OBSERVATIONS of this kind may certainly be made, to great advantage, on hiftorical portions of Scripture more efpecially; fince, as the fame incomparable author tells us elsewhere, Knowlege drawn freshly, and as it "were in our view, out of particulars, "knows the way beft to particulars again and it hath much greater life "for practice, when the discourse at"tends upon the example, than when the example attends upon the dif"courfe; as Machiavel handled mat"ters of policy and government, by "difcourfes of history and example "taken from Livy." The doctrines and duties of Christianity are, in like manner, best deduced from the facts on which it is founded. The narration furnisheth both matter and method for the discourse, which is heard with pleasure, and remembered with ease. HISTORY ་ HISTORY and biography are frequently employed in the service of error and vice. They may operate as effectually in the recommendation of truth and virtue. Example fhews truth as it were embodied; and while it difplays the excellency of virtue, de monstrates its practicability. The contemplation of faith, as it discovereth itself in the lives of patriarchs and prophets, apostles and faints, inclineth us to believe as they did; they did; and the fight of frail mortals, like ourselves, who, by the divine affiftance, furmounted all obftructions, and continued to walk in the paths of righteoufnefs, naturally fuggefteth, to every beholder, the question What should hinder me from doing the fame? OPPORTUNITIES for fuch exercises are continually afforded by the return of those days, whereon we commemo rate the heroic piety of ancient worthies, diftinguished in the annals of religion; whofe ftory prefenteth us with occurrences, not, like those related in fecular hiftories, of use only to politicians and generals, but univerfally interesting; inftructing us in the art of governing the little kingdom within; of atchieving the greateft conquefts, and gaining the moft glorious victories; fince "Better is he that ruleth his fpirit, than he that "taketh a city;" teaching us how to live the life, and die the death of the righteous; a twofold task, which every man hath upon his hands, and in the performance of which he cannot fail, but at the hazard of something more valuable than crowns and fceptres. THE author of the following Con+ fiderations was directed, in the choice of of his fubject, by the circumftances of his fituation, fome parts of them having been delivered from the pulpit, as occafion called for them, in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen College, upon the anniversary of the nativity of St. John the Baptift, before a learned and moft refpectable audience. The fa vourable manner, in which they were then heard, hath encouraged him to revise, enlarge, and digeft them into their present form. The reader hath now before him a compleat hiftory of the Baptift, extracted from the Evangelifts, and methodized according to the order of time, in which the events appear to have happened, with fuch obfervations and reflections as the feveral parts of it seemed to fuggest, for the confirmation of faith, and the advancement of holiness. AN |