To excite this care, is the noblest design of all religious instruction. This, and nothing else, animates the following pages. Here, God and Christ, heaven and holiness, invite your most attentive and affectionate regards. Here, you may peruse, what multitudes in the same town have heard and read before you to their everlasting joy, till your blessings prevail above the blessings of your progenitors. Here, by the help of divine grace, you may learn the heavenly art of walking with God below, of living in a constant view and foretaste of the glories of the New Jerusalem, and of making all you say or do, suffer or enjoy, subservient to the brightening your immortal crown. Nothing has the compiler of this abridgment to wish like such consequences as these; even, to see the same holy and heavenly conversation in himself, and in those around him, now, as Mr. Baxter saw in his day. This would be the greatest joy, and shall be the constant and fervent prayer, of

Your affectionate friend,

And obedient servant,

Kidderminster, Jan. 1, 1759.

B. FAWCETT.

PREFACE.

BY THE COMPILER OF THIS ABRIDGMENT.

MR. RICHARD BAXTER, the author 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 last age. 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 several parts of the country; but he was no where 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 a divine blessing on his wise and faithful cultivation, the fruits of righteousness sprung up in a 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 day, instead of the open profanation to which they had been so long accustomed, 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 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: (O 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.

As a writer, he has the approbation of some of his greatest cotemporaries, 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 the 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. Dr. Manton, as he freely expressed it," thought Mr. Baxter came nearer the apostoli"cal 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 sermons there was a rare union of arguments and motives, to convince the mind and gain the heart. All the foun

tains of reason and persuasion were open to his 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 affections, that those were deaf as adders who were not charmed by so wise a charmer. He was animated 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 was more than one hundred and twenty] and variety of matter 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 attentive." To these testimonies may not improperly be 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 mixture of judgment and affec tion, or 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 ignorant, confirming the wavering, comforting the dejected, 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 and his writings. It is therefore the less remarkable that Mr. Addison, from an accidental and very imperfect acquaintance, but with his usual pleasantness and candour, should men. tion the following incident; "I once met with a page of Mr. Baxter. Upon the perusal of it, I conceived so good an an idea of the author's piety, that I bought the whole book."

Whatever other causes might concur, it must chiefly be ascribed to Mr. Baxter's distinguishing reputation as a preacher, and a writer, that presently after the restoration he was appointed one of the chaplains in ordinary to King Charles II, and preached once before him in that capacity; as also that he had an offer made him by the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, of the bishoprick of Hereford, which, in a respectful letter to his lordship, he saw proper to decline.

The Saint's Rest is deservedly esteemed one of his most valuable parts of his practical works. He wrote it when he was far from home, without any book to consult but his bible, and in such an ill state of health, as to be in continual expectation of death for many months; and therefore, merely for his own use, he fixed his thoughts on this heavenly subject," which (says he) hath more benefitted me "than all the studies of my life." At this time he could be little more than thirty years old. He afterward preached over the subject in his weekly lecture at Kidderminster, and in 1650 he published it; and indeed it appears to have been the first that ever he published of all his practical writings. Of this book Dr. Bates says, "It was written by him when languishing in the suspense of life and death, but has the signatures of his holy vigorous mind. To allure our desires, he unveils the sanctuary above, and dis

covers the glories and joys of the blessed in the divine presence, by a light so strong and lively, that all the glittering vanities of this world vanish in that comparison, and a sincere believer will despise them, as one of mature age does the toys and baubles of children. To excite our fear, he removes the screen, and makes the everlasting fire of hell so visible, and represents the tormenting passions of the damned in those dreadful colours, that, if duly considered, would check and controul 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. Mr. Thomas Doolittle, M. A. who was a native of Kidderminster, and at that time a scholar, about seventeen years old; whom Mr. Baxter himself 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 gos pel. His praise is yet in the churches, for his pious and useful labours, as a minister, a tutor, and a writer.

In the life of the Rev. Mr. John Janeway, fellow of King's college, Cambridge, who died in 1657, we are told, that his conversion was, in a great measure, occasioned by