TO THE SUBSCRIBERS FOR THE REBUILDING OF HANWELL CHURCH, THIS VOLUME OF SERMONS, (PREACHED AND PUBLISHED IN AID OF THE FUNDS,) IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY THEIR DEVOTED SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. THIS small volume of Sermons owes its existence to a desire on the part of its author to gratify the wishes of his friends, and, by their assistance in its distribution, to promote the object for which they were preached. The language was intended to be plain, and the arguments concise and scriptural. The motives, duty, interest, and pleasure, are those which, in one form or other, operate most powerfully on the heart; and had they full influence in this cause, means would be found for Church Building, far more abundant than the most sanguine now contemplate, even without appealing to the legislature for assistance, or appropriating the funds belonging to the Church from their original purpose. In the first Sermon it was designed to show that by complying with scriptural precept, and conforming to scriptural example, the means might be easily found for the proposed enlargement of the Church. In the second it was urged that as Christians, and more particularly as members of a Church professing to be in a peculiar manner the Church of the Poor, it was a duty to provide accommodation for the poor to have the Gospel preached to them. In the third, Scripture and reason were adduced to prove that we could not more effectually "honour the Lord," than by erecting a temple to his glory, and that whatever was devoted to his service would assuredly prove a blessing to him who devoted it. And, In the fourth, it was argued that our real pleasure and solid satisfaction, no less than our duty and interest, called upon us for exertion. The last was preached on the Sunday |