A27017:1665
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.
Thou bewailest thy want of love to God, (and well thou mayest, for its a heinous crime, a killing sin) why, lift up thy eye of Faith to Heaven, behold his beauty, contemplate his excellencies, and see whether his amiableness will not fire thy affections, and his ⟨p. 620⟩perfect goodness ravish thy heart. As the eye doth incense the sensual affections, by its overmuch gazing on alluring objects; so doth the eye of our Faith in meditation, inflame our affections towards our Lord, by the frequent gazing on that highest beauty. Whoever thou art, that art a stranger to this employment, be thy parts and profession never so great, let me tell thee, Thou spendest thy life but in trifling or idleness; thou seemest to live, but thou art dead: I may say of thee, as Seneca of idle Varia, Scis latere, vivere nescis; Thou knowest how to lurk in idleness, but how to live, thou knowest not. And as the same Seneca would say, when he passed by that sluggards dwelling, Ibi fit•s est Varia; so may it be said of thee: There lies such a one, but not there lives such a one; for thou spendest thy days liker to the dead, then the living. One of Draco's Laws to the Athenians was, That he who was convict of* idleness should be put to death: Thou dost execute this on thy own soul, whilst by thy idleness thou destroyest its liveliness.
Thou bewailest thy want of love to God, (and well thou maist, for its a hainous crime, a killing sin) why, lift up thy eye of Faith to Heaven, behold his beauty, contemplate his excellencies, and see whether his amiableness will not fire thy affections, and his ⟨p. 620⟩perfect goodness ravish thy heart. As the eye doth incense the sensual affections, by its overmuch gazing on alluring objects; so doth the eye of our Faith in meditation, inflame our affections towards our Lord, by the frequent gazing on that highest beauty. Whoever thou art, that art a stranger to this imployment, be thy parts and profession never so great, let me tell thee, Thou spendest thy life but in trifling or idleness; thou seemest to live, but thou art dead: I may say of thee, as Seneca of idle Varia, Scis latere, vivere nescis; Thou knowest how to lurk in idleness, but how to live, thou knowest not. And as the same Seneca would say, when he passed by that sluggards dwelling, Ibi fits est Varia; so may it be said of thee: There lies such a one, but not there lives such a one; for thou spendest thy days liker to the dead, then the living. One of Draco's Laws to the Athenians was, That he who was convict of