PREFACE. iñ Henry's second wife. "Ile 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 parlour ; he spent the " greatest part of his time in reading and prayer." In the life of that honourable 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 de- "light to read Mr. Baxter's Saints Everlasting Rest, "and Preparations 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. Janeway's Tokens for Children, of a little boy, whose piety was so discovered and promo- ted 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, "'Phis little book [the Call to the Unconverted] God " bath 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. Flavel affection- ately says, "Mr. Baxter is almost in heaven; living 1 B
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