This inestimable work was written by President Edwards in 1739, in a series of sermons preached at Northampton, and left by him in manuscript at his death, which occurred in 1758. In 1773, his son, the younger President Edwards, committed the manuscript to Rev. Dr. JOHN ERS KINE, of Edinburgh, who reduced it from the form of sermons to that of a continued treatise, and published it in 1774.
This edition is a reprint from the standard edition of Edwards' Works now generally circulated in Great Britain and the United States, and has been compared throughout with the first American edition, published at Worcester in 1808. Some additional improvements have been made in the language and form of the sub divisions, and a new table of contents prepared; with the omission (indicated by * *) of a few lines alluding to points on which evangelical christians differ.