Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr.…

The BOOK being Written with a Variety of Projection and Contrivance, to serve that Real, Vital, Solid PIETY, which seems now almost wholly to have left the Earth, [O Glaucha, Do thou yet retain it!] and give some Account of Men and Things, which cannot be given without Exposing the Persecuting Spirit of some that Hate to be Reformed; I could not be so weak, as to Imagine, That Impious People, or such as are no better than mere Formalists in Religion, would forbear their Invectives against it, and their endeavours to bring all possible Contempt upon it. The Introduction to the History Sufficiently foretold it, and also Signified how much the Breast of the Author, Trebly Oak'd and Brassed, was prepared for it.

The BOOK being Written with a Variety of Projection and Contrivance, to serve that Real, Vital, Solid PIETY, which seems now almost wholly to have left the Earth, [O Glaucha, Do thou yet retain it!] and give some Account of Men and Things, which cannot be given without Exposing the Persecuting Spirit of some that Hate to be Reformed; I could not be so weak, as to Imagine, That Impious People, or such as are no better than meer Formalists in Religion, would forbear their Invectives against it, and their endeavours to bring all possible Contempt upon it. The Introduction to the History Sufficiently foretold it, and also Signified how much the Breast of the Author, Trebly Oak'd and Brass'd, was prepared for it.

I cannot but Wonder at the kind Reception which that Work has found in Scotland, and in Ireland, and in many parts of England; And the Complements which I have received upon it, (even equal to what a Sallust could have had from his Milton) from as Competent Judges of Writing as any of them, whose Malice against the Design of the Work has disposed them to decry it. It would be a Trespass upon the Laws of Modesty in me to recite them: And I must ask Pardon, […] I do so far Trespass, as to let the World know, just this one little part of my Buckler; That the Famous and Acute Mr. Alsop, in an Assembly of Ministers, when some were Proposing to make an Abridgement of that History, said upon it: It is a very Improper ⟨p. viii⟩