TO THE

INHABITANTS

OF THE

BOROUGH AND FOREIGN OF KIDDERMINSTER,

IN

THE COUNTY OF WORCESTER.

DEAR FRIENDS,

WHILE I was lately turning up the rubbish of my old papers, I found this sermon in the bottom, which I had quite forgotten that I kept, but thought it had been cast away with many hundred others. Much of the last sheet was added to the sermon after I came from you; and I remember that when I intended to send you this sermon as my farewell, I durst not then have so much converse with you, for your own sakes, lest it should raise more enmity against you, and your displeasing circumstances of religious practice should be said to come from my continued counsels to you.

I have lately taken my farewell of the world, in a book which I called "My Dying Thoughts:' my pain of body and debility increasing, and my flesh being grown to me more grievous than all my enemies or outward troubles. I remembered the benefit I often received upon your prayers; and craving the continuance of them, till you hear of my dissolution, therewith I send this, as my special farewell to yourselves, whom I am bound to remember with more than ordinary love and thankfulness, while I am

BAXTER'S FAREWELL SERMON.

JOHN xvi. 22.

And ye now, therefore, have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

MY DEARLY BEloved in our DEAREST LORD,

I WILL So far consent to your troubled thoughts of this unwelcome day, as to confess that to me, as well as you, it somewhat resembleth the day of death. 1. Death is the separation of the dearest consorts, soul and body; and how near the union is "betwixt us, both that of relation, and that of affection, which must admit this day of some kind of dissolution, I will rather tell to strangers than to you. 2. Death is unwelcome both to soul and body of itself (though it destroy not the soul, it doth the body.) So dear companions part not willingly. Your hearts and minds are here so over-forward in the application, that words may be well spared, where sense hath taken so deep possession. 3. Death is the end of human converse here on earth. We must see and talk with our friends here no more. And this our separation is like to end that converse between you and me, which formerly we have had in the duties of our relations. We must no more go up together, as formerly, to the house of God; I must no more speak to you publicly in his name, nor solace my own soul, in opening to you the gospel of salvation, nor in the mention of his covenant, his grace, or kingdom. Those souls that have not been convinced and converted, are never like to hear more from me for their conviction or conversion. I have finished all the instruction, reproof, exhortation, and persuasion, which ever I must use, in order to their salvation. I must speak here no more to inform the ignorant, to reform the wicked, to reduce the erroneous, to search the hypocrite, to humble the proud, to bow the obstinate, or to bring the worldly, the impenitent, and ungodly to the knowledge of the word, themselves, and God. I must speak no more to strengthen the weak, to comfort the afflicted, nor to

us.

build you up in faith and holiness. Our day is past; our night is come, when we cannot work as formerly we have done! My opportunities here are at an end. 4. Death is the end of earthly comforts, and our separation is like to be the end of that comfortable communion, which God for many years hath granted Our public and private communion hath been sweet to us. The Lord hath been our pastor, and hath not suffered us to want. He made us lie down in his pleasant pastures, and hath led us by the silent streams! (Psalm xxiii. 1, 2.) He restored our souls, and his very rod and staff did comfort us, but his smiting and scattering time is come. These pleasures now are at an end. 5. Death is the end of human labours, there is no ploughing or sowing, no building or planting in the grave. And so doth our separation end the works of our mutual relation in this place. 6. Death is the effect of painful sickness, and usually of the folly, intemperance, or oversight of ourselves. And, though our conscience reproach us not with gross unfaithfulness, yet are our failings so many, and so great, as force us to justify the severity of our Father, and to confess that we deserve this rod. Though we have been censured by the world as being over-strict, and doing too much for the saving of our own and others' souls, yet it is another kind of charge that conscience hath against us. How earnestly do we now wish that we had done much more; that I had preached more fervently, and you had heard more diligently, and we had all obeyed God more strictly, and done more, for the souls of the ignorant, careless, hardened sinners that were among us! It is just with God that so dull a preacher should be put to silence, that could ever speak without tears and fervent importunity to impenitent sinners, when he knew that it was for no less than the saving of their souls, and foresaw the joys which they would lose, and the torment which they must endure, if they repented not. With what shame and sorrow do I now look back upon the cold and lifeless sermons which I preached; and upon those years' neglect of the duty of private instructing of your families, before we set upon it orderly and constantly. Our destruction is of ourselves! Our undervaluings and neglects have forfeited our opportunities. As good Melancthon was wont to say, ' In vulneribus nostris proprias agnoscimus pennas.' The arrow that woundeth us, was feathered from our own wings. 7. Death useth to put surviving friends into a dark and mourning habit. Their lamentations are the chief part of funeral solemnities. And in this also we have our part. The compassion of condolers