A27017:571
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.
The sense of the place (which the whole context if you view it deliberately will show you, seems to me to be this; As if Christ had said; While you believed not the Testimony of the Prophets, yet there was hope: The Testimony of John Baptist might have convinced you; yea, when you believed not John, yet you might have been convinced by my own Doctrine: Yea, though you did not believe my Doctrine, yet there was hope you might have been convinced by my Miracles: But when you accuse them to be the works of Beelzebub, and ascribe the work of the Divine Power, or Spirit, to the Prince of Devils, what more hope? I will after my Ascension send the Holy Ghost upon my Disciples, that they may work Miracles to convince the world, that they who will believe no other Testimony, may yet through this believe; But if you sin against this Holy Ghost (that is, if they will not believe for all these Miracles) (for the Scripture frequently calls▪ Faith by the name of Obedience, and Unbelief by the name of sin,) there is no other more convincing Testimony left, and so their sin of (unbelief) is incurable, and consequently unpardonable: And therefore he that speaketh against the son of Man (that is, denieth his Testimony of himself) it shall be forgiven him (if he yet believe by this Testimony of the Spirit) but they that continue unbelievers for all this (and so reproach the Testimony that should convince them, as you do) shall never be forgiven (because they cannot perform the condition of forgiveness.)
The sense of the place (which the whole context if you view it deliberately will shew you, seems to me to be this; As if Christ had said; While you believed not the Testimony of the Prophets, yet there was hope: The Testimony of John Baptist might have convinced you; yea, when you believed not John, yet you might have been convinced by my own Doctrine: Yea, though you did not believe my Doctrine, yet there was hope you might have been convinced by my Miracles: But when you accuse them to be the works of Beelzebub, and ascribe the work of the Divine Power, or Spirit, to the Prince of Devils, what more hope? I will after my Ascention send the Holy Ghost upon my Disciples, that they may work Miracles to convince the world, that they who will believe no other Testimony, may yet through this believe; But if you sin against this Holy Ghost (that is, if they will not believe for all these Miracles) (for the Scripture frequently calls▪ Faith by the name of Obedience, and Unbelief by the name of sin,) there is no other more convincing Testimony left, and so their sin of (unbelief) is incurable, and consequently unpardonable: And therefore he that speaketh against the son of Man (that is, denieth his Testimony of himself) it shall be forgiven him (if he yet believe by this Testimony of the Spirit) but they that continue unbelievers for all this (and so reproach the Testimony that should convince them, as you do) shall never be forgiven (because they cannot perform the condition of forgiveness.)