Of Communion with God, Title page – To the reader
OF Communion with God The Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, Each Person Distinctly; IN Love, Grace, and Consolation: OR THE SAINTS FELLOWSHIP With the Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, UNFOLDED. By JOHN OWEN D. D. A Servant of JESUS CHRIST in the Work of the Gospell.
God is Love.
1 Joh. 4. 8.
Tell me O thou whom my Soule Loveth where thou Feedest.
Cant. 1. 7.
Make hast my Beloved,
Cant. 8. 14.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are Sealed to the day of Redemption.
Ephes. 4. 30.
Now there are diversities of Gifts but the same spirit. And there are differences of Administrations, but the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God.
1 Cor. 12. 4, 5, 6.
OXFORD, Printed by A. LICHFIELD Printer to the Vniversity, for THO: ROBINSON. Anno Dom. 1637.
Christian Reader,
IT is now six yeares past, since I was brought under an engagement of promise for the publishing of some meditations on the subject which thou wilt find handled in the ensuing Treatise. The Reasons of this delay, being not of publicke concernment, I shall not need to mention. Those who have been in expectation of this duty from me, have for the most part been so farre acquainted with my condition and employments, as to be able to satisfy themselves, as to the deferring of their desires. That which I have to adde at present is only this; having had many opportunity's, since the time I first delivered any thing in pulicke on this Subject, (which was the meanes of bringing me under the engagements mentioned) to reassume the consideration of what I had first fixed on, I have been inabled to give it that improvement, and to make those additions to the main of the designe and matter treated on, that my first debt, it come at length to be only the occasion of what is now tendred to the Saints of God. I shall speak nothing of the subject here handled; it may I hope speak for it selfe, in that spirituall savour and rellish which it will yeild to them, whose hearts are not so filled with other things, as to render the sweet things of the Gospell bitter to them. The designe of the whole Treatise, thou wilt find Christian Reader, in the first Chapters of the first part: and I shall not detaine thee here with the perusall of any thing which in its proper place will offer it selfe unto thee: know only, that the whole of it hath been recommended to the Grace of God in many supplications, for its usefullnesse unto them that are interested in the Good things mentioned therein.
J. O. Oxon. Ch. Ch. Coll. Jul. 10. 1657.