8 / 576
1V
PREFACE.
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
.
ing
whose sincere
piety
he had
not
reason
to enter-
tain
good
hopes. Blessed
be God,
the
religious
spi-
rit
which
was
thus
happily
introduced,
is
yet
to
be
traced
in
the
town and neighbourhood in
some de-
gree:
(®
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
rémembrance.
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 mend-
"
ed,
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
bad
such
high
thoughts
of
him,
that
by his earnest
importunity he
put
him upon
writing
several
of
his
practical discour-
ses,
particularly
that
celebrated
piece, his
Call
to
the
Unconverted. Mr.
Manton,
as
-
be 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
1)r.
Bates
considers
him,
when in
his
funeral sermon for him he
says,
"
In
his