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 ...

SECT. IV.* 1.1

4. AGain, as the Understandings and Consciences of sinners will be strengthened against them, so also will their Af∣fections be then more lively and enlarged then now they are: As

Judgment will be no longer so blinded, nor Conscience stifled and bribed, as now it is; so the Affections will be no longer so stupified and dead. A hard heart now makes Heaven and Hell to seem but trifles; And when we have shewed them everlasting Glory and Misery, they are as men half asleep, they scarce take notice what we say, our words are cast as stones against a hard wall, which fly back in the face of him that casteth them, but make no impression at all where they fall We talk of terrible astonish∣ing things, but it is to dead men, that cannot apprehend it: We may rip up their wounds, and they never feel us; we speak to Rocks rather then to men, the earth will as soon tremble as they: O but when these dead wretches are revived, what passionate sensibility! what working Affections! what pangs of horror! what depth of sorrow will there then be! How violently will they fly in their own faces! How will they rage against their former mad∣ness! The lamentations of the most passionate wife for the loss of her husband, or of the tenderest mother for the loss of her children, will be nothing to theirs for the loss of heaven. O the self-accusing, and self-tormenting fury of those forlorn wretches! How they will even tear their own hearts, and be Gods Executio∣ners upon themselves! I am perswaded, as it was none but them∣selves that committed the sin, and themselves that were the onely meritorious cause of their sufferings, so themselves will be the chiefest executioners of those sufferings: God will have it so for the clearing of Justice, and the aggravating of their distress: even Satan himself, as he was not so great a cause of their sinning as themselves, so will he not be so great an instrument as themselves of their torment. And let them not think here, that if they must torment themselves, they will do well enough, they shall have wit enough to ease and favor themselves, and resolution enough to command down this violence of their passions: Alas poor souls, They little know what passions those will be! and how much be∣yond the power of their resolutions to suppress! Why have not lamenting, pining, self-consuming persons on earth so much wit or power as this? Why do you not thus perswade despairing soul, who lye as Spira, in a kinde of Hell upon earth, and dare not eat, nor drink, nor be merry, but torment themselves with continual terrors? Why do you not say to them, Sir, why will you be so mad, as to be your own Executioner? and to make your own life

a continual misery, which otherwise might be as joyful as other mens? Cannot you turn your thoughts to other matters, and ne∣ver think of Heaven or Hell? Alas, how vain are all these per∣swasions to him? how little do they ease him? you may as well perswade him to remove a mountain, as to remove these hellish thoughts that feed upon his spirit, it is as easie to him to stop the stream of the Rivers, or to bound the overflowing waves of the Ocean, as to stop the stream of his violent passions, or to restrain those sorrows that feed upon his soul. O how much less then can those condemned souls, who see the Glory before them which they have lost, restrain their heart-renting, self-tormenting Passions! So some direct to cure the Toothach, Do not think of it, and it will not grieve you; and so these men think to ease their pains in Hell: O, but the loss and pain will make you think of it whether you will or no. You were as Stocks or Stones under the threatnings, but you shall be most tenderly sensible under the ex∣ecution: O how happy would you think your selves then, if you were turned into Rocks, or any thing that had neither Passion nor Sense! O now how happy were you, if you could feel as lightly as you were wont to hear! and if you could sleep out the time of Execution, as you did the time of the Sermons that warned you of it! But your stupidity is gone, it will not be.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 4.