Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…

5. It is but a separation from a troublesome Companion, and putting off a Shoe that pinched me; many a sad and painful Hour I have had in this frail and faltering flesh. Many a weary Night and Day: What cares, what fears, what griefs, what groans hath this Body cost me? Alas, how many Hours of my precious time, have been spent to maintain it, please it, or repair it? How considerable a part of all my life hath been spent in necessary sleep and rest! And how much in eating, drinking, dressing, physic? And how much in labouring or using means to procure these and other necessaries? Many a hundred times I have thought, that it costeth me so dear to live, yea to live a painful weary life, that were it not for the work and higher ends of life, I had little Reason to be much in love with it, or to be loath to leave it. And had not God put into our Nature itself a necessary, unavoidable, sensitive Love of the Body, and of Life, (as he puts into the Mother, and into every Brute, a love of their young Ones, how unclean, and impotent, and troublesome soever) for the propagation and continuance of Man on Earth? Had God but left it to mere Reason, without this necessary pre-engagement of our Natures, it would have been a matter of more doubt and difficulty than it is, whether this life should be loved and desired, and no small number would daily wish that they had never been Born! A wish which I have had much a do to forbear, even when I have known that it is sinful, and when the work and pleasure of my life have been such to overcome the evils of it, as few have had.

5. It is but a separation from a troublesome Companion, and putting off a Shoe that pinched me; many a sad and painful Hour I have had in this frail and faltring flesh. Many a weary Night and Day: What cares, what fears, what griefs, what groans hath this Body cost me? Alas, how many Hours of my precious time, have been spent to maintain it, please it, or repair it? How considerable a part of all my life hath been spent in necessary sleep and rest! And how much in eating, drinking, dressing, physick? And how much in labouring or using means to procure these and other necessaries? Many a hundred times I have thought, that it costeth me so dear to live, yea to live a painful weary life, that were it not for the work and higher ends of life, I had little Reason to be much in love with it, or to be loath to leave it. And had not God put into our Nature itself a necessary, unavoidable, sensitive Love of the Body, and of Life, (as he puts into the Mother, and into every Bruit, a love of their young Ones, how unclean, and impotent, and troublesome soever) for the propagation and continuance of Man on Earth? Had God but left it to meer Reason, without this necessary pre-engagement of our Natures, it would have been a matter of more doubt and difficulty than it is, whether this life should be loved and desired, and no small number would daily wish that they had never been Born! A wish which I have had much a do to forbear, even when I have known that it is sinful, and when the work and pleasure of my life have been such to overcome the evils of it, as few have had.