A26921:59
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and the latter times of his corporal pains and weakness.
London: printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons, 1683
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§ 1. MAN that is born of a Woman, is of few days, and full of trouble; He cometh forth like a Flower, and is cut down: He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not: And dost thou open thine Eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into Judgment with thee? saith Job, ch. 14. v. 1, 2, 3. As a Watch when it is wound up, or as a Candle newly lighted; so Man newly conceived or born, beginneth a motion, which incessantly hasteth to its appointed period. And an Action, and its Time, that is past, is Nothing: So vain a thing would Man be, and so vain his Life, were it not for the hopes of a more durable Life, which this referreth to. But those Hopes, and the Means, do not only difference a Believer from an Infidel, but a Man from a Beast. When Solomon describeth the difference in respect to the Time and Things of this Life only, he truly tells us, that one end here befalling both, doth ⟨p. 2⟩show that both are here but Vanity, but Man's Vexation is greater than the Beasts. And Paul truly saith of Christians that if our hope were only in this life (that is, in the Time and Things of this life and world) we were of all men most miserable. Though even in this life, as related to a better, and as we are exercised about things of a higher nature, than the concerns of temporal life, we are far happier than any worldlings.
§ 1. MAN that is born of a Woman, is of few daies, and full of trouble; He cometh forth like a Flower, and is cut down: He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not: And dost thou open thine Eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into Judgment with thee? saith Job, ch. 14. v. 1, 2, 3. As a Watch when it is wound up, or as a Candle newly lighted; so Man newly conceived or born, beginneth a motion, which incessantly hasteth to its appointed period. And an Action, and its Time, that is past, is Nothing: So vain a thing would Man be, and so vain his Life, were it not for the hopes of a more durable Life, which this referreth to. But those Hopes, and the Means, do not only difference a Believer from an Infidel, but a Man from a Beast. When Solomon describeth the difference in respect to the Time and Things of this Life only, he truly tells us, that one end here befalling both, doth ⟨p. 2⟩