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

and the Second is like to it, To Love our Neighbours as our selves. For God's Commands proceed from that Will which is his Nature or Essence, and they tend to the same as their Objective end. Therefore he that hath made Love the Great Command, doth tell us that LOVE is the Great conception of his own Essence, the spring of that Command; and that this commanded imperfect Love, doth tend to perfect heavenly Love, even to our communion with Essential Infinite Love. It were strange that the Love and Goodness which is equal to the Power that made the World, and the Wisdom that ordereth it, should be scant and backward to do good, and to be suspected ⟨p. 252⟩more than the Love of Friends! The remembrance of the holiness, humility, love and faithfulness of my dearest Friends of every Rank with whom I have conversed on Earth, in every place where I have lived, is so sweet to me, that I am oft ready to recreate my self with the naming of such as are now with Christ: But in Heaven they will love me better than they did on Earth; and my love to them will be more pleasant: But all these Sparks are little to the Sun.

Every place that I have lived in was a place of Divine Love, which there set up its obliging Monuments. Every Year and Hour of my life hath been a time of Love: Every Friend, and every Neighbour, yea, every Enemy have been the Messengers and Instruments of Love. Every state and change of my life, notwithstanding my sin, hath opened to me Treasures and Mysteries of Love. And after such a life of Love, shall I doubt whether the same God do love me? Is he the God of the Mountains and not of the Valleys? Did he love me in my youth and health? And doth he not love me in my Age, and Pain, and Sickness; Did he love all the Faithful better in their life than at their Death? If our hope be not chiefly in this life, neither is our state of Love, which is principally the heavenly endless Grace. My groans grieve my Friends, but abate not their love. Did he love me for my strength, my weakness might be my fear: as they that love for Beauty, loath them that are deformed, and they that love for Riches, despise the Poor: But God loved me when I was his Enemy to make me a Friend, and when I was bad to make me better: What ever he taketh pleasure in, is his own gift. Who made me to differ? And what have I that I have not received? And God will finish the Work, the Building, the Warfare