Excerpt from The Collected Sermons of Thomas Fuller, D. D, Vol. 1: 1631 1659 Fuller belonged to an age which caught a refleetion from the glories Of the Elizabethan period, and before church oratory had frozen into the decorous commonplaces that were current in the Augustan period Of Anne and the early Georges. Yet there are many Of Fuller's contemporaries, poflibly Of equal or even greater contemporary popularity, whofe fermons would not bear reprinting. His, however, preferve their vitality. This is partly no doubt due to the peculiar charm Of his remarkably original f'tyle; the Odd fancies and the daring but always reverent conceits the entirely unexpected light in which Old truths are placed and Old texts frefhly illufitrated. But fomething is alfo due to his fobriety Of judgment, and his conf'tant defire to attain the golden mean. This is in all ages an Offence to the zealots Of the Extreme Right and the Extreme Left, and the man who aims to walk in this middle path must expeet to be mif judged to be denounced by one seetion as an Obftructive and by another as a more or lefs difguifed revolutionary. Fuller did not efcape this danger, and yet living in times when Civil War divided all England into two hoflile camps, he had the efieem of good men Of all parties, and managed to retain and to ufe with franknefl'e and vigour a liberty Of pro phefying which was neither a needlefs source Of irritation nor a fmoothing down of the truth, as he held it, to mere com monplace. His fermons deal with fome temporary matters, but are for the mof't part concerned with the permanent elements in human nature and human life. Whoever will dig into them will find in them the folid gold Of wifdom, Of confolation, and Of reproof. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.