A30566:877
Christ inviting sinners to come to him for rest
Christ inviting sinners to come to him for rest by Jeremiah Burroughs.Christ inviting sinners to come to him for rest by Jeremiah Burroughes.
London: printed by Peter Cole, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
When a man is going a Journey of great consequence, and he is gone out of the way, and God by his providence hath brought him into his right way, O! what ease is in his spirit: Before, when he was out of the way, what distraction and disquietness of heart, but now when he comes into the way, Oh! what ease and quiet is in his spirit, so I say, this were ease and rest enough of spirit to know, that whereas before the soul was wandering in the path of death, now it is in the path of life. But I tell you further then so, that when thou art performing of holy duties, and exercising of the grace of God; in the performance of those duties, thou art not only in the way of eternal life, but thou art in eternal life it self, not only in the way to the kingdom, but in the kingdom, not only in the way to heaven, but in heaven, it is eternal life, This is eternal life to know thee the true God, and thy son whom thou hast sent into the world. And that place in the Epistle of St. John he speaks of a murderer, one that did hate his brother, in the first of John 3.15. Whosoever hateth his brother, is a murderer, and you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Then it appears, that one that loves his brother, and is Godly and gracious, hath eternal life abiding in him, for that must needs follow, if this be the evil condition of a wicked man, that hates his brother, that he hath not eternal life abiding in him, then by the rule of contraries, it must needs be a truth, that he that hath holiness and loves his brother, he hath eternal life, abiding in him, and therefore such a one he hath eternal life already to come down to him, & he is in heaven already. So the scripture makes grace but the beginning of glory, it is no other but the very beginning of heaven in the soul. And therefore in that golden chain in Rom. 8.30. Whom God hath predestinated them he also hath called & whom he hath called them he hath justified, & whom he hath justified them he hath also glorified. Mark but where is the link of sanctification, ⟨p. 281⟩It is not, whom he hath predestinated he hath called, and whom he hath called he hath sanctified, and whom he hath sanctified he hath glorified. One would have thought the chain should have gone along in that link, but there is no mention of sanctification, Why?