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O

LECTURES

ON

THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW;

DELIVERED IN THE

PARISH CHURCH OF ST. JAMES,

WESTMINSTER,

IN THE YEARS 1798, 1799, 1800, AND 1801.

BY THE

RIGHT REV. BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D.

LORD BISHOP OF LONDON.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BAYNES AND SON,

PATERNOSTER ROW; AND

H. S. BAYNES AND CO., EDINBURGH.

1824.

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

1568, Get 5. Wilson Bequest

LONDON:

PRINTED BY CHARLES WOOD,
Poppin's Court, Fleet Street,

PREFACE.

Ar the time when the following Lectures were first begun, the political, moral, and religious state of this kingdom wore a very unfavourable aspect, and excited no small degree of uneasiness and alarm in every serious and reflecting mind. The enemies of this country were almost everywhere triumphant abroad, and its still more formidable enemies at home were indefatigably active in their endeavours to diffuse the poison of disaffection, infidelity, and a contempt of the Holy Scriptures, through every part of the kingdom, more especially among the lower orders of the people, by the most offensive and impious publications; while at the same time it must be acknowledged, that among too many of the higher classes there prevailed, in the midst of all our distresses, a spirit of dissipation, profusion, and voluptuous gaiety, ill suited to the gloominess of our situation, and ill calculated to secure to us the protection of Heaven against the various dangers that menaced us on every side. Under these circumstances, it seemed to be the duty of

every friend to religion, morality, good order, and good government, and more especially of the ministers of the Gospel, to exert every power and every talent with which God had blessed them, in order to counteract the baneful effects of those pestilential writings, which every day issued from the press; to give some check to the growing relaxation of public manners; to state plainly and forcibly the evidences of our faith, and the genuine doctrines of our religion, the true principles of submission to our lawful governors, the mode of conduct in every relation of life which the Gospel prescribes to us; and to vindicate the truth, dignity, and divine authority of the sacred writings. All this, after much deliberation, I conceived could in no other way be so effectually done as by having recourse to those writings themselves, by going back to the very fountain of truth and holiness, and by drawing from that sacred source the proofs of its own celestial origin, and all the evangelical virtues springing from it, and branching out into the various duties of civil, social, and domestic life.

The result was, that I resolved on discharging my share of these weighty obligations, by giving Lectures on the Gospel of St. Matthew, in my own parish church of St. James, Westminster, every Friday in Lent; which, at the same time that it promoted my principal object, might also draw a little more attention to that holy but too much neglected season, which our church has very judiciously set apart for the purpose of retirement and recollection, and of giving some little pause and respite to the ceaseless occupations and amusements of a busy

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