Printed for J. Walker and Co.; J. Richardson; F. C. and J. Rivington; Law and Whittaker; J. Nunn; Newman and Co.; Lackington and Co.; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orine, and Brown; Cadell and Davies, Black, Parbury, and Allen; Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy; Sherwood, Neely, and Jones; R. Scholey; J. Asperne; Gale and Fenner; J. Robinson; and B. Reynolds. 1816. PREFACE. AMONG the many authors who in the early part of the last century contributed by their writings to promote the interests of religion and morals, we know few that have attained a higher degree of posthumous fame than the gentlemen whose very popular productions are contained in the present volume; nor would it be easy to mention three works which have maintained their popularity, with so little interruption, amidst all the variations of moral and literary taste, and all the temptations of novelty and caprice. Of Mr. MASON, author of Self-Knowledge,' the public has lately been favoured with some memoirs by a learned and distinguished descendant, John Mason Good, esq., from which are learned, that our pious author, JOHN MASON, was the son of a dis. senting minister, pastor of a congregation at Dunmow in Essex, and was born in that place in 1706. He became himself a clergyman among the dissenters, and while he had a congregation at Dorking in Surrey, published some works which procured him a considerable degree of reputation, and the degree of M. A. from the university of Edinburgh. It was also while in this situation, that he published the work now before the reader, on which his fame principally rests, under the title of Self-Know |