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

I have not loved thee as Infinite Goodness, and Love it self, and fatherly Bounty should have been loved; but yet I would not forsake thy Family; and nothing in this World is more my grief than that I love thee no more; forsake not then a sinner that would not forsake thee, that looketh every hour towards thee, that feeleth it as a piece of Hell to be so dark and strange unto thee, that gropeth, and groaneth, and gaspeth after thee; feeling to his greatest sorrow, (though thou art every where) that while he is present in the body, he is absent from the Lord. My Lord, I have nothing to do in this World, but to seek and serve thee; I have nothing to do with a Heart and its affections, but to breath after thee? I have nothing to do with my Tongue and Pe•, but to speak to thee, and for thee, and to publish thy Glory and thy Will? What have I to do with all my Reputation, and Interest in my Friends, but to increase thy Church, and propagate thy holy Truth and Service? What have I to do with my remaining Time, even these last and languishing hours, but to look up unto thee, and wait for thy Grace, and thy Salvation? O pardon all my carnal thoughts, and all my unthankful neglects of thy precious Grace, and Love, and all my wilful sin against thy Truth and thee! and let the fuller Communications of thy forfeited Grace, now tell me by experience that thou dost forgive me! Even under the terrible Law thou didst tell Man thy very Nature, by proclaiming thy Name, Exod. 34 6, 7. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in ⟨p. 215⟩goodness and Truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin; and is not the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the Gospel for our more abundant Faith and Consolation? My God, I know, as I cannot Love thee according to thy Loveliness, so I cannot Trust thee according to thy Faithfulness: I can never be sufficiently confident of thy all-sufficient Power, thy Wisdom, and thy Goodness. When I have said, as Psal. 77. 7. Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his Promise fail to Generations? hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Conscience hath replied, that This is my infirmity?