A27017:2060
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.
Doth not every creature love their like? why, my soul? art thou like to flesh• or gold? or stately buildings? art thou like to meat and drink, or clothes? wilt thou love no higher then thy horse or swine? hast thou nothing better to love then they? what is the beauty that thou hast so admired? canst thou not even wink or think it all into darkness or deformity? when the night comes, it is nothing to thee, while thou hast gazed on it, it hath withered away; a Botch or Scab, the wrinkles of consuming sickness, or of age, do make it as loathsome as it was before delightful; suppose but that thou sawest that beautiful carcass lying on the Bier, or rotting in the grave, the skull digged up, and the bones scattered; where is now thy lovely object? couldst thou sweetly embrace it, when the soul is gone, or take any pleasure in it, when there is nothing left that's like thy self? Ah, why then dost thou love a skinful of dirt, and canst love no more the heavenly Glory? What thinkest thou? shalt thou love when thou comest there? when thou seest? when thou dost enjoy? when the Lord shall take thy carcass from the grave, and make thee shine as the Sun in glory, and when thou shalt everlastingly dwell in the blessed presence? shalt thou then love, or shalt thou not? is not the place, a meeting of lovers? is not the life a state of love? is it not the great marriage day of the Lamb? when he will embrace and entertain his Spouse ⟨p. 803⟩with love? is not the employment there the work of love? where the souls with Christ do take their fill?1 O then, my soul, begin it here; be sick of love now▪ that thou mayest be well with love there; keep thy self now in the love of God (Jude 21.) and let neither life nor death,2 nor any thing separate thee from it, and thou shalt be kept in the fullness of love for ever, and nothing shalt embitter or abate thy pleasure, for the Lord hath prepared a city of love, a place for the communicating of love to his chosen, and those that love his Name shall dwell there, Psal. 69.36