BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. 171 against this world, and commanded me to take and use it as mine enemy: the emptiness, dangerousness, and bitterness of the world, and the all-sufficiency, trustiness, and goodness ofGod, have been the sum of all the experiences of my life. And shall a worldly, backward heart overcome the teaching of nature, Scripture, the Spirit of grace, and all experience? Far be it from me!. But, O my God ! love is thy great and special gift : all good is from thee: but love is the godlike nature, life, and image: it is given us from the love of the Father the grace of the Son, and the quickening, illuminating, and sanctifying operation of the Holy Spirit : what can the earth return unto the sun, but its own reflect- ed beams,--.if those ? As, how 'far soever man is a medium in generation, nature, and that appetite which is the moving pondus in the child, is thy work; so whatever is man's part in the mediate work of believing and repenting, (which yet is not done without thy Spirit and grace,) certainly it is the blessed Regenerator, which must make us new creatures, by giving us thy divine nature, holy love, which is the holy appetite and pondus of the soul. Come down, Lord, into this heart, forit cannot come up to thee. Can the plants for life, or the eye for light, go up unto the sun ? Dwell in me by the Spirit of love, and I shall dwell by love in thee. Reason is weak, and thoughts are various, and man will be a slippery, uncertain wight, if love be not his fixing principle, and do not incline his soul to thee: surely' through thy grace I easily feel that I love thy word, I love thy iinage; I love thy work, and, O, how heartily .do I love to love thee, and long to know and love thee more ! And if all things be of thee, and through thee, and to thee, surely this love to the beams of thy glory here on earth is eminently so! It is thee, Lord, that it meaneth: to thee it look- eth it is thee it serveth : for thee it mourns, and seeks, and groans : in thee it trusts; and the hope, and peace, and comfort which sup- port me, are in thee. When I was a returning prodigal in rags, thou sawest me afar off, and didst meet me with thy embracing, feasting love ; and shall. I doubt whether he that hath better clothed'me, and dwelt within me, will entertain me with a feast of greater love in the heavenly mansions, the world of love ? The suitableness of things below to my fleshly nature, hath detained my affections too much on earth ; and shall not the suit- ableness of things above to my spiritual nature much more draw 'up my love to heaven? There is th'e God whom I have sought and served: he is also here.; but veiled, and but littleknown: but there he shineth to heavenly spirits in heavenly glory. There is the Savior in whom I have believed: he hath also dwelt in flesh on earth ; but clòthed in such meanness, and humbled to such a life and death, as was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the
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