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ESSAYS:

BY THE LATE

REV. MR. JOHN M'LAURIN,
(Scotch Presbyterian)

ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF GLASGOW.

PUBLISHED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MANUSCRIPTS,

BY JOHN GILLIES,

ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF GLASGOW.

To which is prefixed,

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY W. W. WOODWARD, No. 52, CORNER
OF SECOND AND CHESNUT STREETS.

W. M'CULLOCH, PRINTER.

PUBLICIT

281471

ASTOR, LEN X AUD

1903

MBLIC

RECOMMENDATION.

THERE are some books of an inferior class-they were not without their use at the time that they were published; but they soon sink into oblivion--they have performed their office. There is a middling class, which edifies the generation for which they were composed, and descends with respect to the next; and they are read with profit. But there is a third kind, exalted far above these, and which ranks high in the estimation of mankind. The authors were men of superior endowments, and they are greatly and justly admired in every succeeding age. When they become scarce, the person who reprints thein does a service to the world.

In this last class Maclaurin has an exalted place. This little volume may be put into the scale with any work of its size which the eighteenth century produced, and it will not disgrace the hand which threw it in. The author appears to have been a man very superior to most, both in intellect and in goodness. It will be difficult to find two sermons more excellent than the second and third in this collection. Along with a wonderful mass of select ideas, solidity of judgment, profoundness of research, ingenuity of thought, and vivacity and brilliancy of representation, they display the most powerful and impressive eloquence on subjects where eloquence is most difficult and uncommon, namely, in stating, illustrating, confirming, and enforcing the fundamen. tal Doctrines of the Gospel.

Young Preachers should carefully study this little volume. When men of talents, education, and learning, are unhappily prejudiced against Evangelical Principles, we know no book more proper to be put into their hands than this. If any thing human can convince them of the impropriety of despising the truth, it is the lovely representation of it by the superior intellect of Maclaurin, united with the display of the most ardent devotion, and of a holy, humble, and benevolent heart. We have often read this book; but we never read it without feeling ourselves to be but children, and sinking into nothing, from a consciousness of his vast superiority.

Evangelical Magazine for July, 1802.

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