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

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 ⟨p. 253⟩that is his own. O the multitude of Mercies to my Soul and Body, in Peace and War, in Youth and Age, to my self and friends, the many great and gracious deliverances which have testified to me the Love of God! Have I lived in the experience of it, and shall I die in the doubts of it? Had it been Love only to my Body, it would have died with me, and not have accompanied my departing Soul: I am not much in doubt of the truth of my Love to him: Though I have not seen him save as in a Glass, as in a Glass seen I love him: I love my Brethren whom I have seen, and those most that are most in Love with him: I love his Word, and Works, and Ways, and fain I would be nearer him, and love him more; and I loath my self for loving him no better. And shall Peter say more confidently, [Thou knowest that I love thee] than [I know that thou lovest me?] Yes, he may; because though God's Love is greater and stedfaster than ours, yet our knowledge of his great love, is less than his knowledge of our little love; and as we are defective in our own Love, so are we in our certainty of its sincerity.

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 Neigbour, 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