Ninety-Six Sermons: Volume Two: Lent, Good Friday and the Resurrection

The same plan has been pursued in the present as in the preceding volume, and although, from circumstances which it is unnecessary to explain, the same time has not been occupied in its preparation for the press, equal pains have been taken with a view to attain the greatest possible accuracy.

The number of Sermons now published is twenty-two, of which six were preached during Lent, three on Good-Friday, and the remaining thirteen, out of eighteen, the whole series upon the Resurrection, on Easter-day.

Of those delivered during Lent, four were preached before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich, St. James's, and Hampton Court, between the years 1589 and 1594; and the two last were preached before the Court at Richmond and Greenwich on the fifth of March, and the fourth of April, 1596.

The topics touched upon in the Lent Sermons are, briefly, the following: That the strength of a land is in its pillars, the worship of God, and the due administration of Justice; That the Most High is to be recognised as the chief Head of every government, to Whom all civil rulers are subordinate; That as our Saviour accepted with favour, and as a good work, the anointing of His natural body by Mary Magdalene, so He will no less graciously accept whatever is done for His body mystical, the Church; That from the lamentable fall of Lot's wife, we learn the necessity of perseverance in the course of well-doing; That from the miserable state of the rich man tormented in Hades, we are taught the necessity of considering what we shall be hereafter; and that from the example of St. Paul, we find that love for souls, if sincere, will not be disheartened, however it may be requited. Such is a general outline of this series of Sermons, and as the temper of the times in which the Bishop lived was not altogether unlike our own, so it will be found that the truths therein evolved are such as may well be appreciated by ourselves.

The Sermons upon the Passion are only three in number. The second and third were preached before King James I. at Whitehall and Greenwich, on the sixth of April 1604, and the twenty-ninth of March 1605. The first was preached at the Court on the twenty-fifth of March 1597. They will be found to enter fully, but most reverently, into the subject of our Saviour's unexampled sufferings, both mental and bodily; to investigate the causes and motives which led to the death of the Son of God for us and for our salvation; to point out the inestimable benefits which have resulted to mankind from the propitiation thereby made for the sins of the whole world; and to enforce the necessity of "looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith," for a due sense and reception of the blessings purchased in His blood.

Of the thirteen Sermons which are here given on the Resurrection, twelve were preached at Whitehall before King James I. The remaining one, the thirteenth, was also preached before the King at Durham Cathedral, and the whole were delivered during the period commencing with Easter-day 1606, and ending with Easter-day 1618, both inclusive.

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