Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/170

166 having a power, according to their agreement or disagreement with the laws of divine order, either to give just discernment to the understanding, or to overshadow it with a cloud of spiritual darkness. So important indeed is this consideration, that it was thought proper to apprize the reader of it, even before he entered upon the work, by affixing upon the title page our Lord's own words, as the best possible direction how to proceed in the investigation and study of doctrines claiming to be those of the. And now, having delivered them in a plain, open, and candid manner, appealing, when necessary, to the direct testimony of the Sacred Scriptures, for authority and confirmation, we leave them to the judgment of the reader, and to the operations of the Divine Providence upon his mind; being well assured, that whosoever is already in the good, cannot be far from the true, and that "if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God," John vii. 17.