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TO THE READER.
Courteous Reader,
THat God made the Ear, the sacred Scripture asserts, and shall not he hear in our hearing? Yea, he made all things, and in through and by all our Sences, he informs such as are Vessels fit for the Masters use; it is meer Atheism to think God, when he had made this World, went out of it, and left it to his Creatures to dwell in it without him▪ Oh no, in him we live, move, and have our being: He is the Fountain of all Life, and is All-hearing, All-seeing, All-smelling, All▪tasting, and All-feeling, and we are and have all from him who is and filleth all things; but so far is Man gone outward and become Dust, that he is insensible of the life of God, and knoweth not that God liveth in his Life; and therefore when the Scriptures say God purchased his Church with his Blood, we understand it only imputatively; when the Scriptures say it repented God that he made Man to dwell on the Earth, we are apt to think him to be altogether such a one as our selves; and when we read, God is not as man, that he should re∣pent, then we think that all the Evil we meet with was by him de∣creed, should come upon us from all Eternity: and all this, and almost every Text else we abuse for want of knowing Mans going out of Gods will into his own, is the real cause he ever knew Evil; and by a continual progress of going out from God into himself, from Adam even to this day the Proverb is verified, He that lives longest must fetch his Wood farthest: Happy days all men would have, but few was ever perswaded to go into that Countrey where true happiness is only to be found: If then it be yet possible to perswade any to return to God, he is told demonstratively that he is not far from every one of us: we cannot pronounce or spell one word good or bad without him, which shews the Word, which is God, is in our mouths, as well as good thoughts proves him in our hearts; return then to God and make him no longer serve your sins, by harbouring hard thoughts of God and thy Brother, nor speaking ill of any thing, but study to mani∣fest thy love to God by doing good to thy Brother, and thou shalt re∣ceive good from him that is all good: Farewell.