A27017:2070
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.
I cannot here enjoy my parents, or my near and beloved friends without some delight: especially when I did too freely let out my affections to my friend, how sweet was that very exercise of my love! O what will it then be to live in the perpetual love of God! For brethren here to live together in Unity, how good and pleasant a thing is it? To see a family live in love: husband, wife, parents, children, servants, doing all in love to one another; To see a Town live together in love, without any envyings, brawlings, heart-burnings or contentions,1 scorns law-suits, factions or divisions; but every man loving his neighbour as himself, and thinking they can never do too much for one another, but striving to go beyond each other in love; O how happy and delectable a sight is this? O sweetest bands (saith Seneca) which bind so happily, that those that are so bound, do love their binders, and desire still to be bound more closely, and even reduced into one! O then, what a ⟨p. 810⟩blessed society will be the Family of Heaven? and those peaceable Inhabitants of the New Jerusalem? where is no division, nor dissimilitude, nor differing Judgments, nor disaffection, nor strangeness, nor deceitful friendship, never an angry thought or look, never a cutting unkind expression, but all are one in Christ, who is one with the Father,2 and live in the love of Love himself? Cato could say, That the soul of a Lover dwelleth in the person whom he loveth; and therefore we say, The soul is not more where it liveth and enlighteneth then where it loveth. How near then will my soul be closed to God, and how sweet must that conjunction be, when I shall so heartily, strongly, and uncessantly love him? As the Bee lies sucking and satiating her self with the sweetness of the Flower; or rather as the child lies sucking the Mothers breast, enclosed in her arms, and sitting in her lap; even so shall my loving soul be still feeding on the sweetness of the God of Love. Ah wretched, fleshly, unbelieving heart! that can think of such a day, and work, and life as this, with so low and dull and feeble joys! But my enjoying Joys will be more lively.
I cannot here enjoy my parents, or my neer and beloved friends without some delight: especially when I did too freely let out my affections to my friend, how sweet was that very exercise of my love! O what will it then be to live in the perpetual love of God! For brethren here to live together in Unity, how good and pleasant a thing is it? To see a family live in love: husband, wife, parents, children, servants, doing all in love to one another; To see a Town live together in love, without any envyings, brawlings, heart-burnings or contentions,