17 / 674
PREFACE.
+l'
the publication of
these discourses shall be
so
happy,
us
through the
influ-
ence of
the Blessed
Spirit
to
attain
these ends,
1
have obtained my best aim
and
hope,
and
will
ascribe
the
glory to
God
my Saviour;
The
first
sermons
which
I
published
*
were
taken
up chiefly
in
the
more
spiritual parts of our religion, and such
as'
relate
more
immediately to the
secret
transactions of
the
soul
with
God, and
with
his
son
Jesus
Christ. In
several following discourses, I
have
attempted
to
explain
many duties of the
Christian life
w`.ach
refer
to
our fellow-
creatures.
I
hope
no
man
who
loves
the
gospel
of Christ,
will
knit
his
brow,
and throw disgrace
upon
the
book,
with
a
contempt of dull morality
:
If
such
a person
would give himself
leave to peruse these sermoils,
perhaps
he would
meet
with
so
much
of
Christ
and the
gospel
in
them,.
that
he
might
learn
to love his
Saviour
better than
ever he
did, and
find
how necessary moral
duties.are
to
make
his own
religion
either
safe or
honourable
:
While
"
we
are saved
by
faith"
in
the
blood
and righteousness
of the
Son
of God,
we
must remem-
ber
also, that it
is
such
a
"
faith
as
worketh
by
love,"
for
"
faith without
works-is
(lead," and
useless
to.all.purposes of
hope
and salvation.
My
design
iii
these sermons
is
to
represent
vice and virtue
in
their
proper
colours.
1
fòresee
that
many readers
will
quickly spy
out their
neigh-
bours' names amongst the
.vicious
or
unlovely
characters; but it.would
turn perhaps
to
their
better account,..if
they
can
find
their
own:
for
there
is
many
a
-description
here
that
a
hundred
persons
may lay
a
righteous
claim
to.
It
was
my
business to set a
faithful
glass before
the face of
con-
science, by
which
we
may examine
ourselves,
and
learn
"
what manlier
of
persons
we
are
and
I
pray
God
to
keep
it
daily
before
my
own eves.
I
acknowledge my
clefects,
and stand corrected
in
many
of
my
own ser-
mons. Blessed be
God
for
a
Mediator
who
is
exalted
to
give
repentance
and
forgiveness
of sins!"
Yet
it
may not be an
improper
or unsuccessful method
of
reproof,
t
fold down a useful
leaf
now
and then
for
a friend, and give him notice
in
sucli
an inoffensive
manner of any
blemishes
that may
belong to his cha-
racter. Thus the
silent
page shall
bestow upon
him
the richest
benefit
of
friendship;
it
may
whisper in
his
ear
a
secret word of admonition;
and
convey
it to his
conscience without
offence. Such
a gentle monitor
may'.
awaken
him
to
inward shame
and penitence; may
rouse his
virtue
to
shine'
baighter than ever,
and scatter the clouds
that
hung dark upon the
evi-
dence of
his graces.
.
Since
I
first
published
these
discourses
j-,
the
world
has
been
furnished.'
with
a
more
complete
account
of most of these subjects, in
that
excellent'
treatise called the
"
Christian
Temper,"
which my worthy friend
Doctor
Evans bath sent abroad,
and which
is,
perhaps, the
most
complete
suin-
nary
of those
duties
which make up
the christian
life,
that
bath
been
published
in
our age.
The
next three sermons are employed
on
that
'divine subject, which
I
am
ready
to call,
the chief
.wQnder'
amid
glory of the
christian
religion, that
is,
"
the great atonement
for sin
made by the
death
of Christ, and the
prac-
tical
uses
derived thence
i."
This
is
the
blessed foundation
of
our hope,
which
I
have
endeavoured
to set
in
a
clear light,
and
to
support by
reason-
ing drawn from
the
types
and predictions
of the Old
Testament, and
the
clearer language
of
the New. This
is
that
grace and that
righteousness
which
was
witnessed
by
the
law
and
the prophets,
as
St.
Paul
expresses it,
Rum. iii. 24.
This
is
that
important
work
of the
blessed Saviour, who
*21st
February,
1720-21.
1.
25th
;,larch,
1723.
$They
were
ßrstpublished
25th March, 1727.