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OF

COMMUNION

WITH

GOD

THE

FATHER, SON, & HOLY GHOST,

(Each PERSON distinctly) in

LOVE, GRACE, & CONSOLATION:

OR, THE

Saints Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, Unfolded.

BY JOHN OWEN, D. D.

WITH A PREFACE

BY THE LATE

REV. MR. DANIEL BURGESS.

God is Love-1 JOHN iv. 8.

Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest.

A NEW EDITION.

CANT. i. 7.

LONDON:

Printed by W. Nicholson, Warner-street,

FOR W. BAYNES, 54, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

!

I

097.400
1808

CHRISTIAN READER,

Tis now fix years past, fince I was brought under

an engagement of promife for the publishing of fome meditations on the fubject which thou wilt find handled in the enfuing treatise. The reafons of this delay, being not of public concernment, I shall not need to mention. Those who have been in expectation of this duty from me, have for the most part been fo far acquainted with my conditions, as to be able to fatisfy themselves, as to the deferring of their defires. That which I have to add at prefent is only this; having had many opportunities, fince the time I first delivered any thing in public on this subject, (which was the means of bringing me under the engagements mentioned) to reaffume the confideration of what I had first fixed on, I have been enabled to give it that improvement, and to make thofe additions to the main of the defign and matter treated on, that my first debt, is come at length to be only the occasion of what is now tendered to the faints of God. I fhall fpeak nothing of the subject here handled; it may I hope fpeak for itself, in that fpiritual favour and relish which it will yield to them,

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whofe hearts are not fo filled with other things as to render the sweet things of the gospel bitter to them. The defign of the whole treatise, thou wilt find Chriftian reader, in the first chapters of the first part; and I hall not detain thee here with the perusal of any thing which in its proper place will offer itself unto thee: know only that the whole of it hath been recommended to the grace of God in many fupplications, for its usefulness unto them that are interested in the good things mentioned therein.

OXON. Ch. Ch. Coll.
July 10. 1657.

}

JOHN OWEN.

To the READER.

A

LPHONSUS, King of Spain, is faid to have found food and phyfic in reading Livy: And Ferdinand king of Sicily, in reading Quintus Curtius. But thou haft here nobler entertainments, vaftly richer dainties, incomparably more fovereign medicines; I had almost said, the very highest of angels food is here fet before thee. And, as Pliny speaks, permista deliciis auxilia: things that minister unto grace and comfort; to holy life and liveliness.

Such is this treatise. This which is the only one extant, upon its great and neceffary fubject. This, whofe praife hath been long in the churches; and hath gone enamelled with the honourable reproaches of more than one English Bolfec. This whose great author, like the fun, is well known to the world, by eminence of heavenly light and labours. This which, as his many other works, can be no other than mauna unto found Chriftians; tho' no better, than stone and serpent to Socinians and their fellow-commoners.

Importunity hath drawn me to say thus much more, then I could think needful to be faid, concerning any work of Dr OWEN'S. Needful in our day itself; a day wherein pauci facras fcripturas, plures nomina rerum, plurimi nomina magiftrorum fequuntur. Few do cleave to the holy fcriptures; many do reft in fcholaftic fenfelefs founds. And most men do hang their faith upon their Rabbi's fleeves.

This only I add; of the swarms every day rifing, there are few books but do want their readers. Yet if I underftand aright, there are not many readers but do want this

book.

In which cenfure, I think, I am no tyrant (which the Philofopher names the worst of wild beasts:) and I am fure I am no flatterer, (which he calls as justly, the worst of tame beasts.)

Let the fimple fouls (the pauciffima lectionis mancipia) who take the doctrine of diftinct communion with the di

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