Gill's Complete Body of Practical and Doctrinal Divinity:

Library

GILL'S

COMPLETE BODY OF

PRACTICAL AND DOCTRINAL

DIVINITY:

BEING A

SYSTEM OF EVANGELICAL TRUTHS,

DEDUCED FROM

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES.

ABRIDGED BY
WILLIAM STAUGHTON, D.D.

The design of an abridgment, I conceive, is clearly to exhibit the whole
substance of an author, without admitting any thing superfluous.

DR. Shaw.
Abstracts, abridgments, and references are of use in divinity as well
as in law.

HENRY.

I can learn
With greater ease, the great concern.

WATTS.

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District of Pennsylvania, to wit:

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the seventeenth Day of July, in

the thirty fifth Year of the Independence of the United States of Seal America, A. D. 1810 WILLIAM STAUGHTON, D. 1). of the

said District, hath deposited in this office, the Title of a Book, the Right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the Words following, to

wit: “Gill's complete Body of Practical and Doctrinal Divinity; being a system of Evangelical truths, deduced from the Sacred Scriptures ; abridged by WILLIAM STAUGHTON, D. D.

“ The design of an abridgment, I conceive, is clearly to exhibit the whole substance of an Author, without admitting any thing superfluous.

Dr. Shaw. “ Abstracts, abridgments, and references are of use in divinity, as well as in law.”

HENRY.
I can learn
With greater ease, the great concem.

WATTS.

* An

In Conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intitled, “ An Act for ihe Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the Times therein mentioned.” And also to the Act, entitled, Aci supplen.crary to an Acı, entitled, " An Act for the Encouragement of Learning by ecuring the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Au. thors and Proprie urs of such Copies during the Time therein mentioned,” and exterding the Benefits thereof to the Arts of designing, engraving, and etching luistorical and other Prints.”

D. CALDWELL,
Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

July, in States of

of the ook, the wing, to

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OF the usefulness of judicious abridgments of large and yaluable works, a reflecting and unprejudiced mind requires no proof. The reader by these means, becomes possessor of the ideas of an author, with far less expence of time and toil; the purchaser finds the work within the limit of his ability; copies are multiplied; and through the world information and virtue are increased. Many eminent writers, in relation to their own productions, have testified their sense of the utility of the task of the abridger, by assuming it themselves.

The publication of the writings of Dr. Gill, through these United States, appears propitious to the general cause of godliness. An edition of his Exposition is in the presses of agentleman in this city, whose talents, integrity, and zeal for the diffusion of evangelical publications, deserve universal patronage. The Body of Divinity is a smaller work, first published in three quarto volumes, and since edited in three royal octavo; it is here presented to the public in a single volume, in which the substance of the original will be found carefully retained. It has not been forgotten, that the service undertaken, was to condense and not to alter:

-The sentiments, and even the style of the author are constantly preserved. The Doctor was by profession a baptist, and his views on the subject of baptism, are given with energy and candour ; but there is none by whom the doctrines of grace are valued, who

Peania. .

may not reap ample benefit from the following pages. An equal mass of theological knowledge, in a compass so small, will not readily be obtained.* The minister of the Sanctuary will find it an excellent compainon in his preparations for the pulpit; and the private christian, an instructive parlour friend.

W. STAUGHTON. July, 1810.

* The high estimation in which this work, has been, and still is, held by the friends of vital Religion, may be inferred from the numerous Subscribers to the Quarto Edition, (among whom are the most learned and judicious advocates for Christianity), and from the avidity with which copies have been sought after, notwithstanding the high price they have borne.

Winterbotham's Edition.