A27017:1706
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.
All the Question will be about the affairs of Church and State? Is not this worth our minding? to see what things will come to? and how God will conclude our differences?
Answ. So far as they are considered as the providences of God, and as they tend to the settling of the Gospel, and Government of Christ, and so to the saving of our own, and our posterities souls, they are well worth our diligent observation; but these are only their relations to eternity. Otherwise I should look up on all the stirs and commotions in the world, but as the busy gadding of a heap of Ants, or the swarming of a nest of Wasps or Bees: The spurn of a mans foot destroys all their labour; or as an Interlude or Tragedy of a few hours long: They first quarrel, and then fight, and let out one another's blood, and bring themselves more speedily, and violently to their graves; which however they could not long have delayed, and so come down, and the Play is ended: And the next generation succeeds them in their madness, and make the like bustle in the world for a time; and so they also come down, and lie in the dust. Like the Roman Gladiators, that would kill one another by the hundreds, to make the beholders a solemn show; or as the young men of Joab and Abner, that must play before them, by stabbing one another to the heart, and fall down and dye, and there is an end of the sport. And is this worth a wise mans observance?
Answ. So far as they are considered as the providences of God, and as they tend to the setling of the Gospel, and Government of Christ, and so to the saving of our own, and our posterities souls, they are well worth our diligent observation; but these are onely their relations to eternity. Otherwise I should look up on all the stirs and commotions in the world, but as the busie gading of a heap of Ants, or the swarming of a nest of Wasps or Bees: The spurn of a mans foot destroyes all their labor; or as an Enterlude or Tragedy of a few hours long: They first quarrel, and then fight, and let out one anothers blood, and bring themselves more speedily, and violently to their graves; which however they could not long have delayed, and so come down, and the Play is ended: And the next generation succeeds them in their madness, and make the like bustle in the world for a time; and so they also come down, and lie in the dust. Like the Roman Gladiatores, that would kill one another by the hundreds, to make the beholders a solemn shew; or as the young men of Joab and Abner, that must play before them, by stabbing one another to the heart, and fall down and dye, and there is an end of the sport. And is this worth a wise mans observance?