PREFACE.

IT may surely be regarded as a favourable sign of the times, th

so many reprints of the works of the thinkers of former days-1 and cleric-have been called for during the last ten years. It arg that while there may be many whose tastes incline them to milk babes,' there are those who have appetites to relish, and stomachs digest, 'stronger meat.' We have reference more immediately to t numerous and widely circulated republications of the elder Theologia of all shades of opinion on lesser matters: as well the acknowledg and famous, as the less known and hitherto uncollected and inedit Of the former, suffice it to name Eden's 'Jeremy Taylor,' Napic 'Isaac Barrow,' Wynter's 'Joseph Hall,' 'Thomas Goodwin' of t series; of the latter, our own Richard Sibbes,' and now Thom Brooks,' with others in hand, together with the fine series of Comme taries being issued by our Publisher, and including such ripe and ra books as Airay on 'Philippians,' King on 'Jonah,' Stock and Torsh on Malachi,' Rainolds on 'Obadiah and Haggai,' Bernard and Ful on Ruth,' Marbury on 'Obadiah and Habakkuk,' Hardy on Epistle of St John,' Bayne on ' Ephesians,' and that magnum opus, William Gouge on 'Hebrews.' It seems impossible that such int lectual and spiritual seed-corn as is treasured up in these early worth can be sown thus broadcast, and yield an unbounteous harve Granted that, as with the sown grain, there is not a little of what chaff, or,-speaking unmetaphorically, that is tedious and attenuat over-worded, effete, musty: yet the 'ingenuous' and thinking read like the kindly earth under supernal influences, assimilates the good a fruitful and toward all the venerable writers, has a tender patien and charity and forgivingness, such as one feels for the garrulous 'whi head' that in other days wearied us in the chimney-corner, but, bei gone, is remembered sacredly, pathetically, and with wet eyes.

VOL. I.

eyes.

homas Brooks to the Divines' of the Puritan Period' of contradiction when we claim for him a foremost place reatest of the later Puritans; meaning thereby those who ed, and, as Thomas Fuller would have said, ex-cluded also, ctment' of 1662. With the exception of John Bunyan, in separate minor works, of Richard Baxter, no writer of tury has been so permanently and widely and variously in the living Literature of the 18th and 19th as the author Remedies against Satan's Devices,' 'The Mute Christian marting Rod,''Apples of Gold,' and 'Heaven on Earth:' nately, he has been mainly represented and known by these 3, whereas his other and numerous writings have the same he word be not chill and poor-with these; all passed quent editions in the outset, and have popularly gone out as less weighty and vital, but capriciously and arbitrarily nly.

ense advantage of Brooks over Sibbes is, that the whole of lumes, lesser and larger, were published by himself. He behind him to be thrust on the world as 'Remains' or a healthy self-restraint and wisdom which it had been s, even of our most illustrious Divines, ancient and modern, d.

ting this first collective edition of the Complete Works' the public, I beg attention to these six things:

text, in every separate treatise and tractate, is based upon vised and corrected' impression thereof that passed under e author: an explanatory 'Note' being prefixed to each, eedful information on the different editions. It may be hat his collection of the original and early editions has cost ully £35, whereas the reprint will be furnished to the public

whole is incorrupt, unmutilated, unchanged. Of this, the Essayist' may be allowed to speak. Writing to a e works of Howe, and preferring the old edition, he characbserves: In the new one, I recollect the Editor engaged, o the readers, to make-and I suppose he did make-some ngs of the long, involved, and grotesquely constructed senning sufficiently wanted, I allow, for it is quite wonderful man as Howe should have bungled so sadly in the manner making. But, nevertheless, I should prefer having his just as he had made them, to any Editor's rectification of eference, however, which cannot be supposed to be felt by an of the literary form of Burder and Hughes, the Editors

and Correctors of Henry'
rectifications,' no 'corre
the old arbitrary orthogra
dly noted all peculiar on
Bricks is here given get
His style as a whole, ho
like sare in occasional qu
The whole of the
d. Only those wh
appreciate the toil inv
Arte. The importan
Care similarly been ver
to the well-nigh innumer
ngs though, even of
traced and confirmed in
d names we have left
In response to the
Philological Society
aisable words and pl
Reference-Index thereto
For all foot-notes

the rest belong to Brook
ecial attention to the
-notes of the ori
perusal. Very often it
gives point to some
g of Luther, or a fe
graint, however unre
May upon a word. S
which are as the d
self attached no litt

the Reader, prefixed to
ading thou wilt cast
any sweet and preci
is thou readest, an
(Our reprint,
It only remains that
of the Works of Brooks
unworthily he has
1) The Rev. Charle
ed two volumes (cr.
Christ (2) Remed

Letter to the Rev. Jose
7-420, 421. (Ed. 1852.)

and Correctors of Henry's Exposition.' We offer no tinkerings ' rectifications,' no 'corrections,' no 'improvements.' Even in brin the old arbitrary orthography into accord with modern usage, we duly noted all peculiar or transitive forms of words. So that Th Brooks is here given genuinely, as he himself published his writ His style as a whole, however, is accurate, and compact, and mo like, save in occasional quaintnesses and outspokenness.

