PREFACE. THE present collection comprises nearly the whole of the miscellaneous pieces of an historical nature, published by Dr M'Crie, at different periods of his life, in periodicals and pamphlets. These have been found sufficient to fill a volume of large size, without the addition of other papers, critical and theological, which the editor at one time contemplated publishing along with them. He may mention, particularly, the "Account of the Marrow Controversy," which appeared in four numbers of the Christian Instructor, with a continuation in manuscript, prepared for publication, and containing a minute investigation of the similar controversy in England, as managed by Hervey, Sandeman, and others. The extent which this Volume has unexpectedly reached, induces the editor to delay the publication of these, and other pieces of smaller size, until a future opportunity, when, perhaps, the state of religious controversy may call for them more urgently than at present. The earlier pieces in the Volume, which are selected from the Christian Magazine, a periodical to which Dr M'Crie contributed pretty largely, and of which he was at one time editor, appear necessarily under great disadvantage. Some of them, the editor is aware, might have been omitted, as at the best juvenile efforts, and never intended by the author |