A27017:1759
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. III.1
- 1§. 3.
3. Another help to sweeten thy soul with the foretasts of Rest, is this; Labour to apprehend how near it is, Think seriously of its speedy approach That which we think is near at hand, we are more sensible of, then that which we behold at a distance. When we hear of war or famine in another country, it troubleth not so much: or if we hear it prophesied of a long time hence, so if we hear of plenty a great way off, or of a golden age that shall fall out, who knows when; this never rejoiceth us. But if Judgments or Mercies begin to draw near, then they affect us, If we were sure we should see the golden Age, then it would take with us. When the plague is in a Town but twenty miles off, we do not fear it; nor much perhaps, if it be but in another street: but if once it come to the next door, or if it seize on one in our own family; then we begin to think on it more feelingly; It is so with mercies as well as Judgments. When they are far off, we talk of them as marvels; but when they draw close to us, we rejoice in them as Truths. This makes men think on Heaven so insensibly, because they conceit it at too great a distance: They look on it as twenty, or thirty, or forty years off; and this is it that dulls their sense. As wicked men are fearless and senseless of judgment, because the sentence is not speedily executed, Eccles. 8.11. So are the godly deceived of their comforts, by supposing them further off then they are. This is the danger of putting the day of death far from us; When men will promise themselves longer time in the world, then God hath promised them; and judg of the length of their lives by the probabilities they gather from their Age,