A27017:1771
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. VI.
- 1§. 6.
6. Another help is this, Make an advantage of every object thou seest, and of every passage of Divine providence, and of every thing that befalls in thy labour and calling, to mind thy soul of its approaching Rest. As all providences and creatures are means to our Rest, so do they point us to that as their end. Every creature hath the name of God and of our final Rest written upon it; which a considerate believer may as truly discern, as he can read upon a post or hand in a cross way, the name of the Town or City which it points to. This spiritual use of creatures and providences, is Gods great End in bestowing them on man; And he that overlooks this End, must needs rob God of his chiefest praise, and deny him the greatest part of his thanks. The Relation that our present mercies have to our great Eternal mercies, is the very quintessence and spirits of all these mercies. Therefore do they loose the very spirits of their mercies, and take nothing but the husks and bran, who do overlook this Relation, and draw not forth the sweetness of it in their contemplations. Gods sweetest dealings with us at the present, would not be half so sweet as they are, if they did not intimate some further sweetness. As our selves have a fleshly and a spiritual substance, so have our mercies a fleshly and spiritual use, and are fitted to the nourishing of both our parts. He that receives the carnal part and no more, may have his body comforted by them, but not his soul. It is not all one to receive six pence merely as six pence, and to receive it in earnest of a thousand pound; though the sum be the same, yet I trow the relation makes a wide difference. Thou takest but the bear earnest, and overlookest the main sum, when thou receivest thy mercies, and forgettest thy crown. O therefore that Christians were skilled in this Art! You can open your Bibles, and read there of God and of Glory: O learn to open the creatures, and to open the several passages of providence, and to read of God and Glory there. Certainly by such a skilful industrious improvement, we might have a fuller taste of Christ and Heaven, in every bit of bread that we eat, and in every draught of Beer that we drink, then most men have in the use of the Sacrament. If thou prosper in the world, and thy labour succeed, let it make thee more sensible of thy perpetual prosperity: