N17286:17
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.
And though the sense of the text includes in the word rest, all that ease and safety which a soul, wearied with the burden of sin and suffering, and pursued by law, wrath and conscience, hath with Christ in this life, the rest of grace: yet because it chiefly intends the rest of eternal glory, I shall confine my discourse to this.
And though the sense of the text includes in the word rest, all that ease and safety which a soul, wearied with the burden of sin and suffering, and pursued by law, wrath and conscience, hath with Christ in this life, the rest of grace: yet because it chiefly intends the rest of eternal glory, I shall consine my discourse to this.
The rest here in question, is, the most happy estate of a christian, having obtained the end of his course; or, it is the perfect endless fruition of GOD by the perfected saints, according to the measure of their capacity, to which their souls arrive at death: and both soul and body most fully after the resurrection and final judgment.
1. I call it the estate of a christian, to note both the active and passive fruition, wherein a christian's blessedness lies, and the established continuance of both. Our title will be perfect, and perfectly cleared; ⟨p. 9⟩ourselves, and so our capacity perfected; our possession and security for its perpetuity perfect; our reception from GOD perfect; and therefore our fruition of him, and consequently our happiness, will then be perfect. And this is the estate which we now briefly mention, and shall afterwards more fully describe.