A27017:1349
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 11 › Section 18
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.
If these men had tried what some of their brethren have done, they would know, that all the purest ordinances and Churches will not afford that solid comfort, as the converting of a few sinners by our unwearied compassionate exhortations. Two men in a frosty season come where a company of people are ready to starve; the one of them laps himself, and taketh shelter, for fear lest he should perish with them; the other in pity falls to rub them, that ⟨p. 488⟩he may recover heat in them, and while he laboureth hard to help them, he getteth far better heat to himself then his unprofitable companion doth.
If these men had tryed what some of their brethren have done, they would know, that all the purest ordinances and Churches will not afford that solid comfort, as the converting of a few sinners by our unwearied compassionate exhortations. Two men in a frosty season come where a company of people are ready to starve; the one of them laps himself, and taketh shelter, for fear lest he should perish with them; the other in pity falls to rub them, that ⟨p. 488⟩he may recover heat in them, and while he laboreth hard to help them, he getteth far better heat to himself then his unprofitable companion doth.
7. With many also pride is a great impediment. If it were to speak to a great man, they would do it, so it would not displease him. But to go among the poor multitude, and to take pains with a company of ignorant beggars, or mean persons, and to sit with them in a smoky nasty cottage, and there to instruct them, and exhort them from day to day; where is the person almost that will do it? Many will much rejoice if they have been instruments of converting a Gentleman (and they have good cause) But for the common multitude, they look not after them: As if God were a respectre of the persons of the rich, or the souls of all were not alike to him. Alas these men little consider how low Christ did stoop to us! When the God of Glory comes down in flesh, to worms, and goeth Preaching up and down among them from City to City! Not the sillyest woman that he thought too low to confer with.