(7.) The whole of the Bible-texts and references have been care verified. Only those who have consulted the original editions are to appreciate the toil involved in this: eighty per cent. at least bein accurate. The important classical and patristic citations and allu have similarly been verified and supplemented. This does not a to the well-nigh innumerable anonymous' anecdotes,' 'sayings,' ings; though, even of those, a large proportion will be found traced and confirmed in our footnotes. Trite classical and other

and names we have left as they occur.

(6.) In response to the appeal of the lamented Herbert Coleridg the Philological Society,' we have marked all Shakespearian and noticeable words and phrases. As in Sibbes, a Glossary will furn Reference-Index thereto.

(.) For all foot-notes bearing my own initial, G., I am respons the rest belong to Brooks himself; and I take this opportunity of c special attention to them. They consist, for the larger part, o margin-notes of the original and early editions, and will always perusal. Very often it will be found that, by his multifarious rea he gives point to some argument or appeal, or illustration, by a saying of Luther, or a felicitous bit from a Father, or some apt ane or quaint, however unreal, opinion of old science, or a flash of play upon a word. So that he will be a loser who passes by notes, which are as the dust-of-gold of a rich and brilliant mind. B himself attached no little importance to them. Thus, in his 'W the Reader,' prefixed to 'Precious Remedies,' he observes: If in reading thou wilt cast a serious eye upon the margin, thou wil many sweet and precious notes that will oftentimes give light t things thou readest, and pay thee for thy pains with much comfor profit.' (Our reprint, page 9.)

It only remains that I notice the one representative of an 'ed of the Works of Brooks, and shew, by a recent reprint of a single how unworthily he has hitherto been edited.

(1.) The Rev. Charles Bradley, M.A., of Glasbury, Brecon, in issued two volumes (cr. 8vo.) containing, (1.) 'The Unsearchable of Christ;' (2.) 'Remedies against Satan's Devices' [the golden

1 Letter to the Rev. Joseph Hughes, in Foster's 'Life and Correspondence,' pp. 420, 421. (Ed. 1852.)

ous' left out!]; (3.) 'A Treatise on Assurance' [i. e. Earth]; (4.) The Mute Christian under the Smarting Apples of Gold.'

ong been out of print, so that we do no prejudice to existwhen we characterise it as worthless, by its modernizations, of omission and commission, beyond reckoning. A commy single page with our text will reveal such tampering Brooks wrote as is most discreditable and vitiatory. It is we to observe the thin things that are deemed 'improveur robust, outspoken Puritan.

Cabinet of Jewels' was reprinted in a fair-looking volume, the imprint, Huntly: published by Duncan Matheson. e err not, this is the earnest Revivalist and Missionary of ebrity. All honour to him as such, and all honour to his -issuing the precious book. But it swarms, as does Bradnders and 'corrections' (!) e. g., the very Errata carefully he author-not to specify others-are left unchanged; and few specimens) we read 'fleshly joys' for Brooks's 'flashy 22, line 4); saintly John Murcot of Dublin is transmogrified Iarcol' (page 35, line 22); 'Assur's oppression' is spoken f 'Asa's' (page 53, line 37); Rachel is made to cry out, ater' for 'Give me children' (page 75, line 2); and so

remarks, with but slight modification, are applicable to the
s of the Religious Tract Society' and other Publishers,
'e' and 'polish' into conformity with ideas of elegance'
1 have roused the rebuke of the fearless old preachers, who
ey meant, and meant to the letter, what they said.
in the case of Sibbes, very gratefully to record the kind
pathetic interest in our work shewn by many correspond-
and voluntary. I must specially name my excellent friend
on, Esq. of Nevil Park, Tunbridge Wells; John Bruce,
the accomplished editor and biographer of the new Aldine
I many other historico-biographic works; the Rev. R. Brook
., London; the Rectors of St Thomas Apostles, and other
city churches; the Rectors and Curates of Newbury and
as in different Counties; the Rev. T. W. Davids, Colches-
>rities of the British Museum; Williams' Library; Guild-
; the Bodleian, Oxford; the University Library, and
ge Libraries, Cambridge; the Rev. J. E. B. Mayor, M.A.,
id the late Charles H. Cooper, Esq., Town Clerk, Cam-
her with very many to whom I am indebted for letters
(I fear) troublesomely minute inquiries. I owe thanks
; and Queries,' and other Literary Journals.