A27017:1741
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.
O how many hundred Professors of Religion, who can easily bring their hearts to ordinary duties, as Reading, Hearing, Praying, Conferring; could never yet in all their lives, bring them, and keep them to a heavenly contemplation, one half hour together! Consider here, Reader, as before the Lord, whether this be not thine own case. Thou hast known that Heaven is all thy hopes; thou knowest thou must shortly be turned hence, and that nothing below can yield thee rest; thou knowest also, that a strange heart, a seldom and careless thinking of Heaven, can fetch but little comfort thence; and dost thou not yet for all this, let slip thy opportunities, and lie below in dust, or mere duties, when thou shouldst walk above, and live ⟨p. 662⟩[…] ⟨p. 663⟩[…] ⟨p. 662⟩with God? Dost thou not commend the sweetness of heavenly life, and judg those the excellentest Christians that use it; and yet didst never once try it thy self? But as the sluggard that stretched himself on his bed, and cried, O that this were working! So dost thou talk, and trifle, and live at thy ease, and say, O that I could get my heart to Heaven! This is to lie a bed and wish, when thou shouldst be up and doing. How many a hundred do read Books, and hear Sermons, in expectation to hear of some easy course, or to meet with a shorter cut to comforts, then ever they are like to find in the Word! And if they can hear of none from the Preachers of Truth, they will snatch it with rejoicing from the Teachers of Falsehood; and presently applaud the excellency of the doctrine, because it hath fitted their lazy temper; and think there is no other doctrine will comfort the soul, because it will not comfort it with hearing, and looking on. They think their Venison is best, though accompanied with a lie, because it is the easiest catched, and next at hand, and they think will procure the chiefest blessing, (and so it may, if God be as subject to mistake as blind Isaac.) And while they pretend enmity only to the impossibilities of the Law, they oppose the easier conditions of the Gospel, and cast off the burden that is light also, and which all must bear that will find rest to their souls; and in my judgment, may as fitly be styled enemies to the Gospel*