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may diminish the value of these Sermons in the eyes of critics and mere readers of taste, will add to their value with humble persons, who in the simplicity and godly sincerity of their hearts are seeking instruction.

In turning over the MS. Sermons of his departed friend, in order to make a proper sclection, the Editor had two objects constantly in view. The one was to give a just and fair specimen of the Author's ordinary MANNER, or style of preaching. This indeed was so far accomplished in the first volume, that many of those who had enjoyed the benefit of Mr. Milner's personal ministry, were heard to say, that while they were perusing some of the Sermons contained in it, they seemed to be hearing the voice of the Author speaking to them from the pulpit. But having attended more to this point, in pre-· paring the present volume for the press, the Editor hopes he has now succeeded still better, and that the peculiar cast of instruction which distinguished the pulpit compositions of Mr. Milner, is so well preserved in these Sermons, as to give them an increased interest with his surviving friends and hearers.

But the other object which he has had in rice is of far more importance; and this was

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to select such Sermons for publication, as in the opinion of the Author himself, were he now alive, would be best adapted to the spiritual condition, and the" existing circumstances" of his audience. Now the Editor certainly knows that during the latter years of Mr. Milner's life, his mind was deeply affected on account of the religious declensions and divisions which he saw taking place in the town of Hull. He thought he perceived a proud, worldly spirit, and the excessive love of gain eating out the love of Christ, of his cause and people, in many who had oncc seemed to walk humbly with their God, to be zealous for the truth, as it is in Jesus, and to provoke one another to love and to good works. He beheld with grief the awful progress of gross wickedness and vice, of lewdness and impiety in that place. These evils he ascribed to its rapid increase in commerce, in wealth, in population, in buildings, and in luxury. Against this subversion of religious principle and practice he failed not to lift up a warning voice, and had he lived to see how widely the mischief has been extended within the last ten or twelve years, he would have cried aloud and not spared to tell the people their transgressions and sins. But his honest heart grieves no more, sighs no more on account of the abominations of the age. This righteous man has, happily for himself,

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been taken "from the evil to come.' He is gone to that place "where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary be at rest." He is spared the anguish and sorrow, felt by his surviving friends, at the sud effects of commercial prosperity on the one hand, and of the check which it has received from desolating and corrupting judgments on the other,

The tongue, indeed, which was ever ready to rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine, lies silent in the grave; but, though dead, he yet speaketh in these Sermons, He calls to the numerous flock, once committed to his charge, to repent and do their first works, Many of these discourses are exactly suited to their case, and even more applicable to the present circumstances of his Parish, than they were at the time when they were preached, The Sermon, with which the volume concludes, composed and delivered not long before his decease, may be considered as his dying testimony to this great truth, that “to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,"

YORK, November 1st, 1808.

W. R.

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