EXTRACTS FRO~I BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. The reader has witnessed in the preceding pages the fervent zeal and deep anxiety of the pious author in urging on the impenitent the necessity of immediately turning to God and repairing to the Saviour in o~der - to escape eternal death. In the following selections, are exhibited some of the peaceful and happy reflections which the author indulged, in relation to his own prospects in the near view of death. The sanct£f'ying opemtions of the Spirit of God are the earnest of heaven, and the sure prognostic of our immortal happiness. It is "a change of grand importance" to man, to be renewed in his mind, his will, and life. It J;epairs his depraved faculties. It causes man to live as man, who was degenerated to a life too much like the brutes. Men are " slaves to sin, till Christ makes them free." "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." If" the love of God shed abroad on our hearts," be not our excellence, health, and beauty, what is ? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Without Christ, and his Spirit, we can do nothing. Our dead notions and reason, though we see the truth, have not power to overcome temptations, nor raise up man's soul to its original, and end, nor possess us with the love and joyful hopes of future blessedness. It were better for us to have· no souls, than have our souls void of the Spirit of God. Heaven is the
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