03.12.2018 Views

The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

lower world. And when he was in the sickness of which he died before he<br />

was twelve years old, he said, "I pray, let me have Mr. <strong>Baxter</strong>'s book, that I<br />

may read a little more of eternity before I go into it."<br />

Nor is it less observable that Mr. <strong>Baxter</strong> himself, taking notice, in a<br />

paper found in his study after his death, what a number of persons were<br />

converted by reading his Call to the Unconverted, accounts of which he had<br />

received by letter every week, expressly adds, "This little book, the Call to<br />

the Unconverted, God hath blessed with unexpected success, beyond all that<br />

I have written, except the <strong>Saints'</strong> <strong>Rest</strong>." With an evident reference to this<br />

book, and even during the life of the author, the pious Mr. Flavel<br />

affectionately says, "Mr. <strong>Baxter</strong> is almost in heaven--living in the daily<br />

views and cheerful expectation of the saints' everlasting rest with God; and is<br />

left for a little while among us, as a great example of the life of faith." And<br />

Mr. <strong>Baxter</strong> himself says, in his preface to his Treatise of Self-Denial, "I must<br />

say, that of all the books which I have written, I peruse none so often for the<br />

use of my own soul in its daily work, as my Life of Faith, this of Self-Denial,<br />

and the last part of the <strong>Saints'</strong> <strong>Rest</strong>." On the whole, it is not without good<br />

reason that Dr. Calamy remarks concerning it, "This is a book for which<br />

multitudes will have cause to bless God for ever."<br />

This excellent and useful book now appears in the form of an<br />

abridgment and therefore, it is presumed, will be the more likely, under the<br />

Divine blessing, to diffuse its salutary influence among those that would<br />

otherwise have wanted opportunity or inclination to read over the larger<br />

volume. In reducing it to this smaller size, I have been very desirous to do<br />

justice to the author, and at the same time promote the pleasure and profit of<br />

the serious reader. And I hope these ends are in some measure answered;<br />

chiefly by dropping things of a digressive, controversial, or metaphysical<br />

nature; together with prefaces, dedications, and various allusions to some<br />

peculiar circumstances of the last age; and particularly by throwing several<br />

chapters into one, that the number of them may better correspond with the<br />

7

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!