A27017:1715
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.
1. The first is, The living in a known unmortified sin. Observe this. O, what havoc this will make in thy soul! O, the joys that this hath destroyed! The blessed Communion with God, that this hath interrupted! The ruins it hath made amongst mens graces! The soul-strengthening duties that this hath hindered! And above all others, it is especially an enemy to this great duty.
1. The first is, The living in a known unmortified sin. Observe this. O, what havock this will make in thy soul! O, the joyes that this hath destroyed! The blessed Communion with God, that this hath interrupted! The ruines it hath made amongst mens graces! The soul-strengthning duties that this hath hindred! And above all others, it is especially an enemy to this great duty.
Christian Reader, I desire thee in the fear of God, stay here a little, and search thy heart: Art thou one that hast used violence with thy conscience? Art thou a wilful neglecter of known duties? either public, private, or secret? Art thou a slave to thine appetite, in eating or drinking? or to any other commanding sense? Art thou a proud Seeker of thine own esteem? and a man that must needs have mens good opinion, or else thy mind is all in a combustion? Art thou a wilfully peevish and passionate person? as if thou wert made of Tinder or Gun powder, ready to take fire at every word, or every wry look, or every supposed slighting of thee? or every neglect of a complement or courtesy? Art thou a knowing deceiver of others in thy dealing? or one that hast set thy self to rise in the world? not to speak of greater sins, which all take notice of: If this be thy case, I dare say, Heaven and thy Soul are very great strangers: I dare say, thou art seldom in Heart with God; and there is little hope it should ever be better, as long as thou continuest in these transgressions: These beams in thine eyes, will not suffer thee to look to Heaven; these will be a cloud between thee and God. When thou dost but attempt to study Eternity, and to gather comforts from the life to come, thy sin will presently look thee in the face, and say, These things belong not to thee: How shouldst thou take comfort from Heaven, who takest so much pleasure in the lusts of thy flesh? O, how this will damp thy joys! and make the thoughts of that day, and state, to become thy trouble, and not thy delight! Every wilful sin that thou livest in, will be to thy comforts as water to the fire; when thou thinkest to quicken them, this will quench them; when thy heart begins to draw near to God, this will presently come in thy mind, and cover thee with shame, and fill thee with doubting. Besides (which is most to the point in hand) it doth utterly indispose thee and disable thee to this work: When thou shouldst wind up thy heart to Heaven, alas, its biassed another way; it is entangled in the lusts of the flesh, and can no more ascend in Divine Meditation, then the bird can fly, whose wings are clipped, or that is entangled in the Lime-twigs, or taken in the snare. Sin doth cut the very sinews of the soul;