A27017:1973
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.
SECT. II.1
- 1§. 2.
1. GO too then:1 When thou settest thy self to meditate on the joys above, think on them boldly as Scripture hath expressed them: Bring down thy conceivings to the reach of sense. Excellency without familiarity, doth more amaze then delight us: Both Love and Joy are promoted by familiar acquaintance: When we go about to think of God and Glory in proper conceivings without these Spectacles, we are lost, and have nothing to fix our thoughts upon: We set God and Heaven so far from us, that our thoughts are strange, and we look at them as things beyond our reach, and beyond our line, and are ready to say, That which is above us, is nothing to us. To conceive no more of God and Glory, but that we cannot conceive them; and to apprehend no more, but that they are past our apprehension; will produce no more love, but this▪ To acknowledge that they are so far above us, that we cannot love them; and no more joy but this. That they are above our rejoicing. And therefore put Christ no further from you, then he hath put himself, least the Divine Nature be again inaccessible. Think of Christ as in our own nature glorified; think of our fellow Saints as men there perfected; think of the *City and State, as the Spirit hath expressed it, (only with the ⟨p. 760⟩Caution and Limitations before mentioned.) Suppose thou were now beholding this City of God; and that thou hadst been companion with John in his Survey of its Glory; and hadst seen the Thrones, the Majesty, the Heavenly Hosts, the shining Splendour which he saw. Draw as strong suppositions as may be from thy sense for the helping of thy affections: It is lawful to suppose we did see for the present, that which God hath in Prophecies revealed, and which we must really see in more unspeakable brightness before long. Suppose therefore with thy self thou hadst been that Apostles fellow-traveller into the Celestial Kingdom, and that thou hadst seen all the Saints in their White Robes, with Palms in their hands: Suppose thou hadst heard those Songs of Moses, and of the Lamb; or didst even now hear them praising and glorifying the Living God: If thou hadst seen these things indeed, in what a rapture wouldst thou have been? And the more seriously thou puttest this supposition to thy self, the more will the Meditation elevate thy heart.