The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D - Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore: With a Life of the Author, and a Critical Examination of His Writings #267177

My lord, your great nobleness and religious charity hath taken from me some portions of that glory which I designed to myself in imitation of St. Paul towards the Corinthian church, who esteemed it his honour to preach to them without a revenue: and though also like him I have a trade, by which as I can be more useful to others, and less burdensome to you: yet to you also, under God, I owe the quiet and the opportunities and circumstances of that, as if God had so interweaved the support of my afl'airs with your charity, that He would have no advantages pass upon me but by your interest; and that I should expect no reward of the issues of my calling, unless your lordship have a share in the blessing. My lord, I give God thanks that my lot is fallen so fairly, and that I can serve your lordship in that ministry by which I am bound to serve God, and that my gratitude and my duty are bound up in the same bundle; but now, that which was yours by a right of pro priety, I have made public, that it may still be more yours, and you derive to yourself a comfort, if you shall see the necessity of others served by that which you heard so diligently, and accepted with so much piety, and I am persuaded have entertained with that religion and Obedience which is the duty of all those who know, that sermons are arguments against us unless they make us better, and that no sermon is received as it ought, unless it makes us quit a vice, or be in love with virtue; unless we snfler it in some instance or degree to do the work of God upon our souls. My lord, in these sermons I have meddled with no man's interest, that only excepted which is eternal but if any man's vice was to be reproved, I have done it with as much severity as I ought. Some cases of conscience I have here determined; but the special design of the whole is, to describe the greater lines of duty by special argu ments; and if any witty censurer shall say that I tell him nothing but what he knew before, I shall be contented with it, and rejoice that he was so well instructed, and wish also that he needed not a remembrancer but if either in the first or in the second, in the institution of some or the reminding of others, I can do God any service, no man ought to be ofl'ended that sermons are not like curious enquiries after new nothings, but pursuances of old truths. However, I have already many fair earnests that your lordship will be pleased with this tender of my service, and expression of my great and dearest obligations, which you daily renew or continue upon.