A27017:107
The Saints' Everlasting Rest
The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is showed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is shewed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by Rob. White for Thomas Underhil and Francis Tyton, 1650
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECT. VI.
16. Here is also supposed, A superior moving Cause, and an influence there-from; else should we all stand still, and not move a step forward toward our Rest; no more then the inferior wheels in the Watch would stir, if you take away the spring, or the first mover. This primum movens is God: What hand God hath in evil Actions; or whether he afford the like influence to their production? I will not here trouble this Discourse, and the Reader to dispute. The case is clear in Good Actions: If God move us not, we cannot move: Therefore is it a most necessary part of our Christian Wisdom, to keep our subordination to God, and dependence on him; To be still in the path where he walks, and in that way where his Spirit doth most usually move. Take heed of being estranged or separated from God, or of slacking your daily expectations of renewed help, or of growing insensible of the necessity of the continual influence and assistance of the Spirit. When you once begin to trust to your stock of habitual Grace, and to depend on your own understanding or resolution, for duty and holy walking, You are then in a dangerous declining State. In every duty remember Christs words, Joh. 15.5. Without me ye can do nothing. And 2 Cor. 3.5. Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves, but our sufficiency is of God.
16. HEre is also supposed, A superiour moving Cause, and an influence there-from; else should we all stand still, and not move a step forward toward our Rest; no more then the inferiour wheels in the Watch would stir, if you take away the spring, or the first mover. This primum movens is God: What hand God hath in evil Actions; or whether he afford the like influence to their production? I will not here trouble this Discourse, and the Reader to dispute. The case is clear in Good Actions: If God move us not, we cannot move: Therefore is it a most necessary part of our Christian Wisdom, to keep our subordination to God, and dependance on him; To be still in the path where he walks, and in that way where his Spirit doth most usually move. Take heed of being estranged or separated from God, or of slacking your dayly expectations of renewed help, or of growing insensible of the necessity of the continual influence and assistance of the Spirit. When you once begin to trust to your stock of habituall Grace, and to depend on your own understanding or resolution, for duty and holy walking, You are then in a dangerous declining State. In every duty remember Christs words,