from him. There was no man on earth whom I honored above him. It is his evangelical work that is the apostolical succession which I plead for. I am now dying I hope as he did. It pleased me to read from him my case. My understanding faileth, my memory faileth, and my hand and pen fail, but my charity faileth not.' That word much comforted me. I am as zealous a lover of the New England Churches as any man, according to Mr. Noyes', Mr. Norton's and Mr. Mitchel's, and the Synod's model. I love your father upon the letters I received from him. I love you better for your learning, labors, and peaceable moderation. I love your son better than either of you, for the excellent temper that appeareth in his writings. O that godliness and wisdom may increase in all families. He hath honored himself half as much as Mr. Eliot; I say half as much, for deeds excel words. God preserve you and New England. Pray for your fainting languishing friend, RI. BAXTER.”

"Aug. 3, 1691."

vester.

The sermon at Baxter's funeral, was preached, as he had himself requested, by his old and tried friend, Dr. Bates. Another sermon on the same occasion was preached to the congregation to which he had last ministered, by his associate in the ministry, SylFrom these sermons the following particulars are selected. "He continued to preach so long," says Bates, "notwithstanding his wasted, languishing body, that the last time he almost died in the pulpit. It would have been his joy to have been transfigured in the mount. Not long after, he felt the approaches of death, and was confined to his sick bed. Death reveals the secrets of the heart; then words are spoken with most feeling and less affectation. This excellent saint was the same in his life and death; his last hours were spent in preparing others and himself to appear before God. He said to his friends that visited him, 'You come hither to learn to die; I am not the only person that must go this way. I can assure you that your whole life, be it ever so long, is little enough to prepare for death. Have a care of this vain, deceitful world, and the lusts of the flesh; be sure you choose God for your portion, heaven for your home, God's glory for your end, his word for your rule, and then you need never fear but we shall meet with comfort.'

"Never was penitent sinner more humble and debasing himself, never was a sincere believer more calm and comfortable." “ Many times he prayed, 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' and blessed God that this was left upon record in the gospel as an effectual prayer. He said, 'God may justly condemn me for the best duty I ever did; and all my hopes are from the free mercy of God in Christ,' which he often prayed for."

"His resigned submission to the will of God in his sharp sickness was eminent. When extremity of pain constrained him earnestly to pray to God for his release by death, he would check himself, "It is not fit for me to prescribe-when thou wilt, what thou wilt, how thou wilt.'

"Being in great anguish, he said, 'O! how unsearchable are his ways, and his paths past finding out; the reaches of his providence we cannot fathom!' And to his friends, 'Do not think the worse of religion for what you see me suffer.'

66

Being often asked by his friends, how it was with his inward man, he replied, 'I bless God I have a well-grounded assurance of my eternal happiness, and great peace and comfort within.' But it was his trouble he could not triumphantly express it, by reason of his extreme pains. He said, 'Flesh must perish, and we must feel the perishing of it; and that though his judgment submitted, yet sense would still make him groan.'

"Being asked by a person of quality, whether he had not great joy from his believing apprehensions of the invisible state, he replied, 'What else, think you, Christianity serves for? He said, the consideration of the Deity in his glory and greatness, was too high for our thoughts; but the consideration of the Son of God in our nature, and of the saints in heaven whom we knew and loved, did much sweeten and familiarize heaven to him. The description of heaven, in Heb. xii. 22, was most comfortable to him; "that he was going to the innumerable company of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven; and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.' That scripture, he said, 'deserved a thousand

thousand thoughts." He said, 'Oh, how comfortable is that promise; Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things God hath laid up for those who love him.'

"At another time, he said, that he found great comfort and sweetness in repeating the Lord's Prayer, and was sorry some good people were prejudiced against the use of it, for there were all necessary petitions for soul and body contained in it.

"At other times, he gave excellent counsel to young ministers that visited him; and earnestly prayed to God to bless their labors, and make them very successful in converting many souls to Christ; and expressed great joy in the hopes that God would do a great deal of good by them; and that they were of moderate, peaceful spirits.

"He did often pray that God would be merciful to this miserable, distracted world, and that he would preserve his church and interest in it. He advised his friends to beware of self-conceitedness, as a sin that was likely to ruin this nation; and said, 'I have written a book against it, which I am afraid has done little good.'

"Being asked, whether he had altered his mind in controversial points, he said, 'Those that please, may know my mind in my writings; and that what he had done, was not for his own reputation, but for the glory of God.'

