To the Reader

Good reader,

I have looked over the sermons on Psalm 42 that follow, and find they are the same ones I preached some years ago, taken down at the time by a faithful pen as they fell from me in preaching. They have lain buried in silence a long while, and would have stayed buried, had not the persistent requests of some who heard them preached raised them up again. My own notes were not legible enough to send to the press; so in answer to their request I have corrected these sermons — altered some things, added others, and filed off some repetitions, fit enough for the pulpit but not for the page. What is still wanting, let your own goodness supply.

I have also joined to them some other sermons of a more doctrinal cast, since these are mostly practical, so that your mind and your heart might both be exercised at once. In them I have applied myself more to instruction than to scholarly dispute, for I know the universities have able and faithful men better suited to that work. Nor have I taken up a quarrel with any fellow Englishman; and if I have trodden on anyone's toes, I hope he will forgive me, for I can truly say, sir, I did not see you there.

And if anyone should say to me what David's brother Eliab said to him — "I know thy pride, and malice of thine heart, that thou art come down to see the battle" — I might answer, as David did, "Is there not a cause?" (1 Samuel 17:28–29). When strange opinions and errors are published daily, is there not a cause why every man who loves the truth should bear his own witness to it? In the performance, then, of my own duty, and for your establishing, I have spoken to a number of truths that are now being questioned. Hold fast what you have, lest another take your crown.

"And the Lord Jesus Christ and our God, even the Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort thine heart, and stablish thee in every word, and good work."

Yours in the service of the gospel,

William Bridge