Q16 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. Was he unlearned and imperfect before? He had no culpable imperfection; but his satisfactorymediation was imperfect till itwas all performed : it was not perfectly done and when it wasdone, he thereby was constitutively made a perfect Mediator; as he said upon the cross, "It is finished ;" and as this human nature receiv- ed additional acts of knowledge, as he grewup, and conversed with more objects, and so is said to increase inwisdom, (as Adam knew the creatures when he saw them,) so he had a new acqùaintance with obedient suffering, when he was under the experience of it; and is said to learn it, in that he now exercised it. And should not my suffering be God's school? Should I not learn obedience by it ? Surely, as it smartly tells me of the evil of former disobedience, so it calls me to-remember in whose hands I am, and with whom I have to do, and what is my duty in such a state : God can do no wrong to his own : he will donothing final- ly hurtful to his children. In all our afflictions he is said to be afflicted, to signify that he afflicts not willingly, or without our provocation. Justice is good, and holiness is good; and it is good for us to repent, and be weaned from the flesh and world; and all good must be loved, and the means as such. Sharp, heart-break- ing sermons are unpleasing to nature ; andyet to be loved for their use; and afflictions are God's powerful sermons : the proud and hardened are forced' to hear them, who scorn and prosecute preach- ers for speaking the same things : and shall believers under suffer- ings be untaught.? Words are but words, but stripes go by forci- ble sense unto the heart: obedient submission to the greatest pains is a serious acknowledgment of God's dominion, and of his wisdom and love, and the certain hopes of a better life. Impatience bath in it somewhat of atheism, or blasphemy: God is not duly ac- knowledged and honored. Job's wife would have had him thus purposely provoke God to end his misery by death ; as if she had said, ` Speak no more well of him, bywhom thou sufferest so much, nor honor a God that will not help thee.' But patience saith, "I will look unto the Lord ; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me." Mic. vii. 7. Impatience showeth a misunderstanding of God's dealing with the afflicted; but patience yieldeth, because it understandeth whence all comes, and what will be the fruit and end. Aman that.is let blood for his life, is not impatient with the chirurgeon; but a beast will strive, and a swine or child will cry. Our burdensare-heavy enough of themselves ; impatiencemaketh them heavier, and is oft more painful than the thing which we suf- fer: some have gone mad with crosses, which to another would have been light. Patience is our cordial and nepenthes; yea, the health of the soul, by which it is able to bear its infirmities. "In
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