fitted to delight and amuse, than to affect the conscience or impart instruction.

The re

Another division of these Tracts may be called the doctrinal. And here, although the selection is made from writers of different denominations, yet the pieces selected are of course consistent in their doctrinal bearing; being intended, not to sustain the peculiarities of the several denominations, but to advance those views which the editor himself judges to be agreeable to christian truth. Any other rule of selection would of course be inadmissible. When, therefore, we find Jeremy Taylor in this class, it is not that he may support the divine right of bishops or kings; but to introduce his strong and eloquent reasoning against original sin. When Penn is made to fill an entire number, it is not that, for the show of liberality or the mere desire to make known what that eminent man believed, he might set forth the peculiar dogmas of the Quakers; but that he might adduce his clear and scriptural testimony in favor of some of the leading points of Unitarianism. publication of his Sandy Foundation Shaken, a work of great perspicuity and merit, is particularly seasonable and acceptable. In this class is also to be found Whitby's Last Thoughts, containing the reasons by which he had been led to abandon his belief in the trinity and adopt Unitarian opinions. This work is not one of the most valuable as a treatise, but, from its circumstances and history, possesses more than common interest, and well deserves its place in the Collection. The editor has rendered an essential service to readers by the care with which he has divided it into sections with distinct heads. Emlyn's Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ, is also found under this division; a work of great intrinsic merit as well of singular interest, as coming from that good and persecuted man, and connected with the history of his sufferings for the truth. Many similar works have been written since, but we are not sure that any one of them can be more satisfactorily consulted. Cogan's Letters to Wilberforce on the Doctrine of Total Depravity have been before published in this country; but as a popular answer to a popular book, easily read, easily comprehended, distinct in its arrangements, and convincing in its arguments, it well deserved to be made still more widely known by being placed in this Collection. We wish that copies of it were offered for sale separately; a wish, by the way which might be extended to several other of the numbers.

Tracts on Biblical Criticism form another, but only a small department of this Collection. It could not have been easy to select such as would be sufficiently popular for the purpose of the work. But we think that the public is under particular obligation to the editor for Sir Isaac Newton's History of Two Corruptions of Scripture. Very few in this country would otherwise have known any thing of it, most valuable and complete in itself, and an astonishing production when we ⚫ reflect on the familiar acquaintance it exhibits with the details of a science so foreign from his favorite pursuits, and observe how minutely and patiently he investigated intricate questions, for which we should have supposed that his laborious studies and multifarious discoveries would have left him neither taste nor time. But to such a mind, that is recreation which to another would be toil. Charles Butler's Historical Outline of the Controversy respecting the Text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, is another valuable work in this department, being a complete and very convenient summary of information on that point.

Of the practical and moral department, which may be said to constitute another division of this Collection, something is found interspersed in many of the numbers. Five passages are given from Jeremy Taylor, though we acknowledge ourselves disappointed that so copious extracts should have been made from so very common a book as his Holy Living. From his other works, certainly, passages of equal value might have been culled, which would have been new. It appeared to us also that the morceaux from his sermons were too much designed for the simple purpose of exhibiting his peculiar style and fanciful illustrations, rather than for any truly profitable end. We think the extracts should have been made on a different principle. Passages of moral instruction are also found in the selections from Hales, Robinson, Foster, &c. But the most valuable and delightful, worth indeed all the rest, is Mrs Barbauld's Thoughts on Public Worship, a work which had probably not been seen by one in fifty of the subscribers, and which no one can read without the highest pleasure and sincerest admiration, as well as improvement. The justness of the sentiments, the force of the reasoning, the strength, and purity, and beauty of the style, the earnestness and devoutness of the whole manner, render it one of the most attractive of compositions, and lead us, whenever we look at it, to join

in the remark which has been made, that she is one of the few writers of whom it is to be regretted that she wrote so little.

The valuable biographical notices which accompany the selections, are all, we believe, written by the editor himself. To the remarks on the character and writings of Cogan, however, is affixed the signature of a different hand. These sketches are written with great care, and bear marks of fidelity and thoroughness of search. Most of these authors were inen living retired and studious lives, from which few materials of. story could be drawn, and there can be expected, therefore, none of that interest, which attends the history of more active individuals. But whatever of anecdote is to be found has been given, as far as the nature of the work would justify, and the sketches of character and remarks upon the writings are made with a spirit and discrimination, which render them no less instructive, than if they had presented scenes of more active and romantic interest. They teach us men, if not events; and the religious man, who would know himself and be incited by others, may find more to guide and incite him, to direct his heart and encourage him in duty, from the study of their characters than from the knowledge of their actions. Who can fail to be profited by knowing the manner of life, and the general temper of men like Taylor, Newton, Penn and Emlyn? Why may there not be as much instruction in their biography as in their works? and for many persons, more?

