PRINTED FOR RICHARD PHILLIPS, SOLD BY T. HURST, AND BUTTON AND SON, PATERNOSTER-ROW ; T. OTHER BOOKSELLERS. T. Gillet, Printer, Salisbury-square. 1802. Price 4s. 6d. in Boards, or 5s. Bound and Lettered. BI PREFACE. IOGRAPHY poffeffes many important advan tages over general hiftory. The principal perhaps of thefe is the tendency which it has to improve the heart by pourtraying Virtue and Vice as they actully appear in the conduct of individuals. 1 When we contemplate the variegated feenes of public life, as exhibited on the theatre of the world, our minds may be filled with admiration, but they will often be perplexed with difficulties and deceived by falfe appearances. The caufes of the most important. events are frequently buried in the depths of oblivion, or fo confounded in the mazes of party prejudice and political intrigue as not eafily to be explored. Should we, indeed, after much inquiry and attention obtain a very comprehenfive knowlege of what has been tranfacted in the world, fince its origin, the acquifition, though undoubtedly very valuable, would not be of much practical utility in corre&ting our paffions, regulating our conduct, ftrengthening our faith, animating. our hopes or cheering us in this checquered fcene of vanity and trouble. But when we are steadily engaged in confidering. one character, and have before us an exact and regular view of him in every age and circumftance of life, from infancy to manhood, and in all the various relations which, in the focial ftate, he is called to fill ;. abundant matter is prefented to us, which, if duly improved, will make us both wifer and better than we were before. We behold in men of like paffionsand placed in fimilar fituations with ourselves, the advantages which are the refult of early picty, of virtuous refolution, of lowlinefs of mind, and of religious integrity. We may thus fee the "beauty of holiacis” as it were embodied, and exhibiting its graces in a variety of forms and under numerous circumftances, which in the buftle of public life would pass by lost and unheeded. The religious character is contemplated to advantage in profperity and adversity, bearing the one with a humble and thankful heart, and the other with calmness and refignation. But religion is, probably, feen in its greateft luftre during the dark and difmal hour of death. In that folemn feafon when the busy scencs of folly are shut out, when the noife and contentions of the world are no longer heard, when fplendid rank and honours are difregarded, when pomp, and riches, and pleasures bear the glaring and mortifying infcrip tion of VANITY and VEXATION-then does Religion look through the gloom, and as the fmiles upon the dying Chriftian, kindles in the bofom even of the vain and irreligious beholder, a wish to die the death of the righteous and to have his latter end like his. In this grand point it is that the excellency of Biography is ftrikingly difplayed, by introducing us not only to the acquaintance of the wife and good in their meditations, and in their labours of piety and love, but alfo to their dying beds, where we behold the triumph of faith over the fears of death, and fee them breathing their fouls with joyful hope into the hands of their heavenly Father. In the confideration of fuch fcenes, and not in beholding the buftling events of the world, we learn the true estimate of human life, and the proper end of our being. This naturally directs us to one of the most diftinguished excellencies of the Holy Scriptures, as abounding with numerous examples of faith and holiness, delineated with the ftricteft impartiality, all of them powerfully calculated to awaken in us a concern about the best things, and to lead us in the path of righteouínefs. In a moral fenfe alone the Scripture Characters are the moft proper that can be prefented for our imitation, because they are reprefented as they truly truly were, without any defign of extenuating their. errors or exaggerating their virtues. No art is made ufe of to exhibit them to us to the beft advantage, but they are fhewn in their native fimplicity, in a great variety of natural fituations, and exactly as men of like paffions with ourselves. But there is a higher point of view in which the biographical narrations of the Bible excel all others; and this indeed must be of the utmost importance. I mean the inftruction which we learn from them in the things which concern our everlasting falvation. Morality may be ferviceable to us in our connexions with one another as members of the fame fociety; but it can neither open nor maintain a communication with Heaven. That Revelation which God has given to us in his holy Word alone does this, and while we learn from it the faith which is neceffary to falvation, we are prefented with numerous inftances of perfons who have lived and died in the enjoyment of it. By confidering their examples then we not only fee the beauty of virtue, and are charmed with the excellencies of a humble, contented, temperate, and pious life, but we gather from them information concerning the "things of the kingdom of God." We fee what animated them in their progress thro' a troublesome world, what enabled them to refift temptation, to overcome difficulties, to brave perfe cutions, and to encounter even the terrors of death without difmay; not the energies of their own minds, not a philofophical indifference to pain and pleasure, but a comfortable belief of the great mystery of godliness" which the Meffiah undertook to accomplish for the falvation of a loft world. In the lives of these Worthies we see the great truths of our Religion elucidated, not merely in the morality of their actions, but in the purity of their principles. We fee them witneffing a good confeffion in the darkest times, bearing their teftimony to the work of redemption, living by |