A27017:823
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 3 › Section 2
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. II.
- 1§. 2.
First, They shall lose their present presumptuous conceit and belief, of their Interest in God, and of his favour towards them, and of their part in the merits and sufferings of Christ. This false Belief doth now support their spirits, and defend them from the terrors that else would seize upon them; and fortify them against the fears of the wrath to come. Even as true Faith doth afford the soul a true and grounded support and consolation, and enableth us to look to Eternity with undaunted courage: So also a false ungrounded Faith doth afford a false ungrounded comfort; and abates the trouble of the considerations of Judgment and damnation. But alas, this is but a palliate salve, a deceitful comfort; what will ease their trouble when this is gone? When they can Believe no longer, they will be quieted in mind no longer, and rejoice no longer. If a man be near to the greatest mischief, and yet strongly conceit that he is in safety; his conceit may make him as cheerful as if all were well indeed, till his misery comes, and then both his conceit and comforts vanish. An ungrounded persuasion of happiness, is a poor cure for real misery. When the mischief comes, it will cure the mis-belief; but that belief can neither prevent nor cure the mischief. If there were no more to make a man happy, but to believe that he is so, or shall be so, happiness would be far commoner then now it is like to be. It is a wonder, that any man who is not a stranger both to Gospel and Reason, should be of the Antinomian faith in this; who tell us that faith is but the believing that God loveth us, and that our sins are already pardoned through Christ; that this is the chief thing that Ministers should preach; that our Ministers preach not Christ, because they preach not this; that every man ought thus to believe, but no man to question his Faith, whether he ⟨p. 301⟩