A27017:1230
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 3
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. Every Soul that hath Title to this Rest, doth place his chiefest Happiness in it;1 and make it the chief and ultimate End of his Soul. This is the first Mark: which is so plain a Truth, that I need not stand to prove it. For this Rest consisteth in the full and glorious enjoyment of God: And he that maketh not God his chief Good, and ultimate End, is in heart a Pagan and vile Idolater; and doth not take the Lord for his God.
- 1Mark 1.
Let me ask thee then; Dost thou truly in Judgment and Affection account it thy chiefest Happiness to enjoy the Lord in Glory? or dost thou not? Canst thou say with David, Psal. 16.5. The Lord is my Portion? 1And as Psa. 73.25. Whom have I in Heaven but thee? and whom in earth that I desire in comparison of thee? If thou be an heir of Rest, it is thus with thee. Though the flesh will be pleading for its own delights, and the world will be creeping into thine affections, and thou canst not be quite freed from the Love of it; Yet in thy ordinary, settled, prevailing Judgment and Affections, thou preferrest God before all things in the world. 1. Thou makest him the End of thy Desires and Endeavours: The very reason why thou hearest and prayest, why thou desirest to live and breathe on earth, is chiefly this, That thou mayst seek the Lord, and make sure of thy Rest. Thou seekest first the Kingdom of God, and its Righteousness: Though thou dost not seek it so desirously and zealously as thou shouldst; yet hath it the chief of thy desires and endeavours; and nothing else is desired or preferred before it: