A27017:1752
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. II.1
- 1§. 2.
1. Know Heaven to be the only Treasure, and labour to know also what a Treasure it is; be convinced once that thou hast no other happiness, and then he convinced what happiness is there; If thou do not soundly believe it to be the chiefest good, thou wilt never set thy heart upon it; and this conviction must sink into thy affections▪ for if it be only a notion, it will have little operation: And sure we have reason enough to be easily convinced of thi••s, as you may see in what hath been spoken already. Read over the Description and Nature of this Rest, in the beginning of this Book, and the Reasons against thy Resting below, in Chapter First, and conclude, That this is the only Happiness: As long as your judgments do undervalue it, your affections must needs be cold towards it. If your judgments do mistake Blear-eyed Leah, for Beautiful Rachel, so will your affections also mistake them: If Eve do once suppose she sees more worth in the forbidden fruit, then in the love and fruition of God, no wonder if it have more of her heart then God; If your judgments once prefer the delights of the Flesh, before the delights in the Presence of God, its impossible then your hearts should be in heaven; as it is the ignorance of the emptiness of things below, that makes men so overvalue them, so it is ignorance of the high delights above, which is the cause that men so little mind them: If you see a purse of gold, and believe it to be but Stones or Counters, it will not entice your affections to it; it is not a things excellency in it self, but its an excellency known, that provokes desire; If an ignorant man see a Book containing the secrets of Arts or ⟨p. 670⟩