UPON PHILIPPIANS, I. 23. "FOR I AM IN A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO, HAVING A DESIRE TO DEPART, AND TO BE WITH CHRIST, WHICH IS FAR BETTER." BY RICHARD BAXTER. WRITTEN FOR HIS OWN USE IN THE LATTER TIMES OF HIS CORPORAL PAINS AND WEAKNESS. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, BY THE REV. H. STEBBING, M. A. LONDON: John Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly; WHITTAKER & CO. AVE-MARIA LANE; SIMPKIN & MARSHALL, MDCCCXXXIV. J. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. DEATH is a theme of universal interest! The lightest heart, the least thoughtful mind has no disbelief of death. The distance of the dark cloud on which he comes, sailing through the bosom of futurity, may be miscalculated; but the world unhesitatingly owns he is coming, and will at last be here. In almost every other particular of existence, the fortunes of men differ: but to die is common to all. The stream of life runs in a thousand various channels; but run where it will-brightly or darkly, smoothly or languidly-it is stopped by death. Though invisible, he is always abroad on the earth. The trees drop their leaves at the approach of the winter's frost man falls at the presence of death. Every successive generation he claims for his own, and his claim is never denied. To die is the condition on which we hold life: rebellion sickens with hopelessness at the thought of resisting death: the very hope of the most desperate is not that death may be escaped, but that he is eternal; and all that either the young, the careless, or the dissipated can do, is to think of him as seldom as they can. No man, therefore, will deny that whatever can be said of death is applicable to himself. The bell which he hears tolled may never toll for him; there may be no friend or children left to lament him; he may not have to lie through long and anxious days, looking for the coming of the expected terror: but he knows he must die: he knows that in whatever quarter of the world he abides-whatever may be his circumstances-however strong his present hold of life-however unlike the prey of death he looks-that it is his doom, beyond reverse, to die. But if it be thus certain that death is the common lot of all-the great result of life-it must surely be the part of a rational creature like man to inquire, what is death? and having answered this question, to consider what kind of preparation should be made for his approach, and by what considerations his terrors are most likely to be diminished. These inquiries I take for the subject of the present Essay, and may the Almighty Spirit of the Lord so assist both the reader and me, that our hearts may gain wisdom in this matter; and that, having laid the foundation of sober thought, we may in our subsequent reflections, be enabled to rise gradually to the contemplation of those mysteries by which death himself shall be conquered, and the grave deprived of its strength. What then is death? We will consider it first |