the beauty of her ordinances—and she will soon recall the scattered affections of those who have wandered from her communion, and be made a blessing to a people recovered from their dissensions by the uniting spirit of the gospel of Christ. END OF THE MEMOIR. NOTE ON THE FIRST FIVE SERMONS. "LOVE," says an old divine, "is the master bee, which carries all the swarm with it ;" and it is certain that the unhappy differences of Christians arise from their other graces having lost an essential affinity with this heavenly leader. As it was the first affection corrupted, so it is the first renewed, and is designed to be the main-spring of our social happiness and public usefulness; a beam of the sun of righteousness to cheer, enlighten, and warm us in our cold and dreary pilgrimage to those regions, whose eternal day is produced by its full effulgence. Mr. Walker being deeply imbued with the spirit of this grace, and therefore duly estimating its value, inculcated it on his parishioners in five admirable sermons, which were found among the papers of the late Rev. Rowland Hill, by whom they were frequently read to his society of communicants, at Surry chapel, and whose intention it was to print them for their use and edification. He had written a preface to them containing a very brief memoir of their author, chiefly taken from the short account of his life and ministry, prefixed to his fifty-two sermons published in 1763, and commencing with the following address: 1 Leigh's Body of Divinity, London, 1672, p. 763. |