Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BX5200 .B352 1835 v2

THE exercise óf three sorts of love, to God, to others, and to myself, affordme a threefold satisfaction, conjunct to be willing to depart. I. I am sure my departure will be the fulfillingofthat will which is love itself, which I am bound, above all things, to love and please, and which is the beginning, rule and end of all. Antonine could hence fetch good thoughts of death. II. The world dieth not with me when I die ; nor the church, nor the praise and glory of God, which he will have in and from this world unto the end; and if I love others as myself, their lives andcomforts will now be to my thoughts, as if I were to 'live my- self in them. God will be praised and honored by posterity, when I am dead and gone. Were I to be annihilated, this would com- fort me now, if I lived and died in perfect love. III. But a better, glorious world is before me, into which! hope, by death, to be translated, whither all these three sorts of love should wrap up the desires of my ascending soul ; even the love of myself, that I may be tally happy; the love of the triumphant church, Christ, angels, and glorified man, and the glory of all the universe, which I shall see; and above all, the love of the most glorious God, infinite life, -and light, and love, the ultimate, amiable object ofman's love ; in whom to be perfectly pleased and delight- ed, and to whom to be perfectly pleasing fotever, is the chief and ultimate endof me, and ofthe highest, wisest, and best ofcreatures. Amen.

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=