A27017:1909
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.
why his Hands were pierced, his Head was pierced, his Sides were pierced, his Heart was pierced with the sting of thy sins, that by these marks thou mightest always know him; Dost thou not remember when he found thee lying in thy blood,1 and took pity on thee, and dressed thy wounds, and brought thee home, and said unto thee, Live? Hast thou forgotten since he wounded himself to cure thy wounds, and let out his own blood to stop thy bleeding? Is not the passage to his heart yet standing open? If thou know him not by the face, the voice, the hands;2 if thou know him not by the tears and bloody sweat, yet look nearer, thou mayest know him by the Heart: That broken-healed heart is his, that dead-revived Heart is his, that soul-pitying melting Heart is his: Doubtless it can be none's but his, Love and Compassion are its certain Signatures: This is He, even this is He, who would rather dye then thou shouldst dye, who chose thy life before his own, who pleads this blood before his Father, and ⟨p. 734⟩makes continual intercession for thee; if he had not suffered, O what hadst thou suffered? what hadst thou been if he had not Redeemed thee? whether hadst thou gone if he had not recalled thee? there was but a step between thee and Hell, when he stepped in, and bore the stroke; He slew the Bear, and rescued the prey, he delivered thy soul from the roaring Lyon; And is not here yet fuel enough for Love to feed on? Doth not this Lodestone snatch thy heart unto it? and almost draw it forth of thy breast? Canst thou read the History of Love any further at once? Doth not thy throbbing heart here stop to ease it self? and dost thou not, as Joseph, seek for a place to weep in? or do not the tears of thy Love bedew these lines? Go on then, for the field of Love is large, it will yield thee fresh contents for ever, and be thine eternal work to behold and love: thou needest not then want work for thy present Meditation. Hast thou forgotten the time when thou wast weeping, and he wiped the tears from thine eyes? when thou wast bleeding, and he wiped the blood from thy soul? when pricking cares and fears did grieve thee, and he did refresh thee, and draw out the Thorns? Hast thou forgotten when thy folly did wound thy soul, and the venomous guilt did seize upon thy heart? when he sucked forth the mortal poison from thy soul, though therewith he drew it into his own?