A27017:1927
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. VIII.
- 1§. 8.
4. The next Affection to be acted, is Courage or Boldness; which leadeth to Resolution, and concludeth in Action. When you have thus mounted your Love, and Desire, and Hope; go on, and think further thus with your selves: And will God indeed dwell with men? And is there such a glory within the reach of hope? O, why do I not then lay hold upon it? where is the cheerful vigour of my spirit?1 why do I not gird up the loins of my mind? and play the man for such a prize? why do I not run with speed, the race before me? and set upon mine enemies on every side? and valiantly break through all resistance? why do I not take this Kingdom by force? and my fervent soul catch at the place? do I yet sit still, and Heaven before me? If my Beast do but see his Provender; if my greedy senses perceive but their delightful objects, I have much ado to stave them off: And should not my soul be as eager for such a blessed Rest? why then do I not undauntedly fall to work? what should stop me? or what should dismay me? Is God with me, or against me in the work? will Christ stand by me, or will he not? If it were a way of sin that leads to death, then I might expect that God should resist me, and stand in my way with the drawn sword of his displeasure; or at least overtake me to my grief at last: But is he against the obeying of his own commands? is perfect good against any thing but evil? doth he bid me seek, and will he not assist me in it? doth he set ⟨p. 743⟩me awork, and urge me to it, and will he after all, be against me in it?2 It cannot be. And if he be for me, who can be against me? In the work of sin, all things almost are ready to help us, and God only, and his Servants are against us; and how ill doth that work prosper in our hands? But in my course to Heaven, almost all things are against me, but God is for me; and how happily still doth the work succeed? Do I set upon this work in my own strength, or rather in the strength of Christ my Lord? And cannot I do all things through him that strengtheneth me? was he ever foiled, or subdued by an enemy? He hath been assaulted indeed; but was he ever conquered? Can they take the sheep, till they have overcome the Shepherd? why then doth my flesh lay open to me the difficulties, and urge me so much with the greatness and troubles of the work? It is Christ that must answer all these Objections;