'Tis now time for me to tell my reader, that in _our age_, there has
been another essay made, not by French, but by English PROTESTANTS, to
fill a certain country in America with _Reformed Churches_; nothing
in _doctrine_, little in _discipline_, different from that of Geneva.
Mankind will pardon _me_, a native of that country, if smitten with a
just fear of encroaching and ill-bodied _degeneracies_, I shall use my
modest endeavors to prevent the _loss_ of a country so signalized for
the _profession_ of the purest _Religion_, and for the _protection_ of
God upon it in that holy profession. I shall count my country _lost_, in
the loss of the primitive _principles_, and the primitive _practices_,
upon which it was at first established: but certainly one good way to
save that _loss_, would be to do something, that the memory of _the
great things done for us by our God_, may not be _lost_, and that the
story of the circumstances attending the _foundation_ and _formation_
of this country, and of its _preservation_ hitherto, may be impartially
handed unto posterity. THIS is the undertaking whereto I now address
myself; and now, _Grant me thy gracious assistances, O my God! that in
this my undertaking I may be kept from every false way._

* * * * *


=_Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758_=. (Manual, p. 479.)

From the "Inquiry, &c., into the Freedom of the Will."

=_3._= MEANING OF THE PHRASE "MORAL INABILITY."

It must be observed concerning Moral Inability, in each kind of it, that
the word _Inability_ is used in a sense very diverse from its original