To the Reader

Reader.

It has been one of the glories of the Protestant religion, that it revived the doctrine of saving conversion, and of the new creature brought forth thereby. Concerning which, and the necessity thereof, we find so much indicated by Christ and the Apostles (in their Epistles) in those times: but in a more eminent manner, God has cast the honor hereof upon the ministers and preachers of this nation, who are renowned abroad for their more accurate search into, and discoveries hereof.

First, for the Popish religion, that much pretend to piety and devotion, and does dress forth a religion, to a great outward gaudiness, and show of [illegible] and will-worship, which (we confess) is intermingled with many spiritual strains of self-denial, submission to God's will, love to God and Christ, especially in the writings of those that are called Mystical [illegible]. But that first great and saving work of conversion, which is the foundation of all true piety, the great and numerous volumes of their most devout writers are usually silent therein. Indeed they eminently appropriate the word conversion and thing itself, to [illegible] man that renounces a secular life, and enters into religious orders (as they call them) and that doctrine they have in their discourses of grace and free will about it, is of no higher elevation, than what (as worthy Mr. Perkins long since) may be common to a reprobate; though we judge not all among them. God having continued in the midst of Popish darkness many to this day, and at this day with more contention than [〈4 pages missing〉] [illegible] not scandalous in their lives, having in [illegible] knowledge, the form of truth, by [illegible]; adding thereto some outward [illegible] duties. Such persons we mean, as [illegible] were in our pulpits, plainly [illegible], but civil, moral [illegible] (and [illegible] really but such kind of professors of [illegible], as Mutatis mutandis, are found [illegible] Turks of Mahometanism; who [illegible] the principles of that [illegible], and are devout in duties to God, [illegible] thereby, through the mere [illegible] of natural devotion, and education, [illegible] laws and customs of that religion; [illegible] also through moral honesty, are not [illegible] in their lives.) Such like [illegible] among us, have been, and that [illegible] a new [illegible] of religion, with [illegible] also from others (the ignorant [illegible] profane) professedly received [illegible] the Communion of Saints, as visible saints. [illegible] principle, and practice, has (as it [illegible] needs) weakened and debased the [illegible] purer stamp of the doctrine of [illegible] (as then held forth with such evidence of difference from these [illegible] profession) not only by encouraging such boldly to take on them to be [illegible] (as it were) by authority; but also by having checked, and flattened the spirits [illegible] themselves that would teach it, seeing that this real application in practice, and principle, to such moral Christians as saints, is a manifest contradiction to all [illegible] can be doctrinally said in the pulpit to the contrary, concerning the power [illegible] this great work in true saints. And [illegible] the profession of religion has been leveled, and diffused into that bulk and commonness, that the true marks of saving graces, are (as to the open discerning) much worn out, and will be more and more, if this should obtain.

Or else (as great a cause as any other) a special profession of religion being [illegible] mode, and under countenance: hence many have been easily moved to see what might be in religion, and so attend to what is said about it; and upon listening thereto, their spirits have been awakened, and surprised with some light, and then with that light they have grown inquisitive into what this or that party of religion holds; what the other, or what a fourth. And thinking themselves at liberty (as the principle of the times is) to choose (as men in a market) what that light will lead them to; they accordingly fall in, either with this, or that particular persuasion: and this is all of many men's conversion. And yet because such become zealously addicted to such, or such a [illegible] (some of the professors of each of which, others that differ, own as truly godly) therefore they are presently adopted, and owned as saints, by the several followers of such opinions: and each sort thinks much, that those who embrace their opinion, should not be accounted, and esteemed religious [illegible] all others, that do sincerely [illegible] the power of it. Thus men tithe [illegible] and cumin, and leap over the great [illegible] [illegible] regeneration, namely, [illegible] for sin, the [illegible] sense of their natural condition, the difficult work of faith, to [illegible] them, union and closing with Christ, mortification of lusts, etc. which works where they are found, and visibly held forth, none are to be disowned for other opinions consisting with the [illegible]; yet so, as without these, no opinion, of what elevation soever, can, or does constitute a man religious.

