A27017:2091
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.
yea, the very Tribes of Israel have been gathered against me, thinking that the Altar which I built for the interest of Truth, and Unity, and Peace, had been erected to the Introduction of Error and Idolatry: And so the increase of Knowledge, hath been the increase of Sorrow. My heart indeed is ravished with the beauty of naked Truth; and I am ready to cry out, [I have found it] or, as Aquinas, [Conclisum est contra, &c.] But when I have found it, I know not what to do with it. If I confine it to my own breast, and keep it secret to my self, it is as a consuming fire, shut up in my heart and bones. I am as the Lepers without Samaria, or as those that were forbidden to tell any man of the works of Christ, I am weary of forbearing, I cannot stay. If I reveal it to the *world, I can expect but an unwelcome entertainment, and an ungrateful return: For they have taken up their standing in religious knowledge already, as if they were at Hercules Pillars, and had no further to go, nor any more to learn: They dare be no wiser then they are already, nor receive any more of Truth, then they have already received, lest thereby they should accuse their Ancestors and Teachers, of Ignorance and Imperfection, and themselves should seem to be mutable and unconstant, and to hold their opinions in Religion with reserves. The most precious Truth not apprehended, doth seem to be Error, and fantastic novelty: Every man that readeth, what I write, will not be at the pains of those tedious studies to find out the truth, as I have been; but think it should meet their eyes in the very reading. If the mere writing of Truth, with its clearest Evidence, were all that were necessary to the apprehension of it by others, then the lowest Scholar in the School might be quickly as good as the highest. So that if I did see more then others, to reveal it to the lazy prejudiced world, would but make my friends turn enemies, or look upon me with a strange and jealous eye. And yet Truth is so dear a friend it self (and he that sent it much ⟨p. 831⟩more dear) that what ever I suffer I dare not stifle, or conceal it. O what then are these bitter sweet studies and discoveries, to the everlasting views of the face of the God of Truth? The Light that here I have, is but a knowing in part;
yea, the very Tribes of Israel have been gathered against me, thinking that the Altar which I built for the interest of Truth, and Unity, and Peace, had been erected to the Introduction of Error and Idolatry: And so the increase of Knowledg, hath been the increase of Sorrow. My heart indeed is ravished with the beauty of naked Truth; and I am ready to cry out, [I have found it] or, as Aquinas, [Conclisum est contra, &c.] But when I have found it, I know not what to do with it. If I confine it to my own brest, and keep it secret to my self, it is as a consuming fire, shut up in my heart and bones. I am as the Lepers without Samaria, or as those that were forbidden to tell any man of the works of Christ, I am weary of forbearing, I cannot stay. If I reveal it to the