"everlasting fire of hell so visible, and represents the tormenting passions of the damned in those dread"ful colours, that, if duly considered, would check "and control the unbridled licentious appetites of the "most sensual wretches."

Heavenly rest is a subject, in its own nature so universally important and interesting, and at the same time so truly engaging and delightful, as sufficiently accounts for the great acceptance which this book has met with; and partly also for the uncommon blessing which has attended Mr. BAXTER'S manner of treating the subject, both from the pulpit and the press. For where are the operations of divine grace more reasonably to be expected, or where have they in fact been more frequently discerned, than in concurrence with the best adapted means? And should it appear, that persons of distinguishing judgment and piety, have expressly ascribed their first religious impressions to the hearing or reading the important sentiments contained in this book; or, after a long series of years, have found it both the counterpart and the improvement of their own divine life, will not this be thought a considerable recommendation of the book itself?

Among the instances of persons that dated their true conversion from hearing the sermons on the Saint's Rest, when Mr. Baxter first preached them, was the Rev. Thomas Doolittle, M. A. who was a native of Kidderminster, and at that time a scholar, about seventeen years old; whom Mr. Baxter himself afterwards sent to Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge, where he took his degree. Before his going to the university, he was upon trial as an attorney's clerk, and under that character being ordered by his master to write something on a Lord's day, he obeyed with great reluctance, and the next day returned home, with an earnest desire that he might not apply himself to any thing as the employment of life, but serving Christ in the ministry of the gospel. His praise is yet in the churches, for his pious and useful labours, as a minister, a tutor, and a writer.

THE PREFACE.

MR. RICHARD BAXTER, the anthor of the Saint's

Rest, so well known to the world by this, and many other excellent and useful writings, was a learned, laborious, and eminently holy divine, of the 17th century. He was born near Shrewsbury, in 1615, and died at London, in 1691.

His ministry, in an unsettled state, was for many years employed with great and extensive success, both in London, and in several parts of the country; but he was nowhere fixed so long, or with such entire satisfaction to himself, and apparent advantage to others, as at Kidderminster. His abode there was indeed interrupted partly by his bad health, but chiefly by the calamities of a civil war, yet in the whole it amounted to sixteen years; nor was it by any means the result of his own choice, or that of the inhabitants of Kidderminster, that he never settled there again, after his going from thence in 1660. Before his coming thither, the place was over-run with ignorance and profaneness; but, by the divine blessing on his wise and faithful cultivation, the fruits of righteousness sprung up in rich abundance. He at first found but a single instance or two of daily family prayer in a whole street, and, at his going away, but one family or two could be found in some streets that continued to neglect it. And on Lord's days, instead of the open profanation to which they had been so long accus

tomed, a person, in passing through the town, in the intervals of public worship, might overhear hundreds of families engaged in singing psalms, reading the scriptures, and other good books, or such sermons as they had wrote down, while they heard them from the pulpit. His care of the souls committed to his charge, and the success of his labours among them, were truly remarkable; for the number of his stated communicants rose to six hundred, of whom he himself declared, there were not twelve concerning whose sincere piety he had not reason to entertain good hopes. Blessed be God, the religious spirit which was thus happily introduced, is yet to be traced in the town and neighbourhood in some degree: (0 that it were in a greater!) and in proportion as that spirit remains, the name of Mr. BAXTER continues in the most honourable and affectionate remembrance.

66

As a writer, he has the approbation of some of his greatest contemporaries, who best knew him, and were under no temptations to be partial in his favour.-Dr. Barrow said, "His practical writings were never mended, and his controversial ones seldom confuted."With a view to his casuistical writings, the honourable Robert Boyle, esq. declared, "He was the fittest man "of his age for a casuist, because he feared no man's displeasure, nor hoped for any man's preferment.” -Bishop Wilkins observed of him, "That he had "cultivated every subject he had handled; that if he “had lived in the primitive times, he would have "been one of the fathers of the church; and that it "was enough for one age to produce such a person as "Mr. BAXTER." Archbishop Usher had such high thoughts of him, that by his earnest importunity he put him upon writing several of his practical discourses, particularly that celebrated piece, his Call to the Unconverted. Mr. Manton, as he freely expressed it, thought Mr. BAXTER came nearer the apostolical writings than any man in the age."-And it is both as a preacher, and a writer, that Dr. Bates considers him, when in his funeral sermon for him he says, "In his

66

66

sermons there was a rare union of arguments and motives, to convince the mind, and gain the heart. "All the fountains of reason and persuasion were open "to the discerning eye. There was no resisting the "force of his discourses, without denying reason and "divine revelation. He had a marvellous facility "and copiousness in speaking. There was a noble negligence in his style, for his great mind could "not stoop to the affected eloquence of words; he despised flashy oratory; but his expressions were clear and powerful, so convincing the understanding, so entering into the soul, so engaging the affec"tions, that those were as deaf as adders who were "not charmed by so wise a charmer. He was animat"ed with the Holy Spirit, and breathed celestial fire, "to inspire heat and life into dead sinners, and to "melt the obdurate in their frozen tombs. His books, for their number, (which it seems were more "than one hundred and twenty,) and variety of mat“ter in them, make a library. They contain a treasure of controversial, casuistical, and practical divinity. His books of practical divinity have been "effectual for more numerous conversions of sinners "to God, than any printed in our time; and, while "the church remains on earth, will be of continual 'efficacy to recover lost souls. There is a vigorous "pulse in them, that keeps the reader awake and at"tentive." To these testimonies may not be improperly added that of the editors of his Practical Works, in four folio volumes; in the Preface to which they say, "Perhaps there are no writings among us that "have more of a true Christian spirit, a greater mix"ture of judgment and affection, a greater tendency "to revive pure and undefiled religion, that have "been more esteemed abroad, or more blessed at home "for the awakening the secure, instructing the igno"rant, confirming the wavering, comforting the de"jected, recovering the profane, or improving such as are truly serious, than the practical works of this "author." Such were the apprehensions of eminent. persons, who were well acquainted with Mr. Baxter

66

66