Excerpt from Barclay's Apology for the True Christian Divinity: As Professed by the People Called Quakers I am aware that men of erudition and of leisure, entertain an unfavourable opinion of abridgments, and, as it respects works of science, this opinion has some weight; but, in application to tracts on religion and morals, I think there is just ground to doubt its propriety. Is it not obvious, that if the quintessence of many valuable works, ancient and modern, on religious and moral subjects, were comprised and dispersed in an octavo volume, greater and more general advantage would accrue to the community at large, than by the original works, which are much confined to the shelves of expensive libraries, in the shape of ponderous quartos and folios? But in any case, to render an abridgmeat acceptable, the original should be of acknowledged reputation and utility. 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.