A27017:815
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. III. › Chapter 2 › Section 15
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.
Ahitophels reputation and his life must go together; even when they are struck blind by a Judgment of God,1 yet how painfully do the Sodomites grope and weary themselves to find the door? what cost and pains are the Idolatrous Papists at for their multifarious Will-worship?2 How unweariedly and unreservedly have the Malignant enemies of the Gospel among us, spent their estates and health, and limbs, and lives, to overthrow the power of Godliness, and set up Formality? to put out the light that should guide them to heaven? and how earnestly do they still prosecute it to the last? How do the Nations generally rage▪ and the people imagine a vain thing? The Kings of the Earth setting themselves, and the Rulers taking counsel together▪ against the Lord, and against his Christ? that they may break the bonds of his Laws asunder, and cast away the cords of his Government from them, though he that sitteth in heaven do laugh them to scorn, though the Lord have them in derision; though •e speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure, and resolve them that yet in despite of them all, He vvill set his King upon his holy Hill of Zion? Yet vvill they spend and tire out themselves as long as they are able to stir against the Lord. O how the reviews of this vvill feed the flames of Hell? With what rage vvill these damned wretches curse themselves? and say, Was damnation worth all my cost and pains? was it not enough that I perished through my negligence, and that I sit still while Satan played his game, but I must seek so diligently for my own perdition? Might I not have been damned on free-cost, but I must purchase it so dearly? I thought I could have been saved without so much ado; and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado? How well is all my care, and pains, and violence now requited? Must I work out so laboriously my own damnation, when God commanded me to work out my Salvation! O if I had done as much for Heaven, as I did for Hell, I had surely had it. I cried out of the tedious way of Godliness, and of the painful course of Duty and Self-denial; and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan, and for death. If I had loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures and profits, and honours, and thought on him as often, and sought him as painfully, O how happy had I now been!