Growth in grace : and other sermons

Front matter

PRINCETON, N. J.

j Shelf

Growth in grace

Preface

In selecting the following sermons for publication I have confined myself to those which have been revised, to some extent at least, by the author. They do not contain, it is impossible that they should contain, the ipsissima verba of the preacher, for, as he himself has pointed out in the preface to " The Gospel and the Age " — " the preacher of what are called extempore sermons — that is to say, sermons not read from manuscript, but delivered from brief notes — cannot reproduce them in print unless they happen to have been taken down at the time by a reporter. Such reports can hardly ever be verbatim, and are for the most part more or less imperfect and inaccurate. The process of reviii PREFACE.

vising them and of supplying their omissions, with a view to publication, is not an easy one, even when attempted after the lapse of a few days — still less so after that of years ; and its results are seldom quite satisfactory either to the author or the reader. A sermon thus patched and mended has neither the freshness and point of the extempore nor the smoothness and sustained thought of the written composition. It is neither a religious speech, which the extempore sermon ought to be — nor a religious essay, which the written sermon ought to be ; and it runs the risk of uniting the defects of both styles

with the merits of neither "

This fact, which rendered it difficult for the preacher himself to give to the world the sermons as originally delivered, makes it impossible for an editor to do so. Nevertheless, though I feel that there is much in this volume that the author would have wished corrected, some passages even which may misrepresent what was actually said, still I have felt it due to his memory and to the public to utilise what material I possess, and to publish what must be imperfect, and may be inaccurate, rather than suppress what is valuable.

PREFACE. ix

Those who have heard the Archbishop preach will realise how far the written words fall short of the spoken ones, and how much is now lost by the fact that Dr. Magce's sermons were purely extempore.

C. S. M.

Contents

I. PAGE

Preached in the Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, on Wednesday, March 25th, 1863.