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est Scripture cannot be regarded; if mercies and afflictions, if heaven and hell cannot prevail to draw a sinner to be willing to be saved, and for so reasonable a matter, as to let go his filthy vice and vanity, and to be ruled by his Maker rather than by his flesh; then what remedy, and who shall pity them that sees them in damnation?

Neighbours, my request to you is now but this much; and as your friend, as your teacher, I beseech you deny me not so small a matter: even that you will be but at so much labour, as to read over this book to yourselves, and with your families; and that you will consider of it as you go, between God and your own hearts, whether it be not a matter that concerneth you to the quick and that you will daily beg of God upon your knees to give you this necessary mercy of conversion. Away with your known sins, and with the unnecessary company and occasions that would draw you to them. You were baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier: and will you hate sanctification, or refuse it, or neglect it? You say, you believe the communion of saints, and will you abhor their communion, and choose the company of ignorant, ungodly men? Well! if after all this you be still the same, and any of you shall appear before the Lord in an unconverted state, this book, besides the rest of my labours, shall witness to your faces, that you were told of the danger, and told of the necessity of a thorough conversion. And you that now are always telling us, that all are sinners, and quiet yourselves with this, that all men have their faults, shall then be convinced to your everlasting confusion, that there is so great a difference between sinners and sinners, the converted sinners and the unconverted, that the former shall enter into the joy of their Lord, when you with the rest must be cast into perdition, Matt. xxv. 13. That you were forewarned of this, is here witnessed against you, under the hand of,

Kidderminster,
June 1, 1657.

Your faithful monitor,

RICHARD BAXTER.

то

THE READER.

AN ACCOUNT OF THIS SLENDER WORK.

You have here presented to you a common subject, handled in a mean and vulgar style, not only without those subtleties and citations, which might suit it to the palates of learned men, but also without that conciseness, sententiousness and quickness, which might make it acceptable to the ingenious and acute.. If you wonder why I should trouble the world with such an ordinary, dull discourse, as I owe you an account of it, so I shall faithfully give it you. Besides my defect of leisure and acuteness to satisfy the expectations of these sharper wits, I did here purposely avoid that little which I could have done. I was to preach not only to a popular auditory, but to the most ignorant, sottish part of that auditory; for it is they that are principally concerned in the matter. And knowing that the whole nation abounds with such, I was easily persuaded to permit the press to offer it to their view, and that, as it was preached without alteration. For the subject, I know it is the most needful that can be offered them. The reason why they must be condemned is, because they are not converted; and were they but truly converted they would escape. To convert a sinner from the error of his way, is to save a soul from death, and to cover a multitude of sins: to convert them, is to pull them out of the firef: it is to recover them out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. Conversion is the most blessed work, and the day of conversion the most blessed day that this world is acquainted with. It takes a slave from satan, and a hand from his ser8 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26.

• James v. 19, 20.

f Jude 23.

vice; it addeth a subject, a son, a member to the Lord Jesus it rescueth a soul from everlasting torments, and maketh him an heir of everlasting joys. And for such a work, we can never do too much. And alas, the most are little sensible of the nature, or necessity of this change. Many that say, they believe in God as their Creator, and in Christ as their Redeemer, do declare that they are deluded by their deceitful hearts, in that they believe not in the Holy Ghost as their Sanctifier: for they know not what sanctification is, nor ever much looked after it in themselves. The commonness and the greatness of men's necessity, commanded me to do any thing that I could for their relief, and to bring forth some water to cast upon this fire, though I had not at hand a silver vessel to carry it in, nor thought it the most fit. The plainest words are the most profitable oratory in the weightiest matters. Fineness is for ornament, and delicacy for delight; but they answer not necessity, though sometimes they may modestly attend that which answers it. Yea, when they are conjunct, it is hard for the necessitous hearer or reader to observe the matter of ornament and delicacy, and not to be carried from the matter of necessity; and to hear or read a neat, concise, sententious discourse, and not to be hurt by it; for it usually hindereth the due operation of the matter, and keeps it from the heart, and stops it in the fancy, and makes it seem as light as the style. We use not to stand upon compliment or precedency, when we run to quench a common fire, nor to call men out to it by an eloquent speech. If we see a man fall into fire or water, we stand not upon mannerliness in plucking him out, but lay hands on him as we can without delay. I shall never forget the relish of my soul, when God first warmed my heart with these matters, and when I was newly entered into a seriousness in religion : when I read such a book as Bishop Andrew's Sermons, or heard such kind of preaching, I felt no life in it: methought they did but play with holy things. Yea, when I read such as Bishop Hall, or Henshaw's Meditations, or other such Essays, Resolves and witty things, I tasted little sweetness in them; though now I can find much. But it was the plain and pressing downright preacher, that only seemed to me to be in good sadness, and to make somewhat of it, and to

