health, he bestowed upon the revision; but the Doctor's edition, which has been implicitly followed by subsequent publishers, is far from affording an unobjectionable text. 'On comparing it with the original quarto edition of the Commentary on Peter, numerous instances were detected in which the process of correction had been too hastily performed. In very many cases, the division of the sentences, as left by Dr. Doddridge, is still grossly erroneous; in a few passages, the Author's meaning has been obviously mistaken, and in others, the simplicity of his diction has been needlessly violated. Above all, the punctuation, which is often the source of the whole obscurity chargeable upon the style, is in all the editions so faulty, that there was no alternative but to undertake afresh the thorough revision of the whole work, taking Dr. Doddridge's edition as the text, but having constant reference to the original publication, by the afd of which, in some places the expressions, in others what appears to have been the meaning of Leighton, have been rescued from alteration. No improvements in the style have been attempted, beyond the occasional substitution of which or who for that, the supplying of an ellipsis, or, in some few cases, the changing of an obsolete word for its synonyme, by which slight alterations the sense of an equivocal passage has often been rendered perspicuous. A translation of the Latin quotations in the Commentary on Peter, has also been supplied, and many errors in the Scripture references have been corrected. The design constantly kept in view, has been, to restore to as genuine a state as possible the text of a Sacred Classic, and to render it at the same time unexceptionable and clear to the plain Christian, to whom Leighton's Works are an inestimable treasure of practical divinity. The Publishers confidently offer the present edition of the Works, as not only the most correct in point of typography, but as being the most faithful to the genuine sense of the Author, and as conveying the only adequate representation of his style. They trust that it will at once gratify the admirers, and be the means of extending the number of the readers of the Archbishop's invaluable writings. Some alterations have been made in the arrangement of the volumes, the whole of the six, which the Complete Works originally formed, being now, with the exception of the originals of the Latin works, comprised in four. The first two, which are sold separate, are occupied with the Commentary on Peter, and the other Expository Writings edited by Dr. Doddridge, together with a Fragment on the Eighth Psalm, first published in Dr. Jerment's edition of the Works. The third volume comprises the Lectures on St. Matthew, and the Sermons; and the fourth includes the Theological Lectures and the Miscellanies. London, August, 1819. CONTENTS Advertisement. Life of Archbishop Leighton, by Rev. Dr. Jerment. Preface by the Rev. Dr. Doddridge. Ditto by the Rev. H. Foster. LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. Patris perdigni filius non degener. THERE is no species of history more instructive or more pleasing than Biography, when it is faithfully and correctly composed. The lives of individuals, distinguished either by rank, by talent, or by official situation, or whose course has been marked with deep and various incidents, are always perused with eagerness. Curiosity is gratified, and we may be much instructed, by the account both of bad men and of good. The former are beacons set up for warning: the latter are way-marks for leading us in the right path, which shew practically how we should walk in it; and if they lived in difficult and trying times, if they discovered solicitude for the welfare of the Church and of the world, if they were eminent for learning, for piety and Christian tempers, |