An Introduction to the Work

The knowledge of divinity is necessary for all sorts of men, both to settle and establish the good, and to convert and fetch in the bad. God's principles pull down Satan's false principles set up in men's heads, loved and believed with men's hearts, and defended by their tongues; while strongholds remain unshaken, the Lord Jesus is kept off from conquering of the soul.

Now spiritual truths are either such as tend to enlarge the understanding, or such as may work chiefly upon the affections. I pass by (in this knowing age) the first of these, and (being among a people whose hearts are hard enough) [reconstructed: I begin] with the latter sort: for the understanding, although it may literally, yet it never savingly entertains any truth, until the affections be therewith smitten and wrought upon.

I shall therefore here prosecute the unfolding of these divine principles.

First, that there is one most glorious God.

Secondly, that this God made all mankind at first in Adam in a most glorious estate.

Thirdly, that all mankind is now fallen from that estate, into a bottomless gulf of sin and misery.

Fourthly, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only means of redemption out of this estate.

Fifthly, that those that are saved out of this woeful estate by Christ are very few, and these few are saved with much difficulty.

Sixthly, that the greatest cause why so many die, and perish in this estate, is from themselves: either

1. By reason of their bloody ignorance, they know not their misery: or

2. By reason of their carnal security, they feel not, they groan not under their sin and misery.

3. By reason of their carnal confidence, they seek to help themselves out of their misery by their own duties, when they see or feel it: or

4. By reason of their false faith, whereby they catch hold upon and trust to the merits of Christ too soon, when they see and feel they cannot help themselves.