From the Rev. James Milnor, D.D., Rector of St. George's Church. DEAR SIR, June 11, 1823. I HAVE read, with great interest and delight, the Sermons of the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, and am glad that you contemplate their republication. Mr. C. is well known as a writer; and the volume with which you propose to favour the public will by no means detract from his literary reputation, while it exhibits him in the interesting character of an able, evangelical, and impressive preacher of the gospel. I am persuaded these Sermons are calculated to be very useful to those who may peruse them, and I hope they may be generally read. Yours respectfully, JAMES MILNOR. MR. W. B. GILLEY. From the Rev. Jonathan M. Wainwright, Rector of Grace Church. It is believed that the reader of this volume will not be disappointed in the pleasure and improvement he may reasonably anticipate from a publication by the author of The World without Souls, and the Velvet Cushion. It contains a collection of Sermons, which, for interest of matter and eloquence of style, have appeared to the subscriber among the best of a practical nature which have lately issued from the press. JONATHAN M. WAINWRIGHT. From the Rev. John B. Romeyn, D.D., Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Cedar-street. THE REV. Mr. Cunningham's Sermons, for talent and eloquence, are worthy of the author of "The World without Souls," while they do not discover in so great a degree the spirit of sect which characterizes his "Velvet Cushion." The same powers of a master mind are displayed in these Sermons, as in those works. To these powers are superadded a fervency of piety, a correctness of scriptural doctrine, and an unction of the Holy Ghost, which will not fail to commend them to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. JOHN B. ROMEYN. PREFACE. THE Author of the following Discourses has not the presumption to imagine, that by publishing them he is likely to shed any new light over the difficulties of Theology, or to urge with greater force those arguments which have employed the mind of many wise and devout individuals. But he has been led to this undertaking partly by perceiving the general thirst for this species of publication-partly by an ardent desire, before he is called to his great account, to bequeath to his family, his parish, and his friends, some slight memorial of his interest in their temporal and spiritual welfare; and some less fugitive record, than a mere address from the pulpit, of the principles in which he has found, through the great mercy of God, his own consolation and joy. Perhaps, however, the wish he had for some time entertained, of endeavouring to prepare a volume of Sermons for the press, might not have been realized, if he had not felt the importance, during a season of comparative retirement, of labouring to withdraw the mind from mournful contemplations by occupying it with useful pursuits. And he hopes to be pardoned for so far intruding the facts of his own history on the attention of others, as to state, that he has never felt his trials so little as when thus striving to minister to the wants of a suffering world--as when, having nothing but a "mite" to offer, he has been endeavouring to cast that mite into the "treasury" of God. Almost the whole of the Sermons in this volume have been preached within the last two years, in the pulpit of that parish which Divine Providence has committed to his care. The circumstances of so large a proportion of the texts of these Discourses being taken from a few limited portions of the Holy Scriptures, arises from their having been parts of courses of Sermons preached upon those particular portions of the word of God. To this mode of preaching the Author is strongly disposed, as having a tendency to economize the time otherwise consumed in the selection of texts and topics; as presenting to the hearers large and unbroken masses of the Book of God; as securing the preacher from a partial distribution of the word of life, by selecting only those passages which might TO THE INHABITANTS OF HARROW ON THE HILL The Following Sermons, ORIGINALLY PREACHED IN THEIR PRESENCE, ARE, WITH A DEEP SENSE OF THE KINDNESS WITH WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN RECEIVED, HUMBLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY THEIR GRATEFUL AND SINCERE FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. |