A26921:80
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.
§ 16. But the Revealed and Necessary part must here be distinguished from the unrevealed and unnecessary. ⟨p. 10⟩To study till we as clearly as may be understand the certainty of a future happiness, and wherein it consisteth; (in the sight of God's Glory, and in perfect, holy, mutual Love, in Union with Christ, and all the blessed) this is of great use to our Holiness and Peace. But when we will know more than God would have us, it doth but tend (as gazing on the Sun) to make us blind, and to doubt of certainties, because we cannot be resolved of uncertainties. To trouble our heads too much in thinking, how Souls out of the body do subs•s• and act, sensitively or not, by Organs, or without; how far they are one, and how far still individuate, in what place they shall remain, and where is their Paradise or Heaven; how they shall be again united to the body; whether by their own emission, as the Sun beams touch their Objects here, and whether the body shall be restored, as the consumed flesh of restored sick men, aliunde, or only from the old materials: A hundred of these Questions are better left to the knowledge of Christ, lest we do but foolishly make snares for our selves. Had all these been needful to us, they had been revealed. In respect to all such curiosities and needless knowledge, it is a Believer's wisdom implicitly to Trust his Soul to Christ, and to be satisfied that he knoweth what we know not, and to fear that vain, vexatious knowledge, or inquisitiveness into good and evil, which is selfish, and savoureth of a distrust of God, and is that sin, and fruit of sin, which the Learned world too little feareth.
§ 17. III. That God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and that holy Souls shall be in blessedness with Christ, these following Evidences conjoined do evince; on which my Soul doth raise its Hopes.
§ 17. III. That God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and that holy Souls shall be in blessedness with Christ, these following Evidences conjoyned do evince; on which my Soul doth raise its Hopes.