Speaking the Truth in Love. Eph. iv. 15.

The Second Edition.

BOSTON, N. E.

Re printed and Sold by ROCERS and FowLE in Queen-street.

MDCCXLIX.

MUSEUM

THE

PREFACE.

A

LMOST every one of these Essays was written above twenty Years ago, and fome of them more than thirty. The Author finds Reafon to offer his fincere Acknowledgments and Thanks to Almighty God, who has preserved him, even to this Day, in the fame Sentiments and Principles of Chriftian Faith and Love, amidft the numerous Follies and Errors of the Times.

One of these Papers indeed, found its way into the World the very Year in which it was written; the very Defign of it was to exemplify the Title of this Book, A 3

and

and it has been often fince follicited to be printed again : But it was delay'd for many Years, till the Author had formed a Collection of Papers of this Sort large enough to compofe a moderate Volume; and the Reader will be fufficiently informed of the present Reason of this Publication, by a mere explaining of the Words of the Title,

Orthodoxy and Charity united.

By the Word Orthodoxy, the Author means all thofe Chriftian Doctrines which were generally approved in the laft Age, fo far as he knows at least, by almost all the Proteftant Diffenters in the Nation; even those great Doctrines on which the Reformation from the Church of Rome was built; and they continued fo all the time thefe Essays were writing, and long before, in the general good Efteem of the Churches, as being conformable to the Inftructions of Chrift and his Apoftles. It

is needlefs in this Place to reckon them all up particularly, but in general they were fuch as these.

1. By the Fall of the firft Man, he, together with his Pofterity, loft their Innocence and their Immortality, their Bodies were fubjected to Difeafes and Death, their natural Inclinations were perverted from that which is good, and there was a ftrange prevailing Biafs in human Nature, even from its Infancy, to that which in Evil.

2. In order to their Recovery from this Ruin, there is not only a Neceffity of the Pardon of their Sins, and Reconciliation of their Perfons to God, but there is need alfo that their finful Natures, be healed, and renewed by fanctifying Grace, in order to reftore Men to Virtue and Piety, i. e. to the Love of God and their Fellow-Creatures.