truth and reason, and driving plain common sense to despair and distraction. The author was induced to examine, with great caution, an article of faith, which he had received as a leading tenet of the christian system, but which his conscience and maturer judgment, strengthened by the light of Scripture, told him was only a shadow, having nothing to do with the realities constituting the religion of Jesus. The fruit of his inquiry, and the sources of his conviction, are presented in this tract.

A society of dissenters in Southwark invited the author to become their pastor in the year 1729. He accepted the invitation, and discharged the duties of a clergyman in that place eleven years. In 1740 he was settled at Crouched Friars as a colleague with Dr Lardner. To the pastoral charge of this society Dr Benson was devoted till, near the close of his life, his growing infirmities compelled him to resign. He lived in great harmony with Dr Lardner, and although in several particulars their opinions were not the same, yet they often discussed these topics in a friendly manner, and with an attachment increased in proportion as they were convinced, by their constant intercourse, of each other's sincerity and singleness of character. They were associated eleven years, and when Dr Lardner resigned his place in 1751, Dr Benson wrote to him as follows. "I was so much affected on Monday evening upon reading your letter, that I had very little sleep that night; and my mind still remains greatly

affected with the thoughts of parting with you; for though I cannot but own I feel the weight of your reasons, yet I must frankly tell you, that I do not expect ever to have an assistant, in whom I can place so thorough a confidence, and for whom I can entertain so warm an affection, and so high an esteem. I thank you heartily for all your friendly, kind, and obliging treatment of me, especially since I came to Crouched Friars, and I earnestly desire that our friendship may never be interrupted."* Dr Lardner was now seventy five years old, and was obliged to desist from preaching by reason of his deafness, and the effects of advancing age.

Dr Benson applied himself with particular earnestness to a critical study of the Scriptures. He was captivated with Locke's mode of interpreting and illustrating the Epistles of Paul, and formed a design of completing the work so successfully begun by this great writer. In the prosecution of this plan he published, in the year 1731, a Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle to Philemon. This specimen met with signal favour from the public, and he was encouraged to proceed in the same manner through the other Epistles. They were all finished, and published at different times. They are now usually found together in two quarto volumes. His paraphrase is exactly on the plan of Locke's, but the notes are more elaborate,

* Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Rev. Nathaniel Lardner, D. D. London. 1769. p. 107.

and comprise a much greater mass of critical learning. Several Dissertations are interspersed here and there on some of the more difficult passages of Scripture. These are distinguished for the rational views of theology contained in them, and for the profound critical knowledge of the author. The dissertation attached to the Epistle to Philemon attempts to prove, from the spirit and views of the Apostle Paul as displayed in his writings, that he was neither an impostor nor enthusiast, and therefore that what he wrote must be true, and the christian religion a divine revelation. This was the groundwork of the famous argument, which Lord Littleton has since illustrated with so much beauty and force.

In 1735 the author published his History of the First Planting of the Christian Religion; a work of much research, containing instruction in regard to the origin of the Epistles, and numerous collateral and corresponding proofs of their authenticity, and the sacred character of their authors.

Benson's Paraphrase and Notes to the Epistle of James was translated into Latin by John David Michaelis in 1746, and to this translation a recommendatory preface was prefixed by the German professor Baumgarten. The author's dissertation on the authenticity of the text of the three heavenly witnesses was translated into Latin by Andrew G. Mash, who added copious notes. In these he attempted to support the authenticity of the text against the arguments

of Benson, which circumstance gives additional value to the following commendation. Auctor ejus dissertationis magnus est ille Anglorum theologus, verbique divini apud Londinenses minister, meritissimus Georgius Bensonius.

Dr Benson published other works in theology, particularly a treatise on the Reasonableness of Christianity, and a volume of Sermons. He left in manuscript a Life of Christ, which was published as a posthumous work by Dr Amory, who prefixed to the volume a short biographical memoir of the author. He enjoyed the friendship of several men of eminence, both among the dissenters and in the established church, with whom he was in the habit of familiar correspondence. His close application to study, and his sedentary mode of life, impaired his health, and he complains in the prefaces to some of his works, that his health and spirits were not adequate to his laborious undertakings. He died on the sixth of April, 1762, in the sixty third year of his age.