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with an inconstant creature, but with Him with whom is no varying nor shadow of change, even the immutable God." With this firm, omnipotent concept of God, Baxter joins a warm, glowing understanding of love. "But Oh! the full, the near, the sweet enjoyment is that of the affections, love and joy," he declares. "It is near, for love is of the essence of the soul, and love is the essence of God, for 'God is Love.' What will it do then when you shall live in love and have all in Him, who is all? The content that the heart findeth in it, the satisfaction it brings along with it! Surely love is both work and wages."

In another passage of fervent worship of God and rapt contemplation of the things of the Spirit, he exclaims: "Draw nearer yet then, O my Soul; bring forth thy strongest burning love; here is matter for it to work upon; here is something truly worth thy loving. . . . Methinks I remember yet His (the Saviour's) voice, and feel those embracing arms that took me up; how gently did He handle me; how carefully did He dress my wounds and bind them up. Methinks I hear Him still saying to me: 'Poor sinner, though thou hast dealt unkindly with me and cast me off, yet will not I do so by thee; though thou hast set light by me and all my mercies, yet both I and all are thine.'"

Solemnly, with him, Mrs. Eddy asks who is ready to follow the example of Jesus. She writes:

"All must sooner or later plant themselves in Christ, the true idea of God. That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin-filled human storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus' intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine commission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph

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over death through Mind, not matter. This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love." (Science and Health, p. 54.)

In these and in many similar passages, Mrs. Eddy breathes her grateful, comprehensive acceptance of the magnitude of the Saviour's mission to mankind, and in a letter to the Church in Scranton, she approaches in even closer form to the words used by Baxter, expressing his unity with Christ in God. She says:

"God is our Father and our Mother, our Minister and the great Physician: He is man's only real relative on earth and in heaven. David sang, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.'

"Brother, sister, beloved in the Lord, knowest thou thyself, and art thou acquainted with God? If not, I pray thee as a Christian Scientist, delay not to make Him thy first acquaintance." (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 151.)

Mrs. Eddy, who ever writes "Love" with a capital letter, declares that:

"God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle." (Science and Health, p. 275.)

In this one sentence she has said what Baxter expresses in many long pages of marvelous beauty:

"By interpreting God as a corporeal Saviour but not as the saving Principle, or divine Love," she declares, "we shall continue to seek salvation through pardon and not through reform, and resort to matter instead of Spirit for the cure of the sick. . . .

"The Master said, 'No man cometh unto the Father [the divine Principle of being] but by me,' Christ, Life, Truth, Love; for Christ says, 'I am the way.' Physical causation was put aside from first to last by this original man, Jesus. He knew that the divine Principle, Love, creates and governs all that is real." (Science and Health, pp. 285, 286.)

Baxter saw this truth as it were through a glass, dimly, and hails in faith the days to come of a complete and perfect revelation: "Oh! that happy approaching day, when error shall vanish away for ever;" he cries: "when our understanding shall be filled with God Himself whose light will leave no darkness in us; His face shall be the Scripture where we shall read the truth, and Himself instead of teachers and counsels to perfect our understandings, and acquaint us with Himself who is the perfect truth.. Then shall our understandings receive their light from the face of God, as the full moon from the open sun, where there is no earth to interpose betwixt them; then shall our wills correspond to the divine will, as face answers to face in a glass; and the same His will shall be our law and rule from which we shall never swerve again."

Meanwhile, the brave Pilgrim continues to rebuke, exhort, entreat and persuade, striving by every means in his power to turn men's thoughts from the things of time and sense, and to anchor them in the life which is spiritual. Like Saxon Alfred he clings steadfastly to the concept of God as supreme Good. Listen to this truly noble passage:

"Where do you think, in reason, that all the streams of goodness do finally empty themselves? Is it not in God. from whom by secret springs they first proceed? Where else do all the lines of goodness concenter? Are not all the sparks contained in this fire; and all the drops in this

ocean? Surely the time was when there was nothing besides God; and then all good was only in Him! . . . What do thine eyes see, or thine heart conceive, desirable which is not there to be had? Sin indeed there is none, but darest thou call that Good? . . . Brethren, do you fear losing or parting with anything you now enjoy? . . . Lay abroad thy tears, thy prayers, pains, boldly and weariedly: as God is true, thou dost but set them to usury, and shalt receive an hundredfold."

Baxter so dwelt in thoughts which belonged to the everlasting nature of God, so meditated in eternity rather than in time, so applied himself to the universal need rather than to the immediate problems of his own special generation, that he seems to belong to no particular period, but rather to the communion of all saints, and to be joined to the citizens of every age and clime who are "of the household of God."

The gathering together of God's children was ever an inspiring vision to Richard Baxter. "Oh! the blessed day, dear friends, when we that were wont to enquire together, and hear of Heaven together, shall then live in Heaven together," he exclaims in one of his enthusiastic outbursts, "Oh! when I look in the faces of the precious people of God and, believing, think of this day, what a refreshing thought it is! . . . I know that Christ is all in all, and that it is the presence of God that maketh Heaven to be Heaven, yet it much sweeteneth the thoughts of that place to me, to remember that there are such a multitude of my most dear and precious friends in Christ with whom I took sweet counsel, and with whom I went up to the house of God. . . . Surely Brooke and Pym and Hampden and White, etcetera, are now members of a more knowing, unerring, well-ordered, right-aiming, self

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