A27017:1693
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.
SECT. XIII.
11. Consider;1 Should not our interest in Heaven, and our Relation to it, continually keep our hearts upon it? Besides that excellency which is spoken of before. Why there our Father keeps his court; Do we not call him our Father which art in Heaven: Ah ungracious unworthy children, that can be so taken up in their play below, as to be mindless of such a Father! Also there is ⟨p. 636⟩Christ our Head, our Husband, our Life: and shall we not look towards him, and send to him, as oft as we can, till we come to see him face to face? If he were by Transubstantiation in the Sacraments or other ordinances, and that as gloriously as he is in Heaven, then there were some reason for our lower thoughts: But when the Heavens must receive him till the restitution of all things; let them also receive our hearts with him. There also is our Mother, For Jerusalem which is above is that mother of us all, Gal. 4.26. And there are multitudes of our elder Brethren: There are our friends and our ancient acquaintance, whose society in the flesh we so much delighted in, and whose departure hence we so much lamented: And is this no attractive to thy thoughts? If they were within thy reach on earth, thou wouldst go and visit them; and why wilt thou not oftener visit them in Spirit? and rejoice beforehand to think of thy meeting them there again? Saith old Bullinger, Socrates gaudet sibi moriendū esse, propterea quod Homerum, Hesiodum & alios praestantissimos viros see visurum crederet; quanto magis ego gaudeo qui certus sum me visurum esse Christum servatorem meum, aeternum Dei filium, in assumtâ carne, & praeterea tot sanctissimos & eximios Patriarchas? &c. Socrates rejoiced that he should die, because he believed he should see Homer, Hesiod, and other excellent men; how much more do I rejoice, who am sure to see Christ my Saviour, the eternal Son of God, in his assumed flesh; and besides, so many holy and excellent men? When Luther desired to dye a Martyr, and could not obtain it, he comforted himself with these thoughts, and thus did write to them in prison, Vestra vincula mea sunt, vestri carceres & ignes mei sunt, dum confiteor & praedico vobisque simul compatior & congratulor; Yet this is my comfort, your Bonds are mine, your Prisons and Fires are mine, while I confess and Preach the Doctrine for which you suffer, and while I suffer and congratulate with you in your sufferings: