SERMONS PREACHED UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, BY ROBERT SOUTH, D. D. PREBENDARY OF WESTMINSTER, AND CANON OF A NEW EDITION, IN FIVE VOLUMES. VOL. IV. OXFORD, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. MDCCCXLII. ADVERTISEMENT ΤΟ THE EDITION OF M.DCCC.XXIII. THE Discourses contained in the three last volumes of the present edition, with the exception of the Appendix, were first published in the year 1744, with the following title: "Five additional Volumes of Sermons preached upon several Occasions. By Robert South, D.D. "late Prebendary of Westminster, and Canon of "Christ-Church, Oxon. Now first printed from the "Author's Manuscripts. With the chief Heads of "the Sermons prefixed to each Volume: and a general “Index of the principal Matters. London: printed "for Charles Bathurst, opposite St. Dunstan's Church "in Fleet-Street. M.DCC.XLIV." The editor is said to have been Dr. William King, Principal of St. Mary Hall in the University of Oxford. See Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. II. p. 608. a These Discourses form the fourth and fifth volumes of this edition. iv ADVERTISEMENT TO THE ED. OF 1823. These Sermons do not appear to have been prepared or even intended for the press by the author, from whose rough drafts they were evidently printed in so careless and incorrect a manner, as in many passages to be absolutely unintelligible. In the present edition it has been deemed proper to have recourse occasionally to conjectural emendation of the text, in preparing which considerable use has been made of a copy bequeathed to the Bodleian Library by Charles Godwyn, B.D. in which many of the errors are corrected in Mr. Godwyn's own hand. But in all cases, in which an obvious and almost certain correction did not present itself, the original edition has been followed without alteration. A list of the words or passages corrected is subjoined to each volume. THE CHIEF HEADS OF THE SERMONS. VOL. IV. SERMON I. EPHESIANS iv. 10. He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. P. 1. Christianity, in those great matters of fact upon which it is founded, happily complies with man's mind, by affording proper objects to affect both the pensive, sad, and composed part of the soul, and also its more joyful, serene, and sprightly apprehensions; which is instanced in many passages of Christ's life, from the humble manger, attended with angels, to his descent into the grave, followed by his miraculous resurrection and ascension, 1. This last great and crowning passage, however true, still affords scope for the noble actings of faith; and since faith must rest itself upon a divine word, such a word we have here in the text, 2. Wherein are four things considerable : I. Christ's humiliation implied in these words, he that descended, 3. The Socinians answered concerning Christ's descent according to his divine nature, 4. And an inquiry made as to the place whither he descended, the lower parts of the earth, 4. which, 1. Some understand simply of the earth, as being the lowermost part of the world, 5. 2. Some of the grave, 5. 3. Some of hell itself, the place of the damned, 5. 4. The Romanists by the help of this text have spied a place called purgatory; or rather the pope's kitchen, 5. These words may bear the same sense with those in Psalm cxxxix. 15. and be very properly taken for Christ's incarnation and conception in the womb of the blessed Virgin, 6. and that upon these grounds: |