DISCOURSES
on some of the
Important and Interesting
TRUTHS, DUTIES, and INSTITUTIONS of
the GOSPEL,
and the general Excellency
of the
Christian Religion;
Calculated for the People of God of
every Communion,
particularly for the benefit of
PIOUS FAMILIES,
and the
Instruction of all, in the things which
concern their salvation.
By NATHAN PERKINS, A. M.
Pastor of a Church of Christ in Hartford.
HARTFORD:
printed by hudson & goodwin.
MDCCXCV.
DEDICATION.
To the people of my Pastoral Charge—The following discourses are most affectionately dedicated. I account it a happiness to contribute to your establishment in the truth—to unfold to you the great principles, duties, and Institutions of the Christian Religion—to defend them against such as may rise up and deny them—and to lead you and your children in the right way of the Lord.
I can bear you witness, that when these discourses were delivered, you afforded an uncommon attention. You have been very solicitous to have them made public, for your own instruction and benefit; and for the use and benefit of your children, when you shall be gathered to the great Congregation of the dead. They contain not the disputed peculiarities of a party, but the grand principles and truths of our common Christianity, held sacred by our Churches in this Land, and by the whole protestant Christian world, as appears clearly from all their public Creeds and Confessions of Truth.
They are published, as you will easily recollect, nearly word for word, as they were delivered. Particular reasons have induced me to do this. In one discourse only is there a deviation from the original form; that on the Apostle’s caution Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines, or the danger of instability, and pernicious tendency of error. What was merely local is omitted, but the sentiments in substance are carefully retained.
Many learned and judicious Characters, both of the Clergy and Laity, have urged to the publication of these discourses, as being peculiarly adapted to the day in which we live, and the state of Religion in our nation: as calculated for, and greatly needed in Christian Families; there being no such series of discourses to be found in any Volume already published. The design of them is to convince such as need conviction—to reclaim such as may be wandering into error—to confirm the wavering—to console the Christian,—and to exhibit to all; some of the important, essential practical principles of pure and undefiled Religion.——It is only necessary to add—My prayer to God is, that they may, by his divine blessing, be the means of preventing the spread of error and irreligion, and of reviving the decaying interest of piety and holiness, which can only be revived and supported by a more strict and conscientious regard to all divine institutions.
N. P.