A27017:326
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.
SECT. XV.
§ 15.
7. WE shall then rest from all our dolorous hours, and sad thoughts which we now undergo,7 by participating with our Brethren in their Calamities. Alas if we had nothing upon our selves to trouble us, yet what heart could lay aside sorrows; that lives in the sound of the Churches sufferings? If Job had nothing upon his body to disquiet him, yet the message of his Children's overthrow, must needs grieve the most patient soul. Except we are turned into steel or stone, and have lost both ⟨p. 122⟩Christian and humane affection,2 there needs no more then the miseries of our Brethren, to fill our hearts with successions of sorrows, and make our lives a continued lamentation. The Church on Earth is a mere Hospital, which way ever we go we hear complaining, and into what corner soever we cast our eyes, we behold objects of pity and grief: some groaning under a dark understanding, some under a senseless heart, some languishing under unfruitful weakness, and some bleeding for miscarriages and wilfulness: and some in such a Lethargy that they are past complaining: some crying out of their pining Poverty; some groaning under pains and Infirmities; and some bewailing a whole Catalogue of Calamities, especially in days of common Sufferings, when nothing appears to our sight, but ruin: Families ruined; Congregations ruined; Sumptuous Structures ruined; Cities ruined; Country ruined; Court ruined; Kingdoms ruined; Who weeps not when all these bleed? As now our friends distresses are our distresses, so then our friends deliverance will be part of our own deliverance. How much more joyous now to Join with them in their days of Thanksgiving and gladness, then in the days of Humiliation in sackcloth and ashes? How much then more joyous will it be to join with them in their perpetual praises and triumphs, then to hear them bewailing now their wretchedness, their want of light, their want of life, of joy, of assurance, of grace, of Christ, of all things? How much more comfortable to see them perfected, then now to see them wounded, weak, sick, and afflicted? To stand by the bed of their languishing as silly comforters, being overwhelmed and silenced with the greatness of their griefs, conscious of our own disability to relieve them, scarce having a word of comfort to refresh them: or if we have, alas, they be but words, which are a poor relief, when their sufferings are real: