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

III. What then remaineth, O my Soul, but that in TRUST and HOPE thou LOVE thy God, thy Saviour, thy Comforter, the Glorious Society, thy own Perfection in Glorious, Endless, Heavenly Life, and Light, and Love, and the Joyful Praises of Jehovah, better then this burden of painful and corruptible Flesh, and this howling Wilderness, the Habitation of Serpents and untamed Brutes, where unbelief and murmuring, Lust and Folly, Injustice and Uncharitableness, Tyranny and Divisions, Pride and Contention, have long provoked God, and wearied thee? Where the Vintage and Harvest is Thorns and Thistles, Sin and Sorrows, Cares and Crosses, manured by manifold Temptations! How odious is that darkness and unbelief, that unholiness and disaffection, that deadness and stupidity, which maketh such a work as this, so reasonable, necessary, and pleasant a work, to seem unsuitable or hard! Is it unsuitable or hard to the Eye to see the Sun and Light? Or by it to see the beautified World? Or for a Man to love his Life or Health; his Father or his Friend? What should be easier to a Nature that hath rational ⟨p. 237⟩LOVE, than to Love him, that is Essential LOVE itself: He that loveth all, and giveth to all the Loving faculty, should be loved by all: And he that hath specially loved me should be specially loved by me?

III. What then remaineth, O my Soul, but that in TRUST and HOPE thou LOVE thy God, thy Saviour, thy Comforter, the Glorious Society, thy own Perfection in Glorious, Endless, Heavenly Life, and Light, and Love, and the Joyful Praises of Jehovah, better then this burden of painful and corruptible Flesh, and this howling Wilderness, the Habitation of Serpents and untamed Bruits, where unbelief and murmuring, Lust and Folly, Injustice and Uncharitableness, Tyranny and Divisions, Pride and Contention, have long provoked God, and wearied thee? Where the Vintage and Harvest is Thorns and Thistles, Sin and Sorrows, Cares and Crosses, manured by manifold Temptations! How odious is that darkness and unbelief, that unholiness and disaffection, that deadness and stupidity, which maketh such a work as this, so reasonable, necessary, and pleasant a work, to seem unsuitable or hard! Is it unsuitable or hard to the Eye to see the Sun and Light? Or by it to see the beautified World? Or for a Man to love his Life or Health; his Father or his Friend? What should be easier to a Nature that hath rational ⟨p. 237⟩