state of affairs can sufficiently attest, when the most damnable errors
are propagated with impunity.

In our times the enemies of the scriptural order of the house of God are
very numerous and very active, exerting all their power to break down
the carved work of God's sanctuary. The present spirit for novelty and
innovation, together with the rage for infidelity so prevalent, strongly
favors the opposition made to every thing which has a tendency to bind
men closely to God, to his truths, to the purity of his worship and
ordinances, or to one another by a holy profession. The design,
therefore, of republishing this Treatise is to assist Presbyterians of
all denominations in the understanding of those passages of Scripture
upon which their wall is built, that they be not led aside by the
cunning speeches of false teachers, whereby they deceive and draw aside
the hearts of the simple.

This work was first published at London, at the time when the
controversy between the Presbyterians and ancient Independents ran very
high, and every intelligent and unprejudiced reader will see, that the
Holy Scriptures have been carefully perused, accurately compared, wisely
collected, and judiciously explained, in order to evince that the
Presbyterian government has the only lawful claim to a divine right, and
is the only form appointed by Christ in his Church. It is, therefore, to
be wished, that all his people would endeavor, in the strength of Divine
grace, to observe the laws of his house, and to walk in all his
ordinances and commandments blameless.

Considerable pains have been taken to make this edition more easily
understood by common readers than the former, and yet several difficult
and hard words have passed unnoticed. The Latin quotations from the