Vol 16 - TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.

CHRISTIAN READER,
LITTLE need have MR. RUTHERFOORD'S Letters of any man's Epistle-Commendatory; his great Master, whom he served with his spirit in the Gospel of his Son, having given them one, written by his own hand on the heart of every one who is become his epistle, and savours the things of GOD, and has experienced those rare, those most refreshing, yea and, beyond all expression, ravishing emanations of the love of GOD upon the soul, which produce the emanations of its love back again upon Him, who shed abroad his love in the heart; a thing as much and manifestly exemplified in these epistles, as in any piece which the world has yet seen, or this day can show. For, in each of these, you may perceive how the writer's heart is inflamed with a holy fire, and how his soul ascends, as if snatched up to heaven, and caught up above all that is below GOD. O how much is what drops from his pen above the ordinary attainments even of such as seem to have out-run others! So that in respect of us, this Angel of the Church speaks as one standing already in the choir of Angels, or as an Angel come down from heaven among men, to give us some account of what they are doing above!
Thus leaving thee to peruse what is made public for thy edification, and wishing thee an experimental know-ledge of that surpassing and inconceivable sweetness, which is in the fruition of GOD, and in a fellowship with the FATHER and with his SON JESUS CHRIST; (without which, while he speaks as coming forth out of the King's banqueting-house, to persuade thee to go in thither and feast, he will be to thee a Barbarian;) I shall only wish and beg, that you wouldest seriously seek of GOD the same thing for him, who seeks this for thee, and who has his design in the pains taken in publishing these Letters, if you be thereby provoked to seek till you find. This is that adequate recompense which he seeks, earnestly en-treats, and expects, who is Thy soul's well-wisher,
And servant in CHRIST JESUS.