A27017:1699
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.
Adeo me nihil tui miseret, qui toties monitus, ne onerares teipsum tot oneribus, & nihil audis, omnia benè monita contemnis. 1Erit cum sero stultum tuum hunc zelum frustra damnabis; quo jam ardes solus omnia portare, quasi ferrum aut saxum sis. it were no matter, if thou wert oppressed ten times more; so little do I pity thee; who being so often warned, that thou shouldst not load thy self with so many burdens, dost no whit regard it, but contemnest all these wholesome warnings: Thou wilt shortly when it is too late, condemn this thy foolish forwardness, which makes thee so desirous to bear all this, as if thou wert made of Iron or Stone. Alas, that a Christian should rather delight to have his heart among these thorns and briars, then in the bosom of his crucified, glorified Lord! Surely, if Satan should take thee up to the Mountain of Temptation, and show thee the Kingdoms, and glory of the world; he could show thee nothing that's worthy thy thoughts, much less to be preferred before thy Rest. Indeed so far as duty and necessity requires it, we must be content to mind the things below; but who is he that contains himself within the compass of those limits? And yet if we bound our cares and thoughts, as diligently as ever we can, we shall find the least to be bitter and burdensome; even as the least Wasp hath a sting, and the smallest Serpent hath his poison. As old Hiltenius said of Rome, Est proprium Romane potestatis ut sit ferreum, & licet digiti minorentur ad parvitatem acus, tamen manent ferrei: It is proper to the Roman power to ⟨p. 640⟩be of iron, and though the fingers of it be diminished to the smallness of a needle, yet they are iron still; The like may I say of our earthly cares, It is their property to be hard and troublous, and so they will be when they are the least: Verily, if we had no higher hopes then whats on earth, I should take man for a most silly creature, and his work and wages, all his travel and his felicity, to be no better then dreams and vanity, and scarce worth the minding or mentioning, especially to thee a Christian should it seem so, whose eyes are opened by the Word and Spirit, to see the emptiness of all these things, and the precious worth of the things above: O then be not detained by these silly things, but if Satan present them to thee in a temptation, send them away from whence they came;