SERMONS ON THE SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES
OF OUR PROTESTANT CHURCH.—PRICE 2_s._
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Richmond:
PRINTED BY W. OFFORD,
BREWER’S LANE.
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TO THE
PARISHIONERS
OF
RICHMOND, SURREY.
THE following Lectures on the World, the Visible Church, and the People
of God, contain the substance of three Sermons preached in the Advent
season of last year. They were written, and even committed to the press
with the full expectation that our happy connexion would long remain
unbroken. But it has pleased God to open before me another sphere of
labour, which I have thought it right to undertake; and you must now
receive this little volume as a parting memorial from one who can never
cease to take the deepest interest in your welfare.
I should have preferred leaving with you something more characteristic of
the general tenour of my ministry; something containing fuller statements
upon the grand saving doctrines of the Gospel, such as the completeness
of the atonement, the present, free, and perfect justification of every
poor sinner that believes in Jesus; and the new birth as wrought by the
Holy Ghost in the soul, and invariably accompanied by the fruits of the
Spirit in the life. These are the truths which I hope have filled my
sermons, and which I pray God may be written indelibly by the Holy Ghost
upon your hearts.
But I trust the subject of this little volume may not be altogether
ill-suited to our present circumstances, inasmuch as by directing us to
the church’s dangers, it may lead us to pray for the church’s safety. If
the view taken of St. Paul’s prophecy be correct, we live in times of
peculiar peril, and must be prepared for a further increase of seduction
and apostacy within the visible church. How earnest then should be the
prayers of God’s people, in behalf of God’s ambassadors! He alone can
make us able ministers of the New Testament; He alone can preserve us as
faithful witnesses for Christ. I know well, brethren, that you have
prayed habitually for me, and for that assurance I most heartily thank
both God and you. And now I leave it with you as my earnest and solemn
charge, that you will not relax those prayers, but increase and multiply
them in behalf of him who is about to fill my place. Let his hands be
strengthened by the believing intercessions of a faithful flock; let him
go into your pulpit borne up by prayer. And may the God of all grace
shower down both on you and him every rich blessing of his Spirit! May
we hear the glad tidings of your undivided fellowship in the Gospel! And
may an abundant answer be given to my unworthy though unceasing
supplication, “that your hearts may be comforted, being knit together in
love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the
acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ!”