them as fuch, and make the allowance which the title claims. However, as I hope they may be of more ufe, while christianity feems to be under a much stricter examination of friends and enemies, than I could poffibly foresee, when these thoughts prefented themfelves first to me: fo I am the more willing to publish them now (unfinished as they are) on that account. If fome things in them fhould be thought mere reveries, they may be rejected without doing any harm to my main defign. The far greater part will, I imagine, bear the teft; efpecially of the Firft and Second Effays. The commonnefs of the gifts of the Spirit in the apoftolical times, treated of in the Firft, and on which I think a great deal depends, I have always thought much the better of, because I received the first hints of it, a great many years ago, in converfation with one, whom all that had then the happiness of his intimate acquaintance thought, and whom all the world now allow, the greateft critic, lawyer, and divine of the age; and who poffeffes each of these parts of learning, with many more, and a knowledge of the world, as well as the high efteem and love of mankind, in a degree in which very few have ever poffeffed any one of them. A person of this character will be · fufficiently known without thofe diftinctions of name, title, or office, by which others must must be pointed out. And though the world are apt to think these last the highest distinctions that can be attained; yet muft they in reality be ever loft in the former, which are of a far higher nature in themselves, and the only true foundation of any thing that is valuable in the other. How little foever my readers may go along with me in other fentiments, yet I dare fay I fhall not have a fingle one that will have the least hesitation whom I here mean, or the leaft doubt whether what I have faid of him (how peculiar foever) justly belongs to him. THE revife of this last sheet of the Preface being brought me, after I had just had the pleafure of reading Dean Sherlock's Six Difcourfes on 2 Pet. i. 19, I knew not how to fend it back, without adding a word on that occafion. The Reverend Dean being sensible of the ftrength of the objections against all the confiderable expofitions which have been given of this text, and which he has reprefented in their full force; and being alfo aware of the ill ufe that has been lately made of the text by a very acute and fagacious adverfary of the Chriftian religion, and to which the words may feem liable, till a right exposition of them is hit on; has given a turn to the text, that at first fight appears extremely beautiful; that, I believe, is entirely new; and that, it must be owned, will prevent the abuse which has lately been made of it. I acknowledge too, that the turn which the Dean has given to it may fuit with one of the defigns of St. Peter's Epiftles very well, and feveral paffages in them. Thefe are the advantages which his interpretation has. All which he has wrought up in a manner fo fuitable to his own great genius and abilities, as hardly leaves one room or inclination to differ from him, till one clofely confiders the text itfelf, and its immediate context; which I think the Dean has entirely neglected. I have not time to enter into a full difcuffion of this matter. I will therefore only fuggeft fome thoughts by way of queries (to the Dean, or to thale who have heard or perufed his difcourfes with fo much care as to have made themfelves mafters of them) which hinder me from falling in with his fenfe of this paffage of fcripture. : QUERY I. Is not the immediate context, from the 12th verfe to the 16th, a profeffed defign of the apoftle to bring to the remembrance of thofe to whom he writes the fum of what they had been taught; or of all things pertaining to life and godliness, whereby they might be made partakers of 66 y Ver. 3. "the 66 "the Divine nature," and increase in it ; to which they ought to give diligence," to the end that "they might abound in all the knowledge of the fruits of the Christian doctrine," and "perfevere therein unto the end;" and fo "have an abundant entrance miniftered unto "them into the everlasting kingdom of "Chrift?" And is not this more likely to introduce a fummary of those things which they had been taught; or of the apoftolical doctrine, and the great evidence that was given to the truth of that doctrine by "glory and virtue," in order to stir them up to keep them in remembrance; than to introduce a prediction of a particular future event, as the Dean all along fuppofes? QUERY II. How can St. Peter be fuppofed to write, ver. 18, 19. to confirm them in the belief of a future event, in which they were fo fhaken, from the delay, as "to make their "hearts grow fick, and to be filled with "fears and fufpicions, left they had believed "in vain, and by which they were at last "led away from their ftedfastness, even to deny the Lord that bought them," as the Dean fuppofes; when in the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th verfes, which immediately z Ver. 4. • Ver. 5, 6, 7. © Ver. 3. b Ver. 8, 9, 10, 11. precede precede the text, and manifeftly introduce it, St. Peter fays, "He will always put them “in remembrance, and ftir them up by put "ting them in remembrance, that fo they "may keep them in remembrance after his decease?" And fo he likewife fays, 2 Pet. iii. 1. Keep in remembrance, what? things doubtful, that they once believed, but now difbelieved; and difbelieved fo far as to difcard Chriftianity, because they difbelieved them? Does any one write to perfons to keep fuch things in remembrance? Language fure will not bear it. But when men are written to, to be " put in re"membrance" (or to keep in remembrance), it is of fuch things as are known and believed; as St. Peter himself fays more expreffly, ver. 12. "Wherefore I will not be "negligent to put you always in remem"brance of these things, though ye know “them, and are established in the prefent "truth." 66 QUERY III. Why may not "the power "and coming of our Lord Jefus Chrift," ver. 16. fignify that " power with which Peter, James, and John faw the kingdom of God "come, or the Son of man coming in his kingdom," at the transfiguration, according to our Saviour's exprefs prediction. For 66 • Mark ix. 1. and Matth. xvi. 28, that |