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 ...

* 1.1SECT. XII.

10. COmpare also the Glory of the Heavenly Kingdom, with the glory of the imperfect Church on earth, and with the Glory of Christ in his state of Humiliation: And you may easily conclude, If Christ under his fathers wrath, and Christ standing in the room of sinners, were so wonderful in excellencies, what then is Christ at the Fathers right hand? And if the Church un∣der her sins and enemies, have so much beauty; something it will have at the marriage of the Lamb. How wonderful was the Son of God in the forme of a servant? When he is born, the Heavens must proclaime him by miracles: A new Star must appear in the firmament, and fetch men from remote parts of the world to wor∣ship him in a manger;* 1.2 The Angels and Heavenly host must de∣clare his Nativity, and solemnize it with praising and glorifying God. When he is but a childe he must dispute with the Doctors and confute them. VVhen he sets upon his office, his whole life is a wonder. Water turned into wine, thousands fed with five loaves and two fishes; multitudes following him to see his miracles; The lepers cleansed, the sick healed, the lame restored, the blinde receive their sight, the dead raised; if we had seen all this, should we not have thought it wonderful? The most desperate diseases cured with a touch, with a word speaking; the blinde eyes with a little clay and spittle, the Devil departing by Legions at his command; the windes and the seas obeying his VVord; are not all these wonderful? Think then, How wonderful is his Celestial Glory? If there be such cutting down of boughs, and spreading of Garments, and crying Hosanna, to one that comes into Jerusalem riding on an Asse; what will there be when he comes with his An∣gels in his Glory? If they that heard him preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, have their hearts turned within them, that they re∣turne and say, Never man spake like this Man: Then sure they that behold his Majesty in his Kingdom, will say, There was never glory like this Glory. If when his enemies come to apprehend him, the word of his mouth doth cast them all to the ground; if when he is dying, the earth must tremble, the vail of the Temple rent, the sun in the firmament must hide its face, and deny its light to the sinful world, and the dead bodies of the Saints arise, and the stand∣ers

by be forced to acknowledge, Verely this was the Son of God: O then what a day will it be, when he will once more shake, not the Earth only, but the Heavens also, and remove the things that are shaken? when this Sun shall be taken out of the firmament, and be everlastingly darkened with the brightness of his Glory? when the dead must all arise and stand before him; and all shall acknow∣ledge him to be the Son of God, and every tongue confess him to be Lord and King? If when he riseth again, the Grave and Death have lost their power, and the Angels of Heaven must roll away the stone, and astonish the watchmen till they are as dead men, and send the tidings to his dejected Disciples; If the bolted doors cannot keep him forth; If the sea be as firme ground for him to walk on; If he can asend to Heaven in the sight of his Disciples, and send the Angels to forbid them gazing after him: O what Power, and Dominion and Glory then is he now possessed of! and must we for ever possess with him! Yet think further; Are his very servants enabled to do such miracles when he is gone from them? Can a few poor fishermen and tent-makers and the like Mechanicks, cure the lame, and blinde, and sick? open their prisons? destroy the disobedient? raise the dead? and astonish their adversaries? O then what a world will that be, where every one can do greater works then these? and shall be highlier ho∣noured then by the doing of wonders? It were much to have the Devils subject to us: but more to have our names written in the book of Life. If the very preaching of the gospel be accompanied with such power, that it will pierce the heart, and discover its secrets, bring down the proud, and make the stony sinner tremble If it can make men burne their books▪ sel their lands, bring in the price, and lay it down at the Preachers feet; If it can make the spirits of Princes stoop, and the Kings of the Earth resigne their Crownes, and do their homage to Jesus Christ; If it can subdue Kingdome, and convert thousands, and turn the world thus upside down; If the very mention of the Judgment and Life to come, can make the Judge on the bench to tremble, when the prisoner at the bar doth preach this Doctrine; O what then is the Glory of the Kingdom it self? What an absolute Dominion hath Christ and his Saints? And if they have this Power and Honour in the day of their abasement, and in the time appointed for their suffering and disgrace, what then will they have in their full advancement?

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 12.
• * 1.2

  Cum Christo semper vive∣mus facti per ipsum filii Dei: cum ipso exul∣tabimus semper ipsius cruore ••parati. Eri∣rmus Christiani cum Christo simul gloriosi, de Deo patre beati, de perpe∣tua voluptate laetantes, semper in conspectu Dei, & agentes Deo gratias semper: Ne∣que enim poterit nisi & laetus esse sem∣per, & gratus, qui cum morti fuisset obnox∣us, factus est de immortalitate securus. Cy∣prian. ad De∣metriad.