8 COMPILER'S PREFACE. 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, particu- larly that celebrated piece, his Call to the Unconverted. Dr. Manton, as he freely expressed it, " thought Mr. Baxter came nearer the epos- tolical writings than any man in the age." And it is both as a preacher and awriter 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 foun- tains ofreason 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 con- vincing 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 trea- sure of controversial, casuistical, and practical divinity. His books of practical divinity have been effectual for more numerous conversions ofsinners 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 pre- face 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 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 imper
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