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. I.

1 1.2FIfthly. The fifth part of this Directory is, To shew you what advantages you should take, and what helps you should use to make your Meditations of Heaven more quicken∣ing, and to make you taste the sweetness that is therein. For that is the main work that I drive at through all; that you may not stick in a bare thinking, but may have the lively se••••e of all upon your hearts: And this you will finde to be the most difficult part of the work, and that its easier barely to think of Heaven a whole day, then to be lively and affectionate in those thoughts one quarter of an hour. Therefore let us yet a little further consider what may be done, to make your thoughts of Hea∣ven to be piercing, affecting, raising thoughts.

Here therefore you must understand, That the meer pure work of Faith, hath many disadvantages with us, in comparison of the work of Sense. Faith is imperfect, for we are renewed but in part; but Sense hath its strength, according to the strength of the flesh: Faith goes against a world of resistance, but Sense doth not. Faith

is supernatural, and therefore prone to declining, and to languish both in the habit and exercise, further then it is still renewed and excited; but Sense is natural, and therefore continueth while na∣ture continueth. The object of Faith is far off; we must go as far as Heaven for our Joyes: But the object of Sense is close at hand. It is no easie matter to rejoyce at that which we never saw, nor ever knew the man that did see it; and this upon a meer promise which is written in the Bible; and that, when we have nothing else to rejoyce in, but all our sensible comforts do fail us: But to rejoyce in that which we see and feel, in that which we have hold of, and pos∣session already; this is not difficult. Well then, what should be done in this case? Why sure it will be a point of our Spiritual Prudence, and a singular help to the furthering of the work of Faith, to call in our * 1.3 Sense to its assistance: If we can make us friends of these usual enemies, and make them instruments of raising us to God, which are the usual means of drawing us from God, I think we shall perform a very excellent work. Sure it is both possible and lawful, yea, and necessary too, to do something in this kinde; for God would not have given us, either our Senses themselves, or their usual objects, if they might not have been serviceable to his own praise, and helps to raise us up to the apprehension of higher things: And it is very considerable, How the Holy Ghost doth condescend in the phrase of Scripture, in bringing things down to the reach of Sense; how he sets forth the excellencies of Spiritual things, in words that are borrowed from the objects of Sense; how he describeth the glory of the New Jerusalem, in expressions that might take even with flesh it self: As that the Streets and Buildings are pure Gold, that the Gates are Pearl, that a Throne doth stand in the midst of it, &c. Revel. 21. and 22. That we shall eat and drink with Christ at his Table in his Kingdom; that he will drink with us the fruit of the Vine new, that we shall shine as the Sun in the Firmament of our Father▪ These, with most other descriptions of our glory, are expressed as if it were to the very flesh and sense; which though they are all improper and figurative, yet doubtless, if such expressions had not been best, and to us necessary, the Holy Ghost would not have so frequently used them: He that will speak to mans understanding, must speak in mans language, and speak that which he is capable to conceive. And doubtless as the Spirit doth speak, so we must hear; and if

our necessity cause him to condescend in his expressions, it must needs cause us to be low in our conceivings. * 1.4 Those conceivings and expressions which we have of Spirits, and things meerly Spiri∣tual, they are commonly but second Notions, without the first; but meer names that are put into our mouths, without any true conceivings of the things which they signifie; or our conceivings which we express by those notions or terms, are meerly negative; what things are not, rather then what they are: As when we men∣tion [Spirits] we mean they are not corporeal substances, but what they are we cannot tell; no more then we know what is Aristotles Materia Prima. It is one reason of Christs assuming and continuing our nature with the Godhead, that we might know him the better, when he is so much neerer to us; and might have more positive conceivings of him, and so our mindes might have familiarity with him, who before was quite beyond their reach

But what is my scope in all this? is it that we might think Hea∣ven to be made of Gold and Pearl? or that we should * 1.5 Picture Christ as the Papists do, in such a shape? or that we should think Saints and Angels do indeed eat and drink? No; Not that we should take the Spirits figurative expressions, to be meant accord∣ing to strict propriety; or have fleshly conceivings of Spiritual things, so as to beleeve them to be such indeed: But thus; To think that to conceive or speak of them in strict propriety, is utter∣ly beyond our reach and capacity; and therefore, we must con∣ceive of them as we are able; and that the Spirit would not have represented them in these notions to us, but that we have no better notions to apprehend them by; and therefore that we make use of these phrases of the Spirit to quicken our apprehensions and af∣fections, but not to pervert them; and use these low notions as a Glass, in which we must see the things themselves, though the representation be exceeding imperfect, till we come to an immeditae and perfect sight; yet still concluding, That these

phrases though useful, are but borrowed and improper. The like may be said of those expressions of God in Scripture, wherein he represents himself in the imperfections of Creatures, as anger, repenting, willing what shall not come to pass, &c. Though these be improper, drawn from the maner of men, yet there is some∣what in God which we can see no better yet, then in this glass, and which we can no better conceive of, then in such notions, or else the Holy Ghost would have given us better. (I would the Judici∣ous Reader would (on the by) well weigh also, how much this conduceth to reconcile us, and * 1.6 the Arminians, in those ancient and like-to-be continuing Controversies.)

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 1.
• 1 1.2

  Fetch help from Sense.
• * 1.3

  Quantalibet intentione se humana mens extenderit, eti∣amsi phantasiaes imaginum cor∣poralium a cog∣nitione compes∣cat, si omnes circumscriptos spiritu ab oculis cordis admove∣at, adhuc ta∣men in carne mortali pasita videre gloriam Dei non valet, sicut est. Sed quicquid de illa quod in mente resplendet, simi∣litudo, & non ipsa est. Greg. sup. hom. 8.
• * 1.4

  Aequum est meminisse, & mi qui disseram & vos qui ju∣dicabitis ho∣mines esse, ut si probabilia di∣centur nihil ul∣terius requira∣tis. Plato in Timaeo. Idem in Epistola ad Dionys monet ut eos tanquam barathrum declinet, qui de Diis tanquam de iis quae ma∣nibus teneri & apprehendi pos∣sunt, certas ex∣igunt demon∣strationes. Et in Phaedone eo nomine gravis∣simè reprehen∣dit eos quod ambitiosis inter se verborum pugnis & inani demonstratio∣num conatu, principe•• seno∣vor••m & pug∣nantium dog∣matum consti∣tuant, de rebus ipsis nihil cer∣tum, nihil sta∣bile, nihil fir∣mum habeant. Ipseque suam deplorat ••aecitatem; qui quae se prius persp••••vè scire existimaret, ne per umbram quidem sibi unquam visa esse compererit: Et quorum aliquam esse ratus fuerat solidita∣tem, ea nunc omnia non secus ac inanes somniorum imagines vanescere.
• * 1.5

  Ex operibus quidem opificem ••anc causam effestoremque mundi Deum nosse datur: Ex imagine autem & simula••ro (ut Socratis auditor Antistines dicebat) is non agnoscitur, nullis oculis conspicuus, nullius rei similis, ut ex ulla effigie nosci possit. Atque (ut a Zen••phonte Socratico Scriptum legimus) qui cuncta concussat, ipse intrepidus & inconcussus; magaus nimirum potensque esse cognoscitur: Quali autem sit facie igno∣ratur. Fernelius, de abditis rerum causis, cap. 9.
• * 1.6

  Of which I have spoken more fully in my Treatise of Redemption.