A27017:1678
The Saints' Everlasting Rest
The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is showed 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 ...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 ...
London: printed by Rob. White for Thomas Underhil and Francis Tyton, 1650
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1SECT. IX.
- 1§. 9.
7. Consider, It is he that hath his conversation in heaven, who is the profitable Christian to all about him? with him you may take sweet counsel, and go up to the celestial House of God. ⟨p. 629⟩When a man is in a strange Country, far from home, how glad is he of the company of one of his own Nation? how delightful is it to them to talk of their Country, of their acquaintance, and the •••airs of their home? why, with a heavenly Christian thou mayest have such discourse, for he hath been there in the Spirit, and can tell thee of the Glory and Rest above. What pleasant discourse was it to Joseph to talk with his Brethren in a strange Land; and to enquire of his Father, and his brother Benjamin? Is it not so to a Christian to talk with his Brethren that have been above, and enquire after his Father, and Christ his Lord? when a worldling will talk of nothing but the world, and a Politician of nothing but the affairs of the State, and a mere Scholar of Humane learning, and a common Professor, of Duties, and of Christians: the Heavenly man will be speaking of Heaven, and the strange Glory which his Faith hath seen, and our speedy and blessed meeting there. I confess, to discourse with able men, of clear Understandings and piercing Wits, about the controverted difficulties in Religion, yea, about some Criticisms in Languages and Sciences, is both pleasant and profitable; but nothing to this Heavenly discourse of a Believer. O, how refreshing and savoury are his expressions? how his words do pierce, and melt the heart? how they transform the hearers into other men? that they think they are in Heaven all the while? How doth his Doctrine drop as the Rain, and his Speech distil as the gentle Dew? as the small Rain upon the tender Herb? and as the showers upon the Grass? while his tongue is expressing the Name of the Lord, and ascribing greatness to his God?