A few words on forewords 2

An emphasis on the necessity of a personal knowledge and experience of grace
This is what lay behind much of the Doctor's interest in biography. In 1962, in his foreword to Howell Harris and the Dawn of Revival he asserts that “nothing is more profitable, after the reading of the Bible itself and books that help us to understand it, than the reading of the biography or autobiography of a great Christian man”.
You can see what he is seeking from his statement in his foreword to Pastor Hsi's biography (1949)

The ultimate way of judging the true value of a book is to discover its effect upon our personality as a whole. Many books entertain and divert, others provide intellectual stimulation or appeal to our artistic sense, but the truly great book affects us more vitally, and we feel that we shall never quite be the same again as the result of reading it. Such is the effect produced by this Life of Pastor Hsi. To read it is to be searched and humbled - indeed at times to be utterly humiliated; but at the same time it is stimulating, and exhilarating and a real tonic to one`s faith. In all this of course it approximates to the Bible itself.

It was the thing that drew him to Whitefield too. In a foreword to the Sermons (1958) he says

Whitefield was not only the greatest preacher and orator of the eighteenth century, he was also one of its most saintly characters, if not the saintliest of all. Certainly there was no more humble or lovable man amongst them. ... To read the wonderful story of his life is to be reminded again of what is possible to a truly consecrated Christian, and how even in the darkest and most sinful ages God in his sovereign power is able to revive his work and shower blessings upon his People.
There is also the argument we have already mentioned “what can be more profitable, next to the Bible itself, than to read something of the life of such a man and to read his own words!”

No doubt his interest in church history was also fuelled partly by this same interest. In 1973 he wrote an introduction for William Williams' little book on the Experience Meeting. There he explains how these societies were formed

to provide a fellowship in which the new spiritual life and experience of the people could be safe-guarded and developed. The great emphasis was primarily on experience and the experimental knowledge of God and his love and His ways. Each member gave an account of God's dealings with him or her and reported on any remarkable experience and also their sins and lapses and so doing compared notes with one another in these respects. The societies were not ‘bible study’ groups or meetings for the discussion of theology. Of course great stress was laid on reading the Bible as well as prayer, but the more intellectual aspects of the Faith were dealt with in the preaching services and not in the societies. Here, the emphasis was on daily life and living, the fight against the world, the flesh and the devil and the problems that arise inevitably in the Christian's pilgrimage through this world of sin.

Williams' book was written to help people to learn how to lead such small groups. Lloyd-Jones comments that “his genius, his spiritual understanding and what would now be described as psychological insight stand out everywhere and are truly astonishing”. This leads to some remarks typical of Lloyd-Jones' emphases.

The experimental or experiential aspect of the Christian life has been seriously neglected during the present century. Certain factors and tendencies have led to this unfortunate condition. Chief among these has been a superficial evangelism which has neglected real conviction of sin and repentance and encouraged an easy believism. Secondly, there has been a theory of sanctification, more psychological than spiritual and scriptural, which has discouraged self-examination and taught that we have only to 'leave it to the Lord'. Thirdly. and more recently. has been an unbalanced emphasis on intellectual understanding of Truth, the social application of Truth and the manifestation of particular spiritual gifts. All this has greatly impoverished the spiritual life of both the individual Christian and the churches and led to coldness, barrenness, and loss of power. The greatest need of the hour is a return to the emphases of the Evangelical Awakening. It is in the belief that this classic of the spiritual life and warfare can greatly stimulate and hasten that return that I encouraged my Wife to translate it, and am now happy to commend it and to advise all Christians to read it.

It was no doubt the Doctor's stress on the experiential side of Christianity that got him so excited about that rather strange book More than notion by the anonymous Mrs Alexander for which he wrote a foreword in 1965. His attitude is the same as he had to the Pastor Hsi biography. He writes

There are some books of which it can be said that to read them is an experience, and one is never the same again. The extracts out of the lives of these various people who came in varied ways to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ are, at one and the same time, convicting and encouraging. Some were poor and ignorant, others well placed socially, and learned and cultured; but all came to the same glorious experience.

What he felt in particular was that “in reading about them one is shown the vital difference between a head knowledge of the Christian faith and a true heart experience.”
He goes on to say that it “should be made compulsory reading for all theologians especially, but ... will prove valuable also to those who long for a vital Christian experience.” He says that many who had read it as the result of his recommendation “have testified to the blessing they have received. In one church known to me the reading of the book by one man led to a prayer-meeting such as they had not experienced before.” He concludes “In these superficial and confused days I thank God for a book such as this and pray that He may bless it to countless souls.”
It has to be said that not everyone shared his enthusiasm but at least we ought to appreciate what it is that he was enthusiastic about.
It is the same desire for an experience of grace that had made him enthuse over the book about Howell Harris a few years before

But the object of Richard Bennett, the original author, was to allow us to see the working of God's Spirit in the soul of Howell Harris in the detailed manner recorded in Harris's own Diaries, in these first formative and thrilling years. Bennett therefore rightly felt that his own remarks should be reduced to a minimum, and that all that was required of him was to supply the connecting links in the story so as to enable the reader to understand the various allusions to actual events.

For this Lloyd-Jones, for one, was profoundly grateful.