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. I.

I Know many of the wicked will be ready to think, If this be all, they do not much care; they can bear it well enough: what care they for losing the perfections above? What care they for losing God, his favor, or his presence? they lived merrily without him on earth, and why should it be so grievous to be without him hereafter? And what care they for being deprived of that Love, and Joy, and Praising of God? They never tasted sweet∣ness in things of that nature? Or what care they for being de∣prived of the Fellowship of Angels and Saints? They could spare their company in this world well enough; and why may they not be without it in the world to come? To make these men there∣fore to understand the truth of their future condition, I will here annex these two things.

1. I will shew you why this forementioned loss will be in∣tollerable, and will be most tormenting then, though it seem as nothing now.

2. I will shew you what other losses will accompany these; which though they are less in themselves, yet will now be more sensibly apprehended by these sensual men. And all this from Rea∣son, and the truth of Scripture.

1. Then, That this loss of heaven will be then most tormenting, may appear by these considerations following.

First,* 1.2 The Understandings of the ungodly will be then cleared, to know the worth of that which they have lost. Now they lament not their loss of God, because they never knew his ex∣cellency, nor the loss of that holy imployment and society, for they were never sensible what they were worth: A man that hath lost a Jewel, and took it but for a common stone, is never troubled at his loss; but when he comes to know what he lost, then he la∣menteth it: Though the understandings of the damned wil not then be sanctified (as I said before) yet will they be cleared from a mul∣titude of errors which now possess them, and mislead them to their ruine; They think now that their honor with men, their estates, their pleasures, their health and life, are better worth their studies and ••••••our, then the things of another world which they never saw; but when these things which had their hearts, have left them in misery, and given them the slip in their greatest need, when they come to know by experience the things which before they did but read and hear of, they will then be quite in another minde. They would not believe that water would drown, till they were in the sea, nor that the fire would burn, till they were cast into it; but when they feel it they will easily believe: All that error of their minde which made them set light by God, and abhor his worship, and vilifie his people, will then be confuted and removed by ex∣perience; their knowledg shall be increased,* 1.3 that their sorrows may be increased: as Adam by his fall did come to the knowledg of Good and Evil, so shall all the damned have this increase of knowledg: As the knowledg of the excellency of that Good which they do enjoy, and of that Evil which they have escaped, is neces••sary to the glorified Saints, that they may rationally and truly en∣joy their glory, so is the knowledg of the greatness of that good which they have lost, and of that evil which they have procured to themselves, necessary to the tormenting of these wretched sinners; for as the joyes of heaven are not enjoyed so much by the bodily

senses, as by the intellect and affections; so it is by understanding their misery, and by affections answerable, that the wicked shal en∣dure the most of their torments; for as it was the soul that was the chiefest in the guilt (whether positively, by leading to sin, or onely privatively▪ in not keeping the Authority of Reason over Sense, the Understanding be guilty, I will not now dispute) so shall the soul be chiefest in the punishment; doubtless those poor souls would be (comparatively) happy, if their understandings were wholly taken from them, if they had no more knowledg then Ideots, or bruit beasts; or if they knew no more in hell, then they did upon earth, their loss and misery would then less trouble them.

Though all knowledg be Physically good, yet some may be neither Mo∣rally good, nor good to the owner.

Therefore when the Scripture saith of the wicked, that They shall not see life, Joh 3.36. nor see God, Heb. 12.14. The meaning is, they shall not possess life, or see God as the Saints do, to enjoy him by that sight, they shall not see him with any comfort, nor as their own, but yet they shall see him to their terror, as their enemy; and (I think) they shall have some kinde of eternal knowledg or beholding of God and heaven, and the Saints that are there happy, as a necessary ingredient to their unutterable calamity: The rich man shall see Abraham and La∣zarus, but afar off;* 1.4 as God beholdeth them afar off, so they shal they behold God afar off: Oh how happy men would they now think themselves, if they did not know that there is such a place as hea∣ven, or if they could but shut their eyes, and cease to behold it: Now when their knowledg would help to prevent their misery, they will not know, or will not read and study, that they may know: Therefore then when their knowledg will but feed their consum∣ing fire, they shall know whether they will or no; as Toads and Serpents know not their own vile and venemous nature, nor the excellent nature of man or other creatures, and therefore are nei∣ther troubled at their own, nor desirous of ours; so is it with the wicked here; but when their eyes at death shall be suddenly open∣ed, then the case will be suddenly altered. They are now in a dead sleep, and they dream that they are the happiest men in the world, and that the godly are but a company of precise fools, and that ei∣ther heaven will be theirs as sure as anothers, or else they may make shift without it, as they have done here; but when death smites these men, and bids them awake, and rowseth them out of

their pleasant dreams, how will they stand up amazed and con∣founded? How will their judgments be changed in a moment? and they that would not see, shall then see, and be ashamed.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 1.
• * 1.2

  Ignis geh••nnae, luc••bit miseris ut vid. ant unde doleant, ad augmentum, & non ad consola∣tion••m n•• vi∣deant unde gaudeant. Isidor. de de summo. bon. lib. 1.
• * 1.3

  Eccles. 1.18.
• * 1.4

  Luk 16.23. Psal. 138 6.