The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

Though they walked in continual danger of the wrath of God, and knew he
could lay them in the dust, and cast them into hell in a moment; yet would
they run upon all this. O the labor it costs sinners to be damned! Sobriety,
with health and ease, they might have had at a cheaper rate; yet they will
rather have gluttony and drunkenness, with poverty, shame, and sickness.
Contentment they might have, with ease and delight; yet they will rather
have covetousness and ambition, though it costs them cares and fears, labor
of body and distraction of mind. Though their anger be self-torment, and
revenge and envy consume their spirits; though uncleanness destroy their
bodies, estates, and good names; yet will they do and suffer all this, rather
than suffer their souls to be saved. With what rage will they lament their
folly, and say, "Was damnation worth all this cost and pains? Might I not
have been damned on free cost, but I must purchase it so dearly? I thought I
could have been saved without so much ado, and could I not have been
destroyed without so much ado? Must I so laboriously work out my own
damnation, when God commanded me to ‘work out my own salvation?' If I
had done as much for heaven as I did for hell, I had surely had it. I cried out
of the tedious way of godliness, and the painful course of self-denial; and yet
I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan and for death. Had I loved
Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures, and profits, and honors; and thought
on him as often, and sought him as painfully, O how happy had I now been!
How justly do I suffer the flames of hell for buying them so dear, rather than
have heaven, when it was purchased to my hands!"
O that God would persuade thee, reader, to take up these thoughts now,
for preventing the inconceivable calamity of taking them up in hell as thy
own tormentor! Say not that they are only imaginary. Read what Dives
thought, being in torments. As the joys of heaven are chiefly enjoyed by the
rational soul in its rational actings, so must the pains of hell be suffered. As
they will be men still, so will they feel and act as men.
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