To the Reader

Several works in A Christian Library open with a preface in someone else's voice before the primary source text begins — most notably John Wesley's own "To the Reader," opening the very first work in the whole edition. These prefaces are easy to miss inside a long work page, so they're collected here on their own.

• John Wesley Editor

  1. THE authors of the following collection were contemporaries of the holy apostles: one of them bred under our Lord himself, and the others well instructed by those great men, whom he commissioned to go forth and teach…

  Read — opening The Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp) & the Martyrdoms of Ignatius and Polycarp — The Apostolic Fathers →

• Isaac Ambrose

  AMONGST all the duties I formerly mentioned, I omitted one that I look upon as chief and choice of all the rest. This is the duty I call Looking unto JESUS; and if I must discover the occasion of my falling on it, I…

  Read — opening Looking unto Jesus: The First Book →

• John Worthington

  THE author of these discourses was one whom I knew for many years, not only when he was Fellow of Queen's College,. but when a student in Emmanuel College, where his early piety and the remembering his Creator in those…

  Read — opening Extracts from the Works of Mr. John Smith →

• Thomas Goodwin

  I DARE not say, I write this to you, Fathers, I never presumed it in my thoughts; I myself wrote and preached it when I was but young in years, and for the time far younger in grace and experience. And I dare not (if…

  Read — opening The Trial of A Christian's Growth →