Printed by J. PARAMORE, at the Foundry;

And fold at the NEW CHAPEL, City Road, and by all the

BOOKSELLERS in Town and Country.

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TO THE

READER.

1. WHEN I was first desired to add ano

ther to the large number of Magazines which travel through Great Britain, I consented upon the supposition that a few months would probably conclude my Labour. But herein I find myself mistaken: I do not fee land yet. I am come now to the end of a fecond year; and yet not to the end of my work.

2. In the two last years I have published some of the best tracts which I ever met with upon the Arminian Controversy: such as I am fully perfuaded, never were and never will be fairly answered. I have given you the Lives of fome of the most eminent persons who have lived at or fince the Reformation. To these has been added a short account of many of those young men, (such most of them were when they first set out) who have given up their little all, and have not counted their lives dear unto themselves,

So they might testify the gospel of the grace of God. And I have the fatisfaction to observe, That the Engravings this year are far better executed than they were the last. Many of the Likenesses are really striking; as all must acknowledge who know the perfons.

3. Of the Letters likewife which follow those Accounts, I have no reason to be ashamed. Most of them are closely practical and experimental; and the experience contained in several is both found and deep. Even those which may feem to border upon Controversy, have a near relation to Christian Practice, and may serve to remove several fcruples, which have disquieted the minds of pious men.

4. With regard to the Poetry, some have objected to a poem published in the September Magazine. And it is granted, it is not strictly religious. But it must be granted on the other fide, 1. That there is nothing in it contrary to Religion, nothing that can offend the chastest ears. 2. That many truly religious men and women, have both read it and profited thereby: and 3. That it is one of the finest Poems in the English Tongue, both for Sentiment and Language: and whoever can read

1

it without tears, must have a stupid unfeeling heart. However I do not know, that any thing of the fame kind will appear in any of the following Magazines.

5. In the following, some Pages will always be bestowed, (as was originally designed) in proving the grand doctrine of Universal Redemption, and clearing it of all objections. But this will not take up so large a compass as it has done in fome of the preceding numbers. I do not intend that the Controverfial part of any future number shall exceed fixteen pages. By this means there will be more room for what is more to my taste, and I believe more for the profit of the ferious Reader: I mean, such Lives as contain the heighth and depth of genuine, scriptural, rational Religion.

6. There will likewise be room for inserting a longer and more particular account of fome of the Preachers. Indeed I studiously avoid the swelling of these accounts by circumstances that are neither useful nor entertaining. But in several of those that I have by me, there are many striking incidents, which deserve to be related at large: particularly such as respect the difficulties and dangers which they have

gone