A27017:205
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.
The third part of this Prologue to the Saints Rest,1 is the public and solemn process at their Judgment where they shall first themselves be acquit and justified; and then with Christ judg the World. Public I may well call it: for all the world must there appear. Young and old, of all estates, and Nations, that ever were from the Creation to that day,2 must here come and receive their doom. The judgment shall be set, and the books opened & the book of Life produced; and the Dead shall be judged out of those things which were written in the books, 3according to their works: and whosoever is not found written in the book of Life, is cast into the lake of fire. O Terrible! O Joyful Day! Terrible to those that have let their Lamps go out,4 and have not watched, but forgot the coming of their Lord! Joyful to the Saints, whose waiting and hope was to see this day! Then shall the world behold the goodness and severity of the Lord:5 on them who perish, severity; but to his chosen, goodness. When every one must give account of his stewardship: And every Talent of Time, Health, Wit, Mercies, Afflictions, Means, Warnings, must be reckoned for: When the sins of youth, and those which they had forgotten, and their secret sins, shall all be laid open before Angels and men: When they shall see all their Friends, wealth, old delights, all their confidence and false hopes of Heaven to forsake them: When they shall see the Lord Jesus whom ⟨p. 58⟩they neglected, whose Word they disobeyed, whose Ministers they abused, whose Servants they hated, now sitting to judg them: When their own Consciences shall cry out against them, and call to their Remembrance all their misdoings; Remember at such a time, such or such a sin: at such a time Christ sued hard for thy Conversion; the Minister pressed it home to thy heart; thou wast touched to the quick with the Word; thou didst purpose and promise returning, and yet thou casts off all. When an hundred Sermons, Sabbaths, Mercies, shall each step up and say, I am witness, against the Prisoner, Lord; I was abused, and I was neglected! Oh which way will the wretched sinner look? Oh who can conceive the terrible thoughts of his heart? Now the world cannot help him; his old companions cannot help him; the Saints neither can nor will: only the Lord Jesus can; but Oh there's the Soul-killing misery, he will not: