A27017:1245
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 10 › 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.
SECT. III.
2. Consider also,1 That Afflictions are exceeding useful to us, to keep us from mistaking our Resting place, and so taking up short of it. A Christians Motion Heaven-wards is Voluntary, and not constrained. Those means therefore are most profitable to him, which help his Understanding and Will in this prosecution. The most dangerous mistake that our Souls are capable of, is, to take the Creature for God, and Earth for Heaven. And yet, alas, how common is this? And in how great a degree are the best guilty of it? Though we are ashamed to speak so much with our tongues, yet how oft do our hearts say, It is best being here? And ⟨p. 442⟩how contented are they with an earthly portion? So that I fear God would displease most of us more, to afflict us here, and promise us Rest hereafter, then to give us our hearts desire on earth, though he had never made us a promise of Heaven. As if the Creature without God, were better, then God without the Creature. Alas, how apt are we, like foolish children, when we are busy at our sports and worldly employments, to forget both our Father, and our home? Therefore is it a hard thing for a Rich man to enter into Heaven, because it is hard for him to value it more then Earth, and not to think he is well already. Come to a man that hath the world at will, and tell him, This is not Your Happiness; You have higher things to look after; and how little will he regard you! But when Affliction comes, it speaks convincingly; and will be heard when Preachers cannot. What warm, affectionate, eager thoughts have we of the world, till Affliction cool them, and moderate them? How few and cold would our thoughts of Heaven be, how little should we care for coming thither, if God would give us Rest on Earth? Our thoughts are with God, as Noah's Dove was in the Ark; kept up to him a little against their inclinations and desires: but when once they can break away, they fly up and down over all the world, to see if it were possible to find any Rest out of God: But when we find that we seek in vain, and that the world is all covered with the waters of instable vanity and bitter vexation, and that there is no Rest for the sole of our foot, or for the foot of our Soul; no wonder then if we return to the Ark again.