оса PREFACE. THE first and second editions of these sermons were published while the author was the Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Philadelphia. Among that united and affectionate congregation, it was his privilege to labour in his Master's service, for nearly twelve years. Happier years, no one in the Christian ministry, he thinks, has ever passed. All, that filial affection, and unqualified respect could do to promote a pastor's welfare and joy, he receiv ed uninterruptedly from them. He can never cease to look back upon these years, and this beloved flock, with the most grateful and affectionate interest. His daily prayers will ascend to God, for the peace and happiness of a Church, to which have been freely consecrated the most active and animated years of his maturity. May his successors in the ministry there, ever be favoured with the kindness, attention, and prosperity in their work, which so remarkably followed him, and be allowed to gather many precious souls into the kingdom of Christ, which shall be their crown for ever. By the wise providence of God, the author has been now placed in a new and most important sphere of duty in this great metropolis. The sudden departure from the earth, of one of the most venerated and beloved servants of God in the United States, made an unexpected opening in the Church, which he has been called to fill. The character of his eminent predecessor, the late Rector of St. George's Church, shines before him, in all the beauty of unusual personal holiness, and of great pastoral fidelity in ministering the truth of God. A long and intimate acquaintance with him, while it has indelibly impressed upon his memory, his great and peculiar excellences, has also made him aware of the high standard which he must be expected to imitate, and painfully conscious of his own inability to meet expectations which are formed from the experience of such a ministry. In the strength of God he has humbly entered upon the work, determined to make known nothing, but Jesus Christ and him crucified, among those committed to his charge. The many years' experience of his past ministry, and the whole extent of his reading and meditation, have only served to deepen his convictions of the value and importance of the truths which he has been accustomed to teach, and which he believes without doubt, God hath taught him. He has no change to make in doctrine, or in methods of teaching, in the years of his ministry to come. Whether they be few or many, by the help of God they will be devoted, as the past have been, to the one great end of preaching the Gospel of the Son of God, and spreading just and correct views of this Gospel, in the Church in which he is a minister. To the members of the old and influential Church, over which he is personally placed as a pastor, he would present the volume, which now comes out in a third edition, as a witness of the ministry which he desires to exercise among them. To these sermons, and to his other volume of Lectures on the Law and the Gospel, the third edition of which, also, the same publisher has for sale, he would refer, as the exhibition of the views of that great and glorious salvation which the Gospel offers to perishing man, as finished and laid up in Christ alone, which he has learned from the word of God, and which are the joy and comfort of his own heart. In the preaching of such truths, he cannot doubt that God will give the blessing upon his ministry, which he earnestly seeks from him, in the conversion of many souls by the Holy Spirit; and to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, God over all blessed for ever, he would ascribe all the praise. ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, New-York, September 1, 1845. |