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S.H.1826

THE GOSPEL COMMISSION-ITS IMPORT-ITS OBLIGA-
TIONS AND ITS INFLUENCE IN THE COMMENCE-

MENT AND CONDUCT OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE:

CONSIDERED, IN A

SERMON

PREACHED IN

St John's Episcopal Chapel,

BEFORE

THE BISHOP AND CLERGY OF THE EPISCOPAL
COMMUNION IN EDINBURGH;

ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22. 1825.

BY THE REVEREND

JAMES WALKER, M. A.

FORMERLY OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, SENIOR MINISTER
OF ST PETER'S CHAPEL, EDINBURGH, &c.

"Logomachies and wrong conceptions of words are often the foundation of
controversies.

"Let true charity prevaile, and the Gospel meekness; these would cut off
"many arguments on all sides."

Manuscript Notes in an old volume of Controversial Tracts, with the
autograph of Dr Donne, Dean of St Paul's, London.

EDINBURGH :

PRINTED FOR BELL & BRADFUTE;

AND C. & J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.

1826.

ODLET

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PREFACE.

THE following Sermon, hastily written at disjointed intervals, when I was much from home, and had little leisure when I was at home, was never meant for publication. The request to publish, as is usual on similar occasions, was made; but though it was urged by some of my brethren, with apparent earnestness, and opposed by none while I was present, I gave no concurrence, and had no intention whatever to comply with it. I have often published occasional sermons; never willingly, and hitherto always, not in obedience to the first request, but in deference to the earnest and repeated solicitation of some friend or friends afterwards. I publish the following Sermon with great reluctance, and even with regret, not in consequence of any such solicitation from any quarter, but because some have taken offence whom I did not mean to offend, and to whom I cannot feel that I have given any cause of offence. I publish it, therefore, precisely as it was originally writ¬ ten, without any addition or alteration whatever.

Very soon after I returned home from the Chapel, I received the following information: "I am sorry to "find that some passages in it (the following Sermon) "have so offended one or two of your hearers, that if you publish, one of them declares his intention to an◄

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"swer you." I went to the country the next day; but about ten days after I received a letter on the subject of my Sermon from one of my clerical brethren, dated the 24th of June, together with a tract on Regeneration. The letter is written in a temper to which I have nothing to object. The tract which it recommends to my particular attention is very far, indeed, from carrying conviction to my mind: but I will not now combat its positions, and I have no wish at any time to enter into that controversy. If my Correspondent, after seriously perusing my Sermon and Notes, and after referring, as I think he ought, to those superior sources of information which he will easily find, and some of which I have indicated, shall think any further notice of my Sermon necessary on his part, I will then pay to such notice all the attention which it may merit, and with every disposition, on my part, of Christian conciliation. My principles I must maintain, so long as they appear to me founded in truth and supported by Scripture-while, I trust, I shall always be found to maintain them with true charity and the gospel meekness.

I was, moreover, informed, that one of my hearers from the country, who certainly spoke the language of others, asserted, without hesitation or reserve, that I was so severe in my strictures, and so personal in my allusions, that I might just as well have named the individuals; and those individuals, of course, were supposed to be before me. Now, though a man is, by no means, an impartial judge of his own work, I certainly know better than any other person can know my own purpose; and I declare, in perfect sincerity and singleness

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