MR: BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. PHIL. i. 23. FOR I AM IN A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO, HATING A DESIRE TO DEPART, AND TO BE WITH. CFIRIST, WHICH IS FAR BETTER. -(Or, FOR THIS IS MUCHRATHER TO BE PREFERRED, OR SETTER.) " MAN that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trou- ble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down : he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into judgment with thee ? " saith Job, xiv. 1-3. As a watch when it is wound up, or as a candle newly lighted, so man, newly conceived or born, beginneth a motion, which incessantly hasteth to its appointed period. And an action, and its time that is past, is nothing ; so vain a thing would man be, and to vain his life, were it not for the hopes of a more durable life, which this refdrreth to. But those hopes, and the means, do not only difference a believer from an infidel, but a man from a beast. When Solomon describeth the difference, in respect to the time and things ofthis life only, he truly tells us, that one end here befalling both, Both show that both are here but vanity, but man's vexation is greater than the beasts'. And Paul truly saith of Christians, that if our hope were only in this life, (that is, in the time and things of this life and world,) we were, of all men, the most miserable. Though even in this life, as re- lated to a better, and as we are exercised about things of a higher nature than theconcerns of temporal life, we are far happier than any worldlings. Being to speak to myself, I shall pass by all the rest of the mat- ter of this text, and suppose its due explication, and spread before my soul only the doctrine and uses of these two propositions con- tained in it. FIRST, That the souls of believers, when departed hence, shall be with Christ. SECONDLY, That so to be with Christ is far better for them than to be here in the body.
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