A27017:297
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.
Eighthly.8 Another excellency of our Rest will be this, That it will be absolutely perfect and complete; and this both in the sincerity and universality of it.1 We shall then have Joy without sorrow, and Rest without weariness: As there is no mixture of our corruption with our Graces, so no mixture of sufferings with our solace: there is none of those waves in that Harbour, which now so toss us up and down: We are now sometime at the Gates of Heaven, and presently almost as low as Hell; we wonder at those changes of Providence toward us, being scarcely two days together in a like condition. To day we are well, and conclude the bitterness of death is past; to morrow sick, and conclude we shall shortly perish by our distempers; to day in esteem, to morrow in disgrace; to day we have friends, to morrow none; to ⟨p. 102⟩day in gladness, to morrow in sadness; na• ▪ we have Wine and Vinegar in the same Cup, and our pleasantest Food hath a taste of the Gall.3 If Revelations should raise us to the third Heaven, the messenger of Satan must presently buffet us, and the prick in the flesh will fetch us down: But there is none of this unconstancy, nor mixtures in Heaven.4 If perfect Love cast out fear, then perfect Joy must needs cast out sorrow; and perfect happiness exclude all the relics of misery.2 There will be an universal perfecting of all our parts and powers, and a universal removal of all our evils.1 And though the positive part be the sweetest, and that which draws the other after it, even as the rising of the Sun excludes the darkness;2 yet is not the negative part to be slighted, even our freedom from so many and great Calamities. Let us therefore look over these more punctually, and see what it is that we shall there Rest from. In general, It is from all evil. Particularly, First, from the evil of Sin; secondly, and of suffering.