A27017:370
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.
1In ascribing this Regeneration to [the Spirit,] I do not intend to exclude the word; yet I cannot allow it to be properly the Instrumental cause, as the common opinion is. Were it an instrument, the Energy or Influx of the principal efficient must be first received into it, and by it conveyed to the soul; but that is an impossibility in Nature: The voice of the Preacher, or Letters of the Book,2 are not subjects capable of receiving Spiritual Life to convey to us; the like also may be said of Sacraments: None of the conditions of an Instrumental efficient cause, are found in them. The Principal and Instrumental, produce one and the same ⟨p. 143⟩effect: But the word works not in the same way of causality with the Spirit;3 yet doth it not follow, that it is therefore useless or doth nothing to the work; for both kinds of causality are necessary: The Spirit works as the principal and only efficient, and hath no intervening instrument, that can reach the soul; but doth all his work immediately, seeing it self alone can touch its object, and so work by proper efficiency: But the Word and Sacraments work morally, only by propounding the object in its qualifications, as a man draws a Horse by showing him his Provender: And though there be some difficulty in resolving, whether the propounding the object to the understanding by instruction, and to the will and affections by persuasion, do work under the efficient, or under the final cause; yet according to the common Judgment, we here take the last for granted. The Word then doth sanctify by exciting of former principles to action; which is a preparation to the receiving of the principle of Life; and also by present exciting of the newly infused gracious principle, and so producing our Actual converting and believing: But how it can otherways concur to the infusing of that principle, I yet understand not. Indeed, if no such principle be infused, then the Word doth all, and the Spirit only *enable the speaker; or if any more, its hard to discover what it is. For whether there be any internal suasion of the Spirit immediately, distinct from the external suasion of the Word, and also from the Spirits efficacious changing Physical operation, is a very great question, and worth the considering: But I have run on too far in this already.