A27017:617
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. PART II. › Chapter 6 › Section 2
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. II.1
- 1§. 2.
Secondly, Consider next what strange providences have been exercised for particular Churches. I cannot stand to heap up particular examples: You may find them frequent in the Histories of the Church. What deliverances, Cities and Countries have had, what Victories those Princes have had, who have been their Defenders: as Constantine the great, and many since: and what apparent manifestations of Gods hand in all. Yea, he that reads but the Histories of latter times, where wars have been managed ⟨p. 226⟩for defence of the Doctrine of this Scripture, and obedience thereto, against the corruptions and persecutions of *Rome, may see most apparent discoveries of the hand of God, yea even in those wars where the enemy hath at last prevailed, as in Bohemia, in Zisca's time, in France at Merindol and Cabriers. The History of Belgia will show it clearly: so will the strange preservation of the poor City of Geneva. But all these are further from us: God hath brought such experiments home to our hands. If we should overlook the strange providences that produced the reformation in the times of Henry the eight, Edward the sixth, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and King James; yet even the strange passages of these years past, have been such, that might silence an Atheist, or an Antiscripturist; To see the various straits that God hath brought his people through! The unlikely means by which he still performed it. The unexpected events of most undertakings! The uncontrived and unthought-of ways which men have been lead in! The strange managing of our counsels and our actions! The plain appearance of an extraordinary providence, and the plain interposition of an Almighty arm, which hath appeared in almost every fight, even where it went against us was this apparent; and our overthrows were but preparatives to some eminent good; and the means of carrying on the designs of God, whose Issues showed us what we could not see before. We have as plainly discerned the success of prayer, and our unsuccessfulness when we grew secure, almost, as if we had stood by Moses, Aaron and Hur in the Mount. How confident were the enemies still before their overthrows? When did we win a field (for the most part) but we lost it first? How little did we prosper when our Armies were fresh, and flourishing, and strong? When was it that we were revived, but when we took our selves for dead?