To the Right Honorable Edward, Lord Russell, Earl of Bedford: Grace and Peace Be Multiplied

338 words · ~1 min read

Good reader, there was a book of late published in London under this title, PERKINS, upon the Lord's prayer. In it I have double injury. First it was printed without my knowledge or consent. And secondly the book is faulty both in the matter and manner of writing. In the matter, these things are not well set down.

First the commandment of prayer, very easily to be kept. page 3b.

2. prayer is the restoration of the Gospel. 7b.

3. The three first petitions concern God's glory; the three latter, the means of God's glory. 1b.

4. God's name taken for his deity, and not for his attributes or titles. 15b.

5. A man must pray for the day of his death. 26a.

6. repentance is sufficient not only to bring a true faith, but also to renew it. 34.

7. A lesson in the Lord's prayer taken out of Popery. 45a.

8. The doctrine of satisfaction for sin is a most vile doctrine. 52b.

9. God and the devil agree in the manner of temptation. 61b.

10. God offers men the occasion to sin. 62a.

Likewise the manner of writing has other faults.

First, in the middle of the Lord's prayer, there is placed a discourse of the Lord's supper.

2. The end of the Lord's prayer is not expounded at all but frivolously.

3. There are very many places, which have no common reason in them, as First, God's angels do his will in countenance. 39b.

2. Our daily bread is communicating bread. 45b.

3. To walk before God in the truth of the satisfaction of God's justice. 51a.

4. To purge a clear conscience. 51b.

5. The pages 65, 66, 67 are so penned, as the reader cannot know what was my meaning.

Now, considering by this ungodly practice, Christian and well disposed people are much abused, to omit the injury done to myself: I thought it my duty to make a redress by publishing this treatise according as the points therein were delivered: otherwise I was not willing to have set down any thing in the way of Exposition of the Lord's prayer: because it is already sufficiently performed by others.