A27017:1210
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 9 › Section 2
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.
1. Empty thy mind of all thy other cares and thoughts, that they do not distract or divide thy mind: This work will be enough at once of it self, without joining others with it.
1. Empty thy minde of all thy other cares and thoughts, that they do not distract or divide thy mind: This work will be enough at once of it self, without joyning others with it.
2. Then fall down before God, and in hearty prayer desire the assistance of his Spirit, to discover to thee the plain truth of thy Condition; and to enlighten thee in thy whole progress in the work.
3. Make choice of the most convenient Time and Place. I shall not stand upon the particular Directions about these, because I shall mention them more largely when I come to direct you in the duty of Contemplation: Only thus in brief. 1. Let the Place be the most private, that you may be free from distractions. 2. For the Time, thus. 1. When you are most solitary and at leisure: You cannot cast accounts, especially of such a nature as these, either in a crowd of company, or of employments. 2. Let it be a set and chosen Time, when you have nothing to hinder you. 3. But, if it may be, let it be the present Time, especially if thou have been a stranger hitherto to the work. There is no delaying in matters of such weight. 4. Especially when you have a more special call to search ⟨p. 430⟩your selves: as in public calamities, in time of sickness, before Sacrament, &c. 5. When God is Trying you by some Affliction, and (as Job saith) is searching after your sin,1