BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. 49 or eminently above all others. 7. And was promised them as a pledge and earnest of glory ; then it can be no less than such a pledge and earnest; but the former are all true, &c. 1. That the change is of grand importance unto man, appeareth in that it is the renovation of his mind, and will, and life. It repaireth his depraved faculties ; it causeth man to liveas man, who is degenerated to a life too like to brutes. By God's permitting many to live in blindness, wickedness, and confusion, and to be tor- menters of themselves and one another, by temptations, injuries, Wars, and cruelty, we the fuller see what it is that grace doth save men from, and what a difference it maketh in the world. Those that have lived unholy in their youth, do easily find the difference in themselves when they are renewed. But to them that have been piously inclined from their childhood, it is harder to discern the difference, unless they mark the case of others; If man be worth any thing, it is for the use that his faculties were made ; and if he be not good for the knowledge, love, and service of his Crea- tor, what is he good for ? And certainly the generalityof ungodly worldlings are undisposed to all such works as this, till the spirit of Christ effectually change them. Men are slaves to sin till Christ thus make them free ; John viii. 32, 33. 36. Rom. vi. 18. Acts xxvi. 18. Rom. viii. 2. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty ; 2 Cor. iii. 17. If the divine nature and image, and the love of God shed abroad on the heart, be not our excellency, health, and beauty, what is ? And that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ; John iii. 6. Without Christ and his Spirit, we can 'do nothing. Our dead notions and reasons, when we seethe truth, have not power to overcome temptations, nor to raise up man's soul to its original and end, nor to possess us with the love and joyful hopes of future blessedness; It were better for us to have no souls, than that those souls should be void of the Spirit of God. 2. And that heaven is the sum and end of all the Spirit's opera- tions, appeareth in all that are truly conscious of them in them- selves, and to them andothers by all God's precepts, which the Spirit causeth us to obey, and the doctrine which it causeth us to believe, and by the description of all God's graces which he work- eth in us. What is our knowledge and faith, but our knowledge and belief of heaven, as consisting in the glory and love of God there manifested, and as purchased by Christ, and given by his covenant ? What is our hope but the hope of glory ? , SeeHeb. xi. 1. and throughout. 1 Pet. i. 3. 21. Heb. vi. 11. 18, 19. and iii. 6. Tit. ii. 13. and iii. 7. Col. i. 5. 23. 27. And through the Spirit, we wait for all this hope; Gal. v. 5. What isour love but a desire of communion with the blessed God initially here, and VOL li. 7
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