For whose Use they were more immediately compiled, and by whom they were heard with peculiar Attention,

The following

LECTURES

ON THE

OCCURRENCES OF THE PASSION-WEEK,

DESIGNED

Not merely to prevent the Infringement, but also to promote the Observance, of the Solemnity of that Holy Season,

Are dedicated by

The faithful Minister of the former,

And the affectionate Friend of them all,

RICHARD MANT.

1

PREFACE.

N submitting the following Lectures to the perusal of the publick, I have little new to offer, besides, as far as I can recollect, the choice of the time when they were delivered; never having seen any discourses which were preached particularly at that season, with the single exception perhaps of some LECTURES on the EPISTLES, appointed for the Service of the CHURCH Of ENGLAND on the Days of PASSION-WEEK, EASTER EVEN, and EASTER SUNDAY, by DANIEL SANDFORD, D. D. Minister of Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh*; which, as they were composed for, were probably delivered on, those days.

As my design in collecting these Lectures had a more immediate regard to my own parishioners in particular, and then to the inhabitants of the town of Southampton in general, without any idea of their being ever sent to the press; in order to facilitate the work I had undertaken, I not only adopted the thoughts, but frequently borrowed expressions, and even incorporated whole passages from the several authors which lay before me, rather solicitous to prepare an useful, than aspiring to produce an original, work.

The serious attention which had been shown to them, when they were delivered from the pulpit, led me, after I had first preached them in the year

* Now a Bishop in the Scotch Episcopal Church.

a

1803, to entertain a thought, that some benefit might arise from the publication of them. I therefore submitted them to the perusal of some of my friends, whose opinion I desired, "Whether, notwithstanding the free use I had made of the works of others, I might, without incurring censure on that account, send them to the press, rather as partly compiled from other writers, than entirely composed by myself."

Their opinion of this humble production in general, and that of one in particular, " That these Lectures promised great usefulness to many in lead. ing on that train of thought and reflection so necessary to us all, whether educated or uneducated, in the awful commemoration of our Saviour's Passion," encouraged me to expose them to the eye of the publick; conscious, at the same time, of the imperfect manner in which they are compiled, yet not without great hope, that they would, in some measure, produce the effect suggested by my valuable friend.

But, on farther consideration, I determined to defer the publication of them, till I had preached them once or twice more in my own Church, which I did in the years 1804 and 1806.

I will not attribute the attendance of very numerous congregations, the three several years that they were delivered, solely to novelty or curiosity; but, as I am, I trust, warranted, rather to a desire in the hearers, corresponding with that of the preacher, to dedicate part of their time to the contemplation of the momentous transactions, which were at that season carried on in completing the design of the coming of JESUS CHRIST into the world.

Some years ago a book entitled "THE PASSION; or, A DESCRIPTIVE and CRITICAL NARRATIVE of the INCIDENTS, as they occurred EACH DAY OF THE WEEK, in which CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS are commemorated;" was published by T. KNOWLES, D. D. Prebendary of Ely*. It was from this, that I took the hint for the plan of these Lectures, when a powerful motive, to which I have alluded in the first or introductory Lecture, having first arrested my attention, soon induced me to undertake, and afterwards animated me to finish, what I now with deference offer to the publick.

Besides the two authors abovementioned, when I was arranging these Lectures, I had before me Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church; Hammond, Whitby, and Henry on the New Testament, Doddridge's Family Expositor, the present Bishop of London's Lectures on St. Matthew's Gospel, and other valuable books, which it is not necessary to enumerate here; nor have I thought it so, after this general acknowledgement, to make references to them in the course of the Lectures, except occasionally, when there appeared to me a particular reason for so doing..

From the authors, then, whom I have mentioned, and those whom I have not, together with my own observations, these Lectures are compiled, which, as I have already observed, were delivered from the pulpit in the years 1803, 1804, and 1806.

Although the circumstance which gave rise to them has not since returned in this townt, yet the propriety of delivering such can never cease: particularly as many persons, notwithstanding the present laxity of religion and morals, are still desirous of preserving a due reverence for the days which precede those, in which the design of our Saviour's coming into the world was completed, which was,

* I recommend this as a very proper book to assist private meditations in the Passion-Week.

+ An attempt was made in the year 1805 to introduce theatrical entertainments into the city of Coventry in the Passion-Week, but was frustrated, if I am rightly informed, by the interference of the clergy.