PREFACE.

IN the Preface to a volume of "Family Prayers," by the late Mr. HENRY THORNTON, which was printed last year, (1834,) it was stated, in substance, that portions of a "Family Commentary," by the same wise and good man, which, though never, indeed, intended for publication, were yet complete and fit for it, might, at no distant period, be expected to issue from the press. The present Commentary, upon the Sermon on the Mount, is one of those portions. The favourable reception of the "Famiy Prayers" deepens the Editor's regret, that, when, at length, after the lapse of many years from the Author's death, the publication had been undertaken, any cause should have occurred to deprive the world, even for a day, of the benefit of the present Work.

Those who have become familiar with the " Prayers," will recognise in this Volume the work of the same piety; and will require no other notice of the Author, than that they already owe to him-the manual, abovementioned, of domestic worship. Without presuming to anticipate the judgment of others, the Editor, in committing this work to the blessing of GOD, and looking to that blessing, only, for

its success, cannot withhold the expression of his own opinion, as more than justifying him in the publication, that, so far as he knows the works of the best divines, no other Commentator, on the same portion of Scripture, has combined, in an equal degree, a deep knowledge of the human heart, with an extensive experience of human life; vigorous common sense, with high and holy wisdom; Christian love, with Christian faithfulness. He has no hesitation in adding his belief, that, so far as can be said of any human being, the Author lived in the spirit of his Commentary. R. H. I.

September 15, 1835.