Excerpt from The Prophets and Kings: Of the Old Testament That thoughts of this kind did not take much hold of Mr. Erskine, I knew. It often struck me that if he could have entered into them, he would have had greater influence over his Presbyterian countrymen; he would have understood better what their old Covenant signified; he would have been regarded less as a mere protestant against the exclu siveness of their Calvinism; his idea of God, as an Educator, would have quickened many conceptions of Him as a Ruler and a Judge which had become petrified in their minds. I was much possessed by this feeling when I first published this book. It has become deepened in me while I have considered, in reference to recent controversies about the Union of Church and State, the theories of a distinguished divine whom Mr. Erskine reverenced and loved for the geniality of his character and the warmth of his heart, whom Scotland regards as one that made her old theology in some degree palatable, or at least tolerable, to the philosophers and economists of this generation. The defence of Establishments which Dr. Chalmers put forth in his London Lectures between thirty and forty years ago, must have received many a useful cor rection, even a severe commentary, from the zeal and struggles of the writer' s latter years. These may have modified greatly the influence of it on his own country men. But for those to whom the Lectures were addressed, - for our parties in the South, - his apology had, and has still, many attractions. For (1) taking the law of Supply and Demand as the proper rule forxviii preface TO the third edition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.