I feel encouraged to present this Second Edition to the household of faith, by the extensive circulation of the first, accompanied, as it has been in many instances, by the Divine blessing; and, among other testimonies in its favor, the following extract of a letter from Dr. Hawker, on his second reading of the volume, affords me peculiar pleasure, and with his kind permission I insert it.<\/p>\n
“Your little volume on gospel doctrines, entitled Jazer, is now before me. I have read the first three letters on the Trinity, Divine Sovereignty and Election. And from the specimen there given on these glorious truths, I promise myself much satisfaction from the further perusal of the work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Allow me in the mean time to say, that I am much pleased with the order which you have observed in the arrangement. You have very properly followed holy scripture on this ground, in beginning where God hath begun, and in bottoming the great truths of Revelation on the same foundation as the word of God hath done before you. The entrance both to the Old Testament and to the New, is with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. We find the sacred \u201cThree that bear record in heaven\u201d in counsel at the creation of man, Gen 1:26, and we have the same glorious Persons in the Godhead at the redemption, Matt 3:16,17, making this, therefore, what God hath made it, the basis; the superstructure cannot but follow. The everlasting love of Father, Son and Holy Ghost to the Church in Christ, runs like the links of a chain in beautiful order from one eternity to another. And what can break down the arch founded in everlasting strength? What can counteract an everlasting covenant \u201cordered in all things and sure?\u201d What can dry up \u201cthat river, (which hath been running from everlasting) whose streams make glad the city of God?<\/p>\n
Allow me, yet further to remark, the very special and seasonable time as the present, for contending earnestly \u201cfor the faith once delivered unto the saints.\u201d The mysteries of the Gospel are for the most part but little regarded. And even among many who profess to believe them, so much are they kept in the back ground, and so seldom brought forward to view, as if they were only secondary points in \u201cthe glorious Gospel of the blessed God.\u201d It is worthy observation that the Lord himself speaks of this conduct by his servant the Prophet with great reprehension. \u201cI have written to him (saith the Lord speaking of Ephraim) the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.\u201d Hosea 8:12. And allow me to add, moreover, that I cannot but highly commend the zeal you express, at such a time as the present, to be instrumental in the Lord\u2019s hand, to the promotion of the Lord\u2019s glory in the hearts of the Lord\u2019s people, especially to \u201cthe weak in faith,\u201d and \u201cbabes in Christ,\u201d and old as I am, and now hastening fast to the boundary of time, I feel the glow of affection arising in my wrinkled face, while sending forth the prayer on the isthmus of life, that God may do good unto Zion: and bless his people!<\/p>\n
I beseech you to exercise an holy jealousy over your own heart that nothing may satisfy you on divine truths but that \u201cunction from the Holy One\u201d by which \u201cwe know all things.\u201d The only standard of decision by which the spiritual Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, is known as well from the mere professor as from the prefane, is, when under the sweet influences of the Holy Ghost, the child of God hath a personal knowledge of, and personal communion with, the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Your\u2019s in the Lord,<\/p>\n
Robert Hawker<\/p>\n
Plymouth, Charles Vicarage,<\/p>\n
October 19th<\/sup>, 1822″<\/p><\/blockquote>\n