240 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. deemer. I am not so foolish as to liveas if this earth were nobig- ger than the little of it which I see : let me not be so much more foolish as to think of the vast and glorious regions, and the blessed inhabitants thereof, and the receptacles of justified souls, as if they wanted either substantiality or certainty, to exercise a heavenly conversation here, and to feast believing souls with joy, and draw forth well-grounded and earnest desire to "depart and be with Christ. II. Hear, then, and hear with trust and joy, the tidingsand prom- ises of him whom the voice from heaven commandedman to hear. He is the glorified Lord of heaven and earth : all is in his power. He hath told us nothing but what he knew, and promised nothing but what ha is able and willing to give. *two sorts of things he bath required us to trust him for; things notified by express, particular promises, and things only generally promised an known to us. We may know particularly that he will receive our departing souls, and justify them in judgment, and raise the dead, and all the rest particularlypromis. And we know, in general, that we have a heavenly city and in eritance, and shall see God, and be with Christ in everlasting happiness, loving and praising God with joy in the perfected, glorious church of Christ. All this, there- fore, we must explicitly believe. But it is little that we know distinctly of the consistence and operations of spirits and separated souls, as to a formal or modal conception: a great deal about the place, state, and mode, their acting, and fruition, is dark to us ; but none Of it is dark to Christ: here, therefore, an implicit trust should not only bind and stop our selfish and over-bold inquiries, but also quiet and comfort the soul, as well as if ourselves knew all. O my soul, abhor and mortify thy selfish trust, and unbelieving thirst to have that knowledge of good and evil thyself, which is the prerogative of thy Lord and Savior. This was the sin that first defiled human nature, and brought calamity on the world. God hath set thee enough to learn ; know that, and thou knowest enough. Ifmore were possible, it would be a perplexity and a snare, and he that increaseth such knowledge would increase sor- row; but when it is both unprofitable and impossible, what asin and folly it is to waste our time, and tire and deceive our minds, in long and troublesome searches after it, and then disquietly to murmur at God, and the Holy Scripture,and die with sad, distrust- ful fears, because we attain it not; when all this. while we should have understood, that this part of knowledge belongs to Christ, and the heavenly society, and not to sinful mortals here ; and that we have without it as much as may cause us to live and die in ho-
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