A27017:308
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. XII.
- 1§ 12.
44. WE shall Rest also from all our Temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh, as well as Satan: And that is a number unexpressible, and a weight (were it not that we are beholding to supporting grace) utterly intolerable. O the hourly dangers that we poor sinners here below walk in! Every sense is a snare: Every member a snare: Every creature a snare: Every mercy a snare: And every duty a snare to us. We can scarce open our eyes, but we are in danger: If we behold them above us, we are in danger of envy: If them below us, we are in danger of contempt: If we see sumptuous buildings, pleasant habitations, Honour and Riches, we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires; If the rags and beggary of others, we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness. If we see beauty, its a bait to lust; if deformity, to loathing and disdain. We can scarcely hear a word spoken, but contains to us matter of temptation. How soon do slanderous reports, vain jests, wanton speeches by that passage creep into the Heart? How strong and prevalent a Temptation is our appetite? and how constant and strong a watch doth it require? Have we comeliness and beauty? What fuel for pride? Are we deformed? What an occasion of repining? Have we strength of Reason, and gifts of Learning? O how hard is it not to be puffed up?2 To seek our selves? To hunt after applause? To despise our brethren? To mislike the simplicity that is in Christ? Both in the matter and manner of Scripture? In Doctrine, in Discipline, in Worship, and in the Saints? to affect a pompous, specious, fleshly service of God? and to exalt Reason above Faith? Are we unlearned, and of shallow heads, and slender parts? How apt then to despise what we have not? And to undervalue