, PREFACE. XVll 



and devout man. It is that part of his life and 

 icharacter which was most properly his own, as 

 being the most independent of all the changes 

 and circumstances of human affairs : aod if it «> 

 unusual to be met with in the lives which are 

 published of private persons, it is for this reason 

 only, because the writers of those lives eould 

 have no ground or handle of considering their 

 subject in this particular view, for want of such 

 materials as are afforded in this case. Some- 

 thing, indeed, of this nature, is to be met with 

 in the Life of Dr. John Forbes, an eminent and 

 celebrated Scotch Divine, published before his 

 works at Amsterdam, 1703. He had kept a 

 kind of journal of his spiritual life, and of that 

 only, for several years, which the editor of his 

 works. Dr. John Garden, translated into Latin, 

 and published under this title, Johannis Forbesii 

 a Corse Vitts Inter ioris sive cvercitioruin ^iritua- 

 iium Commentaria. But his pains were better 

 laid out, in extracting out of this Comnientary so 

 much, and so much only, as was iiecessary to 

 give his reader a true notion of the devotionail 

 pari ^ Pr, Forbes's life, which he entitled Vit£ 



VOL. I. b 



