Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr.…

I am not the only Person that have said it, and so t'will be the less Presumption in Me to say it; I have often thought it a Loss unto the World, that the Incomparable Pastors in the Church of Scotland, have their Pastoral Employments lying so hard upon them, that they have not much Leisure for the Writing of Books, for which there are so many of them, whose Talents are Extraordinary. And, if I may Presume to say so, I cannot but think, that it would be Richly worth the while, for Ways and Means •o be found out, that more of your Pens may be Employed for the Enlightening of a World, which is yet a Dark Place▪ and greatly need Illuminations; And that your Admirable Boid, and Calderwood, and Rutherford, & Dickson, & Durham, and Galaspy, and Hutcheson, & Ferguson, and some others Stars of their Magnitude, may never want Equal Successors among you.

I am not the only Person that have said it, and so t'will be the less Presumption in Me to say it; I have often thought it a Loss unto the World, that the Incomparable Pastors in the Church of Scotland, have their Pastoral Employments lying so hard upon them, that they have not much Liesure for the Writing of Books, for which there are so many of them, whose Talents are Extraordinary. And, if I may Presume to say so, I cannot but think, that it would be Richly worth the while, for Ways and Means •o be found out, that more of your Pens may be Employ'd for the Enlightning of a World, which is yet a Dark Place▪ and greatly need Illuminations; And that your Admirable Boid, and Calderwood, and Rutherford, & Dickson, & Durham, and Galaspy, and Hutcheson, & Ferguson, and some others Stars of their Magnitude, may never want Equal Successors among you.

We in these American Colonies, are under the same Disadvantage:—Which yet hinders not, but that we now and then do some little matter, at the Writing of Books, and some small things do by the Press pass from us into the World. Among these Essays, there is one that now Humbly ⟨p. IX⟩