CONTROVERSIAL AND PRACTICAL: BY THE LATE REV. PHILIP SKELTON, RECTOR OF FINTONA, &c. &c. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, BURDY'S LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. EDITED BY THE REV. ROBT. LYNAM, A. M. RICHARD BAYNES, 28, PATERNOSTER ROW: 1824. TO THE VERY REVEREND JOHN PLUMPTRE, D.D. DEAN OF GLOUCESTER, &c. &c. THIS EDITION OF THE REV. P. SKELTON'S DISCOURSES IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, AS A TRIFLING MARK OF ESTEEM. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION. To those who admire sound argument and genuine piety, illustrated and enlivened by genius, we trust that we shall perform an acceptable service in presenting a new Edition of - Skelton's Discourses, which, as their merit is rare, have lately become proportionably scarce.. To make this more complete than former editions, a Life of the Author has been prefixed; and, doubtless, if any man is entitled to the tribute of Biography, Skelton possesses an undeniable claim. If our Author had not been distinguished for any intellectual superiority, if he had not appeared as the zealous and acute defender of religious truth, but had been satisfied with the glory of good actions, without aspiring to the reputation of an able writer ; bis life was a specimen of such extraordinary virtue, as should never be forgotten in a Christian community. To devote, as he did, his whole energy of body and mind to the laborious and unostentatious duties to be discharged in obscure parishes of a desolate coun. try- to divest himselfof self-interest so entirely, as to consider his poor and ignorant parishioners as his |