A27017:1915
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.
2. The next Grace or Affection to be excited, is Desire. The Object of it is Goodness considered as absent, or not yet attained. This being so necessary an attendant of Love, and being excited much by the same forementioned objective considerations, I suppose you need the less direction to be here added; and therefore I shall touch but briefly on this. If love be hot, I warrant you desire will not be cold.
2. THe next Grace or Affection to be excited, is Desire. The Object of it is Goodness considered as absent, or not yet attained. This being so necessary an attendant of Love, and being excited much by the same forementioned objective considerations, I suppose you need the less direction to be here added; and therefore I shall touch but briefly on this. If love be hot, I warrant you desire will not be cold.
When thou hast thus viewed the goodness of the Lord, and considered of the pleasures that are at his right hand; then proceed on with thy Meditation thus; Think with thy self, Where have I been? what have I seen? O the incomprehensible astonishing Glory! O the rare transcendent beauty! O blessed souls that now enjoy it! that see a thousand times more clearly, what I have seen but darkly at this distance, and scarce discerned through the interposing clouds! What a difference is there betwixt my state and theirs! I am sighing, and they are singing: I am sinning, and they are pleasing God: I have an ulcerated cancrous soul, like the loathsome bodies of Job or Lazarus, a spectacle of pity to ⟨p. 737⟩those that behold me; But they are perfect and without blemish: I am here entangled in the love of the world, when they are taken up with the love of God: I live indeed amongst the means of grace, and I possess the fellowship of my fellow-believers; But I have none of their immediate views of God, nor none of that fellowship which they possess; *They have none of my cares and fears: They weep not in secret: They languish not in sorrows; These tears are wiped away from their eyes: O happy, a thousand times happy souls! Alas, that I must dwell in dirty flesh, when my Brethren and companions do dwell with God! Alas, that I am lapped in earth, and tied as a mountain down to this inferior world; when they are got above the Sun, and have laid aside their lumpish bodies! Alas, that I must lye and pray and wait, and pray and wait as if my heart were in my knees; when they do nothing but Love and Praise, and Joy and Enjoy, as if their hearts were got into the very breast of Christ, and were closely conjoined to his own heart. How far out of sight and reach, and hearing of their high enjoyments do I here live; when they feel them, and feed and live upon them! What strange thoughts have I of God? What strange conceivings? What strange affections? I am fain to superscribe my best services, as the blind Athenians [To the unknown God] when they are as well acquainted with him, as men that live continually in his house; and as familiar in their holy praises, as if they were all one with him! What a little of that God, that Christ, that spirit, that life, that love, that joy have I! and how soon doth it depart and leave me in sadder darkness!