"I went to him, with a very worthy friend, Mr. Mather, of New England, the day before he died; and speaking some comforting words to him, he replied, 'I have pain; there is no arguing against sense, but I have peace, I have peace.' I told him, 'You are now approaching to your long-desired home;' he answered, 'I believe, I believe.' He said to Mr. Mather, I bless God that you have accomplished your business; the Lord prolong your life.'

"He expressed a great willingness to die; and during his sickness, when the question was asked, How he did?' his reply was, 'Almost well.' His joy was most remarkable, when, in his own apprehensions, death was nearest; and his spiritual joy was at length consummate in eternal joy."*

* Bates' Works, Vol. iv. pp. 337, 340.

"While pain and sickness wasted his body," says Sylvester, "his soul abode rational, strong in faith and hope, arguing itself into, and preserving itself in that patience, hope and joy through grace, which gave him great support, and kept out doubts and fears concerning his eternal welfare."

"Even to the last, I never could perceive his peace and heavenly hopes assaulted or disturbed. I have often heard him greatly lament that he felt no greater liveliness in what appeared so great and clear to him, and so very much desired by him. As to the influence. thereof upon his spirit, in order to the sensible refreshments of it, he clearly saw what ground he had to rejoice in God; he doubted not of his right to heaven. He told me he knew it should be well with him when he was gone. He wondered to hear others speak of their sensible, passionately strong desires to die, and of their transports of spirit, when sensible of their approaching death; whereas he himself thought he knew as much as they, and had as rational satisfaction as they could have that his soul was safe, and yet could never feel their sensible consolations. I asked him, whether much of this was not to be resolved into bodily constitution; he told me he thought it might be so."

"On Monday, Dec. 7, about five in the evening, death sent his harbinger to summon him away. A great trembling and coldness extorted strong cries from him, for pity and redress from heaven; which cries and agonies continued for some time, till at length he ceased and lay in an observant, patient expectation of his change. Being once asked, by his faithful friend, and constant attendant in his weakness, Mrs. Bushel, his house-keeper, whether he knew her or not, requesting some sign of it if he did, he softly cried, 'Death, death!' He now felt the benefit of his former preparations for the trying time. The last words that he spake to me, on being informed that I was come to see him, were, 'Oh I thank him, I thank him,' and turning his eye to me, he said, 'The Lord teach you how to die.””

"He expired on Tuesday morning, about four o'clock, Dec. 8, 1691. Though he expected and desired his dissolution to have been on the Lord's-day before, which with joy to me, he called a high day, because of his desired change expected then by him."

Sylvester thus describes the person and manners of his venerable friend. "He was tall and slender, and stooped much. His countenance was composed and grave, somewhat in lining to smile. He had a piercing eye, a very articulate speech, and his deportment was rather plain than complimentary. He had a great command over his thoughts, and had that happy faculty, according to the character which was given of him by a learned man dissenting from him, that he could say what he would, and he could prove what he said.' He was pleasingly conversible, save in his studying hours, wherein he could not bear with trivial disturbances. He was sparingly facetious, but never light or frothy. He was unmoveable where apprehensive of his duty; yet affable and condescending where there was a likelihood of doing good. His personal abstinence, severities, and labors, were exceeding great. He kept his body under, and always feared pampering his flesh too much.”

"His prayers," says Bates, "were an effusion of the most lively melting expressions, and his intimate ardent affections to God; from the abundance of the heart his lips spake.' His soul took wing for heaven, and rapt up the souls of others with him. Never did I see or hear a holy minister address himself to God with more reverence and humility, with respect to his glorious greatness; never with more zeal and fervency correspondent to the infinite moment of his requests; nor with more filial affiance in the divine mercy.

fountains of

There was

reason and

"In his sermons there was a rare union of arguments and motives to convince the mind and gain the heart: all the reason and persuasion were open to his discerning eye. no resisting the force of his discourses without denying divine revelation. He had a marvellous felicity and copiousness in speaking. There was a noble negligence in his style: for his great mind could not stoop to the affected eloquence of words: he despised flashy oratory: but his expressions were clear and powerful, so convincing the understanding, so entering into the soul, so engaging the affections, that those were as deaf as adders, who were not charmed by so wise a charmer.' He was animated with the Holy Spirit, and breathed celestial fire, to inspire heat and life into dead sinners, and to melt the obdurate in the frozen tombs. Methinks I still hear him speak those powerful words: A wretch that