A27017:1531
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
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.
1SECT. IV.
- 1§. 4.
3. Consider whether it be not the most probable way to cause God; either, first, to deny these Mercies which we desire; or secondly, to take from us those which we do enjoy; or thirdly, to embitter them at least, or curse them to us. Certainly, God is no where so jealous as here: If you had a servant, whom your own wife loved better then she did your self, would you not both take it ill of such a wife, and rid your house of such a servant? You will not suffer your child to use a knife, till he have wit to do it without hurting him. Why so, if the Lord see you begin to settle in the world, and say, Here I will rest; no wonder if he soon in his jealously unsettle you. If he love you, no wonder if he take that from you, wherewith he sees you about to destroy your selves. It hath been my long observation of many, ⟨p. 563⟩That when they have attempted great works, and have just finished them, or have aimed at great things in the world, and have just obtained them, or have lived in much trouble and unsettlement, and have just overcome them, and begin with some content to look upon their condition, and rest in it; they are usually near to death or ruin. You know the story of the fool in the Gospel: When a man is once at this language, Soul take thy ease, or rest; the next news usually is, Thou fool, this night, or this month, or this year, shall they require thy soul, and then whose shall these things be? O, what house is there, where this fool dwelleth not? Dear Christian friends, you to whom I have especially relation, Let you and I consider, whether this be not our own case. Have not I after such an unsettled life, and after almost five years living in the weary condition of war, and the unpleasing life of a Soldier, and after so many years groaning under the Churches unreformedness, and the great fears that lay upon us, and after so many longings, and prayers for these days: Have I not thought of them with too much content? and been ready to say, Soul take thy rest? Have not I comforted my self more, in the fore-thoughts of enjoying these, then of coming to Heaven, and enjoying God? What wonder then, if God cut me off, when I am just sitting down in this supposed Rest? and hath not the like been your condition?