meeting-houses with congregations. For it is not that the poor go thither discriminating between doctrines, (many would never attend such places at all were they not persuaded that the same things are taught in them as at church), but because they find themselves addressed there in language, which, being adapted to their understandings, works at once upon their feelings. The end of all preaching is, or ought to be, that we may be useful in our Great Master's vineyard. To be useful, our sermons must be intelligible; and to be intelligible to the poor and ignorant, they must be plain-so plain that they may at once be comprehended. For in listening to a sermon there is no time for reflection: a method of reasoning, a sentence, a word which is not fully understood at the moment of delivery, is lost. The arrows of conviction can , never strike the heart, if they are shot above the head. If it be considered that at the age perhaps of ten years, a poor labouring boy is sent to follow the plough, and that from that time to the end of his days, his life is past in one unvarying round of agricultural employments, in which but little occurs to open his mind or enlarge his understanding; it must be seen, that a clergyman who wishes to convey instruction to those who most require it, can hardly adopt too plain a standard of composition: and that he must, for the sake of being useful, give up a more ornamental style, which is both pleasanter and easier, because more natural, to one who has had the advantages of a good education. The following Sermons lay claim to no merit but that of being plain. They have been received with the most gratifying attention by the unlettered, yet respectable, congregation to whom they have been preached, and with satisfactory evidence of their having been per fectly intelligible. This has been a great encouragement to myself, and may be so, I hope, to others, especially younger men, either already belonging to, or intended for, my profession, whose style of writing is not yet formed: inasmuch as it proves, that, to a simple understanding, the simplest composition is not necessarily unimpressive, and that, to a plain audience, the plainest sermons may, with God's blessing, be useful. Jan. 1828. CONTENTS. And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and shall not leave in thee one stone upon an- |