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IF

PREFACE.

I defcribe the prefent volume as princi pally defigned to illuftrate and to enforce Christian Morality; the fame defign, I may hope, will have been rendered manifeft throughout the two volumes already before the public, by a continual application of doctrine to conduct, and by the difcuffion in feparate difcourfes of various individual duties, and of various individual fins. There are reafons, however, which have recommended the prosecution of that purpose in the present form.

Of late years it has been loudly afferted that, among clergymen who have fhewed themselves very earnest in doctrinal points, adequate regard has not been evinced to moral instruction. The charge has perhaps been urged with the greatest vehemence by perfons, who have employed little trouble in examining into its truth. In many cafes it has been groundlefs; in many, exaggerated, In fome inftances there has been reason, I fear

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I fear, for a degree of complaint; and in more, a colourable pretext for the imputation. I believe that some preachers, shocked on beholding examples, real or fuppofed, of congregations ftarving on mere morality subftituted for the bread of life; eager to lay broad and deep the foundations of the gofpel; and ultimately apprehenfive left their own hearers should suspect them of reverting towards legality; have not given to morals, as fruits of Faith, the station and the amplitude to which they have a fcriptural claim. Anxious left others fhould mistake, or left they fhould themselves be deemed to mistake, the branch for the root: not fatisfied with proclaiming to the branch, as they were bound habitually to proclaim, Thou beareft not the root, but the root thee: they have fhrunk from the needful office of tracing the ramifications. They have not left morality out of their difcourfes. But they have kept it too much in the background. They have noticed it shortly, generally, incidentally : in a manner which, while perhaps they were eminent as private patterns of moral duties, might not fufficiently guard an unwary hearer against a reduced estimate of practical holiness, nor exempt themselves fromthe suspicion of undervaluing moral obedience. We are conti

nually

nually flying each from the other into oppo. fite errors. It might be well for some of us to be more diftinctly aware that to preach Christian Morality, to preach it in detail, to take from time to time a specific moral duty for the avowed fubject of a fermon, to purfue the duty through its fubdivifions, to point out its bearings on the tranfactions of common life, (be it observed that I speak of morality rendered christian by being unequivocally built on faith in Chrift,) is not only not to be legal, but is to strengthen by practical application the impreffion of doctrinal truth, and to fupply to the humble follower of our Lord aid highly important both as to the perception and the discharge of his daily obligations. There are others among us to whom it might be profitable if they were led clearly to difcern, that to preach justification by faith, by faith only, without the deeds of the Law, (without the deeds either of the ceremonial or of the moral law contributing an atom towards the purchase of our justification, the free gift of God through the blood of His Son,) is not only to preach with the apostles and with the articles of our church, is not only not to make void the law, but is to establish the law (a),

(4) Rom. iii. 31.

The

The mode of preaching which, in uniting and incorporating doctrinal with practical inftruction, at one time difcourfes fpecifically on a doctrine, developes it, establishes it, applies it to the advancement of holiness: at another, leads found doctrine and correfponding practice hand in hand from the commencement to the clofe: at another, felects a chriftian or an unchristian difpofition, a moral or an immoral practice, as the prominent fubject, yet anxiously and manifeftly fixes on the Great Corner-stone every part of the fuperftructure: this I conceive to be the mode, by which a Chriftian minister may hope the most efficaciously to declare all the counfel of God (b).

(b) Acts, xx. 27..

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CON

THE

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.

Our Lord Jefus Chrift the Foundation of

Morality.

I COR. iii. II. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jefus Chrift.

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SERMON II.

On the Evils refulting from falfe Principles

ISAIAH, viii. 20.

of Morality.

To the law and to the tefli! If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

mony

20

SER

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