"C HOLDING FORTH THE WORD OF LIFE."—Phil. ii. 16.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY SEELEYS, No 54, FLEET STREET,

AND HANOVER STREET, HANOVER SQUARE:

SOLD ALSO BY HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY; & NISBET & CO. BERNERS STREET.

M DCCC XLVIII.

PREFACE.

LOVE for the heavenly truths contained in the following pages, has led to the devotion of much time, and to persevering endeavour, in order to recover from faint pencil notes (written partly in obscure short-hand,) the substance of sermons preached by my late revered Father, as taken down by the late Mrs. Hawkes, whose Memoirs have recently come before the public. To those Memoirs some Fragments of this nature were attached, as an Appendix. From the same rich mine of Mrs. Hawkes' papers, many more sermons of Mr. Cecil's have been derived, which contain so much to interest and instruct, that it appears to be a talent committed to my trust; and I feel that I should not act as a faithful steward, if I did not offer, for the benefit of others, some of those precious materials left by my late beloved godmother, and originally intended only for my own use.

Sermons thus prepared, can by no means be expected to bear the scrutiny of severe criticism. It is believed, however, that the Christian reader who attentively peruses them, will be richly rewarded. To this collection some few have been added, taken down by the late Mrs. Cecil, as early as the year 1792. In copying these from abbreviated notes, little more has been done than to insert uniting particles,leaving the sense, occasionally, somewhat elliptical. Such abstracts are more particularly calculated to interest ministers; forming, as they do, a short and compendious synopsis of each subject. None, however, have been inserted but such as may afford instruction to the general reader.

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