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your favourable Acceptance Endeavours to ferve you in that Way, being, as I prefume, chiefly owing to the Care I have always taken not to depart from the Scripture-Principles now laid before you: I did not think I could offer you any Thing so justly valuable as this plain Draught of the Chriftian Religion, in all its native Purity and Simplicity.

IT hath been no little Satisfaction to me to obferve, that there are many Perfons of Piety and Virtue in this Place: I pray GoD increase the Number of them, that fo there may be nothing wanting to render this ancient Society, in all Refpects, truly great and honourable.

I am

Your most obliged, and

Moft humble Servant,

FRANCIS GASTRELL

THE

*

PREFACE

THE

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HE Scriptures being written on Purpofe to acquaint us with the Will, of Gop, and to inftruct us in all Things neceflary to our everlafting Salvation, there is no Doubt to be made, but that in the Form we now have them, (which, for divers wife Reasons was fo contrived by the Holy Spirit) they are fufficient to that End, fo that whoever reads them with due Care and Attention, may, without any further Help, be truly and fully informed what he ought to believe and do, in order to be faved. I will add alfo, that he, whofe peculiar Bufinefs it is to inftruct the Ignorant, to guard the Unwary, and to top the Mouths of Gainfayers, may be thoroughly furnished from hence unto all thefe good Works.

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NAY, farther, had the Scriptures exhibited Religion to us in that regular Form and Method to which other Writers have reduced it, there would, to me at least, have been wanting one great Proof of the Authority of those Writings; which being penned at different Times, and upon different Occafions, and containing in them a great Variety of wonderful Events, furprifing Characters of Men, wife Rules of Life, and new unheard-of Doctrines, all mixed together with an unusual Simplicity and Gravity of Natvation, do, in the very Frame and Compofure of them, carry the Marks of their Divine Original.

HOWEVER, for the Benefit of fuch as will not be at the Pains to fearch and ftudy the Scriptures; fuch as by reafon of their Age are not capable of reading them with Judgment; and fuch as through fome Prejudice or evil Difpofition of Mind, may be apt to misapply them; it hath been thought proper to draw up feveral Abstracts or Summaries of Chriftian Doctrine, which being, as the feveral Authors of them affure us, exactly agreeable to Scripture, are defigned to give us a general Notion of what we fhall find more particularly and fully fet down in thofe Books; by which Means we may be enabled to read them with more Eafe and greater Profit.

THE Defign is certainly very fit and good, were it but as fairly and juftly executed: But the great Misfortune is, that thefe very Books, which

were

were intended to lead us more easily and certainly into the Knowledge of Scripture, are. most, of them fo framed as to reprefent the Religion there delivered to us in a falfe Light; and by giving a wrong Turn to our Minds at first, to render our Endeavours to inform, ourselves, afterwards by our own Reading ineffectual.

THE chief Occafion of which Abufe is, the many Differences and Divifions, that, have bappened among Chriftians, both with regard to their Faith and to their Rules and Measures of ferving Gop which Differences, as they plainly rofe at first from a greater Deference that was paid, either to the Traditions or Writings of Men, than to the Word of GPD, fo they have been kept up ever fince, by a greater Care that hath been taken by the feveral Sects to instruct their Children in thofe Things which diftinguish them from one another, than to teach them the common Doctrines and Duties of their most holy Profeffion. From whence it follows, that the Books compofed by them for that Purpose must needs give a very different,, and the greatest, Part of them, for that Reafon, a very falle, Account of the Chriftian Religion.sg of bargl

BUT befides the many Errors which are made Part of the ftanding Doctrine of fome particular Church or Society of Chriftians, feveral other Miftakes must be fuppofed to occur in the various Writings and Difcourfes of private. Men, even of the faine Church, who take upon them to 44. * han h};}explain

explain the common Faith, every Man in his own Language and Method.

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Now for the better removing any falfe Opi

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nions we may have received from thofe different Accounts which are given us of Scripture by other Men, as well as preventing any wrong Judgments we may be difpofed to make of the Word of GOD when we read it ourfelves, I have often thought that it would be a Work of great Ufe to collect out of the Writings of the Old and New Teftament all the Doctrines and: Precepts therein difperfed: to lay them together in fuch an Order and Method, as to give the Chriftian Reader a full and diftinct View of his whole Faith and Duty at once; and by keeping all along the Language of Seripture, to leave no Room for Mifreprefentation.

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THIS is what I have endeavoured to do in the following Treatife, as being fully fatisfied of the Truth of what a great Writer observes*, That we cannot speak of the Things of GOD better than in the Words of God."

IT is not to be expected, that the general Draught here given of Scripture-Religion, fhould have that Influence upon Perfons nourished up in the Words of unfound Doctrine, as to make them Jay by all the false Opinions and improper Language which they have long been used to; but fince it contains nothing elfe but the pure Word

Chillingworth, p. 152

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