This book is a collection of miscellaneous essays and lectures published or given publicly by the author over the course of forty years. All of the lectures were given on special occasions, the details of which are stated at the head of the lecture in question.

One of the lectures (“Evangelicals and the Oxford Movement”) was given as the Evangelical Library Lecture of 1983; one of the essays (“Jonathan Edwards and the Deists”) won first prize in the Evangelical Library Essay Competition of 1987 and was published in the Banner of Truth Magazine in 1988; four of the lectures (“The Holy Spirit and Revival”; “Redemptive-Historical Preaching: A Critique”; “The Glory of Creation”; and “The Exclusiveness of Christ”) were given at the annual conferences of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary; one of the lectures (“Edwards in the Hands of English Professors”) was given at a conference of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2006; and one (“The Extemporaneous Mode of Preaching’’) was given as Carrick’s inaugural lecture as professor of homiletics at Greenville Seminary in 2009. .