1. On the constitution of the Church and State ii. Lay sermons. Ed. with notes by H.N. Coleridge

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 edition. Excerpt: ...one is wise in the working of his own craft: so best will they maintain the state of the world. But you, my friends, to whom the following pages are more particularly addressed, as to men moving in the higher class of society,--you will, I hope, have availed yourselves of the ampler means entrusted to you by God's providence, for See App. (A.)--Ed. a more extensive study and a wider use of his revealed will and word. From you we have a right to expect a sober and meditative accommodation to your own times and country of those important truths declared in the inspired writings for a thousand generations, and of the awful examples, belonging to all ages, by which those truths are at once illustrated and confirmed. Would you feel conscious that you had shewn yourselves unequal to your station in society,--would you stand degraded in your own eyes,--if you betrayed an utter want of information respecting the acts of human sovereigns and legislators? And should you not much rather be both ashamed and afraid to know yourselves inconversant with the acts and constitutions of God, whose law executeth itself, and whose Word is the foundation, the power, and the life of the universe? Do you hold it a requisite of your rank to shew yourselves inquisitive concerning the expectations and plans of statesmen and state-councillors? Do you excuse it as natural curiosity, that you lend a listening ear to the guesses of state-gazers, to the dark hints and open revilings of our self-inspired state-fortunetellers, the wizards, that peep and mutter and forecast, alarmists by trade, and malcontents for their bread? And should you not feel a deeper interest in predictions which are permanent prophecies, because they are at the same time eternal truths? Predictions which...