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PREFACE

BY THE EDITORS

OF THE PRESENT EDITION.

THE following work, written by the ingenious author of A Summary History of New England from its first settlement at Plymouth to the acceptance of the Federal constitution, has gone through several editions in America. The present one is printed from the third, which came out in October 1801, with large additions, and was dedicated to JOHN ADAMS, late president of the United States.

The design of such a work is not to convey an idea of all religious principles, being equally true, or safe to those who imbibe them; but to exhibit the multiplied speculations of the human mind in as just and im

partial a manner as possible. Such things ex ist, or have existed in the world, whether w know them or not; and the reading of then in a proper spirit may induce us to cleav more closely to the law and to the testimony forming our religious principles by their sim ple and obvious meaning, and avoiding, as mariner would avoid rocks and quicksands every perversion of them in support of a pre conceived system.

Several publications of the kind have ap peared amongst us, on whose merits we shal not take upon us to decide. Suffice it to say that the present work, having been written on the other side the Atlantic, and by a perso who has not only imformed herself of the general state of religion in the world, but ha manifestly paid a particular attention to the religious controversies of her own country may be supposed to include many things with which our writers, as well as readers, are bu little acquainted. While, however, we hav printed those parts of the work, and the ac count of almost all the denominations which åre become extinct, as they were, we have in respect of the living ones, frequently availed ourselves of other sources of information, where it appeared capable of being done to advantage. The late missionary undertaking

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have furnished some additional matter with respect to Paganism, and Mahometism.

Some parts of the accounts, given by the author, of the Eastern Pagan nations we have omitted, considering the authorities on which they are founded as suspicious. By a close attention to fact in those nations with which Europeans have lately been in the habits of the most familiar intercourse, we have been compelled to distrust much of the panegyric bestowed upon them by former writers, and to consider it as one of those indirect methods by which deistical historians, geographers, and travellers, have thought fit to assail the religion of Jesus.

Whatever corrections or additions are made, of any consequence, they are enclosed in brackets [] to distinguish them from the other. The articles Behemenists, and Friends or Quakers, have also been drawn up afresh, and should have been thus distinguished. The account of Nonconformists and Dissenters having been omitted in the early part of the work, will be found under that of Puritans.

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AN

ESSAY ON TRUTH:

CONTAINING AN ENQUIRY INTO ITS NATURE AND IMPORTANCE; WITH THE CAUSES OF ERROR, AND THE REASONS OF ITS BEING PERMITTED.

THE multifarious and discordant sentiments which divide mankind, afford a great temptation to scepticism, and many are carried away by it. The open enemies of the gospel take occasion from hence. to justify their rejection of it: and many of its professed friends have written as if they thought, that to be decided amidst so many minds and opinions were almost presumptuous. The principal, if not the only use which they would make of these differences is, to induce a spirit of moderation and charity, and to declaim against bigotry.

To say nothing at present how these terms are perverted and hackneyed in a certain cause, let two things be seriously considered:-First, Whether this was the use made by the apostles of the discordant opinions which prevailed in their times, even amongst those who "acknowledged the divinity of our Saviour's mission?" In differences amongst christians which did not affect the kingdom of God, nor destroy the work of God, it cer tainly was: such were those concerning meats, drinks, and days, in which the utmost forbearance was inculcated. But it was otherwise in differences which affected the leading doctrines and precepts of chris

Rom. xiv. 17, 20.

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