Sermons on various points of Christian practice and experience

Front matter

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Dedication

After the statement of this fact, your Lordship cannot wonder that I should wish to dedicate my work to the Marquis of Bath^ and thus borrow some hoiior fix>ni tUe fulness of hi^ signal good fame.

That the blessings of both worlds may belong to your Lordship in unmeasured store, is the fervent prayer of,

My Lord,

Preface

It requires no little courage to lay before the Public a volume of Sermons at this time, when many, eminent for both piety and learning, have already written so much and so well : but the feeling of Elihu, '^ I also will shew my opinion/' has not been confiaed to him ; and the Author of the present Discourses is desirous of adding his testimony also to the truths of Grod, and fo bear record in his own manner to the things of our salvation.

Were tber^ not evidently a great willingness in the religious world at the present period to read such productions, greater distrust perhaps might have been felt; but one of the best signs of the times is, the desire which the people at large manifest to hear and see the truths of the Gospel of Christ Jesus fully, clearly, and boldly maintained. On these points, the writer of these pages has not shunned to declare what he believes to be the counsel of God; he knows that the subjects on which he treats are of the utmost importance, and he thinks that the views are sometimes usefully new, and the manner of their statement not entirely common.

PREFACE.

The Author does not pleads as many feel it expedient to do, that the solicitations of friends have hurried into print what his own wish and judgment might have prompted him to keep back : he has too much respect for public opinion to rush heedlessly before it, and too much regard for his own character to expose himself by a hurried and crude production to well-merited censure. Whatsoever may be the defects of these Discourses, they cannot be attributed to want of either care or thought, and he has endeavoured to speak with fervor what he deeply felt.

The usual method of division and subdivision, the former into three, and the latter into confusingly numerous branches, has not been followed; for it was supposed that every text of Scripture did not necessarily divide itself into three portions, and three only ; and that, a regularity of plan and a consecutive course of reasoning might be clearly maintained and pursued, though the reader or the hearer was not reminded of the commencement of another portion of argument by the increased amount of the figure or number printed or spoken. A French writer, of no ordinary judgment, (Bruyfere,) exposes at some length these "Enum6rateurs :" lis ont toujours, d'une n6cessit6 indispensable et g6om6- trique, trois sujets admirables de vos attentions ; ils prouveront une telle chose dans la premiere partie de leur discours, cette autre dans la seconde partie, et cette autre dans la troisi6me: ainsi vous serez convaincus d'abord d'une certaine v6rit6, et c'est leur premier point; d'une autre v6rit6, et c'est

FRBFACE.

leur second point ; and puis d'une autre v6rit6^ et c'est leur troisi^me point. — II semble, k les voir s'opini&trer k cet usage, que la gr&ce de la conversion soit attach6e k ces 6normes partitions.

It has been said frequently, and argued for both long and bitterly, that Calvinism is to be found in the Scriptures: the Author of this Volume has looked carefully into the Originals for it, and could not find it there, consequently it never entered into his creed, and never formed a portion of his teaching : he has always preached — ^the unmerited mercy of God in Christ Jesus, free for and attainable by every soul of man — a faith that worketh by love — the heart to be changed by the influence of God's grac^, and supported in holiness by his Spirit : — these, and other truths connected with them, are prominent subjects in these Discourses; to which even the Author wishes no farther success than as they tend to the glory of God, and the good of man.

Frome, April 25, 1833.