A27017:188
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.
1. And well may the Coming of Christ be reckoned in to his peoples Glory,1 and annumerated with those ingredients that compound this precious Antidote of Rest: For to this end is it intended; and to this end is it of apparent Necessity. For his peoples sakes he sanctified himself to his office: For their sakes he came into the world, suffered, dyed, rose, ascended: And for their sakes it is that he will Return. Whether his own exaltation, or theirs, were his *primary Intention, is a Question (though of seeming usefulness, yet) so unresolved (for ought I have found) in Scripture, that I dare not scan it, for fear of pressing into the Divine Secrets, and approaching too near the inaccessible Light. I find Scripture mentioning both ends distinctly and conjunctly, but not comparatively. This is most clear, that to this end will Christ come again, to receive his ⟨p. 46⟩people to himself, that where he is, there they may be also, John 14.3. The Bridegrooms departure was not upon divorce: He did not leave us with a purpose to return no more; He hath left pledges enough to assure us: We have his Word in pawn, his many Promises, his Sacraments, which show forth his death till he Come; and his Spirit, to direct, sanctify, and comfort, till he Return. We have frequent tokens of Love from him, to show us, he forgets not his Promise, nor us. We behold the forerunners of his coming, foretold by himself, daily come to pass. We see the figtree put forth her branches,3 and therefore know the Summer is nigh. We see the fields white unto Harvest: And though the Riotous World say, Our Lord will be long a coming; Yet let the Saints lift up their heads, for their Redemption draweth nigh. Alas, fellow Christians, what should we do, if our Lord should not Return? What a case are we here left in?4 What? Leave us among Wolves, and in the Lyons den, among a generation of Serpents, and here forget us? Did he buy us so dear, and then cast us off so? To leave us sinning, suffering, groaning, dying daily, and come no more at us? It cannot be; Never fear it: It cannot be. This is like our unkind dealing with Christ, who when we feel our selves warm in the world, care not for coming at him: But this is not like Christ dealing with us. He that would come to suffer, will surely come to Triumph: And he that would come to purchase, will surely come to possess. Alas, where else were all our hopes?