N17286:129
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: extracted from the works of Mr. Richard Baxter, by John Wesley, M.A. late fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.
Philadelphia: printed by Prichard & Hall, 1790
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.
Though we are reconciled by the blood of the covenant, and the price is paid for our full deliverance; yet our Redeemer sees fit to leave this measure of misery upon us, 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. As all our senses are the inlets of sin; so they are the inlets of 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 devour us, and darken our delights, as the frost nips the buds: cares feed upon our our spirits, as the scorching sun doth wither the delicate flowers. Or, if any hath fortified his inwards against these, yet he is naked still without.
Though we are reconciled by the blood of the covenant, and the price is paid for our full deliverance; yet our Redeemer sees fit to leave this measure of misery upon us, 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. As all our senses are the inle•s of sin; so they are the inlets of 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 devour us, and darken our delights, as the frost nips the buds: cares feed upon our our spirits, as the scorching sun doth wither the delicate flowers. Or, if any hath fortified his inwards against these, yet he is naked still without.
What tender pieces are these dusty bodies? What brittle glasses do we bear about us? And how many thousand dangers are they hurried through? And how hardly cured if once cracked? O the multitude of slender veins, of tender membranes, nerves, fibres, muscles, arteries; and all subject to obstructions, tensions, contractions, resolutions, ruptures, or one thing or other to cause their grief! Every one is a fit subject for pain, and fit to communicate that pain to the whole: but sin, and flesh, and dust, and pain, will all be left behind together.