The biographical notices are seventeen in number, and, as was to be expected, unequal in execution as well as in interest. Many of them are perhaps as thorough and minute as any notices to be found of the same persons-as those of Hoadly, Hare, Emlyn, Robinson, Cogan, and Newton. That of Newton is especially full, and we have heard it spoken of as the most complete biographical notice of him which has yet been made. Few men better deserve to be known, and though what can be told of his life belongs in great part to philosophy. rather than religion, yet it was always made to minister to religion, and by making the reader sensible how his thoughts and time, and all the energy of his prodigious genius, were devoted to philosophy, renders more striking to him the fact, that they were hallowed by religious principle, and engaged in supporting the cause of christian truth. We could have wished that the same course had been pursued in regard to such a man as Penn, whose life is written minutely for only a few years, but

whose late history would have been equally instructive; sufficiently so to have atoned for the additional space it must have occupied. We are also particularly disappointed in finding no notices of such men as Locke, Watts, and Le Clerc.

The life of Robinson seems to us one of the best, and we will indulge ourselves with some extracts from it. He was of obscure birth and few early advantages, and made his way in the world wholly by the power of his extraordinary gifts. He was apprenticed in his youth to a hairdresser in London, and at that period the thirst of his mind manifested itself by his rising early and reading whatever he could buy or borrow before the hours of business.

'His thoughts early took a religious bias, and after going to London, a constant attendance on public worship was among his greatest pleasures. Gill, Guise, Romaine, and Whitfield were his favorite preachers. His diary at this time indicates no small degree of religious enthusiasm, and proves him to have gradually attached himself to the methodists. Whitfield, in short, was his adviser and friend, to whom he applied in all cases of spiritual difficulty, and with whom he familiarly corresponded. On one occasion Whitfield read to his congregation at the Tabernacle two of Robinson's letters, while the writer was present. So great, indeed, was the esteem and respect which he gained by his genius and good character, that his master was not reluctant to comply with the general voice, and give up his indentures. At the age of nineteen he commenced preaching among the methodists. His youth, his amiable manners, his vivacity and native eloquence drew around him many hearers, and gave a charm to his preaching, which could not fail to please. His voice was clear and melodious, his elocution easy and distinct, his language flowing, and all his external accomplishments engaging. These advantages, heightened by a liberal degree of youthful enthusiasm, crowned his first efforts with success, and animated his future exertions. He spared no pains to cultivate the powers which nature had bestowed on him, and frequently declaimed by the hour in private, that he might acquire the habit of a ready delivery, and a free use of language. In this practice the foundation was laid of his subsequent eminence as a public speaker.' Vol. III. PP. 7-8.

The account which he gives of his own settlement at Cambridge is worth extracting.

"The settlement of Robinson seems rather a romantic than rational undertaking, for this pastor was to be maintained. He

had not received above ten guineas from his own family for some years; he had no future prospect of receiving any; his grandfather had cut him off with a legacy of half a guinea. He had received only a hundred pounds with his wife, and this he had diminished among the methodists. He had never inquired what his congregation would allow him, nor had any body proposed any thing. They had paid him for the first half-year, three pounds twelve shillings and five pence; they had increased since, but not enough to maintain him frugally; there was no prospect of so poor a people supplying him long, especially should his family increase, which it was likely to do. Besides, the congregation, through the libertinism of many of its former members, had acquired a bad character. These would have been insurmountable difficulties to an older and wiser man; but he was a boy, and the love of his flock was a million to him. His settlement, therefore, on this article, should be no precedent for future settlements." Ib. pp. 10-11.

He possessed great independence of character, and was always a strenuous advocate for liberty of conscience. He rejected the strongest solicitations and temptations to conform to the established religion, one instance of which is recorded as follows. It was at the time when he had acquired great celebrity by his answer to Lindsey.

6

The author received a profusion of complimentary letters from dignitaries in the established church. It was whispered, and more than once proclaimed aloud, as a thing to be lamented, that such a man should be a dissenter, and waste his days in strolling with a bewildered flock beyond the enclosures of the true faith. Gilded offers were made to him, if he would have the conscience to slide out of his errors, go up from the unseemly vale of poverty, and take his rest on the commanding eminence of church preferment. To these overtures he was deaf; from his principles he could not be moved. When Dr Ogden said to him, in trying to unsettle his purpose, Do the dissenters know the worth of the man?' he replied, 'The man knows the worth of the dissenters.' This reply he verified by his warm devotedness to their interests through life. Ib. p. 17.

From the life of Whitby our readers will be pleased to see the passage, which states the origin of his Dissertations on the Five Points of Calvinism.

'In his address to the reader, at the commencement of this work, he says, 'They, who have known my education, may remember, that I was bred up seven years in the University under