A27017:556
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 4 › Section 3
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.
They have been a multitude, almost innumerable. 8. And these of almost every Country under heaven. And let any man tell me, How all these, or the chief of these could possibly meet, to consult about the depraving of the History of the Scripture? And whether it were possible if such a multitude were so ridiculously dishonest, yet that they could carry on such a vain cdesign with secrecy and success? 9. Also the after divulgers of the Miracles of the Gospel, could have no more self-advancing ends for a long time then the first Witnesses. 10. Nay, it ruined them in the world, as it did the first; So that let any man judg, whether there be any possibility, that so many millions of so many Nations should ruinate themselves, and give their bodies to be burned, merely to deprave those Scriptures which they do profess. 11. Consider also when this sacred History was so dispersed over the world, whether the cancelling and extirpation of it were not a thing impossible, especially by those means that were attempted. 12. Nay, There is no History of the Enemies that doth mention any universal abolition or depravation of these Records: *When was the time, and where was the place, that all the Bibles in the world were gathered together, and consumed with fire, or corrupted with Forgery? Indeed Julian thought by prohibiting the Schools of Learning to the children of Christians, to have extirpated Christianity, but Christ did quickly first extirpate him. 13. All the Copies of those sacred Writings do yet accord (in all things material) which are found through the world. And consider then if they had been depraved, whether multitudes of Copies, which had escaped that depravation, would not by their diversity or contradiction have bewrayed the rest? 14. It was a matter of such a heinous quality, both by the sentence of the Law, and in the Consciences of the Preservers and Divulgers of it, for to add or diminish the least title, that they ⟨p. 202⟩thought it deserved eternal damnation. And I refer it to any man of reason, whether so many thousands of men through the world, could possibly venture upon eternal torment, as well as upon temporal death, and all this to deceive others by depraving the Laws which they look to be judged by; or the History of those Miracles which were the grounds of their Faith? Is not the contrary somewhat more then probable? 15.