To the Ingenuous Reader

This sermon had never borrowed one hour of your light, could prejudice and ill-will (which never speaks well) have suffered it to have lain in darkness, it was honestly born, but, unknown to the parent, it was brought under a Canonical Baptism, where it received the sign of the Cross, and so is made Crucianus though not Christianus; had it but pleaded the holiness of vestures, the decency of a ceremony, no doubt though its subject had not been so good, yet its censure had not been so bad.

The Author intended no more in the delivering of it to his hearers, than a help to the delivering of them from the power of the Tempter. When should the watchmen give warning, but when the enemy is approaching? And when should they call loudest to spiritual watchfulness, but when they are nearest to the snares of spiritual wickedness? This was the practice of our Lord Christ: Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation (Mark 6:41).

What it was in the sermon that could possibly offend, I cannot guess, unless the eighth head; and I wonder not much at their offence at that, since it appears they are weak brethren. It is sad that men should walk not as wise but as fools, when the drift of the discourse was to teach them to walk not as fools, but as wise; and that a sermon of temptation, should become a temptation; thus is Christ himself a stone of stumbling, while they that so mannerly [reconstructed: bow] their bodies at the name of Jesus, cannot bend their consciences to the truth of Jesus; but herein is that Scripture fulfilled: For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind (1 Peter 2:3; [reconstructed: John 9:39]).

There is somewhat spoken about sinful compliance with ceremonies, and not much; if it had been more, it had not been much, coming from one that was born too late to remember them practised, and thinks he should live too long to see them imposed. If to speak against Will-worship and superstition, be a fault, (for that is my crime) who can love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and at this time be innocent? I had rather be charged with frowardness before men, than to be charged with unfaithfulness before God.

Expect not Iliads in a nutshell, much in this little, it being but conceived but the day before it was born. I resolved as not to diminish one sentence from it, to make it more excusable; so not to add one sentence to it, to make it more commendable; only a little in the Introduction which I then omitted, and now, to make what follows sense, have added.

It was seed sown on good ground, preached to an honest congregation at Stepney, though some fell by the way side, and that the wicked one picked up. Thus as bold thieves will dare to pick pockets at the very bar of judgment, so Satan will be tempting and ensnaring, even when and where his temptations are discovering (Matthew 13:4, compared with verse 9).

This sermon has a disorderly publication, both in regard of divers sermons that were preached before it on the same text, and divers that are to follow after it, but as this finds acceptance, so I at present purpose to deal with the rest, either to the closet, or to the house top.

If anything in it prove useful to your soul in the [reconstructed: hour] of temptation, let God have your praises, who deserves them; and let him have your prayers who needs them, and who promises to be in return for them.

Your Servant for Jesus sake, MAT. MEADE.