The INTRODUCTION.
pp. 1–611 passages
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The INTRODUCTION.
FINDING by sad Experience what I before justly feared, that Errors would be apt to spring up with Liberty (though the restraint of just Liberty, being a practical Error in Rulers, can never be the cure of Mental Errors in the Subjects;) I judged it necessary at this Season to give a Succinct account of the Rise, Causes, and Remedies of several ⟨p. 2⟩Mistakes and Errors, under which even the Reformed Churches among us, as well as others, do groan at this Day.
I will not stay my Reader long upon the Etymology and Derivations of the Word. We all know that Etymologies are no Definitions▪ Yet because they cast some light upon the Nature of the thing we enquire after, it will not be lost labour to observe that this word ERROR derives it self from three Roots in the Hebrew Language.
(1.) The First word Primitively signifies to deviate or decline from the true Scope or path,1 as Unskilful Marks-men, or Ignorant and Inadvertent Travellers use to do. The least variation or turning aside from the true Rule and Line, tho it be but an hairs breadth, presently becomes an Error. We read, Judg. 20. 16. of 700. Benjamites, who could every one sling stones at an hairs breadth, and not miss, [Greek or Hebrew] Heb. and not err. This by a Metaphor is applied to the Mind or Judgment of man; and denotes the warpings thereof from the Straight, Perfect, Divine Law or Rule, and is usually Translated by the word Sin.