A27017:1254
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 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. Consider further;1 It is but this Flesh which is troubled and grieved (for the most part) by Affliction: And what ⟨p. 446⟩Reason have we to be so tender of it? In most of our sufferings the Soul is free, further then we do wilfully afflict it our selves. Suppose thou be in poverty: It is thy flesh only that is pinched. If thou have sores or sicknesses: it is but the flesh that they assault. If thou dye: it is but that flesh that must rot in the grave. Indeed it useth also to reach our hearts and Souls, when the body suffereth: but that is, because we pore upon our evils, and too much pity and condole the flesh; and so we open the door, and let in the pain to the heart our selves, which else could have gone no further then the flesh. God smites the flesh; and therefore we will grieve our spirits: and so multiply our grief, as if we had not enough before. Oh, if I could but have let my body have suffered alone in all the pining, paining sicknesses which God laid upon it, and not have foolishly added my own self-tormenting fears, and cares, and sorrows, and discontents; but have quieted and comforted my Soul in the Lord my Rock and Rest; I had escaped the far greater part of the Afflictions. Why is this flesh so precious in our eyes? Why are we so tender of these dusty carcasses? Is flesh so excellent a thing? Is it not our prison? and what if it be broken down? Is it not our Enemy? yea and the greatest that ever we had? and are we so fearful lest it be overthrown? Is it not it that hath so long hampered and clogged our Souls? and tied them to earth? and ticed them to forbidden lusts and pleasures? and stolen away our hearts from God? Was it not it that longed for the first forbidden fruit? and must needs be tasting, what ever it cost? And still it is of the same temper: It must be pleased, though God be displeased by it, and our selves destroyed. It maketh all Gods mercies the occasion of our transgressing, and draweth poison from the most excellent objects. If we behold our food, it enticeth to gluttony; if drink, to drunkenness; if apparel, or any thing of worth, to pride: if we look upon beauty, it ticeth to lust; if upon money or possessions, to Covetousness. It causeth our very spiritual love to the godly, to degenerate into carnal; and our spiritual Zeal, and Joy, and other graces: It would make all carnal like it self.