Now look, as when among the Jews, religion had run into factions, and parties, and the power of it thereby, was [illegible] lost; God then set down John [reconstructed: the Baptist] among them, a sour and severe preacher, and urger of the doctrine of [reconstructed: Repentance], and preparative humiliation for sin (which he comparatively to what was brought in by Christ, calls the Baptism of Water) though withal 'tis said, that in the close of his doctrine, [reconstructed: he] pointed to Christ; saying to the people, that they should believe on him that should come after him; that is, on Jesus Christ. Yet this he did but [illegible] at: for the full [reconstructed: measure] of his dispensation ran in that other channel. Of whose ministry [reconstructed: it] is also said (Luke 1:16-17), that [reconstructed: many] of the children of Israel should he turn to [reconstructed: the] Lord, their God. And shall go before him (namely Christ) in the spirit and power of [reconstructed: Elijah], to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the [reconstructed: wisdom] of the just, to make ready a people [reconstructed: prepared] for the Lord. The meaning of this is, he came to restore the doctrine of [reconstructed: true] conversion, and in that point [reconstructed: to] bring and reduce the children of the [reconstructed: Jews] back again to the same [reconstructed: faith] and ways (necessary to salvation) [reconstructed: into] which the fathers, and all the [reconstructed: godly] saints of the Old Testament [reconstructed: had] been brought in to God. And [reconstructed: so] by that means to become of the same religion (saving conversion being the [reconstructed: very] practical foundation and center [reconstructed: of] all religion) that the godly Jews [reconstructed: of] old were of. So what know we, but [reconstructed: that] God (in some lesser, proportionate [reconstructed: measure], both in respect of persons and times) may have had this in the eye of all wisely designing Providence to set out this great author's works and writings (among the labors of others also) upon this very argument, to bring back, and correct the errors of the spirits of professors of these times (and perhaps by urging too far, and insisting too much upon that as preparatory, which includes indeed the beginnings of true faith, (and a man may be held too long under John Baptist's water) to rectify those that have slipped into profession, and leapt over all both true and deep humiliation for sin, and sense of their natural condition; indeed and many over Christ himself too, professing to go to God without him. However, this we may say (without diminution to any other or detraction from the author himself, in respect of his more raised knowledge of Christ and God's free grace) that if any of our late preachers and divines came in the spirit and power of John Baptist this man did.

This deeply humbled man, and as [reconstructed: deeply] raised, both in faith and [reconstructed: fellowship] with Christ, the author of [reconstructed: these] treatises. He had been trained up [reconstructed: from] his youth, in the experience and [reconstructed: sense] of God's dispensations and [reconstructed: dealings] this way; and versed in digging [reconstructed: into] the mines and veins of Holy [reconstructed: Scripture], to find how they agreed with his [reconstructed: own experience]. His soul had [reconstructed: traced] the intricate meanders, and the [reconstructed: difficulties] (through temptations) [reconstructed: and struggles] of this narrow passage and [reconstructed: entrance] into life (and few there be that [reconstructed: find] it.) And by deep reflections upon [reconstructed: each] step of God's procedure with [reconstructed: him], has descried those false and [reconstructed: dangerous] by-ways, which at every step, [reconstructed: every] man (who errs in his heart, not [reconstructed: knowing] the knowledge of God's ways) is apt to [reconstructed: go] astray when they have but inferior [reconstructed: workings] of the Spirit on them, from [reconstructed: the] way of life, which only those do [reconstructed: find] that are unerringly guided by the [reconstructed: Holy] Spirit (peculiar to the elect) into [reconstructed: the] ways of peace.

And whereas there has been published long since, many parts and pieces of this author, upon this argument, sermon-wise preached by him here in England (which in the preaching of them did enlighten all those parts) yet having been taken by an unskillful hand, which upon his recess into those remoter parts of the world, was bold without his knowledge or consent to print and publish them (one of the greatest injuries which can be done to any man) it came to pass his genuine meaning, and this in points of so high a nature, and in some things differing from the common opinion, was diverted in those printed sermons from the fair and clear draught of his own notions and intentions, because so utterly deformed and misrepresented in multitudes of passages; and in the rest but imperfectly and crudely set forth.

