In these ensuing sermons you have variety, the mother of delight ; and such notable descriptions of the person, offices, love, and life of Christ, that by them you may not only be settled in divine assurances to your further
* For notices of these well-known patrons of the Puritan clergy, consult any of the Peerages. — G.
222 THE EPISTLE DEDICATOUY.
comforts, but also directed and encouraged, both in your inward and out- ward conversation, to follow the example of Christ, the most blessed and unerring example unto all Christians. This champion I beseech you both to follow unto your lives' end. Make it your work to set up Christ, and his religion, both in your hearts and in your houses. Acknowledge none but Christ in matter of salvation ; and none to Christ in point of afiection. Let Christ be Christ with you, and then if Christ, — and if not Christ nothing can be worth anything — he will make you worthy indeed, he will prove unto you in life and death a sun, a shield, even a full and an answerable good. With this Christ I leave you, and with you these ensuing sermons, to be read and observed for your spiritual furtherances in the enjoyment of eternal life by Jesus Christ, desiring the great God of heaven and earth to look upon both you and yours in much grace and mercy ; giving unto you all the comfort and crown of religion here on earth, and hereafter in heaven. I rest.
Your honours' to be commanded,
John Sedgwick.*
• Cf. Vol. IV. p. 432.— G.
TO THE EEADEE.
Christian Reader — The word of God is given us as a most precious treasure, and that not for ourselves only, but for our children after us, and therefore is called Israel's inheritance : Deut. xxsiii. 4, * Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.' All the wealth in the world is but as dirt and trash in comparison of the word to the people of God. ' Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever : for they are the rejoicing of mine heart,' saith David, Ps. cxix. Ill, And therefore as they rejoice in their own enjoying of it, so they do what they may to assure it to their children when they are dead, that it may be entailed upon them and their posterity after them ; yea, so they do also with the know- ledge of divine truths which they have found in the word ; which is not indeed found out by men all at one time, but by degrees, as gold is found in mines, as men come to search farther and farther, and dig deeper and deeper for it. It was not, they know, imparted to them for their own use only, but for the benefit of others. ' The manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit withal,' 1 Cor. xii. 7 ; and therefore as it comes to them from heaven they hand it to others, that so it may be continued in the church, * the ground and pillar of truth,' 1 Tim. iii. 15, for the good of those that shall live in future times.
This was, I hope, the chief aim of those that have published these sermons of that worthy light of our church, Dr Sibs. And surely we have great cause in this regard thankfully to acknowledge their care and pains, who both took them so exactly from his mouth as he delivered them, and then kept them so charily as r'^v -/.aXrjv TaBa-/.aTa6'/j-/.'/iv, ' a precious thing committed to their trust,' 2 Tim. i. 14, and have now published them for the common good of all that will make use of them. For by this means what was delivered to a few may now build up many to farther degrees of knowledge and gi'ace, even all the land over, and they that never saw his face may be made sharers in those his labours, which only a few were so happy as to hear.
Being myself one amongst others that have found the advantage hereof, I was not so hardly won as otherwise I should have been, to commend these ' Beams of Divine Light ' to the respect of others. Divers truths of greatest consequence are exactly handled in the several sermons here pre- sented to 3'ou, as concerning the misery of our natural estate, and the bliss and happiness of those that are quickened by Christ ; concerning the necessity of the word, our spiritual food, and the zealous violence of the faithful in pressing after it ; concerning the divers both joys and sorrows, complaints and triumphs of God's children here, when they are black
224 TO THE READER.
though comely, Cant. i. 5 ; and concerning their happiness in death, and glory after it, and many other, whereof these few are only a taste.
The study of the Scriptures made the author a man of God, ' perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works ;' and as became a faithful steward of the manifold grace of God, he endeavoured ' to teach the whole counsel of God,' and to store men with the knowledge of God's will, ' in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.' I desire that both thou and I, and all God's people, may so read these his labours, that it may further our growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whose grace I commend thee, being