The Publishers Preface to the First American Edition
THE PUBLISHER'S PREFACE,
To the first American Edition At a period when so many appear to be influenced by a strong desire to seek the way to Zion, it will no doubt be acceptable to those who have their faces thitherwards, to have in their hands, and before their eyes, the writings of so eminently pious a minister of the gospel, as was the Reverend THOMAS WATSON.
Whoever is conversant with the testimony contained in the Sacred Scriptures, which among Protestants is universally allowed to be the only true standard of our faith and manners, must acknowledge that the life of a Christian is a life of warfare; thus we find it recorded,
Matt. 24:42. Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. And in 2 Cor. 10:3. For though we walk in the flesh; we do not WAR after the flesh; For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; yet there are none, who do not readily acknowledge, that the opposition raised by the world in our days, is not equal to that experienced by our primitive brethren, so we have the promise equal, Matt. 6:34. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. And again, 2 Cor. 12:9.—My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. But notwithstanding these precious promises, it is greatly to be feared, that, although there are many and faithful ministers of God's word, in these our days; yet if the open avowal of our faith should subject us to the
scaffold or the stake, there are few, alas! too few, who would equal an Almondus, Apprice, Ardley, Arethusius, Rogers, or James Askew; and yet we would venture to assert, that both the life and the writings of the author is not, in point of excellence, a whit short of any of theirs.
Although in the opinion of some careless readers, there may, at first, appear nothing in the style of the following work to engage the attention of the great or the learned of the world, yet upon a serious perusal of the great and awful subject of which it treats, there will be found a language supported by such strong and irresistible truth, as is capable of making even a Felix tremble; and which those called the men of the world, can neither gainsay nor withstand.
In this little work, it it readily confessed, that there are some expressions, which may be construed to manifest a particular enmity to a certain sect. If any should think so, let them remember the words of the Apostles, Acts 5:29. We ought to obey God rather than man; and like the apostles, our author's care seems to have been, to set the fear of his Creator constantly before him; and in what he delivered from the pulpit, or issued from the press, to be much more anxious to gain over souls to the kingdom of Heaven, by the promulgation of serious and important truths, than to tickle his readers and hearers, by the delicate and fashionable mode now in use, of what is called elegant composition, and highly finished periods. He was the zealous and faithful servant of his Lord; and in the performance of the sacred duties enjoined upon him by virtue of his office, he cared little or nothing about what men might do unto him, or say concerning him.
In the present edition of this work, alterations have been made in the orthography of the author, so as to suit it to that used in the present day. Some expressions, which were obsolete, have, likewise, been modernised; but the utmost care has been taken, that no expression should lose any part of its energy, strength, or meaning. The marginal notes in the old edition, which were principally in the