A27017:1567
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.
SECT. VII.1
- 1§. 7.
6. And all these defects being thus discovered, what a deal of dissembling doth it more over show? We take on us to believe undoubtedly, the exceeding eternal weight of Glory: We call God our chiefest Good, and say, we love Him above all, and for all this we fly from Him, as if it were from Hell it self; would you have any man believe you, when you call the Lord your only Hope, and speak of Christ as All in All, and talk of the Joy that is in Presence, and yet would endure the hardest life, rather then dye and come unto him? What self-contradiction is this, to talk so hardly of the world and flesh, to groan and complain of sin and suffering, and yet fear no day more then that which we expect should bring our final freedom? what shameless gross dissembling is this, to spend so many hours, and days, in hearing Sermons, reading Books, conferring with others, and all to learn the way to a place which we are loth to come to? To take on us all our life-time, to walk towards Heaven, to run, to strive, to fight for Heaven, which we are loth to come to? What apparent palpable hypocrisy is this, to lye upon our knees in public and private, and spend one hour after another in prayer, for that which we would not have? If one should over-hear thee in thy daily devotions, crying out, Lord deliver me from this body of death, from this sin, this sickness, this poverty, these cares and fears, how long Lord shall I suffer these? and withal should hear thee praying ⟨p. 582⟩against death; can he believe thy tongue agrees with thy heart? except thou have so far lost thy reason, as to expect all this here; or except the Papists Doctrine were true, that we are able to fulfil the Law of God; or our late Perfectionists are truly enlightened, who think they can live and not sin: but if thou know these to be undoubtedly false, how canst thou deny thy gross dissembling?