A27017:925
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 5 › 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.
Do we persuade our people, as those that know the terrors of the Lord,1 should do? Do we press Christ and Regeneration, and Faith, and Holiness, as men that believe indeed, that without these they shall never have Life? Do our bowels yearn over the Ignorant, and the Careless, and the obstinate Multitude,2 as men that believe their own Doctrine? that our dear people must be eternally damned if they be not timely recovered? When we look them in the faces, do our hearts melt over them, lest we should never see their faces in Rest? Do we, as Paul, tell them weeping, of their fleshly, and earthly disposition? and teach them *publicly,4 and from house to house night and day with tears? And do we entreat them, as if it were indeed for ⟨image 206⟩their lives and salvation? that when we speak of the Joys and Miseries of another world, our people may see us affected accordingly, and perceive that we do indeed mean as we speak? Or rather, do we not study words, and neat Expressions, that we may approve our selves able men in the judgment of critical Hearers? and speak so formally, and heartlessly of Eternity, that our people can scarcely think that we believe our selves? or put our tongues into some affected pace? and our language into some forced Oratorical strain? as if a Ministers business were of no more weight, but to tell them a smooth tale of an hour long, and so look no more after them till the next Sermon! Seldom do we fit our Sermons, either for Matter or Manner to the great end, our peoples salvation; but we sacrifice our studies to our own credit, or our peoples content, or some such base inferior end; Carnal discretion doth control our fervency; It maketh our Sermons like beautiful Pictures, which have much pains and cost bestowed upon them, to make them comely and desirable to the eye; but life, or heat, or motion there is none: Surely as such a conversation is an Hypocritical conversation; so such a Sermon is as truly an hypocritical Sermon. O the formal frozen lifeless Sermons which we daily hear preached upon the most weighty piercing Subjects in the world! How gently do we handle those sins, which will handle so cruelly our poor peoples souls? And how tenderly do we deal with their careless hearts? not speaking to them as to men that must be wakened or damned.