A27017:1558
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. III
- 1§. 3.
3. And as the weakness of our Faith, so also the coldness of our Love is exceedingly discovered by our unwillingness to dye. Love doth desire the nearest conjunction, the fullest fruition, and closest communion; Where these desires are absent, there is only a naked pretence of Love: He that ever felt such a thing as Love working in his breast, hath also felt these desires attending it. If we love our friend, we love his company: his presence is comfortable; his absence is troublesome: when he goes from us, we desire his return: when he comes to us, we entertain him with welcome, and gladness: when he dyes, we mourn, and usually over-mourn:1 to be separated from a faithful friend, is to us as the renting of a member from our bodies; And would not our desires after God be such, if we really loved him? Nay should it not be much more then such, as he is above all friends most lovely? The Lord teach us to look closely to our hearts, and take heed of self-deceit in this point: For certainly what ever we pretend or conceit, if we love either Father, Mother, Husband, Wife, Child, Friend, Wealth,2 or life more then Christ, we are yet none of his sincere Disciples. When it comes to the trial, the question will not be, ⟨p. 577⟩Who hath preached most, or heard most, or talked most? but who hath loved most? when our account is given in, Christ will not take Sermons, Prayers, Fastings, no, nor the giving of our goods, nor the burning of our bodies in stead of love, 1 Cor. 13.1, 2,3