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The knowledge of Christ crucified
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To the reader
When it was told David after the defeat of Absalom that Ahimaaz the son of Zadok came running, the king said, He is a good man, and cometh with good tidings. I may truly say so of these sermons and the reverend author of them, He is a good man, and therefore we may be sure that he bringeth good tidings with him. He is a right Nathanael, a true Israelite, without guile, an able preacher, a vigilant governor, a faithful friend, a bountiful distributer, to whom much of the character of Aristotle's magnanimous man doth exactly agree, who dares openly to love a friend when others reject him, and openly to disprove the faults of those whom others fear and flatter. As is the man and his communication, such is his doctrine,sound, wholesome, savoury, edifying, not merely notional and suited only to the fancy, but properly calculated for the conscience and conversation, unto which the more any doctrine is fitted, the more it is according to the mind of the spirit of Christ speaking in the word, and to the direction of his apostles, who used great plainness of speech, and such demonstration of the Spirit and power, as might manifest the truth to every man's conscience in the sight of God, who gave instruction unto others whom they had separated unto the work of the gospel, to hold fast the wholesome form of sound words, by sound doctrine to exhort and convince gainsayers, to show in doctrine incorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech which cannot be condemned, to speak, to rebuke, to exhort with all authority, to teach men to maintain good works for necessary uses, to preach such things as are good and profitable unto men. Though I have not had opportunity to peruse all these sermons, yet having been an hearer of many of these, and finding in those which I have read the same even and serious spirit, and withal great variety of profitable matter, I may safely commend them to the Christian reader as sermons drawn according to these prescripts of the Apostle, and consequently very useful unto public edification, unto which all our studies, labours and writings should be subservient
April 4,
Thine in our common Lord
Edward Reynolds