A27017:347
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
THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. › Chapter 8: The People of God described.
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.
CHAP. VIII. The People of God described.
1SECT. I.
- 1§ 1.
Having thus performed my first task of Describing and explicating the Saints Rest, it remains, that now I proceed unto the second, and show you what these [People of God] are, and why so called; for whom this Blessed Rest remaineth. And I shall suit my speech unto the quality of the subject. While I was in the Mount, I felt it was good being there, and therefore tarried there the longer; and were there not an extreme disproportion between my conceivings, and that Subject, yet much longer had I been. And could my capacity have contained, what was there to be seen, ⟨p. 135⟩I could have been contented to have built me a Tabernacle there: Can a prospect of that happy Land, be tedious? or a discourse of eternity be too long? except it should detain us from actual possession, and our absence move us to impatience. But now I am descended from Heaven to Earth, from God to man; and must discourse of a Worm not six foot long, whose life is but a span, and his years as a post that hasteth by; my discourse also shall be but a span, and in a brief touch I will post it over. Having read of such a high and unspeakable Glory, a stranger would wonder for what rare Creature this Mighty Preparation should be, and expect some illustrious Sun should now break forth; but behold only a shell full of Dust, animated with an invisible rational soul, and that rectified with as unseen a restored power of Grace; and this is the Creature that must possess such Glory. You would think, it must needs be some deserving piece, or one that bringeth a valuable price: But behold, One that hath nothing, and can deserve nothing, and confesseth this; yet cannot of himself confess it neither, yea, that deserveth the contrary misery, and would if he might, proceed in that deserving; but being apprehended by Love, he is brought to him that is All, and hath done, and deserved All, and suffered for all that we deserved; and most affectionately receiving him, and resting on him, he doth, in, and through him, receive All this. But let us see more particularly yet, what these People of God are.