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TO THE

PARISH OF NEWBURN IN FIFE,

TO THE

CONGREGATION

OF THE

NEW NORTH CHURCH OF GLASGOW,

AND TO THE

PARISH OF CRAMOND IN MID-LOTHIAN,

THIS

VOLUME OF SERMONS

IS, WITH THE GREATEST RESPECT,

INSCRIBED BY

ARCHIBALD BONAR.

PREFACE.

It was so far from the intention of the Author of the following Discourses, to submit them to the view of the Public, that in the earlier part of his ministry, and vigour of his life, he was afraid that such an intention, if indulged, might lead him to neglect what he owed to the spiritual circumstances of some part of his Congregation.

For some years past, however, it has pleased God to render him unfit for those private pasto ral duties which he found pleasant to himself, and, he trusts, not useless to his people. Under the increasing infirmities of age, and of bodily weakness, he will not deny that he felt much satisfaction in revising, and preparing for publication, some of those discourses which he had delivered to the different Parishes in which he had laboured, as a memorial of the truths which he had maintained, and which he had found fully sufficient to impart strong consolation to his own mind, under the severest trials of life.

delivered

The doctrines of Christianity are too often considered as more of a theoretical than a practical nature; and it is too frequently maintained, that Christians rely on the efficacy of their speculative belief, to the exclusion of the works of charity, and labour of love. Irreligious men, having denied the necessity of faith, and boasted' of a pretended love to virtue, attempt to shew, that Christians have made faith a substitute for morality. The attempt is as unjustifiable, as the reasoning in support of it is weak. Christianity is founded on faith, and its fruits must be good works. The Author flatters himself, that, however deficient the following discourses may be in other respects, they will be found uniformly and strenuously to recommend a life of virtue and godliness, as the necessary result of our reception of the pure doctrines of our holy religion.

To the young, it is hoped that these Sermons will not be unacceptable. To them, indeed, in

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