A27017:2024
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. II.
- 1§. 2.
2. When thou hast got thy heart to the work, beware least it delude thee by a loitering formality: Least it say, I go, and go not; least it trifle out the time, while it should be effectually meditating. Certainly, the heart is as likely to betray thee in this, as in any one particular about the duty: When thou hast perhaps but an hours time for thy Meditation, the time will be spent before thy heart will be serious. This doing of duty, as if we did it not, doth undo as many as the flat omission of it. To rub out the hour in a bare lazy thinking of Heaven, is but to lose that hour, and delude thy self. Well, what is to be done in this case? why, do here also as you do by a loitering servant; keep thine eye always upon thy heart; look not so much to the time it spendeth in the duty, as to the quantity and quality of the work that is done: You can tell by his work, whether your servant hath been painful; ask, what affections have yet been acted? how much am I yet got nearer Heaven? Verily many a mans heart must be followed as close in this duty of Meditation, as a Horse in a Mill, or an Ox at the Plough, that will go no longer then you are calling or scourging: If you cease driving but a moment, the heart will stand still; and perhaps the best hearts have much of this temper.
2. WHen thou hast got thy heart to the work, beware least it delude thee by a loitering formality: Least it say, I go, and go not; least it trifle out the time, while it should be effectually meditating. Certainly, the heart is as likely to betray thee in this, as in any one particular about the duty: When thou hast perhaps but an hours time for thy Meditation, the time will be spent before thy heart will be serious. This doing of duty, as if we did it not, doth undo as many as the flat omission of it. To rub out the hour in a bare lazie thinking of Heaven, is but to lose that hour, and delude thy self. Well, what is to be done in this case? why, do here also as you do by a loitering servant; keep thine eye always upon thy heart; look not so much to the time it spendeth in the duty, as to the quantity and quality of the work that is done: You can tell by his work, whether your servant hath been painful; ask, what affections have yet been acted? how much am I yet got neerer Heaven? Verily many a mans heart must be followed as close in this duty of Meditation, as a Horse in a Mill, or an Ox at the Plow, that will go no longer then you are calling or scourging: If you cease driving but a moment, the heart will stand still; and perhaps the best hearts have much of this temper.