AN EXPOSITION AND DEFENCE OF UNIVERSALISM, IN A SERIES OF SERMONS DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, BALTIMORE, MD. BY REV I. D. WILLIAMSON. NEW YORK: 3 ASTOR HOUSE. BX 9941 •W5. cop. 3 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840, by P. PRICE. in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. THE circumstances which drew out the following discourses, are rather local, than general. The author is the only public advocate of a world's salvation, in a city of one hundred thousand souls. His sentiments are frequently attacked, and as often misrepresented, both in the pulpit and from the press. For this cause he felt himself called upon to lay before his congregation, and the public, so far as they were willing to hear, a plain and explicit statement of his faith, and the reasons on which that faith was founded. He had no intention of giving these labors to the public through the press, but prepared them for the pulpit alone. He commenced their delivery; and it was soon discovered, that they attracted more attention than his most sanguine anticipations had led him to expect. The large house in which they were delivered became crowded to overflowing, and a general desire was expressed that they might be issued from the press. In accordance with this desire and the advice of friends, the author has consented to present them to the public in their present form, with scarcely a revision from the original copy. He is aware that there are already many able works upon the same subject before the public, in comparison |