A27017:568
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 5
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. V.
- 1§. 5.
2. And as I have evidently discovered the full certainty of this Testimony of man concerning the forementioned matter of Fact: So I will show you why I choose this for my first and main Argument; and also that no man can believe without the foresaid Humane Testimony. First then, I demanded with my self; By what Argument did Moses and Christ evince to the world the verity of their Doctrine? And I find, it was chiefly by this of Miracles; and sure Christ knew the best Argument to prove the divine Authority of his Doctrine, and that which was the best then, is the best still. If our selves had lived in the days of Christ, should we have believed a poor man to have been God, the Saviour, the Judg of the world, without Miracles to prove this to us? Nay, would it have been our duty to have believed? Doth not Christ say, If I had not done the Works that no man else could do, ye had not had sin? That is, Your not believing me to be the Messiah, had been no sin: For no man is bound to believe that which was never convincingly revealed:1 And (to tell you my thoughts, If you will but pardon the novelty of the Interpretation) I think that this is it which is called the sin against the Holy Ghost, when men will not be convinced by Miracles, that Jesus is the Christ. That which some Divines judg to be the sin against the Holy Ghost (an opposing the known Truth only out of malice against it) Its a Question whether Humane Nature be capable of it. And whether all Humane opposition to Truth be not through ignorance, or prevalency of the sensual lusts? And so all malice against Truth, is only against it as conceived to be Falsehood, or else as it appeareth an enemy to our sensual desires; Else how doth mans Understanding, as it is an Understanding, naturally choose Truth (either real or appearing) for its object? So that I think none can be guilty of malice against Truth as Truth; And to be at emnity with Truth for opposing our sensuality, is a sin that every man in the world hath been in some measure guilty of: And indeed our Divines do so define the sin against the Holy Ghost, that I could