A27017:2003
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. XI.1
- 1§. 11.
9 Compare the joy which thou shalt have in heaven, with that which the Saints of God have found in the way to it, and in the foretastes of it; when thou seest a heavenly man rejoice, think what it is that so affects him? it is the property of fools to rejoice in toys, and to laugh at nothing; but the people of God are wiser then so, they know what it is that makes them glad: When did God ever reveal the least of himself to any of his Saints, but the joy of their hearts were answerable to the Revelation? Paul was so lifted up with what he saw, that he was in danger of being exalted above measure, and must have a prick in the flesh to keep him down; when Peter had seen but Christ in his Transfiguration, which was but a small glimpse of his glory, and had seen Moses and Elijah, talking with him, what a rapture and ecstasy is he cast into? Master (saith he) it is good for us to ⟨p. 774⟩be here, let us here build three Tabernacles, one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah, as if he should say, O let us not go down again to yonder persecuting rabble; let us not go down again to yonder drossy dirty world, let us not return to our mean and suffering state, is it not better that we stay here now we are here? is not here better company? and sweeter pleasures? but the Text saith, He knew not what he said, Matth. 17.4. When Moses had been talking with God in the Mount, it made his Visage so shining and glorious, that the people could not endure to behold it, but he was fain to put a veil upon it: No wonder then if the face of God must be veiled, till we are come to that state where we shall be more capable of beholding him,1 when the veil shall be taken away, and we all beholding him with open face, shall be turned into the same Image from glory to glory. Alas, what is the backparts which Moses saw from the clefts of the Rock, to that open face which we shall behold hereafter? what is the Revelation to John in Patmos, to this Revelation which we shall have in heaven? How short doth Pauls Vision come of the Saints Vision above with God? How small a part of the glory which we must see, was that which so transported Peter in the Mount? I confess these were all extraordinary foretastes, but little to the full Beatifical Vision: