SEVEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD:WITH PRELIMINARY REMARKS:
BEING AN ANSWER TO A VOLUME ENTITLED
"Essays and Reviews."
BY THE
REV. JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, M.A.,
FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, AND SELECT PREACHER.
I CANNOT HOLD MY PEACE, BECAUSE THOU HAST HEARD, O MY SOUL,THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, THE ALARM OF WAR.
Oxford & London:J. H. and Jas. PARKER.1861.
Printed by Messrs. Parker, Cornmarket, Oxford.
TO THE REVEREND
WILLIAM SEWELL, D.D.,
FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE: LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THEUNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; AND LATE WARDEN OF ST. PETER'S COLLEGE, RADLEY.
My dear Friend,
Let me have the satisfaction of inscribing this volumeto yourself. I know of no one who has more faithfullydevoted himself to the sacred cause of Christian Education:no one to whom those blessed Truths are moreprecious, which of late have been so unscrupulously assailed,and which the ensuing pages are humbly designedto uphold in their integrity.
Affectionately yours,
JOHN W. BURGON.
ΔΕΙ ΓΑΡ ΚΑΙ ἉΙΡΕΣΕΙΣ ἘΝ ὙΜΙΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ, ἹΝΑ ΟΙ ΔΟΚΙΜΟΙΦΑΝΕΡΟΙ ΓΕΝΩΝΤΑΙ ἘΝ ὙΜΙΝ.
Ac si diceret: Ob hoc hæreseôn non statim divinitus eradicanturauctores, ut probati manifesti fiant; id est, ut unusquisque quamtenax, et fidelis, et fixus Catholicæ fidei sit amator, appareat. Etrevera cum quæque novitas ebullit, statim cernitur frumentorumgravitas, et levitas palearum: tunc sine magno molimine excutiturab areâ, quod nullo pondere intra aream tenebatur.—VincentiusLirinensis, Adversus Hæreses, § 20.
I am unwilling that this volume should go forth tothe world without some account of its origin andof its contents.
I. Appointed last year, (without solicitation on hispart,) to the office of Select Preacher, the presentwriter was called upon at the commencement of theOctober Term to address the University. His Sermon,(the first in the volume,) was simply intended to embodythe advice which he had already orally givento every Undergraduate who had sought counsel athis hands for many years past in Oxford; advicewhich, to say the truth, he was almost weary of repeating.Nothing more weighty or more apposite, atall events, presented itself, for an introductory address:nor has a review of the current of religiousopinion, either before or since, produced any changeof opinion as to the importance of what was on thatfirst occasion advocated.
Another, and another, and yet another preachingturn unexpectedly presented itself, in the course ofthe same Term; and the IInd, IIIrd, and IVth of theensuing Sermons, (preached on alternate Sundays,)were the result. The study of the Bible had beenadvocated in the first Sermon; but it was urged from[viii]a hundred quarters that a considerable amount of unbeliefprevailed respecting that very Book for whichit was evident that the preacher claimed entire perfectionand abs