What other oppositions you do meet, or in your progress may meet withal, I shall not mention; but wait with patience on Him who gives men repentance and change of heart to the acknowledgment of the things that are of Him. This iu the midst of all hath hitherto been a cause of great rejoicing, that God hath gra- ciously kept off ravenous wolves from entering into your flocks, where are so many tender lambs, and hath not suffered " men to arise from amongst yourselves speak- ing perverse things, and drawing away disciples after them ;" but as he hath given you to " obey from the heart that form of doctrine which hath been delivered unto you," so he hath preserved that " faith " amongst you " which was once delivered unto the saints."
Your peculiar designation to the service of the gospel and defence of the truth thereof, your abdities for that work, your abiding in it notwithstanding the oppo- sition you meet withal, " in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation," are, as I said before, my encouragements in this address unto you, wherein I shall crave leave a little farther to communicate my thoughts unto you as to the matter in hand. Next to the Son of his love, who is the Truth, the greatest and most emi- nent gift that God hath bestowed on the sons of men, and communicated to them, is his truth revealed in his word, — the knowledge of him, his mind and will, ac- cording to the discovery which he hath made of himself from his own bosom, having magnified his word above all his name. The importance hereof as to the eternal concernments of the sons of men, either in ignorance refusing and resist- ing, or accepting and embracing of it, is that which is owned, and lies at the bottom and foundation of all that we any way engage ourselves into in this world, wherein we difi'er from them whose hope peiisheth with them. Unto an inquiry after and entertainment of this divine and sacred depositum hath God designed the fruit and labour of that wherein we retain the resemblance of him; which, whilst we have our being, nothing can abohsh. The mind of man and divine truth are the two most eminent excellencies wherewith the Lord hath adorned this lower part of his creation; which, when they correspond and are brought into conformity with each other, the mind being changed into the image of truth,
10 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
there is glor}' ailJed to glory, and the whole rendered exceeding glorious. By what suitableness and firoportion in the things themselves (that is, between truth and the mind of man), as we are men, — by what almighty, secret, and irresistible power, as we are corrupted men, our minds being full of darkness and folly, — this is wrought, is not my business now to discuss. This is on all hands confessed, that, setting asida the consideration of the eternal issues of things, every mistake of divine truth, every opposition to it or rejection of it, or any part of it, is so far a chaining up of the mind under the power of darkness from a progress towards that perfection which it is capable of. It is truth alone that capacitates any soul to give glory to God, or to be truly useful to them who are partakers of flesh and blood with him ; without being some way serviceable to which end, there is nothing short of the fulness of Avrath that can be judged so miserable as the life of a man. Easily so much might be delivered on this account as to evince the dread of that judgment whereto some men, in the infallibly wise counsel of God, are doomed, even to the laying out of the labour and travail of their minds, to spend their days and strength in sore labour, in making opposition to this truth of God. Espe- cially is the sadness of this consideration increased in reference to them who, upon any account whatever, do bear forth themselves, and are looked upon by others, as "guides of the blind," as " lights to them which are in darkness," as the "instruc- tors of the foolish," and " teachers of babes." For a man to set himself, or to be set by others, in a way wherein are many turnings and cross paths, some of them leading and tending to places of innumerable troubles, and perhaps death and slaughter, undertaking to be a guide to direct them that travel towards the place of their intendments, where they would be, and where they shall meet with rest; for such an one, I say, to take hold of every one that passeth by, pretending himself to be exceeding skilful in all the windings and turnings of those ways and paths, and to stand there on purpose to give direction, if he shall, with all his skill and rhetoric, divert them out of the path wherein they have perhaps safely set out, and so guide them into those by-ways which will certainly lead them into snares and troubles, if not to death itself, — can he spend his time, labour, and strength, in an employment more to be abhorred ? or can he design any thing more desperately mischievous to them whose good and welfare he is bound and pro- miseth to seek and promote ? Is any man's condition under heaven more to be lamented, or is any man's employment more perilous, than such an one's, who, being not only endowed with a mind and understanding capable of the truth and re- ceiving impressions of the will of God, but also with distinguishing abilities and enlargements for the receiving of greater measures of truth than others, and for the more effectual improvement of what he doth so receive, shall labour night and day, dispending the richest treasure and furnishment of his soul for the rooting out, defacing, and destruction of the ti-uth, for the turning men out of the way and paths that lead to rest and peace? I never think of the uncomfortable drudgery which men give up themselves unto, in laying the hay and stubble of their vain and false conceptions upon the foundation, and heaping up the fruit of their souls, to make the fire that consumes them the more fierce and severe, but it forces compassionate thoughts of that sad condition whereto mankind hath cast itself by its apostasy from God. And yet there is not any thing in the world that men more willingly, with more delight and greediness, consecrate the flower of their strength and abilities unto, than this of promoting the delusions of their own minds, in opposition to the truth and ways of God. It is a thing of obvious observation and daily experience, that if, by any means whatever, any one closeth with some new and by-opinion, oflT from the faith delivered to and received by the generality of the saints, be it a thing of never so small concernment in our walking with God in gospel obedience, and in love without dissimulation one to- wards another, yet instantly more weight is laid upon it, more jiains laid out about