestj^'s most unworthy.

And most obedient Subject and Servant,

XlAVING been urged about three years ago, by a very dear Friend, who well understood the value of Bishop Davenant's Exposition, to undertake a Translation of it, with the view of rendering its excellence of more public use, I then declined, on the score of other pressing engagements and occupations. But, a short time afterwards, taking down the volume, during the agitation of Roman Catholic affairs, in order to ascertain the Bishop's opinion on a certain point, I was struck with the frequent bearing of his remarks, not more on the tenets and practices of the Romanists, than upon many specious errors which have crept into the Protestant communities, and some of which are, unhappily, in our own day, producing effects equally injurious to the integrity of doctrinal truth, to the efficiency of the ministerial office, and to the preservation of Christian unity. Hence, it appeared to me that a re-publication of this Exposition, in the vernacular language, would prove of utility to many of the Clergy, and to the Church at large. In the hope of rendering a profoundly argumentative work on Divinity more useful to general Readers, and observing the number of Fathers

and Schoolmen constantly cited in it, many of whose names are now almost forgotten in the Church, I resolved to give short biographical sketches of each as they should occur. Finding, moreover, that no Memoir worthy of Davenant had been written, and that various misrepresentations had gone abroad respecting him and his opinions^ I also came to the resolution of announcing in my Prospectus, a Memoir of the Bishop. Little did I then think what a task I was imposing upon myself: for the difficulty of getting at the truth amidst the various conflicting^ accounts given of antient authors, according to the party views, prejudices, or bigotry of their biographers, while it magnified the importance of eliciting the truth, induced considerable toil and expensive exertion.

As respects our Author himself, when collecting ma*terials for some suitable account of him, it became requisite to search the lives and writings of his contemporaries^ and wade through the histories of their time ; and I soon discovered, that, however neglected in the present age, he enjoyed, in his own, a reputation among the first : and, anxious to do justice to his merits — an anxiety augmented by the eflforts of some modern opponents of him, and of his faith, to revive and propagate old misrepresentations, in order to disparage the value of his works, — my investigation and research were redoubled.

In the course of such efforts, another important circumstance arose. It became expedient to take a survey of the proceedings, and to examine the various opinions respecting the Synod of Dort, at which he was one of the

English deputies of no inferior consideration. When the mist in which a great portion of the proceedings of that extraordrnary Council are involved, and the mis-statements that have been published of them, and which have been revived and iterated under the sanction of great names, are recollected, it will be perceived that no light difficulty was to be surmounted in this department of my undertaking.

These investigations, which could only be encountered amidst arduous Clerical duties and other employments, if duly borne in mind, will convince my friends that I have not been forgetful of my pledge, nor remiss in my efforts to redeem it to the best of my ability; and this will prove, it is hoped, a sufficient apology for the delay of publication ; a delay that has been painfully increased by severe domestic afflictions and bereavements, and by an unexpected change of situation. Such unavoidable impediments will, however, be found to have produced advantage to those numerous friends who have honoured me with their names as Subscribers to my undertaking, and encouraged me from time to time by procuring more ; for the period that has elapsed, by protracting the date of carrying my volumes through the press, afforded me opportunity to extend my reading and inquiries, and has brought me into an acquaintance with several better informed individuals, to whom I was before unknown, and am now greatly indebted for much valuable intelligence and aid. To them I would here take occasion most gratefully to tender my best and sincerest acknowledgments ; and to the Clergy and public A 2 at large I would humbly, as it respects myself, but earnestJy, as it respects my Author, commend my performance, trusting that it will not altogether prove unsatisfactory or without benefit to either.