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REV. EDWIN SIDNEY, A.M.

AUTHOR OF HIS LIFE, ETC. ETC.

"The pulpit was his joy and his throne."

DIVINITY SCHOOL

LIBRARY.

HARVARDONERSITY

BALDWIN AND

CRADOCK;

AND J. FLETCHER, NORWICH.

1837.

Norwich:

PRINTED BY JOSIAH FLETCHER, UPPER HAYMARKET.

PREFACE.

So happily did Mr. Rowland Hill's moments pass in the pulpit, that he once exclaimed, "such delight do I feel in my work, that I could almost wish there might be preaching in heaven." Never were the faculties of any human being more completely devoted to one object, than his were to the exercise of his ministry, and the motives which animated his exertions were as pure as they were powerful. His zeal was only equalled by the well known interest it excited in all parts of the kingdom, for a period of more than sixty years, and by his wonderful success. The style of his discourses was peculiar to

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himself. He was an instrument raised up in remarkable times, and for extraordinary ends. His discursive mode of address, and all his other eccentricities, were parts of the man, and were in no small degree excusable in one who has been known, when past seventy years of age, to preach thrice. a day for a week, and that with a solemnity and effect of which there are but few instances in modern times. Whatever may have been the faults of his sermons, they were according to the purest standard of doctrine, while his applications were most affectionate and earnest; nor did he ever preach himself, or set up own imagination in the place of truth, or study to please men. Under the impression, therefore, that a few specimens of his happiest addresses from the pulpit, exhibiting a more than usual adherence to his subjects, would be gratifying to the public, and urged to carry my design into effect by some who really desired to see them, I applied myself to the compilation

his

of the present volume, with a due estimate of the difficulty of the task, which will be best appreciated by those who were his frequent hearers. In order to bring these discourses out with some degree of neatness, I found it necessary to abridge them, and to omit all irrelevant digressions, retaining only the leading matter; and I trust they will not be the less acceptable on account of their brevity, or less fruitful because the luxuriant growth of an extemporaneous fancy has been pruned and trained by the hand of the editor. It would almost seem as if Mr. Hill had proceeded in these sermons, upon the plan recommended by an old divine1 of just celebrity, who says, as preaching must not be curious, so neither overslight, consisting of raw, sudden, indigested meditations. The word must not be torn, but divided; not tossed, but handled; the text not only named, but followed; there must be a diligent kind

1 Jenkyn.

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