ColUiis, Anthony, an English Deist, was bom at Heston, near Hounslow, in 1676, and was educated at Eton and King's CoUogo, .Cambridge. Being a man of property, he spent his life chiefly in literary pur- suits. He died in 1729. His infidel principles brought him into collision with Bentley, Chandler, and many others. His chief works are : Discourte on the Oround» and Reasons of the Christian Religion (Lond. 1737, 8vo) ; ^Priestcraft m Perfection (London, 1710, 8vo) i^Dis- course on Free4hinking (171B) :— Essay on the Thirty- nine Articles J in reply to Bennet (Lond. 1724, 8vo), be- sides various pamphlets. In 1715 he published his Philosophical Inquiry concerning Liberty and Necessity , which was reprinted in 1717 in 8vo, with corrections, and was translated into French by Des Maizeaux (1720). Dr. Samuel Clarke replied to the necessarian doctrine of Collins chiefly by insisting on ito inexpe- diency, considered as destructive of moral responsibQ- ity. Bentley' s Remarks upon a late Discourse of Free- thinking (given in Randolph's Enchiridion Theologicumy yoL v) is a sharp and sarcastic, but fully adequate re- ply to the skeptical arguments of Collins. See Le- land, Deistical Writers^ di. vi ; Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought,
CoUlns, John, a Methodist Episcopal minister, was bom in New Jersey in 1769. In 1803 he removed to Ohio, and entered the itinerant ministry in 1807. He was one of the pioneers of Methodism in the West. In 1804, while yet a local preacher, he preached the first Methodist sermon in Cincinnati to a dozen per- sons, in an upper room. With a brief interval, he la- bored as an itinerant until 1836, when he became su- perannuated. He died 1845. , He was an able and faithful preacher, often impressively eloquent, and em- inently successful as an evangelist. Revivals of re- ligion followed his footsteps everywhere. An instruc- tive sketeh of his life, from the pen of Justice McLean, was published in 1850 (Cincinnati, 18mo). — Minutes of Conferences, iii, 650 ; Meth. Quart, Review, 1850, p. 324.
Collins, John A., a distinguished Methodist Epis- copal minister, was bom near Seaford, Del., 1801. His parents removed to Ohio in 1805, and to Georgetown, D. C, in 1812, and his academical education was ob- tained at the latter place. Giving early promise of talent, he was placed as a law student in the office of William Wirt ; but the plan of his life was changed by his conversion at a camp-meeting in Loudoun Co.,ya., in 1820. He joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1826 was licensed as a local preacher. In 1830 he entered the itinerant ministry in the Baltimore Confer- ence, and his great talent as a preacher soon gained him a commanding reputation. He filled all the prom- inent appointments in his Conference as pastor, and served several terms as presiding elder. In 1836 he was elected assistent editor of the Christian Advocate at New York. This office he soon resigned, partly on account of the effect of the climate upon the health of his family, but mainly because he believed he could better serve the Church in the more regular duties of the ministry. Few men in any period of the history
He Methodist Episcopal Church have more success-
fully preached her doctrines, or more tidthfUlj ^ fended her discipline. He was elected to the Goefs} Conference as soon as he was eligible, and to ercrj subsequent one down to the last, when he led the del- egation. He had pre-eminent pulpit power. Hb sermons were marked with great clearness of thoagbt apt and scriptural illustrations, and were delhreK^ with elegance of speech, and often with an eloqnoee, earnestness, and power that were overwheliiUBg. As a debater on ttie floor of the General or Anrmal Ccb- ference he had few equals, certainly no superior. He died of pneumonia, after a short illness. May 7, 1^7. —Minutes of Conferences, 1858, p. 16.
CoIlinB, Jndson D'wight, superintendent of tk Methodist Episcopal missions in China, was bom a Wayne County, N. Y., Feb. 12, 1822. He removed with his parente to Michigan in 1831, was oonverted in 1838, graduated in Michigan University 1845, eo- tered the itinerant ministry in the Michigan Confez- ence, and was appointed tesicher in the Wealeyan Seoi- inary at AlMon in the ^ame year. He was sent as missionary to China and superintendent in 1847, re- turned with impaired health in 1861, and died MajU 1852, in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Hismfatdwv clear and vigorous, more solid than brilliant, and man logical than eloquent. ** Tears before the Chordi es> tablished the China mission, and while proaecoting kb collegiate studies, he pursued a course of rea^ng oa China, preparatoiy to a whole life of missionary labor ^ among its benighted millions, and his mind had no nit until it was aetaally surrounded by their darkness and misery. No temporary impulse led him thither, bc transient fervent feelings urged him to a Hfe of toil ii that distant land ; but a permanent conviction of dotr possessed his mind, one great idea of snpreme eenkt to Christ controlled his whole existence, and carried all his thoughte, all his affections, all his impulses, to tkat extensive territory of heathenism, and his martyr-Uke attachmento to his work were only loosened by death." —Minutes of Coitferenoes, 1852, p. 118 ; Spragne, ^Is- nals, vii, 831.
CollinB, 'Wellington H., a Methodist E^Mseopal minister, was bom May, 1816, in Wolcott, Wajae County, N.T. ; removed with his parents to MJcJijgai in 1880, was converted in 1835, b^an preaching is 1837 under the presiding elder, and entered the Mldu- gan Conference in 1888. The Conference then in- cluded all of Michigan and North-western Ohio. 1^ ter twenty years' service as a stationed minister aad seven years as presiding elder, he diM at DMnnt, Aug. 11, 1858. He was delegate to the General Confsrenee at Boston 1852, and also to that at Indianapolis in 18^ Mr. Collins was a man of great force of character. He was a masterly preacher, and was remarkably able in debate ; but perham his highest excellence was in kit safe judgment as a counsellor, by which he was alwaj* influential among his brethren. — Minutes of Confer- ences, 1858, p. 834 ; Ladies' Repoeitory, xix, 449.