234 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. we think of God's judgment, and how we are in his hands, as to all our hopes, for soul and body, we fear, and are uncomfortable, lest he have not so much love and mercy as should cause us don- fidently to trust him. We could trust some friends with life and soul, were we in their power; but infinite love itself, and a loving Savior, we can hardly trust, so far as to quiet us in pain or death. And yet when Christ, to cure this distrust, hath manifested his love by the greatest miracles that ever God 'showed to mortal men, even by Christ's incarnation, his life, his works, his death, his resurrection, intercession, and the advancement of human nature in him above angels, the greatness of this incomprehensible love occasioneth the difficulty of our believing it; as if it were too great and wonderful to be credible: thus dark and guilty sinners hardly believe our Father's love, whether it be expressed by ordinary or by the most wonderful effects. 35. A's Christ is called the Son of God, so also are all his members : we have so far the same title, that we might partake of the same Comforts : he' is God's only Son, by eternal generation and the hypostatical union upon his miraculous conception : but through him we are sons by regeneration and adoption. And shall not the love of such a Father be trusted, and the presence and pleasing of such a Father be desired? If Manoah's wife could say, " If he would have killed us, fie would not have accept- ed a sacrifice of us; I may sky, if he would have damned me, or forsaken my departing soul, he would not have adopted me, nor made and called me his son. Christ was made his incarnate Son, that we might be made his adopted sons : and we are made his adopted sons, for the sake, and by the grace, of Christ, his natural Son. 36. The command, " hear him," is relative, as to Moses and Elias: 1. Hear him whom the law and the prophets typified and foretold, and were his servants, and preparatory instructors, to lead us to him. 2. Hear him before Moses and the prophets, where his coming and covenant abrogated' the law of Moses, and as a greater light, he obscureth the less : he bath revealed more than they' revealed ; and the same more clearly : life and immortality is more fully brought to light by him : his gospel is as the heart of the Holy Bible : we use the Old Testament books, especially as the witnesses of Christ. 37. And whom shall we hear so willingly, so obediently, as Christ? Abraham sent not Dives's brethren to the king, or to the higti=priest, to know what religion he should choose, or what he should do to escape hell torments but it was Moses and the prophets that they must hear. But God, from heaven, bath sent us yet a better teacher, and commanded us to hear him. Moses
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