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

§ 10. 3. And no Mercy can be truly known and estimated, nor rightly used and improved by him that seeth not its tendency to the End, and perceiveth not that it leadeth to a better Life, and useth it not thereunto. God dealeth more bountifully with us than worldlings understand: He giveth us all the mercies of this life, as helps to an immortal state of Glory, and as earnests of it. Sensualists know not what a Soul is, nor what Soul-mercies are, and therefore not what the Soul of all bodily mercies are; but take up only with the carcass, shell, or shadow. If the King would give ⟨p. 6⟩me a Lordship, and send me a Horse or Coach to carry me to it, and I should only ride about the fields for my pleasure, and make no other use of it, should I not undervalue and lose the principal benefit of my Horse or Coach? No wonder if unbelievers be unthankful, when they know not at all that part of God's mercies, which is the life, and real excellency of them.

§ 10. 3. And no Mercy can be truly known and estimated, nor rightly used and improved by him that seeth not its tendency to the End, and perceiveth not that it leadeth to a better Life, and useth it not thereunto. God dealeth more bountifully with us than worldlings understand: He giveth us all the mercies of this life, as helps to an immortal state of Glory, and as earnests of it. Sensualists know not what a Soul is, nor what Soul-mercies are, and therefore not what the Soul of all bodily mercies are; but take up only with the carkass, shell, or shadow. If the King would give ⟨p. 6⟩me a Lordship, and send me a Horse or Coach to carry me to it, and I should only ride about the fields for my pleasure, and make no other use of it, should I not undervalue and lose the principal benefit of my Horse or Coach? No wonder if unbelievers be unthankful, when they know not at all that part of God's mercies, which is the life, and real excellency of them.

§ 11. 4. And alas! how should I bear with comfort the sufferings of this wretched life, without the hopes of a life with Christ? What should support and comfort me under my bodily languishings and pains? my weary hours, and my daily experience of the Vanity and Vexation of all things under the Sun, had I not a prospect of a comfortable end of all? I that have lived in the midst of great and precious mercies, have all my life had something to do, to overcome the temptation of wishing that I had never been born, and had never overcome it, but by the belief of a blessed Life hereafter. Solomon's sense of Vanity and Vexation, hath long made all the business, and wealth, and honour, and pleasure of this world (as such) appear such a dream and shadow to me, that were it not for the End, I could not have much differenced men's sleeping and their waking thoughts, nor have much more valued the waking than the sleeping part of life, but should have thought it a kind of happiness to have slept from the birth unto the death. Children cry when they come into the world; and I am often sorry when I am wakened out of a quiet sleep, especially to the business of an unquiet day. We should be strongly tempted in our considering state, to murmur at our Creator, as dealing much hardlier by us than by the Brutes; if we must have had all those cares, and griefs, and fears, by the knowledge of what we want, and the prospect of