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. VI.

6. ANother help is this, Make an advantage of every object thou seest, and of every passage of Divine providence, and of every thing that befals in thy labor and calling, to minde thy soul of its approaching Rest. As all providences and creatures are means to our Rest, so do they point us to that as their end. Every creature hath the name of God and of our final Rest written upon it; which a considerate believer may as truly discern, as he can read upon a post or hand in a cross way, the name of the Town or City which it points to. This spiritual use of creatures and providences, is Gods great End in bestowing them on man; And he that overlooks this End, must needs rob God of his chiefest praise, and deny him the greatest part of his thanks. The Relati∣on that our present mercies have to our great Eternal mercies, is the very quintessence and spirits of all these mercies. Therefore do they loose the very spirits of their mercies, and take no∣thing but the huskes and bran, who do overlook this Relation, and draw not forth the sweetness of it in their contemplations. Gods sweetest dealings with us at the present, would not be half so sweet as they are, if they did not intimate some further sweetness. As our selves have a fleshly and a spiritual substance, so have our mer∣cies a fleshly and spiritual use, and are fitted to the nourishing of both our parts. He that receives the carnal part and no more, may have his body comforted by them, but not his soul. It is not all one to receive six pence meerly as six pence, and to receive it in earnest of a thousand pound; though the sum be the same, yet I trow the relation makes a wide difference. Thou takest but the bear ear∣nest, and overlookest the maine sum, when thou receivest thy mer∣cies, and forgettest thy crown. O therefore that Christians were skilled in this Art! You can open your Bibles, and read there of God and of Glory: O learn to open the creatures, and to open the several passages of providence, and to read of God and Glory there. Certainly by such a skilful industrious improvement, we might have a fuller tast of Christ and Heaven, in every bit of bread that we eat, and in every draught of Beer that we drink, then most men have in the use of the Sacrament. If thou prosper in the world, and thy labor succeed, let it make thee more sensible of thy perpetual pros∣perity:

If thou be weary of thy labors, let it make thy thoughts of Rest more sweet: If things go cross & hard with thee in the world, let it make thee the more earnestly desire that day, when all thy sorrows and sufferings shall cease: Is thy body refreshed with food or sleep? Remember thy unconceivable refreshings with Christ. Dost thou hear any news that makes the glad? Remember what glad tydings it will be, to hear the sound of the trump of God, and the absolving sentence of Christ our Judg. Art thou delight∣ing thy self in the society of the Saints? Remember the Everlast∣ing amiable fraternity, thou shalt have with perfected Saints in Rest. Is God communicating himself to thy spirit? Why remem∣ber that time of thy highest advancement, when thy Joy shall be full, as thy communion is full. Dost thou hear the raging noise of the wicked? and the disorders of the vulgar? and the confusions in the world? like the noise in a crowd, or the roaring of the waters? Why think of the blessed agreement in Heaven, and the melodi∣ous harmony in that Quire of God. Dost thou hear or feel the tempest of wars? or see any cloud of blood arising? Remember the day when thou shalt be housed with Christ, where there is no∣thing but calmness and amiable union, and where we shall solace our selves in perfect Peace, under the wings of the Prince of Peace for ever. Thus you may see, what advantages to a Heavenly Life, every condition and creature doth afford us, if we had but hearts to apprehend and improve them: As its said of the Turkes, that they'l make bridges of the dead bodyes of their men, to passe over the trenches or ditches in their way: So might Christians of the very ruines and calamities of the times, and of every dead body or misery that they see, make a bridge for the passage of their thoughts to their Rest. And as they have taught their Pigeons which they call carriers in divers places, to bear letters of enter∣course from friend to friend, at a very great distance: so might a wise industrious Christian get his thoughts carried into Hea∣ven, and receive, as it were, returns from thence again, by creatures of slower wing then Doves, by the assistance of the Spi∣rit the Dove of God. This is the right Daedalian flight: and thus we may take from each bird a feather, and make us wings, and fly to Christ.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 6.