INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

THE reader has, in this volume, the PRIVATE THOUGHTS of PASCAL and ADAMS; those of PASCAL calling our attention to the incalculable importance of the Christian faith, and those of ADAM disclosing the inward experience of an acute and faithful Christian, and furnishing a deep insight into the corruption of the human heart, though under the counteracting influence of divine grace.

In a future volume the Editor purposes to give such farther Private Thoughts of eminent Christians as may appear desirable to complete this part of the Christian's Family Library.

In a judicious and valuable Life of Pascal, inserted in various numbers of the Christian Observer for 1815, are the following just remarks on his PRIVATE THOUGHTS.

"The posthumous publication intitled 'Thoughts on Religion," consists of reflections which arose occasionally in his mind, and were suggested under a great variety of circumstances; which he committed to paper, without order or coherence, and

which are the mere fragments of materials designed to enter into the composition of his great work. Yet these rude and immature productions, these ideas and sentiments, partially evolved and imperfectly developed, display an intellect of surpassing energy and expansion: there is a richness, depth, and pregnancy in them, which gives us an assurance, that had the author lived to unfold and arrange, to combine and perfect, these shapeless rudiments, according to the model traced in his own mind, we should have possessed a most convincing and original exhibition of the evidences and spirit of Christianity.

Among the various and almost inimitable excellences, which may be discovered in the Thoughts of Pascal, his forcible and pathetic appeals to the hearts and consciences of his readers, constitute a distinguishing and prominent feature. He did not consider it sufficient to enunciate revealed religion as simply true, but he announced it as a system of truth of the highest importance, and most absolute necessity; as alone capable of dissolving the clouds of perplexity and error which oppress and mislead the mind, and dispelling that painful and agitating uncertainty concerning the origin, condition, duty, and final destiny of man, which is equally inimical to his virtue, his repose, and his happiness. Pascal represented Christianity as the only balm and cordial that could soothe and alleviate the multiplied miseries of human life; that could infuse courage and impart consolation under every form of suffering; and in those last hours of feebleness, languishing, and anxiety, when no exterior aids can minister support to dissolving nature, as that which can shed a lustre and brightness through the gloomy avenues of death, and communicate to the heart of the dying believer, light, and animation, and joy; a joy unspeakable and full of glory."

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The Rev. Thomas Adam was born in 1701. He was

Rector of Wintringham for 58 years, and died in 1784. His Private Thoughts are of a very evangelical and experimental character. The following extract from the Preface (written, the Editor believes, by the late Mr. Richardson of York) will assist the reader in forming a right judgment of them.

"In an unconverted person there is but one nature: in a real Christian there are two; the one is called the flesh, the other the spirit. These terms do not relate to the conflict between reason and passion, of which the pagan philosophers wrote; but to the conflict between all that is of man by nature, whether reason, passion, or whatever else, and all that is of the grace of God in Jesus Christ, communicated through the Holy Ghost. Each nature has its distinct exercises in the same man; the result must be two sets, as it were, of affections, views, and propensities. This consideration alone accounts for the seeming paradox, that St. Paul should speak such apparent contradictions. If the reader be apt to wonder that Mr. Adam should sometimes speak so triumphantly of the happiness and holiness of a Christian, at other times so feelingly of his corruption and misery, he must be understood to speak with reference to these two states; and it will be a sufficient apology to say, in his behalf, that the same seeming inconsistency is in St. Paul himself. He who, in Romans, vii. is "carnal, sold under sin," is in the viiith made "free from the law of sin and death." Each assertion has its truth, as reference is made to each of the states in which he is conversant. In one sense he is wicked, miserable, unclean, a slave of all that is evil; in another he is holy, happy, pure in heart, the Lord's freeman, and an heir of heaven. It is not to be wondered at that the conflict of such opposite views and principles should produce various exercises in the human heart; and that a mind, vigorous and intelligent, like our author's, would be led to take large notice of them in viewing his own. This it is

which constitutes the Christian's internal warfare, and which will continue, till death transmit the patient warrior to that rest which remains for the people of God.

"

Perhaps the difficulty which many find in admitting that St. Paul was speaking of himself in Rom. vii. will be farther obviated by considering that it is not a practical course of wickedness which he means, when he talks of being " carnal, sold under sin : concupiscence is the term he uses, and that is what he means by indwelling sin. It is the tendency of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, that he complains of, as perpetually exerting itself in inward opposition to the will of God, and continually marking with imperfection the best of his purposes and actions. Did not the Christian himself inform us of it, it would often be scarce discernible, seldom or ever in a great degree, by others, that he had this sinful propensity. His walk is not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, as St. Paul declares. And the general prevalency of holiness in the conduct, is the standing evidence of his sincere conversion.

Something it may be necessary to add respecting the form in which these Private Thoughts of Mr. Adam are presented to the public. They are extracted from a kind of diary, wherein, during more than thirty years, he occasionally wrote his sentiments, on a variety of subjects, as they arose in his mind, without observing any particular order or method, and very seldom prefixing a date. In this state it came into the hands of the editors, to whom the author had committed the care of his papers, with a discretionary power to publish or suppress what they pleased. Struck with the remarkable honesty and wisdom that appeared in the observations it contained, they thought that such a selection might be made for the press, as would greatly tend to illustrate the subject of human nature, and a work of grace upon the heart. In order to make these select ob