Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

CHAPLAIN TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND,
AND TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

PUBLISHED BY DESIRE OF

THE HIGH SHERIFF.

Fear God-Honour the King.-ST. PETER.

Not only the power or right of government, but the form of the power of governing,
and the person having that power, are all the ordinances of God.

SIR ROB. FILMER-Obs. on Hobbs, Milton, &c.

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET, 21, BERNERS STREET:
HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; SEELEY AND SON, FLEET STREET:
R. M. TIMS, GRAFTON STREET, AND W. CURRY AND CO.
SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.

[blocks in formation]

The Profits arising from the Sale of these Sermons will be given to the Surrey Society
for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders.

PREFACE.

THESE Sermons were prepared in the midst of full parochial occupation, interrupted frequently by private and pressing engagements. No effort has been made in their composition to disarm the severity of criticism; the ruling motive of the writer having, as he trusts, been an honest fervent desire conscientiously to discharge his important trust as a preacher of righteousness; seeking not the approbation of men, but the salvation of sinners.

The subjects discussed are, of course, those which seemed to the Author most suitable, and calculated to be of the most real benefit. He is conscious that they are all (especially the third) very inadequately discussed. In the time usually conceded for the delivery of a Sermon, it is quite impracticable fully to investigate any point of divine truth. Enough, however, he hopes, had been said to show that the subject is well deserving of the most serious attention. He disclaims the slightest intention of any unscrip

tural personality, and pleads the example of the sacred writers, as well as of our reformers, for his unhesitating plainness of speech. He is aware of the arguments by which such plainness is deprecated, but cannot acknowledge their force; inasmuch as if they apply in one case, they apply in all, and would, therefore, virtually go to sanction, by silence, and consequently to perpetuate, any the most flagrant abuses. He is aware also of the misrepresentations to which he exposes himself by so speaking; but he is desirous in this matter wholly to lose sight of himself; and it has been his earnest prayer, that on the one hand the boldness which becomes an Ambassador for Christ, should in no case be tainted with the leaven of that natural frowardness which courts opposition for opposition's sake and on the other hand, that the respect and deference to his superiors in age and station, and the unaffected reluctance to utter even a deserved reproof, which become a young and obscure Christian, should in no case degenerate into that fear of offending man, which has rendered so many unfaithful to their own acknowledged impressions, as derived from

« PoprzedniaDalej »