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.

2. THe next Grace or Affection to be excited, is Desire. The Object of it is Goodness considered as absent, or not yet attained. This being so necessary an attendant of Love, and being excited much by the same forementioned objective considerations, I suppose you need the less direction to be here added; and there∣fore I shall touch but briefly on this. If love be hot, I warrant you desire will not be cold.

When thou hast thus viewed the goodness of the Lord, and con∣sidered of the pleasures that are at his right hand; then proceed on with thy Meditation thus; Think with thy self, Where have I been? what have I seen? O the incomprehensible astonishing Glory! O the rare transcendent beauty! O blessed souls that now enjoy it! that see a thousand times more clearly, what I have seen but darkly at this distance, and scarce discerned through the interposing clouds! What a difference is there betwixt my state and theirs! I am sighing, and they are singing: I am sinning, and they are pleasing God: I have an ulcerated cancrous soul, like the lothsome bodyes of Job or Lazarus, a spectacle of pitty to

those that behold me; But they are perfect and without blemish: I am here intangled in the love of the world, when they are taken up with the love of God: I live indeed amongst the means of grace, and I possess the fellowship of my fellow-believers; But I have none of their immediate views of God, nor none of that fellowship which they possess; * 1.2 They have none of my cares and fears: They weep not in secret: They languish not in sorrows; These tears are wiped away from their eyes: O happy, a thousand times happy souls! Alas, that I must dwell in dirty flesh, when my Brethren and companions do dwell with God! Alas, that I am lapt in earth, and tyed as a mountain down to this inferior world; when they are got above the Sun, and have laid aside their lumpish bodyes! Alas, that I must lye and pray and wait, and pray and wait as if my heart were in my knees; when they do nothing but Love and Praise, and Joy and Enjoy, as if their hearts were got into the very breast of Christ, and were closely conjoyned to his own heart. How far out of sight and reach, and hearing of their high enjoyments do I here live; when they feel them, and feed and live upon them! What strange thoughts have I of God? What strange conceivings? What strange affections? I am fain to super∣scribe my best services, as the blinde Athenians [To the unknown God] when they are as well acquainted with him, as men that live continually in his house; and as familiar in their holy praises, as if they were all one with him! What a little of that God, that Christ, that spirit, that life, that love, that joy have I! and how soon doth it depart and leave me in sadder darkness! Now and then a spark doth fall upon my heart, and while I gaze upon it, it strait goes out; or rather, my cold resisting heart doth quench it! But they have their light in his light, and live continually at the spring of Joyes! Here are we vexing each other with quarrels, and troubling our peace with discontents, when they are one in heart and voice. and daily sound forth their Hallelujah's to God with full delightful Harmony and concent. O what a Feast hath my faith beheld! and O what a famine is yet in my spirit! I have seen a glympse in∣to the Court of God, but alas I stand but as a begger at the doors, when the souls of my companions are admitted in. O blessed souls! I may not; I dare not envye your happiness, I rather re∣joyce in my brethrens prosperity, and am glad to think of the day when I shall be admitted into your fellowship: But I cannot but

look upon you as a childe doth on his brother who sits in the mothers lap while himself stands by, and wish that I were so happy as to be in your place; not to displace you, but to Rest there with you. Why must I stay and groan, and weep and wait? My Lord is gone; he hath left this earth and is entered into his Glory: my Brethren are gone; my friends are there, my house, my hope, my All is there! and must I stay behinde to sojourn here? what precious Saints have left this earth? of whom I am ready to say as Amerbachius when he heard of the death of Zuingerus,* 1.3 Piget me vivere post tan∣tum virum, cujus magna fuit doctrina, sed exigua si cum pietate con∣feratur. It is irksome to me to live after such a man, whose learn∣ing was so great, and yet compared with his godliness, very small: If the Saints were all here; if Christ were here, then it were no grief for me to stay, if the bridegroom were present, who could mourn? But when my soul is so far distant from my God, wonder not what aileth we, if I now complain; An ignorant Micah will do so for his idol,* 1.4 and shall not then my soul do so for God? And yet if I had no hope of enjoying, I would go and hide my self in the deserts, and lye and howl in some obscure wilderness, and spend my days in fruitles wishes: But seeing it is the promised land of my Rest, and the state that I must be advanced to my self, and my soul draws neer and is almost at it; I will love and long; I will look and desire; I will breathe out blessed Calvins Motto, Vsque∣quo Domine,* 1.5 How long, Lord, How long! How long Lord, Holy and True, wilt thou suffer this soul to pant and groan! and wilt not open and let him in, who waits and longs to be with Thee?

Thus, Christian Reader, let thy thoughts aspire: Thus whet the desires of thy soul by these Meditations; Till thy soul long (as Davids for the waters of Bethlehem) and say, O that one would give me to drink of the wells of salvation! 2 Sam. 23.15. and till thou canst say as he, Psal. 119.174. I have longed for thy salvati∣on, O Lord. And as the mother and brethren of Christ when they could not come at him because of the press, sent to him, saying, Thy mother and brethren stand without, desiring to see thee; send thou up the same message; tell him, thou standest here without, desiring to see him, he will own thee 〈…〉〈…〉 neer relations, for he hath said, They that hear 〈…〉〈…〉 and do it, are his mother and brethren.* 1.6 And thus I have ••ne••ted you, in the acting of your de∣sire after your Rest.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 6.
• * 1.2

  〈…〉〈…〉 Si in Cor homi∣nis non ascen∣dit, Cor homi∣nis illuc ascen∣dat. Cor ibi ha∣beamus: surf∣um Corda leve∣mus ne putres∣cant in terra: quoniam placet nobis quod ibi aguct ange••••. August. ••.3. de Symb.c. 11.
• * 1.3

  Melch Adam in vitâ Zuin∣geri inter vitas Medicorum Germanorum.
• * 1.4

  Judg. 18.24.
• * 1.5

  Beza in tit. Calvin.
• * 1.6

  Luk. 8.20, 21.