DEDICATION TO THE HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND SHUTE, LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. MY LORD,W YORK THESE Sermons will de rive weight in your Lordship's estimation, from their having been preached at a diftinguished feat of learning and theology, before the Members of that University, to which your Lordship is attached by long connection, and by the dignity of an official trust. It is the object of these Discourses to promote true religion by a reference to the faith and practice of primitive Chriftians: and the plan includes a defence of our established Church, which is, I believe, identified with Christianity itself. To a work of this kind I venture to folicit the protection of my Diocefan, with a propriety, which will be obvious to all who confider, that the Bishop of Durham has defended the pure faith once delivered to the faints, by cogent argument, in oppofition to fuperftitions, which are injurious to the temporal and eternal happiness of mankind; that he has exercifed in his peculiar function a truly watchful and paftoral care, unbiaffed by differences of opinion on fubordinate points; and that through the course of a life, venerable from its extent in unimpaired vigour, and more venerable from its habits, he has continued to promote the religious and moral improvement of fociety, and the general diffusion of beneficial knowledge, by precept, by example, and by a munificence worthy of his high station, I also thought this an opportunity not to be paffed over, of publicly testifying my gratitude for your Lordship's patronage, which those who experience acknowledge with the more fatisfaction, because it is Reputation. With every sentiment of gratitude and duty, I have the honour to be, My Lord, Your Lordship's faithful and obedient humble Servant, JOHN COLLINSON. Rectory Houfe, Gateshead, Oct. 25, 1813. |
