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Man Responsible for his Belief;

TWO SERMONS,

OCCASIONED BY A PASSAGE

IN THE

INAUGURAL DISCOURSE

OF

HENRY BROUGHAM, Esq., M. P.

ON HIS INSTALLATION AS LORD RECTOR OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, APRIL 6, 1825.

BY RALPH WARDLAW, D. D.

GLASGOW:

Printed at the University Press,

FOR WARDLAW & CUNNINGHAME;

SOLD ALSO BY WAUGH & INNES, AND JOHN WARDLAW, & CO.
EDINBURGH; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, & GREEN,
AND HAMILTON & ADAM, LONDON.

1825.

BODLEIAN

16 OCT 1971

LIBRARY

GLASGOW :

ANDREW & JOHN M. DUNCAN,
Printers to the University.

TO THE

REV. STEVENSON MACGILL, D.D.

Regius Professor of Theology in the University of Glasgow.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

The determination to commit these Discourses to the press was followed, almost instantly, with the thought and the resolution of inscribing them to you. The circumstances which led to their delivery gave them a kind of relation to my Alma Mater, whilst their subject naturally associated them with the Chair which you so honourably and so usefully fill :—and the appropri ateness which these considerations imparted to my purpose was gratifying to the feelings of personal friendship, because of the opportunity which was thus afforded me of giving public expression to that cordial esteem which I have long privately cherished.

Were I addressing myself to another, I could expatiate with pleasure on those features of character, in the observation of which that esteem originated, and of which the increasing developement has given it a progressive intenseness. But I am sensible there would be an equal violation of good taste and of correct feeling, were I to obtrude these upon the notice of your own mind, and court modesty to self-admiration.

That by the grace of God (which we ought to honour in honouring its effects) you may maintain unblemished the character which it has enabled you to acquire; and that your life may be long spared, and your labours abundantly blessed, in cultivating the minds and hearts of candidates for the most important and sacred of all functions, is the sincere and fervent prayer of,

Rev. and Dear Sir,

Yours, with affectionate regard,

GLASGOW, Sept. 19, 1825.

RALPH WARDLAW,

PREFACE.

THE following Sermons (to use the good oldfashioned title of pulpit addresses) were delivered on the first Lord's Day evenings of the two months immediately following the publication of Mr. Brougham's Inaugural Discourse; these monthly occasions having been preferred, as affording, for a subject to which this circumstance had drawn the public attention, a more numerous and more promiscuous auditory than the ordinary meetings of every Sabbath.

In prefaces to such Discourses, it is common for authors to assure their readers, that they were delivered without any view to their subsequent publication and for this assurance, they sometimes obtain less credit than it is entitled to, and possibly sometimes more. In the present instance, were an affidavit to this effect worth making at all, it might be made in bona fide_sin

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