Here, in these treatises, you have his heart from his own hand, his own thoughts drawn by his own pencil. This is all truly and purely his own, not as preached only, but as written by himself in order to the press; which may be a great satisfaction to all that honored [reconstructed: and] loved him (as who that was good, and knew him, did not?) especially [reconstructed: those] that received benefit by those [reconstructed: former] imperfect editions. And we cannot but look at it as a blessed providence of God, that the publishing of the same by others (in that manner that has been mentioned) should have provoked him, and that by the excitation of the church (of which he was the pastor in New England) to go over again the same materials in the course of his ministry among them, in order to the perfecting of it by his own hand for public light, thereby to vindicate both himself and it from that wrong which otherwise had remained forever irrecompensable.

And hereby it came to pass (that so far as he has proceeded) this subject came to have a third digestion in the heart and head of him that was one of the most experienced Christians, and of acutest abilities that have been living in our age. He preached more briefly of this subject first, while he was [reconstructed: Fellow] and Catechist in Emanuel College in Cambridge. The notes of which, were then so esteemed, that many copies thereof were by many that heard not the sermons, written out, and are yet extant by them. And then again, a second time, many years after, more largely [reconstructed: at] Great Chelmsford in Essex; the [reconstructed: fruit] of which, was those books of [reconstructed: his] that have gone under his name. And last of all; now in New England, and [reconstructed: preached] in, and to a settled church of saints, to which the promise is made of being the seat and pillar of truth; and [reconstructed: in] which all ordinances set as the lodestone in the steel, have the greater power and energy: in which the presence of Christ breaks forth, and all [illegible] springs are found therein.

And truly we need not wonder [reconstructed: that] God set his heart and thoughts to work [reconstructed: so] much, and so repeatedly about this subject. We see that the Holy Ghost himself, the Author of this work of conversion, does sometimes, and that in an [reconstructed: extraordinary] manner, go over the whole of that work again and again in the hearts of Christians, whom God means to make great in his Church: as in Peter, when [reconstructed: you] are converted, etc., who was yet [reconstructed: converted] already. And to the Disciples, Except you be converted, etc. And the [reconstructed: coming] of the Holy Ghost upon them, at, and [reconstructed: after] Pentecost, was as a new conversion [reconstructed: to] them, making them to differ [reconstructed: so] much from themselves, in what they were before, as well-nigh they themselves [reconstructed: (who were] before truly wrought on) did [reconstructed: differ] from other men. The [reconstructed: Spirit] of God himself goes over this work [reconstructed: again] in all the parts of it: as to [reconstructed: quicken] anew, to draw to Christ, to change and [reconstructed: elevate] the heart to higher strains of [reconstructed: grace]. And when so, then his second [reconstructed: work] excels the first, that it comes not into mind; and his third the second, [reconstructed: so that] it ceases (as it were) to be remembered (as the Prophet in other works of wonder speaks), for thereby he every [reconstructed: day] spiritualizes the heart still more, [reconstructed: freeing] it from hypocrisy, and makes it [reconstructed: more] refined; causes the heart to come forth from each new cast and molding with a deeper and fairer impression of his image and glory. If then the Holy Ghost (the writer of his law in the heart) set that high value upon that work of his, that he vouchsafes to take [reconstructed: such] pains to write it over and over again in the same tablet; let it be no diminution to this great Author, but let us bless God rather for the providence, that the same divine hand and Spirit should set him this task, to take the doctrine of [reconstructed: this] work into a second, yes, a third review; and thereby make it as it were, [illegible] the work of his life.

Only thus it is, that the other great points, as union with Christ, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glory (which subjects, as he was able for, so his heart was most in them) he has left unfinished: and so thereby (as is most likely) multitudes of precious, yes glorious thoughts, which he might have reserved (as often falls out to preachers and writers) for those higher subjects, as the close, and center, and crown of what forewent, as preparative to that, are now perished, and laid in the dust with him. None but Christ was ever yet able to finish all that work which was in his heart to do. Farewell.

Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye.