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 ...

* 1.1SECT. XIV.

NInthly, Yet much more will it add unto their torment, when they consider that all this-was their own doings, and that they most wilfully did procure their own destruction: Had they been forced to sin whether they would or no, it would much abate the rage of their consciences; Or if they were punished for an∣other mans transgressions; or if any other had been the chiefest author of their ruine; But to think, that it was the choice of their own will; and that God had set them in so free a condition, that none in the world could have forced them to sin against their wils, this will be a griping thought to their hearts. What (thinks this wretched creature) had I not enemies enough in the world, but I must be an enemy to my self? God would neither give the devil nor the world so much power over me, as to force me to commit the least transgression: if I had not consented, their temprations had been in vain, they could but intice me, it was my self that yielded, and that did the evil; and must I needs lay hands upon mine own soul? and imbrew my hands in my own blood? who should pitty me, who pittied not my self, and who brought all this upon mine own head? When the enemies of Christ did pull down his Word and Laws, his Ministry and Worship, the news of it did rejoyce me; when they set up dumb, or seducing, or ungodly Ministers, in stead of the faithful Preachers of the Gospel, I was glad to have it so; when the Minister told me the evil of

my ways, and the dangerous state that my soul was in, I took him for mine enemy, and his Preaching did stir up my hatred against him and every Sermon did cut me to the heart, and I was ready to gnash my teeth in indignation against him. If a drunken Ceremonious Preacher did speak me fair, or read the Common Prayer, or some toothless Homily instead of a searching plain-dealing Sermon, why, this was according to my own heart; never was I vvilling of the means of mine own welfare; never had I so great an enemy as my self; never did God do me any good, or offer me any for the wel∣fare of my soul, but I resisted him, and vvas utterly unwilling of it: he hath heaped mercy upon me, and renewed one deliverance after another, and all to intice my heart unto him, and yet vvas I never heartily willing to serve him: He hath gently chastized me, and made me groan under the fruit of my disobedience, and yet, though I promised largely in my affliction, I was never unfainedly vvilling to obey him: Never did a good Magistrate attempt a Reformation, but I vvas against it, nor a good Minister labour the saving of the Flock, but I vvas ready to hinder as much as I could; nor a good Christian labour to save his soul, but I vvas ready to discourage and hinder him to my power, as if it vvere not enough to perish alone, but I must draw all others to the same destruction. O vvhat cause hath my vvife, my children, my servants, my neighbours, to curse the day that ever they saw me! As if I had been made to resist God, and to destroy my own and other mens souls, so have I madly behaved my self. Thus will it gnaw upon the hearts of these wretches, to remember that they were the cause of their own undoing; and that they vvilfully and obsti∣nately persisted in their Rebellion, and were meer Voluntiers in the service of the Devil; They vvould venture, they vvould go on, they would not hear him ••hat spoke against it: God called to them, to hear and stay, but they vvould not; Men called, Con∣science called,* 1.2 and said to them (as Pilates vvife,) Have nothing to do vvith that hateful sin, for I have suffered many things be∣cause of it, but they vvould not hear, their Will vvas their Law, their Rule and their Ruine.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 14.
• * 1.2

  Matt. 27.19