1784] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. IO9 



At the Convention of June 22d, 1784. in Maryland, Dr. Smith 

 presided, and preached the opening sermon. The text was those 

 well-known verses from the Second Epistle of Timothy, chapter 

 i., verses 13, 14; chapter iv., verses 3, 4. 



Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love 

 which is in Christ Jesus — that good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the 

 Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. 



For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their 

 own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn 

 avv'ay their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 



The preacher's mode of treating the text shows the heats of 

 which there was danger, in the discussion of those matters which 

 the times demanded should be considered both in State conven- 

 tions and in conventions at large. He opens the discourse in a 

 vein of sarcasm, in which he not unfrequently indulged in political 

 discussion or conversation, and in which he there found a power- 

 ful weapon, but which his high sense, both of dignity and consist- 

 ency, prevented much use of in the pulpit. He was here, however, 

 speaking as he was to the Convention of Maryland, at home and 

 inter SILOS — more at liberty ; and it was perhaps the most effective 

 way to cure some among them affected with stiffness in their 

 cervical vertebiw. Thus the Bishop-elect begins : 



In this very adventurous and inquisitive Day, when men spurning 

 their kindred-earth, on which they were born to tread, will dar^, on 

 airy wing to soar into the regions of the sky; were it the pleasure 

 of our Almighty Creator to purge any of us mortals of our terrestrial 

 dross, and to place us, in good earnest, upon some distant orb, from 

 which Avith clear and serene view, corporeal as well as intellectual, we 

 could survey this world of ours^what a s^ange scene would it appear? 

 Itself in the rank of worlds, dwindled into a small mole-hill; and men, 

 the little emmets upon it, bustling and driving and crossing each other, 

 as if there were no settled walk of life, no common tie, or "Form of 

 sound words to be held fast of all, in faith and love which is in Christ 

 Jesus?" 



In our intellectual view, from this eminence of station, we should 

 behold one set of men, who boast of the ali-suiTicient and transcendent 

 power of Reason, as their rule and guide ; but yet all wandering 

 through different tracts, although in the same pursuits of Happiness 

 and Peace ! Another set of men would be seen who call themselves the 

 Special Favourites of Heaven, and say they are guided by a glorious 

 Inward Light, communicated immediately from the everlasting Foun- 



