A27017:1906
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. The first Affection to be acted is Love; the object of it (as I have told you) is Goodness: Here then, here Christian, is the Soul reviving part of thy work; Go to thy Memory, thy Judgment, and thy Faith, and from them produce the excellencies of thy Rest; take out a copy of the Record of the Spirit in Scripture, and another of the sentence registered in thy Spirit, whereby the transcendent glory of the Saints is declared: Present these to thy affection of Love; open to it the Cabinet that contains the Pearl; show it the Promise, and that which it assureth: Thou needest not look on Heaven through a multiplying Glass; open but one Casement, that Love may look in: Give it but a glimpse of the back parts of God, and thou wilt find thy self presently in another world: Do but speak out, and Love can hear, do but reveal these things, and Love can see: Its the brutish love of the world that is blind; Divine love is exceeding quick sighted. Let thy Faith, as it were, take thy heart by the hand, and show it the sumptuous buildings of thy Eternal Habitation, and the Glorious Ornaments of thy Fathers house; show it those Mansions which Christ is preparing, and display before it the Honours of the Kingdom: Let Faith lead thy heart into the presence of God, and draw as near as possibly thou canst, and say to it, *Behold, the Ancient of days; the Lord Jehovah, whose name is, I am: This is he who made the Worlds with his Word; this is the Cause of all Causes, the Spring of Action, the Fountain of Life, the first Principle of the Creatures Motions; who upholds the Earth, who ruleth the Nations, who disposeth of events, and subdueth his foes, who governeth ⟨p. 732⟩the depths of the great Waters, and boundeth the rage of her swelling Waves; who ruleth the Winds, and moveth the Orbs, and causeth the Sun to run its race, and the several Planets to know their courses: This is he that loved thee from Everlasting, that formed thee in the Womb, and gave thee this Soul; who brought thee forth, and showed thee the Light, and ranked thee with the chiefest of his earthly Creatures; who endued thee with thy understanding, and beautified thee with his gifts; who maintaineth thee with life, and health, and comforts; who gave thee thy preferments, and dignified thee with thy honours, and differenced thee from the most miserable and vilest of men: Here, O here, is an object now worthy thy love;