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by Matthew Mead (Author)
To those who were the auditors of these sermons-grace and peace be multiplied. Beloved, what the meaning of that providence was, that called me to the occupation of my talent among you this summer, will be best read and understood by the effects of it upon your own souls. The kindly increase of grace and holiness in heart and life, can only prove it to have been in mercy. Where this is not the fruit of the Word, there it becomes a judgment. The Word of God travels with life or death, salvation or damnation-and brings forth one or the other in every soul that hears it. I would not for a world (were it in my power to make the choice) that my labors, which were meant and designed for the promotion of your immortal souls to the glory of heaven, in a present pursuance of the things of your peace-should be found to have been a ministration of death and condemnation, in the great day of Jesus Christ. Yet this the Lord knows, is the too common effect of the most plain and powerful preaching of the gospel. May the mighty God, whose prerogative it is to teach to profit, whether by the tongue or the pen, by speaking or writing-bless this tract, that it may be to you as a cloud of rain to the dry ground, dropping fatness to your soul, that so your fleece being watered with the "dew of heaven," you may "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
