28 LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. comfort, is tokeep up actualobedience, and quickly andpenitently return when we have sinned. " This much I thought meet to say, for the sake of others, who may fall into the same temptations and perplexities. " The means, by which God was pleased to give me some peace and comfort, were, "1. The reading ofmany consolatory books. "2. The observation of other men's condition: When I heard many make the very same complaints that I did, who were,people ofwhom 3 had the best esteem, for the uprightness and holinessof their lives, it much abated my fears and troubles. And in partic- ular it much comforted me to read him whom I loved as one of the holiest of all the martyrs, Mr. John Bradford, subscribing him self, so often, the hard-hearted, sinner;' and the miserable, hard- hearted sinner,' even as I was used to do myself. "3. And it much increased my peace when God's providence called me to the comforting many others that had the same com- plaints. While I answered theirdoubts, I answered my' own ; and the charity, which I wasconstrained to exercise for them, redound- ed to myself, and insensiblyabated my fears, and procuredme an increase of quietness of mind. "And yet, after all, I wasgladofprobabilities, instead offull,un- doubted certainties; and to this very day, though I have no such degree of doubtfulness as is any great trouble to my soul, or pro- cureth any great disquieting fears, yet cannot I. say, that I' have such a certainty of my own sincerity in grace; as excludeth all doubts and fears of the contrary."* His ill health increased as he pursuedhis studies after his return from London ; and the spirituality and devotedness of his mind seem to have maintained aprogress corresponding with thedecay of his physical system. From theage oftwenty-one tonear twenty- three, he had no expectation of surviving a single year. And in these circumstances, so clear were his views of the eternal world and its interests, that he was exceedingly desirous to communicate those apprehensions " to such ignorant, presumptuous, carelesssin- ners as the world aboundeth with." As he thoughtof preaching, he felt many discouragements. He not only knew that the want of university honors and titles was likely todiminish the estimation in which he would be held, and the respect'with which he would be heard by many; but be was conscious of the actual defects of his education, and felt deeply all his personal insufficiency. "But yet," he adds, "expecting to be so quickly in another world, the great concernments of miserable souls did prevail with me against *Narrative, Part I. pp. 6 -9.
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