Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BX5200 .B352 1835 v2

1 RIGHT HONORABLE SERJEANT GLYN, NOW JUDGE OF ASSIZE IN THIS CIRCUIT. Mx LORD, COULD my excuse have satisfied you, this sermon had been confined to the auditory it was prepared for I cannot expect that it should find that candor and favor with every reader, as it did, with, the hearers. When it must speak to all, the guilty will hear, and then it will gall. Innoçency is patient in hearingá re- proof, and charitable in the interpretation i but guilt will smart and quarrel, and usually make a fault in him that findeth one in them. Yet I confess this is but a poor justification of his silence that hath a call to speak. Both my calling and this sermon would condemn me, if, on such grounds, I should draw back ; but my backwardness was causedby the reason which I then tendered your lordship as my excuse, viz. becausehere is nothing but what is common, and that it is in as common and homely a dress. And I hope we need not fear that our labors are dead, unless the press shall give themlife. We bring not sermons to church, as we do a corpse for a. burial. Ifthere be life in them, and life in the hearers, the connaturalitywill cause such an amicable closure, that through the reception, retention and operation of the soul, they will be the immortal seed of a life everlasting. But yet, seeing the press hath a louder voice than mine, and the matter in hand is of such ex- ceeding necessity, I shall not refuse, upon such an invitation, to be a remembrancer to the world of a doctrine and duty of such high concernment, though they have heard it ever so oft before. Seeing, therefore, I must present that now to your eyes, which I .lately presented to your ears,, I shall take the boldness to add one wordof application in this epistle, which I thought not seasonable to mention in the first delivery, and that shall be to your lordship, and all others in your present case, that are elected 'members of this expected Parliament. Be sure to remember the interest of your Sovereign, the great Lord-protector of heaven and earth. And as ever you will make him a comfortable account of your

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