TO
THE CHRISTIAN READER;
ON THE
SCOPE, PLAN, AND ORDER OF THE “PARADISE.”
The present age, fertile as it is in writers, has produced a variety of books serviceable to Christian piety. Some furnish lessons and instructions on the spiritual life; some suggest devout meditations, and subjects for holy affections; others, again, contain prayers, offices, litanies, and forms of devotional exercises. So little need have we to complain of scantiness in the sources of devotion, that we are all but overwhelmed by their variety and number.
It seemed to me, therefore, no unprofitable labour to survey the gardens and pleasure-grounds of every author, — to cull thence the most notable plants, flowers, and shrubs, and to plant with them a new kind of Paradise of pleasure, or rather of piety; and thus to comprise in one small volume, suitable for daily use, the juice and sap of all those whose object is the cultivation of goodness. This is my purpose and design, which thou wilt learn more fully from the plan of the book, which I now subjoin.
I. Since prayer is the desire of some good, and to act for the sake of an end is proper to man, it is a question what is the end proposed to one who prays? It is God, who is man’s Supreme End and Sovereign Good. As is right, therefore, at the ‘outset, and in the First Part, the most Holy
