BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. 157 That will created us, and that will did govern us, and that will shall be fulfilled on us. It was our efficient and our regent cause, and it shall be our end. Where else is it that we should rest ? In the will of men, or angels, or in our own wills ? All creatures are but creatures, and our own wills have undone us: they have mis- governed us, and they are our greatest enemies ; our disease, our prison, and our death, till they are brought over to the will of God. Till then they are like a foot out of joint ; like a child or subject in rebellion, Tlipre is no rectitude or health, no order, no peace or true felicity, but in the conformity of our wills to the will of God. And shall I die in distrustful striving against his will, and desiring to keep up my own before it? 21. What abundant experience h'áve. I had of God's fidelity and love ! And after all this shall I not trust him ? His undeserv- ed mercy gave me being; it chose my parents ; it gave them a tender love to me, and desire of my. good ; it taught them to in- struct me early in his word, and to educate me in his fear; it chose me suitable company and habitation ; it gave me betimes a teachable inggeny ; it chose my schoolmasters ; it brought to my hands many excellent and suitable books ; it gave me some profit- able public teachers ; it placed me in the best of lands onearth, and I think in thebest of ages which that land had seen ; it did earlyde- stroy all great expectations and desires of the world, teaching me to bear the yoke from my youth, and causing me rather to groanunder my infirmities, than tofight with strong and potent lusts ; it chasten- ed me betimes, but did not destroy me. Great mercy bath trained me up all my days, since I was nineteen years ofage, in the school of affliction, to keep my sluggish soul awake in the constant ex- pectations ofmy change, and to kill my pride and overvaluing of this world, and to lead all my studies to the most necessary things, and as a spur to excite my soul to seriousness, and especially to save me from the supine neglect and loss of time. Oh ! what un- speakable mercy bath a life of constant but gentle chastisement proved to ! It urged me, against all dull delays, to make my calling and election sure, and to make ready my accounts, as one that must quickly give them up to God. The face of death, and nearness of eternity, did much convince me what books to read, what studies to prefer and prosecute, what company and conver- sation to choose. It drove me early into the vineyard of the Lord, and taught me to preach as a dying man to dying men. It was divine love and mercy which made sacred truth so pleasant to me, that my life bath been (under all my infirmities) almost a constant recreation and delight, in its discoveries, contemplation and practi- cal use : how happy a teacher have I had ! What excellent help and sweet illumination ! How far beyond my expectation bath
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