A27017:1406
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 12 › Section 7
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. VII.
12. The second and chief word of advice that I would give you, is this, Do not think that all your work is in your studies, and in the Pulpit. I confess that is great, but alas, it is but a small part of your task. You are Shepherds, and must know every sheep, and what is their disease, and mark their strayings, and help to cure them, and fetch them home. If the paucity of Ministers in great congregations (which is the great unobserved mischief in England, that cries for reformation) did not make it a thing impossible in many places, I should charge the Ministers of England with most notorious unfaithfulness, for neglecting so much the rest of their work, which calleth for their diligence as much as public Preaching. O learn of Paul, Act. 20.19, 20, 31. to preach publicly, and from house to house night and day with tears. Let there not be a soul in your charge that shall not be particularly instructed and watched over. Go from house to house daily, and enquire how they grow in knowledge, and holiness, and on what grounds they build their hopes of salvation: and whether they walk uprightly, and perform the duties of their several relations; and use the means to increase their abilities. See whether they daily worship God in their families, and set them in a way, and teach them how to do it: Confer with them about the doctrines and practice of Religion, and how they receive and profit by public teaching: and answer all their carnal objections; keep in familiarly with them, that you may maintain your interest in them, and improve all your interest for God. See that no seducers do creep in among them, or if they do, be diligent to countermine them, and preserve your people from infection of Heresies or Schisms: or if they be infected, be diligent to procure their recovery; Not with passion and lordliness, but with patience and condescension: As Musculus did by the Anabaptists, visiting them in Prison where the Magistrate had cast them, and there instructing and relieving them, and though they reviled him when he came, and called him a false prophet, and Antichristian seducer, that thirsted for their blood, yet he would not so leave them, till at last by his meekness