Preface to the First Edition (1711)

Abstract

When the crafty Tempter of Mankind meditating their Ruine, attack’d our first Sire in his Pride, he shew’d himself profoundly skill’d in Humane Nature; from which the Vice I named is so inseparable that it is impossible the latter should be ever entirely destroy’d, as long as the first remains. I have no design, Reader, to tire you, with the Catalogue of irretrievable Calamities, it has been the occasion of, both before and since the Creation; but shall only observe to you, that as it was destructive to inexperienc’d Adam, by bringing Sickness and Death upon him, so it has still continued to be no less pernicious to his forewarn’d Posterity, by principally obstructing the progress of the glorious Art that should teach the Recovery as well as Preservation of Health.2