BY

HUGH BLAIR, D.D. F.R.S. ED.

་་་

ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF THE HIGH CHURCH,

AND PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,

THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR,

BY JAMES FINLAYSON, D.D.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.-WITH A PORTRAIT.

PRINTED VERBATIM FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE.

1840.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. HADDON, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY.

PREFACE.

THE Sermons of Dr. Blair have for a long period been so highly esteemed by the public, that any endeavour to procure for them a higher portion of regard, or to recommend them more to general approbation and esteem, would be an attempt on the part of the publishers of the present volume, equally useless as presumptuous. The variety, number, and importance, of the subjects discussed in this collection, are such, that some one or other of them will suit the case of every reader of every description, and in every situation of life. They embrace every object that can affect the interest or engage the attention of mankind; and come home at once to every man's business and bosom. They treat of life and death; hell and judgement; of the superintendence of an over-ruling Providence, who directs and governs all the affairs of this life; of the certainty of the rewards which await the just, who fulfil the precepts and obey the laws of their Creator and Redeemer, and the tremendous punishment which the wicked will suffer in another world, who break his commandments and despise his statutes in this life. Here, as in the Sacred Volume of Holy Writ, the good man who struggles with adversity, overpowered, and almost overthrown, by the frauds and deceit of his enemy, may learn that there is a God above him who will plead his cause, and who, if he trusts in him, will one day revenge his wrongs, and cover the head of his adversary with shame and confusion: here the wicked man may learn and tremble, that, although the Almighty may permit him to prosper for a time, a day of retribution is near at hand, when he will be called to a strict account for his transgressions, and receive the punishment due to his iniquities.

On the manner in which the several subjects are treated, it is needless to dilate. Their sublime grandeur and awful dignity are calculated to excite emotions of the most ardent devotion and profound humility; while the heart and affections are engaged, and the attention secured, by the charms of a style, at once easy, perspicuous, simple, elegant, and pure. Such beauties cannot fail to secure the approbation, and interest the mind, of the most careless and inattentive reader, who may happen to take up the work for the amusement of an idle hour; and, the attention once engaged, a regard

to the precepts and doctrines inculcated in this excellent work cannot fail to correct and improve the heart.

Our late good and pious King was the friend and patron of Dr. Blair, and frequently observed, he wished to hear that the Bible and Blair's Sermons were in the hands of every youth in the united kingdom. The publishers of the present volume flatter themselves that, in presenting Blair's Sermons to the public in one Family Volume, they are not only furthering, in a very considerable degree, the wishes of our venerable departed monarch, but are also performing a most important duty to society, and more particularly to the rising generation; for, although numerous editions of this most valuable work are before the public, the frugal and industrious have been unable to procure them. In publishing, therefore, the present Family Edition of these valuable Sermons, at a price which will enable all classes to become purchasers, they are offering the most favourable opportunity which has hitherto been presented to the serious and devout part of the community, to possess themselves of this important and inestimable work.

The present edition, although printed in a large and clear type, in a plain and distinct manner, has been conducted with so much care and attention to the arrangement of the matter, that every word of the whole number of Sermons filling the five volumes of which the former editions consisted, is now comprised in one handsome Volume; and the whole has been carefully printed from, and compared with, the most accurate editions.