Preface to the Reader

Christian Reader,

Although the following sermons need no epistle to commend them to any intelligent reader; yet custom having made it necessary to say something, for the satisfaction of the world, concerning the posthumous works of deceased persons, I shall therefore speak a few words briefly.

The reverend prelate, the author of them, was a person of great natural parts, and excellent learning, as well as of great piety and charity: one that adorned the Church of England, whereof he was an eminent pillar, ruling well in the Church of God, and therefore deserved double honor, as the apostle speaks: and doubtless, his reward is now great in heaven, with his Lord and Master, whose service here on earth was accounted by him as his highest honor, and that which he professed himself most ambitious of.

He was a person of great modesty and humility; having very mean and low thoughts of himself, and his own abilities; which was the reason why the world had so little knowledge of him from the press, having published nothing but what he was constrained to, either by the restless importunity of friends, or the commands of those that some time were his superiors.

But the intent of this epistle being not to give the world an account of the life of this excellent person, whose praise is deservedly in the Church of God; I forbear to add anything further concerning him, hoping it will shortly be done by a more worthy pen.

And as for the following sermons, the excellent style in which they are written, and the exact accuracy with which they are penned, may give abundant satisfaction to all, in the reading of them, that they are His Lordship's own, and were fairly written with his own hand, and copied out from there, since his death, by one of his nearest relations, and so transmitted to the press.

The subject matter of them being agreeable to the divine inspirations of the Holy Scriptures, will speak better for themselves, than the words of any other can. And that they may be very useful and profitable to those that heard them, and to all that shall read them, is the hearty and sincere prayer of the publisher. Farewell.