A27017:1686
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. XI.1
- 1§. 11.
9. Consider, If thou make not conscience of this duty of diligent keeping thy heart in Heaven. First, thou disobeyest the flat commands of God. Secondly, Thou losest the sweetest parts of Scripture. Thirdly, And dost frustrate the most gracious discoveries of God.
9. COnsider, If thou make not conscience of this duty of diligent keeping thy heart in Heaven. First, thou disobeyest the flat commands of God. Secondly, Thou losest the sweetest parts of Scripture. Thirdly, And dost frustrate the most gratious discoveries of God.
God hath not left it as a thing indifferent, and at thy own choice, whether thou wilt do it or not; He hath made it thy duty as well as the means of thy comfort, that so a double bond might tie thee not to forsake thy own mercies. Col 3 1, 2. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above; set your affections on things above, not on things on earth. The same God that hath commanded thee to believe, and to be a Christian, hath commanded thee to set thy affections above: The same God that hath forbidden thee to murder, to steal, to commit adultery, incest, or Idolatry, hath forbidden thee the neglect of this great duty; and darest thou wilfully disobey him? Why makest thou not conscience of the one as well as of the other? Secondly, besides, thou losest the most comfortable passages of the Word. All those most glorious descriptions of heaven, all those discoveries of our future blessedness, all Gods Revelations of his purposes towards us, and his frequent and precious promises of our Rest, what are they all but lost to thee? Are not these the stars in the Firmament of the Scripture? and the most golden lines in that Book of God? Of all the Bible, Me thinks thou shouldest not part with one of those Promises or Predictions, no not for a world. As Heaven is the perfection of all our mercies, so the Promises of it in the Gospel, are the very soul of the Gospel. That Word which was sweeter to David then the honey and the honey comb, and to Jeremiah the Joy and rejoicing of his heart,