It is no vain boast, through a fondness of our own nation, but is generally owned by our protestantbrethren beyond the seas, that there is no language in which there are more valuable treatises ofpractical divinity to be met with, than in ours. And perhaps upon the strictest search and comparison,as far as there is any occasion for a decisive judgment, it might be found that there are no writings ofthat kind among us that have more of a true christian spirit, a greater mixture of judgment andaffection, or a greater tendency to revive pure and undefiled religion; that have been more esteemedabroad, or more blessed at home, for the awakening the secure, instructing the ignorant, confirming thewavering, comforting the dejected, recovering the profane, or improving such as are truly serious; thanthe Practical Works of this author. Many of them have been often reprinted, and are as generallyspread through the kingdom as any tracts whatever. Others of them have been printed but once, andare not so commonly known as they deserve. Others are small, and might in time be as good as lost,if not preserved by being joined with the rest of his works. This collection of them is designed forthe benefit of the present age, and of posterity; to be a standing monument in our libraries of theunwearied endeavours of one to promote serious godliness in the land; who under a mean educationmade mighty improvements; who in a crazy body had a most active soul; and in a private spherehad a noble public spirit, that would have filled the most eminent station with advantage. It is alsointended for the advantage of ministers and students in divinity, who will here have, at an easy rate,such a treasure of practical divinity as no other part of the christian church can furnish with. Andfor a help to families, who will here find what may suit them, in all their different relations, capacities,and circumstances, and under that vast variety of providential dispensations in which they mayneed assistance.
That great man, Bishop Wilkins, was used to say of Mr. Baxter, That if he had lived in the primitivetimes he had been one of the fathers of the church. What then more fit than a collection of hisworks, that posterity may be taught to do him justice? It was a great attempt in a time of war; andthe going through with it at such a time is a hopeful prognostic, that the God of peace hath blessedends to serve by it; a subserviency to which cannot but be a matter of comfortable reflection.
It is usual to prefix to collections of this sort, some historical account of the author. This wereperhaps as little needful in the case of Mr. Baxter, as of any other that could be mentioned, becauseof the large account of himself that he left prepared for the press, which has been pu