speak with life, and light, and weight: and it was such kind of writings, that were wonderfully pleasant and savoury to my soul. And I am apt to think that it is thus now with my hearers; and that I should measure them by what I was, and not by what I am. And yet I must confess, that though I can better digest exactness and brevity, than I could so long ago, yet I as much value seriousness and plainness; and I feel in myself in reading or hearing, a despising of that wittiness as proud foolery, which savoureth of levity, and tendeth to evaporate weighty truths, and turn them all into very fancies, and keep them from the heart. As a stage-player, or morris-dancer differs from a soldier or a king, so do these preachers from the true and faithful ministers of Christ and as they deal liker to players than preachers in the pulpit, so usually their hearers do rather come to play with a sermon, than to attend a message from the God of heaven about the life or death of their souls.

Indeed, the more I have to do with the ignorant sort of people, the more I find that we cannot possibly speak too plainly to them. If we do not speak in their own vulgar dialect, they understand us not. Nay, if we do so, yet if we compose those very words into a handsomeness of sentence, or if we speak any thing briefly, they feel not what we say : nay, I find, if we do not purposely draw out the matter into such a length of words, and use some repetition of it, that they may hear it inculcated on them again, we do but overrun their understandings, and they presently lose us that very style and way, that is apt to be a little offensive to the exact, and that is tedious and loathsome to the curious ear, whose religion is most in air and fancy, must be it that must do good upon the ignorant, and is usually most savoury and acceptable to them. Upon such considerations, I purposely chose so coarse a style in the handling of this subject: for I preached and wrote it, not for the judicious, but for the special use of the most senseless, ignorant sort. And indeed, I am very sensible that herein I have not reached the thing that I desired; and yet have not spoke half so plainly as I should: especially, that there wanteth that life and piercing quickness, which may concur with plainness, and a subject of such necessity doth require. The true causes of this were, the dulness and badness of my

own heart, and a continual decay of the quickness of my spirits, through the increase of pituitous scotomatical distempers, together with that exceeding scarcity of leisure, which weakness and oppressing business have caused. But if God will give help and leisure, I shall seek a little to amend it, in something more which on the same subject I have begun.

One other reason that moved me to consent to this publication, is the scarcity of books that are wrote purposely on this subject: though, on the by and by parts, I know that nothing is more common in English, yet on this subject purposely and alone I remember scarce any besides Mr. Whateley's "New Birth," (and some Sermons of Repentance) and indeed I have long persuaded all that I had opportunity to persuade, to buy that book of Mr. Whateley's, and to give them abroad among the ignorant, ungodly people. And if I had seen any such fruit of my persuasions as I desired, I think I should never have published this. But when I could not prevail with the one sort to buy them, nor with the other sort to give them, I resolved to print somewhat on so necessary a point, were it never so meanly done, if it were but that I might have some books to give myself to some that need, and also that the newness and other advantages might entice this book into the hands of some, that are never like to read those, which heretofore I have commended to them.

One thing more I observe is like to be offensive in this writing, and that is, that the same things do here and there fall in, which formerly have been spoken. I confess my memory oft lets slip the passages that I have before written, and in that forgetfulness I write them again: but I make no great matter of it. The writing of the same things is safe to the reader, and why then should it be grievous to me1? not because it is displeasing to the curious, till I set more by their applause, and take the approbation of men for my reward. I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale. This speaking the same

h Phil. iii. 1.

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