My Lord,
It is not for the benefit of any protection to the ensuing Treatise, let it stand or fall, as it shall be found in the judgments of men: nor that I might take advantage to set forth any of that worth and honor which being personal have truly ennobled your Lordship, and made a way for the delivering over of your family unto posterity; with an eminent luster added to the roll of your worthy progenitors; which if by myself desired, my unfitness to perform, must needs render unacceptable in the performance; neither yet have I the least desire to attempt a further advancement of myself into your Lordship's favor, being much beneath what I have already received; and fully resolved to own no other esteem among the sons of men, but what shall be accounted due (be it more or less) to the discharge of my duty to my Master Jesus Christ, whose wholly I would be: it is not all, nor one of these, nor any such as these, the usual subjects and ends of Dedications, real or pretended, that prevailed upon me, unto this boldness of prefixing your honored name to this ensuing Treatise, (which yet for the matter's sake contained in it, I cannot judge unworthy of any Christian eye) but only that I might take the advantage, to testify (as I do) to all the world, the answering of my heart unto that Obligation, which your Lordship was pleased to put upon me in the undeserved undesired favor, of opening that door wherewith you are entrusted, to give me an entrance to that place for the preaching of the Gospel, whither I was directed by the Providence of the Most High, and where I was sought by his people. In which place this I dare say by the grace of God, that such a stock of prayers and thankfulness, as your heart, which has learned to value the least of Christ in whomsoever it be, will not despise, is tendered for and to your Lordship, even on his behalf who is less than the least of all the saints of God, and unworthy the name which yet he is bold to subscribe himself by,
Your Honor's most obliged Servant in the service of Jesus Christ, John Owen.
