The application of redemption

And whereas there hath been published long since, many Parts and Pieces of this Author, upon this Argument, Sermon-wise preached by him here in England (which in the preaching of them did enlighten all those Parts) Yet having been taken by an unskilful hand, which upon his recess into those remoter parts of the World, was bold without his privity or consent to print and publish them (one of the greatest injuries which can be done to any man) it-came to pass his genuine meaning, and this in points of so high a Nature, and in some things differing from the Common Opinion, was diverted in those printed Sermons from the fair and clear draught of his own Notions and Intentions, because so utterly deformed and mis-represented in multitudes of passages; And in the rest but imperfectly and crudely set forth.

And whereas there hath been published long since, many Parts and Pieces of this Author, upon this Argument, Sermon-wise preach'd by him here in England (which in the preaching of them did enlighten all those Parts) Yet having been taken by an unskilful hand, which upon his recess into those remoter parts of the World, was bold without his privity or consent to print and publish them (one of the greatest injuries which can be done to any man) it-came to pass his genuine meaning, and this in points of so high a Nature, and in some things differing from the Common Opinion, was diverted in those printed Sermons from the fair and cleer draught of his own Notions and Intentions, because so utterly deformed and mis-represented in multitudes of passages; And in the rest but imperfectly and crudely set forth.

Here, in these Treatises, thou hast his Heart from his own Hand, his own Thoughts drawn by his own Pencil. ⟨image 7⟩This is all truly and purely his own, not as preached only, but as written by himself in order to the Press; which may be a great satisfaction to all that honoured […] loved him (as who that was good, and knew him, did not?) especially […] that received benefit by those […] imperfect Editions. And we cannot but look at it as a blessed Providence of God, that the publishing of the same by others (in that manner that hath been mentioned) should have provoked him, and that by the excitation of the Church (whereof he was the Pastor in New-England) to go over again the same Materials in the Course of his Ministry amongst them, in order to the perfecting of it by his own hand for public Light, thereby to vindicate both himself and it from that wrong which otherwise had remained for ever irrecompensible.