A26921:274
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and the latter times of his corporal pains and weakness.
London: printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons, 1683
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§ 8. And though no outward thing on Earth is more precious than the Holy Word, and Worship, and Ordinances of God, yet even here I see that which pointeth me up higher, and telleth me it is much better to be with Christ. 1. Shall I love the Name of Heaven, better than Heaven itself? The Holy Scriptures are precious, because I have there the Promise of Glory; but is not the Possession better than the Promise? If a Light and Guide thither through this Wilderness be good, surely the End must needs be better! And it hath pleased God that all things on Earth, and therefore even the Sacred Scriptures, should bear the Marks of our state of imperfection: Imperfect Persons were the Penmen; and imperfect humane Language is the conveying, signal, organical part of the matter. And the Method and Phrase (though true and blameless) are far short of the heavenly Perfection. Else so many Commentators had not found so hard a task of it to expound innumerable difficulties, and reconcile so many seeming contradictions, nor would Infidels find matter of so strong temptation, and so much cavil as they do; nor ⟨p. 99⟩would Peter have told us of the difficulties of Pauls Epistles, and such occasions of mens wresting them to their own destruction. Heaven will not be made to perfect Spirits, the occasion of so many Errors, and Controversies, and quarrels as the Scriptures are to us imperfect men on Earth. Yea Heaven is the more desirable, because there I shall better understand the Scriptures, than here I can ever hope to do. All the hard passages now misunderstood, will there be made plain, and all the seeming contradictions reconciled; and which is much more, that God, that Christ, that New Jerusalem, that Glory, and that Felicity of Souls, which are now known but▪ darkly and enigmatically in the Glass, will then be known intuitively as we see the Face itself, whose Image only the Glass first showed us. To leave my Bible, and go to the God, and the Heaven that is revealed, will be no otherwise a loss to me, than to lay by my Crutches or Spectacles when I need them not, or to leave his Image for the presence of my Friend.
§ 8. And though no outward thing on Earth is more precious than the Holy Word, and Worship, and Ordinances of God, yet even here I see that which pointeth me up higher, and telleth me it is much better to be with Christ. 1. Shall I love the Name of Heaven, better than Heaven itself? The Holy Scriptures are precious, because I have there the Promise of Glory; but is not the Possession better than the Promise? If a Light and Guide thither through this Wilderness be good, surely the End must needs be better! And it hath pleased God that all things on Earth, and therefore even the Sacred Scriptures, should bear the Marks of our state of imperfection: Imperfect Persons were the Penmen; and imperfect humane Language is the conveying, signal, organical part of the matter. And the Method and Phrase (though true and blameless) are far short of the heavenly Perfection. Else so many Commentators had not found so hard a task of it to expound innumerable difficulties, and reconcile so many seeming contradictions, nor would Infidels find matter of so strong temptation, and so much cavil as they do; nor