work was produced, he was suffering under the iniquitous decrees, which had, again and again, doomed him to the hardships and solitude of a prison. Some future opportunity will be sought to lay before the readers of the SACRED CLASSICS an account of his sufferings, and of the circumstances in which they originated. The thoughts which occupies his mind during confinement, and when he appeared on the eve of departure from these scenes of trouble, have a weight and pathos in them which cannot fail of deeply impressing a heart open to conviction. They are equally marked by profound inquiry after truth; by a love of God, active, intense, and universal; and by a tenderness of feeling that is not less calculated to convince us of their practical importance, than to inspire us with sympathy for the writer. The preceding Essay is intended to afford a general view of the subject; and may form, it is hoped, a not unuseful introduction to the occasionally abstruser reasonings of Baxter. The ideas and sentiments which it contains were set down long before the writer had seen the Dying THOUGHTS' of that great man; and he has ventured to prefix them to this work, because they render a separate testimony to the same sublime, but not generally received truths. London, May 26, 1834. H. S. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. READER, I HAVE no other use for a preface to this book, but to give you a true excuse for its publication. I wrote it for myself, unresolved whether any one should ever see it, but at last inclined to leave that to the will of my executors, to publish or suppress it when I am dead, as they saw cause. But my person being seized on, and my library and all my goods distrained on by constables and sold, and I constrained to relinquish my house, (for preaching and being in London,) I knew not what to do with multitudes of manuscripts that had long lain by me, having no house to go to, but a narrow hired lodging with strangers; wherefore I cast away whole volumes, which I could not carry away, both controversies and letters practical, and cases of conscience; but having newly lain divers weeks, night and day, in waking torments, nephritic and colic, after other long pains and languor, I took this book with me in my removal, for my own use in my further sickness. Three weeks after, falling into another extreme fit, and expecting death, where I had no friend with me to commit my papers to, merely lest it should be lost, I thought best to give it to the printer. I think it is so much of the work of all men's lives to prepare to die with safety and comfort, that the same thoughts may be needful for others that are so far me: if any mislike the title, as if it imported that the author is dead, let him know that I die daily; and that which quickly will be, almost is. It is suited to my own use; they that it is unsuitable to, may pass it by. If those men's lives were spent in serious preparing thoughts of death, who are now studying to destroy each other, and tear in pieces a distressed land, they would prevent much dolorous repentance. R. B. |