BAXTER.'$ DYINO THOUGHTS. 37 (3.) And I find, that the inordinate contraction of man to him- self, and to the interestof this individual person, with the defect of love to all about us, accordin-g to every creature's goodness; and especially to God, the infinite good, whom we should love above ourselves, is the very, sum of all the pravity of man. And all the injustice and injury to, others, and all the neglect of good works in the world, and all our daily terrors, and self-distracting, self-tor- menting cams, and griefs, and fears, proceed from this inordinate love and adhesion to ourselves ; therefore I have reason to think, that, inour better state, we shall perfectly love others as ourselves, and the selfish love will turn into a common and a divine love, which must be by our preferring the common, and the divine good and interest. And I am so sensible of the power and plague of selfishness, and how it, now corrupteth, tempteth, and. disquieteth me, that. when I feel any fears, lest individuation cease, and my soul fall into one common soul, (as the stoics thought all souls did at death,) I find great cause to suspect, that this ariseth front the power of this corrupting selfishness ; for reason teeth no cause at all to fear it, were it so. " (4.) For I find, also, that the nature oflove is to desire as near a union as possible; and the strongest love doth strongliest desire it. Fervent lovers think they can, scarce be too much one : and love is our perfection, and therefore so is union. (5.) And I find, that when Christians had the first and full pourings out of the Spirit, they had the ferventest love, and the nearest union, and the least desire of propriety and distance. (6.) And I find, that Christ's- prayer for the felicity of his dis- ciples, is a prayer for their unity ; John xvii. 22, 23. And in this he lacer, much of their perfection. (7And I find, also, that than is of a social nature, and that all men find by experience, that conjunction in societies is needful for their safety, strength,, and pleasure. (8.) And I' find, that my soul would fain be nearer God, and that darkness and distance is mymisery, and near communion is it that would answer all the tendencies of my soul : why, then, sliould I fear too near a union? I think it utterly improbable, that rñy soul should become more nearly united to any creature than to God ; (though it be of the same kind with other souls, and infinitely below God;) for God is as near me as I am to myself : I still depend on him, as the effect upon its total, constant cause ; and that not as the fruitupon the tree, which borroweth all from the earth, water, air, and fire, which it 4ommunicateth to its fruit ; but as a creature on its Creator, who bath no being but what it receiveth totally from God; by constant
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