A26921:454
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.
Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts. › The Concluding Application.
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.
All my best Reasons for our Immortality and future Life, are but as the New-formed Body of Adam, before God breathed into him the Breath of Life: It is he that must make them Living Reasons. To the Father of Lights therefore I must still look up, and for his Light and Love I must still wait; as for his blessing on the Food which I have eaten, which must concoct it into my living substance: Arguments will be but undigested Food, till God's effectual influx do digest them. I must learn both as a Student and a Beggar: when I have thought and thought a Thousand times, I must beg thy Blessing, Lord, upon my Thoughts, or they will all be but dullness or self-distraction. If there be no Motion, Light, and Life, here without the Influx of the Sun, what can Souls do, or receive or feel without thy influx. This World will be to us without thy Grace, as a Grave or Dungeon, where we shall lie in Death and Darkness. The eye of my Understanding, and all its Thoughts will be useless or vexatious to me, without thine illuminating Beams? O shine the Soul of thy Servant into a clearer knowledge of thy Self and Kingdom, and Love him into more Divine and heavenly love; and then he will willingly come to thee!
All my best Reasons for our Immortality and future Life, are but as the New-formed Body of Adam, before God breathed into him the Breath of Life: It is he that must make them Living Reasons. To the Father of Lights therefore I must still look up, and for his Light and Love I must still wait; as for his blessing on the Food which I have eaten, which must concoct it into my living substance: Arguments will be but undigested Food, till God's effectual influx do digest them. I must learn both as a Student and a Beggar: when I have thought and thought a Thousand times, I must beg thy Blessing, Lord, upon my Thoughts, or they will all be but dulness or self-distraction. If there be no Motion, Light, and Life, here without the Influx of the Sun, what can Souls do, or receive or feel without thy influx. This World will be to us without thy Grace, as a Grave or Dungeon, where we shall lie in Death and Darkness. The eye of my Understanding, and all its Thoughts will be useless or vexatious to me, without thine illuminating Beams? O shine the Soul of thy Servant into a clearer knowledge of thy Self and Kingdom, and Love him into more Divine and heavenly love; and then he will willingly come to thee!