FOR SABBATH READING. BY J. GREAVES. "Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. The entrance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding DAVID. LONDON: THOMAS WARD AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW. 1840. PREFACE. It would seem natural in any one who took up this single volume of Essays to say, "There is no end to making books in this book-making age;" and I would annex to that remark, that every author thinks he has a good reason for thrusting his works upon the public. I acknowledge the aim I have in sending this volume of Essays to the press is a high one; but I leave the contents to develope its object. In determining its title, which professes that the book is adapted for sabbath reading, I considered that variety in sabbath day employments is requisite to keep the mind healthfully active. The enemies of religion in every shape are rampant: infidelity vaunting its damnable heresies; popery, "the mystery of iniquity," erecting her stalls throughout the land, for the vile purpose of selling the wine of her fornication, with which she is making the earth drunk; socialism undermining the bonds of society in aiming to render the religion of Jesus contemptible;—and all these agents of hell rife and unblushingly at work to obtain the obscene ends of their several systems. It behoves the friends of the Redeemer, therefore, the candidates of the heavenly inheritance, to bestir and rouse themselves from their apathetic slumbers, with the high intention of counteracting the powers of darkness, and building up each other in the faith of their profession. In the Christian economy, a twofold end is to be accomplished-viz., the salvation of souls, and the glory of its Founder and Head. And are there not co-operating for these objects the constant intercessions of the Redeemer, the wonderful and omnipotent influences of the Holy Spirit, the hosts of spiritual intelligences, the persevering exertions of innumerable gospel ministers, the many missionary associations, the Bible and Tract societies, Sunday-school instructors, and all the varied endeavours of private Christians? When we look at a hive of bees, however puny the individual exertions of any one of its inhabitants, yet when those exertions are connected with the operations of a whole community, and that community actuated by one spirit, having in view one end, we see erected a wonderful and superb structure, that leaves far behind the boasted art of man; and such are the results of a combined, united, and operative community of Christians. In selecting these Essays for publication, I solicit the candour of the reader when I state that I was not willing they should be thrown aside and lost, as they possibly might be after my decease, if they fell into the hands of any one not competent to form a correct judgment of their probable utility; and this most likely would have been the case had the possessor's heart been uninfluenced by Divine grace. THE AUTHOR. Tenby, Pembrokeshire. |