A27017:1630
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. II.
- 1§. 2.
1But let me turn my Reprehension to Exhortation, That you would turn this Conviction into Reformation. And I have the more hope, because I here address my self to men of Conscience, that dare not wilfully disobey God, and to men whose Relations to God are many and near, and therefore methinks there should need the fewer words to persuade their hearts to him: Yea, because I speak to no other men, but only them whose portion is there, whose hopes are there, and who have forsaken, all that they may enjoy this glory; and shall I be discouraged from persuading such to be heavenly-minded? why, fellow Christians; if you will not hear and obey, who will? well may we be discouraged to exhort, the poor, blind, ungodly world, and may say, as Moses, Exod. 6.12. Behold the Children of Israel have not hearkened unto me, how then shall Pharaoh hear me? Who ever thou art therefore that readest these lines, I require thee, as thou tenderest thine Allegiance to the God of Heaven, as ever thou hopest for a part in this glory, that thou presently take thy heart to task: chide it for its wilful strangeness to God; turn thy thoughts from the pursuit of Vanity, bend thy soul to study Eternity, busy it about the life to come; habituate thy self to such contemplations, and let not those ⟨p. 601⟩thoughts be seldom and cursory, but settle upon them, dwell here, bathe thy soul in heavens Delights, drench thine affections in these rivers of pleasure, or rather in this sea of Consolation; and if thy backward soul begin to flag, and thy loose thoughts to fly abroad, call them back, hold them to their work, put them on, bear not with their laziness, do not connive at one neglect; and when thou hast once in obedience to God tried this work, and followed on till thou hast got acquainted with it, and kept a close guard upon thy thoughts till they are accustomed to obey, and till thou hast got some mastery over them, thou wilt then find thy self in the suburbs of Heaven, and as it were in a new world, thou wilt then find indeed, that there is sweetness in the work and way of God, and that the life of Christianity is a life of Joy; Thou wilt meet with those abundant consolations, which thou hast prayed, and panted, and groaned after, and which so few Christians do ever here obtain, because they know not this way to them, or else make not conscience of walking in it.