A27017:333
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. XVI.1
- 1§ 16.
8. WE shall Rest also from all our own personal sufferings,8 whether natural and ordinary, or extraordinary from the afflicting hand of God. And though this may seem a small thing, to those that live in continual ease, and abound in all kind of prosperity; yet me thinks, to the daily afflicted soul, it should make the fore-thoughts of Heaven delightful: And I think we shall meet with few of the Saints, but will say, That this is their own case. O, the dying life that we now live? As full of sufferings, as of days and hours! We are the Carcasses that all Calamities prey upon: As various as they are, each one will have a snatch at us; and be sure to devour a morsel of our comforts: When we bait our Bulls and Bears, we do but represent our own condition; whose lives are consumed under such assaults, and spent in succession of fresh encounters. All Creatures have an enmity against us, ever since we made the Lord of all our enemy. And though we are reconciled by the blood of the Covenant, and the price is paid for our full deliverance; yet our Redeemer sees it fit, to leave this measure of misery upon us, to make us know for what we are beholden, and to mind us of what we would else forget; to be serviceable to his wise and gracious designs, and advantageous to our full and final Recovery. He hath sent us as Lambs among Wolves; and sure there is little Rest to be expected. As all our Senses are the inlets of sin; so are they become the inlets of our sorrow. Grief creeps in at our eyes, at our ears, and almost every where: It seizeth upon our head, our hearts, our flesh, our Spirits, and what part doth escape it? Fears do devour us, and darken our Delights, as the Frosts do nip the tender Buds: Cares do consume us, and feed upon our Spirits, as the scorching Sun doth wither the delicate Flowers. Or, if any Saint or Stoic have fortified his inwards against these, yet is he naked still without; ⟨p. 126⟩