A27017:744
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.
And first,1 if this Rest be for none but this people of God, What doleful tidings is this to the ungodly world? That there is so much Glory, but none for them: so great joys for the Saints of God, while they must consume in perpetual sorrows! Such Rest for them that have obeyed the Gospel; while they must be Restless in the flames of hell! If thou who Readest these words art in thy soul a stranger to Christ, and to the holy nature and life of his people, and art not one of them who are before described, and shalt live and dye in the same condition that thou art now in; Let me tell thee, I am a messenger of the saddest tidings to thee, that ever yet thy ears did hear: That thou shalt never partake of the joys of Heaven, nor have the least taste of the Saints eternal Rest;2 I may say to thee, as E•ud to E•gon; I have a message to thee from God: but it is a mortal message; against the very life and hopes of thy soul, That as true as the word of God is true, thou shalt never see the face of God with comfort. This sentence I am commanded to pass upon thee, from the word: Take it as thou wilt, and scape it if thou canst. I know thy humble and hearty subjection to Christ would procure thy escape: and if thy heart and life were throughly changed, thy relations to Christ and eternity would be changed also, he would then nowledge thee for one of his people, and justify thee from all things that could be charged upon thee, and give thee a portion in the inheritance of his chosen, And if this might be the happy success of my message, I should be so fa from repining like