PREFACE

TO THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

OF

BP. FLEETWOOD'S SERMONS AND TRACTS.

Published at London, 1737, in folio.

MANY gentlemen having expressed a desire to have all bishop Fleetwood's writings collected together in one volume, several of which would otherwise be in danger of being lost in a few years, most of them being very short discourses, and many without his name to them; the booksellers interested in the several copies resolved to gratify the curious in so reasonable a desire, being persuaded, that in doing so, they at the same time gratify the public, and do a service to their country; the writings of this worthy prelate being, many of them, upon subjects in which the public welfare is greatly concerned, and all of them in general extremely useful in the conduct of private life, and for the good of society; all written in a most beautiful style and most engaging manner, and in a way almost peculiar to their author, who was so excellent a person, and so eminent in all good qualities, that his name alone must make those who are as yet unacquainted with his writings conceive a high opinion of them; there being no one who has more steadily and uniformly shown himself through the whole course of his life, and in every station of it, as well as in his writings, in the true interest of his country, and as the only way to secure it, for the protestant succession, and the house of Hanover; a hearty friend himself to the whole constitution in church and state; and those who are so, he always thought the truest friends to the present happy settlement.

To preserve the writings of so fine a pen, and of a person of so excellent a character, is the design of this Collection; which coming to the knowledge of a gentleman who had the honour to be many years intimately acquainted with the bishop, and retains the greatest veneration for his memory, he thought it would not be unacceptable to his readers to have some short account of his life prefixed to his Works, and accordingly sent this following:

THE excellent prelate, whose writings are now first collected

together into one volume, was born in the Tower of London