(I fpeak it feelingly) therefore cannot doubt but a Work defign'd for the Encouragement of Religion and Virtue will meet with Your Gracious Majefty's kind Reception and Approbation; by which it will receive that reflecting Luftre from Your Majesty's illuminating Rays, that my Performances will fhine, with a borrowed Light, thro' Your Moft Sacred Majesty's Dominions: So fhall they much better answer my End and Defign, who defire to be as ufeful a Member of this Community as my Attainments will admit me; who am,

Moft Gracious Sovereign,

Your Majefy's

Moft Obedient,

Moft Dutiful, and

Loyal Subject,

Benjamin Parker,

THE

PREFACE

Y laft Volume of Philofophical Meditations having met with a general Acceptance in the World, and I hope in fome measure anfwer'd my Defign and Defire in promoting Religion and Virtue; I am hereby encouraged to prefent the World with fome further useful Curiofities both entertaining and profitable, being Meditations deriv'd from a fedate Contemplation and Improvement of fuch ufeful Works, as I have formerly had the Happiness of reading and perufing.

I have carefully avoided forming any Philofophical Hypotheses that will not bear a Scriptural Senfe, or interpreting any obfcure Places in the Scriptures to clash or interfere with those that are plain and eafy to be understood; being well affur'd, that that Divine Spirit which directed their Compofures cannot be inconfiftent with itself, whatever the Interpreters of them have been; who fome of them, thro' Partiality, or Views of private Intereft, or Affectation to falfe Opinions, or out of Compliment to their own

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or

or others Errors, may have mifreprefented them; all which I have avoided with the utmost Sincerity and Impartiality, and have endeavoured to treat upon each Subject in fuch manner as, I judge, will alfo agree to right Reafon.

And here it may not be amifs to add fomething to the Contents of the following Difcourfes.

Our firft Parents by attempting a Refemblance of God in Knowledge, by an Act of Dif obedience, found afterwards, to their Shame and Sorrow, that they bad loft the Refemblance of him in Righteoufnefs and true Holiness, and became debas'd by attempting to exalt themselves; for by the Knowledge they gain'd of Evil, fo much they loft of their first Purity and Innocence, and became in part ignorant of the true and divine Knowledge in which their Happiness chiefly confifted; and could not be recover'd but by that divine Light, that promifed Seed of the Woman, that should conduct our Feet again into the Way of Peace: For as it was not of Malice that our first Parents tranfgreffed against God, but by a Stratagem of the Devil, therefore God in Mercy promises to Mankind a Redeemer to ranfom them from the Jaws of their Deceiver, fince there was a Poffibility of their Recovery; which had there not been, I doubt not but the Punishment of Death would have been immediately inflicted. upon them, and thereby a Stop put to any future. Pofterity to be deriv'd from them; as is plain, I think, from God's manner of proceeding with their future Race, when there appeared no

A

Footsteps

Footsteps left of Hopes of Recovery from incorrigible Wickedness, I mean bis Overthrow of the Old World by Water, and Sodom and Gomorrah by Fire, and his Command of the utter Deftruction of the Canaanites, because they bad fill'd up the Measure of their Iniquities; with his Deliverance of the rebellious Ifraelites into Captivity; and the most remarkable Deftruction of the Temple and City of Jerufalem, the Hiftory of which is not to be parallel'd, becaufe of their inveterate Oppofition to the glorious Difpenfation of the Gospel, by the promifed Seed of the Woman to bruife the Serpent's Head; who from the Time of that Promife became a Light again to the World, to guide all Men, who were not wanting to themselves, into the Way of Peace; fo that they who enjoy'd not the Revelation of that Light, for want of true Tradition, and bad only a small, imperfect, and uncertain Notion of it, yet the Declarati on of Future Rewards and Punishments was a Voice that reach'd the Ends of the Earth, and Chrift was a Light within, and a Monitor to all that came into the World, to give them at leaft a Confcioufness of their Actions, which would accufe or excufe them, according to which they should ftand or fall in Judgment. And as God will expect no more from any than accor ding to what he entrusteth them with, fo those who bave God's Will declar'd to them in the Scriptures have a vaft Addition to this inward Light, and must therefore be accountable accordingly. And yet we Jee many amongst us, wha

will