A27017:1857
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.
1SECT. IX.
- 1§. 9.
SO much concerning the Time and Place of this duty. I am next to advise thee somewhat concerning the preparations of thy heart. The success of the work doth much depend on the frame of thy heart. When mans heart had nothing in it that might grieve the Spirit, then was it the delightful habitation of his Maker. God did not quit his residence there, till man did expel him by unworthy provocations. There grew no strangeness, till the heart grew sinful, and too loathsome a dungeon for God to delight in. And were this soul reduced to its former innocency, God would quickly return to his former habitation; yea, so far as it is renewed and repaired by the Spirit, and purged of its lusts, and beautified with his Image; the Lord will yet acknowledge it his own, and Christ will manifest himself unto it, and the Spirit will take it for his Temple, and Residence. So far as the soul is qualified for conversing with God, so far it doth actually (for the most part) enjoy him. Therefore with all diligence keep thy heart; for from thence are the issues of life, Prov 4.23.
SO much concerning the Time and Place of this duty. I am next to advise thee somewhat concerning the preparations of thy heart. The success of the work doth much depend on the frame of thy heart. When mans heart had nothing in it that might grieve the Spirit, then was it the delightful habitation of his Maker. God did not quit his residence there, till man did expel him by unworthy provocations. There grew no strangeness, till the heart grew sinful, and too loathsom a dungeon for God to delight in. And were this soul reduced to its former innocency, God would quickly return to his former habitation; yea, so far as it is renewed and repaired by the Spirit, and purged of its lusts, and beautified with his Image; the Lord will yet acknowledg it his own, and Christ will manifest himself unto it, and the Spirit will take it for his Temple, and Residence. So far as the soul is qualified for conversing with God, so far it doth actually (for the most part) enjoy him. Therefore with all diligence keep thy heart; for from thence are the issues of life, Prov 4.23.