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culties if a being, with but five scanty inlets of knowledge, separated but yesterday from his mother-earth, and to-day sinking again into her bosom, could fathom the depths of the wisdom and knowledge of HIM, which is, which was, and which is to come, the Lord God Almighty, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever! We live in a dissolute but enlightened age; the restraints of our religion are ill-suited to the profligacy of our manners, and men are soon induced to believe that system to be false, which they wish to find so; that knowledge, moreover, which spurns with contempt the illusions of fanaticism and the tyranny of superstition, is often unhappily misemployed in magnifying every little difficulty attending the proof of the truth of Christianity into an irrefragable argument of its falsehood. The Christian Religion has nothing to apprehend from the, strictest investigation of the most learned of its adversaries; it suffers only from the misconceptions of sciolists and silly pretenders to superior wisdom; a little learning is far more dangerous to the faith of those who possess it, than ignorance itself. Some, I know, affect to believe, that as the restoration of letters was ruinous to the Romish religion, so the further cultivation of them will be subversive of Christianity itself-of this there

is no danger. It may be subversive of the relics of the Church of Rome, by which other churches are still polluted, of persecutions, of anathemas, of ecclesiastical domination over God's heritage, of all the silly outworks which the pride, the superstition and the knavery of mankind have erected around the citadel of our faith; but the Citadel itself is founded upon a rock-the gates of hell cannot prevail against it-its masterbuilder is GOD-its beauty will be found ineffable and its strength impregnable, when it shall be freed from the frippery of human ornaments, and cleared from the rubbish of human bulwarks."

Finally, Christian brethren—thus it is that a series of well-attested facts relative to the birth, death and sufferings of a crucified, but ultimately triumphant MESSIAH, generating devotion towards God and benevolence towards man, constitutes the soul of Revealed Religion. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty." In a word, the Christianity of the New Testament is impregnable and imperishable! It is, indeed, a pyramid, whose base covers the earth-whose summit penetrates the skies, and upon whose sides stands enrolled,

in illumined characters, legible to all the inhabitants of the globe

THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, BUT THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

"Should all the forms that men devise,

Assault my FAITH with treach❜rous art,

I'd call them vanity and lies,

And bind the Gospel to my heart."

POSTSCRIPT.

N. B. Tell me not of a rich and mighty sultan, clothed in his robes, attended with his retinue, and waving his sword over half the East; I will shew you a much nobler spectacle-A CHARITY BOY, going with his Bible under his arm to a place of worship! The BIBLE is a directory for both worlds; its maxims will teach prudence; its precepts restrain from vice; and its promises support in affliction: while he is able to read that Volume, he cannot want a guide for TIME, or a charter for ETERNITY!

AMEN.

ROBERT ROBINSON.

GEORGE SMALLFIELD, Printer, Hackney.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1. SKETCH of THE DENOMINATIONS of the CHRISTIAN WORLD. THIRTEENTH EDITION. Dedicated to the Right Honourable Lord Erskine. With Heads of the Founders: Wickliffe, Luther, Calvin, &c.

2. SEQUEL to the Sketch. Containing One Hundred Testimonials in behalf of Candour and Charity. FOURTH EDITION. With Eight Heads: Tillotson, Burnet, Watts, Doddridge, &c.

3. JUVENILE PIECES. With three plates. Containing the Student's Dream, Vision of Female Excellence, Painter's Panegyrist, &c. SIXTH EDITION.

4. JUVENILE TOURIST through various Parts of Great Britain with a prefixed Miniature Sketch of London. FOURTH EDITION. With a Head of the Author.

5. ESSAY on the Education of YOUTH. FIFTH EDITION.

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"It is evident that Mr. Evans has it warmly at heart to train up the pupils in his Seminary to knowledge and virtue, to make them enlightened, pure and useful members of the Community." Monthly Review, April, 1799.

To

6. EXCURSION TO WINDSOR, in July 1810, through Richmond, Twickenham and _Hampton Court. which is annexed, a Trip to Paris. By John Evans, Jun., A. M.

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail?

7. The Progress of Human Life; or, THE SEVEN AGES of MAN, illustrated by a Series of Extracts, in Prose and Poetry, for the Use of Schools and Families. With a Memoir of Shakespeare and his Writings: and LIGHT WOOD-CUTS.

"We cannot lay down this interesting volume without recommending it to our readers' attention. Its hearty support in the cause of virtue, and the admirable lessons it conveys to the mind, render it highly useful to the young Student, while the variety of its contents, and the superiority of its extracts, will repay the

attention of those at A MORE ADVANCED AGE, who may think their dignity compromised by reading a Work chiefly calculated for the improvement of the Rising Generation.”—European Mag. Oct.

1818.

"The Rev. John Evans, of Islington, has produced one of the most pleasing volumes that has issued from the press for a long time, in a Series of Essays, on THE SEVEN AGES of Shakespeare! He has drawn largely from our best poetical and prose writers on the same subject, and so combined their opinions with his own, as to produce a Work entitled to an extensive and long-lived popularity."-Monthly Mag. March, 1819.

8. MEMOIRS of the Life and Writings of the Rev. William Richards, LL. D. who died at Lynn, September 13, 1818, in the 69th year of his age; with some Account of the Rev. Roger Williams, Founder of the State of Rhode Island, as well as first Assertor of complete Religious Liberty in the United States of America. With a Portrait, and dedicated to the Marquis of Lansdowne.

"MR. EVANS's Memoirs of DR. RICHARDS of Lynn, will form a Companion to Dyer's Life of Robinson, and will be long esteemed among Dissenters for the variety of anecdotes and facts which it records and preserves, for the general elegance of its style, and for the amiable sentiments it inculcates.”—Monthly Mag. July, 1819.

"This LITTLE VOLUME cannot fail to be generally interesting to the sober and thinking part of the religious world, as it contains a mass of information respecting the progress of religious opinions during the last half century. The Biographer suffers no circumstance to pass, which his studies and knowledge of society enable him to illustrate. He embraces every opportunity of inculcating the amiable principles of liberality of sentiment and Christian charity, and his remarks evince a heart overflowing with piety, humanity and philanthropy. The Appendix will be found peculiarly interesting to the religious world; and we are extremely sorry our limits will not permit our going more minutely into a Work which has afforded us so much satisfaction."—General Review for June, 1819.

To the Author of the present. MEMOIR we cannot but tender our thanks at parting, for the interesting volume he has presented us."-Eclectic Review, November, 1819.

N. B. DR. RICHARDS's Cambro-British Biography, being the Lives of the Founders of the Dissenting interest in WALES, including a very valuable Essay on Druidism, the original religion of this Island, will be put to Press at the ensuing Christmas..

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