A27017:1173
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
THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART. III. › Chapter 8 › Section 6
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.
5. Thou canst scarce do Satan a greater pleasure,1 nor thy self a greater injury. It is the main scope of the Devil in all his Temptations to deceive thee, and keep the ignorant of thy danger till thou feel the everlasting flames upon thy soul: And wilt thou join with him to deceive thy self? If it were not by this deceiving thee, he could not destroy thee: And if thou do this for him, thou dost the greatest part of his work, and art the chief destroyer and Devil to thy self. And hath he deserved so well of thee, and thy self so ill, that thou shouldst assist him in such a design as thy damnation? To deceive another is a grievous sin, and such as perhaps thou wouldst scorn to be charged with: And yet thou thinkest it nothing to deceive thy self. Saith Solomon, As a mad man who casteth fire-brands, arrows and death; So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, 2and saith, Am not I in sport? Surely then he that maketh but a sport, or a matter of nothing to deceive his own soul, may well be thought a mad man, casting fire-brands and death at himself. If any man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself, saith Paul, Gal. 6.3. Certainly among all the multitudes that perish, this is the commonest cause of their undoing; that they would not be brought to Try their state in time. And is it not pity to think that so many thousands are merrily travelling to destruction and do not know it, and all for want of this diligent search?