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DENNETT, PRINTER, LEATHER LANE.

TO THE

REV. CHARLES JERRAM, A. M.

VICAR OF CHOBHAM,

AND HIS PARISHIONERS.

My Dear Sir, and Respected Friends,

I TRUST you will excuse me for taking the liberty of dedicating to you this little Volume, with the contents of which you are already familiar : but I could not resist the desire I felt, thus publicly to express my gratitude for the very uncommon and unlooked for kindness, which I and my family have experienced from you, ever since I had the happiness of being connected with you in the capacity of Curate. Though that connexion has now ceased, yet the grateful feelings associated with the recollection of it will only cease with life.

For as long as life and memory last, I trust that I shall ever retain a lively sense of the obligations I am under to my kind friends in Chobham and its vicinity.*

With sincere prayers for your spiritual and temporal welfare, I remain,

My Dear Friends,

Your obliged and Faithful Servant,

WILLIAM FORD VANCE.

London, April 20th, 1827.

* Since the above was written, the author has been informed that one of those kind friends here alluded to, has been removed to the world of spirits. We have good reason to believe that she is gone to take her place among that blessed company who have "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." But her loss will be deeply felt, and her memory long respected, by the poor of Chobham, of whom she was the munificent benefactress.

PREFACE.

CIRCUMSTANCES which it is unnecessary to specify have led to the publication of the following Discourses; but they were not originally intended to meet the critic's eye, and will, probably, be found to contain in them nothing either very new or very ingenious. They are, strictly speaking, "Plain Discourses," adapted to a congregation which required rather to be "built up in the faith," than to be instructed in the "first principles of the doctrine of Christ."* They are a few, out of many, of which the author can say with truth,

* They were originally preached in the parish church of Chobham, Surrey; and afterwards, with some alteration, to the afternoon congregation of St. John's; both which places have been long highly favoured with the ministry of the late Mr. Cecil and his respected successors.

that they cost him some labour and much prayer. He has endeavoured to adhere faithfully to the "Word of God" in composing them. And he now offers them to the Christian Reader, in the language of St. Peter, My Brother, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee,” and may the Lord bless it to thy soul. Amen.

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