A27017:958
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 6 › Section 14
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.
SECT. XIV.
113. Consider; They that trifle in the way to Heaven, do but lose all their Labour, when serious endeavours do obtain their End. The Proverb is, As good never a whit, as never the better. If two be running in a race, he that runs slowest had as good never have run at all, for now he loseth the prize and his labour both.2 Many like Agrippa are but Almost Christians, will find in the end they shall be but Almost Saved. God hath set the rate at which the Pearl must be bought; if you bid a penny less then that rate, you had as good bid nothing. As a man that is lifting at some weighty thing, if he put too almost strength enough, but yet not sufficient, it is as good he had put too none at all, for he doth but lose all his labour. Oh how many Professors of Christianity will find this true to their sorrow? Who have had a mind to the ways of God, and have kept up a dull task of duty, and plodded on in a formal lifeless profession, but never came to serious Christianity? How many a duty have they lost, for want of doing them throughly, and to the purpose? Perhaps their place in Hell may be the easier, and so their labour is not lost; but as to the obtaining of Salvation it is all lost. Many shall seek to enter, and not be able; who if they had striven,3 might have been able. Oh therefore put to a little more diligence and strength, that all be not in vain that you have done already.
113. COnsider; They that trifle in the way to Heaven, do but lose all their Labour, when serious endeavors do obtain their End. The Proverb is, As good never a whit, as never the better. If two be running in a race, he that runs slowest had as good never have run at all, for now he loseth the prize and his labour both.