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. I.* 1.1

THe first task that I must here set thee, consists in the avoiding of some dangerous * 1.2 hinderances, which otherwise will keep thee off from this work, as they have done many a thousand souls before thee. If I shew thee briefly where the Rocks and Gulf do lie, I hope thou wilt beware. If I stick up a mark at every quicksand, I hope I need to say no more, to put thee by it. Therefore as thou valuest the comforts of a Heavenly conversation, I here charge thee from God, to beware most carefully of these impediments.

1. The first is, The living in a known unmortified sin. Observe this. O, what havock this will make in thy soul! O, the joyes that this hath destroyed! The blessed Communion with God, that this hath interrupted! The ruines it hath made amongst mens graces! The soul-strengthning duties that this hath hindred! And above all others, it is especially an enemy to this great duty.

Christian Reader, I desire thee in the fear of God, stay here a little, and search thy heart: Art thou one that hast used violence with thy conscience? Art thou a wilful neglecter of known du∣ties? either publike, private, or secret? Art thou a slave to thine appetite, in eating or ••rinking? or to any other commanding sense? Art thou a proud Seeker of thine own esteem? and a man that must needs have mens good opinion, or else thy minde is all in a combustion? Art thou a wilfully peevish and passionate per∣son? as if thou wert made of Tinder or Gun powder, ready to take fire at every word, or every wry look, or every supposed sleighting of thee? or every neglect of a complement or curtesie? Art thou a knowing deceiver of others in thy dealing? or one that hast set thy self to rise in the world? not to speak of greater sins, which all take notice of: If this be thy case, I dare say, Heaven and thy Soul are very great strangers: I dare say, thou art seldom in Heart with God; and there is little hope it should ever be bet∣ter, as long as thou continuest in these transgressions: These beams in thine eyes, will not suffer thee to look to Heaven; these will be a cloud between thee and God. When thou dost but attempt to study Eternity, and to gather comforts from the life to come, thy sin will presently look thee in the face, and say, These things belong not to thee: How shouldst thou take comfort from Heaven, who takest so much pleasure in the lusts of thy flesh? O, how this will damp thy joyes! and make the thoughts of that day, and state, to become thy trouble, and not thy delight! Every wilful sin that thou livest in, will be to thy comforts as water to the fire; when thou thinkest to quicken them, this will quench them; when thy heart begins to draw neer to God, this will presently come in thy minde, and cover thee with shame, and fill thee with doubting. Be∣sides (which is most to the point in hand) it doth utterly indispose thee and disable thee to this work: When thou shouldst wind up thy heart to Heaven, alas, its byassed another way; it is intangled in the lusts of the flesh, and can no more ascend in Divine Meditation, then the bird can flie, whose wings are clipt, or that is intangled in the Lime-twigs, or taken in the snare. Sin doth cut the very sinews of the soul; therefore, I say of this heavenly life, as Master Bolton saith of Prayer, Either it will make thee leave sinning, or sin will make thee leave it; and that quickly too: For these cannot con∣tinue together. If thou be here guilty, who readest this, I require

thee sadly to think of this folly. O man! what a life dost thou lose! and what a life dost thou chuse! what daily delights dost thou sell, for the swinish pleasure of a stinking lust! what a Christ! what a glory, dost thou turn thy back upon, when thou art going to the embracements of thy hellish pleasures! I have read of a Gallant addicted to uncleanness, who at last, meeting with a beau∣tiful Dame, and having enjoyed his fleshly desires of her, found her in the morning to be the dead body of one that he had former∣ly sinned with, which had been acted by the devil all night, and left dead again in the morning. Surely all thy sinful pleasures are suche. The devil doth animate them in the darkness of the night; but when God awakes thee, at the farther, at death, the deceit is vanished, and nothing left but a carkass to amaze thee, and be a spectacle of horror before thine eyes. Thou thinkest thou hast hold of some choice delight, but it will turn in thy hand (as Moses rod) into a Serpent; and then thou wouldst fain be rid of it, if thou knewest how; and wilt ••••ie from the face of it, as thou dost now embrace it: And shall this now dream thee from the high de∣lights of the Saints? If Heaven and Hell can meet together, and if God can become a lover of sin, the•••• maist them live in thy sin, and in the tastes of glory, and maist have a conversation in Hea∣ven, though thou cherish thy corruption. If therefore thou finde thy self guilty, never doubt on it, but this is the cause that estrangeth thee from Heaven: And take heed, least it keep out thee, as it keeps out thy heart; and do not say, but thou wast bid, Take heed. Yea, if thou be a man that hitherto hast escaped, and knowest no raigning sin in thy soul; yet let this warning move thee to prevention, and stir up a dread of this danger in thy spirit. As Hu••nius writes of himself, That hearing the mention of the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, it stirred up such fears in his spirit, that made him cry out. What if this should be my case? and so rouzed him to prayer and tryal. So think thou, though thou yet be not guilty, what a sad thing it were, if ever this should prove thy case: And therefore watch.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 1.
• * 1.2

  Ad illam vi∣a•••• requiritur, 1. Quod ho∣mo per virtuo∣sam assuefacti∣onem & grat∣am, sit radica∣tus in virtuti∣bus: Quod nullam delecta∣tionem ••abeat in appetitu vanae gloriae, in capiditate di∣vi••iarum, in concupiscentia oculorum & gule. 2. Requiritur internum silentium, ut non occupet se circa exteriora: Quid audicrit, vel viderit for is nihil curando, tanquam in somno occurrissent. 3. Amorosa adhaesio cum Deo: Vt onmia ejus, judicia, omnia facta, ••mnes doctrinas. cum veverentia amplectatur. 4. Quod nibil aliud quaerat, sedreputet sibi illum dil••ctum sufficientissimum, superexcellentem illum in corde suo diligat super omne quod potest videri, audiri, vel cogitari, vel imaginari: Quia totus amabilis, totus desiderabilis, &c. 5. Quod saepe reducat ad memorians perfectiones Dei, & illis intimè congratuletur. Gerson 3. part. in Alpha∣beto divini amoris, cap 14.