536 AN EPISTLE TO THE done it ; but to tell you what men Christ's ministers should be. But say not, " he killed himself -with ex- cessive labour, therefore I will take warning, and take my ease." For, 1. He lived in perfect health all his days, notwithstanding all his labours, till after his hard and long imprisonment. 2. It was not the greatest labour of his times of liberty that hurt him, but his preaching six, seven, or eight, times in a week, after he was silenced, because he could not speak to all his people at once. O make not an ill use of so excellent an example ; say not, like Judas, « That needs this waste ?" His labours, his life, his sufferings, his death, were not in vain. The ages to come; that read his life, and read his little popular treatise, and his Call to Arclaippus, shall say they were not in vain. And though he was cut off in the midst of his age, and his longer labóurs and more elaborate writings thus pre- vented, take thankfully this small, but methodical, warm, and serious Tractate : read it seriously, and it cannot be but that it must do thee good. I am one that have looked into books, sciences, and speculations of many sorts, and seriously tell thee, as a dying man, that, after all my searches and experience, I have found that philosophical inquiries into the di- vine artifices and nature of things, have, among a great number of uncertainties, a great many pretty pleasant probabilities, which a holy soul can make good use of in admiring God, and may find us a lawful kind of Sport ; but in the moralities, which Atheists count un- certainties, the knowledge of God, and our duty and our hopes, the doctrine and practice of holiness, tem- perance, charity, and justice, and the diligent seeking and joyful hopes of life everlasting, is all the true wis- dom, goodness, rest, and comfort, of a soul. What- ever be the plea, this is the sanctifying certainty, the business, and the beautiful improvement, of our lives. RICHARD BAXTER.
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