found that I fell into whole companies of them, besetting me at once, and who with great scorn and cunning subtlety endeavored to bring my special friends to a contempt of the scripture and the life to come; and also when I considered how many of them were once my intimate friends, whom I cannot yet choose but love with compassion, when I remember our former converse and familiarity: and some of them were ancient professors, who have done and suffered much in a better cause; and whose uprightness we were all as confident of as most men's living on earth. All this did make the case more grievous to me; yet I must needs say that the most that I have known to fall thus far, were such as were formerly so proud, or sensual, or giddy professors, that they seemed then but to stay for a shaking temptation to lay them in the dirt; and those of better qualifications, of whose sincerity we are so confident, were very few. It yet troubled me more that those of them, whose welfare I most heartily desired, would never be drawn to open their minds to me, so that I was out of all capacity of doing them any good, though sometime to others they would speak more freely. And when I have stirred sometime further abroad, I have perceived that some persons of considerable quality and learning, having much conversed with men of that way, and read such books as Hobbes' Leviathan,' have been sadly infected with this mortal pestilence; and the horrid language that some of them utter cannot but grieve any one that heareth of it, who hath the least sense of God's honor, or the worth of souls. Sometimes they make a jest at Christ; sometimes at scripture; sometimes at the soul of man; sometimes at spirits; challenging the devil to come and appear to them, and professing how far they would travel to see him, as not believing that indeed he is; sometimes scorning at the talk of hell, and presuming to seduce poor, carnal people that are too ready to believe such things, telling them that it were injustice in God to punish a short sin with an everlasting punishment; and that God is good, and therefore there cannot be any devils or hell, because evil cannot come from good sometimes they say that it is not they, but sin that dwelleth in them; and therefore sin shall be damned and not they and most of them give up themselves to sensuality, which is no wonder ; for he that thinks there is no greater happiness hereafter to be exVOL. 1.

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pected, is like enough to take his fill of sensual pleasure while he may have it; and, as I have said once before, he that thinks he shall die like a dog, is like enough to live like a dog.

"Being awakened by these sad experiences and considerations to a deeper compassion of these miserable men, but especially to a deeper sense of the danger of weak unsettled professors, whom they labor to seduce, another providence also instigating thereto, I put those sermons on Gal. iii. to the press.'

17. "The Agreement of the Worcestershire Ministers for catechising." 12mo. published in 1656.

18. "Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor; shewing the nature of the pastoral work, especially in private instruction and catechising, with an open confession of our too open sins," etc. 8vo. published in 1656.

Of the occasion and design of these two works he speaks thus. "About that time, being apprehensive how great a part of our work lay in catechising the aged who were ignorant, as well as children, and especially in serious conference with them about the matters of their salvation, I thought it best to draw in all the ministers of the county with me that the benefit might extend the further, and that each one might have the less opposition. Which having procured, at their desire I wrote a catechism, and the articles of our agreement, and before them an earnest exhortation to our ignorant people to submit to this way: and this was then published. The catechism was also a brief confession of faith, being the enlargement of a confession which I had before printed in an open sheet, when we set up church discipline.

"When we set upon this great work, it was thought best to begin with a day of fasting and prayer by all the ministers, at Worcester, where they desired me to preach. But weakness and other things hindered me from that day; and to compensate that I enlarged and published the sermon which I had prepared for them; and entitled the treatise Gildas Salvianus (because I imitated Gildas and Salvianus in my liberty of speech to the pastors of the churches) or the Reformed Pastor."

* Bexter's Practical Works; London. 1830. Voi. xx. pp. 22, 23.

The Reformed Pastor is one of those works of Baxter which has been most extensively circulated and most profitably read. It is in the hands of thousands of ministers at this day; and it were well if the diligent and devotional study of that book, were made a part of the course of preparation for the ministry in every theological seminary. "I have very great cause," says the author less than ten years after its first publication, "to be thankful to God for the success of that book, as hoping many thousand souls are the better for it, in that it prevailed with many ministers to set upon that work which I there exhort them to; even from beyond the seas, I have had letters of request, to direct them how they might bring on that work according as that book had convinced them that it was their duty. If God would but reform the ministry, and set them on their duty zealously and faithfully, the people would certainly be reformed: all churches either rise or fall, as the ministry doth rise or fall, not in riches or wordly grandeur, but in knowledge, zeal, and ability for the work. But since bishops were restored, this book, is useless, and that work not meddled with."*

19. "Certain Disputations of Rights to Sacraments, and the True Nature of Visible Christianity." Published in 1656. Of this work it is unnecessary to say more than that it is a controversial examination of the question, What is the proper condition of church communion? and that the doctrine which it maintains is that the only condition of membership which any church has a right to require, and the great condition which no church has a right to dispense with, is simply " a creidble profession of true faith and repentance."

