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"These Tracts were originally designed solely for the benefit of the Author's congregation, and for his own use in general distribution. He had no idea of the extent which their circulation was to reach. He sought merely to teach his own people by them; nor had he any ambitious aim of writing for a wider circle. He thought of them only as helps to his own pastoral work, and commenced them as such. He meant them but as words of instruction to his flock, words which should speak when his voice was silent, words which should tell the infinite tale of grace in the quiet dwellings of his people, perpetuating, not superseding, the public ministry of the Word, carrying on at home the work of the pulpit, or the prayer-meeting, or the class, both in the closet and in the family. God has been pleased to own them in many ways, and to give them a much wider circle to traverse than was reckoned on, or aimed at. To Him be the glory and the blessing throughout eternity!"
"It was found, in conversation with the troubled and doubting, that much confusion prevailed in their minds, as to both of these points, the Work of Christ, and the Work of the Spirit. There seemed a continual tendency to intermingle these two things, and so to subvert both; to build for eternity, partly on the one, and partly on the other, and so to come short of any true and sure establishment of the soul in grace. Many seemed most perversely bent on taking these two works as if they were one compounded work, trying to build their peace, their forgiveness, their salvation, upon a mysterious mixture of the two. The external and the internal were not kept distinct; the objective and the subjective were confusedly tangled together, so that neither was understood aright, and both were misapplied. It was not CHRIST FOR US, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT IN US, but it was Christ and the Holy Spirit together, both for us and in us. Thus, all was vagueness and indistinctness in reference to what Christ had done, and in reference to what the Holy Spirit had been sent down to do. Hence, all was darkness in the soul. There was no peace, for the ground of peace was not rightly seen; there was no holiness, for the source of holiness was but imperfectly apprehended. This Popish mixture of these two things—"Christ for us, and the Spirit in us," required to be exposed to view, its unscripturalness condemned, and its evil influence neutralized."