A COLLECTION OF THEOLOGICAL TRACTS, IN SIX VOLUMES. By RICHARD WATSON, D.D. F.R.S. AND REGIUS PROFESSOR of DIVINITY in the UNIVERSITY of SECOND EDITION. VOL. I. LONDON: Printed for T. EVANS in the Strand, and in the Great Market, Bury St. M.DCC.XCI. TO THE QUÈ E N. ! MADAM, N° 'O original work of mine could poffibly have been fo deferving of Your Majefty's attention, as this Collection of other men's labours undoubtedly is. Our Infancy is indebted to that Sex of which Your Majesty is the highest Ornament, for the first principles of Religious Education; and as one of the main objects of VOL. I. a this this publication is-the preferving Youth from Infidelity-I cannot do the Public a greater service than by requesting Your Majesty to give it your protection. The interests of civil Society require that we should pay deference to perfons of Rank, even though they happen not to be perfons of Merit. But this is a limited and constrained deference; it is paid with reluctance; and is both in kind and extent wholly unlike that which all good Citizens are ambitious of fhewing to Your Majefty. My character has hitherto, I truft, never been esteemed that of a Flatterer; nor do I fear the imputation of it, in faying, That to Your Majesty's Rank alone I would not have given even this mark, worthless as it may feem, of my Veneration and Respect. I verily believe Your Majefty to be one of the best Wives, and one of the best Mothers, in England. The Time is approaching,—distant may it be! when the recollection of the example which You have fhewn to Women of every Rank, in these great points of female Duty (the greatest on which Women of the highest Rank ought to build their worth of character), will give Your Majefty far more comfort than I can poffibly defcribe; but not more than I, in conjunction with Thousands |