To the Christian Reader
Readee, — although all meu desire happiness, and nothing be more needful to be laiown, yet great are the mistakes of men thereabout. It is not in sensual pleasures — if so, Dives had been happy, Luke xvi., and those who made their belhes their gods, Phil. iii.; it is not in honours — for then the dragon and the beast should have been happy, Rev. xiii. 4; it is not in riches, James v. 1; it is not in habits or acts of moral virtues — then heathens had been happy, and Paul in his pharisaism, Phil. iii. G; it is not in knowledge, Eccles. i. 18, nor in contemplation of divine things — for then Balaam had been so. Num. xxiv. 3, 4, and Plato whose contemplations were such; it is in none of these, but in what is laid down by the Lord Chiist, and held forth in this ensuing work. Some deny saintship and happiness to be in this life, but David confutes the one, Ps. xvi. 3, and Clrrist the other. It is true, perfect happiness is not attainable in this life, because there is a mixture of sin, vanity, and misery with every condition and thing we enjoy; the best of men having more wormwood than wine. Yet there is a true blessedness in this life, which consists in those qualifications, actions, and sufferings, which have a clear, certain, and strong tendency unto perfect happiness, and may be called seminalis or radicalis heatitudo. Such are the beatitudes here mentioned, and many elsewhere in holy writ, as delighting in the law of God, Ps. i. 2; fearing the Lord, Ps. cxii. 1; being undefiled in the way, Ps. cxix. 1; and such men are blessed, but not simply blessed for the qualities had, things done or suffered, but because they lead up and issue into perfect blessedness at last.
Reader, the times are perilous; a sentence of death is over most, if not all thy comforts; how soon thou
mayest be stripped of thy seeming happiness, thou knowest not. If thou hast not a part in these Christian beatitudes, thou art a miserable man, thy Ufe is a dream, and thy death will be di-eadful. Here is propounded unto thee not that the world calls blessedness, or what thou thinkest so, but what the blessed Son of the blessed God hath pronounced so, and will be found in life and death to be so; reckon and make that therefore thy blessedness which the Lord Christ himself accounts and calls blessedness; and then let times, troubles, and changes be what they will, thou art a blessed m&,n, shalt so abide, and have a blessed end. The reverend author of these sermons, Mr Jeremiah Burroughs, did so, being the subject he preached on before his death.
These sermons of his have lain thirteen years complete this very day in the dark, for he died the 14th day of the 9th month, 1646; but by the help of that hand which took most of those sermons [that] are already in print, are now brought to Ught, discovering themselves to be the genume issue of such a parent, the face of whose spirit is lively represented in them. Reader, the aim of those [who] do publish them is that thou mayest know, desire, and attain true blessedness in these unhappy times, and have thy thoughts, affections, and actions suitable unto such a happiness, which that thou mayest have, and they may be, is the earnest desu’e of
WiLLiAJi Geeenhill.
WiLLi.M Bridge.
Philip Nye.
John Yates.
William Adeklv.
Mathew Mead.
The lith of the 9M month.