like you, fallen into this unrest of heart, it is decidedly proper to inquire whence has come this unrest of your heart and that of others. Has God made man so and assigned to him unhappiness as his lot? Assuredly not, for, if so, God High, the All Wise, the Merciful, would not be God at all. Hence it is impossible that God should be the cause of man's misery and unrest. Nay, rather, man himself is the cause of it; that is to say, the cause of man's outward and inward misery and restlessness is that he has turned away from God and become stained with sin. For sin is such a poison that it has brought all this unrest, misery, toil, pain, cruelty and suffering into my heart, into your heart, and into the hearts of others, nay, into the whole world. Therefore, if you desire to gain rest of heart and true and everlasting bliss, this is not possible unless you first obtain deliverance from sin, on account of which all these miseries befall us. For, until the source of that fountain be stopped and its poison driven far from you, the malady of your heart will never depart. But, in order that your inward malady and internal hurt may be healed, it is first of all needful that you should correctly diagnose and understand it; for he who is not aware that he is ill will never go to the physician, and the man who is unaware of the assault of sin will not seek for salvation. On this account your humble well-wisher, having with God's help composed this book, proceeds in it to inform you about that deadly

internal disease of sin, and concerning the way of salvation which is the means of the healing of that disease and of obtaining forgiveness of sins and true rest and eternal weal. This way of salvation will be made plain from the word of God, that is to say, from the Law and the Gospel. In this book it will also be proved that all the remedies and the means which men have devised from their own intellect for attaining pardon of sins, rest of heart and eternal happiness, or which have been set forth in various religions, are defective and void. Therefore, reader, peruse thoughtfully and intelligently your true friend's words of advice, and reflect upon them. But, just as no one but a person acquainted with the science of medicine can diagnose a bodily ailment, so, until a man be enlightened with the light of God's grace, he will be unable to understand a spiritual malady and recognize well and rightly his own inner state; for love of the world and inclination towards sin have so blinded his inner eye that, until he be enlightened from on high, he will remain unaware of his dangerous internal condition like the sick man who fancies himself well when in his last gasp. And, as long as a man is in this state, advice and remedy for his complaint and mention of escape from sin will seem to him foolish talk, although, if he heed not advice, he will undoubtedly die of the disease of sin. But may the gracious and merciful God of His boundless mercy deliver you from the vortex of carelessness, and, ere your death come and