A27017:519
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
THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART II. › Chapter 3 › Section 2
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.
Pos. 1. The Object of belief Is the will of God revealed; or a Divine Testimony; where two things are absolutely necessary; first, The Matter: secondly, The Revelation. 2. All this Revealed Will is necessary ato the completing of our faith; band it is our duty to believe it. But its only the substance and tenor of the Covenants, and the things necessarily supposed to the knowing and keeping of the Covenant of Grace, which are of absolute necessity to the being of Faith, and to Salvation. A man may be saved though he should not believe many things, which yet he is bound by God to believe. 3. Yet this must be only through ignorance of the Divineness of the Testimony: For a flat unbelief of the smallest truth, when we know the Testimony to be of God, will not stand with the being of true Faith, nor with Salvation. For Reason lays this ground [That God can speak nothing but Truth] and Faith proceeds upon that supposition. 4. This Doctrine so absolutely necessary hath not been ever from the beginning the same, but hath differed according to the different Covenants and Administrations. That Doctrine which is now so necessary, was not so before the Fall: And that which is so necessary since the coming of Christ, was not so before his coming. Then they might be saved in believing in the Messiah to come of the seed of David: but now its of necessity to believe, that this Jesus the Son of Mary is He, and that we look not for another. I prove it thus. That which is not revealed can be no object for Faith, much less so necessary: But Christ was not Revealed before the Fall; nor this Jesus Revealed to be He before his coming, therefore ⟨p. 185⟩these were not of necessity to be believed, or (as some Metaphorically speak) they were then to fundamental Doctrines. Perhaps also some things will be found of absolute necessity to us, which are not so to Indians and Turks. 5. God hath made this substance of Scripture-Doctrine to be thus necessary *primarily and for it self. 6. That it be revealed is also of absolute necessity; but secondarily, and for the Doctrines sake, as a means without which Believing is neither possible nor a duty. And though where there is no Revelation. Faith is not necessary as a duty; yet it may be necessary (I think) as a means, that is, our natural misery may be such as can no other way be cured (but this concerns not us that have heard of Christ) 7.