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. VIII.* 1.1

8. BUt the great aggravation of this misery, will be its Eternity. That when a thousand millions of ages are past, their Torments are as fresh to begin as the first day. If there were any hope of an end, it would ease them to foresee it; but when it must be for ever,* 1.2 that thought is intollerable: much more will the misery it self be so. They were never weary of sinning, nor ever would have been, if they had lived eternally upon earth; And now God will not be weary of plaguing them. They never heartily repented of their sin; and God will never repent him of their sufferings; They broke the Lawes of the eternal God, and therefore shall suffer eternal pu∣nishment; They knew it was an Everlasting Kingdom which they refused when it was offered them, and therefore what wonder if they be everlastingly shut out of it; It was their immortall souls that were guilty of the trespass, and therefore must immortally suffer the pains. O now what happy men would they think themselves, if they might have layen still in their graves, or continued dust, or suffered no worse then the gnawing of those worms! O that they might but there lye down again! What a mercy now would it be to dye? And how will they call and cry out for it? O death whither art thou now gone? Now come and cut off th••s doleful life! O that these pains would break my heart, and end my being! O that I

might once at last dye! O that I had never had a beeing!—These groanes will the thoughts of Eternity wring from their hearts. They were wont to think the Sermon long, and prayer long; how long then will they think these Endless torments? What difference is there betwixt the length of their pleasures, and of their paines? The one continued but a moment, but the other endureth through all eternity. O that sinners would lay this thought to heart! Remem∣ber how Time is almost gone: Thou art standing all this while at the door of Eternity; and death is waiting to open the door, and put thee in: Go sleep out yet but a few more nights, and stir up and down on earth a few more dayes, and then thy nights and dayes shall end; thy thoughts, and cares, and pleasure, sand all, shall be devoured by eternity: thou must enter upon that state which shall never be changed. As the Joyes of Heaven are beyond our conceiving, so also are the pains of Hell. Everlasting Torment is unconceivable Torment.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 8.
• * 1.2

  Horrendo modo fit miseris mors sine morte, finis sine fin•• de∣fectus sine defectu; quia mors semper vi∣vit, et finis semper in∣cipit, et defectus deficere nescit. Mors perimit et non extin∣guit, dolor cruciat, sed nullatenus pavorem fugat: flamma comburit sed nequ••quam tenebras excutit. Gregor Moral. lib. 9.