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TO THE

LORD BISHOP OF KILLALOE,

ETC. ETC.

MY LORD,

When your Lordship requested me to preach on the occasion of your consecration, I felt it not merely as a personal compli ment, but as a call to the performance of a professional duty of no inconsiderable importance; and regarding it in this light, I think it best to abstain from referring to your request in the manner to which other feelings would naturally prompt me.

I had not entertained the idea of committing my Sermon to the press, but urged as I was by your Lordship to do so, I have not held myself at liberty to decline.

For the necessarily imperfect development of the topics of the Sermon, your Lordship, of course, will not be held responsible; but it will naturally be inferred, that its general objects and leading sentiments did receive your approbation.

And this approbation will make known, what, I am sure, your Lordship will have no objection to find inferred, that an unwillingness to question the Christian character of other Communions where Christ is preached and his sacraments duly administered, or to assert that such Communions, because governed differently from our own, are necessarily excluded from the "Household of faith," is, in your judgment, far from implying general indifference with respect to the constitution of Churches, or the absence of decided preference and devoted attachment to our own; and again, that that preference and attachment are more suitably shewn by the members of our own Church, by cheerful submission to its discipline and its constituted authorities, than by severe censures passed on the members of other religious communities.

The misapprehension of supposing that our

Saviour has promised a continuance of miracles in His Church, arising from confounding together, the Commissions recorded by Matthew and Mark respectively, has long appeared to me to involve most injurious results. And it will give me great satisfaction to find that the explanation which seems to me to be the true one of these passages, shall prove to the minds of my brother clergy, as satisfactory as it has long appeared to mine, in obviating that misapprehension.

I have the honor to be, My Lord,

Your Lordship's humble

And obedient Servant,

CHARLES DICKINSON.

Καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς, λέγων·

Εδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς. Πορευθέντες [οὖν] μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος, διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα, ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν· καὶ ἰδοὺ, ἐγὼ μεθ' ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος—S. Mat. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.

SERMON,

&c. &c.

ST. MATTHEW, xxviii. 18, 19, 20.

"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all

power

is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

THIS is the record of the permanent commission which our Saviour gave to his appointed ministers. It is accordingly selected by our Church as a portion of Scripture fitly to be read on occasions like the present. Many have supposed that it is the same in substance as the commission recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark; but I shall have occasion to point out to you that this is an error of no trifling importance.

That the commission I have read to you was designed to be permanent, you will easily discern from the nature of the promise annexed, "Lo, I am

B

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