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PREFACE.

THE circumstances which occasioned the publication of the following Lectures will be found detailed in the statement prefixed to the list of subscribers. Those who have kindly befriended the undertaking will be gratified by learning that it has succeeded. The Author not only expects, with tolerable certainty, to find himself reimbursed, by the sale of this little volume, for the advance which he had ventured to make toward discharging

the outstanding expenses of the erection of a free church in his parish, but also entertains a hope, that the disposal of the remaining copies may enable him to increase his subscription toward the erection of the new Church school-rooms which he had in contemplation. The foundations of the building intended for that purpose are already laid, under much encouragement vouchsafed by a gracious Providence.

It was his aim, in the composition of these Lectures, and it has been so in the revisal of them, to keep close to Scripture, and to exhibit its truths practically. He has ever found application to be the most difficult part of the preacher's office, but is thoroughly convinced that its importance is proportionate to its difficulty. In attempting it on the present occasion,

he has wished to go no farther than the text (as it were) led him by the hand. The same rule has been carefully observed as to doctrinal statements; yet it has been a source of grateful satisfaction to him to be enabled to trace the grand truths of the Gospel of God, on the tablets of the Old Testament, in characters which became the more distinct the more closely the narrative under study was investigated. May it be granted to his readers to discern this testimony to the uniformity of Divine truth with a liveliness of perception far exceeding his own!

If there be found, in the course of perusal, a passage penned under feelings of grief and indignation at the feebleness and ambiguity of the support which the most sacred institutions of our country were then receiving from men in power, let it

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