This I confess, about seven years past, with some others of affinity
thereto, for my private exercise and satisfaction I had at leisurable
hours composed; which being communicated unto one, it became common unto
many, and was by transcription successively corrupted, until it arrived
in a most depraved copy at the press. He that shall peruse that work,
and shall take notice of sundry particulars and personal expressions
therein, will easily discern the intention was not public: and being a
private exercise directed to myself, what is delivered therein, was
rather a memorial unto me, than an example or rule unto any other: and
therefore if there be any singularity therein correspondent unto the
private conceptions of any man, it doth not advantage them: or if
dissentaneous thereunto, it no way overthrows them. It was penned in
such a place, and with such disadvantage, that (I protest) from the first
setting of pen unto paper, I had not the assistance of any good book,
whereby to promote my invention, or relieve my memory, and therefore
there might be many real lapses therein, which others might take notice
of, and more than I suspected myself. It was set down many years past,
and was the sense of my conception at that time, not an immutable law
unto my advancing judgment at all times; and therefore there might be
many things therein plausible unto my past apprehension, which are not
agreeable unto my present self. There are many things delivered
rhetorically, many expressions therein merely tropical, and as they best
illustrate my intention, and therefore also there are many things to be
taken in a soft and flexible sense and not to be called unto the rigid
test of reason. Lastly, all that is contained therein, is in submission
unto maturer discernments; and as I have declared, shall no further
father them than the best and learned judgments shall authorise them;
under favour of which considerations I have made its secrecy public, and
committed the truth thereof to every ingenuous reader.