A27017:2013
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.
1SECT. XIIII.
- 1§. 14.
12. Lastly, compare the joys which thou shalt have above, with those foretastes of it, which the Spirit hath given thee here. Judg of the Lyon by the Paw, and of the Ocean of Joy, by that drop which thou hast tasted: Thou hast here thy strongest refreshing comforts, but as that man in Hell would have had the water to cool him;1 a little upon the tip of the finger for thy tongue to taste; yet by this little thou mayest conjecture at the quality of the whole. Hath not God sometime revealed himself extraordinarily to thy soul, and let a drop of glory fall upon it? Hast thou not been ready to say, O that it might be thus with my soul continually, and that I might always feel what I feel sometimes! Didst thou never cry out with the Martyr after thy long and doleful expectations, He is come, he is come? Didst thou never in a lively Sermon of Heaven, nor in thy retired contemplations on that blessed State, perceive thy drooping spirits revive, and thy dejected heart to lift up the head? and the light of Heaven to break forth to thy soul, as a morning Star, or as the dawning of the day? Didst thou never perceive thy heart in these duties, to be as the child that Elisha revived? to wax warm within thee, and to recover life? Why think with thy self then, what is this earnest to the full Inheritance? Alas, all this light that so amazeth, and rejoiceth me, is but a Candle lighted from Heaven, to lead me thither through this world of darkness! If the light of a Star in the night be such, or the little glimmering at the break of the day; what then is the light of the Sun at noontide? If some godly men that we read of, have been overwhelmed with joy, till they have cried out, Hold Lord, stay thy hand; I can bear no more! like weak eyes that cannot endure too great a light. O what will then be my joys in Heaven, when as the object of my joy shall be the most glorious God, so my soul shall be made capable of seeing, and enjoying him; and though the light be ten thousand times greater then the Suns, yet my eyes shall be able for ever to behold it?