The Saint's Everlasting Rest

TO THE
INHABITANTS
OF THE
BOROUGH AND FOREIGN OF KIDDERMINSTER.
BOTH MAGISTRATES AND PEOPLE.

My dear Friends,

There are obvious reasons for prefixing your names to this Book. It contains the substance of what was first preached in your parish-church, and was first published from the press with a dedication to your worthy ancestors. Your trade and manufactures can never render your town so famous, as the name and writings of Mr. Baxter have already made it, both in this island, and in many remote parts of the Protestant world. His intimate and important relation to Kidderminster, and the years he abode in it, afforded him the most delightful reflection as long as he lived.

Long experience has enabled me to testify for you, that, notwithstanding your share in those common distinctions, which so unhappily divide fellow-protestants, you possess a most unusual degree of candor and friendship for each other. Thus you shew, that Kidderminster has not totally lost the amiable spirit which it imbibed more than a century ago.

There are no excellencies personal or relative, no species of domestic or public happiness, no beauties of civil or religious life, but what will be naturally promoted by a care to secure to ourselves an interest in the rest which remaineth to the people of God. They are the people for whom alone that rest is designed, both by the promises of God, and by the purchase of the Son of God. A care to secure that rest to ourselves, is the one thing needful. But neither this people, nor this care, you well know, are the peculiarities of any age, or of any party. If the inhabitants of Kidderminster formerly excelled in this care, you must allow, that it was their greatest glory. And this, more than any improvements of trade, or increasing elegancies of life, will be the greatest glory of their successors.

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

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 in 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 overrun 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 labors 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 neighborhood in some degree; (O that it were in a greater!) and in a proportion as that spirit remains, the name of Mr. Baxter continues in the most honorable 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 favor. — — Dr. Barrow said, “His practical writings were never mended, and his controversial ones seldom confuted.” — — With a view to his casuistical writings, the honorable 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 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 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 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 as 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 affection, 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 candor, should mention the following incident; “I once met with a page of Mr. Baxter. Upon the perusal of it, I conceived so good an idea of the author’s piety, that I bought the whole book.”

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