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. VI.

4. MEditation putteth reason in its Authority and prehemi∣nence. It helpeth to deliver it from its captivity to the senses, and setteth it again upon the throne of the soul. When Reason is silent, it is usually subject: For when it is asleep, the senses domineer: Now consideration wakeneth our reason from its sleep; till it rowse up it self as Sampson, and break the bonds of sensuality wherewith it is fettered: and then as a Gyant refreshed with wine, it bears down the delusions of the flesh before it. What strength can the Lyon put forth when he is asleep? What is the King more then another man, when he is once deposed from his throne and authority? When men have no better Judg then the flesh; or when the joyes of heaven go no further then their fan∣tasie, no wonder if they work but as common things: sweet things to the eye, and beautiful things to the ear, will work no more then bitter and deformed: every thing worketh in its own place,

and every sense hath its proper object: Now it is spiritual reason excited by Meditation, and not the fantasie or fleshly sense, which must favor and judg of those superior Joyes. Consideration exalt∣eth the objects of faith, and disgraceth comparatively the objects of sense. The most inconsiderate men are the most sensual men.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 6.