94 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. But, alas ! how deaf is flesh to reason ! Faith, bath the reason which easily may shame all contrary reasoning, but sense is unrea- sonable, and especially this inordinate, tenacious love of present life. I have reason enough to be willing tcs depart, even much more willing than I am. Oh, that I could be as willing as I am convinced that I have reason to be ! Could I love Godas much as I know that I should love him, then I should desire to depart, and to be with Christ, as much as I know that I should desire it. But God, in nature, bath there laid upon me some necessity of aversation, (though the inordinateness came from sin, else Christ had not so feared and deprecated the cup. Death must be a penalty, even where it is a gain, and therefore it must meet with some unwillingness ; because we willingly sinned, we must unwill- ingly suffer. The gain is not the pain or dissolution in itself, but the happy consequents of it. All the faith and reason in the world will not make death to be no penalty, and thereforewill not take away all unwillingness. No man ever, yet reasdned or believed himself intoa love of pain and death, as such ; but, seeing that the gain is unspeakably greater than the pain and loss, faith and holy reason may make our willingness to be greater than our unwilling- ness, and our hope and joy than our fear and sorrow. And it is the deep and effectual notice,of goodness, which is God's way, in nature and grace, to change and draw the will of man. Come, then, my soul, and think believingly, what is best for thee. And wilt thou not love and desire most that which is certainly the best? TO DEPART AND TO BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER, OR RATHER TO BE CHOSEN. To say and hear that it is far better to be with Christ, is not enough to make us willing. Words and notions ate such instru- ments as God useth to work on the souls ; but the convincing, sat- isfying, powerful 'light, and the inclining love, are other things. The soul now òperateth ut forma hominas, on and with the corpo- real spirits and organs,'and it perceived' now its own perceptions; but it is a,stranger to the mode of its future action, when separated from the body, and can have no formal conception of such con- ceptions as yet it never had. And therefore; its thoughts of its future state must be analogical and general, and partly strange. But general notices, when certain, may be very powerful, and sat - isfy us in so much as is needful to our consent, and to such a measure of joy as is suitable to this earthly state. And such no- tices we have from the nature of the soul, with the nature of God; the course of providence, and government of mankind; the in- ternal and external conflicts whichwe perceive about men's.souls ;
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