20. "The Safe Religion, or Three Disputations for the Reformed Catholic Religion against Popery." 8vo. published in 1657. Of this work he says, "The great advancement of the Papist interest by their secret agency among the Sectaries, Seekers, Quakers, Behmenists, etc., did make me think it necessary to do something directly against popery. So I published three dissertations against them, one to prove our religion safe, and another to prove their religion unsafe, and a third to show that they overthrew the faith by the ill resolution of their faith."

21. "A Treatise of Conversion; preached and now published for the use of those that are strangers to a true conversion, especially the grossly ignorant and ungodly," 4to. published in 1657. It was as he says, some plain sermons on that subject which Mr. Baldwin, an honest young minister that had lived in my house and learned my short hand in which I wrote my sermon notes, had transcribed out of my notes. And though I had no leisure, for this or other writings, to add any ornaments, or citations of authors, I thought it might better pass as it was, than not at all; and that if the author missed of the applause of the learned, yet the book might be profitable to the ignorant, as it proved, through the great mercy of God."

This work, it may be supposed, is a fair specimen of the author's ordinary preaching. In this point of view it is a book of no small value, not only for "the grossly ignorant and ungodly," but also for divines however "learned." He who reads it carefully will hardly wonder at Baxter's success as a preacher; and may learn from it more of the manner in which truth should be presented to the minds of men, than from many a learned work on rhetoric and homiletics. The work is at the same time worthy of diligent attention as a theological treatise. It shows what views of conversion' were entertained by a man whose success in promoting the conversion of sinners has rarely been equaled.

22. Several single sheets, corresponding in their plan with the publications of our Tract Societies were among the works which he published in 1657. The titles of these were "A Winding Sheet for Popery;" "One Sheet for the Ministry against Malignants of all sorts;" "One Sheet against the Quakers;" "A second Sheet for the Ministry, justifying our calling against the Quakers, Seekers, and Papists, and all that deny us to be the Ministers of Christ ;" and "A Sheet directing Justices in corporations to discharge their duty to God." The industry and spirit of the author has been illustrated by a few words from one of these fugitive publications.

"The Quakers say, we are idle drones, that labor not, and therefore should not eat. The worst I wish you is, that you had but my ease instead of your labor. I have reason to take myself for the

least of saints, and yet I fear not to tell the accuser that I take the labor of most tradesman in the town to be a pleasure to the body, in comparison with mine; though for the ends and pleasure of my miud, I would not change it with the greatest prince. Their labor preserveth health, and mine consumeth it; they work in ease, and I in continual pain; they have hours and days of recreation, I have scarce time to eat and drink. Nobody molesteth them for their labor, but the more I do, the more hatred and trouble I draw upon me. If a Quaker ask me what all this labor is, let him come and see, or do as I do, and he shall know.”*

23. "A call to the Unconverted to turn and live, and accept of mercy while mercy may be had, as ever they would find mercy in the day of their extremity: From the Living God. To which are added Forms of Prayer for morning and evening for a family, for a penitent sinner and for the Lord's day." Svo. published in 1657. "The occasion of this," he says, "was my converse with Bishop Usher, while I was at London, who much approving my 'Directions for peace of conscience,' was importunate with me to write directions suited to the various states of Christians, and also against particular sins. I reverenced the man; but disregarded these persuasions, supposing I could do nothing but what is done as well or better already. But when he was dead, his words went deeper to my mind, and I purposed to obey his counsel; yet so as that to the first sort of men, the ungodly, I thought vehement persuasions meeter than directions only. And so for such, I published this little book; which God hath blessed with unexpected success beyond all the rest that I have written, except the Saint's Rest.' In a little more than a year, there were about twenty thousand of them printed by my own consent, and about ten thousand since; besides many thousands, by stolen impressions, which poor men stole for lucre's sake. Through God's mercy, I have had information of almost whole households being converted by this small book, which I set so light by; and, as if all this in England, Scotland, and Ireland, were not mercy enough to me, God, since I was si

This quotation is on the authority of Orme.