The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

enjoying the glory which they have lost; and about them will be only devils
and damned souls. How will they look back and say, "Are all our feasts, and
games, and revels come to this?" Those ears, which were accustomed to
music and songs, shall hear the shrieks and cries of their damned
companions; children crying out against their parents, who gave them
encouragement and example in evil; husbands and wives, masters and
servants, ministers and people, magistrates and subjects, charging their
misery upon one another, for discouraging in duty, conniving at sin, and
being silent when they should have plainly foretold the danger. Thus will
soul and body be companions in wo.
7. Far greater will these torments be, because without mitigation. In this
life, when told of hell, or if conscience troubled their peace, they had
comforters at hand; their carnal friends, their business, their company, their
mirth. They could drink, play, or sleep away their sorrows. But now all these
remedies are vanished. Their hard, presumptuous, unbelieving heart was a
wall to defend them against trouble of mind. Satan was himself their
comforter, as he was to our first mother. "Hath God said, ye shall not eat? Ye
shall not surely die. Doth God tell you that you shall die in hell? There is no
such matter; God is more merciful. Or, if there be a hell, what need you fear
it? Are not you Christians? Was not the blood of Christ shed for you?" Thus
as the Spirit of Christ is the Comforter of the saints, so Satan is the comforter
of the wicked. Never was a thief more careful lest he should awake the
people when he is robbing a house, than Satan is not to awaken a sinner. But
when the sinner is dead, then Satan hath done flattering and comforting.
Which way, then, will the forlorn sinner look for comfort? They that drew
him into the snare, and promised him safety, now forsake him, and are
forsaken themselves. His comforts are gone, and the righteous God, whose
forewarnings he made light of; will now make good his word against him to
the last tittle.
8. But the greatest aggravation of these torments will be their eternity.
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