Dr. Bates, in his dedication of his funeral sermon for Mr. Baxter to Sir Henry Ashurst, Bart. tells that religious gentleman, and most distinguished friend and executor of Mr. Baxter, "He was most worthy of your highest esteem and love; for the first impressions of heaven upon your soul, were in reading his invaluable book of the Saint's Everlasting Rest."
In the life of the Rev. Mr. Matthew Henry, we have the following character given us of Robert Warburton, Esq. of Grange, the son of the eminently religious judge Warburton, and the father of Mr. Matthew Henry's second wife. "He was a gentleman that greatly affected retirement and privacy, especially in the latter part of his life; the Bible and Mr. Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest used to lie daily before him on the table in his parlor; he spent the greatest part of his time in reading and prayer."
In the life of that honorable and most religious knight, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, we are told, "that he was constant in secret prayer and reading the Scriptures; afterwards he read other choice authors: But not long before his death he took singular delight to read Mr. Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest, and preparation thereunto; which was esteemed a gracious event of Divine providence sending it as a guide to bring him more speedily and directly to that rest."
Besides persons of eminence, to whom this book has been precious and profitable, we have an instance in the Rev. Mr. James Janeway's Token for Children, of a little boy, whose piety was so discovered and promoted by reading it, as the most delightful book to him next the Bible, that the thoughts of everlasting rest seemed, even while he continued in health, to swallow up all other thoughts; and he lived in a constant preparation for it, and looked more like one that was ripe for glory, than an inhabitant of this lower world. And when he was in the sickness of which he died, before he was twelve years old, he said, "I pray let me have Mr. Baxter's book, that I may read a little more of eternity before I go into it."
Nor is it less observable, that Mr. Baxter himself, taking notice, in a paper found in his study after his death, what numbers of persons were converted by reading his _Call to the unconverted_, accounts of which he had received by letter every week, expressly adds, "This little book (the _Call to the unconverted_) God hath blessed with unexpected success, beyond all that I have written, _except the Saint's Rest_." With an evident reference to this book, and even during the life of the author, the pious Mr. Flavell affectionately says, "Mr. Baxter is almost in heaven; living in the daily views, and cheerful expectation of the saint's everlasting rest with God; and is left for a little while among us, as a great example of the life of faith." And Mr. Baxter himself says, in his preface to his Treatise of Selfdenial, "I must say, that of all the books which I have written, I peruse none so often for the use of my own soul in its daily work, as my Life of Faith, this of Selfdenial, and the last part of the Saint's Rest." On the whole, it is not without good reason that Dr. Calamy remarks concerning it, "This is a book, for which multitudes will have cause to bless God for ever."
This excellent and useful book now appears in the form of an abridgment; and therefore, it is presumed, will be the more likely, under a Divine blessing, to diffuse its salutary influence among those that would otherwise have wanted opportunity or inclination to read over the large volume. In reducing it to this smaller size, I have been very desirous to do justice to the author, and at the same time promote the pleasure and profit of the serious reader. And, I hope, those ends are, in some measure answered; chiefly by dropping things of a digressive, controversial, or metaphysical nature; together with the prefaces, dedications, and various allusions to some peculiar circumstances of the last age; and particularly by throwing several chapters into one, that the number of them may better correspond with the size of the volume; and sometimes by altering the form, but not the sense of a period, for the sake of brevity; and when an obsolete phrase occurred, changing it for one more common and intelligible. I should never have thought of attempting this work, if it had not been suggested and urged by others; and by some very respectable names, of whose learning, judgment, and piety, I forbear to avail myself. However defective this performance may appear, the labor of it (if it may be called a labor) has been, I bless God, one of the most delightful labors of my life.