The Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology
Sermons
by Mark Frank
volume oneEpistle Dedicatory
[Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1849]
[pp vi-viii]
TO
THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,
GILBERT,
LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, HIS GRACE,
PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND METROPOLITAN, ONE OF HIS MAJESTYS
MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL, &c.MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,
THOUGH by that infinite distance I am in to your Grace, I ought to make all the apologies in the world for this attempt; yet when I reflect upon you own admired candour in receiving the most inferior addresses, and my own duty in making this, I need not, I hope, use a compliment to excuse that, which I neither could nor ought not but to have done. For the Author of these Sermons had that relation to your Grace, and yourself that favour for him, that no other name is so fit or so worthy to prefix to any thing of his as your Graces. And besides, I may very reasonably suppose, that there may be something in the following papers, that may not be unfit to be offered to such a personage. I humbly therefore pray, that either the one or the other, may excuse the forwardness of this dedication. As to my own very great obligations to your Grace, I will not be so conceited as to mention them; for when I have told so public, I need not add any private reasons; and besides, it may be looked upon by the world, as a design to gain a reputation to myself, by talking of favours from a person of such eminence. Yet I beg that I may have leave to ay, that I reckon it my greatest honour, in having the advantage of presenting this offering, which ought to be made to your Grace, by
Your Graces
Meanest and most Dutiful Servant,
THOMAS POMFRET.