effect to the good and benefit of some who per-
used them: and this experience of the good
effects which they produced by my communica-
tion of them to a few friends in private, did
further confirm my own opinion of them, that
they must certainly do much good if published;
and being made common have the same good
influences upon many, which I found they had
upon some of those few to whom they were com-
municated in private; but for the Manuscript
Copies which I had, they were not sufficient for
all those fair opportunities of doing good with
them, which I saw even among my own friends
and acquaintance. Whereupon I solicited the
Author to publish them, or at least to give his
consent to the publication of them; but could
not prevail with him for either, although I
know that no motive or argument is more preva-
lent with him than that of Doing Good. But
when I perceived, as I thought, that the chief
reasons why he would neither publish them him-
self, nor give his consent to the publication of
them, were such as would be of no force against
the publication of them without his privity
or knowledge, I began to consider of doing that.
But before I resolved upon it, I sent two of
the largest of them to a persons, whose Judgment
I know the Author doth much esteem, to have
his opinion of them, not letting him know either
who was the Author, or who sent them to him;
EN