To the Christian Reader,
Although all men desire happiness, and nothing be more needful to be known, yet great are the mistakes of men thereabout. Its not in sensuall pleasures, it so, Dives had been happy, Luke 16. and those made their bellies their gods, Phil. 3. Its not in Honours, for then the Dragon and the Beast should have been happy, Revel. 13:4. Its not in Riches, James 5:1. Its not in Habits or Acts of morall vertues, then Heathens had been happy, and Paul in his Pharisaisme, Phil. 3:6. Its not in knowledge, Eccles. 1:18. nor in contemplation of divine things, for then Balaam had been so, Num. 24:3, 4. and Plato, whose contemplations were such. Its in none of these, but in what is laid downe by the Lord Christ, and held forth in this ensuing Worke. Some deny Saintship and happiness to be in this life: but David confutes the one, Psal. 16:3. and Christ the other, Its true, perfect happiness is not attainable in this life, because there is a mixture of sin vanitie and misery with every condition and thing we injoy; The best of men having more Wormwood then Wine: yet there is a true blessedness in this life, which consists in those qualifications actions and sufferings which have a cleare certain and strong tendency unto perfect happiness, and may be call’d Seminalis or radicalis beatitudo, such are the Beatitudes here mentioned, and many elswhere in holy Writ, as delighting in the Law of God, Psal. 1:2. fearing the Lord, Psal. 112:1. being undefiled in the way, Psal. 119:1. and such men are blessed, but not simply blessed for the qualities had, things done or suffered, but because they lead up and issue into perfect blessedness at last.
Reader, the times are perillous, a sentence of death is over most, if not all thy comforts, how soon thou mayest be stript of thy seeming happiness, thou knowest not, if thou hast not a part in these Christian Beatitudes, thou art a miserable man, thy life is a dreame, and thy death will be dreadfull. Here is propounded unto thee not that the world calls Blessedness, or what thou thinkest so, but what the blessed Sonne of the blessed God hath pronounced so, and will be found in life and death to be so; reckon and make that therefore thy blessedness which the Lord Christ himselfe accounts and calls blessedness, and then let Times, Troubles, and Changes be what they will, thou art a blessed man, shalt so abide, and have a blessed end. The Reverend Author of these Sermons Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs did so, being the subject he preach’d on before his death.
These Sermons of his have layen thirteen years compleat this very day in the darke (for he dyed the 14th day of the 9th month 1646.) but by the help of that hand which took most of those Sermons are already in print, are now brought to light, discovering themselves to be the genuine Issue of such a parent, the face of whose spirit is livelyly represented in them. Reader, the aime of those that doe publish them is that thou mayest know, desire, and attaine true Blessedness in these unhappy times, and have thy thoughts, affections, and actions suitable unto such an Happiness, which that thou mayest have, and they may be, is the earnest desire of
William Greenhill.
William Bridge.
Philip Nye.
John Yates.
William Aderly.
Mathew Mead.
The 14th of the 9th month, 1659.
