Scotland, Ireland, and America; the third to comprehend the histories of the Waldenses and the Protestant churches of Switzerland, France, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Hungary." Of these he completed the two former, his General History having been published in 1771, and his History of the British Churches in the beginning of 1784. These form very useful popular compends, though destitute of high historical authority. The history of the British Churches, as a work of original research, is much superior to the more general compilation, which is little more than an abridgment of Mosheim, written in a more fervid spirit than the latter is accustomed to display. Mr Brown's next publication appeared in 1775, and was an edition of the metrical "Psalms, with notes exhibiting the connection, explaining the sense, and for directing, and animating the devotion." In 1778 he gave to the world the great work on which his reputation is chiefly founded, "The Self-Interpreting Bible," the object of which is to condense, within a manageable compass, all the information which an ordinary reader may find necessary for attaining an intelligent and practical knowledge of the sacred oracles. The first publication of this work was attended with considerable difficulties, in consequence of the claim of the king's printers to the exclusive right of printing the authorized version of the Scriptures, whether accompanied or not with illustrative matter. This claim, however, having been set aside, the work was at length given to the world in 1778, and received with a high and gradually increasing and still unexhausted approbation. The same year he published a small tract entitled the Oracles of Christ Abominations of Antichrist," and four years after, his "Letters on Toleration:" strenuously maintaining the unlawfulness of tolerating by authority a false religion in a professedly Christian country. These publications originated in the universal sentiment of alarm entertained by the evangelical presbyterians of Scotland, both within and without the establishment, in consequence of the proposed abolition of the penal code against the Roman Catholics.
In 1781, besides his works on the types and prophecies formerly referred to, he published a sermon on the "Duty of Raising up Spiritual Children unto Christ," preached partly at Whitburn, and partly after his son Ebenezer's ordination at Inverkeithing. He likewise, in the course of the same year, wrote a pamphlet in defence of the re-exhibition of the testimony, and a collection of the biographies of eminent divines, under the name of the "Christian Student and Pastor." This was the first of a series of similar compilations intended as illustrations and examples of practical religion, and was followed in 1781 by the "Young Christian," and in 1783 by the "Lives of thirteen Eminent Private Christians." In 1783, he published a small "Concordance to the Bible." The year following, he received an invitation from the reformed Dutch church in America, to become their Professor of Divinity, which he declined, and modestly kept secret. And, in 1785, he concluded his career as an author, by a pamphlet against the travelling of the Mail on the Lord's-day a day for the observance of which, in the strictest degree of sanctity, he always showed himself peculiarly jealous, not only abstaining himself, but prohibiting his family, from speaking on that day on any worldly affair, even on such as related to what may be called the secularities of religion and the church. The tracts published by him in periodical works, along with his "Letters on Gospel Preaching and the Behaviour of Ministers," were collected after his death, and published under the title of "Remains."
Throughout his writings, Mr Brown's uniform aim was general utility; personal emolument formed no part of his object, and certainly very little of his attainment, as the whole profit accruing to himself from his voluminous, and in many cases, successful works, amounted to only 40. Without possessing much
