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

And without the knowledge of our Love to God, we can never be sure of his special love to us. But yet I am not utterly a stranger to my self: I know for what I have lived and laboured in the World! And who it is that I have desired to please. The God whose I am, and whom I serve hath loved me in my youth, and he will love me in my aged weakness. My Flesh and my Heart fail: my pains seem grievous to the Flesh: But it is LOVE that chooseth them, that useth them for my good, that moderateth them, and will shortly end them. Why then should I doubt of my Fathers Love? Shall pain or dying make me doubt? Did God love none from the beginning of the World, but Enoch and Elijah? And what am I better than my fore-Fathers? What is in me ⟨p. 254⟩that I should expect exemption from the common lot of all Mankind? Is not a competent time of great Mercy on Earth, in order to the unseen felicity all that the best of men can hope for? O for a clearer, stronger Faith, to show me the World that more excelleth this, than this excelleth the Womb where I was conceived! Then should I not fear my third Birth day, what pangs soever go before it; nor be unwilling of my change! The Grave indeed is a Bed that Nature doth abhor: Yet there the weary be at rest: But Souls new born have a double Nature that is Immortal, and go to the place that is agreeable to their Nature; even to the Region of Spirits, and the Region of Holy Love. Even passive Matter that hath no other Natural motion, hath a Natural Inclination to uniting, aggregative motion. And God maketh all Natures suitable to their proper ends and use: How can it be that a Spirit should not incline to be with Spirits? And Souls that have the Divine Nature in holy Love, desire to be with the God of Love? Arts, and Sciences, and Tongues become not a Nature to us; Else they would not cease at Death: But holy LOVE is our New Nature, and therefore ceaseth not with this bodily life. And shall accidental love make me desire the company of a frail and mutable Friend? And shall not this ingrafted inseparable love, make me long to be with Christ? Though the love of God to all his Creatures will not prove that they are all Immortal, nor oblige them to expect another life, that never had Capacity or Faculties to expect it;

And without the knowledge of our Love to God, we can never be sure of his special love to us. But yet I am not utterly a stranger to my self: I know for what I have lived and laboured in the World! And who it is that I have desired to please. The God whose I am, and whom I serve hath loved me in my youth, and he will love me in my aged weakness. My Flesh and my Heart fail: my pains seem grievous to the Flesh: But it is LOVE that chooseth them, that useth them for my good, that moderateth them, and will shortly end them. Why then should I doubt of my Fathers Love? Shall pain or dying make me doubt? Did God love none from the beginning of the World, but Henoch and Elias? And what am I better than my fore-Fathers? What is in me