which, from time to time, the attention of the Church has been especially directed. It was the object of a well-known treatise1, published in the early part of this century, to point out the importance of considering the original Teaching of the Apostolical Epistles as an example of the best mode of imparting Apostolical Truth. It has been my humble endeavour to apply the same principle to the Gospels, and to indicate in a simple form how the Teaching delineated by the Evangelists may guide us in communicating Evangelical Truth.

This brief and, from the nature of the case, very general outline of the Gospel doctrine, I have combined with an attempt to draw out those portions of the Apostolical doctrine which most fully exhibit the harmony between the two. Obvious as this harmony is, it has been so often denied or disparaged by opposite sections of the Church or world, that its reassertion and confirmation cannot be regarded as a superfluous task. I have elsewhere, with the same view, brought together the chief allusions in

1 Archbishop Sumner's "Apostolical Preaching."

History.

S. Paul's Epistles to the facts of the Gospel These discourses may be considered as continuing (in a less systematic form) the same argument from the identity of teaching in these two portions of the New Testament.

II. The nature of the subject of itself compelled me to dwell not so much on the speculative or historical as on the moral and practical truths which unquestionably constitute the chief end and purpose of the teaching both of our Lord and of the Apostles. This limitation seemed to me not without its use at the present time.

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In a work which lately excited much attention in France, the author thus addresses his countrymen: "Pour ma part, je le dis "sans détour, j'ai horreur de l'orthodoxie qui "ne tient aucun compte de la justice et de la vérité, de l'humanité et de l'honneur; et je "ne me lasse pas de répéter ces fortes et ré"centes paroles de l'Evêque de la Rochelle: "Ne serait-ce pas bonne chose que de faire "à plusieurs catholiques un cours sur les "vertus de l'ordre naturel, sur le respect dû

"au prochain, sur la loyauté même envers "ses adversaires, sur l'esprit de l'équité et "de la charité?' Les vertus de l'ordre naturel "sont des vertus essentielles, dont l'Eglise "elle-même ne dispense pas." 1

But

The Church of France is not the only religious community to which this remark applies. Every age of the Church, and every part of Christendom, in a greater or less degree, is in need of such instruction. there is a further and higher need than that indicated by the French statesman. We need to be reminded not so much of the abstract claim which these obvious duties have upon us, as of the fact that they are of the very essence, not of natural, but of Evangelical Religion; that they are the proper sphere not of heretical, but of orthodox Theology. It has been my object to bring together what the popular language of modern times has often unhappily divorced, and to show that such teaching belongs to the first principles of Gospel-doctrine. If in this attempt I may seem often to have used familiar words in a new sense, I would ask my readers to re

1 Montalembert, "Débat sur l'Inde," p. 13.

member, that such a sense is their undoubted, primitive, original, signification. No research or philosophy has been attempted. It is sufficient for my purpose to know that the language and the arguments which I have employed are strictly Scriptural.

III. In selecting subjects from so wide a circle as the Evangelical and Apostolical Teaching, I have been, in some measure, guided by the desire to bring out prominently points which have often been unduly kept in the background, and yet which, on the other hand, are essential to any complete understanding, or complete vindication, of the Gospel system. Many of the charges brought against it are really caused by the fact that these, its most original features, are either concealed or forgotten. But it is my hope. that neither in the subject of these Sermons nor in the mode of treating it, will there be found anything inconsistent with the comprehensive spirit which is the cherished inheritance of the Church of England. A narrow or exclusive scheme of doctrine, incongruous everywhere within the pale of the National

Church, would have been specially out of place in those of its institutions which peculiarly represent its ancient, universal, and complex character.

It is common in the present day to object to this or that kind of teaching as "indefinite," or as "defective." No faithful expounder of the vastness and simplicity of Scriptural Doctrine can altogether escape the first charge; no preacher who endeavours "rightly to divide the word of truth" can altogether escape the second. But the topics which are here discussed (if measured by the standard of the Bible and the Prayer-Book) will be found as definite and as complete as any single subject that could be selected; and probably no one will doubt that the parts of Scripture on which I have here especially dwelt, are those which set forth the doctrines of Christianity in the most permanent, and therefore the most convincing form.

To these Sermons I have appended a few occasional addresses, which may have some