The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

good, that love to evil, that violence of passion, which they had on earth. It is
true, their understandings will be much cleared by the ceasing of former
temptations, and experiencing the falsehood of former delusions but they
have the same dispositions still, and fain would they commit the same sins, if
they could: they want but opportunity. There will be a greater difference
between these wretches and the glorified Christian, than there is betwixt a
toad and the sun in the firmament. The rich man's purple and fine linen, and
sumptuous fare, did not so exalt him above Lazarus while at his gate, full of
sores.
2. They shall have no comfortable relation to God, nor communion with
him. "As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," but said unto
him, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways:" so God
will abhor to retain them in his household. He will never admit them to the
inheritance of his saints, nor endure them to stand in his presence; but "will
profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
They are ready now to lay as confident claim to Christ and heaven as if they
were sincere, believing saints. The swearer, the drunkard, the whoremonger,
the worldling can say, Is not God our Father as well as yours? But when
Christ separates his followers from his foes, and his faithful friends from his
deceived flatterers, where, then, will be their presumptuous claim? Then they
shall find that God is not their Father, because they would not be his people.
As they would not consent that God, by his Spirit, should dwell in them, so
the tabernacle of wickedness shall have no fellowship with him, nor the
wicked inhabit the city of God. Only they that walked with God here shall
live and be happy with him in heaven. Little does the world know what is the
loss of that soul who loses God! What a dungeon would the earth be if it had
lost the sun! what a loathsome carrion the body, if it had lost the soul! yet all
these are nothing to the loss of God. As the enjoyment of God is the heaven
of the saints, so the loss of God is the hell of the ungodly; and as the
enjoying of God is the enjoying of all, so the loss of God is the loss of all.
68