IT has been an Injury too often done to the Memory of Persons eminent for Knowledge, Learning, and Virtue, to have after their Death such Works obtruded upon the World for theirs, as have been deservedly suspected; or if theirs, yet were never intended by them in that squalid, broken, and imperfect condition, to have been published. But as for this Tract you were pleased to put into my hands to peruse, it is not only certain that it was Wrote by the Honourable Person whose Name it bears; but also that it was designed by him for the Press; as some Passages in it do apparently shew.
And if this Noble and Learned Author thought it seasonable for those Times1 of Uncontroul’d Liberty and Confusion in which it was wrote, it is as seasonable, if not more, at the present; when that Vice against which it is directed, has of late Years so far prevail’d, to the great Dishonour of our Nation, as well as our Religion, that the Patriots of our Countrey assembled in Parliament, have been thereby justly provok’d to prepare that late Bill (which since has pass’d the Royal Assent) for the better and more effectual Punishment and Suppression of it. A Design becoming so August an Assembly; and in the Prosecution of which your Honours must be esteemed to have done considerable Service, especially by the Publication of this Treatise, which has been so happily recovered, and by a singular Providence reserved, as it were, for such a special Season and Service.
I am, Most Honoured, Your most Humble and Faithful Servant, JOHN WILLIAMS.
Contents · The Publisher to the Reader →
Footnotes
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Anno 1647. ↩