ADVERTISEMENT. THE publishing of this work was purposed as long ago as 1797; but various afflictive events of a domestic nature retarded it to the present time. Whether it has obtained the advantage prescribed by the Roman poet *, I shall not presume to determine; it certainly has long exceeded the period of that test, and it must be left to the candid judgment of the public, to decide on its intrinsic merit and utility. I trust, however, that the motive of the undertaking will make amends for any deficiency in the execution of it; especially as it originally received the sanction of my diocesan, Beilby, Lord Bishop of London, at whose decease it was on the point of appearing. It may be necessary to observe, that the three Sermons at the end of this publication Nonumque prematur in annum.-HOR. (originally delivered as introductory to the Lectures), were not at FIRST intended to be affixed to this work; but having, of late, been persuaded by the favourers of it, to make this addition, they are now inserted by way of Appendix. DEDICATION. TO THE LORD BISHOP OF ELY. MY LORD, THE impediments to the more early publication of these Lectures having been mentioned in the Advertisement to the Reader, I avail myself with pleasure of your permission (when an opportunity should offer of presenting them to the public) to inscribe them to Your Lordship. Efforts of this description require the countenance of rank to recommend them; and as the original patron of the work was removed from the exercise of his important charge near the period of its intended appearance, I naturally felt anxious for the patronage of another Prelate (to whom I was known), who would kindly accept the adoption of a publication that had cost me much time and study, to render it serviceable to the community. Your Lordship's opportune promotion to an exalted station seemed favourable to my wishes; your obliging readiness to gratify them, exacts a becoming sense of the indulgence; and I should consider myself derogating from the laws of good manners, to decline the favour, even at this distance of time since it was granted. I will not offend Your Lordship with the too common style of dedicatory addresses, which I know would be as repugnant to your desire, as to my own practice; but it cannot be objectionable to express the satisfaction I experience, that, in having Your Lordship's name prefixed to these pages, a pleasing recollection is afforded me of the friendly intercourse that subsisted between us during our clerical connexion; and I feel it a matter of additional gratification, that, under the auspices of so strenuous a defender of our Church establishment, in a discourse grounded on the pure principles of a Protestant Hierarchy, and tempered throughout with the mild spirit of the Christian religion, those primitia (if I may so speak) of prelatical exertion, cannot fail to assist the extension of a work most zealously composed for the promotion of the same holy cause: as from the whole tenor of the publication to which I allude*, Your Lordship appears aware of the inveterate hostility, both openly and secretly at work, to undermine and overthrow our unparalleled constitution, so imminently endangered by Popish machinations, In these Lectures Your Lordship will readily discover the rich mines whence I have drawn materials for my work. It would have been equally vain, as fruitless, to have engaged in such a task, merely on my own slender stock: the eminently pious and learned fathers of our Church have left such abundant store of choice information in their profound researches concerning the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, that inclination, assiduity, and a careful application of their well-reasoned prin * The Concio apud Synodum Cantuariensem, preached at St. Paul's, in July 1807, by His Lordship when Dean of Bristol. |