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And it goes on to say, that Mr. Joshua Barnes read a small English Bible, that he usually carried about him, one hundred and twenty one times over, at leisure hours.

METHODISTICAL EXTRAVAGANCE.

Scott, in his Christian Life, speaking of sinners going to heaven, said, "They would find "themselves like pigs in a drawing room!" And Campbell, in his Missionary Travels, declares, he would rather look at a believer in Jesus than a mountain of chrystal.

DOCTOR ISAAC BARROW.

Long sermons may be, on that account as unproductive of improvement as the fashionable court ones, which are usually done in fifteen minutes; and yet one of the greatest men this country has produced, Dr. Isaac Barrow, was a preacher of long sermons. He was once requested by the then bishop of Rochester to preach for him at the abbey, begging of him however, not to be long as they were used to the reverse. Barrow pulled out his sermon he mean to preach, from the text, "He that uttereth slander is a "liar," and it being very long, and divided into two parts, viz. slander and liar, the bishop insisted upon slander alone doing, to which he

consented; but that took up an hour and a half. On another occasion, Dr. Barrow preaching at the same place unconsionably long, those who show the tombs and wax works to those who pay their cash to see the play of the dead volks, as the Devonshire clown called it, caused the organ to be struck up as if playing the people out of church.

PIOUS PUNNING.

Punning seems to be as old as the creation: the Greeks and Romans sometimes indulged themselves in this practice, and used puns as ornaments in the most serious discourse, and in a black letter book now before us, printed 1580, called the bee hive of the Romish Church, we see, "that a man may make a good similitude "or parable uppon the neerenesse of names in "speache, which in pronunciation do sounde "one like another; as the holy churche hath "concluded hereuppon, that St. Clare can make "dimme eyes looke cleere; St Quentine can "heale the quinsie in the head; St. Valentine "the fallen sicknesse; and St. Eutropious the "dropsie; because those names (says the au"thor) doe sound like one another! And yet "(he continues) this cannot always fall out so "for thus might the hereticks conclude out of

"the same, that curates are currs; spiritually,' "spitefaulty; bishops, bite sheeps; cardinals, "carnals; and so on.

CREATION OF ADAM.

Burnett in the History of his own Times, mentions a Dr. Case, who wrote a book, with this title, "The Angelical Guide, shewing Men and "Women their Lot and Chance in this elemen"tary Life." The work is very astrological and very profound; for instance, the author states, that "Adam was created in that pleasant place "called Paradise, about the year before Christ "4002, viz. on April the 24th, at twelve o'clock " at midnight."

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

With respect to the quantity, or how it may be possible, in so small a compass, so to compress in the size of a wafer, what it is said to contain, (Gentianus and Aquinas too) says, that "The Lutherans and Huguenots (or Calvinists)

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can in no wise be reputed and taken for right "believers, so long as they do not believe that "the bread and the wine, in the blessed sacra"ment of the altar, (as soon as ever the five "words are spoken over them,) are no more "bread and wine, but by and by become the very

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perfect body and blood of Jesus Christ, as "long and as broad as it was hanging on the "cross." But Joamus Sutus, in the four books of sentences, hath himself said absolutely, that "If the five words should be spoken in the mar"ket place, or in a baker's where much bread were, or in a cellar where much wine were, "the said bread would by and by be turned into "flesh, and the wine into blood." And we find that Ludulphus mentioned, "that the body of "Christ, was in the host as great in quantity, "as he was upon the cross;" adding very candidly, "It is therefore marvellous how so great "a man can be hid under so small a form."

WESLEY.

The pious Wesley believed laughter and hyssterical laughter to be the works of the devil. Many would be ready to exclaim, the devil it is! Without disparagement to Mr. Wesley, whose partriarchal smile we well remember.

PIOUS DEDICATION.

John de Croi, a learned French minister of the seventeenth century, wrote a book to prove the truth of the Geneva Confession of Faith by the Scriptures, and dedicated it to our Lord Jesus Christ! This book was printed at Geneva in

1645 in 8vo. Shortly afterwards the learned monk, Father Boussieres, in his work, Pasture Historique, 1672, dedicates it to the Virgin Mary Matri Deo, Regina Mundi, "to the "Mother of God, and Queen of the World."

PRAYER EXTRAORDINARY:

If the Supreme Being were to hear all the prayers of different belligerent powers, the civilized human race would long since have been extirpated. But the thought is better expressed in the following prayer, by William Law. "Oh, "blessed Jesus, dear redeeming Lamb of God, "who came down from heaven to save men's "lives and not destroy them; go along, we hum"bly pray thee with our bomb vessels and our ships suffer not our thundering cannon to

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roar in vain, but let thy tender hand of love "and mercy direct their balls to more heads and

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hearts of thine own redeemed creatures, than "the poor skill of man is able of itself to do."

The nine Enthusiasts, murderers of archbishop Sharpe, in 1579, bound themselves by a vow to sacrifice him to the sufferings of their sect. They had enquired. the Lord's mind anant. i. e. concerning the murder: and the word bore in upon them, Go and prosper. On the 3rd of May they met him and cruelly butchered him. He

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