A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster

13. Nay were it but to put an end to the inordinate fears of death, even death it self should be the less fearful to us. These very fears are troublesome to many an upright soul: and should we not desire to be past them! As a woman with Child is in fear of the pain & danger of her travel; but joyful when it's over; so is the true believer himself too oft afraid of the departing hour: but death puts an end to all those fears. Is it the pain that you fear? Why how soon will it be over? Is it the strangeness of your souls to God, and the place that you are passing to? This also will be quickly over; and one moment will give you such full acquaintance with the blessed God, and the Celestial inhabitants, and the world in which you are to live, that you will find your self no stranger there; but be more joyfully familiar and content than ever you were in the bosom of your dearest friend. The Infant in the Womb is a stranger to this lighter open world and all the inhabitants of it; and yet it is nor best stay there. You can fail for commodity to a Country that you never saw: ⟨p. 264⟩and why cannot you pass with peace and joy to a God, a Christ, a Heaven that you never saw? But yet you are not wholly a stranger there; Is it not that God that you have loved, and that hath first loved you? Have you not been brought into the world by him, and lived by him, and been preserved and provided for by him? and do you not know him? Is it not your Father, and he that hath given you his Son and his Spirit? have you not found an inclination towards him, desires after him, and some taste of his love, and communion with him, and yet are you wholly unacquainted with him? Know ye not him whom you have loved above all? in whom you have trusted? and whom you have daily served in the world? Who have you lived to but him? for whom else have you laid out your time and labour? and yet do you not know him? And know you not that Christ that hath purposely come down into flesh that you might know him? and that hath showed himself to you in a holy life, and bitter death, and in abundant precious Gospel mercies, and in Sacramental representations, that so he might entertain a familiarity with you, and infinite distance might not leave you too strange to God? Know you not that Spirit that hath made so many a motion to your soul?

13. Nay were it but to put an end to the inordinate fears of death, even death it self should be the less fearful to us. These very fears are troublesome to many an upright soul: and should we not desire to be past them! As a woman with Child is in fear of the pain & danger of her travel; but joyful when it's over; so is the true believer himself too oft afraid of the departing hour: but death puts an end to all those fears. Is it the pain that you fear? Why how soon will it be over? Is it the strangeness of your souls to God, and the place that you are passing to? This also will be quickly over; and one moment will give you such full acquaintance with the blessed God, and the Celestial inhabitants, and the world in which you are to live, that you will find your self no stranger there; but be more joyfully familiar and content than ever you were in the bosom of your dearest friend. The Infant in the Womb is a stranger to this lighter open world and all the inhabitants of it; and yet it is nor best stay there. You can fail for commodity to a Country that you never saw: