The Saints' Everlasting Rest

To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Rous Baronet, with the Lady Jane Rous his Wife.

To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Rous Baronet, with the Lady Jane Rous his VVife.

This First Part of this Treatise was written under your Roof, and therefore I present it not to you as a gift, but as your own: Not for your Protection, but for your Instruction and Direction; (for I never perceived you possessed with that evil spirit, which maketh men hear their Teachers as their Servants, to censure their Doctrine, or be humoured by them, rather then to learn.) Nor do I intend this Epistle for the publishing of your Virtues: You know to whose judgment you stand or fall. It is a small thing to be judged by mans judgment: If you be sentenced as Righteous at the Bar of Christ, and called by him the Blessed of his Father; it matters not much, by what name or title you are here called. All Saints are low in their own esteem, and therefore thirst not to be highly esteemed by others: He that knows what Pride hath done in the World, and is now doing, and how close that heinous sin doth cleave to all our Natures, will scarce take him for a friend, who will bring fuel ⟨image 8⟩to the fire, nor that breath for amicable, which will blow the coal. Yet he that took so kindly a woman's box of ointment, as to affix the History to his Gospel, that where-ever it was read, that good Work might be remembered, hath warranted me by his example, to annex the mention of your Favours to this Treatise, which have many times far exceeded in cost that which Judas thought too good for his Lord. And common ingenuity commandeth me thankfully to acknowledge, That when you heard I was suddenly cast into extreme weakness, you sent into several Counties to seek me in my quarters, and missing of me, sent again, to fetch me to your house, where for many months I found a Hospital, a Physician, a Nurse, and real Friends, and (which is more then all) daily and importunate Prayers for my recovery; and since I went from you, your kindnesses still following me in abundance: And all this for a man that was a stranger to you, whom you had never seen before, but among Soldiers, to burden you: And for one that had no witty insinuations for the extracting of your favours, nor impudency enough to return them in flatteries; yea, who had such obstructions betwixt his heart and his tongue, that he could scarce handsomely express the least part of his thankfulness; much less able to make you a requital. The best return I can make of your love, is in commending this Heavenly Duty to your Practice;