A27017:1743
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.
A multitude also of professors there are, that come and enquire for Marks and signs, How shall I know whether my heart be sincere? and they think the bare naming of some mark, is enough to discover; but never bestow one hour in trying themselves by the marks they hear. So here, they ask for directions for a Heavenly Life▪ and if the hearing, and knowing of these directions, will serve, then they will be heavenly Christians; But if we set them to task, and show them their work, and tell them, they cannot have these delights on easier terms; then, here they leave us, as the young man left Christ with sorrow (How our comforts are only in Christ, and yet this labour of ours is necessary thereto, I have showed you already in the beginning of this book; and therefore still refer you thither, when any shall put in that objection.) My advice to such a lazy sinner is this: As thou art convict that this work is necessary to thy comfortable living, so resolvedly set upon it: If thy heart draw back, and be undisposed; force it on ⟨p. 664⟩[…] ⟨p. 665⟩[…] ⟨p. 664⟩with the command of Reason; and if thy Reason begin to dispute the work, force it with producing the command of God; and quicken it up with the consideration of thy necessity, and the other Motives before propounded: And let the enforcements that brought thee to the work, be still in thy mind to quicken thee in it. Do not let such an incomparable treasure lye before thee, while thou lyest still with thy hand in thy bosom: Let not thy life be a continual vexation, which might be a continual delightful feasting, and all because thou wilt not be at the pains. When thou hast once tasted of the sweetness of it, and a little used thy heart to the work, thou wilt find the pains thou takest which thy backward flesh, abundantly recompensed in the pleasures of thy spirit. Only •it not still with a disconsolate spirit, while comforts grow before thine eyes, like a man in the midst of a Garden of Flowers, or delightful Meadow, that will not rise to get them that he may partake of their sweetness. Neither is it a few formal lazy running thoughts, that will fetch thee this consolation from above: No more then a few lazy formal words will prevail with God in stead of fervent prayer. I know Christ is the fountain, and I know this, as every other gift, is of God: But yet if thou ask my advice, How to obtain these waters of consolation?