The peril of the times displayed. Or The danger of mens taking up with…

TO THE Reader.

THERE are Pretenders unto Godliness, whose Religion does chiefly consist in being of this or the other particular Party of men making a Profession of Christianity. If that is all their Godliness, supposing them to fall in with those that have most of Truth in their more peculiar Persuasions, they have only the Form without the Power. In our Nation, which has the Name of Protestant and Reformed, some are of the Episcopal, others for the Presbyterian, others for the Congregational, others for the Antipaedobaptists Form. These differ not in the Fundamental Articles of Faith; and from thence it is, that there are amongst them, ⟨p. 4⟩all, some, with whom Godliness in the Truth and Power is to be found: and yet some under all these Denominations, who have only the Form. That the Churches in New-England which in their Primitive Constitution consisted of the Good Old Puritan Nonconformists, were famous for Religion in the Purity and Power of it, cannot be denied. Nevertheless, in our first and best Times, there were Tares and Chaff mixed with the Wheat. That there is now a great Decay amongst Professors of Religion in this Land (would to God it were not so amongst Professors of our way in the other England also) must likewise be confessed. There is in that Practical and Judicial Discourse •mitted herewith, a faithful Testimony against those Apostasies, which do witness to our Faces that this Generation comes short of what their Predecessors sometimes were. The Reverend Author observeth, That, As to many of the Rising Generation, there is a fondness after New Things, and that they are become Disputants for those Things, which their Fathers left a Pleasant Land for the Avoidance of. And that many stand off from ⟨p. 5⟩Communion, because they would not be under Discipline: That there are some Intemperate Church Members, who spend their precious Time in frequenting Public Houses, and keeping loose Company: That Professors are ready to comply with the vain Customs of the Times. These and many the like Passages the Reader will find in the following Sermons. It is therefore sadly evident, that Religion in the Power of it is decaying and dying. Alas! There are now crept into some of our Churches such Things, as the Discipline in the first Reformed Churches in France has condemned as Censurable Evils: