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PREFACE.

MANY pious people, engaged in the ac

tive duties of life, have neither time to read, nor money to purchase large books. With a view to relieve them in both these respects, the following Short Sermons are published.

Long sermons are generally tiresome, and seldom do much good either to readers or hearers. The author of these sermons has been employed in the work of the ministry more than one-and-twenty years, and has always found that short sermons are both more useful and more acceptable than long ones.

It may be objected that these are too short. To this it is answered, first, that each short sermon in this work is intended

to contain the substance of a long sermon; and, secondly, that the design of a sermon, in the author's judgment, should be rather the way for people to think for themselves, than to exhaust the subject by long illustrations.

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Should this feeble attempt to instruct the pious prove a blessing to any one, God shall have the praise. The author does not court popular applause. His highest ambition, he trusts, is to DO GOOD.

The original State of Man.

SERMON I.

GEN. 1. 27.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.

THE works of God are beautiful in their appearance, regular in their motions, and useful in their various operations. To contemplate them frequently is both an important duty, and a source of great delight. "The works of God are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

The first chapter of Genesis, out of which we have taken our text, contains a short account of creation in general, and of man in particular. The solemnity with which man was created, proves that he was designed to fill an important place in the newly-created world. A COUNCIL was held. “Let us (said God) make man in our image: so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him."

Our text teaches two things: first, that God created man: secondly, that he created him in his own image.

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