refpective founders. The Royal Inftitution in London engages the fair and the fashionable in the cause of polite Literature and Science; and the high reputation it has acquired, has promoted a fimilar establishment in another part of the Metropolis. Thus the talents and the attainments of eminent Profeffors are called into action; their labours are adapted to the peculiar profeffion for which young men are intended, and the curiofity of the public at large is gratified to a degree unprecedented in former times, by the diffufion of various kinds of knowledge. It is the boaft of the enemies of Great Britain, that they give encouragement to Science in the midst of War. Poffeffed of fuch ample means of inform ation as our celebrated Univerfities and Schools af ford us, aided by recent establishments, it fhould be our ambition to emulate them in the cultivation of the mind, and to convince them, by the exertion of our intellectual powers in the caufe of Learning and Science, that we have a claim to pre-eminence in the republic of letters, fimilar to that we have established to the empire of the ocean. Whatever progrefs may have been made in the courfe of the laft century, in any branches of Literature, Science, and the polite Arts, we may be affured, that the untutored mind can receive little fatisfaction or improvement from them; it muft be furnished with preparatory information upon the refpective fubjects; hence arifes the utility A 4 útility of Elementary Works; the feeds of learning must be firft fown before flowers can expand, and fruit can ripen and be gathered. That no work of man can be free from imper. fection and error, is a truth which the author would not repeat, if his experience did not fully convince him, that it is applicable in a peculiar degree to publications of this kind. He muft, therefore, make his appeal to the candour of the public, with the faithful declaration that he has rendered his Work as correct and complete as his profeffional avocations and precarious health have allowed. He wishes those who may complain of his want of brevity, to confider the great extent of every one of the fubjects he has undertaken to treat; and those who, from a predilection for fome particular topic, may with for a fuller view of it, are requested to recollect, that he profeffes to ftate principles only, and not to give complete fyftems of Science, or to particularife long details of Hiftory; and he trufts he may affert, with no lefs confidence than truth, that it will not be eafy to find fuch a variety of information, contained within the fame number of pages, in any work of the price in our Language. The motive which prompted him to undertake this Work, ftill continues to ftimulate him in every ftage of its progrefs an ardent defire to extend ufeful inftruction beyond the narrow profeffional fphere in which he moves. If he should excite curiofity, curiofity, or increase attention to any branch of profitable knowledge, and diffufe more widely the light of general information, he will have the fatisfaction to think, that his time, his reflections, and his ftudies, have not been facrificed to a frivolous purpose, by thus endeavouring, in conformity with the occupations of the most valuable portion of his life, to inftru&t the rifing generation. Trinity College, Oxford, GENERAL GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOL. I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. THE Delign of the Work. The various branches of Literature and Science are confidered with reference to young Men in the higher claffes of life, as they are, I. CHRISTIANS; II. as STUDENTS, who enjoy the advantages of a liberal Education; III. as MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION. The confideration of thefe important relations in which they stand to Society, has fuggefted the choice of the following fubjects. The purfuit of them, carried to fuch an extent as is compatible with due attention to profeffional Studies, is calculated to improve the faculties of the mind,-to inform the understanding, ftrengthen the judgment, engage the memory in an agreeable exercife, and prepare a young Man for the best performance of his various duties in life. P. 1-16. CLASS I. RELIGION. CHAP. I. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. THE reafonableness of inftructing Children in the principles of Religion at an early age. The fuperior excellence of CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. The leading proofs of the truth of Chriftianity ftated. I. The AUTHENTICITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. II. THE CHARACTER OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR. III. THE PROPHECIES of which he was the Subject, and those which he pronounced. IV. HIS MIRACLES. V. HIS PRECEPTS, or CHRISTIAN ETHICS. VI. THE RAPID AND EXTENSIVE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL at its first preaching, under circumstances the most hoftile to its fuccefs. P. 17-56. 3 CHAP. |