A27017:197
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.
What if we go out of the troubles and stirs of the world, and enter into those Chambers of Dust, and the doors be shut upon us, and we hide our selves, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be over-past? 1Yet, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place, to punish the Inhabitants of the Earth for their iniquity: 2and then the Earth shall disclose us, and the Dust shall hide us no more. As sure as we awake in the Morning, when we have slept out the Night; so sure shall we then awake. And what if in the mean time we must be loathsome Lumps, cast out of the sight of men, as not fit to be endured among the Living? What if our Carcasses become as vile as those of the Beasts that perish? What if our bones be digged up, and scattered about the pit brink, and worms consume our flesh? Yet we know our Redeemer liveth, and shall stand the last on earth, and we shall see him with these eyes. And withal, it is but this flesh that suffers all this; which hath been a Clog to our Souls so long: And what is this comely piece of flesh, which thou art loath should come to so base a state? It is not an hundred years since it was either Nothing, or an invisible Something. And is not most of it for the present, if not an Appearing Nothing, seeming something to an imperfect sense; yet at best a Condensation of Invisibles, which that they may become sensible, are become more gross, and so more vile? Where is all that fair mass of flesh and blood which thou hadst, before sickness consumed thee? Annihilated it is not: only resolved into its Principles: show it me if thou canst. Into how small a handful of dust, or ashes, will that whole mass, if buried or burnt, return? And into how much smaller can a Chemist reduce that little, and leave thee all the rest Invisible? What if God prick the Bladder, and let out the wind that puffs thee up to such a substance? and resolve thee into thy Principles? Doth not the seed thou sowest dye, before it spring? and what cause have we to be tender of this body? Oh, what care, what labour, what grief, and sorrow, hath it cost us? How many a weary, painful, tedious hour? Oh my Soul, Grudge not that God should disburden thee of all this! Fear not lest he should free thee from thy fetters! Be not so loath that he should break down thy prison, and let thee go! What though some terrible Earthquake go before!
What if we go out of the troubles and stirs of the world, and enter into those Chambers of Dust, and the doors be shut upon us, and we hide our selves, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be over-past?