A Clear and Comprehensive View of the Being, Nature, and Attributes of God, form'd, not only upon the authority of the Holy Scriptures, but the solid reasonings and testimonies of the best authors, both heathen and Christian... By an orthodox Divine.

Bookseller Notes

The fly-leaf is inscribed: 'This Book was Published by my Father Jos. Smith, DD, Provost of Queen's College, A[nn]o 1754 when he was Eighty Four years old. Jos. Smith.' Below this is the later signature of J.S. Hargrave, and there is a further signature on the title-page of Capt. Downman, Roy. Horse Art[iller]y. Joseph Smith Jr. has also listed at the end his father's other works (3 of them, though curiously neither of the 2 mentioned in ODNB), and has corrected the errata. Joseph Smith Sr., known as 'Handsome Smith', was in 1730 'elected provost of Queen's College, succeeding John Gibson. He enthusiastically set about trying to reform the academic standards of the college. By 1731 he had drawn up a detailed theological curriculum and in 1744 he composed a comprehensive list of disputation questions on logic, ethics, science, and theology. Reading lists were attached to each list but there is no evidence that they were used in Queen's or adopted elsewhere in the university. Smith involved himself in the gradual construction of the classical front quad that had begun in 1719' (ODNB). The portrait added is posthumous.