142 BAXTER'S. DYING THOUGHTS. I confess, Lord, that daily tears and sighs are not unsuitable to the eyes and voice of so great a sinner, who is under thy correcting rod. What better could I expect when I grieved thy Spirit, than that it should prove my grief? Yea, this is far better than the genuine effects of sin: But this is not it that is meetest to offered to the God of love: he that offereth praise doth glorify thee and is not this the spiritual sacrifice accepted through Christ, for which we were made priests to God? I Pet. ii. 5. I refuse not, Lord, to lie 'in tears and groans when thou requirest it and do not thou refuse those tears and groans; but O give me better, that I may have better of thine own to offer thee ; and by this prepare me for the far better, which I shall find with Christ ; and that which is best to us thy creatures will be accepted, as best by thee, who art glorified and pleased in the perfectionof thy works. 2. It is, at least, very probable that God maketh glorified spirits his agents and ministers in much of his beneficence to the crea- tures that are below them. For, (1.) We see that where he en- dueth any creature with the noblest endowments, he maketh most use of that creature to the benefit of others : we shall in heaven be most furnished to dogood; and that furniture will not be unused. (2.) And Christ tells us that we shall be like, or equal to, the angels ; which, though it mean not simplyand in all things, yet it meaneth more than to be above carnal generation; for it speaketh of a similitude of nature, and state as the reason of the other. And that the angels are God's ministers for, the good of his chosen in this world, and administrators of much of the affairs on earth, is past all doubt. (3.) The apostle telleth us that the saints shall judge the world and angels ; and judging in Scripture is oft put for ruling. It is therefore probable, at least, that the devils, and the damned, shall be put under the saints, and that, with the angels, they shall be employed in some ministerial oversight of the inhabitants and affairs of the promised new earths (4.) And when even the more noble superior bodies, even the stars; are of sogreat use and influx to inferiorbodies, it islike that, accordingly, superior spirits will be of use to the inhabitants of the world be- low them. But I think it not meet to venture here upon uncertain conjec- turesbeyond the revelation of God's word, and therefore shall add nö more, but conclude that God knoweth what use to make of us hereafter as well as here, and that if therewereno more for us to do ih heaven, but with perfect knowledge, love, and joy, to hold communion with God and all the heavenly society, it were enough to attract a sensible and considerate soul to fervent desires to be at home with God. And here I must not overpass my rejection of the injurious
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