1st ed in Bravey d "ALL THE COUNSEL OF GOD." A WORD IN OPPOSITION то FANATICAL, CALVINISTIC, AND SOLIFIDIAN IN A Farewell Sermon, PREACHED TO THE CONGREGATION OF SAINT JAMES'S CHURCH, BATH, On Sunday the 23d March, 1817; BY THE REV. RICHARD WARNER, -CURATE OF THAT PARISH FOR TWENTY TWO YEARS. OXEQ. D SECOND EDITION. T PRINTED BY RICHARD CRUTTWELL, ST. JAMES's STREET, BATH; AND SOLD BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATER-NOSTER-ROW, LONDON. 1817.-Price 25. TO THE PARISHIONERS OF ST. JAMES'S PARISH, BATH, THE FOLLOWING FAREWELL SERMON, A FINAL TESTIMONY OF GRATITUDE AND REGARD, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THEIR LATE CURATE AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, RICHARD WARNER. SERMON. ACTS XX. 27. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. THE account which the inspired writer gives us in this chapter of the last interview between St. Paul and the members of the church which he had planted at Ephesus, is one of the most affecting relations in the whole New Testament. It is affecting, from its describing the circumstances of a final meeting. There is, indeed, something in the very words, "a last time," and in the ideas connected with them, wonderfully striking and impressive. We bid farewell even to an inanimate object, a shrub or a tree, familiarized to us by frequent observation, with an emotion of regret: and we take our final leave of the dwelling rendered dear by a lengthened residence within its walls, with feelings of melancholy and sorrow. The thought, however, of separation from living, thinking, and rational beings, like ourselves; whose society we have long enjoyed; whose intercourse we have long prized; and to whom we are attached, by an habitual reciprocation of friendly offices, and a lengthened course of mutual favours, is still more distressing to the feelings. When the event happens to ourselves, it deeply wounds the heart; and even when we read of it, as occurring to others, the relation seldom fails to awaken sentiments of peculiar tenderness. But the recital of the parting interview in the chapter before us is affecting, also, on another account: I mean from the many tender circumstances, full of simple, but exquisite, pathos, which the description embraces the solemn address of the Apostle to his auditors-his affectionate farewell to them-the act of prayer with which he closed his discourse-the effect which this parting produced on his Ephesian flock; "they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and "kissed him;"—and the cause, described in so artless but touching a manner, that chiefly excited the grief of the Elders; "they sorrowed "most of all for the words which he spake, that "they should see his face no more." |