TO THE READER.

AFTER the very favourable reception

which the Four former Volumes of

my Sermons have met with, both at home and abroad, I had resolved not to presume on offering any more to the public. To this publication of another Volume, my present situation gave rise. Being now, by the infirmity of very advanced age, laid aside from all the labours of the pulpit, and possessing, of course, more retirement and leisure than formerly, it occurred to me, sometimes, to look back into Sermons most of which had been composed a great many years ago, with a view to observe how far they agreed in the strain of thought with those which I had written at a later period. In reviewing them, passages sometimes appeared which I ima

gined might be serviceable, either for admonition or consolation to various classes of persons; and the thought began to arise in my mind, that by employing my present leisure, as long as health allowed, in preparing some of those Discourses for the press, it might be in my power to be still of some use in the world. Encouraged by this idea, I went on to revise and correct one Sermon after another, often making alterations and additions, till the present Volume arose.

THOUGH the subjects of these Sermons be different from those which I formerly published, some of the same sentiments and expressions may occasionally be found to be repeated in them. This is apt to happen, partly from that similarity of thought and style which will run through all the compositions of an Author who is not copying others, but writing from his own reflections; and partly, from the coincidence of some general topicks and allusions which recur frequently

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frequently in serious discourses of the

prac

tical kind. Where any instances of this nature presented themselves to my memory, I found, that without altering the strain of the Sermon, I could not altogether suppress and omit them; and as it is not often they occur, I did not think it requisite that they should be omitted. If the sentiment, where first introduced, was in any degree useful or important, the renewal of it, when brought forth under some different form, enlarged perhaps, or abridged, or placed in connection with some other topick, may be thought to strengthen and confirm the impression of it.With regard to errours or inaccuracies of any other kind, the Author must trust to the indulgence of the candid Reader.

HUGH BLAIR.