A27017:406
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.
1Though Repentance, Assent, Good works, &c. are required to our full Justification, as subservient to, or concurrent with Faith;2 yet is the true nature of this justifying Faith it self contained in this [most affectionate accepting of Christ, for Saviour and Lord.] And I think it necessarily contains all this in it: Some plead it is the Assenting act; some a Fiducial adherence, or recumbency. I call it [* Accepting,] it being principally an act of the Will; but yet also of the whole soul. This [Accepting] being that which the Gospel presseth to, and calleth the [receiving of Christ:] I call it [an Affectionate accepting,] though Love seem another act, quite distinct from Faith, (and if you take Faith for any one single act, so it is;) yet I take it as essential to that Faith which justifies: To accept Christ without Love, is not justifying Faith. Nor doth Love follow as a Fruit, but immediately concur; nor concur as a mere concomitant, but essential to a true accepting. For this Faith is the receiving of Christ, either with the whole soul, or with part; ••t with part only, for that is but a partial receiving: And […] clear Divines of late conclude, That justifying Faith resides, ••rn in the Understanding and the Will; therefore in the whole soul, and so cannot be one single act. All those Affections that are for the receiving and entertainment of Good, called the concupiscible, must receive and entertain Christ. I add, it is the [most] affectionate accepting of ⟨p. 159⟩Christ; because he that loves Father, Mother, or any thing more then him,4 is not worthy of him, nor can be his Disciple; and consequently not justified by him. And the truth of this Affection is not to be judged so much by feeling the pulse of it,5 as by comparing it with our affection to other things. He that loveth nothing so much as Christ, doth love him truly; though he find cause still to bewail the coldness of his Affections. I make Christ himself the Object of this Accepting, it being not any Theological Axiom concerning himself, but himself in person. I call it [an Accepting him for Saviour and Lord.