INTRODUCTION. IN introducing the following pages to the reader's notice, the author need not employ more than a single paragraph. If his obligations as "a preacher of righteousness " bind him to instruct those who attend on his ministrations, not less does it become him to respect those obligations when he ventures to address them through the medium of the press. He has, therefore, no apology either for the didactic form of the present volume, or for the want of novelty which the more curious reader may look for. It is not a passion for novelty that induced him to pen these chapters. The kingdom of God is not set up in the soul, it is not advanced in the world, save by the instrumentality of truth. If the author should be accused of having given some portions of what he has written too dogmatic a form, his apology must be that but one alternative was presented to him—that of greatly extending the work itself, or of suppressing those more extended proofs of which he has given a bare suggestion. Of these two evils, he has selected what seemed to him to be the least. The class of truths here presented, appear to his own mind to be those which are not sufficiently thought of, and to which greater prominence must be given, unless the rising generation grow up in ignorance of the great peculiarities of the Gospel, and a sickly, stinted piety take the place of that healthful tone of moral feeling, and that vigorous faith, which were the adornment of the Reformed Churches. Here and there, a paragraph and a chapter have been introduced that may, perhaps, be inviting to a class of readers who might otherwise be less interested in the truths which it is the author's desire to illustrate and enforce. But he is not aware that in thus indulging himself, he has made any sacrifice of the truth itself, or any effort to divert his readers without instructing them. The Cross of Christ is the hope of the world, not as a ritual emblem—not as a wonder-working enchantment—but only as it is expressive of the truth of God, and of a religion that is internal, spiritual, practical, intelligible, and personal. It is a condensed view of that truth at which the author has aimed; and though his range is somewhat discursive, his object is truth, and his desire to utter only "the mind of the Spirit." He commends his work to the blessing of God, and the ingenuousness of his readers. Brick Church Chapel, Nov., 1845. G. S. |